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in finding it. Tears coursed down her
cheeks like rain as she removed from the corner of the little box, where
it had lain for so many years, this precious relic of a dear father, who
in all probability, was buried beneath the ocean. Dashing them hastily
away, she started again for Mrs. Carr's. The ice cream was procured on
the way, and, just as the clock struck eight, she arrived at the door.
One hour has elapsed since she left. But why does she linger on the
threshold? Why but because the sounds of weeping and mourning have
reached her ears, and she fears that all is over with her poor friend,
Her fears are indeed true, for the pure spirit of the young sufferer has
taken its flight to that blest land where hunger and thirst are known
no more. Poor Annie! thy last earthly wish, a simple glass of ice-cream,
was denied thee--and why? We need not pause to answer: ye who have an
abundance of this world's goods, think, when ye are about to turn
from your doors the poor seamstress or washerwoman, or even those less
destitute than they, without a just recompense for their labour,
whether the sufferings and privations of some poor creatures will not be
increased thereby.
RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL.
OBADIAH LAWSON and Watt Dood were neighbours; that is, they lived within
a half mile of each other, and no person lived between their respective
farms, which would have joined, had not a little strip of prairie land
extended itself sufficiently to keep them separated. Dood was the oldest
settler, and from his youth up had entertained a singular hatred against
Quakers; therefore, when he was informed that Lawson, a regular disciple
of that class of people had purchased the next farm to his, he declared
he would make him glad to move away again. Accordingly, a system of
petty annoyances was commenced by him, and every time one of Lawson's
hogs chanced to stray upon Dood's place, he was beset by men and dogs,
and most savagely abused. Things progressed thus for nearly a year, and
the Quaker, a man of decidedly peace principles, appeared in no way to
resent the injuries received at the hands of his spiteful neighbour. But
matters were drawing to a crisis; for Dood, more enraged than ever at
the quiet of Obadiah, made oath that he would do something before long
to wake up the spunk of Lawson. Chance favoured his design. The Quaker
had a high-blooded filly, which he had been very careful in raising, and
which was just four years old. Lawson took great pride in this animal,
and had refused a large sum of money for her.
One evening, a little after sunset, as Watt Dood was passing around
his cornfield, he discovered the filly feeding in the little strip of
prairie land that separated the two farms, and he conceived the hellish
design of throwing off two or three rails of his fence, that the horse
might get into his corn during the night. He did so, and the next
morning, bright and early, he shouldered his rifle and left the house.
Not long after his absence, a hired man, whom he had recently employed,
heard the echo of his gun, and in a few minutes Dood, considerably
excited and out of breath, came hurrying to the house, where he stated
that he had shot at and wounded a buck; that the deer attacked him, and
he hardly escaped with his life.
This story was credited by all but the newly employed hand, who had
taken a dislike to Watt, and, from his manner, suspected that something
was wrong. He therefore slipped quietly away from the house, and going
through the field in the direction of the shot, he suddenly came upon
Lawson's filly, stretched upon the earth, with a bullet hole through the
head, from which the warm blood was still oozing.
The animal was warm, and could not have been killed an hour. He hastened
back to the dwelling of Dood, who met him in the yard, and demanded,
somewhat roughly, where he had been.
“I've been to see if your bullet made sure work of Mr. Lawson's filly,”
was the instant retort.
Watt paled for a moment, but collecting himself, he fiercely shouted,
“Do you dare to say I killed her?”
“How do you know she is dead?” replied the man.
Dood bit his lip, hesitated a moment, and then turning, walked into the
house.
A couple of days passed by, and the morning of the third one had broken,
as the hired man met friend Lawson, riding in search of his filly.
A few words of explanation ensued, when, with a heavy heart, the Quaker
turned his horse and rode home, where he informed the people of the fate
of his filly. No threat of recrimination escaped him; he did not even
go to law to recover damages; but calmly awaited his plan and hour of
revenge. It came at last.
Watt Dood had a Durham heifer, for which he had paid a heavy price, and
upon which he counted to make great gains.
One morning, just as Obadiah was sitting down, his eldest son came in
with the information that neighbour Dood's heifer had broken down the
fence, entered the yard, and after eating most of the cabbages, had
trampled the well-made beds and the vegetables they contained, out of
all shape--a mischief impossible to repair.
“And what did thee do with her, Jacob?” quietly asked Obadiah.
“I put her in the farm-yard.”
“Did thee beat her?”
“I never struck her a blow.”
“Right, Jacob, right; sit down to thy breakfast, and when done eating I
will attend to the heifer.”
Shortly after he had finished his repast, Lawson mounted a horse, and
rode over to Dood's, who was sitting under the porch in front of his
house, and who, as he beheld the Quaker dismount, supposed he was coming
to demand pay for his filly, and secretly swore he would have to law for
it if he did.
“Good morning, neighbour Dood; how is thy family?” exclaimed Obadiah, as
he mounted the steps and seated himself in a chair.
“All well, I believe,” was the crusty reply.
“I have a small affair to settle with you this morning, and I came
rather early.”
“So I suppose,” growled Watt.
“This morning, my son found thy Durham heifer in my garden, where she
has destroyed a good deal.”
“And what did he do with her?” demanded Dood, his brow darkening.
“What would thee have done with her, had she been my heifer in thy
garden?” asked Obadiah.
“I'd a shot her!” retorted Watt, madly, “as I suppose you have done; but
we are only even now. Heifer for filly is only 'tit for tat.'”
“Neighbour Dood, thou knowest me not, if thou thinkest I would harm a
hair of thy heifer's back. She is in my farm-yard, and not even a blow
has been struck her, where thee can get her at any time. I know thee
shot my filly; but the evil one prompted thee to do it, and I lay no
evil in my heart against my neighbours. I came to tell thee where thy
heifer is, and now I'll go home.”
Obadiah rose from his chair, and was about to descend the steps, when he
was stopped by Watt, who hastily asked,
“What was your filly worth?”
“A hundred dollars is what I asked for her,” replied Obediah.
“Wait a moment!” and Dood rushed into the house, from whence he soon
returned, holding some gold in his hand. “Here's the price of your
filly; and hereafter let there be a pleasantness between us.”
“Willingly, heartily,” answered Lawson, grasping the proffered hand of
the other; “let there be peace between us.”
Obadiah mounted his horse, and rode home with a lighter heart, and from
that day to this Dood has been as good a neighbour as one could wish to
have; being completely reformed by the RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL.
PUTTING YOUR HAND IN YOUR NEIGHBOUR'S POCKET.
“DO you recollect Thomas, who lived with us as waiter about two years
ago, Mary?” asked Mr. Clarke, as he seated himself in his comfortable
arm-chair, and slipped his feet into the nicely-warmed, embroidered
slippers, which stood ready for his use.
“Certainly,” was the reply of Mrs. Clarke. “He was a bright, active
fellow, but rather insolent.”
“He has proved to be a regular pickpocket,” continued her husband, “and
is now on his way to Blackwell's Island.”
“A very suitable place for him. I hope he will be benefited by a few
months' residence there,” returned the lady.
“Poor fellow!” exclaimed Mr. Joshua Clarke, an uncle of the young
couple, who was quietly reading a newspaper in another part of the room.
“There are many of high standing in the world, who deserve to go to
Blackwell's Island quite as much as he does.”
“You are always making such queer speeches, Uncle Joshua,” said his
niece. “I suppose you do not mean that there are pickpockets among
respectable people?”
“Indeed, there are, my dear niece. Your knowledge of the world must be
very limited, if you are not aware of this. Putting your hand in your
neighbour's pocket, is one of the most fashionable accomplishments of
the day.”
Mrs. Clarke was too well acquainted with her uncle's peculiarities to
think of arguing with him. She therefore merely smiled, and said to her
husband:--
“Well, Henry, I am glad that neither you nor myself are acquainted with
this fashionable accomplishment.”
“Not acquainted with it!” exclaimed the old gentleman. “I thought
you knew yourselves better. Why, you and Henry are both regular
pickpockets!”
“I wonder that you demean yourself by associating with us!” was the
playful reply.
“Oh, you are no worse than the rest of the world; and, besides, I hope
to do you some good, when you grow older and wiser. At present, Henry's
whole soul is absorbed in the desire to obtain wealth.”
“In a fair and honourable way, uncle,” interrupted Mr. Clarke, “and for
honourable purposes.”
“Certainly,” replied Uncle Joshua, “in the common acceptation of the
words _fair_ and _honourable_. But, do you never, in your mercantile
speculations, endeavour to convey erroneous impressions to the minds
of those with whom you are dealing? Do you not sometimes suppress
information which would prevent your obtaining a good bargain? Do you
never allow your customers to purchase goods under false ideas of
their value and demand in the market? If you saw a man, less skilled
in business than yourself, about to take a step injurious to him, but
advantageous to you, would you warn him of his danger--thus obeying the
command to love your neighbour as yourself?”
“Why, uncle, these questions are absurd. Of course, when engaged in
business, I endeavour to do what is for my own advantage--leaving others
to look out for themselves.”
“Exactly so. You are perfectly willing to put your hand in your
neighbour's pocket and take all you can get, provided he is not wise
enough to know that your hand is there.”
“Oh, for shame, Uncle Joshua! I shall not allow you to talk to Henry in
this manner,” exclaimed Mrs. Clarke perceiving that her husband looked
somewhat irritated. “Come, prove your charge against me. In what way do
I pick my neighbour's pockets?”
“You took six shillings from the washerwoman this morning,” coolly
replied Uncle Joshua.
“_Took_ six shillings from the washerwoman! Paid her six shillings, you
mean, uncle. She called for the money due for a day's work, and I gave
it to her.”
“Yes, but not till you had kept her waiting nearly two hours. I heard
her say, as she left the house, 'I have lost a day's work by this delay,
for I cannot go to Mrs. Reed's at this hour; so I shall be six shillings
poorer at the end of the week.'”
“Why did she wait, then? She could have called again. I was not ready to
attend to her at so early an hour.”
“Probably she needed the money to-day. You little know the value of six
shillings to the mother of a poor family, Mary; but, you should remember
that her time is valuable, and that it is as sinful to deprive her of
the use of it, as if you took money from her purse.”
“Well, uncle, I will acknowledge that I did wrong to keep the poor woman
waiting, and I will endeavour to be more considerate in future. So
draw your chair to the table, and take a cup of tea and some of your
favourite cakes.”
“Thank you, Mary; but I am engaged to take tea with your old friend,
Mrs. Morrison. Poor thing! she has not made out very well lately. Her
school has quite run down, owing to sickness among her scholars; and
her own family have been ill all winter; so that her expenses have been
great.”
“I am sorry to hear this,” replied Mrs. Clarke. “I had hoped that her
school was succeeding. Give my love to her, uncle, and tell her I will
call upon her in a day or two.”
Uncle Joshua promised to remember the message, and bidding Mr. and Mrs.
Clarke good evening, he was soon seated in Mrs. Morrison's neat little
parlour, which, though it bore no comparison with the spacious and
beautifully furnished apartments he had just left, had an air of comfort
and convenience which could not fail to please.
Delighted to see her old friend, whom she also, from early habit,
addressed by the title of Uncle Joshua, although he was no relation,
Mrs. Morrison's countenance, for awhile beamed with that cheerful,
animated expression which it used to wear in her more youthful days;
but an expression of care and anxiety soon over shadowed it, and, in
the midst of her kind attentions to her visiter, and her affectionate
endearment to two sweet children, who were playing around the room, she
would often remain thoughtful and abstracted for several minutes.
Uncle Joshua was an attentive observer, and he saw that something
weighed heavily upon her mind. When tea was over, and the little ones
had gone to rest, he said, kindly,
“Come, Fanny, draw your chair close to my side, and tell me all your
troubles, as freely as you used to do when a merry-hearted school-girl.
How often have listened to the sad tale of the pet pigeon, that had
flown away, or the favourite plant killed by the untimely frost. Come, I
am ready, now as then, to assist you with my advice, and my purse, too,
if necessary.”
Tears started to Mrs. Morrison's eyes, as she replied.
“You were always a kind friend to me, Uncle Joshua, and I will gladly
confide my troubles to you. You know that after my husband's death I
took this house, which, though small, may seem far above my limited
income, in the hope of obtaining a school sufficiently large to enable
me to meet the rent, and also to support myself and children. The small
sum left them by their father I determined to invest for their future
use. I unwisely intrusted it to one who betrayed the trust, and
appropriated the money to some wild speculation of his own. He says that
he did this in the hope of increasing my little property. It may be so,
but my consent should have been asked. He failed and there is little
hope of our ever recovering more, than a small part of what he owes
us. But, to return to my school. I found little difficulty in obtaining
scholars, and, for a short time, believed myself to be doing well, but I
soon found that a large number of scholars did not insure a large
income from the school. My terms were moderate, but still I found great
difficulty in obtaining what was due to me at the end of the term.
“A few paid promptly, and without expecting me to make unreasonable
deductions for unpleasant weather, slight illness, &c., &c. Others paid
after long delay, which often put me to the greatest inconvenience; and
some, after appointing day after day for me to call, and promising each
time that the bill should be settled without fail, moved away, I knew
not whither, or met me at length with a cool assurance that it was not
possible for them to pay me at present--if it was ever in their power
they would let me know.”
“Downright robbery!” exclaimed Uncle Joshua. “A set of pickpockets! I
wish they were all shipped for Blackwell's Island.”
“There are many reasons assigned for not paying,” continued Mrs.
Morrison. “Sometimes the children had not learned as much as the parents
expected. Some found it expedient to take their children away long
before the expiration of the term, and then gazed at me in astonishment
when I declared my right to demand pay for the whole time for which they
engaged. One lady, in particular, to whose daughter I was giving music
lessons, withdrew the pupil under pretext of slight indisposition, and
sent me the amount due for a half term. I called upon her, and stated
that I considered the engagement binding for twenty-four lessons, but
would willingly wait until the young lady was quite recovered. The
mother appeared to assent with willingness to this arrangement, and took
the proffered money without comment. An hour or two after I received
a laconic epistle stating that the lady had already engaged another
teacher, whom she thought preferable--that she had offered me the amount
due for half of the term, and I had declined receiving it--therefore she
should not offer it again. I wrote a polite, but very plain, reply to
this note, and enclosed my bill for the whole term, but have never heard
from her since.”
“Do you mean to say that she actually received the money which you
returned to her without reluctance, and gave you no notice of her
intention to employ another teacher?” demanded the old gentleman.
“Certainly; and, besides this, I afterwards ascertained that the young
lady was actually receiving a lesson from another teacher, when I called
at the house--therefore the plea of indisposition was entirely false.
The most perfect satisfaction had always been expressed as to the
progress of the pupil, and no cause was assigned for the change.”
“I hope you have met with few cases as bad as this,” remarked Uncle
Joshua. “The world must be in a worse state than even I had supposed, if
such imposition is common.”
“This may be an extreme case,” replied Mrs. Morrison, “but I could
relate many others which are little better. However, you will soon weary
of my experience in this way, Uncle Joshua, and I will therefore mention
but one other instance. One bitter cold day in January, I called at the
house of a lady who had owed me a small amount for nearly a year, and
after repeated delay had reluctantly fixed this day as the time when she
would pay me at least a part of what was due. I was told by the servant
who opened the door that the lady was not at home.
“What time will she be in?” I inquired.
“Not for some hours,” was the reply.
Leaving word that I would call again towards evening, I retraced my
steps, feeling much disappointed at my ill success, as I had felt quite
sure of obtaining the money. About five o'clock I again presented myself
at the door, and was again informed that the lady was not at home.
“I will walk in, and wait for her return,” I replied.
The servant appeared somewhat startled at this, but after a little delay
ushered me into the parlour. Two little boys, of four and six years of
age, were playing about the room. I joined in their sports, and soon
became quite familiar with them. Half an hour had passed away, when I
inquired of the oldest boy what time he expected his mother?
“Not till late,” he answered, hesitatingly.
“Did she take the baby with her this cold day?” I asked.
“Yes, ma'am,” promptly replied the girl, who, under pretence of
attending to the children, frequently came into the room.
The youngest child gazed earnestly in my face, and said, smilingly,
“Mother has not gone away, she is up stairs. She ran away with baby when
she saw you coming, and told us to say she had gone out. I am afraid
brother will take cold, for there is no fire up stairs.”
“It is no such thing,” exclaimed the girl and the eldest boy. “She is
not up stairs, ma'am, or she would see you.”
But even as they spoke the loud cries of an infant were heard, and a
voice at the head of the stairs calling Jenny.
The girl obeyed, and presently returned with the child in her arms, its
face, neck, and hands purple with cold.
“Poor little thing, it has got its death in that cold room,” she said.
“Mistress cannot see you, ma'am, she is sick and gone to bed.”
“This last story was probably equally false with the other, but I felt
that it was useless to remain, and with feelings of deep regret for the
poor children who were so early taught an entire disregard for truth,
and of sorrow for the exposure to cold to which I had innocently
subjected the infant, I left the house. A few days after, I heard that
the little one had died with croup. Jenny, whom I accidentally met in
the street, assured me that he took the cold which caused his death from
the exposure on the afternoon of my call, as he became ill the following
day. I improved the opportunity to endeavour to impress upon the mind
of the poor girl the sin of which she had been guilty, in telling a
falsehood even in obedience to the commands of her mistress; and I hope
that what I said may be useful to her.
“The want of honesty and promptness in the parents of my pupils often
caused me great inconvenience, and I frequently found it difficult
to meet my rent when it became due. Still I have struggled through my
difficulties without contracting any debts until this winter, but the
sickness which has prevailed in my school has so materially lessened my
income, and my family expenses have, for the same reason, been so much
greater, that I fear it will be quite impossible for me to continue in
my present situation.”
“Do not be discouraged,” said Uncle Joshua; “I will advance whatever sum
you are in immediate need of, and you may repay me when it is convenient
to yourself. I will also take the bills which are due to you from
various persons, and endeavour to collect them. Your present term is, I
suppose, nearly ended. Commence another with this regulation:--That the
price of tuition, or at least one-half of it, shall be paid before the
entrance of the scholar. Some will complain of this rule, but many will
not hesitate to comply with it, and you will find the result beneficial.
And now I would leave you, Fanny, for I have another call to make this
evening. My young friend, William Churchill, is, I hear, quite ill, and
I feel desirous to see him. I will call upon you in a day or two, and
then we will have another talk about your affairs, and see what can be
done for you. So good night, Fanny; go to sleep and dream of your old
friend.”
Closing the door after Uncle Joshua, Mrs. Morrison returned to her room
with a heart filled with thankfulness that so kind a friend had been
sent to her in the hour of need; while the old gentleman walked with
rapid steps through several streets until he stood at the door of a
small, but pleasantly situated house in the suburbs of the city. His
ring at the bell was answered by a pretty, pleasant-looking young
woman, whom he addressed as Mrs. Churchill, and kindly inquired for her
husband.
“William is very feeble to-day, but he will be rejoiced to see you, sir.
His disease is partly owing to anxiety of mind, I think, and when his
spirits are raised by a friendly visit, he feels better.”
Uncle Joshua followed Mrs. Churchill to the small room which now served
the double purpose of parlour and bedroom. They were met at the door
by the invalid, who had recognised the voice of his old friend, and had
made an effort to rise and greet him. His sunken countenance, the hectic
flush which glowed upon his cheek, and the distressing cough, gave
fearful evidence that unless the disease was soon arrested in its
progress, consumption would mark him for its victim.
The friendly visiter was inwardly shocked at his appearance, but wisely
made no allusion to it, and soon engaged him in cheerful conversation.
Gradually he led him to speak openly of his own situation,--of his
health, and of the pecuniary difficulties with which he was struggling.
His story was a common one. A young family were growing up around
him, and an aged mother and invalid sister also depended upon him for
support. The small salary which he obtained as clerk in one of the most
extensive mercantile establishments in the city, was quite insufficient
to meet his necessary expenses. He had, therefore, after being
constantly employed from early morning until a late hour in the evening,
devoted two or three hours of the night to various occupations which
added a trifle to his limited income. Sometimes he procured copying
of various kinds; at others, accounts, which he could take to his own
house, were intrusted to him. This incessant application had gradually
ruined his health, and now for several weeks he had been unable to leave
the house.
“Have you had advice from an experienced physician, William?” inquired
Uncle Joshua. The young man blushed, as he replied, that he was
unwilling to send for a physician, knowing that he had no means to repay
his services.
“I will send my own doctor to see you,” returned his friend. “He can
help you if any one can, and as for his fee I will attend to it, and if
you regain your health I shall be amply repaid.--No, do not thank me,”
he continued, as Mr. Churchill endeavoured to express his gratitude.
“Your father has done me many a favour, and it would be strange if I
could not extend a hand to help his son when in trouble. And now tell
me, William, is not your salary very small, considering the responsible
situation which you have so long held in the firm of Stevenson & Co.?”
“It is,” was the reply; “but I see no prospect of obtaining more.
I believe I have always given perfect satisfaction to my employer,
although it is difficult to ascertain the estimation in which he holds
me, for he is a man who never praises. He has never found fault with me,
and therefore I suppose him satisfied, and indeed I have some proof of
this in his willingness to wait two or three months in the hope that I
may recover from my present illness before making a permanent engagement
with a new clerk. Notwithstanding this, he has never raised my salary,
and when I ventured to say to him about a year ago, that as his business
had nearly doubled since I had been with him, I felt that it would be
but just that I should derive some benefit from the change, he coolly
replied that my present salary was all that he had ever paid a clerk,
and he considered it a sufficient equivalent for my services. He knows
very well that it is difficult to obtain a good situation, there are so
many who stand ready to fill any vacancy, and therefore he feels quite
safe in refusing to give me, more.”
“And yet,” replied Uncle Joshua, “he is fully aware that the advantage
resulting from your long experience and thorough acquaintance with his
business, increases his income several hundred dollars every year, and
this money he quietly puts into his own pocket, without considering or
caring that a fair proportion of it should in common honesty go into
yours. What a queer world we live in! The poor thief who robs you of
your watch or pocket-book, is punished without delay; but these wealthy
defrauders maintain their respectability and pass for honest men, even
while withholding what they know to be the just due of another.
“But cheer up, William, I have a fine plan for you, if you can but
regain your health. I am looking for a suitable person to take charge of
a large sheep farm, which I propose establishing on the land which I own
in Virginia. You acquired some knowledge of farming in your early
days. How would you like to undertake this business? The climate is
delightful, the employment easy and pleasant; and it shall be my care
that your salary is amply sufficient for the support of your family.”
Mr. Churchill could hardly command his voice sufficiently to express his
thanks, and his wife burst into tears, as she exclaimed,
“If my poor husband had confided his troubles to you before, he would
not have been reduced to this feeble state.”
“He will recover,” said the old gentleman. “I feel sure, that in one
month, he will look like a different man. Rest yourself, now, William,
and to-morrow I will see you again.”
And, followed by the blessings and thanks of the young couple, Uncle
Joshua departed.
“Past ten o'clock,” he said to himself, as he paused near a lamp-post
and looked at his watch. “I must go to my own room.”
As he said this he was startled by a deep sigh from some one near,
and on looking round, saw a lad, of fourteen or fifteen years of age,
leaning against the post, and looking earnestly at him.
Uncle Joshua recognised the son of a poor widow, whom he had
occasionally befriended, and said, kindly,
“Well, John, are you on your way home from the store? This is rather a
late hour for a boy like you.”
“Yes, sir, it is late. I cannot bear to return home to my poor mother,
for I have bad news for her to-night. Mr. Mackenzie does not wish to
employ me any more. My year is up to-day.”
“Why, John, how is this? Not long ago your employer told me that he was
perfectly satisfied with you; indeed, he said that he never before had
so trusty and useful a boy.”
“He has always appeared satisfied with me, sir, and I have endeavoured
to serve him faithfully. But he told me to-day that he had engaged
another boy.”
Uncle Joshua mused for a moment, and then asked,
“What was he to give you for the first year, John?”
“Nothing, sir. He told my mother that my services would be worth nothing
the first year, but the second he would pay me fifty dollars, and so
increase my salary as I grew older. My poor mother has worked very hard
to support me this year, and I had hoped that I would be able to help
her soon. But it is all over now, and I suppose I must take a boy's
place again, and work another year for nothing.”
“And then be turned off again. Another set of pickpockets,” muttered his
indignant auditor.
“Pickpockets!” exclaimed the lad. “Did any one take your watch just now,
sir? I saw a man look at it as you took it out. Perhaps we can overtake
him. I think he turned into the next street.”
“No, no, my boy. My watch is safe enough. I am not thinking of street
pickpockets, but of another class whom you will find out as you grow
older. But never mind losing your place, John. My nephew is in want of
a boy who has had some experience in your business, and will pay him a
fair salary--more than Mr. Mackenzie agreed to give you for the second
year. I will mention you to him, and you may call at his store to-morrow
at eleven o'clock, and we will see if you will answer his purpose.”
“Thank you, Sir, I am sure I thank you; and mother will bless you for
your kindness,” replied the boy, his countenance glowing with animation;
and with a grateful “good night,” he darted off in the direction of his
own home.
“There goes a grateful heart,” thought Uncle Joshua, as he gazed after
the boy until he turned the corner of the street and disappeared. “He
has lost his situation merely because another can be found who will do
the work for nothing for a year, in the vain hope of future recompense.
I wish Mary could have been with me this evening; I think she would have
acknowledged that there are many respectable pickpockets who deserve to
accompany poor Thomas to Blackwell's Island;” and thus soliloquizing,
Uncle Joshua reached the door of his boarding-house, and sought repose
in his own room.
KIND WORDS.
WE have more than once, in our rapidly written reflections, urged the
policy and propriety of kindness, courtesy, and good-will between man
and man. It is so easy for an individual to manifest amenity of spirit,
to avoid harshness, and thus to cheer and gladden the paths of all over
whom he may have influence or control, that it is really surprising
to find any one pursuing the very opposite course. Strange as it may
appear, there are among the children of men, hundreds who seem to take
delight in making others unhappy. They rejoice at an opportunity of
being the messengers of evil tidings. They are jealous or malignant; and
in either case they exult in inflicting a wound. The ancients, in most
nations, had a peculiar dislike to croakers, prophets of evil, and the
bearers of evil tidings. It is recorded that the messenger from the
banks of the Tigris, who first announced the defeat of the Roman army
by the Persians, and the death of the Emperor Julian, in a Roman city of
Asia Minor, was instantly buried under a heap of stones thrown upon
him by an indignant populace. And yet this messenger was innocent, and
reluctantly discharged a painful duty. But how different the spirit
and the motive of volunteers in such cases--those who exult in an
opportunity of communicating bad news, and in some degree revel over
the very agony which it produces. The sensitive, the generous, the
honourable, would ever be spared from such painful missions. A case of
more recent occurrence may be referred to as in point. We allude to the
murder of Mr. Roberts, a farmer of New Jersey, who was robbed and
shot in his own wagon, near Camden. It became necessary that the sad
intelligence should be broken to his wife and family with as much
delicacy as possible. A neighbour was selected for the task, and at
first consented. But, on consideration, his heart failed him. He could
not, he said, communicate the details of a tragedy so appalling and he
begged to be excused. Another, formed it was thought of sterner stuff,
was then fixed upon: but he too, rough and bluff as he was in his
ordinary manners, possessed the heart of a generous and sympathetic
human being, and also respectfully declined. A third made a like
objection, and at last a female friend of the family was with much
difficulty persuaded, in company with another, to undertake the mournful
task. And yet, we repeat, there are in society, individuals who delight
in contributing to the misery of others--who are eager to circulate a
slander, to chronicle a ruin, to revive a forgotten error, to wound,
sting, and annoy, whenever they may do so with impunity. How much better
the gentle, the generous, the magnanimous policy! Why not do everything
that may be done for the happiness of our fellow creatures, without
seeking out their weak points, irritating their half-healed wounds,
jarring their sensibilities, or embittering their thoughts! The magic of
kind words and a kind manner can scarcely be over-estimated. Our fellow
creatures are more sensitive than is generally imagined. We have known
cases in which a gentle courtesy has been remembered with pleasure for
years. Who indeed cannot look back into “bygone time,” and discover some
smile, some look or other demonstration of regard or esteem, calculated
to bless and brighten every hour of after existence! “Kind words,” says
an eminent writer, “do not cost much. It does not take long to utter
them. They never blister the tongue or lips on their passage into the
world, or occasion any other kind of bodily suffering; and we have never
heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though they do
not cost much, yet they accomplish much. 1. They help one's own good
nature and good will. One cannot be in a habit
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with respect to the
divine revelation which in accordance with the assertions of the New
Testament has been made in the person of Jesus Christ.
What I am desirous of drawing attention to is that theology is not
revelation. Systems of theology may be accurate deductions of reason from
Revelation; or they may be inaccurate and imperfect ones. It is very
possible that a system of theology which has been evolved by human reason,
although it may have attained a wide acceptance, may be as inadequate an
explanation of the facts of revelation, as the Ptolemaic system of
astronomy was of the facts of the material universe. Objections which were
raised against the latter were no real objections against the structure of
the universe itself. In the same way objections which may be raised
against a particular system of theology, may leave the great facts of
revelation entirely untouched.
If we look into the history of Christianity, we shall find that as soon as
the Church began to consolidate itself into a distinct community, the
reason of man began to exert itself on the facts of revelation, and to
attempt to reduce its teaching to a systematic form. From this source have
sprung all the various systems of theology which have from time to time
predominated in the Church. It has been a plant of gradual growth, and as
such may bear a fair comparison with the slow growth of philosophy or
physical science. Such an action of reason on the facts of revelation was
inevitable and entirely legitimate. What I am desirous of guarding against
is the idea that when reason is exerted on the facts of revelation, it is
more infallible than when exerted on any other subjects which come under
its cognisance.
I am not ignorant that there is another theory respecting the nature of
theology. A large branch of the Christian Church holds that a body of
dogmatic statements has been handed down traditionally from the Apostles
and other inspired teachers, which has been embodied in the system of
theology which is accepted by this Church, and that this was intended to
be an authoritative statement of the facts of the Christian revelation. It
is also part of the same theory that the Church as a collective body has
in all ages possessed an inspiration, which enables it to affirm
authoritatively and dogmatically, what is and what is not Christian
doctrine, and that which it thus authoritatively affirms to be so, must be
accepted as a portion of the Christian revelation as much as the contents
of the New Testament itself.
I fully admit that those who assume a position of this kind are bound to
act consistently, and to defend every statement in their dogmatic creeds
as an integral portion of Christianity. Nor is it less certain, if this
principle is true, that if any portion of such dogmatic creeds can be
successfully assailed as contrary to reason, as for instance the
formulated doctrine of transubstantiation, it would imperil the position
of Christianity itself. Those, however, who have taken such positions,
must be left to take the consequences of them. It is not my intention in
undertaking to defend the historical truth of the supernatural elements in
the New Testament, to burden myself with an armour which seems only fitted
to crash beneath its weight the person who attempts to use it.
It has been necessary to be explicit on this point, in order that the
argument may be kept free from all adventitious issues. The introduction
into it of the expression, "Ecclesiastical Christianity," brings with it
no inconsiderable danger of diverting our attention from what is the real
point of controversy. I must therefore repeat it. Ecclesiastical
Christianity is a development made by reason from the facts of the New
Testament, and is a thing which is entirely distinct from the contents of
the New Testament. With its affirmations therefore I have nothing to do in
the present discussion. It will not be my duty to examine into its
positions, with a view of ascertaining whether they are developments of
Christian teaching which can be logically deduced from its pages; still
less to accept and to defend them as authoritative statements of its
meaning. In defending the New Testament as containing a divine revelation,
I have only to do with the contents and assertions of the book itself, and
with nothing outside its pages. What others may have propounded respecting
its meaning can form no legitimate portion of the present controversy. The
real point at issue is one which is simple and distinct. It is, are the
supernatural incidents recorded in it historical events or fictitious
inventions? As that is the question before us, I must decline to allow any
other issue to be substituted in the place of it. Our inquiry is one which
is strictly historical.
Another statement made by the author before me requires qualification. He
says that "Christianity is a scheme of religion which claims to be
miraculous in all points, in form, in essence, and in evidence." This
statement I must controvert. Christianity does not profess to be divine on
all points. On the contrary, it contains a divine and a human element so
intimately united, that it is impossible to separate the one from the
other. It is also far from clear to me how it can be miraculous in form
when it is contained in a body of historical writings. I shall have
occasion to show hereafter, that although miracles form an important
portion of the attestation on which it rests, they are not the only one.
With these qualifications I fully accept the position taken by this writer
as a correct statement of the points at issue between those who affirm,
and those who deny the claims of Christianity to be a divine revelation,
and accept his challenge to defend the supernatural elements in the New
Testament, or to abandon it as worthless. To maintain that any of its
dogmas can be accepted as true while its miraculous elements are abandoned
seems to me to involve a question which is hopelessly illogical.
Modern unbelief rejects every supernatural occurrence as utterly
incredible. Before proceeding to examine into the grounds of this, it will
be necessary to lay down definitely the bearing of the present argument on
the principles of atheism, pantheism, and theism.
As far as the impossibility of supernatural occurrences is concerned,
pantheism and atheism occupy precisely the same grounds. If either of them
propounds a true theory of the universe, any supernatural occurrence,
which necessarily implies a supernatural agent to bring it about, is
impossible, and the entire controversy as to whether miracles have ever
been actually performed is a foregone conclusion. Modern atheism, while it
does not venture in categorical terms to affirm that no God exists,
definitely asserts that there is no evidence that there is one. It follows
that if there is no evidence that there is a God, there can be no evidence
that a miracle ever has been performed, for the very idea of a miracle
implies the idea of a God to work one. If therefore atheism is true, all
controversy about miracles is useless. They are simply impossible, and to
inquire whether an impossible event has happened is absurd. To such a
person the historical enquiry, as far as a miracle is concerned, must be a
foregone conclusion. It might have a little interest as a matter of
curiosity; but even if the most unequivocal evidence could be adduced that
an occurrence such as we call supernatural had taken place, the utmost
that it could prove would be that some most extraordinary and abnormal
fact had taken place in nature of which we did not know the cause. But to
prove a miracle to any person who consistently denies that he has any
evidence that any being exists which is not a portion of and included in
the material universe, or developed out of it, is impossible.
Nor does the case differ in any material sense with pantheism. When we
have got rid of its hazy mysticism, and applied to it clear principles of
logic, its affirmation is that God and the Universe are one, and that all
past and present forms of existence have been the result of the Universe,
_i.e._ God, everlastingly developing himself in conformity with immutable
law. All things which either have existed or exist are as many
manifestations of God, who is in fact an infinite impersonal Proteus, ever
changing in his outward form. From him, or to speak more correctly, from
it (for he is no person), all things have issued as mere phenomenal
babbles of the passing moment, and by it will be again swallowed up in
never-ending succession. Such a God must be devoid of everything which we
understand by personality, intelligence, wisdom, volition or a moral
nature. It is evident therefore that to a person who logically and
consistently holds these views the occurrence of a miracle is no less an
impossibility than it is to an atheist, for the conception of a miracle
involves the presence of personality, intelligence, and power at the
disposal of volition. All that the strongest evidence could prove to those
who hold such principles, is that some abnormal event had taken place of
which the cause was unknown.
It is evident, therefore, that the only course which can be pursued with a
professed atheist or pantheist, is to grapple with him on the evidences of
theism, and to endeavour to prove the existence of a God possessed of
personality, intelligence, volition, and adequate power, before we attempt
to deal with the evidences of miracles. Until we have convinced him of
this all our reasonings must be in vain.
There are four modes of reasoning by which the being of a God may be
established. I will simply enumerate them. First, the argument which is
founded on the principle of causation; second, that which rests on the
order of the universe; third, that from its innumerable adaptations;
fourth, that which is derived from the moral nature and personality of
man. If the argument from causation fails to prove to those with whom we
are reasoning that the finite causes in the universe must have a first
cause from whence they have originated; if that from the orderly
arrangements in the universe fails to prove that there must be an
intelligent being who produced them; if its innumerable adaptations fail
to establish the presence of a presiding mind; and if the moral nature of
man fails to prove that must be a moral being from whom that nature
emanated, and of whom it is the image, it follows that the minds must be
so differently constituted as to offer no common ground or basis of
reasoning on this question. The whole involves an essential difference of
principle, which no argumentation can really reach. To attempt to prove to
a mind of this description the occurrence of a miracle, is simply a waste
of labour.
A work, therefore, on the subject of miracles can only be addressed to
theists, because the very conception of a miracle involves the existence
of a personal God. To take this for granted in reasoning with a pantheist
or atheist is simply to assume the point at issue. It is perfectly true,
that a legitimate body of reasoning may be constructed, if the pantheist
or the atheist agrees to assume that a God exists for the purpose of
supplying a basis for the argument. We may then reason with him precisely
in the same way as we would with a theist. But the contest will be with
one who has clad himself in armour which no weapon at our disposal can
penetrate. After the strongest amount of historical evidence has been
adduced, and after all alleged difficulties have been answered, he simply
falls back on his atheism or his pantheism, which assumes that all
supernatural occurrences must be impossible, and therefore that alleged
instances of them are delusions.
This is not unfrequently the case in the present controversy. A
considerable number of objections which are urged against the supernatural
elements of Christianity, derive whatever cogency they possess from the
assumption that there is a God who is the moral Governor of the universe.
These are not unfrequently urged by persons who deny the possibility of
miracles on atheistic or pantheistic grounds. It is perfectly fair to
reason against Christianity on these grounds; it is equally so for a
person who holds these opinions, to attempt to prove that the historical
evidence adduced in proof of the miracles recorded in the New Testament is
worthless as an additional reason why men should cease to believe in them.
But it is not conducive to the interests of truth to urge objections which
have no reality except on the supposition that a God exists who is the
moral Governor of the universe, and then to fall back on reasonings whose
whole force is dependent on the data furnished by pantheism or atheism. I
shall have occasion to notice a remarkable instance of this involved mode
of reasoning hereafter.
I shall now proceed briefly to state the mode in which I propose to treat
the present subject. The point which I have to defend is not any
conceivable body of miracles or their evidential value, but specially the
supernatural occurrences recorded in the New Testament. I must therefore
endeavour to ascertain what is the extent of the supernaturalism asserted
in the New Testament, and what is the degree of evidential value which its
writers claim for it.
It has been asserted by many writers that the sole and only evidence of a
revelation must be a miraculous testimony. Whether this be so or not, this
is not the place to enquire. But in relation to the present controversy
the plain and obvious course is to ask the writers of the New Testament
what is the precise evidential value of the supernatural occurrences which
they have narrated. This is far preferable to falling back on any
assertions of modern writers, however eminent, on this subject. They may
have over-estimated, or under-estimated their evidential value. The
writers of the New Testament must be held responsible, not for the
assertions of others, but only for their own. I must therefore carefully
consider what it is that they affirm to be proved by miracles.
One primary objection against the possibility of miracles is founded on
that peculiar form of theoretic belief, which affirms that both
philosophy, science, and religion alike point to the existence of a Cause
of the Universe, which is the source of all the forces which exist, and of
which the various phenomena of the universe are manifestations, and
designates this cause by the name of God. But while it concedes his
existence, it proclaims him to be Unknown and Unknowable. If this position
is correct, the inference seems inevitable, that any thing like a real
revelation of him is impossible. It will be necessary therefore for me to
examine into the validity of this position.
A vast variety of arguments have been adduced both on philosophic grounds
and from the principles established by physical science, for the purpose
of proving that the occurrence of any supernatural event is contrary to
our reason. If this be true, it is a fatal objection against the entire
mass of supernatural occurrences that are recorded in the New Testament.
The most important points of these reasonings will require a careful
consideration.
A very important objection has been urged against the Christian mode of
conducting the argument from miracles. It is alleged that it involves
reasoning in a vicious circle, and that Christian apologists endeavour to
prove the truth of doctrines which utterly transcend reason by miraculous
evidence, and then endeavour to prove the truth of the miracles by the
doctrines. If this allegation is true, it is no doubt a fatal objection to
the argument. I shall endeavour to show that it is founded on a
misapprehension of the entire subject.
An attempt has been made to re-affirm the validity of Hume's argument that
no amount of evidence can avail to prove the reality of a miracle unless
the falsehood of the evidence is more miraculous than the alleged miracle.
It will be necessary to consider the validity of the positions which have
been lately assumed respecting it.
A very formidable objection has been urged against the truth of the
supernatural occurrences recorded in the New Testament on the ground that
the followers of Jesus were a prey to a number of the most grotesque
beliefs respecting the action of demons, and that their superstition and
credulity on this point was of so extreme a character as to deprive their
historical testimony, on the subject of the supernatural of all value. As
this objection is not only one which is widely extended, but has been
urged with great force by the author of "Supernatural Religion," I shall
devote four chapters of this work to the examination of the question of
possession and demoniacal action as far as it affects the present
controversy.
The entire school of modern unbelief found a very considerable portion of
their arguments against the historical character of the Gospels, on the
alleged credulity and superstition of the followers of our Lord. This is
alleged to have been of a most profound character, and it forms the weapon
which is perhaps in most constant use with the assailants of Christianity.
All difficulties which beset their arguments are met by attributing the
most unbounded credulity, superstition and enthusiasm to the followers of
Jesus. It has also been urged that the belief in supernatural occurrences
has been so general, that it renders the attestation of miracles to a
revelation invalid. I purpose examining into the validity of this
objection. As this may be said to be the key of the position occupied by
modern unbelief, I must examine into the reality of the affirmation, and
also how far the love of the marvellous in mankind affects the credit of
the testimony to miracles. This I propose discussing in two distinct
chapters.
It is an unquestionable fact that in these days we summarily reject whole
masses of alleged supernatural occurrences, as utterly incredible, without
inquiry into the testimony on which they rest. It will be necessary to
inquire into the grounds on which we do this, and how far it affects the
credibility of the miracles recorded in the New Testament.
The historical value of the testimony which has been adduced for the truth
of the miracles recorded in the New Testament, has been assailed by every
weapon which criticism can supply. It is affirmed in the strongest manner
that they are utterly devoid of all reliable historical evidence. The
Gospels are pronounced to consist of a bundle of myths and legends, with
only a few grains of historic truth hidden beneath them. They are affirmed
to be late compositions, and that we are utterly devoid of all
contemporaneous attestation for the facts recorded in them, and that the
true account of the origin of Christianity is buried beneath a mass of
fiction. If this be true, there cannot be a doubt that it is a most
serious allegation, which affects the entire Christian position. It is
further urged that while the defenders of Christianity publish works in
which they attempt to prove that miracles are possible and credible, they
carefully avoid grappling with the real point of the whole question by
showing that any historical evidence can be produced for a single miracle
recorded in the Gospels, which will stand the test of such historical
criticism, and it is loudly proclaimed that no real evidence can be made
forthcoming. Such a charge as this, it is impossible to pass over in
silence.
I propose, therefore, to examine into the general truth of these
allegations, and to consider the nature of the historical evidence which
unbelief, after it has exhausted all its powers of criticism, still leaves
us unquestionably in possession of.
This consists of the epistles of the New Testament viewed as historical
documents. Their value as such has been greatly overlooked by both sides
to the controversy, especially by the Christian side. Christians have been
in the habit of viewing them as inspired compositions, and have studied
them almost exclusively on account of the doctrinal and moral teaching
which they contain, and each sect has viewed them as a kind of armoury
from which to draw weapons for the establishing its own particular
opinions. In doing this they have forgotten that they are also historical
documents of the highest order, the great majority of which even the
opponents of Christianity concede to have been composed prior to the
conclusion of the first century of the Christian era, and many of them at
a much earlier period.
Of these writings four are universally admitted to be genuine, and to have
been composed prior to the year 60 of our era. Four more are genuine
beyond all reasonable doubt, and of two more the evidence in favour of
their authenticity is very strong. The Apocalypse, which is also admitted
to be genuine, although not strictly an historical document, can be
rendered valuable for the purposes of history. Of the remaining writings
the genuineness is disputed; but whether genuine or not, it is impossible
to deny their antiquity, and that they are faithful representations of the
ideas of those who wrote them. In fact the names of their authors are of
no great importance in the present controversy, when the writings
themselves bear so decisively the marks of originality. Thus the epistle
of James, by whomsoever written, bears the most unquestionable marks of
the most primitive antiquity. It is in fact a document of the earliest
form of Christianity,--in one word, the Jewish form, before the Church was
finally separated from the synagogue.
Such are our historical materials. Little justice has been done to their
value in the writings of Christian apologists. As included in the Canon of
the New Testament, it has been for the most part the practice to view them
as standing in need of defence, rather than as being the mainstay of the
argument for historical Christianity, and constituting its central
position.
It will be admitted that it will be impossible for me to do full justice
to such a subject in a work like the present. To bring out all the
treasures of evidence respecting primitive Christianity, and the
foundation of the Christian Church which these writings contain, the whole
subject would require to be unfolded in a distinct and separate treatise
exclusively devoted to the subject. Still, however, this work would be
very incomplete if I did not accept the challenge so boldly thrown down to
us, and show that Christianity rests on an historical attestation of the
highest order. To this I propose devoting the six concluding chapters of
this work.
I intend, therefore, in the first place to examine the value of the
historical documents of the New Testament, and show that several of the
epistles take rank as the highest form of historical documents, and
present us with what is to all intents and purposes a large mass of
contemporaneous evidence as to the primitive beliefs, and the original
foundation of the Christian Church. In doing so I propose to treat them in
the same manner as all other similar historical documents are treated.
I shall then show that these documents afford a substantial testimony to
all the great facts of Christianity, and especially to the existence of
miraculous powers in the Church, and that the various Churches were from
the very earliest period in possession of an oral account of the actions
and teachings of Jesus Christ substantially the same as that which is now
embodied in the Gospels; and that this oral Gospel was habitually used for
the purposes of instruction. Further, that this oral Gospel was a
substantial embodiment of the beliefs of the primitive followers of Jesus,
and that the Church as a community was a body especially adapted for
handing down correctly the account of the primitive beliefs respecting its
origin, and that the peculiar position in which it was placed compelled it
to do so.
I shall further show on the evidence furnished by those epistles, the
genuineness of which unbelievers do not dispute, that from the earliest
commencement of Christianity the whole body of believers, without
distinction of sect or party, believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ
as a fact, and viewed it not only as the groundwork on which Christianity
rested, but as the one sole and only reason for the existence of the
Christian Church. I shall be able also to prove on the same evidence that
a considerable number of the followers of Jesus were persuaded that they
had seen him alive after his crucifixion, and that his appearance was an
actual resurrection from the dead. The same writings prove to
demonstration that this was the universal belief of the whole Christian
community, and that the Church was established on its basis.
These things being established as the basis for my reasonings, I shall
proceed to prove that it is impossible that these beliefs of the Church
could have owed their origin to any possible form of delusion; but that
the resurrection of Jesus Christ was an historical fact, and that no other
supposition can give an adequate account of the phenomenon.
Having proved that the greatest of all the miracles which are recorded in
the Gospels is an historical fact, I have got rid of the _à priori_
difficulty with which the acceptance of the Gospels as genuine historical
accounts is attended; but further, if it is an historical fact that Jesus
Christ really rose from the dead, it is in the highest degree probable
that other supernatural occurrences would be connected with his person. I
shall therefore proceed to restore the Gospels to their place as history,
and to show that even on the principles of the opponents of Christianity,
they have every claim to be accepted as true accounts of the action and
teaching of Jesus Christ as it was transmitted by the different Churches,
partly in an oral, and partly in a written form. I shall also show that
even if they were composed at the late dates which are assigned to them by
opponents, they were yet written within the period which is strictly
historical, while tradition was fresh and reminiscences vivid, and long
before it was possible that a great mass of facts which must have formed
the basis of the existence of the Christian Church could have been
superseded by a number of mythic and legendary creations. Having placed
these facts on a firm foundation, I shall proceed to consider their
accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to estimate its
historical nature.
The proof that the greatest miracle recorded in the Gospels, the
Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is an event which has really occurred,
places the remainder of them in point of credibility in the same position
as the facts of ordinary history; and they must be accepted and regarded
in conformity with the usual methods of testing evidence.
CHAPTER II. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS.
Nothing has more contributed to import an almost hopeless confusion of
thought into the entire controversy about miracles than the ambiguous
senses in which the most important terms connected with it have been
employed, both by theologians and men of science, by the defenders of
revelation as well as by its opponents. Of these terms the words "nature,"
"natural", "law," "force," "supernatural," "superhuman," "miracle," and
"miraculous," are the most conspicuous. It is quite clear that unless we
use these terms in a definite and uniform sense, we shall be fighting the
air. The neglect to do so has thrown the greatest obscurity over the
entire subject. This vague and uncertain use of them is not confined to
writers on theological subjects, but is diffused over a large number of
scientific works. My object in the present chapter will be, not to lay
down strictly accurate definitions of all the terms used in the
controversy (for this in the present state of thought on the subject is
hardly possible) but to endeavour to assign a definite meaning to those
which it will be necessary for me to employ, and to draw attention to some
of the fallacies which a vague use of language has introduced.
First: No terms are more frequently used in this controversy than the
words "nature" and "natural." They are constantly used as if their meaning
was definite and invariable. Nothing is more common than to use the
expression "laws of nature," and to speak of miracles as involving
contradictions, violations, and suspensions of the laws and order of
nature, as though there was no danger of our falling into fallacies of
reasoning by classing wholly different orders of phenomena under a common
name.
What do we mean by the terms "nature" and "natural"? It is evident that no
satisfactory result can come from reasonings on this subject, unless the
parties to the discussion agree to attach to those words a steady and
consistent meaning. Are we in fact under the expression "nature" to
include both matter and its phenomena, and mind and its phenomena? Is
nature to include all things which exist, including their causes; laws,
and forces; or is it to be restricted to matter, its laws and forces? Or
is it to include all things that exist, except God? I need hardly observe
that the laying down some clear and definite principles on this subject is
vital to the present controversy.
Again: What do we mean by the laws of nature? How do we distinguish
between the laws and the forces of nature? Do the laws of nature, in the
sense in which that expression is used by science, possess any efficient
power whatever; or ought not efficiency to be predicated only of the
forces of nature, and never of its laws? Or when we speak of the forces of
nature, do we recognise any distinction between material and moral forces,
or do we confound phenomena so utterly differing in outward character, and
on whose difference some of the most important points of the controversy
about miracles rest, under a common name? What again do we mean by the
order of nature? Is it its material order; or does it include the order of
the moral universe? Until we can agree to attach a definite meaning to
these expressions, to argue that miracles are contrary to nature, or
involve a suspension of its laws, or a violation of its order, or even to
affirm the contrary position, is fighting the air. Yet this I may almost
say is the present aspect of the controversy.
Again: What do we intend, when we use the different expressions,
"miracles," "supernatural," "superhuman," or events occurring out of the
order of nature? It is evident that whether they point to any real
distinctions or not, it is necessary to employ them with consistency.
The mere enumeration of these questions makes it clear that by a vague and
indefinite use of terms, or by attaching to them meanings which they
cannot accurately be made to bear, we may unconsciously assume the entire
question at issue.
First: With respect to the terms "nature" and "natural." What do we
include under them? Bishop Butler considers that the latter term is
satisfied by attaching to it the meaning "usual." Nature then would mean
the ordinary course of things. But such a meaning would by no means
satisfy the requirements of modern science, philosophy, or theology.
One obvious sense to attach to the word "nature" is to use it to denote
the entire mass of phenomena as contemplated by physical science. In this
point of view it would include matter, its forces, and its laws, and
embrace the entire range of those phenomena and forces where action is
necessary; and into the conception of which neither volition nor freedom
enters. If "nature" and "natural" had been used only in this sense, it
would have saved us from a great mass of inconclusive reasoning. But this
is far from being the case. Not only are they used to include matter, its
laws and forces, but also the whole phenomena of mind.
To this use of the terms the Duke of Argyll has given no inconsiderable
countenance in his admirable work, "The Reign of Law," especially in the
sixth chapter. He uses the term law as alike applicable to the operations
of mind and matter, and this of course implies that the whole of our
mental phenomena form a portion of nature and its order. He is led to
this, among other considerations, by the use which we make of the word
"natural" as applied to the results of all kinds of mental operations. The
question may fairly be asked, Are not the works wrought by man in nature,
or is not the building of its nest by a bird, or of its comb by the bee, a
natural operation? If so, man, bird, and bee, must form a portion of
nature, and their various actions, of its order.
In a popular point of view such expressions involve no difficulty, and as
a mere verbal distinction the whole question would not be worth the labour
of discussion. But in a question like the one now under consideration,
which requires the utmost accuracy both of thought and reasoning, the case
is far different. The classing together of phenomena which differ so
entirely as mind and matter, under a common term, leads to the inference
that there is no essential difference between them, which involves at the
outset a _petitio principii_ of the entire question under definition. I
shall have occasion repeatedly to point out in the course of this work the
number of fallacious reasonings which have been introduced into the
question about the possibility and the credibility of miracles by thus
including under a common term phenomena utterly different in character. It
would be far better to get rid of words so vague as "nature" and "natural"
in this discussion, and substitute for them terms of which it is
impossible to mistake the meaning, than to employ them in senses which are
simply ambiguous and misleading. But of this more hereafter.
What then are we to do with man? Is he a part of nature and its order? I
reply that man is within material nature as far as regards his bodily
organization; but that he is outside, or above it, and belongs to a
different order, as far as his rational action, his volition, and his
moral powers are concerned. All that I am contending for is that a clear
distinction must be preserved between the necessary action of the forces
of material nature, and the voluntary action of man; and that terms must
be used which accurately denote this distinction. Matter, its forces and
laws, involve the conception of necessary action. They act in a particular
manner because they cannot help so acting. With action purely intellectual
I am not concerned, but all moral action is voluntary. Man as an agent can
act or forbear acting; matter cannot. This distinction is of the highest
importance, and must not be lost sight of behind a confused use of such
terms as natural, law, force, or order of nature, applied indeterminately
to the necessary action of material agents, and the voluntary action of
moral ones.
It will doubtless be objected by a certain order of philosophy that all
mental and moral force is only some special modification of material
force, and consequently that there is no distinction between material and
moral action, or between material and moral force, and that the words
"nature" and "natural" are correctly applied to both alike, as being
simple manifestations of the same original force. To this it will be
sufficient to reply, first: that this is an assertion only, and never has
been nor can be proved. Secondly: that it contradicts the highest of all
our certitudes, the direct testimony of consciousness, which affirms that
we live under a law of freedom, wholly different from the necessary laws
of material nature. Thirdly: that it contradicts the universal experience
of mankind, as embodied in the primary laws of human language and human
thought. To assume this at the commencement of the argument is to take for
granted the point which requires to be proved.
It would be quite out of place in a treatise like the present to attempt
to discuss the question of the origin of the free agency and the moral
nature of man. It is sufficient for the purpose to observe that, however
voluntary agency may have originated, it is a simple fact that it exists
in the universe, and that its phenomena belong to an order of its own. It
is no mere theory, but a fact, that man not only is capable of modifying
the action of the forces of the material universe, but that he has
modified them, and has produced results utterly different from those which
would have followed from their simple action. To use terms in this
controversy which overlook this plain and obvious fact, can lead to no
satisfactory result.
Are then the actions of man, the bird, and the bee, properly designated as
natural? In a popular use of language the question may be one purely
verbal; but when we are dealing with subjects requiring accurate thought,
it is in the highest degree necessary to use language which does not
confound the distinct phenomena of mind and matter under a common
designation. Both together compose the universe; but each belongs to a
different order of phenomena. The whole difficulty proceeds from the fact
that both material forces which act in conformity with necessary laws, and
moral ones which act in conformity with those of freedom, are united in
the person of man.
Another order of thought uses the term "nature" as including everything
that exists, even God; or in other words, it affirms that every thing
which has existed and exists is a manifestation of Him. As this theory
involves the denial of the personality of the Divine Being, it stands
excluded from the question under consideration, namely, the credibility of
miracles, which is utterly irrelevant, except on the assumption of the
existence of a personal God. It ought to be observed, however, that while
theism affirms that God and the universe, whether material or moral, are
distinct, it fully recognises the fact that God is immanent in both the
worlds of mind and matter, while at the same time he transcends them both.
This is an important consideration, which is too often overlooked by both
parties to the discussion.
Secondly: a still greater confusion has been introduced by a vague and
indefinite use of the term "law," and by confusing a number of utterly
diverse phenomena under the designation of the "laws of nature." It is
absolutely necessary to trace
|
into Winter-quarters; Capture of General
Lee; Prevalent Spirit of Despondency, 338
VIII. _Returning Prosperity: Battles of Trenton and
Princeton._--Reliance of the Patriots upon God for Success;
Public Fast recommended by Congress; Offensive Operations
decided upon; Battle of Trenton; Washington victorious; Battle
of Princeton; British repulsed; American Army at Morristown;
British at Brunswick; Prospects brightening, 344
IX. _Occupation of Philadelphia._--Position of the Armies; British
remove to New York; Sail for the Chesapeake; Advance towards
Philadelphia; American Army also move towards the same place;
Meet at Brandywine; Battle; Americans repulsed; British enter
Philadelphia; Congress retire to Lancaster; Battle of
Germantown; Americans retreat; Ineffectual Attempts to force
the British to evacuate Philadelphia, 353
X. _Surrender of Burgoyne._--British Project for securing the
command of the Hudson between New York and Albany; Intrusted
to Generals Howe and Burgoyne; the latter leaves Canada with a
strong Force; Invests and takes Crown Point and Ticonderoga;
Affair of Skenesborough; Fort Edward abandoned; Retreat of
Americans to Stillwater; Battle of Bennington; General Gates
supersedes General Schuyler; Critical position of Burgoyne; he
advances upon Saratoga; Battle; Battle of Stillwater; Burgoyne
retreats, pursued by Gates; Capitulates; Public
Rejoicings, 360
XI. _Progress of the War._--State of affairs in England; Treaty
with France; Movements in the British Parliament; Overtures to
Congress; Rejection of them; Battle of Monmouth; Disastrous
Retreat of General Lee; Fortunate Interposition of Washington;
his Rebuke of Lee; Tremendous Battle; Sufferings of the
Armies; Renewal of the Contest; Midnight Retreat of the
British army; Subsequent Trial and Dismission of General
Lee, 378
XII. _Treachery of Arnold._--The Vulture in the Hudson; Midnight
Adventure; Benedict Arnold; Repairs to Cambridge; Expedition
to Canada; Created a Brigadier-general; Grounds of Complaint;
Honorable Conduct in Connecticut; Appointed to the command at
Philadelphia; Charges preferred against him; Reprimanded by
Washington; Plots against his Country; Correspondence with Sir
H. Clinton; Appointed to the command of West Point; Interview
with Andre; Capture of Andre; Arrival of Washington; Escape of
Arnold; Developments of his Traitorous Intentions; Trial and
Condemnation of Andre; Subsequent Incidents in the life of
Arnold, 391
XIII. _Concluding Scenes of the Revolution._--Theatre of War
changed to the South; Siege of Savannah; Battle of Camden;
Battle of Cowpens; Retreat; Subsequent Movements; Battles of
Guilford, Kohkirk's Hill, Ninety-Six, and Eutaw Springs;
Yorktown; Treaty of Peace; Cessation of Hostilities; Army
disbanded; Departure of the British; Final Interview between
Washington and his Officers; Resigns his Commission; Retires
to Mount Vernon, 415
XIV. _Naval Operations._--State of the Naval Affairs of the
Colonies at the commencement of the Revolution; First Naval
Engagement; Measures adopted by Congress to provide a Naval
Armament; Naval Officers appointed; Vessels built; Flag
adopted; Success of American Privateering; Distinguished Naval
Officers; Character of Naval Commanders; Particular
Engagements:--Randolph and Yarmouth; Raleigh and Druid;
Sub-marine Warfare, Le Bon Homme Richard and Serapis; Trumbull
and Watt; Alliance, Atalanta, and Trepassey; Congress and
Savage, 450
XV. _Eminent Foreigners connected with the Revolution._--George
III. King of England; General Burgoyne, Sir Henry Clinton,
Colonel Barre, Charles Townshend, Lord Cornwallis, William
Pitt, Marquis of Bute, George Grenville, Duke of Grafton, Lord
North, Colonel Tarleton, Sir Peter Parker, Sir William
Meadows, Sir Guy Carlton, General Gage, Marquis of Rockingham,
Edmund Burke, Kosciusko, Pulaski, Baron de Kalb, Baron
Steuben, Count Rochambeau, Count D'Estaing, 488
V.--FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.
Original Governments of the Colonies; Union between them; Plan
proposed by Dr. Franklin; First Congress; Congress of '74;
Confederation; Defects of it; Convention of States proposed by
Virginia; Commissioners from five States meet at Annapolis;
Powers too limited to act; Recommend a General Convention of
States; Delegates appointed; Convention meets at Philadelphia;
Decides to form a new Constitution; Draft prepared, discussed,
and adopted; Speech of Doctor Franklin; Constitution signed;
Adopted by the several States; Amendments; States admitted
since the adoption; Remarks on the Constitution, 520
VI.--GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT.
A System of Revenue; Regulation of Departments; Amendments of the
Constitution; Establishment of a Judiciary; Assumption of
Debts; Removal of the Seat of Government; National Bank;
Indian War; Re-election of Washington; Difficulties with
France; Insurrection in Pennsylvania; Jay's Treaty; Election
of Mr. Adams; Farewell Address, 542
VII.--JOHN ADAMS, PRESIDENT.
Difficulties with France; Treaty with that Power; Death of
Washington; Removal of the Seat of Government; Election of Mr.
Jefferson, 571
VIII.--THOMAS JEFFERSON, PRESIDENT.
Purchase of Louisiana; War with Tripoli; Murder of Hamilton;
Re-election of Jefferson; Conspiracy and Trial of Burr; Attack
on the Chesapeake; British Orders in Council; Milan Decree;
Embargo; Election of Mr. Madison; Difficulties between France
and England, 590
IX.--JAMES MADISON, PRESIDENT.
Battle of Tippecanoe; Early Session of Congress; Declaration of
War; Surrender of Hull; Capture of the Gurriere; Battle of
Queenstown; Capture of the Frolic; of the Macedonian; of the
Java; Battle of Frenchtown; Capture of the Peacock;
Re-election of Mr. Madison; Capture of York; Siege of Fort
Meigs; Capture of the Argus; Perry's Victory; Battle of the
Thames; Creek War; Battle of Chippewa and Bridgewater; Capture
of Washington City; Engagement on Lake Champlain; Battle of
New Orleans; Treaty of Ghent; Close of Mr. Madison's
Administration, 611
X.--JAMES MONROE, PRESIDENT.
Tour of the President; Admission of Missouri; Provision for
Indigent Officers, &c.; Re-election of Mr. Monroe; Seminole
War; Revision of the Tariff; Visit of Lafayette; Review of Mr.
Monroe's Administration; Election of Mr. Adams, 658
XI.--JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, PRESIDENT.
Controversy respecting the Creeks; Proposed Mission to Panama;
Internal Improvements; Fiftieth Anniversary of Independence;
"American System;" Election of General Jackson, 673
XII.--ANDREW JACKSON, PRESIDENT.
Condition of the Country; Georgia and the Cherokees; Public Lands;
National Bank; Internal Improvements; Indian Hostilities;
Discontents in South Carolina; Re-election of Andrew Jackson;
Removal of the Deposites; Death of Lafayette; Deposite Act;
Seminole War; Treasury Circular; Election of Mr. Van Buren;
Character of Jackson's Administration, 683
XIII.--MARTIN VAN BUREN, PRESIDENT.
Measures respecting Banks; Treasury Circular; Continuance of
Florida War; Internal Improvements; Public Expenses;
Difficulties in Maine; Border Troubles; Changes of Public
Opinion; Character of the Administration; Election of William
H. Harrison, 701
XIV.--WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, PRESIDENT, 713
XV.--JOHN TYLER, PRESIDENT.
Extra Session of Congress; Relations with Great Britain;
Settlement of the North-eastern Boundary; Difficulties in
Rhode Island; Modification of the Tariff; Bunker's Hill
Monument; Treaties; Annexation of Texas; Presidential Canvass;
Character of Mr. Tyler's Administration, 715
XVI.--JAMES K. POLK, PRESIDENT.
Decease of General Jackson; Admission of Texas; Division of
Oregon; Mexican War; Siege of Fort Brown; Battle of Palo Alto;
Battle of Resaca de la Palma; Fall of Monterey; Battle of
Buena Vista; Capture of Vera Cruz; Cerro Gordo; Progress of
the Army; Occupation of Mexico; Treaty; California and its
Gold; Election of General Taylor, 725
XVII.--ZACHARY TAYLOR, PRESIDENT. 755
BRITISH AMERICA, 757
I. CANADA.
Discovery; Settlement; Capture of Quebec; Death of Champlain;
Religious Enterprises; War made by the Iroquois; Accessions to
the Colony; Progress of the Colony; Attempts of the English to
Conquer Canada; Condition of Canada in 1721 and 1722; General
Prosperity of the Colony; Refusal to join in the War of
American Independence; Consequences of American Independence
to Canada; Territorial Divisions and Constitution; Dissensions
after the close of the War of 1812; Disturbances and
Insurrections, 759
II. NOVA SCOTIA.
Limits; Conquest by the English; Settlement; Annexation to the
British Crown; Policy of England in relation to the Country;
Situation of the English Settlers; English Treatment of the
Acadians; State of the Province during the Wars of the United
States; Results of the War of 1812, 781
III. NEW BRUNSWICK.
Extent; Physical Aspect and Soil; Settlement and Progress; Signal
Calamity, 787
IV. PRINCE EDWARD'S ISLAND.
Location, Surface, and Climate; Early Settlers; Change of
Possession; Plans of Colonization; Character of late
Governors; Inhabitants, 790
V. NEWFOUNDLAND.
Location and Importance; Discovery and Settlement; French
Hostilities; Renewal of War; Change of Administration; Present
Condition, 793
VI. HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORY.
Extent; Discovery; Settlement; Contests with France; Present
State, 797
RUSSIAN AMERICA, 800
MEXICO.
Discovery; Condition, anterior to the Spanish Conquest; Invasion
by Cortez; Arrival of Cortez in the Mexican Capital;
Abdication of Montezuma; Retreat of Cortez, and Return; Fall
of the City and Empire; Fate of Cortez; Extent of New Spain;
Introduction of the Catholic Religion; Native Spanish
Population, under the Colonial Government; Classes of the
Inhabitants; Causes of the First Mexican Revolution;
Commencement of the Revolution; Continuation of the War by the
Patriot Chiefs; Decline of the Revolution; Invasion by Mina;
Revolution under Iturbide; Adoption of the Federal
Constitution; Prosperity of the years 1825 and 1826; Election
of President in 1828; Usurpation of Bustamente; Defence of the
Federal Constitution; Santa Anna's Proceedings; Establishment
of a Central Republic; Attempts against the Central
Government; Revolution of 1841; Overthrow of Santa Anna's
Government, 802
GUATEMALA.
Locality; Extent; Physical Character; Discovery and Conquest;
Independence of the Country, 830
SOUTH AMERICA.
I. NEW GRENADA.
Extent and Physical Features; Revolution of 1811; Formation of a
Constitution; Liberation of Quito; Crisis of 1828; Separation
of New Grenada, Venezuela, and Equator; State of the
Government since the Separation, 833
II. VENEZUELA.
Name, Physical Features, &c.; Discovery; State of the Country
under the Spanish Dominion; Termination of the Spanish
Dominion; Condition since, 837
III. EQUATOR.
Name, Extent, and Physical Character; Classes of the Inhabitants;
Subversion of the Spanish Authority; Condition since the
Spanish Rule, 841
IV. PERU.
Locality, Extent, and Physical Character; Condition at the time of
its Invasion by the Spaniards; Conquest by Pizarro; Condition
of the Country after the Conquest; Insurrection; Revolutionary
Movement; Declaration of Independence; Condition after the
Expulsion of the Spaniards, 845
V. BOLIVIA.
Name, Extent, and Physical Character; Overthrow of the Spanish
Power; Proclamation of Independence; Choice of Rulers under
the New Constitution; Present Condition, 855
VI. CHILI.
Extent, Physical Features, and Climate; Conquest by Almagro;
Revolution in the beginning of the Present Century; Final
Establishment of Independence; Subsequent Condition, 858
VII. BUENOS AYRES.
Name, &c.; Inhabitants, or Classes of People; Discovery and
Settlement; First Insurrection against the Government of
Spain; Progress and Changes of the New Government; Present
Condition of the Government, 863
VIII. URUGUAY.
Locality and Extent; Name and History; Constitution, 868
IX. BRAZIL.
Situation, Extent, &c.; Discovery and Settlement; Policy of the
Portuguese Government; Removal of the Portuguese Court to
Brazil; Constitution and Government, 870
X. PARAGUAY.
Situation, Extent, &c.; Insurrection and attempt at Revolution in
the latter part of the Eighteenth Century; Establishment of
Independence, and Despotic Government, 875
WEST INDIES.
Situation, Extent, &c.; Inhabitants; Political Divisions, 879
I. BRITISH WEST INDIES.
Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbadoes, Bahamas, St. Christopher, Bermudas,
and St. Vincent, 881
II. SPANISH WEST INDIES.
Cuba and Porto Rico, 885
III. FRENCH WEST INDIES.
Martinique and Guadaloupe, 887
IV. DUTCH WEST INDIES.
Curacoa, St. Eustatius, St. Martin, and Saba, 888
V. DANISH WEST INDIES.
St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas, 888
VI. INDEPENDENT ISLAND OF HAYTI.
Formerly called St. Domingo and Hispaniola, 888
APPENDIX.
XVII. ZACHARY TAYLOR. (_Continued from page_ 756.)
Proceedings in Congress; Death of Mr. Calhoun; Invasion of Cuba;
Convention with Great Britain; Death of Gen. Taylor, 902
XVIII. MILLARD FILLMORE, PRESIDENT.
Assumes the Government; Compromise Bill; Adjournment of
Congress, 911
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
Time stopping in his Course, &c. 13
Tailpiece--Discovery of Newfoundland, 18
Columbus and Cabot, 19
Northmen leaving Iceland, 21
Discovery of Labrador, 22
Incident in the Camp of the Northmen, 24
Columbus, 26
Columbus before Ferdinand and Isabella, 30
Columbus sets sail, 32
First Sight of Land, 36
Columbus and Natives of Cuba, 38
Columbus casting a Barrel into the Sea, 39
Tailpiece--Prairie Scene, 44
Tailpiece--Columbus at Hispaniola, 47
Early Settlements, 48
Early Settlers trading with the Natives, 50
Captain Smith saved from death, 55
Landing of the Pilgrims, 66
Visit of Samoset to the English, 67
Interview with Massasoit, 68
Boston founded, 73
Settlers emigrating to Connecticut, 76
Hooker addressing the Soldiers, 79
Gallup finds Oldham murdered, 80
Portsmouth founded, 84
Tailpiece--Indian Council, 95
Surrendering of New Amsterdam, 97
Charles II. signing Charter for Penn, 101
Tailpiece--The Maple, 103
Indian Wars, 104
Tailpiece--Indian War Dance, 108
Tailpiece--Savage Barbarities, 112
Smith selling Blue Beads to Powhatan, 115
Pocahontas disclosing a Plot, 118
Opecancanough borne to a Massacre, 121
Tailpiece--Ship before the wind, 124
New England Indian Wars, 125
Governor Winslow's Visit to Massasoit, 134
Governor Bradford and the Snake-skin, 143
Captain Atherton threatens Ninigret, 149
Captain Mason attacking the Pequod Fort, 156
Tailpiece--Camanche Wigwam, 160
Philip's War, 161
Flight of Philip from Mount Hope, 163
Captain Church and his Men hemmed in, 164
Attack on Brookfield, 166
Battle of Muddy Brook, 168
Swamp Fight, 172
Indian Stratagem, 176
Fight near Sudbury, 177
Indians attacked at Connecticut-river Falls, 180
Defence of Hadley, 182
Philip's Escape, 184
Death of Philip, 185
Capture of Anawon, 188
Burning of Schenectady, 191
Mrs. Dustan saving her Children, 196
Escape of Mrs. Dustan, 197
Tailpiece--Round Tower at Rhode Island, 199
Capture of Mr. Williams, 202
Reduction of Louisburg, 211
Tailpiece--Boston Harbor discovered, 213
Braddock's Defeat, 219
Battle of Lake George, 222
Destruction of Kittaning, 224
Destruction of the village of St. Francis, 230
View of Quebec, 231
Death of Wolfe, 235
Tailpiece--Peruvian Canoe, &c. 237
The Revolution, 238
Otis in the Council-chamber, 246
Procession at Boston, 249
Attack on the Governor's House, 250
Burning of the Effigy of Governor Colden, 251
Arrival of the First Man-of-war at Boston, 253
Boston Massacre, 255
Burning of the Gaspee, 257
Destruction of Tea, 259
Patrick Henry, 262
Tailpiece--Falls of St. Anthony, 265
Events of the Revolution, 266
Battle of Lexington, 268
Captain Wheeler and the British Officer, 269
Retreat of the British from Concord, 271
Tailpiece--Source of the Passaic, 273
President Langdon at Prayer, 276
Death of Pollard, 277
General Putnam, 278
Interview between Warren and Putnam, 279
Putnam saves the life of Major Small, 284
Death of Colonel Gardiner, 286
Tailpiece--View of Boston, 290
Messengers spreading news, &c. 291
Tailpiece--Penn laying out Philadelphia, 298
Evacuation of Boston, 299
House at Cambridge occupied by Washington, 300
Fortifying Dorchester Heights, 305
Putnam reading Declaration of Independence, 310
John Hancock, 317
Sergeant Jasper re-planting the Flag, 328
Tailpiece--The Cotton-plant, 332
Battle of Trenton, 347
Tailpiece--Cortez landing at St. Juan d'Ulloa, 352
General Wayne, 355
Marquis Lafayette, 356
Tailpiece--Franklin in Council, 359
Destruction of Gallies, 363
Burgoyne's Advance, 366
Burgoyne's Retreat, 372
Tailpiece--View on the Hudson, 377
American Commissioners and Louis XVI. 379
Tailpiece--The Genius of Liberty, &c. 390
The Sloop-of-war Vulture, 391
Arnold's Expedition through the Wilderness, 393
General Lincoln, 394
Death of General Wooster, 396
Arnold and the British Soldier, 397
General Arnold, 398
Major Andre, 401
Interview of Arnold and Wife, 409
Tailpiece--Capture of Major Andre, 414
Jasper on the Ramparts, 419
Death of De Kalb, 425
Charge of Colonel Washington, 428
Battle of Yorktown, 440
Washington taking leave of the Army, 444
Washington embarking at Whitehall, 446
Tailpiece--American Flag, 449
Naval Operations, 450
First Naval Engagement of the Revolution, 452
Silas Deane, 454
Randolph and Yarmouth, 463
Raleigh and Druid, 465
Jones setting fire to Ships at Whitehaven, 470
Paul Jones, 472
Le Bon Homme Richard and Serapis, 473
Sinking of the Bon Homme Richard, 479
Tailpiece--Ship on her Beam-ends, 487
Sir Henry Clinton, 494
Colonel Barre, 495
Lord Chatham, 500
Charles James Fox, 503
George Grenville, 506
Sir Guy Carlton, 511
Edmund Burke, 513
Tailpiece--Lugger near Shore, 519
Governments, 520
Franklin, 534
Tailpiece--Natural Bridge, 541
George Washington, 542
Inauguration of Washington, 547
John Adams, 571
Tailpiece--New York, from the East river, 589
Thomas Jefferson, 590
Tailpiece--Basket of Flowers, 610
James Madison, 611
Tippecanoe, 615
Constitution and Java, 629
Perry's Victory, 638
Battle of the Thames, 639
Creek Chiefs surrendering to Gen. Jackson, 641
Battle of New Orleans, 652
James Monroe, 656
Reception of Monroe, 658
Attack on Lieutenant Scott's Boats, 663
Taking the Fort at Pensacola, 665
Landing of Lafayette at New York, 668
Lafayette laying Corner-stone, &c. 669
Lafayette at Washington's Tomb, 670
John Q. Adams, 673
Removal of the Creek Indians, 676
Tailpiece--Agricultural Emblem, 682
Andrew Jackson, 683
Martin Van Buren, 701
Burning of the Caroline, 709
William Henry Harrison, 713
John Tyler, 715
James K. Polk, 725
Surprise of Captain Thornton and his Party, 732
Charge of Captain May, 736
American Army in Vera Cruz, 744
Colonel Harney at Cerro Gordo, 746
Battle of Churubusco, 748
Army crossing the National Bridge, 751
Zachary Taylor, 755
British America, 757
Tailpiece--Indians Hunting in Skins, 758
Champlain's Interview with the Algonquins, 760
Extermination of the Hurons, 764
Death of Wolfe, 771
Tailpiece--Tampico, 780
Nova Scotia, 781
Destruction of the Acadians, 785
Newfoundland, 793
Tailpiece--Vessels in the Offing, 796
Tailpiece--Icebergs, 799
Tailpiece--Winter in Lapland, 801
Mexico, 802
Marina acting as Interpreter, 805
Cortez burning his Ships, 806
Meeting of Cortez and Montezuma, 807
Montezuma on his Throne, 808
Death of Montezuma, 809
Noche Triste, 811
Texans flying to Arms, 827
Guatemala, 830
Alvarado marching on Guatemala, 832
New Grenada, 833
Venezuela, 837
Equator, 841
Tailpiece--Peruvian Peasants, 844
Peru, 845
Hualpa discovers the Mine of Potosi, 846
Manco Capac and his Wife, 847
Valverde addressing Atahualpa, 848
Pizarro in Cusco, 850
Bolivia, 855
Tailpiece--Mexican Women making Bread, 857
Chili, 858
Almagro marching against Chili, 859
Tailpiece--Araucanian Men and Women, 862
Buenos Ayres, 863
Uruguay, 868
Brazil, 870
Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil, 872
Paraguay, 875
West Indies, 879
Millard Fillmore, 911
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION
[Illustration: Time stopping in his course to read the Inscription
carved by the Muse of History.]
If it be remarkable that the Western Continent should have remained
unknown for so many centuries to civilized man, it is, perhaps, still
more remarkable that since its discovery and settlement, it should
have become the theatre of so many signal transactions, and have
advanced so rapidly to its present civil, religious, and political
importance. The history of every portion of it is interesting and
instructive; but more especially that portion occupied by the people
of the United States. A great work is in progress throughout the
entire continent; but the importance of the American Republic, with
which our fortunes are more immediately connected, is becoming
apparent with each revolving year. While, therefore, we propose to
make an historical survey of the several countries both of North and
South America, we shall dwell with greater particularity upon the
events which have signalized our own republican America. If not from
her present population, which, though increasing by a wonderful
progression, is still, in point of numbers, inferior to many other
nations; yet, from her wealth, her enterprise, her commercial and
political relations, she is entitled to rank among the most powerful
and influential nations on the globe. The eyes of the civilized world
are upon her; and with wonder, if not with jealousy, do they mark her
rapid and surprising advancement.
The _history_ of such a people must be full of interest. By what means
has her national elevation been maintained? But a little more than two
centuries have elapsed, since the first settlers planted themselves at
Jamestown, in Virginia, and the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth
Rock. They were then a feeble band. Before them lay a howling
wilderness. An inhospitable and intractable race rose up to oppose and
harass them. The means of living were stinted and uncertain. Famine
pressed upon them, and weakened them. The winters were cold and
piercing. Their habitations were rude and unprotective. Disease added
its sufferings and sorrows, and death hurried many of the few to an
untimely grave. Yet, amidst accumulated calamity, they gathered
strength and courage. Accessions from the mother-country were made to
their numbers. Other and distant stations were occupied. The forest
fell before them. Towns and villages rose in the wilderness, and
solitary places became glad. Savage tribes--after years of terror,
massacre, and bloodshed--retired, leaving the colonists to the
peaceful occupancy of the land, in all its length and breadth.
But they were still a dependant people--subject to the laws,
exactions, and oppressions of a proud and arbitrary foreign
government. That government, jealous of their growing importance,
adopted measures to check their aspirations, and to extend and
perpetuate the prerogatives of the crown. But it was impossible that a
people, sprung from the loins of fathers whose courage and enterprise
had been matured by years of conflict, should be either crushed, or
long thwarted in their plans. Oppressions served rather to strengthen
them; threats prompted to resolution, and served to inspire
confidence. And, at length, they arose to the assertion and
maintenance of their rights. They entered the field; and for years,
with all the fortunes of war apparently against them, they grappled
successfully with the colossal power of the British empire--thwarted
her counsels--conquered her armies--established their independence.
But a little more than seventy years has America been free from the
British yoke; yet, in that brief period, her advancement has
outstripped all the predictions of the most sanguine statesmen. With
but three millions of people, she entered the Revolutionary contest;
she now numbers more than twenty millions. Instead of thirteen
colonies, she embraces thirty free and independent states. Meanwhile,
she has continued to gather national strength and national importance.
Her wealth is rolling up, while her moral power is becoming the
admiration of the world.
These attainments, too, she has made amid convulsions and revolutions,
which have shaken the proudest empires, and spread desolation over
some of the fairest portions of the globe. On every side are the
evidences of her advancement. Genius and industry are creating and
rolling forward with amazing power and rapidity the means of national
wealth and aggrandizement. An enterprising, ardent, restless
population are spreading over our western wilds, and our cities are
now the creations almost of a day.
But by what means has this national elevation and prosperity been
attained? Shall we ascribe them to the wise, sagacious, and patriotic
men, who guided our councils and led our armies? Shall we offer our
homage and gratitude to WASHINGTON, FRANKLIN, ADAMS, OTIS, HENRY,
JEFFERSON, and a multitude of others, who periled fortune, liberty,
life itself, to achieve our independence, and lay the foundation of
our country's glory?
Let us do them honor; and a nation's honor and gratitude will be
accorded to them, so long as the recorded history of their noble
achievements shall last.
Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre: green sods
Are all their monument; and, yet, it tells
A nobler history than pillar'd pile,
Or the eternal pyramid. They need
No statue, nor inscription, to reveal
Their greatness.
But, while merited honor is paid to the sages and heroes of the
Revolution, and to the Pilgrim Fathers of an earlier age, let not the
hand of Providence be overlooked or disregarded.
On this point, the Puritans have left a noble example to their
posterity. The supplication of the smiles and blessings of a
superintending Providence preceded and accompanied all their plans and
all their enterprises. "God was their king; and they regarded him as
truly and literally so, as if he had dwelt in a visible palace in the
midst of their state. They were his devoted, resolute, humble
subjects; they undertook nothing which they did not beg of him to
prosper; they accomplished nothing without rendering to him the
praise; they suffered nothing without carrying up their sorrows to his
throne; they ate nothing which they did not implore him to bless." Nor
were the actors in the Revolutionary struggle insensible to the
necessity of the Divine blessing upon their counsels and efforts.
Washington, as well at the head of his army as in the retirement of
his closet, or amid some secluded spot in the field, looked up for the
blessing of the God of battles. That also was a beautiful recognition
of a superintending Providence, which Franklin made in the Convention,
which, subsequent to the Revolution, framed the Constitution. "I have
lived, sir, a long time," said he; "and the longer I live, the more
convincing proof I see of this truth, that _God governs in the affairs
of men_. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his
notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"
Let it be remembered by the American people--by men who fill her
councils--by historians who write her history--by the young, who are
coming up to the possession of the rich inheritance, that whatever human
agencies were employed in the discovery, settlement, independence, and
prosperity of these states, the "good hand of God has been over and
around us," and has given to us this goodly land, with its religious
institutions--its free government--its unwonted prosperity.
Let not the historian, who writes--especially if he writes for the
_young_--be thought to travel out of his appropriate sphere, in an
effort to imbue the rising generation with somewhat of the religious
spirit of the fathers--to lead them to recognise the Divine government,
in respect to nations as well as individuals--to impress upon them that
sentiment of the "Father of his country," as just as impressive, viz:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports."
"When the children of the Pilgrims forget that Being who was the
Pilgrims guide and deliverer"--should they ever be so faulty and
unfortunate--when the descendants of the Puritans cease to
acknowledge, and obey, and love that Being, for whose service the
Puritans forsook all that men chiefly love, enduring scorn and
reproach, exile and poverty, and finding at last a superabundant
reward; when the sons of a religious and holy ancestry fall away from
its high communion, and join themselves to the assemblies of the
profane, they have forfeited the dear blessings of their inheritance;
and they deserve to be cast out from this fair land, without even a
wilderness for their refuge. No! let us still keep the ark of God in
the midst of us; let us adopt the prayer of the wise monarch of
Israel: "The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers; let
him not leave us nor forsake us; that he may incline our hearts unto
him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments and his
statutes and his judgments, which he commanded our fathers."
Such
|
es and knees, which were bended; the word,
_Quousque auertes?_
[Sidenote: fo. 3^b.]
The scucheon, a grayhound coursing, with a word, _In libertate labor_;
and another grayhound tyed to a tree and chafinge that he cannot be
loosed to followe the game he sawe; the word, _In servitute dolor_.
A fayre sunne, the word, _Occidens occidens_.
A glorious lady in a cloud in the one syde, and a sunne in the other;
beneath a sacrifice of hands, hartes, armes, pennes, &c. the word,
_Soli, non soli_.
A kingfisher bird, sitting against the winde, the word, _Constans
contrariæ spernit_.
A palme tree laden with armor upon the bowes, the word, _Fero at
patior_.
An empty bagpipe, the word, _Si impleueris_.
An angle with the line and hooke, _Semper tibi pendent_.
A viall well strunge, the word, _Adhibe dextram_.
A sable field, the word, _Par nulla figura dolori_.
A partridge with a spaniell before hir, and a hauke over hir; the word,
_Quo me vertam_.
The man in the moone with thornes on his backe looking downwarde; the
word, _At infra se videt omnia_.
A large diamond well squared, the word, _Dum formas minuis_.
A pyramis standinge, with the mott _Ubi_ upon it, and the same fallen,
with the word _Ibi_ upon it.
A burning glas betwixt the sunne, and a lawne which it had sett on fire;
the word, _Nec tamen cales_.
A flame, the word, _Tremet et ardet_.
A torch light in the sunne, the word, _Quis furor_.
A stag having cast his head and standing amazedly, weeping over them;
the word over, _Inermis et deformis_; under, _Cur dolent habentes_.
A torche ready to be lighted, the word, _Spero lucem_.
A man attyred in greene, shoting at a byrd in the clowdes; the one
arrowe over, the other under; the 3. in his bowe drawne to the heade,
with this word upon it, _Spero vltimam_.
A foote treading on a worme, _Leviter ne peream_.
A dyall in the sunne, _In occasu desinit esse_.
A ballance in a hand, _Ponderare est errare_.
A fly in a hors eye, _Sic ultus peream_.
A scucheon argent, _Sic cum forma nulla placet_.
A ship sayling in the sea, _Portus in ignoto est_.
An eagle looking on the sunne, _Reliqua sordent_.
A branche sprung forth of an oake couped, the word, _Planta fuit
quercus_.
[Sidenote: fo. 5.]
MARCHE 28, 1602.[23]
[Footnote 23: This was Palm Sunday.]
At the Temple: sermon, the text, Mark, x. 20.
Notes: All the commandementes must be observed with like respect. It is
not sufficient to affect one and leave the rest vnrespect, for that were
to make an idoll of that precept. Obedience must be seasoned with love;
yf any other respect be predominat in our actions, as feare of
punishment, desyre of estimacion &c. they are out of temper.
Christ propoundes these commaundementes of the 2nd table, because, yf a
man cannot observe these, he shall never be able to keepe them of the
first, for yf a man love not his neighbor whom he hath seene, howe shall
he love God whom he hath not seene?
And he that is bound to observe the lesse must keepe the greater
commaundement.
The doctrine of justificacion consistes upon these pillars, 1. _Ex
merito, si non ex condigno at ex congruo._ 2. And this upon free-will,
for noe merrit with[24] a free agent. 3. And this upon a possibilitie of
keeping the commaundementes, for _liberum arbitrium_ is a power of
performing what wee would and should, and _libertas voluntatis_ and
_liberum arbitrium_ are severall.
[Footnote 24: _Sic_, but _qu._ "without."]
Noe man can performe anie any action soe well but he shall fayle either
in the goodnes of the motion efficient, the meanes, or end.
[Sidenote: fo. 5^b.]
Justificacion by workes is but old Pharisaisme and newe Papisme; the
Papists distinguishe and make _Justiciam legalem_ and _evangelicam_; the
1. in performance of outward required accions; the 2. in the intent
supplied [?]
All the sacrifices that God was most delighted with are for the most
part sayd to be young, a lambe, &c. and the exhortacion of him which was
more the agent and more learned than anie, for he was a King and the
wisest that ever was, is, Remember thy Creator in the dayes of thy
youth, &c.
There is a generall and a speciall love of Christ wherewith he embraceth
men; the 1. is here ment and mentioned, and with that he loves all which
doe but endeauour to be morally good; soe doubteles he loved Aristides
for his justice, which was a work of God in him, and so being a good,
God could not but love it, and him for it.
But the speciall is that whereby he makes us heires of eternall lyfe,
and adoptes vs for his children.
Beholding him, God regardes the least perfections or rather imperfect
affections in us; he will not breake a crazed reede.
[Sidenote: fo. 6.]
AT ST. CLEMENTES;[25] THE PRECHER.[26]
[Footnote 25: St. Clement Danes in the Strand.]
[Footnote 26: The rector at this time was Dr. John Layfield, of
Trin. Coll. Cambridge, one of the revisers of the translation of the
Bible temp. James I. and one of the first fellows of Chelsea
College. Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 572.]
Note: The breade in the sacrament becoming a nourishment is a medicine
to our whole bodye.
The manner of receyving Christes body in the sacrament; as to make a
question of it by way of doubting, is dangerous, soe to enquire of it to
knowe it is relligious.
Wee receive it[27] _non per consubstantialitatem sed per germanissimam
societatem_. (_Chrisostom._)
[Footnote 27: In the MS. this word stands "is."]
It must be received with five fingers, the first the hand, the 2. the
understanding, 3. fayth, 4. application, 5. affection and joy; and this
makes it a communion.
"Take and eate," the wordes of the serpent to Eua, the wordes of the
brasen serpent to vs; those were beleued and brought in perdicion, these
yf beleived are the meanes to saluation.
[Sidenote: fo. 6^b.]
_Out of a booke called_ THE PICTURE OF A PERFECT COMMONWEALTH.[28]
[Footnote 28: Written by Thomas Floyd; published Lond. 1600, 12mo.]
A wicked King is like a crazed ship, which drownes both it selfe and all
that are in it.
Pleasures are like sweet singing birds, which yf a man offer to take
they fly awaye.
DR. MOUNFORDES[29] SERMON. (_Ch. Dauers._)
[Footnote 29: Dr. Thomas Mountford was a prebendary of Westminster
from 1585 to 1681-2. (Hardy's Le Neve, iii. 350.)]
Of pleasure. _Momentaneum est quod delectat, æternum quod cruciat._
It is better to eate fishes with Christ, then a messe of pottage with
Esau.
_Nil turpius quam plus ingerrere quam possis digerere._
The glutton eates like a dogge, and lives like a hogg, having his soule
as salt onely to keepe his body from stinkinge.
He that filleth his body emptieth his soule.
_Id pro Deo colitur quod præ omnibus diligitur._
_Vtinam_, sayth Augustine, _tam finiatur quam definitur ebrietas_.
Bacchus painted yonge, because he makes men like children, vnable to goe
or speake, naked because discouers all.
It is noe better excuse for a drunkard to say that it was his owne that
he spent, then yf one should say he would cut his owne throate, for the
knife that should doe it is his owne.
Drunkennes is the divells birding synne; the drunkard like the stale
that allures other to be taken like it selfe.
Matt. 12.
Envie and mallice will barke though it be so musselled that it cannot
bite.
[Sidenote: fo. 7.]
It is almost divine perfection to resist carnall affection.
When wee censure other men wee should imitate that good imitator of
nature Apelles, whoe being to drawe a face of an great person[30] which
wanted an eye, drewe that syde only which was perfect.
[Footnote 30: Originally written "Emperour" and afterwards "great
person." When the word "Emperour" was altered, the writer omitted to
correct the preceding article.]
The malicious man is like the vultur, which passeth ouer manie sweete
gardens and never rests but vpon some carrion or garbage, soe he neuer
takes notice of anie thing but vices.
Libellers are the divels herauldes.
_Invidus alienum bonum suum facit peccando malum._
Envy, though in all other respectes it be a thing most execrable, yet in
this it is in some sort commendable, that it is a vexacion to it selfe.
It is like gunpowder, which consumes itselfe before it burnes the house.
Or the fly _pyrausta_, which would put out the candle, but burns
itselfe.
Honor is like a buble, which is raysed with one winde and broken with an
other.
MR. DOWNES.[31]
[Footnote 31: The celebrated Andrew Downes, appointed Regius
Professor of Greek at Cambridge in 1595. (Hardy's Le Neve, iii.
660.)]
The love of the world is the divels eldest sonne.
Honour, riches, and pleasure are the worldly mans trynitie, wherewith he
committs spirituall idolatry.
Thankefullnes is like the reflex of the sunne beame from a bright bodie.
After a full tyde of prosperitie cometh a lowe ebbe of adversitie. After
a day of pleasure a night of sorrowe.
[Sidenote: fo. 7^b.]
Honour is like a spiders webbe, long in doinge, but soone vndone, blowne
downe with every blast. It is like a craggy steepe rocke, which a man is
longe getting vpon, and being vp, yf his foote but slip, he breakes his
necke. Soe the Jewes dealt with Christ; one day they would have him a
king, an other day none; one day cryed Hosanna to him, an other nothing
but crucifie him.
The world is like an host; when a man hath spent all, body, goodes, and
soule with it, it will not vouchsafe to knowe him.
Laban chose rather to loose his daughters than his idols, and the riche
man had rather forsake his soule then his riches.
If a citizen of Rome made him selfe a citizen of anie other place, he
lost his priviledge at Rome; yf a man wilbe a citizen of this world, he
cannot be a citizen of heaven.
Ambitious men are like little children which take great paynes in
runninge vp and downe to catch butterflyes, which are nothing but
painted winges, and either perishe in takinge or fly away from them.
Covetous man like a child, which cryes more for the losse of a trifle
then his inheritance; he laments more for losse of wealth then soule.
A covetous man proud of his riches is like a theife that is proud of his
halter.
MR. PHILLIPS.
The proverbe is that building is a theife, because it makes us lay out
more money then wee thought on; but pride is a theife and a whore too,
for it robbes the maister of his wealth, and the mistress of her
honesty.
[Sidenote: fo. 8.]
The drunkard makes his belly noe better then a bucking tubb, a vessell
to poure into, and put out at.
_Bona opera habent mercedem, non ratione facti, sed ratione pacti._
_Non est refugium a Deo irato, nisi ad Deum placatum._
Synn is Adams legacy bequeathed to all his posteritie: nothing more
common then to committ synn, and being committed to conceale it.
A concealed synn is _tanquam serpens in sinu, gladius in corde, venenum
in stommacho_; it is like a soare of the body, the closer it is kept the
more it festers.
_Scelera quandoque possunt esse secreta, nunquam secura._
Confession must be _festina, vera, et amara_.
Confession of synne onely at the hour of death, is like a theifes
confession at the gallowes, or a traytors at the racke, when they cannot
choose.
_Sine confessione justus est ingratus, et peccator mortuus._
The mercy of God is never to be despayred of, but still to be expected
even _inter pontem et fontem, jugulum et gladium_.
Dissembled righteousnes is like smoake, which seemes to mount up to
heaven, but never comes neare it.
Prayse is a kinde of paynt which makes every thing seeme better then it
is. (_Cha. Dauers._)
To prayse an unworthy man is as bad as to paint the face of an old
woman. (_Idem._)
Sorrowe is the punishment and remedy for synn; _sic Deus quod poenam
dedit, medicinam fecit._ (_Augustine._)
[Sidenote: fo. 8^b.]
MR. MUNOES[32] OF PETERHOUSE IN CAMBRIDGE.
[Footnote 32: Monoux or Munoux?]
_Primum querite regnum Dei, et omnia adjicientur vobis._ Tullies
brother, in a sort reprehending or discouraging his suit for the
consulship, tells him that he must remember that he is _novus,
consulatum petit_, and _Romæ est_; the Devill, perhaps least any should
attempt to put this precept in practise, will terrifie us by shewinge vs
our weakenes, and that greatnes. _Terræ filius es; regnum quæris?
Coelum est, &c._
_Sit modus amoris sine modo._
_Beatus est, Domine, qui te amat propter te, amicum in te, et inimicum
propter te._
Quere 3. (1.) _Quere Deum et non aliud tanquam illum._ (2.) _non aliud
præter illum._ (3.) _non aliud post illum._
_Diuitiæ non sunt bonæ, quæ te faciant bonum, sed unde tu facias bonum._
Beda interpreted those letters, S. P. Q. R. written upon a gate in Rome,
_Stultus Populus Quoerit Romam_, intimating they were but fooles that
went thither for true relligion.
Yf Christ had thought well of wealth he would not have bin soe poore
himselfe. He was _pauper in ingressu_, borne in a manger; _in
progressu_, not a hole to hide his head in; _in egressu_, not a sheet of
his owne to shroude him in.
The covetous persons like the seven leane kine that eate up the seven
fatt, and yet remaine as ill favoured as before.
Yf thou carest not to liue in such a house as hell is, yett feare to
dwell with such a companion as the Divel is.
[Sidenote: fo. 9.]
SERCHEFEILD OF ST. JOHNS IN OXFORD.[33]
[Footnote 33: Dr. Rowland Searchfield, Bishop of Bristol from 1619
to 1622. (Wood's Athenæ, ii. 861.)]
_Cursus celerimus, sæpe pessimus._
_Sit opus in publico, intentio in occulto._
A dissembled Christian, like an intemperate patient, which can gladly
heare his physicion discourse of his dyet and remedy, but will not
endure to obserue them.
_Minus prospere, qui nimis propere._
MR. SCOTT, TRINIT. CANT'BR.
_Dum sumus in corpore peregrinamur a Domino._
_Non contemnenda sunt parva, sine quibus non consistunt magna._
The soules of the just men are like Noahs doue sent out of the arke;
could finde noe resting place upon the earth.
He that hath put on rich apparrail will be carefull he stayne it not; he
that hath put on Christ as a garment must take heede he soile not
himself with vices.
* * * * *
An high calling is noe priviledge for an impious action.
All our new corne comes out of old feilds, and all our newe learning is
gathered out of old bookes. (_Chaucer._)
Words spoken without consideracion are like a messenger without an
errand.
Our owne righteousnes at the best is but like a beggars cloke, the
substance old and rotten, and the best but patches.
[Sidenote: fo. 9^b.]
AT BRADBORNE WITH MY COSEN THIS CHRISMAS. 1601.
My cosen[34] told me that Mr. Richers would give his cosen Cartwright
8,000_l._ for his leas of the abbey of towne Mallinges, the Reversion
whereof the L. Cobham hath purchased of hir Majestie.
[Footnote 34: The cousin alluded to, and frequently vouched as an
authority by the Diarist, was Richard Manningham, esq. of Bradbourne
in East Malling, Kent. He survived his wife, who is mentioned in
this page, and died 25th April 1611, æt. 72.]
An old child sucks hard; _i.[e.]_ children when they growe to age proue
chargeable.
Peter Courthope said it would be more beneficiall yf our woll and cloth
were not to be transported but in colours; but my cosen[35] said we may
as well make it into clokes and garmentes, as dye it in colours before
we carry it ouer; for both variable, and as much change in colour as
fashion.
[Footnote 35: Cousin Richard Manningham had been a successful
merchant in London. Hence the importance evidently attached to his
remarks on Subjects connected with commerce and foreign countries.]
JANUARY.
To furnishe a shipp requireth much trouble,
But to furnishe a woman the charges are double.
(_My cosens wife said._)
The priviledge of enfranchising anie for London is graunted to every
alderman at his first creation for one: to every sherif for 2: to every
maior for 4. (_Cosen._)
And almost any man for some 40_l._ may buy his freedome, and these are
called free by redemption.
If a man prentice in London marry, he shall be forced to serve of his
time, and yet loose his freedome. But yf a woman prentice marry, shee
shall onely forfayte hir libertie, but shall not be forced to serve.
(_Cosen._)
To be warden of the Companie of Mercers is some 80_l._ charge; to be one
of the livery, a charge but a credit. A bachelor is charged at the
Maiors feast some 100 markes.
[Sidenote: fo. 10.
Jan. 1601.]
The Flushingers wanting money, since hir Majesties tyme, and while they
were our friends, seised certayne merchant ships [and] forced them to
give 40,000_l._ The merchants complayned but could not be releived.
Oftymes the Princes dutys are defrayed with the subjectes goods.
Sir Moyle Finche of Kent married Sir Frauncis Hastinges daughter and
heir,[36] worth to him 3,000_l._ per annum. All his livinge in
Lincolnshire and Kent, &c. worth 4,000_l._ per annum. (_Dene Chapman._)
[Footnote 36: This marriage is not mentioned by Dugdale (Bar. ii.
445) nor in Collins (iii. 382, ed. Brydges). Both of them mention
only one marriage of Sir Moyle, which was the source of all the
importance of his family, namely, with Elizabeth sole daughter and
heir of Sir Thomas Heneage. After Sir Moyle's death this lady was
created Countess of Winchelsea.]
8. Dyned at Mr. Gellibrands, a physician, at Maidstone.
11. Mr. Fr. Vane, a yong gent, of great hope and forwardnes, verry well
affected in the country already, in soe much that the last parliament
the country gave him the place of knight before S^r. H.(?) Nevell; his
possibilitie of living by his wife verry much, shee beinge daughter and
co-heire to S^r. Antony Mildmay; and thought hir mother will give hir
all hir inheritance alsoe; the father worth 3,000_l._ per annum, the
mother's 1,200_l._[37] (_Mr. Tutsham._)
[Footnote 37: These expectations of the growing importance of Mr.
Francis Vane were not altogether disappointed. At the coronation of
James I. he was made K.B. and on 19th December 1624 was created
Baron Burghersh and Earl of Westmoreland. He died in 1628. The Sir
Anthony Mildmay here alluded to was of the Mildmays of Apethorp, co.
Northampton.]
The Duke of Albues [Alva's] negligence in not fortifying Flushinge
before other places in the Netherlands was the cause he lost the
country, for, when he thought to have come and fortified, the towne
suddenly resisted his Spanish souldiers, and forced them to returne.
(_Cosen._)
18. I rode with my cosen's wife to Maidstone; dyned at Gellibrands.
[Sidenote: fo. 10^b.
Jan. 1601.]
As we were viewinge a scull in his studye, he shewed the seame in the
middle over the heade, and said that was the place which the midwife
useth shutt in women children before the wit can enter, and that is a
reason that women be such fooles ever after.
My cosen shee said that the Gellibrands two wives[38] lived like a
couple of whelpes togither, meaninge sporting, but I sayd like[39] a
payre of turtles, or a couple of connies[40], sweetely and lovingly.
[Footnote 38: It appears in an omitted passage that, besides the
physician Gellibrand, there was another of the same family, who is
mentioned as Th. Gellibrand.]
[Footnote 39: Live, MS.]
[Footnote 40: _i. e._ rabbits.]
* * * * *
Mr. Alane, a minister, was very sicke. Gellibrand gave him a glyster,
and lett him bloud the same day, for a feuer; his reason was, that not
to have lett him bloud had bin verry dangerous; but to lett bloud is
doubtfull, it may doe good as well as harme.
* * * * *
My cosen shee told me, that when shee was first married to hir husband
Marche, as shee rode behinde him, shee slipt downe, and he left hir
behinde, never lookt back to take hir up; soe shee went soe long a foote
that shee tooke it soe unkindly that shee thought neuer to have come
againe to him, but to haue sought a service in some vnknowne place; but
he tooke hir at last.
Wee were at Mrs. Cavils, when she practised some wit upon my cosen[41].
Cosen she called double anemonies double enimies. Mrs. Cavill desired
some rootes, and she referd hir to hir man Thomas Smith.
[Footnote 41: My cosen, shee, MS.]
[Sidenote: fo. 11.
Jan. 1601.]
My cose she Speaking lavishly in commendacions of one Lovell of
Cranebrooke (a good honest poore silly puritane,) "O," said shee, "he
goes to the ground when he talkes in Divinitie with a preacher." "True,"
said I, "verry likely a man shall goe to the ground when he will either
venture to take vpon him a matter that is to waightie for him, or meddle
with such as are more then his matche." "I put him downe yfaith," said
one, "when he had out talked a wiser then himselfe." "Just," said I, "as
a drumme putes downe sweete still musicke, not as better, but mor
soundinge."
22. AT LONDON.--_In a booke of Newes from Ostend._
Touchinge the parly which Sir Fr. Vere held with the Archduke there,
till he had reenforced himself, Sir Franc. said that the banes must be
thrice askt, and yf at the last tyme anie lawefull cause can be showen,
the marriage may be hindred. The Duke answered, he knewe that was true,
yet, he said, it was but a whore that offered hir selfe.
Divers merchants arrested by Leake for shipping ouer cloth aboue the
rate of their licence. (_Theroles_ [?] _nar._)
The Companie of Peweterers much greived at a licence graunted to one
Atmore to cast tynne, and therefore called him perjured knaue; whereupon
he complayned to the Counsell, and some of them were clapt vp for it. "I
will be even with him for it yfaith," said one that thought he had bin
disgraced by his credit; "Then you will pay him surely," quoth I.
[Sidenote: fo. 11^b.
Jan. 1601.]
Nature doth check the first offence with loathing,
But vse of synn doth make it seeme as nothing.
The spending of the afternoones on Sundayes either idly or about
temporall affayres, is like clipping the Q. coyne; this treason to the
Prince, that prophanacion, and robbing God of his owne,--(_Archdall._)
* * * * *
Hide to Tanfeild;[42] "It is but a matter of forme you stand so much
upon." "But it is such a forme," said Tanfeild, "as you may chaunce to
breake your shins at, unless you be the nimbler."
[Footnote 42: The "Hide" here mentioned was probably the future Sir
Lawrence, elder brother of Sir Nicholas the future Lord Chief
Justice, and uncle to Lord Chancellor Clarendon. (Foss's Judges, vi.
335.) Tanfield was the future Lord Chief Baron, whose only daughter
was mother to Lucius Lord Falkland. (Ibid. 365.)]
Certaine in the country this last Christmas chose a jury to finde the
churle of their parishe, and, when they came to give their verdick, they
named one whose frende, being present, began to be verry collerick with
the boys for abusing him. "Hold you content, gaffer," said one of them,
"if your boy had not bin one of the jury you had bin found to have bin
the churle." The game of vntimely reprehension and the verry course of
common Inquests, all led by some frend.
[Sidenote: fo. 12.
Jan. 26.]
The L. Paget upon a tyme thinkinge to have goded Sir Tho. White (an
alderman of London) in a great assembly, askt him, what he thought of
that clothe, shewing him a garment in present. "Truly, my Lord," said
he, "it seemes to be a verry good cloth, but I remember when I was a
yong beginner I sold your father a far better to make him a gowne, when
he was Sergeant to the L. Maior; truly he was a very honest
sergeant!"[43] None so ready to carpe at other mens mean beginnings as
such as were themselves noe better. (_Reeves._)
[Footnote 43: Dugdale remarks that the first Paget who "arrived to
the dignity of Peerage" was son to "---- Paget, one of the Serjeants
at Mace in the City of London." (Bar. ii. 390.) Sir Thomas White was
of course the founder of St. John's college, Oxford.]
Tarlton[44] called Burley house gate in the Strand towardes the Savoy,
the Lord Treasurers Almes gate, because it was seldom or never opened.
(_Ch. Dauers._)
[Footnote 44: Richard Tarlton, the celebrated low comedian and Joe
Miller of his day.]
Repentaunce is like a drawebridge, which is layd downe for all to passe
over in the day tyme, but drawne up at night: soe all our life wee have
tyme to repent, but at death it is to late. (_Ch. Dauers recit._)
It was ordered by our benchers, that wee should eate noe breade but of 2
dayes old. Mr. Curle said it was a binding lawe, for stale breade is a
great binder; but the order held not 3 dayes, and soe it bound not.
EPITAPHE OF JOHN FOOTE.
Reader look to' it! Here lyes John Foote,
He was a Minister, borne at Westminster.
ALIUD OF MR. CHILD.
If I be not beguild,
Here lies Mr. Child.
(_Ouerbury recit._)[45]
[Footnote 45: We have retained these trifling entries solely on
account of the name appended to them. The unfortunate Sir Thomas
Overbury, who was son of a gentleman of Gloucestershire, having
taken his B.A. degree at Queen's College, Oxford, removed in
1598 to the Middle Temple.]
I will be soe bolde as to give the Assise the lye:
(_Ch. Dauers in argument._)
"I came rawe into the world, but I would not goe out rosted," said one
that ment to be noe martyre. (_Curle nar._)
* * * * *
[Sidenote: fo. 12^b.
Jan. 1601.]
This last Christmas the Conny-catchers would call themselves
Country-gentlemen at dyce.
When a gentlewoman told Mr. Lancastre he had not bin soe good as his
word, because he promised shee should be gossip to his first child
(glaunceing at his bastard on his landres), "Tut," said he, "you shall
be mother to my next, if you will."
ANAGRAM.
Margaret Westfalinge.
My greatest welfaring.[46]
(_Streynsham nar._)
[Footnote 46: Herbert Westfaling, Bishop of Hereford (1585-1602)
had a daughter Margaret who may have been the lady here alluded
to, although at this time married to Dr. Richard Eedes, Dean of
Worcester. (Wood's Athenæ, i. 720, 750.) Like many of these
trifles, it will be observed that the anagrammatic reading is
incomplete.]
Davis.
Advis. Judas.
(_Martin._)
FEBR. 1601.
[Sidenote: Feb. 2.]
At our feast wee had a play called "Twelue Night, or What you Will,"
much like the Commedy of Errores, or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like
and neere to that in Italian called _Inganni_[47]. A good practise in it
to make the Steward beleeve his Lady widdowe was in love with him, by
counterfeyting a letter as from his Lady in generall termes, telling him
what shee liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his
apparaile, &c., and then when he came to practise making him beleeue
they tooke him to be mad.
[Footnote 47: It seems from remarks of Mr. Hunter, in his
Illustrations of Shakspeare, i. 391, that the Italian play here
alluded to was not one of those termed the _Inganni_, of which there
are several, but the _Ingannati_, which, like the Taming of the
Shrew, is a play preceded by a dramatic prologue or induction,
entitled _Comedia del Sacrificio di gli Intronati_. There is no
separate title-page to the _Ingannati_, but there are several
editions of the _Sacrificio di gli Intronati_, in which the
_Ingannati_ is introduced, printed at Venice in 1537, 1550, and
several subsequent years.]
[Sidenote: 12.]
_Quæ mala cum multis patimur læviora putantur._
[Sidenote: 11.]
Cosen Norton was arrested in London.
[Sidenote: fo. 13.
Febr. 1601.]
He put up a supplicacion to Sir Robt. Cecile presented by his wife,
whome he tooke notice of the next day, which remembring [was?] with out
being remembred what he had done in it. The effect
|
boulder to the cable. The first one
done, he felt emboldened, and made a second fast, and a third.
One of his men stood near the edge of the rock, listening in agonized
apprehension. Burl had soon tied a heavy stone to each of the cables he
saw, and as a matter of fact, there was but one of them he failed to
notice. That one had been covered by the flaking mold that took the
place of grass upon the rocky eminence.
There were left upon the promontory, several of the boulders for which
there was no use, but Burl did not attempt to double the weights on the
cables. He took his followers aside and explained his plan in whispers.
Quaking, they agreed, and, trembling, they prepared to carry it out.
One of them stationed himself beside each of the boulders, Burl at the
largest. He gave a signal, and half a dozen ripping, tearing sounds
broke the sullen silence of the day. The boulders clashed and clattered
down the rocky side of the precipice, tearing--perhaps "peeling"--the
cables from their adhesion to the stone. They shot into open space and
jerked violently at the half-globular nest, which was wrenched from its
place by the combined impetus of the six heavy weights.
Burl had flung himself upon his face to watch what he was sure would be
the death of the spider as it fell forty feet and more, imprisoned in
its heavily weighted home. His eyes sparkled with triumph as he saw the
ghastly, trophy-laden house swing out from the cliff. Then he gasped in
terror.
One of the cables had not been discovered. That single cable held the
spider's castle from a fall, though the nest had been torn from its
anchorage, and now dangled heavily on its side in mid air. A convulsive
struggle seemed to be going on within.
Then one of the archlike doors opened, and the spider emerged, evidently
in terror, and confused by the light of day, but still venomous and
still deadly. It found but a single of its anchoring cables intact, that
leading to the cliff top hard by Burl's head.
The spider sprang for this single cable, and its legs grasped the
slender thread eagerly while it began to climb rapidly up toward the
cliff top.
As with all the creatures of Burl's time, its first thought was of
battle, not flight, and it came up the thin cord with its poison fangs
unsheathed and its mandibles clashing in rage. The shaggy hair upon its
body seemed to bristle with insane ferocity, and the horrible, thin legs
moved with desperate haste as it hastened to meet and wreak vengeance
upon the cause of its sudden alarm.
Burl's followers fled, uttering shrieks of fear, and Burl started to his
feet, in the grip of a terrible panic. Then his hand struck one of the
heavy boulders. Exerting every ounce of his strength, he pushed it over
the cliff just where the cable appeared above the edge. For the fraction
of a second there was silence, and then the indescribable sound of an
impact against a soft body.
There was a gasping cry, and a moment later the curiously muffled
clatter of the boulder striking the earth below. Somehow, the sound
suggested that the boulder had struck first upon some soft object.
A faint cry came from the bottom of the hill. The last of Burl's men was
leaping to a hiding-place among the mushrooms of the forest, and had
seen the sheen of shining armor just before him. He cried out and waited
for death, but only a delicately formed wasp rose heavily into the air,
bearing beneath it the more and more feebly struggling body of a giant
cricket.
Burl had stood paralyzed, deprived of the power of movement, after
casting the boulder over the cliff. That one action had taken the last
ounce of his initiative, and if the spider had hauled itself over the
rocky edge and darted toward him, slavering its thick spittle and
uttering sounds of mad fury, Burl would not even have screamed as it
seized him. He was like a dead thing. But the oddly muffled sound of the
boulder striking the ground below brought back hope of life and power of
movement.
He peered over the cliff. The nest still dangled at the end of the
single cable, still freighted with its gruesome trophies, but on the
ground below a crushed and horribly writhing form was moving in
convulsions of rage and agony.
Long, hairy legs worked desperately from a body that was no more than a
mass of pulped flesh. A ferocious jaw tried to clamp upon something--and
there was no other jaw to meet it. An evil-smelling, sticky liquid
exuded from the mangled writhing, thing upon the earth, moving in
terrible contortions of torment.
Presently an ant drew near and extended inquisitive antennæ at the
helpless monster wounded to death. A shrill stridulation sounded out,
and three or four other foot-long ants hastened up to wait patiently
just outside the spider's reach until its struggles should have lessened
enough to make possible the salvage of flesh from the perhaps
still-living creature for the ant city a mile away.
And Burl, up on the cliff-top, danced and gesticulated in triumph. He
had killed the clotho spider, which had slain one of the tribesmen four
months before. Glory was his. All the tribesmen had seen the spider
living. Now he would show them the spider dead. He stopped his dance of
triumph and walked down the hill in haughty grandeur. He would reproach
his timid followers for fleeing from the spider, leaving him to kill it
alone.
Quite naïvely Burl assumed that it was his place to give orders and that
of the others to obey. True, no one had attempted to give orders before,
or to enforce their execution, but Burl had reached the eminently
wholesome conclusion that he was a wonderful person whose wishes should
be respected.
Burl, filled with fresh notions of his own importance, strutted on
toward the hiding-place of the tribe, growing more and more angry with
the other men for having deserted him. He would reproach them, would
probably beat them. They would be afraid to protest, and in the future
would undoubtedly be afraid to run away.
Burl was quite convinced that running away was something he could not
tolerate in his followers. Obscurely--and conveniently in the extreme
back of his mind--he reasoned that not only did a larger number of men
present at a scene of peril increase the chances of coping with the
danger, but they also increased the chances that the victim selected by
the dangerous creature would be another than himself.
Burl's reasoning was unsophisticated, but sound; perhaps unconscious,
but none the less effective. He grew quite furious with the deserters.
They had run away! They had fled from a mere spider.
A shrill whine filled the air, and a ten-inch ant dashed at Burl with
its mandibles extended threateningly. Burl's path had promised to
interrupt the salvaging work of the insect, engaged in scraping shreds
of flesh from the corselet of one of the smaller beetles slain the
previous night. The ant dashed at Burl like an infuriated fox-terrier,
and Burl scurried away in undignified retreat. The ant might not be
dangerous, but bites from its formic acid-poisoned mandibles were no
trifles.
Burl came to the tangled thicket of mushrooms in which his tribefolk
hid. The entrance was tortuous and difficult to penetrate, and could be
blocked on occasion with stones and toadstool pulp. Burl made his way
toward the central clearing, and heard as he went the sound of weeping,
and the excited chatter of the tribes people.
Those who had fled from the rocky cliff had returned with the news that
Burl was dead, and Saya lay weeping beneath an over-shadowing toadstool.
She was not yet the mate of Burl, but the time would come when all the
tribe would recognize a status dimly different from the usual tribal
relationship.
Burl stepped into the clearing, and straightway cuffed the first man he
came upon, then the next and the next. There was a cry of astonishment,
and the next second instinctive, fearful glances at that entrance to the
hiding-place.
Had Burl fled from the spider, and was it following? Burl spoke loftily,
saying that the spider was dead, that its legs, each one the length of a
man, were still, and its fierce jaws and deadly poison-fangs harmless
forevermore.
Ten minutes later he was leading an incredulous, awed little group of
pink-skinned people to the spot below the cliff where the spider
actually lay dead, with the ants busily at work upon its remains.
And when he went back to the hiding-place he donned again his great
cloak that was made from the wing of a magnificent moth, slain by the
flames of the purple hills, and sat down in splendor upon a crumbling
toadstool, to feast upon the glances of admiration and awe that were
sent toward him. Only Saya held back shyly, until he motioned for her to
draw near, when she seated herself at his feet and gazed up at him with
unutterable adoration in her eyes.
But while Burl basked in the radiance of his tribe's admiration, danger
was drawing near them all. For many months there had been strange red
mushrooms growing slowly here and there all over the earth, they knew.
The tribefolk had speculated about them, but forebore tasting them
because they were strange, and strange things were usually dangerous and
often fatal.
Now those red growths had ripened and grown ready to emit their spores.
Their rounded tops had grown fat, and the tough skin grew taut as if a
strange pressure were being applied from within. And to-day, while Burl
luxuriated in his position of feared and admired great man of his tribe,
at a spot a long distance away, upon a hill-top, one of the red
mushrooms burst. The spores inside the taut, tough skin shot all about
as if scattered by an explosion, and made a little cloud of reddish,
impalpable dust, which hung in the air and moved slowly with the
sluggish breeze.
A bee droned into the thin red cloud of dust, lazily and heavily flying
back toward the hive. But barely had she entered the tinted atmosphere
when her movements became awkward and convulsive, effortful and excited.
She trembled and twisted in mid air in a peculiar fashion, then dropped
to the earth, while her abdomen moved violently.
Bees, like almost all insects, breathe through spiracles on the
undersurfaces of their abdomens. This bee had breathed in some of the
red mushroom's spores. She thrashed about desperately upon the
toadstools on which she had fallen, struggling for breath, for life.
After a long time she was still. The cloud of red mushroom spores had
strangled or poisoned her. And everywhere the red fringe grew, such
explosions were taking place, one by one, and wherever the red clouds
hung in the air creatures were breathing them in and dying in
convulsions of strangulation.
CHAPTER II
The Journey
Darkness. The soft, blanketing night of the age of fungoids had fallen
over all the earth, and there was blackness everywhere that was not good
to have. Here and there, however, dim, bluish lights glowed near the
ground. There an intermittent glow showed that a firefly had wandered
far from the rivers and swamps above which most of his kind now
congregated. Now a faintly luminous ball of fire drifted above the
steaming, moisture-sodden earth. It was a will-o'-the-wisp, grown to a
yard in diameter.
From the low-hanging banks of clouds that hung perpetually overhead,
large, warm raindrops fell ceaselessly. A drop, a pause, and then
another drop, added to the already dank moisture of the ground below.
The world of fungus growths flourished on just such dampness and
humidity. It seemed as if the toadstools and mushrooms could be heard,
swelling and growing large in the darkness. Rustlings and stealthy
movements sounded furtively through the night, and from above the heavy
throb of mighty wing-beats was continuous.
The tribe was hidden in the midst of a tangled copse of toadstools too
thickly interwoven for the larger insects to penetrate. Only the little
midgets hid in its recesses during the night-time, and the smaller moths
during the day.
About and among the bases of the toadstools, however, where their spongy
stalks rose from the humid earth, small beetles roamed, singing
cheerfully to themselves in deep bass notes. They were small and round,
some six or eight inches long, and their bellies were pale gray.
And as they went about they emitted sounds which would have been chirps
had they been other than low as the lowest tone of a harp. They were
truffle-beetles, in search of the dainty tidbits on which epicures once
had feasted.
Some strange sense seemed to tell them when one of half a dozen
varieties of truffle was beneath them, and they paused in their
wandering to dig a tunnel straight down. A foot, two feet, or two yards,
all was the same to them. In time they would come upon the morsel they
sought and would remain at the bottom of their temporary home until it
was consumed. Then another period of wandering, singing their cheerful
song, until another likely spot was reached and another tunnel begun.
In a tiny, open space in the center of the toadstool thicket the
tribefolk slept with the deep notes of the truffle-beetles in their
ears. A new danger had come to them, but they had passed it on to Burl
with a new and childlike confidence and considered the matter settled.
They slept, while beneath a glowing mushroom at one side of the clearing
Burl struggled with his new problem. He squatted upon the ground in the
dim radiance of the shining toadstool, his moth-wing cloak wrapped about
him, his spear in his hand, and his twin golden plumes of the moth's
antennæ bound to his forehead. But his face was downcast as a child's.
The red mushrooms had begun to burst. Only that day, one of the women,
seeking edible fungus for the tribal larder, had seen the fat, distended
globule of the red mushroom. Its skin was stretched taut, and glistened
in the light.
The woman paid little or no attention to the red growth. Her ears were
attuned to catch sounds that would warn her of danger while her eyes
searched for tidbits that would make a meal for the tribe, and more
particularly for her small son, left behind at the hiding-place.
A ripping noise made her start up, alert on the instant. The red
envelope of the mushroom had split across the top, and a thick cloud of
brownish-red dust was spurting in every direction. It formed a pyramidal
cloud some thirty feet in height, which enlarged and grew thinner with
minor eddies within itself.
A little yellow butterfly with wings barely a yard from tip to tip,
flapped lazily above the mushroom-covered plain. Its wings beat the air
with strokes that seemed like playful taps upon a friendly element. The
butterfly was literally intoxicated with the sheer joy of living. It had
emerged from its cocoon barely two hours before, and was making its
maiden flight above the strange and wonderful world. It fluttered
carelessly into the red-brown cloud of mushroom spores.
The woman was watching the slowly changing form of the spore-mist. She
saw the butterfly enter the brownish dust, and then her eyes became
greedy. There was something the matter with the butterfly. Its wings no
longer moved lazily and gently. They struck out in frenzied, hysterical
blows that were erratic and wild. The little yellow creature no longer
floated lightly and easily, but dashed here and there, wildly and
without purpose, seeming to be in its death-throes.
It crashed helplessly against the ground and lay there, moving feebly.
The woman hurried forward. The wings would be new fabric with which to
adorn herself, and the fragile legs of the butterfly contained choice
meat. She entered the dust-cloud.
A stream of intolerable fire--though the woman had never seen or known
of fire--burned her nostrils and seared her lungs. She gasped in pain,
and the agony was redoubled. Her eyes smarted as if burning from their
sockets, and tears blinded her.
The woman instinctively turned about to flee, but before she had gone a
dozen yards--blinded as she was--she stumbled and fell to the ground.
She lay there, gasping, and uttering moans of pain, until one of the men
of the tribe who had been engaged in foraging near by saw her and tried
to find what had injured her.
She could not speak, and he was about to leave her and tell the other
tribefolk about her when he heard the clicking of an ant's limbs, and
rather than have the ant pick her to pieces bit by bit--and leave his
curiosity ungratified--the man put her across his shoulders and bore her
back to the hiding-place of the tribe.
It was the tale the woman had told when she partly recovered that caused
Burl to sit alone all that night beneath the shining toadstool in the
little clearing, puzzling his just-awakened brain to know what to do.
The year before there had been no red mushrooms. They had appeared only
recently, but Burl dimly remembered that one day, a long time before,
there had been a strange breeze which blew for three day and nights, and
that during the time of its blowing all the tribe had been sick and had
wept continually.
Burl had not yet reached the point of mental development when he would
associate that breeze with a storm at a distance, or reason that the
spores of the red mushrooms had been borne upon the wind to the present
resting-places of the deadly fungus growths. Still less could he decide
that the breeze had not been deadly only because it was lightly laden
with the fatal dust.
He knew simply that unknown red mushrooms had appeared, that they were
everywhere about, and that they would burst, and that to breathe the
red dust they gave out was grievous sickness or death.
The tribe slept while the bravely attired figure of Burl squatted under
the glowing disk of the luminous mushroom, his face a picture of
querulous perplexity, and his heart full of sadness.
He had consulted his strange inner self, and no plan had come to him. He
knew the red mushrooms were all about. They would fill the air with
their poison. He struggled with his problem while his people slumbered,
and the woman who had breathed the mushroom-dust sobbed softly in her
troubled sleep.
Presently a figure stirred on the farther side of the clearing. Saya
woke and raised her head. She saw Burl crouching by the shining
toadstool, his gay attire draggled and unnoticed. She watched him for a
little, and the desolation of his pose awoke her pity.
She rose and went to his side, taking his hand between her two, while
she spoke his name softly. When he turned and looked at her, confusion
smote her, but the misery in his face brought confidence again.
Burl's sorrow was inarticulate--he could not explain this new
responsibility for his people that had come to him--but he was comforted
by her presence, and she sat down beside him. After a long time she
slept, with her head resting against his side, but he continued to
question himself, continued to demand an escape for his people from the
suffering and danger he saw ahead. With the day an answer came.
When Burl had been carried down the river on his fungus raft, and had
landed in the country of the army ants, he had seen great forests of
edible mushrooms, and had said to himself that he would bring Saya to
that place. He remembered, now, that the red mushrooms were there also,
but the idea of a journey remained.
The hunting-ground of his tribe had been free of the red fungoids until
recently. If he traveled far enough he would come to a place where there
were still no red toadstools. Then came the decision. He would lead his
tribe to a far country.
He spoke with stern authority when the tribesmen woke, talking in few
words and in a loud voice, holding up his spear as he gave his orders.
The timid, pink-skinned people obeyed him meekly. They had seen the body
of the clotho spider he had slain, and he had thrown down before them
the gray bulk of the labyrinth spider he had thrust through with his
spear. Now he was to take them through unknown dangers to an unknown
haven, but they feared to displease him.
They made light loads of their mushrooms and such meat-stuffs as they
had, and parceled out what little fabric they still possessed. Three men
bore spears, in addition to Burl's long shaft, and he had persuaded the
other three to carry clubs, showing them how the weapon should be
wielded.
The indefinitely brighter spot in the cloud-banks above that meant the
shining sun had barely gone a quarter of the way across the sky when the
trembling band of timid creatures made their way from their hiding-place
and set out upon their journey. For their course, Burl depended entirely
upon chance. He avoided the direction of the river, however, and the
path along which he had returned to his people. He knew the red
mushrooms grew there. Purely by accident he set his march toward the
west, and walked cautiously on, his tribesfolk following him fearfully.
Burl walked ahead, his spear held ready. He made a figure at once brave
and pathetic, venturing forth in a world of monstrous ferocity and
incredible malignance, armed only with a horny spear borrowed from a
dead insect. His velvety cloak, made from a moth's wing, hung about his
figure in graceful folds, however, and twin golden plumes nodded
jauntily from his forehead.
Behind him the nearly naked people followed reluctantly. Here a woman
with a baby in her arms, there children of nine or ten, unable to resist
the Instinct to play even in the presence of the manifold dangers of the
march. They ate hungrily of the lumps of mushroom they had been ordered
to carry. Then a long-legged boy, his eyes roving anxiously about in
search of danger followed.
Thirty thousand years of flight from every peril had deeply submerged
the combative nature of humanity. After the boy came two men, one with a
short spear, and the other with a club, each with a huge mass of edible
mushroom under his free arm, and both badly frightened at the idea of
fleeing from dangers they knew and feared to dangers they did not know
and consequently feared much more.
So was the caravan spread out. It made its way across the country with
many deviations from a fixed line, and with many halts and pauses. Once
a shrill stridulation filled all the air before them, a monster sound
compounded of innumerable clickings and high-pitched cries.
They came to the tip of an eminence and saw a great space of ground
covered with tiny black bodies locked in combat. For quite half a mile
in either direction the earth was black with ants, snapping and biting
at each other, locked in vise-like embraces, each combatant couple
trampled under the feet of the contending armies, with no thought of
surrender or quarter.
The sound of the clashing of fierce jaws upon horny armor, the cries of
the maimed, and strange sounds made by the dying, and above all, the
whining battle-cry of each of the fighting hordes, made a sustained
uproar that was almost deafening.
From either side of the battle-ground a pathway led back to separate
ant-cities, a pathway marked by the hurrying groups of reinforcements
rushing to the fight. Tiny as the ants were, for once no lumbering
beetle swaggered insolently in their path, nor did the hunting-spiders
mark them out for prey. Only little creatures smaller than the
combatants themselves made use of the insect war for purposes of their
own.
These were little gray ants barely more than four inches long, who
scurried about in and among the fighting creatures with marvelous
dexterity, carrying off, piece-meal, the bodies of the dead, and slaying
the wounded for the same fate.
They hung about the edges of the battle, and invaded the abandoned areas
when the tide of battle shifted, insect guerrillas, fighting for their
own hands, careless of the origin of the quarrel, espousing no cause,
simply salvaging the dead and living débris of the combat.
Burl and his little group of followers had to make a wide detour to
avoid the battle itself, and the passage between bodies of
reinforcements hurrying to the scene of strife was a matter of some
difficulty. The ants running rapidly toward the battle-field were hugely
excited. Their antennæ waved wildly, and the infrequent wounded one,
limping back toward the city, was instantly and repeatedly challenged by
the advancing insects.
They crossed their antennæ upon his, and required thorough evidence that
he was of the proper city before allowing him to proceed. Once they
arrived at the battle-field they flung themselves into the fray,
becoming lost and indistinguishable in the tide of straining, fighting
black bodies.
Men in such a battle, without distinguishing marks or battle-cries,
would have fought among themselves as often as against their foes, but
the ants had a much simpler method of identification. Each ant-city
possesses its individual odor--a variant on the scent of formic
acid--and each individual of that city is recognized in his world quite
simply and surely by the way he smells.
The little tribe of human beings passed precariously behind a group of a
hundred excited insect warriors, and before the following group of forty
equally excited black insects. Burl hurried on with his following,
putting many miles of perilous territory behind before nightfall. Many
times during the day they saw the sudden billowing of a red-brown
dust-cloud from the earth, and more than once they came upon the empty
skin and drooping stalk of one of the red mushrooms, and more often
still they came upon the mushrooms themselves, grown fat and taut,
prepared to send their deadly spores into the air when the pressure from
within became more than the leathery skin could stand.
That night the tribe hid among the bases of giant puff-balls, which at a
touch shot out a puff of white powder resembling smoke. The powder was
precisely the same in nature as that cast out by the red mushrooms, but
its effects were marvelously--and mercifully--different; it was
innocuous.
Burl slept soundly this night, having been two days and a night without
rest, but the remainder of his tribe, and even Saya, were fearful and
afraid, listening ceaselessly all through the dark hours for the
menacing sounds of creatures coming to prey upon them.
And so for a week the march kept on. Burl would not allow his tribe to
stop to forage for food. The red mushrooms were all about. Once one of
the little children was caught in a whirling eddy of red dust, and its
mother rushed into the deadly stuff to seize it and bring it out. Then
the tribe had to hide for three days while the two of them recovered
from the debilitating poison.
Once, too, they found a half-acre patch of the giant cabbages--there
were six of them full grown, and a dozen or more smaller ones--and Burl
took two men and speared two of the huge, twelve-foot slugs that fed
upon the leaves. When the tribe passed on it was gorged on the fat meat
of the slugs, and there was much soft fur, so that all the tribefolk
wore loin-cloths of the yellow stuff.
There were perils, too, in the journey. On the fourth day of the tribe's
traveling, Burl froze suddenly into stillness. One of the hairy
tarantulas--a trap-door spider with a black belly--had fallen upon a
scarabæus beetle, and was devouring it only a hundred yards ahead.
The tribefolk, trembling, went back for half a mile or more in
panic-stricken silence, and refused to advance until he had led them a
detour of two or three miles to one side of the dangerous spot.
Long, fear-ridden marches through perilous countries unknown to them,
through the golden aisles of yellow mushroom forests, over the flaking
surfaces of plains covered with many-colored "rusts" and molds; pauses
beside turbid pools whose waters were concealed by thick layers of green
slime, and other evil-smelling ponds which foamed and bubbled slowly,
which were covered with pasty yeasts that rose in strange forms of
discolored foam.
Fleeting glimpses they had of the glistening spokes of symmetrical
spiders'-webs, whose least thread it would have been beyond the power of
the strongest of the tribe to break. They passed through a forest of
puff-balls, which boomed when touched and shot a puff of vapor from
their open mouths.
Once they saw a long and sinuous insect that fled before them and
disappeared into a burrow in the ground, running with incredible speed
upon legs of uncountable number. It was a centipede all of thirty feet
in length, and when they crossed the path it had followed a horrible
stench came to their nostrils so that they hurried on.
Long escape from unguessed dangers brought boldness, of a sort, to the
pink-skinned men, and they would have rested. They went to Burl with
their complaint, and he simply pointed with his hands behind them. There
were three little clouds of brownish vapor in the air, where they could
see, along the road they had traversed. To the right of them a
dust-cloud was just settling, and to the left another rose as they
looked.
A new trick of the deadly dust became apparent now. Toward the end of a
day in which they had traveled a long distance, one of the little
children ran a little to the left of the route its elders were
following. The earth had taken on a brownish hue, and the child stirred
up the surface mould with its feet.
The brownish dust that had settled there was raised again, and the child
ran, crying and choking, to its mother, its lungs burning as with fire,
and its eyes like hot coals. Another day would pass before the child
could walk.
In a strange country, knowing nothing of the dangers that might assail
the tribe while waiting for the child to recover, Burl looked about for
a hiding-place. Far over to the right a low cliff, perhaps twenty or
thirty feet high, showed sides of crumbling, yellow clay, and from where
Burl stood he could see the dark openings of burrows scattered here and
there upon its face.
He watched for a time, to see if any bee or wasp inhabited them, knowing
that many kinds of both insects dig burrows for their young, and do not
occupy them themselves. No dark forms appeared, however, and he led his
people toward the openings.
The appearance of the holes confirmed his surmise. They had been dug
months before by mining bees, and the entrances were "weathered" and
worn. The tribefolk made their way into the three-foot tunnels, and hid
themselves, seizing the opportunity to gorge themselves upon the food
they carried.
Burl stationed himself near the outer end of one of the little caves to
watch for signs of danger. While waiting he poked curiously with his
spear at a little pile of white and sticky parchment-like stuff he saw
just within the mouth of the tunnel.
Instantly movement became visible. Fifty, sixty, or a hundred tiny
creatures, no more than half an inch in length, tumbled pell-mell from
the dirty-white heap. Awkward legs, tiny, greenish-black bodies, and
bristles protruding in every direction made them strange to look upon.
They had tumbled from the whitish heap and now they made haste to hide
themselves in it again, moving slowly and clumsily, with immense effort
and laborious contortions of their bodies.
Burl had never seen any insect progress in such a slow and ineffective
fashion before. He drew one little insect back with the point of his
spear and examined it from a safe distance. Tiny jaws before the head
met like twin sickles, and the whole body was shaped like a rounded
diamond lozenge.
Burl knew that no insect of such small size could be dangerous, and
leaned over, then took one creature in his hand. It wriggled frantically
and slipped from his fingers, dropping upon the soft yellow
caterpillar-fur he had about his middle. Instantly, as if it were a
conjuring trick, the little insect vanished, and Burl searched for a
matter of minutes before he found it hidden deep in the long, soft hairs
of the fur, resting motionless, and evidently at ease.
It was a bee-louse, the first larval form of a beetle whose horny armor
could be seen in fragments for yards before the clayey cliff-side.
Hidden in the openings of the bee's tunnel, it waited until the
bee-grubs farther back in their separate cells should complete their
changes of form and emerge into the open air, passing over the cluster
of tiny creatures at the doorway. As the bees pass, the little bee-lice
would clamber in eager haste up their hairy legs and come to rest in the
fur about their thoraxes. Then, weeks later, when the bees in turn made
other cells and stocked them with honey for the eggs they would lay, the
tiny creatures would slip from their resting-places and be left behind
in the fully provisioned cell, to eat not only the honey the bee had so
laboriously acquired, but the very grub hatched from the bee's egg.
Burl had no difficulty in detaching the small insect and casting it
away, but in doing so discovered three more that had hidden themselves
in his furry garment, no doubt thinking it the coat of their natural,
though unwilling hosts. He plucked them away, and discovered more, and
more. His garment was the hiding-place for dozens of the creatures.
Disgusted and annoyed, he went out of the cavern and to a spot some
distance away, where he took off his robe and pounded it with the flat
side of his spear to dislodge the visitors. They dropped out one by
one, reluctantly, and finally the garment was clean of them. Then Burl
heard a shout from the direction of the mining-bee caves, and hastened
toward the sound.
It was then drawing toward the time of darkness, but one of the
tribesmen had ventured out and found no less than three of the great
imperial mushrooms. Of the three, one had been attacked by a parasitic
purple mould, but the gorgeous yellow of the other two was undimmed, and
the people were soon feasting upon the firm flesh.
Burl felt a little pang of jealousy, though he joined in the consumption
of the find as readily as the others, and presently drew a little to one
side.
He cast his eyes across the country, level and unbroken as far as the
eye could see. The small clay cliff was the only inequality visible, and
its height cut off all vision on one side. But the view toward the
horizon was unobstructed on three sides, and here and there the black
speck of a monster bee could be seen, droning homeward to its hive or
burrow, and sometimes the slender form of a wasp passed overhead, its
transparent wings invisible from the rapidity of their vibrations.
These flew high in the air, but lower down, barely skimming the tops of
the many-colored mushrooms and toadstools, fluttering lightly above the
swollen fungoids, and touching their dainty proboscides to unspeakable
things in default of the fragrant flowers that were normal food for
their races--lower down flew the multitudes of butterflies the age of
mushrooms had produced.
White and yellow and red and brown, pink and blue and purple and green,
every shade and every color, every size and almost every shape, they
flitted gaily in the air. There were some so tiny that they would barely
have shaded Burl's face, and some beneath whose slender bodies he could
have hidden himself. They flew in a riot of colors and tints above a
world of foul mushroom growths, and turg
|
first move is characteristic. At dawn of day of the 2d, he marches us
four miles down stream to better grass and a point nearer the big trail;
sends Montgomery with his grays to scout over towards the Black Hills,
and Hayes and Bishop with Company "G" to lie along the trail itself--but
no Indian is sighted.
The sun is just rising on the morning of the 3d of July when my captain,
Mason, and I roll out of our blankets and set about the very simple
operations of a soldier's campaign toilet. The men are grooming their
horses; the tap of the curry-comb and the impatient pawing of hoofs is
music in the clear, crisp, bracing air. Our cook is just announcing
breakfast, and I am eagerly sniffing the aroma of coffee, when General
Merritt's orderly comes running through the trees. "Colonel Mason, the
general directs Company 'K' to get out as quickly as possible--Indians
coming up the valley!" "Saddle up, men! lively now!" is the order. We
jump into boots and spurs, whip the saddles from saplings and stumps,
rattle the bits between the teeth of our excited horses, sling carbines
over shoulder, poke fresh cartridges into revolver chambers, look well
to the broad horsehair "cinches," or girths. The men lead into line,
count fours, mount, and then, without a moment's pause, "Fours right,
trot," is the order, and Mason and I lead off at a spanking gait,
winding through the timber and suddenly shooting out upon the broad,
sandy surface of the dry stream-bed. There the first man we see is
Buffalo Bill, who swings his hat. "This way, colonel, this way," and
away we go on his tracks. "K" is a veteran company. Its soldiers are,
with few exceptions, on their second and third enlistments. Its captain
ranks all the line officers of the regiment, and admirably commanded it
during the war while the field officers were doing duty as generals of
volunteers. There is hardly a trace of nervousness even among the newest
comers, but this is the first chase of the campaign for us, and all are
eager and excited. Horses in rear struggle to rush to the front, and as
we sputter out of the sand and strike the grassy slopes beyond the
timber belt all break into a lope. Two or three scouts on a ridge five
hundred yards ahead are frantically signalling to us, and, bending to
the left again, we sweep around towards them, now at a gallop. Mason
sternly cautions some of the eager men who are pressing close behind us,
and, looking back, I see Sergeant Stauffer's bronzed face lighting up
with a grin I used to mark in the old Apache campaigns in Arizona, and
the veteran "Kelly" riding, as usual, all over his horse, but
desperately bent on being ahead when we reach the scene. Left hands
firmly grasp the already foaming reins, while throughout the column
carbines are "advanced" in the other.
"Here comes Company 'I,' fellers," is the muttered announcement from the
left and rear, and, glancing over my left shoulder, I see Kellogg with
his bays and Lieutenant Reilly swinging out along the slope to our left.
As we near the ridge and prepare to deploy, excitement is subdued but
intense--Buffalo Bill plunging along beside us on a strawberry roan,
sixteen hands high, gets a trifle of a lead, but we go tearing up the
crest in a compact body, reach it, rein up, amazed and disgusted--not an
Indian to be seen for two miles across the intervening "swale." Away to
the left, towards the Cheyenne, scouts are again excitedly beckoning,
and we move rapidly towards them, but slower now, for Mason will not
abuse his horses for a wild-goose chase. Ten minutes bring us thither.
Kellogg has joined forces with us, and the two companies are trotting in
parallel columns. Still no Indian; but the scouts are ahead down the
valley, and we follow for a brisk half-hour, and find ourselves plunging
through the timber ten miles east of camp. Another hour and we are
dashing along a high ridge parallel with the Black Hills, and there,
sure enough, are Indians, miles ahead, and streaking it for the Powder
River country as fast as their ponies can carry them. We have galloped
thirty miles in a big circle before catching sight of our chase, and our
horses are panting and wearied. Every now and then we pass pack-saddles
with fresh agency provisions, which they had dropped in their haste.
Once our scouts get near enough to exchange a shot or two, but at last
they fairly beat us out of sight, and we head for home, reach camp,
disgusted and empty-handed, about four p.m. Two "heavy weights" (Colonel
Leib's and Lieutenant Reilly's) horses drop dead under them, and the
first pursuit of the Fifth is over.
CHAPTER III.
THE FIGHT ON THE WAR BONNET.
The chase of July 3d, besides killing two and using up a dozen horses,
rendered our further presence in the valley of the Cheyenne clearly
useless. No more Indians would be apt to come that way when they had the
undisturbed choice of several others. General Merritt was prompt to
accept the situation, and as prompt to act. Early the next morning, "K"
and "I," the two companies engaged in the dash of the day before, took
the direct back track up the valley of Old Woman's Fork, guarding the
chief and the wagons. General Carr, with companies "B," "G," and "M,"
marched eastward towards the Black Hills, while Major Upham, with "A,"
"C," and "D," struck out northwestward up the valley of the Mini Pusa.
Both commands were ordered to make a wide _détour_, scout the country
for forty-eight hours, and rejoin headquarters at the head of what was
then called Sage Creek. We of the centre column spent the glorious
Fourth in a dusty march, and followed it up on the 5th with another.
On the 6th, a courier was sent in to Fort Laramie, seventy miles away,
while the regiment camped along the stream to wait for orders. Towards
ten o'clock on the following morning, while the camp was principally
occupied in fighting flies, a party of the junior officers were
returning from a refreshing bath in a deep pool of the stream, when
Buffalo Bill came hurriedly towards them from the general's tent. His
handsome face wore a look of deep trouble, and he brought us to a halt
in stunned, awe-stricken silence with the announcement, "Custer and five
companies of the Seventh wiped out of existence. It's no rumor--General
Merritt's got the official despatch."
_Now_ we knew that before another fortnight the Fifth would be sent to
reinforce General Crook on the Big Horn. Any doubts as to whether a big
campaign was imminent were dispelled. Few words were spoken--the camp
was stilled in soldierly mourning. That night Lieutenant Hall rode in
with later news and letters. He had made the perilous trip from Laramie
alone, but confirmed the general impression that we would be speedily
ordered in to the line of the North Platte, to march by way of Fetterman
to Crook's support. On Wednesday, the 12th, our move began, no orders
having been received until the night before. Just what we were to do,
probably no one knew but Merritt; he didn't tell, and I never asked
questions. Evening found us camping near the Cardinal's Chair at the
head of the Niobrara, in a furious storm of thunder, lightning, and
rain, which lasted all night, and, wet to the skin, we were glad enough
to march off at daybreak on the 13th, and still more glad to camp again
that evening under the lee of friendly old Rawhide Peak.
We were now just one long day's march from Fort Laramie, and confidently
expected to make it on the following day. At reveille on the 14th,
however, a rumor ran through the camp that Merritt had received
despatches during the night indicating that there was a grand outbreak
among the Indians at the reservation. Of course we knew that they would
be vastly excited and encouraged by the intelligence of the Custer
massacre. Furthermore, it was well known that there were nearly a
thousand of the Cheyennes, the finest warriors and horsemen of the
plains, who as yet remained peaceably at the Red Cloud or Spotted Tail
Reservations along the White River, but they were eager for a pretext on
which to "jump," and now they might be expected to leave in a body at
any moment and take to the war-path. Our withdrawal from the Cheyenne
River left the favorite route again open, and the road to the Black
Hills was again traversed by trains of wagons and large parties of
whites on their way to the mines, a sight too tempting for their
covetous eyes. Major Jordan, commanding the post of Camp Robinson, had
hurriedly described the situation in a despatch to Merritt, and when
"Boots and saddles" sounded, and we rode into line, we saw the
quartermaster guiding his wagons back over the ridge we had crossed the
day before, and in a few minutes were following in their tracks. Away to
the east we marched that morning, and at noon were halted where the road
connecting Fort Laramie with the reservation crossed the Rawhide Creek.
Here Captain Adam with Company "C" left us and pushed forward to the
Niobrara Crossing, twenty-five miles nearer the Indian villages, while
the indefatigable Major Stanton, "our polemical paymaster," was hurried
off to Red Cloud, to look into the situation. The rest of us waited
further developments.
On Saturday, the 15th of July, just at noon, General Merritt received
the despatch from the Red Cloud Agency which decided the subsequent
movement of his command. It led to his first "lightning march" with his
new regiment; it impelled him to a move at once bold and brilliant. It
brought about an utter rout and discomfiture among the would-be allies
of Sitting Bull, and, while it won him the commendation of the
lieutenant-general, it delayed us a week in finally reaching Crook, and
there was some implied criticism in remarks afterwards made.
In a mere narrative article there is little scope for argument.
Merritt's information was from Major Stanton, substantially to the
effect that eight hundred Cheyenne warriors would leave the reservation
on Sunday morning, fully equipped for the war-path, and with the avowed
intention of joining the hostiles in the Big Horn country. To continue
on his march to Laramie, and let them go, would have been gross, if not
criminal, neglect. To follow by the direct road to the reservation,
sixty-five miles away, would have been simply to drive them out and
hasten their move. Manifestly there was but one thing to be done: to
throw himself across their path and capture or drive them back, and to
do this he must, relatively speaking, march over three sides of a
square while they were traversing the fourth, _and must do it
undiscovered_.
If Merritt hesitated ten minutes, his most intimate associates, his
staff, did not know it. Leaving a small guard with the wagon train, and
ordering Lieutenant Hall to catch up with us at night, the general and
seven companies swing into saddle, and at one o'clock are marching up
the Rawhide, _away_ from the reservation, and with no apparent purpose
of interfering in any project, howsoever diabolical, that aboriginal
fancy can suggest. We halt a brief half-hour under the Peak, fourteen
miles away, water our thirsty horses in the clear, running stream, then
remount, and, following our chief, lead away northwestward. By five p.m.
we are heading square to the north; at sunset we are descending into the
wide valley of the Niobrara, and just at ten p.m. we halt and unsaddle
under the tall buttes of the Running Water, close by our old camp at
Cardinal's Chair. Only thirty-five miles by the way we came, but horses
must eat to live, and we have nothing but the buffalo grass to offer
them. We post strong guards and pickets to prevent surprise, and scatter
our horses well out over the hillsides to pick up all they can. Captain
Hayes and I are detailed as officers of the guard and pickets for the
night, and take ourselves off accordingly. At midnight, Lieutenant Hall
arrives with his long wagon train. At three a.m., in the starlight,
Merritt arouses his men; coffee and bacon are hurriedly served; the
horses get a good breakfast of oats from the wagons, and at five a.m.
we are climbing out of the valley to the north. And now, _Messieurs les
Cheyennes_, we'll see who first will bivouac to-night upon the War
Bonnet. You are but twenty-eight miles from it; we are fifty to the
point where your great trail crosses the little stream. The Sioux, in
their picturesque nomenclature, called it after the gorgeous head-piece
of bead-work, plume and eagles' feathers, they wear in battle, the
prized War Bonnet. The frontiersman, scorning the poetic, considers that
he has fittingly, practically, anyway, translated it into Hat Creek, and
even for such a name as this, three insignificant creeks within a few
miles of one another claim precedence--and Indian and Horsehead creeks
are placidly willing to share it with them.
The sun rises over the broad lands of the Sioux to the eastward as we
leave the shadowy Niobrara behind. Merritt's swift-stepping gray at the
head of the column keeps us on our mettle to save our distance, and the
horses answer gamely to the pressing knees of their riders. At 10.15 we
sight the palisade fortifications of the infantry company which guards
the spring at the head of old Sage Creek, and Lieutenant Taylor eagerly
welcomes us. Here, officers, men, and horses take a hurried but
substantial lunch. We open fresh boxes of ammunition, and cram belts and
pockets until every man is loaded like a deep-sea diver, and fairly
bristles with deadly missiles. Then on we go. East-northeast over the
rolling, treeless prairie, and far to our right and rear runs the high,
rock-faced ridge that shuts out the cold north winds from the
reservation. The day is hot; we are following the Black Hills road, and
the dust rises in heavy clouds above us. But 'tis a long, long way to
the Indian crossing, and we _must_ be the first to reach it. At sunset a
winding belt of green in a distant depression marks the presence of a
stream. At eight p.m., silently under the stars, we glide in among the
timbers. At nine the seven companies are unsaddled and in bivouac close
under the bluffs, where a little plateau, around which the creek sweeps
in almost complete circle, forms excellent defensive lair, secure
against surprise. We have marched eighty-five miles in thirty-one hours,
and here we are, square in their front, ready and eager to dispute with
the Cheyennes their crossing on the morrow.
No fires are lighted, except a few tiny blazes in deep-dug holes, whence
no betraying flame may escape. Horses and men, we bivouac in a great
circle along the steep banks of a sluggish stream. The stars shine
brightly overhead, but in the timber the darkness is intense. Mason, my
captain, and I are just unstrapping our blankets and preparing for a
nap, when Lieutenant Forbush, then adjutant of the regiment, stumbles
over a fallen tree, and announces that Company "K" is detailed for guard
and picket. I had "been on" all the night before with Captain Hayes, and
would gladly have had a sound sleep before the morrow's work; but when
Mason, after reporting for orders to General Merritt, comes back and
tells me that I am to have command of the outposts to the southeast,
the direction from which the foe must come, there is compensation in the
supposed mistake in the roster.
We grope out in the darkness, and post our pickets in hollows and
depressions, where, should the bivouac be approached over the distant
ridges, they can best observe objects against the sky. The men are
tired; and, as they cannot walk post and keep awake, the utmost
vigilance is enjoined on non-commissioned officers. Hour after hour I
prowl around among the sentries, giving prompt answer to the muffled
challenge that greets me with unvarying watchfulness. At one o'clock
Colonel Mason and I, making the rounds together, come suddenly upon a
post down among the willows next the stream, and are not halted; but we
find the sentinel squatting under the bank, only visible in the
starlight, apparently dozing. Stealing upon him from behind, I seize his
carbine, and the man springs to his feet. Mason sternly rebukes him for
his negligence, and is disposed to order him under guard; but old
Sergeant Schreiber, who was never known to neglect a duty in his life,
declares that he and the sentry were in conversation, and watching
together some object across the stream not half a minute before we came
upon them. Everywhere else along our front we find the men alert and
watchful. At three o'clock the morning grows chilly, and the yelping of
the coyotes out over the prairie is incessant. My orders are to call the
General at half-past three; and, making my way through the slumbering
groups, I find him rolled in his blanket at the foot of a big
cottonwood, sleeping "with one eye open," for he is wide awake in an
instant, and I return to my outpost towards the southeast.
Outlined against the southern sky is a high ridge, some two miles away.
It sweeps around from our left front, where it is lost among the
undulations of the prairie. Square to the northeast, some twenty miles
distant, the southernmost masses of the Black Hills are tumbled up in
sharp relief against the dawn. A faint blush is stealing along the
Orient; the ridge line grows darker against the brightening sky; stars
overhead are paling, and the boughs of the cottonwoods murmur soft
response to the stir of the morning breeze. Objects near at hand no
longer baffle our tired eyes, and the faces of my comrades of the guard
look drawn and wan in the cold light. We are huddled along a slope which
did well enough for night watching; but, as the lay of the land becomes
more distinct, we discern, four hundred yards farther out to the
southeast, a little conical mound rising from a wave of prairie parallel
to our front but shutting off all sight of objects between it and the
distant range of heights, so I move my outpost quickly to the new
position, and there we find unobstructed view.
To our rear is the line of bluffs that marks the tortuous course of the
stream, and the timber itself is now becoming mistily visible in the
morning light. A faint wreath of fog creeps up from the stagnant water
where busy beavers have checked its flow, and from the southward not
even an Indian eye could tell that close under those bluffs seven
companies of veteran cavalry are crouching, ready for a spring.
Turning to the front again, I bring my glasses to bear on the distant
ridge, and sweep its face in search of moving objects. Off to the right
I can mark the trail down which we came the night before, but not a soul
is stirring. At half-past four our horses, saddled and bridled, are
cropping the bunches of buffalo grass in the "swale" behind us; the four
men of the picket are lying among them, lariat in hand. Corporal
Wilkinson and I, prone upon the hill-top, are eagerly scanning the
front, when he points quickly to the now plainly lighted ridge,
exclaiming:
"Look, lieutenant--there are Indians!"
Another minute, and two miles away we sight another group of five or six
mounted warriors. In ten minutes we have seen half a dozen different
parties popping up into plain sight, then rapidly scurrying back out of
view. At five o'clock they have appeared all along our front for a
distance of three miles, but they do not approach nearer. Their
movements puzzle me. We do not believe they have seen us. They make no
attempt at concealment from our side, but they keep peering over ridges
towards the west, and dodging behind slopes that hide them from that
direction.
General Merritt has been promptly notified of their appearance, and at
5.15 he and General Carr and two or three of the staff ride out under
cover of our position, and, dismounting, crawl up beside us and level
their glasses.
"What can they be after? What are they watching?" is the question. The
Black Hills road is off there somewhere, but no travel is possible just
now, and all trains are warned back at Taylor's camp. At half-past five
the mystery is solved. Four miles away to the southwest, to our right
front, the white covers of army wagons break upon our astonished view.
It must be our indefatigable Quartermaster Hall with our train, and he
has been marching all night to reach us. He is guarded by two companies
of stalwart infantry, but they are invisible. He has stowed them away in
wagons, and is probably only afraid that the Indians won't attack him.
Wagon after wagon, the white covers come gleaming into sight far over
the rolling prairie, and by this time the ridge is swarming with
war-parties of Cheyennes. Here you are, beggarly, treacherous rascals;
for years you have eaten of our bread, lived on our bounty. You are well
fed, well cared for; you, your pappooses and ponies are fat and
independent; but you have heard of the grand revel in blood, scalps, and
trophies of your brethren, the Sioux. It is no fight of yours. You have
no grievance, but the love of rapine and warfare is the ruling passion,
and you must take a hand against the Great Father, whom your treaty
binds you to obey and honor. And now you have stuffed your wallets with
his rations, your pouches with heavy loads of his best metallic
cartridges, all too confidingly supplied you by peace-loving agents, who
(for a consideration) wouldn't suspect you of warlike designs for any
consideration. You are only a day's march from the reservation; and
here, you think, are your first rich victims--a big train going to the
Black Hills unguarded. No wonder you circle your swift ponies to the
left in eager signals to your belated brethren to come on, come on. In
half an hour you'll have five hundred here, and the fate of those
teamsters and that train is sealed.
"Have the men had coffee?" asks General Merritt, after a leisurely
survey. "Yes, sir," is the adjutant's report. "Then let them saddle up
and close in mass under the bluffs," is the order, and General Carr goes
off to execute it.
The little hill on which we are lying is steep, almost precipitous on
its southern slope, washed away apparently by the torrent that in the
rainy season must come tearing down the long ravine directly ahead of
us; it leads down from the distant ridge and sweeps past us to our
right, where it is crossed by the very trail on which we marched in, and
along which, three miles away, the wagon train is now approaching. The
two come together like a V, and we are at its point, while between them
juts out a long spur of hills. The trail cannot be seen from the ravine,
and _vice versa_, while we on our point see both. At the head of the
ravine, a mile and a half away, a party of thirty or forty Indians are
scurrying about in eager and excited motion. "What in thunder are those
vagabonds fooling about?" says Buffalo Bill, who has joined us with Tait
and Chips, two of his pet assistants. Even while we speculate the
answer is plain. Riding towards us, away ahead of the wagon train, two
soldiers come loping along the trail. They bring despatches to the
command, no doubt, and, knowing us to be down here in the bottom
somewhere, have started ahead to reach us. They see no Indians; for it
is only from them and the train the wily foe is concealed, and all
unsuspicious of their danger they come jauntily ahead. Now is the
valiant red man's opportunity. Come on, Brothers Swift Bear, Two Bulls,
Bloody Hand; come on, ten or a dozen of you, my braves--there are only
two of the pale-faced dogs, and they shall feel the red man's vengeance
forthwith. Come on, come on! We'll dash down this ravine, a dozen of us,
and six to one we'll slay and scalp them without danger to ourselves;
and a hundred to one we will brag about it the rest of our natural
lives. Only a mile away come our couriers; only a mile and a half up the
ravine a murderous party of Cheyennes lash their excited ponies into
eager gallop, and down they come towards us.
"By Jove! general," says Buffalo Bill, sliding backwards down the hill,
"now's our chance. Let our party mount here out of sight, and we'll cut
those fellows off."
"Up with you, then!" is the answer. "Stay where you are, King. Watch
them till they are close under you; then give the word. Come down, every
other man of you!"
I am alone on the little mound. Glancing behind me, I see Cody, Tait,
and Chips, with five cavalrymen, eagerly bending forward in their
saddles, grasping carbine and rifle, every eye bent upon me in
breathless silence, watching for the signal. General Merritt and
Lieutenants Forbush and Pardee are crouching below me. Sergeant
Schreiber and Corporal Wilkinson, on all-fours, are half-way down the
northern slope. Not a horse or man of us visible to the Indians. Only my
hatless head and the double field-glass peer over the grassy mound. Half
a mile away are our couriers, now rapidly approaching. Now, my Indian
friends, what of you? Oh, what a stirring picture you make as once more
I fix my glasses on you! Here, nearly four years after, my pulses bound
as I recall the sight. Savage warfare was never more beautiful than in
you. On you come, your swift, agile ponies springing down the winding
ravine, the rising sun gleaming on your trailing war bonnets, on silver
armlets, necklace, gorget; on brilliant painted shield and beaded
legging; on naked body and beardless face, stained most vivid vermilion.
On you come, lance and rifle, pennon and feather glistening in the rare
morning light, swaying in the wild grace of your peerless horsemanship;
nearer, till I mark the very ornament on your leader's shield. And on,
too, all unsuspecting, come your helpless prey. I hold vengeance in my
hand, but not yet to let it go. Five seconds too soon, and you can wheel
about and escape us; one second too late, and my blue-coated couriers
are dead men. On you come, savage, hungry-eyed, merciless. Two miles
behind you are your scores of friends, eagerly, applaudingly watching
your exploit. But five hundred yards ahead of you, coolly, vengefully
awaiting you are your unseen foes, beating you at your own game, and you
are running slap into them. Nearer and nearer--your leader, a
gorgeous-looking fellow, on a bounding gray, signals "Close and follow."
Three hundred yards more, my buck, and (you fancy) your gleaming knives
will tear the scalps of our couriers. Twenty seconds, and you will dash
round that point with your war-whoop ringing in their ears. Ha! Lances,
is it? You don't want your shots heard back at the train. What will you
think of ours? "All ready, general?"
"All ready, King. Give the word when you like."
Not a man but myself knows how near they are. Two hundred yards now, and
I can hear the panting of their wiry steeds. A hundred and fifty! That's
right--close in, you beggars! Ten seconds more and you are on them! A
hundred and twenty-five yards--a hundred--ninety--
"_Now_, lads, in with you!"
Crash go the hoofs! There's a rush, a wild, ringing cheer; then bang,
bang, bang! and in a cloud of dust Cody and his men tumble in among
them. General Merritt springs up to my side, Corporal Wilkinson to his.
Cool as a cucumber, the Indian leader reins in his pony in sweeping
circle to the left, ducks on his neck as Wilkinson's bullet whistles by
his head; then _under_ his pony, and his return shot "zips" close by the
general's cheek. Then comes the cry, "Look to the front; look, look!"
and, swarming down the ridge as far as we can see, come dozens of
Indian warriors at top speed to the rescue. "Send up the first company!"
is Merritt's order as he springs into saddle, and, followed by his
adjutant, rides off to the left and front. I jump for my horse, and the
vagabond, excited by the shots and rush around us, plunges at his lariat
and breaks to the left. As I catch him, I see Buffalo Bill closing on a
superbly accoutred warrior. It is the work of a minute; the Indian has
fired and missed. Cody's bullet tears through the rider's leg, into his
pony's heart, and they tumble in confused heap on the prairie. The
Cheyenne struggles to his feet for another shot, but Cody's second
bullet crashes through his brain, and the young chief, Yellow Hand,
drops lifeless in his tracks.
Here comes my company, "K," trotting up from the bluffs, Colonel Mason
at their head, and I take my place in front of my platoon, as, sweeping
over the ridge, the field lies before us. Directly in front, a mile
away, the redskins are rushing down to join their comrades; and their
triumphant yells change to cries of warning as Company "K's" blue line
shoots up over the divide.
"Drive them, Mason, but look out for the main ridge," is the only order
we hear; and, without a word, shout, or shot, "K" goes squarely at the
foe. They fire wildly, wheeling about and backing off towards the hills;
but our men waste no shot, and we speed up the slope, spreading out
unconsciously in open order to right and left. Their bullets whistle
harmlessly over our heads, and some of our young men are eagerly
looking for permission to begin. Now the pursued have opened fire from
both our flanks, for we have spread them open in our rush; and, glancing
over my shoulder, it is glorious to see Montgomery's beautiful grays
sweeping to our right and rear, while Kellogg's men are coming "front
into line" at the gallop on our left. We gain the crest only to find the
Indians scattering like chaff before us, utterly confounded at their
unexpected encounter. Then comes the pursuit--a lively gallop over
rolling prairie, the Indians dropping blankets, rations, everything
weighty they could spare except their guns and ammunition. Right and
left, far and near, they scatter into small bands, and go tearing
homeward. Once within the limits of the reservation they are safe, and
we strain every nerve to catch them; but when the sun is high in the
heavens and noon has come, the Cheyennes are back under the sheltering
wing of the Indian Bureau, and not one of them can we lay hands on.
Baffled and astounded, for once in a lifetime beaten at their own game,
their project of joining Sitting Bull nipped in the bud, they mourn the
loss of three of their best braves slain in sudden attack, and of all
their provender and supplies lost in hurried flight. Weary enough we
reach the agency building at seven that evening, disappointed at having
bagged no greater game; but our chief is satisfied. Buffalo Bill is
radiant; his are the honors of the day; and the Fifth generally goes to
sleep on the ground, well content with the affair on the War Bonnet.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MARCH TO THE BIG HORN.
Chasing the Cheyennes from the War Bonnet and Indian Creek to the
reservation, our seven companies had struck cross country, and until we
neared the high bluffs and ridges to the north of the agency, it was not
difficult for the wagons to follow us; but it was generally predicted
that Lieutenant Hall would never be able to get his train over the
ravines and "breaks" which he would encounter on the 18th, and the
command was congratulating itself on the prospect of a day's rest at Red
Cloud, when at noon, to our utter astonishment, the wagons hove in
sight. We had fasted since our four-o'clock breakfast on the previous
morning--were hungrily eying the Indian supplies in their plethoric
storehouses, and were just about negotiating with the infantry men of
Camp Robinson for the loan of rations and the wherewithal to cook the
same, when Hall rode in, _nonchalant_ as usual, and parked his train of
supplies amid shouts of welcome. General Merritt was unfeignedly glad to
see his quartermaster; he had received his orders to hasten in to Fort
Laramie and proceed to the reinforcement of General Crook, and every
moment was precious. We were allowed just two hours to prepare and
partake of an ample dinner, pack our traps and store them in the wagons
again, when "Boots and saddles" was echoed back from the white crags of
Dancer's Hill and Crow Butte, and at 2.30 we were winding up the
beautiful valley of the White River. Lieutenant Hall was left with his
train to give his teams and teamsters a needed rest, and ordered to
follow us at early evening.
All the morning the reservation Indians had come in flocks to have a
look at the soldiers who had outwitted them on the previous day.
Arrapahoe and Ogalalla, Minneconjou and Uncapapa, represented by dozens
of old chiefs and groups of curious and laughing squaws, hung about us
for hours--occasionally asking questions and invariably professing a
readiness to accept any trifle we might feel disposed to part with. To
beg is the one thing of which an Indian is never ashamed. In Arizona I
have known a lot of Apaches to hang around camp for an entire day, and
when they had coaxed us out of our last plug of tobacco, our only
remaining match, and our old clothes, instead of going home satisfied
they would turn to with reviving energy and beg for the things of all
others for which they had not the faintest use--soap and writing-paper.
In addition to all the "squaw men" and "blanket Indians" at the
reservation, there came to see us that day quite a number of Cheyennes,
our antagonists of the day before. Shrouded in their dark-blue blankets
and washed clean of their lurid war-paint, they were by no means
imposing. One and all they wanted to see Buffalo Bill, and wherever he
moved they followed him with awe-filled eyes. He wore the same dress in
which he had burst upon them in yesterday's fight, a Mexican costume of
black velvet, slashed with scarlet and trimmed with silver buttons and
lace--one of his theatrical garbs, in which he had done much execution
before the footlights in the States, and which now became of intensified
value. Bill had carefully preserved the beautiful war bonnet
|
the genial current of their souls.' By
no means; if they cannot boast the voluptuous languor of an Italian sky,
they glow with the bracing spirit of a more invigorating atmosphere. I
really took some pains to investigate this curious custom, and after
being assured, by many, of its veracity, had an opportunity of attesting
its existence with my own eyes. The servant maid of the family I visited
in Caernarvonshire, happened to be the object of a young peasant, who
walked eleven long miles every Sunday morning to favor his suit, and
regularly returned the same night through all weathers, to be ready for
Monday's employment in the fields, being simply a day laborer. He
usually arrived in time for morning service, which he constantly
attended, after which he escorted his Dulcinea home to the house of her
master, by whose permission they as constantly passed the succeeding
hour in bed, according to the custom of the country. These tender
sabbatical preliminaries continued without interruption near two years,
when the treaty of alliance was solemnized, and, so far from any breach
of articles happening in the meantime, it is most likely that it was
considered by both parties as a matter of course, without exciting any
other idea. On speaking to my friend on the subject, he observed that,
though it certainly appeared a dangerous mode of making love, he had
seen so few _living_ abuses of it, during six and thirty years'
residence in that country, where it nevertheless had always, more or
less, prevailed, he must conclude it was as innocent as any other. One
proof of its being _thought_ so by the parties, is the perfect ease and
freedom with which it is done; no awkwardness or confusion appearing on
either side; the most well-behaved and decent young woman going into it
without a blush, and they are by no means deficient in modesty. What is
pure in idea is always so in conduct, since bad actions are the common
consequence of bad thoughts; and though the better sort of people treat
this ceremony as a barbarism, it is very much to be doubted whether more
_faux pas_ have been committed by the Cambrian boors in this _free
access_ to the bed chambers of their mistresses, than by more
fashionable Strephons and their nymphs in groves and shady bowers. The
power of habit is perhaps stronger than the power of passion, or even of
the charms which inspire it; and it is sufficient, almost, to say a
thing is the _custom of a country_, to clear it from any reproach that
would attach to an innovation. Were it the practice of a few only, and
to be gratified by stealth, there would, from the strange construction
of human nature, be more cause of suspicion; but being ancient, general,
and carried on without difficulty, it is probably as little dangerous as
a _tête a tête_ in a drawing-room, or in any other full dress place
where young people meet to say soft things to each other."
In an antiquarian tour by the Rev. W. Bingley, in 1804,[8] we also find
the following description of this custom: "The peasantry of part of
Caernarvonshire, Anglesea, and Merionethshire, adopt a mode of
_courtship_ which, till within the last few years, was scarcely even
heard of in England. It is the same that is common in many parts of
America, and termed by the inhabitants of that country, _bundling_. The
lover steals, under the shadow of the night, to the bed of the fair one,
into which (retaining an essential part of his dress) he is admitted
without any shyness or reserve. Saturday or Sunday nights are the
principal times when this courtship takes place, and on these nights the
men sometimes walk from a distance of ten miles or more to visit their
favorite damsels. This strange custom seems to have originated in the
scarcity of fuel, and in the unpleasantness of sitting together in the
colder part of the year without a fire. Much has been said of the
innocence with which these meetings are conducted, but it is a very
common thing for the consequence of the interview to make its appearance
in the world within two or three months after the marriage ceremony has
taken place. The subject excites no particular attention among the
neighbors, provided the marriage be made good before the living witness
is brought to light. Since this custom is entirely confined to the
laboring classes of the community, it is not so pregnant with danger as,
on a first supposition, it might seem. Both parties are so poor that
they are necessarily constrained to render their issue legitimate, in
order to secure their reputation, and with a mode of obtaining a
livelihood."
Another traveller[9] also mentions "a singular custom that is said to
prevail in Wales, relating to their mode of courtship, which is declared
to be carried on in bed; and, what is more extraordinary, it is averred
that the moving tale of love is agitated in that situation without
endangering a breach in the preliminaries." Referring to Mr. Pratt's
account of the custom, before quoted, he proceeds to remark: "Our
companion, like every one else that we spoke with in Wales on the
subject, at once denied the existence of this custom: that maids in many
instances admitted male bed-fellows, he did not doubt; but that the
procedure was sanctioned by _tolerated custom_ he considered a gross
misrepresentation. Yet in Anglesea and some parts of North Wales, where
the original simplicity of manners and high sense of chastity of the
natives is retained, he admitted _something of the kind_ might appear.
In those thinly inhabited districts a peasant often has several miles to
walk after the hours of labor, to visit his mistress; those who have
reciprocally entertained the _belle passion_ will easily imagine that
before the lovers grow tired of each other's company the night will be
far enough advanced; nor is it surprising that a tender-hearted damsel
should be disinclined to turn her lover out over bogs and mountains
until the dawn of day. The fact is, that under such circumstances she
admits a _consors lecti_, but not in _nudatum corpus_. In a lonely Welsh
hut this bedding has not the alarm of ceremony; from sitting, or perhaps
lying, on the hearth, they have only to shift their quarters to a heap
of straw or fern covered with two or three blankets in a neighboring
corner. The practice only takes place with _this view of
accommodation_."
Still another glimpse of this favorite Welsh custom is presented by a
tourist in 1807.[10] He says:
"One evening, at an inn where we halted, we heard a considerable bustle
in the kitchen, and, upon enquiry, I was let into a secret worth
knowing. The landlord had been scolding one of his maids, a very pretty,
plump little girl, for not having done her work; and the reason which
she alleged for her idleness was, that her master having locked the
street door at night, had prevented her lover enjoying the rights and
delights of _bundling_, an amatory indulgence which, considering that it
is sanctioned by custom, may be regarded as somewhat singular, although
it is not exclusively of Welsh growth. The process is very simple; the
gay Lothario, when all is silent, steals to the chamber of his mistress,
who receives him in bed, but with the modest precaution of wearing her
under petticoat, which is always fastened at the bottom--not
unfrequently, I am told, by a sliding knot. It may astonish a London
gallant to be told that this extraordinary experiment often ends in
downright wedlock--the knot which cannot slide. A gentleman of
respectability also assured me that he was obliged to indulge his female
servants in these nocturnal interviews, and that too at all hours of the
night, otherwise his whole family would be thrown into disorder by their
neglect; the carpet would not be dusted, nor would the kettle boil. I
think this custom should share the fate of the northern Welsh goats.
* * * * Habit has so reconciled the mind to the comforts of _bundling_,
that a young lady who entered the coach soon after we left Shrewsbury,
about eighteen years of age, with a serene and modest countenance,
displayed considerable historical knowledge of the custom, without one
touch of bashfulness."[11]
Thus much for Wales, where the custom seems to have been entirely
confined to the lower classes of society, and where we have reason to
think it still prevails to some extent to this day.[12]
The same author whom we last quoted also speaks of a "courtship similar
to _bundling_, carried on in the islands of Vlie and Wieringen,
IN HOLLAND,
Under the name of _queesting_.[15] At night the lover has access to his
mistress after she is in bed; and, upon an application to be admitted
upon the bed, which of course is granted, he raises the quilt, or rug,
and in this state _queests_, or enjoys a harmless chit-chat with her,
and then retires. This custom meets with the perfect sanction of the
most circumspect parents, and the freedom is seldom abused. The author
traces its origin to the parsimony of the people, whose economy
considers fire and candles as superfluous luxuries in the long winter
evenings."
The Hon. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, N. Y., late United States minister
at the Hague, has furnished us with the following note in relation to
this Nederduitsche custom: "As to its being a Dutch custom, it was so to
a limited extent in Holland in former times, and may yet be, though I
did not hear of it when I was there. Sewell gives the word _queesten_,
or _kweesten_, in his dictionary, printed over a century ago. The word
is defined in the dictionary of Wieland, the principal lexicographer in
that country, as follows: '_Kweesten_. Upon the islands of Texel and
Vlieland[16] they use this word for a singular custom of wooing, by
which the doors and windows are left open, and the lover, lying or
sitting outside the covering, woos the girl who is underneath.' Sewell
confines the custom to certain islands or lands near the sea."
LOVE AND COURTSHIP IN THE 14TH CENTURY.
In feudal times, in the last part of the fourteenth century, it became
the practice for the vassals, or feudatories, to send their sons to be
educated in the family of the suzerain, while the daughters were
similarly placed with the lady of the castle. These formed a very
important part of the household, and were of gentle blood, claiming the
honorary title of _chambriéres_ or chamber-maidens. The demoiselles of
this period were very susceptible to the passion of love, which was the
ruling spirit of the inmates of the castle. Feudal society was, in
comparison to the previous times, polished and even brilliant, but it
was not, under the surface, pure. Many good maxims were taught, but they
were not all practiced. "There was an extreme intimacy between the two
sexes, who commonly visited each other in their chambers or bedrooms.
Thus in the poem of Guatier d'Aupias, the hero is represented as
visiting in her chamber the demoiselle of whom he is enamored. Numerous
similar examples might be quoted. At times, one of the parties is
described as being actually in bed, as is the case in the romance of
_Blonde of Oxford_, where Blonde visits Jehan in his chamber when he is
in bed, and stays all night with him, in perfect innocence as we are
told in the romance. We must remember that it was the custom in those
times for both sexes to go to bed perfectly naked."[17]
IN SWITZERLAND,
According to an English observer,[18] analogous modes of courtship still
exist. In speaking of the canton _Unterwald_ he says: "In the story of
the destruction of the castles, we read that the surprise was effected
by a young girl admitting her lover to her room by a ladder, and an
English guide-book remarks, that this is still the fashion of receiving
lovers in Switzerland. Reference is had to the manner of wooing, which
in some cantons is called _lichtgetren_, in others _dorfen_ and
_stubetegetren_, and answers to the old-fashioned _going-a-courting_ in
England. The customs connected with it vary in different cantons, but
exist in some form in all except two or three.
In the canon _Lucerne_, the _kiltgang_ is the universal mode of wooing;
the lover visiting his betrothed in the evening, to be pelted on the way
by all mischievous urchins; or if he is seated quietly with her by the
winter fire, they are sure to be serenaded by all manner of _cat voices_
under the window, which are continued till he issues forth, perhaps at
dawn in the morning; and however long may be a courtship, these
_cater-waulings_ are the invariable attendants, and not the most
lamentable consequences of these nightly visits, recognized, however, as
entirely respectable and conventional in every canton."
And again in the canton _Vaud_, he says, "the _kiltgang_, or nightly
wooings, are the universal custom with the universal consequences, but
in general the wife is treated with marked respect, is made keeper of
the treasury, and consulted as the oracle of the family."
Among the amatory customs of various
SAVAGE NATIONS
and tribes, there are certain which somewhat resemble _bundling_, except
in the greater degree of freedom allowed--a freedom which, in the eyes
of civilized nations, is absolute immorality. Of this description is the
manner of wooing described by La Hontan as prevalent among the Indians
of North America.[19]
Yet, in many of these instances, if we were to carefully examine the
social system and customs of our savage friends, and were willing to
judge them rather by the results of our own observation, than by our
preconceived opinions, we should probably find that the absolute
_practical morality_ of these _untutored natives_, was quite equal, if
not superior, to that of the educated and civilized whites.[20]
Among these _customs de amour_, however, to which we have alluded as
existing among different savage tribes, there are none which bear so
perfect a resemblance to _bundling_, as that described by Masson in his
_Journeys in Central Asia, Belochistan, Afghanistan,_ etc. (III, 287.)
He says:
"Many of the Afghan tribes have a custom of wooing similar to what in
Wales is known as _bundling-up_, and which they term _namzat bezé_. The
lover presents himself at the house of his betrothed with a suitable
gift, and in return is allowed to pass the night with her, on the
understanding that innocent endearments are not to be exceeded."
Spencer St. John tells us, in speaking of the piratical and ferocious
Sea Dayaks of Borneo, that "besides the ordinary attention which a young
man is able to pay to the girl he desires to make his wife--as helping
her in her farm work, and in carrying home her load of vegetables or
wood, as well as in making her little presents, as a ring or some brass
chain-work with which the women adorn their waists, or even a
petticoat--there is a very peculiar testimony of regard which is worthy
of note. About nine or ten at night, when the family is supposed to be
fast asleep within the musquito curtains in the private apartments, the
young man quietly slips back the bolt by which the door is fastened on
the inside, and enters the room on tiptoe. On hearing who it is, she
rises at once, and they sit conversing together and making arrangements
for the future, in the dark, over a plentiful supply of _sirih-leaf_ and
_batle-nut_, which it is the gentleman's duty to provide, for his suit
is in a fair way to prosper; but if, on the other hand, she rises and
says, 'be good enough to blow up the fire,' or 'light the lamp' (a
bamboo filled with resin), then his hopes are at an end, as that is the
usual form of dismissal. Of course, if this kind of nocturnal visit is
frequently repeated, the parents do not fail to discover it, although it
is a point of honor among them to take no notice of their visitor; and,
if they approve of him, matters then take their course, but if not, they
use their influence with their daughter to ensure the utterance of the
fatal 'please blow up the fire.'"
And now, having discussed the custom of bundling as it formerly existed
in Great Britain, and having proved its identity with the _queesting_ of
Holland, and the _namzat bezé_ of Central Asia, we propose to follow our
investigations to the continent of America, and to trace, if we can, its
origin and progress in the
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
in doing which, it is quite likely that, we follow the identical line of
travel and colonization--viz: from Old to New England, and from
Netherlands (the father-land) to New Netherlands--by which the custom of
bundling was really transplanted to these western shores. For, although
the grave and (sometimes) veracious historian of New York, Diedrich
Knickerbocker, hath endeavored to fasten upon the Connecticut settlers
the odium of having introduced the custom into New Netherland,[21] to
the great offense of all properly disposed people; yet we may reasonably
doubt whether the young mynheers and frauliens of New Amsterdam, in that
day, were any more innocent of this lover's pastime, than their
vivacious Connecticut neighbors. Indeed, can it be for one moment
supposed that the good Hollanders--a most unchanging and conservative
race--should have been so far false to the traditions of their fathers,
and the honor of the fatherland, as to leave behind them, when they
crossed the seas, the good old custom of _queesting_, with its
time-honored associations and delights? Or can it be imagined that those
astute lawgivers and political economists, the early governors and
burgomasters, were so blind to the necessities and interests of a new
and sparsely populated country, as to forbid bundling within their
borders? Indeed, it would be but a sorry compliment to the wisdom of
that sagacious and far-sighted body of merchants comprised in the High
and Mighty West India Company, to believe that they were unwilling to
introduce under their benign auspices, a custom so intimately connected
with their own national social habits, and so promising to the
prospective interests and enlargement of their _new plantations_, as
this. And, truly, Diedrich himself, doth, in another part of his book,
inadvertently betray the fact that bundling was by no means a purely
Yankee trick, for he speaks of the redoubtable Anthony Van
Corlaer--purest of Dutchmen--as "passing through Hartford, and Pyquag,
and Middletown, and all the other border towns, twanging his trumpet
like a very devil, so that the sweet valleys and banks of the
Connecticut resounded with the warlike melody, and stopping occasionally
to eat pumpkin pies, dance at country frolics, and _bundle_ with the
beauteous lasses of those parts, whom he rejoiced exceedingly with his
soul-stirring instrument." Which passage, while it proves that the
practice of bundling prevailed in Connecticut, proves equally well that
Anthony the trumpeter was by no means inexperienced in its delights, nor
unwilling to enjoy its comforts, whether under the name of _bundling_ or
_queesting_.
Indeed, we do most truly believe that the cunning Knickerbocker, in his
desire to vindicate, as he thought, the character of his race against
the accusation of immorality, hath by his denial not only committed a
grievous sin against "the truth of history," but hath greatly added
thereto, by attempting to foist off the opprobrium of the same on to the
shoulders of the Connecticut folks. But history will not remain forever
falsified, and the day has at length arrived when every historical tub
must "stand on its own bottom," and the world will henceforth know that
the New Netherlanders did not take bundling by inoculation from the
Yankees, but that they brought it with them to the New World, as an
ancestral heirloom.
This point being thus satisfactorily settled, to the honor of the
Dutchman, and the extreme satisfaction of all future historians, we next
proceed to investigate the bundling prevalent in
THE NEW ENGLAND STATES,
Where, as we have already shown, it was, as with the Dutchmen, an
_inherited_ custom. Its comparatively innocent and harmless character
has, however, been fearfully distorted and maligned by irresponsible
satirists, and prejudiced historians. Take, for example, the following
passage from Knickerbocker's _History of New York_,[22] wherein he
pretends to describe "the curious device among these sturdy barbarians
[the Connecticut colonists], to keep up a harmony of interests, and
promote population. * * * * They multiplied to a degree which would be
incredible to any man unacquainted with the marvellous fecundity of this
growing country. This amazing increase may, indeed, be partly ascribed
to a singular custom prevalent among them, commonly known by the name of
_bundling_--a superstitious rite observed by the young people of both
sexes, with which they usually terminated their festivities, and which
was kept up with religious strictness by the more bigoted and vulgar
part of the community. This ceremony was likewise, in those primitive
times, considered as an indispensable preliminary to matrimony; their
courtships commencing where ours usually finish, by which means they
acquired, that intimate acquaintance with each other's good qualities
before marriage, which has been pronounced by philosophers the sure
basis of a happy union. Thus early did this cunning and ingenious people
display a shrewdness at making a bargain, which has ever since
distinguished them, and a strict adherence to the good old vulgar maxim
about 'buying a pig in a poke.'
"To this sagacious custom, therefore, do I chiefly attribute the
unparalleled increase of the Yanokie or Yankee tribe; for it is a
certain fact, well authenticated by court records and parish registers,
that wherever the practice of bundling prevailed, there was an amazing
number of sturdy brats annually born unto the state, without the license
of the law, or the benefit of clergy. Neither did the irregularity of
their birth operate in the least to their disparagement. On the
contrary, they grew up a long-sided, raw-boned, hardy race of whoreson
whalers, wood cutters, fishermen, and peddlers; and strapping corn-fed
wenches, who by their united efforts tended marvellously towards
populating those notable tracts of country called Nantucket, Piscataway,
and Cape Cod."
Hear, also, that learned, but audacious and unscrupulous divine, the
Rev. Samuel Peters, who thus discourseth at length upon the custom of
bundling in Connecticut, and other parts of New England. After admitting
that "the women of Connecticut are strictly virtuous, and to be compared
to the prude rather than the European polite lady," he says:
"Notwithstanding the modesty of the females is such that it would be
accounted the greatest rudeness for a gentleman to speak before a lady
of a garter, knee, or leg, yet it is thought but a piece of civility to
ask her to _bundle_; a custom as old as the first settlement in 1634. It
is certainly innocent, virtuous and prudent, or the puritans would not
have permitted it to prevail among their offspring, for whom in general
they would suffer crucifixion. Children brought up with the chastest
ideas, with so much religion as to believe that the omniscient God sees
them in the dark, and that angels guard them when absent from their
parents, will not, nay, cannot, act a wicked thing. People who are
influenced more by lust, than a serious faith in God, who is too pure to
behold iniquity with approbation, ought never to _bundle_. If any man,
thus a stranger to the love of virtue, of God, and the Christian
religion, should _bundle_ with a young lady in New England, and behave
himself unseemly towards her, he must first melt her into passion, and
expel heaven, death, and hell, from her mind, or he will undergo the
chastisement of negroes turned mad--if he escape with life, it will be
owing to the parents flying from their bed to protect him. The Indians,
who had this method of courtship when the English arrived among them in
1634, are the most chaste set of people in the world. Concubinage and
fornication are vices none of them are addicted to, except such as
forsake the laws of Hobbamockow and turn Christians. The savages have
taken many female prisoners, carried them back three hundred miles into
their country, and kept them several years, and yet not a single
instance of their violating the laws of chastity has ever been known.
This cannot be said of the French, or of the English, whenever Indian or
other women have fallen into their hands. I am no advocate for
temptation; yet must say, that _bundling_ has prevailed 160 years in New
England, and, I verily believe, with ten times more chastity than the
sitting on a sofa. I had daughters, and speak from near forty years'
experience. _Bundling_ takes place only in cold seasons of the year--the
sofa in summer is more dangerous than the bed in winter. About the year
1756, Boston, Salem, Newport, and New York, resolving to be more polite
than their ancestors, forbade their daughters _bundling_ on the bed with
any young man whatever, and introduced a sofa to render courtship more
palatable and Turkish, whatever it was owing to, whether to the sofa, or
any uncommon excess of the _feu d'esprit_, there went abroad a report
that this _raffinage_ produced more _natural consequences_ then all the
_bundling_ among the boors with their _rurales pedantes_, through every
village in New England besides.
"In 1776, a clergyman from one of the polite towns, went into the
country, and preached against the unchristian custom of young men and
maidens lying together on a bed. He was no sooner out of the church,
then attacked by a shoal of good old women, with, 'Sir, do you think we
and our daughters are naughty, because we allow _bundling_?' 'You lead
yourselves into temptation by it.' They all replied at once, 'Sir, have
you been told thus, or has experience taught it you?' The Levite began
to lift up his eyes, and to consider of his situation, and bowing, said,
'I have been told so.' The ladies, _una voce_, bawled out, 'Your
informants, sir, we conclude, are those city ladies who prefer a sofa to
a bed: we advise you to alter your sermon, by substituting the word
_sofa_ for _bundling_, and on your return home preach it to them, for
experience has told us that city folks send more children into the
country without fathers or mothers to own them, than are born among us;
therefore, you see, a sofa is more dangerous than a bed.' The poor
priest, seemingly convinced of his blunder, exclaimed, '_Nec vitia
nostra, neo remedia pati possumus_,' hoping thereby to get rid of his
guests; but an old matron pulled off her spectacles, and, looking the
priest in the face like a Roman heroine, said, '_Noli putare me hæc
auribus tuis dare_.' Others cried out to the priest to explain his
Latin. 'The English,' said he, 'is this: Wo is me that I sojourn in
Meseck, and dwell in the tents of Kedar!' One pertly retorted, '_Gladii
decussati sunt gemina presbyteri clavis_.' The priest confessed his
error, begged pardon, and promised never more to preach against
bundling, or to think amiss of the custom; the ladies generously forgave
him, and went away.
"It may seem very strange to find this custom of bundling in bed
attended with so much innocence in New England, while in Europe it is
thought not safe or scarcely decent to permit a young man and maid to be
together in private anywhere. But in this quarter of the old world the
viciousness of the one, and the simplicity of the other, are the result
merely of education and habit. It seems to be a part of heroism, among
the polished nations of it, to sacrifice the virtuous fair one, whenever
an opportunity offers, and thence it is concluded that the same
principles actuate those of the new world. It is egregiously absurd to
judge all of all countries by one. In Spain, Portugal and Italy,
jealousy reigns; in France, England, and Holland, suspicion; in the West
and East Indies, lust; in New England, superstition. These four blind
deities govern Jews, Turks, Christians, infidels, and heathen.
Superstition is the most amiable. She sees no vice with approbation but
persecution, and self-preservation is the cause of her seeing that. My
insular readers will, I hope, believe me, when I tell them that I have
seen, in the West Indies, naked boys and girls, some fifteen or sixteen
years of age, waiting at table and at tea, even when twenty or thirty
virtuous English ladies were in the room; who were under no more
embarrassment at such an awful sight in the eyes of English people that
have not traveled abroad, than they would have been at the sight of so
many servants in livery. Shall we censure the ladies of the West Indies
as vicious above all their sex, on account of this local custom? By no
means; for long experience has taught the world that the West Indian
white ladies are virtuous prudes. Where superstition reigns, fanaticism
will be minister of state; and the people, under the taxation of zeal,
will shun what is commonly called vice, with ten times more care than
the polite and civilized Christians, who know what is right and what is
wrong from reason and revelation. Happy would it be for the world, if
reason and revelation were suffered to control the mind and passions of
the great and wise men of the earth, as superstition does that of the
simple and less polished! When America shall erect societies for the
promotion of chastity in Europe, in return for the establishment of
European arts in the American capitals, then Europe will discover that
there is more Christian philosophy in American bundling than can be
found in the customs of nations more polite.
"I should not have said so much about bundling, had not a learned
divine[23] of the English church published his travels through some
parts of America, wherein this remarkable custom is represented in an
unfavorable light, and as prevailing among the _lower class_ of people.
The truth is, the custom prevails among all classes, to the great honor
of the country, its religion, and ladies. The virtuous may be tempted;
but the tempter is despised. Why it should be thought incredible for a
young man and young woman innocently and virtuously to lie down together
in a bed with a great part of their clothes on, I cannot conceive. Human
passions may be alike in every region; but religion, diversified as it
is, operates differently in different countries. Upon the whole, had I
daughters now, I would venture to let them _bundle_ on the bed, or even
on the sofa, after a proper education, sooner than adopt the Spanish
mode of forcing young people to prattle only before the lady's mother
the chitchat of artless lovers. Could the four quarters of the world
produce a more chaste, exemplary and beautiful company of wives and
daughters than are in Connecticut, I should not have remaining one
favorable sentiment for the province. But the soil, the rivers, the
ponds, the ten thousand landscapes, together with the virtuous and
lovely women which now adorn the ancient kingdoms of Connecticote,
Sassacus, and Quinnipiog, would tempt me into the highest wonder and
admiration of them, could they once be freed ofthe skunk, the
moping-owl, rattlesnake and fanatic Christian."
Or, to take another example of the abuse heaped by our English cousins
upon this so-called "American custom of bundling." We extract the
following from an article entitled _British Abuse of American Manners_,
published in 1815.[24] It seems that it had long been a custom in the
Westminster school, in the city of London, for the senior students, who
were about to leave that seminary for the university, at the age of
sixteen to eighteen, to have an annual dramatic performance, which was
generally a play of Terence.[25] To this, as annually performed, there
was usually a Latin prologue, and also an epilogue composed for the
occasion and this epilogue turned, for the most part, on the manners of
the day that would bear the gentle correction of good humored satire, in
elegant Latinity. In the epilogue presented at one of these exhibitions,
about 1815, in connection with the performance of Terence's _Phormio_,
the following balderdash (with much else, as applied to American life
and manners) was introduced and spoken by these ingenuous and virtuous
British youth, before a large and enlightened audience:
"Nec morum dicere promtum est,
Sit ratio simplex, sitne venusta magis.
Æthiopissa palam mensæ formulatur herili
In puris naturalibus, ut loquimur.
Vir braccis se bellus amat nudare décentér,
Strenuus ut choreas ex-que-peditus agat.
Quid quod ibi; quod congere ipsis conque moveri
Dicitur, incolumi nempe pudicitiâ,
Sponte suâ, sine fraude, torum sese audet in unum.
Condere cum casto casta puelle viro?
Quid noctes coenaque Deûm? quid amœna piorum.
Concilia?"
Which being translated is as follows:
"Nor is it easy to say whether the tenor of their manners is more to be
admired for simplicity or elegance; a negro wench, as we are told, will
wait on her master at table in native nudity; and a beau will strip
himself to the waist, that he may dance unincumbered, and with more
agility. There, too, we hear of the practice of _bundling_ without any
infraction of female modesty; and the chaste maiden, without any
deception, but with right good will, ventures to share the bed with her
chaste swain! Oh, what nights and banquets, worthy of the gods! What
delightful customs among these pious people?"
But this spirit of misrepresentation and ridicule, so glaringly apparent
in the foregoing extracts, and which has so universally characterized
all those British travelers and authors who have attempted to describe
our social habits and manners, is fitly rebuked, even as long ago as
1815, by an anonymous writer, whose trenchant pen reminds our British
cousins of the old adage concerning "those who live in glass houses,"
etc.
"From the time of Jack Cade," says he, "to Lord George Gordon, and down
to the present day, neither your _grave_ or _gay_ authorities on the
subject of _bundling_ and _tarrying_ are worthy of criticism. There is a
littleness in noticing, in the _London Quarterly Review_,
|
been one of the
managers of a large private hospital. Miss Mary S. Ames, a former
President, is a member of the Executive Council (New England section) of
the National Civic Federation, Chairman of the Committee on Practical
Training for Girls, a Trustee of the Boston Home for Incurables, one of
the managers of the Women's Free Hospital, a director of the Brook House
Home for Working Girls, a member of the Easton Agricultural Vocational
Training Committee, a Trustee of Unity Church (Easton), and a member of
the Advisory Board of the Belgian Relief Committee. Mrs. Henry P.
Kidder, of our Executive Board, is President of the Woman's Educational
Association. Mrs. Robert S. Bradley, also of our Executive Board, is
Chairman of the Sanitation Department of the Women's Municipal League,
and has led in the fight for exterminating the typhoid fly. Were I to
continue to enumerate the characteristic activities of our anti-suffrage
women, I could fill pages with the record of their participation in
philanthropy, education, and all good works. The brief notes prefixed to
the essays in this book give additional evidence to the same effect.
I
SUFFRAGE FALLACIES
MRS. A. J. GEORGE
_Alice N. George, widow of Dr. Andrew J. George; graduated from
Wellesley in 1887; is President of the Brookline Branch of the
Ramabai Association; American Representative of the National Trust
(English) for the Preservation of Historic Places; a director
of the College Club; a member of the Research Committee of the
Educational and Industrial Union, of the Welfare Department of
the National Civic Federation of the Woman's Trade Union League,
of the American Society for Labor Legislation, etc., etc._
_J. A. H._
Woman suffrage must ultimately fail. It is based upon a fallacy, and no
fallacy has ever made a permanent conquest over mankind.
The fallacy of woman suffrage lies in the belief that there is in our
social order a definite sex division of interests, and that the security
of woman's interests depends upon her possession of the elective
franchise.
"The history of mankind," declared the founders of the suffrage
movement, "is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part
of man toward woman, having as the indirect object the establishment of
an absolute tyranny over her." "Man has endeavored in every way he
could," continues this arraignment of the fathers, husbands, and sons of
these self-styled _Mothers of the Revolution_, "to destroy her
confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her
willing to lead a dependent and abject life."
On this false foundation was built the votes-for-women temple. How shall
it endure? The sexes do not stand in the position of master and slave,
of tyrant and victim. In a healthy state of society there is no rivalry
between men and women; they were created different, and in the economy
of life have different duties, but their interests are the common
interests of humanity. Women are not a class, they are a sex; and the
women of every social group are represented in a well-ordered
government, automatically and inevitably, by the men of that group. It
would be a fatal day for the race when women could obtain their rights
only by a victory wrested at the polls from reluctant men. These truths
are elementary and self-evident, yet all are negatived by the
votes-for-women movement.
That the vote is not an inalienable right is affirmed by Supreme Court
decisions, the practice of nations, and the dictates of common sense. No
state can enfranchise all its citizens, and since the stability of
government rests ultimately upon a relentless enforcement of law, the
maintenance of a sound fiscal policy, and such adjustment of the
delicate interweaving of international relations as makes for peace and
prosperity, it is right that the state should place the responsibility
of government upon those who are best equipped to perform its manifold
duties.
Woman's citizenship is as real as man's, and no reflection upon her
abilities is involved in the assertion that woman is not fitted for
government either by nature or by contact in daily experience with
affairs akin to government. She is weak along the lines where the
lawmaker must be strong. In all departments where the law is to be
applied and enforced, woman's nature forbids her entrance. The casting
of a ballot is the last step in a long process of political
organization; it is the signing of a contract to undertake vast
responsibilities, since it is the following of the ballot to its
conclusion which makes the body politic sound. Otherwise political power
without political responsibility threatens disaster to all.
Thus far we have made a few crude experiments in double suffrage, but
nowhere has _equal_ suffrage been tried. Equal suffrage implies a fair
field with favor to none--a field where woman, stripped of legal and
civil advantages, must take her place as man's rival in the struggle for
existence; for, in the long run, woman cannot have equal rights and
retain special privileges. If the average woman is to be a voter, she
must accept jury service and aid in the protection of life and property.
When the mob threatens, she must not shield herself behind her equal in
government. She must relinquish her rights and exemptions under the law
and in civil life, if she is to take her place as a responsible elector
and compete with man as the provider and governor of the race. Such
equality would be a brutal and retrogressive view of woman's rights. It
is impossible, and here we have the unanswerable answer to woman
suffrage theories.
No question of superiority or equality is involved in the opposition to
votes for women. The test of woman's worth is her ability to solve the
problems and do the work she must face as a woman if the race is not to
deteriorate and civilization perish. The woman's suffrage movement is an
imitation-of-man movement, and as such merits the condemnation of every
normal man and woman.
Doubtless we can live through a good deal of confusion, but it is not on
any lines of functional unfitness that life is to be fulfilled. Woman
must choose with discrimination those channels of activity wherein "what
she most highly values may be won." Are these values in the department
of government or in the equally essential departments of education,
society, and religion?
The attempt to interpret woman's service to the state in terms of
political activity is a false appraisal of the contribution she has
always made to the general welfare. All this agitation for the ballot
diverts attention from the only source from which permanent relief can
come, and fastens it upon the ballot box. It is by physical,
intellectual, and moral education that our citizenship is gradually
improved, and here woman's opportunities are supreme. If women are not
efficient in their own dominion, then in the name of common sense let
them be trained for efficiency in that dominion and not diffuse their
energies by dragging them through the devious paths of political
activity.
Equal suffrage is clearly impossible; double suffrage, tried under most
favorable conditions in sparsely settled western states has made no
original contribution to the problem of sound government. On the other
side of the ledger we find that the enfranchisement of women has
increased taxes, added greatly to the menace of an indifferent
electorate, and enlarged the bulk of unenforced and unenforceable laws.
Why does double suffrage, with its train of proved evils and its false
appraisal of woman's contribution to the general welfare, come knocking
at our doors? Not a natural right; a failure wherever tried; demanded by
a small minority in defiance of all principles of true democracy; what
excuse is there for it?
The confusion of social and personal rights with political, the
substitution of emotionalism for investigation and knowledge, the mania
for uplift by legislation, have widely advertised the suffrage
propaganda. The reforms for which the founders of the suffrage movement
declared women needed the vote have all been accomplished by the votes
of men. The vote has been withheld through the indifference and
opposition of women, for this is the only woman's movement which has
been met by the organized opposition of women.
Suffragists still demand the vote. Why? Perhaps the answer is found in
the cry of the younger suffragists: "We ask the vote as a means to an
end--that end being a complete social revolution!" When we realize that
this social revolution involves the economic, social, and sexual
independence of women, we know that Gladstone had the prophet's vision
when he called woman suffrage a "revolutionary" doctrine.
Woman suffrage is the political phase of feminism; the whole sweep of
the relation of the sexes must be revised if the woman's vote is to mean
anything more than two people doing what one does now. Merely to
duplicate the present vote is unsound economy. To re-enforce those who
clamor for individual rights is to strike at the family as the
self-governing unit upon which the state is built.
This is not a question of what some women want or do not want--it is
solely a question of how the average woman shall best contribute her
part to the general welfare. Anti-suffragists contend that the average
woman can serve best by remaining a non-partisan and working for the
common good outside the realms of political strife. To prove this
contention they point to what women have done without the ballot and
what they have failed to do with it.
Anti-suffragists are optimists. They are concerned at the attempt of an
organized, aggressive, well financed minority to force its will upon the
majority of women through a false interpretation of representative
democracy; but they know that a movement so false in its conception, so
false in its economy, so false in its reflections upon men and its
estimate of women, so utterly unnecessary and unnatural, cannot achieve
a permanent success.
II
THE BALLOT AND THE WOMAN IN INDUSTRY
MRS. HENRY PRESTON WHITE
_Sara C. White, wife of Henry Preston White; educated in the Emma
Willard School of Troy, New York; a member of the Auxiliary Board
of Directors of the Brookline Day Nursery; member of the Committee
on Ventilation of Public Conveyances (Woman's Municipal League);
With Miss Mabel Stedman of Brookline, Mrs. White started the model
moving-picture show in connection with the Brookline Friendly
Society. She is a well-known speaker for the anti-suffrage cause._
_J. A. H._
The argument that the woman in industry needs the ballot in order to
obtain fair wages and fair working conditions has undoubtedly made many
converts to the cause of woman suffrage. The sympathies of the average
man, who is ever solicitous for the welfare of women, go out especially
to the woman who must compete with men in the work-a-day world. And so,
when he is told that there are 8,000,000 such women in this country, and
that their lot would be much easier if they could vote, he is apt to
think it worth a trial anyway and to give his support, without further
consideration, to the "votes for women" movement.
Now, if it were true that there are 8,000,000 women in industry, and
that these must have the ballot in order to get fair treatment, it would
be a strong argument for woman suffrage--though by no means a conclusive
argument, since the fundamental question is the greatest good of the
greatest number, and not the greatest good of any class. But it is not
true that there are 8,000,000 women in industry, and a single sensible
reason has yet to be advanced for the contention that women in industry,
even if they numbered 8,000,000, could better their condition by
undertaking political methods.
There are in the United States, according to the last census, 8,075,772
females 10 years of age and over engaged in gainful occupations. Of
these, over 3,600,000 are employed in domestic and personal service,
where wage and working conditions are determined chiefly by women, and
in "agricultural pursuits," a classification including every female who
sells eggs or butter on the home farm. Approximately 4,000,000 of the
remaining gainfully occupied females work in store, factory, and shop,
and of these nearly 1,500,000 are under twenty-one.
Thus, instead of 8,000,000 women in industry who are alleged to "need
the ballot," we have only about 2,500,000 women of voting age employed
in industries that can reasonably be said to come within the category of
those properly subject to remedial labor legislation; and of these
women a very large percentage are aliens and would not be entitled to
use the ballot if woman suffrage were granted. By itself, of course,
this fact does not dispose of the argument that the industrial woman
needs the ballot, but it does reveal how comparatively few are the women
who could possibly try to improve their working conditions by means of
the vote, and how hopelessly outnumbered they would be if reduced to the
necessity of fighting for their rights at the ballot box.
The premise of the suffrage argument that the woman in industry needs
the ballot in order to get fair treatment is the assumption that she now
fails to get as fair treatment as is given the industrial man, and that
this is due to the fact that she has no vote. This arbitrary assumption
is without justification either in fact or reason. Every law placed upon
the statute-books of any state for the benefit of the working man is a
blanket law and covers men and women engaged in the same industry. All
the benefits that have accrued to the working man through legislation
are enjoyed equally by his sister in industry. In addition she has the
advantage of special protective laws which have been enacted simply
because she is a woman--because she is weaker physically than man and
because she is a potential mother and must be protected in the interest
of the race.
I am not arguing, of course, that the working woman has all the
protection she needs, but I am arguing that she is not unfairly treated
as compared with her industrial brother, who has the ballot, and that
whatever hardships she may now suffer are as likely to be removed
without woman suffrage as they are with it. If she is being unfairly
treated, I think it will be found that she is so treated in common with
all industrial workers--simply because she is a worker and not at all
because she is a woman.
And in taking this ground I am by no means forced to depend upon theory;
for, after all, the best answer to the dogma that the woman in industry
needs the ballot in order to obtain fair wages and fair working
conditions is the fact that in states where women have voted anywhere
from 4 to 46 years the laws for the working woman are no better than
they are in male suffrage states. Indeed, it is pretty generally agreed
that the states which have been first and most progressive in enacting
laws for the benefit of women and children in industry are states that
have refused to give women the vote.
It is quite true, as the suffragists so constantly tell us, that the
only states having eight-hour laws for women in industry are woman
suffrage states. But it is true, too, that the eight-hour laws of
California, Oregon, and Washington, of which so much is heard, are not
to be taken at their face value, since they do not cover the canning
industry, which is the chief industry in all those states. It is true,
also, that what is considered by experts the most advanced step in
protective legislation for women in industry, the prohibition of night
work, has been taken only in male suffrage states. In Massachusetts and
Nebraska the laws provide for a 54-hour week for women in industry,
provide for one day's rest in seven, and prohibit night work. Will any
one deny that these laws are infinitely better for women in industry
than the boasted eight-hour law of Colorado, under which it is
permissible for a woman to work nights and Sundays and 56 hours a week?
Now as to the question of "fair wages." The suffragists tell us that
women in industry are entitled to equal pay with men, and that this will
follow upon the heels of woman suffrage. Here again we have experience
to guide us, and we find upon investigation that in no state has the
ratio between men's and women's wages been affected by doubling the
electorate. Dr. Helen Sumner, who made a thorough investigation of this
point, says in her book entitled _Equal Suffrage:_ "Taking the public
employment as a whole, women in Colorado receive considerably less
remuneration than men. It is the old story of supply and demand in the
commercial world, and suffrage has probably nothing to do with the wages
of either men or women. The wages of men and women in all fields of
industry are governed by economic conditions."
By tables carefully compiled, Dr. Sumner shows that in Colorado, women
in private employment receive an average of only 47 per cent of the
average of men's wages, while in the United States as a whole the
average for women is 55.3 per cent of the average for men, and in
Massachusetts, where woman suffrage was recently defeated by nearly two
to one in the largest vote in the state's history, women receive 62
cents for every 100 cents paid to men in wages.
No one can deny, of course, that the wages of women in industry average
considerably lower than those of men. But the reasons for this are found
entirely outside of politics. The average girl is a transient in
industry, going into it as a temporary expedient to tide her over until
she attains her natural desire, which is to marry, settle down, and
raise a family. She is, therefore, not so good an investment for her
employer as the boy who works beside her, who has gone into the business
with the idea of making it his life work, and who has a stronger
incentive to make himself more valuable.
It must be remembered that employers of labor do not pay for men and
women, but for results. Samuel Gompers, an ardent suffragist, says women
get less because they ask for less. That is true in part. Women do ask
for less. One reason for this is that they look upon the job as
something temporary. Another reason is, very frequently, that they are
not entirely dependent on their own earnings, but are partly supported
in their parents' home. But in the majority of cases, the industrial
woman gets less than the industrial man because she is worth less, being
not only less experienced, but physically unable to compete with him on
a basis of absolute equality.
If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of woman
suffrage is in its operation; and, when we find that it has failed to
fulfill its promises where longest tried, it is hard to listen patiently
to pleas for its further extension. The vote has never raised the wages
or shortened the hours of men. It has never done it and can never do it
for women. The industrial woman can gain nothing by it. She will lose
much, as will other women.
III
A BUSINESS WOMAN'S VIEW OF SUFFRAGE
EDITH MELVIN
_Miss Edith Melvin, educated in the public and private schools of
Concord and by her father, James Melvin, who, by reason of service
in the Civil War was a totally helpless invalid confined to his
bed for many years before his death, when he left a widow and
an only child dependent upon themselves for support. After three
months as assistant to the advertising manager of a large medicine
producing company, she entered the law office of Judge Prescott
Keyes without business training other than in stenography and
typewriting. In this law office has had more than twenty years
practical business and legal experience, a position of ever
increasing responsibilities requiring steady and efficient study
and thought. Not a member of the Bar, never having applied for
admission because not believing in women becoming lawyers. Has
served as President of the Guild of the First Parish (Concord)
and Secretary of the South Middlesex Federation of Young People's
Religious Unions. Is an experienced public speaker. Has been an
officer and active member of Old Concord Chapter, D. A. R. For
many years a householder and taxpayer._
_J. A. H._
After more than two decades spent in active business life, I am of the
opinion that members of my sex do not need the ballot, and that it would
be a distinct and unnecessary encumbrance to them. For more than twenty
years, I regret to state, my life has been more that of a man than of a
woman. A home-supporter by the actual work of my hands and my brain,
rather than a home-maker; my life has been past amid the heat and
turmoil of business life, working shoulder to shoulder with men, pitting
my brain against the brains of men; and having no male relative to
represent me in the business of the government, a taxpayer "without
representation." That business life has been satisfactory to me in many
ways, I admit; but in order to wrest its satisfactions from the turmoil,
I have been forced to summon up the determination, the endurance, the
physical and mental labor, which by all the laws of nature belong not to
the "female of the species" but to the male. Its successes have been
apparent successes when considered as parallel with man's work in the
world, but failures when one considers that not for the sharp, insistent
contact of business life was woman created. I still feel no desire to
assist the male sex in the business of government, nor do I think I am
fitted so to do. I desire to be permitted to continue my present freedom
from political activities, and I am content to leave that part of life's
work in the hands of the sex which, to my mind, has managed it hitherto
exceedingly well.
I have never seen any point or place where the power to cast a ballot
would have been of the slightest help to me. For myself I should regard
the duties and responsibilities of thorough, well-informed, and faithful
participation year after year in political matters as a very great
misfortune; even more of a misfortune than the certainty of being mixed
up in the bitter strife, the falsifications, and publicity often
attendant upon political campaigns. Though my work has trained me to use
my mind in matters pertaining to law and to business, it would certainly
be incumbent upon me to make a thorough study of the theory and practice
of government before attempting to exercise the franchise. I feel sure
that the average business woman cannot make such a study or engage in
politics without interference not merely with her physical, but with her
mental business life, which should command her constant and best
attention.
Many women are now undertaking to engage in business, not as a
life-work, but as an incidental experience. It is true, however, that of
the many thousands of women so engaged, very, very few climb up the
ladder of success to the top rounds. It is the rare exception rather
than the rule for women to attain marked distinction, great wealth, or
fame in the business world. This is not caused by any unfairness of the
male sex, but by the nature, the physical and mental limitations, of the
members of the female sex. The trivialities of the afternoon tea are too
often present in the work of the wage-earning woman--too often she has
too slight a regard of her duty to return full value for the pecuniary
consideration she receives. The career of too many wage earning women is
now entirely haphazard, the result of necessity rather than
well-grounded choice. It is fair to assume that political matters would
receive the same degree of smattering knowledge and thought as is too
often received by the daily occupation into which many women drift.
It is much to be deplored that the trend of some modern young women is
more towards the commercial life in which her success is doubtful,
rather than toward the home-keeping, child-bearing, social, religious,
and philanthropic life for which she was physically and mentally
designed. These latter duties women faithfully and successfully perform
as their natural function, and through them they may rise to the
greatest distinction. Femininity should be cherished by the woman whom
circumstance or necessity drives into the wage-earning world, and she
can cherish it by retaining her hold on social, religious, and
charitable interests; but she cannot hope to do so if she attends
political meetings, serves on political committees, canvasses districts
for votes, watches at the polls, serves on juries, and debates political
questions or records and promises of political candidates. We have seen
the loss of femininity produced by the constant campaigning for
suffrage.
The instability of the female mind is beyond the comprehension of the
majority of men. The charm, the "sweet unreasonableness," the lack of
power of consecutive thought upon any intricate problem, which mark the
average woman are sometimes attractive and in personal or family
relations not without compensating advantages. In the business world,
however, these attributes are wholly detrimental. Business women might
possibly bring to political matters such training and experience as they
acquired, but to restrict the franchise to them would be to create a
class franchise. We must remember that suffrage would bring to the
electorate not merely the small number of business women, but the great
mass of women who have had little or no experience of life outside of
their homes.
In brief, then, the voting privilege granted to women, and particularly
to business women, would be a detriment to the women, and it would not
be of sufficient value to the government to outweigh the loss to them.
IV
SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF THE QUESTION
ELLEN MUDGE BURRILL
_Miss Ellen Mudge Burrill, educated in the Lynn public schools,
graduated from the Lynn Classical High School; now in the employ
of the Commonwealth as Cashier in the Sergeant-at-Arms Department;
Supervisor in the First Universalist Sunday School of Lynn; a
member of the Council of the Lynn Historical Society; author of
the "State House Guide Book," "Essex Trust Company of Lynn" (the
successor of the Lynn Mechanics Bank,) "The Burrill Family of Lynn
During the Colonial and Provincial Periods," and of "Our Church
and the People Who Made Her," being a history of The First
Universalist Parish, Lynn._
_J. A. H._
If suffrage were a natural right, then women should have it, and at
once, but it is not like the right to have person and property
protected, which every man, woman and child already possesses. It is not
a natural right, but a means of government, and therefore a matter of
expediency. The question is, will government by the votes of men and
women together produce better results than by men alone? Suffrage means
more than casting a ballot; if it means anything effectual, it means
entering the field of politics. Had the proposed amendment been
ratified, it would have become the duty of all women to vote
systematically in all primary and regular elections. Would they have
done it in justifiable numbers?
Look at Public Document No. 43, giving the number of assessed polls and
registered voters for the Massachusetts State election of 1914:
_Assessed Polls_
1,019,063
_Registered Voters_
610,667
_Persons Voting_
466,360
Also for the City and Town elections of 1914:
_Assessed Polls, Male_
1,229,641
_Registered Voters, Male_
740,871
_Males Who Voted_
532,241
It is evident from these figures that a larger proportion of men should
fulfill their duty to the State. Government being one means to the end,
of making better conditions, the indifference of so many thousand is
beyond comprehension, and is a serious menace to the Commonwealth. It
was Governor Curtis Guild who said: "I base my anti-suffrage position on
the fact that our great failures in legislation are caused not so much
by a vicious element among the voters, as by abstention from voting and
emotional voting."
That granting the ballot to women would greatly increase the proportion
of those who neglect to vote, is clearly shown by the results of giving
women the school vote. In 1879 the Massachusetts Legislature, assuming
that women were peculiarly interested in school affairs, bestowed the
school franchise upon them. See how they have accepted that charge!
According to the United States Census of 1910, there were 1,074,485
women of voting age in this State. Of this number there are
approximately 622,000 eligible to register and vote for School
Committee. Here is the School vote for 1914:
_Women Who Registered_
101,439
_Women Who Voted_
45,820
Here is the school vote of the women for the city election in Lynn,
1914:
Approximate number of women of voting age in Lynn 18,000
Total registration 1,759
Number of women who voted 1,070
In a pamphlet entitled, "Women and the School Vote," Miss Alice Stone
Blackwell, trying to explain away the real meaning of the situation,
says:
"A woman's name, once placed on the register, is now kept there until
she dies, moves or marries. When a town or city shows a large
registration of women and a small vote, it means that on some occasion,
perhaps ten years ago, there was an exciting contest at the school
election, and many women registered and voted. When the contest was
over, many of the women ceased to vote, but their names stayed on the
register."
Her conclusion is that this is "the simple explanation of the lessened
proportion of women's votes to registration." But a more striking
conclusion must be drawn, namely, that it isn't enough to vote when
there is an exciting contest; that it is only well as far as it goes,
but it should be kept up. The State has a right to expect it. In view of
their actual record in the use of the school vote, I see no reason to
think that women would vote in sufficient numbers and with sufficient
regularity to improve politics or government.
The effect of woman suffrage upon the tax rate must also be considered.
If the good to be gained were to justify the expense, there would be
nothing to say; but if not, then we ought to pause to give certain facts
some thought. Take the expenses for the primary and state elections. The
total cost to the Commonwealth in 1914, merely for the preparation,
printing, and shipping of ballots, was $50,046.17 (Auditor's Report,
1914, page 240). I am informed that if women were given the ballot, a
conservative estimate would add 50% to this figure. If women become
candidates for public office, there would be the further expense of
handling the nomination papers. And these calculable expenses are only a
fraction of the total economic loss.
The City of Lynn has the second largest voting list in the state,
outside of Boston. The expense now, for the state and city election
machinery and assistants, is $9,000 a year, in round numbers. The
amendment would entail nearly double the expenditure. There are 53
cities and 320 towns in the state. Think it over before it is too late.
The financial side must enter into the problem some time; isn't the
present a good time?
The milk question was referred to several times in the recent campaign,
the suffragists implying that the Commonwealth was ignoring the need of
legislation and inspection. Here are some of the milk laws on our
statute books, that are administered by the State Department of Health:
The Revised Laws, Chapter 56, provide:
Penalties for the sale of adulterated, diseased, or skimmed milk.
Penalties for sale of milk not of good standard.
For the marking of skimmed milk.
For the marking of condensed milk.
Penalty for using counterfeit seal or tampering with sample.
Penalty for connivance or obstruction.
For the sending of results of analysis to dealer.
That inspectors must act on information and evidence.
The following acts are also in force:
To prohibit the misuse of vessels used in the sale of milk (Acts 1906,
chapter 116).
To establish a standard for cream (Acts 1907, chapter 217).
To establish the standard of milk (Acts 1908, chapter 643).
To provide for the proper marking of heated milk (Acts 1908, chapter
570).
Relative to licensing dealers in milk (Acts 1909, chapter 443).
To provide for the appointment of inspectors and collectors of milk by
Boards of Health (Acts 1909, chapter 405).
Relative to the liability of producers of milk (Acts 1910, chapter 641).
To provide for the inspection and regulation of places where neat
cattle, their ruminants or swine are kept (Acts 1911, chapter 381).
To authorize the incorporation of medical milk commissions (Acts 1911,
chapter 506).
Relative to the establishing of milk distributing stations in cities and
certain towns (Acts 1911, chapter 278).
Relative to the labelling of evaporated, concentrated, or condensed milk
(Acts 1911, chapter 610).
To regulate the use of utensils for testing the composition or value of
milk and cream (Acts 1912, chapter 218).
To safeguard the public health against unclean milk containers and
appliances used in the treatment and mixing of milk (Acts 1913, chapter
761). Relative to the production and sale of milk (Acts 1914, chapter
744).
To prohibit charges for the inspection of live stock, dairies, or farm
buildings (Acts 1915, chapter 109).
The State is divided into eight health districts, with an inspector for
each in the State employ. Each city has its board of health; each town
administers the laws through its selectmen. The City of Lynn has a
board of health; also health inspectors, who do much of their work
before we are up--from 2 to 5 o'clock. They inspect all the milk
stations; take samples from milk wagons; inspect dairies that sell milk
in Lynn, wherever those dairies may be, even out of the State--as, for
instance, the Turner Centre Creamery in Maine. All that doesn't look as
if the milk situation was being neglected.
Massachusetts is doing a great deal for the children. There are over
5,800 wards in the care of the State Minor Wards Department. I do not
need to tell you what a great work is being done for the care and
education of these little ones; it speaks for itself.
Our opponents do not say much about the work women are doing on State
Boards. There are plenty of positions already held by women who are
doing inconspicuous and unexciting work, yet, nevertheless, most useful
to the Commonwealth. Here are some of them, with the number of women on
each board:
The State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity was organized in 1879,
with 2 women on the board.
The work is now divided among different departments.
The State Board of Education had 1 woman member as far back as 1880; it
now has 2.
The State Board of Charity has 2.
The Free Public Library Commission has 2.
The Commission for the Blind has 2.
The Homestead Commission has 1.
The Minimum Wage Commission has 1.
The Board of Registration of Nurses has 3.
The Prison Commission has 2, who also serve on the Board of Parole for
the Reformatory for Women.
The Board of Trustees of the State Infirmary and State Farm has 2.
The Board of Trustees of the Hospitals for Consumptives has 1.
The State Hospitals at Worcester, Taunton, Northampton, Danvers,
Westboro, Medfield, Monson, Boston, Foxboro, have 2 each.
The Gardner State Colony has 2.
The Wrentham State School has 2.
The Massachusetts Training School Trustees has 2.
The Massachusetts General Hospital has 1.
The Perkins Institution for the Blind has 1.
The Hospital Cottages for Children has 1.
Here are forty-five women doing voluntary work on these Boards, all
appointed by the Governor and working under laws passed by the _men_ in
the Legislature.
Take another line. The manual of the labor laws enforced by the State
Board of Labor and Industries, covers the enforcement of the laws
relative to the education of minors, employment of minors, hours of
labor, apprenticeship, hours of labor for women, health inspection,
lighting, ventilation, cleanliness, guarding against dangerous
machinery, work in tenement houses, etc.
The little book entitled "Woman Suffrage, History, Arguments, Results,"
tells all about the suffrage states and gives the good laws that have
been enacted
|
understood.
When the Health Officer, Dr. J. A. Turner, was overwhelmed by all sorts
of religious objections to the closing of wells, he consulted recognised
authorities on Parsi religion as to the precise requirements of the
scriptures and the manner in which the object of the Department could
be carried out without wounding the religious susceptibilities of the
Parsis. Dr. J. J. Modi gave his opinion as follows, referring to a
ceremony of peculiar interest to the students of scriptural lore:—
“As, according to Parsi books, the sun is considered to be a great
purifier, it is required that the well must be exposed to the rays of the
sun. So a well hermetically covered with wood or metal is prohibited.
But one ‘hermetically covered with wire gauze of very fine mesh,’ as
suggested by you, would serve the purpose and would, I think, serve the
Scriptural requirement. As to the question of drawing water from such
a well, a part of the three principal ceremonies performed at a Fire
Temple is known as that of _Jor-melavvi_ (lit. to unite the Zaothra or
ceremonial water with its source). As we speak of ‘dust to dust,’ _i.e._,
one born from dust is in the end reduced to dust, this part of the
ceremonial which symbolizes the circulation of water from the earth to
the air and from the air to the earth requires what we may, on a similar
analogy, speak of as the transference of ‘water to water.’ It requires
that a part of the water drawn for ceremonial purposes from the well
must be in the end returned to its source—the well. So, the provision
of the air-pump, will not, I am afraid, meet all the requirements. I
would therefore suggest that in addition to the hand-pump, a small
close-fitting opening, also made of wire-gauze of fine mesh, may be
provided.”
Shams-ul-ulma Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana also gave his opinion to the
same effect and the recommendation of these two scholars was accepted by
the Department.
No Hindu _savant_ appears to have been consulted on the subject, but
a few gems selected from the petitions and protests received by the
Municipal authorities will throw some light on the traditions and customs
of the different Hindu sects. In a letter to the Standing Committee the
Trustees of the Derasar Sadharan Funds of the temple of Shri Anantnathji
Maharaj represented that according to the scriptures of the Jains water
used for religious ceremonies “must be drawn _at one stretch_ from a well
over which the rays of the sun and the light of the moon fall constantly
and which must therefore be open to the sky and no other water could be
used at such ceremonies.”
In another letter to the Committee Messrs. Payne & Co., Solicitors,
wrote on behalf of their client Mr. Kikabhoy Premchand: “Our client is a
staunch Hindu of old idea and he requires the use of water from _seven_
wells for religious ceremonies. For this purpose he uses the two wells
in question and has to go to neighbouring properties to make up the full
number of seven wells. Water drawn by means of a pump cannot be used for
religious purposes and it is absolutely necessary that both the wells
should be provided with trap-doors.”
Even a trap-door would not satisfy the scruples of a large number.
Messrs. Mehta, Dalpatram and Laljee, Solicitors, represented that the
Marjadis never used pipe water, and they observed: “According to the
Marjadi principles if any pot containing water touches any part of the
trap-door, the water cannot be used for any purpose and the pot must be
placed in fire and purified before it can be used again. As, however,
it is exceedingly difficult whilst drawing water to prevent the vessel
from coming into contact with the trap-door, the provision of such door
instead of being a convenience is the cause of much needless irritation
and annoyance.”
Mr. Goculdas Damodar went a step further and urged that his Marjadi
tenants “were drawing water out of the well only in sackcloth buckets and
any other means would conflict with their religious scruples.”
Mr. Sunderrao D. Navalkar raised a further objection. “By asking me to
cover the well,” wrote he, “you will be interfering in our religious
ceremony of lighting a lamp in the niche in the well and performing other
ceremonies regarding it.”
The least objectionable expedient for protecting wells from the malarial
mosquito was to stock them with fish. In many cases it was cheerfully
resorted to as an experimental measure for killing the larvæ. But even
this simple remedy was not acceptable to some. In objecting to it a
member of the Jain community submitted that the fish would devour the
larvæ and that it was against his religion to do any harm to insect life.
It, however, required no very great efforts of casuistry to induce him
to believe that it would be no transgression on _his_ part if he merely
allowed the Department to put the fish into the well.
This incident reminds one of the beliefs current among the great unwashed
sect of the Jains known as the _Dhundhias_. These tender-hearted people
consider it a sin to wash, as water used for bathing or washing purposes
is likely to destroy the germs in it. India is indeed a country of
bewildering paradoxes. The Hindu _Shastras_ enjoin a complete bath not
merely if one happens to touch any untouchable thing or person, but
even if one’s ears are assailed by the voice of a non-Hindu (_Yavana_).
Nevertheless, in this bath-ridden country of religious impressionability
and, what may appear to the western people, hyperbolic piety, people
like the _Dhundhias_ abound. There are also certain Banias who, during
the whole of the winter, consider it useless to have anything to do with
water beyond washing their hands and face.[3]
With this practice of abstinence from washing may be compared the custom
prevailing all over Greece of refraining from washing during the days
of the Drymais. No washing is done there during those days because the
Drymais, the evil spirits of the waters, are supposed to be then reigning.
Let us now turn from these quaint religious customs concerning the use
of well water to some of the beliefs of the people in the existence of
spirits residing in the wells of Bombay.
CHAPTER II.
WATER SAINTS.
When owners of houses are asked to fill up their wells or to cover them,
they generally apply for permission to provide a wire-gauze cover or a
trap-door. In not a few of these cases the application is prompted either
by a desire “to enable the spirits in the well to come out,” or by the
fear “lest the spirits should bring disaster” if they were absolutely
shut up.
Mr. Gamanlal F. Dalal, Solicitor, once wrote on behalf of a client,
regarding his well in Khetwadi Main Road:—
“My client and his family believe that there is a saintly being in the
well and they always personally see the angelic form of the said being
moving in the compound at night and they always worship the said being
in the well, and they have a bitter experience of filling the well or
closing it up hermetically because in or about the year 1902 my client
did actually fill up the well to its top but on the very night on
which it was so filled up all the members of my client’s family fell
dangerously ill and got a dream that unless the well was again re-opened
and kept open to the sky, they would never recover. The very next day
thereafter they had again to dig out the earth with which the well had
been filled up and they only recovered when the well was completely
opened to the sky.”
A Parsi gentleman, who owns a house on Falkland Road, was served with a
notice to hermetically cover the well. He complied with the requisition.
After about a month he went to Dr. K. B. Shroff, Special Officer,
Malaria, complaining that he had lost his son and that he had himself
been suffering from palpitation of the heart. This he attributed to the
closing of the well.
Similarly, a Parsi lady in Wanka Moholla, Dhobi Talao, informed Dr.
Shroff that since the closing of the well in her house her husband had
been constantly getting ill. Likewise, a Parsi gentleman living in the
same locality complained that he was struck with paralysis for having
sealed his well hermetically.
These spirits are believed to influence not only the health and strength
of their victims but also their fortunes. In Edwardes Theatre on
Kalbadevi Road there was a well, which was filled in by its considerate
owner of his own accord during the construction of the building.
Subsequently, the owner went to the Malaria Officer and informed him that
no Indian Theatrical Company would have his theatre as the proprietors
had a sentimental objection pertaining to the well, and that it was
believed that European Companies also did not make any profit, as the
spirit in the well had been playing mischief. He therefore applied for
permission to re-open the well, promising at the same time that he
would cover it over again so as to let the spirit have “a free play
in the water.” This request was granted and the work was carried out
accordingly. “Recently I was informed,” says Dr. Shroff, “that the
theatre was doing better.”
Sometimes the pent-up spirits are not so vindictive. Instead of ruining
the owners of the wells in which they are shut up, they vent their ire
by merely breaking open the barriers. A Parsi lady in Cowasji Patel
Street, Fort, owned a large well about 25 to 30 feet in diameter. The
Departmental deities ordered that the well should be covered over. After
half the work of covering the well had been done, the concrete gave way.
The lady went running to the Malaria Officer urging that that was the
result of offending the presiding spirit of the well and imploring him
to cancel the requisition.[4] The Malaria Officer, however, remained
unmoved by the fear of rousing the ire of the water wraith and the
dejected lady left his house greatly incensed and probably firmly
convinced that the wrath of the spirit would soon be visited on that
callous Officer. He is, however, still hale and hearty. What he did to
appease the spirit or what amulet he wears to charm the water-goblins
away, is not known. However, this much is certain, that he has not
escaped the furious cannon-fire of all the well-worshippers in Bombay
during the last four years.
Whatever may be the attitude of hardened scientists in this matter, there
is no doubt that these well-spirits are everywhere held by the people in
great reverence and awe. Whether one believes in their existence, or is
inclined to be sceptical on that point, wells supposed to harbour spirits
are scrupulously left undisturbed. Mr. Rustomji Byramji Jeejeebhoy, whose
family is known both for munificence and culture, wrote in the following
terms with regard to a well in Alice Building, Hornby Road:—
“There is a superstition connected with the well. It is well-known all
over this part of the town that the well is said to be a sacred well and
much sanctity is attached to it. Out of deference to this superstition,
I had in designing Alice Building to so design it as to leave the well
alone. To me personally the well is of no use, but those who believe in
the superstition come and pray near the well and present offerings of
flowers and cocoanuts to it.”
Not only owners of wells but also building contractors are averse to
disturbing water-spirits. When the Parsi contractor who built the Alice
Buildings had done work worth about Rs. 35,000, he was informed that it
had been proposed that the well had better be filled up. He said he was
prepared to give up the work and forego all his claims rather than lay
irreverent hands on that sacred well.
Once you instal a natural object in the position of a deity, the idea
that the deified power demands offerings and can be easily cajoled
invariably follows, probably based on the conviction that every man has
his price! Offerings to well-spirits are, therefore, believed to insure
good luck and to avert calamities. One day a Parsi lady went to Dr.
Shroff in great excitement and begged of him not to insist on the well
of her house in Charni Road being closed. The well, she urged, was held
in great reverence by people of all communities. Only the day previous,
while she was driving in a carriage to the house to offer a cocoanut,
sugar and flowers to the well, she narrowly escaped a serious accident,
thanks to the protection offered by the well-spirit.
Two sisters owned a house in Dhunji Street near Pydhowni. They were
served with a notice to cover the well of the house. One of the sisters
went running to the Malaria Officer beseeching him to cancel the notice.
She said that her invalid sister strongly believed in the efficacy of
the worship of the well and never went to bed without worshipping it and
offering it flowers. “My poor sister would simply go mad if she sees
the well covered over,” she cried, and she would not leave Dr. Shroff’s
office until that unchivalrous officer left her alone and slipped into
another room.
Several wells are believed to harbour spirits possessing occult powers
and faculties for giving omens. One such oracular well may be seen in
Ghoga Street, Fort. The owner of the house, a Parsi, was allowed, in the
first instance, to stock the well with fish so as to clear it of the
malaria mosquitoes. This, however, failed to give satisfactory results
and there was no alternative but to demand a covering. The owner on the
other hand pleaded that the well had been held in great veneration by
all classes of people and had so high a reputation for divination that
many persons visited it at midnight to “enquire about their wishes.”
“About eight to twelve ladies (of whom none should be a widow) stand
surrounding the well at midnight and ask questions. If any good is going
to happen, fire will be seen on the surface of the water.” The owner
assured Dr. Shroff that he himself had been an eye-witness to these
phenomena.
Indian folklore abounds in stories belonging to the same group. Neither
are such stories unknown to the European folklorist. We shall notice
in due course several oracular and wishing wells in India and other
countries, but the ceremony described by the Parsi owner is purely
local and typical. So far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no
parallel for it in the literature of well-worship. Peculiar also is the
hour fixed for the ceremony. Generally, visiting wells in the midnight
or even midday is believed to bring disasters. It seems, however, from
an account of a rite described by Miss Burne in Shropshire Folklore that
anyone wishing to resort to St. Oswall’s Well at Oswestry had also to go
to the well at midnight. The ceremony was of course different. It simply
required that the votary had to take some water up in the hand and drink
part of it, at the same time forming a wish in the mind, and to throw the
rest of the water upon a particular stone at the back of the well. If
he succeeded in throwing all the water left in his hand upon that stone
without touching any other spot, his wish would be fulfilled.
CHAPTER III.
PENALTY FOR DEFILEMENT.
A tenant of the same house in Ghoga Street informed Dr. Shroff that a
cooly spat on the pavement surrounding the oracular well with the result
that he died instantly on the spot for having defiled the holy ground.
This reminds me of a story related to me about three years ago of a
European girl who took suddenly ill and died within a day or two after
she had kicked aside a stone kept near the pavement of a well in Loveji
Castle at Parel. On this stone people used to put their offerings to the
saintly spirit of the place known by the name of Kaffri Bâwâ. Many are
the stories I have heard of this spirit from a lady who spent her youth
in Loveji Castle, but as this was a tree-spirit and not a well-spirit,
those tales would be out of place here.
As well-water is used for religious ceremonies, wells and their
surroundings are generally kept clean by the Parsis and Hindus alike, but
there is a further incentive to cleanliness in the case of wells which
are regarded as dwelling-places of spirits. It is a common conviction
that any act of defilement, whether conscious or unconscious, offends
the spirits and all sorts of calamities are attributed to such acts. At
the junction of Ghoga Street and Cowasjee Patel Street stands the once
famous house of Nowroji Wadia. Some years ago the property changed hands.
Certain alterations were made in the building and in consequence a place
was set apart close to the well for keeping dead bodies before disposal.
This brought disasters after disasters. Deaths after deaths took place in
the house and bereavements after bereavements ruined the owner’s family.
Too late in the day was it realized that the nymphs living in the well
should not have been thus insulted. Once a well in Barber Lane overflowed
for days together, emitting foul water. It did not occur to anyone to
ascribe this to the sewer-sprite who had just commenced his pranks in
Bombay. Instead, the mischief was unanimously fathered on a Parsi cook
and his wife who used to sleep near the parapet of the well.
From ancient times contiguity of a corpse to water has been regarded as
a source of defilement. In “Primitive Semitic Religion To-day” (1902),
Professor Samuel Curtiss says that he was told by Abdul Khalil, Syrian
Protestant teacher at Damascus, that “if a corpse passes by a house,
the common people pour the water out from the jars.” With this idea of
pollution of water was blended the conviction that the defilement of the
water of a well or spring was tantamount to the defilement of the spirits
or saints residing near them. Once two sects of Mahomedans in Damascus
fell out. One section held the other responsible for the displeasure of
a saint on the ground that it had performed certain ablutions in the
courtyard of his shrine and that “the dirt had come on the saint to his
disgust.”
In Brittany it is still a popular belief that those who pollute wells
by throwing into them rubbish or stones will perish by lightning.[5]
In the prologue to _Chrétiens Conte du Graal_ there is an account,
seemingly very ancient, of how dishonour to the divinities of wells and
springs brought destruction on the rich land of Logres. The damsels who
resided in these watery places fed travellers with nourishing food until
King Amangons wronged one of them by carrying off her golden cup. His
men followed his evil example, so that the springs dried up, the grass
withered, and the land became waste.[6]
Before the well of Nowroji Wadia’s house was unwittingly defiled, the
presiding fairies of the well used to sing and play in it, but this
entertainment ceased after the place had been polluted. Another well,
famous for the concerts of the nymphs, was a well belonging to the Baxter
family in Bhattiawad. There, too, the water damsels regaled the ears of
the inmates with music. I say this on the authority of an old lady who
used to enjoy those subterranean melodies.
There is a fountain called “the pure one,” in Egypt. If anyone that is
impure through pollution or menstruation touches the water, it begins at
once to stink, and does not cease until one pours out the water of the
fountain and cleans it. Then only it regains its fine smell.
Akin to this tradition is the Esthonian belief concerning the sanctity
of water. In Esthonia there is a stream Wohhanda which has long been
the object of reverence. No Esthonian would fell any tree that grew on
its banks or break any reed that fringed its watercourse. If he did, he
would die within the year. The brook was purified periodically and it was
believed that if dirt was thrown into it, bad weather would follow. The
river-god resident in the stream was in the habit of occasionally rising
out of it and those who saw him described him as a little man in blue and
yellow stockings. Like other river wraiths, whom we shall accost later,
this water-sprite also demanded human sacrifices, and tradition records
offerings of little children made to Wohhanda.[7] When a German landowner
ventured to build a mill and dishonour the water, bad seasons followed
year after year, and the country-people burned down the abominable thing.
A strange variant of the popular belief concerning pollution of wells
is found in the curious custom of deliberately defiling wells with the
object of disturbing the water-spirit and thus compelling him to produce
rain. It was a common belief among several nations that one of the ways
of constraining the rain-god was to disturb him in his haunts. Thus when
rain was long coming in the Canary Islands, the priestesses used to beat
the sea with rods to punish the water-spirit for his niggardliness. In
the same way the Dards, one of the tribes of the _Hindu-Kush_, believe
that if a cow-skin or anything impure is placed in certain springs, storm
will follow. In the mountains of Farghana there was a place where it
began to rain as soon as anything dirty was thrown into a famous well. In
his famous work on the Chronology of Ancient Nations, _Athár-ul-Bakiya_,
Albiruni refers to this phenomenon and asks for an explanation. “And
how,” he inquires, “do you account for the place called “the shop of
_Solomon_, the son of David,” in the cave called Ispahbadhan in the
mountain of Tâk in Tabaristan, where heaven becomes cloudy as soon as
you defile it by filth or by milk, and where it rains until you clean
it again? And how do you account for the mountain in the country of the
Turks? For if the sheep pass over it, people wrap their feet in wool
to prevent their touching the rock of the mountain. For if they touch
it, heavy rain immediately follows.” These things, says the author, are
natural peculiarities of the created beings, the causes of which are
to be traced back to the simple elements and to the beginning of all
composition and creation. “And there is no possibility that our knowledge
should ever penetrate to subjects of this description.”
This doctrine of negation of knowledge is typical of Persian poets and
philosophers. The poet Fakhra Razi has beautifully expressed the idea
in the following words:—“I thought and thought each night and morn for
seventy years and two, but came to know this, that nothing can be known.”
CHAPTER IV.
QUAINT PARSI BELIEFS.
Close by Nowroji Wadia’s house was another habitat of spirits. The owner
of the house, a Parsi lady, was asked to cover it. In view of the sad
experience of the fate of the owner of the neighbouring house she was
reluctant to do anything that might offend the spirits, but the Malaria
Department was insistent. She therefore first implored the presiding
deities of the well to forgive her as she had no option in the matter,
and then consented to cover the well provided a wire-gauze trap-door was
allowed so as not to interfere with the work of worship. I understand
that on every full moon eve she opens the trap-door, garlands the well
and offers her _puja_ there.
Further down the same street, once renowned for the abodes of Parsi
_Shethias_, is a house belonging to a well-known Parsi family. A well in
this house was and still is most devoutly worshipped by the inmates of
the house. I hear from a very reliable source that whenever any member of
the family got married, it was the practice to sacrifice a goat to the
well-spirit, to dip a finger in the blood of the victim and to anoint
the bride or bridegroom on the forehead with a mark of the blood. Once
however this ceremony was overlooked and, as fate would have it, the
bridegroom died within forty days.
This practice of besmearing the forehead with the blood of the
sacrifice is a survival of primitive ideas concerning blood-shedding
and blood-sprinkling, the taking of the blood from the place where the
sacrifice was given being regarded as equivalent to taking the blessing
of the place and putting it on the person anointed with the blood. Thus
when an Arab matron slaughters a goat or a sheep vowed in her son’s
behalf, she takes some of the blood and puts it on his skin. Similarly,
when a barren couple that has promised a sacrifice to a saint in return
for a child is blest with the joys of parenthood, the sacrifice is given
and the blood of the animal is put _on the forehead_ of the child.
Remarkable as is the survival of this primitive ritual in Bombay and
its prevalence amongst people such as the Parsis, there is nothing very
extraordinary about it. A little patch of savagery as it appears to be in
the midst of fair fields and pastures new of western culture, it merely
affords an illustration of the fact that localities preserve relics
of a people much older than those who now inhabit them. It also shows
that various systems of local fetichism found in Aryan Countries merely
represent the undying beliefs and customs of a primitive race which the
Aryans eventually incorporated into their own beliefs and rituals, for it
will be seen as we proceed that in India as in Great Britain the entire
cult of well-worship was imbibed rather than engendered by Aryan culture.
What, however, is most extraordinary is that of all the communities in
Bombay the Parsis show the greatest susceptibility to these beliefs.
Amongst the Hindus worship of water is, no doubt, universal. Belief in
spirits is also general amongst them. Amongst these spirits there are
water-goblins also, _Jalachar_, as contrasted with _Bhuchar_, spirits
hovering on earth, mostly inimical, _mâtâs_ and _sankhinis_, _bhuts_, and
_prets_ who hover round wells and tanks, particularly the wayside ones,
and drown or enter the persons of those who go near their haunts. Many of
these goblins are the spirits of those who have met with an accidental
death or the souls that have not received the funeral _pindas_ with the
proper obsequies. The Hindus believe that these fallen souls reside in
their _avagati_, or degraded condition, near the scene of their death
and molest those who approach it. Almost all the old wells in the Maidan
were in this way believed to be the haunts of such spirits who claimed
their annual toll without fail. Thus it was believed that the well that
stood in the rear of the Bombay Gymkhana must needs have at least three
victims, and sure enough there were at least three cases of suicide
in that well during a year! However, so far as domestic well-spirits
are concerned, while almost all the wells of a Parsi house were until
recently and many of them still are under the protection of a _Bâwâ_, or
_Sayyid_, or _Pir_, or _Jinn_, or _Pari_, or other spirits, one rarely
comes across such wells in Hindu household. Wells are worshipped by the
Hindus no doubt, without exception, but it is the sacred character of the
water that accounts for the worship, not the belief in the existence of
well-spirits. Again, as a result of my investigations, I find that the
worship of wells amongst the Parsi community is in some cases much ruder
and more primitive than amongst the Hindus. What can be the explanation
for it? Is it simply a continuation of their own old beliefs in the land
of their adoption? Is it merely old wine in new bottles?
Water-worship was, no doubt, a general cult with the Parsis in their
ancestral home. Of the antiquity of this worship amongst them we have
ample evidence in their scriptures. In the _Aban Yesht_ the spring is
addressed as a mighty goddess, _Ardevi Sura Anahita_, strong, sublime,
spotless, erroneously equated by some authors with the Mylitta of the
Babylonians and the Aphrodite of the Greeks. Ahurarmazda calls upon
Zarathushtra to worship _Ardevi Sura Anahita_:—
The wide-expanding, the healing,
Foe to the demons, of Ahura’s Faith,
Worthy of sacrifice in the material world,
Worthy of prayer in the material world,
Life-increasing, the righteous,
Herd-increasing, the righteous,
Food-increasing, the righteous,
Wealth-increasing, the righteous,
Country-increasing, the righteous.
Who purifies the seed of all males,
Who purifies the womb of
All females for bearing.[8]
Who makes all females have easy childbirth,
Who bestows upon all females
Right (and) timely milk.
All the shores around the Sea Vourukasha
Are in commotion,
The whole middle is bubbling up,
When she flows forth unto them,
When she streams forth unto them,
Ardevi Sura Anahita.
To whom belong a thousand lakes,
To whom a thousand outlets;
Any one of these lakes
And any of these outlets
(Is) a forty days’ ride
For a man mounted on a good horse.
Whom I, Ahura Mazda, by movement of tongue
Brought forth for the furtherance of the house,
For the furtherance of the village, town and country.
The chariot of _Banu Ardevi Sura_ is drawn by four white horses who
baffle all the devils. Ahuramazda is said to have worshipped her in order
to secure her assistance in inducing Zarathushtra to become his prophet,
and the example set by Him was followed by the great kings and heroes of
ancient Iran. It is conceivable that this tribal cult accompanied the
devout descendants of the ancient Persians wherever they went and that
with their mind attuned to the worship of water they readily came under
the influence of the _genii locorum_ in the different parts of this
country and adopted some of the local rituals of the people who resided
there before them. But the question then arises, who were the people
from whom they borrowed these beliefs and rituals? Most of the guardian
angels of their wells point to a Mahomedan origin, and yet amongst the
followers of Islam well-worship is conspicuous by its absence. They have,
no doubt, their _Sayyids_ and _Pirs_ in abundance, almost every shrine
of theirs has its presiding saint, but they scarcely believe in any
spirit residing in wells. In fact, one may safely say that well-worship
amongst these people has died out, if ever it did exist before. During
my investigation I have not come across a single case of such worship
amongst them and all the Mahomedans whom I have consulted testify to the
absence of these beliefs among them. How then, do we account for the
Mahomedan patron saints of the wells of Parsi houses? It clearly cannot
be a case of preservation of old wine in new jars. The intensely local
colouring does not warrant any such assumption. There are distinctly
non-Parsi ingredients in it. From whom and how did they get these?
Well-spirits, like tree-spirits, form no part of any tribal cult. They
are essentially local in nature and the subject needs careful research
in the localisation of beliefs and the genealogy of folklore. We shall
advert to this subject again,[9] meanwhile let us record a few more
instances of sanctified wells in Bombay.
A well of which I heard during my childhood several thrilling stories of
a somewhat singular type was situated in a house in Nanabhoy Lane, Fort,
opposite the Banaji Fire-Temple, which belonged to my great grand-mother.
It was believed to be the abode of a kind-hearted _Sayyid_ (Mahomedan
saint) who used to watch the health and fortunes of the inmates of the
house. Women in labour preferred for confinement no other place to this
auspicious house always mercifully protected by that guardian angel.
It is said that he used to come out of the well regularly and that
his presence was known by the ecstatic possession of a Parsi woman who
used to live on the ground floor. A big basin of _maleeda_ (confection
of wheat flour) was offered to him by the ladies. It was emptied in a
few moments. The inmates of the house related to the saint all their
difficulties and each one got a soothing reply and friendly hints through
the lips of the medium. A young lady used to suffer from constant
headache. Her grand-mother one day asked the _Sayyid_ what to do to cure
the ailment. He gave her a betel-nut and told her that it should always
be kept by the girl with her. This was done and she never suffered from
headache again. An old inmate of the house was once seriously ill. All
hopes of recovery were abandoned, but the saint came to his rescue and
advised the relatives as to what they should do to propitiate the sea
furies who wanted to devour the man. After the furies were propitiated as
advised, the man recovered.
One or two more stories of Bombay wells known after the names of the
saintly spirits residing in them may be noted. The Gunbow Lane is
known after the famous well in the locality. It is generally believed
that the well was sacred to the Saint (_bâwâ_) Gun who resorted to it.
The Bombay City Gazetteer, however, informs us that “the curious name
_Gunbow_ is probably a corruption of _Gunba_, the name of an ancestor of
Mr. Jagannath Shankersett.” Old records show that Gunba Seti or Gunba
Shet settled in Bombay during the first quarter of the 18th century and
founded a mercantile firm within the Fort walls. This Gunbow well was so
big that it was believed that a man could swim from its bottom to another
in the compound of the Manockji Seth Wadi about 500 feet away. Report
has it that swimmers even used to find their way as far as the wells on
the Maidan beyond Hornby Road. When it was proposed to fill in the well,
strong representations were made to the effect that an opening for the
well spirit should be kept, and a portion was left open for years. This
too has been now covered over, but people still take their offerings to
the site. In the same way, a well in the lane by the side of the Manockji
Seth’s Agiary leading to Mint Road, which has been covered over, is seen
strewn with flowers and other offerings.
Another well in Ghoga Street was believed to be the dwelling place of a
Mahomedan saint, _Murgha Bâwâ_. “Murgha” is believed to be a corruption
of Yusuf Murgay, who owned houses in the street which was also known
after his name as _Murgha Sheri_. An esteemed friend, who used to reside
in the house containing this well, tells me that the well was held in
great reverence by the Parsi families residing in the locality. Various
offerings were made, the principal of which was a black _murgha_ or fowl,
the common victim of such sacrifices. It was believed that in the still
hours of the night the saint used to come out of the well and move about
in the house. His steps were heard distinctly on the staircase and his
presence was announced by the creaking sound that was heard round about.
But my friend, who used to burn midnight oil in that house during his
college days and who has since been wedded to science, is inclined to
think that the footsteps were those of the rats infesting the house and
that the creaking sound was made by the wooden book-cases!
A Parsi lady who lived in the same house says that people from various
parts of the town used to
|
might be called a brief in behalf
of banished romance, since it voiced a protest against the excess of
rationalism and realism in the early eighteenth century. Too great
correctness and restraint must always result in proportionate liberty.
As the eternal swing of the pendulum of literary history, the ebb
and flow of fiction inevitably bring a reaction against any extreme,
so it was with the fiction of the period. The mysterious twilights
of medievalism invited eyes tired of the noonday glare of Augustan
formalism. The natural had become familiar to monotony, hence men
craved the supernatural. And so the Gothic novel came into being.
_Gothic_ is here used to designate the eighteenth-century novel of
terror dealing with medieval materials.
There had been some use of the weird in English fiction before Horace
Walpole, but the terror novel proper is generally conceded to begin
with his Romantic curiosity, _The Castle of Otranto_. The Gothic
novel marks a distinct change in the form of literature in which
supernaturalism manifests itself. Heretofore the supernatural elements
have appeared in the drama, in the epic, in ballads and other poetry,
and in folk-tales, but not noticeably in the novel. Now, however, for
a considerable time the ghostly themes are most prominent in lengthy
fiction, contrasted with the short story which later is to supersede it
as a vehicle for the weird. This vacillation of form is a distinct and
interesting aspect of the development of supernaturalism in literature
and will be discussed later.
With this change in form comes a corresponding change in the materials
of ghostly narration. Poetry in general in all times has freely
used the various elements of supernaturalism. The epic has certain
distinct themes, such as visits to the lower world, visions of
heaven, and conflict between mortal and divine powers, and brings in
mythological characters, gods, goddesses, demigods, and the like. Fate
is a moving figure in the older dramas, while the liturgical plays
introduced devils, angels, and even the Deity as characters in the
action. In the classical and Elizabethan drama we see ghosts, witches,
magicians, as _dramatis personæ_. Medieval romances, prose as well as
metrical and alliterative, _chansons de geste_, _lais_, and so forth,
drew considerably on the supernatural for complicating material in
various forms, and undoubtedly much of our present element comes from
medievalism. Tales of the Celtic Otherworld, of fairy-lore, of magic,
so popular in early romance, show a strong revival to-day.
The Gothic novel is more closely related to the drama than to the epic
or to such poetry as _The Faerie Queene_ or _Comus_. On the other
hand, the later novels and stories, while less influenced by the
dramatic tradition, show more of the epic trace than does the Gothic
romance. The epic tours through heaven and hell, the lavish use of
angels, devils, and even of Deity, the introduction of mythological
characters and figures which are not seen in Gothic fiction, appear to
a considerable extent in the stories of recent times. In Gothicism we
find that the Deity disappears though the devil remains. There are no
vampires, so far as I have been able to find, though the were-wolf and
the lycanthrope appear, which were absent from the drama (save in _The
Duchess of Malfi_). Other elements are seen, such as the beginnings
of the scientific supernaturalism which is to become so prominent in
later times. The Wandering Jew comes in and the elixir of life and the
philosopher's stone achieve importance. Mechanical supernaturalism and
the uncanny power given to inanimate objects seem to have their origins
here, to be greatly developed further on. Supernaturalism associated
with animals, related both to the mythological stories of the past and
to the more horrific aspects of later fiction, are noted in the terror
romance.
Allegory and symbolism are present in a slight degree, as in _Melmoth_
and Vathek's Hall of Eblis, though not emphasized as in more modern
literature. Humor is largely lacking in the Gothic romance, save as
the writers furnish it unintentionally. In Gothicism itself we have
practically no satire, though Jane Austen and Barrett satirize the
terror novel itself in delicious burlesques that laugh it out of court.
=Elements of Gothicism.= In the terror tale the relationship between
supernatural effect and Gothic architecture, scenery, and weather
is strongly stressed. Everything is ordered to fit the Gothic plan,
and the conformity becomes in time conventionally monotonous. Horace
Walpole, the father of the terror novel, had a fad for medievalism,
and he expressed his enthusiasm in that extraordinary building at
Strawberry Hill, courteously called a Gothic castle. From a study of
Gothic architecture was but a step to the writing of romance that
should reproduce the mysteries of feudal times, for the shadows
of ancient, gloomy castles and cloisters suggested the shades of
ghost-haunted fiction, of morbid terrors. _The Castle of Otranto_
was the outcome of a dream suggested by the author's thinking about
medieval structures.
The Gothic castle itself is represented as possessing all the antique
glooms that increase the effect of mystery and awe, and its secret
passage-ways, its underground vaults and dungeons, its trap-doors,
its mouldy, spectral chapel, form a fit setting for the unearthly
visitants that haunt it. A feudal hall is the suitable domicile for
ghosts and other supernatural revenants, and the horrific romance
throughout shows a close kinship with its architecture. The novels of
the class invariably lay their scenes in medieval buildings, a castle,
a convent, a monastery, a château or abbey, or an inquisitional prison.
The harassed heroine is forever wandering through midnight corridors of
Gothic structure. And indeed, the opportunity for unearthly phenomena
is much more spacious in the vast piles of antiquity than in our
bungalows or apartment-houses.
Mrs. Radcliffe erected many ruinous structures in fiction. Her
_Mysteries of Udolpho_ shows a castle, a convent, a château, all Gothic
in terror and gloomy secrets, with rooms hung with rotting tapestry,
or wainscoted with black larch-wood, with furniture dust-covered and
dropping to pieces from age, with palls of black velvet waving in the
ghostly winds. In other romances she depicts decaying castles with
treacherous stairways leading to mysterious rooms, halls of black
marble, and vaults whose great rusty keys groan in the locks. One
heroine says:[2] "When I entered the portals of this Gothic structure a
chill--surely prophetic--chilled my veins, pressed upon my heart, and
scarcely allowed me to breathe."
[2] In _The Romance of the Castle_.
_The Ancient Records of the Abbey of St. Oswyth_[3] says of its
setting: "The damp, cold, awe-inspiring hall seemed to conjure up ten
thousand superstitious horrors and terrific imaginary apparitions." In
Maturin's _Albigenses_ the knights assemble round the great fire in
the baronial hall and tell ghost tales while the storm rages outside.
In _Melmoth, the Wanderer_ the scene changes often, yet it is always
Gothic and terrible,--the monastery with its diabolical punishments,
the ancient castle, the ruined abbey by which the wanderer celebrates
his marriage at midnight with a dead priest for the celebrant, the
madhouse, the inquisition cells, which add gloom and horror to the
supernatural incidents and characters. In _Zofloya_,[4] the maiden is
imprisoned in an underground cave similar to that boasted by other
castles. This novel is significant because of the freedom with which
Shelley appropriated its material for his _Zastrozzi_, which likewise
has the true Gothic setting. In Shelley's other romance he erects the
same structure and has the devil meet his victim by the desolate, dear
old Gothic abbey.
[3] By T. J. Horsley-Curties.
[4] By Mrs. Dacre, better known as "Rosa Matilda."
Regina Maria Roche wrote a number of novels built up with crumbling
castles, awesome abbeys, and donjon-keeps whose titles show the
architectural fiction that dominates them. A list of the names of the
Gothic novels will serve to show the general importance laid on antique
setting. In fact, the castle, abbey, monastery, château, convent,
or inquisition prison occupied such an important place in the story
that it seemed the leading character. It dominated the events and was
a malignant personality, that laid its spell upon those within its
bounds. It shows something of the character that Hawthorne finally
gives to his house of seven gables, or the brooding, relentless power
of the sea in Synge's drama.[5] The ancient castle becomes not merely
haunted itself but is the haunter as well.
[5] _Riders to the Sea._
Not only is architecture made subservient to the needs of Gothic
fiction, but the scenery likewise is adapted to fit it. Before Mrs.
Radcliffe wrote her stories interlarded with nature descriptions,
scant notice had been paid to scenery in the novel. But she set the
style for morose landscapes as Walpole had for glooming castles, and
the succeeding romances of the _genre_ combined both features. Mrs.
Radcliffe was not at all hampered by the fact that she had never laid
eyes on the scenes she so vividly pictures. She painted the dread
scenery of awesome mountains and forests, beetling crags and dizzy
abysses with fluent and fervent adjectives, and her successors imitated
her in sketching nature with dark impressionism.
The scenery in general in the Gothic novel is always subjectively
represented. Nature in itself and of itself is not the important
thing. What the writer seeks to do is by descriptions of the outer
world to emphasize the mental states of man, to reflect the moods of
the characters, and to show a fitting background for their crimes and
unearthly experiences. There is little of the light of day, of the
cheerfulness of ordinary nature, but only the scenes and phenomena that
are in harmony with the glooms of crimes and sufferings.
Like the scenery, the weather in the Gothic novel is always
subjectively treated. There is ever an artistic harmony between
man's moods and the atmospheric conditions. The play of lightning,
supernatural thunders, roaring tempests announce the approach and
operations of the devil, and ghosts walk to the accompaniment of
presaging tempests. In _The Albigenses_ the winds are diabolically
possessed and laugh fiendishly instead of moaning as they do as
seneschals in most romances of terror. The storms usually take place
at midnight, and there is rarely a peaceful night in Gothic fiction.
The stroke of twelve generally witnesses some uproar of nature as
some appearance of restless spirit. Whenever the heroines in Mrs.
Radcliffe's tales start on their midnight ramble through subterranean
passages and halls of horror, the barometer becomes agitated. And
another[6] says: "The storm, that at that moment was tremendous, could
not equal that tempest which passed in the thoughts of the unhappy
captive."
[6] St. Oswyth.
In _Zofloya_ Victoria's meetings in the forest with the Moor, who
is really the devil in disguise, are accompanied by supernatural
manifestations of nature. The weather is ordered to suit the dark,
unholy plots they make, and they plan murders against a background
of black clouds, hellish thunder, and lurid lightning. When at last
the Moor announces himself as the devil and hurls Victoria from the
mountain top, a sympathetic storm arises and a flood sweeps her body
into the river. This scene is accusingly like the one in the last
chapter of Lewis's _Monk_, where the devil throws Ambrosio from the
cliff to the river's brink.
Instantly a violent storm arose; the winds in fury rent up rocks
and forests; the sky was now black with clouds, now sheeted with
fire; the rain fell in torrents; it swelled the stream, the waves
over-flowed their banks; they reached the spot where Ambrosio lay,
and, when they abated, carried with them into the river the corse
of the despairing monk.
No Gothic writer shows more power of harmonizing the tempests of the
soul with the outer storms than does Charles Robert Maturin.[7] As
Melmoth, doomed to dreadful life till he can find some tortured soul
willing to exchange destinies with him, traverses the earth in his
search, the preternatural aspects of weather both reflect and mock
his despair. As the young nephew alone at midnight after his uncle's
death reads the fated manuscript, "cloud after cloud comes sweeping
on like the dark banners of an approaching host whose march is for
destruction." Other references may illustrate the motif. "Clouds go
portentously off like ships of war... to return with added strength
and fury." "The dark and heavy thunder-clouds that advance slowly seem
like the shrouds of specters of departed greatness. Peals of thunder
sounded, every peal like the exhausted murmurs of a spent heart."
[7] In _Melmoth, the Wanderer_ and _The Albigenses_.
In general, in the Gothic novel there is a decided and definite attempt
to use the terrible forces of nature to reflect the dark passions of
man, with added suggestiveness where supernatural agencies are at work
in the events. This becomes a distinct convention, used with varying
effectiveness. Nowhere in the fiction of the period is there the power
such as Shakespeare reveals, as where Lear wanders on the heath in
the pitiless clutch of the storm, with a more tragic tempest in his
soul. Yet, although the idea of the inter-relation of the passions of
man and nature is not original with the Gothicists, and though they
show little of the inevitability of genius, they add greatly to their
supernatural effect by this method. Later fiction is less barometric as
less architectural than the Gothic.
=The Origin of Individual Gothic Tales.= The psychological origin of
the individual Gothic romances is interesting to note. Supernaturalism
was probably more generally believed in then than now, and people were
more given to the telling of ghost stories and all the folk-tales of
terror than at the present time. One reason for this may be that they
had more leisure; and their great open fires were more conducive to the
retailing of romances of shudders than our unsocial steam radiators.
The eighteenth century seemed frankly to enjoy the pleasures of fear,
and the rise of the Gothic novel gave rein to this natural love for the
uncanny and the gruesome.
Dreams played an important part in the inspiration of the tales of
terror. The initial romance was, as the author tells us, the result of
an architectural nightmare. Walpole says in a letter:
Shall I even confess to you what was the origin of this romance? I
waked one morning from a dream, of which all that I could recall
was that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural
dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story) and that at
the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand
in armor. In the evening I sat down and began to write, without
knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work
grew on my hands.
Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_ was likewise born of a dream. "Monk"
Lewis had interested Byron, Polidori, and the Shelleys in supernatural
tales so much so that after a fireside recital of German terror stories
Byron proposed that each member of the group should write a ghostly
romance to be compared with the compositions of the others. The results
were negligible save _Frankenstein_, and it is said that Byron was much
annoyed that a mere girl should excel him. At first Mrs. Shelley was
unable to hit upon a plot, but one evening after hearing a discussion
of Erasmus Darwin's attempts to create life by laboratory experiments,
she had an idea in a half waking dream. She says:
I saw--with shut eyes but acute mental vision--I saw the pale
student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put
together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out,
and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of
life.... The artist sleeps but he is awakened; and behold, the
horrid thing stands at his bedside, looking on him with watery,
yellow yet speculative eyes!
And from this she wrote her story of the man-monster.
The relation of dreams to the uncanny tale is interesting. Dreams
and visions, revelatory of the past and prophetic of the future,
played an important part in the drama (as they are now widely used in
motion-picture scenarios) and the Gothic novel continues the tradition.
It would be impossible to discover in how many instances the authors
were subconsciously influenced in their choice of material by dreams.
The presaging dreams and visions attributed to supernatural agency
appear frequently in Gothic fiction. The close relation between dreams
and second sight in the terror novel might form an interesting by-path
for investigation. Dream-supernaturalism becomes even more prominent in
later fiction and contributes passages of extraordinary power of which
De Quincey's _Dream-Fugue_ may be mentioned as an example.
The germinal idea for _Melmoth, the Wanderer_ was contained in a
paragraph from one of the author's own sermons, which suggested a theme
for the story of a doomed, fate-pursued soul.
At this moment is there one of us present, however we may have
departed from the Lord, disobeyed His will, and disregarded His
word--is there one of us who would, at this moment, accept all that
man could bestow or earth could afford, to resign the hope of his
salvation? No, there is not one--not such a fool on earth were the
enemy of mankind to traverse it with the offer!
True, the theme of such devil-pact had appeared in folk-tales and
in the drama previously, notably in Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_, but
Maturin here gives the idea a dramatic twist and psychologic poignancy
by making a human being the one to seek to buy another's soul to save
his own. A mortal, cursed with physical immortality, ceaselessly
harried across the world by the hounds of fate, forever forced by an
irresistible urge to make his impitiable offer to tormented souls, and
always meeting a tragic refusal, offers dramatic possibilities of a
high order and Maturin's story has a dreadful power.
Clara Reeve's avowed purpose in writing _The Old English Baron_ was to
produce a ghost story that should be more probable and realistic than
Walpole's. She stated that her book was the literary offspring of the
earlier romance, though Walpole disclaimed the paternity. She deplored
the violence of the supernatural machinery that tended to defeat its
own impressiveness and wished to avoid that danger in her work, though
she announced: "We can conceive and allow for the appearance of a
ghost." Her prim recipe for Romantic fiction required, "a certain
degree of the marvelous to excite the attention; enough of the manners
of real life to give an air of probability to the work; and enough of
the pathetic to engage the heart in its behalf." But her ingredients
did not mix well and the result was rather indigestible though devoured
by hungry readers of her time.
Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, that energetic manipulator of Gothic enginery,
wrote because she had time that was wasting on her hands,--which may be
an explanation for other and later literary attempts. Her journalist
husband was away till late at night, so while sitting up for him she
wrote frightful stories to keep herself from being scared. During that
waiting loneliness she doubtless experienced all those nervous terrors
that she describes as being undergone by her palpitating maidens,
whose emotional anguish is suffered in midnight wanderings through
subterranean passages and ghosted apartments. There is one report that
she went mad from over-much brooding on mormo, but that is generally
discredited.
Matthew Gregory Lewis was impelled to write _The Monk_ by reading
the romances of Walpole and Mrs. Radcliffe, together with Schiller's
_Robbers_, which triple influence is discernible in his lurid tale.
He defended the indecency of his book by asserting that he took the
plot from a story in _The Guardian_,[8] ingeniously intimating that
plagiarized immorality is less reprehensible than original material.
Shelley, in his turn, was so strongly impressed by Lewis's _Monk_,
and Mrs. Dacre's _Zofloya_ in writing his _Zastrozzi_, and by William
Godwin's _St. Leon_ in his _St. Irvyne, or The Rosicrucian_, that
the adaptation amounts to actual plagiarism. Even the titles show
imitation. In writing to Godwin, Shelley said he was "in a state of
intellectual sickness" when he wrote these stories, and no one who is
familiar with the productions will contradict him in the matter.
[8] "The History of Santon Barsis," _The Guardian_, Number 148.
The influence of the crude scientific thought and investigation of the
eighteenth century is apparent in the Gothic novels. _Frankenstein_,
as we have seen, was the outcome of a Romantic, Darwinian dream, and
novels by Godwin, Shelley, and Maturin deal with the theme of the
elixir of life. William Beckford's _Vathek_ has to do with alchemy,
sorcery, and other phases of supernatural science. Zofloya, Mrs.
Dacre's diabolical Moor, performs experiments in hypnotism, telepathy,
sorcery, and satanic chemistry. And so in a number of the imitative and
less known novels of the _genre_ science plays a part in furnishing
the material. There is much interest in the study of the relation of
science to the literature of supernaturalism in the various periods and
the discoveries of modern times as furnishing plot material. The Gothic
contribution to this form of ghostly fiction is significant, though
slight in comparison with later developments.
=The Gothic Ghosts.= The Ghost is the real hero or heroine of the
Gothic novel. The merely human characters become for the reader
colorless and dull the moment a specter glides up and indicates a
willingness to relate the story of his life. The continuing popularity
of the shade in literature may be due to the fact that humanity finds
fear one of the most pleasurable of emotions and truly enjoys vicarious
horrors, or it may be due to a childish delight in the sensational.
At all events, the ghost haunts the pages of terror fiction, and
the trail of the supernatural is over them all. In addition to its
association with ancient superstitions, survivals of animistic ideas in
primitive culture, we may see the classical and Elizabethan influence
in the Gothic specter. The prologue-ghost, naturally, is not needed
in fiction, but the revenge-ghost is as prominent as ever. The ghost
as a dramatic personage, his talkativeness, his share in the action,
reflect the dramatic tradition, with a strong Senecan touch. The Gothic
phantoms have not the power of Shakespeare's apparitions, nothing
approaching the psychologic subtlety of _Hamlet_ or _Julius Cæsar_
or the horrific suggestiveness of _Macbeth_, yet they are related to
them and are not altogether poor. Though imitative of the dramatic
ghosts they have certain characteristics peculiar to themselves and are
greatly worth consideration in a study of literary supernaturalism.
There are several clearly marked classes of ghosts in Gothicism. There
is the real ghost that anybody can pin faith to; there is the imagined
apparition that is only a figment of hysterical fear or of a guilty
conscience; and there is the deliberate hoax specter. There are ghosts
that come only when called,--sometimes the castle dungeons have to be
paged for retiring shades; others appear of their own free will. Some
have a local habitation and a name and haunt only their own proper
premises, while others have the wanderlust. There are innocent spirits
returning to reveal the circumstances of their violent demise and to
ask Christian burial; we meet guilty souls sent back to do penance for
their sins in the place of their commission; and there are revenge
ghosts of multiple variety. There are specters that yield to prayers
and strong-minded shades that resist exorcism. It is difficult to
classify them, for the lines cross inextricably.
The genealogical founder of the family of Gothic ghosts is the giant
apparition in _The Castle of Otranto_. He heralds his coming by an
enormous helmet, a hundred times larger than life size, which crashes
into the hall, and a sword which requires a hundred men to bear it in.
The ghost himself appears in sections. We first see a Brobdignagian
foot and leg, with no body, then a few chapters later an enormous hand
to match. In the last scene he assembles his parts, after the fashion
of an automobile demonstration, supplies the limbs that are lacking
and stands forth as an imposing and portentous shade. After receiving
Alfonso's specter--Alfonso will be remembered as the famous statue
afflicted with the nose-bleed--he "is wrapt from mortal eyes in a blaze
of glory." That seems singular, considering the weighty material of
which he and his armor are made. There is another interesting specter
in the castle, the monk who is seen kneeling in prayer in the gloomy
chapel and who, "turning slowly round discovers to Frederick the
fleshless jaws and empty sockets of a skeleton wrapped in a hermit's
cowl."
Clara Reeve's young peasant in _The Old English Baron_, the
unrecognized heir to the estate, who is spending a night in the
haunted apartment, sees two apparitions, one a woman and the other a
gentleman in armor though not of such appalling size as the revenant
in _Otranto_. The two announce themselves as his long-lost parents
and vanish after he is estated and suitably wed. Mrs. Radcliffe[9]
introduces the shade of a murdered knight, a chatty personage who
haunts a baronial hall full of men, and at another time engages in a
tournament, slaying his opponent.
[9] In _Gaston de Blondeville_.
Mrs. Bonhote[10] shows us a migratory ghost of whom the old servant
complains in vexation:
Only think, Miss, of a ghost that should be at home minding its
own business at the Baron's own castle, taking the trouble to
follow him here on special business it has to communicate! However,
travelling three or four hundred miles is nothing to a ghost that
can, as I have heard, go at the rate of a thousand miles a minute
on land or sea.
In this romance the baron goes to visit the vault and has curdling
experiences.
[10] In _Bungay Castle_.
"A deep groan issues from the coffin and a voice exclaims, 'You hurt
me! Forbear or you will crush my bones to powder!'" He knocks the
coffin in pieces, whereupon the vocal bones demand decent burial and
his departure from the castle. Later the baron sees the ghost of his
first wife, who objects to his making a third matrimonial venture,
though she has apparently conceded the second. In the same story a
young woman's spook pursues one Thomas, almost stamping on his heels,
and finally vanishing like a sky-rocket, leaving an odor of brimstone
behind. A specter rises from a well in _The History of Jack Smith, or
the Castle of Saint Donats_,[11] and shakes its hoary head at a group
of men who fire pistols at it.
[11] By Charles Lucas, Baltimore.
_The Castle of Caithness_[12] shows a murdered father indicating his
wounds to his son and demanding vengeance. An armored revenge ghost
appears in _Count Roderick's Castle_, or _Gothic Times_, an anonymous
Philadelphia novel, telling his son the manner of his murder, and
scaring the king, who has killed him, to madness. The revenge ghosts in
the Gothic do not cry "Vindicta!" as frequently as in the early drama,
but they are as relentless in their hate. In _Ancient Records_, or _The
Abbey of St. Oswyth_,[13] the spirit of a nun who has been wronged
and buried alive by the wicked baron returns with silent, tormenting
reproach. She stands beside him at midnight, with her dead infant on
her breast.
Suddenly the eyes of the specter become animated. Oh!--then what
flashes of appalling anger dart from their hollow orbits on the
horror-stricken Vortimer! Three dreadful shrieks ring pealing
through the chamber now filled with a blaze of sulphurous light.
The specter suddenly becomes invisible and the baron falls
senseless on his couch.
Scant wonder! In the same story Rosaline, the distressed heroine, is
about to wed against her will, when a specter appears and forbids the
bans. Again, Gondemar has a dagger at her throat with wicked intent,
when a spook "lifts up his hollow, sunken countenance and beckons with
angry gestures for his departure." Gondemar departs!
[12] By F. H. P.
[13] By T. J. Horsley-Curties.
Another revenge ghost creates excitement in _The Accusing Spirit_. A
murdered marquis appears repeatedly to interested parties and demands
punishment on his brother who has slain him. Another inconsiderate
specter in the same volume wakes a man from his sleep, and beckoning
him to follow, leads him to a subterranean vault, stamps his foot on
a certain stone, shows a ghastly wound in his throat and vanishes. On
investigation, searchers find a corpse in a winding-sheet beneath the
indicated spot. Another accusing spirit appears in the same story--that
of Benedicta, a recreant nun, who glides as a headless and mutilated
figure through the cloisters and hovers over the convent bed where
she "breathed out her guilty soul." The young heroine who has taken
temporary refuge in the convent and has to share the cell with this
disturbing room-mate, is informed by an old nun that, "Those damned
spirits who for mysterious purposes receive permission to wander over
the earth can possess no power to injure us but that which they may
derive from the weakness of our imagination." Nevertheless, the nervous
girl insists on changing her room! Another famous cloistered ghost,
one of the pioneer female apparitions of note, is the Bleeding Nun
in Lewis's _The Monk_, that hall of Gothic horrors. He provides an
understudy for her, who impersonates the nun in times of emergency,
providing complicating confusion for the other characters and for the
reader.
Ghosts begin to crowd upon each others' heels in later Gothic novels.
No romance is so poor as not to have a retinue of specters, or at
least, a ghost-of-all-work. Emboldened by their success as individuals,
spooks appear in groups and mobs. William Beckford in his _Vathek_
presents two thousand specters in one assembly. Beckford was no
niggard! In Maturin's _The Albigenses_, de Montfort, passing alone
through a dark forest, meets the phantoms of countless victims of his
religious persecution. Men, women, young maidens, babes at the breast,
all move toward him with unspeakable reproach, with "clattering bones,
eyeless sockets, bare and grinning jaws." Aside from Dante the most
impressive description of unhappy spirits in a large number is given
in _Vathek_ in that immortal picture of the Hall of Eblis. Beckford
shows here a concourse of doomed souls, each with his hand forever
pressed above his burning heart, each carrying his own hell within him,
having lost heaven's most precious boon, the soul's hope! In the Hall
of Eblis there are the still living corpses, "the fleshless forms of
the pre-adamite kings, who still possess enough life to be conscious
of their deplorable condition; they regard one another with looks of
the deepest dejection, each holding his right hand motionless above his
heart." The prophet Soliman is there, from whose livid lips come tragic
words of his sin and punishment. Through his breast, transparent as
glass, the beholder can see his heart enveloped in flames.
In James Hogg's _The Wool-Gatherer_, a man of very evil life is haunted
by the wraiths of those he has wronged. As he lies on his death-bed,
not only he, but those around him as well, hear the pleading voices of
women, the pitiful cries of babes around his bed, though nothing is
visible. We have here a suggestion of the invisible supernaturalism
that becomes so frequent and effective a motif in later fiction. After
the man is dead, the supernatural sounds become so dreadful that "the
corpse sits up in the bed, pawls wi' its hands and stares round wi' its
dead face!" When the watchers leave the room for a few moments, the
body mysteriously disappears and is never found. A somewhat similar
instance occurs in one of Ambrose Bierce's modern stories of dead
bodies.
There is some attempt to exorcise restless spirits in a number of
Gothic novels. On various occasions the priests come forth with
bell, book, and candle to pronounce anathema against the troublesome
visitants. In one story a monk crosses his legs to scare away the
specter, but forgets and presently tumbles over. In another,[14] the
priest peremptorily bids the ghosts depart and breaks the news firmly
to them that they cannot return for a thousand years. But one bogle,
whether of feeble understanding or strong will, comes in to break up
the ceremonies of incantation, and scares the priest into hysterics.
[14] _The Spirit of Turrettville._
The imagined ghost appears in many of the Gothic tales, whose writers
lack the courage of their supernaturalism. Mrs. Radcliffe, for
instance, loves to build up a tissue of ghostly horrors, yet explains
them away on natural grounds after the reader fancies he sees a spirit
around every corner.
The ghosts that are deliberately got up for the purposes of deception
form an interesting feature of Gothic methods. The reasons behind
the spectral impersonations are various, to frighten criminals into
restitution after confession, to further crime, or merely to enliven
the otherwise lagging story. In _The Spirit of Turrettville_ two youths
follow the sounds of plaintive music till, in a deserted, spookish
apartment, they see a woman playing at an old harp. As they draw near,
they see only skeleton hands on the keys and the apparition turns
toward them "a grinning, mouldering skull." She waves her hands with
haughty rebuke for their intrusion and "stalks" out of the oratory. She
gives further performances, however, singing a song composed for the
occasion. But the reader, after such thrills, resents finding out later
that she is the living wife, attempting to frighten the villain into
confession.
In _The Accusing Spirit_ a bogus spook is constructed by means of
phosphorus, aided by a strong resemblance between two men, to accuse
an innocent man of murder. The apparition dramatically makes his
charge, but is unmasked just in time to save the victim's life. A tall,
cadaverous young man makes up for a ghost in an anonymous novel,[15]
while a mysterious woman in a black veil attends a midnight funeral in
the castle, then unaccountably disappears.
[15] In _Ariel, or the Invisible Monitor_.
In _Melmoth_ the monks persecute a despised brother by impersonating
spirits in his cell. They cover the walls with images of fiends, over
which they smear phosphorus, and burn sulphur to assist the deception.
They utter mocking cries as of demons, seeking to drive him mad. In
Lewis
|
obliged to retreat in his turn, and Henry saw himself within
a few days under the walls of the capital; in a situation to dictate
terms to his rebellious subjects.
The castle of Arques had on this occasion essentially served the royal
cause; but it seems to have been suffered from that time forwards to
fall into decay. All mouldering, however, and ruined as it is, its
walls and towers may yet for many centuries bid defiance to wind and
weather, unless active measures are used for their demolition.
At the revolution the castle became national property, and as such was
sold: it has now fallen into the hands of a lady who resides in the
neighbouring town.
The present plate, which represents the principal entrance, will serve
to convey some idea of the general character of the building, as well as
of the immense size of the massy towers, and of the crumbling appearance
of their surface. Two piers only remain of the draw-bridge, by which
they were approached; and the three successive arches of the gateway are
torn into little more than shapeless rents. It would be very difficult
to convey, by means of any engraving, an adequate idea of the grand
character of the whole ruin, or of its imposing situation. Still more
difficult would be the attempt to represent its masonry. The walls have
certainly been in most places, and probably in all, covered with a
facing of brick, of comparatively modern date; and in some parts this
facing still remains, or, where it is torn off, nothing but rubble is
visible. In other places they appear to have been constructed of
alternate layers of brick and flint, disposed with the same regularity
as in Roman buildings; and the thin form of these bricks leads also to
the impression that they are of Roman workmanship.
If such a supposition may be allowed to be well founded, the first
establishment of a fortress in this situation is probably but little
posterior to the Christian æra; and many antiquarians are disposed to
believe that such was really the case. At the same time, even allowing
the truth of this surmise in its fullest extent, it is most probable
that the Roman castle had fallen into ruin and disuse long before the
Norman conquest.
Both William of Jumieges and the chronicle of St. Wandrille expressly
mention, that William, son to Duke Richard II. received from his nephew,
the conqueror, the earldom of Arques, and built a castle there. Other
writers ascribe the origin of the fortress to the eighth century, and
others to the latter part of the twelfth. Nothing is now left
sufficiently perfect to determine the point, nor any thing that can
justly be considered decisive of the style of its architecture.
The situation of the castle is very bold: it crowns the extremity of a
ridge of chalk hills of considerable height, which commencing to the
west of Dieppe, and terminating at this spot, have full command of the
valley below. The fosse which surrounds the walls is wide and deep. The
outline of the fortress is oval, but not regularly so; and it is varied
by towers of uncertain shape, placed at unequal distances. The two
entrance towers, and those nearest to them to the north and south, are
considerably larger than the rest. One of these larger lateral towers[1]
is of a most unusual form. It appears as if the original intention of
the architect had been to make it circular; but that, changing his
design in the middle of his work, he had attached to it a triangular
appendage, probably by way of a bastion. Three others adjoining this are
square, and indeed appear to partake as much of the character of
buttresses as of towers.
The castle is internally divided into two wards, the first of which, on
entering, is every where rough with the remains of foundations: the
inner, which is by far the largest, is approached by a square gate-house
with high embattled walls, and contains towards its farther end the
quadrangular keep, whose shell alone is standing. The walls of this are
of great height: in their perfect state they were carefully faced with
large square stones, but these are principally torn away. The crypts
beneath the castle are spacious, and may still be traversed for a
considerable length.
NOTES:
[1] See _Account of a Tour in Normandy_, I. p. 37, t. 3.
PLATES II. III. IV.
ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.
Before the revolution despoiled France of her monastic institutions, the
right bank of the Seine, from Rouen to the British Channel, displayed an
almost uninterrupted line of establishments of this nature. Within a
space of little more than forty miles, were included the abbeys of St.
Wandrille, Jumieges, Ducler, and St. Georges de Bocherville.
[Illustration: Plate 2. ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.
_West Front._]
The most illustrious of these was Jumieges; it occupied a delightful
situation in a peninsula, formed by the curvature of the stream, where
the convent had existed from the reign of Clovis II. and had, with only
a temporary interruption, caused by the invasion of the Normans,
maintained, for eleven centuries, an even course of renown; celebrated
alike for the beauty of its buildings, the extent of its possessions,
and the number and sanctity of its inmates. Philibert, second abbot of
Rebais, in the diocese of Meaux, was the founder of this monastery. He
migrated hither with only a handfull of monks; but the community
increased with such surprising rapidity, that in the time of Alcadrus,
his immediate successor, the number was already swelled to nine hundred,
and, except upon the occasion just mentioned, this amount never appears
to have experienced any sensible diminution.
The monastery of Jumieges reckoned among its abbots men of the most
illustrious families of France. In early times, Hugh, the grandson of
Charlemagne, held the pastoral staff: it afterwards passed through the
hands of Louis d'Amboise, brother to the cardinal, and of different
members of the houses of Clermont, Luxembourg, d'Este, and Bourbon.
The abbatial church, as it now stands, (if indeed it does now stand, for
in 1818, when drawings were made for these plates, its demolition was
proceeding with rapidity,) was chiefly built in the eleventh century, by
Robert the Abbot, who was translated from Jumieges to the bishopric of
London, and thence to the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury. The
western front (_see plate 2_) is supposed to be certainly of that
period, and all very nearly of the same æra, though the southern tower
is known to be somewhat the most modern. The striking difference in the
plan of these towers, might justly lead to the inference, that there was
also a material difference in their dates, and that they were not both
of them part of the original plan; but there do not appear to be any
grounds for such a supposition. On the other hand, the contrary seems to
be well established; and those who are best acquainted with the
productions of Norman architects, will scarcely be surprised at
anomalies of this nature.
[Illustration: Plate 3. ABBEY CHURCH OF JUMIEGES.
_Parts of the Nave._]
The interior of the nave (_plate 3_) is also a work of the same period,
except the lofty pillars that support the cornice, and the symbols of
the evangelists that are placed near the windows of the clerestory.
These were additions made towards the latter end of the seventeenth
century. The pillars were rendered necessary by the bad state of the
roof: the symbols were added only by way of ornament. They are of
beautiful sculpture, and, as such, have lately been engraved upon a
larger scale, in an _Account of a Tour in Normandy, in 1818_, (II. p.
27) which work also contains a general view of the ruins of Jumieges,
and a representation of some ancient trefoil arches that are very
remarkable.
Of the square central tower one side only is now remaining. This tower
was despoiled of its spire in 1557. The Choir and Lady-Chapel are almost
entirely gone. They were of pointed architecture; and it appears that
they were erected during some of the latter years of the thirteenth
century, or at the commencement of the fourteenth.
In the Lady-Chapel lay the heart of Agnes Sorel, who died at the
neighbouring village of Mesnil, on the ninth of February, 1450, while
her royal lover, Charles VII. was residing at Jumieges, intent upon the
siege of Honfleur. Her body was interred in the collegiate church of
Loches in Touraine. Upon her monument at Jumieges was originally placed
her effigy, in the act of offering her heart to the Virgin. But this
statue was destroyed by the Huguenots, who are said to have been guilty
of the most culpable excesses in this monastery. Agnes' tomb remained
till the revolution, when it was swept away with all the rest, and,
among others, with one of great historical curiosity in the neighbouring
church dedicated to St. Peter; for the convent of Jumieges contained
two churches, the larger under the invocation of the Holy Virgin, and a
smaller by its side, sacred to the chief of the apostles.
The tomb here alluded to was called by the name of _le tombeau des
Enerves_, or _de Gemellis_; and so much importance was attached to it,
that it has even been supposed that the Latin name of Jumieges,
_Gemeticum_, was a corruption from the word _gemellis_. Upon the
monument were figures of two young noblemen, intended, as it is said, to
represent twin sons of Clovis and Bathilda, who, for sedition, were
punished by being hamstrung and confined in this monastery.
[Illustration: Plate 4. ABBEY OF JUMIEGES.
_Arch on the West Front._]
The third plate of Jumieges, which is copied from a drawing by Miss
Elizabeth Turner, represents a noble arch-way, the entrance to a porch
that leads to a gallery adjoining the former cloisters, and known by the
name of the _Knight's Hall_. It is a remarkably fine specimen of a very
early pointed arch, still preserving all the ornaments of the
semi-circular style, and displaying them in great richness and beauty.
There is no authority for the date of this gallery: nor does it appear
that any historical record is preserved respecting it. The style of the
architecture would lead to the referring of it, without much hesitation,
to the latter part of the thirteenth century.
PLATES V.-XI.
ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
[Illustration: Plate 5. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_West Front._]
In a work like the present, devoted expressly to the elucidation of the
Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, and more particularly intended to
illustrate that style of architecture which prevailed during the time
when the province was governed by its own Dukes, it has appeared
desirable to select one or two objects, and to exhibit them, as far as
possible, in their various details.
Under this idea, the abbey church of St. Georges de Bocherville has been
taken from the upper division of the province, and that of the Holy
Trinity at Caen from the lower. Both of these are noble edifices; both
are in nearly the same state in which they were left by the Norman
architects; and both of them are buildings whose dates may be cited with
positive certainty.
The abbey of St. Georges was situated upon an eminence on the right bank
of the Seine, two leagues below Rouen. It owed its origin to Ralph de
Tancarville, lord of the village, about the year 1050. A rage for the
building and endowing of monastic establishments prevailed at that
period throughout Normandy; and this nobleman, who had been the
preceptor to Duke William in his youth, and was afterwards his
chamberlain, unwilling to be outdone by his compeers in deeds of piety
and magnificence, founded this monastery and built the church in honor
of the Virgin and St. George. Both the conqueror and his queen assisted
the pious labour by endowments to the convent; and Ordericus Vitalis
relates how, upon the decease of the monarch, the monks of St. Gervais,
at Rouen, where he died, made a solemn procession to the church of St.
Georges de Bocherville, there to offer up their prayers for the soul of
their departed sovereign.
At the revolution the abbatial church was fortunate enough to become
parochial, and it thus escaped the ruin in which nearly the whole of the
monastic buildings throughout France were at that time involved. Its
previous good fortune in having been so very little exposed to injury or
to alteration, is even more to be wondered at.
[Illustration: Plate 6. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_General view._]
The general view of the church, (_plate 6_) for the drawing of which the
author is indebted to Miss Elizabeth Turner, is calculated to convey a
faithful idea of the effect of the whole. Whatever is here seen is
purely Norman, except the spire; and upon the subject of spires
antiquaries are far from being agreed: some regarding them as a
comparatively modern invention, while others, on the contrary, believe
that the use of them may be traced to a very remote period. The
semi-circular east end, with a roof of high pitch, the windows separated
by shallow buttresses, or by slender cylindrical pillars, and the
grotesque corbel-table, are, all of them, characteristics of the early
Norman style: a greater peculiarity of the present building, and one
indeed that is found in but few others, lies in the small semi-circular
chapels attached to the sides of the transepts.
The west front (_plate 5_) exhibits a deviation from the general style
of the church, in the two towers with which it is flanked. The shape of
the arches in these plainly indicates a later æra; but they are early
instances of pointed architecture. The grand entrance is displayed upon
a larger scale in the seventh plate. The ornaments to this door-way are
rich and varied, and there are but few finer portals in Normandy. But in
specimens of this description the duchy is far from being able to bear a
comparison with England. It would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to
assign a satisfactory reason for this circumstance; and yet the fact is
so obvious, that it cannot fail to have occurred to every one who has
paid any attention to the architecture of the two countries.
In the interior of the church there is scarcely an architectural anomaly
to be discovered. The only alterations are those which were rendered
necessary by the injuries done to the building in the religious wars,
during the sixteenth century; and the repairs on that occasion extended
only to a portion of the roof, and of the upper part of the wall on the
south side of the nave. As a satisfactory specimen of the character of
the whole of the inside, the south transept has been selected for the
subject of the eighth plate. In this, however, as well as in the
opposite one, there is a peculiarity which requires to be noticed; that,
within the church, at the distance of a few feet from the end wall, is
placed a column, from which an arch springs on either side, occupying
the whole width of the transept, and thus forming an open screen. The
screen terminates, above, in a plain flat wall, which is carried to but
a very short distance higher than the arches, so as to be nearly on a
line with the triforium. The same arrangement exists also in some other
churches in Normandy; as in that of the royal abbey of St. Stephen at
Caen, in the abbey church at Cerisy, in the abbey church at Fécamp, and
in the cathedral at Séez. In the two last mentioned buildings, it is
found connected with the pointed architecture. At Cerisy, a church,
erected A.D. 1030, by Robert, father to the Conqueror, the screen is
surmounted by a row of seventeen semi-circular arches, which rise to
about half the height of the columns of the triforium, and form an
elegant parapet. It is possible that there may have been originally some
decoration of the same kind at St. Georges. At Fécamp, the screen is
carried up to the roof by three tiers, each consisting of three arches;
and the recess thus made, is still used as a chapel, having an altar at
the east end, and, in the centre, an ancient font. Such may have been
originally the case at St. Georges; and thus we may account for the
small semi-circular additions to the transepts, one of which is visible
in the general view of the church. Mr. Cotman, however, suggests another
idea, which may have entered into the mind of the architect of St.
Georges; that, by means of this screen at the end of the transepts, the
aisles of the nave would receive apparent length; from the columns,
which form the screen, ranging in a line with those of the outer walls
of the church. Among our English ecclesiastical buildings, there are
similar screens in the transepts of Winchester cathedral[2], where the
portion of the church that remains in its original state, greatly
resembles, in its architecture, the church of St. Georges de
Bocherville, and is known to have been erected at nearly the same
date[3].
[Illustration: Plate 7. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_West entrance._]
[Illustration: Plate 8. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_South Transept._]
[Illustration: Plate 9. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_Sculptured Capitals._]
Within the spandrils of the arches, just mentioned, are two highly
curious bas-reliefs, figured here in the _tenth plate_, and marked A and
B. They are on square tablets, cut out of the solid stone, in the same
manner as the blocks of a stone engraving; the rims being left elevated,
so as to form rude frames. One of them represents a prelate, who holds a
crozier in his left hand, while the first two fingers of the right are
elevated in the action of giving the blessing. Below him are two small
heads; but it would be as difficult to conjecture what they are intended
to typify, or why they are placed there, as it would be to state the
meaning of the artist, in having represented the whole of his vestment
as composed of parallel diagonal lines. In the opposite bas-relief, are
seen two knights on horseback, in the act of jousting; as rude a piece
of sculpture, especially with respect to the size and form of the
steeds, as can well be imagined; and yet it possesses a degree of
spirit, worthy of a better age. The shields of the riders are oblong;
their tilting spears pointless; their conical helmets terminate in a
nasal below, like the figures in the Bayeux tapestry. "This
coincidence," as has been observed elsewhere[4], "is interesting, as
deciding a point of some moment towards establishing the antiquity of
that celebrated relic, by setting it beyond a doubt, that such helmets
were used anterior to the conquest; for it is certain, that these
basso-relievos are coeval with the building that contains them."
The nave of the church of St. Georges is, in its height, divided into
three compartments: the lowest consists of a row of square, massy piers,
varied only by a few small columns attached to their angles, and
connected by wide arches, which are generally without any other ornament
than plain fluted mouldings; the second compartment, or triforium, is
composed of a uniform series of small arches, broken, at intervals, by
the truncated columns; which, supporting the groinings of the roof
above, terminate abruptly below, nearly upon a level with the capitals
of the lowest arches; in the clerestory, the arches are also simple and
unornamented; their size nearly intermediate between those of the first
and second tiers. It is almost needless to mention, that, in a perfect
building, of such a date, the whole of the arches are semi-circular. The
same is equally the case in the choir; but this part of the edifice is
considerably richer in its architectural decorations; and the noble
arch, which separates it from the nave, is surrounded with a broad band
of the embattled moulding, inclosing two others of the chevron moulding.
A string-course, of unusual size, formed of what is called the cable
ornament, goes round the whole interior of the building.
The general effect of the semi-circular east end, shews a striking
resemblance between the church of St. Georges and Norwich cathedral; and
those who take pleasure in researches of this description, will do well
to trace the points of similarity through other parts of the edifices.
The two kingdoms can scarcely boast more noble, or more perfect
buildings, of the Norman style; and there is the farther advantage, that
the difference between the periods of their respective erection is but
small. Our English cathedral rose in the early part of the reign of
William Rufus, when his follower, Herbert de Losinga, who, not content
with having purchased the bishopric for £1900, bought also the abbacy of
Winchester for his father, for £1000, was cited before the Pope for this
double act of simony, and, with difficulty, retained his mitre, upon the
condition of building sundry churches and monasteries. Norwich has,
indeed, a superiority in its tower, in regard to which, it may safely be
put in competition with any edifice of the same style, in Normandy or in
England. For beauty, richness, variety, and purity of ornament, there is
nothing like it. On the other hand, Norwich has undergone various
alterations, as well in its interior, as its exterior[5], and it has no
decoration of the same description comparable with the capitals in the
church of St. Georges. These are so curious, that it has been thought
right to devote to them the _ninth_ and _tenth plates_ of this work[6].
The capitals near the west end of the church, are comparatively simple:
they become considerably more elaborate on advancing towards the choir;
and it is most interesting to observe in them, how the Norman architects
appear, in some instances, to have been intent upon copying the Roman
model, or even adding to it a luxury of ornament, which it never knew,
yet still preserving a classical feeling and a style of beauty, of which
the proudest ages of architecture need not be ashamed; while, in other
cases, the rudeness of the design and execution is such, that it can
scarcely be conceived, but that they were executed by a barbarous
people, just emerged from their hyperborean woods, and equally strangers
to the cultivation of art, and the finer feelings of humanity. And yet,
even in some of those of the latter description, attentive observation
may lead to traces of classical fables, or representations of the holy
mysteries of Christianity. Thus, one of the capitals[7] seems designed
to portray the good Shepherd and the Lamb; another[8] appears to allude
to the battle between the followers of Æneas and the Harpies. It would
not, perhaps, be going too far, to say, that many of the others have
reference to the northern mythology, and some of them, probably, to
Scandinavian history.
[Illustration: Plate 10. CAPITALS IN THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE
BOCHERVILLE.]
[Illustration: Plate 11. ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GEORGES DE BOCHERVILLE.
_Sculpture in the Cloisters._]
In the chapter-house, which stands between the church and the monastic
buildings, the capitals are decidedly historical, and exhibit an
apparent connection very unusual in similar cases. The _eleventh plate_
contains some of these[9]. Another, and of the greatest curiosity, now
lost, has been etched in Mr. Turner's _Tour in Normandy_, from a drawing
by M. Langlois, a very able and indefatigable artist of Rouen. It
represents a series of royal minstrels, playing upon different musical
instruments. This part of the building is known to have been erected
towards the close of the twelfth century, and is consequently an hundred
years posterior to the church. It is now extremely dilapidated, and
employed as a mill. The capitals here figured, are taken from three
arches that formed the western front. The sculpture in the upper line,
and in a portion of the second, most probably refers to some of the
legends of Norman story: the remainder seems intended to represent
the miraculous passage of Jordan and the capture of Jericho, by the
Israelites, under the command of Joshua. The detached moulding on the
same plate, is copied from the archivolt of one of these arches: the
style of its ornament is altogether peculiar. To the pillars that
support the same arches, are attached whole-length figures, in high
relief, of less than the natural size. Two of them represent females;
the third, a man; and one of the former has her hair disposed in long
braided tresses, that reach on either side to a girdle. All of them hold
labels with inscriptions, which fall down to their feet in front. The
braided locks, and the general style of sculpture, shew a resemblance
between these statues and those on the portals of the churches of St.
Denys and Chartres, as well as those which stood formerly at the
entrance of St. Germain des Prés, at Paris, all which are figured by
Montfaucon, in his _Monumens de la Monarchie Française_, and by him
referred to the sovereigns of the Merovingian dynasty; but have been
believed, by subsequent writers, to be the productions of the eleventh
or twelfth century, an opinion which the statues at St. Georges may be
considered to confirm.
NOTES:
[2] See _Britton's Winchester Cathedral_, ground plan and plate 12.
[3] _Milner's Winchester_, I. p. 194.--Other authors, I am well aware,
and those of great weight, have said much with regard to the _Saxon
work_ at Winchester; but, though I have examined the building itself,
and the various publications respecting it, with some care, I confess I
have met with no portion that did not appear to me to be truly Norman.
[4] _Turner's Tour in Normandy_, II. p. 10.
[5] The complete uniformity of style throughout the church of St.
Georges, joined to the absence of all screens or other objects whatever,
that might intercept the sight from west to east, produces an effect,
not only grand, but altogether deceptive. It is impossible not to admit
the superior judgment of the French, in thus keeping their religious
edifices free from incumbrances; it is scarcely possible, too, not to
feel persuaded, that the Norman church is larger than the English,
though their respective dimensions are in reality as follows:
NORWICH. ST. GEORGES.
Length of nave 200 feet 135 feet
-------- choir 183 92
-------- transepts 180 102
Width of the nave with aisles 70 64-1/2
[6] In the former of these plates, the capitals, marked Nos. 1, 6, 8, 9,
10, and 12, are taken from the exterior of the east end; Nos. 2, 6, and
7, from the nave; and Nos. 3, 4, and 11, from the door-way. In the
latter plate, the exterior of the east end has supplied Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6,
7, 8, and 10; the nave, Nos. 4 and 9; and the door-way, No. 5.
[7] Plate 10, No. 8.
[8] Plate 10, No. 5.
[9] It may be well to remark, that this plate contains five capitals,
the extent of each of which may be distinguished by the small crosses
above.
PLATE XII.
CHURCH OF GRÂVILLE.
(END OF THE NORTH TRANSEPT.)
[Illustration: Plate 12. CHURCH OF GRÂVILLE.]
The church of Grâville, like that of St. Georges de Bocherville, though
now parochial, was, before the revolution, monastic, being attached to
the priory of the same name, beautifully situated on an eminence near
the mouth of the Seine, at the distance of half a league from Havre de
Grâce. The origin of this monastery is referred, in the _Neustria
Pia_[10], to about the year 1100; but nothing is known with certainty
respecting it till 1203, when Walter, Archbishop of Rouen, confirmed, by
his approbation, the foundation of regular canons established here by
William Malet, lord of the village, which is called in the Latin of
those times, _Girardi Villa_, or _Geraldi Villa_. The modern name of
Grâville is supposed to be an abbreviation of these. The canons thus
fixed here, had been brought from St. Barbe in Auge, and were endowed by
the founder with all the lands he possessed in Normandy and England. By
subsequent deeds, one of them dated as late as the end of the fifteenth
century, different members of the same family continued their donations
to the priory. The last mentioned was Louis Malet, admiral of France,
whose name is also to be found among the benefactors to Rouen cathedral,
as having given a great bell of six hundred and sixty-six pounds weight,
which, previously to the revolution, hung in the central tower.
William Malet, the founder of Grâville, was one of the Norman chieftains
who fought under the Conqueror at the battle of Hastings[11]; and he is
said to have been selected by his prince, on that occasion, to take
charge of the body of Harold, and see it decently interred. Writers,
however, are not agreed upon this point: Knighton, on the authority of
Giraldus Cambrensis, asserts that, though Harold fell in the battle, he
was not slain; but, escaping, retired to a cell near St. John's church,
in Chester, and died there an anchoret, as was owned by himself in his
last confession, when he lay dying; in memory whereof, they shewed his
tomb when Knighton wrote. Rapin, on the other hand, in his _History of
England_ observes, that an ancient manuscript in the Cottonian library,
relates, "that the king's body was hard to be known, by reason of its
being covered with wounds; but that, it was at last discovered by one
who had been his mistress, by means of certain private marks, known only
to herself; whereupon the duke sent the body to his mother without
ransom, though she is said to have offered him its weight in gold."
Nearly the same story is told in the _Gesta Gulielmi Ductis_[12],
written by William, archdeacon of Lisieux, a contemporary author.
Ordericus Vitalis[13] mentions William Malet two years afterwards, as
commanding the Conqueror's forces in York, when besieged by the Danes
and a large body of confederates, under the command of Edgar Atheling
and other chieftains; and we find that his son, Robert, received from
the same king, the honor of Eye, in Suffolk, together with two hundred
and twenty-one lordships in the same county; and many others in
Hampshire, Essex, Lincoln, Nottingham, and York. This Robert held the
office of great chamberlain of England, in the beginning of the reign of
Henry I; but, only in the second year of it, he attached himself to the
cause of Robert Curthose, for which he was disinherited and banished.
With him appears to have ended the greatness of the family, in England.
The church of Grâville was dedicated to St. Honorina, a virgin martyr,
whose relics were preserved there in the times anterior to the Norman
invasion; but were then transported to Conflans upon the Marne. Peter de
Natalibus, copious as he is in his Hagiology, has no notice of Honorina,
whose influence was nevertheless most extraordinary in releasing
prisoners from fetters; and whose altars were accordingly hung round
with an abundance of chains and instruments of torture. The author of
the _Neustria Pia_, who attests many of her miracles of this
description, relates, that her sanctity extended even to the horse which
she rode, insomuch, that, when the body of the beast was thrown, after
its death, as carrion to the dogs, they all refused to touch it; and the
monks, in commemoration of the miracle, employed the skin for a covering
to the church door, where it remained till the middle of the seventeenth
century.
Except towards the west end, which is in ruins, and has quite lost the
portal and towers that flanked it, the church of Grâville still
continues tolerably entire: in its style and general outline, but
particularly in its central tower and spire, it bears a considerable
resemblance to that of St. Georges de Bocherville. Architecturally
regarded, however, it is very inferior to that noble edifice; but the
end of the north transept, selected for the subject of the present
plate, will, in point of interest, scarcely yield to any other building
in Normandy. The row of sculptures immediately above the windows, is
probably unique: among them is the Sagittary, very distinctly portrayed;
and near him, an animal, probably designed for a horse, whose tail ends
in a decided fleur-de-lys, while he holds in his mouth what appears
intended to represent another. The figure of the Sagittary is also
repeated upon one of the capitals of the nave, which are altogether of
the same style of art, as the most barbarous at St. Georges, and not
less fanciful. The interlaced arches, with flat surfaces, that inclose
the windows immediately beneath the sculptures, may be matched by
similar rows in the exterior of the abbey church of St. Stephen, at
Caen, and on the end of the north transept of Norwich cathedral. It
appears likewise, from Mr. Carter's work on _Early English
Architecture_, (_plate 23_) that others, resembling them, line the
lowest story of the east end of Tickencote church, in Rutlandshire. This
circumstance is the rather mentioned here, as that able antiquary
regards the church as a specimen of true Saxon architecture; whereas it
may safely be affirmed, that there is no part of it, as figured by him,
but may be exactly paralleled from Normandy. The same may also be said
of almost every individual instance that he has produced as
illustrations of the style in use among our Saxon progenitors. In
Grâville, a series of similar arches is continued along the west side of
the north transept; and, judging from the general appearance of the
church, it may be believed that it is of a prior date to any of the
others just mentioned.
A considerable portion of the monastic buildings is still remaining; but
they are comparatively modern.--A lithographic plate of this monastery
was published at Paris, by Bourgeois, in 1818.
NOTES:
[10] P. 861.
[11] _
|
But when they
bring the stretcher to him, and he unassisted lies down on it on his
uninjured side, an exalted expression, elevated but restrained thoughts,
enliven his features. With brilliant eyes and shut teeth he raises his
head with an effort, and at the moment the stretcher-bearers move he
stops them, and addressing his comrades with trembling voice, says,
“Good-by, brothers!” He would like to say something more, he seems to
be trying to find something touching to say, but he limits himself to
repeating, “Good-by, brothers!” A comrade approaches the wounded man,
puts his cap on his head for him, and turns back to his cannon with a
gesture of perfect indifference. At the sight of your terrified
expression of face the officer, yawning, and rolling between his fingers
a cigarette in yellow paper, says, “So it is every day, up to seven or
eight men.”
You have just seen the defenders of Sebastopol on the very place of the
defence, and, strange to say, you will retrace your steps without paying
the least attention to the bullets and balls which continue to whistle
the whole length of the road as far as the ruins of the theatre. You
walk with calmness, your soul elevated and strengthened, for you bring
away the consoling conviction that never, and in no place, can the
strength of the Russian people be broken; and you have gained this
conviction not from the solidity of the parapets, from the ingeniously
combined intrenchments, from the number of mines, from the cannon
heaped one on the other, and all of which you have not in the least
understood, but from the eyes, the words, the bearing, from what may be
called the spirit of the defenders of Sebastopol.
There is so much simplicity and so little effort in what they do that
you are persuaded that they could, if it were necessary, do a hundred
times more, that they could do everything. You judge that the sentiment
that impels them is not the one you have experienced, mean and vain, but
another and more powerful one, which has made men of them, living
tranquilly in the mud, working and watching among the bullets, with a
hundred chances to one of being killed, contrary to the common lot of
their kind. It is not for a cross, for rank; it is not that they are
threatened into submitting to such terrible conditions of existence.
There must be another, a higher motive power. This motive power is found
in a sentiment which rarely shows itself, which is concealed with
modesty, but which is deeply rooted in every Russian heart--patriotism.
It is now only that the tales that circulated during the first period of
the siege of Sebastopol, when there were neither fortifications, nor
troops, nor material possibility of holding out there, and when,
moreover, no one admitted the thought of surrender--it is now only that
the anecdote of Korniloff, that hero worthy of antique Greece, who said
to his troops, “Children, we will die, but we will not surrender
Sebastopol,” and the reply of our brave soldiers, incapable of using set
speeches, “We will die, hurrah!”--it is now only that these stories have
ceased to be to you beautiful historical legends, since they have become
truth, facts. You will easily picture to yourself, in the place of those
you have just seen, the heroes of this period of trial, who never lost
courage, and who joyfully prepared to die, not for the defence of the
city, but for the defence of the country. Russia will long preserve the
sublime traces of the epoch of Sebastopol, of which the Russian people
were the heroes!
Day closes; the sun, disappearing at the horizon, shines through the
gray clouds which surround it, and lights up with purple rays the
rippling sea with its green reflections, covered with ships and boats,
the white houses of the city, and the population stirring there. On the
boulevard a regimental band is playing an old waltz, which sounds far
over the water, and to which the cannonade of the bastions forms a
strange and striking accompaniment.
_SEBASTOPOL IN MAY, 1855._
Six months had rolled by since the first bomb-shell thrown from the
bastions of Sebastopol ploughed up the soil and cast it upon the enemy’s
works. Since that time millions of bombs, bullets, and balls had never
ceased flying from bastions to trenches, from trenches to bastions, and
the angel of death had constantly hovered over them.
The self-love of thousands of human beings had been sometimes wounded,
sometimes satisfied, sometimes soothed in the embrace of death! What
numbers of red coffins with coarse palls!--and the bastions still
continued to roar. The French in their camp, moved by an involuntary
feeling of anxiety and terror, examined in the soft evening light the
yellow and burrowed earth of the bastions of Sebastopol, where the black
silhouettes of our sailors came and went; they counted the embrasures
bristling with fierce-looking cannon. On the telegraph tower an
under-officer was watching through his field-glass the enemy’s soldiers,
their batteries, their tents, the movements of their troops on the
Mamelon-Vert, and the smoke ascending from the trenches. A crowd
composed of heterogeneous races, moved by quite different desires,
converged from all parts of the world towards this fatal spot. Powder
and blood had not succeeded in solving the question which diplomats
could not settle.
I.
A regimental band was playing in the besieged city of Sebastopol; a
crowd of soldiers and women in Sunday best was promenading in the
avenues. The clear sun of spring had risen upon the English works, had
passed over the fortifications, over the city, and over the Nicholas
barracks, shedding everywhere its just and joyous light; now it was
setting into the blue distance of the sea, which gently rippled,
sparkling with silvery reflections.
An infantry officer of tall stature and with a slight stoop, busy
putting on gloves of doubtful whiteness, though still presentable, came
out of one of the small sailor-houses built on the left side of Marine
Street. He directed his steps towards the boulevard, fixing his eyes in
a distracted manner on the toe of his boots. The expression of his
ill-favored face did not denote a high intellectual capacity, but traits
of good-fellowship, good sense, honesty, and love of order were to be
plainly recognized there. He was not well-built, and seemed to feel some
confusion at the awkwardness of his own motions. He had a well-worn cap
on his head, and on his shoulders a light cloak of a curious purplish
color, under which could be seen his watch-chain, his trousers with
straps, and his clean and well-polished boots. If his features had not
clearly indicated his pure Russian origin he would have been taken for a
German, for an aide-de-camp, or for a regimental baggage-master--he wore
no spurs, to be sure--or for one of those cavalry officers who have been
exchanged in order to take active service. In fact, he was one of the
latter, and while going up to the boulevard he was thinking of a letter
he had just received from an ex-comrade, now a landholder in the
Government of F----; he was thinking of his comrade’s wife, pale,
blue-eyed Natacha, his best friend; he was especially recalling the
following passage:
“When they bring us the _Invalide_,[A] Poupka (that was the name the
retired uhlan gave his wife) rushes into the antechamber, seizes the
paper, and throws herself upon the sofa in the arbor[B] in the parlor,
where we have passed so many pleasant winter evenings in your company
while your regiment was in garrison in our city. You can’t imagine the
enthusiasm with which she reads the story of your heroic exploits!
‘Mikhailoff,’ she often says in speaking of you, ‘is a pearl of a man,
and I shall throw myself on his neck when I see him again! _He is
fighting in the bastions, he is!_ He will get the cross of St. George,
and the newspapers will be full of him.’ Indeed, I am beginning to be
jealous of you. It takes the papers a very long time to get to us, and
although a thousand bits of news fly from mouth to mouth, we can’t
believe all of them. For example: your good friends the _musical girls_
related yesterday how Napoleon, taken prisoner by our cossacks, had been
brought to Petersburg--you understand that I couldn’t believe that! Then
one of the officials of the war office, a fine fellow, and a great
addition to society now our little town is deserted, assured us that our
troops had occupied Eupatoria, _thus preventing the French from
communicating with Balaklava_; that we lost two hundred men in this
business, and they about fifteen thousand. My wife was so much delighted
at this that she celebrated it all night long, and she has a feeling
that you took part in the action and distinguished yourself.”
In spite of these words, in spite of the expressions which I have put in
italics and the general tone of the letter, Captain Mikhaïloff took a
sweet and sad satisfaction in imagining himself with his pale,
provincial lady friend. He recalled their evening conversations on
_sentiment_ in the parlor arbor, and how his brave comrade, the
ex-uhlan, became vexed and disputed over games of cards with kopek
stakes when they succeeded in starting a game in his study, and how his
wife joked him about it. He recalled the friendship these good people
had shown for him; and perhaps there was something more than friendship
on the side of the pale friend! All these pictures in their familiar
frames arose in his imagination with marvellous softness. He saw them in
a rosy atmosphere, and, smiling at them, he handled affectionately the
letter in the bottom of his pocket.
These memories brought the captain involuntarily back to his hopes, to
his dreams. “Imagine,” he thought, as he went along the narrow alley,
“Natacha’s joy and astonishment when she reads in the _Invalide_ that I
have been the first to get possession of a cannon, and have received the
Saint George! I shall be promoted to be captain-major: I was proposed
for it a long time ago. It will then be very easy for me to get to be
chief of an army battalion in the course of a year, for many among us
have been killed, and many others will be during this campaign. Then, in
the next battle, when I have made myself well known, they will intrust a
regiment to me, and I shall become lieutenant-colonel, commander of the
Order of Saint Anne--then colonel--” He was already imagining himself
general, honoring with his presence Natacha, his comrade’s widow--for
his friend would, according to the dream, have to die about this
time--when the sound of the band came distinctly to his ears. A crowd of
promenaders attracted his gaze, and he came to himself on the boulevard
as before, second-captain of infantry.
II.
He first approached the pavilion, by the side of which several musicians
were playing. Other soldiers of the same regiment served as music-stands
by holding before them the open music-books, and a small circle
surrounded them, quartermasters, under-officers, nurses, and children,
engaged in watching rather than in listening. Around the pavilion
marines, aides-de-camp, officers in white gloves were standing, were
sitting, or promenading. Farther off in the broad avenue could be seen a
confused crowd of officers of every branch of the service, women of
every class, some with bonnets on, the majority with kerchiefs on their
heads; others wore neither bonnets nor kerchiefs, but, astonishing to
relate, there were no old women, all were young. Below in fragrant paths
shaded by white acacias were seen isolated groups, seated and walking.
No one expressed any particular joy at the sight of Captain Mikhaïloff,
with the exception, perhaps, of Objogoff and Souslikoff, captains in his
regiment, who shook his hand warmly. But the first of the two had no
gloves; he wore trousers of camel’s-hair cloth, a shabby coat, and his
red face was covered with perspiration; the second spoke with too loud a
voice, and with shocking freedom of speech. It was not very flattering
to walk with these men, especially in the presence of officers in white
gloves. Among the latter was an aide-de-camp, with whom Mikhaïloff
exchanged salutes, and a staff-officer whom he could have saluted as
well, having seen him a couple of times at the quarters of a common
friend.
There was positively no pleasure in promenading with these two comrades,
whom he met five or six times a day, and shook hands with them each
time. He did not come to the band concert for that.
He would have liked to go up to the aide-de-camp with whom he exchanged
salutes, and to chat with those gentlemen, not in order that Captains
Objogoff, Souslikoff, Lieutenant Paschtezky, and others might see him in
conversation with them, but simply because they were agreeable,
well-informed people who could tell him something.
Why is Mikhaïloff afraid? and why can’t he make up his mind to go up to
them? It is because he distrustfully asks himself what he will do if
these gentlemen do not return his salute, if they continue to chat
together, pretending not to see him, and if they go away, leaving him
alone among the _aristocrats_. The word _aristocrat_, taken in the sense
of a particular group, selected with great care, belonging to every
class of society, has lately gained a great popularity among us in
Russia--where it never ought to have taken root. It has entered into all
the social strata where vanity has crept in--and where does not this
pitiable weakness creep in? Everywhere; among the merchants, the
officials, the quartermasters, the officers; at Saratoff, at Mamadisch,
at Vinitzy--everywhere, in a word, where men are. Now, since there are
many men in a besieged city like Sebastopol, there is also a great deal
of vanity; that is to say, _aristocrats_ are there in large numbers,
although death, the great leveller, hovers constantly over the head of
each man, be he aristocrat or not.
To Captain Objogoff, Second-captain Mikhaïloff is an _aristocrat_; to
Second-captain Mikhaïloff, Aide-de-camp Kalouguine is an _aristocrat_,
because he is aide-de-camp, and says thee and thou familiarly to other
aides-de-camp; lastly, to Kalouguine, Count Nordoff is an _aristocrat_,
because he is aide-de-camp of the Emperor.
Vanity, vanity, nothing but vanity! even in the presence of death, and
among men ready to die for an exalted idea. Is not vanity the
characteristic trait, the destructive ill of our age? Why has this
weakness not been recognized hitherto, just as small-pox or cholera has
been recognized? Why in our time are there only three kinds of
men--those who accept vanity as an existing fact, necessary, and
consequently just, and freely submit to it; those who consider it an
evil element, but one impossible to destroy; and those who act under its
influence with unconscious servility? Why have Homer and Shakespeare
spoken of love, of glory, and of suffering, while the literature of our
century is only the interminable history of snobbery and vanity?
Mikhaïloff, not able to make up his mind, twice passed in front of the
little group of _aristocrats_. The third time, making a violent effort,
he approached them. The group was composed of four officers--the
aide-de-camp Kalouguine, whom Mikhaïloff was acquainted with, the
aide-de-camp Prince Galtzine, an _aristocrat_ to Kalouguine himself,
Colonel Neferdoff, one of the _Hundred and Twenty-two_ (a group of
society men who had re-entered the service for this campaign were thus
called), lastly, Captain of Cavalry Praskoukine, who was also among the
Hundred and Twenty-two. Happily for Mikhaïloff, Kalouguine was in
charming spirits; the general had just spoken very confidentially to
him, and Prince Galtzine, fresh from Petersburg, was stopping in his
quarters, so he did not find it compromising to offer his hand to a
second-captain. Praskoukine did not decide to do as much, although he
had often met Mikhaïloff in the bastion, had drunk his wine and his
brandy more than once, and owed him twelve rubles and a half, lost at a
game of preference. Being only slightly acquainted with Prince Galtzine,
he had no wish to call his attention to his intimacy with a simple
second-captain of infantry. He merely saluted slightly.
“Well, captain,” said Kalouguine, “when are we going back to the little
bastion? You remember our meeting on the Schwartz redoubt? It was warm
there, hey?”
“Yes, it was warm there,” replied Mikhaïloff, remembering that night
when, following the trench in order to reach the bastion, he had met
Kalouguine marching with a grand air, bravely clattering his sword. “I
would not have to return there until to-morrow, but we have an officer
sick.” And he was going on to relate how, although it was not his turn
on duty, he thought he ought to offer to replace Nepchissetzky, because
the commander of the eighth company was ill, and only an ensign
remained, but Kalouguine did not give him time to finish.
“I have a notion,” said he, turning towards Prince Galtzine, “that
something will come off in a day or two.”
“But why couldn’t something come off to-day?” timidly asked Mikhaïloff,
looking first at Kalouguine and then at Galtzine.
No one replied. Galtzine made a slight grimace, and looking to one side
over Mikhaïloffs cap, said, after a moment’s silence,
“What a pretty girl!--yonder, with the red kerchief. Do you know her,
captain?”
“It is a sailor’s daughter. She lives close by me,” he replied.
“Let’s look at her closer.”
And Prince Galtzine took Kalouguine by the arm on one side and the
second-captain on the other, sure that by this action he would give the
latter a lively satisfaction. He was not deceived. Mikhaïloff was
superstitious, and to have anything to do with women before going under
fire was in his eyes a great sin. But on that day he was posing for a
libertine. Neither Kalouguine nor Galtzine was deceived by this,
however. The girl with the red kerchief was very much astonished, having
more than once noticed that the captain blushed as he was passing her
window. Praskoukine marched behind and nudged Galtzine, making all
sorts of remarks in French; but the path being too narrow for them to
march four abreast, he was obliged to fall behind, and in the second
file to take Serviaguine’s arm--a naval officer known for his
exceptional bravery, and very anxious to join the group of
_aristocrats_. This brave man gladly linked his honest and muscular hand
into Praskoukine’s arm, whom he knew, nevertheless, to be not quite
honorable. Explaining to Prince Galtzine his intimacy with the sailor,
Praskoukine whispered that he was a well-known, brave man; but Prince
Galtzine, who had been, the evening before, in the fourth bastion, and
had seen a shell burst twenty paces from him, considered himself equal
in courage to this gentleman; also being convinced that most reputations
were exaggerated, paid no attention to Serviaguine.
Mikhaïloff was so happy to promenade in this brilliant company that he
thought no more of the dear letter received from F----, nor of the
dismal forebodings that assailed him each time he went to the bastion.
He remained with them there until they had visibly excluded him from
their conversation, avoiding his eye, as if to make him understand that
he could go on his way alone. At last they left him in the lurch. In
spite of that, the second-captain was so satisfied that he was quite
indifferent to the haughty expression with which the yunker[C] Baron
Pesth straightened up and took off his hat before him. This young man
had become very proud since he had passed his first night in the
bomb-proof of the fifth bastion, an experience which, in his own eyes,
transformed him into a hero.
III.
No sooner had Mikhaïloff crossed his own threshold than entirely
different thoughts came into his mind. He again saw his little room,
where beaten earth took the place of a wooden floor, his warped windows,
in which the broken panes were replaced by paper, his old bed, over
which was nailed to the wall a rug with the design of a figure of an
amazon, his pair of Toula pistols, hanging on the head-board, and on one
side a second untidy bed with an Indian coverlet belonging to the
yunker, who shared his quarters. He saw his valet Nikita, who rose from
the ground where he was crouching, scratching his head bristling with
greasy hair. He saw his old cloak, his second pair of boots, and the
bundle prepared for the night in the bastion, wrapped in a cloth from
which protruded the end of a piece of cheese and the neck of a bottle
filled with brandy. Suddenly he remembered he had to lead his company
into the casemates that very night.
“I shall be killed, I’m sure,” he said to himself; “I feel it. Besides,
I offered to go myself, and one who does that is certain to be killed.
And what is the matter with this sick man, this cursed Nepchissetzky?
Who knows? Perhaps he isn’t sick at all. And, thanks to him, a man will
get killed--he’ll get killed, surely. However, if I am not shot I will
be put on the list for promotion. I noticed the colonel’s satisfaction
when I asked permission to take the place of Nepchissetzky if he was
sick. If I don’t get the rank of major, I shall certainly get the
Vladimir Cross. This is the thirteenth time I go on duty in the bastion.
Oh, oh, unlucky number! I shall be killed, I’m sure; I feel it.
Nevertheless, some one must go. The company cannot go with an ensign;
and if anything should happen, the honor of the regiment, the honor of
the army would be assailed. It is my duty to go--yes, my sacred duty. No
matter, I have a presentiment--”
The captain forgot that he had this presentiment, more or less strong,
every time he went to the bastion, and he did not know that all who go
into action have this feeling, though in very different degrees. His
sense of duty which he had particularly developed calmed him, and he sat
down at his table and wrote a farewell letter to his father. In the
course of ten minutes the letter was finished. He arose with moist eyes,
and began to dress, repeating to himself all the prayers which he knew
by heart. His servant, a dull fellow, three-quarters drunk, helped him
put on his new coat, the old one he was accustomed to wear in the
bastion not being mended.
“Why hasn’t that coat been mended? You can’t do anything but sleep, you
beast!”
“Sleep!” growled Nikita, “when I am running about like a dog all day
long. I tire myself to death, and after that am not allowed to sleep!”
“You are drunk again, I see.”
“I didn’t drink with your money; why do you find fault with me?”
“Silence, fool!” cried the captain, ready to strike him.
He was already nervous and troubled, and Nikita’s rudeness made him lose
patience. Nevertheless, he was very fond of the fellow, he even spoiled
him, and had kept him with him a dozen years.
“Fool! fool!” repeated the servant. “Why do you abuse me, sir--and at
this time? It isn’t right to abuse me.”
Mikhaïloff thought of the place he was going to, and was ashamed of
himself.
“You would make a saint lose patience, Nikita,” he said, with a softer
voice. “Leave that letter addressed to my father lying on the table.
Don’t touch it,” he added, blushing.
“All right,” said Nikita, weakening under the influence of the wine he
had taken, at his own expense, as he said, and blinking his eyes, ready
to weep.
Then when the captain shouted, on leaving the house, “Good-by, Nikita!”
he burst forth in a violent fit of sobbing, and seizing the hand of his
master, kissed it, howling all the while, and saying, over and over
again, “Good-by, master!”
An old sailor’s wife at the door, good woman as she was, could not help
taking part in this affecting scene. Rubbing her eyes with her dirty
sleeve, she mumbled something about masters who, on their side, have to
put up with so much, and went on to relate for the hundredth time to the
drunken Nikita how she, poor creature, was left a widow, how her husband
had been killed during the first bombardment and his house ruined, for
the one she lived in now did not belong to her, etc., etc. After his
master was gone, Nikita lighted his pipe, begged the landlord’s daughter
to fetch him some brandy, quickly wiped his tears, and ended up by
quarrelling with the old woman about a little pail he said she had
broken.
“Perhaps I shall only be wounded,” the captain thought at nightfall,
approaching the bastion at the head of his company. “But where--here or
there?”
He placed his finger first on his stomach and then on his chest.
“If it were only here,” he thought, pointing to the upper part of his
thigh, “and if the ball passed round the bone! But if it is a fracture
it’s all over.”
Mikhaïloff, by following the trenches, reached the casemates safe and
sound. In perfect darkness, assisted by an officer of the sappers, he
put his men to work; then he sat down in a hole in the shelter of the
parapet. They were firing only at intervals; now and again, first on our
side and then on _his_, a flash blazed forth, and the fuse of a shell
traced a curve of fire on the dark, starlit sky. But the projectiles
fell far off, behind or to the right of the quarters in which the
captain hid at the bottom of a pit. He ate a piece of cheese, drank a
few drops of brandy, lighted a cigarette, and having said his prayers,
tried to sleep.
IV.
Prince Galtzine, Lieutenant-colonel Neferdorf, and Praskoukine--whom
nobody had invited, and with whom no one chatted, but who followed them
just the same--left the boulevard to go and drink tea at Kalouguine’s
quarters.
“Finish your story about Vaska Mendel,” said Kalouguine.
Having thrown off his cloak, he was sitting beside the window in a
stuffed easy-chair, and unbuttoned the collar of his well-starched, fine
Dutch linen shirt.
“How did he get married again?”
“It’s worth any amount of money, I tell you! There was a time when there
was nothing else talked about at Petersburg,” replied Prince Galtzine,
laughingly.
He left the piano where he had been sitting, and drew near the window.
“It’s worth any amount of money! I know all the details--”
And gayly and wittily he set about relating the story of an amorous
intrigue, which we will pass over in silence because it offers us little
interest. The striking thing about these gentlemen was, that one of them
seated in the window, another at the piano, and a third on a chair with
his legs doubled up, seemed to be quite different men from what they
were a moment before on the boulevard. No more conceit, no more of this
ridiculous affectation towards the infantry officers. Here between
themselves they showed out what they were--good fellows, gay, and in
high spirits. Their conversation continued upon their comrades and their
acquaintances in Petersburg.
“And Maslovsky?”
“Which one--the uhlan or the horse-guardsman?”
“I know them both. In my time the horse-guardsman was only a boy just
out of school. And the oldest, is he a captain?”
“Oh yes, for a long time.”
“Is he always with his Bohemian girl?”
“No, he left her--”
And the talk went on in this tone.
Prince Galtzine sang in a charming manner a gypsy song, accompanying
himself on the piano. Praskoukine, without being asked, sang second, and
so well too that, to his great delight, they begged him to do it again.
A servant brought in tea, cream, and rusks on a silver tray.
“Give some to the prince,” said Kalouguine.
“Isn’t it strange to think,” said Galtzine, drinking his glass of tea
near the window, “that we are here in a besieged city, that we have a
piano, tea with cream, and all this in lodgings which I would be glad to
live in at Petersburg?”
“If we didn’t even have that,” said the old lieutenant-colonel, always
discontented, “existence would be intolerable. This continual
expectation of something, or this seeing people killed every day without
stopping, and this living in the mud without the least comfort--”
“But our infantry officers,” interrupted Kalouguine, “those who live in
the bastion with the soldiers, and share their soup with them in the
bomb-proof, how do they get on?”
“How do they get on? They don’t change their linen, to be sure, for ten
days at a time, but they are astonishing fellows, true heroes!”
Just at this moment an infantry officer entered the room.
“I--I have received an order--to go to general--to his Excellency, from
General N----” he said, timidly saluting.
Kalouguine rose, and without returning the salute of the new-comer,
without inviting him to be seated, begged him with cruel politeness and
an official smile to wait a while; then he went on talking in French
with Galtzine, without paying the slightest attention to the poor
officer, who stood in the middle of the room, and did not know what to
do with himself.
“I have been sent on an important matter,” he said at last, after a
moment of silence.
“If that is so, be kind enough to follow me.” Kalouguine threw on his
cloak and turned towards the door. An instant later he came back from
the general’s room.
“Well, gentlemen, I believe they are going to make it warm to-night.”
“Ah! what--a sortie?” they all asked together.
“I don’t know, you will see yourselves,” he replied, with an enigmatic
smile.
“My chief is in the bastion, I must go there,” said Praskoukine, putting
on his sword.
No one replied; he ought to know what he had to do. Praskoukine and
Neferdorf went out to go to their posts.
“Good-by, gentlemen, _au revoir_! we will meet again to-night,” cried
Kalouguine through the window, while they set out at a rapid trot,
bending over the pommels of their Cossack saddles. The sound of their
horses’ shoes quickly died away in the dark street.
“Come, tell me, will there really be something going on to-night?” said
Galtzine, leaning on the window-sill near Kalouguine, whence they were
watching the shells rising over the bastions.
“I can tell you, you alone. You have been in the bastions, haven’t you?”
Although Galtzine had only been there once he replied by an affirmative
gesture.
“Well, opposite our lunette there was a trench”--and Kalouguine, who was
not a specialist, but who was satisfied of the value of his military
opinions, began to explain, mixing himself up and making wrong use of
the terms of fortification, the state of our works, the situation of the
enemy, and the plan of the affair which had been prepared.
“There! there! They have begun to fire heavily on our quarters; is that
coming from our side or from _his_--the one that has just burst there?”
And the two officers, leaning on the window, watched the lines of fire
which the shells traced crossing each other in the air, the white
powder-smoke, the flashes which preceded each report and illuminated for
a second the blue-black sky; they listened to the roar of the cannonade,
which increased in violence.
“What a charming panorama!” said Kalouguine, attracting his guest’s
attention to the truly beautiful spectacle. “Do you know that sometimes
one can’t tell a star from a bomb-shell?”
“Yes, it is true; I just took that for a star, but it is coming down.
Look! it bursts! And that large star there yonder--what do they call it?
One would say it was a shell!”
“I am so accustomed to them that when I go back to Russia a starry sky
will seem to me to be sparkling with bomb-shells. One gets so used to
it.”
“Ought I not to go and take part in this sortie?” said Prince Galtzine,
after a pause.
“My dear fellow, what an idea! Don’t think of it. I won’t let you go;
you will have time enough.”
“Seriously--do you think I ought not to?”
At this moment, right in the direction these gentlemen were looking,
could be heard above the roar of artillery the rattle of a terrible
fusillade; a thousand little flames spurted and sparkled along the whole
line.
“Look, it is in full swing,” said Kalouguine. “I can’t calmly listen to
this fusillade; it stirs my soul! They are shouting ‘Hurrah!’” he added,
stretching his ear towards the bastion, from which arose the distant and
prolonged clamor of thousands of voices.
“Who is shouting ‘Hurrah’--_he_ or we?”
“I don’t know; but they are surely fighting at the sword’s point, for
the fusillade has stopped.”
An officer on horseback, followed by a Cossack, galloped up under their
window, stopped, and dismounted.
“Where do you come from?”
“From the bastion, to see the general.”
“Come, what is the matter? Speak!”
“They have attacked--have taken the quarters. The French have pushed
forward their reserves--ours have been attacked--and there were only two
battalions of them,” said the officer, out of breath.
It was the same one who had come in the evening, but this time he went
towards the door with confidence.
“Then we retreated?” asked Galtzine.
“No,” replied the officer, in a surly tone, “a battalion arrived in
time. We repulsed them, but the chief of the regiment is killed, and
many officers besides. They want reinforcements.”
So saying, he went with Kalouguine into the general’s room, whither we
will not follow them.
Five minutes later Kalouguine set out for the bastion on a horse, which
he rode in the Cossack fashion, a kind of riding which seems to give a
particular pleasure to the aides-de-camp. He was the bearer of certain
orders, and had to await the definite result of the affair. As to Prince
Galtzine, he, agitated by the painful emotions which the signs of a
battle in progress
|
. Armand,
having come to an arrangement with M. Boisé-Lucas' son, handed him the
despatches with which he had been entrusted by M. Henry-Larivière[23],
the Princes' agent.
"I went to the coast on the 29th of September," he says, in
answer to an interrogatory, "and waited there two nights,
without seeing my boat. As the moon was very bright, I
withdrew, and returned on the 14th or 15th of the month. I
remained till the 24th of the said month. I spent every night
in the rocks, but to no purpose; my boat did not come, and
by day I went to the Boisé-Lucas'. The same boat, with the
same crew, to which Roussel and Quintal belonged, was to
come to fetch me. With regard to the precautions taken with
Boisé-Lucas the Elder, there were none besides those which I
have already enumerated."
The dauntless Armand, landed at a few steps from his paternal fields,
as though on the inhospitable coast of Taurida, in vain turned his
eyes over the billows, by the light of the moon, in search of the bark
which could have saved him. In former days, after I had already left
Combourg, with the intention of going to India, I had cast my mournful
gaze over the same billows. From the rocks of Saint-Cast where Armand
lay, from the cape of the Varde where I had sat, a few leagues of the
sea, over which our eyes have wandered in opposite directions, have
witnessed the cares and divided the destinies of two men joined by ties
of name and blood. It was also in the midst of the same waves that
I met Gesril for the last time. Often, in my dreams, I see Gesril
and Armand washing the wound in their foreheads in the deep, while,
reddened to my very feet, stretches the sea with which we used to play
in our childhood[24].
Armand succeeded in embarking in a boat purchased at Saint-Malo, but,
driven back by the north-west wind, he was again obliged to put back.
At last, on the 6th of January, assisted by a sailor called Jean Brien,
he launched a little stranded boat, and got hold of another which was
afloat. He thus describes his voyage, which bears an affinity to my
star and my adventures, in his examination on the 18th of March:
"From nine o'clock in the evening, when we started, till two
o'clock in the morning, the weather favoured us. Judging then
that we were not far from the rocks called the 'Mainquiers,'
we lay-to on our anchor, intending to wait for daylight;
but, the wind having freshened, and fearing that it would
grow still stronger, we continued our course. A few minutes
later, the sea became very heavy and, our compass having been
broken by a wave, we remained uncertain as to the course we
were taking. The first land that came into sight on the 7th
(it might then be mid-day), was the coast of Normandy, which
obliged us to tack about, and we again returned and lay-to
near the rocks called 'Écreho,' situated between the coast
of Normandy and Jersey. Strong and contrary winds obliged
us to remain in that position the whole of the rest of that
day and of the next, the 8th. On the morning of the 9th, as
soon as it was light, I said to Despagne that it appeared to
me that the wind had decreased, seeing that our boat was not
working much, and to look which way the wind was blowing. He
told me that he no longer saw the rocks near which we had
dropped the anchor. I then decided that we were drifting, and
that we had lost our anchor. The violence of the storm left
us no alternative but to make for the coast. As we saw no
land, I did not know at what distance we were from it. It was
then that I flung my papers into the sea, having taken the
precaution to fasten a stone to them. We then scudded before
the wind and made the coast, at about nine o'clock in the
morning, at Bretteville-sur-Ay, in Normandy.
"We were received on the coast by the customs officers, who
took me out of my boat almost dead; my feet and legs were
frozen. We were both lodged with the lieutenant of the
brigade of Bretteville. Two days later, Despagne was taken to
the prison at Coutances, and I have not seen him since that
day. A few days after, I myself was transferred to the gaol
at that town; the next day, I was taken by the quarter-master
to Saint-Lô, and remained for eight days with the said
quarter-master. I appeared once before M. the Prefect of
the department, and, on the 26th of January, I left with
the captain and quarter-master of the gendarmes to be taken
to Paris, where I arrived on the 28th. They took me to the
office of M. Desmarets at the ministry of the general police,
and from there to the prison of the Grande-Force."
Armand had the wind, the waves and the imperial police against him;
Bonaparte was in connivance with the storms. The gods made a very great
expenditure of wrath against a paltry existence.
The packet flung into the sea was cast back by it on the beach of
Notre-Dame-d'Alloue, near Valognes. The papers contained in this packet
served as documents for the conviction: there were thirty-two of them.
Quintal, returning to the sands of Brittany with his boat to fetch
Armand, had also, through an obstinate fatality, been shipwrecked in
Norman waters a few days before my cousin. The crew of Quintal's boat
had spoken; the Prefect of Saint-Lô had learnt that M. de Chateaubriand
was the leader of the Princes' enterprises. When he heard that a cutter
manned with only two men had run ashore, he had no doubt that Armand
was one of the two shipwrecked men, for all the fishermen spoke of him
as the most fearless man at sea that had ever been known.
[Sidenote: Arrest of Armand.]
On the 20th of January 1809, the Prefect of the Manche reported
Armand's arrest to the general police. His letter commences:
"My conjectures have been completely verified: Chateaubriand
is arrested; it was he who landed on the coast at Bretteville
and who had taken the name of 'John Fall.'
"Uneasy at finding that, in spite of the very precise orders
which I had given, John Fall did not arrive at Saint-Lô,
I instructed Quarter-master Mauduit of the gendarmes, a
trustworthy and extremely active man, to go to fetch this
John Fall, wherever he might be, and bring him before me,
in whatever condition he was. He found him at Coutances, at
the moment when they were arranging to transfer him to the
hospital, to treat him for his legs, which were frozen.
"Fall appeared before me to-day. I had had Lelièvre put in
a separate room, from which he could see John Fall arrive
without being observed. When Lelièvre saw him come up a
flight of steps placed near this apartment, he cried,
striking his hands together and changing colour:
"'It's Chateaubriand! However did they catch him?'
"Lelièvre was in no way forewarned. This exclamation was
drawn from him by surprise. He asked me afterwards not to say
that he had mentioned Chateaubriand's name, because he would
be lost.
"I did not let John Fall see that I knew who he was."
Armand, carried to Paris and lodged at the Force, underwent a secret
interrogation at the military gaol of the Abbaye. General Hulin, who
was now Military Commander of Paris, appointed Bertrand, a captain in
the first demi-brigade of veterans, judge-advocate of the military
commission instructed, by a decree of the 25th of February, to inquire
into Armand's case.
The persons implicated were M. de Goyon[25], who had been sent by
Armand to Brest, and M. de Boisé-Lucas the Younger, charged to hand
letters from Henry-Larivière to Messieurs Laya[26] and Sicard[27] in
Paris.
In a letter of the 13th of March, addressed to Fouché, Armand said:
"Let the Emperor deign to restore to liberty men now
languishing in prison for having shown me too much interest.
Whatever happens, let their liberty be restored to all
of them alike. I recommend my unfortunate family to the
Emperor's generosity."
These mistakes of a man with human bowels addressing himself to an
hyena are painful to see. Bonaparte, besides, was not the lion of
Florence: he did not give up the child on observing the tears of the
mother. I had written to ask Fouché for an audience; he granted me
one, and assured me, with all the self-possession of revolutionary
frivolity, "that he had seen Armand, that I could be easy: that Armand
had told him that he would die well, and that in fact he wore a very
resolute air." Had I proposed to Fouché that he should die, would he
have preserved that deliberate tone and that superb indifference with
regard to himself?
I applied to Madame de Rémusat, begging her to remit to the Empress a
letter containing a request for justice, or for mercy, to the Emperor.
Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Leu[28] told me, at Arenberg, of the fate
of my letter: Joséphine gave it to the Emperor; he seemed to hesitate,
on reading it; and then, coming upon some words which offended him, he
impatiently flung it into the fire. I had forgotten that one should
show pride only on one's own behalf.
[Sidenote: His execution.]
M. de Goyon, condemned with Armand, underwent his sentence. Yet Madame
la Baronne-Duchesse de Montmorency had been induced to interest herself
in his favour: she was the daughter of Madame de Matignon, with whom
the Goyons were allied. A Montmorency in service ought to have obtained
anything, if the prostitution of a name were enough to win over an old
monarchy to a new power. Madame de Goyon, though unable to save her
husband, saved young Boisé-Lucas. Everything combined towards this
misfortune, which struck only unknown persons; one would have thought
that the downfall of a world was in question: storms upon the waves,
ambushes on land, Bonaparte, the sea, the murderers of Louis XVI., and
perhaps some "passion," the mysterious soul of mundane catastrophes.
People have not even perceived all these things; it all struck me alone
and lived in my memory only. What mattered to Napoleon the insects
crushed by his hand upon his diadem?
On the day of execution, I wished to accompany my comrade on his last
battle-field; I found no carriage, and hastened on foot to the Plaine
de Grenelle. I arrived, all perspiring, a second too late: Armand
had been shot against the surrounding wall of Paris. His skull was
fractured; a butcher's dog was licking up his blood and his brains.
I followed the cart which took the bodies of Armand and his two
companions, plebeian and noble, Quintal and Goyon, to the Vaugirard
Cemetery, where I had buried M. de La Harpe. I saw my cousin for the
last time without being able to recognise him: the lead had disfigured
him, he had no face left; I could not remark the ravages of years
in it, nor even see death within its shapeless and bleeding orb; he
remained young in my memory as at the time of the Siege of Thionville.
He was shot on Good Friday: the crucifix appears to me at the extremity
of all my misfortunes. When I walk on the rampart of the Plaine de
Grenelle, I stop to look at the imprint of the firing, still marked
upon the wall. If Bonaparte's bullets had left no other traces, he
would no longer be spoken of.
Strange concatenation of destinies! General Hulin, the Military
Commander of Paris, appointed the commission which ordered Armand's
brains to be blown out; he had, in former days, been appointed
president of the commission which shattered the head of the Duc
d'Enghien. Ought he not to have abstained, after his first misfortune,
from all connection with courts-martial? And I have spoken of the death
of the descendant of the Great Condé, without reminding General Hulin
of the part which he played in the execution of the humble soldier, my
kinsman. No doubt I, in my turn, had received from Heaven my commission
to judge the judges of the tribunal of Vincennes.
*
The year 1811 was one of the most remarkable in my literary career[29].
I published the _Itinéraire de Paris à Jerusalem_[30], I accepted M.
de Chénier's place at the Institute, and I began to write the Memoirs
which I am now finishing.
[Sidenote: The _Itinéraire._]
The success of the _Itinéraire_ was as complete as that of the
_Martyrs_ had been disputed. There is no scribbler, however
inconsiderable, but receives letters of congratulation on the
appearance of his _farrago._ Among the new compliments which were
addressed to me, I do not feel at liberty to suppress the letter of
a man of virtue and merit who has produced two works of recognised
authority, leaving hardly anything to be said on Bossuet and Fénelon.
The Bishop of Alais, Cardinal de Bausset[31], is the biographer of
those two great prelates. He goes beyond all praise with reference
to me: that is the accepted usage in writing to an author, and does
not count; but the cardinal at least shows the general opinion of the
moment on the _Itinéraire_: he foresees, with respect to Carthage, the
objections of which my geographical feeling might be the object; in
any case, that feeling has prevailed, and I have set Dido's ports in
their places. My readers will be interested to recognise in this letter
the diction of a select society, a style rendered grave and sweet by
politeness, religion and manner: an excellence of tone from which we
are so far removed to-day.
"VILLEMOISSON, BY LONJUMEAU (SEINE-ET-OISE),
"25 _March_ 1811.
"You should, Sir, have received, and you have received, the
just tribute of the public gratitude and satisfaction; but
I can assure you that not one of your readers has enjoyed
your interesting work with a truer sentiment than myself. You
are the first and only traveller who has had no need of the
aid of engraving and drawing to place before the eyes of his
readers the places and monuments which recall fine memories
and great images. Your soul has felt all, your imagination
depicted all, and the reader feels with your soul and sees
with your eyes.
"I could convey to you but very feebly the impression which
I received from the very first pages, when skirting in your
company the coast of Corfu, and when witnessing the landing
of all those 'eternal' men whom opposite destinies have
successively driven thither. A few lines have sufficed you to
engrave the traces of their footsteps for all time; they will
always be found in your _Itinéraire_, which will preserve
them more faithfully than so many marbles which have been
incapable of keeping the great names confided to them.
"I now know the monuments of Athens in the way in which one
likes to know them. I had already seen them in beautiful
engravings, I had admired them, but I had not felt them.
One too often forgets that, if architects need exact
descriptions, measurements and proportions, men need to
recognise the mind and the genius which have conceived the
idea of those great monuments.
"You have restored to the Pyramids that noble and profound
intention which frivolous declaimers had not even perceived.
"How thankful I am to you, Sir, for delivering to the just
execration of all time that stupid and ferocious people
which, since twelve hundred years, has afflicted the fairest
countries of the earth! One smiles with you at the hope of
seeing it return to the desert whence it came.
"You have inspired me with a passing feeling of indulgence
for the Arabs, for the sake of the fine comparison which you
have drawn between them and the savages of North America.
"Providence seems to have led you to Jerusalem to assist at
the last representation of the first scene of Christianity.
If it be no longer granted to the eyes of men to behold that
Tomb, 'the only one which will have nothing to give up on
the Last Day,' Christians will always find it again in the
Gospels, and meditative and sensitive minds in the pictures
which you have drawn.
"The critics will not fail to reproach you with the men and
incidents with which you have covered the ruins of Carthage
and which you could not have seen, since they no longer
exist. But I implore you, Sir, confine yourself to asking
them if they themselves would not have been very sorry not to
find them in those engaging pictures.
"You have the right, Sir, to enjoy a form of glory which
belongs to you exclusively by a sort of creation; but there
is an enjoyment still more satisfying to a character like
yours, that is, to have endowed the creations of your genius
with the nobility of your soul and the elevation of your
sentiments. It is this which, at all times, will ensure to
your name and memory the esteem, the admiration and the
respect of all friends of religion, virtue and honour.
"It is on this score that I beg you, Sir, to accept the
homage of all my sentiments.
"L. F. DE BAUSSET, _ex-Bishop of Alais._"
M. de Chénier[32] died on the 10th of January 1811. My friends had the
fatal idea of pressing me to take his place in the Institute. They
urged that, exposed as I was to the hostilities of the head of the
Government, to the suspicions and annoyances of the police, it was
necessary that I should enter a body then powerful through its fame and
through the men composing it; that, sheltered behind that buckler, I
should be able to work in peace.
I had an invincible repugnance to occupying a place, even outside the
Government; I had too clear a recollection of what the first had cost
me. Chénier's inheritance seemed fraught with peril; I should not be
able to say all, save by exposing myself; I did not wish to pass over
regicide in silence, although Cambacérès was the second person in the
State; I was determined to make my demands heard in favour of liberty
and to raise my voice against tyranny; I wanted to have my say on the
horrors of 1793, to express my regrets for the fallen family of our
kings, to bemoan the misfortunes of those who had remained faithful
to them. My friends replied that I was deceiving myself; that a few
praises of the head of the Government, obligatory in the academical
speech, praises of which, in one respect, I thought Bonaparte worthy,
would make him swallow all the truths I might wish to utter; and that
I should at the same time enjoy the honour of having maintained my
opinions and the happiness of putting an end to the terrors of Madame
de Chateaubriand. By dint of their besetting me, I yielded, weary of
resistance: but I assured them that they were mistaken; that Bonaparte
would not be taken in by common-places on his son, his wife and his
glory; that he would feel the lesson but the more keenly for them;
that he would recognise the man who resigned on the death of the Duc
d'Enghien and the writer of the article that caused the suppression of
the _Mercure_; that, lastly, instead of ensuring my repose, I should
revive the persecutions directed against me. They were soon obliged to
recognise the truth of my words: true it is that they had not foreseen
the audacity of my speech.
I went to pay the customary visits to the members of the Academy[33].
Madame de Vintimille took me to the Abbé Morellet. We found him
sitting in an arm-chair before his fire; he had fallen asleep, and the
_Itinéraire_, which he was reading, had dropped from his hands. Waking
with a start at the sound of my name announced by his man-servant, he
raised his head and exclaimed:
"There are passages so long, so long!"
I told him, laughing, that I saw that, and that I would abridge the new
edition. He was a good-natured man and promised me his vote, in spite
of _Atala._ When, later, the _Monarchie selon la Charte_ appeared, he
could not recover from his astonishment that such a political work
should have the singer of "the daughter of the Floridas" for its
author. Had Grotius[34] not written the tragedy of _Adam and Eve_ and
Montesquieu the _Temple de Guide?_ True, I was neither Grotius nor
Montesquieu.
The election took place; I was elected by ballot with a fairly large
majority[35]. I at once set to work on my speech; I wrote and rewrote
it a score of times, never feeling satisfied with myself: at one time,
wishing to make it possible for me to read, I thought it too strong;
at another, my anger returning, I thought it too weak. I did not know
how to measure out the dose of academic praise. If, in spite of my
antipathy for Napoleon, I had tried to render the admiration which I
felt for the public portion of his life, I should have gone far beyond
the peroration. Milton, whom I quote at the commencement of the speech,
furnished me with a model; in his _Second defense of the People of
England_, he made a pompous eulogy of Cromwell:
"Not only the actions of our kings," he says, "but the fabled
exploits of our heroes, are overcome by your achievements.
Reflect, then, frequently (how dear alike the trust, and the
parent from you have received it!) that to your hands your
country has commended and confided her freedom: that what she
lately expected from her choicest representatives she now
expects, now hopes, from you alone. O reverence this high
expectation, this hope of your country relying exclusively
upon yourself! Reverence the glances and the gashes of those
brave men who have so nobly struggled for liberty under your
auspices, as well as the shades of those who perished in
the conflict! Reverence, finally, yourself, and suffer not
that liberty, for the attainment of which you have endured
so many hardships and encountered so many perils, to sustain
any violation from your own hands, or any encroachment from
those of others. Without our freedom, in fact, you cannot
yourself be free: for it is justly ordained by nature that he
who invades the liberty of others shall in the very outset
lose his own, and be the first to feel the servitude which he
has induced[36]."
Johnson quoted only the praises given to the Protector[37], in order
to place the Republican in contradiction with himself; the fine
passage which I have just translated contains its own qualification of
those praises. Johnson's criticism is forgotten, Milton's defense has
remained: all that belongs to the strife of parties and the passions of
the moment dies like them and with them.
[Sidenote: I am elected.]
When my speech was ready, I was sent for to read it to the committee
appointed to hear it: it was rejected by the committee, with the
exception of two or three members[38]. It was a sight to see the
terror of the bold Republicans who listened to me and who were alarmed
by the independence of my opinions; they shuddered with indignation
and fright at the mere word of liberty. M. Daru[39] took the speech
to Saint-Cloud. Bonaparte declared that, if it had been delivered,
he would have closed the doors of the Institute and flung me into a
subterranean dungeon for the rest of my life.
I received the following note from M. Daru:
"SAINT-CLOUD, 28 _April_ 1811.
"I have the honour to inform Monsieur de Chateaubriand that,
when he has the time or occasion to come to Saint-Cloud, I
shall be able to return to him the speech which he was good
enough to entrust to me. I take this opportunity to repeat to
him the assurance of the high consideration with which I have
the honour to salute him.
"DARU."
I went to Saint-Cloud. M. Daru returned me the manuscript, crossed
out in places, and scored _ab irato_ with parentheses and pencil
marks by Bonaparte: the lion's claw had been dug in everywhere, and I
experienced a sort of pleasure of irritation in imagining that I felt
it in my side. M. Daru did not conceal Napoleon's anger from me; but he
told me, that, if I kept the peroration, with the exception of a few
words, and changed almost the whole of the rest, I should be received
with great applause. The speech had been copied out at the palace; some
passages had been suppressed and others interpolated. Not long after,
it appeared in the provinces printed in that fashion.
This speech is one of the best proofs of the independence of my
opinions and the consistency of my principles. M. Suard, who was free
and firm, said that, if it had been read in the open Academy, it would
have brought down the rafters of the hall with applause. Can you,
indeed, imagine the warm praises of liberty uttered in the midst of the
servility of the Empire?
I had kept the scored manuscript with religious care; ill-fortune
willed that, when I left the Infirmerie de Marie-Thérèse, it was burnt
with a heap of papers. Nevertheless the readers of these Memoirs shall
not be deprived of it: one of my colleagues had the generosity to take
a copy of it; here it is:
[Sidenote: My inaugural speech.]
"When Milton published _Paradise Lost_, not a voice was
raised in the three kingdoms of Great Britain to praise
a work which, in spite of its numerous defects, remains
nevertheless one of the noblest monuments of the human mind.
The English Homer died forgotten, and his contemporaries left
to futurity the task of immortalizing the singer of Eden.
Have we here one of the great instances of literary injustice
of which examples are presented by nearly every century? No,
gentlemen; the English, but recently escaped from the Civil
Wars, were unable to bring themselves to celebrate the memory
of a man who was remarked for the ardour of his opinions in a
time of calamity. What shall we reserve, they asked, for the
tomb of the citizen who devotes himself to the safety of his
country, if we lavish honours upon the ashes of him who, at
most, is entitled to claim our generous indulgence? Posterity
will do justice to Milton's memory, but we owe a lesson to
our sons: we must teach them, by our silence, that talents
are a baleful gift when allied with the passions, and that it
is better to condemn one's self to obscurity than to achieve
celebrity through one's country's misfortunes.
"Shall I, gentlemen, imitate this memorable example, or shall
I speak to you of the person and works of M. Chénier? To
reconcile your usages and my opinions, I feel it my duty to
adopt a middle course between absolute silence and a thorough
consideration. But, whatever the words I may utter, no
rancour will poison this address. Should you find in me the
frankness of my fellow-countryman Duclos[40], I hope also to
prove to you that I possess the same loyalty.
"Doubtless it would have been curious to see what a man in
my position, holding my principles and my opinions, could
have to say of the man whose place I occupy to-day. It would
be interesting to examine the influence of revolutions upon
literature, to show how systems can mislead talent and
direct it into fallacious ways which seem to lead to fame
and only end in oblivion. If Milton, despite his political
aberrations, has left works which posterity admires, it is
because Milton, without repenting his errors, withdrew from;
a society which was withdrawing from him, to seek in religion
the assuagement of his ills and the source of his glory.
Deprived of the light of heaven, he created for himself a new
earth, a new sun, and quitted, so to speak, a world where he
had seen nought save misery and crime; he set in the bowers
of Eden that primitive innocence, that blessed felicity which
reigned beneath the tents of Jacob and Rachel; and he placed
in the lower regions the torments, passions and remorse of
the men whose furies he had shared.
"Unfortunately, the works of M. Chénier, though they show
the germ of a remarkable talent, glow with neither that
antique simplicity nor that sublime majesty. The author was
distinguished for an eminently classical mind. None better
understood the principles of ancient and modern literature;
the stage, eloquence, history, criticism, satire: he
embraced all these; but his writings bear the impress of the
disastrous days that witnessed his birth. Too often dictated
by the spirit of party, they have been applauded by factions.
Shall I, in discussing my predecessor's works, separate what
has already passed away, like our discords, and what will
perhaps survive, like our glory? Here we find the interests
of society and the interests of literature confounded. I
cannot forget the first sufficiently to occupy myself solely
with the second; wherefore, gentlemen, I am obliged either to
keep silence or to raise political questions.
"There are persons who would make of literature an abstract
thing and isolate it in the midst of human affairs. Such
persons will say to me, 'Why keep silence? Treat M. Chénier's
works only from the literary point of view.' That is to say,
gentlemen, that I must abuse your patience and my own by
repeating commonplaces which you can find anywhere and which
you know better than I. Manners change with the times: heirs
to a long series of peaceful years, our forerunners were able
to indulge in purely academic discussions which were even
less a proof of their talent than of their happiness. But we,
who remain the victims of a great shipwreck, no longer have
what is needed to relish so perfect a calm. Our ideas, our
minds have taken a different direction. The man has in us
taken the place of the academician: by divesting literature
of all its futility, we now behold it only in the light of
our mighty memories and of the experience of our adversity.
What! After a revolution which has caused us, in a few
years, to live through the events of many centuries, shall
the writer be forbidden all lofty considerations, shall he
be denied the right to examine the serious side of objects?
Shall he spend a trivial life occupied with grammatical
quibbles, rules of taste, petty literary judgments? Shall
he grow old, bound in the swaddling-clothes of his cradle?
Shall he not show, at the end of his days, a brow furrowed
by his long labours, by his grave reflections, and often by
those manly sufferings which add to the greatness of mankind?
What important cares, then, will have whitened his hair? The
miserable sorrows of self-love and the puerile sports of the
mind.
"Surely, gentlemen, that would be treating ourselves with a
very strange contempt! Speaking for myself, I cannot thus
belittle myself, nor reduce myself to the condition of
childhood at the age of strength and reason. I cannot confine
myself within the narrow circle which they would trace around
the writer. For instance, gentlemen, if I wished to pass a
eulogy on the man of letters, on the man of the Court who
presides over this meeting[41], do you believe that I would
content myself with praising in him the light and ingenious
French wit which he received from his mother[42], and of
which he displays to us the last model? No, assuredly: I
should wish to make glow once more in all its brilliancy
the noble name which he bears. I should mention the Duc de
Boufflers[43] who forced the Austrians to raise the blockade
of Genoa. I should speak of the marshal, his father[44],
of the governor who held the ramparts of Lille against the
enemies of France, and who, by that memorable defense,
consoled a great king's unhappy old age. It was of that
companion of Turenne that Madame de Maintenon said:
"'In him the heart was the last to die.'
[Sidenote: My speech continued.]
"Lastly, I should go back to that Louis de Boufflers[45],
called the Robust, who displayed in combat the vigour and
valour of Hercules. Thus, at the two extremities of this
family, I should find force and grace, the knight and the
troubadour. They say that the French are sons of Hector: I
would rather believe that they descend from Achilles, for
like that hero they wield both the lyre and the sword.
"If I wished, gentlemen, to talk to you of the celebrated
poet[46] who sang the charms of nature in such brilliant
tones, do you think that I would confine myself to pointing
out to you the admirable flexibility of a talent which
succeeded in rendering with equal distinction the regular
beauties of Virgil and the less correct beauties of Milton?
No: I would also show you the poet refusing to part from
his unfortunate countrymen, accompanying them with his
lyre to foreign shores, singing their sorrows to console
them; an illustrious exile among that crowd of banished men
whose number I increased. It is true that his age and his
infirmities, his talents and his glory had not protected him
against persecution in his own country. Men tried to make him
purchase peace with verses unworthy of his muse, and his muse
could sing only the redoubtable immortality of crime and the
reassuring immortality of virtue:
"Rassurez-vous, vous êtes immortels[47]!
"If, again, I wished to speak to you of a friend very dear
to my heart[48], one of those friends who, according to
Cicero, render prosperity more brilliant and adversity less
irksome, I should extol the refinement and purity of his
taste, the exquisite elegance of his
|
a snatch of a song
at the village inn. But Ralph, though having an inclination to
convivial pleasures, was naturally of a serious, even of a solemn
temperament. He was a rude son of a rude country,--rude of hand, often
rude of tongue, untutored in the graces that give beauty to life.
By the time that Ralph had attained to the full maturity of his
manhood, the struggles of King and Parliament were at their height.
The rumor of these struggles was long in reaching the city of
Wythburn, and longer in being discussed and understood there; but, to
everybody's surprise, young Ralph Ray announced his intention of
forthwith joining the Parliamentarian forces. The extraordinary
proposal seemed incredible; but Ralph's mind was made up. His father
said nothing about his son's intentions, good or bad. The lad was of
age; he might think for himself. In his secret heart Angus liked the
lad's courage. Ralph was “nane o' yer feckless fowk.” Ralph's mother
was sorely troubled; but just as she had yielded to his father's will
in the days that were long gone by, so she yielded now to his. The
intervening years had brought an added gentleness to her character;
they had made mellower her dear face, now ruddy and round, though
wrinkled. Folks said she had looked happier and happier, and had
talked less and less, as the time wore on. It had become a saying in
Wythburn that the dame of Shoulthwaite Moss was never seen without a
smile, and never heard to say more than “God bless you!” The tears
filled her eyes when her son came to kiss her on the morning when he
left her home for the first time, but she wiped them away with her
housewife's apron, and dismissed him with her accustomed blessing.
Ralph Ray joined Cromwell's army against the second Charles at Dunbar,
in 1650. Between two and three years afterwards he returned to
Wythburn city and resumed his old life on the fells. There was little
more for the train-bands to do. Charles had fled, peace was restored,
the Long Parliament was dissolved, Cromwell was Lord Protector.
Outwardly the young Roundhead was not altered by the campaign. He had
passed through it unscathed. He was somewhat graver in manner; there
seemed to be a little less warmth and spontaneity in his greeting; his
voice had lost one or two of its cheerier notes; his laughter was less
hearty and more easily controlled. Perhaps this only meant that the
world was doing its work with him. Otherwise he was the same man.
When Ralph returned to Wythburn he brought with him a companion much
older than himself, who forthwith became an inmate of his father's
home, taking part as a servant in the ordinary occupations of the male
members of the household. This man had altogether a suspicious and
sinister aspect which his manners did nothing to belie. His name was
James Wilson, and he was undoubtedly a Scot, though he had neither the
physical nor the moral characteristics of his race. His eyes were
small, quick, and watchful, beneath heavy and jagged brows. He was
slight of figure and low of stature, and limped on one leg. He spoke
in a thin voice, half laugh, half whimper, and hardly ever looked into
the face of the person with whom he was conversing. There was an air
of mystery about him which the inmates of the house on the Moss did
nothing to dissipate. Ralph offered no explanation to the gossips of
Wythburn of Wilson's identity and belongings; indeed, as time wore on,
it could be observed that he showed some uneasiness when questioned
about the man.
At first Wilson contrived to ingratiate himself into a good deal of
favor among the dalespeople. There was then an insinuating smoothness
in his speech, a flattering, almost fawning glibness of tongue, which
the simple folks knew no art to withstand. He seemed abundantly
grateful for some unexplained benefits received from Ralph. “Atweel,”
Wilson would say, with his eyes on the ground,--“atweel I lo'e the
braw chiel as 'twere my ain guid billie.”
Ralph paid no heed to the brotherly protestations of his admirer, and
exchanged only such words with him as their occupations required. Old
Angus, however, was not so passive an observer of his new and
unlooked-for housemate. “He's a good for nought sort of a fellow,
slenken frae place to place wi' nowt but a sark to his back,” Angus
would say to his wife. Mr. Wilson's physical imperfections were an
offence in the dalesman's eyes: “He's as widderful in his wizzent old
skin as his own grandfather.” Angus was not less severe on Wilson's
sly smoothness of manner. “Yon sneaking old knave,” he would say, “is
as slape as an eel in the beck; he'd wammel himself into crookedest
rabbit hole on the fell.” Probably Angus entertained some of the
antipathy to Scotchmen which was peculiar to his age. “I'll swear he's
a taistrel,” he said one day; “I dare not trust him with a mess of
poddish until I'd had the first sup.”
In spite of this determined disbelief on the part of the head of the
family, old Wilson remained for a long time a member of the household
at Shoulthwaite Moss, following his occupations with constancy, and
always obsequious in the acknowledgment of his obligations. It was
observed that he manifested a peculiar eagerness when through any
stray channel intelligence was received in the valley of the sayings
and doings in the world outside. Nothing was thought of this until one
day the passing pedler brought the startling news that the Lord
Protector was dead. The family were at breakfast in the kitchen of the
old house when this tardy representative of the herald Mercury
arrived, and, in reply to the customary inquiry as to the news he
carried, announced the aforesaid fact. Wilson was alive to its
significance with a curious wakefulness.
“It's braw tidings ye bring the day, man,” he stammered with evident
concern, and with an effort to hide his nervousness.
“Yes, the old man's dead,” said the pedler, with an air of consequence
commensurate with his message. “I reckon,” he added, “Oliver's son
Richard will be Protector now.”
“A sairy carle, that same Richard,” answered Wilson; “I wot th' young
Charles 'ul soon come by his ain, and then ilka ane amang us 'ul see a
bonnie war-day. We've playt at shinty lang eneugh. Braw news,
man--braw news that the corbie's deid.”
Wilson had never before been heard to say so much or to speak so
vehemently. He got up from the table in his nervousness, and walked
aimlessly across the floor.
“Why are you poapan about,” asked Angus, in amazement; “snowkin like a
pig at a sow?”
At this the sinister light in Wilson's eyes that had been held in
check hitherto seemed at once to flash out, and he turned hotly upon
his master, as though to retort sneer for sneer. But, checking
himself, he took up his bonnet and made for the door.
“Don't look at me like that,” Angus called after him, “or, maybe I'll
clash the door in thy face.”
Wilson had gone by this time, and turning to his sons, Angus
continued,--
“Did you see how the waistrel snirpt up his nose when the pedler said
Cromwell was dead?”
It was obvious that something more was soon to be made known relative
to their farm servant. The pedler had no difficulty in coming to the
conclusion that Wilson was some secret spy, some disguised enemy of
the Commonwealth, and perhaps some Fifth Monarchy man, and a rank
Papist to boot. Mrs. Ray's serene face was unruffled; she was sure the
poor man meant no harm. Ralph was silent, as usual, but he looked
troubled, and getting up from the table soon afterwards he followed
the man whom he had brought under his father's roof, and who seemed
likely to cause dissension there.
Not long after this eventful morning, Ralph overheard his father and
Wilson in hot dispute at the other side of a hedge. He could learn
nothing of a definite nature. Angus was at the full pitch of
indignation. Wilson, he said, had threatened him; or, at least, his
own flesh and blood. He had told the man never to come near
Shoulthwaite Moss again.
“An' he does,” said the dalesman, his eyes aflame, “I'll toitle him
into the beck till he's as wankle as a wet sack.”
He was not so old but that he could have kept his word. His great
frame seemed closer knit at sixty than it had been at thirty. His
face, with its long, square, gray beard, looked severer than ever
under his cloth hood. Wilson returned no more, and the promise of a
drenching was never fulfilled.
The ungainly little Scot did not leave the Wythburn district. He
pitched his tent with the village tailor in a little house at
Fornside, close by the Moss. The tailor himself, Simeon Stagg, was
kept pitiably poor in that country, when one sack coat of homespun
cloth lasted a shepherd half a lifetime. He would have lived a
solitary as well as a miserable life but for his daughter Rotha, a
girl of nineteen, who kept his little home together and shared his
poverty when she might have enjoyed the comforts of easier homes
elsewhere.
“Your father is nothing but an ache and a stound to you, lass,” Sim
would say in a whimper. “It'll be well for you, Rotha, when you give
me my last top-sark and take me to the kirkyard yonder,” the little
man would snuffle audibly.
“Hush, father,” the girl would say, putting the palm of her hand
playfully over his mouth, “you'll be sonsie-looking yet.”
Sim was heavily in debt, and this preyed on his mind. He had always
been a grewsome body, sustaining none of the traditions of his craft
for perky gossip. Hence he was no favorite in Wythburn, where few or
none visited him. Latterly Sim's troubles seemed to drive him from his
home for long walks in the night. While the daylight lasted his work
gave occupation to his mind, but when the darkness came on he had no
escape from haunting thoughts, and roamed about the lanes in an effort
to banish them. It was to this man's home that Wilson turned when he
was shut out of Shoulthwaite Moss. Naturally enough, the sinister Scot
was a welcome if not an agreeable guest when he came as lodger, with
money to pay, where poverty itself seemed host.
Old Wilson had not chosen the tailor's house as his home on account of
any comforts it might be expected to afford him. He had his own
reasons for not quitting Wythburn after he had received his very
unequivocal “sneck posset.” “Better a wee bush,” he would say, “than
na bield”. Shelter certainly the tailor's home afforded him; and that
was all that he required for the present. Wilson had not been long in
the tailor's cottage before Sim seemed to grow uneasy under a fresh
anxiety, of which his lodger was the subject. Wilson's manners had
obviously undergone a change. His early smoothness, his slavering
glibness, had disappeared. He was now as bitter of speech as he had
formerly been conciliatory. With Sim and his troubles, real and
imaginary, he was not at all careful to exhibit sympathy. “Weel, weel,
ye must lie heids and thraws wi' poverty, like Jock an' his mither”;
or, “If ye canna keep geese ye mun keep gezlins.”
Sim was in debt to his landlord, and over the idea of ejectment from
his little dwelling the tailor would brood day and night. Folks said
he was going crazed about it. None the less was Sim's distress as
poignant as if the grounds for it had been more real. “Haud thy
bletherin' gab,” Wilson said one day; “because ye have to be cannie
wi' the cream ye think ye must surely be clemm'd.” Salutary as some of
the Scotsman's comments may have been, it was natural that the change
in his manners should excite surprise among the dalespeople. The good
people expressed themselves as “fairly maizelt” by the transformation.
What did it all mean? There was surely something behind it.
The barbarity of Wilson's speech was especially malicious when
directed against the poor folks with whom he lived, and who, being
conscious of how essential he was to the stability of the household,
were largely at his mercy. It happened on one occasion that when
Wilson returned to the cottage after a day's absence, he found Sim's
daughter weeping over the fire.
“What's now?” he asked. “Have ye nothing in the kail?”
Rotha signified that his supper was ready.
“Thou limmer,” said Wilson, in his thin shriek, “how long 'ul thy dool
last? It's na mair to see a woman greet than to see a goose gang
barefit.”
Ralph Ray called at the tailor's cottage the morning after this, and
found Sim suffering under violent excitement, of which Wilson's
behavior to Rotha had been the cause. The insults offered to himself
he had taken with a wince, perhaps, but without a retort. Now that his
daughter was made the subject of them, he was profoundly agitated.
“There I sat,” he cried, as his breath came and went in gusts,--“there
I sat, a poor barrow-back't creature, and heard that old savvorless
loon spit his spite at my lass. I'm none of a brave man, Ralph: no, I
must be a coward, but I went nigh to snatching up yon flail of his and
striking him--aye, killing him!--but no, it must be that I'm a
coward.”
Ralph quieted him as well as he could, telling him to leave this thing
to him. Ralph was perhaps Sim's only friend. He would often turn in
like this at Sim's workroom as he passed up the fell in the morning.
People said the tailor was indebted to Ralph for proofs of friendship
more substantial than sympathy. And now, when Sim had the promise of a
strong friend's shoulder to lean on, he was unmanned, and wept. Ralph
was not unmoved as he stood by the forlorn little man, and clasped his
hands in his own and felt the warm tears fall over them.
As the young dalesman was leaving the cottage that morning, he
encountered in the porch the subject of the conversation, who was
entering in. Taking him firmly but quietly by the shoulder, he led him
back a few paces. Sim had leapt up from his bench, and was peering
eagerly through the window. But Ralph did no violence to his lodger.
He was saying something with marked emphasis, but the words escaped
the tailor's ears. Wilson was answering nothing. Loosing his hold of
him, Ralph walked quietly away. Wilson entered the cottage with a
livid face, and murmuring, as though to himself,--
“Aiblins we may be quits yet, my chiel'. A great stour has begoon, my
birkie. Your fire-flaucht e'e wull na fley me. Your Cromwell's gane,
an' all traitors shall tryste wi' the hangman.”
It was clear that whatever the mystery pertaining to the Scotchman,
Simeon Stagg seemed to possess some knowledge of it. Not that he ever
explained anything. His anxiety to avoid all questions about his
lodger was sufficiently obvious. Yet that he had somehow obtained some
hint of a dark side to Wilson's character, every one felt satisfied.
No other person seemed to know with certainty what were Wilson's means
of livelihood. The Scotchman was not employed by the farmers and
shepherds around Wythburn, and he had neither land nor sheep of his
own. He would set out early and return late, usually walking in the
direction of Gaskarth. One day Wilson rose at daybreak, and putting a
threshing-flail over his shoulder, said he would be away for a week.
That week ensuing was a quiet one for the inmates of the cottage at
Fornside.
Sim's daughter, Rotha, had about this time become a constant helper at
Shoulthwaite Moss, where, indeed, she was treated with the cordiality
proper to a member of the household. Old Angus had but little sympathy
to spare for the girl's father, but he liked Rotha's own cheerfulness,
her winsomeness, and, not least, her usefulness. She could milk and
churn, and bake and brew. This was the sort of young woman that Angus
liked best. “Rotha's a right heartsome lassie,” he said, as he heard
her in the dairy singing while she worked. The dame of Shoulthwaite
loved every one, apparently, but there were special corners in her
heart for her favorites, and Rotha was one of them.
“Cannot that lass's father earn aught without keeping yon sulking
waistrel about him?” asked the old dalesman one day.
It was the first time he had spoken of Wilson since the threatened
ducking. Being told of Wilson's violence to Rotha, he only said, “It's
an old saying, 'A blate cat makes a proud mouse.'” Angus was never
heard to speak of Wilson again.
Nature seemed to have meant Rotha for a blithe, bird-like soul, but
there were darker threads woven into the woof of her natural
brightness. She was tall, slight of figure, with a little head of
almost elfish beauty. At milking, at churning, at baking, her voice
could be heard, generally singing her favorite border song:--
“Gae tak this bonnie neb o' mine,
That pecks amang the corn,
An' gi'e't to the Duke o' Hamilton
To be a touting horn.”
“Robin Redbreast has a blithe interpreter,” said Willy Ray, as he
leaned for a moment against the open door of the dairy in passing out.
Rotha was there singing, while in a snow-white apron, and with arms
bare above the elbows, she weighed the butter of the last churning
into pats, and marked each pat with a rude old mark. The girl dropped
her head and blushed as Willy spoke. Of late she had grown unable to
look the young man in the face. Willy did not speak again. His face
colored, and he went away. Rotha's manner towards Ralph was different.
He spoke to her but rarely, and when he did so she looked frankly into
his face. If she met him abroad, as she sometimes did when carrying
water from the well, he would lift her pails in his stronger hands
over the stile, and at such times the girl thought his voice seemed
softer.
“I am thinking,” said Mrs. Ray to her husband, as she was spinning in
the kitchen at Shoulthwaite Moss,--“I am thinking,” she said, stopping
the wheel and running her fingers through the wool, “that Willy is
partial to the little tailor's winsome lass.”
“And what aboot Ralph?” asked Angus.
CHAPTER II. THE CRIME IN THE NIGHT.
On the evening of the day upon which old Wilson was expected back at
Fornside, Ralph Ray turned in at the tailor's cottage. Sim's distress
was, if possible, even greater than before. It seemed as if the gloomy
forebodings of the villagers were actually about to be realized, and
Sim's mind was really giving way. His staring eyes, his unconscious,
preoccupied manner as he tramped to and fro in his little work-room,
sitting at intervals, rising again and resuming his perambulations,
now gathering up his tools and now opening them out afresh, talking
meantime in fitful outbursts, sometimes wholly irrelevantly and
occasionally with a startling pertinency,--all this, though no more
than an excess of his customary habit, seemed to denote a mind
unstrung. The landlord had called that morning for his rent, which was
long in arrears. He must have it. Sim laughed when he told Ralph this,
but it was a shocking laugh; there was no heart in it. Ralph would
rather have heard him whimper and shuffle as he had done before.
“You shall not be homeless, Sim, if the worst comes to the worst,” he
said.
“Homeless, not I!” and the little man laughed again. Ralph felt
unease. This change was not for the better. Rotha had been sitting at
the window to catch the last glimmer of daylight as she spun. It was
dusk, but not yet too dark for Ralph to see the tears standing in her
eyes. Presently she rose and went out of the room.
“Never fear that I shall be clemm'd,” said Sim. “No, no,” he said,
with a grin of satisfied assurance.
“God forbid!” said Ralph, “but things should be better soon. This is
the back end, you know.”
“Aye,” answered the tailor, with a shrug that resembled a shiver.
“And they say,” continued Ralph, “the back end is always the bare
end.”
“And they say, too,” said Sim, “change is leetsome, if it's only out
of bed into the beck!”
The tailor laughed loud, and then stopped himself with a suddenness
quite startling. The jest sounded awful on his lips. “You say the back
end's the bare end,” he said, coming up to where Ralph sat in pain and
amazement; “mine's all bare end. It's nothing but 'bare end' for some
of us. Yesterday morning was wet and cold--you know how cold it was.
Well, Rotha had hardly gone out when a tap came to the door, and what
do you think it was? A woman, a woman thin and blear-eyed. Some one
must have counted her face bonnie once. She was scarce older than my
own lass, but she'd a poor weak barn at her breast and a wee lad that
trudged at her side. She was wet and cold, and asked for rest and
shelter for herself and the children-rest and shelter,” repeated the
tailor in a lower tone, as though muttering to himself,--“rest and
shelter, and from me.”
“Well?” inquired Ralph, not noticing Sim's self-reference.
“Well?” echoed Sim, as though Ralph should have divined the sequel.
“Had the poor creature been turned out of her home?”
“That and worse,” said the little tailor, his frame quivering with
emotion. “Do you know the king's come by his own again?” Sim was
speaking in an accent of the bitterest mockery.
“Worse luck,” said Ralph; “but what of that?”
“Why,” said Sim, almost screaming, “that every man in the land who
fought for the Commonwealth eight years ago is like to be shot as a
traitor. Didn't you know that, my lad?” And the little man put his
hands with a feverish clutch on Ralph's shoulders, and looked into his
face.
For an instant there was a tremor on the young dalesman's features,
but it lasted only long enough for Sim to recognize it, and then the
old firmness returned.
“But what of the poor woman and her barns?” Ralph said, quietly.
“Her husband, an old Roundhead, had fled from a warrant for his
arrest. She had been cast homeless into the road, she and all her
household; her aged mother had died of exposure the first bitter
night, and now for two long weeks she had walked on and on--on and
on--her children with her--on and on--living Heaven knows how!”
A light now seemed to Ralph to be cast on the great change in his
friend; but was it indeed fear for his (Ralph's) well-being that had
goaded poor Sim to a despair so near allied to madness?
“What about Wilson?” he asked, after a pause.
The tailor started at the name.
“I don't know--I don't know at all,” he answered, as though eager to
assert the truth of a statement never called into dispute.
“Does he intend to come back to Fornside to-night, Sim?”
“So he said.”
“What, think you, is his work at Gaskarth?”
“I don't know--I know nothing--at least--no, nothing.”
Ralph was sure now. Sim was too eager to disclaim all knowledge of his
lodger's doings. He would not recognize the connection between the
former and present subjects of conversation.
The night had gathered in, and the room was dark except for the
glimmer of a little fire on the open hearth. The young dalesman looked
long into it: his breast heaved with emotion, and for the first time
in his manhood big tears stood in his eyes. It must be so; it must be
that this poor forlorn creature, who had passed through sufferings of
his own, and borne them, was now shattered and undone at the prospect
of disaster to his friend. Did he know more than he had said? It was
vain to ask. Would he--do anything? Ralph glanced at the little man:
barrow-backed he was, as he had himself said. No, the idea seemed
monstrous. The young man rose to go; he could not speak, but he took
Sim's hand in his and held it. Then he stooped and kissed him on the
cheek.
* * * * *
Next morning, soon after daybreak, all Wythburn was astir. People were
hurrying about from door to door and knocking up the few remaining
sleepers. The voices of the men sounded hoarse in the mist of the
early morning; the women held their heads together and talked in
whispers. An hour or two later two or three horsemen drove up to the
door of the village inn. There was a bustle within; groups of boys
were congregated outside. Something terrible had happened in the
night. What was it?
Willie Ray, who had left home at early dawn, came back to Shoulthwaite
Moss with flushed face and quick-coming breath. Ralph and his mother
were at breakfast. His father, who had been at market the preceding
day, had not risen.
“Dreadful, dreadful!” cried Willy. “Old Wilson is dead. Found dead in
the dike between Smeathwaite and Fornside. Murdered, no doubt, for his
wages; nothing left about him.”
“Heaven bless us!” cried Mrs. Ray, “to kill a poor man for his week's
wage!” And she sank back into the chair from which she had risen in
her amazement.
“They've taken his body to the Red Lion, and the coroner is there from
Gaskarth.”
Willy was trembling in every limb.
Ralph rose as one stupefied. He said nothing, but taking down his hat
he went out. Willy looked after him, and marked that he took the road
to Fornside.
When he got there he found the little cottage besieged. Crowds of
women and boys stood round the porch and peered in at the window.
Ralph pushed his way through them and into the house. In the kitchen
were the men from Gaskarth and many more. On a chair near the cold
hearth, where no fire had been kindled since he last saw it, sat Sim
with glassy eyes. His neck was bare and his clothes disordered. At his
back stood Rotha, with her arms thrown round her father's neck. His
long, thin fingers were clutching her clasped hands as with a vise.
“You must come with us,” said one of the strangers, addressing the
tailor. He was justice and coroner of the district.
Sim said nothing and did not stir. Then the young girl's voice broke
the dreadful silence.
“Come, father; let us go.”
Sim rose at this, and walked like one in a dream. Ralph took his arm,
and as the people crowded upon them, he pushed them aside, and they
passed out.
The direction of the company through the gray mist of that morning was
towards the place where the body lay. Sim was to be accused of the
crime. After the preliminaries of investigation were gone through, the
witnesses were called. None had seen the murder. The body of the
murdered man had been found by a laborer. There was a huge sharp stone
under the head, and death seemed to have resulted from a fracture of
the skull caused by a heavy fall. There was no appearance of a blow.
As to Sim, the circumstantial evidence looked grave. Old Wilson had
been seen to pass through Smeathwaite after dark; he must have done so
to reach his lodgings at the tailor's house. Sim had been seen abroad
about the same hour. This was not serious; but now came Sim's
landlord. He had called on the tailor the previous morning for his
rent and could not get it. Late the same night Sim had knocked at his
door with the money.
“When I ax't him where he'd come from so late,” said the man, “he
glower't at me daiztlike, and said nought.”
“What was his appearance?”
“His claes were a' awry, and he keep't looking ahint him.”
At this there was a murmur among the bystanders. There could not be a
doubt of Sim's guilt.
At a moment of silence Ralph stepped out. He seemed much moved. Might
he ask the witnesses some questions? Certainly. It was against the
rule, but still he might do so. Then he inquired exactly into the
nature of the wound that had apparently caused death. He asked for
precise information as to the stone on which the head of the deceased
was found lying.
It lay fifty yards to the south of the bridge.
Then he argued that as there was no wound on the dead man other than
the fracture of the skull, it was plain that death had resulted from a
fall. How the deceased had come by that fall was now the question. Was
it not presumable that he had slipped his foot and had fallen? He
reminded them that Wilson was lame on one leg. If the fall were the
result of a blow, was it not preposterous to suppose that a man of
Sim's slight physique could have inflicted it? Under ordinary
circumstances, only a more powerful man than Wilson himself could have
killed him by a fall.
At this the murmur rose again among the bystanders, but it sounded to
Ralph like the murmur of beasts being robbed of their prey.
As to the tailor having been seen abroad at night, was not that the
commonest occurrence? With the evidence of Sim's landlord Ralph did
not deal.
It was plain that Sim could not be held over for trial on evidence
such as was before them. He was discharged, and an open verdict was
returned. The spectators were not satisfied, however, to receive the
tailor back again as an innocent man. Would he go upstairs and look at
the body? There was a superstition among them that a dead body would
bleed at a touch from the hand of the murderer. Sim said nothing, but
stared wildly about him.
“Come, father,” said Rotha, “do as they wish.”
The little man permitted himself to be led into the room above. Ralph
followed with a reluctant step. He had cleared his friend, but looked
more troubled than before. When the company reached the bedside, Ralph
stood at its head while one of the men took a cloth off the dead man's
face.
There was a stain of earth on it.
Then they drew Sim up in front of it. When his eyes fell on the white,
upturned face, he uttered a wild cry and fell senseless to the floor.
Ha! The murmur rose afresh. Then there was a dead silence. Rotha was
the first to break the awful stillness. She knelt over her father's
prostrate form, and said amid stifling sobs,--
“Tell them it is not true; tell them so, father.”
The murmur came again. She understood it, and rose up with flashing
eyes.
“_I_ tell them it is not true,” she said. Then stepping firmly to the
bedside, she cried, “Look you all! I, his daughter, touch here this
dead man's hand, and call on God to give a sign if my father did this
thing.”
So saying, she took the hand of the murdered man, and held it
convulsively in her own.
The murmur died to a hush of suspense and horror. The body remained
unchanged. Loosing her grip, she turned on the bystanders with a look
of mingled pride and scorn.
“Take this from heaven for a witness that my father is innocent.”
The tension was too much for the spectators, and one by one they left
the room. Ralph only remained, and when Sim returned to consciousness
he raised him up, and took him back to Fornside.
CHAPTER III. IN THE RED LION.
What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?
_Midsummer Night's Dream._
Time out of mind there had stood on the high street of Wythburn a
modest house of entertainment, known by the sign of the Red Lion.
Occasionally it accommodated the casual traveller who took the valley
road to the north, but it was intended for the dalesmen, who came
there after the darkness had gathered in, and drank a pot of
home-brewed ale as they sat above the red turf fire.
This was the house to which Wilson's body had been carried on the
morning it was found on the road. That was about Martinmas. One night,
early in the ensuing winter, a larger company than usual was seated in
the parlor of the little inn. It was a quaint old room, twice as long
as it was broad, and with a roof so low that the taller shepherds
stooped as they walked under its open beams.
From straps fixed to the rafters hung a gun, a whip, and a horn. Two
square windows, that looked out over the narrow causeway, were covered
by curtains of red cloth. An oak bench stood in each window recess.
The walls throughout were panelled in oak, which was carved here and
there in curious archaic devices. The panelling had for the most part
grown black with age; the rosier spots, that were polished to the
smoothness and brightness of glass, denoted the positions of
cupboards. Strong settles and broad chairs stood in irregular places
about the floor, which was of the bare earth, grown hard as stone, and
now sanded. The chimney nook spanned the width of one end of the room.
It was an open ingle with seats in the wall at each end, and the fire
on the ground between them. A goat's head and the horns of an ox were
the only ornaments of the chimney-breast, which was white-washed.
On this night of 1660 the wind was loud and wild without. The
snowstorm that had hung over the head of Castenand in the morning had
come down the valley as the day wore on. The heavy sleet rattled at
the windows. In its fiercer gusts it drowned the ring of the lusty
voices. The little parlor looked warm and snug with its great cobs of
old peat glowing red as they burnt away sleepily on the broad hearth.
At intervals the door would open and a shepherd would enter. He had
housed his sheep for the night, and now, seated as the newest corner on
the warmest bench near the fire, with a pipe in one hand and a pot of
hot ale in the other, he was troubled by the tempest no more.
“At Michaelmas a good fat goose, at Christmas stannen' pie, and good
yal awt year roond,” said an old man in the chimney corner. This was
Matthew Branthwaite, the wit and sage of Wythburn, once a weaver, but
living now on the husbandings of earlier life. He was tall and slight,
and somewhat bent with age. He was dressed in a long brown sack coat,
belted at the waist, below which were
|
bottom, and from the upper end the
valve rod transfers the motion to the valve without reversing the
motion, as is done sometimes in the slide valve to overcome the
effects of the angularity of the connecting rod. The action of the
rocker arm, therefore, so far as the main valve in the Buckeye is
concerned, is no different than that which would occur if no rocker
arm intervened. The motion of the cut off eccentric, through its
eccentric rod, is given to a rocker rocking in a bearing in the center
of the main rocker arm (see Fig. 6). The motion of this eccentric is
reversed, so far as the cut off valve is concerned, and when the cut
off eccentric is moving forward, the cut off valve is being pushed
back. The main valve rod is hollow, and the cut off valve rod passes
through it.
[Illustration: Fig. 6]
The cut off eccentric can be placed in any position to cause it to cut
off as desired, and by drawing the valve forward, by increasing the
angular advance of the eccentric, the cut off valve is caused to reach
and cover the steam passage in the main valve earlier in the stroke.
Instead of being ahead of the crank, the main eccentric in this
arrangement follows the crank, on account of the exhaust and steam
edges being exactly opposite from those in the ordinary slide. What is
the steam edge of the common slide is in this the exhaust edge, and
what is the exhaust edge in the common valve is the steam edge in this
one. The valve, therefore, must be moved in the opposite direction
from what is ordinarily the case, the main eccentric being not 90 deg.
behind the crank. It has a rapid and full opening just the same, for
it is at this point behind the crank, or ahead of it, that the
eccentric gives to the valve its quickest movement, or between the
eccentric dead centers. The cut off eccentric is considerably ahead of
the main eccentric, and about even with the crank. If it was not for
the reversal of motion of the cut off valve through the rocker arm
this eccentric would be about in line with the crank, but on the other
end. The movement of the cut off valve, therefore, at the time of port
opening is very little, being about on its dead center, passing which,
it immediately commences to close.
The object of the peculiar construction of the rocker arm, and the
pivot for the cut off rocker being placed thereon, is to provide equal
travel on the back of the main valve, no matter what the cut off. I
have already explained, in connection with the slide valve, that
advancing the eccentric does not change the movement of the valve on
its seat, but simply its relation to the movement of the piston. You
will see that this is unchanged as using the main valve as a seat or
any other seat. If the main valve was to remain stationary, and only
the cut off valve to be operated by its eccentric, the movement of
this cut off valve on a certain plane would be the same for all
positions of the eccentric.
Moving the main slide does not affect the matter in any way, for it
moves at the same time the pivot of the cut off, and while the cut off
seat has assumed a different position with reference to the engine, it
is still as though stationary so far as the cut off valve is
concerned. This is the object of this peculiar construction, and not,
as some engineers suppose, simply to make an odd way of doing things.
And the object of it all is to give at all cut offs the same amount of
travel, so that there might be no unequal wear to bring about a leak,
to prevent which a perfect balancing has been sacrificed.
Referring to the valve and this engine as to how it will satisfy our
requirements of a perfect valve gear, we find that the first
requirement of a rapid and full opening is met, in that the opening
occurs when the main eccentric is moving very rapidly, yet not its
fastest, and while this opening will be very satisfactory, it is not
so rapid an opening as is obtained in some other forms of valves and
valve gears, but this could be overcome very readily by increasing the
lead a trifle, and in my experience with these engines I find that the
practice is very general by engineers and by builders themselves to
give them a considerable amount of lead. As to the second requirement,
the maintenance of initial pressure until cut off, giving a straight
steam line, cards from this engine will not be found to show that the
engine satisfies this requirement, and for this reason, that the
cut-off valve commences to close the port immediately after the piston
commences to move. The cut off eccentric you will remember is set to
move with the crank or very nearly so, and the lighter the load, the
greater will this fact appear. For the lightest loads the governor
places the eccentric in advance of the crank, so that the cut off
valve will commence to close the port before steam is admitted by the
main valve to the engine. Now, the later the cut off, the less will
this wire drawing appear at first, and the shorter the cut off, the
amount of wire drawing increases sensibly. The operation of the valve,
therefore, in this particular, cannot be considered as meeting our
requirement that the port shall be held open full width until ready to
be closed. Many men claim for this engine that the closing occurs when
the cut off eccentric is moving its fastest. This is a fact, and if we
consider the point of cut off only to be the point of absolute cut
off, the cut off must be instantaneous, for there is an instantaneous
point where the cut off is final only to be considered. The reasoning
applied here would hold good also to a less extent on the slide valve,
but is not the point of absolute cut off. We want to note how long it
is from the time the valve commences to close at all until finally
closed, and, as I have shown you, this is considerable in this engine.
Referring to the point of cut off finally, it is determined upon by a
governor of the fly wheel type. The eccentric is loose about the
shaft, and arms projecting therefrom are connected by other arms to
the extremity of an arm upon which is mounted a weight, and which is
attached to the spokes of the fly wheel, or special governor wheel in
this case, and which is fastened to the crank shaft. As the speed
increases through throwing off a portion of the load the governor
weights fly out, and this movement is transferred through the lever
connections to the eccentric, causing it to be turned ahead, and the
manner hastening the movement of the cut off valve on its seat and
causing it to reach and cover the edge of the steam port earlier in
the stroke. This engine was the pioneer in governors of this
character, the advantage being, in addition to its necessity for the
work of turning the eccentric ahead or back, that the liability of the
engine to run away, as very often happens from the breaking of the
governor belt or a similar cause, was not possible.
The cut off valve has a travel considerably beyond the edge of the
steam passage after the valve is closed, and this has one advantage,
that the valve is less liable to leak, and to this must be added the
loss from the friction of this moving valve, and moving too in
opposition to the main valve. In our perfect valve, as we outlined it,
the valve does not move after the port is closed. The exhausting
functions of the valve are very good, giving a quick opening and a
full opening, because this opening occurs when the eccentric is moving
its fastest. The engine also possesses a distinct advantage in having
remarkably small clearance spaces. The length of the steam passage is
very small in comparison with any form of engine, and having but two
ports instead of four, as in the Corliss and four valve type.
In these there must be included in the clearance, that to the exhaust
port as well as the steam port, adding a considerable amount where the
piston comes close to the head. As the engines leave the maker's hand
the engines are provided with a considerable amount of lap to give
plenty of compression, but are, of course, capable of having more
added to increase compression, or some planed off to decrease it.
One of the peculiar things about this engine is the failure to realize
anywhere near boiler pressure, noticeable in every case that has come
under my notice. The considerable lead gives it for an instant, but it
soon falls away, indicating the steam chest pressure only by a peak at
the junction of the admission and steam lines. This is probably due to
the fact that the cut off valve commences closing the steam passage so
soon after steam is admitted, and in this particular does not satisfy
the requirements of a perfect valve. There is this about the engine,
that above all others of this type there has come under my notice
fewer engines of this type with a maladjustment of valves from
tampering by incompetent engineers.
* * * * *
FIRING POINTS OF VARIOUS EXPLOSIVES.
An apparatus, devised by Horsley, was used, which consisted of an iron
stand with a ring support holding a hemispherical iron vessel, in
which paraffin or tin was put. Above this was another movable support,
from which a thermometer was suspended and so adjusted that its bulb
was immersed in molten material in the iron vessel. A thin copper
cartridge case, 5/8 in. in diameter and 1-5/16 in. long, was suspended
over the bath by means of a triangle, so that the end of the case was
1 in. below the surface of the liquid. On beginning the experiment the
material in the bath was heated to just above the melting point, the
thermometer was inserted in it, and a minute quantity of the explosive
was placed in the bottom of the cartridge case. The temperature marked
by the thermometer was noted as the _initial temperature_, the
cartridge case containing the explosive was inserted in the bath, and
the temperature quickly raised until the explosive flashed off or
exploded, when the temperature marked by the thermometer was again
noted as the _firing point_. The tables given show the results of
about six experiments with each explosive. The initial temperatures
range from 65° to 280° C. in some cases, but as the firing points
remained fairly constant, only the extremes of the latter are quoted
in the following table:
--------------------------------+-----------------------
Description of Explosive. | Firing Point in ° C.
--------------------------------+-----------------------
Compressed military gun-cotton. | 186 - 201
Air-dried military gun-cotton. | 179 - 186
" " " | 186 - 189
" " " | 137 - 139
" " " | 154 - 161
Gun-cotton dried at 65° C. | 136 - 141
Air-dried collodion gun-cotton. | 186 - 191
" " " | 197 - 199
" " " | 193 - 195
Air-dried gun-cotton. | 192 - 197
" " | 194 - 199
Hydro-nitrocellulose. | 201 - 213
Nitroglycerin. | 203 - 205
Kieselghur dynamite. No. 1. | 197 - 200
Explosive gelatin. | 203 - 209
Explosive gelatin, camphorated. | 174 - 182
Mercury fulminate. | 175 - 181
Gunpowder. | 278 - 287
Hill's picric powder. | 273 - 283
" " " | 273 - 290
Forcite, No. 1. | 184 - 200
Atlas powder, 75 per cent. | 175 - 185
Emmensite, No. 1. | 167 - 184
Emmensite, No. 2. | 165 - 177
Emmensite, No. 5. | 205 - 217
--------------------------------+-----------------------
_--C.E. Munroe, J. Amer. Chem. Soc._
* * * * *
STATION FOR TESTING AGRICULTURAL MACHINES.
The minister of agriculture has recently established a special
laboratory for testing agricultural _materiel_. This establishment,
which is as yet but little known, is destined to render the greatest
services to manufacturers and cultivators.
In fact, agriculture now has recourse to physics and mechanics as well
as to chemistry. Now, although there were agricultural laboratories
whose mission it was to fix the choice of the cultivator upon such or
such a seed or fertilizer, there was no official establishment
designed to inform him as to the value of machines, the models of
which are often very numerous. _Chemical_ advice was to be had, but
_mechanical_ advice was wanting. It is such a want that has just been
supplied. Upon the report presented by Mr. Tisserand, director of
agriculture, a ministerial decree of the 24th of January, 1888,
ordered the establishment of an experimental station. Mr. Ringelmann,
professor of rural engineering at the school of Grignon, was put in
charge of the installation of it, and was appointed its director. He
immediately began to look around for a site, and on the 17th of
December, 1888, the Municipal Council of Paris, taking into
consideration the value of such an establishment to the city's
industries, decided that a plot of ground of an area of 3,309 square
meters, situated on Jenner Street, should be put at the disposal of
the minister of agriculture for fifteen years for the establishment
thereon of a trial station. This land, bordering on a very wide street
and easy of access, opposite the municipal buildings, offers, through
its area, its situation, and its neigborhood, indisputable advantages.
A fence 70 meters in extent surrounds the station. An iron gate opens
upon a paved path that ends at the station.
The year 1889 was devoted to the installation, and the station is now
in full operation. The tests that can be made here are many, and
concern all kinds of apparatus, even those connected with the electric
lighting that the agriculturist may employ to facilitate his
exploitation. However, the tests that are oftenest made are (1) of
rotary apparatus, such as mills, thrashing machines, etc.; (2) of
traction machines, such as wagons, carts, plows, etc.; and (3) of
lifting apparatus. It is possible, also, to make experiments on the
resistance of materials.
The experimental hall contains a 7 horse power gas motor, dynamometers
with automatic registering apparatus, counters, balances, etc. A small
machine shop contains a lathe, a forge, a drilling machine, etc. The
main shaft is 12 meters in length and is 7 centimeters in diameter. It
is supported at a distance of one meter from the floor by four pillow
blocks, and is formed of three sections united by movable coupling
boxes. Out of these 12 meters, 9 are in the hall and 3 extend beyond
the hall to an annex, 14 meters in length and 4 in width, in which
tests are made of machines whose operation creates dust. When the
machines to be tested require more than the power of seven horses that
the motor gives, the persons interested furnish a movable engine,
which, placed under the annex, actuates the driving shaft. Alongside
of the main building there is a ring for experimenting upon machines
actuated by a horse whim. There will soon be erected in the center of
the grounds an 18 meter tower for experiments on pumps. Platforms
spaced 5 meters apart, a crane at the top, and some gauging apparatus
will complete this hydraulic installation.
The equipment of the hall is very complete, and is fitted for all
kinds of experiments.
[Illustration: STATION FOR TESTING AGRICULTURAL MACHINES--DYNAMOMETER
FOR TESTING ROTARY MACHINES.]
The tests of rotary machines are made by means of a dynamometer (see
figure). Two fast pulleys and one loose pulley are interposed between
the machine to be tested and the motor. The pulley connected with the
motor carries along the one connected with the machine, through the
intermedium of spring plates, whose strength varies with the nature of
the apparatus to be tested. The greater or less elongation of these
plates gives the tangential stress exerted by the driving pulley to
carry along the pulley that actuates the machine to be tested. This
elongation is registered by means of a pencil connected with the
spring plates, and which draws a diagram upon a sheet of paper. At the
same time, a special totalizer gives the stress in kilogrammeters.
Besides, the pulley shaft actuates a revolution counter, and a clock
measures the time employed in the experiment. In order to obtain a
simultaneous starting and stopping point for all these apparatus, they
are connected electrically, and, through the maneuver of a commutator,
are all controlled at once. The electric current is furnished by two
series of bichromate batteries.
The tests of traction machines are effected by means of a
three-wheeled vehicle carrying a dynamometer. The front wheel is
capable of turning freely in the horizontal plane, and the dynamometer
is mounted upon a frame provided with a screw that permits of
regulating its position according to the slope of the ground. The
method of suspension of the dynamometer allows it to take
automatically the inclination of the line of traction without any
torsion of the plates. There are two models of this vehicle, one
designed to be drawn by a man, and the other by a horse.
The station is provided, in addition, with registering pressure
gauges, a large double dynamometric indicator, a counter of
electricity, balances of precision, etc.
An apparatus designed for measuring the rendering of presses is now in
course of construction.
Although the station has been in operation only from the 1st of
January, twenty-five machines have already been presented to be
tested.--_Extract from Le Genie Civil_.
* * * * *
WATER SOFTENING AND PURIFYING APPARATUS.
We have recently had brought under our notice a system of water and
sewage purification which appears to possess several substantial
advantages. Chief among these are simplicity in construction and
operation, economy in first cost and working and efficiency in action.
This system is the invention of Messrs. Slack & Brownlow, of Canning
Works, Upper Medlock Street, Manchester, and the apparatus adopted in
carrying it out is here illustrated. It consists of an iron
cylindrical tank having inside a series of plates arranged in a spiral
direction around a fixed center, and sloping downward at a
considerable angle outward. The water to be purified and softened
flows through the large inlet tube to the bottom, mixing on its way
with the necessary chemicals, and entering the apparatus at the
bottom, rises to the top, passing spirally round the whole
circumference, and depositing on the plates all solids and impurities.
All that is needed in the way of attention, even when dealing with
sewage, or the most polluted waters, is stated to be the mixing in the
small tanks the necessary chemical reagents, at the commencement of
the working day; and at the close of the day the opening of the mud
cocks shown in our engraving, to remove the collected deposit upon the
plates. For the past six months this system has been in operation at a
dye works in Manchester, successfully purifying and softening the
foul waters of the river Medlock. It is stated that 84,000 gallons per
day can be easily purified by an apparatus 7 feet in diameter. The
chemicals used are chiefly lime, soda, and alumina, and the cost of
treatment is stated to vary from a farthing to twopence per 1,000
gallons, according to the degree of impurity of the water or sewage
treated.
The results of working at Manchester show that all the visible filth
is removed from the Medlock's inky waters, besides which the hardness
of the water is reduced to about 6° from a normal condition of about
30°. The effluent is fit for all the varied uses of a dye works, and
is stated to be perfectly capable of sustaining fish life. With
results such as these the system should have a promising future before
it in respect of sewage treatment, as well as the purification and
softening of water generally for industrial and manufacturing
purposes.--_Iron._
[Illustration: WATER SOFTENING AND PURIFYING APPARATUS.]
* * * * *
THE TRISECTION OF ANY ANGLE.
By FREDERIC R. HONEY, Ph.B., Yale University.
The following analysis shows that with the aid of an hyperbola any
arc, and therefore any angle, may be trisected.
If the reader should not care to follow the analytical work, the
construction is described in the last paragraph--referring to Fig. II.
Let a b c d (Fig. I.) be the arc subtending a given angle. Draw the
chord a d and bisect it at o. Through o draw e f perpendicular
to a d.
We wish to find the locus of a point c whose distance from a given
straight line e f is one-half the distance from a given point d.
In order to write the equation of this curve, refer it to the
co-ordinate axes a d (axis of X) and e f (axis of Y), intersecting
at the origin o.
Let g c = x
Therefore, from the definition c d = 2x
Let o d = D
[Hence] h d = D-x
Let c h = y
[Hence] (2x)² = y² + (D-x)²
or 4x² = y² + D²-2Dx + x²
[Hence] y²-3x² + D²-2Dx = o [I.]
This is the equation of an hyperbola whose center is on the axis of
abscisses. In order to determine the position of the center, eliminate
the x term, and find the distance from the origin o to a new origin
o'.
Let E = distance from o to o'
[Hence] x = x' + E
Substituting this value of x in equation I.
y²-3(x' + E)² + D²-2D(x' + E) = o
or y²-3x²-6Ex'-3E² + D²-2Dx'-2DE = o [II.]
In this equation the x' terms should disappear.
[Hence] -6Ex' - 2Dx' = o
[Hence] -E = - D/3
That is, the distance from the origin o to the new origin or the
center of the hyperbola o' is equal to one-third of the distance
from o to d; and the minus sign indicates that the measurement
should be laid off to the left of the origin o. Substituting this
value of E in equation II., and omitting accents--
We have
y² - 3x² + 2Dx - D²/3 + D² - 2Dx + 2D²/3 = o
[Hence] y² - 3x² = - 4D²/3
[Illustration: Fig I]
[Illustration: Fig II]
This is the equation of an hyperbola referred to its center o' as
the origin of co-ordinates. To write it in the ordinary form, that is
in terms of the transverse and conjugate axes, multiply each term by
C, i.e.,
__
Let \/C = semi-transverse axis.
[TEX: \sqrt{C} = \text{semi-transverse axis.}]
Thus Cy² - 3Cx² = - 4CD²/3. [III.]
When in this form the product of the coefficients of the x² and y²
terms should be equal to the remaining term.
That is
3C² = - 4CD²/3.
[Hence] C = 4D²/9.
And equation III. becomes:
4D² 4D² 16D^{4}
----- y² - ----- x² = - ---------
9 3 27
[TEX: \frac{4D^2}{9} y^2 - \frac{4D^2}{3} x^2 = -\frac{16D^4}{27}]
____
/ 4D² 2D
The semi-transverse axis = \/ ----- = ----
9 3
[TEX: \text{The semi-transverse axis} = \sqrt{\frac{4D^2}{9}}
= \frac{2D}{3}]
____
/ 4D² 2D
The semi-conjugate axis = \/ ----- = -----
3 ___
\/ 3
[TEX: \text{The semi-conjugate axis} = \sqrt{\frac{4D^2}{3}}
= \frac{2D}{\sqrt{3}}]
Since the distance from the center of the curve to either focus is
equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the semi-axes,
the distance from o' to either focus
____________
/4D² 4D² 4D
= /\ /----- + ----- = ----
\/ 9 3 3
[TEX: \sqrt{\frac{4D^2}{9} + \frac{4D^2}{3}} = \frac{4D}{3}]
We can therefore make the following construction (Fig. II.) Draw a d
the chord of the arc a c d. Trisect a d at o' and k. Produce
d a to l, making a l = a o' = o' k = k d. With a k as a
transverse axis, and l and d as foci, construct the branch of the
hyperbola k c c' c", which will intersect all arcs having the common
chord a d at c, c', c", etc., making the arcs c d, c' d, c"
d, etc., respectively, equal to one-third of the arcs a c d, a c' d,
a c" d, etc.
* * * * *
TEST CARD HINTS.
By Dr. F. OGDEN STOUT.
I know it is the custom with a great many if not the majority of
opticians to fit a customer without knowing whether he has presbyopia,
hypermetropia, or any of the other errors of refraction. Their method
is first to try a convex, and if this does not improve, a concave,
etc., until the proper one is found. This, of course, amounts to the
same thing if the right glass is found. But in practice it will be
found both time saving and more satisfactory to first decide with what
error you have to deal. It is very simple, and, where you have no
other means of diagnosing (such as the ophthalmoscope), it does away
with the necessity of trying so many lenses before the proper one is
found. You should have a distance test card placed at a distance of
twenty feet from the person you are examining, and in a good light.
A distance test card consists of letters of various sizes which it has
been found can be seen at certain distances by people with good
vision. Thus the largest letter is marked with a cc, meaning that this
should be seen at two hundred feet, and another line, XX, at twenty
feet, which is the proper distance for testing vision for distance,
for the reason that a normal eye is at rest when looking at any object
twenty feet from it or beyond, and the rays coming from it are
parallel and come to a focus on the retina. You must also have a near
vision test card with lines that should be seen by a normal eye from
ten to seventy-two inches, and a card of radiating lines for
astigmatism. With this preparation you are ready to proceed. To
illustrate, the first customer comes and tells you that up to six
months ago he had very good vision, but he finds now that, especially
at night, he has trouble in reading or writing, and that he finds he
can see better a little farther away. His head aches and eyes smart.
You will of course say that this is a very simple case. It must be old
sight (presbyopia). Probably it is if he is old enough (45), but you
must prove this for yourself, without asking his age, which is
embarrassing in the case of a lady. If you direct him to the distance
card twenty feet away, and find that he can see every one down to and
including the one marked XX, his vision is up to the standard for
distance, and you know that he can have no astigmatism worth
correcting, nor any near sight, as both of these affect vision for
distance, but he may have far sight or old sight or both combined. You
must find which it is.
If, while he is still looking at the twenty-foot line, you place in
front of the eyes a weak convex and he tells you he sees just as well
with as without, it proves the existence of far-sight or
hypermetropia, and the strongest convex that still leaves vision as
good for distance as without any, corrects the manifest. But if the
weak convex blurs it, it shows that there is some defect in focusing,
if the near vision is below normal. You therefore know that you have a
case of old sight or presbyopia, requiring the weakest convex to
correct it, that will enable your customer to see the finest line on
the near card at the required distance.
The next customer that comes to be fitted with glasses can only see
the line marked XL on the distance card at 20 feet or about one-half
of what he should see, which leads you to think that there is no far
sight, for vision for distance is good except in very high degrees of
this error. Nor can there be old-sight, for vision for distance is
good in old-sight until after the fifty-fifth year, but it can be near
sight (myopia) or astigmatism, or both. We next try the near card and
find that even the finest line can be seen clearly if held
sufficiently close to the eyes. We now know that this is a case of
near sight, and we must fit them with glasses for distance. The
weakest concave that will enable him to see the line that should be
seen on the distance card at 20 feet is the proper one to give him for
use.--_The Optician._
* * * * *
CHARLES GOODYEAR.
CHARLES GOODYEAR was born in New Haven, December 29, 1800. He was the
son of Amasa Goodyear, and the eldest among six children. His father
was quite proud of being a descendant of Stephen Goodyear, one of the
founders of the colony of New Haven in 1638.
Amasa Goodyear owned a little farm on the neck of land in New Haven
which is now known as Oyster Point, and it was here that Charles spent
the earliest years of his life. When, however, he was quite young, his
father secured an interest in a patent for the manufacture of ivory
buttons, and looking for a convenient location for a small mill,
settled at Naugatuck, Conn., where he made use of the valuable water
power that is there. Aside from his manufacturing, the elder Goodyear
ran a farm, and between the two lines of industry kept young Charles
pretty busy.
In 1816, Charles left his home and went to Philadelphia to learn the
hardware business. He worked at this very industriously until he was
twenty-one years old, and then, returning to Connecticut, entered into
partnership with his father at the old stand in Naugatuck, where they
manufactured not only ivory and metal buttons, but a variety of
agricultural implements, which were just beginning to be appreciated
by the farmers. In August of 1824 he was united in marriage with
Clarissa Beecher, a woman of remarkable strength of character and
kindness of disposition, and one who in after years was of the
greatest assistance to the impulsive inventor. Two years later he
removed again to Philadelphia, and there opened a hardware store. His
specialties were the valuable agricultural implements that his firm
had been manufacturing, and after the first distrust of home made
goods had worn away--for all agricultural implements were imported
from England at that time--he found himself established at the head of
a successful business.
This continued to increase until it seemed but a question of a few
years until he would be a very wealthy man. Between 1829 and 1830 he
suddenly broke down in health, being troubled with dyspepsia. At the
same time came the failure of a number of business houses that
seriously embarrassed his firm. They struggled on, however, for some
time, but were finally obliged to fail. The ten years that followed
this were full of the bitterest struggles and trials to Goodyear.
Under the law that then existed he was imprisoned time after time for
debts, even while he was trying to perfect inventions that should pay
off his indebtedness.
Between the years 1831 and 1832 he began to hear about gum elastic and
very carefully examined every article that appeared in the newspapers
relative to this new material. The Roxbury Rubber Company, of Boston,
had been for some time experimenting with the gum, and believing that
they had found means for manufacturing goods from it, had a large
plant and were sending their goods all over the country. It was some
of their goods that first attracted his attention. Soon after this
Goodyear visited New York, and went at once to the store of the
Roxbury Rubber Company. While there, he examined with considerable
care some of their life preservers, and it struck him that the tube
used for inflation was not very perfect. He, therefore, on his return
to Philadelphia, made some tubes and brought them down to New York and
showed them to the manager of the Roxbury Rubber Company.
This gentlemen was so pleased with the ingenuity that Goodyear had
shown in manufacturing these tubes, that he talked very freely with
him and confessed to him that the business was on the verge of ruin,
that the goods had to be tested for a year before they could tell
whether they were perfect or not, and to their surprise, thousands of
dollars worth of goods that they had supposed were all right were
coming back to them, the gum having rotted and made them so offensive
that it was necessary to bury them in the ground to get them out of
the way.
Goodyear at once made up his mind to experiment on this gum and see if
he could not overcome its stickiness.
He, therefore, returned to Philadelphia, and, as usual, met a
creditor, who had him arrested and thrown into prison. While there, he
tried his first experiments with India rubber. The gum was very cheap
then, and by heating it and working it in his hands, he managed to
incorporate in it a certain amount of magnesia which produced a
beautiful white compound and appeared to take away the stickiness.
He therefore thought he had discovered the secret, and through the
kindness of friends was put in the way of further perfecting his
invention at a little place in New Haven. The first thing that he made
here was shoes, and he used his own house for grinding room, calender
room, and vulcanizing department, and his wife and children helped to
make up the goods. His compound at this time was India rubber,
lampblack, and magnesia, the whole dissolved in turpentine and spread
upon the flannel cloth which served as the lining for the shoes. It
was not long, however, before he discovered that the gum, even treated
this way, became sticky, and then those who had supplied the money for
the furtherance of these experiments, completely discouraged, made up
their minds that they could go no further, and so told the inventor.
[Illustration: CHARLES GOODYEAR.]
He, however, had no mind to stop here in his experiments, but, selling
his
|
back to your old
Dad?” He paused, watching her.
“Sorry!” said Norah. “Sorry!” And then her tongue suddenly refused to do
its duty. She put her head down on his shoulder, and drew a deep breath.
His arms tightened round her. They were silent for a minute.
“Jim is a good mate,” said David Linton, “none better. But my little
mate’s place has always been empty. It’s been a long time, my girl.”
“Long—to you, Daddy?”
“One of the longest I remember. You see, I never bargained for your
spending midwinter having measles.”
“Neither did I,” said Norah, ruefully. The memory of that inconsiderate
ailment was still a sore thing; at the time it had been almost too sore
to be borne. “It seems just ages since I saw home. Is it just the same,
Dad?”
“I don’t think there’s any difference. Everyone has been busy putting on
a bit of extra polish for the last week; and Brownie says she’s half a
stone lighter—but she doesn’t look it; and there’s a new inmate in the
little paddock near the house calling for your immediate inspection!”
“A new inmate?” Norah echoed.
Jim had come in, unnoticed. He grinned down at her from the hearthrug.
“A rather swagger inmate,” he said, nodding. “Seeing how out of form you
must be, I don’t think it will be wise to let you try him—we’ll put you
up on an old stock horse for a week or so!”
“Will you, indeed?” said Norah, with some heat, yet laughing. “You’re
going to lend me Garryowen—you said so!”
“Garryowen!” said the owner of that proud steed mournfully. “Poor old
Garryowen’s tail will be hopelessly out of joint. One thing, I’ll be
able to ride him myself—being of a meek disposition!” His eyes
twinkled.
Two red spots suddenly flamed into Norah’s face.
“Dad! You don’t mean——” She stopped, looking at him uncertainly.
“There’s something of a pony there,” said Mr. Linton, his keen eyes
watching her through his smile. “An ownerless one—wi’ a long pedigree!
I looked eight months before I found him. His name’s Bosun, Norah, and
he wants an owner.”
There was a mist before Norah’s eyes. She tried to speak, but her head
went down again upon the broad shoulder near her. A muffled word escaped
her, which sounded like, “Bricks!” Norah was least eloquent when most
moved.
Jim patted her shoulder hard, and said, “Buck up, old chap!” being also
a person of few words. For there had been another pony of Norah’s—a
most dear pony, who now slept very quietly under a cairn of stones on a
rough hillside. Not one of those three, who were mates, could forget.
From the corridor Wally’s voice came, gently consolatory.
“I think they’ve all been kidnapped,” he was explaining. “Many a little
hungry kidnapper would think Jim quite a treat! You and I seem left
alone in this pathless forest, and probably the birds will find us, and
cover us with leaves. Don’t let it worry you—I believe the leaves are
quite comfortable!”
“Come in, Wally, you ass!” said Jim, laughing. “He may come in,
Dad——?”
“Apparently he’s in,” said Mr. Linton, resignedly, getting up. “Come on,
Wally—and Jean, too.”
“We’ve been lost—at least, we were until we found each other,” said
Wally. “We came to the conclusion that none of you Billabong people were
left in this little inn. Jean would probably have cried if I hadn’t been
crying—as it was, she felt she couldn’t, which was very rough on her.
Mr. Linton, do I know you well enough——”
“For most things,” said the squatter, laughing!
“——To mention that I am hungry?” finished Wally, unmoved. “My last
nourishment was at twelve o’clock, and it’s nearly seven now; and
theatres in this benighted district begin before eight when they’re
pantomimes!”
Mr. Linton uttered an exclamation.
“I declare, I’d forgotten all about either dinner or pantomime!” he
said. “Thank you, Wally—I’m obliged to you. Where’s my coat? I hope all
the rest of you are ready.”
“Are we going to the pantomime, Dad?” Norah’s eyes were dancing.
“Jim says so,” said her father, laughing. “I’m in his hands.” He caught
up his coat, while Jean and Norah hugged each other in silent ecstasy.
“Now, hurry up, all of you!”
Downstairs, the big dining-room brought back Norah’s shyness anew. She
felt suddenly very young—infinitely younger than Jim and Wally, tall
and immaculate in their evening clothes, although, as a rule, they
seemed no older than herself. She kept close to her father’s wing,
greatly envying Jean’s apparent calm.
The huge room was crowded. It was full of tables of varying sizes, not
one of which seemed unoccupied—until a waiter, catching Mr. Linton’s
eye, hurried up and led them to a corner, where a round table was
reserved for them. It commanded an excellent view of the room, and the
sight was a little bewildering to the two schoolgirls.
Every one seemed in evening dress—and even Norah knew she had seen no
dresses like those the women wore—rich, clinging things, in soft and
delicate colours like the inner side of flower petals. The masses of
electric light took up the leaping light of jewels on their necks and in
their hair; all up and down the room the eye caught the many-coloured
gleam, twinkling and sparkling like rainbow stars. Everywhere was
laughter and chatter and the chink of plates and glasses; and somewhere,
unseen, a string band was playing softly a waltz tune with a lilt in it
like a bird’s note. Norah forgot all about being nervous. Indeed, she
remembered nothing, being deeply occupied with gazing, until she found a
deft waiter putting soup before her.
“That’s my order,” said her father, and smiled. “You and Jean have had
an exciting day, and you’re to eat just what I tell you.”
By these wily means any difficulties the menu might have suggested
disappeared. Moreover, the waiter was a man of tact, and seemed to
regard it as only ordinary if his clients kept him waiting while they
put their heads together over the merits of various items with very fine
French names.
“Experience in these things is everything,” said Jim, surveying a
peculiar substance on his plate. “I ordered something that read like a
poem, and it turns out a sort of half-bred hash! Thanks, I’ll have
beef!” So they all had beef, and finished up rather hurriedly with
jelly, which, as Wally said, could be demolished quickly; for the hands
of the clock were slipping round, and a pantomime was not a thing to be
kept waiting—especially as there was no likelihood that it would
wait!—a reflection that made the situation far more serious. Jim raced
up for coats for the girls, and they all hastened out.
In the street the lights of Melbourne lit the sky. Far as the eye could
reach the yellow glow shone against the star-gemmed blackness. Here and
there a point of special brilliance twinkled—it was hard to tell
whether it was a tall arc light reaching up into the very heavens, or a
lonely star that had leaned down towards the friendly earth. Up and down
the Bourke Street hills the lamps formed a linked chain of diamonds on
either side, while in their midst the low gliding tram-lights were
rubies and sapphires. The big head-lights of motors made gleaming
flashes as they turned, or shot straight up the wide street, twin eyes
of a dazzling radiance—so bright that when they flashed past darkness
seemed to fall doubly dark behind them. And there were creeping bicycle
lights, and streaks of white fire, that were the lamps of motor cycles;
and red and white lights that went by in silent rubber-tyred hansoms,
noiseless save for the jingling bit and the “klop-klop” of the horse’s
hoofs upon the wooden blocks. Advertisement signs in huge electric
letters flickered into sight and disappeared again—one moment dazzling,
the next velvet black; and over picture theatres and other places of
amusement were gleaming signs of fire. And up from the city below came
the deep hum of the people that only ceases for a little when the lights
go out—that wakes again even before the pencils of Dawn come to streak
the eastern sky.
Then a tram came by, took them on board, and in a moment they were
slipping down the hill towards a busy intersection where the post office
stood, a mighty block of buildings, with its tall clock just chiming the
quarter-hour above them. On again, through the wide, busy street, full
of hurrying theatre crowds. Barefooted newsboys ran beside the car
whenever it stopped, calling out harrowing details from the evening
papers. They passed cabs, climbing the further hill; and swift motors
slipped by them—in each Norah and Jean caught glimpses of women in
evening dress, with scarfs like trails of coloured mist. Everywhere the
shop windows were brilliantly lighted, although it was long after
closing time; and scores of people were staring through the glass at the
gorgeous displays within.
Norah gasped at it all. It was her first experience of the City by
night, and she found it rather bewildering.
“Does Melbourne ever stop being busy?” she uttered.
Mr. Linton laughed.
“Not often,” he said—“and not for long. Personally, I prefer old
Billabong. But this is all very well for a little while.”
The car stopped at a point where an electric theatre sign blazed right
across the footpath; and they hurried down a side-street. A string of
motors and cabs had drawn up by the kerb and passengers were hastily
disembarking before a glittering theatre, with uniformed commissionaires
holding the doors open. Norah and Jean had no time to look about them;
they were hurried up a wide flight of marble stairs, and in a moment
were following Mr. Linton into darkness, for already the lights had been
turned off in the theatre, and only a dun green ray filtered from the
stage, where an old man of the sea was engaged in making unpleasant
remarks to a fairy. The orchestra was playing softly—weird music which,
Wally whispered, gave you chills up the backbone. They stumbled down
some steps to seats in the front row, and as they thankfully subsided
into them, the green sea-caves and the fierce old man suddenly vanished
in a whirl of light and a blare of joyful music; and Norah was whisked
straight into fairyland.
In these advanced days of ours, pantomimes come very early into the
scheme of our existence. Most of us have seen one by the time we are
six; at nine we have become critical, and at twelve, bored. After that,
the pantomime may consider itself lucky if we do not term it a “pretty
rotten show.” This painful phase lasts until we are quite old—perhaps
eight and twenty. Then we begin to see fresh joys in it, and if we are
lucky, to work up quite a comforting degree of enthusiasm. At this stage
the companion we like to select must not number more years than six.
Then we feel sure of a comprehending fellow-spectator—one who will not
wither us with a bland stare when we are consumed with helpless laughter
at Harlequin, or rent with anxiety by the perils of the “principal boy.”
But it happened that none of our party had ever been spoilt by over-much
pantomime. It was, indeed, Norah’s first experience of a theatre. Jean
had seen but little more, and Jim and Wally, big fellows as they were,
had worked and played far too hard at school to be much concerned with
going out. None of them was at all brilliant; theirs were the cheerful,
simple hearts that take work and pleasure as they come, and do not
trouble to develop either the critical or the grumbling faculty—which
are, in truth, closely related. If the boys had not the ecstatic
anticipation that seethed in Jean and Norah, at least they were prepared
to enjoy themselves very solidly.
To Norah, it was all absolutely real, and therefore wonderful past
belief. The evening to her was, as she remarked afterwards, “one gasp.”
The hero puzzled her, since it was evident that he was not a “truly”
boy; but the heroine claimed her heart from the first, and the funny men
were droll beyond compare. Indeed, from Mr. Linton downwards, the
Billabong party succumbed to the funny men, and laughed until they ached
at their antics. The fairies were certainly a trifle buxom, compared to
the sprites of Norah’s dreams; but the Old Man of the Sea was
fascinatingly life-like and evil, and caused delightful thrills of
horror to run up and down one’s spine. And then, the gorgeousness of the
whole—the flower and bird ballets, the mysterious dances, the marches,
splendid and stately, the glitter and colour and light! And through all,
over all, the music!—swaying, rippling; low and soft one moment, with
the violins wailing and the harp strings plucked in a chord of poignant
sweetness—the next, swelling out triumphantly, wind instruments in a
blare of vivid sound, and drums and cymbals clashing wild and stately
measures. Afterwards the wonder of the night merged in Norah’s brain to
a kind of kaleidoscopic picture, swiftly changing in colour and
magnificence; but always clear was the memory of the orchestra, weaving
magic spells of music that caught her heart in their meshes.
She was a little breathless when the curtain fell on the first act, and
the lights flashed out over the body of the theatre. Instinctively her
hand sought her father’s.
“Is it all over, Dad?”
“Not much!” said Mr. Linton. “This is half-time. What do you think of
it?”
“Oh—it’s lovely!” breathed his daughter. “Isn’t it, Jean?”
“I should just think so!” Jean said. “Will there be more like it?”
“Very much the same, I expect,” said the squatter, laughing. “And what
do you think of this part of the house?”
It was not the least interesting part. The closing of the city schools
had set free hosts of pilgrims on the ways of knowledge, debarred, as a
rule, by stern necessity from such relaxations as pantomimes. Now it
seemed that parents in general had risen to a sense of their duty, for
it was clearly a “young” night. There were girls and boys in every part
of the theatre—in big parties, in twos and threes, or even singly,
accompanied by a cheery father and mother, in many cases keener to enjoy
than their charges. Everywhere were fresh young faces—girls with bright
hair and glowing cheeks, and sunburnt boys with shining collars: and
everywhere was a babel and buzz of talk and laughter as the young voices
broke loose. A procession—chiefly men—left their seats and filed out;
a proceeding which puzzled and pained Norah, who was heard to regret
audibly that they were making the mistake of thinking the theatre was
over. Wally laid a big box of chocolates on her knee, remarking that she
looked hungry—an insult received by the maligned one with fitting
scorn. At the moment Norah could scarcely have noticed the difference
between chocolates and corned beef!
“Won’t do,” grinned Jim, watching her dancing eyes. “She’s getting too
excited, Dad—we’d better take her home to bed!”
“I’d like to see you!” said Norah, belligerently. “Oh, my goodness,
Jean, it’s going up again!”
“It”—which was the curtain—flashed up suddenly, as the lights went
out, and straightway Norah forgot everything but the wonderland on the
stage. She leaned forward breathlessly, half afraid of losing even a
glimpse of the marvels that were unfolded with such apparent calm. “As
if,” said Norah later, “it was as ordinary as washing-day!”
Ever since she could remember, she had danced. But the dancing on the
stage was a new thing altogether. It was music put into motion; it was
as though the fairies had caught the spirits of joy and poetry and
youth, and turned them all into a rhythmic harmony. There was gladness
in every swaying movement; gladness and grace and beauty. “They all look
so awfully happy!” breathed Norah. But then—who would not be happy,
dancing in Fairyland?
Only, near the end, come one thing that Norah did not like. A children’s
ballet, dressed as flowers, had just danced its way off the stage,
leaving at one side a tall tiger lily; and from the other corner a tiny
thing toddled out to meet it. A wee baby form, almost ridiculous in the
quaint tights of green that made it an orchid—a little face, peeping
out of the green peaked cap. Very daintily, a little hesitatingly, it
began to dance; the orchestra’s music softened and slackened, as if to
help the little half-afraid feet. The theatre rang with applause and
laughter.
“They shouldn’t let it—it’s a shame!” she uttered very low. “It’s just
a baby—and it ought to be in bed! Jim do they make it do this every
night?”
“I expect so,” Jim answered. “Bless you, old girl, I suppose they pay
the kid!”
“Then they haven’t any business to—I don’t know what its mother’s
thinking about!” whispered Norah. “I’m perfectly certain it’s as scared
as ever it can be! It’s only a frightened little baby—I think it’s mean
to dress it up in those silly clothes and make it come out here in front
of all these people!”
“For all you know, old chap, it likes the game,” Jim said, practically.
“I’m sure it doesn’t—look at its eyes! I never saw anything so—so
anxious. Makes you want to pick it up and nurse it,” said his sister, a
straight young monument of indignation. “Thank goodness, it’s gone!” as
the little orchid danced off with the tiger lily. She subsided, somewhat
to Jim’s relief. He was not sure that he had liked the baby orchid
himself.
Then came the final scene, a vision of Aladdin’s Cave, massed with every
gem known of man, and a great number more known only of the stage; and
all gorgeous and glittering beyond any mortal dreams. Rubies as big as
turkeys’ eggs, and emeralds the size of barrels; and walls and ceiling a
flashing, scintillating mass of diamonds. “Worth while having a vacuum
cleaner there,” Wally commented—“you’d only get diamond dust!” And in
this wondrous setting, a shifting panorama of moving figures, almost as
vivid as the gems themselves; fairies and sprites and marvellous
flowers, and tall, slender soldiers in gleaming coats of silver mail.
And always the music that made the magic by which everything grew real.
Then, suddenly the curtain; and Norah came out of her trance, blinking a
little.
“Is that the end?”
“Quite the end,” said her father. “Come on, my girl; it’s high time you
were in bed.” He put a protecting hand on her shoulder, and piloted her
through the crowd, while Jim and Wally performed a like kind office for
the similarly dazed Jean.
Out in Bourke Street, the cooler air blew gratefully upon Norah’s hot
face. But she was very silent as the tram took them back to the hotel;
and when she said good-night, her father scanned her face keenly.
“Sure you’re not over-tired, Norah?”
“Not me!” said Norah, absent-mindedly and inelegantly. “I’m all right,
Daddy.”
“Then you’re half in the theatre yet,” said he, laughing. “Go to bed.”
Norah went, obediently. Just as Jean was falling asleep, a voice came
from the bed across the room—
“Wonder if any one’s tucked up that poor little orchid!” said Norah.
From Jean’s corner came a sound that might have been termed either a
grunt or a snore, according as the hearer might be more or less kindly
disposed. Norah was pondering the problem when she followed her through
the gate of sleep.
[Illustration: “I almost feared I’d lost my little Bush mate.”]
CHAPTER III
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN
Yet long ago it was promised by Someone,
Who lovingly help for the children implored,
That if only you gave one a cup of cold water,
You surely in no wise should lose your reward!
—_John Sandes._
“I’VE an idea,” Mr. Linton said, putting down his morning paper.
Four faces gave him instant attention. It was breakfast time, and plans
for the day were being discussed, a trifle lazily, as befitted people
unused to over-night dissipation.
“We—ell,” said the squatter, and hesitated.
“You have lovely ideas, always, Dad,” Norah told him, kindly. “Tell us.”
“I don’t know that you’ll regard this one as lovely,” said her father.
“Still, I’d like to do it.”
“Well, then, it’ll be done,” said Jim, with finality. “What is it, Dad?”
“If you keep up this mystery any longer, I won’t be able to bear it, Mr.
Linton,” said Wally, much moved. “Prithee, sir——”
David Linton smiled.
“The mystery’s a tame one, you’ll think,” he said. “I thought of my plan
before I left home—old Brownie has been knitting a big bundle for the
Children’s Hospital, and she gave me the things to bring down. Then
there’s a letter in this paper about the hospital. It’s getting near
Christmas, you see; and I don’t suppose those little sick youngsters
have much of a good time. Would you all think it a very slow sort of
entertainment if we went to see them?” He looked round the four young
faces—a little afraid of seeing their eagerness die out.
But Wally smiled broadly, leaning forward.
“I think it’s a ripping idea, sir,” he said. “I guess we all like kids,
don’t we, chaps?”
The “chaps,” who evidently included the ladies of the party, assented
with enthusiasm.
“Tell us more, Dad,” Norah said, “I know you’ve more plan.”
“Well—I’m open to suggestions,” her father answered. “We won’t go
empty-handed; we can take up toys and books and things. It isn’t
visiting day at the hospital. In any case, I think it would be better
not to go at a crowded time. If I telephone to the Matron, I fancy she
will let us come; and she can tell me something about the number of
children. I—I’m a shocking bad hand at preaching, you know”—he
hesitated, gaining encouragement from their friendly faces—“but—well,
we’re looking out for a pretty good time ourselves, and it wouldn’t hurt
us to share some of it.”
“But I think it will be tremendous fun, won’t it, Jean?” Norah said. To
which Jean nodded vigorous acquiescence.
“Then we’ll get it done at once,” said Mr. Linton. “You can put your
four wise heads together, and consult as to what we’re to take up—I
don’t know what sick youngsters like.”
“That’s half the fun,” said Norah, happily. “Isn’t it, Jean?” And Jean
nodded.
“Then I’ll go and telephone,” said the squatter; “by which time you
hungry people may have finished breakfast—unless you mean to make this
meal run into lunch, as doesn’t seem unlikely!” He made his escape,
Norah regretting deeply that hotel etiquette prevented her from
reprisals.
He joined them, a little later, in the lounge, where big leather-covered
chairs and tall palms made a cool retreat in the hottest days.
“If there’s a more exasperating institution than the Melbourne
telephone, I have yet to find it out,” said he. “I’ve been standing in
that small Black Hole of Calcutta that they call a telephone box until I
nearly died of asphyxiation, and all the response I could elicit was
from a frenzied person who sounded like a dressmaker, and wanted to know
desperately if I would have tucks on the bodice! However, I got the
hospital at last, and we can go up when we like. So that means a busy
morning. How soon can you girls be ready?”
“Three minutes, Dad!”
“Amazing women!” said Mr. Linton, regarding them with much respect. “I
suppose, in a year or two, Norah, you’ll keep me waiting while you put
on your hat; but at present you’re certainly an ornament to your sex in
that respect. The car will be here in a few moments, so hurry up!”
The motor hummed up to the gate of the hospital a little later—a heavy
gate, set in a high stone wall, behind which towered grim buildings. A
neat maid admitted them to a wide corridor, with white walls and shining
floor, where the Matron, white-gowned and gentle, welcomed them.
“No sweets, of course?” she queried, glancing at their parcels.
“No; we were afraid to bring them.”
The Matron nodded approval.
“Some children can have them,” she said. “But very many cannot, and
there is no use in causing disappointments by making any difference. If
you only knew how hard it is to make the mothers understand!”
“Poor souls!” said Mr. Linton. “I suppose they are keen to bring them
something of a treat.”
“Yes—and one is sorry for them. But the risk to the children is very
great—only they won’t believe it, and many of them think we are
hard-hearted monsters. We always question the mothers as to what they
are bringing the children, and watch them carefully; but even so, they
manage to smuggle things past us. We had a dear little boy here in the
winter—a typhoid patient, just pulling round after a very bad time. Of
course he was on strict liquid diet, and equally, of course, he was very
hungry.”
“Poor kid!” said Jim, sympathetically.
“That’s what his mother thought. So she smuggled him in two large jam
tarts in her muff, and bent over him so as to hide him while he ate
them.”
“And did they hurt him?”
“They would have killed him. Luckily Nurse became suspicious, and caught
him, as she said, ‘on the first bite.’ She rescued every crumb from his
mouth, and nearly choked him in the process. But if she had not we
couldn’t have saved him.”
“And what did the mother say?”
“The mother? Oh, she said that Nurse was ’an in’uman brute,’ and nearly
fell on her, tooth and nail. You can’t teach them. Many of them are
terribly poor—but they will spend a few pence on some cheap and
dreadful sweetmeat, or a cake that looks—and often is—absolutely
poisonous, and expect to be allowed to watch a sick baby eat it.
Visiting day has many anxieties!”
Something called the busy Matron away as they reached the first ward,
and they hesitated in the doorway. It was a long, bright room, cheery
with sunlight and gay with flowers and plants, while the red bed jackets
made bright notes of colour against the white quilts. Many of the boys
were sitting up, working or playing at boards that fitted across their
cots to serve as tables. Others were lying quietly, and very often could
be seen the structure beneath the bedclothes that speaks mutely of hip
disease. There were framed placards over many cots, stating whose gift
they had been; perhaps raised by the efforts of children, or given by
some sad mother in memory of a little child. Looking down the long rows
of bright faces it was hard to realize that they were all sick
boys—that Pain lived in the ward night and day.
In one cot a little lad was crying softly—a tired cry, as if afraid of
disturbing others. The nurse bending over him straightened up, patted
his shoulder, said, “Be a good boy, now, Tommy!” and came to greet the
visitors.
“You mustn’t mind the little chap who cries,” she told them. “His leg is
hurting, poor man. He won’t speak to any one.”
The eyes that were buried deep in the pillow were the only pair that
were not turned upon the group in the doorway. The hospital children
knew nothing about the Billabong invasion; only the nurses had been told
of the unusual offer that had come over the telephone that morning. It
seemed to the Matron a little uncertain, peculiar; better, perhaps, not
to excite the children by anticipation.
But the first glimpse of the newcomers was sufficient—the children of
the very poor are not slow brained. Something like a thrill of delight
ran through the ward. There was no mistaking these people—happy-faced
and well-dressed, and laden with fascinating parcels that could only
mean one kind of thing. The eyes were very bright, watching from the
cots.
It was a surgical ward, and most of the inmates looked happy. Life is
not at all unbearable when you are a surgical case. To be a “medical”
means headaches, and fevers, and soaring temperatures, and other
unpleasant things. You are not allowed to eat anything interesting, and
you frequently desire only to keep extremely quiet. But the “surgicals”
know fairly well what to expect. Pain comes, of course—plenty of it;
and the daily visits of the doctors are apt to leave you a bit short of
self-control, even if you bite the pillow extremely hard in your efforts
to show that there is decent pluck in you. But after a time you forget
that. The ache in your leg, or your back, or your hip, or perhaps all
over you, becomes part of the programme, and you learn to put up with
it; and there is much of interest with other “cases” to talk to, songs
to sing, and games that the sick can play—and nurses who are often very
jolly and delightful. The nurse in this ward was little and dark and
merry, and the boys called her “Brown Eyes.” She had a knack of helping
you through almost any pain.
She welcomed the newcomers cheerily now, though her eyes were a little
tired. Behind her the faces were alight with silent eagerness.
“Can we talk to them?” Norah asked, shyly.
“Why, of course!” said the nurse. “You’ll find most of them great
chatterboxes—except little Tommy there. His pain is bad to-day.”
The boys were quite ready to talk. They told all about themselves
glibly, with a full appreciating of their value as “cases.”
“I had a daisy of a temp’rature, I had!” said a cheerful soul of nine.
“Doctor he came three times a day. Better now.”
“Mine’s a leg,” volunteered another. “Broke—a cart runned over me. They
brought me up from South Gippsland—sledge first, and then in the
guard’s van.” He shivered—a reminiscent shudder. “Sledge was a fair
cow!—bumped till I went an’ fainted with the pain.” He gave other
details that set Jean and Norah shuddering, too. “But the guard’s van
wasn’t half bad fun—y’see, I hadn’t never been in a train before. My
word, that guard was a kind man! Went an’ bought me oranges with his own
money!”
“Oh, I’m near right again,” a merry-faced little Jewish lad told them.
“Had me stitches taken out this morning—an’ I never howled!”
“Well, I did then,” said his neighbour, sturdily, “I don’t think getting
unpicked is any fun. But it don’t take long, that’s one thing.” The
other boy grinned at him in an understanding fashion. “Y’see, he’s two
years younger’n me,” he told Norah. “He’s only a bit of a nipper!”
Tommy alone declined to make friends. He burrowed into his pillow when
they came to him, and refused to show so much as the tip of his nose.
The sound of his sorry little wail followed them over the ward.
“Don’t mind him,” the nurse told the girls, as they turned away from the
cot, with downcast faces. “He’ll be better after a while, and then he’ll
be delighted with his presents. He’s homesick, poor mite.” They went on
down the ward.
Jim turned back presently. He sat down near Tommy’s cot and took out a
toy watch that had beautiful qualities in the way of winding. But he did
not offer it to Tommy. Instead he sat still, dangling it from his
fingers.
“Had a sick leg myself, once,” he remarked casually, apparently to the
watch. As might have been expected, the watch made no response; neither
did the black head burrowed in the pillow turn at all.
“Hurt it falling off a horse,” Jim went on. “At least, the horse fell
too. Tried to jump a log on him—and he shied at a snake lying on the
top of the log.”
The boy in the next cot was listening with all his ears. Tommy’s low
crying had stopped.
“Big black snake,” said Jim. “Must have scared him a bit when he saw the
horse rising. At any rate he slid off like fun—and my old horse shied
badly, and went over the log in a somersault. Landed on his head, and
pitched me about fifteen yards away!”
“Was you much hurt?” The boy in the next cot shot out an irrepressible
question.
Jim was not in a hurry to answer. The black head was turning ever so
little towards him, but he did not seem to see. He played with the watch
in an absent-minded fashion.
“Hurt my leg,” he said at length. “I managed to catch the old horse,
because he put his foot through the bridle, and hobbled himself; and I
got on by a log and rode home. Didn’t jump any more fences though. And
when I got home I couldn’t stand on that leg. Had to be lifted off.
Makes you feel an ass, doesn’t it?”
The question was for the now visible Tommy, but Jim did not wait for an
answer.
“Then I had to lie still for days,” he said. “My word, I did hate it! I
feel sorry for any chap with a sick leg. It’s so jolly hard to keep
still when you don’t feel like it.”
Something in the low, deep voice helped the little lad in the cot, with
sore mind and body. This very large brown person understood exceedingly
well.
“But legs get better,” said Jim. “After a while you forget all about
them, and play cricket again, and go in for no end of larks.”
He shifted his position, still fingering the watch.
“The man that sold me this said it would go,” he said. “It’s got works
all right, and I know it can tick, because he made it. But I’m blessed
if I can get the hang of it!” For the first time he looked squarely at
Tommy. “I suppose you couldn’t give me a hand with it?” he asked,
casually. He held out the watch.
A small finger advanced about an inch, and the watch came nearer until
it was within touching distance.
“Thanks, awfully,” Jim said. “I ought to be able to get it going now.”
He fumbled with the stem Tommy had indicated. “No—I can’t! I don’t know
what’s the matter with the silly thing.”
“Me!” said Tommy, with a great effort. It was hard to speak; but harder
to lie silent, knowing quite well that you could extricate this other
fellow from his difficulties. And so well Tommy knew where that watch
ought to be wound.
“Well, perhaps you’d better,” said Jim, with relief. He handed over
|
of hot chocolate and tea-cakes as he silently followed mother and
daughter down-stairs. The sound of the graphophone mingled with the
voices of many girls humming the air, and a faint glow was born and
spread over him:
"Casey-Jones--mounted to the cab-un
Casey-Jones--'th his orders in his hand.
Casey-Jones--mounted to the cab-un
Took his farewell journey to the prom-ised land."
*****
SNAPSHOTS OF THE YOUNG EGOTIST
Amory spent nearly two years in Minneapolis. The first winter he wore
moccasins that were born yellow, but after many applications of oil and
dirt assumed their mature color, a dirty, greenish brown; he wore a gray
plaid mackinaw coat, and a red toboggan cap. His dog, Count Del Monte,
ate the red cap, so his uncle gave him a gray one that pulled down over
his face. The trouble with this one was that you breathed into it and
your breath froze; one day the darn thing froze his cheek. He rubbed
snow on his cheek, but it turned bluish-black just the same.
*****
The Count Del Monte ate a box of bluing once, but it didn't hurt him.
Later, however, he lost his mind and ran madly up the street, bumping
into fences, rolling in gutters, and pursuing his eccentric course out
of Amory's life. Amory cried on his bed.
"Poor little Count," he cried. "Oh, _poor_ little _Count!_"
After several months he suspected Count of a fine piece of emotional
acting.
*****
Amory and Frog Parker considered that the greatest line in literature
occurred in Act III of "Arsene Lupin."
They sat in the first row at the Wednesday and Saturday matinees. The
line was:
"If one can't be a great artist or a great soldier, the next best thing
is to be a great criminal."
*****
Amory fell in love again, and wrote a poem. This was it:
"Marylyn and Sallee,
Those are the girls for me.
Marylyn stands above
Sallee in that sweet, deep love."
He was interested in whether McGovern of Minnesota would make the
first or second All-American, how to do the card-pass, how to do
the coin-pass, chameleon ties, how babies were born, and whether
Three-fingered Brown was really a better pitcher than Christie
Mathewson.
Among other things he read: "For the Honor of the School," "Little
Women" (twice), "The Common Law," "Sapho," "Dangerous Dan McGrew," "The
Broad Highway" (three times), "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Three
Weeks," "Mary Ware, the Little Colonel's Chum," "Gunga Din," The Police
Gazette, and Jim-Jam Jems.
He had all the Henty biasses in history, and was particularly fond of
the cheerful murder stories of Mary Roberts Rinehart.
*****
School ruined his French and gave him a distaste for standard authors.
His masters considered him idle, unreliable and superficially clever.
*****
He collected locks of hair from many girls. He wore the rings of
several. Finally he could borrow no more rings, owing to his nervous
habit of chewing them out of shape. This, it seemed, usually aroused the
jealous suspicions of the next borrower.
*****
All through the summer months Amory and Frog Parker went each week to
the Stock Company. Afterward they would stroll home in the balmy air of
August night, dreaming along Hennepin and Nicollet Avenues, through the
gay crowd. Amory wondered how people could fail to notice that he was a
boy marked for glory, and when faces of the throng turned toward him
and ambiguous eyes stared into his, he assumed the most romantic of
expressions and walked on the air cushions that lie on the asphalts of
fourteen.
Always, after he was in bed, there were voices--indefinite, fading,
enchanting--just outside his window, and before he fell asleep he would
dream one of his favorite waking dreams, the one about becoming a great
half-back, or the one about the Japanese invasion, when he was rewarded
by being made the youngest general in the world. It was always
the becoming he dreamed of, never the being. This, too, was quite
characteristic of Amory.
*****
CODE OF THE YOUNG EGOTIST
Before he was summoned back to Lake Geneva, he had appeared, shy but
inwardly glowing, in his first long trousers, set off by a purple
accordion tie and a "Belmont" collar with the edges unassailably
meeting, purple socks, and handkerchief with a purple border peeping
from his breast pocket. But more than that, he had formulated his first
philosophy, a code to live by, which, as near as it can be named, was a
sort of aristocratic egotism.
He had realized that his best interests were bound up with those of a
certain variant, changing person, whose label, in order that his past
might always be identified with him, was Amory Blaine. Amory marked
himself a fortunate youth, capable of infinite expansion for good or
evil. He did not consider himself a "strong char'c'ter," but relied on
his facility (learn things sorta quick) and his superior mentality (read
a lotta deep books). He was proud of the fact that he could never
become a mechanical or scientific genius. From no other heights was he
debarred.
Physically.--Amory thought that he was exceedingly handsome. He was. He
fancied himself an athlete of possibilities and a supple dancer.
Socially.--Here his condition was, perhaps, most dangerous. He granted
himself personality, charm, magnetism, poise, the power of dominating
all contemporary males, the gift of fascinating all women.
Mentally.--Complete, unquestioned superiority.
Now a confession will have to be made. Amory had rather a Puritan
conscience. Not that he yielded to it--later in life he almost
completely slew it--but at fifteen it made him consider himself a
great deal worse than other boys... unscrupulousness... the desire
to influence people in almost every way, even for evil... a certain
coldness and lack of affection, amounting sometimes to cruelty... a
shifting sense of honor... an unholy selfishness... a puzzled, furtive
interest in everything concerning sex.
There was, also, a curious strain of weakness running crosswise through
his make-up... a harsh phrase from the lips of an older boy (older boys
usually detested him) was liable to sweep him off his poise into surly
sensitiveness, or timid stupidity... he was a slave to his own moods
and he felt that though he was capable of recklessness and audacity, he
possessed neither courage, perseverance, nor self-respect.
Vanity, tempered with self-suspicion if not self-knowledge, a sense of
people as automatons to his will, a desire to "pass" as many boys as
possible and get to a vague top of the world... with this background did
Amory drift into adolescence.
*****
PREPARATORY TO THE GREAT ADVENTURE
The train slowed up with midsummer languor at Lake Geneva, and Amory
caught sight of his mother waiting in her electric on the gravelled
station drive. It was an ancient electric, one of the early types, and
painted gray. The sight of her sitting there, slenderly erect, and
of her face, where beauty and dignity combined, melting to a dreamy
recollected smile, filled him with a sudden great pride of her. As they
kissed coolly and he stepped into the electric, he felt a quick fear
lest he had lost the requisite charm to measure up to her.
"Dear boy--you're _so_ tall... look behind and see if there's anything
coming..."
She looked left and right, she slipped cautiously into a speed of two
miles an hour, beseeching Amory to act as sentinel; and at one busy
crossing she made him get out and run ahead to signal her forward like a
traffic policeman. Beatrice was what might be termed a careful driver.
"You _are_ tall--but you're still very handsome--you've skipped the
awkward age, or is that sixteen; perhaps it's fourteen or fifteen; I can
never remember; but you've skipped it."
"Don't embarrass me," murmured Amory.
"But, my dear boy, what odd clothes! They look as if they were a
_set_--don't they? Is your underwear purple, too?"
Amory grunted impolitely.
"You must go to Brooks' and get some really nice suits. Oh, we'll have a
talk to-night or perhaps to-morrow night. I want to tell you about
your heart--you've probably been neglecting your heart--and you don't
_know_."
Amory thought how superficial was the recent overlay of his own
generation. Aside from a minute shyness, he felt that the old cynical
kinship with his mother had not been one bit broken. Yet for the first
few days he wandered about the gardens and along the shore in a state
of superloneliness, finding a lethargic content in smoking "Bull" at the
garage with one of the chauffeurs.
The sixty acres of the estate were dotted with old and new summer houses
and many fountains and white benches that came suddenly into sight from
foliage-hung hiding-places; there was a great and constantly increasing
family of white cats that prowled the many flower-beds and were
silhouetted suddenly at night against the darkening trees. It was on
one of the shadowy paths that Beatrice at last captured Amory, after Mr.
Blaine had, as usual, retired for the evening to his private library.
After reproving him for avoiding her, she took him for a long
tete-a-tete in the moonlight. He could not reconcile himself to her
beauty, that was mother to his own, the exquisite neck and shoulders,
the grace of a fortunate woman of thirty.
"Amory, dear," she crooned softly, "I had such a strange, weird time
after I left you."
"Did you, Beatrice?"
"When I had my last breakdown"--she spoke of it as a sturdy, gallant
feat.
"The doctors told me"--her voice sang on a confidential note--"that if
any man alive had done the consistent drinking that I have, he would
have been physically _shattered_, my dear, and in his _grave_--long in
his grave."
Amory winced, and wondered how this would have sounded to Froggy Parker.
"Yes," continued Beatrice tragically, "I had dreams--wonderful visions."
She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I saw bronze rivers
lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air,
parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and
the flare of barbaric trumpets--what?"
Amory had snickered.
"What, Amory?"
"I said go on, Beatrice."
"That was all--it merely recurred and recurred--gardens that flaunted
coloring against which this would be quite dull, moons that whirled and
swayed, paler than winter moons, more golden than harvest moons--"
"Are you quite well now, Beatrice?"
"Quite well--as well as I will ever be. I am not understood, Amory. I
know that can't express it to you, Amory, but--I am not understood."
Amory was quite moved. He put his arm around his mother, rubbing his
head gently against her shoulder.
"Poor Beatrice--poor Beatrice."
"Tell me about _you_, Amory. Did you have two _horrible_ years?"
Amory considered lying, and then decided against it.
"No, Beatrice. I enjoyed them. I adapted myself to the bourgeoisie.
I became conventional." He surprised himself by saying that, and he
pictured how Froggy would have gaped.
"Beatrice," he said suddenly, "I want to go away to school. Everybody in
Minneapolis is going to go away to school."
Beatrice showed some alarm.
"But you're only fifteen."
"Yes, but everybody goes away to school at fifteen, and I _want_ to,
Beatrice."
On Beatrice's suggestion the subject was dropped for the rest of the
walk, but a week later she delighted him by saying:
"Amory, I have decided to let you have your way. If you still want to,
you can go to school."
"Yes?"
"To St. Regis's in Connecticut."
Amory felt a quick excitement.
"It's being arranged," continued Beatrice. "It's better that you should
go away. I'd have preferred you to have gone to Eton, and then to Christ
Church, Oxford, but it seems impracticable now--and for the present
we'll let the university question take care of itself."
"What are you going to do, Beatrice?"
"Heaven knows. It seems my fate to fret away my years in this country.
Not for a second do I regret being American--indeed, I think that a
regret typical of very vulgar people, and I feel sure we are the great
coming nation--yet"--and she sighed--"I feel my life should have drowsed
away close to an older, mellower civilization, a land of greens and
autumnal browns--"
Amory did not answer, so his mother continued:
"My regret is that you haven't been abroad, but still, as you are a man,
it's better that you should grow up here under the snarling eagle--is
that the right term?"
Amory agreed that it was. She would not have appreciated the Japanese
invasion.
"When do I go to school?"
"Next month. You'll have to start East a little early to take your
examinations. After that you'll have a free week, so I want you to go up
the Hudson and pay a visit."
"To who?"
"To Monsignor Darcy, Amory. He wants to see you. He went to Harrow and
then to Yale--became a Catholic. I want him to talk to you--I feel he
can be such a help--" She stroked his auburn hair gently. "Dear Amory,
dear Amory--"
"Dear Beatrice--"
*****
So early in September Amory, provided with "six suits summer underwear,
six suits winter underwear, one sweater or T shirt, one jersey, one
overcoat, winter, etc.," set out for New England, the land of schools.
There were Andover and Exeter with their memories of New England
dead--large, college-like democracies; St. Mark's, Groton, St.
Regis'--recruited from Boston and the Knickerbocker families of New
York; St. Paul's, with its great rinks; Pomfret and St. George's,
prosperous and well-dressed; Taft and Hotchkiss, which prepared
the wealth of the Middle West for social success at Yale; Pawling,
Westminster, Choate, Kent, and a hundred others; all milling out their
well-set-up, conventional, impressive type, year after year; their
mental stimulus the college entrance exams; their vague purpose set
forth in a hundred circulars as "To impart a Thorough Mental, Moral, and
Physical Training as a Christian Gentleman, to fit the boy for meeting
the problems of his day and generation, and to give a solid foundation
in the Arts and Sciences."
At St. Regis' Amory stayed three days and took his exams with a scoffing
confidence, then doubling back to New York to pay his tutelary visit.
The metropolis, barely glimpsed, made little impression on him, except
for the sense of cleanliness he drew from the tall white buildings seen
from a Hudson River steamboat in the early morning. Indeed, his mind was
so crowded with dreams of athletic prowess at school that he considered
this visit only as a rather tiresome prelude to the great adventure.
This, however, it did not prove to be.
Monsignor Darcy's house was an ancient, rambling structure set on a hill
overlooking the river, and there lived its owner, between his trips to
all parts of the Roman-Catholic world, rather like an exiled Stuart king
waiting to be called to the rule of his land. Monsignor was forty-four
then, and bustling--a trifle too stout for symmetry, with hair the color
of spun gold, and a brilliant, enveloping personality. When he came into
a room clad in his full purple regalia from thatch to toe, he resembled
a Turner sunset, and attracted both admiration and attention. He had
written two novels: one of them violently anti-Catholic, just before his
conversion, and five years later another, in which he had attempted
to turn all his clever jibes against Catholics into even cleverer
innuendoes against Episcopalians. He was intensely ritualistic,
startlingly dramatic, loved the idea of God enough to be a celibate, and
rather liked his neighbor.
Children adored him because he was like a child; youth revelled in his
company because he was still a youth, and couldn't be shocked. In the
proper land and century he might have been a Richelieu--at present he
was a very moral, very religious (if not particularly pious) clergyman,
making a great mystery about pulling rusty wires, and appreciating life
to the fullest, if not entirely enjoying it.
He and Amory took to each other at first sight--the jovial, impressive
prelate who could dazzle an embassy ball, and the green-eyed, intent
youth, in his first long trousers, accepted in their own minds a
relation of father and son within a half-hour's conversation.
"My dear boy, I've been waiting to see you for years. Take a big chair
and we'll have a chat."
"I've just come from school--St. Regis's, you know."
"So your mother says--a remarkable woman; have a cigarette--I'm sure
you smoke. Well, if you're like me, you loathe all science and
mathematics--"
Amory nodded vehemently.
"Hate 'em all. Like English and history."
"Of course. You'll hate school for a while, too, but I'm glad you're
going to St. Regis's."
"Why?"
"Because it's a gentleman's school, and democracy won't hit you so
early. You'll find plenty of that in college."
"I want to go to Princeton," said Amory. "I don't know why, but I think
of all Harvard men as sissies, like I used to be, and all Yale men as
wearing big blue sweaters and smoking pipes."
Monsignor chuckled.
"I'm one, you know."
"Oh, you're different--I think of Princeton as being lazy and
good-looking and aristocratic--you know, like a spring day. Harvard
seems sort of indoors--"
"And Yale is November, crisp and energetic," finished Monsignor.
"That's it."
They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.
"I was for Bonnie Prince Charlie," announced Amory.
"Of course you were--and for Hannibal--"
"Yes, and for the Southern Confederacy." He was rather sceptical about
being an Irish patriot--he suspected that being Irish was being somewhat
common--but Monsignor assured him that Ireland was a romantic lost cause
and Irish people quite charming, and that it should, by all means, be
one of his principal biasses.
After a crowded hour which included several more cigarettes, and during
which Monsignor learned, to his surprise but not to his horror, that
Amory had not been brought up a Catholic, he announced that he had
another guest. This turned out to be the Honorable Thornton Hancock, of
Boston, ex-minister to The Hague, author of an erudite history of the
Middle Ages and the last of a distinguished, patriotic, and brilliant
family.
"He comes here for a rest," said Monsignor confidentially, treating
Amory as a contemporary. "I act as an escape from the weariness of
agnosticism, and I think I'm the only man who knows how his staid old
mind is really at sea and longs for a sturdy spar like the Church to
cling to."
Their first luncheon was one of the memorable events of Amory's early
life. He was quite radiant and gave off a peculiar brightness and
charm. Monsignor called out the best that he had thought by question and
suggestion, and Amory talked with an ingenious brilliance of a thousand
impulses and desires and repulsions and faiths and fears. He and
Monsignor held the floor, and the older man, with his less receptive,
less accepting, yet certainly not colder mentality, seemed content to
listen and bask in the mellow sunshine that played between these two.
Monsignor gave the effect of sunlight to many people; Amory gave it in
his youth and, to some extent, when he was very much older, but never
again was it quite so mutually spontaneous.
"He's a radiant boy," thought Thornton Hancock, who had seen the
splendor of two continents and talked with Parnell and Gladstone and
Bismarck--and afterward he added to Monsignor: "But his education ought
not to be intrusted to a school or college."
But for the next four years the best of Amory's intellect was
concentrated on matters of popularity, the intricacies of a university
social system and American Society as represented by Biltmore Teas and
Hot Springs golf-links.
... In all, a wonderful week, that saw Amory's mind turned inside out, a
hundred of his theories confirmed, and his joy of life crystallized to
a thousand ambitions. Not that the conversation was scholastic--heaven
forbid! Amory had only the vaguest idea as to what Bernard Shaw was--but
Monsignor made quite as much out of "The Beloved Vagabond" and "Sir
Nigel," taking good care that Amory never once felt out of his depth.
But the trumpets were sounding for Amory's preliminary skirmish with his
own generation.
"You're not sorry to go, of course. With people like us our home is
where we are not," said Monsignor.
"I _am_ sorry--"
"No, you're not. No one person in the world is necessary to you or to
me."
"Well--"
"Good-by."
*****
THE EGOTIST DOWN
Amory's two years at St. Regis', though in turn painful and triumphant,
had as little real significance in his own life as the American "prep"
school, crushed as it is under the heel of the universities, has
to American life in general. We have no Eton to create the
self-consciousness of a governing class; we have, instead, clean,
flaccid and innocuous preparatory schools.
He went all wrong at the start, was generally considered both conceited
and arrogant, and universally detested. He played football intensely,
alternating a reckless brilliancy with a tendency to keep himself as
safe from hazard as decency would permit. In a wild panic he backed out
of a fight with a boy his own size, to a chorus of scorn, and a week
later, in desperation, picked a battle with another boy very much
bigger, from which he emerged badly beaten, but rather proud of himself.
He was resentful against all those in authority over him, and this,
combined with a lazy indifference toward his work, exasperated every
master in school. He grew discouraged and imagined himself a pariah;
took to sulking in corners and reading after lights. With a dread of
being alone he attached a few friends, but since they were not among
the elite of the school, he used them simply as mirrors of himself,
audiences before which he might do that posing absolutely essential to
him. He was unbearably lonely, desperately unhappy.
There were some few grains of comfort. Whenever Amory was submerged,
his vanity was the last part to go below the surface, so he could still
enjoy a comfortable glow when "Wookey-wookey," the deaf old housekeeper,
told him that he was the best-looking boy she had ever seen. It had
pleased him to be the lightest and youngest man on the first football
squad; it pleased him when Doctor Dougall told him at the end of a
heated conference that he could, if he wished, get the best marks in
school. But Doctor Dougall was wrong. It was temperamentally impossible
for Amory to get the best marks in school.
Miserable, confined to bounds, unpopular with both faculty and
students--that was Amory's first term. But at Christmas he had returned
to Minneapolis, tight-lipped and strangely jubilant.
"Oh, I was sort of fresh at first," he told Frog Parker patronizingly,
"but I got along fine--lightest man on the squad. You ought to go away
to school, Froggy. It's great stuff."
*****
INCIDENT OF THE WELL-MEANING PROFESSOR
On the last night of his first term, Mr. Margotson, the senior master,
sent word to study hall that Amory was to come to his room at nine.
Amory suspected that advice was forthcoming, but he determined to be
courteous, because this Mr. Margotson had been kindly disposed toward
him.
His summoner received him gravely, and motioned him to a chair. He
hemmed several times and looked consciously kind, as a man will when he
knows he's on delicate ground.
"Amory," he began. "I've sent for you on a personal matter."
"Yes, sir."
"I've noticed you this year and I--I like you. I think you have in you
the makings of a--a very good man."
"Yes, sir," Amory managed to articulate. He hated having people talk as
if he were an admitted failure.
"But I've noticed," continued the older man blindly, "that you're not
very popular with the boys."
"No, sir." Amory licked his lips.
"Ah--I thought you might not understand exactly what it
was they--ah--objected to. I'm going to tell you, because I
believe--ah--that when a boy knows his difficulties he's better able to
cope with them--to conform to what others expect of him." He a-hemmed
again with delicate reticence, and continued: "They seem to think that
you're--ah--rather too fresh--"
Amory could stand no more. He rose from his chair, scarcely controlling
his voice when he spoke.
"I know--oh, _don't_ you s'pose I know." His voice rose. "I know what
they think; do you s'pose you have to _tell_ me!" He paused. "I'm--I've
got to go back now--hope I'm not rude--"
He left the room hurriedly. In the cool air outside, as he walked to his
house, he exulted in his refusal to be helped.
"That _damn_ old fool!" he cried wildly. "As if I didn't _know!_"
He decided, however, that this was a good excuse not to go back to study
hall that night, so, comfortably couched up in his room, he munched
Nabiscos and finished "The White Company."
*****
INCIDENT OF THE WONDERFUL GIRL
There was a bright star in February. New York burst upon him on
Washington's Birthday with the brilliance of a long-anticipated event.
His glimpse of it as a vivid whiteness against a deep-blue sky had left
a picture of splendor that rivalled the dream cities in the Arabian
Nights; but this time he saw it by electric light, and romance gleamed
from the chariot-race sign on Broadway and from the women's eyes at the
Astor, where he and young Paskert from St. Regis' had dinner. When they
walked down the aisle of the theatre, greeted by the nervous twanging
and discord of untuned violins and the sensuous, heavy fragrance of
paint and powder, he moved in a sphere of epicurean delight. Everything
enchanted him. The play was "The Little Millionaire," with George M.
Cohan, and there was one stunning young brunette who made him sit with
brimming eyes in the ecstasy of watching her dance.
"Oh--you--wonderful girl,
What a wonderful girl you are--"
sang the tenor, and Amory agreed silently, but passionately.
"All--your--wonderful words
Thrill me through--"
The violins swelled and quavered on the last notes, the girl sank to a
crumpled butterfly on the stage, a great burst of clapping filled the
house. Oh, to fall in love like that, to the languorous magic melody of
such a tune!
The last scene was laid on a roof-garden, and the 'cellos sighed to the
musical moon, while light adventure and facile froth-like comedy flitted
back and forth in the calcium. Amory was on fire to be an habitui of
roof-gardens, to meet a girl who should look like that--better, that
very girl; whose hair would be drenched with golden moonlight, while at
his elbow sparkling wine was poured by an unintelligible waiter. When
the curtain fell for the last time he gave such a long sigh that the
people in front of him twisted around and stared and said loud enough
for him to hear:
"What a _remarkable_-looking boy!"
This took his mind off the play, and he wondered if he really did seem
handsome to the population of New York.
Paskert and he walked in silence toward their hotel. The former was
the first to speak. His uncertain fifteen-year-old voice broke in in a
melancholy strain on Amory's musings:
"I'd marry that girl to-night."
There was no need to ask what girl he referred to.
"I'd be proud to take her home and introduce her to my people,"
continued Paskert.
Amory was distinctly impressed. He wished he had said it instead of
Paskert. It sounded so mature.
"I wonder about actresses; are they all pretty bad?"
"No, _sir_, not by a darn sight," said the worldly youth with emphasis,
"and I know that girl's as good as gold. I can tell."
They wandered on, mixing in the Broadway crowd, dreaming on the music
that eddied out of the cafes. New faces flashed on and off like
myriad lights, pale or rouged faces, tired, yet sustained by a weary
excitement. Amory watched them in fascination. He was planning his life.
He was going to live in New York, and be known at every restaurant and
cafe, wearing a dress-suit from early evening to early morning, sleeping
away the dull hours of the forenoon.
"Yes, _sir_, I'd marry that girl to-night!"
*****
HEROIC IN GENERAL TONE
October of his second and last year at St. Regis' was a high point in
Amory's memory. The game with Groton was played from three of a snappy,
exhilarating afternoon far into the crisp autumnal twilight, and Amory
at quarter-back, exhorting in wild despair, making impossible tackles,
calling signals in a voice that had diminished to a hoarse, furious
whisper, yet found time to revel in the blood-stained bandage around his
head, and the straining, glorious heroism of plunging, crashing bodies
and aching limbs. For those minutes courage flowed like wine out of the
November dusk, and he was the eternal hero, one with the sea-rover on
the prow of a Norse galley, one with Roland and Horatius, Sir Nigel and
Ted Coy, scraped and stripped into trim and then flung by his own will
into the breach, beating back the tide, hearing from afar the thunder of
cheers... finally bruised and weary, but still elusive, circling an end,
twisting, changing pace, straight-arming... falling behind the Groton
goal with two men on his legs, in the only touchdown of the game.
*****
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SLICKER
From the scoffing superiority of sixth-form year and success Amory
looked back with cynical wonder on his status of the year before. He was
changed as completely as Amory Blaine could ever be changed. Amory plus
Beatrice plus two years in Minneapolis--these had been his ingredients
when he entered St. Regis'. But the Minneapolis years were not a thick
enough overlay to conceal the "Amory plus Beatrice" from the ferreting
eyes of a boarding-school, so St. Regis' had very painfully drilled
Beatrice out of him, and begun to lay down new and more conventional
planking on the fundamental Amory. But both St. Regis' and Amory were
unconscious of the fact that this fundamental Amory had not in himself
changed. Those qualities for which he had suffered, his moodiness, his
tendency to pose, his laziness, and his love of playing the fool, were
now taken as a matter of course, recognized eccentricities in a star
quarter-back, a clever actor, and the editor of the St. Regis Tattler:
it puzzled him to see impressionable small boys imitating the very
vanities that had not long ago been contemptible weaknesses.
After the football season he slumped into dreamy content. The night
of the pre-holiday dance he slipped away and went early to bed for the
pleasure of hearing the violin music cross the grass and come surging in
at his window. Many nights he lay there dreaming awake of secret cafes
in Mont Martre, where ivory women delved in romantic mysteries with
diplomats and soldiers of fortune, while orchestras played Hungarian
waltzes and the air was thick and exotic with intrigue and moonlight
and adventure. In the spring he read "L'Allegro," by request, and was
inspired to lyrical outpourings on the subject of Arcady and the pipes
of Pan. He moved his bed so that the sun would wake him at dawn that he
might dress and go out to the archaic swing that hung from an apple-tree
near the sixth-form house. Seating himself in this he would pump higher
and higher until he got the effect of swinging into the wide air, into
a fairyland of piping satyrs and nymphs with the faces of fair-haired
girls he passed in the streets of Eastchester. As the swing reached its
highest point, Arcady really lay just over the brow of a certain hill,
where the brown road dwindled out of sight in a golden dot.
He read voluminously all spring, the beginning of his eighteenth year:
"The Gentleman from Indiana," "The New Arabian Nights," "The Morals
of Marcus Ordeyne," "The Man Who Was Thursday," which he liked without
understanding; "Stover at Yale," that became somewhat of a text-book;
"Dombey and Son," because he thought he really should read better
stuff; Robert Chambers, David Graham Phillips, and E. Phillips Oppenheim
complete, and a scattering of Tennyson and Kipling. Of all his class
work only "L'Allegro" and some quality of rigid clarity in solid
geometry stirred his languid interest.
As June drew near, he felt the need of conversation to formulate his
own ideas, and, to his surprise, found a co-philosopher in Rahill, the
president of the sixth form. In many a talk, on the highroad or lying
belly-down along the edge of the baseball diamond, or late at night with
their cigarettes glowing in the dark, they threshed out the questions of
school, and there was developed the term "slicker."
"Got tobacco?" whispered Rahill one night, putting his head inside the
door five minutes after lights.
"Sure."
"I'm coming in."
"Take a couple of pillows and lie in the window-seat, why don't you."
Amory sat up in bed and lit a cigarette while Rahill settled for a
conversation. Rahill's favorite subject was the respective futures of
the sixth form, and Amory never tired of outlining them for his benefit.
"Ted Converse? 'At's easy. He'll fail his exams, tutor all summer at
Harstrum's, get into Sheff with about four conditions, and flunk out in
the middle of the freshman year. Then he'll go back West and raise hell
for a year or so; finally his father will make him go into the paint
business. He'll marry and have four sons, all bone heads. He'll always
think St. Regis's spoiled him, so he'll send his sons to day school in
Portland. He'll die of locomotor ataxia when he's forty-one, and
his wife will give a baptizing stand or whatever you call it to the
Presbyterian Church, with his name on it--"
"Hold up, Amory. That's too darned gloomy. How about yourself?"
"I'm in a superior class. You are,
|
chest and baste you till you melt.
The ‘Craigie’ boys are beating the bell and cheering down the tier,
D’ye hear, you Port Mahone baboon, I ask you, do you _hear_?
A VALEDICTION
We’re bound for blue water where the great winds blow,
It’s time to get the tacks aboard, time for us to go;
The crowd’s at the capstan and the tune’s in the shout,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, _and warp the hooker out_.’
The bow-wash is eddying, spreading from the bows,
Aloft and loose the topsails and some one give a rouse;
A salt Atlantic chanty shall be music to the dead,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, _and the yard to the mast-head_.’
Green and merry run the seas, the wind comes cold,
Salt and strong and pleasant, and worth a mint of gold;
And she’s staggering, swooping, as she feels her feet,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, _and aft the main-sheet_.’
Shrilly squeal the running sheaves, the weather-gear strains,
Such a clatter of chain-sheets, the devil’s in the chains;
Over us the bright stars, under us the drowned,
‘A long pull, a strong pull, _and we’re outward bound_.’
Yonder, round and ruddy, is the mellow old moon,
The red-funnelled tug has gone, and now, sonny, soon
We’ll be clear of the Channel, so watch how you steer,
‘Ease her when she pitches, _and so-long, my dear_.’
A PIER-HEAD CHORUS
Oh I’ll be chewing salted horse and biting flinty bread,
And dancing with the stars to watch, upon the fo’c’s’le head,
Hearkening to the bow-wash and the welter of the tread
Of a thousand tons of clipper running free.
For the tug has got the tow-rope and will take us to the Downs,
Her paddles churn the river-wrack to muddy greens and browns,
And I have given river-wrack and all the filth of towns
For the rolling, combing cresters of the sea.
We’ll sheet the mizzen-royals home and shimmer down the Bay,
The sea-line blue with billows, the land-line blurred and grey;
The bow-wash will be piling high and thrashing into spray,
As the hooker’s fore-foot tramples down the swell.
She’ll log a giddy seventeen and rattle out the reel,
The weight of all the run-out line will be a thing to feel,
As the bacca-quidding shell-back shambles aft to take the wheel,
And the sea-sick little middy strikes the bell.
THE GOLDEN CITY OF ST. MARY
Out beyond the sunset, could I but find the way,
Is a sleepy blue laguna which widens to a bay,
And there’s the Blessed City--so the sailors say--
The Golden City of St. Mary.
It’s built of fair marble--white--without a stain,
And in the cool twilight when the sea-winds wane
The bells chime faintly, like a soft, warm rain,
In the Golden City of St. Mary.
Among the green palm-trees where the fire-flies shine,
Are the white tavern tables where the gallants dine,
Singing slow Spanish songs like old mulled wine,
In the Golden City of St. Mary.
Oh I’ll be shipping sunset-wards and westward-ho
Through the green toppling combers a-shattering into snow,
Till I come to quiet moorings and a watch below,
In the Golden City of St. Mary.
TRADE WINDS
In the harbour, in the island, in the Spanish Seas,
Are the tiny white houses and the orange-trees,
And day-long, night long, the cool and pleasant breeze
Of the steady Trade Winds blowing.
There is the red wine, the nutty Spanish ale,
The shuffle of the dancers, the old salt’s tale,
The squeaking fiddle, and the soughing in the sail
Of the steady Trade Winds blowing.
And o’ nights there’s fire-flies and the yellow moon,
And in the ghostly palm-trees the sleepy tune
Of the quiet voice calling me, the long low croon
Of the steady Trade Winds blowing.
SEA-FEVER
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like
a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
A WANDERER’S SONG
A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea’s edge, the limits of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.
Oh I’ll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I’ll be going, going, until I meet the tide.
And first I’ll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan in the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me’ll know I’m there or thereabout.
Oh I am tired of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I’ll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s in my heels.
CARDIGAN BAY
Clean, green, windy billows notching out the sky,
Grey clouds tattered into rags, sea-winds blowing high,
And the ships under topsails, beating, thrashing by,
And the mewing of the herring gulls.
Dancing, flashing green seas shaking white locks,
Boiling in blind eddies over hidden rocks,
And the wind in the rigging, the creaking of the blocks,
And the straining of the timber hulls.
Delicate, cool sea-weeds, green and amber-brown,
In beds where shaken sunlight slowly filters down
On many a drowned seventy-four, many a sunken town,
And the whitening of the dead men’s skulls.
CHRISTMAS EVE AT SEA
A wind is rustling ‘south and soft,’
Cooing a quiet country tune,
The calm sea sighs, and far aloft
The sails are ghostly in the moon.
Unquiet ripples lisp and purr,
A block there pipes and chirps i’ the sheave,
The wheel-ropes jar, the reef-points stir
Faintly--and it is Christmas Eve.
The hushed sea seems to hold her breath,
And o’er the giddy, swaying spars,
Silent and excellent as Death,
The dim blue skies are bright with stars.
Dear God--they shone in Palestine
Like this, and yon pale moon serene
Looked down among the lowing kine
On Mary and the Nazarene.
The angels called from deep to deep,
The burning heavens felt the thrill,
Startling the flocks of silly sheep
And lonely shepherds on the hill.
To-night beneath the dripping bows
Where flashing bubbles burst and throng,
The bow-wash murmurs and sighs and soughs
A message from the angels’ song.
The moon goes nodding down the west,
The drowsy helmsman strikes the bell;
_Rex Judæorum natus est_,
I charge you, brothers, sing _Nowell, Nowell,_
_Rex Judæorum natus est_.
A BALLAD OF CAPE ST. VINCENT
Now, Bill, ain’t it prime to be a-sailin’,
Slippin’ easy, splashin’ up the sea,
Dossin’ snug aneath the weather-railin’,
Quiddin’ bonded Jacky out a-lee?
English sea astern us and afore us,
Reaching out three thousand miles ahead,
God’s own stars a-risin’ solemn o’er us,
And--yonder’s Cape St. Vincent and the Dead.
There they lie, Bill, man and mate together,
Dreamin’ out the dog-watch down below,
Anchored in the Port of Pleasant Weather,
Waiting for the Bo’sun’s call to blow.
Over them the tide goes lappin’, swayin’,
Under them’s the wide bay’s muddy bed,
And it’s pleasant dreams--to them--to hear us sayin’,
Yonder’s Cape St. Vincent and the Dead.
Hear that P. and O. boat’s engines dronin’,
Beating out of time and out of tune,
Ripping past with every plate a-groanin’,
Spitting smoke and cinders at the moon?
Ports a-lit like little stars a-settin’,
See ’em glintin’ yaller, green, and red,
Loggin’ twenty knots, Bill,--but forgettin’,
Yonder’s Cape St. Vincent and the Dead.
They’re ‘discharged’ now, Billy, ‘left the service,’
Rough an’ bitter was the watch they stood,
Drake an’ Blake, an’ Collingwood an’ Jervis,
Nelson, Rodney, Hawke, an’ Howe an’ Hood.
They’d a hard time, haulin’ an’ directin’,
There’s the flag they left us, Billy--tread
Straight an’ keep it flyin’--recollectin’,
Yonder’s Cape St. Vincent and the Dead.
THE TARRY BUCCANEER
I’m going to be a pirate with a bright brass pivot-gun,
And an island in the Spanish Main beyond the setting sun,
And a silver flagon full of red wine to drink when work is done,
Like a fine old salt-sea scavenger, like a tarry Buccaneer.
With a sandy creek to careen in, and a pig-tailed Spanish mate,
And under my main-hatches a sparkling merry freight
Of doubloons and double moidores and pieces of eight,
Like a fine old salt-sea scavenger, like a tarry Buccaneer.
With a taste for Spanish wine-shops and for spending my doubloons,
And a crew of swart mulattoes and black-eyed octoroons,
And a thoughtful way with mutineers of making them maroons,
Like a fine old salt-sea scavenger, like a tarry Buccaneer.
With a sash of crimson velvet and a diamond-hilted sword,
And a silver whistle about my neck secured to a golden cord,
And a habit of taking captives and walking them along a board,
Like a fine old salt-sea scavenger, like a tarry Buccaneer.
With a spy-glass tucked beneath my arm and a cocked hat cocked askew,
And a long low rakish schooner a-cutting of the waves in two,
And a flag of skull and cross-bones the wickedest that ever flew,
Like a fine old salt-sea scavenger, like a tarry Buccaneer.
A BALLAD OF JOHN SILVER
We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;
We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.
We’d a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It’s a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.
Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people’s brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank,
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.
O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop)
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken-coop;
Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to do
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.
O! the fiddle on the fo’c’s’le, and the slapping naked soles,
And the genial ‘Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!’
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead,
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red.
Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,
All have since been put a stop-to by the naughty Board of Trade;
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,
A little south the sunset in the Islands of the Blest.
LYRICS FROM ‘THE BUCCANEER’
I
We are far from sight of the harbour lights,
Of the sea-ports whence we came,
But the old sea calls and the cold wind bites,
And our hearts are turned to flame.
And merry and rich is the goodly gear
We’ll win upon the tossing sea,
A silken gown for my dainty dear,
And a gold doubloon for me.
It’s the old old road and the old old quest
Of the cut-throat sons of Cain,
South by west and a quarter west,
And hey for the Spanish Main.
II
There’s a sea-way somewhere where all day long
Is the hushed susurrus of the sea,
The mewing of the skuas, and the sailor’s song,
And the wind’s cry calling me.
There’s a haven somewhere where the quiet of the bay
Is troubled with the shifting tide,
Where the gulls are flying, crying in the bright white spray,
And the tan-sailed schooners ride.
III
The toppling rollers at the harbour mouth
Are spattering the bows with foam,
And the anchor’s catted, and she’s heading for the south
With her topsails sheeted home.
And a merry measure is the dance she’ll tread
(To the clanking of the staysail’s hanks)
When the guns are growling and the blood runs red,
And the prisoners are walking of the planks.
D’AVALOS’ PRAYER
When the last sea is sailed and the last shallow charted,
When the last field is reaped and the last harvest stored,
When the last fire is out and the last guest departed,
Grant the last prayer that I shall pray, Be good to me, O Lord!
And let me pass in a night at sea, a night of storm and thunder,
In the loud crying of the wind through sail and rope and spar;
Send me a ninth great peaceful wave to drown and roll me under
To the cold tunny-fishes’ home where the drowned galleons are.
And in the dim green quiet place far out of sight and hearing,
Grant I may hear at whiles the wash and thresh of the sea-foam
About the fine keen bows of the stately clippers steering
Towards the lone northern star and the fair ports of home.
THE WEST WIND
It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,
And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils.
It’s a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine,
Apple orchards blossom there, and the air’s like wine.
There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest,
And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.
‘Will ye not come home, brother? ye have been long away,
It’s April, and blossom time, and white is the may;
And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain,--
Will ye not come home, brother, home to us again?
‘The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run,
It’s blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.
It’s song to a man’s soul, brother, fire to a man’s brain,
To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.
‘Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat,
So will ye not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?
I’ve a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes,’
Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries.
It’s the white road westwards is the road I must tread
To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,
To the violets and the warm hearts and the thrushes’ song,
In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong.
THE GALLEY-ROWERS
Staggering over the running combers
The long-ship heaves her dripping flanks,
Singing together, the sea-roamers
Drive the oars grunting in the banks.
A long pull,
And a long long pull to Mydath.
‘Where are ye bound, ye swart sea-farers,
Vexing the grey wind-angered brine,
Bearers of home-spun cloth, and bearers
Of goat-skins filled with country wine?’
‘We are bound sunset-wards, not knowing,
Over the whale’s way miles and miles,
Going to Vine-Land, haply going
To the Bright Beach of the Blessed Isles.
‘In the wind’s teeth and the spray’s stinging
Westward and outward forth we go,
Knowing not whither nor why, but singing
An old old oar-song as we row.
A long pull,
And a long long pull to Mydath.’
SORROW OF MYDATH
Weary the cry of the wind is, weary the sea,
Weary the heart and the mind and the body of me.
Would I were out of it, done with it, would I could be
A white gull crying along the desolate sands!
Outcast, derelict soul in a body accurst,
Standing drenched with the spindrift, standing athirst,
For the cool green waves of death to arise and burst
In a tide of quiet for me on the desolate sands.
Would that the waves and the long white hair of the spray
Would gather in splendid terror and blot me away
To the sunless place of the wrecks where the waters sway
Gently, dreamily, quietly over desolate sands!
VAGABOND
Dunno a heap about the what an’ why,
Can’t say’s I ever knowed.
Heaven to me’s a fair blue stretch of sky,
Earth’s jest a dusty road.
Dunno the names o’ things, nor what they are,
Can’t say’s I ever will.
Dunno about God--he’s jest the noddin’ star
Atop the windy hill.
Dunno about Life--it’s jest a tramp alone
From wakin’-time to doss.
Dunno about Death--it’s jest a quiet stone
All over-grey wi’ moss.
An’ why I live, an’ why the old world spins,
Are things I never knowed;
My mark’s the gypsy fires, the lonely inns,
An’ jest the dusty road.
VISION
I have drunken the red wine and flung the dice;
Yet once in the noisy ale-house I have seen and heard
The dear pale lady with the mournful eyes,
And a voice like that of a pure grey cooing bird.
With delicate white hands--white hands that I have kist
(Oh frail white hands!)--she soothed my aching eyes;
And her hair fell about her in a dim clinging mist,
Like smoke from a golden incense burned in Paradise.
With gentle loving words, like shredded balm and myrrh,
She healed with sweet forgiveness my black bitter sins,
Then passed into the night, and I go seeking her
Down the dark, silent streets, past the warm, lighted inns.
SPUNYARN
Spunyarn, spunyarn, with one to turn the crank,
And one to slather the spunyarn, and one to knot the hank;
It’s an easy job for a summer watch, and a pleasant job enough,
To twist the tarry lengths of yarn to shapely sailor stuff.
Life is nothing but spunyarn on a winch in need of oil,
Little enough is twined and spun but fever-fret and moil.
I have travelled on land and sea, and all that I have found
Are these poor songs to brace the arms that help the winches round.
THE DEAD KNIGHT
The cleanly rush of the mountain air,
And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees,
Are the only things that wander there,
The pitiful bones are laid at ease,
The grass has grown in his tangled hair,
And a rambling bramble binds his knees.
To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell,
The only requiem-bells that rang
Were the hare-bell and the heather-bell.
Hushed he is with the holy spell
In the gentle hymn the wind sang,
And he lies quiet, and sleeps well.
He is bleached and blanched with the summer sun;
The misty rain and the cold dew
Have altered him from the kingly one
(That his lady loved, and his men knew)
And dwindled him to a skeleton.
The vetches have twined about his bones,
The straggling ivy twists and creeps
In his eye-sockets; the nettle keeps
Vigil about him while he sleeps.
Over his body the wind moans
With a dreary tune throughout the day,
In a chorus wistful, eerie, thin
As the gull’s cry--as the cry in the bay,
The mournful word the seas say
When tides are wandering out or in.
PERSONAL
Tramping at night in the cold and wet, I passed the lighted inn,
And an old tune, a sweet tune, was being played within.
It was full of the laugh of the leaves and the song the wind sings;
It brought the tears and the choked throat, and a catch to the
heart-strings.
And it brought a bitter thought of the days that now were dead to me,
The merry days in the old home before I went to sea--
Days that were dead to me indeed. I bowed my head to the rain,
And I passed by the lighted inn to the lonely roads again.
ON MALVERN HILL
A wind is brushing down the clover,
It sweeps the tossing branches bare,
Blowing the poising kestrel over
The crumbling ramparts of the Caer.
It whirls the scattered leaves before us
Along the dusty road to home,
Once it awakened into chorus
The heart-strings in the ranks of Rome.
There by the gusty coppice border
The shrilling trumpets broke the halt,
The Roman line, the Roman order,
Swayed forwards to the blind assault.
Spearman and charioteer and bowman
Charged and were scattered into spray,
Savage and taciturn the Roman
Hewed upwards in the Roman way.
There--in the twilight--where the cattle
Are lowing home across the fields,
The beaten warriors left the battle
Dead on the clansmen’s wicker shields.
The leaves whirl in the wind’s riot
Beneath the Beacon’s jutting spur,
Quiet are clan and chief, and quiet
Centurion and signifer.
TEWKESBURY ROAD
It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where,
Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither nor why;
Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool
rush of the air,
Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky;
And to halt at the chattering brook, in the tall green fern at the brink
Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the fox-gloves
purple and white;
Where the shy-eyed delicate deer troop down to the pools to drink,
When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.
O! to feel the warmth of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,
Is a tune for the blood to jig to, a joy past power of words;
And the blessed green comely meadows seem all a-ripple with mirth
At the lilt of the shifting feet, and the dear wild cry of the birds.
ON EASTNOR KNOLL
Silent are the woods, and the dim green boughs are
Hushed in the twilight: yonder, in the path through
The apple orchard, is a tired plough-boy
Calling the cows home.
A bright white star blinks, the pale moon rounds, but
Still the red, lurid wreckage of the sunset
Smoulders in smoky fire, and burns on
The misty hill-tops.
Ghostly it grows, and darker, the burning
Fades into smoke, and now the gusty oaks are
A silent army of phantoms thronging
A land of shadows.
‘REST HER SOUL, SHE’S DEAD’
She has done with the sea’s sorrow and the world’s way
And the wind’s grief;
Strew her with laurel, cover her with bay
And ivy-leaf.
Let the slow mournful music sound before her,
Strew the white flowers about the bier, and o’er her
The sleepy poppies red beyond belief.
On the black velvet covering her eyes
Let the dull earth be thrown;
Hers is the mightier silence of the skies,
And long, quiet rest alone.
Over the pure, dark, wistful eyes of her,
O’er all the human, all that dies of her,
Gently let flowers be strown.
Lay her away in quiet old peaceful earth
(This blossom of ours),
She has done with the world’s anger and the world’s mirth,
Sunshine and rain-showers;
And over the poor, sad, tired face of her,
In the long grass above the place of her
(The grass which hides the glory and the grace of her),
May the Spring bring the flowers.
‘ALL YE THAT PASS BY’
On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street,
The pageant of life is passing me on multitudinous feet,
With a word here of the hills, and a song there of the sea,
And--the great movement changes--the pageant passes me.
Faces--passionate faces--of men I may not know,
They haunt me, burn me to the heart, as I turn aside to go:
The king’s face and the cur’s face, and the face of the stuffed swine,
They are passing, they are passing, their eyes look into mine.
I never can tire of the music of the noise of many feet,
The thrill of the blood pulsing, the tick of the heart’s beat,
Of the men many as sands, of the squadrons ranked and massed
Who are passing, changing always, and never have changed or passed.
IN MEMORY OF A. P. R.
Once in the windy wintry weather,
The road dust blowing in our eyes,
We starved or tramped or slept together
Beneath the haystacks and the skies;
Until the tiring tramp was over,
And then the call for him was blown,
He left his friend--his fellow-rover--
To tramp the dusty roads alone.
The winds wail and the woods are yellow,
The hills are blotted in the rain,
‘And would he were with me,’ sighs his fellow,
‘With me upon the roads again!’
TO-MORROW
Oh yesterday the cutting edge drank thirstily and deep,
The upland outlaws ringed us in and herded us as sheep,
They drove us from the stricken field and bayed us into keep;
But to-morrow
By the living God, we’ll try the game again!
Oh yesterday our little troop was ridden through and through,
Our swaying, tattered pennons fled, a broken, beaten few,
And all a summer afternoon they hunted us and slew;
But to-morrow,
By the living God, we’ll try the game again!
And here upon the turret-top the bale-fire glowers red,
The wake-lights burn and drip about our hacked, disfigured dead,
And many a broken heart is here and many a broken head;
But to-morrow,
By the living God, we’ll try the game again!
CAVALIER
All the merry kettle-drums are thudding into rhyme,
Dust is swimming dizzily down the village street,
The scabbards are clattering, the feathers nodding time,
To a clink of many horses’ shoes, a tramp of many feet.
Seven score of Cavaliers fighting for the King,
Trolling lusty stirrup-songs, clamouring for wine,
Riding with a loose rein, marching with a swing,
Beneath the blue bannerol of Rupert of the Rhine.
Hey the merry company;--the loud fifes playing--
Blue scarves and bright steel and blossom of the may,
Roses in the feathered hats, the long plumes swaying,
A king’s son ahead of them showing them the way.
A SONG AT PARTING
The tick of the blood is settling slow, my heart will soon be still,
And ripe and ready am I for rest in the grave atop the hill;
So gather me up and lay me down, for ready and ripe am I,
For the weary vigil with sightless eyes that may not see the sky.
I have lived my life: I have spilt the wine that God the Maker gave,
So carry me up the lonely hill and lay me in the grave,
And cover me in with cleanly mould and old and lichened stones,
In a place where ever the cry of the wind shall thrill my sleepy bones.
Gather me up and lay me down with an old song and a prayer,
Cover me in with wholesome earth, and weep and leave me there;
And get you gone with a kindly thought and an old tune and a sigh,
And leave me alone, asleep, at rest, for ready and ripe am I.
GLOSSARY
_Abaft the beam._--That half of a ship included between her
amidship section and the taffrail. (For ‘taffrail,’ _see_ below.)
_Abel Brown._--An unquotable sea-song.
_Advance-note._--A note for one month’s wages issued to sailors on
their signing a ship’s articles.
_Belaying-pins._--Bars of iron or hard wood to which running
rigging may be secured or _belayed_. Belaying-pins, from their
handiness and peculiar club-shape, are sometimes used as bludgeons.
_Bloody._--An intensive derived from the substantive ‘blood,’ a
name applied to the Bucks, Scowrers, and Mohocks of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries.
_Blue Peter._--A blue and white flag hoisted at the fore-trucks of
ships about to sail.
_Bollard._--From _bōl_ or _bole_, the round trunk of a tree. A
phallic or ‘sparklet’-shaped ornament of the dockside, of
assistance to mariners in warping into or out of dock.
_Bonded Jacky._--Negro-head tobacco or sweet cake.
_Bull of Barney._--A beast mentioned in an unquotable sea-proverb.
_Bumpkin._--An iron bar (projecting out-board from the ship’s side)
to which the lower and topsail brace blocks are sometimes hooked.
_Cape Horn fever._--The illness proper to malingerers.
_Catted._--Said of an anchor when weighed and secured to the
‘cat-head.’
_Chanty._--A song sung to lighten labour at the capstan sheets, and
halliards. The soloist is known as the chanty-man, and is usually a
person of some authority in the fo’c’s’le. Many chanties are of
great beauty and extreme antiquity.
_Clipper-bow._--A bow of delicate curves and lines.
_Clout._--A rag or cloth. Also a blow:--‘I fetched him a clout i’
the lug.’
_Crimp._--A sort of scoundrelly land-shark preying upon sailors.
_D.B.S._--Distressed British Sailor. A term applied to those who
are invalided home from foreign ports.
_Dungaree._--A cheap, rough thin cloth (generally blue or brown),
woven, I am told, of coco-nut fibre.
_Forward or Forrard._--Towards the bows.
_Fo’c’s’le (Forecastle)._--The deck-house or living-room of the
crew. The word is often used to indicate the crew, or those members
of it described by passengers as the ‘common sailors.’
_Fore-stay._--A powerful wire rope supporting the fore-mast
forward.
_Gaskets._--Ropes or plaited lines used to secure the sails in
furling.
_Goneys._--Albatrosses.
_Guffy._--A marine or jolly.
_Gullies._--Sea-gulls, Cape Horn pigeons, etc.
_Heave and pawl._--A cry of encouragement at the capstan.
_Hooker._--A periphrasis for ship, I suppose from a ship’s carrying
_hooks_ or anchors.
_Jack or Jackstay._--A slender iron rail running along the upper
portions of the yards in some ships.
_Leeward._--Pronounced ‘looard.’ That quarter to which the wind
blows.
_Mainsail haul._--An order in tacking ship bidding ‘swing the
mainyards.’ To loot, steal, or ‘acquire.’
_Main-shrouds._--Ropes, usually wire, supporting lateral strains
upon the mainmast.
_Mollies._--Molly-hawks, or Fulmar petrels. Wide-winged dusky
sea-fowls, common in high latitudes, oily to taste, gluttonous.
Great fishers and garbage-eaters.
_Port Mahon Baboon_, or _Port Mahon Soger_.--I have been unable to
discover either the origin of these insulting epithets or the
reasons for the peculiar bitterness with which they sting the
marine recipient. They are older than Dana (_circa_ 1840).
An old merchant sailor, now dead, once told me that Port Mahon was
that godless city from which the Ark set sail, in which case the
name may have some traditional connection with that evil ‘Mahoun’
|
near Broad Ford.
In 1876 Mr. Frick bought out his partners and continued the business on
his own account. In the following year a depression of trade placed the
lease of the Valley coke works at his disposal. The young operator put
Thomas Lynch in charge, and despite the dullness of the market, kept the
works going every day in the year.
In the fall of 1877 Mr. Frick took into partnership E. M. Ferguson, the
owner of a plant of 70 ovens, and the new firm operated as H. C. Frick &
Co. A year later the firm leased the Anchor works and the Mullen works
near Mt. Pleasant and admitted Walton Ferguson as a partner.
In 1879 the coke trade revived amazingly, prices advancing from a
maximum of $1.15 a ton to $4 and $5 a ton. The Frick Company continued
to extend its business until, in 1882, it controlled 3,000 acres of coal
land and 1,026 coke ovens. Meanwhile Mr. Frick organized the Morewood
Coke Company, limited, and built the Morewood works of 470 ovens,
the largest works in the region. Carnegie Bros. & Co., Limited, were
admitted into the firm in January, 1882.
The Frick corporation now pushed its operations with such vigor that, in
1890, according to a semi-official statement, it "owned and controlled
35,000 acres of coal land and 43 of the 80 plants in the region,
aggregating 10,046 ovens, three water plants with a pumping capacity
of 5,000,000 gallons daily, and 35 miles of railroad track and 1,200
railroad cars. 11,000 men were then employed by the company, and for the
equipment of its plants it had 23 locomotives, 72 pairs of stationary
engines, 172 steam boilers and 816 horses and mules."
Mr. Frick had several serious strikes to contend with. His plan of
campaign was always the same--to crush the strikers by main force and
make no concessions. The Coal and Iron police, an organization of
watchmen maintained under a state law, the drilled and armed watchmen
of the Pinkerton detective agency, and the state militia were pressed
into service as the occasion demanded, and the shedding of blood and
sacrifice of human life resulted on more than one occasion.
Mr. Frick's character need not be analyzed at this point. It will be
illustrated clearly enough as our narrative progresses.
The Homestead mill and the Frick coke works, vast as they are,
constitute merely a fraction of the Carnegie Company's interests. In
addition to these the Company owns the Edgar Thompson furnaces and the
Edgar Thompson steel works at Bessemer, eleven miles from Pittsburgh on
the Pennsylvania railroad; the Duquesne steel works, on the same side
of the Monongahela river as the Homestead works; the Lucy Furnaces,
Pittsburgh; the Keystone Bridge Works, Pittsburgh; the Upper and Lower
Union Mills, Pittsburgh; the Beaver Falls mills at Beaver Falls, 32
miles from Pittsburgh on the P. & L. E. railroad; the Carnegie Natural
Gas Company; the Scotia ore mines in Center County, Pa.; the American
Manganese Company, and interests in several large ore companies in the
Lake Superior region. About 13,000 persons are employed in the various
concerns operated by the firm, and of these about 3,800 are engaged in
the works at Homestead.
In June 1892, Andrew Carnegie, while maintaining the controlling
financial interest in the firm, transferred the managing authority
to H. C. Frick. At that time the firm was reorganized, the separate
enterprises which had previously been conducted under the names
of Carnegie Bros. and Company, Carnegie, Phipps & Co., and other
independent titles, being merged under the control of a single
corporation known as the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited. H. C.
Frick was made chairman, the other partners being Andrew Carnegie,
Henry Phipps, Jr., George Lauder, H. M. Curry, W. L. Abbott, John
G. A. Leishman, F. T. F. Lovejoy, Otis H. Childs and sundry minor
stockholders whose interests were conferred upon them by Mr. Carnegie by
way of promotion.
The power of the firm in the iron and steel industries was now
dictatorial. On the fiat of the Carnegie Company depended almost
entirely the price of steel in the market. Rivalry was dwarfed and
competition nullified. Rarely in the industrial history of the world has
a similarly powerful monopoly been built up on no other foundation than
the combination of brains and capital, with such indirect aid as the
protective tariff system affords.
Against this tremendous power,--a power equal to the control of 13,000
men and more than $25,000,000 of capital, the men of Homestead were
destined to pit themselves in a life and death struggle; how destructive
and hopeless a struggle will appear from the story told in these pages.
The men of Homestead, on their side, had comparatively limited resources
to count upon in a battle against such fearful odds. They reckoned, to
begin with, upon that species of _esprit de corps_ which prevails among
workingmen, especially those of the more intelligent class, and which is
the solid ground under the feet of organized labor.
Not that the 3,800 workmen in the Homestead mills had a complete and
comprehensive organization. On the contrary, out of this number,
not more than one thousand were enrolled in the eight lodges of the
Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers maintained in the
town. These were the workers known as "tonnage men," because the nature
of their employment permitted the graduation of their wages on a scale
determined by the price of billets per ton. Outside the lodges were the
mechanics and laborers, working, for the most part, for daily wages.
At the same time, the joint influence of fraternity and of confidence
in the force of organization was deemed sufficient to inspire all the
Homestead workers, in and out of the lodges, to make common cause in
the event of a quarrel between the lodges and the Carnegie firm. Should
this emergency arise, it was argued, the firm could not find enough
non-union steelworkers in the United States to take the places of its
army of employees, and as a consequence, if the men went out on strike,
the mills would have to be shut down and the heavy loss resulting would
force the firm to come to terms.
With this impression ingrained in their minds, the men smiled
confidently at the suggestion of a cut in wages, and tacitly defied the
new chairman, Mr. Frick, to do his worst.
That the new chairman was liable to make some disagreeable departure
had to be admitted by the most confident. Dubious associations hung
around the name of this man H. C. Frick. He had acquired unpleasant
notoriety by reducing wages in the coke regions, and by crushing the
labor insurrections which followed by the employment of Pinkerton
detectives and even by calling in the state militia. There was no
dilettantism or liberally-advertised philanthropy of the Carnegie stripe
in Frick's composition. Everybody knew that. He was a man of blood and
iron like Bismarck, so the workmen said; cared not a penny whether his
underlings loved or hated him, and rather preferred an opportunity to
crush--crush--crush intractable working folk under his heel than not.
Was this man placed in power by Andrew Carnegie in order to carry out at
Homestead what he had carried out in the coke regions; to challenge
organized labor by the submission of conditions which it could not
accept and, on its refusal, try the old game of crushing the unions
under foot? Did Carnegie shrink from the task himself and pick out Frick
as a willing and capable instrument? Such were the questions discussed
in the lodge-room and in the privacy of the domestic circle at Homestead
during the time which intervened between the re-organization of the
Carnegie interests and the next annual signing of the wage scale.
Whatever conclusions might be reached, there was one thing certain at
all events, in the not too penetrating judgment of the unionists: Frick
might reduce wages, and Frick might fight, but Frick could not repeat in
conflict; with the 3,800 brawny and intelligent artisans at Homestead
the comparatively easy victories which he had gained over his poor coke
workers. So said they all, and they believed it, too, as firmly as if it
were Holy Writ.
The feeling of ownership had a place in the reasoning of these simple
people. Many of them had bought and paid for their homes and were
pillars of the borough government. Some were still paying for their
dwellings--paying off the mortgages held by the Carnegie Company, which
had been in the habit of helping those who cared to build, and which
even did a regular banking business for the advantage of its employees.
It was clearly impossible that men of substance, heads of families,
solid citizens of a prosperous municipality could be rooted up, as it
were, out of the soil in which they were so firmly planted and beaten to
earth by the creature of their labor--for without labor, it was argued,
capital would be impotent and valueless.
In this mood, with suspicions as to the mission of Chairman Frick, but
with impregnable confidence in themselves, the men prepared to settle
the scale of wages, which was to be agreed upon in the spring of 1892
and to go into effect on July 1.
They sought no advance in wages, but it was a foregone conclusion that,
if wages were to be depressed, they would offer implacable resistance.
There was calmness in all quarters at this time. No smoldering embers of
dissatisfaction; no long nourished grievances were in existence to
precipitate a sudden outbreak.
Mr. Potter, the superintendent of the Homestead mill, calmly discharged
his daily round of duties.
Mr. Frick sat in his comfortable office in Pittsburgh, and calmly mapped
out a plan of some, as yet, unheralded campaign.
Mr. Carnegie calmly continued to hob-nob with European celebrities and
to indulge his _penchant_ for the erection of free libraries.
There was not a cloud the size of a man's hand to mar the serenity of
the horizon that bounded the little world of the Carnegie interests.
The gathering of the storm had not yet begun.
CHAPTER II.
[Illustration: THE GATHERING OF THE STORM]
HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE AMALGAMATED ASSOCIATION--OPERATION OF
THE SLIDING SCALE AT HOMESTEAD--SUPERINTENDENT POTTER MAKES
AMICABLE SUGGESTIONS _a la_ CARNEGIE--AN ULTIMATUM FROM
FRICK--HE THREATENS NON-UNIONISM AND FORTIFIES THE
MILLS--LODGES HOLD A SUNDAY MORNING MEETING--BURGESS
McLUCKIE'S BOLD SPEECH--"HIGH FENCES, PINKERTON DETECTIVES,
THUGS AND MILITIA"--POLITICAL EXIGENCIES GIVE HOPE TO THE
WORKMEN.
The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers is, with the
possible exception of the Association of Window Glass Workers, the best
generaled and most substantially organized labor organization in the
United States. One of the fundamental principles in the doctrine of the
association is to avoid and discourage strikes; and so closely has this
article of faith been observed that the number of strikes officially
ordered in the iron and steel industries has been small in comparison
with the record of most other labor unions.
The adjustment of wage scales by the association is largely the affair
of the lodges. The equipment and requirements of different iron and
steel mills vary considerably, and hence, each mill or kindred group of
mills must have a separate scale, adjusted to its needs. It is incumbent
on the lodges to report their respective scales to the association at
large through the medium of an annual delegate convention. Should there
be a dispute in any district, the convention passes upon the merits of
the case and decides whether or not it shall be taken up by the
association as a whole. If not, the usual mode of procedure is to notify
the belligerent lodge or lodges to yield the disputed points. If, on the
other hand, the association decides to intervene, the chief executive
officers are authorized to act, and it becomes their duty to exhaust all
fair means of bringing the recalcitrant mill-owners to terms, before
countenancing a strike. An official order to strike commits the
association to the payment of weekly benefits to the strikers.
The president of the Amalgamated Association is always chosen with
special reference to his capacity for cool, stable, conservative
leadership. Mental brilliancy is not so much sought after in the man who
is called upon to fill this responsible position, as level-headedness
and inflexible nerve. William Weihe, who served as president during the
troublous days of 1892, fully met these requirements. A giant in
stature, slow and deliberate in speech and action, and never committing
himself without being perfectly sure of his ground, Weihe was just the
man to preserve the dignity and influence of the association when the
spectres of riot and anarchy stalked abroad and organized labor,
smarting from a thousand gaping wounds, threatened to break down the
bulwarks of law and order and to sacrifice the good-will of its
friends. At no time throughout a contest which set men's souls aflame
from one end of the land to the other did President Weihe lose his
self-possession or his ability to stand between the solid fabric of the
association and those of its friends, who, in the rashness of the hour,
would fain have involved it in the ruin which engulfed the lodges at
Homestead.
The Homestead scale was prepared early in the spring. In January, the
superintendent of the mill, Mr. Potter sent for the joint committee of
the local lodges and requested that the men prepare a scale. It was not
the policy of the Carnegie firm, Mr. Potter said, to leave the way open
for a strike. If there were differences of opinion between employer and
employees, the proper method of settlement was by arbitration, and it
was, therefore, advisable that the scale should be presented early, so
as to leave ample time for an amicable adjustment of disputed points.
For three years previous, the men had been working under what was known
as a sliding scale, an expedient which at the time of its adoption was
regarded as a sure preventive of strikes. This scale established as the
basis on which wages were to be determined, the market price of steel
billets, in the manufacture of which the Carnegie Company was
extensively engaged. When the price of billets went up, wages were to go
up correspondingly, and when the price of billets went down, wages were
to be correspondingly lowered. $25 a ton was agreed upon as the minimum.
If billets were quoted below that figure, there was to be no further
depression of wages. In other words, the men and the firm were
practically in partnership, increased profits to the latter meaning
increased earnings to the former, unless the bottom fell out of the
market, in which case it became the duty of the stronger partner to
protect the weaker.
The circumstances under which this equitable compact was made are of
interest in so far as they exhibit the very different temper of the
Carnegie Company towards its men in the past from that which marked its
line of conduct after Mr. Frick was placed at the helm. In January,
1889, the men, who had been working under a yearly scale, quarreled with
the firm over the terms proposed for the ensuing year and a strike was
declared. William L. Abbott, a man of comparatively mild and liberal
disposition, was then serving as chairman. Mr. Abbott undertook to break
the strike, and when the men resorted to riotous conduct, called upon
the sheriff of the county for aid. The sheriff, Dr. Alexander
McCandless, an official who enjoyed great popularity, and possessed the
courage and tact essential in such an emergency, went promptly to the
scene with a force of deputies recruited for the occasion. At the first
encounter with the mob, the deputies let their courage ooze out at their
fingers' ends and fled from the town.
The sheriff, nowise disheartened by the desertion of his forces, took
the best possible means of ending the trouble by constituting himself a
mediator between the Carnegie firm and the strikers. Through his efforts
a conference was arranged, and peace was restored through the adoption
of the famous sliding scale, with the understanding that it would hold
good until June 30, 1892. Mr. Carnegie, then absent in Europe, professed
to be much pleased with the amicable settlement arrived at and the
incidental guarantee of peace for three years to come, and for the time
being the names of Sheriff McCandless and William L. Abbott were
surrounded with a halo of glory.
When Superintendent Potter, in January, 1892, spoke to the men about a
new scale, he gave no hint of the prospect that the firm contemplated
sweeping away the beneficial arrangement which had so long governed
their earnings. As already noted, Mr. Potter touched upon the subject of
possible differences of opinion and of the firm's desire that such
differences should be settled in a friendly way.
The shadow of Mr. Frick loomed up gloomily in the background, it is
true, but there was really no occasion to think of shadows when the
genial Potter presented himself as the very embodiment of sunshine. The
ideas put forth by this gentleman bore the special brand of Mr.
Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie was on record as being opposed to the use of
force in settling disputes between capital and labor. In 1886, he had
written for the magazines on this question, and the liberality of his
views had elicited general commendation. Thus he said in the _Forum_:
"Peaceful settlement of differences should be reached through
arbitration. I would lay it down as a maxim that there is no excuse for
a strike or a lock-out until arbitration of differences has been offered
by one party and refused by the other."
Mr. Carnegie declared further, that "The right of the workingmen to
combine and to form trades unions is no less sacred than the right of
the manufacturer to enter into association and conference with his
fellows, and it must sooner or later be conceded." Manufacturers should
"meet the men _more than halfway_" and "To expect that one dependent
upon his daily wage for the necessaries of life will stand by peaceably
and see a new man employed in his stead is to expect much."
This was the gospel of Carnegie in 1886, and, the shadow of Frick to the
contrary, notwithstanding, it was not singular that it should have been
the gospel of Potter in January, 1892.
It was, then, with a feeling of reasonable security that the men went to
work upon their scale. This, when completed, differed little from that
of the previous three years. It was presented to Mr. Potter in February,
but, strange to say, did not seem to please that worthy exponent of the
Carnegie idea of harmony. The joint committee of the lodges waited
frequently upon the superintendent in the hope of reaching some definite
conclusion, but the conferences were barren of results.
At length, to the amazement of the men, the Carnegie firm officially
promulgated a new sliding scale, based on billets at $26.50 per ton as a
standard, but fixing as the minimum basis of wages, $22 per ton, instead
of $25 as formerly. As the billet market was now abnormally depressed--a
condition which, it was claimed by many, had been designedly brought
about in order to give the Carnegie Company a pretext for wage
reductions--it was apparent that a serious reduction in many departments
of the mill would follow the acceptance of the firm's propositions.
June 24 was fixed as the last day on which the men could accept as
members of the Amalgamated Association. After that date, the firm would
not consent to treat with them otherwise than as individuals. In short,
Mr. Frick wanted it to be understood, definitely and finally, that, if
his employees did not yield promptly and with a good grace, he would
non-unionize the mill and abolish the right of self-protective
organization, to which Mr. Carnegie, six years before, had feelingly
referred as "sacred."
[Illustration]
There was a flavor of coke region discipline about the Frick ultimatum
which was not calculated to promote good feeling at Homestead. Nor did
it. The men who drove the sheriff's deputies out of Homestead in 1889
might yield to milder measures, but the crack of the whip was
irritating. "Are we to be lashed into Mr. Frick's way of thinking?" men
asked one another, and the very thought bred insurrection.
If there was a calm now, it was the calm that preceded a hurricane.
As if to accentuate the sentiment of disaffection among the Homestead
people, Mr. Frick accompanied the issuance of his ultimatum with
preparations of a warlike character. A large force of men was employed
upon the construction of a solid board fence, three miles in extent,
surrounding the property of the firm between the Pittsburgh, Virginia &
Charleston railroad and the Monongahela river. All the workshops were
included within this enclosure. The offices and stables, situated on the
other side of the railroad, were similarly enclosed. An elevated wooden
bridge connected the two enclosures. The fence was surmounted with
strands of barbed wire, and perforated at intervals, as if for the
convenience of sharpshooters stationed within, although Mr. Frick, in
his testimony before a committee of Congress, averred that the holes
were simply for the purpose of observation. High in the air, at the ends
of the tall mill buildings, twelve-foot platforms were erected, on which
were placed electric search-lights, designed to enable sentinels to keep
watch at night over every part of the mill yard.
There was a cold and sanguinary determination about these provisions
which boded ill for the workmen. Clearly, the redoubtable tamer of the
coke-workers had made up his mind to force a bloody conflict with
organized labor, and the wage ultimatum was his defi. One of King John's
barons could not equip his feudal castle with more elaborate
offensiveness than this nineteenth century ironmaster displayed in
fortifying his mill, with the apparent intention of making war--actual
war with arms upon the men of Homestead. So it was that the men viewed
the preparations at the mill. The supposition that Mr. Frick might
regard their disposition as one of invincible stubbornness, sure to lead
to deeds of violence, and that his fences, barbed wire, loopholes,
platforms and search-lights might be pure measures of self-defense was
not entertained for an instant.
The fortification of the mill was a huge threat--a challenge--an insult.
With this exhibition of brute force held up before them, the workmen
deemed their manhood, as well as the life of their organization to be at
stake. Come what might, they must now burn their boats behind them, as
the firm had done, and refuse to recede an inch from their demands.
While affairs were taking this ominous turn at Homestead, the annual
convention of the Amalgamated Association met at Pittsburgh, the session
opening on June 7. Of the stormy conditions under which the delegates
came together and which caused their deliberations to be protracted for
an unusual period, mention is reserved for another chapter. Suffice it
to state here that the delegates from Homestead duly submitted their
scale; that it received the indorsement of the association, and that the
local lodges were empowered to persist in their demand for the retention
of the rate of $25 a ton on billets as the minimum basis of tonnage
men's wages. This made it optional with the local lodges to declare a
strike, although it followed by implication only, and not of necessity,
that the strike, if ordered, would receive the sanction and support of
the association.
Excitement in Homestead mounted rapidly to fever heat.
The first concerted public demonstration on the part of the men was on
Sunday, June 19, when the lodges held an open meeting in the opera
house. Some of the leading officials of the association and many
delegates to the Pittsburgh convention from other states were present.
The gathering included almost the entire working force of the Homestead
mill. William A. Carney, First Vice-President of the association acted
as chairman. The speechmakers, for the most part, while exhorting the
men to stand firm, counseled moderation and respect for the law.
A young vice-president of the association, Jere Doherty, touched upon
the place of the wage-worker in politics and the efficacy of the
Homestead struggle as a test of the protection guaranteed to labor by
the Republican party.
The crowning address of the day was made by John McLuckie, the burgess
of the town, a simple, earnest, straightforward man, whose rugged
eloquence told more forcibly with the brawny multitude who heard him
than if it had been couched in the language of a Cicero or a
Demosthenes. Burgess McLuckie said:
"What brings you here this morning? Is it idle curiosity, or is there a
real, tangible reason beyond? The cause of this wage trouble is not
generally understood. We were persuaded to vote the Republican ticket
four years ago in order that our wages might be maintained. As soon as
the election was over a widespread feeling on the part of the
manufacturers towards a reduction of wages was exhibited all over the
land. As soon as the McKinley bill was passed, the article in the
production of which we work was the only article that suffered a
reduction. It is Sunday morning, and we ought to be in church, but we
are here to-day to see if we are going to live as white men in the
future. The constitution of this country guarantees all men the right to
live, but in order to live we must keep up a continuous struggle. This
is the effect of legislation and nothing else. The McKinley bill reduced
the tariff on the four-inch billet, and the reduction of our wages is
the result. You men who voted the Republican ticket voted for high
tariff and you get high fences, Pinkerton detectives, thugs and
militia!"
There was politics in this speech, but almost every member of a labor
organization is a politician in a small way, and McLuckie's bill of
indictment against the Republican party struck fairly home. It had been
freely charged that, when the McKinley tariff bill was being prepared,
Andrew Carnegie had waited on the conference committee which put the
finishing touches to the measure and secured as a return for his
generous contributions to the Republican campaign funds, a reduction in
the duty on steel billets, this product being the single standard of
wages in his Homestead works. As the Carnegie firm controlled the billet
market, there was nothing to hinder a depression of prices, as a seeming
consequence of a lower duty, and this was to serve as a cover for the
new scale and the Frick ultimatum.
The plausibility of this story, and the bluntness with which McLuckie,
himself a poorly paid workman of the Carnegie Company, put the political
duplicity involved before his fellow workmen exercised a telling effect.
Particularly did the pointed allusion to "high fences, Pinkerton
detectives, thugs and militia" carry weight in the estimation of the
workingmen present at that Sunday morning meeting. Nor did it stop
there, for within the next twenty-four hours this, the first public
arraignment of the Republican party and the Carnegie Company jointly was
flashed over the telegraph wires to newspapers in all parts of the
United States, and the country at large began to realize that there were
two ways of looking at the doctrine of "protection to American labor,"
and that the difference between them was on the eve of receiving an
impressive demonstration.
The temper of the people of Homestead after the meeting of the lodges,
was, in spite of the scarcely concealed militant resolution harbored in
the breasts of the men as individuals, moderate and orderly. There was
still time, they reasoned, for Mr. Frick to withdraw his defiant
ultimatum. Nearly two weeks remained until the new wage scale would be
enforced. In the mean time there would be conferences. Possibly Mr.
Carnegie might be heard from over the cable. Perhaps even the great men
who were interested in proving that protection protects would use their
influence to obviate the astounding object lesson which would be
presented to the world if the Carnegie firm, at the noontide of its
prosperity, should reduce the wages of its employees. If there was hope
in this way of looking at the prospect, it was a forlorn hope, and the
most sanguine of the tonnage men, who were the first to be affected by a
change in the scale, could not consider it otherwise.
The cloud was plain to be seen, but of the silver lining not a vestige
was perceptible.
So the men went to bed on that Sunday night with McLuckie's bold words
ringing in their ears, and a strong conviction deep down in their hearts
that a crash was coming, that somebody was destined to go under, and
that, come what might, the victors of 1889 would not show the white
feather.
CHAPTER III.
[Illustration: LOCKED OUT]
FRICK'S ALLIES--A PLAN OF GENERAL ASSAULT ON THE AMALGAMATED
ASSOCIATION FALLS TO THE GROUND--THE LABOR QUESTION IN
POLITICS--DEMOCRATS MAKE CAPITAL OUT OF WAGE REDUCTIONS--FRICK
CONFERS WITH A WORKMEN'S COMMITTEE AND REJECTS A
COMPROMISE--MILLS SHUT DOWN AND ARE DECLARED NON-UNION--"FORT
FRICK"--LODGES APPOINT AN ADVISORY COMMITTEE. GUARDING THE
TOWN.
About the time of the assembling of the delegates to the convention of
the Amalgamated Association, the Pittsburgh _Post_, a Democratic
newspaper, printed an article in which it was alleged that the impending
conflict at Homestead was to be precipitated not in the interest of the
Carnegie Company alone, but in that of all the iron and steel
manufacturers of Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio. Homestead, it
was said, was chosen as a battle ground, (1) because of the ease with
which the mill property could be equipped for offensive and defensive
purposes; (2) because the ruin wrought in that town by a disastrous
strike would be more sweeping and complete than could be effected
anywhere else, and (3) because the Carnegie Company had the largest
interests to serve and should, therefore, be willing to bear the brunt
of the battle. If war was declared, and the lodges at Homestead were
broken up, the other manufacturers were to follow the lead of the
Carnegie Company, defy the Amalgamated Association and reduce the wages
of their employees to an extent varying from 20 to 60 per cent.
The _Post's_ story received little credence when it appeared, but later
on the course of events gave it a strong coloring of probability. Mr.
Frick proceeded to fortify the Homestead mills with every evidence of
inviting a desperate conflict. At the same time, the other manufacturers
commenced to show their hand, those of the Mahoning and Shenango Valley,
a district located about fifty miles from Pittsburgh, taking the
initiative by announcing a general reduction of wages ranging from 20 to
60 per cent. The Pittsburgh manufacturers avoided taking a distinctly
aggressive stand, but gave out significant statements to the effect that
the condition of the iron and steel market rendered it impossible for
them to continue paying the rate of wages maintained during the previous
year.
These symptoms of depression in one of the most generously protected
industries within a short time after the passage of the McKinley tariff
bill afforded a prolific subject of commentary to the opponents of the
high tariff system. Both political parties made their nominations for
the presidency in the month of June, when the labor trouble was waxing
warm, and it became only too plainly perceptible that, since the
Republican party took its stand mainly on the benefit resulting to
American labor from the protective tariff, Republicanism would be held
answerable by the working classes for the proposed wage reductions in
Pennsylvania. As a matter of fact the efficacy of the tariff as a
wage-maintaining agency had been grossly overdrawn by stump orators and
over-zealous partisan newspapers. For years it had been dinned into the
ears of the workingman that it was his duty to vote for Republican
candidates because the Republicans in Congress maintained the high
protective tariff and the high protective tariff meant high wages.
But now, at the opening of a presidential contest, the workingman was
confronted with what seemed to be proof positive that the high tariff
had lost its virtue, and when the Democratic press pointed to the
astonishing spectacle of wage reductions ordered by the "pampered iron
barons" of Pennsylvania, as illustrating that the protective system was
a sham and a fraud, what wonder that organized labor was quick to accept
the indictment as a just one!
The Democratic national convention did not lose sight of the opportunity
thus offered, and in the platform on which Grover Cleveland was
nominated at Chicago perhaps the most telling plank was that which
denounced the protective system as fraudulent and referred to the
strikes in the iron trade as an immediate attestation of the failure of
"McKinleyism."
Meanwhile, newspapers friendly to President Harrison sought to dissuade
the iron and steel manufacturers from making the threatened cut in wages
and precipitating a general conflict with the operatives. In Pittsburgh,
especially, a bitter discussion was carried on, the papers controlled by
the manufacturers persistently asserting that the tariff has nothing to
do with the making of wage scales and that a general wage reduction and
consequent strikes during a presidential campaign could not be construed
as reflecting upon the efficacy of the McKinley bill and the Republican
party's pledges to American labor; while the Democratic and independent
press subjected the manufacturers to merciless criticism.
All this was full of encouragement to the workingmen. They felt that
their cause was expanding from the dimensions of a mere local trouble to
those of an affair of national importance, affecting the destinies of
the dominant political parties. At Homestead, which had previously been
a Republican stronghold, the Democratic propaganda found special favor.
"If all else should fail us," thought the men, "we can, at least, have
revenge at the polls in November."
And they kept their word.
It is not within the province of the writer of this narrative to analyze
the peculiar aspect put upon the case of the workingmen by political
agitators for campaign purposes. Merely the facts are stated here,
leaving it to the reader to make his own deductions as to the justice or
injustice of the assaults on the American system of protection to labor
provoked by the seeming selfishness of tariff-enriched manufacturers.
Suffice it to state that every shot told and that, if the whole truth
were known, it would be found that political considerations went a long
way to prevent the other manufacturers from joining Mr. Frick in a body
and using their combined resources to destroy the Amalgamated
Association and strip their employees of all means of self-defense.
It will be seen that the position of the Homestead workers was greatly
strengthened by the common danger. Homestead was not to be alone in its
fight. The entire Amalgamated Association was threatened, and the spirit
of mutual helpfulness was, therefore, powerfully stimulated at all
points. The good old unionist principle, "One for all, and all for one,"
was bound to receive a full and magnificent exemplification.
On June 15, the convention of the Amalgamated Association completed the
general wage scale for iron mills and presented it to the manufacturers'
committee. The manufacturers responded by producing a scale of their
own, embodying extensive reductions. This was the beginning of a
dispute, stubborn on both sides, which was kept up long after the final
adjournment of the convention, that body assigning the duty of
conferring with the manufacturers to a special wage committee.
The consideration of the scales for steel mills, including that prepared
by the Homestead lodges, was not completed by the convention until June
23. On that day, a committee, headed by William Roberts, one of the most
intelligent of the Homestead mill workers, appeared at the offices of
the Carnegie Company, on Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, and was escorted to
Mr. H. C. Frick's private
|
Tollemache received me in a private
sitting-room. Bottles containing wines and liqueurs were on the table.
There was a box of cigars and pipes.
[Illustration: "I BADE HIM GOOD-BYE."]
"You have not begun that again?" I could not help saying, glancing
significantly at the spirits as I spoke.
"No," he said, with a grim sort of smile, "I have no craving at
present--if I had, I should indulge. These refreshments are at your
service. At present I drink nothing stronger or more harmful than
soda-water."
"That is right," I said, heartily. Then I seated myself in a chair and
lit a cigar, while Tollemache filled a pipe.
"It is very good of you to give up some of your valuable time to a
worthless chap like me," he said.
There was a strange mingling of gratitude and despair in the words
which aroused my sympathy.
"It was good of you to send for me," I rejoined. "Frankly, I take an
interest in you, but I thought I had scared you the other night. Well,
I promise not to transgress again."
"But I want you to transgress again," said Tollemache. "The fact is,
I have sent for you to-night to give you my confidence. You know the
condition you found me in?"
I nodded.
"I was in a bad way, wasn't I?"
"Very bad."
"Near death--eh?"
"Yes."
"The next attack will prove fatal most likely?"
"Most likely."
Tollemache applied a match to his pipe--he leant back in his chair and
inhaled the narcotic deeply--a thin curl of blue smoke ascended into
the air. He suddenly removed the pipe from his mouth.
"Twenty-three years of age," he said, aloud, "the only son of a
millionaire--a dipsomaniac! Craving comes on about every three to four
months. Have had delirium tremens twice--doctor says third attack will
kill. A gloomy prospect mine, eh, Halifax?"
"You must not sentimentalize over it," I said; "you have got to face
it and trample on the enemy. No man of twenty-three with a frame like
yours and a brain like yours need be conquered by a vice."
"You know nothing about it," he responded, roughly. "When it comes
on me it has the strength of a demon. It shakes my life to the
foundations. My strength goes. I am like Samson shorn of his locks."
"There is not the least doubt," I replied, "that the next time the
attack comes on, you will have to make a desperate fight to conquer
it. You must be helped from outside, for the fearful craving for drink
which men like you possess is a form of disease, and is closely allied
to insanity. How often do you say the craving seizes you?"
"From three to four times a year--in the intervals I don't care if I
never touch a drop of strong drink."
"You ought never to touch wine, or strong drink of any kind; your frame
does not need it, and with your peculiar bias it only acts as fuel to
the hidden fire."
"You want me to be a teetotaler?" responded Tollemache. "I never will.
I'll take no obligatory vow. Fifty vows would not keep me from rushing
over the precipice when the demon is on me."
"I don't want you to take a vow against drink," I said, "as you say
you would break it when the attack comes on. But if you are willing to
fight the thing next time, I wish to say that all the medical skill
I possess is at your service. I have a spare room in my house. Will
you be my guest shortly before the time comes? You are warned of its
approach, surely, by certain symptoms?"
"Yes, I have bad dreams; I am restless and nervous; I am consumed by
thirst. These are but the preliminary symptoms. The full passion, as a
rule, wakens up suddenly, and I am, in short, as a man possessed."
Tollemache looked deeply excited as he spoke. He had forgotten his
pipe, which lay on the table near. Now he sprang to his feet.
"Halifax," he said; "I am the wretched victim of a demon--I often wish
that I were dead!"
[Illustration: "I AM THE WRETCHED VICTIM OF A DEMON."]
"You must fight the thing next time," I said. "It will be an awful
struggle, I don't pretend to deny that; but I believe that you and I
together will be a match for the enemy."
"It's awfully good of you to take me up--'pon my word it is."
"Well, is it a bargain?" I said.
"If you'll have it so."
"You must consider yourself my patient," I continued, "and obey me
implicitly from this moment. It is most important that in the intervals
of the attacks your health should be built up. I should recommend you
to go to Switzerland, to take a sea voyage, or to do anything else
which will completely brace the system. You should also cultivate your
intellectual qualities, by really arduous study for a couple of hours
daily."
"The thing I like best is music."
"Very well, study the theory of music. Don't weaken yourself over the
sentimental parts. If you are really musical, and have taken it up as
a pastime, work at the drudgery part for the next couple of months as
if your bread depended on it. This exercise will put your brain into a
healthy condition, and help to banish morbid thoughts. Then you must
take plenty of exercise. If you go to Switzerland, you must do all the
walking and the tobogganing which the weather will permit. If you go
into the country, you must ride for so many hours daily. In short, it
is your duty to get your body into training condition in order to fight
your deadly enemy with any chance of success."
I spoke purposely in a light, matter-of-fact tone, and saw to my
satisfaction that Tollemache was impressed by my words--he seemed
interested, a shadow of hope flitted across his face, and his view of
his own position was undoubtedly more healthy.
"Above all things, cultivate faith in your own self," I continued.
"No man had ever a stronger reason for wishing to conquer the foe," he
said, suddenly. "Let me show you this."
He took a morocco case out of his pocket, opened it, and put it into my
hand. It contained, as I expected, the photograph of a girl. She was
dark-eyed, young, with a bright, expectant, noble type of face.
"She is waiting for me in New York," he said. "I won't tell you her
name. I have not dared to look at the face for weeks and weeks. She has
promised to marry me when I have abstained for a year. I am not worthy
of her. I shall never win her. Give me the case." He shut it up without
glancing once at the picture, and replaced it in his breast pocket.
"Now you know everything," he said.
"Yes."
Soon afterwards I left him.
Tollemache obeyed my directions. The very next evening a note in his
handwriting was given to me. It contained the simple information that
he was off to Switzerland by the night mail, and would not be back in
England for a couple of months.
I did not forget him during his absence. His face, with its curious
mingling of weakness and power, of pathetic soul-longings and strong
animalism, often rose before me.
One evening towards the end of March I was in my consulting-room
looking up some notes when Tollemache was announced. He came in,
looking fresh and bronzed. There was brightness in his eyes and a
healthy firmness round his lips. He held himself erect. He certainly
was a very fine-looking young fellow.
"Well," he said, "here I am--I promised to come back, and I have kept
my word. Are you ready for me?"
"Quite ready, as a friend," I replied, giving him a hearty shake of the
hand; "but surely you don't need me as a doctor? Why, my dear fellow,
you are in splendid case."
He sat down in the nearest chair.
"Granted," he replied. "Your prescription worked wonders. I can sleep
well, and eat well. I am a good climber. My muscles are in first-class
order. I used to be a famous boxer in New York, and I should not be
afraid to indulge in that pastime now. Yes, I am in capital health;
nevertheless," here he dropped his voice to a whisper, "the premonitory
symptoms of the next attack have begun."
I could not help starting.
"They have begun," he continued: "the thirst, the sense of uneasiness,
the bad dreams."
"Well," I replied, as cheerfully as I could, "you are just in the
condition to make a brave and successful fight. I have carefully
studied cases like yours in your absence, and I am equipped to help you
at all points. You must expect a bad fortnight. At the end of that time
you will be on _terra firma_ and will be practically safe. Now, will
you come and stay with me?--you know I have placed a bedroom at your
disposal."
"Thanks, but it is not necessary for me to do that yet. I will go to my
old quarters at Mercer's Hotel, and will give you my word of honour to
come here the first moment that I feel my self-control quite going."
"I would rather you came here at once."
"It is not necessary, I assure you. These symptoms may vanish again
completely for a time, and although they will inevitably return, and
the deadly thing must be fought out to the bitter end, yet a long
interval may elapse before this takes place. I promised you to come to
England the moment the first unpropitious symptom appeared. I shall
be in your vicinity at Mercer's, and can get your assistance at any
moment; but it is unfair to take possession of your spare room at this
early date."
I could not urge the matter any farther. Helpful as I wished to be to
this young man, I knew that he must virtually cure himself. I could not
take his free will from him. I gave him some directions, therefore,
which I hoped might be useful: begged of him to fill up all his time
with work and amusement, and promised to go to him the first moment he
sent for me.
He said he would call me in as soon as ever he found his symptoms
growing worse, and went away with a look of courage and resolution on
his face.
I felt sure that he was thinking of the girl whose photograph he
held near his heart. Was he ever likely to win her? She was not a
milk-and-water maiden, I felt convinced. There was steel as well as
fire in those eyes. If she ever consented to become Tollemache's wife,
she would undoubtedly keep him straight--but she was no fool. She knew
the uselessness of throwing herself away on a drunkard.
Tollemache came to see me on the Monday of a certain week. On the
following Thursday morning, just after I had finished seeing the last
of my patients, my servant brought me a letter from him.
"This should have been handed to you yesterday," he said. "It had
slipped under a paper in the letter-box. The housemaid has only just
discovered it."
I opened it quickly. It contained these words:--
"DEAR HALIFAX,--The demon gains ascendency over me, but I still hold
him in check. Can you dine with me to-night at half-past seven? "Yours
sincerely,
"WILFRED TOLLEMACHE."
The letter was dated Wednesday morning. I should have received it
twenty-four hours ago. Smothering a vexed exclamation, I rushed off to
Mercer's Hotel.
I asked for Tollemache, but was told by one of the waiters that he was
out. I reflected for a moment and then inquired for the manager.
He came out into the entrance-hall in answer to my wish to see him, and
invited me to come with him into his private sitting-room.
"What can I do for you, Dr. Halifax?" he asked.
"Well, not much," I answered, "unless you can give me some particulars
with regard to Mr. Tollemache."
"He is not in, doctor. He went out last night, between nine and ten
o'clock, and has not yet returned."
"I am anxious about him," I said. "I don't think he is quite well."
"As you mention the fact, doctor, I am bound to agree with you. Mr.
Tollemache came in between six and seven last night in a very excited
condition. He ran up to his rooms, where he had ordered dinner for two,
and then came down to the bureau to know if any note or message had
been left for him. I gathered from him that he expected to hear from
you, sir."
[Illustration: "IN A VERY EXCITED CONDITION."]
"I am more vexed than I can express," I replied. "He wrote yesterday
morning asking me to dine with him, and through a mistake the letter
never got into my possession until twenty-four hours after it was
written."
"Poor young gentleman," replied the manager, "then that accounts for
the worry he seemed to be in. He couldn't rest, but was up and down,
watching, as I gather now, for your arrival, doctor. He left the house
soon after nine o'clock without touching his dinner, and has not since
returned."
"Have you the least idea where he is?" I asked.
"No, sir, not the faintest; Mr. Tollemache has left all his things
about and has not paid his bill, so of course he's safe to come back,
and may do so at any moment. Shall I send you word when he arrives?"
"Yes, pray do," I answered. "Let me know the moment you get any tidings
about him."
I then went away.
The manager had strict orders to give me the earliest information with
regard to the poor fellow, and there was now nothing whatever for me to
do but to try to banish him from my mind.
The next morning I went at an early hour to Mercer's to make inquiries.
The manager came himself into the entrance-hall to see me.
"There's been no news, sir," he said, shaking his head: "not a line
or a message of any sort. I hope no harm has happened to the poor
gentleman. It seems a pity you shouldn't have got the letter, doctor,
he seemed in a cruel way about your not turning up."
"Yes, it was a sad mistake," I answered, "but we must trust that no
disaster has occurred. If Mr. Tollemache were quite well, I should not,
of course, trouble my head over the matter."
"He was far from being that," said a waiter who came up at this moment.
"Did you tell the doctor, sir, about the lady who called yesterday?"
continued the man, addressing the manager.
"No, I had almost forgotten," he replied. "A lady in deep
mourning--young, I should say, but she kept her veil down--arrived here
last evening about eight o'clock and asked for Mr. Tollemache. I said
he was out, and asked if she would wish her name to be left. She seemed
to think for a moment and then said 'No,' that it didn't matter. She
said she would come again, when she hoped to see him."
In his intercourse with me, Tollemache had never spoken of any lady
but one, and her photograph he kept in his breast pocket. I wondered
if this girl could possibly have been to see him, and, acting on the
conjecture that the visitor might be she, I spoke.
"If the lady happens to call again," I said, "you may mention to her
that I am Mr. Tollemache's medical man, and that I will see her with
pleasure if she likes to come to my house in Harley Street." I then
further impressed upon the manager the necessity of letting me know the
moment any tidings came of Tollemache, and went away.
Nothing fresh occurred that evening, but the next morning, just when I
had seen the last of my patients, a lady's card was put into my hand.
I read the name on it, "Miss Beatrice Sinclair." A kind of premonition
told me that Beatrice Sinclair had something to do with Tollemache. I
desired my servant to admit her at once.
The next moment a tall girl, in very deep mourning, with a crape veil
over her face, entered the room. She bowed to me, but did not speak
for nearly half a minute. I motioned her to seat herself. She did so,
putting up her hand at the same moment to remove her veil. I could not
help starting when I saw her face. I bent suddenly forward and said,
impulsively:--
"I know what you have come about--you are anxious about Wilfred
Tollemache."
She looked at me in unfeigned surprise, and a flood of colour rushed
to her pale cheeks. She was a handsome girl--her eyes were dark, her
mouth tender and beautiful. There was strength about her face--her
chin was very firm. Yes, I had seen those features before--or, rather,
a faithful representation of them. Beatrice Sinclair had a face not
easily forgotten.
"If this girl is Tollemache's good angel, there is undoubtedly hope for
him," I murmured.
[Illustration: "I COULD NOT HELP STARTING WHEN I SAW HER FACE."]
Meanwhile, the astonished look on her face gave way to speech.
"How can you possibly know me?" she said. "I have never seen you until
this moment."
"I am Tollemache's doctor, and once he told me about you," I said. "On
that occasion, too, he showed me your photograph."
Miss Sinclair rose in excitement from her seat. She had all the
indescribable grace of a well-bred American girl.
"The fact of your knowing something about me makes matters much
easier," she said. "May I tell you my story in a very few words?"
"Certainly."
"My name, as you know, is Beatrice Sinclair. I am an American, and have
spent the greater part of my life in New York. I am an only child,
and my father, who was a general in the American army, died only a
week ago. It is three years since I engaged myself provisionally to
Wilfred Tollemache. We had known each other from childhood. He spoke
of his attachment to me; he also told me"--here she hesitated and her
voice trembled--"of," she continued, raising her eyes, "a fearful vice
which was gaining the mastery over him. You know to what I allude.
Wilfred was fast becoming a dipsomaniac. I would not give him up,
but neither would I marry a man addicted to so terrible a failing. I
talked to my father about it, and we agreed that if Wilfred abstained
from drink for a year, I might marry him. He left us--that is three
years ago. He has not written to me since, nor have I heard of him. I
grew restless at last, for I--I have never ceased to love him. I have
had bad dreams about him, and it seems to me that his redemption has
been placed in my hands. I induced my father to bring me to Europe and
finally to London. We arrived in London three weeks ago, and took up
our quarters at the Métrôpole. We employed a clever detective to find
out Wilfred Tollemache's whereabouts. A week ago this man brought us
the information that he had rooms at Mercer's Hotel. Alas! on that
day, also, my father died suddenly. I am now alone in the world. Two
evenings ago I went to Mercer's Hotel to inquire for Mr. Tollemache.
He was not in, and I went away. I returned to the hotel again this
morning. Your message was given to me, and I came on to you at once.
The manager of the hotel told me that you were Mr. Tollemache's medical
man. If he needed the services of a doctor he must have been ill. Has
he been ill? Can you tell me anything about him?"
"I can tell you a good deal about him. Won't you sit down?"
She dropped into a chair immediately, clasping her hands in her lap;
her eyes were fixed on my face.
"You are right in your conjecture," I said. "Tollemache has been ill."
"Is he alive?"
"As far as I can tell, yes."
Her lips quivered.
"Don't you know where he is now?" she asked.
"I deeply regret that I do not," I answered.
She looked at me again with great eagerness.
"I know that you will tell me the truth," she continued, almost in a
whisper. "I owe it to my dead father not to go against his wishes now.
What was the nature of Mr. Tollemache's illness?"
"Delirium tremens," I replied, firmly.
Miss Sinclair's face grew the colour of death.
"I might have guessed it," she said. "I hoped, but my hope was vain. He
has not fought--he has not struggled--he has not conquered."
"You are mistaken," I answered; "Tollemache has both fought and
struggled, but up to the present he has certainly won no victory. Let
me tell you what I know about him."
I then briefly related the story of our acquaintance. I concealed
nothing, dwelling fully on the terrible nature of poor Tollemache's
malady. I described to Miss Sinclair the depression, the despair, the
overpowering moral weakness which accompanies the indulgence in this
fearful vice. In short, I lifted the curtain, as I felt it was my duty
to do, and showed the poor girl a true picture of the man to whom she
had given her heart.
"Is there no hope for him?" she asked, when I had finished speaking.
"You are the only hope," I replied. "The last rock to which he clings
is your affection for him. He was prepared to make a desperate fight
when the next craving for drink assailed him. You were the motive which
made him willing to undergo the agony of such a struggle. I look upon
the passion for drink as a distinct disease: in short, as a species of
insanity. I was prepared to see Tollemache through the next attack.
If he endured the torture without once giving way to the craving for
drink, he would certainly be on the high road to recovery. I meant to
have him in my own house. In short, hopeless as his case seemed, I had
every hope of him."
I paused here.
"Yes?" said Miss Sinclair. "I see that you are good and kind. Why do
you stop? Why isn't Wilfred Tollemache here?"
"My dear young lady," I replied, "the best-laid plans are liable to
mishap. Three days ago, Tollemache wrote to me telling me that he was
in the grip of the enemy, and asking me to come to him at once. Most
unfortunately, that letter was not put into my hands until twenty-four
hours after it should have been delivered. I was not able to keep the
appointment which Tollemache had made with me, as I knew nothing about
it until long after the appointed hour. The poor fellow left the hotel
that night, and has not since returned."
[Illustration: "IS THERE NO HOPE?"]
"And you know nothing about him?"
"Nothing."
I rose as I spoke. Miss Sinclair looked at me.
"Have you no plan to suggest?" she asked.
"No," I said, "there is nothing for us to do but to wait. I will not
conceal from you that I am anxious, but at the same time my anxiety may
be groundless. Tollemache may return to Mercer's at any moment. As soon
as ever he does, you may be sure that I will communicate with you."
I had scarcely said these words before my servant came in with a note.
"From Mercer's Hotel, sir," he said, "and the messenger is waiting."
"I will send an answer in a moment," I said.
The man withdrew--Miss Sinclair came close to me.
"Open that letter quickly," she said, in an imperative voice. "It is
from the hotel. He may be there even now."
I tore open the envelope. There was a line from the manager within.
"DEAR SIR,--I send you the enclosed. I propose to forward the
dressing-case at once by a commissionaire."
The enclosed was a telegram. The following were its brief contents:--
"Send me my dressing-case immediately by a private messenger.--Wilfred
Tollemache."
An address was given in full beneath:--
"The Cedars, 110, Harvey Road, Balham."
I knew that Miss Sinclair was looking over my shoulder as I read. I
turned and faced her.
Her eyes were blazing with a curious mixture of joy, excitement, and
fear.
"Let us go to him," she exclaimed; "let us go to him at once. Let us
take him the dressing-case."
I folded up the telegram and put it into my pocket.
Then I crossed the room and rang the bell. When my servant appeared, I
gave him the following message:--
"Tell the messenger from Mercer's," I said, "that I will be round
immediately, and tell him to ask the manager to do nothing until I
come."
My servant withdrew and Miss Sinclair moved impatiently towards the
door.
"Let us go," she said: "there is not a moment to lose. Let us take the
dressing-case ourselves."
"I will take it," I replied; "you must not come."
"Why?" she asked, keen remonstrance in her tone.
"Because I can do better without you," I replied, firmly.
"I do not believe it," she answered.
"I cannot allow you to come with me," I said. "You must accept this
decision as final. You have had patience for three years; exercise it
a little longer, and--God knows, perhaps you may be rewarded. Anyhow,
you must trust me to do the best I can for Tollemache. Go back to the
Métrôpole. I will let you know as soon as I have any news. You will, I
am sure, trust me?"
"Oh, fully," she replied, tears suddenly filling her lovely eyes. "But
remember that I love him--I love him with a very deep love."
There was something noble in the way she made this emphatic statement.
I took her hand and led her from the room. A moment later she had left
me, and I was hurrying on foot to Mercer's Hotel.
The manager was waiting for me in the hall. He had the dressing-case in
his hand.
"Shall I send this by a commissionaire?" he asked.
"No," I replied, "I should prefer to take it myself. Tell the porter to
call a hansom for me immediately."
The man looked immensely relieved.
"That is good of you, doctor," he said; "the fact is, I don't like the
sound of that address."
"Nor do I," I replied.
"Do you know, Dr. Halifax, that the young lady--Miss Sinclair, she
called herself--came here again this morning?"
"I have just seen her," I answered.
The hall porter now came to tell me that the hansom was at the door. A
moment later I was driving to Balham, the dressing-case on my knee.
[Illustration: "A MOMENT LATER I WAS DRIVING TO BALHAM."]
From Mercer's Hotel to this suburb is a distance of several miles, but
fortunately the horse was fresh and we got over the ground quickly. As
I drove along my meditations were full of strange apprehensions.
Tollemache had now been absent from Mercer's Hotel for two days and
three nights. What kind of place was Harvey Road? What kind of house
was 110? Why did Tollemache want his dressing-case? And why, if he did
want it, could not he fetch it himself? The case had been a favourite
of his--it had been a present from his mother, who was now dead. He had
shown it to me one evening, and had expatiated with pride on its unique
character. It was a sort of _multum in parvo_, containing many pockets
and drawers not ordinarily found in a dressing-case. I recalled to mind
the evening when Tollemache had brought it out of his adjacent bedroom
and opened it for my benefit. All its accoutrements were heavily
mounted in richly embossed silver. There was a special flap into which
his cheque-book fitted admirably. Under the flap was a drawer, which
he pulled open and regaled my astonished eyes with a quantity of loose
diamonds and rubies which lay in the bottom.
"I picked up the diamonds in Cape Town," he said, "and the rubies in
Ceylon. One or two of the latter are, I know, of exceptional value, and
when I bought them I hoped that they might be of use----"
Here he broke off abruptly, coloured, sighed, and slipped the drawer
back into its place.
It was easy to guess where his thoughts were.
Now that I had seen Miss Sinclair, I felt that I could better
understand poor Tollemache. Such a girl was worth a hard fight to win.
No wonder Tollemache hated himself when he felt his own want of moral
strength, and knew that the prize of such a love as hers might never be
his.
I knew well that the delay in the delivery of the note was terribly
against the poor fellow's chance of recovery, and as I drove quickly to
Balham, my uneasiness grew greater and greater. Was he already in the
clutches of his foe when he sent that telegram? I felt sure that he was
not in immediate need of cash, as he had mentioned to me incidentally
in our last interview that he had drawn a large sum from his bank as
soon as ever he arrived in England.
We arrived at Balham in about an hour, but my driver had some
difficulty in finding Harvey Road.
At last, after skirting Tooting Bee Common we met a policeman who was
able to acquaint us with its locality. We entered a long, straggling,
slummy-looking road, and after a time pulled up at 110. It was a tall
house, with broken and dirty Venetian blinds. The hall door was almost
destitute of paint. A balcony ran round the windows of the first floor.
I did not like the look of the house, and it suddenly occurred to me
that I would not run the risk of bringing the dressing-case into it.
I had noticed the name of a respectable chemist over a shop in the High
Street, a good mile away, and desired the driver to go back there at
once.
He did so. I entered the shop, carrying the case in my hand. I gave the
chemist my card, and asked him if he would oblige me by taking care of
the dressing-case for an hour. He promised civilly to do what I asked,
and I stepped once more into the hansom and told the man to drive back
as fast as he could to 110, Harvey Road.
He obeyed my instructions. The moment the hansom drew up at the door, I
sprang out and spoke to the driver.
"I want you to remain here," I said. "Don't on any account leave this
door until I come out. I don't like the look of the house."
The man gave it a glance of quick interrogation. He did not say
anything, but the expression of his eyes showed me plainly that he
confirmed my opinion.
"I think you understand me," I said. "Stay here until you see me again,
and if I require you to fetch a policeman, be as quick about it as you
can."
The man nodded, and I ran up the broken steps of 110.
The door possessed no knocker, but there was a bell at the side.
I had to pull it twice before it was answered; then a slatternly and
tawdrily dressed servant put in an appearance. Her face was dirty. She
had pinned a cap in hot haste on her frowzy head of red hair, and was
struggling to tie an apron as she opened the door.
"Is Mr. Tollemache in?" I asked. "I wish to see him at once."
The girl's face became watchful and secretive--she placed herself
between me and the hall.
"There's a gentleman upstairs," she said; "but you can't see him, he's
ill."
"Oh, yes, I can," I answered. "I am his doctor--let me pass, please.
Mr. Tollemache has telegraphed for his dressing-case, and I have
replied to the telegram."
"Oh, if you have brought the parcel, you can go up," she said, in a
voice of great relief. "I know they're expecting a parcel. You'll find
'em all on the first floor. Door just opposite the stairs--you can't
miss it."
I pushed past her and ran up the stairs. They were narrow and dark. The
carpet on which I trod felt greasy.
I flung open the door the girl had indicated, and found myself in a
good-sized sitting-room. It faced the street, and the window had a
balcony outside it.
Seated by a centre table drawn rather near this window were three men,
with the most diabolical faces I have ever looked at. One of them was
busily engaged trying to copy poor Tollemache's signature, which was
scrawled on a half sheet of paper in front of him--the other two were
eagerly watching his attempts. Tollemache himself lay in a dead drunken
sleep on the sofa behind them.
My entrance was so unexpected that none of the men were prepared for
me. I stepped straight up to the table, quickly grabbed the two sheets
of paper, crushed them up in my hand, and thrust them into my pocket.
"I have come to fetch Mr. Tollemache away," I said.
The men were so absolutely astonished at my action and my words, that
they did not speak at all for a moment. They all three jumped from
their seats at the table and stood facing me. The noise they made
pushing back their chairs aroused Tollemache, who, seeing me, tottered
to his feet and came towards me with a shambling, uneasy gait.
"Hullo, Halifax, old man, how are you?" he gasped, with a drunken
smile. "What are you doing here? We're all having a ripping time: lots
of champagne; but I've lost my watch and chain and all my money--three
hundred pounds--I've telegraphed for my cheque-book, though. Glad
you've come, old boy--'pon my word I am. Want to go away with you,
although we have had a ripping time, yes, _awfully_ ripping."
"You shall come," I said. "Sit down first for a moment."
I pushed him back with some force on to the sofa and turned to one of
the men, who now came up and asked me my business.
"What are you doing here?" he inquired. "We don't want you--you had
better get out of this as fast as you can. You have no business here,
so get out."
"Yes, I have business here," I replied. "I have come for this man,"
here I went up to Tollemache and laid my hand on his shoulder. "I am
his doctor and he is under my charge. I don't leave here without him,
and, what is more," I added, "I don't leave here without his property
either. You must give me back his watch and chain and the three hundred
pounds you have robbed him of. Now you understand what I want?"
"We'll see about that," said one of the men, significantly. He left the
room as he spoke.
During his absence, the other men stood perfectly quiet, eyeing me with
furtive and stealthy glances.
Poor Tollemache sat upright on the sofa, blinking with his heavy eyes.
Sometimes he tried to rise, but always sank back again on his seat.
During the whole time he kept muttering to himself:--
"Yes, good fellows these: jolly time, champagne, all the rest, but _I'm
robbed_; this is a thieves' den. Don't leave me alone, Halifax. Want to
go. You undershtand. Watch and chain gone, and _all my money_; three
hundred in notes and gold. Yes, three hundred. Won't let me go till I
give 'em my cheque-book; telegraphed for cheque-book in dressing-case.
You undershtand, yes. Don't leave me, old boy."
"It will be all right," I said. "Stay quiet."
The position was one of extreme danger for both of us. There was
nothing whatever for it but to carry matters with a cool hand and not
to show a vestige of fear. I glanced round me and observed the position
of the room. The sofa on which Tollemache was sitting was close
|
Frequent Discourtesy in ignoring the
Presence of Ladies in Public Parlors, etc. etc.--Politeness
due to Women, in Practical Emergencies--Nocturnal
Peccadilloes--Travelling--True Rules--Courtesy to Ladies, to
Age, to the Suffering--Indecorum of using Tobacco, etc. etc.,
in Public Conveyances--Ceremony a Shield, but not an
Excuse--A Challenge Extraordinary--Anecdote of P----, the
Poet--Practice and Tact essential to secure Polish of
Manner--Life-long Stumbling--Practical Rules, the result of
Annoying Experience--Carriage Hire--Driving with Ladies,
etc.,--Manner in Social Intercourse--As Host--Etiquette of
Dinners at Home--Precedence--Distinguished Guests--A Lady--A
Gentleman--Reception and Introduction of Guests--True
Hospitality as Host, better than mere Ceremony--Manner
towards those unacquainted with Conventional Rules--Manner at
Routs, at Home--Attention to Guests compatible with good
_ton_--Anecdote--Respect to be rendered to all one's
Acquaintances in General Society--To Married Ladies--To
Strangers--The Distinction thus Exhibited between the
Under-bred and the genuine Man of the World--No one
entitled to Self-Excuses in this Regard, 157
ANECDOTES, SKETCHES, ETC.
A PROPHESY.--Table-Talk--A Rescue and a Lady's Gratitude
--Jealousy Disarmed--Backwoodsmen--Cordiality--Costume and
Courtesy--Retort Courteous--An Interpolation and a Protest
--Mr. Clay's Popularity with the Fair--Secret of his Success
in Society--Mr. Clay and the _Belle Esprit_--A Definition
of Politeness--A Comical Illustration--A Pun--A well-turned
Compliment--Unconsciousness of Self--A Stranger's Impressions
--A Poetic Tribute, 179
THE DEVOTEE OF THE BEAUTIFUL.--A Morning Drive--Anticipation
--Spiritual Enjoyment--Discord--A Disappointment, 184
THE SOLDIER'S WIFE AND THE GHOUL.--A Journey--The truly Brave
--The Arrival--A Chapter of Accidents--Self-Reproach--The
Ghoul--The Calmness of Despair--The Versatility of Woman--
But a Step from the Sublime to the Ridiculous--The Ghoul
again--A Defiant Spirit--Punctilious Ceremony, 186
A FAIR CHAMPION.--A Query and its Solution--A Sketch--Raillery
--A Tête-à-Tête--An Interruption--"Fashionable" Hospitality--
Genuine Hospitality--A Mother's Advice--An indignant Spirit--
Rebellion, 193
THE MAN OF ONE IDEA.--An Object for Worship--A Soirée--A
Polite Colloquy--The Host at Ease--A pleasing Hostess--The
Climax, 198
Young America--an Anecdote, 200
THE PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHER.--A handsome Aristocrat--An
Accusation--A Courteous Neighbor--Fall of a "Fixed Star"
--Favorite Aphorism of Mrs. Combe--The Daughter of the
Siddons, 201
LETTER VII.
HEALTH.
THE TOILET, AS CONNECTED WITH HEALTH.
The True Basis of Health--Temperance an inclusive Term
--Foundation of the Eminence of J. Q. Adams--His Life a
Model for the Young--His early Habits--Vigorous Old Age--
Example of Franklin in regard to Temperance--Illustrations
afforded by our National History--The Bath--Varying Opinions
and Constitutions--Imprudent use of the Bath--Bishop Heber--
General Directions--The Art of Swimming--Sponging--
Deficiencies of the Toilet in England--Collateral Benefits
arising from habitual Sponge-bathing--The Hair--All Fantastic
Dressing of the Hair in bad taste--Use of Pomades--Vulgarity
of using Strong Perfumes--The Teeth--Use of Tobacco--Smoke
Dispellers--The Nails--The Feet--A complete Wardrobe essential
to Health--Early Rising--Its manifold Advantages--Example of
Washington, Franklin, etc., in this respect--Daniel Webster's
Eulogy upon Morning--Retiring early--Truth of a Medical Dogma
--Opposition of Fashion and Health--Early Hours essential to
the Student--Importance of the early Acquisition of Correct
Habits in this Regard--Illustration--A combination of Right
Habits essential to Health--Exercise--Walking--Pure Air--The
Lungs of a City--Superiority of Morning Air--An Erect Carriage
of the Body in Walking--Periodical Exercise--Necessary Caution
--The Unwise Student--A Warning--A Knowledge of Dietetics and
Physiology requisite to the Preservation of Health--Suitable
Works on these Subjects--Riding and Driving the Accomplishments
of a Gentleman--A Horse a desirable Possession--Testimony of
Dr. Johnson--The Pride of Skill--Needful Caution--Judicious
Selection of _Locale_ for these Modes of Exercise--Dr. Beatie's
Tribute to Nature--Importance of Temperance in Eating and
Drinking, as regards Health--The Cultivation of Simple Tastes
in Eating--Proper Preparation of Food Important to Health--
Re-action of the Human Constitution--Effect of Bodily Health
upon the Mind--The pernicious Use of Condiments, etc., etc.
--YOUNG AMBITION'S LADDER.--Hours for Meals--Dining Late--
Injurious Effects of Prolonged Abstinence--The Stimulus of
Distension--Repletion--Necessity of deliberate and thorough
Mastication--Judicious Use of Time in Eating--The Use of Wine,
Tobacco, etc.--The truly Free!--Dr. Johnson's Opinion--Novel
Argument against the Habits of Smoking and Drinking--Advice
of Sir Walter Raleigh to the Young--Then and Now--Council of
a "Looker-on" in this Utilitarian Age--Erroneous Impressions
--Authority of a celebrated Writer--Social Duties--The unbent
Bow--Rational Enjoyment the wisest Obedience to the Natural
Laws--A determined Pursuit in Life essential to Happiness and
Health--Too entire Devotion to a Single Object of Pursuit,
unwise--Arcadian Dreams--Attainable Realities--Truisms--Decay
of the Social and Domestic Virtues--Human Sacrifices--
Relaxations and Amusements requisite to Health--Superiority
of Amusements in the Open Air for Students and Sedentary
Persons generally--Benefits of Cheerful Companionship--
Objection to Games, etc., that require Mental Exertion--
Converse Rule--Fashionable Watering-places ill adapted to
Health--Avocations of the Farmer, Tastes as a Naturalist,
Travel, Sporting, etc., recommended--Depraved Public Taste
--Slavery to Fashion--Habits of Europeans, in this respect,
superior to our own--Modern Degeneracy--Folly thralled by
Pride, 203
ILLUSTRATIVE SKETCHES AND ANECDOTES.
TO GIVE ETERNITY TO TIME.--The Senate-Chamber and the Dying
Statesman--The Moral Sublime, 225
JONATHAN'S SINS AND A FOREIGNER'S PECCADILLO.--Celebrities
--Dinner-table Sallies--Grave Charges--Yankee Rejection of
Cold Meats--Self-Preservation the First Law of Nature!--
A Mystery Solved--National Impartiality--Anecdote--Storming
a Fort--Successful Defence, by a Lady, of herself!--A
Stratagem--The Daughter of a Gun--An Explanation--The
Tortures of Outraged Modesty, 226
Dr. Abernethy and his Yankee Patient, 232
COSMOPOLITAN CHIT-CHAT.--A Heterogeneous Party--The Golden
Horn--Contemplations in a Turkish Caique--A Discussion--
"Christian Dogs" and the Dogs of Constantinople--An
unpleasant Discovery--A Magical Touch--The Song of the
Caidjis--A National Example, 232
THE IMPERTURBABLE GUEST.--A Dinner-Table Scene, 238
The Youth and the Philosopher: Lines by Whitehead, 239
LETTER VIII.
LETTER-WRITING.
Importance of this Branch of Education--Its Frequent Neglect
--Usual Faults of the Epistolary Style--Applicability of
the rule of the Lightning-Tamer--Variety of Styles appropriate
to varying Subjects and Occasions--Impossibility of laying
down all-inclusive General Rules--Requisites of Letters of
Business--Legibility in Caligraphy--Affectation in this
respect--Avoidance of Servile Imitation--Advantage of
possessing a good Business-hand--Time-saving Importance of
Rapidity--Letters of Introduction--Form Suitable for Ordinary
Purposes--Specimen of Letters Introducing a Person in Search
of a Business Situation, Place of Residence, etc., etc.--
Introduction of Artists, Professional Men, etc.--Presenting a
Celebrity by Letter--Proper Attention to Titles, Modes of
abbreviating Titles, etc., etc.--Letters of Introduction to
be unsealed--Manner of Delivering Letters of Introduction--
Cards, Envelopes, Written Messages, etc., proper on such
Occasions--Appointments and due Courtesy, etc.--Form of
Letter to a Lady of Fashion--Etiquette in regard to Addresses
--Letters Presenting Foreigners--Personal Introductions--
Common Neglect of Etiquette in this respect--Proper Mode of
Introducing Young Persons, or those of inferior social
position--Of Introducing Men to Women, very Young Ladies,
etc.--Voice and Manner on such Occasions--Explanations due to
Strangers--Common Social Improprieties--American Peculiarity
--Hotel Registers, etc.--Courtesy due to Relations as well as
to Strangers--Impropriety of indiscriminate Introductions--
Preliminary Ceremonies among Men--In the Street--At Dinners
--Evening-Parties--Receptions--Conventional Rules subject to
Changes, dictated by good-sense--Supremacy of the Law of
Kindness--Visiting Cards--European Fashion of Cards--Style
usual in America--Place of Residence--Phrases for Cards
--Business Cards: Ornaments, Devices, Color, Size,
Legibility, etc.--Letters of Recommendation--Moral
Characteristic--Proper Style of Letters of Condolence--
Form of Letters of Congratulation--Admissibility of Brevity
--Letters to Superiors--Ceremonious Form for such
Communications--Proper Mode of Addressing Entire Strangers
--Common Error in this respect--Punch's Sarcasm--Diplomats
and Public Functionaries should be Models in Letter-writing
--An Enigma--Diplomatic Letters--Letters of Friendship and
Affection--General Requisites of Epistolary Composition--
Letters a Means of conferring and Receiving Pleasure--
Distinctive Characteristic of the Epistolary Style--
Peccadilloes--Aids facilitating the Practice in this
Accomplishment--Notes of Invitation, Acceptance, Regret
--Observance of Usage--Simplicity the best _ton_ and taste
--Etiquette with regard to Invitations to Dinner--Courtesy
in Matters of Social Life--Error of an American Author--
Ceremony properly preceding taking an uninvited Friend to
a Party--Abstract good-breeding the best Test of Propriety
--Proper form of Ceremonious Notes of Invitation--Use of
the Third Person in writing Notes--Mailed Letters--Local
Addresses, Form of Signature, etc., etc.--Requisites of
Letter-Superscription--Writing-Materials--Small Sheets,
Margins, etc.--Colored Paper, Fanciful Ornaments, Initials,
&c.--Envelopes and Superscription--Wax, Seals, etc.--European
Letters--Rule--Promptitude in Letter-writing--Study of
Published Models beneficial to the Young--Scott, Byron,
Moore, Horace Walpole, Washington--Sir W. W. Pepys, etc.
--Curiosities of the Epistolary Style--Anticipated Pleasure, 241
ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE WARNING--A SKETCH OF NILE-TRAVEL.--A Group and a Dialogue
amid the Ruins of Thebes--Mustapha Aga and the Temple of
Karnac--The Arrival--The Distribution--Delights,
Disappointments, and Despair, 268
Anecdote of the Mighty Wizard of the North, 273
A DRAWING-ROOM COTERIE OF CRITICISM.--The Library and the
Intruder--Paternal Authority--Condemnation--Comments and
Criticisms--A Compliment--A fair Bevy--Wit and Wisdom--
Sport and Seriousness--A Model Note and a Fair Eulogist--
Paternal Approbation--What American Merchants should be
--An Anecdote--Discoveries and Accessions--_Apropos_--Fair
Play and a _Ruse_--A Group of Critics--An Invitation--A
Rival--An Explanation and an Admission--A Rescue and Retreat
--An Old Man's Privilege--Seventeen and Eighty-two--May and
December, 273
The First Billet-Doux, 284
LETTER IX.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
Comparative Importance of Accomplishments--Difference between
Europeans and Americans in this regard--Self-Education the
most Useful--Peculiar Incentives to Self-Culture possessed by
Americans--Cultivation of a Taste for the Ideal Arts--
Desirableness of a Knowledge of Drawing--Incidental Benefit
resulting from the Practice of this Art--A Taste for Music--
Mistaken Conceptions of the Importance of this Accomplishment
--Advantage of learning Dancing--Desirableness of Riding and
Driving--Various Athletic Exercises--A ready and graceful
Elocution of great Importance--A Source of Social Enjoyment
--The Art of Conversation--Use of Slang Phrases--Disadvantages
of Occasional Lenity towards the Corruptions of Language--
The only Safe Rule--Common want of Conversational Power--
The Superiority of the French over all other People in this
Respect--The Salons of Paris--Pleasures of the _Canaille_--
French Children--Practice essential to Success--The
Embellishments of Conversation--Habits of a Celebrated Talker
--Anecdote of Sheridan--Some Preparation not Unsuitable before
going into Society--Qualities most essential to secure
Popularity in General Society--The "Guilt of giving
Pain"--Avoidance of Personalities--The Language of
Compliment--Two Good Rules--Reprehensibleness of the Habit of
indulging in Gossip, Scandal, or Puerile Conversation--The
Records of "Heaven's High Chancery"--Importance of Exact
Truthfulness in Conversation--The Capacity of adapting
Language to Occasions of Importance--Use of Foreign Phrases
or Words--Tact and Good-Breeding the Safest Guides in such
Matters--Advantage of the Companionship of Cultivated
Persons, in Promoting Conversational Skill--Misuse of Strong
Language--Conversational Courtesies--Aphorism by Mr.
Madison--Modesty Proper to the Young in this Respect--Bad
taste of talking of one's self in Society--The World an
Unsuitable Confidant--Quotation from Carlyle--Sympathy with
Others--The softer graces of Social Intercourse--Cheerfulness
universally Agreeable--A Glee in which Everybody can join
--Anecdote--Human Sunbeams--Judicious selection of
Conversational Topics--Avoidance of Assumption and
Dictatorialness--Proper Regard for the Right of Opinion
--Courtesy due to Ladies and Clergymen--Folly of
Promulgating Peculiarities of Religious Opinion--Rudeness
of manifesting Undue Curiosity respecting the Affairs of
Others--Boasting of Friends--Anecdote--Quickness at Repartee,
one of the Colloquial Graces--Dean Swift and his "fellow"--
Anecdote of the Elder Adams--A Ready and Graceful Reply
to a Compliment not to be Disregarded among the Elegancies
of Conversation--The Retort Courteous--Lady Hamilton and
Lord Nelson--Specimens of Polite Phraseology--General
Conversation with Ladies--Essential Characteristics of
Light Conversation--Improprieties and Familiarities--
Disagreeable Peculiarities--A Dismal Character--Anecdote
of Cuvier--Tact in Avoiding Personal Allusions--Peculiarity
of American Society--Ages of the Loves and Graces--A Young
Jonathan and an English Girl--Violation of Confidence--
Sacredness of Private Conversations--Politeness of a Ready
Compliance with the Wishes of Others in Society, 286
ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES AND SKETCHES.
SANG FROID AND SANDWICHES.--A Ride with a Duke--The eager
young Sportsman--A Rencontre--A Query and a Response--A
substantial _Bonne Bouche_, 312
A Frenchman's Relaxation, 314
Polemics and Politeness--Watering-place Society--Omnibus
Orations--Sulphur-water and Sacrifices--Religionists, Ladies
and License, Reaction and Remorse, 315
An unexpected Declaration--Parisian _furore_--The unknown
Patient--Practice and Pathos, 317
The Three Graces--Honor to whom Honor was Due--A Group for a
Sculptor--Woman's Wit, 318
Scene in a Drawing-room, 320
Musical Mania--Guitar playing and the play of Intellect, 321
A Fair Discussion, 323
National Dialect--A Bagatelle, 324
A Murillo and a Living Study--A Morning in the Louvre with a
congenial Friend--A Painter's Advice--True Epicureanism, 326
Ready Elocution and Ready Wit--A Congressional Sketch, 327
LETTER X.
HABIT.
HABIT always Indicative of Character--Its Importance not
properly estimated by the Young--Rudeness and Republicanism
too often Synonymous--Fashion not always Good-breeding--
Social American Peculiarities--Manners of Americans abroad
--Rowdyism at the Tuileries--The Propriety of Learning from
Older Nations the lighter Elegancies of Life--Madame Soulé
and the Queen of Spain--The tie of a Cravat and the Affairs
of "Change"--George Peabody a Model American--The distinctive
name of Gentleman--Great Importance of Suitable Associates--
Spanish Proverb--The true Social Standard--Safeguard against
Eccentricity--Habits of Walking, Standing, Sitting--
Directions--Aaron Burr and De Witt Clinton--Bachelor
Privileges--Decorum in the presence of Ladies--Carrying the
Hat, ease of Attitude, etc.--Benefits of habitual
Self-Restraint--Habits at Table--Eating with a Knife--Soiling
the Lips, Picking the Teeth, etc., etc.--Nicety In Matters of
Detail--Courtesy due to others--Manner to Servants in
Attendance at Table--Avoidance of Sensuousness of Manner--
French Mode of Serving Dinners--The Art of Carving--Helping
Ladies at Table--Rule in Carving Joints of Meat--Changing the
Plate--Proper Mode of Taking Fish--Game--Butter at Dinner--
English Custom--Details of Habit at Table--Rights of Freemen--
A Just Distinction--Unhealthfulness of drinking too much at
Dinner--Fast Eating of Fast Americans--Sitting upon two Legs
of a Chair--Anecdote--Habits of using the Handkerchief--Toying
with the Moustache, etc., etc.--Ladies careful Observers of
Minutiæ--Belief of the Ancient Gauls respecting Women--Habits
of Swaggering in Public Places--General Suggestions--Ladies
and Invalids in Terror of a Human War-Horse--Courtesy due
while playing Chess and other Games--Self-control in Sickness
--Premature adoption of Eye-Glasses--Affectation in this
respect--Proper Attitude while Reading or Studying--Habits
of Early Rising--A Poetic Superstition unwarranted by Health
and Truth--Variance between Health and Fashion in regard to
Early Hours--Aphorism by Gibbon--Habit of taking Nostrums--
Avoidance of Quacks--Habit of acting as the Protectors of
the Dependent Sex--Effect of Trifling Habits upon the
Opinions formed of us by Women--Habits of handling Prints,
Bijouterie, and Boquets, of Smoking, Whispering and Ogling,
to be shunned--Importance of Methodical Habits of Reading
and Studying--Value of the Gold Dust of Time--Anecdote--
True Rule for Reading to Advantage--Habit of Reading aloud
--Great Importance of a Habit of Industry--The Superiors of
mere Genius--Habits of Cheerfulness and Contentment not to
be overlooked by the Young--Cultivation of Habitual
Self-Respect--Pride and Poverty not Necessarily Antagonistic
--Self-Respect a Shield against the Shafts of Calumny--True
Honor not affected by Occupation or Position--Benefits of
a Habit of Self-Examination--The habitual Study of the
Scriptures recommended--CHRIST, the Great Model of Humanity
--Ungentlemanly Habit of being late at Church, etc.--
Pernicious Effects of prevalent Materialism--Personal
Enjoyment resulting from habitually idealizing all Mental
Associations with Women--Defencelessness an Impassable
Barrier to Oppression from true Manhood--Impropriety of
speaking loudly to Ladies in public Places, of attracting
Attention to them, their Names and Prerogatives--Safe Rule in
this regard--The Habit of Sympathy with Human Suffering a
Christian duty--Mistaken Opinion of Young Men in this
respect--The Examples presented by the Lives of the Greatly
Good--Mighty Achievements in the Cause of Humanity in the
Power of a Few--Habits of Good-Humor, Neatness, Order and
Regularity due to others--Fastidious Nicety in Matters of the
Toilet, demanded by proper respect for our daily Associates
--The Importance of Habits of Exercise, Temperance and
Relaxation--Economy to be Cultivated as a Habit--Economy
not Degrading--Habit of Punctuality--Slavery to mere System
condemned--Remark of Sir Joshua Reynolds--Habit of
Perseverance--Value of the Habit of putting Ideas into
Words--Of Habits of Reflection and Observation--Of rendering
Respect to Age, etc.--Culture of Esthetical Perceptions--
American Peculiarity--Curiosity not tolerated among the
well-bred--The inestimable value of Self-Possession--Its
Natural Manifestations--Concluding Advice, 329
ILLUSTRATIONS.
JONATHAN AND QUEEN VICTORIA.--A Stroll through the World's
Palace--A Royal Party--The Yankee Enthroned--A Confession, 362
DAMON AND PYTHIAS MODERNIZED.--A Family Council--A Celebrity
and a Hotel Dinner--A Discovery--A Sketch--Telegraphing and
Triumph--Beer and a Break-down--Drawing-room Chit-chat--A
Young Lady's Eulogy--Retort Courteous--A New Acquaintance--
An Explanation--Dinner the Second--Sense and Sensibility--A
Ruse--A Request and Appointment--A Contrast--Catastrophy--A
Note and a Disappointment--Fair Frankness--An Unexpected
Rencontre--The Re-union--Pictures and Pleasantries--The
Protector of the Helpless, 363
A VISIT TO ABBOTSFORD.--Sir Walter Scott as Colonel of
Dragoons, Sheriff of the County, Host, Friend, and Author
--Mrs. Hemans and Little "Charley"--Courteous Hospitality
--At Driburg with Mr. Lockhart--Solution of a Mystery--
Sir Walter's favorite "Lieutenant," 382
Confession of a Celebrated Orator, 385
THE LEMON AND THE CARNATION.--A Stage-Coach Adventure--A
fair Passenger--Churlishness and Cheerfulness--A Comic
Duet--Stage-Sickness--An impromptu Physician--Offerings
--Acknowledgments--A Docile Patient--Welcome Home--Arrival
--A Family Group--A Discovery--Recognition--An Invitation
--Hospitality--Sunday Evening at the Rectory--The Honorable
Occupation of Teaching Young Ladies--A Prophesy--Family Jars
--A Compliment, 386
A Notability and his Newfoundland Dog, 400
EXTREMES MEET.--European Travelling-Companion--A cool
Place and a "cool" Character--A Foreigner's Criticism--
Fair Commentators--Dinner-table Sketch--Three Parties in
a Rail-Car--Sunshine and Showers--An Earth-Angel--Anecdote
of Thorwalsden, the Danish Sculptor--A Scene--Gentlemanly
Inquiries--Paddy's Explanation, 401
HAVE YOU BEEN IMPATIENT?--A Broken Engagement--About a Horse
--Charley's Orphan Cousin--Ideas of Luxury--Novel Experiences
--The freed Bird--Bless God for Flowers and Friends!--A
Recoil--A Tirade--The Bird Re-caged--Self-Examination--
Retrospection and Resolution--A Note and a Boquet--A Blush
Transfixed, 412
LETTER XI.
MENTAL AND MORAL EDUCATION.
The Author's Conscious Incapacity--Education within the Power
of All--Americans not Socially Trammelled--The Two Attributes
of Mind essential to Self-Culture--Prospective Discernment--
The most enlightened System of Education--Duty of Cultivating
the Moral as well as the Intellectual Nature--The Acquisition
of Wealth not to be regarded as the highest Human Attainment
--Definition of Self-Culture--Reading for Amusement only,
Unwise--"Aids and Appliances" of Judicious Reading--Example
of a Great Man--Fictitious Literature--Pernicious Effects
often resulting from a Taste for Light Reading--Condemnation
of Licentious Novels--Advantages of Noting Choice Passages
in Reading--Carlyle's Criticism of Public Men--The Study of
History of Great Importance--Benefits resulting from the
Perusal of well-selected Biographies--Enumeration of
celebrated Works of this Character--Newspaper and Magazine
Reading--A Cultivated Taste in Literature and Art the result
of thorough Mental Training--Affectation and Pretention in
this regard to be avoided--Critical Assumption condemned--
Impressions produced upon observing Judges by a Pretentious
Manner--"The World's Dread Laugh"--Advantages of Foreign
Travel--Misuse of this Advantage--Knowledge of Modern
Languages essential to a complete Education--False Impression
prevalent on this point--Philosophic Wisdom--Wise Covetousness
--Tact the Result of General Self-Culture--An Individual Moral
Code of advantage--Example of Washington--Education not
completed by a Knowledge of Books--Definition of True
Education--The Development of the Moral Perceptions promotive
of Intellectual Advancement--Undue Exaltation of Talent over
Virtue--Religious Faith the legitimate Result of
rightly-directed Education--Needful Enlightenment of
Conscience--The Life of Jesus Christ the best Moral
Guide-Book--Charity to the Faults of others the Result of
Self-Knowledge--The Golden Rule of the Great Teacher--The
highest Aim of Humanity--Reverence for the Spiritual Nature
of Man the Result of Self-Culture--Danger of Self-Indulgence
in regard to trifling Errors--Caution against the Infidel
Philosophy of the Times--The establishment of Fixed
Principles of Action--The True Mode of computing Life, 438
The Attainment of Knowledge under Difficulties--Necessity the
Nurse of True Greatness--The Learned Blacksmith--The Wagoner
--The Mill-Boy of the Slashes--Franklin and Webster, 439
A Peep at Passers-by, from the "Loopholes of Retreat," 440
The Force of Genius--A Man about Town--Anecdote--Manly
Indignation, 441
Old-Fashioned Honor, 442
Webster on Biblical Studies, 443
The Young Frenchman and the Pyramids, 443
PECCADILLOES AND PUNCTILIOUSNESS.--Extract--Sir Humphrey
Davy--Tribute to Religion, 446
LETTER XII.
CHOICE OF COMPANIONS AND FRIENDS.--SELECTION OF A PURSUIT IN
LIFE.--COURTSHIP.--MARRIAGE.--HOUSEKEEPING.--PECUNIARY MATTERS.
RULE to be observed in the Selection of Associates--Advantage
of the Companionship of Persons of more Experience than
Ourselves--False Sentiments entertained by Lord Byron
regarding Friendship--Self-Consciousness affords the best
Contradiction to these Erroneous Opinions--Value of
Friendship--Importance of the Judicious Selection of
Confidants--Folly of demanding Perfection in one's Friends
--Selection of Employment--The first Consideration in this
Relation--Thorough Education should not be confined to
Candidates for the Learned Professions--The Merchant Princes
of America--Avenues for Effort--All Honest Occupations
dignified by Right Conduct--The Pursuit of Wealth as an
End--Freedom the Prerogative of the Worker--A Professional
Manner Condemned--Individual Insignificance--Advantages of
Early Marriage--Cause of prevalent Domestic Unhappiness--Each
Individual the best Judge of his own Conjugal Requisites--
Health, Good-Temper, and Education essential in a Wife--
Accomplishments not essential to Domestic Happiness--
Disadvantages resulting from a previous Fashionable Career
--A True Wife--Respect due to the proper Guardians of a Lady
by her Suitor--Advantages of a Friendship with a Married Lady
--Reserve and Respect of Manner due to Female Friends--Manly
Frankness as a Suitor the only Honorable Course--Attachment
to one Woman no Excuse for Rudeness to others--The Art of
Pleasing--Presents, Complimentary Attentions, etc.--Nicety
of Perception usual in Women--Power of the Law of Kindness
in Home-Life--The Slightest Approach to Family Dissension to
be carefully avoided--The Duty of a Husband to exert a Right
Influence over his Wife--Union of Spirit the only Satisfying
Bond--More than Roman Sternness assumed by some--Sacredness
of all the Better Emotions of the Human Heart--Expressive
Synonymes--Pecuniary Matters--The Pernicious Effects of
Boarding--An Old Man's Advice--Household Gods--Propriety of
Providing for Future Contingencies--Slavery Imposed by Pride
and Poverty--Comfort and Refinement compatible with Moderate
Resources--Books and Works of Art to be preferred to Fine
Furniture--Importance of Cherishing the Esthetical Tastes of
Children--"Keeping" a great Desideratum in Social and
Domestic Life, 447
ILLUSTRATIVE SKETCHES, ETC.
THE MOOTED POINT.--A Morning Visit and Morning Occupations--
Macaulay and the Blanket Coat--Curate's Daughters and the
Daughters of New-England--A Sybarite--A Disclaimer and a
Witticism--Not a Gentleman--"Trifles make the sum of Human
Things"--The Slough of Despond--A Gift--Reading Poetry--
A Soldier's Tactics--The "Unpardonable Sin"--A Fair Champion
and a Noble Sentiment, 463
Anecdotes of a British Minister, an Ex-Governor, and an
American Statesman, 470
Chief-Justice Marshall and the Young Man of Fashion, 472
Habits of Early Friends, 478
THE PROPHECY FULFILLED.--A Denouement--Cupid turned Carrier--
Wedding-Cards and Welcome News--A True Woman's Letter, 478
Uncle Hal's Farewell, 480
THE
AMERICAN GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE.
LETTER I.
DRESS.
MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS:--
As you are already, to some extent, acquainted with the design and scope
of the Letters I propose to address to you, there is no necessity for an
elaborate prelude at the commencement of the series.
We will, with your permission, devote our attention first to _Dress_--to
the external man--and advance, in accordance with the true rules of Art,
gradually, towards more important subjects.
Whatever may be the abstract opinions individually entertained
respecting the taste and regard for comfort evinced in the costume now,
with trifling variations, almost universally adopted by men in all
civilized lands, few will dispute the practical utility of conforming to
the general requisitions of Fashion.
Happily for the gratification of fancy, however, the all-potent goddess,
arbitrary and imperative as are her laws, permits, at least to some
extent, such variations from her general standard as personal
convenience, physical peculiarities, or varying circumstances may
require.
But a due regard for these and similar considerations by no means
involves the exhibition of _eccentricity_, which I hold to be
inconsistent with good taste, whether displayed in dress or manner.
A violation of the established rules of Convention cannot easily be
defended, except when required by our obligations to the more strenuous
requirements of duty. Usually, however, departures from conventional
propriety evince simply an ill-regulated character. The Laws of
Convention, like all wise laws, are instituted to promote "the greatest
good of the greatest number." They constitute a _Code of Politeness and
Propriety_, adapted to the promotion of social convenience, varying
somewhat with local circumstances, it may be, but everywhere
substantially the same. It is common to talk of the eccentricities of
genius, as though they are essential concomitants of genius itself.
Nothing can be more unfounded and pernicious than this impression. The
eccentricities that sometimes characterize the intellectually gifted,
are but so many humiliating proofs of the imperfection of human nature,
even when exhibiting its highest attributes. Hence the affectation of
such peculiarities simply subjects one to ridicule, and, in many
instances, to the contempt of sensible people.
Some years since, when Byron was the "bright, particular star
|
of truth, guv’nor. I suppose, now, you’ve just got to take them
papers to somebody as deals in things like that, and get money for ’em
down on the nail?’
‘He will take them to some great engineering firm,’ said the other. ‘And
probably he would not part with them for a sum “down on the nail,” as
you say. Such a scheme as this he’d be sure to have some share in it. He
would superintend the carrying out of his plans, if you understand that.
It might be years of work for him, and the most excellent beginning. I
should think he deserved it, too,’ said John’s amanuensis, looking round
approvingly, ‘for there is every evidence that he’s a fine fellow, and I
know he has been very kind to me.’
‘And you might be very kind to ’im, in that way,’ said Joe.
‘I could be--kind to _him_? I don’t think I’ve very much in my power one
way or other,’ said March, with a smile and a sigh.
‘Guv’nor,’ said Joe, ‘you never was one as took things upon you. Give up
to other folks, that was allays what you would do. But what’s the good?
You don’t get no thanks for it. If I was in your place--as I’m a
donkey, and good for nothing, but you ain’t, and could do a lot if you
liked--I know what I’d do.’
March smiled benignantly enough upon the poor dependent, whose
flatteries were not unpleasant to him.
‘And what would you do, if you were me, which is not a very likely
change?’ he said.
‘No, it ain’t likely. Them as is born asses, dies asses--and t’other way
too. It ain’t for me to tell a clever man like you, and that has got a
fine education, and born a gentleman.’
‘Alas!’ said March, shaking his head; ‘alas! it hasn’t come to much, has
it? Your mate, my poor fellow, and one without a friend but you, or a
chance in the wide world----’
‘Don’t say that, guv’nor. Here’s a chance, if I ain’t more of a born ass
than ever I thought--a chance for a fortune, and for doing the young
fellow a good turn. How’s he, at his age, to show up a big thing like
this? There’s nobody as would believe it of him. They’d say, “Oh, get
along, you boy.” They’d never take him in earnest at all.’
‘I do him a good turn! I, a broken man, without character or anything;
without a friend! and he a fine, respectable young fellow, well thought
of, and clever, and knowing more than I ever knew at my best. That’s
nonsense, Joe.’
‘Not if you’ll think a bit, guv’nor; I hear him say them papers is my
fortune--and then I hears him ’eave a sigh. He’s not one of the pushing
ones, he isn’t. He knows as they’re worth a deal, but he hasn’t the face
to say “Look here, you give me so much for this.” Guv’nor, I know you’re
a man as will do a deal for a friend. Why don’t you take ’em just as
they lies there, and take ’em to some person as deals in that sort of
thing, and just up and ask ’em what’ll they give for this? “There’s a
young un,” says you, “as understands everything about it and is just the
man to work ’em out.” If I were in your place, guv’nor, that’s what I
would do.’
‘But, my good fellow,’ said March, ‘those papers belong to the young man
here, not to me.’
‘Guv’nor,’ said Joe, ‘I don’t doubt as the best that’s in that long
story as you’re writing out there comes out o’ your own ’ead. It stands
to reason as you know more about it than a young feller like ’im.’
The philosophical gull, who never learned wisdom, was touched by this in
the most assailable point.
‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘Joe,--though how you’ve found it out I can’t
tell--that I have carried out a suggestion or two, and put in something
that seemed to me the logical consequence of what he said. But nothing
practical, for I don’t understand the practical part. And how does that
sort of thing give me any real claim?’
‘Guv’nor,’ repeated Joe, ‘you needn’t tell me. I know you, and how
you’re always giving up to other folks. It’s half yours and more, I’ll
be bound. And the best you could do for the young ’un is just what I
tells you. I’m practical, I am. If it was anything in my way, I’d do it
like a shot; but it ain’t in my way. The outsides o’ things has a deal
of power in this world. You in your fine respectable suit, you can go
where you please like a prince. But me, it’s “Be off with you--get along
with you;” they won’t say nothing of that sort to you. And you’ll just
make the young man’s fortune, that’s what you’ll do. Say as he’s the
very one to look after the works and knows all the practical part. They
ought to settle something handsome on you at once as your share and take
him on as foreman, or whatever it is; and in that way you’d both get the
best of it and all done well.’
The convict philosopher shook his head. He rose up from the table and
put the papers away. He admired the neatness of his own manuscript
extremely, and he was of opinion that he had done John a great deal of
good by the suggestions which he had worked out and the additions which
he had made. It was possible that Joe might be right, and that the best
thing he could do for his young employer was what the poor faithful
fellow had suggested. He had himself a great admiration, after having
been deprived of it so long, of his respectable suit and appearance, and
there was a great deal of plausibility, he thought, in what the man
said. But it was still clear to him that John might not think so. He was
not very rigid himself upon any point of morals, after his long practice
in thinking everything over, and blurring out to his own satisfaction
the lines of demarcation between right and wrong; but he could
understand that the young man, not having his experience, might think
otherwise; and he had even a sympathy for his want of philosophical
power in that respect. So he put everything aside very tidily, and put
his hand upon Joe’s arm and drew him away, shaking his head, but not
angry at the good fellow’s insistence. There was something in it--and it
might doubtless be under certain circumstances the most kind thing that
could be done for the young man. Still there was the difficulty that the
young man might not see it in that light. And Mr. March accordingly put
up the papers, and taking Joe by the arm, with a benevolent smile and a
shake of the head, led him away.
It has been said that John’s rooms were in Westminster, not far from
Great George Street, where the offices of Messrs. Barrett were, and
where, as the reader needs not to be informed, various other engineers’
offices are to be seen. March’s eye caught the names involuntarily as he
passed by. It was not that he was trifling with temptation, for he did
not consider Joe’s suggestion as temptation. He was only turning over
the possibilities in his mind, and merely as a matter of amusement, an
exercise of fancy, just as he might have counted how many white horses
passed in the street, or which windows were curtained and which not, he
read over to himself the names on the doors. Messrs. Barrett’s was one
which he weighed but afterwards rejected, as not liking the sound of it.
Another quite near had a name that pleased him better--Messrs. Spender
and Diggs. What a ludicrous combination! He laughed to himself at it, as
it caught his eye. Spender and Diggs--it was highly suggestive, which
was a thing dear to his mind at ease. It clung to his memory. He turned
it round the other way to see how it would sound. Diggs and Spender:
that was still more absurd.
And all the time Joe’s voice was running on with arguments, the form of
which, simple and subtle and couched in that language of the rough which
is always more or less picturesque, amused his companion much. Joe had
penetrated sufficiently into the mind of his mate to know how to address
him. And that mind began to work upon the matter, with the amusing
addition of the name of Spender and Diggs thrown in, and a great deal of
pleasurable occupation in a question entirely characteristic and full of
the difficulties he loved.
The result was that March appeared in the morning as the landlady had
said, and spent a short time, but only a very short time in John’s
sitting-room. The copy was completed, carefully folded up, and put in a
large envelope. All John’s notes, the originals, were scrupulously left
in their place, and in perfect order. For in some points his conscience
was of scrupulous nicety, and John’s notes were certainly his own and
not to be tampered with. As he was going out with the large envelope in
his breast pocket, John’s landlady appeared with the remonstrance which
had been on her lips for some days.
‘You, sir, I’ve got no objections--a gentleman that’s pleasant spoken
and respectable even if he ain’t my lodger, but only a friend, that’s a
different thing:---- but your---- that man----’
‘My servant?’ said March, with a quick sense of the comicality of the
situation.
‘Well, sir,’ said the woman, with hesitation; ‘I wouldn’t keep on a man
like that in my service if I was you.’
‘He is not as bad as he seems,’ the philosopher said, with a twinkle in
his eye, ‘but I foresaw your objections, and you shall never see him
more.’
‘If that’s so, of course, there isn’t another word to be said.’
‘That’s so; you may calculate upon it as a certainty,’ the pleasant
spoken gentleman said; and with a wave of his hand and a chuckle of
enjoyment he went away.
The events thus described will explain the scene which John to his
consternation and amazement encountered when he stepped into Mr.
William’s room at the office, and found himself confronted by both
members of the firm.
CHAPTER III.
JOHN ON HIS TRIAL.
Both the partners were together in Mr. William’s room. They had been
having some sort of a consultation, it was evident, and both looked very
grave. When John walked in at his ease, though a little anxious, they
both turned round upon him with very serious faces--the younger man with
a grieved air, the elder one rigid and solemn, like a judge before whom
a criminal has appeared, whose conviction has been pre-accomplished, and
who has come up for judgment. Mr. William Barrett had the air of hoping
that some more evidence might be discovered which would possibly
exonerate the accused, but his father’s face showed no such hope. On the
contrary, something of the ‘I always knew how it would be’ was in his
look, as he turned sharply round at the opening of the door.
John was greatly surprised: but still more indignant at this reception
of him. He walked up to the table at which Mr. Barrett sat. Mr. William
stood with his back to the dusty fireplace close by. Neither of them
spoke, but looked at him with that overwhelming effect of silent
observation which makes the steadiest footstep falter, and conveys
embarrassment and awkwardness into the most self-controlled being. John
said ‘Good-morning,’ and they both acknowledged it: Mr. William by an
abrupt nod, his father by the most solemn inclination of his head. The
young man did not know what to say. He stood and looked at them,
wondering, indignant, taking his little packet of papers out of his
pocket. What had he done to be so regarded?--or had he perhaps come into
the midst of some consultation about other matters with which they were
pre-occupied? He said,
‘Is there anything the matter?’ at last, saying to himself that it was
impossible he could be the cause of such concentrated solemnity, and
looking at the younger partner with a half smile.
‘There is a great deal the matter,’ said Mr. Barrett.
‘Yes,’ said his son; ‘it’s rather a grave business, Sandford. I don’t
see it in quite the same light as my father. Still, it’s at least a
great want of confidence, a strange slur upon us, who, so far as I know,
have nothing to reproach ourselves with in respect to you.’
‘Certainly not, sir,’ said John: ‘you have always been very kind and
given me every opportunity; but I hope on my part I have not done
anything to make you suppose I am ungrateful, or have not appreciated my
advantages.’
‘We have nothing to complain of so far as the works are concerned. I
think, sir, I may say that?’
‘It is a point on which I should not like to commit myself,’ said the
senior partner. ‘These works at Hampstead, so far as I hear----’
‘They went wrong when he was away. He can’t be blamed for that: he came
back before his time and went over at once, and made every thing
shipshape again. He can’t be blamed for that. Whatever went wrong was
after his leave began.’
‘An engineer,’ said the elder gentleman, in his rigid way, ‘who means
to do justice to his profession, doesn’t want leave. The works are his
first interest--he has no occasion to go away to amuse himself.’
‘Oh, come, father! you’re making that a fault which is no fault--and we
have a ground of offence which is real enough. Sandford, you came here
the other day and told me of a scheme you had for draining the Thames
valley. You may say I was disposed to pooh-pooh it a bit; but I didn’t
say more than one does naturally with a young fellow’s first ideas,
which are always so magnificent. Do you think there was a reason in
anything I said for transferring the papers as you’ve done to another
firm?’
‘I transfer them to another firm?’ cried John, ‘you must be dreaming. I
have them here.’
‘You have them there? Then what do Spender and Diggs mean by spreading
it abroad that they have had such a scheme sent to them by one of the
pupils in our office, but which we had not enterprise to take up?’
‘Spender and Diggs!’ John was so well acquainted with the name of the
rival firm that it raised no sense of humour in his mind: but something
quite different, that sense of rivalry which is so strong between the
pupils and partisans of different schools. He made a little pause,
staring at his younger employer. And then he said, ‘I don’t know the
least in the world what you mean.’
‘There is no ambiguity at all about my meaning. I say that Spender and
Diggs are putting it about everywhere that a great scheme, worked out by
one of our pupils, for the draining of the Thames valley, has been
offered to them.’
John’s countenance grew pale with horror and dismay. He cried out,
sharply,
‘Good heavens! Why, it cannot be Horrocks or Green?’
‘Don’t add slander to your other sins,’ said Mr. Barrett, severely, ‘or
endeavour to take away the character of young men who are quite
incapable----’
‘So they are,’ said John, in all good faith, ‘quite incapable. That is
true, sir; but I could not help thinking for a moment that I might have
left some of my papers about, and that they might have picked them
up--but you’re right, sir; they couldn’t do it--that is a great relief
to my mind.’
The young man was so undisguisedly relieved and so perfectly
straightforward in the whole matter, that William Barrett began to
doubt. He cast a glance at his father, who, however, sat rigid and
showed no relenting.
‘Sandford,’ said the younger man, ‘you seem to speak very fair; but
there’s this fact against you--no one supposed it was anyone’s scheme
but yours; you are the only man in our office capable of anything of the
sort; we all know that. And it’s no crime; but it is a horrid thing all
the same--a caddish, currish sort of thing--to abandon the people who
have trained you and done you every justice, and carry what I have no
doubt you believe would be profitable work to another house.’
‘I--carry work to another house! It is quite impossible that you should
believe that of me. I might have thought it if you had said I had killed
somebody,’ said John, with a faint smile of ridicule, ‘for that’s a
thing that might be done in a moment’s passion--but carry work to
another house! You cannot believe that of me.’
‘What has believing to do with it,’ said Mr. Barrett, ‘when there are
the facts that can be proved? Don’t lose time bandying words, Will.
Sandford must see that after this there can be no further connection
between us. He knows, of course, that his place at Spender and Diggs’ is
safe enough. Let him have what is owing to him and let him go. I took
him without a premium for his mother’s sake, and for the same
reason--for Mrs. Sandford is a very worthy woman--I’ve given him every
advantage, although I expected something of this sort all along.’
‘Why should something of this sort have been expected from me? What have
I done? I have done no wrong--I have all my papers in my pocket. You
said you would rather have the rough notes. Here they are, every one,’
cried John, taking out the papers from the envelope and throwing them
done on the table; ‘here are all the calculations, diagrams, and
drawings, and all. And now, Mr. Barrett, there is the question to
settle which you’ve just mentioned, which you raised long ago,’ said the
young man, with a flush of pride and anger. ‘That wretched premium! It
shall be paid before the banks close to-day. That, at all events, I can
settle at once. You have flung it in my teeth more than once when I was
powerless. Now I have it in my own hands. Your premium, of which you
have thought so much, shall be paid to-day.’
‘Stop there, Sandford,’ said the younger partner. ‘Father, I beg don’t
say anything more--let us understand the more important matter first.
You say you have brought us all your papers here. And yet I am informed
from Spender and Diggs that they have your scheme, all carefully written
out and elaborated----’
‘Ah!’ cried John, with a keen and quick sensation as if he had been
startled and could not draw his breath.
‘Of course the information doesn’t come direct from them. They wouldn’t
be likely to do anything so friendly. Prince heard all about it from one
of their men. We can have him in, and you can ask him any questions you
like. Even if I hadn’t known by what you told me, I should have felt
sure it was you who had done it,’ said William Barrett, secure in his
own command of the situation. Then he added to the man who answered his
bell, ‘Ask Mr. Prince to step this way.’
Mr. Prince had stepped that way; he had walked up to Mr. Barrett’s
table, in his precise little manner, smiling ingratiatingly when he met
his master’s eye, and had told his story before John said anything more.
He stood a little behind Prince, so startled that he could scarcely
understand what was being said, though he heard it all--recalling his
recollections and making it plain to himself what had happened. He had
not been in the habit of doing rash things, nor was he one who gave his
confidence and trust easily; but as he stood in the office, hearing the
clerk’s glib story--and feeling himself like the spectator of the
strangest little scene on the stage, instead of standing, so to speak,
on his trial, and listening to the evidence of the principal witness
against him--a rush of suggestions was going through John’s head.
The extraordinary fact which never had seemed at all strange to him
before, that he had taken into his house and into his confidence a man
of whom he knew nothing, except that he was a returned convict, showed
itself all at once to him in the clearest light. Even in his suddenly
awakened consciousness of what had happened, he felt that to call the
man whom he had thus trusted a returned convict, hurt himself as if it
had been a stab. It was on this ground he had made acquaintance with
him, because he was a man who had been punished for crime, and might
fall into crime again if he were not bolstered up by friendly help and
saved from temptation. This was what John had attempted to do, and, lo,
here was the result. He came gradually to himself through the hot and
painful confusion of this critical moment, and put a few questions to
the clerk which left no doubt on the subject. When Mr. Prince’s
examination was over, William Barrett turned to the young man, his
natural good nature and friendliness modified by the triumph of having
gained a complete victory.
‘Sandford,’ he said, ‘I don’t pretend to understand your conduct one way
or another. You came back from your holiday before your time, to tell
me of this scheme of yours. I neither said nor did anything to
discourage you, more than one does naturally to a young man. You were
engaged in our work, and bred up in our office: that should have been
reason enough against going to any other firm.’
‘It is a thing which never entered into my mind.’
‘But it did into your actions, apparently,’ said the junior partner,
with a not unnatural sneer.
‘It is what I have expected all along,’ said Mr. Barrett, piously
folding his hands. ‘It is what his mother expected, an excellent,
much-tried woman, for whose sake----’
‘Prince, you may go,’ said William Barrett, ‘and, for heaven’s sake,
father, stick to the question. Don’t bring in other things which have
nothing to do with it.’
John had a great struggle with himself. The foregone conclusion against
him with which he had so often been confronted was the one thing which
overcame his good sense and self-control. Ever since his grandfather’s
death it had been intolerable to him, and it was all he could do to
suppress the boiling-over of passionate resistance to this systematic
injustice; but with a great effort he restrained himself. He stopped the
departing witness with a wave of his hand.
‘Let Prince stay,’ he said, in a choked voice. ‘I think I perceive how
all this has occurred. Look here, did your informant say who took the
papers to Spender and Diggs? Did he say it was I?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Prince, ‘that he knew you.’
‘I have not the least doubt that you asked him who it was. If he did not
know me, he must at least have known something about me. Did he say it
was I?’
‘Well,’ said the witness, somewhat unwillingly, ‘he didn’t know who it
was. He said he thought it was an elderly man: but there are many people
always coming and going about the office, and he couldn’t be sure.’
‘Do you think it likely,’ said John, ‘that I could have gone to Spender
and Diggs’ office without being recognised?’
‘Sandford, this is all quite unnecessary,’ said William Barrett. ‘I did
not accuse you of going to Spender and Diggs’ office. You might have
employed any agent; such a thing is not necessarily--indeed, it’s not at
all likely to be done by the principal himself.’
‘Then this is what I’m accused of,’ said John. ‘I came and told you of
my scheme, for as much as it’s worth. You did discourage me, Mr.
William, but good naturedly, telling me to go to Hampstead in the first
place. I obeyed you, and finished that work last night. This morning I
come to you with my papers in my pocket, ready to submit them to you
according to your own instructions; and I am met with accusations like a
criminal. Is it likely that between hands I should have gone to Spender
and Diggs? Why should I come here now with my original papers if I had
in the meanwhile sent a copy elsewhere? Do Spender and Diggs say they
refused them? What are they supposed to have said? Why am I supposed to
have come, the first moment I was free, back here----?’
‘Were you told they were refused?’
‘No, sir,’ said Prince. ‘On the contrary, they were taken into
consideration, and thought to have something in them. That was what was
reported to me.’
‘Why, then,’ said John, ‘should I come back here?’
There was a momentary pause; and then William Barrett broke forth again.
‘What’s the use of talking of motives and reasons and why you did it?
Evidently you did do it, and there’s an end of the matter.’
‘And of our connection,’ said his father. ‘A young man that’s so false
to his employers can have no more to do in our works or our office.’
‘As you please, sir,’ said John. He had made a pause of indignation,
staring at his accusers, dumb with the passion of a thousand things he
had to say--but what was the use? He shut his lips close, growing
crimson with the strong effort of self-restraint. ‘I am sorry this
should be the end,’ he said, controlling himself desperately, ‘but, of
course, if that is your opinion, I have nothing to say. Good-bye, sir,’
the young man cried, unable to keep back that Parthian arrow, ‘it must
be a pleasure to you that I have justified your certainty, and gone to
the bad at the end.’
‘Sandford!’ said William Barrett, as John hurried out; but the young man
was too much excited to pay any attention. The junior partner followed
him to the door of the office calling after him, ‘Sandford--I say
Sandford--Sandford!’
But John paid no attention. He rushed downstairs two or three steps at a
time, and over the threshold which he had crossed so often with the
familiarity of every day life. His feet spurned it now. He seemed to be
shaking the dust from him as the rejected messengers were to do in the
Gospel. No better servant had ever been, no more dutiful pupil, and he
was conscious of this. He had never been without a thought indeed of
advancement in his own person, of carrying out a work of his own: but
all his knowledge, the knowledge acquired out of their limits in the
privacy of his own self-denying and studious youth, had been at the
service of his masters and teachers unreservedly at all times. He had
never thought of sparing himself, of doing as little as was possible,
which was the way of many of his fellow-pupils. He had done always as
much as was in him, freely and with devotion. And as the climax of so
many faithful years, he had brought to them this first fruits of his
maturing thought, this plan so long cogitated, which had been to him
what a poem is to a poet--the work in which all his faculties, not only
of calculation and practical reason, but of thought and imagination had
been concentrated. It was to be the climax, and now it was the end.
Instead of sharing his honours with them and bringing them substantial
profit, as he intended, he was sent forth with shame as a traitor, a
false servant, a disloyal man. John’s heart burned within him as,
holding his head high, and spurning the very ground, he marched out of
that familiar place.
The sting of injustice was sharp in his soul. He said to himself that he
would offer no further defence, that he would not attempt to prove the
deception that had been put upon him, or how it was that he had been
robbed at once of his scheme and honour. If it could be believed for a
moment by people who had known him for years that he was so guilty, he
would make no attempt to explain. If ever an accusation was unlikely,
unreasonable, inconsistent with every law, it was this.
CHAPTER IV.
DEFEATED AND WRONGED.
He had walked a long way before he came to himself out of those whirling
circles of thought in which the mind gets involved when it is suddenly
stung by a great wrong, or startled by a poignant incident. With this
strong pressure upon him, he had gone right away into the Strand, and
along that busy line of streets into the din and crowds of the city,
feeling, like a deaf man, that the noise around made it more possible to
hear the voice of his own thoughts, and to endure the clangour of his
heart beating in his ears. He walked fast, not turning to the right nor
to the left, straight through the bewildering throng in which every man
had his own little world of incident, of sentiment, and feeling
undisturbed by the contact of others on every side.
At first it had been the keen tooth of that wrong, the undeserved
disgrace that had fallen upon him, which had occupied all his
sensations. But by degrees other thoughts came in. He had left Edgeley
in haste to strike his blow for fortune and reputation, though he was so
young, to qualify himself for a new phase of life, to put himself nearer
at least to the level of Elly, to justify his own pretensions to her.
The scene in Mrs. Egerton’s room suddenly flashed before him as he
walked, adding another and yet sharper blow to that which he had already
received. He had said that he would succeed, that he should be rich,
that he had the ball at his foot. This morning when he came out of his
lodgings he had felt the ball at his foot. How could it be otherwise? He
knew the value of his own work. It was a work much wanted, upon which
the comfort of a district, the value of the property in it, and the
lives of its inhabitants might depend. And he felt convinced that he had
hit upon the right way of remedying this fault of nature which had
given so much trouble and cost so much suffering. What hours and hours
he had thought of it and turned it over! What quires of paper he had
covered with his calculations! It did not perhaps seem romantic work;
but all the poetry in John’s nature had gone into it. It had been Elly’s
work, too, though Elly could not have done one of all those endless
mathematical exercises. It had occupied his mind for two at least of
those early lovely years in which imagination is so sweet: and his
imaginations had been sweet, though they had to do, you would have said,
with things not lovely, cuttings and embankments, and drawings, and
figures upon figures, armies of them, calculations without end. His very
walks and the exercise he took, the boating which was his favourite
recreation when he had any time, had all been inspired and accompanied
by this. While he waited outside a lock, he was busy calculating its
fall, and the weight and force of the water, and studying the banks high
or low, for his purpose. He had grown learned in the formations of the
district, in its geology and its productions with the same motive. He
had marked unconsciously where wood could be got at and bricks made for
the future works, and when his eye travelled over the river flats to the
line of cottages with dull lines upon their lower storey, showing the
flood-mark to which the water had risen, there rose in him a fine
fervour as he thought that by-and-by all such dangers should come to an
end. Thoughts frivolous and unworthy, the light and trifling mental
dissipations that beguile young minds, and the insidious curiosities and
temptations with which they play, were all crowded out by these
imaginations, which were so practical, so professional, so enthusiastic,
so full of the poetry of reality. This was the way in which many months
had been occupied. And now----!
It was a long time before John had sufficiently calmed himself down, and
got the mastery of those whirling circles of ever-recurring thought
which almost maddened him at first, to face the situation as it now
stood. At first, and for a long time, it appeared to him that ruin as
complete as it was undeserved had overwhelmed him; his good fame seemed
to be gone, and the bitterness of the thought that people who knew him,
and knew him so well, and who had years of experience of his integrity
and faithful service, should have at once believed him guilty of such
treachery, seemed to drown him in a hopeless flood; for how should he
convince strangers of his honour if they had no faith in it? or how
attempt to clear himself professionally when two of the chief
authorities in his profession believed him to have behaved so? Would it
be the best way, the only way, to shake the dust from off his feet and
rush away to the end of the world where a man could work, if it were the
roughest navvy work, and be free from false accusation and the horror of
seeing himself falsely condemned. But, then, Elly! John plunged again
deeper than ever into that blackness of darkness. He had boasted in his
self-confidence of the success which was awaiting him, of the certainty
of his prospects. He remembered now how Mrs. Egerton had shaken her
head. And now here he stood with his success turned into failure, his
confidence into despair; the people who knew him best refusing to hear
him. He had no fear that Elly would refuse to hear him; but who else
would believe? They would not, indeed, believe that he had been
treacherous, or played a villain’s part, as the Barretts did; but they
would think that he had mistaken his own powers, that he was not what he
imagined, that his account of himself was a boy’s brag, and not a sober
estimate of what he knew he could do. And how convince them, how remedy
the evil? Was it possible that any remedy would ever be found?
He had gained a little calm when he began to ask himself this question.
Out of the whirl of painful thoughts and passionate entanglement of all
the perplexities round him, he suddenly came to a clear spot from which
he could look behind and after. He found himself on the bridge crossing
the river, having got there he scarcely knew how, coming back in the
direction of the office and of his lodgings after a feverish round
through all the noise of London. As he walked across the bridge, there
suddenly came to him a recollection of his first beginning--how he had
paused there with the letter in his hand with which he had been sent to
the Messrs. Barrett by his mother. He had paused, angry and wounded and
sore, and looked down upon the outward-bound ships, and for a moment
had thought of forsaking this cold, unkindly world in which he had no
longer any home or anyone who loved him, of tossing the letter into the
river and going his own way, and taking upon himself the responsibility
of his own life. He had not carried out that wild resolution. He had
swallowed all his repugnances, his pride, his rebellious feelings, and
accepted the more dutiful way: and till now he had never repented that
decision. He paused again, and before him lay the same great stream
leading out into the unknown, the same ships ready to carry him thither,
into a world all strange, where nobody would know John Sandford had ever
been accused of falsehood. The repetition of this scene and suggestion
gave him a certain shock, and brought him back sharply to himself. John
Sandford, John May--he had not then been sure
|
a temperament like mine in so deep a
retirement. To its inhabitants the world and its busy haunts are but as
a tale; yet man in all his varieties is essentially the same. Many a day
have I wandered along the sea-beaten coast--dining perhaps on a headland
stretching far into the sea--or in some secluded little bay, by the side
of a gushing spring; the ocean spread out before me--what object is so
boundlessly or beautifully inspiring? It may be mighty fine philosophy
for those who have passed through the current of life in one untroubled
and unvaried stream, and who have no perception or idea of the deeper
(if I may so express it) feelings of our nature, to call all this
romance; but those who have tasted bitterly of the ills of this world,
and who look back upon times past as doth the traveller in the desert on
viewing from afar the oasis he has left--upon their transitory existence
as a troubled dream--these can feel how deeply solitude amidst the
sublimities of Nature will heal the troubled mind. Is there not a
responsive chord in the hearts of such of my readers? Early one morning,
soon after my arrival at Landwithiel, I proceeded over land to a distant
part of the parish, to visit a ruin situated in a wild and remote spot,
which possessed some degree of historical interest. In the evening I
decided on returning by the coast in order to vary my route. The day
had been clear and sultry, and though the wind blew fresh from the
southward, yet its refreshing influence seemed exhausted by the intense
heat of the sun. In my progress along shore, though it was getting late,
and I was somewhat fatigued, I could not resist the opportunity of
exploring a sort of natural opening or cove in a part of the coast where
the cliffs were unusually precipitous; affording the geologist the
highest gratification; you were reminded indeed of the flat surface of a
stone wall in many parts, which effect the regular stratification of the
rocks contributed to produce; and it required no great stretch of fancy
to imagine it one vast fortification, with loop-holes at regular
intervals--at a short distance from seaward certainly it would be
difficult to divest a stranger of the idea that it was something
artificial. Two high points of rock contracting at their extremities in
a circular direction so as almost to meet, ran into the sandy beach, and
you found on advancing beyond the narrow entrance, a considerable space,
which gradually extended to something like an oblong square, with a
sandy bottom everywhere, surrounded by the same lofty cliffs which
composed the adjacent coast. I was much surprised that I had never heard
of this place before; it had apparently been more the effect of some
natural convulsion than of the encroachment of the sea, and at the
further end was a high mass of shingles, seaweed, and fragments of rock
packed closely together by the tide. On examination I discovered, about
the centre of the shingles, a large stone cross, carved out of a
projecting part near the base of the cliff. It bore simply the initials
W.D. and though the surrounding rocks were thickly covered with seaweed
and barnacles, yet the cross itself was perfectly clean, and bore marks
of recent care. Some singular event had evidently occurred in this
retired and desolate place. I loitered a considerable time in musing and
examining the spot, regardless of the whining and uneasiness of my
Newfoundland dog, Retriever, when I was suddenly and fully aroused by
the sharp echo and plashing of the tide against the rock, within the
entrance of the cove. I now recollected with alarm that it was a spring
flood, and that I had heard the tide sets in on this part of the coast
with extraordinary velocity. I ran hastily forward, expecting to escape
with a mere wetting, along the base of the rocks to an opening which
I had passed about half a mile to the westward. I had just grounds of
alarm. The mouth of the cove as I have already stated, extended some way
abruptly into the beach. On wading to its extremity I found the tide
already breaking in impetuous surf towards the foot of the cliffs, and
it was now so far advanced as to preclude any hope of escape from that
quarter; for the sands shelved in for some way on each side of the
projecting entrance, and if I gained the foot of the cliffs I feared
that I must inevitably be dashed to pieces before reaching the opening.
In the calmest weather on the coast, exposed to all the fury of the
Atlantic, the spring tides come in with a heavy swell; on this occasion
they were aided by the wind, and I had to retreat with precipitation
before an angry and threatening mass of waves, which broke many feet
over the spot I occupied the moment before, with a noise like a
discharge of artillery.
The night was gathering in, and the report of each successive wave,
fraught as it were with my death warrant, struck on my heart like a
funeral knell. Was there no hope of escape in the cove itself? no
difficult path to the rocks aloft? were the questions I rapidly put to
myself. An examination made as well as the darkness of the place
permitted, convinced me that my hopes were vain and transitory. I now
gave way to a sort of momentary despair; every instant was abridging my
chance of life, and the sudden and frightful feeling that you are to be
called on unprepared, to die, rushed on my mind with a choking
sensation. I listened for some time at the entrance of one of the
caverns, which the violence of the sea had excavated in picturesque
confusion round the foot of the cliffs, to the sullen moaning and
dashing of the tide, when my attention was rivetted by the sweet music
of a female voice on the heights above, singing in a wild and elevated
strain. It came over me with a sense so deep and clear, that I listened
for a few minutes as if my life were in every note. At this instant a
fishing boat passed under sail near the mouth of the cove. I shouted
with despair, but my voice was lost in the echo of the rocks; it passed
fleeting by, and with it my last chance of life. The shout had aroused
the strange singer; she arose, advanced to the very extremity of the
precipice, where one quiver would have been certain death, and flinging
her arms towards the ocean, called out as I imagined from her gestures,
to some imagined form. What could this fair apparition mean? I
distinctly saw her tall white figure and hair on the sky line (for the
moon was near rising) fluttering in the wind. She must either be mad or
a spirit, I exclaimed, shouting again and again to her for help; but
either my words were lost in the distance, or she regarded them not, for
she seated herself, and began to sing in the same wild style as before.
This was most extraordinary: a momentary tinge of superstition passed
across my mind, but it was speedily dissipated by the exclusive feelings
of my situation. Slowly did I see the waves dashing forward to their
destined goal, hemming in every chance of escape. I retreated step by
step till I reached the shingles, as if greedy of the space which
measured out to me my last race of life. My existence was in a span.
Great God! I exclaimed, am I then to perish thus--"without a grave,
unkennelled, uncoffined, and unknown"--my once sunny home--those faces
dearer than heart's blood--the days of my childhood passed over my
spirit--my mind was crowded with the images of by-gone days; half an
hour more and this breathing form would be clay. Yet how dreadful a
death! my poor dog howled and looked up in my face as a violent rush of
tide burst against the base of the rocks. Already I imagined the sea
around me, lessening my moments of life inch by inch--the tide bubbling
about my throat as I clung to the rock for help: I fancied I could have
borne any death rather than this lingering misery.
I rallied: my feelings were unmanly. The moon had risen in unclouded
brilliancy, gleaming on the heaving and rippled surface of the dark blue
main; I looked up to the tranquil firmament, and the reflection was
bitter. Pealing along with the voice of the ocean, the wild and lofty
strains from the singular figure aloft, like a gentle brook commingling
its waters with a vast and rapid river--failed not during this time to
keep up my excitement. The sea was now fast covering the shingles; one
chance was yet before me, which the instant I reflected on, I hesitated
not to put into execution. It could at worst be only exchanging one
death for another, and death would have been a boon indeed, rather than
the longer endurance of that deeply agonizing state of suspense. I can
fancy my faithful dog, by his actions, had anticipated this resolution:
his joyful bark as I sprung forward into the waves, still rings in my
ear. He was a dog of prodigious size and strength: holding by his shaggy
neck with one hand, I assisted myself in swimming along by him with the
other, intending after clearing the mouth of the cove, to make for the
opening in the rocks to landward. I felt invigorated with new life,
though the chances against me were still precarious, on account of the
distance, as we went through the plashing waves with the broad expanse
of ocean again before me. The sea was now tolerably calm along shore,
for the tide was far advanced, and I had hardly swam twenty yards from
the mouth of the cove when a Landwithiel fishing-boat came in sight
almost within hail. An involuntary prayer came to my lips; I sung out
with all the energy which the hope of life could produce; she was
alongside in a trice, and in a few minutes I was sailing for Landwithiel
Pier, merrily, at the rate of eight knots an hour. I found on detailing
my adventure, which greatly surprised the fine fellows who picked me up,
that the cove was called Dawlish's Hole; and that the apparition of the
white lady on the rocks was one of flesh and blood, not an airy vision.
"Poor Ellen Dawlish," said Sam Clovelly, my informant, "once the pride
of the parish--poor thing! her day has long since gone by; she is always
worse when the moon's full; but it's a long yarn, sir, and you'll learn
all about her and the wild skipper, as we used to call him, (that's her
husband) far better up at the "Ship-Aground" yonder, than I can tell
you."
The only consequence that resulted from the adventure thus
providentially terminated, was a wet jacket; but a brisk fire, a glass
of grog, and a warm welcome in my host's capacious settle, helped to
banish it from my recollection. My worthy friend, Sam Clovelly, was not
mistaken; my interest, which was deeply awakened, received a strong whet
from the narrative which Mr. Sheepshanks related, and though wearied
with the day's adventure, I did not go to rest till I had heard the
conclusion of his somewhat prolix story. I afterwards happened to know
more, indeed, of the circumstances alluded to; and though the day's
incident was of a frightful nature, yet I look back upon it as the means
of introducing me to the knowledge of events connected with the history
of the last surviving member of an ancient family, to me of deep
interest. I pause: the reader may hear more of the FATE OF WALTER
DAWLISH.
VYVYAN.
[3] Printed by mistake Tor-withiel, in No. II. of these
Recollections: see _Mirror_, vol. xv. p. 356.
* * * * *
OLD POETS.
* * * * *
MELANCHOLY.
Melancholy from the spleen begun,
By passion mov'd into the veins doth run;
Which when this humour as a swelling flood,
By vigour is infused in the blood,
The vital spirits doth mightily appal,
And weakeneth so the parts organical,
And when the senses are disturb'd and tir'd
With what the heart incessantly desir'd,
Like travellers with labour long oppress'd
Finding relief, eftsoons thy fall to rest.
DRAYTON.
* * * * *
LOVE.
Sweet are the kisses, the embracements sweet,
When like desires and affections meet;
For from the earth to heaven is Cupid raised
Where fancies are in equal balance peised.
MARLOWE.
O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,
And once made perfect, never lost again.
SHAKSPEARE.
* * * * *
BEAUTY.
Such colour had her face as when the sun
Shines in a watery cloud in pleasant spring;
And even as when the summer is begun
The nightingales in boughs do sit and sing,
So the blind god, whose force can no man shun
Sits in her eyes, and thence his darts doth fling;
Bathing his wings in her bright crystal streams,
And sunning them in her rare beauties beams.
In these he heads his golden-headed dart,
In those he cooleth it, and tempereth so,
He levels thence at good Oberto's heart,
And to the head he draws it in his bow.
SIR J. HARRINGTON.
* * * * *
SLANDER.
Against bad tongues goodness cannot defend her,
Those be most free from faults they least will spare,
But prate of them whom they have scantly known,
Judging their humors to be like their own.
IBID.
* * * * *
POSTERITY.
Daughter of Time, sincere Posterity
Always new born, yet no man knows thy birth,
The arbitress of pure Sincerity,
Yet, changeable, (like Proteus on the earth)
Sometime in plenty, sometime joined with dearth.
Always to come, yet always present here,
Whom all run after, none come after near.
Impartial judge of all save present state
Truth's _Idioma_ of the things are past,
But still pursuing present things with hate,
And more injurious at the first than last,
Preserving others while thine own do waste;
True treasurer of all antiquity,
Whom all desire, yet never one could see.
FITZ JEFFREY.
* * * * *
WAR.
The poets old in their fond fables feign,
That mighty Mars is god of war and strife,
The Astronomers think that whereas Mars doth reign,
That all debate and discord must be rife;
Some think Bellona goddess of that life.
Among the rest that painter had some skill,
Which thus in arms did once set out the same:--
A field of gules, and on a golden hill,
A stately town consumed all with flame
On chief of sable taken from the dame,
A sucking babe, oh! born to bide mischance
Begored with blood and pierced with a lance
On high the Helm, I bear it well in mind,
The wreath was silver, powdered all with shot,
About the which, _goutte du sang_, did twine
A roll of sable black, and foul be blot
The crest two hands which may not be forgot,
For in the right a trenchant blade did stand,
And in the left a fiery, burning brand.
GASCOIGNE.
* * * * *
MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.
* * * * *
CUSTOM OF BULL-BAITING AT GREAT GRIMSBY.
The amusement of bull-baiting is of such high antiquity in this country,
that Fitz-Stephen, who lived in the reign of Henry II., tells us it was,
at that early period, the common entertainment of the young Londoners
during the winter season; and Claudian says of the English mastiffs--
"Magnaque taurorum fracturi colla Britanni."
The county of Lincoln is eulogized by Fuller as producing superior
dogs for the sport; and in Grimsby bull-baiting was pursued with such
avidity, that, to increase its importance, and prevent the possibility
of its falling into disuse, it was made the subject of an official
regulation of the magistracy. It had been practised within the borough
from time immemorial, but about the beginning of the reign of Henry
VII., the butchers finding it both troublesome and inconvenient to
provide animals for the public amusement, endeavoured to evade the
requisition; but it was made imperative upon them by the following edict
of the mayor and burgesses, which was incorporated into a code of
ordinances that were made and agreed to on the 23rd of October, 1499,
for the better government of the borough:
"Also, that no Bocher flee or kill no Bull flesche wtin this Burgh, nor
that none be brought to sell bot if the Bull be bayted openlye before
the Mair and his burgesses, peon of forfeitr. of ev'y default
vj _s_. viij _d_. Also that the Bochers of this Francheis, and
al others that kepe slaughter shopes and kill flesche in this Francheis,
to sell, mak onys yerly befor the Mair and his burgesses one
bull-bayting, at convenient Tyme of the yere, according to the custom of
this Francheis befor usyd, upon peyn of fortur of vj _s_. viij _d_."
In the reign of Charles I. an instance occurs of the violation of this
ordinance; and it is formally recorded in the mayor's court book, that a
fine was imposed by the chamberlains on Robert Camm for "killing a bull,
and not first baiting him, according to the custom of the corporation."
These sports were conducted with great cruelty. To make the animal
furious, gunpowder was frequently flashed up his nose, and pepper blown
into his nostrils; and if this failed _to make him show game_, his
flesh was lacerated, and aquafortis poured into the wound. About sixty
years ago a bull was put to the stake at Grimsby; but the animal proving
too tame, one William Hall put a spike or brad into his stick, and
goaded the poor creature until the blood flowed copiously from several
parts of his body; and at length, by continually irritating the
lacerated parts, the bull became enraged, and roaring in the extremity
of his torture, succeeded in tossing his assailant, to the infinite
gratification of his cruel persecutors. It is recorded, to the credit of
Mr. Alderman Hesleden, that during his mayoralty, in 1779, the annual
exhibition was disallowed: from which time the custom declined, although
some instances of this inhuman pastime have subsequently occurred.
Strutt says, that in some of the market towns of England, the
_bull-rings_ to which the unfortunate animals were fastened are
remaining to the present time. At Grimsby, the arena where this brutal
ceremony was performed, is still distinguished by the name of the
"Bull-ring." The ancient stone and ring were removed about thirty years
since; but the chain is still in possession of the chamberlains, who
pass it annually to their successors; and it is sometimes applied to the
purpose of fastening up a gate, when a distress is made on a field
belonging to the corporation for rent; but its primitive use is wholly
superseded by the abolition of the amusement.
_Gentleman's Magazine._
* * * * *
NOTES OF A READER.
* * * * *
KNOWLEDGE FOR THE PEOPLE: OR, THE PLAIN WHY AND BECAUSE.
Part IV.--_Zoology--Birds._
This portion illustrates the Economy of Birds, with a few of the most
attractive varieties, under European and British, and Foreign Birds.
We quote from the "General Economy;" premising that the present Part
contains about 250 such illustrations, or _Why and Because_.
Why are birds usually classed according to the forms of their bills and
feet? Because those parts are connected with their mode of life, food,
etc., and influence their total habit very materially. _Blumenbach._
Why have birds little power of suction?
Because of the narrowness and rigidity of their tongue; as may be seen
when they drink, having to hold up their heads, and depend upon the
weight of the water for transmitting it into the craw.--_Rennie._
Why are birds said to be "poised" in the air?
Because the centre of gravity of their bodies is always below the
insertion of their wings, to prevent them falling on their backs, but
near that point on which the body is, during flight, as it were,
suspended. The positions assumed by the head and feet are frequently
calculated to accomplish these ends, and give to the wings every
assistance in continuing the progressive motion. The tail also is of
great use, in regulating the rise and fall of birds, and even their
lateral movements.--_Fleming._
Why do birds fly?
Because they have the largest bones of all animals, in proportion to
their weight; and their bones are more hollow than those of animals that
do not fly. Air-vessels also enable them to blow out the hollow parts of
their bodies, when they wish to make their descent slower, rise more
swiftly, or float in the air. The muscles that move the wings of birds
downwards, in many instances, are a sixth part of the weight of the
whole body; whereas, those of a man are not in proportion one-hundredth
part so large.
Why are birds covered with feathers?
Because, by this addition to the non-conducting appendices of the skin,
birds are enabled to preserve the heat, generated in their bodies, from
being readily transmitted to the surrounding air, and carried off by its
motions and diminished temperature.--_Fleming._
Why are the strongest feathers of birds in the pinions and tail?
Because the pinion-feathers may form, when the wing is expanded, as it
were, broad fans, by which the bird is enabled to raise itself in the
air and fly; whilst its tail feathers direct its course.--_Blumenbach._
Why do birds moult?
Because they may be prepared for winter; this change being analogous to
the casting of hair in quadrupeds. During summer, the feathers of birds
are exposed to many accidents. Not a few spontaneously fall; some of
them are torn off during their amorous quarrels; others are broken or
damaged; whilst, in many species, they are pulled from their bodies to
line their nests. Hence, their summer dress becomes thin and suitable.
Previous to winter, however, and immediately after incubation and
rearing of the young is finished, the old feathers are pushed off in
succession by the new ones, and thus the greater part of the plumage of
the bird is renewed.--_Fleming._
Why do birds sing?
Because of the receptacles of air already mentioned but particularly by
the disposition of the larynx, which in birds is not, as in mammifera
and amphibia, placed wholly at the upper end of the windpipe; but, as it
were, separated into two parts, one placed at each extremity. Parrots,
ravens, starlings, bullfinches, &c., have been taught to imitate the
human voice, and to speak some words: singing birds also, in captivity,
readily adopt the song of others, learn tunes, and can even be made
to sing in company, so that it has been possible actually to give a
little concert by several bullfinches. In general, however, the song
of birds in the wild state appears to be formed by practice and
imitation.--_Blumenbach._
Why do the notes of different species of birds vary?
Because, probably, of the structure of the organs of each species
enabling them more easily to produce the notes of their own species,
than those of any other, and from the notes of their own species being
more agreeable to their ears. These conditions, joined to the facility
of hearing the song of their own species, in consequence of frequenting
the same places, determine the character of the acquired language of the
feathered tribes.--_Fleming._
Why are birds equally dispersed in spring over the face of the country?
Because, during that amorous season, such a jealousy prevails between
the male birds, that they can hardly bear to be seen together in the
same hedge or field. Most of the singing and elation of spirits, of that
time, seem to be the effect of rivalry and emulation.--_G. White._
Why is August the most mute month, the Spring, Summer, and Autumn
through?
Because many birds which become silent about Midsummer, reassume their
notes in September; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren,
&c.--_G. White._
Why do birds congregate in hard weather?
Because, as some kind of self-interest and self-defence is, no doubt,
their motive, may it not arise from the helplessness of their state in
such rigorous seasons; as men crowd together, when under great
calamities, they know not why? Perhaps approximation may dispel some
degree of cold; and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from
the ravages of birds of prey and other damages.--_G. White._
Why do we so often fail in rearing young birds?
Because of our ignorance of their requisite food. Every one who has made
the attempt, well knows the various expedients he has resorted to, of
boiled meats, bruised seeds, hard eggs, boiled rice, and twenty other
substances that Nature never presents, in order to find a diet that will
nourish them; but Mr. Montagu's failure, in being able to raise the
young of the curl-bunting, until he discovered that they required
grasshoppers, is a sufficient instance of the manifest necessity there
is for a peculiar food in one period of the life of birds.--_Knapp._
Why have most noctural birds large eyes and ears?
Because large eyes are necessary to collect every ray of light, and
large concave ears to command the smallest degree of sound or noise.
Why do stale eggs float upon water?
Because, by keeping, air is substituted for a portion of the water of
the egg, which escapes.--_Prout._
Why has the breast-bone of all birds which fly, a long ridge or keel?
Because muscles are attached to it, to facilitate their flight.
Why is the plumage of aquatic birds kept dry?
Because the small feathers next the bird fall over each other like the
tiles of a roof, and thus throw off the water.
* * * * *
FESTIVALS, GAMES, AND AMUSEMENTS.
BY HORATIO SMITH, ESQ.
(_National Library_--Vol. v.)
The readers of _The Mirror_ will doubtless expect in its pages some
notice of the present work; although it belongs to a Series, which as
yet possesses but few attractions for our attention. The title of the
volume before us, and the name of its author, however, led us to expect
better things; and sorry are we to have little but disappointment to
report to the reader.
Mr. Smith sets out by telling us, in his _Preface_, that he has
only been able to produce a _mediocre_ book, and at once shows that
his task has been by no means a grateful one. He talks of compilation
and selection as if they were the very drudgery of literature, although
in the present instance he has executed both so indifferently. He speaks
of _condensing_ into "one little volume," whereas the plan adopted
by him has but little of the labour of condensation, his book being
little but slice upon slice, like preserved fruit, instead of being
thoroughly mixed and reduced like jelly. With Strutt's Sports and
Pastimes, and Ellis's Edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities before him,
he might have produced a volume of exhaustless interest and value, set
with hundreds of foot-note references, which he has made but few and far
between. Nay, with the example of Brand before him (for we see that he
is occasionally quoted), it is difficult to conceive how Mr. Smith could
overlook so important a point as the distinct acknowledgment of his
authorities.
A slight analysis of Mr. Smith's volume will show the reader that our
animadversions are not uncalled for.--Thus, upwards of one hundred pages
are devoted to the Festival Games and Amusements of the Jews, Greeks,
and Romans, meanly as Mr. Smith talks of "learned lore and antiquarian
pedantry." Then follow twenty-two pages on, not of, Modern Festivals,
&c.: from thence we quote two pages on the amusements of Londoners:--
"In addition to peculiar and extensive privileges of hunting, hawking,
and fishing, the Londoners had large portions of ground allotted to them
in the vicinity of the city, for such pastimes as were best calculated
to render them strong and healthy. The city damsels had also their
recreation on the celebration of these festivals, dancing to the
accompaniment of music, and continuing their sports by moonlight. Stow
tells us that in his time it was customary for the maidens, after
evening prayers, to dance and sing in the presence of their masters and
mistresses, the best performer being rewarded with a garland. Who can
peruse the recapitulation of London sports and amusements, even so late
as the beginning of the last century, without being struck by the
contrast it presents in its present state, when, as a French traveller
observes, it is no longer a city, but a province covered with houses? In
the whole world, probably, there is no large town so utterly unprovided
with means of healthful recreation for the mass of the citizens. Every
vacant and green spot has been converted into a street; field after
field has been absorbed by the builder; all the scenes of popular resort
have been smothered with piles of brick; football and cricket-grounds,
bowling-greens, and the enclosures of open places, set apart for archery
and other pastimes, have been successively parcelled out in squares,
lanes, or alleys; the increasing value of land, and extent of the city,
render it impossible to find substitutes; and the humbler classes who
may wish to obtain the sight of a field, or inhale a mouthful of fresh
air, can scarcely be gratified, unless, at some expense of time and
money, they make a journey for the purpose. Even our parks, not unaptly
termed the lungs of the metropolis, have been partially invaded by the
omnivorous builder; nor are those portions of them which are still open
available to the commonalty for purposes of pastime and sport. Under
such circumstances who can wonder that they should lounge away their
unemployed time in the skittle-grounds of ale-houses and gin-shops? or
that their immorality should have increased with the enlargement of the
town, and the compulsory discontinuance of their former healthful and
harmless pastimes? It would be wise to revive, rather than seek any
further to suppress them: wiser still would it be, with reference both
to the bodily and moral health of the people, if, in all new inclosures
for building, provision were legally made for the unrestricted enjoyment
of their games and diversions, by leaving large open spaces to be
appropriated to that purpose.
"Upon a general review of our present prevailing amusements, it will be
found, that if many have been dropped, at least in the metropolis, which
it might have been desirable to retain, several also have been
abandoned, of which we cannot by any means regret the loss; while those
that remain to us, participating in the advancement of civilization,
have in some instances become much more intellectual in their character,
and in others have assumed more elegant, humane, and unobjectionable
forms. Bull and bear-baiting, cock-throwing and fighting, and such like
barbarous pastimes, have long been on the wane, and will, it is to be
hoped, soon become totally extinct. That females of rank and education
should now frequent such savage scenes, seems so little within the scope
of possibility that we can hardly credit their ever having done so, even
in times that were comparatively barbarous."
Truly, as Charles Mathews says, "we are losing all our amusements." Then
follow about thirty pages of Holiday Notices; a sort of running
commentary on the Calendar. The spaces of the days, however, are sadly
disproportioned. Shrove Tuesday occupies upwards of two pages; Good
Friday and Easter are pruned into the same space; May Day has upwards of
four pages, more than half of which are taken up with the author's own
embellishment: still, not a word has he on the _poetry_ of the Day
beyond his motto from Herrick. Field Sports, as Hawking and Archery,
occupy the next thirty pages; but Mr. Smith is wofully deficient in the
latter department: for instance, how is it that he has not even
mentioned the archery at Harrow School,[4] and the existence of archery
clubs in the present day.--Bull-fights and Baiting of Animals occupy the
next forty pages in two chapters, one of which has been mostly
transcribed from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. An original account of a
Spanish Bull Fight occupies twenty pages, and is interesting, but rather
out of place among English sports. Dancing has thirty pages, for which
the Encyclopaedia Britannica has also been very freely taxed. Morris
Dancers have ten pages. Jugglers have about the same space, chiefly from
Strutt and Brand: Beckmann's chapter might have been added. Music and
Minstrels have thirty pages, from Hawkins and Burney. Mr. Singer's
curious work has furnished about twenty pages on Playing Cards. Chess is
compressed within ten pages! The English Drama, thirty pages, is
acknowledged from Hawkins's History of the English Drama, Cibber, and
Victor; but "more especially from the Biographia Dramatica," we should
say, the weakest source of the four. Malone's Supplement to his Edition
of Shakspeare has entirely supplied thirteen pages of Playhouse
Notices;--and here the curtain falls--sans Index, or the Author's
Farewell.
There are three Engravings--a stunted Frontispiece from Wouverman's
Hawking Party, a Plan of Olympia, and the Tomb of Scaurus--the two
latter belonging, to use Mr. Smith's words, rather to "learned lore
and antiquarian pedantry," than a book of popular interest. Even had
Mr. Smith selected cuts of the Archery Meeting at Harrow, or the
Staffordshire Morris Dance Window, he would better have consulted the
gratification of his readers. In short, there are few subjects that
admit of more delightful illustration, literary or graphic, than the
"Festivals, Games, and Amusements" of "Merry England;" yet, to do these
topics justice, requires careful compilation, condensation, and tasteful
arrangement, upon neither of which points can we congratulate Mr.
Smith's judgment in the specimen before us. Probably the author has been
so long accustomed to indulge his fancy in ten shilling volumes of
"historical tales," that he finds it difficult to restrain himself to
books of facts: if this be the case, we should say that Mr. Smith is not
just the person to furnish the "nation" with a history of "Festivals,
Games, and Amusements, Ancient and Modern."
[4] See Mirror, vol. xiii. p. 259.
* * * * *
LORD BYRON.
(_From Moore's "Life,"_ Vol. II.)
To those who have, from his childhood, traced him through these pages,
it must be manifest, I think, that Lord Byron was not formed to be
long-lived.--Whether from any hereditary defect in his organization--as
|
his adversary to know whether
he struck his colors. "I have not yet begun to fight," was his answer.
When the surrender took place, it was not Jones's ship that became the
prize of war. Everybody admires a hard fighter--the man who takes
buffets standing up, and in a spirit of "Never say die" is always ready
for more.
When you're lost in the wild and you're scared as a child,
And death looks you bang in the eye;
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and die.
But the code of a man says fight all you can,
And self-dissolution is barred;
In hunger and woe, oh it's easy to blow--
It's the hell served for breakfast that's hard.
You're sick of the game? Well now, that's a shame!
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
You've had a raw deal, I know, but don't squeal.
Buck up, do your damnedest and fight!
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard;
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit--
It's the keeping your chin up that's hard.
It's easy to cry that you're beaten and die,
It's easy to crawfish and crawl,
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight,
Why, that's the best game of them all.
And though you come out of each grueling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred--
Just have one more try. It's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping on living that's hard.
_Robert W. Service._
From "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone."
[Illustration: ROBERT WILLIAM SERVICE]
FRIENDS OF MINE
We like to be hospitable. To what should we be more hospitable than a
glad spirit or a kind impulse?
Good-morning, Brother Sunshine,
Good-morning, Sister Song,
I beg your humble pardon
If you've waited very long.
I thought I heard you rapping,
To shut you out were sin,
My heart is standing open,
Won't you
walk
right
in?
Good-morning, Brother Gladness,
Good-morning, Sister Smile,
They told me you were coming,
So I waited on a while.
I'm lonesome here without you,
A weary while it's been,
My heart is standing open,
Won't you
walk
right
in?
Good-morning, Brother Kindness,
Good-morning, Sister Cheer,
I heard you were out calling,
So I waited for you here.
Some way, I keep forgetting
I have to toil or spin
When you are my companions,
Won't you
walk
right
in?
_James W. Foley._
From "The Voices of Song."
THE WOMAN WHO UNDERSTANDS
"Is this the little woman that made this great war?" was Lincoln's
greeting to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Often a woman is responsible for
events by whose crash and splendor she herself is obscured. Often too
she shapes the career of husband or brother or son. A man succeeds and
reaps the honors of public applause, when in truth a quiet little woman
has made it all possible--has by her tact and encouragement held him to
his best, has had faith in him when his own faith has languished, has
cheered him with the unfailing assurance, "You can, you must, you will."
_Somewhere she waits to make you win, your soul in her firm, white hands--
Somewhere the gods have made for you, the Woman Who Understands!_
As the tide went out she found him
Lashed to a spar of Despair,
The wreck of his Ship around him--
The wreck of his Dreams in the air;
Found him and loved him and gathered
The soul of him close to her heart--
The soul that had sailed an uncharted sea,
The soul that had sought to win and be free--
The soul of which _she_ was part!
And there in the dusk she cried to the man,
"Win your battle--you can, you can!"
Broken by Fate, unrelenting,
Scarred by the lashings of Chance;
Bitter his heart--unrepenting--
Hardened by Circumstance;
Shadowed by Failure ever,
Cursing, he would have died,
But the touch of her hand, her strong warm hand,
And her love of his soul, took full command,
Just at the turn of the tide!
Standing beside him, filled with trust,
"Win!" she whispered, "you must, you must!"
Helping and loving and guiding,
Urging when that were best,
Holding her fears in hiding
Deep in her quiet breast;
This is the woman who kept him
True to his standards lost,
When, tossed in the storm and stress of strife,
He thought himself through with the game of life
And ready to pay the cost.
Watching and guarding, whispering still,
"Win you can--and you will, you will!"
This is the story of ages,
This is the Woman's way;
Wiser than seers or sages,
Lifting us day by day;
Facing all things with a courage
Nothing can daunt or dim,
Treading Life's path, wherever it leads--
Lined with flowers or choked with weeds,
But ever with him--with him!
Guidon--comrade--golden spur--
The men who win are helped by _her_!
_Somewhere she waits, strong in belief, your soul in her firm, white hands:
Thank well the gods, when she comes to you--the Woman Who Understands!_
_Everard Jack Appleton._
From "The Quiet Courage."
WANTED--A MAN
Business and the world are exacting in their demands upon us. They make
no concessions to half-heartedness, incompetence, or plodding mediocrity.
But for the man who has proved his worth and can do the exceptional
things with originality and sound judgment, they are eagerly watchful
and have rich rewards.
You say big corporations scheme
To keep a fellow down;
They drive him, shame him, starve him too
If he so much as frown.
God knows I hold no brief for them;
Still, come with me to-day
And watch those fat directors meet,
For this is what they say:
"In all our force not one to take
The new work that we plan!
In all the thousand men we've hired
Where shall we find a man?"
The world is shabby in the way
It treats a fellow too;
It just endures him while he works,
And kicks him when he's through.
It's ruthless, yes; let him make good,
Or else it grabs its broom
And grumbles: "What a clutter's here!
We can't have this. Make room!"
And out he goes. It says, "Can bread
Be made from mouldy bran?
The men come swarming here in droves,
But where'll I find a man?"
Yes, life is hard. But all the same
It seeks the man who's best.
Its grudging makes the prizes big;
The obstacle's a test.
Don't ask to find the pathway smooth,
To march to fife and drum;
The plum-tree will not come to you;
Jack Horner, hunt the plum.
The eyes of life are yearning, sad,
As humankind they scan.
She says, "Oh, there are men enough,
But where'll I find a man?"
_St. Clair Adams._
IF I SHOULD DIE
A man whose word is as good as his bond is a man the world admires. It
is related of Fox that a tradesman whom he long had owed money found him
one day counting gold and asked for payment. Fox replied: "No; I owe
this money to Sheridan. It is a debt of honor. If an accident should
happen to me, he has nothing to show." The tradesman tore his note to
pieces: "I change my debt into a debt of honor." Fox thanked him and
handed over the money, saying that Sheridan's debt was not of so long
standing and that Sheridan must wait. But most of us know men who are
less scrupulous than Fox.
If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay--
If I should die to-night,
And you should come in deepest grief and woe--
And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"
I might arise in my large white cravat
And say, "What's that?"
If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel,
Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,
I say, if I should die to-night
And you should come to me, and there and then
Just even hint 'bout payin' me that ten,
I might arise the while,
But I'd drop dead again.
_Ben King._
From "Ben King's Verse."
JUST BE GLAD
Misfortunes overtake us, difficulties confront us; but these things must
not induce us to give up. A Congressman who had promised Thomas B. Reed
to be present at a political meeting telegraphed at the last moment:
"Cannot come; washout on the line." "No need to stay away," said Reed's
answering telegram; "buy another shirt."
O heart of mine, we shouldn't
Worry so!
What we've missed of calm we couldn't
Have, you know!
What we've met of stormy pain,
And of sorrow's driving rain,
We can better meet again,
If it blow!
We have erred in that dark hour
We have known,
When our tears fell with the shower,
All alone!--
Were not shine and shower blent
As the gracious Master meant?--
Let us temper our content
With His own.
For, we know, not every morrow
Can be sad;
So, forgetting all the sorrow
We have had,
Let us fold away our fears,
And put by our foolish tears,
And through all the coming years
Just be glad.
_James Whitcomb Riley._
From the Biographical Edition Of the
Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley.
OPPORTUNITY
"I lack only one of having a hundred," said a student after an
examination; "I have the two naughts." And all he did lack was a one,
_rightly placed_. The world is full of opportunities. Discernment to
perceive, courage to undertake, patience to carry through, will change
the whole aspect of the universe for us and bring positive achievement
out of meaningless negation.
With doubt and dismay you are smitten
You think there's no chance for you, son?
Why, the best books haven't been written
The best race hasn't been run,
The best score hasn't been made yet,
The best song hasn't been sung,
The best tune hasn't been played yet,
Cheer up, for the world is young!
No chance? Why the world is just eager
For things that you ought to create
Its store of true wealth is still meagre
Its needs are incessant and great,
It yearns for more power and beauty
More laughter and love and romance,
More loyalty, labor and duty,
No chance--why there's nothing but chance!
For the best verse hasn't been rhymed yet,
The best house hasn't been planned,
The highest peak hasn't been climbed yet,
The mightiest rivers aren't spanned,
Don't worry and fret, faint hearted,
The chances have just begun,
For the Best jobs haven't been started,
The Best work hasn't been done.
_Berton Braley._
From "A Banjo at Armageddon."
SOLITUDE
Said an Irishman who had several times been kicked downstairs: "I begin
to think they don't want me around here." So it is with our sorrows, our
struggles. Life decrees that they belong to us individually. If we try
to make others share them, we are shunned. But struggling and weary
humanity is glad enough to share our joys.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth
Must borrow its mirth,
It has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound
To a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure
Of all your pleasure,
But they do not want your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all;
There are none to decline
Your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by;
Succeed and give,
And it helps you live,
But it cannot help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train;
But one by one
We must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
_Ella Wheeler Wilcox._
From "How Salvator Won."
UNSUBDUED
"An artist's career," said Whistler, "always begins to-morrow." So does
the career of any man of courage and imagination. The Eden of such a man
does not lie in yesterday. If he has done well, he forgets his
achievements and dreams of the big deeds ahead. If he has been thwarted,
he forgets his failures and looks forward to vast, sure successes. If
fate itself opposes him, he defies it. Farragut's fleet was forcing an
entrance into Mobile Bay. One of the vessels struck something, a
terrific explosion followed, the vessel went down. "Torpedoes, sir."
They scanned the face of the commander-in-chief. But Farragut did not
hesitate. "Damn the torpedoes," said he. "Go ahead."
I have hoped, I have planned, I have striven,
To the will I have added the deed;
The best that was in me I've given,
I have prayed, but the gods would not heed.
I have dared and reached only disaster,
I have battled and broken my lance;
I am bruised by a pitiless master
That the weak and the timid call Chance.
I am old, I am bent, I am cheated
Of all that Youth urged me to win;
But name me not with the defeated,
To-morrow again, I begin.
_S.E. Kiser._
From "Poems That Have Helped Me."
WORK
"A SONG OF TRIUMPH"
When Captain John Smith was made the leader of the colonists at
Jamestown, Va., he discouraged the get-rich-quick seekers of gold by
announcing flatly, "He who will not work shall not eat." This rule made
of Jamestown the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
But work does more than lead to material success. It gives an outlet
from sorrow, restrains wild desires, ripens and refines character,
enables human beings to cooperate with God, and when well done, brings
to life its consummate satisfaction. Every man is a Prince of
Possibilities, but by work alone can he come into his Kingship.
Work!
Thank God for the might of it,
The ardor, the urge, the delight of it--
Work that springs from the heart's desire,
Setting the brain and the soul on fire--
Oh, what is so good as the heat of it,
And what is so glad as the beat of it,
And what is so kind as the stern command,
Challenging brain and heart and hand?
Work!
Thank God for the pride of it,
For the beautiful, conquering tide of it.
Sweeping the life in its furious flood,
Thrilling the arteries, cleansing the blood,
Mastering stupor and dull despair,
Moving the dreamer to do and dare.
Oh, what is so good as the urge of it,
And what is so glad as the surge of it,
And what is so strong as the summons deep,
Rousing the torpid soul from sleep?
Work!
Thank God for the pace of it,
For the terrible, keen, swift race of it;
Fiery steeds in full control,
Nostrils a-quiver to greet the goal.
Work, the Power that drives behind,
Guiding the purposes, taming the mind,
Holding the runaway wishes back,
Reining the will to one steady track,
Speeding the energies faster, faster,
Triumphing over disaster.
Oh, what is so good as the pain of it,
And what is so great as the gain of it?
And what is so kind as the cruel goad,
Forcing us on through the rugged road?
Work!
Thank God for the swing of it,
For the clamoring, hammering ring of it,
Passion and labor daily hurled
On the mighty anvils of the world.
Oh, what is so fierce as the flame of it?
And what is so huge as the aim of it?
Thundering on through dearth and doubt,
Calling the plan of the Maker out.
Work, the Titan; Work, the friend,
Shaping the earth to a glorious end,
Draining the swamps and blasting the hills,
Doing whatever the Spirit wills--
Rending a continent apart,
To answer the dream of the Master heart.
Thank God for a world where none may shirk--
Thank God for the splendor of work!
_Angela Morgan._
From "The Hour Has Struck."
HOW DID YOU DIE?
Grant at Ft. Donelson demanded unconditional and immediate surrender. At
Appomattox he offered as lenient terms as victor ever extended to
vanquished. Why the difference? The one event was at the beginning of
the war, when the enemy's morale must be shaken. The other was at the
end of the conflict, when a brave and noble adversary had been rendered
helpless. In his quiet way Grant showed himself one of nature's
gentlemen. He also taught a great lesson. No honor can be too great for
the man, be he even our foe, who has steadily and uncomplainingly done
his very best--and has failed.
Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it,
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?
You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that!
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there--that's disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
It's how did you fight--and why?
And though you be done to the death, what then?
If you battled the best you could,
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only how did you die?
_Edmund Vance Cooke._
From "Impertinent Poems."
A LESSON FROM HISTORY
To break the ice of an undertaking is difficult. To cross on broken ice,
as Eliza did to freedom, or to row amid floating ice, as Washington did
to victory, is harder still. This poem applies especially to those who
are discouraged in a struggle to which they are already committed.
Everything's easy after it's done;
Every battle's a "cinch" that's won;
Every problem is clear that's solved--
The earth was round when it _revolved!_
But Washington stood amid grave doubt
With enemy forces camped about;
He could not know how he would fare
Till _after_ he'd crossed the Delaware.
Though the river was full of ice
He did not think about it twice,
But started across in the dead of night,
The enemy waiting to open the fight.
Likely feeling pretty blue,
Being human, same as you,
But he was brave amid despair,
And Washington crossed the Delaware!
So when you're with trouble beset,
And your spirits are soaking wet,
When all the sky with clouds is black,
Don't lie down upon your back
And look at _them_. Just do the thing;
Though you are choked, still try to sing.
If times are dark, believe them fair,
And you will cross the Delaware!
_Joseph Morris._
RABBI BEN EZRA
(SELECTED VERSES)
To some people success is everything, and the easier it is gained the
better. To Browning success is nothing unless it is won by painful
effort. What Browning values is struggle. Throes, rebuffs, even failure
to achieve what we wish, are to be welcomed, for the effects of vigorous
endeavor inweave themselves into our characters; moreover through
struggle we lift ourselves from the degradation into which the indolent
fall. In the intervals of strife we may look back dispassionately upon
what we have gone through, see where we erred and where we did wisely,
watch the workings of universal laws, and resolve to apply hereafter
what we have hitherto learned.
Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
For thence,--a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,--
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.
So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
"This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."
For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
_Robert Browning._
TO MELANCHOLY
The last invitation anybody would accept is "Come, let us weep
together." If we keep melancholy at our house, we should be careful to
have it under lock and key, so that no one will observe it.
Melancholy,
Melancholy,
I've no use for you, by Golly!
Yet I'm going to keep you hidden
In some chamber dark, forbidden,
Just as though you were a prize, sir,
Made of gold, and I a miser--
Not because I think you jolly,
Melancholy!
Not for that I mean to hoard you,
Keep you close and lodge and board you
As I would my sisters, brothers,
Cousins, aunts, and old grandmothers,
But that you shan't bother others
With your sniffling, snuffling folly,
Howling,
Yowling,
Melancholy.
_John Kendrick Bangs._
From "Songs of Cheer."
THE LION PATH
Admiral Dupont was explaining to Farragut his reasons for not taking his
ironclads into Charleston harbor. "You haven't given me the main reason
yet," said Farragut. "What's that?" "You didn't think you could do it."
So the man who thinks he can't pass a lion, can't. But the man who
thinks he can, can. Indeed he oftentimes finds that the lion isn't
really there at all.
I dare not!--
Look! the road is very dark--
The trees stir softly and the bushes shake,
The long grass rustles, and the darkness moves
Here! there! beyond--!
There's something crept across the road just now!
And you would have me go--?
Go _there_, through that live darkness, hideous
With stir of crouching forms that wait to kill?
Ah, _look_! See there! and there! and there again!
Great yellow, glassy eyes, close to the ground!
Look! Now the clouds are lighter I can see
The long slow lashing of the sinewy tails,
And the set quiver of strong jaws that wait--!
Go there? Not I! Who dares to go who sees
So perfectly the lions in the path?
Comes one who dares.
Afraid at first, yet bound
On such high errand as no fear could stay.
Forth goes he, with lions in his path.
And then--?
He dared a death of agony--
Outnumbered battle with the king of beasts--
Long struggles in the horror of the night--
Dared, and went forth to meet--O ye who fear!
Finding an empty road, and nothing there--
And fences, and the dusty roadside trees--
Some spitting kittens, maybe, in the grass.
_Charlotte Perkins Gilman._
From "In This Our World."
THE ANSWER
Bob Fitzsimmons lacked the physical bulk of the men he fought, was
ungainly in build and movement, and not infrequently got himself floored
in the early rounds of his contests. But many people consider him the
best fighter for his weight who ever stepped into the prize ring. Not a
favorite at first, he won the popular heart by making good. Of course he
had great natural powers; from any position when the chance at last came
he could dart forth a sudden, wicked blow that no human being could
withstand. But more formidable still was the spirit which gave him cool
and complete command of all his resources, and made him most dangerous
when he was on the verge of being knocked out.
When the battle breaks against you and the crowd forgets to cheer
When the Anvil Chorus echoes with the essence of a jeer;
When the knockers start their panning in the knocker's nimble way
With a rap for all your errors and a josh upon your play--
There is one quick answer ready that will nail them on the wing;
There is one reply forthcoming that will wipe away the sting;
There is one elastic come-back that will hold them, as it should--
Make good.
No matter where you finish in the mix-up or the row,
There are those among the rabble who will pan you anyhow;
But the entry who is sticking and delivering the stuff
Can listen to the yapping as he giggles up his cuff;
The loafer has no come-back and the quitter no reply
When the Anvil Chorus echoes, as it will, against the sky;
But there's one quick answer ready that will wrap them in a hood--
Make good.
_Grantland Rice._
From "The Sportlight."
THE WORLD IS AGAINST ME
Babe Ruth doesn't complain that opposing pitchers try to strike him out;
he swings at the ball till he swats it for four bases. Ty Cobb doesn't
complain that whole teams work wits and muscles overtime to keep him
from stealing home; he pits himself against them all and comes galloping
or hurdling or sliding in. What other men can do any man can do if he
works long enough with a brave enough heart.
"The world is against me," he said with a sigh.
"Somebody stops every scheme that I try.
The world has me down and it's keeping me there;
I don't get a chance. Oh, the world is unfair!
When a fellow is poor then he can't get a show;
The world is determined to keep him down low."
"What of Abe Lincoln?" I asked. "Would you say
That he was much richer than you are to-day?
He hadn't your chance of making his mark,
And his outlook was often exceedingly dark;
Yet he clung to his purpose with courage most grim
And he got to the top. Was the world against him?
"What of Ben Franklin? I've oft heard it said
That many a time he went hungry to bed.
He started with nothing but courage to climb,
But patiently struggled and waited his time.
He dangled awhile from real poverty's limb,
Yet he got to the top. Was the world against him?
"I could name you a dozen, yes, hundreds, I guess,
Of poor boys who've patiently climbed to success;
All boys who were down and who struggled alone,
Who'd have thought themselves rich if your fortune they'd known;
Yet they rose in the world you're so quick to condemn,
And I'm asking you now, was the world against them?"
_Edgar A. Guest._
From "Just Folks."
SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH
In any large or prolonged enterprise we are likely to take too limited a
view of the progress we are making. The obstacles do not yield at some
given point; we therefore imagine we have made no headway. The poet here
uses three comparisons to show the folly of accepting this hasty and
partial evidence. A soldier may think, from the little part of the
battle he can see, that the day is going against him; but by holding his
ground stoutly he may help his comrades in another quarter to win the
victory. Successive waves may seem to rise no higher on the land, but
far back in swollen creek and inlet is proof that the tide is coming in.
As we look toward the east, we are discouraged at the slowness of
daybreak; but by looking westward we see the whole landscape illumined.
Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labor and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.
_Arthur Hugh Clough._
WORTH WHILE
A little boy whom his mother had rebuked for not turning a deaf ear to
temptation protested, with tears, that he had no deaf ear. But
temptation, even when heard, must somehow be resisted. Yea, especially
when heard! We deserve no credit for resisting it unless it comes to our
ears like the voice of the siren.
It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is one who will smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth,
Is the smile that shines through tears.
It is easy enough to be prudent,
When nothing tempts you to stray,
When without or within no voice of sin
Is luring your soul away;
But it's only a negative virtue
Until it is tried by fire,
And the life that is worth the honor on earth,
Is the one that resists desire.
By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
Who had no strength for the strife,
The world's highway is cumbered to-day,
They make up the sum of life.
But the virtue that conquers passion,
And the sorrow that hides in a smile,
It is these that are worth the homage on earth
For we find them but once in a while.
_Ella Wheeler Wilcox._
From "Poems of Sentiment."
HOPE
Gloom and despair are really ignorance in another form. They fail to
reckon with the fact that what appears to be baneful often turns out to
be good. Lincoln lost the senatorship to Douglas and thought he had
ended his career; had he won the contest, he might have remained only a
senator. Life often has surprise parties for us. Things come to us
masked in gloom and black; but Time, the revealer, strips off the
disguise, and lo, what we have is blessings.
Never go gloomy, man with a mind,
Hope is a better companion than fear;
Providence, ever benignant and kind,
Gives with a smile what you take with a tear;
All will be right,
Look to the light.
Morning was ever the daughter of night;
All that was black will be all that is bright,
Cheerily, cheerily, then cheer up.
Many a foe is a friend in disguise,
Many a trouble a blessing most true,
Helping the heart to be happy and wise,
With love ever precious and joys ever new.
Stand in the van,
Strike like a man!
This is the bravest and cleverest plan;
Trusting in God while you do what you can.
Cheerily, cheerily, then cheer up.
_Anonymous._
I'M GLAD
I'm glad the sky is painted blue;
And the earth is painted green;
And such a lot of nice fresh air
All sandwiched in between.
_Anonymous._
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
The nautilus is a small mollusk that creeps upon the bottom of the sea,
though it used to be supposed to swim, or even to spread a kind of sail
so that the wind might drive it along the surface. What interests us in
this poem is the way the nautilus _grows_. Just as a tree when sawed
down has the record of its age in the number of its rings, so does the
nautilus measure its age by the ever-widening compartments of its shell.
These it has successively occupied. The poet, looking upon the now empty
shell, thinks of human life as growing in the same way. We advance from
one state of being to another, each nobler than the one which preceded
it, until the spirit leaves its shell altogether and attains a glorious
and perfect freedom.
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sailed the unshadowed main,--
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,--
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past
|
three or even five teeth severely decayed. The extraordinary thing is
that not only the young people and their parents very generally fail
to recognise the gravity of this condition, but that even their
medical advisers have frequently acquiesced in a state of things that
is not only disagreeable but dangerous. A considerable proportion of
people with decayed teeth have also suppuration about the margins of
the gums and around the roots of the teeth. This pyorrhoea
alveolaris, as it is called, constitutes a very great danger to the
patient's health, the purulent discharge teems with poisonous
micro-organisms, which being constantly swallowed are apt to give rise
to septic disease in various organs. It is quite probable that some
cases of gastric ulcer are due to this condition, so too are some
cases of appendicitis, it has been known to cause a peculiarly fatal
form of heart disease, and it is also responsible for the painful
swelling of the joints of the fingers, with wasting of the muscles and
general weakness which goes by the name of rheumatoid arthritis. In
addition to this there are many local affections, such as swollen
glands in the neck, that may be due to this poisonous discharge. One
would think that the mere knowledge that decayed teeth can cause all
this havoc would lead to a grand rush to the dentist, but so far from
being the case, doctors find it extremely difficult to induce their
patients to part with this unsightly, evil-smelling, and dangerous
decayed tooth.
The Throat.--Some throat affections, such as diphtheria and quinsy,
are well known and justly dreaded; and although many a child's life
has been sacrificed to the slowness of its guardians to procure
medical advice and the health-restoring antitoxin, yet on the whole
the public conscience is awake to this duty. Far otherwise is it with
chronic diseases of the tonsils: they may be riddled with small cysts,
they may be constantly in a condition of subacute inflammation
dependent on a septic condition, but no notice is taken except when
chill, constipation, or a general run-down state of health aggravates
the chronic into a temporary acute trouble. And yet it is perhaps not
going too far to say that for one young girl who is killed or
invalided rapidly by diphtheria there are hundreds who are condemned
to a quasi-invalid life owing to this persistent supply of poison to
the system.
Another condition of the throat which causes much ill-health is well
known to the public under the name of adenoids. Unfortunately,
however, many people have an erroneous idea that children will "grow
out of adenoids." Even if this were true it is extremely unwise to
wait for so desirable an event. Adenoids may continue to grow, and
during the years that they are present they work great mischief. Owing
to the blocking of the air-passages the mouth is kept constantly open,
greatly to the detriment of the throat and lungs. Owing to the
interference with the circulation at the back of the nose and throat,
a considerable amount both of apparent and real stupidity is produced,
the brain works less well than it ought, and the child's appearance is
ruined by the flat, broad bridge of the nose and the gaping mouth. The
tale of troubles due to adenoids is not even yet exhausted; a
considerable amount of discharge collects about them which it is not
easy to clear away, it undergoes very undesirable changes, and is then
swallowed to the great detriment of the stomach and the digestion. The
removal of septic tonsils and of adenoids is most urgently necessary,
and usually involves little distress or danger. The change in the
child's health and appearance that can thus be secured is truly
wonderful, especially if it be taught, as it should be, to keep its
mouth shut and to breathe through the nose. In the course of a few
months the complexion will have cleared, the expression will have
regained its natural intelligence, digestion will be well performed,
and the child's whole condition will be that of alert vigour instead
of one of listless and sullen indifference.
Errors of Digestion.--From the consideration of certain states of
the nose, mouth, and throat, it is easy to turn to what is so often
their consequence. Many forms of indigestion are due to the septic
materials swallowed. It would not, however, be fair to say that all
indigestion is thus caused; not infrequently indigestion is due to
errors of diet, and here the blame must be divided between the poverty
and ignorance of many parents and the self-will of adolescents. The
foods that are best for young people--such as bread, milk, butter,
sugar, and eggs--are too frequently scarce in their dietaries owing to
their cost; and again, in the case of many girls whose parents are
able and willing to provide them with a thoroughly satisfactory
diet-sheet, dyspepsia is caused by their refusal to take what is good
for them, and by their preference for unsuitable and indigestible
viands.
A further cause of indigestion must be sought in the haste with which
food is too often eaten. The failure to rise at the appointed time
leads to a hasty breakfast, and this must eventually cause
indigestion. The food imperfectly masticated and not sufficiently
mixed with saliva enters the stomach ill-prepared, and the hasty rush
to morning school or morning work effectually prevents the stomach
from dealing satisfactorily with the mass so hastily thrust into it.
There is an old saying that "Those whom the gods will destroy they
first make mad," and in many instances young people who fall victims
to the demon of dyspepsia owe their sorrows, if not to madness, at any
rate to ignorance and want of consideration. The defective teeth,
septic tonsils, discharging adenoids, poverty of their parents and
their own laziness, all conspire to cause digestive troubles which
bear a fruitful crop of further evils, for thus are caused such
illnesses as anæmia and gastric ulcer.
Constipation claims a few words to itself. And here again we ought
to consider certain septic processes. The refuse of the food should
travel along the bowels at a certain rate, but if owing to
sluggishness of their movements or to defects in the quality and
amount of their secretion, the refuse is too long retained the masses
become unduly dry, and, constantly shrinking in volume, are no longer
capable of being urged along the tube at the proper rate. In
consequence of this the natural micro-organisms of the intestine cease
to be innocent and become troublesome; they lead in the long run to a
peculiar form of blood-poisoning, and to so many diseased conditions
that it is impossible to deal with them at the present moment. The
existence of constipation is too often a signal for the administration
of many doses of medicine. The wiser, the less harmful, and the more
effectual method of dealing with it would be to endeavour to secure
the natural action of the bowels by a change in the diet, which should
contain more vegetable and less animal constituents. The patient
should also be instructed to drink plenty of water, either hot or
cold, a large glassful on going to bed and one on first awaking, and
also if necessary an hour before each meal. Steady exercise is also of
very great service, and instead of starting so late as to have no time
for walking to school or work, a certain portion of the daily journey
should be done on foot. Further, in all cases where it is possible,
team games, gymnastics, and dancing should be called in to supplement
the walk.
Headache.--Headache may be due to so many different causes that it
would be impossible in this little book to adequately consider them,
but it would not be fair to omit to mention that in many cases the
headache of young people is due to their want of spectacles. The idea
that spectacles are only required by people advanced in life is by
this time much shaken, but even now not only many parents object to
their children enjoying this most necessary assistance to imperfect
vision, but also employers may be found so foolish and selfish as to
refuse to employ those persons who need to wear glasses. The folly as
well as selfishness of this objection is demonstrated by the far
better work done by a person whose vision has been corrected, and the
absolute danger incurred by all who have to deal with machinery if
vision is imperfect. Among other causes for headache are the defects
of mouth, throat, stomach, and bowels already described, because in
all of them there is a supply of septic material to the blood which
naturally causes headache and other serious symptoms.
Abnormalities of Menstruation.--The normal period should occur at
regular intervals about once a month. Its duration and amount vary
within wide limits, but in each girl it should remain true to her
individual type, and it ought not to be accompanied by pain or
distress. As a rule the period starts quite normally, and it is not
until the girl's health has been spoiled by over-exertion of body or
mind, by unwise exertion during the period, or by continued exposure
to damp or cold, that it becomes painful and abnormal in time or in
amount.
One of the earliest signs of approaching illness--such as consumption,
anæmia, and mental disorder--is to be found in the more or less sudden
cessation of the period. This should always be taken as a
danger-signal, and as indicating the need of special medical advice.
Another point that should enter into intimate talk with girls is to
make them understand the co-relation of their own functions to the
great destiny that is in store. A girl is apt to be both shocked and
humiliated when she first hears of menstruation and its phenomena.
Should this function commence before she is told about it, she will
necessarily look upon it with disgust and perhaps with fear. It is
indeed a most alarming incident in the case of a girl who knows
nothing about it, but if, before the advent of menstruation, it be
explained to her that it is a sign of changes within her body that
will gradually, after the lapse of some years, fit her also to take
her place amongst the mothers of the land, her shame and fear will be
converted into modest gladness, and she will readily understand why
she is under certain restrictions, and has at times to give up work or
pleasure in order that her development may be without pain, healthy,
and complete.
CHAPTER IV.
MENTAL AND MORAL TRAINING.
The years of adolescence, during which rapid growth and development
inevitably cause so much stress and frequently give rise to danger,
are the very years in which the weight of school education necessarily
falls most heavily. The children of the poor leave school at fourteen
years of age, just the time when the children of the wealthier classes
are beginning to understand the necessity of education and to work
with a clearer realisation of the value and aim of lessons. The whole
system of education has altered of late years, and school work is now
conducted far more intelligently and with a greater appreciation of
the needs and capacities of the pupils than it was some fifty years
ago. Work is made more interesting, the relation of different studies
to each other is more adequately put in evidence, and the influence
that school studies have on success in after life is more fully
realised by all concerned. The system of training is, however, far
from perfect. In the case of girls, more particularly, great care has
to be exercised not to attempt to teach too much, and to give careful
consideration to the physiological peculiarities of the pupils. It is
impossible for girls who are undergoing such rapid physiological and
psychical changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous
work. There are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of
her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that
it is better for her to do comparatively little. And yet these slack
times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl
indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than
usually under control. These times may be utilised for lighter
subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical
exertion. It is not a good time for exercises, for games, for dancing,
and for gardening, nor are they the days on which mathematics should
be pressed, but they are days in which much supervision is needed, and
when time should not be permitted to hang heavily on hand.
Just as there are days in which consideration should be shown, so too
there are longer periods of time in which it is unwise for a girl to
be pressed to prepare for or to undergo a strenuous examination. The
brain of the girl appears to be as good as that of the boy, while her
application, industry, and emulation are far in advance of his, but
she has these physiological peculiarities, and if they are disregarded
there will not only be an occasional disastrous failure in bodily or
mental health, but girls as a class will fail to do the best work of
which they are capable, and will fail to reap the fullest advantage
from an education which is costly in money, time, and strength. It
follows that the curriculum for girls presents greater difficulties
than the curriculum for boys, and that those ladies who are
responsible for the organisation of a school for girls need to be
women of great resource, great patience, and endowed with much
sympathetic insight. The adolescent girl will generally do little to
help her teachers in this matter. She is incapable of recognising her
own limitations, she is full of emulation, and is desirous of
attaining and keeping a good position not only in her school but also
in the University or in any other public body for whose examination
she may present herself. The young girl most emphatically needs to be
saved from herself, and she has to learn the lessons of obedience and
of cheerful acquiescence in restrictions that certainly appear to her
simply vexatious.
One of the difficulties in private schools arises from the necessity
of providing occupation for every hour of the waking day, while
avoiding the danger of overwork with its accompanying exhaustion. In
the solution of this problem such subjects as gymnastics, games,
dancing, needlework, cooking, and domestic economy will come in as a
welcome relief from the more directly intellectual studies, and
equally as a relief to the conscientious but hard-pressed woman who is
trying to save her pupils from the evils of unoccupied time on the one
hand and undue mental pressure on the other.
Boys, and to a less extent girls, attending elementary schools who
leave at fourteen are not likely to suffer in the same way or from the
same causes. One of the difficulties in their case is that they leave
school just when work is becoming interesting and before habits of
study have been formed, indeed before the subjects taught have been
thoroughly assimilated, and that therefore in the course of a few
years little may be left of their painfully acquired and too scanty
knowledge. Free education has been given to the children of the poor
for nearly fifty years, and yet the mothers who were schoolgirls in
the seventies and eighties appear to have saved but little from the
wreck of their knowledge except the power to sign their names and to
read in an imperfect and blundering manner.
Here, too, there are many problems to be solved, one among them being
the great necessity of endeavouring to correlate the lessons given in
school to the work that the individual will have to perform in after
life. It would appear as if the girls of the elementary schools, in
addition to reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, sufficient to
enable them to write letters, to read books, and to keep simple
household accounts, ought to be taught the rudiments of cookery, the
cutting out and making of garments, and the best methods of cleansing
as applied to houses, household utensils and clothing. In addition,
and as serious subjects, not merely as a recreation, they should be
taught gymnastics, part singing and mother-craft. No doubt in
individual schools much of this modification of the curriculum has
been accomplished, but more remains to be done before we can be
satisfied that we have done the best in our power to fit the children
of the country for their life's work.
Another of the great problems connected with the children in
elementary schools, a problem which, indeed, arises out of their
leaving at fourteen, is that of the Continuation School or Evening
School, and the system which is known as "half-timing." It is well
known that although young people from fourteen to sixteen years of age
are well able to profit by continued instruction, they are, with very
few exceptions, not at all well adapted for commencing their life's
work as industrials. The general incoherency and restlessness peculiar
to that age frequently lead to a change of employment every few
months, while their general irresponsibility and want of self-control
lead to frequent disputes with foremen and other officials in
factories and shops, in consequence of which the unfortunate child is
constantly out of work. In proportion to the joy and pride caused by
the realised capacity to earn money and by the sense of independence
that employment brings, is the unhappiness, and in many cases the
misery, due to unemployment, and to repeated failures to obtain and to
keep an independent position. The boy or girl out of work has an
uneasy feeling that he or she has not earned the just and expected
share towards household expenses. The feeling of dependence and
well-nigh of disgrace causes a rapid deterioration in health and
spirits, and it is only too likely that in many instances where
unemployment is continuous or frequently repeated, the unemployed
will quickly become the unemployable.
So far as the young people themselves are concerned, it would be
nearly always an unmixed benefit that they should pass at fourteen
into a Technical School or Continuation School, as the case may be.
Among the great difficulties to the solution of this problem is the
fact that in many working-class households the few weekly shillings
brought into the family store by the elder children are of very real
importance, and although the raising of the age of possible employment
and independence would enable the next generation to work better and
to earn higher and more continuous wages, it is difficult for the
parents to acquiesce in the present deprivation involved, even though
it represents so much clear gain in the not distant future.
At the present time there are Evening Schools, but this system does
not work well. All busy people are well aware that after a hard day's
work neither brain nor body is in the best possible condition for two
or three hours of serious mental effort. The child who has spent the
day in factory or shop has really pretty nearly used up all his or her
available mental energy, and after the evening meal is naturally
heavy, stupid, irritable, and altogether in a bad condition for
further effort. The evenings ought to be reserved for recreation, for
the gymnasium, the singing class, the swimming bath, and even for the
concert and the theatre.
The system of "half-timing" during ordinary school life does not work
well, and it would be a great pity should a similar system be
introduced in the hope of furthering the education of boys and girls
who are just entering industrial life. There is reason to hope that a
great improvement in education will be secured by Mr. Hayes Fisher's
bill.
Another subject to which the attention of patriots and philanthropists
ought to be turned is the sort of employment open to children at
school-leaving age. The greatest care should be taken to diminish the
number of those who endeavour to achieve quasi-independence in those
occupations which are well known as "blind alleys." In England it is
rare that girls should seek these employments, but in Scotland there
is far too large a number of girl messengers. In this particular, the
case of the girl is superior to that of the boy. The "tweeny" develops
into housemaid or cook; the young girls employed in superior shops to
wait on the elder shopwomen hope to develop into their successors, and
the girls who nurse babies on the doorsteps are, after all, acquiring
knowledge and dexterity that may fit them for domestic service or for
the management of their own families a few years later.
The girls of the richer classes have not the same difficulties as
their poorer sisters. They generally remain at school until a much
later age, and subsequently have the joy and stimulus of college life,
of foreign travel, of social engagements, or of philanthropic
enterprise. Still, a residue remains even of girls of this class whose
own inclinations, or whose family circumstances, lead to an aimless,
purposeless existence, productive of much injury to both body and
mind, and only too likely to end in hopeless ennui and nervous
troubles. It should be thoroughly understood by parents and guardians
that no matter what the girl's circumstances may be, she ought always
to have an abundance of employment. The ideas of obligation and of
duty should not be discarded when school and college life cease. The
well-to-do girl should be encouraged to take up some definite
employment which would fill her life and provide her with interests
and duties. Any other arrangement tends to make the time between
leaving school or college and a possible marriage not only a wasted
time but also a seed-time during which a crop is sown of bad habits,
laziness of body, and slackness of mind, that subsequently bear bitter
fruit. It is quite time for us to recognise that unemployment and
absence of duties is as great a disadvantage to the rich as it is to
the poor; the sort of employment must necessarily differ, but the
spirit in which it is to be done is the same.
One point that one would wish to emphasise with regard to all
adolescents is that although occupation for the whole day is most
desirable, hard work should occupy but a certain proportion of the
waking hours. For any adolescent, or indeed for any of us to attempt
to work hard for twelve or fourteen hours out of the twenty-four is to
store up trouble. It is not possible to lay down any hard and fast
rule as to the length of hours of work, because the other factors in
the problem vary so greatly. One person may be exhausted by four
hours of intellectual effort, whereas another is less fatigued by
eight; and further, the daily occupations vary greatly in the demand
that they make on attention and on such qualities as reason, judgment,
and power of initiation. Those who teach or learn such subjects as
mathematics, or those who are engaged in such occupations as
portrait-painting and the higher forms of musical effort, must
necessarily take more out of themselves than those who are employed in
feeding a machine, in nursing a baby, or in gardening operations.
CHAPTER V.
THE FINAL AIM OF EDUCATION.
The great problem before those who have the responsibility for the
training of the young is that of preparing them to take their place in
the world as fathers, mothers, and citizens, and among the fundamental
duties connected with this responsibility must come the placing before
the eyes of the young people high ideals, attractive examples, and the
securing to them the means of adequate preparation. As a nation it
seems to be with us at present as it was with the people of Israel in
the days of Eli: "the word of the Lord was precious (or scarce) in
those days; there was no open vision." We seem to have come to a time
of civilisation in which there is much surface refinement and a
widespread veneer of superficial knowledge, but in which there is
little enthusiasm and in which the great aim and object of teaching
and of training is but too little realised. In the endeavour to know a
little of all things we seem to have lost the capacity for true and
exhaustive knowledge of anything. It would appear as if the remedy for
this most unsatisfactory state of things has to commence long before
the years of adolescence, even while the child is yet in its cradle.
The old-fashioned ideas of duty, obedience, and discipline must be
once more household words and living entities before the race can
enter on a period of regeneration. We want a poet with the logic of
Browning, the sweetness of Tennyson, and the force of Rudyard Kipling,
to sing a song that would penetrate through indifference, sloth, and
love of pleasure, and make of us the nation that we might be, and of
which the England of bygone years had the promise.
Speaking specially with regard to girls, let us first remember that
the highest earthly ideal for a woman is that she should be a good
wife and a good mother. It is not necessary to say this in direct
words to every small girl, but she ought to be so educated, so guided,
as to instinctively realise that wifehood and motherhood is the flower
and perfection of her being. This is the hope and ideal that should
sanctify her lessons and sweeten the right and proper discipline of
life. All learning, all handicraft, and all artistic training should
take their place as a preparation to this end. Each generation that
comes on to the stage of life is the product of that which preceded
it. It is the flower of the present national life and the seed of that
which is to come. We ought to recognise that all educational aims and
methods are really subordinate to this great end; if this were
properly realised by adolescents it would be of the greatest service
and help in their training. The deep primal instinct of fatherhood and
motherhood would help them more than anything else to seek earnestly
and successfully for the highest attainable degree of perfection of
their own bodies, their own minds, and their own souls. It is,
however, impossible to aim at an ideal that is unseen and even
unknown, and although the primal instinct exists in us all, its
fruition is greatly hindered by the way in which it is steadily
ignored, and by the fact that any proclamation of its existence is
considered indiscreet and even indelicate. How are children to develop
a holy reverence for their own bodies unless they know of their
wonderful destiny? If they do not recognise that at least in one
respect God has confided to them in some measure His own creative
function, how can they jealously guard against all that would injure
their bodies and spoil their hopes for the exercise of this function?
There is, even at the present time, a division of opinion as to when
and in what manner children are to be made aware of their august
destiny. We are indeed only now beginning to realise that ignorance is
not necessarily innocence, and that knowledge of these matters may be
sanctified and blessed. It is, however, certain that the conspiracy of
silence which lasted so many years has brought forth nothing but evil.
If a girl remains ignorant of physiological facts, the shock of the
eternal realities of life that come to her on marriage is always
pernicious and sometimes disastrous. If, on the other hand, such
knowledge is obtained from servants and depraved playfellows, her
purity of mind must be smirched and injured.
Even among those who hold that children ought to be instructed, there
is a division of opinion as to when this instruction is to begin. Some
say at puberty, others a few years later, perhaps on the eve of
marriage, and yet others think that the knowledge will come with less
shock, with less personal application, and therefore in a more natural
and useful manner from the very beginning of conscious life. These
last would argue--why put the facts of reproduction on a different
footing from those of digestion and respiration? As facts in the
physical life they hold a precisely similar position. Upon the due
performance of bodily functions depends the welfare of the whole
organism, and although reproduction, unlike the functions of
respiration and digestion, is not essential to the life of the
individual, it is essential to the life of the nation.
The facts of physiology are best taught to little children by a
perfectly simple recognition of the phenomena of life around them--the
cat with her kittens, the bird with its fledgelings, and still more
the mother with her infant, are all common facts and beautiful types
of motherhood. Instead of inventing silly and untrue stories as to the
origin of the kitten and the fledgeling, it is better and wiser to
answer the child's question by a direct statement of fact, that God
has given the power to His creatures to perpetuate themselves, that
the gift of Life is one of His good gifts bestowed in mercy on all His
creatures. The mother's share in this gift and duty can be observed
by, and simply explained to, the child from its earliest years; it
comes then with no shock, no sense of shame, but as a type of joy and
gladness, an image of that holiest of all relations, the Eternal
Mother and the Heavenly Child.
Somewhat later in life, probably immediately before puberty in boys
and shortly after puberty in girls, the father's share in this mystery
may naturally come up for explanation. The physiological facts
connected with this are not so constantly in evidence before children,
and therefore do not press for explanation in the same way as do those
of motherhood, but the time comes soon in the schoolboy's life when
the special care of his own body has to be urged on him, and this
knowledge ought to come protected by the sanction that unless he is
faithful to his trust he cannot look to the reward of a happy home
life with wife and children. In the case of the girl the question as
to fatherhood is more likely to arise out of the reading of the Bible
or other literature, or by her realisation that at any rate in the
case of human parenthood there is evidently the intermediation of a
father. The details of this knowledge need not necessarily be pressed
on the adolescent girl, but it is a positive cruelty to allow the
young woman to marry without knowing the facts on which her happiness
depends.
Another way in which the mystery of parenthood can be simply and
comfortably taught is through the study of vegetable physiology. The
fertilisation of the ovules by pollen which falls directly from the
anthers on to the stigma can be used as a representation of similar
facts in animal physiology. It is very desirable, however, that this
study of the vegetable should succeed and not precede that of the
domestic animals in the teaching of boys and girls.
Viewed from this standpoint there is surely no difficulty to the
parent in imparting to the child this necessary knowledge. We have to
remember that children have to know the mysteries of life. They cannot
live in the world without seeing the great drama constantly displayed
to them in family life and in the lives of domesticated animals. They
cannot read the literature of Greece and Rome, nay, they cannot study
the Book of Books, without these facts being constantly brought to
mind. A child's thirst for the interpretation of this knowledge is
imperative and unsatiable--not from prurience nor from evil-mindedness,
but in obedience to a law of our nature, the child demands this
knowledge--and will get it. It is for fathers and mothers to say
whether these sublime and beautiful mysteries shall be lovingly
and reverently unveiled by themselves or whether the child's mind
shall be poisoned and all beauty and reverence destroyed by depraved
school-fellows and vulgar companions.
In the hope of securing the purity, reverence and piety of our
children, in the hope that they may grow up worthy of their high
destiny, let us do what we may to keep their honour unsmirched, to
preserve their innocence, and to lead them on from the unconscious
goodness of childhood to the clear-eyed, fully conscious dignity of
maturity, that our sons may grow up as young plants, and our daughters
as the polished corners of the temple.
PART II.: BOYS.
BY F. ARTHUR SIBLY, M.A., LL.D.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
My contribution to this little book was originally intended for the
eyes of parents, scoutmasters, and other adults. Since 1913, when the
book was first published, it has been my privilege to receive from
these so many letters of warm appreciation that it seems needless to
retain the apologetic preface which I then wrote. The object which I
had in view at that time was the hastening of a supremely important
reform. I have to-day the very deep joy of knowing that my words have
carried conviction to many adults and have given help to countless
boys.
One result of this publication was entirely unlooked for. It did not
occur to me, as I wrote, that the book would be read by boys and young
men. It was not written at all for this purpose. In some respects its
influence over them has, however, been increased by this obvious fact.
In this book boys have, as it were, overheard a confidential
conversation about themselves carried on by adults anxious for their
welfare, and some at least are evidently more impressed by this
conversation than by a direct appeal--in which they are liable to
suspect exaggeration.
I have received hundreds of letters from boys and young men. These
confirm in _every_ way the conclusions set forth in this book, and
prove that the need for guidance in sex matters is acute and
universal. The relief and assistance which many boys have experienced
from correspondence with me, and the interest which I find in their
letters have caused me--spite of the extreme preoccupation of a
strenuous life--to issue a special invitation to those who may feel
inclined to write to me.
Great diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of giving sex
instruction, and those who have had experience of one method are
curiously blind to the merits of other methods, which they usually
strongly denounce. While I have my own views as to the best method to
adopt, I am quite sure that each one of very many methods can, in
suitable hands, produce great good, and that the very poorest method
is infinitely superior to no method at all.
Some are for oral teaching, some for the use of a pamphlet, some
favour confidential individual teaching, others collective public
teaching. Some would try to make sex a sacred subject; some would
prefer to keep the emotional element out and treat reproduction as a
matter-of-fact science subject. Some wish the parent to give the
teaching, some the teacher, some the doctor, some a lecturer specially
trained for this purpose. Good results have been obtained by every
one of these methods.
During recent years much additional evidence has accumulated in my
hands of the beneficent results of such teaching as I advocate in
these pages, and I am confident that of boys who have been wisely
guided and trained, few fail to lead clean lives even when associated
with those who are generally and openly corrupt. I must, however,
emphasise my belief that the cleanliness of a boy's life depends
ultimately not upon his knowledge of good and evil but upon his
devotion to the Right.
"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power."
Where these are not, it is idle to inculcate the rarest and most
difficult of all virtues.
F. ARTHUR SIBLY.
WYCLIFFE, STONEHOUSE, GLOS.
_September 1918._
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The term puberty will so often be used in the following chapters that
a brief account of the phenomena of puberty may appropriately be given
at the outset of this work. Puberty is a name given to the age at
which a boy becomes capable of being a father. In temperate climates
this age is reached at about fifteen years, though some boys attain it
at twelve and some not until seventeen. The one obvious and invariable
sign of puberty is a change of pitch in the voice, which assumes its
bass character after an embarrassing period of squeaky alternations
between the high and low tones.
The age is a critical one, as several important changes take place in
body and in mind. The reproductive organs undergo considerable
development and become sensitive to any stimulus, physical or mental.
The seminal fluid, which in normal cases has hitherto been secreted
little, if at all, is now elaborated by the testicles, and contains
spermatazoa--minute organisms which are essential to reproduction.
Under the stimulus of sexual thoughts this fluid is secreted in such
quantity as to give rise to involuntary discharge during sleep. These
nocturnal emissions are so often found among boys and young men that
some physiologists consider them to be quite normal. My experience
leads me to doubt this conclusion.
Another physical change associated with puberty is the growth of hair
on the pubes and on the face: in this latter situation the growth is
slow.
With the capacity for fatherhood comes a very strong awakening of the
sexual instinct, which manifests itself in passion and in lust--the
unconscious and the conscious sex hunger. The passion shows itself in
a ludicrously indiscriminate and exaggerated susceptibility to female
attractions--a susceptibility the sexual character of which is usually
quite unrecognised. Among boys who have sex knowledge there is also a
tendency to dwell on sexual thoughts when the mind is not otherwise
occupied. Passion and lust do not at once develop their full strength;
but, coming at a time
|
B.C. The RHINE.
The RHIN. Joins the Havel.
The RHINE. A small stream near Cassel.
_Norway._ The REEN.
_Italy._ The RENO by Bologna.
_Asiat. Russ._ The RHION, ant. Phasis.
The Sansc. _lî_, to wet, moisten, spreads into many forms through the
Indo-European languages. I divide them for convenience into two groups,
and take first Lat. _liqueo_, Old Norse _leka_, Ang.-Sax. _lecan_
(stillare, rigare), Gael. and Ir. _li_, sea, Gael. _lia_, Welsh _lli_,
_llion_, a stream. Most of the following names, I take it, are Celtic. I
am not sure that the sense of stillness or clearness does not enter
somewhat into the two following groups.
1. _England._ The LEE. Cheshire.
The LEACH. Gloucestershire.
_Ireland._ The LEE. Two rivers.
_Germany._ LICUS, 2nd cent., now the LECH.
LIA, 8th cent., now the LUHE.
_France._ LEGIA, 10th cent., now the LYS.[16]
_Belgium._ The LECK. Joins the Maas.
_Hindostan._ The LYE. Bengal.
2. _With the ending en = Welsh llion, a stream._
_England._ The LEEN. Notts.
_Scotland._ The LYON and the LYNE.
_France._ The LIGNE. Dep. Ardéche.
3. _With the ending er._
_England._ The LEGRE by Leicester, now the Soar.
_France._ LIGER ant. The LOIRE.
The LEGRE. Dep. Gironde.
For the second group I take Lat. _lavo_, _luo_, Old Norse _lauga_,
lavare, Anglo-Saxon _lagu_, water, Gael. _lo_, water, Gael. and Ir.
_loin_, stream. In this group there may perhaps be something more of the
Germain element, _e.g._, in the rivers of Scandinavia.
1. _England._ The LUG. Hereford.
_Wales._ The LOOE. Two rivers.
_France._ The LOUE. Dep. Haute Vienne.
_Germany._ LOUCH(AHA), 11th cent. The LAUCHA.
LOUA, 10th cent., not identified.
_Holland._ The LAVE.
_Finland._ The LUGA or LOUGA.
2. _With the ending en._
_England._ The LUNE. Lancashire.
The LAINE. Cornwall.
The LEVEN. Two rivers.
_Scotland._ The LEVEN. Two rivers.
_Ireland._ The LAGAN, near Belfast.
_France._ LUNA ant., now the LOING.
_Germany._ LOGAN(AHA), 8th cent., now the LAHN.
The LOWNA in Prussia.
_Norway._ The LOUGAN. Joins the Glommen.
The LOUVEN. Stift Christiana.
_Russia._ The LUGAN.
_Italy._ The LAVINO.
The lake LUGANO.
_India._ The LOONY--here?
3. _With the ending er._
_Scotland._ The LUGAR. Ayr.
_Wales._ The LLOUGHOR. Glamorgan.
To the above root I also place the following, corresponding more
distinctly with Welsh _llifo_, to pour.
1. _Ireland._ The LIFFEY by Dublin.
_Germany._ LUPPIA, 1st cent. The LIPPE.
The LIP(KA). Bohemia.
2. _With the ending er._
_England._ The LIVER. Cornwall.
_Scotland._ The LIVER. Argyle.
_Ireland._ The LIFFAR.
More remotely with the Sansc. _lî_, liquere, and directly with Welsh
_lleithio_, to moisten, _llyddo_, to pour, Gael. _lith_, a pool, smooth
water, Goth. _leithus_, Ang.-Sax. _lidh_, liquor, poculum, potus, I
connect the following. The rivers themselves hardly seem to bear out the
special idea of smoothness, which we might be apt to infer from the
root, and from the character of the mythological river Lethe.
1. _England._ The LID. Joins the Tamar.
_Scotland._ The LEITH. Co. Edinburgh.
_Wales._ The LAITH, now called the Dyfr.
_Germany._ LIT(AHA), 11th cent. The LEITHA.
_Sweden._ The LIDA.
_Hungary._ The LEITHA. Joins the Danube.
_Asia Minor._}
_Thessaly._ } LETHÆUS ant., three rivers--here?
_Crete._ }
2. _With the ending en._
_England._ The LIDDEN (Leden, _Cod. Dip._) Worcester.
_Scotland._ The LEITHAN. Peebles.
3. _With the ending el._
_Scotland._ The LIDDLE. Joins the Esk.
From the Sansc. _nî_, to move, comes _nîran_, water, corresponding with
the Mod. Greek {neron} of the same meaning. And that the Greek word is
no new importation into that language, we may judge by the name of
Nereus, a water-god, the son of Neptune. The Gr. {naô}, fluo, the Gael.
_nigh_, to bathe, to wash, and the Obs. Gael. _near_, water, a river,
show a close relationship; the Heb. _nhar_, a river, also seems to be
allied. Compare the Nore, a name given to part of the estuary of the
Thames, with the Narra, the name of the two branches by which the Indus
flows into the sea. Also with the Nharawan, an ancient canal from the
Tigris towards the Persian Gulf. And with the Curische Nehrung, a strip
of land which separates the lagoon called the Curische Haf in Prussia
from the waters of the Baltic. On this name Mr. Winning remarks,[17] "I
offer the conjecture that the word _nehrung_ is equivalent to our
break-water, and that it is derived from the Sabine (or Old Prussian)
term _neriene_, strength, bravery." I should propose to give it a
meaning analogous, but rather different--deriving it from the word in
question, _nar_ or _ner_, water, and some equivalent of Old Norse
_engia_, coarctare, making _nehrung_ to signify "that which confines the
waters" (of the lake). In all these cases there is something of the
sense of an estuary, or of a channel communicating with the sea--the
Curische Haf being a large lagoon which receives the river Niemen, and
discharges it by an outlet into the Baltic. The following names I take
to be for the most part of Celtic origin.
1. _England._ The NOW. Derbyshire.
The NAR. Norfolk.
The NORE, part of the estuary the Thames.
_Ireland._ NEAGH. A lake, Ulster.
NORE. Joins the Shannon.
_Germany._ NOR(AHA), 8th cent., also called the NAHA.
_Italy._ NAR[18] ant. The NERA.
_Spain._ The NERJA. Malaga.
_Russia._ The NAR(OVA), and the NAREW.
_Europ. Turkey._ NARO ant., now the NARENTA.
_Mauretania._ NIA ant., now the Senegal--here?
_Hindostan._ NARRA, two branches of the Indus--here?
2. _With the ending en, = Sansc. nîran, water?_
_Illyria._ The NARON.
_Scotland._ The NAREN or NAIRN.
3. _With the ending es._
_Germany._ The NEERS. Rhen. Pruss.
From the Sansc. _nî_, to move, Gael. _nigh_, to bathe, to wash, comes, I
apprehend, the Welsh _nannaw_, _nennig_, _nant_, a small stream.
_England._ The NENE or NEN. Northampton.
The NENT. Cumberland.
_Ireland._ The NENAGH. Joins the Shannon.
_France._ The NENNY.
Closely allied to _nî_, to move, I take to be Sansc. _niv_, to flow,
Welsh _nofio_, to swim, to float, whence the names undermentioned. The
Novius of Ptolemy, supposed to be the Nith, if not a false rendering,
might come in here.
1. _France._ The NIVE. Joins the Adour.
_Germany._ NABA, 1st cent., now the NAAB in Bavaria.
_Holland._ NABA or NAVA, 1st cent., now the NAHE or NAVE.
_Spain._ The NAVIA. Falls into the Bay of Biscay.
_Russia._ The NEVA and the NEIVA.
_Hindostan._ The NAAF. Falls into the Bay of Bengal.
2. _With the ending en._
_Persia._ The NABON. Prov. Fars.
_Russ. Pol._ The NIEMEN.[19]
3. _With the ending er._
_Scotland._ The NAVER. River and lake.
_Wales._ The NEVER. Merioneth.
_France._ NIVERIS ant., now the NIEVRE.
_Danub. Prov._ NAPARIS (Herodotus), supposed to be the Ardisch.
4. _With the ending el._
_France and} The NIVELLE. Pyrenees.
Spain._ }
_Holland._ NABALIS (Tacitus), by some thought to be the Yssel.
5. _With the ending es._
_Scotland._ The NEVIS. Rises on Ben Nevis.
From the same root, _nî_, to move, and closely connected with the last
group, I take to be Sansc. _nis_, to flow, to water. Zeuss (_Die
Deutschen_) takes the word, as far as it relates to the rivers of
Germany, to be of Slavonic origin. It appears to be the word found as
the second part of some Slavonic river-names, as the Yalomnitza. But it
is also both Celtic and Teutonic, for the Armorican has _naoz_, a brook,
and the German has _nasz_, wet, _nässen_, to be wet.
1. _Scotland._ The NESS. River and lake.
_Germany._ NISA, 11th cent. The NEISSE, two rivers, both of which
join the Oder.
_Servia._ The NISS(AVA). Joins the Morava.
_Sicily._ The NISI.
2. _With the ending st._[20]
_France._ The NESTE. Hautes Pyrenees.
_Thrace._ NESTUS ant.
From the Greek {naô}, fluo, comes {nama}, a stream, {namatiaion hydôr},
running water. Hence seems to be NAMADUS, the name given by the Greek
geographers to the Nerbudda of India.
Another form which I take to be derived from the above Sanscrit root
_nî_, by the prefix _s_, is Sansc. _snu_, fluere, stillare, (whence
Germ. _schnee_, Eng. _snow_, &c.)
_Germany._ ZNUUIA, 11th cent., now the SCHNEI.
_Russia._ The ZNA or TZNA.
A derivative form is the Gael. and Ir. _snidh_ or _snith_, to ooze
through, distil, Obs. Gael. and Ir. _snuadh_, to flow, and _snuadh_, a
river, whence I take the following. Förstemann refers to Old High German
_snidan_, Modern German _schneiden_, to divide, in the sense of a
boundary, which is a root suitable enough in itself, though I think it
ought to yield the preference to the direct sense of water.
_England._ The SNYTE. Leicestershire.
_Germany._ SNEID(BACH), 8th cent., seems to be now called the Aue.
SMID(AHA), 9th cent., now the SCHMIDA, which joins the
Danube. For Snidaha?
The form _snid_ or _snith_ introduces the form _nid_ or _nith_, and
suggests the enquiry whether that may not also be a word signifying
water. Donaldson, (_Varronianus_), referring to a word Nethuns, "found
on a Tuscan mirror over a figure manifestly intended for Neptune,"
observes that "there can be little doubt that _nethu_ means water in the
Tuscan language." Assuming the correctness of the premises, I think that
this must be the case; and that as the Naiades (water-nymphs), contain
the Greek {naô}; as Nereus (a water-god), contains the word _ner_ before
referred to; as Neptune contains the Greek {niptô}, in each case
involving the signification of water, so Nethuns (=Neptunus) must
contain a related word _neth_ or _nethun_ of the same meaning. Also that
this word comes in its place here, as a derivative of the root _nî_, and
as a corresponding form to the Celtic _snidh_ or _snith_.
There are, however, two other meanings which might intermix in the
following names; the one is that suggested by Baxter, viz., Welsh
_nyddu_, to turn or twist, in the sense of tortuousness; and the other
is Old Norse _nidr_, fremor, strepitus.
1. _England._ The NIDD. Yorkshire.
_Scotland._ The NITH. Dumfriesshire.
_Wales._ The NEATH. Glamorgan.
_France._ The NIED. Joins the Sarre.
_Belgium._ The NETHE. Joins the Ruppel.
_Germany._ NIDA, 8th cent., now the NIDDA.
The NETHE. Joins the Weser.
_Norway._ The NIDA.
_Poland._ The NIDDA.
_Greece._ NEDA ant., now the Buzi in Elis.
2. _With the ending en._
_Scotland._ The NETHAN. Lesmahago.
3. _With the ending rn (see note p. 34)._
_Germany._ NITORNE, 9th cent., now the NIDDER.
There can hardly be a doubt that the words _sar_, _sor_, _sur_, so
widely spread in the names of rivers, are to be traced to the Sansc.
_sar_, _sri_, to move, to go, _sru_, to flow, whence _saras_, water,
_sarit_, _srôta_, river. The Permic and two kindred dialects of the
Finnic class have the simple form _sor_ or _sur_, a river, and the
Gaelic and Irish have the derived form _sruth_, to flow, _sroth_,
_sruth_, river. In the names Sorg, Sark, Sarco, I rather take the
guttural to have accrued.
1. _England._ The SOAR. Leicester.
The SARK, forms the boundary between England and
Scotland.
_France._ The SERRE. Joins the Oise.
_Germany._ SARAVUS ant., now the SAAR.
SORAHA, 8th cent., a small stream seemingly now
unnamed.
SURA, 7th cent. The SURE and the SUR.
The SORG. Prussia.
_Switzerland._ The SARE and the SUR.
_Norway._ The SURA.
_Russia._ The SURA. Joins the Volga.
The SVIR, falls into Lake Ladoga.
_Lombardy._ The SERIO. Joins the Adda.
The SERCHIO or SARCO.
_Portugal._ The SORA. Joins the Tagus.
_Asia._ SERUS ant., now the Meinam.
_Asia Minor._ SARUS ant., now the Sihon.
_India._ SARAYU[21] ant., now the Sardju.
_Armenia._ ARIUS[22] ant., now the Heri Rud.
2. _With the ending en._
_France._ The SERAN. Joins the Rhone.
The SERAIN. Joins the Yonne.
_Germany._ SORNA, 8th cent. The ZORN.
_Switzerland._ The SUREN. Cant. Aargau.
_Naples._ SARNUS ant. The SARNO.
_Persia._ SARNIUS ant., now the Atrek.
The form _saras_, water, seems to be found in the following two names.
1. _With the ending en._
_France._ The SARSONNE. Dep. Corrèze.
2. _Compounded with wati = Goth. wato, water._
_India._ The SARASWATI, which still retains its ancient name.
And the Sansc. _sarit_, Gael. and Ir. _sroth_, _sruth_, a river, seem to
be found in the following.
_Ireland._ The SWORDS river near Dublin.
_France._ The SARTHE. Joins the Mayenne.
_Galicia._ The SERED. Joins the Dniester.
_Moldavia._ The SERETH. Ant. Ararus.
_Russia._ The SARAT(OVKA).[23] Gov. Saratov.
It would seem that the foregoing forms _sri_, _sru_, _srot_, sometimes
take a phonetic _t_, and become _stri_, _stru_, _strot_. Thus one Celtic
dialect, the Armorican, changes _sur_ into _ster_, and another, the
Cornish, changes _sruth_ into _struth_--both words signifying a river.
But indeed the natural tendency towards it is too obvious to require
much comment. Hence we may take the names Stry and Streu. But is the
form Stur from this source also? Förstemann finds an etymon in Old High
German _stur_, Old Norse _stôr_, great. This may obtain in the case of
some of the rivers of Scandinavia, but is hardly suited for those of
England and Italy, none of which are large. The root, moreover, seems
too widely spread, if, as I suspect, it is this which forms the ending
of many ancient names as the Cayster, the Cestrus, the Alster, Elster,
Ister, Danastris, &c. The Armorican _ster_, a river, seems to be the
word most nearly concerned.
1. _The form stry, stru, stur._
_England._ STURIUS (Ptolemy). The STOUR. There are six rivers
of this name.
_Germany._ STROWA, 8th cent. The STREU.
_Holstein._ STURIA, 10th cent. The STÖR.
_Italy._ STURA, two rivers.
STORAS (Strabo), now the ASTURA.
_Aust. Poland._ The STRY. Joins the Dniester.
The STYR. Joins the Pripet.
2. _The form struth._
_England._ The STROUD. Gloucester.
The STORT. Essex.
_Germany._ The UNSTRUT Förstemann places here, as far as the
ending _strut_ is concerned.
From the Sanscrit root _su_, liquere, come Sansc. _sava_, water, Old
High German _sou_, Lat. _succus_, moisture, Gael. _sûgh_, a wave, &c.;
(on the apparent resemblance between Sansc. _sava_, water and Goth.
_saivs_, sea, Diefenbach observes, we must not build). Hence I take to
be the following; but a word very liable to intermix is Gael. _sogh_,
tranquil; and where the character of stillness is very marked, I have
taken them under that head.
1. _England._ The SOW. Warwickshire.
_Ireland._ The SUCK. Joins the Shannon.
_France._ The SAVE. Joins the Garonne.
_Belgium._ SABIS, 1st cent. B.C., now the Sambre.
_Germany._ SAVUS ant. The SAVE or SAU.
The SÖVE. Joins the Elbe.
_Russia._ The SEVA.
_Italy._ The SAVIO. Pont. States.
The SIEVE. Joins the Arno.
2. _With the ending en._
_Italy._ The SAVENA or SAONA. Piedmont.
_Armenia._ The SEVAN. Lake.
3. _With the ending er._
_Ireland._ SEVERUS ant. The SUIRE.
_Germany._ SEVIRA, 9th cent. The ZEYER.
_France._ The SEVRE. Two rivers.
_Spain._ SUCRO ant. The XUCAR.
_Portugal._ The SABOR.
4. _With the ending rn (see note p. 34)._
_England._ SABRINA ant. The SEVERN.
_France._ The SEVRON. Dep. Saône-et-Loire.
_Russ. Pol._ The SAVRAN(KA). Gov. Podolia.
5. _With the ending es._
_Lombardy._ The SAVEZO near Milano.
In the Sanscrit _mih_, to flow, to pour, Old Norse _mîga_, scaturire,
Anglo-Saxon _migan_, _mihan_, to water, Sansc. _maighas_, rain, Old
Norse _mîgandi_, a torrent--("unde," says Haldorsen, "nomina propria
multorum torrentium"), Obs. Gael. and Ir. _machd_, a wave, I find the
root of the following. Most of the names are no doubt from the Celtic,
though the traces of the root are more faint in that tongue than in the
Teutonic. This I take to be the word, which in the forms _ma_, and _man_
or _men_, forms the ending of several river-names.
1. _Scotland._ The MAY. Perthshire.
_Ireland._ The MAIG and the MOY.
_Wales._ The MAY and the MAW.
_France._ The MAY.
_Siberia._ The MAIA. Joins the Aldon.
_India._ The MHYE. Bombay.
2. _With the ending en._
_England._ The MAWN. Notts.
The MEON. Hants. (Meôn eâ, _Cod. Dip._)
_Ireland._ The MAIN and the MOYNE.
_France._ The MAINE. Two rivers.
_Belgium._ The MEHAIGNE. Joins the Scheldt.
_Germany._ MOENUS ant. The MAIN.
_Sardinia._ The MAINA. Joins the Po.
_Siberia._ The MAIN. Joins the Anadyr.
_India._ The MEGNA. Prov. Bengal.
The MAHANUDDY--here?
3. _With the ending er._
_Italy._ The MAGRA. Falls into the Gulf of Genoa.
4. _With the ending el._
_England._ The MEAL. Shropshire.
_Denmark._ The MIELE. Falls into the German Ocean.
5. _With the ending st._[24]
_Asia Minor._ The MACESTUS. Joins the Rhyndacus.
From the root _mî_, to flow, come also Sansc. _mîras_, Lat. _mare_,
Goth. _marei_, Ang.-Sax. _mêr_, Germ. _meer_, Welsh _mar_, _mor_, Gael.
and Ir. _muir_, Slav. _morie_, &c., sea or lake. I should be more
inclined however to derive most of the following from the cognate Sansc.
_mærj_, to wash, to water, Lat. _mergo_, &c. Also, the Celtic _murg_, in
the more definite sense of a morass, may come in for some of the forms.
1. _France._ The MORGE. Dep. Isère.
_Germany._ MARUS (Tacitus). The MARCH, Slav. MOR(AVA).
MUORA, 8th cent. The MUHR.
MURRA, 10th cent. The MURR.
_Belgium._ MURGA, 7th cent. The MURG.
The MARK. Joins the Scheldt.
_Switzerland._ The MURG. Cant. Thurgau.
_Sardinia._ The MORA. Div. Novara.
_Servia._ MARGUS ant. The MORAVA.
_Italy._ The MARECCHIA. Pont. States--here?
_India._ The MERGUI--here?
2. _With the ending en._
_Ireland._ The MOURNE. Ulster.
_Germany._ MARNE, 11th cent., now the MARE.
MERINA, 11th cent. The MÖRN.
3. _With the ending es._
_England._ The MERSEY. Lancashire.
_Germany._ MUORIZA, 10th cent. The MURZ.
_Dacia._ MARISUS ant. The MAROSCH.
_Phrygia._ MARSYAS ant.
Another form of Sansc. _marj_, to wet, to wash, is _masj_, whence I take
the following.
_Ireland._ MASK, a lake in Connaught.
_Russia._ The MOSK(VA), by Moscow, to which it gives the name.
From the Sanscrit _vag_ or _vah_, to move, comes _vahas_, course, flux,
current, cognate with which are Goth. _wegs_, Germ. _woge_, Eng. _wave_,
&c. An allied Celtic word is found as the ending of many British
river-names, as the Conway, the Medway, the Muthvey, the Elwy, &c. Hence
I take to be the following, in the sense of water or river.
1. _England._ The WEY. Dorset.
The WEY. Surrey.
_Hungary._ The WAAG. Joins the Danube.
_Russia._ The VAGA. Joins the Dwina.
The VAGAI and the VAKH in Siberia.
_India._ The VAYAH. Madras.
2. _With the ending en._
_England._ The WAVENEY. Norf. and Suffolk.
3. _With the ending er._
_England._ The WAVER. Cumberland.
4. _With the ending el._
_Netherlands._ VAHALIS, 1st cent. B.C. The WAAL.
5. _With the ending es = Sansc. vahas?_
_France._ VOGESUS ant. The VOSGES.
An allied form to the above is found in Sansc. _vi_, _vîc_, to move,
Lat. _via_, &c., and to which I put the following.
1. _England._ The WYE. Monmouthshire.
_Scotland._ The WICK. Caithness.
_France._ The VIE. Two rivers.
_Russia._ The VIG. Forms lake VIGO.
2. _With the ending en._
_France._ VIGENNA ant. The VIENNE.
_Germany._ The WIEN, which gives the name to Vienna, (Germ.
Wien).
3. _With the ending er._
_Switzerland._ The WIGGER. Cant. Lucerne.
_France._ The VEGRE. Dep. Sarthe.
The VIAUR--probably here.
_Poland._ The WEGIER(KA).
_India._ The VEGIAUR, Madras--here?
Formed on the root _vi_, to move, is probably also the Sansc. _vip_ or
_vaip_, to move, to agitate, Latin _vibrare_, perhaps _vivere_, Old
Norse _vippa_, _vipra_, gyrare, Eng. _viper_, &c. I cannot trace in the
following the sense of rapidity, which we might suspect from the root.
Nor yet with sufficient distinctness the sense of tortuousness, so
strongly brought out in some of its derivatives.
1. _With the ending er._
_England._ The WEAVER. Cheshire.
The VEVER. Devonshire.
_Germany._ WIPPERA, 10th cent. The WIPPER (two rivers), and
the WUPPER.
2. _With the ending es._
_India._ VIPASA, the Sanscrit name of the Beas.
_Switzerland._ VIBSICUS ant. (properly Vibissus?) The VEVEYSE by
Vevay.
From the root _vip_, to move, taking the prefix _s_, is formed _swip_,
which I have dealt with in the next chapter.
In the Sansc. _par_, to move, we find the root of Gael. _beathra_
(pronounced _beara_), Old Celt. _ber_, water, Pers. _baran_, rain, &c.,
to which I place the following.
1. _England._ The BERE. Dorset.
_Ireland._ BARGUS (Ptolemy). The BARROW.
_France._ The BAR. Dep. Ardennes.
The BERRE. Dep. Aude.
_Germany._ The BAHR, the BEHR, the BEHRE, the PAAR.
2. _With the ending en._
_Bohemia._ The BERAUN near Prague.
_India._ The BEHRUN.
_Russia._ The PERNAU. Gulf of Riga.
From the Sansc. _plu_, to flow, Lat. _pluo_ and _fluo_, come Sansc.
_plavas_, flux, Lat. _pluvia_ and _fluvius_, Gr. {plynô}, lavo,
Ang.-Sax. _flôwe_, _flum_, Lat. _flumen_, river, &c. Hence we get the
following.
1. _Germany._ The PLAU, river and lake.[25] Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
_Holland._ FLEVO, 1st cent. The Zuiderzee, the outlet of which,
between Vlieland and Schelling, is still called
VLIE.
_Aust. Italy._ PLAVIS ant. The PIAVE, falls into the Adriatic.
2. _With the ending en._
_France._ The PLAINE. Joins the Meurthe.
_Germany._ The PLONE. Joins the Haff.
The PLAN-SEE, a lake in the Tyrol.
_Holstein._ PLOEN. A lake.
_Poland._ The PLONNA. Prov. Plock.
From the above root come also the following, which compare with Sansc.
_plavas_, Mid. High Germ. _vlieze_, Mod. Germ. _fliess_, Old Fries.
_flêt_, Old Norse _fliot_, stream. And I think that some at least of
this group are German.
1. _England._ The FLEET. Joins the Trent.
The FLEET, now called the Fleetditch in London.
_Scotland._ The FLEET. Kirkcudbright.
_Germany._ BLEISA, 10th cent. The PLEISSE.
_Holland._ FLIETA, 9th cent. The VLIET.
_Russia._ The PLIUSA. Gulf of Finland.
2. _With the ending en._
_Germany._ FLIEDINA, 8th cent. The FLIEDEN.
The FLIETN(ITZ). Pruss. Pom.
3. _With the ending st._
_Holland._ The VLIEST.
_Greece._ PLEISTUS ant., near Delphi.
There are two more forms from the same root, the former of which we may
refer to the Irish and Gael. _fluisg_, a flushing or flowing. The latter
shows a form nearest to the Ang.-Sax. and Old High Germ. _flum_, Lat.
_flumen_, though I think that the names must be rather Celtic.
1. _Ireland._ The FLISK. Falls into the Lake of Killarney.
_Germany._ The PLEISKE. Joins the Oder.
2. _England._ The PLYM, by Plymouth.
_Scotland._ The PALME, by Palmton.
_Siberia._ The PELYM. Gov. Tobolsk.
From the Sansc. _gam_, to go, is derived, according to Bopp and Monier
Williams, the name of the Ganges, in Sanscrit Gangâ. The word is in fact
the same as the Scotch "gang," which seems to be derived more
immediately from the Old Norse _ganga_. In the sense of "that which
goes," the Hindostanee has formed _gung_, a river, found in the names of
the Ramgunga, the Kishengunga, the Chittagong, and other rivers of
India. The same ending is found by Förstemann in the old names of one or
two German rivers, as the Leo near Salzburg, which in the 10th cent. was
called the LIUGANGA. Another name for the Ganges is the Pada, for which
Hindoo ingenuity has sought an origin in the myth of its rising from the
foot of Vishnoo. But as _pad_ and _gam_ in Sanscrit have both the same
meaning, viz., to go, I am inclined to suggest that the two names Ganga
and Pada may simply be synonymes of each other.
1. _India._ The GANGES. Sanscrit GANGA.
The GINGY. Pondicherry.
_Russia._ The KHANK(OVA). Joins the Don.
2. _With the ending et._
_Greece._ GANGITUS ant., in Macedonia.
The Sansc. verb _gam_, to go, along with its allied forms, is formed on
a simpler verb _gâ_, of the same meaning. To this I put the following.
1. _Holland._ The GOUW. Joins the Yssel.
_Persia._ CHOES or CHO(ASPES)[26] ant.
2. _With the ending en._
_Germany._ GEWIN(AHA),
|
inches wide. It has long been in
favour for curtains, small table-covers, dresses, &c. It can now be
obtained at the school fifty-four inches wide, in many shades.
* * * * *
_Soft or Super Serge_, also fifty-four inches wide, is an excellent
material, much superior in appearance to diagonal cloth, or to the
ordinary rough serge. It takes embroidery well.
* * * * *
_Cricketing flannel_ is used for coverlets for cots, children's
dresses, and many other purposes. It is of a beautiful creamy colour,
and is a good ground for fine crewel or silk embroidery. It need not
be worked in a frame.
* * * * *
_Genoa or Lyons Velvet_ makes a beautiful ground for embroidery; but
it can only be worked in a frame, and requires to be "backed" with a
thin cotton or linen lining, if it is to sustain any mass of
embroidery. For small articles, such as sachets or casket-covers, when
the work is fine and small, the backing is not necessary. Screen
panels of velvet, worked wholly in crewels, or with crewel brightened
with silk, are very effective. Three-piled velvet is the best for
working upon, but is so expensive that it is seldom asked for.
* * * * *
_Silk Velvet Plush_ (a new material) can only be used in frame work,
and must be backed. It is useful in "appliqué" from the many beautiful
tones of colour it takes. As a ground for silk or gold embroidery it
is also very good.
[Decoration]
TEXTILE FABRICS.
GOLD AND SILVER CLOTH.
_Cloth of Gold or Silver_ is made of threads of silk woven with metal,
which is thrown to the surface. In its best form it is extremely
expensive, varying from £4 to £6 per yard, according to the weight of
gold introduced. Cloth of silver is generally £3 the yard.
* * * * *
Inferior kinds of these cloths are made in which silk largely
predominates, and shows plainly on the surface. They are frequently
woven in patterns, such as diaper or diagonal lines, with a tie of red
silk, in imitation of the diaper patterns of couched embroidery.
They are chiefly used in ecclesiastical or heraldic embroidery; their
great expense preventing their general use.
[Decoration]
CHAPTER III.
STITCHES USED IN HAND EMBROIDERY AS TAUGHT AT THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF
ART-NEEDLEWORK.
To avoid pulling or puckering the work, care should be taken--firstly,
that the needle is not too small, so as to require any force in
drawing it through the material; secondly, the material must be held
in a convex position over the fingers, so that the crewel or silk in
the needle shall be looser than the ground; and thirdly, not to use
too long needlefuls. These rules apply generally to all handworked
embroideries.
STITCHES.
_Stem Stitch._--The first stitch which is taught to a beginner is
"stem stitch" (wrongly called also, "crewel stitch," as it has no
claim to being used exclusively in crewel embroidery). It is most
useful in work done in the hand, and especially in outlines of
flowers, unshaded leaves, and arabesque, and all conventional designs.
[Illustration: No. 1.--STEM STITCH.]
It may be best described as a long stitch forward on the surface, and
a shorter one backward on the under side of the fabric, the stitches
following each other almost in line from left to right. The effect on
the wrong side is exactly that of an irregular back-stitching used by
dressmakers, as distinguished from regular stitching. A leaf worked in
outline should be begun at the lower or stalk end, and worked round
the right side to the top, taking care that the needle is to the left
of the thread as it is drawn out. When the point of the leaf is
reached, it is best to reverse the operation in working down the left
side towards the stalk again, so as to keep the needle to the right of
the thread instead of to the left, as in going up.
[Illustration: No. 2.]
The reason of this will be easily understood: we will suppose the leaf
to have a slightly serrated edge (and there is no leaf in nature with
an absolutely smooth one). It will be found that in order to give this
ragged appearance, it is necessary to have the points at which the
insertions of the needle occur on the outside of the leaf: whereas if
the stem stitch were continued down the left side, exactly in the same
manner as in ascending the right, we should have the ugly anomaly of a
leaf outlined thus:--
[Illustration: No. 3.]
If the leaf is to be worked "solidly," another row of stem stitching
must be taken up the centre of it (unless it be a very narrow leaf),
to the top. The two halves of the leaf must then be filled in,
separately, with close, even rows of stem stitch, worked in the
ordinary way, with the needle to the left of the thread. This will
prevent the ugly ridge which remains in the centre, if it is worked
round and round the inside of the outline. Stem stitch must be varied
according to the work in hand. If a perfectly even line is required,
care must be taken that the direction of the needle when inserted is
in a straight line with the preceding stitch. If a slight serrature is
required, each stitch must be sloped a little by inserting the needle
at a slight angle, as shown in the illustration. The length of the
surface stitches must vary to suit the style of each piece of
embroidery.
* * * * *
_Split Stitch_ is worked like ordinary "stem," except that the needle
is always brought up _through_ the crewel or silk, which it splits, in
passing.
The effect is to produce a more even line than is possible with the
most careful stem stitch. It is used for delicate outlines. Split
stitch is rarely used in hand embroidery, being more suitable for
frame work: but has been described here as being a form of stem
stitch. The effect is somewhat like a confused chain stitch.
* * * * *
_Satin Stitch_--_French Plumetis_--is one of those chiefly used in
white embroidery, and consists in taking the needle each time back
again almost to the spot from which it started, so that the same
amount of crewel or silk remains on the back of the work as on the
front. This produces a surface as smooth as satin: hence its name. It
is chiefly used in working the petals of small flowers, such as
"Forget-me-nots," and in arabesque designs where a raised effect is
wanted in small masses.
[Illustration: No. 4.--SATIN STITCH.]
* * * * *
_Blanket Stitch_ is used for working the edges of table-covers,
mantel valances, blankets, &c., or for edging any other material. It
is simply a button-hole stitch, and may be varied in many ways by
sloping the stitches alternately to right and left; by working two or
three together, and leaving a space between them and the next set; or
by working a second row round the edge of the cloth over the first
with a different shade of wool.
[Illustration: No. 5.--BLANKET STITCH.]
* * * * *
_Knotted Stitch_, or _French Knot_, is used for the centres of such
flowers as the daisy or wild rose, and sometimes for the anthers of
others. The needle is brought up at the exact spot where the knot is
to be: the thread is held in the left hand, and twisted once or twice
round the needle, the point of which is then passed through the
fabric close to the spot where it came up: the right hand draws it
underneath, while the thumb of the left keeps the thread in its place
until the knot is secure. The knots are increased in size according to
the number of twists round the needle. When properly made, they should
look like beads, and lie in perfectly even and regular rows.
[Illustration: No. 6.--KNOTTED STITCH, or FRENCH KNOT.]
This stitch is very ancient, and does not seem confined to any
country, and the Chinese execute large and elaborate pieces of
embroidery in it, introducing beautiful shading. A curious specimen of
very fine knotting stitch was exhibited at the Royal School in 1878,
probably of French workmanship. It was a portrait of St. Ignatius
Loyola, not more than six inches in length, and was entirely executed
in knots of such fineness, that without a magnifying glass it was
impossible to discover the stitches. This, however, is a _tour de
force_, and not quoted as worthy of imitation.
There is one variety of this stitch, in which the thread is twisted a
great many times round the needle, so as to form a sort of curl
instead of a single knot. This is found in many ancient embroideries,
where it is used for the hair of saints and angels in ecclesiastical
work.
Knotted stitch was also employed largely in all its forms in the
curious and ingenious but ugly style in vogue during the reign of
James I., when the landscapes were frequently worked in cross, or
feather stitch, while the figures were raised over stuffing, and
dressed, as it were, in robes made entirely in point lace, or
button-hole stitches, executed in silk. The foliage of the trees and
shrubs which we generally find in these embroidered pictures, as well
as the hair in the figures, were worked in knotted stitches of varying
sizes, while the faces were in tent stitch or painted on white silk,
and fastened on to the canvas or linen ground.
[Illustration: No. 7.--BULLION KNOT.]
Another variety of knotting, which is still occasionally used,
resembles _bullion_, being made into a long roll. A stitch of the
length of the intended roll is taken in the material, the point of the
needle being brought to the surface again in the same spot from which
the thread originally started; the thread is then twisted eight or ten
times round the point of the needle, which is drawn out carefully
through the tunnel formed by the twists, this being kept in its place
by the left thumb. The point of the needle is then inserted once more
in the same place as it first entered the material, the long knot or
roll being drawn so as to lie evenly between the points of insertion
and re-appearance, thus treating the twisted thread as if it were
bullion or purl.
* * * * *
_Chain Stitch_ is but little used in embroidery now, although it may
sometimes be suitable for lines. It is made by taking a stitch from
right to left, and before the needle is drawn out the thread is
brought round towards the worker, and under the point of the needle.
[Illustration: No. 8.--CHAIN STITCH.]
The next stitch is taken from the point of the loop thus formed
forwards, and the thread again kept under the point, so that a regular
chain is formed on the surface of the material.
This chain stitch was much employed for ground patterns in the
beautiful gold-coloured work on linen for dress or furniture which
prevailed from the time of James I. to the middle of the eighteenth
century. It gave the appearance of quilting when worked on linen in
geometrical designs, or in fine and often-repeated arabesques.
Examples of it come to us from Germany and Spain, in which the design
is embroidered in satin stitch, or entirely filled in with solid
chain stitch, in a uniform gold colour.
Chain stitch resembles _Tambour work_, which we shall describe amongst
framework stitches, though it is not at present practised at this
School.
* * * * *
_Twisted Chain_, or Rope stitch.
[Illustration: No. 9.--TWISTED CHAIN.]
Effective for outlines on coarse materials, such as blankets, carriage
rugs, footstools, &c.
It is like an ordinary chain, except that in place of starting the
second stitch from the centre of the loop, the needle is taken back to
half the distance behind it, and the loop is pushed to one side to
allow the needle to enter in a straight line with the former stitch.
It is not of much use, except when worked with double crewel or with
tapestry wool; and should then have the appearance of a twisted rope.
* * * * *
_Feather Stitch._--Vulgarly called "_long and short stitch_," "_long
stitch_" and sometimes "_embroidery stitch_." We propose to restore to
it its ancient title of feather stitch--"_Opus Plumarium_," so called
from its supposed resemblance to the plumage of a bird.
[Illustration: No. 10.--FEATHER STITCH.]
We shall now describe it as used for handwork; and later (at page 37),
as worked in a frame. These two modes differ very little in
appearance, as the principle is the same, namely, that the stitches
are of varying length, and are worked into and between each other,
adapting themselves to the form of the design, but in handwork the
needle is kept on the surface of the material.
Feather Stitch is generally used for embroidering flowers, whether
natural or conventional.
In working the petal of a flower (such as we have chosen for our
illustration), the outer part is first worked in with stitches which
form a close, even edge on the outline, but a broken one towards the
centre of the petal, being alternately long and short. These edging
stitches resemble satin stitch in so far that the same amount of
crewel or silk appears on the under, as on the upper side of the work:
they must slope towards the narrow part of the petal.
The next stitches are somewhat like an irregular "stem," inasmuch as
they are longer on the surface than on the under side, and are worked
in between the uneven lengths of the edging stitches so as to blend
with them. The petal is then filled up by other stitches, which start
from the centre, and are carried between those already worked.
When the petal is finished, the rows of stitches should be so merged
in each other that they cannot be distinguished, and when shading is
used, the colours should appear to melt into each other.
In serrated leaves, such as hawthorn or virginia creeper, the edging
stitches follow the broken outline of the leaf instead of forming an
even outer edge.
It is necessary to master thoroughly this most important stitch, but
practice only can make the worker perfect.
The work should always be started by running the thread a little way
in front of the embroidery. Knots should never be used except in rare
cases, when it is impossible to avoid them. The thread should always
be finished off on the surface of the work, never at the back, where
there should be no needless waste of material. No untidy ends or knots
should ever appear there; in fact, the wrong side should be quite as
neat as the right. It is a mistake to suppose that pasting will ever
do away with the evil effects of careless work, or will steady
embroidery which has been commenced with knots, and finished with
loose ends at the back.
The stitches vary constantly according to their application, and good
embroiderers differ in their manner of using them: some preferring to
carry the thread back towards the centre of the petal, on the surface
of the work, so as to avoid waste of material; others making their
stitches as in satin stitch--the same on both sides, but these details
may be left to the intelligence and taste of the worker, who should
never be afraid of trying experiments, or working out new ideas.
Nor should she ever fear to unpick her work; for only by experiment
can she succeed in finding the best combinations, and, one little
piece ill done, will be sufficient to spoil her whole embroidery, as
no touching-up can afterwards improve it.
* * * * *
We have now named the principal stitches used in hand embroidery,
whether to be executed in crewel or silk.
There are, however, numberless other stitches used in crewel
embroidery: such as ordinary stitching, like that used in plain
needlework, in which many designs were formerly traced on quilted
backgrounds--others, again, are many of them lace stitches, or forms
of herringbone, and are used for filling in the foliage of large
conventional floriated designs, such as we are accustomed to see in
the English crewel work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on
a twilled cotton material, resembling our modern Bolton sheeting.
It would be impossible to describe or even enumerate them all; as
varieties may be constantly invented by an ingenious worker to enrich
her design, and in lace work there are already 100 named stitches,
which occasionally are used in decorative embroidery. Most of these,
if required, can be shown as taught at the Royal School of
Art-Needlework, and are illustrated by samplers.
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CHAPTER IV.
FRAMES AND FRAMING.
Before proceeding to describe the various stitches used in frame
embroidery, we will say a few words as to the frame itself, the manner
of stretching the material in it, and the best and least fatiguing
method of working at it.
The essential parts of an embroidery frame are: first, the bars, which
have stout webbing nailed along them, and mortice holes at the ends;
second, the stretchers, which are usually flat pieces of wood,
furnished with holes at the ends to allow of their being fastened by
metal pegs into the mortice holes of the bars when the work is
stretched.
In some cases the stretchers are fastened into the bars by strong iron
screws, which are held by nuts.
FRAMING.
In choosing a frame for a piece of embroidery we must see that the
webbing attached to the sides of the bar is long enough to take the
work in one direction. Begin by sewing the edge of the material
closely with strong linen thread on to this webbing. If the work is
too long to be put into the frame at one time (as in the case of
borders for curtains, table-covers, &c.), all but the portion about to
be worked should be rolled round one bar of the frame, putting silver
paper and a piece of wadding between the material and the wood, so as
to prevent its being marked.
The stretchers should then be put in and secured with the metal pegs.
A piece of the webbing having been previously stitched on to the sides
of the material, it should now be braced with twine by means of a
packing needle, passing the string over the stretchers between each
stitch taken in the webbing, and, finally, drawing up the bracing
until the material is strained evenly and tightly in the frame. If the
fabric is one which stretches easily, the bracings should not be drawn
too tightly.
For small pieces of work a deal hand-frame, morticed at the corners,
will suffice, and this may be rested on the table before the worker,
being held in its position by two heavy leaden weights, covered with
leather or baize, in order to prevent them from slipping. It should be
raised off the table to a convenient height, thus saving the worker
from stooping over her frame, which tires the eyes, and causes the
blood to flow to the head.
There is no doubt that a well-made standing-frame is a great
convenience, as its position need not be disturbed, and it can be
easily covered up and put aside when not in use. It requires, however,
to be very well made, and should, if possible, be of oak or mahogany,
or it will warp and get out of order. It must also be well weighted
to keep it steady.
For a large piece of work it is necessary to have a long heavy frame
with wooden trestles, on which to rest it. The trestles should be made
so as to enable the frame to be raised or lowered at will.
A new frame has recently been invented and is sold by the Royal
School, which, being made with hinges and small upright pins, holds
the ends of the material firmly, so that it can be rolled round and
round the bar of the frame without the trouble of sewing it on to the
webbing.
When a frame is not in use, care should be taken that it does not
become warped from being kept in too dry or too hot a place, as it is
then difficult to frame the work satisfactorily.
It will be found useful to have a small basket, lined with holland or
silk, fastened to the side of the frame, to hold the silks, thimbles,
scissors, &c., needed for the work. Two thimbles should be used, one
on each hand, and the best are old silver or gold ones, with all the
roughness worn off, or ivory or vulcanite.
The worker ought to wear a large apron with a bib to save her dress,
and a pair of linen sleeves to prevent the cuffs from fraying or
soiling her work.
Surgeon's bent scissors are useful for frame embroidery, but they are
not necessary, as ordinary sharp-pointed scissors will answer every
purpose.
When silk, satin, or velvet is not strong enough to bear the strain of
framing and embroidering, it must be backed with a fine cotton or
linen lining. The "backing" in this case is first framed, as described
above, and the velvet or satin must then be laid on it, and first
fastened down with pins; then sewn down with herringbone stitch,
taking care that it is kept perfectly even with the thread of the
"backing," and not allowed to wrinkle or blister.
It is most important that a worker should learn to use equally both
hands, keeping the right hand above the frame till the arm is tired,
then letting the left take its place while the right goes below.
A cover should be made large enough to envelop both the upper and
under portions of the work, and to be fastened down to the sides, so
as to protect it from dust when it is not being used, and during work
it should be kept over the portion of the embroidery not actually in
hand.
Lastly, a good light should be chosen, so as not to try the eyes.
Many materials can only be embroidered in a frame, and most work is
best so done. A greater variety of stitches is possible, and on the
stretched flat surface the worker can see the whole picture at once,
and judge of the effect of the colours and shading as she carries out
the design. It is the difference between drawing on stretched or
crumpled paper.
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CHAPTER V.
STITCHES USED IN FRAME EMBROIDERY.
_Feather Stitch._--In framework, as in handwork, we restore the
ancient name of _Feather work_ or stitch--_Opus Plumarium_. We have
already said that it was so-called from its likeness to the plumage of
a bird.
This comes from the even lie of the stitches, which fit into and
appear to overlap each other, presenting thus a marked contrast to the
granulated effect of tent stitches, and the long ridges of the _Opus
Anglicum_, having no hard lines as in stem stitch, or flat surfaces as
in satin stitch.
Feather stitch, when worked in a frame, is exactly the same as that
worked in the hand, except that it is more even and smooth. The needle
is taken backwards and forwards through the material in stitches of
varying lengths; the next row always fitting into the vacant spaces
and projecting beyond them, so as to prepare for the following row.
Every possible gradation of colour can be effected in this way, and
it applies to every form of design--floral or arabesque. Natural
flowers have mostly been worked in this stitch.
* * * * *
A skilful embroiderer will be careful not to waste more silk than is
absolutely necessary on the back of the work, while, at the same time,
she will not sacrifice the artistic effect by being too sparing of her
back stitches.
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"COUCHING," OR LAID EMBROIDERY.
This name is properly applied to all forms of embroidery in which the
threads of crewel, silk, or gold are laid on the surface, and stitched
on to it by threads coming from the back of the material. Under this
head may be classed as varieties the ordinary "laid backgrounds,"
"diaper couchings," "brick stitch," "basket stitch," and the various
forms of stuffed couchings which are found in ancient embroideries.
Couching outlines are usually thick strands of double crewel, tapestry
wool, filoselle, cord, or narrow ribbon laid down and stitched at
regular intervals by threads crossing the couching line at right
angles. They are used for coarse outline work, or for finishing the
edges of appliqué.
* * * * *
_Plain Couching_, or "_Laid Embroidery_."--The threads are first laid
evenly and straight from side to side of the space to be filled in,
whether in the direction of warp or woof depends on the pattern; the
needle being passed through to the back, and brought up again not
quite close, but at a sufficient distance to allow of an intermediate
stitch being taken backwards; thus the threads would be laid
alternately first, third, second, fourth, and so on. This gives a
better purchase at each end than if they were laid consecutively in a
straight line. If the line slants much, it is not necessary to
alternate the rows. When the layer is complete, threads of metal, or
of the same or different colour and texture, are laid across at
regular intervals, and are fixed down by stitches from the back.
[Illustration: No. 11.--PLAIN COUCHING.]
The beauty of this work depends upon its regularity.
This kind of embroidery, which we find amongst the old Spanish,
Cretan, and Italian specimens, is very useful where broad, flat
effects without shading are required; but unless it is very closely
stitched down, it is not durable if there is any risk of its being
exposed to rough usage. It is possible to obtain very fine effects of
colour in this style of work, as was seen in the old Venetian curtains
transferred and copied for Louisa, Lady Ashburton. These were shown at
the time of the Exhibition of Ancient Needlework at the School in
1878.
Ancient embroidery can be beautifully restored by grounding in "laid
work," instead of transferring it where the ground is frayed, and the
work is worthy of preservation. It must be stretched on a new backing,
the frayed material carefully cut away, and the new ground couched as
we have described.
In other varieties of couching, under which come the many forms of
diapering, the threads are "laid" in the same manner as for ordinary
couching; but in place of laying couching lines across these, the
threads of the first layer are simply stitched down from the back,
frequently with threads of another colour.
* * * * *
_Net-patterned Couching._--The fastening stitches are placed
diagonally instead of at right angles, forming a network, and are kept
in place by a cross-stitch at each intersection.
This style of couching was commonly used as a ground in ecclesiastical
work of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
* * * * *
_Brick Stitch._--The threads are laid down two together, and are
stitched across at regular intervals. The next two threads are then
placed together by the side, the fastening stitches being taken at the
same distance from each other, but so as to occur exactly between the
previous couplings. Thus giving the effect of brickwork.
* * * * *
_Diaper Couchings._--By varying the position of the fastening stitches
different patterns may be produced, such as diagonal crossings,
diamonds, zigzags, curves, &c.
[Illustration: No. 12.--THREE ILLUSTRATIONS OF DIAPER COUCHINGS.]
They are properly all gold stitches; but purse silk, thin cord, or
even untwisted silk may be used.
A wonderful example of the many varieties of diapering is to be seen
in the South Kensington Museum, No. 689. It is modern Belgian work,
executed for the Paris Exhibition of 1867. As a specimen of fine and
beautiful diapering in gold, this could scarcely be surpassed.
* * * * *
_Basket Stitch_ is one of the richest and most ornamental of these
ancient modes of couching. Rows of "stuffing," manufactured in the
form of soft cotton cord, are laid across the pattern and firmly
secured. Across these are placed gold threads, two at a time, and
these are stitched down over each two rows of stuffing. The two gold
threads are turned at the edge of the pattern, and brought back close
to the last, and fastened in the same way. Three double rows of gold
may be stitched over the same two rows of stuffing.
The next three rows must be treated as brick stitch, and fastened
exactly between the previous stitchings, and so on, until the whole
space to be worked is closely covered with what appears to be a golden
wicker-work.
Strong silk must be used for the stitching.
[Illustration: No. 13.--BASKET STITCH.]
The Spanish School of Embroidery has always been famed for its
excellence in this style, and has never lost the art. The
"Embroiderers of the King," as they are called, still turn out
splendid specimens of this heavy and elaborate work, which are used
for the gorgeous trappings of the horses of the nobility on gala days
and state occasions.
A beautiful specimen was exhibited at the Royal School of
Art-Needlework, in 1878, by the Countess Brownlow, of an
altar-hanging, entirely worked in basket stitch, in gold on white
satin, and a modern example is still to be seen at the School in a
large counterpane, which was worked for the Philadelphia Exhibition
from an ancient one also belonging to Lady Brownlow.
The Spanish embroiderers used these forms of couching over stuffing
with coloured silks as well as gold, and produced wonderfully rich
effects. One quilt exhibited by Mrs. Alfred Morrison in 1878 was a
marvel of colouring and workmanship.
Basket stitch is mostly used now for church embroidery, or for small
articles of luxury, such as ornamental pockets, caskets, &c.
Diapering is generally employed in the drapery of small figures, and
in ecclesiastical work.
* * * * *
Many fabrics are manufactured in imitation of the older diapered
backgrounds, and are largely used to replace them. Among these are the
material known as silk brocatine, and several kinds of cloth of gold
mentioned in our list of materials.
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[Decoration]
CUSHION STITCHES.
_Cushion Stitch_--the ancient _Opus Pulvinarium_ of the Middle Ages,
likewise called "Cross Stitch"--may lay claim to be one of the most
ancient known in embroidery. There have been many varieties, but the
principle is the same in all. It is worked on and through canvas, of
which the threads, as in tapestry, regulate the stitches.
After six centuries of popularity it finally died out within the last
few years as "Berlin wool work;" but will doubtless be revived again
in some form after a time, as being well fitted for covering furniture
on account of its firmness and durability.
In Germany and Russia it is still much used for embroidering
conventional designs on linen; and the beautiful Cretan and Persian
work of which so much has lately been in the market, is executed in
this style.
* * * * *
_Tent Stitch_ may be placed first under this class, in which the
thread coming from beneath is carried over a single cross of the warp
and woof of the canvas.
[Illustration: No. 14.--TENT STITCH.]
* * * * *
_Simple Cross Stitch._--The worsted or silk is brought up again to the
surface, one thread to the left of the spot where the needle was
inserted, and is crossed over the first or "tent" stitch, forming a
regular and even cross on the surface.
[Illustration: No. 15.--SIMPLE CROSS STITCH.]
* * * * *
_Persian Cross Stitch._--The peculiarity of this stitch is that in the
first instance the silk or worsted is carried across two threads of
the canvas ground, and is brought up in the intermediate space. It is
then crossed over the latter half of the original stitch, and a fresh
start is made.
[Illustration: No. 16.--PERSIAN CROSS STITCH.]
Much of the beauty of Persian embroidery is produced by the
irregularity of the crossing; the stitches being taken in masses, in
any direction that seems most suitable to the design in hand, instead
of being placed in regular rows, with the stitches all sloping in one
direction, as is the case with the modern "Berlin work," this, with
the happy choice of colours for which the Persians are so justly
famous, produces a singular richness of effect.
Allied to these canvas stitches and having their origin in them, are
the numerous forms of groundings, which are now worked on coarse
linens, or in fact on any fabric; and have sometimes, although
incorrectly, been called darning stitches, probably from their
resemblance to the patterns which are found on samplers, for darning
stockings, old table linen, &c. &c. Almost any pattern can be produced
in this style of embroidery, simply by varying the relative length of
the stitches.
Following the nomenclature of the committee which named and catalogued
the specimens of ancient needlework exhibited in the South Kensington
Museum in 1872, we have classed all the varieties of these grounding
stitches under the name of Cushion stitch.
* * * * *
_Cushion Stitches_ are taken as in laid embroidery, so as to leave all
the silk and crewel on the surface, and only a single thread of the
ground is taken up; but in place of lying in long lines, from end to
end of the material, they are of even length, and are taken in a
pattern, such as a waved line or zigzag; so that when finished the
ground presents the appearance of a woven fabric.
[Illustration: No. 17.--CUSHION STITCH.]
We give an illustration of one variety of cushion stitch, which may
either be worked as described here, or in the hand, as in the woodcut.
A good modern example of this background was exhibited in the School,
on a bed-hanging, worked for the Honourable Mrs. Percy Wyndham, from a
design by Mr. W. Morris. In the Exhibition of Ancient Needlework last
year were many beautiful specimens: notably one enormous wall-hanging
of Italian seventeenth-century work, lent by Earl Spencer. Many of the
fabrics known as "Tapestries" are woven imitations of these grounds,
and carry embroidery so perfectly, that on the whole, except for small
pieces, it seems a waste of hand-labour to work them in, as the effect
is not very far removed from that of woven material, while the expense
is, of course, very much greater.
The ancient specimens of this stitch are worked on a coarse canvas,
differing greatly from that which was recently used for Berlin wool
work.
It cannot now be obtained except by having it especially made to
order. It has been replaced by a coarse hand-woven linen for the use
of the School, but the ancient canvas is vastly superior, as its
looseness makes it easier for the worker to keep her stitches in
regular lines.
In some ancient specimens the design is worked in feather stitch, and
the whole ground in cushion stitch. In others the design is in fine
cross or tent stitch. There are several very beautiful examples of
this kind of embroidery in the South Kensington Museum--Italian, of
the seventeenth century.
A variety of cushion stitch, which we frequently see in old Italian
embroideries, was taught in the Royal School of Art-Needlework by Miss
Burden, and used under her direction in working flesh in some large
figures designed by Mr
|
-west, seeking for lands that were adapted to
their patriarchal organization. Not until the ninth century did they
set up what might be called Governments on the Adriatic littoral,
where they had no hostility to fear from the last remaining Romans,
who were refugees in certain towns and islands.
TWO EARLY STATES
The two most important of these Slav States were, firstly, that one,
the predecessor of our modern Croatia, which extended from the mouth
of the Raša (Arša) in Istria to the mouth of the Cetina in
central Dalmatia, and, secondly, to the south-east a principality,
afterwards called Raška, in what is now western Serbia. In a little
time the Slavs began to have relations with the towns of the Dalmatian
coast and with the islands which were nominally under the sway of
Byzantium, but in consequence of their remoteness and their exposed
position had succeeded in becoming almost independent republics.
ECCLESIASTICAL ROCKS
Now Christianity had been definitely introduced into Dalmatia in the
fourth century, but it was not until several centuries later that it
made any headway with the Slavs, of whom the Croats, in the ninth
century, were baptized by Frank missionaries. The arrival of the
Slavs, by the bye, had been sometimes looked upon with scanty favour
by the Popes: in July of the year 600 we find Gregory I. saying in a
letter to the Bishop of Salona that he was much disturbed at the news
he had just received "de Sclavorum gente, quæ vobis valde imminet,
affligor vehementer et conturbor." Similarly, the Council of Split
branded the Slav missionaries as heretics and the Slav alphabet as the
invention of the devil.[6]... While the Croats were falling[7] under
the dominion of the Franks, the holy brothers St. Cyril and St.
Methodus, who had been born at Salonica in 863, were carrying the
first Slav book from Constantinople to Moravia, whither they travelled
at the invitation of the Prince of Moravia, Rastislav, St. Cyril going
as an apostle and theologian, St. Methodus as a statesman and
organizer. This famous book was a translation from the Greek, but it
was written in Palæo-Slav characters, the Glagolitic that were to
become so venerated that when the French kings were crowned at Reims
their oath was sworn upon a Glagolitic copy of the Gospels;[8] and the
spirit of that earliest book was also Slav: it expresses the political
and cultural resistance of Prince Rastislav against the State of the
Franks, that is, against the German nationality, of whom it was feared
that with the Cross in front of them they would trample down for ever
the political liberties of the young Slav peoples. German theologians
were giving a more and more dogmatic character to Western
Christianity, whereas the Christianity of the East was at that time
more liberal; it gathered to itself the Slavs of Raška and of the
neighbouring regions, such as southern Dalmatia, while the influence
which it exerted was so powerful that when the Croats, after
vacillating between the two Churches, finally joined that of Rome,
they took with them the old Slav liturgy that is used by them in many
places on the mainland and the islands down to this day. Thus their
Church became a national institution, and that in spite of all the
long-continued efforts of the Vatican, as also of the Venetian
Republic. The Roman Catholic hierarchy, by the way, is endeavouring to
have this liturgy made lawful in the whole of Yugoslavia; the only
opponent I met was a Jesuit at Zagreb who foresaw that the priests,
being no longer obliged to learn Latin, might indeed omit to do so.
Pope Pius X. was likewise an opponent of the Slav liturgy, because a
Polish priest told him that it would lead to Pan-Slavism and hence to
schism; but it is thought--among others by the patriotic Prince-Bishop
Jeglić of Ljubljana--that the late Pope would have given his
consent, had it not been for Austria, which recoiled from what would
have probably strengthened the Slav element. One of the cherished
policies of Austria was to utilize in every possible way the religious
differences between the Southern Slavs.
THE SLAVS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS
But the two States formed beside the Adriatic and in Raška were not
only separated from early days by their religion; they had quite
different neighbours to deal with. In 887 the Croats imposed their
will on the Venetians, against whom they had been for some time waging
war--and not merely a defensive war--the Venetians having attacked the
country in order to despoil it of timber and of people, whom they
liked to sell in the markets of the Levant. In 887, however, after the
defeat and death of their doge, Pietro Candiano, the Venetians were
forced to pay--and paid without interruption down to the year 1000--an
annual tribute to the Croats, who in return permitted them to sail
freely on the Adriatic. Beside that sea the Croats founded new towns,
such as Šibenik (of which the Italian name is Sebenico), and
carried on an amicable intercourse with the autonomous Byzantine
towns: Iader, the picturesque modern capital which they came to call
Zadar and the Venetians Zara; Tragurium, the delightful spot which is
their Trogir and the Venetian Traù, and so forth. These friendly
relations existed both before 882 and subsequently, when the towns
agreed to pay the Croats an annual tribute, in return for which the
local provosts were confirmed in office by the rulers of Croatia. We
have plentiful evidence from the ruins of royal castles and of the
many churches built by the Slavs in this period, as well as from the
discoveries of arms and ornaments, that the people had attained to a
condition of prosperity. At the beginning of the tenth century, so we
are told by the learned emperor and historian Constantine
Porphyrogenetos, the Croatian Prince Tomislav could raise 100,000
infantry and 60,000 cavalry; he had likewise eighty large vessels,
each with a crew of forty men, at his disposal, and a hundred smaller
ships with ten to twenty men in each of them.
As for the State of Raška, protected on the south and west by
formidable mountains, and in the very centre of the Serbian tribes, it
is there that the lore and customs of the people have survived in
their purest form. Raška was the land in which the love of liberty
was always kept alive and from there the expeditions used to sally
forth whose aim, frustrated many times, it was to found a powerful
Serbian State. The chieftain, Tshaslav Kronimirović, did, as a
matter of fact, succeed in uniting his State with two others, one
being in Bosnia and the other in Zeta, which is now Montenegrin. He
even added three other provinces on the Adriatic coast; but after his
death the State was dissolved and in the course of the conflicts which
followed, the State of Zeta assumed the leadership. It had been
necessary for these Serbian rulers of Raška and Zeta to resist the
frequent assaults not only of the Byzantines but of the Bulgars.
SIMEON THE BULGAR
"Frequent assaults" is probably a correct description of what the Serb
of that period had to endure at the hands of this particular
opponent, the Bulgar. Having swarmed across the Peninsula, the Bulgar
was now in the act of consolidating a great kingdom, for this was the
magnificent epoch of the Bulgarian Tzar Simeon, whose word ran far and
wide from the Adriatic. The Bulgarian map[9] which exhibits the
Tzardom at the death of Simeon is painted in the same brown colour
from opposite Corfu right across to the Black Sea and up as far as the
mouths of the Danube, which signifies that in those parts (including,
of course, Macedonia) the word of Simeon was supreme. But the Serbian
provinces of Raška, Zeta, Bosnia and some adjoining lands are
painted brown and white, being hatched with white diagonal lines; and
this indicates very candidly that in the north-west Simeon was not
omnipotent. We are indeed told in the letterpress that "on the other
hand Simeon meanwhile took the opportunity to settle accounts with the
Serbians because of their perfidious policy, and he subjected them in
the year 924"; but doubtless this was a kind of subjection which in
925 would have to be repeated, and this would account for one of
Simeon's faithful chroniclers having made that allusion to perfidious
policy. Of the Tzar himself we are given an attractive picture: unlike
his father, Boris, who patronized Slav literature for the reason that
it made his State less permeable to Byzantine influence, Simeon had no
political object in his encouragement of native literature.[10] He was
himself a man of letters, having studied at Constantinople. He was
acquainted with Aristotle and Demosthenes, he discussed theology with
the most eminent doctors of the Church, and of positive science--or of
what was then regarded as such--he possessed everything which had
survived the great shipwreck of ancient thought. Not only did he found
monasteries and schools, but he gathered writers round him; and, in
order to stimulate them, he himself wrote original books and
translations, thus ennobling, we are told, the literary vocation in
the eyes of his rude and warlike race. He would probably have smiled
if he had known that one of his writers had attributed to him the
subjection of the Serbs; but what one would like to learn is whether
Macedonia, even then a kaleidoscope of races, was more or less
completely under the shadow and the brilliance of his sword, more or
less completely subjugated. Four centuries later the Serbs were to
have a Macedonian empire which, like Simeon's, dissolved on the death
of its founder. To these old empires the Serb and the Bulgar of our
day are looking back, and it would be interesting to know if harassed
Macedonia was calmly content to be first Bulgarian and then Serbian,
or whether it was a calm of that Eastern kind which means that a
ruler's assaults upon the people are infrequent.
WHAT ARE THE BULGARS?
And now, as the matter is in dispute, it is necessary to examine the
origin of the Bulgarian people. A band of Turanian or Bulgarian
warriors, probably not over 10,000 in number and led by one Asperouch
or Isperich, had crossed the Danube in the year 679, had subdued the
Slav tribes in those parts--for the newcomers reaped the advantage of
being a well-disciplined people--and by the end of the eighth century
had settled down in their tents of felt along the banks of the Danube.
Then, after another hundred years, in the district bounded by Varna,
Rustchuk and the Balkans, one may say that the original Turanians, a
branch of the Huns, had been absorbed by the Slavs. "The forefathers
of the Bulgars," says the great Slavist, Dr. Constantine Jireček of
Prague, in his _History of the Bulgars_, "are not the handful of
Bulgars who conquered in 679 a part of Mœsia along the Danube, but
the Slavs who much earlier had settled in Mœsia, as well as in
Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus and almost the whole Peninsula." With regard
to the retention of the name there is an analogy in France, where the
Gauls came under the subjection of German Franks, who ultimately
disappeared, but left their name to the country. So, too, the Greeks
in Turkey who call themselves Romei, the name of their former rulers,
and their language Romeica, though they are not Romans and do not
speak Latin. To such an extent have the original Bulgars been absorbed
by the Yugoslavs that even the most ancient known form of the
Bulgarian language, dating from the ninth century, retains hardly any
relics of the original Bulgarian tongue; and this tongue has in our
time, with the exception of a word or two, been entirely lost: there
is a celebrated old MS. in Moscow[11] which orientalists and
historians have pondered over and which has now been explained by the
Finnish professor Mikola and the Bulgarian professor Zlatarski to be a
chronology of Bulgarian pagan princes, of whom the first are rather
fabulous. Here and there, amid the old Slav, are strange words which
are supposed to signify Turanian chronology, cycles of lunar years.
And in a village between Šumen and Prjeslav there was found an
inscription of the Bulgarian prince Omortag (?802-830), where in the
Greek language, for the Bulgars had at that period no writing of their
own, he says that he built something; and amid the Greek there is the
word σιγορ-αλεμ, which occurs also in the above-mentioned
document and is regarded as Turanian.... What we do know about this
race is by no means so discreditable; it is true that they are reputed
to have had no great esteem for the aged, and, according to a Chinese
chronicle of the year 545, "the characters of their writing are like
those of the barbarians." They held it to be glorious to die in
battle, shameful to die of sickness. For the violation of a married
woman, as well as for the hatching of plots and rebellion, the penalty
was death, and if you seduced a girl you were compelled to pay a fine
and also to marry her. Their sense of discipline, which served them so
well in their contact with other people, was remarkably applied to
their social life; thus a stepson was under an obligation to marry his
father's widow, a nephew the widow of his uncle, and a younger brother
the widow of an elder. It may be that the two much-quoted writers who
claim that the modern Bulgars are of this race were moved more by
their admiration of such customs than by scientific scrutiny. One of
them, Christoff, who assumed the name of Tartaro-Bulgar to show that
he believed in his theories, is usually thought nowadays to have been
more of a poet than a devotee of erudition; if he had been still more
of a poet, approaching, say, Pencho Slaveikoff, we would take less
objection to his waywardness. The other champion of that ancestry is
Theodore Paneff, who showed himself a brilliant and courageous officer
during the war of 1912-1913. The fact that he was himself of Armenian
origin--he changed his name--would, of course, not invalidate his
Bulgarian studies; but even as he spoke Bulgarian with a Russian
accent, so is he looked upon as writing like certain Russians; and his
other literary work, such as that on the psychology of crowds, is held
to be of more value. At all events in 1916 when a number of Bulgarian
deputies made a joyous progress to the capitals of their allies, under
the leadership of the Vice-President of the Sobranje, Dr. Momchiloff,
renowned at the time as a Germanophil, they were welcomed with great
pomp at Buda-Pest and declared in ceremonial orations to be brothers
of the Turanian Magyars; but Momchiloff deprecated this idea. "We are
brothers," he said, "of the Russians, and see what we have done to
them!" It was also during the War that Dr. Georgov, Professor of
Philosophy and Rector of Sofia University, wrote a dissertation in a
Buda-Pest newspaper,[12] which demonstrated very clearly to the
Hungarians that the Bulgars are Slavs; the Professor points out that
the Turanians had so rapidly been absorbed that Prince Omortag
bestowed Slav names upon his sons, and this complete mingling of the
radically different peoples was assisted, says the Professor, by the
fact that those Bulgarian hordes in the days before they crossed the
Danube were already partly mixed with Slavs, since they had been
wandering for decades to the north of the Danube, around Bessarabia,
in which country the Slavs were members of the same Slovene race as
those whom they were afterwards to meet. So thoroughly were the
original Bulgars submerged in the Slavs that when their sons set out
from the district between Varna, Rustchuk and the Balkans, proceeding
west and south, they met with no resistance from the unorganized Slavs
of Mœsia and Thrace, owing to the circumstance that these latter
did not feel that the new arrivals were strangers. In fact, says the
Professor, there are in the present Bulgarian people far fewer and far
fainter traces of the original Bulgars than there are of the old
Thracians, as also of the Greeks and of the different people who in
the course of the great migrations probably left here and there some
stragglers. Sir Charles Eliot says of the Bulgars that "though not
originally Slavs they have been completely Slavized, and all the ties
arising from language, religion and politics connect them with the
Slavs and not with Turkey or even Hungary." Professor Cvijić, by
the way, who in 1920 received the Patron's Medal of the Royal
Geographical Society for his researches into Balkan ethnology, regards
the author of _Turkey in Europe_ as a greater authority in this field
than himself.... It is not easy, away from Montenegro and a few remote
valleys, to find communities on the Balkan mainland that are
altogether free from alien blood; Turks have come and gone, Crusaders
of all nationalities have passed this way, with their hangers-on, here
was the road from Europe to Asia, and here amid the ruin of empires
lay much that was worth gathering. No doubt the Serbs, whose land was
not so much a thoroughfare, have in their veins some Illyrian and
other, but on the whole much less non-Slav blood than the Bulgars;
still, when we consider some subsequent invasions of Bulgaria, we must
ascertain how far they spread. For example, the Kumani who arrived in
the thirteenth century were, according to Leon Cahun,[13] Turks of the
Kiptchak nation, speaking a pure Turkish dialect; they--that is to
say, the Gagaous who are supposed to be their descendants--are now
Christians, they speak modern Turkish and inhabit the shores of the
Black Sea and the region of Adrianople; they have kept much to
themselves and are recognizable by their dark faces, large teeth and
hirsute appearance. There are people who assert that all Bulgars have
a physical divergence from other Yugoslavs, but, except if they
happened to come across one of these Gagaous or some such person, it
appears more likely that they saw what they went out to see.
Naturally, if not very logically, those who regard the Bulgars in a
hostile fashion have often brandished the arguments of Messrs.
Tartaro-Bulgar and Paneff; if they will be so good as to accept what I
honestly believe is the truth with regard to this people, they may
have the pleasure of denouncing the Bulgar even more, seeing that his
Yugoslav blood gives him less excuse for being what he has been. We
shall have occasion, later on, to discuss his primitive as well as his
more refined vices, endeavouring to ascertain how far they are not
shared by his neighbours and whether he has any virtues peculiar to
himself.
STEPHEN NEMANIA
After this long excursion into troubled waters we will go back to the
Serbian States of Raška and Zeta. In the year 1168 the former of
these was under the rule of Stephen Nemania (1168-1196), who bore the
title of "Grand Župan," which means chief of a province. He was on
friendly terms with the "Ban," or governor, of Bosnia, and with his
assistance he added Zeta to his possessions. It was in his beneficial
reign that the Bogomile heresy was propagated in Serbia--later on to
spread through Bosnia and thence, under the name of Albigensian
heresy, to France. Nemania summoned an assembly to decide on a plan of
action; they resolved that this heresy should be exterminated by force
of arms, seeing that most of the population belonged to the Orthodox
religion. But Nemania was tolerant towards the Catholic Church, which
had a considerable following in the Serbian provinces of the Adriatic
coast, and this attitude became him well, for although he was the son
of Orthodox parents he was born in a western part of the country where
there was no Orthodox priest, so that he was baptized according to the
Catholic rite and only joined the Orthodox Church at a considerably
later date. A suggestive incident occurred in the year 1189, when
Frederick Barbarossa, on his way to Constantinople and Jerusalem, was
met at Niš by the Grand Župan, who presented him with corn,
wine, oxen and various other commodities, placed the Serbs under his
protection, and concluded with him and with the Bulgars a military
convention for the taking of Constantinople. When at last Nemania was
tired of fighting and administration he withdrew to the splendid
monastery of Studenica, which he had built, and afterwards to the
promontory of Mt. Athos, where his younger son, who called himself
Sava and was to become the great St. Sava, had from his seventeenth
year embraced the monastic life.
THE SLOVENES ARE SUBMERGED
Meanwhile the Slavs of Croatia and those farther to the north and
west, with whom was kept alive the old name of Slovene, had been at
grips with various neighbours. It has been said of the Slovenes that,
shepherds and peasants for the most part, they have practically no
national history, seeing that when the realm of Samo, who was himself
a Frank, came to an end, they were subjected to the Lombards, to the
Bavarians and finally to Charlemagne and his successors. Unlike the
Serbs and the Croats, they had no warlike aristocracy; in fact, the
only two Slovene magnates who displayed any national zeal were two
Counts of Celje (Cilli) of whom the first rose to be Ban of Croatia
and the second, Count Ulrich, the last of his race, was in 1486
assassinated by Hungarians in Belgrade, thus causing his domains to
fall to the Habsburgs.[14] But if the little, scattered Slovene people
had to bend before the storm, if they withdrew from their outposts in
the two Austrias, in northern Styria, in Tirol, in the plains of
Frioul and in Venetia, they settled down, thirteen centuries ago, in a
region which they still inhabit. This is bounded to the north
approximately by the line extending from Villach--Celovec
(Klagenfurt)--Spielfeld--Radgona (Radkersburg)--and the mouth of the
river Mur, although there are noteworthy fragments at each end: about
65,000 on the hills to the west of the Isonzo (of whom 40,000 have
been since 1866 under Italy), and about 120,000, partly Catholics and
partly Protestants, who live on the other bank of the Mur. Anyone who
wished to follow the fortunes of the Slovenes through the Middle Ages
would have chiefly to consult the chronicles of the Holy Roman Empire;
he would find them in their old home at Gorica, but with a German
Count placed over them, he would find them being gradually supplanted
by the Germans in such towns as Maribor (Marburg) and Radgona, being
thrust out to the villages and the countryside; nowhere except in the
province of Carniola would he find a homogeneous Slovene population.
It is an interesting fact[15] that in the fifteenth century theirs was
the "domestic language" of the Habsburgs, even as in our time the
Suabian-Viennese; but until the era of Napoleon they took practically
no part in the world's affairs, and the part which they were wont to
take was to fight other people's battles: for example, when the
Venetians, in the midst of all their hectic merriment, were making the
last stand, it was largely to the Schiavoni, that is Slovene,
regiments that they entrusted their defence. We are told that there
was no question of the loyalty and the fighting qualities of the
Schiavoni and of their sturdy fellow-Slavs, the Morlaks of Dalmatia.
It was not possible for the authorities to provide ships enough to
bring over sufficient resources to maintain all those who were eager
to fight.[16] In spite of all the centuries of political suppression
the little Slovene people, which to-day only numbers 1,300,000,
retained its identity with even more success than a certain frog in
Ljubljana, their capital; for that wonderful creature, though
preserving its shape in the middle of a black-and-white marble table
at the Museum, has allowed itself to become black-and-white marble. We
shall see how Napoleon awoke the Slovenes, how Metternich put them to
sleep again, how they roused themselves in 1848 and what a rôle they
have played in the most recent history.
THE FATE OF THE CROATS
The Croats were to be much more prominent in the Middle Ages. They did
not, it is true, always manage to hold their heads above water; but
they can now look back with more gratification than regret on the
interminable conflicts which they had to sustain against the
Hungarians on the one hand, the Venetians on the other. The Hungarian
monarch, anxious to have an outlet on the Adriatic, attempted to
cajole the Croats into electing him as their king, on the score of his
being the brother of the wife of a late Croatian ruler. He secured by
force what his pleadings had not gained him, and subsequently the link
between Croatia and Hungary was more than once broken and reunited
within the space of a few years; at last it was arranged that there
was to be a purely personal union under the vigorous King Kolomon, and
so it continued, with varying interference on the part of the
Hungarians, until the dynasty of Arpad became extinct in 1301. The
functionary who represented the central power in Croatia--there being
for part of this period a similar official for Slavonia, the adjoining
province--had the title of Ban. He was at the head of the Croatian
army, he pronounced sentences in the name of the king and had other
functions, so that the office came to be regarded with profound
respect by the Croats, and many of its holders tried to deserve this
sentiment.... Among the duties assumed by King Kolomon was that of
recovering from the Venetians those coastal towns and islands which
had fallen to them, owing to the chaos in Croatia. For more than two
hundred years--that is, until the middle of the fourteenth
century--this warfare between the Hungaro-Croatian kings and Venice
raged without interruption; apparently the Dalmatian towns and islands
were most unwilling to come under the sway of Venice. We read
everywhere of how they themselves put up a strenuous resistance. At
Zadar, the capital, where Pope Alexander III. had in the year 1177
been welcomed by the people with rejoicings and Croatian songs, a
chain was drawn across the harbour in 1202, for the people hoped in
this way to keep out the Venetians, who, with a number of Frenchmen,
were starting out on the famous Fourth Crusade--that enterprise which
ended, on the outward journey, underneath the walls of Constantinople.
The Venetians forced their way into Zadar, plundered and devastated
it; and in order to mollify the Pope, who was indignant at Crusaders
having behaved in this fashion against a Christian town, they
subscribed towards the building of the cathedral, but retained
possession of the place--this time for over a hundred and fifty years.
Yet the holding of Zadar did not imply that of other Dalmatian towns:
during this period when Venice clung to the chief place there were a
good many changes in the not-distant town of Šibenik, which was now
under the Hungarians, now under Paul Subič, Prince of Bribir, now
under the Ban Mladen II., now an autonomous town under Venice.
A GALLANT REPUBLIC
The most renowned, as it is the most beautiful, of Dalmatian towns,
Dubrovnik (Ragusa), was always more preoccupied with commerce and
letters than with warfare. It managed to maintain itself in glory for
a very long time, thanks to the astuteness of the citizens, who were
ever willing to give handsome tribute to a potential foe. On occasion
the Ragusans could be nobly firm, refusing to deliver a political
refugee to the Turks, and so forth. In such tempestuous times the
little State was forced to trim its sails; there was the gibe that
they were prepared to pay lip service to anyone, and that the letters
S.B. on the flag (for Sanctus Blasius, their patron saint) indicated
the seven flags, _sette bandiere_, which they were ready to fly. But
the Republic of Dubrovnik--a truly oligarchic republic, until the
great earthquake of 1667 made it necessary to raise a few other
families into the governing class--the republic can say, with truth,
that when darkness was over the other Yugoslavs it kept a lamp alight.
As yet the Serbian State was rising in prosperity and Dubrovnik made a
treaty of commerce with Stephen (1196-1224), who had succeeded his
father Nemania. During this reign St. Sava, the king's brother, came
back to Serbia and organized the national Church, founding also
numerous monasteries and churches, as well as schools. Of the
successors of Stephen we may mention Uroš, whose widow, a French
princess, Helen of Anjou, is venerated in Serbia for her good deeds
and has been canonized. King Milutine (1281-1321) made Serbia the most
united and the leading State in Eastern Europe; under Dušan, who
has been called the Serbian Charlemagne, success followed success, and
under his sceptre he gathered most of the Serbian people, as well as
many Greeks and Albanians. He had the idea--and it was not beyond his
strength--to group together all the Serbian provinces.
THE GLORIOUS DUŠAN
It is facile for people of the twentieth century, and particularly so
for non-Slavs, to say that this Serbian Empire of Dušan, Lord of
the Serbs and Bulgars and Greeks, whom the Venetian Senate addressed
as "Græcorum Imperator semper Augustus," resembled the earlier
Bulgarian Empire of Simeon, who called himself Emperor of the Bulgars
and the Vlachs, Despot of the Greeks, in that we would consider
neither of them to be an empire; and that therefore, in celebrating
their glories, with pointed reference to their Macedonian glories, the
Serbs and the Bulgars are living in a fool's paradise. No doubt a
great many persons dwelt in this Macedonia of Simeon and Dušan
without being aware of the fact, for those who called themselves
Bulgars or Serbs appear to have been chiefly the warriors, the nobles
and the priests; a large part of the people were--as they are
to-day--indifferent to such niceties. But there is latent in the Slav
mind a longing for the absolute, which, except it be in some way
corrected, inclines towards a moral anarchy, a social nihilism and
indifference as to the destinies of the State. Looking merely at the
consequence, it does not greatly seem to matter how this attitude is
brought about.... One must admit that these two realms occupied in
their world most prominent positions--positions to which they would
not have attained if Simeon and Dušan had not been altogether
exceptional men, for on their death there was not anybody great
enough to keep the great men of the State together. We have spoken of
Simeon's peaceful labours--we might cultivate more than we do the
literature of that age if it were less dedicated to religious topics,
which anyhow at that time gave little scope for originality--his
consummate ability as a soldier and statesman is revealed in the
existence of his empire; we find in the Code of Dušan, before such
a thing flourished in England, the institution of trial by jury, while
Hermann Wendel[17] has pointed out that the peasants were protected
from rapacious landowners much more effectively than in the Germany of
that age.... We need not try to establish whether the simple
Macedonian desired to be under Simeon or Dušan; but even if these
two monarchs had, each of them, as far as was then possible, complete
control of the country, one would scarcely urge that after all these
centuries this is any reason why Macedonia should fall to Bulgaria or
to Serbia. We shall have to see whether by subsequent merits or
activities either of them has acquired the right to absorb these
outlying Slavs who, be it noted, if in our day they are questioned as
to their nationality, will often reply--and even to an enthusiastic,
armed person from one of the interested States--the worried Macedonian
Slavs, of whom a quarter or maybe a third do really not know what they
are, will reply that they are members of the Orthodox Church.
Dušan perceived that an alliance with Venice would serve his ends;
he did not cease trying to persuade the Venetians that such an
arrangement was also in their interest. After having sent an army to
Croatia, in the hope of liberating that people from the Hungarians, he
conquered Albania, and in 1340 asked to be admitted as a citizen of
the Most Serene Republic. In 1345 he informed the Senate that it was
his intention to be crowned in _imperio Constantinopolitaneo_, and at
the same time suggested an alliance _pro acquisitione imperii
Constantinopolitani_. But Venice, while reiterating her protestations
of friendship, declined his offers; for she could not bring herself to
join her fortunes to those of an ally who might become a rival.
EVIL DAYS AND THE PEOPLE'S HERO
On the death of Dušan his dominions fell apart, so that the
conquering Turk, who now appeared, was only met with isolated
resistance. At a battle on the river Maritza in 1371 the Christians
were utterly routed and, among other chieftains, King Vukašin was
slain. His territories had included Prizren in the north, Skoplje,
where Dušan had been crowned, Ochrida and Prilep. It was Prilep,
amid the bare mountains, which passed into the hands of Marko, the
king's son, Marko Kraljević, and thereabouts are the remains of his
churches and monasteries. But for the Serbs and the Bulgars Marko is
associated with deeds of valour; he has become the protagonist of a
grand cycle of heroic songs, wherein his wondrous exploits are
recalled. Although he was, by force of circumstances, a Turkish
vassal, and, fighting under them, he perished in Roumania in 1394, so
that historically he may not have played a very helpful part, yet it
is to him that numerous victories over the Turk are ascribed. He is
said to have been engaged in combat against the three-headed Arab, to
have waged solitary and triumphant warfare against battalions of
Turks, to have passed swiftly on his faithful charger Šarac from
one end of the country to another, to have defended the Cross against
the Crescent, to have succoured the poor and the weak, to have
conversed with the long-haired fairies, the "samovilas," of the forest
lakes, who gave him their protection, and he is said to have assisted
girls to marry by
|
for several months. It will be seen by
the illustration (Fig. 7) to be a plant of neat habit, and for effect
and usefulness it is one of the very best flowers that can be introduced
into the garden, especially the spring garden, as there is scarcely
another of its colour, and certainly not one so floriferous and durable.
Though it has been in English gardens over fifty years, it seems as if
only recently its real worth has been discovered. It is now fast
becoming a universal favourite. The flowers are 2in. across, and of a
most brilliant scarlet colour, produced singly on tall naked stems,
nearly a foot high. They vary in number of sepals, some being
semi-double. The foliage is bright and compact, more freely produced
than that of most Windflowers; it is also richly cut.
It may be grown in pots for conservatory or indoor decoration. It needs
no forcing for such purposes; a cold frame will prove sufficient to
bring out the flowers in winter. Borders or the moist parts of rockwork
are suitable for it; but perhaps it is seen to greatest advantage in
irregular masses in the half shade of trees in front of a shrubbery,
and, after all, it is impossible to plant this flower wrong, as regards
effect. To grow it well, however, it must have a moist situation, and
good loam to grow in. It is easily propagated by division of strong
healthy roots in autumn.
Flowering period, January to June, according to position and time of
planting.
Anemone Japonica.
JAPAN WINDFLOWER; _Nat. Ord._ RANUNCULACEÆ.
This and its varieties are hardy perennials of the most reliable kinds;
the typical form has flowers of a clear rose colour. _A. j. vitifolia_
has larger flowers of a fine bluish tint, and seems to be the hybrid
between the type and the most popular variety, viz., _A. j.
alba_--Honorine Jobert--(see Fig. 8). So much has this grown in favour
that it has nearly monopolised the name of the species, of which it is
but a variety; hence the necessity of pointing out the distinctions.
Frequently the beautiful white kind is sought for by the typical name
only, so that if a plant were supplied accordingly there would be
disappointment at seeing a somewhat coarse specimen, with small rosy
flowers, instead of a bold and beautiful plant with a base of large
vine-shaped foliage and strong stems, numerously furnished with large
white flowers, quite 2in. across, and centered by a dense arrangement of
lemon-coloured stamens, somewhat like a large single white rose. This
more desirable white variety sometimes grows 3ft. high, and is eminently
a plant for the border in front of shrubs, though it is very effective
in any position. I grow it in the border, on rockwork, and in a half
shady place, and it seems at home in all. It will continue in bloom
until stopped by frosts. The flowers are among the most useful in a cut
state, especially when mingled with the now fashionable and handsome
leaves of heucheras and tiarellas; they form a chaste embellishment for
the table or fruit dishes.
The plant is sometimes much eaten by caterpillars; for this the remedy
is soapy water syringed on the under side of the leaves. Earwigs also
attack the flowers; they should be trapped by a similar plan to that
usually adopted for dahlias.
To those wishing to grow this choice Anemone, let me say, begin with the
young underground runners; plant them in the autumn anywhere you like,
but see that the soil is deep, and if it is not rich, make it so with
well-decayed leaves or manure, and you will have your reward.
[Illustration: FIG. 8. ANEMONE JAPONICA ALBA (A. HONORINE JOBERT).
(About one-twelfth natural size.)]
Flowering period, August to November.
Anemone Nemorosa Flore-pleno.
DOUBLE WOOD ANEMONE, _or_ WINDFLOWER; _Nat. Ord._
RANUNCULACEÆ.
This is the double form of the common British species; in every part but
the flower it resembles the type. The flower, from being double, and
perhaps from being grown in more exposed situations than the common form
in the shaded woods, is much more durable; an established clump has kept
in good form for three weeks.
The petals (if they may be so called), which render this flower so
pleasingly distinct, are arranged in an even tuft, being much shorter
than the outer or normal sepals, the size and form of which remain true
to the type. The pure white flower--more than an inch across--is
somewhat distant from the handsome three-leaved involucrum, and is
supported by a wiry flower stalk, 3in. to 5in. long; it is about the
same length from the root, otherwise the plant is stemless. The flowers
are produced singly, and have six to eight petal-like sepals; the leaves
are ternately cut; leaflets or segments three-cut, lanceolate, and
deeply toothed; petioles channelled; the roots are long and round, of
about the thickness of a pen-holder. This plant grown in bold clumps is
indispensable for the choice spring garden; its quiet beauty is much
admired.
It enjoys a strongish loam, and a slightly shaded situation will conduce
to its lengthened flowering, and also tend to luxuriance. Soon after the
flowers fade the foliage begins to dry up; care should, therefore, be
taken to have some other suitable flower growing near it, so as to avoid
dead or blank spaces. Pentstemons, rooted cuttings of which are very
handy at this season for transplanting, are well adapted for such use
and situations, and as their flowers cannot endure hot sunshine without
suffering more or less, such half-shady quarters will be just the places
for them.
The double white Wood Anemone may be propagated by divisions of the
tubers, after the foliage has completely withered.
Flowering period, May.
Anemone Pulsatilla.
PASQUE FLOWER; _Nat. Ord._ RANUNCULACEÆ.
A British species. This beautiful flower has long been cultivated in our
gardens, and is deservedly a great favourite. It may not be
uninteresting to give the other common and ancient names of the Easter
Flower, as in every way this is not only an old plant, but an
old-fashioned flower. "Passe Flower" and "Flaw Flower" come from the
above common names, being only derivations, but in Cambridgeshire, where
it grows wild, it is called "Coventry Bells" and "Hill Tulip." Three
hundred years ago Gerarde gave the following description of it, which,
together with the illustration (Fig. 9), will, I trust, be found ample:
"These Passe flowers hath many small leaues, finely cut or iagged, like
those of carrots, among which rise up naked stalks, rough and hairie;
whereupon do growe beautiful flowers bell fashion, of a bright delaied
purple colour; in the bottome whereof groweth a tuft of yellow thrums,
and in the middle of the thrums thrusteth foorth a small purple
pointell; when the whole flower is past, there succeedeth an head or
knoppe, compact of many graie hairie lockes, and in the solide parts of
the knops lieth the seede flat and hoarie, euery seed having his own
small haire hanging at it. The roote is thick and knobbie of a finger
long, and like vnto those of the anemones (as it doth in all other parts
verie notablie resemble) whereof no doubt this is a kinde."
[Illustration: FIG. 9. ANEMONE PULSATILLA.
(One-half natural size.)]
This flower in olden times was used for making garlands, and even now
there are few flowers more suitable for such purpose; it varies much in
colour, being also sometimes double. It may be grown in pots for window
decoration or in the open garden; it likes a dry situation and
well-drained soil of a calcareous nature. In these respects it differs
widely from many of the other species of Windflower, yet I find it to do
well in a collection bed where nearly twenty other species are grown,
and where there are both shade and more moisture than in the open parts
of the garden. It may be propagated by division of the strong
root-limbs, each of which should have a portion of the smaller roots on
them. Soon after flowering is a good time to divide it.
Flowering period, March to May.
Anemone Stellata.
STAR WINDFLOWER; _Nat. Ord._ RANUNCULACEÆ.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. ANEMONE STELLATA.
(One-half natural size.)]
This gay spring flower (Fig. 10) comes to us from Italy, but that it
loves our dull climate is beyond doubt, as it not only flowers early,
but continues for a long time in beauty. _A. hortensis_ is another name
for it, and there are several varieties of the species, which mostly
vary only in the colours of the flowers, as striped, white and purple.
The typical form, as illustrated, is seen to be a quaint little plant;
its flowers are large, of a shining light purple colour, and
star-shaped; the dwarf foliage is of the well-known crowfoot kind. When
grown in bold clumps it is richly effective, and, like most other
Anemones, is sure to be admired.
It thrives well in a light loam and in slight shade; I have tried it in
pots kept in cold frames, where it flowers in mid-winter. It would
doubtless make a showy appearance in a cool greenhouse. To propagate it,
the roots should be divided after the tops have died down in summer.
Flowering period, February to June, according to position and time of
planting.
Anemone Sulphurea.
SULPHUR-COLOURED WINDFLOWER; _Syn._ A. APIIFOLIA;
_Nat. Ord._ RANUNCULACEÆ.
[Illustration: FIG. 11. ANEMONE SULPHUREA.
(One-fourth natural size.)]
This is a grandly beautiful Windflower from Central Europe. The names,
combined with the illustration (Fig. 11), must fail to give the reader a
proper idea of its beauty; the specific name in reference to the colour
falls far short, and cannot give a hint of its handsome form and
numerous finely-coloured stamens; and the drawing can in no way
illustrate the hues and shell-like substance of the sepals; there is
also a softness and graceful habit about the foliage, that the name,
_apiifolia_ (parsley-leaved), does not much help the reader to realise.
It may be parsley-like foliage in the comparative sense and in relation
to that of other Anemones, but otherwise it can hardly be said to be
like parsley. It is said by some to be only a variety of _A. alpina_; if
so, it is not only a distinct but an unvarying form, so much so that by
others it is held to be a species; the line of difference in many
respects seems so far removed, even granting it to be a variety (as in
hundreds of similar cases), as to warrant a specific title. It may be
more interesting to state that it is a lovely and showy flower, and that
the shortest cut to an enjoyment of its beauties is to grow it.
The flowers are 2in. to 2½in. across when expanded, but usually they are
cup-shaped. The six sepals are egg-shaped but pointed, of much
substance, and covered with a silky down on the outside, causing them to
have changeable hues according to the play of wind and light. The
stamens are very numerous, the anthers being closely arranged and of a
rich golden colour; the flower stems grow from 9in. to 18in. high, being
terminated by one flower; it carries a large and handsome involucre of
three leaves, a little higher than the middle of the stem, and just
overtopping the radical leaves, umbrella fashion; the leaves of the
involucre are like those of the root, but stalkless. The radical leaves
are stalked, well thrown out, drooping, and over 1ft. long, ternate and
villous; the leaflets are pinnatifid and deeply toothed.
This desirable plant is of the easiest culture, thriving in common
garden soil, but it prefers that of a rich vegetable character and a
situation not over dry. The flowers are persistent under any conditions,
and they are further preserved when grown under a little shade, but it
should only be a little.
For propagation see _A. decapetala_.
Flowering period, May and June.
There are two other allied kinds which not only much resemble this, but
which flower at or near the same time--viz., _A. alpina_ and _A.
decapetala_, which see.
Anemone Sylvestris.
SNOWDROP A.; _Nat. Ord._ RANUNCULACEÆ.
This hardy herbaceous species comes from Germany, but it has been grown
nearly 300 years in this country, It is distinct, showy, and beautiful;
it ranks with "old-fashioned" flowers. Of late this Windflower has come
into great favour, as if for a time it had been forgotten; still, it is
hard to make out how such a fine border plant could be overlooked.
However, it is well and deservedly esteemed at the present time; and,
although many have proved the plant and flowers to be contrary to their
expectations in reference to its common name, "Snowdrop Anemone," the
disappointment has been, otherwise, an agreeable one. It only resembles
the snowdrop as regards the purity and drooping habit of its flowers.
Well-grown specimens have an exceedingly neat habit--the foliage spreads
and touches the ground, rounding up to the flower stems (which are about
a foot high) in a pleasing manner. The earliest flowers are very
large--when fully open quite 1½in. across--but they are more often seen
in the unopen state, when they resemble a nutmeg in shape. Whether open
or shut, they are a pure white, and their pendent habit adds not a
little to their beauty, as also does the leafy involucre. The leaves are
three-parted, the two lower lobes being deeply divided, so that at a
first glance the leaves appear to be five-parted; each of the five lobes
are three-cleft, and also dentate, downy, and veined; the leaf stalks
are radical, red, long, slightly channelled, and wiry; in all respects
the leaves of the involucre resemble those of the root, excepting the
size, which is smaller, and the stalks are green, like the flower stems.
In a cut state, the pure satin-white blossoms are fit for the most
delicate wreath or bouquet; they have, morever, a delicious
clover-scent. It enjoys a light vegetable soil in a slightly shaded and
moist situation; if it could be allowed to ramble in the small openings
of a front shrubbery, such positions would answer admirably.
The roots are underground-creeping, which renders this species somewhat
awkward to manage when grown with others in a collection of less rampant
habit. On the other hand, the disposition it has to spread might very
well be taken advantage of by providing it with a good broad space, than
which nothing could be more lovely for two months of the year.
It is needless to give directions for its propagation, as the runners
spring up all round the parent plant. Slugs are very fond of it, and in
early spring, especially when the new growths are appearing, they should
be kept in check, otherwise they will eat down into the heart of the
strongest plant; a dose of clear lime water will be found effective and
will not hurt the new leaves; if this is followed up with a few
sprinklings of sand, the slugs will not care to occupy such unpleasant
quarters.
Flowering period, May and June.
Anemone Vernalis.
SHAGGY WINDFLOWER; _Nat. Ord._ RANUNCULACEÆ.
A curious but pretty alpine species, from the Swiss Alps, consequently
very hardy. It is not a showy subject, but its distinctions are really
beautiful, and commend it to those who love to grow plants of a
_recherché_ character.
The illustration (Fig. 12) will give some idea of it, but no description
can convey even an approximate notion of its flowers, which are produced
singly, on short, stout, hairy stems, about 5in. high. For so small a
plant the flower is large, more than an inch across when expanded, but
usually it keeps of a roundish, bell-shaped form. Its colour is a
bluish-white inside, the outside being much darker. It would be violet,
were not the hairs so long and numerous that they form a brownish coat
which is, perhaps, the most remarkable trait of this species. The
leaves, too, are very hairy--twice, and sometimes thrice, divided,
rather small, and also few.
[Illustration: FIG. 12. ANEMONE VERNALIS (SHAGGY
ANEMONE).
(One-half natural size.)]
This little plant is most enjoyed when grown in pots. It may be plunged
in sand or ashes in an open space, but it should never be allowed to
suffer for moisture. When so grown, and just before the flowers open, it
should be removed to a cool, airy frame, where it should also be plunged
to keep its roots cool and moist; it will require to be very near the
glass, so as to get perfect flowers. Such a method of growing this
flower affords the best opportunity for its close examination; besides,
it is so preserved in finer and more enduring form. It thrives well in
lumpy peat and loam, but I have found charcoal, in very small lumps, to
improve it, as it does most plants grown in pots, especially such as
require frequent supplies of water. The slugs are very fond of it; a
look-out for them should be kept when the plants are growing, and
frequent sprinklings of sharp ashes will be found useful.
Flowering period, April and May.
Anthericum Liliago.
ST. BERNARD'S LILY; _Nat. Ord._ LILIACEÆ.
This may be grown as a companion to St. Bruno's Lily, though not so neat
in habit or rich in bloom. In all respects it is very different. It is
taller, the flowers not half the size, and more star-shaped, foliage
more grassy, and the roots creeping and jointed.
All the Anthericums named by me will do in ordinary soil, but prefer a
fat loam of considerable depth. If, therefore, such conditions do not
exist, there should be a good dressing of well-rotted stable manure
turned in, and a mulching given in early spring.
Anthericums are propagated by division of the roots, which should be
carefully performed during the autumn. After such mutilation they should
not be disturbed again for three years, or they will deteriorate in
vigour and beauty.
Flowering period, June and July.
Anthericum Liliastrum.
ST. BRUNO'S LILY; _Nat. Ord._ LILIACEÆ.
This charming plant is a native of Alpine meadows, and is known by other
names, as _Paradisia_ and _Cyackia_, but is more commonly called St.
Bruno's Lily. It is emphatically one of the most useful and handsome
flowers that can be grown in English gardens, where, as yet, it is
anything but as plentiful as it ought to be. Not only is it perfectly
hardy in our climate, but it seems to thrive and flower abundantly. It
is fast becoming a favourite, and it is probable that before long it
will be very common, from the facts, firstly, of its own value and
beauty, and, secondly, because the Dutch bulb-growers have taken it in
hand. Not long ago they were said to be buying stock wherever they could
find it. The illustration (Fig. 13) shows it in a small-sized clump.
Three or four such specimens are very effective when grown near
together; the satin-like or shining pure white flowers show to greater
advantage when there is plenty of foliage. A number planted in strong
single roots, but near together, forming a clump several feet in
diameter, represent also a good style; but a single massive specimen,
with at least fifty crowns, and nearly as many spikes of bloom just
beginning to unfold, is one of the most lovely objects in my own garden.
The chaste flowers are 2in. long, six sepalled, lily-shaped, of a
transparent whiteness, and sweetly perfumed; filaments white, and long
as the sepals; anthers large, and thickly furnished with bright
orange-yellow pollen; the stems are round, stout, 18in. high, and
produce from six to twelve flowers, two or three of which are open at
one and the same time. The leaves are long, thick, with membranous
sheaths, alternate and stem-clasping, or semi-cylindrical; the upper
parts are lanceolate, dilated, subulate, and of a pale green colour. The
roots are long, fleshy, brittle, and fasciculate.
[Illustration: FIG. 13. ANTHERICUM LILIASTRUM.
(Plant, one-sixth natural size; blossom, one-fourth natural size.)]
This plant for three or four weeks is one of the most decorative; no
matter whether in partial shade or full sunshine, it not only flowers
well, but adorns its situation most richly; the flowers, in a cut state,
are amongst the most useful and effective of hardy kinds--indeed, they
vie with the tender exotics.
Flowering period, June and July.
_A. l. major_ is a new variety in all its parts like the type, with the
exception of size, the flowers being larger by nearly an inch. The
variety is said to grow to the height of 8ft.
Anthyllis Montana.
MOUNTAIN KIDNEY VETCH; _Nat. Ord._ LEGUMINOSÆ.
For rockwork this is one of the most lovely subjects. It is seldom seen,
though easy to grow, perfectly hardy, and perennial. It is classed as an
herbaceous plant, but it is shrubby, and on old specimens there is more
wood than on many dwarf shrubs. It is of a procumbent habit, and only
4in. to 6in. high in this climate. It comes from the South of Europe,
where it probably grows larger.
In early spring the woody tips begin to send out the hoary leaves; they
are 3in. to 6in. long, and from their dense habit, and the way in which
they intersect each other, they present a pleasing and distinct mass of
woolly foliage.
The leaves are pinnatifid, leaflets numerous, oval, oblong, and very
grey, nearly white, with long silky hairs.
The flowers are of a purple-pink colour, very small, and in close
drumstick-like heads. The long and numerous hairs of the involucre and
calyx almost cover over the flowers and render them inconspicuous;
still, they are a pretty feature of the plant; the bloom stands well
above the foliage on very downy, but otherwise naked stalks.
When planted in such a position that it can rest on the edge of or droop
over a stone, strong specimens are very effective. It seems to enjoy
soil of a vegetable character, with its roots near large stones. I have
heard that it has been found difficult to grow, but that I cannot
understand. I fear the fault has been in having badly-rooted plants to
start with, as cuttings are very slow in making an ample set of roots
for safe transplanting. Its increase by division is no easy matter, as
the woody stems are all joined in one, and the roots are of a tap
character. Seed seldom ripens; by cuttings appears to be the readier
mode of propagation; if these are taken off in early spring, put in a
shady position, and in leaf soil, they will probably root as the seasons
get warmer.
Flowering period, June and July.
Apios Tuberosa.
_Syn._ GLYCINE APIOS; _Nat. Ord._ LEGUMINOSÆ.
This is a pretty climber, or, more strictly speaking, a twiner; it is
hardy, tuberous, and perennial. The tubers resemble potatoes, but
incline to pear-shape, as implied by the generic name. 240 years ago it
was introduced from North America; still, it is seldom met with,
notwithstanding its good habit and colour. It is one of those happy
subjects which most conduce to the freshness and wild beauty of our
gardens; the dark and glossy verdure is charmingly disposed in
embowerments by means of the delicate twining stems; and though it grows
apace, there is never an unsightly dense or dark mass, so commonly seen
in many climbers, but, instead, it elegantly adorns its station, and the
outlines of its pretty pinnate leaves may easily be traced against the
light.
[Illustration: FIG. 14. APIOS TUBEROSA.
(One-twelfth natural size; _a_, flower, natural size.)]
As may be seen by the illustration (Fig. 14), it is in the way of a
climbing bean. The flowers are purple and borne in small clusters from
the axils of the leaves, and, of course, as indicated by the order to
which it belongs, they are like pea flowers; they are produced a long
time in succession, providing the frosts do not occur; they have the
scent of violets. The leaves are distantly produced on fine wiry stems,
which grow to the length of 12ft.; they are pinnate, the leaflets being
of various sizes, oval, smooth, and of a dark shining green colour.
The roots are not only peculiar in the way already mentioned, but the
tubers have the appearance of being strung together by their ends. They
are edible, and where they grow wild they are called "ground nuts." From
the description given it will be easy to decide how and where it should
be planted.
There should be provision made for its twining habit, and it may have
the liberty of mixing its foliage with that of less beautiful things
during autumn, such, for instance, as the bare _Jasmine nudiflora_; its
spare but effective leaves and flowers will do little or no harm to such
trees, and after the frosts come the jasmine will be clear again. It may
also be grown with happy results as shown in the illustration, needing
only a well-secured twiggy bush. Cut as sprays it is very serviceable
for hanging or twining purposes.
It most enjoys a light soil, also a sunny situation. Sometimes it has
been found slow at starting into growth when newly planted; this,
however, can hardly be the case with newly lifted tubers. I may add that
it is no uncommon thing for these to be out of the ground for weeks and
months together, when they not only become hard and woody, but when
suddenly brought in contact with the damp earth rot overtakes them.
There is no difficulty whatever with fresh tubers, which may be lifted
after the tops have died off. Beyond securing fresh roots, there is
nothing special about the culture of this desirable climber.
Flowering period, August to October.
Arabis Lucida.
SHINING ROCK CRESS; _Nat. Ord._ CRUCIFERÆ.
This member of a well-known family of early spring flowers is desirable,
for its neat habit and verdancy. There is not a particle of sere foliage
to be seen, and it has, moreover, a glossy appearance, whence the
specific name. The flowers are not of much effect, though, from their
earliness, not without value; they are in the way of the flowers of the
more common species, _A. alpina_, but less in size; they are also more
straggling in the raceme; these two features render it inferior as a
flower; the stalks are 3in. to 6in. high. The leaves are arranged in lax
flattened rosettes, are 1in. to 3in. long, somewhat spathulate, notched,
fleshy, of a very dark green colour, and shining. The habit is dense and
spreading, established tufts having a fresh effect. Though an Hungarian
species, it can hardly have a more happy home in its habitat than in our
climate. Where verdant dwarf subjects are in request, either for
edgings, borders, or rockwork, this is to be commended as one of the
most reliable, both for effect and vigour. In the last-named situation
it proves useful all the year round, but care should be taken that it
does not overgrow less rampant rock plants.
_A. l. variegata_ is a variety with finely-marked leaves. The bloom
resembles that of the type, but is rather weaker. It is better to remove
the flowers of this kind, as then the rather slow habit of growth is
much improved, as also is the colour of the foliage. The leaves being
more serviceable and effective than the bloom, the uses should be made
of it accordingly. They are broadly edged with yellow, the green being
lighter than that of the type, but equally bright; the ends of the
leaves are curled backwards, but, with the exception of being a little
smaller, they are similar in shape to the parent form. This is a gem for
rockwork, and, if it did not belong to a rather ordinary race of plants,
it would, perhaps, be more often seen in choice collections. This,
however, does not alter its worth. Seen in crevices of dark stone on
rockwork, or in bold tufts near the walks, or planted with judgment near
other dwarf foliaged subjects, it ever proves attractive. It is much
less rampant, and, perhaps, less hardy than the type. It has only been
during the recent very severe winters, however, that it has been killed.
The Arabis is easily propagated by slips or rootlets, which should be
taken after flowering. The variegated form is better for being so
propagated every year. If bold patches are desired, they should be
formed by planting a number together, 3in. or 4in. apart.
Flowering period, February to June.
Aralia Sieboldi.
SIEBOLD'S ARALIA; _Nat. Ord._ ARALIACEÆ.
The present subject (see Fig. 15)--beautiful, hardy, and evergreen--is a
species of recent introduction; still, it has already become well known
and distributed, so much so that it scarcely needs description; but
there are facts in reference to it which would seem to be less known. It
is seldom seen in the open garden, and many amateurs, who otherwise are
well acquainted with it, when they see it fresh and glossy in the open
garden in the earliest months of the year, ask, "Is it really hardy?"
Not only is such the case, but the foliage, and especially the deep
green colour, are rarely so fine when the specimens have indoor
treatment, and, on this account, the shrub is eminently suitable for
notice here.
[Illustration: FIG. 15. ARALIA SIEBOLDI.
(One-tenth natural size.)]
The order _Araliaceæ_ is nearly related to _Umbelliferæ_, from which
fact an idea may be had of the kind and arrangement of the flowers. Many
of the genera of the order _Araliaceæ_ are little known; perhaps the
genus _Hedera_ (ivy) is the only one that is popular, and it so happens
to immediately follow the genus _Aralia_. To remember this will further
assist in gleaning an idea of the form of blossom, as that of ivy is
well known. _Aralia Sieboldi_, however, seldom flowers in this climate,
either in or out of doors. When it does, the white flowers are not of
much value; they are small, like ivy blossom in form, but more spread
in the arrangement. There are five sepals, five petals, five styles, and
five cells in the berries. The flowers are produced on specimens 2ft. to
5ft. high during winter, when favourable. The leaves, when well grown,
are the main feature of the shrub, and are 12in. or more across. This
size is not usual, but a leaf now before me, and taken from an outside
specimen, measures over a foot, with a stout round stalk, 13in. long;
the form of leaf is fan-shaped, having generally seven lobes, each
supported by a strong mid-rib; the lobes are formed by divisions rather
more than half the diameter of the leaf; they are slightly distant,
broadly lance-shaped, waved at the edges, toothed near the ends, the
teeth being somewhat spiny; the substance is very stout and leather-like
to the touch; the upper surface is a dark shining bronzy-green,
beautifully netted or veined; the under surface is a pale green, and
richly ornamented by the risen mid-ribs and nerves of the whole leaf;
the leaf-stalks are thick, round, bending downwards, and 6in. to 18in.
long, springing from the half woody stem.
The habit of the shrub is bushy, somewhat spreading, causing the
specimens to have a fine effect from their roundness, the leaf
arrangement also being perfect. Without doubt this is one of the most
distinct and charming evergreens for the ornamental garden, sub-tropical
in appearance, and only inferior to palms as regards size; it is
effective anywhere. It need not be stated that as a vase or table
decoration it ranks with the best for effect and service, as it is
already well-known as such. In planting this subject outside, young but
well-rooted examples should be selected and gradually hardened off. At
the latter end of May they should be turned out of the pots into a rich
but sandy loam. The position should be sunny, and sheltered from the
north. Some have advised that it should be grown under trees, but I have
proved that when so treated the less ripened foliage has suffered with
frost, whilst the specimens fully exposed to the sun have not suffered
in the least; they would droop and shrivel as long as the frost
remained, but as soon as the temperature rose they became normal,
without a trace of injury. When planted as above, young specimens will
soon become so established and inured to open-air conditions, that
little concern need be felt as regards winter; even such as were under
trees, where they continued to grow too long, and whose tender tops were
cut away by frost, have, the following summer, made a number of fresh
growths lower down the stems. I should like to say that on rockwork this
shrub has a superb effect, and I imagine the better drained condition of
such a structure is greatly in favour of its health and hardiness. The
propagation is by means of cuttings; slips of half-ripened wood, taken
during the warmest months, if put in sandy loam in a cucumber frame,
will root like willow. As soon as roots have formed, pot them separately
and plunge the pots in the same frame for a week or two, then harden
off. For the first winter the young stock ought to be kept either in a
greenhouse or a cold frame, and by the end of the following May they
will be ready to plant out. A well-drained position is important.
Flowering period, November to March, in favourable or mild seasons.
Arisæma Triphyllum.
_Syns._ A. ZEBRINUM _and_ ARUM TRIPHYLLUM; _Common
Names_, THREE-LEAVED ARUM _and_ JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT;
_Nat. Ord._ ARACEÆ.
A hardy tuberous-rooted perennial from North America. I will at once
explain that the above
|
debeeste,
without moving, bellowed back an answer or a defiance. Down in the
hollow an ostrich boomed. Zebra barked, and several birds chirped
strongly. The tension was breaking not in the expected fanfare and burst
of triumphal music, but in a manner instantly felt to be more fitting
to what was indeed a wonder, but a daily wonder for all that. At one and
the same instant the rim of the sun appeared and the wildebeeste, after
the sudden habit of his kind, made up his mind to go. He dropped his
head and came thundering down past us at full speed. Straight to the
west he headed, and so disappeared. We could hear the beat of his hoofs
dying into the distance. He had gone like a Warder of the Morning whose
task was finished. On the knife-edged skyline appeared the silhouette of
slim-legged little Tommies, flirting their rails, sniffing at the
dewy grass, dainty, slender, confiding, the open-day antithesis of the
tremendous and awesome lord of the darkness that had roared its way to
its lair, and to the massive shaggy herald of morning that had thundered
down to the west.
III. THE CENTRAL PLATEAU
Now is required a special quality of the imagination, not in myself, but
in my readers, for it becomes necessary for them to grasp the logic of
a whole country in one mental effort. The difficulties to me are very
real. If I am to tell you it all in detail, your mind becomes confused
to the point of mingling the ingredients of the description. The
resultant mental picture is a composite; it mixes localities wide
apart; it comes out, like the snake-creeper-swamp-forest thing of
grammar-school South America, an unreal and deceitful impression. If,
on the other hand, I try to give you a bird's-eye view-saying, here
is plain, and there follows upland, and yonder succeed mountains and
hills-you lose the sense of breadth and space and the toil of many
days. The feeling of onward outward extending distance is gone; and that
impression so indispensable to finite understanding-“here am I, and what
is beyond is to be measured by the length of my legs and the toil of
my days.” You will not stop long enough on my plains to realize their
physical extent nor their influence on the human soul. If I mention them
in a sentence, you dismiss them in a thought. And that is something the
plains themselves refuse to permit you to do. Yet sometimes one must
become a guide-book, and bespeak his reader's imagination.
The country, then, wherein we travelled begins at the sea. Along the
coast stretches a low rolling country of steaming tropics, grown with
cocoanuts, bananas, mangoes, and populated by a happy, half-naked race
of the Swahilis. Leaving the coast, the country rises through hills.
These hills are at first fertile and green and wooded. Later they turn
into an almost unbroken plateau of thorn scrub, cruel, monotonous,
almost impenetrable. Fix thorn scrub in your mind, with rhino trails,
and occasional openings for game, and a few rivers flowing through palms
and narrow jungle strips; fix it in your mind until your mind is filled
with it, until you are convinced that nothing else can exist in the
world but more and more of the monotonous, terrible, dry, onstretching
desert of thorn.
Then pass through this to the top of the hills inland, and journey over
these hills to the highland plains.
Now sense and appreciate these wide seas of and the hills and ranges
of mountains rising from them, and their infinite diversity of
country-their rivers marked by ribbons of jungle, their scattered-bush
and their thick-bush areas, their grass expanses, and their great
distances extending far over exceedingly wide horizons. Realize how many
weary hours you must travel to gain the nearest butte, what days of toil
the view from its top will disclose. Savour the fact that you can spend
months in its veriest corner without exhausting its possibilities. Then,
and not until then, raise your eyes to the low rising transverse range
that bands it to the west as the thorn desert bands it to the east.
And on these ranges are the forests, the great bewildering forests.
In what looks like a grove lying athwart a little hill you can lose
yourself for days. Here dwell millions of savages in an apparently
untouched wilderness. Here rises a snow mountain on the equator. Here
are tangles and labyrinths, great bamboo forests lost in folds of the
mightiest hills. Here are the elephants. Here are the swinging vines,
the jungle itself.
Yet finally it breaks. We come out on the edge of things and look down
on a great gash in the earth. It is like a sunken kingdom in itself,
miles wide, with its own mountain ranges, its own rivers, its own
landscape features. Only on either side of it rise the escarpments which
are the true level of the plateau. One can spend two months in this
valley, too, and in the countries south to which it leads. And on its
farther side are the high plateau plains again, or the forests, or the
desert, or the great lakes that lie at the source of the Nile.
So now, perhaps, we are a little prepared to go ahead. The guide-book
work is finished for good and all. There is the steaming hot low coast
belt, and the hot dry thorn desert belt, and the varied immense plains,
and the high mountain belt of the forests, and again the variegated wide
country of the Rift Valley and the high plateau. To attempt to tell
you seriatim and in detail just what they are like is the task of an
encyclopaedist. Perhaps more indirectly you may be able to fill in the
picture of the country, the people, and the beasts.
IV. THE FIRST CAMP
Our very first start into the new country was made when we piled out
from the little train standing patiently awaiting the good pleasure
of our descent. That feature strikes me with ever new wonder-the
accommodating way trains of the Uganda Railway have of waiting for you.
One day, at a little wayside station, C. and I were idly exchanging
remarks with the only white man in sight, killing time until the engine
should whistle to a resumption of the journey. The guard lingered about
just out of earshot. At the end of five minutes C. happened to catch his
eye, whereupon he ventured to approach.
“When you have finished your conversation,” said he politely, “we are
all ready to go on.”
On the morning in question there were a lot of us to disembark-one
hundred and twenty-two, to be exact-of which four were white. We were
not yet acquainted with our men, nor yet with our stores, nor with the
methods of our travel. The train went off and left us in the middle of
a high plateau, with low ridges running across it, and mountains in the
distance. Men were squabbling earnestly for the most convenient loads to
carry, and as fast as they had gained undisputed possession, they marked
the loads with some private sign of their own. M'ganga, the headman,
tall, fierce, big-framed and bony, clad in fez, a long black overcoat,
blue puttees and boots, stood stiff as a ramrod, extended a rigid right
arm and rattled off orders in a high dynamic voice. In his left hand he
clasped a bulgy umbrella, the badge of his dignity and the symbol of his
authority. The four askaris, big men too, with masterful high-cheekboned
countenances, rushed here and there seeing that the orders were carried
out. Expostulations, laughter, the sound of quarrelling rose and fell.
Never could the combined volume of it all override the firecracker
stream of M'ganga's eloquence.
We had nothing to do with it all, but stood a little dazed, staring at
the novel scene. Our men were of many tribes, each with its own cast
of features, its own notions of what befitted man's performance of his
duties here below. They stuck together each in its clan. A fine free
individualism of personal adornment characterized them. Every man
dressed for his own satisfaction solely. They hung all sorts of things
in the distended lobes of their ears. One had succeeded in inserting a
fine big glittering tobacco tin. Others had invented elaborate topiary
designs in their hair, shaving their heads so as to leave strange tufts,
patches, crescents on the most unexpected places. Of the intricacy of
these designs they seemed absurdly proud. Various sorts of treasure
trove hung from them-a bunch of keys to which there were no locks,
discarded hunting knives, tips of antelope horns, discharged brass
cartridges, a hundred and one valueless trifles plucked proudly from
the rubbish heap. They were all clothed. We had supplied each with a
red blanket, a blue jersey, and a water bottle. The blankets they were
twisting most ingeniously into turbans. Beside these they sported a
great variety of garments. Shooting coats that had seen better days, a
dozen shabby overcoats-worn proudly through the hottest noons-raggety
breeches and trousers made by some London tailor, queer baggy homemades
of the same persuasion, or quite simply the square of cotton cloth
arranged somewhat like a short tight skirt, or nothing at all as the
man's taste ran. They were many of them amusing enough; but somehow they
did not look entirely farcical and ridiculous, like our negroes
putting on airs. All these things were worn with a simplicity of quiet
confidence in their entire fitness. And beneath the red blanket turbans
the half-wild savage faces peered out.
Now Mahomet approached. Mahomet was my personal boy. He was a Somali
from the Northwest coast, dusky brown, with the regular clear-cut
features of a Greek marble god. His dress was of neat khaki, and he
looked down on savages; but, also, as with all the dark-skinned races,
up to his white master. Mahomet was with me during all my African stay,
and tested out nobly. As yet, of course, I did not know him.
“Chakula taiari,” said he.
That is Swahili. It means literally “food is ready.” After one has
hunted in Africa for a few months, it means also “paradise is opened,”
“grief is at an end,” “joy and thanksgiving are now in order,” and
similar affairs. Those two words are never forgotten, and the veriest
beginner in Swahili can recognize them without the slightest effort.
We followed Mahomet. Somehow, without orders, in all this confusion, the
personal staff had been quietly and efficiently busy. Drawn a little to
one side stood a table with four chairs. The table was covered with a
white cloth, and was set with a beautiful white enamel service. We
took our places. Behind each chair straight as a ramrod stood a neat
khaki-clad boy. They brought us food, and presented it properly on the
left side, waiting like well-trained butlers. We might have been in
a London restaurant. As three of us were Americans, we felt a trifle
dazed. The porters, having finished the distribution of their loads,
squatted on their heels and watched us respectfully.
And then, not two hundred yards away, four ostriches paced slowly across
the track, paying not the slightest attention to us-our first real
wild ostriches, scornful of oranges, careless of tourists, and rightful
guardians of their own snowy plumes. The passage of these four solemn
birds seemed somehow to lend this strange open-air meal an exotic
flavour. We were indeed in Africa; and the ostriches helped us to
realize it.
We finished breakfast and arose from our chairs. Instantly a half dozen
men sprang forward. Before our amazed eyes the table service, the chairs
and the table itself disappeared into neat packages. M'ganga arose to
his feet.
“Bandika!” he cried.
The askaris rushed here and there actively.
“Bandika! bandika! bandika!” they cried repeatedly.
The men sprang into activity. A struggle heaved the varicoloured
multitude-and, lo! each man stood upright, his load balanced on his
head. At the same moment the syces led up our horses, mounted and headed
across the little plain whence had come the four ostriches. Our African
journey had definitely begun.
Behind us, all abreast marched the four gunbearers; then the four syces;
then the safari single file, an askari at the head bearing proudly his
ancient musket and our banner, other askaris flanking, M'ganga bringing
up the rear with his mighty umbrella and an unsuspected rhinoceros-hide
whip. The tent boys and the cook scattered along the flank anywhere, as
befitted the free and independent who had nothing to do with the serious
business of marching. A measured sound of drumming followed the beating
of loads with a hundred sticks; a wild, weird chanting burst from the
ranks and died down again as one or another individual or group felt
moved to song. One lot had a formal chant and response. Their leader, in
a high falsetto, said something like,
“Kuna koma kuno,”
and all his tribesmen would follow with a single word in a deep gruff
tone,
“Za-la-nee!”
All of which undoubtedly helped immensely.
The country was a bully country, but somehow it did not look like
Africa. That is to say, it looked altogether too much like any amount
of country at home. There was nothing strange and exotic about it. We
crossed a little plain, and up over a small hill, down into a shallow
canyon that seemed to be wooded with live oaks, across a grass valley
or so, and around a grass hill. Then we went into camp at the edge of
another grass valley, by a stream across which rose some ordinary low
cliffs.
That is the disconcerting thing about a whole lot of this country-it
is so much like home. Of course, there are many wide districts exotic
enough in all conscience-the jungle beds of the rivers, the bamboo
forests, the great tangled forests themselves, the banana groves down
the aisles of which dance savages with shields-but so very much of it is
familiar. One needs only church spires and a red-roofed village or so
to imagine one's self in Surrey. There is any amount of country
like Arizona, and more like the uplands of Wyoming, and a lot of it
resembling the smaller landscapes of New England. The prospects of the
whole world are there, so that somewhere every wanderer can find the
countryside of his own home repeated. And, by the same token, that is
exactly what makes a good deal of it so startling. When a man sees a
file of spear-armed savages, or a pair of snorty old rhinos, step out
into what has seemed practically his own back yard home, he is even more
startled than if he had encountered them in quite strange surroundings.
We rode into the grass meadow and picked camp site. The men trailed in
and dumped down their loads in a row.
At a signal they set to work. A dozen to each tent got them up in a
jiffy. A long file brought firewood from the stream bed. Others carried
water, stones for the cook, a dozen other matters. The tent boys rescued
our boxes; they put together the cots and made the beds, even before the
tents were raised from the ground. Within an incredibly short space of
time the three green tents were up and arranged, each with its bed made,
its mosquito bar hung, its personal box open, its folding washstand
ready with towels and soap, the table and chairs unlimbered. At a
discreet distance flickered the cook campfire, and at a still discreeter
distance the little tents of the men gleamed pure white against the
green of the high grass.
V. MEMBA SASA
I wish I could plunge you at once into the excitements of big game in
Africa, but I cannot truthfully do so. To be sure, we went hunting that
afternoon, up over the low cliffs, and we saw several of a very lively
little animal known as the Chandler's reedbuck. This was not supposed to
be a game country, and that was all we did see. At these we shot several
times-disgracefully. In fact, for several days we could not shoot
at all, at any range, nor at anything. It was very sad, and very
aggravating. Afterward we found that this is an invariable experience to
the newcomer. The light is new, the air is different, the sizes of the
game are deceiving. Nobody can at first hit anything. At the end of five
days we suddenly began to shoot our normal gait. Why, I do not know.
But in this afternoon tramp around the low cliffs after the elusive
reedbuck, I for the first time became acquainted with a man who
developed into a real friend.
His name is Memba Sasa. Memba Sasa are two Swahili words meaning “now a
crocodile.” Subsequently, after I had learned to talk Swahili, I tried
to find out what he was formerly, before he was a crocodile, but did not
succeed.
He was of the tribe of the Monumwezi, of medium height, compactly
and sturdily built, carried himself very erect, and moved with a
concentrated and vigorous purposefulness. His countenance might be
described as pleasing but not handsome, of a dark chocolate brown, with
the broad nose of the negro, but with a firm mouth, high cheekbones, and
a frowning intentness of brow that was very fine. When you talked to
him he looked you straight in the eye. His own eyes were shaded by
long, soft, curling lashes behind which they looked steadily and
gravely-sometimes fiercely-on the world. He rarely smiled-never merely
in understanding or for politeness' sake-and never laughed unless there
was something really amusing. Then he chuckled from deep in his chest,
the most contagious laughter you can imagine. Often we, at the other end
of the camp, have laughed in sympathy, just at the sound of that deep
and hearty ho! ho! ho! of Memba Sasa. Even at something genuinely
amusing he never laughed much, nor without a very definite restraint. In
fact, about him was no slackness, no sprawling abandon of the native
in relaxation; but always a taut efficiency and a never-failing
self-respect.
Naturally, behind such a fixed moral fibre must always be some moral
idea. When a man lives up to a real, not a pompous, dignity some ideal
must inform it. Memba Sasa's ideal was that of the Hunter.
He was a gunbearer; and he considered that a good gunbearer stood quite
a few notches above any other human being, save always the white man,
of course. And even among the latter Memba Sasa made great differences.
These differences he kept to himself, and treated all with equal
respect. Nevertheless, they existed, and Memba Sasa very well knew that
fact. In the white world were two classes of masters: those who hunted
well, and those who were considered by them as their friends and equals.
Why they should be so considered Memba Sasa did not know, but he trusted
the Hunter's judgment. These were the bwanas, or masters. All the rest
were merely mazungos, or, “white men.” To their faces he called them
bwana, but in his heart he considered them not.
Observe, I say those who hunted well. Memba Sasa, in his profession as
gunbearer, had to accompany those who hunted badly. In them he took
no pride; from them he held aloof in spirit; but for them he did his
conscientious best, upheld by the dignity of his profession.
For to Mamba Sasa that profession was the proudest to which a black
man could aspire. He prided himself on mastering its every detail, in
accomplishing its every duty minutely and exactly. The major virtues of
a gunbearer are not to be despised by anybody; for they comprise great
physical courage, endurance, and loyalty: the accomplishments of a
gunbearer are worthy of a man's best faculties, for they include the
ability to see and track game, to take and prepare properly any sort of
a trophy, field taxidermy, butchering game meat, wood and plainscraft,
the knowledge of how properly to care for firearms in all sorts of
circumstances, and a half hundred other like minutiae. Memba Sasa knew
these things, and he performed them with the artist's love for details;
and his keen eyes were always spying for new ways.
At a certain time I shot an egret, and prepared to take the skin. Memba
Sasa asked if he might watch me do it. Two months later, having killed
a really gaudy peacocklike member of the guinea fowl tribe, I handed
it over to him with instructions to take off the breast feathers before
giving it to the cook. In a half hour he brought me the complete skin,
I examined it carefully, and found it to be well done in every respect.
Now in skinning a bird there are a number of delicate and unusual
operations, such as stripping the primary quills from the bone, cutting
the ear cover, and the like. I had explained none of them; and yet Memba
Sasa, unassisted, had grasped their method from a single demonstration
and had remembered them all two months later! C. had a trick in making
the second skin incision of a trophy head that had the effect of giving
a better purchase to the knife. Its exact description would be out of
place here, but it actually consisted merely in inserting the point of
the knife two inches away from the place it is ordinarily inserted. One
day we noticed that Memba Sasa was making his incisions in that manner.
I went to Africa fully determined to care for my own rifle. The modern
high-velocity gun needs rather especial treatment; mere wiping out will
not do. I found that Memba Sasa already knew all about boiling water,
and the necessity for having it really boiling, about subsequent metal
sweating, and all the rest. After watching him at work I concluded,
rightly, that he would do a lot better job than I.
To the new employer Memba Sasa maintained an attitude of strict
professional loyalty. His personal respect was upheld by the necessity
of every man to do his job in the world. Memba Sasa did his. He cleaned
the rifles; he saw that everything was in order for the day's march; he
was at my elbow all ways with more cartridges and the spare rifle; he
trailed and looked conscientiously. In his attitude was the stolidity
of the wooden Indian. No action of mine, no joke on the part of his
companions, no circumstance in the varying fortunes of the field gained
from him the faintest flicker of either approval, disapproval, or
interest. When we returned to camp he deposited my water bottle
and camera, seized the cleaning implements, and departed to his own
campfire. In the field he pointed out game that I did not see, and
waited imperturbably the result of my shot.
As I before stated, the result of that shot for the first five days was
very apt to be nil. This, at the time, puzzled and grieved me a lot.
Occasionally I looked at Memba Sasa to catch some sign of sympathy,
disgust, contempt, or-rarely-triumph at a lucky shot. Nothing. He gently
but firmly took away my rifle, reloaded it, and handed it back; then
waited respectfully for my next move. He knew no English, and I no
Swahili.
But as time went on this attitude changed. I was armed with the new
Springfield rifle, a weapon with 2,700 feet velocity, and with a
marvellously flat trajectory. This commanding advantage, combined with
a very long familiarity with firearms, enabled me to do some fairish
shooting, after the strangeness of these new conditions had been
mastered. Memba Sasa began to take a dawning interest in me as a
possible source of pride. We began to develop between us a means of
communication. I set myself deliberately to learn his language, and
after he had cautiously determined that I really meant it, he took the
greatest pains-always gravely-to teach me. A more human feeling sprang
up between us.
But we had still the final test to undergo-that of danger and the tight
corner.
In close quarters the gunbearer has the hardest job in the world. I have
the most profound respect for his absolute courage. Even to a man
armed and privileged to shoot and defend himself, a charging lion is an
awesome thing, requiring a certain amount of coolness and resolution to
face effectively. Think of the gunbearer at his elbow, depending not
on himself but on the courage and coolness of another. He cannot do one
solitary thing to defend himself. To bolt for the safety of a tree is
to beg the question completely, to brand himself as a shenzi forever;
to fire a gun in any circumstances is to beg the question also, for
the white man must be able to depend absolutely on his second gun in
an emergency. Those things are outside consideration, even, of any
respectable gunbearer. In addition, he must keep cool. He must see
clearly in the thickest excitement; must be ready unobtrusively to pass
up the second gun in the position most convenient for immediate use, to
seize the other and to perform the finicky task of reloading correctly
while some rampageous beast is raising particular thunder a few yards
away. All this in absolute dependence on the ability of his bwana to
deal with the situation. I can confess very truly that once or twice
that little unobtrusive touch of Memba Sasa crouched close to my elbow
steadied me with the thought of how little right I-with a rifle in
my hand-had to be scared. And the best compliment I ever received I
overheard by chance. I had wounded a lion when out by myself, and
had returned to camp for a heavier rifle and for Memba Sasa to do the
trailing. From my tent I overheard the following conversation between
Memba Sasa and the cook:
“The grass is high,” said the cook. “Are you not afraid to go after a
wounded lion with only one white man?”
“My one white man is enough,” replied Memba Sasa.
It is a quality of courage that I must confess would be quite beyond
me-to depend entirely on the other fellow, and not at all on myself.
This courage is always remarkable to me, even in the case of the
gunbearer who knows all about the man whose heels he follows. But
consider that of the gunbearer's first experience with a stranger. The
former has no idea of how the white man will act; whether he will get
nervous, get actually panicky, lose his shooting ability, and generally
mess things up. Nevertheless, he follows his master in, and he stands
by. If the hunter fails, the gunbearer will probably die. To me it is
rather fine: for he does it, not from the personal affection and loyalty
which will carry men far, but from a sheer sense of duty and pride of
caste. The quiet pride of the really good men, like Memba Sasa, is easy
to understand.
And the records are full of stories of the white man who has not made
good: of the coward who bolts, leaving his black man to take the brunt
of it, or who sticks but loses his head. Each new employer must be
very closely and interestedly scrutinized. In the light of subsequent
experience, I can no longer wonder at Memba Sasa's first detached and
impersonal attitude.
As time went on, however, and we grew to know each other better, this
attitude entirely changed. At first the change consisted merely in
dropping the disinterested pose as respects game. For it was a pose.
Memba Sasa was most keenly interested in game whenever it was an object
of pursuit. It did not matter how common the particular species might
be: if we wanted it, Memba Sasa would look upon it with eager ferocity;
and if we did not want it, he paid no attention to it at all. When we
started in the morning, or in the relaxation of our return at night, I
would mention casually a few of the things that might prove acceptable.
“To-morrow we want kongoni for boys' meat, or zebra; and some meat for
masters-Tommy, impala, oribi,” and Memba Sasa knew as well as I did what
we needed to fill out our trophy collection. When he caught sight of one
of these animals his whole countenance changed. The lines of his face
set, his lips drew back from his teeth, his eyes fairly darted fire in
the fixity of their gaze. He was like a fine pointer dog on birds, or
like the splendid savage he was at heart.
“M'palla!” he hissed; and then after a second, in a restrained fierce
voice, “Na-ona? Do you see?”
If I did not see he pointed cautiously. His own eyes never left the
beast. Rarely he stayed put while I made the stalk. More often he glided
like a snake at my heels. If the bullet hit, Memba Sasa always exhaled
a grunt of satisfaction-“hah!”-in which triumph and satisfaction mingled
with a faint derision at the unfortunate beast. In case of a trophy he
squatted anxiously at the animal's head while I took my measurements,
assisting very intelligently with the tape line. When I had finished, he
always looked up at me with wrinkled brow.
“Footie n'gapi?” he inquired. This means literally, “How many feet?”,
footie being his euphemistic invention of a word for the tape. I would
tell him how many “footie” and how many “inchie” the measurement proved
to be. From the depths of his wonderful memory he would dig up the
measurements of another beast of the same sort I had killed months back,
but which he had remembered accurately from a single hearing.
The shooting of a beast he always detailed to his few cronies in camp:
the other gunbearers, and one or two from his own tribe. He always used
the first person plural, “we” did so and so; and took an inordinate
pride in making out his bwana as being an altogether superior person to
any of the other gunbearer's bwanas. Over a miss he always looked
sad; but with a dignified sadness as though we had met with undeserved
misfortune sent by malignant gods. If there were any possible
alleviating explanation, Memba Sasa made the most of it, provided our
fiasco was witnessed. If we were alone in our disgrace, he buried the
incident fathoms deep. He took an inordinate pride in our using the
minimum number of cartridges, and would explain to me in a loud tone
of voice that we had cartridges enough in the belt. When we had not
cartridges enough, he would sneak around after dark to get some more. At
times he would even surreptitiously “lift” a few from B.'s gunbearer!
When in camp, with his “cazi” finished, Memba Sasa did fancy work! The
picture of this powerful half-savage, his fierce brows bent over a tiny
piece of linen, his strong fingers fussing with little stitches, will
always appeal to my sense of the incongruous. Through a piece of linen
he punched holes with a porcupine quill. Then he “buttonhole” stitched
the holes, and embroidered patterns between them with fine white thread.
The result was an openwork pattern heavily encrusted with beautiful fine
embroidery. It was most astounding stuff, such as you would expect from
a French convent, perhaps, but never from an African savage. He did a
circular piece and a long narrow piece. They took him three months to
finish, and then he sewed them together to form a skull cap. Billy,
entranced with the lacelike delicacy of the work, promptly captured it;
whereupon Memba Sasa philosophically started another.
By this time he had identified himself with my fortunes. We had become
a firm whose business it was to carry out the affairs of a single
personality-me. Memba Sasa, among other things, undertook the dignity.
When I walked through a crowd, Memba Sasa zealously kicked everybody out
of my royal path. When I started to issue a command, Memba Sasa finished
it and amplified it and put a snapper on it. When I came into camp,
Memba Sasa saw to it personally that my tent went up promptly and
properly, although that was really not part of his “cazi” at all. And
when somewhere beyond my ken some miserable boy had committed a crime, I
never remained long in ignorance of that fact.
Perhaps I happened to be sitting in my folding chair idly smoking a
pipe and reading a book. Across the open places of the camp would stride
Memba Sasa, very erect, very rigid, moving in short indignant jerks,
his eye flashing fire. Behind him would sneak a very hang-dog boy. Memba
Sasa marched straight up to me, faced right, and drew one side, his
silence sparkling with honest indignation.
“Just look at THAT!” his attitude seemed to say, “Could you believe such
human depravity possible? And against OUR authority?”
He always stood, quite rigid, waiting for me to speak.
“Well, Memba Sasa?” I would inquire, after I had enjoyed the show a
little.
In a few restrained words he put the case before me, always briefly,
always with a scornful dignity. This shenzi has done so-and-so.
We will suppose the case fairly serious. I listened to the man's story,
if necessary called a few witnesses, delivered judgment. All the while
Memba Sasa stood at rigid attention, fairly bristling virtue, like
the good dog standing by at the punishment of the bad dogs. And in his
attitude was a subtle triumph, as one would say: “You see! Fool with my
bwana, will you! Just let anybody try to get funny with US!” Judgment
pronounced-we have supposed the case serious, you remember-Memba Sasa
himself applied the lash. I think he really enjoyed that; but it was a
restrained joy. The whip descended deliberately, without excitement.
The man's devotion in unusual circumstances was beyond praise. Danger
or excitement incite a sort of loyalty in any good man; but humdrum,
disagreeable difficulty is a different matter.
One day we marched over a country of thorn-scrub desert. Since two days
we had been cut loose from water, and had been depending on a small
amount carried in zinc drums. Now our only reasons for faring were a
conical hill, over the horizon, and the knowledge of a river somewhere
beyond. How far beyond, or in what direction, we did not know. We had
thirty men with us, a more or less ragtag lot, picked up anyhow in the
bazaars. They were soft, ill-disciplined and uncertain. For five or six
hours they marched well enough. Then the sun began to get very hot, and
some of them began to straggle. They had, of course, no intention of
deserting, for their only hope of surviving lay in staying with us; but
their loads had become heavy, and they took too many rests. We put a
good man behind, but without much avail. In open country a safari can
be permitted to straggle over miles, for always it can keep in touch by
sight; but in this thorn-scrub desert, that looks all alike, a man fifty
yards out of sight is fifty yards lost. We would march fifteen or twenty
minutes, then sit down to wait until the rearmost men had straggled in,
perhaps a half hour later. And we did not dare move on until the tale of
our thirty was complete. At this rate progress was very slow, and as the
fierce equatorial sun increased in strength, became always slower still.
The situation became alarming. We were quite out of water, and we had no
idea where water was to be found. To complicate matters, the thornbrush
thickened to a jungle.
My single companion and I consulted. It was agreed that I was to push on
as rapidly as possible to locate the water, while he was to try to hold
the caravan together. Accordingly, Memba S
|
something of what I felt, for Sir
Joshua half apologized.
"You see, Sir John," he said, "I thought it best to prepare some sort of
short and coherent statement for the Press. As yet they have got hold
of nothing, but we can't possibly keep it much longer. Even you
couldn't, with all your powers. And what I am reading is this statement.
I particularly want you to hear it, as, of course, it rests with you if
it shall be published in this form or not."
I bowed, and Sir Joshua continued:
"At ten o'clock last night the clerk on duty examined the tapes. When he
came to the one recording the progress of the _Albatros_, he found that
for two hours there was no record of her at all. The last record was
that she had passed and signalled to Lightship A. 70 that all was well.
A two hours' gap is so unusual, owing to the--er--perfection of our
organization, that the clerk was alarmed, and reported the matter to a
superior upstairs.
"A general call to all our ships in the air at that moment was at once
sent out, and in a few minutes responses were received from several of
them to the effect that the _Albatros_ had not been sighted. Nor was
there any answer from the ship herself. A signal to Lightship A. 71, the
next guide-boat the _Albatros_ should have passed, elicited the
information that she had never done so. By eleven o'clock all these
facts were known in this office. The night staff here became seriously
alarmed. By a fortunate coincidence I was attending a performance at the
Theatre Royal close by, with Lady Johnson and my daughters. This was
known, and a messenger caught me at the close of the play, and I came
round at once. I had not been in the offices for five minutes, when news
of the most extraordinary and sensational character began to come in
from our receiving station by the Citadel.
"Captain Pring, one of our most reliable pilot commanders, was in charge
of the _Albatros_. The message was from him, and this is the gist of it.
At sundown the _Albatros_ was flying on the ten-thousand-foot level. The
Lightship A. 70 was some twenty miles astern. No other airships were in
sight, when the look-out man reported a boat coming up at great speed
from the east. The _Albatros_ was doing her steady ninety knots, but as
the two ships approached, it was seen that the stranger, a much smaller
boat, was flying at an almost incredible rate. Pring reports that she
was doing a sixteen to eighteen second mile, but there is doubtless a
mistake in the message.
"The boat showed no distinguishing lights, and failed to signal, as she
flashed past the liner at the distance of half a mile. There were
several curious features about her which attracted attention, though
what these were we do not yet know. This strange ship turned and came up
with the _Albatros_, actually flying round her in spirals with the
greatest ease. Then, without the slightest warning, she opened fire on
our vessel, and the first shell, obviously by design, blew away our
wireless."
My heart simply bounded within me. This was news with a vengeance! I had
to exercise all my self-control not to pour out a stream of frantic
questions. It was beyond thinking! Such a thing had not happened since
the League of Nations came into being. It might mean hideous war once
more--anything!
Sir Joshua had paused to drink a glass of water. He understood the
immense gravity of this news as well as I did, and his voice was
unsteady as he went on in answer to my nod!
"The _Albatros_ was helpless. Since the international agreement that
only naval, military and police ships may fly armed, she had no possible
means of defence. Flight, even, was impossible, and the loss of her
wireless forbade her to summon help. Then the anonymous ship turned a
machine gun on her rudder and shot it out of gear. There was nothing for
it but to descend to the water and rest on her floats. Pring was forced
to give the order, and she planed down. The other ship followed and took
the water not two hundred yards away.
"She then signalled in Morse code, with a Klaxon horn, that she was
sending men aboard the _Albatros_, and that if the captain or crew
offered the slightest resistance she'd blow her to pieces. They launched
a Berthon collapsible boat from a door in the stern fusilage. There were
four men in her, all armed with large-calibre automatic pistols, and
wearing pilot's hoods and masks with talc eye-pieces, so that it was
impossible to identify them. Pring could do nothing at all. He had the
passengers to consider. These ruffians cleared out the safe and the
women's jewel-cases--they left the mails alone--and in ten minutes they
were back again with the loot. The ship lifted and went off in the dark
at two hundred miles an hour, leaving the _Albatros_, helpless upon the
water.
"It was a business of several hours to rig up a makeshift rudder, but,
fortunately, her searchlights were all right, and she kept on signalling
with these until she was sighted by a big cargo steamer, a Baltimore to
Cadiz boat, coming up from the south, the _Sant Iago_. She took off the
passengers and is bringing them home; she's only a fifteen-knot boat,
but I have already dispatched one of our smaller liners to pick her up
and take the passengers aboard. They ought to be here some time
to-morrow.
"The _Sant Iago_ has wireless, and was able to communicate, not only
with us, but also with the air-yacht _May Flower_, which she sighted on
the four-thousand-foot level at dawn. The _May Flower_ belongs to Mr.
Van Adams, the Philadelphia millionaire, who is crossing to England with
a party of friends. She came down to the water and took up Commander
Pring and the second officer, and should be here by tea-time this
afternoon. Then we shall know more of this unprecedented, this
deplorable business."
"And the _Albatros_, Sir Joshua?"
"A small crew was left on her, and an emergency tender and workmen
started at dawn. She ought to be flying again to-night."
I had all the available facts at last, and long before Sir Joshua had
finished my mind was busy as a mill. There was going to be the very
biggest sort of commotion over this. England and America would be in a
blaze of fury within twenty-four hours, and every flying man, from the
skippers of the lordly London-Brindisi-Bombay boats, or the
Transatlantic Line, to the sporting commercial traveller in a secondhand
50 h.p. trussed-girder blow-fly, would be wagging the admonishing finger
at ME.
"Thank you, Sir Joshua. Most lucid, if I may say so. As a clear
statement of fact, combined with a sense of vivid narrative, your
account could hardly be improved on."
"You think, Sir John..."
"When the time comes to make a statement for the newspapers I would not
alter a word."
Thus did the tongue of the flatterer evade a situation that might have
been a trifle awkward for me. I rose at that. "I must leave you now, Sir
Joshua," I said, "as I have a great deal to see to and must rejoin Mr.
Lashmar. Steps have already been taken, and later on in the day I shall
be able to tell you more. Meanwhile I shall see Captain Pring directly
the _May Flower_ arrives, and before anyone else. Our future action must
depend a great deal on his statement."
This was said in my curtest official manner, and then I got out of the
room as quickly as I possibly could. Lashmar was waiting, and I took him
by the arm and hurried him out of the office.
"I've only just heard full details, Lashmar, and pretty bad they are.
Now has anything been done--by us, I mean?"
"I had two of our patrol ships out at two-thirty this morning cruising
over a wide area, sir. They are out still, and reporting every hour. No
results, no strange airship seen anywhere. I've been out myself up and
down the Irish coast and round the Scillies this morning, more for
form's sake than anything else. And I've cabled the whole story, as far
as we know it, to the States."
"Good! Any reply from them?"
"Their police ships are out from Cape Breton to the Bermudas, but they
don't seem to have sighted anything out of the ordinary as yet."
"Of course, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack along
that huge stretch, eight hundred miles if it's an inch. But, as far as I
can see, it's up to them; not us."
"You think so, sir?"
"Why, yes. It's a case of sheer rank and daring piracy. It's been
organized with great skill, and the pirates, whoever they are, have
command of something quite out-size in the way of a ship. There isn't a
works in England where such a boat could be built without our knowing
about it before it was launched. And it's dead certain that there's
nowhere in these little islands to hide her. Every single bit of spruce
and piano wire with a motor-bicycle engine that can fly ten yards has to
be registered and licensed by me. No, this is an American stunt."
We had been crossing the Hoe as we talked, in the direction of the
Citadel, and we now came to the long, low building of Dartmoor stone,
which is the Plymouth Headquarters of the A.P. It is perched on the edge
of the cliff, and within five yards of the spot where Sir Francis Drake
is said to have finished his game of bowls when the Armada was coming up
Channel.
We passed through the gates, where the police sentry presented arms, and
began to walk up and down the terrace.
"Signal to Southampton," I ordered, "and get a couple of their fastest
boats here at once. They may be useful in an emergency, and it will look
as if we are doing something. Ready for action, of course, and with full
service ammunition and bombs. Sir Joshua may have a fit if he likes, but
there is nothing to be done until we know more--unless you can suggest
anything?"
The little man shook his head. He was keen as a terrier, of course, and
he had already acted with great promptitude and wisdom.
Just then an orderly came out on to the terrace and handed me a signal.
I read it out to Lashmar: "Air-yacht _May Flower_ just passed St. Mary's
doing ninety knots." It was from our most westerly A.P. station on
Tresco in the Scillies. Lashmar made a rough calculation: "Twenty-five
miles west-sou'-west of Land's End, add another seventy--she'll be here
just under the hour, sir."
"Then I tell you what, Mr. Lashmar, go and meet her and escort her home.
Not a living soul must speak to Captain Pring before I do--not even Sir
Joshua or any of the White Star people. Give that as my orders when you
meet the yacht. But put it very politely to Mr. Van Adams--my
compliments and that sort of thing. He's the sort of person who could
buy the goodwill of the universe for ready money. Make your escort
appear a compliment from the Government!"
Lashmar never wasted words. He understood exactly, saluted, and hurried
to the electric railway, which ran down like a chute into the sea-drome
far below. I lit a cigarette and watched, and it was a sight worth
watching.
Beyond, stretched the largest sea-drome in Great Britain, a harbour
within a harbour, surrounded by massive concrete walls. In the roughest
weather, when even within the distant breakwater the Sound is turbulent,
the sea-drome is calm as a duck-pond. Now it was like a sheet of
polished silver, and resting on their great floats at their moorings
were three gigantic air-liners, with electric launches and motor-boats
plying between them and the landing-stages.
Right in the centre was the splendid _Atlantis_, graceful as a swan, by
which Connie was to leave for the States in a few hours. She was
surrounded by a swarm of boats no bigger than water-beetles from where I
stood.
A bell rang, there was a rumbling sound, and from a tunnel just beneath
me the car, with Lashmar in it, shot down to the water like a stone
running down a house roof. As the car dwindled to a punt, a match-box,
and finally a postage stamp, I heard the creak and swish of the
semaphore behind me on the roof of the station. On the far side of the
sea-drome was our Patrol Ship No. 1, stream-line fusilage, with the
familiar red, white and blue line, snow-white planes, guns fore and
aft, and twin propellers of phosphor bronze winking white-hot in the
afternoon sun.
The semaphore was sighted in five seconds. I got a pair of glasses, and
saw that the engines were already "ticking over" as Lashmar jumped into
a launch and went over the pool, with a cream-white wake behind him and
two ostrich plumes of spray six feet high at the bows. He was on board
in less time than it takes to write it. I heard the faint throbbing of
the four high-compression engines change to the drone of a hornet. No. 1
Patrol slid over the water until her floats lifted--lifted until they
barely touched the surface, and she was clear. One clean spiral over
Pinklecombe way, and then, as she mounted, she turned and was off over
Rams Head like an arrow from a bow. Though I say it that shouldn't, my
officers and men of the A.P. were just about as good as they're made!
There was a good three-quarters of an hour to spare, and the Royal Hotel
was not four minutes away. After the recent excitements a cup of tea
with Connie seemed just the thing. As I legged it over the Hoe, I
realized that I might be very busy for some time, and, in consequence,
late for dinner. I must tell my girl that something of great importance
had happened, though, in any case, I was determined to see her off, come
what might.
Then I remembered something. As Chief Commissioner I had absolute
control over the airports of England in a time of crisis. In any case,
it would be as well to, close the sea-drome in preparation for the _May
Flower's_ arrival. I should then be certain that no one could possibly
get at Captain Pring before I could. And if I chose to detain even the
Royal Mail for half an hour later on in the evening--under the
circumstances!--no one would say me nay.
There is a telephone box in the hall of the Royal Hotel. In thirty
seconds my orders were given, and not a living soul would enter or leave
Plymouth sea-drome without my permission. Then I strolled into the
winter gardens, where I found Connie sitting at a little table among
tubs of azaleas and listening to the strains of a ladies' orchestra.
"I've half an hour and ten minutes exactly, darling," I said, putting my
watch on the table and helping her to early strawberries. "Tell me when
the time's up, and then I must rush away for an hour before we dine."
Straightway I forgot all about the _Albatros_, Captain Pring, and the
mysterious armed ship in mid-Atlantic.
Knowing what I know now, I wonder how I could have taken it so lightly,
even then. But grave and serious as the affair was, amazing, too, in
its boldness, an elaborate and unexpected masterpiece of crime, it
seemed remote and very far away, like something one reads of in a
foreign newspaper, never conceiving that it can have anything to do with
one's own _personal_ life.
If only I could have peeped but a little way into the future!
CHAPTER III
"COLD-BLOODED PIRACY IN THE HIGH AIR"
Pilot-commander Pring was a tall, lean, lantern-jawed officer, who,
though of English nationality, had spent most of his life in America.
His face was still pale and grim with passion and mortification as I
closed the door of my private room at the A.P. Station on him, Mr. Van
Adams, the multi-millionaire, and Mr. Rickaby, second officer of the
_Albatros_.
"Now, gentlemen, sit down, please," I said. "And I will ask Captain
Pring a few questions. Sir Joshua Johnson has given me the main facts,
but I want details. I won't detain you long, but I felt I ought to see
you before anyone else."
"Oh, quite!" said Mr. Van Adams, a fleshy man, with a watchful eye and a
jaw like a pike.
"This is an extraordinary affair, Captain Pring," I went on. "But, thank
goodness, you haven't lost your ship, or any lives. I know what you feel
about the _Albatros_."
"She is father, mother, brother, sister, hired girl and dog under the
waggon to me!" said Pring, and then he blazed up into fury. I
disentangle the few words I can. The majority were too overdressed for
respectable society.
"... His Majesty's Mails! First time in history of flying, and it's
happened to ME! Cold-blooded piracy in the High Air! They'd have blown
us to pieces as soon as look at us! When I get hold of that
slime-lapping leper, the pirate skipper, I won't leave him hide or hair
to cover the wart he calls his heart!..." and so on, for a good two
minutes by the office chronometer.
I let him rip. It was the quickest way. It's dangerous to throttle down
a man like Pring.
"The Captain is, naturally, furious," I said.
"Oh, quite!" answered Mr. Van Adams.
Then we got to business. "The strange airship, Captain Pring. Let's
begin with that. She approached you flying _West_, I understand?"
"She did, Sir John. Does that put you wise to anything?"
"It would appear that she was coming from Europe. But that was probably
a trick. She might have been waiting about for hours."
"Curious thing, then, that all the ships in the air during the last
thirty hours that were within fifteen hundred miles of the American and
Canadian coast never saw anything of her. The Air Police of the U.S.A.
have questioned every registered boat, Transatlantic and coastal trade,
and not one of them sighted her. And, as you know, Sir John, from Cape
Race to Charleston in summer weather the air's as thick with craft as
gnats over a pond. Ain't that so, Mr. Van Adams, sir?"
"Quite, Captain Pring."
"I see your inference. Well, we'll leave that for a moment. I understand
that there were some peculiar features about this ship. What were they?"
"She's the fastest thing in the air, bar none. That I can swear to. A
pilot of my experience can't well be deceived, and if that ship--she's
one of the very few I've seen with four propellers--can't do two hundred
and forty miles an hour, _without a following wind, mind_, then I'm a
paretic!"
I whistled. Such speeds had been dreamed of but never known. "Nearly
three times hurricane velocity!" I said.
"She'd race the dawn, Sir John! and that's my honest belief. There's
never been such a flying boat before. And she don't carry a crew of more
than twelve or fifteen men, in my opinion. The rest's all engines and
petrol. She ain't more than twice the size of one of your patrol ships,
all over."
This was talking! Each moment the affair grew more tense and
interesting.
"That narrows our field of search no end," I remarked. "A boat like that
can't be built anywhere in the world without leaving traces."
"It colours the cat different, sure," said Captain Pring. "Now, here's
another point. Gum! I'm going to startle you some more, Sir John, but,
as God sees me, I'm speaking truth. Here's Mr. Rickaby here as'll swear
to all I say...."
He looked at the second officer, a good-looking, brown-faced lad. "It's
all gospel, Sir John," he broke in.
"Of course," I said impatiently, "I know you couldn't be mistaken,
Pring, and I won't insult you by thinking you'd pull a Chief
Commissioner's leg over an affair of this importance. What's number two?
Let's have it!"
"The man who runs her, or the man who built her, has solved another
problem. He's produced silent engines at last! That ship's motors don't
make more noise than a June bug! On a dark night she could pass within
two hundred yards of you, and you'd never guess that she was near."
From that moment I saw the thing in its true proportions. From that
moment the air became unsafe. A man-eating tiger let loose upon a quiet
country-side was not a tithe as dangerous.
The three other men saw that I understood.
"The scoundrels who came aboard the _Albatros_ and looted the ship.
What of them?"
"They were masked so's their mothers wouldn't, have known 'em. Armed to
the teeth, too. We'd have downed them quick enough, even at the cost of
a life or two, but there was the pirate with a four-inch gun trained on
us. And she meant business. I did right, Sir John?"
The poor fellow's voice shook, and his face was corrugated with anxiety.
"I should have done exactly the same myself under the circumstances,
Pring. Your first duty was to the women and children under your care.
That view, I am certain, will be accepted by the company and the
Government, to say nothing of the public, when it gets out. About these
men, again, did you judge them to be American or foreigners?"
"They didn't speak much, except, to give a few orders. But what they
_did_ say I heard, every word. I was with them all the time, and so was
Mr. Rickaby here. I'll spring another surprise on you, Sir John, and
then I've done. _Those chaps were English, every one of them._ And,
what's more, they weren't any plug-ugly crowd neither! They were
educated men of some social position, club men at some time or other, or
I'm a short sport!"
The second officer spoke. "Captain Pring is perfectly right, sir," he
said modestly. "I'll swear that they had been public school or 'Varsity
men at some time or other."
"Where were you?" I asked quickly.
"Harrow, sir."
I nodded. Here was another astounding fact for consideration when I was
alone.
"And then, after a time," Pring continued, "the _Sant Iago_ tramp
steamer freighter came up from way down South and rescued us. After that
we sighted the lights of Mr. Van Adams' air yacht, the _May Flower_, and
in answer to our signal he came down and took me and Rickaby aboard."
"Quite," said the laconic millionaire.
"To-night, Captain Pring, I shall want a long talk with you. Now I must
surrender you to Sir Joshua. For the present, I want you all three to
give me your words of honour that you will tell no one at all anything
about the appearance or speed of the ship, that her engines were silent,
or you suspect the ruffians on her to be English. That is most
important. In fact, I must make it an order, under the powers with which
I am invested by the Secretary of State. As an order, it cannot apply,
to you, Mr. Van Adams, but you have been so kind and helpful hitherto
that I feel sure you'll give me your promise? You must see how necessary
it is."
Mr. Van Adams was going to use his word-of-all-work, I saw it coming,
when he changed his mind.
"I'm on," he said instead.
The two pilots gave me their assurances, and we walked out of the office
together. As we went along the terrace Pring pointed down to the
sea-drome, where the millionaire's air yacht, a beautiful boat, painted
cream colour and black, was now resting at her moorings.
"The _Atlantis_ starts to-night," he said significantly.
"She will be escorted by an armed patrol," I said, "until she meets one
of the American A.P. ships in mid-ocean. Surely, you don't think there's
any danger?"
To tell the truth, I had been so concentrated upon the matter in hand
that I had hardly given a thought to the outgoing liner. Can you blame
me? Anyway, duty came before any private considerations. Now, Pring's
remark started a new set of thoughts. I looked at him with great
anxiety. He did not know the whole of my reason, but he saw that I was
disturbed.
"No, Sir John," he answered, "I don't think the danger worth the waggle
of a mule's ear. It was only a passing remark. It stands to reason that
Captain Kidd'll know that the police boats of two hemispheres are out
looking for him in swarms by now. He'll figure that out, sure. If he
was to start any of his stunts within the next few days, he'd have about
as much chance as a fat man in Fiji."
"That's what I thought."
"You may make your mind easy about the _Atlantis_, sir. Besides, as you
say, to put the lid on, she'll be escorted."
"Quite," I said involuntarily, and then we both laughed.
"Royal Hotel at ten-thirty," I said. "I shall be staying there
to-night."
I shall never forget that dinner with Connie. One of her greatest charms
is her serene light-heartedness. It is not silliness or frivolity, don't
think that, but the bloom upon the fruit of a clear and happy nature
whose conscience is at rest. My girl wasn't a fool. She was not ignorant
of evil and the grey sides of life. But they left her untouched. Perhaps
her very simplicity, the gay and stainless courage that she wore like a
flag through life, had helped her to her great success. The British
public might admire and enjoy the work of other artists, but they had
taken little Connie Shepherd to their hearts.
She was gay at our dinner, bubbling over with joy and fun. I did my best
to respond, but it was rather difficult. There was a shadow on my mind,
and it would not go away.
"Dearest old John!" she said once, "what is it? You're sad, inside of
you, and you're pretending you're not!"
"Darling, in an hour or two you'll be gone. How can I be very happy?"
She shook her head. "It's not that. You can't deceive me. I don't want
to part, either, especially on this day of days. But we are both of us
sensible, and we both know it's only for six weeks. You aren't in the
least sentimental--horrid word!--nor am I. We go deeper than that."
"Well, then, to tell you the truth"--and it _was_ the truth--"I am a bit
under the weather, and I can't quite say why. Perhaps it's reaction. But
most probably, it's because I have been hearing some news, a matter in
connection with my work which has excited me. It's a problem of
organization I must solve at once. Forgive me, sweetheart!"
"My dear, if you were not what you are, I should never have said 'yes.'
No one has ever had such a position as you at your age, and I know how
you've fought for it. I _love_ you to be preoccupied about your work."
We finished dinner, however, in a happier mood, and then walked down to
the sea-drome together. Connie's heavy luggage had gone to New York by
steamer a week ago. The two small trunks she had brought with her from
London were already on board the _Atlantis_, and Wilson and Thumbwood
carried a couple of dressing-bags.
It was a perfect evening. The sun, in going to rest, had hung the sky
with banners, golden and glorious. The music of a band upon the pier
came softly up to the terrace of the A.P. Station. Young men and maidens
in summer clothes strolled up and down over the greens, and a
sickle-shaped new moon was rising over Devonport and the Hamoaze.
We went down in the electric car, and boarded the _Atlantis_ from one of
my launches. She was lit up in all her triple decks, as we climbed
aboard by the saloon accommodation ladder, and a steward took Connie and
her maid to her cabin, while I went to find my old friend, Captain
Swainson.
The big, bearded man was sitting alone in his little room. There was a
cup of black coffee by his side, and he was chewing an unlighted cigar.
I saw at once that he had heard something.
"The very man!" he cried, jumping up from his basket chair and gripping
me warmly by the hand. "I heard you were here, Sir John, and I made sure
of seeing you before I started. Now what's all this? Sir Joshua's half
out of his mind with worry, the offices are turned upside down, and Seth
Pring--confound him!--is as close as an oyster!"
I found out that he knew just what Sir Joshua knew, and no more. He was
indignant but quite cool, inclined to minimize the whole affair.
It seemed to me that to tell him the whole truth would serve no good
purpose.
Pilot Superintendent Lashmar, whom I was going to send in command of the
escort, would, of course, know everything.
"Well, I'm sending an escort with you half-way across," I said. "Lashmar
will go--you know him?--in No. 1 Patrol Boat. It's heavily armed, and he
can shoot straighter than any man in the service. Got his experience in
the Great War."
"Escort be blowed!" said hearty Captain Swainson. "I can't think what
old Pring was about to let himself be held up like that--though, of
course, it's just as you wish, Sir John."
"I don't suppose there's the least need of it, Swainson. But this
business'll make a bit of a noise, and it looks well. Now I'll tell you
a secret. I'm engaged to be married! Settled it coming down in the train
this morning."
"The deuce you are! A thousand congratulations!"
"Thanks. What's more, the lady is aboard your ship, and flies to New
York with you to-night. I want you to look after her for me."
"Can a duck swim? Well, this _is_ news! Now I understand about that
escort! But do introduce me, Sir John. It will be more than a pleasure
to make the young lady comfortable."
We went off to seek Connie, and found her sitting behind one of the
multiplex wind-screens on the saloon deck, listening to the music of a
piano and violin that came through the open hatch of the palm-court
below.
I remember that the musicians were playing a selection of old English
airs, sweet, plaintive music, and had just got to "The Last Rose of
Summer."
I'm not emotional, but when I hear that tune to-day--thank goodness, it
isn't often!--I go out of the room.
At a quarter to nine I stood on the Hoe and watched the _Atlantis_ start
for America. Her navigation lights were all turned on; the innumerable
port-holes of the huge fusilage made an amber necklace below the immense
grey planes.
Then, from the towers on the sea-drome wall the "flare-path" shot
out--an avenue of white and steady light to guide the liner outwards.
From the roof of the A.P. Station the compressed air-horn sent out three
long, brazen calls. I had arranged it so. It was my Godspeed to
Constance. Old Swainson answered on his Klaxon, and then the liner began
to move slowly over the glittering water. Every second she increased her
speed and lifted until she rose clear and slanted upwards. I had a
vision of the mysterious silvery thing like a moth in the centre of the
light-beam, and then the flare-path shifted out to sea, and rose till it
was almost at a right angle with the water. The _Atlantis_ was
spiralling up to her ten-thousand-foot level, and in a moment or two she
was nothing more than a speck.
Just as I lost sight of her, Patrol Ship No. 1 lifted and followed like
a hawk after a heron, and then both ships were lost in the night.
The band on Plymouth Pier was still playing. The young men and maidens
were still strolling round the lawns in the moonlight. The air was sweet
and pure, full of laughter and the voices of girls. But I went back to
the station with a heavy heart.
Two shorthand clerks and two telegraphists were waiting for me, and in
the next hour I got through an infinity of work. There was a mass of
telegrams to answer from America. They had been re-wired from Whitehall.
I had to send out fifty or sixty signals to organize a complete patrol
of the Atlantic air-lanes. There was a long and confidential "wireless"
to my assistant, Muir Lockhart, in London, and last, though by no means
least, a condensed report of everything for the Home Secretary. It was
after ten when I had finished, and I walked slowly back to the "Royal,"
dead tired in mind and body. When I came to think of it, I realized that
this had been one of the most eventful and exciting days of my life.
Thumbwood--you will hear a great deal about him before this narrative is
over--was waiting in the hall. He hurried me upstairs to where a tepid
bath dashed with ammonia was waiting. Five minutes in this, a brisk rub
down, a complete change into evening kit, a tea-cup of Bovril with a
tablespoon of brandy and a pinch of celery salt in it--what Thumbwood
called my "bran-mash"--and I was a new man again.
For a perfect valet commend me a man who has had charge of racehorses in
his time!
Then I went down to meet Captain Pring. I saw at once, as I came into
the public rooms of the hotel, that the news was out. Groups of people
were standing together and talking earnestly. There was a buzz of
suppressed excitement, natural anywhere, but particularly so in the
principal air-port of England.
And there were special editions of the evening papers....
These--I got one and looked--had made the most of very scanty material.
Nothing like the whole truth had leaked out, but there was,
nevertheless, a sensation of the first magnitude. I was recognized and
pointed to; a naval captain even spoke, and tried to pump me!--though
he soon found that there was nothing doing--and when Captain Pring came
into the lounge some idiot started to cheer, and there was what the
papers describe as a "scene."
Pring and I supped alone in a private room and had a long confidential
talk, in the course of which I learnt many things. I am not going to
give any details of that talk at present. It was momentous--it is enough
to say that now--and has its proper place further on in the story.
The worthy Captain went at twelve, and I retired to bed. Thumbwood slept
in a dressing-room opening out of my bedroom. By his couch was a
telephone, which I arranged was to be connected with the A.P. Station
all night long. If any signal came Thumbwood was to take it, and, if
important, wake me at once.
... I am going to conclude this first portion of the narrative in as few
lines as possible. Even to-day I shirk the writing of them.
I was awakened suddenly to find my room blazing with light; I afterwards
found that the exact time was 2.30 a.m.
Thumbwood was standing by the bed. "Sir John,"
|
' intangled fish. Perchance in meads
The anchor oft is thrown, and oft the keel
Tears the subjacent vine-tree. Where were wont
The nimble goats to crop the tender grass
Unwieldy sea-calves roll. The Nereid nymphs,
With wonder, groves, and palaces, and towns,
Beneath the waves behold. By dolphins now
The woods are tenanted, who furious smite
The boughs, and shake the strong oak by their blows.
Swims with the flock the wolf; and swept along,
Tigers and tawny lions strive in vain.
Now not his thundering strength avails the boar;
Nor, borne away, the fleet stag's slender limbs:
And land, long sought in vain, to rest her feet,
The wandering bird draws in her weary wings,
And drops into the waves, whose uncheck'd roll
The hills have drown'd; and with un'custom'd surge
Foam on the mountain tops. Of man the most
They swallow'd; whom their fierce irruption spar'd,
By hunger perish'd in their bleak retreat.
Between th' Aönian and Actæian lands
Lies Phocis; fruitful were the Phocian fields
While fields they were, but now o'erwhelm'd, they form
A region only of the wide-spread main.
Here stands Parnassus with his forked top,
Above the clouds high-towering to the stars.
To this Deucalion with his consort driven
O'er ridgy billows in his bark clung close;
For all was sea beside. There bend they down;
The nymphs, and mountain gods adore, and she
Predicting Themis, then oraculous deem'd.
No man more upright than himself had liv'd;
Than Pyrrha none more pious heaven had seen.
Now Jove beheld a mighty lake expand
Where late was earth, and from the swarming crowds
But one man sav'd--of woman only one:
Both guiltless,--pious both. He chas'd the clouds
And bade the dry north-east to drive the showers
Far distant, and display the earth to heaven,
And unto earth the skies. The ocean's rage
Remains no more. Mild Neptune lays aside
His three-fork'd weapon, and his surges smoothes;
Then calls blue Triton from the dark profound.
Above the waves the god his shoulders rears,
With inbred purple ting'd: He bids him sound
His shelly trump, and back the billows call;
And rivers to their banks again remand.
The trump he seizes,--broad above it wreath'd
From narrow base;--the trump whose piercing blast
From east to west resounds through every shore.
This to his mouth the watery-bearded god
Applies, and breathes within the stern command.
All hear the sound, or waves of earth or sea,
And all who hear obey. Sea finds a shore;
Floods flow within their channels; rivers sink;
Hills lift their heads; and as the waves decrease,
In numerous islets solid earth appears.
A tedious time elaps'd, and now the woods
Display'd their leafless summits, and their boughs
Heavy with mud. At length the world restor'd
Deucalion saw, but empty all and void;
Deep silence reigning through th' expansive waste:
Tears gush'd while thus his Pyrrha he address'd:
"O sister! wife! O woman sole preserv'd!--
"By nature, kindred, and the marriage-bed,
"To me most closely join'd. Now nearer still
"By mutual perils. We, of all the earth
"Beheld by Sol in his diurnal course,
"We two alone remain. The mighty deep
"Entombs the rest. Nor sure our safety yet;
"Still hang the clouds dark louring. Wretched wife,
"What if preserv'd alone? What hadst thou done
"Of me bereft? How singly borne the shock?
"Where found condolement in thy load of grief?
"For me,--and trust, my dearest wife, my words,--
"Hadst thou amidst the billows been ingulph'd,
"Me also had they swallow'd. Oh! for power
"To form mankind, as once my father did,
"And in the shapen earth true souls infuse!
"In us rests human race, so will the gods,
"A sample only of mankind we live."
He spoke and Pyrrha's tears join'd his. To heaven
They raise their hands in prayer, and straight resolve
To ask through oracles divine its aid.
Nor long delay. Quick to Cephisus' streams
They hasten; muddy still Cephisus flows,
Yet not beyond its wonted boundaries swol'n.
Libations thence they lift, and o'er their heads
And garments cast the sprinklings;--then their steps
To Themis' temple bend. The roof they found
With filthy moss o'ergrown;--the altars cold.
Prone on the steps they fell, and trembling kiss'd
The gelid stones, and thus preferr'd their words:
"If righteous prayers can move the heavenly mind,
"And soften harsh resolves, and soothe the rage
"Of great immortals, say, O Themis, say,
"How to the world mankind shall be restor'd;
"And grant, most merciful, in our distress
"Thy potent aid." The goddess heard their words,
And instant gave reply. "The temple leave,
"Ungird your garments, veil your heads, and throw
"Behind your backs your mighty mother's bones."
Astonish'd long they stood! and Pyrrha first
The silence broke; the oracle's behest
Refusing to obey; and earnest pray'd,
With trembling tongue for pardon for her sin:
Her mother's shade to violate she dreads,
Her bones thus rudely flinging. But meantime
Deep in their minds, in dark mysterious veil
Obscurely hid, the sentence they revolve.
At length Deucalion sooths his wife with words
Of cheering import: "Right, if I divine,
"No impious deed the deity desires:
"Earth is our mighty mother, and her bones
"The stony rocks within her;--these behind
"Our backs to cast, the oracle commands."
With joy th' auspicious augury she hears,
But joy with doubt commingled, both so much
The heavenly words distrust; yet still they hope
The essay cannot harm. The temple left,
Their heads they cover, and their vests unbind;
And o'er their heads as order'd heave the stones.
The stones--(incredible! unless the fact
Tradition sanction'd doubtless) straight began
To lose their rugged firmness,--and anon,
To soften,--and when soft a form assume.
Next as they grew in size, they felt infus'd
A nature mild,--their form resembled man!
But incorrectly: marble so appears,
Rough hewn to form a statue, ere the hand
Completes the shape. What liquid was, and moist,
With earthy atoms mixt, soft flesh became;
Parts solid and unbending chang'd to bone;
In name unalter'd, veins the same remain'd.
Thus by the gods' beneficent decree,
And brief the change, the stones Deucalion threw,
A manly shape assum'd; but females sprung
From those by Pyrrha cast behind; and hence
A patient, hard, laborious race we prove,
And shew the source, by actions, whence we sprung.
Beings all else the teeming earth produc'd
Spontaneous. Heated by the solar rays,
The stagnant water quicken'd;--marshy fens
Swell'd up their oozy loads to meet the beams:
And nourish'd by earth's vivifying soil,
The fruitful elements of life increas'd,
As in a mother's womb; and in a while
Assum'd a certain shape. So when the floods
Of seven-mouth'd Nile desert the moisten'd fields,
And to their ancient channels bring their streams,
The soft mud fries beneath the scorching sun;
And midst the fresh-turn'd earth unnumber'd forms
The tiller finds: some scarcely half conceiv'd;
Imperfect some, their bodies wanting limbs:
And oft he beings sees with parts alive,
The rest a clod of earth: for where with heat
Due moisture kindly mixes, life will spring:
From these in concord all things are produc'd.
Though fire with water strives; yet vapour warm,
Discordant mixture, gives a birth to all.
Thus when the earth, with filthy ooze bespread
From the late deluge, felt the blazing sun;
His burning heat productive caus'd spring forth
A countless race of beings. Part appear'd
In forms before well-known; the rest a group
Of monsters strange. Then, but unwilling, she
Produc'd terrific Python, serpent huge!
A mighty mountain with his bulk he hid;
A plague unknown, the new-born race to scare.
The quiver-shoulder'd god, unus'd before
His arms to launch, save on the flying deer,
Or roebuck fleet, the horrid monster slew:
A thousand arrows in his sides he fix'd,
His quiver's store exhausting; through the wounds
Gush'd the black poison. To contending games,
Hence instituted for the serpent slain,
The glorious action to preserve through times
Succeeding, he the name of Pythian gave.
And here the youth who bore the palm away
By wrestling, racing, or in chariot swift,
With beechen bough was crown'd. Nor yet was known
The laurel's leaf: Apollo's brows, with hair
Deck'd graceful, no peculiar branches bound.
Penæian Daphne first his bosom charm'd;
No casual flame but plann'd by Love's revenge.
Him, Phoebus flush'd with conquest late obtain'd,
His bow saw bend, and thus exclaim'd in taunt:
"Lascivious boy! How ill with thee assort
"Those warlike arms?--how much my shoulders more
"Beseem the load, whose arm can deadly wounds
"In furious beasts, and every foe infix!
"I who but now huge Python have o'erthrown;
"Swol'n with a thousand darts; his mighty bulk
"Whole acres covering with pestiferous weight?
"Content in vulgar hearts thy torch to flame,
"To me the bow's superior glory leave."
Then Venus' son: "O Phoebus, nought thy dart
"Evades, nor thou canst'scape the force of mine:
"To thee as others yield,--so much my fame
"Must ever thine transcend." Thus spoke the boy,
And lightly mounting, cleaves the yielding air
With beating wings, and on Parnassus' top
Umbrageous rests. There from his quiver drew
Two darts of different power:--this chases love;
And that desire enkindles; form'd of gold
It glistens, ending in a point acute:
Blunt is the first, tipt with a leaden load;
Which Love in Daphne's tender breast infix'd.
The sharper through Apollo's heart he drove,
And through his nerves and bones;--instant he loves:
She flies of love the name. In shady woods,
And spoils of captive beasts alone she joys;
To copy Dian' emulous; her hair
In careless tresses form'd, a fillet bound.
By numbers sought,--averse alike to all;
Impatient of their suit, through forests wild,
And groves, in maiden ignorance she roams;
Nor cares for Cupid, nor hymeneal rites,
Nor soft connubial joys. Oft cry'd her sire;
"My Daphne, you should bring to me a son;
"From you, my child, I hope for grandsons too."
But she detesting wedlock as a crime,
(Suffus'd her features with a bashful glow)
Around his aged neck, her beauteous arms,
Winds blandishing, and cries, "O sire, most dear!
"One favor grant,--perpetual to enjoy
"My virgin purity;--the mighty Jove
"The same indulgence has to Dian' given."
Thy sire complies;--but that too beauteous face,
And lovely form, thy anxious wish oppose:
Apollo loves thee;--to thy bed aspires;--
And looks with anxious hopes, his wish to gain:
Futurity, by him for once unseen.
As the light stubble when the ears are shorn,
The flames consume: as hedges blaze on high
From torches by the traveller closely held,
Or heedless flung, when morning gilds the world:
So flaming burnt the god;--so blaz'd his breast,
And with fond hopes his vain desires he fed.
Her tresses careless flowing o'er her neck
He view'd, and, "Oh! how beauteous, deck'd with care,"
Exclaim'd: her eyes which shone like brilliant fire,
Or sparkling stars, he sees; and sees her lips;
Unsated with the sight, he burns to touch:
Admires her fingers, and her hands, her arms,
Half to the shoulder naked:--what he sees
Though beauteous, what is hid he deems more fair.
Fleet as the wind, her fearful flight she wings,
Nor stays his fond recalling words to hear:
"Daughter of Peneus, stay! no foe pursues,--
"Stay, beauteous nymph!--so flies the lamb the wolf;
"The stag the lion;--so on trembling wings
"The dove avoids the eagle:--these are foes,
"But love alone me urges to pursue.
"Ah me! then, shouldst thou fall,--or prickly thorns
"Wound thy fair legs,--and I the cause of pain!--
"Rough is the road thou runnest; slack, I pray,
"Thy speed;--I swear to follow not so fast.
"But hear who loves thee;--no rough mountain swain;
"No shepherd;--none in raiments rugged clad,
"Tending the lowing herds: rash thoughtless nymph,
"Thou fly'st thou know'st not whom, and therefore fly'st!
"O'er Delphos' lands, and Tenedos I sway,
"And Claros, and the Pataræan realms.--
"My sire is Jove. To me are all things known,
"Or present, past, or future. Taught by me
"Melodious sounds poetic numbers grace.--
"Sure is my dart, but one more sure I feel
"Lodg'd in this bosom; strange to love before.--
"Medicine me hails inventor; through the world
"My help is call'd for; unto me is known
"The powers of plants and herbs:--ah! hapless I,
"Nor plants, nor herbs, afford a cure for love;
"Nor arts which all relieve, relieve their lord."
All this, and more:--but Daphne fearful fled,
And left his speech unfinish'd. Lovely then
She running seem'd;--her limbs the breezes bar'd;
Her flying raiment floated on the gale;
Her careless tresses to the light air stream'd;
Her flight increas'd her beauty. Now no more
The god to waste his courteous words endures,
But urg'd by love himself, with swifter pace
Her footsteps treads: the rapid greyhound so,
When in the open field the hare he spies,
Trusts to his legs for prey,--as she for flight;
And now he snaps, and now he thinks to hold,
And brushes with his outstretch'd nose her heels;--
She trembling, half in doubt, or caught or no,
Springs from his jaws, and mocks his touching mouth.
Thus fled the virgin and the god;--he fleet
Through hope, and she through fear,--but wing'd by love
More rapid flew Apollo;--spurning rest,
Approach'd her close behind, and panting breath'd
Upon her floating tresses. Pale with dread,
Her strength exhausted in the lengthen'd flight,
Old Peneus' streams she saw, and loud exclaim'd:--
"O sire, assist me, if within thy streams
"Divinity abides. Let earth this form,
"Too comely for my peace, quick swallow up;
"Or change those beauties to an harmless shape."
Her prayer scarce ended, when her lovely limbs
A numbness felt; a tender rind enwraps
Her beauteous bosom; from her head shoots up
Her hair in leaves; in branches spread her arms;
Her feet but now so swift, cleave to the earth
With roots immoveable; her face at last
The summit forms; her bloom the same remains.
Still loves the god the tree, and on the trunk
His right hand placing, feels her breast yet throb,
Beneath the new-grown bark: around the boughs,
As yet her limbs, his clasping arms he throws;
And burning kisses on the wood imprints.
The wood his lips repels. Then thus the god:--
"O laurel, though to be my bride deny'd,
"Yet shalt thou be my tree; my temples bind;
"My lyre and quiver shalt thou still adorn:
"The brows of Latian conquerors shalt thou grace,
"When the glad people sing triumphant hymns,
"And the long pomp the capitol ascends.
"A faithful guard before Augustus' gates,
"On each side hung;--the sturdy oak between.
"And as perpetual youth adorns my head
"With locks unshorn, thou also still shalt bear
"Thy leafy honors in perpetual green."
Apollo ended, and the laurel bow'd
Her verdant summit as her grateful head.
Within Æmonia lies a grove, inclos'd
By steep and lofty hills on every side:
'Tis Tempé call'd. From lowest Pindus pour'd
Here Peneus rolls his foaming waves along:
Thick clouds of smoke, and dark and vapoury mists
The violent falls produce, sprinkling the tops
Of proudest forests with the plenteous dew;
And distant parts astounding with the roar.
Here holds the watery deity his throne;--
Here his retreat most sacred;--seated here,
Within the rock-form'd cavern, to the streams
And stream-residing nymphs, his laws he gives.
Here flock the neighbouring river-gods, in doubt
Or to condole, or gratulate the sire.
Here Spercheus came, whose banks with poplars wave;
Rapid Enipeus; Apidanus slow;
Amphrysos gently flowing; Æäs mild;
And other streams which wind their various course,
Till in the sea their weary wanderings end,
By natural bent directed. Absent sole
Was Inachus;--deep in his gloomy cave
Dark hidden, with his tears he swells his floods.
He, wretched sire, his Iö's loss bewails;
Witless if living air she still enjoys,
Or with the shades she dwells; and no where found
He dreads the worst, and thinks her not to be.
The beauteous damsel from her father's banks
Jove saw returning, and, "O, maid!" exclaim'd,
"Worthy of Jove, whose charms will shortly bless
"Some youth desertless; come, and seek the shade,
"Yon lofty groves afford,"--and shew'd the groves,--
"While now Sol scorches from heaven's midmost height.
"Fear not the forests to explore alone,
"But in their deepest shades adventurous go;
"A god shall guard thee:--no plebeian god,
"But he whose mighty hand the sceptre grasps
"Of rule celestial, and the lightening flings.
"O fly me not"--for Iö fled, amaz'd.
Now Lerna's pastures, and Lyrcæa's lands
With trees thick-planted, far behind were left;
When with a sudden mist the god conceal'd
The wide-spread earth, and stopp'd her eager flight;
And in his arms the struggling maid compress'd.
Meantime did Juno cast her eyes below,
The floating clouds surpris'd to see produce
A night-like shade amidst so bright a day.
No common clouds, from streams exhal'd, she knew;
Nor misty vapours from the humid earth.
Suspicions rise; her sharpness oft had caught
Her amorous husband in his thefts of love.
She search'd around the sky, its lord explor'd,--
But not in heaven he sate;--then loud exclaim'd:
"Much must I err, or much my bed is wrong'd."
Down sliding from the topmost heaven, on earth
She lights, and bids the cloudy mists recede.
Prepar'd already, Jove the nymph had chang'd,
And in a lovely heifer's form she stood.
A shape so beauteous fair,--though sore chagrin'd,
Unwilling Juno prais'd; and whence she came,
And who her owner asks; and of what herd?
Her prying art, as witless of the truth,
To baffle, from the earth he feigns her sprung;
And straight Saturnia begs the beauteous gift.
Embarrass'd now he stands,--the nymph to leave
Abandon'd, were too cruel;--to deny
His wife, suspicious: shame compliance urg'd;
Love strong dissuaded: love had vanquish'd shame,
Save that a paltry cow to her refus'd,
Associate of his race and bed, he fear'd
More than a cow the goddess would suspect.
Her rival now she holds; but anxious, still
She Jove distrusts, and fears her prize to lose;
Nor safe she deem'd her, till to Argus' care
Committed. Round the jailor's watchful head
An hundred eyes were set. Two clos'd in turn;
The rest with watchful care, kept cautious guard.
Howe'er he stands, on Iö still he looks;
His face averse, yet still his eyes behold.
By day she pastures, but beneath the earth
When Phoebus sinks, he drags her to the stall,
And binds with cords her undeserving neck.
Arbutus' leaves, and bitter herbs her food:
Her wretched bed is oft the cold damp earth;
A strawy couch deny'd:--the muddy stream
Her constant drink: when suppliant she would raise
Her arms to Argus, arms to raise were none.
To moan she tries; loud bellowings echo wide,--
She starts and trembles at her voice's roar.
Now to the banks she comes where oft she'd play'd,--
The banks of Inachus, and in his streams
Her new-form'd horns beheld;--in wild affright
From them she strove, and from herself to fly.
Her sister Naïads know her not, nor he
Griev'd Inachus, his long-lost daughter knows.
But she her sisters and her sire pursues;
Invites their touch, as wondering they caress.
Old Inachus the gather'd herbs presents;
She licks his hands, and presses with her lips
His dear paternal fingers. Tears flow quick,
And could words follow she would ask his aid;
And speak her name, and lamentable state.
Marks for her words she form'd, which in the dust
Trac'd by her hoof, disclos'd her mournful change.
"Ah wretch!" her sire exclaim'd, "unhappy wretch!"
And o'er the weeping heifer's snowy neck,
His arms he threw, and round her horns he hung
With sobs redoubled:--"Art thou then, my child,
"Through earth's extent so sought? Ah! less my grief,
"To find thee not, than thus transform'd to find!
"But dumb thou art, nor with responsive words,
"Me cheerest. From thy deep chest sighs alone
"Thou utterest, and loud lowings to my words:
"Thou canst no more. Unwitting I prepar'd
"Thy marriage torches, anxious to behold
"A son, and next a son of thine to see.
"Now from the herd a husband must thou seek,
"Now with the herd thy sons must wander forth.
"Nor death my woes can finish: curst the gift
"Of immortality. Eternal grief
"Must still corrode me; Lethé's gate is clos'd."
Thus griev'd the god, when starry Argus tore
His charge away, and to a distant mead
Drove her to pasture;--he a lofty hill's
Commanding prospect chose, and seated there
View'd all around alike on every side.
But now heaven's ruler could no more contain,
To see the sorrows Iö felt:--he calls
His son, of brightest Pleiäd mother born,
And bids him quickly compass Argus' death.
Instant around his heels his wings he binds;
His rod somniferous grasps; nor leaves his cap.
Accoutred thus, from native heights he springs,
And lights on earth; removes his cap; his wings
Unlooses; and his wand alone retains:
Through devious paths with this, a shepherd now,
A flock he drives of goats, and tunes his pipe
Of reeds constructed. Argus hears the sound,
Junonian guard, and captivated cries,--
"Come, stranger, sit with me upon this mount:
"Nor for thy flock more fertile pasture grows,
"Than round this spot;--and here the shade thou seest
"To shepherds' ease inviting."--Hermes sate,
And with his converse stay'd declining day.
Long he discours'd, and anxious strove to lull
With music sweet, the all-observant eyes;
But long he strove in vain: soft slumber's bonds
Argus opposes;--of his numerous lights,
Part sleep, but others jealous watch his charge.
And now he questions whence the pipe was form'd,
The pipe but new-discover'd to the world.
Then thus the god:--"A lovely Naiäd nymph,
"With bleak Arcadia's Hamadryads nurs'd,
"And on Nonacriné for beauty fam'd
"Was Syrinx. Oft the satyrs wild she fled;
"Nor these alone, but every god that roves
"In shady forests, or in fertile fields.
"Dian' she follows, and her virgin life.
"Like Dian' cinctur'd, she might Dian' seem,
"Save that a golden bow the goddess bears;
"The nymph a bow of horn: yet still to most
"Mistake was easy. From Lycæum's height,
"His head encompass'd with the pointed pine,
"Returning, her the lustful Pan espy'd,
"And cry'd:--Fair virgin grant a god's request,--
"A god who burns to wed thee. Here he stays.
"Through pathless forests flies the nymph, and scorns
"His warm intreaties, till the gravelly stream
"Of Ladon, smoothly winding, she beheld.
"The waves impede her flight. She earnest prays
"Her sister-nymphs her human form to change.
"Now thinks the sylvan god his clasping arms
"Inclose her, whilst he grasps but marshy reeds.--
"He mournful sighs; the light reeds catch his breath,
"And soft reverberate the plaintive sound.
"The dulcet movement charms th' enraptur'd god,
"Who,--thus forever shall we join,--exclaims!
"With wax combin'd th' unequal reeds he forms
"A pipe, which still the virgin's name retains."
While thus the god, he every eye beheld
Weigh'd heavy, sink in sleep, and stopp'd his tale.
His magic rod o'er every lid he draws,
His sleep confirming, and with crooked blade
Severs his nodding head, and down the mount
The bloody ruin hurls,--the craggy rock
With gore besmearing. Low, thou Argus liest!
Extinct thy hundred lights; one night obscure
Eclipsing all. But Juno seiz'd the rays,
And on the plumage of her favor'd bird,
In gaudy pride, the starry gems she plac'd.
With furious ire she flam'd, and instant sent
The dread Erinnys to the Argive maid.
Before her eyes, within her breast she dwelt
A secret torment, and in terror drove
Her exil'd through the world. 'Twas thou, O Nile!
Her tedious wandering ended. On thy banks
Weary'd she kneel'd, and on her back, supine
Her neck she lean'd:--her sad face to the skies,
What could she more?--she lifted. Unto Jove
By groans, and tears, and mournful lows she plain'd,
And begg'd her woes might end. The mighty god
Around his consort's neck embracing hung.
And pray'd her wrath might finish. "Fear no more
"A rival love, in her," he said, "to see;"
And bade the Stygian streams his words record.
Appeas'd the goddess, Iö straight resumes
Her wonted shape, as lovely as before.
The rough hair flies; the crooked horns are shed;
Her visual orbits narrow; and her mouth
In size contracts; her arms and hands return;
Parted in five small nails her hoofs are lost:
Nought of the lovely heifer now remains,
Save the bright splendor. On her feet erect
With two now only furnish'd, stands the maid.
To speak she fears, lest bellowing sounds should break,
And timid tries her long-forgotten words.
Of mighty fame a goddess now, she hears
Of nations linen-clad the pious prayers.
Then bore she Epaphus, whose birth deriv'd
From mighty Jove, his temples through the land,
An equal worship with his mother's claim.
Him Phaëton, bright Phoebus' youthful son,
In years and spirit equall'd,--whose proud boasts,
To all his sire preferring, Iö's son
Thus check'd: "O simple! thee thy mother's arts
"To ought persuade. A feigned sire thou boast'st."
Deep blush'd the youth, but shame his rage repress'd,
And each reproach to Clymené he bore.
"This too," he says, "O mother, irks me more,
"That I so bold, so fierce, urg'd no defence:
"Which shame is greater? that they dare accuse,
"Or that accus'd, we cannot prove them false?
"Do thou my mother,--if from heaven indeed
"Descent I claim,--prove from what stock I spring.
"My race divine assert." He said,--and flung
Around her neck his arms; and by his life,
The life of Merops, and his sisters' hopes
Of nuptial bliss, adjures her to obtain
Proofs of his birth celestial. Prayers like these
The mother doubtless mov'd;--and rage no less
To hear the defamation. Up to heaven
Her arms she raises, gazing on the sun,
And cries,--"My child! by yon bright rays I swear
"In brilliance glittering, which now hear and view,
"Our every word and action--thou art sprung
"From him, the sun thou see'st;--the sun who rules
"With tempering sway the seasons:--If untrue
"My words, let me his light no more behold!
"Nor long the toil to seek thy father's dome,
"His palace whence he rises borders close
"On our land's confines.--If thou dar'st the task,
"Go forth, and from himself thy birth enquire."
Elate to hear her words, the youth departs
Instant, and all the sky in mind he grasps.
Through Æthiopia's regions swiftly went,
With India plac'd beneath the burning zone:
And quickly reach'd his own paternal east.
*The Second Book.*
Palace of the Sun. Phaëton's reception by his father. His request
to drive the chariot. The Sun's useless arguments to dissuade him
from the attempt. Description of the car. Cautions how to perform
the journey. Terror of Phaëton, and his inability to rule the
horses. Conflagration of the world. Petition of Earth to Jupiter,
and death of Phaëton by thunder. Grief of Clymené, and of his
sisters. Change of the latter to poplars, and their tears to
amber. Transformation of Cycnus to a swan. Mourning of Phoebus.
Jupiter's descent to earth; and amour with Calistho. Birth of
Arcas, and transformation of Calistho to a bear; and afterwards
with Arcas to a constellation. Story of Coronis. Tale of the daw
to the raven. Change of the raven's color. Esculapius. Ocyrrhoë's
prophecies, and transformation to a mare. Apollo's herds stolen
by Mercury. Battus' double-dealing, and change to a touchstone.
Mercury's love for Hersé. Envy. Aglauros changed to a statue.
Rape of Europa.
THE *Second Book* OF THE METAMORPHOSES OF OVID.
By towering columns bright with burnish'd gold,
And fiery gems, which blaz'd their light around,
Upborne, the palace stood. The lofty roof
With ivory smooth incas'd. The folding doors,
Of silver shone, but much by sculpture grac'd,
For Vulcan there with curious hand had carv'd
The ocean girding in the land; the land;
And heaven o'ershadowing: here cerulean gods
Sport in the waves, grim Triton with his shell;
Proteus shape-changing; and Ægeon huge,--
His mighty arms upon the large broad backs
Of whales hard pressing: Doris and her nymphs:
Some sportive swimming; on a rocky seat
Some their green tresses drying; others borne
By fish swift-gliding: nor the same all seem'd,
Yet sister-like a close resembling look
Each face pervaded. Earth her natives bore,
Mankind;--and woods, and cities, there were seen;
Wild beasts, and streams, and nymphs, and rural gods.
'Bove all the bright display of heaven was hung--
Six signs celestial o'er each portal grav'd.
The daring youth, the steep ascent attain'd,
O'erstepp'd the threshold of his dubious sire,
And hasty rush'd to meet paternal eyes;
But sudden stay'd: so fierce a blaze of light
No nearer he sustain'd. In purple clad,
The god a regal emerald throne upheld;
Encircled round by hours which space the day;
By days themselves; and ages, months, and
|
, the editor was not in his
own study, but was "taking his turn" at the pap-spoon of the Duke of
CORNWALL!
Betty, the editor's housemaid, has given warning, declaring that she
cannot live with any gentleman who insists upon taking her in his arms,
and tossing her up and down as if she was no more than a baby; at the same
time making a chirruping noise with his mouth, and calling her "poppet"
and "chickabiddy." Well, we allow all this, and boldly ask, What of it? We
grant the "poppet;" we concede the "chickabiddy;" and then sternly inquire
if an excess of loyalty is to impugn the reason of the most ratiocinative
editor? Does not the thing speak for itself? If BETTY were not a fool, she
would know that her master--good, regular man!--meant nothing more than,
under the auspices of Mrs. LILLY, to dandle the Duke of CORNWALL.
A taxgatherer, calling upon the editor for the Queen's taxes, could get
nothing out of our respected friend, but "Ride a cock-horse to Bamberry
Cross!" If taxgatherers were not at once the most vindictive and the most
stupid of men (it is said Sir ROBERT has ordered them to be very
carnivorous this Christmas), the fellow would never have called in a
broker to alarm our excellent coadjutor, but would at once have seen that
the genius of the _Athenæum_ was taking his turn in Buckingham Palace,
singing a nursery _canzonetta_ to the Duke of CORNWALL!
And is it for these, to us beautiful evidences of an absorbing loyalty--of
a feeling that is true as truth, for if it was a mere conventional flame
we should take no note of it--that the editor of the _Athenæum_, a most
grave, considerate gentleman, should be cited to Gray's-inn Coffee-house,
and by an ignorant and unimaginative mob of jurymen voted incapable of
writing reviews upon his own books, or the books of other people?
The question that we would here open is one of great and social political
importance. There is an end of personal liberty if the enthusiasm of
loyalty is to be visited as madness. For our part, we have the fullest
belief in the avowal of the poor man of the _Athenæum_, that for half a
day he is--in fancy--watching the little Prince in Buckingham nursery; and
yet we see that men are deprived of enormous fortunes (we tremble for the
copyright of the _Athenæum_) for indulging in stories, with equal
probability on the face of them. For instance, a few days since WEEKS, a
Greenwich pensioner, (being suddenly rich, the reporters call him _Mister_
WEEKS,) was fobbed out of 120,000l. for having boasted (among other
things) that he had had children by Queen ELIZABETH (by the way, the
virginity of Royal BETSY has before been questioned)--that he intended to
marry Queen VICTORIA, and that, in fact, not GEORGE THE THIRD but WEEKS
THE FIRST was the father of Queen CHARLOTTE'S offspring. Now, what is all
this, but loyalty _in excess_? Is it not precisely the same feeling that
takes the editor of the _Athenæum_ half of every day from his family,
spellbinding him at the cradle of the Duke of CORNWALL? Cannot our readers
just as easily believe the pensioner as the editor? We can.
"He told me he was going to marry the Queen" (thus speaks Sir R. DOBSON,
chief medical officer of Greenwich Hospital, of poor WEEKS), "and _I had
him cupped_ and treated as an insane patient!" Can the editor hope to
escape blood-letting and a shaven head? "He told me he was going to dine
to-day at Buckingham Palace." Thus spoke WEEKS. "Half the day at least we
are in fancy at the Palace;" thus boasteth the _Athenæum_. The pensioner
is found "incapable of managing himself or his affairs:" the editor
continues to review books and write articles! "He (WEEKS) also said he had
once horse-whipped a lion until it became afraid of him!" Where is
CARTER--where VAN AMBURGH, if not in Bedlam? Lucky, indeed, is it for the
editor of the _Athenæum_ that his weekly miscellany (wherein he _thinks_
he sometimes horse-whips lions) is not quite worth 120,000l. Otherwise,
certain would be his summons to Gray's-inn.
We have rejoiced, as beseemed us, at the birth of the little Prince; it
now becomes our grave moral duty to read a lesson of forbearance to those
enthusiastic people who--especially if they have money--may by an excess
of the principle of loyalty put in peril their personal freedom. Let them
not take confidence from the safety enjoyed by the _Athenæum_ editor--the
poverty of the press may protect him. If, however, he and other
influential wizards of the broad sheet, succeed in making loyalty not a
rational principle, but a mania--if, day by day, and week by week, they
insist upon deifying poor infirm humanity, exalting themselves in their
own conceit, in their very self-abasement--they may escape an individual
accusation in the general folly. When we are all mad alike--when we all,
with the editor of the _Athenæum_, take our half-day's watch at the little
Prince's cradle--when every man and woman throughout the empire believe
themselves making royal pap and airing royal baby-linen--then, whatever
fortune we may have we may be safe from the fate of poor WEEKS, the
Greenwich pensioner, who, we repeat, is most unjustly confined for his
notions of royalty, seeing that many of our contemporaries are still left
at liberty to write and publish. Poor dear little PRINCE! if fed and
nourished from your cradle upwards upon such stuff as that pressed upon
you since your birth, what deep, what powerful sympathies will be yours
with the natures of your fellow-men--what lofty notions of kingly
usefulness, and kingly duty!
It may be that certain writers think they best oppose the advancing spirit
of the time--questioning as it does the "divinity" that hedges the
throne--by adopting the worse than foolish adulation of a by-gone age. In
a silly flippant book just published--a thing called _Cecil_--the author
speaks of the first appearance of VICTORIA in the House of Lords. He
says--
"An unaccountable feeling _of trust_ rose in my bosom. I speak it not
profanely--[when a writer says this, be sure of it that, as in the present
case, he goes deep as he can in profanation]--when I say _that the idea of
the yet unknown Saviour_, a child among the Doctors of the Temple,
occurred spontaneously to my mind!"
Now this book has been daubed with honey; the writer has been promised "an
European reputation" (Madame LAFFARGE has a reputation equally extensive),
and he is at this moment to be found upon drawing-tables, whose owners
would scream--or affect to scream--as at an adder, at SHELLEY. Nay,
Shelley's publisher is found guilty of blasphemy in the Court of Queen's
Bench; and that within these few months. We should like to know Lord
Denman's opinions of Mr. BOONE. What would he say of Queen Victoria being
compared to the Redeemer--of Lord LONDONDERRY, _et hoc genus omne_, being
"Doctors of the Temple?"
A writer in the _Almanach des Gourmands_ says, in praise of a certain
viand, "this is a dish to be eaten on your knees." There are writers who,
with, goose-quill in hand, never approach royalty, but they--write upon
their knees!
Q.
* * * * *
PUNCH'S PENCILLINGS.--No. XXII.
[Illustration: JACK CUTTING HIS NAME ON THE BEAM.]
* * * * *
PUNCH'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE.
INTERNATIONAL GEOGRAPHY.
The Fleet is a very peculiar isolated kingdom, bounded on the north by the
wall to the north or north wall; on the south, by the wall to the south or
south wall; on the east, by the wall to the east or east wall; and on the
west, by the wall to the west or west wall. The manners and habits of the
natives are marked with many extraordinary peculiarities; and some of the
local customs are of an exceedingly interesting character.
The derivation of the word "Fleet" has caused many controversies, and we
believe is even now involved in much mystery, and subject to much dispute.
Some commentators have endeavoured to establish an analogy between the
words "_fleet_" and "fast," with the view of showing that these being
nearly synonymous terms, "the fleet is a corruption from the fast, or keep
_fast_." Others again contend the origin to be purely nautical, inasmuch
as this country, like the ships in war time, is mostly peopled with
_pressed men_. While a third class argue that the name was originally one
of warning, traditionally handed down from father to son by the
inhabitants of the surrounding countries (with whom this land has never
been in high favour), and that the addition of the letter _T_ renders the
phrase perfect, leaving the caution thus, _Flee-it_--now contracted and
perverted into the commonly used term of _Fleet_.
As we are only the showmen about to exhibit "the lions and the dogs," we
merely put forward these deductions, and tell our readers they are welcome
to choose "which_h_ever they please, _h_our little dears!" while we will
at once proceed to describe the manners and habits of the natives.
One great peculiarity in connexion with this strange people is, that the
inhabitants are, from the first moment of their appearance, invariably
adults; and we can positively assert the almost incredible fact, that no
_bonâ fide_ occupant of these realms was ever seen in any part of their
domain in the hands of a nurse, enveloped in the long clothes worn by many
of the infants of the surrounding nations. Like the Spartan youths, all
these people undergo a long course of training, and exceed the age of
one-and-twenty before they are deemed worthy of admission into the ranks
of these singular hordes. They have no actual sovereign, but merely two
traditionary beings, to whom they bow with most abject servility. These
imaginary potentates are always alluded to under the fearful names of
"John Doe and Richard Roe;" though they are never seen, still their edicts
are all-powerful, their commands extending to the most distant regions,
and carrying captivity and caption-fees wherever they go. These _firmans_
are entrusted to the charge of a peculiar race of beings, commonly called
officers to the sheriff. There is something exceedingly interesting in the
ceremonious attendant upon the execution of one of these potent fiats: the
manner is as follows. Having received the orders of "John Doe and Richard
Roe," they proceed to the residence of their intended captive, and with
consummate skill, like the Eastern tellers of tales, commence their
business by the repetition of some ingenious story (called in the language
of the captured, _lie_), wherein the Bumme Bayllyffe (such is their title)
artfully represents himself "as a cousin from the country," an "uncle from
town," or some near and dear long expected and anxiously-looked-for
returned-from-abroad friend. Should their endeavours fail in procuring the
desired interview, they frequently have resort to the following practice.
With the right-hand finger and thumb they open a small aperture in the
side of a species of garment, generally manufactured from drab broadcloth,
in which they encase their lower extremities, and having thrust their hand
to the very bottom of the said opening, they produce a peculiarly musical
sound by jingling various round pieces of white money, which so entrances
the feelings of the domestic with whom they are discoursing, that his eyes
become fixed upon the hand of the operater the moment the sound ceases and
it is withdrawn. The Bumme Bayllyffe then winketh his right eye, and with
great rapidity depositeth a curious-looking coin, of the value of five
shillings, in the hand of the domestic, who thereupon pointeth with his
dexter thumb over his left shoulder to a small china closet, in which the
enemy of John Doe and Richard Roe is found, his Wellington boots sticking
out of the hamper, under the straw in which the rest of his person is
deposited.
The Bumme Bayllyffe having called him loudly by his name, showeth his
writ, steppeth up, and tappeth him once gently upon the shoulder,
whereupon the ceremony is completed, and the future inmate of the Fleet
departeth with the Bumme Bayllyffe.
The first thing that attracts the attention of the captured of John Doe
and Richard Roe is the great care with which the entrance to his new
country is guarded. Four officials of the warden or minister of the said
John and Richard alternately remain in actual possession of that
interesting pass, to each of whom the new-comer submits his face and
figure for actual and earnest inspection, for the reason that should the
said new arrival by any means pass their boundary, they themselves would
suffer much disgrace and obliquy; having undergone this inspection, he
then proceeds to the interior of these strange domains.
Walls! walls!! walls!!! meet him on every side; and by some strange manner
of judging the new-comer is immediately known as such.
The costume of the natives differs widely from the usually sported
habiliments of more extended nations; caps worn by small boys in other
climes here decorated the heads of the most venerable elders, and
peculiarly-cut dressing-gowns do duty for the discarded broadcloth of a
Stultz, a Nugee, or a Willis.
The new man's conformity with the various customs of the inmates is one of
the most curious facts on record. We have been favoured with the following
table or scale by which time regulates the gradual advancement to
perfection of a genuine "Fleety":--
_First Week._--Ring; union-pin; watch; straps; clean boots; ditto shirt;
shave; and light waistcoat.
_Second Week._--Slippers in passage; no straps to boots; rub on toe; dirty
hall; fresh dickey; black vest; two days' beard.--[_Exit ring_.]
_Third Week._--Full-bosomed stock; one bracer; indication of white chalk
on seat of duck trousers; blue striped shirt; no vest; shooting jacket;
small imperial.--[_Exeunt union-pin and watch._]
_Fourth Week._--White collar; blue shirt; slippers various; boots a little
over at heel; incipient moustache; silk pocket-handkerchief round neck;
and a fortnight's splashes on trousers.
_Fifth Week._--Red ochre outline of increased whiskers, flourishing
imperial, and chevaux-de-frise moustache; dirty shirt; French cap; Jersey
over-all; one slipper and a boot; meerschaum; dressing-gown; and principal
seat at the free and easy.
_Sixth._--Everything in the "_worser_ line;" called by christian name by
their bed-maker; hold their tongues, in consideration of three weeks'
arrears, at four shillings a week; and then _all's done_, and the
inhabitant is complete.
* * * * *
ELEGANT PHRASES.
There are people now-a-days who peruse with pleasure the works of Homer,
Juvenal, and other poets and satirists of the old school; and it is not
unlikely that centuries hence persons will be found turning back to the
pages of the writers of the present day (especially PUNCH), and we rather
just imagine they will be not a little puzzled and flabbergasted to
discover the meaning, or wit, of some of those elegant phrases and figures
of speech so generally used by this enlightened and reformed age! The
following brief elucidation of a few of these may serve for present
ignoramuses, and also for future inquirers.
_That's the Ticket for Soup._--Is one of the commonest, and originated
several years ago, we have discovered, after much study and research, when
a portion of the inhabitants of this wicked lower globe were suffering
under a malady, called by learned and scientific men "poverty," and were
supplied by the rich and benevolent with a mixture of hot water, turnips,
and a spice of beef, under the name of soup. There are two kinds of
tickets for soups in existence in London at present--
1. The Ticket for Turtle Soup, or a ticket to a Lord Mayor's Feast. It is
only necessary to add, these are in much request.
2. The Ticket for Mendicity Society Soup. Beggars and such-like members of
society monopolize these tickets; and it has lately been discovered by a
celebrated philanthropist that no respectable person was ever known to
make use of one of them. This is a remarkable fact, and worthy the
attention of the anti-monopolists. These tickets are bought and sold like
merchandise, and their average value in the market is about one halfpenny.
_How's your Mother._--This affectionate inquiry is generally coupled with
_Has she Sold her Mangle._--"Mangling done here" is an announcement which
meets the eye in several quarters of this metropolis; and when the last
census was taken by the author of the "Lights and Shadows of London Life,"
the important discovery was made that this branch of business is commonly
carried on by old ladies. The importance (especially to the landlord) of
the answer to this query is at once perceivable.
We scarcely expect a monument to be raised to PUNCH for these discoveries;
though if we had our deserts--but _verbum sap_.
* * * * *
SONGS FOR THE SENTIMENTAL.--No. 13.
Yes! we have said the word adieu!
A blight has fallen on my soul!
And bliss, that angels never knew,
Is torn from me, by fate's control!
And yet the tear I shed at parting,
Was "all my eye and Betty Martin!"
And _thou_ hast sworn that never more
Thy heart shall bow to passion's spell;
But ever sadly ponder o'er
The anguish of our last farewell!
Yet, as you still are in your teens--
_I_ say, "tell that to the Marines!"
And still perchance thy faithful heart
May pine, and break, when I am gone!
While bitter tears, unbidden, start,
As oft thou musest--sad and lone!
I've read such things in many a tale--
But yet it's "very like a whale!"
* * * * *
PEN AND PALETTE PORTRAITS.
(TAKEN FROM THE FRENCH.)
BY ALPHONSE LECOURT.
_Paris, Passage de l'Opéra, Escalier B. au 3ème._
MY DEAR PUNCH,
I salute you with reverence--I embrace you with affection--I thank you
with devout gratitude, for the many delightful moments I have enjoyed in
your society. I regularly read your "London Charivari:" it is
magnificent--superb! What wit--what _agacerie_--what exquisite badinage is
contained in every line of it! You are the veritable monarch of English
humour. Hail, then, great _fun-ambule_, PUNCH THE FIRST! Long may you
live, to flourish your invincible baton, and to increase the number of
your laughing subjects. Your "Physiology of the Medical Student" has been
translated, and the avidity with which it is read here has suggested to me
the idea that sketches of French character might be equally popular
amongst English readers. With this hope I send yon the commencement of a
Physiological and Pictorial Portrait of "THE LOVER." I have chosen him for
my leading character, because his madness will be understood by the whole
world. Love, _mon cher ami_, is not a local passion, it grows everywhere
like--but I am anticipating my subject, which I now commit to your hands.
With sentiments of the profoundest respect and esteem,
ALPHONSE LECOURT.
* * * * *
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE LOVER.]
CHAPTER I.
THE AUTHOR DEDICATES HIS WORK TO THE FAIRER HALF OF THE CREATION.
[Illustration: G]Gentle woman!--Beautiful enigma!--whose magnetic glances
and countless charms subdue man's sterner nature--to you I dedicate the
following pages. The subject on which I am about to treat is the gravest,
the lightest, the most decided, the most undefined, the most earthly, the
most spiritual, the saddest, and the gayest, the most individual, and at
the same time the most universal you can imagine. To you, ladies, I
address myself. You who form the keys on which the eternal and infinite
gamut of love has been run from creation's first hour till the present
moment--tell me how I may best touch the chords of your hearts? Come
around me, ye earthly divinities of every age, rank, and imaginable
variety! Buds of blushing sixteen, full-blown roses of thirty, haughty
court dames, and smiling city beauties, come like delicious phantoms, and
fill my mind with images graceful as your own forms, and melting as your
own hearts! Thanks, gentle spirits! ye have heard my call, and now,
inspired by you, I seize my pen, and give to my paper the thoughts which
crowd upon my mind.
WHAT IS LOVE?
It is easier to answer this question by a thousand instances, than by one
definition, which can comprehend them all. What is Love? It is anything
you please. It is a prism, through which the eye beholds the same object
in various colours; it is a heaven of bliss, or a hell of torture; a
thirst of the heart--an appetite which we spiritualize; a pure expansion
of the soul, but which sooner or later becomes metamorphosed into an
animal passion--a diamond statue with feet of clay. It is a dream--a
delirium, a desire for danger, and a hope of conquest; it is that which
everyone abjures, and everyone covets; it is the end, the great end, and
the only end of life. Love, in short, is a tyrannical influence which none
can escape; and however metaphysicians may define the passion, it appears
to me that it is wholly dependent on the mysterious
[Illustration: LAWS OF ATTRACTION.]
A FEW WORDS ABOUT YOUNG LADIES.
A young lady, I mean one who has but recently thrown aside her dolls, is a
bashful blushing little puppet, who only acts, speaks, and moves as mama
directs. She is a statue of flesh and blood, not yet animated by the
Promethean fire--a chrysalis, which may one day become a beautiful
butterfly, fluttering on silken wing amidst a crowd of adorers; but she is
yet only a chrysalis, pale and cold, and wrapped up in a thousand
conventional restrictions, like a mummy in its swathes.
The _very_ young lady is usually prodigiously careful of her little self:
she regards men as her natural enemies. Poor innocent!--This absurdity is
the fault of her education. They have made her believe that love is the
most abominable, execrable, infernal thing in existence. They have taught
her to lie and to dissimulate her most innocent emotions. But the time is
not far distant when the natural impulses of her heart will break down the
barriers that hypocrisy has placed around her. Woman was formed to love:
she must obey the imperious law of her being, and will love the moment her
inspirations for the _belle passion_ become stronger than her reason. I
may add, also, that when a young lady discovers a tendency this way, it
may be safely conjectured the object on which she will bestow her favour
is not very distant.
THE AUTHOR'S DIVISION OF HIS SYSTEM.
It has been a long-established axiom that there is but one great principle
of love; but then it assumes various phases, according to the thousands of
circumstances under which it is exhibited, and which, to speak in the
language of philosophy, it would be impossible to synthetise. Time, place,
age, the very season of the year, the ruling passion, peace or war,
education, the instincts of the heart, the health of the body and the mind
(if it be possible for the latter to be in a sane state when we fall in
love), the buoyancy of youth or the decrepitude of old age,--these, and
numerous other causes which I cannot at present enumerate, serve to modify
to infinity the form and character of the sentiment. Thus we do not love
at eighteen as we do at forty, nor in the city as we do in the country,
nor in spring as we do in autumn, nor in the camp as we do in the court;
nor does the ignorant man love like a learned one; the merchant does not
love like the lawyer; nor does the latter love like the doctor. It is upon
these different phases in the character of love that I have founded my
system. Next week I shall endeavour to describe some of the traits which
distinguish "The Lover." Till then, fair readers,--I remain your devoted
slave.
WITNESS MY
[Illustration: HAND AND SEAL.]
[Illustration: Alph. Lecourt]
* * * * *
GRANT'S MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS.
We had long considered ourselves the funniest dogs in Christendee; and, in
the plenitude of our vanity, imagined that we monopolised the attention
and admiration of the present and the future. We expected to be deified,
and thus become the founders of a new mythology. PUNCH must be immortal!
But how shorn of his pristine splendour--how denuded of his fancied
glories! for the _John Bull_ has discovered--
GRANT'S LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF LONDON LIFE.
Wretched as we must be at this reflection, we generously resort to--our
scissors, and publish our own discomfiture.
In alluding to the author's description of the London dining-room, the
_John Bull_ remarks:--
It will bring comfort to the savage bosoms of the late Ministry, for whose
especial information we must make a few more extracts, concerning
coffee-houses, or shops, as they are mostly termed.
COFFEE SHOPS.
The second class of coffee-houses, and those I have particularly in my
eye, are altogether different from those I have just mentioned. The prices
are remarkably moderate in most of these places; the charge is no more
than three-halfpence for half a pint of coffee, or _threepence for a whole
pint_. The price of half a pint of tea is twopence, _of a whole pint
fourpence_. If you simply ask bread to your tea or coffee, two large
slices, well buttered, are brought you, for which you are charged
twopence. Or should you prefer having a penny roll, or any other sort of
bread, you can have it at the same price as at the baker's.
In most coffee-houses, you may also have chops or steaks for dinner. If
the party be a _rigid economist(!)_ he may, as regards some of these
_establishments_, purchase his steak or chop himself, and it will be
prepared gratuitously for him; but if that be too much trouble for him to
take, and he prefers ordering it at once, he will get, in many houses, his
chop with bread and potatoes with it for sixpence, and his steak for
ninepence or tenpence.
These coffee-houses have many advantages over hotels, besides the great
difference in the prices charged. In the first place, there is not so much
_formality_ or _affected dignity_ about them, and they are far better
provided with means of rational amusement; and the promptitude with which
a customer is served is really surprising.
Are not these passages declarations of the individual? Winding himself up
with twopenny-worth of cheese! Pleading for the additional penny for the
waitress, whose personal charms and obliging disposition must be
considered to extort the amount! And above all, unable to conceive any
motive, except aversion to trouble, for disliking to carry "his chop" upon
a skewer through the streets of London. How every line revels in the
recollection of having dined, and speaks how seldom! while the
_well-buttered_ bread infers the usual fare. Still it is not meanly
written. There are a glorying and exultation in every word that redeem it,
and show the author is more to be envied than compassionated; though a
little further on we perceive the shifts to which his homeless state has
reduced him.
MEDITATION IN LONDON.
You can order, if you please, a cup of coffee without anything to it; and,
for so doing, you may sit if you wish for five or six hours in succession.
I have said that coffee-houses are excellent places for reading; I might
have added, for _meditation_ also. For unlike public-houses, there are no
noisy discussions and disputes in them. All is calm, tranquil, and
comfortable. The beverage, too, which is drank as a beverage, as I before
remarked in a previous chapter, _cheers, but not inebriates_.
The remarks are generally equally original, and the facts, no doubt in
some degree truths, are all alike humorous; the more so when the aspect of
the book and the names of the respectable publishers suggest the higher
class of readers to whom it is addressed. Little anecdotes are
interspersed, concerning Harriet, of Coventry-street, who didn't mind her
stops; and James, behind the Mansion-house, who knew everybody's appetite,
that enliven the descriptive portions of the work, which is in its very
inappropriateness the more amusing, and cannot be read without reaping
both information and instruction on topics which no other author would
have had the temerity to discuss.
But these are only words. Let PUNCH, the rival of this Caledonian
Asmodeus, do justice to the man whose "character is stamped on every page
(of his own), who yet is above pity; poor, yet full of enjoyment; humble,
yet glorious; ignorant, yet confident."
[Illustration: GRANT'S MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS.]
* * * * *
THE MONEY MARKET.
Tin is 14 per cwt. in London, and this, allowing a fraction for wear and
tear, gives an exchange of 94 36-27ths in favour of Hamburgh.
The money market is much easier this week, and bills (play-bills) were to
be had in large quantities. A large capitalist who holds turnpike tickets
to a large amount, caused much confusion by letting some pass from his
hands, when they flew about with alarming rapidity. Several persons seemed
desirous of taking them up, but a rush of bulls (from Smithfield) rendered
this quite impossible.
Whitechapel scrip was done at 000 _premium_; but in the course of the day
00000 discount was freely offered.
This was settling day, when many parties paid the scores they had been
running at the cook-shop opposite. There was only one defaulter, and as it
was not anticipated he would come up to the mark; for he had been chalking
up rather largely of late: nothing was said about it.
* * * * *
A DICTIONARY FOR THE LADIES.
PUNCH,
Solicitous to maintain and enhance that reputation for gallantry towards
his fair readers which it has ever been his pride to have merited, has
much pleasure, not unmixed with self-congratulation, in thus announcing to
the loveliest portion of the creation the immediate appearance of
A DICTIONARY ENTIRELY AND EXCLUSIVELY FOR THEIR USE;
in which the signification of every word will he given in a strictly
feminine sense, and the orthography, as a point of which ladies like to be
properly independent, will be studiously suppressed. The whole to be
compiled and edited by
MADAME PUNCH.
To which will be appended a little Manual addressed confidentially by
PUNCH himself to the Ladies, and entitled
TEN MINUTES' ADVICE ON THE CARE AND USE OF A HUSBAND;
or "what to ask, and how to insist upon it, so that the obstreperous
bridegroom may become a meek and humble husband."
SPECIMEN OF THE WORK.
_Husband_.--A person who writes cheques, and dresses as his wife directs.
_Duck_, _in ornithology_.--A trussed bridegroom, with his giblets under his
arm.
_Brute_.--A domestic endearment for a husband.
_Marriage_.--The only habit to which women are constant.
_Lover_.--Any young man but a brother-in-law.
_Clergyman_.--One alternative of a lover.
_Brother_.--The other alternative.
_Honeymoon_.--A wife's opportunity.
_Horrid_; _Hideous_.--Terms of admiration elicited by the sight of a lovely
face anywhere but in the looking-glass.
_Nice_; _Dear_.--Expressions of delight at anything, from a baby to a
barrel-organ.
_Appetite_.--A monstrous abortion, which is stifled in the kitchen, that
it may not exist during dinner.
_Wrinkle_.--The first thing one lady sees in another's face.
_Time_.--What any lady remarks in a watch, but what none detect in the
gross.
* * * * *
SOUP, A LA JULIEN.
A correspondent of the _Sunday Times_ proposes to raise ten thousand for
the benefit of the labouring classes, in the following manner:--
"Upon a _prima facie_ view, my suggestion may appear impracticable, but I
am sure the above amount could be raised for the benefit of the labouring
classes by one effort of royalty--an effort that would make our valued
Queen invaluable, and, at the same time, afford the Ministry an
opportunity of making themselves popular in the cause of their country's
good. Westminster Hall is acknowledged to be the largest room in the
empire, and, with very little expense, might be fitted up with a temporary
throne, &c., for promenade concerts, for one, two, or three, days. All the
vocal and instrumental talent of the day would be obtained gratis, and Her
Most Gracious Majesty's presence, for only two hours on each day, with the
admission tickets at one guinea, would produce more money than I have
mentioned." Would the above amiable philanthropist favour us with his
likeness? We imagine it would be a splendid
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT OF HOOKEY WALKER.]
* * * * *
POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE.
SIR ROBERT PEEL was observed to put a penny into the hands of the man at
the crossing in Downing-street. It is anticipated, from this trifling
circumstance, that _sweeping_ measures will be introduced on the
assembling of Parliament.
A deputation from the marrow-bones and cleavers waited on Lord Stanley at
the Treasury. His lordship listened attentively for some minutes, and then
abruptly left the apartment in which he had been sitting.
We understand that Colonel Sibthorp intends proposing an economical plan
of church extension, that is to cost nothing to the public; for it
suggests that churches should be built of Indian rubber, by which their
extension would become a matter of the greatest facility.
It is rumoured that the deficiency in the revenue is to be made up by a
tax on the
|
eats the
Enemy.--Attacked by Rosecrans.--Controversy between Wise and
Floyd.--General R. E. Lee takes the Command in West Virginia.--Movement
on Cheat Mountain.--Its Failure.--Further Operations.--Winter
Quarters.--Lee sent to South Carolina.
CHAPTER XI.
The Issue.--The American Idea of Government.--Who was responsible for
the War?--Situation of Virginia.--Concentration of the Enemy against
Richmond.--Our Difficulty.--Unjust Criticisms.--The Facts set
forth.--Organization of the Army.--Conference at Fairfax
Court-House.--Inaction of the Army.--Capture of Romney.--Troops ordered
to retire to the Valley.--Discipline.--General Johnston regards his
Position as unsafe.--The First Policy.--Retreat of General
Johnston.--The Plans of the Enemy.--Our Strength magnified by the
Enemy.--Stores destroyed.--The Trent Affair.
CHAPTER XII.
Supply of Arms at the Beginning of the War; of Powder; of Batteries; of
other Articles.--Contents of Arsenals.--Other Stores, Mills, etc.--First
Efforts to obtain Powder, Niter, and Sulphur.--Construction of Mills
commenced.--Efforts to supply Arms, Machinery, Field-Artillery,
Ammunition, Equipment, and Saltpeter.--Results in 1862.--Government
Powder-Mills; how organized.--Success.--Efforts to obtain
Lead.--Smelting-Works.--Troops, how armed.--Winter of 1862.--Supplies.--
Niter and Mining Bureau.--Equipment of First Armies.--Receipts by
Blockade-Runners.--Arsenal at Richmond.--Armories at Richmond and
Fayetteville.--A Central Laboratory built at Macon.--Statement of
General Gorgas.--Northern Charge against General Floyd answered.--
Charge of Slowness against the President answered.--Quantities of
Arms purchased that could not be shipped in 1861.--Letter of Mr. Huse.
CHAPTER XIII.
Extracts from my Inaugural.--Our Financial System: Receipts and
Expenditures of the First Year.--Resources, Loans, and Taxes.--Loans
authorized.--Notes and Bonds.--Funding Notes.--Treasury Notes guaranteed
by the States.--Measure to reduce the Currency.--Operation of the
General System.--Currency fundable.--Taxation.--Popular
Aversion.--Compulsory Reduction of the Currency.--Tax Law.--Successful
Result.--Financial Condition of the Government at its Close.--Sources
whence Revenue was derived.--Total Public Debt.--System of Direct Taxes
and Revenue.--The Tariff.--War-Tax of Fifty Cents on a Hundred
Dollars.--Property subject to it.--Every Resource of the Country to be
reached.--Tax paid by the States mostly.--Obstacle to the taking of the
Census.--The Foreign Debt.--Terms of the Contract.--Premium.--False
charge against me of Repudiation.--Facts stated.
CHAPTER XIV.
Military Laws and Measures.--Agricultural Products
diminished.--Manufactures flourishing.--The Call for Volunteers.--The
Term of Three Years.--Improved Discipline.--The Law assailed.--Important
Constitutional Question raised.--Its Discussion at Length.--Power of the
Government over its own Armies and the Militia.--Object of
Confederations.--The War-Powers granted.--Two Modes of raising Armies in
the Confederate States.--Is the Law necessary and proper?--Congress is
the Judge under the Grant of Specific Power.--What is meant by
Militia.--Whole Military Strength divided into Two Classes.--Powers of
Congress.--Objections answered.--Good Effects of the Law.--The
Limitations enlarged.--Results of the Operations of these Laws.--Act for
the Employment of Slaves.--Message to Congress.--"Died of a
Theory."--Act to use Slaves as Soldiers passed.--Not Time to put it in
Operation.
APPENDIXES.
[Transcriber's Note: There is no Appendix A.]
APPENDIX B.
Speech of the Author on the Oregon Question
APPENDIX C.
Extracts from Speeches of the Author on the Resolutions of Compromise
proposed by Mr. Clay
On the Reception of a Memorial from Inhabitants of Pennsylvania and
Delaware, praying that Congress would adopt Measures for an Immediate
and Peaceful Dissolution of the Union
On the Resolutions of Mr. Clay relative to Slavery in the Territories
APPENDIX D.
Speech of the Author on the Message of the President of the United
States, transmitting to Congress the "Lecompton Constitution" of Kansas
APPENDIX E.
Address of the Author to Citizens of Portland, Maine
Address of the Author at a Public Meeting in Faneuil Hall, Boston; with
the Introductory Remarks by Caleb Cushing
APPENDIX F.
Speech of the Author in the Senate, on the Resolutions relative to the
Relations of the States, the Federal Government, and the Territories
APPENDIX G.
Correspondence between the Commissioners of South Carolina and the
President of the United States (Mr. Buchanan), relative to the Forts in
the Harbor of Charleston
APPENDIX H.
Speech of the Author on a Motion to print the Special Message of the
President of the United States of January 9, 1861
APPENDIX I.
Correspondence and Extracts from Correspondence relative to Fort Sumter,
from the Affair of the Star of the West, January 9, 1861, to the
Withdrawal of the Envoy of South Carolina from Washington, February 8,
1861
APPENDIX K.
The Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, adopted February
8, 1861
The Constitution of the United States and the Permanent Constitution of
the Confederate States, in Parallel Columns
APPENDIX L.
Correspondence between the Confederate Commissioners, Mr. Secretary
Seward, and Judge Campbell
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Jefferson Davis, aged Thirty-two
J. C. Calhoun
Briarfield, Early Residence of Mr. Davis
The First Confederate Cabinet
Alexander H. Stephens
General P. G. T. Beauregard
Members of President's Staff
General A. S. Johnston
General Robert E. Lee
Battle of Manassas (Map)
INTRODUCTION.
A duty to my countrymen; to the memory of those who died in defense of a
cause consecrated by inheritance, as well as sustained by conviction;
and to those who, perhaps less fortunate, staked all, and lost all, save
life and honor, in its behalf, has impelled me to attempt the
vindication of their cause and conduct. For this purpose I have decided
to present an historical sketch of the events which preceded and
attended the struggle of the Southern States to maintain their existence
and their rights as sovereign communities--the creators, not the
creatures, of the General Government.
The social problem of maintaining the just relation between
constitution, government, and people, has been found so difficult, that
human history is a record of unsuccessful efforts to establish it. A
government, to afford the needful protection and exercise proper care
for the welfare of a people, must have homogeneity in its constituents.
It is this necessity which has divided the human race into separate
nations, and finally has defeated the grandest efforts which conquerors
have made to give unlimited extent to their domain. When our fathers
dissolved their connection with Great Britain, by declaring themselves
free and independent States, they constituted thirteen separate
communities, and were careful to assert and preserve, each for itself,
its sovereignty and jurisdiction.
At a time when the minds of men are straying far from the lessons our
fathers taught, it seems proper and well to recur to the original
principles on which the system of government they devised was founded.
The eternal truths which they announced, the rights which they declared
"_unalienable_," are the foundation-stones on which rests the
vindication of the Confederate cause.
He must have been a careless reader of our political history who has not
observed that, whether under the style of "United Colonies" or "United
States," which was adopted after the Declaration of Independence,
whether under the articles of Confederation or the compact of Union,
there everywhere appears the distinct assertion of State sovereignty,
and nowhere the slightest suggestion of any purpose on the part of the
States to consolidate themselves into one body. Will any candid,
well-informed man assert that, at any time between 1776 and 1790, a
proposition to surrender the sovereignty of the States and merge them in
a central government would have had the least possible chance of
adoption? Can any historical fact be more demonstrable than that the
States did, both in the Confederation and in the Union, retain their
sovereignty and independence as distinct communities, voluntarily
consenting to federation, but never becoming the fractional parts of a
nation? That such opinions should find adherents in our day, may be
attributable to the natural law of aggregation; surely not to a
conscientious regard for the terms of the compact for union by the
States.
In all free governments the constitution or organic law is supreme over
the government, and in our Federal Union this was most distinctly marked
by limitations and prohibitions against all which was beyond the
expressed grants of power to the General Government. In the foreground,
therefore, I take the position that those who resisted violations of the
compact were the true friends, and those who maintained the usurpation
of undelegated powers were the real enemies of the constitutional Union.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
African Servitude.--A Retrospect.--Early Legislation with Regard
to the Slave-Trade.--The Southern States foremost in prohibiting
it.--A Common Error corrected.--The Ethical Question never at
Issue in Sectional Controversies.--The Acquisition of
Louisiana.--The Missouri Compromise.--The Balance of
Power.--Note.--The Indiana Case.
Inasmuch as questions growing out of the institution of negro servitude,
or connected with it, will occupy a conspicuous place in what is to
follow, it is important that the reader should have, in the very outset,
a right understanding of the true nature and character of those
questions. No subject has been more generally misunderstood or more
persistently misrepresented. The institution itself has ceased to exist
in the United States; the generation, comprising all who took part in
the controversies to which it gave rise, or for which it afforded a
pretext, is passing away; and the misconceptions which have prevailed in
our own country, and still more among foreigners remote from the field
of contention, are likely to be perpetuated in the mind of posterity,
unless corrected before they become crystallized by tacit acquiescence.
It is well known that, at the time of the adoption of the Federal
Constitution, African servitude existed in all the States that were
parties to that compact, unless with the single exception of
Massachusetts, in which it had, perhaps, very recently ceased to exist.
The slaves, however, were numerous in the Southern, and very few in the
Northern, States. This diversity was occasioned by differences of
climate, soil, and industrial interests--not in any degree by moral
considerations, which at that period were not recognized, as an element
in the question. It was simply because negro labor was more profitable
in the South than in the North that the importation of negro slaves had
been, and continued to be, chiefly directed to the Southern ports.[1]
For the same reason slavery was abolished by the States of the Northern
section (though it existed in several of them for more than fifty years
after the adoption of the Constitution), while the importation of slaves
into the South continued to be carried on by Northern merchants and
Northern ships, without interference in the traffic from any quarter,
until it was prohibited by the spontaneous action of the Southern States
themselves.
The Constitution expressly forbade any interference by Congress with the
slave-trade--or, to use its own language, with the "migration or
importation of such persons" as any of the States should think proper to
admit--"prior to the year 1808." During the intervening period of more
than twenty years, the matter was exclusively under the control of the
respective States. Nevertheless, every Southern State, without
exception, either had already enacted, or proceeded to enact, laws
forbidding the importation of slaves.[2] Virginia was the first of all
the States, North or South, to prohibit it, and Georgia was the first to
incorporate such a prohibition in her organic Constitution.
Two petitions for the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade were
presented February 11 and 12, 1790, to the very first Congress convened
under the Constitution.[3] After full discussion in the House of
Representatives, it was determined, with regard to the first-mentioned
subject, "that Congress have no authority to interfere in the
emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the
States"; and, with regard to the other, that no authority existed to
prohibit the migration or importation of such persons as the States
might think proper to admit--"prior to the year 1808." So distinct and
final was this statement of the limitations of the authority of Congress
considered to be that, when a similar petition was presented two or
three years afterward, the Clerk of the House was instructed to return
it to the petitioner.[4]
In 1807, Congress, availing itself of the very earliest moment at which
the constitutional restriction ceased to be operative, passed an act
prohibiting the importation of slaves into any part of the United States
from and after the first day of January, 1808. This act was passed with
great unanimity. In the House of Representatives there were one hundred
and thirteen (113) yeas to five (5) nays; and it is a significant fact,
as showing the absence of any sectional division of sentiment at that
period, that the five dissentients were divided as equally as possible
between the two sections: two of them were from Northern and three from
Southern States.[5]
The slave-trade had thus been finally abolished some months before the
birth of the author of these pages, and has never since had legal
existence in any of the United States. The question of the maintenance
or extinction of the system of negro servitude, already existing in any
State, was one exclusively belonging to such State. It is obvious,
therefore, that no subsequent question, legitimately arising in Federal
legislation, could properly have any reference to the merits or the
policy of the institution itself. A few zealots in the North afterward
created much agitation by demands for the abolition of slavery within
the States by Federal intervention, and by their activity and
perseverance finally became a recognized party, which, holding the
balance of power between the two contending organizations in that
section, gradually obtained the control of one, and to no small degree
corrupted the other. The dominant idea, however, at least of the
absorbed party, was sectional aggrandizement, looking to absolute
control, and theirs is the responsibility for the war that resulted.
No moral nor sentimental considerations were really involved in either
the earlier or later controversies which so long agitated and finally
ruptured the Union. They were simply struggles between different
sections, with diverse institutions and interests.
It is absolutely requisite, in order to a right understanding of the
history of the country, to bear these truths clearly in mind. The
phraseology of the period referred to will otherwise be essentially
deceptive. The antithetical employment of such terms as _freedom_ and
_slavery_, or "anti-slavery" and "pro-slavery," with reference to the
principles and purposes of contending parties or rival sections, has had
immense influence in misleading the opinions and sympathies of the
world. The idea of freedom is captivating, that of slavery repellent to
the moral sense of mankind in general. It is easy, therefore, to
understand the effect of applying the one set of terms to one party, the
other to another, in a contest which had no just application whatever to
the essential merits of freedom or slavery. Southern statesmen may
perhaps have been too indifferent to this consideration--in their ardent
pursuit of principles, overlooking the effects of phrases.
This is especially true with regard to that familiar but most fallacious
expression, "the extension of slavery." To the reader unfamiliar with
the subject, or viewing it only on the surface, it would perhaps never
occur that, as used in the great controversies respecting the
Territories of the United States, it does not, never did, and never
could, imply the addition of a single slave to the number already
existing. The question was merely whether the slaveholder should be
permitted to go, with his slaves, into territory (the common property of
all) into which the non-slaveholder could go with _his_ property of any
sort. There was no proposal nor desire on the part of the Southern
States to reopen the slave-trade, which they had been foremost in
suppressing, or to add to the number of slaves. It was a question of the
distribution, or dispersion, of the slaves, rather than of the
"extension of slavery." Removal is not extension. Indeed, if
emancipation was the end to be desired, the dispersion of the negroes
over a wider area among additional Territories, eventually to become
States, and in climates unfavorable to slave-labor, instead of
hindering, would have promoted this object by diminishing the
difficulties in the way of ultimate emancipation.
The distinction here defined between the distribution, or dispersion, of
slaves and the extension of slavery--two things altogether different,
although so generally confounded--was early and clearly drawn under
circumstances and in a connection which justify a fuller notice.
Virginia, it is well known, in the year 1784, ceded to the United
States--then united only by the original Articles of Confederation--her
vast possessions northwest of the Ohio, from which the great States of
Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota,
have since been formed. In 1787--before the adoption of the Federal
Constitution--the celebrated "Ordinance" for the government of this
Northwestern Territory was adopted by the Congress, with the full
consent, and indeed at the express instance, of Virginia. This Ordinance
included six definite "Articles of compact between the original States
and the people and States in the said Territory," which were to "for
ever remain unalterable unless by common consent." The sixth of these
articles ordains that "there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of
crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
In December, 1805, a petition of the Legislative Council and House of
Representatives of the Indiana Territory--then comprising all the area
now occupied by the States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and
Wisconsin--was presented to Congress. It appears from the proceedings of
the House of Representatives that several petitions of the same purport
from inhabitants of the Territory, accompanied by a letter from William
Henry Harrison, the Governor (afterward President of the United States),
had been under consideration nearly two years earlier. The prayer of
these petitions was for a _suspension_ of the sixth article of the
Ordinance, so as to permit the introduction of slaves into the
Territory. The whole subject was referred to a select committee of seven
members, consisting of representatives from Virginia, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Kentucky, and New York, and the delegate
from the Indiana Territory.
On the 14th of the ensuing February (1806), this committee made a report
favorable to the prayer of the petitioners, and recommending a
suspension of the prohibitory article for ten years. In their report the
committee, after stating their opinion that a qualified suspension of
the article in question would be beneficial to the people of the Indiana
Territory, proceeded to say:
"The suspension of this article is an object almost universally
desired in that Territory. It appears to your committee to be a
question entirely different from that between slavery and
freedom, inasmuch as it would merely occasion the removal of
persons, already slaves, from one part of the country to
another. The good effects of this suspension, in the present
instance, would be to accelerate the population of that
Territory, hitherto retarded by the operation of that article of
compact; as slaveholders emigrating into the Western country
might then indulge any preference which they might feel for a
settlement in the Indiana Territory, instead of seeking, as they
are now compelled to do, settlements in other States or
countries permitting the introduction of slaves. The condition
of the slaves themselves would be much ameliorated by it, as it
is evident, from experience, that the more they are separated
and diffused the more care and attention are bestowed on them by
their masters, each proprietor having it in his power to
increase their comforts and conveniences in proportion to the
smallness of their numbers."
These were the dispassionate utterances of representatives of every part
of the Union--men contemporary with the origin of the Constitution,
speaking before any sectional division had arisen in connection with the
subject. It is remarkable that the very same opinions which they express
and arguments which they adduce had, fifty years afterward, come to be
denounced and repudiated by one half of the Union as partisan and
sectional when propounded by the other half.
No final action seems to have been taken on the subject before the
adjournment of Congress, but it was brought forward at the next session
in a more imposing form. On the 20th of January, 1807, the Speaker laid
before the House of Representatives a letter from Governor Harrison,
inclosing certain resolutions formally and _unanimously_ adopted by the
Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the Indiana
Territory, in favor of the suspension of the sixth article of the
Ordinance and the introduction of slaves into the Territory, which they
say would "meet the approbation of at least nine tenths of the good
citizens of the same." Among the resolutions were the following:
"_Resolved unanimously_, That the abstract question of liberty
and slavery is not considered as involved in a suspension of the
said article, inasmuch as the number of slaves in the United
States _would not be augmented_ by this measure.
"_Resolved unanimously_, That the suspension of the said article
would be equally advantageous to the Territory, to the States
from whence the negroes would be brought, and to the negroes
themselves....
"The States which are overburdened with negroes would be
benefited by their citizens having an opportunity of disposing
of the negroes which they can not comfortably support, or of
removing with them to a country abounding with all the
necessaries of life; and the negro himself would exchange a
scanty pittance of the coarsest food for a plentiful and
nourishing diet, and a situation which admits not the most
distant prospect of emancipation for one which presents no
considerable obstacle to his wishes."
These resolutions were submitted to a committee drawn, like the former,
from different sections of the country, which again reported favorably,
reiterating in substance the reasons given by the former committee.
Their report was sustained by the House, and a resolution to suspend the
prohibitory article was adopted. The proposition failed, however, in the
Senate, and there the matter seems to have been dropped. The proceedings
constitute a significant and instructive episode in the political
history of the country.
The allusion which has been made to the Ordinance of 1787, renders it
proper to notice, very briefly, the argument put forward during the
discussion of the Missouri question, and often repeated since, that the
Ordinance afforded a precedent in support of the claim of a power in
Congress to determine the question of the admission of slaves into the
Territories, and in justification of the prohibitory clause applied in
1820 to a portion of the Louisiana Territory.
The difference between the Congress of the Confederation and that of the
Federal Constitution is so broad that the action of the former can, in
no just sense, be taken as a precedent for the latter. The Congress of
the Confederation represented the States in their sovereignty, each
delegation having one vote, so that all the States were of equal weight
in the decision of any question. It had legislative, executive, and in
some degree judicial powers, thus combining all departments of
government in itself. During its recess a committee known as the
Committee of the States exercised the powers of the Congress, which was
in spirit, if not in fact, an assemblage of the States.
On the other hand, the Congress of the Constitution is only the
legislative department of the General Government, with powers strictly
defined and expressly limited to those delegated by the States. It is
further held in check by an executive and a judiciary, and consists of
two branches, each having peculiar and specified functions.
If, then, it be admitted--which is at least very questionable--that the
Congress of the Confederation had rightfully the power to exclude slave
property from the territory northwest of the Ohio River, that power must
have been derived from its character as an assemblage of the sovereign
States; not from the Articles of Confederation, in which no indication
of the grant of authority to exercise such a function can be found. The
Congress of the Constitution is expressly prohibited from the assumption
of any power not distinctly and specifically delegated to it as the
legislative branch of an organized government. What was questionable in
the former case, therefore, becomes clearly inadmissible in the latter.
But there is yet another material distinction to be observed. The
States, owners of what was called the Northwestern Territory, were
component members of the Congress which adopted the Ordinance for its
government, and gave thereto their full and free consent. The Ordinance
may, therefore, be regarded as virtually a treaty between the States
which ceded and those which received that extensive domain. In the other
case, Missouri and the whole region affected by the Missouri Compromise,
were parts of the territory acquired from France under the name of
Louisiana; and, as it requires two parties to make or amend a treaty,
France and the Government of the United States should have coöperated in
any amendment of the treaty by which Louisiana had been acquired, and
which guaranteed to the inhabitants of the ceded territory "all the
rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States,"
and "the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion
they profess."--("State Papers," vol. ii, "Foreign Relations," p. 507.)
For all the reasons thus stated, it seems to me conclusive that the
action of the Congress of the Confederation in 1787 could not constitute
a precedent to justify the action of the Congress of the United States
in 1820, and that the prohibitory clause of the Missouri Compromise was
without constitutional authority, in violation of the rights of a part
of the joint owners of the territory, and in disregard of the
obligations of the treaty with France.
The basis of sectional controversy was the question of the balance of
political power. In its earlier manifestations this was undisguised. The
purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, and the
subsequent admission of a portion of that Territory into the Union as a
State, afforded one of the earliest occasions for the manifestation of
sectional jealousy, and gave rise to the first threats, or warnings
(which proceeded from New England), of a dissolution of the Union. Yet,
although negro slavery existed in Louisiana, no pretext was made of that
as an objection to the acquisition. The ground of opposition is frankly
stated in a letter of that period from one Massachusetts statesman to
another--"that the influence of _our_ part of the Union must be
diminished by the acquisition of more weight at the other extremity."[6]
Some years afterward (in 1819-'20) occurred the memorable contest with
regard to the admission into the Union of Missouri, the second State
carved out of the Louisiana Territory. The controversy arose out of a
proposition to attach to the admission of the new State a proviso
prohibiting slavery or involuntary servitude therein. The vehement
discussion that ensued was continued into the first session of a
different Congress from that in which it originated, and agitated the
whole country during the interval between the two. It was the first
question that ever seriously threatened the stability of the Union, and
the first in which the sentiment of opposition to slavery in the
abstract was introduced as an adjunct of sectional controversy. It was
clearly shown in debate that such considerations were altogether
irrelevant; that the number of existing slaves would not be affected by
their removal from the older States to Missouri; and, moreover, that the
proposed restriction would be contrary to the spirit, if not to the
letter, of the Constitution.[7] Notwithstanding all this, the
restriction was adopted, by a vote almost strictly sectional, in the
House of Representatives. It failed in the Senate through the firm
resistance of the Southern, aided by a few patriotic and conservative
Northern, members of that body. The admission of the new State, without
any restriction, was finally accomplished by the addition to the bill of
a section for ever prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the
Louisiana Territory lying north of thirty-six degrees and thirty
minutes, north latitude, except Missouri--by implication leaving the
portion south of that line open to settlement either with or without
slaves.
This provision, as an offset to the admission of the new State without
restriction, constituted the celebrated Missouri Compromise. It was
reluctantly accepted by a small majority of the Southern members. Nearly
half of them voted against it, under the conviction that it was
unauthorized by the Constitution, and that Missouri was entitled to
determine the question for herself, as a matter of right, not of bargain
or concession. Among those who thus thought and voted were some of the
wisest statesmen and purest patriots of that period.[8]
This brief retrospect may have sufficed to show that the question of the
right or wrong of the institution of slavery was in no wise involved in
the earlier sectional controversies. Nor was it otherwise in those of a
later period, in which it was the lot of the author of these memoirs to
bear a part. They were essentially struggles for sectional equality or
ascendancy--for the maintenance or the destruction of that balance of
power or equipoise between North and South, which was early recognized
as a cardinal principle in our Federal system. It does not follow that
both parties to this contest were wholly right or wholly wrong in their
claims. The determination of the question of right or wrong must be left
to the candid inquirer after examination of the evidence. The object of
these preliminary investigations has been to clear the subject of the
obscurity produced by irrelevant issues and the glamour of ethical
illusions.
[Footnote 1: It will be remembered that, during her colonial condition,
Virginia made strenuous efforts to prevent the importation of Africans,
and was overruled by the Crown; also, that Georgia, under Oglethorpe,
did prohibit the introduction of African slaves until 1752, when the
proprietors surrendered the charter, and the colony became a part of the
royal government, and enjoyed the same privileges as the other
colonies.]
[Footnote 2: South Carolina subsequently (in 1803) repealed her law
forbidding the importation of slaves. The reason assigned for this
action was the impossibility of enforcing the law without the aid of the
Federal Government, to which entire control of the revenues, revenue
police, and naval forces of the country had been surrendered by the
States. "The geographical situation of our country," said Mr. Lowndes,
of South Carolina, in the House of Representatives on February 14, 1804,
"is not unknown. With navigable rivers running into the heart of it, it
was impossible, with our means, to prevent our Eastern brethren...
engaged in this trade, from introducing them [the negroes] into the
country. The law was completely evaded.... Under these circumstances,
sir, it appears to me to have been the duty of the Legislature to repeal
the law, and remove from the eyes of the people the spectacle of its
authority being daily violated."
The effect of the repeal was to permit the importation of negroes into
South Carolina during the interval from 1803 to 1808. It in probable
that an extensive _contraband_ trade was carried on by the New England
slavers with other ports, on account of the lack of means to enforce the
laws of the Southern States forbidding it.]
[Footnote 3: One from the Society of Friends assembled at Philadelphia
and New York, the other from the Pennsylvania society of various
religious denominations combined for the abolition of slavery.
For report of the debate, see Benton's "Abridgment," vol. i, pp.
201-207, _et seq._]
[Footnote 4: See Benton's "Abridgment," vol. i, p. 397.]
[Footnote 5: One was from New Hampshire, one from Vermont, two from
Virginia, and one from South Carolina.--(Benton's "Abridgment," vol.
iii, p. 519.)
No division on the final vote in the Senate.]
[Footnote 6: Cabot to Pickering, who was then Senator from
Massachusetts.--(See "Life and Letters of George Cabot," by H. C. Lodge,
p. 334.)]
[Footnote 7: The true issue was well stated by the Hon. Samuel A. Foot,
a representative from Connecticut, in an incidental reference to it in
debate on another subject, a few weeks after the final settlement of the
Missouri case. He said: "The Missouri question did not involve the
question of freedom or slavery, but merely _whether slaves now in the
country might be permitted to reside in the proposed new State; and
whether Congress or Missouri possessed the power to decide_."]
[Footnote 8: The votes on the proposed _restriction_, which eventually
failed of adoption, and on the _compromise_, which was finally adopted,
are often confounded. The advocacy of the former measure was exclusively
sectional, no Southern member voting for it in either House. On the
adoption of the compromise line of thirty-six degrees and thirty
minutes, the vote in the Senate was 34 yeas to 10 nays. The Senate
consisted of forty-four members from twenty-two States, equally divided
between the two sections--Delaware being classed as a Southern State.
Among the yeas were all the Northern votes, except two from
Indiana--being 20--and 14 Southern. The nays consisted of 2 from the
North, and 8 from the South.
In the House of Representatives, the vote was 134 yeas to 42 nays. Of
the yeas, 95 were Northern, 39 Southern; of the nays, 5 Northern, and 37
Southern.
Among the nays in the Senate were Messrs. James Barbour and James
Pleasants, of Virginia; Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina; John
Gaillard and William Smith, of South Carolina. In the House, Philip P.
Barbour, John Randolph, John Tyler, and William S. Archer, of Virginia;
Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina (one of the authors of the
Constitution); Thomas W. Cobb, of Georgia; and others of more or less
note.
(See speech of the Hon. D. L. Yulee, of Florida, in the United States
Senate, on the admission of California, August 6, 1850, for a careful
and correct account of the compromise. That given in the second chapter
of Benton's "Thirty Years' View" is singularly inaccurate; that of
Horace Greeley, in his "American Conflict," still more so.)]
CHAPTER II.
The Session of 1849-'50.--The Compromise Measures.--Virtual
Abrogation of the Missouri Compromise.--The Admission of
California.--The Fugitive Slave Law.--Death of Mr.
Calhoun.--Anecdote of Mr. Clay.
The first session of the Thirty-first Congress (1849-'50) was a
memorable one. The recent acquisition from Mexico of New Mexico and
California required legislation by Congress. In the Senate the bills
reported by the Committee on Territories were referred to a select
committee, of which Mr. Clay, the distinguished Senator from Kentucky,
was chairman. From this committee emanated the bills which, taken
together, are known as the compromise measures of 1850.
With some others, I advocated the division of the newly acquired
territory by an extension to the Pacific Ocean of the Missouri
Compromise line of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude.
This was not because of any inherent merit or fitness in that line, but
because it had been accepted by the country as a settlement of the
sectional question which, thirty years before, had threatened a rupture
of the Union, and it had acquired in the public mind a prescriptive
respect which it seemed unwise to disregard. A majority, however,
decided otherwise, and the line of political conciliation was then
obliterated, as far as it lay in the power of Congress to do so. An
analysis of the vote will show that this result was effected almost
exclusively by the representatives of the North, and that the South was
not responsible for an action which proved to be the
|
on Sunday morning you drove to work, and that you parked your car
somewhere along the side of the police department building, and it is
your recollection that you walked from the Commerce Street side through
the basement hall that leads to the records room?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, I asked you in the interview whether you remember
just--remembered just as you walked down from the Commerce Street--down
the steps to the door which leads into the building, whether as you
got inside the building you noticed the placement of TV cables in
relationship to the engineroom, or that door that goes back down into
the subbasement. Do you have any recollection of how the TV cables were
spread out there?
Mr. GRAVES. Vaguely. I think the cables did go through that door. I
couldn’t be sure.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Which door are you talking about?
Mr. GRAVES. Through the engineroom door.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you got inside the building, where did you go?
Mr. GRAVES. I went to the homicide and robbery bureau on the third
floor, room 317.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you got up into the hallway on the third floor, can
you describe the condition of the hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, of course, it was cluttered up with camera equipment
and cables and newspeople, cameramen.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember when you arrived there on the third floor,
whether the TV cameras were manned?
Mr. GRAVES. Reasonably sure they were. There were men standing around
with earphones on and the light.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, do you recall about what time it was that you got up
there to the third floor?
Mr. GRAVES. Approximately 8 o’clock, I think or----
Mr. GRIFFIN. That is in the morning?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do when you got to the homicide bureau?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, I went in, of course, and started answering the
telephones and talking to people that were calling about various things.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was anybody else there when you arrived?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; just about everyone, I think, that worked in the
homicide bureau were there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who would that be?
Mr. GRAVES. Oh, of course, my partner, L. D. Montgomery----
Mr. GRIFFIN. Montgomery.
Mr. GRAVES. E. R. Beck, C. N. Dhority, J. R. Leavelle, C. W. Brown,
Lieutenant Wells, those are the ones that I remember right now at the
moment.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember if Captain Fritz was there?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, yes; he was there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember whether or not, Lee Oswald was there?
Mr. GRAVES. He wasn’t there when I first got there in the room.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you got into the room, do you remember talking with
anybody?
Mr. GRAVES. I don’t remember who I talked with first, when I got there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember having any conversation with anyone
regardless of who it might have been, after you got up there, shortly
after you arrived?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, the only conversation I recall actually, is when we
were told to bring him down, Oswald down to the captain’s office. Now,
the rest was routine stuff.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long after you arrived would be your best estimate
that you were told to bring Oswald down to the captain’s office.
Mr. GRAVES. Well, let’s see, we would have a thing to show the exact
time that I signed him out. At somewhere shortly before 10 o’clock,
which would be something over an hour, better part of 2 hours----
Mr. GRIFFIN. In this period from approximately 8 o’clock until shortly
before 10, did you have any conversations about the movement of Lee
Oswald from the city jail to the county jail?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, the captain told us that he would be transferred in a
car.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Captain Fritz told you that?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; and at first he wanted to talk to him some more, so,
we brought him down to the office so he could be interviewed.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did Captain Fritz tell you what kind of a car he was going
to be transferred in?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; we understood it was going to be a regular police car
like we use, plain cars.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long before you got Oswald down did you get this
information?
Mr. GRAVES. Oh, it couldn’t have been but a few minutes, at least.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where were you told this?
Mr. GRAVES. In the hallway, or office there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you recall now whether you were in that homicide office
or in the hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. I believe I was in the hallway when I heard it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How many other officers were standing around at that time?
Mr. GRAVES. Oh, I don’t remember really. Probably two or three or four.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How close was Captain Fritz to you when you heard this?
Mr. GRAVES. As close as you and I are.
Mr. GRIFFIN. We have a table separating us.
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. 6-foot, about a 6-foot table, isn’t it? Was he talking
only to you, or talking to the other officers?
Mr. GRAVES. Generally to all of us.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, at this time, were there newspaper people in the area?
Mr. GRAVES. I don’t believe. At the moment, I don’t believe any newsmen
were in there at the time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. This is not in the hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. No, I mean this little hallway in our bureau--comes from
the front entrance. You know, you have been there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes, I have.
Mr. GRAVES. See, there is a little hallway that comes around----
Mr. GRIFFIN. You are talking about the hallway that, as you open the
door off the third floor hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. No, I am talking about the hallway between the little
office and captain’s office.
Mr. GRIFFIN. For the record, about how far were you from the third
floor hallway when this conversation took place?
Mr. GRAVES. 25 feet, approximately.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And do you remember the other officers who were standing
around at the time?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, Leavelle and Montgomery for sure. I don’t know who
else right now. Beck--Dhority and Beck both could have been in there. I
am not sure about that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long did this conversation with Captain Fritz last?
Mr. GRAVES. Just long enough to say that--“We are going to get him down
and talk to him, and get the car ready in the basement.” Told Dhority
and Brown what to do about the cars, also Beck, and so, we went up and
got him and brought him down.
Mr. GRIFFIN. At the time that you were instructed to go up and bring
down Oswald, were Dhority and Brown given instructions by Fritz about
the automobiles?
Mr. GRAVES. I’m going to have to say that I am not sure whether it was
at that moment, or after we brought him down, and I kind of believe
that it was then that they got the cars ready and put them in the
basement, and that at the last minute just before we took him down, we
were instructed to move that car up there to the entrance exit of the
jail office, and I am pretty sure that that is the way that went.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, now, just directing your attention to the time that
you were instructed to go up and bring Oswald down for interrogation,
what other conversation do you remember taking place with Fritz?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, that was all that was said to me at that time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who went up with you?
Mr. GRAVES. Leavelle and Dhority.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And did you talk with Lee Oswald on your way down?
Mr. GRAVES. No, didn’t say anything to him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do after you brought Oswald down to the
homicide bureau?
Mr. GRAVES. Brought him in the office with Captain Fritz and the other
people that were in there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, what did you do when you----
Mr. GRAVES. I went back outside and started answering phones, or doing
whatever it was to be done for a while, but I didn’t go back in the
office until just before we were ready to move him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. While you were out there answering telephones and so
forth, did you hear any more about the movement of Oswald to the county
jail?
Mr. GRAVES. Not while I was outside, no.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see Chief Curry come in?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did he say anything that you heard about the movement of
Oswald?
Mr. GRAVES. Not where I could hear him. He went in the office and
this--presumably discussed something with Captain Fritz. I believe
he made a number of trips there during the time that he was being
interviewed.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were there any rumors circulating in the homicide bureau
about how Oswald would be transferred?
Mr. GRAVES. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. Well, then, when was the next time that you got
any information about moving Lee Oswald?
Mr. GRAVES. Immediately after, just a few minutes before the interview
was completed, I went in the office, and we were instructed that we
were to take him down, and he would be taken in the car.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who was in the office when you walked in?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, Mr. Sorrels and Mr. Holmes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Sorrels is from the Secret Service?
Mr. GRAVES. Mr. Holmes is from the Postal Department--I believe it is
the Postal Department, and I can’t think of the other man’s name now.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Man from the FBI?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; I have that in the little report that I wrote, but
I can’t think of his name right now. It is a simple name, too, but I
can’t think of it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was it Hall?
Mr. GRAVES. Who?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Hall?
Mr. GRAVES. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, that is all right. We can get that.
Mr. GRAVES. It wasn’t him. Oh, let’s see----
Mr. GRIFFIN. Any other police officers in the office?
Mr. GRAVES. Let’s see. Leavelle. I believe Montgomery was in there, too.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, what was said when you came in?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, I walked in and asked--last thing I heard was--Oswald
say was that--“Well, people will soon forget that the President was
shot.” And then--Chief Curry, incidentally, was in there at that time,
too, and he was around over behind the desk by Captain Fritz. Between
he and Mr. Sorrels, and something was discussed about an armored car,
but they decided that they would send an armored car on as a decoy,
because it couldn’t get down into the basement.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You had heard a conversation about that?
Mr. GRAVES. I heard that discussed just briefly, the armored car was
there, but----
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, did you hear the discussion about a decoy?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, Captain Fritz turned back to me and Leavelle, told us
that the armored car would go ahead, and that we would leave out in the
regular car; so, he told Leavelle to handcuff himself to Oswald. Can I
tell you something off the record?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Sure.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right.
Mr. GRAVES. I expect it doesn’t matter. I thought about it later. It
doesn’t mean anything, I don’t suppose, unless it has some sentimental
value to him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you hear Oswald say anything, or any other
conversation with Oswald before you took him down?
Mr. GRAVES. I heard some other conversation, but I am vague on what
it was. Discussion between he and--I wish I could remember that man’s
name. I want to say, “O’Malley.” Seems like it was an Irish name. He
was asking him something about his stay in Russia and some of his
activities down in Mexico and--but just what his answer was, I am vague
on it. He discussed something with him, and I wasn’t paying too much
attention at the time. Some answers that he gave.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Tell us what happened when Oswald went to get something?
Mr. GRAVES. We asked him if he would like to put on something. He just
had on this white T-shirt, see, and asked him if he would like to put
on something. So, when we got these clothes off the rack and started to
give him a light-colored jacket or shirt, and said, “If it is all the
same to you”--said, “I’d rather wear that black sweater.”
Mr. GRIFFIN. Whose black sweater was that?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, his, presumably. So, we let him put it on.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where were the clothes?
Mr. GRAVES. They were in the captain’s office back there in the back,
and brought them in there so he could pick out something to wear.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were they all his?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes, yes; they were. Then----
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you help him put his----
Mr. GRAVES. I assisted him in putting this on. Then, we, of course,
started on out with him. Went on to the elevator, down the hall to what
they call the jail office elevator.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you given any instructions as to how you should guard
him?
Mr. GRAVES. As I said, I was--told to hold to the arm and walk close
to him and Montgomery was to walk behind us and Captain Fritz, and
Lieutenant Swain in front of us and that is the way we started out to
the elevator, and out of the elevator door over to the jail office.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was there any discussion about staying close to Oswald?
Mr. GRAVES. We were instructed to stay close to him; yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right, now, was there any discussion about protecting
Oswald from other people who’d like to get at him?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, to come down and tell us to do that would be
elementary, actually, because, I mean, we just know to do that, and
our captain knows that we know to do that. So, actually, we weren’t
specifically told, “Now, you just watch this man and don’t let anybody
touch him.” Or anything like that. We were told that the way would
be open and nobody would be interfering with us. Wouldn’t be anybody
there. All we would have to do was walk to the car.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was there any fear that somebody might come right up in
front of him and do something to him?
Mr. GRAVES. We didn’t have any fear of that because as I said, that--we
were told that the security was so that no one would be there but
newsmen and officers.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, prior to taking Oswald down to the basement, had you
learned anything about the threatening telephone calls which the police
department had received?
Mr. GRAVES. I had not. At that time I didn’t know that there had been
any threatening calls.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you subsequently learn?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; learned later that the FBI had a call to that effect,
but I learned that our office had had similar calls, too.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What route did you follow when you left Captain Fritz’
office with Oswald?
Mr. GRAVES. Of course, went out our door and turned left, which would
be--south.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Went into the third floor hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. Third floor hallway; yes, sir; and went to a solid door
which leads us into the jail elevator.
Mr. GRIFFIN. As you walked out, were there news people out in the
hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes, lots of them.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were there TV cameras up in the hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; all kinds of cameras.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, how long a period of time lapsed from the time you
stopped answering the telephone calls until you got out on the third
floor hallway with Oswald?
Mr. GRAVES. Ten or 15 minutes, I guess, approximately.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, when you stopped answering the telephone calls to go
into Captain Fritz’ office, were you aware that you were going in there
for the purpose of getting ready to move Oswald out?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How did you become aware of that?
Mr. GRAVES. We were told that we were going to move him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who told you that?
Mr. GRAVES. Captain Fritz.
Mr. GRIFFIN. He told you?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; I don’t know whether he walked out and told me. You
know, in the process, the door was opened and he talked to some of us
at the door and so forth.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, prior to the time that you actually went out there in
the hallway with Oswald, did you have any information as to whether the
people who were members of the press were aware that Oswald was about
to be brought out?
Mr. GRAVES. I--it was my understanding they knew that he was to be
transferred at 10 o’clock.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, I mean----
Mr. GRAVES. Well, no, no; we--if you mean if we--told them when we were
leaving with him, we didn’t do that. We just walked out with him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But what about a sharp newsman who was keeping his eyes
and ears open? Could he see through the door? Could he see the activity?
Mr. GRAVES. Could he see the preparation----
Mr. GRIFFIN. For bringing out----
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Could one see Oswald putting on his sweater, for example?
Mr. GRAVES. Maybe not that, but he could have seen us pass it over
to him. I believe those blinds were open there on--coming out to the
secretary’s office there. I believe they were. I’m not sure about
that, but if they were open they could have seen from the front door
standing at the hallway at an angle. They could have seen that sweater
or clothes changing hands. I don’t believe where Oswald was standing
he could see him from that angle, but I--like I said, a good, sharp
newsman knowing the activity, he could see and naturally know that
something was fixing to happen.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you arrived at the elevators on the third floor, was
the elevator there waiting for you?
Mr. GRAVES. I think it was waiting right there for us.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, which elevator did you come down in?
Mr. GRAVES. It is called the inside jail elevator, which is used only
for the transfer of prisoners from one floor to the other and basement.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And who went into the elevator with you?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, it was Leavelle, Montgomery, Swain, and Captain Fritz
and myself and, of course, Oswald.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where was Chief Curry at that time?
Mr. GRAVES. I don’t know. He left just before we did and I don’t know
where he went.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long would you estimate Chief Curry left before you
people walked out of the homicide bureau with Oswald?
Mr. GRAVES. You know, I couldn’t tell you. I--I--actually, the chief
could have been standing in there somewhere and I wouldn’t know
it--because when we were given the final go to get him ready or get his
sweater on him, I didn’t pay any attention to who else was in there or
what happened. They told me to get him ready and walked out with him.
He could have left a few minutes ahead of us; I don’t know, it would be
a guess, because I really don’t know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. Now, what happened when you got to the basement?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, we got down to the basement. We hesitated on the
elevator until Captain Fritz and Lieutenant Swain stepped out. Then we
followed them around the outside exit door into the hallway which leads
to the ramp and then hesitated there a little bit with Oswald so they
could check out there and see that everything was all right, and when
we got the go ahead sign that everything was all right we walked out
with him.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And how many steps did you take before something happened?
Mr. GRAVES. You mean after we walked out in the hallway?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. GRAVES. It is approximately 15 feet from where I was to the jail
house door where we came out into the hallway, roughly 15 feet.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see Jack Ruby move out of the crowd?
Mr. GRAVES. No; I didn’t see Jack Ruby move out of the crowd.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When was the first time that you noticed Jack Ruby?
Mr. GRAVES. I estimated before I saw the film it was a split second
before he pulled that trigger and actually, he was taking a step and
coming down like so [indicating]. I caught him out of the corner of my
eye and I thought that I started reaching for him at that moment, which
the film indicates that I did, which happened quickly, as you know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. GRAVES. Just a matter of simultaneous movement. You just move when
you see something like that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you actually see the gun before you heard it--heard
the shots fired?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; in fact, that is the first thing I saw coming that
way, and I just started after it, I guess, automatically, nothing else
to do, that I could see.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see how the newsmen were spread out as you walked
out of that hallway?
Mr. GRAVES. I saw how they weren’t spread out. I was under the
impression there wouldn’t be any news media inside that rampway, that
they would be behind that area over there, but they were in the way.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How did you get that impression?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, Chief Curry told Captain Fritz that the security was
taken care of, that there wouldn’t be nobody in that ramp. Anyway,
that cameras would be over behind that rail of that ramp. So, what
we expected to find was our officers along the side there, but we
found newsmen inside that ramp, in fact, in the way of that car. Now,
we--Captain Fritz sent Dhority and Brown and Beck on down to the
basement in plenty of time to get that car up there for us, and when
they got down there and run into mass confusion of pressmen, we almost
backed over some of them to get up there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, after Fritz sent Dhority and Brown down, did they
send word back up to Fritz’ office that everything was ready in the
basement?
Mr. GRAVES. Somebody did. I believe Baker called--Lieutenant Baker
called down from our office to check with the jail downstairs and see
that everything was ready. Somebody gave them the word. I don’t know
whether it was Lieutenant Wiggins or who told them that it was all
right. Everything was in order.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You say you were quite surprised when you saw these news
people?
Mr. GRAVES. I was surprised that they were rubbing my elbow. You know,
if you saw that film, you saw one of them with a mike in his hand. He
actually rubbed my elbow. We were in a slight turn when this thing
happened, and my attention had been called to that car door, and this
joker was standing there with a microphone in his hand, and others
that--I don’t know if they were newsmen--they weren’t officers--had
cameras around their necks and everything.
Mr. GRIFFIN. As you looked up at that line of news people, from
your left over to the TV cameras, how many lines deep is it your
recollection that they were?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, I would say two or three deep until they crossed that
ramp and went down the side. Might not have been more than one deep
there. Might not have been much room, because the car was trying to
come in there. Might have been two deep. I know there was a line of men
there, and how deep I don’t know. I saw through the corner of my eye a
movement over there of men.
Mr. GRIFFIN. As you walked out, did you notice any police officers that
you recognized?
Mr. GRAVES. Oh, yes; I recognized officers standing around the walls
there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. As you walked out, did you see Officer Harrison?
Mr. GRAVES. No; I didn’t see him. Matter of fact, I never did see him
until it was all over. You are talking about “Blackie”?
Mr. GRIFFIN. “Blackie” Harrison; W. J. Harrison.
Mr. GRAVES. I didn’t see him until it was all over.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you saw Jack come forward with the gun in his hand,
did you hear anybody say anything?
Mr. GRAVES. I heard noise. There was a racing of a motor and noises,
talking going on. As I say, my attention had been directed to that car,
and we had already turned, looked in that direction and something could
have been said, but as I said, I heard noises but just exactly what was
said I wasn’t able to determine.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What do you remember doing when Jack came forward with the
gun?
Mr. GRAVES. I remember going after the gun. Just the moment I saw him,
that is what I actually did, was go for the gun.
Mr. GRIFFIN. And did you wrestle with him? With Jack?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Will you tell us what you remember Jack Ruby doing from
the time you saw him and while you wrestled with him and so forth?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, I grabbed his arm by the wrist with my left hand, and
grabbed right over the gun with my right hand simultaneously.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You grabbed the arm holding the gun?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; and jerked it down and across my leg and turned my
back to him, and, of course, he was trying to pull back, and was
squeezing on that trigger like so [indicating].
I had his wrist here [indicating], and I could feel it, and I remember
saying, “turn it loose. Turn it loose.” You know, like that.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, you are making a motion like you are twisting his arm?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes; I was. See, I had it like this, and I had got that
arm and then twisted that gun like that [indicating], right out of his
hand, see.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let me indicate for the record that you have shown that
you twisted his arm 180°.
Mr. GRAVES. Until he released it.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Until he released the gun?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long was it from the time you released--grabbed his
arm until he released the gun?
Mr. GRAVES. Just a matter of seconds.
Mr. GRIFFIN. It was not a long struggle?
Mr. GRAVES. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Fairly easy to wrestle the gun away?
Mr. GRAVES. Put it this way. It wasn’t easy because he had a grip on
the gun, but the way I took it, he had to turn it loose. I had his
arm--kind of hard to explain--take your arm and bend it over my leg
like that and twist down on it like that [indicating]. You have got to
give.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You are bending the arm over your leg?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, did Jack say anything?
Mr. GRAVES. He didn’t say anything to me. I understand that he said
something, that is, some things to the officer that took him in. I----
Mr. GRIFFIN. I mean, as you were struggling with him?
Mr. GRAVES. No; not to me. I had his arm over and my back to him and,
of course, officers were covering him up, and when I got the gun loose
from him, of course, they snatched him away from me, and by the time I
got straightened up to check that gun and see if the hammer was back or
not, they had already taken him into the jail office.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do there? You were standing there or lying?
Mr. GRAVES. I was standing. I never did go down.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Standing with the gun in your hand, what did you do at
that point?
Mr. GRAVES. Put the gun in my pocket and went on inside the jail office.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you arrived inside the jail office, where was Ruby?
Mr. GRAVES. Ruby was, I believe, to my right; just to my right, to the
right of the jail office door. Of course, there were men around there
and Oswald was back----
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long did you remain there?
Mr. GRAVES. I didn’t remain with Ruby at all. Just kind of hesitated
and looked over and went on. I believe Montgomery asked me if I got the
gun and I said, “Yes,” and kept on.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where did you walk?
Mr. GRAVES. Walked back to where Oswald was.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you hear him say anything?
Mr. GRAVES. I didn’t hear him say anything.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do when you got back to where Oswald was?
Mr. GRAVES. Stood there and watched the doctor work with him until the
ambulance came.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Then what did you do?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, they put him in the ambulance and I got in the
ambulance with him and went to Parkland Hospital and got off there
and took him right into emergency and worked with him a few minutes.
And got him prepared for the operating room, and, so, we caught the
elevator with him and with the doctors and nurses and went on up to
the second floor, and I changed into one of those scrub uniforms and
crepe-soled shoes and went over to the door of the operating room,
where I stayed until such time as he was pronounced dead.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Outside of the operating room?
Mr. GRAVES. Yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. As you were standing outside of the operating room, did
you hear discussion about how Ruby got into the building?
Mr. GRAVES. No; I didn’t--an FBI man came up there a little later and
stood with me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. To go back just a minute, you have already told me this
before in an earlier interview, but I want to make this clear for the
record. You knew Ruby before this occasion when you saw him shoot
Oswald?
Mr. GRAVES. I will tell you how I knew Ruby. He opened a joint, a
dancehall down on South Ervay called the Silver Spur something like 10
years ago, approximately. That is where I first knew Jack Ruby existed.
Since that time I have just known about Jack Ruby----
Mr. GRIFFIN. How did you know him down there?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, as a joint operator, you know, when you work in a
uniform that is part of the business, to know who runs places.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What bureau were you in at that time?
Mr. GRAVES. I was in the radio patrol bureau at that time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I see.
Mr. GRAVES. And later I learned that he opened a place out on Oak Lawn
called The Vegas Club.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you see Ruby in the police department over the years
before that?
Mr. GRAVES. I have never in my entire time at that police station seen
Jack Ruby in the police station. Now, it is possible Jack was down
there. I know he has been in jail, but to say that he, like some people
do hang around the police station, I have never seen him do that, and
I have worked all hours. That still doesn’t mean that he couldn’t
have been coming in there. However, with someone that worked opposite
hours to me--and I wouldn’t see him, but during the time that I have
been there I have never seen him hanging around the police station.
You know, speculation is, is that he is a friend of the police and so
forth. He might have done some policeman some favor, I don’t know that
to be true, so, it would be speculating on my part to say that he was.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How long did you remain at Parkland Hospital?
Mr. GRAVES. Oh, I’d hate to say this for the record, not seeing my
report. Until he died. This in the basement happened about 11:10, or
11:19, and we reached Parkland a few minutes after. He was pronounced
dead at 1 something.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I don’t really care about the exact time. We are going to
get the time records and check it out there but what I am trying to
establish is when you learned that he was dead, what did you do?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, of course, we made arrangements to get the
pathologist up there and maintaining guards over him, even during the
time he was in the morgue. We discussed that, and then Clardy and Brown
were charged with that responsibility, and I changed clothes and me and
Leavelle, I believe me and Leavelle came back to city hall with Officer
Burgess.
Mr. GRIFFIN. About what time would you say he got back to the city hall?
Mr. GRAVES. Well, again, I wouldn’t want to say definitely. I think
somewhere around 2:30 or 3:45, somewhere in that vicinity.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Up to the time that you got back to city hall, had you
heard anything about how Ruby might have gotten into the basement?
Mr. GRAVES. No; I hadn’t, sure hadn’t. Of course, everyone was
wondering at that point how it happened and how he got in there, but I
hadn’t heard anything at that point. Hadn’t seen or been around anybody
except those that I went out there with and they didn’t know any more
than I did.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When you got back to the police department, what did you
do?
Mr. GRAVES. I went back to the office, of course.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Homic
|
forgive me saying so, rejects them all equally. Art has to do with
emotions not with ideas, and the great defect of literature is that
it can only express emotions by means of ideas. What makes music the
greatest of all the arts is that it can express emotions without
ideas. Literature can appeal to the soul only through the mind.
Music goes direct. Its language is a language which the soul alone
understands, but which the soul can never translate.
_Six_
If a man does not spend at least as much time in actively and
definitely thinking about what he has read as he spent in reading, he
is simply insulting his author.
_Seven_
He was of that small and lonely minority of men who never know
ambition, ardour, zeal, yearning, tears; whose convenient desires are
capable of immediate satisfaction; of whom it may be said that they
purchase a second-rate happiness cheap at the price of an incapacity
for deep feeling.
_Eight_
No man, except a greater author, can teach an author his business.
_Nine_
Size is the quality which most strongly and surely appeals to the
imagination of the multitude. Of all modern monuments the Eiffel
Tower and the Big Wheel have aroused the most genuine curiosity and
admiration: they are the biggest. As with this monstrous architecture
of metals, so with the fabric of ideas and emotions: the attention
of the whole crowd can only be caught by an audacious hugeness, an
eye-smiting enormity of dimensions so gross as to be nearly physical.
_Ten_
Genius apart, woman is usually more touchingly lyrical than man in
the yearning for the ideal.
_Eleven_
I had fast in my heart’s keeping the new truth that in the body, and
the instincts of the body, there should be no shame but rather a
frank, joyous pride.
_Twelve_
A person is idle because his thoughts dwell habitually on the instant
pleasures of idleness.
_Thirteen_
By love I mean a noble and sensuous passion, absorbing the energies
of the soul, fulfilling destiny, and reducing all that has gone
before it to the level of a mere prelude.
_Fourteen_
For myself, I have never valued work for its own sake, and I never
shall.
_Fifteen_
Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all
costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having
accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.
_Sixteen_
All who look into their experience will admit that the failure
to replace old habits by new ones is due to the fact that at the
critical moment the brain does not remember; it simply forgets.
_Seventeen_
Many writers, and many clever writers, use the art of literature
merely to gain an end which is connected with some different art, or
with no art. Such a writer, finding himself burdened with a message
prophetic, didactic, or reforming, discovers suddenly that he has
the imaginative gift, and makes his imagination the servant of his
intellect, or of emotions which are not artistic emotions.
_Eighteen_
I only value mental work for the more full and more intense
consciousness of being alive which it gives me.
_Nineteen_
Whatever the vagaries of human nature, the true philosopher is never
surprised by them. And one vagary is not more strange than another.
_Twenty_
You can control nothing but your own mind. Even your two-year-old
babe may defy you by the instinctive force of its personality.
_Twenty-one_
To take the common grey things which people know and despise, and,
without tampering, to disclose their epic significance, their
essential grandeur--that is realism as distinguished from idealism or
romanticism. It may scarcely be, it probably is not, the greatest art
of all; but it is art precious and indisputable.
_Twenty-two_
There are few mental exercises better than learning great poetry or
prose by heart.
_Twenty-three_
The British public will never be convinced by argument. But two drops
of perspiration on the cheeks of a nice-looking girl with a torn
skirt and a crushed hat will make it tremble for the safety of its
ideals, and twenty drops will persuade it to sign anything for the
restoration of decency. You surely don’t suppose that _argument_ will
be of any use!
_Twenty-four_
Some people have a gift of conjuring with conversations. They are
almost always frankly and openly interested in themselves. You may
seek to foil them; you may even violently wrench the conversation
into other directions. But every effort will be useless. They will
beat you. You had much better lean back in your chair and enjoy their
legerdemain.
_Twenty-five_
The voice of this spirit says that it has lost every illusion about
life, and that life seems only the more beautiful. It says that
activity is but another form of contemplation, pain but another form
of pleasure, power but another form of weakness, hate but another
form of love, and that it is well these things should be so. It says
there is no end, only a means; and that the highest joy is to suffer,
and the supreme wisdom is to exist. If you will but live, it cries,
that grave but yet passionate voice--if you will but live! Were
there a heaven, and you reached it, you could do no more than live.
The true heaven is here where you live, where you strive and lose,
and weep and laugh. And the true hell is here, where you forget to
live, and blind your eyes to the omnipresent and terrible beauty of
existence.
_Twenty-six_
The most important preliminary to self-development is the faculty of
concentrating at will.
_Twenty-seven_
Diaries, save in experienced hands, are apt to get themselves
done with the very minimum of mental effort. They also tend to an
exaggeration of egotism, and if they are left lying about they tend
to strife.
_Twenty-eight_
The English world of home is one of the most perfectly organized
microcosms on this planet, not excepting the Indian _purdah_. The
product of centuries of culture, it is regarded, not too absurdly,
as the fairest flower of Christian civilisation. It exists chiefly,
of course, for women, but it could never have been what it is had
not men bound themselves to respect the code which they made for it.
It is the fountain of refinement and of consolation, the nursery of
affection. It has the peculiar faculty of nourishing itself, for it
implicitly denies the existence of anything beyond its doorstep, save
the constitution, a bishop, a rector, the seaside, Switzerland, and
the respectful poor.
_Twenty-nine_
I have always been a bookman. From adolescence books have been one of
my passions. Books not merely--and perhaps not chiefly--as vehicles
of learning or knowledge, but books as books, books as entities,
books as beautiful things, books as historical antiquities, books
as repositories of memorable associations. Questions of type, ink,
paper, margins, watermarks, paginations, bindings, are capable of
really agitating me.
_March_
_One_
It is characteristic of the literary artist with a genuine vocation
that his large desire is, not to express in words any particular
thing, but to express _himself_, the sum of his sensations. He feels
the vague, disturbing impulse to write long before he has chosen
his first subject from the thousands of subjects which present
themselves, and which in the future he is destined to attack.
_Two_
In the mental world what counts is not numbers but co-ordination.
_Three_
In England, nearly all the most interesting people are social
reformers: and the only circles of society in which you are not
bored, in which there is real conversation, are the circles of social
reform.
_Four_
Anthology construction is one of the pleasantest hobbies that a
person who is not mad about golf and bridge--that is to say, a
thinking person--can possibly have.
_Five_
That part of my life which I conduct by myself, without reference--or
at any rate without direct reference--to others, I can usually manage
in such a way that the gods do not positively weep at the spectacle
thereof.
_Six_
It’s quite impossible to believe that a man is a genius, if you’ve
been to school with him, or even known his father.
_Seven_
It is the privilege of only the greatest painters not to put letters
on the corners of their pictures in order to keep other painters from
taking the credit for them afterwards.
_Eight_
Your own mind has the power to transmute every external phenomenon to
its own purposes.
_Nine_
Anything would be a success in London on Sunday night. People are so
grateful.
_Ten_
The one cheerful item in a universe of stony facts is that no one can
harm anybody except himself.
_Eleven_
The eye that has learned to look life full in the face without a
quiver of the lid should find nothing repulsive. Everything that is,
is the ordered and calculable result of environment. Nothing can be
abhorrent, nothing blameworthy, nothing contrary to nature. Can we
exceed nature? In the presence of the primeval and ever-continuing
forces of nature, can we maintain our fantastic conceptions of sin
and of justice? We are, and that is all we should dare to say.
_Twelve_
The art of life, the art of extracting all its power from the human
machine, does not lie chiefly in processes of bookish-culture, nor
in contemplations of the beauty and majesty of existence. It lies
chiefly in keeping the peace, the whole peace, and nothing but the
peace, with those with whom one is “thrown.”
_Thirteen_
We have our ideals now, but when they are mentioned we feel
self-conscious and uncomfortable, like a school-boy caught praying.
_Fourteen_
After the crest of the wave the trough--it must be so; but how
profound the instinct which complains!
_Fifteen_
The performance of some pianists is so wonderful that it seems as if
they were crossing Niagara on a tight-rope, and you tremble lest they
should fall off.
_Sixteen_
The secret of calm cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can be
consistently cheerful and calm who does not consistently think kind
thoughts.
_Seventeen_
It is indubitable that a large amount of what is known as
self-improvement is simply self-indulgence--a form of pleasure which
only incidentally improves a particular part of the human machine,
and even that part to the neglect of far more important parts.
_Eighteen_
The average man has this in common with the most exceptional genius,
that his career in its main contours is governed by his instincts.
_Nineteen_
The most beautiful things, and the most vital things, and the most
lasting things are often mysterious and inexplicable and sudden.
_Twenty_
An accurate knowledge of _any_ subject, coupled with a carefully
nurtured sense of the relativity of that subject to other subjects,
implies an enormous self-development.
_Twenty-one_
The great artist may force you to laugh, or to wipe away a tear, but
he accomplishes these minor feats by the way. What he mainly does is
to _see_ for you. If, in presenting a scene, he does not disclose
aspects of it which you would not have observed for yourself, then he
falls short of success. In a physical and psychical sense power is
visual, the power of an eye seeing things always afresh, virginally
as though on the very morn of creation.
_Twenty-two_
It is well, when one is judging a friend, to remember that he is
judging you with the same god-like and superior impartiality.
_Twenty-three_
He who speaks, speaks twice. His words convey his thoughts, and his
tone conveys his mental attitude towards the person spoken to.
_Twenty-four_
The man who loses his temper often thinks he is doing something
rather fine and majestic. On the contrary, so far is this from being
the fact, he is merely making an ass of himself.
_Twenty-five_
The female sex is prone to be inaccurate and careless of apparently
trivial detail, because this is the general tendency of mankind.
In men destined for a business or a profession, the proclivity is
harshly discouraged at an early stage. In women, who usually are not
destined for anything whatever, it enjoys a merry life, and often
refuses to be improved out of existence when the sudden need arises.
No one by taking thought can deracinate the mental habits of, say,
twenty years.
_Twenty-six_
Kindliness of heart is not the greatest of human qualities--and
its general effect on the progress of the world is not entirely
beneficent--but it is the greatest of human qualities in friendship.
_Twenty-seven_
There is a certain satisfaction in hopelessness amid the extreme
of misery. You press it to you as the martyr clutched the burning
fagot. You enjoy it. You savour, piquantly, your woe, your shame,
your abjectness, the failure of your philosophy. You celebrate the
perdition of the man in you. You want to talk about it brazenly; even
to exaggerate it, and to swagger over it.
_Twenty-eight_
The great public is no fool. It is huge and simple and slow in mental
processes, like a good-humoured giant, easy to please and grateful for
diversion. But it has a keen sense of its own dignity; it will not be
trifled with; it resents for ever the tongue in the cheek.
_Twenty-nine_
The beauty of horses, timid creatures, sensitive and graceful and
irrational as young girls, is a thing apart; and what is strange
is that their vast strength does not seem incongruous with it. To
be above that proud and lovely organism, listening, apprehensive,
palpitating, nervous far beyond the human, to feel one’s self almost
part of it by intimate contact, to yield to it, and make it yield,
to draw from it into one’s self some of its exultant vitality--in a
word, to ride--I can comprehend a fine enthusiasm for that.
_Thirty_
The respectable portion of the male sex in England may be divided
into two classes, according to its method and manner of complete
immersion in water. One class, the more dashing, dashes into a cold
tub every morning. Another, the more cleanly, sedately takes a warm
bath every Saturday night. There can be no doubt that the former
class lends tone and distinction to the country, but the latter is
the nation’s backbone.
_Thirty-one_
Although you may easily practise upon the credulity of a child in
matters of fact, you cannot cheat his moral and social judgment. He
will add you up, and he will add anybody up, and he will estimate
conduct, upon principles of his own and in a manner terribly
impartial. Parents have no sterner nor more discerning critics than
their own children.
_April_
_One_
A person’s character is, and can be, nothing else but the total
result of his habits of thought.
_Two_
Beware of hope, and beware of ambition! Each is excellently tonic,
like German competition, in moderation, but all of you are suffering
from self-indulgence in the first, and very many of you are ruining
your constitutions with the second.
_Three_
As a matter of fact, people “indulge” in remorse; it is a somewhat
vicious form of spiritual pleasure.
_Four_
When a thing is thoroughly well done it often has the air of being a
miracle.
_Five_
After all the shattering discoveries of science and conclusions of
philosophy, mankind has still to live with dignity amid hostile
nature, and in the presence of an unknowable power, and mankind can
only succeed in this tremendous feat by the exercise of faith and of
that mutual goodwill which is based in sincerity and charity.
_Six_
All the days that are to come will more or less resemble the present
day, until you die.
_Seven_
In literature, when nine hundred and ninety-nine souls ignore you,
but the thousandth buys your work, or at least borrows it--that is
called enormous popularity.
_Eight_
If life is not a continual denial of the past, then it is nothing.
_Nine_
The profoundest belief of the average man is that virtue ought never
to be its own reward. Shake that belief and you commit a cardinal
sin; you disturb his mental quietude.
_Ten_
It is notorious that the smaller the community, and the more
completely it is self-contained, the deeper will be its preoccupation
with its own trifling affairs.
_Eleven_
To my mind, most societies with a moral aim are merely clumsy
machines for doing simple jobs with the maximum of friction, expense
and inefficiency. I should define the majority of these societies as
a group of persons each of whom expects the others to do something
very wonderful.
_Twelve_
There is nothing like a sleepless couch for a clear vision of one’s
environment.
_Thirteen_
The supreme muddlers of living are often people of quite remarkable
intellectual faculty, with a quite remarkable gift of being wise for
others.
_Fourteen_
Our leading advertisers have richly proved that the public will
believe anything if they are told of it often enough.
_Fifteen_
Here’s a secret. No writer likes writing, at least not one in a
hundred, and the exception, ten to one, is a howling mediocrity.
That’s a fact. But all the same, they’re miserable if they don’t
write.
_Sixteen_
The first and noblest aim of imaginative literature is not either to
tickle or to stab the sensibilities, but to render a coherent view
of life’s apparent incoherence, to give shape to the amorphous, to
discover beauty which was hidden, to reveal essential truth.
_Seventeen_
There is a theory that a great public can appreciate a great novel,
that the highest modern expression of literary art need not appeal in
vain to the average reader. And I believe this to be true--provided
that such a novel is written with intent, and with a full knowledge
of the peculiar conditions to be satisfied; I believe that a novel
could be written which would unite in a mild ecstasy of praise the
two extremes--the most inclusive majority and the most exclusive
minority.
_Eighteen_
“Give us more brains, Lord!” ejaculated a great writer. Personally, I
think he would have been wiser if he had asked first for the power to
keep in order such brains as we have.
_Nineteen_
Under the incentive of a woman’s eyes, of what tremendous efforts
is a clever man not capable, and, deprived of it, to what depths of
stagnation will he not descend!
_Twenty_
Elegance is a form of beauty. It not only enhances beauty, but it is
the one thing which will console the eye for the absence of beauty.
_Twenty-one_
There are several ways of entering upon journalism. One is at once to
found or purchase a paper, and thus achieve the editorial chair at a
single step. This course is often adopted in novels, sometimes with
the happiest results; and much less often in real life, where the end
is invariably and inevitably painful.
_Twenty-two_
Existence rightly considered is a fair compromise between two
instincts--the instinct of hoping one day to live, and the instinct
to live here and now.
_Twenty-three_
Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can
enter except by your permission.
_Twenty-four_
The average man is not half enough of an egotist. If egotism means a
terrific interest in one’s self, egotism is absolutely essential to
efficient living.
_Twenty-five_
Events have no significance except by virtue of the ideas from which
they spring; the clash of events is the clash of ideas, and out of
this clash the moral lesson inevitably emerges, whether we ask for
it or no. Hence every great book is a great moral book, and there is
a true and fine sense in which the average reader is justified in
regarding art as the handmaid of morality.
_Twenty-six_
_William Shakespeare’s Birthday_
Shakespeare is “taught” in schools; that is to say, the Board of
Education and all authorities pedagogic bind themselves together in a
determined effort to make every boy in the land a lifelong enemy of
Shakespeare. It is a mercy they don’t “teach” Blake.
_Twenty-seven_
_Herbert Spencer’s Birthday_
There are those who assert that Spencer was not a supreme genius! At
any rate he taught me intellectual courage; he taught me that nothing
is sacred that will not bear inspection; and I adore his memory.
_Twenty-eight_
Unite the colossal with the gaudy, and you will not achieve the
sublime; but, unless you are deterred by humility and a sense
of humour, you may persuade yourself that you have done so, and
certainly most people will credit you with the genuine feat.
_Twenty-nine_
The average reader (like Goethe and Ste. Beuve) has his worse and his
better self, and there are times when he will yield to the former;
but on the whole his impulses are good. In every writer who earns
his respect and enduring love there is some central righteousness,
which is capable of being traced and explained, and at which it is
impossible to sneer.
_Thirty_
Literature is the art of using words. This is not a platitude, but a
truth of the first importance, a truth so profound that many writers
never get down to it, and so subtle that many other writers who think
they see it never in fact really comprehend it. The business of the
author is with words. The practisers of other arts, such as music and
painting, deal with ideas and emotions, but only the author has to
deal with them by means of words. Words are his exclusive possession
among creative artists and craftsmen. They are his raw material,
his tools and instruments, his manufactured product, his alpha and
omega. He may abound in ideas and emotions of the finest kind,
but those ideas and emotions cannot be said to have an effective
existence until they are expressed; they are limited to the extent of
their expression; and their expression is limited to the extent of
the author’s skill in the use of words. I smile when I hear people
say, “If I could _write_, if I could only put down what I feel--!”
Such people beg the whole question. The ability to _write_ is the
sole thing peculiar to literature--not the ability to think nor the
ability to feel, but the ability to write, to utilise words.
_May_
_One_
Only a small minority of authors overwrite themselves. Most of the
good and the tolerable ones do not write enough.
_Two_
The entire business of success is a gigantic tacit conspiracy on the
part of the minority to deceive the majority.
_Three_
There are at least three women-journalists in Europe to-day whose
influence is felt in Cabinets and places where they govern (proving
that sex is not a bar to the proper understanding of _la haute
politique_); whereas the man who dares to write on fashions does not
exist.
_Four_
Habits are the very dickens to change.
_Five_
Not only is art a factor in life; it is a factor in all lives. The
division of the world into two classes, one of which has a monopoly
of what is called “artistic feeling,” is arbitrary and false.
Everyone is an artist, more or less; that is to say, there is no
person quite without that faculty of poetising, which, by seeing
beauty, creates beauty, and which, when it is sufficiently powerful
and articulate, constitutes the musical composer, the architect, the
imaginative writer, the sculptor, and the painter.
_Six_
Is it nothing to you to learn to understand that the world is not a
dull place?
_Seven_
In neither faith nor enthusiasm can a child compete with a convinced
adult. No child could believe in anything as passionately as the
modern millionaire believes in money, or as the modern social
reformer believes in the virtue of Acts of Parliament.
_Eight_
Literature, instead of being an accessory, is the fundamental _sine
qua non_ of complete living.
_Nine_
No novelist, however ingenious, who does not write what he feels,
and what, by its careful finish, approximately pleases himself,
can continue to satisfy the average reader. He may hang for years
precariously on the skirts of popularity, but in the end he will
fall; he will be found out.
_Ten_
Only the fool and the very young expect happiness. The wise merely
hope to be interested, at least not to be bored, in their passage
through this world. Nothing is so interesting as love and grief, and
the one involves the other.
_Eleven_
One of the commonest characteristics of the successful man is his
idleness, his immense capacity for wasting time.
_Twelve_
People who regard literary taste simply as an accomplishment, and
literature simply as a distraction, will never truly succeed, either
in acquiring the accomplishment or in using it half-acquired as a
distraction.
_Thirteen_
The finest souls have their reactions, their rebellions against wise
reason.
_Fourteen_
My theory is that politeness, instead of decreasing with
intimacy--should increase! And when I say “Politeness” I mean common,
superficial politeness. I don’t mean the deep-down sort of thing that
you can only detect with a divining-rod.
_Fifteen_
Marcus Aurelius is assuredly regarded as the greatest of writers in
the human machine school, and not to read him daily is considered by
many to be a bad habit.
_Sixteen_
Part of the secret of Balzac’s unique power over the reader is the
unique tendency of his own interest in the thing to be told.
_Seventeen_
_“Anna of the Five Towns” finished 1901_
The art of fiction is the art of telling a story. This statement is
not so obvious and unnecessary as it may seem. Most beginners and
many “practised hands” attend to all kinds of things before they
attend to the story. With them the art of fiction is the art of
describing character or landscape, of getting “atmosphere,” and of
being humorous, pathetic, flippant, or terrifying; while the story
is a perfunctory excuse for these feats. They are so busy with the
traditional paraphernalia of fiction, with the tricks of the craft,
that what should be the principal business is reduced to a subsidiary
task. They forget that character, landscape, atmosphere, humour,
pathos, etc., are not ends in themselves, but only means toward an
end.
_Eighteen_
How true it is that the human soul is solitary, that content is the
only true riches, and that to be happy we must be good.
_Nineteen_
Men of letters who happen to have genius do not write for men of
letters. They write, as Wagner was proud to say he composed, for the
ordinary person.
_Twenty_
Great success never depends on the practice of the humbler virtues,
though it may occasionally depend on the practice of the prouder
vices.
_Twenty-one_
“I’ve been to the National Gallery twice, and, upon my word, I was
almost the only person there! And it’s free, too! People don’t
_want_ picture-galleries. If they did, they’d go. Who ever saw a
public-house empty, or Peter Robinson’s? And you have to pay there!”
_Twenty-two_
He who has not been “presented to the freedom” of literature has not
wakened up out of his prenatal sleep. He is merely not born. He can’t
see; he can’t hear; he can’t feel in any full sense. He can only eat
his dinner.
_Twenty-three_
All the arts are a conventionalisation, an ordering of nature.
_Twenty-four_
The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is
to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one’s capacity for
pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension.
_Twenty-five_
Like every aging artist of genuine accomplishment, he knew--none
better--that there is no satisfaction save the satisfaction of
fatigue after honest endeavour. He knew--none better--that wealth and
glory and fine clothes are naught, and that striving is all.
_Twenty-six_
Prepare to live by all means, but for Heaven’s sake do not forget to
live.
_Twenty-seven_
_My Birthday_
Sometimes I suddenly halt and address myself: “You may be richer or
you may be poorer; you may live in greater pomp and luxury, or in
less. The point is, that you will always be, essentially, what you
are now. You have no real satisfaction to look forward to except
the satisfaction of continually inventing, fancying, imagining,
scribbling. Say another thirty years of these emotional ingenuities,
these interminable variations on the theme of beauty. Is it good
enough?” And I answered: “Yes.” But who knows? Who can preclude the
regrets of the dying couch?
_Twenty-eight_
The balanced sanity of a great mind makes impossible exaggeration,
and, therefore, distortion.
_Twenty-nine_
No art that is not planned in form is worth consideration, and no
life that is not planned in convention can ever be satisfactory.
_Thirty_
The value of restraint is seldom inculcated upon women. Indeed,
its opposites--gush and a tendency to hysteria--are regarded, in
many respectable quarters, as among the proper attributes of true
womanliness; attributes to be artistically cultivated.
_Thirty-one_
There grows in the North Country a certain kind of youth of whom
it may be said that he is born to be a Londoner. The metropolis,
and everything that appertains to it, that comes down from it, that
goes up into it, has for him an imperious fascination. Long before
schooldays are over he learns to take a doleful pleasure in watching
the exit of the London train from the railway station. He stands by
the hot engine and envies the very stoker. Gazing curiously into the
carriages he wonders that men and women, who in a few hours will be
treading streets called Piccadilly and the Strand, can contemplate
the immediate future with so much apparent calmness; some of them
even have the audacity to look bored. He finds it difficult to keep
from throwing himself in the guard’s van as it glides past him; and
not until the last coach is a speck upon the distance does he turn
away and, nodding absently to the ticket-clerk, who knows him well,
go home to nurse a vague ambition and dream of town.
_June_
_One_
To cultivate and nourish a grievance when you have five hundred
pounds in your pocket, in cash, is the most difficult thing in the
world.
_Two_
The full beauty of an activity is never brought out until it is
subjected to discipline and strict ordering and nice balancing.
_Three_
The unfading charm of classical music is that you never tire of it.
_Four_
The spirit of literature is unifying; it joins the candle and the
star, and by the magic of an image shows that the beauty of the
greater is in the less.
_Five_
If people, by merely wishing to do so, could regularly and seriously
read, observe, write, and use every faculty and sense, there would be
very little mental inefficiency.
_Six_
Laws and rules, forms and ceremonies, are good in themselves, from
a merely æsthetic point of view, apart from their social value and
necessity.
_Seven_
Fashionable women have a manner of sitting down quite different
from that of ordinary women. They only touch the back of the chair
at the top. They don’t loll but they only escape lolling by dint of
gracefulness. It is an affair of curves, slants, descents, nicely
calculated. They elaborately lead your eye downwards over gradually
increasing expanses, and naturally you expect to see their feet--and
you don’t see their feet. The thing is apt to be disturbing to
unhabituated beholders.
_Eight_
There are moments in the working day of every novelist when
he feels deeply that anything--road-mending, shop-walking,
housebreaking--would be better than this eternal torture of the
brain; but such moments pass.
_Nine_
During a long and varied career as a bachelor, I have noticed that
marriage is usually the death of politeness between a man and a
woman. I have noticed that the stronger the passion the weaker the
manners.
_Ten_
My sense of security amid the collisions of existence lies in the
firm consciousness that just as my body is the servant of my mind, so
is my mind the servant of _me_.
_Eleven_
The fault of the epoch is the absence of meditativeness.
_Twelve_
People who don’t want to live, people who would sooner hibernate than
feel intensely, will be wise to eschew literature.
_Thirteen_
No one is so sure of achieving the aims of the literary craftsman as
the man who has something to say and wishes to say it simply and have
done with it.
_Fourteen_
The mind can only be conquered by regular meditation, by deciding
beforehand what direction its activity ought to take, and insisting
that its activity take that direction; also by never leaving it idle,
undirected, masterless, to play at random like a child in the streets
after dark.
_Fifteen_
The enterprise of forming one’s literary taste is an agreeable one;
if it is not agreeable it cannot succeed.
_Sixteen_
The attitude of the average decent person towards the classics of his
own tongue is one of distrust--I had almost said, of fear.
_Seventeen_
Am I, a portion of the Infinite Force that existed billions of years
ago, and which will exist billions of years hence, going to allow
myself to be worried by any terrestrial physical or mental event? I
am not.
_Eighteen_
There is not a successful inexpert author writing to-day who would
not be more successful--who would not be better esteemed and in
receipt of a larger income--if he had taken the trouble to become
expert. Skill does count; skill is always worth its cost in time and
labour.
_Nineteen_
It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.
_Twenty_
For me there is no supremacy in art. When fifty artists have
contrived to be supreme, supremacy becomes impossible. Take a little
song by Grieg. It is perfect, it is supreme. No one could be greater
than Grieg was great when he wrote that song. The whole last act
of _The Twilight of the Gods_ is not greater than a little song of
Grieg’s.
_Twenty-one_
We talked books. We just simply enumerated books without end,
praising or damning them, and arranged authors in neat pews, like
cattle in classes at an agricultural show. No pastime is
|
ed the
notion. Being ill in bed of course precluded the idea of lessons, with
which a certain portion of every day had been threatened, and as they
lay in bed thus they discoursed:--
_Zoë._--"I really do not think it will be pleasant if we are to be like
this all the time."
_Lilly._--"Oh, Zoë, I am so snug, I have got a nice book to read, and
there will be no playing on the piano to-day."
_Winny._--"Oh! I am very sorry for that. If I did not feel so funny, I
should like to go and play very much. But I am glad we are to have no
French. Jenny says Madame is very ill indeed, and I think I heard her
groan once."
_Zoë._--"Groan, did you? then she must be very bad. I don't wish her to
groan much, but I don't mind if she is sick always from ten until two.
You know mother promised we should do no lessons after two. Here is
Jenny. Why, Jenny, what is the matter with you?"
_Jenny._--"Indeed, Miss, I don't know; but just as I was fastening Miss
Sybil's dress, I felt so queer, and I was so ashamed, I was obliged to
sit down before all the young ladies."
All the little girls at once exclaimed, "Ah, Jenny, Jenny, you know you
are sea-sick." "No, indeed, young ladies," exclaimed Jenny, vehemently,
"I am sure it is no such thing; but Master Felix would have some cold
beef with Worcester sauce for his breakfast, and that gave me a turn, it
has such a strong smell." But ere Jenny had well got the words out of
her mouth, nature asserted her rights, and after an undeniable fit, she
reeled off to bed, and was a victim for three days. Hargrave, my maid,
being of a stolid, determined, sort of stoical character, announced her
intention of not giving way; and though a victim, or rather martyr, she
never suffered a sign to appear, or neglected one thing that she was
asked to do, or showed the smallest feeling on the occasion beyond a
general sense of dissatisfaction at all things connected with the sea.
But of all our sufferers none equalled my poor cousin. Not a word was to
be got out of her, but short pithy anathemas against everybody that came
near her, everybody that spoke to her, every lurch the ship made, every
noise overhead; an expression of pity caused an explosion of wrath, a
hope that she was better a wish that she was dead, and an offer of
assistance a command to be gone out of her sight. Neither of the boys
suffered in the least. And now the increased motion of the vessel, the
noise overhead, and various other signs told us that the lovely smooth
ocean, on whose bosom we had trusted ourselves, for some cause unknown
to us was considerably disturbed, internally or externally. It was
impossible for any land-lubbers to stand; it was equally impossible to
eat in the form prescribed by the rules of polite society, food being
snatched at a venture, and not always arriving at the mouth for which it
was originally intended. One or two were pitched out of their cots, and
a murmuring of fear that this should be a tempest, and that we were
going to be wrecked, caused a message to be sent to Captain MacNab to
know whereabouts we were, for no one liked to be first to acknowledge
fear or expose our ignorance to the Captain, who had good-humouredly
rallied some on what they would do and say in case of bad weather.
Therefore the question of whereabouts are we seemed a very safe one,
likely to obtain the real news we wanted without exposing our fears to
the captain. In answer, we received a message to say we were near the
Bay of Biscay and as there was a very pretty sea, we should do well to
come up and look at it. "Come up and look at it?" that showed at once
that no shipwreck was in contemplation. But how to get up? that was the
question. The message, however, was dispatched round to the different
berths, with the additional one, "that the mother was going
immediately," that being my title amongst the young ones, and the little
mother being the title of my cousin.
On deck we were received by the captain, who welcomed us with much
pleasure, an undisguised twinkle in his eyes betraying a little inkling
into the purport of our message. To our amazement, he and the sailors
seemed quite at their ease, walking as steadily as if the vessel was a
rock, and as immoveable as the pyramids. But what a sea! I looked up and
saw high grey mountains on all sides, and ere I could decide whether
they were moveable or my sight deceptive, they had disappeared, and,
from a height that seemed awful, we looked down upon a troubled,
rolling, restless mass of waters, each wave seeming to buffet its
neighbour with an angry determination to put it down. In the midst of
all this chaos, one monster wave rose superior to all the rest, and
rolling forward with giant strength and resistless impetuosity,
threatened instant destruction to the vessel. A cry, a terrific roll, a
shudder through the vessel, and again we were in the valley of waters;
and during the comparative lull the captain roared in my ear, "Is it not
a pretty sea, Madam?"
We can now laugh at our fears, and the awe-struck faces we all
presented, but it was many hours ere some of us recovered ourselves, and
for this show of timidity Gatty scolded Sybil.
_Gatty._--"How can you be such a goose, Sybil? Why, you are trembling
now."
_Sybil._--"No, I am only a little cold; but you know, Gatty, that was
such an awful wave, if we had stretched our necks ever so high we could
not see to the top."
_Gatty._--"Well, and what did that matter? It was a glorious wave, a
magnificent fellow, I dare say a tenth wave. If we had been walking on
the sea shore we should have counted and known."
_Sybil._--"But I could not tell how we were ever to get to the top. I
thought we must certainly go through it, or it would go over us."
_Gatty_ (laughing).--"Serena, do come here, Sybil is talking such
splendid stuff, and, moreover, she is frightened out of her wits, and I
do believe wishes herself at home."
_Serena._--"Oh dear! I am so ill; going on deck has quite upset me, and
I am worse than I was."
_Gatty._--"Now, whatever you do, don't go and be so foolish, Serena. I
shall have no pleasure at all if Sybil is frightened and you are ill.
Get up, and eat a lot of roast beef with heaps of mustard and you will
be quite well."
A little small voice called to Gatty, and also asked for beef and
mustard. "I am sure, quite sure, Gatty," said the little speaker, Winny,
"it will do me a great deal of good." "Ah," said Lilly, "I wish I was
out of this place. Do, mother, ask the captain to stop and put me down
somewhere." This little idea caused infinite amusement. Time, however,
went on, and cured us all. We had lovely weather, and began to keep
regular hours, and have allotted times of the day for different things.
All attending, whatever might be our occupations, to the captain's
summons; for when anything new was to be seen, any wonders of the
ocean, any curious bird resting its weary wings on the only haven in
sight--our little vessel, any furling of sails, or any change, so did
the good-natured captain send for us, and we joyfully obeyed the
summons, listening to all his wondrous tales, watching the rolling of
the porpoises, and the wondrous colours of the sea. As we approached a
hotter climate, everything became, in our eyes, objects of new and
strange interest. In this manner we reached Gibraltar, and landed for
the first time, having been thirteen days at sea.
CHAPTER III.
_May 16._--GIBRALTAR.--I, for one, was very glad to land, for somehow on
board ship one never seemed to be able to finish one's toilette with the
degree of niceness necessary, a lurch of the ship very often caused an
utter derangement, a rolling sea made it a matter of great difficulty
even to wash one's face, and as for tidying the hair that had been given
up, and those who did not wear caps enclosed their rough curls in nets.
We therefore migrated to the principal hotel, leaving the two boys, at
their own request, on board, under the care of Jenny and Smart. The
three elder girls were to wait on each other, and each take a little
girl in their charge, while Hargrave waited on the three elderly ladies.
We were objects of great curiosity, and many people supposed our party
to consist of a school. They were more surprised at hearing that La Luna
belonged to the school. The visitors on board of her became innumerable,
causing the good-natured captain a world of trouble. Every day he came
and reported himself, as he called it, to his commanding officer,
meaning myself and brought an account of the boys, or one with him; and
it was most curious to see this great rough captain take each little
girl up in his arms and kiss her quite gently, always expressing a hope
to each that they were not getting too fond of the land, but would soon
return to their ocean home, as he was quite dull without them. Whatever
misgivings he might have had on starting, they had all given way to an
interest and affection for us all, that made it quite a pleasure to us
to communicate with him.
We took advantage of our first landing to write letters home, which,
having been preserved with sorrowful care, have now become agreeable
memorials of our adventures, and may be interesting, as their own
letters will best explain the individual character of each of those who
were now on their way towards adventures strange as unexpected. The
letters of the elder portion of our party contained but a description of
Gibraltar, which is well known to most people. Sybil's letter was as
follows:--
"_Gibraltar, May 16, 18--_
"MY DEAREST MAMMA AND SISTERS,
"Here we are safe on dry land again, and who would have believed a
fortnight ago that we should have been so glad to get out of our dear La
Luna. But we don't make half such good sailors as we expected; and how
Em would have laughed could she have seen all the queer looks and sad
faces which possessed the merry party she had so lately seen. But here
we are really on dry land, and at Gibraltar, at the summit of all our
present hopes, and charmed enough to make us forget all the horrors of
the sea, and even think we could undergo them twenty times for such a
sight. We came into the harbour last night, and landed as soon as we
could collect our wits, and mother collect us; Madame has been at
Gibraltar before, and so ought to have had the use of hers, but knowing
her propensity to lose her way, we made Hargrave look after her, while
we three elder girls each took a little child. Both the mothers looked
after our things. The boys and Jenny were left behind. So we landed just
before gun fire, passing through the long rows of houses, which looked
so strange to our wondering eyes, piled one above the other, and as we
were passed and stared at by numbers of odd queer-looking people, we
quite fancied ourselves in a dream, or realizing the Arabian Nights. At
last we halted at our hotel. Our sailors deposited our boxes, and seemed
to wish us good night with sorrow. We had a famous tea, if I may so call
such an odd mixture of eatables, and went to bed, hardly believing we
could be in Gibraltar. This morning we were awoke by some little voices
round our beds--'Oh, auntie, dear auntie, do get up; this is such a
lovely place, and so odd. There are such rocks, and oh, auntie, such
queer people. I saw a man in a turban, and there is a black man in the
house, and----' 'Hush, little nieces, how are aunties to get up, if you
chatter so? rather help us to dress, that we may see the wonderful
things too.' We found our two mothers in the pretty drawing room. Three
large windows looked out upon the busy town and blue sea below. The
little mother was out in the balcony, in a perfect ecstasy of delight.
A call to breakfast was obeyed, though we could hardly eat, the chicks
jumping up every minute to look at something new and strange going on
below, and the aunties quite wishing that they might commit such a
breach of decorum. We were startled out of all propriety at last by a
well-known voice sounding under the windows, and a remonstrance which
drew us all there. Looking down, we beheld Felix seated on the top of a
most extraordinary vehicle, the driver of which he had superseded, and
was trying to persuade the lumbering old horse to get on. Smart was
behind vainly endeavouring to persuade his young master to come down. A
glance at the drawing-room windows effected what Smart's entreaties had
failed to do, and the young pickle was soon at high breakfast, and had
demolished a pretty considerable quantity ere his steady elder brother
appeared.
"We have just returned from our first expedition so charmed, even our
excited imaginations came not up to the beautiful reality. The town is a
very curious one. A long street composes the principal part. Almost all
the houses are painted black, with flat roofs. The shops open to the
street. But the rock itself! My dearest sisters, you cannot imagine
anything so exquisite as the tiers upon tiers, the masses of granite or
marble rising one above another until one's eyes ached in counting them.
I think if our party are always as wild as the fresh air, the beautiful
scenery, and the new sensations caused to day, our mother will repent
her responsibility. Even the quiet Zoë was roused, and her exclamations
were as rapturous as Winny's. Felix's feats of climbing were frightful;
we were never quite sure where to look for him. If Smart had not kept
his eye on him, and threatened him with sundry punishments, I don't know
in what mischief he would not have been. He is much more afraid of Smart
than he is of his mother. Lilly's head was full of some classic stories
which she had picked up somewhere, the scene of which she was quite sure
was in Gibraltar, and each auntie in turn came in for a bit of the
story, which might have created a sensation at any other time or in any
other scene but this. So you may imagine us now, all so happy, so weary,
so enchanted, so sleepy, but wide-awake enough to be able to send the
dear party at home a bit of our pleasure, and the wish that they were
all with us to delight also in such scenes. I don't think the mother
will ever get us all away. We have quite forgotten our pretty La Luna;
indeed she is at present as little thought of as her great prototype in
broad daylight. So I will now say good-bye, hoping you will set down all
deficiencies and incoherences in this long dispatch to the new and
delightful feelings such a place and such a new pleasure have produced
in our wondering heads. But in Gibraltar as at home, you must believe me
ever, dearest mamma, your dutiful and affectionate daughter, and dearest
sisters, your loving and affectionate sister,
"SYBIL."
My eldest son's letter to his grandpapa was as follows:
"DEAR GRANDPAPA,
"I like the sea quite as well as I expected; but I would rather go out
shooting at home. I hope mamma, however, will allow us to go to the Cape
or Canada. Smart says he should like to shoot a bear, and I wish to kill
an elephant. In the Bay of Biscay we had a rolling sea. The captain told
us the waves were 30 feet high; the wind was very great, and blew from
the South-West; but the captain did not seem afraid, he laughed and
liked it, so I thought it better not to be afraid either. But Smart was
very ill, and said, whenever we spoke to him, 'Oh! I wish I was at home
with my old woman.' Felix told him he was a coward and afraid; but he
said, 'I ain't afeard, but I be going to die, I be sure.' The dogs are
very happy and so is the cow; we feed her every day, and she knows us
quite well; she has not been sea-sick, or the dogs, or Felix and I, or
the captain and sailors, but I think everybody else has. Pray give my
love to grandmamma and my aunts. I am tired of this long letter, and I
think you will be also. I remain, your dutiful and affectionate
grandson,
"OSCAR."
Gatty's letter was to her sister:--
"MY DEAREST LIFFY,
"This is such glorious fun; but I am so hot. I declare if I stay here
much longer I shall flow away, and nothing be left of me but a rivulet.
I eat oranges all day long. We have a basket full put by our bedsides at
night, and I never leave one by breakfast time if I can help it. It is a
horrid nuisance being so sick at sea. I really thought in the Bay of
Biscay that I should make a fool of myself and wish I was at home again.
I don't like this place much, one is so stewed; there is not a shadow,
all seems baked hard as pie-crust twice done. I like being on the sea
better now I have got over being ill; there is a breeze to cool one,
besides it is so jolly having nothing to do but watch the waves and the
wind and learn to mind the helm. I have made great friends with all the
sailors, and they are very nice fellows, all but one crabbed old
Scotchman, who says, when he sees us on deck, 'ladies should always stay
down stairs.' I crawled up stairs in the Bay of Biscay, because they
said it was such a glorious sea, and, at first, I thought we were in a
vast quarry of bright blue marble, all the broken edges being crested
with brilliant white spar. Suddenly we seemed to go over all, all my
quarry disappeared, and I was as near as possible going headlong down
the companion ladder, and if I had how they would have laughed. The
captain said the ship was on an angle of twenty degrees, what that means
I cannot precisely say, but leave you to find out. I can only tell you I
thought we were topsy-turvy very often, and I hope we shall not
experience any more angles of that kind again. Sybil was awfully
frightened, and as white as a sheet. Serena was too ill to care whether
the ship was in angles or out. Felix is such a jolly boy, and likes the
winds roaring and the waves foaming, and he struts and blusters about as
if he was six feet two, and stout in proportion, instead of being a
shrimp of the smallest dimensions. He is getting a colour though, and
his mother looks at him quite happy. Winny is such an innocent little
donkey, so quaint and matter-of-factish.
"I suppose you don't care to hear about Gibraltar, you will get a much
better account in some Gazetteer than I can give you; I hate
descriptions. However, I'll look in our Gazetteer, and tell you if it is
true. All right, very good account. So now I will finish. I hope we
shall go across the Atlantic. The little mother is as cross as a bear;
but, as she cannot be so always, we are looking out for a change of
weather. You know I never can make civil speeches, so please say
everything proper for me, including my best of loves to papa and mamma.
Ever, old girl, believe me your most affectionate sister,
"GATTY."
CHAPTER IV.
I think the three letters I have given you will sufficiently explain the
feelings of our party. We now retraced our steps, though I should have
much liked to stop at Lisbon to see the celebrated Cintra.
We, to fulfil the promises made to our gentlemen, were now obliged to
make the best of our way to Madeira. This we accomplished within two
days of the time we had promised to meet them. But alas! instead of
having to welcome them, we received letters, stating that their joining
our party must be again postponed, from circumstances needless to
mention, and that we must either cruise about for another month or fix
some spot where they could meet us at the expiration of that time.
Having now become a nautical character, I may be excused saying "that I
was quite taken aback." What to do, where to go, or how to manage, I
knew not. But to proceed. After a variety of consultations, a vast
quantity of advice from all sides, we, backed by our captain's wishes,
and rendered rampant by the stretch we had given our hitherto
home-clipped wings, decided that we would cross the Atlantic. So great a
change had taken place in the captain's mind regarding ourselves that I
am not quite sure he mourned at all for the defalcation of our male
escort. He had us all to himself now; and, in recommending us the trip
across the Atlantic, he reminded me that my brother was stationed at Rio
Janeiro, being captain in H.M.S. C----, and that we might cruise up
towards North America, and pick up the gentlemen, who, coming from
England in the fast-sailing packet boats, would not be more than a
fortnight or three weeks at most on the voyage. Of course all the
children were wild to go. Remaining in the Mediterranean was voted dull
and stupid. How charming to go to America, to see things much more
uncommon, much more curious. Everybody could and did see the
Mediterranean; it was quite a common yacht excursion. Besides, as I
overheard Gatty say to her companions, "Just think, Girls, what a bore
it would have been, if, in a month or two's time, our mother should have
got tired of the sea, or the little mother continued, every time we have
a gale, to get sea sick, they would have ordered us homewards, without
consulting our wishes, and at the end of three months we should have
been in stupid England again."
_Sybil._--"Stupid England!"
_Gatty._--"Stupid England. I did not say stupid England, did I?"
_Sybil_ (much shocked).--"Yes, Gertrude, you did."
_Gatty._--"Then, Sybil, I am very sorry. England is anything but stupid.
It's a glorious place. It's a delectable place. It's a place that if any
one dared to say a word against it, I really think I should feel very
much inclined to----"
_Sybil._--"Well! What?"
_Gatty_ (softly).--"Why, I should like to knock them down; only don't
mention my ideas. Madame will bother me, and say it is unladylike; and
perhaps she will give me Theresa Tidy's maxims to do into French as a
punishment."
_Serena._--"Then we won't tell on any account; such a fate would be so
horrible. But I agree with you that it would be dreadfully stupid to go
home in three months. Now, if once we get to America, we shall have so
much to see and do that the winter would come on, and mother would never
trust all us precious people across the Atlantic in bad weather, so we
shall have to winter in New York perhaps."
_Gatty._--"How jolly! won't I 'guess' and'reckon' every minute; and
won't I fire up if I hear anyone abuse our monarchical and loyal
constitution."
_Sybil._--"What grand words, Gatty. Where did you pick them up?"
_Serena._--"Oh, Gatty is so loyal, that I think she will be quite ready
to do that which we promised not to mention a little while ago, if----"
_Gatty._--"Hush, hush, Serena, you will get me into a scrape. Don't you
know everything is heard in this horrid--no, no, not horrid--sweet,
charming, dear, darling La Luna. You know what I mean, so hold your
tongue."
Therefore, across the Atlantic, accordingly, we pursued our merry
course, previously writing letters to detail our plans, to describe our
pleasures of all kinds, and to appoint a place of meeting.
What can express the delicious pleasure of the sea in a tropical
climate. The soft trade wind blowing us gently but swiftly through the
water, fanning every limb, and filling every vein with the very meat,
drink, and clothing of air; everything around, above, below bathed in
brightest purest sunshine; the still life, consequent upon the heat,
which pervaded the vessel, each person enjoying the unwonted luxury of
enforced idleness in their own way; the very barque herself seeming to
sleep on her silent course through the parting water; and as I raised
myself from the couch where I had lain down to read, I could not help
being struck with the pretty picture the vessel presented. My cousin was
reclining not far from me; her book had fallen from her listless hand,
her bright searching eyes, so restless in their intelligent activity
when open, were closed, her flushed face shewed she slept. Madame was
quietly pacing up and down, shaded from the sun by a great parasol; to
her the heat was soothing and agreeable, for she had lived much in
India, and it agreed with her better than cold winds and chilling
frosts. The three girls were not far off; the two elder ones making
pretence to read, but looking more inclined to snooze, while the
restless Gatty utterly prevented their pursuing either occupation. From
them came the only sounds in the vessel, and they consisted of peevish
expostulation, requests to be left alone, now and then a more energetic
appeal, a threat to complain to the higher powers, promises to be quiet
and still, and this scene at last resolved itself into a promise from
Sybil to tell a story, if the restless individual would only be quiet.
Immediately a reinforcement offered itself to the party in the shape of
Zoë and Winny. A pretty little group of four eager listeners and one
inspired narrator soon disposed themselves in the unstudied grace of
childhood, and the soft voice was heard in regular cadence, now lively,
now solemn, now pathetic, and again elevated according to the interest
and pathos of her story. Oscar, in his sailor's dress, with his fair
bright curls, his animated blue eyes, added to their picture. But in the
distance lay the prettiest group; tired and heated with the noisy play
of childhood, the mischievous and excited Felix lay fast asleep with his
arms round the neck of one of the dogs, as if he was determined the dog
should not play if he could not; but the watchful eye of Bernard shewed
that he was merely still for his little master's sake, and that he even
looked with a distrustful eye at the measured pacing of Madame, fearing
that her slight movement would disturb the profound repose into which
his charge had fallen. With her long curls sweeping half over the other
dog, and half over herself, lay the tired little Lilly, so mixed with
the other two that Cwmro did not seem to think it necessary to keep
guard while his companion watched so faithfully, and nothing could
exceed the depth of repose and stillness into which they seemed plunged;
and in finishing this picture I will end my chapter, for our days
glided quietly and deliciously, a time often looked back upon by us as
the sweetest and calmest we ever passed, and was only too short in its
duration.
CHAPTER V.
There fell upon us a dead calm. The heat was insufferable; the sky was
too blue to be looked at; the sea too dazzling to be gazed on; the sun
too scorching to be endured. We turned night into day, without mending
matters much. Gatty ran about, hot and panting, searching for a cool
hole, while she declared that the ship was a great pie, which the sun
had undertaken to bake, and that we were all the unfortunate pigeons
destined to be stewed therein. "Then," said the matter-of-fact little
Winny, "we must put all our feet together, and stick them up in the
middle." One day, when we happened to be in that indescribable state--a
sort of half consciousness of what was passing around--scarcely knowing
whether we were dreaming or waking, we heard a knock at the door, and
the hot but smiling face of our captain shewed itself. He was
immediately assailed with innumerable questions. Was the heat going? Was
the wind rising? When were we to go on? Why did he not whistle for a
breeze? Where could we get out of the way of the sun? Was it possible to
get into a shade? Could he give us anything to cool us? What would
happen if we all went on being baked in this manner? In fact, the
purport of his visit to the saloon at such an unusual hour was all but
lost sight of in the midst of these queries when I asked him if anything
was the matter. "I only wish to look at your barometer; something has
happened to mine," was his reply. So amidst an uproar of young voices,
with pullings, tuggings, and caresses, for he was a prodigious
favourite, he accomplished his object. I was surprised to see such an
expression of concern cross his countenance as he gazed at it, and
questioning him thereon, he answered, "Why, Madam, I find both the
barometers tell the same tale; therefore, what I imagined was owing to a
fault in mine, I must now impute to some extraordinary change in the
weather."
_Gatty._--"I hope then it will be hard frost."
_Felix._--"Or a storm, Gatty. I want the wind to blow, and the waves to
be mountains high."
_Lilly_ (yawning).--"I wish something would blow, and I wish I had two
little slave girls to fan me as they do in India."
_Zoë._--"I don't think I should; they would be so hot themselves, poor
things, I should be quite sorry all the time."
_Oscar._--"I vote for a hard frost, like Gatty, then we should have such
splendid skating on the sea."
_Serena._--"But, supposing (which I believe is no supposition, but a
fact) that the sea freezes in waves, we could not then skate."
_Gatty._--"Oh, don't talk any more of ice and frost, it makes one hotter
still to think of the contrast."
I proceeded to enquire of the captain what change he expected.
_Capt._--"Madam, it must be a storm of some kind; I have been becalmed
very often, but I never endured such profound stillness and heat as
there have been now for some days past. Dear little souls, I quite feel
for the young people, Madam."
_Mother._--"But, captain, is it likely to be a bad storm, or will there
be any danger?"
_Capt._--"You are all such good sailors that I am not at all afraid of
telling you the truth. Indeed," looking smilingly on the surrounding
faces, "I am thinking some of you will be glad to hear we are likely to
have a hurricane!"
The babble on this announcement was tremendous. Gatty and Felix shook
hands on the spot, and congratulated each other on the probable
fulfilment of their secret wishes. Madame turned deadly pale, and sunk
into a seat. My cousin tossed up her head, and said "anything is better
than this confounded heat." I trembled; the two little girls clasped
each other's hands half in fear, half in excitement; Sybil and Serena
both looked pleased; and Oscar besought me to allow him to be on deck
the whole time, that he might see the hurricane.
_Capt._ (seeing my alarm).--"You may be sure, Madam, I would not joke if
I thought there was any danger. I have been in Chinese typhoons,
hurricanes in the Tropics, and storms in the Atlantic, where one would
imagine heaven and earth were coming together, and under the blessing of
God" (here our captain bowed his head) "I apprehend nothing, Madam, but
what care and skill can overcome."
_Mother._--"But your face expressed great concern when you looked at the
barometer; and, besides, you mentioned the heat and calm as greater than
you ever before experienced."
_Capt._ (half hesitating).--"That is true, Madam, but I am such an ass,
I cannot hide the impulse of the moment."
_Mother._--"But, tell me, is this the impulse of the moment? Do you not
fear a more than ordinary severe hurricane? Remember, you have praised
us so much for being such good sailors, and so obedient to orders, that
you must put us to the proof; and the more you take us into your
confidence, the more well-behaved you will find us."
A number of voices, "Yes do, dear captain, tell us everything. Are we
going to have a grand storm? Will there be ice and snow? Shall we have
thunder and lightning? Will the waves be one hundred feet high? Do you
think the masts will be blown away? Tell us that it will be a
magnificent storm, whatever you do," said Gatty, winding up the noise.
_Capt._ (very much perplexed and anxiously).--"Dear little souls. Ma'am,
it does my heart good to hear them. They ought all to have been born
sailors, and bred to the sea into the bargain. Yes, my darlings, you
shall have a grand storm, no doubt you shall have all your wish,
whatever I can do for you, my little angels," and the good captain
looked quite benignly at them all, giving great energetic kisses back
for all the light rosy ones imprinted on his great Scotch face.
My cousin laughed as she turned to me and said, "Good as the captain is,
I hope he is not really going to spoil those children and conjure up a
prodigious storm for their amusement. Now brats, get out of the way, and
let us have a little common sense. You think we shall have a storm,
captain?"
_Capt._--"I fear so, Madam; that is, I don't fear," apologetically
turning to the young ones, "but I have no doubt we shall have a storm."
_Schillie._--"Then you would advise my betaking myself to bed, I
suppose, immediately."
_Capt._--"No, Ma'am, no, for I cannot judge when we shall have it, not
these twenty-four hours yet."
_Schillie._--"But, pray, have you any advice to give us against the
storm does come. When a horse kicks, I am well aware that the rider has
solely to think of sticking on; but, I confess, storms and their
consequences are quite out of my way."
_Capt._--"Indeed, Madam, I should be greatly obliged if you would
undertake to keep everybody quiet below, the children especially: if
they come running up after me, dear little souls. I shall be thinking
too much of them to mind my ship."
_Schillie._--"Then I will take particular good care they are kept out of
your way. I have no mind to lose my life
|
years afterward, when the
Legislature of New York authorized David C. Judson and Joseph Barnes, of
St. Lawrence County, S. C. Wead, of Franklin County and others as
commissioners to receive and distribute stock of the Northern Railroad;
$2,000,000 all told, divided into shares of $50 each. The date of the
formal incorporation of the road was May 14, 1845. Its organization was
not accomplished, however, until June, 1845, when the first meeting was
held in the then village of Ogdensburgh, and the following officers
elected:
_President_, GEORGE PARISH, Ogdensburgh
_Treasurer_, S. S. WALLEY
_Secretary_, JAMES G. HOPKINS
_Chief Engineer_, COL. CHARLES L. SCHLATTER
_Directors_
J. Leslie Russell, Canton
Charles Paine, Northfield, Vt.
Hiram Horton, Malone
S. F. Belknap, Windsor, Vt.
J. Wiley Edmonds, Boston
Benjamin Reed, Boston
Anthony C. Brown, Ogdensburgh
Isaac Spalding, Nashua, N. H.
Lawrence Myers, Plattsburgh
Abbot Lawrence, Boston
T. P. Chandler, Boston
S. S. Lewis, Boston
Soon after the organization of the company, T. P. Chandler succeeded Mr.
Parish (who was for many years easily the most prominent citizen of
Ogdensburgh) as President, and steps were taken toward the immediate
construction of the line. After the inevitable preliminary contentions as
to the exact route to be followed, James Hayward made the complete surveys
of the line as it exists at present, while Colonel Schlatter, its chief
engineer and for a number of years its superintendent as well, prepared to
build it. Actual construction was begun in March, 1848, in the deep
cutting just east of Ogdensburgh. At the same time grading and the laying
of rail began at the east end of the road--at Rouse's Point at the foot of
Lake Champlain--with the result that in the fall of 1848 trains were in
regular operation between Rouse's Point and Centreville. A year later the
road had been extended to Ellenburgh; in June, 1850, to Chateaugay. On
October 1, 1850, trains ran into Malone. A month later it was finished and
open for its entire length of 117 miles. Its cost, including its equipment
and fixtures, was then placed at $5,022,121.31.
* * * * *
It is not within the province of this little book to set down in detail
the somewhat checkered career of the Northern Railroad. It started with
large ambitions--even before its incorporation, James G. Hopkins, who
afterwards became its Secretary, traveled through the Northern Tier and
expatiated upon its future possibilities in a widely circulated little
pamphlet. It was a road builded for a large traffic. So sure were its
promoters of this forthcoming business that they placed its track upon the
side of the right-of-way, rather than in the middle of it, in order that
it would not have to be moved when it came time to double-track the road.
The road was never double-tracked. For some years it prospered--very well.
It made a direct connection between the large lake steamers at the foot of
navigation at Ogdensburgh--it will be remembered that Ogdensburgh is just
above the swift-running and always dangerous rapids of the St.
Lawrence--and the important port of Boston. The completion of the line was
followed almost immediately by the construction of a long bridge across
the foot of Lake Champlain which brought it into direct connection with
the rails of the Central Vermont at St. Albans--and so in active touch
with all of the New England lines.
The ambitious hopes of the promoters of the Northern took shape not only
in the construction of the stone shops and the large covered depot at
Malone (built in 1850 by W. A. Wheeler--afterwards not only President of
the property, but Vice-President of the United States--it still stands in
active service) but in the building of 4000 feet of wharfage and elaborate
warehouses and other terminal structures upon the river bank at
Ogdensburgh. The most of these also still stand--memorials of the large
scale upon which the road originally was designed.
Gradually, however, its strength faded. Other rail routes, more direct and
otherwise more advantageous, came to combat it. Fewer and still fewer
steamers came to its Ogdensburgh docks--at the best it was a seasonal
business; the St. Lawrence is thoroughly frozen and out of use for about
five months out of each year. The steamers of the upper Lakes outgrew in
size the locks of the Welland Canal and so made for Buffalo--in increasing
numbers. The Northern Railroad entered upon difficulties, to put it
mildly. It was reorganized and reorganized; it became the Ogdensburgh
Railroad, then the Ogdensburgh & Lake Champlain, then a branch of the
Central Vermont and then upon the partial dismemberment of that historic
property, a branch of the Rutland Railroad. As such it still continues
with a moderate degree of success. In any narrative of the development of
transport in the North Country it must be forever regarded, however, as a
genuine pioneer among its railroads.
* * * * *
One other route was seriously projected from the eastern end of the state
into the North Country--the Sackett's Harbor and Saratoga Railroad Co.
which was chartered April 10, 1848. After desperate efforts to build a
railroad through the vast fastnesses of the North Woods--then a _terra
incognito_, almost impenetrable--and the expenditure of very considerable
sums of money, both in surveys and in actual construction, this
enterprise was finally abandoned. Yet one to-day can still see traces of
it across the forest. In the neighborhood of Beaver Falls, they become
most definite; a long cutting and an embankment reaching from it, a
melancholy reminder of a mighty human endeavor of just seventy years ago.
If this route had ever been completed, Watertown to-day would enjoy direct
rail communication with Boston, although not reaching within a dozen miles
of Albany. The Fitchburg, which always sought, but vainly, to make itself
an effective competitor of the powerful Boston & Albany, built itself
through to Saratoga Springs, largely in hopes that some day the line
through the forest to Sackett's Harbor would be completed. It was a vain
hope. The faintest chance of that line ever being built was quite gone. A
quarter of a century later the Fitchburg thrust another branch off from
its Saratoga line to reach the ambitious new West Shore at Rotterdam
Junction. That hope also faded. And the Fitchburg, now an important
division of the Boston & Maine, despite its direct route and short mileage
through the Hoosac Tunnel, became forever a secondary route across the
state of Massachusetts.
* * * * *
The reports of the prospecting parties of the Sackett's Harbor & Saratoga
form a pleasing picture of the Northern New York at the beginning of the
fifties. The company had been definitely formed with its chief offices at
80 Wall Street, New York, and the following officers and directors:
_President_, WILLIAM COVENTRY H. WADDELL, New York
_Supt. of Operations_, GEN. S. P. LYMAN, New York
_Treasurer_, HENRY STANTON, New York
_Secretary_, SAMUEL ELLIS, Boston
_Counsel_, SAMUEL BEARDSLEY, Utica
_Consulting Engineer_, JOHN B. MILLS, New York
_Directors_
Charles E. Clarke, Great Bend
Lyman R. Lyon, Lyons Falls
Robert Speir, West Milton
John R. Thurman, Chester
Zadock Pratt, Prattsville
Wm. Coventry H. Waddell, New York
P. Somerville Stewart, Carthage
E. G. Merrick, French Creek
James M. Marvin, Saratoga
Anson Thomas, Utica
Otis Clapp, Boston
Gen. S. P. Lyman, Utica
Henry Stanton, New York
Mr. A. F. Edwards received his appointment as Chief Engineer of the
company on March 10, 1852, and soon afterwards entered upon a detailed
reconnoissance of the territory embraced within its charter. He examined
closely into its mineral and timber resources and gave great attention to
its future agricultural and industrial possibilities. In the early part of
his report he says:
"In the latter part of September, 1852, I left Saratoga for the Racket
(Racquette) Lake, via Utica. On my way I noticed on the Mohawk that there
had been frost, and as I rode along in the stage from Utica to Boonville,
I saw that the frost had bitten quite sharply the squash vines and the
potatoes, the leaves having become quite black; but judge my surprise,
when three days later on visiting the settlement of the Racket, I found
the beans, cucumber vines, potatoes, &c., as fresh as in midsummer."
His examination of the territory completed, Mr. Edwards began the rough
location of the line of the new railroad. From Saratoga it passed westerly
to the valley of the Kayaderosseras, in the town of Greenfield, thence
north through Greenfield Center, South Corinth and through the "Antonio
Notch" in the town of Corinth to the Sacondaga valley, up which it
proceeded to the village of Conklingville, easterly through Huntsville and
Northville, through the town of Hope to "the Forks." From there it went up
the east branch of the Sacondaga, through Wells and Gilman to the isolated
town of Lake Pleasant. Spruce Lake and the headwaters of the Canada Creek
were threaded to the summit of the line at the Canada Lakes. The middle
and the western branches of the Moose River were passed near Old Forge and
the line descended the Otter Creek valley, crossing the Independence River
and down the Crystal Creek through and near Dayansville and Beaver Falls
to Carthage where for the first time it would touch the Black River.
From Carthage to Watertown it was planned that it would closely follow the
Black River valley, crossing the river three times, and leaving it at
Watertown for a straight run across the flats to Sackett's Harbor; along
the route of the already abandoned canal which Elisha Camp and a group of
associates had builded in 1822 and had left to its fate in 1832; in fact
almost precisely upon the line of the present Sackett's Harbor branch of
the New York Central. At the Harbor great terminal developments were
planned; an inner harbor in the village and an outer one of considerable
magnitude at Horse Island.
From Carthage a branch line was projected to French Creek, now the busy
summer village of Clayton. The route was to diverge from the main line
about one mile west of Great Bend thence running in a tangent to the
Indian River, about a mile and one-half east of Evan's Mills, where after
crossing that stream upon a bridge of two spans and at a height of sixty
feet would recross it two miles further on and then run in an almost
straight line to Clayton. Here a very elaborate harbor improvement was
planned, with a loop track and almost continuous docks to encircle the
compact peninsula upon which the village is built.
"At French Creek on a clear day," says Mr. Edwards, "the roofs of the
buildings at Kingston, across the St. Lawrence, can be seen with the naked
eye. All the steamers and sail vessels, up and down the river and lake,
pass this place and when the Grand Trunk Railroad is completed, it will be
as convenient a point as can be found to connect with the same."
All the while he waxes most enthusiastic about the future possibilities of
Northern New York, particularly the westerly counties of it. He calls
attention to the thriving villages of Turin, Martinsburgh, Lowville,
Denmark, Lyonsdale (I am leaving the older names as he gives them in his
report) and Dayansville, in the Black River valley.
"In the wealthy county of Jefferson," he adds, "are the towns of Carthage,
Great Bend, Felt's Mills, Lockport (now Black River), Brownville and
Dexter, with Watertown, its county seat, well located for a manufacturing
city, having ample water power, at the same time surrounded by a country
rich in its soil and highly cultivated to meet the wants of the
operatives. Watertown contains about 10,000 inhabitants and is the most
modern, city-like built, inland town in the Union, containing about 100
stores, five banks, cotton and woolen factories, six large flouring
mills, machine shops, furnaces, paper mills, and innumerable other
branches of business, with many first class hotels, among which the
'Woodruff House' may be justly called the Metropolitan of Western New
York."
In that early day, more than $795,000 had been invested in manufacturing
enterprises along the Black River, at Watertown and below. The territory
was a fine traffic plum for any railroad project. It seems a pity that
after all the ambitious dreams of the Sackett's Harbor & Saratoga and the
very considerable expenditures that were made upon its right-of-way, that
it was to be doomed to die without ever having operated a single through
train. The nineteen or twenty miles of its line that were put down, north
and west from Saratoga Springs, long since lost their separate identity as
a branch of the Delaware & Hudson system.
CHAPTER III
THE COMING OF THE WATERTOWN & ROME
The first successful transportation venture of the North Country was still
ahead of it. The efforts of these patient souls, who struggled so hard to
establish the Northern Railroad as an entrance to the six counties from
the east, were being echoed by those who strove to gain a rail entrance
into it from the south. Long ago in this narrative we saw how as far back
as 1836 the locomotive first entered Utica. Six or seven years later there
was a continuous chain of railroads from Albany to Buffalo--precursors of
the present New York Central--and ambitious plans for building feeder
lines to them from surrounding territory, both to the north and to the
south. The early Oswego & Syracuse Railroad was typical of these.
Of all these plans none was more ambitious, however, than that which
sought to build a line from Rome into the heart of the rich county of
Jefferson, the lower valley of the Black River and the St. Lawrence River
at almost the very point where Lake Ontario debouches into it. The scheme
for this road, in actuality, antedated the coming of the locomotive into
Utica by four years, for it was in 1832--upon the 17th day of April in
that year--that the Watertown & Rome Railroad was first incorporated and
Henry H. Coffeen, Edmund Kirby, Orville Hungerford and William Smith of
Jefferson County, Hiram Hubbell, Caleb Carr, Benjamin H. Wright and Elisha
Hart, of Oswego, and Jesse Armstrong, Alvah Sheldon, Artemas Trowbridge
and Seth D. Roberts, of Oneida, named by the Legislature as commissioners
to promote the enterprise. Later George C. Sherman, of Watertown, was
added to these commissioners. The act provided that the road should be
begun within three years and completed within five. Its capital stock was
fixed at $1,000,000, divided into shares of $100 each.
The commercial audacity, the business daring of these men of the North
Country in even seeking to establish so huge an enterprise in those early
days of its settlement is hard to realize in this day, when our transport
has come to be so facile and easily understood a thing. Their courage was
the courage of mental giants. The railroad was less than three years
established in the United States; in the entire world less than five. Yet
they sought to bring into Northern New York, there at the beginning of the
third decade of the nineteenth century, hardly emerged from primeval
forest, the highway of iron rail, that even so highly a developed
civilization as that of England was receiving with great caution and
uncertainty.
These men of the North Country had not alone courage, but vision; not
alone vision, but perseverance. Their railroad once born, even though as a
trembling thing that for years existed upon paper only, was not permitted
to die. It could not die. And that it should live the pioneers of
Jefferson and Oswego rode long miles over unspeakably bad roads with
determination in their hearts.
* * * * *
The act that established the Watertown & Rome Railroad was never permitted
to expire. It was revived; again and again and again--in 1837, in 1845,
and again in 1847. It is related how night after night William Smith and
Clarke Rice used to sit in an upper room of a house on Factory Street in
Watertown--then as now, the shire-town of Jefferson--and exhibit to
callers a model of a tiny train running upon a little track. Factory
Street was then one of the most attractive residence streets of Watertown.
The irony of fate was yet to transfer it into a rather grimy artery of
commerce--by the single process of the building of the main line of the
Potsdam & Watertown Railroad throughout its entire length.
These men, and others, kept the project alive. William Dewey was one of
its most enthusiastic proponents. As the result of a meeting held at
Pulaski on June 27, 1836, he had been chosen to survey a line from
Watertown to Rome--through Pulaski. With the aid of Robert F. Livingston
and James Roberts, this was accomplished in the fall of 1836. Soon after
Dewey issued two thousand copies of a small thirty-two page pamphlet,
entitled _Suggestions Urging the Construction of a Railroad from Rome to
Watertown_. It was a potent factor in advocating the new enterprise; so
potent, in fact, that Cape Vincent, alarmed at not being included in all
of these plans, held a mass-meeting which was followed by the
incorporation of the Watertown & Cape Vincent Railroad, with a modest
capitalization of but $50,000. Surveys followed, and the immediate result
of this step was to include the present Cape Vincent branch in all the
plans for the construction of the original Watertown & Rome Railroad.
These plans, as we have just seen, did not move rapidly. It is possible
that the handicap of the great distances of the North Country might have
been overcome had it not been that 1837 was destined as the year of the
first great financial crash that the United States had ever known. The
northern counties of New York were by no means immune from the severe
effects of that disaster. Money was tight. The future looked dark. But the
two gentlemen of Watertown kept their little train going there in the
small room on Factory Street. Faith in any time or place is a superb
thing. In business it is a very real asset indeed. And the faith of Clarke
Rice and William Smith was reflected in the courage of Dewey, who would
not let the new road die. To keep it alive he rode up and down the
proposed route on horseback, summer and winter, urging its great
necessity.
* * * * *
Out of that faith came large action once again. Railroad meetings began to
multiply in the North Country; the success of similar enterprises, not
only in New York State, but elsewhere within the Union, was related to
them. Finally there came one big meeting, on a very cold 10th of February
in 1847, in the old Universalist Church at Watertown. All Watertown came
to it; out of it grew a definite railroad.
Yet it grew very slowly. In the files of the old _Northern State Journal_,
of Watertown, and under the date of March 29, 1848, I find an irritated
editorial reference to the continual delays in the building of the road.
Under the heading "Our Railroad," the _Journal_ describes a railroad
meeting held in the Jefferson County Court House a few days before and
goes on to say:
"... Seldom has any meeting been held in this county where more unanimity
and enthusiastic devotion to a great public object have been displayed,
than was evidenced in the character and conduct of the assemblage that
filled the Court House.... _Go ahead_, and that _immediately_, was the
ruling motto in the speeches and resolutions and the whole meeting
sympathized in the sentiment. And indeed, it is time to go _ahead_. It is
now about sixteen years since a charter was first obtained and yet the
first blow is not struck. No excuse for further delay will be received.
None will be needed. We understand that measures have already been taken
to expend in season the amount necessary to secure the charter--to call in
the first installment of five per cent--to organize and put upon the line
the requisite number of engineers and surveyors--and to hold an election
for a new Board of Directors.
"We trust that none but efficient men, firm friends of the Railroad, will
be put in the Direction. The Stockholders should look to this and vote for
no man that they do not know to be warmly in favor of an active
prosecution of the work to an early completion. This subject has been so
long before the community that every man's sentiments are known, and it
would be folly to expose the road to defeat now by not being careful in
the selection. With a Board of Directors such as can be found, the autumn
of 1849 should be signalized by the opening of the entire road from the
Cape to Rome. It can be done and it should be done. The road being a great
good the sooner we enjoy it the better."
So it was that upon the sixth day of the following April the actual
organization of the Watertown & Rome Railroad was accomplished at the
American Hotel, in Watertown, and an emissary despatched to Albany, who
succeeded on April 28th in having the original Act for the construction of
the line extended, for a final time. It also provided for the increase of
the capitalization from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000--in order that the new
road, once built, could be properly equipped with iron rail, weighing at
least fifty-six pounds to the yard. It was not difficult by that time to
sell the additional stock in the company. The missionary work--to-day we
would call it propaganda--of its first promoters really had been a most
thorough job.
[Illustration: ORVILLE HUNGERFORD First President of the Watertown & Rome
Railroad.]
The original officers of the Watertown & Rome Railroad were:
_President_, ORVILLE HUNGERFORD, Watertown
_Secretary_, CLARKE RICE, Watertown
_Treasurer_, O. V. BRAINARD, Watertown
_Superintendent_, R. B. DOXTATER, Watertown
_Directors_
S. N. Dexter, New York
William C. Pierrepont, Brooklyn
John H. Whipple, New York
Norris M. Woodruff, Watertown
Samuel Buckley, Watertown
Jerre Carrier, Cape Vincent
Clarke Rice, Watertown
Robert B. Doxtater, New York
Orville Hungerford, Watertown
William Smith, Watertown
Edmund Kirby, Brownville
Theophilus Peugnet, Cape Vincent
The summer of 1847 was spent chiefly in perfecting the organization and
financial plans of the new road, in eliminating a certain opposition to it
within its own ranks and in strengthening its morale. At the initial
meeting of the Board of Directors, William Smith had been allowed two
dollars a day for soliciting subscriptions while Messrs. Hungerford,
Pierrepont, Doxtater and Dexter were appointed a committee to go to New
York and Boston for the same purpose. A campaign fund of $500 was allotted
for this entire purpose.
The question of finances was always a delicate and a difficult one. In the
minutes of the Board for May 10, 1848, I find that the question of where
the road should bank its funds had been a vexed one, indeed. It was then
settled by dividing the amount into twentieths, of which the Jefferson
County Bank should have eight, the Black River, four, Hungerford's, three,
the Bank of Watertown, three, and Wooster Sherman's two.
Gradually these funds accumulated. The subscriptions had been solicited
upon a partial payment basis and these initial payments of five and ten
percent were providing the money for the expenses of organization and
careful survey. This last was accomplished in the summer of 1848, by Isaac
W. Crane, who had been engaged as Chief Engineer of the property at $2500
a year. Mr. Crane made careful resurveys of the route--omitting Pulaski
this time; to the very great distress of that village--and estimated the
complete cost of the road at about $1,250,000. It is interesting to note
that its actual cost, when completed, was $1,957,992.
* * * * *
In that same summer, Mr. Brainard retired as Treasurer of the company and
was succeeded by Daniel Lee, of Watertown, whose annual compensation was
fixed at $800. Later, Mr. Lee increased this, by taking upon his shoulders
the similar post of the Potsdam & Watertown. The infant Watertown & Rome
found need of offices for itself. It engaged quarters over Tubbs' Hat
Store, which modestly it named The Railroad Rooms and there it was burned
out in the great fire of Watertown, May 13, 1849.
All of these were indeed busy months of preparation. There were
locomotives to be ordered. Four second-hand engines, as we shall see in a
moment, were bought at once in New England, but the old engine _Cayuga_,
which the Schenectady & Utica had offered the Rome road at a
bargain-counter price of $2500 finally was refused. Negotiations were then
begun with the Taunton Locomotive Works for the construction of engines
which would be quite the equal of any turned out in the land up to that
time; and which were to be delivered to the company, at its terminal at
Rome--at a cost of $7150 apiece. Horace W. Woodruff, of Watertown, was
given the contract for building the cars for the new line; he was to be
paid for them, one-third in the stock of the company and two-thirds in
cash. His car-works were upon the north bank of the Black River, upon the
site now occupied by the Wise Machine Company and it was necessary to haul
the cars by oxen to the rails of the new road, then in the vicinity of
Watertown Junction. Yet despite the fact that his works in Watertown never
had a railroad siding Woodruff later attained quite a fame as a builder
of sleeping-cars. His cars at one time were used almost universally upon
the railroads of the Southwest.
* * * * *
Construction began upon the new line at Rome, obviously chosen because of
the facility with which materials could be brought to that point, either
by rail or by canal--although no small part of the iron for the road was
finally brought across the Atlantic and up the St. Lawrence to Cape
Vincent. Nat Hazeltine is credited with having turned the first bit of sod
for the line. The gentle nature of the country to be traversed by the new
railroad--the greater part of it upon the easy slopes at the easterly end
of Lake Ontario--presented no large obstacles, either to the engineers or
the contractors, these last, Messrs. Phelps, Matoon and Barnes, of
Springfield, Massachusetts. The rails, as provided in the extension of the
road's charter, were fifty-six pounds to the yard (to-day they are for the
greater part in excess of 100) and came from the rolling-mills of Guest &
Company, in Wales. The excellence of their material and their workmanship
is evidenced by the fact that they continued in service for many years,
without a single instance of breakage. When they finally were removed it
was because they were worn out and quite unfit for further service.
* * * * *
Construction once begun, went ahead very slowly, but unceasingly. By the
fall of 1850 track was laid for about twenty-four miles north of Rome and
upon September 10th of that year, a passenger service was installed
between Rome and Camden. Fares were fixed at three cents a mile--later a
so-called second-class, at one and one-half cents a mile was added--and a
brisk business started at once.
It was not until May of the following year that the iron horse first poked
his nose into the county of Jefferson. The (Watertown) _Reformer_
announced in its issue of May 1 that year that the six miles of track
already laid that spring would come into use that very week, bringing the
completed line into the now forgotten hamlet of Washingtonville in the
north part of Oswego county. Two weeks later, it predicted it would be in
Jefferson.
Its prediction was accurately fulfilled. On the twenty-eighth day of the
month, at Pierrepont Manor, this important event formally came to pass and
was attended by a good-sized conclave of prominent citizens, who
afterwards repaired to the home of Mr. William C. Pierrepont, not far
from the depot, where refreshments were served. The rest your historian
leaves to your imagination.
At that day and hour it seemed as if Pierrepont Manor was destined to
become an important town. The land office of its great squire was still
doing a thriving business. For Pierrepont Manor then, and for ten years
afterwards, was a railroad junction, with a famous eating-house as one of
its appendages. It seems that Sackett's Harbor had decided that it was not
going to permit itself to be outdone in this railroad business by Cape
Vincent. If the Harbor could not realize its dream of a railroad to
Saratoga it might at least build one to the new Watertown & Rome road
there at Pierrepont Manor, and so gain for itself a direct route to both
New York and Boston. And as a fairly immediate extension, a line on to
Pulaski, which might eventually reach Syracuse, was suggested.
At any rate, on May 23, 1850, the Sackett's Harbor & Ellisburgh Railroad
was incorporated. Funds were quickly raised for its construction, and it
was builded almost coincidently with the Watertown & Rome. Thomas Stetson,
of Boston, had the contract for building the line; being paid $150,000;
two-thirds in cash and one-third in its capital stock. It was completed
and opened for business by the first day of January, 1853. It was not
destined, however, for a long existence. From the beginning it failed to
bring adequate returns--the Watertown & Rome management quite naturally
favoring its own water terminal at Cape Vincent. By 1860 it was in a
fearful quagmire. In November of that year, W. T. Searle, of Belleville,
its President and Superintendent, wrote to the State Engineer and Surveyor
at Albany, saying that the road had reorganized itself as the Sackett's
Harbor, Rome & New York, and that it was going to take a new try at life.
But it was a hard outlook.
"The engine used by the company," Mr. Searle wrote, "belongs to persons,
who purchased it for the purpose of the operation of the road when it was
known by the corporate name of the Sackett's Harbor & Ellisburgh, and has
cost the corporation nothing up to the end of this year for its use. All
the cars used on the road (there were only four) except the passenger-car,
are in litigation, but in the possession of individuals, principally
stockholders in this road, who have allowed the corporation the use of
them free of expense...."
Yet despite this gloom, the little road was keeping up at least the
pretense of its service. It had two trains a day; leaving Pierrepont Manor
at 9:40 a. m. and 5:00 p. m. and after intermediate stops at Belleville,
Henderson and Smithville reaching Sackett's Harbor at 10:45 a. m. (a
connection with the down boat for Kingston and for Ogdensburgh) and at
6:30 p. m. The trains returned from the Harbor at 11:00 a. m. and 7:00 p.
m.
Reorganization, the grace of a new name, failed to save this line. The
Civil War broke upon the country, with it times of surpassing hardness and
in 1862 it was abandoned; the following year its rails torn up forever.
Yet to this day one who is even fairly acquainted with the topography of
Jefferson County may trace its path quite clearly.
Here ended then, rather ignominiously to be sure, a fairly ambitious
little railroad project. And while Sackett's Harbor was eventually to have
rail transport service restored to it, Belleville was henceforth to be
left nearly stranded--until the coming of the improved highway and the
motor-propelled vehicle upon it. Yet it was Belleville that had furnished
most of the inspiration and the capital for the Sackett's Harbor &
Ellisburgh. And even though in its old records I find Mr. M. Loomis, of
the Harbor, listed as its Treasurer, Secretary, General Freight Agent and
General Ticket Agent--a regular Pooh Bah sort of a job--W. T. Searle, of
Belleville, was its President and Superintendent; and A. Dickinson, of
the same village, its Vice-President; George Clarke and A. J. Barney among
the Directors. These men had dared much to bring the railroad to their
village and failing eventually must finally have conceded much to the
impotence of human endeavor.
* * * * *
In the summer of 1851 work upon the Watertown & Rome steadily went forward
and at a swifter pace than ever before. All the way through to Cape
Vincent the contractors were at work upon the new line. They were racing
against time itself almost to complete the road. There were valuable mail
contracts to be obtained and upon these hung much of the immediate
financial success of the road.
In the spring of 1922, by a rare stroke of good fortune, the author of
this book was enabled to obtain firsthand the story of the construction of
the northern section of the line. At Kane, Pa., he found a venerable
gentleman, Mr. Richard T. Starsmeare, who at the extremely advanced age of
ninety-five years was able to tell with a marvelous clearness of the part
that he, himself, had played in the construction of the line between
Chaumont and Cape Vincent. With a single wave of his hand he rolled back
seventy long years and told in simple fashion the story of his connection
with the Watertown & Rome:
Young Starsmeare, a native of London, at the age of twenty had run away to
sea. He crossed on a lumber-ship to Quebec and slowly made his way up the
valley of the St. Lawrence. The year, 1850, had scarce been born, before
he found himself in the stout, gray old city of Kingston in what was then
called Upper Canada. It was an extremely hard winter and the St. Lawrence
was solidly frozen. So that Starsmeare had no difficulty whatsoever in
crossing on the ice to Cape Vincent. That was on the sixteenth day of
January. Sleighing in the North Country was good. The English lad had
little difficulty in picking up a ride here and a ride there until he was
come to Henderson Harbor to the farm of a man named Leffingwell. Here he
found employment.
But Starsmeare had not come to America to be a farmer. And so, a year
later, when the spring was well advanced, he borrowed a half-dollar from
his employer and rode in the stage to Sackett's Harbor
|
levards to a hospital at the back of my
street. In my small study at the East India House I saw several of the
Directors, Colonel Sykes and others, and heard them discussing the
fate of the East India Company and of the vast empire of India too,
and at the same time the private interests of those who hoped to be
Members of the new India Council, and those who despaired of that
distinction. I was the first to bring the news of the French
Revolution in February to London, and presented a bullet that had
smashed the windows of my room at Paris, to Bunsen, who took it in the
evening to Lord Palmerston. After I had seen the Revolution in Paris
and the flight of the King and the Duchesse d'Orléans, I was in time
to see in London the Chartist Deputation to Parliament, and the
assembled police in Trafalgar Square, when Louis Napoleon served as a
Special Constable, and I heard the Duke of Wellington explain to
Bunsen, that though no soldier was seen in the streets there was
artillery hidden under the bridges, and ready to act if wanted. I
could add more, but I must not anticipate, and after all, to me all
these great events seemed but small compared with a new manuscript of
the Veda sent from India, or a better reading of an obscure passage.
_Diversos diversa iuvant_, and it is fortunate that it should be so.
All these things, I thought, should form part of my Recollections,
and my own little self should disappear as much as possible. Even the
pronoun I should meet the reader but seldom, though in Recollections
it was as impossible to leave it out altogether as it would be to take
away the lens from a photographic camera. Now I believe I have always
been most willing to yield to my friends, and I shall in this matter
also yield to them so far that in the Recollections which follow there
will be more of my inward and outward struggles; but I must on the
whole adhere to my old plan. I could not, if I would, neglect the
environment of my life, and the many friends that advised and helped
me, and enabled me to achieve the little that I may have achieved in
my own line of study.
If my friends had been different from what they were, should I not
have become a different man myself, whether for good or for evil? And
the same applies to our natural surroundings also. And here I must
invoke the patience of my readers, if I try to explain in as few words
as possible what I think about _environment_, and what about
_heredity_ or _atavism_.
I was a thorough Darwinian in ascribing the shaping of my career to
environment, though I was always very averse to atavism, of which we
have heard so much lately in most biographies. Even with respect to
environment, however, I could not go quite so far as certain of our
Darwinian friends, who maintain that everything is the result of
environment, or translated into biographical language, that everybody
is a creature of circumstances. No, I could not go so far as that.
Environment may shape our course and may shape us, but there must be
something that is shaped, and allows itself to be shaped. I was once
seriously asked by one who considers himself a Darwinian whether I did
not know that the Mammoth was driven by the extreme cold of the
Pleiocene Period to grow a thick fur in his struggle for life. That he
grew then a thicker fur, I knew, but that surely does not explain the
whole of the Mammoth, with and without a thick fur, before and after
the fur. It is really a pity to see for how many of these downright
absurdities Darwin is made responsible by the Darwinians. He has
clearly shown how in many cases the individual may be modified almost
beyond recognition by environment, but the individual must always have
been there first. Before we had a spaniel and a Newfoundland dog there
must have been some kind of dog, neither so small as the spaniel nor
so large as the Newfoundland, and no one would now doubt that these
two belonged to the same species and presupposed some kind of a less
modified canine creature. It is equally true that every individual man
has been modified by his surroundings or environment, if not to the
same extent as certain animals, yet very considerably, as in the case
of Kaspar Hauser, the man with the iron mask, or the mutineers of the
_Bounty_ in the Pitcairn Islands. But there must have been the man
first, before he could be so modified. Now it was this very
individual, my own self in fact, the spiritual self even more than the
physical, that interested my critics, while I thought that the
circumstances which moulded that self would be of far greater interest
than the self itself. Of course all the modifications that men now
undergo are nothing if compared to the early modifications which
produced what we speak of as racial, linguistic, or even national
peculiarities. That we are English or German, that we are white or
black, nay, if you like, that we are human beings at all, all this has
modified our self, or our germ-plasm, far more powerfully than
anything that can happen to us as individuals now.
When my friends and readers assured me that an account of my early
struggles in the battle of life would be useful to many a young,
struggling man, all I could say was that here again it was really my
friends who did everything for me, and helped me over many a stile,
and many a ditch, nay, without whom I should never have done whatever
I did for the Sciences of Language, of Mythology, and Religion, in
fact for Anthropology in the widest sense of that word. My very
struggles were certainly a help to me, even my opponents were most
useful to me. The subjects on which I wrote had hardly been touched on
in England, at least from the historical point of view which I took,
and I had not only to overcome the indifference of the public, but to
disarm as much as possible the prejudices often felt, and sometimes
expressed also, against anything made in Germany! Now I confess I
could never understand such a prejudice among men of science. Was I
more right or more wrong because I was born in Germany? Is scientific
truth the exclusive property of one nation, of Germany, or of England?
If I say two and two make four in German, is that less true because it
is said by a German? and if I say, no language without thought, no
thought without language, has that anything to do with my native
country? The prejudice against strangers and particularly against
Germans is, no doubt, much stronger now than it was at the time when I
first came to England. I had spent nearly two years in Paris, and
there too there existed then so little of unfriendly feeling towards
Germany, that one of the best reviews to which the rising scholars and
best writers of Paris contributed was actually called _Revue
Germanique_. Who would now venture to publish in Paris such a review
and under such a title? If there existed such an anti-German feeling
anywhere in England when I arrived here in the year 1846, one would
suppose that it existed most strongly at Oxford. And so it did, no
doubt, particularly among theologians. With them German meant much the
same as unorthodox, and unorthodox was enough at that time to taboo a
man at Oxford. In one of the sermons preached in these early days at
St. Mary's, German theologians such as Strauss and Neander (_sic_)
were spoken of as fit only to be drowned in the German Ocean, before
they reached the shores of England. I do not add what followed: the
story is too well known. I was chiefly amused by the juxtaposition of
Strauss and Neander, whose most orthodox lectures on the history of
the Christian Church I had attended at Berlin. Neander was certainly
to us at Berlin the very pattern of orthodoxy, and people wondered at
my attending his lectures. But they were good and honest lectures. He
was quite a character, and I feel tempted to go a little out of my way
in speaking of him. By birth a Jew, he became one of the most learned
Christian divines. Ever so many stories were told of him, some true,
some no doubt invented. I saw him often walking to and from the
University to give his lectures in a large fur coat, with high black
polished boots beneath, but showing occasionally as he walked along.
It was told that he once sent for a doctor because he was lame. The
doctor on examining his feet, saw that one boot was covered with mud,
while the other was perfectly clean. The Professor had walked with one
foot on the pavement, with the other in the gutter, and was far too
much absorbed in his ideas to discover the true cause of his
discomfort. He lived with his sister, who took complete care of him
and saw to his wardrobe also. She knew that he wore one pair of
trousers, and that on a certain day in the year the tailor brought him
a new pair. Great was her amazement when one day, after her brother
had gone to the University, she discovered his pair of trousers lying
on a chair near his bed. She at once sent a servant to the Professor's
lecture-room to inquire whether he had his trousers on. The hilarity
of his class may be imagined. The fact was it was the very day on
which the tailor was in the habit of bringing the new pair of
trousers, which the Professor had put on, leaving his usual garment
behind.
Many more stories of his absent-mindedness were _en vogue_ about Dr.
Neander, but that this man, a pillar of strength to the orthodox in
Germany, who was looked up to as an infallible Pope, should have his
name coupled with that of Strauss certainly gave one a little shock.
Yet it was at Oxford that I pitched my tent, chiefly in order to
superintend the printing of my Rig-veda at the University Press there,
and never dreaming that a fellowship, still less a professorship in
that ancient Tory University, would ever be offered to me.
For me to go to Oxford to get a fellowship or professorship would have
seemed about as absurd as going to Rome to become a Cardinal or a
Pope; and yet in time I was chosen a Fellow of All Souls, and the
first married Fellow of the College, and even a professorship was
offered to me when I least expected it. The fact is, I never thought
of either, and no one was more surprised than myself when I was asked
to act as deputy, and then as full Taylorian Professor; no one could
have mistrusted his eyes more than I did, when one of the Fellows of
All Soul's informed me by letter that it was the intention of the
College to elect me one of its fellows. My ambition had never soared
so high. I was thinking of returning to Leipzig as a _Privat-docent_,
to rise afterwards to an extraordinary and, if all went well, to an
ordinary professorship.
But after these two appointments at Oxford had secured to me what I
thought a fair social and financial position in England, I did not
feel justified in attempting to begin life again in Germany. I had not
asked for a professorship or fellowship. They were offered me, and my
ambition never went beyond securing what was necessary for my
independence. In Germany I was supposed to have become quite wealthy;
in England people knew how small my income really was, and wondered
how I managed to live on it. They did not suppose that I had chiefly
to depend on my pen in order to live as a professor is expected to
live at Oxford. I could not see anything anomalous in a German holding
a professorship in England. There were several cases of the same kind
in Germany. Lassen (1800-1876), our great Sanskrit professor at Bonn,
was a Norwegian by birth, and no one ever thought of his nationality.
What had that to do with his knowledge of Sanskrit? Nor was I ever
treated as an alien or as intruder at Oxford, at least not at that
early time. As to myself, I had now obtained what seemed to me a small
but sufficient income with perfect independence. The quiet life of a
quiet student had been from my earliest days my ideal in life. Even at
school at Dessau, when we boys talked of what we hoped to be, I
remember how my ideal was that of a monk, undisturbed in his
monastery, surrounded by books and by a few friends. The idea that I
should ever rise to be a professor in a university, or that any career
like that of my father, grandfather, and other members of my family
would ever be open to me, never entered my mind then. It seemed to me
almost disloyal to think of ever taking their places. Even when I saw
that there were no longer any Protestant monks, no Benedictines, the
place of an assistant in a large library, sitting in a quiet corner,
was my highest ambition.
I do not see why it should have been so, for all my relations and
friends occupied high places in the public service, but as I had no
father to open my eyes, and to stimulate my ambition--he having died
before I was four years old--my ideas of life and its possibilities
were evidently taken from my young widowed mother, whose one desire
was to be left alone, much as the world tempted her, then not yet
thirty years old, to give up her mourning and to return to society.
Thus it soon became my own philosophy of life, to be left alone, free
to go my own way, or like Diogenes, to live in my own tub. Here we see
what I call the influence of circumstances, of surroundings, or as
others call it, of environment. This, however, is very different from
atavism, as we shall see presently. Atavism also has been called a
kind of environment, attacking us and influencing us from the past,
and as it were, from behind, from the North in fact instead of the
South, the East, and the West, and from all the points of the compass.
But atavism means really a very different thing, if indeed it means
anything at all.
I must ease my conscience once for all on this point, and say what I
feel about atavism and environment. Environment in the shape of
friends, of locality, and other material circumstances, has certainly
influenced my life very much, and I could never see why such a hybrid
word as environment should be used instead of surroundings or
circumstances. Creatures of circumstances would be far better
understood than creatures of environment; but environment, I suppose,
would sound more scientific. Atavism also is a new word, instead of
family likeness, but unless carefully defined, the word is very apt to
mislead us.
When it is said[4] that children often resemble their grandfathers or
grandmothers more than their immediate parents, and that this
propensity is termed atavism, this does not seem quite correct even
etymologically, for atavus in Latin did not mean father or
grandfather, but at first great-great-great-grandfather, and then
only ancestors; and what should be made quite clear is that this
mysterious atavism should not be used by careful speakers, to express
the supposed influence of parents or even grandparents, but that of
more distant ancestors only, and possibly of a whole family.
[4] _Oxford Dictionary_, s. v.; J. Rennie, _Science of
Gardening_, p. 113.
Many biographers, such is the fashion now, begin their works with a
long account not only of father and mother, but of grandparents and of
ever so many ancestors, in order to show how these determined the
outward and inward character of the man whose life has to be written.
Who would deny that there is some truth, or at least some
plausibility, in atavism, though no one has as yet succeeded in giving
an intelligible account of it? It is supposed to affect the moral as
well as the physical peculiarities of the offspring, and that here,
too, physical and moral qualities often go together cannot be denied.
A blind person, for instance, is generally cautious, but happy and
quite at his ease in large societies. A deaf person is often
suspicious and unhappy in society. In inheriting blindness, therefore,
a man could well be said to have inherited cautiousness; in inheriting
deafness, suspiciousness would seem to have come to him by
inheritance.
But is blindness really inherited? Is the son of a father who has lost
his eyesight blind, and necessarily blind? We must distinguish between
atavistic and parental influences. Parental influences would mean the
influence of qualities acquired by the parents, and directly
bequeathed to their offspring; atavistic influences would refer to
qualities inherited and transmitted, it may be, through several
generations, and engrained in a whole family. In keeping these two
classes separate, we should only be following Weismann's example, who
denies altogether that acquired qualities are ever heritable. His
examples are most interesting and most important, and many Darwinians
have had to accept his amendment. Besides, we should always consider
whether certain peculiarities are constant in a family or inconstant.
If a father is a drunkard, surely it does not follow that his sons
must be drunkards. Neither does it follow that all the children must
be sober if the parents are sober. Of course, in ordinary conversation
both parental and ancestral influences seem clear enough. But if a
child is said to favour his mother, because like her he has blue eyes
and fair hair, what becomes of the heritage from the father who may
have brown eyes and dark hair? Whatever may happen to the children,
there is always an excuse, only an excuse is not an explanation. If
the daughter of a beautiful woman grows up very plain, the Frenchman
was no doubt right when he remarked, _C'était alors le père qui
n'était pas bien_, and if the son of a teetotaller should later in
life become a drunkard, the conclusion would be even worse. In fact,
this kind of atavistic or parental influence is a very pleasant
subject for gossips, but from a scientific point of view, it is
perfectly futile. If it is not the father, it is the mother; if it is
not the grandmother, it is the grandfather; in fact, family influences
can always be traced to some source or other, if the whole pedigree
may be dug up and ransacked. But for that very reason they are of no
scientific value whatever. They can neither be accounted for, nor can
they be used to account for anything themselves. Even of twins, though
very like each other in many respects, one may be phlegmatic, the
other passionate. Some scientists, such as Weismann and others, have
therefore denied, and I believe rightly, that any acquired characters,
whether physical or mental, can ever be inherited by children from
their parents. Whatever similarity there is, and there is plenty, is
traced back by him to what he calls the germ-plasm, working on
continuously in spite of all individual changes. If that germ-plasm is
liable to certain peculiar modifications in the father or grandfather,
it is liable to the same or similar modifications in the offspring,
that is, if the father could become a drunkard, so could the son, only
we must not think that the _post hoc_ is here the same as the _propter
hoc_. If we compare the germ-plasm to the molecules constituting the
stem or branches of a vine, its grapes and leaves in their similarity
and their variety would be comparable to the individuals belonging to
the same family, and springing from the same family tree. But then the
grape we see would not be what the grape of last year, or the grape
immediately preceding it on the same branch, had made it, though there
can be no doubt that the antecedent possibilities of the new grape
were the same as those of the last. If one grape is blue, the next
will be blue too, but no one would say that it was blue because the
last grape was blue. The real cause would be that the molecules of the
protoplasm have been so affected by long continued generation, that
some of the peculiar qualities of the vine have become constant.
The child of a negro must always be a negro; his peculiarities are
constant, though it may be quite true that the negro and other races
are not different species, but only varieties rendered constant by
immense periods of time. What the cause of these constant and
inconstant peculiarities may be, not even Weismann has yet been able
to explain satisfactorily.
The deafness of my mother and the prevalence of the misfortune in
numerous members of her family acted on me as a kind of external
influence, as something belonging to the environment of my life; it
never frightened me as an atavistic evil. It justified me in being
cautious and in being prepared for the worst, and so far it may be
said to have helped in shaping or narrowing the course of my life.
Fortunately, however, this tendency to deafness seems now to have
exhausted itself. In my own generation there is one case only, and the
next two generations, children and grandchildren of mine, show no
signs of it. If, on the other hand, my son was congratulated when
entering the diplomatic service, on being the son of his father, it is
clear that the difference between inherited and acquired qualities, so
strongly insisted on by Weismann, had not been fully appreciated by
his friends. Besides, my own power of speaking foreign languages has
always been very limited, and I have many times declined the
compliment of being a second Mezzofanti.[5] I worked at languages as a
musician studies the nature and capacities of musical instruments,
though without attempting to perform on every one of them. There was
no time left for acquiring a practical familiarity with languages, if
I wanted to carry on my researches into the origin, the nature and
history of language. My own study of languages could therefore have
been of very little use to me, nor did my son himself perceive such an
advantage in learning to converse in French, Spanish, Turkish, &c. The
facts were wrong, and the theory of atavism perfectly unreasonable as
applied to such a case.
[5] _Science of Language_, vol. i. p. 24 (1861).
If the theory of atavism were stretched so far, it would soon do away
with free will altogether. That heredity has something to do with our
moral character, no one would deny who knows the influence of our
national, nay even of racial character. We are Aryan by heredity; we
might be Negroes or Chinese, and share in their tendencies. Animals
also have their instincts. Only while animals, like serpents for
instance, would never hesitate to follow their innate propensity, man,
when he feels the power of what we may call inherited human instinct,
feels also that he can fight against it, and preserve his freedom,
even while wearing the chains of his slavery. This may have removed
some of Dr. Wendell Holmes' scruples in writing his powerful story,
_Elsie Venner_, and may likewise quiet the fears of his many critics.
I believe that language also--our own inherited language--exercises
the most powerful influence on our reason and our will, far more
powerful than we are aware of.
A Greek speaking Greek and a Roman speaking Latin would certainly have
been very different beings from the Romance and French descendants of
a Horace or a Cicero, and this simply on account of the language which
they had to speak, whether Greek, Latin, French, or Spanish. We cannot
tell whether the original differentiation of language, symbolized by
the story of the Tower of Babel, took place before or after the racial
differentiation of men. Anyhow it must have taken place in quite
primordial times. Without speaking positively on this point, I
certainly hold as strongly as ever that language makes the man, and
that therefore for classificatory purposes also language is far more
useful than colour of skin, hair, cranial or gnathic peculiarities.
Whether it be true that with every new language we speak we become
new men, certain it is that language prepares for us channels in which
our thoughts have to run, unless they are so powerful as to break all
dams and dykes, and to dig for themselves new beds.
For a long time people would not see that languages can be classified;
and as languages always presuppose speakers of language, these
speakers also can be classified accordingly. It is quite true that
some of these Aryan speakers may in some cases have Negro blood and
Negro features, as when a Negro becomes an English bishop. Conquered
tribes also may in time have learnt to speak the language of their
conquerors, but this too is exceptional, and if we call them Aryas, we
do not commit ourselves to any opinion as to their blood, their bones,
or their hair. These will never submit to the same classification as
their speech, and why should they? Nor should it be forgotten that
wherever a mixture of language takes place, mixed marriages also would
most likely take place at the same time. But whatever confusion may
have arisen in later times in language and in blood, no language could
have arisen without speakers, and we mean by Aryas no more than
speakers of Aryan languages, whatever their skulls or their hair may
have been. An Octoroon, and even a Quadroon, may have blonde waving
hair, but if he speaks English he would be classified as Aryan, if
Berber as a Negro. But who is injured by such a classification? Let
blood and skulls and hair and jaws be classified by all means, but let
us speak no longer of Aryan skulls or Semitic blood. We might as well
speak of a prognathic language.
While fully admitting, therefore, the influence which family,
nationality, race, and language exercise on us, it should be clearly
perceived that habits acquired by our parents are not heritable, that
the sons of drunkards need not be drunkards, as little as the sons of
sober people must be sober. But though biographers may agree to this
in general they seem inclined, to hold out very strongly for what are
called _special talents in certain families_. This subject is
decidedly amusing, but it admits of no scientific treatment, as far as
I can see.
The grandfather of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy for instance, though
not a composer, was evidently a man of genius, a philosopher of
considerable intellectual capacity and moral strength. The father of
the composer was a rich banker at Berlin, and he used to say: "When I
was young I was the son of the great Mendelssohn, now that I am old, I
am the father of the great Mendelssohn; then what am I?" Even a poor
man to become a rich banker must be a kind of genius, and so far the
son may be said to have come of a good stock. But the great musical
talent that was developed in the third generation both in Felix and
his sisters, failed entirely in his brother, who, to save his life,
could never have sung "God save the Queen." In the little theatrical
performances of the whole family for which Felix composed the music,
and his sister Fanny (Hensel) some of the songs, the unmusical
brother--was it not Paul?--had generally to be provided with some such
part as that of a night watchman, and he managed to get through his
song with as much credit as the _Nachtwächter_ in the little town of
Germany, where he sang or repeated, as I well remember, in his cracked
voice:
"Hört, ihr Herren, und lasst euch sagen,
Die Glock' hat zwölf geschlagen;
Wahret das Feuer und auch das Licht,
Dass Keinem kein Schade geschicht."
"Listen, gents, and let me tell,
The clock struck twelve by its last knell;
Watch o'er the fire and o'er the light
That no one suffer any plight."
I have known in my life many musicians and their families, but I
remember very few instances indeed, where the son of a distinguished
musician was a great musician himself. If the children take to music
at all they may become very fair musicians, but never anything
extraordinary. The Bach family may be quoted against me, but music,
before Sebastian Bach, was almost like a profession, and could be
learned like any other handicraft.
Nor are the cases of painters being the sons of great painters, or of
poets being the sons of great poets, more numerous. It seems almost as
if the artistic talent was exhausted by one generation or one
individual, so that we often see the sons of great men by no means
great, and if they do anything in the same line as their fathers, we
must remember that there was much to induce them to follow in their
steps without admitting any atavistic influences.
For the present, I can only repeat the conclusion I arrived at after
weighing all the arguments of my friends and critics, namely, to
continue my Recollections much as I began them, to try to explain what
made me what I am, to describe, in fact, my environment; though as my
years advance, and my labours and plans grow wider and wider, I shall,
no doubt, have to say a great deal more about myself than in the
volumes of _Auld Lang Syne_. In fact, my Recollections will become
more and more of an autobiography, and the I and the Autos will appear
more frequently than I could have wished.
In an autobiography the painter is of course supposed to be the same
as the sitter, but quite apart from the metaphysical difficulties of
such a supposition, there is the physical difficulty when the writer
is an old man, and the model is a young boy. Is the old man likely to
be a fair judge of the young man, whether it be himself or some one
else? As a rule, old men are very indulgent, while young men are apt
to be stern and strict in their judgments. The very fact that they
often invent excuses for themselves shows that they feel that they
want excuses. The words of the Preacher, vii. 16: "Be not righteous
over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy
thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why
shouldest thou die before thy time?" are evidently the words of an old
man when judging of himself or of others. A young man would have
spoken differently. He would have made no allowance; for anything like
compassion for an erring friend is as yet unknown to him. In an
autobiography written by an old man there is therefore a double
danger, first the indulgence of the old man, and secondly the kindly
feeling of the writer towards the object of his remarks.
All these difficulties stand before me like a mountain wall. And it
seems better to confess at once that an old man writing his own life
can never be quite just, however honest he tries to be. He may be too
indulgent, but he may also be too strict and stern. To say, for
instance, of a man that he has not kept his promise, would be a very
serious charge if brought against anybody else. Yet my oldest friend
in the world knows how many times he has made a promise to himself,
and has not only not kept it but has actually found excuses why he did
not keep it. The more sensitive our conscience becomes, the more
blameworthy many an act of our life seems to be, and what to an
ordinary conscience is no fault at all, becomes almost a sin under a
fiercer light.
This changes the moral atmosphere of youth when painted by an old man,
but the physical atmosphere also assumes necessarily a different hue.
Whether we like it or not, distance will always lend enchantment to
the view. If the azure hue is inseparable from distant mountains and
from the distant sky, we need not wonder that it veils the distant
paradise of youth. A man who keeps a diary from his earliest years,
and who as an old man simply copies from its yellow pages, may give us
a very accurate black and white image of what he saw as a boy, but as
in old faded photographs, the life and light are gone out of them,
while unassisted memory may often preserve tints of their former
reality. There is life and light in such recollections, but I am
willing to admit that memory can be very treacherous also. Thus in my
own case I can vouch that whatever I relate is carefully and
accurately transcribed from the tablets of my memory, as I see them
now, but though I can claim truthfulness to myself and to my memory, I
cannot pretend to photographic accuracy. I feel indeed for the
historian who uses such materials unless he has learnt to make
allowance for the dim sight of even the most truthful narrators.
I doubt whether any historian would accept a statement made thirty
years after the event without independent confirmation. I could not
give the date of the battle of Sadowa, though I well remember reading
the full account of it in the _Times_ from day to day. I can of
course get at the date from historical books, and from that kind of
artificial memory which arises by itself without any _memoria
technica_. There is a favourite German game of cards called Sixty-six,
and it was reported that when the French in 1870 shouted _À Berlin_,
the then Crown-Prince who had won the battle of Sadowa, or Königgrätz,
said: "Ah, they want another game of Sixty-six!" that is they want a
battle like that of Sadowa. In this way I shall always remember the
date of that decisive battle. But I could not give the date of the
Crimean battles nor a trustworthy account of the successive stages of
that war. I doubt whether even my old friend, Sir William H. Russell,
could do that now without referring to his letters in the _Times_.
After thirty years no one, I believe, could take an oath to the
accuracy of any statement of what he saw or heard so many years ago.
All then that I can vouch for is that I read my memory as I should the
leaves of an old MS. from which many letters, nay, whole words and
lines have vanished, and where I am often driven to decipher and to
guess, as in a palimpsest, what the original uncial writing may have
been. I am the first to confess that there may be flaws in my memory,
there may be before my eyes that magic azure which surrounds the
distant past; but I can promise that there shall be no invention, no
_Dichtung_ instead of _Wahrheit_, but always, as far as in me lies,
truth. I know quite well that even a certain dislocation of facts is
not always to be avoided in an old memory. I know it from sad
experience. As the spires of a city--of Oxford for instance--arrange
themselves differently as we pass the old place on the railway, so
that now one and now the other stands in the centre and seems to rise
above the heads of the rest, so it is with our friends and
acquaintances. Some who seemed giants at one time assume smaller
proportions as others come into view towering above them. The whole
scenery changes from year to year. Who does not remember the trees in
our garden that seemed like giants in our childhood, but when we see
them again in our old age, they have shrunk, and not from old age
only?
And must I make one more confession? It is well known that George the
Fourth described the battle of Waterloo so often that at last he
persuaded himself that he had been present, in fact that he had won
that battle. I also remember Dr. Routh, the venerable president of
Magdalen College, who died in his hundredth year, and who had so often
repeated all the circumstances of the execution of Charles I, that
when Macaulay expressed a wish to see him, he declined "because that
young man has given quite a wrong account of the last moments of the
king," which he then proceeded to relate, as if he had been an
eye-witness throughout.
Are we not liable to the same hallucination, though, let us hope, in a
more mitigated form? Have we never told a story as if it were our
own, not from any wish to deceive, but simply because it seemed
shorter and easier to do so than to explain step by step how it
reached us? And after doing that once or twice, is there not great
danger of our being surprised at somebody else claiming the story as
his own, or actually maintaining that it was he who told it to us?
Not
|
enormous extent
of protests against the horrors of war.[5] These horrors are common to
all wars and were relatively as frequent in the past, if not more so. It
is true that the absolute number of outrages may have been much greater
in the present war than in previous wars, but this is probably due
mainly to the enormous number of individuals engaged in the war.
INTERDEPENDENCE OF NATIONS A DEMOGRAPHIC LAW.
The world has become so closely connected through modern means of
communication that any war might result in a world war. The prevalent
political tendencies are in the direction of combination and resultant
consolidation. The question soon arises, Shall combination and
regulation go beyond national limits? The old-fashioned ideas of
national limits do not seem to be adapted to present conditions.
Commercially such limits are impracticable and appear to be so in other
ways.[6] The Constitution of the United States has 18 amendments. This
demographic law of interdependence of nations necessarily results in
combination, which eventually may lead to international solidarity.
Whether we will or no, this demographic law of interdependence of
nations can not be escaped. Just as the States of the Union are now
closer together than their counties were many years ago, through the
enormous development of physical means of communication, so governments
are now brought more closely in contact than were the States at the time
of the formation of the Union. This demographic law of increasing
interdependence when carefully examined appears to be almost as
necessary as the law of gravity. It has been at work ever since history
began and, though little noticed perhaps, it has been manifesting itself
more and more as history advanced. The individual is subordinate to the
community and must yield some of his sovereignty to it, the community in
turn must yield to the county, the county to the State, the State to the
Nation, and finally the Nation to the world. This last step is the one
now pending in Europe, and eventually, if not presently, may result in
international solidarity, which will practically put an end to political
wars just as the Westphalian peace did with religious wars.
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND DEMOGRAPHIC LAW OF INTERDEPENDENCE OF
STATES.
The tendency toward this demographic law of interdependence of States is
shown by the large number of international organizations such as
congresses or conferences which are held from time to time in different
countries of the world. From the Conference of Vienna (1815) to the
present time there have been some two hundred or more international
congresses, the majority of which had to do with regulation of economic
and sociologic affairs. Thus manufacturers, merchants, and capitalists
of different countries have met and made agreements to control and
regulate production and distribution of merchandise.
There is also the Universal Postal Union, which is an illustration of
international control or government. Objections are sometimes made
against international government, which were made years ago against the
International Postal Union. It now has a constitution obeyed by all
nations. Refusal to obey would deprive a country of the benefits of the
union. As a matter of fact, no country has done this.
POWER OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS.
If there were an international organization for war as well as for
postage, and one or two nations should refuse to obey the decisions of a
majority, or three-fourths of the organization, each of these
recalcitrant nations could be boycotted economically and in many other
ways by the remaining member nations. It is very doubtful if any nation
would take such chances.
Any international organization helps toward peace by making action less
precipitate, for if it were known in advance that a conference were to
take place, this would tend to make nations less disposed to go to war.
In fact, all international conferences, like the International Congress
of Criminal Anthropology, tend to intellectual, moral, and sociological
solidarity between nations, in accordance with our demographic law of
interdependence. (See Equation of law later on.) This International
Congress of Criminal Anthropology, for instance, consists of some four
hundred university specialists in anthropology, medicine, psychology,
and sociology, who come from almost all countries of the world.
In the eighteenth century international relations consisted of
diplomatic conversations and were regulated by an occasional treaty,
but, owing to the very inadequate means of communication, few
international relations were required. In the nineteenth century the
change in international conditions was very great. When international
organizations represent some actual phase of life, whether educational,
commercial or scientific, they really regulate their relations between
nations and are often organs of international government. In short,
international conferences and congresses act like legislatures between
nations.
If conferences had been in vogue and one had been held concerning the
dispute between Austria and Serbia, very probably there would not have
been any war, because, if for no other reason, the diplomats would have
seen that it might lead to a general war in Europe, and as no nation
cared to take that responsibility the diplomatic procedure would
doubtless have been modified. Thus the conference over the Morocco
question killed it as a cause of war.
This and other practical examples of government between nations show
that the great success, convenience, and benefit to all nations
encourage the further development of international organizations. The
difficulties and dangers predicted have not come to pass. International
administration has come in the cases of railroads, ships, and
automobiles. An elaborate international government has come (through
treaties) in public health and epidemics, and international notification
of the presence of disease has been made obligatory.
SOVEREIGNTY CHANGES ACCORDING TO THE DEMOGRAPHIC LAW OF INTERDEPENDENCE
OF NATIONS.
The old idea of the independence of the State, mingled with that of
sovereignty, prestige, and honor, and exaggerated by false patriotism,
although limited more and more by conditions of civilization, is one of
the main obstacles to the development of international organization and
government.
The habit of holding conferences or congresses would get the people to
expect international government and insist on it, and any country would
hesitate long before refusing to agree to a conference.
The idea that sovereignty is destroyed because a nation is not
absolutely independent belongs to the old régime, when many modern means
of communication did not exist. In those days of comparative isolation
there was reason for much independence, but now countries are so closely
connected, as we have seen, that their independence and sovereignty are
necessarily limited, while their interdependence has increased to such
an extent that what benefits or injures one benefits or injures the
other. Thus it is to the advantage of each State to give up some of its
sovereignty, just as it is for the individual to give up some of his
freedom to the community for privileges much greater than the loss of
his so-called independence. It is well known how the States of our Union
have gradually yielded more and more of their sovereignty to the Federal
Government. Thus sovereignty decreases according to our law of the
interdependence of States.
CAUSE OF WAR NOT NECESSARILY ECONOMIC.
It is frequently asserted that after all the main cause of most wars is
rivalry in trade and commercial friction; in short, it is economic. But
it is a curious fact that commerce and industry are the most insistent
on international rules or law to reduce all friction to a minimum, for
peaceful trading is a general benefit to all concerned.
It might be stated in this connection that in historical and political
as well as physical science there is no one cause of anything, but a
chain of causes; for the more we study the world, the closer we find it
related; nothing is nor can be really alone. When we single out a cause
we mean the predominant one, and which is the strongest link in the
chain of causes becomes a matter of opinion, owing to our limited
knowledge of international psychology.
Commercial systems of the world have brought nations closer together,
but political relations have remained much the same; that is, the
advances in diplomacy have been very few in comparison with the growth
of economic relations which makes for peace rather than war.
NO INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT; NO LASTING PEACE.
That the lack of international government means international anarchy
may be illustrated by some recent events. Owing to the struggle of
Serbia for expansion, Austria feared the seizure of its own territory
and loss of some of its population, and so refused to accept mediation,
because the Hapsburg monarchy being reported declining, she must
counteract this impression by showing vigorous action. The success of
Austria would be regarded by Russia as a threat to herself, but a defeat
of Austria by Russia would be a defeat for Germany, and a German defeat
for Russia and France would be regarded as a defeat for England. Thus
the lack of any international government or organization made
cooperation for peace almost, if not quite, impossible. England might
have said to herself, among other reasons, "If I stay out of the war,
Germany may overrun France and Belgium, resulting in a union of the
French and German Navies, but we are an island, and it would not do to
risk the danger of such a combination."
Frontier questions have perhaps been the main cause of more wars in
history than anything else. But in the course of events such questions
have come to be settled without resort to force, which is a change from
national to international government.
NATIONALISM MAY CONFLICT WITH THE PEOPLES' INTEREST.
Another nationalistic anachronism is the geographical standard in
governmental matters. But intercommunications are so many and so close
that geographical relations have few reasons to be considered.
Individual and racial interests are less geographical and more
sociological. But governmental matters have not developed near so fast
as sociological conditions.
Nationalism more often represents the interests of the few rather than
the many. Unfortunately it is easy to bolster up a narrow and selfish
nationalism by appeal to the patriotism of the masses who fail to
understand the conditions and support the interests of a few against
their own vital interests. While anarchy between nations (nationalism)
makes future wars probable, anarchy within nations can be easily stopped
by doing justice to the masses.
WAR WORST METHOD OF SETTLING DIFFICULTIES.
An egotistical, selfish, and narrow nationalism, the basis of
international anarchy, has been demonstrated a partial, if not complete,
failure by the condition in which Europe is to-day. War, though only one
of many methods for settling difficulties between nations, has,
nevertheless, been the main one. There is a strong desire among the
people to substitute some other method.
Generally a nation has two things to consider--one is what it wants; the
other whether it can enforce its wants. This is the usual nationalistic
dilemma, but our demographic law of the interdependence of nations
assumes that each country will respect the other countries and be
willing to consider their wishes at least in vital matters.
Where the differences between two nations have threatened the peace of
Europe it has been felt that such a matter was more than a national
question; in fact, passed over into the international realm, and so
conferences have been called which to a certain extent recognized the
principle of interdependence and have enforced its decisions by blockade
if not by more warlike means. If a nation adopt the methods of force, it
is appealing to international anarchy, which causes nations to break
international law much more readily than otherwise. In fact, military
necessity knows no law.
It may seem odd that conferences are so often called for war instead of
for peace. But it is necessity that often rules; the wheel in the
machine is not examined until it is out of order, human beings were
never studied scientifically until they became lunatics or criminals. So
peace seems to have been little thought of until danger of war appeared.
Peace is like good health, we do not know its value until we lose it.
SECRET DIPLOMACY INSIDIOUS.
All treaties between nations should be published in order to make the
diplomacy of intrigue and deception impossible or at least most
difficult to carry into effect. Secret diplomacy enables those who want
war to bring something to light suddenly and cause excitement and fear
among the people and thus drive them into war before they understand
what they are doing. The psychology of fear shows its power in producing
apprehension by catch phrases, such as "the crisis is acute," or "there
is panic on the stock exchange," or "negotiations may come to an end,"
or "an ultimatum has been sent." Patriotic as well as fear inspiring
phrases are published broadcast leading the people into war, but they
must always be made to believe that it is in defense of their country,
whether it is or not.
But open diplomacy and international conferences prevent insidious
methods of producing excitement; they also give the people time to think
and avoid precipitate action; also facts are brought to light that
otherwise might have been concealed by those desiring war.
COMPETITIVE ARMAMENTS LEAD TO WAR.
Competitive armaments, for which the masses are compelled to pay and by
which they are killed, hasten the probability of future wars. Great
armaments lead to competitive armament, which experience shows to be no
guaranty of peace, for it makes a nation feel so well prepared for war
that when a dispute arises, and it is thought a few days' delay may give
the enemy an advantage that might never be regained, the enemy must be
attacked at once. Thus Austria refused to extend time to Serbia nor
would she take part in a conference of ambassadors nor respond to the
Serbian note to refer the dispute to The Hague. So Germany refused a
similar proposal to the Czar on July 29 and allowed Russia but 12 hours
to answer the ultimatum. Russia had begun to mobilize and Germany's
fear, if the proposal for pacific settlement were accepted, Russia would
get the start and gain a military advantage probably caused Germany to
strike at once. Thus such preparedness actually prevented any chance for
even discussion of a peaceful settlement. Also the knowledge that
Russia's Army and Navy were to be increased and strategic railroads
built and that France was about to reintroduce three years' military
service may have caused Germany to think it imprudent to delay an
inevitable war any longer.
PERMANENT PEACE HINDERED BY SPIRIT OF HATE.
There can be no permanent peace so long as the idea of crushing this or
that nation prevails. The question is not national, but international.
The nationalistic spirit of hate may be temporarily useful in stirring
up a country to fight better, but it does not tend toward a lasting
peace. In the study of war we should seek the causes, be impersonal, and
neither condone nor accuse. The scientific investigation of war comes
under the head of criminal anthropology, one of the purposes of which is
by knowledge gained to lessen or stop war permanently rather than
discuss the ethics of war involving the spirit of hate and vengeance.
NO PERMANENT PEACE WITH NATIONALISM ALONE.
The existing conditions between nations are somewhat like as if a State
had rules and laws as to what to do when murder and riot occur, but no
laws to prevent murder and riot, or, if there were laws, no power to
execute them.
From the theoretical point of view these irrational and abnormal
conditions are evident, and yet they have been considered normal
conditions for ages. This is indicated by the remark of a diplomat, who
said: "Things are getting back to a wholesome state again, every nation
for itself and God for us all." As long as such an extreme and
pathological form of nationalism exists no permanent peace is probable,
if not impossible. Nationalism has had a long trial with comparative
freedom, and one of its grand finales is the present European war.
A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR PERMANENT PEACE.
It would go far beyond the purpose of this article to discuss the many
methods proposed for establishing permanent peace, yet one may be
allowed merely to note a few points. There might be established an
international high court to decide judicial issues between independent
sovereign nations and an international council to secure international
legislation and to settle nonjudicial issues. Also, an international
secretariat should be established. Some fundamental principles of such
international control might be to disclaim all desire or intention of
aggression, to pursue no claim against any other independent state; not
to send any ultimatum or threat of military or naval operations or do
any act of aggression, and never to declare war or order any general
mobilization or violate the territory or attack the ships of another
state, except in way of repelling an attack actually made; not to do any
of these until the matter in dispute has been submitted to the
international high court or to the international council, and not until
a year after the date of such submission.
PROHIBITIONS FOR RECALCITRANT STATES.
In order to enforce the decrees of the international high court against
any recalcitrant State an embargo on her ships and forbidding her
landing at any capital might be initiated. Also there might be
instituted prohibition of postal and telegraph communication, of payment
of debts due to citizens, prohibition of all imports and exports and of
all passenger traffic; to level special duties on goods to such State
and blockade her ports. In short, an effort should be made to enforce
complete nonintercourse with any recalcitrant State.
Should a State proceed to use force to go to war rather than obey the
decree of the international high court all the other constituent States
should make common cause against such State and enforce the order of the
international high court.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT FOR PREVENTING WAR IS SOON AFTER WAR.
If an absolute agreement among leading nations of the world never to
resort to war could be obtained at the outset all other questions could
be settled more justly and with fewer difficulties, for the
consciousness that the supreme question was out of the way would relieve
the psychological tension and afford opportunity for a more calm and
careful consideration and adjudication of all other matters in dispute.
It would be like the consciousness of the lawyer, when having lost his
case in all other courts is content to let the United States Supreme
Court settle it forever. This is due to the psychological power of the
radiation of justice from the top downward.
Such an absolute and final agreement never to resort to war can be best
accomplished right after the war, when all are sick of war and the very
thought of it causes the suffering, wounded, and bleeding people to turn
their heads significantly away with a profound instinctive feeling,
crying out that anything is better than to go back to the old régime. In
such a state of mind mutual concessions are much easier to make than
later on.
The psychological moment to prevent such suffering of the masses from
ever occurring again is soon after the war. It is a sad comment that the
number and untold suffering of millions of human beings seem to have
been required for the nationalistic spirit of Europe to be willing to
follow international humanitarian ideas toward establishing permanent
peace in the world.
THE HAGUE RULES ONLY SUGGESTIONS.
The diplomats who wrote the rules at The Hague Convention knew well that
they might be more or less disregarded; they were only suggestions. As
war assumes the right to kill human beings, what rights, then, have the
victims left over that are worth mentioning? As to what way they are
killed there is little use of considering, probably the quicker the
better, for there is less suffering. If prisoners must starve, it is a
mercy to shoot them. To regulate murder of human beings is more or less
humbug. The thing to do is to try to abolish international anarchy and
slaughter forever, and to accomplish this the egotism, selfishness, and
narrowness of nations must be so modified that they are willing to make
the necessary sacrifice.
If the reader believes the general ideas set forth in this study, let
him or her aid the writer in a practical way and send a contribution to
help circulate these ideas, not only in English and other languages but
in other countries as well as the United States.
The address of the author is: The Congressional, 100 East Capitol
Street, Washington, D. C.
EQUATION OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC LAW OF INTERDEPENDENCE OF NATIONS.
As already noted, our demographic law of the interdependence of nations
is, that increase in the means of communication between States causes
increase of their interdependence but decrease in their sovereignty.
Just as a physical body consists of molecules of various kinds, so the
State may be regarded as a psychological entity with citizens of various
characteristics, and just as the density of a body is equal to its mass
divided by its volume, so the density of citizenship is equal to the
population divided by the land area.
If, therefore, we consider the States' adult population, as its mass (m)
and the resultant aggregate increase of its means of communication as
its velocity (v), and (t) as the time, then the psychological force (F)
or interdependence of the State can be expressed by the familiar
equation in physics F=mv/t; that is to say, the interdependence of a
State is equal to its adult population (mass) multiplied by the
resultant aggregate increase of its means of communication (velocity)
and the product divided by the time (t).
The poundal unit of physical force is such a force as will move 1 pound
(mass unit) at a velocity of 1 foot per second in one second of time.
Now, assuming the unit of citizenship of a State to be one citizen and
the unit of the resultant aggregate increase of means of communication
per annum in one year of time to be K, then
The statal unit of psychological force is such a force as will give one
citizen (mass unit) one K unit (for convenience the K unit of annual
aggregate increase of means of communication can be expressed in per
cents. Taking some of the principal means of communication, and working
out their annual average per cents of increase, we have for the United
States during the census periods (1900-1910); annual average increase of
passengers on railroads, 7 per cent; on street and electric railways, 3
per cent (1907-1912); of telegraph messages sent, 6 per cent; of
telephone stations, 10 per cent. Combining these, the per cent of annual
average aggregate increase will be 6.5 per cent, as value of K, assuming
the percentages are equally weighted) of resultant aggregate increase of
means of communication per annum in one year of time.
As yet there is no exact way to measure the sovereignty and means of
communication of the State, but the psychological side of this physical
equation may suggest a working hypothesis for our demographic law of the
interdependence of States which may some time be useful in the realm of
international psychology.
To measure the aggregate influence upon citizens of the many means of
communication in a State (also, for illustration merely, let us take one
of the principal means of communication, as steam railroads, and we find
that the annual average increase in passenger-train-car miles for one
citizen of the United States, from 1908 to 1914, to be 4.45, which is
the value of K for steam railroads alone for period mentioned. In a
later article the author will consider in detail the practical
application of the equation) as steam, street and electric railways,
telegraph and telephones, will require exact detailed knowledge of the
mental, moral, and physical power of the individual citizen, the unit of
the social organism. Such measurements might be made when psychology and
sociology become sciences in the rigid sense. The underlying hypothesis
in this equation is that both the psychological and physical mechanism
of the world are under one fundamental law.[7]
LAWS OF REVOLUTION.[8]
Scientific history teaches that without war many revolutions could never
have taken place. One of the greatest problems of future government is
to reconcile democratic equality with hereditary inequality among the
people. Governments differ much more in form than in substance, and make
progress when the resultant activities of the citizens direct and
control them.
With this in mind, a few principles of revolutions may be instructive in
connection with the present European situation.
1. The causes of revolutions are summed up in the word "discontent,"
which must be general and accompanied with hope in order to produce
results.
2. Modern revolutions appear to be more abrupt than ancient. Contrary to
expectation, conservative people may have the most violent revolutions,
because of not being able to adapt themselves to changes of environment.
3. Revolution owes its power to the unchaining of the people, and does
not take place without the aid of an important fraction of the army,
which usually becomes disaffected by power of suggestion.
4. The triumphant party will organize according to whether the
revolution is effected by soldiers, radicals, or conservatives.
5. The violence is liable to be great if a belief as well as material
interests are being defended.
6. For ideas which cause violent contradictions are matters of faith,
rather than of knowledge.
7. If the triumphant party go to extremes, bordering upon absurdities,
they are liable to be turned down by the people.
8. Most revolutions aim to put a new person in power, who usually tries
to establish an equilibrium between the struggling factions, and not be
too much dominated by any one class.
9. The rapidity of modern revolutions is explained by quick methods of
publicity, and the slight resistance and ease with which some
governments have been overturned is surprising, indicating blind
confidence and inability to foresee.
10. Governments sometimes have fallen so easily that they are said to
have committed suicide.
11. Revolutionary organizations are impulsive, though often timid, and
are influenced by a few leaders, who may cause them to act contrary to
the wishes of the majority. Thus royal assemblies have destroyed
empires and humanitarian legislatures have permitted massacres.
12. When all social restraints are abandoned, and instinctive impulses
are allowed full sway, there is danger of return to barbarianism. For
the ancestral ego (inherent in everyone) is let loose.
13. A country will prosper in proportion that the really superior
persons rule, and this superiority is both moral and mental.
14. If certain social tendencies appear to lower the power of mind,
they, nevertheless, may lessen injustice to the weaker classes; and if
it be a choice between mentality and morality, morality should be
preferred.
15. A financial aristocracy does not promote much jealousy in those who
hope to form a part of it in the future.
16. Science has caused many things once held to be historical to be now
considered doubtful. Thus it is asked--
17. Would not the results of the French Revolution, which cost so much
bloodshed, have been obtained without violence later, through gradual
evolution? And were the results of the French Revolution worth the cost
of the terrible barbarism and suffering that took place?
18. To understand the people in a revolution we must know their history.
19. The accumulated thought, feeling, and tradition of a nation
constitute its strength, which is its national spirit. This must not be
too rigid, nor too malleable. For, in the first place, revolution means
anarchy, and, in the second place, it results in successive revolutions.
WAR AND PEACE STUDIES.
By the Author.
Peace, War, and Humanity. Printed by Judd & Detweiler, Washington, D.
C., 26 pages, 1915, 8º.
Comparative Militarism. Reprint from publications of the American
Statistical Association, Boston, December, 1915, 3 pages, 8º.
Atrocities and Outrages of War. Reprint from the Pacific Medical
Journal, San Francisco, April, 1916, 16 pages, 8º. Gives data for Civil
War, Boer War, Bulgaria, and Russia and Germany, 16 pages, 8º.
Some Moral Evils of War. Reprint from Pacific Medical Journal, San
Francisco, August, 1916, 8 pages, 8º. Refers especially to Boer War.
Reasons for Peace. Machinists' Monthly Journal, Washington, D. C., July,
1916, pages 708-710, 8º.
Choosing Between War and Peace. Reprint from Western Medical Times,
Denver, Colo., 6 pages, 8º.
Statement of European War. Reprint from Pacific Medical Journal, San
Francisco, Calif., February, 1917, 8 pages, 8º.
Prevention of War. Reprint from CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Washington, D. C.,
February 27, 1917, 8 pages, 8º; also, reprint 7 pages, 8º.
Military Training in the Public Schools. Educational Exchange,
Birmingham, Ala., February and March, 1917.
War and Criminal Anthropology. Published in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD for
February 27 and March 15, 1917.
Our National Defense. Testimony of American officers as to difficulties
of invasion, and our coast defenses. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD for March 15,
1917; also, reprint, 10 pages, 8º.
Identification of Soldiers After Death and Head Measurements. Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal, June 13, 1918; also, reprint 8 pages, 8º.
Revolutions. Journal of Education, Boston, Mass., December 26, 1918, 4º.
Anthropometry of Soldiers. Medical Record, New York City, December 14,
1918; also, reprint 17 pages, 12º; also, in Our State Army and Navy,
Philadelphia, April, 1919.
Psychology of Swiss Soldiers. Arms and the Man, Washington, D. C., 1918;
also in Journal of Medicine and Surgery, Nashville, Tenn., March, 1919.
International Psychology and Peace. Chicago Legal News, May 1, 1919.
Suggestions of the Peace Treaty of Westphalia for the Peace Conference
in France. Journal of Education, Boston, Mass., March 27, 1919; also, in
Open Court, April, 1919; also (in German) Milwaukee Herald, April, 1919;
also (in Norwegian) in Amerika, May 16, Madison, Wis.; in "La Prensa"
(Spanish), San Antonio, Tex., Lunes 19 de Mayo de 1919; "Nardoni List"
(Croatian), June 8, 1919; also in "Rivista d'Italia," Milano. April.
1919.
Disequilibrium of Mind and Nerves in War. Medical Record, New York City,
May 3, 1919; also, reprint, 12 pages, 12º.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Article (by writer) in Central Law Journal, St. Louis, April 25,
1919, and in Open Court, April, 1919, Chicago, Ill.
[2] See a study of the United States Senate by the writer (published in
Spanish) under the title "Estudio del Senado de los Estados Unidos de
America." in Revista Argentina de Ciencias Politicas, 12 de Enero de
1918. (Buenos Ayres, 1918.)
[3] Article (by writer) in Chicago Legal News for May 3, 1919.
[4] See Article (by author) entitled "Suggestions from the Westphalian
Peace treaty for the Peace conference in France," published in the
Journal of Education, Boston, March 27, 1919, and Central Law Journal,
St. Louis, Mo., April, 1919; also in Open Court for April, 1919,
Chicago.
[5] See article (by author) in Pacific Medical Journal, San Francisco,
Calif., April, 1916, entitled "Atrocities and Outrages of War"; also
pamphlet (by author) entitled "War and Criminal Anthropology," reprinted
from the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD for February 17 and March 15, 1917.
Washington, D. C.
[6] Woolf, L. S., International Government, Fabian Research Department,
London.
[7] See article (by author) entitled "Anthropology of Modern Civilized
Man" in Medical Fortnightly and Laboratory News, St. Louis, Mo., April,
1919; also chapter on "Emil Zola" in Senate Document (by author) No.
532, Sixtieth Congress, first session.
[8] Article (by writer) in Journal of Education, Boston, Mass., for
December 26, 1918.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
The following misprints have been corrected:
"Westphalla" corrected to "Westphalia" (Page 5)
"Calvanists" corrected to "Calvinists" (Page 6)
"turbulations" corrected to "tribulations" (Page 7)
"centry" corrected to "century" (Page 7)
"wtihout" corrected to "without" (Page 7)
"defenstration" corrected to "defenestration" (Page 8)
"importauce" corrected to "importance" (Page 8)
"La Prenso" corrected to "La Prensa" (Page 16)
"Rivista d'Ialia" corrected to "Rivista d'Italia" (Page 16)
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|
burying-grounds,' has something pleasant in
it, at least to me."
This was his last, as it seems to have been his first desire; and it has
found an echo in many a richly dowered heart.
"Lay me," said Allan Cunningham, "where the daisies can grow on my
grave;" and it is well known that Moore--
"The poet of all circles,"--
and, as a poor Irishman once rendered it--
"The _darlint_ of his own,"
has frequently expressed a desire to be buried at Sloperton beside his
children.
The future orator found the law, as a profession, alien to his habits
and feelings, for at the expiration of the usual term he was not even
called to the bar. Some say he desired the professorship of logic at the
University of Glasgow, and even stood the contest; but this has been
disputed, and if he was rejected, it is matter of congratulation, that
his talents and time were not confined to so narrow a sphere. At that
period his mind was occupied by his theories on the Sublime and
Beautiful, which were finally condensed and published in the shape of
that essay which roused the world to admiration.
Mr. Prior says, and with every show of reason, "that Mr. Burke's
ambition of being distinguished in literature, seems to have been one of
his earliest, as it was one of his latest, passions." His first avowed
work was "The Vindication of Natural Society;" but he wrote a great deal
anonymously; and the essay on "The Sublime and Beautiful," triumphant as
it was, must have caused him great anxiety; he began it before he was
nineteen, and kept it by him for seven years before it was published--a
valuable lesson to those who rush into print and mistake the desire for
celebrity, for the power which bestows immortality.
The literature which is pursued chiefly in solitude, is always the best
sort: society, which cheers and animates men in most employments, is an
impediment to an author if really warmed by true genius, and impelled by
a sacred love of truth not to fritter away his thoughts or be tempted to
insincerity.
The genius and noble mind of Burke constituted him a high priest of
literature; the lighter, and it might be the more pleasurable enjoyments
of existence, could not be tasted without interfering with his pursuits;
but he knew his duty to his God, to the world, and to himself, and the
responsibility alone was sufficiently weighty to bend a delicate frame,
even when there was no necessity for laboring to live--but where an
object is to be attained, principles put forth or combated, God or man
to be served, the necessity for exertion always exists, and the great
soul must go forth on its mission.
That sooner or later this strife, or love, or duty--pursued
bravely--must tell upon all who even covet and enjoy their labor, the
experience of the past has recorded; and Edmund Burke, even at that
early period of life, was ordered to try the effects of a visit to Bath
and Bristol, then the principal resort of the invalids of the United
Kingdom.
At Bath he exchanged one malady for another, for he became attached to
Miss Nugent, the daughter of his physician, and in a very little time
formed what, in a worldly point of view, would be considered an
imprudent marriage, but which secured the happiness of his future life;
she was a Roman Catholic; but, however unfortunate dissenting creeds are
in many instances, in this it never disturbed the harmony of their
affection.
She was a woman exactly calculated to create happiness; possessing
accomplishments, goodness of heart, sweetness of disposition and
manners, veneration for talent, a hopeful spirit to allay her husband's
anxieties, wisdom and love to meet his ruffled temper, and tenderness to
subdue it--qualities which made him frequently declare "that every care
vanished the moment he sheltered beneath his own roof."
Edmund Burke became a husband, and also continued a lover--and once
presented to his ladylove, on the anniversary of their marriage, his
idea of "a perfect wife."[2]
For a considerable time after his marriage Burke toiled as a literary
man, living at Battersea or in town, now writing, it is believed,
jointly with his brother Richard and his cousin William a work on the
"European Settlements in America," in two volumes, which, according to
tradition, brought him, or them, only fifty pounds! then planning and
commencing an abridgment of the "History of England."
Struggling, it may be with difficulties brought on by his generous
nature, and which his father's allowance of two hundred a year, and his
own industry and perseverance could hardly overcome, the birth of a son
was an additional stimulant to exertion, and, in conjunction with
Dodsley, he established the _Annual Register_. This work he never
acknowledged, but his best biographers have no doubt of his having
brought forth and nurtured this useful publication. A hundred pounds a
volume seems to have been the sum paid for this labor; and Burke's
receipts for the money were at one time in the possession of Mr. Upcott.
Long before he obtained a seat in Parliament he won the esteem of Doctor
Johnson, who bore noble testimony to his virtue and talent, and what he
especially admired, and called, his "affluence of conversation."
For a time he went to Ireland as private secretary to Mr. Hamilton,
distinguished from all others of his name as "single-speech Hamilton;"
but disagreeing with this person, he nobly threw up a pension of three
hundred a year, because of the unreasonable and derogatory claims made
upon his gratitude by Hamilton, who had procured it for him.
While in Dublin he made acquaintance with the genius of the painter
Barry, and though his own means were limited, he persuaded him to come
to England, and received him in his house in Queen Anne-street, where he
soon procured him employment; he already numbered Mr., afterwards Sir
Joshua, Reynolds amongst his friends; and his correspondence with Barry
might almost be considered a young painter's manual, so full is it of
the better parts of taste, wisdom, and knowledge.
Mr. Burke was then on the threshold of Parliament, Lord Verney arranging
for his _début_ as member for Wendover, in Buckinghamshire, under the
Rockingham administration; another star was added to the galaxy of that
brilliant assembly, and if we had space it could not be devoted to a
better purpose than to trace his glorious career in the senate; but that
is before all who read the history of the period, and we prefer to
follow his footsteps in the under current of private life.
He was too successful to escape the poisoned arrows of envy, or the
misrepresentations of the disappointed. Certain persons exclaimed
against his want of consistency, and gave as a reason that at one
period he commanded the spirit of liberty with which the French
Revolution commenced, and after a time turned away in horror and disgust
from a people who made murder a pastime, and converted Paris into a
shambles for human flesh.
But nothing could permanently obscure the fame of the eloquent Irishman,
he continued to act with such worthiness, that, despite his schism with
Charles James Fox, "the people" did him the justice to believe, that in
his public conduct, he had no one view but the public good.
He outlived calumny, uniting unto genius diligence, and unto diligence
patience, and unto patience enthusiasm, and to these, deep-hearted
enthusiasm, with a knowledge, not only, it would seem, of all things,
but of such ready application, that in illustration or argument his
resources were boundless; the wisdom of the Ancients was as familiar to
him as the improved state of modern politics, science, and laws; the
metaphysics and logic of the Schools were to him as household words, and
his memory was gemmed with whatever was most valuable in poetry,
history, and the arts.
[Illustration: GREGORIES.]
After much toil, and the lapse of some time, he purchased a domain in
Buckinghamshire, called "Gregories;" there, whenever his public duties
gave him leisure, he enjoyed the repose so necessary to an overtaxed
brain; and from Gregories some of his most interesting letters are
dated.[3] Those addressed to the painter Barry, _whom his liberality
sent to and supported in Rome_, are, as we have said, replete with art
and wisdom; and the delicacy of both him and his excellent brother
Richard, while entreating the rough-hewn genius to prosecute his studies
and give them pleasure by his improvement, are additional proofs of the
beautiful union of the brothers, and of their _oneness_ of purpose and
determination that Barry should never be cramped by want of means.[4]
After the purchase of Gregories[5] Mr. Burke had no settled town-house,
merely occupying one for the season. In one of his letters to Barry, he
tells him to direct to Charles-street, St. James's Square; he writes
also from Fludyer-street, Westminster, and from Gerrard-street, Soho;
but traces of his "whereabouts" are next to impossible to find. Barry
was not the only artist who profited by Edmund Burke's liberality.
Barret, the landscape-painter, had fallen into difficulties, and the
fact coming to the orator's ears during his short tenure in power, he
bestowed upon him a place in Chelsea Hospital, which he enjoyed during
the remainder of his life.
Indeed, this great man's noble love of Art was part and parcel of
himself; it was no affectation, and it led to genuine sympathy with, not
only the artist's triumphs, but his difficulties. He found time, amid
all his occupations, to write letters to the irritable Barry, and if the
painter had followed their counsel, he would have secured his peace and
prosperity; but it was far otherwise: his conduct, both in Rome and
after his return to England, gave his friend just cause of offence;
though, like all others who offended the magnanimous Burke, he was soon
forgiven.
He never forgot his Irish friends, or the necessities of those who lived
on the family estate; the expansive generosity of his nature did not
prevent his attending to the minor comforts of his dependants, and his
letters "home" frequently breathe a most loving and careful spirit, that
the sorrows of the poor might be ameliorated, and their wants relieved.
We ought to have mentioned before that Mr. and Mrs. Burke's marriage was
only blessed by two sons; one died in childhood, the eldest grew up a
young man of the warmest affections, and blessed with a considerable
share of talent; to his parents he was every thing they could desire;
towards his mother he exhibited the tenderness and devotion of a
daughter, and his demeanor to his father was that of an obedient son,
and most faithful friend; at intervals he enjoyed with them the pleasure
they experienced in receiving guests of the highest consideration;
amongst them the eccentric Madame de Genlis, who put their politeness to
the test by the exercise of her peculiarities, and horrified the meek
and amiable Sir Joshua Reynolds by the assumption of talents she did not
possess.
The publication of his reflections on the French Revolution, which,
perhaps, never would have seen the light but for the rupture with Mr.
Sheridan, which caused his opinions to be misunderstood, brought down
the applause of Europe on a head then wearying of public life.
But, perhaps, a tribute Burke valued more than any, remembering the
adage--an adage which, unhappily, especially applies to Ireland--"no man
is a prophet in his own country," was, that on a motion of the provost
of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1790, the honorary degree of LL.D. was
conferred upon him in full convocation, and an address afterwards
presented in a gold box, to express the University's sense of his
services. When he replied to this distinguished compliment, his town
residence was in "Duke-street, St. James."
His term of life--over-tasked as it was--might have been extended to a
much longer period, but that his deeply affectionate nature, as time
passed on, experienced several of those shocks inseparable from even
moderate length of days; many of his friends died; among others, his
sister and his brother; but still the wife of his bosom and his son were
with him--that son whose talents he rated as superior to his own, whom
he had consulted for some years on almost every subject, whether of a
public or a private nature, that occurred, and very frequently preferred
his judgment to his own. This beloved son had attained the age of
thirty-four, when he was seized with rapid consumption. When the malady
was recognized and acknowledged, his father took him to Brompton, then,
as now, considered the best air for those affected with this cruel
malady. "Cromwell House," chosen as their temporary residence, is
standing still, though there is little doubt the rage for extending
London through this once sequestered and rural suburb, will soon raze it
to the ground, as it has done others of equal interest.
[Illustration: CROMWELL HOUSE.]
We have always regarded "Cromwell House," as it is called, with
veneration. In our earliest acquaintance with a neighborhood, in which
we lived so long and still love so well, this giant dwelling, staring
with its whited walls and balconied roof over the tangled gardens which
seemed to cut it off from all communication with the world, was
associated with our "Hero Worship" of Oliver Cromwell. We were told he
had lived there (what neighborhood has not its "Cromwell House?")--that
the ghastly old place had private staircases and subterranean
passages--some underground communication with Kensington--that there
were doors in the walls, and out of the walls; and, that if not careful
you might be precipitated through trap-doors into some unfathomable
abyss, and encounter the ghost of old Oliver himself. These tales
operated upon our imagination in the usual way; and many and many a
moonlight evening, while wandering in those green lanes--now obliterated
by Onslow and Thurloe Squares--and listening to the nightingales, have
we watched the huge shadows cast by that solitary and melancholy-looking
house, and, as we have said, associated it with the stern and grand
Protector of England. Upon closer investigation, how grieved we have
often been to discover the truth, for it destroyed not only our castles
in the air, but their inhabitants; we found that Oliver never resided
there, but that his son, Richard, had, and was a rate payer to the
parish of Kensington for some time. To this lonely sombre house Mr. and
Mrs. Burke and their son removed, in the hope that the soft mild air of
this salubrious neighborhood might restore his failing strength; the
consciousness of his being in danger was something too terrible for them
to think of. He had just received a new appointment--an appointment
suited to his tastes and expectations; he must take possession of it in
a little time. He was their child, their friend, their treasure, their
all! Surely God would spare him to close their eyes. How could death and
he meet together? They entreated him of God, by prayer, and
supplication, and tears that flowed until their eyes were dry and their
eyelids parched--but all in vain. The man, in his prime of manhood, was
stricken down; we transcribe, from an article in the _Quarterly Review_,
on "Fontenelle's Signs of Death," the brief account of his last moments:
"Burke's son, upon whom his father has conferred something of his own
celebrity, heard his parents sobbing in another room at the prospect of
an event they knew to be inevitable. He rose from his bed, joined his
illustrious father, and endeavored to engage him in a cheerful
conversation. Burke continued silent, choked with grief. His son again
made an effort to console him. 'I am under no terror,' he said; 'I feel
myself better and in spirits, and yet my heart flutters, I know not why.
Pray, talk to me, sir! talk of religion; talk of morality; talk, if you
will, of indifferent subjects.' Here a noise attracted his notice, and
he exclaimed, 'Does it rain?--No; it is the rustling of the wind through
the trees.' The whistling of the wind and the waving of the trees
brought Milton's majestic lines to his mind, and he repeated them with
uncommon grace and effect:
'His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship wave!'
A second time he took up the sublime and melodious strain, and,
accompanying the action to the word, waved his own hand in token of
worship, and sank into the arms of his father--a corpse. Not a sensation
told him that in an instant he would stand in the presence of the
Creator to whom his body was bent in homage, and whose praises still
resounded from his lips."
The account which all the biographies of Burke give of the effect this
bereavement produced upon his parents is most fearful even to read; what
must it have been to witness? His mother seems to have regained her
self-possession sooner than his father. In one of his letters to the
late Baron Smith, he writes--"So heavy a calamity has fallen upon me as
to disable me from business, and disqualifies me for repose. The
existence I have--_I do not know that I can call life_. * * Good nights
to you--I never have any." And again--"The life which has been so
embittered cannot long endure. The grave will soon close over me, and my
dejections." To Lord Auckland he writes--"For myself, or for my family
(alas! I have none), I have nothing to hope or to fear in this world."
And again in another letter--"The storm has gone over me, and I lie like
one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I
am stripped of all my honors, I lie prostrate on the earth; I am alone,
I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. I greatly deceive myself, if
in this hard season of life, I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all
that is called fame and honor in the world."
There is some thing in the "wail" and character of these laments that
recalls the mournful Psalms of David; like the Psalmist he endeavored to
be comforted, but it was by an effort. His political career was shrouded
for ever--the _motive_ to his great exertions was destroyed--but his
mind, wrecked as it had been, could not remain inactive. In 1795 his
_private_ reply to Mr. Smith's letter, requesting his opinion of the
expediency of and necessity for Catholic Emancipation, got into public
circulation; and in that singular document, though he did not enter into
the details of the question with as much minuteness as he would
previously have done, he pleaded for the removal of the whole of the
disabilities of the Roman Catholic body. From time to time he put forth
a small work on some popular question. He originated several plans for
benefiting the poor in his own neighborhood. He had a windmill in his
park for the purpose of supplying the poor with cheap bread, which bread
was served at his own table; and, as if clinging to the memory of the
youth of his son, he formed a plan for the establishment of an emigrant
school at Penn, where the children of those who had perished by the
guillotine or the sword amid the French convulsions, could be received,
supported, and educated. He made a generous appeal to government for the
benefit of these children, which was as generously responded to. The
house appropriated to this humane purpose had been inhabited by Burke's
old friend, General Haviland; and after his death several emigré French
priests sheltered within its walls. Until his last fatal illness Mr.
Burke watched over the establishment with the solicitude of a friend and
the tenderness of a father. The Lords of the Treasury allowed fifty
pounds per month for its sustenance: the Marquis of Buckingham made them
a present of a brass cannon and a stand of colors. When the Bourbons
were restored in 1814 they relieved the government from this charge, and
the institution was dissolved in 1820; in 1822 "Tyler's Green House," as
it was called, was sold in lots, pulled down, and carried away; thus,
Burke's own dwelling being destroyed by fire, and this building,
sanctified by his sympathy and goodness, razed to the ground, little
remains to mark the locality of places where all the distinguished men
of the age congregated around "the Burkes," and where Edmund, almost to
the last, extended hospitalities, coveted and appreciated by all who had
any pretensions to be considered as distinguished either by talent or
fortune.
It has frequently struck us as strange, the morbid avidity with which
the world seizes upon the slightest evidence of abstraction in great
men, to declare that their minds are fading, or impoverished: the public
gapes for every trifle calculated to prove that the palsied fingers can
no longer grasp the intellectual sceptre, and that the well-worn and
hard-earned bays are as a crown of thorns to the pulseless brow. It was,
in those days whispered in London that the great orator had become
imbecile immediately after the publication of his "_Letter to a Noble
Lord_;" and that he wandered about his park kissing his cows and horses.
A noble friend went immediately to Beaconsfield to ascertain the truth,
and was delighted to find Mr. Burke anxious to read him passages from "A
Regicide Peace," which he was then writing; after a little delicate
manoeuvring on his part, to ascertain the truth, Mr. Burke told him a
touching incident which proved the origin of this calumny on his
intellectual powers.
An old horse, a great favorite of his son's, and his constant companion,
when both were full of life and health, had been turned out at the death
of his master, to take his run of the park for the remainder of his
life, at ease, with strict injunctions to the servants that he should
neither be ridden, nor molested by any one. While musing one day,
loitering along, Mr. Burke perceived this worn-out old servant come
close up to him, and at length, after some moments spent in viewing his
person, followed by seeming recollection and confidence, he deliberately
rested his head upon his bosom. The singularity of the action itself,
the remembrance of his dead son, its late master, who occupied so much
of his thoughts at all times, and the apparent attachment, tenderness
and intelligence of the creature towards him--as if it could sympathize
with his inward sorrow--rushing at once into his mind, totally
overpowered his firmness, and throwing his arms over its neck, he wept
long and loudly.
But though his lucid and beautiful mind, however agonized, remained
unclouded to the last, and his affections glowed towards his old friends
as warmly as ever, his bodily health was failing fast; one of the last
letters he ever dictated was to Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of his old
friend and master, Shackleton; this lady was subsequently well known in
Ireland as the author of "Cottage Dialogues." The first literary
attempt, we believe, made towards the improvement of the lower order of
Irish, was by her faithful and earnest pen; to this letter,
congratulating her on the birth of a son, is a PS. where the invalid
says:--"I have been at Bath these four months to no purpose, and am
therefore to be removed to my own house at Beaconsfield to-morrow, _to
be nearer to a habitation more permanent, humbly_ and fearfully hoping
that my better part may find a better mansion!"
It would seem as if he anticipated the hour of his passing away. He sent
sweet messages of loving-kindness to all his friends, entreating and
exchanging pardons; recapitulated his motives of action on various
political emergencies; gave directions as to his funeral, and then
listened with attention to some serious papers of Addison on religious
subjects and on the immortality of the soul. His attendants after this
were in the act of removing him to his bed, when indistinctly invoking a
blessing on all around him, he sunk down and expired on the 9th of July,
1797, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
"His end," said his friend Doctor Lawrence, "was suited to the simple
greatness of mind which he displayed through life; every way unaffected,
without levity, without ostentation, full of natural grace and dignity,
he appeared neither to wish nor to dread, but patiently and placidly to
await the appointed hour of his dissolution."
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF EDMUND BURKE.]
It was almost impossible to people, in fancy, the tattered and neglected
churchyard of Beaconsfield as it now is--with those who swelled the
funeral pomp of the greatest ornament of the British senate; to imagine
the titled pall-bearers, where the swine were tumbling over graves, and
rooting at headstones. Seldom, perhaps never, in England, had we seen a
churchyard so little cared for as that, where the tomb of Waller[6]
renders the surrounding disorder "in a sacred place" more conspicuous by
its lofty pretension, and where the church is regarded as the mausoleum
of Edmund Burke.[7] Surely the "decency of churchyards" ought to be
enforced, if those to whom they should be sacred trusts, neglect or
forget their duty. That the churchyard of Beaconsfield, which has long
been considered "a shrine," should be suffered to remain in the state in
which we saw it, is a disgrace not only to the town, but to England; it
was differently cared for during Burke's lifetime, and though, like that
of the revered Queen Dowager, his Will expressed a disinclination to
posthumous honors, and unnecessary expense, never were mourners more
sincere--never did there arise to the blue vault of heaven the incense
of greater, and more deep-felt sorrow, than from the multitude who
assembled in and around the church, while the mortal remains of Edmund
Burke were placed in the same vault with his son and brother.
The tablet to his memory, placed on the wall of the south aisle of the
church, records his last resting-place with the relatives just named; as
well as the fact of the same grave containing the body of his "entirely
beloved and incomparable wife," who died in 1812, at the age of 76.
Deeply do we deplore that the dwelling where he enjoyed so much that
renders life happy, and suffered what sanctifies and prepares us for a
better world, exists no longer; but his name is incorporated with our
history, and adds another to the list of the great men who have been
called into life and received their first and best impressions in
Ireland; and if Ireland had given nothing to her more prosperous sister
than the extraordinary men of the past and present century, she merits
her gratitude for the gifts which bestow so much honor and glory on the
United Kingdoms.
Mrs. Burke, previous to her death, sold the mansion to her neighbor, Mr.
John Du Pré, of Wilton Park. Mrs. Haviland, Mr. Burke's niece, lived
with her to the last, though she did not receive the portion of her
fortune to which she was considered entitled. Her son, Thomas Haviland
Burke, grand-nephew of Edmund, became the lineal representative of the
family; but the library, and all the tokens of respect and admiration
which he received from the good, and from the whole world, went with the
property to _Mrs. Burke's_ nephew, Mr. Nugent. Some of the sculpture
which ornamented the house now graces the British Museum.
The mansion was burnt on the 23d of April, 1813. The ground where it
stood is unequal; and some of the park wall remains, and fine old trees
still flourish, beneath whose shade we picture the meeting between the
mourning father and the favorite horse of his lost son.
There is a full-length portrait of Edmund Burke in the Examination Hall
of the Dublin University. All such portraits should be copied, and
preserved in our own Houses of Parliament, a meet honor to the dead, and
a stimulant to the living to "go and do likewise." It hardly realizes,
however, the _ideal_ of Burke; perhaps no portrait could. What Miss
Edgeworth called the "ground-plan of the face" is there; but we must
imagine the varying expression, the light of the bright quick eyes, the
eloquence of the unclosed lips, the storm which could gather
thunder-clouds on the well-formed brow; but we have far exceeded our
limits without exhausting our subject, and, with Dr. Parr, still would
speak of Burke:
"Of Burke, by whose sweetness Athens herself would have been soothed,
with whose amplitude and exuberance she would have been enraptured and
on whose lips that prolific mother of genius and science would have
adored, confessed--the Goddess of Persuasion."
Alas! we have lingered long at his shrine, and yet our praise is not
half spoken.
--[The notes and drawings for this paper were contributed by F. W.
Fairhold, of the Society of Antiquaries.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Sylvanus Spenser, the eldest son of the Poet Spenser, married Ellen
Nagle, eldest daughter of David Nagle, Esq., ancestor of the lady, who
was mother to Edmund Burke.
[2] This as a picture is outlined with so delicate a pencil, and colored
with such mingled purity and richness of tone, that we transcribe a few
passages, as much in honor of the man who could write, as the woman who
could inspire such praise:--
"The character of ----
"She is handsome, but it is beauty not arising from features, from
complexion, or from shape. She has all three in a high degree, but it is
not by these she touches a heart; it is all that sweetness of temper,
benevolence, innocence, and sensibility, which a face can express, that
forms her beauty. She has a face that just raises your attention at
first sight; it grows on you every moment, and you wonder it did no more
than raise your attention at first.
"Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases; they command
like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by virtue.
"Her stature is not tall, she is not made to be the admiration of every
body, but the happiness of one.
"She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy--she has all
the softness that does not imply weakness. * *
"Her voice is a soft, low, music, not formed to rule in public
assemblies, but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a
crowd: it has this advantage--_you must come close to her to hear it_.
"To describe her body, describes her mind; one is the transcript of the
other; her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters it
exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.
"She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things, as
in avoiding such as she ought _not_ to say or do."
* * * * *
"No persons of so few years can know the world better; no person was
ever less corrupted by the knowledge.
"Her politeness flows rather from a natural disposition to oblige, than
from any rules on that subject, and therefore never fails to strike
those who understand good breeding, and those who do not."
* * * * *
"She has a steady and firm mind, _which takes no more from the solidity
of the female character, than the solidity of marble does from its
polish and lustre_. She has such virtues as make us value the truly
great of our own sex. She has all the winning graces that make us love
even the faults we see in the weak and beautiful in hers."
[3] Our cut exhibits all that now remains of Gregories--a few walls and
a portion of the old stables. Mrs. Burke, before her death, sold the
mansion to her neighbor, Mr. John Du Pré, of Wilton Park. It was
destroyed by fire soon afterwards.
[4] During Barry's five years' residence abroad he earned nothing for
himself, and received no supplies save from Edmund and Richard Burke.
[5] Mr. Prior says in his admirable Life of Burke--"How the money to
effect this purchase was procured has given rise to many surmises and
reports; a considerable portion was his own, the bequest of his father
and elder brother. The Marquis of Rockingham offered the loan of the
amount required to complete the purchase; the Marquis was under
obligations to him publicly, and privately for some attention paid to
the business of his large estates in Ireland. Less disinterested men
would have settled the matter otherwise--the one by quartering his
friend, the other, by being quartered, on the public purse. To the honor
of both, a different course was pursued."
[6] Waller was a resident in this vicinity, in which his landed property
chiefly lay. He lived in the family mansion named Well's Court, a
property still in the possession of his descendants. His tomb is a table
monument of white marble, upon which rises a pyramid, resting on skulls
with bat's wings; it is a peculiar but picturesque addition to the
churchyard, and, from its situation close to the walk, attracts much
attention.
[7] Our engraving exhibits his simple tablet, as seen from the central
aisle of the church, immediately in front of the pew in which Burke and
his family always sat.
POEMS BY S. G. GOODRICH[8]
For the last twenty years the name of Mr. Goodrich has been very
constantly associated with American literature. He commenced as a
publisher, in Boston, and was among the first to encourage by liberal
copyrights, and to make attractive by elegant editions, the works of
American authors. One of his earliest undertakings was a collection of
the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, with a memoir of that author, by
his widow, with whom he shared the profits. In 1828 he began "The
Token," an annual literary souvenir, which he edited and published
fourteen years. In this appeared the first fruits of the genius of
Cheney, who has long been acknowledged the master of American engravers;
and the first poems and prose writings of Longfellow, Willis, Mellen,
Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Child, Mrs. Sigourney, and other eminent authors. In
"The Token" also were printed his own earlier lyrical pieces. The work
was of the first rank in its class, and in England as well as in this
country it was uniformly praised.
In 1831 an anonymous romance was published by Marsh & Capen, of Boston.
It was attributed by some to Willis, and by others to Mrs. Child, then
Miss Francis. It illustrated a fine and peculiar genius, but was soon
forgotten. Mr. Goodrich appreciated its merits, and applied to the
publishers for the name of the author, that he might engage him as a
contributor to "The Token." They declined to disclose his secret, but
offered to forward a letter to him. Mr. Goodrich wrote one, and received
an answer signed by NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, many of whose best productions,
as "Sights from a Steeple," "Sketches under an Umbrella," "The Prophetic
Pictures," "Canterbury Pilgrims," &c., appeared in this annual. In 1839,
Mr. Goodrich suggested to Mr. Hawthorne the publication of a collection
of his tales, surrendering his copyrights to several of them for this
purpose; but so little were the extraordinary qualities of this
admirable author then understood, that the publishers would not venture
upon such an experiment without an assurance against loss, which Mr.
Goodrich, as his friend, therefore gave. The public judgment will be
entitled to
|
plane needs a few repairs, small ones, then we’re all set to go!” The
girl wasted no time. The next minute she was running to the hangar, and
drawing on an overall suit was getting ready to look over her plane.
Her mother, Alice Mapes agreed without a struggle. “In fact I don’t feel
half as frightened as I did when you went north to find the boys. You’ll
have a wonderful trip to the south. Your father and I trust you
perfectly, we know you’ll look over your plane at every stop and never
take a chance with it.”
“There you see, Dad!” said Terry with a happy laugh. “When mother
agrees, it’s bound to be all right.”
Prim was already busy at their flying togs. There were a few repairs to
make and this was left to Prim, who liked to sew and cook and do other
domestic jobs while Terry was a good mechanic and kept the plane running
without a hitch.
“A born flyer!” said Dick Mapes and he followed his daughter’s figure as
she tested her plane, listening intently to the hum of the motor, going
over every part, making adjustments here and there to bring her plane to
the highest pitch of efficiency. And when Terry was satisfied that
_Skybird_ was in perfect running order, Dick Mapes could never find a
flaw. Terry knew her job.
Bennett Graham had all the necessary legal papers ready and a certified
check to close the deal, so there would be no hitch at the last minute.
These papers were carried in a small brown leather case and sewn into
the lining of Terry’s flying coat.
Prim loved stylish clothes and her white flying suit was smartly cut.
Terry turned to admire her pretty blonde sister just before they were
ready to hop off.
“What’s the idea of that necklace?” said Terry with a laugh. “Girl
flyers don’t wear necklaces with bright red jewels.”
“Don’t they? Well, this one does! It just suits my fancy, Terry Mapes. I
think it looks smart, it adds a bit of color to my white costume.”
“All right, Prim, just as you say. Now, is everything set? How about
your sweet tooth. Got plenty of cake chocolate?” teased Terry, for Prim
was always nibbling at something sweet.
“Sure, my pockets are full. Here put this little package of crackers in
your coat. We may get hungry as we fly along. And I’ve put up a big
lunch in case we need it.”
At the last minute Prim adjusted the harness of the parachutes about
Terry and herself not minding her sister’s impatient shrugs of disdain.
For some reason Terry was always impatient of parachutes. She felt like
an amateur even though she knew that many of the big flyers never went
up without putting one on, as a safeguard in case of accident.
Terry looked with satisfaction at Sally Wyn, the little waif they had
brought with them from the far north. The girl was fluttering about the
field like a butterfly. She seemed to be in half a dozen different
places at the same time, running errands and making herself useful. With
Sally there, her father and mother would not be so lonely. The little
orphan had found a place in the hearts of Dick and Alice, and they would
not hear of her leaving them to go to work. With her happy disposition
she kept the household filled with laughter. Alice often wondered how
she had ever been happy without this fun-loving girl. And she had a way
of making Dick forget that he was a cripple. She amused him.
As the girls said goodbye to her, Sally called out: “Next year Terry
Mapes, I’ll race you to Peru!”
It was a glorious morning, the sun was just rising as Terry sent her
plane into the air and headed south. There were no last minute delays.
Now it remained for Terry and Prim to reach Peru, find old Peter Langley
and convince him that he was mistaken and make him want to sell Dick the
property. And in Terry’s mind there was no doubt that she could
accomplish it.
Below them was a vast stretch of fertile country with streams, lakes and
broad green valleys. And high in the air, Terry’s hand at the controls
felt the spring of her little plane and was certain that _Skybird_ was
thrilling at the adventure.
Terry held the plane down to a steady speed, hour after hour, only
changing the monotony by diving to a lower level or rising to greater
heights. They were following along the general line of the airway. They
could pick out the landing fields and see the position of the great
beacons that would flash at night to guide the flyer to the hangars on
the ground.
Terry and Prim had decided to stay all night at the Waverly Field, far
to the south. That meant steady flying all day, only coming down to
refuel at long jumps.
They saw the lights of the Waverly Field a full half hour before they
expected to be there. “Shall we go on?” asked Terry through the
earphones. “We can easily reach the next landing field before dark.”
“No, let’s stay here. You look tired and besides I like the looks of
this pleasure beach,” replied Prim.
Terry put _Skybird_ into a steep spiral, leveled and circled the field
and then put the plane neatly down on the ground.
Little did the girls think as they were greeted by the manager of the
flying field that this was where their troubles would begin. That before
they reached Peter Langley’s mine they were to face an enemy who was
desperate with greed and hate. And that at times the girls would despair
of escaping with their lives!
CHAPTER II
Pursued by a Flying Foe
Waverly was a popular beach resort and Prim was delighted to see that
there was a pleasure pier which was gaily lighted up.
She cried, “Oh, Terry, it looks as if there might be dancing down there.
Let’s hurry to the hotel and change to our party clothes.”
“Prim Mapes, you promised me that you wouldn’t take any party dresses
this time. You said we’d be just girl flyers with no excess baggage,”
retorted her sister.
Prim laughed. “I tried to Terry, but I couldn’t leave out our new
frocks. I was certain we’d run into some sort of entertainment where
we’d want some pretty dresses.”
Terry looked her disgust. “But Prim, I don’t even want to dance. What am
I going to do with these documents while I’m dancing?”
“You could leave them at the hotel in the safe,” answered the easy-going
Prim.
“Just forget that, Prim. Wherever I go, these papers go with me. If you
insist on dancing I’ll have to go along, but I’ll have the papers on
me.”
As the girls talked over their plans they arranged for the care of their
plane for the night and for refueling, as they intended to take an early
start the next morning. Then they went to the hotel where many summer
guests were staying.
Prim made friends easily and by the time Terry had registered for them
at the desk and made arrangements for getting away early the next
morning, Prim had a group of girls around her and was laughing and
joking with them as if she had always known them. Terry envied her
sister this ability to get acquainted with people at a moment’s notice.
It would have taken her a week, at least, without Prim to break the ice,
to become friends with these strangers.
When the two girls came down to the dining room half an hour later,
their new acquaintances hardly recognized them. Prim was dressed in a
fluffy gown which made her look like a lovely bit of Dresden china.
Terry was very boyish and trim in her sports dress. She had an
aristocratic manner, attracting notice by her very aloofness.
The dancing pavilion was built out over the water and they could hear
the surf breaking about the pier. Prim danced to her heart’s content,
for partners flocked about her. But Terry was uneasy for pinned to her
slip were the valuable papers she must deliver in Peru. She was relieved
when Prim finally consented to go back to the hotel, exchanging
addresses and promising life-long friendship with her new friends as she
went along.
At the first flush of dawn, Terry and Prim were at the hangars preparing
to take off. Terry made a careful check-up on her plane to see that
everything was in order and as they were about ready to climb into the
cockpits, they heard a shout and their new friends came hurrying to the
field to bid them goodbye.
Prim was glad they had come. She wanted to show off her quiet sister who
always got her plane into the air so gracefully, and her face glowed
with pride as Terry taxied across the field, swung around and headed
into the wind for a good take-off. _Skybird_ took to the air like a
great bird and under Terry’s guidance circled the field several times
for the benefit of their friends, then headed out over the Atlantic,
flying south.
They did not know that a plane had been set down on the field half an
hour before. The pilot had recognized _Skybird_ and kept well out of
sight. As he watched the girls from the shelter of the hangar, his face
expressed the hatred and treachery that he felt.
It was Joe Arnold, their father’s business rival and dangerous enemy!
“What are those girls doing here? Do they imagine they can fly to Peru
and see Peter Langley?” thought Joe to himself. He made up his mind that
the girls would never reach Peru. He would stop them, somehow. He _must_
do it.
Joe Arnold frowned. As his plane was more powerful than _Skybird_, he
could easily out-fly them and reach the mine a day before they could do
so. But, first, he had some mysterious business to attend to before he
would have the money for the option. Meanwhile he must do something to
prevent the Mapes girls from continuing their trip until he was ready.
Before _Skybird_ had disappeared in the clouds, Joe Arnold had left the
field and was following after that tiny speck in the sky, trailing it
relentlessly.
The next stop was Miami, and here again the girls made a thorough
inspection of their plane. From now on their way would be over the
Caribbean, where storms might spring up without warning. _Skybird_ must
be in perfect form. And when Terry finished her inspection, the little
plane was ready for the hop to Havana.
The girls congratulated themselves that everything was going along well.
They were even a few hours ahead of their schedule and Terry’s face was
glowing with happiness and excitement. Ahead of them was the Caribbean.
She had often dreamed of making this flight over tropical waters and now
she was really here.
Below her were the keys and reefs of the Florida coast spread out flat
on the blue water. They were like a painting in delicate pastel shades.
Crossing the line of the reefs, _Skybird_ headed boldly out to sea. Prim
watched the smooth water, fascinated by the patterns made by steamers as
they cut through the water, leaving an ever widening wake behind them.
She felt safe, knowing that their amphibian plane could land on the
water and float.
Terry sighted the coast of Cuba first, a delicate outline seen through a
haze that dimmed the view and gave it a fairy-like appearance. Soon they
sighted the grim old Morro Castle, the Spanish fort, and as they came
nearer and flew above it, they could see the broad avenues of the lovely
city of Havana. The marble capitol was dazzlingly white in the sunshine
and the colored roofs of the houses, as seen from the air, arranged
themselves in a fantastic design. It was a city of gay pleasure.
Terry brought her plane down at the Havana airport with a sense of
relief. The first lap of that journey was over now.
A few minutes later she was handed a telegram which read: “Allan and Syd
will join you at Havana. Wait. Dad.”
Terry’s eyes blazed for a moment. “What do you think of that, Prim?
Allan and Syd are coming here. We’re to _wait_ for them! I’ll say that’s
nerve! Dad thinks we can’t make the trip without the help of the boys.”
“That’s nonsense, Terry! Dad knows we’re equal to it. The boys probably
want a holiday and are coming just for the fun of it. I’m going to be
real glad to see them. The more the merrier, I say,” replied Prim.
“I’d be glad to see them if I thought that their trip was not just
because they think that we have to be looked after,” declared Terry. “I
want to make this flight without help from anybody.”
“Don’t get too independent, Terry. It doesn’t pay,” her sister cautioned
her. “But right now let’s go and get some breakfast. I’m starved.”
After they had finished with the customs and entry regulations the girls
started toward the restaurant. A plane was circling about their heads
looking for a landing.
Suddenly Terry grabbed her sister’s arm. “Oh Prim, look there! It’s Joe
Arnold!”
“Where did he come from? What’s he doing down here?” demanded Prim, as
if her sister knew all about Joe Arnold’s affairs.
Terry laughed nervously. “Ask me something easy! But of one thing we can
be sure. Whatever it is that has brought Joe Arnold down here, it’s
bound to be crooked, whether he is on business of his own or just
trailing us. That man _couldn’t_ be decent!” Terry said with
indignation.
“What are we going to do, Terry?” asked Prim.
“We are going to do nothing at all, except keep our eyes open,” answered
Terry as she slipped back to the hangar and spoke to the mechanic who
was looking over her plane. She gave him her sweetest smile as she spoke
to him. “Keep your eye on my plane. Don’t let any stranger near it.” And
she gave him a five dollar bill.
The young man promised and as Terry turned away he smiled to himself.
“Guess she’s new to the game,” he thought. “Afraid someone will want
parts of her plane for souvenirs.”
“Come on Terry, hurry. If you only knew how hungry I am!” cried Prim.
But now another plane had approached and made a neat landing.
Prim stopped short and grabbed her sister’s arm. “Oh Terry,” she cried,
“I’m almost sure that’s Allan in his new plane.”
“You’re right. That’s Allan! And Syd is with him!”
A few minutes later Allan and Syd leaped from the cockpits and were
waving to the girls with whoops of delight. Terry and Prim hastened back
across the field to welcome them.
“Hurry up!” cried Terry. “Prim is starving!”
“She’s got nothing on us,” Sid answered. “We could eat our shoe
strings,—almost!”
When they were all seated at breakfast, Terry suddenly turned to ask
Allan, “What’s the idea of trailing us down here? Are you taking a
vacation?”
“A sort of vacation,” answered Allan. “About an hour after you left the
other day, Syd and I got home. We finished up our business in half the
time we expected. Then we heard some reports. Joe Arnold had been back
at the field and was bragging around that he was starting out to make
the final deal with Peter Langley for your father’s flying field. He
sent notice to your father to vacate the field.”
“Why the nerve of that man!” cried Terry. “He’ll do no such thing! I
won’t stand for it!”
“Anyway,” went on Allan. “We found out that Joe had started south and
your father wanted to warn you, so he sent us. And here we are.”
“Yes,” Terry broke in. “And Joe Arnold set down his plane at the Havana
airport just a little while ago. I’m sure he saw us. Even if he didn’t
he’d recognize _Skybird_. That man is up to mischief.”
“Do you think he’s going to try and make trouble for us?” asked Prim
anxiously. “I’m afraid of that man, after what he did to you boys in
Newfoundland.”
“We are not going to worry about it,” Terry announced with decision. “We
are going to keep right on at the job we set out to do, and trust to
luck to get us through safely.”
The four friends had an excellent breakfast with tropical fruits and
delicious Cuban dishes. At times they forgot all about Joe Arnold and
his threats to take away their father’s flying field. It was good to be
together in this romantic city of Havana, and hard to realize that
danger threatened them.
All about them were smartly dressed care-free people, spending money
lavishly on the pleasures of the gay city. People came here from all
over the world just to enjoy themselves.
But Terry would not allow them to forget that a difficult job lay ahead
of them. It was necessary to push on. Consulting their maps, they laid
out their route. The next hop would be across the open waters of the
Caribbean to the landing field at Gracias a Dios in Honduras. That would
be their next meeting place in case they became separated. Allan and Syd
had planned to see them safely through the treacherous tropical weather
of the Caribbean, before returning to Elmwood. Now that they were tipped
off to the fact that Joe might make trouble, Terry could be depended on
to keep her eyes open and avoid him. But the boys decided they would
watch Joe and find out what he was up to.
The weather reports were favorable. There was always the warning to
watch out for sudden storms that were common over the Caribbean.
Their take-off was delayed by Terry insisting that her engine was not
working properly. Allan came alongside to listen as she warmed up the
motor. “Why it sounds all right, Terry. I don’t hear anything wrong,” he
said.
“But listen!” shouted Terry. “Listen to that rough hum.”
“You’re right, Terry,” said Allan as the girl shut off her engine and
got out. Slipping into her overall suit, she started to work.
“Has anyone been near my plane?” asked Terry of the young mechanic whom
she had warned.
“No. That is nobody touched it. There was another flyer who stood around
admiring it and asking who you were. He even wanted to know where you
were going. Then he said he’d like to take a look at your engine to see
what kind you had. But I didn’t let him stick around,” replied the
youth. “I told him to clear out!”
Allan and Terry got to work without waiting for further explanation. A
full hour went by before they had the engine humming smoothly enough to
suit the trained and sensitive ear of Terry Mapes.
Once more they were ready to take off. Terry taxied over the long field,
making sure that the engine was working properly before she pulled back
on the stick and sent _Skybird_ nosing into the brilliant blue sky.
Terry’s heart was beating with happy excitement. The take-off never
became a commonplace occurrence to her. She thrilled as she felt the
ship lifting from the ground and in the face of the wind, rising to
dizzy heights above the earth.
Allan and Syd followed and for half an hour they flew at about the same
altitude. Then Allan lagged behind and rose above them to a height of
five thousand feet. Both flyers were watching the sky behind them to
make sure that their enemy was not in pursuit.
Joe Arnold had put in a busy morning in Havana. Here was where he had
some shady business that would give him the ready money for taking up
the option on the Dick Mapes Flying Field. And when he started out half
an hour after the other planes, he flew high and well out of sight.
Terry and Prim were content to fly at about two thousand feet. They were
enjoying the view of the southern sea dotted with islands and failed to
see the pursuing plane, high above them in the distance.
But Joe Arnold was watching intently every move of the two planes, and
the cold, menacing light in his eyes was a threat against these young
flyers who dared to upset his plans, and keep him from realizing his
ambition.
His mind was working fast. At the next flying field, he would have a
show-down with them. His business deal in Havana had not been
successful. It would be necessary to return to that city once more
before he got the money. Joe Arnold did not know just what kind of a
show-down he would have with these girl flyers. He would leave it to
chance and his usual good luck unless he could think of some plan as he
flew through the blue sky. Up in the clean air of the heavens this man
was planning to destroy them.
But Terry and Prim, unconscious of his plans, were watching the changing
colors of the islands, then faced once more the open sea toward
Honduras.
CHAPTER III
Tropic Storm
High above the sapphire mirror of the Caribbean, Terry kept her plane in
a southwesterly course. The sun was a pitiless ball of flame that sent
out long fingers of fire. It was tropic weather.
Above them Allan’s plane was soaring ahead now. The sight of Joe Arnold
at Havana had made them fear an attack, and the four flyers were
watching to see whether a third plane was following them.
Leaving the islands behind they flew out over the sea, a great expanse
of deep blue and purple water.
Suddenly Prim called to her sister. “Look Terry, there’s land over
there, away to the left.”
“Yes, I see,” answered Terry. But she was watching the horizon with
anxious eyes. That dark purplish mass looked to her like a low-lying
cloud. There was something unnatural about it. Its color was changing
rapidly to a reddish hue.
“I don’t like the looks of it, Prim,” called Terry. “See how the light
is changing.”
A reddish haze had spread over the whole sky, the sun appeared like a
great disc of hot metal. The sight was weird and menacing.
“What’s the matter, Terry? Is it a storm?” Prim asked.
“Yes, a tropic storm. We’ve got to race it. Where are the boys?” Prim
leaned over the cowling and strained her eyes to the sky, but that
strange and terrifying haze had blotted out the other plane. Terry
circled and banked in an effort to find their friends. Then, opening the
throttle wide, the girl sent her plane straight before the storm. It was
her only chance. If she could out-race that storm, she would be saved.
Sending her plane ahead and in a gradual rise, the girl tried to get
above the haze. These tropical storms often covered only a small area,
but very soon she realized that the cloud was coming on and rising
faster than her plane.
Below them the sea was still visible, a dull lead color now with
greenish tipped white-caps. The wind had not reached the plane yet and
the girls hoped that they might be able to keep ahead of the tempest.
Then it came, first with a gust that made the little ship bob and dance
about. Terry knew this was only the beginning. The storm was upon them!
The next deep breath of the hurricane would threaten their lives with
its fury. Terry held her plane to the only course she dared to take. She
was racing for dear life!
The throb of the motor told that the engine was being strained to the
limit of its power. There was no time to lose. If the girls were to
escape destruction, they must take that chance.
When the full force of the tempest struck the plane, it was tossed about
like a straw in the wind. Under less experienced hands than Terry’s the
plane would have crashed. Terry could feel the craft being shaken as if
a mighty hand had taken it in its grip, as the gusts of wind struck
vicious blows at the wings.
Terry’s grim face was set with determination. But her hand on the stick
showed no sign of her fear, it did not tremble or lose its power to
control. She was glad now that her father had insisted on training her
in all the stunts of the air, for there was no possible position that
her plane would take that Terry had not put it into deliberately above
her own flying field, and brought it out safely.
But this was altogether different. There she had _put_ the plane into
those dangerous positions, now she was being _forced_ into them and she
never knew what was coming next.
Terry knew the danger she was in but she felt no panic. Every nerve was
tingling, every sense alert. She knew she was doing her best. Her head
was clear, her hand was steady and she kept the little plane, climbing,
ever climbing.
The girl felt that _Skybird_ was fighting for life, with what seemed
like human intelligence. It shuddered and shook and it seemed to try to
right itself after a gust of angry wind.
Prim clung to the cowling, terrified yet fascinated as she watched her
sister. At times it seemed as if the plane had turned clear over, as if
it were going down in a tail spin, but the next moment Terry would bring
it up for a second. It was a big fight.
“She’ll win,” thought Prim. “She’s wonderful!”
Only for a second did Terry lose hope of victory. There was a sputtering
of the engine that her trained ear heard. It sent a chill to her heart.
Her hand shook. She gave a frantic glance back to see if Prim had heard
that menacing sound. And that one look showed her a clear space in the
dark masses.
The storm was passing. Terry held to the controls, praying that the
engine would hold out until the wind ceased.
Suddenly Terry was able to put her plane into a steep climb that brought
her above the storm. Coming out of that black cloud Terry saw Allan’s
plane ahead of her. She followed it, her heart singing for joy. A mist
came to her eyes as she realized that it was only by a miracle that both
planes had gone through the storm and survived.
Terry signalled with the wings of her plane and was answered in the same
manner. She followed Allan’s lead, hoping that her engine would not go
back on her. At intervals she heard a sputter that terrified her, but
now the sky was clearing. She felt hopeful.
Allan finally headed east. This was strange. Terry looked at her compass
and a frown came to her face. What was Allan doing? He was going far out
of his way. At last she understood. Away in the distance was an island.
He was going to land. She wondered if he were having engine trouble.
Terry did not dare to open her throttle wide. Any extra strain might be
her undoing. But, as she neared the small island the plane ahead banked,
circled and signalled, then went into a dive for landing on the far side
of the island.
Terry tried to follow but the engine was sputtering once more. She made
a long dive which brought her amphibian into the water at the near side
of the island. There was a broad strip of sand and Terry sent her plane
cutting through the spray on to the beach.
“We’re safe!” cried Prim as she nimbly stepped from the cockpit,
followed by her sister. “Wasn’t that an awful storm?”
“It’s just luck that we’re alive. Now let’s go over and see the boys. It
looks as if they might be having engine trouble, too,” replied Terry.
After making fast their plane by a rope to a palm tree at the water’s
edge, the two girls scrambled up over the rocky ridge to the low summit.
The island was narrow at this end and soon they were looking straight
down upon a sheltered cove where the boys had landed and saw the
amphibian floating on the water. A launch shot out from the shore and
when it reached the plane, several bundles were dropped into the boat by
the aviator, who then got out of the plane and was taken ashore.
The girls looked at each other, distress on their faces.
“We’ve followed a plane, but it’s the wrong one!” cried Terry. “What a
stupid thing to do! Prim, how can you ever trust me again?”
“But _I_ thought it was Allan and Syd, too,” replied Prim. “Never mind,
these men will help us fix our plane and we’ll be off in an hour or
two.”
With a wave of his hand the aviator started upward toward the summit
where the girls stood.
“He seems to be friendly,” commented Terry. “But let’s wait here to
greet him. How he’ll laugh when I tell him that I thought I was
following another plane.” The girls waited at the summit until the
stranger came up the winding trail. As they heard his footsteps Terry
moved forward to speak, then grabbed Prim’s arm with a nervous grip. The
man had come out on the summit and was staring at them with a triumphant
grin. His eyes were glittering with a fierce and cruel light that made
the cast in his eye more pronounced. It added to the sinister look in
his face. The man facing them was Joe Arnold!
A moment later the girls gasped with dismay for their old enemy, Bud
Hyslop, came shambling up the trail.
“Well, look who’s here!” said Bud and added sarcastically, “this _is_ a
pleasant surprise!”
But Joe silenced his rough-neck follower with a scowl and a low snarl.
“Don’t get funny. Shut up!”
Joe Arnold, with menace in his voice, addressed the girls, “Why did you
come here?” he demanded. “What do you want?”
Terry stammered for a second then answered: “I was having trouble with
my engine after that storm and I knew I’d have to come down, so I
followed you here.”
Joe stared at the girl and shrugged his shoulders. “That sounds fishy to
me. I think you’re trying to spy on me. What brought you away down
here?”
“We’re on a vacation,” answered Terry. “We are on our way to the Canal
Zone.”
Joe Arnold watched the girls contemptuously. “I don’t believe you!” he
said. “I think you came here to watch me.” Suddenly he turned to Bud.
“Go on down there and see what’s the matter with Terry’s plane.”
“But I’d rather fix my own plane. I’m used to it and can fix it in a
minute. I know exactly what’s the matter.”
“No! Let Bud go as I told him! You stay here!” There was a note of
command that frightened the girls. Prim touched Terry’s arm and said
softly. “Careful Terry, don’t make him angry.”
Terry gave her sister a grateful smile. She turned to Arnold and asked
pleasantly. “Did you get into that storm?”
“No, I knew too much to let that happen. I saw your plane go into it and
thought you were done for,” he answered.
“How did you avoid it?” asked Terry.
“I was flying high, fifteen thousand feet. It never touched me. The
storm was all below me. I’m used to these hurricanes and I can usually
guess about how far the storm extends.”
“I tried to get above it, but I didn’t go far enough.” Terry was
watching Joe’s face while she was talking. Would he guess that she was
carrying an important paper for Peter Langley? Would she be able to keep
it hidden where he could not find it?
Now it was safely sewn once more in the lining of her flying coat but
that was not a good hiding place if he thought to search her.
A sudden shout from the harbor sent Joe Arnold hurrying down the trail.
Then he turned back. “Stay right where you are,” he ordered the girls.
On second thought he said. “No, go on down the trail ahead of me.”
“But I don’t want to go!” flared Terry.
“If you’re wise you’ll do as I say!” Without another word he thrust the
girls ahead of him toward the beach.
Terry went without any further argument. For suddenly it had occurred to
her that she might learn something of Joe Arnold’s schemes if she
pretended, to be friendly with him and didn’t make him angry.
At the harbor a gang of blacks were loading a boat, preparing to take it
to the plane. Pedro, the chief was over six feet tall, wore only a loin
cloth and looked half savage. This giant was watching his men, who were
working for Joe Arnold. Pedro seemed to have a few words of English but
he spoke to his men in a mixture of Spanish and his own language.
“What terrible looking savages!” whispered Prim. “They look as if they
might be cannibals.”
Terry laughed to conceal her fear. “I could even stand having a cannibal
around if I were sure that Allan and Syd had come through the storm.
They were flying higher than we were but I’m afraid they weren’t high
enough, even then.”
Terry was looking about her taking stock of the camp, which was composed
of mud huts, and several shacks that had evidently been built recently.
On the trail loomed a tall, weathered rock. Terry was pointing out to
her sister a great crevice in this stone and explaining the formation of
that wide fissure when Joe Arnold turned and saw her. His face flushed
angrily. He gave a final order to the black leader and then signalled
the girls to precede him up the trail.
“This is no place for you, after all. I shouldn’t have brought you down
here where those savages could see you. They belong to a fierce tribe of
natives living in the clearings in the jungle. Pedro, the chief, that
big fellow, lives in one of my mud huts down there, so you’d better keep
away.” Joe Arnold was nervous and stammered as he talked.
As they reached the summit once more Terry took a good look at him, and
saw that he was agitated.
“Evidently there is something down there that he doesn’t want us to
see,” whispered Terry to Prim as soon as she could do so without Joe
hearing her. “When I was interested in that big fissure in the rock, he
was scared stiff. I’d like to find out what he’s got down there that he
doesn’t want me to see. I’m going to find out! Just watch me!”
“Please don’t, Terry! What do you care about his affairs? We’ve got
troubles enough as it is. How are we ever going to get away from here?
How will we fly to Peru with Dad’s papers? My head is whirling with
problems and all I want to do is to get out of this jam as quickly as
possible.” Prim ceased whispering as Joe came closer.
Terry was looking toward her plane. Bud Hyslop was busily testing the
motor. The girl could not bear the idea that Bud should touch _Skybird_.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to do my own repair work, Mr.
Arnold,” said Terry with as polite a smile as she could muster. “I’ve
always done my own overhauling and somehow, I’d rather attend to it
myself. It’s very kind of you to want to be so helpful, but please tell
Bud to leave my plane alone.”
As she started toward the beach where _Skybird_ was standing, Joe Arnold
stepped ahead of her. “Now don’t bother yelling and carrying on for
there is no one around to hear you except some savages and they are my
men. I’m boss here, and I tell you to keep quiet. I’m giving that plane
to Bud Hyslop. It’s his from now on.”
“You’re giving him _my_ plane!” stormed Terry. “You have no right to do
that!”
“Is that _so_? Well, I’m taking the right!”
“But what about us? How can we get away?” cried Prim, almost in tears.
“If you take our plane, we’ve got to stay here.”
“That’s it exactly!” Joe sneered. “Here you stay until I get ready to
let you go.”
He stared at them coldly then turned and walked away.
CHAPTER IV
Island Prisoners
Prisoners on a desert island!
Dazed by Joe Arnold’s brutality, Terry and Prim looked about them for a
way of escape, but there seemed no way out. Apart from the few huts in
the cove where Joe Arnold had his camp, there was no sign of life. They
were alone and at the mercy of these unscrupulous men who had every
reason to destroy them.
Prim clung to her sister with a grip that hurt. “Whatever will we do
now, Terry?” she asked in a hoarse whisper. “We’re up against it for
sure.”
But Terry did not hear her. She was watching with flashing eyes as Bud
Hyslop worked over the plane. The next instant she was running down the
slope in frantic haste with Prim at her heels.
“You let that plane alone, Bud Hyslop! Take your hands off!” Terry
picked up a large stone, raised it above her head and with a wide sweep
of the arm, she started to throw the missile, but at that moment her
hand was seized from behind and a low, mocking voice said, “Not so fast,
young lady!”
Terry turned
|
, and cities, that the occurrence of cancer bears a striking
relation to the condition of the people in reference to their material
prosperity; namely, that the well-to-do, who can overindulge in many
ways are vastly more subject to cancer than those in the poorer walks of
life; also that aborigines in the wilder parts of the world are either
almost exempt from cancer, or suffer from it to a very much less degree
than civilized foreigners who come to their lands. This is also shown in
a very striking manner by Wolff, and I present here a table which he
gives in regard to the progress of cancer in a single country,
Australia, among the native born and foreigners.
OF 100,000 LIVING THERE DIE OF CANCER IN AUSTRALIA
_Year_ _Number of _Native Born_ _English_ _Other
Inhabitants_ Nationalities_
1851 403,889 28 14
1861 1,153,973 5.6 30.5 19
1871 1,168,377 9.7 56.7 25
1881 2,252,167 16.8 72.9 32.6
1891 3,183,237 19.8 119.8 45.9
1901 3,771,715 22.6 203.1 57.3
He remarks, “We see from this comparison in what a great degree the
death rate from cancer has increased in foreigners as compared to the
native born, in whom the disease has remained about stationary, when the
increase in population is considered.” Another writer remarks that when
native Australians mingle with foreigners as servants or employés, and
adopt their diet and customs, cancer occurs more frequently in them.
Much the same has been reported in regard to other peoples and
nationalities, and later we will consider the influences of urban life
on the production of cancer.
In New Zealand, according to Hislop and Fenwick, where the general death
rate is the lowest in the world, cancer is on the increase, as
civilization advances. In the great majority of cases the alimentary
canal is the seat of invasion, even in women: all the patients studied
were hearty eaters, taking also very much strong tea many times daily.
The Polynesians and Melanesians seem to be peculiarly exempt from
cancer. Sir William McGregor, although he had operated several times on
whites in the Fiji Islands, never remembers operating on a Polynesian or
Melanesian, who are practically vegetarians. He never saw a case in
British Guinea in 9½ years, and then saw an encephaloid cancer of the
tibia in a Papuan, who for 7 or 8 years had lived practically a European
life, eating canned Australian meat daily.
In regard to Africa, Williams quotes Dr. Madden of Cairo, who says, “The
consensus of opinion among medical men in Egypt is, that cancer is never
found, either in male or female, among the black races of that country.
These include the Berberines and the Sudanese, who are all Mussulmans,
and live almost entirely upon vegetable diet.” Of 19,529 deaths among
natives of Cairo during 1891, only 19 were due to cancer (females 10,
males 9) or 1 in 1028. In England during the same year the proportion of
cancer deaths to total deaths was 1 in 29. In the Islands of Lagos, on
the West Coast of Africa, Dr. Johnson, in 14 years’ practice there saw 5
cases of cancer in natives all of whom lived as Europeans. In southern
Africa, “among the Boers and Europeans, who are large flesh eaters,
malignant tumors are common: but among the natives, who are mainly
vegetarians, these tumors are so rare as to be almost unknown.”
Renner reports interestingly in regard to cancer among the descendants
of liberated Africans or Creoles, in Sierra Leone, Africa. During 30
years, from 1870 to 1900, there were but 20 cases recorded as malignant
disease among 22,453 admitted to the Colonial Hospital: in the next ten
years there were 26 among a total of 10,163, a slow but steady gain in
cancer incidence, with the advancing influence of the white man. He says
that while the aborigines eat no meat, the “Creoles” eat much meat; the
teeth of the latter are beginning to decay, like those of the whites,
which is attributed to the sweets introduced by the latter. Every case
of cancer recorded has been in a Creole, living like a European, and not
a single case among the aborigines.
Much the same freedom from cancer has been noted in regard to negroes
when first brought to the United States in slavery, when their food and
mode of life was simple: but since emancipation and in proportion as
they have mingled with whites and eaten their food, with their own
natural tendency to gluttony and laziness, cancer has increased among
them, although their death rate from malignant disease is still much
less than that of whites.
In India all writers agree that cancer is rare among the inhabitants of
warmer country districts, where they live largely on rice or millet,
with a little milk and butter, and vegetables: they eat meat rarely, the
immense majority of the people live a rural life, depending upon
agriculture for their sustenance.
Investigations of late years, however, might seem to indicate that
cancer is more prevalent in India than previously supposed, but its
incidence still bears no real relation to that in many other countries,
and an analysis of some recent reports explains in an interesting and
curious manner the reasons for the diversity of opinion as to the actual
frequency of the disease.
Thus, Benratt collected a total of 1700 cases only from 5 years’
statistics of 15 Mission Hospitals and 34 Government Hospitals,
representing, of course, many million inhabitants, whereas in New York
City, according to the weekly Bulletin of the Board of Health, there
were 2193 deaths from cancer in the last six months, a striking
illustration of the rarity of cancer in India. Moreover of these 1700
cases, over 1200 were about the mouth, a very large share of these
arising from the very common habit of chewing betel, which contains also
much calcium, which latter is one of the salts incriminated in the
causation of cancer. Sandwith attempts to show that cancer is prevalent
in India, but refers to only 2000 cases reported in the hospitals there,
in three years, also among many millions of people, and he refers
likewise to the betel chewing cancer, and the “kangri burn” on the
abdomen of men, from the charcoal furnace worn for warmth: these
peculiar local disorders vitiate any deductions which could be drawn
from such statistics.
In China, according to a recent writer, “cancer is comparatively
uncommon in those parts where the bulk of the people live on an almost
exclusively vegetarian diet, being too poor to purchase any of the
various flesh foods, which are there used for culinary purposes.” But in
places where cancer is said to be more prevalent, the reporter adds,
“All Chinamen there eat fish and pork at morning and evening meals:
fowls and ducks are always on the table of all but the most humble of
the coolie class.”
In regard to the occurrence of cancer in the Far East, however, some of
the modern investigators, such as Bashford, have endeavored to overturn
the generally accepted view as to its infrequency, but I do not feel
that the evidence presented can at all weigh against the unprejudiced
opinion of most capable medical men who have long lived and practiced in
those regions, some of whom as medical missionaries have had most
intimate contact and acquaintance with the natives. Only very recently a
medical missionary, who has long been connected with the medical college
and hospital in Beirut, Syria, told me that cancer was practically
unknown among the thousands of patients who flock there from all over
the Near East, he adding that they were all largely vegetarians.
During a rather extensive trip through the Far East I was unable to see
or even hear of any cancer, although I met a large number of medical
men, and made diligent inquiry regarding the same. As I wished to verify
my views in regard to the rarity of the occurrence of cancer among those
who lived on rice or other vegetarian diet, I visited very many civil,
military, and mission hospitals, with a total of many thousands of
patients, and ministering to many millions of population; in Japan,
Korea, China, the Philippines, India, Siam, and Egypt, I met the same
response, that cancer was rarely seen among those vegetarian natives.
Brazil is credited with having the lowest cancer record of any portion
of the western hemisphere, especially among the natives in the
Equatorial regions, while in the Argentine Republic, where meat is known
to be largely consumed, cancer is fairly common. From many parts of the
world there come reports of the relative infrequency or even absence of
cancer among simple living natives, one writer in regard to the West
Indies stating “Even those cases which I have witnessed in this class of
people have been among the better orders of them, whose habits of living
assimilated to those of Europeans.”
England and Wales present the most satisfactory field for the study of
the progress of cancer, as the national vital statistics have been well
kept since 1840; even at that time under the able direction of William
Farr they had already acquired a well-deserved reputation for
reliability, as Williams remarks, from whom I shall freely quote.
In that year, 1840, there died of malignant disease in England and Wales
1 in 5,646 of the total population, 1 in 129 of the total mortality, or
117 per million living. In 1905, the deaths, due to this cause were 1 in
1,131 of the total population, 1 in 17 of the total mortality, or 885
per million living: thus, while the population had only a little more
than doubled, the cancer death rate per million living had increased
five fold. Dr. Williams answers by figures and tables the several
objections which have been raised in regard to the actual increased
mortality from cancer, as it has been repeatedly claimed that the
increase is only apparent and not real; thus it has been asserted that
it is due—1. To mere increase of population: 2. To the average age of
the population having advanced: and 3. To improved diagnosis and more
careful death certification. Time does not admit a full presentation of
his statistical refutation of these claims, to which he devotes some
pages very convincingly, but it can be safely accepted that for some as
yet unknown reason, cancer has made strides in England which are truly
alarming.
Williams has also made some most interesting studies in regard to the
increase of cancer in connection with changed conditions of life, and
from his analysis of statistics, he very clearly shows that the spread
of the disease has closely followed urbanization, and the rapid increase
in material prosperity of recent years: in England where 80 per cent. of
the population are now town dwellers, this tendency to collect in cities
and towns has gone farther than in any other community. He recognizes
that any far-reaching, environmental change of some duration is probably
potent in disturbing the stability of the constituents of living bodies,
and the sudden change from poverty to riches and plenty is conducive to
the development of cancer: allusion has already been made to the inverse
relation of deaths from cancer and tuberculosis, the latter diminishing
with improved material conditions, while the former increases as wealth
and indolence increase.
He shows this by statistics from various localities, and by data from
towns in different countries he makes it pretty clear that “Cancer
mortality is lowest where the conditions of life are hardest, the
surroundings the most squalid, the density of population greatest, where
the tubercle mortality is highest, the general and infantile mortality
greatest, and where sanitation is least perfect—in short, among the poor
of the industrial class in our great towns: whereas among the wealthy
and well-to-do, where the standard of health is at its best and life is
easiest, and where all the conditions of life are just the reverse of
the foregoing, there the cancer mortality is highest.”
While this is a pretty strong statement and many exceptions could
undoubtedly be found, careful investigation will show it to be true in
the main; for it must be remembered that even among the poorer classes
gluttony, especially in regard to proteids, is not at all uncommon, and
indolence, with impeded metabolism, is not at all unusual. Dr. Latham
found that the mortality from cancer in England, from 1881‒1890, was
more than twice as great among well-to-do men having no specific
occupation, as among occupied males in general, the respective mortality
ratios being 96 for the former and only 44 for the latter. Sir William
Banks confirms the steady increase in cancer very strongly, which he
attributes to richer and more abundant food, of which males eat more
than females, and consequently cancer is increasing proportionately more
among men, as all statistics show.
Switzerland is reported to have the highest death rate from cancer of
any country, it having augmented from 114 per 100,000 living in 1889, to
132 in 1898. There again the cancer mortality varies greatly in the
different sections or cantons: thus, in wealthy Lucerne it is 204 per
100,000 living, and only 36 in poverty stricken Valais. In the city of
Geneva it is 177 per 100,000 living.
Denmark, next to Switzerland, is reputed to have the highest cancer
death rate of any country in Europe, viz.: 130 per 100,000 living in
1900. But here the statistics are only from the towns, which comprise
but a quarter of the whole population: the per capita wealth is said to
be higher there than any other country in Europe except France.
France shows a high cancer mortality, with a constantly increasing death
rate; and, next to England, France is the richest country in Europe, and
wealth is much more widely diffused: the French workers own nearly 8
times, per capita, more than those in England. In Paris the cancer death
rate has increased as follows, for each 100,000 living, in 1865, 84; in
1870, 91; in 1880, 94; in 1890, 108; in 1900, 120.
Italy, a comparatively poor country, shows a low cancer mortality, but
even here it is increasing from 20 per 100,000 living in 1880, to 52 in
1899, and 58 in 1905. The consumption of meat is there the smallest in
any European nation, namely 23 pounds per capita in 1895. In the chief
towns the rate of death from cancer is high: thus for each 100,000
living, in Florence 137, Ravenna 120, Venice 103, Milan 101, and Rome
77.
Time does not permit a wider survey of the field of distribution of
cancer, as presented so remarkably from official statistics by Williams,
and Wolff; but in connection with the high percentages of deaths above
quoted among the richer classes it may be interesting to mention some of
the lowest records. Thus, in the poor country of Kerry, Ireland, it was
27 per 100,000 living, in the province of Dalmaltia 19, in the Shetland
Islands 16, in Servia 8 (from 1895 to 1904), and in Ceylon in 1903 the
mortality from cancer was about 6 for each 100,000 living.
The United States, unfortunately, has not kept the vital statistics of
the country in years past with anything like the fullness and accuracy
which has obtained in England, nor even at the present time is it
possible to learn definitely the frequency and increase of cancer in
every locality. But all the statistics which have been gathered show
unequivocally that the disease has steadily increased in a manner which
is alarming. Analyzing the recorded deaths from cancer in thirty-one
cities, and the percentage of increase in four years, one writer
estimates that, if the same increase is continued, by the end of the
century there will be a death rate, approximately, of 1000 in every
100,000 inhabitants, or one in every hundred.
In a recent Bulletin of the Board of Health of New York City the
following statements are made in regard to the mortality from cancer in
1913: “The statistics of our seven largest cities recently tabulated,
show that the cancer death rate was the highest on record. For New York
City the rate was 82 per 100,000 of the population, against an average
of 79, for the last five years: for Boston 118 against an average of
110: for Pittsburgh 79, against an average of 70: for Baltimore 105,
against an average of 94: for Chicago 86, against an average of 81: for
Philadelphia 95, against an average of 88: for St. Louis 95, against an
average of 85.” This average increase of almost 8 per cent. of deaths
from cancer in the combined population of these seven cities, during the
last five years is certainly an alarming fact, and cannot be explained
on the ground of greater accuracy of diagnosis: for it is not to be
presumed that there has been such great improvement along diagnostic
lines during the single year 1913.
It is difficult to state the exact prevalence of cancer in the entire
United States, as the “registration areas” include only about two-thirds
of the total population: much can be learned, however, from the annual
volumes published since 1900. According to these Mortality Statistics of
the United States, the deaths from cancer and other malignant tumors per
100,000 population were as follows: in 1900, 63, in 1904, 70.2, in 1909,
73.8; and in 1912 there were 46,531 deaths from cancer, or 77 per
100,000 population, an increase in the death rate from this disease of
almost 25 per cent. since 1900; while, as before stated the tuberculosis
mortality had fallen a little over 25 per cent. in the same period.
As in other countries, which might also be expected from the statements
already made, the disease varies in frequency in different localities
and communities. Thus, cancer is stated to be much more prevalent in the
northern than in the southern states, and as already stated, the negroes
are much less subject to the disease than whites, especially when they
are living their own natural home life; but when they come to the
cities, as waiters, etc., in hotels, their cancer death rate increases.
But even in New York City in 1912 the deaths from cancer in negroes was
1 in 32.2 total deaths, against 1 in 17.7 in whites; the mass of negroes
here, of course, live plainly and work hard. The North American Indians
also are believed to be almost exempt from cancer in their primitive
savage condition, but as they have come under the influence of
civilization they are more affected. It has also been noted by several
observers that immigrants and their descendants present a very much
higher mortality from malignant diseases than prevails in their native
countries; from these and other considerations Williams suggests that
abrupt change of environment may also be a factor in the causation of
this disease.
We have thus seen while cancer is very widely distributed over the globe
it is present in varying degrees of severity in different localities,
and careful analysis shows that the disease affects different classes of
persons with unlike severity. All these statistical studies and
observations serve to confirm the statement made earlier that cancer is
a disease of so-called civilization, and that it has increased in
proportion as human beings have come under the influence of wealth, and
consequent luxury and overindulgence, with bodily inactivity; all these
elements lead to a disturbed metabolism, which as we shall see later,
is, at least, a contributing cause to the deviation from normal of some
of the cellular elements of the body. It also appears that some of these
metabolic shortcomings have to do with a disturbed nitrogenous balance,
which is due to the constantly increased consumption of meat. In 1909
the meat consumption in the United States had reached the high figure of
172 pounds per capita, as I learned recently from Washington, a far
greater amount than in England, 130 pounds, as already stated; and with
this steady increase in the use of nitrogenous food cancer has also
increased by leaps and bounds in both countries.
LECTURE III
METABOLISM OF CANCER
In the first lecture we saw that cancer was an alteration of the normal
cells of the body, whereby they take on a malignant action and continue
to do so, destroying contiguous tissues and leading to a lowered
vitality, with an apparent poisoning of the system, which finally causes
death. As the cells of various organs furnish different secretions,
which in health contribute to proper metabolism, resulting in growth or
maintenance of the tissues, so these disordered cells are believed to
secrete a toxic substance, or malignant hormone, which has a prejudicial
action on the body, and hæmolytic action on the blood, as has been
brought out pretty clearly by Troisier and others.
We saw that as yet the definite cause had not been determined, why at
some period certain cells take on the action which we call cancer, nor
why they persist in their destructive course. Long continued and
abundant laboratory and clinical research have about decided certain
questions negatively in regard to its etiology, so that in a measure the
field is cleared for the study of some of the possible basic causes of
the disease in question. Thus, all are pretty well agreed that cancer is
_not_ contagious or infectious, that it is _not_ caused by a
micro-organism or parasite, that it is _not_ wholly due to local injury,
that it does _not_ appertain to any particular occupation, that it is
_not_ hereditary to any great degree, that it does _not_ especially
belong to or affect any particular sex, race or class of persons, _nor_
is it confined to any location or section of the earth, and that it is
_not_ wholly a disease of older age.
We saw further that there appeared to be good evidence that certain
misplaced “embryonal rests” were the original starting points of
diseased cell action, but as these are now known to exist in every one
from birth, this offers no real explanation of the occurrence of the
disease at different times in life. It is, of course, quite possible
that local injury of one kind or another may be the exciting cause which
determines that a cell or group of cells shall revert to its original
reproductive activity, as Williams contends that the process is one of
agamogenesis, dependent upon excessive and faulty nutrition. The
question as to the relation of uricacidæmia, or lithæmia, to cancer has
never been fully studied, and it is worth considering whether, as in
gout and rheumatism, to which cancer is often associated and perhaps
closely allied, the exciting cause may not be the lodgment somewhere of
uratic deposit, which is further excited and fed by effete or
imperfectly oxidized nitrogenous elements; for later we shall see that
perverted metabolism, largely of proteid elements, is closely associated
with cancer.
We noted also that some attributed cancer to independent cell action,
relating to the polarity of cells, etc.; but it is inconceivable that a
cell or cells can idiopathically start out on a rampant course and
pursue it with increasing severity, even until death results, without,
at least, some definite pre-disposing cause, even though diligent and
earnest work has not as yet determined just what that cause may be. The
error has been, we believe, in searching too exclusively by the
microscope and by certain laboratory methods, and not sufficiently along
clinical and bio-chemical lines. For it must be recognized that all the
cells of the body are continually bathed in the vitalizing fluid of the
blood, whence they derive their nutriment, and into which, with the
lymphatics, they return the products of their vital action, by anabolism
and catabolism.
By exclusion, therefore, we are reduced to seek the etiology of cancer
along other lines, and about all that is left is metabolism, as
influenced by advancing, so-called civilization, which relates very
largely to diet and mode of life. This we will take up later, but will
first examine some of the scientific findings in regard to the blood in
cancer, and data relating to the various secretions and excretions of
the body bearing upon metabolism in this disease.
That the blood shows great changes in advanced cancer is recognized by
all, as is clinically manifested by the intense cachexia and anæmia
commonly present and always strongly marked toward the end, of which the
cytology has been very fully studied and presented by Türk. When then
examined there is found to be a marked reduction of red cells, low
hæmoglobin index, and distinct leucocytosis, with greatly diminished
alkalescence.
The reported changes in the blood have also varied with the location of
the malignant disease, according as it may interfere mechanically or
otherwise with the function of certain organs, which fact naturally
obscures the question of the true relationship of the blood to cancer.
Thus, it is stated that in cancer of the liver and pancreas there is
always leucocytosis and glycogen, and that “cancer appears to interfere
greatly with the function of the liver as a destroyer of intestinal
toxins, they pass into the general circulation, probably cause the
glycogen reaction, and at least part of the leucocytosis, and very often
give rise to fever.” There are also other microscopical alterations in
the blood in late cancer. Thus, degenerative change in the leucocytes
are common, with derangement in the normal proportion of their different
forms, as also changes in the erythrocytes, with nucleated red cells and
megalocytes in severest cases.
Price Jones in a study of the blood in 30 cases of cancer (9 of the
breast) found the red blood cells diminished on an average of 6 per
cent., the white blood cells increased 38 per cent., lymphocytes
increased by 10 per cent., large mononuclear cells increased 164 per
cent. and polynuclears 42 per cent. Burnham states that in the severe
grades of anæmia with malignant disease, poikilocytosis is marked, and
nucleated cells of both normoblastic and megaloblastic type may be
present. The red corpuscles may be reduced to 2,500,000, and
exceptionally to 1,000,000. Cohnreich in a very technical study of blood
from cancer subjects, observed very great increase in the resisting
power of the red blood cells to osmotic tension, that is, in regard to
their hæmoglobin, which he believed to be of diagnostic value in
doubtful cases.
Unfortunately, there have been relatively few studies of the plasma of
the blood in this or other diseases; and yet the condition of this fluid
must be of the utmost importance, as from it are derived the nutrient
principles not only of the solid constituents of the blood, but also
those of the entire system, about 8 per cent. of it being serum albumen
and serum globulin. It also holds in solution the phosphates,
carbonates, sulphates, and chlorides, the latter often varying greatly,
and being chiefly responsible for the isotonic relation of cells and
serum. In cancerous cachexia a diminution of carbonic acid, a constantly
diminished alkalinity, and an increase of acid principles of the blood
have been fully demonstrated, pointing in all probability to the
existence of an acid intoxication. The formation of the corpuscular
elements of the blood must be greatly interfered with when metastases
occur in the blood making organs, the lymphatic tissue, bone, marrow,
and spleen, which probably occur more frequently than is generally
recognized. It seems that the toxic secretion from a cancerous mass has
a distinct action upon the blood, for after complete removal there is
often observed an increase of hæmoglobin, as I have witnessed, and a
high leucocytosis has disappeared after the removal of schirrus of the
breast, only to return again with the recurrence of the tumor.
Abderhalden states that in from two to three weeks after the operative
removal of cancer, certain defensive ferments can no longer be found in
the serum.
Many laboratory studies have been made upon the chemistry of cancer
tissue, seeking to determine the nature of the toxin produced, and its
experimental effect on animals, but thus far no great results have been
obtained. It has been observed, however, by Gruner that when cancer
juice is injected intra-venously a marked lymphocytosis arises, which is
followed by the appearance of large mast cell myelocytes in the blood.
This cancer juice is supposed to be autotoxic in cancer patients, and to
comprise toxic albuminoids, which being in quantities too great to be
quickly neutralized poison the system, especially the blood and the
hæmatopoietic organs.
In regard to the real bio-chemistry of cancer, we are still greatly in
the dark. Vast numbers of studies and researches have been made to
determine the real character and nature of the bio-chemical changes
which occur in cancerous tissue, and the mere recounting of the reported
findings and theories elaborated from them would occupy far more time
than can be profitably given in these lectures. Some have claimed very
positive findings which account in a measure, at least, for the
pathological conditions, while others, as Beebe, state that “the
chemical study of tumors is in its infancy. We have scarcely proceeded
far enough to know where the medical problems are, nor have methods now
available been perfected to such an extent as to enable a decisive
experiment to be made.” “No phase of metabolism,” says he, “has been
described in cancer which does not have a counterpart in non-cancerous
conditions. This applies to such questions as the nutritive relations
between the cancer cells and the normal body tissue, to the nitrogenous
balance, retention, elimination of sodium chloride, excretion of
acetone, the relation of ammonia excretion, and a possible acidosis.” He
adds, however, “Diet doubtless forms an important part in the growth of
cancer, possibly even in the origin of the disease.” It is encouraging,
therefore, to find that this able and careful laboratory investigator
recognizes, in a measure, the basic cause of diet, toward which all
evidence points so strongly, although the definite connection may not
yet have been established by laboratory methods.
In all our study in regard to the relation of diet to cancer it must be
remembered that there are divers elements and agencies which combine to
produce the many and various disordered conditions of the body, to which
we give the names of different diseases, and that cancer is no exception
to this general rule. For instance, in old-fashioned gout the patient
may have consumed an excess of Port and Madeira wine for years before
the system finally rebelled and acute gout resulted; and among the
causes for the systemic reaction we know that frequently it is great
mental strain or shock which has so disturbed metabolism that the wine
was no longer tolerated. Much the same is true in regard to cancer and
nitrogenous diet. And we will see later that mental disturbance and
nerve strain or shock often seem to be causative elements; also that
constipation, or intestinal stasis, is so common in cancer subjects that
it must be looked upon as one of the contributing causes among others,
to be mentioned later.
Although it is quite possible that many of the reported bio-chemical
changes found in primary cancerous tissue and metastases may not be of
etiological importance, it may be interesting to briefly refer to some
of them as indicating the vital alteration in tissues connected with
what we recognize as malignancy; even as in acute and chronic gout the
affected tissues exhibit abnormal conditions in regard to uratic
deposit.
Many writers, some of them dating back many years, agree that albuminous
constituents predominate in cancer tissue, and, as in actively growing
structures in general, sugar forming substances abound. Wolter states
that cancer of the breast contains 20 per cent. more nucleo-proteids
than the normal breast. Casein is also present in breast cancers, and
the abundance of fatty matters, contained in the cells of such
neoplasms, is well known. In regard to the proteids, Wolff, after many
studies, concludes that their character is identical with that of normal
tissues, and it is only the quantitative distribution of these that
differentiates the tumor from the physiological tissue. Wells agrees
with others that there is no very distinctive character in the
bio-chemistry of malignant tumors, but by reason of their excessive
chemical component, as compared with benign tumors, they naturally show
a high content of nuclear proteins; they, therefore, contain a high
proportion of phosphorus and iron.
Interesting observations have also been made on other characteristics of
cancerous tissues, such as the great abundance of enzymes of great
variety which are actively autolytic, also in regard to certain
relations of cholesterin, in regard to which Ewing has recently said,
“There appears to be something in the chemical or mechanical nature of
the irritation of cholesterin which is peculiarly effective in producing
atypical proliferation of epithelium”; this has been found to be no less
than 65 per cent. greater in quantity in fatty deposits, as in the
mesentery, in subjects of cancer than in healthy persons, etc., etc. It
would weary you to no purpose to attempt to refer further to the
bewildering mass of research studies in connection with the
bio-chemistry of cancer which are found in special literature: much of
it is fragmentary and some of it contradictory, but all has its value as
contributory to our knowledge of the actual conditions developed in
connection with cancer growth; but up to the present time it cannot be
claimed that any very practical results have been thus attained which
will aid us in treating the disease.
As all cell life and proliferation of tissue depends on the activity of
the cell nuclei, much attention has been paid to the changes found in
them and the behavior of the centrosomes and chromosomes, all of which
is too technical for us to consider here: suffice to say, however, that
several observers have demonstrated heterotypic mitosis in malignant
tumors, and that histologic examination confirms what other judgment has
indicated, namely, that the cancer cell differs from a normal tissue
cell mainly in its aberrant action under some stimulus, probably derived
from the animal fluids by which it is surrounded. Thus we come back to
our original proposition, for these fluids are, of course, but a
reflection of the nutrition of the body or diet, as modified by the
action of the various organs, including the internal secretions; all
this is influenced again by the action of the nervous system.
It is difficult to produce definite proof in regard to the influence of
nervous and mental strain and shock in the production of cancer, but
careful observers have long claimed that there is such an influence, and
from what I have seen I am firmly convinced that in some way these
conditions often do so disturb the metabolism, or otherwise operate, in
such a manner that cancer results. The influence of the mind upon the
body is unquestionable, as has been so fully illustrated by Tuke, and
from what I have observed I cannot doubt but that the mental depression
common in those with the beginning of a process which they fear might
result in active cancer, has much to do with accelerating its growth;
whereas, on the other hand, the hopefulness which can arise with the
attempt to change the diseased process by diet and proper medication,
has much to do with the favorable results which may follow in suitable
cases. In the same way the constant fear of recurrence after operative
removal can have its share in inducing and perpetuating the metabolic
error which excites the tissues to renewed cancerous action. I know that
some of you will think that this is fanciful theorizing, but many a
scientific fact, in many branches of science, has been worked out from a
theory which at first has seemed fanciful.
We will now consider some of the data which have been recorded in regard
to the relation of the secretions and excretions of the body to cancer,
including the internal secretions.
Much labor has been expended, by very many observers, upon the
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are apt to wear and strand where they play in the block when the
boat is close-hauled.
JIB SHEETS:
If your jib sheets are rove double bring both ends aft and join them
behind the cockpit; then the hauling part will not get away from you,
and can always be found, even in the darkest night. Another way is to
bore a hole in the cockpit rail, pass the end through and knot it.
PEAK DOWNHAUL:
In heavy weather always bend a peak downhaul. Take a long enough piece
of good flexible manila and splice an eye in it. Put this eye over the
end of spar, and make the loose end fast to a lower hoop, or on the
pin rail. With this downhaul you can control the gaff and get the peak
down, no matter how hard it blows.
MAINSAIL HOISTING ON TRACK:
Sails having their luff running on a track up the mast will frequently
stick, despite the assurances of the inventor and vendor of these
patent devices. To insure working, keep the track well-greased, and let
go the throat halyards before you do the peak, always keeping the gaff
at a high angle while lowering down. In this way the weight of the gaff
will force the slides down the track.
REEFING AT NIGHT:
If sailing at night, and it looks at all like bad weather coming, get
in a reef in your large sail before dark, as you can do it then quickly
and properly. If suddenly struck by a heavy wind you will have your
boat better prepared to meet it.
REEFING:
If you carry an amateur crew you should constantly practice them at
reefing. Give each man his station, and teach him to keep it, and not
interfere with the work of the others. It is a good plan when sailing
on a breezy day to reef and shake out several times, as this will give
your crew practice. A well-trained crew will reef a mainsail of a small
yacht in less time than it takes to write this.
TACKS FOR REEFING:
Always keep a tack in your sail at each reef band. Take a short piece
of small rope, whip both ends, pass this through the cringle, making
each end the same length, then open the rope just under the cringle and
pass the other part through it. Your tack will stay there and always be
ready to tie down.
PENDANTS FOR REEFING:
These should always be kept rove, if the end of the boom is outboard.
If the sail is a small one, put a snap-hook on the end that goes in the
cringle, but do not trust hooks if the sail is heavy; splice your rope
in.
REEFING:
When reefing a boom sail, before lying along make sure that the
mainsheet is fast, so that it cannot slip, as this happening is likely
to throw you overside. If the boat is rolling badly it is best to
secure the boom with a lashing from each side to hold it steady, as
this will make reefing easier.
[Illustration: WIND ABAFT THE BEAM.]
REEFING:
In a heavy seaway it is easier and handier to reef with all the sail
down and the boat running broad off, as she will go along steady. It is
very difficult to reef a boat when in the trough of the sea.
REEFING:
When hauling out the foot of your sail to reef do not pull it out too
hard, especially if it is liable to get wet from rain or sea, as the
cloth will shrink and pull the leach out of shape. Be sure and pass a
good lashing around the pendant close to the cringle and, if there is
room, through it. Don’t haul out on your pendant until the tack is tied
in.
REEF, SHAKING OUT A:
Set up on your lift. Cast off the points, beginning in the middle and
working both ways. Then cast off the tack and clew-cringle lashing;
then the pendant. Be sure all the points are loose before hoisting, as
you are liable to tear the sail if one is fast.
REEFING BEFORE STARTING:
Before leaving harbor, if it looks breezy outside, tie in a reef, or
reefs. When outside, and you can feel the weight of wind, you can then
judge whether to carry more sail or not. If close-reefing, tie in
number one and then number two over it. This will enable you to shake
out one reef at a time.
RUNNING OFF:
When running off in heavy weather, if you have a jib keep it on her and
haul it dead flat; then if she attempts to broach the wind hitting in
the jib will drive her head off again. All boats going where winds are
likely to be heavy should carry a small, strong headsail to use for
this purpose.
RUNNING OFF IN A SEAWAY:
Keep your boom topped up, so that it is clear of the sea when she rolls
to leeward. Don’t give the sail too much sheet, as you will find that
she will steer better if the boom is at a smaller angle, and be less
likely to be broken or to damage the rigging.
MAINSHEET:
Always keep a knot in the end of your mainsheet, or else make it fast.
If the end gets away you will have trouble.
JIBING A MAINSAIL:
The only safe way to jibe in a breeze is to lower the peak and top up
the boom, before getting the sail over. In ordinary airs you can jibe
a boat if you pay attention to the helm, and get the sheet down flat.
Let her come easy. If forced to jibe all standing with the sheet off,
just as soon as the boom comes over put your helm, hard the other way,
so as to throw the boat round, and get the wind back of the sail. This
will break the force and save the knockdown, but is liable to break the
boom. If fitted with backstays, look out for them.
WEARING A YAWL:
Slack off the mizzen sheet, if that sail is set; haul your jib
a-weather; flatten the mainsheet; put the helm up and let her come
round slowly, easing off the mainsail as she pays off.
STEERING A YAWL:
Going with a strong current or tide through a channel, when there is
no wind, you can steer a yawl by taking hold of the mizzen boom and
working that sail from side to side. When beating to windward in a
light breeze, with a strong tide under the lee, hauling the mizzen to
windward will help a yawl considerably, especially if she is at all
slack-headed.
JIBING A YAWL:
Haul your mizzen if set fairly flat; slack the lee jib sheet and haul
in the weather at the same time, until this sail is properly trimmed.
Get your mainsheet aft gradually. Put the helm up slowly, and if the
mizzen is set jibe that first, then the mainsail. The reason for
trimming the jib and mizzen is this: If when the mainsail comes over
she knocks down the other two sails will shoot her up in the wind, and
give you a chance to shoot her out. If the mizzen it not set, light
your jib sheets sufficiently to allow her to come up.
COMING TO AT A DOCK:
If you have to come to at a dock or pier on the windward side, go well
to windward of it, lower your sail, and steer straight for it. Have an
anchor and warp ready aft, and when close enough to reach let go your
anchor and pay out, checking her way as you near the structure.
LYING AT A DOCK OR PIER:
It is always best to lie head or stern on to a dock if you intend to
remain long or over night. Always run out an anchor to hold her off in
case the wind shifts, or if for any reason you have to haul out. In
making your head fast be sure to allow length enough, if in a tidal
harbor, or you will be hung up when the water falls.
CLUBBING:
This is one way of getting down a narrow fairway when a swift current
is going with you. By employing it you will be able to keep off the
banks and to dodge anchored vessels. Send a man forward and let him
heave in on the anchor until it breaks, then let him keep it trailing
along the bottom, checking the vessel whenever needed, by paying out
enough slack cable to make the hook bite. The skipper at the helm can
then shear her with the rudder to port or starboard, as he wishes. The
current moving faster than the boat will give her steerageway. Instead
of an anchor you can use a heavy chain to drag along the bottom.
SAILING IN A CURRENT:
If bucking a strong tide or current a vessel will answer to the
slightest touch of the helm, but if going with the stream she will
steer slowly and badly. This must be looked out for in running narrow
entrances between jetties and bars. Sometimes it is better to go out
stern first, if the wind is blowing directly in, letting the vessel
sail slowly before the wind and drop back faster with the tide.
SAILING AGAINST CURRENT:
In going against a strong current to windward you can force a vessel
through, no matter how strong the tide is, if you can lay up close
enough to get the wind on one bow and the tide on the other. The
pressure of opposing forces will drive the vessel ahead. You will often
see schooners get through the Long Island Sound Race in this way
against a strong ebb, running over 5 knots.
[Illustration: IN HARBOR, DRYING OUT.]
TIDE UNDER THE LEE:
With the tide or current under the lee bow trim your after canvas dead
flat, unless the sea is large. Let her eat out to windward on an easy
helm, humoring to keep good way on all the time.
CURRENT, SAILING IN A CALM:
Going through a passage with a strong favorable current and no wind,
lay your vessel broadside to the drift of the tide, then the speed
of the stream will make a breeze in the sails and give your boat
steerageway. Tack on approaching the shore, and stand over for the
other, being careful to tack while still in the strength of the stream.
ANCHORED IN A CURRENT:
If at anchor in a current with the wind blowing against the tide, to
keep the yacht from riding over her anchor, tie a bucket on a rope and
drop it over the stern. This is a good way to keep a dingey away from a
yacht’s stern when tide-rode.
HEAVING-TO:
To heave-to a vessel you must trim your sails so that the wind presses
on one side of one sail and the other side of the other or others.
In a boat like a sloop or yawl you can heave-to by drawing your jib
a-weather, by slacking off the lee and hauling on the weather sheet.
This causes the force of the wind in the jib to counteract the force
in the after canvas. By slacking off the mainsheet until a balance of
power is established between mainsail and jib a boat will lie almost in
one place.
LYING-TO:
It is a very simple matter to lay a fore-and-aft vessel to. But in the
first place you should find out in reasonably good weather what sail
she will lie-to best under. Knowing this, snug her down to it before
bringing her head to it. The best sail is that nearest amidships; but
some boats require more after canvas and some more forward. No rule can
be laid down, each vessel in this respect being peculiar to itself.
When ready, watch your seas until after a big one has past you; get a
smooth, then put your helm down easily and bring her to with a long
sweep. The amount of sail she wants is enough to keep her just moving
ahead, so that there will be steerageway and no more. Use plenty of oil
while rounding to and afterwards, if the seas are cresting and breaking.
LEE SHORES:
Unless the weather is fine and you are well acquainted with them, keep
off lee shores. A lee shore is a bad place to go aground, and it is a
bad place to be caught on if a heavy blow comes.
WEATHER SHORE:
In strong winds and heavy weather it is always best to get in under the
lee of a weather shore, and to keep it aboard as long as possible. You
should figure to do this in mapping out runs from place to place. In
running a weather shore keep working your boat up to it, especially in
the bights between headlands. This will enable you to choose your own
distance in rounding the outermost points and prevent being driven off
shore.
CAUGHT ON A LEE SHORE:
If caught at anchor close on a lee shore where you are too close to
wear with safety, you can get your anchor and cast your boat in the
right tack by this method: Make sail; then when all is ready heave in
until half scope; then get a bucket with a line bent to it, carry this
line outside the rigging and the bucket as far forward as possible.
Let one hand hold it ready to cast overboard on the side you want to
fill on. Haul in your anchor quickly; when broken out, heave the bucket
overboard, and give a slow, steady pull on the line from as far aft as
convenient. This will hold her stern and the bow will swing off in the
opposite direction. If you have no bucket, use a hunk of ballast, and
slip it when her head is round.
MISS-STAYING IN A SEAWAY:
The cause of this is generally carelessness or haste. Sufficient way is
not on the boat when the helm is put down, owing to her being too near
the wind. Always give a boat a good full before putting the helm a-lee.
You should watch the sea and make the move when there is a smooth flat
spot between the waves. If there is any doubt of the boat’s getting
round it is better to wear her.
MISS-STAYING IN A SEAWAY:
If your boat miss stays in a seaway and gets sternway on, don’t jam
your helm hard over. Keep it amidship, and try and get your headsail
a-back; then slowly put your helm over. It is a dangerous practice to
jam a helm hard over when a boat is making a stern board in a seaway,
as you are liable to damage the rudder or drive her counter under. If a
centerboard boat, pull up the board, as this will help her to fall off.
[Illustration: REEFING.]
CAUGHT ON A LEE SHORE:
If it is too windy and rough to get your anchor, prepare to slip. Get
the bitter end on deck and bend a buoy to it. See all clear to cast
over. Haul in as much as you dare to, and bend a small line to hawser
or chain. Carry this line aft to the quarter outside the rigging. When
ready, slip and haul in on the small line. As soon as she swings off
cut the spring.
SAILING IN A SEAWAY:
When sailing in a seaway don’t trim a boat flat. Give her a liberal
lift of sheet, and sail her with a good full. Never let her lose way,
as your safety depends upon always having control of her motions. Keep
a close watch on the water on your weather bow, and judge how to take a
wave before it strikes you.
SAILING IN A SEAWAY:
In sailing a boat in a seaway and heavy breeze amateurs are apt to make
two mistakes. One to carry too much sail, the other, too little. In the
first place, the boat cannot be kept full; in the second, she hasn’t
sufficient drive to keep her moving. Carry as much sail as she will
keep full and not bury under.
MIZZEN ON A YAWL:
It is a mooted question among yawlsmen as to whether the mizzen is of
use or not when going dead before the wind. If you can wing it--that
is, get the boom on the opposite side to that of the mainboom--it is,
as it makes a boat steer steadier. But if it is off on the same side
as the mainsail it is doubtful if it helps the speed. I have tried the
experiment repeatedly and cannot find that it makes any difference in
a strong breeze; but it does help in light airs. In a strong wind the
boat will do better with the mizzen stowed, is my opinion.
MIZZEN ON A YAWL:
The handling of this sail seems to be a problem that worries many young
skippers. No fixed rule can be laid down, it depending largely on
the shape of the boat, the position and size of the sails. Generally
speaking, with the wind forward or on the beam, the mizzen should be
sheeted flatter than the mainsail. How flat, depends upon the effect
it has on the steering. If the boat gripes, ease it off; if she is
slack-headed, haul it flatter. In beating through a narrow channel work
it as you do the jib, but exactly opposite; that is, with the helm
a-lee haul in flat; as she pays off ease the sheet. In this way you
will help the rudder to bring the boat round. The mizzen sheet should
be belayed where the helmsman can readily get at it, so that by working
the sheet in combination with the tiller he can control his vessel.
WORKING TO WINDWARD:
In working to windward in open water for a long distance stand on the
tack which looks up nearest to your destination. On this tack the
wind is as foul as it is possible for it to be, and cannot shift in
either direction without favoring you. Attention should be paid to the
probable direction of the shift, and a course shaped that will bring
you into such a position as will lift your vessel up and not throw her
to leeward of her course. For instance, if the wind is East, stand on
the tack towards the Southeast, because it is probable that the wind
will move round with the sun across your bow and be constantly freeing
you until you can stand your course on the other tack. This is largely
a study of local conditions, and can be mastered only by constant
observation of the tendencies of the wind at certain seasons of the
year.
WORKING TO WINDWARD:
If the wind is offshore, blowing at an angle, so that you can make a
long and short leg, keep close under the weather shore, as the wind
will draw more favorable there than further out. For instance, if the
shore lies East and West and the wind be Southwest, under the weather
shore it will haul more to the South, sometimes as much as a point,
thus enabling you to lengthen your long leg. Besides, you have the
advantage of smoother water.
WORKING TO WINDWARD CRUISING:
If the wind is so foul as to be dead ahead it is waste of labor to try
to beat a small boat a long distance to windward. With the best of
handling you cannot make more than three miles an hour, and a very good
day’s work is twenty miles. Probably the next day the wind will come
favorable, and you can make that twenty miles in four or five hours. If
you are pressed for time and have to do it, take the first of the fair
tide.
LIGHT SAILS, SHEETING:
Never sheet light balloon or running sails; let them sheet themselves.
If you trim these sails the way you do working canvas you will destroy
much of their power. To get the sail right, slack off the sheet until
the luff trembles, then belay. If you sheet them, the whole after angle
becomes a back sail. The object is to get them to pull ahead, not
sideways. The minute a balloon sail has to be sheeted aft to make it
draw take it in and set your working canvas. You will do better with it.
ROUNDING A MARK:
Coming down to round a mark with running sails set, when within fair
working distance hoist and sheet your working headsails, if the
ballooner is not set on the jib-stay. Get your main sheet aft and
runners ready; then when close to the mark take in your spinnakers
and ballooner. In this way you are ready at once to haul on the wind.
If you take in your light sails first you will have them littering up
the deck and in the way, delaying getting the working sails set and
sheeted, and consequently the boat instead of being able to make a
sharp turn will drag off to leeward.
ROUNDING A MARK:
If rounding a mark to leeward, always do so before you reach it. In
order to do this, if possible, keep away from it some distance, and put
your helm down gradually; then you will not kill the boat’s way and
will give your crew time to get the sheets flattened down. If you come
down and take the mark close aboard and then turn it, you will have to
put your helm hard down, killing the boat’s way and causing her to sag
off to leeward.
ROUNDING A MARK:
If another boat is abreast of or overlapping, and will be between you
and the mark, try and drop back before reaching the turning stake, so
as to let her get ahead. You will lose less by doing so than you will
by rounding close under her lee, as once round you can probably free
your wind and get clear of her wake by a sharp luff. You have also a
chance to cut in if her crew make a fumble of their sheet work; but if
you are under her you will have no chance at all.
[Illustration: RUNNING BEFORE THE GALE.]
ROUNDING, A WINDWARD MARK:
Before rounding a windward mark, if the next leg is a run, make up your
mind which side you are going to carry your spinnaker on. Get the pole
along on that side and the after guy passed and hooked on. Then before
getting to the mark hoist the spinnaker clean up and hook in the clew.
Just as soon as you are round and squared off run the pole out and
square it, and break the sail. A good crew should get a sail set in
this way in fifteen seconds.
TRIMMING:
A vessel to sail her best wants to be kept on a level water line; the
minute she shoves her head up or down it kills her speed. This is
true of sail, power or any kind of craft. Therefore, in racing, see
that your crew keep her trimmed to a level by constantly moving and
balancing their weights. If a man goes out on the bowsprit move a man
aft to counterbalance his weight. Never let a bunch of men get forward,
as is often done when taking in or setting light sails. It is better to
do this work slower and keep the boat properly trimmed.
BALLOON-JIB SHEET, TO SHIFT A:
Have two separate sheets rigged with snaphooks. If you come down to a
mark with your balloon jib on one side and want to shift it over so as
to carry it on the other, before jibing over gather the sail up and
roll it out to the stay; there stop it. Unhook the sheet on that side
and hook on the other. As soon as you are round break out. By doing
this you don’t have the bother of passing the sheet in use forward
around the stay and aft again in the other side all of which takes time
and causes confusion. When not in use, keep the sheets hooked to the
stay, and fast aft. You can stop the sail with the sheet, using a turn
similar to that made round a flag when hoisted in a ball or bundle.
SHROUD-PARTING:
If a shroud parts, go right on the other tack; then get any tackle you
can that is idle and set it up in place of the rope carried away. If
you have no tackle aloft that is not working get a piece of hawser or
large-sized rope and pass it round the mast above the other rigging.
Take it round the spar with a clove hitch and stop the end. Seize a
bight in the lower part high enough up to get the watch tackle in
between it and whatever you have at the rail to make fast to. Then set
it up and rack the tackle. If the chain plate is gone, and you have
nothing to make fast to, you can secure the lower end in this way,
as I once did. Bore a hole through the deck just inside the clamp,
and one through the side just below the clamp. Pass a piece of wire
rope through these holes and marry the ends. Into this loop hook your
tackle. All boats of any size should have two shrouds on each side.
BURST MAIN SHEET:
If your main sheet bursts or the shackle breaks and the tackle gets
away, keep the boat as near the wind as possible. Then slack up on the
weather topping lift until you can reach the bight. Get this inboard
and aft, and haul on it easily, slacking down the throat of the sail
at the same time; then the peak. If you have only one lift rove, slack
down the throat, and try to get a line on the boom, as far out as
possible. If this won’t work, cut off the hoops, unship the heel of the
boom and run it inboard. It is a very dangerous situation if any sea
is on, and requires skill and courage to master it.
MAST CARRIED AWAY:
If you carry away a mast in a seaway get it clear of all gear as soon
as possible, as it may smash in your side. If it is rigged with wire
shrouds and rigging screws, and you cannot get these loose, saw off the
head of the mast just below the eyes of the rigging. If the sea is not
too heavy you can veer the broken spar astern and tow it, or else haul
it in over the stern and lash it fast. It is better to save the spar,
if possible, as it makes it easier to replace it.
BURST BOBSTAY:
This is a bad accident, as you are liable to lose your mast. Get the
mainsail off of her at once. If you have a crotch, put it under the
boom so as to take the weight off the mast until you have it secured.
Take your jib or staysail halyards or preventer backstays, hook them to
the bits or around the bowsprit close to the cranze, and heave taut.
Get the yacht before the wind, if possible. Then make the best job of
the bobstay you can. A watch tackle makes the best temporary repair.
WANT OF SPEED, I:
The want of speed in sailing craft is due to many causes. The most
frequent is the result of over-ballasting or to the ballast being
in the wrong place. This is especially so in shoal, flat-floored
models. Frequently, if a boat prove sluggish, a yachtsman will
attempt to improve her speed by adding more sail, and then to carry
this sail, will ship more weight. Consequently, the boat is slower
and worse-acting than before. If your boat does not seem to be up to
her speed, try first by removing a portion of the ballast, and by
continually shifting the weights. To try her, sail alongside another
boat, of whose comparative speed you are aware, and you will soon find
out your boat can be improved in this way.
WANT OF SPEED, II:
Sometimes the sails are to blame, usually through these not being
properly set, owing to the blocks being placed in positions where they
cannot properly hold up the spars; or, having too little draft. Want of
draft will cause a boat to be sluggish in light airs.
WANT OF SPEED, III:
If shifting ballast or getting better sails will not bring the boat to
her form, try altering the position of the centerboard or mast. Much
additional speed is frequently gained by moving the mast or board. You
cannot discover the faults of a boat by analysing her design; you must
work it out by sailing her, and studying her actions in all weights of
wind.
SPEED, TO JUDGE:
If you have no log, you can by practice get so that you can gauge a
boat’s speed within a half knot by watching the water. When running
along shore, make a practice of timing the boat between measured
points. By doing this constantly you will get so experienced that you
can judge by eye very close to the speed she is making. Another way is
to time her as she passes floating objects, or while passing a stick
dropped over from the bow, count the seconds one, two, three, and so
on, until it passes the stern. Knowing the length of the boat by this
means you can roughly estimate her speed through the water. If your
boat is 25 feet long, and it takes her 5 seconds to pass an object, she
is making about 3 knots.
TOWING:
When towing a heavy boat or another yacht, with the wind anywhere on
the beam, make your towing warp fast on your weather quarter. This will
make the load tow easier and your boat will steer better. When towing
with the wind aft, keep the warp amidships, by using a bridle from each
quarter. If the tow is being steered, veer a long scope of hawser, so
as to get a heavy bight; this will ease the strain in a seaway.
[Illustration: TRIPPING.]
TOWING ALONGSIDE:
To tow a dingey alongside, make fast to the fore thwart, or to
anything, about one-third aft from the stem. In this way you can tow a
dingey under the lee while getting men or stores out of her. The same
plan is used in towing along a canal or narrow thoroughfare by tracking
on the bank.
TOWING:
When towing, never make a warp fast so that it cannot be instantly cast
off. It is always best to keep a sharp knife handy, so as to be able to
cut the line. In a seaway this should always be looked to.
TOWING, TO TACK WHEN:
When towing a heavy boat in rough water, or when the wind is scanty,
and you have to tack, place a hand or two on the line to haul in. When
ready to put the helm down have them take in considerable slack. At the
call “Helm’s a-lee!” let go the line and tack your boat on the slack
line. This will enable you to get round and have way before the pull of
the tow comes on your boat.
ANCHORS:
Anchors should be looked to and taken care of just the same as any
other gear. The same with chain. If you keep your spare hook below, see
that it is a place where you can readily get at it, and not buried in a
heap of old ropes, awning stanchions, and other dunnage. I have fully
covered this subject and that of anchoring in the book, _On Yachts and
Yacht Handling_, which I advise you to read.
TO GET AN ANCHOR IN A SEAWAY:
It is sometimes very difficult to get an anchor in a seaway with a hard
wind blowing. It can be done in this way: Take a turn with the hawser
round the post or bitts. Watch when she pitches. As she descends she
will slack up the hawser. Quickly take in this slack and hold when she
scends. In this way you can get it foot by foot, and, when close under,
the sea will break the hook out for you.
TO GET A LINE ON A FLUKE:
If an anchor is lost or foul you can get a line on the upper fluke in
this way, if the water is not too deep: Feel for the fluke with a pole
or, better, a piece of iron gas pipe. When found, rest the pipe end on
the tip of the fluke. Then send a messenger of rope with slip noose,
down the pipe or pole until it falls over the fluke and on the arm.
Carefully haul it taut, using the pole to keep it from slipping off
until firmly fixed. By this means you can get a back pull on an anchor
and shake it loose if caught under a timber or rock.
TO SWEEP AN ANCHOR:
If you have lost your anchor, and there is chain or hawser on it,
you can recover it by dragging with a grapnel back and forth across
where you suppose the hawser is lying. If there is no chain or hawser
attached, you will have to sweep for it. Take two boats and pass a
weighted line between them, then row back and forth, dragging the
bight of the line across the bottom until it finds the lost hook.
Sometimes you can get an anchor by making fast one end of the sweep
and rowing round in a circle, paying out the line as you go. Let it
sink; then bring both ends together, as fishermen do a net, and haul in
slowly. The best sweep is one made with a piece of chain in the middle.
TO LAY OUT AN ANCHOR:
Get the anchor in the boat flukes toward the bow, then coil down in the
boat about two-thirds of the line to be payed out. Start the boat off
and pay out what you have on board. In this way the oarsman has not got
to drag a heavy weight of line after him. Use the same method to run
out a guess warp to be made fast ashore.
TO LAY OUT A HEAVY ANCHOR:
Get two boats and lash them side by side. Put a strong stick or oar
across the gunwales and lash it fast. Lower the anchor overboard with a
tackle from aloft and swing it in between the boats, ring up. Lash the
ring to the beam. When you get to the spot where you want to drop it
set the hawser all clear for running and cut the ring lashing.
TO RAISE A HEAVY ANCHOR:
Lash two boats together. Put a round beam or spar across the gunwales
and ship a couple of hand-sticks in it so as to turn it like a
windlass. Take the line on the anchor round the spar and turn, winding
it slowly up. Keep the beam from rolling out of place by two guys, one
at each end, with an eye over it. The guys want to lead from the end of
the boat on the side that the rope from the anchor comes up.
ANCHORING:
Don’t anchor on bad bottom without putting a trip line on the anchor.
The worst bottom for fouling is one over which boulders are strewn.
Also be careful how you anchor in any place where sunken wrecks are
likely to be found.
MOORINGS:
The weight necessary to furnish a secure mooring depends upon the
locality, the amount of exposure, the depth and character of the
bottom, and the weight and model of the boat. It is always better when
on the safe side by using as heavy a mooring as possible. For ordinary
conditions, multiply the length over all of the boat by five, the
answer being the weight in pounds that is needed. In exposed situations
this weight should be largely increased. The best moorings are mushroom
anchors, where the bottom is suitable for their use, as they can be
readily recovered when it is desirable to take them up.
MAKING A MOORING:
To do this properly requires judgment and practice. Nothing looks
worse than to see a man make a bungle of getting a mooring. If he is
familiar with his boat, there is no excuse for mismanaging the job. The
first thing to learn is how far your boat will carry way when thrown
into the wind. This you can find out only by observation and practice.
Having discovered this, set a range on shore to use when coming to;
one that will place you at about the right distance. A better plan is
to calculate your distances by lengths of your boat. If your boat is
thirty feet long, and will carry way for six lengths, luff up at a
distance of 180 feet. Always, if you have good way on, go directly to
leeward of the mooring. Luff with a long sweep, for if you put your
helm over too quickly you will kill the boat’s way and fall short.
If the wind is light, go to leeward and come to the buoy at an angle,
with your sheets lighted up; then by trimming and spilling you can baby
her up to the mooring. If a boat is coming with too much way on you can
kill her speed by shoving the helm hard across, first one way and then
the other. Take an afternoon off some day and practice picking up your
mooring and you will soon have it down to a science.
[Illustration: AT ANCHOR, BLOCK ISLAND POND.]
MAKING A MOORING TO LEEWARD:
This should never be
|
thought, they would not improve on their present success. What had he
done to deserve their constant dislike? If he picked up a book he had
learned to expect their ridicule. If he were detected in a mood of quiet
reflection, a seemingly normal occupation, why should he have learned
to expect a sarcastic jeer? He felt that his mother, had she but lived,
would have understood better, for her nature was more like his own.
In such a mood of discontent he sat idly on the edge of his bed, striving
to find some possible fault of his own that might merit his evident
ostracism. Previously, the possession of his bay pony had given him
unbelievable comfort, for in moments of suppressed exasperation he had
gone to her stall and transferred, with gentle pattings, the affection
that he was prevented from bestowing on his kin. “We’re old chums, aren’t
we, Jennie?” Then the world would look brighter and consolation would
come to him. But the prospect of her being sold to a stranger made him
very sad.
Presently a horse and buggy drove up the lane and stopped almost beneath
him. Mauney opened the window to listen, since he knew it was too early
for William to be returning.
“Who’s that?” he heard his father’s voice enquire.
“Is this where Mr. Bard lives?” enquired a strange but cultured voice.
“You bet.”
“I’m your pastor, Mr. Bard,” the strange voice continued. “And if you
have a few moments, I’ll come in just long enough to get acquainted. It’s
a little late, but I didn’t think you’d be in bed yet. I’ll just tie her
here, thanks. My name, as I presume you’ve heard, is Tough, but I’m not
as tough as I look.”
“How are yu’, Mr. Tough?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“There’s nobody here, but me an’ the hired woman—but—”
“No matter! I’ll take you as I find you. I understand that Mrs. Bard died
some years since.”
“Yes. My wife wasn’t never very strong, an’ I never married again.”
“Very sad, indeed. We can’t always tell what’s behind these things, but
we try to think they happen for a purpose.”
In Mauney’s breast something tightened at these words. Dim recollections
of his mother’s faded face, so thin, but so ineffably sweet, as she
closed her eyes in their interminable rest, made him wonder if her going
had not been better than staying—staying with the man who had looked,
dry-eyed, upon her dead face! Staying to share the unhappiness of her
younger son! A wave of joy thrilled him. For one thing he would remain
for ever glad—that his mother was dead, safely dead—out of his father’s
reach!
He did not know how long he had stood by the window, but he presently
heard the kitchen door open.
“That’s one of Tom Sunderland’s livery horses, ain’t it, Mr. Tough?”
“Yes, and he’s very slow and lazy. As a matter of fact I wanted to
mention horses to you.”
“You ain’t got a horse o’ yer own, then?”
“Not yet. You might know perhaps where I could get a reliable pony, quiet
enough for Mrs. Tough?”
“Now, Mr. Tough, maybe I might. I suppose you want a purty good piece o’
horse flesh?”
“Well, yes, I do.”
“Wife a horse fancier, Mr. Tough?”
“Oh, she’s fond of driving; yes.”
A slight pause, during which Bard coughed.
“It’s purty hard,” he said, clearing his throat, “to buy a horse that’s
a good roadster and at the same time a good looker an’ quiet like;
understand me.”
“Just so.”
“Now I’ve got a three-year-old mare here that ain’t never been beat in
these here parts for looks. O’ course, I ain’t never even thought o’
sellin’ ’er. She was sired by the best Percheron that was ever led around
this section.”
“Something fancy, I imagine.”
“She lifts her feet like a lady; she’s fast, and intelligent more’n the
hired man.”
“What’s she worth?”
Bard laughed. “Well,” he replied “I hardly know, as I say, I never
thought o’ lettin’ ’er go.”
“But you could give me some idea.”
“I know I turned down a three-hundred-dollar offer a couple o’ months
ago.”
The Reverend Tough whistled softly. “The Lord’s servants,” he said, “are
notoriously lacking in the world’s goods, Mr. Bard. I fear I would have
to seek a cheaper animal.”
There was a well-considered pause before Bard spoke.
“You better come down and see her in the daylight,” he said. “You might
not want her. But I’d like to see you with a good horse—your profession
calls for it.”
“I think so, too.”
“And when it comes to that, I wouldn’t be against knocking off, say, a
hundred, if you really want her.”
“Really! That’s good of you. Now, look here, Mr. Bard, I’ll come down
to-morrow and see her. It’s comforting to know that a man in these days
can get a little for love, when he hasn’t got the price.”
With mutual expressions of good will their conversation ended and Mauney
listened to the preacher’s buggy squeaking down the clay road toward
Beulah. He walked to the front window of his room and watched it until
it disappeared in the mist that had blown westward from the swamp. Then
his gaze moved to the Lantern Marsh, a grey, desolate waste under a fog
through which the moon struggled. His nature recoiled from the hated
picture.
Soon he slept. He dreamed of his father—and of a warm stream of blood he
could not see, but only feel in his hands.
CHAPTER II.
TEACHERS AND PREACHERS.
“_Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave_
_A paradise for a sect._”—_Keats, “Hyperion” (1820 Edition)._
The sultry heat of the April noon rose in tremulous vibrations from the
barnyard, next day, when for a moment, absolute silence prevailed. From
beneath his sun-splashed hat the shaded face of Bard scowled into the
blue shadow of the barn where Mauney stood indolently biting at the end
of a wisp of timothy.
“What are yuh mopin’ about?” Bard called sharply. “Wake up! I don’t want
no more o’ this here mopin’, understand me. The mare is sold and that’s
the end of it. Shake a leg, there, and go hitch up Charlie. You’ve got
to drive up to Beulah an’ get this here cheque into the bank afore it
closes. D’juh hear?”
Past the end of the kitchen Mauney’s eye caught the retreating figure
of his pony being led up the clay road behind the preacher’s buggy. His
dishevelled auburn hair was stuck to his glistening forehead, and his
clear blue eyes burned with an emotion that gave a bitter firmness to his
lips. Before he could pull himself from his mood his father had come with
rapid strides near him.
“Are you goin’ to move?” he fiercely demanded, his eyes glaring hatred.
“Or am I goin’ to move yuh?”
Mauney calmly ignored his threat, while his eyes focused indifferently on
the cheque in his father’s hand.
“D’yuh want me to mess up yer pretty face?” fumed Bard.
“I’m not just a slave of yours,” said Mauney deliberately, with a
perceptible straightening of his body, as he turned to enter the stable
door.
“You better move, young fellow,” said Bard, following him. “Here, take
this cheque. And mind you get back in time to finish that fence or you’ll
work in the moon-light.”
Mauney drove off in a dazed state of mind, wondering if his lot were but
typical of human life in general, or if, by some chance he had been born
into an exceptionally disagreeable home. He wondered what particular
power enabled him to bear the insulting treatment invariably accorded
him and whether that mysterious force would always continue to serve
him. He had tried faithfully to look for likeable traits in his father’s
character. He admired his strength of purpose—that terrible will that
drove him through his long days of labor under hot suns—and felt that
he was very capable. He knew that the farm would always be skilfully
run under his father’s guidance, but this was the full statement of his
filial faith. For beyond this cold admiration there was no attraction, no
hint of warm regard.
At the end of the swamp the road curved to the left in a broad bend,
giving a view of the shining tin roofs of Beulah, on a hill two miles
before him. Nearby stood the Brick School House, with its little
bell-tower, its white picket fence, its turnstile and bare-worn
playground, the neat pile of stove-wood by the weather-stained shed at
the rear, and the two outhouses by the corners of the lot. As he drew
nearer the bell rocked twice, giving out its laconic signal for noon
recess. In a moment a scramble of children with tin lunch-pails poured
forth, running to selected spots under the bare maples.
“Hello, Mauney,” came a familiar voice from the door as he passed.
“Are you going up to the village, Miss Byrne?” he asked, lifting his hat.
“I’d like to?” she smiled.
“Come on,” he invited, cramping the horse to the other side, that she
might more conveniently enter.
Miss Jean Byrne was a graceful young woman whose manner breathed unusual
freshness. Her oval face possessed a certain nun-like beauty, chiefly by
reason of her deep hazel eyes, quiet emblems of a devotional disposition.
Her good color, however, and an indulgent fulness of lips, saved her face
from an ultra-spirituality and her low, contralto laughter neutralized
a first impression of asceticism. Mauney had never noticed that she was
really quite a large woman, although he had been a pupil in her school
for two years.
“How goes it, Mauney?” she asked, having noticed an unwonted sadness in
his face, usually so bright.
“Not too badly. I’m enjoying that book you lent me,” he replied, with a
smile.
“Come now—something’s wrong,” she said, searching his face as they drove
along together.
“I’m feeling sore to-day,” he admitted, striking the wheel with his whip.
“My father sold my pony to the preacher, and I’m not going to forgive
him. It was my pony. He hadn’t any right to sell it.”
After a pause he turned and looked into her eyes. “I guess we all have
our little troubles, Miss Byrne, eh?”
She understood him. In fact Miss Byrne held him more intimately in her
quiet thoughts than he surmised, and more intimately than their ages and
contact would have explained. She had often stood over him, during his
last term, observing the mould of his shoulders under his loose, flannel
shirt, instead of the book on his desk. She had often lost the thread of
her instructions in the unconscious light of his blue-eyed day-dreaming.
Then, too, his English compositions had displayed such merit that she had
marvelled at his ability, and wondered whether environment were really as
strong an influence as heredity in forming a pupil’s mind. Every teacher
who is fortunate has one pupil who becomes the oasis in the daily desert
of thankless toil, the visible reward of seeds sown in darkness. Mauney
Bard was easily her oasis and reward. She always maintained that there
were only two classes of pupils who impressed their teacher, the noisy,
empty ones and the “dog” kind. The canine qualities she meant were silent
faithfulness and undemonstrative affection.
Her wistful eyes softened with delicate sympathy as she glanced at his
clean profile, and she thought of a sculptor’s marble. But whenever he
turned toward her, it was the trusting simplicity of a youth talking with
his mother. Mother! It was forced upon her, so that her breast warmed
with medleys of sensation.
“Oh, what’s wrong with your hand?” she asked.
“Nothing much—I jabbed it on a nail yesterday.”
“Aren’t you doing anything for it?”
“Annie’s the doctor—that’s our hired girl.”
“Mauney Bard, you go straight to the doctor’s,” she said. “You might lose
your arm, or even your life, if it becomes inflamed.”
He looked at her quizzically, and then nodded with a smile. “All right,”
he agreed.
The horse broke into a walk at the foot of the big hill, leading up
to the main street of Beulah. At the top the thoroughfare with its
bare archway of maples came into view. The houses were characteristic
of the residential section, set back beyond lawns and well separated,
although here and there small grocery stores were to be seen with
well-filled windows and idle, white-aproned proprietors. As they passed
the double-windowed front of the Beulah weekly, the blatant explosions
of a gasoline engine indicated that the journal was on press. A little
further along a lamp-post bearing a large coal-oil lamp stood by the
board side-walk, with a signboard nailed at right angles to the street,
displaying in large black letters the name “Doctor Horne,” while the
physician’s residence, a neat stone house with black pencilled mortar,
looked out from a grove of basswood trees.
“Do you know Dr. Horne?” she enquired.
He nodded.
“There he is now,” she said, “He’s certainly an odd genius. Look at the
sleeves!”
Horne was a big, solid man of sixty, with jet-black hair under his grey
cloth cap, and jet-black, bushy eyebrows raised airily. His neat, black
moustache was pushed forward in a mock-careless pout. He walked with
great speed, as if engrossed completely in his thoughts, but with an air
of picturesque indifference, as if his thoughts were entirely lightsome.
At intervals he tugged at his coat sleeves, first one and then the
other, a nervous eccentricity of no significance except that it kept his
coat cuffs near his elbows, displaying his white shirt sleeves for the
amusement of other pedestrians. Beulah never tired of this sexagenarian
bachelor. He drove a horse as black as his own hair and demanded the same
degree of speed from it as from himself, namely, the limit. When starting
on a country call he would jump into his buggy and race to the border of
the village, beyond which the journey was made more leisurely, while on
his return the whip was not taken from its holder until the houses came
in sight. The Beulahite pausing on the street to watch him would remark
with a chuckle:
“There goes Doc. Horne, hell-for-leather!”
Mauney left Miss Byrne at the post-office, visited the bank, and drove
directly back to the doctor’s, hitching his horse to the lamp-post. The
office was a smaller portion of the house at one side, which Mauney
approached. He rang the bell.
“Come in out of that!” immediately came the doctor’s heavy voice.
Mauney stepped into an office furnished with several leather chairs, a
desk on which reposed a skull, a safe holding on its top a stuffed loon,
an open bookcase filled with dusty volumes of various colors, and a
phalanx of bottles against one wall from which radiated a strong odor of
drugs. He looked about in vain for the doctor.
“Sit down, young fellow!” came a stern command from the adjoining
surgery. In a moment or two the big physician bustled out, and, stopping
in front of Mauney’s chair, stared down at him savagely as if he were
the rankest intruder, meanwhile smoking furiously and surrounding himself
with blue cigar smoke.
“Say!” he said, at length, jerking the cigar roughly from his mouth. “Who
the devil are you?”
“Mauney Bard!”
“Oh, God, yes! Of course you are. Of course you are!” Horne spluttered,
walking impulsively to the bookcase and rivetting his attention on the
binding of a book.
“So you’re one of Seth Bard’s curses, eh?” he said, at length, in a
preoccupied tone, with his back still turned to Mauney. “Been fighting?”
“No, doctor, I ran a nail in my hand,” he replied, with a smile.
Horne shuffled a pace to his left to transfer his keen attention to
another bookbinding, which so completely absorbed him that Mauney was
sure he had forgotten his patient. After what seemed five minutes,
Horne turned about and, going to his desk, plumped himself down into a
swivel-chair. His eye-brows nearly touched the line of his hair as his
black eyes stole to the corner of his lids in a sly study of his patient.
“Nail eh? Rusty?”
Mauney commenced undoing the bandage.
“Hip! Hip!” admonished Horne. “I didn’t tell you to take that off. Wait
till I tell you, young fellow. Lots of time. Rusty?”
“Yes, doctor.”
“Come in here!”
Horne jumped up and went into the surgery. He quickly cut away the crude
bandage and merely glanced at the wound.
“Soreness go up your arm, young fellow?”
“Yes, a little bit.”
“Uh—Hum!”
Horne clasped his arms behind his back and stamped dramatically up and
down the surgery, rattling the instruments in their glass case by the
wall. Suddenly he faced Mauney.
“How would you like to lose your arm, young man?” he asked seriously.
“I’d hate to.”
“Then I’m going to open up that wound freely,” he said, walking toward
the instrument case. “Do you want to take chloroform?”
“No—I think I can stand it.”
Home selected a knife and pulling a hair out of his head tried its edge.
“She’s sharp—damned sharp!” he remarked, dropping the instrument into a
basin of solution. “You think you can stand it, eh? Remember, I offered
you chloroform.”
Presently he picked the knife out of the basin.
“Come here, you. Put your hand in that solution. Hold it there a minute.
Does it nip?”
Mauney nodded.
“Well, let it nip. Now take your hand out. Stand up straight. Hold it out
here.”
Horne pressed the blade deeply into the tissues, then withdrew it.
Looking up into his patient’s face:
“Did you feel it?”
“Just a little, Doctor,” said Mauney, biting his lip.
“Don’t you faint, Bard!”
“I’m not going to.”
“Yes you are!”
“I am not!” insisted Mauney as the color returned to his face.
While the doctor put on a fresh dressing his manner altered. He whistled
a snatch of a country dance.
“You look like your mother, boy,” he said more gently. “I looked after
your poor mother. You were just a young gaffer then. She was a very fine
woman. She was too damned good for your old man. I’ve told Seth that
before now.”
“Will this need to be dressed again?” Mauney asked, as they later stood
in the waiting room.
“Yes. On Saturday.”
Horne’s attention was drawn to the figure of a woman approaching the
office.
“Hello!” he said softly. “Surely Sarah Tenent isn’t sick. I’ll bet she’s
peddling bills for the revival services.”
The bell rang.
“All right, come in, Mrs. Tenent.”
“How do you do, doctor?” she said, very deferentially, as she entered.
“Just about as I choose, Mrs. Tenent,” he replied coldly, watching her
minutely.
She took a large white paper notice from a pile on her arm.
“Will you serve the Lord,” she asked with great soberness, “by hanging
this in your office, doctor?”
He glanced over it and read aloud, very hurriedly: “Revival Services,
Beulah Church, commencing Sunday. Rev. Francis Tooker and Rev. Archibald
Gainford, successful evangelists, will assist the new pastor, Rev. Edmund
Tough. Special Singing. Come.”
He passed it back to her and shook his head.
“No, no—not here, I’d never hang it here. I have patients who are not of
thy fold, Mrs. Tenent. My function is to cure the sick. That sign would
make some of them sicker. No, no.”
The woman left the office in silent disapproval of Horne’s attitude.
Mauney put on his hat and was leaving the office, when the doctor
appeared in the door behind him.
“Hold on, young chap!” he commanded. “Wait you! Didn’t I see you driving
into the village with a young lady?”
“I didn’t think you noticed us,” laughed Mauney.
“Who was she?”
“Miss Byrne. She teaches at the Brick School.”
“Yes, yes. Of course she does. Fine young lady,” he said, studying Mauney
with much lifting of his brows and pouting of his lips. “But you’re too
young, Bard. Why don’t you get somebody your own age?”
“Oh,” Mauney said quickly, while his face flushed; “She’s probably got a
beau. It isn’t me, anyway, doctor.”
Horne, greatly amused at the emotional perturbation of his patient,
chuckled, while his black eyes sparkled.
“Get along with you, Bard!” he said, “Get along home with you and don’t
forget to come up on Saturday, mind!”
The revival meetings became the talk of the countryside. Beulah, composed
for the most part of retired farmers, had unusual leisure in which
to think—a leisure captured by the glamor of religion, which was the
strongest local influence. Although the village was a century old it had
preserved, with remarkable success, the puritanism of the pioneer period,
partly because it enjoyed so little touch with the commercial energies of
the nation at large, and partly because the local churches had remained
diligent in spiritual service. But in a population so uniformly composed
of idle folk, the general view-point lay itself open to become biased.
There was too much emphasis on the ghostly estate and too little on the
need of practical endeavor. Beulah had forgotten long since that the
Church must have its lost world, else it becomes unnecessary, and to the
average citizen, lulled as he was by surfeit of beatific meditation, the
board sidewalks had begun to take on an aureate tinge, the houses, a
pearly lustre. The spiritual concern of the religiously eager Beulahite
had in it, unfortunately, no concept of national character, but was
pointed sharply at the individual. His sense of personal security was
only less unhealthy than his over-bearing interest in the soul welfare
of his neighbor. Saved by repeated redemptions himself, he remained
strangely skeptical of the validity of the phenomenon in others. Hence,
at fairly regular intervals, a general village consciousness of sin
developed, becoming insistently stronger until it found its logical
expression—the revival meeting.
Mauney, during the next week, listened to the religious talk of the
community with mild curiosity. Mrs. McBratney, the pious mother of David,
said to him one afternoon from the side of her buggy:
“I hope you’ll attend the revival meetings, Mauney. Your mother would
want you to go. We are praying for great things.
“I’ve been on my knees for the young people,” she continued, “and I
believe David has got conviction.”
Tears suddenly filled her eyes and her chin quivered with such tremulous
emotion as to embarrass Mauney, who could fancifully imagine that David
had been smitten by a plague.
“I believe he will be converted,” she managed to say, before her voice
broke into a sob, “and I pray the Lord will show you the light, too,
Mauney.”
He felt that perhaps it would have been good form to say “Thank you,” for
he was sure her intentions were sterling, but he resented her reference
to his mother, who seemed to him, in memory, a creature too much of
sunshine and peace to be associated with anything so dolefully emotional.
He had never been a regular attendant at church. He remembered having
sat beside his mother many times in the auditorium listening to
unintelligible sermons and strenuous anthems. But from the day, five
years ago, when as a chief mourner he had sat blankly stupefied, hearing
comforting words that failed to comfort, and music whose poignant
solemnity froze him with horrid fear, he had never been invited either by
desire or family suggestion to return.
By the second week of the meetings David McBratney was reported to have
been converted. He had stopped coming to see William as had been his
custom. Neighbors said there could be no doubting the genuineness of
his reformation for he had ceased chewing tobacco and was contemplating
entry into the ministry of the Church. During supper at the Bard farm on
Saturday evening a lull in the conversation was broken by a sarcastic
laugh from William.
“Well, Dad, I guess they’ve got Dave,” he said. “Abe Lavanagh was tellin’
me to-day that Dave has went forward every night this here week. I never
figured he’d get religion.”
Bard philosophically chewed on the idea as he peered at the lamp through
his narrow eyes.
“There is just two kinds of people,” he asserted at length. “The fools
and the damned fools. Now there’s a boy who’s got every chance of
inheriting his old man’s farm. And I’m tellin’ you, Bill, it’s a purty
good piece o’ land.”
“You bet.”
“Just about as good as is bein’ cultivated this side of Lockwood. There
ain’t a stone left in the fields, but what’s piled up in the fences.
William Henry has slaved this here thirty years—got the mortgage cleaned
up—and that barn o’ his, Bill, why you couldn’t build it to-day for five
thousand!”
“No, nor six, Dad.”
“Then look at the machinery the old man’s got. I’m tellin’ yuh Dave
ain’t goin’ to drop into nothing like that, agin. William Henry must be
seventy!”
“May be seventy-one, Dad.”
“Anyhow he ain’t goin’ to last a great while longer. If I was Dave I’d
forget this religion business. ’Taint goin’ to get him nowhere. Ain’t
that right, Snowball?”
The hired man, having finished supper, was sitting back drowsily, but at
the sound of his name he winked his eyes cautiously.
“I dunno,” he said, “I don’t never bother much about religion, so I
don’t!”
In Dr. Horne’s office that week the subject of the revival came up while
Mauney was having his hand dressed.
“Some queer people here in this one-horse town!” mused Horne. “Do you
remember George Pert who died a couple or three years ago?”
“Lived down by the toll-gate?”
“That’s him. Lazy as twelve pigs. Use to lie abed till noon. Wife kept a
market garden. Never paid his doctor’s bills. Yes, sir! George Pert! He
got a cancer of the bowel, poor devil. Sick. Pretty far gone. I went in
one day and found preacher Squires sitting by the bed. ‘Well, Mr. Pert,’”
(Horne’s voice assumed an amusing clerical solemnity) “‘Are you trusting
in the Lord?’ George nods his head. ‘Yes’ says he, ‘I’m so sartin o’
salvation, that if only one person in Beulah is going to heaven I know
it’s me!’
“They’re a nosey bunch, here!” Horne continued, as he wound a bandage on
Mauney’s hand. “Self-satisfied! Let your light so shine—good! But don’t
focus your light into a red-hot spot to burn out your neighbor’s gizzard.
Last night Steve Moran came into the office and sat down. ‘Doctor’ says
he, ‘I just came in to see if your feet were resting on the Rock.’ Says
I, ‘Steve, you blackguard, you owe me five dollars from your wife’s last
confinement, fifteen years ago. If you don’t go to hell out o’ here,
you’ll be resting in a long black box!’”
Mauney was surprised how much people talked about the revival.
Enthusiasts carried out from the meetings, by their words and manner, an
infectious fervor that directed the curious attention of others to the
thing that was happening night by night in the Beulah church. Finally,
on Sunday evening, he decided to see it for himself and drove to town.
The church sheds were filled to overflowing so that he tied old Charlie
to a fence post in the yard. Through the colored windows he heard the
voluminous roar of voices lifted in the cadence of a hymn. The church
was crowded. The vestry at the entrance was full of waiting people and,
through one of the doors leading to the auditorium, he glimpsed a sea of
heads. At the farther end of the great room, in a low gallery, sat the
choir, facing him, and below them on the pulpit platform three preachers
were seated in red plush chairs. The seated congregation were singing an
unfamiliar hymn whose rhythm reminded him of march music he had heard
bands playing in Lockwood. Ushers were carrying in chairs to accommodate
the overflow.
David McBratney, carrying an armful of red hymn books touched Mauney on
the shoulder.
“Here’s a book,” he whispered, proffering one. “I’ll get you a seat in a
few minutes. Glad to see you here, Mauney.”
McBratney’s face glowed with a strange luminosity, puzzling to Mauney,
and his speech and manner were quickened by nervous tension. Presently he
led the way to a chair in the aisle.
At the end of a stanza one of the preachers jumped suddenly to his feet
and interrupted the organ.
“You’re not half singing!” he shouted angrily. “You can do better than
that. If you haven’t more voice than that, how do you expect the Lord to
hear your words of praise? Now, on the next stanza, let yourself out.
Ready!”
He raised both arms high above his head and, as the organ commenced,
brought them to his side with such force that he was compelled to take a
step forward to regain his balance. His words had the effect he desired,
for a deafening volume of sound rose and fell quickly to the lilt of the
march-music, suggesting to Mauney the image of neatly-uniformed cadets
with stiffened backs and even steps, moving along Lockwood streets on a
holiday.
When the hymn ended, a soft hand touched Mauney on the arm and, looking
to his right, he saw Jean Byrne seated in the end of the oaken pew
directly next to him. She was just letting her closed hymnal drop into
her lap.
“Glad to see you,” she whispered, guarding her lips with her gloved hand.
One of the preachers rose slowly from his chair. He was a stout man of
fifty, mild-appearing and pleasant, with clean-shaven face and grey hair.
He walked forward to the edge of the carpeted platform, rested his elbow
on the side of the pulpit and raised his face to gaze slowly over the
quieting congregation. “My dear friends,” he said in soft, silver tone,
“I thank God for the hymn we have just been singing. It has been indeed
very inspiring. Brother Tooker and myself have been in your little town
for two weeks now, and have grown so fond of the people that we view
to-night’s meeting with inevitable feelings of regret, because, so far as
we can see the divine guidance, it will be our last night with you. But
we have also feelings of hope, because we are praying that there may be a
great turning to God as a result of this meeting.”
As he paused to shift his weight slowly to his other foot and clasp his
hands behind his frock coat, the congregation was silent. Only the sound
of a horse stamping in the shed could be heard.
“During our fortnight with you,” he continued, “many souls have been led
to the Cross. We thank God for that. But there are many more who are
still living in sin—some of them are here to-night.”
As his glance shifted over the mass of upturned faces, Mauney fancied he
paused perceptibly as he looked his way.
“It is to you, who are in sin, that we bring a message of hope. You have
only to take God at his word, who sent His Son to save that which was
lost.”
“Amen!” came a vigorous response from an old man in the front pew.
“You have only to believe on Him who is righteous and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
“Amen!” from near the back.
“Amen!” also, from the side, half-way up.
At this juncture a woman in the body of the auditorium burst forth,
in good voice, singing the first verse of “Though your sins be as
scarlet,” whereat the preacher indulgently acquiesced, and waved for the
congregation to join her. At the end of the first stanza he raised his
hand.
“The lesson for to-night is taken from the first chapter of the beloved
Mark.” As he carefully read the passage of scripture the ushers were busy
leading in more people, so that, when he finished, the floor was entirely
filled save for two narrow aisles, one on either side, leading from the
back to the altar railing.
The Reverend Francis Tooker, as he walked confidently forward, was seen
to be tall and thin, with a long, florid face and a great mass of stiff,
black hair. He raised his large, bony hand.
“Let every head be bowed!” he commanded, sharply.
After a short invocation he commenced his discourse. He dealt at length
with the experiences of the prodigal son, pictured in adequate language
the depths of profligacy to which he had sunk, stressed the moment of
his decision to return home, and waxed touchingly eloquent over the
reception which his father accorded him.
“And now, people,” he said more brusquely, as he slammed shut the big
pulpit Bible and ran his long fingers nervously through his hair. “You’ve
got a chance to do what that boy did. You’ve been acting just the way
he acted—don’t dare deny it! You’ve been wallowing in the dirt with the
pigs, and you’re all smeared up. What are you going to do about it?”
The audience, keyed up to the former flow of his unfaltering eloquence,
were now mildly shocked by the informality of his pointed question. He
walked to the very edge of the platform while his eyes grew savage and
his face red.
“What are you going to do about it?” he shouted, clenching his fists
and half-squatting. Then, rising quickly, he hastened to the other side
of the pulpit. “Are you going to arise and go to your Father? Or are
you going to keep on mucking about with the pigs? Don’t forget that for
anyone of you this night may be your last. To-night, perhaps you” (he
pointed), “or you,” (he pointed again) “may be required to face God. What
are you going to do about it? Are you going to die forgiven of your sins
like a man, or are you going to shut your ears to the word of God and die
like any other pig?”
No sound interrupted the intense silence. No one moved. Even the
flickering lamps seemed to steady their illumination to a glaring, yellow
uniformity.
Suddenly his manner altered. Moving to a position behind the pulpit he
rested his elbows on the Bible and folded his hands together out over
the front edge of the book-rest, while his voice assumed a quiet,
conversational tone.
“Remember that on this night, the twentieth day of April, 1914, you were
given an opportunity to come out full-breasted for God. I have discharged
my duty. The rest remains for you to do. If you are sorry for your sins,
say so. If you regret the kind of life you’ve been leading, confess it.
Come out and get washed off clean. The invitation is open. The altar
awaits to receive you.”
As he pointed to the altar railing, his black eyes flashed hypnotically.
“Those who have sinned, but are repentant and seek redemption
|
venient Enthusiasm—Indisposition of the
Patriarch—The Ceremony of Unrobing—The Impromptu Fair—The
Patriarch at Home—The Golden Eggs 353
CHAPTER XXI.
High Street of Pera—Dangers and Donkeys—Travelling in an
Araba—Fondness of the Orientals for their
Cemeteries—Singular Spectacle—Moral Supineness of the
Armenians—M. Nubar—The Fair—Armenian
Dance—Anti-Exclusives—Water Venders—Being à la
Franka—Wrestling Rings—The Battle of the Sects 360
CHAPTER XXII.
The Mosques at Midnight—Baron Rothschild—Firmans and
Orders—A Proposition—Masquerading—St. Sophia by
Lamplight—The Congregation—The Mosque of Sultan
Achmet—Colossal Pillars—Return to the Harem—The
Chèïk-Islam—Count Bathiany—The Party—St. Sophia by
Daylight—Erroneous Impression—Turkish Paradise—Piety of the
Turkish Women—The Vexed Traveller—Disappointment—Confusion
of Architecture—The Sweating Stone—Women’s Gallery—View
from the Gallery—Gog and Magog at Constantinople—The
Impenetrable Door—Ancient Tradition—Leads of the
Mosque—Gallery of the Dome—The Doves—The Atmeidan—The Tree
of Groans—The Mosque of Sultan Achmet—Antique
Vases—Historical Pulpit—The Inner Court—The Six
Minarets—The Mosque of Solimaniè—Painted
Windows—Ground-plan of the Principal Mosques—The Treasury of
Solimaniè—Mausoleum of Solyman the Magnificent—Model of the
Mosque at Mecca—Mausoleums in General—Indispensable
Accessories—The Medresch—Mosque of Sultan Mahmoud at
Topphannè 373
CHAPTER XXIII.
Antiquities of Constantinople—Ismäel Effendi—The
Atmeidan—The Obelisk—The Delphic Tripod—The Column of
Constantine—The Tchernberlè Tasch—The Cistern of the
Thousand and One Columns—The Boudroum—The Roman
Dungeons—Yèrè-Batan-Seraï—The Lost Traveller—Extent of the
Cistern—Aqueduct of Justinian—Palace of Constantine—Tomb of
Heraclius—The Seven Towers—An Ambassador in Search of
Truth—Tortures of the Prison—A Legend of the Seven Towers 405
CHAPTER XXIV.
Balouclè—The New Church—Delightful Road—Eyoub—The
Cemetery—The Rebel’s Grave—The Mosque of Blood—The Hill of
Graves—The Seven Towers—The Palace of Belisarius—The City
Walls—Easter Festivities—The Turkish Araba—The Armenian
Carriage—Travellers—Turkish
Women—Seridjhes—Persians—Irregular Troops—The Plain of
Balouclè—Laughable Mistake—Extraordinary Discretion—The
Church of Balouclè—The Holy Well—Absurd Tradition—The
Chapel Vault—Enthusiasm of the Greeks—A Pleasant
Draught—Greek Substitute for a Bell—Violent Storm 434
CHAPTER XXV.
Figurative Gratitude of the Seraskier Pasha—Eastern
Hyperbole—Reminiscences of Past Years—A Vision
Realized—Strong Contrasts—The Marriage Fêtes—Popular
Excitement—Crowded Streets—The Auspicious Day—Extravagant
Expectations—The Great Cemetery—Dolma Batchè—The Grand
Armoury—Turkish Women—Tents of the Pashas—The
Bosphorus—Preparations—Invocation—The Illuminated
Bosphorus—A Stretch of Fancy—A Painful Recollection—Natural
Beauties of the Bosphorus—The Grave-Yard—Evening
Amusements—Well Conducted Population 446
CHAPTER XXVI.
Repetition—The Esplanade—The Kiosk and the Pavilion—A Short
Cut—Dense Crowd—A Friend at Court—Curious _Coup
d’Œil_—The Arena—The Orchestra—First Act of the
Comedy—Disgusting Exhibition—The Birth of the
Ballet—Dancing Boys—Second Act of the Drama—Insult to the
Turkish Women—The Provost Marshal—Yusuf Pasha, the
Traitor—Clemency of the Sultan—Forbearance of an Oriental
Mob—Renewal of the Ballet—Last Act of the Drama—Theatrical
Decorations—Watch-dogs and Chinese—Procession of the
Trades—Frank Merchants—Thieves and Judges—Bedouin
Tumblers—Fondness of the Pashas for Dancing—The Wise Men of
the East 460
CHAPTER XXVII.
Succession of Banquets—The Chèïk Islam and the
Clergy—Sectarian Prejudices—The Military Staff—The Naval
Chiefs—The Imperial Household—The Pashas—The Grand
Vizier—Magnificent Procession—Night Scene on the
Bosphorus—The Palace of the Seraskier Pasha—Palace of Azmè
Sultane—Midnight Serenade—Pretty Truants—The Shore of
Asia—Ambassadorial Banquet—War Dance—Beautiful Effects of
Light 478
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Monotonous Entertainments—Bridal Preparations—Common
Interest—Appearance of the Surrounding Country—Ride to
Arnautkeui—Sight-loving Ladies—Glances and
Greetings—Pictorial Grouping—The Procession—The
Trousseau—A Steeple-Chase 488
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Bridal Day—Ceremony of Acceptance—The Crowd—The Kislar
Agha and the Court Astrologer—Order of the Procession—The
Russian Coach—The Pasha and the Attachés—The
Seraskier—Wives of the Pashas—The Sultan and the Georgian
Slave 500
CHAPTER XXX.
A New Rejoicing—Scholastic Processions—Change in the
Valley—The Odalique’s Grave—The Palace of Eyoub—The State
Apartments—Return to Pera 509
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Chapel of the Turning Dervishes _Frontispiece._
The Maiden’s Tower _Vignette Title-page._
Military College 196
Palace of the Sweet Waters 324
A Street in Pera 361
Column of Constantine and Egyptian Tripod 407
The Seven Towers 421
THE CITY OF THE SULTAN.
CHAPTER I.
The Golden Horn—Stamboul in Snow—The Seraï
Bournou—Scutari—Galata—First View of Constantinople—St.
Sophia and Solimaniè—Pera—Domestication of Aquatic
Birds—Sounds at Sea—Caïques—Oriental Grouping—Armenian
Costume—Reforms of Sultan Mahmoud—Dervishes—Eastern
Jews—Evening—Illuminated Minarets—Romance _versus_
Reason—Pain at Parting—Custom House of Galata—The East
_versus_ the West—Reminiscences of Marseillois
Functionaries—The British Consul at Marseilles—The
Light-house at Syra—The Frank Quarter—Diplomatic
Atmosphere—Straw Huts—Care of the Turks for Animals—A Scene
from Shakspeare.
It was on the 30th of December, 1835, that we anchored in the Golden
Horn; my long-indulged hopes were at length realized, and the Queen of
Cities was before me, throned on her peopled hills, with the silver
Bosphorus, garlanded with palaces, flowing at her feet!
It was with difficulty that I could drag myself upon deck after the
night of intense suffering which I had passed in the sea of Marmora,
and, when I did succeed in doing so, the vessel was already under the
walls of the Seraglio garden, and advancing rapidly towards her
anchorage. The atmosphere was laden with snow, and I beheld Stamboul for
the first time clad in the ermine mantle of the sternest of seasons.
Yet, even thus, the most powerful feeling that unravelled itself from
the chaos of sensations which thronged upon me was one of unalloyed
delight. How could it be otherwise? I seemed to look on fairy-land—to
behold the embodiment of my wildest visions—to be the denizen of a new
world.
Queenly Stamboul! the myriad sounds of her streets came to us mellowed
by the distance; and, as we swept along, the whole glory of her princely
port burst upon our view! The gilded palace of Mahmoud, with its
glittering gate and overtopping cypresses, among which may be
distinguished the buildings of the Seraï, were soon passed; behind us,
in the distance, was Scutari, looking down in beauty on the channel,
whose waves reflected the graceful outline of its tapering minarets, and
shrouded themselves for an instant in the dark shadows of its funereal
grove. Galata was beside us, with its mouldering walls and warlike
memories; and the vessel trembled as the chain fell heavily into the
water, and we anchored in the midst of the crowd of shipping that
already thronged the harbour. On the opposite shore clustered the
painted dwellings of Constantinople, the party-coloured garment of the
“seven hills”—the tall cypresses that overshadowed her houses, and the
stately plane trees, which more than rivalled them in beauty, bent their
haughty heads beneath the weight of accumulated snows. Here and there, a
cluster of graceful minarets cut sharply against the sky; while the
ample dome of the mosque to which they belonged, and the roofs of the
dwellings that nestled at their base, lay steeped in the same chill
livery. Eagerly did I seek to distinguish those of St. Sophia, and the
smaller but far more elegant Solimaniè, the shrine of the Prophet’s
Beard, with its four minarets, and its cloistered courts; and it was not
without reluctance that I turned away, to mark where the thronging
houses of Pera climb with magnificent profusion the amphitheatre of
hills which dominate the treasure-laden port.
As my gaze wandered along the shore, and, passing by the extensive grove
of cypresses that wave above the burying-ground, once more followed the
course of the Bosphorus, I watched the waves as they washed the very
foundation of the dwellings that skirt it, until I saw them chafing and
struggling at the base of the barrack of Topphannè, and at intervals
flinging themselves high into the air above its very roof.
To an European eye, the scene, independently of its surpassing beauty
and utter novelty, possessed two features peculiarly striking; the
extreme vicinity of the houses to the sea, which in many instances they
positively overhang; and the vast number of aquatic fowl that throng the
harbour. Seagulls were flying past us in clouds, and sporting like
domestic birds about the vessel, while many of the adjoining roofs were
clustered with them; the wild-duck and the water-hen were diving under
our very stern in search of food; and shoals of porpoises were every
moment rolling by, turning up their white bellies to the light, and
revelling in safety amid the sounds and sights of a mighty city, as
though unconscious of the vicinity of danger. How long, I involuntarily
asked myself, would this extraordinary confidence in man be repaid by
impunity in an English port? and the answer was by no means pleasing to
my national pride.
As I looked round upon the shipping, the language of many lands came on
the wind. Here the deep “Brig a-hoy!” of the British seaman boomed along
the ripple; there, the shrill cry of the Greek mariner rang through the
air: at intervals, the full rich strain of the dark-eyed Italian
relieved the wild monotonous chant of the Turk; while the cry of the
sea-boy from the rigging was answered by the stern brief tones of the
weather-beaten sailor on the deck.
Every instant a graceful caïque, with its long sharp prow and gilded
ornaments, shot past the ship: now freighted with a bearded and
turbaned Turk, squatted upon his carpet at the bottom of the boat, pipe
in hand, and muffled closely in his furred pelisse, the very
personification of luxurious idleness; and attended by his red-capped
and blue-coated domestic, who was sometimes a thick-lipped negro, but
more frequently a keen-eyed and mustachioed musselmaun—now tenanted by
a group of women, huddled closely together, and wearing the _yashmac_,
or veil of white muslin, which covers all the face except the eyes and
nose, and gives to the wearer the appearance of an animated corpse; some
of them, as they passed, languidly breathing out their harmonious
Turkish, which in a female mouth is almost music.
Then came a third, gliding along like a nautilus, with its small white
sail; and bearing a bevy of Greeks, whose large flashing eyes gleamed
out beneath the unbecoming _fèz_, or cap of red cloth, with its purple
silk tassel, and ornament of cut paper, bound round the head among the
lower classes, by a thick black shawl, tightly twisted. This was
followed by a fourth, impelled by two lusty rowers, wherein the round
hats and angular costume of a party of Franks forced your thoughts back
upon the country that you had left, only to be recalled the next instant
by a freight of Armenian merchants returning from the Charshees of
Constantinople to their dwellings at Galata and Pera. As I looked on
the fine countenances, the noble figures, and the animated expression of
the party, how did I deprecate their shaven heads, and the use of the
frightful _calpac_, which I cannot more appropriately describe than by
comparing it to the iron pots used in English kitchens, inverted! The
graceful pelisse, however, almost makes amends for the monstrous
head-gear, as its costly garniture of sable or marten-skin falls back,
and reveals the robe of rich silk, and the cachemire shawl folded about
the waist. Altogether, I was more struck with the Armenian than the
Turkish costume; and there is a refinement and _tenue_ about the wearers
singularly attractive. Their well-trimmed mustachioes, their stained and
carefully-shaped eyebrows, their exceeding cleanliness, in short, their
whole appearance, interests the eye at once; nor must I pass over
without remark their jewelled rings, and their pipes of almost countless
cost, grasped by fingers so white and slender that they would grace a
woman.
While I am on the subject of costume, I cannot forbear to record my
regret as I beheld in every direction the hideous and unmeaning _fèz_,
which has almost superseded the gorgeous turban of muslin and cachemire:
indeed, I was nearly tempted in my woman wrath to consider all the
admirable reforms, wrought by Sultan Mahmoud in his capital,
overbalanced by the frightful changes that he has made in the national
costume, by introducing a mere caricature of that worst of all
originals—the stiff, starch, angular European dress. The costly turban,
that bound the brow like a diadem, and relieved by the richness of its
tints the dark hue of the other garments, has now almost entirely
disappeared from the streets; and a group of Turks look in the distance
like a bed of poppies; the flowing robe of silk or of woollen has been
flung aside for the ill-made and awkward surtout of blue cloth; and the
waist, which was once girdled with a shawl of cachemire, is now
compressed by two brass buttons!
The Dervish, or domestic priest, for such he may truly be called, whose
holy profession, instead of rendering him a distinct individual, suffers
him to mingle like his fellow-men in all the avocations, and to
participate in all the socialities of life; which permits him to read
his offices behind the counter of his shop, and to bring up his family
to the cares and customs of every-day life; and who is bound only by his
own voluntary act to a steady continuance in the self-imposed duties
that he is at liberty to cast aside when they become irksome to him; the
holy Dervish frequently passed us in his turn, seated at the bottom of
the caïque, with an open volume on his knees, and distinguished from the
lay-Turk by his _geulaf_, or high hat of grey felt. Then came a group
of Jews, chattering and gesticulating; with their ample cloaks, and
small dingy-coloured caps, surrounded by a projecting band of brown and
white cotton, whose singular pattern has misled a modern traveller so
far as to induce him to state that it is “a white handkerchief,
inscribed with some Hebrew sentences from their law.”
Thus far, I could compare the port of Constantinople to nothing less
delightful than poetry put into action. The novel character of the
scenery—the ever-shifting, picturesque, and graceful groups—the
constant flitting past of the fairy-like caïques—the strange
tongues—the dark, wild eyes—all conspired to rivet me to the deck,
despite the bitterness of the weather.
Evening came—and the spell deepened. We had arrived during the Turkish
Ramazan, or Lent, and, as the twilight gathered about us, the minarets
of all the mosques were brilliantly illuminated. Nothing could exceed
the magical effect of the scene; the darkness of the hour concealed the
outline of the graceful shafts of these etherial columns, while the
circles of light which girdled them almost at their extreme height
formed a triple crown of living diamonds. Below these depended (filling
the intermediate space) shifting figures of fire, succeeding each other
with wonderful rapidity and precision: now it was a house, now a group
of cypresses, then a vessel, or an anchor, or a spray of flowers; and
these changes were effected, as I afterwards discovered, in the most
simple and inartificial manner. Cords are slung from minaret to minaret,
from whence depend others, to which the lamps are attached; and the
raising or lowering of these cords, according to a previous design,
produces the apparently magic transitions which render the illuminations
of Stamboul unlike those of any European capital.
But I can scarcely forgive myself for thus accounting in so
matter-of-fact a manner for the beautiful illusions that wrought so
powerfully on my own fancy. I detest the spirit which reduces every
thing to plain reason, and pleases itself by tracing effects to causes,
where the only result of the research must be the utter annihilation of
all romance, and the extinction of all wonder. The flowers that blossom
by the wayside of life are less beautiful when we have torn them leaf by
leaf asunder, to analyze their properties, and to determine their
classes, than when we first inhale their perfume, and delight in their
lovely tints, heedless of all save the enjoyment which they impart. The
man of science may decry, and the philosopher may condemn, such a mode
of reasoning; but really, in these days of utilitarianism, when all
things are reduced to rule, and laid bare by wisdom, it is desirable to
reserve a niche or two unprofaned by “the schoolmaster,” where fancy
may plume herself unchidden, despite the never-ending analysis of a
theorising world!
My continued indisposition compelled my father and myself to remain
another day on board; but I scarcely felt the necessity irksome. All was
so novel and so full of interest around me, and my protracted voyage had
so thoroughly inured me to privation and inconvenience, that I was
enabled to enjoy the scene without one regret for land. The same
shifting panorama, the same endless varieties of sight and sound,
occupied the day; and the same magic illusions lent a brilliancy and a
poetry to the night.
Smile, ye whose exclusiveness has girdled you with a fictitious and
imaginary circle, beyond which ye have neither sympathies nor
sensibilities—smile if ye will, as I declare that when the moment came
in which I was to quit the good brig, that had borne us so bravely
through storm and peril—the last tangible link between ourselves and
the far land that we had loved and left—I almost regretted that I trod
her snow-heaped and luggage-cumbered deck for the last time; and that,
as the crew clustered round us, to secure a parting look and a parting
word, a tear sprang to my eye. How impossible does it appear to me to
forget, at such a time as this, those who have shared with you the
perils and the protection of a long and arduous voyage! From the sturdy
seaman who had stood at the helm, and contended with the drear and
drenching midnight sea, to the venturous boy who had climbed the bending
mast to secure the remnants of the shivered sail, every face had long
been familiar to me. I could call each by name; nor was there one among
them to whom I had not, on some occasion, been indebted for those rude
but ready courtesies which, however insignificant in themselves, are
valuable to the uninitiated and helpless at sea.
On the 1st of January, 1836, we landed at the Custom House stairs at
Galata, amid a perfect storm of snow and wind; nor must I omit the fact
that we did so without “let or hindrance” from the officers of the
establishment. The only inquiry made was, whether we had brought out any
merchandize, and, our reply being in the negative, coupled with the
assurance that we were merely travellers, and that our packages
consisted simply of personal necessaries, we were civilly desired to
pass on.
I could not avoid contrasting this mode of action in the “barbarous”
East, with that of “civilized” Europe, where even your very person is
not sacred from the investigation of low-bred and low-minded
individuals, from whose officious and frequently impertinent contact you
can secure yourself only by a bribe. Perhaps the contrast struck me the
more forcibly that we had embarked from Marseilles, where all which
concerns either the Douane or the Bureau de Santé is _à la
rigueur_—where you are obliged to pay a duty on what you take out of
the city as well as what you bring into it—pay for a certificate of
health to persons who do not know that you have half a dozen hours to
live—and—hear this, ye travel-stricken English, who leave your country
to breathe freely for a while in lands wherein ye may dwell without the
extortion of taxes—pay _your own_ Consul for permission to embark!
This last demand rankles more than all with a British subject, who may
quit his birth-place unquestioned, and who hugs himself with the belief
that nothing pitiful or paltry can be connected with the idea of an
Englishman by the foreigners among whom he is about to sojourn. He has
to learn his error, and the opportunity is afforded to him at
Marseilles, where the natives of every other country under Heaven are
free to leave the port as they list, when they have satisfied the
demands of the local functionaries; while the English alone have a
special claimant in their own Consul, the individual appointed by the
British government to “assist” and “protect” his fellow-subjects—by
whom they are only let loose upon the world at the rate of six francs
and a half a head! And for this “consideration” they become the happy
possessors of a “Permission to Embark” from a man whom they have
probably never seen, and who has not furthered for them a single view,
nor removed a single difficulty. To this it may be answered that, had
they required his assistance, they might have demanded it, which must be
conceded at once, but, nevertheless, the success of their demand is more
than problematical—and the arrangement is perfectly on a par with that
of the Greeks in the island of Syra, who, when we cast anchor in their
port, claimed, among other dues, a dollar and a half for the
signal-light; and, on being reminded that there had been no light at the
station for several previous nights, with the additional information
that we had narrowly escaped wreck in consequence, coolly replied, that
all we said was very true, but that there would shortly be a fire
kindled there regularly—that they wanted money—and that, in short, the
dollar and a half must be paid; but herefrom we at least took our
departure without asking leave of our own Consul.
From the Custom House of Galata, we proceeded up a steep ascent to Pera,
the quarter of the Franks—the focus of diplomacy—where every lip
murmurs “His Excellency,” and secretaries, interpreters, and _attachés_
are
“Thick as the leaves on Valombrosa.”
But, alas! on the 1st day of January, Pera, Galata, and their environs,
were one huge snowball. As it was Friday, the Turkish Sabbath, and,
moreover, a Friday of the Ramazan, every shop was shut; and the few foot
passengers who passed us by hurried on as though impatient of exposure
to so inclement an atmosphere. As most of the streets are impassable for
carriages, and as the sedan-chairs which supply, however imperfectly,
the place of these convenient (and almost, as I had hitherto considered,
indispensable) articles, are all private property, we were e’en obliged
to “thread our weary way” as patiently as we could—now buried up to our
knees in snow, and anon immersed above our ancles in water, when we
chanced to plunge into one of those huge holes which give so interesting
an inequality to the surface of Turkish paving.
Nevertheless, despite the difficulties that obstructed our progress, I
could not avoid remarking the little straw huts built at intervals along
the streets, for the accommodation and comfort of the otherwise homeless
dogs that throng every avenue of the town. There they lay, crouched down
snugly, too much chilled to welcome us with the chorus of barking that
they usually bestow on travellers: a species of loud and inconvenient
greeting with which we were by no means sorry to dispense. In addition
to this shelter, food is every day dispensed by the inhabitants to the
vagrant animals who, having no specific owners, are, to use the
approved phraseology of genteel alms-asking, “wholly dependent on the
charitable for support.” And it is a singular fact that these
self-constituted scavengers exercise a kind of internal economy which
almost appears to exceed the boundaries of mere instinct; they have
their defined “walks,” or haunts, and woe betide the strange cur who
intrudes on the privileges of his neighbours; he is hunted, upbraided
with growls and barks, beset on all sides, even bitten in cases of
obstinate contumacy, and universally obliged to retreat within his own
limits. Their numbers have, as I was informed, greatly decreased of late
years, but they are still very considerable.
As we passed along, a door opened, and forth stepped the most
magnificent-looking individual whom I ever saw: he had a costly
cachemire twined about his waist, his flowing robes were richly furred,
and he turned the key in the lock with an air of such blended anxiety
and dignity, that I involuntarily thought of the Jew of Shakspeare; and
I expected at the moment to hear him exclaim, “Shut the door, Jessica,
shut the door, I say!” But, alas! he moved away, and no sweet Jessica
flung back the casement to reply.
CHAPTER II.
Difficulty of Ingress to Turkish Houses—Steep Streets—The
Harem—The Tandour—The Mangal—The Family—Female
Costume—Luxurious Habits—The Ramazan—The Dining-room—The
Widow—The Dinner—The Turks not Gastronomers—Oriental
Hospitality—Ceremony of Ablution—The Massaldjhe—Alarm in the
Harem—The Prayer—Evening Offering—Puerile
Questions—Opium—Primitive Painting—Splendid Beds—Avocations
of a Turkish Lady—Oriental Coquetry—Shopping—Commercial
Flirtations—The Sultana Heybétoullah—A Turkish Carriage—The
Charshees—Armenian Merchants—Greek Speculators—Perfumes and
Embroidery.
I have already mentioned that we arrived at Constantinople during the
Ramazan or Lent; and my first anxiety was to pass a day of Fast in the
interior of a Turkish family.
This difficult, and in most cases impossible, achievement for an
European was rendered easy to me by the fact that, shortly after our
landing, I procured an introduction to a respectable Turkish merchant;
and I had no sooner written to propose a visit to his harem than I
received the most frank and cordial assurances of welcome.
A Greek lady of my acquaintance having offered to accompany me, and to
act as my interpreter, we crossed over to Stamboul, and, after
threading several steep and narrow streets, perfectly impassable for
carriages, entered the spacious court of the house at which we were
expected, and ascended a wide flight of stairs leading to the harem, or
women’s apartments. The stairs terminated in a large landing-place, of
about thirty feet square, into which several rooms opened on each side,
screened with curtains of dark cloth embroidered with coloured worsted.
An immense mirror filled up a space between two of the doors, and a long
passage led from this point to the principal apartment of the harem, to
which we were conducted by a black slave.
When I say “we,” I of course allude to Mrs. —— and myself, as no men,
save those of the family and the physician, are ever admitted within the
walls of a Turkish harem.
The apartment into which we were ushered was large and warm, richly
carpeted, and surrounded on three sides by a sofa, raised about a foot
from the ground, and covered with crimson shag; while the cushions, that
rested against the wall or were scattered at intervals along the couch,
were gaily embroidered with gold thread and coloured silks. In one angle
of the sofa stood the _tandour_: a piece of furniture so unlike any
thing in Europe, that I cannot forbear giving a description of it.
The tandour is a wooden frame, covered with a couple of wadded
coverlets, for such they literally are, that are in their turn overlaid
by a third and considerably smaller one of rich silk: within the frame,
which is of the height and dimensions of a moderately sized breakfast
table, stands a copper vessel, filled with the embers of charcoal; and,
on the two sides that do not touch against the sofa, piles of cushions
are heaped upon the floor to nearly the same height, for the convenience
of those whose rank in the family does not authorize them to take places
on the couch.
The double windows, which were all at the upper end of the apartment,
were closely latticed; and, at the lower extremity of the room, in an
arched recess, stood a classically-shaped clay jar full of water, and a
covered goblet in a glass saucer. Along a silken cord, on either side of
this niche, were hung a number of napkins, richly worked and fringed
with gold; and a large copy of the Koran was deposited beneath a
handkerchief of gold gauze, on a carved rosewood bracket.
In the middle of the floor was placed the _mangal_, a large copper
vessel of about a foot in height, resting upon a stand of the same
material raised on castors, and filled, like that within the tandour,
with charcoal.
The family consisted of the father and mother, the son and the son’s
wife, the daughter and her husband, and a younger and adopted son. The
ladies were lying upon cushions, buried up to their necks under the
coverings of the tandour; and, as they flung them off to receive us, I
was struck with the beauty of the daughter, whose deep blue eyes, and
hair of a golden brown, were totally different from what I had expected
to find in a Turkish harem. Two glances sufficed to satisfy me that the
mother was a shrew, and I had no reason subsequently to revoke my
judgment. The son’s wife had fine, large, brilliant, black eyes, but her
other features were by no means pleasing, although she possessed, in
common with all her countrywomen, that soft, white, velvety skin, for
which they are indebted to the constant use of the bath. To this luxury,
in which many of them daily indulge, must be, however, attributed the
fact that their hair, in becoming bright and glossy, loses its strength,
and compels them to the adoption of artificial tresses; and these they
wear in profusion, wound amid the folds of the embroidered handkerchiefs
that they twine about their heads in a most unbecoming manner, and
secure by bodkins of diamonds or emeralds, of which ornaments they are
inordinately fond.
They all wore chemisettes or under garments of silk gauze, trimmed with
fringes of narrow ribbon, and wide trowsers of printed cotton falling
to the ancle: their feet were bare, save that occasionally they thrust
them into little yellow slippers, that scarcely covered their toes, and
in which they moved over the floor with the greatest ease, dragging
after them their anterys, or sweeping robes; but more frequently they
dispensed with even these, and walked barefoot about the harem. Their
upper dresses were of printed cotton of the brightest colours—that of
the daughter had a blue ground, with a yellow pattern, and was trimmed
with a fringe of pink and green. These robes, which are made in one
piece, are divided at the hip on either side to their extreme length,
and are girt about the waist with a cachemire shawl. The costume is
completed in winter by a tight vest lined with fur, which is generally
of light green or pink.
Their habits are, generally speaking, most luxurious and indolent, if I
except their custom of early rising, which, did they occupy themselves
in any useful manner, would be undoubtedly very commendable; but, as
they only add, by these means, two or three hours of _ennui_ to each
day, I am at a loss how to classify it. Their time is spent in dressing
themselves, and varying the position of their ornaments—in the
bath—and in sleep, which they appear to have as entirely at their back
as a draught of water; in winter, they have but to nestle under the
coverings of the tandour, or in summer to bury themselves among their
cushions, and in five minutes they are in the land of dreams. Indeed, so
extraordinarily are they gifted in this respect, that they not
unfrequently engage their guests to take a nap, with the same
_sang-froid_ with which a European lady would invite her friends to take
a walk. Habits of industry have, however, made their way, in many
instances, even into the harem; the changes without have influenced the
pursuits and feelings of the women; and utter idleness has already
ceased to be a necessary
|
on either side; and a club wit had remarked at the time
that the only possible ground for a separation was the fact that Mrs.
Kemper had grown jealous of her husband's after-dinner cigar. Since then
other and varied rumours had reached Gerty's ears, until finally there
had blown a veritable gale concerning a certain Madame Alta, who sang
melting soprano parts in Italian opera. Then this, too, had passed,
and, with the short memory of city livers, Gerty had forgotten alike the
gossip and the heroines of the gossip, until she noted now the lines of
deeper harassment in Kemper's face. These coming so suddenly after six
months of Europe caused her to wonder if the affair with the prima donna
had been really an entanglement of the heart.
"Well, I may not be as fast as an automobile," she presently admitted.
"But you're twice as dangerous," he retorted gaily.
For an instant the pleasant humour in his eyes held her speechless.
"Ah, well, you aren't a coward," she answered coolly enough at last.
Then her tone changed, and as she settled herself under her fur rugs she
made a cordial inviting gesture. "Come in with me and I'll take you to
Laura Wilde's," she said; "she's a genius, and you ought to know her
before the world finds her out."
With a protesting laugh Kemper held up his gloved finger.
"God forbid!" he exclaimed with a shrug which struck her as a slightly
foreign affectation. "The lady may be a female Milton, but Perry tells
me that she isn't pretty."
He touched her hand again, met her indignant defence of Laura with a nod
of smiling irony, and then, as her carriage started, he turned rapidly
down Sixty-ninth Street in the direction of the Park.
In Gerty the chance meeting had awakened a slumbering interest which she
had half forgotten, and as she drove down Fifth Avenue toward Laura's
distant home she found herself wondering idly if he would let many days
go by before he came again. The thought was still in her mind when the
carriage turned into Gramercy Park and stopped before the old brown
house hidden in creepers in which Laura lived. So changed by this time,
however, was Gerty's mood that, after leaving her carriage, she stood
hesitating from indecision upon the sidewalk. The few bared trees in the
snow, the solemn, almost ghostly, quiet of the quaint old houses and the
deserted streets, in which a flock of sparrows quarrelled under the
faint sunshine, produced in her an odd and almost mysterious sense of
unreality--as if the place, herself, the waiting carriage, and Laura
buried away in the dull brown house, were all creations of some gossamer
and dream-like quality of mind. She felt suddenly that the sorrows which
had oppressed her in the morning belonged no more to any existence in
which she herself had a part. Then, looking up, she saw her husband
crossing the street between the two men with whom he had lunched, and
even the impressive solidity of Perry Bridewell appeared to her
strangely altered and out of place.
He came up, a little breathless from his rapid walk, and it was a minute
before he could summon voice to introduce the cheerful, fresh-coloured
youth on his right hand.
"I've already told Mrs. Bridewell about you, Mr. Trent," he said at
last, "but I'm willing to confess that I haven't told her half the
truth."
Gerty met Trent's embarrassed glance with the protecting smile with
which she favoured the young who combined his sex with his attractions.
Then, when he was quite at ease again, she turned to speak to Roger
Adams, for whom, in spite, as she laughingly said, of the distinction
between a bookworm and a butterfly, she was accustomed to admit a more
than ordinary liking.
He was a gaunt, scholarly looking man of forty years, with broad,
singularly bony shoulders, an expression of kindly humour, and a plain,
strong face upon which suffering had left its indelible suggestion of
defeated physical purpose. Nothing about him was impressive, nothing
even arresting to a casual glance, and not even the shooting light from
the keen gray eyes, grown a little wistful from the emotional repression
of the man's life, could account for the cordial appeal that spoke
through so unimposing a figure. As much of his personal history as Gerty
knew seemed to her peculiarly devoid of the interest or the excitement
of adventure; and the only facts of his life which she would have found
deserving the trouble of repeating were that he had married an
impossible woman somewhere in Colorado, and that for ten years he had
lived in New York where he edited _The International Review_.
"Perry tells me that Mr. Trent has really read Laura's poems," she said
now to Adams with an almost unconscious abandonment of her cynical
manner. "Have you examined him and is it really true?"
"I didn't test him because I hoped the report was false," was Adams'
answer. "He's welcome to the literary hash, but I want to keep the
_caviar_ for myself."
"Read them!" exclaimed Trent eagerly, while his blue eyes ran entirely
to sparkles. "Why, I've learned them every one by heart."
"Then she'll let you in," responded Gerty reassuringly, "there's no
doubt whatever of your welcome."
"But there is of mine," said Perry gravely, "so I guess I'd better
quit."
He made a movement to turn away, but Gerty placing her gloved hand on
his arm, detained him by a reproachful look.
"That reminds me of the mischief you have done to-day," she said. "I met
Arnold Kemper as I left the house, and when I asked him to come with me
what do you suppose was the excuse he gave?"
"The dentist or a twinge of rheumatism?" suggested Adams gravely.
"Neither." Her voice rose indignantly, and she enforced her reprimand by
a light stroke on Perry's sleeve. "He actually said that Perry had told
him Laura wasn't pretty."
"Well, I take back my words and eat 'em, too," cried Perry.
He broke away in affected terror before Trent's angry eyes, while Gerty
gave a joyful little exclamation and waved her hand toward one of the
lower windows in the house before which they stood. The head of a woman,
framed in brown creepers, appeared there for an instant, and then,
almost before Trent had caught a glimpse of the small dark eager figure,
melted again into the warm firelight of the interior. A moment later the
outer door opened quickly, and Laura stood there with impulsive
outstretched hands and the cordial smile which was her priceless
inheritance from a Southern mother.
"I knew that you were there even before I looked out of the window," she
exclaimed to Gerty, in what Adams had once called her "Creole voice."
Then she paused, laughing happily, as she looked, with her animated
glance, from Gerty to Trent and from Trent to Adams. To the younger man,
full of his enthusiasm and his ignorance, the physical details of her
appearance seemed suddenly of no larger significance than the pale
bronze gown she wore or the old coffee-coloured lace knotted upon her
bosom in some personal caprice of dress. What she gave to him as she
stood there, looking from Adams to himself with her ardent friendly
glance, was an impression of radiant energy, of abundant life.
She turned back after the first greeting, leading the way into the
pleasant firelit room, where a white haired old gentleman with an
interesting blanched face rose to receive them.
"I have just proved to Mr. Wilberforce that I could 'feel' you coming,"
said Laura with a smile as she unfastened Gerty's furs.
"And I have argued that she could quite as well surmise it," returned
Mr. Wilberforce, as he fell back into his chair before the wood fire.
"Well, you may know in either way that my coming may be counted on,"
said Gerty, "for I have sacrificed for you the society of the most
interesting man I know."
"What! Is it possible that Perry has been forsaken?" enquired Adams in
his voice of quiet humor. In the midst of her flippant laughter, Gerty
turned on him the open cynicism of her smile.
"Now is it possible that Perry has that effect on you?" she asked with
curiosity. "For I find him decidedly depressing."
"Then if it isn't Perry I demand the name," persisted Adams gayly,
"though I'm perfectly ready to wager that it's Arnold Kemper."
"Kemper," repeated Laura curiously, as if the name arrested her almost
against her will. "Wasn't there a little novel once by an Arnold
Kemper--a slight but striking thing with very little grammar and a great
deal of audacity?"
"Oh, that was done in his early days," replied Adams, "as a kind of
outlet to the energy he now expends in racing motors. I asked Funsten,
who does our literary notices, if there was any chance for him again in
fiction, and he answered that the only favourable thing he could say of
him was to say nothing."
"But he's gone in for automobiles now," said Gerty, "they're so much
bigger, after all, he thinks, than books."
"I haven't seen him for fifteen years," remarked Adams, "but I recognise
his speech."
"One always recognises his speeches," admitted Gerty, "there's a stamp
on them, I suppose, for somehow he himself is great even if his career
isn't--and, after all," she concluded seriously, "it is--what shall I
call it--the personal quantity that he insists on."
"The personal quantity," repeated Laura laughing, and, as if the
description of Kemper had failed to interest her, she turned the
conversation upon the subject of Trent's play.
CHAPTER II
TREATS OF AN ECCENTRIC FAMILY
When the last caller had gone Laura slid back the folding doors which
opened into the library and spoke to a little old gentleman, with a very
bald head, who sat in a big armchair holding a flute in his wrinkled and
trembling hand. He had a simple, moonlike face, to which his baldness
lent a deceptive appearance of intellect, and his expression was of such
bland and smiling goodness that it was impossible to resent the tedious
garrulity of his conversation. In the midst of his shrivelled
countenance his eyes looked like little round blue buttons which had
been set there in order to keep his features from entirely slipping
away. He was the oldest member of the Wilde family, and he had lived in
the house in Gramercy Park since it was built by his father some sixty
years or more ago.
"Tired waiting, Uncle Percival?" asked Laura, raising her voice a little
that it might penetrate his deafened hearing.
As he turned upon her his smile of perfect patience the old gentleman
nodded his head quickly several times in succession. "I waited to play
until after the people went," he responded in a voice that sounded like
a cracked silver bell. "Your Aunt Angela has a headache, so she couldn't
stand the noise. I went out to get her some flowers and offered to sit
with her, but this is one of her bad days, poor girl." He fell silent
for a minute and then added, wistfully, "I'm wondering if you would like
to hear 'Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon'? It used to be your mother's
favourite air."
Though he was an inoffensively amiable and eagerly obliging old man, by
some ironic contradiction of his intentions his life had become a series
of blunders through which he endeavoured to add his share to the general
happiness. His soul was overflowing with humanity, and he spent
sleepless nights evolving innocent pleasures for those about him, but
his excess of goodness invariably resulted in producing petty annoyances
if not serious inconveniences. So his virtues had come to be regarded
with timidity, and there was an ever present anxiety in the air as to
what Uncle Percival was "doing" in his mind. The fear of inopportune
benefits was in its way as oppressive as the dread of unmerited
misfortune.
Laura shook her head impatiently as she threw herself into a chair on
the other side of the tall bronze lamp upon the writing table. On the
stem of an eccentric family tree she was felt to be the perfect flower
of artistic impulses, and her enclosed life in the sombre old house had
not succeeded in cultivating in her the slightest resemblance to an
artificial variety. She was obviously, inevitably, impulsively the
original product, and Uncle Percival never realised this more hopelessly
than in that unresponsive headshake of dismissal. Laura could be kind,
he knew, but she was kind, as she was a poet, when the mood prompted.
"Presently--not now," she said, "I want to talk to you awhile. Do you
know, Aunt Rosa was here again to-day and she still tries to persuade us
to sell the house and move uptown. It is so far for her to come from
Seventieth Street, she says, but as for me I'd positively hate the
change and Aunt Angela can't even stand the mention of it." She leaned
forward and stroked his arm with one of her earnest gestures. "What
would you do uptown, dear Uncle Percival?" she inquired gently.
The old man laid the flute on his knees, where his shrunken little hands
still caressed it. "Do? why I'd die if you dragged me away from my
roots," he answered.
Laura smiled, still smoothing him down as if he were an amiable dog.
"Well, the Park is very pleasant, you know," she returned, "and it is
full of walks, too. You wouldn't lack space for exercise."
"The Park? Pooh!" piped Uncle Percival, raising his voice; "I wouldn't
give these streets for the whole of Central Park together. Why, I've
seen these pavements laid and relaid for seventy years and I remember
all the men who walked over them. Did I ever tell you of the time I
strolled through Irving Place with Thackeray? As for Central Park, it
hasn't an ounce--not an ounce of atmosphere."
"Oh, well, that settles it," laughed Laura. "We'll keep to our own
roots. We are all of one mind, you and Aunt Angela and I."
"I'm sure Angela would never hear of it," pursued Uncle Percival, "and
in her affliction how could one expect it?"
For a moment Laura looked at him in a compassionate pause before she
made her spring. "There's nothing in the world the matter with Aunt
Angela," she said; "she's perfectly well."
Blank wonder crept into the old gentleman's little blue eyes and he
shook his head several times in solemn if voiceless protest. Forty years
ago Angela Wilde, as a girl of twenty, had in the accustomed family
phrase "brought lasting disgrace upon them," and she had dwelt, as it
were, in the shadow of the pillory ever since. Unmarried she had yielded
herself to a lover, and afterward when the full scandal had burst upon
her head, though she had not then reached the fulfilment of a singularly
charming beauty, she had condemned herself to the life of a solitary
prisoner within four walls. She had never since the day of her awakening
mentioned the name of her faithless or unfortunate lover, but her silent
magnanimity had become the expression of a reproach too deep for words,
and her bitter scorn of men had so grown upon her in her cloistral
existence that there were hours together when she could not endure even
the inoffensive Percival. Cold, white, and spectral as one of the long
slim candles on an altar, still beautiful with an indignant and wounded
loveliness, she had become in the end at once the shame and the romance
of her family.
"There is no reason under the sun why Aunt Angela shouldn't come down to
dinner with us to-night," persisted Laura. "Don't you see that by
encouraging her as you did in her foolish attitude, you have given her
past power over her for life and death. It is wrong--it is ignoble to
bow down and worship anything--man, woman, child, or event, as she bows
down and worships her trouble."
The flute shook on Uncle Percival's knees. "Ah, Laura, would you have
her face the world again?" he asked.
"The world? Nonsense! The world doesn't know there's such a person in
it. She was forgotten forty years ago, only she has grown so selfish in
her grief that she can never believe it."
The old man sighed and shook his head. "The women of this generation
have had the dew brushed off them," he lamented, "but your mother
understood. She felt for Angela."
"And yet it was an old story when my mother came here."
"Some things never grow old, my dear, and shame is one of them."
Laura dismissed the assertion with a shrug of scornful protest, and
turned the conversation at once into another channel. "Am I anything
like my mother, Uncle Percival?" she asked abruptly.
For a moment the old man pondered the question in silence, his little
red hands fingering the mouth of his flute.
"You have the Creole hair and the Creole voice," he replied; "but for
the rest you are your father's child, every inch of you."
"My mother was beautiful, I suppose?"
"Your father thought so, but as for me she was too little and
passionate. I can see her now when she would fly into one of her spasms
because somebody had crossed her or been impolite without knowing it."
"They got on badly then--I mean afterward."
"What could you expect, my dear? It was just after the War, and, though
she loved your father, she never in her heart of hearts forgave him his
blue uniform. There was no reason in her--she was all one fluttering
impulse, and to live peaceably in this world one must have at least a
grain of leaven in the lump of one's emotion." He chuckled as he ended
and fixed his mild gaze upon the lamp. Being very old, he had come to
realise that of the two masks possible to the world's stage, the comic,
even if the less spectacular, is also the less commonplace.
"So she died of an overdose of medicine," said Laura; "I have never been
told and yet I have always known that she died by her own hand.
Something in my blood has taught me."
Uncle Percival shook his head. "No--no, she only made a change," he
corrected. "She was a little white moth who drifted to another
sphere--because she had wanted so much, my child, that this earth would
have been bankrupt had it attempted to satisfy her."
"She wanted what?" demanded Laura, her eyes glowing.
The old man turned upon her a glance in which she saw the wistful
curiosity which belongs to age. "At the moment you remind me of her," he
returned, "and yet you seem so strong where she was only weak."
"What did she want? What did she want?" persisted Laura.
"Well, first of all she wanted your father--every minute of him, every
thought, every heart-beat. He couldn't give it to her, my dear. No man
could. I tell you I have lived to a great age, and I have known great
people, and I have never seen the man yet who could give a woman all the
love she wanted. Women seem to be born with a kind of divination--a
second sight where love is concerned--they aren't content with the mere
husk, and yet that is all that the most of them ever get--"
"But my father?" protested Laura; "he broke his heart for her."
A smile at the fine ironic humour of existence crossed the old man's
sunken lips. "He gave to her dead what she had never had from him
living," he returned. "When she was gone everything--even the man's life
for which he had sacrificed her--turned worthless. He always had the
seeds of consumption, I suppose, and his gnawing remorse caused them to
develop."
A short silence followed his words, while Laura stared at him with eyes
which seemed to weigh gravely the meaning of his words. Then, rising
hurriedly, she made a gesture as if throwing the subject from her and
walked rapidly to the door.
"Aunt Rosa and Aunt Sophy are coming to dine," she said, "so I must
glance at the table. I can't remember now whether I ordered the oysters
or not."
The old man glanced after her with timid disappointment. "So you haven't
time to hear me play?" he asked wistfully.
"Not now--there's Aunt Angela's dinner to be seen to. If Mr. Bleeker
comes with Aunt Sophy you can play to him. He likes it."
"But he always goes to sleep, Laura. He doesn't listen--and besides he
snores so that I can't enjoy my own music."
"That's because he'd rather snore than do anything else. I wouldn't let
that worry me an instant. He goes to sleep at the opera."
She went out, and after giving a few careful instructions to a servant
in the dining-room, ascended the staircase to the large square room in
the left wing where Angela remained a wilful prisoner. As she opened the
door she entered into a mist of dim candle light, by which her aunt was
pacing restlessly up and down the length of the apartment.
To pass from the breathless energy of modern New York into this quiet
conventual atmosphere was like crossing by a single step the division
between two opposing civilisations. Even the gas light, which Angela
could not endure, was banished from her eyes, and she lived always in a
faint, softened twilight not unlike that of some meditative Old-World
cloisters. The small iron bed, the colourless religious prints, the pale
drab walls and the floor covered only by a chill white matting, all
emphasised the singular impression of an expiation that had become as
pitiless as an obsession of insanity. On a small table by a couch, which
was drawn up before a window overlooking the park, there was a row of
little devotional books, all bound neatly in black leather, but beyond
this the room was empty of any consolation for mind or body. Only the
woman herself, with her accusing face and her carelessly arranged
snow-white hair, held and quickened the imagination in spite of her
suggestion of bitter brooding and unbalanced reason. Her eyes looking
wildly out of her pallid face were still the beautiful, fawn-like eyes
of the girl of twenty, and one felt in watching her that the old tragic
shock had paralysed in them the terrible expression of that one moment
until they wore forever the indignant and wounded look with which she
had met the blow that destroyed her youth.
"Dear," said Laura, entering softly as she might have entered a death
chamber. "You will see Aunt Rosa and Aunt Sophy, will you not?"
Angela did not stop in her nervous walk, but when she reached the end of
the long room she made a quick, feverish gesture, raising her hands to
push back her beautiful loosened hair. "I will do anything you wish,
Laura, except see their husbands."
"I've ceased to urge that, Aunt Angela, but your own sisters--"
"Oh, I will see them," returned Angela, as if the words--as if any
speech, in fact--were wrung from the cold reserve which had frozen her
from head to foot.
Laura went up to her and, with the impassioned manner which she had
inherited from her Southern mother, enclosed her in a warm and earnest
embrace. "My dear, my dear," she said, "Uncle Percival tells me that
this is one of your bad days. He says, poor man, that he went out and
got you flowers."
Angela yielded slowly, still without melting from her icy remoteness.
"They were tuberoses," she responded, in a voice which was in itself
effectual comment.
"Tuberoses!" exclaimed Laura aghast, "when you can't even stand the
scent of lilies. No wonder, poor dear, that your head aches."
"Mary put them outside on the window sill," said Angela, in a kind of
resigned despair, "but their awful perfume seemed to penetrate the
glass, so she took them down into the coal cellar."
"And a very good place for them, too," was Laura's feeling rejoinder;
"but you mustn't blame him," she charitably concluded, "for he couldn't
have chosen any other flower if he had had the whole Garden of Eden to
select from. It isn't really his fault after all--it's a part of
fatality like his flute."
"He played for me until my head almost split," remarked Angela wearily,
"and then he apologised for stopping because his breath was short."
A startled tremor shook through her as a step was heard on the
staircase. "Who is it, Laura?"
Laura went quickly to the door and, after pausing a moment outside,
returned with a short, flushed, and richly gowned little woman who was
known to the world as Mrs. Robert Bleeker.
More than twenty years ago, as the youngest of the pretty Wilde sisters,
she had, in the romantic fervour of her youth and in spite of the
opposition of her parents, made a love match with a handsome,
impecunious young dabbler in "stocks." "Sophy is a creature of
sentiment," her friends had urged in extenuation of a marriage which was
not then considered in a brilliant light, but to the surprise of
everybody, after the single venture by which she had proved the mettle
of her dreams, she had sunk back into a prosperous and comfortable
mediocrity. She had made her flight--like the queen bee she had soared
once into the farthest, bluest reaches of her heaven, and henceforth she
was quite content to relapse into the utter commonplaces of the hive.
Her yellow hair grew sparse and flat and streaked with gray, her
pink-rose face became over plump and mottled across the nose, and her
mind turned soon as flat and unelastic as her body; but she was
perfectly satisfied with the portion she had had from life, for, having
weighed all things, she had come to regard the conventions as of most
enduring worth.
Now she rustled in with an emphatic announcement of stiff brocade, and
enveloped the spectral Angela in an embrace of comfortable arms and
bosom. Her unwieldy figure reminded Laura of a broad, low wall that has
been freshly papered in a large flowered pattern. On her hands and bosom
a number of fine emeralds flashed, for events had shown in the end that
the impecunious young lover was not fated to dabble in stocks in vain.
"Oh Angela, my poor dear, how are you?" she enquired.
Angela released herself with a shrinking gesture and, turning away, sat
down at the foot of the long couch. "I am the same--always the same,"
she answered in her cold, reserved voice.
"You took your fresh air to-day, I hope?"
"I went down in the yard as usual. Laura," she looked desperately
around, "is that Rosa who has just come in?" As she paused a knock came
at the door, and Laura opened it to admit Mrs. Payne--the eldest, the
richest and the most eccentric of the sisters.
From a long and varied association with men and manners Mrs. Payne had
gathered a certain halo of experience, as of one who had ripened from
mere acquaintance into a degree of positive intimacy with the world. She
had seen it up and down from all sides, had turned it critically about
for her half-humorous, half-sentimental inspection, and the frank
cynicism which now flavoured her candid criticism of life only added the
spice of personality to her original distinction of adventure. As the
wife of an Ambassador to France in the time of the gay Eugénie, and
again as one of the diplomatic circle in Cairo and in Constantinople,
she had stored her mind with precious anecdotes much as a squirrel
stores a hollow in his tree with nuts. Life had taught her that the one
infallible method for impressing your generation is to impress it by a
difference, and, beginning as a variation from type, she had ended by
commanding attention as a preserved specimen of an extinct species.
Long, wiry, animated, and habitually perturbed, she moved in a continual
flutter of speech--a creature to be reckoned with from the little, flat,
round curls upon her temples, which looked as if each separate hair was
held in place by a particular wire, to the sweep of her black velvet
train, which surged at an exaggerated length behind her feet. Her face
was like an old and tattered comic mask which, though it has been flung
aside as no longer provocative of pleasant mirth, still carries upon its
cheeks and eyebrows the smears of the rouge pot and the pencil.
"My dear Angela," she now asked in her excited tones, "have you really
been walking about again? I lay awake all night fearing that you had
over-taxed your strength yesterday. Mrs. Francis Barnes--you never knew
her of course, but she was a distant cousin of Horace's--died quite
suddenly, without an instant's warning, after having walked rapidly
twice up and down the room. Since then I have always looked upon
movement as a very dangerous thing."
"Well, I could hardly die suddenly under any circumstances," returned
Angela, indifferently. "You've been watching by my death-bed for forty
years."
"Oh, dear sister," pleaded Mrs. Bleeker, whose heart, was as soft as her
bosom.
"It does sound as if you thought we really wanted your things,"
commented Mrs. Payne, opening and shutting her painted fan. "Of
course--if you were to die we should be too heart-broken to care what
you left--but, since we are on the subject, I've always meant to ask you
to leave me the shawl of old rose-point which belonged to mother."
"Rosa, how can you?" remonstrated Mrs. Bleeker, "I am sure I hope Angela
will outlive me many years, but if she doesn't I want everything she has
to go to Laura."
"Well, I'm sure I don't see how Laura could very well wear a rose-point
shawl," persisted Mrs. Payne. "I wouldn't have started the subject for
anything on earth, Angela, but, since you've spoken of it, I only
mention what is in my mind. And now don't say a word, Sophy, for we'll
go back to other matters. In poor Angela's mental state any little
excitement may bring on a relapse."
"A relapse of what?" bluntly enquired honest Mrs. Bleeker.
Mrs. Payne turned upon her a glance of indignant calm.
"Why a relapse of--of her trouble," she responded. "You show a strange
lack of consideration for her condition, but for my part I am perfectly
assured that it needs only some violent shock, such as may result from
a severe fall or the unexpected sight of a man, to produce a serious
crisis."
Mrs. Bleeker shook her head with the stubborn common sense which was the
reactionary result of her romantic escapade.
"A fall might hurt anybody," she rejoined, "but I'm sure I don't see why
the mere sight of a man should. I've looked at one every day for thirty
years and fattened on it, too."
"That," replied Mrs. Payne, who still delighted to prick at the old
scandal with a delicate dissecting knife, "is because you have only
encountered the sex in domestic shackles. As for me, I haven't the least
doubt in the world that the sudden shock of beholding a man after forty
years would be her death blow."
"But she has seen Percival," insisted Mrs. Bleeker; and feeling that her
illustration did not wholly prove her point added, weakly, "at least he
wears breeches."
"I would not see him if I could help myself," broke in Angela, with
sudden energy. "I never--never--never wish to see a man again in this
world or the next."
Mrs. Payne glanced sternly at Mrs. Bleeker and followed it with an
emphatic head shake, which said as plainly as words, "So there's your
argument."
"All the same, I don't believe Robert would shock her," remarked Mrs.
Bleeker.
"Never--never--never," repeated Angela in a frozen agony, and, rising,
she walked restlessly up and down again until a servant appeared to
inform the visiting sisters that dinner and Miss Wilde awaited them
below.
CHAPTER III
APOLOGISES FOR AN OLD-FASHIONED ATMOSPHERE
As soon as dinner was over Uncle Percival retired with Mr. Bleeker into
the library, from which retreat there issued immediately the shrill
piping of the flute. Mr. Bleeker, with an untouched glass of sherry at
his elbow and an unlighted cigar in his hand, sank back into the placid
after-dinner reverie which is found in the rare cases when old age has
encountered a faultless digestion. The happiest part of his life was
spent in the pleasant state between waking and sleeping, while as yet
the flavour of his favourite dishes still lingered in his mouth--just as
the most blissful moments known to Uncle Percival were those in which he
piped his cherished airs upon his antiquated instrument. The eldest
member of the Wilde family was very old indeed--had in fact successfully
rounded some years ago the critical point of his eightieth birthday, and
there was the zest of a second childhood in the animation with which he
had revived the single accomplishment of his early youth. That youth was
now more vivid to his requickened memory than the present was to his
enfeebled faculties. The past had become a veritable obsession in his
mind, and when he fingered the old flute strength came back to his
half-palsied hands and breath returned to his shrunken little body. His
own music was the one sound he heard in all its distinctness, and he
hung upon it with an enjoyment which was almost doting in its childish
delight.
So the fluting went on merrily, while Mrs. Payne and Mrs. Bleeker, after
fidgeting a moment in the drawing-room, decided that they would return
for a word or two with Angela. "It is really the only place in the house
where one can escape Percival's music," declared Mrs. Payne, who frankly
confessed that she had reached the time of life when to bore her was the
chief offence society could commit, "so, besides the comfort I afford
dear Angela, it is much the pleasantest place for me to pass the
evening. I've always been a merciful woman my child," she pursued
shaking her little flat, false gray curls above her painted wrinkles,
"for never in my life have I cast a stone at anyone who amused me; but
as for Percival and his flute! Well, I won't say a disagreeable word on
the subject, but I honestly think that a passion at his age is
absolutely indecent."
She was so grotesquely gorgeous with her winking diamonds and her old
point lace, which yawned over her lean neck, that the distinction she
had always aimed at seemed achieved at last by an ironic exaggeration.
"At least it is a perfectly harmless passion," suggested her husband, a
beautiful old man of seventy gracious years.
"Harmless!" gasped Mrs. Payne. "Why, it has wrecked the nerves of the
entire family, has given me Saint Vitus' dance, has kept Laura awake for
nights, has reduced Angela to hysterics, and you actually have the face
to tell me it is harmless! Judged by its effects, I consider it quite
as reprehensible as a taste for cards or a fancy for a chorus girl.
Those are vices at least that belong to our century and to civilisation,
but a flute is nothing less than a relic of barbarism."
"Well, it's worse on me than on anyone else," said Laura, with the
dominant spirit which caused Mr. Payne to shiver whenever she tilted
against his wife. "My room is just above, and I get the benefit of every
note."
The tune issuing from the library had changed suddenly into "The Land o'
the Leal," and by the lamp light Uncle Percival could be seen, warm and
red and breathless but still blissfully fluting to the sleeping Mr.
Bleeker, whose face, fallen back against the velvet cushions, wore a
broad, beatific smile.
"He gets his happiness from it at least," persisted Laura. "I suppose
it's a part of his life
|
ornwood.
About two thirds of the students followed the coxswains to the lake. It
looked as though the other third intended to rebel at once, for they
remained in the dressing-room after the others had gone.
CHAPTER II.
AN IMPROMPTU RACE BETWEEN THE BEECH HILL BARGES.
"Here are eight of us, and not one of the eight has touched any beer
since he joined the school," said Lew Shoreham, after the majority of
the boys had gone, and he had got the bearings of the question under
discussion.
"I am in favor of standing out, for one," added Tom Ridley. "I am
willing to do my duty and obey all the rules, but I am not going to be
rigged out like a state-prison bird when I haven't done anything out of
the way."
"It looks like punishing the whole crowd for the sins of the two fellows
who drank the beer," continued Harry Franklin.
"If the captain knows who the fellows are, why don't he put them into
uniform, and not make black sheep of the whole of us?"
"I don't believe in doing anything in a hurry," interposed Bart
Cornwall. "If we are going to stand out, we want to know what we are
about before we begin."
"That's my idea," added Bob Swanton. "Let us understand what we are
going to do before we begin."
"Perhaps we had better talk it over among ourselves before we do
anything," mused Lew Shoreham. "There is time enough before to-morrow
morning."
"That's the idea," Life Windham chimed in. "The worst we can do is to
refuse to wear the uniform; and we can't refuse before the clothes are
given to us."
"By the way, did you fellows hear that the Chesterfield students have
two barges like ours?" inquired Phil Gawner.
"I know they have, for I saw the kid-glovers out in them," replied Lick
Milton.
"When did you see them, Lick?" asked Lew Shoreham.
"Day before yesterday. They were pulling in the barges near the shore."
"The rest of the fellows will go off without us if we don't hurry up,"
added Bart Cornwall. "Sandy Beach is not far from the Chesterfield
Institute."
Phil Gawner bolted from the room in hot haste, and the other rebels
followed him. The rebellion seemed to be forgotten, for there was
already something like rivalry existing between the two educational
institutions on the opposite sides of the lake. The Chesterfield young
gentlemen, when they came within hailing distance of the boys of Beech
Hill, had taken occasion to manifest their contempt by words, signs, and
other demonstrations. They called the industrial school "The Tinkers'
Institute," and this term was exceedingly offensive to our boys.
But the beautiful steam yacht in which the "Tinkers" voyaged on the
lake, and especially the magnificent twelve-oar barges in which they
sported upon the waves, excited the envy of the "Kid-Glovers." Colonel
Buckmill suddenly found his prestige slipping away from him. He had a
variety of boats for the use of his students, though none of them were
sailing craft. He was no sailor himself, and he had a mortal dread of
sailboats.
As soon as he realized the state of feeling among his students, he
hastened to New York, where he succeeded in finding a couple of barges
like those which had been built for the Beech Hill school. He had
purchased them at a large price, and they had arrived a few days
before. Colonel Buckmill was a soldier and a gentleman, but he wished
that Captain Gildrock had located his fanciful school, as he regarded
it, a thousand miles from Lake Champlain.
"What's the matter now?" demanded Matt Randolph, when the rebels rushed
out on the pier at which the two barges lay. "I thought you were going
to deprive us of the pleasure of your company to-day."
"We have concluded to go with you, and keep you out of hot water,"
replied Lew.
"And keep yourselves out of hot water, which is more sensible," added
the coxswain of the Gildrock, as he seated his crew in the boat.
"I thought you were not going for fear some one would see you and know
that you belong to the B. H. I. S.," added Will Orwell, with a laugh.
"Up oars!" shouted Matt, when the crew of both boats were seated; and
the order was repeated by Dory.
Ten oars in each boat went up to a perpendicular, with the flat side of
the blades parallel with the thwarts. The coxswains looked them over to
see that all were in proper position.
"Shove off!" continued the coxswains.
The bow oarsmen shoved off the head of each barge, and the stroke
oarsmen used their boathooks until the boats were clear of the pier.
Then the bowmen coiled up the painters, and the after oarsmen took care
of the stern lines. When they had done this duty, they elevated their
oars without any orders.
"Let fall!" said Matt and Dory, when the boats were clear of the pier.
The crews had been so well trained that the twenty-four oars struck the
water at the same instant; but the loom, or part near the handle, of the
oars was not allowed to fall upon the rail, or into the rowlocks. They
are put in proper position after they are dropped.
"Give way--together!" said Matt and Dory, when they had seen that each
oarsman was ready for the pull.
All the rowers caught the stroke the first time trying, but it had taken
a great deal of practice to enable them to do so. The boys pulled a very
even, uniform, and steady stroke. All the oars were raised to the same
height above the water, and sunk to the same depth beneath its surface.
The barges were not mere fancy craft, built for speed, and for nothing
else. Considering their great size they were very light, but they were
strongly built. They were constructed after a beautiful model, yet at
the same time they were good sea boats, able and safe. As the students
were liable to be caught on the other side of the lake in rough weather,
Captain Gildrock considered staunch boats as necessary on Lake Champlain
as on the ocean. The short, choppy sea of the fresh-water lakes is more
trying to any kind of a craft than the long waves of the Atlantic.
The two barges darted down the lake as though they had been shot from a
gun. It was a cool day, with the wind fresh from the northwest, and the
crews were in just the right condition to do their best at the oars.
Since their recent defeat in the race, the first class had been working
hard to improve in rowing, and Matt Randolph had succeeded in imparting
his own enthusiasm to his crew. But nothing was said about another race,
for the first class meant to be sure before they risked another trial.
Dory Dornwood saw what the machinists--as they sometimes called the
higher class--were about, and he did not go to sleep.
The boats passed through the narrow outlet into Beaver River, and the
Winooski appeared to have lost a length in coming down from Beech Hill
Lake. Dory watched the Gildrock, and soon discovered that she was
gaining on him. The other crew had been practising by themselves a good
deal lately, and it was evident that Matt Randolph had made a decided
improvement both in style and power in the work of his crew.
Dory said nothing, and did not attempt to increase the speed of his
boat. At the mouth of the river the Gildrock was half a dozen lengths
ahead of him, and her crew seemed to be exerting themselves to widen the
distance between the two barges. The boys of the leading boat could see
the other all the time, while the Winooskis could not, for no rower was
allowed to look behind him.
"The Gildrock is half a mile ahead of us!" exclaimed Life Windham, the
stroke oarsman of the Winooski; for the other boat had changed her
course to the southward, and a side glance had enabled him to see her.
"Not so bad as that, Life," replied Dory, with a smile.
"Don't let them beat us, Dory," added Ned Bellows, on the next thwart.
"They have been getting ready to whip us," said Dick Short. "They have
been at work by themselves for the last week."
"They have got about all the older and stouter fellows in the school,
and we must expect that they will beat us sometimes," replied Dory
philosophically. "But we have also been in training, and if they beat us
they have got to work for it."
"But they are beating us!" exclaimed Life, as he got another glance at
the Gildrock. "Matt Randolph has been putting in some extra New York
touches, and it is all up with us."
"Not yet," answered Dory quietly. "We have been taking it easy, and they
have been using their muscle. Wait a little."
By this time every boy in the Winooski was aware that the Gildrock was
running away from them, and the fact vexed and annoyed them. If they
were beaten, even in a "scrub race," Dory would lose a portion of his
popularity. The coxswain watched the other boat, but he did nothing to
increase the speed of the Winooski. Some of the boys in the boat began
to grumble, though conversation was not allowed while rowing.
"No talking in the boat, if you please, fellows," the coxswain
interposed, and the grumbling ceased.
Dory could see that the Gildrocks were straining themselves to run away
from the Winooski. The first class fellows were not so far off that he
could not read the expression of their faces, and see the smiles of
satisfaction with which they regarded their advantage. He permitted them
to enjoy their victory, as they evidently regarded it, until they were
at least twenty-five lengths ahead. Matt Randolph frequently looked
behind him to note the position of his rival.
All at once the oars of the Gildrock ceased to move, but every blade was
in proper position. Then came three rousing cheers from her crew, with a
tiger at the end. This was certainly crowing over the victory: The
Winooskis, except the coxswain, were vexed, and even angry. Some of them
began to grumble again; but Dory laughed, and called for silence in the
boat. The crew obeyed the order, for they had come to believe that Dory
knew what he was about "every time."
His crew soon knew what he was about, for he straightened up his wiry
little frame, and then began to sway it back and forward to regulate the
stroke of the rowers. In a few minutes every muscle was strained up to
its utmost tension. The Winooski began to fly through the water. There
was quite a smart sea on the lake, which Dory took into account, and
humored the boat as it met the waves.
The Gildrocks saw what Dory was doing, and Matt set his crew on the
strain again. At the end of a quarter of an hour the Gildrock was less
than a length ahead. The crew of the first class boat were in a terrible
state of excitement. They could see the other boat, and the effect upon
them was bad when the Winooski began to gain on them. The Gildrocks were
demoralized.
In three minutes more the Winooski had passed the other barge.
"Stand by to toss!" said Dory quietly.
The complimentary salute was given, but the coxswain declined to call
for three cheers.
CHAPTER III.
DORY DORNWOOD ARGUES THE QUESTION.
"How did we do it, Dory?" asked Life Windham, utterly astonished at the
result of the impromptu race, as were all the other members of the crew.
"We did it by minding our own business," replied the coxswain, as much
pleased as though he had won a rich prize.
"Can't we give them three cheers, Dory?" inquired Ben Ludlow.
"No cheers, fellows," replied Dory, shaking his head to emphasize his
decision.
"But the Gildrocks cheered when they got ahead of us," suggested Ben
Ludlow.
"No matter if they did; it was bad taste, and they crowed before they
were out of the woods."
"But I don't understand how it was that we happened to beat them,"
persisted Life Windham. "As you said, they have most of the older and
stouter fellows in their crew."
"They ought to beat us every time," added Ned Bellows.
"Age and strength alone won't make the best rowers," replied Dory
sagely. "Some of the fellows in the other boat are rather heavy and
clumsy, and, without boasting, I believe they have not got the knack of
rowing well yet."
"Do you think we have got the knack, Dory?" asked Phil Gawner.
"I think we have got it better than the fellows in the other boat,
though we have a good deal to learn yet. You have more spring,
elasticity, than the other fellows. But, fellows, we beat them by
discipline. You grumble because I don't want you to talk and look behind
you; but you obeyed orders, and that's what did the business."
"The first class fellows didn't talk or look behind them," said Life.
"They had no occasion to look behind them, for they could see our boat
without," replied the coxswain. "When they saw us gaining on them they
were excited, and in a little while they got demoralized. You couldn't
see them, and you did your very best."
"Matt Randolph is making a speech at them," said Dick Short, laughing.
"He knows why he was beaten, and he is telling his crew about it,"
added Dory.
The coxswain of the Gildrock was certainly talking as though he "meant
business," for his words and his gestures were very earnest. He and Dory
had talked about the subject upon which Matt was at this moment
eloquent. Both agreed that if all the oarsmen could be blindfolded they
would do better in a race. It was the province of discipline to keep
them unmindful of success or defeat.
"Stand by to lay on your oars!" called Dory suddenly, while his crew
were still watching the gesticulations of Matt Randolph.
The crew of the Winooski, who had been pulling very leisurely for some
minutes, gave attention to their officer at once.
"Oars!" added Dory: and, the moment he gave the word, the oars were
levelled at right angles with the length of the boat, with the blades
feathered.
All the crew looked at the coxswain, wondering what was coming, for they
had taken a rest after the Gildrock was beaten, and were not in need of
another. This was the usual position of the crew when the officer had
anything to say, or any announcement to make.
"Now you may look behind you, if you wish," continued Dory, with a
meaning smile.
Every rower believed there was something to be seen, or the permission
would not have been given, and they all availed themselves of the
opportunity.
"The kid-glovers afloat!" shouted Thad Glovering, in the bow.
"Gentility on the wave!" exclaimed Life Windham.
"The dudes in the spray!" added Jim Alburgh.
"The exquisites on a racket!" cried Nat Long.
"Dandies on the brine!" chuckled Ben Ludlow.
"Fresh-water brine," added Dory.
"They are pulling towards Sandy Beach," said Corny Minkfield.
All these sarcastic remarks were called forth by the appearance ahead of
two barges, similar to those belonging to the Beech Hill school. They
were very gaily painted, and, whatever their merits for speed and
ability, they were quite as handsome as the Gildrock and Winooski.
"Twig the uniform!" exclaimed Ned Bellows.
"But that's only a boat uniform," replied Life Windham, who was one of
the incipient rebels. "None of our fellows object to the uniform they
wear on board of the Sylph."
The uniform of the Chesterfields--for there was no doubt as to the
identity of the occupants of the barges--was blue flannel, trimmed with
white. It was very fanciful, and rather a sensational costume.
"I suppose every one of them wears an eyeglass, and has a cane under his
thwart," laughed Phil Gawner.
"And every one parts his hair in the middle, so as to keep the boats on
an even keel," added Lick Milton.
"Anything more?" inquired Dory.
"I wonder if they row in kid gloves," said Ben Ludlow.
The boys seemed to have exhausted their terms applicable to the young
gentlemen of the Collegiate Institute, and a silence followed. There
could be no mistaking the sentiment of the crew of the Winooski. They
were disposed to ridicule and lampoon the young gentlemen without mercy.
Possibly there was some justification or palliation for the
manifestation of this spirit, for the Chesterfields had applied
offensive terms to them on several occasions.
"Now, fellows, I should like to have you hear me for a moment," said
Dory, when the crew appeared to have exhausted their supply of taunts.
"All right, Dory: propel," answered Phil Gawner.
"Those boats seem to be going to Sandy Beach; but that is no reason why
we should not go there also."
"Of course it isn't!" exclaimed Ben Ludlow. "We have as much right at
Sandy Beach as they have, and if they want to prevent us from going
there, there will be music in the air."
"It is not at all likely that they will try to prevent us from going
there," added Dory. "Those fellows claim to be gentlemen, and Colonel
Buckmill claims it for them."
"The proof of the pudding is in eating the bag," said Ben Ludlow.
"This is a baked pudding, and there isn't any bag," returned Dory. "If
those fellows are gentlemen they have made some slips, to put it in the
softest way we can. They have yelled at us, and called us 'tinkers,'
which is not a gentlemanly way to do things."
"That's it; and we will give them some of the same sauce," said Phil
Gawner, with a threatening shake of the head.
"That's the very thing we will not do!" exclaimed Dory, with very heavy
emphasis. "If the Chesterfields behave in an ungentlemanly manner, there
is not the slightest reason why we should do so."
"Do you mean to let them call us names?" demanded Lick Milton, with a
great show of indignation.
"I am not responsible for what they do: only for what I do myself,"
answered the coxswain, with dignity enough for the principal of a high
school.
"But we are not going to shut our mouths and let them insult us,"
protested Ben Ludlow.
"What do you mean by insulting you, Ben?" asked Dory quietly.
"They call us members of the 'Tinkers' Institute;' and that is an insult
to the school to which we belong. For one, I won't stand it!"
"What do you intend to do about it?"
"I mean to pay them back in their own coin."
"Call them dudes, kid-glovers, exquisites, dandies, milksops, and
anything else we can think of," added Ned Bellows.
"Will calling them all these names wipe out the insult?" asked the
dignified coxswain; but it should be said, to his credit, that he was
dignified only when he was discussing great moral questions as the
officer in command of the barge.
"We shall get even with them in that way," answered Ben Ludlow.
"If one of them should steal your watch, Ben, it would make him a
thief--would it not?"
"No doubt of that."
"Then you would steal his watch, and thus get even with him, would you?"
continued Dory, pressing his point with vigor.
"I don't say that I would," replied Ben.
"You would certainly get even with him in that way. I should like to
have you answer the question, Ben."
"I should serve him right if I did steal his watch after he had taken
mine," replied the cornered oarsman.
"That don't answer the question, and, after what you say, I must take it
for granted that you would steal his watch."
"I didn't say I would."
"If you did steal his watch, would you, or would you not be a thief?"
Ben Ludlow did not like to answer this question, and he was silent.
"Of course he would be a thief!" exclaimed Life Windham; and half a
dozen others took this view of the question.
"If the owner of the watch should prosecute you, would the judge decide
that taking the watch was not stealing because the owner of it had
stolen your watch before you did it?"
"Stealing is stealing, of course," answered Ben Ludlow.
"Then you would both be thieves," added Dory clinching his argument.
"There is no getting away from that conclusion," said Ned Bellows; and
the rest of the crew indorsed his opinion.
"I suppose one who calls names is a blackguard. When the students of the
Collegiate Institute call us 'tinkers' 'greasy mechanics' or any other
offensive names, they are blackguards," continued Dory.
"No doubt of that, the blackguards!" exclaimed Dick Short.
"Good! We proceed to call them 'dudes,' 'kid-glovers,' 'exquisites' and
such terms, and straightway we become blackguards also."
"I don't think stealing and hitting back are the same thing," growled
Ben Ludlow, who felt that he was thoroughly beaten in the argument.
"But what makes a thief or a blackguard on one side of the lake makes a
thief or a blackguard on the other side," added Dory.
"Now, fellows, you have just won a victory by holding your tongues and
minding your own business. I want you to obey orders, and win another
victory in the same way."
"All right, Dory; we will obey orders, for you get us through every time
when we do," said Corny Minkfield.
"But I think we ought to give them some if they are saucy to us,"
persisted Ben Ludlow.
"We will give them some--some instruction in gentlemanly behavior if
they need it," replied Dory. "Give way!"
Ben Ludlow raised no farther objection, and the boat went ahead again in
the direction of Sandy Beach.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHESTERFIELDS HANG OUT THEIR BANNERS.
"Not a fellow will speak without orders," said Dory Dornwood, as the
Winooski approached Sandy Beach.
The coxswain of the barge felt that a great responsibility rested upon
him. He had no doubt the young gentlemen of the Chesterfield Collegiate
Institute would indulge in epithets when they came within hail of the
Beech Hill boat, for they never failed to do it whenever the opportunity
was presented. Matt Randolph was still laying down the law to his crew,
and the Gildrock was not within a mile of the little cove at the head of
which was Sandy Beach.
If the crew of the Winooski retorted, as they were disposed to do, there
would be a war of epithets, and the affair would not be likely to end
without a fight. No one on board questioned the coxswain's pluck. Some
of them called him a "conundrum," because they could not understand him.
Oscar Chester had the reputation of being the greatest fighting
character in the school, though he had earned his name in other fields.
Yet Dory had "knocked him out" in the twinkling of an eye. But the
coxswain always did his best to avoid a quarrel of any sort, and never
bullied or crowded anyone.
Now he would not allow his crew to retaliate upon the Chesterfields,
whatever they said, or however abusive they became. The crew of the
second class boat had never seen a fellow like him. But he had proved
that he was able to take care of himself and of them, and they were
disposed to follow his lead.
The three boats were approaching the cove, the course of the Winooski
being at right angles with that of the Institute boats. They were now
near enough to enable Dory to take the measure of the rival craft, and
their crews. Under the lee of the west shore the water was quite smooth,
so that the Chesterfields had no sea to contend against.
To the experienced eyes of the coxswain of the Winooski it was plain at
a glance that the gentlemanly oarsmen had no skill in rowing, and had
had no proper instruction in the art. A few days' practice enabled them
to pull together; but this was about all that could be said of their
operations. As it was understood on board of the Beech Hill barges,
there was no such thing as discipline in them. The crew were turning and
twisting about on the thwarts, all of them engaged in noisy
conversation.
The Chesterfields were staring with all their eyes at the Winooski, and
their remarks evidently applied to her. They were out for a good time,
and they seemed to be having it. Dory's crew had put themselves on their
good behavior, and not one of them looked to the right or the left, much
less behind him. They pulled a very easy stroke, and they all worked as
though they were parts of the same machine. But those in the other boats
did not seem to be at all impressed by the ease and grace of their
movements.
The three boats came to the mouth of the cove at the same time. The
attention of every student in the Chesterfield boats was directed
towards the Winooski. They were giving more thought to the Beech Hill
craft than to their own.
"Go it, Tinkers," yelled one of them, as the boats came within hailing
distance.
"Put her through, Chip-splitters," shouted another.
"Let her drive, Cog-greasers," yelled a third.
"Shove her along, Shaving-makers," screamed a fourth; and all of them
cried as though they meant to be heard.
The blood of the Beech Hillers boiled in their veins; but when they
looked at the coxswain, and saw a smile upon his face, they repressed
their indignation as well as they could, and tried to be as cool as Dory
Dornwood. The two barges came nearer, and the offensive epithets were
repeated, with many new ones added. Still Dory Dornwood smiled serenely
in the consciousness that he and his companions had not yet become
blackguards.
"Stand by to toss!" called the coxswain, while the disagreeable names
were still showered upon them.
Tossing the oars is a complimentary naval salute; and Dory was
determined to treat the young gentlemen of the Collegiate Institute
politely, whether they deserved it or not. Probably the crew of the
Winooski did not relish this idea of "turning the other cheek also," but
they had promised to obey orders, and they meant to do it this time, if
it killed them.
"Toss!" added Dory, at the proper time; and the twelve oars went into
the air as though the oarsmen were in love with the Chesterfields.
"The Greasers are showing off!" exclaimed some one in the leading barge.
"Set them up again!" cried another.
"Let fall!" said Dory, giving no heed to the shouts.
The oars dropped into the water all as one, and Dory added the order to
give way.
"They don't understand the salute," said the coxswain, as the boys
resumed their stroke with as much precision as though there had been
nothing to divert their attention.
The steady pulling on board of the Winooski set her into the cove some
distance ahead of the two barges, and by this time the crew could see
the occupants of the other craft without breaking the rule. When they
saw the awkward rowing of the Chesterfields, they could hardly repress
their mirth, but they succeeded in confining it to smiles, in some cases
exaggerated into broad grins, but not one of them uttered the shouts of
derision that were at the ends of their tongues.
On the bow of the leading boat Dory saw the name Dasher, and a glance at
the other showed that she was the Racer. As these names had no doubt
been selected by the gentlemanly students themselves,--for Colonel
Buckmill would certainly have chosen classic appellations,--they
conveyed some idea of the boating views of their crews. Racer was
suggestive of trials of speed, and they would not have been boys if they
had not desired and expected to beat something. Dasher was hardly less
suggestive, and perhaps took in the additional idea of breaking
something.
The Dashers and the Racers had given so much attention to the Winooski
that they lost sight of their own beautiful craft; and they began to
"catch crabs," punch each other with the handles of the oars, and allow
things generally to fall out of joint, so that they were soon in a sweet
snarl. The crew of the Winooski were on the very point of breaking out
into a roar of derision, for the sight was too much for them.
"Steady, fellows," said Dory, in a mild tone. "Keep her just as she is."
The words restored the crew to their self-possession, and they
straightened their faces with a hard struggle. The coxswain of the
Dasher spoke a few sharp words to his crew, and restored order in his
boat.
"I say, Greasers," shouted he, a moment later, making a gesture as if
beckoning to the Winooski.
Dory did not heed the call or the sign.
"Halloo! I say, you fellows from the Tinkers' Institute!" yelled Wash
Barker, coxswain of the Dasher, as his name and style were afterwards
found to be.
The crew of the Winooski still pulled their easy stroke, and Dory took
no notice of the offensive hail.
"I say, you Chip-makers! Are you all deaf? Don't you hear me?" screamed
Wash Barker in a still louder tone.
But Dory would not have heard him if his voice had been an earthquake
while he mixed an epithet into his remark.
"Don't you want to race with us, Tinkers?" called Mad Twinker, the
coxswain of the Racer, which had now come up abreast of the Dasher.
"Steady, fellows," said Dory in a low tone.
"I should like to try a race with those fellows," added Life Windham;
and half a dozen others indorsed the wish.
"It would be no race at all; if we should give them a mile, we could
beat them in going two," replied Dory.
"It will do them good to beat them," suggested Ned Bellows.
"While they call us names I shall have nothing to say or do with them,"
added the coxswain.
"I should like to get even with them in some way," said Ben Ludlow; for,
"though beaten, he could argue still."
"I don't want to get even with them. We are a long way ahead of them in
gentlemanly conduct, and we should have to fall back a long distance to
be even with them," answered the coxswain.
This remark satisfied most of the crew, and was even comforting to Ben
Ludlow. The Chesterfields continued to yell at the Winooski, exercising
their inventing powers in inventing new terms of derision to apply to
the Beech Hill students. Dory maintained his policy of silence to the
end, and very likely the collegiate gentlemen thought they were treated
with contempt.
The Winooski ran up to the beach at the head of the cove, and her crew
landed. The Gildrock was not yet in sight, and it was apparent that Matt
Randolph was taking his defeat very much to heart, and was training his
crew. The second class boat was carefully secured, and in a few minutes
more the crew were swimming at some distance from the shore, for they
had to go out at least ten rods to find water that was over their heads.
The boys were enthusiastic in this recreation, as they were in the
boats, and they soon forgot the scenes in which the Chesterfields had
taken part. They had received plenty of instruction in swimming, and
what they needed now was abundant practice. But by this time there was
not a single one of them who could not sustain himself and make fair
progress in the deep water.
The Dasher and the Racer had also run to the beach, and their crews had
landed. Dory supposed they were going into the water, and he hardly gave
a thought to them. For a time they gathered in knots on the shore, and
seemed to be busy talking together. Then they began to walk about, and
extended their ramble to a considerable distance. They did not go into
the water, and at the end of half an hour they embarked in their boats
and pulled out of the cove.
But they did not go a great way. At the entrance to the cove, half a
mile distant, they lay upon their oars. Thus far the Winooskis had been
so busy with their sports in the water that they hardly heeded the
Chesterfields. The young gentlemen had departed, and the skirmishing
for that day appeared to be at an end.
"What are those fellows about?" shouted Corny Minkfield, when the
operations of the Chesterfields attracted his attention.
Every member of the Winooski's crew glanced in the direction from which
the two barges had been last seen. The boats were at rest at the
entrance of the cove; but their crews were not laying on their oars.
Each one of them had raised something like a flag or a rag on his blade.
They were all yelling like maniacs, and flaunting these banners in the
air. The Winooskis swam to shallow water, and stood upon their feet. It
was time to go out, and they went ashore.
The Chesterfields had stolen their clothes; and these garments were the
banners they flaunted.
CHAPTER V.
JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE.
"They have stolen our clothes!" shouted Ben Ludlow, who was the first to
discover the mischief that had been done.
"Shall we steal theirs if we can get hold of them?" asked Dory.
"We can't get hold of them," replied Ben, who was not disposed to renew
the former discussion.
"Perhaps we can; we know where they are, and all we have to do is to go
and take them," added the coxswain, with a smile and a shrug of the
shoulders.
"But the fellows have them on," Ben objected.
"That has nothing to do with the right and wrong of the question,"
continued Dory.
"I think we had better get back our own clothes before we talk of
stealing theirs," said Ben. "I am cold now I have come out of the water,
and I want my shirt and trousers."
"We are all in the same pickle," laughed Dory, as he glanced at the
boats of the Chesterfields.
The collegiate gentlemen seemed to be afraid the Beech Hillers would
not know what had become of their garments, and they were flaunting them
in the air as a matter of information to their rivals. And they seemed
to be enjoying the situation hugely, and the shouts of derision and the
roars of laughter came across the waters thick enough to stir up all the
bad blood in the veins of the Winooskis.
"We are in a pretty fix," exclaimed Phil Gawner, as he extended his arms
as an athlete would exhibit his muscles.
The principal required every student to wear trunks when he bathed, and
was very strict in enforcing the rule. When the second class came out of
the water, they were certainly in uniform, though it was rather unique
in style. It was a cool day, and cooler on the shore than it was in the
water. Most of the boys began to shiver as they stood on the beach, and
the situation was very uncomfortable as well as very annoying, so far as
the proprieties of society were concerned.
"I shall freeze to death," said Lick Milton, his teeth chattering like
those of a person with the ague.
"So shall I! And we shall all catch our death of cold," added Jim
Alburgh.
"I have one cold now, and I shall have another on top of it," shivered
Corny Minkfield.
"All the crew in the boat!" shouted Dory, with a
|
men threw dice for pence
in one corner, while in another, between two rum kegs, sat a girl. She
was about twenty-three years of age, and, although her appearance was
not of that uncommon type so marked in Anny Farran, yet she had a
certain quiet comeliness and gentle expression which made her almost
beautiful. At least the handsome young giant who lounged near her in an
ecstasy of shyness appeared to think so, for he eyed her so intently,
his mouth partly open, that she was forced to pay more attention to the
garment she was patching than was strictly necessary. They sat in
perfect silence for some ten minutes before the young man plucked up
courage to speak. When he did, his voice came uncomfortably from his
throat, and he reddened to the roots of his hair.
“I reckon I’ll be going up west now, Mistress Sue,” he said, as he half
rose to his feet and looked toward the door.
“Oh!”--there was a note of real regret in the girl’s voice--“must you go
so early, Master French?”
Big French sat down again quickly.
“Nay,” he said shortly, and there was silence again for another minute
or so.
She stitched busily the while.
“Is it great business you have in the west, Master French?” she said at
last, her eyes still on her work.
French discovered suddenly that it was easier to talk to her if she was
not looking at him.
“Ay,” he said. “Black’erchief Dick will get in to-morrow.”
Sue sighed.
“Ah!” she said, “you have a fine life, Master French, travelling to and
fro the way you do.”
Big French beamed delightedly.
“Ay,” he said, “a fine life, but dangerous,” he added quickly, “very
dangerous.”
The girl looked at him appraisingly.
“But you are so strong, Master French, what have you to fear from
footpads--you’re in more danger from pretty wenches, I warrant,” she
said, as she shot a sidelong glance at him.
French reddened and smiled sheepishly; then he suddenly grew grave and
his gray eyes regarded her earnestly.
“Wenches? Mistress Sue,” he said, “nay! One wench--that’s all.”
It was Sue’s turn to redden now and she did so very charmingly, and
French, noting her confusion, immediately bethought him of his own, and
he sat fidgeting, his eyes on the tips of his untanned leather boots.
“I’ll be forth to Tiptree market this week if Black’erchief Dick’s
brought aught but rum from Brest,” he said at last, “and if there be
aught you may be wanting from thence, Mistress----?” His voice trailed
off on the question as he studied his boot-toe attentively.
She smiled as she laid a brown hand on his arm, thereby causing him much
nervous disquietude.
“Come back before you go--er--Ezekiel”--Big French started pleasurably
at the sound of his Christian name--“and if I have bethought me of aught
we need from Tiptree, I will be glad if you will get it for me,” she
said.
Big French took the hand that was resting on his sleeve in one big fist
and his other arm slid round the girl’s waist unhindered.
“Sue,” he said softly, “will ye----”
“_Sho I stayed wi’ me rum and me shea_,”
sang Gilbot, suddenly waking up from the doze he had fallen into.
“Shue,” he called, “more rum, lass.”
The girl jumped up to obey him, and Big French swore softly under his
breath.
Two or three seamen entered the kitchen at this moment, and, after
saluting Gilbot, called for drinks and settled themselves in the
high-backed seats on either side of the fire. They began to talk noisily
of their own affairs.
Sue opened an inner door and called for more lights. Gilbot, happy with
his rum, continued to sing.
Big French rose slowly to his feet. He was an enormous figure, some six
feet five inches tall and proportionately broad; his face as the light
from the dripping candles fell on it showed clearly cut and very
handsome. He wore his hair long and his chin had never been shaved, so
that his beard was as silky as his hair, curly and of the colour of
clear honey. He walked over to the door after exchanging greetings with
the rowdy crew at the fireside, and lifted the latch. On the threshold
he was met by Hal and Anny.
They had walked briskly, and the cool air had brought the colour to the
girl’s face and, as she stood there, the men at the fireside, instead of
clamouring for the door to be shut and the draught stayed, sat looking
at her in silent admiration.
Hal Grame, standing just behind her, was the first to speak. He stepped
forward, shutting the door behind him.
“Black’erchief Dick, aboard the _Coldlight_, will be putting into the
Creek inside of an hour,” he said.
Big French looked at him for a moment.
“Black’erchief Dick coming here?” he said at last.
Sue came forward to listen, and several men left the fireplace and
joined the little group near the door.
“Ay,” said Hal, “he couldn’t get down the fleet with the tide like
this.”
“Ah!” said French.
“He couldn’t rest in the Channel for twelve hours or so, now could he?”
continued Hal.
“Ah, you’re right there, lad,” said one of the men, pressing forward.
“Black’erchief Dick would risk most things, but he’s no fool.”
Big French scratched his head thoughtfully.
“Ah,” he said slowly, “he’s no fool, that’s right enough.” Then he
looked at Sue furtively out of the corner of his eye. “He’ll be coming
up here I reckon,” he said.
Sue shrugged her shoulders.
“Well,” she said, “we’ve rum enough for any foreigner, and, if we ain’t
as fine as the Victory, our liquor’s as good.”
“Eh, what’s that?” Old Gilbot pricked up his ears, the pewter-pot
halfway to his lips. “Not as fine as the Victory, lass? Who says we
ain’t as fine as the Victory, any day? Eh? Anywaysh,” he added, his face
hidden in the nearly empty tankard, “anywaysh, we’ve prettier wenches.”
“You’re right, host--here, rum all round and drink to the wenches.” Big
French, his hand in his breeches pocket, spoke loudly and the coins
jingled as he planked them down on the table, and the two girls hastened
to draw the rum.
“The wenches!” shouted French, one big foot on the form and his tankard
held high above his head.
“The wenches!” roared the company.
“The wenches!” piped Gilbot happily from his corner.
This pleasant ceremony took some minutes, and Sue and Anny stood
together smiling at each other, neither giving a thought to the little
dark-skinned, white-handed Spaniard who was sailing under full canvas
toward their home.
“I’ll go down to the hard to meet Black’erchief,” said French at last,
wiping his beard with a green handkerchief.
“I’ll with you.” “And I.” “And I.” Most of the company rose and followed
the young Goliath to the door.
“Goo’-bye,” said Gilbot, waving his pot. “Come back soon.”
The men laughed and promised.
“The owd devil,” said one man to another as he shut the door behind
them. “The owd devil hasn’t been sober these four years.” And they went
off laughing.
“What manner of fellow is that they call Black’erchief Dick’?” said
Anny, as she collected the empty tankards from the tables.
“A devil,” said one of the men at the fireside.
“Oh!” Anny was not impressed. She had met many strangers who had been
described to her as devils, and not one to her mind had lived up to the
description.
“Oh!” said Hal, as he piled fresh logs in the open grate. “‘Tis only a
foreigner, some Spanish dog or other.”
The man who had spoken before shook his head.
“Ah, you be careful, lad. Dick ain’t the chap to make a foe of in a
hurry,” he said.
Anny paused for a moment.
“Is he a big man, sir?” she asked.
Sue interposed quickly.
“Not as big as Master French, I reckon,” she said defiantly.
The man laughed.
“Big as French?” he said. “Lord! he ain’t no bigger than you, Anny.”
“Oh!” the two girls looked at one another and laughed.
“Marry, I reckon he’s a devil without horns then, Master Granger,” said
Sue.
Granger spat before he spoke again.
“I don’t know about horns, Mistress,” he said, “but I reckon his knife
is good enough for him--ah, and for me, too, for that matter,” he added.
Anny laughed again.
“‘Twould not be enough for me anyway,” she said, fixing a stray curl
over her ear as she spoke.
Sue looked at her strangely. It was impossible not to like this
beautiful wild little creature, in whom her uncle, Gilbot, had taken
such an interest. Yet she could not help wishing that the younger girl
had been more careful. She was so young, so very beautiful, and the
company which came to the Ship was not the best in the world.
Sue shrugged her shoulders. It was not her business, she told herself,
but her eyes followed Anny almost pityingly as the little maid moved
across the room to speak to Gilbot.
“Master Gilbot,” Anny said, “should we prepare a bedchamber for the
gentleman?”
Old Gilbot looked at her over the rim of the tankard; then he took one
of her hands.
“Thou art a pretty wench, Anny,” he observed solemnly. “Will ’ee fetch
me another stoup of liquor, lass?” he added, brightening up in
anticipation.
Anny did as she was told and then repeated her question.
“Eh? Bedchamber? Eh? What?” said the old man, his brows screwed into
knotted lines, and he seemed troubled; after a few minutes, however,
“Oh! ashk Hal,” he said, his face clearing. “Ashk Hal everything.”
He looked across at the boy affectionately.
“Shly dog,” he murmured, “keepsh me in liquor all day long sho he can
get the Ship. Ho-ho-ho!” he laughed, shaking all over. “Shly dog--shly
dog.”
Hal laughed with him and then discussed with Anny and Sue the various
arrangements for the reception of the visitors. Having settled
everything to their satisfaction they joined the group about the fire,
where the talk was still running on the Spaniard.
“Wonderful fighter,” one man was saying. “Oh, a wonderful fighter, take
my word for it.”
“Ah, you’re right,” said another. “I saw him kill a man with a knife
throw one time. From right the other side of the room it was. That was
in a house in Brest, in ’59,” he added reminiscently.
“How old do you reckon him?” said the first man curiously. “I’ve not
known him more’n a year or so.”
“Well,” the other man’s tone was dubious. “He says he’s thirty and I
shouldn’t say more. No, I shouldn’t say so much--though it’s wonderful
the way he manages them foreign dogs he mans his brig with.”
Hal joined in the conversation.
“They’re a rough lot, I expect,” he said.
The men round the fire laughed.
“You’re right there, lad,” said one. “Keep your eye on the rum and
lasses to-night. Wonderful rough lot they are,” he added. “Oh, wonderful
rough!”
Hal flushed.
“I reckon the lasses can look after theirselves,” he said gruffly.
Anny put her hand on his shoulder.
“Ay,” she said, “maybe we can, but where’s the need of us troubling when
you’re by?”
“Bravo, Anny, lass. The girl has wit as well as beauty,” said the man
addressed as Granger from his seat in the chimney corner, whence he had
moved to make room for Sue.
“Ay, a fine wench,” said Gilbot, waking for a moment; the others laughed
and the talk continued cheerily.
“Evening to you all.” The speaker was a man dressed in the usual
fisherman’s guernsey and breeches. He stood in the doorway, looking in
on the company round the fire and smiling affably.
Hal looked up quickly and seeing who it was rose at once to meet him.
“Evening, Joe,” he said cheerily. “Come, sit down; what’ll you drink?”
Joseph Pullen smiled and took the seat offered him, and named his
choice.
Anny was up in a moment to serve him, and his eyes followed her as she
flitted hither and thither, with a smile for one and a jest for another,
laughing happily the while. He looked across at Hal.
“Ah, you’re a lucky one, mate,” he observed in a hoarse whisper.
The boy smiled.
“Amy been at you again?” he enquired.
It was well known that Joe and his wife, Amy, were not a happy couple.
The other looked round him.
“She’s a shrew and no mistake, Hal,” he said softly.
Hal laughed.
“You’re right,” he said. “But cheer thyself,” he added, as Anny brought
a tankard. “Look’ee, Joe, did ever you set eyes on a man called
Black’erchief Dick?”
“I did that”--Joe’s face appeared red above the pot--“and I set eyes on
one of his mange-struck crew as well,” he said fiercely.
“Ah, and who might that be?” Granger inquired.
“A black-bearded old Spanish villain called Blueneck. Yes, and what’s
more, I set eyes on him kissing my wife.”
A roar of laughter greeted this outburst, and Joe looked discomforted.
“I stopped it, of course,” he remarked.
Another roar shook the building. Joe reddened again.
“I don’t see why you’re a-laughing,” he said gruffly.
The men round the fire laughed again.
“I can manage my wife better nor any man here and I’m willing to prove
it with these,” he said, putting up two bony fists.
The laughter died away and no one spoke for a moment or so. Then Joe,
all his anger vanished as suddenly as it had come, remarked,
“Black’erchief Dick, eh? Where did you hear of him? I didn’t know he
ever came up east.”
“Nor don’t he as a rule,” said Hal, “but he has had to put in here owing
to the tide. I reckon he’ll be up here soon.”
“Ah, will he now?” Joe’s eyebrows rose expressively, then he put down
his mug. “Did you say he was putting in here--crew and all?” he asked,
wiping his mouth.
“Ay,” said Hal, “I reckon so.”
“Ah,” said Joe again, “I’ll be going back to home,” he announced
suddenly.
Then, as some knowing smiles appeared on the faces in the firelight, he
added, “Ah, you can laugh, but take my word for it, you keep your
wenches clear of Spaniards. They have wonderful ways with women.” He
walked to the door. “See you afore the night’s over, Hal,” he called
cheerily as he went out.
Under cover of the laughter which burst out as he shut the door behind
him, Anny whispered to Hal, who was making up the fire, “I would not
change thee for the King o’ the Spaniards, lad,” and he, turning
suddenly to look at her, knew that she spoke truth.
CHAPTER IV
“Marry! Fortune favours her lovers! Greetings, Master French. Damn my
knife! there is not another on the Island I would rather see than thee
at this moment.”
Black’erchief Dick stepped out of the open rowboat which had conveyed
him from the _Coldlight_ and gave a small white hand to Big French, who
assisted him on to the board pathway which was laid over the soft mud.
“Greetings to you, Captain,” said the young man, and then added slowly,
“you’re somewhat before your time, ain’t you?”
Black’erchief Dick broke into a storm of curses.
“Ay,” he said at last, “ay, too early for the tide and so forsooth
compelled--I, Dick Delfazio, compelled, mark you--to put in at this
God-forsaken corner”--he took in the marshland with a comprehensive wave
of a graceful arm, and continued sneering--“which is as flat and empty
as a new-washed platter.”
The big man at his side smiled.
“Nay, prithee, Captain,” he said, “‘tis none so bad.”
The Spaniard turned to him fiercely, but Big French went on quietly: “If
you be a wanting to stay the brig here for the next tide,” he said,
“best to take her up the Pyfleet round to the back o’ the Ship--plenty
o’ water up there,” he added.
Black’erchief Dick shrugged his shoulders.
“The Pyfleet?” he said. “Surely that is Captain Fen de Witt’s haven? I
would not take advantage of his hiding-place.”
The smile on the big man’s face vanished.
“Lord, Captain!” he said quickly, “you cannot leave the brig in open
channel all the night. The Preventative folk may not be very spry
hereabouts, but they ain’t all dead yet--no, not by a long way they
ain’t.”
The Spaniard replied with another shrug.
“As you wish,” he said, and then with a smile, his teeth flashing in the
dusk, he added: “But that I need thee to-night, Master Hercules, I would
not so easily have yielded.”
Big French flushed but he spoke quietly.
“Ah, and what will you be wanting to-night, Captain?” he said.
“Passage in thy cart to the Victory, friend,” replied the Spaniard.
“Oh!” Big French spoke dubiously. “Why do you not rest at the Ship?” he
enquired.
“The Ship?” the thin lips curled in contempt. “Dick Delfazio stay at a
wayside tavern? This moon hath made thee mad, friend French.”
Big French sighed involuntarily and the Spaniard laughed.
“A wench?” he asked.
“Nay,” the blood suffused the young man’s handsome face and he spoke
shortly.
“Well, take me to the Victory,” repeated the Spaniard.
An anxious snuff sounded at his elbow as he spoke. He turned quickly
just in time to seize Habakkuk Coot by the neck of his guernsey.
“You evil-smelling son of a rat,” he began slowly, giving the little man
a shake at every word, “get thee back to the brig and tell Blueneck I
would speak to him.”
With the final word he jerked the wretch off the board pathway and
watched him flounder in the deep oozing mud.
“Haste thee, dog,” he said, touching him lightly with the blade of his
knife.
Habakkuk screamed and floundered on for the rowboat, where he was hauled
in by several of his comrades. The boat then pushed off for the brig.
“You have a wonderful way with your crew, Captain,” said French, looking
after the boat.
“Ay, of a truth,” the Spaniard laughed. “Cannot Dick Delfazio rule a
pack of mangy dogs?”
French looked at him narrowly, and then took up the conversation where
he had left it.
“The Ship is no wayside tavern,” he said. “The folk be simple but the
liquor good and the wenches pretty, and they are waiting for you to
come--the maids in their best caps, and the canary warming on the
hearth.”
Dick looked at him for a moment.
“Master French,” he said, keeping his glittering eyes on the other’s
face. “Master French, ’tis strange that thou should’st be in this part
of the Island so ready for my coming, Master French,” he added, his
voice assuming the soft caressing quality for which it was so
remarkable. “Dare I suppose that it was not to meet me that thou camest
to the East? That it was to the Ship thou camest, eh, Master French?”
Once again the big man blushed to his ears but he laughed.
“Ay, Captain,” he said, “you are right there. ’Twas not to meet you I
came to the East. Prithee tell your men to take the brig down the
Pyfleet and come with me to the Ship.”
The Spaniard laughed strangely.
“Friend French,” he said, “are thy horses lame?”
The young man looked at him for a moment before he spoke.
“Ay,” he said at last. “Wonderful lame.”
Black’erchief Dick threw back his head and laughed heartily.
“Thou art a brave man, French,” he said, but continued quickly: “There
is such a lameness as can be cured to-morrow for a trip to Tiptree, eh,
friend?”
“Ah!” said the big man, nodding his head sagely, “‘tis a wonderful
strange lameness that they have.”
Dick nodded.
By this time the rowboat had once more come to the plank across the mud.
Blueneck, a shadowy figure in the darkness, stepped out and came toward
them.
Dick gave his orders briefly.
“Take the brig up the Pyfleet,” he said. “Any of these fellows will
pilot thee,” he added, pointing to the group of Mersea men on the wall.
Then as an afterthought, “and bring five kegs from the hold to me at the
Ship Tavern.”
A certain amount of enthusiasm among the volunteer pilots was noticeable
after this last remark, and Blueneck smiled as he replied, “Ay, ay,
Cap’n.”
Black’erchief Dick and his friend Big French, the smuggler’s carter,
turned, climbed the wall, and walked together down the lonely road to
the Ship Tavern without speaking.
“Marry!” said Dick, stopping after they had walked for some five
minutes, his hand feeling for his knife. “What’s that?”
Big French stopped also and, standing side by side in the middle of the
road, they listened intently. Apparently just behind the hedge on their
right a human voice, deep and throaty, said clearly,
“Rum--rum--rum--rum,” the sound trailing off weirdly on the last word.
The Spaniard crossed himself, but his hand was steady.
“Is’t a spirit?” he said.
“Nay,” Big French’s voice came stifled from his mouth.
The Spaniard drew his knife. “Then I’ll have at it,” he said.
Once again the stifled monosyllable broke from the younger man’s lips.
Black’erchief Dick looked at his guide quickly. By the faint light of
the winter moon he saw the man’s face was distorted strangely--once
again the ghostly voice behind the hedge said distinctly,
“Rum--rum--ru----.”
“Ho! ho! ho!” roared French, his laughter suddenly breaking forth.
“Peace, Mother Swayle,” he shouted, “by our lakin! you had us well-nigh
feared with your greeting.”
The Spaniard sheathed his knife.
“If ’tis a friend of thine, Master French,” he said, shrugging his
shoulders, “‘tis of no offence to me. Though by my faith,” he added, as
a dark figure in flowing garments bounded over the hedge and stood by
the roadside, “‘tis strange company you keep.”
The tall gaunt woman addressed as Mother Swayle shrank back into the
hedge.
“Who is it with thee, Big French?” she said in her deep, tired voice.
“Black’erchief Dick, new landed by the wall,” said French.
“Ah! I know naught of him--Peace, good swine--farewell, Rum!”
There was a note of finality in the last word and Big French started to
walk on. “Rum,” he said over his shoulder, and added to Dick in an
undertone, “‘Tis only a poor crone--peace to her--her wit’s diseased.”
“Oh!” the Spaniard felt the pocket of his coat and pulled out a silver
dollar. “Here, mother of sin,” he said as he tossed it to her, “buy
thyself rum withal. Almsgiving is a noble virtue,” he added piously to
French as they prepared to walk on. Hardly had the words left his lips
when his silver dollar hit him on the back of the head with considerable
force.
“May you burn, you mange-struck ronyon,” the deep voice grew shrill in
its intensity. “All men are villains and you are a king among them.”
With a foreign oath the Spaniard turned about.
“Rum--rum--r-u-m,” the voice faded away and they heard the patter of
feet down the road.
Black’erchief Dick laughed sharply.
“It is well for Mother Swayle that she lives in the East,” he said, his
eyes glittering. “Were she in the West she would take my bounty, if
not----” He laughed unpleasantly.
Big French looked at him anxiously, uncertain how the fiery Spaniard had
taken the old woman’s vagaries.
“The old one was ducked as a witch in the merrymaking at the Restoring
of the King,” he said at last. “She was not quite drowned,” he
continued, “so the folk--wenches mostly--look up to her and as I said,
Captain, her wit’s diseased.”
Dick shrugged his silken-coated shoulders.
“‘Tis no matter,” he said with a wave of his hand.
Big French sighed in relief and they walked on in silence for a minute
or so. They were now some four hundred yards from the Ship. The high
building with its great thatch showed a dark outline against the cold
starlight, but all the uncurtained lower windows showed the warm glow
within and from the partly open door the sound of singing came out to
them on the cold breeze.
The two unconsciously hastened their steps. When they reached the gate
of the courtyard the words of the song could be heard clearly above the
noise of laughter and banging of pewter.
“_Pretty Poll she loved a sailor_”
Gilbot’s voice was piping a little in advance of the rest.
“_And well she loved he,_
_But he sailed to the mouth_
_Of a stream in the South_
_And was losht in the rolling sea._
_And was losht in the rolling sea._”
Dick straightened his lace ruffles at his throat.
“The dogs seem merry,” he observed as he kicked open the door and
stepped into the candle-lit kitchen of the Ship.
All eyes were immediately turned on him, and he stood perfectly still
for some seconds enjoying to the full the impression he was making.
The Ship’s company was used to the simple finery of Captain Fen de Witt
and his men, and most of them had been to the western end of the Island
and had seen strangers who had come, it was whispered, from London
itself, but Dick’s magnificence was wholly new to most of them, while
even those who had seen him before were surprised at the contrast which
his glistening figure made with the sombre background of the Ship
kitchen’s smoke-blackened walls.
Hal stood staring at him as long as any of the others, and Mistress Sue
let the rum she was drawing fill up one of the great pewter tankards and
spill over on to the stones before she noticed it, so intently did she
look at the stranger in the doorway.
Gilbot alone took no notice of the visitor. He sat happily in his place
by the fireside, his head thrown back a little and his eyes closed,
beating time to imaginary singing with his empty pot.
Joe Pullen was the first to speak. He had just entered by a side door
and apparently was entirely unimpressed by the Spaniard or any one else.
“Evening,” he remarked, as he walked over to the most comfortable seat
in the chimney-corner and sat down. “Evening to you too, sir,” he said,
noticing Dick for the first time--and then he added, peering out of the
fireplace, “Mistress Sue, a rum if you please.”
Black’erchief Dick, noting that the spell was broken, swaggered forward
into the firelight.
“Greeting, friends,” he said courteously, and then after looking round
curiously his eyes rested on Gilbot. “Is this mine host?” he asked.
Gilbot’s eyes opened slowly and his jaw dropped as he saw for the first
time the splendidly garbed figure.
“Eh?” he said at last. “Washt?” He tried to rise but gave it up as an
impossibility, his brow clouded, and he turned his tankard upside down
on his knee.
Dick stood looking at him, a slight smile hovering round his mouth and
twitching the sides of his big Jewish nose.
Gilbot’s face cleared as suddenly as it had clouded.
“Ashk Hal,” he said triumphantly, and leaning back once more he closed
his eyes.
The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders.
“You mistress?” he said, turning to Sue who dropped a curtsey. “Can I
have a bedchamber here this night?”
Sue replied that all was ready for him, and Dick, having assured himself
that everything was to his liking, put his hand into his pocket and
drawing out a handful of gold and silver coins tossed them lightly on
the table.
“Drinks all round, I pray you, mistress,” he said.
There was a slight stir among the company, and the Spaniard was regarded
with still more respect.
Sue stood looking at the coins, her hands on her hips. “‘Tis much too
much,” she murmured.
Black’erchief Dick laughed.
“Marry! Then, mistress, ’twill do for the next lot. I pray thee haste,
my throat is parched,” he said.
Sue, her eyes round with admiration, curtseyed again and ran to the
inner door.
“Anny, lass, come hither I prithee,” she called, and then hastened to
obey the Spaniard.
Anny stepped in unnoticed a moment or two later, and busied herself with
the tankards.
Dick was sitting with his back toward her and she did not see him.
“Here, lass,” said Sue, seeing her, “the foreigner would drink
sack--wilt get it for him?”
There was not much call for Canary sack at the Ship, so Anny was some
minutes finding and tapping a cask. When she returned from the cellar, a
flagon in her hand, the talk had become more animated and one or two
lively spirits had started a song, but above the noise a voice
penetrating although musical was saying loudly, “Marry, Master French,
do you never drink aught but rum in the East that a gentleman is kept
waiting ten minutes for a cup of sack?”
French’s deep tones replied slowly:
“Nay, Captain, very little else but rum; sack be only for gentlefolk.”
Anny hastened forward.
“Here’s for you, sir,” she said briskly, and then stopped, awe-struck
before the Spaniard, dazzled by his appearance.
Black’erchief Dick stretched out a white jewelled hand for the tankard
without looking at the girl.
“Thank thee, mistress,” he said carelessly, lifting it to his lips.
Still Anny did not move and Hal Grame, looking up from the rum keg which
he was tapping, cursed the Spaniard’s clothes with that honest venom
which is only known to youth.
“Ah, a good draught!” The Spaniard put down the pot and touched his lips
with a lace-edged handkerchief.
“Mistress, another by your leave,” he said suddenly. Then his gaze, too,
became fixed, his dark eyes taking in every detail of her face.
“God’s Fool!” he exclaimed. “Mistress, you are wondrous fair.”
Anny blushed and, her senses returning to her, she curtseyed and taking
up the empty tankard tripped off with a gentle--“As you wish,” as she
went.
Black’erchief Dick stared after her for a second or two before he turned
to French.
“By my faith, Master French, you have no poor skill in choosing a
wench,” he said.
Big French laughed and reddened.
“Oh!” he said carelessly. “‘Tis not she but the other I would have
favour from.”
The Spaniard darted a look of misbelief at his big companion, but he
said nothing, for Anny had returned and was standing before him, a
brimming tankard in her hand.
Black’erchief Dick took the wine and set it by untasted, but retained
the brown hand which was even smaller than his own and held it firmly.
“Mistress,” he said, and Anny thought she had never seen such bright
merry eyes, “would you deem it an offence if I asked you your name?”
Anny smiled and curtseyed as she pulled away her hand.
“There be no more offence in asking my name than in holding my hand,
sir,” she said. “‘Tis Anny Farren, an you please so.”
“Anny, a good name and a simple,” said the Spaniard, choosing to ignore
the first remark. “Now tell me, fair Anny,” he continued, “hast ever
been told how beautiful thou art?”
The girl looked round. No one in the noisy company round the fire was
listening to them and a gleam of mischief twinkled in her eyes before
she dropped them as she turned again to the Spaniard.
“Nay, sir,” she said. “Neither has my mirror.”
“Then ’tis a right vile and lying thing, mistress,” said Dick, “for by
my knife”--here he drew the slender thing from his chased silver belt
and held it up to the light--“I never saw a comelier lass than thee.”
Anny looked at the knife curiously.
“‘Tis a pretty weapon you have, sir,” she said innocently.
Dick laughed.
“Pretty!” he said. “Ah, fair Anny, I would not send the blood from those
bright cheeks of thine by telling thee what this same dagger and this
right hand have together accomplished.”
“Oh, never mind the wenches, Captain, let’s have the story,” said one of
the group at the fire, the company’s attention having been drawn to the
Spaniard on the appearance of the knife. Black’erchief Dick stood up.
“Sack for everyone,” he said grandiloquently as he threw another handful
of coins on the tressled table. And then as the tankards were passed
round, “To the fairest wench on the Island, Fair Anny of the Ship,” he
said, lifting his tankard above his head.
The toast was given with a will. The Spaniard was in a fair way to win
popularity.
“‘Tis a fine gentleman, Hal,” whispered Anny to her sweetheart under
cover of the general hub-bub.
“Ay, a deal too fine,” replied the boy, putting a pot down with such
violence that all the others rattled and clinked against one another
with the shock.
Anny laughed.
“Thou art very foolish, O Hal o’ mine,” she said softly.
“There be more tales to tell o’ this dagger than will suffice for one
evening.”
The Spaniard’s voice was once more raised in a flaunting tone. “Let it
be enough,” he continued, “to say that it hath some ninety lives to
answer for.”
There was a general gasp at this information and a slow smile spread
over Black’erchief Dick’s face as he noted their amazement.
“It will be wonderful old I reckon?” Joe Pullen put the question
quietly, but as though he expected an answer in the affirmative.
“Nay,” the Spaniard smiled again, “‘twas of my own killings I was
talking,” he said.
“Oh!” Joe Pullen leant back and closed his eyes as though bored with the
conversation.
This procedure seemed to irritate the Spaniard, for he said suddenly,
“Look, friend, ’tis a fair weapon,” and he threw the glittering thing at
the man in the high-backed seat with a seemingly careless jerk of the
wrist. The dagger shot through the air, a streak of glistening steel,
and fastened itself in the wood half an inch above
|
through a peep-hole in the door... the ladies décolletées,
the gentlemen in evening dress.... At last one of the ladies went into
the boudoir. She put her jewels into a jewel-box and the jewel-box into
a small safe, saying out loud as she opened it the three letters of the
combination of the lock, R.O.B.... So that, when she went to bed, all
I had to do was to make use of them.... After that.... I waited for
daylight.... I wasn't going to chance stumbling about in the dark."
"Let's see what you've got," she commanded.
He opened his hand and disclosed on the palm of it two earrings, set
with sapphires. She took them and looked at them. Her face changed; her
eyes sparkled; she murmured in quite a different voice:
"How lovely they are, sapphires!... The sky is sometimes like that--at
night... that dark blue, full of light...."
At the moment they were crossing a piece of land on which stood a
large scarecrow, simply clad in a pair of trousers. On one of the
cross-sticks which served it for arms hung a jacket. It was the jacket
of Saint-Quentin. He had hung it there the evening before, and in order
to render himself unrecognizable, had borrowed the scarecrow's long
coat and high hat. He took off that long coat, buttoned it over the
plaster bosom of the scarecrow, and replaced the hat. Then he slipped
on his jacket and rejoined Dorothy.
She was still looking at the sapphires with an air of admiration.
He bent over them and said: "Keep them, Dorothy. You know quite well
that I'm not really a thief and that I only got them for you... that
you might have the pleasure of looking at them and touching them....
It often goes to my heart to see you running about in that beggarly
get-up!... To think of you dancing on the tight-rope! You who ought to
live in luxury!... Ah, to think of all I'd do for you, if you'd let me!"
She raised her head, looked into his eyes, and said: "Would you really
do anything for me?"
"Anything, Dorothy."
"Well, then, be honest, Saint-Quentin."
They set out again; and the young girl continued:
"Be honest, Saint-Quentin. That's all I ask of you. You and the
other boys of the caravan, I've adopted you because, like me, you're
war-orphans, and for the last two years we have wandered together
along the high roads, happy rather than miserable, getting our fun,
and on the whole, eating when we're hungry. But we must come to an
understanding. I only like what is clean and straight and as clear as a
ray of sunlight. Are you like me? This is the third time you've stolen
to give me pleasure. Is this the last time? If it is, I pardon it. If
it isn't, it's 'good-bye.'"
She spoke very seriously, emphasizing each phrase by a toss of the head
which made the two wings of her hair flap.
Overwhelmed, Saint-Quentin said imploringly:
"Don't you want to have anything more to do with me?"
"Yes. But swear you won't do it again."
"I swear I won't."
"Then we won't say anything more about it. I feel that you mean what
you say. Take back these jewels. You can hide them in the big basket
under the caravan. Next week you will send them back by post. It's the
Château de Chagny, isn't it?"
"Yes, and I saw the lady's name on one of her band-boxes. She's the
Comtesse de Chagny."
They went on hand in hand. Twice they hid themselves to avoid meeting
peasants, and at last, after several detours, they reached the
neighborhood of the caravan.
"Listen," said Saint-Quentin, pausing to listen himself. "Yes. That's
what it is--Castor and Pollux fighting as usual, the rascals!"
He dashed towards the sound.
"Saint-Quentin!" cried the young girl. "I forbid you to hit them!"
"You hit them often enough!"
"Yes. But they like me to hit them."
At the approach of Saint-Quentin, the two boys, who were fighting a
duel with wooden swords, turned from one another to face the common
enemy, howling:
"Dorothy! Mummy Dorothy! Stop Saint-Quentin! He's a beast! Help!"
There followed a distribution of cuffs, bursts of laughter, and hugs.
"Dorothy, it's my turn to be hugged!"
"Dorothy, it's my turn to be smacked!"
But the young girl said in a scolding voice:
"And the Captain? I'm sure you've gone and woke him up!"
"The Captain? He's sleeping like a sapper," declared Pollux. "Just
listen to his snoring!"
By the side of the road the two urchins had lit a fire of wood. The
pot, suspended from an iron tripod, was boiling. The four of them ate a
steaming thick soup, bread and cheese, and drank a cup of coffee.
Dorothy did not budge from her stool. Her three companions would not
have permitted it. It was rather which of the three should rise to
serve her, all of them attentive to her wants, eager, jealous of one
another, even aggressive towards one another. The battles of Castor
and Pollux were always started by the fact that she had shown favor to
one or the other. The two urchins, stout and chubby, dressed alike in
pants, a shirt, and jacket, when one least expected it and for all that
they were as fond of one another as brothers, fell upon one another
with ferocious violence, because the young girl had spoken too kindly
to one, or delighted the other with a too affectionate look.
As for Saint-Quentin, he cordially detested them. When Dorothy fondled
them, he could have cheerfully wrung their necks. Never would she hug
him. He had to content himself with good comradeship, trusting and
affectionate, which only showed itself in a friendly hand-shake or a
pleasant smile. The stripling delighted in them as the only reward
which a poor devil like him could possibly deserve. Saint-Quentin was
one of those who love with selfless devotion.
"The arithmetic lesson now," was Dorothy's order. "And you,
Saint-Quentin, go to sleep for an hour on the box."
Castor brought his arithmetic. Pollux displayed his copy-book. The
arithmetic lesson was followed by a lecture delivered by Dorothy on the
Merovingian kings, then by a lecture on astronomy.
The two children listened with almost impassioned attention; and
Saint-Quentin on the box took good care not to go to sleep. In
teaching, Dorothy gave full play to her lively fancy in a fashion which
diverted her pupils and never allowed them to grow weary. She had an
air of learning herself whatever she chanced to be teaching. And her
discourse, delivered in a very gentle voice, revealed a considerable
knowledge and understanding and the suppleness of a practical
intelligence.
At ten o'clock the young girl gave the order to harness the horse. The
journey to the next town was a long one; and they had to arrive in
time to secure the best place in front of the town-hall.
"And the Captain? He hasn't had breakfast!" cried Castor.
"All the better," said she. "The Captain always eats too much. It will
give his stomach a rest. Besides if any one wakes him he's always in a
frightful temper. Let him sleep on."
They set out. The caravan moved along at the gentle pace of One-eyed
Magpie, a lean old mare, but still strong and willing. They called
her "One-eyed Magpie" because she had a piebald coat and had lost an
eye. Heavy, perched on two high wheels, rocking, jingling like old
iron, loaded with boxes, pots and pans, steps, barrels, and ropes, the
caravan had recently been repainted. On both sides it bore the pompous
inscription, "Dorothy's Circus, Manager's Carriage," which led one
to believe that a file of wagons and vehicles was following at some
distance with the staff, the properties, the baggage, and the wild
beasts.
Saint-Quentin, whip in hand, walked at the head of the caravan.
Dorothy, with the two small boys at her side, gathered flowers from the
banks, sang choruses of marching songs with them, or told them stories.
But at the end of half an hour, in the middle of some cross-roads, she
gave the order: "Halt!"
"What is it?" asked Saint-Quentin, seeing that she was reading the
directions on a sign-post.
"Look," she said.
"There's no need to look. It's straight on. I looked it up on our map."
"Look," she repeated. "Chagny. A mile and a half."
"Quite so. It's the village of our château of yesterday. Only to get to
it we made a short cut through the woods."
"Chagny. A mile and a half. Château de Roborey."
She appeared to be troubled and in a low voice she murmured again:
"Roborey--Roborey."
"Doubtless that's the proper name of the château," hazarded
Saint-Quentin. "What difference can it make to you?"
"None--none."
"But you look as if it made no end of a difference."
"No. It's just a coincidence."
"In what way?"
"With regard to the name of Roborey----"
"Well?"
"Well, it's a word which was impressed on my memory... a word which
was uttered in circumstances----"
"What circumstances, Dorothy?"
She explained slowly with a thoughtful air:
"Think a minute, Saint-Quentin. I told you that my father died of his
wounds, at the beginning of the war, in a hospital near Chartres. I had
been summoned; but I did not arrive in time.... But two wounded men,
who occupied the beds next to his in the ward, told me that during his
last hours he never stopped repeating the same word again and again:
'Roborey... Roborey.' It came like a litany, unceasingly, and as if
it weighed on his mind. Even when he was dying he still uttered the
word: 'Roborey... Roborey.'"
"Yes," said Saint-Quentin. "I remember.... You did tell me about it."
"Ever since then I have been asking myself what it meant and by what
memory my poor father was obsessed at the time of his death. It was,
apparently, more than an obsession... it was a terror... a dread.
Why? I have never been able to find the explanation of it. So now you
understand, Saint-Quentin, on seeing this name... written there,
staring me in the face... on learning that there was a château of that
name...."
Saint-Quentin was frightened:
"You never mean to go there, do you?"
"Why not?"
"It's madness, Dorothy!"
The young girl was silent, considering. But Saint-Quentin felt sure
that she had not abandoned this unprecedented design. He was seeking
for arguments to dissuade her when Castor and Pollux came running up:
"Three caravans are coming along!"
They issued on the instant, one after the other in single file, from
a sunken lane, which opened on to the cross-roads, and took the road
to Roborey. They were an Aunt Sally, a Rifle-Range, and a Tortoise
Merry-go-round. As he passed in front of Dorothy and Saint-Quentin, one
of the men of the Rifle-Range called to them:
"Are you coming along too?"
"Where to?" said Dorothy.
"To the château. There's a village fête in the grounds. Shall I keep a
pitch for you?"
"Right. And thanks very much," replied the young girl.
The caravans went on their way.
"What's the matter, Saint-Quentin?" said Dorothy.
He was looking paler than usual.
"What's the matter with you?" she repeated. "Your lips are twitching
and you are turning green!"
He stammered:
"The p-p-police!"
From the same sunken lane two horsemen came into the cross-roads, they
rode on in front of the little party.
"You see," said Dorothy, smiling, "they're not taking any notice of us."
"No; but they're going to the château."
"Of course they are. There's a fête there; and two policemen have to be
present."
"Always supposing that they haven't discovered the disappearance of the
earrings and telephoned to the nearest police-station," he groaned.
"It isn't likely. The lady will only discover it to-night, when she
dresses for dinner."
"All the same, don't let's go there," implored the unhappy stripling.
"It's simply walking into the trap.... Besides, there's that man...
the man in the hole."
"Oh, he dug his own grave," she said and laughed.
"Suppose he's there.... Suppose he recognizes me?"
"You were disguised. All they could do would be to arrest the scarecrow
in the tall hat!"
"And suppose they've already laid an information against me? If they
searched us they'd find the earrings."
"Drop them in some bushes in the park when we get there. I'll tell the
people of the château their fortunes; and thanks to me, the lady will
recover her earrings. Our fortunes are made."
"But if by any chance----"
"Rubbish! It would amuse me to go and see what is going on at the
château which is named Roborey. So I'm going."
"Yes; but I'm afraid... afraid for you as well."
"Then stay away."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"We'll chance it!" he said, and cracked his whip.
CHAPTER II
DOROTHY'S CIRCUS
The château, situated at no great distance from Domfront, in the
most rugged district of the picturesque department of the Orne, only
received the name of Roborey in the course of the eighteenth century.
Earlier it took its name of the Château de Chagny from the village
which was grouped round it. The village green is in fact only a
prolongation of the court-yard of the château. When the iron gates are
open the two form an esplanade, constructed over the ancient moat, from
which one descends on the right and left by steep slopes. The inner
court-yard, circular and enclosed by two battlemented walls which run
to the buildings of the château, is adorned by a fine old fountain of
dolphins and sirens and a sun-dial set up on a rockery in the worst
taste.
Dorothy's Circus passed through the village, preceded by its band, that
is to say that Castor and Pollux did their best to wreck their lungs
in the effort to extract the largest possible number of false notes
from two trumpets. Saint-Quentin had arrayed himself in a black satin
doublet and carried over his shoulder the trident which so awes wild
beasts, and a placard which announced that the performance would take
place at three o'clock.
Dorothy, standing upright on the roof of the caravan, directed One-eyed
Magpie with four reins, wearing the majestic air of one driving a royal
coach.
Already a dozen vehicles stood on the esplanade; and round them the
showmen were busily setting up their canvas tents and swings and
wooden horses, etc. Dorothy's Circus made no such preparations. Its
directress went to the mayor's office to have her license viséd, while
Saint-Quentin unharnessed One-eyed Magpie, and the two musicians
changed their profession and set about cooking the dinner.
The Captain slept on.
Towards noon the crowd began to flock in from all the neighboring
villages. After the meal Saint-Quentin, Castor, and Pollux took a
siesta beside the caravan. Dorothy again went off. She went down into
the ravine, examined the slab over the excavation, went up out of
it again, moved among the groups of peasants and strolled about the
gardens, round the château, and everywhere else that one was allowed to
go.
"Well, how's your search getting on?" said Saint-Quentin when she
returned to the caravan.
She appeared thoughtful, and slowly she explained:
"The château, which has been empty for a long while, belongs to the
family of Chagny-Roborey, of which the last representative, Count
Octave, a man about forty, married, twelve years ago, a very rich
woman. After the war the Count and Countess restored and modernized
the château. Yesterday evening they had a house-warming to which
they invited a large party of guests who went away at the end of the
evening. To-day they're having a kind of popular house-warming for the
villagers."
"And as regards this name of Roborey, have you learned anything?"
"Nothing. I'm still quite ignorant why my father uttered it."
"So that we can get away directly after the performance," said
Saint-Quentin who was very eager to depart.
"I don't know.... We'll see.... I've found out some rather queer
things."
"Have they anything to do with your father?"
"No," she said with some hesitation. "Nothing to do with him.
Nevertheless I should like to look more closely into the matter. When
there is darkness anywhere, there's no knowing what it may hide.... I
should like...."
She remained silent for a long time. At last she went on in a serious
tone, looking straight into Saint-Quentin's face:
"Listen: you have confidence in me, haven't you? You know that I'm
quite sensible at bottom... and very prudent. You know that I have a
certain amount of intuition... and good eyes that see a little more
than most people see.... Well, I've got a strong feeling that I ought
to remain here."
"Because of the name of Roborey?"
"Because of that, and for other reasons, which will compel me
perhaps, according to circumstances, to undertake unexpected
enterprises... dangerous ones. At that moment, Saint-Quentin, you must
follow me--boldly."
"Go on, Dorothy. Tell me what it is exactly."
"Nothing.... Nothing definite at present.... One word, however. The man
who was aiming at you this morning, the man in the blouse, is here."
"Never! He's here, do you say? You've seen him? With the policemen?"
She smiled.
"Not yet. But that may happen. Where have you put those earrings?"
"At the bottom of the basket, in a little card-board box with a rubber
ring round it."
"Good. As soon as the performance is over, stick them in that clump of
rhododendrons between the gates and the coach-house."
"Have they found out that they've disappeared?"
"Not yet," said Dorothy. "From the things you told me I believe that
the little safe is in the boudoir of the Countess. I heard some of the
maids talking; and nothing was said about any robbery. They'd have been
full of it." She added: "Look! there are some of the people from the
château in front of the shooting-gallery. Is it that pretty fair lady
with the grand air?"
"Yes. I recognize her."
"An extremely kind-hearted woman, according to what the maids said, and
generous, always ready to listen to the unfortunate. The people about
her are very fond of her... much fonder of her than they are of her
husband, who, it appears, is not at all easy to get on with."
"Which of them is he? There are three men there."
"The biggest... the man in the gray suit... with his stomach sticking
out with importance. Look; he has taken a rifle. The two on either
side of the Countess are distant relations. The tall one with the
grizzled beard which runs up to his tortoise-shell spectacles, has
been at the château a month. The other more sallow one, in a velveteen
shooting-coat and gaiters, arrived yesterday."
"But they look as if they knew you, both of them."
"Yes. We've already spoken to one another. The bearded nobleman was
even quite attentive."
Saint-Quentin made an indignant movement. She checked him at once.
"Keep calm, Saint-Quentin. And let's go closer to them. The battle
begins."
The crowd was thronging round the back of the tent to watch the
exploits of the owner of the château, whose skill was well known.
The dozen bullets which he fired made a ring round the center of the
target; and there was a burst of applause.
"No, no!" he protested modestly. "It's bad. Not a single bull's-eye."
"Want of practice," said a voice near him.
Dorothy had slipped into the front ranks of the throng; and she had
said it in the quiet tone of a connoisseur. The spectators laughed. The
bearded gentleman presented her to the Count and Countess.
"Mademoiselle Dorothy, the directress of the circus."
"Is it as circus directress that mademoiselle judges a target or as an
expert?" said the Count jocosely.
"As an expert."
"Ah, mademoiselle also shoots?"
"Now and then."
"Jaguars?"
"No. Pipe-bowls."
"And mademoiselle does not miss her aim?"
"Never."
"Provided, of course, that she has a first-class weapon?"
"Oh, no. A good shot can use any kind of weapon that comes to hand...
even an old-fashioned contraption like this."
She gripped the butt of an old pistol, provided herself with six
cartridges, and aimed at the card-board target cut out by the Count.
The first shot was a bull's-eye. The second cut the black circle. The
third was a bull's-eye.
The Count was amazed.
"It's marvelous.... She doesn't even take the trouble to aim. What do
you say to that, d'Estreicher?"
The bearded nobleman, as Dorothy called him, cried enthusiastically:
"Unheard of! Marvelous! You could make a fortune, Mademoiselle!"
Without answering, with the three remaining bullets she broke two
pipe-bowls and shattered an empty egg-shell that was dancing on the top
of a jet of water.
And thereupon, pushing aside her admirers, and addressing the
astonished crowd, she made the announcement:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you that the
performance of Dorothy's Circus is about to take place. After
exhibitions of marksmanship, choregraphic displays, then feats of
strength and skill and tumbling, on foot, on horseback, on the earth
and in the air. Fireworks, regattas, motor races, bull-fights, train
hold-ups, all will be on view there. It is about to begin, ladies and
gentlemen."
From that moment Dorothy was all movement, liveliness, and gayety.
Saint-Quentin had marked off a sufficiently large circle, in front of
the door of the caravan, with a rope supported by stakes. Round this
arena, in which chairs were reserved for the people of the château, the
spectators were closely packed together on benches and flights of steps
and on anything they could lay their hands on.
And Dorothy danced. First of all on a rope, stretched between two
posts. She bounced like a shuttlecock which the battledore catches and
drives yet higher; or again she lay down and balanced herself on the
rope as on a hammock, walked backwards and forwards, turned and saluted
right and left; then leapt to the earth and began to dance.
An extraordinary mixture of all the dances, in which nothing seemed
studied or purposed, in which all the movements and attitudes appeared
unconscious and to spring from a series of inspirations of the moment.
By turns she was the London dancing-girl, the Spanish dancer with
her castanets, the Russian who bounds and twirls, or, in the arms of
Saint-Quentin, a barbaric creature dancing a languorous tango.
And every time all that she needed was just a movement, the slightest
movement, which changed the hang of her shawl, or the way her hair
was arranged, to become from head to foot a Spanish, or Russian, or
English, or Argentine girl. And all the while she was an incomparable
vision of grace and charm, of harmonious and healthy youth, of pleasure
and modesty, of extreme but measured joy.
Castor and Pollux, bent over an old drum, beat with their fingers
a muffled, rhythmical accompaniment. Speechless and motionless the
spectators gazed and admired, spellbound by such a wealth of fantasy
and the multitude of images which passed before their eyes. At the
very moment when they were regarding her as a guttersnipe turning
cartwheels, she suddenly appeared to them in the guise of a lady with a
long train, flirting her fan and dancing the minuet. Was she a child or
a woman? Was she under fifteen or over twenty?
She cut short the clamor of applause which burst forth when she came to
a sudden stop, by springing on to the roof of the caravan, and crying,
with an imperious gesture:
"Silence! The Captain is waking up!"
There was, behind the box, a long narrow basket, in the shape of a
closed sentry-box. Raising it by one end, she half opened the cover and
cried:
"Now, Captain Montfaucon, you've had a good sleep, haven't you? Come
now, Captain, we're a bit behind-hand with our exercises. Make up for
it, Captain!"
She opened the top of the basket wide and disclosed in a kind of
cradle, very comfortable, a little boy of seven or eight, with golden
curls and red cheeks, who yawned prodigiously. Only half awake, he
stretched out his hands to Dorothy who clasped him to her bosom and
kissed him very tenderly.
"Baron Saint-Quentin," she called out. "Catch hold of the Captain.
Is his bread and jam ready? Captain Montfaucon will continue the
performance by going through his drill."
Captain Montfaucon was the comedian of the troupe. Dressed in an old
American uniform, his tunic dragged along the ground, and his corkscrew
trousers had their bottoms rolled up as high as his knees. This made a
costume so hampering that he could not walk ten steps without falling
full length. Captain Montfaucon provided the comedy by this unbroken
series of falls and the impressive air with which he picked himself up
again. When, furnished with a whip, his other hand useless by reason of
the slice of bread and jam it held, his cheeks smeared with jam, he put
the unbridled One-eyed Magpie through his performance, there was one
continuous roar of laughter.
"Mark time!" he ordered. "Right-about-turn!... Attention, One-eye'
Magpie!"--he could never be induced to say "One-eyed"--"And now the
goose-step. Good, One-eye' Magpie.... Perfect!"
One-eyed Magpie, promoted to the rank of circus horse, trotted round in
a circle without taking the slightest notice of the captain's orders,
who, for his part, stumbling, falling, picking himself up, recovering
his slice of bread and jam, did not bother for a moment about whether
he was obeyed or not. It was so funny, the phlegm of the little man,
and the undeviating course of the beast, that Dorothy herself was
forced to laugh with a laughter that re-doubled the gayety of the
spectators. They saw that the young girl, in spite of the fact that the
performance was undoubtedly repeated every day, always took the same
delight in it.
"Excellent, Captain," she cried to encourage him. "Splendid! And now,
captain, we'll act 'The Gipsy's Kidnaping,' a drama in a brace of
shakes. Baron Saint-Quentin, you'll be the scoundrelly kidnaper."
Uttering frightful howls, the scoundrelly kidnaper seized her and set
her on One-eyed Magpie, bound her on her, and jumped up behind her.
Under the double burden the mare staggered slowly off, while Baron
Saint-Quentin yelled:
"Gallop! Hell for leather!"
The Captain quietly put a cap on a toy gun and aimed at the scoundrelly
kidnaper.
The cap cracked; Saint-Quentin fell off; and in a transport of
gratitude the rescued gypsy covered her deliverer with kisses.
There were other scenes in which Castor and Pollux took part. All were
carried through with the same brisk liveliness. All were caricatures,
really humorous, of what diverts or charms us, and revealed a lively
imagination, powers of observation of the first order, a keen sense of
the picturesque and the ridiculous.
"Captain Montfaucon, take a bag and make a collection. Castor and
Pollux, a roll of the drum to imitate the sound of falling water. Baron
Saint-Quentin, beware of pickpockets!"
The Captain dragged through the crowd an enormous bag in which were
engulfed pennies and dirty notes; and from the top of the caravan
Dorothy delivered her farewell address:
"Very many thanks, agriculturists and towns-people! It is with regret
that we leave this generous locality. But before we depart we take
this opportunity of informing you that Mademoiselle Dorothy (she
saluted) is not only the directress of a circus and a first-class
performer. Mademoiselle Dorothy (she saluted) will also demonstrate
her extraordinary excellence in the sphere of clairvoyance and psychic
powers. The lines of the hand, the cards, coffee grounds, handwriting,
and astrology have no secrets for her. She dissipates the darkness.
She solves enigmas. With her magic ring she makes invisible springs
burst forth, and above all, she discovers in the most unfathomable
places, under the stones of old castles, and in the depths of forgotten
dungeons, fantastic treasures whose existence no one suspected. A word
to the wise is enough. I have the honor to thank you."
She descended quickly. The three boys were packing up the properties.
Saint-Quentin came to her.
"We hook it, don't we, straight away? Those policemen have kept an eye
on me the whole time."
She replied:
"Then you didn't hear the end of my speech?"
"What about it?"
"What about it? Why, the consultations are going to begin--the
superlucid clairvoyant Dorothy. Look, I here come some clients...
the bearded nobleman and the gentleman in velveteen... I like the
gentleman in velveteen. He is very polite; and there's no side about
his fawn-colored gaiters--the complete gentleman-farmer."
The bearded nobleman was beside himself. He loaded the young girl with
extravagant compliments, looking at her the while in an uncommonly
equivocal fashion. He introduced himself as "Maxime d'Estreicher,"
introduced his companion as "Raoul Davernoie," and finally, on behalf
of the Countess Octave, invited her to come to tea in the château.
"Alone?" she asked.
"Certainly not," protested Raoul Davernoie with a courteous bow. "Our
cousin is anxious to congratulate all your comrades. Will you come,
mademoiselle?"
Dorothy accepted. Just a moment to change her frock, and she would come
to the château.
"No, no; no toilet!" cried d'Estreicher. "Come as you are.... You look
perfectly charming in that slightly scanty costume. How pretty you are
like that!"
Dorothy flushed and said dryly:
"No compliments, please."
"It isn't a compliment, mademoiselle," he said a trifle ironically.
"It's the natural homage one pays to beauty."
He went off, taking Raoul Davernoie with him.
"Saint-Quentin," murmured Dorothy, looking after them. "Keep an eye on
that gentleman."
"Why?"
"He's the man in the blouse who nearly brought you down this morning."
Saint-Quentin staggered as if he had received the charge of shot.
"Are you sure?"
"Very nearly. He has the same way of walking, dragging his right leg a
little."
He muttered:
"He has recognized me!"
"I think so. When he saw you jumping about during the performance it
recalled to his mind the black devil performing acrobatic feats against
the face of the cliff. And it was only a step from you to me who
shoved the slab over on to his head. I read it all in his eyes and his
attitude towards me this afternoon--just in his manner of speaking to
me. There was a touch of mockery in it."
Saint-Quentin lost his temper:
"And we aren't hurrying off at once! You dare stay?"
"I dare."
"But that man?"
"He doesn't know that I penetrated his disguise.... And as long as he
doesn't know----"
"You mean that your intention is?"
"Perfectly simple--to tell them their fortunes, amuse them, and puzzle
them."
"But what's your object?"
"I want to make them talk in their turn."
"What about?"
"What I want to know."
"What do you want to know?"
"That's what I don't know. It's for them to teach me."
"And suppose they discover the robbery? Suppose they cross-examine us?"
"Saint-Quentin, take the Captain's wooden gun, mount guard in front of
the caravan, and when the policemen approach, shoot them down."
When she had made herself tidy, she took Saint-Quentin with her to the
château and on the way made him repeat all the details of his nocturnal
expedition. Behind them came Castor and Pollux, then the Captain,
who dragged after him by a string a little toy cart loaded with tiny
packages.
* * * * *
They entertained them in the large drawing-room of the château. The
Countess, who indeed was, as Dorothy had said, an agreeable and amiable
woman, and of a seductive prettiness, stuffed the children with
dainties, and was wholly charming to the young girl. For her part,
Dorothy seemed quite as much at her ease with her hosts as she had
been on the top of the caravan. She had merely hidden her short skirt
and bodice under a large black shawl, drawn in at the waist by a belt.
The ease of her manner, her cultivated intonation, her correct speech,
to which now and then a slang word gave a certain spiciness, her
quickness, and the intelligent expression of her brilliant eyes amazed
the Countess and charmed the three men.
"Mademoiselle," d'Estreicher exclaimed, "if you can foretell the
future, I can assure you that I too can clearly foresee it, and that
certain fortune awaits you. Ah, if you would put yourself in my hands
and let me direct your career in Paris! I am in touch with all the
worlds and I can guarantee your success."
She tossed her head:
"I don't need any one."
"Mademoiselle," said he, "confess that you do not find me congenial."
"Neither congenial nor uncongenial. I don't really know you."
"If you really knew me, you'd have confidence in me."
"I don't think so," she said.
"Why?"
She took his hand, turned it over, bent over the open palm, and as she
examined it said slowly:
"Dissipation.... Greedy for money.... Conscienceless...."
"But I protest, mademoiselle! Conscienceless? I? I who am full of
scruples."
"Your hand says the opposite, monsieur."
"Does it also say that I have no luck?"
"None at all."
"What? Shan't I ever be rich?"
"I fear not."
"Confound it.... And what about my death? Is it a long way off?"
"Not very."
"A painful death?"
"A matter of seconds."
"An accident, then?"
"Yes."
"What kind of accident?"
She pointed with her finger:
"Look here--at the base of the fore-finger."
"What is there?"
"The gallows."
There was an outburst of laughter. D'Estreicher was enchanted. Count
Octave clapped his hands.
"Bravo, mademoiselle, the gallows for this old libertine; it must be
that you have the gift of second sight. So I shall not hesitate...."
He consulted his wife with a look of inquiry and continued:
"So I shall not hesitate to tell you...."
"To tell me," finished Dorothy mischie
|
. Denfeld, U.S. Navy....................... 167
General Gerald C. Thomas, U.S. Marine Corps............... 172
Lt. Gen. Willard S. Paul.................................. 178
Adviser to the Secretary of War Marcus Ray................ 184
Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger Inspects 24th Infantry
Troops.................................................. 191
Army Specialists Report for Airborne Training............. 200
Bridge Players, Seaview Service Club, Tokyo,
Japan, 1948............................................. 203
24th Infantry Band, Gifu, Japan, 1947..................... 214
Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner Inspects the 529th
Military Police Company................................. 216
Reporting to Kitzingen.................................... 218
Inspection by the Chief of Staff.......................... 228
Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.......................... 230
Shore Leave in Korea...................................... 236
Mess Attendants, USS _Bushnell_, 1918..................... 239
Mess Attendants, USS _Wisconsin_, 1953.................... 240
Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson II............................ 244
Naval Unit Passes in Review, Naval Advanced Base,
Bremerhaven, Germany.................................... 249
Submariner................................................ 251
Marine Artillery Team..................................... 254
2d Lt. and Mrs. Frederick C. Branch....................... 267
Training Exercises........................................ 269
Damage Inspection......................................... 272
Col. Noel F. Parrish...................................... 274
Officers' Softball Team................................... 276
Checking Ammunition....................................... 278
Squadron F, 318th AAF Battalion, in Review................ 281
Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Commander, 477th Composite
Group, 1945............................................. 285
Lt. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards................................. 287
Col. Jack F. Marr......................................... 288
Walter F. White........................................... 295
Truman's Civil Rights Campaign............................ 297
A. Philip Randolph........................................ 300
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 April
1948.................................................... 306
MP's Hitch a Ride......................................... 320
Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall Reviews
Military Police Battalion............................... 323
Spring Formal Dance, Fort George G. Meade,
Maryland, 1952.......................................... 327
Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal................... 330
General Clifton B. Cates.................................. 335 (p. xviii)
1st Marine Division Drill Team on Exhibition.............. 337
Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington............ 340
Secretary of Defense Louis C. Johnson..................... 347
Fahy Committee With President Truman and Armed Services
Secretaries............................................. 349
E. W. Kenworthy........................................... 353
Charles Fahy.............................................. 354
Roy K. Davenport.......................................... 355
Press Notice.............................................. 361
Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray......................... 370
Chief of Staff of the Army J. Lawton Collins.............. 371
"No Longer a Dream"....................................... 377
Navy Corpsman in Korea.................................... 382
25th Division Troops in Japan............................. 388
Assistant Secretary of Defense Anna M. Rosenberg.......... 391
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert.... 402
Music Makers.............................................. 408
Maintenance Crew, 462d Strategic Fighter Squadron......... 410
Jet Mechanics............................................. 411
Christmas in Korea, 1950.................................. 417
Rearming at Sea........................................... 418
Broadening Skills......................................... 419
Integrated Stewards Class Graduates, Great Lakes, 1953.... 423
WAVE Recruits, Naval Training Center, Bainbridge,
Maryland, 1953.......................................... 425
Rear Adm. Samuel L. Gravely, Jr........................... 426
Moving Up................................................. 431
Men of Battery A, 159th Field Artillery Battalion......... 433
Survivors of an Intelligence and Reconnaissance
Platoon, 24th Infantry.................................. 438
General Matthew B. Ridgway, Far East Commander............ 444
Machine Gunners of Company L, 14th Infantry, Hill 931,
Korea................................................... 446
Color Guard, 160th Infantry, Korea, 1952.................. 448
Visit With the Commander.................................. 454
Brothers Under the Skin................................... 455
Marines on the Kansas Line, Korea......................... 465
Marine Reinforcements..................................... 466
Training Exercises on Iwo Jima, March 1954................ 469
Marines From Camp Lejeune................................. 470
Lt. Col. Frank E. Petersen, Jr............................ 471
Sergeant Major Edgar R. Huff.............................. 472
Clarence Mitchell......................................... 475
Congressman Adam Clayton Powell........................... 484
Secretary of the Navy Robert B. Anderson.................. 486
Reading Class in the Military Dependents School, Yokohama. 495
Civil Rights Leaders at the White House................... 503
President John F. Kennedy and President Jorge Allessandri. 509 (p. xix)
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara................... 516
Adam Yarmolinsky.......................................... 532
James C. Evans............................................ 533
The Gesell Committee Meets With the President............. 541
Alfred B. Fitt............................................ 547
Arriving in Vietnam....................................... 560
Digging In................................................ 562
Listening to the Squad Leader............................. 567
Supplying the Seventh Fleet............................... 576
USAF Ground Crew, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam.......... 580
Fighter Pilots on the Line................................ 583
Medical Examination....................................... 589
Auto Pilot Shop........................................... 594
Submarine Tender Duty..................................... 600
First Aid................................................. 606
Vietnam Patrol............................................ 611
Marine Engineers in Vietnam............................... 613
Loading a Rocket Launcher................................. 615
American Sailors Help Evacuate a Vietnamese Child......... 618
Booby Trap Victim from Company B, 47th Infantry........... 619
Camaraderie............................................... 622
All illustrations are from the files of the Department of Defense and
the National Archives and Records Service with the exception of the
pictures on pages 6 and 10, courtesy of William G. Bell; on page 20,
by Fabian Bachrach, courtesy of Judge William H. Hastie; on page 120,
courtesy of Carlton Skinner; on page 297, courtesy of the Washington
_Star_, on page 361, courtesy of the _Afro-American_ Newspapers; on
page 377, courtesy of the Sengstacke Newspapers; and on page 475,
courtesy of the Washington Bureau of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People.
Tables
_No._
1. Classification of All Men Tested From March 1941 Through
December 1942........................................... 25
2. AGCT Percentages in Selected World War II Divisions.... 138
3. Percentage of Black Enlisted Men and Women............. 395
4. Disposition of Black Personnel at Eight Air Force
Bases, 1949............................................ 403
5. Racial Composition of Air Force Units.................. 404
6. Black Strength in the Air Force........................ 405
7. Racial Composition of the Training Command,
December 1949.......................................... 406
8. Black Manpower, U.S. Navy.............................. 416 (p. xx)
9. Worldwide Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Race,
October 1952........................................... 458
10. Distribution of Black Enlisted Personnel by Branch
and Rank, 31 October 1952............................. 458
11. Black Marines, 1949-1955.............................. 463
12. Defense Installations With Segregated Public Schools.. 491
13. Black Strength in the Armed Forces for Selected Years. 522
14. Estimated Percentage Distribution of Draft-Age
Males in U.S. Population by AFQT Groups............... 523
15. Rate of Men Disqualified for Service in 1962.......... 523
16. Rejection Rates for Failure To Pass Armed Forces
Mental Test, 1962..................................... 524
17. Nonwhite Inductions and First Enlistments, Fiscal
Years 1953-1962....................................... 525
18. Distribution of Enlisted Personnel in Each Major
Occupation, 1956...................................... 525
19. Occupational Group Distribution by Race, All DOD,
1962.................................................. 525
20. Occupational Group Distribution of Enlisted
Personnel by Length of Service, and Race.............. 526
21. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel
by Race, AFQT Groups and Occupational Areas, and
Length of Service, 1962............................... 526
22. Percentage Distribution of Blacks and Whites by Pay
Grade, All DOD, 1962.................................. 527
23. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel
by Race, AFQT Groups, Pay Grade, and Length of
Service, 1962......................................... 528
24. Black Percentages, 1962-1968.......................... 568
25. Rates for First Reenlistments, 1964-1967.............. 569
26. Black Attendance at the Military Academies, July 1968. 569
27. Army and Air Force Commissions Granted at
Predominately Black Schools........................... 570
28. Percentage of Negroes in Certain Military Ranks,
1964-1966............................................. 571
29. Distribution of Servicemen in Occupational Groups
by Race, 1967......................................... 573
INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES (p. 001)
1940-1965
CHAPTER 1 (p. 003)
Introduction
In the quarter century that followed American entry into World War II,
the nation's armed forces moved from the reluctant inclusion of a few
segregated Negroes to their routine acceptance in a racially
integrated military establishment. Nor was this change confined to
military installations. By the time it was over, the armed forces had
redefined their traditional obligation for the welfare of their
members to include a promise of equal treatment for black servicemen
wherever they might be. In the name of equality of treatment and
opportunity, the Department of Defense began to challenge racial
injustices deeply rooted in American society.
For all its sweeping implications, equality in the armed forces
obviously had its pragmatic aspects. In one sense it was a practical
answer to pressing political problems that had plagued several
national administrations. In another, it was the services' expression
of those liberalizing tendencies that were permeating American society
during the era of civil rights activism. But to a considerable extent
the policy of racial equality that evolved in this quarter century was
also a response to the need for military efficiency. So easy did it
become to demonstrate the connection between inefficiency and
discrimination that, even when other reasons existed, military
efficiency was the one most often evoked by defense officials to
justify a change in racial policy.
_The Armed Forces Before 1940_
Progress toward equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces
was an uneven process, the result of sporadic and sometimes
conflicting pressures derived from such constants in American society
as prejudice and idealism and spurred by a chronic shortage of
military manpower. In his pioneering study of race relations, Gunnar
Myrdal observes that ideals have always played a dominant role in the
social dynamics of America.[1-1] By extension, the ideals that helped
involve the nation in many of its wars also helped produce important
changes in the treatment of Negroes by the armed forces. The
democratic spirit embodied in the Declaration of Independence, for
example, opened the Continental Army to many Negroes, holding out to
them the promise of eventual freedom.[1-2]
[Footnote 1-1: Gunnar Myrdal, _The American Dilemma:
The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy_, rev. ed.
(New York: Harper Row, 1962), p. lxi.]
[Footnote 1-2: Benjamin Quarles, _The Negro in the
American Revolution_ (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1961), pp. 182-85. The
following brief summary of the Negro in the
pre-World War II Army is based in part on the
Quarles book and Roland C. McConnell, _Negro Troops
of Antebellum Louisiana: A History of the
Battalion of Free Men of Color_ (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1968); Dudley T.
Cornish, _Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union
Army, 1861-1865_ (New York: Norton, 1966); William
H. Leckie, _The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of
the Negro Cavalry in the West_ (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1969); William Bruce White, "The
Military and the Melting Pot: The American Army and
Minority Groups, 1865-1924" (Ph.D. dissertation,
University of Wisconsin, 1968); Marvin E. Fletcher,
_The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States
Army, 1891-1917_ (Columbia: University of Missouri
Press, 1974); Arthur E. Barbeau and Florette Henri,
_Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World
War I_ (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1974). For a general survey of black soldiers in
America's wars, see Jack Foner, _Blacks and the
Military in American History: A New Perspective_
(New York: Praeger, 1974).]
Yet the fact that the British themselves were taking large numbers (p. 004)
of Negroes into their ranks proved more important than revolutionary
idealism in creating a place for Negroes in the American forces. Above
all, the participation of both slaves and freedmen in the Continental
Army and the Navy was a pragmatic response to a pressing need for
fighting men and laborers. Despite the fear of slave insurrection
shared by many colonists, some 5,000 Negroes, the majority from New
England, served with the American forces in the Revolution, often in
integrated units, some as artillerymen and musicians, the majority as
infantrymen or as unarmed pioneers detailed to repair roads and
bridges.
Again, General Jackson's need for manpower at New Orleans explains the
presence of the Louisiana Free Men of Color in the last great battle
of the War of 1812. In the Civil War the practical needs of the Union
Army overcame the Lincoln administration's fear of alienating the
border states. When the call for volunteers failed to produce the
necessary men, Negroes were recruited, generally as laborers at first
but later for combat. In all, 186,000 Negroes served in the Union
Army. In addition to those in the sixteen segregated combat regiments
and the labor units, thousands also served unofficially as laborers,
teamsters, and cooks. Some 30,000 Negroes served in the Navy, about 25
percent of its total Civil War strength.
The influence of the idealism fostered by the abolitionist crusade
should not be overlooked. It made itself felt during the early months
of the war in the demands of Radical Republicans and some Union
generals for black enrollment, and it brought about the postwar
establishment of black units in the Regular Army. In 1866 Congress
authorized the creation of permanent, all-black units, which in 1869
were designated the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th
Infantry.
[Illustration: CREWMEN OF THE USS MIAMI DURING THE CIVIL WAR]
Military needs and idealistic impulses were not enough to guarantee
uninterrupted racial progress; in fact, the status of black servicemen
tended to reflect the changing patterns in American race relations.
During most of the nineteenth century, for example, Negroes served in
an integrated U.S. Navy, in the latter half of the century averaging
between 20 and 30 percent of the enlisted strength.[1-3] But the
employment of Negroes in the Navy was abruptly curtailed after
1900. Paralleling the rise of Jim Crow and legalized segregation (p. 005)
in much of America was the cutback in the number of black sailors, who
by 1909 were mostly in the galley and the engine room. In contrast to
their high percentage of the ranks in the Civil War and Spanish-American
War, only 6,750 black sailors, including twenty-four women reservists
(yeomanettes), served in World War I; they constituted 1.2 percent of
the Navy's total enlistment.[1-4] Their service was limited chiefly to
mess duty and coal passing, the latter becoming increasingly rare as
the fleet changed from coal to oil.
[Footnote 1-3: Estimates vary; exact racial
statistics concerning the nineteenth century Navy
are difficult to locate. See Enlistment of Men of
Colored Race, 23 Jan 42, a note appended to
Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy,
1942, Operational Archives, Department of the Navy
(hereafter OpNavArchives). The following brief
summary of the Negro in the pre-World War II Navy
is based in part on Foner's _Blacks and the
Military in American History_ as well as Harold D.
Langley, "The Negro in the Navy and Merchant
Service, 1798-1860," _Journal of Negro History_ 52
(October 1967):273-86; Langley's _Social Reform in
the United States Navy 1798-1862_, (Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1967) Peter Karsten,
_The Naval Aristocracy: The Golden Age of Annapolis
and the Emergence of Modern American Navalism_ (New
York: The Free Press, 1972); Frederick S. Harrod,
_Manning the New Navy: The Development of a Modern
Naval Enlisted Force, 1899-1940_ (Westport:
Greenwood Press, 1978).]
[Footnote 1-4: Ltr, Rear Adm C. W. Nimitz, Actg
Chief, Bureau of Navigation, to Rep. Hamilton Fish,
17 Jun 37, A9-10, General Records of the Department
of the Navy (hereafter GenRecsNav).]
[Illustration: BUFFALO SOLDIERS. (_Frederick Remington's 1888
sketch._)]
When postwar enlistment was resumed in 1923, the Navy recruited
Filipino stewards instead of Negroes, although a decade later it
reopened the branch to black enlistment. Negroes quickly took
advantage of this limited opportunity, their numbers rising from 441
in 1932 to 4,007 in June 1940, when they constituted 2.3 percent of
the Navy's 170,000 total.[1-5] Curiously enough, because black (p. 006)
reenlistment in combat or technical specialties had never been barred,
a few black gunner's mates, torpedomen, machinist mates, and the like
continued to serve in the 1930's.
[Footnote 1-5: Memo, H. A. Badt, Bureau of
Navigation, for Officer in Charge, Public
Relations, 24 Jul 40, sub: Negroes in U.S. Navy,
Nav-641, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel
(hereafter BuPersRecs).]
Although the Army's racial policy differed from the Navy's, the
resulting limited, separate service for Negroes proved similar. The
laws of 1866 and 1869 that guaranteed the existence of four black
Regular Army regiments also institutionalized segregation, granting
federal recognition to a system racially separate and theoretically
equal in treatment and opportunity a generation before the Supreme
Court sanctioned such a distinction in _Plessy_ v. _Ferguson_.[1-6] So
important to many in the black community was this guaranteed existence
of the four regiments that had served with distinction against the
frontier Indians that few complained about segregation. In fact, as
historian Jack Foner has pointed out, black leaders sometimes
interpreted demands for integration as attempts to eliminate black
soldiers altogether.[1-7]
[Footnote 1-6: 163 U.S. 537 (1896). In this 1896 case
concerning segregated seating on a Louisiana
railroad, the Supreme Court ruled that so long as
equality of accommodation existed, segregation
could not in itself be considered discriminatory
and therefore did not violate the equal rights
provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. This
"separate but equal" doctrine would prevail in
American law for more than half a century.]
[Footnote 1-7: Foner, _Blacks and the Military in
American History_, p. 66.]
The Spanish-American War marked a break with the post-Civil War
tradition of limited recruitment. Besides the 3,339 black regulars,
approximately 10,000 black volunteers served in the Army during (p. 007)
the conflict. World War I was another exception, for Negroes made up
nearly 11 percent of the Army's total strength, some 404,000 officers
and men.[1-8] The acceptance of Negroes during wartime stemmed from
the Army's pressing need for additional manpower. Yet it was no means
certain in the early months of World War I that this need for men
would prevail over the reluctance of many leaders to arm large groups
of Negroes. Still remembered were the 1906 Brownsville affair, in
which men of the 25th Infantry had fired on Texan civilians, and the
August 1917 riot involving members of the 24th Infantry at Houston,
Texas.[1-9] Ironically, those idealistic impulses that had operated in
earlier wars were operating again in this most Jim Crow of
administrations.[1-10] Woodrow Wilson's promise to make the world safe
for democracy was forcing his administration to admit Negroes to the
Army. Although it carefully maintained racially separate draft calls,
the National Army conscripted some 368,000 Negroes, 13.08 percent of
all those drafted in World War I.[1-11]
[Footnote 1-8: Ulysses Lee, _The Employment of Negro
Troops_, United States Army in World War II
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), p.
5. See also Army War College Historical Section,
"The Colored Soldier in the U.S. Army," May 1942,
p. 22, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 1-9: For a modern analysis of the two
incidents and the effect of Jim Crow on black units
before World War I, see John D. Weaver, _The
Brownsville Raid_ (New York: W. W. Norton Co.,
1970); Robert V. Haynes, _A Night of Violence: The
Houston Riot of 1917_ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University Press, 1976).]
[Footnote 1-10: On the racial attitudes of the Wilson
administration, see Nancy J. Weiss, "The Negro and
the New Freedom: Fighting Wilsonian Segregation,"
_Political Science Quarterly_ 84 (March
1969):61-79.]
[Footnote 1-11: _Special Report of the Provost
Marshal General on Operations of the Selective
Service System to December 1918_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 193.]
Black assignments reflected the opinion, expressed repeatedly in Army
staff studies throughout the war, that when properly led by whites,
blacks could perform reasonably well in segregated units. Once again
Negroes were called on to perform a number of vital though unskilled
jobs, such as construction work, most notably in sixteen specially
formed pioneer infantry regiments. But they also served as frontline
combat troops in the all-black 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions, the
latter serving with distinction among the French forces.
Established by law and tradition and reinforced by the Army staff's
conviction that black troops had not performed well in combat,
segregation survived to flourish in the postwar era.[1-12] The familiar
practice of maintaining a few black units was resumed in the Regular
Army, with the added restriction that Negroes were totally excluded
from the Air Corps. The postwar manpower retrenchments common to all
Regular Army units further reduced the size of the remaining black
units. By June 1940 the number of Negroes on active duty stood at
approximately 4,000 men, 1.5 percent of the Army's total, about the
same proportion as Negroes in the Navy.[1-13]
[Footnote 1-12: The development of post-World War I
policy is discussed in considerable detail in Lee,
_Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapters I and II.
See also U.S. Army War College Miscellaneous File
127-1 through 127-23 and 127-27, U.S. Army Military
History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks
(hereafter AMHRC).]
[Footnote 1-13: The 1940 strength figure is
extrapolated from Misc Div, AGO, Returns Sec, 9 Oct
39-30 Nov 41. The figures do not include some 3,000
Negroes in National Guard units under state
control.]
_Civil Rights and the Law in 1940_ (p. 008)
The same constants in American society that helped decide the status
of black servicemen in the nineteenth century remained influential
between the world wars, but with a significant change.[1-14] Where once
the advancing fortunes of Negroes in the services depended almost
exclusively on the good will of white progressives, their welfare now
became the concern of a new generation of black leaders and emerging
civil rights organizations. Skilled journalists in the black press and
counselors and lobbyists presenting such groups as the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the
National Urban League, and the National Negro Congress took the lead
in the fight for racial justice in the United States. They represented
a black community that for the most part lacked the cohesion,
political awareness, and economic strength which would characterize it
in the decades to come. Nevertheless, Negroes had already become a
recognizable political force in some parts of the country. Both the
New Deal politicians and their opponents openly courted the black vote
in the 1940 presidential election.
[Footnote 1-14: This discussion of civil rights in
the pre-World War II period draws not only on Lee's
_Employment of Negro Troops_, but also on Lee
Finkle, _Forum for Protest: The Black Press During
World War II_ (Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 1975); Harvard Sitkoff, "Racial
Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second
World War," _Journal of American History_ 58
(December 1971):661-81; Reinhold Schumann, "The
Role of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People in the Integration of
the Armed Forces According to the NAACP Collection
in the Library of Congress" (1971), in CMH; Richard
M. Dalfiume, _Desegregation of the United States
Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953_
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1969).]
These politicians realized that the United States was beginning to
outgrow its old racial relationships over which Jim Crow had reigned,
either by law or custom, for more than fifty years. In large areas of
the country where lynchings and beatings were commonplace, white
supremacy had existed as a literal fact of life and death.[1-15] More
insidious than the Jim Crow laws were the economic deprivation and
dearth of educational opportunity associated with racial
discrimination. Traditionally the last hired, first fired, Negroes
suffered all the handicaps that came from unemployment and poor jobs,
a condition further aggravated by the Great Depression. The "separate
but equal" educational system dictated by law and the realities of
black life in both urban and rural areas, north and south, had proved
anything but equal and thus closed to Negroes a traditional avenue to
advancement in American society.
[Footnote 1-15: The Jim Crow era is especially well
described in Rayford W. Logan's _The Negro in
American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901_
(New York: Dial, 1954) and C. Vann Woodward's _The
Strange Career of Jim Crow_, 3d ed. rev. (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1974)]
In these circumstances, the economic and humanitarian programs of the
New Deal had a special appeal for black America. Encouraged by these
programs and heartened by Eleanor Roosevelt's public support of civil
rights, black voters defected from their traditional allegiance to the
Republican Party in overwhelming numbers. But the civil rights leaders
were already aware, if the average black citizen was not, that despite
having made some considerable improvements Franklin Roosevelt never,
in one biographer's words, "sufficiently challenged Southern (p. 009)
traditions of white supremacy to create problems for himself."[1-16]
Negroes, in short, might benefit materially from the New Deal, but
they would have to look elsewhere for advancement of their civil
rights.
[Footnote 1-16: Frank Freidel, _F.D.R. and the South_
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1965), pp. 71-102. See also Bayard Rustin,
_Strategies for Freedom: The Changing Patterns of
Black Protest_ (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1976), p. 16.]
Men like Walter F. White of the NAACP and the National Urban League's
T. Arnold Hill sought to use World War II to expand opportunities for
the black American. From the start they tried to translate the
idealistic sentiment for democracy stimulated by the war and expressed
in the Atlantic Charter into widespread support for civil rights in
the United States. At the same time, in sharp contrast to many of
their World War I predecessors, they placed a price on black support
for the war effort: no longer could the White House expect this
sizable minority to submit to injustice and yet close ranks with other
Americans to defeat a common enemy. It was readily apparent to the
Negro, if not to his white supporter or his enemy, that winning
equality at home was just as important as advancing the cause of
freedom abroad. As George S. Schuyler, a widely quoted black
columnist, put it: "If nothing more comes out of this emergency than
the widespread understanding among white leaders that the Negro's
loyalty is conditional, we shall not have suffered in vain."[1-17] The
NAACP spelled out the challenge even more clearly in its monthly
publication, _The Crisis_, which declared itself "sorry for brutality,
blood, and death among the peoples of Europe, just as we were sorry
for China and Ethiopia. But the hysterical cries of the preachers of
democracy for Europe leave us cold. We want democracy in Alabama,
Arkansas, in Mississippi and Michigan, in the District of Columbia--in
the _Senate of the United States_."[1-18]
[Footnote 1-17: Pittsburgh _Courier_, December 21,
1940.]
[Footnote 1-18: _The Crisis_ 47 (July 1940):209.]
This sentiment crystallized in the black press's Double V campaign, a
call for simultaneous victories over Jim Crow at home and fascism
abroad. Nor was the Double V campaign limited to a small group of
civil rights spokesmen; rather, it reflected a new mood that, as
Myrdal pointed out, was permeating all classes of black society.[1-19]
The quickening of the black masses in the cause of equal treatment and
opportunity in the pre-World War II period and the willingness of
Negroes to adopt a more militant course to achieve this end might well
mark the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.
[Footnote 1-19: Myrdal, _American Dilemma_, p. 744.]
[Illustration: INTEGRATION IN THE ARMY OF 1888. _The Army Band at Fort
Duchesne, Utah, composed of soldiers from the black 9th Cavalry and
the white 21st Infantry._]
Historian Lee Finkle has suggested that the militancy advocated by
most of the civil rights leaders in the World War II era was merely a
rhetorical device; that for the most part they sought to avoid
violence over segregation, concentrating as before on traditional
methods of protest.[1-20] This reliance on traditional methods was
apparent when the leaders tried to focus the new sentiment among
Negroes on two war-related goals: equality of treatment in the armed
forces and equality of job opportunity in the expanding defense
industries. In 1938 the Pittsburgh _Courier_, the largest and one (p. 010)
of the most influential of the nation's black papers, called upon the
President to open the services to Negroes and organized the Committee
for Negro Participation in the National Defense Program. These moves
led to an extensive lobbying effort that in time spread to many other
newspapers and local civil rights groups. The black press and its
satellites also attracted the support of several national
organizations that were promoting preparedness for war, and these
groups, in turn, began to demand equal treatment and opportunity in
the armed forces.[1-21]
[Footnote 1-20: Lee Finkle, "The Conservative Aims of
Militant Rhetoric: Black Protest During World War
II," _Journal of American History_ 60 (December
1973):693.]
[Footnote 1-21: Some impression of the extent of this
campaign and its effect on the War Department can
be gained from the volume of correspondence
produced by the Pittsburgh _Courier_ campaign and
filed in AG 322.99 (2-23-38)(1).]
The government began to respond to these pressures before the United
States entered World War II. At the urging of the White House the Army
announced plans for the mobilization of Negroes, and Congress amended
several mobilization measures to define and increase the military
training opportunities for Negroes.[1-22] The most important of these
legislative amendments in terms of influence on future race relations
in the United States were made to the Selective Service Act of 1940.
The matter of race played only a small part in the debate on this
highly controversial legislation, but during congressional hearings on
the bill black spokesmen testified on discrimination against Negroes
in the services.[1-23] These witnesses concluded that if the draft law
did not provide specific guarantees against it, discrimination would
prevail.
[Footnote 1-22: The Army's plans and amendments are
treated in great detail in Lee, _Employment of
Negro Troops_.]
[Footnote 1-23: Hearings Before the Committee on
Military Affairs. House of Representatives, 76th
Cong., 3d sess., on H.R. 10132, _Selective
Compulsory Military Training and Service_, pp.
585-90.]
[Illustration: GUNNER'S GANG ON THE USS MAINE.]
A majority in both houses of Congress seemed to agree. During (p. 011)
floor debate on the Selective Service Act, Senator Robert F. Wagner of
New York proposed an amendment to guarantee to Negroes and other
racial minorities the privilege of voluntary enlistment in the armed
forces
|
and how greatly Sif prized it because of Thor's love.
Here was his chance to do a great mischief. Smilingly, he took out his
shears and he cut off the shining hair, every strand and every tress.
She did not waken while her treasure was being taken from her. But Loki
left Sif's head cropped and bare.
Thor was away from Asgard. Coming back to the City of the Gods, he went
into his house. Sif, his wife, was not there to welcome him. He called
to Sif, but no glad answer came from her. To the palaces of all the Gods
and Goddesses Thor went, but in none of them did he find Sif, his
golden-haired wife.
When he was coming back to his house he heard his name whispered. He
stopped, and then a figure stole out from behind a stone. A veil covered
her head, and Thor scarce knew that this was Sif, his wife. As he went
to her she sobbed and sobbed. "O Thor, my husband," she said, "do not
look upon me. I am ashamed that you should see me. I shall go from
Asgard and from the company of the Gods and Goddesses, and I shall go
down to Svartheim and live amongst the Dwarfs. I cannot bear that any of
the Dwellers in Asgard should look upon me now."
"O Sif," cried Thor, "what has happened to change you?"
"I have lost the hair of my head," said Sif, "I have lost the beautiful
golden hair that you, Thor, loved. You will not love me any more, and so
I must go away, down to Svartheim and to the company of the Dwarfs. They
are as ugly as I am now."
Then she took the veil off her head and Thor saw that all her beautiful
hair was gone. She stood before him, shamed and sorrowful, and he grew
into a mighty rage. "Who was it did this to you, Sif?" he said. "I am
Thor, the strongest of all the Dwellers in Asgard, and I shall see to it
that all the powers the Gods possess will be used to get your fairness
back. Come with me, Sif." And taking his wife's hand in his, Thor went
off to the Council House where the Gods and the Goddesses were.
Sif covered her head with her veil, for she would not have the Gods and
Goddesses look upon her shorn head. But from the anger in Thor's eyes
all saw that the wrong done to Sif was great indeed. Then Thor told of
the cutting of her beautiful hair. A whisper went round the Council
House. "It was Loki did this--no one else in Asgard would have done a
deed so shameful," one said to the other.
"Loki it was who did it," said Thor. "He has hidden himself, but I shall
find him and I will slay him."
"Nay, not so, Thor," said Odin, the Father of the Gods. "Nay, no Dweller
in Asgard may slay another. I shall summon Loki to come before us here.
It is for you to make him (and remember that Loki is cunning and able to
do many things) bring back to Sif the beauty of her golden hair."
Then the call of Odin, the call that all in Asgard have to harken to,
went through the City of the Gods. Loki heard it, and he had to come
from his hiding-place and enter the house where the Gods held their
Council. And when he looked on Thor and saw the rage that was in his
eyes, and when he looked on Odin and saw the sternness in the face of
the Father of the Gods, he knew that he would have to make amends for
the shameful wrong he had done to Sif.
Said Odin, "There is a thing that you, Loki, have to do: Restore to Sif
the beauty of her hair."
Loki looked at Odin, Loki looked at Thor, and he saw that what was said
would have to be done. His quick mind searched to find a way of
restoring to Sif the beauty of her golden hair.
"I shall do as you command, Odin All-Father," he said.
But before we tell you of what Loki did to restore the beauty of Sif's
golden hair, we must tell you of the other beings besides the Gods and
the Goddesses who were in the world at the time. First, there was the
Vanir. When the Gods who were called the Æsir came to the mountain on
which they built Asgard, they found other beings there. These were not
wicked and ugly like the Giants; they were beautiful and friendly; the
Vanir they were named.
Although they were beautiful and friendly the Vanir had no thought of
making the world more beautiful or more happy. In that way they differed
from the Æsir who had such a thought. The Æsir made peace with them, and
they lived together in friendship, and the Vanir came to do things that
helped the Æsir to make the world more beautiful and more happy. Freya,
whom the Giant wanted to take away with the Sun and the Moon as a reward
for the building of the wall round Asgard, was of the Vanir. The other
beings of the Vanir were Frey, who was the brother of Freya, and Niörd,
who was their father.
On the earth below there were other beings--the dainty Elves, who danced
and fluttered about, attending to the trees and flowers and grasses. The
Vanir were permitted to rule over the Elves. Then below the earth, in
caves and hollows, there was another race, the Dwarfs or Gnomes, little,
twisted creatures, who were both wicked and ugly, but who were the best
craftsmen in the world.
In the days when neither the Æsir nor the Vanir were friendly to him
Loki used to go down to Svartheim, the Dwarfs' dwelling below the earth.
And now that he was commanded to restore to Sif the beauty of her hair,
Loki thought of help he might get from the Dwarfs.
Down, down, through the winding passages in the earth he went, and he
came at last to where the Dwarfs who were most friendly to him were
working in their forges. All the Dwarfs were master-smiths, and when he
came upon his friends he found them working hammer and tongs, beating
metals into many shapes. He watched them for a while and took note of
the things they were making. One was a spear, so well balanced and made
that it would hit whatever mark it was thrown at no matter how bad the
aim the thrower had. The other was a boat that could sail on any sea,
but that could be folded up so that it would go into one's pocket. The
spear was called Gungnir and the boat was called Skidbladnir.
Loki made himself very agreeable to the Dwarfs, praising their work and
promising them things that only the Dwellers in Asgard could give,
things that the Dwarfs longed to possess. He talked to them till the
little, ugly folk thought that they would come to own Asgard and all
that was in it.
At last Loki said to them, "Have you got a bar of fine gold that you can
hammer into threads--into threads so fine that they will be like the
hair of Sif, Thor's wife? Only the Dwarfs could make a thing so
wonderful. Ah, there is the bar of gold. Hammer it into those fine
threads, and the Gods themselves will be jealous of your work."
Flattered by Loki's speeches, the Dwarfs who were in the forge took up
the bar of fine gold and flung it into the fire. Then taking it out and
putting it upon their anvil they worked on the bar with their tiny
hammers until they beat it into threads that were as fine as the hairs
of one's head. But that was not enough. They had to be as fine as the
hairs on Sif's head, and these were finer than anything else. They
worked on the threads, over and over again, until they were as fine as
the hairs on Sif's head. The threads were as bright as sunlight, and
when Loki took up the mass of worked gold it flowed from his raised hand
down on the ground. It was so fine that it could be put into his palm,
and it was so light that a bird might not feel its weight.
Then Loki praised the Dwarfs more and more, and he made more and more
promises to them. He charmed them all, although they were an unfriendly
and a suspicious folk. And before he left them he asked them for the
spear and the boat he had seen them make, the spear Gungnir and the
boat Skidbladnir. The Dwarfs gave him these things, though in a while
after they wondered at themselves for giving them.
Back to Asgard Loki went. He walked into the Council House where the
Dwellers in Asgard were gathered. He met the stern look in Odin's eyes
and the rageful look in Thor's eyes with smiling good humor. "Off with
thy veil, O Sif," he said. And when poor Sif took off her veil he put
upon her shorn head the wonderful mass of gold he held in his palm. Over
her shoulders the gold fell, fine, soft, and shining as her own hair.
And the Æsir and the Asyniur, the Gods and the Goddesses, and the Van
and Vana, when they saw Sif's head covered again with the shining web,
laughed and clapped their hands in gladness. And the shining web held to
Sif's head as if indeed it had roots and was growing there.
[Illustration]
HOW BROCK BROUGHT JUDGMENT ON LOKI
It was then that Loki, with the wish of making the Æsir and the Vanir
friendly to him once more, brought out the wonderful things he had
gained from the Dwarfs--the spear Gungnir and the boat Skidbladnir. The
Æsir and the Vanir marveled at things so wonderful. Loki gave the spear
as a gift to Odin, and to Frey, who was chief of the Vanir, he gave the
boat Skidbladnir.
All Asgard rejoiced that things so wonderful and so helpful had been
brought to them. And Loki, who had made a great show in giving these
gifts, said boastingly:
"None but the Dwarfs who work for me could make such things. There are
other Dwarfs, but they are as unhandy as they are misshapen. The Dwarfs
who are my servants are the only ones who can make such wonders."
Now Loki in his boastfulness had said a foolish thing. There were other
Dwarfs besides those who had worked for him, and one of these was there
in Asgard. All unknown to Loki he stood in the shadow of Odin's seat,
listening to what was being said. Now he went over to Loki, his little,
unshapely form trembling with rage--Brock, the most spiteful of all the
Dwarfs.
"Ha, Loki, you boaster," he roared, "you lie in your words. Sindri, my
brother, who would scorn to serve you, is the best smith in Svartheim."
The Æsir and the Vanir laughed to see Loki outfaced by Brock the Dwarf
in the middle of his boastfulness. As they laughed Loki grew angry.
"Be silent, Dwarf," he said, "your brother will know about smith's work
when he goes to the Dwarfs who are my friends, and learns something from
them."
"He learn from the Dwarfs who are your friends! My brother Sindri learn
from the Dwarfs who are your friends!" Brock roared, in a greater rage
than before. "The things you have brought out of Svartheim would not be
noticed by the Æsir and the Vanir if they were put beside the things
that my brother Sindri can make."
"Sometime we will try your brother Sindri and see what he can do," said
Loki.
"Try now, try now," Brock shouted. "I'll wager my head against yours,
Loki, that his work will make the Dwellers in Asgard laugh at your
boasting."
"I will take your wager," said Loki. "My head against yours. And glad
will I be to see that ugly head of yours off your misshapen shoulders."
"The Æsir will judge whether my brother's work is not the best that ever
came out of Svartheim. And they will see to it that you will pay your
wager, Loki, the head off your shoulders. Will ye not sit in judgment, O
Dwellers in Asgard?"
"We will sit in judgment," said the Æsir. Then, still full of rage,
Brock the Dwarf went down to Svartheim, and to the place where his
brother Sindri worked.
There was Sindri in his glowing forge, working with bellows and anvil
and hammers beside him, and around him masses of metal--gold and silver,
copper and iron. Brock told his tale, how he had wagered his head
against Loki's that Sindri could make things more wonderful than the
spear and the boat that Loki had brought into Asgard.
"You were right in what you said, my brother," said Sindri, "and you
shall not lose your head to Loki. But the two of us must work at what I
am going to forge. It will be your work to keep the fire so that it will
neither blaze up nor die down for a single instant. If you can keep the
fire as I tell you, we will forge a wonder. Now, brother, keep your
hands upon the bellows, and keep the fire under your control."
Then into the fire Sindri threw, not a piece of metal, but a pig's skin.
Brock kept his hands on the bellows, working it so that the fire neither
died down nor blazed up for a single instant. And in the glowing fire
the pigskin swelled itself into a strange shape.
But Brock was not left to work the bellows in peace. In to the forge
flew a gadfly. It lighted on Brock's hands and stung them. The Dwarf
screamed with pain, but his hands still held the bellows, working it to
keep the fire steady, for he knew that the gadfly was Loki, and that
Loki was striving to spoil Sindri's work. Again the gadfly stung his
hands, but Brock, although his hands felt as if they were pierced with
hot irons, still worked the bellows so that the fire did not blaze up or
die down for a single instant.
Sindri came and looked into the fire. Over the shape that was rising
there he said words of magic. The gadfly had flown away, and Sindri bade
his brother cease working. He took out the thing that had been shaped in
the fire, and he worked over it with his hammer. It was a wonder
indeed--a boar, all golden, that could fly through the air, and that
shed light from its bristles as it flew. Brock forgot the pain in his
hands and screamed with joy. "This is the greatest of wonders," he said.
"The Dwellers in Asgard will have to give the judgment against Loki. I
shall have Loki's head!"
But Sindri said, "The boar Golden Bristle may not be judged as great a
wonder as the spear Gungnir or the boat Skidbladnir. We must make
something more wonderful still. Work the bellows as before, brother, and
do not let the fire die down or blaze up for a single instant."
Then Sindri took up a piece of gold that was so bright it lightened up
the dark cavern that the Dwarfs worked in. He threw the piece of gold
into the fire. Then he went to make ready something else and left Brock
to work the bellows.
The gadfly flew in again. Brock did not know it was there until it
lighted on the back of his neck. It stung him till Brock felt the pain
was wrenching him apart. But still he kept his hands on the bellows,
working it so that the fire neither blazed up nor died down for a single
instant. When Sindri came to look into the fire, Brock was not able to
speak for pain.
Again Sindri said magic words over the gold that was being smelted in
the fire. He took it out of the glow and worked it over on the
main-anvil. Then in a while he showed Brock something that looked like
the circle of their sun. "A splendid armring, my brother," he said. "An
armring for a God's right arm. And this ring has hidden wonders. Every
ninth night eight rings like itself will drop from this armring, for
this is Draupnir, the Ring of Increase."
"To Odin, the Father of the Gods, the ring shall be given," said Brock.
"And Odin will have to declare that nothing so wonderful or so
profitable to the Gods was ever brought into Asgard. O Loki, cunning
Loki, I shall have thy head in spite of thy tricks."
"Be not too hasty, brother," said Sindri. "What we have done so far is
good. But better still must be the thing that will make the Dwellers in
Asgard give the judgment that delivers Loki's head to thee. Work as
before, brother, and do not let the fire blaze up or die down for a
single instant."
This time Sindri threw into the fire a bar of iron. Then he went away to
fetch the hammer that would shape it. Brock worked the bellows as
before, but only his hands were steady, for every other part of him was
trembling with expectation of the gadfly's sting.
He saw the gadfly dart into the forge. He screamed as it flew round and
round him, searching out a place where it might sting him most
fearfully. It lighted down on his forehead, just between his eyes. The
first sting it gave took the sight from his eyes. It stung again and
Brock felt the blood flowing down. Darkness filled the cave. Brock tried
to keep his hands steady on the bellows, but he did not know whether the
fire was blazing up or dying down. He shouted and Sindri hurried up.
Sindri said the magic words over the thing that was in the fire. Then he
drew it out. "An instant more," he said, "and the work would have been
perfect. But because you let the fire die down for an instant the work
is not as good as it might have been made." He took what was shaped in
the fire to the main-anvil and worked over it. Then when Brock's
eyesight came back to him he saw a great hammer, a hammer all of iron.
The handle did not seem to be long enough to balance the head. This was
because the fire had died down for an instant while it was being formed.
"The hammer is Miölnir," said Sindri, "and it is the greatest of the
things that I am able to make. All in Asgard must rejoice to see this
hammer. Thor only will be able to wield it. Now I am not afraid of the
judgment that the Dwellers in Asgard will give."
"The Dwellers in Asgard will have to give judgment for us," Brock cried
out. "They will have to give judgment for us, and the head of Loki, my
tormentor, will be given me."
"No more wonderful or more profitable gifts than these have ever been
brought into Asgard," Sindri said. "Thy head is saved, and thou wilt be
able to take the head of Loki who was insolent to us. Bring it here, and
we will throw it into the fire in the forge."
The Æsir and the Vanir were seated in the Council House of Asgard when a
train of Dwarfs appeared before them. Brock came at the head of the
train, and he was followed by a band of Dwarfs carrying things of great
weight. Brock and his attendants stood round the throne of Odin, and
hearkened to the words of the Father of the Gods.
"We know why you have come into Asgard from out of Svartheim," Odin
said. "You have brought things wonderful and profitable to the Dwellers
in Asgard. Let what you have brought be seen, Brock. If they are more
wonderful and more useful than the things Loki has brought out of
Svartheim, the spear Gungnir and the boat Skidbladnir, we will give
judgment for you."
Then Brock commanded the Dwarfs who waited on him to show the Dwellers
in Asgard the first of the wonders that Sindri had made. They brought
out the boar, Golden Bristle. Round and round the Council House the boar
flew, leaving a track of brightness. The Dwellers in Asgard said one to
the other that this was a wonder indeed. But none would say that the
boar was a better thing to have in Asgard than the spear that would hit
the mark no matter how badly it was flung, or the boat Skidbladnir that
would sail on any sea, and that could be folded up so small that it
would fit in any one's pocket: none would say that Golden Bristle was
better than these wonders.
To Frey, who was Chief of the Vanir, Brock gave the wondrous boar.
Then the attending Dwarfs showed the armring that was as bright as the
circle of the Sun. All admired the noble ring. And when it was told how
every ninth night this ring dropped eight rings of gold that were like
itself, the Dwellers in Asgard spoke aloud, all saying that Draupnir,
the Ring of Increase, was a wonder indeed. Hearing their voices raised,
Brock looked triumphantly at Loki who was standing there with his lips
drawn closely together.
To Odin, the Father of the Gods, Brock gave the noble armring.
Then he commanded the attending Dwarfs to lay before Thor the hammer
Miölnir. Thor took the hammer up and swung it around his head. As he did
so he uttered a great cry. And the eyes of the Dwellers in Asgard
lightened up when they saw Thor with the hammer Miölnir in his hands;
their eyes lightened up and from their lips came the cry, "This is a
wonder, a wonder indeed! With this hammer in his hand none can withstand
Thor, our Champion. No greater thing has ever come into Asgard than the
hammer Miölnir."
Then Odin, the Father of the Gods, spoke from his throne, giving
judgment. "The hammer Miölnir that the Dwarf Brock has brought into
Asgard is a thing wonderful indeed and profitable to the Gods. In
Thor's hands it can crush mountains, and hurl the Giant race from the
ramparts of Asgard. Sindri the Dwarf has forged a greater thing than the
spear Gungnir and the boat Skidbladnir. There can be no other judgment."
Brock looked at Loki, showing his gnarled teeth. "Now, Loki, yield your
head, yield your head," he cried.
"Do not ask such a thing," said Odin. "Put any other penalty on Loki for
mocking you and tormenting you. Make him yield to you the greatest thing
that it is in his power to give."
"Not so, not so," screamed Brock. "You Dwellers in Asgard would shield
one another. But what of me? Loki would have taken my head had I lost
the wager. Loki has lost his head to me. Let him kneel down now till I
cut it off."
Loki came forward, smiling with closed lips. "I kneel before you,
Dwarf," he said. "Take off my head. But be careful. Do not touch my
neck. I did not bargain that you should touch my neck. If you do, I
shall call upon the Dwellers in Asgard to punish you."
Brock drew back with a snarl. "Is this the judgment of the Gods?" he
asked.
"The bargain you made, Brock," said Odin, "was an evil one, and all its
evil consequences you must bear."
Brock, in a rage, looked upon Loki, and he saw that his lips were
smiling. He stamped his feet and raged. Then he went up to Loki and
said, "I may not take your head, but I can do something with your lips
that mock me."
"What would you do, Dwarf?" asked Thor.
"Sew Loki's lips together," said Brock, "so that he can do no more
mischief with his talk. You Dwellers in Asgard cannot forbid me to do
this. Down, Loki, on your knees before me."
Loki looked round on the Dwellers in Asgard and he saw that their
judgment was that he must kneel before the Dwarf. He knelt down with a
frown upon his brow. "Draw your lips together, Loki," said Brock. Loki
drew his lips together while his eyes flashed fire. With an awl that he
took from his belt Brock pierced Loki's lips. He took out a thong and
tightened them together. Then in triumph the Dwarf looked on Loki.
"O Loki," he said, "you boasted that the Dwarfs who worked for you were
better craftsmen than Sindri, my brother. Your words have been shown to
be lies. And now you cannot boast for a while."
Then Brock the Dwarf, with great majesty, walked out of the Council
House of Asgard, and the attending Dwarfs marched behind him in
procession. Down the passages in the earth the Dwarfs went, singing the
song of Brock's triumph over Loki. And in Svartheim it was told forever
after how Sindri and Brock had prevailed.
In Asgard, now that Loki's lips were closed, there was peace and a
respite from mischief. No one amongst the Æsir or the Vanir were sorry
when Loki had to walk about in silence with his head bent low.
[Illustration]
HOW FREYA GAINED HER NECKLACE AND HOW HER LOVED ONE WAS LOST TO HER
Yes, Loki went through Asgard silent and with head bent, and the
Dwellers in Asgard said one unto the other, "This will teach Loki to
work no more mischief." They did not know that what Loki had done had
sown the seeds of mischief and that these seeds were to sprout up and
bring sorrow to the beautiful Vana Freya, to Freya whom the Giant wanted
to carry off with the Sun and the Moon as payment for his building the
wall around Asgard.
Freya had looked upon the wonders that Loki had brought into Asgard--the
golden threads that were Sif's hair, and Frey's boar that shed light
from its bristles as it flew. The gleam of these golden things dazzled
her, and made her dream in the day time and the night time of the
wonders that she herself might possess. And often she thought, "What
wonderful things the Three Giant Women would give me if I could bring
myself to go to them on their mountaintop."
Long ere this, when the wall around their City was not yet built, and
when the Gods had set up only the court with their twelve seats and the
Hall that was for Odin and the Hall that was for the Goddesses, there
had come into Asgard Three Giant Women.
They came after the Gods had set up a forge and had begun to work metal
for their buildings. The metal they worked was pure gold. With gold they
built Gladsheim, the Hall of Odin, and with gold they made all their
dishes and household ware. Then was the Age of Gold, and the Gods did
not grudge gold to anyone. Happy were the Gods then, and no shadow nor
foreboding lay on Asgard.
But after the Three Giant Women came the Gods began to value gold and to
hoard it. They played with it no more. And the happy innocence of their
first days departed from them.
At last the Three were banished from Asgard. The Gods turned their
thoughts from the hoarding of gold, and they built up their City, and
they made themselves strong.
And now Freya, the lovely Vanir bride, thought upon the Giant Women and
on the wonderful things of gold they had flashed through their hands.
But not to Odur, her husband, did she speak her thoughts; for Odur, more
than any of the other dwellers in Asgard, was wont to think on the days
of happy innocence, before gold came to be hoarded and valued. Odur
would not have Freya go near the mountaintop where the Three had their
high seat.
But Freya did not cease to think upon them and upon the things of gold
they had. "Why should Odur know I went to them?" she said to herself.
"No one will tell him. And what difference will it make if I go to them
and gain some lovely thing for myself? I shall not love Odur the less
because I go my own way for once."
Then one day she left their palace, leaving Odur, her husband, playing
with their little child Hnossa. She left the palace and went down to the
Earth. There she stayed for a while, tending the flowers that were her
charge. After a while she asked the Elves to tell her where the mountain
was on which the Three Giant Women stayed.
The Elves were frightened and would not tell her, although she was queen
over them. She left them and stole down into the caves of the Dwarfs. It
was they who showed her the way to the seat of the Giant Women, but
before they showed her the way they made her feel shame and misery.
"We will show you the way if you stay with us here," said one of the
Dwarfs.
"For how long would you have me stay?" said Freya.
"Until the cocks in Svartheim crow," said the Dwarfs, closing round her.
"We want to know what the company of one of the Vanir is like." "I will
stay," Freya said.
Then one of the Dwarfs reached up and put his arms round her neck and
kissed her with his ugly mouth. Freya tried to break away from them, but
the Dwarfs held her. "You cannot go away from us now until the cocks of
Svartheim crow," they said.
Then one and then another of the Dwarfs pressed up to her and kissed
her. They made her sit down beside them on the heaps of skins they had.
When she wept they screamed at her and beat her. One, when she would not
kiss him on the mouth, bit her hands. So Freya stayed with the Dwarfs
until the cocks of Svartheim crew.
They showed her the mountain on the top of which the Three banished from
Asgard had their abode. The Giant Women sat overlooking the World of
Men. "What would you have from us, wife of Odur?" one who was called
Gulveig said to her.
"Alas! Now that I have found you I know that I should ask you for
nought," Freya said.
"Speak, Vana," said the second of the Giant Women.
The third said nothing, but she held up in her hands a necklace of gold
most curiously fashioned. "How bright it is!" Freya said. "There is
shadow where you sit, women, but the necklace you hold makes brightness
now. Oh, how I should joy to wear it!"
"It is the necklace Brisingamen," said the one who was called Gulveig.
"It is yours to wear, wife of Odur," said the one who held it in her
hands.
Freya took the shining necklace and clasped it round her throat. She
could not bring herself to thank the Giant Women, for she saw that
there was evil in their eyes. She made reverence to them, however, and
she went from the mountain on which they sat overlooking the World of
Men.
In a while she looked down and saw Brisingamen and her misery went from
her. It was the most beautiful thing ever made by hands. None of the
Asyniur and none other of the Vanir possessed a thing so beautiful. It
made her more and more lovely, and Odur, she thought, would forgive her
when he saw how beautiful and how happy Brisingamen made her.
She rose up from amongst the flowers and took leave of the slight Elves
and she made her way into Asgard. All who greeted her looked long and
with wonder upon the necklace that she wore. And into the eyes of the
Goddesses there came a look of longing when they saw Brisingamen.
But Freya hardly stopped to speak to anyone. As swiftly as she could she
made her way to her own palace. She would show herself to Odur and win
his forgiveness. She entered her shining palace and called to him. No
answer came. Her child, the little Hnossa, was on the floor, playing.
Her mother took her in her arms, but the child, when she looked on
Brisingamen, turned away crying.
Freya left Hnossa down and searched again for Odur. He was not in any
part of their palace. She went into the houses of all who dwelt in
Asgard, asking for tidings of him. None knew where he had gone to. At
last Freya went back to their palace and waited and waited for Odur to
return. But Odur did not come.
One came to her. It was a Goddess, Odin's wife, the queenly Frigga. "You
are waiting for Odur, your husband," Frigga said. "Ah, let me tell you
Odur will not come to you here. He went, when for the sake of a shining
thing you did what would make him unhappy. Odur has gone from Asgard and
no one knows where to search for him."
"I will seek him outside of Asgard," Freya said. She wept no more, but
she took the little child Hnossa and put her in Frigga's arms. Then she
mounted her car that was drawn by two cats, and journeyed down from
Asgard to Midgard, the Earth, to search for Odur her husband.
Year in and year out, and over all the Earth, Freya went searching and
calling for the lost Odur. She went as far as the bounds of the Earth,
where she could look over to Jötunheim, where dwelt the Giant who would
have carried her off with the Sun and the Moon as payment for the
building of the wall around Asgard. But in no place, from the end of the
Rainbow Bifröst, that stretched from Asgard to the Earth, to the
boundary of Jötunheim, did she find a trace of her husband Odur.
At last she turned her car toward Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge that
stretched from Midgard, the Earth, to Asgard, the Dwelling of the Gods.
Heimdall, the Watcher for the Gods, guarded the Rainbow Bridge. To him
Freya went with a half hope fluttering in her heart.
"O Heimdall," she cried, "O Heimdall, Watcher for the Gods, speak and
tell me if you know where Odur is."
"Odur is in every place where the searcher has not come; Odur is in
every place that the searcher has left; those who seek him will never
find Odur," said Heimdall, the Watcher for the Gods.
Then Freya stood on Bifröst and wept. Frigga, the queenly Goddess, heard
the sound of her weeping, and came out of Asgard to comfort her.
"Ah, what comfort can you give me, Frigga?" cried Freya. "What comfort
can you give me when Odur will never be found by one who searches for
him?"
"Behold how your daughter, the child Hnossa, has grown," said Frigga.
Freya looked up and saw a beautiful maiden standing on Bifröst, the
Rainbow Bridge. She was young, more youthful than any of the Vanir or
the Asyniur, and her face and her form were so lovely that all hearts
became melted when they looked upon her.
And Freya was comforted in her loss. She followed Frigga across Bifröst,
the Rainbow Bridge, and came once again into the City of the Gods. In
her own palace in Asgard Freya dwelt with Hnossa, her child.
Still she wore round her neck Brisingamen, the necklace that lost her
Odur. But now she wore it, not for its splendor, but as a sign of the
wrong she had
|
breeze, but the reward of victory is not seeing our brother man dead at
our feet; but rather seeing him alive and well, working by our side.
To this end let us declare war on all meanness, snobbishness, petty or
great jealousies, all forms of injustice, all forms of special
privilege, all selfishness and all greed. Let us drop bombs on our
prejudices! Let us send submarines to blow up all our poor little
petty vanities, subterfuges and conceits, with which we have endeavored
to veil the face of Truth. Let us make a frontal attack on ignorance,
laziness, doubt, despondence, despair, and unbelief!
The banner over us is "Love," and our watchword "A Fair Deal."
CHAPTER II
THE WAR THAT ENDS IN EXHAUSTION SOMETIMES MISTAKEN FOR PEACE
When a skirl of pipes came down the street,
And the blare of bands, and the march of feet,
I could not keep from marching, too;
For the pipes cried "Come!" and the bands said "Do,"
And when I heard the pealing fife,
I cared no more for human life!
Away back in the cave-dwelling days, there was a simple and definite
distribution of labor. Men fought and women worked. Men fought
because they liked it; and women worked because it had to be done. Of
course the fighting had to be done too, there was always a warring
tribe out looking for trouble, while their womenfolk stayed at home and
worked. They were never threatened with a long peace. Somebody was
always willing to go "It." The young bloods could always be sure of
good fighting somewhere, and no questions asked. The masculine
attitude toward life was: "I feel good today; I'll go out and kill
something." Tribes fought for their existence, and so the work of the
warrior was held to be the most glorious of all; indeed, it was the
only work that counted. The woman's part consisted of tilling the
soil, gathering the food, tanning the skins and fashioning garments,
brewing the herbs, raising the children, dressing the warrior's wounds,
looking after the herds, and any other light and airy trifle which
might come to her notice. But all this was in the background. Plain
useful work has always been considered dull and drab.
Everything depended on the warrior. When "the boys" came home there
was much festivity, music, and feasting, and tales of the chase and
fight. The women provided the feast and washed the dishes. The
soldier has always been the hero of our civilization, and yet almost
any man makes a good soldier. Nearly every man makes a good soldier,
but not every man, or nearly every man makes a good citizen: the tests
of war are not so searching as the tests of peace, but still the
soldier is the hero.
Very early in the lives of our children we begin to inculcate the love
of battle and sieges and invasions, for we put the miniature weapons of
warfare into their little hands. We buy them boxes of tin soldiers at
Christmas, and help them to build forts and blow them up. We have
military training in our schools; and little fellows are taught to
shoot at targets, seeing in each an imaginary foe, who must be
destroyed because he is "not on our side." There is a song which runs
like this:
If a lad a maid would marry
He must learn a gun to carry.
thereby putting love and love-making on a military basis--but it goes!
Military music is in our ears, and even in our churches. "Onward
Christian soldiers, marching as to war" is a Sunday-school favorite.
We pray to the God of Battles, never by any chance to the God of
Workshops!
Once a year, of course, we hold a Peace Sunday and on that day we pray
mightily that God will give us peace in our time and that war shall be
no more, and the spear shall be beaten into the pruning hook. But the
next day we show God that he need not take us too literally, for we go
on with the military training, and the building of the battleships, and
our orators say that in time of peace we must prepare for war.
War is the antithesis of all our teaching. It breaks all the
commandments; it makes rich men poor, and strong men weak. It makes
well men sick, and by it living men are changed to dead men. Why,
then, does war continue? Why do men go so easily to war--for we may as
well admit that they do go easily? There is one explanation. They
like it!
When the first contingent of soldiers went to the war from Manitoba,
there stood on the station platform a woman crying bitterly. (She was
not the only one.) She had in her arms an infant, and three small
children stood beside her wondering.
"'E would go!" she sobbed in reply to the sympathy expressed by the
people who stood near her, "'E loves a fight--'e went through the South
African War, and 'e's never been 'appy since--when 'e 'ears war is on
he says I'll go--'e loves it--'e does!"
'"E loves it!"
That explains many things.
"Father sent me out," said a little Irish girl, "to see if there's a
fight going on any place, because if there is, please, father would
like to be in it!" Unfortunately "father's" predilection to fight is
not wholly confined to the Irish!
But although men like to fight, war is not inevitable. War is not of
God's making. War is a crime committed by men and, therefore, when
enough people say it shall not be, it cannot be. This will not happen
until women are allowed to say what they think of war. Up to the
present time women have had nothing to say about war, except pay the
price of war--this privilege has been theirs always.
History, romance, legend and tradition having been written by men, have
shown the masculine aspect of war and have surrounded it with a false
glory and have sought to throw the veil of glamour over its hideous
face. Our histories have followed the wars. Invasions, conquests,
battles, sieges make up the subject-matter of our histories.
Some glorious soul, looking out upon his neighbors, saw some country
that he thought he could use and so he levied a heavy tax on the
people, and with the money fitted out a splendid army. Men were called
from their honest work to go out and fight other honest men who had
never done them any harm; harvest fields were trampled by their horses'
feet, villages burned, women and children fled in terror, and perished
of starvation, streets ran blood and the Glorious Soul came home
victorious with captives chained to his chariot wheel. When he drove
through the streets of his own home town, all the people cheered, that
is, all who had not been killed, of course.
What the people thought of all this, the historians do not say. The
people were not asked or expected to think. Thinking was the most
unpopular thing they could do. There were dark damp dungeons where
hungry rats prowled ceaselessly; there were headsmen's axes and other
things prepared for people who were disposed to think and specially
designed to allay restlessness among the people.
The "people" were dealt with in one short paragraph at the end of the
chapter: "The People were very poor" (you wouldn't think they would
need to say that, and certainly there was no need to rub it in), and
they "ate black bread," and they were "very ignorant and
superstitious." Superstitious? Well, I should say they would
be--small wonder if they did see black cats and have rabbits cross
their paths, and hear death warnings, for there was always going to be
a death in the family, and they were always about to lose money! The
People were a great abstraction, infinite in number, inarticulate in
suffering--the people who fought and paid for their own killing. The
man who could get the people to do this on the largest scale was the
greatest hero of all and the historian told us much about him, his
dogs, his horses, the magnificence of his attire.
Some day, please God, there will be new histories written, and they
will tell the story of the years from the standpoint of the people, and
the hero will not be any red-handed assassin who goes through peaceful
country places leaving behind him dead men looking sightlessly up to
the sky. The hero will be the man or woman who knows and loves and
serves. In the new histories we will be shown the tragedy, the
heartbreaking tragedy of war, which like some dreadful curse has
followed the human family, beaten down their plans, their hopes, wasted
their savings, destroyed their homes, and in every way turned back the
clock of progress.
We have all wondered what would happen if the people some day decided
that they would no longer be the tools of the man higher up, what would
happen if the men who make the quarrel had to fight it out. How
glorious it would have been if this war could have been settled by
somebody taking the Kaiser out behind the barn! There would seem to be
some show of justice in a hand-to-hand encounter, where the best man
wins, but modern warfare has not even the faintest glimmering of fair
play. The exploding shell blows to pieces the strong, the brave, the
daring, just as readily as it does the cowardly, weak, or base.
War proves nothing. To kill a man does not prove that he was in the
wrong. Bloodletting cannot change men's spirits, neither can the evil
of men's thoughts be driven out by blows. If I go to my neighbor's
house, and break her furniture, and smash her pictures, and bind her
children captive, it does not prove that I am fitter to live than
she--yet according to the ethics of nations it does. I have conquered
her and she must pay me for my trouble; and her house and all that is
left in it belongs to my heirs and successors forever. That is war!
War twists our whole moral fabric. The object of all our teaching has
been to inculcate respect for the individual, respect for human life,
honor and purity. War sweeps that all aside. The human conscience in
these long years of peace, and its resultant opportunities for
education, has grown tender to the cry of agony--the pallid face of a
hungry child finds a quick response to its mute appeal; but when we
know that hundreds are rendered homeless every day, and countless
thousands are killed and wounded, men and boys mowed down like a field
of grain, and with as little compunction, we grow a little bit numb to
human misery. What does it matter if there is a family north of the
track living on soda biscuits and turnips? War hardens us to human
grief and misery.
War takes the fit and leaves the unfit. The epileptic, the
consumptive, the inebriate, are left behind. They are not good enough
to go out to fight. So they stay at home, and perpetuate the race!
Statistics prove that the war is costing fifty millions a day, which is
a prodigious sum, but we would be getting off easy if that were all it
costs. The bitterest cost of war is not paid by us at all. It will be
paid by the unborn generations, in a lowered vitality, the loss of a
strong fatherhood, which they have never known. Napoleon lowered the
stature of the French by two inches, it is said. That is one way to
set your mark on your generation.
But the greatest evil wrought by war is not the wanton destruction of
life and property, sinful though it is; it is not even the lowered
vitality of succeeding generations, though that is attended by
appalling injury to the moral nature--the real iniquity of war is that
it sets aside the arbitrament of right and justice, and looks to brute
force for its verdict!
In the first days of panic, pessimism broke out among us, and we cried
in our despair that our civilization had failed, that Christianity had
broken down, and that God had forgotten the world. It seemed like it
at first. But now a wiser and better vision has come to us, and we
know that Christianity has not failed, for it is not fair to impute
failure to something which has never been tried. Civilization has
failed. Art, music, and culture have failed, and we know now that
underneath the thin veneer of civilization, unregenerate man is still a
savage; and we see now, what some have never seen before, that unless a
civilization is built upon love, and mutual trust, it must always end
in disaster, such as this. Up to August fourth, we often said that war
was impossible between Christian nations. We still say so, but we know
more now than we did then. We know now that there are no Christian
nations.
Oh, yes. I know the story. It was a beautiful story and a beautiful
picture. The black prince of Abyssinia asked the young Queen of
England what was the secret of England's glory and she pointed to the
"open Bible."
The dear Queen of sainted memory was wrong. She judged her nation by
the standard of her own pure heart. England did not draw her policy
from the open Bible when in 1840 she forced the opium traffic on the
Chinese. England does not draw her policy from the open Bible when she
takes revenues from the liquor traffic, which works such irreparable
ruin to countless thousands of her people. England does not draw her
policy from the open Bible when she denies her women the rights of
citizens, when women are refused degrees after passing examinations,
when lower pay is given women for the same work than if it were done by
men. Would this be tolerated if it were really so that we were a
Christian nation? God abominates a false balance, and delights in a
just weight.
No, the principles of Christ have not yet been applied to nations. We
have only Christian people. You will see that in a second, if you look
at the disparity that there is between our conceptions of individual
duty and national duty. Take the case of the heathen--the people whom
we in our large-handed, superior way call the heathen. Individually we
believe it is our duty to send missionaries to them to convert them
into Christians. Nationally we send armies upon them (if necessary)
and convert them into customers! Individually we say: "We will send
you our religion." Nationally: "We will send you goods, and we'll make
you take them--we need the money!" Think of the bitter irony of a boat
leaving a Christian port loaded with missionaries upstairs and rum
below, both bound for the same place and for the same people--both for
the heathen "with our comp'ts."
Individually we know it is wrong to rob anyone. Yet the state robs
freely, openly, and unashamed, by unjust taxation, by the legalized
liquor traffic, by imposing unjust laws upon at least one half of the
people. We wonder at the disparity between our individual ideals and
the national ideal, but when you remember that the national ideals have
been formed by one half of the world--and not the more spiritual
half--it is not so surprising. Our national policy is the result of
male statecraft.
There is a curative power in human life just as there is in nature.
When the pot boils--it boils over. Evils cure themselves eventually.
But it is a long hard way. Yet it is the way humanity has always had
to learn. Christ realized that when he looked down at Jerusalem, and
wept over it: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered
you, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but you would
not." That was the trouble then, and it has been the trouble ever
since. Humanity has to travel a hard road to wisdom, and it has to
travel it with bleeding feet.
But it is getting its lessons now--and paying double first-class rates
for its tuition!
CHAPTER III
WHAT DO WOMEN THINK OF WAR? (NOT THAT IT MATTERS)
Bands in the street, and resounding cheers,
And honor to him whom the army led!
But his mother moans thro' her blinding tears--
"My boy is dead--is dead!"
"Madam," said Charles XI of Sweden to his wife when she appealed to him
for mercy to some prisoner, "I married you to give me children, not to
give me advice." That was said a long time ago, and the haughty old
Emperor put it rather crudely, but he put it straight. This is still
the attitude of the world towards women. That men are human beings,
but women are women, with one reason for their existence, has long been
the dictum of the world.
More recent philosophers have been more adroit--they have sought to
soften the blow, and so they palaver the women by telling them what a
tremendous power they are for good. They quote the men who have said:
"All that I am my mother made me." They also quote that old iniquitous
lie, about the hand that rocks the cradle ruling the world.
For a long time men have been able to hush women up by these means; and
many women have gladly allowed themselves to be deceived. Sometimes
when a little child goes driving with his father he is allowed to hold
the ends of the reins, and encouraged to believe that he is driving,
and it works quite well with a very small child. Women have been
deceived in the same way into believing that they are the controlling
factor in the world. Here and there, there have been doubters among
women who have said: "If it be true that the hand that rocks the cradle
rules the world, how comes the liquor traffic and the white slave
traffic to prevail among us unchecked? Do women wish for these things?
Do the gentle mothers whose hands rule the world declare in favor of
these things?" Every day the number of doubters has increased, and now
women everywhere realize that a bad old lie has been put over on them
for years. The hand that rocks the cradle does not rule the world. If
it did, human life would be held dearer and the world would be a
sweeter, cleaner, safer place than it is now!
Women are naturally the guardians of the race, and every normal woman
desires children. Children are not a handicap in the race of life
either, they are an inspiration. We hear too much about the burden of
motherhood and too little of its benefits. The average child does well
for his parents, and teaches them many things. Bless his little soft
hands--he broadens our outlook, quickens our sympathies, and leads us,
if we will but let him, into all truth. A child pays well for his
board and keep.
Deeply rooted in every woman's heart is the love and care of children.
A little girl's first toy is a doll, and so, too, her first great
sorrow is when her doll has its eyes poked out by her little brother.
Dolls have suffered many things at the hands of their maternal uncles.
There, little girl, don't cry,
They have broken your doll, I know,
contains in it the universal note of woman's woe!
But just as the woman's greatest sorrow has come through her children,
so has her greatest development. Women learned to cook, so that their
children might be fed; they learned to sew that their children might be
clothed, and women are learning to think so that their children may be
guided.
Since the war broke out women have done a great deal of knitting.
Looking at this great army of women struggling with rib and back seam,
some have seen nothing in it but a "fad" which has supplanted for the
time tatting and bridge. But it is more than that. It is the desire
to help, to care for, to minister; it is the same spirit which inspires
our nurses to go out and bind up the wounded and care for the dying.
The woman's outlook on life is to save, to care for, to help. Men make
wounds and women bind them up, and so the women, with their hearts
filled with love and sorrow, sit in their quiet homes and knit.
Comforter--they call it--yes--
So it is for my distress,
For it gives my restless hands
Blessed work. God understands
How we women yearn to be
Doing something ceaselessly.
Women have not only been knitting--they have been thinking. Among
other things they have thought about the German women, those faithful,
patient, home-loving, obedient women, who never interfere in public
affairs, nor question man's ruling. The Kaiser says women have only
two concerns in life, cooking and children, and the German women have
accepted his dictum. They are good cooks and faithful nurses to their
children.
According to the theories of the world, the sons of such women should
be the gentlest men on earth. Their home has been so sacred, and
well-kept; their mother has been so gentle, patient and unworldly--she
has never lowered the standard of her womanhood by asking to vote, or
to mingle in the "hurly burly" of politics. She has been humble, and
loving, and always hoped for the best.
According to the theories of the world, the gentle sons of gentle
mothers will respect and reverence all womankind everywhere. Yet, we
know that in the invasion of Belgium, the German soldiers made a shield
of Belgian women and children in front of their army; no child was too
young, no woman too old, to escape their cruelty; no mother's prayers,
no child's appeal could stay their fury! These chivalrous sons of
gentle, loving mothers marched through the land of Belgium, their
nearest neighbor, leaving behind them smoking trails of ruin, black as
their own hard hearts!
What, then, is the matter with the theory? Nothing, except that there
is nothing in it--it will not work. Women who set a low value on
themselves make life hard for all women. The German woman's ways have
been ways of pleasantness, but her paths have not been paths of peace;
and now, women everywhere are thinking of her, rather bitterly. Her
peaceful, humble, patient ways have suddenly ceased to appear virtuous
in our eyes and we see now, it is not so much a woman's duty to bring
children into the world, as to see what sort of a world she is bringing
them into, and what their contribution will be to it. Bertha Krupp has
made good guns and the German women have raised good soldiers--if guns
and soldiers can be called "good"--and between them they have manned
the most terrible and destructive war machine that the world has ever
known. We are not grateful to either of them.
The nimble fingers of the knitting women are transforming balls of wool
into socks and comforters, but even a greater change is being wrought
in their own hearts. Into their gentle souls have come bitter thoughts
of rebellion. They realize now how little human life is valued, as
opposed to the greed and ambition of nations. They think bitterly of
Napoleon's utterance on the subject of women--that the greatest woman
in the world is the one who brings into the world the greatest number
of sons; they also remember that he said that a boy could stop a bullet
as well as a man, and that God is on the side of the heaviest
artillery. From these three statements they get the military idea of
women, children, and God, and the heart of the knitting woman recoils
in horror from the cold brutality of it all. They realize now
something of what is back of all the opposition to the woman's
advancement into all lines of activity and a share in government.
Women are intended for two things, to bring children into the world and
to make men comfortable, and then they must keep quiet and if their
hearts break with grief, let them break quietly--that's all. No woman
is so unpopular as the noisy woman who protests against these things.
The knitting women know now why the militant suffragettes broke windows
and destroyed property, and went to jail for it joyously, and without a
murmur--it was the protest of brave women against the world's estimate
of woman's position. It was the world-old struggle for liberty. The
knitting women remember now with shame and sorrow that they have said
hard things about the suffragettes, and thought they were unwomanly and
hysterical. Now they know that womanliness, and peaceful gentle ways,
prayers, petitions and tears have long been tried but are found
wanting; and now they know that these brave women in England, maligned,
ridiculed, persecuted, as they were, have been fighting every woman's
battle, fighting for the recognition of human life, and the mother's
point of view. Many of the knitting women have seen a light shine
around their pathway, as they have passed down the road from the heel
to the toe, and they know now that the explanation cannot be accepted
any longer that the English women are "crazy." That has been offered
so often and been accepted.
Crazy! That's such an easy way to explain actions which we do not
understand. Crazy! and it gives such a delightful thrill of sanity to
the one who says it--such a pleasurable flash of superiority!
Oh, no, they have not been crazy, unless acts of heroism and suffering
for the sake of others can be described as crazy! The knitting women
wish now that there had been "crazy" women in Germany to direct the
thought of the nation to the brutality of the military system, to have
aroused the women to struggle for a human civilization, instead of a
masculine civilization such as they have now. They would have fared
badly of course, even worse than the women in England, but they are
faring badly now, and to what purpose? The women of Belgium have fared
badly. After all, the greatest thing in life is not to live
comfortably--it is to live honorably, and when that becomes impossible,
to die honorably!
The woman who knits is thinking sadly of the glad days of peace, now
unhappily gone by, when she was so sure it was her duty to bring
children into the world. She thinks of the glad rapture with which she
looked into the sweet face of her first-born twenty years ago--the
brave lad who went with the first contingent, and is now at the front.
She was so sure then that she had done a noble thing in giving this
young life to the world. He was to have been a great doctor, a great
healer, one who bound up wounds, and make weak men strong--and now--in
the trenches, he stands, this lad of hers, with the weapons of death in
his hands, with bitter hatred in his heart, not binding wounds, but
making them, sending poor human beings out in the dark to meet their
Maker, unprepared, surrounded by sights and sounds that must harden his
heart or break it. Oh! her sunny-hearted lad! So full of love and
tenderness and pity, so full of ambition and high resolves and noble
impulses, he is dead--dead already--and in his place there stands
"private 355" a man of hate, a man of blood! Many a time the knitting
has to be laid aside, for the bitter tears blur the stitches.
The woman who knits thinks of all this and now she feels that she who
brought this boy into the world, who is responsible for his existence,
has some way been to blame. Is life really such a boon that any should
crave it? Do we really confer a favor on the innocent little souls we
bring into the world, or do we owe them an apology?
She thinks now of Abraham's sacrifice, when he was willing at God's
command to offer his dearly beloved son on the altar; and now she knows
it was not so hard for Abraham, for he knew it was God who asked it,
and he had God's voice to guide him! Abraham was sure, but about
this--who knows?
Then she thinks of the little one who dropped out of the race before it
was well begun, and of the inexplicable smile of peace which lay on his
small white face, that day, so many years ago now, when they laid him
away with such sorrow, and such agony of loss. She understands now why
the little one smiled, while all around him wept.
And she thinks enviously of her neighbor across the way, who had no son
to give, the childless woman for whom in the old days she felt so
sorry, but whom now she envies. She is the happiest woman of all--so
thinks the knitting woman, as she sits alone in her quiet house; for
thoughts can grow very bitter when the house is still and the boyish
voice is heard no more shouting, "Mother" in the hall.
There, little girl, don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know.
CHAPTER IV
SHOULD WOMEN THINK?
A woman, a spaniel, a walnut tree,
The more you beat 'em, the better they be.
--_From "Proverbs of All Nations._"
A woman is not a person in matters of rights and privileges, but she is
a person in matters of pains and penalties.--_From the Common Law of
England_.
No woman, idiot, lunatic, or criminal shall vote.--_From the Election
Act of the Dominion of Canada_.
Mary and Martha were sisters, and one day they had a quarrel, which
goes to show that sisters in Bible times were much the same as now.
Mary and Martha had a different attitude toward life. Martha was a
housekeeper--she reveled in housecleaning--she had a perfect mania for
sweeping and dusting. Mary was a thinker. She looked beyond the work,
and saw something better and more important, something more abiding and
satisfying.
When Jesus came to their home to visit, Mary sat at his feet and
listened. She fed her soul, and in her sheer joy she forgot that there
were dirty dishes in all the world; she forgot that ever people grew
hungry, or floors became dusty; she forgot everything only the joy of
his presence. Martha never forgot. All days were alike to Martha,
only of course Monday was washday. The visit of the Master to Martha
meant another place at the table, and another plate to be washed.
Truly feminine was Martha, much commended in certain circles today.
She looked well to the needs of her family, physical needs, that is,
for she recognized no other. Martha not only liked to work herself,
but she liked to see other people work; so when Mary went and sat at
the Master's feet, while the dishes were yet unwashed, Martha
complained about it.
"Lord, make Mary come and help me!" she said. The story says Martha
was wearied with much serving. Martha had cooked and served an
elaborate meal, and elaborate meals usually do make people cross either
before or after. Christ gently reproved her. "Mary hath chosen the
better part."
Just here let us say something in Mary's favor. Martha by her protest
against Mary's behavior on this particular occasion, exonerates Mary
from the general charge of laziness which is often made against her.
If Mary had been habitually lazy, Martha would have long since ceased
to expect any help from her, but it seems pretty certain that Mary was
generally on the job. Trivial little incident, is it not? Strange
that it should find a place in the sacred record. But if Christ's
mission on earth had any meaning at all, it was to teach this very
lesson that the things which are not seen are greater than the things
which are seen--that the spiritual is greater than the temporal. The
life is more than meat and the body is more than raiment.
Martha has a long line of weary, backaching, footsore successors.
Indeed there is a strain of Martha in all of us; we worry more over a
stain in the carpet than a stain on the soul; we bestow more thought on
the choice of hats than on the choice of friends; we tidy up bureau
drawers, sometimes, when we should be tidying up the inner recesses of
our mind and soul; we clean up the attic and burn up the rubbish which
has accumulated there, every spring, whether it needs it or not. But
when do we appoint a housecleaning day for the soul, when do we destroy
all the worn-out prejudices and beliefs which belong to a day gone by?
Mary did take the better part, for she laid hold on the things which
are spiritual. Mary had learned the great truth that it is not the
house you live in or the food you eat, or the clothes you wear that
make you rich, but it is the thoughts you think. Christ put it well
when he said, "Mary hath chosen the better part." Life is a choice
every day. Every day we choose between the best and the second best,
if we are choosing wisely. It is not generally a choice between good
and bad--that is too easy. The choice in life is more subtle than
that, and not so easily decided. The good is the greatest rival of the
best.
Sometimes we would like to take both the best and the second best, but
that is not according to the rules of the game. You take your choice
and leave the rest. Every gain in life means a corresponding loss;
development in one part means a shrinkage in some other. Wild wheat is
small and hard, quite capable of looking after itself, but its heads
contain only a few small kernels. Cultivated wheat has lost its
hardiness and its self-reliance, but its heads are filled with large
kernels which feed the nation. There has been a great gain in
usefulness, by cultivation, with a corresponding loss in hardiness.
When riches are increased, so also are anxieties and cares. Life is
full of compensation.
So we ask, in all seriousness, and in no spirit of flippancy: "Should
women think?" They gain in power perhaps, but do they not lose in
happiness by thinking? If women must always labor under unjust
economic conditions, receiving less pay for the same work than men, if
women must always submit to the unjust social laws, based on the
barbaric mosaic decree that the woman is to be stoned, and the man
allowed to go free; if women must always see the children they have
brought into the world with infinite pain and weariness, taken away
from them to fight man-made battles over which no woman has any power;
if women must always see their sons degraded by man-made legislation
and man-protected evils--then I ask, Is it not a great mistake for
women to think?
The Martha women, who fill their hands with labor and find their
highest delights in the day's work, are the happiest. That is, if
these things must always be, if we must always beat upon the bars of
the cage--we are foolish to beat; it is hard on the hands! Far better
for us to stop looking out and sit down and say: "Good old cage--I
always did like a cage, anyway!"
But the question of whether or not women should think was settled long
ago. We must think because we were given something to think with, ages
ago, at the time of our creation. If God had not intended us to think,
he would not have given us our intelligence. It would be a shabby
trick, too, to give women brains to think, with no hope of results, for
thinking is just an aggravation if nothing comes of it. It is a law of
life that people will use what they have. That is one theory of what
caused the war. The nations were "so good and ready," they just
naturally fought. Mental activity is just as natural for the woman
peeling potatoes as it is for
|
be expected long to continue to do, more to bring before our
slow-moving and unimaginative public the portentous meaning of that
tremendous cataclysm, than all the other writings on the subject in the
English language put together. His presentation of Puritanism and the
Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell first made the most elevating period of
the national history in any way really intelligible. The Life of
Frederick the Second, whatever judgment we may pass upon its morality,
or even upon its place as a work of historic art, is a model of
laborious and exhaustive narration of facts not before accessible to the
reader of history. For all this, and for much other work eminently
useful and meritorious even from the mechanical point of view, Mr.
Carlyle deserves the warmest recognition. His genius gave him a right to
mock at the ineffectiveness of Dryasdust, but his genius was also too
true to prevent him from adding the always needful supplement of a
painstaking industry that rivals Dryasdust's own most strenuous toil.
Take out of the mind of the English reader of ordinary cultivation and
the average journalist, usually a degree or two lower than this, their
conceptions of the French Revolution and the English Rebellion, and
their knowledge of German literature and history, as well as most of
their acquaintance with the prominent men of the eighteenth century, and
we shall see how much work Mr. Carlyle has done simply as schoolmaster.
This, however, is emphatically a secondary aspect of his character, and
of the function which he has fulfilled in relation to the more active
tendencies of modern opinion and feeling. We must go on to other ground,
if we would find the field in which he has laboured most ardently and
with most acceptance. History and literature have been with him, what
they will always be with wise and understanding minds of creative and
even of the higher critical faculty--only embodiments, illustrations,
experiments, for ideas about religion, conduct, society, history,
government, and all the other great heads and departments of a complete
social doctrine. From this point of view, the time has perhaps come when
we may fairly attempt to discern some of the tendencies which Mr.
Carlyle has initiated or accelerated and deepened, though assuredly many
years must elapse before any adequate measure can be taken of their
force and final direction.
It would be a comparatively simple process to affix the regulation
labels of philosophy; to say that Mr. Carlyle is a Pantheist in religion
(or a Pot-theist, to use the alternative whose flippancy gave such
offence to Sterling on one occasion[1]), a Transcendentalist or
Intuitionist in ethics, an Absolutist in politics, and so forth, with
the addition of a crowd of privative or negative epithets at discretion.
But classifications of this sort are the worst enemies of true
knowledge. Such names are by the vast majority even of persons who think
themselves educated, imperfectly apprehended, ignorantly interpreted,
and crudely and recklessly applied. It is not too much to say that nine
out of ten people who think they have delivered themselves of a
criticism when they call Mr. Carlyle a Pantheist, could neither explain
with any precision what Pantheism is, nor have ever thought of
determining the parts of his writings where this particular monster is
believed to lurk. Labels are devices for saving talkative persons the
trouble of thinking. As I once wrote elsewhere:
[1] _Life of John Sterling_, p. 153.
'The readiness to use general names in speaking of the greater subjects,
and the fitness which qualifies a man to use them, commonly exist in
inverse proportions. If we reflect on the conditions out of which
ordinary opinion is generated, we may well be startled at the profuse
liberality with which names of the widest and most complex and variable
significance are bestowed on all hands. The majority of the ideas which
constitute most men's intellectual stock-in-trade have accrued by
processes quite distinct from fair reasoning and consequent conviction.
This is so notorious, that it is amazing how so many people can go on
freely and rapidly labelling thinkers or writers with names which they
themselves are not competent to bestow, and which their hearers are not
competent either to understand generally, or to test in the specific
instance.'
These labels are rather more worthless than usual in the present case,
because Mr. Carlyle is ostentatiously illogical and defiantly
inconsistent; and, therefore, the term which might correctly describe
one side of his teaching or belief would be tolerably sure to give a
wholly false impression of some of its other sides. The qualifications
necessary to make any one of the regular epithets fairly applicable
would have to be so many, that the glosses would virtually overlay the
text. We shall be more likely to reach an instructive appreciation by
discarding such substitutes for examination, and considering, not what
pantheistic, absolutist, transcendental, or any other doctrine means, or
what it is worth, but what it is that Mr. Carlyle means about men, their
character, their relations to one another, and what that is worth.
With most men and women the master element in their opinions is
obviously neither their own reason nor their own imagination,
independently exercised, but only mere use and wont, chequered by
fortuitous sensations, and modified in the better cases by the
influence of a favourite teacher; while in the worse the teacher is the
favourite who happens to chime in most harmoniously with prepossessions,
or most effectually to nurse and exaggerate them. Among the superior
minds the balance between reason and imagination is scarcely ever held
exactly true, nor is either firmly kept within the precise bounds that
are proper to it. It is a question of temperament which of the two
mental attitudes becomes fixed and habitual, as it is a question of
temperament how violently either of them straitens and distorts the
normal faculties of vision. The man who prides himself on a hard head,
which would usually be better described as a thin head, may and
constantly does fall into a confirmed manner of judging character and
circumstance, so narrow, one-sided, and elaborately superficial, as to
make common sense shudder at the crimes that are committed in the divine
name of reason. Excess on the other side leads people into emotional
transports, in which the pre-eminent respect that is due to truth, the
difficulty of discovering the truth, the narrowness of the way that
leads thereto, the merits of intellectual precision and definiteness,
and even the merits of moral precision and definiteness, are all
effectually veiled by purple or fiery clouds of anger, sympathy, and
sentimentalism, which imagination has hung over the intelligence.
The familiar distinction between the poetic and the scientific temper is
another way of stating the same difference. The one fuses or
crystallises external objects and circumstances in the medium of human
feeling and passion; the other is concerned with the relations of
objects and circumstances among themselves, including in them all the
facts of human consciousness, and with the discovery and classification
of these relations. There is, too, a corresponding distinction between
the aspects which conduct, character, social movement, and the objects
of nature are able to present, according as we scrutinise them with a
view to exactitude of knowledge, or are stirred by some appeal which
they make to our various faculties and forms of sensibility, our
tenderness, sympathy, awe, terror, love of beauty, and all the other
emotions in this momentous catalogue. The starry heavens have one side
for the astronomer, as astronomer, and another for the poet, as poet.
The nightingale, the skylark, the cuckoo, move one sort of interest in
an ornithologist, and a very different sort in a Shelley or a
Wordsworth. The hoary and stupendous formations of the inorganic world,
the thousand tribes of insects, the great universe of plants, from those
whose size and form and hue make us afraid as if they were deadly
monsters, down to 'the meanest flower that blows,' all these are clothed
with one set of attributes by scientific intelligence, and with another
by sentiment, fancy, and imaginative association.
The contentiousness of rival schools of philosophy has obscured the
application of the same distinction to the various orders of fact more
nearly and immediately relating to man and the social union. One school
has maintained the virtually unmeaning doctrine that the will is free,
and therefore its followers never gave any quarter to the idea that man
was as proper an object of scientific scrutiny morally and historically,
as they could not deny him to be anatomically and physiologically. Their
enemies have been more concerned to dislodge them from this position,
than to fortify, organise, and cultivate their own. The consequences
have not been without their danger. Poetic persons have rushed in where
scientific persons ought not to have feared to tread. That human
character and the order of events have their poetic aspect, and that
their poetic treatment demands the rarest and most valuable qualities of
mind, is a truth which none but narrow and superficial men of the world
are rash enough to deny. But that there is a scientific aspect of these
things, an order among them that can only be understood and criticised
and effectually modified scientifically, by using all the caution and
precision and infinite patience of the truly scientific spirit, is a
truth that is constantly ignored even by men and women of the loftiest
and most humane nature. In such cases misdirected and uncontrolled
sensibility ends in mournful waste of their own energy, in the certain
disappointment of their own aims, and where such sensibility is backed
by genius, eloquence, and a peculiar set of public conditions, in
prolonged and fatal disturbance of society.
Rousseau was the great type of this triumphant and dangerous sophistry
of the emotions. The Rousseau of these times for English-speaking
nations is Thomas Carlyle. An apology is perhaps needed for mentioning a
man of such simple, veracious, disinterested, and wholly high-minded
life, in the same breath with one of the least sane men that ever lived.
Community of method, like misery, makes men acquainted with strange
bed-fellows. Two men of very different degrees of moral worth may
notoriously both preach the same faith and both pursue the same method,
and the method of Rousseau is the method of Mr. Carlyle. With each of
them thought is an aspiration, and justice a sentiment, and society a
retrogression. Each bids us look within our own bosoms for truth and
right, postpones reason, to feeling, and refers to introspection and a
factitious something styled Nature, questions only to be truly solved by
external observation and history. In connection with each of them has
been exemplified the cruelty inherent in sentimentalism, when
circumstances draw away the mask. Not the least conspicuous of the
disciples of Rousseau was Robespierre. His works lay on the table of the
Committee of Public Safety. The theory of the Reign of Terror was
invented, and mercilessly reduced to practice, by men whom the visions
of Rousseau had fired, and who were not afraid nor ashamed to wade
through oceans of blood to the promised land of humanity and fine
feeling. We in our days have seen the same result of sentimental
doctrine in the barbarous love of the battle-field, the retrograde
passion for methods of repression, the contempt for human life, the
impatience of orderly and peaceful solution. We begin with introspection
and the eternities, and end in blood and iron. Again, Rousseau's first
piece was an anathema upon the science and art of his time, and a
denunciation of books and speech. Mr. Carlyle, in exactly the same
spirit, has denounced logic mills, warned us all away from literature,
and habitually subordinated discipline of the intelligence to the
passionate assertion of the will. There are passages in which he speaks
respectfully of Intellect, but he is always careful to show that he is
using the term in a special sense of his own, and confounding it with
'the exact summary of human _Worth_,' as in one place he defines it.
Thus, instead of co-ordinating moral worthiness with intellectual
energy, virtue with intelligence, right action of the will with
scientific processes of the understanding, he has either placed one
immeasurably below the other, or else has mischievously insisted on
treating them as identical. The dictates of a kind heart are of superior
force to the maxims of political economy; swift and peremptory
resolution is a safer guide than a balancing judgment. If the will works
easily and surely, we may assume the rectitude of the moving impulse.
All this is no caricature of a system which sets sentiment, sometimes
hard sentiment and sometimes soft sentiment, above reason and method.
In other words, the writer who in these days has done more than anybody
else to fire men's hearts with a feeling for right and an eager desire
for social activity, has with deliberate contempt thrust away from him
the only instruments by which we can make sure what right is, and that
our social action is wise and effective. A born poet, only wanting
perhaps a clearer feeling for form and a more delicate spiritual
self-possession, to have added another name to the illustrious catalogue
of English singers, he has been driven by the impetuosity of his
sympathies to attack the scientific side of social questions in an
imaginative and highly emotional manner. Depth of benevolent feeling is
unhappily no proof of fitness for handling complex problems, and a fine
sense of the picturesque is no more a qualification for dealing
effectively with the difficulties of an old society, than the
composition of Wordsworth's famous sonnet on Westminster Bridge was any
reason for supposing that the author would have made a competent
Commissioner of Works.
Why should society, with its long and deep-hidden processes of growth,
its innumerable intricacies and far-off historic complexities, be as an
open book to any reader of its pages who brings acuteness and passion,
but no patience nor calm accuracy of meditation? Objects of thought and
observation far simpler, more free from all blinding and distorting
elements, more accessible to direct and ocular inspection, are by
rational consent reserved for the calmest and most austere moods and
methods of human intelligence. Nor is denunciation of the conditions of
a problem the quickest step towards solving it. Vituperation of the fact
that supply and demand practically regulate certain kinds of bargain, is
no contribution to systematic efforts to discover some more moral
regulator. Take all the invective that Mr. Carlyle has poured out
against political economy, the Dismal Science, and Gospel according to
M'Croudy. Granting the absolute and entire inadequateness of political
economy to sum up the laws and conditions of a healthy social state--and
no one more than the present writer deplores the mischief which the
application of the maxims of political economy by ignorant and selfish
spirits has effected in confirming the worst tendencies of the
commercial character--yet is it not a first condition of our being able
to substitute better machinery for the ordinary rules of self-interest,
that we know scientifically how those rules do and must operate? Again,
in another field, it is well to cry out: 'Caitiff, we hate thee,' with a
'hatred, a hostility inexorable, unappeasable, which blasts the
scoundrel, and all scoundrels ultimately, into black annihilation and
disappearance from the scene of things.'[2] But this is slightly vague.
It is not scientific. There are caitiffs and caitiffs. There is a more
and a less of scoundrelism, as there is a more and a less of black
annihilation, and we must have systematic jurisprudence, with its
classification of caitiffs and its graduated blasting. Has Mr. Carlyle's
passion, or have the sedulous and scientific labours of that Bentham,
whose name with him is a symbol of evil, done most in what he calls the
Scoundrel-province of Reform within the last half-century? Sterling's
criticism on Teufelsdröckh told a hard but wholesome truth to
Teufelsdröckh's creator. 'Wanting peace himself,' said Sterling, 'his
fierce dissatisfaction fixes on all that is weak, corrupt, and imperfect
around him; and instead of a calm and steady co-operation with all those
who are endeavouring to apply the highest ideas as remedies for the
worst evils, he holds himself in savage isolation.'[3]
[2] _Latter-Day Pamphlets._ II. Model Prisons, p. 92.
[3] Letter to Mr. Carlyle, in the _Life_, Pt. ii. ch. ii.
Mr. Carlyle assures us of Bonaparte that he had an instinct of nature
better than his culture was, and illustrates it by the story that during
the Egyptian expedition, when his scientific men were busy arguing that
there could be no God, Bonaparte, looking up to the stars, confuted them
decisively by saying: 'Very ingenious, Messieurs; but _who made_ all
that?' Surely the most inconclusive answer since coxcombs vanquished
Berkeley with a grin. It is, however, a type of Mr. Carlyle's faith in
the instinct of nature, as superseding the necessity for patient logical
method; a faith, in other words, in crude and uninterpreted sense.
Insight, indeed, goes far, but it no more entitles its possessor to
dispense with reasoned discipline and system in treating scientific
subjects, than it relieves him from the necessity of conforming to the
physical conditions of health. Why should society be the one field of
thought in which a man of genius is at liberty to assume all his major
premisses, and swear all his conclusions?
* * * * *
The deep unrest of unsatisfied souls meets its earliest solace in the
effective and sympathetic expression of the same unrest from the lips of
another. To look it in the face is the first approach to a sedative. To
find our discontent with the actual, our yearning for an undefined
ideal, our aspiration after impossible heights of being, shared and
amplified in the emotional speech of a man of genius, is the beginning
of consolation. Some of the most generous spirits a hundred years ago
found this in the eloquence of Rousseau, and some of the most generous
spirits of this time and place have found it in the writer of the
_Sartor_. In ages not of faith, there will always be multitudinous
troops of people crying for the moon. If such sorrowful pastime be ever
permissible to men, it has been natural and lawful this long while in
præ-revolutionary England, as it was natural and lawful a century since
in præ-revolutionary France. A man born into a community where political
forms, from the monarchy down to the popular chamber, are mainly hollow
shams disguising the coarse supremacy of wealth, where religion is
mainly official and political, and is ever too ready to dissever itself
alike from the spirit of justice, the spirit of charity, and the spirit
of truth, and where literature does not as a rule permit itself to
discuss serious subjects frankly and worthily[4]--a community, in
short, where the great aim of all classes and orders with power is by
dint of rigorous silence, fast shutting of the eyes, and stern stopping
of the ears, somehow to keep the social pyramid on its apex, with the
fatal result of preserving for England its glorious fame as a paradise
for the well-to-do, a purgatory for the able, and a hell for the
poor--why, a man born into all this with a heart something softer than a
flint, and with intellectual vision something more acute than that of a
Troglodyte, may well be allowed to turn aside and cry for moons for a
season.
[4] Written in 1870.
Impotent unrest, however, is followed in Mr. Carlyle by what is socially
an impotent solution, just as it was with Rousseau. To bid a man do his
duty in one page, and then in the next to warn him sternly away from
utilitarianism, from political economy, from all 'theories of the moral
sense,' and from any other definite means of ascertaining what duty may
chance to be, is but a bald and naked counsel. Spiritual nullity and
material confusion in a society are not to be repaired by a
transformation of egotism, querulous, brooding, marvelling, into
egotism, active, practical, objective, not uncomplacent. The moral
movements to which the instinctive impulses of humanity fallen on evil
times uniformly give birth, early Christianity, for instance, or the
socialism of Rousseau, may destroy a society, but they cannot save it
unless in conjunction with organising policy. A thorough appreciation
of fiscal and economic truths was at least as indispensable for the life
of the Roman Empire as the acceptance of a Messiah; and it was only in
the hands of a great statesman like Gregory VII. that Christianity
became at last an instrument powerful enough to save civilisation. What
the moral renovation of Rousseau did for France we all know. Now
Rousseau's was far more profoundly social than the doctrine of Mr.
Carlyle, which, while in name a renunciation of self, has all its
foundations in the purest individualism. Rousseau, notwithstanding the
method of _Emile_, treats man as a part of a collective whole,
contracting manifold relations and owing manifold duties; and he always
appeals to the love and sympathy which an imaginary God of nature has
implanted in the heart. His aim is unity. Mr. Carlyle, following the
same method of obedience to his own personal emotions, unfortified by
patient reasoning, lands at the other extremity, and lays all his stress
on the separatist instincts. The individual stands alone confronted by
the eternities; between these and his own soul exists the one central
relation. This has all the fundamental egotism of the doctrine of
personal salvation, emancipated from fable, and varnished with an
emotional phrase. The doctrine has been very widely interpreted, and
without any forcing, as a religious expression for the conditions of
commercial success.
If we look among our own countrymen, we find that the apostle of
self-renunciation is nowhere so beloved as by the best of those whom
steady self-reliance and thrifty self-securing and a firm eye to the
main chance have got successfully on in the world. A Carlylean
anthology, or volume of the master's sentences, might easily be
composed, that should contain the highest form of private liturgy
accepted by the best of the industrial classes, masters or men. They
forgive or overlook the writer's denunciations of Beaver Industrialisms,
which they attribute to his caprice or spleen. This is the worst of an
emotional teacher, that people take only so much as they please from
him, while with a reasoner they must either refute by reason, or else
they must accept by reason, and not at simple choice. When trade is
brisk, and England is successfully competing in the foreign markets, the
books that enjoin silence and self-annihilation have a wonderful
popularity in the manufacturing districts. This circumstance is
honourable both to them and to him, as far as it goes, but it furnishes
some reason for suspecting that our most vigorous moral reformer, so far
from propelling us in new grooves, has in truth only given new firmness
and coherency to tendencies that were strongly marked enough in the
national character before. He has increased the fervour of the country,
but without materially changing its objects; there is all the less
disguise among us as a result of his teaching, but no radical
modification of the sentiments which people are sincere in. The most
stirring general appeal to the emotions, to be effective for more than
negative purposes, must lead up to definite maxims and specific
precepts. As a negative renovation Mr. Carlyle's doctrine was perfect.
It effectually put an end to the mood of Byronism. May we say that with
the neutralisation of Byron, his most decisive and special work came to
an end? May we not say further, that the true renovation of England, if
such a process be ever feasible, will lie in a quite other method than
this of emotion? It will lie not in more moral earnestness only, but in
a more open intelligence; not merely in a more dogged resolution to work
and be silent, but in a ready willingness to use the understanding. The
poison of our sins, says Mr. Carlyle in his latest utterance, 'is not
intellectual dimness chiefly, but torpid unveracity of heart.' Yes, but
all unveracity, torpid or fervid, breeds intellectual dimness, and it is
this last which prevents us from seeing a way out of the present ignoble
situation. We need light more than heat; intellectual alertness, faith
in the reasoning faculty, accessibility to new ideas. To refuse to use
the intellect patiently and with system, to decline to seek scientific
truth, to prefer effusive indulgence of emotion to the laborious and
disciplined and candid exploration of new ideas, is not this, too, a
torpid unveracity? And has not Mr. Carlyle, by the impatience of his
method, done somewhat to deepen it?
It is very well to invite us to moral reform, to bring ourselves to be
of heroic mind, as the surest way to 'the blessed Aristocracy of the
Wisest.' But how shall we know the wisest when we see them, and how
shall a nation know, if not by keen respect and watchfulness for
intellectual truth and the teachers of it? Much as we may admire Mr.
Carlyle's many gifts, and highly as we may revere his character, it is
yet very doubtful whether anybody has as yet learnt from him the
precious lesson of scrupulosity and conscientiousness in actively and
constantly using the intelligence. This would have been the solid
foundation of the true hero-worship.
* * * * *
Let thus much have been said on the head of temperament. The historic
position also of every writer is an indispensable key to many things in
his teaching.[5] We have to remember in Mr. Carlyle's case, that he was
born in the memorable year when the French Revolution, in its narrower
sense, was closed by the Whiff of Grape-shot, and when the great century
of emancipation and illumination was ending darkly in battles and
confusion. During his youth the reaction was in full flow, and the lamp
had been handed to runners who not only reversed the ideas and methods,
but even turned aside from the goal of their precursors. Hopefulness and
enthusiastic confidence in humanity when freed from the fetters of
spiritual superstition and secular tyranny, marked all the most
characteristic and influential speculations of the two generations
before '89. The appalling failure which attended the splendid attempt to
realise these hopes in a renewed and perfected social structure, had no
more than its natural effect in turning men's minds back, not to the
past of Rousseau's imagination, but to the past of recorded history. The
single epoch in the annals of Europe since the rise of Christianity, for
which no good word could be found, was the epoch of Voltaire. The
hideousness of the Christian church in the ninth and tenth centuries was
passed lightly over by men who had only eyes for the moral obliquity of
the church of the Encyclopædia. The brilliant but profoundly inadequate
essays on Voltaire and Diderot were the outcome in Mr. Carlyle of the
same reactionary spirit. Nobody now, we may suppose, who is competent to
judge, thinks that that estimate of 'the net product, of the tumultuous
Atheism' of Diderot and his fellow-workers, is a satisfactory account of
the influence and significance of the Encyclopædia; nor that to sum up
Voltaire, with his burning passion for justice, his indefatigable
humanity, his splendid energy in intellectual production, his righteous
hatred of superstition, as merely a supreme master of _persiflage_, can
be a process partaking of finality. The fact that to the eighteenth
century belong the subjects of more than half of these thirty volumes,
is a proof of the fascination of the period for an author who has never
ceased to vilipend it. The saying is perhaps as true in these matters as
of private relations, that hatred is not so far removed from love as
indifference is. Be that as it may, the Carlylean view of the eighteenth
century as a time of mere scepticism and unbelief, is now clearly
untenable to men who remember the fervour of Jean Jacques, and the more
rational, but not any less fervid faith of the disciples of
Perfectibility. But this was not so clear fifty years since, when the
crash and dust of demolition had not so subsided as to let men see how
much had risen up behind. The fire of the new school had been taken from
the very conflagration which they execrated, but they were not held back
from denouncing the eighteenth century by the reflection that, at any
rate, its thought and action had made ready the way for much of what is
best in the nineteenth.
[5] The dates of Mr. Carlyle's principal compositions are these:--_Life
of Schiller_, 1825; _Sartor Resartus_, 1831; _French Revolution_, 1837;
_Chartism_, 1839; _Hero-Worship_, 1840; _Past and Present_, 1843;
_Cromwell_, 1845; _Latter-Day Pamphlets_, 1850; _Friedrich the Second_,
1858-1865; _Shooting Niagara_, 1867.
Mr. Carlyle himself has told us about Coleridge, and the movement of
which Coleridge was the leader. That movement has led men in widely
different ways. In one direction it has stagnated in the sunless swamps
of a theosophy, from which a cloud of sedulous ephemera still suck a
little spiritual moisture. In another it led to the sacramental and
sacerdotal developments of Anglicanism. In a third, among men with
strong practical energy, to the benevolent bluster of a sort of
Christianity which is called muscular because it is not intellectual. It
would be an error to suppose that these and the other streams that have
sprung from the same source, did not in the days of their fulness
fertilise and gladden many lands. The wordy pietism of one school, the
mimetic rites of another, the romping heroics of the third, are
degenerate forms. How long they are likely to endure, it would be rash
to predict among a nation whose established teachers and official
preachers are prevented by an inveterate timidity from trusting
themselves to that disciplined intelligence, in which the superior minds
of the last century had such courageous faith.
Mr. Carlyle drank in some sort at the same fountain. Coleridgean ideas
were in the air. It was there probably that he acquired that sympathy
with the past, or with certain portions of the past, that feeling of the
unity of history, and that conviction of the necessity of binding our
theory of history fast with our theory of other things, in all of which
he so strikingly resembles the great Anglican leaders of a generation
ago, and in gaining some of which so strenuous an effort must have been
needed to modify the prepossessions of a Scotch Puritan education. No
one has contributed more powerfully to that movement which, drawing
force from many and various sides, has brought out the difference
between the historian and the gazetteer or antiquary. One half of _Past
and Present_ might have been written by one of the Oxford chiefs in the
days of the Tracts. Vehement native force was too strong for such a man
to remain in the luminous haze which made the Coleridgean atmosphere. A
well-known chapter in the _Life of Sterling_, which some, indeed, have
found too ungracious, shows how little hold he felt Coleridge's ideas
to be capable of retaining, and how little permanent satisfaction
resided in them. Coleridge, in fact, was not only a poet but a thinker
as well; he had science of a sort as well as imagination, but it was not
science for headlong and impatient souls. Mr. Carlyle has probably never
been able to endure a subdivision all his life, and the infinite
ramifications of the central division between object and subject might
well be with him an unprofitable weariness to the flesh.
In England, the greatest literary organ of the Revolution was
unquestionably Byron, whose genius, daring, and melodramatic
lawlessness, exercised what now seems such an amazing fascination over
the least revolutionary of European nations. Unfitted for scientific
work and full of ardour, Mr. Carlyle found his mission in rushing with
all his might to the annihilation of this terrible poet, who, like some
gorgon, hydra, or chimera dire planted at the gate, carried off a yearly
tale of youths and virgins from the city. In literature, only a
revolutionist can thoroughly overpower a revolutionist. Mr. Carlyle had
fully as much daring as Byron; his writing at its best, if without the
many-eyed minuteness and sustained pulsing force of Byron, has still the
full swell and tide and energy of genius: he is as lawless in his
disrespect for some things established. He had the unspeakable advantage
of being that which, though not in this sense, only his own favourite
word of contempt describes, respectable; and, for another thing, of
being ruggedly sincere. Carlylism is the male of Byronism. It is
Byronism with thew and sinew, bass pipe and shaggy bosom. There is the
same grievous complaint against the time and its men and its spirit,
something even of the same contemptuous despair, the same sense of the
puniness of man in the centre of a cruel and frowning universe; but
there is in Carlylism a deliverance from it all, indeed the only
deliverance possible. Its despair is a despair without misery. Labour in
a high spirit, duty done, and right service performed in fortitudinous
temper--here was, not indeed a way out, but a way of erect living
within.
Against Byronism the ordinary moralist and preacher could really do
nothing, because Byronism was an appeal that lay in the regions of the
mind only accessible by one with an eye and a large poetic feeling for
the infinite whole of things. It was not the rebellion only in
_Manfred_, nor the wit in _Don Juan_, nor the graceful melancholy of
_Childe Harold_, which made their author an idol, and still make him one
to multitudes of Frenchmen and Germans and Italians. One prime secret of
it is the air and spaciousness, the freedom and elemental grandeur of
Byron. Who has not felt this to be one of the glories of Mr. Carlyle's
work, that it, too, is large and spacious, rich with the fulness of a
sense of things unknown and wonderful, and ever in the tiniest part
showing us the stupendous and overwhelming whole? The magnitude of the
universal forces enlarges the pettiness of man, and the smallness of his
achievement and endurance takes a complexion of greatness from the
vague immensity that surrounds and impalpably mixes with it.
Remember further, that while in Byron the outcome of this was rebellion,
in Carlyle its outcome is reverence, a noble mood, which is one of the
highest predispositions of the English character. The instincts of
sanctification rooted in Teutonic races, and which in the corrupt and
unctuous forms of a mechanical religious profession are so revolting,
were mocked and outraged, where they were not superciliously ignored, in
every line of the one, while in the other they were enthroned under the
name of Worship, as the very key and centre of the right life. The
prophet who never wearies of declaring that 'only in bowing down before
the Higher does man feel himself exalted,' touched solemn organ notes,
that awoke a response from dim religious depths, never reached by the
stormy wailings of the Byronic lyre. The political side of the
reverential sentiment is equally conciliated, and the prime business of
individuals and communities pronounced to be the search after worthy
objects of this divine quality of reverence. While kings' cloaks and
church tippets are never spared, still less suffered to protect the
dishonour of ignoble wearers of them, the inadequateness of aggression
and demolition, the necessity of quiet order
|
you!"
"Did you get her photo, Phil?" demanded X-Ray; "because I heard the
click, after you'd swung your little camera around."
"Yes, when I saw that she didn't mean to tackle us," replied the other,
"I remembered that I ought to have something to show for Lub's
adventure. Guess you'll be glad to have a print of your friend, Lub;
it'll be a nice thing to look at on a hot summer day; because you'll
always have a chill chase up and down your spinal column, when you
think what would have happened if you'd come to close quarters with that
cat."
"And talk about the map of Ireland on your face," added Ethan; "more'n
likely you'd call it one of Europe, with every river plainly marked."
Lub was mopping his face with his red bandanna. All the color had fled,
leaving him as white as a ghost; but under the manipulation of his
handkerchief that was being speedily rectified.
"I think I'll drop back a bit, and let some of the rest of you fellows
take the lead from now on," Lub told them, contritely, "I ought to have
known better than to try and show off when I'm such a greeny about
following a trail."
"You were doing all right," Phil told him, "and making a good job of it
up to that time. Who'd ever expect that we'd run across a bobcat in the
middle of the afternoon; and one that had kits at that? I'd have had
just as bad a shock as you got, Lub, if it was me in the lead. No need
of feeling ashamed; the sight of that thing was enough to give any
hunter a bad scare, especially if he had no gun along."
This sort of consolation served to make poor Lub better satisfied;
though doubtless he would continue to feel unusually nervous for some
little time. If a chipmunk stirred in the trash under a dead tree Lub
was apt to draw a long breath, and involuntarily shrink back behind one
of his companions.
"Guess we'd better make a detour around that bunch of scrub, eh, Phil?"
remarked Ethan, sagely.
"Well, it would be a wise thing to do," chuckled the other; "because
just now we haven't lost any bobcat that we know about. The trail seems
to be heading pretty straight right here; and chances are we'll have
little trouble running across the same some little ways on."
Both he and Ethan took a good survey of their surroundings, but
evidently the wildcat was still hiding amidst that scrub, for they saw
nothing of her again while making the half circuit.
"Now keep your eyes peeled for the trail again, Ethan," advised Phil,
when they were well around on the other side of the danger spot.
Lub managed to push along until he could find himself in the midst of
the bunch. He cast numerous side glances in the direction of that
disputed ground, as though half anticipating seeing a whole army of
ferocious bobcats come leaping forth, all with blazing yellow eyes and
stubby tails.
Nothing of the kind happened, however, and presently Ethan was heard
calling:
"Here's your old trail, Phil, as plain as print. And d'ye know, there's
only one thing I'm sorry about, which is that you didn't think to snap
off a picture with our chum on his hands and knees backing off, and the
cat on the log."
"Well, I'm glad myself there wasn't any chance to keep that accidental
tumble of mine as a perpetual joke," said Lub, indignantly.
"Nothing to be ashamed about at all, Lub," remarked X-Ray; "and I reckon
now if it had been Ethan himself who stumbled when he caught his foot in
a vine, and then found himself face to face with a mad cat he'd have
been near paralyzed too."
This seemed to mollify Lub somewhat, though he hardly liked that
reference to his having been paralyzed very much.
They pushed on resolutely and the minutes passed. Phil on hearing Lub
puffing and seeing that X-Ray lagged a little, cheered both of them up
by declaring that the time was now short.
"It wouldn't surprise me a whit," he said, cheerily, "to get a glimpse
of the lake any time now, through the trees. Unless all my calculations
are faulty we must be on my land right now."
"That sounds good to me, Phil," asserted X-Ray, joyously, as he took a
fresh spurt, and no longer limped as though he had a stone bruise on his
heel.
Even Lub grinned until his red face looked like a newly risen sun.
"We'll all be mighty glad to get there, believe me!" he declared; "and
think of the jolly time we'll have preparing our first supper in the
woods. This big aluminum frying pan of Phil's has kept digging me in the
ribs right along, until I'm afraid there's a black and blue spot there;
but I mean to take my revenge good and plenty when we fill it full of
onions and potatoes and such fine things. Take another squint ahead,
Phil, and see if you can't give us real good news."
"Well, just as sure as anything I see what looks like water!" called out
Phil, with an eager tremor in his voice.
"Whereabouts, Phil? Oh! I hope now, you're not joshing us?" Lub
demanded.
"Stop just where you are, everybody," the pilot of the expedition told
them, "and watch where I'm pointing. If you follow my finger you can see
if I've made a mistake or not. How about it, X-Ray? You've got the best
eyes of the crowd, I guess."
"It's water, all right, Phil," replied the other, glad that he could be
accounted as best in something.
"And that means Lake Surprise, doesn't it?" questioned Ethan Allan.
"Yes, because it's the only body of water for miles around here," Phil
continued. "That's one reason they let it alone so much. Other lakes lie
in bunches, and a canoe can be taken over a carry from one to another in
the chain; but Surprise is an awful lonely sheet of water."
"And that's how it must have got its name," added Ethan. "All the while
nobody dreamed there was any such lake up here; and then all at once a
wandering guide must have run headlong on the same, to his surprise."
"Wish we were there on the bank right now," grunted Lub.
"Another mile, perhaps half of that, ought to take us to the water," he
was assured by Phil; "and you see we are coming in from the west, which
is all right, too, because my land lies on the western shore; and that
cabin must be somewhere just ahead of us."
"Hurrah!" shouted Ethan, unable to keep from giving expression to his
delight any longer.
The others felt pretty much the same way, and joined in a series of
joyous whoops.
"Now, everybody put his best foot forward, and we'll soon be there,"
urged Phil; "the worst is behind us, you know."
"That's a heap better than having it yet to come!" declared X-Ray,
feeling that with the goal in sight he should be able to hold out.
They plodded along for some eight minutes or more, frequently catching
glimpses of the lake beyond, and knowing that they were rapidly
approaching its border. All at once X-Ray gave a cry.
"Tell me, what is that I can see over there, Phil; looks for all the
world like a shack made of silver birches! See how the sun shines on its
side, will you? Is that your cabin, do you think, Phil?"
"Just what it must be, X-Ray," the other told him; "they've nailed birch
bark all over the sides of the log hut, you see, just to make it look
rustic."
"Then we'll have to call it Birch Bark Lodge!" burst out Lub, who had a
little vein of the romantic in his disposition.
"That sounds good to me!" declared Ethan.
"It goes, then, does it?" asked the delighted Lub, beginning to believe
he must be waking up, to have any suggestion of his so quickly and
favorably seized upon.
"Sure thing," said X-Ray Tyson. "Hurrah for Birch Bark Lodge, the home
in the wilderness of the Mountain Boys."
"Don't be too quick to settle that sort of thing," advised the more
cautious Phil. "For all we know there may be somebody ahead of us in the
shack; and you know we couldn't well chase 'em out."
"But see here, Phil, if the cabin stands on your ground of course it's
your property by right of law, no matter whoever built the shack in the
start. He was only a squatter at the best," and Lub looked wise when he
laid down this principle in common law which is often so exceedingly
difficult to practice in the backwoods, where right of possession is
nine points of the law.
"Yes," Phil told him, "but there's always a rule in the woods that
governs cases like this, no matter who owns the land. First come, first
served. If we find that shack occupied by some sportsmen and their
guides, why, we'll have to chase along and put up one for ourselves
somewhere else."
"Huh! I don't like to hear you say that," remarked Lub, who would
possibly have liked to enter into a discussion along the line of right
of property, only none of the others cared to bother with such a
question, particularly after what Phil had said.
They pushed on and approached the cabin. One and all were looking
eagerly to discover any signs of occupancy, and greatly to their
satisfaction no dog came barking toward them, nor was there even a
smudge of smoke oozing out of the mud-and-slab chimney that had been
built up alongside the back of the shack.
"I guess it's all hunk," admitted Ethan, with a sigh of relief, as they
drew near the partly open door. "See that gray squirrel running along
the roof, would you? He wouldn't be doing that same if folks were
around."
"Oh! that depends on what kind of folks," remarked Phil. "For my part I
never yet would shoot little animals around camp. I like to see them
frisking about too much to want to eat them up. But as you say, it looks
as if we had the cabin to ourselves, after all, for which I'm glad."
"Tell me about that, will you?" muttered Lub, also showing positive
signs of satisfaction.
All of them pushed into the cabin.
"Why, this is _just_ the thing!" cried Ethan Allan; "see the bunks along
one side of the wall, boys,--two, three, four of them, if you please."
"Just one apiece for us, and I choose this because it looks more roomy,
and better fitted for a fellow of my heft than any of the rest!" Lub was
heard to say.
They immediately began to unfasten the straps that held their packs in
place.
"Hey! what're you doing, starting a fire already, Phil?" called out
Ethan, noticing that the other was bending over the hearth.
For answer Phil beckoned to the others to approach closer.
"There's something queer happened," he told them, with a frown on his
face; "just bend down here, Ethan, and put your hand in these ashes,
will you?"
"Why!" exclaimed Ethan, immediately, "they're warm right now, would you
believe it?"
CHAPTER III
A MYSTERY, TO START WITH
While Ethan, Phil and X-Ray Tyson seemed to grasp the true significance
of this astonishing discovery, Lub as yet had not managed to get it
through his head. He was a little dense about some things, although a
clever enough scholar when at school.
"The ashes warm, you say, Ethan?" he burst out with. "Now, that's a
funny thing. What would make them hold heat that way, when there's not a
sign of anybody around?"
"There _has_ been somebody here, and only a short time ago, don't you
see?" explained Phil.
"And like as not they heard us cheering when we glimpsed the lake, and
cleared out in a big hurry," Ethan went on to say.
"Cleared out?" echoed Lub'. "Well, why should they run from us, tell me?
We don't look dangerous, as far as I can see. We wouldn't bother hurting
anybody; and didn't Phil say a while back that if we found some
fishermen in his shack we'd just shy off, and build one for ourselves?"
"Yes, but these people didn't hear Phil say that; we were half a mile
and more away from here at the time," explained X-Ray.
"And they couldn't begin to tell just who was coming," added Phil.
"It might be!" exclaimed Ethan, "that they took us for game wardens.
Mebbe now they've been shooting deer out of season, and got cold feet
when they knew some people were coming in to the lake."
Phil nodded his head in the affirmative, when he saw that Ethan was
looking to find out just how that suggestion struck him.
"I rather think you've struck the right nail on the head there, Ethan,"
he told the other. "It seems the most reasonable explanation for their
clearing out in such a big hurry."
"They tried to put the fire out too, didn't they, Phil?"
It was X-Ray Tyson who asked this. Those keen eyes of his had made
another discovery, and he was even then pointing the same out to his
chums.
"Yes, I had noticed that some one had certainly thrown water on the
fire," said Phil. "You can see where it washed the ashes off this
charred piece of wood; and besides, it made little furrows in the
ashes."
"That's an old trick in the woods," remarked Ethan, with a superior air;
"fact is, no true woodsman would think of breaking camp without first
making sure every spark of his fire was put out. Lots of forest fires
have come from carelessness in guides leaving red cinders behind them."
"Yes," Phil added, "because often the wind rises, and whirls those same
cinders to leeward, where they fall in a bunch of dry leaves, and begin
to get their work in. But when people live in cabins they seldom bother
wetting the ashes, unless they've got a mighty good reason for wanting
to hide the facts."
"And these people did," added Ethan, conclusively.
"Let's look around some," suggested X-Ray.
Two of the others thought this a good idea, for they immediately started
a search of the interior of the cabin, their idea being to find some
clue that might tell just who the late mysterious inmates were, and why
they had fled so hurriedly.
Lub may have been just as curious as his mates; but he was very tired
after the long and arduous walk, so that apparently he believed three
could cover the field just as thoroughly as four. At any rate he showed
no sign of meaning to quit his seat upon the rude stool he had found;
but leaning forward, watched operations, at the same time rubbing his
shins sympathetically.
"What's this on the peg up here?" exclaimed X-Ray, the very first thing.
"Looks like some sort of a hat to me," remarked Ethan.
"Just what it is; but say, take notice of the size, will you? It's a
_child's_ hat, as sure as you live! Why, there must have been a child
along with the lot!"
"That's queer!" Lub observed, not wanting to be wholly ignored.
"Game poachers they may have been," muttered Ethan, "but if there was a
little chap along, there must have been a family of 'em. See if you
could pick up such a thing now as a hair-pin, or any other woman
business."
They went to scrutinizing the cracks of the floor more closely than
ever. That suggestion on the part of Ethan was worth trying out. Of
course the presence of any little article like a hair-pin would show
that a woman had been there.
"I don't hear anybody sing out!" remarked X-Ray Tyson, presently; "and
on that account it looks like we hadn't discovered anything worth
mentioning. What gets me is, however could they have cleaned the old
shack out so quick, and never left anything worth mentioning behind
'em?"
"From the time we sighted the cabin, back to when we first whooped,
couldn't have been more'n eight minutes, I should think," Lub gravely
announced.
"Lots could be done in that time," asserted Phil; "but all the same I am
bothered to know why they'd be in such a rattling big hurry. It might be
they knew about us being on the way longer than eight minutes."
"Who would have called 'em up on the phone, and mentioned the fact?"
asked X-Ray, meaning to be humorous.
"Well, one of the lot may have seen us miles back, and put for the cabin
by some short-cut we don't know anything about," Phil told him.
"That could be, of course," admitted Ethan, after considering the matter
seriously.
"Mebbe we'll never know the truth, which would be too bad," Lub
continued; for a mystery was a source of constant anxiety to him; he was
so frank and straightforward himself that double dealing seemed foreign
to his nature.
"Well, as we didn't come all the way up here just to worry our heads
over guessing hard problems, I guess we won't lose any sleep," Ethan
went on to say, in his easy-going way.
"I'm wondering what made all these burns on the floor," Phil told them;
"and on this table, too. In these days people don't mold bullets like
they used to years ago, when the pioneers were settling the wilderness;
and yet that's what it looks like to me."
"The place isn't as clean as it might be," Ethan now remarked, "and the
first thing we'll have to do in the morning will be to tidy up. I'll
make a broom out of twigs, like I've seen poor emigrants do. It answers
the purpose pretty well, too."
He was prying around in one of the bunks while saying this, as though he
had suspicions; which Lub, who was anxiously watching him, hoped in his
heart might turn out to be groundless.
Phil had turned to other things, and was proceeding to undo his pack.
This caught Lub's eye, and caused the worried expression on his face to
give way to one of pleasure. He knew that such a move meant it was
getting time for them to think of supper; and Lub was always ready to do
his part toward providing a meal; oh, yes, and in disposing of the same,
too.
"Wow! you quit too soon!" suddenly yelped X-Ray, who had continued
prowling on hands and knees after Phil and Ethan had stopped searching
the floor.
"Found something, have you?" asked the former, without looking up from
his job of opening the contents of his pack.
"Is it worth a hair-pin, X-Ray?" chirped Ethan, who had been gathering a
handful of timber in a corner where a lot of wood lay in a pile, ready
for burning.
"You could buy a thousand with it, I reckon!" was the astonishing
declaration of the finder, which remark caused every one to immediately
take notice.
The boy with the sharp eyes was holding something up between thumb and
forefinger. It shone in the last rays of the setting sun, as they came
into the cabin through a small window in the western side.
"Why, what's this mean?" ejaculated Ethan; "looks like you've gone and
struck a silver mine, X-Ray! That's a half dollar, ain't it? D'ye mean
to say you found it on this same floor?"
"Just what I did, and deep down in a crack, where it must have slid, so
nobody noticed it!" exclaimed the other, exultantly. "Now, needn't all
get busy looking, because I reckon it's the only coin there is. That's
my reward for keeping everlastingly at it. You fellows are ready to give
up too easy. Say, did you ever see a brighter half dollar than that?
Looks like she just came from the mint, hey?"
"Perhaps it did!" said Phil, solemnly.
When he said that the others all focussed their eyes on Phil's face.
They knew he would not have spoken in such a strain unless he had some
good reason for saying what he did.
"Explain what you mean, please, Phil; that's a good fellow," urged Lub.
X-Ray was not so dense, for he instantly exclaimed.
"Why, don't you see, Phil reckons that this half-dollar may have been
coined right here in this birch bark cabin!"
"Whew! counterfeit, is it?" gasped Ethan, whose breath had almost been
taken away with the momentous discovery. "Then I guess I ain't going to
bother getting down on my knees, and doing any hunting for bogus money."
The finder apparently did not much fancy having his prize counted so
meanly. He immediately proceeded to bite the coin, and then started to
ringing it on the hard surface of the oak table that had all the
scorched spots on it, mentioned by Phil.
"It _tastes_ good; and listen to the sweet ring, would you, fellows?"
X-Ray hastened to say. "If it's a punk fifty-center, then it's the
greatest imitation ever was. I'd just like to have a cartload of the
same; I think I'd call myself rich."
"If there's any suspicion fixed on the coin," Lub observed, ponderously,
just as he had heard his father, the judge, deliver an opinion in court,
"I'd rather be excused from carrying it around on _my_ person. The law,
you know, does not look upon ignorance as innocence. Better toss that
thing as far away as you can in the morning, X-Ray. I'd hate to think of
you doing time for having it in your possession."
"Hanged if I do," muttered the other. "I'm all worked up now over it,
and mean to get the opinion of Mr. Budge, the cashier of our bank. He
can smell a counterfeit as soon as he sets eyes on one. He'll fix all
that up, believe me."
"But, Phil," Ethan remarked, just then, "what was that you were saying
about all the scorched places on the table? If these people were not
molding bullets they may have been using melted metal for another
purpose, and one not quite so lawful, eh?"
"It looks a little that way, I must say," Phil admitted.
"Give us something to do prying around while we're up here," suggested
X-Ray; "seeing if we can run across their _cache_ where they've gone and
hid away their molds, and other stuff."
"Oh! now you're only guessing," Lub told him. "It may be they were game
poachers after all, no matter if the coin is a bad one. I'm sorry this
had to crop up the first thing, when we aimed to have such a jolly time
of it here."
"We'll have that, all right, whether or no," said Phil; "and first of
all let's get busy with our duffle. If we're going to live in this shack
it's our duty to make it look like home to us. Ethan, suppose you attend
to the fire, and the rest of us will take care of the cooking."
"That's the ticket!" Lub ventured; "if I can do anything to help just
let me sit here, and peel potatoes, or make the coffee. I'm pretty
tired, you know; and besides it seems to me I get in everybody's way
when I move around."
"Because you occupy so much room, Lub," X-Ray told him, cheerfully; "but
it's all right, and we'll find some use for your hands. How about water;
shall I take our collapsible pail and fetch some from the lake?"
Upon being told that some one must go, the spry lad darted out of the
door, and reappeared a few minutes later with a brimming pail.
"I want to tell you all that it's going to be a dandy night," he
chortled as he set the pail carefully down so that Lub, who was holding
the aluminum coffee pot in his hands, could easily reach it; "moon's
just coming up over across the lake, and about as full as could be."
"Well, some of the rest of us are hoping to be in the same condition
before a great while," Ethan ventured, as he stepped over to the door,
and looked out, to immediately add: "I should say it is a glorious
sight, with that yellow streak shining across the water, and the little
wavelets dancing like silver. Phil, this is the greatest place ever. If
you hunted a whole year you couldn't beat it. And we ought to have the
time of our lives while we're up at Birch Bark Lodge."
All of them were filled with delight. Being only boys, and with no
particular cares weighing heavily on their minds, they refused to see
any cloud on the horizon. Everything was as clear and lovely as the sky
into which that full moon was climbing so sturdily.
Soon the delightful odors of supper began to pervade the atmosphere.
That made it seem more than ever like a real camp. Lub was doing his
share of the work like a hero. They had found a place where he could sit
at one side of the fire, and here he attended to the coffee, as well as
looked after the big saucepan of potatoes and onions that had been
placed on the red coals. Lub's round face was about as fiery as the
blaze that crackled and danced at the back of the hearth; and he often
had to mop his streaming brow; but he stuck heroically at his task to
the bitter end.
Then came his reward when they sat around, and every fellow had a
heaping pannikin between his knees, or on the small table, flanked by a
cup, also of light aluminum, filled with coffee.
Seeing that they were all helped Phil knocked on the table, and held up
his cup.
"Before we take our first bite, fellows," he went on to say, solemnly;
"I think we ought to drink to the success of our camping trip up here
in the Adirondacks proper. Coffee is the only proper liquid to drink
that toast in, so up with your cups, every one. Here's to the Mountain
Boys, and may they enjoy every minute of their stay at Birch Bark
Cabin!"
"Drink it down!" cried X-Ray Tyson, noisily.
With that they took the first swallow of the nectar that Lub had brewed.
Never had its like been tasted at home, amidst prosaic surroundings;
there was something in the atmosphere of the mountains that made
ordinary things assume a different aspect; their hard tramp had aroused
their appetites amazingly, and just then those four boys were ready to
admit that this was the life worth while.
For the next half-hour they sat there on such stools as they could find,
and proceeded to "lick the platter clean;" inasmuch as there was not a
particle left when they had finished supper. But even Lub confessed that
he had had quite enough.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIGURE IN THE MOONLIGHT
"You couldn't beat this much, I'd say, if you want to know my opinion,"
Ethan was remarking, after they had finished the meal and were taking
things easy.
"Of course we all feel pretty much the same way," admitted X-Ray Tyson;
"but I'd be a whole lot better satisfied if I knew about that bright new
half-dollar. Is it a good one, or a bunker?"
"Chances are we'll hear no end to that squall all the time we're up
here," Ethan went on to say, with a pretended look of disgust on his
thin Yankee face. "Whenever you do get a thing on your mind, X-Ray, you
sure beat all creation to keep yawping about it. Forget that you ever
picked up the fifty, and let's be thinking only of the royal good times
we're meaning to have."
"What can that sound be?" suddenly remarked Lub, who had been listening
more or less apprehensively for some little time now; "seems like some
one might be sawing a hole through the wall. Course, though, I don't
believe that for a minute; but all the same it's a queer noise. There,
don't you hear it?"
There did come a distinct little "rat-tat-tat," several times repeated.
No one who was not deaf could have helped hearing such a distinct sound;
but Lub could not see that any of his mates seemed bothered.
"May be that old gray squirrel gnawing somewhere," suggested X-Ray;
"they've got long teeth like a rat, and can chew a hole through any sort
of board."
"Now, I'd rather believe it was the wind," said Ethan, who had a pretty
good knowledge of woodcraft in all its branches, and was therefore well
fitted to give an opinion.
"Why, how could the night wind make that sort of scratching sound?"
asked Lub, doubtless wondering whether the other were simply guying him
because of his being a greenhorn.
"Oh! the broken end of a branch might be rubbing against the roof of the
cabin," Ethan told him. "I've known that to happen lots of times. There
she hits up the tune again, you notice, Lub."
"Yes," added Phil, nodding his head approvingly, "and if you listen,
every time that scratching sound comes you can hear the wind soughing
through the tree-tops. That ought to prove it."
Still Lub seemed hard to convince, seeing which Ethan jumped up.
"Just stir your stumps, Lub, and come outside with me," he said,
positively. "I want to prove what I said, and you've got to be shown."
Lub saw there was no getting around it, and much as he disliked making a
move when he was settled so comfortably, he managed to scramble to his
feet.
Once out in the bright moonlight and practical Ethan was quick to
discover the source of the peculiar and often recurring noise.
"You see, Lub," he went on to say, "there's your saw at work right now.
Just as I told you it's a branch that's been worn off to a stub by this
scraping. Every time there's a fresh gust of wind it waves back and
forth, and scraping against the roof makes that funny sound. Now, I hope
your mind's easy, Lub, and that you'll sleep decent to-night."
"I hope I will," replied Lub, earnestly, at the same time remembering
about the bunks, and what one of the others had said with regard to
house-cleaning in the morning; "but say, it is a fine night, ain't it,
Ethan. Listen to the frogs singing their chorus in some little bay of
the lake."
"Yes," remarked Ethan, quickly, "I was listening to their serenade. Some
busters in that lot, too, because you can hear 'em calling more-rum,
more-rum' in the deepest bass. That always stands for the big bullfrogs.
I ought to know, because I'm an experienced frog-raiser. Cleared
sixty-seven dollars from my little pond this very summer; but I've never
seen frogs'-legs quoted _quite_ so high as that Mr. Brandon the
restaurant man down in New York pays me. I guess he favors me a mite
just because he happens to know some friends of Phil's."
Lub knew all about it, but he never let even a chuckle escape from his
lips.
"Well, in that letter you had from him which you showed me," he
observed, "he said he'd never had such fine frogs'-legs before, and
wanted to make sure to keep getting all you had to sell. A dollar a
pound is a cracking high sum, sure it is, but then good things always
bring fancy prices."
That frog pond of Ethan's went with his many other ways for making
spending money. It required almost no time at all to run it. When he
found an opportunity he caught frogs wherever he could find them, and
put them into his preserve. Then, on feeling that he had the right kind
of goods for a gilt-edge market he would make a shipment of a box of
"saddles" neatly arranged, so that they were attractive to the eye of
the proprietor of the fashionable restaurant in far-off New York.
Phil had recommended Ethan to try that place, and had even given him
permission to use his name as a recommendation. Ethan never knew that
the same mail had carried a letter from Phil to Mr. Brandon, who was an
old friend of his, making arrangements to stand for the difference
between the market price of frogs'-legs and the fancy sum he was to send
Ethan every time he shipped him a box.
While Lub was standing there, and apparently enjoying the sight of the
moonlight dancing on the water of the lake near by, he was at the same
time casting occasional apprehensive glances around him.
The woods looked mysterious enough and gloomy too, for the moon had not
risen far in the heavens, and the shadows were long and abundant.
Several times he fancied he saw something moving there on the border of
the dense growth. Finally he appealed to Ethan, because he had
considerable respect for the opinions of his chum, who had studied woods
lore so long.
"You don't think now, that any of that crowd we scared away from the
cabin would come sneaking back to spy on us, or try to steal any of our
things?" he asked, trying to appear as though such an idea was furthest
from his own thoughts.
"Well, I hadn't bothered with such a thing as that, Lub, but now that
you mention the same I can't see why they should. We haven't got
anything along worth stealing; and if they are afraid of the officers of
the law, as counterfeiters, or game poachers, why, they'd want to get as
far away as they could. So I wouldn't let that keep me from sleeping a
wink."
"Oh! I don't mean to," Lub hastened to exclaim, stoutly; but all the
same as he followed Ethan back through the cabin doorway the very last
thing he did was to take a parting survey of the forest fringe, and
shrug his fat shoulders.
"Seems like it was getting right noisy out there, Ethan," remarked
X-Ray, when Lub had carefully pushed the door shut, and both of those
who had just entered found places again in the half circle before the
red embers of the fire.
The interior was only dimly lighted, because they only had a single
lantern to do duty. But then it served them amply, because no one meant
to try and read; and whenever a fresh lot of wood was thrown on the
coals it flashed up brilliantly.
That firelight was a part of the charm of the whole thing. They could
have lamps, gas, or even electric light at home any time they wanted;
but only under such conditions as these was it possible to enjoy the
mystic firelight.
"Why, yes," Ethan replied, "I guess the woods folks are waking up. You
can hear crickets a fiddling away for dear life, and other sorts of
insects besides. Then there's a pair of screech owls calling to each
other; a whip-poor-will whooping things up; and most of all the frogs
have started in to get busy with their chorus. And say, I'm going to
promise you a feast to-morrow night."
"Frogs'-legs, you mean, I take it, Ethan." Phil quickly exclaimed,
looking pleased at the prospect.
"Yes, because there's some corkers out there; and leave it to me to get
'em. I'm an authority on frogs'-legs, you know. And when they fetch a
dollar a pound every time, you c'n see that they ought to be reckoned a
treat."
"A dollar a pound, did you say?" demanded X-Ray, as if he fancied he had
not heard aright; whereat he had his shins kicked by Lub, who happened
to sit next to him, as a warning that he was treading on perilous
ground.
"Why, yes, that's the price I always get!" declared Ethan, loftily. "You
see, it pays to do things up in style. My shipments look so attractive
to Mr. Brandon that he says it is a pleasure to just open my box. Of
course all of you fellows like frogs'-legs?"
Phil and X-Ray Tyson immediately declared they believed they could never
get enough of the dainty.
"To tell you the honest truth," said Lub, contritely, "I never tasted
any that I know of. My folks don't seem to care for queer things."
"Queer things!" almost shouted Ethan; "well, I like that now! Why, don't
you know that frogs'-legs are as delicate as squab. You'd think you had
a spring chicken, only when you come to think, it has just a _little_
taste of fish about it."
"Oh! my, I don't know as I'd fancy that very much," complained Lub.
|
fortunes of New York." Such utterances enforced by leaders of the
prominence of Franklin Pierce and Vallandingham; the political action of
sympathizers with slavery and the anti-draft riots in New York,
supplemented by the unfriendliness of European governments; and the
escape of the "Alabama"--all these circumstances tended to encourage the
hopes that were doomed to disappointment. Nor in considering the
antislavery movement should we overlook the effect of the antislavery
opinion of our country in ending the danger of European intervention,
which had been unwittingly encouraged by Mr. Seward's too hasty
assurance to our minister in France (April 22, 1861), that "the
revolution was without a cause, without a pretext, and without an
object; and that the condition of slavery in the several States would
remain just the same, whether it should succeed or fail." The
antislavery policy, first of enlistment and then of emancipation, so
earnestly urged upon Mr. Lincoln and adopted by him with conscientious
caution, enlightened Europe as to the true meaning of the contest in our
recognition of the equal right to freedom and the equal dignity of
labour, and forbade its rulers to assist in the establishment of a slave
confederacy; and the historian Lessing, when alluding to the cordial
reception by his holiness the Sovereign Pontiff of the diplomatic agents
of Mr. Jefferson Davis, and the Papal letter recognizing and commending
"the illustrious President of the Southern Confederacy," remarks that
this was "the only official recognition of the chief conspirator by the
head of any government." Nor should the right appreciation by the
abolitionists of the prospect of freedom for the slaves be forgotten.
The fidelity of the negroes during the war, both to the families with
whom they lived, to which Vice-President Stephens bore distinct
testimony, and to the Northern army, from which they expected
emancipation, was no less honourable and conspicuous than the devotion
and gallantry they constantly exhibited in the war, as at Fort Hudson
and Fort Wagner, at Milliken's Bend and Lake Providence, at Newbern and
at Olustee, where their rear-guard saved the army. Their conduct,
whether at home or in the field, justified the conviction of their
steadfast friends in the safety of immediate emancipation, and added
untold force to the sacredness of the pledges so often given during the
war, and still, to the national discredit, unfulfilled--of national aid
to State education, so as to secure to every child of our coloured
citizens the ability to read his Bible and the Constitution, to fulfill
his duties and protect his rights.
As time and reflection impress upon the American mind a clear
comprehension of the changes, national, social, and political, that a
triumph of the Slave Power would have brought to America and its effect
as a set-back to the civilization of the world, an increased interest
will be felt in the beginnings of the contest, and in the men and causes
that shaped its end.
THE LESSON FOR TO-DAY.
I cordially recommend Mr. Tuckerman's memoir to the students of the
antislavery contest, as throwing light on that interesting and but
partially written chapter of American history, in which my father bore a
part; and on the character and policy of the sturdy band with whom he
was associated, including Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Joshua Leavitt, James
G. Birney, Gerrit Smith, and their true-hearted compatriots; while a
wider view would include a group of noble women, who, if differing as to
means, were united in devotion, headed by the honoured names of Maria
Weston Chapman and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria
Child, and the sisters Grimké.
Among our citizens who will be long remembered as early and fearless
opponents of slavery, leading and acting with energy and independence,
according to their personal convictions and occasionally in differing
ways, were the venerable Isaac T. Hopper, William Lloyd Garrison, whose
life has been so faithfully recorded by his sons, John Greenleaf
Whittier, whose old Huguenot spirit lives in his verse as in his name,
Ellis Gray Loring, Lovejoy, the martyr of the west, Wendell Phillips,
with his matchless eloquence, Theodore D. Weld, with his trenchant pen,
Elizur Wright, Jr., Samuel R. Ward, William Goodell, S. S. Jocelyn,
Gamaliel Bailey, Jr., Edmund Quincey, S. H. Gay, Oliver Johnston, James
S. Gibbons, and others, who opened the way--sometimes by devious and
diverging paths--for the party of the Union and Emancipation.
As the contest advanced from the field of politics to that of war, came
Union men from different points whose names will live in our history
with those of John A. Andrew, John C. Fremont, John P. Hale, Chase,
Sumner, Seward, Preston and John A. King, Wilmot, Giddings, Wade, Holt,
and Edwin D. Stanton. In New York, where mob law had prevailed, the
Union League Club upheld the loyalty of the city, the credit of the
nation, and the sanitary commission; raised troops for Hancock in
addition to its own coloured regiments; stimulated the ardour of our
soldiers and the patriotism of the country; welcomed, of the army, Grant
and Sherman, Mead and Sheridan, Hancock and Hooker, Warren and Burnside,
and of the navy, Farragut, Dupont and Rogers, Winslow and the youthful
Cushing; verifying in its spirit and action the remark of Vice-President
Colfax that on the Union League Club Lincoln had leaned in the darkest
hours.
The Club did not forget, neither will the truthful historian forget,
that amid the European plots and intrigues in the interest of slavery,
we had friends high and low, from Alexander of Russia, the emancipator
of twenty millions of serfs--who, like Lincoln, fell by
assassination--to the humble peasants, who instinctively recognised the
hostility to the rights of labor inherent in the slavery system, whose
vicious features had been exposed by John Bright with such masterly
effect.
Goldwin Smith, the historic scholar of Oxford, who at home had denounced
those who would have made England an accomplice in "the creation of a
great slave empire, and in its future extension from the grave of
Washington to the Halls of Montezuma," in his reply to the greetings of
the eminent citizens who had asked him to the club and who assembled to
meet him,[B] said, "Your cause is ours; it is the cause of the whole
human race." The same idea, in almost the same words, was expressed by
the Count de Cavour a few days before his death, in a despatch to the
Italian Minister at Washington, when he said "that ours was the cause
not only of constitutional liberty, but of all humanity."
The antislavery story from the Calhoun medal, struck to commemorate the
supposed birth of a slave empire to the constitutional abolition of
slavery, concerned humanity, and has lessons of warning and
encouragement for the men and women of to-day, on whom rest the hopes of
the country, and who, against odds that seem as formidable as those
presented by the Slave Power at its culmination, are bravely striving
for the advance of humanity, the purification of our politics, and the
preservation of American institutions. They may well adopt the
inspiriting legend of Geneva to which the antislavery contest of America
has given a new radiance, "Post tenebras lux." Our institutions, no
longer endangered by slavery, are assailed with skilful intrigue in
their own strongholds, the public school and the polls, especially of
our great cities, where a corrupt, irresponsible, secret rule recalls
the Council of Ten and the Lion of Saint Mark, and now it is charged
that our very legislation at times is not simply partisan but
fraudulent. The incompatibility of such proceedings with American
principles and American rights recalls with emphatic force the warning
so distinctly and repeatedly given us by Dr. Orestes A. Brownson, that
eminent and philosophic representative of our citizens of the Roman
Catholic faith who stand squarely by the American constitution and
American institutions, of the danger of allowing foreigners to meddle
with our public schools when he said that American civilization was "the
farthest point in advance yet reached by any age or nation, and that
foreigners who come to educate according to their civilization
necessarily educate for a civilization behind the times and below that
of this country."
The enlightening effect of an impartial study of the antislavery contest
on an independent and philosophic critic can be read in the interesting
and instructive pages of Von Holst; and a review of that contest, from
the first presentment of the principles of the Antislavery Society to
the parting scene of Grant and Lee at Appomatox, and the adoption of the
constitutional amendment of emancipation, affords, step by step, amid
whatever mistakes and blunders, evidence which becomes the more striking
and conclusive, as time passes, of what was accomplished in the
antislavery struggle for humanity and the world in shaping the future of
the Republic, by calm resolve, a faithful adhesion to truth and
principle, patient perseverance, unflinching courage, faith in the
triumph of right, American manliness, and far-sighted Christian
statesmanship.
BEDFORD HOUSE, Katonah,
New York, May, 1893.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Birth and Education of William Jay.--His Early Philanthropic
Interests.--Appointed Judge of Westchester County. 1
CHAPTER II.
Early Opposition to Slavery.--Growth of the Slave Power.--The
Missouri Compromise.--Jay begins Political Agitation for the
Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia. 18
CHAPTER III.
Development of the Antislavery Movement.--Organization of
Antislavery Societies.--Anti-Abolition Riots.--Jay publishes his
"Inquiry." 39
CHAPTER IV.
Continued Efforts to suppress the Antislavery Movement by Force and
Intimidation.--Favourable Effect upon the Public Mind produced by
Jay's Writings. 63
CHAPTER V.
Gradual Decline of Riotous Demonstrations against the
Abolitionists.--Changes occur in the Doctrines and Methods of the
American Antislavery Society.--Judge Jay resigns his Membership,
while continuing his Efforts on Behalf of Emancipation. 82
CHAPTER VI.
Judge Jay continues to support the Antislavery Cause by his Advice
and Writings.--In Consequence of his Opinions he is deprived of his
Seat on the Bench.--His Visit to Europe.--His Views on the Liberty
Party.--On the Annexation of Texas.--His "Review of the Mexican
War."--His Advocacy of International Arbitration as a Remedy for
War.--His Work in the Episcopal Church. 112
CHAPTER VII.
Unpopularity of the Abolitionists.--The Compromises of 1850 and the
Fugitive-Slave Law.--Jay's Reply to Webster's 7th of March
Speech.--The Attitude of the Episcopal Church.--The Abrogation of
the Missouri Compromise.--Disunion. 135
CHAPTER VIII.
Death of Judge Jay.--His Position among Antislavery Men.--His other
Public and Philanthropic Interests.--His Private Life.--His
Character. 156
Bibliography 171
Index 175
Appendix 184
ILLUSTRATIONS.
William Jay, from a crayon by Martin _Frontispiece._
View of Bedford House, the home of Judge Jay 9
Chief-Justice Jay, from a painting by Gilbert Stuart 39
William Jay, from a painting by Vanderlyn 81
William Jay, from a painting by Wenzler 135
Mrs. William Jay, from a painting by W. E. West 164
WILLIAM JAY.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND EDUCATION OF WILLIAM JAY.--HIS EARLY PHILANTHROPIC
INTERESTS.--APPOINTED JUDGE OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
William Jay, the second son of John Jay, the first Chief-Justice of the
United States, and his wife, Sarah Van Brugh Livingston, was born in the
city of New York the 16th of June, 1789. New York was then the seat of
the Federal Government, and the year is memorable as that in which the
National Constitution superseded the Articles of Confederation, while
the inauguration of Washington marked a new era in American history.
During the absence of John Jay in England, while negotiating the "Jay
treaty," he was elected Governor of New York, and returned home to
assume that office in 1795.
William, then eight years old, was placed at school with the Rev. Thomas
Ellison, the rector of St. Peter's Church, Albany. There he received an
old-fashioned training. In 1801 he wrote to his father: "Mr. Ellison
put me in Virgil, and I can now say the first two eclogues by heart, and
construe and parse and scan them." And later on: "I learn nothing but
Latin." Among his schoolmates was J. Fenimore Cooper, who afterwards
drew a portrait of their old instructor in one of his "Sketches of
England," addressed to Jay:
"Thirty-six years ago you and I were schoolfellows and classmates in the
house of a clergyman of the true English school. This man was an epitome
of the national prejudices and in some respects of the national
character. He was the son of a beneficed clergyman in England, had been
regularly graduated at Oxford and admitted to orders; entertained a most
profound reverence for the King and the nobility; was not backward in
expressing his contempt for all classes of dissenters and all
ungentlemanly sects; was particularly severe on the immoralities of the
French Revolution, and though eating our bread, was not especially
lenient to our own; compelled you and me to begin Virgil with the
eclogues, and Cicero with the knotty phrase that opens the oration in
favour of the poet Archias, 'because these writers would not have placed
them first in the books if they did not intend people to read them
first'; spent his money freely and sometimes that of other people; was
particularly tenacious of the ritual and of all the decencies of the
Church; detested a democrat as he did the devil; cracked his jokes daily
about Mr. Jefferson, never failing to place his libertinism in strong
relief against the approved morals of George III., of several passages
in whose history it is charitable to suppose he was ignorant; prayed
fervently on Sunday, and decried all morals, institutions, churches,
manners, and laws but those of England from Monday to Saturday."
Still, Jay and Cooper were indebted to Ellison's thoroughness in the
classics for much of the mental training, the correct taste, and the
pure English which marked their subsequent intellectual efforts.
Jay was prepared for college by Henry Davis, afterwards president of
Hamilton College. The boy as he appeared at this time was thus described
by his cousin, Susan Sedgwick: "As I look back to that fresh spring-time
of life, there rises clearly before me a vigorous, sturdy boy, full of
health and animation, with laughing eyes, cheeks glowing and dimpled,
and exhibiting already marked traits: with a strong will, yet easily
reduced by rightful authority; in temper quick, even to passion, but
never vindictive; the storm easily raised as soon appeased, thus
foreshadowing him at that later period, when, however capable of
self-control, his fearless resistance to wrong and uncompromising
advocacy of right partook of the same vehement character, happily
expressed by his friend, Mr. Fenimore Cooper, who, in reference to his
then recently published denunciation of the evils of war, addressed him
playfully, 'Thou most pugnacious man of peace.'"
William entered Yale College in January, 1804, in his fifteenth year.
Upon the college roll during his four years were names afterwards well
known in our history. There were trained side by side boys who were soon
to be arrayed against each other in religion, politics, and in the
momentous conflict of slavery with freedom, which, passing from the
senate to the field, their sons and grandsons were to terminate by the
sword. From the State of South Carolina came John C. Calhoun, who
significantly chose for the subject of his graduating oration, "The
Qualifications Necessary for a Perfect Statesman;" Christopher Edward
Gadsden, afterwards bishop of his native State; and Thomas Smith Grimké,
eminent at the bar, in scholarship and philanthropy. Among the Northern
students was the Rev. John Pierpont, known as the reformer and poet, who
at the age of seventy-six went to the front during the Civil War as
chaplain of a Massachusetts regiment; Hon. Henry Randolph Storrs, of New
York, the jurist; Rev. Dr. Nathaniel William Taylor, of the Calvinistic
school of Edwards and Dwight; Dr. Thomas H. Gallaudet, of Huguenot
descent, who devoted himself to the education of deaf-mutes; Dr.
Alexander H. Stevens, of New York; Rev. Dr. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, the
learned professor of oriental literature; Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, of
New York, the famous Presbyterian divine; the Hon. William Huntington,
of Connecticut; Jacob Sutherland, of New York; and James A. Hillhouse,
of New Haven, one of the most scholarly of our poets, whose generous
hospitality at his beautiful home, Sachem's Wood, with its avenue of
stately elms planted by his father and himself, was for many years the
delight of his friends. At Yale Jay met Cooper again, and strengthened a
friendship which lasted through life. It was during a visit at Bedford,
about 1825, while sitting on the piazza with Chief-Justice Jay, smoking
and talking of the incidents of the Revolution, that Fenimore Cooper
learned the adventures of a patriotic American, who was apparently
attached to the royal cause, but who constantly warned of danger the
Continental Army in Westchester and was especially useful during the
sitting of the State convention at White Plains. The services and
escapes of this man were reproduced in "Harvey Birch, the Spy of the
Neutral Ground," which achieved so great a success at home and in
Europe, where it still holds its place, having been honoured by more
translations, including the Persian and Arabic, than any similar work
written in English until the appearance of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
In a letter to his grandson, William Jay, in 1852, Judge Jay gave some
particulars of his college course, which show the simplicity of life in
those days and the still lingering influence of English habits: "Through
the influence of a professor with whom I had previously lived, I was
placed in the room of a resident graduate. The resident graduates were
denominated 'Sirs'; they had a pew in the chapel called the Sirs' pew;
and when spoken of in college always had Sir prefixed to their names.
My room-mate was Sir Holly (Dr. Horace Holly). As a mere freshman I
looked up to my room-mate with great respect and treated him
accordingly. We had no servants to wait on us, except that a man came
every morning to make our beds and sweep the room, and once a week to
scatter clean white sand on the floor. I rose early--generally before
six in winter--made the fire, and then went, pitcher in hand, often
wading through snow, for water for Sir Holly and myself. At that time
the freshmen occupied in part the place of sizers in the English
universities, and they were required to run errands for the seniors. Our
meals were taken in a large hall with a kitchen opening into it. The
students were arranged at tables according to their classes. All sat on
wooden benches, not excepting the tutors; the latter had a table to
themselves on an elevated platform whence they had a view of the whole
company. But it was rather difficult for them to attend to their plates
and to watch two hundred boys at the same time. Salt beef once a day and
dry cod were perhaps the most usual dishes. On Sunday mornings during
the winter our breakfast-tables were graced with large tin milk-cans
filled with stewed oysters; at the proper season we were occasionally
treated at dinner with green peas. As you may suppose, a goodly number
of waiters were needed in the hall. These were all students, and many of
them among the best and most esteemed scholars. About half-past five in
winter the bell summoned us from our beds, and at six it called us to
prayers in the chapel. We next repaired to the recitation-rooms and
recited by candle-light the lessons we had studied the preceding
evening. At eight we had breakfast, and at nine the bell warned us to
our rooms. At twelve it called us to a recitation or a lecture. After
dinner we recommenced our studies and recited for the third time at four
o'clock. During study hours the tutors would frequently go the rounds,
looking into our rooms to see that we were not playing truant. Before
supper, we all attended evening prayers in the chapel."
The presidency of the college was then occupied by Dr. Timothy Dwight,
who also gave instruction in _belles-lettres_, oratory, and theology. To
him Jay wrote in 1818: "I retain a grateful recollection of your kind
attention to me, and I have, and trust will ever have, reason to
acknowledge the goodness of Providence in placing me under your care,
when many of my opinions were to be formed and my principles
established." Still later, he wrote to a college friend: "Your remarks
on Dr. Dwight are grateful to my heart. I cherish his memory as one of
the best friends I ever had."
In his senior year Jay took part in debates among the students, presided
over by Dr. Dwight. Some of the subjects discussed were: "Ought infidels
to be excluded from office?" "Ought religion to be supported by law?"
"Would a division of the Union be politic?" "Would it be politic to
encourage manufactures in the United States?" On the last question Dr.
Dwight remarked: "We shall always buy things where we can get them the
cheapest; we will never make our commodities so long as we can buy them
better and cheaper elsewhere." Jay displayed his natural inclination for
the law by contributing a series of articles on legal subjects, over the
signature of "Coke," to the _Literary Cabinet_, the students' paper. He
took his degree in September, 1807, having injured his eyesight in his
efforts to attain a high standing in his class. "During the winter of my
junior year," he wrote in warning to his grandson William, "I was
struggling hard for honours, and trying to make up for lost time; I used
to rise about four o'clock, light my fire, and sit down to the study of
conic sections. I brought on a weakness in my eyes which lasted several
years. Be sure you never rise before the sun and study your Latin and
Greek by candle-light or gas-light."
After graduation Jay went to Albany and began the study of the law in
the office of John B. Henry. On the 3d of September, 1812, he married
Augusta, daughter of John McVickar, a merchant of New York, and
vestryman of Trinity Church. The difficulty with his eyesight, which had
seriously interfered with his legal studies, became so pronounced as to
compel him to abandon his profession for some years. During this period
he retired with his wife to his father's country seat, "Bedford," in
Westchester County, and there devoted himself with energy to
agricultural pursuits. The farm included about eight hundred acres, part
of a tract purchased by Jacobus van Cortlandt from Katonah Sagamore and
other Indian chieftains in 1700, and confirmed by patent of Queen Anne
in 1704. It had come to Chief-Justice Jay partly through his mother,
Mary van Cortlandt, the wife of Peter Jay, and partly through her
sister, Eve van Cortlandt, the wife of Judge John Chambers.
[Illustration: The Jay House at Bedford.]
Of the forty fields into which the farm was divided, Jay kept a separate
account: showing the tillage and produce, the drainage and fencing, the
dates of planting and reaping. A volume of this kind, begun in 1816,
contained entries as late as 1857, the year before his death. He
perfected himself in grafting and budding, and was particularly
successful with peaches, with cherries, pears and plums, some of them
with Huguenot names and memories, and with muskmelons from Persian seed,
brought to him from the East by a friend. He raised horses from imported
stock, Merino sheep, and superintended the curing of hams from a
Westphalian recipe, furnished by an old Hessian farm hand--one of the
hirelings who had come to conquer and remained to cultivate the country.
In 1818 Jay and Fenimore Cooper drafted the constitution for an
agricultural society of which Governor Jay was the first president and
General Pierre van Cortlandt the second--an institution of great use in
the development of Westchester County.
In 1815, when twenty-six years of age, Jay entered upon that course of
active philanthropy which for the next forty years employed his thoughts
and pen. His first effort was directed to the improvement of his native
town of Bedford in the organization of the Society for the Suppression
of Vice. By means of this society, of which he was the secretary, he did
much to restrain the liquor traffic and to diminish intemperance. Later
on, as a judge, he used all the power of the law to the same end; and it
was he who suggested the law, still in force, which forbids a
tavern-keeper to supply drink on credit.
An interesting incident in this early period of his life was the part
which he bore in founding the American Bible Society, in organizing its
machinery for the immense work it had to perform, and in vindicating the
principles of the society against the attacks of the opposing party in
his own church. In this struggle Jay proved the independence of
character and courage of conviction which afterwards distinguished him
through the seemingly hopeless years of antislavery effort. The general
distribution of Bibles in our day makes it difficult to appreciate the
limited supply, the high cost, and the consequent rarity of the Bible
when this society began its work. The High-Church party in New York were
opposed to the association of Episcopalians with other Christians to
circulate the Bible, and opposed even to the distribution of the Bible,
unless accompanied by the Prayer-book as an interpreter. In these views
they were vigorously supported by their distinguished leader, Bishop
John Henry Hobart. Jay, who had inherited with his Huguenot blood a
faith in the Bible not to be restrained by ecclesiastical assumption,
was an officer of the Westchester Bible Society and deeply interested in
the work. On the appearance of a pastoral letter from Bishop Hobart in
which the High-Church views were expressed, he published a pamphlet
showing that it was "the interest and duty of Episcopalians to unite
with their fellow-Christians of all denominations in spreading the
knowledge of the Word of God." This pamphlet brought him into an active
conflict with the eminent bishop which lasted for several years, and
taught him that a philanthropic cause, even so plainly meritorious, was
not to be carried on without the opposition of powerful conservative
interests.
Convinced that a national society could accomplish more than the local
and scattered State Bible societies, Jay published a pamphlet in 1816
which showed the imperative importance of the work, and urged united
action. At the same time the venerable Elias Boudinot of New Jersey was
exerting himself to the same end. When he received a letter from Jay
enclosing the pamphlet, he thus welcomed his youthful ally: "These
precious moments I have devoted to a full consideration of one of the
greatest and most interesting subjects that has ever concerned the
children of men. Weak and feeble and scarcely able to think or write,
my efforts promised but little in the cause, when your welcome and
unexpected letter was brought in. My drooping spirits were raised and my
mind greatly revived. I could not help giving glory to God for the great
encouragement afforded me to press on in this glorious cause, when I
thus beheld His special mercy in raising up so powerful a support in
this joyous work and labour of love." In the same year the American
Bible Society was formed with the assistance of the best names in the
country. Elias Boudinot was chosen president, with John Jay and Matthew
Clarkson, a gallant officer of the Revolution, as vice-presidents.
Others on the roll were: John Langdon, the statesman of New Hampshire;
William Gray, the eminent merchant of Boston; the scholarly John Cotton
Smith, of Connecticut, with the blood of the Cottons and the Mathers of
colonial history; William Tighlman, the jurist of Pennsylvania; William
Wirt and Bushrod Washington, of Virginia; Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
of South Carolina; Governor Worthington, of Ohio; John Bolton, of
Georgia; Felix Grundy, of Tennessee; and of New York: Dr. John B.
Romeyne; Colonel Richard Varick, Washington's aide; Daniel D. Tompkins,
the Governor who obtained the abolition of slavery in the State; John
Pintard, John Aspinwall, Jeremiah Evarts, Frederic de Peyster, George
Griffin, De Witt Clinton, the Patroon Stephen van Rensselaer, and
Colonel Henry Rutgers.
Notwithstanding the honourable support given to the society, it had to
resist a carefully organized assault on the part of Bishop Hobart and an
influential portion of his clergy aimed at the vital principle on which
the success of the movement depended--the cordial union of all
Christians. Jay's previous training in the same field of controversy,
his staunch devotion at once to his cause and to his church, designated
him as the proper person to carry on, in behalf of the society, the war
of letters and pamphlets which ensued. Although pitted against an
adversary to whom age, experience, and station gave great advantages, he
acquitted himself with credit, displaying literary and reasoning powers
which were soon to exert a potent effect upon the great moral issue of
our time.
Other questions of a philanthropic character occupied his pen. The Synod
of Albany having offered a prize for the best essay on the observance of
the Sabbath, Jay competed for it with success. A more notable incident
of the same sort occurred in 1828. The Savannah Anti-duelling
Association offered a medal for the best argument against duelling. The
committee appointed to judge the essays were: John Cummings; James M.
Wayne, subsequently appointed by President Jackson a justice of the
Supreme Court; R. W. Habersham, afterwards Governor of Georgia; William
Law; and Matthew Hall McAllister, mayor of Savannah and an opponent of
Nullification in 1832. That in 1828 these Southern men were seeking to
root out the habit of duelling, and that the prize should have been
awarded by them to William Jay, is a curious commentary on the
connection between slavery and duelling. At this time both practices had
their opponents at the South who were allowed to express their opinions.
As the grip of slavery increased in strength and closed the mouth of
every objector, anti-duelling sentiment was simultaneously extinguished.
Both barbarous practices were to increase and to perish together. Jay's
essay could then find praise among men who a few years later would not
tolerate in their homes any product of his pen.
In May, 1818, Jay was appointed one of the judges of Westchester County.
The mention of the fact in his diary closed with the words, "May I have
grace to discharge with fidelity the duties of the station." Two years
later a commission from Governor Clinton made him the first judge of the
county, an office which he held until 1823, when the adoption of the new
constitution terminated all offices under the old one. Fenimore Cooper
then wrote to him, "I see that you are unhorsed with other clever
fellows." But in response to a general demand, Governor Clinton
reappointed him under the new constitution, and he continued to hold
office under successive governors of different parties until 1843, when
he was displaced by Governor Bouck at the demand of the pro-slavery wing
of the democracy. A decision of Jay's, rejecting a witness who declared
his un-belief in God, occurred when De Tocqueville was in the United
States, and was commented upon by the distinguished Frenchman as having
been accepted by the press without comment, and as showing that the
American people combined the notions of Christianity and of liberty so
intimately that it was impossible to make them conceive of the one
without the other, and that they held religion to be indispensable to
the maintenance of republican institutions. In 1862, soon after Jay's
death, when an attempt was made by a pro-slavery faction in the county
to remove his portrait from the court-house at White Plains, it was
defeated by a protest of the members of the bar. "Many of us," they
said, "were well acquainted with Judge Jay, and can speak from personal
knowledge of those high qualities which have given him an historic
celebrity. Whilst he entertained and vigorously vindicated decided
opinions on certain questions which have much divided society and
produced much acrimony of feeling--in which many of us did not
sympathize with him--yet we can all bear testimony to the noble
frankness and sincerity of his nature, to his deep interest in all
questions tending to advance the interest of the race, and to the
extraordinary intellectual strength displayed by him on all occasions in
giving expression to his convictions."
In the early years of Jay's life, it appears that his mind turned
naturally toward philanthropic subjects. His moral sense was largely
developed, his conscience active, his humanity aggressive. His own
comfortable circumstances did not close his heart to the sufferings of
others. His generous nature longed to replace evil by good. And in the
cause which his conscience approved, no obloquy nor social unpopularity
could impede his progress. At the same time, there was about him nothing
of the intemperate agitator. He was a judge and brought to his
philanthropic labours a judicial habit of mind. Indeed, it was this
habit of mind which distinguished him among his fellow-workers in the
antislavery cause. It was his mission to urge emancipation with the
Constitution in his hand; to meet in conflict that portion of society
which silenced its uneasy conscience by a repetition of constitutional
provisions, and at the same time to combat those who were inclined to
seek emancipation by unconstitutional means.
His quiet country life, in which healthful out-of-door pursuits were
mingled with the study and reflection of his library, particularly
fitted him to look at this all-important question with calmness, with
consideration for both sides, and yet with the vigour of a mind free to
work exhaustively on a subject involving many conflicting theories and
duties. He brought to his task real talents, literary and polemic; a
style ready and concise; a reasoning enlivened by an effective vein of
irony. He had a refined and benevolent countenance, a pleasing manner,
a temper even, but easily roused to indignation at the sight of
injustice. Before considering his first connection with the antislavery
movement, we may glance at its situation in the early manhood of William
Jay.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY OPPOSITION TO SLAVERY.--GROWTH OF THE SLAVE POWER.--THE
MISSOURI COMPROMISE.--JAY BEGINS POLITICAL AGITATION FOR THE
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
The movement which culminated in the Civil War and the total abolition
of slavery in the United States was first humanitarian, and subsequently
political. Philanthropists prepared the way for the statesman and the
soldier.
The humanitarian movement had begun before the time of William Jay and
his fellow-workers. To find its beginnings, we must look back into the
colonial days of the eighteenth century. There, among the first, was
George Keith, of Pennsylvania, denouncing
|
right down
to the nineteenth century were carried in towns by hand. Carriages and
waggons and carts were not very numerous and would have no need to
proceed beyond the main streets and the open squares. If men must
journey off their own feet, they rode horses. Pack-horses were used
regularly to carry goods, where nowadays a horse or, more probably, a
steam or motor engine would easily pull the goods conveniently placed
on a cart or lorry.
The paving of rough cobbles and ample mud was distinctly poor. There
was no adequate drainage; in fact there was very little attempt at any
beyond the provision of gutters down the middle or at the sides of the
streets. There were no regular street lights, and pavements, when they
existed, were too meagre to be of much use to pedestrians.
Streets led to the two open market-places of this mediæval city. Both
of them (Thursday Market, now called St. Sampson's Square, and
Pavement, which was a broad street with a market cross near one end)
were used as markets, but for different kinds of produce. Some
markets, such as the cattle market, were held in the streets. These
two market-places were the principal public open spaces, parts of a
town that are given such importance in modern town-planning schemes.
Other open spaces were the cloisters and gardens of the monasteries,
the courts of the Castle, the graveyards of the churches, and private
gardens. In spite of these and the passage of a tidal river through
the city, it cannot be denied that the inhabitants of our mediæval
city lived in rather dirty and badly ventilated surroundings.
The River Ouse was crossed by one bridge, which was of stone, with
houses and shops of wood built up from the body of the bridge. The
arches were small, and afford a striking contrast to the later
constructions, in which a wide central arch replaced the two central
small arches. The quays were just below the bridge. At one end of Ouse
Bridge was St. William's Chapel, a beautiful little church,[2] as we
know from the fragments of it that remain. Adjoining the chapel was
the sheriffs' court; on the next storey was the Exchequer court; then
there was the common prison called the Kidcote, while above these were
other prisons which continued round the back of the chapel. Next to
the prisons were the Council Chamber and Muniment Room. Opposite the
chapel were the court-house, called the Tollbooth,[3] the Debtors'
Prison, and a Maison Dieu, that is, a kind of almshouse.
The present streets called Shambles (formerly Mangergate),[4] Finkle
Street, Jubbergate, Petergate, and especially Shambles, Little
Shambles, and the passages leading from them, help one to realise the
appearance of mediæval streets and ways.
C. BUILDINGS
[Illustration: COOKING WITH THE SPIT.]
_Dwelling-houses_ ranged from big town residences of noble or
distinguished families, by way of the beautifully decorated, costly
houses of the rich middle-class merchants, to the humble dwellings of
the poorest inhabitants. Every type of house from the palace to the
hovel was well represented. The Archbishop's Palace, consisting of
hall, chapel, quadrangle, mint, and gateway with prison, was near the
Minster. Beyond the fine thirteenth-century chapel (now part of the
Minster library buildings) hardly a trace of this undoubtedly splendid
residence is left. The Percies had a great mansion in Walmgate. In
other parts were the mansions of the Scropes and the Vavasours. It is,
however, the houses of the prosperous traders that are the most
interesting, for in them we see the kind of house a man built from the
results of successful business. Most houses were of timber; those of
the more wealthy were of stone and timber.{original had ","} The use
of half-timbering, when the face of a building consisted of woodwork
and plaster, made houses and streets very picturesque. The woodwork
was often artistically carved. Each storey was made to overhang the
one below it, so that an umbrella, if umbrellas had been in use then,
would have been almost a superfluity, if not a needless luxury,
besides being impossible to manipulate in the narrow streets and ways
of a mediæval city. The upper storeys of two houses facing each other
across a street were often very close. Usually there were no more than
three storeys. The roofs were very steep and covered generally with
tiles, but in the case of the smaller dwellings with thatch. From a
house-top the view across the neighbourhood would be of a huddled
medley of red-tiled roofs, all broken up with gables and tiny dormer
windows; there would be no regularity, just a jumble of patches of
red-tiled roofing.
The present streets called Shambles, Pavement, Petergate and
Stonegate, contain excellent examples of mediæval domestic
architecture.
Shops were distinguished by having the front of the ground floor
arranged as a show-room, warehouse, or business room which was open
to the street. The trader lived at his shop. In the case of a
butcher's, for example, the front part of the shutters that covered
the unglazed window at night, was let down in business hours so that
it hung over the footway. On it were exhibited the joints of meat.
Butchers' slaughter-houses were then, as now, private premises and
right in the heart of the city.
The rooms in the houses were quite small, with low ceilings. The small
windows, whether they were merely fitted with wooden shutters or
glazed with many small panes kept together with strips of lead,
lighted the rooms but poorly. The closeness of the houses made
internal lighting still less effective. The interior walls were of
timbering and plaster, often white- or colour-washed.[5] Panelling was
used occasionally. The ventilation and hygienic conditions generally
were far from good, as may be imagined from a consideration of the
smallness of the houses, the compactness of the city, particularly the
parts occupied by the people, and especially of the primitive system
of sanitation, which was content to use the front street as a main
sewer. There were, of course, no drains; at most there was a gutter
along the middle of a street, or at each side of the roadway. It was
the traditional practice to dump house and workshop refuse into the
streets. Some of it was carried along by rainwater, but generally it
remained: in any case it was noxious and dangerous. There was
legislation on the subject, for the evil was already notorious in the
fourteenth century. The first parliamentary attempt to restrain people
in towns generally from thus corrupting and infecting the air is dated
1388. The many visits of distinguished people and public processions
always conferred an incidental boon on the city, for one of the
essentials of preparation was giving the main streets a good cleaning.
There is no wonder that plagues perpetually harassed the people of
mediæval times and reduced the population miserably. The plague never
disappeared till towns were largely rebuilt on a more commodious scale
in the next great building era, which began in 1666 in London and in
the early years of the eighteenth century elsewhere. No advance was
made in sanitation till the Victorian Age, when town sanitation was
completely revolutionised and, for the first time, efficiently
organised.
The house fire was of wood and peat, though coal was also used. For
artificial lighting oil-lamps (wicks in oil) and candles were used. A
light was obtained from flint and tinder, the latter being ignited by
a spark got from striking the flint with a piece of metal.
Rooms were furnished with chairs, tables, benches, chests, bedsteads,
and, in some cases, tub-shaped baths. Carpets were to be found only in
the houses of the very wealthy. The floors of ordinary houses, like
those of churches, were covered with rushes and straw, among which it
was the useful custom to scatter fragrant herbs. This rough carpet was
pressed by the clogs of working people and the shoes of the
fashionable. The spit was a much used cooking utensil. Table-cloths,
knives, and spoons were in general use, but not the fork before the
fifteenth century. At one time food was manipulated by the fingers.
York was advanced in table manners, for it is known that a fork was
used in the house of a citizen family here in 1443. The richer members
of the middle class owned a large number of silver tankards, goblets,
mazer-bowls, salt-cellars and similar utensils and ornaments of
silver, for this was a common form in which they held their wealth.
Beer, which was largely brewed at home, was the general beverage, but
French and other wines were plentiful. The water supply came from
wells, the water being drawn up by bucket and windlass, or from the
river when the wells were low. The drinking water of the
twentieth-century city is taken entirely from the River Ouse, but now
the water is carefully treated and purified before reaching the
consumer.
There were not many inns, as is shown in records by the number of
innholders, who formed a trade company. There were also wine-dealers.
Typical inn-signs were The Bull in Coney Street, and The Dragon. There
is no reason to believe that in this century there was a really large
amount of drinking and drunkenness, such as there was in the
eighteenth century. An ordinance of the Marshals of 1409--"No man of
the craft shall go to inns but if he is sent after, under pain of
4d."--may be quoted.
The houses of the wealthy and the great lords were, of course, the
better furnished. They had walls adorned with tapestries and hung with
arras or hangings; occasionally their walls were panelled. Their
furniture was rich, well constructed, and carved by skilled craftsmen.
Their mansions were large, for they had to house, beside the owner's
family and personal household, retainers and dependents attached to
his service in diverse capacities.
_Civic Buildings_ consisted chiefly of the halls connected with the
trade guilds. The rulers of the city and of the guilds were often the
same men, in any case usually men of the same set. These secular
buildings were really distinguished in appearance, but not monumental.
They reflected something of the wealth that accrued from trade. They
were of good size and proportions, built to be worthy of the practical
use for which they were intended. The lower stages were of stone, the
upper for the most part of wood and plaster (half-timbering). The
structural framework was composed of stout beams and posts of timber.
The timber roofs were covered with tiles. Examples may be seen in the
Merchants' Hall, Fossgate, and St. Anthony's Hall in Peaseholm Green.
The wooden roof of the Guild Hall, which was the Common Hall, erected
in the fifteenth century, is supported by wooden columns. The walls of
this hall and the entire basement are of stone.
Of Davy Hall, the King's administrative offices and prison for the
Royal Forest of Galtres, not a trace remains to show the kind of
buildings they were.
_The Fortifications_ consisted of the Castle and the city Walls with
their gateways. The massive stone Keep of the Castle was on a high
artificial mound at the city end of the enclosed area occupied by the
Castle. Around this mound there was a moat, or deep, broad ditch
filled with water. The Keep, which is in plan like a quatrefoil,
consisted of two storeys. Within, near the entrance, there is a well,
the memory of which is for ever stained by the unhappy part it played
in one of the most bitter persecutions of the Jews. Beyond the Keep
there were inner and outer wards, official buildings including the
King's great hall, the Royal Mint, and barracks for the King's
soldiers. The entire Castle, which was the residence of the royal
governor, and a military depôt, was surrounded by walls, outside which
were moats, or the river, or swamps, according to the position of each
side. These moats, or defensive ditches, were crossed by drawbridges.
To enter a fortified place in the Middle Ages one had to pass a
barbican (_i.e._ an outwork consisting of a fortified wall along each
side of the one way); a drawbridge across the moat; a portcullis or
gate of stoutly inter-crossing timbers (set horizontally and
vertically with only a small space between any two beams, giving the
whole gate the appearance of a large number of small square holes,
each surrounded by solid wood) that could be lowered or raised at will
in grooves at the sides of the entrance opening. The ends of the
vertical posts at the bottom formed a row of spikes which were shod
with iron. The points of these spikes entered the ground when the
portcullis was lowered. Beyond, there were the wooden gates of the
inner opening.
The city Walls, of which the present remains date from the reign of
Edward III., were broad, crenellated walls of limestone, on a high
mound which was protected without by a parallel deep moat. At the
north, east, south, and west corners there were massive bastions, and
between these, at short intervals, smaller towers. Besides being
crenellated the raised front of the wall itself was often pierced with
slits shaped for the use of long or cross-bows. The bowmen were very
well protected by these skilful arrangements. Some of these slits,
shaped like crosses, were of exquisite design architecturally.
The continuity of these mural fortifications was broken only where
swamps and the rivers made them unnecessary and where roads passed
through them. The four principal entrances along the main high-roads
were defended by the four Bars, or fortified gateways. These, with
their Barbicans, three of which were so needlessly and callously
destroyed in the last century, were magnificent examples of noble
permanent military architecture. The outer façade of Monk Bar to-day,
spoiled as it is, expresses a noble strength. There was formerly only
the single way, both for ingress and egress.[6] The Bar was supported
on each side by the mound and wall, which latter led right into the
Bar and so to the corresponding wall on the other side. Each of these
entrances to the city was protected by barbican, portcullis, and gate.
Each evening the Bars were closed and the city shut in for the night.
Defenders used a Bar as a watch-tower or a fort. They could walk along
the high crenellated walls of the Barbican and shoot thence, and stop
the way by lowering the portcullis.[7]
Near the Castle there were the Castle mills, where the machinery was
driven by water-power.
Outside the walls there were strays, or common lands. Some of the land
immediately around the city was cultivated or used as pasture. There
were, besides dwellings, several churches and hospitals, just outside
the city. Beyond this suburban area was the forest.
The most notable of the _Religious Buildings_ is the Minster, which
was practically completed in the fifteenth century, when the work of
erecting the three towers was finished. The architectural splendour of
this mighty church must have appealed very strongly to the people of
the fifteenth century, for did they not see the great work that had
gone on for centuries at last brought to this glorious conclusion? It
rose up in the midst of the city, always visible from near and far.
The inside was even more magnificent than the exterior. The fittings
and furniture were of the richest. The light mellow tone of the white
stonework was enhanced by the fleeting visions of colour that spread
across from the sunlit stained-glass windows, which still, in spite of
time and restoration, add enormously to the beauty of the interior.
The Minster stood within its Close, one of the four gateways of which,
College Street Arch, remains. This part of the city around the Minster
was enclosed because it was under the jurisdiction of the Liberty of
St. Peter.
[Illustration: BISHOP AND CANONS.
_From Richard II.'s "Book of Hours."_]
Originally founded in 627 by Edwin, King of Northumbria, the Minster
had been rebuilt and enlarged from time to time. It received its final
and present form in the fifteenth century. At one time the Nave was
rebuilt: at the same time there was built, near but separate from the
main building, the Chapter House, a magnificent octagonal parliament
house of one immense chamber: later the Chapter House was connected
with the main building by the Vestibule. Then the Choir was replaced
by a larger and finer building in the then latest architectural
fashion. The new choir contained the east window, which in the eyes of
contemporaries was wonderful and unrivalled for its size and painted
glass. It occupies nearly all the central space of the east wall from
a few feet above the ground to almost the apex of the gable. Gothic
architecture was so marvellously adaptable that all these parts, built
at widely different times, at various and strongly-contrasted stages
of the development of this English mediæval architecture, together
make a single building that appears to possess the most felicitous
unity of general design and a perfectly wonderful diversity of
sectional design, for every part is in complete sympathy with the
scheme as a whole.
To the east of the Central Tower is the Choir, which was kept
exclusively for the services; to the west, the Nave, the popular part.
The entrance to the Choir from the west is made through the stone
screen of Kings, which, with the lofty organ which rests on it,
prevents people in the Nave from getting anything more than a glimpse
of what is taking place in the Choir. Over the western ends of the
Nave aisles are the twin west towers, which contain the bells. The
high altar and reredos stood in the middle of the Choir between the
two choir transepts, the huge windows of which present in picture the
life stories of St. Cuthbert and St. William respectively. The Lady
Chapel, the part of the choir to the east of the reredos, was very
important in pre-Reformation days when the cult of the Virgin was very
popular. To the north and south of the Central Tower are the
Transepts. From the North Transept the Vestibule leads to the Chapter
House. The church is, therefore, of the shape of a cross (the centre
of which is marked by the Central Tower) with an octagonal building
standing near and connected with the northern arm.
The furniture was of wood and elaborately carved. In the Choir were
the fixed stalls with towering canopies, and other seats, which were
ranged along the north and south sides and at the west end. Chapels
were marked off by wooden screens, often of elaborate tracery.
The cost of erecting this huge and splendid church must have been
enormous. The Minster contained the shrine of St. William of York,
which, like those of St. Cuthbert at Durham and St. Thomas at
Canterbury of European fame, attracted streams of pilgrims, whose
donations helped the funds of erection and maintenance. This was an
established means of raising funds for church purposes. There was,
also, the money from penances and indulgences. The Archbishops were
keenly interested in their cathedral church. Citizens gave and
bequeathed sums of money to the Minster funds. In addition, the
Minster authorities received gifts from wealthy nobles of the north of
England. The house of Vavasour, for instance, supplied stone; that of
Percy gave wood to be used in building the great metropolitical
church. If the money cost was enormous, the completed building, for
design, engineering, and decorative work--in stone, wood, cloth,
stained glass--was far beyond monetary value.
The Nave, the part open to the public, was used for processions; some
started from the great west door, entrance through which was a rare
privilege granted only to the highest. The Choir was the scene of the
daily services of the seven offices of the day. All around, in the
aisles and transepts, were altars in side-chapels, chantry-chapels,[8]
where throughout the early part of the day priests were saying masses
for the souls of the departed. There were thirty chantries in the
Minster.
The Minster has from its foundation been a cathedral. The Chapter of
canons with the Dean at their head has always been its Governing Body.
As a church it was served by prebendaries or canons, who had definite
periods of duty annually, and two residential bodies of priests, of
whom some, the chantry priests, lived at St. William's College. This
College was erected shortly after the middle of the fifteenth century:
on the site there had been Salton House, the prebendal residence of
the Prior of Hexham, who was canon of Salton. This picturesque
building of stone, wood, half-timber work, and tiled roofs is a little
to the east of the Minster. It consists of a series of rooms ranged
round a central courtyard. It is of much historical interest, and
since it was restored recently to be the home of the Convocation of
the Northern Province, it has returned to the service of the church.
The minor-canons, or vicars-choral, who were employed by the canons as
their deputies, also lived in community. They had their hall, chapel,
and other buildings in an enclosed part called the Bedern not far from
the Minster.
As a counterpart to the Minster, in appearance as in use, was the
great, rich Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary, of royal foundation. With a
mitred abbot who sat among the lords spiritual in Parliament, St.
Mary's was perhaps the most important of the northern monasteries. The
buildings were proportionally large and fine. The church, dating
mostly from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was particularly
long and had a tall spire. It was only a little inferior to the
Minster in magnificence. On the south side were the Cloisters, the
open-air work-place and recreation place of the monks, while beyond
were the conventual buildings--such as the calefactory or
warming-house, the dormitories, and the refectory or room where meals
were taken. The cloisters were square in plan and consisted of a
central grass plot, along the sides of which there was a continuous
covered walk with unglazed windows facing the central open space.
Benedictine abbeys usually conformed to a common scheme as regards the
planning of the church and the conventual buildings. The cloisters
were only one of the courts or open squares, which separated groups of
conventual buildings. Further, there were gardens and orchards. Nearer
the river there was the Hospitium, or guest-house, where visitors were
lodged. The abbey was within its own walls, and on one side its
grounds extended to the river. The gateway, comprising gate, lodge,
and chapel, was on the north side.
Near the Castle there was an extensive Franciscan Friary. On the other
side of the river there was the priory of the Holy Trinity, the home
of an alien Benedictine order. A Carmelite Friary in Hungate, opposite
the Castle, seems, from the few odd fragments of stone that remain, to
have had fine buildings. The Augustinian Friary was between Lendal and
the river. The Dominican house, which was burnt down in 1455, was on
the site of the old railway station.
The only nunnery in the city was the Benedictine Priory of St.
Clement. There were sisterhoods in St. Leonard's and other hospitals.
It should, however, be noted there were many nunneries in the
districts round York.
Some of the religious institutions were called Hospitals. The care of
the sick was only one of the functions of this type of religious
house. Such was the large and famous St. Leonard's Hospital, a royal
institution that was not under the control of a bishop. The beautiful
ruins of St. Leonard's, which adjoined St. Mary's Abbey, prove how
well this hospital had been built. These hospitals, of which there
were fifteen in York, were in close touch with the people. While St.
Mary's, for instance, was one of the great abbeys, where the monks, by
the time when the fifteenth century was advanced, were living
luxuriously, easily, and generally unproductively, the religious of
the hospitals and lesser houses, were still engaged in feeding the
poor, tending the sick, and educating the children of the people.
Each of these religious institutions, whether monastery or hospital,
was within its own grounds, bounded by its own walls. Altogether they
occupied a large part of the total area of the mediæval city which
their buildings adorned, and of which they were so characteristic a
feature: St. Mary's Abbey, which with its buildings and grounds
covered a large area, was actually outside the city proper, but it was
immediately adjoining it. There were nearly sixty monasteries,
priories, hospitals, maisons-dieu, and chapels. The maisons-dieu, of
which there were sixteen, were smaller hospitals. They combined
generally the duties of almshouse and chantry.
_Parish Churches_, which were the centres of the religious life of the
laity, were everywhere. In the fifteenth century there were forty-five
churches and ten chapels, so that there was always a place in church
for every citizen.
A church was always in use. Besides the regular public services which
took place frequently during the day, and the special services for
festivals, there were services in chantries. Both the high altar in
the chancel and altars in other parts of a church were used. Several
altars were necessary because the number of masses, for the
celebration of which money was liberally bequeathed, was very large.
The parish church was used for other than purely religious purposes.
It was the central meeting-place of the parish, and might be described
as the seat of parochial government. Meetings were held in the Nave.
Parts of the church were used as schools. The parish church was also
the depôt for the equipment of those members who became soldiers.
Moreover, fire-buckets (generally of leather) were often kept in the
church, since, being of stone, it was perhaps the safest building in
the parish. There were also long poles with hooks at the end used to
pull thatch away from burning houses.
Most, if not all, of these churches were fine specimens of the
architecture of the Middle Ages, the so-called Gothic architecture,
which is characterised by pointed arches, ribbed vaulting, and the
constant use of the buttress. These churches were, in contrast to the
present condition of most of those that remain, complete with chancel,
nave and aisles, towers or spires, bells, stained-glass windows, and
furniture, many of them being particularly rich in one or more of
these features. The painted windows[9] are especially interesting, for
they show the standard of this branch of fifteenth-century art and are
valuable historical documents. The rich, mellow tones of colour should
be noted, also the incidental pictures of mediæval dress and
furniture. It is interesting to compare the fifteenth-century work
with that done, for instance, by the William Morris firm to the
designs of Burne-Jones (1833-1898), at a time when the revived art,
with other forms of decoration, was enjoying a period of great
success. In the fifteenth century the church was flourishing
materially, at least, and money and gifts were freely given.
The offices and services in churches were recited and sung. Organs
were used, but were not very large and were capable of being carried
about: although working on similar principles to the modern organ they
lacked its size, power, and varied capacity. At the Minster there were
several organs, for instance "the great organs," "the organs in the
Choir," "the organs at the Altar B.V.M."
The Chancel was the most sacred part of the church, for there was the
principal or high altar. In the Chancel were the stalls or seats of
the clergy and officials. The actual seats could be turned up when the
occupants wished to stand. Standing for long periods was made less
irksome in that the underside of each seat was made with a projecting
ledge, which gave some support. It is thoroughly characteristic of the
age that this very human device should have existed, and, secondly,
that these ledges were carved and ornamented. These misericords, as
they are called, were usually curiously, even grotesquely carved. Some
of these carvings were founded on natural objects, some were grotesque
heads, others represented subjects with man and animals. There were
pews for the nobility, but, apart from the few old and weak people who
used the rough bench or two in the body of the church, or the stone
bench that ran along the walls, the general public stood during the
services.
Wealthy parishioners left money to the parochial clergy and for the
fabric of the church: they generally wished to be buried at some
particular place within their parish church. Such distinguished men as
Nicholas Blackburn, merchant of York, were commemorated at times in
their parish churches by means of stained-glass windows. The portraits
of Nicholas and his son and their wives appear in the east window of
All Saints', North Street; his arms also are to be seen in this
window.
D. YORK AS A PORT
The Ouse was tidal and navigable right up to York. Trade, especially
in woollen goods, was carried on in the fifteenth century by river and
sea directly between York and ports on the west coasts of the
continent and, especially, Baltic ports. On arriving at York the boats
stopped at the quays, adjacent to which were warehouses, just below
Ouse Bridge.
The sea-going boats were not large. They were usually one-masted
sailing ships, built of wood; they had high prows and sterns, with a
capacious hold between. Some of them were built in York.
Their trade was such that some of the York merchants, for example the
wealthy Howme family, had establishments in foreign ports. The Howmes
had property in Calais.
The regulation of the waterways in and near the city was vested in the
Corporation. Matters pertaining to navigation and shipping were
adjudged by an Admiralty Court under the King's Admiral, whose
jurisdiction extended from the Thames to the northern ports.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Derived from Latin foris=outside, without (the city).
[2] A "church" that was in a parish, but was not the parish church,
was called a chapel. The parish church was the principal and parent
church of all within the parish.
[3] Compare the Tollbooth, Edinburgh, and the Tolhouse, Yarmouth.
[4] Cf. French _manger_.
[5] Wall-paper, which still bears the influence of the hangings that
it replaced, came into general use early in the nineteenth century.
[6] The view to-day from Petergate towards Bootham Bar gives a good
impression of a narrow main street, with gabled houses, leading to the
single fortified opening provided by the Bar.
[7] The winch and portcullis are still in existence in Monk Bar, and
in working order.
[8] The Leschman Chantry Chapel in Hexham Abbey is a typical example
in excellent preservation. A small erection of stone and wood, it
stands between two of the piers of the north Choir arcade. In small
compass there are a stone altar with five crosses, an aumbry beneath
the altar, and the tomb with recumbent effigy of the founder. A priest
would have just sufficient room to move about in the performance of
his service. Part of Archbishop Bowet's tomb in York Minster was a
chantry chapel.
[9] Besides the exceptional display of fifteenth-century glass in the
Minster, notable examples occur in St. Martin's, Coney Street, All
Saints', North Street, and Holy Trinity, Goodramgate.
CHAPTER IV
LIFE
A. CIVIC LIFE
"Parish government formed the unit in the government of the city. Each
parish was a self-governing community, electing its own officers with
the exception of its rector, making its own bye-laws, and, to meet
expenses, levying and collecting its own rates. Its constables served
as policemen, attended the Sessions, and acted as the fire brigade.
They looked after the parish-trained soldiers, acted as recruiters,
and had the care of the parish armour, which was kept in a chest in
the church. They distributed money among lame soldiers, gathered
trophy money, relieved cripples and passengers, but unfeelingly
conveyed beggars and vagabonds to prison. The parish soldiers kept
watch and ward over the parish defences. The parish stocks, in which
offenders were placed, stood near the churchyard stile. The constables
were also responsible for such lighting as the parish required, and
kept the parish lanthorn.
"The officials looked after the parish poor, dispensing charity by
gifts of bread and money. The parish boundaries were perambulated
every Ascension Day. Parish dinners were held on the choosing of the
churchwardens, the visitation of the Archdeacon, etc. The parish
officials invoked the aid of the law when parochial rights were
infringed, especially by neighbours. The church was the centre of
parochial life and in it the business of the parish was transacted.
"Parishes were grouped as wards. The wards chose city Councillors, and
these elected their Aldermen. The six wards formed the municipality
over which presided the Mayor. The Corporation exercised a general
supervision over the whole of the parishes of which there were
forty-five.
"Gradually the duties and powers of the various parish officials have
been transferred to the City Council. The united parish soldiers
became the city trained bands. In 1900 the last remnant of parochial
officialdom passed into the power of the Corporation when parish
overseers ceased to exist, and, for rating purposes, the City of York
became one parish instead of the original forty-five separately rated
areas."[1]
The Cathedral, _i.e._ the Liberty of St. Peter, and the Royal Castle
were outside municipal control. The Archbishops also had their
privileges. They had once owned all the city on the right bank of the
Ouse. In the fifteenth century they still retained many of their
privileges and possessions in this quarter, as, for example, the right
of holding a fair here in what was formerly their shire. These
archiepiscopal rights have not all lapsed, for in 1807 the Archbishop
of the time, successfully asserting his legal rights, saved from
demolition the city walls on the west side of the river.
York was a royal borough, that is, the freemen of the city had to pay
rent to the king, from whom it was farmed directly. It was not owned
by any knight or lord, that is, apart from the Archbishop's
possessions, which belonged to the western section of the city; the
city proper was almost entirely on the opposite side of the river. The
King retained possession of certain properties, such as Galtres
Forest, lying in the valley stretching northwards from York. He had a
larder and a fish pond at York; also a court, offices, and a prison
(Davy Hall, of which the name alone remains) for the administration of
the forest. These town-properties were, of course, entirely
extra-parochial.
York received a long succession of royal charters. Henry I. granted
the city certain customs, laws and liberties, and the right to have a
merchant guild. The possession of these rights was confirmed by King
John in the first year of his reign. In 1396 Richard II., at York,
made the city a county in itself. In consequence the office of bailiff
was replaced by that of sheriff.
The King's official representative in the city was called the sheriff,
whose office in York has been continuous down to the present day. The
sheriffs--there were usually two--were responsible for the
maintenance of order, for the local soldiery, and the collection of
the royal taxes and dues. The sheriff was a busy and important
medi
|
) to be a _Manual
of Pyrotechny_, and to treat of fire-works as objects of rational
amusement; to describe in a perspicuous manner the materials and
apparatus made use of in their construction; and to select such
examples of their particular combinations, as are calculated rather
for private diversion than public exhibition. The directions herein
given (if strictly attended to) will enable youth to gratify
their taste for this species of recreation at a comparatively
small expense, and at the same time will guard them against those
accidents which often arise to the ignorant, in firing the larger
works purchased from the makers; and throughout the whole it will
strictly observe a principle of economy, the neglect of which has so
frequently retarded the operations of genius.
In regard to the origin of Pyrotechny, our knowledge is very
limited. The Chinese are said to have been the first people who had
any practical knowledge of it, or brought the art to any degree of
perfection; with them the use of fire-works is said to have been
very general, long before they were known in European countries;
and from accounts given of some recent exhibitions at Pekin, it
should seem that they have attained to a degree of perfection not
surpassed by any of our modern artists: Mr. Barrow, in his “Travels
in China” gives, from the Journal of Lord Macartney, the following
description of one of their exhibitions: “The fire-works, in some
particulars,” says he, “exceeded any thing of the kind I had ever
seen. In grandeur, magnificence, and variety, they were, I own,
inferior to the Chinese fire-works we had seen at Batavia, but
infinitely superior in point of novelty, neatness, and ingenuity
of contrivance. One piece of machinery I greatly admired: a green
chest, five feet square, was hoisted up by a pulley fifty or sixty
feet from the ground, the bottom of which was so contrived as then
suddenly to fall out, and make way for twenty or thirty strings of
lanterns, inclosed in a box, to descend from it, unfolding themselves
from one another by degrees, so as at last, to form a collection of
full five hundred, each having a light of a beautifully coloured
flame burning brightly within it. This devolution and development of
lanterns were several times repeated, and at every time exhibiting a
difference of colour and figure. On each side was a correspondence
of smaller boxes, which opened in like manner as the other, and let
down an immense net-work of fire, with divisions and compartments of
various forms and dimensions, round and square, hexagons, octagons,
&c. which shone like the brightest burnished copper, and flashed
like prismatic lightnings, with every impulse of the wind. The
whole concluded with a volcano, or general explosion and discharge
of suns and stars, squibs, crackers, rockets, and grenadœs, which
involved the gardens for an hour in a cloud of intolerable smoke.”
The diversity of colour, with which the Chinese have the secret
of clothing their fire, seems one of the chief merits of their
“Pyrotechny;” and which alone would set them upon an equal footing
with the Europeans. It is to them, no doubt, that we are indebted
for the discovery of that beautiful composition, which is still
known by the name of the “Chinese fire:” and to them we are likewise
indebted, for the method of representing with fire, that pleasing
and perpetual variety of figures, which (when judiciously arranged)
seem to emulate in splendour those endless beauties, which adorn our
celestial hemisphere. In Europe, the Florentines are said to have
been the first people that gained a knowledge of the invention, and,
we have reason to think it was not long after the discovery of the
use of gunpowder and fire-arms, about the end of the thirteenth, or
beginning of the fourteenth century; we say the _use_ of gunpowder,
or application of it to fire-arms, for we believe the discovery
of it to be of much earlier date, than what is generally given to
it: and, whether the invention of the art of fire-works is not
coeval with that of gunpowder, is a question not over-burthened
with improbability. The French have published several treatises
on Pyrotechny, such as the “_Traité des Feux d’Artifice pour le
spectacle et pour la Guerre_,” by Perrinet d’Orval. The _Manuel
d’Artificier_, by Father d’Incarville, and several others of the like
nature: in some of which, they attach to the Chinese a _very_ early
knowledge of the art, and consequently the composition of gunpowder,
or at least the effects of a similar combination, was not entirely
unknown to them. But as the French gained their knowledge of the
art from the Italians, they may probably be in an error respecting
its invention: whether they are or not, it will have but a negative
effect on the present Work. Tracing its progress to England, we
shall endeavour to give as good a delineation of the state in which
it now exists, as the nature of our Work will admit; supposing it to
be much nearer perfection than when in its earlier stages, for we
believe the English import nothing but what they improve.
An art which furnishes such an extensive field for amusement, reduced
to plain and simple rules, digested in a familiar manner, (which the
most limited capacities will be able to understand,) cannot fail to
be entertaining to every admirer of scientific amusement.
It has been regretted by many that no publication of a like nature
is now extant; and a celebrated writer, long known to the popular
reader, has even said, that “the English have no respectable work on
the subject.”
How far the present will supply such a desideratum must be left
for the candid reader to determine. The Author would wish it to
be understood, that although he has conducted some part of his
Work upon mathematical principles, it is not intended as a perfect
philosophical work on the subject, but as an attempt to embody into
one small volume, all that has hitherto been written on the subject;
and if from which, the Pyrotechnic Tyro receive any assistance for
the attainment of an Art, which has for its object such an endless
source of entertainment, the Author’s purpose will be positively
realized.
Though very much protracted, we cannot close our Introduction without
observing, that few spectacles are more beautiful or more calculated
for entertainment, than a well-conducted display of fire-works, in
which are exhibited such various bodies, so brilliantly illuminated,
and arranged in the most variegated forms: sometimes producing
surprising and unexpected manations, moving with velocity through the
air, throwing out innumerable sparks or blazing balls, which fly off
into the infinity of space: others suddenly exploding, scatter abroad
luminous fragments of fire, which are trajected with the most speedy
trepidation: and again, others are revolving on a quiescent centre,
and by their revolutions produce the most beautiful circles of fire,
which seem to vie with each other in their emanations of splendour
and light.
Such is a faint delineation of the various effects which are
producible by fire, and for which we shall endeavour to give every
requisite instruction; and for preparing the most pleasing garbs, in
which this element may be presented.
MANUAL, &c.
SECTION I.
OF GUNPOWDER.
Before we enter into the practical part of Pyrotechny, we deem it
consistent with the nature of our Work to give an ample description
of the materials made use of; for we do not take it for granted that
all our readers are _chemists_, or that they are sufficiently versed
in that science to render such description unnecessary. But before
the principles of the art can be well understood, or successfully
applied, it is proper that the artist should possess a portion of
_chemical_ and _mechanical_ knowledge; the first will teach him to
select his materials with judgment, to free them from impurities, and
combine them in the proportions most suitable for each particular
purpose; and the latter will assist him in constructing his different
pieces so as to produce the desired effect with the least loss of
time and force. The _mechanical apparatus_ we shall defer describing
till they come immediately under hand, and such protraction we think
will be conducive to a better understanding of their utility: and,
in some other Section, we shall teach him to calculate the direction
which the flying fire-works (from their principles of construction)
are to move, and the velocity with which they are to proceed.
Gunpowder is the principal ingredient made use of in Pyrotechny; and,
being of itself a compound, we shall make it the first object of
description, and endeavour to point out the cause of every property
it possesses.
The invention of it is ascribed, by Polydore Virgil, to a chemist,
who accidentally put some of the composition, viz. nitre, sulphur,
and charcoal into a mortar, and covered it with a stone, when it
happened to take fire, and, what was a natural (though unexpected)
consequence of such combination, it shattered the stone to pieces.
Thevet says, the person here spoken of was a monk of Fribourg, named
Constantine Anelzen; but Belleforet, and other authors, with more
probability, suppose him to be Bartholdus Schwartz, or the Black, who
discovered it, as some say, about the year 1320; and the first use
of it is ascribed to the Venetians in the year 1380, during the war
with the Genoese; and it is said to have first been employed in a
place anciently called Fossa Clodia, now Chioggia, against Lawrence
de Medicis; and that all Italy made complaints against it, as a
manifest contravention of fair warfare.
But this account is contradicted, and Gunpowder shewn to be of an
earlier era, for the Moors, when they were besieged in 1343 by
Alphonsus XI. King of Castile, are said to have discharged a sort of
iron mortars upon them, which made a noise like thunder; and this
assertion is seconded by what Don Pedro, bishop of Leon, relates
of King Alphonsus, who reduced Toledo, viz. “that in a sea-combat
between the King of Tunis, and the Moorish King of Seville, about
four hundred and fifty years ago, those of Tunis had certain iron
tubes or barrels, wherewith they threw thunder-bolts of fire.”
Farther, it appears that our Roger Bacon knew of Gunpowder near a
hundred years before Schwartz was born. That excellent friar tells
us, in his treatise, “_De Secretis Operibus Artis & Naturæ, & de
Nullitate Magiæ_,” that from salt-petre, and other ingredients,
we are able to make a fire that shall burn at what distance we
please; and the writer of the life of Friar Bacon says, that Bacon
himself has divulged the secret of this composition in a cypher,
by transposing the letters of the two words in chap. xi. of the
above-cited treatise, where it is thus expressed; “sed tamen salis
petræ _lura mope can ubre_, (i. e. carbonum pulvere) et sulphuris;
et sic facies tonitrum & corruscationem, si scias artificium:” and
from hence Bacon’s biographer apprehends the words _carbonum pulvere_
were transferred to the sixth chapter of Dr. Longbain’s MS. In this
same chapter Bacon expressly says, that sounds like thunder, and
coruscations, may be formed in the air, much more horrible than those
that happen naturally. He adds, that there are many ways of doing
this, by which a city or an army might be destroyed; and he supposes
that, by an artifice of this kind, Gideon defeated the Midianites
with only three hundred men, (Judges, chap. 7th.) There is only
another passage to the same purpose, in his treatise “De Scientia
Experimentalia:” see Dr. Jebb’s edition of the Opus Magus, p. 474.
Mr. Robins apprehends (see the preface to his Tracts,) that Bacon
describes Gunpowder, not as a new composition first proposed by
himself, but as the application of an old one to military purposes,
and that it was known long before this time.
Dr. Jebb, in his preface to the above-cited work, describes two
kinds of fire-works; one for flying, inclosed in a case or cartouche,
made long and slender, and filled with the composition closely
rammed, like our modern rocket, and the other thick and short,
strongly tied at both ends, and half filled, resembling our cracker;
and the composition which he prescribes for both, is two pounds of
charcoal, one pound of sulphur, and six pounds of salt-petre, well
powdered and mixed together in a stone mortar.
Mr. Dutens in his “Inquiry into the Origin of the discoveries
attributed to the moderns,” carries the antiquity of Gunpowder
much higher; and refers to the accounts given by Virgil, Hyginus,
Eustathius, Valerius Flaccus, and many other writers of the same date.
To close this tedious detail, we will mention one more work, which
seems to confirm the antiquity of this composition, viz. the “Code
of Gentoo Laws,” 1776; in the preface of which it is asserted, that
Gunpowder was known to the inhabitants of Hindostan, far beyond all
periods of investigation.
Having said thus much concerning the history and antiquity of this
wonderful composition, it remains for us to describe the method by
which it is now manufactured: but to retain that _gradatum_, or
progressive order, with which we commenced our Work, it is necessary
that we first describe the ingredients of which it is composed; for
it is only by a knowledge of the parts of any composition, that we
can gain a good understanding of the properties of the whole.
There are only three ingredients that enter into the composition of
Gunpowder; these are Salt-petre, Sulphur, and Charcoal. The first is
a combination of Nitric Acid[1] and Potash,[2] and is better known
in modern chemistry by the name of Nitrate of Potash. The second
is a substance very well known, from the inflammable properties it
possesses; it is found alone, or combined with other bodies, in
various situations; in volcanic productions it is found almost in its
last degree of purity: it is found also, in the state of sulphuric
acid; that is to say, combined with oxygen: it is found in this
state in argil,[3] gypsum,[4] &c. and it may be likewise extracted
from vegetable substances and animal matter. The third and last, is
an article so well known in commerce, that it is almost needless to
describe it; we shall therefore only observe, that the Charcoal found
to be best for the composition of Gunpowder, is that made from the
alder, willow, or black dog-wood.
This powerful composition is a mixture of these three ingredients,
combined in the following proportions: for each 100 parts of
Gunpowder, salt-petre 75 parts, sulphur 10, and charcoal 15. In some
countries, the proportions are somewhat different; but this is the
combination made use of by most of the English manufacturers.
The salt-petre is either that imported from the East Indies, or that
which has been extracted from damaged Gunpowder. It is refined by
solution, filtration, evaporation, and crystallization; after which
it is fused, taking care that too much heat is not employed, or there
is danger of decomposing the nitre.
The sulphur used is that which is imported from Sicily, and is
refined by melting and skimming; the most impure is refined by
sublimation.
The charcoal is made in the following manner. The wood is first cut
into pieces of about nine inches in length, and put into an iron
cylinder placed horizontally. The front aperture of the cylinder is
then closely stopped: at the other end there are pipes connected with
casks. Fire being made under the cylinder, the pyro-ligneous acid[5]
comes over. The gas escapes, and the acid liquor is collected in the
casks: the fire is kept up till no more gas or liquid comes over, and
the carbon[6] remains in the cylinder.
The three ingredients being properly prepared, are ready for
manufacturing. They are first separately ground into a fine powder,
then mixed in the proper proportions, and afterwards committed to
the mill for the purpose of incorporating their component parts. The
powder-mill is a slight wooden building, with a boarded roof, so
that in case of accidental explosions, the roof may fly off without
difficulty, and in the least injurious direction, and thus be the
means of preserving the other parts of the building.
The operative parts of the mill consist of two stones placed
vertically, and running on another placed horizontally, which is
called the bed-stone, or trough. On this bed-stone, about forty or
fifty pounds of the composition are spread out, and moistened with
water till reduced to about the consistency of a very stiff paste:
after the stone-runners have made the proper revolutions over it,
which requires about eight hours continued action of the mill, which
is worked sometimes by horses, and sometimes by water, it is then
taken from the mill, and sent to the corning-house, to be corned or
grained. Here it is formed into hard lumps, and these are put into
circular sieves, with parchment bottoms, perforated with holes of
different sizes, and fixed in a frame connected with a horizontal
wheel. Each of these sieves is also furnished with a runner or
spheroid of lignum vitæ, which, being set in motion by the action
of the wheels, forces the paste through the holes of the parchment
bottom, forming grains of different sizes. The grains are then
separated from the dust by sieves and reels made for that purpose.
The grains are next hardened, and the rougher edges are taken off
by shaking them for some time in a close reel, moved in a circular
direction with a proper velocity.
When the powder has been corned, dusted, and glazed, it is dried in
the stove-house, where great care should be taken to avoid explosion.
The stove-house is a square apartment, three sides of which are
furnished with shelves or cases, on proper supports, arranged round
the room; and the fourth contains a large cast-iron vessel, called
a “gloom,” which projects into the room, and is heated from the
outside, so that no part of the fuel may touch the powder. For
greater security against sparks by accidental friction, the glooms
are covered with sheet-copper, and are always cool when the powder is
put in or taken out of the room.
Here the grains are thoroughly dried, losing in the process what
remains of the water added to the mixture in the mill, for bringing
it to a working stiffness. A method of drying powder, by steam-pipes
running round and crossing the apartment, has been successfully
tried; and thus the possibility of any injurious accident from
over-heating is prevented. The temperature of the room, when heated
in the common way by a gloom-stove, is always regulated by a
thermometer hung in the door of the stoves.
If Gunpowder is injured by damp in a small degree, it may be
recovered by again drying it in a stove; but if the ingredients
are decomposed, the nitre must be extracted by boiling, filtering,
evaporating, crystallizing, &c. and then, with fresh sulphur and
charcoal, to be re-manufactured.
There are several methods of proving and trying the goodness and
strength of Gunpowder. The following, as common methods, are
frequently made use of. 1, By sight; for if it be too black, it is
too moist, or has too much charcoal in it; so also if rubbed upon
white paper, it blackens it more than good powder does. 2, By touch;
for if in crushing with your finger-ends, the grains break easy, and
turn into dust, without feeling hard, it has too much charcoal in
it; or if in pressing under your fingers upon a smooth, hard board,
some grains feel harder than the rest, or, as it were, dent your
finger-ends, the sulphur is not well mixed with the nitre, and the
powder is bad. And also by burning, in which method, little heaps of
powder are laid on white paper three or four inches asunder, and one
of them fired; which, if the flame ascend rapidly, and with a good
report, leaving the paper free from white spots, and without burning
holes in it, and if sparks fly off and set fire to the adjoining
heaps, the quality of the powder may be safely relied on; but if
otherwise, it is either badly made, or the ingredients are impure.
These are some from among the common methods made use of for this
purpose; but for greater accuracy in determining the relative
strength of Gunpowder, various machines have of late been invented
by men connected with military affairs. That excellent mathematician
and philosopher, C. Hutton, LL.D. F.R.S. and late Professor of
Mathematics in the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, has constructed
a machine for this purpose, which, for convenience and accuracy,
far surpasses any thing of the kind hitherto invented. It is called
Eprouvette, or a Gunpowder Prover, (for plans and description see
third vol. Hutton’s Tracts, page 153;) and from its possessing so
many peculiar advantages, is now generally used. It consists of
a small cannon, the bore of which is about one inch in diameter,
suspended freely like a pendulum, with the axis in a horizontal
direction. This being charged with the proper quantity of powder,
which is usually about two ounces, and then fired, the gun swings
or recoils backward, and the instrument itself shews the extent of
the first or greatest vibration, which indicates the strength to the
utmost nicety. The whole machine is so simple, easy, and expeditious
in its use, that the weighing of the powder is the greatest part
of the trouble; and it is also so uniform with itself, that the
successive repetitions or firings with the same quantity of the same
kind of powder, hardly ever yield a difference of the hundredth part
from the first vibration.
Having thus given an account of almost every thing necessary to
be known in regard to the process of making and ascertaining the
relative strength of Gunpowder, we shall close this article with a
few observations (which will be selected from the best authorities)
on the physical causes of its inflammation and exploding. When the
several ingredients of Gunpowder are properly prepared, mixed, and
grained, in the manner already described, if the least spark be
struck thereon from a steel and flint, the whole will be immediately
inflamed, and burst out with extreme violence.
The effect is not hard to account for: the charcoal part of the
grains whereon the spark falls, catching fire like tinder, the
sulphur and nitre are ready melted, and the former also breaks into
flame; and at the same time the contiguous grains undergo the same
fate.--Now it is known that salt-petre, when ignited, rarefies to
a prodigious degree. Sir Isaac Newton reasons thus on the subject:
“the charcoal and sulphur in Gunpowder easily take fire, and kindle
the nitre; and the spirit of the nitre, being thereby rarefied into
vapour, rushes out with an explosion much after the manner that the
vapour of water rushes out of an æolipils; the sulphur also, being
volatile, is converted into vapour, and augments the explosion: add,
that the acid vapour of the sulphur, namely, that which distils under
a bell into oil of sulphur, entering violently into the fixed body of
the nitre, lets loose the spirit of the nitre, and excites a greater
fermentation, whereby the heat is farther augmented, and the fixed
body of the nitre is also rarefied into fume; and the explosion is
thereby made more vehement and quick.”
For if salt of tartar be mixed with Gunpowder, and that mixture be
warmed till it take fire, the explosion will be greatly more violent
and quick than that of Gunpowder alone, which cannot proceed from any
other cause than the action of the vapour of Gunpowder upon the salt
of tartar, whereby the salt is rarefied.
The explosion of Gunpowder arises, therefore, from the violent action
whereby all the mixture being quickly and vehemently heated, is
rarefied and converted into fume and vapour; which vapour, by the
violence of that action, becomes so hot as to shine, and appear in
the form of a flame.
Another cause of the effects of Gunpowder, may be owing to the sudden
formation of a quantity of gas, and are consequently greater when
the gas is confined in all directions but one, as in our guns and
cannons. The nitric acid of salt-petre is decomposed, and affords the
gas. The other ingredients dispose it to be easily inflamed, which is
necessary to the decomposition of the acid. Dr. Ingenhousy accounts
for the effect of Gunpowder by observing that nitre yields by heat
a surprising quantity of pure dephlogisticated air, and charcoal
a considerable quantity of inflammable air; the fire employed to
inflame the powder extricates these two airs, and sets fire to them
at the instant of their extrication.
Count Rumford is of opinion that the force of the elastic fluid,
generated in the combustion of Gunpowder, may be satisfactorily
accounted for upon the supposition that its force depends solely on
the elasticity of watery vapour or steam.
M. de la Hire, in the history of the French Academy for 1702,
ascribes all the force and effect of Gunpowder to the spring or
elasticity of the air inclosed in the several grains thereof, and
in the intervals or spaces between the grains, the powder being
kindled sets the springs of so many little parcels of air playing,
and dilates them all at once, whence the effect; the powder itself
only serving to light a fire which may put the air in action, after
which the whole is done by the air alone.
Dr. Hutton seems to differ from the opinion of M. de la Hire, in
regard to the expansion of inflamed gunpowder. Is it, he observes,
occasioned by the air interposed between its grains, or by the
aqueous fluid which enters into the composition of the nitre? We
doubt much (continues he) whether it be the air, as its expansibility
does not seem sufficient to explain the phenomenon; but we know that
water, when converted into vapour by the contact of heat, occupies a
space 14,000 times greater than its original bulk, and that its force
is very considerable.
The same learned author says, that the discovery of the true cause
of the expansive force of fired Gunpowder, is chiefly due to the
English philosophers, and particularly to the learned and ingenious
Mr. Robins. This author apprehends that the force of fired gunpowder
consists in the action of a permanently elastic fluid, suddenly
disengaged from the powder by the combustion, similar in some
respects to common atmospheric air, at least as to elasticity.
He shewed, by satisfactory experiments, that a fluid of this
kind is actually disengaged by firing the powder; and that it is
_permanently_ elastic, or retains its elasticity when cold, the force
of which he measured in this state. He also measured the force of it
when inflamed, by a most ingenious method, and found its strength in
that state to be about a thousand times the strength or elasticity
of common atmospheric air. This, our Doctor observes, is not its
utmost degree of strength, as it is found to increase in its force
when fired in larger quantities than those employed by Mr. Robins;
so much so indeed, that by more accurate experiments, we have found
its force rise as high as 1600 or 1800 times the force of atmospheric
air in its usual state. Much beyond this it is not probable it can
go, nor indeed possible, if there be any truth in the common and
allowed physical principles of mechanics. With an elastic fluid, of
a given force, we infallibly know, or compute the effects it can
produce, in impelling a given body; and on the other hand, from the
effects or velocities with which given bodies are impelled by an
elastic fluid, we certainly know the force or strength of that fluid,
and these effects we have found perfectly to accord with the force
above mentioned. Mr. Robins’s discovery and opinions have also been
corroborated by others, among the best chemists and philosophers.
Lavoisier was of opinion that the force of fired gunpowder depends,
in a great measure, on the expansive force of uncombined caloric,
supposed to be let loose in a great abundance, during the combustion
or deflagration of the powder. And Bouillon Lagrange, in his course
of Chemistry says, when gunpowder takes fire there is a disengagement
of azotic gas, which expands in an astonishing manner when set
at liberty; and we are even still ignorant of the extent of the
dilatation occasioned by the heat arising from the combustion.
A decomposition of water also takes place, and hydrogen gas is
disengaged with elasticity; and by this decomposition of water there
is formed carbonic acid gas, and even sulphurated hydrogen gas, which
is the cause of the hepatic smell emitted by burnt powder.
It has been found by experiment, that granulated powder inflames
with much greater rapidity than that which is not granulated; the
latter only puffs away slowly, while the other takes fire almost
instantaneously; and of the granulated kinds, that in round grains
much sooner than that in oblong irregular grains; the cause of which
may arise from the former leaving to the flame larger and freer
interstices, which produce the inflammation with much more rapidity.
Gunpowder is supposed to explode at about 600° Fahr. but if heated to
a degree just below that of faint redness, the sulphur will mostly
burn off, leaving the nitre and charcoal unaltered.
Experiments have also proved, that the variations in the state of the
atmosphere do not any way alter the action of powder. By comparing
several trials made at noon in the hottest summer sun, with those
made in the morning and evening, no certain difference could be
perceived; and it was the same with those made in the night, and in
winter. And indeed, considering the principles of the explosion, and
that it always contains the same quantity of the elastic fluid, it is
difficult to conceive how its force can be affected by the density or
rarity of the atmosphere.
The action and nature of this formidable composition being now
somewhat fully described, we shall proceed to the principal object of
our Work, that of constructing the most common and curious articles
for Pyrotechnic exhibitions.
SECTION II.
MATERIALS.
Having in the preceding Section, entered somewhat largely on
the nature and properties of Gunpowder, and consequently of the
ingredients which compose it, any further observations on them would
be unnecessary, providing the ingredients and proportions always
remained the same. But as the ingredients used in the manufacture of
that article are frequently employed in various other proportions,
to form compositions for filling fire-works, it is necessary to give
some further directions for the choice and purification of these
articles, which, together with the apparatus made use of in the
making of fire-works, will form the subject of the present section.
1. NITRE.--Among the various articles made use of in the composition,
none are of greater importance than salt-petre, for on the quantity
and purity of this depends all the force and much of the brilliancy
of the fire. The most common sort is that usually sold by the
grocers, and is generally in large lumps formed of an assemblage
of small crystals somewhat transparent, and often mixed with earthy
matter and many other impurities. In its purest state it is in the
form of small six-sided prismatic crystals, not apt to grow moist or
powdery on exposure to the air. The pure nitre is now become very
expensive, so it is of consequence to know how the common nitre,
or nitre of commerce may be purified, for it is found to answer no
purpose in Pyrotechny unless such change or purification in it have
been effected.
Nitre is found, (like most of other saline bodies) to be much more
soluble in boiling water, than in water of the ordinary temperature.
If therefore the nitre of commerce be dissolved in a small quantity
of boiling water, and the solution be properly strained, the liquor,
when cold, will afford crystals that are very pure. The following
is the most convenient method of proceeding: dissolve the nitre in
boiling water, (which should be soft water,) in the proportion of
about a quart to each pound of nitre; and that the solution may be
more easily effected, let the nitre be reduced to a powder, previous
to its being immersed, and let the vessel containing the nitre and
water be kept at the boiling heat till all the salt is dissolved;
then strain the liquor, while hot, through thick blotting paper,
placed in a clean funnel; and set by the filtered liquor in a shallow
vessel, in a cold place, to crystallize. The crystals thus obtained
are to be dried, first in blotting-paper, and then before the fire,
and kept for use. From the remaining solution, which is sometimes
called _mother-water_, fresh crystals may be procured by boiling it
in a clean tin vessel till a filming scum arises to the surface, then
filtering it through paper, and setting it aside to crystallize as
before.
Very pure nitre may also be obtained from damaged gunpowder, which
may be sometimes procured at a cheap rate, at the shops where it is
sold for this purpose. The damaged powder must be ground with a small
quantity of hot water, in a large wooden or stone mortar, otherwise
it may be boiled over a gentle fire, with as much water as will cover
it, till as much as possible of the nitre is dissolved; the liquor is
then to be strained through a thick flannel bag, afterwards filtered
through blotting-paper while hot, the sediment to be boiled down till
a film rises on the surface; again filtered and set by to cool and
crystallize, as directed in the process for the former method.
As the nitre must always be reduced to fine powder, previous to
mixing it with other substances, this is easily done by dissolving
it in a little more than its own weight of boiling water, keeping
the solution over a gentle fire, and continually stirring it with a
flat stick till all the water is evaporated, when the powder is to
be taken out and dried before a gentle fire; during which, care must
be taken not to let it remain too long, or exposed to too great a
heat, otherwise it will be melted into a firm cake. The drying may be
completed by suffering it to remain a sufficient time on paper before
the fire. For the purification of salt-petre, both these methods
may (by attending to the foregoing instructions,) be practised with
success; but of the two, we would more strongly recommend the former.
2. SULPHUR.--Sulphur is the next ingredient, in regard to importance,
as being the most inflammable material we are acquainted with. It
exists in three states, in all of which it is occasionally employed
in fire-works; the first is that brought from the neighbourhood of
volcanoes, and is called _native sulphur_, but more commonly _sulphur
vivum_, though (it may be observed,) what is sold in the shops under
this name is a drossy powder, the refuse left after purification.
The second is that in the roll, called _roll sulphur_, or _stone
brimstone_. The third is the _sublimed sulphur_, or as it is commonly
called _flower of sulphur_; this when genuine is the purest, and
is found to answer best for
|
and when I left them I felt that what had seemed so bitter to me
was changed into sweetness for my soul and body."
CHAPTER III.
A LONELY STRUGGLE.
"Thou must walk on, however man upbraid thee,
With Him who trod the winepress all alone:
Thou may'st not find one human hand to aid thee,
One human soul to comprehend thy own."
A rough, stony uphill path, or rather track, under grey-green olive
trees, leading to a perfect tangle of cypresses and pines. Somewhere
in the tangle of cypresses almost hidden from sight, lay a dilapidated
ancient church, which, long ago had been dedicated to the martyr
Damian. Up this stony track one day, stumbled Francis.
His was now a solitary life. He was a complete puzzle to parents and
friends, and, indeed to a great extent he was a puzzle to himself. His
life in his father's house was far from pleasant. Pietro's vanity had
received a serious blow from what he regarded as his son's "ignominious"
return to Assisi. He had been more than willing to give him ample means
for every pleasure, so that he might mingle on an equal footing with the
young nobles of the land, but to see his money given lavishly to the
beggars in the street, and the lepers in the lazar-houses was more than
he could stand. A serious, ever widening breach had formed between
father and son. Pica, poor woman, knew that, sooner or later, a rupture
would come, and much as she loved her strange son, she could do nothing
to prevent it. There was literally no one who could comprehend Francis,
much less render him any spiritual aid. One faithful companion there had
been, who used to follow him round into the woods when he went to pray,
and stand at the doors of caves and grottos until his season of
meditation was over, but after a time, this friend had been obliged to
leave him. Francis tried timidly to tell people a little of what God was
dimly revealing to him, but his--to them--vague ideas only resulted in
mocking smiles, and assurances that he was rapidly becoming stark,
staring mad! So had things come about, that in spite of himself, Francis
was thrown entirely and solely upon his new found Lord.
[Sidenote: _A Prayer and its Answer._]
The cross lay heavy upon him that day, as he stumbled up the tiny
olive-shaded path, and lit upon the almost ruined church. This was a
direction Francis seldom walked in, but to-day he had been so occupied
with his thoughts, that he scarcely knew where he was going. Seeing
the church, he passed in and knelt to pray.
"Great and glorious God," was his prayer; "and Thou, Lord Jesus, I
pray Thee, shed abroad Thy light in the darkness of my mind. Be found
of me, Lord, so that in all things I may act only in accordance with
Thy holy will."
As he prayed, little by little a sense of peace, and a new feeling of
acceptance took possession of him. He had known before that God had
pardoned him for the past, and was keeping him in the midst of trials
and hourly temptations, but this was something quite different. Jesus
accepted him, individually, his body as well as his soul, his time,
talents, all his being, and desired his labour and assistance. The
poor, lonely, crushed heart, was filled to overflowing. He was
conscious of a distinct union with Christ. From this time forth, he
was to know what it meant to be crucified with Christ--to die daily.
As he knelt there among the ruins and decay, it seemed to him that a
voice spoke to his soul thus--
"Francis, dost thou see how my house is falling into ruins? Go and set
thyself to repair it."
"Most willingly, Lord," he answered, hardly knowing what he said.
[Sidenote: _For the Benefit of St. Damian's._]
Now, respecting the incidents we are about to relate, there are many
and various theories. Some say the revelation made to Francis,
referred to the spiritual work to which he had not as yet received
his call, others there are, who blame him and call him rash and
hot-headed, and accuse him of running before he was sent. We are not
prepared to give judgment one way or the other. God has not promised
us that we shall never make mistakes, and if Francis made a mistake,
God certainly over-ruled it, and made it work to His glory, as He has
promised "all things" to work for those who love Him. Again, God has
His own ways of working, mysterious and curious though they often seem
to us, and what looks like "the foolishness of men," often redounds to
His greatest praise. But to return to what really happened.
Francis rose from his knees, and sought the priest who had charge of
St. Damian's. He pressed all the money he had about him into his
hands, begged him to buy oil and keep the lamp always burning, then
rushed off home. Saddling his horse, he loaded it with the most costly
stuffs he could find, and rode off into a neighbouring town, where
they found a ready market, and realized a goodly sum. When his stuff
was all sold, he disposed of his horse too, and returning on foot to
St. Damian's, he placed a well-filled purse in the priest's hands,
told him with much satisfaction what he had done, and begged him to
have the church restored at once. To his utter consternation, the
priest refused, saying he dare not take so large a sum unless Pietro
Bernardone approved.
Poor Francis was in despair. He flung the money on a window seat in
disgust, and begged the priest at least to give him a shelter for a
few days. That much bewildered man, hardly knowing what to say or do,
consented, and Francis took up his abode with him.
But not for long. Pietro, when he found his son did not return home as
usual, made enquiries and found where he was located. He was very
anxious and uneasy, as he was sure now that his son was afflicted by a
religious mania, he would have to renounce all the high hopes he had
formed for him. However, he resolved to make a determined effort to
recover him, and set out with a large party of friends to storm St.
Damian's. They hoped that Francis would listen to reason, and consent
to follow them back quietly to Assisi.
[Sidenote: _A Lonely Struggle._]
But Francis never waited to receive them. An uncontrollable fear took
possession of him, and he fled and hid himself in a cavern he alone
knew of. His father's party ransacked the priest's abode, and all the
country round, but they had to return home baffled.
For a month, Francis remained shut up in the cavern. An old servant
who loved him dearly, was let into the secret, and used to bring him
food. During this month he suffered intensely. It was the first time
in his life he had ever suffered contradiction--the first time in his
life he had ever had anyone really, openly opposed to him. To be sure,
people did not understand him, but they had never shown him any
animosity. A sense of utter failure oppressed him. It was a hard trial
to one of his temperament, and if his consecration had not been very
real, he would never have stood the test.
He wept and prayed, and confessed his utter nothingness, his weakness,
his inability to accomplish anything of himself. Never in his life had
he felt weak and incapable before. Then humbly he entreated that God
would enable him to accomplish His will, and not permit his incapacity
to frustrate God's designs for him. A consciousness of Divine strength
was manifested to him as never before. It was as if a voice said, "I
will be with thee, fear not." Strengthened with a strength he never
knew heretofore, he came out of the cavern and made straight for his
father's house.
That day as Pietro Bernardone sat at work indoors, the voice of a
mighty tumult was borne in to him. Such a clamour, and yelling, and
shouting he never had heard in Assisi in all his time! Rushing
upstairs he looked out of the window. It seemed as though the entire
populace had turned loose, and were buffeting someone in their midst.
"A madman, a madman," yelled the crowd, and sticks and stones and mud
flew from all sides.
"A madman, a madman," echoed the children.
Determined not to lose the fun, Pietro hastened out into the street,
joined the crowd, and discovered that his son Francis was the madman
in question! With a howl of rage, he rushed upon him, dragged him into
the house with oaths and blows, and locked him up in a sort of
dungeon.
During the succeeding days, he and his wife did all they could to
persuade Francis to return to his old mode of life. Pietro entreated
and threatened, Pica wept and caressed, but all in vain.
[Sidenote: _A Command from God._]
"I have received a command from God," was their answer, and "I mean to
carry it out."
At last, after some time, Pietro being absent for several days on
business, Pica unlocked the dungeon and let her son go free.
When Pietro returned, he cursed his wife and set off to St. Damian's
to fetch Francis back. But Francis declined to go. He said that he
feared neither blows nor chains, but God had given him a work to do,
and nothing, nor nobody would prevent him carrying out that mission.
Pietro was struck by his son's coolness, and seeing that force would
be no use, he went to the magistrates and lodged a complaint against
his son, desiring the magistrates to recover the money that his son
had given to the church, and to oblige him to renounce in legal form
all rights of inheritance. The magistrates seem to have been much
shocked at Pietro's harshness, but they summoned Francis, who would
not appear. When asked to use violence, they said--
"No, since your son has entered God's service, we have nothing to do
with his actions," and utterly refused to have anything further to do
with the case.
CHAPTER IV.
VICTORY WITHOUT AND WITHIN.
"For poverty and self-renunciation
The Father yieldeth back a thousand-fold;
In the calm stillness of regeneration,
Cometh a joy we never knew of old."
Pietro was not avaricious. He cared nothing for the money as money.
His plan now was to cut off all supplies, and when his son, who had
always been accustomed to the daintiest and softest of living, and was
in no way inured to hardship, found that he was now literally a
beggar, he would, after a little privation, come to his senses, and
sue his father for pardon. This was his idea when he sought the bishop
and made his complaint to him. The bishop called Francis to appear
before him.
On the appointed day he appeared with his father. The venerable
bishop, who was a man of great good sense and wisdom, heard all there
was to hear, and then turning to the young man, he said--
"My son, thy father is greatly incensed against thee. If thou desirest
to consecrate thyself to God, restore to him all that is his."
He went on to say that the money was not really Francis', and
therefore he had no right to give away what was not his, besides God
would never accept money that was an occasion of sin between father
and son. Then Francis rose and said--
"My lord, I will give back everything to my father, even the clothes I
have had from him!"
Returning into a neighbouring room, he stripped off all his rich
garments, and clad only in a hair under-garment, laid them and the
purse of money at his father's feet.
[Sidenote: _One Father._]
"Now," he cried, "I have but one father, henceforth I can say in all
truth 'Our Father who art in Heaven!'"
There was a moment of dead silence. Everybody present was too
astonished to speak, then Pietro gathered up the garments and money,
and withdrew. A murmur of pity swept through the crowd as they looked
at the young man standing half-naked before the tribunal. But no
sentiments of pity stirred Pietro. Easy and good-natured when things
went according to his liking, he was equally hard and unbending if his
will was crossed. It was to him a rude awakening out of a glorious,
golden dream, and from his standpoint life looked hard.
When Pietro departed the old bishop threw his own mantle round the
young man's shoulders, and sent out for some suitable garment.
Nothing, however, was forthcoming except a peasant's cloak belonging
to one of the gardeners. This Francis gladly put on and passed out of
the bishop's hall--a homeless wanderer on the face of the earth.
He was not inclined to return to St. Damian's at once. He desired
solitude, so he plunged into the woods. As he travelled he sang with
all his might praises to God in the French tongue. His singing
attracted the notice of some robbers who were hidden in the fastness
of the woods. They sprang out and seized him, demanding--
"Who are you?"
Francis always courteous replied,
"I am the herald of the Great King. But what does that concern you?"
The robbers laughed at him for a madman, and after they had made game
of him for a time, they tore his garment from his back, and tossing him
into a deep ditch where a quantity of snow still lay, they made off
crying,
"Lie there, you poor herald of the Good God!"
When they had disappeared Francis scrambled out stiff with cold and
clad only in his one garment, and went on his way singing as before.
[Sidenote: _Kitchen Assistant._]
Happily his wanderings speedily brought him to a monastery among the
mountains. He knocked at the door and begged for help. The monks
regarded this strange half-naked applicant with much suspicion, and
one can hardly blame them. Nevertheless they received him, and gave
him employment in their kitchen as assistant to the cook, to do the
rough and heavy work. His food was of the commonest and coarsest, and
it never seemed to occur to any of them that he would be the better
for a few more clothes. When his solitary garment appeared in imminent
danger of dropping to pieces he left the monastery and went on a
little further to a neighbouring town where a friend of his lived. He
made his way to this friend and asked him out of charity to provide
him with a worn garment to cover his nakedness. The case was
manifestly an urgent one, and the friend bestowed upon him a suit of
clothes consisting of a tunic, leather belt, shoes, and a stick. It
was very much the kind of costume then worn by the hermits.
From here he started back again to St. Damian's. He stopped on his way
to visit a lazar-house, and help in the care of the lepers. He had
quite gotten over all his early antipathies, and it was a joy to him
now to minister to those poor diseased ones. Probably he would have
spent a much longer season here if it were not that again he seemed to
hear the same voice calling him to repair the ruined church. So he
left the lazar-house and proceeded on his way. He told his friend the
priest that he was in no way disappointed or cast down, and that he
had good reason to believe that he would be able to accomplish his
purpose.
There was only one way in which he could attain this end. Money he had
none, neither did he know of anyone who loved God and His cause well
enough to expend a little of their riches in rebuilding His house.
Next day saw him at work. Up and down the streets of his native town
he went begging for stones to rebuild St. Damian.
"He who gives me one stone shall receive one blessing, he who gives me
two will have two blessings, and he who gives me three, three
blessings."
[Sidenote: "_He is quite Mad._"]
The people were unable to do anything at first from pure
astonishment. Francis Bernardone, the gay cavalier, the leader of
feasts and song, sueing in the streets like a common beggar! They
could hardly believe their eyes! "Truly the fellow was mad," they said
to each other! But he did not look mad. His smile was as sweet as
ever, and the native, polished, courtly manners that had won for him
so many friends, now that they were sanctified, were doubly winning.
It was impossible to resist him, and stones were brought him in
quantities. Load after load, interminable loads he bore on his back
like a labourer to St. Damian. Up the steep little path he toiled
between the grey-green olives, on and into the tangle of cypress and
pine, and there stone by stone with his own hands he repaired the
crumbling walls. It was a long wearisome toilsome work, and told
considerably on his health.
"He is _quite_ mad," reiterated some as the days passed from spring to
summer, and from summer to autumn and from autumn into winter again.
But there were others who watched him with tears in their eyes. _They_
knew he was not mad. They realized that a great power had changed the
once refined man into a servant of all--even the constraining power of
the love of Christ, and they shed tears when they thought how far they
came short.
The priest of St. Damian's was deeply touched at Francis'
self-sacrificing work, and often grieved when he saw him doing what he
was physically so unfitted for. He conceived a violent admiration for
his young lodger, and in spite of his poverty he always contrived to
have some dainty dish, or tit-bit for him when he returned to meals.
Now Francis always had been particular as to his food, he liked it
well served, and he was also very fond of all kinds of sweets and
confectionery. For a time he thanked his friend and ate gratefully the
pleasant dishes he had provided. One day as he sat at dinner the
thought came to him "what should I do if I had nobody to provide my
meals." Then he saw for the first time that he was still under bondage
to his appetite. He enjoyed nice food, it seemed necessary to him--but
was it like that Life he so earnestly strove to copy. Francis sat
condemned. The next moment he jumped up and seizing a wooden bowl he
went round the streets from door to door begging for scraps of broken
meat and bread. The people stared harder than ever, but in a little
time his bowl was quite full, and he returned home and sat down to eat
his rations.
[Sidenote: _A Beggar._]
He tried hard, but he turned against them with loathing. In all his
life he thought he had never seen such a horrid collection! Then,
lifting his heart to God, he made another trial and tasted the food.
Lo and behold it was not bad, and as he continued his coarse meal he
thought that no dish had ever tasted better! Praising God for victory
he went to the priest and told him that he would be no further expense
to him, from henceforth he would beg his meals.
When Pietro heard that his son had added to his eccentricities by
begging for his food his anger knew no bounds! When he met him in the
streets he blushed with shame, and often cursed him. But if his family
were ashamed of him, there were many among the townsfolk with whom he
found sympathy. Help came in on all sides, and at last the walls were
repaired, and the church was no longer in danger of tumbling into a
mass of ruins. What was needed for the inside was got in the same way
as the stones, and pretty soon a congregation was forthcoming.
One of the hardest sacrifices God required from Francis connected with
this work was one evening when he was out begging from house to house
for oil to light the church. He came to a house where an entertainment
was going on, a feast very similar to those he had so often presided
over in his worldly days. He looked down on his poor common dress, and
thought with shame what a figure he would cut among the gay,
well-dressed crowd within. For a moment he felt tempted to skip this
house. But it was only for a moment; reproaching himself bitterly, he
pushed in and standing before the festive gathering, told them simply
how much he had objected to coming in, and for what reason, adding
that he feared his timidity was counted to him as sin, because he was
working in God's name, and in His service. His request was taken in
good part, and his words so touched all present that they were eager
to give him the aid he sought.
[Sidenote: _St. Damian's Finished._]
After St. Damian's was quite restored, Francis set to work and did the
same for two other equally needy churches in the vicinity. One was St.
Peter's, and the other St. Mary's or the Portiuncula. The second one
became eventually the cradle of the Franciscan movement. Here he built
for himself a cell, where he used to come to pour out his soul in
prayer. When his work of repairing came to an end, he gave himself up
to meditation, his whole idea being that he would henceforth lead the
life of a recluse. But God disposed!
CHAPTER V.
FRANCIS' CALL.
"Oh, my Lord, the Crucified,
Who for love of me hast died,
Mould me by Thy living breath,
To the likeness of Thy death,
While the thorns Thy brows entwine,
Let no flower wreath rest on mine."
But Francis kept a listening ear. God's word was his law, and though
he to a certain extent planned what he would do next, yet he left
himself entirely free in his Lord's hands, and at His disposal. Had he
not remained in this attitude of soul, or had he become wise in his
own conceits, or failed to keep his heart and soul fresh with the
first vital freshness of regeneration, what would have become of the
great Franciscan movement that was destined ultimately to stir the
world? God alone knows. _He_ keeps count of lost opportunities, calls
neglected, soul stirrings lulled to barren fruitless slumber!
The natural tendency of a soul which has been awakened to great
action, and accomplished daring feats, is--the first strain passed--to
relax, or settle down. It is only the minority that struggle and fight
and get the victory over this subtle temptation. The same principle
applies in a larger scale, and that is why it is so many glorious
religious movements have run a course and then dwindled into
mediocrity, the later disciples carving for themselves a medium way.
Francis' life-work might easily have dwindled into nothing just here.
He had not the least intimation that the Lord demanded anything more
of him but that he should love and serve Him all the days of his life,
in an ordinary unobtrusive manner. Two years had been spent in
repairing the churches, and Francis was now between twenty-seven and
twenty-eight years of age.
[Sidenote: _His Commission._]
It was on the twenty-fourth of February in the year 1209 that he
received his call to direct spiritual work. That morning he went to
church as usual, and the words of the Gospel for the day came to him
direct from Jesus Christ Himself.
"Wherever ye go preach, saying, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. Freely ye have
received, freely give. Provide neither silver nor gold nor brass in
your purses, neither scrip, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor staff, for
the laborer is worthy of his hire.'"
These words were a revelation.
"This is what I want," cried Francis, as he left the church, conscious
for the first time that he had wanted something. "This is what I have
long been seeking, from this day forth I shall set myself with all my
strength to put it in practice."
Immediately he took up his new commission. He threw away his shoes,
his stick, his purse, and put on the coarse dress of the peasant of
the Apennines, and girded it with a rough piece of rope, the first
thing he could find. Thus equipped, he set out a true Knight of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and for the first time in his life began to talk to
the people he met about their souls. That eloquent fiery tongue, that
was destined to make him one of the orators of the age, had not yet
become unloosed, and Francis was simplicity itself. Indeed, he did not
at first attempt to make anything like a speech or sermon. His efforts
were directed towards people whom he was acquainted with, and these he
urged to repent in the name of the Lord. He told his own experience,
and spoke of the shortness of life, of punishment after death, of the
need of heart and life holiness. His halting words struck home, they
pierced like a sword, and many thus convicted, repented and turned
from their evil ways.
[Sidenote: _A Sanctified Leader of Men._]
For over two years now, Francis had lived a solitary, and--humanly
speaking--a lonely life. He had, however, during that time proved the
sufficiency of God. We do not read that he ever longed for a human
friend, one that could understand and sympathise with him, so richly
had God supplied his every need. But the time had come when his
solitude was to end. God was about to raise him up friends. Again he
was to take up his old position as a leader of men, only a sanctified
one.
Bernardo di Quintavelle was a man of birth and position. He was a few
years older than Francis, and as he lived in Assisi, he had full
opportunity of watching all Francis' vagaries, for so his actions
looked to him at first. However, as time passed, and Francis' supposed
mania failed to develop into anything very dangerous, Bernardo puzzled
and wondered. What was it, he asked himself, that had so completely
changed the gay, frivolous, ease-loving Francis Bernardone, into a
poor hard-working beggar? Was he really as good and holy as the common
people began to whisper to themselves? We must bear in mind that vital
religion in Assisi was at its lowest ebb, and the kind that worked
itself out in daily life and action almost unknown.
Pretty soon Bernardo determined to study Francis close to. Again and
again he invited him to his house, and the more he saw of the
gracious, humble, God-fearing, Francis, the more he liked him. One
night he asked him to stay till the next day, and Francis consenting,
he had a bed made up for him in his own room. They retired. In a short
time Bernardo was, to all appearances, extremely sound asleep. Then
Francis rose from his bed, and kneeling down began to pray. A deep
sense of the Divine presence overflowed him, and he could do nothing
but weep and cry, "Oh, my God, oh, my God!" He continued all night
praying, and weeping before the Lord.
[Sidenote: _Bernardo._]
Now Bernardo, who was only pretending to be asleep in order to see
what Francis would do, was greatly touched. God visited him too that
night, and spoke to his soul so loudly and clearly that he dare not do
ought but follow the light that that night began to glimmer on his
future path. Little he thought into what a large place it would
ultimately lead him.
Next morning, true to his new-born inspiration, he said to Francis--
"I am disposed in my heart to leave the world and obey thee in all
that thou shalt command me."
To say that Francis was surprised is to say too little! He was
astonished--so astonished that it was difficult to find words in which
to answer. That the people he influenced would rise up and desire to
share his life, with its privations, and eccentricities had never as
yet occurred to him. His sole and only aim had been that his every
individual act and thought should be in conformity to that of our Lord
Jesus Christ. But "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,"
and Francis, by his humble life and work, had brought that Blessed
Life wherever he went. This is the Divine design for every faithful
soul that seeks to truly follow its Master. The man who could live and
spread holiness as an ordinary day-laborer and stone-mason was now to
receive a greater charge. As soon as he recovered from the first
surprise of Bernardo's statement, he said--
"Bernardo, a resolution such as the one thou speakest of is so
difficult, and so great an action, that we must take counsel of the
Lord Jesus, and pray Him that He may point out His will, and teach us
to follow it."
So they set off together for the church. While on their way there that
morning they were joined by another brother called Pietro, who said
that he too had been told of God to join Francis. So the three went
together to read the Gospels and pray for light.
Francis was soon convinced that Bernardo and Pietro were led of God,
and joyfully welcomed them as his fellow-laborers. They took up their
abode in a deserted mud hut, close by a river known as the Riva Torto.
And that mean little hut was the cradle which contained the beginning
of a work that spread itself into every quarter of the globe.
[Sidenote: _Egidio._]
"Francis," said Bernardo, a little later, "What wouldst thou do
supposing a great king had given thee possessions for which thou
afterwards hadst no use?"
"Why, give them back to be sure," answered Francis.
"Then," said Bernardo, "I will that I sell all my possessions, and
give the money to the poor."
So he did. Land, houses, all that he possessed he sold, and
distributed the proceeds to the poor in the market-place. One can
easily imagine the sensation this caused in Assisi, and how almost the
entire population thronged to the spot!
The news of this day's doings spread into all the country-side. In a
town not far from Assisi, a certain young man, called Egidio, listened
intently while his father and mother discussed Bernardo and Francis
and went into their history past and present, and speculated on their
future. Little they thought as they talked that their cultured,
refined son was drinking in every word, and that his soul was being
strangely stirred. Before the week was out, Egidio had received the
Divine touch that fitted him to respond to the call--"Follow Me." In
the marvellously colored dawn of an Italian morning, Egidio rose and
"followed."
Arriving in Assisi at a crossway he was at a standstill. Where should
he look for Francis? Which of those roads should he take? While he
thus alternately debated with himself, and prayed for guidance, who
should he see coming along out of the forest where he had been to
pray, but Francis himself! There was no mistaking that curious
bare-footed figure, with its coarse robe of the color known to the
peasants as "beast" color, girded with a knotted rope! Egidio threw
himself at Francis' feet, and besought him to receive him for the love
of God.
"Dear brother," said Francis, who during the past week had learned not
to be surprised when he received candidates for his work. "Dear
brother, God hath conferred a great grace upon thee! If the Emperor
were to come to Assisi and propose to make one of its citizens his
knight or secret chamberlain, would not such an offer be joyfully
accepted as a great mark of honor and distinction? How much more
shouldst thou rejoice that God hath called thee to be His Knight and
chosen servant, to observe the perfection of His Holy Gospel!
Therefore do thou stand firm in the vocation to which God hath called
thee."
[Sidenote: _First Apostolic Tour._]
So bringing him into the hut Francis called the others and said--
"God has sent us a good brother, let us therefore rejoice in the Lord
and eat together in charity."
After they had eaten breakfast Francis took Egidio into Assisi to get
cloth to make him a "beast-colored" uniform robe like the others. On
the way Francis thought he would like to try the young man and see
what kind of a spirit he had. So upon meeting a poor woman, who asked
them for money, Francis said to Egidio--
"I pray you, as we have no money, give this poor woman your cloak."
Immediately and joyfully Egidio pulled off his rich mantle and handed
it to the beggar, whereat Francis rejoiced much in secret.
It was a united household that assembled under the rude roof of the
mud hut by the Riva Torto. Four young men bound together in love, and
resolved to serve God absolutely in whatever way He should show them,
we shall see, ere long, how God used these human instruments which
were so unreservedly placed at His disposal. They were very happy for
a few days, and gave themselves up almost entirely to prayer; then
Francis led them into the seclusion of the woods and explained to them
how the Divine will had manifested itself to his soul.
"We must," he said, "clearly understand our vocation. It is not for
our personal salvation only, but for the salvation of a great many
others that God has mercifully called us. He wishes us to go through
the world, and by example even more than by words, exhort men to
repentance, and the keeping of the commandments." Bernardo, Pietro and
Egidio declared that they were willing for anything, and so the four
separated, two by two, for a preaching tour. Of Bernardo and Pietro
history is silent, but nothing could have been more simple than the
Apostolic wanderings of Francis and Egidio in the Marches of Ancona.
Along the roads they went wherever the Spirit of God led them singing
songs of God and Heaven. Their songs together with their happy
countenances and strange costume, naturally attracted the people, and
when a number would collect to stare at them, Francis would address
them, and Egidio, with charming simplicity accentuated all he said
with--
[Sidenote: _A Sermonette._]
"You must believe what my brother Francis tells you, the advice he
gives you is very good." But don't for a moment imagine that Francis
was capable of giving an address. Far from it; he was, truth to say,
very little in advance of Egidio, the burden of his cry being--
"Love God, fear Him, repent and you shall be forgiven;" then when
Egidio had chorused,
"Do as my brother Francis tells you, the advice he gives you is very
good," the two missionaries passed singing on their way!
But the impression produced was far beyond their simple words. The
religious history of the times tells us that the love of God was
almost dead in men's hearts, that the world had forgotten the meaning
of the word repentance, and was entirely given up to lust and vice and
pleasure. People asked each other what could be the object these men
had in view. Why did they go about roughly-clad, bare-foot, and eating
so little. "They are madmen" some said. Others "Madmen could not talk
so wisely." Others again, more thoughtful, said, "They seem to care so
little for life, they are desperate, and must be either mad, or else
they are aspiring to very great perfection!"
When the four had been through almost all the Province they returned
to Riva Torto, where they found three new candidates clamoring for
admission. Others followed, and when the numbers had increased to
about eight, Francis led them to a spot where four roads met, and sent
them out two and two to the four points of the compass to preach the
Gospel. Everywhere they went they were to urge men to repentance, and
point them to a Saviour who could forgive sins. They were to accept no
food they had not either worked for, or received as alms for the love
of Christ.
CHAPTER VI.
FRANCIS' EARLY DISCIPLES.
'Then forth they
|
, an' you all, till I
went; but, thank God, I hope it's the last journey ever I'll have to
take from either you or it."
"Shibby, run down to--or do you, Dora, go, you're the souplest--to Paddy
Mullen's and Jemmy Kelly's, and the rest of the neighbors, an' tell them
to come up, that your father's home. Run now, acushla, an' if you fall
don't wait to rise; an' Shibby, darlin', do you whang down a lot o' that
bacon into rashers, 'your father must be at death's door wid hunger;
but wasn't it well that I thought of having the whiskey in, for you see
afther Thursday last we didn't know what minute you'd dhrop in on us,
Tom, an' I said it was best to be prepared. Give Peety a chair, the
crature; come forrid, Peety, an' take a sate; an' how are you? an' how
is the girsha wid you, an' where is she?"
To these questions, thus rapidly put, Peety returned suitable answers;
but indeed Mrs. M'Mahon did not wait to listen to them, having gone to
another room to produce the whisky she had provided for the occasion.
"Here," she said, reappearing with a huge bottle in one hand and a glass
in the other, "a sip o' the right sort will help you afther your long
journey; you must be tired, be coorse, so take this."
"Aisy, Bridget," exclaimed her husband, "don't fill it; you'll make me
hearty." (* tipsy)
"Throth an' I will fill it," she replied, "ay, an' put a heap on it.
There now, finish that bumper."
The old man, with a smiling and happy face, received the glass, and
taking his wife's hand in his, looked at her, and then upon them all,
with an expression of deep emotion. "Bridget, your health; childre', all
your healths; and here's to Carriglasa, an' may we long live happy in
it, as we will, plase God! Peety, not forgettin' you!"
We need hardly say that the glass went round, nor that Peety was not
omitted in the hospitality any more than in the toast.
"Here, Bryan," said Mrs. M'Mahon, "lay that bottle on the dresser, it's
not worth while puttin' it past till the neighbors comes up; an' it's
they that'll be the glad neighbors to see you safe back agin, Tom."
In this she spoke truth. Honest and hearty was the welcome he received
from them, as with sparkling eyes and a warm grasp they greeted him
on his return. Not only had Paddy Mullin and Jemmy Kelly run up in
haste--the latter, who had been digging in his garden, without waiting
to put on his hat or coat--but other families in the neighborhood, young
and old, crowded in to welcome him home---from Dublin--for in that lay
the principal charm. The bottle was again produced, and a holiday spirit
now prevailed among them. Questions upon questions were put to him with
reference to the wonders they had heard of the great metropolis--of
the murders and robberies committed upon travellers--the kidnapping of
strangers from the country--the Lord Lieutenant's Castle, with three
hundred and sixty-four windows in it, and all the extraordinary sights
and prodigies which it is supposed to contain. In a few minutes after
this friendly accession to their numbers had taken place, a youth
entered about nineteen years of age--handsome, tall, and well-made--in
fact, such a stripling as gave undeniable promise of becoming a fine,
powerful young man. On being handed a glass of whiskey he shook hands
with M'Mahon, welcomed him home, and then drank all their healths by
name until he came to that of Dora, when he paused, and, coloring,
merely nodded towards her. We cannot undertake to account for this
omission, nor do more than record what actually happened. Neither do we
know why Dora blushed so deeply as she did, nor why the sparkling and
rapid glance which she gave him in return occasioned him to look down
with an appearance of confusion and pain. That some understanding
subsisted between young Cavanagh--for he was Gerald's son--and Dora
might have been evident to a close observer; but in truth there was
at that moment no such thing as a close observer among them, every eye
being fixed with impatience and curiosity upon Tom M'Mahon, who had now
most of the conversation to himself, little else being left to the share
of his auditors than the interjectional phrases and exclamations of
wonder at his extraordinary account of Dublin.
"But, father," said Bryan, "about the business that brought you there?
Did you get the Renewal?"
"I got as good," replied the simple-hearted old man, "an' that was the,
word of a gintleman--an' sure they say that that's the best security in
the world."
"Well, but how was it?" they exclaimed, "an' how did it happen that you
didn't get the Lease itself?"
"Why, you see," he proceeded in reply, "the poor gintleman was near his
end--an' it was owin' to Pat Corrigan that I seen him at all--for Pat,
you know, is his own man. When I went in to where he sat I found Mr.
Fethertonge the agent wid him: he had a night-cap on, an' was sittin'
in a big armchair, wid one of his feet an' a leg swaythed wid flannel. I
thought he was goin' to write or sign papers. 'Well, M'Mahon,' says
he--for he was always as keen as a briar, an' knew me at once--'what do
you want? an' what has brought you from the country?' I then spoke to him
about the new lease; an' he said to Fethertonge, 'prepare M'Mahon's
lease, Fothertonge;--you shall have a new lease, M'Mahon. You are an
honest man, and your family have been so for many a long year upon
our property. As my health is unsartin,' he said, turning to Mr.
Fethertonge, 'I take Mr. Fethertonge here to witness, that in case
anything should happen me I give you my promise for a renewal--an' not
only in my name alone, but in my son's; an' I now lave it upon him to
fulfil my intentions an' my words, if I should not live to see it done
myself. Mr. Fethertonge here has brought me papers to sign, but I am not
able to hould a pen, or if I was I'd give you a written promise; but
you have my solemn word, I fear my dyin' word, in Mr. Fethertonge's
presence--that you shall have a lease of your farm at the ould rint. It
is such tenants as you we want, M'Mahon, an' that we ought to encourage
on our property. Fethertonge, do you in the mane time see that a lease
is prepared for M'Mahon; an' see, at all events, that my wishes shall be
carried into effect.' Sich was his last words to me, but he was a corpse
on the next day but one afterwards."
"It's jist as good," they exclaimed with one voice; "for what is
betther, or what can be betther than _the word of an Irish gentleman?_"
"What ought to be betther, at all events?" said Bryan. "Well, father, so
far everything is right, for there is no doubt but his son will fulfil
his words--Mr. Fethertonge himself isn't the thing; but I don't see why
he should be our enemy. We always stood well with the ould man, an' I
hope will with the son. Come, mother, move the bottle again--there's
another round in it still; an' as everything looks so well and our mind
is aisy, we'll see it to the bottom."
The conversation was again resumed, questions were once more asked
concerning the sights and sounds of Dublin, of which one would imagine
they could scarcely ever hear enough, until the evening was tolerably
far advanced, when the neighbors withdrew to their respective homes, and
left M'Mahon and his family altogether to themselves.
Peety, now that the joy and gratulation for the return of their
father had somewhat subsided, lost no time in delivering Hycy Burke's
communication into the hands of Bryan. The latter, on opening it,
started with surprise not inferior to that with which Kathleen Cavanagh
had perused the missive addressed to her. Nor was this all. The letter
received by Bryan, as if the matter had been actually designed by the
writer, produced the selfsame symptoms of deep resentment upon him that
the mild and gentle Kathleen Cavanagh experienced on the perusal of her
own. His face became flushed and his eye blazed with indignation as
he went through its contents; after which he once more looked at the
superscription, and notwithstanding the vehement passion into which it
had thrown him, he was ultimately obliged to laugh.
"Peety," said he, resuming his gravity, "you carried a letter from Hycy
Burke to Kathleen Cavanagh to-day?"
"Who says that?" replied Peety, who could not but remember the solemnity
of his promise to that accomplished gentleman.
"I do, Peety."
"Well, I can't help you, Bryan, nor prevent you from thinking so,
sure--stick to that."
"Why, I know you did, Peety."
"Well, acushla, an' if you do, your only so much the wiser."
"Oh, I understand," continued Bryan, "it's a private affair, or intended
to be so--an' Mr. Hycy has made you promise not to spake of it."
"Sure you know all about it, Bryan; an' isn't that enough for you? Only
what answer am I to give him?"
"None at present, Peety; but say I'll see himself in a day or two."
"That's your answer, then?"
"That's all the answer I can give till I see himself, as I said."
"Well, good-bye, Bryan, an' God be wid you!"
"Good-bye, Peety!" and thus they parted.
CHAPTER III.--Jemmy Burke Refuses to be, Made a Fool Of
--Hycy and a Confidant
Hycy Burke was one of those persons who, under the appearance of a
somewhat ardent temperament, are capable of abiding the issue of
an event with more than ordinary patience. Having not the slightest
suspicion of the circumstance which occasioned Bryan M'Mahon's
resentment, he waited for a day of two under the expectation that his
friend was providing the sum necessary to accommodate him. The third
and fourth days passed, however, without his having received any reply
whatsoever; and Hycy, who had set his heart upon Crazy Jane, on
finding that his father--who possessed as much firmness as he did of
generosity--absolutely refused to pay for her, resolved to lose no more
time in putting Bryan's friendship to the test. To this, indeed, he was
urged by Burton, a wealthy but knavish country horse-dealer, as we said,
who wrote to him that unless he paid for her within a given period, he
must be under the necessity of closing with a person who had offered
him a higher price. This message was very offensive to Hycy, whose
great foible, as the reader knows, was to be considered a gentleman, not
merely in appearance, but in means and circumstances. He consequently
had come to the determination of writing again to M'Mahon upon the same
subject, when chance brought them together in the market of Ballymacan.
After the usual preliminary inquiries as to health, Hycy opened the
matter:--
"I asked you to lend me five-and-thirty pounds to secure Crazy Jane,"
said he, "and you didn't even answer my letter. I admit I'm pretty
deeply in your debt, as it is, my dear Bryan, but you know I'm safe."
"I'm not at this moment thinking much of money matters, Hycy; but,
as you like plain speaking, I tell you candidly that I'll lend you no
money."
Hycy's manner changed all at once; he looked at M'Mahon for nearly a
minute, and said in quite a different tone--
"What is the cause of this coldness, Bryan? Have I offended you?"
"Not knowingly--but you have offended me; an' that's all I'll say about
it."
"I'm not aware of it," replied the other---"my word and honor I'm not."
Bryan felt himself in a position of peculiar difficulty; he could not
openly quarrel with Hycy, unless he made up his mind to disclose the
grounds of the dispute, which, as matters then stood between him and
Kathleen Cavanagh, to whom he had not actually declared his affection,
would have been an act of great presumption on his part.
"Good-bye, Hycy," said he; "I have tould you my mind, and now I've done
with it."
"With all my heart!" said the other--"that's a matter of taste on your
part. You're offended, you say; yet you choose to put the offence in
your pocket. It's all right, I suppose--but you know best. Good-bye
to you, at all events," he added; "be a good boy and take care of
yourself."
M'Mahon nodded with good-humored contempt in return, but spoke not.
"By all that deserves an oath," exclaimed Hycy, looking bitterly after
him, "if I should live to the day of judgment I'll never forgive you
your insulting conduct this day--and that I'll soon make you feel to
your cost!"
This misunderstanding between the two friends caused Hycy to feel much
mortification and disappointment. After leaving M'Mahon, he went through
the market evidently with some particular purpose in view, if one could
judge from his manner. He first proceeded to the turf-market, and looked
with searching eye among those who stood waiting to dispose of their
loads. From this locality he turned his steps successively to other
parts of the town, still looking keenly about him as he went along. At
length he seemed disappointed or indifferent, it was difficult to say
which, and stood coiling the lash of his whip in the dust, sometimes
quite unconsciously, and sometimes as if a wager depended on the success
with which he did it--when, on looking down the street, he observed a
little broad, squat man, with a fiery red head, a face almost scaly with
freckles, wide projecting cheek-bones, and a nose so thoroughly of the
saddle species, that a rule laid across the base of it, immediately
between the eyes, would lie close to the whole front of his face. In
addition to these personal accomplishments, he had a pair of strong bow
legs, terminating in two broad, flat feet, in complete keeping with
his whole figure, which, though not remarkable for symmetry, was
nevertheless indicative of great and extraordinary strength. He wore
neither stockings nor cravat of any kind, but had a pair of strong
clouted brogues upon his feet; thus disclosing to the spectator two legs
and a breast that were covered over with a fell of red close hair that
might have been long and strong enough for a badger. He carried in his
hand a short whip, resembling a carrot in shape, and evidently of such
a description as no man that had any regard for his health would wish to
come in contact with, especially from the hand of such a double-jointed
but misshapen Hercules as bore it.
"Ted, how goes it, my man?"
"_Ghe dhe shin dirthu, a dinaousal?_" replied Ted, surveying him with a
stare.
"D--n you!" was about to proceed from Hycy's lips when he perceived
that a very active magistrate, named Jennings, stood within hearing. The
latter passed on, however, and Hycy proceeded:--"I was about to abuse
you, Ted, for coming out with your Irish to me," he said, "until I saw
Jennings, and then I _had_ you."
"Throgs, din, Meeisther Hycy, I don't like the _Bairlha_ (* English
tongue)--'caise I can't sphake her properly, at all, at all. Come you
'out wid the Gailick fwhor me, i' you plaise, Meeisther Hycy."
"D--n your Gaelic!" replied Hycy--"no, I won't--I don't speak it."
"The Laud forget you for that!" replied Ted, with a grin; "my ould
grandmudher might larn it from you--hach, ach, ha!"
"None of your d--d impertinence, Ted. I want to speak to you."
"Fwhat would her be?" asked Ted, with a face in which there might be
read such a compound of cunning, vacuity, and ferocity as could rarely
be witnessed in the same countenance.
"Can you come down to me to-night?"
"No; I'll be busy."
"Where are you at work now?"
"In Glendearg, above."
"Well, then, if you can't come to me, I must only go to you. Will you be
there tonight? I wish to speak to you on very particular business."
"Shiss; you _will_, dhin, wanst more?" asked the other, significantly.
"I think so."
"Shiss--ay--vary good. Fwen will she come?"
"About eleven or twelve; so don't be from about the place anywhere."
"Shiss---dhin--vary good. Is dhat all?"
"That's all now. Are your turf _dry_ or _wet_* to-day?"
* One method of selling Poteen is by bringing in kishes of
turf to the neighboring markets, when those who are up to
the secret purchase the turf, or pretend to do so; and while
in the act of discharging the load, the Keg of Poteen is
quickly passed into the house of him who purchases the
turf.--Are your turf wet or dry? was, consequently, a pass-
word.
"Not vary dhry," replied Ted, with a grin so wide that, as was
humorously said by a neighbor of his, "it would take a telescope to
enable a man to see from the one end of it to the other."
Hycy nodded and laughed, and Ted, cracking his whip, proceeded up the
town to sell his turf.
Hycy now sauntered about through the market, chatting here and there
among acquaintances, with the air of a man to whom neither life nor
anything connected with it could occasion any earthly trouble. Indeed,
it mattered little what he felt, his easiness of manner was such that
not one of his acquaintances could for a moment impute to him the
possibility of ever being weighed down by trouble or care of any kind;
and lest his natural elasticity of spirits might fail to sustain this
perpetual buoyancy, he by no means neglected to fortify himself with
artificial support. Meet him when or where you might, be it at six
in the morning or twelve at night, you were certain to catch from his
breath the smell of liquor, either in its naked simplicity or disguised
and modified in some shape.
His ride home, though a rapid, was by no means a pleasing one. M'Mahon
had not only refused to lend him the money he stood in need of, but
actually quarrelled with him, as far as he could judge, for no other
purpose but that he might make the quarrel a plea for refusing him. This
disappointment, to a person of Hycy's disposition, was, we have seen,
bitterly vexatious, and it may be presumed that he reached home in
anything but an agreeable humor. Having dismounted, he was about to
enter the hall-door, when his attention was directed towards that of the
kitchen by a rather loud hammering, and on turning his eyes to the
spot he found two or three tinkers very busily engaged in soldering,
clasping, and otherwise repairing certain vessels belonging to that warm
and spacious establishment. The leader of these vagrants was a man named
Philip Hogan, a fellow of surprising strength and desperate character,
whose feats of hardihood and daring had given him a fearful notoriety
over a large district of the country. Hogan was a man whom almost every
one feared, being, from confidence, we presume, in his great strength,
as well as by nature, both insolent, overbearing, and ruffianly in the
extreme. His inseparable and appropriate companion was a fierce and
powerful bull-dog of the old Irish breed, which he had so admirably
trained that it was only necessary to give him a sign, and he would
seize by the throat either man or beast, merely in compliance with the
will of his master. On this occasion he was accompanied by two of his
brothers, who were, in fact, nearly as impudent and offensive ruffians
as himself. Hycy paused for a moment, seemed thoughtful, and tapped his
boot with the point of his whip as he looked at them. On entering the
parlor he found dinner over, and his father, as was usual, waiting to
get his tumbler of punch.
"Where's my mother?" he asked--"where's Mrs. Burke?"
On uttering the last words he raised his voice so as she might
distinctly hear him.
"She's above stairs gettin' the whiskey," replied his father, "and God
knows she's long enough about it."
Hycy ran up, and meeting her on the lobby, said, in a low, anxious
voice--
"Well, what news? Will he stand it?"
"No," she replied, "you may give up the notion--he won't do it, an'
there's no use in axin' him any more."
"He won't do it!" repeated the son; "are you certain now?"
"Sure an' sartin. I done all that could be done; but it's worse an'
worse he got."
Something escaped Hycy in the shape of an ejaculation, of which we are
not in possession at present; he immediately added:--
"Well, never mind. Heavens! how I pity you, ma'am--to be united to such
a d--d--hem!--to such a--a--such a--gentleman!"
Mrs. Burke raised her hands as if to intimate that it was useless to
indulge in any compassion of the kind.
"The thing's now past cure," she said; "I'm a marthyr, an' that's all
that's about it. Come down till I get you your dinner."
Hycy took his seat in the parlor, and began to give a stave of the "Bay
of Biscay:"--
"'Loud roar'd the dreadful thunder,
The rain a deluge pours;
The clouds were rent asunder
By light'ning's vivid--'
By the way, mother, what are those robbing ruffians, the Hogans, doing
at the kitchen door there?"
"Troth, whatever they like," she replied. "I tould that vagabond,
Philip, that I had nothing for them to do, an' says he, 'I'm the best
judge of that, Rosha Burke.' An, with that he walks into the kitchen,
an' takes everything that he seen a flaw in, an' there he and them sat
a mendin' an' sotherin' an' hammerin' away at them, without ever sayin'
'by your lave.'"
"It's perfectly well known that they're robbers," said Hycy, "and the
general opinion is that they're in connection with a Dublin gang, who
are in this part of the country at present. However, I'll speak to the
ruffians about such conduct."
He then left the parlor, and proceeding to the farmyard, made a signal
to one of the Hogans, who went down hammer in hand to where he stood.
During a period of ten minutes, he and Hycy remained in conversation,
but of what character it was, whether friendly or otherwise, the
distance at which they stood rendered it impossible for any one to
ascertain. Hycy then returned to dinner, whilst his father in the
meantime sat smoking his pipe, and sipping from time to time at his
tumbler of punch. Mrs. Burke, herself, occupied an arm-chair to the
left of the fire, engaged at a stocking which was one of a pair that she
contrived to knit for her husband during every twelve months; and on
the score of which she pleaded strong claims to a character of most
exemplary and indefatigable industry.
"Any news from the market, Hycy?" said his father.
"Yes," replied Hycy, in that dry ironical tone which he always used to
his parents--"rather interesting--Ballymacan is in the old place."
"Bekaise," replied his father, with more quickness than might be
expected, as he whiffed away the smoke with a face of very sarcastic
humor; "I hard it had gone up a bit towards the mountains--but I knew
you wor the boy could tell me whether it had or not--ha!--ha!--ha!"
This rejoinder, in addition to the intelligence Hycy had just received
from his mother, was not calculated to improve his temper. "You may
laugh," he replied; "but if your respectable father had treated you in a
spirit so stingy and beggarly as that which I experience at your hands,
I don't know how you might have borne it."
"My father!" replied Burke; "take your time, Hycy--my hand to you, he
had a different son to manage from what I have."
"God sees that's truth," exclaimed his wife, turning the expression to
her son's account.
"I was no gentleman, Hycy," Burke proceeded.
"Ah, is it possible?" said the son, with a sneer. "Are you sure of that,
now?"
"Nor no spendthrift, Hycy."
"No," said the wife, "you never had the spirit; you were ever and always
a _molshy_." (* A womanly, contemptible fellow)
"An' yet _molshy_ as I was," he replied, "you wor glad to catch me.
But Hycy, my good boy, I didn't cost my father at the rate of from a
hundre'-an'-fifty to two-hundre'-a-year, an' get myself laughed at and
snubbed by my superiors, for forcin' myself into their company."
"Can't you let the boy ait his dinner in peace, at any rate?" said his
mother. "Upon my credit I wouldn't be surprised if you drove him away
from us altogether."
"I only want to drive him into common sense, and the respectful feeling
he ought to show to both you an' me, Rosha," said Burke; "if he expects
to have either luck or grace, or the blessing of God upon him, he'll
change his coorses, an' not keep breakin' my heart as he's doin'."
"Will you pay for the mare I bought, father?" asked Hycy, very
seriously. "I have already told you, that I paid three guineas earnest;
I hope you will regard your name and family so far as to prevent me from
breaking my word--besides leading the world to suppose that you are a
poor man."
"Regard my name and family!" returned the father, with a look of
bitterness and sorrow; "who is bringin' them into disgrace, Hycy?"
"In the meantime," replied the son, "I have asked a plain question, Mr.
Burke, and I expect a plain answer; will you pay for the mare?"
"An' supposin' I don't?"
"Why, then, Mr. Burke, if you don't you won't, that's all."
"I must stop some time," replied his father, "an' that is now. I wont
pay for her."
"Well then, sir, I shall feel obliged, as your respectable wife has just
said, if you will allow me to eat, and if possible, live in peace."
"I'm speakin' only for your--"
"That will do now--hush--silence if you please."
"Hycy dear," said the mother; "why would you ax him another question
about it? Drop the thing altogether."
"I will, mother, but I pity you; in the meantime, I thank you, ma'am, of
your advice."
"Hycy," she continued, with a view of changing the conversation; "did
you hear that Tom M'Bride's dead?"
"No ma'am, but I expected it; when did he die?"
Before his father could reply, a fumbling was heard at the hall-door;
and, the next moment, Hogan, thrust in his huge head and shoulders began
to examine the lock by attempting to turn the key in it.
"Hogan, what are you about?" asked Hycy.
"I beg your pardon," replied the ruffian; "I only wished to know if the
lock wanted mendin'--that was all, Misther Hycy."
"Begone, sirra," said the other; "how dare you have the presumption to
take such a liberty? you impudent scoundrel! Mother, you had better pay
them," he added; "give the vagabonds anything they ask, to get rid of
them."
Having dined, her worthy son mixed a tumbler of punch, and while
drinking it, he amused himself, as was his custom, by singing snatches
of various songs, and drumming with his fingers upon the table; whilst
every now and then he could hear the tones of his mother's voice in high
altercation with Hogan and his brothers. This, however, after a time,
ceased, and she returned to the parlor a good deal chafed by the
dispute.
"There's one thing I wonder at," she observed, "that of all men in the
neighborhood, Gerald Cavanagh would allow sich vagabonds as they an Kate
Hogan is, to put in his kiln. Troth, Hycy," she added, speaking to him
in a warning and significant tone of voice, "if there wasn't something
low an' mane in him, he wouldn't do it."
"'Tis when the cup is smiling before us.
And we pledge unto our hearts--'
"Your health, mother. Mr. Burke, here's to you! Why I dare say you are
right, Mrs. Burke. The Cavanagh family is but an upstart one at best;
it wants antiquity, ma'am--a mere affair of yesterday, so what after all
could you expect from it?"
Honest Jemmy looked at him and then groaned. "An upstart
family!--that'll do--oh, murdher--well, 'tis respectable at all events;
however, as to havin' the Hogans about them--they wor always about them;
it was the same in their father's time. I remember ould Laghlin Hogan,
an' his whole clanjamfrey, men an' women, young an' old, wor near six
months out o' the year about ould Gerald Cavanagh's--the present man's
father; and another thing you may build upon--that whoever ud chance
to speak a hard word against one o' the Cavanagh family, before Philip
Hogan or any of his brothers, would stand a strong chance of a shirtful
o' sore bones. Besides, we all know how Philip's father saved Mrs.
Cavanagh's life about nine or ten months after her marriage. At any
rate, whatever bad qualities the vagabonds have, want of gratitude isn't
among them."
"'------That are true, boys, true,
The sky of this life opens o'er us,
And heaven--'
M'Bride, ma'am, will be a severe loss to his family."
"Throth he will, and a sarious loss--for among ourselves, there was none
o' them like him."
"'Gives a glance of its blue--'
"I think I ought to go to the wake to-night. I know it's a bit of a
descent on my part, but still it is scarcely more than is due to a
decent neighbor. Yes, I shall go; it is determined on."
"'I ga'ed a waefu' gate yestreen,
A gate I fear I'll dearly rue;
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue.'
"Mine are brown, Mrs. Burke--the eyes you wot of; but alas! the family is
an upstart one, and that is strongly against the Protestant interest in
the case. Heigho!"
Jemmy Burke, having finished his after-dinner pipe and his daily tumbler
both together, went out to his men; and Hycy, with whom he had left the
drinking materials, after having taken a tumbler or two, put on a strong
pair of boots, and changed the rest of his dress for a coarser'suit,
bade his mother a polite good-bye, and informed her, that as he intended
to be present at M'Bride's wake he would most probably not return until
near morning.
CHAPTER IV.--A Poteen Still-House at Midnight--Its Inmates.
About three miles in a south-western direction from Burke's residence,
the country was bounded by a range of high hills and mountains of a very
rugged and wild, but picturesque description. Although a portion of
the same landscape, yet nothing could be more strikingly distinct in
character than the position of the brown wild hills, as contrasted with
that of the mountains from which they abutted. The latter ran in long
and lofty ranges that were marked by a majestic and sublime simplicity,
whilst the hills were of all shapes and sizes, and seemed as if cast
about at random. As a matter of course the glens and valleys that
divided them ran in every possible direction, sometimes crossing and
intersecting each other at right angles, and sometimes running parallel,
or twisting away in opposite directions. In one of those glens that lay
nearest the mountains, or rather indeed among them, was a spot which
from its peculiar position would appear to have been designed from the
very beginning as a perfect paradise for the illicit distiller. It was a
kind of back chamber in the mountains, that might, in fact, have escaped
observation altogether, as it often did. The approach to it was by a
long precipitous glen, that could be entered only at its lower end, and
seemed to terminate against the abrupt side of the mountain, like a
cul de sac. At the very extremity, however, of this termination, and a
little on the right-hand side, there was a steep, narrow pass leading
into a recess which was completely encompassed by precipices. From this
there was only one means of escape independently of the gut through
which it was entered. The moors on the side most approachable were
level, and on a line to the eye with that portion of the mountains which
bounded it on the opposite side, so that as one looked forward the space
appeared to be perfectly continuous, and consequently no person could
suspect that there lay so deep and precipitous a glen between them.
In the northern corner of this remarkable locality, a deep cave, having
every necessary property as a place for private distillation, ran under
the rocks, which met over it in a kind of gothic arch. A stream of water
just sufficient for the requisite purposes, fell in through a fissure
from above, forming such a little subterraneous cascade in the cavern
as human design itself could scarcely have surpassed in felicity of
adaptation to the objects of an illicit distiller.
To this cave, then, we must take the liberty of transporting our
readers, in order to give them an opportunity of getting a peep at
the inside of a Poteen Still-house, and of hearing a portion of
conversation, which, although not remarkable for either elegance or
edification, we are, nevertheless, obliged to detail, as being in some
degree necessary to the elucidation of our narrative. Up in that end
which constituted the termination of the cave, and fixed upon a large
t
|
this problem in an atmosphere of genuine reality totally
unlike that of 1886, when Home Rule was a startling novelty to the
British electorate, or of 1893, when the shadow of impending defeat
clouded debate and weakened counsel. It would be pleasant to think that
the time which has elapsed, besides greatly mitigating anti-Irish
prejudice, had been used for scientific study and dispassionate
discussion of the problem of Home Rule. Unfortunately, after eighteen
years the problem remains almost exactly where it was. There are no
detailed proposals of an authoritative character in existence. No
concrete scheme was submitted to the country in the recent elections.
None is before the country now. The reason, of course, is that the Irish
question is still an acute party question, not merely in Ireland, but in
Great Britain. Party passion invariably discourages patient constructive
thought, and all legislation associated with it suffers in consequence.
Tactical considerations, sometimes altogether irrelevant to the special
issue, have to be considered. In the case of Home Rule, when the balance
of parties is positively determined by the Irish vote, the difficulty
reaches its climax. It is idle to blame individuals. We should blame the
Union. So long as one island democracy claims to determine the destinies
of another island democracy, of whose special needs and circumstances it
is admittedly ignorant, so long will both islands suffer.
This ignorance is not disputed. No Irish Unionist claims that Great
Britain should govern Ireland on the ground that the British electorate,
or even British statesmen, understand Irish questions. On the contrary,
in Ireland, at any rate, their ignorance is a matter for satirical
comment with all parties. What he complains of is, that the British
electorate is beginning to carry its ignorance to the point of believing
that the Irish electorate is competent to decide Irish questions, and
in educating the British electorate he has hitherto devoted himself
exclusively to the eradication of this error. The financial results of
the Union are such that he is now being cajoled into adding, "It is your
money, not your wisdom, that we want." Once more, an odd state of
affairs, and some day we shall all marvel in retrospect that the Union
was so long sustained by a separatist argument, reinforced in latter
days by such an inconsistent and unconscionable claim.
In the meantime, if only the present situation can be turned to
advantage, this crowning paradox is the most hopeful element in the
whole of a tangled question. It is not only that the British elector is
likely to revolt at once against the slur upon his intelligence and the
drain upon his purse, but that Irish Unionism, once convinced of the
tenacity and sincerity of that revolt, is likely to undergo a dramatic
and beneficent transformation. If they are to have Home Rule, Irish
Unionists--even those who now most heartily detest it--will want the
best possible scheme of Home Rule, and the best possible scheme is not
likely to be the half measure which, from no fault of the statesman
responsible for it, tactical difficulties may make inevitable. If the
vital energy now poured into sheer uncompromising opposition to the
principles of Home Rule could be transmuted into intellectual and moral
effort after the best form of Home Rule, I believe that the result would
be a drastic scheme.
Compromise enters more or less into the settlement of all burning
political questions. That is inevitable under the party system; but of
all questions under the sun, Home Rule questions are the least
susceptible of compromise so engendered. The subject, in reality, is not
suitable for settlement at Westminster. This is a matter of experience,
not of assertion. Within the present bounds of the Empire no lasting
Constitution has ever been framed for a subordinate State to the
moulding of which Parliament, in the character of a party assembly,
contributed an active share. Constitutions which promote prosperity and
loyalty have actually or virtually been framed by those who were to live
under them. If circumstances make it impossible to adopt this course for
Ireland, let us nevertheless remember that all the friction and enmity
between the Mother Country and subordinate States have arisen, not from
the absence, but from the inadequacy of self-governing powers. Checks
and restrictions, so far from benefiting Great Britain or the Colonies,
have damaged both in different degrees, the Colonies suffering most
because these checks and restrictions produce in the country submitted
to them peculiar mischiefs which exist neither under a despotic régime
nor an unnatural Legislative Union, fruitful of evil as both those
systems are. The damage is not evanescent, but is apt to bite deep into
national character and to survive the abolition of the institutions
which caused it. The Anglo-Irish Union was created and has ever since
been justified by a systematic defamation of Irish character. If it is
at length resolved to bury the slander and trust Ireland, in the name of
justice and reason let the trust be complete and the institutions given
her such as to permit full play to her best instincts and tendencies,
not such as to deflect them into wrong paths. Let us be scrupulously
careful to avoid mistakes which might lead to a fresh campaign of
defamation like that waged against Canada, as well as Ireland, between
1830 and 1840.
The position, I take it, is that most Irish Unionists still count,
rightly or wrongly, on defeating Home Rule, not only in the first
Parliamentary battle, but by exciting public opinion during the long
period of subsequent delay which the Parliament Bill permits. Not until
Home Rule is a moral certainty, and perhaps not even then, do the
extremists intend to consider the Irish Constitution in a practical
spirit. Surely this is a perilous policy. Surely it must be so regarded
by the moderate men--and there are many--who, if Home Rule comes, intend
to throw their abilities into making it a success, and who will be
indispensable to Ireland at a moment of supreme national importance.
Irretrievable mistakes may be made by too long a gamble with the chances
of political warfare. Whatever the scheme produced, the extremists will
have to oppose it tooth and nail. If the measure is big, sound, and
generous, it will be necessary to attack its best features with the
greatest vigour; to rely on beating up vague, anti-separatist sentiment
in Great Britain; to represent Irish Protestants as a timid race forced
to shelter behind British bayonets; in short, to use all the arguments
which, if Irish Unionists were compelled to frame a Constitution
themselves, they would scorn to employ, and which, if grafted on the Act
in the form of amendments, they themselves in after-years might
bitterly regret. Conversely, if the measure is a limited one, it will be
necessary to commend its worst features; to extol its eleemosynary side
and all the infractions of liberty which in actual practice they would
find intolerably irksome. Whatever happens, things will be said which
are not meant, and passions aroused which will be difficult to allay on
the eve of a crisis when Ireland will need the harmonious co-operation
of all her ablest sons.
If, behind the calculation of a victory within the next two years, there
lies the presentiment of an eventual defeat, let not the thought be
encouraged that a better form of Home Rule is likely to come from a Tory
than from a Liberal Government. Many Irish Unionists regard the prospect
of continued submission to a Liberal, or what they consider a
semi-Socialist, Government as the one consideration which would
reconcile them to Home Rule. No one can complain of that. But they make
a fatal mistake in denying Liberals credit for understanding questions
of Home Rule better than Tories. That, again, is a matter of proved
experience. Compare the abortive Transvaal Constitution of 1905 with the
reality of 1906, and measure the probable consequences of the former by
the actual results of the latter. Let them remember, too, that every
year which passes aggravates the financial difficulties which imperil
the future of Ireland.
The best hope of securing a final settlement of the Irish question in
the immediate future lies in promoting open discussion on the details of
the Home Rule scheme, and of drawing into that discussion all Irishmen
and Englishmen who realize the profound importance of the issue. This
book is offered as a small contribution to the controversy.
For help in writing it I am deeply indebted to many friends on both
sides of the Irish Channel, in Ireland to officials and private persons,
who have generously placed their experience at my disposal; while in
England I owe particular thanks to the Committee of which I had the
honour to be a member, which sat during the summer of this year under
the chairmanship of Mr. Basil Williams, and which published the series
of essays called "Home Rule Problems."
E.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The two latter works were written by Mr. Lecky in his Nationalist
youth the first and greater work after he had become a Unionist. They
form a connected whole, however, and are not inconsistent with one
another.
[2] See "Democracy and Liberty."
[3] "Did the people of Ireland understand that the destruction of the
Union, so lightly advocated by Lord Haldane, must result in the
cessation of those largely eleemosynary benefits to which the progress
of Ireland is due, her 'dissatisfaction' would be unmistakably directed
towards her false advisers?"--Letter to the _Belfast Telegraph_, October
7, 1911, criticizing Lord Haldane's preface to "Home Rule Problems."
ERRATA
Since this book went to press the Treasury has issued a revised version
of Return No. 220, 1911 [Revenue and Expenditure (England, Scotland, and
Ireland)], cancelling the Return issued in July, and correcting an error
made in it. It now appears that the "true" Excise revenue attributable
to Ireland from _spirits_ in 1910-11 (with deductions made by the
Treasury from the sum actually collected in Ireland) should be
£3,575,000, instead of £3,734,000, and that the total "true" Irish
revenue in that year was, therefore, £11,506,500, instead of
£11,665,500. In other words, Irish revenue for 1910-11 was
over-estimated in the Return now cancelled by £159,000.
The error does not affect the Author's argument as expounded in Chapters
XII. and XIII.; but it necessitates the correction of a number of
figures given by him, especially in Chapter XII., the principal change
being that the deficit in Irish revenue, as calculated on the mean of
the two years 1909-10 and 1910-11, should actually be £1,392,000,
instead of £1,312,500.
The full list of corrections is as follows:
Page 259, line 9, _for_ "£1,312,500," _read_ "£1,392,000."
Page 260, table, third column, line 6, _for_ "£10,032,000," _read_
"£9,952 500"; last line, _for_ "£1,312,500," _read_ "£1,392,000."
Page 261, table, last column, last line but one, _for_ "£321,000,"
_read_ "£162,000"; last line (total), _for_ "£329,780,970," _read_
"£329,621,970."
Page 262, line 7, _for_ "£10,032,000," _read_ "£9,952,500"; line 10,
_for_ "£1,312,500," _read_ "£1,392,000."
Page 275. table, last column, line 2, _for_ "£3,734,000," _read_
"£3,575,000"; line 7, _for_ "£10,371,000," _read_ "£10,212,000"; line
14, _for_ "£11,665,500," _read_, "£11,506,500"; in text, last line but
one of page, _for_ "£10,032,000," _read_ "£9,952,500."
Page 276, line 5, _for_ "£500,000," _read_, "£340,000"; table, last
column, line 2, _for_ "£3,316,000," _read_ "£3,236,500"; line 3, _for_
"£6,182,000," _read_ "£6,102,500"; line 9, _for_ "£8,737,500," _read_
"£8,658,000"; last line, _for_ "£10,032,000," _read_ "£9,952,500."
Page 277, line 2, _for_ "£1,672,500," _read_ "£1,752,000"; line 7, _for_
"£1,312,500," _read_ "£1,392,000"; line 8, _for_ "£10,032,000," _read_
"£9,952,500"; line 12, _for_ "£1,672,500," _read_ "£1,752,000";
footnote, line 1, _for_ "£1,793,000," _read_ "£1,952,000."
Page 279, line 8, _for_ "70.75," _read_ "70.48."
Page 282, sixth line from bottom, _for_ "£1,312,500," _read_
"£1,392,000."
* * * * *
Page 246, line 8 and footnote, and page 295, lines 21-31: A temporary
measure has been passed (Surplus Revenue Act, 1910), under which the
Surplus Commonwealth Revenue is returned to the States on a basis of £1
5s. per head of the population of each State.
* * * * *
Page 288, line 2, _omit_ "like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands."
These islands have distinct local tariffs, but they cannot be said to be
wholly under local control.
THE FRAMEWORK OF HOME RULE
CHAPTER I
THE COLONIZATION OF IRELAND AND AMERICA
I.
Ireland was the oldest and the nearest of the Colonies. We are apt to
forget that she was ever colonized, and that for a long period, although
styled a Kingdom, she was kept in a position of commercial and political
dependence inferior to that of any Colony. Constitutional theory still
blinds a number of people to the fact that in actual practice Ireland is
still governed in many respects as a Colony, but on principles which in
all other white communities of the British Empire are extinct. Like all
Colonies, she has a Governor or Lord-Lieutenant of her own, an Executive
of her own, and a complete system of separate Government Departments,
but her people, unlike the inhabitants of a self-governing Colony,
exercise no control over the administration. She possesses no
Legislature of her own, although in theory she is supposed to possess
sufficient legislative control over Irish affairs through representation
in the Imperial Parliament. In practice, however, this control has
always been, and still remains, illusory, just as it would certainly
have proved illusory if conferred upon any Colony. It can be exercised
only by cumbrous, circuitous, and often profoundly unhealthy methods;
and over a wide range of matters it cannot by any method whatsoever be
exercised at all.
To look behind mere technicalities to the spirit of government, Ireland
resembles one of that class of Crown Colonies of which Jamaica and Malta
are examples, where the inhabitants exercise no control over
administration, and only partial control over legislation.[4]
Why is this?
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, always frank and fearless in his political
judgments, gave the best answer in 1893, when opposing the first reading
of the second of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bills. "Does anybody doubt,"
he said, "that if Ireland were a thousand miles away from England she
would not have been long before this a self-governing Colony?" Now this
was not a barren geographical truism, which might by way of hypothesis
be applied in identical terms to any fraction of the United
Kingdom--say, for example, to that part of England lying south of the
Thames. Mr. Chamberlain never made any attempt to deny--no one with the
smallest knowledge of history could have denied--that Ireland, though
only sixty miles away from England, was less like England than any of
the self-governing Colonies then attached to the Crown, possessing
distinct national characteristics which entitled her, in theory at any
rate, to demand, not merely colonial, but national autonomy. On the
contrary, Mr. Chamberlain went out of his way to argue, with all the
force and fire of an accomplished debater, that the Bill was a highly
dangerous measure precisely because, while granting Ireland a measure of
autonomy, it denied her some of the elementary powers, not only of
colonial, but of national States; for instance, the full control over
taxation, which all self-governing Colonies possessed, and the control
over foreign policy, which is a national attribute. The complementary
step in his argument was that, although nominally withheld by statute,
these fuller powers would be forcibly usurped by the future Irish
Government through the leverage offered by a subordinate Legislature and
Executive, and that, once grasped, they would be used to the injury of
Great Britain and the minority in Ireland. Ireland ("a fearful danger")
might arm, ally herself with France, and, while submitting the
Protestant minority to cruel persecution, would retain enough national
unity to smite Britain hip and thigh, and so avenge the wrong of ages.
Even to the most ardent Unionist the case thus presented must, in the
year 1911, present a doubtful aspect. The British _entente_ with France,
and the absence of the smallest ascertainable sympathy between Ireland
and Germany, he will dismiss, perhaps, as points of minor importance,
but he will detect at once in the argument an antagonism, natural enough
in 1893, between national and colonial attributes, and he will remember,
with inner misgivings, that his own party has taken an especially active
part during the last ten years in furthering the claim of the
self-governing Colonies to the status of nationhood as an essential step
in the furtherance of Imperial unity. The word "nation," therefore, as
applied to Ireland, has lost some of its virtue as a deterrent to Home
Rule. Even the word "Colony" is becoming harmless; for every year that
has passed since 1893 has made it more abundantly clear that colonial
freedom means colonial friendship; and, after all, friendship is more
important than legal ties. In one remarkable case, that of the conquered
Dutch Republic in South Africa, a flood of searching light has been
thrown on the significance of those phrases "nation" and "Colony."
There, as in Ireland, and originally in Canada, "national" included
racial characteristics, and colonial autonomy signified national
autonomy in a more accurate sense than in Australia or Newfoundland. But
we know now that it does not signify either a racial tyranny within
those nations, or a racial antipathy to the Mother Country; but, on the
contrary, a reconciliation of races within and friendship without.
Would Mr. Chamberlain recast his argument now? Unhappily, we shall not
know. But it does seem to me that recent history and his own temperament
would force him to do so. As in his abandonment of Free Trade, it was a
strong and sincere Imperialist instinct that eventually transformed him
from the advocate of provincial Home Rule into the relentless enemy of
Home Rule in any shape. Take the Imperial argument, shaken to its
foundations by subsequent events, from the case he stated in 1893, and
what remains? Two pleas only--first, the abnormality of Irishmen;
second, Ireland's proximity to England. The first expresses the old
traditional view that Ireland is outside the pale of all human analogy;
the exception to all rules; her innate depravity and perversity such
that she would abuse power where others respect it, derive enmity where
others derive friendship, and willingly ruin herself by internal
dissension and extravagant ambitions in order, if possible, at the same
time to ruin England. Unconnected, however loosely, with the high
Imperial argument, I do not believe that this plea could have been used
with sincerity by Mr. Chamberlain even in 1893. He was a democrat,
devoted to the cause of enfranchising and trusting the people; and this
plea was, after all, only the same anti-democratic argument applied to
Ireland, and tipped with racial venom, which had been used for
generations by most Tories and many Whigs against any extension of
popular power. Lord Randolph Churchill, the Tory democrat, in his
dispassionate moments, always scouted it, resting his case against Home
Rule on different grounds. It was strange enough to see the argument
used by the Radical author of all the classic denunciations of class
ascendancy and the classic eulogies of the sense, forbearance and
generosity of free electorates. It was all the stranger in that Mr.
Chamberlain himself a few years before had committed himself to a scheme
of restricted self-government for Ireland, and in the debates on Mr.
Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill of 1886, when the condition of Ireland
was far worse than in 1893, had declared himself ready to give that
country a Constitution similar to that enjoyed by Quebec or Ontario
within the Dominion of Canada. But politics are politics. Under the
inexorable laws of the party game, politicians are advocates and swell
their indictments with every count which will bear the light. The system
works well enough in every case but one--the indictment of a
fellow-nation for incapacity to rule itself. There, both in Ireland and
everywhere else, as I shall show, it works incalculable mischief. Once
committed irrevocably to the opposition of Mr. Gladstone's Bills, Mr.
Chamberlain, standing on Imperial ground, which seemed to him and his
followers firm enough then, used his unrivalled debating powers to
traduce and exasperate the Irish people and their leaders by every
device in his power.
One other point survives in its integrity from the case made by Mr.
Chamberlain in 1893, and that is the argument about distance. Clearly
this is a quite distinct contention from the last; for distance from any
given point does not by itself radically alter human nature. Australians
are not twice as good or twice as bad as South Africans because they
are twice as far from the Mother Country. "Does anybody doubt"--let me
repeat his words--"that if Ireland were a thousand miles from England
she would not have been long before this a self-governing Colony?" The
whole tragedy of Ireland lies in that "if"; but the condition is,
without doubt, still unsatisfied. Ireland is still only sixty miles away
from the English shores, and the argument from proximity, for what it is
worth, is still plausible. To a vast number of minds it still seems
conclusive. Put the South African parallel to the average moderate
Unionist, half disposed to admit the force of this analogy, he would
nevertheless answer: "Ah, but Ireland is so near." Well, let us join
issue on the two grounds I have indicated--the ground of Irish
abnormality, and the ground of Ireland's proximity. It will be found, I
think, that neither contention is tenable by itself; that a supporter of
one unconsciously or consciously reinforces it by reference to the
other, and that to refute one is to refute both. It will be found, too,
that, apart from mechanical and unessential difficulties, the whole case
against Home Rule is included and summed up in these two contentions,
and that the mechanical problem itself will be greatly eased and
illuminated by their refutation.
II.
Those sixty miles of salt water which we know as the Irish Channel--if
only every Englishman could realize their tremendous significance in
Anglo-Irish history--what an ineffectual barrier "in the long result of
time" to colonization and conquest; what an impassable barrier--through
the ignorance and perversity of British statesmanship--to sympathy and
racial fusion!
For eight hundred years after the Christian era her distance from Europe
gave Ireland immunity from external shocks, and freedom to work out her
own destiny. She never, for good or ill, underwent Roman occupation or
Teutonic invasion. She was secure enough to construct and maintain
unimpaired a civilization of her own, warlike, prosperous, and
marvellously rich, for that age, in scholarship and culture. She
produced heroic warriors, peaceful merchants, and gentle scholars and
divines; poets, musicians, craftsmen, architects, theologians. She had a
passion for diffusing knowledge, and for more than a thousand years sent
her missionaries of piety, learning, art, and commerce, far and wide
over Europe. For two hundred years she resisted her first foreign
invaders, the Danes, with desperate tenacity, and seems to have absorbed
into her own civilization and polity those who ultimately retained a
footing on her eastern shores.
With the coming of the Anglo-Normans at the end of the twelfth century
the dark shadow begins to fall, and for the first time the Irish Channel
assumes its tragic significance. England, compounded of Britons,
Teutons, Danes, Scandinavians, Normans, with the indelible impress of
Rome upon the whole, had emerged, under Nature's mysterious alchemy, a
strong State. Ireland had preserved her Gaelic purity, her tribal
organization, her national culture, but at the cost of falling behind in
the march of political and military organization. Sixty miles divided
her from the nearest part of the outlying dominions of feudal England,
150 miles from the dynamic centre of English power. The degree of
distance seems to have been calculated with fatal exactitude, in
correspondence with the degrees of national vitality in the two
countries respectively, to produce for ages to come the worst possible
effects on both. The process was slow. Ireland was near enough to
attract the Anglo-Norman adventurers and colonists, but strong enough
and fair enough for three hundred years to transform them into patriots
"more Irish than the Irish"; always, however, too near and too weak,
even with their aid, to expel the direct representatives of English rule
from the foothold they had obtained on her shores, while at the same
time too far and too formidable to enable that rule to expand into the
complete conquest and subjugation of the realm.
"The English rule," says Mr. Lecky, "as a living reality, was confined
and concentrated within the limits of the Pale. The hostile power
planted in the heart of the nation destroyed all possibility of central
government, while it was itself incapable of fulfilling that function.
Like a spear-point embedded in a living body, it inflamed all around it
and deranged every vital function. It prevented the gradual reduction
of the island by some native Clovis, which would necessarily have taken
place if the Anglo-Normans had not arrived, and instead of that peaceful
and almost silent amalgamation of races, customs, laws, and languages,
which took place in England, and which is the source of many of the best
elements in English life and character, the two nations remained in
Ireland for centuries in hostility."
From this period dates that intense national antipathy felt by the
English for the Irish race which has darkened all subsequent history. It
was not originally a temperamental antipathy, or it would be impossible
to explain the powerful attraction of Irish character, manners, and laws
for the great bulk of the Anglo-Norman colonists. Nor within Ireland,
even after the Reformation, was it a religious antipathy between a
Protestant race and a race exclusively and immovably Catholic. It was in
origin a political antipathy between a small official minority, backed
by the support of a powerful Mother Country struggling for ascendancy
over a large native and naturalized majority, divided itself by tribal
feuds, but on the whole united in loathing and combating that
ascendancy. Universal experience, as I shall afterwards show, proves
that an enmity so engendered takes a more monstrous and degrading shape
than any other. Religion becomes its pretext. Ignorance makes it easy,
and interest makes it necessary, to represent the native race as savages
outside the pale of law and morals, against whom any violence and
treachery is justifiable. The legend grows and becomes a permanent
political axiom, distorting and abasing the character of those who act
on it and those who, suffering from it, and retaliating against its
consequences, construct their counter-legend of the inherent wickedness
of the dominant race. If left to themselves, white races, of diverse
nationalities, thrown together in one country, eventually coalesce, or
at least learn to live together peaceably. But if an external power too
remote to feel genuine responsibility for the welfare of the
inhabitants, while near enough to exert its military power on them,
takes sides in favour of the minority, and employs them as its permanent
and privileged garrison, the results are fatal to the peace and
prosperity of the country it seeks to dominate, and exceedingly
harmful, though in a degree less easy to gauge, to itself. So it was
with Ireland; and yet it cannot fail to strike any student of history
what an extraordinary resilience she showed again and again under any
transient phase of wise and tolerant government.
Such a phase occurred in the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII.,
when, after the defeat of the Geraldines, for the first time some
semblance of royal authority was established over the whole realm; and
when an effort was also made, not through theft or violence, but by
conciliatory statecraft, to replace the native Brehon system of law and
land tenure by English institutions, and to anglicize the Irish chiefs.
The process stopped abruptly and for ever with the accession of Mary, to
be replaced by the forcible confiscation of Irish land, and the
"planting" of English and Scotch settlers.
Ireland, for four hundred years the only British Colony, is now drawn
into the mighty stream of British colonial expansion. Adventurous and
ambitious Englishmen began to regard her fertile acres as Raleigh
regarded America, and, in point of time, the systematic and State-aided
colonization of Ireland is approximately contemporaneous with that of
America. It is true that until the first years of the sixteenth century
no permanent British settlement had been made in America, while in
Ireland the plantation of King's and Queen's Counties was begun as early
as 1556, and under Elizabeth further vast confiscations were carried out
in Munster within the same century. But from the reign of James I.
onward, the two processes advance _pari passu_. Virginia, first founded
by Raleigh in 1585, is firmly settled in 1607, just before the
confiscation of Ulster and its plantation by 30,000 Scots; and in 1620,
just after that huge measure of expropriation, the Pilgrim Fathers
landed in New Plymouth. Puritan Massachusetts--with its offshoots,
Connecticut, New Haven and Rhode Island--as well as Catholic Maryland,
were formally established between 1629 and 1638, and Maine in 1639, at a
period when the politically inspired proscription of the Catholic
religion, succeeding the robbery of the soil, was goading the unhappy
Irish to the rebellion of 1641. While that rebellion, with its fierce
excesses and pitiless reprisals, was convulsing Ireland, the united
Colonies of New England banded themselves together for mutual defence.
A few years later Cromwell, aiming, through massacre and rapine, at the
extermination of the Irish race, with the savage watchword "To Hell or
Connaught," planted Ulster, Munster, and Leinster with men of the same
stock, stamp, and ideas as the colonists of New England, and in the
first years of the Restoration Charles II. confirmed these
confiscations, at the same time that he granted Carolina to Lord
Clarendon, New Netherlands to the Duke of York, and New Jersey to Lord
Berkeley, and issued fresh Charters for Connecticut and Maryland.
Finally, Quaker Penn founded Pennsylvania in 1682, and in 1691 William
III., after the hopeless Jacobite insurrections in favour of the last of
the Stuarts, wrung the last million acres of good Irish land from the
old Catholic proprietors, planted them with Protestant Englishmen, and
completed the colonization of Ireland. Forty years passed (1733) before
Georgia, the last of the "Old Thirteen Colonies," was planted, as Ulster
had been planted, mainly by Scotch Presbyterians.
During the greater part of this period we must remember that conquered
Ireland herself was contributing to the colonization of America. Every
successive act of spoliation drove Catholic Irishmen across the Atlantic
as well as into Europe, and gave every Colony an infusion of Irish
blood. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century this class of
emigration was for the most part involuntary. Cromwell, for example,
shipped off thousands of families indiscriminately to the West Indies
and America for sale, as "servants" to the colonists. The only organized
and voluntary expedition in which Irish Catholics took part was that to
Maryland under Lord Baltimore. The distinction in course of time became
immaterial. In the free American air English, Scotch, and Irish became
one people, with a common political and social tradition.
It is interesting, and for a proper understanding of the Irish question,
indispensable, briefly to contrast the characteristics and progress of
the American and Irish settlements, and in doing so to observe the
profound effects of geographical position and political institutions on
human character. I shall afterwards ask the reader to include in the
comparison the later British Colonies formed in Canada and South Africa
by conquest, and in Australia by peaceful settlement.
Let us note, first, that both in America and Ireland the Colonies were
bi-racial, with this all-important distinction, that in America the
native race was coloured, savage, heathen, nomadic, incapable of fusion
with the whites, and, in relation to the almost illimitable territory
colonized, not numerous; while in Ireland the native race was white,
civilized, Christian, numerous, and confined within the limits of a
small island to which it was passionately attached by treasured national
traditions, and whose soil it cultivated under an ancient and revered
system of tribal tenure. The parallel, then, in this respect, is slight,
and becomes insignificant, except in regard to the similarity of the
mental attitude of the colonists towards Indians and Irish respectively.
In natural humanity the colonists of Ireland and the colonists of
America differed in no appreciable degree. They were the same men, with
the same inherent virtues and defects, acting according to the pressure
of environment. Danger, in proportionate degree, made both classes
brutal and perfidious; but in America, though there were moments of
sharp crisis, as in 1675 on the borders of Massachusetts, the degree was
comparatively small, and through the defeat and extrusion of the Indians
diminished steadily. In Ireland, because complete expulsion and
extermination were impossible, the degree was originally great, and,
long after it had actually disappeared, haunted the imagination and
distorted the policy of the invading nation.
In America there was no land question. Freeholds were plentiful for the
meanest settlers and the title was sound and indisputable. In the
"proprietary" Colonies, it is true, vast tracts of country were
originally vested by royal grants in a single nobleman or a group of
capitalists, just as vast estates were granted in Ireland to peers,
London companies, and syndicates of "undertakers"; but by the nature of
things, the extent of territory, its distance, and the absence of a
white subject race, no agrarian harm resulted in America, and a healthy
system of tenure, almost exclusively freehold, was naturally evolved.
In Ireland the land question was the whole question from the first. If
the natives had been exterminated, or their remnants wholly confined,
as Cromwell planned, to the barren lands of Connaught, all might have
been well for the conquerors. Or if Ireland had been, in Mr.
Chamberlain's phrase, a thousand miles away, all might have come right
under the compulsion of circumstances and the healing influence of time.
That the Celtic race still possessed its strong powers of assimilation
was shown by the almost complete denationalization and absorption of a
large number of Cromwell's soldier-colonists in
|
noise
must have come from an ancient stag which is said to have haunted for
years the range of rock near us. This mythical old fellow has, however,
never been seen, even by the “oldest inhabitant.”
Your brothers have now and then shot a chance partridge or wild-duck,
but had to look for them, and the truth must be told that when
settlers, gentle or simple, are engaged in the daily toil of grubbing,
and as it were scratching the earth for bread, it is difficult to
find a day’s leisure for the gentlemanly recreation of shooting.
Your youngest brother was pretty successful in trapping beaver and
musk-rat, and in shooting porcupine; of the two former the skins can
be sold to advantage, but as to eating their flesh, which some of our
party succeeded in doing, your eldest brother and myself found that
impossible, and turned with loathing from the rich repasts prepared
from what I irreverently termed vermin!
I must now tell you how our lots are situated with regard to each
other. C----s, having come out a year before the rest of us, had
secured two hundred acres of free grant land, one lot in his own name,
and one in the maiden name of his present wife, who came out from
England to marry him, under the chaperonage of your sister and her
husband. This has enabled him, since the birth of his little boy, to
claim and obtain another lot of a hundred acres, as “head of a family.”
His land is good, and prettily situated, with plenty of beaver meadow
and a sprinkling of rock, and also a very picturesque waterfall, where,
in coming years, he can have a mill. I have the adjoining hundred
acres, good flat land for cultivation, but not so picturesque as any of
the other lots, which I regret, though others envy me the absence of
rock. My land lies between C----s’ and the two hundred acres belonging
to your brother-in-law, whose very pretty situation I have already
described.
I am sorry to say that the two hundred acres taken up before we came,
for your eldest brother and sister, are at a distance of five miles
from here; your brother, who went over to see about clearing a portion
of them, says the landscape is most beautiful, as in addition to rock
and wood there are good-sized lakes, which make the lots less valuable
for cultivation, but far more beautiful to the eye.
When we had been here about three weeks, our young friend C. W. came to
us from Montreal, where he had not succeeded in getting any situation,
though he brought letters of introduction to Judge J. It is quite
useless for young _gentlemen_, however well educated, to come out
from the “old country” expecting situations to be numerous and easily
attainable; all introductions from friends of _yours_ to friends of
_theirs_ are for the most part useless, unless indeed addressed to some
commercial firm. The best and surest introduction a man can have is to
be a steady and skilful workman at some trade, and then he can command
employment.
To return to C. W. He arrived, in fact, in the dusk of a chilly
evening, and was near losing his way in the “Bush,” having to pass
across my land, which was then almost untrodden. Fortunately as he
advanced he betook himself to shouting, and luckily was heard and
answered by C----s, who was just going indoors for the night. They soon
met, and C----s took him home, and with him and your sister-in-law he
boarded and lodged during the whole of his stay, for at your sister’s
we were already over-crowded.
As the autumn advanced, we began most seriously to give our attention
to building my log-house, hoping that I might settle my part of the
family before the winter set in. Accordingly an acre of my land was
cleared, and the logs for a house cut and prepared, a skilful workman
being hired to help; and when all was ready, we called a “bee,” and
took care to provide everything of the best in the shape of provisions.
Our well-laid plan was a signal failure, partly because settlers do
not like coming to a “bee” so late in the year (it was November), and
partly because some of the invitations had been given on Sunday, which,
as most of the settlers near us were Scotch and strict Presbyterians,
caused offence. Only three people came, and they were thanked and
dismissed.
The very next day (November 11th), snow-storms and hard winter weather
began; but in spite of this our four gentlemen, seeing my deep
disappointment at being kept waiting for a residence, most chivalrously
went to work, and by their unassisted efforts and hard labour actually
managed in the course of a fortnight to raise the walls and place the
rafters of a log-house not much smaller than the others. Their work was
the admiration of the whole settlement, and many expressed themselves
quite ashamed of having thus left us in the lurch.
After raising the walls, however, they were reluctantly compelled to
stop, for the severity of the weather was such, that shingling the
roof, chinking, and mossing became quite impossible. As it was, E.
nearly had his hands frost-bitten. We were thus compelled to remain
with your sister till the spring of 1872. We greatly felt, after we
came into the Bush, the want of all religious ordinances; but we soon
arranged a general meeting of all the members of the family on a Sunday
at your sister’s, when your brother-in-law read the Church of England
service, and all joined in singing the chants and hymns. Sometimes he
was unavoidably absent, as the clergymen at Bracebridge, knowing him
to have taken his degree at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and to be
otherwise qualified, would ask his assistance, though a layman, to do
duty for him at different stations in the district.
We found in our own neighbourhood a building set apart for use as a
church, but too far off for us to attend either summer or winter. Here
Church of England, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan ministers preached in
turn, and thus some semblance of worship was kept up. I hardly dare
describe the miserable change we found in our employments and manner
of life when we first settled down to hard labour in the Bush. It was
anguish to me to see your sisters and sister-in-law, so tenderly and
delicately brought up, working harder by far than any of our servants
in England or France.
It is one thing to sit in a pretty drawing-room, to play, to sing, to
study, to embroider, and to enjoy social and intellectual converse with
a select circle of kind friends, and it is quite another thing to slave
and toil in a log-house, no better than a kitchen, from morning till
night, at cleaning, washing, baking, preparing meals for hungry men
(not always of one’s own family), and drying incessant changes of wet
clothes.
I confess, to my shame, that my philosophy entirely gave way, and that
for a long time I cried constantly. I also took to falling off my
chair in fits of giddiness, which lasted for a few minutes, and much
alarmed the children, who feared apoplexy. I felt quite sure that it
was from continual fretting, want of proper exercise, the heat of the
stove, and inanition from not being able to swallow a sufficiency of
the coarse food I so much disliked. Fortunately we had brought out some
cases of arrow-root, and some bottles of Oxley’s Essence of Ginger,
and with the help of this nourishment, and walking resolutely up and
down the clearing, where we kept a track swept for the purpose, I got
better. Your eldest sister likewise had an alarming fit of illness,
liver complaint and palpitation of the heart, doubtless brought on by
poor food, hard work, and the great weight of the utensils belonging to
the stove. I was much frightened, but after a time she, too, partially
recovered; indeed we _had_ to get well as best we might, for there was
no doctor nearer than Bracebridge, eighteen miles off, and had we sent
for him, we had no means of paying either for visits or drugs.
Christmas Day at length drew near, and as we wished to be all
together, though our funds were exceedingly low, dear C----s insisted
on contributing to our Christmas-dinner. He bought a chicken from a
neighbouring settler who, in giving him a _scare-crow_, did not forget
to charge a good price for it. He sent it to us with some mutton. Your
sister has told me since, that while preparing the chicken for cooking,
she could have shed tears of disgust and compassion, the poor thing
being so attenuated that its bones pierced through the skin, and had
it not been killed, it must soon have died of consumption. In spite
of this I roused my dormant energies, and with the help of butter,
onions and spices, I concocted a savoury stew which was much applauded.
We had also a pudding! Well, the less said about that pudding the
better. Nevertheless, I must record that it contained a _maximum_ of
flour and a _minimum_ of currants and grease. The plums, sugar, spice,
eggs, citron, and brandy were conspicuous by their absence. Still, the
pudding was eaten--peace to its memory!
We all assembled on Christmas morning early, and had our Church service
performed by your brother-in-law. Cruel memory took me back to our
beloved little church in France, with its Christmas decorations of
holly and evergreens, and I could almost hear the sweet voices of the
choir singing my favourite hymn: “Hark! the herald angels sing!” There
was indeed a sad contrast between the festive meetings of other years,
when our little band was unbroken by death and separation, and when out
of our abundance we could make others happy, and this forlorn gathering
in a strange land, with care written on every brow, poverty in all
our surroundings, and deep though unexpressed anxiety lest all our
struggles in this new and uncongenial mode of existence should prove
fruitless. For the sake of others, I tried to simulate a cheerfulness
I was far from feeling, and so we got over the evening. We had a good
deal of general conversation, and some of our favourite songs were sung
by the gentlemen.
It was late when our party broke up; your brother C----s with his wife
and C. W. actually scrambled home through the forest by moonlight, a
track having been broken by snow-shoes in the morning.
A great grief to me at this time was the long interval between writing
letters to the “old country” and receiving the answers, an interval
which my vivid imagination filled up with all kind of horrors which
_might_ have happened to the dear ones we had left behind.
The close of the year silently came on, and I finish this letter with
a “Sonnet to the Pines,” my first composition in the Bush, written
partly to convince myself that I was not quite out of my wits, but had
still the little modicum of intellect I once possessed, and partly to
reassure your brothers and sisters, who were always predicting that I
should bring on softening of the brain by my unceasing regrets for the
past, and gloomy prognostications for the future.
SONNET TO THE MUSKOKA PINES!
Weird monarchs of the forest! ye who keep
Your solemn watch betwixt the earth and sky;
I hear sad murmurs through your branches creep.
I hear the night-wind’s soft and whispering sigh,
Warning ye that the spoiler’s hand is nigh:
The surging wave of human life draws near!
The woodman’s axe, piercing the leafy glade,
Awakes the forest-echoes far and near,
And startles in its haunts the timid deer,
Who seeks in haste some far-off friendly shade!
Nor drop ye stately Pines to earth alone.
The leafy train who shar’d your regal state--
Beech, Maple, Balsam, Spruce and Birch--lie prone,
And having grac’d your grandeur--share your fate!
LETTER IV.
New-Year’s Day of 1872 was one of those exceptionally beautiful days,
when hope is generated in the saddest heart, and when the most pressing
cares and anxieties retire for at least a time into the background of
our lives. The sky was blue and clear, the sun bright, and the air
quite soft and balmy for the time of year. We had had some bitter
cold and gloomy weather, and we found the change most delightful. As
in France we were in the habit of making presents among ourselves on
this day, I looked over all my stores with a view to keeping up the
same pretty custom here; but alas! in the absence of all shops I was
sorely puzzled. At last I made all right by giving pencils and paper
for scribbling to the children; Eau de Cologne, sweet-scented soap,
and pots of pomatum to the elders of the party; and finished off with
a box of Bryant and May’s “ruby matches” to C. W., who considered them
a great acquisition. Your brother E. came over for the whole day. He
now boarded and lodged with C----s, to make a little more room for your
sister F.’s confinement, which we expected at the end of the month. I
watched E. with delight as he felled an enormous birch tree in honour
of the day; but though placed in perfect safety myself, I could not
avoid a thrill of fear for him, as this monarch of the forest came
crashing down. Fatal accidents very seldom occur, but new settlers,
inexperienced and unused to the axe, sometimes give themselves serious
cuts. Your brother and brother-in-law have had many narrow escapes, but
fortunately, as yet, are uninjured. Your brother C----s before we came
gave himself a very severe cut, which prevented his chopping for some
weeks. One of the settlers told your brother that when he first began
chopping he had given himself a most dangerous wound, the axe having
glanced from the tree on to his foot; for weeks after the accident he
stood in a washing-tub for security while chopping his fire-wood. This
account much amused us, and E----d made a neat little caricature of P.
in his tub chopping.
I was greatly disappointed in the Canadian forest, and did not think
it half as beautiful as I had been led to expect, for though there are
certainly some very tall pines, and these of a considerable girth, yet
being so closely packed together and hemmed in with small trees and a
thick undergrowth of brushwood, they always seem cramped, and their
lofty tops unable to spread out to their full size. Hurricanes here are
of frequent occurrence, and at these times it is not unusual for full
half an acre of trees to be entirely laid flat, giving the greatest
trouble to the settler when he wants to clear. At times the “windfall,”
as it is called, is a narrow belt of uprooted trees extending for
miles, and distinctly marking the path of the hurricane through the
forest. I was less astonished at the constant fall of the trees after
examining an enormous pine lying on C----s’ land, which was blown down
last year. The roots of this tree seemed to have formed an enormous
web or network under the surface of the ground, and only a few large
fibres here and there appeared to have gone to any depth. I missed the
umbrageous oaks, elms, and beeches of our own parks, and also the open
forest glades which so greatly enhance the beauty of our woodland
scenery. I am told that the trees in the States are much larger and
finer, but of this I am of course incompetent to judge, never having
been there. The most beautiful tree here is certainly the “balsam,”
a slender, delicate tree whose feathery branches droop gracefully to
within a few feet of the ground.
We found the winter fearfully cold, the thermometer being at times
forty degrees below zero. We had great difficulty in keeping ourselves
sufficiently clothed for such a season. All people coming to the
Bush bring clothes far too good for the rough life they lead there.
In coming out we had no means of providing any special outfit, and
therefore brought with us only the ordinary wardrobes of genteel life.
We soon found that all silks, delicate shawls, laces and ornaments,
are perfectly useless here. Every article we possess of that kind is
carefully put away in our trunks, and will probably never see daylight
again, unless indeed that, like Mrs. Katy Scudder in the “Minister’s
Wooing,” we may occasionally air our treasures. What we found most
useful was everything in the shape of woollen or other thick fabrics,
winter dresses, warm plaid shawls, flannels, furs, etc.; of these we
had a tolerable stock, and as the cold increased we put one thing
over another till we must have often presented the appearance of
feather-beds tied in the middle with a string. Indeed, as our gentlemen
politely phrased it, we made complete “guys” of ourselves, and I must
say that they were not one whit behind us in grotesque unsightliness
of costume. Your brothers sometimes wore four or five flannels one
over the other, thick jerseys and heavy overcoats when not actually at
work, and pairs upon pairs of thick woollen socks and stockings, with
great sea-boots drawn over all; or in deep snow “moccasins” or else
“shoe-packs,” the first being made by the Indians, of the skin of the
moose-deer, and the second mostly of sheep-skins. The great mart for
these articles is at the Indian settlement of “Lachine” on the St.
Lawrence, near Montreal. They also wore snow-shoes, which are not made
like the Laplanders’ with skates attached for sliding, but simply for
walking on the surface of the deep snow. They consist of a framework
of wood three feet long by one and a half wide, filled up with strips
of raw deer-skin interlaced, and in shape resembling a fish, more like
a monstrous sole than any other. We ladies, too, were thankful to lay
aside our French kid boots and delicate slippers, and to wrap our
feet and legs up so completely that they much resembled mill-posts.
Had you or any of our dear friends seen us in our Esquimaux costume,
you would certainly have failed to recognise the well-dressed ladies
and gentlemen you had been in the habit of seeing. To crown all, your
brother-in-law and C----s had goat-skin coats brought from France, real
Robinson Crusoe coats, such as are worn by the French shepherds, and
these they found invaluable. We were very sorry that E----d had not one
likewise.
Our occupations were manifold; hard work was the order of the day for
every one but me; but all the work I was allowed to do was the cooking,
for which I consider that I have a special vocation. A great compliment
was once paid me by an old Indian officer in our regiment, who declared
that Mrs. K. could make a good curry, he was sure, out of the sole of a
shoe!
At other times I read, wrote letters, and plied my knitting-needles
indefatigably, to the great advantage of our little colony, in the
shape of comforters, baby-socks, mittens, Canadian sashes and
petticoats for the little children. Sometimes I read to the children
out of their story-books, but _their_ happiest time was when they could
get your sister P----e to give them an hour or two in the evening of
story-telling. You know what a talent she possesses for composing,
both in prose and verse, stories for little people, and with these she
would keep them spell-bound, to the great comfort of the elders of the
party, and of their poor mother especially, who towards night felt much
fatigued.
Dear children! they required some amusement after the close confinement
of the winter’s day. Meanwhile the gentlemen were busy from morning
till night chopping down trees in readiness for burning in spring. This
is mostly done in mid-winter, as they are reckoned to chop more easily
then.
You must not suppose that all this time we had no visitors. By degrees
many of the settlers scattered over the neighbourhood came to see
us, some, doubtless, from kindly motives, others from curiosity to
know what the strangers were like. I found some of them pleasant and
amusing, particularly those who had been long in the country, and who
could be induced to give me some of their earlier Bush experiences.
A few of them seemed to possess a sprinkling of higher intelligence,
which made their conversation really interesting.
One very picturesque elderly man, tall, spare, and upright, came to
fell some pine-trees contiguous to the house, which much endangered
its safety when the hurricanes, so frequent in this country, blew. He
had begun life as a ploughboy on a farm in my beloved county of Kent,
and had the unmistakable Kentish accent. It seemed so strange to me at
first, to be shaking hands and sitting at table familiarly with one of
a class so different from my own; but this was my first initiation
into the free-and-easy intercourse of all classes in this country,
where the standing proverb is, “Jack is as good as his master!”
I found all the settlers kindly disposed towards us, and most liberal
in giving us a share of their flower-seeds, plants, and garden produce,
which, as new-comers, we could not be supposed to have. They were
willing also to accept in return such little civilities as we could
offer, in the shape of books and newspapers from the old country,
and sometimes medicines and drugs, which could not be got in the
settlement. There might be a little quarrelling, backbiting, and petty
rivalry among them, with an occasional dash of slanderous gossip; but
I am inclined to think not more than will inevitably be found in small
communities.
As a body, they certainly are hard-working, thrifty, and kind-hearted.
Almost universally they seem contented with their position and
prospects. I have seldom met with a settler who did not think his own
land the finest in the country, who had not grown the _largest turnip
ever seen_, and who was not full of hope that the coveted railway would
certainly pass through his lot.
At this time I felt an increasing anxiety about your sister’s
confinement, which was now drawing near. That such an event should
take place in this desolate wilderness, where we had no servants, no
monthly-nurse, and not even a doctor within reach, was sufficiently
alarming. To relieve my mind, your brother-in-law went about the
neighbourhood, and at last found a very respectable person, a settler’s
wife, not more than three miles off, who consented to be our assistant
on this momentous occasion, and he promised to go for her as soon as
dear F----e should be taken ill.
We had been made a little more comfortable in the house, as your
brother-in-law and brother had made a very tolerable ceiling over our
bed-places, and your brother had chopped and neatly piled up at the
end of the room an immense stock of fire-wood, which prevented the
necessity of so often opening the door.
We felt now more than ever the want of fresh meat, as the children
could not touch the salt pork, and were heartily tired of boiled rice
and dumplings, which were all the variety we could give them, with the
exception of an occasional egg. In this emergency your brother C----s
consented to sell me a bull calf, which he intended bringing up, but
having also a cow and a heifer, and fearing to run short of fodder, he
consented to part with him. Thus I became the fortunate possessor of
an animal which, when killed, fully realised my misgivings as to its
being neither veal nor beef, but in a transition state between the two.
It had a marvellous development of bone and gristle, but very little
flesh; still we made much of it in the shape of nourishing broth and
savoury stews, and as I only paid seven dollars for it, and had long
credit, I was fully satisfied with my first Bush speculation.
The 18th of January arrived. The day had been very cold, with a
drifting, blinding snow; towards evening a fierce, gusty wind arose,
followed by pitch darkness. The forest trees were cracking and crashing
down in all directions. We went to bed. At two a.m., having been long
awake, I heard a stir in the room, and dear F.’s voice asking us to
get up. What my feelings were I leave you to imagine--to send for
help three miles off, in such a night, was impossible, for even with
a lantern your brother-in-law could not have ventured into the Bush.
Fortunately, we had no time to be frightened or nervous. We removed the
sleeping children to our own bed, made the most comfortable arrangement
circumstances would admit of for dear F----e, and about three a.m.,
that is to say, in less than an hour after being called, our first Bush
baby was born, a very fine little girl.
Your sister P----e, who had been reading up for the occasion, did all
that was necessary, with a skill, coolness and self-possession which
would have done honour to “Dr. _Elizabeth Black_!”
I did indeed feel thankful when I saw my child safe in bed, with her
dear baby-girl, washed, dressed, and well bundled up in flannel, lying
by her side, she herself taking a basin of gruel which I joyfully
prepared for her. God “tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”
We could well believe this when we found your sister recover even
more quickly than she had done in France, where she had so many more
comforts and even luxuries; nor was she this time attacked by ague and
low fever, from which she had always suffered before.
This sudden call upon our energies made me glad that my wandering life
in the army had rendered me very independent of extraneous help, and
that I had taught you all from childhood never to call a servant for
what you could easily do with your own hands. The very first thing
people _must_ learn in the Bush, is to trust in God, and to help
themselves, for other help is mostly too far off to be available.
At the end of this month, when I felt that I could safely leave dear
F----e, I determined to go to B----e and sign for my land. The not
having done so before had long been a cause of great anxiety.
I had been more than four months in the country, had begun to clear and
to build upon my lot, and yet from various causes had not been able to
secure it by signing the necessary papers. These having been sent to
France, and having missed me, had been duly forwarded here. Till the
signing was completed, I was liable at any moment to have my land taken
up by some one else. Accordingly your brother wrote to B---- for a
cutter and horse, and directed the driver to come as far into the Bush
as he could.
We started on a very bright, cold morning, but I had walked fully three
miles before we met our sledge, which was much behind time. I never
enjoyed anything in the country so much as this my first sleighing
expedition. The small sleigh, or cutter as it is sometimes called, held
only one, and I was nestled down in the bottom of it, well wrapped up,
and being delightfully warm and snug, could enjoy looking at the very
picturesque country we were rapidly passing through. I did, however,
most sincerely pity your brother and the driver, who nearly perished,
for sitting on the front seat they caught all the wind, which was
piercing. We stopped midway at a small tavern, where we dined, and I
can truly say that in spite of the dirty table-cloth and the pervading
slovenliness and disorder of the house and premises, I found everything
enjoyable, and above all the sense of being for a few hours at least
freed from my long imprisonment in the woods.
It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at B----e, where we
went to the N. A. Hotel, and were made very comfortable by its kind
mistress. The next morning at ten a.m. we went to the magistrate’s
office, where I signed for my one hundred acres, and of course came
away with the conscious dignity of a landed proprietor.
I was charmed with the kind and courteous manners of Mr. L----s. He
reminded me more of that nearly extinct race--the gentleman of the
old school--than any one I had seen since leaving England. His son,
who is his assistant, seems equally amiable and popular. Seeing from
my manner that I considered Muskoka, even at the present time, as the
_Ultima Thule_ of civilisation, he told us some amusing anecdotes of
what it had actually been when his grandfather first became a settler
in Canada. The towns and villages now called the “Front,” had then no
existence; all was thick forest, no steamers on the lakes, no roads of
any kind, and barely here and there a forest-track made by Indians or
trappers. From where his grandfather settled down, it was sixty miles
to the nearest place where anything could be got, and the first year
he had to go all this distance on foot for a bushel of seed potatoes
for planting, and to return with them in a sack which he carried on his
back the whole way.
We left B----e to return home at one p.m., but it was nearly dark when
we turned into the Bush, and quite so when we were put down at the
point from which we had to walk home. Here we were luckily met by your
brother C----s and C. W., with a lantern and a rope for our parcels,
according to promise. C----s took charge of me, and led the way with
the lantern. I tried to follow in his steps, but the track was so
narrow, and the light so uncertain, that I found myself, every few
moments, up to my knees in soft snow, if I diverged only a step from
the track.
I became almost unable to go on, but after many expedients had been
tried, one only was found to answer. C----s tied a rope round my waist,
and then round his own, and in this safe, but highly ignominious
manner, I was literally towed through the forest, and reached home
thoroughly exhausted, but I am bound to say almost as much from
laughter as from fatigue. I found all well, and the children were
highly pleased with the little presents I had brought for them.
LETTER V.
The first months of this year found us very anxious to get the
log-house finished, which had been so well begun by our four gentlemen,
and as soon as the weather moderated a little, and our means allowed
us to get help, we had it roofed, floored, chinked, and mossed. It was
necessary to get it finished, so that we might move before the great
spring thaw should cover the forest-paths with seas of slush and mud,
and before the creek between us and our domicile should be swollen so
as to render it impassable for ladies.
When the workmen had finished, we sent to the nearest town for a
settler’s stove; and as the ox-team we hired could bring it no farther
than the corner of the concession road which skirts one end of my lot,
your brothers had the agreeable task of bringing it piecemeal on their
backs, with all its heavy belongings, down the precipitous side of my
gully, wading knee-deep through the creek at the bottom, and scrambling
up the side nearest here. It was quite a service of danger, and I felt
truly thankful that no accident occurred.
About this time our young friend C. W. left us, and we were very sorry
to lose him, for more particularly in “Bush” life the taking away of
one familiar face leaves a sad blank behind. He could not, however,
make up his mind to remain, finding the life very dull and cheerless,
and suffering moreover most severely from the cold of the climate. He
went to Toronto, and at last got a tolerably good situation in a bank,
where his thorough knowledge of French and German made him very useful.
Another important event also took place, and this was the christening
of our dear little “Bush” girl, who by this time was thriving
nicely. Our Church of England clergyman at B----e very kindly came
over to perform the ceremony, but as no special day had been named,
his visit took us by surprise, and the hospitality we were able to
extend to him was meagre indeed. This christening certainly presented
a marked contrast to our last. It was no well-dressed infant in a
richly-embroidered robe and French lace cap like a cauliflower ring,
that I handed to our good minister, but a dear little soft bundle
of rumpled flannel, with just enough of face visible to receive the
baptismal sprinkling.
We all stood round in our anomalous costumes, and a cracked slop-basin
represented the font. Nevertheless, our little darling behaved
incomparably well, and all passed off pleasantly. With our minister
afterwards, a very kind and gentlemanly man, we had an hour’s pleasant
conversation, which indeed was quite a treat, for in the Bush, with
little or no time for intellectual pursuits, for the practice of any
elegant accomplishment, or indeed for anything but the stern and hard
realities of daily labour; conversation even among the well-educated is
apt to degenerate into discussions about “crops” and “stock,” and the
relative merits of _timothy_ or _beaver hay_.
We saw but little of your brother Edward at this time, for he was fully
occupied in the log-house, where he lit a large fire every day that
it might be thoroughly aired for our reception, and then engaged in
carpentering extensively for our comfort. He put up numerous shelves
for the crockery and kitchen things, made two very good and substantial
bedsteads, a sofa fixed against the wall which we call the “daïs,” and
a very comfortable easy-chair with a flexible seat of strips of cowhide
interlaced--an ingenious device of your brother Charles, who made one
for his wife.
At last the house being finished, quite aired enough, and otherwise
made as comfortable as our very slender means would permit, we resolved
to move, and on the 7th of April we took our departure from dear
F----’s, who, however glad to have more room for the children, sadly
missed our companionship, as we did hers. The day of our exodus was
very clear and bright, and the narrow snow-track between our lots was
still tolerably hard and safe, though the great thaw had begun, and the
deep untrodden snow on either side of the track was fast melting, and
every careless step we took plunged us into two or three feet of snow,
from which we had to be ignominiously dragged out. It was worse when
we sank into holes full of water, and the narrow path treacherously
giving way at the edges, we had many of these falls. All our trunks,
chests, and barrels had to be left at F----’s, and we only took with
us packages that could be carried by hand, and our bedding, which was
conveyed on the shoulders of the gentlemen.
Of course we travelled in Indian file, one after the other.
When we finally departed, your brother-in-law and Sister P----e
preceded me, laden with all manner of small articles, and every few
yards down they came. I followed with a stout stick which helped me
along considerably, and as I was not allowed to carry anything, and
picked my way very carefully, I managed to escape with comparatively
few falls, and only two of any consequence, one when I pitched forward
with my face down flat on the ground, and another when my feet suddenly
slipped from under me and sent me backwards, rolling over and over in
the snow before, even with help, I could get up. The effects of this
fall I felt for a long time.
At length we arrived at our new home, but in spite of the magic of that
word, I felt dreadfully depressed, and as
|
enough, and can clear me if he pleases.' The hope of the
Primate was fulfilled, for, when a report reached Oxford that the
Primate was dead, the king expressed in very strong terms, to
Colonel William Legg and Mr. Kirk, who were then in waiting, his
regret at the event, speaking in high terms of his piety and
learning. Some one present said, 'he believed he might be so, were
it not for his persuading your Majesty to consent to the Earl of
Strafford's execution;' to which the king in a great passion
replied, 'that it was false, for after the bill was passed, the
Archbishop came to me, saying with tears in his eyes, Oh Sir, what
have you done? I fear that this act may prove a great trouble to
your conscience, and pray God that your Majesty may never suffer
by the signing of this bill.'"--Elrington's _Life of Ussher_, p.
214.
This account Dr. Elrington has taken from the narrative given by Dr.
Parr, who adds, that he had received this account of the testimony borne
by the king from Colonel Legg and Mr. Kirk themselves:--
"This is the substance of two certificates, taken divers times
under the hands of these two gentlemen of unquestionable credit;
both which, since they agree in substance, I thought fit to
contract into one testimony, which I have inserted here, having
the originals by me, to produce if occasion be."--Parr's _Life of
Ussher_, p. 61.
Indeed, considering the great and uninterrupted friendship which
subsisted between Ussher and Strafford, considering that the primate was
his chosen friend during his trial and imprisonment, and attended him to
the scaffold, nothing could be more improbable than that he should have
advised the king to consent to his death. At all events, the story is
contradicted by those most competent to speak to its truth, by the
archbishop and by the king; and therefore, in a work so deservedly
popular as Lord Campbell's, one cannot but regret that any currency
should be given to a calumny so injurious to a prelate whose character
is as deserving of our esteem, as his learning is of our veneration.
PEREGRINUS.
POETICAL COINCIDENCES.
_Sheridan._
In the account which Moore has given, in his _Life of Sheridan_, of the
writings left unfinished by that celebrated orator and dramatist, he
states:
"There also remain among his papers three acts of a drama without
a name, written evidently in haste, and with scarcely any
correction."
From this production he gives the following verses, to which he has
appended the note I have placed immediately after them:--
"Oh yield, fair lids, the treasures of my heart,
Release those beams, that make this mansion bright;
From her sweet sense, Slumber! tho' sweet thou art,
Begone, and give the air she breathes in light.
"Or while, oh Sleep, thou dost those glances hide,
Let rosy slumber still around her play,
Sweet as the cherub Innocence enjoy'd,
When in thy lap, new-born, in smiles he lay.
"And thou, oh Dream, that com'st her sleep to cheer,
Oh take my shape, and play a lover's part;
Kiss her from me, and whisper in her ear,
Till her eyes shine, 'tis night within my heart."
"I have taken the liberty here of supplying a few rhymes and words
that are wanting in the original copy of the song. The last line
of all runs thus in the manuscript:--
'Til her eye shines, I live in darkest night,'
which not rhyming as it ought, I have ventured to alter as above."
Now the following sonnet, which occurs in the third book of Sir Philip
Sidney's _Arcadia_, is evidently the source from whence Sheridan drew
his inspiration, the concluding line in both poems being the same. Had
Moore given Sheridan's without alteration, the resemblance would in all
probability be found much closer:--
"Lock up, faire liddes, the treasure of my heart,
Preserve those beames, this ages onely light:
To her sweet sence, sweet sleepe some ease impart,
Her sence too weake to beare her spirits might.
"And while, O Sleepe, thou closest up her sight,
(Her sight where Love did forge his fairest dart)
O harbour all her parts in easefull plight:
Let no strange dreame make her faire body start.
"But yet, O dreame, if thou wilt not depart
In this rare subject from thy common right:
But wilt thy selfe in such a seate delight,
"Then take my shape, and play a lover's part:
Kisse her from me, and say unto her sprite,
Till her eyes shine, I live in darkest night."
The edition I quote from is that "Printed by W. S. for Simon Waterson,
London, 1627." I may add, that I wrote to Moore as far back as 1824 to
point out this singular coincidence; but although the communication was
courteously acknowledged, I do not believe the circumstance has been
noticed in any subsequent edition of Sheridan's memoirs.
T. C. SMITH.
FOLK LORE.
_Medical Use of Pigeons_ (Vol. iv., p. 228.).--In my copy of Mr.
Alford's very unsatisfactory edition of Donne, I find noted (in addition
to R. T.'s quotation from _The Life of Mrs. Godolphin_) references to
Pepys's _Diary_, October 19, 1663, and January 21, 1667-8, and the
following from Jer. Taylor, ed. Heber, vol. xii. p. 290.: "We cut living
pigeons in halves, and apply them to the feet of men in fevers."
J. C. R.
_Michaelmas Goose--St. Martin's Cock._--In the county of Kilkenny, and
indeed all through the S.E. counties of Ireland, the "Michaelmas Goose"
is still had in honour. "St. Martin's Bird" (see p. 230. _antè_) is,
however, the cock, whose _blood is shed_ in honour of that saint at
Martinmas, Nov. 11. The same superstition does not apply, that I am
aware of, to the Michaelmas Goose, which is merely looked on as a dish
customary on that day, with such as can afford it, and always
accompanied by a _mélange_ of vegetables (potatos, parsnips, cabbage,
and onions) mashed together, with butter, and forming a dish termed
_Kailcannon_. The idea is far different as to St. Martin's Cock, the
blood of which is always shed _sacrificially_ in honour of the Saint.
Query, 1. The territorial extent of the latter custom? And, 2. What
pagan deity has transferred his honours to St. Martin of Tours.
JAMES GRAVES.
Kilkenny.
_Surrey Folk Lore._--A "wise woman" has lately made her appearance not
far from Reigate in Surrey. One of the farmers' wives there, on being
scalded the other day, sent to the old dame, who sent back a curious
doggrel, which the good woman was to repeat at stated times. At the end
of a week the scald got well, and the good woman told us that she knew
there was no harm in the charm, for "she had heard say as how it was
some verse from the Bible."
When in a little shop the other day, in the same part of the country,
one village dame was speaking of the death of some neighbour, when
another said, that she hoped "they had been and told the bees."
In the same neighbourhood I was told a sovereign cure for the goitre was
to form the sign of the cross on the neck with the hand of a corpse.
M. M. P.
THE CAXTON COFFER.
The devices of our early English printers are often void of significancy
early, or else mere quibbles. In that particular, Caxton set a
commendable example.
His device is "W.4.7C." The two figures, however, are interlaced, and
seem to admit of two interpretations. I must cite, on this question, the
famous triumvirate--Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin:
"The following mark [above described] I find put at the end of
many of his books, _perhaps_ for the date 1474, when he began
printing in England, or his sign."--Joseph AMES, 1749.
"The following mark [above described] I find put at the end of
many of his books, _perhaps_ for the date 1474, when he began
printing in England, or his sign."--William HERBERT, 1785.
"The figures in the large device [above described] form the
_reverse impression_ of 74; meaning, _as it has been stated_, that
our printer commenced business in England, in the year 1474: but
not much weight can be attached to this remark, as no copy of the
_Chess book_, printed in 1474, has yet been discovered which
presents us with this device."--T. F. DIBDIN, 1810.
In lieu of baseless conjectures, I have here to complain of timidity.
There is scarcely room for a doubt on the date. As dom de Vaines
observes, with regard to dates, "dans le bas âge on supprimoit le
millième et les centaines, commençant aux dixaines." There can be no
objection to the interpretation on that score. The main question
therefore is, in what order should we read the interlaced figures? Now,
the position of the _point_ proves that we should read 74--which is the
date of _The game and playe of the chesse_. The figures indicate 1474 as
clearly as the letters W. C. indicate William Caxton. What is the just
inference, must ever remain a matter of opinion.
In the woodcut of _Arsmetrique_, published in the _Myrrour of the
worlde_, A.D. 1481, I observe the figures 74 rather conspicuously
placed, and perhaps the device was then first adopted.
BOLTON CORNEY.
Minor Notes.
"_They that touch pitch_," &c.--A few Sundays since the clergyman that I
"sit under," quoting in his discourse the words "they that touch pitch
will be defiled," ascribed them to "the wisest of men." A lady of his
congregation (who was, I fear, more critical than devout) pounced upon
her pastor's mistake, and asked me on the following Monday if I also had
noticed it. I denied that it was one; but she laughed at my ignorance,
produced a Shakspeare, and showed me the words in the mouth of Dogberry
(_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act III. Sc. 3.). However, by the help of a
"Cruden," I was able to find the same expression, not indeed in Solomon,
but in the son of Sirach (ch. xiii. v. 1.).
If Shakspeare's appropriation of this passage has not been noticed
before, may I request the insertion of this note? It may possibly
prevent other learned divines from falling into the common (?) mistake
of thus quoting Dogberry as "the wisest of men."
E. J. G.
Preston.
_Pasquinade._--In May last was placed on Pasquin's statue in Rome the
following triglot epigram, of which the original Latin was borrowed from
"NOTES AND QUERIES." As it is not probable that the Papal police allowed
it to remain long before the eyes of the lieges of his Holiness, allow
me to lay up in your pages this memorial of a visit to Rome during the
"Aggression" summer.
"Cum Sapiente Pius nostras juravit in aras,
Impius heu Sapiens, desipiensque Pius.
"When a league 'gainst our Faith Pope with Cardinal tries,
Neither _Wiseman_ is Pious, nor _Pius_ is Wise.
"Quando Papa' o' Cardinale
Chiesa' Inglese tratta male,
Que Chiamo quella gente,
Piu? No-no, ni Sapiente.
ANGLUS."
The Italian version will of course be put down as _English_-Italian, and
therefore worse than mediocre; but I wished to perpetuate, along with
the sense of the Latin couplet, a little _jeu d'esprit_ which I saw half
obliterated on a wall at Rovigo, in the Lombardo-Venetian territory;
being a play on the family name and character of Pius IX.:
"Piu?--No-no: ma stai Ferette;"
which may be read,
"Pious?--Not at all: but _still_ Ferette."
A. B. R.
_Two Attempts to show the Sound of "ough" final._--
1.
Though from rough cough, or hiccough free,
That man has pain enough,
Whose wound through plough, sunk in slough
Or lough begins to slough.
2.
'Tis not an easy task to show
How _o_, _u_, _g_, _h_ sound; since _though_
An Irish _lough_ and English _slough_,
And _cough_ and hic_cough_, all allow,
Differ as much as _tough_, and _through_,
There seems no reason why they do.
W. J. T.
Queries.
CAN BISHOPS VACATE THEIR SEES?
In Lord Dover's note on one of Walpole's Letters to Sir H. Mann (1st
series, vol. iii. p 424.), I find it stated that Dr. Pearce, the
well-known Bishop of Rochester, was not allowed to vacate his see, when
in consequence of age and infirmity he wished to do so, on the plea that
a bishopric as being a peerage is _inalienable_. The Deanery of
Westminster, which he also held, he was allowed to resign, and did so.
Now my impression has always been, that a bishop, as far as his peerage
is concerned, is much on the same footing as a representative peer of
Scotland or Ireland; I mean that his peerage is resignable at will. Of
course the representative peers are peers of Scotland or Ireland
respectively; but by being elected representative peers they acquire a
_pro-tempore_ peerage of the realm coincident with the duration of the
parliament, and at a dissolution require re-election, when of course any
such peer need not be reappointed.
Now the clergy, says your correspondent CANONICUS EBORACENSIS (Vol. iv.,
p. 197.), are _represented_ by the bishops. Although, therefore, whilst
they are so representative, they are peers of the realm just as much as
the lay members of the Upper House, I can see no reason why any bishop,
who, like Dr. Pearce, feels old age and infirmity coming on, should not
resign this representation, _i.e._ his peerage, or the _temporal_
station which in England, owing to the existing connexion between church
and state, attaches to the _spiritual_ office of a bishop.
Of course, ecclesiastically speaking, there is no doubt at all that a
bishop may resign his spiritual functions, _i.e._ the overlooking of his
diocese, for any meet cause. Our colonial bishops, for instance, do so.
The late warden of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, Bishop Coleridge, had
been Bishop of Barbadoes. So that if Lord Dover's theory be correct, a
purely secular reason, arising from the peculiar position of the English
church, would prevent any conscientious bishop from resigning duties, to
the discharge of which, from old age, bodily infirmity, or impaired
mental organs, he felt himself unfit.
Perhaps some of your correspondents will give me some information on
this matter.
K. S.
SANDERSON AND TAYLOR.
I shall be much obliged if any of your readers can explain the following
coincidence between Sanderson and Jeremy Taylor. Taylor, in the
beginning of the _Ductor Dubitantium_, says:
"It was well said of St. Bernard, 'Conscientia candor est lucis
æternæ, et speculum sine macula Dei majestatis, et imago bonitatis
illius;' 'Conscience is the brightness and splendour of the
eternal light, a spotless mirror of the Divine Majesty, and the
image of the goodness of God.' It is higher which Tatianus said of
conscience, Μόνον εἶναι συνείδησιν Θεὸν, 'Conscience is
God unto us,' which saying he had from Menander,
Βροτοῖς ἅπασιν ἡ συνείδησις Θεὸς.
"God is in our hearts by his laws; he rules in us by his
substitute, our conscience; God sits there and gives us laws; and
as God said unto Moses, 'I have made thee a God to Pharaoh,' that
is, to give him laws, and to minister in the execution of those
laws, and to inflict angry sentences upon him, so hath God done to
us."
In the beginning of Sanderson's second lecture, _De Obligatione
Conscientiæ_, he says:
"Hine illud ejusdem Menandri. Βροτοῖς ἅπασιν ἡ
συνείδησις Θεὸς; _Mortalibus sum cuique Conscientia Deus est_,
Quo nimirum sensu dixit Dominus se _constituisse Mosen Deum
Pharaoni_; quod seis Pharaoni voluntatem Dei subinde _inculcaret_,
ad cum faciendam Pharaonem _instigaret_, non obsequentem
contentibus plagis insectaretur; eodem fere sensu dici potest,
eundem quoque _constituisse in Deum unicuique hominum_ singularium
propriam _Conscientiam_."
Sanderson's _Lectures_ were delivered at Oxford in 1647, but not
published till 1660. The Dedication to Robert Boyle is dated November,
1659. The _Ductor Dubitantium_ is dedicated to Charles II. after the
Restoration, but has a preface dated October, 1659. It is not likely,
therefore, that, Taylor borrowed from the printed work of Sanderson.
Perhaps the quotations and illustrations which they have in common were
borrowed from some older common source, where they occur _associated_ as
they do in these two writers. I should be glad to have any such source
pointed out.
W. W.
Cambridge.
Minor Queries.
220. "_Vox verè Anglorum._"--"_Sacro-Sancta Regum
Majestas._"--_Translator of Horrebow's "Iceland."_--Perhaps some of your
readers may be able to tell me the names of the writers of the two
following works, which were published anonymously.
1. _Vox verè Anglorum: or England's loud Cry for their King._ 4to. 1659.
Pp. 15. In this the place where it was published or printed is not
given.
2. _Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas: or, the Sacred and Royall Prerogative
of Christian Kings._ 4to. Printed at Oxford, 1644. The Dedication is
signed "J. A."
I should also wish to find out, if possible, the name of the translator
of Horrebow's _Natural History of Iceland_, published in folio, in
London, in 1758.
Βορέας.
221. "_Kings have their Conquests._"--I have met with a passage
commencing thus:
"Kings have their conquests, length of days their date,
Triumph its tomb, felicity its fate;"
followed by two more lines expressive of the infinity of Divine power,
as compared with human, which I have forgotten. Where is the passage to
be found?
JAMES F. ABSALON.
Portsea.
222. _Dryden--Illustrations by T. Holt White._--The late T. Holt White,
Esq. (who edited and published in 1819 the _Areopagitica_ of Milton,
adding a very ably composed preface, erudite notes, and interesting
illustrations), had compiled in _many_ interleaved volumes of the works
of Dryden, such a mass of information, that Sir Walter Scott, when he
had turned over the leaves of a few volumes, closed them, and is
reported to have said, "_It would be unjust to meddle with such a
compilation; I see that I have not even straw to make my bricks with._"
Can any one of your correspondents inform me if that compilation has
been preserved, and where it is?
ÆGROTUS.
223. _Pauper's Badge, Meaning of._--In the Churchwarden's Accounts for
the parish of Eye for the year 1716, is the following entry:
"22 July, 1716.
"It is agreed that, forasmuch as Frances Gibbons _hath refused to
weare the badge_, that she should not be allowed the collection
[_i.e._ the weekly parish allowance] now due, nor for the future
w'h shall be due."
Can any correspondent inform me what this _badge_ was, and also if it
was of general use in other places?
J. B. COLMAN.
224. _The Landing of William Prince of Orange in Torbay. Painted by J.
Northcote, R. A._--Can any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" inform
me who is the owner of the above-named painting, which was in the
Exhibition of the Royal Academy at the end of the last century, and
afterwards engraved by J. Parker?
A. H. W.
225. _The Lowy of Tunbridge._--Lambarde (_Perambulation of Kent_, 1596,
p. 425.) says, that round about the town of Tunbridge lieth a territory
commonly called the Lowy, but in the ancient records written Leucata or
Leuga, which was a French league of ground, and which was allotted at
first to one Gislebert, son of Godfrey (who was natural brother to
Richard, second Duke of Normandy of that name), in lieu of a town and
land called Bryonnie in Normandy, which belonged to him, and which
Robert, eldest son to King William the Conqueror, seized and bestowed on
Robert Earle Mellent. I should be glad to know if there is at present
any trace of such a territory remaining.
E. N. W.
Southwark, Sept. 28, 1851.
226. _Bones of Birds._--Some naturalists speak of the hollowness of the
bones of birds as giving them buoyancy, because they are filled with
air. It strikes me that this reason is inconclusive, for I should
suppose that in the atmosphere, hollow bones, _quite empty_, would be
more buoyant than if filled with air. Perhaps one of your correspondents
will kindly enlighten my ignorance, and explain whether the air with
which the bones are filled is not used by the bird in respiration in the
more rarefied altitudes, and the place supplied by a more gaseous
expiration of less specific gravity than the rarefied atmosphere?
Although of a different class from the queries you usually insert, I
hope you will not think this foreign to the purpose of your useful
miscellany.
AN AERONAUT.
227. _"Malvina, a Tragedy."_--Can any of your readers afford any
information about (1.) _Malvina, a Tragedy_, Glasgow, printed by Andrew
Foules, 1786, 8vo., pp. 68? A MS. note on the copy in my library states
it to be written by Mr. John Riddel, surgeon, Glasgow. (2.) _Iphigenia,
a Tragedy_ in four acts. In Rege tamen Pater est.--Ovid. MDCCLXXXVII. My
copy has this MS. note: "By John Yorke, of Gouthwait, Esq., Yorkshire,"
in the handwriting of Francis, seventh Baron Napier. Neither of these
tragedies in noticed in the _Biographia Dramatica_.
J. MT.
228. _Rinuccini Gallery._--I see by a late number of the _Athenæum_
newspaper, that the splendid collection of pictures preserved in the
Rinuccini Palace at Florence will be brought to the hammer in the month
of May 1852. It has been stated, that amongst the works of art at one
period extant in the Rinuccini Palace, were a number of paintings made
by Italian artists for Cardinal Rinuccini, when on his Legatine mission
to Ireland in the middle of the seventeenth century, and representing
his triumphal entry into Kilkenny in November 1645. It has also been
asserted that these interesting historical paintings were wilfully
destroyed from a very discreditable motive. The importance of these
cartoons, as illustrating a period when Ireland became the final
battle-field of the contending parties which then divided the British
dominions, will at once be acknowledged; and at this period, when so
many foreigners are assembled in London, perhaps some reader of "NOTES
AND QUERIES" may be able to set the question of the existence or
destruction of these cartoons at rest. Or, at all events, some person
about to seek the genial air of Italy during the winter may bear this
"Query" in mind, and forward to your valuable paper a "Note" of the
contents of the Rinuccini Gallery. I need hardly say that the person so
doing will confer a favour on every student of Irish History.
JAMES GRAVES.
Kilkenny, Oct. 11.
Minor Queries Answered.
_Meaning of Aneroid._--What is the derivation of the word _aneroid_, as
applied to a new description of barometer lately introduced?
AGRICOLA.
[From a note in Mr. Dent's interesting pamphlet, _A Treatise on
the Aneroid, a newly invented Portable Barometer; with a short
Historical Notice of Barometers in general, their Construction and
Use_, it appears that the word _aneroid_ has been the subject of
some philological discussion. "It is said to be derived from three
Greek words, ἀ, νηρὸς, and εἶδος, and to signify _a form without
fluid_. If so, it does not appear very happily chosen, since it
indicates merely what the instrument is _not_, without at all
explaining what it is."]
_Fox's Cunning._--Can any of your correspondents or readers give any
authentic information as to the fact having been witnessed by any one,
of the old story of the fox relieving itself of fleas by taking a
feather in its mouth, and gradually, though slowly enough, retrograding
itself into the water, first by legs and tail, then body, shoulders, and
head to the nose, and thus compelling the fleas, to escape from the
drowning element, to pass over the nose on to the bridge of the feather,
which is then committed to the stream.
Has any one actually seen this? Has any one heard it related by one who
has seen the ejectment performed?
J. D.
Torquay, May 12.
[Lord Brougham, in his _Dialogues on Instinct_ (ed. 1844, p.
110.), does not allude to this proverbial instance, but says: "I
know not if it (the Fox's cunning) was ever more remarkably
displayed than in the Duke of Beaufort's country; where Reynard,
being hard pressed, disappeared suddenly, and was, after strict
search, found immersed in a water pool up to the very snout, by
which he held a willow bough hanging over the pond."]
Replies.
ARCHBISHOP OF SPALATRO.
(Vol. iv., p. 257.)
_Audi alteram partem_ is too excellent and equitable a rule, not to find
ample scope given for its exercise in "NOTES AND QUERIES," especially
where the memory of a foreigner is concerned, who, after dwelling awhile
among us under the protection of our hospitality, and in the communion
of our Church, was content eventually to sacrifice his life, rather than
forsake the truth, or repudiate the Church of England.
I am led to this remark by observing the tone of depreciation in which
Chalmers speaks of Antonius de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, in the
extract produced at p. 257. out of the _Biographical Dictionary_, for
the satisfaction of MR. W. FRAZER.
The words of Chalmers, which I conceive to be objectionable, alike
ungenerous and inaccurate--such as Fuller might rejoice in (conf.
_Church History_, book x.)--are:
"He returned to Rome in 1622, _where he abjured his errors_; but
on the discovery of a correspondence which he held with some
Protestants, he was thrown into prison, where he died in 1625. He
was a man of great abilities and learning, _although remarkable
for a fickleness in religious matters_."
This reproach against the good archbishop, of having renounced the
English communion (for that is doubtless what is meant), is clearly an
unjust accusation, and appears to be based upon no better authority than
a spurious book, published in the Low Countries under Spalatro's name,
but without his knowledge or sanction, and bearing the following title:
_Marc. Ant. de Dominis sui reditus ex Angliâ concilium exponit_, 4to.
Dilingæ, 1623. This book at the time of its publication deceived Bishop
Hall, and gave occasion to the _Alter Ecebolius M. Ant. de Dominis,
pluribus dominis inservire doctus_: 4to. Lond. 1624.
It is only fair, certainly, to Spalatro's memory, that the calumnies
thus raised against him in his lifetime should not now be perpetuated by
the inadvertency of modern writers, for so far at least the means are at
hand to refute them. Now there is one writer especially who has done
much to vindicate the name of Ant. de Dominis from this charge of
"fickleness in religious matters." That writer is Bishop Cosin, whose
testimony herein is of the more value from the fact of his having been
present (as Bishop Overall's secretary) at the "Conference between
Spalato and Overall," which "Conference" the following particulars were
collected by Mr. Gutch, _e Schedis MSS. Cosini_, and are preserved in
the _Collectanea Curiosa_, vol. ii. p. 18.:
"A. Spalato came into England in 1616, being desirous to live
under the protection of King James, having before been recommended
by Padre Paolo. By King James's bounty and care he was safely
conveyed through Germany into England, and lodged in Lambeth
Palace: Abbot thinking fit to retire to Croydon, till either
Bishop Andrewes or Bishop Overall had conferred with him. The king
sent Bishop Overall to him, who took in his company his secretary,
and commanded him to be near him the same morning Spalato arrived,
to hear what passed between them. After dinner, some other being
present, the discourse began about the state of the Church of
England; of which Overall having given a large account, Spalato
received great satisfaction, and made his protestation that he
came into England then to live with us in the union and profession
of that Catholic religion which was so much obstructed in his own
country, that he could not with safety and peace of conscience
live there any longer. Then he added what satisfaction he had
received from the monitory preface of King James [Vid. _Apol. for
the Oath of Allegiance_, ed. 4to. Lond. 1609] to all the estates
and churches of Christendom; wherein the true ancient faith and
religion of the Catholic Church is set forth, and no heterodoxies
or novelties maintained: to the defence of which faith, and
service of which Church, as he had already a long time applied his
studies, and wrote ten books, _De Republicâ Ecclesiasticâ_, so, by
the favour of God, and King James, he was now come into England to
review and publish them, together with the _History of the Council
of Trent_, which he had brought with him from Padre Paolo of
Venice, who delivered it into his hands; by whom he was chiefly
persuaded and encouraged to have recourse to the king and the
Church of England, being the best founded for the profession of
true Catholic doctrine, and the freest from error and novelties,
of any Church in all places besides. Then they descended to the
particular points of doctrine," &c.
It is, however, _not_ with the _doctrinal_ question which would, of
course, be inadmissible in "NOTES AND QUERIES," but with the historical
_fact_, that we have to do; the question being, whether Antonius
Spalateasis was "fickle" in respect of the Church of England.
There is an interesting sketch of Spalatro's _after_ history in Cosin's
_Treatise against Transubstantiation_, chap. ii. § 7.; from Luke de
Beaulieu's translation of which (Cosin's _Collected Works_, vol. iv. p.
160., Oxford, 1851) I quote the following:
"Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, (was) a man well
versed in the Sacred Writings, and the records of antiquity; who,
having left Italy (when he could no longer remain in it, either
with quiet or safety) by the advice of his intimate friend, Paulus
Venetus, took sanctuary under the protection of King James of
blessed memory, in the bosom of the Church of England, which he
did faithfully follow in all points and articles of religion. But,
being daily vexed with many affronts and injuries, and wearied by
the unjust persecutions of some sour and over-rigid men, who
bitterly declaimed everywhere against his life and actions, he at
last resolved to return into Italy with a safe conduct. Before he
departed he was, by order from the king, questioned by some
commissionated bishops, what he thought of the religion and church
of England, which for so many years he had owned and obeyed, and
what he would say of it in the Roman court. _To this query he gave
in writing this memorable answer, 'I am resolved, even with the
danger of my life, in profess before the Pope himself, that the
Church of England is a true and orthodox Church of Christ.' This
he not only promised, but faithfully performed_; for though, soon
after his departure, there came a book out of the Low Countries,
falsely bearing his name, by whose title many were deceived, even
among the English, and thereby moved to tax him with apostacy, and
of being another Ecebolius; yet, when he came to Rome (where he
was most kindly entertained in the palace of Pope Gregory XV., who
formerly had been his fellow-student), _he could never be
persuaded_ by the Jesuits and others, who daily thronged upon him,
neither to subscribe the new-devised tenets of the Council of
Trent, or _to retract those orthodox books_ which he had printed
|
, she pirouetted around for the observation of the
boys, then paused and smiled bewitchingly.
"Do?" cried McGlory. "Why, sis, you'll be the hit of the piece. All I
hope"--and McGlory's face went rather long--"is that you and Matt come
through your trip in the air without any trouble."
"I'm not afraid!" declared Haidee.
"No more you're not, sis. If you were riding on the lower wing with
Matt the whole game would be different; but you're to hang under the
machine, and there'll be more pitching and plunging than if you were
aboard a bucking bronk. Hang on, that's all, and don't try to hang by
your heels."
"I'll get an extra fifty dollars a week!" cried the girl.
It was plain to be seen that she placed great store on that "fifty
dollars a week."
"What does your uncle, Ben Ali, think of it, Haidee?" asked Matt.
A barely perceptible frown crossed the girl's face. What was passing in
her mind? Whatever her thoughts were, they found no echo in her answer.
"Uncle Ben is glad to have me do it," and Haidee retreated toward the
door.
"Have you seen Ping, Haidee?" inquired Matt.
"When I saw him last," was the response, "he was walking toward the
river with a couple of buckets. I'll be going, now. I'll see you again
when the parade starts. That trapeze act on the aëroplane will make a
great hit, don't you think?"
"It ought to," said Matt.
The girl vanished.
"I'll walk over to the steam music box," remarked McGlory, "and see if
I can spot our pigtail friend."
"All right," returned Matt, dropping down on an overturned bucket and
pulling a pencil and memorandum book from his pocket.
Before he could begin to figure, he heard a voice addressing McGlory at
the tent door--and it was a voice that brought him up rigidly erect and
staring.
"Say, misder, iss dis der shteam cantalope tent?"
McGlory laughed.
"Well, yes, Dutchy, you've made a bull's-eye first clatter. Here's
where they keep the 'cantalope.' What's the matter with you? Look like
you'd gone in swimming and forgotten to take off your clothes."
"I tropped in der rifer mit meinseluf, und id vas vetter as I t'ought.
Say, vonce, iss Modor Matt aroundt der blace?"
"He's inside, and---- Sufferin' whirlwinds, but you're in a hurry!"
A bedraggled form, with a dripping bundle in one hand and a stick in
the other, hurled itself through the opening with a yell.
"Matt! Mein olt pard, Matt!"
The next instant Carl Pretzel had rushed forward and twined his
water-soaked arms about the king of the motor boys. The Dutchman's
delight was of the frantic kind, and he gurgled and whooped, and
blubbered, and wrestled with Matt in a life-and-death grip.
McGlory, in amazement, watched from the entrance.
"Carl!" exclaimed Matt. "By all that's good, if it isn't Carl! Great
spark plugs, old chap, where did you drop from?"
"Ach, from novere und eferyvere. Vat a habbiness! I peen so dickled mit
meinseluf I feel like I vas going to pust! My olt raggie, Matt, vat I
ain'd seen alreddy for a t'ousant years!"
Just then there was a rush behind McGlory, and some one nearly knocked
him over getting into the tent.
"My workee fo' Motol Matt!" shrilled a high, angry voice. "Dutchy boy
no workee!"
Ping was terribly hostile, but McGlory caught and held him.
Carl tore himself loose from Matt and would have rushed at Ping had he
not been restrained.
"Looks like they'd both been in the river," remarked McGlory.
"What's the trouble here, boys?" asked Matt.
CHAPTER III.
AN EAVESDROPPER.
Both Carl and Ping tried to explain matters at the same time. Each
talked loud, in the hope of drowning out the other, and the jargon was
terrific. Finally McGlory got a hand over the Chinaman's mouth, and
Carl was able to give his side of the question. After that, Ping had
his say.
"There's been no cause whatever for this flare-up," said Matt.
"Everybody knows that Carl can't sing, but everybody who's acquainted
with him, too, knows that he's got more pluck to the square inch than
any fellow of his size. Carl's all right, Ping. He went around South
America with Dick Ferral and me on that submarine, and we parted
company in San Francisco just before I met up with Joe. Shake hands,"
and Matt pushed Carl toward the Chinaman.
"My workee fo' Motol Matt," whispered Ping, who had likewise been given
a push by the cowboy; "Dutchy boy no workee, huh?"
"You're both pards of mine," said Matt, "and you've got to be friends.
Now, shake hands."
The shaking was done--rather hesitatingly, it is true, but nevertheless
it was done.
"Now," went on Matt, "you get into your regalia, Ping. Carl, you can
get out of your wet clothes and put on Joe's working suit. While you're
about it, tell me how you happen to be here. You stay and listen, Joe,"
the young motorist added. "I want you to like Carl as well as I do."
"That's me, pard," laughed McGlory, taking a seat on one of the
buckets. "There's plenty of ginger in the Dutchman, and that's what
cuts the ice with me."
Ping, covertly watching and listening, moved over to his bag of clothes
and began rigging himself out in his gorgeous raiment. Carl, talking as
he worked, removed his water-logged costume.
"I vas a tedectif, Matt," said he gravely.
"What's that?" demanded McGlory.
"Detective," smiled the king of the motor boys. "My Dutch pard has been
making a sleuth out of himself."
"Yah, so," pursued Carl. "Tick Verral vent off mit his uncle, in
Tenver, und I run avay to San Francisco looking for Matt. He don'd
vas dere some more, und I can't find oudt nodding aboudt vere he vas
gone. I haf to do somet'ing vile vaiting for him to turn oop, und so I
go indo der tedectif pitzness. Dot's great vork, I bed you. You findt
somet'ing for somepody, und dey gif you all kindts oof money. Fine!"
"How much have you made at the business, Carl?" queried Matt.
"Vell, nodding, so far as I haf gone, Matt. Aber I don'd haf no luck
mit it. I vas schust learning der ropes. A feller hat his money took
avay in 'Frisco. I ged oudt oof dot mit a proken headt, und don'd findt
der money. Vell, next a olt laty in Salt Lake City loses her parrot,
und say she gif ten tollar vould I findt him. I ketch der parrot off
a push schust ven anodder feller lays holt oof him. Ve fight for der
pird, der pird iss kilt, und some more I don'd ged nodding, only a
plack eye und some fierce talk from der olt laty. Aber I don'd ged
tiscouraged, nod at all. I vork on mit meinseluf.
"Pympy, I peen in Chicago--der blace vere ve vas, Matt, mit der air
ship. Dot's a great town for der tedectif pitzness, I bed you. I try to
hire oudt by a prifate tedectif achency, aber dey don'd vant me. I keep
afder dose fellers, und afder I was t'rown from der office a gouple oof
times I valked in on dem by der fire escape. Den dey gif me some chobs."
"What sort of a job did they give you, Carl?"
By that time the Dutch boy had stripped and put on McGlory's clothes.
Reaching for his water-logged bundle, he untied it, and fished a folded
newspaper from an assortment of rubber collars, socks, and red cotton
handkerchiefs.
The newspaper was very damp, and had to be handled with care.
"Dis iss some English papers, Matt," explained Carl. "Id vas brinted in
Lonton, und dose tedectif fellers had him py deir office. How mooch iss
a t'ousant pounds in Unidet Shtates money, hey?"
"Five thousand dollars."
"Veil, dot's der chob--making dot fife t'ousant. I bet you I get rich
vone oof dose tays."
"You have to do something, don't you, before you get the money?"
queried McGlory, with a wink at Matt.
"Ach, dot's nodding," answered Carl, in a large, offhand manner. "Readt
dot, Matt."
Matt took the wet newspaper and read a marked paragraph, which ran as
follows:
"£1,000 Reward! This sum will be paid for any information concerning
one Margaret Manners, last known to be in Calcutta, India. Miss
Manners is about eighteen years of age, and is the only daughter of
the late Captain Lionel Manners, of the English Army, stationed at
Bombay. Miss Manners disappeared from her home, under mysterious
circumstances, and it is possible she went to America and engaged in
the circus business. Any one with knowledge concerning the missing
person, and desirous of obtaining the reward, will please communicate
with Arthur Hoppleson, Solicitor, 10 Kent's Road, London, W. C.
Further information, which cannot be publicly printed, will be
cheerfully furnished."
Motor Matt, after reading the paragraph to himself, read it aloud.
"Why," grinned McGlory, "that outfit of detectives was working your
German friend, Matt. They gave him that and sent him on a wild-goose
chase, just to get rid of him."
"Dot's a misdake," declared Carl. "Dose fellers saw I meant pitzness,
py shinks, und dey gif me der hardest case dey hat. Yah, so. Since den
I haf peen looking for shows. Eferyvere I hear aboudt some shows I hike
avay. Aber I don'd findt Miss Manners. She don'd vas in der mooseums,
oder in der Vild Vest shows, or in Rinklings; und oof she vasn't in
der Pig Gonsolidated, den I vas oop some shtumps. My money has blayed
oudt, und I hat to rite in a pox car to Lafayette, Intiana. Here I vas
shdrolling along tovard der show groundts ven I see dot shink mit der
puckets, und hat sooch a scrap. Afder der scrap vas ofer, a man on a
elephant shpeak about Motor Matt. Den I don'd t'ink oof nodding more. I
come, so kevick as bossiple, to findt my olt raggie. Und here ve vas,
togedder like ve used to be." A broad smile covered Carl's face. "Now
I don'd care for nodding. Oof you t'ink you could help me findt Miss
Manners, den I vill be opliged, und gif you part oof der revard--a
gouple oof pounds oof id, anyvay."
"It looks to me, Carl," said Matt, handing back the paper, "as though
the men in that detective office were trying to have some fun with you.
Have you written to London to secure further information?"
Carl looked startled.
"Vell," he admitted, "I ditn't t'ink oof dat."
"You're a fine detective, you are," said Matt. "You might as well hunt
for a needle in a haystack as to hunt for this English girl. Can't you
see? You've got a pretty wide field to cover, and it is only _supposed_
that she came to America and engaged in the circus business."
Carl ran his fingers through his carroty hair.
"Meppy dot's right," he mused. "Oof dose fellers in Chicago vas making
some monkey-doodle pitzness mit me, you bed you I vould like to fool
dem. Meppy I findt der girl. Den vat? V'y, dose tedectif fellers feel
like t'irty cent. You vas vorking for der show, Matt?"
"We've an engagement with the manager for making flights in our
aëroplane."
"Vat's dose?"
"What's an aëroplane? Why, Carl, it's a heavier-than-air flying
machine."
"So? Und you go oop in id?"
"Yes."
Carl sat on a bucket and ruminated for a space.
"You know pooty near efery vone dot vorks for der show, hey?" he asked.
"Yes, I know every one."
"Iss dere a girl mit der name oof Markaret Manners?"
"No. But she'd have a different name if she was with a show, Carl.
Performers hardly ever use their real names."
"Dot's righdt, too." Once more Carl ran his fingers through his mop of
hair. "Iss der any vone connected mit der show vat has a shtrawperry
mark on der arm?" he asked, brightening.
"Strawberry mark on the arm?" repeated Matt. "Why, Carl, that
advertisement doesn't say anything about such a thing."
"I know dot, aber efery young laty you read aboudt vat's lost has der
shtrawperry mark on der----"
McGlory let off a roar of laughter. Carl straightened up with a pained
look on his fat face.
"Carl," cried McGlory, "you're a great sleuth, and no mistake! You jump
at too many conclusions."
"Dere don'd vas anyt'ing else to chump ad," returned Carl. "Dis vas a
dark case, you bed you, und dere has to be some guessings. Dot's vat I
make now, der guessings."
"Pretty woolly guessing, at that, and----"
McGlory broke off abruptly to follow a sudden movement on Matt's part.
The canvas forming the side of the menagerie tent had shaken, as though
there was some one on the other side of it. Matt, seeing the shiver
of the canvas, leaped for the wall. The next moment he had lifted the
canvas and was looking into the other tent.
A tall, brown-faced man, wearing a turban and an embroidered jacket,
was just vanishing through the tent entrance. Matt dropped the canvas
and turned away, a thoughtful look taking the place of the smile with
which he had listened to Carl's talk.
"What was it, pard?" asked McGlory.
"An eavesdropper," replied Matt.
"Speak to me about that!" exclaimed McGlory. "If some one thought the
Dutchman's yarn worth listening to, then perhaps there's something in
it."
"Perhaps." Motor Matt's brow wrinkled perplexedly.
"Who was the fellow? Could you recognize him?"
"It was Ben Ali."
McGlory bounded up, excited, and his own face reflecting some of the
perplexity that shone in his friend's.
Before the conversation could be continued, however, a man thrust his
head into the calliope tent.
"They're waiting for you fellows," he announced. "Hustle!"
CHAPTER IV.
QUEER PROCEEDINGS.
The place occupied by the aëroplane in the procession was almost at the
end, and just behind the herd of four elephants. Rajah, owing to his
freakish disposition, was always the fourth elephant of the string,
Delhi his mate, immediately preceding him. With peaceable brutes ahead,
Rajah might usually be depended upon not to cut any capers.
It will be seen from this that the _Comet_ followed on the heels of
Rajah.
The parade was almost in readiness for the start when Matt, McGlory,
and Ping reached the aëroplane. Hostlers were running about placing
plumes in the head-stalls of the horses, drivers were climbing to their
seats, the wild animal trainer was getting into the open cage, and the
members of the band were tinkering with their instruments.
Haidee was standing by the aëroplane when Matt, McGlory, and Ping
reached the machine.
"All ready, Haidee?" asked Matt.
The girl turned and looked at him blankly. Her face was unusually
white, and there was a vacant stare in her eyes.
"What's to pay, sis?" asked McGlory, with a surprised look at Matt.
"Don't you feel well?"
"I am well."
The words came in an unnatural voice and with parrot-like precision.
Boss Burton came hustling down the line in his runabout.
"Hurry up, Matt," he called. "Help Haidee to a place on the upper wing
of the _Comet_."
Matt stepped over to the runabout.
"What's the matter with the girl?" he asked, in a low tone.
"Matter?" echoed Burton, fixing a keen look on the girl. "By Jupiter,
she's got one of her spells again! She hasn't had one of those for a
month, now, and I thought they'd about left her for good."
"Is she subject to spells of that kind?"
"She used to be. There's something queer about them, but they don't
last long."
"We shouldn't put her on the upper wing, then. There's no seat there,
and nothing to hold on to."
The sharp, impatient notes of a trumpet came from the head of the line.
"Well, put her somewhere," said Burton impatiently, and whirled his
horse.
"Get on the top plane, Ping," said Matt, hurrying back to the _Comet_.
"Haidee is going to ride on the lower wing with us."
"Awri'," chirped Ping, and McGlory gave him a leg up.
Haidee, moving like an automaton, made no objection to this
arrangement. She took her place obediently on the lower wing of the
machine, between Matt and McGlory, and the engine was started.
When the elephants began to move, Matt switched the power into the
bicycle wheels, and the aëroplane lurched over the uneven ground.
Reaching the road, the _Comet_ went more steadily; and when the
procession wound into the paved thoroughfares, the movement was
comparatively easy.
Ben Ali, from the neck of Rajah, kept turning around and looking back
at the three on the lower plane of the _Comet_.
Matt, McGlory, and Haidee, on account of the wings of the aëroplane
being turned lengthwise of the street, rode facing the sidewalk on the
left. In order to see them, Ben Ali was obliged to keep Rajah somewhat
out of the line.
"What's the matter with Ben Ali?" asked McGlory, leaning forward and
talking in front of Haidee. "He's showing a heap more interest in the
_Comet_ than he ever did before."
Matt shook his head, and met steadily the piercing eyes of the Hindoo
until they were turned forward again.
"What is your uncle looking this way for, Haidee?" he asked.
"I don't know."
The girl expressed herself in the same mechanical way she had done
before.
"Haidee isn't herself," said Matt, "and I guess her uncle is worried.
Change seats with her, Joe."
Matt wanted to talk with his cowboy chum and did not want to be under
the necessity of passing his words around the girl.
"Move over, sis," requested McGlory, standing up and balancing himself
on the foot-rest.
The girl quietly slipped along the plane.
Cheer after cheer greeted the aëroplane and the king of the motor boys
as soon as the crowded thoroughfares were reached. Ping, on the upper
wing, and clad in all his barbaric finery, was as proud as a peacock.
Haidee, on the other hand, paid absolutely no attention to the crowds.
She sat rigidly in her place, like a girl carved from stone, keeping
her unblinking eyes straight ahead of her.
"I'm plumb beat, and no mistake," breathed McGlory, in Matt's ear. "I
never saw Haidee like this before. She acts to me like she was locoed."
"Boss Burton told me, just before we started," answered Matt, in a low
tone, "that she was subject to'spells.' This is the first one she has
had in a month, Burton says."
"Can you savvy it?"
"No."
"Ben Ali seems worried out of his wits. Watch how he keeps Rajah
zigzagging back and forth across the trail, so he can get a look at the
girl every now and then. I wonder if Haidee knows what she's about?"
"She must. If she didn't she wouldn't be riding in the aëroplane."
The bands played, the crowds waved hands and handkerchiefs and cheered,
the clowns carried out all their funny stunts, and the procession moved
on through the city of Lafayette. Students from Purdue University
followed the paraders and blew long blasts through tin horns. Rajah
showed signs of becoming restless, and Ben Ali's attention had to be
given entirely to the big brute.
Matt, with one hand on the steering lever, kept the unwieldy machine
moving in a straight track.
"What do you suppose Ben Ali was listening to Carl's talk for, there on
the inside of the menagerie tent?" inquired the cowboy, his voice so
low it could not possibly reach Haidee. "I had a notion that----"
"Sh-h-h!" Matt interrupted. "I had the same notion, Joe, but it was
only a wild guess, at the most. He's a prying chap, that Ben Ali, and
he might have had only a casual interest in what Carl was saying."
"I'll bet a ten-dollar bill against a chink wash ticket that there was
something more to it than that."
"Well, if there was, it's bound to come out, sooner or later. Say
nothing, but keep your eyes open."
"I've always felt that there was a mystery about the girl and Ben Ali,
and that----"
McGlory broke off suddenly. Haidee, with the quickness of lightning,
had leaned over behind him and jerked one of the levers at Matt's side.
The next instant the big aëroplane took a wild jump forward. The king
of the motor boys was alive to the danger in an instant.
"Hold the girl!" he cried, and instantly flung the lever back.
The front ends of the two great wings had hurled themselves against
Rajah. The huge animal trumpeted wildly and swung about on his hind
legs with trunk uplifted.
It seemed as though he would surely charge the _Comet_, wreck the
machine, and kill or maim the four who were riding in it.
McGlory, with Haidee in his arms, leaped from the foot-rest into the
road. Ping rolled off the opposite side of the upper plane.
Had Matt deserted his post, the _Comet_ would certainly have been
seriously damaged, if not totally wrecked. But, in spite of the danger
that threatened him, he kept his seat.
Quick as a flash, he threw in the reverse. The bulky machine began
wabbling away on the back track, the clown in the donkey cart behind,
and the acrobatic "haymakers" in their trick wagon, driving frantically
out of the way.
Ben Ali was using his sharp prod with apparent frenzy, but the jabbing
point had not the least effect. Rajah started for Matt and the _Comet_.
Then, had not Delhi's mahout been self-possessed and quick, the worst
would have happened.
People in the street jumped for the walk, and those on the walk pushing
into the open doors of shops. Shrieks and cries went up from the women,
and men yelled in consternation.
Across Rajah's path, with a rush, charged Delhi, coming to a halt
and blocking the way. Rajah tried to go around, but Delhi backed and
continued to cut off his retreat.
By that time Boss Burton had whirled to the scene in the runabout,
and half a dozen men, from the forward wagons, were all around Rajah,
belaboring the brute with cudgels, whips, and whatever they could get
their hands on.
Rajah's incipient rage was soon quelled by this heroic treatment.
"What happened?" demanded Burton, drawing up beside the aëroplane.
"The machine made a jump," answered Matt, not wishing to put the blame
on the girl. "Rajah was too close. Tell Ben Ali to pay more attention
to the elephant and less to us, and to keep in the centre of the road."
Burton was angry. The fault seemed to lie with Matt, but Ben Ali caught
the brunt of the showman's ire.
Ping, his yellow face like a piece of old cheese, got back on the upper
wing, and McGlory led Haidee to the _Comet_ and helped her to her seat.
"Speak to me about that!" gulped the cowboy. "I'm a Piegan if I didn't
think you and the old _Comet_ were done for. What possessed the girl?"
"Give it up," answered Matt grimly. "As you said a while ago, pard,
these are queer proceedings. Just watch Haidee every minute."
"She didn't know what she was doing, and you can gamble a blue stack on
that."
"Of course she didn't. That's why I didn't tell Burton the real cause
of the trouble. Keep it to yourself, Joe."
CHAPTER V.
MOTOR MATT PROTESTS.
The parade was finished without further incident worthy of note, a
huge crowd following it back to the show grounds to see the aëroplane
flight. As soon as the grounds were reached, Ben Ali came for Haidee.
There was a burning light in his black eyes, and he was shaking like a
man with the ague.
"Just a minute, Ben Ali," said Matt, catching the Hindoo by the sleeve
of his embroidered coat and leading him apart. "What's the matter with
your niece?"
"Salaam, sahib," chattered Ben Ali. "Haidee all right soon."
"She can't make an ascension with me, Ben Ali. She was the cause of
that trouble, and it would be sheer madness to take her aloft on that
trapeze."
"Yis, sahib, _such baht_" (that is true). Ben Ali drew a quivering hand
over his forehead. "But she be well like ever soon, sahib."
Ben Ali whirled away, took Haidee by the hand, and vanished among the
wagons.
Boss Burton strode to the scene.
"What ails that brown rascal?" he asked, staring after Ben Ali. "He's
in as bad a taking as the girl. What did he say about her? I've never
been able to get him to tell me anything about her spells."
"He tells me that she will be all right in a little while," answered
Matt.
"Then we'll delay the flight. It will be half an hour yet before all
the people get here."
Matt peered at the showman as though he thought him out of his senses.
"You don't mean to say that you want the girl to ride a trapeze under
the _Comet_?" he demanded.
"Why not?" Burton answered. "You said you'd take her, and she's willing
to go--she wants to go."
"When I said I'd take her," returned Matt, "I didn't know anything
about her spells. Suppose she were to have one while we're in the air?
Why, Burton, she might throw herself from the trapeze."
"No," declared the other, "she wouldn't do that. After she has one
spell, I understand she doesn't have another for days, or weeks. It's
been a month since she had the last. Why, in St. Paul, she had one ten
minutes before she went to the ring for her trapeze work--and she never
did better. If Ben Ali says she'll be all right in a little while he
ought to know."
"I protest against allowing her to go up in the aëroplane," said Matt
firmly. "When the machine is off the ground it has to have my whole
attention. I won't be able to look after Haidee without endangering
both our lives."
A hard look came into Burton's face.
"I'm paying you five hundred a week for the stunt you pull off with the
flying machine, ain't I?" he demanded harshly.
"You are," was the young motorist's calm response.
"And I'm giving the fifty on top of that for taking the girl up with
you?"
"That was your proposition."
"And you agreed to it?"
"That was before I knew Haidee was afflicted in this way, Burton."
"Bosh!" scoffed the showman. "The thing has got on your nerves."
"So it has," acknowledged Matt. "I'm not going to place Haidee in any
danger, if I can help it."
"And that shot goes as it lays, Burton," spoke up McGlory, who had been
taking a deep interest in the talk. "If you think Motor Matt is going
to risk the girl's neck, or his own, for a little fifty a week, you've
got another guess coming."
Boss Burton had set his heart on that trapeze act. It was a decided
novelty, and he could not cut it out of his calculations.
"Am I to understand," he went on, taking a look at the gathering
crowds, "that you'll break your contract rather than take Haidee up
with you?"
"That's what you're to understand!" snapped McGlory. "We'll not hem,
and haw, and side-step, not for a holy minute."
"It's this way, Burton," continued Matt. "Haidee can't go up on the
trapeze--we have to take a running start, you know, and it would be
impossible. She'll have to ride up on the lower plane; then, after we
are well clear of the ground, she'll have to drop from the footboard
with the trapeze in her hands. If she's not entirely herself, the drop
from the footboard to the end of the trapeze ropes will be too much for
her. She'll fall."
"But I told you that after she comes out of these things she's as fit
as ever," cried Burton. "It's a still day--the best we've had for
flying since you joined the show. I don't want to give up the idea."
"And you don't want to see Haidee killed before your eyes, do you?"
asked Matt coldly.
"Oh, splash! There'll be nothing of that kind. Ah, look! Here she
comes, and she's just as well as ever."
Matt and McGlory turned. Haidee, ready for the ascent, was hurrying
toward the machine from the direction of the tent. She moved swiftly
and gracefully, and there was nothing mechanical in her actions--as
there had been during the parade. The pallor had left her cheeks and
the vacant look was gone from her eyes. Matt and McGlory were astounded
at the sudden change in her.
"Are you all ready for me, Motor Matt?" she asked eagerly.
The trapeze was ready. That had been attached to the under plane of the
_Comet_ and the bar lashed to the foot-rest before the parade. But Matt
was not ready.
"How are you feeling, Haidee?" asked Matt kindly.
"Fine!" she declared.
"Do you remember what happened during the parade?"
A puzzled look crossed her face.
"I can't remember a thing about that," she declared. "In fact,
everything has been a blank almost from the time I left the calliope
tent, where I was talking with you, until I came to myself in the
menagerie tent with Uncle Ben."
Matt bowed his head thoughtfully.
"What's the matter?" asked the girl, in a quivering voice. "Aren't you
going to take me up with the _Comet_?"
"He's afraid you'll have a spell while you're in the air, Haidee, and
drop off the bar," jeered Burton.
The girl stepped forward and caught Matt's sleeve.
"Oh, it can't be true!" she exclaimed tearfully. "Motor Matt, you're
not going to keep me from making that extra money? I need it! I must
have it!"
The girl's earnestness made Matt waver.
"It won't do," spoke up McGlory decidedly.
"Joe!" and Haidee turned on him. "Why can't you understand that I'm
just as able as ever to do my trapeze work? I'll not have another of
those queer spells for a long time."
"That's what you think, sis," answered McGlory, "but if anything
happened to you my pard would remember it as long as he lived. He has
just protested to Burton against taking you up. And he had a bean on
the right number when he said what he did."
"_I'm_ taking the chances," said Haidee, "and nothing will happen."
The aëroplane was at rest on the hard roadway running across the
show grounds. For a distance of twenty feet on each side of the road
strong ropes were stretched to keep back the crowd. The throng was now
pressing against the ropes, clamoring for the aëroplane to make its
flight.
"If this performance don't come off," said Boss Burton, "it will be a
tough blow for the Big Consolidated. I advertised this trapeze stunt
on the flying machine in the morning papers, wiring it ahead from
Indianapolis. It's _got_ to be done, that's all. Every promise made in
our bills is always carried out. That's what has given this show a
hold with the people. I don't say one thing and then do another."
"Circumstances alter cases," returned Matt.
"If you don't want to take Haidee, will you take Archie le Bon?"
Archie le Bon was one of the Le Bon Brothers, iron-nerved men who
performed wonderful flying feats on the trapeze.
"Certainly I'll take Archie le Bon," replied Matt, glad to find such
a way out of the disagreement. "Bring him here while I'm getting the
machine ready."
Haidee began to cry, but Burton took her by the arm and led her away,
talking earnestly and in a low voice.
A trick was worked on the king of the motor boys that morning, and it
was something for which he never forgave Boss Burton. And it was a
trick carried to a successful conclusion almost under the very eyes of
McGlory and Ping. Matt, being busy with the aëroplane and the motor,
did not discover it until too late.
Matt went over the machinery of the _Comet_ with the same care he
exercised before every flight. A loose bolt or screw might spell death
for him if it escaped his attention.
When he was through with his examination, and had taken his seat ready
for the flight. Le Bon appeared. He was in his shirt sleeves, not
having had time to exchange his everyday clothes for ring costume.
"I'll run with the machine," said Le Bon, "and climb over the lower
plane from behind when it gets to running too fast for me."
"That will do," answered Matt.
Amid the breathless silence of the crowd, Matt set the motor to working.
"Ready!" he called.
The machine started along the road, gaining in speed with every foot of
its progress.
At the end of fifty feet it was going faster than a man could run; and
at a hundred feet it was darting along at thirty miles an hour. This
was the gait that enabled the wing to pick the machine off the ground.
As the _Comet_ slid upward along its airy path, the astounded McGlory
saw Le Bon far back toward the point from which the machine had
started. Thinking that, through some mistake, Le Bon had been left
behind, McGlory turned toward the mounting aëroplane.
Then the trick dawned upon him.
Haidee was climbing over the lower plane toward Motor Matt, now and
again turning to wave her hand at the cheering
|
iations.
The director rose and spoke, for him, rather enthusiastically. "Yes,
my young friend, Gay is right. You are a true artist. Play that little
romance at the end; you are at your best in that. Play it as you have
done here and we need not fear Bauquel's _claque_. I engage you for
that concert. I will also boom you, but not extravagantly--just
judiciously--in the short time that is left me. Now about terms?"
He named a fee that seemed to Corsini to represent absolute wealth. If
he could only obtain a couple of sovereigns on account, to ease the
hard conditions in Dean Street. Degraux did not seem a hard man; it
was possible the request would be granted as soon as asked.
But prudence forbade. It would be the reverse of politic to plead
absolute poverty on so brief an acquaintance. Till next week, they
must draw their belts a little tighter. Well, experience had taught
them to do that.
He hurried back to Dean Street with the joyful news. He was to appear
before a most fashionable audience in place of the great Bauquel,
squandering his money down at Brighton in order to revenge himself
upon the too plain-speaking Degraux.
Papa Péron was sitting up in bed, Anita by his side. The poor old man
had had one of his good days, the cough was less troublesome. The
doctor had whispered as he went out that if the severe weather mended
a little, they might pull him through. He smiled happily as his young
protégé recounted what had happened.
"I have met Degraux once or twice in the years gone by, and I have
been told that prosperity has not spoiled him. But, my dear boy, there
is one little difficulty about that concert next week."
"And that?" asked young Corsini. He was so overjoyed in his new-found
fortune, that he could think of nothing else.
The old Frenchman chuckled quietly. "You will want an evening suit, my
young friend. One does not appear before Royalty in ordinary clothes,
and those not of the newest, does one?"
Nello groaned. The dress-clothes which Papa Péron had purchased
for the engagement at the Parthenon had found their way to the
pawn-brokers a few days ago, to provide food. What a fool he had been
not to make a clean breast of it to Degraux and ask for a few pounds
in advance!
"It crossed my mind to ask for a loan, and I was afraid I might offend
him," explained the young man.
"Quite right, my dear son, quite right. Those wealthy men are
peculiar. We will not trouble this rich gentleman. There are other
ways."
He pointed his thin hand to a little cupboard standing against the
wall. "Go and open the door. Within I have a small private box where I
keep my papers. Bring it to me, please."
Nello obeyed, and carried to him a beautiful little antique casket of
ebony, inlaid with tortoise-shell and silver, with some cipher letters
on the lid. The old man opened it with a key which he wore attached to
a ribbon round his neck.
From the small box he carefully produced an antique ring with a tiny
miniature portrait, exquisitely painted and set with diamonds. This he
pressed reverently to his lips, and then handed it to the young man,
saying:
"This is the likeness of my honoured Master, my Emperor Napoleon the
Third--given to me with his own hand."
He took out a jewelled star, all tarnished. "This is the Order of the
Chevalier of St. Louis, bestowed upon me for my services to----" He
could not finish his sentence; the tears were rolling down his thin,
wasted cheeks.
Brother and sister exchanged a swift glance across the bed. Evidently,
Monsieur Péron had, at one time, been a personage of some importance.
Sovereigns did not bestow such gifts upon undistinguished people.
"Take that ring and the Order," commanded the old man in his feeble,
husky voice. "Go and pawn them. If you cannot get enough by pawning,
sell them outright. And buy a dress-suit with the money to-day."
Both Nello and his sister protested. These two objects and the piano
were all that the old man had preserved out of his brilliant past.
Corsini spoke. "Listen, dear Papa! You would not part with these when
we had not enough to eat. I can understand what they represent to you.
Do not worry about me. I will go to Degraux in a couple of days and
explain the situation. Even if he is annoyed, he will have gone too
far to recede."
But Péron was persistent. A flash of his old imperiousness came back
to him.
"Go and do as I tell you. My days are numbered. My one hope is that I
may live to see you successful. Go and dress yourself properly. Let me
hear of your success before I die; that is all I wish."
The strain of the interview had been too much for him. Taken with a
violent fit of coughing, he sank back exhausted on his pillow. Anita
pointed to the door.
"You cannot disobey his wishes. Come back and tell him you have done
what he asked you. It may give him a few days more of life."
The young man, fearing the old man's death, rushed round to the
nearest pawnbroker in Wardour Street. Upon the ring alone he raised
sufficient to hire a dress-suit at a neighbouring costumier's. On his
return he was overjoyed to find that the poor Papa had rallied from
his exhaustion.
On the night of the concert Nello came into the old man's room to bid
him good-night. Péron drew him towards him and kissed him on both
cheeks.
"Courage, my son, courage!" Alas! every day the voice was getting
feebler. "You play at the end that little romance with your own
variations. _Au revoir._ I shall be awake when you return to hear the
news. Anita and I will not have a wink of sleep till you come back."
"_Au revoir, bon_ Papa!" was Nello's parting greeting.
Papa Péron raised himself in his bed, shook his hand at the air and
almost shouted after him: "And if you do not outplay that charlatan,
Bauquel, I will never forgive you."
CHAPTER IV
Nello stood facing the big and fashionable audience. A celebrated
accompanist was already seated at the piano. There was perfect silence
in the vast assembly. In a few seconds the pianist would strike the
opening chords, and Nello Corsini, the unknown violinist, must justify
the faith that had been placed in him by Paul Degraux.
He felt sick and a little faint. As he looked dimly into that vast sea
of expectant faces, he realised the ordeal to which he was exposed. In
the little room in Dean Street, with Papa Péron and his worshipping
sister for an audience, it was not difficult to feel at ease, to pour
out his artistic soul. Even to Gay and Degraux, in the privacy of
their apartments, he had given of his best.
But to-night he was before a vast audience, critical and fastidious.
Had they not already sampled many executants, many equal to himself,
not a few superior?
The salient episodes of his later life floated before him. His meeting
with Papa Péron, his introduction to Gay, the placid evenings when he
had played at the Parthenon for a small wage, his accident and the
miserable days that had supervened, his desperate visit to the
powerful Degraux, the marvellous success of that interview. And behind
the recollection of all this, the memory of that dreadful time when
he had played in the streets for a few wretched coppers to keep
himself and his sister from want.
But to-night he was playing for fame and fortune, through the lucky
chance of the great Bauquel's absence. If he made good to-night, if he
could secure the plaudits of this fashionable crowd, coppers would no
longer be his portion, but sovereigns and Bank of England notes.
It was a brilliant assembly. In the Royal box sat the Queen of
England, with the Prince and Princess of Wales. Peers and Peeresses
were there by the dozen. Every other person was more or less
distinguished. This was no audience gathered from the corners of
mean streets.
As the pianist struck the opening chords, the mist cleared from the
young man's brain. Those upturned faces which met his fascinated gaze
were no longer charged with cold hostility, but full of friendliness,
of welcome to a new and untried artist. He drew his bow caressingly
across the strings, and began.
The last plaintive notes died away--he had chosen to open with an
exquisite romance of Greig's. The applause was sincere, but it was not
fervent. Degraux, standing anxiously in the wings, had to admit that
it was not fervent. And then, suddenly, Bauquel's noisy _claque_ burst
forth in a storm of hisses. They were paid by the popular favourite to
howl down any likely rival.
The young man's face went white as death. Was the chance going to
be snatched from him? Would he leave the theatre a failure, to the
disgust of the man who had befriended him and put faith in him?
The storm of hisses, hired disapprobation, died slowly down,
countered, as it was, with a little decorous and well-mannered
applause. The charming romance of Greig, though exquisitely played,
had failed to really touch the audience. If the great Bauquel, with
his well-established reputation, had rendered it, the house would have
been in a furore.
Corsini's next item was a piece by Chopin. Amid the din of the
contending hisses and applause, the pianist beckoned to the young man
and they exchanged whispers.
"Take my advice; leave the Chopin piece. They are not in the
melancholy mood to-night: they want something brilliant, an undernote
of pathos with a cascade of fireworks to relieve the sadness. Play
that romance of yours, _with_ the variations. Cut the theme as short
as possible; use it as just an introduction. Get to work on the
variations, those will fetch them."
Nello set his teeth firmly; opposition, the suspicion of failure, had
goaded him to fresh effort, to a fuller belief in his own powers. He
remembered the good old Papa's injunction: "If you do not outplay that
charlatan, Bauquel, I will never forgive you."
And he played as one inspired. The violin, a legacy from his father,
sang and sobbed and thrilled as it had never done before. When he had
finished the applause was hearty and vehement. The hisses of the
Bauquel _claque_ could no longer be heard. The unknown young
violinist had made good and won the plaudits of one of the most
critical audiences in Europe.
Degraux met him in the wings and shook him warmly by the hand. "A
thousand thanks. I see now I was right in engaging you, in speculating
on a chance. Now, come to my room. You told me something yesterday
about certain things in Dean Street. Cheques are no good to you. You
want ready money."
Nello admitted that it was so. Together they hastened into the
director's private room. Degraux went to a small safe, unlocked it and
drew forth a roll of notes.
"See here, my young friend, you have saved the position. For the
moment, that rascal Bauquel is temporarily eclipsed. Here is your fee,
double what I promised."
Nello protested faintly. "But, Monsieur, this is too much. And
remember, please, I was very nearly a failure. Bauquel's _claque_ was
almost too much for me."
Degraux laughed light-heartedly. "Very nearly, but not quite. You say
your good old Papa Péron calls him a charlatan. The expression is
perhaps a little strong. He is not that, but he is perhaps not the
genius he thinks himself, or his friends think him."
"I should be more than delighted to possess his reputation, Monsieur,"
interrupted the young Italian.
Degraux laid his hand lightly on Nello's shoulder.
"I see, Corsini, you have a head upon your shoulders. Will you permit
me to give you a few words of sound advice?"
"A thousand if you are so disposed, Monsieur."
"You have scored a triumph of sorts to-night, but don't let it give
you a swollen head."
"It will not, Monsieur, I can assure you," was the answer.
"That is well; preserve the business head as well as the artistic
instinct. This profession is full of ups and downs. Look at Bauquel!
In spite of his considerable earnings, he is always in debt, always in
the hands of money-lenders. He earns easily, he spends more easily. In
five years he will be ousted from his position by younger and more
talented rivals, and he will be penniless. He will probably come to me
to borrow a sovereign."
"And you will let him have it, I am sure, Monsieur," said Nello
warmly. "You have a very kind heart."
"Of course I shall let him have it. But, at the same time, I shall
take advantage of the opportunity to say, 'here it is, friend Bauquel.
But why did you not save in the fat years, instead of spending your
money on a miserable _claque_, in order to spoil my show? And you
know, moreover, you were absolutely in the wrong.'"
Nello could not refrain from smiling. Paul Degraux was very human. He
could not forgive Bauquel for his cavalier treatment.
"I am a frugal Italian, Monsieur. I shall never waste my money."
Paul Degraux swelled out his broad chest. "You will get on, my young
friend. Look at me! Twenty or twenty-five years ago I was playing in a
small orchestra with Gay at a few shillings a week--I have no doubt
Gay has told you of that little episode. I know he is a very garrulous
person--a dear good chap, but garrulous. Well, Gay is there and I am
here. Why?"
He thundered out the question, expanding still further his broad
chest.
Nello temporised. The great director was evidently in a confidential
mood. It was as well to fall in with his humour.
"Ah, why, Monsieur? I should like to know. I am sure I should learn a
good deal."
Degraux, in his present mood, was pleased to have a listener. The
concert was going on splendidly with experienced stars. It no longer
required his attention.
"Listen, my young friend! I devoted myself to the business side of
art. I saw more money was to be made out of exploiting other people
than being exploited by others. Do you understand?"
"I think I do," said the young Italian, who was fairly shrewd for his
years. "In fact, I am sure I do."
"Good! Gay followed the artistic side." Degraux snapped his fingers
contemptuously. "The result: poor Gay, at his age, conducting a small
orchestra at the Parthenon--a good one, I admit; but what is the
remuneration? I, Paul Degraux," again he tapped his broad chest
significantly, "am here in a great position. I have followed the
business side of art; poor old Gay has followed the artistic side.
Bah!"
"You advise me, Monsieur, to cultivate the business side?" queried the
young man.
"Of course. I am giving you good advice; sound advice. You have made a
little stir here, certain things may follow from it. But still, you
have not the reputation of Bauquel, second-rater that he is. Bauquel
will be on his knees to me next week, and of course I shall take him
back. It may be, when you come to me again, I can only give you a
second place in the programme. The way will be hard from the artistic
point of view."
Nello listened with deep attention. Degraux was a man of business to
his finger-tips. Certainly he was giving him good advice.
"And what are they, these artists, except the very few who are in the
front rank--creatures of an hour, of the public's caprice? Joachim,
Sarasate, those are names to conjure with; they are permanent. But the
others come and go. I, one of the directors of the Italian Opera,
remain while they disappear. The exploiters are permanent, the
exploited are transitory."
"What do you advise, Monsieur?" asked Nello timidly. This whirlwind of
a man half fascinated, half repelled him.
Monsieur Degraux held out his hand with his frank, engaging smile.
"Be exploited as long as it suits your book. Then save money and
exploit other people. I cannot stay any longer. I have given you a
few hints. You must work them out for yourself."
A new world was opening to Nello Corsini, the talented young violinist
who, only a few weeks ago, had played in the street on the chance of
the coppers flung by passers-by. But it was absurd! How could he ever
be a Paul Degraux? And yet, Degraux had played twenty-five years ago
in a small orchestra for a pittance. What was his income now?
Something princely.
He longed to hasten back to Dean Street with that precious sheaf of
notes. How the dear old Papa's eyes would lighten up at the news of
his success, when he told him the tale of how Bauquel's _claque_ had
been silenced. And the dear little Anita too! Tears of joy would run
down her cheeks.
Degraux, or Bauquel, after such a night of triumph, would have taken a
cab. But such an idea was alien to Nello's frugal temperament. It was
only a few moments' walk. He took his violin case in his hand and
stepped along bravely.
As he emerged from the theatre a footman in handsome livery laid his
hand upon his arm.
"Pardon me, Signor Corsini. The Princess Zouroff wishes to speak to
you. Will you follow me, please? I will lead you to her carriage."
He followed the tall footman. The Princess, a grey-haired woman of
tall and commanding presence, leaned through the carriage window.
"Ah, Signor Corsini, I have been enchanted with your playing to-night.
I am giving a reception at the Russian Embassy, in Chesham Place,
to-morrow evening. I shall be so pleased if you will come and play
for us--at your own fee, of course."
Nello shot a swift glance into the carriage. On the back seat, facing
the horses, were the grey-haired woman and a beautiful young girl. On
the front seat was a dark, handsome man of about thirty-five.
He recognised them at once, the man and the young girl. They were the
two who had driven down the street to the Royalty Theatre on that dark
winter night when he had been playing in the streets.
"Enchanted, Madame. I will present myself to you to-morrow evening.
Will you forgive me if I render you only very brief thanks at the
moment? I have a very dear friend, I fear at the point of death, to
whom I must hasten."
The grey-haired Princess inclined her head graciously. "Pray do not
wait a moment. I am sorry such trouble is awaiting you on the night of
so great a success."
Nello raised his hat and was moving away, when the charming girl
leaned forward and spoke impetuously.
"One second, Signor; we might be of assistance to you. Will you please
give me the name of your friend, and his address?" She had recognised
him the moment he appeared on the platform as the wandering musician
she had passed on her way to the Royalty Theatre.
She turned eagerly to the Princess, her mother. "We might send our own
doctor, Sir Charles Fowler, he is so very clever. Perhaps this
gentleman's friend has not had the best medical advice."
The Princess assented graciously. She was a very kind-hearted woman,
if not quite so enthusiastic in works of charity as her more impulsive
daughter.
Nello, with burning cheeks, gave the name of poor old Papa Péron and
the number of the small house in Dean Street. His cheeks flamed,
because he was wondering if she had recognised him as he had
remembered her. It was evident she thought he was poor by that remark
about the best medical advice.
He thanked both the ladies in a low tone, and for the second time
turned away. The man, Prince Zouroff, who had been fidgeting
impatiently during the short interview, leaned out of the window of
the carriage, and in a sharp, angry voice commanded the coachman to
drive on.
Ho sank back in his seat and darted a glance of contempt, first at his
sister, then at his mother.
"Your foolish sentimentality makes me sick, Nada. And I am surprised
at you for abetting her in it," he added for the benefit of the
Princess.
The Princess answered him in calm, sarcastic tones. "Would it not be
better, Boris, if you left off interfering with every word and act of
poor little Nada? If she has too much compassion, you redress the
balance by having none."
Nello hastened with quick strides in the direction of Dean Street. His
one fear was that Péron might have already passed away. It would be
heart-rending if he were not alive to hear the splendid news.
But the vital flame, although very low, was still burning. The old man
had had a long sleep, the sleep of exhaustion. By some strange effort
of will, he had allayed the impending dissolution, had awoke about
the expected time of Nello's return, and was sitting up in bed,
propped up against the pillows, awaiting the arrival of the young man
whom he had grown to regard as a son.
"It is well, I can see," he said in the low, husky voice that was so
soon to be hushed for ever. "It is well. Triumph is written all over
your face. You have scored an even greater success than you
anticipated, eh?"
Nello sank on his knees beside the bed, at which his sister had
devotedly seated herself, to watch the least movement of the dying
man. He possessed himself of one of the long, wasted hands--those
hands which had once made such eloquent music--and kissed it
reverently.
"All thanks to you, my more than father. There was a trying moment. My
first piece did not touch them much, and the Bauquel _claque_, as
Degraux warned me would be the case, did their best to hiss me down.
Then I set my teeth and vowed that I would not be a failure and return
home disgraced. I played that little romance, with my variations. I
finished in a storm of applause."
"Ah!" sighed Péron amongst his pillows, a wan smile lighting his livid
face. "That is your masterpiece. That would always stir the dullest
audience."
"And listen, dear good Papa. Degraux was so pleased with my success
that he has paid me double the fee he promised. No more short commons
for any of us. Little Anita here shall keep the purse and maintain
us in royal state." He threw his head back and laughed almost
hysterically. "Oh, it must be a dream, a wild, mad dream. I cannot be
the same Nello Corsini who, a few weeks ago, used to play in the
streets for coppers."
Then he recovered from his overwrought mood. There was more yet to be
told to this kind old man.
"Then, dear Papa, I had an adventure--it was the first-fruits of
success. As I came out, a tall footman in livery accosted me; he was
to lead me to the carriage of the Princess Zouroff."
Péron's voice grew a little stronger. "The mother of the Russian
Ambassador, Boris Zouroff. In the long ago I used to know her. Her
husband was a brute. She has two children, Boris and a girl much
younger than he. I have heard that Boris is a brute like his father.
Go on, Nello. Finish your adventure; but I can guess what is coming."
"The Princess is giving a reception to-morrow evening at the Embassy
in Chesham Place. She has asked me to play, at my own price."
Tears welled up into the old man's eyes. "You are made, my son, but we
must not be too jubilant. Artists are creatures of the hour. To-day
Bauquel, to-morrow Nello Corsini. Take advantage of the present, but
it will be wise to look out for something more permanent than the
caprice of public favour, which dethrones its idols almost as quickly
as it has crowned them."
Nello started. There was in Péron's mind the same thought that Degraux
had expressed a short time ago.
The poor old man rallied himself for a last effort. "In that little
cupboard yonder there is a packet containing a few private papers. You
will destroy all except a letter addressed to yourself; in it you will
find my last instructions. But you will not open that cupboard till I
am dead. You both know as well as I do that it is only a question of a
few hours. Well, my son, I do not regret; I have lived long enough to
know of your success. And you have both been a great comfort to me. My
heart was starved till I met you. You have taken the place of the
children I never had."
As he finished, there was a thundering knock at the door. Nello jumped
up, remembering. Had not the Princess Nada promised to send their own
physician?
"I forgot to tell you, _bon_ Papa. I told them I was in a hurry to get
back to you because you were so ill. The young Princess, a most
beautiful girl, inquired your name and address. I gave them. She
wished you to have the best medical advice. She is sending you their
doctor, Sir Charles Fowler. I am sure that is he. I will go down and
see."
In good health, Papa Péron, in spite of his kind heart and still
kinder actions, had a little spice of malice in him. He was not quite
exhausted, as his next words showed.
"I know him well by reputation." This remarkable old man knew of
everybody, so it seemed. "Rather pompous and very suave, a good
bedside manner, rather despised by his fellow practitioners. But he
has a large and very aristocratic connection: he panders to their
whims. But it was very sweet of the young Princess. Evidently she
does not take after her father, she inherits the sweetness of her
mother. Twenty Sir Charles Fowlers cannot keep me alive. But show him
up, out of deference to the Princess. He is as much a charlatan in his
profession as Bauquel is in his."
Nello went downstairs into the shabby sitting-room, where the
slatternly maid had just shown in the popular physician.
Sir Charles addressed the young musician in his most bland and
courteous accents. He must privately have been very annoyed to be sent
at this time of night to such an obscure patient, but he did not
betray his annoyance. The Princess Zouroff and her daughter were
demi-goddesses to him. Their whims were equivalent to a Royal command.
"Signor Corsini, I presume? The Princess has told me over the 'phone
of your great success to-night; I congratulate you. She has sent me
to see a friend of yours, who I understand is seriously ill. Of course
it is not very strict professional etiquette that I should intrude
myself without a request from his local doctor. But the Princess is
a little autocratic, and will be obeyed." He waved his plump hands
deprecatingly, in well-bred apology for the unaccountable vagaries of
the aristocracy. "Will you take me to him, please?"
Corsini led him up the shabby, narrow staircase into the small
apartment containing the two beds, in one of which the now successful
violinist was used to sleep.
Anita was hanging over the bed, with a white face, the tears raining
down her cheeks. In those few seconds of the conversation between her
brother and the doctor, the poor old man's soul had taken flight to
happier realms.
Sir Charles stepped to the other side, and his trained eye took in the
situation at once.
"Alas, my dear sir, too late! He has passed away, absolutely without
pain, I assure you. But I could have done nothing for him. He is very
old: a clear case of senile decay, aggravated by the malady from which
he has been suffering. Your local doctor will give you a certificate."
He looked intently at the white countenance. Sir Charles might not be
a very clever physician, as his less opulent colleagues were always
very fond of affirming, but he had special gifts of his own.
"A fine, intellectual head, a distinguished face. I should not be
surprised if he had once been a man of some distinction. Do you know
anything of his antecedents?"
Nello shook his head. "Next to nothing. Our acquaintance has been too
recent for much confidence, but he has been very kind to myself and
sister. I gather that he was at one time a very celebrated pianist."
"His name, the Princess told me over the 'phone, was Péron. With the
recollection of all the great artists for, say, fifty years, I cannot
recall that name. We have here, my dear sir, a mystery, and probably a
tragedy also. I will keep you no longer. A thousand regrets that my
visit has been so useless."
Nello saw the plump, urbane man to the door, and then returned to the
little bedroom where poor old Papa Péron, of the kind heart and the
caustic tongue, lay in the last sleep of all.
CHAPTER V
His heart heavy with grief at the loss of his kind old friend, who had
been to him and his sister a second father, Nello Corsini faced again
a fastidious and critical audience in the saloons of the Russian
Embassy.
Last night he had played to the élite of the fashionable world, made
up of its many elements. Royalty, as represented by the sovereign and
her children, the flower of the aristocracy, subordinate members of
the financial and commercial world, distinguished persons of every
profession.
To-night he was to appear before the smaller world of diplomacy and
politics. But he was very confident of himself. If he had not failed
on that vast stage, he would not disgrace himself on a smaller one.
The Princess Zouroff was devoted to music, as was her daughter. The
somewhat brutal Prince, her son, could not distinguish one note from
another--like his father, whose death had been regretted by nobody,
excepting his son.
The difference between father and son was very easy to define. The
late Prince Zouroff was both brutal and brainless. The present holder
of the title was of quite as brutal nature as his father, but he
possessed mentality. In short, he inherited the brains of his mother,
the gentle, grey-haired lady, whom he despised for her womanly
qualities.
Two _prime donne_ and a celebrated contralto had already sung. The two
_prime donne_ had united in a duet which resembled the warbles of two
nightingales; the contralto had enchanted the audience with her deep
and resonant notes; an accomplished quartette had disbursed exquisite
music.
It was time for the turn of the violinist. Nello Corsini, his slim
figure habited in the garments which he had hired from a costumier in
the neighbourhood of Wardour Street, followed these famous personages.
He was so adaptive that, in this short space, he had learned to
accustom himself to his environment. A few weeks ago he had been
playing in the streets for coppers. To-night he was playing for higher
stakes.
He darted his bright, keen eyes over the illustrious assembly, and his
spirits rose, as they always did when something was to be striven for.
In a far corner he saw three men standing together and whispering
confidentially. One was the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, wearing
the ribbon of the Garter; another was that brilliant genius, too early
eclipsed, Lord Randolph Churchill; the third was a slim, tall young
man, who had taken on the dangerous post of Secretary for Ireland,
still now with us, beloved and revered by all parties, Arthur James
Balfour, who later succeeded his great uncle as Prime Minister.
In these far-off days the old melodies were the sweetest. Nello played
first the "Ave Maria" of Gounod. He followed on with Chopin. And then,
as a finale, he played that exquisite little romance which had floated
on a wintry night out of the window of a house in Dean Street, with
his own variations.
There was a subdued thrill amongst the audience. There was not the
full-throated applause that had greeted him at Covent Garden; but he
made allowance for that. The pit and the gallery had had something to
say last evening: they were always ready to recognise a new genius.
This assembly was too _blasé_, it was no longer capable of great
emotion, even in the case of an artist of the first rank. But, in a
way, they were subtly appreciative. At least, he had pleased them.
Nello Corsini, with his keen Latin mind, grasped the situation.
Princess Zouroff had set the fashion. There were many more fashionable
concerts at which he would be invited to play, at remunerative fees.
But he also remembered that both Papa Péron and Degraux had pointed
out to him the uncertain tenure of public favour.
Unobtrusively, he made his way out, but not before Princess Zouroff
had thanked him warmly for the pleasure he had given them, and
introduced him to a few notable persons, some of them hostesses as
popular as herself, who had spoken gracious words.
And while he was talking to one of these exalted ladies, there had
floated to him a vision of youthful beauty, the lovely young Princess
Nada, attired in an exquisite dress of white satin, a single diamond
star in her dark-brown hair, round her slim neck a row of pearls.
These were her only ornaments. She reached out her slender hand.
"Thank you so much, Signor. That exquisite little romance brought the
tears to my eyes. We shall meet many times again, I trust, and I shall
often ask you, as a special request, to play that to me."
"Enchanted, Mademoiselle," answered Corsini, bowing low, and blushing
a little. He was rather overwhelmed with these compliments from great
ladies. The person to whom he was talking when Nada intervened was a
popular Countess, the châtelaine of an historic house in Piccadilly.
She had spoken of a concert in a few days' time which she had invited
the young violinist to attend.
"A great artist and a very handsome young man also," murmured the
great lady to Nada, as soon as Nello was out of earshot. "He will very
soon be the rage. Bauquel will want to commit suicide."
The Prince, who was talking to the Prime Minister, and always saw
everything that was going on, had observed the brief conversation
between his sister and the violinist. A scowl settled on his handsome
face.
As soon as he was disengaged, he overtook the young Princess as she
was on her way to speak to some guests.
"Indulging in a little bout of sentiment again with this young
fiddler, Nada?" he inquired in sneering tones. "Telling him how
delighted you were with his playing, eh? What need is there to thank
these hired artists? They are well paid, generally overpaid, for what
they do."
Usually the Princess endured the insults and coarse remarks of her
truculent brother with disdainful indifference. To-night she was a
little unstrung. Like her mother, she was a passionate lover of
music--what the French describe as _un amateur_. The lovely voices of
the two _prime donne_, the exquisite strains of the violin, had raised
her to an exalted mood, in which she only wanted to think of things
pure and beautiful.
The Prince
|
Brady photograph.)]
[Illustration: _Breastworks constructed by Federal troops on Little
Round Top._]
About dusk, long after the artillery fire had ceased, Early’s infantry
started a charge toward East Cemetery Hill. Seldom, if ever, surpassed
in its dash and desperation, Early’s assault reached the crest of the
hill where the defenders, as a last resort in the hand-to-hand
encounter, used clubbed muskets, stones, and rammers. Long after dark,
the Louisiana Tigers and their comrades, in possession of the crest of
the hill, fought to hold their gain and their captured guns. The failure
of Rodes to move out of the streets of Gettysburg and to attack the hill
from the west enabled Hancock to shift some of his men to aid in
repelling Early’s attacks. Faced by these Union reserves, Early’s men
finally gave way about 10 o’clock and sullenly retired to their lines.
The Union troops stood firm.
Closely timed with Early’s assault of East Cemetery Hill, Johnson’s
division charged the Union works on Culp’s Hill. Failing to make
headway, because of the steep incline and the strength of the Union
positions, Johnson fell back across Rock Creek and started an attack on
the southern slope of the hill. Here the Union works were thinly manned.
An hour earlier, the divisions of Geary and Ruger had been called from
those works to the aid of the Sickles line at the Peach Orchard.
Johnson, finding the works weakly defended, took possession of them but
did not press the attack farther. Only a few hundred yards away on the
Baltimore Pike lay the Union supply trains. The failure of Confederate
reconnaissance here again was critically important. Thus passed another
opportunity to strike a hard blow at the Union Army.
_The Third Day_
CANNONADE AT DAWN: CULP’S HILL AND SPANGLER’S SPRING.
Night brought an end to the bloody combat at East Cemetery Hill, but
this was not the time for rest. What would Meade do? Would the Union
Army remain in its established position and hold its lines at all costs?
At midnight Meade sought the advice of his Council of War in the east
room of his headquarters. The corps commanders—Gibbon, Williams, Sykes,
Newton, Howard, Hancock, Sedgwick, and Slocum—without exception advised
holding the positions established. Meade, approving, turned to the
officer whose division held the Union center, and said, “Gibbon, if Lee
attacks me tomorrow it will be on your front.”
Meade on the following morning began to fortify Cemetery Ridge by
shifting all units that could be spared from the line at Culp’s Hill,
and those in reserve at the Round Tops and on Cemetery Hill. General
Hunt, Chief of Artillery, brought up reserve batteries to hold in
readiness for replacement of front line guns. Throughout the forenoon of
the third day, Meade not only developed a strong front at the stone
walls on the crest of the ridge, but he also strengthened his reserve
power to an extent which rendered the Union center almost impregnable.
[Illustration: _Interior of breastworks on Little Round Top._ (Brady
photograph.)]
Meanwhile, important movements were occurring elsewhere on the field.
Ruger’s division and Lockwood’s brigade, which had been called from
their lines on the south slope of Culp’s Hill the previous evening to
help defend Sickles’ position at the Peach Orchard, were now
countermarching, under cover of darkness, to reoccupy their ground.
Geary, who had misunderstood orders and had marched down the Baltimore
Pike, was also returning to his works. Ruger’s men, upon reaching the
Pike, learned from scouts that their entrenchments south of Culp’s Hill
and at Spangler’s Spring had been occupied by the Confederates. Ruger,
resolving upon an attack at daybreak, organized his forces along the
Pike. Powerful artillery units under Muhlenberg were brought into place
along the road; Rigby’s Maryland battery was stationed on Power’s Hill,
a prominent knoll a half mile to the south; and another battery was
emplaced on McAllister Hill.
[Illustration: _Lt. Gen. James Longstreet._ Courtesy National
Archives.]
[Illustration: _Col. Edward Porter Alexander._ Courtesy National
Archives.]
As dawn broke on July 3, Union guns on the Baltimore Pike opened with a
heavy cannonade on Johnson’s Confederates at Spangler’s Spring. The
heavily wooded area about the Confederate lines prevented them from
bringing guns into position to return the fire. Union skirmishers began
streaming across the field toward the Confederate entrenchments. The
full force of Ruger’s and Geary’s brigades followed closely. Throughout
the forenoon the Union troops struck again and again.
It was about 10 o’clock that Ruger, believing that a flank attack might
break the resistance of Johnson’s men, ordered Col. Silas Colgrove to
strike the Confederate left flank near the spring. The troops of the 2d
Massachusetts and the 19th Indiana regiments started across the swale
from the cover of the woods on the little hill south of the spring. A
withering fire slowed their pace, but they charged on, only to have
their ranks decimated by the Confederates in strong positions back of a
stone wall. Colonel Mudge, inspiring leader of the Massachusetts
regiment, fell mortally wounded. Forced to fall back, the men soon
learned their efforts had not been in vain. On Ruger’s and Geary’s front
the Confederates were now giving way and soon had retired across Rock
Creek, out of striking range. By 11 o’clock, the Union troops were again
in possession of their earthworks; again they could quench their thirst
in the cooling waters of the spring.
LEE PLANS A FINAL THRUST.
General Lee must have learned by mid-forenoon, after the long hours of
struggle at Culp’s Hill and Spangler’s Spring, that his troops could not
hold the Union works which they had occupied with so little effort the
previous evening. He had seen, also, that in the tremendous battling
during the preceding afternoon no important gains had been made at
Little Round Top and its vicinity. Longstreet had gained the
advantageous ridge at the Peach Orchard and had brought his batteries
forward from Pitzer’s Woods to this high ground in preparation for a
follow-up attack. Wright’s brigade, the last unit to move forward on
July 2 in the echelon attack begun by General Law, had charged across
the open fields at dusk and pierced the Union center just south of the
copse of trees on Cemetery Ridge. Wright’s success could not be pressed
to decisive advantage as the brigades on his left had not moved forward
to his support, and he was forced to retire. Again, lack of coordination
in attack was to count heavily against the Confederates.
The failure to make any pronounced headway on July 2 at Culp’s Hill and
Little Round Top, and the momentary success of Wright on Cemetery Ridge,
doubtless led Lee to believe that Meade’s flanks were strong and his
center weak. A powerful drive at the center might pierce the enemy’s
lines and fold them back. The shattered units might then be destroyed or
captured at will. Such a charge across open fields and in the face of
frontal and flank fire would, Lee well understood, be a gamble seldom
undertaken. Longstreet strongly voiced his objection to such a move,
insisting that “no 15,000 men ever arrayed for battle can take that
position.”
[Illustration: _View of the Peach Orchard and the Emmitsburg Road in
1890. The Wentz farm buildings appear at the left._ (Tipton
photograph.)]
[Illustration: _Devil’s Den, a formation of large granite boulders,
used as defense positions by Confederate sharpshooters._]
Time now was the important element. Whatever could be done must be done
quickly. Hood’s and McLaws’ divisions, who had fought bravely and lost
heavily at Round Top and the Wheatfield, were not in condition for
another severe test. Early and Johnson on the left had likewise endured
long, unrelenting battle with powerful Union forces in positions of
advantage. The men of Heth’s and Pender’s divisions had not been heavily
engaged since the first day’s encounter west of Gettysburg. These were
the men, along with Pickett’s division, whom Lee would have to count on
to bear the brunt of his final great effort at Gettysburg.
LEE AND MEADE SET THE STAGE.
Late in the forenoon of July 3, General Meade had completed his plan of
defense in rear of the Union center by the concentration of all
available infantry units. General Hunt, sensing the danger, placed a
solid line of batteries in position on the crest of the ridge and
brought others to the rear for emergency use. As a final act of
preparation, Meade inspected his front at the stone wall, then rode
southward to Little Round Top. Here, with General Warren, he could see
the long lines of Confederate batteries and the massing of troops, a
sure indication of attack. Meade rode back to his headquarters.
Lee, on his part, had observed in the forenoon the enemy in the process
of concentration on Cemetery Ridge. Having reached his decision to
strike the Union center, he had already begun the movement of batteries
from the rear to points of advantage. By noon, 138 guns were in line
from the Peach Orchard northward to the Seminary buildings, many of them
only 800 yards from the Union center. To Colonel Alexander fell the lot
of directing the artillery fire and informing the infantry of the best
opportunity to advance.
Massed to the west of Emmitsburg Road, on low ground which screened
their position from the Union lines, lay Gen. George Pickett’s three
brigades commanded by Kemper, Armistead, and Garnett. Pickett’s men had
arrived the previous evening from Chambersburg, where they had guarded
Lee’s wagons on July 1 and 2. As the only fresh body of troops on the
field, they were now to spearhead the charge. On Pickett’s left, the
attacking front was fast being organized. Joseph Pettigrew, a brigadier,
was preparing to lead the division of the wounded Major General Heth and
Maj. Gen. Isaac Trimble took the command of Pender. More than 10,000
troops of these two divisions—including such units as the 26th North
Carolina whose losses on the first day were so heavy that the dead
marked their advance “with the accuracy of a line at a dress parade”—now
awaited the order to attack. Many hours earlier, the Bliss farm
buildings, which lay in their front, had been burned. Their objective on
the ridge was in clear view. The brigades of Wilcox and Lang were to
move forward on the right of Pickett in order to protect his flank as he
neared the enemy position.
[Illustration: _The Round Tops as they appear from Longstreet’s
battle line one mile away._]
General Stuart, in the meantime, had been out of touch with Lee. Moving
northward on the right flank of the Union Army, he became involved in a
sharp engagement at Hanover, Pa., on June 30. Seeking to regain contact
with Lee, he arrived at Carlisle on the evening of July 1. As he began
shelling the barracks, orders arrived from Lee and he at once marched
for Gettysburg, arriving north of the town the next day. Lee now decided
to employ his cavalry to cut off Union retreat which might result from a
successful attack on the center. Stuart was instructed to swing eastward
and then south around Gettysburg the morning of July 3 in order to
arrive in the rear of the Union lines at the time Pickett was expected
to charge the center.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG]
[Illustration: _View northward from Little Round Top. 1. Cemetery
Ridge. 2. Cemetery Hill. 3. Field of Pickett’s Charge. 4. Seminary
Ridge. 5. Oak Hill. The statue of G. K. Warren appears in the
foreground._]
[Illustration: _Meade’s headquarters as it appears today._]
Except for the intermittent sniping of sharpshooters, an ominous silence
prevailed over the fields. The orders had now been given; the objective
had been pointed out. Men talked of casual things. Some munched on hard
bread, others looked fearfully to the eastward, where, with the same
mixed feelings, lay their adversary.
Far to the south, on another crucial front, General Pemberton was
penning a letter to General Grant asking terms for the surrender of
Vicksburg. In Richmond, the sick and anxious Jefferson Davis looked
hopefully for heartening word from his great field commander at
Gettysburg. The outcome of this bold venture would count heavily in the
balance for the cause of the Confederacy.
ARTILLERY DUEL AT ONE O’CLOCK.
At 1 o’clock two guns of Miller’s Battery, posted near the Peach
Orchard, opened fire in rapid succession. It was the signal for the
entire line to let loose their terrific blast. Gunners rushed to their
cannon, and in a few moments the massed batteries shook the countryside.
Firing in salvos and in succession, the air was soon filled with smoke
and heavy dust, which darkened the sky. Union gunners on Cemetery Ridge
waited a few minutes until the positions of the Confederate batteries
were located; then 80 guns, placed it close order, opened fire. For
nearly 2 hours the duel continued, then that Union fire slackened. Hunt
had ordered a partial cessation in order to cool the guns and to replace
broken carriages.
[Illustration: _Panorama of the battlefield from Cemetery Ridge. 1.
General Meade statue. 2. Cemetery Ridge_ (Union position). _3.
Little Round Top. 4. Big Round Top. 5. Devil’s Den. 6. High Water
Mark—farthest advance of Pickett’s Charge. 7. The Wheatfield. 8. The
Angle. 9. The Peach Orchard. 10. Codori Buildings. 11. Field of
Pickett’s Charge. 12. Emmitsburg Road. 13. Seminary Ridge_
(Confederate position). _14. Virginia Memorial._]
Colonel Alexander, in position on the Emmitsburg Road near the Peach
Orchard, could observe the effectiveness of his fire on the Union lines
and also keep the Confederate troops in view. To him, it appeared that
Union artillery fire was weakening. His own supply of ammunition was
running low. Believing this was the time to attack, Alexander sent a
message to Pickett who in turn rode over to Longstreet. General
Longstreet, who had persistently opposed Lee’s plan of sending 15,000
men across the open ground, was now faced with a final decision.
Longstreet merely nodded approval and Pickett saluted, saying, “I am
going to move forward, sir.” He rode back to his men and ordered the
advance. With Kemper on the right, Garnett on the left, and Armistead a
few yards to the rear, the division marched out in brigade front, first
northeastward into the open fields, then eastward toward the Union
lines. As Pickett’s men came into view near the woods, Pettigrew and
Trimble gave the order to advance. The troops of the Carolinas,
Tennessee, and Mississippi, comprising the brigades of Mayo, Davis,
Marshall, and Fry in front, followed closely by Lane and Lowrance, now
moved out to attack. A gap of half a mile between Pickett’s left and
Pettigrew’s right would be closed as the advance progressed. The units
were to converge as they approached the Union lines so that the final
stage of the charge would present a solid front.
CLIMAX AT GETTYSBURG.
Billows of smoke lay ahead of the Union men at the stone wall,
momentarily obscuring the enemy. But trained observers on Little Round
Top, far to the south, could see in the rear of this curtain of smoke
the waves of Confederates starting forward. Pickett, finding his
brigades drifting southeastward, ordered them to bear to the left, and
the men turned toward the copse of trees. Kemper was now approaching on
the south of the Codori buildings; Garnett and Armistead were on the
north. Halted momentarily at the Emmitsburg Road to remove fence rails,
Pickett’s troops, with Pettigrew on the left, renewed the advance.
Pickett had anticipated frontal fire of artillery and infantry from the
strong Union positions at the stone walls on the ridge, but now an
unforeseen attack developed. Union guns as far south as Little Round
Top, along with batteries on Cemetery Hill, relieved from Confederate
fire at the Seminary buildings, opened on the right and left flanks. As
Pickett’s men drove toward the Union works at The Angle, Stannard’s
Vermont troops, executing a right turn movement from their position
south of the copse, fired into the flank of the charging Confederates.
The advancing lines crumbled, re-formed, and again pressed ahead under
terrific fire from the Union batteries.
[Illustration: _Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart._ Courtesy National
Archives.]
[Illustration: _Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett._ Courtesy National
Archives.]
A hundred yards from the stone wall, in the tall grass, they encountered
Union skirmishers who fired and hastily withdrew. But all along the wall
the Union infantry opened with volley after volley into the depleted
ranks of Garnett and Fry. Armistead closed in, and with Lane and
Lowrance joining him, made a last concerted drive. At this close range,
double canister and concentrated infantry fire cut wide gaps in the
attacking front. Garnett was mortally wounded; Kemper was down, his
lines falling away on the right and left. Armistead reached the low
stone fence. In a final surge, he crossed the wall with 150 men and,
with his cap on his sword, shouted “Follow me!” At the peak of the
charge, he fell mortally wounded. From the ridge, Union troops rushed
forward and Hall’s Michigan regiments let loose a blast of musketry. The
gray column was surrounded. The tide of the Confederacy had “swept to
its crest, paused, and receded.”
Two of the divisions in the charge were reduced to mere fragments. In
front of the Union line, 20 fallen battle flags lay in a space of 100
yards square. Singly and in little clumps, the remnants of the gray
columns that had made the magnificent charge of a few minutes earlier
now sullenly retreated across the fields toward the Confederate lines.
Lee, who had watched anxiously from Spangler’s Woods, now rode out to
meet his men. “All this has been my fault,” he said to General Wilcox
who had brought off his command after heavy losses. “It is I that have
lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you
can.” And again that night, in a moment of contemplation, he remarked to
a comrade, “Too bad! too bad! Oh! too bad!”
[Illustration: _The Angle, showing the stone wall and the fields’
over which Pickett’s troops charged. The Virginia Memorial appears
in the background on Seminary Ridge._]
[Illustration: _The High Water Mark Monument, which marks the
farthest advance made by the Confederates against the Federal
position in Pickett’s Charge._]
CAVALRY ACTION.
As the strength of Lee’s mighty effort at The Angle was ebbing and the
scattered remnants of the charge were seeking shelter, action of a
different kind was taking place on another field not far distant. Early
in the afternoon, Stuart’s cavalry was making its way down the valley of
Cress Run, 3 miles east of Gettysburg. The brigades of Hampton and
Fitzhugh Lee, at the rear of the line of march, momentarily lost the
trail and came out into open ground at the north end of Rummel’s Woods.
Stuart, soon learning of the mistake, attempted to bring them into line
and to proceed southward. But at this point, Gen. D. M. Gregg’s Union
cavalry, in position along the Hanover Road a mile southeast, saw the
Confederates. Gregg prepared at once to attack, and Stuart had no choice
but to fight on this ground. As the two forces moved closer, dismounted
men opened a brisk fire, supported by the accurate shelling of
artillerists.
[Illustration: _Section of the Cyclorama painting of Pickett’s
Charge by Paul Philippoteaux._ Courtesy Times and News Publishing
Company.]
[Illustration: _The General Hospital one mile east of Gettysburg. A
few weeks after the battle the Union and Confederate wounded were
removed to this place from field hospitals in the rear of the battle
lines._ (Brady photograph.)]
Then came the initial cavalry charge and countercharge. The Confederate
Jenkins was forced to withdraw when his small supply of ammunition
became exhausted. Hampton, Fitzhugh Lee, and Chambliss charged again and
again, only to be met with the equally spirited counterattack of
McIntosh. Custer’s Michigan regiments closed in on a flank movement
against the right of the charging Confederate troopers, and Miller’s
squadron of the 3d Pennsylvania, disobeying orders to hold its position,
struck opportunely on the Confederate left. The thrusts of the Union
horsemen, so well coordinated, stopped the onslaught of Stuart’s
troopers. After 3 hours of driving assaults, the Confederates left the
field and retired to the north of Gettysburg. The Union horsemen,
holding their ground, had successfully cut off the prospect of
Confederate cavalry aid in the rear of the Union lines on Cemetery
Ridge.
_End of Invasion_
Lee, as he looked over the desolate field of dead and wounded and the
broken remnants of his once-powerful army still ready for renewed
battle, must have realized that not only was Gettysburg lost, but that
eventually it might all end this way. Meade did not counterattack, as
expected. The following day, July 4, the two armies lay facing each
other, exhausted and torn.
[Illustration: _During the 75th anniversary of the Battle of
Gettysburg, July 1-4, 1938, 1,845 soldiers attended the Federal and
Confederate reunion. Here veterans of the two armies clasp hands
across the stone wall at The Angle._]
Late on the afternoon of July 4, Lee began an orderly retreat. The wagon
train of wounded, 17 miles in length, guarded by Imboden’s cavalry,
started homeward through Greenwood and Greencastle. At night, the
able-bodied men marched over the Hagerstown Road by way of Monterey Pass
to the Potomac. Roads had become nearly impassable from the heavy rains
that day. So well did Stuart cover the retreat that the army reached the
Potomac with comparatively little loss. Meade, realizing that the
Confederate Army was actually retreating and not retiring to the
mountain passes, sent his cavalry and Sedgwick’s corps of infantry in
pursuit and ordered the mountain passes west of Frederick covered. Lee,
having the advantage of the more direct route to the Potomac, reached
the river several days ahead of his pursuers, but heavy rains had
swollen the current and he could not cross. Meade arrived on the night
of July 12 and prepared for a general attack. On the following night,
however, the river receded and Lee crossed safely into Virginia. The
Confederate Army, Meade’s critics said, had been permitted to slip from
the Union grasp.
[Illustration: _The Eternal Light Peace Memorial, dedicated on the
75th anniversary of the battle, commemorates “Peace Eternal in a
Nation United.”_]
_Lincoln and Gettysburg_
ESTABLISHMENT OF A BURIAL GROUND.
For the residents of Gettysburg the aftermath of battle was almost as
trying as the 3 days of struggle that had swirled about them. The town’s
2,400 inhabitants, and the nearby country folk, bore a heavy share of
the burden of caring for the 21,000 wounded and dying of both sides, who
were left behind when the armies moved on. Spacious rooms in churches
and schools and hundreds of homes were turned over to the care of the
wounded; and kindly folk from neighboring towns came to help those of
Gettysburg in ministering to the needs of the maimed and shattered men.
Adequate attention to the wounded was an immediate necessity, but fully
as urgent was the need of caring for the dead. Nearly 6,000 had been
killed in action, and hundreds died each day from mortal wounds. In the
earlier stages of the battle, soldiers of both armies performed the
tasks of burying their fallen comrades, but the struggle had reached
such large proportions and the scene of battle had so shifted that
fallen men had come within enemy lines. Because of the emergencies of
battle, therefore, hundreds of bodies had been left unburied or only
partially covered. It was evident that the limited aid which could be
offered by local authorities must be supported by a well-organized plan
for disinterment of the dead from the temporary burial grounds on the
field and reburial in a permanent place at Gettysburg or in home
cemeteries.
A few days after the battle, the Governor of the Commonwealth, Hon.
Andrew Curtin, visited the battlefield to offer assistance in caring for
the wounded. When official duties required his return to Harrisburg, he
appointed Attorney David Wills, of Gettysburg, to act as his special
agent. At the time of his visit, the Governor was especially distressed
by the condition of the dead. In response to the Governor’s desire that
the remains be brought together in a place set aside for the purpose,
Mr. Wills selected land on the northern slope of Cemetery Hill and
suggested that the State of Pennsylvania purchase the ground at once in
order that interments could begin without delay. He proposed that
contributions for the purpose of laying out and landscaping the grounds
be asked from legislatures of the States whose soldiers had taken part
in the battle.
Within 6 weeks, Mr. Wills had purchased 17 acres of ground on Cemetery
Hill and engaged William Saunders, an eminent landscape gardener, to lay
out the grounds in State lots, apportioned in size to the number of
graves for the fallen of each State. Each of the Union States
represented in the battle made contributions for planning and
landscaping.
The reinterment of 3,512 bodies in the cemetery was accomplished only
after many months. Great care had been taken to identify the bodies on
the field, and, at the time of reinterment, remains were readily
identified by marked boards which had been placed at the field grave or
by items found on the bodies. Even so, the names of 1,664 remained
unknown, 979 of whom were without identification either by name or by
State. Within a year, appropriations from the States made possible the
enclosure of the cemetery with a massive stone wall and an iron fence on
the Baltimore Street front, imposing gateways of iron, headstones for
the graves, and a keeper’s lodge. Since the original burials, the total
of Civil War interments has reached 3,706. Including those of later
wars, the total number now is 4,399.
[Illustration: _Photograph of Lincoln taken a few days before he
left Washington en route to Gettysburg, November 1863._ (Gardner
photograph.)]
[Illustration: _The Soldiers’ National Monument, commemorating the
Federal dead who fell at Gettysburg, was dedicated July 1, 1869. It
is located at the place where Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg
Address._]
The removal of Confederate dead from the field burial plots was not
undertaken until 7 years after the battle. During the years 1870-73,
upon the initiative of the Ladies Memorial Associations of Richmond,
Raleigh, Savannah, and Charleston, 3,320 bodies were disinterred and
sent to cemeteries in those cities for reburial, 2,935 being interred in
Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond. Seventy-three bodies were reburied in home
cemeteries.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania incorporated the cemetery in January
1864. The cemetery “having been completed, and the care of it by
Commissioners from so many states being burdensome and expensive,” the
Board of Commissioners, authorized by act of the General Assembly of
Pennsylvania in 1868, recommended the transfer of the cemetery to the
Federal Government. The Secretary of War accepted title to the cemetery
for the United States Government on May 1, 1872.
DEDICATION OF THE CEMETERY.
Having agreed upon a plan for the cemetery, the Commissioners believed
it advisable to consecrate the grounds with appropriate ceremonies. Mr.
Wills, representing the Governor of Pennsylvania, was selected to make
proper arrangements for the event. With the approval of the Governors of
the several States, he wrote to Hon. Edward Everett, of Massachusetts,
inviting him to deliver the oration on the occasion and suggested
October 23, 1863, as the date for the ceremony. Mr. Everett stated in
reply that the invitation was a great compliment, but that because of
the time necessary for the preparation of the oration he could not
accept a date earlier than November 19. This was the date agreed upon.
Edward Everett was the outstanding orator of his day. He had been a
prominent Boston minister and later a university professor. A cultured
scholar, he had delivered orations on many notable occasions. In a
distinguished career he became successively President of Harvard,
Governor of Massachusetts, United States Senator, Minister to England,
and Secretary of State.
[Illustration: _The Wills house where Lincoln was a guest when the
national cemetery was dedicated._]
The Gettysburg cemetery, at the time of the dedication, was not under
the authority of the Federal Government. It had not occurred to those in
charge, therefore, that the President of the United States might desire
to attend the ceremony. When formally printed invitations were sent to a
rather extended list of national figures, including the President, the
acceptance from Mr. Lincoln came as a surprise. Mr. Wills was thereupon
instructed to request the President to take part in the program, and, on
November 2, a personal invitation was addressed to him.
[Illustration: _The procession on Baltimore Street en route to the
cemetery for the dedicatory exercises, November 19._]
Throngs filled the town on the evening of November 18. The special train
from Washington bearing the President arrived in Gettysburg at dusk. Mr.
Lincoln was escorted to the spacious home of Mr. Wills on Center Square.
Sometime later in the evening the President was serenaded, and at a late
hour he retired. At 10 o’clock on the following morning, the appointed
time for the procession to begin, Mr. Lincoln was ready. The various
units of the long procession, marshaled by Ward Lamon, began moving on
Baltimore Street, the President riding horseback. The elaborate order of
march also included Cabinet officials, judges of the Supreme Court, high
military officers, Governors, commissioners, the Vice President, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Members of Congress, and many
local groups.
Difficulty in getting the procession under way and the tardy return of
Mr. Everett from his drive over the battleground accounted for a delay
of an hour in the proceedings. At high noon, with thousands scurrying
about for points of vantage, the ceremonies were begun with the playing
of a dirge by one of the bands. As the audience stood uncovered, a
prayer was offered by Rev. Thomas H. Stockton, Chaplain of the House of
Representatives. “Old Hundred” was played by the Marine Band. Then Mr.
Everett arose, and “stood a moment in silence, regarding the battlefield
and the distant beauty of the South Mountain range.” For nearly 2 hours
he reviewed the funeral customs of Athens, spoke of the purposes of war,
presented a detailed account of the 3-days’ battle, offered tribute to
those who died on the battlefield, and reminded his audience of the
bonds which are common to all Americans. Upon the conclusion of his
address, a hymn was sung.
[Illustration: _First page of the second draft of the Gettysburg
Address. This copy, made by Lincoln on the morning of November 19,
was held in his hand while delivering his address._ Reproduced from
the original in the Library of Congress.]
[Illustration: _This photograph is the only known close-up view of
the rostrum_ (upper left) _at the dedication of the national
cemetery. The view shows a part of the audience which was estimated
at 15,000._ (Bachrach photograph.)]
Then the President arose and spoke his immortal words:
_Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal._
_Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are
met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting
and proper that we should do this._
_But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we
cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add
or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say
here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the
living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us
to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which
they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of
the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth._
A hymn was then sung and Rev. H. L. Baugher pronounced the benediction.
[Illustration: _Plan of the national cemetery drawn in the autumn of
1863 by the notable landscape gardener, William Saunders._]
_MAP OF_
THE GROUNDS
and
DESIGN FOR THE IMPROVEMENT
of
THE SOLDIERS’ NATIONAL CEMETERY,
GETTYSBURG, PA.
1863.
By
WILLIAM SAUNDERS,
Landscape Gardener Germantown, Penn.
1. UNKNOWN.
2. ILLINOIS.
3. VIRGINIA.
4. DELAWARE.
5. RHODE ISLAND.
6. NEW HAMPSHIRE.
7. VERMONT.
8. NEW JERSEY.
9. WISCONSIN.
10. CONNECTICUT.
11. MINNESOTA.
12. MARYLAND.
13. U. S. REGULARS.
14. UNKNOWN.
15. MAINE.
16. MICHIGAN
17. NEW YORK.
18. PENNSYLVANIA.
19. MASSACHUSETTS.
20. OHIO.
21. INDIANA.
22. UNKNOWN.
23. MONUMENT.
24. GATE-HOUSE.
25. FLAGSTAFF, ETC.
[Illustration: _The Lincoln Address Memorial, the only monument ever
erected to commemorate an address, stands near the west gate of the
national cemetery._]
GENESIS OF THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
The theme of the Gettysburg Address
|
to study, if I live.”
Mr. Garrison was all animation. “That’s very good news. You will live;
you’re young, strong.”
“Who knows--America is going into the wholesale slaughter business. She
needs butchers.”
“You mean--”
“I think we’ll be pushed into the War.”
Floyd was all attention. He spoke with a thrill in his voice.
“If it comes, we Americans will not be wanting in patriotism.”
Martin didn’t seem to feel the insinuation.
“Patriotism, bah! Who cares? We’ll have to go; if we don’t, they’ll
shoot us.”
Mr. Garrison was sitting with his head in his hands. Floyd arose
and went to him. He had been failing for some time, complained of
dizziness. Dr. McClaren couldn’t discover any organic trouble. Floyd,
who watched every change of expression, saw him grow pale.
“Father--you don’t feel well.”
“Oh yes!--but I think I’ll go and rest awhile.”
He rose from the chair, staggered; Martin caught him, carried him up,
and laid him on the bed.
Floyd bent over his father, frantically begging him to speak. The
stricken man raised his hand in a mute blessing, then closed his eyes.
To Floyd, the next few weeks were chaotic; time, space, light, darkness
lost all meaning. Martin never left him during those black days; always
there in the sleepless horror of the night, to read to him, to go out
and pace the streets with him, when the walls became insupportable. He
would have gone under without Martin.
The funeral over, the will read by Colonel Garland, the sole executor,
the few distant relatives from far and near come and gone, Floyd took
up again the routine of life. Mr. Garrison had left everything to his
son, whom he hoped would marry young and be happy in the old home,
leaving it to _his_ son after him. The Garrisons had always lived well,
in a modest way, befitting their position. He was sure Floyd would
keep up the family tradition. He left money to many philanthropic
institutions and to his club where he and his father before him had
spent many pleasant hours and where he hoped his boy would sit many
years after him.
Colonel Garland, commenting on the will to Martin, said:
“A sane, righteous testament. He was a good man....”
7
In the months that followed, Floyd saw little of Julie. She called
several times with her mother, who was very sweet and amiable.
“I hope when you feel more like seeing people you’ll come to us often,”
said Mrs. Gonzola.
Floyd looked at Julie, who smiled at him, and returned the pressure
of his hand. Martin was a great deal at the Gonzolas’, but he didn’t
mention that to Floyd. One Sunday afternoon Mrs. Gonzola came into
the parlor, Martin was sitting very close to Julie, reading in
rich passionate tones a love poem by Oscar Wilde; Julie started up
and Martin left, but all that day she couldn’t meet her mother’s
clairvoyant eyes.
“I don’t like him, Julie. He’s no class. He was an unmannerly boy and
he’s a dangerous man. I’ve told James to say you’re out, the next time
he calls. If you meet him accidentally, avoid him.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Julie. After that she saw him often with the
assistance of a sympathetic French teacher, whose room was post-office
and rendezvous for the lovers.
Martin gave Julie glimpses of “life.” He took her to all kinds of
strange places--a chop suey restaurant, with its unpalatable dishes,
soft lights, and insidious Chinamen; a dancing cafe which at that time
was not supposed to be a place for young ladies--but best of all was
Hippolyte.
Hippolyte’s Parlor flaunted on Fifth Avenue. It had a magnificent plate
glass show window, fitted with Circassian walnut, in which was one red
feather fan on a cushion of Nile green velvet, one jeweled comb, and
a Pierrot costumed in black silk with a large white ruff, his face
wonderful in its languid perversity. Up the side street there was a
private door which opened halfway to let in ladies heavily veiled.
Julie’s ambition was to see what was behind that fascinating door;
today it is no longer a mystery. In the Middle Ages, Hippolyte would
have been a miracle man summoned to a fair Venetian to deepen the red
of her hair, the rose in her cheeks, the marvel of her eyes--selling
for a purse of gold, charms to rob a rival of a coveted lover. Times
have not changed, nor people; only appearances.
Martin took Julie into the shop one day and introduced her to
Hippolyte, who pronounced her “ravissante”; thereupon Martin bought a
costly box of perfume. Julie was afraid to take it home.
“I’ll settle that,” laughed Martin, and poured it over her, then they
ran around the reservoir to get rid of the odor. Mrs. Gonzola noticed
it, but said nothing.
Julie was standing at the window waiting for her mother. Her gloved
hands impatiently agitating the curtains.
“Mother, the car is here. I shall be late for my music lesson.”
The voice answering from upstairs was nervous, trembling. “It’s
impossible for me to go with you today; I’m not well.”
A flash illumined Julie’s face, but her voice was under perfect
control. “I’m sorry.”
From the upper window, her mother watched her, music-roll in hand,
stepping into the car. Mrs. Gonzola realized more and more acutely that
her lovely child was developing into a beautiful woman; there was no
feeling of joyful pride. Horrible, agonizing fear stopped the current
of her blood.
Julie, alone in the car, drew a long breath. The pink of her lips
turned red, the color slowly overflowing into her cheeks. She pulled
the cord, asked the chauffeur in her soft, sensuous voice to stop at
the nearest drug store; there she telephoned, then drove to the house
of her professor. She was a gifted pianiste; she played with a sure,
velvety touch, surmounting with ease all technical difficulties. The
professor went into ecstasies about the beautiful child-woman with
“Eternal Love in her fingers.”
The car turned into the Park. Martin was walking up and down by the
little lake. He hated to wait. She never kept an appointment; if she
didn’t come today he was through. His heart leaped when he saw her. The
girl had a terrible power over him. She said smilingly:
“We’ll go across town and up Riverside Drive for an hour. Then I’ll
drop you at the club.”
They sped along in the car. He pulled down the shades, drew off her
gloves, tearing the buttons in his haste, crushed her two hands in his
moist hot ones, spoke quickly, panting with excitement:
“I’ve thought it all out. I’m going to your mother tonight.”
“No! No!” gasped Julie. “Write to her first.”
“I have written to her, as politely as I knew how. I told her I loved
you and wanted you to be my wife.”
He read the answer, his voice shaking with anger and wounded pride:
I have no words to reply to your impertinent letter. Julie will not
marry until she is of age. You are not the man I consider worthy of
her. You take it for granted that she is willing. I know her better.
She will not consent. I warn you not to molest her with further
attentions, and consider the matter closed.
She crouched in the corner, speechless.
“She will blame me. She will say I encouraged you.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but marriage! I’m too young yet.”
He pressed her to him with a force that left her helpless. He would
show her haughty mother who was the master. With his face pressed
against hers, he talked, expostulated, begged, threatened to kill
himself, kissing her again and again, until she gave in. She would do
anything, everything he asked of her, but he must give her twenty-four
hours to win over her mother.
“If you fail?”
“Then, I will go with you.”
“You promise.”
“Yes.”
“Julie! Your mother will influence you against me!”
“No one can do that.”
“You are mine; I will not give you up.” He swore an oath, which made
her shudder. With a quiver of terrible joy, she put her arms around his
neck. Her lips sought his.
8
Every afternoon, Floyd Garrison occupied a deep chair in the window of
his club on upper Fifth Avenue--a privilege inherited by the law of
precedence, from his father and grandfather. His great-grandfather was
one of the founders of the original club-house which was downtown--an
old building with raftered ceilings, wooden models of ships, and a
portrait of Peter with the game leg.
In time the “youngsters” of 1850 moved uptown, refurnished in plush,
and became very exclusive. They kept people out for lack of pedigree,
or difference of religious conviction.
A young scion of the new-rich said enviously to Floyd:
“I spend much more on my tailor than you do; you can afford to wear
your old clothes.”
Floyd smiled. He took in the young man--a fighting figure, physically
strong, eager, on the alert, with gambler’s eyes.
“You’ve never had to sweat blood for money.”
The expression was coarse, but it threw a mental picture.
“No, I’ve never ‘sweated blood’ for a living.”
“I didn’t say a living, I said money. Any idiot can make a living. A
man must have money and lots of it to be anybody; it’s a hot game.”
He wiped his forehead.
Floyd wondered if money could buy his armchair in the club-window.
He was sure it couldn’t, but he was a gentlemanly young fellow; he
wouldn’t hurt the man’s feelings. Destiny had been more than kind to
him. He wasn’t grateful; he took life’s favors as a matter of course.
In fact, he never gave it any thought. When his father died, sorrow
blunted the keen edge of existence; now after a year he was waking up.
His heart’s desire was Julie Gonzola. He had no fear; it was the eve of
fulfillment.
Sitting there in the club-window, idly watching the traffic, he saw
the Gonzola car. Julie was inside with Martin. They stopped at the
entrance. Martin sprang out; Floyd waited for him with a pleasant touch
of expectancy. Now there would be a long talk about Julie.
He came swinging in, his dark face quivering with excitement. Floyd
didn’t take Martin seriously; his unpleasant emotional nature gave his
actions a touch of exaggeration, which repelled Floyd, with his calm,
undisturbed nature.
“Well, why all this excitement? What’s happened now?”
He spoke laughingly. Martin was always getting into some transient
mix-up.
“I may as well tell you, you’ll have to know it. I’ve asked Julie to
marry me.”
Floyd was on his feet, hurt, angry; Martin had listened hours to what
he called “love ravings” about Julie, knowing he was waiting only for
his year of mourning to expire. It was treachery. They faced each
other--Martin had an air of triumph, but he turned away from Floyd’s
accusing eyes.
“I’ve given her twenty-four hours to prepare her mother.”
“She’ll not consent.”
“Oh, won’t she? I know the way to make her.” Then he walked away.
9
Julie crouched in the corner of the car, her dark pupils contracting,
dilating; she was going home to prepare her mother. The contempt in
that letter she had written to Martin was awful, but she had promised
and she braced herself for the fight. She was used to battles, bitter,
uncompromising; used to the struggle of antagonistic spirits; but
she had always been kept out of all that agony, pampered, spoilt,
worshipped by her mother, indulged by her grandfather--and now she must
fight them both, and she would. If they stood out against Martin, she
would keep her word and go away with him; this was her determination.
She stepped out of the car and found her mother waiting for her in the
hall; she knew what was coming. Mrs. Gonzola led the way upstairs to
her bedroom--watched Julie take off her hat and coat, and smooth down
her hair.
“How long have you been meeting this man without my knowledge?”
“You mean Martin?”
“Yes.”
“Since you forbade him the house.”
“This is the first time in your life that you have openly disobeyed me.
Why did you do it?”
“I love him, Mother, and he loves me, and I am going to marry him.” She
had rehearsed it in the car.
Mrs. Gonzola implored her not to marry that “ruffian” who had intrigued
to get her affection. No man of honor would have acted like that. He
was not the man for her--she was too young to realize it--she would
hate him in the end. She begged, entreated her to wait a year. Julie
burst into convulsed sobs.
“He won’t wait, Mother--I’ve been through all that with him. Mother!
Mother! Don’t stop it, don’t, I _must_ marry him! I _must_!”
Mrs. Gonzola gave a terrible cry.
“What do you mean--tell me! Why must you marry him? Why?”
“Because! because!--he says he’ll kill me if I don’t.”
Then Mrs. Gonzola warned her of the anger of Father Cabello, who
would never marry her to an atheist, a heretic--warned her of her
grandfather’s curses (and the old Jew could curse); she heard him
again, as he stood over her on the day of _her_ marriage, pouring out
his anger. His curses had come true in her wretched life, and this
disobedient child--she was suffering as he had suffered that day--but
now the old man was her only hope; Julie worshipped him. She threatened
her with his anger, the wrath of the great Jewish God who does not
forgive, who would bring down punishment upon her and her children’s
children.
The girl lay flat on the ground, quivering with horror, fear--then she
became quite cold and stiff, and fell into a cataleptic trance, which
lasted an hour. Mrs. Gonzola undressed her, put her into bed, and
lay beside her, holding her close. The girl gradually grew warm, and
smiled at her mother. The spasm of obstinacy over, she was again the
submissive child. She would sacrifice herself and Martin, it was her
duty; she became calm, almost cheerful, as was usual after those spells.
She wanted her mother to dress her as she did when she was a child.
Mrs. Gonzola was happy; her life was bound up in this girl.
“You look so beautiful, Julie; go and show grandfather.”
Mrs. Gonzola stood at the bottom of the stairs till Julie went in where
Joseph Abravanel sat reading, unconscious of the tragedy which had
been enacted below. He blessed her, called her a good child, the hope
of his life. Then she and her mother dined in the big room with its
dark Spanish tapestry and gold plate; it was a festive occasion. Mrs.
Gonzola praised Floyd and his devotion to the memory of his father.
“You always liked him best as a child, didn’t you, Julie?”
“No, Mother--I--I liked them _both_--” Then the fear came again of
Martin!
“He will kill me, Mother. I’m afraid of him, afraid.”
“Julie, I have no strength to fight for you. Marry Floyd; he is a
simple honest boy. He has always loved you.”
To her mother’s great amazement Julie answered in slow deliberate
tones--
“That will be the only way to save myself--but it must be at once. I
mustn’t have time to think about it--or I couldn’t do it.”
10
Floyd went home early that afternoon, stopping before the little gate.
He had taken great pains with his garden. The lawn was velvety smooth;
beds of flowers were banked up against the porch; geraniums bloomed
in boxes at the windows. The polished brass knocker, the soft white
curtain, gave the little house an atmosphere of purity, cleanliness.
Passers stopped to admire it; they felt that “nice” people lived there.
Floyd shook off a sick feeling; anger nauseated him. The knocker gave
out a musical call. The door was opened by a bright little Japanese
boy--the old servants had gradually left during the lonely year of
mourning. There was nothing changed in the house--the wood fire lit,
the candles on the table set for two; he saw his father at the head
of it. After dinner the boy brought his slippers and velvet house
jacket. He stretched himself in a big chair and lit his pipe. He loved
his pipe--that was the Knickerbocker strain in him; he smoked it with
reverence as the old Dutchmen did--in the days when pipes were longer
and tobacco better. He loved to sit before the wood fire, and listen to
its hissing, crackling, singing; he thought of his mother’s ancestors,
those sturdy Pioneers in their cabins, piling on the logs, bolting
their iron shutters against the howling wolves outside, who devoured
the bodies and cracked the bones of men. The Puritans are gone, but the
wolves are still with us; they eat the soul and sow wolf seed.
Then he thought how his father had planned his life for him, just as he
had laid out his garden. It had not occurred to him that his son’s life
must be different from his own. His father’s time was far away. Today
things change with a flash--there is no more “slow development”--a
fire!--a storm, lightning, ruins! He was a fool to be so sure of
Julie; she had been very sympathetic in his year of mourning. He took
it for love--Martin, that vulgarian, with his family history! He never
had the slightest suspicion of what was going on between them. He’d
been a blind fool.
He jumped to his feet; the clock struck ten. Twenty-four hours to
prepare her mother. Why hadn’t she said “No” at once and put an end
to it? She couldn’t want to marry him; it was unthinkable, but he
never knew quite what she did think. When he said, “A penny for your
thoughts,” she grew very serious.
“My thoughts are only for myself.”
He became impatient. Why make the thing so complicated? It was simple
enough; they both wanted her and they’d have to fight for her as they
did as boys. They never knew which of them she liked.
The telephone rang. He took up the receiver. It was Mrs. Gonzola’s
voice.
“Is it you, Floyd?”
“Yes.”
“Could you come over for a few moments? It’s late, but--”
“I’ll come at once.”
He stood before the mirror in the hall. It reflected a young man,
clean-shaven, straight brows, eyes deep blue, almost black, the mouth
set with suppressed pain; that was all the image gave out--nothing of
the unsounded depths. The narcotic of ease and inherited aloofness had
kept the lion of character sleeping.
Passing the Dillon house, Floyd noticed vaguely a sign “For Sale.” Tom
Dillon had inherited a large fortune which his father made in whiskey;
he had boasted he would drink up the well-stocked cellar before he got
rid of the house. It was illuminated tonight; he heard music and loud
laughter; Tom was on the job.
In the parlor of the Gonzola mansion the butler pressed a button which
lit up the unaccountable glass prisms of the electrified fixture; it
was a familiar room. As a boy, its grandeur had awed him; when he
grew older, he thought it old-fashioned, but he didn’t want to see it
changed. He knew little of the other part of the house, excepting the
dining-room which was in old leather, heavy, dark. He had always spoken
with superiority of the “charming Spanish atmosphere” of the room.
Tonight it struck him differently. “What an ignorant fool he was.” A
man who mentally kicks himself for being all kinds of a fool is often
awakening to wisdom.
The floor was parquet, smooth and polished. There were Oriental rugs
and deep armchairs, upholstered in Turkish, and a broad divan with
wonderful silk rugs thrown over it. Fur animals lay about with enormous
heads and glassy eyes. The window hangings were of costly lace. He had
often looked at that bronze figure in a corner; tonight it spoke to
him. It was the Moses of Michael Angelo--a noble head with a rippling,
flowing beard. The walls were covered with family portraits in gilt
frames, turning old gold with age. He had said with authority “they
are Van Dykes.” Now he noticed signed names unknown to him, probably
young foreign artists. He stood before a portrait of Pedro Gonzola,
Julie’s grandfather, painted in Amsterdam, after a ball costume. A very
handsome young cavalier in black velvet with white lace falling over
his long, tapering fingers--he thought of Martin’s coarse hands; no,
the room was not Spanish.
Mrs. Gonzola came in; she, too, took on a new significance; a woman of
fifty, small, sinuous, with pale eyelids, forehead, lips; the process
of Time had almost washed out the human face which had been, even at
its best, but a soft water-color.
Tonight Floyd seemed to see within that white Image. Past struggles,
like smothered flames, flashed up again momentarily. Her English was
perfect--so academic it sounded foreign; born in New York, taught by
professors, she spoke like one. She had tried to bring Julie up that
way, but changed conditions were too strong for her.
“Floyd, I am in a terrible dilemma. Martin has asked Julie to marry
him.”
“Yes, I know.”
She tried to draw away her hands, but Floyd held them fast.
“Your decision means everything to me.” Floyd put his arm around her;
he had known her all his life. She clung to him; there were tears in
her voice, but her eyes were dry.
“Julie told you of our ancestry?”
“Yes.”
“Does it make any difference?”
“Why should it?”
An evasive answer. Why didn’t he make it simple, and say “No”?
“Some people are prejudiced, but you have no family ties, and are not
religious. I don’t want Julie to marry Martin, he’s vulgar; they are
peasants, common cattle drivers; his grandfather was a waiter--I can’t
think of it, it’s too horrible!”
Floyd tried to be fair.
“But if Julie likes him better--”
“She does not; I’m sure of it. She is very impressionable. Martin has a
kind of brute force; you know him. He’ll talk her into it. It will be
a terrible misfortune for her; it will ruin her life! I must make it
impossible; I must!”
Floyd was speechless with excitement. She had her arms around him,
clinging to him.
“Julie is a strange girl, at the mercy of inherited instincts--she will
be safe with you.”
Why did she say that? What was wrong with Julie? Floyd began to take
Julie’s part against her mother.
“Mrs. Gonzola, be calm, I beg of you. You know I have wanted Julie
all my life; you know I want her now. If she loves Martin better,
what--what--can I do?”
“No, no, she will tell you herself,” Mrs. Gonzola glided out of the
room. Floyd wiped his forehead. What did it all mean? Why was she so
afraid of Martin? What was he doing there, anyhow? Martin had been open
with him, now _he_ was conspiring with her mother. No, he would do
nothing underhand. He would give Martin a chance to get his answer as
agreed. Julie must be free to choose.
She stood in the doorway. He wanted to tell her what was in his mind,
but she didn’t give him time. She came straight to him, put her arms
around his neck; her soft body intoxicated him. His heart’s desire
realized--Julie his wife; he couldn’t let her go, he kissed her again
and again. She laughed and said in her soft, sensuous voice:
“Oh, oh, don’t eat me.”
“It’s forever, Julie, forever?”
He stammered out the words. He was terribly excited, poor lad. She grew
very serious.
“Yes--it is forever.” Then she cried and he tried to comfort her.
“I’ve had a great deal of excitement today. Go now.”
She let him kiss her again. He went unsteadily like a soberly inclined
man who had rushed violently into an orgy of liquor. It was dawn when
he slipped quietly out of his house and dropped a letter to Martin
into the post-box, he had written everything, just how it happened.
The only thing that clouds my indescribable happiness is the thought
that you may resent my not giving you your chance, but it was out of
my hands. When Mrs. Gonzola called me tonight, I had no idea of what
was awaiting me. My happiness came to me. I cannot let it go.
He expected no answer to his letter. It came by return mail:
There is nothing to be angry about; I would have done the same in
your place. I would take her away from you now, if it were possible,
but--don’t be uneasy, she doesn’t care enough for me. I don’t think
she’s insane about you, but you are the safer proposition. You won’t
see me for some time.
Martin had a way of disappearing when things went against him. Floyd
read the letter once more. “The safer proposition.” Of course, she
would be safe with him; he was too happy to let the significance of a
word worry him. He slowly tore the letter in little pieces, and said
nothing to Julie about it.
The next evening, he went over to dine with the Gonzolas. Mrs. Gonzola
had asked him quietly not to come during the day.
“Julie needs time to calm down.”
“Calm down?” laughed Floyd. “It’s too early for that.”
“She is quite exhausted. She must get used to the idea.”
It was not exhausting to him to get used to happiness. It came natural
to think of Julie as “my dear wife.” He saw many, many years ahead.
As they grew old they would get fonder of each other, like his mother
and father. A pang shot through him; if they were alive now! He had
not “lived” like other men; he had waited for the one woman. The close
contact was intoxicating, leaving him incapable of logical reasoning.
He waited impatiently for the evening.
Julie stood under the big chandelier; her soft white gown with a touch
of red velvet seemed a part of her flexible body; a filet of it was
drawn over her forehead. Her full red lips were a splash of color in
her pale face. She came quite naturally to him; Floyd’s heart beat
furiously. Mrs. Gonzola looked regal in black lace, relieved by a huge
diamond brooch set in old silver. She approved of Floyd; he was a
gentleman.
“My father lives with us. Julie has probably told you; I want her to
take you up to see him. Don’t speak of your engagement yet. Julie will
break it to him gradually, but I want him to know you, and I am sure he
will love you as we do.”
How gracious she was; it was like the condescension of a Queen.
“Break it to him,” as if it were bad news. Floyd felt uncomfortable.
Julie led the way up to the fourth floor. They entered a very large
room with mullion windows; one, at the extreme end, of yellow glass.
He was conscious of warmth, a glory of golden sunlight, the odor of
a hothouse, many palms. Under a tropical tree with enormous leaves
spread out like an umbrella sat a man with a black silk skull cap on
his head. He was absorbed in his book. He did not raise his eyes. Floyd
at a first glance caught the impression of age, because of a long thick
white beard, falling in waves, turning up at the edges in curls, which
reminded him of Michael Angelo’s Moses, but _this_ statue lived. Julie
spoke very respectfully. She seemed in awe of him.
“Grandfather, I’ve brought Floyd Garrison to see you.”
He arose and came toward Floyd. He wore a long black silk coat reaching
to his ankles, with velvet collar, cuffs, and slippers. His feet were
very small, his hands like a woman’s; the voice which came from that
frail body was clear, penetrating.
“My name is Joseph Abravanel.”
His eyes were young. Floyd felt himself being measured and weighed, but
that didn’t disturb him; he had no secrets.
“I know all about you, Floyd. I’ve watched you grow up. That little
snowball fight with Martin twelve years ago this winter was fine. You
were small; but you buried him.” He laughed like a boy. Floyd sat down
beside him, listening intensely; he didn’t want to lose a word. Julie
flittered about the room, watching them.
“I like you, Floyd; you’re a good fighter.”
“Oh, no,” laughed Floyd, “I’m a pacifist.”
The old man shook his head.
“Wait, you haven’t found yourself yet. We Jews are fighters, although
the world says we are not. We’ve been fighting for thousands of years.”
Then he spoke of the possibilities of America joining the War.
“It will come; we will be forced into it. We Jews will get the worst of
it as usual, but that’s good for us; the will to live becomes stronger.”
He continually repeated “we Jews” as if to impress the fact of his race
upon Floyd.
“The American aliens will find relatives in every European field of
battle; it will be terrible, like the Civil War, brother against
brother.”
Floyd had never thought of it that way.
“The Jews are like an old tree--its branches spread all over the world;
it roots are in the Bible. The Arian education is Greek, opposite to
that of the Hebrew. The Greeks worshipped form, beauty; its idols were
in stone. The Hebrews rejected that; they based their religion on the
‘Word.’ You see? the body, the Soul; the Image Greek, the Soul Hebrew.”
After that, Floyd found his way often to the fourth floor. He heard
many things foreign to his way of thinking, but of deep interest to him.
“Now,” said Floyd laughingly one evening, “I’ve made myself popular
with all the family.”
“No,” answered Julie, “there is one more, Father Cabello.”
11
Father Cabello was an indispensable part of the Gonzola family, from
the Celtic help in the kitchen, to the aristocratic old man on the top
floor, whose guest he was on Friday evenings, when he shared a simple
meal of vegetables and fruit, washed down with a glass of delicious
Palestinian wine; after that, a game of chess, and a long theological
discussion which lasted many a time until the small hours. The two
men, of the same origin but of different creeds, understood each other
perfectly. When it came to a burning question, such as the sincerity
of Paul--whether his hatred of the High Priests of Judea had not
instigated him to dethrone them, by putting another in their place, one
he had never seen, or whether it was an inspiration, “a voice out of
the wilderness”--then Joseph Abravanel’s eyes took on a fiery gleam.
Father Cabello, seeing the danger signal, would evade the question by a
witty remark, ending with a laugh. Julie gave Floyd a hint. He invited
the good Father to lunch with him at the club.
He sat in the window watching the priest shaking hands with one and the
other--a man of Church and World, known to rich and poor, and generally
beloved. Floyd had a feeling of embarrassment, but Father Cabello put
him at once in smooth waters by a remark about the “exclusive policy”
of the club.
“Yes,” answered Floyd. “This distinction against aliens is very
reactionary.” He forgot he was on the membership committee before he
was engaged; then he ventured to say:
“I--I am very glad you do not oppose my marriage with Julie.”
“Why should I?”
He knew Floyd was not a Catholic; why did he make him emphasize that?
“I was prepared for your opposition on account of my religion.”
The priest smiled.
“The man who fights the inevitable destroys no one but himself. I have
had one great battle in that family; I don’t want a second--if--it
can be avoided. When Julie was born, her mother and I together fought
and conquered Joseph Abravanel; a fine fellow, deeply learned. In the
great days of the Church in Spain, he would have been a distinguished
Cardinal.” The priest puffed regretfully at his cigar. “His ancestors
were foolishly fanatic; they chose the evil of emigration to the glory
of power and the Pope.”
Floyd answered eagerly.
It was a question of principle; they should be admired, respected, for
such noble self-sacrifice.
The priest liked the boy; there was no complication to fight in him.
“This marriage was a question of you and one other. I chose you.”
Floyd’s face grew hot. It had all been arranged between the mother and
the priest.
“Then you considered me the lesser of two evils?”
The priest smiled again.
“You are not an evil, you are a concession; we make them, if they do
not bring us future harm; the children will be ours, but don’t let it
worry you now.”
“Pedro Gonzola’s marriage with a Jewess was also a concession. Why did
you allow _that_?”
“This boy is no fool,” thought the priest; he took pains to answer the
question.
“We were mistaken in our calculations, we _are_ sometimes; we remained
passive because we were sure Joseph Abravanel would fight it with all
his might; and he did. But another power mightier than he and the
Church together won out; the strongest combination in the world--youth
and love. Ruth was his only child, she threatened to leave him, he
worshipped her, he had to give in, but he went to live with the young
couple, with a firm resolve to counteract our influence. The inevitable
happened; she came to us for consolation. Julie was born in the church.”
They were silent. The priest lived again that interesting conflict.
The old man had fought well, he was wonderful with his unanswerable
arguments, but reason went down under the great emotional rising of the
soul--the need of forgiveness.
Floyd’s voice brought him back.
“Why did he remain in his daughter’s house?”
“Because with the obstinate patience of his race, he had hopes of
Julie’s children.” Then he bent nearer, lowering his voice. “There is
something else you should know. From the day Julie was baptized, Joseph
Abravanel has never seen or spoken to his daughter.”
The atmosphere of tragedy folded itself about Floyd; he felt the
clashing of spiritual powers, within the walls of that outwardly
peaceful home, now creeping like slow fire into his life.
12
Near Floyd’s house, there was a small stone chapel ornamented with dark
wooden beams; it had been built by Mr. Garrison and Mr. Steele. They
brought over their pastor from Scotland, a rugged, sincere man.
Floyd still grew chilly, when he thought of the bare whitewashed
walls, the stone floor, the hard wooden benches. No choir, no organ,
no stained glass windows. The pastor generally took his text from one
of those Hebrew “calamity howlers,” and hurled curses at the heads of
his unfortunate parishioners. He was a man of mild disposition, but
he thought it was his duty to snatch them from the worship of Mammon.
The “Idolaters” would listen meekly, rise, sing a hymn, and file out
penitently, to pursue on week days, their ungodly practices.
In course of time the pastor went to heaven, his congregation the other
way; Martin said it might be the reverse. Other pastors modified their
curses or ceased to hurl them; the times demanded blessings, and paid
for them. The congregation grew rich and moved uptown. Floyd kept his
pew out of respect for his parents.
He told the pastor, a sensible man from the West with a large growing
family, of
|
è to the bride of Hector (_Il._
XXII. 470). But finally, it had a long wing, tail, or lappet (I am not
skilled or confident in this vocabulary), descending from behind, perhaps
more than one. This is shown indirectly, but I think conclusively, by the
information given us in _Od._ VI. 100, that the handmaidens of Nausicaä,
when about to play at ball, first put away their kredemna, evidently
lest the free movement of their arms should be embarrassed by the long
lappets. Again, it is evident that Penelopè, when she used her _kredemna_
to cover her face, brought the lappets round and employed them as a veil;
on any other ground the use of the plural can hardly be explained (_Od._
I. 334). And now this part of the prehistoric lady's toilette is as
complete as I can make it from the Poems.
I turn, then, to Dr. Schliemann's volume, and call attention to the
signet ring at p. 354, which, though apparently not of a high order in
art, combines so many objects of interest. On the extreme left of the
picture stands a child, or small woman, who is picking fruit from a tree.
Behind her head appear to descend long tresses of hair. What if these
should prove on further examination to be lappets from a head-dress
which the head seems to carry? Passing to the right of the tree, first
comes a tall seated woman in a turban, which carries in front, says our
author, a diadem and behind a "tress of hair" from the point into which
the turban runs. I cannot but suppose this "tress" to be a lappet of the
_kredemnon_. She offers poppies to another tall woman, again dressed in
a turban running out into a point (p. 356), "from which a long ornament
hangs down on the back," a third time, in all likelihood, the lappet
of the _kredemnon_. Below her outstretched right arm we have another
small figure, probably of a child, again in a turban, and with "a long
tress of hair, or some ornament, hanging down its back:" yet once more,
I conjecture, the lappet indicated by Homer. There is also a fifth: we
have still the figure to the right of the picture (p. 357); and she,
too, wears a turban terminating in a point "from which a long band-like
ornament hangs down on her back." Now let us go aloft; and we find a
small figure, towards the right of the picture. This figure (p. 357) is
described by Schliemann as female, from his observing breasts upon it:
and again, "from the back project the long bands." Thus, in all the six
cases, we appear to have the same remarkable form described for the main
article of female head dress, which is also given us by Homer.
It may, however, be said that the female figures on this ring are
foreign, rather than Hellenic, in their character and habiliments. But
it happens that the evidence of the Poems more copiously establishes the
use of the _kredemnon_ among foreigners, than in Greece. We hear indeed
of the _kredemna_ of Penelopè; and Hera, when about to inveigle Zeus,
assumes the _kredemnon_ (_Il._ XIV. 184). But it is worn, as we have
seen, by Andromachè in Troy; by Ino, a deity of Phœnician extraction; and
by the maidens attendant on Nausicaä in Scheriè.
4. In the upper region, or what we might call the sky of the picture, are
presented to us, apparently in very rough outline, the sun and a thinly
horned moon.[10] Below them is an uneven band, forming rudely an arc of
a circle. This, I am led to suppose, is an indication of mother-earth,
with its uneven surface of land and its rippling sea, in the proper
place, beneath the sun and moon. If this be so, it greatly confirms the
conjecture of Mr. Newton respecting the six objects on the rim of the
picture to the right. He asks whether these can be the _teirea_ (_Il._
XVIII. 485), the stars of heaven, which are described by Homer as placed
upon the Shield of Achilles, together with the sun, moon, sky, earth, and
sea. Schliemann assigns to this _sestetto_ heads and eyes: Mr. Newton
says they are thought to be heads of lions. That they should be things
animate is not, I imagine, in conflict with the conjecture that they may
be stars. The spirit of Hellenism transmuted the older Nature-worship
by impersonations, of which we have an Homeric example in the astral
Orion (_Il._ XVIII. 486, _Od._ XI. 572). Should these conjectures be
confirmed, the matter will be of peculiar interest: for we shall then
have before us, in actual collocation, the very objects, which people the
first compartment of the god-wrought Shield of Achilles: the earth (of
land and sea), sun, moon, and all the stars of heaven. The _ouranos_ or
heaven itself, which the Poet also includes, is here in all likelihood
represented by the curvature of the picture.
5. The goblet (No. 346 of the volume) has on each of its two handles, we
are told, the carved figure of a dove in gold. Schliemann observes on the
correspondence with the goblet of Nestor (_Il._ XI. 632-635). We are not
indeed told that this was of gold; probably a different material is to
be supposed from the mention of gold as the material of these parts or
appendages. But it had four handles, and on each handle were two doves.
We are also told that he did not get it in Troy, which may remind us of
the argument already presented, but brought it from home. It was probably
a foreign work; for the Phœnician associations of Nestor are attested by
his descent from Poseidon (_Od._ XI. 254). This is fairly to be noted for
an instance of equable development in art, as between the discoveries and
the Poems.
6. We frequently hear in the Poems of the golden studs or buttons
which were used as ornamental adjuncts. In many passages we have the
silver-studded sword, _xiphos_ or _phasganon arguroëlon_ (_Il._ II.
45, III. 334 _et al._). This, I say, is common. We have also studs,
or bosses, of gold upon the staff or sceptre of Achilles (_Il._ I.
246), upon the cup of Nestor XI. 632-635: and upon a sword, only once
it is true, but then that sword is the sword of Agamemnon, king of
gold-abounding Mycenæ (_Il._ XI. 29). On this sword, says the Poet, there
were gilt, or golden, bosses; and the expression he uses about them
(_pamphainon_) is worthy of note. It is not easy to represent by any
one English word. It means not merely shining brightly, but shining all
over; that is to say, apparently, all over the sheath to which they were
attached, so as to make it seem a shining mass. Is not this precisely
what must have been the effect of the line of bosses found lying by
the sword in p. 303, which lie closely together, are broader than the
blade, and probably covered the whole available space along the sheath of
wood, now mouldered away? And is it not now startling, to descend into
the tombs with Dr. Schliemann, and to find there lying silently in rows
these gold studs or bosses, when the wooden sheaths they were attached
to have for the most part mouldered away, but by the very sides of the
very swords which they adorned like binding on a book, and of the slight
remains of warriors by whom, there need be little doubt, those swords
were wielded?
"Expende Annibalem; quot libras in duce summo Invenies?"[11]
They also appear on the sword-handle knobs. The _helos_ of Homer is
commonly rendered a nail or stud, which has a head of small size; but the
word probably includes the larger buttons or bosses, which lie in lines
along some of the swords. (See on this point pp. 281, 2; 303, 5, 6.)
I will not attempt to pursue further an enumeration which, growing more
and more minute, would be wearisome. If porcelain and glass have been
found, I should at once assign them to foreign importation. The art of
casting and tooling in the precious metals, of which the examples would
appear, both from our author and from Mr. Newton, to be few, are probably
to be referred to a like source. The hammer and the pincers are the only
instruments for metallic manipulation, of which Homer appears to be aware
(_Il._ XVIII. 477, _Od._ III. 434-5). As regards the pottery mentioned
by our author, if some of the goblets were of light green (p. 285), we
have a colour developed in their manufacture of which Homer had certainly
no distinct conception, though it may still be true that, as in nature,
so in human art, objects bearing that colour may have met his eye. Of
the scales in the third sepulchre there seems no reason to doubt that we
may find the interpretation, by referring them to the Egyptian scheme of
doctrine with regard to a future life (pp. 197, 8). In the Books of the
Dead, we have an elaborate representation of the judgment-hall, to which
the departed soul is summoned. Here the scales form a very prominent
object;[12] and it seems very possible that the Poet, who was Greek and
not Egyptian in his ideas of the future state, may have borrowed and
transposed, from this quarter, the image of the balances displayed on
high, which he employs with such fine effect in some critical passages of
the _Iliad_. As regards the emblem of the double-headed or full-formed
axe, I venture to dispense with the cautious reserve of Schliemann. As
the usual form of a weapon familiar to the age, it seems to require no
special explanation (p. 252). But where we find it conjoined with the
ox-head (p. 218), or on the great signet ring in conjunction with a
figure evidently representing Deity, I cannot hesitate to regard it as
a sacrificial symbol. We have only to remember the passage in the third
Odyssey, where the apparatus of sacrifice is detailed, and Thrasumedes,
who was to strike the blow, brought the axe (III. 442):--
πέλεκυν δὲ μενεπτόλεμος Θρασυμήδης
ὀξὺν ἔχων ἐν χερσὶι παρίστατο,
βοῦν ἐπικέψων.
The boar's teeth (p. 273) supply a minor, perhaps, but a clear and
significant point of correspondence to be added to our list (_Il._ X.
263-264). Another is to be noticed in the manner of attaching, by wire,
lids and covers. On these subjects, I refer to the text of the volume.
By the foregoing detail I have sought to show that there is no
preliminary bar to our entertaining the capital question whether the
tombs now unearthed, and the remains exposed to view, under masks for
the faces, and plates of gold covering one or more of the trunks, are
the tombs and remains of the great Agamemnon and his compeers, who have
enjoyed, through the agency of Homer, such a protracted longevity of
renown. For the general character of the Mycenean treasures, I take
my stand provisionally on the declaration of Mr. Newton (supported by
Mr. Gardner), that, in his judgment, they belong to the prehistoric or
heroic age, the age antecedent to his Greco-Phœnician period; and in
important outlines of detail I have endeavoured to show that they have
many points of contact with the Homeric Poems, and with the discoveries
at Hissarlik. But this Preface makes no pretension whatever to exhibit
a complete catalogue of the objects, or to supply for each of them its
interpretation. We encounter, indeed, a certain number of puzzling
phenomena, such as the appearance of something like visors, for which
I could desire some other explanation, but which Schliemann cites as
auxiliaries to the masks of the tombs, and even thinks to prove that such
articles were used by the living, as well as for the dead (p. 359).
Undoubtedly, in my view, these masks constitute a great difficulty, when
we come to handle the question who were the occupants of the now opened
sepulchres? It may be, that as Mr. Newton says, we must in the main rest
content with the "reasonable presumption" that the four tombs contained
Royal personages, and must leave in abeyance the further question,
whether they are the tombs indicated to Pausanias by the local tradition;
at any rate, until the ruins of Mycenæ shall have been further explored,
according to the intention which the government of Greece is said to have
conceived.
At the same time this is a case where the question before us, if
hazardous to prosecute, is not easy to let alone.
It is obviously difficult to find any simple, clear, consistent
interpretation of the extraordinary inhumation disclosed to us by these
researches. Such an interpretation may be found hereafter: it does not
seem to be forthcoming at the present moment. But the way towards it
can only be opened up by a painstaking exhibition of the facts, and by
instituting a cautious comparison between them and any indications, drawn
from other times or places, which may appear to throw light upon them.
For my own part, having approached the question with no predisposition
to believe, I need not scruple to say I am brought or driven by the
evidence to certain conclusions; and also led on to certain conjectures
suggested by those conclusions. The first conclusion is that we cannot
refer the five entombments in the Agora at Mycenæ to any period within
the historic age. The second is that they are entombments of great, and
almost certainly in part of royal, personages. The third, that they bear
indisputable marks of having been effected, not normally throughout, but
in connection with circumstances, which impressed upon them an irregular
and unusual character. The conjecture is, that these may very well be the
tombs of Agamemnon and his company. It is supported in part by a number
of presumptions, but in great part also by the difficulty, not to say the
impossibility, of offering any other suggestion which could be deemed so
much as colourable.
The principal facts which we have to notice appear to be as follows:--
1. The situation chosen for the interments.
2. The numbers of persons simultaneously interred.
3. The dimensions and character of the graves.
4. The partial application of fire to the remains.
5. The use of masks, and likewise of metallic plates, to adorn
or shelter them, or both.
6. The copious deposit both of characteristic and of valuable
objects in conjunction with the bodies.
1. Upon the situation chosen for the interments, Dr. Schliemann opines
that they were not originally within the Agora, but that it was
subsequently constructed around the tombs (p. 340). His reasons are that
the supporting wall, on which rest, in double line, the upright slabs,
formerly, and in six cases still, covered by horizontal slabs as seats
for the elders, is careless in execution, and inferior to the circuit
wall of the Acropolis. But, if it was built as a mere stay, was there any
reason for spending labour to raise it to the point of strength necessary
for a work of military defence? Further, he finds between the lines of
slabs, where they are uncovered, broken pottery of the prehistoric period
more recent than that of the tombs. But such pottery would never have
been placed there at the time of the construction; with other rubbish,
it would only have weakened and not strengthened the fabric of the
inclosure. Nor can we readily see how it could have come there, until the
work was dilapidated by the disappearance of the upper slabs. If so, it
would of course be later in date than the slabs were.
It appears to me that the argument of improbability tells powerfully
against the supposition that the Agora was constructed round the tombs,
having previously been elsewhere. The space within the Acropolis appears
to be very limited: close round the inclosures are 'Cyclopean' houses
and cisterns. When works of this kind are once constructed, their
removal would be a work of great difficulty: and this is a case, where
the earliest builders were followed by men who aimed not at greater,
but at less, solidity. Besides which, the _Agora_ was connected with
the religion of the place, and was, as will be shown, in the immediate
neighbourhood of the palace. In addition to these material attractions,
every kind of moral association would grow up around it.
It can be clearly shown that the ancient Agora was bound down to its site
by manifold ties, other than those of mere solidity in its construction.
It stands in Mycenæ, says our author (p. 341), on the most imposing and
most beautiful spot of the city, from whence the whole was overlooked.
It was on these high places that the men of the prehistoric ages erected
the simple structures, in many cases perhaps uncovered, that, with the
altars, served for the worship of the gods. In Scheriè, it was built
round the temple, so to call it, of Poseidon (_Od._ VI. 266). In the
Greek camp before Troy the _Agora_ was in the centre of the line of ships
(_Il._ XI. 5-9, 806-8). There justice was administered, and there "had
been constructed the altars of the gods." Further, it is clear, from
a number of passages in Homer, that the place of Assembly was always
close to the royal palace. In the case of Troy we are told expressly
that it was held by the doors of Priam (_Il._ II. 788, VII. 345, 6). In
Scheriè, the palace of Alkinoös was close to the grove of Athenè (_Od._
VI. 291-3); and we can hardly doubt that this grove was in the immediate
vicinity of the Posideïon, which was itself within the _Agora_. In
Ithaca (_Od._ XXIV. 415 _seqq._), the people gathered before the Palace of
Odysseus, and then went in a mass into the _Agora_. While it was thus
materially associated with those points of the city which most possessed
the character of fixtures, it is not too much to say, considering the
politics of early Greece, that it must, in the natural course, have
become a centre around which would cling the fondest moral and historical
associations of the people. Into the minor question whether the
encircling slabs are the remains of an original portion of the work or
not, I do not think it needful for me to enter.
But, while I believe that the _Agora_ is where it was, the honour paid
to the dead by the presence of their tombs within it is not affected
by either alternative; but only the time of paying it. If this be the
old _Agora_, they were honoured by being laid in it; if it is of later
date, they were honoured by its being removed in order to be built
around them; if at least this was done knowingly, and how could it be
otherwise, when we observe that the five tombs occupy more than a moiety
of the whole available space? We know, from the evidence of the historic
period, that to be buried in the Agora was a note of public honour; we
cannot reasonably doubt, with the five graves before us, that it was such
likewise in the historic age.
It was a note of public honour, then, if these bodies were originally
buried in the _Agora_. If we adopt the less probable supposition that the
Agora was afterwards constructed around them by reason of their being
there, the honour may seem even greater still.
2. Next, the number of persons simultaneously interred, when taken
in conjunction with the other features of the transaction, offers a
new problem for consideration. An argument in p. 337, to show that
the burials were simultaneous, seems quite conclusive. They embraced
(_ibid._) sixteen or seventeen persons. Among the bodies one appears to
be marked out by probable evidence as that of the leading personage.
Lying in the tomb marked as No. 1, it has two companions. Now Agamemnon
had two marshals or heralds (_Il._ I. 320), whose office partook of a
sacred character. There might, therefore, be nothing strange in their
being laid, if so it were, by their lord. The most marked of the bodies
lay to the north of the two others, all three having the feet to the
westward. It was distinguished by better preservation, which may, at
least not improbably, have been due to some preservative process at the
time of interment. It carried, besides a golden mask (p. 296), a large
golden breastplate (15⅗ by 9½ in.), and other leaves of gold at various
points; also a golden belt across the loins, 4 ft. long and 1¾ in. broad.
By the side of the figure lay two swords, stated by Dr. Schliemann to
be of bronze (p. 302), the ornamentation of one of them particularly in
striking accordance with the description in the _Iliad_ of the sword of
Agamemnon (_Il._ XI. 29-31). Within a foot of the body, to the right, lay
eleven other swords (p. 304), but this is not a distinctive mark, as the
body on the south side has fifteen, ten lying at the feet, and a great
heap of swords were found at the west end, between this and the middle
body.
The entire number of bodies in the five tombs (p. 337), which is stated
at sixteen or seventeen, seems to have included three women and two or
three children. The local tradition recorded by Pausanias (_inf._ p.
59) takes notice of a company of men with Agamemnon, and of Cassandra,
with two children whom she was reported to have borne. This is only
significant as testifying to the ancient belief that children were buried
in the tombs: for Cassandra could only be taken captive at the time when
the city of Troy was sacked, and the assassination immediately followed
the arrival in Greece. But it is likely enough that these children may
have been the offspring of another concubine, who may have taken the
place Briseïs was meant to fill. This is of course mere speculation; but
the meaning is that there is nothing in these indications to impair the
force of any presumptions, which the discoveries may in other respects
legitimately raise.
3. Like the site in the Agora, so the character of the tombstones, which
is in strict correspondence with the style of many of the ornaments,[13]
and the depth of the tombs, appear with one voice to signify honour to
the dead. As I understand the Plans, they show a maximum depth of 25 feet
(see, _e.g._, p. 155) below the surface, hollowed for the most part out
of the solid rock. But then we are met with the staggering fact that the
bodies of full-grown, and apparently (p. 295) tall, men have been forced
into a space of only five feet six inches in length, so as to require
that sort of compression which amounts almost to mutilation.
We seem thus to stand in the face of circumstances that contradict one
another. The place, the depth, the coverings of the tombs, appear to
lead us in one direction; the forcing and squeezing of the bodies in
another. But further, and stranger still, there seems to have been no
necessity for placing the bodies under this unbecoming, nay revolting,
pressure. The original dimensions of the tomb (p. 294) were 21 ft. 6 in.
by 11 ft. 6 in. These are reduced all round, first by an inner wall two
feet thick, and secondly by a slanting projection one foot thick (at
the bottom) to 5 ft. 6 in. and 15 ft. 6 in. Why, then, were the bodies
not laid along, instead of across, it? Was not the act needless as
well as barbarous? And to what motive is a piece of needless barbarism,
apparently so unequivocal, to be referred? I hardly dare to mention,
much less, so scanty is the evidence, to dwell upon the fact that their
bodies lie towards the west, and that the Egyptian receptacle for the
dead lay in that quarter.[14] The conflict of appearances, at which we
have now arrived, appears to point to a double motive in the original
entombment; or to an incomplete and incoherent proceeding, which some
attempt was subsequently made to correct; or to both. But let us pay a
brief attention to the remaining particulars of the disclosures.
4. We have next to observe (_a_) that fire was applied to these remains;
(_b_) that the application of it was only partial; (_c_) that the
metallic deposits are said to show marks[15] of the action of it (pp.
158, 165, 188, 198, 201, 208, 215, 218, 260, 266, 321, 330): so do the
pebbles (p. 294). We see, therefore, that the deposition of the precious
objects took place either at the same moment with the fire, or, and more
probably I suppose, before it had entirely burned out.
The partial nature of the burning requires a more detailed consideration.
In the Homeric burials, burning is universal. It must be regarded,
according to the Poems, as the established Achaian custom of the day,
wherever inhumation was normally conducted. And for burial there was a
distinct reason, namely, that without it the Shade of the departed was
not allowed to join the company of the other Shades, so that the unburied
Elpenor is the first to meet Odysseus (_Od._ XI. 51) on his entrance into
the Underworld; and the shade of Patroclos entreats Achilles to bury him
as rapidly as may be, that he may pass the gates of Aïdes (_Il._ XXIII.
71). I think the proof of the universal use of fire in regular burials at
this period is conclusive.
Not only do we find it in the great burials of the Seventh Book
(429-32), and in the funerals of Patroclos (XXIII. 177) and Hector (XXIV.
785-800), but we have it in the case of Elpenor (_Od._ XII. 11-13), whom
at first his companions had left uninterred, and for whom therefore we
must suppose they only did what was needful under established custom.
Perhaps a yet clearer proof is to be found in a simile. Achilles, we are
told, wept while the funeral pile he had erected was burning, all night
long, the bones of Patroclos, "as a father weeps when he burns the bones
of his youthful son" (XXIII. 222-5). This testifies to a general practice.
In the case of notable persons, the combustion was not complete. For
not the ashes only, but the bones, were carefully gathered. In the case
of Patroclos, they are wrapped in fat, and put in an open cup or bowl
(_phialè_) for temporary custody (XXIII. 239-44) until the funeral of
Achilles, when with those of Achilles himself, similarly wrapped, and
soaked in wine, they are deposited in a golden urn (_Od._ XXIV. 73-7). In
the case of Hector, the bones are in like manner gathered and lodged in a
golden box, which is then placed in a trench and built over with a mass
of stones (_Il._ XXIV. 793-8). Incomplete combustion, then, is common
to the Homeric and the Mycenean instances. But in the case of the first
tomb at Mycenæ, not only was there no collection of the bones for deposit
in an urn, but they had not been touched; except in the instance of the
middle body, where they had simply been disturbed, and the valuables
perhaps removed, as hardly anything of the kind was found with it. In
the case of the body on the north side, the flesh of the face remained
unconsumed.
But though the use of fire was universal in honourable burial, burial
itself was not allowed to all. Enemies, as a rule, were not buried.
Hence the opening passage of the _Iliad_ tells us that many heroes
became a prey to dogs and birds (_Il._ I. 4). Such says Priam, before
the conflict with Hector, he would make Achilles if he could (XXII. 42);
and he anticipates a like distressing fate (66 _seqq._) for himself. In
the Odyssey, the bodies of the Suitors are left to be removed by their
friends (XXII. 448; XXIV. 417). Achilles, indeed, buried Eëtion, king
of Asiatic Thebes, with his arms, in the regular manner. "He did not
simply spoil him, for he had a scruple in his mind" (_Il._ VI. 417);
and no wonder; for Eëtion, king of the Kilikes, was not an enemy: that
people does not appear among the allies of Troy in the Catalogue. Thus
there was a variance of use; and there may have been cases of irregular
intermediate treatment between the two extremes of honourable burial and
casting out to the dogs.
5. With regard to the use of masks of gold for the dead, I hope that the
Mycenean discoveries will lead to a full collection of the evidence upon
this rare and curious practice. For the present, I limit myself to the
following observations:
(1.) If not less than seven of these golden masks have been
discovered at Mycenæ by Dr. Schliemann, then the use of them,
on the occasion of these entombments, was not limited to royal
persons, of whom it is impossible to make out so large a number.
(2.) I am not aware of any proof at present before us that the
use of such masks for the dead of any rank or class was a custom
prevalent, or even known, in Greece. There is much information,
from Homer downwards, supplied to us by the literature of that
country concerning burials; and yet, in a course of more than
1200 years, there is not a single allusion to the custom of using
masks for the dead. It seems to be agreed that the passage in
the works of Lucian, who is reckoned to have flourished in the
second half of the second century, does not refer to the use of
such masks. This might lead us to the conjecture that, where the
practice has appeared, it was a remainder of foreign usage, a
survival from immigration.
(3.) Masks have been found in tombs, not in Greece, but in the
Crimea, Campania, and Mesopotamia. Our latest information on the
subject is, I believe, the account mentioned in Dr. Schliemann's
last report from Athens (pp xlvii, xlviii), of a gold mask found
on the Phœnician coast over against Aradus, which is of the size
suited for an infant only. It is to be remembered that heroic
Greece is full of the marks of what I may term Phœnicianism, most
of which passed into the usages of the country, and contributed
to form the base of Hellenic life. Nor does it seem improbable,
that this use of the metallic mask may have been a Phœnician
adaptation from the Egyptian custom of printing the likeness of
the dead on the mummy case. And, again, we are to bear in mind
that Mycenæ had been the seat of repeated foreign immigrations.
(4.) We have not to deal in this case _only_ with masks, but with
the case of a breastplate in gold, which, however, could not
have been intended for use in war; together with other leaves
or plates of gold, found on, or apparently intended for, other
portions of the person.
6. Lastly, with regard to the deposit of objects which, besides being
characteristic, have unchangeable value, the only point on which I have
here to remark is, their extraordinary amount. It is such, I conceive,
as to give to these objects, and particularly to those of the First
Tomb, an exceptional place among the sepulchral deposits of antiquity. I
understand that their weight is about one hundred pounds troy, or nearly
that of five thousand British sovereigns. It is difficult to suppose that
this deposit could have been usual, even with the remains of a King;
and it is at this point that I, for one, am compelled to break finally
and altogether with the supposition, that this great entombment, in the
condition in which Dr. Schliemann found it, was simply an entombment of
Agamemnon and his company effected by Ægisthus and Clytemnestra, their
murderers.
So far, with little argument, I have endeavoured fairly to set out the
facts. Let me now endeavour to draw to a point the several threads of
the subject, in order to deal with the main question, namely, whether
these half-wasted, half-burned remains are the ashes of Agamemnon and his
company? And truly this is a case, where it may be said to the inquirer,
in figure as well as in fact,
"et incedis per ignes
Suppositos cineri doloso."[16]
Let us place clearly before our eyes the account given by the Shade
of Agamemnon, in the Eleventh Odyssey (405-434), of the manner of his
death. No darker picture could be drawn. It combined every circumstance
of cruelty with every circumstance of fraud. At the hospitable board,
amid the flowing wine-cups, he was slain like an ox at the stall, and
his comrades like so many hogs for a rich man's banquet; with deaths
more piteous than he had ever known in single combat, or in the rush of
armies. Most piteous of all was the death of Cassandra, whom the cruel
Clytemnestra despatched with her own hand while clinging to Agamemnon;
nor did she vouchsafe to her husband the last office of mercy and
compassion, by closing his mouth and eyes in death. Singularly enough,
Dr. Schliemann assures me that the right eye, which alone could be seen
with tolerable clearness, was not entirely shut (see the engraving at p.
297); while the teeth of the upper jawbone (see the same engraving) did
not quite join those of the lower. This condition, he thinks, may be due
to the superincumbent weight. But if the weight had opened the jaw, would
not the opening, in all likelihood, have been much wider?
Now, as we are told that Ægisthus reigned until Orestes reached his
manhood, we must assume that the massacre was in all respects triumphant.
Yet there could hardly fail to be a party among the people favourable
to the returning King, who had covered his country with unequalled
glory. There might thus be found in the circumstances a certain
dualism, a ground for compromise, such as may go far to account for the
discrepancies of intention, which we seem to find in the
|
could
still cover ground at a good speed. The macadam highway unrolled
before the bright head lamps at a steady rate while the beams
illumined alternate patches of woods and small settlements.
There were no major towns between Whiteside and Seaford, but there
were a number of summer beach colonies, most of them in an area about
halfway between the two towns. The highway was little used. Most
tourists and all through traffic preferred the main trunk highway
leading southward from Newark. They saw only two other cars during the
short drive.
Many months had passed since Rick's last visit to Seaford. He had gone
there on a Sunday afternoon to try his hand at surf casting off
Million Dollar Row, a stretch of beach noted for its huge, abandoned
hotels. It was a good place to cast for striped bass during the right
season.
"Smugglers' Reef," he said aloud. "Funny that a Seaford trawler
should go ashore there. It's the best-known reef on the coast."
"Maybe the skipper was a greenhorn," Scotty remarked.
"Not likely," Jerry said. "In Seaford the custom is to pass fishing
ships down from father to son. There hasn't been a new fishing family
there for the past half century."
"You seem to know a lot about the place," Rick remarked.
"I go down pretty often. Fish makes news in this part of the country."
Scotty pointed to a sign as they sped over a wooden bridge. "Salt
Creek."
Rick remembered. Salt Creek emptied into the sea on the north side of
Smugglers' Reef. It was called Salt Creek because the tide backed up
into it beyond the bridge they had just crossed. He had caught crabs
just above the bridge. But between the road and the sea there was over
a quarter mile of tidal swamp, filled with rushes and salt-marsh
grasses through which the creek ran. At the edge of the swamp where
Salt Creek met Smugglers' Reef stood the old Creek House, once a
leading hotel, now an abandoned relic.
A short distance farther on, a road turned off to the left. A
weathered sign pointed toward Seaford. In a few moments the first
houses came into view. They were small, and well kept for the most
part. Then the sedan rolled into the town itself, down the single
business street which led to the fish piers.
A crowd waited in front of the red-brick town hall. Jerry swung into
the curb. "Let's see what's going on."
Rick got his camera from the case, inserted a film pack, and stuffed a
few flash bulbs into his pocket. Then he hurried up the steps of City
Hall after Jerry and Scotty. Men, a number of them with the weathered
faces of professional fishermen, were talking in low tones. A few
looked at the boys with curiosity.
An old man with white hair and a strong, lined face was seated by the
door, whittling on an elm twig. Jerry spoke to him.
"Excuse me, sir. Can you tell me what's going on?"
Keen eyes took in the three boys. "I can. Any reason why I should?"
The old man's voice held the twang peculiar to that part of the New
Jersey coast.
"I'm a reporter," Jerry said. "Whiteside _Morning Record_."
The old man spat into the shrubbery. "Going to put in your paper that
Tom Tyler ran aground on Smugglers' Reef, hey? Well, you can put it
in, boy, because it's true. But don't make the mistake of calling Tom
Tyler a fool, a drunkard, or a poor seaman, because he ain't any of
those things."
"How did it happen?" Jerry asked.
"Reckon you better ask Tom Tyler."
"I will," Jerry said. "Where will I find him?"
"Inside. Surrounded by fools."
Jerry pushed through the door, Rick and Scotty following. Rick's quick
glance took in the people waiting in the corridor, then shifted to a
young woman and a little girl. The woman's face was strained and
white, and she stared straight ahead with unseeing eyes. The little
girl, a tiny blonde perhaps four years old, held tightly to her
mother's hand.
Rick had a hunch. He stopped as Jerry and Scotty hurried down the
corridor to where voices were loud through an open door. "Mrs. Tyler?"
he asked.
The woman's head lifted sharply. Her eyes went dark with fear. "I
can't tell you anything," she said in a rush. "I don't know anything."
She dropped her head again and her hand tightened convulsively on the
little girl's.
"Sorry," Rick said gently. He moved along the corridor, very
thoughtful, and saw that Jerry and Scotty were turning into the room
from which voices came. Mrs. Tyler might have been angry, upset,
tearful, despondent, or defiant over the loss of her husband's
trawler. Instead, she had been afraid in a situation that did not
appear to call for fear.
He turned into the room. There were about a dozen men in it. Two were
Coast Guardsmen, one a lieutenant and the other a chief petty officer.
Two others were state highway patrolmen. Another, in a blue uniform,
was evidently the local policeman. The rest were in civilian clothes.
All of them were watching a lean, youthful man who sat ramrod straight
in a chair.
A stocky man in a brown suit said impatiently, "There's more to it
than that, Tom. Man, you've spent thirty years off Smugglers'. You'd
no more crack up on it than I'd fall over my own front porch."
"I told you how it was," the fisherman said tonelessly.
Rick searched his face and liked it. Tom Tyler was perhaps forty, but
he looked ten years younger. His face was burned from wind and sun,
but it was not yet heavily lined. His eyes, gray in color, were clear
and direct as he faced his questioners. He was a tall man; that was
apparent even when he was seated. He had a lean, trim look that
reminded Rick of a clean, seaworthy schooner.
The boy lifted his camera and took a picture. The group turned briefly
as the flash bulb went off. They glared, then turned back to the
fisherman again.
The town policeman spoke. "You know what this means, Tom? You not only
lost your ship, but you're apt to lose your license, too. And you'll
be lucky if the insurance company doesn't charge you with barratry."
"I've told you how it was," Captain Tyler repeated.
The man in the brown suit exploded. "Stop being a dadblasted fool,
Tom! You expect us to swallow a yarn like that? We know you don't
drink. How can you expect us to believe you ran the _Sea Belle_ ashore
while drunk?"
"I got no more to say," Tyler replied woodenly.
Jerry turned to Rick and Scotty and motioned toward the door. Rick led
the way back into the corridor. "Getting anything out of this?" he
asked.
"A little," Jerry said. "Let's go out and talk to that old man."
"Lead on," Scotty said. "I've always wanted to see a real news hound
in action."
Rick dropped the used flash bulb into a convenient ash tray, replaced
it with a new one, and reset the camera. At least he had one good
picture. Tom Tyler, framed by his questioners, had looked somehow like
a thoroughbred animal at bay.
Outside the door, the old man was still whittling. "Get a real scoop,
sonny?" he asked Jerry.
"Sure did," Jerry returned. He leaned against the doorjamb. "I didn't
get your name."
"Didn't give it."
"Will you?"
"Sure. I ain't ashamed. I'm Captain Michael Aloysius Kevin O'Shannon.
Call me Cap'n Mike."
"All right, Cap'n Mike. Is it true Captain Tyler stands to lose his
master's license and may be even charged with deliberately wrecking
the ship?"
"It's true.
"He says he was drunk."
"He wasn't."
"How do you know?"
"I know Tom Tyler."
"Then how did it happen?"
Cap'n Mike rose and clicked his jackknife shut. He tossed away the elm
twig. "You got a car?"
"Yes."
"Let's take a ride. You'll want to see the wreck, and I do, too. We
can talk on the way."
The boys accepted with alacrity. Rick and Scotty sat in the back seat;
the captain rode up front with Jerry. At the old man's direction,
Jerry drove to the water front and then turned left.
"I'll start at the beginning," Cap'n Mike said. "I've had experience
with reporters in my day. Best to tell 'em everything, otherwise they
start leaping at conclusions and get everything backwards. Can't
credit a reporter with too many brains."
"You're right there," Jerry said amiably.
Rick grinned. He had seen Jerry in operation before. The young
reporter didn't mind any kind of insult if there were a story in the
offing. Rick guessed the newspaper trade wasn't a place for thin
skins.
"Well, here're the facts," the captain continued. "Tom Tyler, master
and owner of the _Sea Belle_, was coming back from a day's run. He'd
had a good day. The trawler was practically awash with a load of
menhaden. In case you don't know, menhaden are fish. Not eating fish,
but commercial. They get oil and chicken and cattle feed from 'em, and
the trawlers out of this port collect 'em by the millions of tons
every year."
"We know," Jerry said.
"Uhuh. As I said, the trawler was full up with menhaden. Tom was at
the wheel himself. The rest of the crew, five of them, was making
snug. There was a little weather making up, but not much, and not
enough to interfere with Tom seeing the light at the tip of Smugglers'
Reef. He saw it clear. Admits it. Now! All you need do is give the
light a few fathoms clearance to starboard. But Tom Tyler didn't. And
what happened?"
"He ran smack onto the reef," Scotty put in.
"He surely did. The crew, all of 'em being aft, didn't see a thing.
First they knew they were flying through the air like a bunch of
hooked mackerel and banging into the net gear. One broken arm and a
lot of cuts and bruises among 'em. The trawler tore her bottom out and
rested high and dry, scattering fish like a fertilizer spreader. Tom
Tyler said he took one drink and it went to his head."
The old man snorted. "Bilge! Sheer bilge! He said hitting the reef
sobered him up."
"Maybe it did," Jerry ventured.
"Hogwash. There wasn't a mite of drink on his breath. And what did he
drink? There ain't nothing could make an old hand like Tom forget
where a light was supposed to be. No, the whole thing is fishy as a
bin of herring."
The boys were silent for a moment after the recital, then Rick blurted
out the question in his mind. "What's his wife afraid of?"
The captain stiffened. "Who says she's afraid?"
"I do," Rick returned positively. "I saw her."
"You did? Well, I reckon you saw right."
"Maybe she's afraid of Tyler's losing his way of making a living,"
Scotty guessed.
Rick shook his head. "It wasn't that kind of fear."
The sedan had left the town proper and was rolling along the sea front
on a wide highway. This was Million Dollar Row. In a moment Rick saw
the first of the huge hotels that had given the road its name. It was
called Sandy Shores. Once it had been landscaped, and probably
beautiful. Now, he saw in the dim moonlight, the windows were
shuttered and the grounds had gone back to bunch grass. The paint had
peeled in the salt air and there was an air of decay and loneliness
around the dark old place.
Extending up the drive were the Sea Girt, the Atlantic View, Shore
Mansions, and finally, the Creek House. All were in similar condition.
These hotels had been built in the booming twenties when the
traditional sleepiness of Seaford had been disturbed by a rush of
tourists. Then had come the business depression of the thirties and
the tourists had stopped coming. They had never started again. The
hotels, too expensive to operate and useless as anything but hotels,
had been left to rot. Briefly, during World War II, they had served as
barracks for a Coast Guard shore patrol base, but that activity was
long past now, and they had been left to decay once more.
There were a number of cars on the road, going both ways. Captain Mike
remarked on the fact. "They're curious about the wreck. Usually not a
car moves on this road."
As they approached Smugglers' Reef, the cars got thicker. Then Rick
saw lights in the massive Creek House. It was one of the biggest of
the hotels, and it had been the most exclusive. It had its own dock on
Salt Creek, and it was protected from prying eyes by a high board
fence. Two rooms on the second floor were lit up.
"It's occupied," Cap'n Mike affirmed. "Family name of Kelso is renting
it. Claim they need the salt air and water for their boy. He's
ailing."
"Must be a big family," Scotty said.
"Oh, they don't use all of it. Just a couple of bedrooms and the
kitchen. No one knows much about 'em and they don't seem to work at
anything. City folks. Keep to themselves."
Rick guessed from the note of irritation in Cap'n Mike's voice that he
resented the Kelsos' evident desire for privacy. Probably he had tried
to satisfy his curiosity about them and had been rebuffed.
Jerry pulled up in front of the hotel and stopped the car. The boys
piled out, anxious for a glimpse of the trawler. Rick crossed the road
and looked out to sea.
Smugglers' Reef was a gradually narrowing arm of land that extended
over a quarter mile out into the sea. In front of the hotel it was
perhaps two hundred yards wide. Then it narrowed gradually until it
was little more than a wall of piled boulders. On its north side, Salt
Creek emptied into the sea. Beyond the creek was the marsh with its
high grasses.
At the far tip of the reef, a light blinked intermittently. That was
the light Tyler had failed to keep on his starboard beam. A few
hundred feet this side of it was a moving cluster of flashlights. It
was too dark to make out details, but Rick guessed the lights were at
the wrecked trawler.
"Got your camera?" Jerry asked.
Rick held it up.
"Then let's go. Time is getting short and I have to get the story
back."
With Cap'n Mike leading the way, surprisingly light on his feet for
his age, the boys made their way out along the reef. A short distance
before they reached the wreck they passed a rusted steel framework.
"Used to be a light tower," Cap'n Mike explained briefly. "They put up
the new light on the point a few years back and put in an automatic
system. This light had to be tended."
At the wreck they found almost two dozen people. Flashlights picked
out the trawler. It had driven with force right up on the reef,
ripping out the bottom and dumping thousands of dead menhaden into the
water. They lay in clusters around the wreck, floating on the water in
silvery shoals. The air was heavy with the reek of fish and spilled
Diesel fuel.
There was little conversation among those who had come to visit the
wreck. When they did talk, it was in low tones. Rick thought that was
strange, because anything like this was usually a field day for
self-appointed experts who discussed it in loud tones and offered
opinions to all who would listen. Then, as he lifted his camera for a
picture, he saw the men look up, startled at the flash. He saw them
turn their backs quickly so their faces would not be seen if he were
to take another picture.
He sensed tension in the air, and his lively curiosity quickened. This
was no ordinary wreck. Something about it had brought fear. Or was it
that the fear had brought the wreck?
"Let's go," Jerry said. "Got a deadline to make."
* * * * *
Rick lay awake and stared through the window at the darkness. Jerry
had the pictures and story and there seemed to be nothing else to do
except to cover the hearing that would follow. The results were a
foregone conclusion. Trawler skipper admits he ran ship aground while
drunk. Case closed.
Again Rick saw the fear written on Mrs. Tyler's face. Again he sensed
the tension among the men who gathered at the wreck. And he believed
Cap'n Mike had left some things unsaid in spite of his apparent
frankness.
"Scotty?" he whispered.
Scotty's voice came low through the connecting door. "I'm asleep."
"Same here. Let's go fishing tomorrow."
"Okay. I know where the blackfish will be running."
"Do you? Where?"
Rick grinned sleepily as Scotty's whisper came back.
"Off Smugglers' Reef."
CHAPTER III
The Redheaded Kelsos
The Spindrift motor launch rolled gently in the offshore swell as the
New Jersey coast slid by off the starboard beam. Behind the wheel,
Rick steered easily, following the shore line. In the aft cockpit,
Scotty prepared hand lines for the fishing they planned to do to keep
up appearances.
Their decision to revisit Smugglers' Reef had been made on the spur of
the moment. The case of the wrecked trawler was none of their
business, and Rick had learned in the past that it was a good idea to
keep his nose out of things that didn't concern him. But he could no
more resist a mystery than he could resist a piece of Mrs. Brant's
best chocolate cake. He watched the shore line as the launch sped
along and tried to assure himself that a little look around wasn't
really sticking his nose into the case. After all, it wouldn't hurt to
satisfy his curiosity, would it?
Scotty came forward and joined him. "All set. We ought to find some
fish right off the tip of the reef. If you intend to do any fishing,
that is."
"Of course we'll fish," Rick said. "What else did we come here for?"
"Nothing," Scotty agreed. "This is a fishing expedition in the truest
sense of the word."
Rick looked at his pal suspiciously. "What was behind that remark?"
Scotty chuckled. "Are you fooling yourself? Or are you trying to fool
me?"
Rick had to laugh, too. "Okay. Let's admit it. We're so used to
excitement that we have to go fishing for it if none comes our way.
But seriously, Scotty, this is none of our business. The local
officials can handle it without any help from us. So let's not get too
involved."
Scotty leaned back against the seat and grinned lazily. "Think you can
take your own advice?"
"I think so," Rick said, with his fingers crossed.
Scotty pointed to a low line ahead. "There's the reef. See the light
on the tip?"
"Couldn't very well miss it," Rick said. The light was painted with
red and white stripes and it stood out sharply against the sky. He
gave Scotty a side glance. "What did you make out of all that talk
last night? Think Captain Tyler ran on the reef purposely?"
Scotty shook his head. "He didn't strike me as a thief, and that's
what he'd have to be to wreck his trawler on purpose."
"I liked his looks, too. Then Cap'n Mike said he didn't drink, so his
statement that he was under the influence of liquor wouldn't hold
water, either. What's the answer?"
"If we knew, would we be here?" Scotty waved at the shore. "How far
does this stuff extend?"
The water ended in an almost solid wall of rushes and salt-marsh
growth that would be far above even a tall man's head if he stood at
sea level. Now and then a small inlet appeared where the water flowed
too rapidly for plant life to grow.
"There's about a mile of the stuff," Rick said. "It stops at the reef.
I'm not sure how wide it is, but I'd guess it averages a quarter of a
mile. It's called Brendan's Marsh, after an old man who got lost in it
once. It was over a week before he was found."
They were approaching the reef at a good clip.
"What do we do first?" Scotty asked.
Rick shrugged. He had no plan of action. "Guess we just sort of wander
around and wait for a bright idea to hit us."
"Lot of other people with the same idea, I guess." Scotty nodded
toward the reef.
Rick saw a number of figures moving around the wreck of the trawler.
"Wonder who they are?"
"Probably a lot of folks who are just curious--like two in this boat.
And I wouldn't be surprised if the law was doing a little looking
around by daylight, too."
"We'll soon see." Rick turned the launch inshore as they approached
the reef. "Let's tie up at the Creek House dock. Then we can walk down
the reef and join the rest."
"Suits me."
Rick rounded the corner of the salt marsh and steered the launch into
the creek, reducing speed as he did so. On their right, the marsh
stretched inland along the sluggish creek bank. On their left, the
high old bulk of the Creek House rose from a yard that was strewn
with rubble and years' accumulation of weeds and litter. A hundred
yards up the creek was the gray, rickety piling of the hotel dock.
"That's it," Rick said.
Scotty went up to the bow and took the bow line, ready to drop it over
a piling.
Rick started a wide turn that would bring him into the dock, then cut
the engine. The launch slowed as it lost momentum and drifted into
place perfectly.
"Hey! Get out of there!"
Both boys looked up.
Coming from the hotel's side door on a dead run was a stocky youth of
about their own age. He was between Rick and Scotty in height, and he
had hair the color of a ripe carrot. Swinging from one hand was a
rifle.
"Is that hair real or has he got a wig on?" Scotty asked.
"It's real," Rick returned. His forehead creased. The dock had never
been considered private property--at least not since the hotel was
abandoned. He waited to see what the redhead wanted.
The boy ran down the loose wooden surface toward them, his face red
and angry. "Get that boat out of here!"
Rick looked into a pair of furious eyes the color of seaweed, set
above a wide nose and thin mouth.
"Why?" he asked.
"This is private property. Cast off."
"Where's your sign?" Scotty asked.
The boy grinned unpleasantly. "Don't need a sign." He patted the stock
of his rifle. "Got this."
"Plan to use it?" Scotty asked calmly.
"If I have to. Now cast off those lines and get out."
Rick's temper began to fray a little. "You're using the wrong tone of
voice," he said gently. "You should say 'I'm terribly sorry, fellows,
but this is private property. Do you mind tying up somewhere else?'
Ask us nicely like that and we'll do it."
The redhead half lifted the rifle. "Wise guy, huh? I warned you. Now
cast off those lines and get out." He dropped his hand to the lever of
the rifle as though to pump a cartridge into place.
Scotty tensed. He said softly, "Get gay with that rifle and I'll climb
up there and feed it to you breech first."
Rick saw the color rise to the boy's face and the muscles in his
throat tighten. "Easy, Scotty," he said warningly. He knew, as Scotty
did, that no normal person would wave a rifle at anyone for mere
daytime accidental trespassing, but he had a hunch the young
carrot-top would not react normally.
"Jimmy!"
The three of them looked to the hotel as the hail came. A big man with
red hair several shades darker than the boy's was waving from the side
door of the Creek House. He walked toward them rapidly.
"Okay, Pop," Carrottop called. "I told 'em to get out."
As the man approached, Rick saw that there was a strong resemblance
between the man and the boy. Evidently they were father and son. The
man had the same thin lips, the same seaweed-green eyes. His face was
almost square. It was a tough face, Rick thought.
The newcomer looked at his son and jerked his thumb toward the hotel.
"Okay, Jimmy, get into the house."
The boy turned and walked off without a word.
The man surveyed Rick and Scotty briefly. "Don't mind Jimmy. He was
probably rude, and I'm sorry for it. But this is private property and
I can't allow you to tie up here." He motioned to the high board fence
along the front of the hotel. The fence ran down to the edge of the
creek. "Anywhere this side of the fence is private."
Rick nodded. "It didn't use to be. That's why we tied up here. I'm
sorry, Mr...."
"Kelso. I rented the place a few weeks ago. Haven't had time to get
signs up yet."
"We'll shove off right away, Mr. Kelso. Sorry we intruded."
"Okay."
Rick started the engine, threw the launch into reverse, and backed
out.
Scotty sat down beside him. "How about that?"
"Funny," Rick said. "Didn't Cap'n Mike say a family named Kelso had
taken the hotel because their little boy was sick and needed fresh
air?"
"That's what he said," Scotty affirmed. "Do you suppose that was the
sick little boy?"
"If he's sick," Rick said grimly, "it's trigger fever. I think he'd
like to take a shot at someone."
"It would sure be an effective way of discouraging trespassers. Why do
you suppose they crave privacy so much?"
"Beats me," Rick said. "We'll have to ask Cap'n Mike."
The launch passed the edge of the Creek House fence and came to a
strip of sandy beach. The road ended a few feet from the beach. A
number of cars were parked in the area, and along Smugglers' Reef were
the occupants, most of them standing around the wreck.
"I'll run the launch in as far as I can," Risk directed, "then you
jump ashore with the anchor."
"Okay." Scotty went forward and took the small anchor from its
lashings, making sure he had plenty of line. As Rick pushed the bow of
the launch into shallow water until it grated on the sand, Scotty
jumped across the six feet of open water to the beach.
Rick took the keys from the ignition and joined him. Together they
pulled the launch in a foot or two more, then dug the anchor into the
sand. It would hold until the tide changed.
"Let's go look at the wreck," Scotty said.
Rick nodded. "Afterward, I think we'd better go look up Cap'n Mike. I
have some questions I want to ask him."
"About what?"
"Something he said last night. And about the Kelsos."
They reached the old light tower and paused to examine it. Salt air
had etched the steel of the frame badly. The tower was almost forty
feet high, about twice as tall as the present light. At its top had
been a wooden platform where the lightkeeper had once stood to care
for the light. A rusty metal ladder led up one side of the tower to
where the platform had been.
Rick wondered why the authorities had abandoned the tower in favor of
the smaller light at the very tip of the reef and decided it probably
was because having the warning signal at the very point was more
practical. That way, a ship needed only to clear the light without
worrying about how far away from the light it had to pass.
"Let's go," Scotty said. "Nothing interesting about this relic."
They joined the group of men at the wreck of the _Sea Belle_ and saw
that the wreck was being inspected, probably by the insurance people.
A question to one of the watchers affirmed the guess. Rick asked,
"What do they expect to find?"
"Search me."
Scotty nudged Rick. "We won't have to look far for Cap'n Mike. There
he is."
The old man was seated on a rock, whittling at a twig. Seemingly, he
paid no attention to anything going on. Now and then he looked out to
sea, but mostly he paid attention to his whittling.
Rick walked over, Scotty behind him. "Good morning, Cap'n Mike."
"'Morning, boys."
"Remember us?"
"Sure do. Where's the reporter?"
"He's not with us. We came down to do a little fishing."
Bright eyes twinkled at them. "Fishing, eh? What kind?"
"We thought we might get some blackfish at the end of the reef,"
Scotty replied.
"You might at that," Cap'n Mike said. "You might gets crabs off the
end of the Creek House pier, too, if Red Kelso would let you try. Did
you ask him?"
Rick grinned. Cap'n Mike might not seem to be paying attention, but
evidently he didn't miss much.
"We didn't ask him," he said. "Maybe we didn't even see him." He knew
Cap'n Mike could have seen the boat vanish upcreek and return, but he
wouldn't have been able to see past the fence.
"Maybe you didn't," the old captain conceded. "But you sure saw
somebody, and it had to be Kelso or that boy of his."
"Why do they want so much privacy?" Scotty demanded.
Cap'n Mike ignored the question. "You really got any fishing gear in
that launch?"
"Hand lines," Rick said.
"That's good as anything. Now, I always say a man can't think proper
in a mob like this. Too distracting. So let's go fishing and do some
thinking. What say?"
Rick's glance met Scotty's. Cap'n Mike had his own way of doing
things. They had nothing to lose by humoring him.
"Let's go," Scotty said.
As they passed the wreck, Rick stopped for a moment to look at it
again. The air was even heavier than the night before with the reek of
dead fish. They were scattered along the reef in shoals ten feet wide.
By daylight he could see that the trawler was finished. She had broken
her back and torn out a good part of her bottom. She must have been
really making knots to hit like that.
"Cap'n, exactly what was the weather like when Tom Tyler hit?" Rick
asked.
"Not bad. Visibility might have been less than real perfect, but it
wouldn't have interfered with him seeing the light."
"Would it have interfered with him seeing the reef if the light had
been out?"
"I reckon it would. Until he was right on it, anyway."
Rick turned the information over in his mind. "Were any other trawlers
out last night?"
"Plenty. The _Sea Belle_ was first in, but the rest were right behind.
The light was burning, all right. I thought of that, too, son."
"My name is Rick Brant. This is Don Scott. We call him Scotty."
"Knew you both," Cap'n Mike said. "I subscribe to the paper your
friend writes for. Seen your pictures couple of times. Didn't you just
get back from somewhere?"
"The South Pacific," Scotty said.
"Used to sail those waters. Reckon things have changed some."
"The war changed the islands," Scotty told him. "Especially...." he
stopped suddenly and took Rick's arm. "Look."
The elder Kelso was standing in front of the launch.
"What do you suppose he's after?" Rick asked.
Before Scotty or Cap'n Mike could think up an answer, Kelso turned and
walked back along the beach. There was a foot or two of space between
the water of the creek and the hotel fence. The redheaded man slipped
through it and vanished from sight.
"I'll bet he came out just to look the boat over," Scotty guessed,
"and there's only one reason I can think of why he'd do that. He
wanted to see if he could find out more about us."
"Unless he admired the launch and wanted a closer look at it," Rick
added.
Cap'n Mike snorted. "Red Kelso's got no eye for beauty, in boats,
anyway."
"Then my guess must have been right," Scotty said.
"Right or wrong," Cap'n Mike retorted, "I can't say's I like it. I
wish you boys had talked to me before you decided to invade Salt
Creek!"
CHAPTER IV
A Warning
Cap'n Mike tested his line, then gave a sharp tug. He hauled rapidly
and lifted a three-pound blackfish into the boat.
"Practically a minnow," he said.
"Did we come out here to fish or to talk?" Rick asked. They were
anchored a few hundred yards off the reef tip and had been for almost
an hour. In that time Cap'n Mike had made a good haul of four blacks,
one flounder and a porgy. Rick and Scotty had caught two blacks
apiece.
There was a definite twinkle in Cap'n Mike's eyes. "Came to talk," he
said. "But the fish are biting too good. Better fish while the
fishing's good. Time enough to talk later."
"Time enough for fishing later, you mean," Rick retorted. "Hauling in
blackfish isn't going to find out why the _Sea Belle_ was wrecked."
"Got the answer to that already," Cap'n Mike said.
Rick and Scotty stared. "You have?" Rick asked incredulously.
"Stands to reason. Didn't you tell me you knew Mrs. Tyler was scared?"
"Yes, but what...."
"Well, Tom is scared, too. He wasn't, until the _Sea Belle_ was
wrecked, but he sure is now. That's why he's sticking to that story of
his instead of telling the truth."
"What is the truth?" Scotty demanded.
"Don't know that. Yet. Reckon I'll find out, though. Only I'll need
some help."
Keen eyes surveyed the two boys.
Rick worked his hand line absently. "You mean you want us to help?"
"Seems I've read about you boys solving a mystery or two, haven't I?"
"We've had a couple of lucky breaks," Scotty said. "We're not real
detectives."
Cap'n Mike tried his line and muttered, "Feels like a cunner is
stealing my bait. Well, boys, I wouldn't be surprised none if a little
luck like yours is what we need. Can't pretend, though, that you might
not be walking right into something you wouldn't like. Anything that
scares Tom Tyler is something anyone with sense would be afraid of."
Rick hauled in his line and saw that his bait was gone. He rebaited,
his mind on what he already knew of the case. "I've been wanting to
ask you," he said. "That answer you gave to Jerry when he asked where
Tom Tyler was. You said 'Inside. Surrounded by fools.' What did you
mean?"
Cap'n Mike sniffed. "Just what I said. If the constable and the rest
hadn't been fools they would have known that Tom Tyler was afraid to
talk. Just like plenty of others are afraid."
Rick picked up his ears. "Others? Cap'n, I think you know a few things
you haven't told us."
The old seaman hauled in his line and grunted when he saw that his
bait had been stolen. "Reckon we got too many bait stealers down below
now. Either of you boys hungry?"
"I am," Scotty said promptly.
"I could eat," Rick admitted. He looked at his watch. It was almost
noon.
"Then let's haul anchor and get out of here."
In a moment the hand lines were wound on driers and the anchor stowed.
At Cap'n Mike's direction, Rick pointed the launch to the south,
toward the town. The old man took out his pocketknife, whetted it
briefly on the sole of his shoe, and commenced to clean and fillet the
fish they had caught. Scotty slipped into the seat beside Rick.
"What do you think about trying to
|
It was not hard to
break them--any fool could do that; but to separate adroitly the yolks
and the whites demands some talent, and, above all, great care. We
dare not say that there were no accidents here, no eggs too well
scrambled, no baskets upset. But the experience of Mother Mitchel had
counted upon such things, and it may truly be said that there were
never so many eggs broken at once, or ever could be again. To make an
omelette of them would have taken a saucepan as large as a skating
pond, and the fattest cook that ever lived could not hold the handle
of such a saucepan.
But this was not all. Now that the yolks and whites were once divided,
they must each be beaten separately in wooden bowls, to give them the
necessary lightness. The egg beaters were marshalled into two
brigades, the yellow and the white. Every one preferred the white, for
it was much more amusing to make those snowy masses that rose up so
high than to beat the yolks, which knew no better than to mix together
like so much sauce. Mother Mitchel, with her usual wisdom, had avoided
this difficulty by casting lots. Thus, those who were not on the white
side had no reason to complain of oppression. And truly, when all was
done, the whites and the yellows were equally tired. All had cramps in
their hands.
Now began the real labour of Mother Mitchel. Till now she had been the
commander-in-chief--the head only; now she put her own finger in the
pie. First, she had to make sweetmeats and jam out of all the immense
quantity of fruit she had stored. For this, as she could only do one
kind at a time, she had ten kettles, each as big as a dinner table.
During forty-eight hours the cooking went on; a dozen scullions blew
the fire and put on the fuel. Mother Mitchel, with a spoon that four
modern cooks could hardly lift, never ceased stirring and trying the
boiling fruit. Three expert tasters, chosen from the most dainty, had
orders to report progress every half hour.
It is unnecessary to state that all the sweetmeats were perfectly
successful, or that they were of exquisite consistency, colour, and
perfume. With Mother Mitchel there was no such word as _fail_. When
each kind of sweetmeat was finished, she skimmed it, and put it away
to cool in enormous bowls before potting. She did not use for this the
usual little glass or earthen jars, but great stone ones, like those
in the "Forty Thieves." Not only did these take less time to fill, but
they were safe from the children. The scum and the scrapings were
something, to be sure. But there was little Toto, who thought this was
not enough. He would have jumped into one of the bowls if they had not
held him.
Mother Mitchel, who thought of everything, had ordered two hundred
great kneading troughs, wishing that all the utensils of this great
work should be perfectly new. These two hundred troughs, like her
other materials, were all delivered punctually and in good order. The
pastry cooks rolled up their sleeves and began to knead the dough with
cries of "Hi! Hi!" that could be heard for miles. It was odd to see
this army of bakers in serried ranks, all making the same gestures at
once, like well-disciplined soldiers, stooping and rising together in
time, so that a foreign ambassador wrote to his court that he wished
his people could load and fire as well as these could knead. Such
praise a people never forgets.
When each troughful of paste was approved it was moulded with care
into the form of bricks, and with the aid of the engineer-in-chief, a
young genius who had gained the first prize in the school of
architecture, the majestic edifice was begun. Mother Mitchel herself
drew the plan; in following her directions, the young engineer showed
himself modest beyond all praise. He had the good sense to understand
that the architecture of tarts and pies had rules of its own, and that
therefore the experience of Mother Mitchel was worth all the
scientific theories in the world.
The inside of the monument was divided into as many compartments as
there were kinds of fruits. The walls were no less than four feet
thick. When they were finished, twenty-four ladders were set up, and
twenty-four experienced cooks ascended them. These first-class artists
were each of them armed with an enormous cooking spoon. Behind them,
on the lower rounds of the ladders, followed the kitchen boys,
carrying on their heads pots and pans filled to the brim with jam and
sweetmeats, each sort ready to be poured into its destined
compartment. This colossal labour was accomplished in one day, and
with wonderful exactness.
When the sweetmeats were used to the last drop, when the great spoons
had done all their work, the twenty-four cooks descended to earth
again. The intrepid Mother Mitchel, who had never quitted the spot,
now ascended, followed by the noble Fanfreluche, and dipped her finger
into each of the compartments, to assure herself that everything was
right. This part of her duty was not disagreeable, and many of the
scullions would have liked to perform it. But they might have lingered
too long over the enchanting task. As for Mother Mitchel, she had been
too well used to sweets to be excited now. She only wished to do her
duty and to insure success.
All went on well. Mother Mitchel had given her approbation. Nothing
was needed now but to crown the sublime and delicious edifice by
placing upon it the crust--that is, the roof, or dome. This delicate
operation was confided to the engineer-in-chief who now showed his
superior genius. The dome, made beforehand of a single piece, was
raised in the air by means of twelve balloons, whose force of
ascension had been carefully calculated. First it was directed, by
ropes, exactly over the top of the tart; then at the word of command
it gently descended upon the right spot. It was not a quarter of an
inch out of place. This was a great triumph for Mother Mitchel and her
able assistant.
But all was not over. How should this colossal tart be cooked? That
was the question that agitated all the people of the Greedy country,
who came in crowds--lords and commons--to gaze at the wonderful
spectacle.
Some of the envious or ill-tempered declared it would be impossible to
cook the edifice which Mother Mitchel had built; and the doctors were,
no one knows why, the saddest of all. Mother Mitchel, smiling at the
general bewilderment, mounted the summit of the tart; she waved her
crutch in the air, and while her cat miaowed in his sweetest voice,
suddenly there issued from the woods a vast number of masons, drawing
wagons of well-baked bricks, which they had prepared in secret. This
sight silenced the ill-wishers and filled the hearts of the Greedy
with hope.
In two days an enormous furnace was built around and above the
colossal tart, which found itself shut up in an immense earthen pot.
Thirty huge mouths, which were connected with thousands of winding
pipes for conducting heat all over the building, were soon choked with
fuel, by the help of two hundred charcoal burners, who, obeying a
private signal, came forth in long array from the forest, each
carrying his sack of coal. Behind them stood Mother Mitchel with a box
of matches, ready to fire each oven as it was filled. Of course the
kindlings had not been forgotten, and was all soon in a blaze.
When the fire was lighted in the thirty ovens, when they saw the
clouds of smoke rolling above the dome, that announced that the
cooking had begun, the joy of the people was boundless. Poets
improvised odes, and musicians sung verses without end, in honour of
the superb prince who had been inspired to feed his people in so
dainty a manner, when other rulers could not give them enough even of
dry bread. The names of Mother Mitchel and of the illustrious engineer
were not forgotten in this great glorification. Next to His Majesty,
they were certainly the first of mankind, and their names were worthy
of going down with his to the remotest posterity.
All the envious ones were thunderstruck. They tried to console
themselves by saying that the work was not yet finished, and that an
accident might happen at the last moment. But they did not really
believe a word of this. Notwithstanding all their efforts to look
cheerful, it had to be acknowledged that the cooking was possible.
Their last resource was to declare the tart a bad one, but that would
be biting off their own noses. As for declining to eat it, envy could
never go so far as that in the country of the Greedy.
After two days, the unerring nose of Mother Mitchel discovered that
the tart was cooked to perfection. The whole country was perfumed with
its delicious aroma. Nothing more remained but to take down the
furnaces. Mother Mitchel made her official announcement to His
Majesty, who was delighted, and complimented her upon her punctuality.
One day was still wanting to complete the month. During this time the
people gave their eager help to the engineer in the demolition,
wishing to have a hand in the great national work and to hasten the
blessed moment. In the twinkling of an eye the thing was done. The
bricks were taken down one by one, counted carefully, and carried into
the forest again, to serve for another occasion.
The TART, unveiled, appeared at last in all its majesty and splendour.
The dome was gilded, and reflected the rays of the sun in the most
dazzling manner. The wildest excitement and rapture ran through the
land of the Greedy. Each one sniffed with open nostrils the appetizing
perfume. Their mouths watered, their eyes filled with tears, they
embraced, pressed each other's hands, and indulged in touching
pantomimes. Then the people of town and country, united by one
rapturous feeling, joined hands, and danced in a ring around the
grand confection.
No one dared to touch the tart before the arrival of His Majesty.
Meanwhile, something must be done to allay the universal impatience,
and they resolved to show Mother Mitchel the gratitude with which all
hearts were filled. She was crowned with the laurel of _conquerors_,
which is also the laurel of _sauce_, thus serving a double purpose.
Then they placed her, with her crutch and her cat, upon a sort of
throne, and carried her all round her vast work. Before her marched
all the musicians of the town, dancing, drumming, fifing, and tooting
upon all instruments, while behind her pressed an enthusiastic crowd,
who rent the air with their plaudits and filled it with a shower of
caps. Her fame was complete, and a noble pride shone on her
countenance.
The royal procession arrived. A grand stairway had been built, so that
the King and his ministers could mount to the summit of this
monumental tart. Thence the King, amid a deep silence, thus addressed
his people:
"My children," said he, "you adore tarts. You despise all other food.
If you could, you would even eat tarts in your sleep. Very well. Eat
as much as you like. Here is one big enough to satisfy you. But know
this, that while there remains a single crumb of this august tart,
from the height of which I am proud to look down on you, all other
food is forbidden you on pain of death. While you are here, I have
ordered all the pantries to be emptied, and all the butchers, bakers,
pork and milk dealers, and fishmongers to shut up their shops. Why
leave them open? Why indeed? Have you not here at discretion what you
love best, and enough to last you ever, _ever_ so long? Devote
yourselves to it with all your hearts. I do not wish you to be bored
with the sight of any other food.
"Greedy ones! behold your TART!"
What enthusiastic applause, what frantic hurrahs rent the air, in
answer to this eloquent speech from the throne!
"Long live the King, Mother Mitchel, and her cat! Long live the tart!
Down with soup! Down with bread! To the bottom of the sea with all
beefsteaks, mutton chops, and roasts!"
Such cries came from every lip. Old men gently stroked their chops,
children patted their little stomachs, the crowd licked its thousand
lips with eager joy. Even the babies danced in their nurses' arms, so
precocious was the passion for tarts in this singular country. Grave
professors, skipping like kids, declaimed Latin verses in honour of
His Majesty and Mother Mitchel, and the shyest young girls opened
their mouths like the beaks of little birds. As for the doctors, they
felt a joy beyond expression. They had reflected. They understood.
But--my friends!--
At last the signal was given. A detachment of the engineer corps
arrived, armed with pick and cutlass, and marched in good order to the
assault. A breach was soon opened, and the distribution began. The
King smiled at the opening in the tart; though vast, it hardly showed
more than a mouse hole in the monstrous wall.
The King stroked his beard grandly. "All goes well," said he, "for him
who knows how to wait."
Who can tell how long the feast would have lasted if the King had not
given his command that it should cease? Once more they expressed their
gratitude with cries so stifled that they resembled grunts, and then
rushed to the river. Never had a nation been so besmeared. Some were
daubed to the eyes, others had their ears and hair all sticky. As for
the little ones, they were marmalade from head to foot. When they had
finished their toilets, the river ran all red and yellow and was
sweetened for several hours, to the great surprise of all the fishes.
Before returning home, the people presented themselves before the King
to receive his commands.
"Children!" said he, "the feast will begin again exactly at six
o'clock. Give time to wash the dishes and change the tablecloths, and
you may once more give yourselves over to pleasure. You shall feast
twice a day as long as the tart lasts. Do not forget. Yes! if there is
not enough in this one, I will even order ANOTHER from Mother Mitchel;
for you know that great woman is indefatigable. Your happiness is my
only aim." (Marks of universal joy and emotion.) "You understand?
Noon, and six o'clock! There is no need for me to say be punctual! Go,
then, my children--be happy!"
The second feast was as gay as the first, and as long. A pleasant walk
in the suburbs--first exercise--then a nap, had refreshed their
appetites and unlimbered their jaws. But the King fancied that the
breach made in the tart was a little smaller than that of the morning.
"'Tis well!" said he, "'tis well! Wait till to-morrow, my friends;
yes, till day after to-morrow, and _next week_!"
The next day the feast still went on gayly; yet at the evening meal
the King noticed some empty seats.
"Why is this?" said he, with pretended indifference, to the court
physician.
"Your Majesty," said the great Olibriers, "a few weak stomachs; that
is all."
On the next day there were larger empty spaces. The enthusiasm visibly
abated. The eighth day the crowd had diminished one half; the ninth,
three quarters; the tenth day, of the thousand who came at first, only
two hundred remained; on the eleventh day only one hundred; and on the
twelfth--alas! who would have thought it?--a single one answered to
the call. Truly he was big enough. His body resembled a hogshead, his
mouth an oven, and his lips--we dare not say what. He was known in the
town by the name of Patapouf. They dug out a fresh lump for him from
the middle of the tart. It quickly vanished in his vast interior, and
he retired with great dignity, proud to maintain the honour of his
name and the glory of the Greedy Kingdom.
But the next day, even he, the very last, appeared no more. The
unfortunate Patapouf had succumbed, and, like all the other
inhabitants of the country, was in a very bad way. In short, it was
soon known that the whole town had suffered agonies that night from
too much tart. Let us draw a veil over those hours of torture. Mother
Mitchel was in despair. Those ministers who had not guessed the secret
dared not open their lips. All the city was one vast hospital. No one
was seen in the streets but doctors and apothecaries' boys, running
from house to house in frantic haste. It was dreadful! Doctor
Olibriers was nearly knocked out. As for the King, he held his tongue
and shut himself up in his palace, but a secret joy shone in his eyes,
to the wonder of every one. He waited three days without a word.
The third day, the King said to his ministers:
"Let us go now and see how my poor people are doing, and feel their
pulse a little."
The good King went to every house, without forgetting a single one. He
visited small and great, rich and poor.
"Oh, oh! Your Majesty," said all, "the tart was good, but may we never
see it again! Plague on that tart! Better were dry bread. Your
Majesty, for mercy's sake, a little dry bread! Oh, a morsel of dry
bread, how good it would be!"
"No, indeed," replied the King. "_There is more of that tart!_"
"What! Your Majesty, _must_ we eat it all?"
"You _must_!" sternly replied the King; "you _MUST_! By the immortal
beefsteaks! not one of you shall have a slice of bread, and not a loaf
shall be baked in the kingdom while there remains a crumb of that
excellent tart!"
"What misery!" thought these poor people. "That tart forever!"
The sufferers were in despair. There was only one cry through all the
town: "Ow! ow! ow!" For even the strongest and most courageous were in
horrible agonies. They twisted, they writhed, they lay down, they got
up. Always the inexorable colic. The dogs were not happier than their
masters; even they had too much tart.
The spiteful tart looked in at all the windows. Built upon a height,
it commanded the town. The mere sight of it made everybody ill, and
its former admirers had nothing but curses for it now. Unhappily,
nothing they could say or do made it any smaller; still formidable, it
was a frightful joke for those miserable mortals. Most of them buried
their heads in their pillows, drew their nightcaps over their eyes,
and lay in bed all day to shut out the sight of it. But this would not
do; they knew, they felt it was there. It was a nightmare, a horrible
burden, a torturing anxiety.
In the midst of this terrible consternation the King remained
inexorable during eight days. His heart bled for his people, but the
lesson must sink deep if it were to bear fruit in future. When their
pains were cured, little by little, through fasting alone, and his
subjects pronounced these trembling words, "We are hungry!" the King
sent them trays laden with--the inevitable tart.
"Ah!" cried they, with anguish, "the tart again! Always the tart, and
nothing but the tart! Better were death!"
A few, who were almost famished, shut their eyes, and tried to eat a
bit of the detested food; but it was all in vain--they could not
swallow a mouthful.
At length came the happy day when the King, thinking their punishment
had been severe enough and could never be forgotten, believed them at
length cured of their greediness. That day he ordered Mother Mitchel
to make in one of her colossal pots a super-excellent soup of which a
bowl was sent to every family. They received it with as much rapture
as the Hebrews did the manna in the desert. They would gladly have had
twice as much, but after their long fast it would not have been
prudent. It was a proof that they had learned something already, that
they understood this.
The next day, more soup. This time the King allowed slices of bread in
it. How this good soup comforted all the town! The next day there was
a little more bread in it and a little soup meat. Then for a few days
the kind Prince gave them roast beef and vegetables. The cure was
complete.
The joy over this new diet was as great as ever had been felt for the
tart. It promised to last longer. They were sure to sleep soundly, and
to wake refreshed. It was pleasant to see in every house tables
surrounded with happy, rosy faces, and laden with good nourishing
food.
The Greedy people never fell back into their old ways. Their once
puffed-out, sallow faces shone with health; they became, not fat, but
muscular, ruddy, and solid. The butchers and bakers reopened their
shops; the pastry cooks and confectioners shut theirs. The country of
the Greedy was turned upside down, and if it kept its name, it was
only from habit. As for the tart, it was forgotten. To-day, in that
marvellous country, there cannot be found a paper of sugarplums or a
basket of cakes. It is charming to see the red lips and the beautiful
teeth of the people. If they have still a king, he may well be proud
to be their ruler.
Does this story teach that tarts and pies should never be eaten? No;
but there is reason in all things.
The doctors alone did not profit by this great revolution. They could
not afford to drink wine any longer in a land where indigestion had
become unknown. The apothecaries were no less unhappy, spiders spun
webs over their windows, and their horrible remedies were no longer of
use.
Ask no more about Mother Mitchel. She was ridiculed without measure by
those who had adored her. To complete her misfortune, she lost her
cat. Alas for Mother Mitchel!
The King received the reward of his wisdom. His grateful people called
him neither Charles the Bold, nor Peter the Terrible, nor Louis the
Great, but always by the noble name of Prosper I, the Reasonable.
THANKFUL[1]
BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN.
This tale is evidence that Mrs. Freeman understands the
children of New England as well as she knows their parents.
There is a doll in the story, but boys will not mind this as
there are also two turkey-gobblers and a pewter dish full of
Revolutionary bullets.
Submit Thompson sat on the stone wall; Sarah Adams, an erect, prim
little figure, ankle-deep in dry grass, stood beside it, holding
Thankful. Thankful was about ten inches long, made of the finest
linen, with little rosy cheeks, and a fine little wig of flax. She
wore a blue wool frock and a red cloak. Sarah held her close. She even
drew a fold of her own blue homespun blanket around her to shield her
from the November wind. The sky was low and gray; the wind blew from
the northeast, and had the breath of snow in it. Submit on the wall
drew her quilted petticoats close down over her feet, and huddled
herself into a small space, but her face gleamed keen and resolute out
of the depths of a great red hood that belonged to her mother. Her
eyes were fixed upon a turkey-gobbler ruffling and bobbing around the
back door of the Adams house. The two gambrel-roofed Thompson and
Adams houses were built as close together as if the little village of
Bridgewater were a city. Acres of land stretched behind them and at
the other sides, but they stood close to the road, and close to each
other. The narrow space between them was divided by a stone wall which
was Submit's and Sarah's trysting-place. They met there every day and
exchanged confidences. They loved each other like sisters--neither of
them had an own sister--but to-day a spirit of rivalry had arisen.
[Footnote 1: From _Harper's Young People_, November 25, 1890.]
The tough dry blackberry vines on the wall twisted around Submit; she
looked, with her circle of red petticoat, like some strange late
flower blooming out on the wall. "I know he don't, Sarah Adams," said
she.
"Father said he'd weigh twenty pounds," returned Sarah, in a small,
weak voice, which still had persistency in it.
"I don't believe he will. Our Thanksgiving turkey is twice as big. You
know he is, Sarah Adams."
"No, I don't, Submit Thompson."
"Yes, you do."
Sarah lowered her chin, and shook her head with a decision that was
beyond words. She was a thin, delicate-looking little girl, her small
blue-clad figure bent before the wind, but there was resolution in her
high forehead and her sharp chin.
Submit nodded violently.
Sarah shook her head again. She hugged Thankful, and shook her head,
with her eyes still staring defiantly into Submit's hood.
Submit's black eyes in the depths of it were like two sparks. She
nodded vehemently; the gesture was not enough for her; she nodded and
spoke together. "Sarah Adams," said she, "what will you give me if our
turkey is bigger than your turkey?"
"It ain't."
"What will you give me if it is?"
Sarah stared at Submit. "I don't know what you mean, Submit Thompson,"
said she, with a stately and puzzled air.
"Well, I'll tell you. If your turkey weighs more than ours I'll give
you--I'll give you my little work-box with the picture on the top, and
if our turkey weighs more than yours you give me--What will you give
me, Sarah Adams?"
Sarah hung her flaxen head with a troubled air. "I don't know," said
she. "I don't believe I've got anything mother would be willing to
have me give away."
"There's Thankful. Your mother wouldn't care if you gave her away."
Sarah started, and hugged Thankful closer. "Yes, my mother would care,
too," said she. "Don't you know my Aunt Rose from Boston made her and
gave her to me?"
Sarah's beautiful young Aunt Rose from Boston was the special
admiration of both the little girls. Submit was ordinarily impressed
by her name, but now she took it coolly.
"What if she did?" she returned. "She can make another. It's just
made out of a piece of old linen, anyhow. My work-box is real
handsome; but you can do just as you are a mind to."
"Do you mean I can have the work-box to keep?" inquired Sarah.
"Course I do, if your turkey's bigger."
Sarah hesitated. "Our turkey is bigger anyhow," she murmured. "Don't
you think I ought to ask mother, Submit?" she inquired suddenly.
"No! What for? I don't see anything to ask your mother for. She won't
care anything about that rag doll."
"Ain't you going to ask your mother about the work-box?"
"No," replied Submit stoutly. "It's mine; my grandmother gave it to
me."
Sarah reflected. "I _know_ our turkey is the biggest," she said,
looking lovingly at Thankful, as if to justify herself to her. "Well,
I don't care," she added, finally.
"Will you?"
"Yes."
"When's yours going to be killed?"
"This afternoon."
"So's ours. Then we'll find out."
Sarah tucked Thankful closer under her shawl. "I know our turkey is
biggest," said she. She looked very sober, although her voice was
defiant. Just then the great turkey came swinging through the yard. He
held up his head proudly and gobbled. His every feather stood out in
the wind. He seemed enormous--a perfect giant among turkeys. "_Look_
at him!" said Sarah, edging a little closer to the wall; she was
rather afraid of him.
"He ain't half so big as ours," returned Submit, stoutly; but her
heart sank. The Thompson turkey did look very large.
"Submit! Submit!" called a voice from the Thompson house.
Submit slowly got down from the wall. "His feathers are a good deal
thicker than ours," she said, defiantly, to Sarah.
"Submit," called the voice, "come right home! I want you to pare
apples for the pies. Be quick!"
"Yes, marm," Submit answered back, in a shrill voice; "I'm coming!"
Then she went across the yard and into the kitchen door of the
Thompson house, like a red robin into a nest. Submit had been taught
to obey her mother promptly. Mrs. Thompson was a decided woman.
Sarah looked after Submit, then she gathered Thankful closer, and also
went into the house. Her mother, as well as Mrs. Thompson, was
preparing for Thanksgiving. The great kitchen was all of a pleasant
litter with pie plates and cake pans and mixing bowls, and full of
warm, spicy odours. The oven in the chimney was all heated and ready
for a batch of apple and pumpkin pies. Mrs. Adams was busy sliding
them in, but she stopped to look at Sarah and Thankful. Sarah was her
only child.
"Why, what makes you look so sober?" said she.
"Nothing," replied Sarah. She had taken off her blanket, and sat in
one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs, holding Thankful.
"You look dreadful sober," said her mother. "Are you tired?"
"No, marm."
"I'm afraid you've got cold standing out there in the wind. Do you
feel chilly?"
"No, marm. Mother, how much do you suppose our turkey weighs?"
"I believe father said he'd weigh about twenty pounds. You are sure
you don't feel chilly?"
"No, marm. Mother, do you suppose our turkey weighs more than
Submit's?"
"How do you suppose I can tell? I ain't set eyes on their turkey
lately. If you feel well, you'd better sit up to the table and stone
that bowl of raisins. Put your dolly away, and get your apron."
But Sarah stoned raisins with Thankful in her lap, hidden under her
apron. She was so full of anxiety that she could not bear to put her
away. Suppose the Thompson turkey should be larger, and she should
lose Thankful--Thankful that her beautiful Aunt Rose had made for her?
Submit, over in the Thompson house, had sat down at once to her apple
paring. She had not gone into the best room to look at the work-box
whose possession she had hazarded. It stood in there on the table,
made of yellow satiny wood, with a sliding lid ornamented with a
beautiful little picture. Submit had a certain pride in it, but her
fear of losing it was not equal to her hope of possessing Thankful.
Submit had never had a doll, except a few plebeian ones, manufactured
secretly out of corncobs, whom it took more imagination than she
possessed to admire.
Gradually all emulation over the turkeys was lost in the naughty
covetousness of her little friend and neighbour's doll. Submit felt
shocked and guilty, but she sat there paring the Baldwin apples, and
thinking to herself: "If our turkey is only bigger, if it only is,
then--I shall have Thankful." Her mouth was pursed up and her eyes
snapped. She did not talk at all, but pared very fast.
Her mother looked at her. "If you don't take care, you'll cut your
fingers," said she. "You are in too much of a hurry. I suppose you
want to get out and gossip with Sarah again at the wall, but I can't
let you waste any more time to-day. There, I told you you would!"
Submit had cut her thumb quite severely. She choked a little when her
mother tied it up, and put on some balm of Gilead, which made it smart
worse.
"Don't cry!" said her mother. "You'll have to bear more than a cut
thumb if you live."
[Illustration: "How much do you suppose our turkey weighs?"]
And Submit did not let the tears fall. She came from a brave race. Her
great-grandfather had fought in the Revolution; his sword and
regimentals were packed in the fine carved chest in the best room.
Over the kitchen shelf hung an old musket with which her
great-grandmother, guarding her home and children, had shot an Indian.
In a little closet beside the chimney was an old pewter dish full of
homemade Revolutionary bullets, which Submit and her brothers had for
playthings. A little girl who played with Revolutionary bullets ought
not to cry over a cut thumb.
Submit finished paring the apples after her thumb was tied up,
although she was rather awkward about it. Then she pounded spices in
the mortar, and picked over cranberries. Her mother kept her busy
every minute until dinnertime. When Submit's father and her two
brothers, Thomas and Jonas, had come in, she began on the subject
nearest her heart.
"Father," said she, "how much do you think our Thanksgiving turkey
will weigh?"
Mr. Thompson was a deliberate man. He looked at her a minute before
replying. "Seventeen or eighteen pounds," replied he.
"Oh, Father! don't you think he will weigh twenty?" Mr. Thompson shook
his head.
"He don't begin to weigh so much as the Adams' turkey," said Jonas.
"Their turkey weighs twenty pounds."
"Oh, Thomas! do you think their turkey weighs more than ours?" cried
Submit.
Thomas was her elder brother; he had a sober, judicial air like his
father. "Their turkey weighs considerable more than ours," said he.
Submit's face fell.
"You are not showing a right spirit," said her mother, severely. "Why
should you care if the Adams' turkey does weigh more? I am ashamed of
you!"
Submit said no more. She ate her dinner soberly. Afterward she wiped
dishes while her mother washed. All the time she was listening. Her
father and brothers had gone out; presently she started. "Oh, Mother,
they're killing the turkey!" said she.
"Well, don't stop while the dishes are hot, if they are," returned her
mother.
Submit wiped obediently, but as soon as the dishes were set away, she
stole out in the barn where her father and brothers were picking the
turkey.
"Father, when are you going to weigh him?" she asked timidly.
"Not till to-night," said her father.
"Submit!" called her mother.
Submit went in and swept the kitchen floor. It was an hour after that,
when her mother was in the south room, getting it ready for her
grandparents, who were coming home to Thanksgiving--they had been on a
visit to their youngest son--that Submit crept slyly into the pantry.
The turkey lay there on the broad shelf before the window. Submit
looked at him. She thought he was small. "He was'most all feathers,"
she whispered, ruefully. She stood looking disconsolately at the
turkey. Suddenly her eyes flashed and a red flush came over her face.
It was as if Satan, coming into that godly new England home three
days before Thanksgiving, had whispered in her ear.
Presently Submit stole softly back into the kitchen, set a chair
before the chimney cupboard, climbed up, and got the pewter dish full
of Revolutionary bullets. Then she stole back to the pantry and
emptied the bullets into the turkey's crop. Then she got a needle and
thread from her mother's basket, sewed up the crop carefully, and set
the empty dish back in the cupboard. She had just stepped down out of
the chair when her brother Jonas came in.
"Submit," said he, "let's have one game of odd or even with the
bullets."
"I am too busy," said Submit. "I've got to spin my stint."
"Just one game. Mother won't care."
"No; I can't."
Submit flew to her spinning wheel in the corner. Jonas, still
remonstrating, st
|
removed" in the winter of 1944-1945, resulting in
a present population of a little under 1,000 deer. For reasons unknown,
however, the deer population has recently and gradually been declining
within the Park. There is a possibility that the large number of coyotes
now in the vicinity has assisted in keeping the deer herds from
increasing.
BIGHORN SHEEP POPULATION DECLINE
This country provides an extensive summer sheep range in the high
rolling tundra and rugged peaks above timberline, in addition to a large
wintering area in the lower timber and valleys. Strong winds in the
winter sweep snow from the scant tundra vegetation and often make it
possible for sheep to feed at these high altitudes even during the
winter months. Even with these adequate topographic conditions, wild
sheep in the National Park since 1922 have shown a slow, steady decrease
in numbers until 1941, when there were about 300 sheep present. Since
this date there has been a leveling off of sheep numbers, no decided
increases or decreases being evident. All the related factors probably
contributing to the decline of bighorn population or their present
stability at low level are not known. One substantial reason advanced
has been the deficiency of mineral in sheep diet in the higher
mountains, as indicated on previous pages, with a resultant weakening of
sheep stock and a consequent susceptibility to parasitism and diseases
found prevalent among sickened and dead sheep over a period of years.
Another possibility for the decline may be present in the great increase
of elk and subsequent competition for similar grass foods. The Park
Service has placed salt and mineral blocks at known bighorn
concentration places in an attempt to improve the physical condition of
the sheep and thereby increase the sturdiness of their offspring. The
results of this experiment are difficult to measure, but it is believed
to have met with varying success.
BEAVER PROBLEM
The beaver, being a versatile and adaptable animal, is able to establish
himself wherever there are small, permanent streams and sufficient aspen
to provide him with logs and twigs for dams and houses and to provide
food for his family. Consequently, any of the valleys in the Park which
supply these requirements now contain numerous beaver. They represent
more of a nuisance factor than a real game management problem.
Occasionally they will inundate and drown aspen stands and associated
vegetation. Also, their dams will cause flooding of roads or other
man-made improvements. Infrequently their dams are dynamited to release
these waters and the beaver are live-trapped and transported to "wilder"
areas in the state. Beavers were so numerous in the Park in 1941 that
106 were live-trapped and taken by state conservation officials to other
Colorado areas. The fact that beavers work chiefly at night and have no
serious predation worries has helped their normal increase.
These wildlife management problems are but samples of similar situations
occurring throughout the country, but in varying degree and with
different animals. These are types of conditions which wildlife managers
must face. It is evident in the National Park that suitable study and
research on such factors as animal-mineral requirements, parasites and
diseases, bighorn-elk competition for food, rodent and big game food
competition, condition and availability of winter foods, and predator
relationships are vital to properly reconcile the use of the same area
by man and various wildlife.
Animal populations are rarely in an "ideal condition of balance" in the
same area. Rather, the normal condition is a series of population waves
or fluctuations either increasing or decreasing the total numbers of a
kind of animal. While some exhibit a kind of regularity, they do not
always occur with definite rhythm or in exact cycles. This was probably
true in nature before the arrival of white man and will likely exist in
wilder areas with little modification by man.
Another condition which must be considered normal among animals is the
practice of predation, or killing of one kind of animal by another. The
predator should be given the same opportunity to live its normal life as
are the greatly favored species.
More often than not the predator takes the weakened or diseased animals
of an area and thus aids in preventing the diseased animals from roaming
among their fellows and spreading the ailment. Nature's sustaining law
requires only the survival of the fittest and the predator fits
admirably into this scene, unless he becomes too abundant.
The fear of wild carnivores or the "unknown" at night in the mountains
is still somewhat prevalent. A comparatively brief knowledge of animal
habits will soon force the less intrepid to concede that "wild animals"
rarely attack a human in the wilderness, unless unduly provoked.
Finally, we should contemplate the wildlife of this country from another
than the hunter or commercial aspect. The range limits of some of the
more superb animals in America today are shrinking into closely confined
areas where the few spots of virgin wilderness remain. Man should direct
his efforts toward assisting these grand animals to at least hold their
own.
The thrill of close observation of a wild animal in natural
surroundings, without the artificiality of bars or fences, is one of the
outstanding satisfactions still available to man in this country. This
inspiration and enjoyment, provided by the study and practice of
wildlife preservation in the national parks, is of great importance as
an intangible, but powerful influence on personal and national
well-being.
LIFE ZONES AND ANIMAL DISTRIBUTION
Two interpretations governing the vertical distribution of plants and
animals in the western mountain regions have been developed in the past
years. Both are based on the premise that definite plants and animals
(known as zone indicators) have maximum and minimum altitudes, above and
below which they are unable to survive. The net effect is to group these
plants and animals into belts or zones on mountain slopes, which vary
but little in elevation above sea level throughout the western United
States. The reasons why increases or decreases in mountain elevation so
markedly affect the distribution of plant life, and to a much lesser
degree the animal life, are closely correlated with the differences of
temperature, available moisture, wind velocity, exposure of area to
sunlight, soil, and topographic variations existing between these zones.
Temperature in particular, being an easily measurable difference, has
been used by Merriam in his classification of life zones. He computed
the mean annual temperatures and made temperature summations for each
clearly recognized zone of plant and animal life; he found that for each
1,000 foot rise in elevation there was a corresponding decrease in
temperature of 3° F. Based on these temperature differences, definite
geographical belts were formed and given names--arctic-alpine,
hudsonian, canadian, transition and sonoran zones. Although in current
use throughout the west, these zones are not clearly separable in the
north-central Rocky Mountain region of Colorado, and therefore are not
used here.
Weaver and Clements, following the same general idea, but considering
all of the various factors mentioned above, devised a classification of
zones which is applicable to the Park mountains and will be mentioned
below. Actually, the trees and smaller plants fit very well into these
zones, but animals, because of their mobility and wide adaptibility, can
hardly be classed in any definite zones. Most animals range at various
times of the year through all three zones mentioned, but because a few
do inhabit certain areas a large part of the time, they are considered
to be typical of these zones. Probably the real limiting factor for
animal localization is the degree of severe winter conditions they can
endure; the more adaptable they are to low temperatures, the higher they
may be found in the mountains throughout the year. Of course, the
distribution of herbivorous (plant-eating) animals largely determines
the range of the predatory animals feeding on them.
LIFE ZONES (Weaver and Clements)
Alpine Zone--Any area above timberline--(About 11,300 feet) Grasses and
herbaceous plants
These mammals could live the year 'round here if necessary, but all
can and do range into the other two zones below:
Pika
Marmot
Pocket Gopher
Coyote
Red Fox
Snowshoe Hare
Mountain Sheep
Long-tailed Vole
Dwarf Vole
Subalpine Zone--9,000 feet to timberline--Dense forests of alpine fir
and engelmann spruce, with occasional limber pine.
These animals extend but rarely into the alpine zone during the
coldest part of the winter, and can and do range into the zone below:
Chickaree
Bobcat
Marten
Cottontail
White-tailed Jack Rabbit
Dusky Shrew
Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel
Least Chipmunk
Red-backed Vole
Porcupine
Long-tailed Weasel
Montane Zone--6,000 to 9,000 feet--Predominantly western yellow pine
with scattered Douglas fir and aspen trees.
These animals are considered characteristic of this lowest Park zone
and rarely wander into the subalpine zone.
Striped Skunk
Badger
Richardson
Abert Squirrel
Cliff Mouse
Ground Squirrel
All other mammals in the area, not mentioned above, probably range
throughout these zones, especially during the summer months. Lodgepole
pine may occur in the montane zone, while lodgepole pine and aspen are
also abundant in the burned-over areas of the subalpine region. They are
classified as sub-climax species and therefore not acceptable as zone
indicators. When considering the altitude of timberline, it is important
to understand that it will vary as much as 500 feet above or below the
average of 11,300 feet, depending generally on the quantities of
sunlight received. On warmer south and west slopes, timberline may go as
high as 11,800 feet, while on the shaded north and east slopes it may
drop down to 10,800 feet.
THE MAMMALS OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK
While the term "animal" is commonly used in speaking of our four-footed
wildlife, it is best to record with more complete accuracy that
"animals" include any living thing having sensation and the power of
voluntary movement. This would therefore admit a great variety of
creatures such as one-celled protozoa, worms, fish, frogs, snakes,
birds, and finally the four-footed animals mentioned--mammals. Mammals
are set apart as a special group of animals for two reasons: they have
some sort of hair covering on their bodies and the females are equipped
with mammary (milk) glands for nursing their young, features which none
of the other "animals" possess.
THE HOOFED ANIMALS
ELK (Cervus canadensis nelsoni)
Much taller and heavier than deer, with a dark brown, shaggy neck mane
contrasting with the tan of the body. Large, round, cream-colored
patch on rump. No antlers on females (cows). Running or galloping type
gait.
A large number of these majestic animals are present in the region. In
late June when snows melt from the high country meadows, bands of cows
with their calves, may be found grazing in high valleys near timberline,
or in the open tundra country above timberline. Cow elk usually bear a
single calf each year. The characteristic white spotting on young calves
usually disappears by mid-August, whereas deer fawn spots persist into
the fall season. Occasionally, a bull will mingle and wander with a
band. Large summer herds are often seen on the distant tundras from the
Trail Ridge Road above timberline. Hikers have recently reported
abundant elk in the extensive, isolated areas north of the Mummy range.
The elk remain above 10,000 feet usually until the first week of
September, when they migrate to the lower timber and valleys. This is
the start of the mating (or "rutting") season, when the bull antlers are
being polished and hardened. The challenging "bugle" of the bull elk can
then be heard ringing out in a soul-stirring manner. The bulls at this
time engage in a series of minor skirmishes with one another, for the
purpose of dominating a group of cows (a harem) during the rutting
season. Sometimes these meetings develop into mighty battles, with these
large, antlered beasts weighing up to 700 pounds apiece, pushing and
gouging with their antlers and striking at each other with large front
hoofs, until the vanquished flees. This is illustration on a grand
scale, of nature's way of providing the strongest animals for breeding
and continuation of a strong stock.
Beaver Meadows and Horseshoe Park are particularly good places to view
elk in the fall, from an auto. These cautious animals have excellent
hearing ability and an exceptionally good sense of smell. They can
detect a human a half mile away in proper wind, and once alarmed will
retreat immediately to the wooded slopes. At the height of the rutting
season, however, the elk are less easily alarmed. When elk can be seen
from road parking areas, it is best to remain quietly in the car, as the
gasoline odors seem to overpower any human scent they might obtain.
Whatever the season, elk are most easily observed when they are feeding,
either in early morning hours or at dusk. Often they can be
"spotlighted" from the highway after twilight either on the tundra or in
the valleys.
MULE DEER (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus)
A stout, chunky-bodied deer with a yellowish-gray coat, turning to
gray in winter. Has big ears, small white rump patch; white tail with
black tip is held down while running. Has stiff legged, bounding type
gait. Antlers on males (bucks) only.
These beautiful creatures are the most abundant and widely distributed
large animals in the Park. They may be found singly or in small groups
throughout the forest and meadows, during the summer, and often graze at
dusk and during the night near the Trail Ridge Road, from 8,000 to
12,000 feet altitude. In early June the females (does) usually bear
their white-spotted, twin fawns in the deep forests; while the males (or
bucks), having left the family circle, are ranging far and wide in the
wilderness. In early October the snows and winds usually drive the deer
into the lower regions, where they assemble in small herds. The necks of
the bucks begin to swell, heralding the approach of the rutting season,
and a series of fights or "tussles" ensue among the bucks for possession
of their harems of three to five does. These fights consist of the males
horning and pushing one another around for short periods, when the
stronger buck will finally throw the other off his feet and gore him
with sharp, pointed antlers until he leaves. Mule deer herd together in
the winter, feeding on aspen leaves and branches, and pawing away the
snow from low bushes and shrubs to obtain their preferred diet. When the
snow has melted on the steep south slopes in early June, they break up
into little bands and scatter to the four winds.
Mule deer have sharp eyes and a good sense of smell and hearing.
However, they have a peculiar sense of curiosity and, if not alarmed,
will often approach a spectator quite closely.
The number of points on mule deer antlers is a very poor indication of
age. A yearling will usually have a pair of spikes six to eight inches
long, but between two and five years of age the antlers may continue to
hold the four points (tines). Deer (and elk) antlers frequently
deteriorate with age and "go back" to two points or to a freakish number
of points, sometimes numbering up to twenty-four points on a head. Very
old deer and elk usually have short, scrubby sets of antlers and, of
course, all elk and deer males lose their antlers in early spring and
start immediately growing a new set. The hoofed animals in the Park are
preyed on by cougar, coyotes, and bobcats. The coyote, originally a
plains animal, has developed into a stronger and heavier mountain
species, capable of bringing down adult deer and the younger elk and
sheep.
MOUNTAIN SHEEP (Ovis canadensis canadensis)
A large, grayish-brown sheep with a distinct whitish rump patch. Males
(rams) larger; up to 300 pounds, having horns which sweep back and
down and finally, in older rams, curling forward. Females (ewes) weigh
up to 175 pounds, with smaller horns pointing backward with slight
curvature. Ewe horns have a vague resemblance to the mountain goat
horns, but there are no wild goats in the southern Rocky Mountains.
Mountain sheep are also called bighorns.
No other animal of the Rockies is so symbolic of the wild, rugged
grandeur of the Western mountain peaks as the mountain sheep. While they
graze on sweet summer grasses and flowers of the alpine meadows and
slopes, at 12,000 or more feet altitude, they are truly kings of all the
vast domain they survey. They are all the more precious in the sanctuary
of Rocky Mountain National Park. It is possible to drive up Trail Ridge
Road and if one is ambitious, continue on foot up several miles of
tundra slope to see one of the finest animal creatures placed on our
planet. There are few places in this country where access to the high
mountain peaks and sight of the bighorn is as easy.
[Illustration: Deer Fawn]
[Illustration: Mountain Sheep Rams]
The ewes bear their lambs singly, among the crags and rocky basins high
above timberline, in late spring. After a few weeks they congregate in
small flocks along with the yearlings (and sometimes young rams) to
spend the summer in thin-aired solitude. The older rams keep by
themselves, alone or in smaller bands. When the winter winds and snows
begin whirling around the lofty peaks, the sheep seek refuge in
protected cliffs and timber, or even move to lower valleys. The mating
or rutting season occurs in November, accompanied by terrific battles
among the rams for their harems. The opponents race at each other,
leaping into the air for the final, powerful crash of horns, which may
be heard a mile away. After a number of such encounters, the smaller or
weaker sheep gives up and walks away. The skulls of rams are well
adapted to the terrible beating they take in battle. The top front of
the skull is double, having a layer of bone, then a space, then another
layer of bone surrounding the brain case. In addition, the rams have a
one-inch or more layer of shock-absorbing cartilage on the skull in back
of the horns, joining the head and the backbone. Ram horns are not lost
each year as are the antlers of deer and elk. Rather, they furnish a
good indication of the age of the sheep, as they add a definite ridge or
ring to the horn in its lengthening growth each fall season.
Bighorn bands have been observed recently in the following areas during
the summer: The Never Summer Range, the Mummy Range, Flattop Mountain
and peaks in vicinity, MacGregor Mountain, Specimen Mountain, Mount Ida
and Sheep Rock, and on the crests near Trail Ridge Road above
timberline. The small bands of sheep in the Park will shift with the
season and with the year, but the last three named areas probably offer
the easiest opportunity for viewing them. Sheep are usually on the move
and feeding only in the very early morning hours and evening hours,
often bedding down in secluded places in late morning and early
afternoon. When stalking them, keep in mind that bighorn's eyes are
exceptionally sharp and capable of detecting a moving human up to two
miles away. If you can spot them first with a field glass and then keep
out of sight until near them, your chances of a good view are much
improved.
THE FLESH EATERS (CARNIVORES)
BLACK BEAR (Ursus americanus)
Bulky, heavily furred animal up to 3 feet in height when on all fours.
Born with and retains either a black or cinnamon-brown fur. Adults
weigh about 300 pounds, sometimes much more.
Although there are an estimated thirty black bear roaming the deep
forests of the region, they are only occasionally seen because of their
solitary, nocturnal habits. They are infrequently observed lumbering
across a road or foraging an outdoor garbage pit in the evening. The
latter practice is discouraged, when discovered, to prevent them from
becoming "bum" bears. Because of their unpredictable and sometimes
vicious manner, it is unwise to feed or make friendly overtures toward
any bear. They have only fair eyesight, but in the woods can scent or
hear a human coming long before he might be seen, and will slip silently
away through the woods, despite their bulk. The heavy, clustered bear
dung and large tracks are the most usual sign of bear in the region. The
diet is largely ants, grubs, berries, roots, and some small rodents.
Bears in the region will den up in early December and go into a light
sleep or semi-hibernation, living off their stored fat layers. They may
be easily wakened from this sleep. The females, which have mated the
previous May, usually bear twin cubs in February. The cubs, strangely
enough, are about the size of an adult squirrel when born. They grow
rapidly and are soon out in the scattered snow fields feeding with Mama.
MOUNTAIN LION (Felis concolor hippolestes)
Very large, slender cat with small head and long, heavy, black-tipped,
cylindrical tail. Fur soft, yellowish or reddish brown. Length,
including tail, about 7 feet, height at shoulder almost 2½ feet,
weight varies from 100 to 176 pounds.
These great, sleek cats are among the most elusive of all animals to be
seen in the wild. Because of their natural wariness and highly developed
senses of smell and hearing, few persons have ever sighted the lithe,
muscular body. Those who have, usually discover them from a distance,
"sunning" on some rocky ledge or cliff. A few cougars are reported
inhabiting the small canyons off the Devil's Gulch area, northeast of
Estes Park. If true, it is probably these cats making their circle
"tour" of 50 to 100 miles in a few days' search of game, that are
infrequently seen in the Park. Cougars prefer fresh meat and prey
chiefly on deer, but will catch rabbits and rodents occasionally. They
have been known to trail a human long distances, but rarely show
themselves or attack.
BOBCAT (Lynx rufus uinta)
General appearance like an extremely large domestic cat. There is
considerable variation of color pattern in different kinds of bobcats,
but the species seen in this area is buffy above with fine streaks of
gray and black; black bands appear prominently on legs. Total length
about 3 feet; tail 6 inches. Weight up to 25 pounds. Note: The only
animal the bobcat might be confused with is the lynx. The bobcat is
smaller, buffy rather than gray, has smaller feet and short 1 inch ear
tufts. The lynx is practically extinct in this area, while the bobcat
or their tracks may be seen occasionally.
[Illustration: Bobcat]
[Illustration: Black Bear]
[Illustration: WEASEL
Slender, brown with buffy underparts, black tip on tail; fur turns
white in winter.]
[Illustration: MINK
Dark brown fur and bushy tail, small ears; frequents stream areas.]
[Illustration: MARTEN
Prominent ears, bushy tail, brown with yellow underparts; found in
forest areas.]
[Illustration: PIKA
Small, brown animal with short, round ears; no tail; found only
above 10,000 feet, in rock piles.]
[Illustration: SNOWSHOE HARE
Smaller than a jack rabbit and with shorter ears; thick fur, gray in
summer and pure white in winter; large hind feet.]
[Illustration: JACK RABBIT
Very long ears, long hind legs; fur turns light gray in winter.]
[Illustration: COTTONTAIL RABBIT
Smaller than hare and jack rabbit; feet and ears medium length; fur
remains grayish-brown in winter.]
[Illustration: CHICKAREE
Smaller grayish squirrel with white underparts, white eye ring,
white fringe on tail; frequents spruce-fir forests.]
[Illustration: ABERT SQUIRREL
Heavy bodied, long bushy tail, prominent ear tufts; fur is gray,
brown or black; frequents yellow pine forests.]
[Illustration: CHIPMUNK
Quick nervous movements; stripes on face and down middle of back,
long tail, very common.]
[Illustration: GOLDEN-MANTLED GROUND SQUIRREL
Larger than chipmunk; stripes only on sides of back; very common.]
[Illustration: RICHARDSON GROUND SQUIRREL
Pale brown, short tail; often seen near highways in lower valleys.]
[Illustration: PACK RAT
Large rat with brownish fur, bushy tail, and beady eyes.]
[Illustration: POCKET GOPHER
Chunky, brown body, thick short tail, long front claws; seen near
its earthen mounds.]
The little bobcat ranges through the woods mostly at night seeking small
rodents, rabbits, grouse, and ptarmigan. Like his giant cousin, the
cougar, he will invariably detect quickly the presence of any intruder
and quietly slip away. The presence of long hairs between his toes in
winter, forming a "snowshoe-like" pad, enables him to travel swiftly
through winter snows. Although wary of man, he will frequent settled
areas where food in the form of rats, mice, and rabbits is common.
COYOTE (Canis latrans lestes)
Looks somewhat like a German shepherd dog with a yellowish gray coat
and long, bushy tail. The coyote has a pointed nose, and a heavy tail
which, when the animal is running, seems to float behind. Total length
about 4 feet; weight up to 35 pounds. This species of coyote is
usually larger than the familiar plains variety, and may be confused
only with the larger wolf, which has disappeared from this region.
This crafty and bold "wild dog" is very common and increasing in the
entire area, from the lower hills to above timberline. Their increase
may be accounted for not only by their extreme cunning and adaptability
to the invasion of man, but also because they produce the high average
litter of six young each year. Scarcity of food, persecution by man, and
the great stamina of coyotes has helped him become the outstanding
predator in North America, both in numbers and extent of range. They
will eat practically anything--birds, insects, carrion, rodents,
rabbits; and when in packs can overcome large game animals, which are in
a weakened condition due to severe winters. I have seen coyotes in many
of the lower valleys of the Park in mid-morning hours, "playing" with
ground squirrels. They grab and fling them several times into the air,
catching them expertly each time and finally gulping them down. The
coyote becomes more awesome if you have heard its weird howl floating
out of a moonlight night.
RED FOX (Vulpes macroura)
Reddish-gold coat and a long bushy white-tipped tail. Dark legs.
Smaller than a coyote. Total length 3½ feet. Weight up to 14 pounds.
This fox is regarded as uncommon in the region and is difficult to see
because it runs chiefly at night. They are swift and cunning, feeding on
wood rats, mice, and birds throughout the area. Because of the value of
their pelts in the fur trade, they have been heavily trapped and, not
being as diversified in habit, have been unable to survive as well as
the coyote.
CROSS FOX
This color variation of the red fox is similar except the coat is an
intermixture of reddish, gray, and black tones. It has been seen in
this region. The silver or black fox color phases of this red fox have
not as yet, been reported for the Park. One litter of the red fox may
contain several varieties of these phases.
BADGER (Taxidae taxus taxus)
Stout, flat-looking body with shaggy, silver-gray fur. Black and white
distinctive markings on the face and head. Long, heavy claws. Total
length about 28 inches. Weighs up to 20 pounds.
This compact, tough little badger, while more common in the plains and
foothills, now digs its solitary burrow in the lower mountain meadows.
As they capture prey by digging them out, they are usually found
wherever there are ground squirrel colonies; but will also feed on
skunks and marmots. They can dig themselves out of sight in the ground
in a few minutes. Like the bears, they fatten up in the fall and go into
a period of semi-hibernation from which they may waken and wander about
during warmer winter days.
STRIPED SKUNK (Mephitis mephitis varians)
A stout bodied animal about the size of a house-cat, with a small
head, large bushy tail, and short legs. Color black with a double
stripe of white running the length of the back. Tail black and white.
Total length about 28 inches. Weight up to 10 pounds.
This famous little night hunter sleeps most of the day and when awake is
commonly seen roaming about human habitations. He feeds largely on small
mice, insects, and also likes birds' eggs. He releases his potent scent
only on extreme provocation or surprise and is actually quite a docile,
friendly little fellow. If picked up by the tail, he may or may not
fumigate the air.
SPOTTED SKUNK (Spilogale tenuis)
A smaller and more slender skunk distinguished by a number of narrow
white stripes on the back which tend to break up, often resulting in
spots. Rare in the Park and then only east of the Continental Divide.
MARTEN (Martes caurina origenes)
A large weasel-like animal with prominent ears and a bushy tail. Warm
brown color except on chest and underparts which are yellowish. Total
length about 25 inches.
[Illustration: Red Fox]
[Illustration: Coyote]
[Illustration: Marten]
The elongated, agile-bodied marten is largely nocturnal, but because of
his abundance is now rather commonly seen during the day in the
subalpine forests of the Park. On the trails in Wild Basin, Bear Lake,
and upper Colorado River Valley areas, he may be attracted to put in a
bold appearance, by setting out a lure of smelly meat or fish.
Ordinarily, they feed on chickarees and small rodents of the deep
forest. They are primarily climbers, but are equally at home on the
forest floor.
MINK (Mustela vison energumenos)
A slim, rich dark-brown animal with a pointed nose, small ears, and
fairly bushy tail. Movements are snake-like. Does not turn white in
winter as will his smaller cousin, the weasel. Total length about 25
inches.
Aggressive and crafty killers, mink are infrequently seen along stream
areas of the Park. They are as much at home in the water as out of it,
catching fish and muskrats, as well as numerous small land rodents. Mink
can travel miles along water courses with their bounding, graceful lope.
Here they record their passage with tracks in the sand or mud. When
angry, they emit a powerful, offensive odor.
LONG-TAILED WEASEL (Mustela frenata nevadensis)
Very slender weasel with a flattened head and beady eyes. Fur is dark
brown, black tip on tail, and buffy underparts. Winter coat is snow
white with black-tipped tail, and is then called "ermine." Total
length 16 inches. There are about 36 different kinds of weasels in the
United States.
It is incredible that such a small body could contain such a remarkably
vicious nature as that of the weasel. Most animals kills for food, but
the long saber-sharp teeth of the weasel kill wantonly and apparently
just for the sake of killing. They first suck the warm blood from the
base of the skull or neck of their victim and then eat portions of its
meat and bones. They are quick and intelligent and can subdue animals
several times their size. They are quite common throughout the Park up
to timberline, and are so curious and unafraid that once seen, they may
be attracted by making various squeaks and sounds.
SHORT-TAILED WEASEL (Mustela streatori lepta)
A very small weasel differing from the long-tailed weasel chiefly in
size. Total length 9½ inches. Rare in the Park.
THE PLANT EATERS (RODENTS)
BEAVER (Castor canadensis concisor)
Compact, heavyset, water mammal with brown fur and a broad,
horizontally-flattened, scaly tail. Large, webbed hind feet. Total
length about 3½ feet. Average weight about 40 pounds. When swimming,
only the top half of the head, shoulders, and part of the back appear
above water. For positive identification, watch for the broad, black
tail which may slap the water, or "flip up" when it dives.
This largest of North American rodents is very abundant and widely
distributed in many of the mountain streams. To locate their dams, look
for small pools or lakes in streams of heavily wooded sections. If new,
the dams will be a mass of twigs and saplings carefully interlaced and
sealed with mud; if old, the dams will be overgrown with grasses and
small shrubs, but will still maintain the general shape and contour of a
beaver dam. These dams will easily support the weight of a man. In the
pond area or on the dam, a conical mass of mud and twigs, (the beaver
lodge) some three to five feet high may be found, which contains the
home of the beavers using that pond. Each lodge has an underwater
entrance which is constantly in use, winter and summer. While beavers
work mostly at night, it has been a regular practice in the Park to
observe them swimming in their ponds just before nightfall. The Mill
Creek, Hidden Valley, and Colorado River Valley areas have been
especially good locations for sight of beaver. If aspen, which is both
the beaver's food and construction material, have all been removed for a
distance of five or six hundred feet from the pond, then probably the
beavers have moved out and gone up or down stream to build a new pond.
Muskrats may then occupy the entire pond.
MUSKRAT (Ondatra zibethica osoyoosensis)
This water mammal might well be a miniature beaver to the casual
observer, with the one distinguishing feature of having a long, scaly
tail flattened in the vertical plane instead of the beaver's broad,
flat tail. Length not more than 2 feet. When swimming, only a small
portion of the top of the animal shows above water, along with a thin
edge of the tail, which is used with a sculling and rudder effect.
Muskrat are common in the Park, often living in beaver-made ponds. They
are therefore often confused with beaver by the uninitiated, but if
attention is given to the size and tail characteristics, there will be
no identification difficulty. The muskrat or "rats," as they are often
called, build dens in the banks of the ponds and more rarely in this
region, small grass and mud lodges. Their principal foods are rushes,
grass, and water plants. In ponds containing active muskrat these plants
are often found cut and floating near the banks.
[Illustration: Weasel changing from brown summer coat to white
winter fur]
[Illustration: Photo by D. J. Obee
Badger]
[Illustration: Porcupine]
[Illustration: Muskrat]
PORCUPINE (Erethizon dorsatum epixanthum)
Large, spiny rodent with high arched back, small black
|
Graham’s Magazine by F. Halpin]
* * * * *
GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
Vol. XL. PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1852. No. 1.
* * * * *
A LIFE OF VICISSITUDES.
BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
HOW I CAME TO HAVE IT.
I was one time traveling in France. I was a young man without
object—without occupation. Literature was the last thing in my
thoughts—indeed I believe it never would have entered into them, but
for a word or two of encouragement from an American gentleman, most dear
to me after a lapse of five-and-twenty years, most high in my esteem as
a man, and in my admiration as an author. He gave the first impulse to
my mind in a certain direction. His opinion was confirmed by another,
equally dear, and equally admired by us both, and I became in
consequence of an accidental meeting in a remote city of France, what I
am, and what I am proud to be—a literary man.
It was some time after this accidental meeting that I was traveling in
another Department, as they call it now-a-days, or Province as they
called it long ago, when I stopped at an inn or hotel, God bless the
mark!—in the famous city of Rennes, the capital of Brittany. The town
is a fine old quiet town, which looks as if a good deal of sleep had
been the portion of the inhabitants since the revolution; but
nevertheless, it has a great number of pleasant people in it, a great
number of agreeable social parties, much elegance and grace in its
higher circles, and a numerous collection of beautiful faces and
forms—for all of which I am devoutly thankful, as in duty bound.
One’s first advent to such a town, however, can never be particularly
gay. The circumstances which brought me there, and detained me there for
a long time, could not be matters of interest for the general public,
but I will own that the first day-light view of the city, though
striking and in some degree beautiful—and there are few towns for which
I have such a lingering love; perhaps on the same motives which made De
Coucy love Fontenoy—was in some degree dull and monotonous; and before
I delivered the few letters of introduction which I brought with me, I
took a stroll through the streets, with no very pleasant feeling or
anticipation.
I had previously passed through that deeply interesting part of France,
the Bocage, where deeds of heroism enough were enacted to have made
ancient Rome really great—where heroes fought and died, with a
constancy and a quiet fortitude which would have shamed warriors of old,
and have put the stoic to the blush.
It is a bright and beautiful land, notwithstanding the desolation which
the fierce wrath of the multi-form tyranny of republicanism inflicted
upon it—notwithstanding the decimation of its inhabitants, and the
spilling of the noblest blood that France had ever produced. The dim
embowering lanes, deep cut between the fields; the arching boughs over
head, the vineyards, and the orchards, the quiet little villages, nooked
in bosky shade; the frequent farm-houses, and the châteaux great and
small, which thickly dot the whole of that peculiar region, had produced
an effect—strange to say—gay—cheerful—and pleasant, rather than sad,
notwithstanding all the gloomy memories of glorious deeds unfruitful,
and heroic courage rewarded by death, with which the whole air is
loaded. France may boast of her conquests—of the successes which were
obtained by the fierce irruption of the barbarous hordes into dismayed
and unconnected lands—of the talent of her generals—of the courage of
her plundering troops—of triumph, bitterly atoned by forgotten
humiliation; but her real glory lies in La Vendee.
I had gone through this beautiful country—this country dear to the
heart of every one who loves honor more than success, and I had come to
the extreme point of the frontier, where a great city had possessed the
means, and never used them, of rendering gallant devotion triumphant.
The feeling with which I viewed it was, perhaps, not that of
disappointment; but a sort of gloom pervaded my mind, a sensation of
solitariness—of isolation, not common in French cities, where every one
usually seems ready to take upon himself the character of acquaintance,
if not of friend.
On entering my inn, which was one where dinner was served _à la carte_.
I chose from the bill of fare, such viands as I thought proper, and sat
down to read the newspaper in the public room till the meal was served.
While thus occupied, two or three people came in and went out again; but
one person remained, spoke a few words to the waiter, seated himself in
a chair on one side of the long wooden board which served as a very
unornamental dinner-table, and taking up one of the public papers, began
to read.
After a time I gave a glance at him, and I thought I recognized the
features. A second look showed me that I had seen him more than once
before in various towns of France. I had even a faint recollection of
having met him in good society in England. So it proved; for a short
time after, the stranger’s eye turned upon me, and he immediately
remembered me. Our acquaintance, previously, had been confined to a few
words, and an occasional bow when we met; but here we were seated
together in a dull inn, in a dull town in Brittany—cast as it were upon
each other for society; and it may be easily supposed that we soon
became more intimate, although I did not altogether like or understand
my acquaintance. He was certainly a good-looking man, but his appearance
was somewhat singular. He was tall, very powerful in frame, though
rather meagre than otherwise, full-chested, broad-shouldered, thin in
the flank, long and sinewy in limb. His nose was strongly aquiline, his
eye over-arched by a very prominent eye-brow, was dark, bright and
quick. He wore neither whisker nor mustache, and I remarked that his
teeth were beautifully white and perfect, although at this time he must
have been considerably above fifty. His dress never varied at any time I
saw him, consisting of a black coat, waistcoat and handkerchief, drab
breeches, and English top-boots. His hat always shone like a
looking-glass, and his gloves always fitted beautifully, and seemed to
be fresh that day. I found that he spoke English and French with equal
facility, and I never could get any one to tell me what was his country.
Frenchmen, who heard him speak, declared at once that he was French, and
that no foreigner could ever acquire the accent so perfectly.
Englishmen, and myself amongst the number felt sure that he was English,
judging by the same test; and I am rather inclined to believe now, that
he was in reality a Russian spy. He never, by any chance, alluded to his
country, to his profession, or to his habits—except indeed, one day,
when he called himself a wandering spirit, rarely remaining more than
three days in the same place. He must have been well acquainted with
Rennes, however; for he knew every nook and corner in the city, and had
evidently some knowledge of a great many people in it, for he bowed to
many, spoke to several; but although I afterward asked several persons
whom I had seen him thus recognize, who he was, none of them could tell
me, and most of them seemed not much to like the subject.
The first night, we dined together, and shared a bottle of very good
wine, which he, either by prescience or memory, recommended as the best
which the house could afford. We talked of the town, and of that part of
France, and of La Vendee, and in the end, finding I was curious about
relics of the ancient times, he offered to take me to some curious
places in the vicinity of the town. On the following morning we set out
in a carriage from the inn—and here let me notice his scrupulous
exactness in paying his precise share of every expense incurred. He
never sought to pay more, but would never consent to pay less. On our
return, our conversation naturally fell upon all we had seen. We talked
of the Chouans, and the Vendean war, and all the gallant deeds that were
done in those days, and from that we turned to the Revolutionary history
in general, and especially to the campaigns of Massena, and the
Arch-Duke Charles, and Suwarow in Lombardy and Switzerland. He gave me a
number of curious anecdotes of those personages, and especially of
Suwarow, whom he told me he had himself seen leading on a charge, with a
jockey-cap upon his head, a switch in his hand, a boot upon one leg, and
a silk stocking on the other.
“Those were strange times,” he said, “and many of the greatest, and most
striking events in history which occurred about that time, are already
hardly remembered, from the fact that so many marvelous actions were
crowded into so short a space of time, as hardly to leave room to see or
to collect them. I was about thirty at the time of that terrible
struggle in Switzerland,” he added, “and my memory is quite perfect upon
the subject; but when I talk with other people upon those things, and
especially with historians, they know little or nothing about them.”
“You must have gone through some strange adventures, I should think,” I
answered.
“Oh dear no,” he replied, “my life has been an exceedingly quiet and
tranquil one; but if you are curious about that period of history, I
have got a manuscript which fell into my hands accidentally, giving some
interesting particulars of a young man’s life in those days. There is a
good deal of nonsensical sentimentality in it, but it may amuse you, and
if you like to take the trouble to read it, I will lend it to you.”
I accepted his offer right willingly, but the conversation turned soon
to other things, and he and I both forgot the manuscript that night.
On the following day, at breakfast, he announced to me that he was going
to start by the Diligence at noon, for Nantes, Bordeaux, and Madrid. I
laughingly asked what would become of my reading the manuscript then.
“Oh, you shall have it! You shall have it,” he answered. “We shall meet
again I dare say, and then you can give it back to me.”
Before he went, he brought it down—a large roll of somewhat yellow
paper. Conceiving it might be valuable, and without the slightest idea
of prying into his affairs, I asked where I could send it to him, if we
did not meet soon.
He replied, with a very peculiar smile, “it does not matter. It does not
matter. If I do not see you before thirteen years are over, I shall then
be seventy years of age or dead, and you may do with it what you
please.”
More than twenty years have now passed, and we have not met, and I give
the manuscript to the world with very little alteration, trusting that
if the writer of the autobiography which follows should ever see these
pages, he will claim his own and forgive their publication. I will only
add, that when I received the manuscript, I certainly thought that my
good friend of the inn was the writer of it himself. In reading it over,
however, and especially in correcting it for the press, I perceived that
could not be, as the age of the parties must have differed by fifteen or
sixteen years.
THE FIRST FISH.
Most men have a faint and distant notion from whom to look for
parentage—that inestimable boon for which the most miserable often feel
the most grateful—inestimable, not only because it confers upon us, if
we will, an immortal hereafter of unrevealed joy and glory, but because
nobody ever has, ever will, or probably ever can, estimate it rightly.
Parents consider their children as under an undischargeable debt of
gratitude to them for bringing them into the world at all, without
sometimes fully considering a parent’s duties as well as his rights.
Children are too apt to make light of the obligation, as well as many
another obligation which succeeded it—the care of infancy, the guidance
of youth, the love, unextinguishable in all but very cold and stony
hearts, which attends our offspring from their birth to our own
death-bed. It may be argued that all these acts and feelings on the part
of parents, are but in obedience to a law of nature: that the man or
woman is like the eagle or the dove, is impelled to nurture, protect,
defend his offspring. But if so, the law of love and obedience of the
offspring to the parent, is equally binding; and he who neglects the
one, is equally a rebel to nature, and to God, as he who neglects the
other.
Most men, I repeat, have a faint and distant notion from whom to look
for parentage. This is not without exception. Good, as a general rule,
the exceptions are quite sufficient to prove it. I myself am one. That I
had a father, I take for granted: that I had a mother is perfectly
certain. But as to who my father and my mother were, was for many years
a question much more doubtful.
However, I will tell you all about it, and you shall judge for yourself.
My first recollections of the world are surrounded by somewhat strange
scenery. Figure to yourself, reader, a town situated on the top of a
high hill, like an eagle’s eyrie, but far more solid and substantial.
The streets are paved with large round stones, and a gutter in the
centre, tracking out like rays at every cross-road: the houses,
stone-built, and somewhat ponderous, are tall and short, wide and
narrow, as in most other towns, but there are some very fine churches in
a somewhat severe style in the place, and it seems to possess two
peculiar characteristics. Whether, because so far elevated that nothing
could obstruct the drainage on every side, or because at that high point
it caught the clouds as they whirled by, and attracted the wrath of
every storm by its menacing front, it was the cleanest town in the
universe. In vain did cooks and old women throw out cock’s-heads
divested of their combs, and the gizzards of ducks and fowls—in vain on
the Saturday night was every gutter in the place made the receptacle of
all the dust of all the houses—in vain were a number of other untidy
tricks practiced to defile the highways, and offend the olfactories of
the passing stranger—before the Monday morning all was clear
again—except in very rainy seasons, when I have known a dust-heap lie
for a fortnight. This was one of its peculiar characteristics:
cleanliness.
I cannot help thinking there is something very merry in dirt. The very
merriest people I have ever seen in my life have been the dirtiest; but
perhaps, after all, the impression to this effect which I have received,
may be attributed to my residence in that old town, where the exceeding
cleanliness I have mentioned, was closely associated with that of
dullness. The very cheerful summer sun, as he looked down into the open
streets, held up as upon a pedestal to his view, looked dull and even
sad. The clear light of the summer day had a cool, calm, gentlemanly
melancholy about it, which did not serve to rouse or to enliven. One
looked up the street and saw a man, a single solitary man, so lost in
the yellow sunshine at the end, that you could not tell whether he had
pike, pitch-fork, or crosier in his hand—three-cornered hat, or round,
or cap of liberty on his head. One looked down the street toward the
valley below, and could hardly make out whether the lonely carriage
drawn by four beasts of some kind, had really four horses, or four
mules, or four rats without a tail—amongst them. Not another being did
you see. No heads were put out of windows—no idle figures presented
themselves before the doorways. Curiosity seemed dead in the place, as
well as every thing else; and although the sound of a carriage
wheels—especially coming from below, where there was a post-house—was
very rare, it seemed not to awaken any interest in the inhabitants
whatsoever, at least not more than was displayed in just raising the
eyes from the calves’ feet, or the sheep’s trotters which were preparing
for dinner, to look for one instant at the vehicle, as it passed. If an
earthquake had rumbled up and down the street, it could not have
produced less excitment—and probably would not have produced more. The
carriage went in peace and sunshine upon its way, and the cook or the
good house-wife bent her attention to her dishes again.
But let me say a little more of the town before I proceed farther; for
it is an object of great interest to me, even in memory. From the hill
on which it stood, and the old walls which surrounded it on every side,
rising up from the verge of the descent, and looking like the
battlements of a raised pie, might be seen a very rich and beautiful
country, with a river running round the base of the large rock on which
one stood. The situation was a very commanding one; for though rising
ground, deserving the name of high hills, was to be seen in the
distance, and many a sweep and undulation lay between, yet the elevation
of the town was sufficient to domineer over the whole country around
within any thing like cannon-shot. The walls, however, were destitute of
guns; and the various gates, with their old stone arches, seemed formed
for no other purpose than to let the morning and evening sun shine
through, and the country-people to bring in eatables and drinkables for
the supply of the place. They afforded, too, a place of refuge for
certain old gentlemen who engaged themselves in examining all itinerant
merchants, making good women open their baskets, and running long iron
things, like spits, into loads of hay and straw, in order to make sure
that there was no wine or brandy concealed within. For all these
services they exacted a trifling toll, or excise duty, upon a great
number of articles of provision brought into the town. They were very
unobtrusive people, however, seldom, if ever seen, except in the early
part of market-days, and ever ready to retreat into their little dens by
the side of the gate, as soon as their functions were performed. The
great church stood at one side of a little square, free and open
enough—always very clean, like the rest of the town, but always looking
exceedingly cool also—for the very summer sun looked cool there, as I
have observed, and one hardly felt the difference between June and
December, if the day was clear. I don’t know why all that square never
looked gay or cheerful—for it seemed to have every thing to make it so;
and I have seen it, on days of festivity, tricked out in all that could
assist. On the Sunday, a great multitude of the good people of the town,
dressed out in their brightest attire, were continually flocking in and
out of the church. On festival days you would see garlands of flowers,
and banners, and rich vestments, and beautifully dressed altars under
arbors of green leaves, and a little body of soldiers, with gay
uniforms, glittering muskets, and cocked-hats, would appear to keep the
ground as a procession passed. But still it never looked cheerful. All
these objects were seen in that clear, cool light in such a way as to
make them look frosty.
Perhaps one cause of the general sombreness of the town, and the
impression of uninhabitedness which it gave, might have been that there
were no shops in the place. This may seem an extraordinary fact—but so
it was. There were no real, proper, _bona fide_ shops, with good, wide,
open fronts showing their wares. As one walked along the principal
street, indeed, which led through a large, heavy, white stone arch, down
the easiest slope of the hill into the open country, here and there, in
the window of what seemed a private dwelling-place, and which could only
be reached by ascending a flight of steps from the street, one might see
a ham hanging up, or a string of sausages, or some other edible thing.
Again, farther on, you would see a small brass basin nailed to a
door-post, and again, in another window, a lady’s cap, or a string or
two of ribbons. When in want of any article, you climbed the steps, you
had to open a door, and then another door, before you arrived at the
person whom you expected to furnish them. When you got in you would find
a tolerable store of different kinds of articles, gathered together in a
neat little room, somewhat dull and shady, and not the least like a shop
in the world. It would have puzzled any one in such a cell to judge
accurately of the color or quality of what he was purchasing; but I must
do the good people the justice to say that they did not at all take
advantage of this obscurity to cheat their friends and customers, but
that all they sold was generally good and what it pretended to be—more,
indeed, than can be said of most goods and chattels at the present time.
The irregularity of the streets, too, might have had some part in
creating the sombreness—for they turned and wound in an inconceivable
manner, and the houses, built according to the taste and will of the
owner, without any regard to regularity—some sticking out six or seven
yards beyond its neighbor—some turning at one angle and some at
another—some towering up, and others crouching down—had an exceedingly
awkward habit of casting long, blue shadows, whichever way the sun
shone, in hard, straight lines, unbroken by even a cloud of dust.
I have never seen any other town like it but one, and that is the town
of Angouleme. Perhaps it was Angouleme—though I cannot be quite sure;
for it is long, long ago since I was there, and events and circumstances
of a very mingled character have drawn line after line across the tablet
of memory, till even the deep strokes graven upon it in early years are
only faintly traceable here and there.
In looking back as far as my mind will carry roe into the past, there
comes first a cloud—a pleasant, summer-like cloud, not altogether
shapeless, yet very faint and soft in the outlines, and varying
strangely as I look at it. Now it takes the form of a beautiful lady,
with two or three lovely children playing around her. I am among them;
but whether I am one of them or not I cannot tell. Then it changes to a
tall, somewhat youthful-looking man, with a sword at his side, and a
great broad belt over his right shoulder. Heavy buckskin gloves he must
have worn; for I remember quite well the hard touch of them between my
little fingers. I see his jack-boots, too, even now. They are the very
plainest part of the cloud. But the masses roll over—and what is seen
next? A French château, with as many little towers as a cruet-stand,
some square, some round, some with conical roofs, some with long gables,
and at the end there is a small building, which, in the nonsensical
slang of London house-agents, would be called semi-detached. It has a
little spire, like that of a church, and a bell in it. Probably it was
the chapel of the château; and there is a fountain playing before the
house in the morning sun, surrounded by gay beds of flowers, formed into
strange shapes, as if cut out by those ingenious instruments with which
cooks produce variety in the patterns of fancy pie-crust. But it is all
a cloud, never fixed, and never very clearly defined.
The first distinct and definite recollection that I have, is that of
finding myself in the town I have mentioned, and in the house of one of
the clergy of the place—an excellent good man, if one ever lived. But
that is a general recollection, and the most clear as well as the
earliest of my more particular recollections is that of having sat by
the side of a large pond, or little lake, formed by the stream which
flowed round the hill, and with a good stout rod of very plain
construction, and a tremendously thick line and large hook, throwing in
some kind of bait, I forget what, in the desperate hope of catching a
gigantic pike, which was reported to frequent that water. My line lay in
the tank for a long while without the slightest movement of the little
cork float attached to it. I got somewhat weary, and began to think
fishing poor sport. I laid my rod down upon the bank, gathered a heap of
stones, and began throwing them as far as I could toward the centre of
the piece of water. This was not pure idleness; for I had some
indefinite notion, I believe, of driving the fish nearer to the shore.
The day had hitherto been fine. A bright, soft, sleepy light, had lain
upon the bosom of the water. But it was now about four o’clock, and the
day began to change. First there came a shadow, then a breeze tossing up
little waves, then thick, dashing drops of rain. I ran some twenty steps
back under a little ledge of the rock, which afforded some shelter; for
it would seem I had been possessed with a notion in my early youth, that
I ought not to get wet; and there, from my little den, I looked out at
the storm as it swept over the lake. It struck me then as very
beautiful, and I dare say would have struck me more now; for through the
thick drops, I could see here and there the blue sky shining like a
loving eye watching the earth, and to the westward came a gleam of gold,
telling that the storm would not last long.
What induced me to look down for my rod and line, I do not know; but
when at the end of a quarter of an hour I did so, the float had totally
disappeared, and the rod itself, though heavy enough to my notions,
seemed suddenly endowed with the power of locomotion, and was walking
away into the water. One dart forward, and I caught it, just as it was
pitching over, but it had been nearly tugged out of my hand again ere I
had got it fast. With triumph and with joy I found that there must be a
fish at the end of the line, and a large one. I had caught gudgeons
enough in my day, but I had no notion how to manage a large fish now I
had hooked him. The only art I had was to pull away, and perhaps it was
quite as lucky as not; for had the united strength of myself and the
fish been superior to that of the line, the latter must have given way.
But as it was, the fish was somewhat exhausted by his first tugs at the
rod, and he suffered me very quietly to draw him in within a few yards
of the shore. Luckily the line, though twisted round the top of the rod,
was carried down to my hand, though without any reel; but there were
some twenty or thirty yards of line wound upon a piece of stick beyond
my hands. Luckily I say, for just as I was pulling my captive on, and
could catch a sight of his glorious bulk, he seemed to me to put his
tail in his mouth, and then with a great spring darted rapidly away. The
top of the rod broke through in a moment, and the line ran through my
hands like a knife. I caught it on the winder, however, and checked my
enemy in his course. He gave a sulky tug or two, but then suffered me to
pull him in again, and a desperate struggle we had of it when he found
himself once more coming near the bank. When I found I could not manage
him, I gave him line off my hands; and then refreshed, though with a
heart I am ashamed to say beating how fast, I hauled away, and joyfully
found his resistance diminishing. It was the labor of nearly an hour,
however, before I got him close up to the bank, and then twice he got
away from me, once, nearly bringing me into the water by the sudden dart
he gave as I kneeled down to lift him on shore. At length, however, I
landed him safely, and judge of my joy when I beheld a trout weighing
five pounds at least, and magnified by my imagination to ten or fifteen.
He had got the hook quite down into his throat, which probably was the
secret of my success; for had it been in his mouth, he and I must have
pulled his jaw off between us. I did not stop even to make an attempt to
take it out, but gathering up the fragments of my rod, while he lay
panting and flapping on the grass, I lifted him up by the hook and
carried him up triumphantly toward the town. I would not go in through
the ordinary gates, however. I believe it was that a fear seized me lest
I should be charged a duty on my fish; but as the house where I lived
was close to the walls, and had a little garden in one of the old
towers, through which there was a door and a stone stair-case, I hurried
thither, found my way in by the back-door, and venturing to do what I
had never done before, hurried, uncalled, into the room of good Father
Bonneville at an hour when I knew he was always at study. Happily it was
Thursday: I knew there was no fish in the house, and that our dinner, on
the following day, was destined to be pumpkin-soup and a salad. This
might well excuse my presumption, and it did.
Never in my life did I see a man more delighted than good Father
Bonneville, though he hurried away a book which he had been reading when
I came in—I believe it was the Old Testament—as if there had been
something very shameful in it. He admired the trout immensely, looked at
it on one side and then on the other, declared it the finest trout he
had ever seen, and patting me on the head, asked me if I had really
caught that all by myself.
I assured him that I had had no help whatever, and then added, slyly,
“You know it is Friday to-morrow, Father.”
“Ah, my son, my son,” he replied, with a rueful shake of the head but a
smile upon his lips, “we must not think too much of improving our fare,
especially on meagre days; but the fish is a very fine fish
notwithstanding, and we will have it for dinner to-morrow.”
I have dwelt long upon this little incident; for it was a very important
one in my eyes at the time, and was not altogether without its influence
upon my life. But I shall only pause to state here that Father
Bonneville made more of me from that time forth than he had ever done
before. Previously he had contented himself by giving me my lessons
daily, by speaking a few kindly words to me at meal times, and turning
me over for the rest of the day to his good old housekeeper. Now,
however, I seemed to be fit for something better. Father Bonneville was
very fond of fish, as most priests are, and every Tuesday and Thursday
evening I was down at the banks of the lake or of the river; and as I
had great perseverance, and rapidly became skillful, Father Bonneville
very rarely went without fish of some kind for his dinner on Wednesdays
and Fridays, so that fasting became somewhat of a farce—except in Lent
indeed—except in Lent, when he made tremendous work with us.
A PRIEST’S HOUSEHOLD.
I must give my pictures of the early part of my life, detached and
phantasmagoria-like as they appear to the eye of memory. But yet I will
supply as far as possible any links of connection which are afforded by
that power which is to memory what the second rainbow, which we
sometimes see, is to the first—the reflection of a reflection—I am not
quite sure that that is philosophical—but it is a figure, and it is
pretty—so let it stand, it will do for Boston—the power I speak of is
commonly termed reminiscence—a shadow of remembrance which overtops the
mountain, and is seen indistinctly after the prototype has sunk behind
the steep—God bless me, I am getting into Boston again. Well, upon my
life I will be sober, notwithstanding the sixteen gallon act.
The catching a fish was my first great exploit in life, and I could
evidently see that Father Bonneville paused and pondered over it, as was
his character; for he was a very considerate and thoughtful man, by no
means without powers of observation, and a great habit of reasoning _a
priori_, which sometimes misled him a little. He made me tell him the
whole story of the catching of the fish, and of how I had managed it.
You may judge I dilated not a little, partly from the interest of the
subject to myself, and partly from the difficulty which every child, and
every novelist in three volumes, finds in clothing his thoughts in brief
language. I found afterward that he had deduced his own conclusions from
premises which I had afforded; and I am happy to say they were all
favorable to me. He had deduced, I learnt, from my catching the rod
before it fell into the water, that I possessed considerable quickness
and presence of mind. He had inferred from the fact of my having got the
line through my hands before I attempted to strain the rod, that there
was a great deal of cautiousness and foresight in my disposition; and by
the pains I had taken, and the labor I had undergone, without flinching,
or growing rash or angry, he was led to believe that I was of a most
persevering, undaunted, and resolute disposition. In a word, he learned
to think me a being more deserving of care and cultivation than he had
previously imagined; that I was not a mere baby to be taught his A B C
in any science, and that there was a soil, beneath the green freshness
of my youth, which might be cultivated to great advantage.
But let us give a slight sketch of the good Father, as he sat with his
little tight-fitting black cap upon his head, looking like one half of a
negro melon. The dress was insignificant—mean—out of the way, which is
worse. The plain cassock and bands, the scapulary and the cross, and the
grand three-cornered hat, had not surely much to recommend the
individual member of the profession. There was no trickery of dress.
There was no superfluous ornament. Even the assumption of manner was
repressed, and, as far as I can recollect, he always seemed to remember
sensitively, that a priest in the chair or the confessional derived
whatever authority he possessed from a higher source, which conferred
none upon him as an individual. The reverse of this feeling is the
crying sin of the priesthood of all the creeds I know, and especially of
his own. Most men would listen reverently to the expounders of God’s
will, when they are expounding his will, if they would not carry their
_cathedra_ into the drawing-room or the parlor with them. It is very
wise, indeed, to make a marked distinction between the minister and the
man, and still more wise to make a marked distinction between the
functions of the minister and the man; for where the two are blended
together—either through the stupidity of the people or the arrogance of
the priest—it will be found nine times out of ten that the weaknesses
of the man (not to notice vices or crimes) overwhelm the qualities of
the teacher. Amongst a nation, indeed, who, as a nation, acknowledge no
authority but themselves, either in matters civil, politic or
religious—where every man is at liberty to set up his own little God
Almighty in his garden, and to worship him after what fashion he
pleases—this distinction is not so
|
are therefore a real godsend.
Soon comes the time when the little folk are ready to learn about the
letters and the numbers and the days of the week. Rhymes to help this
first memorizing will be welcome.
Most of the stories in this book are illustrated by pictures, some are
told entirely by them. The choice of these illustrations was made from
our best modern knowledge about little children. It is now recognized
that they like simple incidents, about themselves or the familiar things
around them, drawn in clear outline or with strong color. There are
certain artists, too, who seem to have retained their own childlikeness
better than others, and such were called upon to illustrate this
volume.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PAGE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION vii
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME ONE xv
#FATHER AND MOTHER PLAYS#
BABY'S TEN LITTLE LIVE PLAYTHINGS 2
By J. K. Barry
MONDAY 4
By Edith Goodyear
FINGER PLAY 5
By Edith Goodyear
COUNTING THE FINGERS 6
AN OLD NORSE FINGER PLAY 6
BABY'S TOES 6
BABY'S TOES 7
By Edith A. Bentley
THIS IS THE WAY MY FINGERS STAND 8
THUMBKIN, POINTER 8
NAMING THE FINGERS 8
By Laura E. Richards
ROBERT BARNS 8
"SHALL I, OH! SHALL I?" 8
JACK, BE NIMBLE 9
TWO LITTLE HANDS 9
PAT A CAKE 9
CLAP YOUR HANDS 9
THE BIRD'S NEST 10
A Froebel Finger Play
TWO LITTLE BLACKBIRDS 10
MASTER SMITH 10
LITTLE ROBIN REDBREAST 10
GREETING 10
A PLAY FOR THE ARMS 10
THE LITTLE WINDOW 10
A Froebel Finger Play
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE 11
THE PIGEON HOUSE 11
A Froebel Finger Play
SAID THIS LITTLE FAIRY 12
A BURROWING GAME 12
PAT A CAKE 12
A Froebel Finger Play
A KNEE GAME 12
A FOOT PLAY 12
PUTTING THE FINGERS TO SLEEP 13
TEN LITTLE SQUIRRELS 14
MY LITTLE GARDEN 15
THE FAMILY 16
By Emilie Poulsson
JOHNNY SHALL HAVE A NEW BONNET 18
#RIDING SONGS FOR FATHER'S KNEE#
TO MARKET RIDE THE GENTLEMEN 19
HERE GOES MY LORD 19
A FARMER WENT TROTTING 20
UP TO THE CEILING 20
THE MESSENGER 20
CATCH HIM, CROW 20
RIDE A COCK-HORSE 21
THIS IS THE WAY 21
RIDE AWAY, RIDE AWAY 21
TO MARKET, TO MARKET 21
TROT, TROT, THE BABY GOES 21
By Mary F. Butts
RIDE A COCK-HORSE 22
HERE WE GO 22
#MOTHER GOOSE SONGS AND STORIES#
WHO ARE THESE? 24
I SAW A SHIP A-SAILING 25
GOOSEY, GOOSEY, GANDER 25
THE WIND 25
ONCE I SAW A LITTLE BIRD 25
RING-A-RING-A-ROSES 25
CROSS PATCH 26
HAPPY LET US BE 26
THE OLD WOMAN IN THE BASKET 26
THE FOX AND THE OLD GRAY GOOSE 28
JACK AND JILL 29
WILLY BOY 29
BONNY LASS 29
OH, WHERE ARE YOU GOING? 30
BOBBY SHAFTOE 30
DING-DONG-BELL 30
LONDON BRIDGE 31
GREEN GRAVEL 32
OLD MOTHER HUBBARD 32
LITTLE BO-PEEP 34
COME OUT TO PLAY 35
LITTLE ROBIN REDBREAST 35
LITTLE BOY BLUE 36
MY MAID MARY 36
HARK! HARK! 37
BOW-WOW-WOW 37
BLOW, WIND, BLOW 37
BYE, BABY BUNTING 37
THREE LITTLE KITTENS 38
TOM WAS A PIPER'S SON 39
DAFFY-DOWN-DILLY 40
BILLY BOY 40
THREE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM 41
LITTLE TOMMY TUCKER 41
PUSSY AND THE MICE 41
WHEN I WAS A LITTLE BOY 41
CHINESE MOTHER-GOOSE RHYMES 42
By Prof. Isaac Taylor Headland
#MOTHER GOOSE CONTINUED#
By Anna Marion Smith
PUSSY CAT, PUSSY CAT 45
LITTLE BOY BLUE 45
PAT-A-CAKE 46
DICKORY DOCK 46
HOW MANY MILES TO BABYLON? 47
HARK! HARK! 47
THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN 48
HUMPTY DUMPTY 51
THE QUEEN OF HEARTS 54
ONE MISTY, MOISTY MORNING 54
OLD KING COLE 55
PUSSY SITS BESIDE THE FIRE 56
THE NORTH WIND DOTH BLOW 56
I HAD A LITTLE HUSBAND 57
THERE WAS A MAN IN OUR TOWN 57
SEE SAW, SACARADOWN 57
SING A SONG O' SIXPENCE 58
I LOVE LITTLE PUSSY 58
THE HORNER BROTHERS 59
By Elizabeth Raymond Woodward
A LITTLE OLD MAN 60
JINGLES 60
SAILING 61
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
AN UP-TO-DATE PUSSY-CAT 62
By Adeline Knapp
MISERY IN COMPANY 63
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
COURT NEWS 64
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
A MESSAGE TO MOTHER GOOSE 65
By Ellen Manly
#SLEEPY-TIME SONGS AND STORIES#
SWEET AND LOW 72
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
THE SLEEPY-TIME STORY 73
By Gertrude Smith
THE GO SLEEP STORY 75
By Eudora S. Bumstead
THE GENTLE DARK 78
By W. Grahame Robertson
THE FERRY FOR SHADOWTOWN 78
HUSH-A-BYE, BABY 78
THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES 78
By William Wordsworth
LATE 79
By Josephine Preston Peabody
A BLESSING FOR THE BLESSED 80
By Laurence Alma-Tadema
MY DOLLY 80
THE CHILD AND THE WORLD 80
EVENING SONG 80
By C. Frances Alexander
ROCK-A-BYE, BABY 80
THE SANDMAN 81
By Margaret Vandergrift
THE FAIRY FOLK 81
By Robert Bird
QUEEN MAB 82
By Thomas Hood
LULLABY 82
By Gertrude Thompson Miller
KENTUCKY BABE 82
MY POSSESSIONS 83
THE WAKE-UP STORY 83
By Eudora S. Bumstead
#FIRST STORIES FOR VERY LITTLE FOLK#
ABOUT SIX LITTLE CHICKENS 86
By S. L. Elliott
"TRADE-LAST" 88
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
PHILIP'S HORSE 89
THE KITTEN THAT FORGOT HOW TO MEW 90
By Stella George Stern
WHAT COULD THE FARMER DO? 93
By George William Ogden
FLEDGLINGS 97
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
"TIME TO GET UP!" 98
By Ellen Foster
MAGGIE'S VERY OWN SECRET 100
By Sara Josephine Albright
THE GOOD LITTLE PIGGIE AND HIS FRIENDS 102
By L. Waldo Lockling
BABY'S PARADISE 105
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
DISOBEDIENCE 106
FOR A LITTLE GIRL OF THREE 108
By Uncle Ned
A FUNNY FAMILY 109
LITTLE BY LITTLE 110
#LITTLE STORIES THAT GROW BIG#
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT 111
GIANT THUNDER BONES 112
By Stella Doughty
THE HOUSE THAT JILL BUILT 116
By Carolyn Wells
THE OLD WOMAN AND HER PIG 119
THE LAMBIKIN 121
THE CAT AND THE MOUSE 123
HENNY-PENNY 124
THREE GOATS IN THE RYEFIELD 127
Adapted by Cecilia Farwell
TEENY TINY 129
SONG OF THE PEAR TREE 130
COCK-ALU AND HEN-ALIE 131
By Mary Howitt
THERE IS THE KEY OF THE KINGDOM 136
#FUN FOR VERY LITTLE FOLK#
NO DOGS ALLOWED AT LARGE 137
By Culmer Barnes
TOMMY AND HIS SISTER AND THEIR NEW PONY-CART 138
By Dewitt Clinton Falls
THE ADVENTURES OF THREE LITTLE KITTENS 139
By Culmer Barnes
THE LITTLE KITTENS' SURPRISE 140
By Culmer Barnes
TED'S FOOLISH WISH 141
By Charles Fitch Lester
NONSENSE RHYME 142
TIMOTHY TRUNDLE 143
By Frederick Moxon
A DREAM OF GLORY 148
By Charles Fitch Lester
PICTURES 149
By Culmer Barnes
THE REUNION OF THE BRUIN FAMILY AT THE SEA SHORE 150
By Culmer Barnes
THE BABY MICE ARE INSTRUCTED BY THEIR FOND PAPA 151
By Culmer Barnes
ROLY POLY ON VACATION 152
By Culmer Barnes
MOTHER GOOSE'S LAST TROLLEY RIDE 153
By Culmer Barnes
IVAN AND THE WOLF 154
By Culmer Barnes
HOMEWARD BOUND 154
By Culmer Barnes
THEIR LITTLE JAR 156
By Bell
LITTLE ESKI AND THE POLAR BEAR 158
By Culmer Barnes
#FUNNY VERSES AND PICTURES#
THE FROG'S FIASCO 160
By D. K. Stevens
THE MUSICAL TRUST 164
By D. K. Stevens
THE CAUTIOUS CAT 168
By D. K. Stevens
THREE LITTLE BEARS 171
By M. C. McNeill
THE SNOWMAN 172
By W. W. Ellsworth
#ANIMAL STORIES#
TINY HARE AND THE WIND BALL 173
By A. L. Sykes
HOW TINY HARE MET CAT 176
By A. L. Sykes
THE WEE HARE AND THE RED FIRE 179
By A. L. Sykes
THE GOOD KING 182
By Margaret and Clarence Weed
EARLY AND LATE 184
By W. S. Reed
THE LITTLE PINK PIG AND THE BIG ROAD 185
By Jasmine Stone Van Dresser
JUGGERJOOK 188
By L. Frank Baum
WHAT YOU BURYING, A BONE 194
THE LITTLE GRAY KITTEN 194
By Mary Lawrence Turnbull
PUSSY'S WHEELS 197
By Annie W. McCullough
THE SMALL GRAY MOUSE 198
By Nathan Haskell Dole
THE RABBIT, THE TURTLE, AND THE OWL 200
HOMES 201
By Annie W. McCullough
MEAL-TIME IN THE BEAR-PITS AT THE ZOO 202
By I. W. Taben
THE FINE GOOD SHOW 204
By Jessie Wright Whitcomb
GAY AND SPY 208
THE BALLAD OF A RUNAWAY DONKEY 212
By Emilie Poulsson
THE THREE BEARS 220
THE LITTLE BEAR'S STORY 221
By C. F. Holder
THE HARE AND THE HEDGEHOG 224
By The Brothers Grimm
THE WEE ROBIN'S CHRISTMAS SONG 226
A Scotch Story, attributed to Robert Burns
Adapted by Jennie Ellis Burdick
THE FOX 228
THREE COMPANIONS 229
By Dinah Maria Mulock-Craik
"'FRAID CAT!" 230
By Frank Munro
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY 231
By Mary Howitt
#EVERY-DAY VERSES#
A LITTLE GENTLEMAN 233
By Alden Arthur Knipe
TIME FOR EVERYTHING 233
By Alden Arthur Knipe
UMBRELLAS AND RUBBERS 234
By Alden Arthur Knipe
WHISPERING IN SCHOOL 234
By Alden Arthur Knipe
RECESS 235
By Alden Arthur Knipe
AFTER SCHOOL 235
By Alden Arthur Knipe
MONDAY'S LESSONS 235
By Alden Arthur Knipe
AT DINNER 236
By Alden Arthur Knipe
VALOR 237
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY 238
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
THE CAPITALIST 239
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
IN MERRY ENGLAND 240
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
THE GOOSE GIRL 241
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
THE PHILOSOPHER 242
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
THIRSTY FLOWERS 243
By Alden Arthur Knipe
SHARING WITH OTHERS 243
By Alden Arthur Knipe
POCKETS 244
By Alden Arthur Knipe
WAITING FOR DINNER 244
By Alden Arthur Knipe
THE CRITIC 245
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
DIPLOMACY 246
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
IF I WERE QUEEN 247
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
THOUGHTS IN CHURCH 248
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
#THE DAYS OF THE WEEK#
THIS IS THE WAY 249
DAYS OF BIRTH 250
THE WASHING 250
SOLOMON GRUNDY 250
BABY'S PLAY DAYS 250
WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE? 251
SEVEN LITTLE MICE 251
By Stella George Stern
VISITING 252
LITTLE TOMMY'S MONDAY MORNING 252
By Tudor Jenks
ST. SATURDAY 254
By Henry Johnstone
#NUMBER RHYMES#
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 255
OVER IN THE MEADOW 255
By Olive A. Wadsworth
COUNTING APPLE-SEEDS 256
TWINS 257
By Lucy Fitch Perkins
THE RHYME OF TEN LITTLE RABBITS 258
By Kate N. Mytinger
IN JULY 260
By A. S. Webber
THE WISH OF PRISCILLA PENELOPE POWERS 262
By Mrs. John T. Van Sant
WINKELMAN VON WINKEL 262
By Clara Odell Lyon
TEN LITTLE COOKIES 263
OUR BABY 263
LONG TIME AGO 264
By Elizabeth Prentiss
BUCKLE MY SHOE 264
#STORIES FOR LITTLE GIRLS#
A PAIR OF GLOVES 265
By H. G. Duryée
A VERY LITTLE STORY OF A VERY LITTLE GIRL 268
By Alice E. Allen
EDITH'S TEA PARTY 269
By Lois Walters
REBECCA 271
By Eleanor Piatt
DOROTHEA'S SCHOOL GIFTS 272
By Eunice Ward
THE LOST MONEY 276
By Bolton Hall
A DUTCH TREAT 277
By Amy B. Johnson
THE JINGLE OF THE LITTLE JAP 283
By Isabel Eccleston Mackay
THE SEVENTH BIRTHDAY OF THE LITTLE
COUSIN FROM CONSTANTINOPLE 284
By Emma C. Dowd
LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD 286
Retold from Grimm
DOLLY'S DOCTOR 288
THUMBELINA 288
By Hans Christian Andersen
THE FOX AND THE LITTLE RED HEN 294
THE SHOEMAKER AND THE LITTLE ELVES 294
By The Brothers Grimm
THE GINGERBREAD BOY 296
#STORIES FOR LITTLE BOYS#
MISCHIEF 297
By Rosamond Upham
WILLIE AND HIS DOG DIVER 299
By H. N. Powers
GORDON'S TOY CASTLE ON THE HILL 300
By Everett Wilson
HANS THE INNOCENT 302
Written and Illustrated by M. I. Wood
A REAL LITTLE BOY BLUE 304
By Caroline S. Allen
TRAVELS OF A FOX 306
Adapted by Cecilia Farwell
OEYVIND AND MARIT 308
#HAPPY DAYS#
WHAT THE CAT AND HEN DID 313
By Alice Ralston
DOT'S BIRTHDAY CAKE 316
NED AND ROVER AND JACK 317
I HAD A LITTLE KITTEN 318
HOW POLLY HAD HER PICTURE TAKEN 319
By Everett Wilson
IDLE BEN 321
THE HOLE IN THE CANNA-BED 321
By Isabel Gordon Curtis
THE CONCEITED MOUSE 323
By Ella Foster Case
#RHYMES CONCERNING MOTHER#
A BOY'S MOTHER 325
By James Whitcomb Riley
MOTHER 325
By Rose Fyleman
THE GOODEST MOTHER 325
MOTHER'S WAY 326
By Carrie Williams
WHO IS IT? 326
By Ethel M. Kelley
MY DEAREST IS A LADY 327
By Miriam S. Clark
HOW MANY LUMPS? 327
WHEN MOTHER GOES AWAY 328
By Clara Odell Lyon
AN OLD SONG--"THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!" 328
By Blanche Elizabeth Wade
#UNCLES AND AUNTS AND OTHER RELATIVES#
GRANDMOTHER'S MEMORIES 329
By Helen A. Byrom
GREAT-AUNT LUCY LEE 330
By Cora Walker Hayes
OUR VISITORS 334
By Isabel Lyndall
BEAUTIFUL GRANDMAMMA 338
THANKSGIVING DAY 340
By Lydia Maria Child
GRANDMA'S MINUET 340
AUNT JAN 341
By Norman Gale
AFTER TEA 342
#AMUSING ALPHABETS#
TINGLE, TANGLE TITMOUSE 343
AN ENGLISH ALPHABET 344
NONSENSE ALPHABET 346
PAST HISTORY 348
By Edward Lear
THE APPLE PIE 351
WHO'S WHO IN THE ZOO 352
By Carolyn Wells
A WAS AN ARCHER 357
A LITTLE FOLKS' ALPHABET 358
By Carolyn Wells
CHILD HEALTH ALPHABET 360
By Mrs. Frederick Peterson
HERE'S A, B, C, D 363
OUR STORIES 364
* * * * *
#FATHER PLAYS AND MOTHER PLAYS#
[Illustration: Figs. 1 though 5 and So big!]
BABY'S TEN LITTLE LIVE PLAYTHINGS BY J. K. BARRY
These ten little live playthings can be held in every baby's hand, five
in one and five in the other and be the baby ever so poor yet he always
has these ten playthings because, you know, he brings them with him.
But all babies do not know how to play with them. They find out for
themselves a good many ways of playing with them but here are some of
the ways that a baby I used to know got amusement out of his.
The very first was the play called "Ta-ra-chese" (Ta-rar-cheese). It is
a Dutch word and there was a little song about it all in Dutch. This is
the way the baby I knew would play it when he was a tiny little fellow.
His Mamma would hold her hand up and move it gently around this way
(Fig. 1) singing "Ta-ra-chese, ta-ra-chese!" Baby would look and watch
awhile, and presently his little hand would begin to move and five
little playthings would begin the play--dear, sweet little chubby pink
fingers--for I think you have guessed these are every baby's playthings.
How glad Mamma is to find that her baby has learned his first lesson!
Then he must learn, "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake Baker's man," (Fig. 2) and
"How big is baby?" "_So Big!_"
And here are some other ways by which a little sister's fingers may
amuse the baby.
"This the church and this is the steeple, Open the gates--there are all
the good people." (Fig. 3)
"Chimney sweep--Oho! oho! Chimney sweep!" (Fig. 4)
"Put your finger in the bird's nest. The bird isn't home." (Fig. 5)
And then when the little finger is poked in, a sly pinch is given by a
hidden thumb and baby is told, "The birdie has just come home!" But you
mustn't pinch hard, of course, just enough to make baby laugh at being
caught.
[Illustration: Figs. 6 though 11.]
And then there is the play of "Two men sawing wood--one little boy
picking up chips." (Fig. 6) The two finger men are moved up and down and
the little boy finger works busily.
Everybody knows the rhyming finger-play:
"Here's my Father's knives and forks, (Fig. 7)
"Here's my Mother's table, (Fig. 8)
"Here's my Sister's looking-glass, (Fig. 9)
"And here's the baby's cradle." (Fig. 10)
Another play is a little act in which three persons are supposed to take
part, and it has come down from the old times of long ago.
The middle finger is the Friar. Those on each side of him touch each
other and make the door, the little finger is the Lady and the thumb is
the Page. (Fig. 11)
The Friar knocks at the door.
_Friar._ "Knock, Knock, Knock!"
_Page._ "Somebody knocks at the door! Somebody knocks at the door!"
_Lady._ "Who is it? Who is it?"
_Page._ (Going to door) "Who is it? Who is it?"
_Friar._ "A Friar, a Friar."
_Page._ "A Friar, Ma'am, a Friar, Ma'am."
_Lady._ "What does he want? What does he want?"
_Page._ "What do you want, Sir? What do you want, Sir?"
_Friar._ "I want to come in. I want to come in."
_Page._ "He wants to come in, Ma'am. He wants to come in."
_Lady._ "Let him walk in. Let him walk in."
_Page._ "Will you walk in, Sir? Will you walk in?"
So in he pops and takes a seat.
When each player is supposed to speak he or she must move gently,
bending forward and back and when the Friar is invited to enter, the
door must open only just far enough to let him "pop in."
These are only some of the plays with which the baby I knew used to be
amused; but they will suggest others to parents and older brothers and
sisters. The baby cannot make all of these things himself but he will be
quite as much interested when they are made by older hands.
MONDAY
Here's a little wash bench,
Here's a little tub.
Here's a little scrubbing-board,
And here's the way to rub.
Here's a little cake of soap,
Here's a dipper new.
Here's a basket wide & deep,
And here are clothes-pins two.
Here's the line away up high,
Here's the clothes all flying.
Here's the sun so warm & bright,
And now the washing's drying.
Edith Goodyear.
Finger Play.
By Edith Goodyear.
The little space 'twixt fingers & thumbs
Is round as a circle you see!
While in there, a tiny square
Shows corners four to me.
Circles are like daisies while,
Like pennies, candies and plates,
Like Grandma's cookies and pumpkin pies;
And best of all, the pretty blue
In Baby's laughing eyes.
The square makes me think of the rug where he sits
On the nursery floor at play;
Of the lawn where he rolls in the sunshine bright,
And the dainty spread that covers his bed
When he's fast asleep at night.
COUNTING THE FINGERS
This is the thumb, you see;
This finger shakes the tree;
And then this finger comes up;
And this one eats the plums up;
This little one, says he,
"I'll tell of you, you'll see!"
That one is the thumb;
And this one wants a plum;
This one says, "Where do they grow?"
This one says, "Come with me--I know."
But this little one, he says,
"I will not go near the place!
I don't like such naughty ways."
Now, I think that through and through
Little Finger's right--don't you?
This one fell in the water,
And this one helped him ashore,
And this one put him into bed,
And this one covered him o'er;
And then, in walks this noisy little chap,
And wakes him up once more.
This one walked out into the wood,
And caught a little hare;
And this one took and carried it home,
For he thought it dainty fare;
And this one came and cooked it up
With sauces rich and rare;
And this one laid the table out,
And did the plates prepare;
And this little fellow the keeper told
What the others were doing there.
AN OLD NORSE FINGER PLAY
Thicken man, build the barn,
Thinner man, spool the yarn,
Longen man, stir the brew,
Gowden man, make a shoe,
Littlen man, all for you!
BABY'S TOES
Dear little bare feet,
Dimpled and white,
In your long nightgown
Wrapped for the night.
Come, let me count all
Your queer little toes,
Pink as the heart
Of a shell or a rose.
One is a lady
That sits in the sun;
Two is a baby,
And three is a nun.
Four is a lily
With innocent breast;
And five is a birdie
Asleep on her nest.
"BABY'S TOES"
BY EDITH A. BENTLEY
Five little piggie wiggies
Standing in a row,
We always have to toddle
Where the baby wants to go;
Up-stairs and down-stairs,
Indoors and out,
We're always close together
And we never fall out.
_Chorus:_
Father-Pig and Mother-Pig,
And Big-Brother Pig,
And Sister-Pig, and darling little
Baby Piggie-Wig!
Oh, sometimes we are all tied up
In a bag so tight.
This is when the baby goes
"To sleepy-bye" at night.
Then there's nothing else to do
But cuddle down and rest--
Just as little birdies cuddle
In their little nest.
_Chorus:_
Father-Pig and Mother-Pig
And Big-Brother Pig,
And Sister-Pig, and darling little
Baby Piggie-Wig!
THIS IS THE WAY MY FINGERS STAND
_To the tune of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush."_
This is the way my fingers stand,
Fingers stand, fingers stand,
This is the way my fingers stand,
So early in the morning.
This is the way I fold my hand,
Fold my hand, fold my hand,
This is the way I fold my hand,
So early in the morning.
This is the way they dance about,
Dance about, dance about,
This is the way they dance about,
So early in the morning.
This is the way they go to rest,
Go to rest, go to rest,
This is the way they go to rest,
So early in the morning.
THUMBKIN, POINTER
Thumbkin, Pointer, Middleman big,
Sillyman, Weeman, rig-a-jig-jig.
NAMING THE FINGERS[A]
BY LAURA E. RICHARDS
This is little Tommy Thumb,
Round and smooth as any plum.
This is busy Peter Pointer:
Surely he's a double-jointer.
This is mighty Toby Tall,
He's the biggest one of all.
This is dainty Reuben Ring:
He's too fine for anything.
And this little wee one, maybe,
Is the pretty Finger-baby.
All the five we've counted now,
Busy fingers in a row.
Every finger knows the way
How to work and how to play;
Yet together work they best,
Each one helping all the rest.
[A] _From "Songs and Music of Froebel's Mother Play"; used by permission
of the publishers, D. Appleton & Company._
ROBERT BARNS
Robert Barns, fellow fine,
Can you shoe this horse of mine,
So that I may cut a shine?
Yes, good sir, and that I can,
As well as any other man;
There a nail, and here a prod,
And now, good sir, your horse is shod.
"SHALL I, OH! SHALL I?"
A little boy and a little girl
Lived in an alley;
Said the little boy to the little girl,
"Shall I, oh! shall I?"
Said the little girl to the little boy,
"What will you do?"
Said the little boy to the little girl,
"I will kiss you."
(_As the last words are sung, the mother kisses
the little one in the folds of the neck._)
[Illustration: OFF WITH MOTHER GOOSE
FROM A DRAWING BY MABEL LUCIE ATTWELL]
JACK, BE NIMBLE
Jack, be nimble,
Jack, be quick;
(_Jack is one hand walking along on
its fore- and middle-fingers._)
Jack, jump over
The candlestick.
(_Fist closed; uplifted thumb for
candle. Jack jumps over it._)
TWO LITTLE HANDS
Two little hands so soft and white,
This is the left--this is the right.
Five little fingers stand on each,
So I can hold a plum or a peach.
But if I should grow as old as you
Lots of little things these hands can do.
PAT A CAKE
Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker's man.
So I do, master, as fast as I can.
Pat it, and prick it, and mark it with T,
And then it will serve for Tommy and me.
CLAP YOUR HANDS
Baby, Baby, clap your hands!
Where London's built, there London stands.
And there's a bed in London Town,
On which my Baby shall lie down.
THE BIRD'S NEST
_A Froebel Finger Play_
Here upon the leaves at rest
A little bird has built her nest.
Two tiny eggs within she's laid,
And many days beside them stayed.
Now she's happy; listen well!
Two baby birds break through the shell.
Don't you hear them? "Peep! peep! peep!
We love you, mother. Cheep! cheep! cheep!"
TWO LITTLE BLACKBIRDS
There were two blackbirds sitting on a hill,
(_Little pieces of paper perched on forefingers._)
One named Jack, the other named Jill.
Fly away, Jack; fly away, Jill.
(_Fingers soar gently in the air._)
Come again, Jack; come again, Jill.
(_Fingers fly back._)
MASTER SMITH
Is Master Smith within? Yes, that he is.
Can he set a shoe? Ay, marry, two.
Here a nail, and there a nail,
Tick--tack--too.
LITTLE ROBIN REDBREAST
Little Robin Redbreast
Sat upon a rail,
(_Right hand extended in shape of a bird is poised
on extended forefinger of left hand._)
Niddle noddle went his head,
And waggle went his tail.
(_Little finger of right hand waggles from side to
side._)
GREETING
Good little Mother,
How do you do?
Dear strong "Daddy,"
Glad to see you!
Big tall Brother,
Pleased you are here.
Kind little Sister,
You need not fear,
Glad welcome we'll give you,
And Babykins, too.
Yes, Babykins,
How do you do?
A PLAY FOR THE ARMS
Pump, pump, pump,
Water, water, come;
Here a rush, there a gush,
Done, done, done.
THE LITTLE WINDOW
_A Froebel Finger Play_
Look, my dear, at this window clear.
See how the light shines through in here.
If you would always see the light,
Keep your heart's window clean and bright.
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four-and-twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie;
When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing;
Was not that a dainty dish
To set before the King?
The King was in his counting-house,
Counting out his money;
The Queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey;
The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes;
When up came a blackbird
And nipped off her nose.
(_At this line somebody's nose gets nipped._)
THE PIGEON HOUSE
_A Froebel Finger Play_
Now I'm going to open my pigeon-house door.
The pigeons fly out to the light,
|
during the war, and have not been since the war,
in their spirit or in their civilization, a people in common with the
people of the North, or the civilized world. I will not here harrow up
your feelings by detailing their treatment of Northern prisoners during
the war. Their institutions have taught them no respect for human life,
and especially the life of the Negro. It has, in fact, taught them
absolute contempt for his life. The sacredness of life which ordinary
men feel does not touch them anywhere. A dead Negro is with them now,
as before, a common jest.
They care no more for the Negro’s rights to live than they care for
his rights to liberty, or his right to the ballot or any other right.
Chief Justice Taney told the exact truth about these people when he
said: “They did not consider that the black man had any rights which
white men were bound to respect.” No man of the South ever called in
question that statement, and no man ever will. They could always shoot,
stab, hang and burn the Negro, without any such remorse or shame as
other men would feel after committing such a crime. Any Southern man,
who is honest and is frank enough to talk on the subject, will tell you
that he has no such idea as we have of the sacredness of human rights,
and especially, as I have said, of the life of the Negro. Hence it is
absurd to meet my arguments with the facts predicated of our common
human nature.
I know that I shall be charged with apologising for criminals.
Ex-Governor Chamberlain has already virtually done as much. But there
is no foundation for such charge. I affirm that neither I nor any other
coloured man of like standing with myself has ever raised a finger
or uttered a word in defence of any man, black or white, known to be
guilty of the dreadful crime now in question.
But what I contend for, and what every honest man, black or white, has
a right to contend for, is that when any man is accused of this or any
other crime, of whatever name, nature, degree or extent, he shall have
the benefit of a legal investigation; that he shall be confronted by
his accusers; and that he shall, through proper counsel, be allowed to
question his accusers in open court and in open daylight, so that his
guilt or his innocence may be duly proved and established.
If this is to make me liable to the charge of apologising for crime,
I am not ashamed to be so charged. I dare to contend for the coloured
people of the United States that they are a law-abiding people, and I
dare to insist upon it that they or any other people, black or white,
accused of crime, shall have a fair trial before they are punished.
GENERAL UNFAIRNESS--THE CHICAGO EXHIBITION, ETC.
Again, I cannot dwell too much upon the fact that coloured people are
much damaged by this charge. As an injured class we have a right to
appeal from the judgment of the mob, to the judgment of the law and to
the justice of the American people.
Full well our enemies have known where to strike and how to stab us
most fatally. Owing to popular prejudice, it has become the misfortune
of the coloured people of the South and of the North as well, to have,
as I have said, the sins of the few visited upon the many.
When a white man steals, robs or murders, his crime is visited upon
his own head alone. But not so with the black man. When he commits a
crime, the whole race is made responsible. The case before us is an
example. This unfairness confronts us not only here but it confronts us
everywhere else.
Even when American art undertakes to picture the types of the two
races, it invariably places in comparison, not the best of both races
as common fairness would dictate, but it puts side by side and in
glaring contrast, the lowest type of the Negro with the highest type
of the white man and then calls upon the world to “look upon this
picture, then upon that.”
When a black man’s language is quoted, in order to belittle and degrade
him, his ideas are often put in the most grotesque and unreadable
English, while the utterances of Negro scholars and authors are
ignored. To-day, Sojourner Truth is more readily quoted than Alexander
Cromwell or Dr. James McCune Smith. A hundred white men will attend a
concert of counterfeit Negro minstrels, with faces blackened with burnt
cork, to one who will attend a lecture by an intelligent Negro.
Even the late World’s Columbian Exposition was guilty of this
unfairness. While I join with all other men in pronouncing the
Exposition itself one of the grandest demonstrations of civilization
that the world has ever seen, yet great and glorious as it was, it was
made to show just this kind of injustice and discrimination against the
Negro.
As nowhere in the world, it was hoped that here the idea of human
brotherhood would have been grandly recognized and most gloriously
illustrated. It should have been thus and would have been thus, had
it been what it professed to be, a World’s Exposition. It was not
such, however, in its spirit at this point; it was only an American
Exposition. The spirit of American caste against the educated Negro
was conspicuously seen from start to finish, and to this extent the
Exposition was made simply an American Exposition instead of a World’s
Exposition.
Since the day of Pentecost there was never assembled in any one place
or on any one occasion a larger variety of peoples of all forms,
features and colors and all degrees of civilization, than was assembled
at this World’s Exposition. It was a grand ethnological object lesson,
a fine chance to study all likenesses and all differences of mankind.
Here were Japanese, Soudanese, Chinese, Singalese, Syrians, Persians,
Tunisians, Algerians, Egyptians, East Indians, Laplanders, Esquimaux,
and, as if to shame the educated Negro of America, the Dahomeyans
were there to exhibit their barbarism and increase American contempt
for the Negro intellect. All classes and conditions were there save
the educated American Negro. He ought to have been there, if only to
show what American slavery and American freedom have done for him. The
fact that all other nations were there at their best, made the Negro’s
exclusion the more pronounced and the more significant. People from
abroad noticed the fact that while we have eight millions of colored
people in the United States, many of them gentlemen and scholars,
not one of them was deemed worthy to be appointed a Commissioner,
or a member of an important committee, or a guide or a guard on the
Exposition grounds, and this was evidently an intentional slight to
the race. What a commentary is this upon the liberality of our boasted
American liberty and American equality! It is a silent example, to
be sure, but it is one that speaks louder than words. It says to the
world that the colored people of America are not deemed by Americans as
within the compass of American law, progress and civilization. It says
to the lynchers and mobocrats of the South, go on in your hellish work
of Negro persecution. You kill their bodies, we kill their souls.
V.
NEGRO SUFFRAGE: ATTEMPT TO ABRIDGE THE RIGHT. THE LOWLY NEED ITS
PROTECTION.
But now a word on the question of Negro suffrage. It has come to be
fashionable of late to ascribe much of the trouble at the South to
ignorant Negro suffrage. That great measure recommended by General
Grant and adopted by the loyal nation, is now denounced as a blunder
and a failure. The proposition now is, therefore, to find some way to
abridge and limit this right by imposing upon it an educational or some
other qualification. Among those who take this view of the question are
Mr. John J. Ingalls and Mr. John M. Langston, one white and the other
colored. They are both distinguished leaders; the one is the leader
of the whites and the other is the leader of the blacks. They are
both eloquent, both able, and both wrong. Though they are both Johns,
neither of them is to my mind a “St. John,” and not even a “John the
Baptist.” They have taken up an idea which they seem to think quite
new, but which in reality is as old as despotism, and about as narrow
and selfish as despotism. It has been heard and answered a thousand
times over. It is the argument of the crowned heads and privileged
classes of the world. It is as good against our Republican form of
government as it is against the Negro. The wonder is that its votaries
do not see its consequences. It does away with that noble and just idea
of Abraham Lincoln that our government should be a government of the
people, by the people and for the people and for _all_ the people.
These gentlemen are very learned, very eloquent and very able, but I
cannot follow them in this effort to restrict voting to the educated
classes. Much learning has made them mad. Education is great but
manhood is greater. The one is the principle, the other the accident.
Man was not made as an attribute to education, but education as an
attribute to man. I say to these gentlemen, first protect the man and
you will thereby protect education. Do not make illiteracy a bar to the
ballot, but make the ballot a bar to illiteracy. Take the ballot from
the Negro and you take from him the means and motives that make for
education. Those who are already educated and are vested with political
power have thereby an advantage which they are not likely to divide
with the Negro, especially when they have a fixed purpose to make
this entirely a white man’s government. I cannot, therefore, follow
these gentlemen in a path so dangerous to the Negro. I would not make
suffrage more exclusive but more inclusive. I would not have it embrace
only the élite, but I would have it include the lowly. I would not
only include the men, but would gladly include the women, and make our
government in reality, as in name, a government by the people, of the
people, and for the whole people.
But, manifestly, it is all nonsense to make suffrage to the coloured
people, the cause of the failure of good government in the Southern
states. On the contrary it is the lawless limitation of suffrage that
makes the trouble.
Much thoughtless speech is heard about the ignorance of the Negro in
the South. But plainly enough, it is not the ignorance of the Negro
but the malevolence of his accusers, which is the real cause of
Southern disorder. It is easy to show that the illiteracy of the Negro
has no part or lot in the disturbances there. They who contend for
disfranchisement on this ground, know, and know very well, that there
is no truth whatever in their contention. To make out their case, they
must show that some oppressive and hurtful measure has been imposed
upon the country by Negro voters. But they cannot show any such thing
and they know it.
The Negro has never set up a separate party, never adopted a Negro
platform, never proclaimed or adopted a separate policy for himself or
for the country. His assailants know this and know that he has never
acted apart from the whole American people. They know that he has
never sought to lead, but has always been content to follow. They know
that he has not made his ignorance the rule of his political conduct,
but he has been guided by the rule of white men. They know that he
simply kept pace with the average intelligence of his age and country.
They know that he has gone steadily along in the line of his politics
with the most enlightened citizens of the country and that he has never
gone faster or farther. They know that he has always voted with one or
the other of the two great political parties. They know that if the
votes of these parties have been guided by intelligence and patriotism,
the same must be said of the vote of the Negro. Knowing all this, they
ought to know also, that it is a shame and an outrage upon common
sense and fair dealing to hold him or his suffrage responsible for
any disorder that may reign in the Southern States. Yet while any lie
may be safely told against the Negro and will be credited by popular
prejudice, this lie will find eloquent tongues, bold and shameless
enough to tell it.
It is true that the Negro once voted solidly for the candidates of the
republican party; but what if he did? He then only voted with John
Mercer Langston, John J. Ingalls, John Sherman, General Harrison,
Senator Hoar, Henry Cabot Lodge and Governor McKinley and many of the
most intelligent statesmen and noblest patriots of whom this country
can boast. The charge against him at this time is, therefore, utterly
groundless and is used for fraud, violence and persecution.
The proposition to disfranchise the coloured voter of the South in
order to solve the race problem, I therefore denounce as a false and
cowardly proposition, utterly unworthy of an honest and grateful
nation. It is a proposition to sacrifice friends in order to conciliate
enemies; to surrender the constitution for the lack of moral courage to
execute its provisions. It is a proclamation of the helplessness of the
Nation to protect its own citizens. It says to the coloured citizen,
“We cannot protect you, we therefore propose to join your oppressors.
Your suffrage has been rendered a failure by violence, and we now
propose to make it a failure by law.”
Than this, there was never a surrender more dishonorable, more
ungrateful, or more cowardly. Any statesman, black or white, who
dares to support such a scheme by any concession, deserves no worse
punishment than to be allowed to stay at home, deprived of all
legislative trusts until he repents. Even then he should only be
received on probation.
DECADENCE OF THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY.
Do not ask me what will be the final result of the so-called Negro
problem. I cannot tell you. I have sometimes thought that the American
people are too great to be small, too just and magnanimous to oppress
the weak, too brave to yield up the right to the strong, and too
grateful for public services ever to forget them or to reward them.
I have fondly hoped that this estimate of American character would
soon cease to be contradicted or put in doubt. But events have made me
doubtful. The favour with which this proposition of disfranchisement
has been received by public men, white and black, by republicans as
well as democrats, has shaken my faith in the nobility of the nation.
I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate
future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts
before me.
Strange things have happened of late and are still happening. Some of
these tend to dim the lustre of the American name, and chill the hopes
once entertained for the cause of American liberty. He is a wiser man
than I am who can tell how low the moral sentiment of the Republic may
yet fall. When the moral sense of a nation begins to decline, and the
wheels of progress to roll backward, there is no telling how low the
one will fall or where the other will stop. The downward tendency,
already manifest, has swept away some of the most important safeguards
of justice and liberty. The Supreme Court, has, in a measure,
surrendered. State sovereignty is essentially restored. The Civil
Rights Bill is impaired. The Republican party is converted into a party
of money, rather than a party of humanity and justice. We may well ask,
what next?
The pit of hell is said to be bottomless. Principles which we all
thought to have been firmly and permanently settled by the late war
have been boldly assaulted and overthrown by the defeated party.
Rebel rule is now nearly complete in many states, and it is gradually
capturing the nation’s Congress. The cause lost in the war is the cause
regained in peace, and the cause gained in war is the cause lost in
peace.
There was a threat made long ago by an American statesman that the
whole body of legislation enacted for the protection of American
liberty and to secure the results of the war for the Union, should
be blotted from the national statute book. That threat is now being
sternly pursued and may yet be fully realised. The repeal of the laws
intended to protect the elective franchise has heightened the suspicion
that Southern rule may yet become complete, though, I trust, not
permanent. There is no denying that the trend is in the wrong direction
at present. The late election, however, gives us hope that the loyal
Republican party may yet return to its first love.
VI.
DELUSIVE COLONISATION SCHEMES.
But I now come to another proposition, held up as a solution of the
race problem, and this I consider equally unworthy with the one just
disposed of. The two belong to the same low-bred family of ideas.
It is the proposition to colonize the coloured people of America in
Africa, or somewhere else. Happily this scheme will be defeated,
both by its impolicy and its impracticability. It is all nonsense to
talk about the removal of eight millions of the American people from
their homes in America to Africa. The expense and hardships, to say
nothing of the cruelty attending such a measure, would make success
impossible. The American people are wicked, but they are not fools;
they will hardly be disposed to incur the expense, to say nothing of
the injustice which this measure demands. Nevertheless, this colonizing
scheme, unworthy as it is of American statesmanship, and American
honour, and though full of mischief to the coloured people, seems to
have a strong hold on the public mind, and at times has shown much life
and vigor.
The bad thing about it is, that it has, of late, owing to persecution,
begun to be advocated by coloured men of acknowledged ability and
learning, and every little while some white statesman becomes its
advocate. Those gentlemen will doubtless have their opinion of me; I
certainly have mine of them. My opinion is, that if they are sensible,
they are insincere; and if they are sincere, they are not sensible.
They know, or they ought to know that it would take more money than
the cost of the late war, to transport even one half of the coloured
people of the United States to Africa. Whether intentionally or not,
they are, as I think, simply trifling with an afflicted people. They
urge them to look for relief where they ought to know that relief is
impossible. The only excuse they can make for the measure is that there
is no hope for the Negro here, and that the coloured people in America
owe something to Africa.
This last sentimental idea makes colonization very fascinating to the
dreamers of both colours. But there is really no foundation for it.
They tell us that we owe something to our native land. This sounds
well. But when the fact is brought to view, which should never be
forgotten, that a man can only have one native land and that is the
land in which he is born, the bottom falls entirely out of this
sentimental argument.
Africa, according to her colonization advocates, is by no means modest
in her demands upon us. She calls upon us to send her only our best
men. She does not want our riff-raff, but our best men. But these are
just the men who are valuable and who are wanted at home. It is true
that we have a few preachers and laymen with a missionary turn of mind
whom we might easily spare. Some who would possibly do as much good by
going there as by staying here. By this is not the colonization idea.
Its advocates want not only the best, but millions of the best. Better
still, they want the United States Government to vote the money to send
them there. They do not seem to see that if the Government votes money
to send the Negro to Africa, that the Government may employ means to
complete the arrangement and compel us to go.
Now I hold that the American Negro owes no more to the Negroes in
Africa than he owes to the Negroes in America. There are millions of
needy people over there, but there are also millions of needy people
over here as well, and the millions in America need intelligent men of
their number to help them, as much as intelligent men are needed in
Africa to help her people. Besides, we have a fight on our hands right
here, a fight for the redemption of the whole race, and a blow struck
successfully for the Negro in America, is a blow struck for the Negro
in Africa. For, until the Negro is respected in America, he need not
expect consideration elsewhere. All this native land talk, however,
is nonsense. The native land of the American Negro is America. His
bones, his muscles, his sinews, are all American. His ancestors for two
hundred and seventy years have lived and laboured and died, on American
soil, and millions of his posterity have inherited Caucasian blood.
It is pertinent, therefore, to ask, in view of this admixture, as well
as in view of other facts, where the people of this mixed race are to
go, for their ancestors are white and black, and it will be difficult
to find their native land anywhere outside of the United States.
But the worst thing, perhaps, about this colonization nonsense is, that
it tends to throw over the Negro a mantle of despair. It leads him to
doubt the possibility of his progress as an American citizen. It also
encourages popular prejudice with the hope that by persecution or by
persuasion, the Negro can finally be dislodged and driven from his
natural home, while in the nature of the case he must stay here and
will stay here, if for no other reason than because he cannot well get
away.
I object to the colonization scheme, because it tends to weaken the
Negro’s hold on one country, while it can give him no rational hope of
another. Its tendency is to make him despondent and doubtful, where he
should feel assured and confident. It forces upon him the idea that he
is for ever doomed to be a stranger and a sojourner in the land of his
birth, and that he has no permanent abiding place here.
All this is hurtful; with such ideas constantly flaunted before him, he
cannot easily set himself to work to better his condition in such ways
as are open to him here. It sets him to groping everlastingly after the
impossible.
Every man who thinks at all, must know that home is the fountain head,
the inspiration, the foundation and main support, not only of all
social virtue but of all motives to human progress, and that no people
can prosper, or amount to much, unless they have a home, or the hope of
a home. A man who has not such an object, either in possession or in
prospect, is a nobody and will never be anything else. To have a home,
the Negro must have a country, and he is an enemy to the moral progress
of the Negro, whether he knows it or not, who calls upon him to break
up his home in this country, for an uncertain home in Africa.
But the agitation on this subject has a darker side still. It has
already been given out that if we do not go of our own accord, we
may be forced to go, at the point of the bayonet. I cannot say that
we shall not have to face this hardship, but badly as I think of the
tendency of our times, I do not think that American sentiment will ever
reach a condition which will make the expulsion of the Negro from the
United States by any such means, possible.
Yet, the way to make it possible is to predict it. There are people
in the world who know how to bring their own prophecies to pass. The
best way to get up a mob, is to say there will be one, and this is what
is being done. Colonization is no solution, but an evasion. It is not
repentance but putting the wronged ones out of our presence. It is not
atonement, but banishment. It is not love, but hate. Its reiteration
and agitation only serves to fan the flame of popular prejudice and to
add insult to to injury.
The righteous judgment of mankind will say if the American people could
endure the Negro’s presence while a slave, they certainly can and ought
to endure his presence as a free man.
If they could tolerate him when he was a heathen, they might bear
with him now that he is a Christian. If they could bear with him when
ignorant and degraded, they should bear with him now that he is a
gentleman and a scholar.
But even the Southern whites have an interest in this question. Woe to
the South when it no longer has the strong arm of the Negro to till its
soil, “and woe to the nation when it shall employ the sword to drive
the Negro from his native land.”
Such a crime against justice, such a crime against gratitude, should it
ever be attempted, would certainly bring a national punishment which
would cause the earth to shudder. It would bring a stain upon the
nation’s honour, like the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hand. The waters of
all the oceans would not suffice to wash out the infamy. But the nation
will commit no such crime. But in regard to this point of our future,
my mind is easy. We are here and are here to stay. It is well for us
and well for the American people to rest up on this as final.
EMANCIPATION CRIPPLED. LANDLORD AND TENANT.
Another mode of impeaching the wisdom of emancipation, and the one
which seems to give special pleasure to our enemies, is, as they say,
that the condition of the coloured people of the South has been made
worse by emancipation.
The champions of this idea are the only men who glory in the good old
times when the slaves were under the lash and were bought and sold
in the market with horses, sheep, and swine. It is another way of
saying that slavery is better than freedom; that darkness is better
than light, and that wrong is better than right; that hell is better
than heaven! It is the American method of reasoning in all matters
concerning the Negro. It inverts everything; turns truth upside down,
and puts the case of the unfortunate Negro inside out and wrong end
foremost every time. There is, however, nearly always some truth on
their side of error, and it is so in this case.
When these false reasoners assert that the condition of the emancipated
slave is wretched and deplorable, they partly tell the truth, and I
agree with them. I even concur with them in the statement that the
Negro is physically, in certain localities, in a worse condition to-day
than in the time of slavery, but I part with these gentlemen when they
ascribe this condition to emancipation.
To my mind the blame does not rest upon emancipation, but the defeat of
emancipation. It is not the work of the spirit of liberty, but the work
of the spirit of bondage. It comes of the determination of slavery to
perpetuate itself, if not under one form, then under another. It is due
to the folly of endeavouring to put the new wine of liberty in the old
bottles of slavery. I concede the evil, but deny the alleged cause.
The landowners of the South want the labour of the Negro on the hardest
terms possible. They once had it for nothing. They now want it for next
to nothing. To accomplish this, they have contrived three ways. The
first is, to rent their land to the Negro at an exorbitant price per
annum and compel him to mortgage his crop in advance to pay this rent.
The laws under which this is done are entirely in the interest of the
landlord. He has a first claim upon everything produced on the land.
The Negro can have nothing, can keep nothing, can sell nothing, without
the consent of the landlord. As the Negro is at the start poor and
empty-handed, he has had to draw on the landlord for meat and bread to
feed himself and family while his crop is growing. The landlord keeps
books; the Negro does not; hence, no matter how hard he may work or how
hard saving he may be, he is, in most cases, brought in debt at the end
of the year, and once in debt he is fastened to the land as by hooks of
steel. If he attempts to leave he may be arrested under the order of
the law.
Another way, which is still more effective, is the practice of paying
the labourer with orders on the store instead of lawful money. By
this means money is kept out of the hands of the Negro, and the Negro
is kept entirely in the hands of the landlord. He cannot save money
because he gets no money to save. He cannot seek a better market for
his labour because he has no money with which to pay his fare, and
because he is, by that vicious order system, already in debt, and
therefore already in bondage. Thus he is riveted to one place, and is,
in some sense, a slave; for a man to whom it can be said, “You shall
work for me for what I choose to pay you, and how I shall choose to pay
you,” is, in fact, a slave, though he may be called a free man.
We denounce the landlord and tenant system of England, but it can be
said of England as cannot be said of our free country, that by law no
labourer can be paid for labour in any other than lawful money. England
holds any other payment to be a penal offence and punishable by fine
and imprisonment. The same should be the case in every State in the
American Union.
Under the mortgage system, no matter how industrious or economical the
Negro may be, he finds himself at the end of the year in debt to the
landlord, and from year to year he toils on and is tempted to try again
and again, but seldom with any better result.
With this power over the Negro, this possession of his labour, you may
easily see why the South sometimes makes a display of its liberality
and brags that it does not want slavery back. It had the Negro’s
labour, heretofore for nothing, and now it has it for next to nothing
and at the same time is freed from the obligation to take care of the
young and the aged, the sick and the decrepit. There is not much virtue
in all this, yet it is the ground of loud boasting.
ATTITUDE OF WHITE RACE TOWARDS NEGROES. A NATIONAL PROBLEM.
I now come to the so-called, but mis-called “Negro Problem,” as a
characterization of the relations existing in the Southern States.
I say at once, I do not admit the justice or propriety of this formula,
as applied to the question before us. Words are things. They are
certainly such in this case, since they give us a misnomer that is
misleading and hence mischievous. It is a formula of Southern origin
and has a strong bias against the Negro. It handicaps his cause with
all the prejudice known to exist and anything to which he is a party.
It has been accepted by the good people of the North, as I think,
without proper thought and investigation. It is a crafty invention and
is in every way worthy of its inventors.
It springs out of a desire to throw off just responsibility and
to evade the performance of disagreeable but manifest duty. Its
natural effect and purpose is to divert attention from the true
issue now before the American people. It does this by holding up and
pre-occupying the public mind with an issue entirely different from the
real one in question. That which is really a great national problem and
which ought to be so considered by the whole American people, dwarfs
into a “Negro Problem.” The device is not new. It is an old trick. It
has been oft repeated and with a similar purpose and effect. For truth,
it gives us falsehood. For innocence, it gives us guilt. It removes
the burden of proof from the old master class and imposes it upon the
Negro. It puts upon the race a work which belongs to the nation. It
belongs to that craftiness often displayed by disputants who aim to
make the worse appear the better reason. It gives bad names to good
things and good names to bad things.
The Negro has often been the victim to this kind of low cunning. You
may remember that during the late war, when the South fought for
the perpetuity of slavery, it usually called the slaves “domestic
servants,” and slavery a “domestic institution.” Harmless names,
indeed, but the things they stood for were far from harmless.
The South has always known how to have a dog hanged by giving him a bad
name. When it prefixed “Negro” to the national problem, it knew that
the device would awaken and increase a deep-seated prejudice at once
and that it would repel fair and candid investigation. As it stands, it
implies that the Negro is the cause of whatever trouble there is in the
South. In old slave times, when a little white child lost his temper,
he was given a little whip and told to go and whip “Jim” or “Sal,” and
he thus regained his temper. The same is true to-day on a large scale.
I repeat, and my contention is that this Negro problem formula lays
the fault at the door of the Negro and removes it from the door of the
white man, shields the guilty and blames the innocent, makes the Negro
responsible, when it should so make the nation.
Now what the real problem is, we all ought to know. It is not a Negro
problem, but in every sense a great national problem. It involves the
question, whether after all our boasted civilization, our Declaration
of Independence, our matchless Constitution, our sublime Christianity,
our wise statesmanship, we as a people, possess virtue enough to
solve this problem in accordance with wisdom and justice, and to the
advantage of both races.
The marvel is that this old trick of misnaming things, so often
displayed by Southern politicians, should have worked so well for the
bad cause in which it is now employed; for the American people have
fallen in with the bad idea that this is a Negro problem, a question
of the character of the Negro and not a question of the nation. It is
still more surprising that the coloured press of the country, and some
of our coloured orators, have made the same mistake, and still insist
upon calling it a “Negro problem,” or a race problem, for by race they
mean the Negro race. Now, there is nothing the matter with the Negro,
whatever; he is all right. Learned or ignorant, he is all right. He is
neither a lyncher, a mobocrat or an anarchist. He is now what he has
ever been, a loyal, law-abiding, hard working and peaceable man; so
much so that men have thought him cowardly and spiritless. Had he been
a turbulent anarchist he might indeed have been a troublesome problem,
but he is not. To his reproach, it is sometimes said that any other
people in the world would have invented some violent way in which to
resent their wrongs. If this problem depended upon the character and
conduct of the Negro there would be no problem to solve; there would be
no menace to the peace and good order of Southern Society. He makes no
unlawful fight between labour and capital. That problem, which often
makes the American people thoughtful, is not of his bringing, though he
may some day be compelled to talk of this tremendous problem in common
with other labourers.
He has as little to do with the cause of the Southern trouble as he
has with its cure. There is no reason, therefore, in the world, why
his name should be given to this problem. It is false, misleading and
prejudicial, and, like all other falsehoods, must eventually come to
naught.
I well remember, as others may remember, that this same old falsehood
was employed and used against the Negro during the late war. He was
then charged and stigmatized with being the cause of the war, on the
principle that there would be no highway robbers if there were nobody
on the road to be robbed. But as absurd as this pretence was, the
colour prejudice of the country was stimulated by it and joined in the
accusation, and the Negro had to bear the brunt of it.
Even at the North he was hated and hunted on account of it. In the
great city of New York his houses were burned, his children were hunted
down like wild beasts, and his people were murdered in the streets, all
because “they were the cause of the war.” Even the good and noble Mr.
Lincoln, one of the best and most clear-sighted men that ever lived,
once told a committee of Negroes, who waited upon him at Washington,
that “they were the cause of the war.”
Many were the men who,
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equator and that
centuries later great glaciers would cover the land miles deep with ice.
Neither did he know that the volcanic eruption he had witnessed was a
forerunner of this great change.
He did know though that the nights were very cold and that the days were
not the tropical days the old and weazened hairy men told about and as he
lay there prone on the warm earth struggling with this new found power
of reason, he wondered after all whether the Fire Demon was the fearsome
thing the hairy people believed it to be. Here was good that it gave him:
the good of warm food, warm air, warm ground to put his back against—yet,
and he realized it with a shudder, here were these hundreds of dead
horses on which he and the wolf-dog cubs had feasted, mute testimony of
the wrath of the Fire Demon. Why was it that one who possessed so much
good could be so fearful? Why was it—but here the problem became too
perplexing for even the hairy boy and, being full of stomach and warm of
body, he fell asleep, probably the first human being to sleep prone and
lying on his back.
And as he slept the wolf cubs, seeing strange shapes in the swirling
steam clouds, and hearing strange guttural sounds as of huge animals
eating, searched him out and crept closer to him. They were frightened at
these menacing apparitions, and being motherless they looked to the hairy
boy for protection, for somehow they felt that it was his presence that
had kept them safe from harm up there on the hillside under the cliff.
CHAPTER III
THE CRACK IN THE EARTH
It seemed strange to the hairy boy that he should awaken with the same
thoughts in his brain that he had gone to sleep with. Why did they
persist? He could not understand, yet his brain still turned over the
problem of why the Fire Demon, who could give so much that was good,
could also destroy hundreds of horses, the fleetest and wariest of the
animals he knew. He could not answer the question but as he pondered it
he began to understand that if all the good of warmth could be had from
the Fire Demon perhaps it would be possible to make friends with him and
not fall a victim to his wrath. The hairy boy did not know just how this
could be done but his interest was stirred beyond anything heretofore.
He got up, and although still bloated with food, he could not resist
tearing off a strip or two more of the roasted horse, then munching on
one of these he began wandering through the swirling steam, the wolf
cubs following him.
Presently he found himself walking through a layer of black ash that
was still warm and felt very comfortable to his feet. He knew as he
recalled the valley before the eruption that this had been a huge forest.
The heat from the hot lava lake somewhere down there in the bottom of
the valley had fired this and burned it to cinders. Only an occasional
rampike, charred and gaunt and weird looking in the blowing steam, told
of the forest that grew there before. The hairy boy looked at these
mute monuments to the wrath of the Fire Demon with a mingled feeling of
awe and wonder. To see these tree giants charred and blackened, their
twisted limbs shorn from them and scattered half burned on the ground,
revived to a certain extent the fear that he had had. He stood and stared
at the charred mass a long time before going on, and then not until he
had broken himself a stout knotted club from one of the fire hardened
rampikes, as if to provide himself with some sort of a weapon with which
to face the mysterious danger of the Fire Demon.
Yet, despite his fear and trepidation, the hairy boy was enough a master
of his will power to force himself into exploring the valley further.
Deeper he pushed his way through the misty, swirling steam, realizing
the while that the air and the earth were growing hotter. From this he
understood that he was approaching what had appeared to him from the
hilltop to be a red hot lake where the lava had gathered in the valley
bottom.
The steam grew thicker and hotter and ahead of him and on either hand
he heard peculiar hissing noises, that agitated him a great deal, for
he could not know that it was the hot lava cooling off by its contact
with the cold and moist earth. He went on but he went with great stealth
and caution, always peering through the steam with club raised as if
expecting at any moment to come face to face with the Demon that made the
fire.
Suddenly the hissing grew more intense and the air very much hotter. At
the same time loomed through the steam a vast stretch of smooth, black,
polished rock that took queer forms as if it were so much soft dough that
had been poured over the ground and allowed to harden. All about its
edges, where it came into contact with the ground, jets of steam were
spurting out, each hissing and curling like huge evanescent reptiles. The
hairy boy gasped and drew back. Then he stopped and stood staring, club
upraised. He was alert and ready for danger, but he was frankly curious
too. He could not understand why this black rock that never had been in
the valley before could give out such intense heat and cause the snaky
spouts of steam that hissed so ominously and lingered in the air like a
swamp fog. He crouched on his haunches and stared for a long, long time
while the wolf-dog cubs, crowding close to him, looked at the black rock
curiously while their tongues lolled because of the intense heat.
Finally the hairy boy got to his feet. His curiosity was mastering his
fear and suspicion. He began to approach the edge of the hot lava bed
very cautiously. As he advanced the heat grew more intense until his
hairy coat dripped perspiration and water from the condensing steam.
Closer and closer he moved until he was almost within touching distance
of a big black globule of the cooling lava that was detached from the
main mass. Then he reached out with the stick he still carried and tapped
it curiously.
A strange thing happened. Each time the stick came into contact with the
hot rock a wisp of blue smoke went up as the heat scorched the wood.
This was puzzling to the hairy boy. Why did this happen? He tapped and
tapped again; then he examined the scorched end of the stick and felt of
it. It was very hot. It burned him. He grunted and pulled his hand away.
Then he sat and thought for a long time until his slow brain reasoned
that the rock burned the stick, and the heat that the stick carried from
the rock burned his hand. The stick carried the heat from the rock for a
little while; then the heat mysteriously disappeared.
Still he sat and thought and slowly a question took shape in his mind.
If the stick carried the heat for a little while just by tapping on the
rock, why wouldn’t it carry heat for a long while if he held the stick
onto the rock a long time? Perhaps it would, then that would be a way of
taking with him the good of the Fire Demon and leaving behind the bad. He
wanted the heat the Fire Demon could give but he wanted to leave behind
the power it had to kill and destroy.
He decided to try an experiment. He reached forth and held the stick
against the rock. Slowly the blue smoke appeared. It grew and grew in
quantity; then suddenly a tiny red flame began to lick at the end of the
stick, for the lava had set the pitchy knot on fire.
When the hairy boy saw the flame he grunted in terror, dropped the stick
and leaped backward in fear. Of course, the tiny flame went out. The boy
sat and watched the stick for a long time, and his brain was so busy that
his round head positively hurt. What were these sinister red and orange
things that had licked at the end of the stick? Were they the fingers
of the Fire Monster? If they were, why had they not held the stick and
consumed it?
He picked up the stick and tried the experiment again. Once more the
flames appeared, but went out when the stick was dropped. Again he tried,
but this time he held the stick longer. While he held it he found that
the flames waxed stronger and grew bigger. He studied them curiously,
holding the stick at arm’s length, and, while he watched, he wondered
whether, after all, these flames were not the beneficial thing that the
Fire Monster had to give him. They were hot. He could carry them by
carrying the stick away. Yet he could kill them by merely dropping the
stick or tapping it on the ground. He tried it again and again, and each
time he lit the stick and put it out he sensed a feeling of elation
within him. He felt as if he were doing a masterly thing. He could awaken
or conquer the Fire Monster at will. It was wonderful; almost a triumph.
The hairy boy felt as proud as he had the day he had leaped out from
behind a rock and slain his first wild goat with a stone hammer that he
had borrowed from his father’s cave.
He was so elated by the knowledge that he was master of the fire that
he began to dance up and down in a peculiarly weird sort of a way and
drum on his chest with his fists, chanting the while, “Og, og, og, og,
og,” which to him meant “I am a great man now; no longer a boy. I am the
conqueror; Og, the conqueror.” And thus it was that he gave himself a
name, after the manner of the hairy folk. Og he was to be thenceforth,
for he felt that he had won this name, for among the hairy men only the
people who had achieved something notable were entitled to a name.
After that for almost an hour he amused himself by lighting and putting
out the stick and slowly a sense of self-confidence grew within him,
and he no longer had the awe and fear of the Fire Demon. Indeed he held
the burning end of the stick quite close to him, watched the flames
curiously, felt their heat, broke off slivers from the other end of the
club, lit them and knocked them out. Once he breathed hard upon one of
these splinters and it went out. Here was a discovery, indeed. With his
very breath he could kill the Fire Demon. He blew hard upon the flames
that curled about the pitchy knots of his club to prove it and they went
out too. After that he lost all fear of the Fire Monster. Anything so
weak that he could conquer it with his breath was not at all to be feared.
He held the stick to the lava to light it again, his mind intent on what
he was doing; indeed he had been so fascinated with his experiments that
he had forgotten everything, even the wolf-dog cubs. He had not noticed
how the hair on the back of their necks bristled or how they cowered with
tails between their legs while they looked furtively into the swirling
steam behind them. In truth, the first that he realized that anything was
amiss was when both cubs with a frightened snarl tried to crowd between
his legs for protection. At the same moment a snort sounded behind him,
followed by a strident trumpeting.
Og, flaming stick in hand, jumped up with a start to behold but vaguely
through the steam a massive hairy and tusked head with upraised trunk
and sinister little eyes, looming above him. Og knew only too well
what it was and his heart all but stopped when he saw the evil thing.
His people called it The Mountain That Walked, the great shaggy haired
mammoth. They were so big and so strong and so fearless that even Sabre
Tooth, the great cave tiger, slunk from them.
For one horror-fraught second the hairy boy stared at the terrible,
massive head and trunk that waved slowly back and forth above him. He
knew the great beast had marked him as an enemy. He knew that the curled
trunk would strike swiftly and surely, that the great coils would close
about him and that with one powerful toss he would be hurled skyward to
fall and be trampled under the heavy feet of the ponderous beast. It was
a terrible death to face and Og shrank back and shuddered as he watched
the great trunk. He was so frightened he was no longer master of himself.
It was as if the wicked little eyes had hypnotized him and held him
spellbound. Slowly, with a weaving motion, a sinister swaying from side
to side, the great trunk bent toward him, ready to strike.
Suddenly the boy thought of the stick; the fire brand that he held in
his hand. It gave him courage. With a wild yell he leaped and whirled the
burning club above his head aiming a blow at the big beast. The flaming
end swept within a foot of the great animal’s face and with a snort it
drew back. In that instant the hairy boy, still clinging to the lighted
stick, bolted off through the fog of steam, the wolf cubs at his heels.
As swift as the wind he ran, and the giant mammoth, now thoroughly
aroused, vented a thunderous trumpet and raced after him with an awkward
shambling gait.
Although he was clumsy and ponderous the mammoth covered the ground as
swiftly as Og did, his long trunk reaching out before him ready to seize
his victim the instant he came within reach.
Had it been a long race Og most certainly would have been captured.
He knew this too and he fled with swiftness borne of utter panic for
he could hear the heavy thuds of ponderous feet close behind him, and
the whistling, snorting of its breath seemed almost at his back. But
fortunately as he raced on through the steam fog there suddenly appeared
before him a great crevice rent in the hillside by the earthquake that
had attended the volcanic eruption. It was like a deep but narrow wound
in the hill, and Og knew that if he climbed into this the great mammoth
could not follow. True, his snake-like trunk could reach inside but Og
felt that if he could crawl beyond its length the animal could not force
his body into the narrow opening.
With safety in sight Og leaped forward with renewed speed and literally
hurled himself into the crevice, the wolf-dog cubs falling over each
other to scramble in behind him. In a panic all three struggled, stumbled
and crawled over rocks and earth clods and forced themselves back into
the deepest, narrowest confines of this crack in the earth. There in the
darkness that was lighted only by the tiny flames of the still burning
torch that Og had clung to, they waited.
Presently The Mountain That Walked, with thunderous tread and whistling
breath, reached the crevice. For a moment the great beast stopped and
peered inside. Then scenting his enemy within he reached his snaky trunk
into the earthy cave, and groped about.
The hairy boy and the wolf cubs shrank back trembling. To have this
horrible thing within a few feet of their faces, was a terrible
experience and for a time it shattered the courage of the trio. But when
it became apparent that the animal could not reach them Og grew braver,
so brave in fact that presently he fell to shouting terrible insults at
the beast and brandishing his fiery stick. Indeed he mustered the courage
to crawl close enough to the twisting trunk to jam the fire stick into
its folds.
With a roar the trunk was withdrawn immediately and the hairy boy,
laughing with glee, turned toward the cowering wolf cubs as if seeking
their approval for his brave deed.
But the smile on his face was transformed into an expression of
horror, for as he looked toward the end of the crevice he saw to his
consternation that the walls on either side were slowly drawing closer
together. Clods of earth and heavy stones were falling, jarred loose by
the slow but irresistible movement of the walls. The earth that had been
pushed upward by volcanic action was slowly settling again. The crevice
was closing and they would be buried alive.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST CAMP FIRE
All the horrors of such a terrible death were apparent to Og and the
two wolf cubs. The hairy boy stood with staring, fear-bulged eyes and
watched the slow, irresistible movement of the earthy walls as they came
together. He could feel the movement of the ground beneath his feet as
it began to sink downward and he could feel the vibration of a rumbling
thunderous noise that came up from the nethermost depths of the earth.
A great fear clutched his heart; a fear that somehow he and the now
whimpering wolf cubs had put themselves into the clutches of a great and
evil spirit who owned this cave; this huge wound in the hillside.
Yet though almost paralyzed with fear Og’s brain worked. The Mountain
That Walked had been defeated. He had withdrawn. Perhaps he was waiting
outside in the steam fog or perhaps he had gone back down into the
valley. If he were waiting outside, to go out meant death. But to stay
in here meant death too, the horrible death of being buried alive.
Outside death was uncertain. Then too he had a marvelous new weapon in
this fiery stick of his. Perhaps with its aid and his swift legs he
could defeat the mammoth. It was worth trying. They were deep inside
the crevice. They would have to move quickly to get out in time for the
walls were closing fast. Already one of the wolf cubs had started for
the opening. Og turned and called to the other one. It was struggling
under a heavy clod of earth that had fallen upon it and held it down. Og
saw its plight. He was about to turn and bolt and leave it to its death.
But something made him hesitate. He could not understand this strange
feeling. He did not know that within him was growing a sense of loyalty
and unselfishness that the hairy people never knew. He did not realize
that this marked him as being a higher type of human than any hairy man
had ever been, but he did know that an overmastering desire to help the
struggling wolf dog swept away any selfish thoughts of his own safety,
and he sprang back toward the rear of the crevice, dug the wolf dog from
beneath the caved-in earth, then, gathering it under one arm and with
the burning resinous torch in the other hand, he began a mad scramble for
the opening of the crevice.
The rumbling beneath his feet grew louder and more ominous. Earth and
rock broke loose from the walls above and fell about him and on him. One
huge stone struck him on the shoulder and its jagged corners cut deep
through his hair and flesh. Og cried out with pain and staggered under
the impact. Yet he stumbled and struggled onward while great beads of
perspiration stood out on his low forehead, and his eyes dilated with
fear. On and on he pushed, while the rumbling beneath him grew to an
angry growl and the earthy walls on either hand and overhead rocked and
swayed dizzily. The opening was only a little way ahead now. The first
wolf cub had gained it and scrambled out into the steam filled air. Og
envied him his salvation. He wondered vaguely whether he could make it or
whether, there within a few short paces of freedom, he would be caught
between the crunching, caving walls of earth and crushed to death.
He made a mighty effort to gain the opening. His great muscles swelled
under the strain. Blood leaped through his arteries, the cords of his
neck stood out and his breath came in great sobs as he struggled toward
the air and light. One leap more and he would be free, one stride and
he would be out of that terrible cave of grumbling noise, and crumbling
walls. Og leaped.
At the same instant the rumbling developed to a roar, and a grinding
crash, as the wall on either side of the crevice caved in and the earth
settled. Og reached the air in a cloud of dust and a shower of earth and
stones, and, in a perfect avalanche of debris, rolled over and over down
the hillside, until he stopped with stunning impact at the foot of a huge
bowlder. For the space of several seconds he and the wolf cub lay there
in a semi-conscious condition. Then slowly Og came to and sat up. And the
first thing that he looked for when he became himself again was his fire
stick. He found it close at hand for he had clung to it even in his mad
plunge down the hillside. But of course its flames were out.
Og picked it up and viewed this fact with disappointment. The knotty end
was a mass of glowing smoking coals but the flames were gone. Og crouched
beside the bowlder and looked at the hot end of the stick turning it over
and over, and wondering the while how to rekindle it. He began to blow
upon it softly. Why he did this he could not tell. But as he breathed
upon it the coals grew redder and hotter and suddenly a tiny flame
appeared, then another and another until the torch was rekindled.
Og gave a grunt of surprise at this and his low forehead wrinkled into
a perplexed frown. Here was a thing that he could slay with his breath
yet he could bring it to life again by breathing upon it. It was strange
indeed, a thing he would have liked to puzzle over, for he had found that
thinking was a strange and fascinating game. But he realized that the
daylight hours were waning. Night was coming on and he knew now that with
the Stalking Death abroad and probably many other animals down there in
the valley feeding on the roasted horses, it would not be safe for him to
linger. He thought of the cave under the cliff where he and the wolf cubs
had taken refuge first and he decided to go there for the night.
Both cubs were close at hand, though the one he had rescued was unable to
walk. Og gathered this one under his arm and calling to the other started
out of the valley and toward the towering cliffs that he could see in the
distance through the steam. As they made their way forward Og glanced at
the hill where the crevice had been. What had been the crown of it was
now a deep depression still filled with dust clouds. Og turned his head
away for the thoughts that he and the cubs might even now be buried under
that mass of rock and dirt were very unpleasant.
They were a long way from their refuge and Og hurried for he feared to
be caught down there in the valley at nightfall. Night was the time when
all the great beasts hunted and feasted and he knew that he would make a
choice meal for the Stalking Death, the great panther, or Sabre Tooth,
the huge cave tiger, as had many another hairy man in the past. Indeed,
it was with a sense of relief that the hairy boy scrambled up the steep
mountain side and crawled in under the shelter of the overhanging cliffs,
for already the terrific hunting roar of the giant cave tiger was waking
the echoes and in the gathering twilight this was a blood chilling sound
to hear for the hairy men of that age.
Shelter gained, Og’s attention came back to the fire stick which he
still carried. It was then that he noticed for the first time, and with
consternation, that the stick, once as long as his arm, was now less than
a quarter its original size. Here was another perplexing phase of this
new thing that he thought he had mastered but which he now found he could
not at all understand. Why had the stick grown shorter? Where had the
rest of it gone? Did this thing devour the wood? Was that what it ate?
Crouched up there on the shelf under the cliff Og experimented anew. He
tried to see if the thing ate wood. He found another stick and held it
into the flame. The red fingers reached out and took hold of it and,
because this was soft wood, the fire consumed it quickly; ate it all so
fast that Og had to drop it before it burned his fingers. There on the
stone ledge it burned itself out. Og tried to feed the flames leaves.
These were eaten up so swiftly that the hairy boy was frightened for a
moment. He tried more sticks and more leaves, then he tried to feed it a
stone. This it would not eat and Og marveled, for had he not got it from
a stone originally?—yet here it refused to eat other stones. This red
thing, this animal that could be slain or brought to life with a breath,
that came from stone yet would not eat stone, was indeed a mystery.
Og held the fast shortening pitchwood torch in his hand and pondered.
He saw the charred remains of the stick and leaves he had burned lying
about him on the ledge. From these he gleaned still a new idea. He
gathered more sticks and leaves in a pile, then laid the burning torch
among them. And presently he had a fire that delighted him; a fire that
gave him warmth and light and which he could keep alive so long as he fed
it sticks and leaves.
Thus was born five hundred thousand years ago up there on the ledge below
the cliff the first campfire and as this hairy boy crouched before it
and watched it with consuming interest while he basked in its warmth and
light, he chanted softly to himself,“Og, Og, Og, Og,” which was his way
of telling himself and the wolf cubs that he was a great man, that he
had made a wonderful discovery and that he well deserved the name he had
given himself.
And as he crouched there the roar of Saber Tooth, the tiger, and the wail
of the Stalking Death, the giant panther, floated up to him through the
night, from the valley below where they quarreled over the cooked horses,
but somehow Og felt strangely happy and comfortable by his fire. The
light and the heat and the flickering flame tongues gave him a sense of
protection in the night, a sense of protection that no other hairy man
had ever felt; and the wolf cubs, sprawled in the warm glow, gave him an
added feeling of companionship. He was happy, so happy that he wanted
other hairy people to know about it; to see what he had achieved; to
witness his triumph over the Fire Demon.
He began to think then of the other hairy people who had fled from the
wrath of the volcano. He thought of Wab, his father, who was a mighty
hunter with the stone hatchet. Og had a vague feeling that he was even a
greater man than his father now.
He thought of Gog, the fierce old warrior with the scarred face and ugly
disposition who was chief of the hairy people because no one had the
courage to dispute it. Og hated him for many a hard cuff and unnecessary
beating. He was a greater man than Gog now and he found malicious
pleasure in the thought of taking his fire animal among his people and
making Gog jealous with the flame that would be his. If he could conquer
the Fire Demon assuredly he could conquer Gog. The old chief would never
dare come near him while he held a fire brand in his hand.
Og decided to set out to find the hairy people again since the roars and
wails that came up from the steaming valley told him all too plainly that
it was no longer safe for him to remain in that vicinity.
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE WOLF BECOMES DOG
All through the night Og cared for his fire. It was to him a new kind
of animal; a strange pet that he must needs feed at intervals else it
would disappear. Og was afraid that it would eat up all its food and go
out. This he did not want to happen for he dared not go back into the
valley for more flame because of the danger lurking there. If the fire
should burn out he did not know how to get more of it. For that reason he
watched over it as a mother wolf over a cub. At regular periods he awoke
and got up from his cramped and huddled sleeping position and searched
around in the dark for more wood to feed it.
During this very first night at fire guarding the hairy boy learned a
lesson that has been carried down through thousands of generations of
camp fire watchers ever since. About the fifth or sixth time he had
aroused himself and searched about for wood he got an idea. Forthwith
he squatted down and started thinking again. The result was that he did
not stop in his wood gathering when he had enough to replenish the flame.
Instead, he kept on gathering wood which he piled up on the shelf of
rock. After that each time he awoke he had only to reach over and take a
few sticks from the pile, replenish the fire and fall off to sleep again.
His wood pile lasted him until morning.
With the coming of dawn Og began preparation for his search for the
colony of hairy men and women who had fled the valley at the first signs
of eruption. First of all he made certain of his fire. His original fire
stick had long since burned, so he gathered together a bundle of fagots
of the hardest and most knotted and pitchy sticks he could find. These
he bound round with bark, and lighted from the fire. Thus he purposed
carrying his new found treasure, determined to guard it with his life,
for he knew full well if the flames went out he could never replenish
them again.
This done, he squatted down to think. First he would need a stone hammer;
the first and only implement the hairy men had invented. He searched up
and down the shelf and scrambled over the cliffs and hillside until he
found a stone of the proper shape, round and smooth and water worn, yet
rough enough to permit a grip for the lashings of bark that would bind it
to the haft. Several times Og found stones that would almost do, and each
time he squatted down and examined them. In the back of his brain he felt
that he could make them satisfactory if he only knew how, yet his brain
was not developed enough to invent the simple method of chipping them
into the proper shape. The hairy folk had not yet progressed so far that
they could with their own handicraft make things to serve them. They must
needs find the stones ready to be tied into war hammers else they went
without or used clubs instead.
Og was particular. Half the morning he searched until he found what he
wanted. Then taking it back to the ledge, he selected a tough stick for
the haft and with bark lashed the two together. When he had finished it
he surveyed it with pride. Crude though it was, it was far better than
any he had ever seen, even better than the one his father took so much
pride in, and that was the best hammer among the hairy men.
This done Og sat and thought longer. He would need throwing stones; five
round ones that his long sinewy arms could snap out with deadly speed and
accuracy. Some of the hairy folk had learned to be expert at throwing
stones. Og was among the best of them.
Several good stones he piled up with his fagots and his stone hammer.
Then he spent more time in thinking. Gradually he worked out the idea
that it would be a good thing if he could carry some provisions with
him. This was an entirely new thought for a hairy man; never before
had one of the race ever had intelligence enough to think ahead to the
extent of providing for the future. They lived from day to day, feasting
while food was before them and hunting only when they grew hungry again.
With watering mouth Og thought of his feast of the day before; of the
abundance of roast horse meat down in the valley of steam, traces of
which were still wafted to his sensitive nostrils. But he dared not go
back into the valley again. The presence of the Mountain That Walked and
Sabre Tooth forbade this.
Og’s eyes brightened as he saw the wolf cubs still sprawled beside the
fire. But as he looked at them they looked up at him and their tails
wagged with pleasure. Og could not understand the strange feeling that
swept over him, but he knew then that he could never bring himself to
kill them. He would go hungry rather than slay them and cheat himself
of their companionship. Og’s sense of loyalty had grown out of all
proportion to anything of the sort that had ever been possessed by a
hairy man before. And so he gave up the idea of carrying food with him,
but he stored the thought away in his brain for future use.
Although Og had been out hunting when the hairy folk had fled the valley
at the first rumble of the volcano he knew well which way they had
traveled. No hairy man of late years ever journeyed north. Always there
was a cold, ominous spirit in the Northland who killed with icy breath
and numbing pain and left his victims stark and stone-like; at least,
that is the story that a hairy man had brought to the tribe years ago
when he staggered among the cave dwellers and besought some to take
him into their cave and wrap their arms around him and draw him close
to their bodies as the hairy folk did to keep each other warm. He was
the last of as many men as he had fingers who had traveled into the
Northland. The rest, he said, were dead and turned to stone.
So Og knew that the hairy folk had not gone north. Nor had they gone
east, for that was where night came from. Hairy men feared the hours of
night for it was then that Sabre Tooth and the Stalking Death hunted. The
volcano was in the west, so the only road that lay open was southward.
Og knew the tribe had gone southward. He knew it because of his crude
reasoning as well as by a pack instinct fully developed in him.
And so Og faced southward, and as he picked his way up the cliff and
along the face of the rugged, rock strewn and partially wooded hillside
he was indeed a strange sight, one big hand clutching his stone hammer
and the other carrying his flaming fagots and his supply of throwing
stones, while the two wolf cubs romped ahead and in front of him. The
crest of the hill finally gained Og found that his way lay in a deep
forest, a forest of such tremendous trees that Og looked like a dwarf
among them. They were the giant sequoia, the ancestors of the few
remaining big trees still left, and in Og’s day they clothed a greater
part of the entire earth. They were so tall that their tops were brushed
by low hanging clouds, and so big at the base that Og knew that every
man, woman and child in his colony, by joining hands, could not encircle
them and Og’s tribe was a big tribe composed of almost a hundred people.
Og had seen the trees before and did not stand in awe of them.
For hours he swung along among the big trees, his eyes, ears and nose
alert as always. Once the wolf cubs started two rabbit-like animals
from their cover. Og saw them as quickly as the wolf cubs and as they
whisked across an open space he dropped his hammer, shifted a throwing
stone to his right hand and whipped it after one of the scurrying beasts
with the speed of a bullet. Og heard with satisfaction the thump as it
thudded against the rabbit’s ribs. Then, as the animal leaped into the
air, and fell to the ground kicking, Og gave voice to a hunting yell of
triumph. He was about to rush forward and seize his kill when he noticed
the wolf cubs. Both had given chase to the other rabbit, and so close
had they been to that animal when they started it that it had to take to
another cover immediately, which it did by dodging into a hollow under
some rocks. The wolf cubs were working frantically to dig it out when
Og caught sight of them. He watched them with interest for a moment.
Then his eyes brightened with a new thought. Hastily he secured his own
prize, then hurried over to where the wolf cubs were digging, throwing a
veritable shower of earth between their legs as they dug their way deeper
and deeper under the rocks. Og squatted down close at hand and watched
them. Soon they had dug a hole deep enough for one cub to squeeze into.
The more active of the two shouldered his companion out of the way and
wriggled in. Deeper and deeper he went until just the tip of his tail
showed. Then Og heard a growl, a shrill frightened squeak that was cut
short by the crunching of breaking bones.
[Illustration: Og squatted down close at hand and watched them]
Presently the wolf cub began backing out. Og watched his progress and
as his head came to view with the limp form of the rabbit dangling from
his jaws Og seized him by the scruff of the neck and wrenched the rabbit
from his mouth. With a growl the wolf cub sprang at him. But Og was
waiting for
|
113
An Imperial Audience, 117
Preparation of Vermicelli, 119
Chinese Ladies, 122
Palanquin of a High Official, 125
The Governor of a Province, 126
Punishment by the Gangue, 130
Flogging a Culprit, 131
Outside Peking, 134
Discipline on the March in the Chinese Army, 143
A Typhoon, 150
Bandaging the Feet, 151
The Seat of the War, 156
The Punishments of Hell, 158
Chinese Cart, 162
School Boy, 163
Chinese School, 164
Chinese Engineers Laying a Military Telegraph, 165
Chinese School Girl, 167
Chinese Artist, 168
Chinese Barber, 169
[Female Types and Costumes, facing 170]
Porter’s Chair, 171
Chinese Emperor, King of Corea, and Chinese Officials, 175
Buddhist Temple, 178
Temple of Five Hundred Gods, at Canton, 181
Japanese Musician, 184
The Mikado and his Principal Officers, 187
Japanese God of Thunder, 189
Japanese God of Riding, 190
Japanese Peasantry, 192
Japanese God of War, 196
Tokio Types and Costumes, 198
Japanese Musician, 199
Japanese Silk Spinner, 200
Colossal Japanese Image, 205
Japanese Female Types, 207
Shinto Temple, 209
Japanese God of Wind, 211
Daimios of Japan, 212
Sketch Showing Development of Japanese Army, 213
Buddhist Priest, 215
Japanese Junk, 218
Old Time Japanese Ferry, 220
Scenes of Industrial Life, 221
Japanese Bell Towers, 229
Image of Buddha, 232
Japanese Samurai or Warrior of the Old Time, 233
Japanese General of the Old Time, 234
Japanese Bridge, 235
Baptism of Buddha, 240
Woman of Court of Kioto, 249
Chinese Coolie, 254
Japanese Gymnasts—Kioto, 256
Formosan Type, 258
Entrance to Nagasaki Harbor, 261
Fuji-yama, 267
Japanese Idols, 272
Japanese Jugglers, 277
Japanese Court Dress, Old Style, 281
Council of War on a Japanese Battle-Ship, 284
Dressing the Hair, 287
Child Carrying Baby, 291
The Chinese Fleet at Wei-hai-wei, 293
Japanese Bath, 296
Japanese Couch, 299
Sketches in Japan and Corea, 304
Geisha Girls Playing Japanese Musical Instruments, 307
Japanese Alphabet, New, 308
Japanese Alphabet, Old, 309
Shinto Priest, 311
Japanese Troops Landing at Chemulpo, 313
Street Scenes, 316
The Ainos, 319
Rats as Rice Merchants, 321
Corean Landscape, 324
Raw Levies for the Chinese Army, 326
Pagoda at Seoul, 333
Corean Soldiers, 334
Fighting Before the Gate of Seoul, 335
Old Man in Corea, 337
Coast Near Chemulpo, 342
Corean Mandarins, 347
Colossal Corean Idol—Un-jin Miriok, 358
Map Showing Japan, Corea and Part of China, 368
Corean Bull Harrowing, 375
Corean City Wall, 376
Chinese Protected Cruiser Chih-Yuen, 377
Gate of Seoul, 381
Naval Attack on the Chen-Yuen Before Chemulpo, 384
Corean Magistrate and Servant, 387
Japanese Naval Attack on Forts at Wei-hai-wei, 390
Statesman on Monocycle, 393
Corean Brush Cutter, 394
Porters With Chair, 395
Japanese Warship, “Yoshino,” 399
Corean Boat, 403
The Battle at Asan, 405
Corean Eggseller, 407
Japanese Soldiers Descending from the Castle at 412
Fenghwang,
Corean Band of Musicians, 413
Japanese Coolies Following the Army, 418
Japanese Army at Chiu-lien-cheng, 421
The Corean Regent, 424
Corean Natives Viewing Japanese Soldiers, 427
Sinking of the Kow-shing, 432
Mr. Otori Before the Commissioners, 434
Japanese Army on the March, 436
Procession in Seoul, 439
After the Battle, 441
The Attack on Ping-Yang, 448
Opening the Gates at Ping-Yang, 454
Fighting at Foochow, 463
Capture of Ping-Yang, 469
First Sight of Ping-Yang, 473
Battle of the Yalu—Sinking of the Chih-Yuen, 476
Bringing in the Wounded, 478
The Mikado Reviewing the Army, 480
Corean Police Agent, 481
Japanese Kitchen in Camp, 482
Japanese Soldier Saluting a Field Cemetery, 484
Crowd in Tokio Looking at Pictures of the War, 485
Japanese Ambulance Officer, 487
Chinamen Mutilating Remains of Japanese Soldiers, 488
The Ping-Yuen, 489
The Yoshino, 494
Japanese Advance at the Crossing of the Yalu River, 496
The Matsusima, 497
H. Sakomoto, 498
Japanese Infantry Attacking a Chinese Position, 505
Principal Street of Mukden, 509
Chinese Troops Trying to Save Their Artillery, 512
Transporting Chinese Troops, 513
Japanese Military Hospital, 515
Review of Chinese Troops at Port Arthur, 518
Japanese Soldiers Digging Well, 521
Constantine von Hannecken, 526
The Attack on Port Arthur, 527
Surrender of Chinese General and Staff, 533
Map of Territory Adjacent to the Mouth of the Yalu, 535
Japanese Army Crossing the Yalu on a Pontoon Bridge, 537
The Japanese at Port Arthur, 540
Sinking of the Kow-shing, 547
Naval Skirmish July 25th, 548
Routed Chinese Flying Before the Victorious Enemy, 549
Skirmish on July 27th, 551
Before the Wall of Seoul, 552
Japanese Cavalrymen, 558
Port Arthur—Transports Entering the Inner Harbor, 560
General Nodzu, 562
Chinese Earthworks, 564
View of Talien-wan Bay, 565
Port Arthur—Japanese Coolies Removing Chinese Dead, 569
Japanese Skirmishers before Port Arthur, 577
Retreat of Chinese Soldiers After the Fall of Port 580
Arthur,
Japanese Soldiers Removing Dead Bodies, 581
Japanese Attack on Port Arthur, 587
The Attack on Kinchow, 589
Port Arthur from the Bay, 593
Japanese Soldiers Mutilating Bodies, 599
Marshal Oyama, 603
Chang Yen Hoon, 610
Distant View of Wei-hai-wei and its Surroundings, 630
Admiral McClure, 639
Japanese Soldiers Escorting Chinese Prisoners, 640
Chinese Soldiers on the March, 645
Chinese Soldier Laden with Provision, 649
Gap in the Great Wall at Shan-hai-kwan, 653
INTRODUCTION.
The unexpected news of war between the Mikado’s Empire and the Celestial
Kingdom has startled the whole world. Thereby considerable light was
thrown upon the Oriental world.
Japan, up to a very short time ago, through the pen and tongue of poets
and artists, who have visited this land, has been thought to be merely a
country of beautiful flowers, charming mademoiselles, fantastic
parasols, fans and screens. Such misrepresentation has long impressed
the western mind, and the people hardly imagined Japan as a political
power, enlightened by a perfect educational system and developed to a
high pitch of excellence in naval and military arts.
The war in the East is certainly interesting from more than one point of
view. Viewing it from the humane standpoint, Japan is, indeed, the true
standard-bearer of civilization and progress in the far east. Her
mission is to enlighten the millions of slumbering souls in the
Celestial Kingdom, darkened for generations. Politically, she, with her
enterprising genius, youthful courage and alert brain, as well as the
art and science of civilization, has lifted herself into the ranks of
the most powerful nations of the earth, and compelled the whole of the
western powers to reckon her as a “living force,” as she has proved her
right to a proud place among the chief powers of the world.
Commercially, she has demonstrated herself the mistress of the Pacific
and Asiatic Seas.
From the outbreak of the war all the civilized nations, except England,
have sympathized with Japan, especially the people of America have given
a strong moral support to Japan, not because this country is the warmest
friend of Japan, but because Japan is, to-day, the propagandist of
civilization and humanity in the far east.
At the beginning of the hostilities a majority of the people had an
erroneous idea that the overwhelming population and resources of China
would soon be able to crush the Island Empire of Japan; but they
overlooked the fact that in our day it is science, brains and courage,
together with the perfected organization of warfare that grasp the palm
of victory. Thousands of sheep could do nothing against a ferocious
wolf. So the numerical comparison has but little weight.
Some sagacious writer compared Japan to a lively swordfish and China to
a jellyfish, being punctured at every point. Truly Japan has proved it
so.
From the sinking of the Kow-shing transport, up to the present time,
Japan has an unbroken series of victories over China. At the battle of
Asan she gained the first brilliant victories and swept all the Chinese
put of Corea, and at Ping-Yang, by both tactics and superb strategy,
crushed the best army of China, which Li Hung Chang brought up to the
greatest efficiency, by the aid of many European officers, as if it had
been an egg shell. Again, at the mouth of the Yalu River, she gained a
brilliant naval victory over China, by completely destroying the
Ping-Yang squadron. Once more on the land the Japanese army stormed Port
Arthur, the strongest naval fort, known as the Gibraltar of China.
All these facts are viewed with amazement by the eyes of the world. For
all that the people know about Japan and the Japanese is that the people
of Japan are very artistic, as the producers of beautiful porcelain,
embroidery, lacquer work and all sorts of artistic fancy goods, and they
wonder how it is possible that such an artistic people as the Japanese
could fight against sober, calm Chinamen. But such an erroneous notion
would soon vanish if they came to learn the true nature and character of
the Japanese.
More than once the world has seen that an artistic nation could fight.
The Greeks demonstrated this long ago, and the French in the latter
times have shown a shining example. Japan is reckoned as one of the most
artistic people in the world, as the producer of beautiful things, as
the lover of fine arts and natural beauties. The Japanese have proved
the same as what the ancient Greeks and modern French have shown. The
history of Japan reveals the true color of the Japanese as brilliant
fighters and a warlike nation. “In no country,” says Mr. Rogers, “has
military instinct been more pronounced in the best blood of the people.
Far back in the past, beyond that shadowy line where legend and history
blend, their story has been one of almost continual war, and the
straightest path to distinction and honor has, from the earliest times,
led across the battle field. The statesmen of Japan saw, as did Cavour,
that the surest way to win the respect of nations was by success in
war.”
The ancestor of the Japanese people, who claim to have descended from
high heaven, seems to have been the descendant of the ancient Hittites,
the warlike and conquering tribe once settled in the plain of
Mesopotamia. The Hittites, so far as our investigation is concerned,
extending their sway of conquest towards the north-eastern portion of
Asia, must have, at last, brought the Japanese family to the island of
Japan. As they settled on the island, they found it inhabited by many
different tribes; but they soon vanquished them and established the
everlasting foundation of the Mikado’s Empire, which they called the
“Glorious Kingdom of Military Valour.” The first Mikado was Jimmu, whose
coronation took place two thousand five hundred and fifty-four years
ago, long before Alexander the Great thought he had conquered the world
and Julius Cæsar entered Gaul. The present Mikado is the one hundred and
twenty-second lineal descendant of the first Mikado Jimmu. The unbroken
dynasty of the Mikado has continued for twenty-five centuries. The
people are brave, adventurous and courageous. Fanatical patriotism for
country and strong loyalty towards the Mikado are essential
characteristics of the Japanese people. And all these tend to form the
peculiar nationality of Japan. Since the establishment of the Mikado’s
Empire their land has never been defiled by invaders and they have never
known how to be subject to a foreign yoke. The history of Japan is the
pride of the Japanese people.
The Japanese, in an early time, have displayed their superior courage
and distinguished themselves from the rest of the Asiatic nations in the
point of military affairs.
In the year A.D. 201 the Empress Jingo, the greatest female character in
the Japanese history, undertook a gigantic expedition to the Asiatic
continent. She assembled an immense army and built a great navy. Placing
herself as the commander-in-chief of the invading army, she sailed for
the continent. Her victory was brilliant. Corea was at once subjected
without any bloodshed. Long since the Japanese power was established on
the Asiatic continent.
Again in the sixteenth century, ambitious Taiko, who is known as the
Napoleon of Japan, undertook a great continental expedition, to show the
military glory of Japan before the world. He found Japan too small to
satisfy his immoderate ambition, and sent word to the emperor of China
and the king of Corea that if they would not hear him, he would invade
their territory with his invincible army. It was his plan to divide the
four hundred provinces of China and eight provinces of Corea among his
generals in fiefs, after conquering them. So he assembled his generals
and fired their enthusiasm, recounting their exploits mutually achieved.
All the generals and soldiers were delighted with the expedition. Fifty
thousand samurai were embarked for the continent and sixty thousand
reserve was kept ready in Japan as re-enforcement.
The Japanese army was everywhere victorious. After many battles fought
and fortresses stormed, the entire kingdom of Corea was subdued. The
capitol was taken, the king fled. The emperor of China sent an army
forward against the Japanese and a severe battle was fought. The
victorious Japanese were on the point of invading China, when in 1598,
the death of Taiko was announced and the Japanese government ordered the
invading army to return home. Peace was concluded. Thus the conquest of
China was frustrated.
The invasion of the Mongolian-Tartars is the most memorable event in
Japanese history, which excited the utmost patriotism and valour of the
nation. The dangers and glories at this time will never be forgotten by
the Japanese.
In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan, who is now identified as
Minamoto Yoshitsune or Gen Gi Kei in Japanese history, who left Japan
for Manchilia, began his sway of conquest in Mongolia. The conquest of
the whole earth was promised him. He vanquished China, Corea and the
whole of Central and Northern Asia, subjected India and overthrew the
Caliphate of Bagdad. In Europe, he made subject the entire dominion of
Russia and extended the Mongolian Empire as far as the Oder and the
Danube. After his death the Empire was divided among his three sons.
Kublai Khan received as his share North-eastern Asia. He had completely
overthrown the Sung dynasty of China and founded the Mongolian dynasty.
He placed the whole of Eastern Asia under his yoke, and then sent envoys
to Japan, demanding tributes and homage. The nation of Japan was
indignant at the insolent demand, for they were never accustomed to such
treatment, and dismissed them in disgrace. Six embassies were sent and
six times rejected. Again, the haughty Mongolian prince sent nine
envoys, who demanded a definite answer from the Japanese sovereign. The
Japanese reply was given by cutting off their heads.
At the sight of imminent foreign invasion, the Japanese were in a great
hurry to prepare for war. Once more, and for the last time, Chinese
envoys came to demand tribute; again the sword gave the answer. Enraged,
the great Mongolian prince prepared a gigantic armada to crush the
island of Japan, which had refused homage and tribute to the invincible
conqueror. The army, consisting of one hundred thousand Chinese and
Tartars and seven thousand Coreans, aided by thirty-five hundred of
armed navy, that seemed to cover the entire seas, sailed for the
invasion in August of 1281. The whole nation of Japan now roused with
sword in hand and marched against its formidable foe. Re-enforcements
poured in from all quarters to swell the host of defenders. The fierce
Mongolian force could not effect their landing, but were driven into the
sea as soon as they reached the shore. Aided by a mighty typhoon, before
which the Chinese armada was utterly helpless, the Japanese fiercely
attacked the invaders and after a bloody struggle, they succeeded in
destroying the enemy’s war ships, and killing all or driving them into
the sea to be drowned. The corpses were piled on the shore or floating
on the water so thickly that it seemed almost possible to walk thereon.
Only three out of hundreds of thousands of invaders, were sent back to
tell their emperor how the brave men of Japan had destroyed their
armada.
The courage of the Japanese is fully manifested in these great events.
Many ambitious men, seeking for military glory, have expatriated
themselves from their own native lands, and gone off to the less warlike
countries of Asia, where they found themselves by their distinguished
courage and military genius, kings, ministers and generals.
The Japanese seamen have long been renowned for their adventurous spirit
and audacity. Trading ships of Japan, in the remotest ancient age, are
said to have sailed around the Persian Gulf, beyond the Indian seas. It
is said that at the beginning of the fourteenth century a Japanese junk
had discovered the American Pacific sea-coast, now known as the regions
of Oregon and California. For a long time the Japanese pirates were the
mistress of all the eastern seas. China, Siam, Birmah and the southern
islands had paid tribute to them. The name of the Japanese was, indeed,
the terror of the Oriental world, just as the northmen had been the
object of dread to the southern Europeans.
A policy, that was adopted by the Japanese people in the seventeenth
century, was an injurious one for its national development. Up to this
time, foreign intercourse was free and commerce flourished. Nagasaki,
Hirado, Satsuma, and all western seaports were the cosmopolitan cities,
where all European and Asiatic tradesmen were found crowded.
Unfortunately these foreigners were sources of vice. The avarice and
extortion of the foreign traders; bitter sectarian strife between
Dominicans, Franciscans and the Jesuits; and the most cruel intolerance
and persecution by the Catholic people, which were vices unknown to the
Japanese mind; political-religious plots of the Christians against the
Japanese government; the slave trade carried on by the foreign
merchants, and the like events, disgusted the Japanese authority, and
forced them to believe the exclusion of the vicious foreigners was
absolutely necessary to the welfare of Japan. Thus the Japanese resolved
to expel all foreigners out of the islands. Tokugawa, the founder of Tai
Kun shogunate, vigorously enforced this principle and carried it so far
that all the Roman Catholics both native and foreign were extinguished
and all foreign merchants except a few Dutch, were expelled out of the
country. The policy of the Tokugawa Government not only excluded the
foreigners but also kept the natives at home. No foreigners (except the
Dutch) were allowed to peep in this forbidden land and no native was
permitted to leave his own country. Thus it was cut off from all the
rest of the world. Japan furnishes different varieties of productions,
which can amply supply all the needs of the nation without any
inconvenience; hence commercial intercourse with foreign lands, was not
absolutely necessary. In the course of time she had forgotten all about
the outside world and so the world neglected her.
The people, however, enjoyed a profound peace by this policy. Ignoring
the rise and fall of other nations, the people in this ocean guarded
paradise, cultivated arts and learning and developed their own
civilization, which is quite different from what we call now the
civilization of the nineteenth century. While thus she was enjoying
tranquility and cultivating the arts and learning in a secluded corner
of the earth, in the western nations, endless struggles and everlasting
contests completely revolutionized the old phases of the earth. The
peace and culture of two centuries and a half, which Japan has enjoyed,
exalted her to the certain state of civilization. But her isolated
condition and tranquility lacked the systematic development of army and
navy and the arts of international negotiation, which are the weapons
vitally important in order to stand on the field of struggle for
existence.
Suddenly this tranquility that has continued for two hundred and fifty
years, was broken, when in 1853, the war ships of Commodore Perry
appeared in the Bay of Yeddo. This event threw into great confusion and
panic the whole nation. Japan had no navy and no army to fight with the
foreign intruders, nor had she the art of diplomacy, with which to
consult in regard to the protection of Japan’s interest. Japan stood
then with her naked civilization against the armed civilization of
Europe. She was forced to make a disadvantageous treaty with the
European and American states at the cannon’s mouth. In this treaty she
conceded her sovereign right to the western people who live in the
realm.
Thus Japan entered, infamously, the group of the civilized world. She
saw at once that the western nations were far in advance of her in the
art of war and diplomacy, that they have learned from the constant
struggle of the past three centuries, while she was devoted to arts and
learning. She perceived that the so-called civilization of the 19th
century is but a disguised form of barbarism of iron and fire, covered
with comity and humanity, and that to exist in the field of struggle for
existence she must adopt the same means by which the European nations
stand. Hence the whole nation of Japan, since the intercourse with the
western people, has struggled, with the utmost energy, to adopt what is
called the 19th century civilization.
In 1868 a revolution took place, from which the New Japan suddenly
emanated. The French Revolution did not cause greater changes in France
than the Revolution of 1868 in Japan. The old feudal regime, in full
force, was cast away. The social system was completely reorganized. New
and enlightened criminal and civil codes were enacted; the modes of
judicial procedure were utterly revolutionized; the jail system
radically improved; the most effective organization of police, of posts,
of railways, of telegraphs, telephones and all means of communication
were adopted; enlightened methods of national education were employed;
and the Christian religion was welcomed for the sake of social
innovation. The most complete national system of navy and army, after
the modern European model, was achieved. The sound order of the imperial
government, financially and politically, were firmly established; the
most improved and extended scheme of local government was put into
operation, and the central government was organized according to the
pattern of the most advanced scale. The imperial constitution was
promulgated, and the Imperial Diet, consisting of two houses—the House
of Lords and House of Commons—elected by popular votes, was founded.
Freedom of thought, speech and faith was established; the system of an
influential press and party rapidly grew up. Now the monarchial
absolutism of the Mikado’s Empire is replaced by a government by
parliament and constitution.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF THE YALU.—Japanese Drawing.]
Such is the progress which Japan has achieved in the past twenty-five
years. This progress must not, by any means, be taken as strange. The
Revolution of 1868 also, must not be imagined as the birthday of the
Empire of the Rising Sun. Those who do not know the true condition of
the Japanese before the Revolution, and who observe superficially the
phases of modern Japan, have often said that the Japanese are merely
imitating western civilization without any idea of understanding it.
This a gross mistake. The Revolution of 1868 is merely a moment of
transition when Japan adopted the western system. The Japanese mind was
fully developed and enlightened, at the time when they came in contact
with foreigners, to fully grasp western civilization. Mentally, the
Japanese people were so enlightened as to be able to digest European
science and art at one glance. As a clever writer has said: “It must be
clearly understood that like a skillful gardener, who grafts a new rose
or an apple upon a healthy and well-established stock, so did Japan
adopt the scientific and civil achievement of the west to an eastern
root, full of vigorous life and latent force.” For these causes we have
no reason to wonder at the rapid progress which the Japanese have made
in the past twenty-five years. And by all these facts, we have no reason
to wonder how the colossal Celestial Empire, that was thought by the
Europeans invincible, came to ask the mercy of Japan.
The collision between Japan and China, though it was thought strange to
those who are not familiar to eastern affairs, is not a surprising
matter to the person well acquainted with Asiatic politics. Japan had
predicted, long ago, that the inevitable conflict of the two powers in
the Orient must come sooner or later, and the nation has been long
prepared for to-day. She has perceived the weakness and corruption of
the Celestial Empire, while the European diplomats were dazzled, in the
court of Peking, by an outward appearance of unity, power, and majesty
that the huge Middle Kingdom maintained for centuries. She knew quite
well that the lack of national spirit and effective system of
government, hatred of races, depravity of the officers, ignorance of the
people, corruption of naval and military organization and constant
maladministration of the Manchoorian government dominated the stupid
empire, whose people still proudly style their country the “Flowery
Kingdom, in the Enlightened Earth.”
The Japanese, as they are polite and artistic, are by no means a
blood-thirsty race; nay, far from that. But the present war is in an
inevitable chain of circumstances. For a long time the Japanese and
Chinese were not good friends, they hated each other, as much, if not
more than the French and the Germans do to-day.
Since Japan came in contact with the Europeans, she adopted, with the
most marvelous activity, the western methods which have completely
revolutionized the nation in a quarter of a century, while China
maintained her regime and looked upon all western arts and science with
utmost hatred and contempt. So she regarded Japan as the traitor of
Asia. Naturally Japan represented the civilization and progress in the
far east; and China ultra-conservatism. It was long expected that the
collision of these two antagonistic principles must come. And so it has
now come.
Moreover, the goal of Japan was, as the leading spirit of Asia, to exalt
herself among the first-class powers of the civilized world. But China,
up to a very short time ago, pretended to be the mistress of Asia. Thus
they envied each other, and conflict of the two powers for supremacy
became inevitable. The first collision between Japan and China came in
1874, with the question of the Liu Kiu Islands, which China abandoned
for Japan, then the Formosa expedition provoked serious trouble between
the two countries. In both cases Japan came off successful in the end.
Again there were collisions in Corea, just as Rome and Carthage met in
Sicily. Corea has for a long time, paid tribute both to Japan and China,
yet neither had any definite sovereign right over Corea, but mere
suzerain powers. In 1875, the Japanese government abandoned all her
ancient, traditional suzerain rights in Corea, and concluded a treaty
which recognized Corea as an independent State, enjoying the same
sovereign powers as Japan. Soon after, the United States, England,
France, Germany and Russia followed Japan’s example. This friendly act
of Japan by which she introduced Corea as an independent State among
civilized nations, was a terrible blow to China, who still had the
intention of claiming her traditional suzerainty over Corea. It must be
remembered that the permanent neutrality of the Hermit Kingdom is of
vital importance to the prosperity and safety of the country of the
Rising Sun. It is evident from this point of view that Japan can never
permit the Chinese claim of suzerainty, nor Russian aggression in Corea.
From the time that Japan recognized Corea as an independent nation, she
made great efforts for the progress of Corea. Many Corean students were
educated and many Japanese, sent there as instructors and as advisors,
assisted the advancement of her civilization. Japan has never failed to
show her friendly sympathy towards Corea, for the progress and welfare
of Corea as a firm independent state, has great bearing upon Asiatic
civilization, and upon the safety of Japan itself.
While Japan was using her best efforts as the sincere friend of Corea,
China constantly and secretly intrigued with the Corean government and
the conservatives, in order to restore her old suzerainty and to
annihilate Japan’s influence in Corea. In 1882, an insurrection,
instigated by the Chinese officers, broke out in Seoul. It was directed
chiefly against the Japanese, as the promoters of foreign intercourse.
The mob attacked the Japanese legation and several members were
murdered. The Japanese minister and his staff escaped to the palace to
find refuge, but found there the gates were shut against them, then they
were obliged to cut their way through the mob and run all night to
Chemulpo, where they were rescued by an English boat and returned to
Japan. The insurrection was suppressed by a Chinese force and a number
of the leaders were executed. The Corean government consented to pay a
sum of $500,000 as indemnity, but this was subsequently forgiven to
Corea in consequence of inability to pay it. There were already existing
in Corea two parties, that is, the progressive and the conservative. The
former party represented civilized elements and the spirit of Japan,
while the latter represented the majority of the officers and it was
supported by the Chinese government. These two parties were bitter
enemies and struggled for supremacy.
Since the rebellion of 1882, Chinese influence in Corea rapidly
increased, consequently the conservative spirit predominated. Two years
later, the leaders of the progressive party undertook a bold attempt
when they saw that their party influence was waning. During a dinner
party to celebrate the opening of the new post-office, a plan was made
to murder all the conservative leaders who had dominant influence in the
government. They partly succeeded in the attempt. The revolutionary
leaders proceeded to the palace, secured the person and the sympathy of
the king, who sent an autograph letter to ask the Japanese minister for
the protection of the royal palace. Thereon, the Japanese minister
guarded the palace for a few days with his legation guard of one hundred
and thirty Japanese soldiers. In the meantime the Chinese force in
Seoul, two thousand in number proceeded to the palace, and without any
negotiation or explanation fired upon the Japanese guard. The king fled
to the Chinese army and the Japanese retired to the palace of their
legation which they found surrounded by the Chinese army. They abandoned
the spot, finding it impossible to maintain the legation without any
provisions, fought their way to Chemulpo, where they found their way to
Japan. Many Japanese were killed in this event. The Japanese government
demanded satisfaction from China on account of the action of the Chinese
soldiers. The convention of Tien-tsin, after long negotiation between
Count Ito, the present premier of Japan and Li Hung Chang, the viceroy
of China, was concluded. The main points of the Tien-tsin treaty were
three: (1) that the king of Corea should provide a sufficient force to
maintain order in future, to be trained by officers of some nation other
than China or Japan; (2) that certain internal reforms should be made;
(3) that if necessary to preserve order and protect their nations either
Japan or China should have the right to dispatch troops to Corea, on
giving notice each to the other, and that when order was restored both
forces should be withdrawn simultaneously.
The event of 1885 completely extinguished the Japanese influence and
established the Chinese authority in Corea. The Chinese minister in
Seoul got complete possession of the Corean government, entirely crushed
the revolutionary party and organized an ultra-conservative government
and appointed ministers at his will. Japan’s influence in Corea has been
almost nill during the past ten years, for she has been very busy with
her internal reorganization and has not had much time to look after
Corea.
[Illustration: THE FIGHT AT PING-YANG.]
Two prominent leaders of the revolutionary party fled to Japan on
account of the failure of the coup d'état of 1885, where they found
their asylum. The Chinese and Corean governments dispatched missions to
demand the extradition of these unfortunate political reformers, but
Japan was firm in her refusal, on the ground of the ethics of
international law. The Corean government, sanctioned by that of China,
at once began to take measures to effect the removal of these ruined
leaders by other processes. Official assassins followed their footsteps
for ten years in vain. But at last they succeeded in murdering
Kim-ok-Kiun, one of those reformers, and most barbarous cruelties were
committed by the Chinese and Corean authorities. The murder of
Kim-ok-Kiun excited great sympathy from the Japanese public. Many a time
China and Corea cast disdain and contempt upon Japan’s name. Many a time
the political and commercial interest of Japan were impaired by them.
Yet Japan forgave their insolence with generous heart.
The progress of the late rebellion in Corea was beyond her power to
check. A state of perpetual anarchy seemed to prevail. Insolent China
seemed to be using the Corean mobs for her own advantage, and directly
against Japan’s interests. China, ignoring the treaty of Tien-tsin in
1885, sent troops to Corea. Japan no longer lightly viewed China’s
insolence and Corean disorder.
Japan’s ardent need to take a decided step in Corea, at this moment
seemed a more cogent one in the commercial point of view than her
political interest. The greater part of the modern trade of Corea has
been created by Japan and is in the hands of her merchants; the net
value of Corean direct foreign trade for 1892 and 1893 together was
$4,240,498 with China, while $8,306,571 with Japan. Hence the interest
of Japan is twice that of China. In tonnage of shipping the proportion
is vastly greater in favor of Japan. Her tonnage in 1893 was over twenty
times that of China, as the exact figures show: tonnage—China, 14,376;
Japan, 304,224. Thus Japan’s economic interests in Corea are decidedly
greater than any other nation’s.
Immediately after China sent troops to Corea, Japan, also, sent her
force, to preserve her political as well as economic interests, and
determined not to draw back her troops until Corea should restore the
sound order of society and wipe out the Chinese claim of Corean
suzer
|
osculamur) ut nostram
inquietudinem et longam perturbationem animadvertat auxiliumque
cum hoc nostro ambasciatore mittatur quo poterimus confringere
audaciam adversariorum Christi Ecclesiae. Expediret denique ut V.
Sanctitas auctoritatem nuncii in negotiis ecclesiasticis mitteret
ad Laonensem Episcopum et potissimum ut ipsi liceat pontificalia
officia exercere ubicumque se invenerit cum licentia ordinarii;
vir enim spectatae vitae et virtutis magnaeque spei apud omnes
est, huicque causae addictissimus, ac fidelissimus.
"Datum in Castris Catholicorum in Hibernia,
die 1 Septembris, 1582.
"Sanctitatis Vae. addictissimus servus,
"GEROL DESMOND".
Two months later the second letter was addressed to the same great
pontiff:
"SANCTISSIME PATER,
"Accepimus a presbytero Hiberno Sanctitatis vestrae litteras per
Cardinalem Comensem datas Romae 6to Augusti, quibus nobis patuit
Sanctitatis Vestrae propensissimus animus, curaque vigilantissima
nedum erga nos sed etiam erga salutem totius Regni Hiberniae, adeo
ut ad ejus voluntatem in hoc nihil addi potest, quam pollicetur
nos reipsa experturos supernâ elementia opitulante. Quod vero
commissum erat latori qui tulerit litteras ut spem nobis augeat ac
ut in negotio hoc sancto persistamus pedefixo, suo muneri in hoc
satisfecit. Intelligat V. Sanctitas quod quamquam nos omnia pene
temporalia in hoc bello, fidei defensionis causa, amisimus, et
quod multo vehementius nos angit in conflictibus contra Anglos
Ecclesiae feroces hostes nostrum consobrinum D. Jacobum Geraldinum
cum nostris postremo fratribus D. Joanne et Jacobo ac nonnullis
aliis ex nostra domo qui successive in hoc bello occubuere,
nihilominus tamen in hac Dei et Sanctitatis Vestrae causa
immobilis permaneo, superni Dei optimi maximi ac Sanctitatis
vestrae praestolaturus auxilium quo possem severos Ecclesiae
hostes propellere ex Regno, illiusque integrum statum legibus
sanctae matris Ecclesiae subjicere; proinde V. Sanctitas
quemadmodum in ea omnem spem habemus non differat nos juvare et
quod reliquum erit cum Rege Catholico ferventissime et quam
citissime agere ut auxilium jam nobis mittatur plenum et
sufficiens quo finem huic rei intentae imponamus.
"Ad sollicitandum istud negotium, mense Septembri praeterito
misimus nostrum ambasciatorem Epum. Laonensem ad S. Vestram et ad
Regem Catholicum quem plurimi faciat V. Sanctitas omnem fidem illi
praebendo in omnibus rebus attinentibus ad nos et ad universum
statum illius belli; post cujus discessum ducentos Anglos in uno
conflictu interfecimus, ea enim quae Deus operatus est per nos
contra Anglos ante ejus discessum, autumo illum S. Sanctitati
aperuisse: expediret denique omnino ut cum hoc subsidio postulato
veniat aliquis Nuncii auctoritatem habens inter nos, qui judicio
omnium censendus esset Laonensis, ad quem S. Sanctitas dignetur
etiam harum responsum dirigere ut via sibi cognita nos mox
certiores reddat. Vivat V. Sanctitas nobis in multos annos.
"Ex Castris Catholicorum in Hibernia,
die 6to Novembris, 1582.
"GEROL DESMOND".
A third letter, dated 18th June in the following year, repeats the same
sentiments of devoted attachment to the Holy See, and petitions that the
lands of the deceased James Geraldine should be granted to his son,
Gerald. It thus concludes:
"Litteras vero super praedictas terras confectas, V. Sanctitas
dignetur mittere per Nuntium Apostolicum Hispaniarum ad nostrum
Ambasciatorem Cornelium Episcopum Laonensem cui cupimus ut V.
Sanctitas fidem in omnibus adhibeat, eumque fretum auctoritate
Nuntii cum subsidio mittendo ad nos dignetur mittere, quia aliis
palmam praeripit, quibus hoc esset concedendum. Valeat ac vivat V.
Sanctitas in Nestoreos annos.
"Ex Castris Catholicorum in Hybernia, 18 Junii.
"Stis. Vae. servus addictissimus prout opera ipsa comprobant
contra adversarios hostesque ecclesiae.
"DESMOND".
In the Vatican archives is also preserved a series of letters of our
bishop Cornelius, addressed to Rome in the years 1582, 1583, and 1584.
They are all connected with the diplomatic mission which he received from
the Geraldine princes, and some of them throw considerable light on the
contemporary civil and ecclesiastical history of our island.
Before, however, we present them to the reader, we deem it necessary to
remark that the relations of our bishops and of the Holy See with the
native princes during the wars of Elizabeth's reign have often been
misconstrued, in the writings of those who were led away by the frenzy of
political agitation. The Irish chieftains had at this period the title and
privileges of independent princes; and as such they were entitled to
defend with the sword those religious and civil rights which the
government of Elizabeth attempted to destroy. Hence, their struggle
merited the sympathy of the Holy See and the blessing of our
martyr-clergy. But far more distant than heaven is from earth were the
chivalry of James Fitzmaurice and the heroism of Hugh O'Neill from that
accursed Fenian blight which, alas! has now-a-days fallen upon some of our
benighted and deluded countrymen!
We give these letters in chronological order, and in their original
language, that thus our readers may be the better able to appreciate the
sentiments of this distinguished bishop of Killaloe.
1. The first letter is dated Lisbon, 22nd September, 1582, and was
addressed to his Eminence Cardinal de Como:--
"ILLUSTRISSIME DOMINE,
"Litteras comitis Desmoniae Generalis Catholicorum in Hibernia cum
nostris litteris mittimus ad suam Sanctitatem ex quibus sua
Dignatio Illustrissima plenius intelligat negotium, operamque det,
quaeso, ut huic sanctissimae caussae jam tandem subveniatur:
alioquin actum erit de comite Desmoniae caeterisque Catholicis qui
arma elevarunt fidei defensionis causâ, patriaque illa Hibernia
impiâ potestate reginae maledictae Angliae omnino subjiciatur. Sua
Dignatis Illustrissima dignetur responsum illarum litterarum suae
Sanctitatis per Nuntium Apostolicum Hispaniarum ad nos mittere.
Caeterum talis clausula habetur in mea Bulla quod extra meum
episcopatum etiam cum licentia ordinarii non possem exercere
pontificalia. Proinde rogo suam Dominationem Illmam. ut dignetur
alloqui ea de re Suam Sanctitatem, mihique hinc oris oraculo vel
in scriptis impetrare ut possim cum licentia ordinarii exercere
pontificalia, multum enim hoc proderit. Valeat sua dominatio
Illustrissima in Christo Jesu.
"Ex Ulissipona 22 mensis Sept., 1582.
"Illustrissimae Dominationis vestrae,
"addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
2. The second letter is addressed to Pope Gregory XIII., from Madrid, the
4th December, 1582:
"BEATISSIME PATER,
"Cum primum appuleram Ulissiponam ex Hibernia, scripsi Suae
Sanctitati omnem statum totius istius negotii Hiberniae
litterasque comitis Desmoniae Generalis Catholicorum per Nuntium
Apostolicum Hispaniarum suae Sanctitati misi. Tandem usque modo
omni diligentia egi cum rege Catholico, ut negotio subveniret:
hanc resolutionem jam recepi, usque quod sua Majestas sit parata
ut subveniat ac quod in Lusitania habet milites paratos ad
expeditionem istius negotii, et quod istud cum sit negotium
sanctae matris Ecclesiae et fidei restituendae in Hibernia,
necesse esse, ut Vestra Sanctitas juvet atque subveniat, et istud
subsidium quod exigitur est pecuniarum ut praedictis militibus
stipendia solvantur. Tandem jussum est ut ego conferrem me
Madritium ut cum Nuntio Apostolico et Cardinali Granvelano agerem
ut ipsi cum Sua Sanctitate solertes agant, ut Sua Sanctitas
ordinet quibus mediis et quo ordine hoc fiat: quare cum istud
negotium sit positum in sinu Sanctitatis Vestrae, atque ab ipso
omnino emanat, rogo atque obtestor S. Sanctitatem ut dignetur
subvenire, ordinemque praescribere, ut pecuniae in subsidium et ad
expeditionem istius negotii dentur ut militibus stipendia
solvantur, digneturque cum sua Majestate agere ut videlicet sine
dilatione incipiat vel cum ipsa postulat, ut non differatur,
alioquin actum erit de statu totius regni Hiberniae et scintilla
fidei quae illic adhuc remanet omnino extinguetur, illudque Regnum
quod semper in gremio sanctae matris Ecclesiae quievit et floruit
omnino subjicietur impiae potestati Reginae maledictae Angliae.
Comes enim Desmoniae postquam perdidit in hoc bello suos fratres
germanos cum nonnullis nobilibus ex sua domo, ingenue fatetur se
non posse amplius sustinere istud bellum sine subsidio sibi
pollicito: est igitur illi cito subveniendum antequam viribus
omnino enervetur. Vestra Sanctitas recordetur hanc caussam esse
suam, fidei et sanctae matris ecclesiae, et Hibernorum qui semper
vere filii Sedis Apostolicae sunt, et potissimum comitis Desmoniae
qui omnia sua omnemque suum statum periculo semper perdendi
exposuit fidei defensionis causâ. Valeat et vivat Sanctitas Vestra
in Nestoreos annos.
"Madritii, quarto die mensis Decembris 1582.
"Sanctitatis V. humilis filius et addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
3. The letter to the Holy Father was accompanied by another short letter
addressed to the _Cardinalis Comensis_ as follows:
"ILLUSTRISSIME DOMINE,
"In litteris Suae Sanctitatis poteris videre responsum regis
Catholici: respondet enim se habere milites in Lusitania ad
expeditionem nostri negotii Hiberniae, sed necesse esse ut Sua
Sanctitas subministret pecunias ut parti militum stipendia
solvantur. Proinde cum regis ordine veni Ulissipona Madritium ut
satagerem cum Nuntio Apostolico et Cardinali Granvelano, et hoc
Suae Sanctitati detegatur ut cum ejus ordine et subsidio res
incipiatur; demonstrat enim rex nobis se promptissimum esse ut jam
subveniat. Cum igitur istud negotium omnino emanet a
sollicitatione Dominationis suae Illmae. tum cum Sua Sanctitate,
tum etiam cum Rege Catholico, rogo atque obtestor suam
Dominationem Illmam. ut omni diligentia agat, ut non differatur
istud subsidium mittere ad illos nobiles qui toto hoc triennio
elapso istud exspectant quique omnia sua fidei defensionis causa
perdiderunt....
"Ex Madritio 4 Decemb., 1582.
"Illustrissimae ac Reverendissimae Dominationis Vestrae,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
4. On the 26th of May, the following year, the next letter was addressed
from Madrid to the same cardinal:
"ILLUSTRISSIME AC REVERENDISSIME DOMINE,
"Accepi suae Dominationis Illustrissimae litteras datas Romae die
4 Januarii quibus hactenus distuli respondere donec ultimam
resolutionem a sua Majestate Catholica reciperem, quam suae
Dominationi Illustrissimae significare censui ut eam detegat Suae
Sanctitati. Quae quidem est haec, nempe quod sua Majestas sit
impedita donec videat exitum classis euntis in insulas Tertiae, et
ea ratione ducebatur ut me detineret quia comes Desmoniae scripsit
ad suam Majestatem quod si in meo adventu (in quem tum ipse tum
caeteri nobiles tantum confiderunt) istud negotium Hiberniae non
haberet prosperum successum, statim sisteret gradum gerendi
bellum, inducias foedusque componeret cum regina maledicta
Angliae. Jam vero ad nutriendum interim bellum in Hibernia, sua
Majestas Catholica praestitit nobis magnam summam pecuniarum,
armorum et victualium cum quibus ego hinc proficiscor ad portum
maris ut illa necessaria sine dilatione et cum omni diligentia
illinc transmittam ad comitem Desmoniae. Restat jam ut Sua
Sanctitas persaepe commendet istud negotium Hiberniae suae
Majestati Catholicae ut finito negotio praedictae insulae statim
negotium nostrum incipiat.
"Caeterum secretarius suae Majestatis Catholicae rogat me ut
exerceam Pontificalia in quodam episcopatu hîc cum certa pensione
donec sua Majestas parata erit ad mittendam classem in Hiberniam
gratumque hoc esse, minusque fastidiosum regi affirmat qui tantis
oneribus sumptibusque premitur. Jam in superioribus litteris petii
facultatem exercendi pontificalia et de hoc jam recepi responsum
Suae Sanctitatis per suam Dominationem Illustrissimam videlicet
Suam Sanctitatem dixisse hoc adversari decretis concilii
Tridentini et propterea nullatenus posse concedi. Intelligat Sua
Sanctitas hanc clausulam non esse positam in mea Bulla propter
meam culpam, neque etiam esse positam in Bullis Episcoporum
Hibernorum post me creatorum qui nihil perpessi sunt in hoc bello
Hibernico, quemadmodum ego perpessus sum nullaque praeclara
facinora ediderant quemadmodum longe lateque constat me edidisse,
nobilesque Hibernos esse valde offensos quando dicebam, in campo
me non posse exercere pontificalia extra meum episcopatum etiam
cum licentia ordinariorum loci. Proinde sua Dominatio
Illustrissima rogabit Suam Sanctitatem ut dignetur in praemium
laborum susceptorum et suscipiendorum in hoc bello Hibernico mihi
vivae vocis oraculo vel in scriptis concedere facultatem exercendi
pontificalia, et hîc interim quoad rex me detineat, cum licentia
ordinariorum, vel, sede vacante, jussu regis et in Hibernia eodem
modo et ubi non sunt Episcopi Catholici, jussu comitis Desmoniae
generalis Catholicorum possem similiter exercere pontificalia,
servatis servandis a jure et a sacro concilio Tridentino, contra
quod aliquid moliri illicitum esse semper duxi. Quare obtestor
suam Dominationem Illustrissimam ut statim et sine dilatione
dignetur de hoc agere cum Sua Sanctitate, hancque licentiam mihi
mittere per Nuncium Apostolicum Hispaniarum, hocque intelligat non
minus gratum esse regi quam comiti Desmoniae, aliisque nobilibus
ejus partem tuentibus in Hibernia. Christus Jesus suam
Dominationem Illustrissimam perquam diutissime nobis sospitem
conservet.
"Madritii, die 26 Maii, 1583.
"Illustrissimae Dominationis Suae,
"addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
5. Six weeks later, the Bishop of Killaloe again writes to the Cardinal de
Como, acquainting him with the measures taken by the Spanish monarch:
"ILLUSTRISSIME AC REVERENDISSIME DOMINE,
"Quamquam ternas ante has de eadem scripsi tibi litteras
superioribus diebus, tamen ne forte ad ejus manus minime
devenerint, censui rursus has tibi scribere litteras ut intelligat
regem Catholicum mihi respondisse impossibile esse jam classem
mitti in Hiberniam antequam sua Majestas intelligat exitum classis
quae jam proficiscitur ad insulas Tertiae contra Dominum Antonium.
Interim tamen ut bellum facilius sustentetur, in Hibernia
praestitit mihi subsidium pecuniarum, armorum et victualium
transmittendum mox in Hiberniam ad comitem Desmoniae; quorum
omnium causa et ex mandato regio in hoc portu permaneo, donec
praedicta omnia mittam ad Hiberniam quod spero fiet propediem cum
nihil aliud praestolatur nisi ventus prosperus. Interea Rex
Catholicus jussit ut pensio mihi assignaretur qua honeste
potuissem me sustentare super Episcopatu Tigitanensi, interimque
classis praeparabitur, cujus proprius pastor oblitus sui status se
junxit Domino Antonio contra Regem Catholicum...
"Ex portu de Scetufill, 5 Julii, 1583".
6. The next letter is dated from Lisbon, the 1st August, 1583, and is
addressed to the Holy Father Gregory XIII.:
"SANCTISSIME PATER,
"Comes Desmoniae generalis Catholicorum ferventer scripsit ad me
superioribus diebus ut cum Sua Sanctitate agerem ut dignaretur per
Bullam authenticam vel per Breve Apostolicum concedere terras
possessionesque illorum qui interfecerunt Dominum Jacobum
Geraldinum generalem vestrae Sanctitatis in Hibernia, Geraldo
Geraldino filio praedicti D. Jacobi ut ipsi Geraldini vehementius
habeant ansam inserviendi Sedi Apostolicae atque Suae Sanctitati,
ac ut adversarii hoc concedendo terreantur ne Sedem Apostolicam
impugnent neve istius Sedis Sanctissimae sint adversarii inter nos
qui Anglis faveant atque opitulentur posthac quemadmodum hactenus.
Quocirca nonnihil conducet negotio atque ad augmentationem fidei
in Hibernia ut Sua Sanctitas consideret servitium Geraldinorum et
potissimum Jacobi Gerald generalis Vestrae Sanctitatis et istius
postremo comitis Desmoniae qui totis viribus impugnat maledictam
reginam ejusque fautores quique progressus felices ipsam
impugnando hactenus habuit. Proinde in praemium horum omnium
Vestra Sanctitas dignetur concedere litteras atque possessiones
istorum qui interfecerunt D. Jacobum Geraldinum, Domino Geraldo
Geraldino filio praedicti D. Jacobi Generalis Vestrae Sanctitatis
prout comes Desmoniae Suae Sanctitati fusissime scripsit: quod si
fecerit Sua Sanctitas rem gratissimam comiti factura sit
coeterosque pene nobiles Hibernos concitabit ut sibi Sedique
Apostolicae inserviant, domumque Geraldinorum semper sibi
addictissimam et promptissimam experietur. Christus Jesus Suam
Sanctitatem nobis sospitem conservet in multos annos.
"Ex Ulissipona, 1 Augusti, 1583.
"Sanctitatis Vestrae,
"filius atque addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
7. The seventh letter is addressed from Lisbon on 26th Nov. 1583, to
Cardinal de Como:
"Persaepe hactenus egi litteris cum Sua Sanctitate atque
praesentia et verbo cum sua Majestate Catholica ut omnia tandem
dignentur subvenire Regno Hiberniae misere hactenus desolato. Sed
cum jam tempus adest subveniendi, censui rogare suam Dominationem
Illustrissimam ut dignetur agere cum Sua Sanctitate, ut cum Rege
Catholico agat, ut haec classis quae revertitur ex insula Tertiae
transmittatur ad Hiberniam, qua transmissa Hibernia legibus
sanctae matris ecclesiae atque Anglia propediem subjicietur.
Denique haec erit proximior via qua sua Majestas habebit Flandriam
quietam sibique subjectam....
"Valeat Dominus meus Illustrissimus, in Christo Jesu.
"Ex Ulissipona, 26 Novemb., 1583.
"Dominationis Suae Illustrissimae,
"addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
8. Three months later another letter was addressed to the same cardinal,
conveying the sad intelligence of the assassination of the Earl of
Desmond:
"ILLUSTRISSIME DOMINE,
"Suam Dominationem Illustrissimam certiorem reddere censui de hoc
negotio Hiberniae ut Suam Sanctitatem dignetur de illo informare.
Imprimis intelligat Illustrissimus Dominus, Geraldum Comitem
Desmoniae generalem Catholicorum qui erat caput istius belli
Hibernici occubuisse nuperrime et traditorie in bello, ejusque
caput post ejus mortem a nefariis Anglis erat abscissum et
transmissum ex Hibernia ad maledictam Angliae nominatam reginam.
Tristissima ac longe moestissima nova nobis sunt ista ac prorsus
de reductione Hiberniae ad fidem principia desperandi, nisi S.
Sanctitas mox manus adjutrices porrigat, tum subveniendo militibus
aut pecuniis, tum etiam scribendo quam effectuosissime ad suam
Majestatem Catholicam, ut non differat jam mittere classem ad
Hiberniam, qua transmissa universa Hibernia legibus sanctae matris
Ecclesiae subjicietur eritque etiam principium et solidum
fundamentum reductionis Angliae ad fidem: quod si hoc non fiet mox
antequam Regina maledicta iniquis suis legibus subjiciat sibi
regnum cum non sit aliquis principalis qui resistat, actum erit de
toto negotio et scintilla fidei quae huc usque illic viguit omnino
extinguetur, eritque Hibernia non secus quam Anglia referta
iniquis legibus maledictae Reginae....
"Ex Ulissipona, 13 Februarii, 1584.
"Illustrissimae Dominationis Vestrae,
"addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
IX. On the 7th of September, 1584, our Bishop again writes to His
Eminence:--
"ILLUSTRISSIME DOMINE,
"Hactenus praestolabar cupidissimo animo profectionem classis Suae
Sanctitatis ac majestatis Catholicae in Hiberniam quod cum mihi in
mandatis a magnatibus Hiberniae et potissimum a Comite Desmoniae
incumbebat, ut hoc sollicitarem, officio non defui hactenus ut
probe novit Sua Dominatio Illustrissima. Jam vero cum praedictus
comes Desmoniae generalis Catholicorum sit interfectus in bello
neminemque alium moliri bellum in Hibernia post ejus mortem,
quinimo omnes obtemperant Reginae, comperio negotium esse tepidum
frigidumque, ac proinde censui oratum iri suam Dominem.
Illustrissimam ut dignetur alloqui Suam Sanctitatem, erga meam
penuriam et necessitatem rerum necessariarum, ob id quod nihil ex
propriis reditibus recipio, et cum Sua Sanctitate satagere ut
aliquid mihi quolibet mense vel annue subministretur per
collectorem Apostolicum commorantem Ulissiponae, ubi cupio
commorari prope nova Hiberniae, donec co classis mittatur aut
Regina moriatur, quia sine una aut altera nequeo adire
Hiberniam....
"Ulissiponae, 7 Septembris, 1584.
"Sua Dominatio Illustrissima dignetur favere Roberto Laseo
Cancellario Limericensi qui nedum est vir probus ac generosus sed
etiam quam multa perdidit in bello praeterito Hibernico cum Comite
Desmoniae.
"Illustrissimae ac Reverendissimae Dom. V.
"addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
X. Another letter was addressed to the Pope on the same day:
"BEATISSIME PATER,
"Postquam in campo Catholicorum cum comite Desmoniae, caeterisque
nobilibus Regni Hiberniae solus episcopus tribus annis manseram
labores improbos sustinens praedicando, admonendo et imperando
quae expediebant saluti hominum progressuique belli contra
rabidissimos ferocesque ecclesiae hostes Anglos, nihilque interim
recipiens ex proprio Episcopatu, cujus redditus percipiuntur a
quodam haeretico nominato Episcopo qui illic residet ex parte
Reginae maladictae Angliae, me tandem contuli ad has partes jussu
comitis Desmoniae Generalis Catholicorum caeterorumque nobilium
sibi adhaerentium ut officio Ambasciatoris fungerer, nedum cum Sua
Sanctitate sed etiam cum sua Majestate Catholica ut dignaretur
sibi mittere classem vel saltem mediocre subsidium quo bellum
feliciter incoeptum ad optatum finem deduceret, quemadmodum ipse
comes suis litteris adhuc vivens persaepe detexit Suae Sanctitati.
Ego hactenus saepissime egi cum sua Majestate sed subsidium illud
exiguum quod extorsi a sua Majestate adeo dilatum erat ut comes
Desmoniae viam universae carnis ingrederetur in bello, antequam
navicula illa cum armis illis et pecuniis Hiberniam appulerat,
unde rediit cum eodem subsidio ad ministros suae Majestatis
Ulissiponam. Porro post mortem praedicti comitis Desmoniae nullus
est in Hibernia qui agit bellum contra Reginam neque autumo fore
postquam viderant comitem Desmoniae se suumque statum exspectando
subsidium tanto tempore, ne se suumque statum similiter, deperdant
quin potius tota Hibernia obtemperet Reginae. Proinde opus non
erit posthac subsidio mediocri sed classi: quod Sua Sanctitas
dignetur agere cum sua Majestate. Quod si transmittatur, statim
universa Hibernia atque postmodum Anglia legibus sanctae matris
ecclesiae subjicietur; brevior, aptiorque haec via quoque erit ut
Rex Catholicus habeat Flandriam quietam sibique subjectam.
"Ulissiponae, 7 Sept., 1584.
"Sanctitatis V. filius,
"atque addictissimus servus,
"CORNELIUS LAONENSIS Episcopus".
XI. The last and most important of Dr. O'Melrian's letters is dated the
29th October, 1584. It is addressed to Cardinal de Como, and besides many
particulars connected with the Archbishops of Cashel and Tuam, and the
Bishops of Emly, Ferns, Ossory, Ross, and Limerick, we also gather from it
that our bishop, before his promotion to Killaloe, had held some other
see, probably that of Kilmacduagh:
"ILLUSTRISSIME DOMINE,
"Decem sunt anni elapsi ex quo Sua Sanctitas me creavit Episcopum:
tamen postquam me contuli ad Hiberniam nullum ingressum habui ad
meum Episcopatum qui occupatus a quodam Pseudo-Episcopo Reginae
qui dumtaxat colligit reditus, minime gerens curam animarum,
totoque hoc tempore neque ingressum unius diei in Episcopatum,
neque obolum ex meis redditibus potui habere neque spero me
habiturum nisi post mortem Reginae, aut nisi classis a S.
Sanctitate et Majestate Catholica mittatur cum qua eo irem. Itaque
hactenus cum Comite Desmoniae caeterisque nobilibus sibi
adhaerentibus mansi in Hibernia in castris Catholicorum, me
praebens ut decuit praeclarum exemplar omnium virtutum improbos
labores et inediam sustinens, praedicando, exhortando, admonendo,
severitatem aliquoties cum lenitate adhibendo in corrigendis
vitiis, et persuadendo semper quae expediebant saluti hominum
progressuique belli contra rabidissimos atque feroces Ecclesiae
hostes Anglos. Placuit tandem comiti Desmoniae generali
Catholicorum, caeterisque proceribus me mittere huc, fretum
auctoritate Ambasciatoris ut cum Sua Sanctitate atque Majestate
Catholica agerem de classe vel subsidio mittendo ad Hiberniam quod
cum omni diligentia cum Sua Sanctitate litteris egi ut probe novit
sua Dominatio Illma.; verbo voce et praesentia egi cum sua
Majestate Catholica vixque extorsi naviculam unam cum armis et
pecuniis, quae antequam appulerat Hiberniam, repererat comitem
Desmoniae interfectum esse in bello, caeterosque suos dilapsos
esse adeo ut mentio belli minime habebatur: tunc rursum idem
subsidium rediit huc, quod ego integrum restitui ministris suae
Majestatis Catholicae. Jam nihilominus solerter ago cum sua
Majestate ut dignetur classem vel saltem subsidium mediocre
mittere ad Hiberniam cum Domino Mauritio Geraldino consobrino
comitis Desmoniae qui his diebus causâ implorandi subsidium tum a
S. Sanctitate tum a Rege Catholico evolavit ex Hibernia huc.
Vehementer etiam rogo suam Dominationem Illustrissimam ut dignetur
agere cum Sua Sanctitate ut hinc subveniatur ac ut S. Sanctitas
mox dignetur ea de re agere cum sua Majestate; quia iste est vir
strenuus, nobilis et expertissimus in rebus bellicis, qui in bello
hoc praeterito comitis Desmoniae nonnullas victorias principales
habuit contra Anglos: Sua enim Sanctitas plurimum tenetur
Geraldinis qui se suumque statum exposuer
|
last.
JEANNE. One moment, please, pay me first! (_She counts on her fingers_)
Madame de Céran, one; her son Roger, two; Miss Lucy, three; the two
Saint-Réault; one Bellac, one Loudan and one Arriégo, that makes eight!
(_She puts her cheek up to be kissed_)
PAUL. Eight what?
JEANNE. Eight “somethings“—pay.
PAUL. _What_ a child! There, there, there! (_He kisses her_)
JEANNE. Not so fast: retail, if you please.
PAUL. (_After having kissed her more slowly_) There, does that satisfy
you?
JEANNE. For the present. Now, let’s have the two who are not serious!
PAUL. First, the Duchesse de Réville, the aunt, a handsome old lady who
was a beauty in her day——
JEANNE. (_Questioningly_) Hmm?
PAUL. So they say! A bit brusque and direct—but an excellent lady and
very sensible—as you’ll see. But last and best, Suzanne de Villiers!
She, is not at all serious—it’s a fault with her.
JEANNE. At last, somebody who’s frivolous, thank Heaven!
PAUL. Girl of eighteen, a tom-boy, chatter-box, free with her tongue
and her manners—with a life-history that reads like a novel.
JEANNE. Umm! Lovely, let’s hear it!
PAUL. She’s the daughter of a certain widow—
JEANNE. Yes?
PAUL. Well? Daughter of a widow—and that ass Georges de Villiers,
another nephew of the Duchess; she adored him. A natural child.
JEANNE. Natural? How lovely!
PAUL. The mother and father are dead. The child was left an orphan at
the age of twelve with a princely heritage and an education to match.
Georges taught her Javanese. The Duchess, who adores her, brought her
into the home of Madame de Céran, who detests her, and gave her Roger
for a tutor. They tried their best to keep her in a convent, but she
ran away twice; they sent her back a third time and—here she is again!
Imagine that state of affairs! And that’s the end of the story—good,
isn’t it?
JEANNE. So good that you needn’t pay me the two kisses you owe me.
PAUL. (_Disappointed_) Ohh!
JEANNE. But I’ll pay you! (_She kisses him_)
PAUL. Silly! (_The door at the back opens_) Oh! Saint-Réault and Madame
de Céran! No, she didn’t see us. Now—ahem—ready!
(_Enter_ MME. DE CÉRAN _and_ SAINT-RÉAULT. _They pause in the doorway,
not seeing_ PAUL _and_ JEANNE.)
MME. DE CÉRAN. No, no, no, my friend, not the first poll! Listen to
me, 15-8-15 the first poll—— There was a secret ballot on that one and
therefore on the second: it’s very simple!
SAINT-RÉAULT. Simple? Simple? Now the second poll, since I have only
four votes on the second poll, with our nine votes on the first
poll—that leaves us only thirteen on the second!
MME. DE CÉRAN. And our seven on the first—that makes twenty on the
second! Don’t you see?
SAINT-RÉAULT. (_Enlightened_) Ahhh!
PAUL. (_To_ JEANNE) Very simple!
MME. DE CÉRAN. I repeat, beware of Dalibert and his Liberals. At
present the Academy is Liberal—at present—at present! (_They come
down-stage, talking_)
SAINT-RÉAULT. Isn’t Revel also the leader of the New School?
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_Looking at him_) Ohh! Revel isn’t dead yet, is he?
SAINT-RÉAULT. Oh, no!
MME. DE CÉRAN. He isn’t ill?
SAINT-RÉAULT. (_Slightly embarrassed_) Oh, he’s always in poor health.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Well, then?
SAINT-RÉAULT. We must always be prepared, mustn’t we?—I’ll keep my eyes
open.
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_Aside_) There’s something at the bottom of all this!
(_Seeing_ RAYMOND, _and going toward him_) Ah, my dear Monsieur
Raymond, I was forgetting all about you; pardon me!
PAUL. My dear Countess! (_Presenting_ JEANNE) Madame Paul Raymond!
MME. DE CÉRAN. You are most welcome here, Madame! Consider yourself in
the home of a friend. (_Presenting them to_ SAINT-RÉAULT) Monsieur Paul
Raymond, Sub-prefect of Agenis, Madame Paul Raymond, Monsieur le baron
Eriel de Saint-Réault.
PAUL. I am especially happy to make your acquaintance since, as a young
man, it was my privilege to know your illustrious father. (_Aside_) He
stuck me on my final examinations!
SAINT-RÉAULT. (_Bowing_) What a pleasant coincidence, M. le Préfet!
PAUL. Especially pleasant for me, M. le Baron!
(SAINT-RÉAULT _goes to the table and writes_.)
MME. DE CÉRAN. You will find my house a trifle austere for a person of
your youth, Madame. You have only your husband to blame for your stay
here.—It has its moments of monotony, but you may console yourself with
the thought that resignation means obedience, and that in coming here
you had no choice.
JEANNE. (_Gravely_) As regards that, Mme. la comtesse, “To be free
is not to do what one wishes, but what one judges to be best”—as the
philosopher Joubert has said.
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_Looking approvingly at_ PAUL) That is quite
reassuring, my dear. But I think you will find that no matter how
intellectual our circle may be, it is not lacking in _esprit_. Indeed
this very evening you will find the _soirée_ particularly interesting.
Monsieur de Saint-Réault has been kind enough to offer to read to us
from his unpublished work on Rama-Ravana and the Sanscrit Legends.
PAUL. Really! Oh, Jeanne!
JEANNE. How fortunate we are!
MME. DE CÉRAN. After which I believe I can promise you something from
Monsieur Bellac.
JEANNE. The Professor?
MME. DE CÉRAN. Do you know him?
JEANNE. What woman doesn’t? How delightful that will be!
MME. DE CÉRAN. An informal talk—_ad usum mundi_—a few words, gems of
wisdom; and finally, the reading of an unpublished play.
PAUL. Oh! In verse?
MME. DE CÉRAN. The first work of a young man —an unknown poet, who
is to be introduced to me this evening and whose play has just been
accepted by the Théâtre-Francais.
PAUL. How fortunate we are to be able to enjoy among these charming
people another of these wonderful opportunities that one finds nowhere
except beneath your roof.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Doesn’t this literary atmosphere frighten you, Madame?
Your charms will be wasted at a _soirée_ like this.
JEANNE. (_Seriously_) “What appears a waste to the vulgar is often a
gain”—as M. de Tocqueville has said.
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_Looking at her in astonishment—aside to_ PAUL)
She is charming! (SAINT-RÉAULT _rises, and goes toward the door_)
Saint-Réault, where are you going?
SAINT-RÉAULT. (_As he goes_) To the station—a telegram. Excuse me—I’ll
be back in ten minutes. (_He goes out_)
MME. DE CÉRAN. There is certainly something at the bottom of all this!
(_She looks among the papers on the table—to_ JEANNE _and_ PAUL) I beg
your pardon! (_She rings, and after a moment_ FRANCOIS _appears_) The
papers?
FRANCOIS. M. de Saint-Réault took them away this morning. They are in
his room.
PAUL. (_Drawing Le Journal Amusant from his pocket_) If you wish the——
JEANNE. (_Quickly checking him and at the same time producing the
Journal des Debats[2] from her pocket and offering it to_ MME. DE
CÉRAN) This is to-day’s paper, Countess.
[2] The “Journal Amusant” is a comic paper, the “Journal des Debats” a
very old and conservative organ.
MME. DE CÉRAN. With pleasure—I am curious about—please pardon me
again! (_She opens the paper and reads_)
PAUL. (_To his wife_) Bravo! Keep it up! The Joubert was excellent and
the de Tocqueville—I say!
JEANNE. It wasn’t de Tocqueville—it was _I_.
PAUL. Oh!
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_Reading_) “Revel very ill.” Just what I thought.
Saint-Réault isn’t losing much time. (_Handing the paper to_ PAUL) I
found out what I wanted to know, thank you. But I shan’t keep you,
you shall be shown to your rooms. We dine sharp at six; you know the
Duchess is very punctual. At four tea is served; at five we take
a stroll and at six have dinner. (_The clock strikes four_) Ah,
four already, and here she is! (_The_ DUCHESS _enters, followed by_
FRANCOIS, _who brings her chair and her work-basket. A maid brings tea.
The_ DUCHESS _sits in the chair placed for her_) My dear Aunt, allow me
to present——
DUCHESS. (_Settling herself_) Wait a minute—wait a minute. There!
Present whom? (_She looks through her lorgnette_) It isn’t Raymond that
you want to present, is it? I’ve known him for a long time.
PAUL. (_Advancing with_ JEANNE) No, Duchess, but Madame Paul Raymond,
his wife,—if you please!
DUCHESS. (_Gazing at_ JEANNE, _who bows_) She’s pretty—very pretty!
With my Suzanne, and Lucy, despite her glasses, that makes three pretty
women in my house—and heaven knows that’s not too many! (_She drinks_)
And how on earth did a charming girl like you happen to marry that
awful Republican?
PAUL. (_Chaffingly_) Oh, Duchess, I a Republican!
DUCHESS. Well, you were one, at least! (_She drinks again_)
PAUL. Oh, well, like everyone else, when I was little. That is the
measles of politics, Duchess, everybody has to have it.
DUCHESS. (_Laughing_) Ah, oh, ah, the measles! Isn’t he funny! (_To_
JEANNE) And you, my dear, you like a joke once in a while, too?
JEANNE. Oh, Duchess, I have no objection to a little frivolity—in
moderation.
DUCHESS. That isn’t very frivolous, but it’s better than nothing. Well,
well—I like a little frivolity myself, especially in a person of your
age. (_To the maid_) Here, take this away. (_She hands her cup to the
maid_)
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_To the maid_) Will you show Madame Raymond to her
room, Mademoiselle? (_To_ JEANNE) Your room is this way, just next to
mine——
JEANNE. Thank you, Madame. (_To_ PAUL) Come, dear.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Oh, no, I have put your husband over there on the other
side, among the workers: my son, the Count and Monsieur Bellac, in the
Pavilion, which we call—a little pretentiously, perhaps—the Pavillion
of the Muses. (_To_ PAUL) Francois will show you the way. I thought you
would be able to work better there.
PAUL. Admirable arrangement, Countess; I thank you. (JEANNE _pinches
him_) Oh!
JEANNE. (_Sweetly_) Go, my dear.
PAUL. (_Aside to her_) You’ll come at least and help me unpack my
trunks?
JEANNE. How can I?
PAUL. Through the upper corridor.
DUCHESS. (_To_ MME. DE CÉRAN) If you think it pleases those two to
separate them like that——
JEANNE. (_Aside_) I’ve gone too far!
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_To_ JEANNE) Aren’t you pleased with this arrangement?
JEANNE. Perfectly, Madame la comtesse; and you know better than anyone
else _quid deceat, quid non_. (_She bows_)
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_To_ PAUL) She is perfectly charming!
(_They go out_; PAUL _right_, JEANNE _left_.)
DUCHESS. (_Seated near the table at the left, working at her
fancy-work_) Ah, she knows Latin! She ought to be congenial to the
company!
MME. DE CÉRAN. You know Revel is very ill.
DUCHESS. He is never anything else,—what’s that to me?
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_Sitting down_) What do you mean, Aunt? Revel is a
second Saint-Réault. He holds at least fifteen positions: leader of
the New School, for instance—a position which leads to any number of
others! Just the thing for Roger. He returns to-day, and I’ve asked the
Minister’s secretary to dinner this evening, you know.
DUCHESS. Yes, a new one: Toulonnier.
MME. DE CÉRAN. I take away his position from him to-night.
DUCHESS. So you want to make your son the leader of a school?
MME. DE CÉRAN. It’ll be another stepping-stone, you know, Aunt.
DUCHESS. You have brought him up to be a mere chess-pawn, haven’t you?
MME. DE CÉRAN. I have made of him a serious-minded man, Aunt.
DUCHESS. Yes, I should think so! A man of twenty-eight, who has
never—done a foolish thing in his life, I’ll wager! It’s a perfect
shame!
MME. DE CÉRAN. At thirty he will enter the Institute, and at
thirty-five the Chamber of Deputies.
DUCHESS. So you want to begin again with your son, and do with him as
you did with his father?
MME. DE CÉRAN. Did I make so miserable a failure of him?
DUCHESS. I say nothing about your husband: a dryasdust creature, with a
mediocre intellect—!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Aunt!
DUCHESS. Of course, your husband was a fool!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Duchess!
DUCHESS. A fool who happened to know how to behave himself! You forced
him into politics, you’ll admit that. And then, all you could make of
him was Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. That isn’t much to boast
about. But enough of him; Roger’s another matter: he has brains and
spirit enough—or will have, God willing—or he’s no nephew of mine. That
never occurred to you, did it?
MME. DE CÉRAN. I am thinking of his career.
DUCHESS. And his happiness?
MME. DE CÉRAN. I have thought of that, too.
DUCHESS. Ah, yes! Lucy, eh? They correspond, I know that. That’s fine!
A young girl who wears glasses and has a neck like a——! And you call
that thinking of his happiness!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Duchess, you are quite incorrigible!
DUCHESS. A sort of meteorite, who fell among us, intending to stop two
weeks, and remained two years: a blue-stocking who writes letters to
scholars and translates Schopenhauer!
MME. DE CÉRAN. A rich, intellectual, highly-educated and well-born
orphan, niece of the Lord-Chancellor, who recommended her: she would be
a splendid wife for Roger, and——
DUCHESS. That English iceberg? Brrrr! Just to kiss her would freeze
the nose off his face! But you’re on a false scent. In the first place
Bellac has his eye on her—yes, the Professor! He’s asked me too many
questions about her to leave any doubt in my mind. And what is more,
she seems fond of _him_.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Lucy?
DUCHESS. Yes, Lucy,—like all the rest of you! You’re all mad over him.
I know more about this than you do.—No, no! Lucy is not the woman for
your son!
MME. DE CÉRAN. I know your schemes: Suzanne is the woman!
DUCHESS. I don’t deny it. I have brought Suzanne here for that very
purpose. I arranged that he should be her tutor and her master, so to
speak, in order that he might marry her,—and marry her he shall!
MME. DE CÉRAN. You have counted without me, Duchess; I shall never
consent.
DUCHESS. And why not? A girl who——
MME. DE CÉRAN. Is of questionable origin, questionable attraction,
without education and manners.
DUCHESS. (_Bursting into laughter_) My living image at her age!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Without fortune! Without family!
DUCHESS. Without family? The daughter of my poor Georges? My handsome,
good, kind Georges!—And she’s your cousin after all!
MME. DE CÉRAN. A natural child!
DUCHESS. Natural? Aren’t all children natural? You amuse me! She’s been
legally recognized! And good heavens, when the devil’s put his finger
in the pie why shouldn’t the rest of us? Me, too, eh?
MME. DE CÉRAN. The devil has put his finger in the pie, but not the way
you think. _You_ are on the false scent.
DUCHESS. Oh, the Professor! Yes, Bellac. You told me that. You think no
woman can follow his lectures without falling in love with him?
MME. DE CÉRAN. But Suzanne hasn’t missed a single lecture, Aunt, and
she takes notes and corrects them and copies them—I tell you Suzanne is
in earnest. And while he is speaking she never takes her eyes off him;
she drinks in every word. And you think that is all for the sake of
science! Nonsense, it isn’t the science she loves, it’s the scientist.
That is as plain as day. You have only to watch her when she’s with
Lucy. She is dreadfully jealous. And this recently acquired coquetry
in a girl of her disposition—! She sighs, sulks, blushes, turns pale,
laughs, cries——
DUCHESS. April showers! She’s just coming into bloom. She’s bored, poor
child!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Here?
DUCHESS. Here? Do you think it’s amusing here? Do you suppose that if
_I_ were eighteen, I should be here, among all your old ladies and your
old gentlemen? I should say not! I’d associate with young people all
the time; the younger the better, the handsomer the better, the more
admirers I had the better! There are only two things that women never
grow weary of: loving and being loved! And the older I grow the more I
realize that there is no other happiness in the world!
MME. DE CÉRAN. There are more serious things in life than that, Duchess.
DUCHESS. More serious than love? Nonsense! Do you mean to say that when
that is gone, there is any other happiness left? When we are old, we
have false pleasures, just as we have false teeth, but there is only
one true happiness, and that is love, love!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Oh, Aunt, you are too romantic!
DUCHESS. The fault of my years! Women find romance but twice in their
lives: at sixteen in their own hearts, at sixty in the hearts of
others. Well, you want your son to marry Lucy; I want him to marry
Suzanne. You say Suzanne is in love with Bellac; I say, LUCY. Perhaps
we are both wrong; it is for Roger to decide.
MME. DE CÉRAN. How?
DUCHESS. I shall explain the whole situation to him the moment he
arrives.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Do you intend——?
DUCHESS. He is her tutor! (_Aside_) He must know.
(_Enter_ LUCY.)
LUCY. (_In a low-cut evening gown_) I believe your son has arrived,
Madame.
MME. DE CÉRAN. The Count!
DUCHESS. Roger!
LUCY. His carriage has just come into the court.
MME. DE CÉRAN. At last!
DUCHESS. Were you afraid he wouldn’t return?
MME. DE CÉRAN. I feared he would not return in time. I was anxious
about that place for him.
LUCY. Oh, he wrote me this morning that he would return to-day,
Thursday.
DUCHESS. And you missed one of the Professor’s lectures in order to see
him that much sooner. Hm, that’s lovely!
LUCY. That wasn’t the reason, Madame.
DUCHESS. (_Aside to_ MME. DE CÉRAN) You see?—No? Why then?
LUCY. No, I was looking for—I—it was another matter.
DUCHESS. I don’t suppose it is for that Schopenhauer gentleman you are
all dressed up like that, is it?
LUCY. Is there not to be company this evening, Madame?
DUCHESS. (_Aside to_ MME. DE CÉRAN) Bellac, that’s as plain as day!
(_To_ LUCY) Let me congratulate you, then. I have nothing to complain
of, except those frightful glasses. Why do you wear such awful things?
LUCY. Because I cannot see without them, Madame.
DUCHESS. A nice reason! (_Aside_) Isn’t she practical! I detest
practical people! She’ll pass, she’s not as thin as I thought she was!
These English occasionally disappoint one pleasantly!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Ah, here’s my son!
(_Enter_ ROGER.)
ROGER. Mother! Mother! How good it is to see you again!
MME. DE CÉRAN. How good it is to see you, my dear! (_She holds out her
hand, which he kisses_)
ROGER. What a long while it is since I’ve seen you!—Once more! (_He
kisses her hand again_)
DUCHESS. (_Aside_) That embrace wouldn’t smother anyone!
MME. DE CÉRAN. The Duchess, my dear!
ROGER. (_Approaching the_ DUCHESS) Duchess!
DUCHESS. Call me Aunt, and give me a kiss!
ROGER. My dear Aunt! (_He starts to kiss her hand_)
DUCHESS. No! No! On the cheek! You must kiss me on the cheek! That is
one of the privileges of age—Look at him now! Same little fellow as
ever! Oh, you’ve let your moustache grow; isn’t he charming!
MME. DE CÉRAN. I hope, Roger, you will shave that off!
ROGER. Don’t let it disturb you, Mother, I shall do it at once!—Ah, how
do you do, Lucy?
LUCY. How do you do, Roger? (_They shake hands_) Have you had a
pleasant trip?
ROGER. Oh, most interesting. Think of it, an almost unexplored country,
a veritable paradise for the scholar, the poet, and the artist—but I
wrote you all about that!
DUCHESS. (_Sitting down_) Tell me about the women.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Duchess!
ROGER. (_Astonished_) What women do you mean, Aunt?
DUCHESS. Why, the Oriental women they say are so beautiful. Ah, you
villain!
ROGER. Let me assure you, Aunt, I had no time to investigate
that—detail!
DUCHESS. (_Indignantly_) Detail, indeed!
ROGER. (_Smiling_) Besides, the Government did not send me there for
that!
DUCHESS. What did you see, then?
ROGER. You will find that in the _Revue Archéologique_.
LUCY. _Tombs of Eastern Asia_; isn’t that the subject, Roger?
ROGER. Yes, Lucy; now among those mounds—
LUCY. Ah, the mounds—those _Tumuli_——
DUCHESS. Come, come, you can chatter when you two are alone! Tell me,
aren’t you tired? Did you just arrive?
ROGER. Oh, no, Aunt. I’ve been in Paris since yesterday.
DUCHESS. Did you go to the theater last night, Roger?
ROGER. No, I went at once to see the Minister.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Good! And what did he have to say to you?
LUCY. I’ll leave you alone!
MME. DE CÉRAN. You needn’t go, LUCY.
LUCY. Oh, I think I ought to go. I shall return in a few minutes. I’ll
see you later.
ROGER. (_Taking her hand_) Until later, Lucy.
DUCHESS. (_Aside_) There’s a grand passion indeed!
(LUCY _goes out_. ROGER _accompanies her as far as the door to the
left, while_ MME. DE CÉRAN _takes her place in the arm-chair, at the
other side of the table_.)
MME. DE CÉRAN. Now, let’s hear what the Minister had to say!
DUCHESS. Ah, yes! Let’s hear. We’re anxious to know.
ROGER. He questioned me as to the results of my trip and asked me to
submit my report as soon as possible, promising me a reward on the day
it was handed in. You can guess what that reward will be. (_He touches
the lapel of his coat, as if to show the ribbon of the Legion of Honor_)
MME. DE CÉRAN. Officer? That’s all very well, but I have something
better. And then?
ROGER. Then he asked me to convey to you his kindest regards, and
begged you keep him in mind when that law came up for consideration by
the Senate.
MME. DE CÉRAN. I shall keep him in mind if he keeps me in mind.—You
must set to work on your report at once.
ROGER. Immediately!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Did you leave cards for the Speaker of the House?
ROGER. Yes, this morning, and for General de Briais and Mme. de
Vielfond.
MME. DE CÉRAN. Good! It must be known that you have returned. I’ll have
a paragraph sent to the papers.—And one thing more: those articles you
sent back from the East were very good. But I noticed with astonishment
a tendency toward—what shall I say?—imagination, “fine” writing;
descriptions, irrelevancies—even poetry—(_Reproachfully_) Alfred de
Musset, my son!
DUCHESS. Yes, the article was most interesting: you must be more
careful.
MME. DE CÉRAN. The Duchess is joking, my dear. But be careful about
poetry; never do it again! You are concerned with serious subjects; you
must be serious yourself.
ROGER. But I had no idea, Mother!—How can you tell when an article is
serious?
DUCHESS. (_Holding up a pamphlet_) When the pages aren’t cut!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Your Aunt exaggerates, but take my advice: no more
poetry!—And now, dinner at six. You have an hour to work on your
report. I shan’t keep you any longer. Go to work, my dear.
DUCHESS. Just a moment! Now that this tender and affecting scene is
over let us talk business, if you please. What about Suzanne?
ROGER. Oh, the dear child! Where is she?
DUCHESS. Attending a course of lectures on Comparative Literature.
ROGER. Suzanne?!
DUCHESS. Yes, Bellac’s course.
ROGER. Bellac, who is he?
DUCHESS. One of this winter’s crop! The season’s fad in scholars. A
gallant knight from the Normal School, who makes love to the ladies,
is made love to by them—and consequently makes a comfortable living.
The Princess Okolitch, who is mad about him, like all the old ladies,
conceived the idea of having him deliver a course of lectures in her
salon, with literature as an excuse, and gossip as a result. It appears
that your pupil, having seen all these grand ladies smitten with this
young, amiable, and loquacious genius, has followed in the footsteps of
her elders.
MME. DE CÉRAN. It is no use, Duchess——
DUCHESS. I beg your pardon; Roger is her tutor and he ought to know
everything!
ROGER. But what does all this mean, Aunt?
DUCHESS. It means that Suzanne is in love with this gentleman; now do
you understand?
ROGER. Suzanne! That child! Nonsense!
DUCHESS. It doesn’t take so long for a child to change into a woman,
you know.
ROGER. Suzanne!
DUCHESS. Well, at least that is what your mother says.
MME. DE CÉRAN. I say that that young lady is openly courting favor with
a man much too serious to marry her, but gallant enough to amuse her,
and to have this going on under my own roof,—though it isn’t as yet
scandalous—is decidedly improper.
DUCHESS. (_To_ ROGER) Do you hear that?
ROGER. But, Mother, you surprise me! Suzanne, a little child I left
in short dresses, climbing trees, a child I used to punish with extra
lessons, who used to jump on my knee and call me Daddy—— Come, come! It
is impossible! Such demoralization at her age!
DUCHESS. Demoralization? Because she is in love! You are a true son of
your mother, if there ever was one! At “her age”! You ought to have
seen me when I was that old! There was a hussar, in a blue and silver
uniform! He was superb! His brains were all in his sword-hilt! But at
my age—! A young heart is like a new land: the discoverer is seldom
the ruler. Now it seems—this Bellac—oh, it doesn’t seem possible,
and yet—young girls, you know—- We must take care! (_Aside_) I don’t
believe a word of it, but I’ll be on my guard!—And that is why I
want you to do me the favor of burying your _Tumuli_ and giving your
attention to her, and her alone.
(_Enter_ SUZANNE.)
SUZANNE. (_Stealing up behind_ ROGER, _puts her hands over his eyes_)
Who is it?
ROGER. (_Rising_) Ehh?
SUZANNE. (_Stepping in front of him_) Here I am!
ROGER. (_Surprised_) But,—Mademoiselle!
SUZANNE. Naughty man! Not to recognize your own daughter!
ROGER. Suzanne!
DUCHESS. (_Aside_) He’s blushing!
SUZANNE. Well, aren’t you going to kiss me?
MME. DE CÉRAN. Suzanne, that’s not quite the thing——
SUZANNE. To kiss your father? The idea!
DUCHESS. (_To_ ROGER) Kiss her, why don’t you!
(SUZANNE _and_ ROGER _kiss_.)
SUZANNE. How happy I am! Just think, I had no idea you were coming
home to-day! Mme. de Saint-Réault told me just now at the lecture; so,
without saying a word—I was right near the door—I whisked out and ran
to the station!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Alone?
SUZANNE. Yes, all alone! Oh, it was fun! The funniest part—wait till I
tell you! When I got to the ticket office I found I didn’t have a sou,
and, what do you think?—a gentleman who was buying his ticket offered
to buy one for me. Oh, he was a very nice young man! He happened to
be going to St. Germain, too, and when he offered to buy my ticket,
another man offered, too: a respectable-looking old gentleman,—and
then another—and after him, any number of others, who were standing
there. They were all going to St. Germain. “But, Mademoiselle, I beg
you—I really cannot allow you to——” “Allow me—no, me,—I beg you,
Mademoiselle!” I let the old respectable gentleman buy the ticket—for
the sake of appearances.
MME. DE CÉRAN. You allowed him to——?
SUZANNE. I couldn’t very well stay where I was, could I?
MME. DE CÉRAN. From a perfect stranger?
SUZANNE. But he was such a respectable old gentleman! And he was very
nice to me! He helped me into the train. So nice of him! Of course, all
the rest were, too; _they_ all got into the compartment with us.—And
it was so jolly! Such fun! They offered me their places, every one!
They opened the window for me, and then fell all over themselves being
nice to me! “This way, Mademoiselle! Not there, you’ll be in the sun!”
And they pulled down their cuffs, and twirled their moustaches, and
bowed and scraped as if I’d been some grand lady—Oh, it’s fun to go by
yourself! And the respectable old gentleman kept talking all the time
about his immense estates, but what did I care about that?
MME. DE CÉRAN. Why, this is outrageous!
SUZANNE. But the funniest thing of all was when we arrived, I found
my purse in my pocket; I paid the respectable old gentleman for the
ticket, made a pretty curtsey to the other gentlemen, and then I ran
off. Oh, you should have seen how they all looked at me! (_To_ ROGER)
Just as you do now! Why, what’s the matter? Kiss me again!
MME. DE CÉRAN. (_To the_ DUCHESS) There’s an impropriety even worse
than the rest!
SUZANNE. Impropriety!
DUCHESS. You see, she’s perfectly innocent!
MME. DE CÉRAN. A young girl traveling alone in a train!
SUZANNE. Doesn’t Lucy go out alone?
MME. DE CÉRAN. Lucy is not a girl of sixteen!
SUZANNE. No: she’ll never see twenty-four again!
MME. DE CÉRAN. Lucy is able to take care of herself.
SUZANNE. Why? Because of those glasses of hers?
DUCHESS. (_Laughing_) Now, Suzanne! (_Aside_) I adore that
|
" where conspicuous among such
ornaments as tall, bronze lamps with big shades, a spittoon, a little
model of a casket and an urn, is a large bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln.
A plate says: "No Charge for Rooms or Chapels for Funerals." And above
stairs is seen a row of somewhat ecclesiastical stained-glass windows.
Though we are given to understand by an advertisement that the
atmosphere of these chapels is "non-sectarian."
Then over on Third Avenue (where there are lots and lots of undertakers)
is a place. Always sitting just within the doorway, very silent, a
stout, very solemn individual wearing a large, black derby hat and big,
round, green-lens spectacles. Above him on the wall a framed lithograph
in colors of George Washington--beside it a thermometer. In the window a
rubber-plant. Rubber-plants varying in size from infant to elephant are
in the windows of all undertakers. The symbolism of this decoration I
know not. Beside the plant an infant's white casket, proclaimed by a
poster which leans against it to be composed of "purity metal." In some
places the casket, perhaps not of purity metal, is protected by being
enclosed in a glass case. The name of the proprietor of this shop, as
given on his sign, ends in "skey." Set in the door-frame is the usual
"Night Bell." And, as always in undertakers' shops, the card of a
"notary public" is displayed. Next door "Family Shoes" are featured.
Only yesterday afternoon I was looking in at the window of an undertaker
on Second Avenue, one I had just found. Along the curb before the door
a string of rather frayed and wobbly-looking "hacks," with a rusty-black
hearse at the head. Horses to these vehicles drowsy in disposition,
moth-eaten in effect as to pelt, and in the visibility of their
anatomical structure suggesting that they might have been drawn by
Albert Dürer in some particularly melancholy mood.
In groups along the edge of the sidewalk, conversing in subdued tones,
the Dickensesque drivers of this caravan. Tall and gaunt, some; short
and stout, others. Skirt coat on one, "sack" coat on another. Alike in
this: frayed and rusty and weather-beaten, all. And hard, very hard of
countenance. Each topped by a very tall, and quite cylindrical hat of
mussed, shoddy-black, plush texture. Hangovers, so to say, these
figures, from New York's hansom-cab days, or the time in London of the
"four-wheeler."
No, not altogether. There was something piquant--Villonesque, or
jovial--Rabelaisian, about the pickpockets of that tribe. These solemn
mummers strike a ghoulish note. But at the same time, out here in the
sane and cheerful sunlight, they don't look real. Create an odd
impression. Strikes you as about as queer, this bunch, as if a lot of
actors from a melodrama should turn up in the street with their makeup
on and gravely pretend to belong to real life.
"Perhaps," I thought, "there is a funeral, or something, going on
inside, and I should not be gaping in at this window."
Out of doorway pops little, rotund man, oily countenance. "Are you
looking for anybody?" he asks.
"Here," I said inwardly, "is where I get moved on." No, I told him, I
was just observing his window.
"Ah!" he cried, immensely flattered. He waved his hand back toward a
couple of little, marble crosses with hearts carved in relief on the
base. "You don't often see that, do you? Do you, now? They're sixty
years old. Made out of a single piece!"
But the saddest thing about undertakers' shops is to go by where was one
long familiar to you and find it gone. There was a splendid little place
which it was a great consolation to me to admire. That building is now
given over to an enterprise called "The Goody Shop." Its lofty dignity
and deep eloquence are gone! It looks like a department store. It is
labelled, with the blare of a brass band, "The Home of Pussy Willow
Chocolates."
CHAPTER IV
THE HAIR CUT THAT WENT TO MY HEAD
I did not expect anything in particular when I went in. Though, indeed,
it is a very famous place. That is, the hotel is--the Brevoort.
The name itself, Brevoort, is very rich in romantic Knickerbocker
associations. Probably you know all about that. Or, possibly, you don't
know--or have forgotten. Well, you do know how Broadway curves around
there at Tenth Street. That ought to recall Hendrick Brevoort to you.
His farm was all about this neighborhood. Caused this kink, he did, so
it is said.
This valorous descendant of the old burgher defied the commissioners to
destroy his homestead, which lay in the proposed path of Broadway. Or to
cut down a favorite tree which blocked the intended course of Eleventh
Street. Stood at his threshold with a blunderbuss in his trembling old
hands (so the story has it), when the workmen arrived to carry out their
instructions to demolish the house--and carried his point so
effectively that Broadway was deflected from its course, while Eleventh
Street between Broadway and Fourth Avenue was never completed. Grace
Church, which now stands at about where valiant Henry stood that day,
was built by a descendant of his, the architect also of St. Patrick's
Cathedral.
I like to think of these matters sometimes when I enter the cool cream
beauty of this ancient frame hostelry.
Also of another Henry Brevoort, a descendant of the original proprietor
of the farm in New Netherland, who built the substantial old double
house at the corner of Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. Fine iron
balconies, pillared door, within a small green enclosure, and a walled
garden to one side: all preserved.
Here was held (in 1840) the first masked ball given in New York. An
affair of picturesque celebrity, on account of the occasion it furnished
a famous beauty of the day, Miss Mathilda Barclay, daughter of Anthony
Barclay, the British consul, to elope in fancy dress, domino and mask
with a certain young Burgwyne of South Carolina, of whom her parents had
unamiable views. She went as Lalla Rookh and he as Feramorz, and in
this disguise they slipped away from the ball, at four in the morning,
and were married. That, it seems to me, is the way for a man who does
not enjoy solemn ceremonies to be happy while getting married.
Across the way, at the corner of Eighth Street, the mellow white hotel
maintains the distinguished name, and touches "the Avenue" with a very
aromatic French flavor. Famous for its cuisine, largely patronized by
the transient French population of the city, a habitual port of call of
many painters and writers, the scene of the annual Illustrators' Ball,
and so on.
I like within the frequent spectacle of gentlemen of magnificent bulk
and huge black beards, in general effect impressively suggesting the
probability of their all being Academicians. I like the fact (or the
hypothesis) that all the waiters are Looeys and Sharses and Gastongs. I
like the little marble-top tables with wire spindle legs. I like the
lady patrons (Oh! immensely) who are frequently very chic (and with
exquisite ankles). I like the young gentlemen customers, who (many of
them) look exactly as though their faces were modelled in wax, and who
wear the sort of delicate moustaches that are advertised in _Vanity
Fair_.
But even more I like the quaintness of the scene without doors. There
along the curb, you recall, stand (in summer beneath the pleasant
greenery of drooping trees), awaiting hire, a succession of those
delightful, open, low-swung, horse-drawn vehicles, victorias, which were
the fashionable thing at the period named by Mrs. Wharton "The Age of
Innocence." The romantically leisurely drivers of these unbelievably
leisurely craft are perfectly turned out to be, so to say, in the
picture. They affect coachmen's coats (piquantly tempered by age) with
large silver buttons and, in mild weather, top hats constructed of
straw, painted black. In some instances these coachmen are
"colored"--which is a very pleasant thing, too, I think.
This hotel, naturally, has figured in a number of pieces of fiction. In
Samuel Merwin's novel "The Trufflers" it is the Parisian, where
Greenwich Village, when in funds, dines, lunches, breakfasts in the
little rooms which you enter from the Avenue, directly under the wide
front steps, or from the side street through the bar, and where Upper
West Side, when seeking the quaintly foreign dissociated from squalor,
goes up the steps into the airy eating rooms with full length hinged
windows to dine. And where (in this book) the young lady whose blooming
presence in the barber shop in the basement invites you to manicure
attentions gives rise to some very dramatic occurrences. The place, this
shop, of Marius (as called in the story), "the one barber in New York
who does not ask 'Wet or dry.'"
Now I had plumb forgotten about this barber's celebrity in fiction when
the other day I entered this shop. And I was struck with embarrassment
by the immediate attentions of so very distinguished a figure as that
which sprang forward to assist me out of my coat. I thought surely this
gentleman must be some kind of an Ambassador, who had perhaps mistaken
me for the President. A slimmish man, obviously very French. Amazingly,
overwhelmingly polite. Fine, a very fine beard. Long. Swept his chest.
Pointed. Auburn. Wavy. Silken. Shot delicately with grey. Beautifully
kept. Responded gently to the breeze--waving softly to and fro. A most
beautiful beard--oh, my! And a glorious crown of hair! It rose from the
line of its parting in a billowing wave, then fell with a luxuriant and
graceful sweep to his ear. Only when he had tucked me in the chair could
I realize that this must be the head barber. I had never before had the
honor of being served by, or even of having seen himself, the proprietor
here.
Then I mentioned Mr. Merwin's book. He took from a drawer several copies
of _The Saturday Evening Post_, in which periodical the story had
appeared serially, proudly to exhibit them to me. So it was we fell to
chatting of his place. He had been here some sixteen or eighteen years.
Before he had opened his shop this room had been several tiny rooms;
Cleveland Moffett had for a time occupied them as a residence, and had
here written his first book. My friend gayly produced a copy of an old
magazine article by Mr. Moffett in which mention was given the shop.
* * * * *
Shaved, I was straightened up to have my hair trimmed. And, being for a
moment free to look about. I spied a card on the wall. It said:
SILK HATS IRONED
25_¢_
COUP-DE-FER-AU CHAPEAU
But, my goodness! That was not all. No, indeed!
_This very man who was cutting my hair_ had cut the hair of General
Joffre--when he had his hair here in the United States. At "Mr. Frick's
house," where they were guests, he had attended the distinguished party
on its mission here. He would go in the morning, stay until they had
gone forth for the day; return in the afternoon, and spruce them up for
their evening out.
And what did they say, these great men of might?
Well, Joffre didn't say much. They were always out late--hurry out
again. He shaved some of them "almost in the bath." That fellow, the
Blue Devil,--one leg--cane--but back and forth from his bath quick like
anybody. He was the most talkative:
"I could not but laugh at what he told me. I asked, 'Do you speak
English?' 'No,' he said, 'but I ought to.' 'How is that?' I asked.
'Because,' he said, 'I'm half American.' 'Oh!' I said, 'your father then
was American and your mother French?' 'No,' he said. 'Ah!' I say, 'then
your mother was American and your father was French.' Do you
understand? I say that to him. 'No,' he say; 'no.' 'What then?' I ask.
'Why,' he say, 'I have one leg in France and one leg in America.' I
could not but laugh. Do you understand?"
When the visitors had departed Mr. Frick asked my friend for his bill.
"Oh, no!" he said; "he would take nothing but the great honor for his
little services."
My hair cut was finished. As I paid him (there being in this case, I
felt, no such great honor for his little services), he showed me a
drawing on the wall of a poodle he had one time owned. It had died. Very
sad. He was very fond of dogs. Of bred dogs, that is. He bred them
himself. He handed me his card as a professional dog fancier. It read:
CHINK A TU KENNELS
CHOW CHOWS, PEKINGESES, POMERANIANS, ALL COLORS
FROM PRICE WINNING STOCK
MINIATURE SPECIMENS
AT STUD. PEKINGESE, WONDERFUL SON OF WENTY
OF HYDEGREE. FEE REASONABLE.
AT STUD. LORD CHOLMONDELEY III SON OF CHAMPION
LORD CHOLMONDELEY II.
TOY DOGS BOARDED
MME. HENRI GRECHEN
Yes, that morning he had done "some manicure work" for his dogs. She
looked up, the manicurist (milk-white blonde, black velvet gown), and
said, "Do you use the clippers?"
He: "Yes, of course. But not powder and polish. Quick, they want. Not
hold hands for hour--conversation about best show in town."
He bowed, very low, as I crossed his threshold. I turned and bowed, very
low, to him. A man of many parts and a barber illustrious in his
profession. It was some time before my head cooled off.
CHAPTER V
SEEING MR. CHESTERTON
Somewhat later in this article I am going to present an "interview" (or
something like that) with Gilbert K. Chesterton. At least I hope I am
going to present it. Yesterday it looked as though I might have to get
up my interview without having seen Mr. Chesterton. Though today the
situation appears somewhat brighter. "Seeing" Mr. Chesterton (on his
visit over here, at any rate) seems to be a complicated matter.
As anything which gives some view of the workings of the Chestertonian
machinery ought to be of interest to all who can lay claim to the happy
state of mind of being Chestertonites, I'll begin by telling the
proceedings so far in this affair. Then as matters progress to supply me
with more material (if they do progress) I'll continue.
I one time wrote an article in which I told with what surprising ease I
saw Mr. Chesterton several years ago in England. Without acquaintances
in England, some sort of a fit of impudence seized me. I wrote Mr.
Chesterton a letter, communicating to him the intelligence that I had
arrived in London, that it was my belief that he was one of the noblest
and most interesting monuments in England; and I asked him if he
supposed that he could be "viewed" by me, at some street corner, say, at
a time appointed, as he rumbled past in his triumphal car. Mrs.
Chesterton replied directly in a note that her husband wished to thank
me for my letter and to say that he would be pleased if I cared to come
down to spend an afternoon with him at Beaconsfield. Mr. Chesterton, I
later recollected, had no means readily at hand of ascertaining whether
or not I was an American pickpocket; but from the deference of his
manner I was led to suspect that he vaguely supposed I was perhaps the
owner of the New York _Times_, or somebody like that.
This escapade of my visit to Overroads I suppose it was that put into
the head of the editor of _The Bookman_ the notion that I was a person
with ready access to Mr. Chesterton. So I was served with a hurry-up
assignment to see him and to deliver an article about my seeing him for
the March number of the magazine before that issue, then largely in the
hands of the printers, got off the press. Thus my adventures, the
termination of which are at present considerably up in the air, began.
I at once wrote to Mr. Chesterton at the hotel where at the moment he
was in Boston. At the same time I wrote to Lee Keedick ("Manager of the
World's Most Celebrated Lecturers") at his office in New York. I had
picked up the impression that a lecture manager of this caliber owned
outright the time of a visiting celebrity whom he promoted, and that you
couldn't even telephone the celebrity without the manager's permission.
I didn't know that you couldn't telephone him anyway. Or that you
couldn't telephone the manager either.
Mr. Keedick very promptly replied that he would be very glad to do
everything that he could to bring about the interview. Or at least I
received a very courteous letter to this effect which bore a signature
which I took to be that of Mr. Keedick.
Mr. Chesterton was not to be back in New York until after a couple of
days. On the day set for his return to town I attempted to communicate
with Mr. Keedick by telephone. I am (I fear) a bit slow at the etiquette
of telephones, and I so far provoked a young woman at the other end of
the wire as to cause her to demand rather sharply, "Who are you?" This
matter adjusted amicably, Mr. Keedick it developed was so utterly remote
from attainment that I am not altogether sure such a person exists.
However, another gentleman responded cordially enough. Still, it seemed
to me (upon reflection) that in a matter of this urgent nature I had
been at fault in having failed to obtain more definiteness in the matter
of an appointment. So I went round to the manager's office. Very affably
received. Presented to a gentleman fetched for that purpose from another
room, where he had been closeted with someone else. Mr. Widdecombe, this
gentleman's name. Introduced as Mr. Chesterton's secretary. A pronounced
Englishman in effect. Said very politely indeed, several times, that he
was "delighted." Mr. Chesterton, however, was going away tomorrow. Would
return two days hence. Made, Mr. Widdecombe, very careful memorandum of
my address.
In due course of time thought I'd better look up Mr. Widdecombe
again--his memorandum might have got mislaid. Telephoned lecture bureau.
Satisfied young lady of honorable intentions. Explained matters all over
again to owner of agreeable masculine voice. Received assurance that Mr.
Widdecombe would be reminded at once of pressing state of affairs.
Disturbed by uneventful flight of time, called in at lecture bureau once
more. Learned that Mr. Widdecombe had not yet turned up. They, however,
would try to get him on the wire at the Biltmore for me. Yes, he was
there, but the fourth floor desk of the hotel said he had just gone into
Mr. Chesterton's room, and so (as, apparently, everyone ought to know)
could not be communicated with just now. He would call up shortly.
Lecture people suggested that I go round to the hotel. If Mr. Widdecombe
called in the meantime they'd tell him I was on my way over.
Thought I recognized the gentleman stepping out of the elevator at the
fourth floor. I did not know whether or not it was at all what you did
to lay hold of an Englishman in so abrupt a fashion, but concluded this
would have to be done. Mr. Widdecombe was all courtesy. The point,
however, was that "Mr. Chesterton had had an hour of it this morning.
Had had an hour of it." This afternoon he was getting off some work for
London. Then tomorrow, of course, would be his lecture. My matter _did_
seem to be urgent. But what could "we" do? Mr. Chesterton was a
"beautiful man." He had been so hospitable to the gentlemen of the
press. But if we should go in to him now he would say, "Dear me! Dear
me!" I readily saw, of course, that this would be an awful thing,
still....
Mr. Widdecombe was somewhat inclined to think that we "could do" this:
Suppose I should come to the Times Square Theatre the next afternoon, at
about a quarter to five, call for him at the stage entrance. Yes, he
thought we could arrange it that way. I could talk to Mr. Chesterton in
the taxi on the way back to the hotel. Perhaps detain him for a few
moments afterward. Mr. Widdecombe smiled very pleasantly indeed at the
idea of so happy a solution of our difficulties. And I myself was rather
taken by the notion of interviewing Mr. Chesterton in a cab. The fancy
occurred to me that this was perhaps after all the most fitting place
in the whole world in which to interview Mr. Chesterton.
So everything seems to be all right.
* * * * *
New complications! (This is the following day.) In the morning mail a
letter from Mrs. Chesterton, saying so sorry not to have answered my
letter before, but it had been almost impossible to deal with the
correspondence that had reached them since they arrived in America. Her
husband asked her to say he would very much like to see me. And could I
call at the hotel round about twelve o'clock on Sunday morning? No
difficulty about meeting Mr. Chesterton in the kindness of that. But
Sunday might be quite too late for the purpose of my article. So I'll go
to the theatre anyway, and I'll certainly accept all Chesterton
invitations.
* * * * *
A colored dignitary in a uniform sumptuously befrogged with gold lace
who commanded the portal directed me to the stage entrance. I passed
into a dark and apparently deserted passage and paused to consider my
next step. Before me was a tall, brightly lighted aperture, and coming
through this I caught the sound, gently rising and falling, of a rather
dulcet voice. A slight pause in the flow of individual utterance, and
directly following upon this a soft wave as of the intimate mirth of an
audience wafted about what was evidently the auditorium beyond. Just
then a figure duskily defined itself before me and addressed me in a
gruff whisper. I was directed to proceed around the passage extending
ahead, to Room Three. I should have passed behind a tall screen (I
recognized later), but inadvertently I passed before it, and suddenly
found myself the target of thousands upon thousands of eyes--and the
unmistakable back of Mr. Chesterton looming in the brilliance directly
before me.
Regaining the passage, I found a door labelled A 3. Receiving no
response to my knock, I opened it; and peered into a lighted cubby-hole
about one-third the size of a very small hall bed-room. The only object
of any conspicuousness presented to me was a huge, dark garment hanging
from a hook in the wall. It seemed to be--ah! yes; it was a voluminous
overcoat with a queer cape attached. So; I was in the right shop all
right.
I thought I ought to look around and try to find somebody. I wandered
into what I suppose are the "wings" of the theatre. Anyway, I had an
excellent view, from one side, of the stage and of a portion of one
gallery. The only person quite near me was a fireman, who paid no
attention whatever to me, but continued to gaze out steadily at Mr.
Chesterton, with an expression of countenance which (as well as I could
decipher it) registered fascinated incomprehension. I attempted to lean
against what I supposed was a wall, but to my great fright the whole
structure nearly tumbled over as I barely touched it. Perceiving a chair
the other side of the fireman, I passed before him, sat down, and gave
myself over to contemplation of the spectacle.
My first impression, I think, was that Mr. Chesterton was speaking in so
conversational a key that I should have expected to hear cries of
"Louder!" coming from all over the house. But from the lighted
expressions of the faces far away in the corner of the gallery visible
to me he was apparently being followed perfectly. I did not then know
that at his first public appearance in New York he had referred to his
lecturing voice as the original mouse that came from the mountain. Nor
had I then seen Francis Hackett's comment upon it that: "It wasn't, of
course, a bellow. Neither was it a squeak." Mr. Hackett adds that it is
"the ordinary good lecture-hall voice." I do not feel that this quite
describes my own impression of it the other afternoon. Rather, perhaps,
I should put the matter in this way. My recollection of the conversation
I had with him in 1914 at Beaconsfield is that there was a much more
ruddy quality to his voice then than the other day, and more, much more,
in the turn of his talk a racy note of the burly world.
Perhaps he feels that before a "representative" American audience one
should be altogether what used to be called "genteel." At any rate, I
certainly heard the other day the voice of a modest, very friendly,
cultivated, nimble-minded gentleman, speaking with the nicety of
precision more frequently observed among English people than among
Americans. There was in it even a trace of a tone as though it were most
at home within university walls. Though, indeed, I am glad to say, Mr.
Chesterton did not abstain from erudite, amused, and amusing allusions
to the society most at home in "pubs." And I cannot but suspect that
perhaps he would have been found a shade more amusing even than he was
if... but, no matter.
One gentleman who has written a piece about his impressions of Mr.
Chesterton's lectures here felt that his audience didn't have quite as
much of a good time as the members of it expected to have. I heard only
a brief, concluding portion of one lecture. The portion of the audience
which came most closely before my observation were those seated at the
well filled press table, which stood directly between the speaker and
me. These naïve beings gave every evidence of getting, to speak
temperately, their money's worth.
Though Mr. Chesterton turned the pages of notes as he spoke, he could
not be said to have read his lecture. On the other hand, it was clear
that he did not appreciably depart from a carefully prepared
disquisition.
The tumbled mane which tops him off seemed more massive even than
before. It did not, though, appear quite so tumbled. I think there had
been an effort (since 1914) to brush it quite nicely. Certainly it is
ever so much greyer. I think in my earlier article I said something like
this: "Mr. Chesterton has so remarkably red a face that his smallish
moustache seems lightish in color against it." While Mr. Chesterton's
face today could not be described as pale, it looks more like a face and
less like a glowing full moon. The moustache is darker against it; less
bristling than before, more straggly.
A couple of our recent commentators upon Mr. Chesterton have taken a
fling at the matter of his not being as huge as, it seems to them, he
has been made out to be. I remember that when I saw him before I was
even startled to find him more monstrous than even he had appeared in
his pictures. He appears to take part a good deal in pageants in
England; and recent photographs of him as Falstaff, or Tony Weller, or
Mr. Pickwick, or somebody like that, have not altogether squared up with
my recollection of him. True, he has not quite the bulk he had before;
but it is a captious critic, I should say, who would not consider him
sufficiently elephantine for all ordinary purposes.
He was saying (much to the delight of the house) when I became one of
the audience, that he would "not regard this as the time or the occasion
for him to comment upon the lid on liquor." A bit later in the course of
his answer to the question he had propounded, "Shall We Abolish the
Inevitable," he got an especially good hand when he remarked: "People
nowadays do not like statements having authority--but they will accept
any statement without authority." He concluded his denunciation of the
idea of fatalism with the declaration: "Whatever man is, he is not in
one sense a part of nature." "He has committed crimes, Crimes," he
repeated--with gusto in the use of the word,--"and performed heroisms
which no animal ever tried to do. Let us hold ourselves free from the
boundary of the material order of things, for so shall we have a chance
in the future to do things far too historic for prophecy."
I darted back toward Room Three, ran into Mr. Widdecombe, we wheeled,
and saw the mountain approaching. Whereas before, this off-stage place
had been deserted, now the scene was populous--with the figures of
agitated young women. Mr. Widdecombe, however, with much valiance
secured Mr. Chesterton. "Yes, yes," he said, and (remarkable remark!),
"I had the pleasure of meeting you in England." He glanced about rather
nervously at the dancing figures seeking to obtain him, and led the way
for me into the dressing room. Mr. Widdecombe pulled the door to from
without.
I am far from being as large as Mr. Chesterton, but the two of us
closeted in that compartment was an absurdity. Mr. Chesterton eclipsed a
chair, and beamed upon me with an expression of Cheeryble-like
brightness. Upon his arrival in New York he had declared to the press
that he would not write a book of his impressions of the United States.
I asked him if, after being here a week or so, he had changed his mind
as to this determination. "Not definitely," he said, "not definitely.
But, of course, one could never tell what one might do." He might write
a book about us, then? Yes, he might. Did he think it at all likely that
he would take up residence over here? A very joyous smile: "One's own
country is best," he said. Rumors had several times been afloat that he
had entered the Roman Catholic Church. Would he say whether there was
any likelihood of his doing this? He was an Anglican Catholic, he
replied. Not a Roman Catholic--yet. That was not to say that he might
not be--if the English Church should become more Protestant. What was
his next book to be? Had he any project in mind of going to Turkey, or
Mexico, or some such place? No; the only books he was working on at
present were a new volume of short stories and a book (smiling again
widely) on eugenics. He knew Mr. Lucas, of course? "Yes, fine fellow."
Did he know Frank Swinnerton? No. What was.... But the door was popped
open. Several persons were waiting for him, among them Mrs. Chesterton.
I helped him into the cape-coat. Stood behind the door so that when it
was opened he could get out. "You know Mr. Holliday," he said to Mrs.
Chesterton. "Thank you, so much," he said to me. And was whisked away.
* * * * *
Sunday at the hotel. He was late in arriving. I thought it would be
pleasanter to wait a bit out in front. Expected he would drive up soon
in a taxi. Then I saw him coming around the corner, walking, rolling
slowly from side to side like a great ship, Mrs. Chesterton with him--a
little lady whose stature suggested the idea of a yacht gracefully
cruising alongside the huge craft. I wonder if, nowadays when most
writers seem to try to look like something else, Mr. Chesterton knows
how overwhelmingly like a great literary figure he looks.
When we were seated, I asked if he had any dope on his "New Jerusalem"
book. He began to tell me how surprised he had been to find Jerusalem as
it is. But the substance of this you may find in the book. He expressed
sympathy with the idea of Zionism. Remarked that he "might become a
Zionist if it could be accomplished in Zion." All that he could find to
tell me about his "New Jerusalem" was that it had been "written on the
spot." Seemed very disinclined to talk about his own books. Said his
feeling in general about each one of them was that he "hoped something
would happen to it before anybody saw it."
His surprise at Jerusalem suggested to me the question, Had he been
surprised at the United States--what he had seen of it? But he dodged
giving any "view" of us. His only comment was on the "multitudinous
wooden houses."
Had he met many American authors? The one most recently met, a day or so
ago in Northampton, though he had met him before in England, was a
gentleman he liked very much. He was so thin Mr. Chesterton thought the
two of them "should go around together." His name? Gerald Stanley Lee.
But there is not a particle more of time that I can spend on this
article.
CHAPTER VI
WHEN IS A GREAT CITY A SMALL VILLAGE?
How many times you have noticed it! Regular phenomenon. Suddenly, within
a few hours, the whole nature of the great city is changed--your city
and mine, New York or Chicago, or Boston or Buffalo or Philadelphia.
Though nobody seems to say much about it afterward. Just sort of take
the thing for granted.
It is just like Armistice Night, every once in awhile. Total strangers
suddenly begin to call each other "Neighbor." Voices everywhere become
jollier. Numerous passersby begin to whistle and sing. People go with a
skip and a jump. Catcalls are heard. Groups may be seen all around going
arm in arm, and here and there with arms about necks. Anybody speaks to
you merrily. Merrily you speak to anybody. All eyes shine. Roses are in
every cheek. Hurry is abandoned. Small boys run wild. Nobody now objects
to their stealing a ride. It is fun to see their swinging legs dangling
over the tail of every wagon. Sour human nature is purged. Good humor
reigns. Hurrah!
I mean on the night of a big snow.
This year it looked for long as though we were going to be done out of
this truly Dickensean festival. Seemed like we were going to be like
those unfortunate people in Southern California, who never have any
winter to cheer them up. How tired they must get of their wives and
neighbors, with it bland summer all the time. Perhaps that is the reason
there is such a promiscuous domestic life out there.
Young Will Shakespeare had the dope. He piped the weather for jollity
and pep. "When blood is nipp'd"--"a merry note!"
You remember how it was this time: Spring all winter--and spring fever,
too, a good many of us had all the while. (My doctor said it was
"malaria" with me.) We were congratulating ourselves that we were going
to "get by" without any "blizzards" at all this year. We became "softy."
We guarded ourselves with our umbrellas against the shower
|
most injured woman alive. He always called
her "my poor Alicia," and hated her husband with a mortal hatred,
thinking him to have injured the gentlest and sweetest of women.
Sir Percy’s infatuation for Alicia Vernon lasted but a few months, and,
through Alicia’s woman’s wit, was unsuspected by the world, least of all
by General Talbott, who adored his daughter. Then Sir Percy awoke once
more to honour, and pitied the woman and hated himself for the brief
downfall.
It is not every man who beats his breast and throws ashes on his head
who is a true penitent. But no man felt bitterer remorse for his
wrongdoing than did Sir Percy Carlyon. He applied the same judgment to
himself that he did to other men, and while reckoning his fault at its
full wickedness, also reckoned that sincere penitence was not entirely
worthless. He had lived his life to that time of remorse in cheerful
ignorance and a silent defiance of the Great First Cause; but upon the
darkness of his soul stole a ray of light. He began to believe a little
in a personal God, a father, a judge and a school-master who required
justice and obedience of mankind. Sir Percy became secretly a religious
man. He did not go to church any oftener than before, nor did he take
refuge in Bible texts, but the prayer of the publican was often in his
heart, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
After a pause of a minute or two he resumed his quick, swinging walk.
The December night was upon him, although it was not yet six o’clock,
and he had still five miles to tramp before reaching Washington. That
night the initial ball of the season was to be given at the British
Embassy, and Sir Percy was, for the first time, to see the kaleidoscopic
Washington society. His rapid walk stimulated him and enabled him to
put out of his mind that painful and humiliating recollection of his
early lapse, which had lain in hiding for him by night and day, by land
and sea, for ten years past. So long as he had been in Europe Alicia
had not allowed him to forget her, but had tracked him from place to
place. How well he remembered the anger and disgust he felt when she
would suddenly appear--beautiful, charmingly dressed, smiling and
composed--on the terrace at Homburg and challenge him with her eyes! How
hateful became the Court balls at Buckingham Palace when Alicia Vernon,
leaning upon her father’s arm, would greet Sir Percy in her seductive,
well-modulated voice, of which he knew and hated every note! How
wearisome became the visits to great country houses when Alicia, as it
so often happened, floated into the drawing-room on the evening of his
arrival, and was generally the most beautiful and most gifted woman
there, with more knowledge of what she should not know than any other
woman present! At least, thought Sir Percy, his spirits rising, he
would be free in Washington from Alicia Vernon’s presence. There was not
much here to attract a woman of her type.
By the time the lights of Washington studded the darkness and the tall
apartment-houses, sparkling with electric lights, loomed against the
black sky, Sir Percy was himself again, cheerful, courageous--ready to
meet life with a smile, a sword or a shield, as might be demanded.
*II*
The British Embassy was blazing with light, and the musicians were
tuning their instruments in the ball-room, when Sir Percy came in, a
little before ten o’clock. Lord Baudesert, a handsome, black-eyed and
white-haired man, his breast covered with decorations, was critically
inspecting Mrs. Vereker and the three Vereker girls, Jane, Sarah and
Isabella. All were panic-stricken as Lord Baudesert’s keen eyes
travelled from the top of their sandy, abundant hair down to their large
feet encased in white satin slippers.
"I swear, Susan," Lord Baudesert was saying to Mrs. Vereker, a large,
patient, soft-voiced woman, "I believe that black velvet gown you wear
figured at the old Queen’s coronation."
"I have only had it ten years, brother," murmured Mrs. Vereker; "and it
is the very best quality of black silk velvet, at thirty shillings the
yard. A black velvet gown never goes out of fashion."
"Not if it belongs to you," answered Lord Baudesert, laughing. "And why
don’t you three girls dress like American girls? Your gowns look as if
they had been hung out in the rain and dried before the kitchen fire and
then thrown at you."
Jane, Sarah and Isabella, accustomed to these compliments, only smiled
faintly but Sir Percy, looking Lord Baudesert squarely in the eye,
remarked:
"They don’t dress like American girls because they are English girls;
and, for my part, I never could understand how any sane man could prefer
an American to an English girl. As for Aunt Susan’s gown, it is very
handsome and appropriate, and she should not pay any attention to your
views on the subject."
Mrs. Vereker looked apprehensively at Sir Percy, whom she regarded as a
superserviceable champion, likely to get her into additional trouble.
"Oh, my dear Percy!" she hastened to say, "Lord Baudesert’s taste in
dress is perfect. I am sure I would be as smart as any one if I only
knew how, but we are at the mercy of the dressmakers, and Lord Baudesert
can’t understand that."
"Lord Baudesert can understand anything he wants to," answered Sir
Percy, laughing.
Then Lord Baudesert laughed too. Sir Percy’s determination not to be
bullied by him was an agreeable sensation to Lord Baudesert, accustomed
as he was to be approached on all fours by the ladies of his family.
The occasion to worry his womankind, however, was too good for Lord
Baudesert, and he began again to his nephew:
"I hope, my dear boy, you will meet a friend of mine to-night--Mrs.
Chantrey--a widow, very handsome, fine old Boston family, with something
like a billion of money."
Mrs. Vereker sighed. Mrs. Chantrey was her rod of scourging, which Lord
Baudesert freely applied. Then, taking his nephew’s arm, the Ambassador
walked into the next room, and out of Mrs. Vereker’s hearing expressed
his true sentiments.
"You will see American women in full force to-night," he said. "They
are strange creatures, full of _esprit_, and they have brought the art
of dress to the level of a fine art. Be sure to look at their shoes and
their handkerchiefs. I am told that their stockings are works of art.
Don’t mind their screeching at you, you will get used to it. There is
great talk of their wonderful adaptability, nevertheless I never saw one
of them whom I really thought was fitted to be the wife of a diplomat.
You needn’t pay any attention to the way I talk about Mrs. Chantrey; I
wouldn’t marry that woman if she were made of radium at two million
dollars the pound, but it amuses me to worry Susan on the subject."
"That’s nice for Aunt Susan," answered Sir Percy--"but on one point my
mind is made up: I shall never marry an American."
"I can tell you one thing," continued Lord Baudesert: "marrying an
American heiress is about the poorest investment any man can make, if he
has an eye to business. In this singular country money is never
mentioned by the bridegroom. That one word ’settlement’ would be enough
to make an American father kick any man out of the house. The father,
however, is certain to mention money to his prospective son-in-law. He
demands that everything his daughter’s husband has should be settled on
the wife, and generally requires that his future son-in-law’s life be
insured for the wife’s benefit. Then, whatever the American father has
to give his daughter he ties up as tight as a drum, so that the
son-in-law can’t touch it, and everything else the son-in-law may get
depends on his good behaviour. The American girl, having been
accustomed to regard herself as a pearl beyond price, expects her
husband to be a sort of coolie at her command. If he isn’t she flies
back to her father, and the father proceeds to cut off supplies from the
son-in-law. Oh, it is a great game, the American marriage, when it is
for high stakes. I take it that it is impossible for any European, even
an Englishman, to get at the point of view of an American father
concerning his daughter."
Then the first violin among the musicians played a few bars of a waltz.
Sarah and Isabella, seeing Lord Baudesert’s back turned, waltzed around
together in a corner of the drawing-room. As soon, however, as they
caught Lord Baudesert’s eye they left off dancing and scuttled back
under the wing of their mother.
"You seem to have terrorised those girls pretty successfully," remarked
Sir Percy; "why don’t you let the poor things have a little
independence?"
"My dear fellow, they wouldn’t know what to do with independence if they
had it. They have behind them a thousand years of a civilisation based
upon the submission of an Englishwoman to an Englishman. They would be
like overfed pheasants trying to fly, if they had a will of their own,
and they are happy as they are. They always sing when I am not by. I
annoy Susan occasionally by talking about Mrs. Chantrey. When that lady
is in full canonicals, with all her diamonds, she looks like the Queen
of Sheba in Goldmark’s opera. She looks worse than a new duchess at her
first Court."
At that moment the great hall door was opened, and the first guest, a
tall, slight, well-made man, with a trim grey moustache, entered, and
was shown into the dressing-room. Lord Baudesert then took his stand,
or rather his seat, near the door of the drawing-room, with Mrs. Vereker
at his side.
"I always have the gout," he explained to Sir Percy, "at balls. It is
tiresome to stand, and, besides, an Ambassador is entitled to have some
kind of gentlemanly disease of which he can make use upon occasions."
"I am so sorry," said Mrs. Vereker sympathetically to Lord Baudesert,
"that the gout is troubling you this evening. I have not heard you
speak of it for months."
"Haven’t had a touch since the last ball," calmly replied Lord
Baudesert, and then he stood up to greet the early guest, who entered
without showing any awkwardness at his somewhat premature arrival.
"Delighted to see you," said Lord Baudesert, with the greatest
cordiality. "It is not often you honour a ball. Let me introduce my
nephew and new Secretary of the Embassy to you--Sir Percy Carlyon,
Senator March."
The two men shook hands, and instantly each received a good impression
of the other.
"The Ambassador must have his joke," said Senator March. "It is true
that I seldom go to balls, nor am I often asked. You see how little I
know of them by my turning up ahead of time. The card said ten o’clock,
and to my rude, untutored mind it seemed as if I were expected at ten
o’clock, and here I am, the sole guest. I don’t suppose the smart
people will show up for an hour yet."
"So much the better, for it gives me the chance to talk to you," replied
Lord Baudesert.
Then the three men sat down together and chatted. The conversation was
chiefly between the Ambassador and the Senator. A question concerning
international affairs had been up that day in the Senate, and Senator
March, who was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, had
spoken upon it. He gave a brief _resumé_ of what he had said, and Lord
Baudesert, in a few incisive sentences, threw a flood of light upon the
subject. Sir Percy listened with interest to what Senator March had to
say. It was his first informal conversation with an American public
man, and he admired the ease, the simplicity and the sublime common
sense with which Senator March handled the complicated question, and so
expressed himself.
"There is no excuse for our treating any question except in the most
sensible, practical manner," answered Senator March. "In Europe you are
shackled with the traditions and customs of a thousand years. You can’t
take down even a tottering wall without endangering the whole structure.
With us it is all experimental. Nevertheless, our affairs are no better
managed than yours in England."
Sir Percy at every moment felt more and more the charm of Roger March’s
manner and conversation. It was so simple, so manly and so breezy. Nor
was Senator March without appreciation of this clean-limbed, clear-eyed
Englishman. Half an hour passed quickly in animated conversation before
there was another arrival; but then the stream became a torrent. In
twenty minutes the rooms were full and the dancers were skimming around
the ballroom to the thrilling strains of music. Mrs. Chantrey was easily
identified by Sir Percy. She was a big, handsome woman, with an enormous
gown of various fabrics and colours, who so blazed with diamonds that
she looked like a lighthouse.
Sir Percy was not a dancing man, nor did he ever admire dancing as an
art until he saw the soft, slow, rhythmical waltz as danced by
Americans. His duties as assistant host kept him busy, but, like a born
diplomat, he could see a number of things at once and pursue more than
one train of thought at the same time. As he talked to men and women of
many different nationalities, ages and conditions, his eyes wandered
toward the ball-room, where the waltzers floated around. Never in his
life had he seen so many good dancers, particularly among the women.
One girl in particular caught his eye. Her figure was of medium height,
and her black evening gown showed off her exquisite slenderness, the
beautiful moulding of her arms and the graceful poise of her head. Her
face he scarcely noticed, except that she had milk-white skin contrasted
with very dark hair and eyes. She danced slowly, with a motion as soft
as the zephyr at evening time. Sir Percy’s eyes dwelt with pleasure
upon her half a dozen times while the waltz lasted. Then came the rapid
two-step, which reminded Sir Percy of a graceful romp. But the
black-haired, white-skinned girl was not then taking part.
The drawing-room grew crowded, and Sir Percy, moving from group to
group, did not go into the ball-room. He was introduced to a great
number of ladies, young, old and middle-aged, and the general impression
made upon him was what he expected of the American woman _en masse_.
Prettiness was almost universal, but beauty of a high order was rare.
One girl alone he reckoned strictly beautiful--Eleanor Chantrey, the
only child of the lady like the lighthouse, but totally unlike her.
Eleanor was tall and fair, and Sir Percy thought he had never seen a
more classic face and nobler bust and shoulders. Her voice, too, was
well modulated, and delicious to hear after the peacock screams of most
of the women around him. Miss Chantrey had both read and travelled
much, and had the peculiar advantage of knowing the best people
everywhere, quite irrespective of the smart set. It soon developed that
she and Sir Percy had mutual friends in England, and had even stayed at
the same great country house, although not at the same time. Her manner
was full of grace and dignity, but with a touch of coldness like a New
England August day. It was quite unlike the English. Eleanor was the
highly prized American daughter, whose value is impressed upon her by
that most insidious form of flattery--the being made much of from the
hour of her birth. Nothing, however, could be farther from assumption
than Eleanor’s calm, grave sweetness, with a little touch of pride. Sir
Percy, smiling inwardly, could not but be reminded by this gentle and
graceful American beauty of some royal princess before whom the world
has ever bowed. She was well worth seeking out, however, and Sir Percy,
thinking he was doing the thoroughly American thing, asked Miss Chantrey
if he might, in the name of their mutual friends, call upon her.
"My mother will be very glad to see you, I am sure. We receive on
Tuesdays," she answered, and named a house in the most fashionable
quarter.
A little later Sir Percy found himself standing among a fringe of men
around the ballroom door. The lancers quadrille was being danced, and
once more he noticed the black-haired girl dancing, and this time he was
surprised to see that her partner was Senator March. The Senator went
through the square dance with the gravity and exactness with which he
had learned his steps at a dancing school forty years before. His
partner was no less graceful in the square dance than in the waltz, and
was more unrestrained, making pretty little steps and curtsies and
movements of quick grace, which made her dancing the most exquisite
thing of the kind Sir Percy had ever seen. When the quadrille was over
he suddenly found her standing almost in front of him, laughing and
clinging to Senator March’s arm. Her profile, clear cut as a cameo, but
not in the least classic, was directly in front of Sir Percy, and he was
forced to admire her sparkling face. She had not much regular beauty,
but her white skin, contrasted with her black hair, dark eyes and long,
black lashes, was charming. Her mouth was made for laughter and on the
left side was an elusive dimple. Sir Percy hated dimpled women, but he
found himself looking at the girl’s mobile face and watching the
appearance and disappearance of this little hiding place of laughter
upon her cheek. And, wonderful to say, she did not screech, but spoke
in a voice that was singularly clear and musical. Some experience of
the American methods of introducing right and left had been Sir Percy’s,
and he was not surprised when Senator March laid a hand upon his arm and
whispered:
"May I introduce you to this young friend of mine, Miss Lucy Armytage of
Bardstown, Kentucky? You have heard of Kentucky horses, haven’t you?"
"Yes," answered Sir Percy, with the recollection of Iroquois and the
Derby in his mind.
"Very well, the Kentucky horses are not a patch on the Kentucky women."
"In that case," replied Sir Percy, laughing, "may I beg you to introduce
me to Miss Armytage at once?"
Senator March introduced him in due form, and Miss Armytage, holding out
a slim hand, cast down her eyes demurely and murmured that she was glad
to meet him.
"Sir Percy has only lately arrived in America," explained Senator March.
"And has probably never heard of Bardstown, Kentucky," responded Miss
Armytage, suddenly lifting her eyes and fixing them full upon Sir Percy.
"I am afraid," she said meditatively, "that I follow the example of St.
Paul. You know he was always bragging about being Paul of Tarsus, and I
am always bragging that I am Miss Armytage of Bardstown, Kentucky."
"Pray tell me all about Bardstown," said Sir Percy gravely, and Miss
Armytage, in her clear, sweet voice, and with equal gravity, proceeded
to a statistical and historical account of Bardstown, the dimple in her
cheek meanwhile coming and going.
Sir Percy listened, surprised and amused. The affected dryness of what
Miss Armytage was telling was illuminated with little turns and sparkles
of wit; and from Bardstown she proceeded to give, with the utmost
seriousness, a brief synopsis of the history and resources of the State
of Kentucky. Sir Percy grew more and more amused. He perceived that
she was diverting herself with him, a thing no woman had ever done
before. He had heard of American humour, but he did not know that the
women possessed it. He felt sure that Miss Armytage was a real
humourist, and also a sentimentalist when she said, presently:
"I was at a great dinner in New York last week, and as we were sitting
at the table I heard an organ grinder in the street outside playing ’My
Old Kentucky Home,’ and while I was listening, and thinking about
Bardstown, two tears dropped into my soup. I never was so ashamed in my
life."
She looked into Sir Percy’s eyes with an appealing air, like a child who
knows not whether it is to be rebuked or praised. Her whole air and
manner radiated interest in Sir Percy as she asked softly:
"What do you suppose the other people at the table thought of me?"
Sir Percy answered her as any other man would:
"That you had a very tender heart."
He was charmed with her simplicity, combined with her natural grace. A
moment after a young naval officer came up and claimed Miss Armytage for
a dance. She turned to go with him, but looked backward at Sir Percy
with a glance such as Clytie might have given the departing lord of the
unerring bow. Her glance, quick yet soft, was much the prettiest thing
of the sort Sir Percy had ever seen. He perceived that Miss Armytage
was the typical American girl. However, he was much disgusted, as his
eyes followed Lucy, to see her glancing up into the eyes of Stanley, the
young naval man, with precisely the same look of appealing confidence
with which she had bewitched himself two minutes before. He hated a
coquette with an Englishman’s hatred of being trifled with by a woman,
and immediately classified Miss Armytage, of Bardstown, Kentucky, as a
very finished coquette, and concluded not to trouble himself further
about her.
The ball went on merrily, and it was one o’clock in the morning before
the carriages began to drive away from the _porte-cochère_. Among the
last guests to go was Lucy Armytage. Sir Percy was standing in the hall
when Lucy tripped down the stairs and joined an elderly, grey-bearded
man standing near Sir Percy. A long white evening cloak enveloped her
slender figure and a white gauze scarf was upon her soft black hair.
She joined the grey-bearded man, who had on his overcoat and his hat
under his arm, and then she, glancing toward Sir Percy, cried softly:
"I am so glad I met you. May I introduce my uncle? Colonel Armytage,
of Kentucky, Sir Percy Carlyon. My uncle is a member of Congress; in
Kentucky that makes him a colonel, though I can’t explain why."
"My dear sir," responded Colonel Armytage, extending a cordial hand, "I
am extremely pleased to meet you, extremely so! I am of unmixed English
descent myself, and quite naturally I look upon our country as the
mother of us all."
Sir Percy tried to imagine a member of Parliament meeting an American as
Colonel Armytage met him, but his imagination was not equal to anything
so extraordinary. He understood, however, and appreciated the frank,
unconventional good-will which animated Colonel Armytage, and replied
with sincere courtesy:
"I am always glad to hear that sentiment from an American, and be
assured we feel the tie of blood as much as you do."
"Some of you do," answered Lucy oracularly, "but some of you don’t. I
can tell you a harrowing tale of a little upstart Englishman. Pray
excuse me."
Colonel Armytage scowled at Lucy.
"You must forgive her, my dear sir," he said to Sir Percy; "this child
has a charter to say and to do as she pleases, and Mrs. Armytage and
myself are under bond to obey her. I shall have much pleasure in seeing
you if you will honour me with a call. That, I believe, is the custom
in Washington, but I assure you, sir, in the State of Kentucky, it would
be the native who would call first, and such would be my desire if it
were not for this infernal official etiquette which forbids it. Mrs.
Armytage and my niece receive on Tuesdays," and he named a large
down-town hotel, which had ceased to be fashionable about forty years
before, but still was frequented by Southern and Western
representatives.
Then Lucy nodded and smiled and took Colonel Armytage’s arm and was gone
in a moment.
Sir Percy followed Lord Baudesert to the library and joined him in a
cigar and a whisky and soda.
"What do you think of ’em?" asked Lord Baudesert knowingly, and Sir
Percy, understanding that the American ladies were meant, answered:
"Very pretty and very well dressed and very much spoiled, I should
judge. I can’t quite make out how much real and how much apparent
cleverness they have."
"No, neither can any one else," replied Lord Baudesert; "they are the
most complex creatures alive. You must readjust all your ideas
concerning the sex when it comes to studying this particular variety.
They are not like Englishwomen, nor Frenchwomen, nor Spanish women, nor
German women, nor Hindoo women, that ever I heard, yet they have some of
the characteristics of all. Having been afraid of women all my
life--except, of course, Susan and her brood--I am more afraid of
American women than any others. Don’t marry one, my boy. That’s my
advice--but don’t tell Susan I say so."
"Trust me," replied Sir Percy confidently, lighting another cigar.
*III*
Sir Percy Carlyon had declined to be domiciled at the British Embassy,
as Lord Baudesert urged, but took modest chambers close at hand. He
found plenty to do, and although he was supposed to be capable of
bullying Lord Baudesert, it was impossible to force the Ambassador to a
regular course of work every day. Sir Percy, however, watched the
chances, and succeeded in getting more out of Lord Baudesert than any
one else had ever done. Moreover, Sir Percy was a _persona grata_ to
Mrs. Vereker and the three girls, not that this mattered to Lord
Baudesert, who, as far as women were concerned, was a natural and
incurable bully and buccaneer. Lord Baudesert was neither bad-tempered
nor bad-hearted, but it cannot be denied that he was a trying person
domestically. It was in vain that Sir Percy reminded his aunt and
cousins that Lord Baudesert had no power of life or death over them and
could not eat them. Mrs. Vereker was horrified at the suggestion that
she should exercise a little personal liberty, and the three girls
thought Sir Percy slightly cracked when he advised them to assert
themselves boldly in the presence of their uncle. On the whole,
however, Sir Percy liked his new outlook upon the world, and considered
that he was now in the sunshine of good fortune.
Mrs. Vereker, Jane, Sarah and Isabella worked hard in the society grind,
and Lord Baudesert was less lazy in social than in official life. Sir
Percy, up to the evening of the ball, had not paid a single visit,
except of an official nature, but on the Tuesday afternoon following he
put on a frock-coat and started out armed with his card case. In front
of his own door he hesitated a moment to think whether he should call on
the Chantreys or the Armytages. Ridiculous to say, Sir Percy had been
haunted by the remembrance of the airy grace, the seductive eyes of this
provincial coquette--for so he classified Lucy Armytage; and, calling
himself a great fool, he turned his steps first towards the down-town
hotel where the Armytages lived. He began to reckon what Lucy’s age
might be. She had a peculiar guilelessness of look and voice and manner
which seldom lasts beyond a girl’s twenty-first birthday; yet he judged
her to be not less than twenty-five. One thing about her, he admitted,
was adorable--an obvious ignorance of evil, a lovely innocence, which
revealed itself readily to the experienced eyes of a man of the world.
Sir Percy hated knowing women, and that recalled Alicia Vernon. He
doubted if she, even as a young girl, had ever been truly innocent in
mind.
The afternoon was warm and bright, though it was December, and carriages
full of elaborately dressed women were dashing about the streets and
standing in long lines before houses which were open on that day. Sir
Percy found, when he reached the down-town hotel, that visitors were
plentiful there also, and thronged the halls and staircases. He was
shown up to the great public drawing-room, in which lights were already
blazing, and where a bevy of Congressmen’s wives and daughters were
holding a joint reception. The huge room was well filled, the ladies
being in the majority. Sir Percy, standing in the doorway, was
searching for Lucy Armytage when a hand was laid upon his arm.
"I am delighted to see you, Sir Percy," said Colonel Armytage. "Lucy
will be delighted, too. She has talked about you incessantly since she
met you."
If the uncle of an English girl had confided to Sir Percy that she had
talked about him incessantly since their first meeting Sir Percy would
have thought it time to ask for leave to hunt big game in the Rockies.
But, being a man of brains, he recognised the mental attitude of Colonel
Armytage, and found himself rather pleased at the thought that this
dark-eyed girl had chatted about him. Probably he was the first
Englishman of his kind she had ever met. The next moment he was being
introduced to Mrs. Armytage, a motherly soul, in a black velvet gown,
which was the twin of Mrs. Vereker’s robe of state. A little way off,
Lucy, in a white gown, was talking earnestly with a group of plain,
elderly persons. She turned her head and caught sight of Sir Percy, but
with a little nod and a glint of a smile she continued her conversation,
and even escorted the little group to the door, where she said good-bye.
Then she came up to Sir Percy.
"They were constituents," she said. "They are very nice people at home,
but they are not much accustomed to society, and naturally they feel a
little awkward in a room full of strangers like this. If one takes them
in hand, and is a little pleasant, they are eternally grateful, and will
stand by Uncle Armytage through thick and thin when the nominating
convention is on."
"I see you are a politician," said Sir Percy, looking down at her and
trying to determine whether white or black were more becoming to her
piquant and irregular beauty.
"No; I am a diplomatist, like yourself," replied Lucy, looking up with
laughing, unabashed dark eyes into his face. "My uncle, you see, is not
a diplomatist at all, and neither his worst enemy nor his best friend
could call him a politician. I call him a statesman. He is the dearest
man on earth, but he always acts on his impulses, and that, you know, is
very unwise."
The gravity with which she said this made Sir Percy smile, but Lucy kept
on with the air of an instructress:
"Of course, it is unwise. Imagine Lord Baudesert bolting out the truth
upon every occasion! And that is just what my uncle does. My aunt
thinks him the wisest person in the world, so you see I am the only one
in the family who is capable of any diplomacy at all. Now, as I am
twenty-five years old----"
"So old as that?" said Sir Percy, pretending surprise.
"Twenty-six next birthday," gravely responded Lucy, "and I have learned
a great deal. One thing is, that constituents never forgive one if they
are not shown attention in Washington. I assure you my attentions to
Bardstown people in Washington got my uncle his last nomination. I took
a grocer’s daughter round with me sight-seeing, and I gave nine teas in
one month for Bardstown girls. I didn’t commit the folly of asking for
invitations for them. Nobody thanks you for introducing the superfluous
girl, and I can’t see why one should expect other people to pay one’s
social debts. But I paid all my own debts, and made Uncle Armytage do a
lot of things for the Bardstown men who were here, which he said he
hadn’t time to do. But I made him find the time. Isn’t that
diplomacy?"
"Diplomacy and good sense combined," answered Sir Percy.
He thought he had never seen so expressive a face as Lucy Armytage’s.
Every word she uttered seemed to have a corresponding expression of the
eye. Her cheeks were colourless, like the leaves of a white rose, but
her lips were scarlet and showed beautiful and regular teeth. A
charming English girl always reminded Sir Percy of a beautiful rose in
bloom, but this girl was like the star-like jessamine, which grows not
in every garden, its white, mysterious flowers hiding in the depths of
its green leaves and casting its delicious perfume afar. Then Lucy
said, suddenly changing the subject:
"I have been in a dream all day. This morning I went for a walk far
into the country, as I often do, and I took Omar with me."
"Omar?" asked Sir Percy, not quite understanding her.
"’The Rubaiyat,’ I mean. Everybody reads it here. It always takes me
into another world. Our life is so vivid, so full of action, so
concerned with to-day, and Omar’s world is all peace and dreaming. I
daresay you can read Omar in the original?"
"A little; but I didn’t know that Americans liked peace and dreaming."
"Wait until you see more of us. There is Senator March; I must speak to
him."
She turned and went up to Senator March, who had come in and was
standing talking with Mrs. Armytage. Sir Percy remained some minutes
looking at the sight before him. He was reminded of those meetings of
the Primrose League which bring together all manner of men and women.
Meanwhile he was acutely conscious of Lucy’s presence, although half the
room separated them. She was indeed like the jessamine flower whose
languorous sweet odour forces one to seek it.
Sir Percy found a few acquaintances, and while talking with them Senator
March made his adieux and came up.
"Come," he said, "my brougham is below; let us take a turn together
round the speedway."
Sir Percy liked the simple friendliness of Senator March’s tone and
manner, and readily accepted. As the two men passed along the corridor
of the hotel another man was entering who came up and shook hands with
Roger March. The new-comer carried a satin-lined overcoat on his arm
and his hat in his hand. His appearance was so striking that to see him
once was to remember him. He was of medium height, rather handsome,
with dark hair slightly streaked with grey, a thin-lipped, well-cut
mouth, and eyes of peculiar keenness--the eyes that see everything and
tell nothing. A few pleasant words were exchanged and Senator March and
Sir Percy passed on. Outside, a handsome brougham, with a pair of
impatient horses, was waiting. The two men entered and in a little
while were whirling along the level curve of the boulevard which skirts
the river. The sun was sinking redly, and the water was wine-coloured,
in the old Homeric phrase. The air was like champagne, with a sharpness
in it brought by the breeze from the inland sea a hundred miles away.
"Did you observe," asked
|
Jews. How intent
every one appears to be on business, and what a general buzz and din we
hear: yet the figure of one individual stands very silently in the midst
of all, I mean the statue of Charles the Second, on a pedestal. In a few
years, every one of these active merchants will be as motionless as this
marble statue. It may be of service to the busy Englishman, sprightly
Frenchman, lazy Spaniard, plodding-Dutchman, rough Russian, proud Turk,
and rich Jew, to reflect on this; and to endeavour, with all their
gettings, to get understanding.
26. The Fire-engine.
[Picture: The Fire-engine]
We know of no place better supplied with engines for putting out fire,
than London; and though fires are very frequent, they seldom do so much
damage as formerly, when houses were built of wood, or without
party-walls.
An engine is a very clever contrivance: the pipes convey the water over
the tops of the houses; and if an engine arrives in time, it frequently
prevents the flames from spreading further. {29}
27. Drawing Goods in a Truck.
[Picture: Drawing Goods in a Truck]
Well done, my good boy! and well done, my good dog! Why the dog works as
hard as the boy, and seems to do it with quite as much ease.
In drawing that truck, boy, you now feel a part
Of what ev’ry horse feels, when drawing a cart.
Come, my lad, haste away, to make room for a fine coach, full of gay
people, coming to the East India House.
28. The East India House.
The East India Company is one of the most powerful and wealthy
associations in Europe; and their house in Leadenhall Street is a very
elegant building. The Company was originally formed by Queen Elizabeth,
in 1600, principally for the purpose of procuring spices at a cheap rate,
which were advanced in price by the Dutch. From traders they became
conquerors of the natives, and having obtained a footing in the country,
usurped the sovereignty over considerable districts; and war, with
oppression, have too often befallen the harmless natives. The India
ships bring home tea, coffee, silks both raw and manufactured, cottons,
muslins, calicoes, drugs, China-ware, rice, sago, saltpetre, pepper,
indigo, &c &c.
29. London Stone.
[Picture: London Stone]
This is to be seen in Cannon Street, against the wall of St. Swithin’s
church, where it has long been preserved. It is now cased with
stone-work, and guarded by an iron bar and spikes, but still remains open
to view. It has been supposed to be a standard, from which the Romans,
when in England, computed their miles. Proclamations were formerly
delivered from this stone to the people.
30. Guildhall.
[Picture: The Guildhall]
This is the place where the public business of the corporation of London
is transacted; and where the judges sit to hear and determine causes. In
this hall the Court of Aldermen and Common Council have a very handsome
chamber, or court-room, which is ornamented with a capital collection of
paintings, presented to the City of London by the late worthy Alderman
Boydell, who greatly promoted the arts. The fine painting by Mr. Copley,
representing the siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish flotilla, and likewise
an elegant marble statue of George III. our late venerable monarch, are
well worth seeing by every admirer of the arts of painting and statuary.
Nearly opposite to the entrance of this fine building, and on each side
of the clock, formerly stood two gigantic statues, commonly called Gog
and Magog, supposed to be the figures of a Briton and a Saxon; but they
are now removed to the west end of the hall, as they are seen in the
picture, No. 31.
Two modern painted windows complete the decorations of this venerable
building; the one representing the royal arms, the other those of the
city of London.
32. The Mansion House,
[Picture: The Mansion House]
Well, here are the Lord Mayor’s coach and six horses, standing opposite
the Mansion House, which is the place of residence for every chief
magistrate during his mayoralty. It is a stone building of magnificence,
but appears the more heavy and gloomy from its confined situation.
33. The Bank of England.
[Picture: The Bank of England]
Not far from the Mansion House stands the Bank of England. This building
fills a space enclosed by the four streets, Bartholomew Lane, Lothbury,
Prince’s Street, and Bank Buildings. It is truly interesting to behold
the busy scene that daily passes in the rotunda, amongst the buyers and
sellers of stock, or those who are engaged in transferring it, all so
eagerly occupied with their affairs, and showing their anxiety by their
countenances. Where money is, there the crowd will be; and persons who
go to the Bank should be careful lest their pockets be picked of such
money as they may have received.
34. St. Paul’s Cathedral.
[Picture: St. Paul’s Cathedral]
This is a wonderfully fine building! and the countryman’s amazement on
first seeing it, is very naturally expressed in the following lines:
Of all the brave churches I ever did see,
Sure this seems the greatest and grandest to me!
What a wonderful place! I am full of surprise,
And hardly know how to believe my own eyes.
Why sure that gold cross at the top is so high,
That it must, now and then, prick a hole in the sky;
And, for my part, I should not be much in amaze,
If the moon should run foul of it, one of these days.
It is not only the outside of this fine building that commands attention,
but the inside also. The whispering gallery, the great bell, the
library, and so many other curiosities are to be seen, that even to name
the whole would require more space than we can afford in our little work.
A young country gentleman, who was never before on any thing higher than
a haystack, has now reached the top of St. Paul’s, and is admiring the
prospect from the iron gallery.
Well, certainly, this is a wonderful sight;
And pays one for climbing up here such a height.
Dear, what a large city! and full, in all parts,
Of churches and houses, of horses and carts.
What hundreds of coaches, and thousands of folk!
And then, _above all_, what a very thick smoke!
I could stand here all _day_ to behold this fine town;
Tho’, as night’s coming on, I had better go down.
I think so too, young gentleman: and mind how you go along the dark
staircase, for it would be a sad thing to fall down among that frightful
scaffolding. Walk gently, and lay hold of the rail as you go along, and
you will be safe enough.
35. The Blue-coat School, called Christ’s Hospital.
[Picture: The Blue-coat School]
There are nearly one thousand children educated here at a time. The boys
continue to wear the dress worn in the days of the virtuous and youthful
prince, Edward the Sixth, who founded this school for orphans and other
poor children.
Their singular dress consists of a coat of blue cloth, formed something
similar to a woman’s gown; and in winter they wear a yellow woollen
petticoat. Their stockings are of yellow worsted, and round their waist
they buckle a red-leather girdle. They are also furnished with a round,
flat woollen cap, about the size of a tea-saucer, which they generally
carry under their arm. A pewter badge on their breast, and a clergyman’s
band round their neck, complete their antique uniform.
36. The enraged Ox.
[Picture: The enraged Ox]
This is what might have been expected, my lad! You have been teasing and
worrying that animal, till it is become quite furious, and now you must
take the consequence. It was as tame and quiet as any ox in Smithfield,
till you began to pull it by the tail, and beat it about the horns; and
now, (as oxen do not know they ought not to be revengeful,) you cannot be
surprised if it should give you a toss or two. Cruel folks are always
cowardly, and it is no wonder to see you running away in such a dreadful
fright.
37. The Dustman.
[Picture: The Dustman]
Bring out your dust, the dustman cries,
Whilst ringing of his bell:
If the wind blows, pray guard your eyes,
To keep them clear and well.
A very useful set of men are these: they remove the dust and dirt from
the houses in the city. It is a very profitable business; for, by
sifting and sorting what is taken away, every thing becomes useful.
There are frequently found cinders for firing, ashes and breeze for
brickmakers: bones and old rags, tin and old iron, are carefully
separated from oyster-shells and stones, which have their several
purchasers.
My masters, I’m dirty, nor can I be clean;
My bus’ness it would ill become,
With my face and hands clean in the streets to be seen,
While I carry my shovel and broom.
38. The taking of Guy Fawkes.
[Picture: The taking of Guy Fawkes]
In one of the print-shops of London may be seen a representation of the
taking of Guy Fawkes, in the reign of King James the First. In the year
1605, the plot to destroy the king and parliament was discovered, owing
to an anonymous letter sent to Lord Monteagle. In a cellar under the
parliament-house, there were found thirty-six barrels of gunpowder; upon
which were laid bars of iron, massy stones, faggots, &c. Near these Guy
Fawkes was concealed, with a dark lantern and three matches. He
instantly confessed his guilt; and, with Sir Everard Digby, Catesby, and
several others, was executed.
39. Guy Fawkes in Effigy.
[Picture: Guy Fawkes in Effigy]
Who comes riding hither, as black as a coal,
With matches and old tinder-box,
And holding his lantern, a figure so droll?
’Tis nobody less than Guy Fawkes!
Every parish in England formerly used to have its _Pope_ or _Guy_ carried
about by idle men and boys on the 5th of November, who usually went from
house to house, begging for money to make a bonfire and a feast. In many
of the villages near London, there used to be two or more parties of
large boys from different parts of the parish; and it frequently
happened, that when one of them thought the other had encroached, by
visiting such houses for money as were deemed out of their bounds, that
battles were fought between them. Many were lamed in these affrays, and
the treasurer to the weakest party has often been plundered of such money
as had been collected.
The people of England in general, of late years, have discouraged these
processions and riots, and they have become so insignificant, as to be
noticed only by children. But even in the present time, some idle people
will fire guns, and throw squibs into the streets, which have caused many
serious accidents; and here seems some poor creature going to
40. Bartholomew’s Hospital,
[Picture: Bartholomew’s Hospital]
Which is in West Smithfield, and where all persons accidentally injured,
are admitted at any hour of the day or night, and carefully attended by
skilful surgeons, and proper nurses. This hospital has long remained a
monument of the piety of its founder, — Rahere, who was minstrel, or
jester, to King Henry the First. Grown weary of the gay offices of his
station, he reformed, founded a priory, and established this hospital for
the sick and maimed. It was granted by King Henry the Eighth, on certain
conditions, to the City of London, in the last year of his reign, for the
same purposes as those of its original foundation. The present building
was erected in the reign of George the Second, in 1730.
41. Smithfield Market
[Picture: Smithfield Market]
Is in a large, open, square place, called West Smithfield; where is held,
for three days in the week, a market for hay and straw; and the other
three days for horses and cattle of all kinds, which make the place very
dirty and inelegant in its appearance. Various have been the purposes,
at different periods, to which this place has been applied, it having
been equally devoted to festive joy, and extreme misery. Here, in the
days of chivalry, the court and nobility held their gallant tilts and
tournaments, with a magnificent parade, characteristic of the age. On
the same spot, for a series of years, have been enjoyed by the lowest
vulgar, the buffoonery humours of Bartholomew Fair, which was first
granted by Henry the Second, to a neighbouring priory, as a mart for
selling the commodities of the drapers of London, and clothiers of
England. As other channels for the disposing of drapery goods arose,
this fair, from a resort of business, became a meeting of pleasure. It
continues three days, to the great annoyance of real trade and decorum;
and a court of _pie-powder_ is held daily, to settle the disputes of the
people who frequent it. On the other hand, in ancient times, it was the
common place of execution for criminals. In the centre of the place now
enclosed with rails, many martyrs were burned at the stake, for their
adherence to the reformed religion; and, lastly, it was the field of
combat, when the guilt of the accused was attempted to be decided by
duel.
There has been of late years, a show of fat cattle annually at
Smithfield, and the feeders of the best kinds have been rewarded with
money, or a piece of valuable plate, which has greatly contributed to
encourage the improvement of various breeds of sheep and cattle.
42. St. Dunstan’s Church.
[Picture: St. Dunstan’s Church]
This is in Fleet Street, and had a very narrow escape from the great fire
of 1666, which stopped within three houses of it. There are two savage
figures on the outside of the clock, that strike the quarters with their
clubs, with which children and strangers are much amused. Dunstan,
before he was made a saint, was well skilled in many arts: he was a good
engraver and worker in brass and iron. He was supposed to be the
inventor of the _Eolian Harp_, whose soft notes are produced by a current
of air causing the wires to vibrate. This was not comprehended by the
vulgar; so, from being wiser than his neighbours, he was deemed a
conjuror by them.
43. The Postman and Letter-Carrier.
[Picture: The Postman and Letter-Carrier]
Make haste, my good lad, or the postman may be gone. These
letter-carriers begin to ring a bell about five o’clock every evening,
and collect letters and newspapers in the several parts of the town, so
as to be able to get to the General Post Office in time for sorting them
for the mail-coaches.
The gentleman’s servant with the letter, seems to be sent from some
lawyer in the Temple, as there is a view of the gardens and fountain.
44. The Temple
Is a place of residence for students of the common law, divided into two
societies, called the Inner and the Middle Temple, which, with the other
law-associations, are called Inns of Court. The buildings of the Temple
are ample and numerous, with pleasant gardens extending to the shores of
the Thames, which prove agreeable retreats to young persons who have been
engaged in study.
45. The Knife-grinder.
[Picture: The Knife-grinder]
This man seems to be very busy, and it is but reasonable to suppose that
he may meet with many employers amongst the students of the law, and the
law-stationers, in and about the Temple: for as they use many pens, a
sharp knife must be quite needful for mending them. But I think he does
not confine himself to grinding knives only, but when wanting a job, he
cries, “Knives to grind! Scissors to grind! Razors to grind!”
Well! who would believe it? why, that is lazy Tom, turned knife-grinder
at last!
“Ay, master, and I never was so happy in my life. I thought, like a
foolish old fellow, that a beggar’s life must at least be an easy one;
but at last I found out, that, though I had nothing to do, I often had
nothing to eat. So, one day, I thought to myself, thinks I, ‘I’ve a vast
mind to bestir myself, and work for my living, for after all this idling,
I don’t see that I am much of a gentleman for it.’ So I bought this
grinding barrow, and began business for myself; and now I earn a
comfortable living, and am as happy as the day is long:
“And so every body who tries it, will find:
I wish you good morning, Sir—Scissors to grind!”
46. The Chair-mender.
[Picture: The Chair-mender]
Old chairs to mend! old chairs to mend!
If I’d as much money as I could spend,
I’d leave off crying, old chairs to mend!
Perhaps so, but then you might not be more healthy, useful, or happy,
than at present. Exercise and sobriety contribute to health, and
industry produces the means of procuring wealth sufficient to live in a
comfortable manner. A chair-bottomer is a very useful man: he
contributes to the ease and comfort of many of his employers; yet, one
cannot help asking, Has every chair which wants a new bottom, been worn
out fairly? What! have no little boys, or great girls, been standing up
in them? or drawing them up and down the house and yard, to wear out the
rushes?
During the war with Holland, rushes for bottoming chairs were very scarce
and dear, so that the poor men in that line of business found a great
difficulty to obtain materials and employment.
This man, although he appears poor, yet he occupies the highest situation
in the city of London, having taken his seat in Panyer Alley, leading
from Newgate Street to Paternoster Row; where a stone is placed, in the
wall of one of the houses, with the following inscription in old English
verse:
WHEN Y HAVE SOVGHT
THE CITTY ROVND,
YET STILL THS IS
THE HIGHST GROVND.
AVGVST THE 27,
1688.
47. The News Boy and Flying Pieman.
[Picture: The News Boy and Flying Pieman]
“Great News! Great News!” “All Hot! Smoking Hot!” These are two busy
men, indeed; one cries food for the mind, and the other food for the
body. Neither of these tradesmen keep long in one place. The news-boy
would be very glad to have a hot plumcake, but he has not time to eat it;
nor will the pieman wait to hear what the news is. So that they are not
only _busy men_, but what is very different, _men of business_. They are
passing by _The Obelisk_, in Fleet Street, built by the City of London,
on the spot which was once the centre of Fleet Ditch, which flowed as
high as Holborn Bridge, under that part which Fleet Market is now built
upon.
48. Blackfriars’ Bridge.
[Picture: Blackfriars’ Bridge]
Here we have a view of Blackfriars’ Bridge, and, from the great bustle
there is upon the river, there seems to be a rowing match among several
watermen. This bridge is a noble structure, consisting of nine arches,
the centre one being one hundred feet wide. Over each pier is a recess,
with seats for passengers on the bridge, supported by two beautiful Ionic
pillars, which stand on a semi-circular projection, rising above
high-water mark; and the whole appears an admirable piece of workmanship,
upon the water. This bridge was begun in the year 1760, from a design of
Robert Mylne, Esq. the architect, and finished in about eight years, at
the expence of rather more than one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Blackfriars’ Bridge is a very pleasant place for a walk, especially on a
fine summer’s evening, when the air is still and serene, and the light
pleasure-boats are gliding up and down the river with their gay
companies.
It is a beautiful sight to see the sun setting from this place: it shines
upon the great dome of St. Paul’s, in all its glory, and makes it look as
if it were made of gold. The watermen are always waiting about the
bridges, and keep a brisk cry of Boat! boat, who wants a boat? Oars,
Sir! sculler, Sir!
49. Temple Bar.
[Picture: Temple Bar]
Temple Bar is a noble gateway of stone, with a large arch in the centre
for carriages, and a covered path on each side for foot-passengers. It
is now the only gate standing, except St. John’s Gate, Smithfield, out of
the many formerly used at the several principal entries into the city.
On some public occasions, as, when the king or any of the royal family
come into the city, or on a proclamation of peace, this gate is shut and
opened with great formality. On the latter occasion, the gates of Temple
Bar are shut, to show that the jurisdiction of the city is under the Lord
Mayor. The knight-marshal, with his officers, having reached this
barrier of city authority, the trumpets are sounded thrice; and the
junior officer of arms riding up to the gate, knocks with a cane. The
city marshal within demands, “Who comes there?” The herald replies, “The
officers of arms, who ask entrance into the city, to publish his
majesty’s proclamation of peace.” On this the gates are opened, and he
alone is admitted; when, being conducted to the Lord Mayor, he shows the
royal warrant, which his lordship having read and returned, he orders the
city marshal to open the gates. This being done, the heralds resume
their places; and the procession, joined by the city magistrates,
proceeds to the Royal Exchange, where the proclamation is read.
The very great improvements already made from Temple Bar towards St.
James’s, have cost so considerable a sum of money, that the destruction
of this gate, or bar, has been delayed much longer than was expected.
The upper part of it was used of late years as an office for publishing
the Star newspaper.
Shortly after the rebellion of 1745, the heads of three rebel noblemen
were fixed on three poles, on the top of the gate, where they remained
till they decayed, or were blown down by a high wind.
50. The Paviors.
[Picture: The Paviors]
When we see a rope, with a wisp of straw tied to it, across the street,
no carriage should attempt to pass, for that is the pavior’s signal that
the road is stopped, by their being at work on the stones. And hard work
it seems to be, to use the heavy rammer.
“Does not each walker know the warning sign,
When wisps of straw depend upon the twine
Cross the close street, that then the pavior’s art
Renews the way, denied to coach or cart?
For thee the sturdy pavior thumps the ground,
Whilst every stroke his labouring lungs resound.”
The stones for paving London are mostly brought from the quarries of
Scotland, by ships; and very few towns or cities in Europe are better
paved than the City of London. Indeed, every year seems to add
improvements, for the health and comfort of the inhabitants.
The country farmer, who has been used to nothing but ploughed fields, and
uneven, rutted lanes, or, at best, to the rough gravel of a cross-country
road, would be surprised to see the streets of London paved as neatly as
Farmer Furrowdale’s kitchen, and the lamps lighted as regularly every
evening, as that in the great hall at the ’squires. And now, by the
introduction of gas, the principal streets are very brilliantly
illuminated, without the aid of tallow, oil, or cotton.
51. Westminster Abbey.
[Picture: Westminster Abbey]
There seems to be one more great person removed from this life, and going
in a hearse with six horses, to his last home. Westminster Abbey is a
fine Gothic pile, and was founded by _Sebert_, king of the East Saxons,
but at what time is uncertain. In this place the kings and queens of
England have been crowned, ever since the days of Pope Nicholas the
Second, who appointed it for their inauguration. The coronation chairs
are kept here, and the seat of the most ancient one is the stone on which
the kings of Scotland used to be crowned, brought to Westminster by
Edward the First.
The great number of monuments, and other curiosities of this venerable
building, with the variety of pavements and chapels, are well worthy of a
visit from every enquiring stranger; but the insertion of a full
description here, would be more than can be expected.
52. The Tombs.
[Picture: The Tombs]
There is a Westminster scholar, and he appears to be explaining the
particulars of some Latin inscription, to his mother and sister, who have
called to see him. Methinks I hear the lady say, “See, my dear children,
what the richest and greatest come to at last. Rich and poor, high and
low, must all be laid in the grave; and though this noble monument
appears very grand to the living, it makes no difference to ‘the poor
inhabitant below,’ whether he lies beneath a beautiful pile of white
marble, or has only a few green osiers bound over his grave.”
53. Westminster Bridge
[Picture: Westminster Bridge]
Is admired both for the grandeur and simplicity which are united in its
several parts. Henry, Earl of Pembroke, promoted the erection of this
bridge, and laid the first stone, in the beginning of the year 1739. It
has thirteen arches, exclusive of a very small one at each end. The
foundation is laid on a solid bed of gravel, and the piers are solid
blocks of Portland stone, uniting strength with neatness. It was eight
years and three quarters in completing, and cost £389,500 being more than
double the cost of Blackfriars’. Westminster Bridge was opened for
carriages about midnight, by a procession of gentlemen, the chief
artificers, and a multitude of spectators. The architect was not a
native of this country: his name was Labelye.
Not far from the bridge, in old Palace Yard, stands Westminster Hall.
54. Westminster Hall
[Picture: Westminster Hall]
Is thought to be the largest room in Europe unsupported by pillars, being
two hundred and seventy feet in length, and seventy-four in breadth. The
roof is of curious workmanship in oak, and reminds the beholders of a
grove of trees, whose top branches extend toward each other till they
unite. A great feast was held in this vast apartment, and other rooms of
the palace, in the days of King Richard the Second, who is said to have
entertained ten thousand guests, with his usual hospitality.
This hall was the court of justice in which the sovereign presided in
person. Hence the Court of King’s Bench took its name. Charles the
First was tried here, and condemned to suffer death by his own subjects.
The trial of peers, or of any person impeached by the Commons, has been
usually held here; and the coronation feasts have been celebrated therein
for many ages.
The ground on which the hall stands is so near to the water, that on
several high tides the Thames has overflowed the hall, the courts of
justice have been broken up prematurely, and the people conveyed away in
boats.
55. The Lamplighter.
[Picture: The Lamplighter]
Perhaps the streets of no city in the world are so well lighted as those
of London, there being lamps on each side of the way, but a few yards
distant from each other. It is said that a foreign ambassador happening
to enter London in the evening, after the lamps were lighted, was so
struck with the brilliancy of the scene, that he imagined the streets had
been illuminated expressly in honour of his arrival. What would he have
thought, had he passed through the lustre which is shed at present by the
gas lights, from so many of our shops, and from the lamps in the streets?
The Lamplighters are a useful set of men; and they are liable to many
accidents while engaged in their dangerous occupation. In the winter,
the foot-pavement is frequently so slippery, that they often fall and are
maimed, by the ladder’s sliding from under them; or sometimes a careless
passenger runs against the ladder and throws them down. But one of their
greatest difficulties is a high wind. In October, 1812, a poor man,
named Burke, who had been many years in that employment, as he was
lighting the lamps on the east side of Blackfriars’ Bridge, was, by a
sudden gust of wind, blown into the river, in presence of his son, a
child of ten years old, and before assistance could be procured, he sunk
to rise no more.
56. The Watchman.
[Picture: The Watchman]
This man has a comfortable great coat, a lantern, and a rattle, with a
large stick to attack thieves. I suppose my readers would think it very
wrong of him to sleep, and suffer thieves to do as they please; and so it
would. But I hope no one will blame the watchman, and do as bad himself;
for I have known some little folks, who have had books and teachers, and
good advice also, that have not made use of any of them. Indeed,
sometimes when their teachers were looking at them, they would appear to
be very busy and attentive for a little while; but when no one watched
them, they would do as little as a watchman when he takes a nap.
57. The Link-boy.
[Picture: The Link-boy]
The Link-boys are often on the watch, with their large torches, at dark
crossings and lanes, to light passengers through them. They deserve the
reward of a few halfpence, from those whom they assist.
58. The Sedan Chair.
[Picture: The Sedan Chair]
This mode of riding is now but seldom seen, though formerly it was
frequently in use. Now, Sedan Chairs are used only by the sick and
weakly, or by the nobility and others, who attend at the levees at court.
As for us poor authors, we must adopt the plan of riding when we must,
and walking while we can.
59. The Milkmaid.
[Picture: The milkmaid]
If any of my little readers wish to be as healthy and merry as Betty the
milkmaid, they must work hard, and rise early in the morning, instead of
lying in bed while every body else is about his business, and idling
their time till they go to bed again. Betty is obliged to get up as soon
as it is light, and then takes a walk into the fields to fetch her cows.
When she has milked their full udders into her clean pails, she sets off
again, and carries it from door to door, time enough for her customers to
have it for breakfast. As every one knows the business of a milkmaid, I
shall say no more about it; but advise those to remember her example, who
wish to make themselves happy or useful.
60. The Sailors and Ship.
[Picture: The Sailors and Ship]
Tom Hazard was an unthinking boy, and would not settle to any business at
home, and so ventured one day in a frolic to go on the water with a party
of young folks; and, as Tom staid out late at night, he was met on coming
ashore by a press-gang, who took him on board a man-of-war, from which,
after some time, he made his escape, and entered on board the _Desperate_
Privateer, hazarding his life for a golden chain, or a broken limb. And
now, poor fellow, when it is too late, he sorely laments his situation,
for, having lost a leg, he wanders with some of his companions, and joins
in their mournful ditty.
We poor sailors, lame and blind,
Now your charity would sue;
Treat us not with words unkind,
But a spark of pity shew.
Where the stormy billows roar,
Many a year we plough’d the main:
Far, to east or western shore,
Luxuries for you to gain.
Far from friends and houses warm,
(Comforts such as you can boast,)
We have braved the howling storm,
Shipwreck’d on a desert coast.
Many a hardship have we known;
Round and round the world we’ve past;
Now, our limbs and eye-sight gone,
Come to beggary at last!
61. The Admiralty Office.
[Picture: The Admiralty Office]
This is in that part of the street between Charing Cross and Parliament
Street which is called White Hall, Westminster, having capacious
apartments for the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, who direct the
affairs of the navy. The telegraph receives information, and gives
instructions, in fair weather, to the various commanders of ships at the
different sea-ports. This invention was first practised with success in
France, and is admirably contrived to convey intelligence in a very
expeditious manner.
62. The Sailing Match.
[Picture: The Sailing Match]
Take care, my lads, not to crowd too much sail, or the boat may upset!
There they go! from Blackfriars’ Bridge, through Westminster Bridge, to
Vauxhall, and back again. What a number of boats there are on the water!
Let us hope no lives will be lost, for it seems rather dangerous to be
near such fast-sailing boats in a loaded wherry; and, as it is much the
safest to be on shore, we would recommend every little boy or girl to
keep off the water at such times.
63. The drowned Boy.
[Picture: The downed boy]
Ah, silly lad! he would go out of his depth, though he knew he was not a
skilful swimmer; and see what has been the consequence! He was seized
with the cramp, when he had been a few minutes in the water, and began to
sink directly. His brave companion jumped in after him, at the risk of
his own life, and has brought him back, quite senseless, to the boat.
How distressed his poor brother looks! and how anxious to see whether
there is any life left in him.
There is a society in London, of which Dr. Hawes and Dr. Lettsom were the
founders, for the purpose of recommending the best means to be used for
recovering drowned persons. It is called the Humane Society. They have
houses placed at proper distances by the river-side, where assistance may
be had instantly; and every possible means are tried for many hours,
before they give any one quite over. Numbers have been restored to life
by this benevolent institution; and there is a sermon preached once a
year, before the Society, when many who have been brought to life by this
means are present: it is
|
shave--a shaving of bacon. Our
correspondent will probably recollect that vessels that have been
_cut down_ are commonly known as _razees_.]
Replies.
PENDULUM DEMONSTRATION OF THE EARTH'S ROTATION.
(Vol. iv., p. 129.)
I beg to send you a few remarks on the note of A. E. B., concerning the
"Pendulum Demonstration of the Earth's Rotation."
Your correspondent appears to consider that the only fact asserted by
the propounders of the theory, is a variation in the plane of
oscillation, caused by "the difference of rotation due to the excess of
velocity with which one extremity of the line of oscillation may be
affected more than the other;" the probable existence of which he proves
by imagining a pendulum suspended over a point half-way between London
and Edinburgh, and set in motion by being drawn towards and retained
over London, and thence dismissed on its course. It is clear that in
such a case the pendulum would at starting be impressed with the same
velocity of motion in an eastern direction which the retaining power in
London had, and that its path would be the result of this force
compounded with that given by gravity in its line of suspension, _i.e._
towards the north, and its course would therefore be one subject to easy
calculation. I should imagine that this disturbing force arising from
the excess of eastern velocity possessed by the starting point over that
of suspension, would be inappreciable after a few oscillations; but at
all events it is evident that it might readily be avoided by setting the
pendulum in motion by an impulse given beneath the point of suspension,
by giving to it a direction east and west as suggested by A. E. B., or
by several other expedients which must occur to a mathematician.
Your correspondent proceeds by requiring that there should be shown
"reasonable ground to induce the belief that the ball is really free
from the attraction of each successive point of the earth's surface,"
and is not as "effectually a partaker in the rotation of any given
point" as if it were fixed there; or that "the duration of residence"
necessary to cause such effect should be stated. Now I certainly am
aware of no force by which a body unconnected with the earth would have
any tendency to rotate with it; gravity can only act in a direct line
from the body affected to the centre of the attracting body, and the
motion in the direction of the earth's rotation can only be gained by
contact or connexion, however momentary, with it. The onus of proving
the existence of such a force as A. E. B. alludes to, must surely rest
with him, not that of disproving it with me. What the propounders of
this theory claim to show is, I humbly conceive, this,--that the
direction in which a pendulum oscillates is _constant_, and not affected
by the rotation of the earth beneath it: that as when suspended above
the pole (where the point of suspension would remain fixed) the plane of
each oscillation would make a _different_ angle with any given meridian
of longitude, returning to its original angle when the diurnal rotation
of the earth was completed; and as when suspended above the equator,
where the point of suspension would be moved in a right line, or, to
define more accurately, where the plane made by the motion of a line
joining the point of suspension and the point directly under it (over
which the ball would remain if at rest) would be a flat or right plane,
the angle made by each successive oscillation with any one meridian
would be the _same_, so, at all the intermediate stations between the
pole and the equator, where the point of suspension would move in a
line, commencing near the pole with an infinitely small curve, and
ending near the equator with one infinitely large (_i.e._ where the
plane as described above would be thus curved), the angle of the plane
of oscillation with a given meridian would, at each station, vary in a
ratio diminishing from the variation at the pole until it became extinct
at the equator, which variation they believe to be capable both of
mathematical proof and of ocular demonstration.
I do not profess to be one of the propounders of this theory, and it is
very probable that you may have received from some other source a more
lucid, and perhaps a more correct, explanation of it; but in case you
have not done so, I send you the foregoing rough "Note" of what are my
opinions of it.
E. H. Y.
A SAXON BELL-HOUSE.
(Vol. iv., p. 102.)
Your correspondent MR. GATTY, in a late number, has quoted a passage of
the historian Hume, which treats a certain Anglo-Saxon document as a
statute of Athelstan. As your correspondent cites his author without a
comment, he would appear to give his own sanction to the date which Hume
has imposed upon that document. In point of fact, it bears no express
date, and therefore presents a good subject for a Query, whether that or
any other era is by construction applicable to it. It is an extremely
interesting Anglo-Saxon remain; and as it bears for title, "be
leodgethincthum and lage," it purports to give legal information upon
the secular dignities and ranks of the Anglo-Saxon period. This promises
well to the archæologist, but unfortunately, on a nearer inspection, the
document loses much of its worth; for, independently of its lacking a
date, its jurisprudence partakes more of theory than that dry law which
we might imagine would proceed from the Anglo-Saxon bench.
Notwithstanding this, however, its archæological interest is great. The
language is pure and incorrupt West Saxon.
It has been published by all its editors (except Professor Leo) as
_prose_, when it is clearly not only rythmical but alliterative--an
obvious characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry. And it is this mistake
which has involved the further consequence of giving to the document a
legal and historical value which it would never have had if its real
garb had been seen through. This has led the critics into a belief of
its veracity, when a knowledge of its real character would have inspired
doubts. I believe that its accidental position in the first printed
edition at the end of the "Judicia" (whether it be so placed in the MS.
I know not) has assisted in the delusion, and has supplied a date to the
minds of those who prefer faith to disquisition. The internal evidence
of the document also shows that it is not jurisprudence, but only a
vision spun from the writer's own brains, of what he dreamed to be
constitutional and legal characteristics of an anterior age, when there
were greater liberty of action and expansion of mind. The opening words
of themselves contain the character of the document:--"Hit wæs hwilum."
It is not a narrative of the present, but a record of the past.
The legal poet then breaks freely into the darling ornament of
Anglo-Saxon song, alliteration: "On Engla lagum thæt leod and lagum,"
and so on to the end. As its contents are so well known and accessible,
I will not quote them, but will merely give a running comment upon
parts. "Gif ceorl getheah," &c. It may be _doubted_ whether, even in
occasional instances, the _ceorl_ at any time possessed under the
Anglo-Saxon system the power of equalising himself by means of the
acquisition of property, with the class of theguas or gentils-hommes.
But in the broad way in which the poet states it, it may be absolutely
denied, inasmuch as the acquisition of wealth is made of itself to
transform the _ceorl_ into a _thegn_: a singular coincidence of idea
with the vulgar modern theory, but incompatible with fact in an age when
a dominant caste of _gentlemen_ obtained.
It is not until the reign of Edward III. that any man, not born a
gentleman, can be distinctly traced in possession of the honours and
dignities of the country; an air of improbability is thus given which is
increased by a verbal scrutiny. In the words "gif thegen getheah thæt be
wearth to eorle," &c., the use of the word _eorl_ is most suspicious.
This is not the _eorl_ of antiquity--the Teutonic _nobilis_; it is the
official _eorl_ of the Danish and _quasi_-Danish periods. This
anachronism betrays the real date of the production, and carries us to
the times succeeding the reign of Ethelred II., when the disordered and
transitional state of the country may have excited in the mind of the
disquieted writer a fond aspiration which he clothed in the fanciful
garb of his own wishes, rather than that of the gloomy reality which he
saw before him.
The use of the _cræft_, for a vessel, like the modern, is to be found in
the _Andreas_ (v. 500.), a composition probably of the eleventh century.
The conclusion points to troubled and late times of the Anglo-Saxon
rule, when the church missed the reverence which had been paid to it in
periods of peace and prosperity.
I have said enough to show that this document cannot rank in accuracy or
truthful value with the Rectitudines or the LL. of Hen. I.
One word more. What is the meaning of _burh-geat_? _Burh_ I can
understand; authorities abound for its use as expressing the _manoir_ of
the Anglo-Saxon _thegn_. The "geneates riht" (_Rectitudines_) is
"bytlian and burh hegegian." The _ceorls_ of Dyddanham were bound to
dyke the hedge of their lords' _burh_ ("Consuetudines in Dyddanhamme,"
_Kemb_, vol. iii. App. p. 450.): "And dicie gyrde burh heges."
H. C. C.
THE WHALE OF JONAH.
Eichhorn (_Einleitung in das Alte Testament_, iii. 249.) in a note
refers to a passage of Müller's translations of Linnæus, narrating the
following remarkable accident:--
"In the year 1758, a seaman, in consequence of stormy weather,
unluckily fell overboard from a frigate into the Mediterranean. A
seal (_Seehund_, not _Hai_, a shark) immediately took the man,
swimming and crying for help, into it wide jaws. Other seamen
sprang into a boat to help their swimming comrade; and their
captain, noticing the accident, had the presence of mind to
direct a gun to be fired from the deck at the fish, whereby he was
fortunately so far struck (_so getroffen wurde_) that he _spit_
out directly the seaman previously seized in his jaws, who was
taken into the boat alive, and apparently little hurt.
"The seal was taken by harpoons and ropes, and hauled into the
frigate, and hung to dry in the cross-trees (_quære_). The captain
gave the fish to the seaman who, by God's providence, had been so
wonderfully preserved; and he made the circuit of Europe with it
as an exhibition, and from France it came to Erlangen, Nuremburg,
and other places, where it was openly shown. The fish was twenty
feet long, with fins nine feet broad, and weighed 3,924 lbs., and
is illustrated in tab. 9. fig. 5.; from all which it is very
probably concluded, that this kind was the true Jonas-fish."
Bochart concurs in this opinion.
Herman de Hardt (_Programma de rebus Jonæ_, Helmst. 1719) considers that
Jonah stopt at a tavern bearing the sign of the whale.
Lesz (_Vermischte Schriften_, Th. i. S. 16.) thinks that a ship with a
figure-head (_Zeichen_) of a whale took Jonah on board, and in three
days put him ashore; from which it was reported that the ship-whale had
vomited (discharged) him.
Eichhorn has noticed the above in his Introduction to the Old Testament
(iii. 250.).
An anonymous writer says that _dag_ means a fish-boat; and that the word
which is translated _whale_, should have been _preserver_; a criticism
inconsistent with itself, and void of authority.
The above four instances are the only hypotheses at variance with the
received text and interpretation worthy of notice: if indeed the case of
the shark can be deemed at all at variance, as the term κῆτος
was used to designate many different fishes.
Jebb (_Sacred Literature_, p. 178.) says that the whale's stomach is not
a safe and practicable asylum; but--
"The throat is large, and provided with a bag or intestine so
considerable in size that whales frequently take into it _two_ of
their young, when weak, especially during a tempest. In this
vessel there are two vents, which serve for inspiration and
expiration; there, in all probability, Jonas was preserved."
John Hunter compares the whale's tongue to a feather bed; and says that
the baleen (whalebone) and tongue together fill up the whole space of
the jaws.
Josephus describes the fish of Jonah as a κῆτος, and fixes on
the Euxine for the locality as an _on dit_ (ὁ λόγος). The same
word in reference to the same event is used by Epiphanius, Cedrenus,
Zanarus, and Nicephorus.
The Arabic version has the word حُوْتا (_choono_), translated in
Walton's Polyglott _cetus_; but the word, according to Castell, means "a
tavern," or "merchants' office." This may have led to Herman de Hardt's
whim.
The Targum of Jonathan, and the Syriac of Jonah, have both the identical
word which was most probably used by our Lord, _Noono_, fish, the root
signifying _to be prolific_, for which fishes are eminently remarkable.
_Dag_, the Hebrew word, has the same original signification.
The word used by our Lord, in adverting to His descent to Hades, was
most probably that of the Syriac version, [Syriac](_noono_), which means
_fish_ in Chaldee and Arabic, as well as in Syriac; and corresponds to
the Hebrew word דַג, (_dag_), _fish_, in Jonah i. 17., ii. 1., 10.
The Greek of Matthew xii. 40., instead of ἰχθὺς, has
κῆτος, _a whale_. The Septuagint has the same word κῆτος for
(1) _dag_ in Jonah, as well as for (2) _leviathan_ in Job iii. 8., and
for (3) _tanninim_ in Genesis i. 21. The error appears to be in the
Septuagint of Jonah, where the particular fish, _the whale_, is
mentioned instead of the general term _fish_. Possibly the disciples of
Christ knew that the fish was a κῆτος, and the habits of such
of them as were fishermen might have familiarised them with its
description or form. It is certain that the κῆτος of Aristotle,
and _cetus_ of Pliny, was one of the genus _Cetacea_, without gills, but
with blow-holes communicating with the lungs. The disciples may also
have heard the mythological story of Hercules being three days in the
belly of the κῆτος, the word used by Æneas Gazæus, although
Lycophron describes the animal as a shark, κάρχαρος κύων.
"Τριεσπέρου λέοντος, ὅν ποτε γνάθοις
Τρίτωνος ἠμάλαψε κάρχαρος κύων."
The remarkable event recorded of Jonah occurred just about 300 years
before Lycophron wrote; who, having doubtless heard the true story,
thought it right to attribute it to Hercules, to whom all other
marvellous feats of power, strength, and dexterity were appropriated by
the mythologists.
T. J. BUCKTON.
Lichfield.
ST. TRUNNIAN.
(Vol. iii., pp. 187. 252.)
Your "NOTES AND QUERIES" form the best specimen of a
Conversations-Lexicon that I have yet met with; and I regret that it was
not in existence some years ago, having long felt the want of some such
special and ready medium of communication.
In the old enclosures to the west of the town of Barton we had a spring
of clear water called St. Trunnian's Spring; and in our open field we
had an old thorn tree called St. Trunnian's Tree,--names that imply a
familiar acquaintance with St. Trunnian here; but I have no indication
to show who St. Trunnian was. I am happy, however, to find that your
indefatigable correspondent DR. RIMBAULT, like myself, has had his
attention called to the same unsatisfied Query.
Paulinus, the first Bishop of York, was the first who preached
Christianity in Lindsey; yet St. Chad was the patron saint of Barton and
its immediate neighbourhood, and at times I have fancied that St.
Trunnian might have been one of his coadjutors; at other times I have
thought he may have been some sainted person, posted here with the
allied force under Anlaff, previous to the great battle of Brunannburg,
which was fought in the adjoining parish in the time of Athelstan: but I
never could meet with any conclusive notice, of St. Trunnian, or any
particular account of him. Some years ago I was dining with a clerical
friend in London, and then made known my anxiety, when he at once
referred to the quotation made by DR. RIMBAULT from _Appius and
Virginia_, as in Vol. iii., p. 187.; and my friend has since referred me
to Heywoods's play of _The Four P's_ (Collier's edition of Dodsley's Old
Plays, vol. i. p. 55.), where the Palmer is introduced narrating his
pilgrimage:
"At Saynt Toncumber and Saynt Tronion,
At Saynt Bothulph and Saynt Ann of Buckston;"
inferring a locality for St. Tronion as well as St. Botulph, in
Lincolnshire: and subsequently my friend notes that--
"Mr. Stephens, in a letter to the printer of the _St. James's
Chronicle_, points out the following mention of St. Tronion in
Geoffrey Fenton's _Tragical Discourses_, 4to., 1567, fol. 114.
b.:--'He (referring to some one in his narrative not named)
returned in Haste to his Lodgynge, where he attended the approche
of his Hower of appointment wyth no lesse Devocyon than the
papystes in France perform their ydolatrous Pilgrimage to the ydol
Saynt Tronyon upon the Mount Avyon besides Roan.'"
Should these minutes lead to further information, it will give me great
pleasure, as I am anxious to elucidate, as far as I can, the antiquities
of my native place.
Mr. Jaques lives at a place called St. Trinnians, near to Richmond in
Yorkshire; but I have not the _History of Richmondshire_ to refer to, so
as to see whether any notice of our saint is there taken under this
evident variation of the same appellation.
WM. S. HESLEDEN.
Barton-upon-Humber, Aug. 29. 1851.
Replies to Minor Queries.
_Lord Mayor not a Privy Councillor_ (Vol. iv., pp. 9. 137.).--L. M. says
that the precedent of Mr. Harley being sworn of the Privy Council does
not prove the argument advanced by C., and "for this simple reason, that
the individual who held the office is _not_ Right Honorable, but the
officer _is_." What he means by the _office_ (of privy councillor) is
not clear; but surely he does not mean to say that it is not the rank of
privy councillor which gives the courtesy style of Right Honorable? If
so, can a man be a member of the Council till he is _sworn_ at the
board?
Is the Lord Mayor a member of the Board, not having been sworn? Is he
ever summoned to any Council? When he attends a meeting on the occasion
of the accession, is he _summoned_? and if so, by whom, and in what
manner? The Lord Mayor is certainly _not_ a privy councillor by reason
of his courtesy _style_ of Lord, any more than the Lord Mayor of York.
The question is, whether the style of Right Honorable was given to the
Lord Mayor from the supposition that he was a privy councillor, or from
the fact that formerly the Lord Mayor was considered as holding the rank
of a _Baron_; for if he died during his mayoralty, he was buried with
the rank, state, and degree of _Baron_.
When does it appear that the style of Right Honorable was first given to
the Lord Mayor of London?
E.
_Did Bishop Gibson write a life of Cromwell?_ (Vol. iv., p. 117.).--In
the Life of the Rev. Isaac Kimber, prefixed to his _Sermons_, London,
1756, 8vo., it is stated that--
"One of the first productions he gave to the world was the _Life
of Oliver Cromwell_ in 8vo., printed for Messrs. Brotherton and
Cox. This piece met with a very good reception from the public,
and has passed through several editions, universally esteemed for
its style and its impartiality; and as the author's name was not
made public, though it was always known to his friends, it was at
first very confidently ascribed to Dr. Gibson, Bishop of
London."--P. 10.
The Life of Kimber appears to have been written by Edward Kimber, his
son, and therefore the claim of Bishop Gibson to this work may very
fairly be set aside.
The _Short Critical Review of the life of Oliver Cromwell, by a
Gentleman of the Middle Temple_, has always been attributed to John
Bankes, an account of whom will be found in Chalmers's _Biog. Dict._,
vol. iii. p. 422., where it is confidently stated to be his. It was
first published in 1739, 8vo. I have two copies of a third edition,
Lond. 1747. 12mo. "Carefully revised and greatly enlarged in every
chapter by the author." In one of the copies the title-page states it to
be "by a gentleman of the Middle Temple;" and in the other "by Mr.
Bankes." Bishop Gibson did not die till 1748, and there seems little
probability that, if he were the author, another man's name would be put
to it during his lifetime.
I conclude therefore that neither of these two works are by Bishop
Gibson.
JAS. CROSSLEY.
_Lines on the Temple_ (Vol. iii., pp. 450. 505.).--In the _Gentleman's
Mag._ (Suppl. for 1768, p. 621.), the reviewer of a work entitled
"_Cobleriana, or the Cobler's Miscellany_, being a choice collection of
the miscellaneous pieces in prose and verse, serious and comic, by
Jobson the Cobler, of Drury Lane, 2 vols.," gives the following extract;
but does not state whether it belongs to the "new" pieces, or to those
which had been previously "published in the newspapers," the volume
being avowedly composed of both sorts:--
"_An Epigram on the Lamb and Horse, the two insignia of the
Societies of the Temple._
"The Lamb the _Lawyers'_ innocence declares,
The Horse _their_ expedition in affairs;
Hail, happy men! for chusing two such types
As plainly shew _they_ give the world no wipes;
For who dares say that suits are at a stand,
When _two_ such virtues both go hand in hand?
No more let _Chanc'ry Lane_ be endless counted,
Since they're by Lamb and Horse so nobly mounted."
The _Italics_, which I have copied, were, I suppose, put in by the
reviewer, who adds, "Q. Whether the Lamb and Horse are mounted upon
Chancery Lane, or two virtues, or happy men?" Poor man! I am afraid his
Query has never been answered; for that age was not adorned and
illustrated by any work like one in which we rejoice,--a work of which,
lest a more unguarded expression of our feelings should be indelicate,
and subject us to the suspicion of flattery, we will be content to say
boldly, that, though less in size and cost, it is cotemporaneous with
the Great Exhibition.
A TEMPLAR.
These lines are printed (probably for the first time) in the sixth
number of _The Foundling Hospital for Wit_, 8vo.: Printed for W. Webb,
near St. Paul's, 1749 (p. 73.). The learned author of _Heraldic
Anomalies_ (2nd edit. vol. i. p. 310.) says they were _chalked_ upon one
of the public gates of the Temple; but from the following note,
preceding the lines in question, in _The Foundling Hospital for Wit_,
this statement is probably erroneous:
"The Inner Temple Gate, London, being lately repaired, and
curiously decorated, the following inscription, in honour of both
the Temples, is _intended_ to be put over it."
A MS. note, in a cotemporary hand, in my copy of _The Foundling Hospital
for Wit_, states the author of the original lines to have been the "Rev.
William Dunkin, D.D." The answer which follows it, is said to be by "Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams."
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
_Henry Headley, B.A._ (Vol. iii., p. 280.).--E. B. PRICE styles "Henry
Headley, B.A., of Norwich, a _now forgotten critic_." He might have
added, "but who deserved to be remembered, as one whose _Select Beauties
of Ancient English Poetry, with Remarks, &c._, in 2 vols., 1787,
contributed something towards the revival of a taste for that species of
literature which Percy's _Reliques_ exalted into a fashion, if not a
passion, never to be discountenanced again." The work of course is
become scarce, and not the less valuable, though that recommendation
constitutes its least value.
J. M. G.
Hallamshire.
_Cycle of Cathay_ (Vol. iv., p. 37.).--Without reflecting much on the
matter, I have always supposed the "cycle" in Tennyson's line--
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay"--
to be the Platonic cycle, or great year, the space of time in which all
the stars and constellations return to their former places in respect of
the equinoxes; which space of time is calculated by Tycho Brahe at
25,816 years, and by Riccioli at 25,920: and I understood the passage
(whether rightly or wrongly I shall be glad to be informed) to mean,
that fifty years of life in Europe were better than any amount of
existence, however extended, in the Celestial Empire.
W. FRASER.
_Proof of Sword Blades_ (Vol. iv., pp. 39. 109.).--Without wishing to
detract from the merits of an invention, which probably is superior in
its effects to old modes of testing sword blades, I object to the term
_efficient_ being applied to _machine_-proved swords.
Because, after such proof, they frequently break by ordinary cutting;
even those which have been made doubly strong and heavy--and hence unfit
and useless for actual engagement--have so failed. And because
machine-tried swords are liable to, and do, break in the handle.
For many reasons I should condemn the machine in question as
inapplicable to its purposes. By analogous reasoning, it would not be
wrong to call a candle a good thrusting instrument, because a machine
may be made to force it through a deal plank.
The subject of testing sword blades is a very important one, although it
has not received that degree of attention from those whom it more nearly
concerns which it seems to demand.
The writer's experience has been only _en amateur_; but it has satisfied
him how much yet remains to be effected before swords proved by a
machine are to be relied upon.
E. M. M.
Thornhill Square, August 16. 1851.
_Was Milton an Anglo-Saxon Scholar?_ (Vol. iv., p. 100.).--Is it too
much to suppose that the learned "Secretary for Forreigne Tongues" was
acquainted with the _Paraphrasis poetica Genesios ac præcipuarum sacræ
Paginæ Historiarum, abhinc Annos MLXX. Anglo-Saxonicè conscripta, et
nunc primum edita a Francisco Junius_, published at Amsterdam in 1655,
at least two years before he commenced his immortal poem? Hear Mr.
Turner on the subject:
"Milton could not be wholly unacquainted with Junius; and if he
conversed with him, Junius was very likely to have made Cædmon the
topic of his discourse, and may have read enough in English to
Milton, to have fastened upon his imagination, without his being a
Saxon scholar."--Turner's _Anglo-Saxons_, vol. iii., p. 316.
Both Mr. Turner and Mr. Todd, however, appear to lean to the opinion
that Milton was not unskilled in Saxon literature, and mention, as an
argument in its favour, the frequent quotations from the _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_ which occur in the History. It is also worthy of note that
Alexander Gill, his schoolmaster, and whose friendship Milton possessed
in no small degree, had pursued his researches somewhat deep into the
"well of English undefiled," as appears from that extremely curious,
though little known work, the _Logonomia Anglica_.
SAXONICUS.
_English Sapphics._--I admired the verses quoted by H. E. H. (Vol. iii.,
p. 525.) so much that I have had them printed, but unfortunately have no
copy by me to send you. I quote them from memory:
PSALM CXXXVII.
_By a Schoolboy._
"Fast by thy stream, O Babylon! reclining,
Woe-begone exile, to the gale of evening
Only responsive, my forsaken harp I
Hung on the willows.
"Gush'd the big tear-drops as my soul remember'd
Zion, thy mountain-paradise, my country!
When the fierce bands Assyrian who led us
Captive from Salem
"Claim'd in our mournful bitterness of anguish
Songs and unseason'd madrigals of joyance--
'Sing the sweet-temper'd carols that ye wont to
Warble in Zion.'
"Dumb be my tuneful eloquence, if ever
Strange echoes answer to a song of Zion,
Blasted this right hand, if I should forget thee,
Land of my fathers!"
O. T. DOBBIN.
Hull College.
_The Tradescants_ (Vol. iii., p. 469.).--It is to be hoped that the
discovery by C. C. R. of Dr. Ducarel's note may yet lead to the
obtaining further information concerning the elder Tradescant. It may go
for something to prove beyond doubt that he was nearly connected with
the county of Kent, which has not been proved yet. Parkinson says that
"he sometimes belonged to... Salisbury.... And then unto the Right
Honorable the Lord Wotton at Canterbury in Kent." See Parkinson's
_Paradisus Terrestris_, p. 152. (This must be the same with DR.
RIMBAULT'S Lord Weston, p. 353., which should have been "Wotton.") We
may therefore, in the words of Dr. Ducarel's note, "consult (with
certainty of finding information concerning the Tradescants) the
registers of ----apham, Kent." I should give the preference to any place
near Canterbury approaching that name.
It is worth noticing that the deed of gift of John Tradescant (2) to
Elias Ashmole was dated in true astrological form, being "December 16,
1657, 5 hor. 30 minutes post merid." See Ashmole's _Diary_, p. 36.
BLOWEN.
_Monumental Inscription, English Version_ (Vol. iv., p. 88.).--I have a
Note on this very epitaph, made several years since, from whence
extracted I know not; but there is an English version attached, which
may prove interesting to some readers, as it exactly imitates the style
of the Latin:
cur- f- w- d- dis- and p-
"A -sed -iend -rought -eath ease -ain."
bles- fr- b- br- and ag-
E. S. TAYLOR.
_Lady Petre's Monument_ (Vol. iv., p. 22.).--Will the following passage,
from Murray's _Handbook to Southern Germany_, throw any light on the
meaning of the initials at the foot of Lady Petre's monument, as alluded
to in your Number of July 12, 1851?
"At the extremity of the right-hand aisle of the cathedral of St.
Stephen, is the marble monument of the Emperor Frederick III.,
ornamented with 240 figures and 40 coats of arms, carved by a
sculptor of Strasburg, Nicholas Lerch. On a scroll twisted around
the sceptre in the hand of the effigy, is seen Frederick's device
or motto, the letters A. E. I. O. U., supposed to be the initials
of the words Alles Erdreich Ist Oesterreich Unterthan; or, in
Latin, Austriæ Est Imperare Orbis Universi."--Murray's _Handbook
to Southern Germany_, pp. 135, 136.
C. M. G.
Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
Messrs. Longman have this month given a judicious and agreeable variety
to _The Traveller's Library_ by substituting for one of Mr. Macaulay's
brilliant political biographies a volume of travels; and in selecting
Mr. Laing's _Journal of a Residence in Norway during the Years 1834,
1835, and 1836_ (which is completed in Two Parts), they have shown
excellent discretion. For, as Mr. Laing well observes, "few readers of
the historical events of the middle ages rise from the perusal without a
wish to visit the country from which issued in the tenth century the men
who conquered the fairest portion of Europe." But as, even in these
locomotive times, all cannot travel, but many are destined to be not
only home-keeping youths but "house-keeping men" also, all such have
reason to be grateful to pleasant intelligent travellers like Mr. Laing
for giving them the results of their travels in so pleasant a form; and
especially grateful to Messrs. Longman for giving it to them at a price
which places it within the reach of every one.
_The Literature of the Rail
|
its base of supplies.
There is a permanent and outstanding difference between the British
Army as a whole and any Continental army as a whole. In the case of
the Continental army--no matter which one is chosen for purposes of
comparison, the conscript system renders it a part of the nation
concerned, identifies the army with the nation, and incidentally takes
out the element of freedom. A man in a conscript army is serving
because he must, and, no matter how patriotic he may be, there are
times when this is brought home to him very forcibly by the discipline
without which no army could exist. In the British Army, on the other
hand, the men serving are there by their own choice; this fact gives
them a sense that the discipline, no matter how distasteful it may be,
is a necessity to their training--by their enlistment they chose to
undergo it. But the British Army, until the present war linked it on
to the man in the street, was not a part of the nation, but a thing
distinct from the nation; it was a profession apart, and none too
enviable a profession, in the opinion of many, but something to be
avoided by men in equivalent walks of civilian life.
There are advantages as well as disadvantages in the voluntary system
by which our Army is raised and maintained. As an advantage may be
set first the spirit of the men; having enlisted voluntarily, and
ascertained by experience that they must make the best of it or be
considered utterly worthless, men in a voluntary army gain a spirit
that conscripts can never attain. They are soldiers of their own
free will, with regimental traditions to maintain, and practice has
demonstrated that they form the finest fighting body, as a whole, among
all the armies of the world. On the other hand, they have no political
significance, and are but little understood, as regards their needs
and the constitution of the force to which they belong. In France, for
instance, the rule is “every citizen a soldier,” and it is a rule which
is observed with but very few exceptions. The result is that every
citizen who has been a soldier is also a voter, and in the matter of
army requirements he votes in an understanding way, while the British
voter, with the exception of the small percentage who have served in
the Army, is as a rule unmoved by Army needs and questions. To this
extent the Army suffers from the voluntary system, though the quality
of the Army itself under present voluntary conditions may be held to
compensate for this. It is doubtful whether it does compensate.
Further, the voluntary system makes of life in the ranks a totally
different thing from civilian life. In conscript armies the discipline
to which men are subjected makes their life different from that of
their civilian days, but not to such an extent as in the voluntary
British Army. The civilian can never quite understand the soldier;
Kipling came nearer than any other civilian in his understanding, but
even he failed altogether to appreciate the soldier of to-day--perhaps
he had a better understanding of the soldier of the ’eighties and
’nineties, before the South African war had come to awaken the Army to
the need for individual training and the development of initiative.
However that may be, no man has yet written of the soldier as he really
is, because the task has been usually attempted by civilians, to whom
the soldier rarely shows his real self. Soldiers have themselves given
us glimpses of their real life, but usually they have specialised
on the dramatic and the picturesque. It is necessary, if one would
understand the soldier and his inner life, that one should have a
grasp of the monotony of soldiering, the drill and riding school, the
barrack-room routine, and all that makes up the daily life, as well as
the exceptional and picturesque.
In the following chapters, showing as far as possible the inner life
of the Army from the point of view of the soldier, an attempt has
been made to show the average of life in each branch of the service.
Exceptions occur: the quality of the commanding officer makes all the
difference in the life of the unit which he commands; again, apart
from the influence exercised by the personality of the commanding
officer, that of the company or squadron officer is a very potent
factor in the lives of the men under his command. The British Army,
fine fighting machine though it is, is not perfect, and there are
instances of bad commanding officers, bad squadron and company
officers, just as there are instances of superlatively good ones.
Between these is the influence exerted by the mass on the mass, from
which an average picture may be drawn.
That picture is the portrait of the British soldier, second to none.
CHAPTER II
THE WAY OF THE RECRUIT
The way of the recruit, though still a hard one, is not so hard as
it used to be, for, especially in the cavalry and artillery, various
modifications have been introduced by which the youngster is broken in
gradually to his work. This is not all to the good, for under the new
way of working the training which precedes “dismissal” from recruit’s
training to the standing of a trained soldier takes longer, and,
submitting the recruit to a less strenuous form of life for the period
through which it lasts, does not produce quite so handy and quick a
man as the one who was kept at it from dawn till dark, with liberty at
the end of his official day’s work to clean up equipment for the next
day. Still, the annual training of the “dismissed” soldier is a more
strenuous business now than in old time, so probably the final result
is about the same.
The recruit’s first requirements, after he has interviewed the
recruiting sergeant on the subject of enlistment is to take the
oath--a very quick and simple matter--and then to pass the doctor,
which is not so simple. The recruit is stripped, sounded, tested for
full physical efficiency, and made to pass tests in eyesight and
breathing which, if he emerges satisfactorily, proclaim him as near
physical perfection as humanity can get without a course of physical
culture--and that course is administered during his first year of
service. Kept under the wing of the recruiting sergeant for a matter of
hours or days, as the case may be, the recruit is at last drafted off
to his depot, or direct to his unit, where his real training begins in
earnest.
We may take the case of a recruit who had enlisted from mixed motives,
arrived at a station whence he had to make his way to barracks in the
evening, in order to begin his new life; here are his impressions of
beginning life in the Army.
He went up a hill, and along a muddy lane, and, arriving at
the barracks, inquired, as he had been told to do, for the
quartermaster-sergeant of “C” Squadron. He was directed to the
quartermaster-sergeant’s office, and, on arrival there, was asked
his name and the nature of his business by a young corporal who took
life as a joke and regarded recruits as a special form of food for
amusement. Having ascertained the name of the recruit, the corporal,
who was a kindly fellow at heart, took him down to the regimental
coffee bar and provided him with a meal of cold meat, bread, and
coffee--at the squadron’s expense, of course, for the provision of the
meal was a matter of duty. The corporal then indicated the room in
which the recruit was to sleep, and left him.
The recruit opened the door of the room, and looked in. It was a long
room, with a row of narrow beds down each side, and in the middle two
tables on iron trestles, whereon were several basins. On almost every
bed sat a man, busily engaged in cleaning some article of clothing or
equipment; some were cleaning buttons, some were pipeclaying belts,
some were engaged with sword-hilts and brick-dust, some were cleaning
boots--all were cleaning up as if their lives depended on it, for
“lights out” would be sounded at a quarter-past ten, and it was already
past nine o’clock. When they saw the recruit, they gave him greeting.
“Here’s another one!” they cried. “Here’s another victim!” and other
phrases which led this particular recruit to think, quite erroneously,
that he had come to something very bad indeed. Two or three were
singing, with more noise than melody, a song which was very old when
Queen Anne died--it was one of the ditties of the regiment, sung by its
men on all possible and most impossible occasions. One man shouted to
the recruit that he had “better flap before he drew his issue,” and
that he could not understand at all. Translated into civilian language,
it meant that he had better desert before he exchanged his civilian
clothing for regimental attire, but this he learned later. They seemed
a jolly crowd, very fond of flavouring their language with words which,
in civilian estimation, were terms of abuse, but passed as common
currency here.
The recruit stood wondering--out of all these beds, there seemed to
be no bed for him. After a minute or two, however, the corporal in
charge of the room came up to him, and pointed out to him a bed in one
corner of the room; its usual occupant was on guard for twenty-four
hours, and the recruit was informed that he could occupy that bed for
the night. In the morning he could go to the quartermaster’s store and
draw blankets, sheets, a pillow, and “biscuits” for his own use. After
that, he would be allotted a bed-cot to himself. Biscuits, it must be
explained, are square mattresses of coir, of which three, placed end to
end, form a full-sized mattress for a military bed-cot.
Sitting on the borrowed bed-cot, the recruit was able to take a good
look round. The ways of these men, their quickness in cleaning and
polishing articles of equipment, were worth watching, he decided. They
joked and chaffed each other, they sang scraps of songs, allegedly
pathetic and allegedly humorous; they shouted from one end of the room
to the other in order to carry on conversations; they called the Army
names, they called each other names, and they called individuals who
were evidently absent yet more names, none of them complimentary. They
made a lot of noise, and in that noise one of them, having finished his
cleaning, slept; when he snored, one of his comrades threw a boot at
him, and, since the boot hit him, he woke up and looked round, but in
vain. Therefore he calmly went to sleep again, but this time he did not
snore. The recruit, who had come out of an ordinary civilian home, and
hitherto had had only the vaguest of notions as to what the Army was
really like, wondered if he were dreaming, and then realised that he
himself was one of these men, since he had voluntarily given up certain
years of his life to their business. With that reflection he undressed
and got into bed. After “lights-out” had sounded and been promptly
obeyed, he went to sleep....
His impressions are typical, and his introduction to the barrack-room
may serve to record the view gained by the majority of those who
enlist: that first glimpse of military life is something utterly
strange and incomprehensible, and the recruit sleeps his first
night in barracks--or stays awake--bewildered by the novelty of his
surroundings, and a little afraid.
In a few days the recruit begins to feel a little more at home in his
new surroundings. One of his first ordeals is that of being fitted with
clothing, and with few exceptions, all his clothing is ready-made,
for the quartermaster’s store of a unit contains a variety of sizes
and fittings of every article required, and from among these a man
must be fitted out from head to foot. The regimental master-tailor
attends at the clothes’ fitting, and makes notes of alterations
required--shortening or lengthening sleeves, letting out here, and
taking in there. When clothes and boots have been fitted, the recruit
is issued a “small kit,” consisting of brushes and cleaning materials
for himself and his clothes and equipment, even unto a toothbrush and
a comb. As a rule, he omits the ceremony of locking these things away
in his box when he returns to the barrack-room, with the result that
most of them are missing when he looks on the shelf or in the box where
he placed them. For, in a barrack-room, although all things are not
common, the property of the recruit is fair game, and he catches who
can.
Gradually, as the recruit learns the need for taking care of such
property as he wishes to retain, he also learns barrack-room slang and
phrasing. In the Army, one is never late: one is “pushed.” One does
not eat, but one “scoffs.” A man who dodges work is said to “swing
the lead,” and there is no such thing as work, for it is “graft,” or
“kom.” Practically every man, too, has his nickname: all Clarkes are
“Nobby,” all Palmers are “Pedlar,” all Welshmen in other than Welsh
regiments are “Taffy,” all Robinsons are “Jack,” and every surname in
like fashion has its regular nickname. But, contrary to the belief
entertained by the average civilian, the soldier does not readily take
to nicknames for his superiors. For his own officers he sometimes finds
equivalents to their names through their personal peculiarities, but
if one spoke to a soldier of “K. of K.,” the soldier would request an
explanation, while “Bobs” for Lord Roberts might be understood, but
would not be appreciated. The general officer and the superior worthy
of respect gets his full title from the soldier at all times, and
nicknames, except for comrades of the same company or squadron, form a
mark of contempt, especially when applied to commissioned officers.
Sometimes the soldier finds a nickname for a comrade out of a personal
peculiarity, as when one is particularly mean he gets the name of
“Shonk,” or “Shonkie,” which is equivalent to “Jew,” with a reference
to usury and extortion.
If a regimental officer gets a nickname, it may be generally assumed
that he is not held in very great respect by his men. “Bulgy,” of whom
more anon, was a very fat young lieutenant with more bulk than brains;
“Duffer” was another lieutenant, and his title explains itself--it was
always used in conjunction with his surname; “Bouncer” was a major who
had attained his rank by accident, and left the service because he
knew it was hopeless to anticipate further promotion. The officer who
commands the respect of his men does not get nicknamed, and the recruit
very soon learns to call his superiors by their proper names when he
has occasion to mention superior officers in course of conversation
with his comrades.
As a rule, the recruit is subjected to one or more practical jokes by
his comrades in his early days as a soldier. In cavalry regiments, a
favourite form of joke is to get the recruit to go to the farrier-major
for his “shoeing-money,” a mythical allowance which, it is alleged,
every recruit receives at the beginning of his service. The pretext
might appear a bit thin if only one man were concerned in the
deception, but the recruit is assured by a whole barrack-roomful of
soldiers that “it’s a fact, and no hank,” and in about five cases out
of ten he goes to the farrier-major, who, entering into the spirit of
the thing, sends the victim in to the orderly-room sergeant or the
provost-sergeant, and from here the recruit goes to the next official
chosen, until he finds out the hoax. If a non-commissioned officer can
be found with the same sense of humour as induced the shoeing-money
hoax, he--usually a lance-corporal--orders the recruit to go to the
sergeant-major or some other highly placed non-com. for “the key of
the square.” As a rule, this request from the recruit provokes the
sergeant-major to wrath, and the poor recruit gets a hot time. There
is a legend of a recruit having been sent to the quartermaster’s store
to get his mouth measured for a spoon, but it may be regarded as
legend pure and simple, for there are limits to the credulity, even,
of recruits, though authenticated instances of hoaxes which have been
practised show that much may be done by means of an earnest manner and
the thorough preservation of gravity in giving recommendations to the
victim. Many a man has gone to the armourer to get his spurs fitted,
and probably more will go yet.
If a civilian takes a thorough dislike to his work, he has always the
opportunity of quitting it; if he fails to satisfy his employers, he
is either warned or dismissed. In the Army, the man who dislikes his
work has to pocket the dislike and go on with the work, while if his
employers, the regimental authorities, have any fault to find with him,
they do not express it by dismissal until various forms and quantities
of punishment for slackness have been resorted to. The recruit gets
far more punishments than the old soldier, for the latter has learned
what to do and what to avoid, in order to make life simple for himself;
his punishments usually arise out of looking on the beer when it is
brown to an extent incompatible with the fulfilment of his duties, and,
when sober, he generally manages to evade “office” and its results.
But the recruit finds that the corporal in charge of his room, the
drill instructor in charge of him at drill, the sergeant in charge
of his section or troop, the non-commissioned officer under whose
supervision he does his fatigues, and a host of other superiors, are
all capable of either placing him in the guard-room to await trial or
of informing him that he is under open arrest, and equally liable for
trial--and this for offences which would not count as such in civilian
life, for three-quarters of the military “crimes” are not crimes at all
in the civil code. Being late on parade, a dirty button--that is, a
button not sufficiently brilliant in its polish--the need of a shave,
a hasty word to one in authority, and half a hundred other apparent
trivialities, form grounds for “wheeling a man up” or “running him in.”
And the guard-room to which he retires is the “clink,” while, if he
is so persistent in the commission of offences as to merit detention,
the military form of imprisonment, he is said to go to the “glass
house”--that is, he is sent to the detention barracks for the term to
which he is sentenced--and his punishment is spoken of as “cells,”
and never anything else. A minor form of punishment, “confined to
barracks,” or “defaulters’,” involves the doing of the regiment’s dirty
work in the few hours usually devoted to relaxation, with drill in full
marching order for an hour every night, and answering one’s name at the
guard-room at stated intervals throughout the afternoon and evening, in
order to prevent the delinquent from leaving barracks. This the soldier
calls “doing jankers,” and the bugle or trumpet call which orders him
out on the defaulters’ parade is known as “Paddy Doyle”--heaven only
knows for what reason, unless one Paddy Doyle was a notorious offender
against military discipline in far-back times, and his reputation has
survived his personal characteristics in the memory of the soldier.
The accused, whoever he may be, is paraded first before his company,
squadron, or battery officer, and the charge against him is read out.
First evidence is taken from the superior officer who makes the charge,
and second evidence from anyone who may have been witness to the
occurrence which has caused the trouble. Then the accused is asked what
he has to say in mitigation of his offence, and if he is wise, unless
the accusation is very unjust indeed, he answers--“Nothing, sir.” Then,
if the case is a minor one, the company or squadron or battery officer
delivers sentence. If, however, the crime is one meriting a punishment
exceeding “seven days confined to barracks,” the case is beyond the
jurisdiction of the junior officer, and must be sent to the officer
commanding the regiment or battalion or artillery brigade for trial. In
that case, the offender is paraded with an escort of a non-commissioned
officer and man, and marched on to the verandah of the regimental
orderly room when “office” sounds--almost always at eleven o’clock
in the morning. When the colonel commanding the unit--or, in case of
his absence, his deputy--decrees, the offender is marched into the
presence of his judge; the adjutant of the regiment reads the charge,
the evidence is stated as in the case of trial by a company or squadron
officer, and the colonel pronounces his verdict.
Acquittals are rare; not that there is any injustice, but it is
assumed, and usually with good reason, that if a man is “wheeled up”
he has been doing something he ought not to have done. Then, too, the
soldier’s explanations of how he came to get into trouble are far too
plausible; officers with experience of the soldier and his ways come
to understand that he can explain away anything and find an excuse
for everything. It is safe, in the majority of cases, to take a harsh
view. However, the punishments inflicted are, in the majority of
cases, light: “jankers,” though uncomfortable, is not degrading to any
great extent, and the man who has had a taste or two of this wholesome
corrective will usually be a more careful if not a better soldier in
future.
“Cells” is a different matter. Not that it lowers a man to any extent
in the estimation of his comrades, but it is a painful experience,
practically corresponding to the imprisonment with hard labour to
which a civilian misdemeanant is subjected. It involves also total loss
of pay from the time of arrest to the end of the period of punishment,
while confinement to barracks involves only the actual punishment, and,
unless the crime is “absence,” there is no loss of pay. Drunkenness
is punished by an officially graded system of fines, as well as by
“jankers” or “cells.”
The average man, however, performs work of average quality, avoids
drunkenness, and keeps to time, the result being that he does not
undergo punishment. Barrack-room life, for the recruit, is a fairly
simple matter. He makes his own bed, and sweeps the floor round it.
He folds his blankets and sheets to the prescribed pattern; the way
in which he folds his kit and clothing, also, is regulated for him by
the company or squadron authorities, and, for the rest, he is kept too
busy throughout the day at drill, and too busy throughout the evening
in preparing for the next day’s drill, to get into mischief to any
appreciable extent. The recruit who involves himself in “crime” is,
more often than not, looking for trouble.
It has already been stated that a full day’s work for the recruit is a
strenuous business. If we take the average day of a recruit in, say, a
cavalry regiment, and follow him from réveillé to “lights out,” it will
be seen that he is kept quite sufficiently busy.
Réveillé sounds anywhere between 4.30 and 6.30 a.m., according to the
season of the year, and, before the sound of the trumpet has ceased
the corporal in charge of the room will be heard inviting his men to
“Show a leg, there!” The invitation is promptly complied with, for in
a space of fifteen minutes all the men in the room have to dress, wash
if they feel inclined to, and get out on early morning stable parade to
answer their names. They are then marched down to stables, where they
turn out the stable bedding and groom their horses for about an hour.
The horses are then taken out to water, returned to stables, and fed,
and the men file back to their rooms to get breakfast and prepare for
the morning’s drill. This latter involves a complete change of clothing
from the rough canvas stable outfit to clean service dress and putties
for riding-school use. The riding-school lesson is usually over by
half-past ten, and after this the recruit takes his horse back to the
stables, off-saddles, and returns to the barrack-room to change into
canvas clothing once more, and enjoy the ten minutes, more or less, of
relaxation that falls to him before the trumpeter sounds “stables.”
Going to stables again, the men groom their horses, and when these
have been passed as clean by the troop sergeant or troop officer the
troopers set to work and clean steel work and leather. The way in which
this is done in the Army may be judged from the fact that, after a
morning’s parade, it takes a full hour to clean saddle and head dress
and render them fit for inspection. It is one o’clock before midday
stables is finished with, and then of course it is time for dinner.
For this principal meal of the day one hour is allowed; but that hour
includes the getting ready for the afternoon parade for foot drill,
in which the cavalry recruit is taught the use of the sword and all
movements that he will have to perform dismounted. This lasts an
hour or thereabouts, and is followed by a return to the barrack-room
and another change of clothing, this time into gymnasium outfit. The
recruit is then marched to the gymnasium, where, for the space of
another hour, the gymnastic instructor has his turn at licking the raw
material into shape. Marched back to the barrack-room once more, the
recruit is free to devote what remains to him of the minutes before
five o’clock to cleaning the spurs, sword, etc., which have become
soiled by the morning’s riding-school work. At five “stables” sounds
again; the orders for the day are read out on parade, and the men march
to stables to groom, bed down, water, and feed their horses, a business
to which an hour is devoted. Tea follows, and then, unless the recruit
has been warned for night guard, he is free to complete the preparation
of his equipment for the next day’s work, and use what little spare
time is left in such relaxation as may please him.
In the infantry the number of parades done during the day is about
the same; there is, of course, no “stables,” but the time which the
cavalryman devotes to this is taken up by musketry instruction, foot
drill, and fatigues. In the artillery there is more to learn than in
the cavalry, for a driver has to learn to drive the horse he rides,
and lead another one as well, while the gunner has plenty to keep him
busy in the mechanism of his gun, its cleaning, and the various duties
connected with it.
To the recruit the perpetual cleaning, polishing, burnishing, and
scouring are naturally somewhat irksome; and it is not until a man has
undergone the whole of his recruits’ training that he begins dimly to
understand the extreme delicacy and fineness of the instruments of
his trade--or profession. He comes gradually to realise that a rifle
is a very delicate piece of mechanism; a spot of rust on a sword may
impair the efficiency of the blade, if allowed to remain and eat in;
while a big gun is a complicated piece of machinery needing as much
care as a repeater watch, if it is to work efficiently, and a horse
is as helpless and needs as much care as a baby. At first sight there
seems no need for the eternal cleaning of buttons, polishing of spurs,
and other trivial items of work which enter into the daily life of a
soldier, but all these things are directed to the one end of making the
man careful of trifles and thoroughly efficient in every detail of his
work.
Old soldiers, having finished with foot drill (known in the
barrack-room as “square”) and with riding school (which is allowed
to keep its name), have a way of looking down on recruits; the chief
aim of the recruit, if he be a normal man, is to get “dismissed” from
riding school, square, and gymnasium, and the attitude of the old
soldier encourages this ambition. Usually a recruit is placed under
an old soldier for tuition in his work, and it depends very much on
the quality of the old hands in a barrack-room as to what quality of
trained man is turned out therefrom. Service counts more than personal
worth, and in fact more than anything else in barrack-room life. The
man with two years’ service will get into trouble sooner or later if
he ventures to dictate to the man of three years’ or more service,
whatever the relative mental qualifications of the two men concerned
may be. “Before you came up,” or “before you enlisted,” are the most
crushing phrases that can be applied to a fellow soldier, and no amount
of efficiency atones for lack of years to count toward transfer to the
Reserve or discharge from the service to pension.
So far as the infantry recruit is concerned, foot drill and musketry,
together with a certain amount of fatigues, comprise the day’s routine.
With foot drill may be bracketed bayonet drill, in which the recruit
is taught the various thrusts and parries which can be made with that
weapon for which the British infantryman has been famed since before
Wellington’s time. Both in the cavalry and infantry, every man has to
fire a musketry course once a year; the recruit’s course of musketry,
however, is a more detailed and, in a way, a more instructive business
than the course which the trained man has to undergo. The recruit has
to be taught that squeezing motion for the trigger which does not
disturb the aim of the rifle; he has to be taught, also, the extreme
care with which a rifle must be handled, cleaned, and kept. It may be
said that the recruits’ course is designed to lay the foundation on
which the trained man’s course of musketry is built, and at the end of
the recruits’ course the men who have undergone it are graded off into
first, second, and third class shots, while “marksmen” are super-firsts.
On the whole the first year of a man’s service is the hardest of any,
so far as peace soldiering is concerned. There is more reason in this
than appears on the surface. A recruit joins the army somewhere about
the age of twenty--the official limit is from eighteen to twenty-five;
it is evident that in his first year of service a man is at such a
stage of muscular and mental growth as to render him capable of being
moulded much more readily than in the later military years. It is best
that he should be shaped, as far as possible, while he is yet not quite
formed and set, and, though the process of shaping may involve what
looks like an undue amount of physical exertion, it is, in reality, not
beyond the capabilities of such men as doctors pass into the service.
It is true that the percentage of cases of heart disease occurring
in the British Army is rather a high one, but this is due not to the
strenuous training, but in many cases to excessive cigarette-smoking
and in others to the strained posture of “attention,” combined with
predisposition to the disease. The recruit has a hard time, certainly,
but many men work harder, and the years of service which follow on the
strenuous period of recruits’ training are more enjoyable by contrast.
CHAPTER III
OFFICERS AND NON-COMS.
The higher ranks of officers have very little to do with the daily
life of the soldier. Two or three times a year the general officer
commanding the station comes round on a tour of inspection, while other
general officers and inspecting officers pay visits at times. The
highest rank, however, with which the soldier is brought in frequent
contact is the commanding officer of his own regiment or battalion.
This post is usually held by a lieutenant-colonel, as by the time an
officer has attained to a full colonelcy he is either posted to the
staff or passed out from the service to half-pay under the age limit.
By the time a man has reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel he is, as
a rule, far more conversant with the ways and habits of the soldier
than the soldier himself is willing to admit. It would surprise men, in
the majority of cases, if they could be made to realise how intimately
the “old man” knows his regiment. The “old man” is responsible for the
efficiency of the regiment in every detail, since, as its head, he is
responsible for the efficiency of the officers controlling the various
departments. He is assisted in his work by the second-in-command, who
is usually a major, and is not attached to any particular squadron
or company, but is responsible for the internal working and domestic
arrangements incidental to the life of his unit. These two are assisted
in their work by the adjutant, a junior officer, sometimes captain
and sometimes lieutenant, who holds his post for a stated term, and
during his adjutancy is expected to qualify fully in the headquarters
staff work which the conduct of a military unit involves. So far as
commissioned officers are concerned, these three form the headquarters
staff; it must not be overlooked, however, that the quartermaster,
who is either a lieutenant or a captain, and has won his commission
from the ranks in the majority of cases, is also unattached to any
particular squadron or company. He is, or should be, under the control
of the second-in-command, since, as his title indicates, he is
concerned with the quarters of the regiment, and with all that pertains
to its domestic economy. He cannot, however, be regarded as a part of
the headquarters staff; his position is unique, somewhere between
commissioned and non-commissioned rank, and it is very rarely that he
is accorded the position of the officer who has come to the service
through Sandhurst.
The colonel and the second-in-command, as a rule, know their regiment
thoroughly; they know the special weaknesses of the company or squadron
officers; they are conversant with the virtues and the failings of
Captain Blank and Lieutenant Dash; they know all about the troubles in
the married quarters, and they are fully informed of the happenings in
the sergeants’ mess. Not that there is any system of espionage in the
Army, but the man who reaches the rank of colonel is, under the present
conditions governing promotion, keen-witted, and in the dissemination
of all kinds of news, from matter for legitimate comment to rank
scandal, a military unit is about equivalent to a ladies’ sewing
meeting. The colonel and the second-in-command know all about things
because, being observant men, they cannot help knowing.
To each squadron of cavalry, battery of artillery, or company of
infantry is allotted a captain or major as officer commanding, and,
in the same way as a colonel is responsible for the efficiency of his
regiment, so the captain or major is responsible for the efficiency
of the squadron, battery, or company under his charge. The squadron
or company officer is usually not quite so conversant with the more
intimate details of his work as is the lieutenant-colonel. For one
thing, he has not had so much experience; for another, he may not have
the mental capacity required in a lieutenant-colonel; the squadron or
company officer is usually a jolly good fellow, mindful of discipline
and careful of the comfort of his men, but there are cases--exceptions,
certainly--of utter incompetency. A battery officer, on the other hand,
is of a different stamp. Of the three arms, the artillery demands
most in the way of efficiency and knowledge; the mechanism of the
guns creates an atmosphere in which officers study and train to a far
greater extent than cavalry and infantry officers. The battery officer,
in nine cases out of ten, is quite as competent to take charge of an
artillery brigade as the cavalry or infantry lieutenant-colonel is to
take charge of his regiment or battalion.
Next in order of rank are the lieutenants and subalterns, youngsters
learning the business. The lieutenant, having won his second star, is
a reasonable being; the subaltern, fresh from Sandhurst or Woolwich,
and oppressed by the weight of his own importance, is occasionally
“too big for his boots,” a bumptious individual whom his superiors
endeavour to restrain
|
instruction among the elders of his
people in Egypt. Thus we can recognize those in which the name Elohim is
used as being of much earlier date than the same tradition differently
told, where the word Jehovah indicates the name of Deity. For instance, we
find in one place[11] the command of God to Noah to take the beasts and
fowls, &c., into the ark by sevens. But again, in the same chapter,[12] we
find them taken only by pairs. Are these not variant traditions of one
event? So, of the story of Abraham passing off his wife for his sister
before Pharaoh, king of Egypt,[13] and also before Abimelech, king of
Gerar,[14] and the farther tradition of Isaac and Rebecca having done the
same thing before Abimelech, king of Gerar.[15] Are not these variant
traditions of one fact? The legal experience of the writer for many years,
convinces him that no two persons without collusion view a transaction
generally exactly alike. Frequently--and each equally sincere and
honest--they widely vary in their testimony. {18} Collusion may produce a
story without contradiction. Slight discrepancies show there is no fraud,
only that the witnesses occupied different stand points, or gave more or
less attention to what was the subject matter.
But, asking pardon for this digression, let us return to our theme.
We know little or nothing about the teaching of the patriarchs in the
Elohistic age. Neither writing nor sculpture thereof existed in the time of
Moses, except, perhaps, the lost book of Enoch, or, unless--which we are
inclined to doubt--the book of Job had just before his era been reduced to
writing by the Idumean, Assyrian, or Chaldean priesthood. We find at that
period that sacrifices were offered on mountain tops. Why? Abraham went to
such a place to offer up his son. Was it not for secrecy in the religious
rite? If the earliest instruction was from God, whose truth is unchangeable
and eternal, were not the earliest sacrifices offered in secret by reason
of the same command which subsequently obliged the high priest of his
chosen people to offer the great sacrifice in secret within the veils,
first of the Tabernacle, afterward of the Temple? The Elohistic age ended
with the first official act of Moses, after he, also, had met with Aaron on
"the mount of God."[16]
A new era then commenced. As men dispersed {19} themselves over the earth,
the original belief in the one true God (Monotheism) was lost, and people
fell into the worship of many deities (Polytheism), adoring the visible
works of creation, more particularly the sun and the stars of heaven, or
else reverencing the operative powers of nature as divine beings. Faith in
the one Great JEHOVAH was preserved by the children of Israel alone. Idols
were erected within gorgeous temples. With the Chaldean, Phoenician, and
Assyrian, Moloch began the dreadful cruelty of human sacrifices, chiefly of
children. If, at first, the image of the idol was only a visible symbol of
a spiritual conception, or of an invisible power, this higher meaning was
lost in progress of time in the minds of most nations, and they came at
length to pay worship to the lifeless image itself. The priests alone were
acquainted with any deeper meaning, but refused to share it with the
people; they reserved it under the veil of esoteric (secret) doctrines, as
the peculiar appanage of their own class. They invented endless fables
which gave rise to Mythology. They ruled the people by the might of
superstition, and acquired wealth, honor, and power, for themselves.[17] We
arrive then at nearly the culminating point of Egyptian priestcraft, the
days of "wise men," "sorcerers," and "magicians."[18] Such men ever {20}
have, and we presume ever will employ secrecy as the chief element of their
clever jugglery. Mankind love to be deceived. Let an Adrian, Blitz, or
Alexander--while they tell you, and you well know it, that their tricks are
a deception--put forth notices of an exhibition, and they will attract
crowds, where an Arago, or a Faraday, would not be listened to. Maelzel's
automata, or Vaucanson's duck, will attract the world, when Bacon's, or
Newton's, or Laplace's works may remain in dust on the book-shelves. Human
nature is always the same, and thus it was in the days of Moses and
Pharaoh. The wise men, sorcerers, and magicians, held undisputed sway, not
only over the superstitions of the people, but over their educated monarchs
and princes. Egypt possessed, at an inconceivably early period, numberless
towns and villages, and a high amount of civilization. Arts, sciences, and
civil professions, were cherished there, so that the Nile-land has
generally been regarded as the mysterious cradle of human culture; but the
system of castes checked free development and continuous improvement.
Everything subserved a gloomy religion and a powerful priesthood, who held
the people in terror and superstition. Their doctrine, that, after the
death of man, the soul could not enter into her everlasting repose unless
the body were preserved, occasioned the singular custom of embalming the
corpses of the departed to preserve them from decay, and of treasuring them
up in the shape of {21} mummies in shaft-like passages and mortuary
chambers. Through this belief, the priests, who, as judges of the dead,
possessed the power of giving up the bodies of the sinful to corruption,
and by this means occasioning the transmigration of their souls into the
bodies of animals, obtained immense authority. Notwithstanding the
magnificence of their architectural productions, and the vast technical
skill and dexterity in sculpture and mechanical appliances which they
display, the Egyptians have produced but little in literature or the
sciences; and even this little was locked up from the people in the
mysterious hieroglyphical writing, which was understood by the priests
alone.[19] The following translation is a quotation from a Latin work:
"Among the ancient Egyptians, from whom we learn the rudiments of speech,
besides the three common kinds of letters, other descriptions of characters
are used which have been generally consecrated to their peculiar mysteries.
In a dissertation on this subject, that celebrated antiquarian (_conditor
stromatum_), Clement, of Alexandria, teaches in his writings, thus: 'Those
who are taught Egyptian, first, indeed, learn the grammar and chirography
called letter-writing, that is, which is apt for ordinary correspondence;
secondly, however, that used by the priests, called sacred writing, to
commemorate sacred things; the last also, hieroglyphic, meaning sacred
sculpture, one of the first elements of which is {22} cyriologism, meaning,
properly speaking, enunciating truth by one or another symbol, or in other
words, portraying the meaning by significant emblems.' With Clement agrees
the Arabian, Abenephi, who uses this language: (This Arabic writing is
preserved in the Vatican library, but not as yet printed: it is often
quoted by Athanasius Kircher, in his Treatise on the Pamphilian Obelisk,
whence these and other matters stated by us have been taken.) 'But there
were four kinds of writing among the Egyptians: First, that in use among
the populace and the ignorant; secondly, that in vogue among the
philosophers and the educated; thirdly, one compounded of letters and
symbols, without drawn figures or representations of things; the fourth was
confined solely to the priesthood, the figures or letters of which were
those of birds, by which they represented the sacred things of Deity.' From
which last testimony we learn that erudite Egyptians used a peculiar and
different system of writing from that of the populace, and it was for the
purpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines. For example, they show that
this writing consisted of symbols, partly of opinions and ideas, partly of
historic fables accommodated to a more secret method of teaching. But
Clement, of Alexandria, went further. In book v. of Antiquities
(_stromata_, 'foundation of things'), he says: 'All who controlled
theological matters, Barbarian as well as Greek, have concealed their
principles, hiding the truth in enigmas, signs, symbols, as {23} well as
allegories, and also in tropes, and have handed them down in various
symbols and methods.'"[20] This passage led subsequently to the brilliant
discoveries of Champollion.
Who, then, were the "erudite Egyptians" who used a peculiar system of
writing" for the purpose of teaching their peculiar doctrines?" Who were
{24} these "magi," "wise men," "sorcerers," and "magicians"? Nowhere do we
find Pharaoh in the midst of his troubles calling for a priest. It is
always for the wise men, magicians, and sorcerers. Were they not the
priests?--were they not those who controlled the mysteries--who practised
divination? When Moses and Aaron cast down their rods, the magicians of
Egypt "also did in like manner with their enchantments," and the result was
the same.[21] When Moses smote the waters that they became blood, the
acuteness of the priests, or magi, in their mysteries taught them a lesson
whereby they were able to do the same.[22] When the frogs came up on
Pharaoh and on all his people, and on all his servants, and covered the
land of Egypt, we learn "the magicians did so with their enchantments, and
brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt."[23] If the ancient Egyptians were
like their descendants, it is singular the magi could not accomplish the
next plague, that is, of lice. But here their power ended. The magi
originated in Media. According to oriental custom, to them was intrusted
the preservation of scientific knowledge, and the performance of the holy
exercises of Religion. Afterward, in a special sense, the magi were a caste
of priests of the Medes and Persians, deriving the name of Pehlvi; Mag, or
Mog, generally signifies in that language, _a priest_. They are expressly
mentioned by Herodotus as a Median tribe. Zoroaster was not their founder,
{25} but was their reformer, and the purifier of their doctrines. The Magi
of his time were opposed to his innovations; and they, therefore, were
condemned by him. When afterward, however, they adopted his reforms, he
effected their thorough organization, dividing them into APPRENTICES,
MASTERS, and PERFECT MASTERS. Their study and science consisted in
observation of their holy rites, in the knowledge of their sacred forms of
prayer, and liturgies by which Ormuzd was worshipped, and in the ceremonies
attendant on their prayers and sacrifices. They only were permitted to act
as mediators between God and man. To them alone was the will of God
declared. They only could penetrate the future. And they alone predicted
the future to those who sought of them therefor. In later days the name
Magi became synonymous with sorcerer, magician, alchemist, &c.[24]
{26}
The magi of Egypt were the priests, the founders and preservers of the
mysteries of the secret grades of instruction, and of the hieratic and
hieroglyphic writings and sculptures. In secret they were the priesthood.
In public, in religious matters, the same. But in public secular affairs
they seem to be recognised as Magi.
When mythology was invented, most of the gods, if not all of them, were
received as symbolical, physical beings, the poets made of them moral
agents; and as such they appear in the religions of the people of earlier
days. The symbolical meaning would have been lost, if no means had been
provided to insure its preservation. The MYSTERIES, it seems, afforded such
means. Their great end, therefore, was to preserve the knowledge of the
peculiar attributes of those divinities which had been incorparated into
the popular religion under new forms; what powers and objects of nature
they represented; how these, and how the universe came into being; in a
word, cosmogonies, like those contained in the Orphic instructions. But
this knowledge, though it was preserved by oral instruction, was
perpetuated no less by {27} symbolic representations and usages; which, at
least in part, consisted of sacred traditions and fables. "In the sanctuary
of Sais," says Herodotus (l.c.), "representations are given by night of the
adventures of the goddess; and these are called by the Egyptians
_mysteries_; of which, however, I will relate no more. It was thence that
these mysteries were introduced into Greece."[25] The temples of India and
of Egypt seem to be identical in architecture and in sculpture.[26] Both
nations seem to have sprung from the old Assyrian stock.[27] The magi of
both countries appear to have had a common origin; and their teachings must
have been, therefore, traditionally the same. We may, then, presume that
there were three grades in the instructions of these mysteries, by whatever
name they may have been called--whether Apprentices, Masters, and Perfect
Masters, or otherwise; that they were sacred in their character; and that
their symbolic meanings were revealed in these MYSTERIES, and in no other
manner, while they were kept a secret from the world at large. But this was
not all. They spread, with emigration and commerce, into all then known
countries. Their common origin, or at least that of most of them, is still
perceptible. CERES had long wandered over the earth, before she was
received at Eleusis, and erected there her {28} sanctuary. (Isocrat. Paneg.
op., p. 46, ed. Steph., and many other places in Meursii Eleusin., cap. 1.)
Her secret service in the Thesmophoria, according to the account of
Herodotus (iv. 172), was first introduced by Danaus; who brought it from
Egypt to the Peloponnesus.[28] One writer says that mysteries were, among
the Greeks, and afterward also among the Romans, secret religious
assemblies, which no uninitiated person was permitted to approach. They
originated at a very early period. They were designed to interpret those
mythological fables and religious rites, the true meaning of which it was
thought expedient to conceal from the people. They were perhaps necessary
in those times, in which the superstitions, the errors, and the prejudices
of the people, could not be openly exposed without danger to the public
peace. Upon this ground they were tolerated and protected by the state.
Their first and fundamental law was a profound secrecy. In all mysteries
there were dramatic exhibitions, relating to the exploits of the deities in
whose honor they were celebrated.[29] We may thus trace all ancient pagan
religion to a common origin, with similarity of human means to accomplish a
general result, variant in name, or in practice, as to the deity, or form
of its worship, but resting on a unity as to its commencement and its
object.
{29}
We can hardly penetrate the veil which hides from us the pagan worship of
that early human stock the race of Ham, which--without the divine light
granted only to the Israelites--was the origin of false worship. We can
only arrive at conclusions, but these are the result of strong presumptions
arising from undisputed historical facts. What are they?
One of the principal chiefs of the earliest race, whence came the magi,
&c., was Nimrod, afterward deified by the name of Bel to the Chaldeans,
Baal to the Hebrews, [Greek: Bêlos] to the Greeks, and Belus to the Romans;
and when, in later days, statues received adoration (which at first was
only accorded to the being of whom the statue was a type), he became
worshipped under a multiplication of statues, they were in the Hebrew
language called "Baalim," or the plural of Baal. Nimrod was the son of
Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. "And Cush begat Nimrod:
he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the
Lord: wherefore it is said, 'Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the
Lord.' And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad,
and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. And out of that land he went forth to
Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen
between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city."[30] While, then, {30}
the children of Shem and Japheth pursued the patriarchal course, and
preserved the ancient traditions subsequently handed down, the descendants
of Ham, suffering under the patriarchal malediction of Noah, built cities
composed of families, and a great kingdom composed of cities and nations.
This kingdom was the origin of pagan worship. They lost the patriarchal
traditions, and were the first to establish on this earth the concentration
of power in a political system. That power once attained, the daring energy
of the king became in the hand of the priesthood a subject of deification
for two reasons. 1. The king was mortal, and must die. 2. The power must be
preserved. When afterward, under Peleg, this race, at their {31} building
of Ba-Bel--their temple of Bel--became dispersed, and left to us only their
ruin of that temple, now called _Birs Nimroud_, the magi, or priests,
preserved the power he attained to themselves, by means of secrecy in their
mysteries, and which were dispersed subsequently through the earth in
different languages and forms, varying with the poetry and climate of the
country or countries thereafter occupied, and adapted from time to time to
the existing exigencies of the times. Thence sprang the origin of
mythologies, or, in other words, fabulous histories of the fructifying
energies of Nature, whether developed in the germination of the vegetable
kingdom, or in an occasional poetical version of some heroic act of one in
power.
This nation, the old Assyrian, became dispersed at the destruction of their
great temple. But their political power everywhere was mysteriously
preserved. When the magi became organized in Media, they spread in every
direction. From earliest days we find their worship amid the nations
conquered by Joshua. We see them in the traces of the [Greek: Oi Poimenes],
or shepherd-kings of Egypt, and in the sorcerers of the days of Moses. We,
find them reformed by Zoroaster in Persia. They are conspicuous among the
Greeks, who derived their mysteries from Egypt; and in the worship of Isis
at Rome, never indigenous there. And even in later days (those of Darius,
Belshazzar, and Cyrus), they seem to be thoroughly {32} re-established in
their original birthplace. And, strange as it may appear, we find their
power over kings, generals, nations, and people, in the hands of the
priesthood, by means of their mysteries, from all early history, until
affected by the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Regarding, then, the off-shoot from patriarchal tradition to be the origin
of pagan worship; referring also to the first formation of cities, and of
one immense kingdom, by the descendants of Ham (accursed by his prophetic
ancestor), by whom an empire was first established; to Nimrod's
deification; to the preservation in the priesthood of future political
power; to the fact that after his death they would and might thereby
perpetuate the same; that wherever thereafter dispersed, they did so by
their revelations by mysteries, in which they controlled not only the
masses of the people, but those who governed them, in whatsoever nation
then known--we arrive at the conclusion that the mysteries were the
elements of religious and consequently of political power.
The important Greek mysteries, of the details whereof we know most,
were--1. The _Eleusinian_. 2. The _Samothracian_, which originated in Crete
and Phrygia, and were celebrated in the former country in honor of Jupiter.
From these countries they were introduced among the Thracians or Pelasgians
in the island of Samothrace, and extended thence into Greece. They were
sometimes celebrated in honor {33} of Jupiter, sometimes of Bacchus, and
sometimes of Ceres. 3. The _Dionysia_, which were brought from Thrace to
Thebes, and were very similar to the former. They were celebrated every
second year. The transition of men from barbarism to civilization was
likewise represented in them. The women were clothed in skins of beasts.
With a spear (_thyrsus_), bound with ivy, in their hands, they ascended
Mount Cithæron; when, after the religious ceremonies, wild dances were
performed, which ended with the dispersion of the priestesses and the
initiated in the neighboring woods. They had also symbols, chiefly relating
to Bacchus, who was the hero of these mysteries. These celebrations were
forbidden in Thebes, even in the time of Epaminondas, and afterward in all
Greece, as prejudicial to the public peace and morals. 4. The _Orphic_,
chiefly deserving mention as the probable foundation of the Eleusinian. 5.
The mysteries of Isis, not in vogue in Greece, but very popular in
Rome.[31] The offspring of Egyptian priestcraft, they were instituted with
a view to aggrandize that order of men, to extend their influence, and
enlarge their revenues. To accomplish these selfish projects, they applied
every engine toward besotting the multitude with superstition and
enthusiasm. They taught them to believe that they were the distinguished
favorites of Heaven; that celestial doctrines had been revealed to them,
too holy to be communicated to the profane {34} rabble, and too sublime to
be comprehended by vulgar capacities. Princes and legislators, who found
their advantage in overawing and humbling the multitude, readily adopted a
plan so artfully fabricated to answer these purposes. The views of those in
power were congenial with those of the priests, and both united in the same
spirit to thus control the respect, admiration, and dependence, of the
million.
They made their disciples believe that in the next world the souls of the
uninitiated should roll in mire and dirt, and with difficulty reach their
destined mansion. Hence, Plato introduces Socrates as observing that "the
sages who introduced the Teletæ had positively affirmed that whatever soul
should arrive in the infernal mansions _unhouselled_ and _unannealed_
should lie there immersed in mire and filth."--"And as to a future state,"
says Aristides, "the initiated shall not roll in mire and grope in
darkness, a fate which awaits the unholy and uninitiated." When the
Athenians advised Diogenes to be initiated, "It will be pretty enough,"
replied he, "to see Agesilaus and Epaminondas wallowing in the mire, while
the most contemptible rascals who have been initiated are strolling in the
islands of bliss!" When Antisthenes was to be initiated, and the priests
were boasting of the wonderful benefit to ensue, "Why, forsooth, 'tis
wonder your reverence don't hang yourself, in order to come at it sooner,"
was his remark. When, however, such benefits were expected to be derived
from the {35} mysteries, it is no wonder the world crowded to the
Eleusinian standard. Initiation was, in reality, a consecration to Ceres
and Proserpine. Its result was, honor and reverence from the masses. They
believed all virtue to be inspired by these goddesses. Pericles says: "I am
convinced that the deities of Eleusis inspired me with this sentiment, and
that this stratagem was suggested by the principle of the mystic rites." So
also Aristophanes makes the chorus of the initiated, in his Ranæ, to
sing:--
"Let us to flowery mead repair,
With deathless roses blooming,
Whose balmy sweets impregn the air,
Both hills and dales perfuming.
Since fate benign one choir has joined,
We'll trip in mystic measure;
In sweetest harmony combined,
We'll quaff full draughts of pleasure.
For us alone the power of day
A milder light dispenses,
And sheds benign a mellow ray
To cheer our ravished senses.
For we beheld the mystic show,
And braved Eleusis' dangers;
We do and know the deeds we owe
To neighbors, friends, and strangers."
It is believed that the higher orders of magi went further, and pretended
to hold intercourse with, and cause to appear, the very [Greek: eidôlon] of
the dead. In the days of Moses it was practised. "There shall not be found
among you... a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard,
or a necromancer."[32] {36} Diodorus Siculus mentions an oracle near Lake
Avernus, where the dead were raised, as having been in existence before the
age of Hercules.[33] Plutarch, in his life of Cimon, relates that
Pausanias, in his distress, applied to the Psychagogi, or dead-evokers, at
Heraclea, to call up the spirit of Cleonice (whose injured apparition
haunted him incessantly), in order that he might entreat her forgiveness.
She appeared accordingly, and informed him that, on his return to Sparta,
he would be delivered from all his sorrows--meaning, by death. This was
five hundred years before Christ. The story resembles that of the
apparition of Samuel before Saul: "To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be
with me."[34] The appearance of Samuel was regarded as a real transaction
by the writer of Ecclesiasticus, for he says: "By his faithfulness he was
found a true prophet, and by his word he was known to be faithful in
vision; for after his death he showed the king his end, and lift up his
voice from the earth in prophecy."[35] The rabbins say that the woman was
the mother of Abner; she is said to have had the spirit of _Ob_, which Dean
Milman has remarked is singularly similar in sound to the name of the
_Obeah_ women in Africa and the West Indies. Herodotus also mentions
_Thesprotia_, in Epirus, as the place where Periander evoked the spirit of
his wife Melissa, whom he had murdered.[36]
{37}
It was a very general opinion, in later days, that demons had power over
the souls of the dead, until Christ descended into Hades and delivered them
from the thrall of the "Prince of Darkness." The dead were sometimes raised
by those who did not possess a familiar spirit. These consulters repaired
to the grave at night, and there lying down, repeated certain words in a
low, muttering tone, and the spirit thus summoned appeared. "And thou shalt
be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be
low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar
spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the
dust."[37]
Euripides also refers to necromancy.[38]
ADMETUS.
[Greek: hora ge mê ti phasma nerterôn tod ê]?
HERCULES.
[Greek: ou psuchagôgon tond' epoiêsô xenon].
ADM. See! is not this some spectre from the dead?
HER. No dead-invoker for thy guest hast thou.
Seneca describes the spirits of the dead as being evoked by the Psychagogus
in a cave rendered gloomy and as dark as night by the cypress, laurel, and
other like trees.[39] Claudian refers to the same superstition.[40] And
Lucan,[41] where Erictho recalls a spirit to animate {38} the body it had
left, by horrid ceremonies. So Tibullus:[42]--
"Hæc cantu finditque solum, manesque sepulchris,
Elicit, et tepido devocat ossa toro."
The celebrated Heeren, in his "Politics of Ancient Greece" (ch. iii., p.
67, Am. ed.), remarks, in reference to the mysteries of Eleusis, that they
exhibited the superiority of civilized over savage life, and gave
instructions respecting a future life and its nature. For what was this
more than an interpretation of the sacred traditions which were told of the
goddess as the instructress in agriculture, of the forced descent of her
daughter to the lower world, etc.? And we need not be more astonished if,
in some of their sacred rites, we perceive an excitement carried to a
degree of enthusiastic madness which belonged peculiarly to the East, but
which the Hellenes were very willing to receive. For we must not neglect to
bear in mind that they shared the spirit of the East; and did they not live
on the very boundary-line between the East and the West? As those
institutions were propagated farther to the west, they lost their original
character. We know what the Bacchanalian rites became at Rome; and had they
been introduced north of the Alps, what form would they have there assumed?
But to those countries it was possible to {39} transplant the vine, not the
service of the god to whom the vine was sacred. The orgies of Bacchus
suited the cold soil and inclement forests of the North as little as the
character of its inhabitants.
Without going further into detail (the minutiæ of which are thus opened to
every scholar), we must presume that the mythology of the children of Ham,
the origin of pagan worship, fostered by variant mysteries to obtain and
maintain temporal power, spread itself through the then known world. So far
as we know, the secret doctrines which were taught in the mysteries may
have finally degenerated into mere forms and an unmeaning ritual. And yet
the mysteries exercised a great influence on the spirit of the nation, not
of the initiated only, but also on the great mass of the people; and
perhaps they influenced the latter still more than the former. They
preserved the reverence for sacred things, and this gave them their
political importance. They produced that effect better than any modern
secret societies have been able to do. The mysteries had their secrets, but
not everything connected with them was secret. They had, like those of
Eleusis, their public festivals, processions, and pilgrimages, in which
none but the initiated took a part, but of which no one was prohibited from
being a spectator. While the multitude was permitted to gaze at them, it
learned to believe that there was something sublimer than anything with
which it was acquainted, revealed only to the initiated; and {40} while the
worth of that sublimer knowledge did not consist in secrecy alone, it did
not lose any of its value by being concealed. Thus the popular religion and
the secret doctrines, although always distinguished from each other, united
in serving to curb the people. The condition and the influence of religion
on a nation were always closely connected with the situation of those
persons who were particularly appointed for the service of the gods, the
priests. The scholar will readily call to mind a Calchas, a Chryses, and
others. The leaders and commanders themselves, in those days, offered their
sacrifices (see the description which Nestor makes to Pallas, Od. iii.,
430, &c.), performed the prayers, and observed the signs which indicated
the result of an undertaking. In a word, kings and leaders were at the same
time PRIESTS.[43]
How far may this have been a reason why Pharaoh did not call on a priest
for help, but rely on the supposed superior knowledge of the Magi? a higher
grade of secret instruction, perhaps, than he had received.
* * * * *
{41}
CHAPTER III.
The Origin of the Cabbalistæ; the Chaldeans, and their Antagonism to
Patriarchal Tradition.--The Hand-writing on Belshazzar's Wall.--The
Secret Writings of the Cabbalistæ.--How Daniel read the
Same.--Ezra.--The Origin of the Masoretic Text.--Zoroaster.--His
Reformation and Reconstruction of the Religion of the
Magi.--Pythagoras, and his "League."--The Thugs.--The Druids.
So far as the children of Shem and Japheth are concerned, it is believed
true religion was preserved, except where tradition became adulterated with
extraneous matter. And for the preservation of that religion, Almighty God,
in his mercy, established of that lineage a certain race, with rules,
partly signifying his truth, partly merely political, which should
thereafter shine as a moral light to the world, no matter how dim the light
might be, through the imperfection of human nature under peculiar
circumstances of temptation or otherwise.
Here, at once, was an antagonism with the pagan religion, which was of the
children of Ham, under his father's patriarchal curse.
When Moses, the servant with the watchword, "I AM THAT I AM," presented
himself to the Shemitic and {42} Japhetic races, he was everywhere received
and acknowledged by them as their leader, in opposition to both the
temporal and theological power of the Magi and of Pharaoh.
Here came the clashing between pagan and traditional theology preserved by
the patriarchs. And Almighty God, to show the truth of his laws, sanctioned
their promulgation by signs and miracles, which the Magi could not equal
nor counteract.
Pass by the Israelitish history until the loss and destruction of the first
temple, when we find this religious race, although imbued with the
principles of truth, fallen from their high estate, and led captive into a
strange land, subject to the very people that insisted on the opposite of
their own religion. They were then under the control of a monarch who was
governed by the laws of the Medes and Persians, that is, of the Magi; and
who, in turn, relied upon their emperor, who trusted only to his magicians,
sorcerers, and Chaldeans. They were in BABYLON itself.
To confirm what has been said, and to elucidate what is to follow, we will
pause a moment to learn what is meant by "the Chaldeans."
The accounts that have been transmitted to us by the Chaldeans themselves
of the antiquity of their learning, are blended with fable, and involved in
considerable uncertainty. At the time when Callisthenes was requested by
Aristotle to gain information concerning the origin of science in Chaldea,
he was {43} informed that the ancestors of the Chaldeans had continued
their astronomical observations through a period of 470,000 years; but upon
examining the ground of this report, he found that the Chaldean observation
reached no further backward than 1,903 years, or that, of course (adding
this number to 331, B.C., the year in which Babylon was taken by
Alexander), they had commenced in the year 2,234, B.C. Besides, Ptolemy
mentions no Chaldean observations prior to the era of Nabonassar, which
commenced 747 years B.C. Aristotle, however, on the credit of the most
ancient records, speaks of the Chaldean Magi as prior to the Egyptian
priests, who, it is well known, cultivated learning before the time of
Moses. It appears probable that the philosophers of Chaldea were the
priests of the Babylonian nation, who instructed the people in the
principles of religion, interpreted its laws, and conducted its ceremonies.
Their character was similar to that of the Persian Magi, and they are often
confounded by the Greek historians. Like the priests in most other nations,
they employed religion in subserviency to the ruling powers, and made use
of imposture to serve the purposes of civil policy. Accordingly
|
privilege of Christendom,
and that there was no communion, even that of the Catholics, even that
of the Jews, even that of the Swedenborgians, from which we need find
ourselves excluded." He certainly liked to exercise this privilege, but
he admits that "my grounds may have been but the love of the
_exhibition_ in general, thanks to which figures, faces, furniture,
sounds, smells and colours became for me, wherever enjoyed, and enjoyed
most where most collected, a positive little orgy of the senses and riot
of the mind." Which was to be expected; as also was the fact that he
never broke his childish habit of regarding his father's religion as a
closed temple standing in the centre of his family life, the general
holiness of which he took for granted so thoroughly that it never
occurred to him to investigate its particulars.
This European visit came to an end in 1859, and William and Henry James
spent the next year or so at Newport studying art under the direction of
their friend John La Farge, with the result that William painted
extremely well in the style of Manet, and Henry showed as little ability
in this direction as he had shown in any other. In 1861 the Civil War
broke out; and had it not been for an accident the whole character of
Mr James' genius would have been altered. If he had seen America by the
light of bursting shells and flaming forest he might never have taken
his eyes off her again, he might have watched her fascinated through all
the changes of tone and organisation which began at the close of the
war, he might have been the Great American Novelist in subject as well
as origin. But it happened, in that soft spring when he and every other
young man of the North realised that there was a crisis at hand in which
their honour was concerned and they must answer Lincoln's appeal for
recruits, that he was one day called to help in putting out a fire. In
working the fire-engine he sustained an injury so serious that he could
never hope to share the Northern glory, that there were before him years
of continuous pain and weakness, that ultimately he formed a curious and
on the whole mischievous conception of himself. For his humiliating
position as a delicate and unpromising student at Harvard Law School
while his younger brothers, Wilky and Robertson, were officers in the
Northern Army and William was pursuing a brilliant academic career or
naturalising with Agassiz in South America, seemed a confirmation of his
tutors' opinion that he was an inarticulate mediocrity who would never
be able to take a hand in the business of life. And so he worked out a
scheme of existence, which he accepted finally in an hour of glowing
resignation when he was returning by steamer to Newport from a visit to
a camp of wounded soldiers at Portsmouth Grove, in which the one who
stood aside and felt rather than acted acquired thereby a mystic value,
a spiritual supremacy, which--but this was perhaps a later development
of the theory--would be rubbed off by participation in action.
It was, therefore, with defiant industry, with the intention of proving
that such as he was he had his peculiar worth, that he set to work to
become a writer. His first story was published in _The Atlantic Monthly_
when he was twenty-one, and it was followed by a number of stories,
travel sketches, and critical essays, some of which have been
reprinted, and a few farces which have not. He also went through a
necessary preface of the literary life by reading the proofs of George
Eliot's novels before they appeared in the _Atlantic_ and reviewing; the
profession of literature differs from that of the stage in that the
stars begin instead of ending as dressers. In 1869 he went to Europe
and, gaining certain impressions that had been inaccessible to him as a
child, finally fixed the dye in which his talent was to be immersed for
the rest of his life. He stepped for the first time into "a private park
of great oaks... where I knew my first sense of a matter afterwards,
through fortunate years, to be more fully disclosed: the springtime in
such places, the adored footpath, the first primroses, the stir and
scent of renascence in the watered sunshine and under spreading boughs
that were somehow before aught else the still reach of the remembered
lines of Tennyson...." He was admitted to the homes of Ruskin, Rossetti,
Morris, Darwin, and George Eliot, and allowed to see the wheels go
round. But the real significance of this journey to Mr James' genius is
the part it played in the last days of his beautiful cousin, Mary
Temple. She should have had before her a long career of nobility, for
"she was absolutely afraid of nothing she might come to by living with
enough sincerity and enough wonder." She pretended not to know that she
had been cheated out of this, but as she lay on the death-bed that she
would not admit to be even a sick-bed, her eyes were fixed intensely on
the progress of her cousin through all the experiences that should have
been hers. There came a day when all illusion failed, and she died
dreadfully, clinging to consciousness. Her death was felt by Henry and
William James as the end of their youth.
* * * * *
That, as Mr James would have said, is the _donnée_. The must was trodden
out, it had only to ferment, to be bottled, to be mellowed by time into
the perfect wine. There is nothing in all the innumerable volumes that
Mr James was to pour out in the next forty-five years of which the
intimation is not present in these first adventures.
II
THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
It is no use turning up those first stories that appeared in _The
Atlantic Monthly_ and _The Galaxy_ unless one has formed an affection
for the literary personality of Mr James. The image they provoke of the
literary prentice bending over his task with the tip of his tongue
reflectively protruding like a small boy drawing on his slate, is
amusing enough; but they themselves are such pale dreams as might visit
a New England spinster looking out from her snuff-coloured parlour on a
grey drizzling day. Where there is any richness of effect, as in _The
Romance of Certain Old Clothes_, it comes from the influence of
Nathaniel Hawthorne. That story, which tells how a girl loved her
sister's husband, waited eagerly for her death that she might marry him,
and later wheedled from him the key of the chest in which the dead wife
had left her finery to await her baby daughter's maturity, is
seven-eighths prelude, and the catastrophe, which is the finding of the
girl kneeling dead beside the chest with the mark of phantom fingers on
her throat, comes with too short and small a report. But in spite of its
pitiful construction it is the only one of the dozen stories which Mr
James published before his visit to Europe in 1869 that shows any of the
imaginative exuberance which one accepts as an earnest of coming genius.
Hawthorne was not altogether a happy influence--it is due to him that Mr
James' characters have "almost wailed" their way from _The Passionate
Pilgrim_ to _The Golden Bowl_--but he certainly shepherded Mr James into
the European environment and lent him a framework on which to drape his
emotions until he had discovered his own power to build up an
imaginative structure. The plot of _The Passionate Pilgrim_, with its
American who comes to England to claim a cousin's estate, falls in love
with the usurper's sister, is driven from the door, and dies just after
the usurper's death has delivered to him all he wants, is very clumsy
Hawthorne, but in those days Mr James could not draw normal events and
he had to have some medium for expressing his wealth of feeling about
England. It is amazing to see how rich that wealth already was, how much
deeper than mere pleasure in travel was his delight in the parks and
private grandeurs of England; and how, too, a fundamental fallacy was
already perverting it to an almost Calvinist distrust of the activities
of the present.
"I entered upon life a perfect gentleman," says the American as he
sits in Hampton Court. "I had the love of old forms and pleasant
rites, and I found them nowhere--found a world all hard lines and
harsh lights, without lines, without composition, as they say of
pictures, without the lovely mystery of colour.... Sitting here, in
this old park, in this old country, I feel that I hover on the
misty verge of what might have been! I should have been born here,
not there; here my makeshift distinctions would have found things
they'd have been true of.... This is a world I could have got on
with beautifully."
There you have the first statement of the persistent illusion, to which
he was helped by his odd lack of the historic sense and which confused
his estimate of modern life, that the past would have been a happier
home for those who like himself loved fastidious living. He had a
tremendous sense of the thing that is and none at all of the thing that
has been, and thus he was always being misled by such lovely shells of
the past as Hampton Court into the belief that the past which inhabited
them was as lovely. The calm of Canterbury Close appeared to him as a
remnant of a time when all England, bowed before the Church, was as
calm; whereas the calm is really a modern condition brought about when
the Church ceased to have anything to do with England. He never
perceived that life is always a little painful at the moment, not only
at this moment but at all moments; that the wine of experience always
makes a raw draught when it has just been trodden out from bruised
grapes by the pitiless feet of men, that it must be subject to time
before it acquires suavity. The lack of this perception matters little
in his early work but it is vastly important in shaping his later
phases.
There are no such personal revelations in _The Madonna of the Future_,
nor anything, indeed, at all characteristic of Mr James. There is beauty
in the tale of the American painter who dreams over a model for twenty
years, while he and she grow old, and leaves at his death nothing more
to show for his dreams than a cracked blank canvas; and the Florentine
background is worked on diligently and affectionately. But it is
admirable in quite an uncharacteristic way, like a figure picture
painted with the utmost brilliance of technique and from perfect models
by a painter whose real passion was for landscape. Yet it was only a
year later, in _Madame de Mauves_, that Mr James found himself, both his
manner and the core of the matter which was to occupy him for the
happiest part of his literary life. Euphemia de Mauves, the prim young
American who moves languidly through the turfy avenues of the French
forest, her faith in decency of living perpetually outraged by her
husband's infidelities and his odd demand that she should make him a
cuckold so that at least he should not have the discomfort of looking up
at her, is the first of the many exquisite women whom Mr James brought
into being by his capacity to imagine characters solidly and completely,
his perception of the subtle tones of life, and his extreme verbal
delicacy. And she is given a still greater importance by the queer twist
at the end of the story by which M. de Mauves blows his brains out for
no reason at all but that he is hopelessly, helplessly, romantically in
love with this cold wife who will be so unreasonable about trifles. Mr
James writes her story not only as though he stood upon the Atlantic
shores looking eastward at the plight of a compatriot domiciled with
lewd men and light women, but also as though he sat in the company of
certain gracious men and women of the world who could not get under way
with their accomplishment of charm because the grim alien in the corner
will keep prodding them with a disapproval as out of place in this salon
as a deal plank. Madame de Mauves, in fine, is the first figure invented
by Mr James to throw light upon what he called "the international
situation."
It took all Mr James' cosmopolitan training to see that there existed an
international situation, that the fact that Americans visited Europe
constituted a drama. An Englishman who visited Italy did no more than
take a look at a more richly coloured order of life that braced him up,
as any gay spectacle might have done, to return to his own; his travel
was a pleasure, or, at most, if he happened to be a Landor or a
Browning, an inspiration. It might reasonably be supposed that the visit
to Europe of an American was no greater matter. But Mr James knew that
the wealthy American was in the position of a man who has built a
comfortable house and has plenty of money over, yet cannot furnish it
because furniture is neither made nor sold in his country; until he has
crossed the sea to the land where they do make furniture he must sleep
and eat on the floor.
"One might enumerate," he writes in those early days, "the items of
high civilisation as it exists in other countries, which are absent
from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder
what was left. No State, in the European sense of the word, and
indeed barely a specific national name. No sovereign, no court, no
personal loyalty, no aristocracy...."
There follows a long list, so long as to provoke the "natural remark...
that if these things are left out everything is left out." And, Mr James
goes on to complain, "it takes so many things--such an accumulation of
history and custom, such a complexity of manners and types, to form a
fund of suggestion for a novelist." He wrote novelist because at the
moment he was criticising Hawthorne, but he would certainly have applied
his phrase to anyone who desired his life to be not a corduroy track
but a marble terrace with palaces on the one hand and fair gardens on
the other.
Since the pilgrimage for these items of high civilisation appeared to
Europeans--as innumerable contemporary allusions show it did--as mere
globe-trottings, the pilgrims themselves were likely to be as
misunderstood. For one thing, although they were unorganised so far as
culture went, they formed at home a very cohesive moral community. The
American women who came to Europe took for granted that however people
might be habited--people, that is, whose manners showed them "nice"--and
in whatever frivolous array they might be flounced and ribboned, they
were certain to wear next their skin the hair-shirt of Puritan
rectitude. The innocent freedoms which they permitted themselves because
they held this supposition, and the terrifying surmises to which these
gave rise in the mind of the Old World, unaware of the innocence of the
New, made much material for drama. And more dramatic still was the
moment, which came to so many of the travellers who formed close
personal relationships with Europeans, when they realised that the moral
standards to which they had nationally pledged themselves, and which
they individually obeyed with extraordinary fidelity, were here regarded
as simply dowdy. "Compromise!" was the cry of Latin and even English
society. "Compromise on every and any of the Commandments you like! Do
anything you can, in fact, to rub down those rude angles you present to
human intercourse!" And yet it was not to be deduced that Europe was
lax. One had only to look behind the superficial show to see that it had
its own religion, perhaps a more terrible religion than any New England
ever knew, and that what seemed its laziest pleasures were sometimes its
most dreadful rites.
This last conception of Europe is the subject of _Roderick Hudson_
(1875). _Roderick Hudson_ is not a good book. It throws a light upon the
lack of attention given at that period to the art of writing that within
a few years of each other two men of great genius--Thomas Hardy and
Henry James--wrote in their thirties first novels spoilt by technical
blemishes of a sort that the most giftless modern miss with a
subscription to Mudie's would never commit in her first literary
experiment. _Roderick Hudson_ is wooden, it is crammed with local colour
like a schoolmistress's bedroom full of photographs of Rome, it has a
plain boiled suet heroine called Mary. But its idea is magnificent. An
American of fortune takes Hudson, who has already shown talent as a
sculptor, from his stool in a lawyer's office in Northampton,
Massachusetts, and sets him up in a studio in Rome. It is the fear of
old Mrs Hudson and of Mary, his fiancée, that European life will be too
soft for him. But the very opposite occurs; it is he who is too soft for
European life. The business of art means not only lounging under the
pines of the Villa Ludovisi and chiselling the noble substance of
Carrara marble; it means also the painful toil of creation, which
demands from the artist an austerer renunciation of every grossness than
was ever expected of any law-abiding citizen of Northampton, which
sends a man naked and alone to awful moments which, if he be strong,
give him spiritual strength, but if he be weak heap on him the black
weakness of neurasthenia. And when that has turned him into a raw, hurt,
raging creature he is further snared by the loveliness of Christina
Light, who is characteristically European in that her circumstances have
not the same clear beauty as her face. She is being hawked over the
Continent to find a rich husband by her mother and a Cavaliere who is
really her father, and this ugly girlhood has so corrupted her vigorous
spirit that the young American's courtship provokes from her nothing but
eccentric favours or perverse insults. After the collapse of his art and
his love Roderick falls over a precipice in a too minutely described
Switzerland, hurled by a _dénouement_ which has inspired Mr James to one
of his broadest jokes. In the first edition Roderick, on hearing that,
while he has been vexing his benefactor with his moods, that gentleman
has been manfully repressing a passion for Mary, exclaims, "It's like
something in a novel!" which Mr James in the definitive edition has
altered to, "It's like something in a bad novel!"
This conception of Europe as a complex organism which would have no use,
or only a cruel use, for those bred by the simple organism of America,
animates _Four Meetings_ (1877), that exquisite short story which came
first of all of the many masterpieces that Mr James was to produce. It
is the tale of a little schoolmistress who, having long nourished a
passion for Europe upon such slender intimations as photographs of the
Castle of Chillon, at last collects a sum for the trip, is met at Havre
by a cousin, one of those Americans on whom Continental life has acted
as a solvent of all decent moral tissues, and is tricked out of her
money by his story of a runaway marriage with a Countess; returns to New
England hoping to "see something of this dear old Europe yet," and has
that hope ironically fulfilled by the descent upon her for life of the
said Countess, who is so distinctly "something of this dear old Europe"
that the very sight of her transports the travelled recounter of the
story to "some dusky landing before a shabby Parisian _quatrième_--to an
open door revealing a greasy ante-chamber, and to Madame, leaning over
the banisters, while she holds a faded dressing-gown together and bawls
down to the portress to bring up her coffee." It is one of the saddest
stories in the world, and one of the cleverest. There is not one of its
simple phrases but has its beautiful bearing on the subject, and in the
treatment of emotional values one sees that the essays on _French Poets
and Novelists_ (1878), which for some years he had been sending to
America with the excited air of a missionary, were the notes of an
attentive pupil. "Detachment" was the lesson that that period preached
in its reaction against the George Sand method, whereby the author
rolled through his pages locked in an embrace with his subject. We have
forgotten its real significance, so frequently has it been used as an
excuse for the treatment of emotional situations with encyclopædic
detail of circumstance and not a grain of emotional realisation, but
here we can recover it. The author's pity for the schoolmistress is
never allowed to make his Countess sinister instead of gross, and his
sense of the comic in the Countess is never allowed to make the
schoolmistress's woe more dreary; the situation stands as solid and has
as many aspects as it would have in life.
_The American_ (1877) still holds this view of Europe. Its theme, to
quote Mr James in the preface of the definitive edition, is "the
situation, in another country and an aristocratic society, of some
robust but insidiously beguiled and betrayed, some cruelly wronged
compatriot; the point being in especial that he should suffer at the
hands of persons pretending to represent the highest possible
civilisation and to be of an order far superior to his own." Christopher
Newman, the robust compatriot, is such a large, simple, lovable person
that the rest of the story leads one to suspect that one may say of Mr
James, as he said of Balzac, that "his figures, as a general thing, are
better than the use he makes of them." He walks through Europe examining
its culture with such an effect on the natives as an amiable buffalo
traversing the Galerie d'Apollon might produce upon the copyists of the
Louvre, and finally presents himself at the house where he is least
welcome in the world, the home of the de Bellegardes, a proud and
ancient Royalist family. Thereafter, the novel is an exposition of the
way things do not happen. Claire de Cintré, the widowed daughter whom
Newman desires to marry, is represented as having above all things
beauty of character; but when her family snatches her from him in a
frenzy of pride she allows herself to be bundled into a convent with a
weakness that would convict of imbecility any woman of twenty-eight. And
since her mother and brother had murdered her father by refusing him
medicine at a physical crisis, and sustained themselves in the act by
the reflection that after all they were only keeping up the good old
family tone, one wonders where she got this beauty of character. The
child of this damned house might have flamed with a strange fire, but
she could not have diffused a rectory lamp-light. But the series of
inconsistencies of which this is only one leads, like a jolting
motor-bus that puts one down at Hampton Court, to an exquisite
situation. Newman discovers the secret of the Marquis' murder and
intends to publish it as a punishment for the cruel wrong the de
Bellegardes have done him, but sacrifices this satisfaction simply
because there can be no link--not even the link of revenge--between such
as they and such as he. In all literature there is no passage so full of
the very passion of moral exaltation as the description of how Newman
stands before the Carmelite house in the Rue d'Enfer and looks up at the
blank, discoloured wall, behind which his lost lady is immured, then
walks back to Notre Dame and there, "the far-away bells chiming off into
space, at long intervals, the big bronze syllables of the Word," decides
that such things as revenge "were really not his game." So it is with
Mr James to the end. The foreground is as often as not red with the
blood of slaughtered probabilities; a gentleman at a dinner-party tells
the lady on his left (a perfect stranger who never appears again in the
story) that some years ago he proposed to the lady in white sitting
opposite to them; a curio dealer calls on a lady in Portland Place just
to wind up the plot. But the great glow at the back, the emotional
conflagration, is always right.
_The Europeans_ (1878) marks the first time when Mr James took the
international situation as a joke, and he could joke very happily in
those days when his sentence was a straight young thing that could run
where it liked, instead of a delicate creature swathed in relative
clauses as an invalid in shawls. There is no other book by Mr James
which has quite the clear, sunlit charm of this description of the visit
of Eugenia, the morganatically married Baroness, and her brother Felix,
the Bohemian painter, to their cousins' New England farm. There is
nothing at all to their discredit in the past of these two graceful
young people, but they resemble Harlequin and Columbine in the
instability of their existence and the sharp line they draw between
their privacy and their publicity. It appears to them natural that the
private life should be spent largely in wondering how the last public
appearance went off and planning effects for the next, a point of view
which arouses the worst suspicions in their cousins, who are accustomed
to live as though the sky were indeed a broad open eye. So Felix has the
greatest difficulty in persuading his uncle, who takes thirty-two bites
to a moral decision, just as Mr Gladstone took thirty-two bites to a
mouthful, that he is a suitable husband for his cousin Gertrude; and
poor Eugenia fails altogether in an environment where a lie from her
lips is not treated as _un petit péché d'une petite femme_, but remains
simply a lie. The frame of mind this state of affairs produces in the
poor lady is exquisitely described in a passage which shows her going
wistfully through the house of the man who did not propose to her
because he detected her lie, after a visit to his dying mother.
"Mrs Acton had told Eugenia that her waiting-woman would be in the
hall to show her downstairs; but the large landing outside her door
was empty, and Eugenia stood there looking about.... She passed
slowly downstairs, still looking about. The broad staircase made a
great bend, and in the angle was a high window, looking westward,
with a deep bench, covered with a row of flowering plants in
curious old pots of blue China-ware. The yellow afternoon light
came in through the flowers and flickered a little on the white
wainscots. Eugenia paused a moment; the house was perfectly still,
save for the ticking, somewhere, of a great clock. The lower hall
stretched away at the foot of the stairs, half covered over with a
large Oriental rug. Eugenia lingered a little, noticing a great
many things. '_Comme c'est bien!_' she said to herself; such a
large, solid, irreproachable basis of existence the place seemed to
her to indicate. And then she reflected that Mrs Acton was soon to
withdraw from it. The reflection accompanied her the rest of the
way downstairs, where she paused again, making more observations.
The hall was extremely broad, and on either side of the front door
was a wide, deeply-set window, which threw the shadows of
everything back into the house. There were high-backed chairs along
the wall and big Eastern vases upon tables, and, on either side, a
large cabinet with a glass front and little curiosities within,
dimly gleaming. The doors were open--into the darkened parlour, the
library, the dining-room. All these rooms seemed empty. Eugenia
passed along and stopped a moment on the threshold of each. '_Comme
c'est bien!_' she murmured again; she had thought of just such a
house as this when she decided to come to America. She opened the
front door for herself--her light tread had summoned none of the
servants--and on the threshold she gave a last look...."
That is the pure note of the early James, like a pipe played carefully
by a boy. It sounds as beautifully in _Daisy Miller_, that short novel
which, though it deals with conditions peculiar to a small section of
continental life forty years ago, will strike each new generation afresh
as sad and lovely. Daisy, who is like one of those girls who smile upon
us from the covers of American magazines, glaringly beautiful and
healthy but without the "tone" given by diligent study of the grace of
conduct, comes to Europe and plays in its sunshine like a happy child.
She wants to go to the Castle of Chillon, so she accepts the escort for
the afternoon of a young American who is staying at the same hotel; she
likes to walk in the Pincian, so she takes a stroll there one afternoon
with a certain liquid-eyed Roman. The woman who does a thing for the
sake of the thing in itself is always suspected by society, and the
American colony, which professes the mellow conventions of Europe with
all its own national crudity, accuses her of vulgarity and even
lightness. They talk so bitterly that when the young American, who is
half in love with Daisy, finds her viewing the Colosseum by moonlight
with the Roman, he leaps to the conclusion that she is a disreputable
woman. Why he does so is not quite clear, since surely it is the
essential thing about a disreputable woman that her evenings are not
free for visits to the Colosseum. Poor Daisy takes in part of his
meaning and, saying in a little strange voice, "I don't care whether I
get Roman fever or not!" goes back to her hotel and dies of malaria. And
the young American, "staring at the raw protuberance among the April
daisies" in the Protestant cemetery, learns from the Roman's lips that
Daisy was "most innocent."
It is a lyric whose beauty may be measured by the attention which, in
spite of its tragedy, it everywhere provoked. It was interesting to note
how often in the obituary notices of Mr James it was said that he had
never attained popularity, for it shows how soon London forgets its
gifts of fame. From 1875 to 1885 (to put it roughly) all England and
America were as captivated by the clear beauty of Mr James' work as in
the nineties they were hypnotised by the bright-coloured beauty of Mr
Kipling's art. On London staircases everyone turned to look at the
American with the long, silky, black beard which, I am told by one who
met him then, gave him the appearance of "an Elizabethan sea captain."
But for all the exquisiteness of _Daisy Miller_ there were discernible
in it certain black lines which, like the dark veining in a crocus that
foretells its decay, showed that this was a loveliness which was in the
very act of passing. The young American might have been so worked upon
by his friends that he could readily believe his Daisy a light woman,
but he need not have manifested his acceptance of this belief by being
grossly rude to her and by reflecting that if "after Daisy's return
there had been an exchange of jokes between the porter and the
cab-driver... it had ceased to be a matter of serious regret to him
that the little American flirt should be 'talked about' by low-minded
menials." When one remembers the grave courtesy with which Christopher
Newman treated Mlle Noémie Nioche, the little French drab who called
herself _un esprit libre_, it is plain that we are no longer dealing
with the same Mr James. The Mr James we are to deal with henceforth had
ceased to be an American and had lost his native reactions to emotional
stimuli. He was becoming a European and for several years to come was to
spend his time slowly mastering its conventions; which means that he was
learning a new emotional language.
The first works he produced when he was at once a finished writer and
only the cocoon of a European, present the paradoxical appearance of
being perfect in phrase and incredibly naive in their estimates of
persons and situations. _The Pension Beaurepas_ (1879), that melancholy
tale of the ailing old American whose wife and daughter have dragged him
off on an expensive trip to Europe, while ruin falls on his untended
business in New York, has its tone of pathos spoiled by extraordinarily
cold-blooded and, to women of to-day, extremely unsavoury discussions of
how a girl ought to behave if she wants to be married. _The Siege of
London_ (1883), which is the story of a Texan adventuress of many
divorces who marries into an English county family, fails to produce the
designed effect of outrage, because the adventuress is the only person
who shows any signs of human worth, and the life which she is supposed
to have violated by her marriage is suggested simply by statements that
the people concerned had titles and lived in large houses. In _Pandora_
(1884), which describes a German diplomat's amazement that an unmarried
girl can be a social success in America, we feel as bored as we would if
we were forced to listen to the exclamations of a dog-fancier on finding
that a Pekingese with regular features had got a prize at a dog show. In
_Lady Barbarina_ (1884), which tells how a peer's daughter who marries
an American millionaire refuses to live in America, the American picture
is painted with the flatness of a flagging interest, and we suspect Mr
James of taking English architecture as an index of English character;
he had still to grasp the paradox that the people who live in the
solidities of Grosvenor Square are the best colonising and seafaring
stock in the world. In _The Reverberator_ (1888), wherein an American
girl guilelessly prattles to a newspaper correspondent about the affairs
of her French fiancé's family and is cast out by them when he publishes
her prattlings in the States, we seem to see the international situation
slowly fading from Mr James' immediate consciousness. In turning over
its pages we see the author sitting down before a pile of white paper
and finely inscribing it with memories of past contacts with Americans;
we do not see him entering his study with traces still on his lips of a
smile provoked in the street outside by the loveliness and innocent
barbarism of his compatriots. In those days he had lost America and had
not yet found Europe, but he was to find it very soon. In _A London
Life_ (1889), the tale of an innocent American girl who comes over to
live with her sister and her aristocratic English husband, and stands
appalled at their debts, their debaucheries, their infidelities, he has
rendered beautifully the feeling caused by ill lives when led in old
homes of elmy parks and honourable histories. It is a sense of disgust
such as comes to the early-rising guest who goes into a drawing-room in
the morning and finds last night's coffee-cups and decanters and
cigarette ends looking dreadful in the sunlight. The house is being
badly managed; it will go to rack and ruin. That is an aspect of
England; but the American onlooker is just a clean-minded little thing
that might have bloomed anywhere, and all references to her Americanness
are dragged in with an effort. It is plain that he had lost all his love
for the international situation.
That Mr James continued to write about Americans in Europe long after
their common motive and their individual adventures had ceased to excite
his wonder or his sympathy, was the manifestation of a certain delusion
about his art which was ultimately to do him a mischief. He believed
that if one _knew_ a subject one could write about it; and since there
was no aspect of the international situation with which he was not
familiar, he could not see why the description of these aspects should
not easily make art. The profound truth that an artist should feel
passion for his subject was naturally distasteful to one who wanted to
live wholly without violence even of the emotions; a preference for
passionless detachment was at that date the mode in French literature,
which was the only literature that he studied with any attention. The de
Goncourts, Zola, and even de Maupassant thought that an artist ought to
be able to lift any subject into art
|
disappears, and borne to eastern regions,
While time recals the flight of years, I see angelic legions
Descending in an orb of light! amid the darkness of the night,
I hear celestial voices!
“Tidings, glad tidings from above to every age and nation!
Tidings, glad tidings! God is love, to man He sends salvation.
His Son beloved, his only Son, the work of mercy hath begun:
Give to his Name the glory!”
In David’s city I behold, and all around are sleeping;
A light directs to yonder fold, where lonely watch is keeping:
I enter—ah, what glories shine! Is this Emmanuel’s earthly shrine?
Messiah’s infant temple?
It is, it is! and I adore this Babe so meek and lowly,
As saints and seraphs bow before the throne of God—thrice holy:
Faith, through the veil of flesh can see the face of Thy divinity,
My Lord, my God, my Saviour!
29.
Arise, and hail the sacred day, cast all low cares of life away,
And thoughts of meaner things:
This day to cure our deadly woes, The Son of Righteousness arose
With healing in his wings.
Chorus:
O then let heaven and earth rejoice! Creation’s whole united
voice,
To hail the happy day;
When Satan’s empire vanquish’d fell, and all the powers of death
and hell
Confess’d His sovereign sway.
If angels on that sacred morn, the Saviour of this world was born,
Pour’d forth their grateful songs;
Much more should we of human race adore the wonders of his grace
To whom that grace belongs!
Cho: O then let, &c.
How wonderful, how vast His love, who left the shining realms above,
Those happy seats of rest!
How much of human kind he bore, their peace and pardon to restore,
Can never be express’d!
Cho: O then let, &c.
30.
Shepherds keeping watch by night, saw around a glorious light;
Heard an angel thence proclaim,—“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Soon a bright and heavenly throng, “Glory to the Almighty” sung.
“Peace on earth, good-will to men, Christ is born in Bethlehem!”
Joyful tidings to mankind, richest grace they now may find;
Children all his grace may claim: “Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
O how great his grace and love, thus to leave his throne above;
Thus to bear our guilt and shame, and be born in Bethlehem!
31.
Bright and joyful is the morn, for “to us a Child is born;”
From the highest realms of heaven, “Unto us a Son is given.”
“On his shoulders he shall bear,” power and majesty;—and wear
“On his vesture and his thigh,” names most awful, names most high.
Wonderful in Counsel, He—the Incarnate Deity;
Sire of ages, ne’er to cease, King of Kings and Prince of Peace.
Come and worship at his feet, yield to Him the homage meet;
From his manger to his throne, homage due to God alone.
32.
Christ is born! go tell the story; tell the nations of his birth;
Tell them that the “Lord of Glory” comes from heaven to dwell on
earth:
Let the tidings fill the world with sacred mirth!
See, He lies in yonder manger; “Prince of Life” his Title is;
’Midst his own, and yet a stranger, all things seen, and unseen,
his;
Yet neglected—Wonder, O ye heavens, at this!
See fulfill’d prophetic vision, “Unto us a Child is born.”
Tho’ an object of derision, tho’ the theme of human scorn:
Yet his people hail his birth, and cease to mourn.
33.
Sing, ye ransomed nations, sing praises to our new-born King!
Son of Man our Saviour is, Lord of Hosts and Prince of Peace.
Lo, He lays his glories by! emptied of his Majesty,
See, the God who all things made, humbly in a manger laid!
Let us then our peace proclaim, let us chant Emmanuel’s name;
Publish, at his wondrous birth, praise in heaven and peace on earth.
34.
The King of Glory sends his Son, to make his entrance on this earth!
Behold the midnight bright as noon, and heavenly hosts declare his
birth!
Simeon and Anna both conspire, the Infant Saviour to proclaim;
Inward they felt the sacred fire, and blest the Babe and own’d his
Name.
Let Jews and Greeks blaspheme aloud, and treat the holy Child with
scorn;
Our souls adore the Eternal God, who condescended to be born.
35.
Come, behold the Virgin mother fondly leaning o’er her Child;
Nature shows not such another, glorious, meek, and mild!
’Tis the Saviour! Heaven upon his birth-day smil’d.
Bethlehem’s ancient walls enclose Him, dwelling-place of David once;
Now no friendly homestead knows Him, tho’ the noblest of his sons:
See the Saviour, shelt’ring ’mid the scatt’red stones!
Royal Bethlehem, how deserted, all its pomp and splendour lost!
Is a stable, vile and dirtied, all the welcome you can boast?
Must the Saviour thus be spurn’d by every host?
36.
Hark! what mean those holy voices, sweetly sounding thro’ the skies?
Lo! the angelic host rejoices; heavenly hallelujahs rise.
Listen to the wondrous story, which they chant in hymns of joy!
“Glory, in the highest, glory! Glory to God most high!
“Peace on earth, good-will from heaven,” reaching far as man is
found;
Souls redeemed and sins forgiven, loud our golden harps shall sound.
Christ is born, the great Anointed, heaven and earth his praises
sing:
O receive whom God appointed for your Prophet, Priest, and King!
Hasten, mortals, to adore Him! learn his name and taste his joy:
Till in heaven ye sing before Him, Glory be to God most high!
37.
Give thanks to God our King, and make a joyful noise;
Let every tongue his praises sing, and every heart rejoice.
CHORUS:
Let the trumpet’s joyful sound
Tell the listening world around,
A ransom for lost man is found.
The love that fill’d his breast, and brought Him from the skies,
Doth heavenly blessings now impart unto his enemies.
For such amazing love let mortals tune their lays,
And sing with all the hosts above, the Saviour’s worthy praise.
Cho: Let the trumpet, &c.
38.
Little children, can you say—Why you’re glad on Christmas-day?
Little children, can you tell—Why you hear the sweet church-bell?
Can you tell us who was born—
Early on the Christmas morn?
I hope you will at once reply, Yes, we are glad, and we know why:
The day is joyful upon earth, in honour of a Saviour’s birth.
Angels came from heaven to say,
That Christ was born on Christmas day.
Christ is our Saviour, and we know, when little children to Him go,
For all the good He gives, to pray, He will not turn his face away!
His word in God’s own book we see,
“Let little children come to me.”
This is the birth-day of our King, and we our little offering bring:
This is our Saviour’s holiday, and therefore we are glad and gay;
We’ll sing and pray, and read His word,
And keep the birth-day of our Lord.
39.
Hail, sacred morning! whose bright rays
Beheld the new-born Prince of Peace
Come from the shining realms above,
To win the nations with His love.
CHORUS:
Sound, sound the trumpet, sound!
Let the sacred mirth abound,
And banish every slavish fear away:
Exalt his praises high,
With angels in the sky,
For Christ, the King of Glory’s born to-day.
No more shall Gentiles lie forlorn;
God’s everlasting Son is born!
Left all the grandeur of the sky,
For man, vile man, to bleed and die.
Behold the Lamb of God appears,
To chase away our gloomy fears;
Born greater blessings to restore,
Than our first parents lost before.
Sound, sound, &c.
40.
Let children proclaim their Saviour and King!
To Jesu’s dear name—Hosannas we sing;
Our best adoration to Jesus we give,
Who purchas’d salvation—for us to receive.
The meek Lamb of God—from glory came down,
To ransom with blood—and make us his own.
He patiently suffered—our souls to redeem:
Let songs then be offer’d—to Jesu’s dear name.
To Him let us give—our earliest days,
And thankfully live—to publish his praise:
Our lives shall confess Him—who came from above,
Our tongues ever bless Him—and tell of his love.
41.
What good news the angels bring! what glad-tidings of our King!
Christ, the Lord, is born to-day; Christ, who takes our sins away.
Lift your hearts and voices high, with hosannas fill the sky;
Glory to God above! God is infinite in love.
Shout ye nations of the earth! sing the triumphs of his birth;
All the world by Him is blest; sound his praise from east to west!
42.
Behold, to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given!
Unto the wretched and forlorn, descends the Lord from heaven!
The promised seed Emmanuel, the everlasting God,
Comes down to save from death and hell, poor sinners, by his blood.
Great is the hidden mystery, that God became a man;
He had, from all eternity, in mercy formed a plan
To save from misery and distress, the fallen human race!
And now the Sun of Righteousness his healing beams displays.
43.
Lo! the Eastern Magi rise, at a signal in the skies!
Brighter than the brightest gem, shines the Star of Bethlehem.
Balaam’s mystic words appear, full of light, divinely clear;
And the import wrapt in them, is the Star of Bethlehem.
Now the holy wise men meet at the royal Infant’s feet,
Offerings rich are made by them to the Star of Bethlehem.
Night’s terrific shades give way, open dawns the promised day,
And on us as well as them, shines the Star of Bethlehem.
44.
How shall I meet my Saviour? How shall I welcome Thee?
What manner of behaviour is now required of me?
Let Thine illumination guide heart and hand aright,
That this my preparation be pleasing in Thy sight.
While with her sweetest flowers thy Zion strews the way,
I’ll raise with all my powers to Thee a grateful lay;
To Thee, the King of Glory, I’ll tune a song divine;
And make Thy love’s bright story in grateful numbers shine.
I lay in fetters groaning, Thou camest to set me free;
My shame I was bemoaning, with grace Thou clothedst me:
Thou raisedst me to glory, endowd’st me with Thy bliss,
Which is not transitory, as worldly treasure is.
This caused Thy incarnation; this brought Thee down to me;
Thy thirst for my salvation contrived my liberty!
45.
When marshall’d on the nightly plain,
The glittering hosts bestud the sky,
One star alone of all the train
Can fix the sinner’s wandering eye.
Hark, hark! to God the chorus breaks,
From every host, from every gem;
But one alone the Saviour speaks,—
It is the Star of Bethlehem.
Once on the raging sea I rode,
The storm was loud, the night was dark,
The ocean yawn’d, and rudely blow’d
The wind that toss’d my found’ring barque.
Deep horror then my vitals froze,
Death-struck, I ceas’d the tide to stem;
When suddenly a Star arose,—
It was the Star of Bethlehem.
It was my guide, my light, my all,
It bade my dark forebodings cease;
And through the storm and danger’s thrall,
It led me to the port of peace.
Now safely moor’d, my perils o’er,
I’ll sing first in night’s diadem,
For ever, and for evermore,
The Star—the Star of Bethlehem!
46.
Songs of praise the angels sang, heaven with hallelujahs rang,
When Jehovah’s work begun, when He spake and it was done.
Songs of praise awoke the morn, when the Prince of Peace was born;
Songs of praise arose when He captive led captivity.
Heaven and earth must pass away, songs of praise shall crown that
day;
God will make new heaven and earth, songs of praise shall hail their
birth.
Saints below, with heart and voice, still in songs of praise
rejoice;
Learning here by faith and love, songs of praise to sing above.
Borne upon the latest breath, songs of praise shall conquer death;
Then amidst eternal joy, songs of praise their powers employ.
47.
The world lay hushed in slumber deep,
And darkness veiled the mind,
When rose upon their shadowy sleep,
The Star that saves mankind!
It dawns o’er Bethlehem’s lowly shed,
And scattering at the sight,
Heaven’s idol-host at once have fled
Before that awful light.
Led by the solitary star
To glory’s poor abode,
Lo! wondering Wisdom from afar,
Brings incense to her God.
Humility, on Judah’s hills,
Watching her fleecy care,
Turns to an Angel-voice that fills
With love the midnight air.
Like voices through yon bursting cloud
Announce the almighty plan,
Hymning in adoration loud,
“Peace and good-will to man.”
48.
Sing all in heaven, at Jesu’s birth,
Glory to God, and peace on earth:
Incarnate love in Christ is seen,
Pure mercy and good-will to men.
Praise Him, extolled above all height,
Who doth in worthless worms delight;
God reconciled in Christ confess,
Your present and eternal peace.
Then swift to every startled eye,
New streams of glory light the sky;
Heaven burst her azure gates to pour
Her spirits to the midnight hour.
On wheels of light, on wings of flame,
The glorious hosts of Zion came;
High heaven with songs of triumph rang,
While thus they struck their harps and sang.
49.
All hail the power of Jesu’s name! let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all!
Crown Him, ye martyrs of your God, who from his altar call;
Extol the stem of Jesse’s rod, and crown Him Lord of all.
Ye chosen seed of Israel’s race, a remnant weak and small;
Hail Him who saves you by his grace, and crown Him Lord of all.
Ye Gentile sinners, ne’er forget the wormwood and the gall;
Go spread your trophies at his feet, and crown Him Lord of all.
O that with yonder sacred throng, we at his feet may fall;
There join the everlasting song, and crown Him Lord of all!
50.
Of all the wonders and delights, which raise our best surprise,
The glorious themes, the lovely sights, with which we feast our
eyes,
There’s none for excellence, and joy, and wonder can compare,
With what at Christmas may employ our serious thoughts and prayer.
If travellers through the darksome night rejoice the day to see;
If prisoners bound in woful plight, are glad when they get free;
If sick and dying men rejoice to see th’ physician’s face,—
Then, sinners, listen, tune your voice, and hail the Saviour’s
grace.
From heaven the Son of God descends, and takes the form of man.
To reconcile his foes as friends, was all his gracious plan.
For now the promis’d Saviour’s born, to Israel long foretold,
A lovely babe—the great ones’ scorn—see a rough stable hold!
But though He comes in lowly guise, ’tis David’s Royal Son,
And He that in the manger lies, shall fill his Father’s throne.
51.
To us a child of royal birth, Heir of the promises, is given;
The Invisible appears on earth, the Son of man the God of heaven.
A Saviour born, in love supreme he comes our fallen souls to raise:
He comes his people to redeem, with all his plenitude of grace.
The Christ by raptured seers foretold, fill’d with the eternal
Spirit’s power;
Prophet, and Priest, and King behold, and Lord of all the worlds
adore.
The Lord of Hosts, the God most high, who quits his throne on earth
to live,
With joy we welcome from the sky, with faith into our hearts
receive.
52.
Hail this day of grace and peace, of bright celestial dawn,
’Tis glory, not the sun, awakes this consecrated morn.
Hear the tidings from on high, Messiah’s wondrous birth!
Hear the angel tell the swains, He now inhabits earth.
And hear the host from heaven sing “Glory to God on high,
Peace on earth, good will to men,” the greeting from the sky.
See the lowly infant laid, a manger for his bed,
See a new-made star appear, to crown that infant head.
Then was heard the high command, “Angels before Him fall,
Worship your incarnate God, and crown Him Lord of all.”
“Glory to God” the angels sung, “Glory to God,” we sing,
And equal glory be to Thee, O Saviour, Lord and King.
53.
Awake, arise good Christians, let nothing you dismay;
Remember Christ our Saviour was born upon this day.
The self-same moon was shining that now is in the sky,
When a holy band of angels came down from God on high;
Came down on clouds of glory, arrayed in shining light,
Unto the shepherd-people who watched their flocks by night.
And through the midnight silence the heavenly hosts began,
“Glory to God in the highest; on earth good-will to man!
“Fear not! we bring good tidings, for on this happy morn,
The promised One—the Saviour, in Bethlehem town was born.”
Up rose the simple shepherds, all with a joyful mind:
“And let us go with speed,” say they, “this holy Child to find.”
Not in a kingly palace the Son of God they found,
But in a lowly manger where oxen fed around.
The glorious King of Heaven, the Lord of all the earth,
In mercy condescended to be of humble birth.
Long looked the simple shepherds with holy wonder stirred,
Then praised God for all things which they had seen and heard,
And homeward went rejoicing upon that Christmas morn,
Declaring unto every one that Jesus Christ was born.
And like unto the shepherds we wander far and near,
And bid you wake, good Christians, the joyful news to hear.
Awake, arise, good Christians, let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ the Saviour was born upon this day.
54.
The voice of free grace cries, Escape to the mountain!
For Adam’s lost race Christ hath opened a fountain:
For sin and uncleanness, and every transgression,
His blood freely flows in streams of salvation.
Hallelujah to the Lamb who has bought us a pardon!
We will praise Him again when we pass over Jordan.
Our Jesus proclaims His great Name all victorious,
He reigns over all, and His kingdom is glorious!
To Jesus our King—in the great congregation—
With triumph we’ll sing, ascribing salvation.
Hallelujah, &c.
On Zion we stand when escaped to the shore,
With palms in our hands we shall praise Him the more;
We’ll range the sweet plains on the banks of the river,
And sing of salvation for ever and ever.
Hallelujah, &c.
55.
Little children, praise the Saviour,
He regards you from above;
Praise Him for his great salvation!
Praise Him for his precious love.
Sweet hosannas to the name of Jesus sing!
When He left his throne in glory,
When He lived with mortals here,
Little children sang his praises,
And it pleased his gracious ear. Sweet, &c.
When the anxious mothers round Him,
With their tender infants, press’d;
He with open arms received them,
And the little ones He bless’d. Sweet, &c.
Up in yonder spirit regions,
Angels sound the chorus high;
Twice ten thousand times ten thousand
Send his praises through the sky. Sweet, &c.
Little children, praise the Saviour;
Praise Him, your undying Friend;
Praise Him till in heaven you meet Him,
There to praise Him without end. Sweet, &c.
56.
And now, my soul, another year
Of my short life is past;
I cannot long continue here,
And this may be my last.
Much of my dubious life is gone,
Nor will return again;
And swift my passing moments run,
The few that do remain.
Awake, my soul, with utmost care
Thy true condition learn:
What are thy hopes, how sure, how fair,
And what thy great concern?
Now a new scene of time begins,
Set out afresh for heaven;
Seek pardon for thy former sins,
In Christ, so freely given.
57.
Blest is the man whose heart expands
At melting pity’s call;
And the rich blessings of whose hands
Like heavenly manna fall.
Children our kind protection claim,
And God will well approve,
When infants learn to lisp his name,
And their Creator love.
Be ours the bliss, in wisdom’s way
To guide untutored youth;
And lead the mind that went astray,
To virtue and to truth.
Almighty God! thine influence shed
To aid this good design;
The honours of thy name be spread,
And all the glory thine.
58.
Behold a stranger at the door; He gently knocks, has knock’d before,
Has waited long, is waiting still: you use no other friend so ill.
Rise, touch’d with gratitude divine, turn out his enemy and thine;
Turn out the hateful monster, sin, and let the heavenly Stranger in.
Admit Him, ere his anger burn, lest He depart and ne’er return;
Admit Him, or the hour’s at hand when at his door denied you’ll
stand.
Yet know, nor of the terms complain, where Jesus comes, He comes to
reign!
Sovereign of souls! Thou Prince of Peace! Oh, may Thy gentle reign
increase!
59.
Let Christians now in joyful mirth,
The young and old, both great and small,
Still think upon a Saviour’s birth,
Who brought salvation to us all.
And thus when God his Son did send,
Whom cruel Jews did hold in scorn,
No pompous train did there attend
This King of Kings, when he was born.
No place but in an ox’s stall,
The place of his nativity.
Indeed, this should instruct us all
To learn of him humility.
’Twas in King David’s city, then,
As Holy Scriptures make appear,
And in the time of taxing, when
They came in throngs both far and near.
The Virgin Mary, then by name,
And Joseph most exceeding kind,
When they into the city came,
No habitation could they find.
But in a stable mean, where they
Continued till the blessed morn:
Let us rejoice and keep this day,
Whereon the Lord of Life was born.
60.
Awake, ye Christians! arise and sing,
And hail the happy morn
Whereon your glorious heavenly King
In Bethlehem was born.
No earthly crown bedecked his brow,
No splendour there displayed;
The humble Jesus, meek and low,
Was in a manger laid.
Though meek and lowly he appeared
Amongst the sons of men,
The glorious tidings soon were heard
Through Judah’s fertile plain.
As shepherds watched their flocks by night,
A glorious sight appeared;
Filled with amazement at the sight,
An angel’s voice they heard.
The heavenly choir in view appeared,
With sweet seraphic voice,
And soon the Saviour’s name was heard,
They bade mankind rejoice.
To Bethlehem, then, the shepherds went,
To worship at his feet;
Their minds were filled with sweet content,
Their Saviour God they greet.
Come, own the sins of all the year,
Of all your lives, and pray;
Don’t add more crimes and vengeance dare,
Abusing Christmas-day.
61.
Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee:
Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.
Born thy people to deliver, born a Child and yet a King;
Born to reign in us for ever, now Thy gracious kingdom bring;
By Thine own eternal Spirit, rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all-sufficient merit, raise us to thy glorious throne.
62.
High let us swell our tuneful notes,
And join th’ angelic throng,
For angels no such love have known,
T’ awake a cheerful song.
Good-will to sinful men is shown,
And peace on earth is given;
For, lo! the incarnate Saviour comes
With messages from heaven.
Justice and grace with sweet accord
His rising beams adorn;
Let heaven and earth in concert join,
To us a Child is born.
Glory to God in highest strains,
In highest worlds be paid;
His glory by our lips proclaimed,
And by our lives displayed.
When shall we reach those blissful realms,
Where Christ exalted reigns;
And learn of the celestial choir
Their own immortal strains?
63.
Welcome, sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise;
Welcome to this reviving breast,
And these rejoicing eyes.
The King himself comes near,
And feasts his saints to-day;
Here may we sit, and see him here,
And love, and praise, and pray.
One day amidst the place
Where thou, my God, art seen,
Is sweeter than ten thousand days
Spent in the joys of sin.
64.
Blest be the wisdom and the power,
The justice and the grace,
That joined in council to restore
And save our ruined race.
Blest be the Lord, who sent his Son
To take our flesh and blood;
He for our lives gave up his own,
To make our peace with God.
He honoured all his Father’s laws,
Which we have disobeyed;
He bore our sins upon the cross,
And our full ransom paid.
Behold Him rising from the grave,
Behold Him raised on high!
He pleads his merits there to save
Transgressors doomed to die.
There on a glorious throne he reigns,
And by His power divine,
Redeems us from the slavish chains
Of Satan and of sin.
Thence shall the Lord to judgment come,
And, with a sovereign voice,
Shall call and break up every tomb,
While waking saints rejoice.
O may I then with joy appear
Before the Judge’s face,
And with the blest assembly there,
Sing His redeeming grace!
65.
As Jacob on travel was weary by day,
At night on a stone for a pillow he lay;
A vision appeared—a ladder so high,
Its foot on the earth, and its top in the sky.
All glory to Jesus who died on the tree,
To raise up a ladder of mercy for me!
Press forward! press forward! the prize is in view,
A crown of bright glory is waiting for you.
The vision was glorious; a bright heavenly throng
Was ascending with joy, and descending thereon;
And God, rich in mercy, was standing above,
Proclaiming to Jacob his goodness and love.
All glory to Jesus, &c.
This ladder is Jesus, the Saviour of man,
Whose blood, richly streaming, from Calvary ran;
And through His atonement to heaven we may rise,
And sing in the mansions prepared in the skies.
All glory to Jesus, &c.
Then let us ascend, and be bold, never fear;
It has stood every tempest, and always will bear;
For millions have tried it, and reached Zion’s hill,
And thousands, by faith, are ascending it still.
All glory to Jesus, &c.
Our fathers upon it have mounted to God,
Have finished their labours, and reach’d their abode;
And we’re climbing after, and soon shall be there,
To join in their rapture, their happiness share.
All glory to Jesus, &c.
66.
Hosanna! Christ is here,
Within these hallowed walls;
Where the hymn of praise, the cry of prayer,
On the great Jehovah calls,
And lisping childhood’s willing tongue
Lifts high to heaven the choral song,
Hosanna! Christ is here!
67.
Jesus is our Shepherd, wiping every tear;
Folded in His bosom, what have we to fear?
Only let us follow whither He doth lead,
To the thirsty desert, or the dewy mead.
Jesus is our Shepherd: well we know his voice,
How its gentlest whisper makes our hearts rejoice;
Even when it chideth, tender is its tone;
None but He shall guide us! we are His alone.
Jesus is our Shepherd; for the sheep He bled;
Every lamb is sprinkled with the blood He shed:
Then on each he setteth His own secret sign;
“They that have my Spirit, these,” saith he, “are mine.”
Jesus is our Shepherd; guarded by His arm,
Though the wolves may raven, none can do us harm;
When we tread death’s valley, dark with fearful gloom,
We will fear no evil, victors o’er the tomb.
Jesus is our Shepherd, with His goodness now,
And His tender mercy, He doth us endow:
Let us sing his praises, with a gladsome heart,
Till in heaven we meet Him, never more to part.
68.
Jesus Christ is risen to-day,
Our triumphant holy day;
Who did once, upon the cross,
Suffer to redeem our loss. Hallelujah!
Hymns of praise then let us sing
Unto Christ, our heavenly King;
Who endur’d the cross and grave,
Sinners to redeem and save. Hallelujah!
But the pains which he endured
Our salvation have procured;
Now above the sky he’s King,
Where the angels ever sing. Hallelujah!
69.
Angels from on high proclaim,
Now he comes—earth’s sovereign King!
Cherubs, seraphs, sound His fame!
Should not, then, all children sing
Hosanna to the Son of David,
Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!
See the Babe of Bethlehem!
Wise men to Him presents bring;
We are not so rich as they,
Yet we can, though children, sing
Hosanna, &c.
See the men who throng around,
At his wisdom wondering;
We adore Him—and are found
Joined in chorus; children sing
Hosanna, &c.
Pharisees and scribes all hate,
And against Him slander bring;
Do they curse him? we will bless!
Louder, louder, children, sing
Hosanna, &c.
When His glorious work was done,
High he soared on angel’s wing;
Great the victory He hath won,
Joyful anthems let us sing!
Hosanna, &c.
70.
From all that dwell below the skies,
Let the Redeemer’s praise arise;
Let the Creator’s name be sung
Through every land, by every tongue.
Eternal are thy mercies, Lord,
Eternal truth attends thy word;
Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore,
Till suns shall rise and set no more.
71.
Saviour and Lord of all, we lift our souls to Thee;
Guide us and guard us, whate’er our lot may be.
When we are full of grief, victims of anxious fear,
Save us—oh, save us! Jesus, be near.
Brighten our darkest hour, till the last hour shall come:
Then, in Thy power, oh take us home!
Gracious Deliverer, how long wilt Thou delay?
O gracious Saviour, bear us away!
72.
Jesus, who lived above the sky,
Came down to be a man and die:
And in the Bible we may see,
How very good he used to be.
He went about, He was so kind,
To cure poor people who were blind;
And many who were sick and lame,
He pitied them, and did the same.
And, more than that, He told them, too,
The things that God would have them do;
And was so gentle and so mild,
He would have listened to a child.
But such a cruel death he died!
He was hung up and crucified!
And those kind hands that did such good,
They nailed them to a cross of wood.
And so He died!—and this is why
He came to be a man and die:
The Bible says He came from Heaven,
That we might have our sins forgiven.
He knew how wicked man had been,
And knew that God must punish sin;
So, out of pity, Jesus said,
He’d bear the punishment instead.
73.
Mortals, awake! with angels join,
And chant the solemn lay;
Joy, love, and gratitude combine
To hail th’ auspicious day.
In heaven the rapturous song began,
And sweet seraphic fire
Through all the shining legions ran,
And strung and tuned the lyre.
Swift through the vast expanse it flew,
And loud the echo rolled;
The theme, the song, the joy was new—
’Twas more than heaven could hold!
Down through the portals of the sky
The impetuous torrent ran;
And angels flew with eager joy
To bear the news to man.
Wrapt in the silence of the night
Lay all the eastern world,
When bursting glorious heavenly light
The wondrous scene unfurled.
Hark! the cherubic armies shout,
And glory leads the song!
Good-will and peace are heard throughout
The harmonious heavenly throng.
74.
Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child:
Pity my simplicity,
Teach me, Lord, to come to Thee.
Fain I would to Thee be brought,
Lamb of God, forbid it not!
In the kingdom of Thy grace,
Give a little child a place.
75.
Lord, how delightful ’tis to see
A
|
and
exhortations: and their teaching was treated as subordinate to the
Divine revelation in the Five Books of Moses. Those, then, who aimed
at the spread of Jewish monotheism were impelled to draw out a
philosophical meaning, a universal value from the Books of Moses.
Nowadays the Bible is the holy book of so much of the civilized world
that it is somewhat difficult for us to form a proper conception of
what it was to the civilized world before the Christian era. We have
to imagine a state of culture in which it was only the Book of books
to one small nation, while to others it was at best a curious record
of ancient times, just as the Code of Hammurabi or the Egyptian Book
of Life is to us. The Alexandrian Jews were the first to popularize
its teachings, to bring Jewish religion into line with the thought of
the Greek world. It was to this end that they founded a particular
form of Midrash--the allegorical interpretation, which is largely a
distinctive product of the Alexandrian age. The Palestinian rabbis of
the time were on the one hand developing by dialectic discussion the
oral tradition into a vast system of religious ritual and legal
jurisprudence; on the other, weaving around the law, by way of
adornment to it, a variegated fabric of philosophy, fable, allegory,
and legend. Simultaneously the Alexandrian preachers--they were never
quite the same as the rabbis--were emphasizing for the outer world as
well as their own people the spiritual side of the religion,
elaborating a theology that should satisfy the reason, and seeking to
establish the harmony of Greek philosophy with Jewish monotheism and
the Mosaic legislation. Allegorical interpretation is "based upon the
supposition or fiction that the author who is interpreted intended
something 'other' [Greek: allo] than what is expressed"; it is the
method used to read thought into a text which its words do not
literally bear, by attaching to each phrase some deeper, usually some
philosophical meaning. It enables the interpreter to bring writings of
antiquity into touch with the culture of his or any age; "the gates of
allegory are never closed, and they open upon a path which stretches
without a break through the centuries." In the region of jurisprudence
there is an institution with a similar purpose, which is known as
"legal fiction," whereby old laws by subtle interpretation are made to
serve new conditions and new needs. Allegorical interpretation must be
carefully distinguished from the writing of allegory, of which
Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is the best-known type. One is the
converse of the other; for in allegories moral ideas are represented
as persons and moral lessons enforced by what purports to be a story
of life. In allegorical interpretation persons are transformed into
ideas and their history into a system of philosophy. The Greek
philosophers had applied this method to Homer since the fourth century
B.C.E., in order to read into the epic poet, whose work they regarded
almost as a Divine revelation, their reflective theories of the
universe. And doubtless the Jewish philosophers were influenced by
their example.
Their allegorical treatment of the Bible was intended, not merely to
adapt it to the Greek world, but to strengthen its hold on the
Alexandrian Jews themselves. These, as they acquired Hellenic culture,
found that the Bible in its literal sense did not altogether satisfy
their conceptions. They detected in it a certain primitiveness, and
having eaten further of the tree of knowledge, they were aware of its
philosophical nakedness. It was full of anthropomorphism, and it
seemed wanting in that which the Greek world admired above all
things--a systematic theology and systematic ethics. The idea that the
words of the Bible contained some hidden meanings goes back to the
earliest Jewish tradition and is one of the bases of the oral law; but
the special characteristic of the Alexandrian exegesis is that it
searched out theories of God and life like those which the Greek
philosophers had developed. The device was necessary to secure the
allegiance of the people to the Torah. And from the need of expounding
the Bible in this way to the Jewish public at Alexandria, there arose
a new form of religious literature, the sermon, and a new form of
commentary, the homiletical. The words "homiletical" and "homily"
suggest what they originally connoted; they are derived from the Greek
word [Greek: homilia], "an assembly," and a homily was a discourse
delivered to an assembly. The Meturgeman of Palestine and Babylon, who
expounded the Hebrew text in Aramaic, became the preacher of
Alexandria, who gave, in Greek, of course, homiletical expositions of
the law. In the great synagogue each Sabbath some leader in the
community would give a harangue to the assembly, starting from a
Biblical text and deducing from it or weaving into it the ideas of
Hellenic wisdom, touched by Jewish influence; for the synagogues at
Alexandria as elsewhere were the schools (_Schule_) as much as the
houses of prayer; schools, as Philo says, of "temperance, bravery,
prudence, justice, piety, holiness, and in short of all virtues by
which things human and Divine are well ordered."[29] He speaks
repeatedly of the Sabbath gatherings, when the Jews would become, as
he puts it, a community of philosophers,[30] as they listened to the
exegesis of the preacher, who by allegorical and homiletical fancies
would make a verse or chapter of the Torah live again with a new
meaning to his audience. The Alexandrian Jews, though the form of
their writing was influenced by the Greeks, probably brought with them
from Palestine primitive traces of allegorism. Allegory and its
counterpart, allegorical interpretation, are deeply imbedded in the
Oriental mind, and we hear of ancient schools of symbolists in the
oldest portions of the Talmud.[31] At what period the Alexandrians
began to use allegorical interpretation for the purpose of harmonizing
Greek ideas with the Bible we do not know, but the first writer in
this style of whom we have record (though scholars consider that his
fragments are of doubtful authenticity) is Aristobulus. He is said to
have been the tutor of Ptolemy Philometor, and he must have written at
the beginning of the first century B.C.E. He dedicated to the king his
"Exegesis of the Mosaic Law," which was an attempt to reveal the
teachings of the Peripatetic system, _i.e._, the philosophy of
Aristotle, within the text of the Pentateuch. All anthropomorphic
expressions are explained away allegorically, and God's activity in
the material universe is ascribed to his [Greek: Dunamis] or power,
which pervades all creation. Whether the power is independent and
treated as a separate person is not clear from the fragments that
Eusebius[32] has preserved for us. Aristobulus was only one link in a
continuous chain, though his is the only name among Philo's
predecessors that has come down to us. Philo speaks, fifteen times in
all, of explanations of allegorists who read into the Bible this or
that system of thought[33] regarding the words of the law as "manifest
symbols of things invisible and hints of things inexpressible." And if
their work were before us, it is likely that Philo would appear as the
central figure of an Alexandrian Midrash gathered from many sources,
instead of the sole authority for a vast development of the Torah. We
must not regard him as a single philosophical genius who suddenly
springs up, but as the culmination of a long development, the supreme
master of an old tradition.
If the allegorical method appears now as artificial and frigid, it
must be remembered that it was one which recommended itself strongly
to the age. The great creative era of the Greek mind had passed away
with the absorption of the city-state in Alexander's empire. Then
followed the age of criticism, during which the works of the great
masters were interpreted, annotated, and compared. Next, as creative
thought became rarer, and confidence in human reason began to be
shaken, men fell back more and more for their ideas and opinions upon
some authority of the distant past, whom they regarded as an inspired
teacher. The sayings of Homer and Pythagoras were considered as
divinely revealed truths; and when treated allegorically, they were
shown to contain the philosophical tenets of the Platonic, the
Aristotelian, or the Stoic school. Thus, in the first century B.C.E.,
the Greek mind, which had earlier been devoted to the free search for
knowledge and truth, was approaching the Hebraic standpoint, which
considered that the highest truth had once for all been revealed to
mankind in inspired writings, and that the duty of later generations
was to interpret this revealed doctrine rather than search
independently for knowledge. On the other hand, the Jewish
interpreters were trying to reach the Greek standpoint when they set
themselves to show that the writers of the Bible had anticipated the
philosophers of Hellas with systems of theology, psychology, ethics,
and cosmology. Allegorism, it may be said, is the instrument by which
Greek and Hebrew thought were brought together. Its development was in
its essence a sign of intellectual vigor and religious activity; but
in the time of Philo it threatened to have one evil consequence, which
did in the end undermine the religion of the Alexandrian community.
Some who allegorized the Torah were not content with discovering a
deeper meaning beneath the law, but went on to disregard the literal
sense, _i.e._, they allegorized away the law, and held in contempt the
symbolic observance to which they had attached a spiritual meaning. On
the other hand, there was a party which adhered strictly to the
literal sense ([Greek: to hrêton]) and rejected allegorism.[34] Philo
protested against these extremes and was the leader of those who were
liberal in thought and conservative in practice, and who venerated the
law both for its literal and for its allegorical sense. To effect the
true harmony between the literal and the allegorical sense of the
Torah, between the spiritual and the legal sides of Judaism, between
Greek philosophy and revealed religion--that was the great work of
Philo-Judæus.
Though the religious and intellectual development of the Alexandrian
community proceeded on different lines from that of the main body of
the nation in Palestine, yet the connection between the two was
maintained closely for centuries. The colony, as we have noticed,
recognized whole-heartedly the spiritual headship of Jerusalem, and at
the great festivals of the year a deputation went from Alexandria to
the holy sanctuary, bearing offerings from the whole community. In
Jerusalem, on the other hand, special synagogues, where Greek was the
language,[35] were built for Alexandrian visitors. Alexandrian
artisans and craftsmen took part in the building of Herod's temple,
but were found inferior to native workmen.[36] The notices within the
building were written in Greek as well as in Aramaic, and the golden
gates to the inner court were, we are told by Josephus,[37] the gift
of Philo's brother, the head of the Alexandrian community. Some
fragments have come down to us of a poem about Jerusalem in Greek
verse by a certain Philo, who lived in the first century B.C.E., and
was perhaps an ancestor of our worthy. He glorifies the Holy City,
extols its fertility, and speaks of its ever-flowing waters beneath
the earth. His greater namesake says that wherever the Jews live they
consider Jerusalem as their metropolis. The Talmud again tells how
Judah Ben Tabbai and Joshua Ben Perahya, during the persecution of the
Pharisees by Hyreanus, fled to Alexandria, and how later Joshua Ben
Hanania[38] sojourned there and gave answers to twelve questions which
the Jews propounded to him, three of them dealing with "the Wisdom."
The Talmud has frequent reference to Alexandrian Jews, and that it
makes little direct mention of the Alexandrian exegesis is explained
by the distrust of the whole Hellenistic movement, which the rise of
Christianity and the growth of Gnosticism induced in the rabbis of the
second and third centuries. They lived at a time when it had been
proved that that movement led away from Judaism, and its main tenets
had been adopted or perverted by an antagonistic creed. It was a
tragic necessity which compelled the severance between the Eastern and
Western developments of the religion. In Philo's day the breach was
already threatened, through the anti-legal tendencies of the extreme
allegorists. His own aim was to maintain the catholic tradition of
Judaism, while at the same time expounding the Torah according to the
conceptions of ancient philosophy. Unfortunately, the balance was not
preserved by those who followed him, and the branch of Judaism that
had blossomed forth so fruitfully fell off from the parent tree. But
till the middle of the first century of the common era the Alexandrian
and the Palestinian developments of Jewish culture were complementary:
on the one side there was legal, on the other, philosophical
expansion. Moreover, the Judæo-Alexandrian school, though, through its
abandonment of the Hebrew tongue, it lies outside the main stream of
Judaism, was an immense force in the religious history of the world,
and Philo, its greatest figure, stands out in our annals as the
embodiment of the Jewish religious mission, which is to preach to the
nations the knowledge of the one God, and the law of righteousness.
* * * * *
II
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PHILO
"The hero," says Carlyle, "can be poet, prophet, king, priest, or what
you will, according to the kind of world he finds himself born
into."[39] The Jews have not been a great political people, but their
excellence has been a peculiar spiritual development: and therefore
most of their heroes have been men of thought rather than action,
writers rather than statesmen, men whose influence has been greater on
posterity than upon their own generation. Of Philo's life we know one
incident in very full detail, the rest we can only reconstruct from
stray hints in his writings, and a few short notices of the
commentators. From that incident also, which we know to have taken
place in the year 40 C.E., we can fix the general chronology of his
life and works. He speaks of himself as an old man in relating it, so
that his birth may be safely placed at about 20 B.C.E. The first part
of his life therefore was passed during the tranquil era in which
Augustus and Tiberius were reorganizing the Roman Empire after a
half-century of war; but he was fated to see more troublesome times
for his people, when the emperor Gaius, for a miserable eight years,
harassed the world with his mad escapades. In the riots which ensued
upon the attempt to deprive the Jews of their religious freedom his
brother the alabarch was imprisoned;[40] and he himself was called
upon to champion the Alexandrian community in its hour of need.
Although the ascent of the stupid but honest Claudius dispelled
immediate danger from the Jews and brought them a temporary increase
of favor in Alexandria as well as in Palestine, Philo did not return
entirely to the contemplative life which he loved; and throughout the
latter portion of his life he was the public defender as well as the
teacher of his people. He probably died before the reign of Nero,
between 50 and 60 C.E. In Jewish history his life covered the reigns
of King Herod, his sons, and King Agrippa, when the Jewish kingdom
reached its height of outward magnificence; and it extended probably
up to the ill-omened conversion of Judæa into a Roman province under
the rule of a procurator. It is noteworthy also that Philo was partly
contemporary with Hillel, who came from Babylon to Jerusalem in 30
B.C.E., and according to the accepted tradition was president of the
Sanhedrin till his death in 10 C.E. In this epoch Judaism, by contact
with external forces, was thoroughly self-conscious, and the world was
most receptive of its teaching; hence it spread itself far and wide,
and at the same time reached its greatest spiritual intensity. Hillel
and Philo show the splendid expansion of the Hebrew mind. In the
history of most races national greatness and national genius appear
together. The two grandest expressions of Jewish genius immediately
preceded the national downfall. For the genius of Judaism is
religious, and temporal power is not one of the conditions of its
development.
Philo belonged to the most distinguished Jewish family of
Alexandria,[41] and according to Jerome and Photius, the ancient
authorities for his life, was of the priestly rank; his brother
Alexander Lysimachus was not only the governor of the Jewish
community, but also the alabarch, _i.e._, ruler of the whole Delta
region, and enjoyed the confidence of Mark Antony, who appointed him
guardian of his second daughter Antonia, the mother of Germanicus and
the Roman emperor Claudius. Born in an atmosphere of power and
affluence, Philo, who might have consorted with princes, devoted
himself from the first with all his soul to a life of contemplation;
like a Palestinian rabbi he regarded as man's highest duty the study
of the law and the knowledge of God.[42] This is the way in which he
understood the philosopher's life[43]: man's true function is to know
God, and to make God known: he can know God only through His
revelation, and he can comprehend that revelation only by continued
study. [Hebrew: v-nbi' lbb hkma], God's interpreter must have a wise
heart,[44] as the rabbis explained. Philo then considered that the true
understanding of the law required a complete knowledge of general culture,
and that secular philosophy was a necessary preparation for the deeper
mysteries of the Holy Word. "He who is practicing to abide in the city
of perfect virtue, before he can be inscribed as a citizen thereof,
must sojourn with the 'encyclic' sciences, so that through them he may
advance securely to perfect goodness."[45] The "encyclic," or
encyclopædic sciences, to which he refers, are the various branches of
Greek culture, and Philo finds a symbol of their place in life in the
story of Abraham. Abraham is the eternal type of the seeker after God,
and as he first consorted with the foreign woman Hagar and had
offspring by her, and afterwards in his mature age had offspring by
Sarah, so in Philo's interpretation the true philosopher must first
apply himself to outside culture and enlarge his mind with that
training; and when his ideas have thus expanded, he passes on to the
more sublime philosophy of the Divine law, and his mind is fruitful in
lofty thoughts.[46]
As a prelude to the study of Greek philosophy he built up a harmony of
the mind by a study of Greek poetry, rhetoric, music, mathematics, and
the natural sciences. His works bear witness to the thoroughness with
which he imbibed all that was best in Greek literature. His Jewish
predecessors had written in the impure dialect of the Hellenistic
colonies (the [Greek: koinê dialektos]), and had shown little
literary charm; but Philo's style is more graceful than that of any
Greek prose writer since the golden age of the fourth century. Like
his thought, indeed, it is eclectic and not always clear, but full of
reminiscences of the epic and tragic poets on the one hand, and of
Plato on the other,[47] it gives a happy blending of prose and poetry,
which admirably fits the devotional philosophy that forms its subject.
And what was said of Plato by a Greek critic applies equally well to
Philo: "He rises at times above the spirit of prose in such a way that
he appears to be instinct, not with human understanding, but with a
Divine oracle." From the study of literature and kindred subjects
Philo passed on to philosophy, and he made himself master of the
teachings of all the chief schools. There was a mingling of all the
world's wisdom at Alexandria in his day; and Philo, like the other
philosophers of the time, shows acquaintance with the ideas of
Egyptian, Chaldean, Persian,[48] and even Indian thought. The chief
Greek schools in his age were the Stoic, the Platonic, the Skeptic and
the Pythagorean, which had each its professors in the Museum and its
popular preachers in the public lecture-halls. Later we will notice
more closely Philo's relations to the Greek philosophers: suffice it
here to say that he was the most distinguished Platonist of his age.
Philo's education therefore was largely Greek, and his method of
thought, and the forms in which his ideas were associated and
impressed, were Greek. It must not be thought, however, that this
involved any weakening of his Judaism, or detracted from the purity of
his belief. Far from it. The Torah remained for him the supreme
standard to which all outside knowledge had to be subordinated, and
for which it was a preparation.[49] But Philo brought to bear upon the
elucidation of the Torah and Jewish law and ceremony not only the
religious conceptions of the Jewish mind, but also the intellectual
ideas of Greek philosophy, and he interpreted the Bible in the light
of the broadest culture of his day. Beautiful as are the thoughts and
fancies of the Talmudic rabbis, their Midrash was a purely national
monument, closed by its form as by its language to the general world;
Philo applied to the exposition of Judaism the most highly-trained
philosophic mind of Alexandria, and brought out clearly for the
Hellenistic people the latent philosophy of the Torah.
Greek was his native language, but at the same time he was not, as has
been suggested, entirely ignorant of Hebrew. The Septuagint
translation was the version of the Bible which he habitually used, but
there are passages in his works which show that he knew and
occasionally employed the Hebrew Bible.[50] Moreover, his etymologies
are evidence of his knowledge of the Hebrew language; though he
sometimes gives a symbolic value to Biblical names according to their
Greek equivalent, he more frequently bases his allegory upon a Hebrew
derivation. That all names had a profound meaning, and signified the
true nature of that which they designated, is among the most firmly
established of Philo's ideas. Of his more striking derivations one may
cite Israel, [Hebrew: v-shr-'l], the man who beholdeth God; Jerusalem,
[Hebrew: yrv-shlom], the sight of peace; Hebrew, [Hebrew: 'bri], one who
has passed over from the life of the passions to virtue; Isaac, [Hebrew:
ytshk], the joy or laughter of the soul. These etymologies are more
ingenious than convincing, and are not entirely true to Hebrew philology,
but neither were those of the early rabbis; and they at least show that
Philo had acquired a superficial knowledge of the language of Scripture.
Nor can it be doubted that he was acquainted with the Palestinian Midrash,
both Halakic and Haggadic. At the beginning of the "Life of Moses" he
declares that he has based it upon "many traditions which I have
received from the elders of my nation,"[51] and in several places he
speaks of the "ancestral philosophy," which must mean the Midrash
which embodied tradition. Eusebius also, the early Christian
authority, bears witness to his knowledge of the traditional
interpretations of the law.[52]
It is fairly certain, moreover, that Philo sojourned some time in
Jerusalem. He was there probably during the reign of Agrippa (_c._ 30
C.E.), who was an intimate friend of his family, and had found a
refuge at Alexandria when an exile from Palestine and Rome. In the
first book on the Mosaic laws[53] Philo speaks with enthusiasm of the
great temple, to which "vast assemblies of men from a countless
variety of cities, some by land, some by sea, from East, West, North,
and South, come at every festival as if to some common refuge and
harbor from the troubles of this harassed and anxious life, seeking to
find there tranquillity and gain a new hope in life by its joyous
festivities." These gatherings, at which, according to Josephus,[54]
over two million people assembled, must, indeed, have been a striking
symbol of the unity of the Jewish race, which was at once national and
international; magnificent embassies from Babylon and Persia, from
Egypt and Cyrene, from Rome and Greece, even from distant Spain and
Gaul, went in procession together through the gate of Xistus up the
temple-mount, which was crowned by the golden sanctuary, shining in
the full Eastern sun like a sea of light above the town. Philo
describes in detail the form of the edifice that moved the admiration
of all who beheld it, and for the Jew, moreover, was invested with the
most cherished associations. Its outer courts consisted of double
porticoes of marble columns burnished with gold, then came the inner
courts of simple columns, and "within these stood the temple itself,
beautiful beyond all possible description, as one may tell even from
what is seen in the outer court; for the innermost sanctuary is
invisible to every being except the high priest." The majesty of the
ceremonial within equalled the splendor without. The high priest, in
the words of Ben Sira (xlv), "beautified with comely ornament and
girded about with a robe of glory," seemed a high priest fit for the
whole world. Upon his head the mitre with a crown of gold engraved
with holiness, upon his breast the mystic Urim and Thummim and the
ephod with its twelve brilliant jewels, upon his tunic golden
pomegranates and silver bells, which for the mystic ear pealed the
harmony of the world as he moved. Little wonder that, inspired by the
striking gathering and the solemn ritual, Philo regarded the temple as
the shrine of the universe,[55] and thought the day was near when all
nations should go up there together, to do worship to the One God.
Sparse as are the direct proofs of Philo's connection with Palestinian
Judaism, his account of the temple and its service, apart from the
general standpoint of his writings, proves to us that he was a loyal
son of his nation, and loved Judaism for its national institutions as
well as its great moral sublimity. His aspiration was to bring home
the truths of the religion to the cultured world, and therefore he
devised a new expression for the wisdom of his people, and transformed
it into a literary system. Judaism forms the kernel, but Greek
philosophy and literature the shell, of his work; for the audience to
which he appealed, whether Jewish or Gentile, thought in Greek, and
would be moved only by ideas presented in Greek form, and by Greek
models he himself was inspired.
Philo's first ideal of life was to attain to the profoundest knowledge
of God so as to be fitted for the mission of interpreting His Word:
and he relates in one of his treatises how he spent his youth and his
first manhood in philosophy and the contemplation of the universe.[56]
"I feasted with the truly blessed mind, which is the object of all
desire (_i.e._, God), communing continually in joy with the Divine
words and doctrines. I entertained no low or mean thought, nor did I
ever crawl about glory or wealth or worldly comfort, but I seemed to
be carried aloft in a kind of spiritual inspiration and to be borne
along in harmony with the whole universe." The intense religious
spirit which seeks to perceive all things in a supreme unity Philo
shares with Spinoza, whose life-ideal was the intuitional knowledge of
the universe and "the intellectual love of God." Both men show the
pursuit of righteousness raised to philosophical grandeur.
In his early days the way to virtue and happiness appeared to Philo to
lie in the solitary and ascetic life. He was possessed by a noble
pessimism, that the world was an evil place,[57] and the worldly life
an evil thing for a man's soul, that man must die to live, and
renounce the pleasures not only of the body but also of society in
order to know God. The idea was a common one of the age, and was the
outcome of the mingling of Greek ethics and psychology and the Jewish
love of righteousness. For the Greek thinkers taught a psychological
dualism, by which the body and the senses were treated as antagonistic
to the higher intellectual soul, which was immortal, and linked man
with the principle of creation. The most remarkable and enduring
effect of Hellenic influence in Palestine was the rise of the sect of
Essenes,[58] Jewish mystics, who eschewed private property and the
general social life, and forming themselves into communistic
congregations which were a sort of social Utopia, devoted their lives
to the cult of piety and saintliness. It cannot be doubted that their
manner of life was to some degree an imitation of the Pythagorean
brotherhoods, which ever since the sixth century had spread a sort of
monasticism through the Greek world. Nor is it unlikely that Hindu
teachings exercised an influence over them, for Buddhism was at this
age, like Judaism, a missionizing religion, and had teachers in the
West. Philo speaks in several places of its doctrines.[59] Whatever
its moulding influences, Essenism represented the spirit of the age,
and it spread far and wide. At Alexandria, above all places, where the
life of luxury and dissoluteness repelled the serious, ascetic ideas
took firm hold of the people, and the Therapeutic life, _i.e._, the
life of prayer and labor devoted to God, which corresponded to the
system of the Essenes, had numerous votaries. The first century
witnessed the extremes of the religious and irreligious sentiments.
The world was weary and jaded; it had lost confidence in human reason
and faith in social ideals, and while the materialists abandoned
themselves to hideous orgies and sensual debaucheries, the
higher-minded went to the opposite excess and sought by flight from
the world and mortification of the flesh to attain to supernatural
states of ecstasy. A book has come down to us under the name of
Philo[60] which describes "the contemplative life" of a Jewish
brotherhood that lived apart on the shores of Lake Mareotis by the
mouth of the Nile. Men and women lived in the settlement, though all
intercourse between the sexes was rigidly avoided. During six days of
the week they met in prayer, morning and evening, and in the interval
devoted themselves in solitude to the practice of virtue and the study
of the holy allegories, and the composition of hymns and psalms. On
the Sabbath they sat in common assembly, but with the women separated
from the men, and listened to the allegorical homily of an elder; they
paid special honor to the Feast of Pentecost, reverencing the mystical
attributes of the number fifty, and they celebrated a religious
banquet thereon. During the rest of the year they only partook of the
sustenance necessary for life, and thus in their daily conduct
realized the way which the rabbis set out as becoming for the study of
the Torah: "A morsel of bread with salt thou must eat, and water by
measure thou must drink; thou must sleep upon the ground and live a
life of hardship, the while thou toilest in the Torah."[61]
We do not know whether Philo attached himself to one of these
brotherhoods of organized solitude, or whether he lived even more
strictly the solitary life out in the wilderness by himself. Certainly
he was at one period in sympathy with ascetic ideas. It seemed to him
that as God was alone, so man must be alone in order to be like
God.[62] In his earlier writings he is constantly praising the ascetic
life, as a means, indeed, to virtue rather than as a good in itself,
and as a helpful discipline to the man of incomplete moral strength,
though inferior to the spontaneous goodness which God vouchsafes to
the righteous. Isaac is the type of this highest bliss, while the life
of Jacob is the type of the progress to virtue through asceticism.[63]
The flight from Laban represents the abandonment of family and social
life for the practical service of God, and as Jacob, the ascetic,
became Israel, "the man who beholdeth God," so Philo determined "to
scorn delights and live laborious days" in order to be drawn nearer to
the true Being. But he seems to have been disappointed in his hopes,
and to have discovered that the attempt to cut out the natural desires
of man was not the true road to righteousness. "I often," he says,[64]
"left my kindred and friends and fatherland, and went into a solitary
place, in order that I might have knowledge of things worthy of
contemplation, but I profited nothing: for my mind was sore tempted by
desire and turned to opposite things. But now, sometimes even when I
am in a multitude of men, my mind is tranquil, and God scatters aside
all unworthy desires, teaching me that it is not differences of place
which affect the welfare of the soul, but God alone, who knows and
directs its activity howsoever he pleases."
The noble pessimism of Philo's early days was replaced by a noble
optimism in his maturity, in which he trusted implicitly in God's
grace, and believed that God vouchsafed to the good man the knowledge
of Himself without its being necessary for him to inflict
chastisements upon his body or uproot his inclinations. In this mood
moderation is represented as the way of salvation; the abandonment of
family and social life is selfish, and betrays a lack of the humanity
which the truly good man must possess.[65] Of Philo's own domestic
life we catch only a fleeting glimpse in his writings. He realized the
place of woman in the home; "her absence is its destruction," he said;
and of his wife it is told in another of the "Fragments" that when
asked one day in an assembly of women why she alone did not wear any
golden ornament, she replied, "The virtue of a husband is a sufficient
ornament for his wife."
Though in his maturity Philo renounced the ascetic life, his ideal
throughout was a mystical union with the Divine Being. To a certain
school of Judaism, which loves to make everything rational and
moderate, mysticism is alien; it was alien indeed to the Sadducee
realist and the Karaite literalist; it was alien to the systematic
Aristotelianism of Maimonides, and it is alien alike to Western
orthodox and Reform Judaism. But though often obscured and crushed by
formal systems, mysticism is deeply seated in the religious feelings,
and the race which has developed the Cabbalah and Hasidism cannot be
accused of lack of it. Every great religion fosters man's aspiration
to have direct communion with God in some super-rational way.
Particularly should this be the case with a religion which recognizes
no intermediary. The Talmudic conceptions of [Hebrew: nb'a], prophecy,
[Hebrew: shkyna], the Divine Presence, and [Hebrew: rua hkdsh], the
holy spirit, which was vouchsafed to the saint, certainly are mystic, and
at Alexandria similar ideas inspired a striking development. Once again we
can trace the fertilizing influence of Greek ideas. Even when the old
naturalistic cults had flourished in Greece, and political life had
provided a worthy goal for man, mystical beliefs and ceremonies had a
powerful attraction for the Hellene; and, when the belief in the old
gods had been shattered, and with the national greatness the liberal
life of the State had passed away, he turned more and more to those
rites which professed to provide healing and rest for the sickening
soul. Many of the Alexandrian Jews must have been initiated into these
Greek mysteries, for Philo introduces into his exegesis of the law of
Moses an ordinance forb
|
ough speed in getting up among the branches; but they just _love_ to
slide down banks, they say, and don’t you go to depending on any such to
keep your scaly friends from sharing your blanket,” Davy remarked,
maliciously.
“Oh! who’s afraid; not me?” sang out Bumpus, puffing out his chest as he
spoke; “besides, haven’t I got a gun along with me this trip; and some
of you happen to know that I can use the same. I’ve got a few crack
shots to my credit, ain’t I, Thad?”
Before the scout-master could either affirm or deny this assertion,
Giraffe gave a loud yell, and was seen to be standing up in his boat,
pointing wildly ahead.
“Looky there, would you, boys!” he cried; “that’s a coon in the boat,
seems like to me, and he’s paddling like everything to get away from us.
What say, shall we give chase, and see if four pair of arms are better
than one? Maybe, now, it’s only a hideout darky, scared nigh to death
athinking we’re the soldiers come hunting after him. And then again, how
d’we know that it mightn’t be Felix himself; because, you remember, they
did say he was burnt as brown as mahogany! Whoop! see him make that
paddle fairly burn the air; and ain’t he flying to beat the band,
though? Thad, why _don’t_ you give the word to chase after him, when you
can see we’re all crazy to let out top-notch speed.”
CHAPTER III.
CAMP-FARE.
“Hold up!” called out Thad.
Of course, as the scout-master, his word had to be recognized as law by
the members of Cranford Troop. Several of the boys manifested signs of
disappointment, and impulsive Giraffe seemed to be the chief offender.
As a rule they were not averse to giving vent to their feelings; for
besides being Boy Scouts, they had long been school chums.
“Oh! that’s too bad, now, Thad,” Giraffe remarked, dejectedly; “you
didn’t want us to chase after that fellow. Four of us ought to’ve been
able to beat him in a furious dash; and how d’we know but what it isn’t
the very man we’ve come all the way from Cranford to see?”
“It’s too late now, anyway!” observed Bumpus.
“Yes, he’s disappearing among the shadows yonder,” said Davy, who had
sharp eyesight; “and I saw him turn to look back at us just when he was
passing through that bar of sunlight that crosses the water.”
“Did you think he was a negro, or a white man, Davy?” asked Thad,
quietly.
“Well, to tell you the truth, Thad, I guess now he _was_ a coon, all
right. He didn’t have any hat on, and his hair seemed woolly enough,”
Davy admitted, frankly.
“I thought as much all along,” Thad told them, “and that was one of the
reasons I wouldn’t give the word to pursue him. There were plenty of
others, though.”
“Name a few, Mr. Scout-master,” requested Giraffe, still unconvinced.
“Oh! well, for instance, we’re all pretty tired as it is, and to make
that dash would wear us out. Then we’d lose the chance for camping on
this spot here that I picked out, and we might go a long way without
running across as good a one. And if it was a black outlaw, one of those
desperate escaped convicts from the turpentine camps, if they have them
in Louisiana, even should we manage to overtake him he might happen to
have a gun of some kind. You could hardly blame him for showing fight,
Giraffe.”
“Not when you remember that we’re wearing uniforms pretty much like the
National Guard, and chances are he believed we were real soldiers, not
tin ones,” was the contribution of Step Hen, easily convinced, after he
had given the subject a little reflection.
“Besides,” added Bumpus, as a clincher that he knew would catch the
lanky scout; “it’s nearly time we’re thinking of having supper; and
sure, it would be too bad if we had to postpone trying that delicious
home-cured ham we fetched along.”
The frown left the forehead of Giraffe like magic, and in its place came
a most heavenly smile.
“I surrender, boys!” he announced. “I throw up my hands, and give in.
Seems like everybody’s against me, and seven to one is big odds. Must be
I’m mistaken. If it was a genuine coon after all, why, sure we’d a been
silly to waste our precious muscle achasing after him. Besides, looks
like the shadows are acreeping out along there, and we’d as like as not
get lost somehow. Oh! you’re right, as usual, Mr. Scout-master. I’m
always letting my ambition run away with my horse sense. Seems like I
never open my mouth but I put my foot in it, somehow.”
“Then why don’t you get a button, and keep it shut?” asked Bumpus,
promptly.
“I would, if it was the size of some I’ve known,” responded Giraffe.
“I hope now, you ain’t making wicked comparisons?” the fat scout
demanded.
“Why, you don’t think I’d be guilty of such unbrotherly kindness, do
you?” was Giraffe’s perplexing rejoinder; and knowing that he could not
get the better of the tall scout Bumpus gave a grunt, and stopped short.
They were soon busily engaged in making preparations for camping. Having
come all the way from home with the idea of spending some time in the
Southern swamp, looking for those whom Thad so earnestly wished to meet
face to face, the lads had of course made ample preparations for having
at least a fair degree of comfort.
None of them had ever been in the Far South, so all they knew about the
country, its animals, and the habits of its people, must come through
reading, and observation as they went along.
But they did know the comfort of a tight waterproof canvas tent in case
of a heavy rain storm; and consequently a good part of the luggage they
carried in the three trunks had been a couple of such coverings, besides
the usual camp outfit about which many happy associations of the past
were clinging.
These trunks had of course been left in the small town where they had
obtained the roughly made canoes, to be picked up on their return later.
Long experience had made every one of them clever hands at tent-raising;
and from the way Smithy and Davy undertook to get one up in advance of
Step Hen and Bob White, it was plain to see that the old-time spirit of
rivalry still held good.
Giraffe as usual took it upon himself to start the cooking fire. He was
what the other boys called a “crank” at fire-building, and had long ago
demonstrated his ability to start a blaze without a single match, by any
one of several ancient methods, such as using a little bow that twirled
a sharp-pointed stick so rapidly in a wooden socket that a spark was
generated, which in turn quickly communicated to a minute amount of
inflammable material, and was then coaxed along until a fire resulted.
Bumpus always stood ready to assist in the cooking operations; because
there were so many other things coming along that required dexterity and
agility, and from which his size and clumsiness debarred him, that he
just felt as though he must be doing something in order to shoulder his
share of the work.
As the twilight quickly deepened into night—for in the South there is
not a very long interval between the going down of the sun, and the
pinning of the curtains of darkness—the scene became quite an animated
one, with eight lively lads moving around, each fulfilling some
self-imposed duty that would add to the comfort and happiness of the
patrol in camp.
And when that “delicious home-cured ham” that Bumpus had spoken of, and
which had really come from his own house, so that he knew what he was
saying when thus describing it, began to turn a rich brown in the pair
of generous frying-pans, giving out a most appetizing odor; together
with the coffee that Bumpus himself had kept charge of, well, the
healthy boy who could keep from counting the minutes until summoned to
that glorious feast would have been a strange combination.
Bumpus was trying a new way with his coffee. Heretofore he had simply
placed it in the cold water, and brought this to a boil, keeping it
going for five minutes or more. Now he had the water boiling, and just
poured in the coffee, previously wetted, and with an egg broken into the
same; after which he gave it about a minute to boil, then let it steep
alongside the fire for the rest of the time.
“Better than anything we ever had, isn’t it, fellows?” he demanded,
after he had tested the contents of his big tin cup, and nearly scalded
his mouth in his eagerness. “Ketch me going back to the old way again.
Coffee boiled is coffee spoiled, I read in our cook book at home.”
It was good, but all the same Giraffe, as well as several others,
declared they preferred the old way, because it was such fun to see if
the cook was caught napping, and allowed the pot to boil over; besides,
the aroma as it sent out clouds of steam was worth a whole lot to hungry
lads.
“Bumpus, I’ve got a favor to ask you,” said Davy, as they started to
settle down around the fire, each in a picked position.
“Go ahead, Davy, you know I’m the most accommodating fellow in the
bunch. Tell me what I can do for you,” replied the fat scout,
immediately; and every word he spoke was actual truth, too, as his
comrades would have willingly testified if put on the witness stand.
“I wish you’d let me sit over there, and you take my seat, which, I
reckon is much more comfortable than yours; and besides, you complained
of a pain in your back, and I’m afraid of the chilly night wind taking
you there. You’ll face it here instead.”
“Don’t you budge, Bumpus!” exclaimed Giraffe; “he’s only giving you a
little taffy, don’t you see? Thinks he’ll have a better chance to enjoy
his grub if the wind don’t blow _from_ you, to him. I wouldn’t stand for
it, Bumpus; you just stay where you are. Reckon you look comfortable
enough, and what’s the use dodging all around?”
“Huh! guess you’re thinking of your own comfort now, Giraffe,” grunted
Davy in disgust.
Bumpus eyed them both in distrust.
“I remember we learned in school that it was best policy to keep an eye
on the Greeks that come bearing gifts,” he wheezed; “and so I’ll just
stay where I am. If you don’t like it, Davy, why, there’s plenty of
space all around. As if I’m to blame because this old swamp isn’t the
sweetest place agoing.”
The conversation soon became animated and general, so that the three
disputants forgot the cause of their trouble. Bumpus was the bugler of
the troop, and always insisted on carrying the silver-tongued emblem of
his office along with him; he had it by his side now; but Thad had given
peremptory orders that he should not make any use of the instrument
except by special order; or under conditions that might arise, whereby
they would need to be called together, like a scattered covey of
“pa’tridges,” as quail are universally designated in the South.
“We must remember,” Thad went on to say, “that this isn’t just an
ordinary jaunt, or an outing for fun. It means a whole lot to me that I
manage to find the man and the little girl. Either it will turn out to
be Felix Jasper and my lost sister; or else we’ll prove that the
gentleman was terribly mistaken. And you can understand, fellows, what a
load I’m laboring under all the time that puzzle remains unsolved. But I
want you to remember that we ought to keep as quiet as we can. Bumpus,
you understand the situation, and why we don’t ask you to amuse us with
some of your fine songs?”
Bumpus had a very good voice, and often did entertain his chums while in
camp by singing certain songs they were particularly fond of. He was a
sensible fellow, and did not take offense easily. Moreover, even though
he might feel huffed over some action on the part of his mates, he never
“let the sun go down on his wrath,” but was quick to extend the olive
branch of peace.
“Sure I understand, Thad!” he declared; “and I’m going to bottle up my
voice on this occasion, so’s to have it in fine trim, to let loose in a
hallelujah when we find that it _is_ your little sister Pauline—”
Bumpus said no more, and for a very good reason; because, just at that
particular moment there arose the strangest sort of sound from some
point close by, such as none of the scouts could ever remember hearing
before.
CHAPTER IV.
SOME WOODS LORE.
“What d’ye call that, now?” exclaimed Step Hen.
Giraffe assumed a superior air, as he hastened to remark:
“Next time you hear an old alligator bull bellow, you’ll recognize the
same; but to tell the truth, I’m kind of disappointed, myself, because I
expected to get something bigger’n that.”
“Was it an alligator, Thad?” demanded Davy; while Bumpus was seen to
involuntarily move a little closer to the tree under which the camp-fire
had been made, and the twin, khaki-colored, waterproof tents erected.
The scout-master shook his head in the negative.
“Giraffe’s got another guess coming to him this time,” he said. “From
all I’ve picked up, I reckon we’ll not be disappointed when we do hear
some old scaly bull bellow. But they tell me this happens generally
along toward dawn. And the sound is more like the roaring of a lion,
than what a regular bull gives out.”
“But what was that we heard, then, Thad?” persisted Step Hen; for long
ago these boys had taken it for granted that a scout-master should be in
the nature of a “walking encyclopedia,” as Bumpus called it, filled to
the brim with general information on every known topic, and ready and
willing to impart the same to the balance of the patrol on request; and
truth to tell they seldom caught Thad Brewster in a hole.
“Well, now, there are a lot of things in a Southern swamp, any one of
which might make a noise like that. If you asked me my plain opinion I’d
guess it might have been a wandering night heron, which has a hoarse
cry, some of you happen to know, because we struck them up in Maine that
time we spent a vacation there.”
“What other creatures are we likely to run across here, besides snakes
and alligators, runaway coons and the like?” pursued Davy, always
wanting to know.
“Of course there are muskrats, because you can find them in every swamp
east and west, north and south,” Giraffe ventured.
“Yes, muskrats are found, though not so many as in the north, and the
skins are sometimes hardly worth taking. But there are plenty of
raccoons and ’possums: and I’m told they get quite some otter down here,
the most valuable pelt that comes up from the South, selling at
something like seven dollars a skin.”
“Whew! that’s talking some,” muttered the interested Bumpus. “Did I ever
tell you fellows that I once had a great notion of starting in to be a
trapper? Yes, I even read up a whole lot about it, but kinder got
twisted in the directions of how to go about things, so as not to let
the cunning little varmints get the human odor.”
At that there was a general laugh, causing the fat scout to look around
indignantly; whereupon the others, notably Step Hen, Davy and Giraffe
exchanged winks.
“Ain’t that so, Thad?” demanded Bumpus, turning to the scout-master.
“You’re right about that, Bumpus,” came the reply. “Allan here, who has
had lots of experience, will tell you that the most successful trapper
is the man who manages somehow to keep from alarming his intended game,
both by making few if any tracks around the place where he’s put his
trap; and by eliminating the human odor that their sensitive noses
detect.”
“There, didn’t I tell you?” demanded Bumpus, triumphantly. “Think you’re
smart to just sit there and chuckle; but you’ve all got heaps and heaps
to learn about the secrets of the woods. I know my own weakness, and I’m
studying hard, trying to remedy it. You’d never guess what a lot of cute
things them pelt-takers have to put up, in order to fool the woods
folks; ain’t that a fact, Thad?”
Bumpus knew that so long as he could get the scout-master to corroborate
all of his statements he was sure of having his opponents in a hole; and
it was amusing to see how he managed to accomplish this same thing.
“Yes, it’s all mighty interesting,” Thad assured them. “Nowadays nearly
every up-to-date trapper makes use of a prepared scent which he places
on the trap, even if he baits the same. It is sold by dealers in skins;
and they say a trapper can get much better results by using this, to
attract the little fur-bearing animals.”
“What’s that, Thad; you tell us they sell this scent to trappers, or
such as think they have a call in that direction?” demanded Giraffe,
suddenly.
“Of course any one can buy any quantity, if he’s got the price,” Thad
assured him. “You seem interested, Giraffe; perhaps, now, you’re
thinking of embarking in the game?”
But the lanky one only shook his head, and turning on Bumpus he demanded
severely:
“Looky here, Bumpus, did you, when you read up about all these here
interesting things connected with trapping the fur-bearing animals of
the wilderness, ever go so far as to invest a dollar in buying any of
this wonderful stuff that they say is so fetching that the silly little
beasts just can’t resist it?” and as he said this Giraffe tried to hold
the fat boy transfixed with his piercing gaze—some of them had at one
time even called Giraffe “Old Eagle Eye,” earlier readers of these
stories may remember.
“No, I didn’t, if you want to know, Giraffe!” Bumpus broke out with;
“and I ain’t agoing to tell you any more about what I learned; because
you’re all the time apicking on me, and accusing me of things. I know I
make mistakes sometimes, and that one about not remembering whether I
fetched my mother back the medicine she wanted is abothering me like
everything right now; but the rest of you are in the same boat, ain’t
you? Here was Giraffe just a little while back awanting to rush after
that runaway convict, just as if we had lost anything like that. Course
it was a mistake and chances are we’d got in no end of trouble if he’d
had his way. Oh! everybody blunders sometimes; to-day it may be poor old
Bumpus; but to-morrow one of the rest of you is in the soup. Forget it,
now.”
“What about these swamp animals, Thad, or Allan; and why do you say the
skins don’t bring as good prices when they’re taken down here, as in the
North?” Step Hen wanted to know.
“Don’t it stand to reason that the colder the country the thicker the
fur Nature gives to the animals that bear it?” asked Allan.
“Why, yes, seems like that ought to be so; and I guess that must be the
reason Canada skins bring the best prices of all,” Giraffe admitted.
“Sometimes three times as much as ones taken far South,” Allan told him.
“I’ve no doubt that sooner or later we’ll find chances to examine the
tracks of ’coons, ’possums, foxes, muskrats, and even otter, while we’re
looking around,” Thad remarked; “and it’ll be interesting to notice what
difference there is between the various animals, as well as between the
same breed up in Maine and down here in Louisiana; for they grow
smaller, as a rule, the further south you go. A Florida deer can be
toted back to camp on the back of the average hunter, while one up in
Michigan or the Adirondacks would need two men and a pole to carry it
any distance.”
“This sure is mighty interesting,” observed Step Hen. “I’m always ready
to soak in information connected with the woods. I’m like a big sponge,
you might say; ready to give it out again on being squeezed.”
“On my part,” Giraffe mentioned, “I don’t seem able to get that coon out
of my head; because, if he was what we think, a hideout escaped convict,
chances are he must want a whole lot of things, from a blanket, gun and
clothes, to grub.”
“That’s unkind of you, Giraffe, to bother us with such gloomy thoughts
just as we are thinking of soon going to bed,” remarked Bumpus,
uneasily.
“But there’s some horse sense in what he says, don’t you forget it,
Bumpus,” pursued Davy.
“That’s a fact,” added Step Hen. “Just put yourself in his place for a
while, and try to imagine what your feelings’d be like, asneaking around
a camp of boys, nearly half starved at the same time, and scenting the
good smells that fill the air all around—of course I mean cooking meat,
coffee and the like. Say, wouldn’t it nearly set you crazy; and honest
now, Bumpus, don’t you think you’d take some risks to try and hook what
you wanted so bad?”
Bumpus, upon being thus deliberately appealed to, nodded his head in the
affirmative, and remarked:
“I sure would, and that’s a fact, fellows. Then you kinder look for a
visitor in camp to-night, do you? And that means everybody’s just got to
sit up and stand guard, don’t it? all right, you’ll find me as willing
and ready as ever to sacrifice my comfort for the public welfare. I’m
always there with the goods.”
“Hear! hear! Bumpus, we all know you like a book!” declared Step Hen,
pretending to clap his hands in enthusiasm, though no sound resulted
from the action.
“Yes, and if the will was father to the deed, there’d be nothing left
undone while Bumpus was around; for he’s always ready to try his best,”
Allan went on to say, while the object of all this praise turned rosy
red with embarrassment.
“Mebbe you’re only joshing me, boys,” he remarked uneasily, “but I’m
taking it for granted that you mean all you say, and believe me, I’m
grateful. If I wasn’t so full of supper I’d get on my feet, put my hand
on my stomach this way, and make you the best bow I knew how. Like a lot
more of things you’ll have to take the intention for the deed there,
too. It’s a case of the spirit being willing, but the flesh weak.”
“Well,” said Giraffe, “I didn’t know that there was anything weak about
you, Bumpus; but never mind starting an argument about it now. We’ll
just arrange things so that two scouts are on duty all the time through
the night. How would that suit you, Mr. Scout-master?”
“Just about right,” replied Thad; “because we are now eight, all told,
and that would allow us to divide up into four watches. And as Bumpus is
so anxious to do his whole duty by the camp, I’ll promise to take him on
as my side partner when my turn comes.”
“Well,” mused Giraffe, “it’s mighty nice to have a fellow along who
isn’t afraid of anything, and will even make a martyr of himself in
order to keep peace in the camp.”
“P’raps you wouldn’t mind explaining just what you mean by that,
Giraffe?” the stout scout quickly remarked, suspiciously.
“Oh! you’re as touchy as wildfire, to-night, Bumpus,” retorted the
other, with a chuckle, as though he felt that he had attained his
object, which was to excite the curiosity of the fat boy. “Just turn
your mind on what may happen while we sleep, and you’ll be happier. But
here’s hoping that breeze keeps acoming from that same quarter all the
night, because then we can plan better.”
Davy snickered audibly at this, but Bumpus assumed a lofty air, and
would not pay any further attention to those who were evidently bent on
badgering him.
CHAPTER V.
BUMPUS ON GUARD.
“How will we pair off for the tents?” asked Bob White, presently.
“I think it would be just as well to keep the formation we already have
in the boats,” the scoutmaster immediately replied, as though he might
have already figured this out.
Davy Jones was heard to give a disappointed grunt, though just why he
should be the only one to do so must remain a mystery; but at any rate
Bumpus refused to let himself show that he took it as personally
directed toward him.
“That means Giraffe, Bob White and Smithy sleep in Number Two along with
me, does it, Mr. Scout-master?” Allan inquired.
“Yes, and let Smithy pair off with you, while Bob White and Giraffe are
pards on guard. I’ll take the first stage, with Bumpus, because that’ll
let him have a longer uninterrupted sleep, and he’s more apt to stay
awake in the earlier part of the night than later on. When the time is
up we’ll arouse Giraffe, who’ll take charge of his watch. That’s
understood, is it?”
All of them declared it was very simple; and that surely a spell of less
than two hours could not turn out to be a very hard task. Even Bumpus
was apparently grimly resolved to show his mates that he had “reformed,”
and would never, never again be guilty of such a crime as going to sleep
while playing the part of sentry.
“You’ve got me so worked up atalking all about that black escaped jail
bird,” he stoutly affirmed, “that chances are my eyes won’t go shut the
whole night long. You see, I’m sensitive by nature, and when I hear
dreadful things, like that poor fellow nearly starving while he’s hiding
out in the swamp, with the dogs trying to get on his trail all the time,
it makes my flesh creep. So please, Giraffe, don’t say anything more
about it. You get on my nerves.”
“Huh! that ain’t a circumstance to some things—” began the tall scout;
and then as though suddenly thinking better of it, he cut his sentence
off short, so that no one ever knew what he had meant to say, though
there was Davy chuckling again, just as if he might have a strong
suspicion.
They had soon arranged their blankets in the two dun-colored tents. The
canvas had been prepared by tanning in some manner, so that its former
white hue was altered; and at the same time it had been rendered
impregnable to water. This is a fine thing about these prepared tents;
because the ordinary covering, while it is capable of shedding rain for
some time, once it gets soaked, if you simply touch it on the inside
with your finger, you are apt to start a dripping that nothing can stop
as long as the rain comes down.
Giraffe, who was very angular, and always complained of feeling every
little pebble or root under his blanket, when out camping, at once
started to gather some of the hanging Spanish moss, to “pad his bed
with.”
“They tell me it makes fine mattresses, after it’s dried,” he remarked;
“so p’raps it’ll keep me from wearing a hole in my skin while I rest
here. Say, it’s simply great, let me tell you,” he added, as he sank
down to test his puffy couch, “so I’d advise every one of you to get
busy, and lay in a supply.”
“How about insects of all kinds, from red bugs to ticks?” asked Step
Hen, who already had a few fiery spots on his lower limbs, marking the
places where some of the former invisible guests had buried themselves,
and started to create an intolerable itching and burning that made him
scratch frequently, without much alleviation of the trouble.
“Oh! who cares about such small pests as them?” remarked Giraffe,
loftily.
“Not much danger, if you select clean moss, Step Hen,” Thad told him;
and as the scout-master was himself following the example set by the
inventive Giraffe, of course all the others copied after him.
“Misery likes company, they say,” Step Hen was heard to mutter; “and
p’raps now to-morrow there’ll be the greatest old scratching bee you
ever did see. As I’m in for it anyway, guess I’ll take the chances of
mixin’ the breed,” with which he flung prudence to the winds, and
started making a collection for himself.
Now, Thad did not mean to neglect any precaution looking to making sure
that if a visitor came to the camp during the night, in the shape of a
human black thief, he would find it difficult to carry off any of their
possessions.
First of all, he paid particular attention to the boats, the paddles of
which he himself carried into the middle of the camp, and finally hid
away in the tents, so that they could not easily be run across.
Then he had some of the boys assist him, while he ran the two canoes far
up on the shore. Even then he secured the painters in such fashion that
any one would have great difficulty in unfastening the same.
“I should think that would make us feel secure about our boats, Thad?”
Allan remarked, after all this had been carried out with scrupulous
care; for the scout-master believed that what was worth doing at all was
worth doing well, and he applied this principle to his every-day life,
often to his great advantage.
“If we know what’s good for us we want to always guard the boats above
all things,” Thad went on to tell them.
“I should say so,” Bumpus admitted; “just think what a nice pickle we’d
find ourselves in, fellows, if we suddenly lost both boats while we were
right in the middle of the swamp. We could lose lots of things better
than them.”
“Bumpus,” observed Giraffe, solemnly, “you never said truer words—we
could; and there might even be some things we’d be _glad_ to part with,
but which seem to hang on to us just everlastingly.”
Davy seemed amused at hearing the tall scout say this; but Bumpus either
mistook it for a compliment, or else chose to act as if he did; for he
grinned, and nodded, and wandered back to the tents to get his gun; for
Thad had selected the first watch for himself and his partner.
“I’ll just show ’em that I can stay awake these days,” he was saying to
himself in his positive way. “Time may have been when I was just a
little mite weak that way; but I’ve reformed, so I have. Huh! what’s two
hours to me, I’d like to know?”
Some of the other scouts might, had they chosen, have recalled numerous
instances where Bumpus, being set on guard, had later on been found
“dead to the world,” committing the most heinous crime known to soldiers
in war-time, that of sleeping on post, and thus putting the whole army
in peril.
When one fellow started to crawl inside the tent others followed his
example, until only Thad and Bumpus remained. The fat scout had to take
a firm grip on himself, when he saw them going to their inviting
blankets, buoyed up so temptingly by those armfuls of soft gray moss;
but he proved equal to the test, for he shouldered his gun, and bade
Thad station him in his place.
“You’ll have to stay right here, Bumpus,” the other told him. “I know it
isn’t the most inviting spot going, for the ground is wet, and you can
hardly find a place to stand on; but those things are good for a sentry,
because they help keep him awake.”
“Oh! never mind about me, Thad; I’ll prove true blue every time. But
where will you hold forth? I ought to know, so I could find you, in case
anything suspicious came along.”
So Thad pointed out where he expected to stay, and then went on to warn
the other once more:
“Be very careful about using your gun, Bumpus,” he said.
“Oh! I will, sure, Thad,” declared the fat scout, hastily. “I hope now
you don’t think I want to have any poor fellow’s blood on my hands, do
you? I ain’t half so ferocious as Giraffe, now. You heard what he said
about thinking the coon’d get what he deserved, if he came aprowling
around here in the night, and somebody filled him chuck full of shot? I
don’t look at it that way. Fact is, I’m sorry for the poor wretch; and
I’d share my dinner with him, if I had a chance, laugh at me for a silly
if you want to.”
“But you don’t hear me laughing at all, Bumpus,” Thad told him; “and I
understand just how you feel about it. Nature gave you a tender heart,
and made Giraffe on different lines; but I tell you plainly, I’ve often
wished some of the other fellows were more like Cornelius Hawtree!”
“Oh! have you, Thad?” said the fat boy, with a suspicious tremor in his
voice. “Thank you, thank you ever so much for saying that. I’d rather
have your good opinion, than that of any other fellow I ever knew.”
And somehow he felt so light-hearted after receiving that little sincere
compliment from the watchful scout-master, that he really found no great
difficulty in keeping wide-awake during the entire term of his vigil;
for there is nothing equal to a little praise to set a boy thinking, and
therefore remaining vigilant.
When the time came to make a change he spoke to Thad as soon as the
other drew near his position.
“Never batted an eye once, Thad, and that’s a fact,” he announced,
proudly. “Oh! I’m on the road to better things, I tell you. And while I
heard lots of queer old grunting and groaning deep in the swamp, I
didn’t see a suspicious thing. Will you get Giraffe and Bob White out
now?”
“Yes, because they come tailing after us, according to the programme;”
and while Thad crept into the second tent to arouse the boys, Bumpus
hung around so as to inform Giraffe that he had fulfilled his duties as
sentry to the letter.
However, the tall scout seemed to want to hurry past him, and only gave
a grunt in reply when Bumpus launched forth on an elaborate account of
how he had proved himself equal to the test. In fact, one might have
thought that Giraffe was holding his breath as though he feared to take
cold by breathing the cool night air too suddenly, after coming out from
his snug blanket.
When Thad and Bumpus had also crawled under the flap of the first tent,
all immediately became quiet again, the new sentries having taken up
their positions as marked out by the patrol leader, in whose hands such
things must lie, as he is always in charge of the camp.
Bumpus heard a little restless moving about when he tried to settle
down, as if at least one of the other occupants of the tent might be
trying to change his position. But the fat scout was too tired and
sleepy to bother his head about any trifle like this; besides his cold
seemed to get no better, and he was apt to give a loud sneeze
|
sensual race can bring forth the really great and earnest
mystics; because a decided reaction which is conscious of its aim
requires as much energy as positive creation.
The towering structure of Belgian art rests on a broad foundation. The
preparation, the growing under the sod, took fifty years; and then in
another fifty years it was reared aloft by the youth of one single
generation. For every healthy evolution is slow, most of all in the
Teutonic races, which are not so quick, supple, and dexterous as the
Latin races, who learn by life itself rather than by studious
application. This literature has grown ring by ring like a tree, with
its roots deep in a healthy soil nourished by the unyielding
perseverance of centuries. Like every confession of faith, this
literature has its saints, its martyrs, and its disciples. The first of
the creators, the forerunner, was Charles de Coster; and his great epic
_Thyl Ulenspiegel_ is the gospel of this new literature. His fate is
sad, like that of all pioneers. In him the native blend of races is more
plastically visualised than in all later writers. Of Teutonic
extraction, he was born in Munich, wrote in French, and was the first
man to feel as a Belgian. He earned his living painfully as a teacher at
the Military School. And when his great romance appeared, it was
difficult to find a publisher, and still more difficult to find
appreciation, or even notice. And yet this work, with its wonderful
confrontation of Ulenspiegel as the deliverer of Flanders with Philip
II. as Antichrist, is to this day the most beautiful symbol of the
struggle of light with darkness, of vitality with renunciation; an
enduring monument in the world's literature, because it is the epic of a
whole nation. With such a work of wide import did Belgian literature
begin, a work that with its heroic battles stands like the Iliad as the
proud and primitive beginning of a more delicate, but in its advanced
culture more complex, literature. The place of this writer, who died
prematurely, was taken by Camille Lemonnier, who accepted the hard task
and the melancholy inheritance of pioneers--ingratitude and
disillusion. Of this proud and noble character also one must speak as of
a hero. For more than forty years he fought indefatigably for Belgium, a
soldier leading the onset from first to last, launching book after book,
creating, writing, calling to the fray and marshalling the new forces;
and never resting till the adjective 'Belgian' ceased in Paris and
Europe to be spoken with the contempt that attaches to 'provincial';
till, like once the name of the Gueux, what was originally a disgrace
became a title of honour. Fearlessly, not to be discouraged by any
failure, this superb writer sung his native land--fields, mines, towns,
and men; the angry, fiery blood of youths and maidens; and over all the
ardent yearning for a brighter, freer, greater religion, for rapt
communion with the sublimity of Nature. With the ecstatic revelling in
colour of his illustrious ancestor Rubens, who gathered all the things
of life together in a glad festival of the senses, he, like a second
voluptuary at the feast, has lavished colours, had his joy of all that
is glowing, and glaring, and satiated, and, like every genuine artist,
conceived of art as an intensifying of life, as life in intoxication.
For more than forty years he created in this sense, and miraculously,
just like the men of his country, like the peasants he painted, he
waxed in vigour from year to year, from harvest to harvest, his books
growing ever more fiery, ever more drunken with the zest and glow of
life, his faith in life ever brighter and more confident. He was the
first to feel the strength of his young country with conscious pride,
and his voice rang out its loud appeal for new fighters till he no
longer stood alone, till a company of other artists were ranged around
him. Each of these he supported and firmly established, with a strong
grip placing them at their vantage for the battle; and without envy, nay
with joy, he saw his own work triumphantly overshadowed by the acclaimed
creations of his juniors. With joy, because he probably considered not
his own novels, but this creation of a literature his greatest and most
lasting work. For it seemed as though in these years the whole land had
become alive; as though every town, every profession, every class had
sent forth a poet or a painter to immortalise them; as though this whole
Belgium were eager to be symbolised in individual phases in works of
art, until he should come who was destined to transform all towns and
classes in a poem, enshrining in it the harmonised soul of the land. Are
not the ancient Teutonic cities of Bruges, Courtrai, and Ypres
spiritualised in the stanzas of Rodenbach, in the pastels of Fernand
Khnopff, in the mystic statues of Georges Minne? Have not the sowers of
corn and the workers in mines become stone in the busts of Constantin
Meunier? Does not a great drunkenness glow in Georges Eekhoud's
descriptions? The mystic art of Maeterlinck and Huysmans drinks its
deepest strength from old cloisters and _béguinages_; the sun of the
fields of Flanders glows in the pictures of Théo van Rysselberghe and
Claus. The delicate walking of maidens and the singing of belfries have
been made music in the stanzas of the gentle Charles van Lerberghe; the
vehement sensuality of a savage race has been spiritualised in the
refined eroticism of Félicien Rops. The Walloons have their
representative in Albert Mockel; and how many others might still be
named of the great creators: the sculptor van der Stappen; the painters
Heymans, Stevens; the writers des Ombiaux, Demolder, Glesener,
Crommelynck; who have all in their confident and irresistible advance
conquered the esteem of France and the admiration of Europe. For they,
and just they, were gifted with a sense of the great complex European
feeling which in their work is glimpsed in its birth and growth; for
they did not in their idea of a native land stop at the boundaries of
Belgium, but included all the neighbouring countries, because they were
at the same time patriots and cosmopolitans: Belgium was to them not
only the place where all roads meet, but also that whence all roads
start.
Each of these had shaped his native land from his own angle of vision; a
whole phalanx of artists had added picture to picture. Till then this
great one came, Verhaeren, who saw, felt, and loved everything in
Flanders, 'toute la Flandre.' Only in his work did it become a unity;
for he has sung everything, land and sea, towns and workshops, cities
dead and cities at their birth. He has not conceived of this Flanders of
his as a separate phase, as a province, but as the heart of Europe, with
the strength of its blood pulsing inwards from outside and outside from
inwards; he has opened out horizons beyond the frontiers, and heightened
and connected them; and with the same inspiration he has molten and
welded the individual together with the whole until out of his work a
life-work grew--the lyric epic of Flanders. What de Coster half a
century before had not dared to fashion from the present, in which he
despaired of finding pride, power, and the heroism of life, Verhaeren
has realised; and thus he has become the 'carillonneur de la Flandre,'
the bell-ringer who, as in olden days from the watch-tower, has summoned
the whole land to the defence of its will to live, and the nation to the
pride and consciousness of its power.
This Verhaeren could only do, because he in himself represents all the
contrasts, all the advantages of the Belgian race. He too is a ferment
of contrasts, a new man made of split and divergent forces now
victoriously harmonised. From the French he has his language and his
form; from the Germans his instinctive seeking of God, his earnestness,
his gravity, his need of metaphysics, and his impulse to pantheism.
Political instincts, religious instincts, Catholicism and socialism,
have struggled in him; he is at once a dweller in great cities and a
cottager in the open country; and the deepest impulse of his people,
their lack of moderation and their greed of life, is in the last
instance the maxim of his poetic art. Only that their pleasure in
intoxication has in him become joy in a noble drunkenness, in ecstasy;
only that their carnal joy has become a delight in colour; that their
mad raging is now in him a pleasure in a rhythm that roars and thunders
and bursts in foam. The deepest thing in his race, an inflexible
vitality which is not to be shaken by crises or catastrophes, has in him
become universal law, a conscious, intensified zest in life. For when a
country has become strong and rejoices in its strength, it needs, like
every plethora, a cry, an exultation. Just as Walt Whitman was the
exultation of America in its new strength, Verhaeren is the triumph of
the Belgian race, and of the European race too. For this glad confession
of life is so strong, so glowing, so virile that it cannot be thought of
as breaking forth from the heart of one individual, but is evidently the
delight of a fresh young nation in its beautiful and yet unfathomed
power.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 'Ma Race' (_Les Forces Tumultueuses_).
YOUTH IN FLANDERS
Seize, dix-sept et dix-huit ans!
O ce désir d'être avant l'âge et le vrai temps
Celui
Dont chacun dit
Il boit à larges brocs et met à mal les filles!
É.V., _Les Tendresses Premières_.
The history of modern Belgian literature begins, by a whim of chance, in
one and the same house. In Ghent, the favourite city of the Emperor
Charles V., in the old, heavy Flemish town that is still girdled with
ramparts, lies, remote from the noisy streets, the grey Jesuit college
of Sainte-Barbe. A cloister with thick, cold, frowning walls, mute
corridors, silent refectories, reminding one somewhat of the beautiful
colleges in Oxford, save that here there is no ivy softening the walls,
and no flowers to lay their variegated carpet over the green courts.
Here, in the seventies, two strange pairs of boys meet on the
school-benches; here among thousands of names are four which are
destined in later days to be the pride of their country. First, Georges
Rodenbach and Émile Verhaeren, then Maeterlinck and Charles van
Lerberghe--two pairs of friendships, both of which are now torn asunder
by death. The weaker, the more delicate of the four, Georges Rodenbach
and Charles van Lerberghe, have died; Emile Verhaeren and Maeterlinck,
the two heroes of Flanders, are still growing and not yet at the zenith
of their fame. But all four began their course in the old college. The
Jesuit fathers taught them their humanities, and even to write poems--in
Latin, it is true, to begin with; and in this exercise, strange to say,
Maeterlinck was excelled by van Lerberghe with his more instinctive
sense of form, and Verhaeren by the more supple Georges Rodenbach. With
rigorous earnestness the fathers trained them to respect the past, to
have faith in conventional things, to think in old grooves, and to hate
innovations. The aim was not only to keep them Catholics, but to win
them for the priesthood: these cloister walls were to protect them from
the hostile breath of the new world, from the freshening wind which, in
Flanders as everywhere else, was assailing the growing generation.
But in these four pupils the aim was not realised, least of all in
Verhaeren, perhaps for the very reason that he, as the scion of a
strictly orthodox family, was the most fitted to be a priest; because
his mind did not absorb conviction mechanically, but achieved it by
vital processes; because his inmost being was self-surrender and a
glowing devotion to great ideas. However, the call of the open country,
in which he had grown up, was too strong in him; the voice of life was
too loud in his blood for so early a renunciation of all; his mind was
too tameless to be satisfied with the established and the traditional.
The impressions of his childhood were more vivid than the teaching of
his masters. For Verhaeren was born in the country, at St. Amand on the
Scheldt (on the 21st of May 1855), where the landscape rolls to the vast
horizons of the heath and the sea. Here in the happiest manner kindly
circumstances wove the garland of his earlier years. His parents were
well-to-do people who had retired from the din of the town to this
little corner of Flanders; here they had a cottage of their own, with a
front garden ablaze with flowers of all colours. And immediately behind
the house began the great golden fields, the tangle of flowering
hedgerows; and close by was the river with its slow waves hasting no
longer, feeling the nearness of their goal, the infinite ocean. Of the
untrammelled days of his boyhood the ageing poet has told us in his
wonderful book _Les Tendresses Premières_. He has told us of the boy he
was when he ran across country; clambered into the corn-loft where the
glittering grain was heaped; climbed steeples; watched the peasants at
their sowing and reaping; and listened to the maids at the washing-tub
singing old Flemish songs. He watched all trades; he rummaged in every
corner. He would sit with the watch-maker, marvelling at the humming
little wheels that fashioned the hour; and no less to see the glowing
maw of the oven in the bakery swallowing the corn which only the day
before had glided through his fingers in rustling ears, and was now
already bread, golden, warm, and odorous. At games he would watch in
astonishment the glad strength of the young fellows tumbling the reeling
skittles over; and he would wander with the playing band from village to
village, from fair to fair. And, sitting on the bank of the Scheldt, he
would watch the ships, with their coloured streamers, come and go, and
in his dreams follow them to the vast distances, which he only knew from
sailors' yarns and pictures in old books. All this, this daily physical
familiarity with the things of Nature, this lived insight into the
thousand activities of the working-day, became his inalienable
possession. Inalienable, too, was the humane feeling he acquired that he
was one at heart with the people of his village. From them he learned
the names of all these thousand things, and the intelligence of the
mysterious mechanism in all skilled handiwork, and all the petty cares
and perplexities of these many scattered little souls of life which,
combined, are the soul of a whole land. And therefore Verhaeren is the
only one among modern poets in the French tongue who is really popular
with his countrymen of all ranks. He still goes in and out among them as
their equal, sits in their circle even now, when fame has long since
shown him his place among the best and noblest, chats with the peasants
in the village inn, and loves to hear them discussing the weather and
the harvest and the thousand little things of their narrow world. He
belongs to them, and they belong to him. He loves their life, their
cares, their labour, loves this whole land with its tempests raging from
the north, with its hail and snow, its thundering sea and lowering
clouds. It is with pride that he claims kindred with his race and land;
and indeed there is often in his gait and in his gestures something of
the peasant trampling with heavy steps and hard knee after his plough;
and his eyes 'are grey as his native sea, his hair is yellow like the
corn of his fields.' These elemental forces are in his whole being and
production. You feel that he has never lost touch with Nature, that he
is still organically connected with the fields, the sea, the open air;
he to whom spring is physically painful, who is depressed by relaxing
air, who loves the weather of his home-land, its vehemence, and its
savage, tameless strength.
For this very reason he has in later years felt, what was natively
uncongenial to him--the great cities--differently and far more intensely
than poets brought up in them. What to the latter appeared self-evident
was to him astonishment, abomination, terror, admiration, and love. For
him the atmosphere we breathe in cities was heavy, stifling, poisoned;
the streets between the massed houses were too narrow, too congested;
hourly, at first in pain and then with admiration, he has felt the
beautiful fearfulness of the vast dimensions, the strangeness of the new
forms of life. Just as we walk through mountain ravines dumbfounded and
terrified by their sublimity, he has walked through streets of cities,
first slowly accustoming himself to them; thus he has explored them,
described them, celebrated them, and in the deepest sense lived them.
Their fever has streamed into his blood; their revolts have reared in
him like wild horses; their haste and unrest has whipped his nerves for
half the span of a man's life. But then he has returned home again. In
his fifties he has taken refuge once more in his fields, under the
lonely sky of Flanders. He lives in a lonely cottage somewhere in
Belgium, where the railway does not reach, enjoying himself among
cheerful and simple people who fill their days with plain labour, like
the friends and companions of his boyhood. With a joy intensified he
goes eagerly year by year to the sea, as though his lungs and his heart
needed it to breathe strongly again, to feel life with more jubilant
enthusiasm. In the man of sixty there is a wonderful return of his
healthy, happy childhood; and to the Flanders that inspired his first
verses his last have been dedicated.
Against this atavism, against this bright and inalienable joy in life,
the _patres_ of Sainte-Barbe could do nothing. They could only deflect
his great hunger of life from material things, and turn it in the
direction of science, of art. The priest they sought to make of him he
has really become, only he has preached everything that they proscribed,
and fought against everything that they praised. At the time Verhaeren
leaves school, he is already filled with that noble yet feverish greed
of life, that tameless yearning for intensive enjoyments heightened to
the degree of pain which is so characteristic of him. The priesthood was
repugnant to him. Nor was he more allured by the prospect, held out to
him, of directing his uncle's workshop. It is not yet definitely the
poetic vocation which appeals to him, but he does desire a free active
calling with unlimited possibilities. To gain time for his final
decision, he studies jurisprudence, and becomes a barrister. In these
student years in Louvain Verhaeren gave free rein to his untameable zest
in life; as a true Fleming he eschewed moderation and launched into
intemperance. To this very day he is fond of telling of his liking for.
good Belgian beer, and of how the students got drunk, danced at all the
kermesses, caroused and feasted, when the fury came over them, and got
into all kinds, of mischief, which often enough brought them into
conflict with the police. Uncertainty was never a feature of his
character, and so his Roman Catholicism was in those years no silent and
impersonal faith, but a militant orthodoxy. A handful of hotspurs--the
publisher Deman was one of them, and another was the tenor van Dyck--set
a newspaper going, in which they lashed away mercilessly at the
corruption of the modern world, and did not forget to blow their own
trumpets. The university was not slow to veto these immature
manifestations; but ere long they started a second periodical, which
was, however, more in harmony with the great contemporary movements.
Betweenwhiles verses were written. And still more passionate is the
young poet's activity when, in the year 1881, he is called to the bar in
Brussels. Here he makes friends with men of great vitality: he is
welcomed by a circle of painters and artists, and a cénacle of young
talents is formed who have the authentic enthusiasm for art, and who
feel that they are violently opposed to the conservative bourgeoisie of
Brussels. Verhaeren, who at this time greedily adopts all fashionable
freakishness as something new, and struts about in fantastic apparel,
promptly acquires notoriety by his vehement passionateness and his first
literary attempts. He had begun to write verse in his school-days.
Lamartine had been his model, then Victor Hugo, who bewitches young
people, that lord of magnificent gestures, that undisputed master of
words. These juvenilia of Verhaeren have never been published, and
probably they have little interest, for in them his tameless vitality
attempted expression in immaculate Alexandrines. More and more, as his
artistic insight grew, he felt that his vocation was to be a poet; the
meagre success he achieved as a barrister confirmed him in this
conviction, and so in the end, following the advice of Edmond Picard, he
discarded the barrister's gown, which now seemed to him as narrow and
stifling as he had once thought the priest's cassock to be.
And then came the hour, the first decisive hour. Lemonnier was as fond
of relating it as is Verhaeren; both would speak of it with their
fervent, proud joy in a friendship of over thirty years; both with
heartfelt admiration, the one for the other. Once, it was a rainy day,
Verhaeren burst in on Lemonnier, whom he did not know, trampling into
the elder man's lodging with his heavy peasant's tread, hailing him with
his hearty gesture, and blurting out: 'Je veux vous lire des vers!' It
was the manuscript of his first book _Les Flamandes_; and now he
recited, while the rain poured down outside, with his hard voice and
sharp scansion, his great enthusiasm and his compelling gestures, those
pictures, palpitating with life, of Flanders, that first free confession
of patriotism and foaming vitality. And Lemonnier encouraged him,
congratulated him, helped him, and suggested alterations, and soon the
book appeared, to the terror of Verhaeren's strictly orthodox family, to
the horror of the critics, who were helpless in the face of such an
explosion of strength. Execrated and lauded, it immediately compelled
interest. In Belgium, it is true, it was less acclaimed than declaimed
against; but nevertheless it everywhere excited a commotion, and that
grumbling unrest which always heralds the advent of a new force.
'LES FLAMANDES'
Je suis le fils de cette race
Tenace,
Qui veut, après avoir voulu
Encore, encore et encore plus.
É.V., _Ma Race_.
The life-work of great artists contains not only a single, but a
threefold work of art. The actual creation is only the first, and not
always the most important; the second must be the life of the artists
themselves; the third must be the harmoniously finished, organically
connected relationship between the act of creating and the thing
created, between poetry and life. To survey how inner growth is
connected with external formation, how crises of physical reality are
connected with artistic decadence, how development and completion
interpenetrate as much in personal experience as in the artistic
creation, must be an equal artistic rapture, must disengage as pure a
line of beauty as the individual work. In Verhaeren these conditions of
the threefold work of art are accomplished in full. Harsh and abrupt as
the contrasts in his books seem to be, the totality of his development
is yet rounded off to a clear line, to the figure of a circle. In the
beginning the end was contained, and in the end the beginning: the bold
curve returns to itself. Like one who travels round the world and
circles the vast circumference of the globe, he comes back in the end to
his starting-point. Beginning and end touch in the motive of his work.
To the country to which his youth belonged his old age returns: Flanders
inspired his first book, and to Flanders his last books are dedicated.
True it is, between these two books _Les Flamandes_ and _Les Blés
Mouvants_, between the work of the man of five-and-twenty and that of
the man of sixty, lies the world of an evolution with, all its points of
view and achievements. Only now, when the line that was at first so
capricious has returned to itself, can its form be surveyed and its
harmony perceived. A purely external observation has become penetration:
the eye no longer exclusively regards the external phenomena of things,
but all has been seized in his soul from within and imaged in accordance
with its reality. Now nothing is seen isolated, from the point of view
of curiosity or passing interest, but everything is looked upon as
something that is, that has grown, and that is still growing. The motive
is the same in the first and in the last books; only, in the first book
we have isolated contemplation, while in the great creations of the last
period the vast horizons of the modern world are set behind the scenes,
with the shadows of the past on the one side, and, as well, with fiery
presentiments of the future shedding a new light over the landscape.
The painter, who only portrayed the outer surface, the patina, has
developed into the poet, he who in a musical vibration vivifies the
psychic and the inconceivable. These two works stand in the same
relation to each other as Wagner's first operas, _Rienzi_ and
_Tannhäuser_, do to his later creations, to the _Ring_ and _Parsifal_:
what was at first only intuitive becomes consciously creative. And as in
Wagner's case, so too with Verhaeren there are to this very day people
who prefer the works that are still prisoned in the traditional form to
those which were created later, and who are thus, in reality, greater
strangers to the poet than those who, from principle, assume a hostile
attitude to his artistic work.
_Les Flamandes_, Verhaeren's first work, appeared in a period of
literary commotion. Zola's realistic novels had just become the object
of discussion; and they had stirred up, not France only, but the
adjacent countries as well. In Belgium Camille Lemonnier was the
interpreter of this new naturalism, which regarded absolute truth as
more important than beauty, and which saw the sole aim of imaginative
literature in photography, in the exact, scientifically accurate
reproduction of reality. To-day, now that excessive naturalism has been
overcome, we know that this theory only brings us half-way along the
road; that beauty may live by the side of truth; that on the other hand
truth is not identical with art, but that it was only necessary to
establish a transmutation of the value of beauty; that it was in the
actual, in realities, that beauty was to be sought. Every new theory, if
it is to succeed, needs a strong dose of exaggeration. And the idea of
realising reality in poetry seduced young Verhaeren into carefully
avoiding, in the description of his native province, all that is
sentimental and romantic, and deluded him with the hope of expressing in
his verse only what is coarse, primitive, and savage. Something external
and something internal, nature and intention, combined to cause this
effect. For the hatred of all that is soft and weak, rounded off and in
repose, is in Verhaeren's blood. His temperament was from the first
fiery, and loved to respond to strong provocation with a violent blow.
There was ever in him a love of the brutal, the hard, the rough, the
angular; he had always a liking for what is glaring and intensive, loud
and noisy. It is only in his latest books that, thanks to his cooler
blood, he has attained classical perfection and purity. In those days,
moreover, his hatred of sentimental idealisation, the hatred that in
Germany fulminated against Defregger's drawing-room Tyrolese, Auerbach's
scented peasants, and the spruce mythology of poetical pictures, led him
deliberately to emphasise what is brutal, unæsthetic, and, as it was
then felt, unpoetical; led him, as it were, to trample with heavy shoes
in the tedious footsteps of French poets. Barbarian: this was the word
they tried to kill him with, not so much on account of the harshness and
coarseness of his diction, which often reminds one of the guttural
sounds of German, as because of the savage selection of his instinct,
which always preferred what is ringingly resonant and ferociously alive,
which never fed on nectar and ambrosia, but tore red and steaming shreds
of flesh from the body of life. And genuinely barbarous, savage with
Teutonic strength, is this his inroad into French literature, reminding
one of those migrations of the Teutons into the Latin lands, where they
rushed ponderously to battle with wild and raucous cries, to learn,
after a time, a higher culture and the finer instincts of life from
those they had conquered. Verhaeren in this book does not describe what
is amiable and dreamy in Flanders, not idylls, but 'les fureurs
d'estomac, de ventre et de débauche,'[1] ail the explosions of the lust
of life, the orgies of peasants, and even of the animal world. Before
him, his old schoolfellow Rodenbach had described Flanders to the French
in poems that sounded gently with a silvery note, like the peal of
belfries hovering over roofs; he had reminded them of that unforgettable
melancholy of the evening over the canals of Bruges, of the magic of the
moonlight over fields framed with dikes and hedges of willows. But
Verhaeren closes his ears to hints of death; he describes life at its
maddest, 'le décor monstrueux des grasses kermesses,'[2] popular
festivals, in which intoxication and sensual pleasure sting the
unbridled strength of the crowd, in which the demands of the body and
the greed of money come into conflict, and the bestial nature of man
overthrows the painfully learned lessons of morality. And even in these
descriptions, which often teem with the exuberance of Rabelais, one
feels that even this explosive life is not mad enough for him, that he
yearns to intensify life out and beyond reality: 'jadis les gars avaient
les reins plus fermes et les garces plus beau téton.'[3] These young
fellows are too weak for him, the wenches too gentle; he cries for the
Flanders of olden time, as it lives in the glowing pictures of Rubens
and Jordaens and Breughel. These are his true masters, they, the
revellers, who created their masterpieces between two orgies, whose
laughter and feasting ring into the motives of their pictures. Some of
the poems in _Les Flamandes_ are direct imitations of certain interiors
and sensual genre-pictures: lads afire with lust forcing wenches under
the hedges; peasants in their drunken jubilation dancing round the inn
table. His desire is to sing that superabundance of vitality which
relieves itself by excess, excess flung into excess, even in sensual
pleasures. And his own colours and words, which are laid on with lavish
profusion and flow along in liquid fire, are themselves a debauch, a
'rut' (a favourite word of his). This vaunting display of seething
pictures is nothing less than an orgy. A terrific sensuality rages to
exhaustion as much in the execution as in the motive, a delight in these
creatures who have the madness of rutting stallions, who root about in
odorous meats and in the flowering flesh of women, who of set purpose
gorge themselves with beer and wine, and then in the dance and in
embraces discharge all the fire they have swallowed. Now and again a
reposeful picture alternates, firmly fixed in the dark frame of a
sonnet. But the hot wave streams over these breathing-spaces, and again
the mood is that of Rubens and of Jordaens, those mighty revellers.
But naturalistic art is pictorial, not poetic. And it is the great
defect of this book that it was written by an inspired painter only, not
yet by a poet. The words are coloured, but they are not free; they do
not yet rock themselves in their own rhythm; they do not yet storm along
to soar aloft with the inspiration; they are wild horses regularly
trotting along in the shafts of the Alexandrine. There is a disparity
between the inner intractability and the external regularity of these
poems. The ore has not yet been molten long enough in the crucible of
life to burst the hereditary mould. You feel that the avidity of life
which is the substance of the work has really been seen 'à travers un
tempérament,' that here a strong personality is in revolt against all
tradition, a strong personality whose ponderous onslaught was bound to
strike terror into the cautious and the short-sighted. But the strength
and the art are not yet emancipated. Verhaeren is already a passionate
onlooker, but he is still only an onlooker, one who stands without and
not within the vortex, who watches everything with inspired sympathy,
but who has not yet experienced it. This land of Flanders has not yet
become a part of the poet's sensibility; the new point of view and the
new form for it are not yet achieved; there is yet wanting that final
smelting of the artistic excitement which is bound to burst all bonds
and restrictions, to flame along in its own free feeling in an
enraptured intoxication.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (_Les Flamandes_).
[2] 'Les Vieux Maîtres' (_Les Flamandes_).
[3] 'Truandailles' (_Ibid._).
THE MONKS
Moines venus vers nous des horizons gothiques,
Mais dont l'âme, mais dont l'esprit meurt de demain....
Mes vers vous bâtiront de mystiques autels.
É.V., 'Aux Moines.'
Rubens, that lavish reveller, is the genius of the Flemish zest in
living; but zest in living is only the temperament and not the soul of
Flanders. Before him there were the earnest masters of the cloisters,
the primitives, the van Eycks, Memling, Gerhard David, Roger van der
Weyden; and after them came Rembrandt, the meditative visionary, the
restless seeker after new values. Belgium is something else beside the
merry land of kermesses; the healthy, sensual people are not the soul of
Flanders. Glaring lights cast strong shadows. All vitality that is
strongly conscious of itself produces its counterpart, seclusion and
asceticism; it is just the healthiest, the elemental races--the Russians
of to-day for instance--who among their strong have the weak, among
their gluttons of life those who avert their faces from it, among those
who assent some who deny. By the
|
oisen järven rannalle, josta
valkoinen hiekka pohottaa kauas veden alta. Keskellä järveä on vene ja
soutaja siinä, vanhannäköinen mies. Kalanpyyntihommissa lienee...
Toiselta puolen järven näkyy pienoinen talonalku: uusi pirtti,
navettarakennus ja sauna, joka on kivikon päällä, aivan veden rajassa.
Näkyy olevan vähä pellonviljelystä talon ympärillä, kellertävä
pellonsänki paistaa ilta-auringon valossa tänne toiselle puolen somalta
ja miellyttävältä, ja vähäinen elohaasia pirtin takana... siinä olivat
varmaan talon lyhteet... tuskin riihellistä... Venheessä oleva mies
huomaa minut rannalla, soutaa maihin sinne, jossa seison, ja hyvää
iltaa toivottaa. Hän on vankka valkoverinen mies. Kasvot ovat kyllä jo
ryppyiset, mutta varressa näyttää vielä olevan nuoruuden voimaa ja
joustavuutta. Ja koko olennossa, äänessä ja liikkeessä ilmaantuu
katkeruutta ja tyytymättömyyttä.
"Mihinkä se on matka?" kysyy hän, kun astun veneeseen, ja katselee
epäluuloisesti minua. "Eipä tämän kautta monta kulkijaa ole sattunut...
taitaa kolmas olla sitten kun tähän tulin asumaan..."
"Kauanko olette tässä asunut?"
"Viidestoista kesä kulumassa", vastaa hän vitkaan ja semmoisella
äänellä, josta minä ymmärrän, että sama se olisi, jos olisi jo
viideskymmeneskin kesä... ei tämä sen parempaa olisi...
Siitä pääsemme puheen alkuun. Hän se nyt juuri on Iikka Oinas, ja tämä
järvi on Juukujärvi.
Kun hän saa tietää kuka olen ja mille asialle olen menossa, tulee hän
kuin ilosemmaksi ja niinkuin leppyisi itselleen ja muille.
"Vai sinne matka! No kuinka te tämän kautta tulitte kulkeneeksi?"
tiedustelee hän.
"No, tiesin tämänkin järven rannalla asukkaan olevan, niin ajattelin,
että kuljenpahan senkin Juukujärven kautta, että näen Oinas-Iikankin
asunnon."
"Jo tässä katselemista onkin", hymähtää hän kuin pilkaten.
Nousemme maihin mökin rantaan. Hän tempaa venheen käsipuolella
teloilleen ja arvelee:
"Jos olisikin tuossa järvessä kaloja, niin olisi se sekään..."
Talon vainio-aita on pantu paksuista kuusirangoista kuin hirsistä, ja
aivan pirtin takaa alkaa hongikko kuin kynttilöitä...
"No puuta täällä kuitenkin on, jos ei muuta!"
"No sitä tässä on", vastaa hän välinpitämättömästi.
Olen päättänyt yöpyä Oinas-Iikan asunnolle, ja pakostakin se on.
Syyspäivä on loppumaisillaan ja ensimäiseen asuntoon on penikulman
taival ja enimmäkseen leväisiä jänkkiä, -- maisia maita ei kuin
selkärankana soiden välillä.
Pimeän tullen sytyttää Iikka iloisen tervasnuotion piisiin ja sen
ympärille kokoontuvat kaikki perheenjäsenet tarinoimaan ja uutisia
kirkonkylästä kuulemaan.
Iikan vaimo on kivuloinen ja vaivaisennäköinen. Lapsia on vielä viisi
nuorinta kotona, vanhemmat ovat maailmalla. Iikka alkaa vähitellen
selittää omaa elämäänsä ja vaimokin ottaa keskusteluun osaa, lisäämällä
Iikan kertomukseen jonkun erityisemmän asianhaaran...
Kun hän tähän alkoi taloa tehdä, uskoi hän varmaan, että sitten kun
saisi tämän kuntoon, tekisi peltoa ja niittyä raivaisi, niin saisi
metsääkin, josta kertyisi rahaa, että kykenisi vankemmasti maantyötä
tekemään. Mutta sitten kun tulikin tieto, ettei metsää annetakaan...
että kruunu hakkaa ensin parhaat puut pois... ja loput näreiköt
jätetään sitten talolle polttopuuksi...
"Ensi vuosina minäkin tässä koetin työtä tehdä, vaikka ruoka oli
muualta ansaittava ja perhe oli suuri. Ja valmista tässä olisi
tullutkin, sillä meillä oli kaksi vankkaa poikaa, jotka nytkin ovat
tukkitöissä, missä lienevätkään. Varsinkin koetimme saada niittyä
raivatuksi, sillä niitty se on pellon äiti, ja lannatta tämäkään maa ei
mitään kasva. Kolmantena vuonna jo saatoimme elättää viisi lehmää,
vaikka ensi vuonna hädintuskin yhden saimme elätetyksi yli talven...
Mutta kun pojat kuulivat, ettei metsää saada, että hukkaan menee
heidänkin työntekonsa, niin heittivät työnteon pois ja läksivät
tukkitöihin", selitti Iikka.
"Kyllä tässä paikassa sentään tuo Iikka on niin kovan päivän nähnyt,
ettei sitä kukaan usko. Kun muuriakin alettiin hommata, niin savi piti
kontissa kantaa monen virstan päästä ja elintarpeet kirkonkylästä... Jo
sen tietää omakseen, kun jauhosäkin tänne asti saapi."
"Vallesmanni ja forstmestari kun käyvät, niin hokevat, että peltoa
pitäisi olla enempi, rakennuksia isontaa, niittyä raivata, niittylatoja
tehdä ja vaikka mitä hommata... Eivät ne, pöllöt, kysy millä kehvetillä
(sano paremmin) tässä työtä tekee, kun lujalla pitää, että ehtii
jokapäiväisen leivän muualta ansaita... Talo tässä pitäisi minun vaan
vähillä varoillani tehdä, ja kun valmiiksi saisin, niin kruunu viepi
metsän..."
Hän sanoi sen kyllääntyneellä, tyytymättömällä äänellä. Eikä se minusta
kumma ollutkaan.
"Olisin tämän jo myynyt, vaan eihän tämmöiseen kiveliöön kukaan tahdo
asumaan..."
"Onko tämä hallanarka?" kysäisin.
"No ei kertaakaan ole vielä oikeaa leipää kasvanut... lentäviä kaunoja
on tullut milloin tynnyri, milloin puolitoista, mutta aina vähempi kuin
mitä kylvänyt olen... Forstmestari se hokee, että pitäisi ojittaa tuo
takasuo, että sieltä se pakkanen aina nousee vainioon, vaan jo minä nyt
kesällä sanoin, että ojittakoon se, joka metsänkin ottaa. Kyllä minä jo
tässä olen ilmanedestä osaltani työtä tehnyt..."
"Mutta eipähän ollut siihen mitään virkkamista forstmestarillakaan",
muisteli vaimo taas siihen.
Minä tarjosin Iikalle kotelostani sikaarin. Kun oli sytyttänyt sen,
niin arveli:
"Siksipä minä en enää ole näinä vuosina viitsinyt mitään yrittää. Eihän
tätä kykene omaksi saamaan kuitenkaan ikipäivänä semmoisilla ehdoilla
kuin kruunulla on... ja vanhenen minäkin, eikä ole halua tehdäkään, kun
toivo on niin peräti pieni..."
"Pois tästä on meillä ollutkin aikomus muuttaa", lisäsi taas vaimo
siihen.
"Onhan sitä koettu ja kuuluu siitä olleen lehdissäkin, että siitä tulee
herrainpäivillä puhe kruununmaan asukkaistakin -- ja senvuoksi minä
tässä olen odotellut, että jos rupeaisi hallitus auttamaan köyhimpiä
kruununmaan asukkaita, että hekin pääsisivät elämän alkuun... Vaan ei
ole kuulunut sen kummempaa vielä... ja tuskin siitä minun eläessäni
tuleekaan", puheli Iikka taas. Mitä minulla siihen olikaan vastaan
sanomista. "Koettaisivat kerran herratkin kylmään metsään taloa tehdä,
eikä olisi alkua mitään muuta kuin paljaat kämmenet, niin eiköhän
alkaisi haluttaa, että saisi nuo puut omikseen, niin kyllä täällä
sitten alkaisi elää", naurahti hän.
"Kyllähän niin taitaisi olla", puolustelin minäkin.
"Kiertelin minä silloin Iikkaa, ettemme lähtisi tänne asumattomaan
kiveliöön, vaan alkaisimme torppariksi... vaan eihän se ole, tuo Iikka,
minua milloinkaan kuunnellut", muisteli vaimo.
"Mielipä tuota teki sinunkin pois ihmisten jaloista", muistutti Iikka
vuorostaan. Hän lisäsi tervaksia takkaan ja virkkoi: "Tätä täällä kyllä
on... ei olekaan muuta hauskaa kuin lämmintä."
"Mutta sitäkään ei ole kaikilla", sanoin.
Pitkän aikaa olimme äänettöminä.
"Kuuluu nyt ensi talveksi tulevan paljon tukinajoja... Sinne pitää
pyrkiä... Hevonenkin käy jo vanhaksi, mutta siivolla hoidolla se vielä
on hevosten parhaita", lohdutti Iikka sitten itseään.
Minä innostuin Iikalle pitämään esitelmää. Koetin hänelle teroittaa,
että kun hän jo näin paljon oli työtä tehnyt... niin koettaisi
jatkaa... Jos tuntuisikin ikävältä työnteko, kun tulevaisuus oli
epävarma, niin eihän vielä tiennyt, vaikka hallituskin rupeaisi
kruununmaan asukkaita auttamaan. Kun jo oli siksikin hyvä elämisen
alku, -- kun kuusi lehmänlukua jo -- ja hevonen, -- niin hullutustahan
olisi jättää tähän... ja lähteä kyliä kiertämään... Ja ehkäpä se
hallakin pakenee, kun viljelykset enenevät... kun on näin hyvä
pirttikin, jossa on lämmintä talvipakkasellakin -- ja oma koto... ja
rakennuspuutahan saapi ottaa mielensä mukaan...
Siihen ei Iikka eikä emäntäkään mitään virkkaneet. Katselivat vain
toisiaan, ja näytti niinkuin olisivat kammoissaan äskeisistä
puheistaan.
"Paljonhan tässä kyllä on työtä tehty", virkkoi vihdoin emäntä.
Mutta Iikka tuumasi, jakkaraltaan nousten:
"Pitäisipä tästä lähteä ruunaakin illastamaan."
Hän kurkotti orrelta kourallisen kuivia päreitä ja aikoi lähteä.
"Minäkin lähden teidän ruunaanne katselemaan."
Pihalla sytytti hän jo päreen, jonka kellertävässä valossa sitten
menimme talliin päin.
Olihan siellä vankka ruuna, ja kun kesän oli laitumella ollut, oli
lihavakin ja täyteläinen kuin säkki.
"Kyllä se nuorena oli semmoinen hevonen, ettei sille tukkihommassa
vertaa löytynyt", kehuskeli hän, heiniä ruunalleen antaessaan.
Poikkesimme navettaankin. Lihavat olivat lehmätkin, valkoisia
kallipäitä kaikki. Oven pielessä oli sonnikin, sarveton sekin, ja
kohtaloonsa ja onneensa tyytyväiseltä näytti, vilpittömine naamoineen
ja jukuripäineen.
"Mahtaa olla hyvä laidun, kun lehmänne ovat noin lihavia", arvelin.
"Kyllä niillä siellä on sijaa olla ja ruokaa syödä", tuumasi Iikka.
Minä aloin Iikalle taas selittää, että hullutusta olisi hajoittaa nyt
elämäänsä ja lähteä muualle parempaa hakemaan...
"Olen minä sitä itsekin ajatellut... ja jos sattuisi kuolema tulemaan
ennenkuin ehtisi kovin vanhaksi ja saamattomaksi, niin eiköhän tuota
elää kituuttelisi... tässäkin..."
Heillä oli kamarikin, johon minulle oli vuode valmistettu.
Kun haastelin emännälle, että olihan heillä jo "maanpäällistäkin" minkä
mitäkin, kun vain noin hyviä makuuvaatteitakin, virkkoi hän:
"Minun ne ovat. Palvelusajallani jo olen laittanut nämä kaikki, mitä
tässä näkyy... ja oli sitä puhdasta rahaakin, kun yhteen menimme..."
"Vai oli rahaakin!..."
"Oli... eikä sitä nyt vieläkään niin hätää ole, vaikka se tuo Iikka
välistä lörpöttelee..."
"No näkeehän tämän, että hyvähän teillä on elämä."
"Tässä tuota on menty ja kyllä minun se täytyy sanoa, että ei ole vielä
hätäpäivää ollut... ei ruuan eikä juoman puutetta... ei ole, Jumalan
kiitos..."
Aamulla varhain, kun syyskuun aurinko teki nousuaan, valmistelin minä
jo taipaleelle.
Iikka sanoi lähtevänsä Karhujoelle asti saattamaan. Siellä oli hänellä
muutamien latojen edessä pieleksiä, joista aikoi heinät käydä latoihin
hankoamassa ennenkun porot ja hirvet ehtivät niitä polkemaan ja
sotkemaan. Sopi sama matka kuin minullakin.
"Ja siitä lähtee sitten hyvä polku ja pilkottu tie eteenpäin", sanoi
hän.
Ja niin läksimme. Polku johti navetan päitse ja vei riihen sivu
hongikkoon.
Kun pääsimme taipaleelle, alkoi hän tiedustella kaikenlaisia maailman
asioita, mutta varsinkin piti minun kertoa minkä tiesin kruununmaan
asutuksesta entisinä ja nykyisinä aikoina...
Tuosta käynnistäni Juukujärvellä on jo useita vuosia kulunut.
Ja sen olen kuullut, että Iikka on kovasti työtä tehnyt ja nyt viime
kesänä kuuluu saaneen hyvän vuodenkin. Lehmiäkin kuuluu olevan jo
kahdeksan ja neljä lammasta.
Vieläkö sitten odottanevat parempia aikoja?
KÄNSÄ-TOPIAS TULLIKAVALTAJANA
(Kuva Ruotsin rajalta)
Hänet tunsivat sekä Ruotsin- että Suomenpuolen rajavartijat.
Satoja kertoja oli hän ollut joutumassa tullimiesten käsiin Ruotsin
puolella, kun salaa kuljetti milloin mitäkin tullinalaista tavaraa.
Mutta aina oli hän onnistunut livistämään pakoon kuormineen tai aivan
viimeisellä hetkellä ehtinyt palata takaisin ennenkun tullimiehet
saivat kiinni. Välisti pukeusi hän naisen vaatteisiin, laajan
villahuivin päähänsä köyttäen, niin etteivät häntä tunteneet muutkaan,
jopa sitten tullimiehet.
Sellaista hommaa oli Topias pitänyt jo monet vuodet siitä saakka kun
uusi tulliasetus Ruotsissa astui voimaan.
Topiaksella oli mökki Suomen puolella vastapäätä Piippuliinin pulskaa
kauppakartanoa. Ja Piippuliinin patruunin kanssa oli Topias hyvä ystävä
ja hänen nerokas toverinsa. Tuhansia ja sukkelia olivat ne keinot,
joilla patruuni ja Topias pettivät tullimiehiä, eivätkä vain
onnistuneet tullimiehet Topiasta saamaan käsiinsä, vaikka hyvin
tiesivät ja kylältä kuulivat, että Topias "luntreijaa" Piippuliiniin
kaikenlaista tullinalaista tavaraa.
Ei ollut kuuluvissakaan niin nerokasta eikä niin rohkeaa
tullikavaltajaa kuin Känsä-Topias. Hän onnistui aina. Jos joku muu
yritti viemään hyvinkin vähää, vaikkapa vain paperossikassia, niin heti
hän joutui tullimiesten käsiin tai häätyi jättämään kuljettamansa
tavarat huiskeelle, kun näki tullimiesten juoksevan kohti.
Mutta eipäs hätäillyt Känsä-Topias. Hän vaani aina sen ajan, jona
tullimiehet olivat nukkumassa, sillä eivät hekään aina jaksaneet
rajalla "ratsastaa".
Topias oli Suomen puolelaisillekin aivan välttämätön henkilö, sillä
mitä pikkutarvettakin osui Ruotsin puolen kauppiaaseen olemaan, niin
parasta oli kääntyä Topiaan puoleen ja pyytää häntä toimittamaan... Ja
yks' kaks' toimitti Topias, eikä ollut kallis vaivoilleenkaan.
Sillä tullikavallus oli Topiaksesta hauskaa hommaa, helppoa, ja siitä
maksettiin runsas palkka. Varsinkin kun sattui sopivia viinamiehiä,
jotka tarvitsivat "karvasta" eikä Suomen puolelta mistään muualta
saanut kuin kaupungista, joka oli kaukana, oli Topiaksella hyvää
ansiota. Eikä hänen puoleensa turhalla toivolla tarvinnut kenenkään
kääntyäkään. Topias tiesi Ruotsin puolen kaikki salakapakat ja oli
tervetullut vieras kaikkialle.
Mutta nyt näinä viimeksi kuluneina vuosina on Topiaksenkin täytynyt
varovaisemmin ammattiaan harjoittaa. Sillä Bobrikoffin hallituksen
aikana on Suomen puolen rajavartijain joukkoa lisätty, ja muutenkin on
vartioiminen käynyt tiukemmaksi samalla kun se on tullut paljoa
säännöllisemmäksi. Nyt varsinkin, kun huhutaan kieltolaista ja siitä
ettei Suomeen saa enää tuoda minkäänmakuista "karvasta", vaikka
hengenhätä olisi. Ovat tietenkin viranomaiset arvelleet, että taitavat
juopot sentään ryypyn näin rajamaalla hakea vaikka kuinka lujan takaa,
sittenkin vielä, vaikka kieltolakikin on voimassa.
Tiesivät Suomen puolenkin rajavartijat hyvin, että Känsä-Topias oli
nerokas ja näppärä toimittelemaan kansalaisten asioita Ruotsin
kauppiasten luona, tiesivät, että kuljetti ukko välisti laukussaan,
välisti kelkassaan milloin mitäkin tullinalaista tavaraa, sokeria,
kahvia, vaatteita, pikanellirullia ja hyvin usein pullon punssia tai
konjakkia.
Mutta tässä tuonnottain oli Topiaksella merkillinen seikkailu rajalla.
Oli aivan Topiaksen naapuriin asetettu ylimääräinen rajavartija, jolle
erityisesti mainittiin, että Topiaksen toimista oli huolta pidettävä,
koska epäiltiin hänen öisin "luntreijaavan". Mutta älysi Topiaskin sen,
minkä vuoksi rajavartija niin lähelle hänen asuntoansa asetettiin, ja
päätti hänkin puolestaan olla varovainen.
Oikeastaan oli heitä, rajavartijoita, kaksi, jotka Yrjänälle, Topiaksen
naapuriin, tulivat asumaan. He olivat Etelä-Suomesta kotoisin,
valppaita, nuoria miehiä, mutta ei ollut heillä tietona, millaisia
konsteja täällä Ruotsin rajalla tullikavaltajat pitivät. Usein he
kohtasivat Topiaksen tiellä hiihdellen laukku selässä ja hyvä tuuli
naamallaan.
"No, mihin Topias nyt hiihtelee?" tiedustelivat he tuttavallisesti
Topiakselta.
"Tässä aivan naapurissa oli aije käydä", vastasi Topias.
Kun he sitten iltahämyssä seurasivat salaa Topiaksen perässä,
näkivätkin he Topiaksen poikkeavan joelle ja aika vauhtia hiihtävän
Ruotsin puolelle suoraan Piippuliinin valaistua kauppakartanoa kohden.
Nyt oli Topias varmaan taaskin mennyt jotakin luntreijaamaan! Ja
rajavartijat hiihtelivät pitkin rantaa pensaiden suojassa, odotellen
Topiaksen takaisintuloa.
Tietä pitkin, joka oli tikoitettu suomenpuoliselta rannalta poikki joen
suoraan Piippuliiniin, tulla hölkkäsi tuon tuostakin hevonen ja reki,
mutta kun heillä ei ollut minkäänlaista tullinalaista tavaraa, saivat
vapaasti mennä. Tuli jokunen hiihtomieskin, mutta ei ollut heilläkään
mitään "luvatonta", olivat käyneet vain muilla asioilla Ruotsin
puolella.
Mutta jo hiihteli viho viimein Topiaskin. Hiihdännästä ja rykimisestä
tunsivat rajavartijat heti, että jo tulee Topias.
Kahden puolen tietä asettuivat he vahtiin ja koettivat olla
pajupensaiden suojassa, ettei Topias havaitsisi ennenkun ehti kohdalle.
Eikä näyttänytkään Topias mitään pahaa aavistavan, hiihteli rennosti ja
ryki tapansa mukaan väliin. Ja laukku näkyi olevan selässä ja
pullollaan kalua.
Mutta kun Topias juuri ehti rantaan ja aikoi nousta törmän päälle,
karahtivat rajavartijat hänen niskaansa, toinen toiselta puolen tien...
"Ahaa, Topias... Jopa satuttiin yhteen... Mitä naapuriin kuului",
sanoivat he ja alkoivat repostella Topiaksen laukkua.
Topias oli pelästyvinään.
"Herra isä... Mikä tämä on...!"
Mutta sitten hän mukamas tunsi miehet ja sanoi:
"Tuttuja miehiäpä nämä olivatkin... Minä ajattelin, että jos olisi
sosialisteja..."
"Mitä sinulla on laukussa?" ärhentelivät tullimiehet ja alkoivat kiskoa
laukkua Topiaksen selästä.
"Saapi kai sen katsella... tyhjän laukun", lupasi Topias ja auttoi
laukkua selästään.
"Vai tyhjä... Pullollaanhan tämä on", arvelivat tullimiehet.
Mutta kun he avasivat laukun, löysivät he sieltä kuusenhakoja aika
läjän.
"Kuka perkele minun laukkuuni on kuusenhakoja pannut?" oli Topias
olevinaan.
"Oletpa lurjus mieheksi", arvelivat tullimiehet aikalailla noloina.
Mutta Topias tyhjensi laukkunsa kuusen haoista ja sitä tehdessään
mainoi, että mikä kelvoton oli täyttänyt hänen laukkunsa...
Mutta kun tullimiehet poistuivat ja vähän häpeissään noituivat
Topiaksen sukkeluutta, palasikin Topias näppärästi ruotsinpuoliselle
rannalle, johon lumeen oli kätkenyt aika säkillisen minkä mitäkin
tavaraa. Ne sulloi hän laukkuunsa ja läksi hiihtämään takaisin. Mutta
nyt ei hän hiihtänyt tikoitettua tietä pitkin, vaan ohjasi suksensa
Käkisaaren päitse ja nousi maihin Suomen puolelle vasta alempana kylää.
Monta kertaa yrittivät tullimiehet Topiaksen kimppuun, mutta aina
huonolla menestyksellä. Useimmiten oli hänellä laukku tyhjänä, vaikka
hän palasi Ruotsin puolelta, ja jos siinä jotakin oli, oli se semmoista
tavaraa, jota ei iljennyt käsin koskea.
Mutta tietona oli, että Topias hommaili.
Topiaksen pirtti oli ihan tienposkessa, ja siinä kulkijat kävivät öisin
ja päivillä. Siinä oli aina tervetullut, oli aika mikä hyvänsä. Ja
hauskaa ja rentoa elämää sai pitää. Topiaksen eukko, hieromisestaan
kuuluisa Matleena, oli oiva ja ketterä vaimo kulkijoille kahvia
keittämään ja muutenkin makeita puheita pitämään. Sai siinä
Känsä-Topiaksen pirtillä kaupungista palaava matkamies kahvin sekaan
tipauttaa viinaa ja puol'kuppisen rauhassa tehdä ja nautita. Ei siitä
talonväki nokkaantunut niinkuin monessa muussa kahvipaikassa tekivät.
Ja niin oli Topias eukkoineen tunnettu laajalti, ja kaikki kulkijat
heitä kävivät tervehtimässä.
-- Jossa peura pehtelee, siinä karva katkeaa -- tuumaili Matleena, kun
vieraat olivat menneet ja hän tyytyväisenä laski lanttejaan.
Keväällä kerran tuli ylimaasta kaksi miestä ja asettuivat yöksi
Topiaksen pirtille. Koko yön juttelivat he Topiaksen kanssa,
kuiskailivat ja tuumailivat. He olivat Topiakselle vanhoja tuttavia ja
aina kulkiessaan hänen mökkiinsä poikkesivat.
Heillä oli sellainen asia, että tarvitsivat Topiaksen avukseen. Kotiaan
ylimaahan olivat he lähteneet kesäetuja noutamaan, mutta olivat osan
ostoksistaan tehneet Ruotsin puolella, koska saivat sieltä paljoa
helpommalla. Nyt oli kysymys kuinka saataisiin tullinalainen tavara
yli.
"Paha nyt on saada", jutteli Topias. "Tullimiehiä on lisätty joka
kylään, ja ne ovat virkkuja ja valppaita. Paha niitä on pettää, ne ovat
tulleet niin varovaisiksi. Mutta koettaa täytyy."
Ja miehet kertoivat lisäksi, että oli heillä muun tavaran joukossa
säkki, jossa oli kymmenen pulloa konjakkia, lääkkeeksi ylimaan kyliin.
Niin kertoivat ja miehissä miettivät miten parhaiten menettelisivät.
"Pankaahan nyt levolle", sanoi aamupuoleen yötä Topias. "Mietitään
tässä aamulla lisää."
Ja miehet laskeusivat levolle, Topiaksen kamariin, johon Matleena oli
vieraille vuoteen valmistanut. -- Ja luulivat, että nukkumaan se panee
Topiaskin.
Mutta Topias ei käynytkään levolle, vaan herätti Matleenan ja antoi
hänelle muutamia määräyksiä.
Ulkona alkoi varhainen kevätaamu sarastaa, kun Topias haki kelkkansa
halkovajasta. Oli kylmä aamu ja nuoskea lumi oli kovettunut kovaksi ja
kestäväksi hangeksi.
-- Kyllä nyt pitäisi passata, -- höpisi Topias itselleen kävellessään,
kelkkaansa vetäen, Yrjänälle päin.
Tultuaan likelle taloa jätti hän kelkkansa tienviereen ja hiipi tuvan
akkunan alle kuulostelemaan. Siinä asuivat molemmat tullimiehet. Ei
kuulunut minkäänlaista liikettä. Nukkuivat kai nyt. Illalla myöhään oli
Topias nähnyt heidän hiihtävän joen rantaa pitkin... Varmuuden vuoksi
Topias vielä käveli pihaan nähdäkseen, olivatko tullimiehillä sukset
tavallisella paikalla, räystäst
|
its authors.(3) Doubts
as to its authorship were expressed in the ninth century, for Photius
states that some ascribed the work to Clement of Rome, others to
Barnabas, and others to Luke the evangelist.(4)
If we turn to the document itself, we find that it professes to be
the second portion of a work written for the information of an unknown
person named Theophilus, the first part being the Gospel, which, in our
canonical New Testament, bears the name of "Gospel according to Luke."
The narrative is a continuation of the third Synoptic, but the actual
title of "Acts of the Apostles," or "Acts of Apostles" [------],(5)
attached to this [------] is a later addition, and formed no part of the
original document. The author's name is not given in any of the earlier
MSS., and the work is entirely anonymous. That in the prologue to the
Acts the writer clearly assumes to be the author of the Gospel does
not in any way identify him, inasmuch as the third Synoptic itself
is equally anonymous. The tradition assigning both works to Luke the
follower of Paul, as we have seen, is first met with
{29}
towards the end of the second century, and very little weight can be
attached to it. There are too many instances of early writings,
several of which indeed have secured a place in our canon, to which
distinguished names have been erroneously ascribed. Such tradition is
notoriously liable to error.
We shall presently return to the question of the authorship of the
third Synoptic and Acts of the Apostles, but at present we may so far
anticipate as to say that there are good reasons for affirming that they
could not have been written by Luke.(1)
Confining ourselves here to the actual evidence before us, we arrive at
a clear and unavoidable conclusion regarding the Acts of the Apostles.
After examining all the early Christian literature, and taking every
passage which is referred to as indicating the use of the book, we see
that there is no certain trace even of its existence till towards the
end of the second century; and, whilst the writing itself is anonymous,
we find no authority but late tradition assigning it to Luke or to any
other author. We are absolutely without evidence of any value as to
its accuracy or trustworthiness, and, as we shall presently see, the
epistles of Paul, so far from accrediting it, tend to cast the most
serious doubt upon its whole character. This evidence we have yet to
examine, when considering the contents of the Acts, and we base our
present remarks solely on the external testimony for the date and
authorship of the book. The position, therefore, is simply this: We
are asked to believe in the reality of a great number of miraculous and
supernatural
1 The reader is referred to an article by the author in the
Fortnightly Rev., 1877, p. 496 ff., in which some
indications of date, and particularly those connected with
the use of writings of Josephus, are discussed.
{30}
occurrences which, obviously, are antecedently incredible, upon the
assurance of an anonymous work of whose existence there is no distinct
evidence till more than a century after the events narrated, and to
which an author's name--against which there are strong objections--is
first ascribed by tradition towards the end of the second century. Of
the writer to whom the work is thus attributed we know nothing beyond
the casual mention of his name in some Pauline Epistles. If it were
admitted that this Luke did actually write the book, we should not be
justified in believing the reality of such stupendous miracles upon his
bare statement As the case stands, however, even taking it in its most
favourable aspect, the question scarcely demands serious attention, and
our discussion might at once be ended by the unhesitating rejection of
the Acts of the Apostles as sufficient, or even plausible, evidence for
the miracles which it narrates.
CHAPTER II. EVIDENCE REGARDING THE AUTHORSHIP
If we proceed further to discuss the document before us, it is from
no doubt as to the certainty of the conclusion at which we have now
arrived, but from the belief that closer examination of the contents of
the Acts may enable us to test this result, and more fully to understand
the nature of the work and the character of its evidence. Not only will
it be instructive to consider a little closely the contents of the Acts,
and to endeavour from the details of the narrative itself to form
a judgment regarding its historical value, but we have in addition
external testimony of very material importance which we may bring to
bear upon it. We happily possess some undoubted Epistles which afford us
no little information concerning the history, character, and teaching of
the Apostle Paul, and we are thus enabled to compare the statements
in the work before us with contemporary evidence of great value. It is
unnecessary to say that, wherever the statements of the unknown author
of the Acts are at variance with these Epistles, we must prefer the
statements of the Apostle. The importance to our inquiry of such further
examination as we now propose to undertake consists chiefly in the light
which it may throw on the credibility of the work. If it be found that
such
{32}
portions as we are able to investigate are inaccurate and untrustworthy,
it will become still more apparent that the evidence of such a document
for miracles, which are antecedently incredible, cannot even be
entertained. It may be well also to discuss more fully the authorship of
the Acts, and to this we shall first address ourselves.
It must, however, be borne in mind that it is quite foreign to our
purpose to enter into any exhaustive discussion of the literary problem
presented by the Acts of the Apostles. We shall confine ourselves to
such points as seem sufficient or best fitted to test the character of
the composition, and we shall not hesitate to pass without attention
questions of mere literary interest, and strictly limit our examination
to such prominent features as present themselves for our purpose.
It is generally admitted, although not altogether without exception,(1)
that the author of our third synoptic Gospel likewise composed the
Acts of the Apostles. The linguistic and other peculiarities which
distinguish the Gospel are equally prominent in the Acts. This fact,
whilst apparently offering greatly increased facilities for identifying
the author, and actually affording valuable material for estimating
his work, does not, as we have already remarked, really do much towards
solving the problem of the authorship, inasmuch as the Gospel, like its
continuation, is anonymous, and we possess no more precise or direct
evidence in connection with the one than in the case of the other. We
have already so fully examined the testimony for the third Gospel that
it is unnecessary for us to recur to it. From about the end of the
second century we find the Gospel and Acts of the
{33}
Apostles ascribed by ecclesiastical writers to Luke, the companion of
the Apostle Paul. The fallibility of tradition, and the singular phase
of literary morality exhibited during the early ages of Christianity,
render such testimony of little or no value, and in the almost total
absence of the critical faculty a rank crop of pseudonymic writings
sprang up and flourished during that period.(1) Some of the earlier
chapters of this work have given abundant illustrations of this fact. It
is absolutely certain, with regard to the works we are considering, that
Irenæus is the earliest writer known who ascribes them to Luke, and that
even tradition, therefore, cannot be traced beyond the last quarter of
the second century. The question is--does internal evidence confirm or
contradict this tradition?
Luke, the traditional author, is not mentioned by name in the Acts of
the Apostles.(2) In the Epistle to Philemon his name occurs, with those
of others, who send greeting, verse 23, "There salute thee Epaphras, my
fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus; 24. Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke,
my fellow-labourers." In the Epistle to the Colossians, iv. 14, mention
is also made of him:--"Luke, the beloved physician,(3) salutes you, and
Demas." And again, in the 2 Epistle to Timothy, iv. 10:--"For
{34}
Demas forsook me, having loved this present world, and departed into
Thessalouica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia: 11. Only Luke is
with me."
He is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament;(1) and his name is
not again met with till Irenæus ascribes to him the authorship of the
Gospel and Acts. There is nothing in these Pauline Epistles confirming
the statement of the Fathers, but it is highly probable that these
references to him largely contributed to suggest his name as the
author of the Acts, the very omission of his name from the work itself
protecting him from objections connected with the passages in the
first person to which other followers of Paul were exposed, upon the
traditional view of the composition. Irenæus evidently knew nothing
about him, except what he learnt from these Epistles, and derives from
his theory that Luke wrote the Acts, and speaks as an eye-witness in the
passages where the first person is used. From these he argues that Luke
was inseparable from Paul, and was his fellow-worker in the Gospel, and
he refers, in proof of this, to Acts xvi. 8 ff.,(2) 13 ff., xx. 5 ff.,
and the later chapters, all the details of which he supposes Luke to
have carefully written down. He then continues: "But that he was not
only a follower, but likewise a fellow-worker of the Apostles, but
particularly of Paul, Paul himself has also clearly shown in the
Epistles, saying:..." and he quotes 2 Tim. iv. 10, 11, ending: "Only
Luke is with me," and then adds, "whence he shows that he was
{35}
always with him and inseparable from him, &c, Ac."(1) The reasoning of
the zealous Father deduces a great deal from very little, it will be
observed, and in this elastic way tradition "enlarged its borders" and
assumed unsubstantial dimensions. Later writers have no more intimate
knowledge of Luke, although Eusebius states that he was born at
Antioch,(2) a tradition likewise reproduced by Jerome.(3) Jerome
further identifies Luke with "the brother, whose praise in the Gospel
is throughout all the churches" mentioned in 2 Cor. viii. 18, as
accompanying Titus to Corinth.(4) At a later period, when the Church
required an early artist for its service, Luke the physician was
honoured with the additional title of painter.(5) Epiphanius,(6)
followed later by some other
{36}
writers, represented him to have been one of the seventy-two disciples,
whose mission he alone of all New Testament writers mentions. The view
of the Fathers, arising out of the application of their tradition to the
features presented by the Gospel and Acts, was that Luke composed
his Gospel, of the events of which he was not an eye-witness, from
information derived from others, and his Acts of the Apostles from what
he himself, at least in the parts in which the first person is employed,
had witnessed.1 It is generally supposed that Luke was not born a Jew,
but was a Gentile Christian.
Some writers endeavour to find a confirmation of the tradition, that
the Gospel and Acts were written by Luke "the beloved physician," by the
supposed use of peculiarly technical medical terms,(2) but very
little weight is attached by any one to this feeble evidence which is
repudiated by most serious critics, and it need not detain us.
As there is no indication, either in the Gospel or the Acts, of the
author's identity proceeding from himself, and tradition does not offer
any alternative security, what testimony can be produced in support of
the ascription of
{37}
these writings to "Luke"? To this question Ewald shall reply: "In
fact," he says, "we possess only one ground for it, but this is fully
sufficient. It lies in the designation of the third Gospel as that
'according to Luke' which is found in all MSS. of the four Gospels.
For the quotations of this particular Gospel under the distinct name
of Luke, in the extant writings of the Fathers, begin so late that they
cannot be compared in antiquity with that superscription; and those
known to us may probably themselves only go back to this superscription.
We thus depend almost alone on this superscription."(1) Ewald generally
does consider his own arbitrary conjectures "fully sufficient," but it
is doubtful, whether in this case, any one who examines this evidence
will agree with him. He himself goes on to admit, with all other
critics, that the superscriptions to our Gospels do not proceed from the
authors themselves, but were added by those who collected them, or
by later readers to distinguish them.(2) There was no author's name
attached to Marcion's Gospel, as we learn from Tertullian.(3) Chrysostom
very distinctly asserts that the Evangelists did not inscribe their
names at the head of their works,(4) and he recognizes that, but for
the authority of the primitive Church which added those names, the
superscriptions could not have proved the authorship of the Gospels. He
conjectures that the sole superscription which may
{38}
have been placed by the author of the first Synoptic was simply
[------].(1) It might be argued, and indeed has been, that the
inscription [------], "according to Luke," instead of [------] "Gospel
of Luke," does not actually indicate that "Luke" wrote the work any
more than the superscription to the Gospels "according to the Hebrews"
[------] "according to the Egyptians" [------] has reference to
authorship. The Epistles, on the contrary, are directly connected
with their writers, in the genitive, [------], and so on. This
point, however, we merely mention _en passant_. By his own admission,
therefore, the superscription is simply tradition in another form, but
instead of carrying us further back, the superscription on the most
ancient extant MSS., as for instance the Sinaitic and Vatican Codices of
the Gospels, does not on the most sanguine estimate of their age, date
earlier than the fourth century.(2) As for the Acts of the Apostles, the
book is not ascribed to Luke in a single uncial MS., and it only begins
to appear in various forms in later codices. The variation in the titles
of the Gospels and Acts in different MSS. alone shows the uncertainty of
the superscription. It is clear that the "one ground," upon which Ewald
admits that the evidence for Luke's authorship is based, is nothing but
sand, and cannot support his tower. He is on the slightest consideration
thrown back upon the quotations of the Fathers, which begin too late for
the
{39}
purpose, and it must be acknowledged that the ascription of the
third Gospel and Acts to Luke rests solely upon late and unsupported
tradition.
Let it be remembered that, with the exception of the three passages
in the Pauline Epistles quoted above, we know absolutely nothing
about Luke. As we have mentioned, it has even been doubted whether the
designation "the beloved physician" in the Epistle to the Colossians,
iv. 14, does not distinguish a different Luke from the person of that
name in the Epistles to Philemon and Timothy. If this were the case, our
information would be further reduced; but supposing that the same Luke
is referred to, what does our information amount to? Absolutely nothing
but the fact that a person named Luke was represented by the writer of
these letters,(1) whoever he was, to have been with Paul in Rome,
and that he was known to the church of Colossæ. There is no evidence
whatever that this Luke had been a travelling companion of Paul, or that
he ever wrote a line concerning him or had composed a Gospel. He is
not mentioned in Epistles written during this journey and, indeed,
the rarity and meagreness of the references to him would much
rather indicate that he had not taken any distinguished part in the
proclamation of the Gospel. If Luke be [------] and be numbered amongst
the Apostle's [------], Tychicus is equally "the beloved brother and
faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord."(2) Onesimus the
"faithful and beloved brother,"(3)
1 We cannot discuss the authenticity of these Epistles in
this place, nor is it very important that we should do so.
Nor can we pause to consider whether they were written in
Rome, as a majority of critics think, or elsewhere.
{40}
and Aristarchus, Mark the cousin of Barnabas, Justus and others are
likewise his [------].(1) There is no evidence, in fact, that Paul was
acquainted with Luke earlier than during his imprisonment in Rome, and
he seems markedly excluded from the Apostle's work and company by such
passages as 2 Cor. i. 19.(2) The simple theory that Luke wrote the Acts
supplies all the rest of the tradition of the Fathers, as we have seen
in the case of Irenæus, and to this mere tradition we are confined in
the total absence of more ancient testimony.
The traditional view, which long continued to prevail undisturbed, and
has been widely held up to our own day,(3) represents Luke as the author
of the Acts, and, in
{41}
the passages where the first person is employed, considers that he
indicates himself as an actor and eye-witness. These passages, where
[------] is introduced, present a curious problem which has largely
occupied the attention of critics, and it has been the point most firmly
disputed in the long controversy regarding, the authorship of the Acts.
Into this literary labyrinth we must not be tempted to enter beyond a
very short way; for, however interesting the question may be in itself,
we are left so completely to conjecture that no result is possible
which can materially affect our inquiry, and we shall only refer to it
sufficiently to illustrate the uncertainty which prevails regarding the
authorship. We shall, however, supply abundant references for those who
care more minutely to pursue the subject.
After the narrative of the Acts has, through fifteen chapters, proceeded
uninterruptedly in the third person, an abrupt change to the first
person plural occurs in the sixteenth chapter.(1) Paul, and at least
Timothy, are represented as going through Phrygia and Galatia, and
at length "they came down to Troas," where a vision appears to Paul
beseeching him to come over into Macedonia. Then, xvi. 10, proceeds:
"And after he saw the vision, immediately we endeavoured [------] to
go forth into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us [------]
to preach the Gospel unto them." After verse 17, the direct form of
narrative is as suddenly dropped as it was taken up, and does not
reappear until xx. 5, when, without explanation, it is resumed and
continued for ten verses. It is then again abandoned, and recommenced in
xxi. 1-18, and xxvii. 1, xxviii. 16.
1 It is unnecessary to discuss whether xiv. 22 belongs to
the [------] sections or not.
{42}
It is argued by those who adopt the traditional view,(1) that it would
be an instance of unparalleled negligence, in so careful a writer as the
author of the third Synoptic and Acts, to have composed these sections
from documents lying before him, written by others, leaving them in the
form of a narrative in the first person, whilst the rest of his work was
written in the third, and that, without doubt, he would have assimilated
such portions to the form of the rest. On the other hand, that he
himself makes distinct use of the first person in Luke i. 1-3 and Acts
i. 1, and consequently prepares the reader to expect that, where it
is desirable, he will resume the direct mode of communication; and
in support of this supposition, it is asserted that the very same
peculiarities of style and language exist in the [------] passages as
in the rest of the work. The adoption of the direct form of narrative
in short merely indicates that the author himself was present and an
eye-witness of what he relates,(3) and that writing as he did for
the information of Theophilus, who was well aware of his personal
participation in the journeys he records, it was not necessary for him
to give any explanation of his occasional use of the first person.
Is the abrupt and singular introduction of the first person in these
particular sections of his work, without a word of explanation, more
intelligible and reasonable upon the traditional theory of their
being by the author himself as an eye-witness? On the contrary, it is
maintained, the phenomenon on that hypothesis becomes much more
2 Some writers also consider as one of the reasons why
Luke, the supposed author, uses the first person, that where
he begins to do so he himself becomes associated with Paul
in his work, and first begins to preach the Gospel.
Thiersch, Die Kirche im ap. Zeit., p. 137; Baumgarfen, Die
Apostelgeschichte, i. p. 496.
{43}
inexplicable. On examining the [------] sections it will be observed
that they consist almost entirely of an itinerary of journeys, and that
while the chronology of the rest of the Acts is notably uncertain and
indefinite, these passages enter into the minutest details of daily
movements (xvi. 11, 12; xx. 6, 7,11,15; xxi. 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10,18;
xxvii. 2; xxviii. 7, 12, 14); of the route pursued, and places through
which often they merely pass (xvi. 11,12; xx. 5, 6,13,15; xxi. 1-3, 7;
xxvii. 2 ff.; xxviii. 11-15), and record the most trifling circumstances
(xvi. 12; xx. 13; xxi. 2, 3, 15; xxviii. 2, 11). The distinguishing
feature of these sections in fact is generally asserted to be the stamp
which they bear, above all other parts of the Acts, of intimate personal
knowledge of the circumstances related.
Is it not, however, exceedingly remarkable that the author of the Acts
should intrude his own personality merely to record these minute details
of voyages and journeys? That his appearance as an eye-witness should
be almost wholly limited to the itinerary of Paul's journeys and to
portions of his history which are of very subordinate interest? The
voyage and shipwreck are thus narrated with singular minuteness of
detail, but if any one who reads it only consider the matter for a
moment, it will become apparent that this elaboration of the narrative
is altogether disproportionate to the importance of the voyage in the
history of the early Church. The traditional view indeed is fatal to
the claims of the Acts as testimony for the great mass of miracles it
contains, for the author is only an eye-witness of what is comparatively
unimportant and commonplace. The writer's intimate acquaintance with the
history of Paul, and his claim to participation in his work, begin and
end with his actual
{44}
journeys. With very few exceptions, as soon as the Apostle stops
anywhere, he ceases to speak as an eyewitness and relapses into
vagueness and the third person. At the very time when minuteness of
detail would have been most interesting, he ceases to be minute. A very
long and important period of Paul's life is covered by the narrative
between xvi. 10, where the[------] sections begin, and xxviii. 16, where
they end; but, although the author goes with such extraordinary
detail into the journeys to which they are confined, how bare and
unsatisfactory is the account of the rest of Paul's career during that
time!(l) How eventful that career must have been we learn from 2 Cor.
xi. 23-26. In any case, the author who could be so minute in his record
of an itinerary, apparently could not, or would not, be minute in his
account of more important matters in his history. In the few verses, ix.
1-30, chiefly occupied by an account of Paul's conversion, is comprised
all that the author has to tell of three years of the Apostle's life,
and into xi. 19--xiv. are compressed the events of fourteen years of his
history (cf. Gal. ii. l).(2) If the author of those portions be the same
writer who is so minute in his daily itinerary in the [------] sections,
his sins of omission and commission are of a very startling character.
To say nothing more severe here, upon the traditional theory he is an
elaborate trifler.
Does the use of the first person in Luke i. 1-3 and Acts i. 1 in any way
justify or prepare(3) the way for the
{45}
sudden and unexplained introduction of the first person in the sixteenth
chapter? Certainly not. The [------] in these passages is used solely in
the personal address to Theophilus, is limited to the brief explanation
contained in what may be called the dedication or preface, and is at
once dropped when the history begins. If the prologue of the Gospel be
applied to the Acts, moreover, the use of earlier documents is at once
implied, which would rather justify the supposition that these passages
are part of some diary, from which the general editor made extracts.(1)
Besides, there is no explanation in the Acts which in the slightest
degree connects the [------] with the [------].(2) To argue that
explanation was unnecessary, as Theophilus and early readers were well
acquainted with the fact that the author was a fellow-traveller with the
Apostle, and therefore at once understood the meaning of "We,"(3) would
destroy the utility of the direct form of communication altogether; for
if Theophilus knew this, there was obviously no need to introduce the
first person at all, in so abrupt and singular a way, more especially to
chronicle minute details of journeys which possess comparatively little
interest. Moreover, writing for Theophilus, we might reasonably expect
that he should have stated where and when he became associated with
Paul, and explained the reasons why he again left and rejoined him.(4)
Ewald suggests that possibly the author intended to have indicated his
name more distinctly at the end of his work;(5) but this merely shows
that, argue as he will,
{46}
he feels the necessity for such an explanation. The conjecture is
negatived, however, by the fact that no name is subsequently added. As
in the case of the fourth Gospel, of course the "incomparable modesty"
theory is suggested as the reason why the author does not mention his
own name, and explain the adoption of the first person in the [------]
passages;(1) but to base theories such as this upon the modesty or
elevated views of a perfectly unknown writer is obviously too arbitrary
a proceeding to be permissible.(2) There is, besides, exceedingly little
modesty in a writer forcing himself so unnecessarily into notice, for
he does not represent himself as taking any active part in the events
narrated; and, as the mere chronicler of days of sailing and arriving,
he might well have remained impersonal to the end.
On the other hand, supposing the general editor of the Acts to have made
use of written sources of information, and amongst others of the diary
of a companion of the Apostle Paul, it is not so strange that, for one
reason or another, he should have allowed the original direct form of
communication to stand whilst incorporating parts of it with his work.
Instances have been pointed out in which a similar retention of the
first or third person, in a narrative generally written otherwise,
is accepted as the indication of a different written source, as for
instance in Ezra vii. 27--ix; Nehemiah viii.--x.; in the Book of Tobit
i. 1-3, iii. 7 ff., and other places;s and Schwanbeck has
{47}
pointed out many instances of a similar kind amongst the chroniclers of
the middle ages.(1) There are various ways in which the retention of the
first person in these sections, supposing them to have been derived from
some other written source, might be explained. The simple supposition
that the author, either through carelessness or oversight, allowed the
[------] to stand(2) is not excluded, and indeed some critics, although
we think without reason, maintain both the third Gospel and the Acts to
be composed of materials derived from various sources and put together
with little care or adjustment.(3) The author might also have inserted
these fragments of the diary of a fellow-traveller of Paul, and retained
the original form of the document to strengthen the apparent credibility
of his own narrative; or, as many critics believe, he may have allowed
the first person of the original document to remain, in order himself to
assume the character of eyewitness, and of companion of the Apostle.(4)
As we shall see in the course of our examination of the Acts, the
general procedure of the author is by no means of a character to
discredit such an explanation.
We shall not enter into any discussion of the sources from which critics
maintain that the author compiled his
{48}
work. It is sufficient to say that, whilst some profess to find definite
traces of many documents, few if any writers deny that the writer
made more or less use of earlier materials. It is quite true that the
characteristics of the general author's style are found throughout the
whole work.1 The Acts are no mere aggregate of scraps collected and
rudely joined together, but the work of one author in the sense that
whatever materials he may have used for its composition were carefully
assimilated, and subjected to thorough and systematic revision to adapt
them to his purpose.(2) But however completely this process was carried
out, and his materials interpenetrated by his own peculiarities of style
and language, he did not succeed in entirely obliterating the traces of
independent written sources. Some writers maintain that there is a very
apparent difference between the first twelve
{49}
chapters and the remainder of the work, and profess to detect a much
more Hebraistic character in the language of the earlier portion,(1)
although this is not received without demur.(2) As regards the [------]
sections, whilst it is admitted that these fragments have in any case
been much manipulated by the general editor, and largely contain his
general characteristics of language, it is at the same time affirmed
that they present distinct foreign peculiarities, which betray a
borrowed document.(3) Even critics who maintain the [------] sections
to be by the same writer who composed the rest of the book point out
the peculiarly natural character and minute knowledge displayed in these
passages, as distinguishing them from the rest of the Acts.(4) This
of course they attribute to the fact that the author there relates his
personal experiences; but even with this explanation it is apparent
that all who maintain the traditional view do recognize peculiarities
in these sections, by which they justify the ascription of them to an
eye-witness. For the reasons which have been very briefly indicated,
therefore, and upon other
{50}
strong grounds, some of which will be presently stated, a very large
mass of the ablest critics have concluded that the [------] sections
were not composed by the author of the rest of the Acts, but that they
are part of the diary of some companion of the Apostle Paul, of which
the Author of Acts made use for his work,(1) and that the general writer
of the work, and consequently of the third Synoptic, was not Luke at
all.(2)
{51}
A careful study of the contents of the Acts cannot, we think, leave
any doubt that the work could not have been written by any companion or
intimate friend of the Apostle Paul.(1) In here briefly indicating some
of the reasons for this statement, we shall be under the necessity of
anticipating, without much explanation or argument, points which will
be more fully discussed farther on, and which now, stated without
preparation, may not be sufficiently clear to some readers. They may
hereafter seem more conclusive. It is unreasonable to suppose that a
friend or companion could have written so unhistorical and defective
a history of the Apostle's life and teaching. The Pauline Epistles are
nowhere directly referred to, but where we can compare the narrative
and representations of Acts with the statements of the Apostle, they are
strikingly contradictory.(2)
{52}
His teaching in the one scarcely presents a trace of the strong and
clearly defined doctrines of the other, and the character and conduct
of the Paul of Acts are altogether different from those of Paul of
the Epistles. According to Paul himself (Gal. i. 16--18), after his
conversion, he communicated not with flesh and blood, neither went up
to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before him, but immediately went
away into Arabia, and returned to Damascus, and only after three years
he went up to Jerusalem to visit Kephas, and abode with him fifteen
days, during which visit none other of the Apostles did he see "save
James, the brother of the Lord." If assurance of the correctness of
these details were required, Paul gives it by adding (v. 20): "Now
the things which I am writing to you, behold before God I lie not."
According to Acts (ix. 19--30), however, the facts are quite different.
Paul immediately begins to preach in Damascus, does not visit Arabia
at all, but, on the contrary, goes to Jerusalem, where, under the
protection of Barnabas (v. 26, 27), he is introduced to the Apostles,
and "was with them going in and out." According to Paul (Gal. i. 22),
his face was after that unknown unto the churches of Judaea, whereas,
according to Acts, not only was he "going in and out" at Jerusalem with
the Apostles, but (ix. 29) preached boldly in the name of the Lord, and
(Acts xxvi. 20) "in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judaea,"
he urged to repentance. According to Paul (Gal. ii. 1 ff.), after
fourteen years he went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus,
{53}
"according to a revelation," and "privately" communicated his Gospel
"to those who seemed to be something," as, with some irony, he calls
the Apostles. In words still breathing irritation and determined
independence, Paul relates to the Galatians the particulars of that
visit--how great pressure had been exerted to compel Titus, though a
Greek, to be circumcised, "that they might bring us into bondage," to
whom, "not even for an hour did we yield the required subjection." He
protests, with proud independence, that the Gospel which he preaches
was not received from man (Gal. i. 11, 12), but revealed to him by God
(verses 15, 16); and during this visit (ii. 6, 7) "from those seeming
to be something [------], whatsoever they were it maketh no matter to
me--God accepteth not man's person--for to me those who seemed
[------] communicated nothing additional." According to Acts, after his
conversion, Paul is taught by a man named Ananias what he must do (ix.
6, xxii. 10); he makes visits to Jerusalem (xi. 30, xii. 25, &c), which
are excluded by Paul's own explicit statements; and a widely different
report is given (xv. 1 ff.) of the second visit. Paul does not go,
"according to a revelation," but is deputed by the Church of Antioch,
with Barnabas, in consequence of disputes regarding the circumcision of
Gentiles, to lay the case before the Apostles and elders at Jerusalem.
It is almost impossible in the account here given of proceedings
characterised throughout by perfect harmony, forbearance, and unanimity
of views, to recognize the visit described
|
sorrowful, anxious, almost
despairing look of her pale face, which seemed to ask:
"Ah, shall I ever, ever return to you, dear old home, and dear,
familiar friends?"
In another instant she had disappeared within the carriage, which
immediately rolled off.
As the carriage was heavily laden, and the road was in a very bad
condition, it was a full hour before they reached the town of Staunton.
As the carriage drew up for a few moments before the door of the
principal hotel, and Colonel Le Noir was in the act of stepping out, a
sheriff's officer, accompanied by Dr. Williams, approached, and served
upon the colonel a writ of habeas corpus, commanding him to bring his
ward, Clara Day, into court.
Colonel Le Noir laughed scornfully, saying:
"And do any of you imagine this will serve your purposes? Ha, ha! The
most that it can do will be to delay my journey for a few hours until
the decision of the judge, which will only serve to confirm my
authority beyond all future possibility of questioning."
"We will see to that," said Doctor Williams.
"Drive to the Court House!" ordered Colonel Le Noir.
And the carriage, attended by Traverse Rocke, Doctor Williams and the
Sheriff's officer, each on horseback, drove thither.
And now, reader, I will not trouble you with a detailed account of this
trial. Clara, clothed in deep mourning, and looking pale and terrified,
was led into the court room on the arm of her guardian. She was
followed closely by her friends, Traverse Rocke and Doctor Williams,
each of whom whispered encouraging words to the orphan.
As the court had no pressing business on its hands, the case was
immediately taken up, the will was read and attested by the attorney
who had drawn it up and the witnesses who had signed it. Then the
evidence of Doctor Williams and Doctor Rocke was taken concerning the
last verbal instructions of the deceased. The case occupied about three
hours, at the end of which the judge gave a decision in favor of
Colonel Le Noir.
This judgment carried consternation to the heart of Clara and of all
her friends.
Clara herself sank fainting in the arms of her old friend, the
venerable Doctor Williams.
Traverse, in bitterness of spirit, approached and bent over her.
Colonel Le Noir spoke to the judge.
"I deeply thank your honor for the prompt hearing and equally prompt
decision of this case, and I will beg your honor to order the Sheriff
and his officers to see your judgment carried into effect, as I foresee
violent opposition, and wish to prevent trouble."
"Certainly. Mr. Sheriff, you will see that Colonel Le Noir is put in
possession of his ward, and protected in that right until he shall have
placed her in security," said the judge.
Clara, on hearing these words, lifted her head from the old man's
bosom, nerved her gentle heart, and in a clear, sweet, steady voice
said:
"It is needless precaution, your honor; my friends are no law-breakers,
and since the court has given me into the custody of my guardian, I do
not dispute its judgment. I yield myself up to Colonel Le Noir."
"You do well, young lady," said the judge.
"I am pleased, Miss Day, to see that you understand and perform your
duty; believe me, I shall do all that I can to make you happy," said
Colonel Le Noir.
Clara replied by a gentle nod, and then, with a slight blush mantling
her pure cheeks she advanced a step and placed herself immediately in
front of the judge, saying:
"But there is a word that I would speak to your honor."
"Say on, young lady," said the judge.
And as she stood there in her deep mourning dress, with her fair hair
unbound and floating softly around her pale, sweet face, every eye in
that court was spellbound by her almost unearthly beauty. Before
proceeding with what she was about to say, she turned upon Traverse a
look that brought him immediately to her side.
"Your honor," she began, in a low, sweet, clear tone, "I owe it to
Doctor Rocke here present, who has been sadly misrepresented to you, to
say (what, under less serious circumstances, my girl's heart would
shrink from avowing so publicly) that I am his betrothed wife--sacredly
betrothed to him by almost the last act of my dear father's life. I
hold this engagement to be so holy that no earthly tribunal can break
or disturb it. And while I bend to your honor's decision, and yield
myself to the custody of my legal guardian for the period of my
minority, I here declare to all who may be interested, that I hold my
hand and heart irrevocably pledged to Doctor Rocke, and that, as his
betrothed wife, I shall consider myself bound to correspond with him
regularly, and to receive him as often as he shall seek my society,
until my majority, when I and all that I possess will become his own.
And these words I force myself to speak, your honor, both in justice to
my dear lost father and his friend, Traverse Rocke, and also to myself,
that hereafter no one may venture to accuse me of clandestine
proceedings, or distort my actions into improprieties, or in any manner
call in question the conduct of my father's daughter." And, with
another gentle bow, Clara retired to the side of her old friend.
"You are likely to have a troublesome charge in your ward," said the
sheriff apart to the colonel, who shrugged his shoulders by way of
reply.
The heart of Traverse was torn by many conflicting passions, emotions
and impulses; there was indignation at the decision of the court; grief
for the loss of Clara, and dread for her future!
One instant he felt a temptation to denounce the guardian as a villain
and to charge the judge with being a corrupt politician, whose
decisions were swayed by party interests!
The next moment he felt an impulse to catch Clara up in his arms, fight
his way through the crowd and carry her off! But all these wild
emotions, passions and impulses he succeeded in controlling.
Too well he knew that to rage, do violence, or commit extravagance as
he might, the law would take its course all the same.
While his heart was torn in this manner, Colonel Le Noire was urging
the departure of his ward. And Clara came to her lover's side and said,
gravely and sweetly:
"The law, you see, has decided against us, dear Traverse. Let us bend
gracefully to a decree that we cannot annul! It cannot, at least, alter
our sacred relations; nor can anything on earth shake our steadfast
faith in each other; let us take comfort in that, and in the thought
that the years will surely roll round at length and bring the time that
shall reunite us."
"Oh, my angel-girl! My angel-girl! Your patient heroism puts me to the
blush, for my heart is crushed in my bosom and my firmness quite gone!"
said Traverse, in a broken voice.
"You will gain firmness, dear Traverse. 'Patient!' I patient! You
should have heard me last night! I was so impatient that Doctor
Williams had to lecture me. But it would be strange if one did not
learn something by suffering. I have been trying all night and day to
school my heart to submission, and I hope I have succeeded, Traverse.
Bless me and bid me good-by."
"The Lord forever bless and keep you, my own dear angel, Clara!" burst
from the lips of Traverse. "The Lord abundantly bless you!"
"And you," said Clara.
"Good-by!--good-by!"
"Good-by!"
And thus they parted.
Clara was hurried away and put into the carriage by her guardian.
Ah, no one but the Lord knew how much it had cost that poor girl to
maintain her fortitude during that trying scene. She had controlled
herself for the sake of her friends. But now, when she found herself in
the carriage, her long strained nerves gave way--she sank exhausted and
prostrated into the corner of her seat, in the utter collapse of woe!
But leaving the travelers to pursue their journey, we must go back to
Traverse.
Almost broken-hearted, Traverse returned to Willow Heights to convey
the sad tidings of his disappointment to his mother's ear.
Marah Rocke was so overwhelmed with grief at the news that she was for
several hours incapable of action.
The arrival of the house agent was the first event that recalled her to
her senses.
She aroused herself to action, and, assisted by Traverse, set to work
to pack up her own and his wardrobe and other personal effects.
And the next morning Marah Rocke was re-established in her cottage.
And the next week, having equally divided their little capital, the
mother and son parted--Traverse, by her express desire, keeping to his
original plan, set out for the far West.
CHAPTER II.
OLD HURRICANE STORMS.
"At this sir knight flamed up with ire!
His great chest heaved! his eyes flashed fire.
The crimson that suffused his face
To deepest purple now gave place."
Who can describe the frenzy of Old Hurricane upon discovering the fraud
that had been practised upon him by Black Donald?
It was told him the next morning in his tent, at his breakfast table,
in the presence of his assembled family, by the Rev. Mr. Goodwin.
Upon first hearing it, he was incapable of anything but blank staring,
until it seemed as though his eyes must start from their sockets!
Then his passion, "not loud but deep," found utterance only in emphatic
thumps of his walking stick upon the ground!
Then, as the huge emotion worked upward, it broke out in grunts, groans
and inarticulate exclamations!
Finally it burst forth as follows:
"Ugh! ugh! ugh! Fool! dolt! blockhead! Brute that I've been! I wish
somebody would punch my wooden head! I didn't think the demon himself
could have deceived me so! Ugh! Nobody but the demon could have done
it! and he is the demon! The very demon himself! He does not
disguise--he transforms himself! Ugh! ugh! ugh! that I should have been
such a donkey!"
"Sir, compose yourself! We are all liable to suffer deception," said
Mr. Goodwin.
"Sir," broke forth Old Hurricane, in fury, "that wretch has eaten at my
table! Has drunk wine with me!! Has slept in my bed!!! Ugh! ugh!!
ugh!!!"
"Believing him to be what he seemed, sir, you extended to him the
rights of hospitality; you have nothing to blame yourself with!"
"Demmy, sir, I did more than that! I've coddled him up with negusses!
I've pampered him up with possets and put him to sleep in my own bed!
Yes, sir--and more! Look there at Mrs. Condiment, sir! The way in which
she worshiped that villain was a sight to behold!" said Old Hurricane,
jumping up and stamping around the tent in fury.
"Oh, Mr. Goodwin, sir, how could I help it when I thought he was such a
precious saint?" whimpered the old lady.
"Yes, sir! when 'his reverence' would be tired with delivering a
long-winded mid-day discourse, Mrs. Condiment, sir, would take him into
her own tent--make him lie down on her own sacred cot, and set my niece
to bathing his head with cologne and her maid to fanning him, while she
herself prepared an iced sherry cobbler for his reverence! Aren't you
ashamed of yourself, Mrs. Condiment, mum!" said Old Hurricane, suddenly
stopping before the poor old woman, in angry scorn.
"Indeed, I'm sure if I'd known it was Black Donald, I'd no more have
suffered him inside of my tent than I would Satan!"
"Demmy, mum, you had Satan there as well! Who but Satan could have
tempted you all to disregard me, your lawful lord and master, as you
every one of you did for that wretch's sake! Hang it, parson, I wasn't
the master of my own house, nor head of my own family! Precious Father
Gray was! Black Donald was! Oh, you shall hear!" cried Old Hurricane,
in a frenzy.
"Pray, sir, be patient and do not blame the women for being no wiser
than you were yourself," said Mr. Goodwin.
"Tah! tah! tah! One act of folly is a contingency to which any man may
for once in his life be liable; but folly is the women's normal condition!
You shall hear! You shall hear! Hang it, sir, everybody had to give way
to Father Gray! Everything was for Father Gray! Precious Father Gray!
Excellent Father Gray! Saintly Father Gray! It was Father Gray here and
Father Gray there, and Father Gray everywhere and always! He ate with
us all day and slept with us all night! The coolest cot in the dryest
nook of the tent at night--the shadiest seat at the table by day--were
always for his reverence! The nicest tit-bits of the choicest dishes--the
middle slices of the fish, the breast of the young ducks, and the wings
of the chickens, the mealiest potatoes, the juiciest tomatoes, the
tenderest roasting ear, the most delicate custard, and freshest fruit
always for his reverence! I had to put up with the necks of poultry,
and the tails of fishes, watery potatoes, specked apples and scorched
custards--and if I dared to touch anything better before his precious
reverence had eaten and was filled, Mrs. Condiment--there--would look
as sour as if she had bitten an unripe lemon--and Cap would tread on my
gouty toe! Mrs. Condiment, mum, I don't know how you can look me in the
face!" said Old Hurricane, savagely. A very unnecessary reproach, since
poor Mrs. Condiment had not ventured to look any one in the face since
the discovery of the fraud of which she, as well as others, had been an
innocent victim.
"Come, come, my dear major, there is no harm done to you or your
family; therefore, take patience!" said Mr. Goodwin.
"Demmy, sir, I beg you pardon, parson, I won't take patience! You don't
know! Hang it, man, at last they got me to give up one-half of my own
blessed bed to his precious reverence--the best half which the fellow
always took right out of the middle, leaving me to sleep on both sides
of him, if I could! Think of it--me, Ira Warfield--sleeping between the
sheets--night after night--with Black Donald! Ugh! ugh! ugh! Oh, for
some lethean draught that I might drink and forget! Sir, I won't be
patient! Patience would be a sin! Mrs. Condiment, mum, I desire that
you will send in your account and supply yourself with a new situation!
You and I cannot agree any longer. You'll be putting me to bed with
Beelzebub next!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, besides himself with
indignation.
Mrs. Condiment sighed and wiped her eyes under her spectacles.
The worthy minister, now seriously alarmed, came to him and said:
"My dear, dear major, do not be unjust--consider. She is an old
faithful domestic, who has been in your service forty years--whom you
could not live without! I say it under advisement--whom you could not
live without!"
"Hang it, sir, nor live with! Think of her helping to free the
prisoners! Actually taking Black Donald--precious Father Gray!--into
their cell and leaving them together to hatch their--beg you
pardon--horrid plots!"
"But, sir, instead of punishing the innocent victim of his deception,
let us be merciful and thank the Lord, that since those men were
delivered from prison, they were freed without bloodshed; for remember
that neither the warden nor any of his men, nor any one else has been
personally injured."
"Hang it, sir, I wish they had cut all our throats to teach us more
discretion!" broke forth Old Hurricane.
"I am afraid that the lesson so taught would have come too late to be
useful!" smiled the pastor.
"Well, it hasn't come too late now! Mrs. Condiment, mum, mind what I
tell you! As soon as we return to Hurricane Hall, send in your accounts
and seek a new home! I am not going to suffer myself to be set at
naught any longer!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, bringing down his cane
with an emphatic thump.
The sorely troubled minister was again about to interfere, when, as the
worm if trodden upon, will turn, Mrs. Condiment herself spoke up,
saying:
"Lor, Major Warfield, sir, there were others deceived besides me, and
as for myself, I never can think of the risk I've run without growing
cold all over!"
"Serves you right, mum, for your officiousness, and obsequiousness and
toadying to--precious Mr. Gray!--serves you doubly right for famishing
me at my own table!"
"Uncle!" said Capitola, "'Honor bright! Fair play is a jewel!' If you
and I, who have seen Black Donald before, failed to recognize that
stalwart athlete in a seemingly old and sickly man, how could you
expect Mrs. Condiment to do so, who never saw him but once in her life,
and then was so much frightened that she instantly fainted?"
"Pah! pah! pah! Cap, hush! You, all of you, disgust me, except Black
Donald! I begin to respect him! Confound if I don't take in all the
offers I have made for his apprehension, and at the very next
convention of our party I'll nominate him to represent us in the
National Congress; for, of all the fools that ever I have met in my
life, the people of this county are the greatest! And fools should at
least be represented by one clever man--and Black Donald is the very
fellow! He is decidedly the ablest man in this congressional district."
"Except yourself, dear uncle!" said Capitola.
"Except nobody, Miss Impudence!--least of all me! The experience of the
last week has convinced me that I ought to have a cap and bells awarded
me by public acclamation!" said Old Hurricane, stamping about in fury.
The good minister finding that he could make no sort of impression upon
the irate old man, soon took his leave, telling Mrs. Condiment that if
he could be of any service to her in her trouble she must be sure to
let him know.
At this Capitola and Mrs. Condiment exchanged looks, and the old lady,
thanking him for his kindness, said that if it should become necessary,
she should gratefully avail herself of it.
That day the camp meeting broke up.
Major Warfield struck tents and with his family and baggage returned to
Hurricane Hall.
On their arrival, each member of the party went about his or her own
particular business.
Capitola hurried to her own room to take off her bonnet and shawl.
Pitapat, before attending her young mistress, lingered below to
astonish the housemaids with accounts of "Brack Donel, dress up like an
ole parson, an' 'ceiving everybody, even ole Marse!"
Mrs. Condiment went to her store room to inspect the condition of her
newly put up preserves and pickles, lest any of them should have
"worked" during her absence.
And Old Hurricane, attended by Wool, walked down to his kennels and his
stables to look after the well-being of his favorite hounds and horses.
It was while going through this interesting investigation that Major
Warfield was informed--principally by overhearing the gossip of the
grooms with Wool--of the appearance of a new inmate of the Hidden
House--a young girl, who, according to their description, must have
been the very pearl of beauty.
Old Hurricane pricked up his ears! Anything relating to the "Hidden
House" possessed immense interest for him.
"Who is she, John?" he inquired of the groom.
"'Deed I dunno, sir, only they say she's a bootiful young creature,
fair as any lily, and dressed in deep mourning."
"Humph! humph! humph! another victim! Ten thousand chances to one,
another victim! who told you this, John?"
"Why, Marse, you see Tom Griffith, the Rev. Mr. Goodwin's man, he's
very thick long of Davy Hughs, Colonel Le Noir's coachman. And Davy he
told Tom how one day last month his marse ordered the carriage, and
went two or three days' journey up the country beyant Staunton, there
he stayed a week and then came home, fetching along with him in the
carriage this lovely young lady, who was dressed in the deepest
mourning, and wept all the way. They'spects how she's an orphan, and
has lost all her friends, by the way she takes on."
"Another victim! My life on it--another victim! Poor child! She had
better be dead than in the power of that atrocious villain and
consummate hypocrite!" said Old Hurricane, passing on to the
examination of his favorite horses, one of which, the swiftest in the
stud, he found galled on the shoulders. Whereupon he flew into a
towering passion, abusing his unfortunate groom by every opprobrious
epithet blind fury could suggest, ordering him, as he valued whole
bones, to vacate the stable instantly, and never dare to set foot on
his premises again as he valued his life, an order which the man meekly
accepted and immediately disobeyed, muttered to himself:
"Humph! If we took ole marse at his word, there'd never be man or 'oman
left on the'state," knowing full well that his tempestuous old master
would probably forget all about it, as soon as he got comfortably
seated at the supper table of Hurricane Hall, toward which the old man
now trotted off.
Not a word did Major Warfield say at supper in regard to the new inmate
of the Hidden House, for he had particular reasons for keeping Cap in
ignorance of a neighbor, lest she should insist upon exchanging visits
and being "sociable."
But it was destined that Capitola should not remain a day in ignorance
of the interesting fact.
That night, when she retired to her chamber, Pitapat lingered behind,
but presently appeared at her young mistress's room door with a large
waiter on her head, laden with meat, pastry, jelly and fruit, which she
brought in and placed upon the work stand.
"Why, what on the face of earth do you mean by bringing all that load
of victuals into my room to-night? Do you think I am an ostrich or a
cormorant, or that I am going to entertain a party of friends?" asked
Capitola, in astonishment, turning from the wash stand, where she stood
bathing her face.
"'Deed I dunno, Miss, whedder you'se an ostrizant or not, but I knows I
don't 'tend for to be 'bused any more 'bout wittels, arter findin' out
how cross empty people can be! Dar dey is! You can eat um or leab um
alone, Miss Caterpillar!" said little Pitapat, firmly.
Capitola laughed. "Patty" she said, "you are worthy to be called my
waiting maid!"
"And Lors knows, Miss Caterpillar, if it was de wittels you was
a-frettin' arter, you ought to a-told me before! Lors knows dere's
wittels enough!"
"Yes, I'm much obliged to you, Patty, but now I am not hungry, and I do
not like the smell of food in my bedroom, so take the waiter out and
set it on the passage table until morning."
Patty obeyed, and came back smiling and saying:
"Miss Caterpillar, has you hern de news?"
"What news, Pat?"
"How us has got a new neighbor--a bootiful young gal--as bootiful as a
picter in a gilt-edged Christmas book--wid a snowy skin, and sky-blue
eyes and glistenin' goldy hair, like the princess you was a readin' me
about, all in deep mournin' and a weepin' and a weepin' all alone down
there in that wicked, lonesome, onlawful ole haunted place, the Hidden
House, along of old Colonel Le Noir and old Dorkey Knight, and the
ghost as draws people's curtains of a night, just for all de worl' like
dat same princess in de ogre's castle!"
"What on earth is all this rigmarole about? Are you dreaming or
romancing?"
"I'm a-telling on you de bressed trufe! Dere's a young lady a-livin at
de Hidden House!"
"Eh? Is that really true, Patty?"
"True as preaching, miss."
"Then, I am very glad of it! I shall certainly ride over and call on
the stranger," said Capitola, gaily.
"Oh, Miss Cap! Oh, miss, don't you do no sich thing! Ole Marse kill me!
I heerd him t'reaten all de men and maids how if dey telled you
anything 'bout de new neighbor, how he'd skin dem alive!"
"Won't he skin you?" asked Cap.
"No, miss, not 'less you 'form ag'in me, 'case he didn't tell me not to
tell you, 'case you see he didn't think how I knowed! But, leastways, I
know from what I heard, ole marse wouldn't have you to know nothin'
about it, no, not for de whole worl'."
"He does not want me to call at the Hidden House! That's it! Now why
doesn't he wish me to call there? I shall have to go in order to find
out, and so I will," thought Cap.
CHAPTER III.
CAP'S VISIT TO THE HIDDEN HOUSE.
And such a night "she" took the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed;
Loud, deep and long the thunder bellowed;
That night a child might understand
The de'il had business on his hand.
--Burns.
A week passed before Capitola carried her resolution of calling upon
the inmate of the Hidden House into effect. It was in fact a hot, dry,
oppressive season, the last few days of August, when all people, even
the restless Capitola, preferred the coolness and repose of indoors.
But that she should stay at home more than a week was a moral and
physical impossibility. So on Thursday afternoon, when Major Warfield
set out on horseback to visit his mill, Capitola ordered her horse
saddled and brought up that she might take an afternoon's ride.
"Now please, my dear child, don't go far," said Mrs. Condiment, "for
besides that your uncle does not approve of your riding alone, you must
hurry back to avoid the storm."
"Storm, Mrs. Condiment, why bless your dear old heart, there has not
been a storm these four weeks!" said Capitola, almost indignant that
such an absurd objection to a long ride should be raised.
"The more reason, my child, that we should have a very severe one when
it does come, and I think it will be upon us before sunset; so I advise
you to hurry home."
"Why, Mrs. Condiment, there's not a cloud in the sky."
"So much the worse, my dear! The blackest cloud that ever gathered is
not so ominous of mischief as this dull, coppery sky and still
atmosphere! And if forty years' observation of weather signs goes for
anything, I tell you that we are going to have the awfulest storm that
ever gathered in the heavens! Why, look out of that window--the very
birds and beasts know it, and instinctively seek shelter--look at that
flock of crows flying home! See how the dumb beasts come trooping
toward their sheds! Capitola, you had better give up going altogether,
my dear!"
"There! I thought all this talk tended to keeping me within doors, but
I can't stay, Mrs. Condiment! Good Mrs. Condiment, I can't!"
"But, my dear, if you should be caught out in the storm!"
"Why, I don't know but I should like it! What harm could it do? I'm not
soluble in water--rain won't melt me away! I think upon the whole I
rather prefer being caught in the storm," said Cap, perversely.
"Well, well, there is no need of that! You may ride as far as the
river's bank and back again in time to escape, if you choose!" said
Mrs. Condiment, who saw that her troublesome charge was bent upon the
frolic.
And Cap, seeing her horse approach, led by one of the grooms, ran
up-stairs, donned her riding habit, hat and gloves, ran down again,
sprang into her saddle and was off, galloping away toward the river
before Mrs. Condiment could add another word of warning.
She had been gone about an hour, when the sky suddenly darkened, the
wind rose and the thunder rolled in prelude to the storm.
Major Warfield came skurrying home from the mill, grasping his bridle
with one hand and holding his hat on with the other.
Meeting poor old Ezy in the shrubbery, he stormed out upon him with:
"What are you lounging there for, you old idiot! You old sky-gazing
lunatic! Don't you see that we are going to have an awful blow! Begone
with you and see that the cattle are all under shelter! Off, I say,
or," he rode toward Bill Ezy, but the old man, exclaiming:
"Yes, sir--yes, sir! In coorse, sir!" ducked his head and ran off in
good time.
Major Warfield quickened his horse's steps and rode to the house,
dismounted and threw the reins to the stable boy, exclaiming:
"My beast is dripping with perspiration--rub him down well, you knave,
or I'll impale you!"
Striding into the hall, he threw down his riding whip, pulled off his
gloves and called:
"Wool! Wool, you scoundrel, close every door and window in the house!
Call all the servants together in the dining-room; we're going to have
one of the worst tempests that ever raised!"
Wool flew to do his bidding.
"Mrs. Condiment, mum," said the old man, striding into the
sitting-room, "Mrs. Condiment, mum, tell Miss Black to come down from
her room until the storm is over; the upper chambers of this old house
are not safe in a tempest. Well, mum, why don't you go, or send
Pitapat?"
"Major Warfield, sir, I'm very sorry, but Miss Black has not come in
yet," said Mrs. Condiment, who for the last half hour had suffered
extreme anxiety upon account of Capitola.
"Not come in yet! Demmy, mum! Do you tell me she has gone out?" cried
Old Hurricane, in a voice of thunder, gathering his brows into a dark
frown, and striking his cane angrily upon the floor.
"Yes, sir, I am sorry to say she rode out about an hour ago and has not
returned," said Mrs. Condiment, summoning all her firmness to meet Old
Hurricane's 'roused wrath."
"Ma'am! You venture to stand there before my face and tell me
composedly that you permitted Miss Black to go off alone in the face of
such a storm as this?" roared Old Hurricane.
"Sir, I could not help it!" said the old lady.
"Demmy, mum! You should have helped it! A woman of your age to stand
there and tell me that she could not prevent a young creature like
Capitola from going out alone in the storm!"
"Major Warfield, could you have done it?"
"Me? Demmy, I should think so; but that is not the question! You----"
He was interrupted by a blinding flash of lightning, followed
immediately by an awful peal of thunder and a sudden fall of rain.
Old Hurricane sprang up as though he had been shot off his chair and
trotted up and down the floor exclaiming:
"And she--she out in all this storm! Mrs. Condiment, mum, you deserve
to be ducked! Yes, mum, you do! Wool! Wool! you diabolical villain!"
"Yes, marse, yes, sir, here I is!" exclaimed that officer, in
trepidation, as he appeared in the doorway. "De windows and doors, sir,
is all fastened close and de maids are all in the dining-room as you
ordered, and----"
"Hang the maids and the doors and windows, too! Who the demon cares
about them? How dared you, you knave, permit your young mistress to
ride, unattended, in the face of such a storm, too! Why didn't you go
with her, sir?"
"'Deed, marse----"
"Don't ''deed marse' me you atrocious villain! Saddle a horse quickly,
inquire which road your mistress took and follow and attend her home
safely--after which I intend to break every bone in your skin, sirrah!
So----"
Again he was interrupted by a dazzling flash of lightning, accompanied
by a deafening roll of thunder, and followed by a flood of rain.
Wool stood appalled at the prospect of turning out in such a storm upon
such a fruitless errand.
"Oh, you may stare and roll up your eyes, but I mean it, you varlet! So
be off with you! Go! I don't care if you should be drowned in the rain,
or blown off the horse, or struck by lightning. I hope you may be, you
knave, and I shall be rid of one villain! Off, you varlet, or----" Old
Hurricane lifted a bronze statuette to hurl at Wool's delinquent head,
but that functionary dodged and ran out in time to escape a blow that
might have put a period to his mortal career.
But let no one suppose that honest Wool took the road that night! He
simply ran down-stairs and hid himself comfortably in the lowest
regions of the house, there to tarry until the storms, social and
atmospheric, should be over.
Meanwhile the night deepened, the storm raged without and Old Hurricane
raged within!
The lightning flashed, blaze upon blaze, with blinding glare! The
thunder broke, crash upon crash, with deafening roar! The wind
gathering all its force cannonaded the old walls as though it would
batter down the house! The rain fell in floods! In the midst of all the
Demon's Run, swollen to a torrent, was heard like the voice of a
"roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour!"
Old Hurricane strode up and down the floor, groaning, swearing,
threatening, and at every fresh blast of the storm without, breaking
forth into fury!
Mrs. Condiment sat crouched in a corner, praying fervently every time
the lightning blazed into the room, longing to go and join the men and
maids in the next apartment, yet fearful to stir from her seat lest she
should attract Old Hurricane's attention, and draw down upon herself
the more terrible thunder and lightning of his wrath. But to escape Old
Hurricane's violence was not in the power of mortal man or woman. Soon
her very stillness exasperated him and he broke forth upon her with:
"Mrs. Condiment, mum, I don't know how you can bear to sit there so
quietly and listen to this storm, knowing that the poor child is
exposed to it?"
"Major Warfield, would it do any good for me to jump up and trot up and
down the floor and go on as you do, even supposing I had the strength?"
inquired the meek old lady, thoroughly provoked at his injustice!
"I'd like to see you show a little more feeling! You are a perfect
barbarian! Oh, Cap! my darling, where are you now? Heavens! what a
blast was that! Enough to shake the house about our ears! I wish it
would! blamed if I don't!"
|
true Christians, benefactors of the poor, the
darlings of their family, and once so fond of each other! Oh, this
sorrowful earth here below us!
"Then this new order of things that had been built up for ten years,
fell into ruins, and Joseph II. on his death-bed drew a red line through
his whole life-work; what had happened till then faded into mere
remembrance.
"The earth re-echoed with the shouts of rejoicing--this earth, this
bitter earth. Job for his part wended his way to the Turkish bath in
Buda, and, that he might meet with his brother no more, opened his
arteries and bled to death.
"Yet they were both good Christians; true men in life, faithful to
honor, no evil-doers, no godless men; in heart and deed they worshipped
God; but still the one brother took his own life, that he might meet no
more with the other; and the other said of him: 'He deserved his fate.'
"Oh, this earth that is drenched with the flow of our tears!"
Here grandmother paused, as if she would collect in her mind the
memories of a greater and heavier affliction.
Not a sound reached us down there--even the crypt door was closed; the
moaning of the wind did not reach so far; no sound, only the beating of
the hearts of three living beings.
Grandmother sought with her eyes the date written upon the arch, which
the moisture that had sweated out from the lime had rendered illegible.
"In this year they built this house of sorrow. Job was the first
inhabitant thereof. Just as now, without priest, without toll of bell,
hidden in a wooden chest of other form, they brought him here; and with
him began that melancholy line of victims, whose legacy was that one
should draw the other after him. The shedding of blood by one's own hand
is a terrible legacy. That blood besprinkles children and brothers. That
malicious tempter who directed the father's hand to strike the sharp
knife home into his own heart stands there in ambush forever behind his
successors' backs; he is ever whispering to them; 'Thy father was a
suicide, thy brother himself sought out death; over thy head, too,
stands the sentence; wherever thou runnest from before it, thou canst
not save thyself; thou carriest with thyself thy own murderer in thine
own right hand.' He tempts and lures the undecided ones with blades
whetted to brilliancy, with guns at full cock, with poison-drinks of
awful hue, with deep-flowing streams. Oh, it is indeed horrible!
"And nothing keeps them back! they never think of the love, the
everlasting sorrow of those whom they leave behind here to sorrow over
their melancholy death. They never think of Him whom they will meet
there beyond the grave, and who will ask them: 'Why did you come before
I summoned you?'
"In vain was written upon the front of this house of sorrow, 'Lead us
not into temptation.' You can see. Seven have already taken up their
abode here. All the seven have cast at the feet of Providence that
treasure, an account of which will be asked for in Heaven.
"Job left three children: Ákos, Gerö, and Kálmán. Ákos was the eldest,
and he married earliest. He was a good man, but thoughtless and
passionate. One summer he lost his whole fortune at cards and was
ruined. But even poverty did not drive him to despair. He said to his
wife and children: 'Till now we were our own masters; now we shall be
the servants of others. Labor is not a disgrace. I shall go and act as
steward to some landowner.' The other two brothers, when they heard of
their elder's misfortune, conferred together, went to him, and said:
'Brother, still two-thirds of our father's wealth is left; come, let us
divide it anew.'
"And each of them gave him a third of his property, that they might be
on equal terms again.
"That night Ákos shot himself in the head.
"The stroke of misfortune he could bear, but the kindness of his
brothers set him so against himself that when he was freed from the
cares of life he did not wish to know further the enjoyments thereof.
"Ákos left behind two children, a girl and a boy.
"The girl had lived some sixteen summers--very beautiful, very good.
Look! there is her tomb: 'Struck down in her sixteenth year!' She loved;
became unhappy; and died.
"You cannot understand it yet!
"So already three lay in the solitary vault.
"Gerö was your grandfather--my good, never-to-be-forgotten husband. No
tear wells in my eyes as I think of him; every thought that leads me
back to him is sweet to me; and I know that he was a man of high
principles; that every deed of his--his last deed, too--was proper and
right, it is as it should be. It happened before my very eyes; and I did
not seize his hand to stay his action."
How my old grandmother's eyes flashed in this moment! A glowing warmth,
hitherto unknown to me, seemed to pervade my whole being; some
glimmering ray of enthusiasm--I knew not what! How the dead can inspire
one with enthusiasm!
"Your grandfather was the very opposite of his own father; as it is
likely to happen in hundreds, nay, in thousands of cases that the sons
restore to the East the fame and glory that their fathers gathered in
the West.
"But you don't understand that, either!
"Gerö was in union with those who, under the leadership of a priest of
high rank, wished at the end of the last century, to prepare the country
for another century. No success crowned their efforts; they fell with
him--and fell without a head. One afternoon your grandfather was sitting
in the family circle--it was toward the end of dinner--when a strange
officer entered in the midst of us, and, with a face utterly incapable
of an expression of remorse, informed Gerö that he had orders to put him
under guard. Gerö displayed a calm face, merely begged the stranger to
allow him to drink his black coffee. His request was granted without
demur. My husband calmly stirred his coffee, and entered into
conversation with the stranger, who did not seem to be of an angry
disposition. Indeed, he assured my husband that no harm would come of
this incident. My husband peacefully sipped his coffee.
"Then having finished it, he put down his cup, wiped his beautiful long
beard, turned to me, drew me to his breast, and kissed me on both
cheeks, not touching my mouth. 'Educate our boy well,' he stammered.
Then, turning to the stranger: 'Sir, pray do not trouble yourself
further on my account. I am a dead man; you will be welcome at my
funeral.'
"Two minutes later he breathed his last. And I had clearly seen, for I
sat beside him, how with his thumb he opened the seal of the ring he
wore on his little finger, how he shook a white powder therefrom into
the cup standing before him, how he stirred it slowly till it dissolved,
and then sipped it up little by little; but I could not stay his hand,
could not call to him, 'Don't do it! Cling to life!'"
Grandmother was staring before her, with the ecstatic smile of madness.
Oh! I was so frightened that even now my mind wanders at the
remembrance.
This smile of madness is so contagious! Slowly nodding with her gray
head, she again fell all in a heap. It was apparent that some time must
elapse before this recollection, once risen in her mind, could settle to
rest again. After what seemed to us hours she slowly raised herself
again and continued her tragic narrative.
"He was already the fourth dweller in this house of temptations.
"After his death his brother Kálmán came to join our circle. To the end
he remained single; very early in life he was deceived, and from that
moment became a hater of mankind.
"His gloom grew year by year more incurable; he avoided every
distraction, every gathering; his favorite haunt was this garden--this
place here. He planted the beautiful juniper-trees before the door;
such trees were in those days great rarities.
"He made no attempt to conceal from us--in fact, he often declared
openly to us that his end could be none other than his brothers' had
been.
"The pistol, with which Ákos had shot himself, he kept by him as a
souvenir, and in sad jest declared it was his inheritance.
"Here he would wander for hours together in reverie, in melancholy,
until the falling snow confined him to his room. He detested the winter
greatly. When the first snowflake fell, his ill-humor turned to the
agony of despair; he loathed the atmosphere of his rooms and everything
to be found within the four walls. We so strongly advised him to winter
in Italy, that he finally gave in to the proposal. We carefully packed
his trunks; ordered his post-chaise. One morning, as everything stood
ready for departure, he said that, before going for this long journey,
he would once again take leave of his brothers. In his travelling-suit
he came down here to the vault, and closed the iron door after him,
enjoining that no one should disturb him. So we waited behind; and, as
hour after hour passed by and still he did not appear, we went after
him. We forced open the closed door, and there found him lying in the
middle of the tomb--he had gone to the country where there is no more
winter.
"He had shot himself in the heart, with the same pistol as his brother,
as he had foretold.
"Only two male members of the family remained: my son and the son of
Ákos. Lörincz--that was the name of Ákos' son--was reared too kindly by
his poor, good mother; she loved him excessively, and thereby spoiled
him. The boy became very fastidious and sensitive. He was eleven years
old when his mother noticed that she could not command his obedience.
Once the child played some prank, a mere trifle; how can a child of
eleven years commit any great offence? His mother thought she must
rebuke him. The boy laughed at the rebuke; he could not believe his
mother was angry; then, in consequence, his mother boxed his ears. The
boy left the room; behind the garden there was a fishpond; in that he
drowned himself.
"Well, is it necessary to take one's life for such a thing? For one
blow, given by the soft hand of a mother to a little child, to take such
a terrible revenge! to cut the thread of life, which as yet he knew not;
How many children are struck by a mother, and the next day received into
her bosom, with mutual forgiveness and a renewal of reciprocal love?
Why, a blow from a mother is merely one proof of a mother's love. But it
brought him to take his life."
The cold perspiration stood out in beads all over me.
That bitterness I, too, feel in myself. I also am a child, just as old
as that other was; I have never yet been beaten. Once my parents were
compelled to rebuke me for wanton petulance; and from head to foot I was
pervaded through and through by one raving idea: "If they beat me I
should take my own life." So I am also infected with the hereditary
disease--the awful spirit is holding out his hand over me; captured,
accursed, he is taking me with him. I am betrayed to him! Only instead
of thrashing me, they had punished me with fasting fare; otherwise, I
also should already be in this house.
Grandmother clasped her hands across her knees and continued her story.
"Your father was older at the time of this event--seventeen years of
age. Ever since his birth the world has been rife with discord and
revolutions; all the nations of the world pursued a bitter warfare one
against another. I scarce expected my only son would live to be old
enough to join the army. Thither, thither, where death with a scythe in
both hands was cutting down the ranks of the armed warriors; thither,
where the children of weeping mothers were being trampled on by horses'
hoofs; thither, thither, where they were casting into a common grave the
mangled remains of darling first-borns; only not hither, not into this
awful house, into these horrible ranks of tempting spectres! Yes, I
rejoiced when I knew that he was standing before the foe's cannons; and
when the news of one great conflict after another spread like a dark
cloud over the country, with sorrowful tranquillity, I lay in wait for
the lightning-stroke which, bursting from the cloud, should dart into my
heart with the news: 'Thy son is dead! They have slain him, as a hero is
slain!' But it was not so. The wars ceased. My son returned.
"No, it is not true; don't believe what I said,--'If only the news of
his death had come instead!'
"No; surely I rejoiced, surely I wept in my joy and happiness, when I
could clasp him anew in my arms, and I blessed God for not having taken
him away. Yet, why did I rejoice? Why did I triumph before the world,
saying, 'See, what a fine, handsome son I have! a dauntless warrior,
fame and honor he has brought home with him. My pride--my gladness? Now
they lie here! What did I gain with him--he, too, followed the rest! He,
too! he, whom I loved best of all--he whose every Paradise was here on
earth!"
My brother wept; I shivered with cold.
Then suddenly, like a lunatic, grandmother seized our hands, and leaped
up from her sitting-place.
"Look yonder! there is still _one_ empty niche--room for _one_ coffin.
Look well at that place; then go forth into the world and think upon
what the mouth of this dark hollow said.
"I had thought of making you swear here never to forsake God, never to
continue the misfortunes of this family; but why this oath? That some
one should take with him to the other world one sin more, in that in the
hour of his death he forswore himself? What oath would bind him who
says: 'The mercy of God I desire not'?
"But instead, I brought you here and related you the history of your
family. Later you shall know still more therefrom, that is yet secret
and obscure before you. Now look once more around you, and then--let us
go out.
"Now you know what is the meaning of this melancholy house, whose door
the ivy enters with the close of a man's life from time to time. You
know that the family brings its suicides hither to burial, because
elsewhere they have no place. But you know also that in this awful
sleeping-room there is space for only _one_ person more, and the second
will find no other resting-place than the grave-ditch!"
With these words grandmother passionately thrust us both from her. In
terror we fell into each other's arms before her frenzied gaze.
Then, with a shrill cry, she rushed toward us and embraced us both with
all the might of a lunatic; wept and gasped, till finally she fainted
utterly away.
CHAPTER II
THE GIRL SUBSTITUTE[4]
[Footnote 4: In former days it was the custom for a Magyar and a German
family to interchange children, with a view to their learning the two
languages perfectly. So Fanny Fromm is interchanged with Desiderius
Áronffy.]
A pleasant old custom was then in fashion in our town: the interchange
of children,--perhaps it is in fashion still. In our many-tongued
fatherland one town is German-speaking, the other Magyar-speaking, and,
being brothers, after all to understand each other was a necessity.
Germans must learn Magyar and Magyars, German. And peace is restored.
So a method of temporarily exchanging children grew up: German parents
wrote to Magyar towns, Magyar parents to German towns, to the respective
school directors, to ask if there were any pupils who could be
interchanged. In this manner one child was given for another, a kind,
gentle, womanly thought!
The child left home, father, mother, brother, only to find another home
among strangers: another mother, other brothers and sisters, and his
absence did not leave a void at home; child replaced child; and if the
adopted mother devoted a world of tenderness to the pilgrim, it was with
the idea that her own was being thus treated in the far distance; for a
mother's love cannot be bought at a price but only gained by love.
It was an institution that only a woman's thought could found: so
different from that frigid system invented by men which founded
nunneries, convents, and closed colleges for the benefit of susceptible
young hearts where all memory of family life was permanently wiped out
of their minds.
After that unhappy day, which, like the unmovable star, could never go
so far into the distance as to be out of sight, grandmother more than
once said to us in the presence of mother, that it would not be good for
us to remain in this town; we must be sent somewhere else.
Mother long opposed the idea. She did not wish to part from us. Yet the
doctors advised the same course. When the spasms seized her, for days we
were not allowed to visit her, as it made her condition far worse.
At last she gave her consent, and it was decided that we two should be
sent to Pressburg. My brother, who was already too old to be exchanged,
went to the home of a Privy Councillor, who was paid for taking him in,
and my place was to be taken by a still younger child than myself, by a
little German girl, Fanny, the daughter of Henry Fromm, baker.
Grandmother was to take us in a carriage--in those days in Hungary we
had only heard rumors of steamboats--and to bring the girl substitute
back with her.
For a week the whole household sewed, washed, ironed and packed for us;
we were supplied with winter and summer clothing: on the last day
provisions were prepared for our journey, as if we had intended to make
a voyage to the end of the world, and in the evening we took supper in
good time, that we might rise early, as we had to start before daybreak.
That was my first departure from my home. Many a time since then have I
had to say adieu to what was dearest to me; many sorrows, more than I
could express, have afflicted me: but that first parting caused me the
greatest pain of all, as is proved by the fact that after so long an
interval I remember it so well. In the solitude of my own chamber, I
bade farewell separately to all those little trifles that surrounded me:
God bless the good old clock that hast so oft awakened me. Beautiful
raven, whom I taught to speak and to say "Lorand," on whom wilt thou
play thy sportive tricks? Poor old doggy, maybe thou wilt not be living
when I return? Forsooth old Susie herself will say to me, "I shall never
see you again Master Desi." And till now I always thought I was angry
with Susie; but now I remark that it will be hard to leave her.
And my dear mother, the invalid, and grandmother, already so
grey-haired!
Thus the bitter strains swept onward along the strings of my soul, from
lifeless objects to living, from favorite animals to human
acquaintances, and then to those with whom we were bound soul to soul,
finally dragging one with them to the presence of the dead and buried. I
was sorely troubled by the thought that we were not allowed to enter,
even for one moment, that solitary house, round the door of which the
ivy was entwining anew. We might have whispered "God be with thee! I
have come to see thee!" I must leave the place without being able to say
to him a single word of love. And perhaps he would know without words.
Perhaps the only joy of that poor soul, who could not lie in a
consecrated chamber, who could not find the way to heaven because he had
not waited till the guardian angel came for him, was when he saw that
his sons love him still.
"Lorand, I cannot sleep, because I have not been able to take my leave
of that house beside the stream."
My brother sighed and turned in his bed.
My whole life long I have been a sound sleeper (what child is not?) but
never did it seem such a burden to rise as on the morning of our
departure. Two days later a strange child would be sleeping in that bed.
Once more we met together at breakfast, which we had to eat by
candle-light as the day had not yet dawned.
Dear mother often rose from her seat to kiss and embrace Lorand,
overwhelmed him with caresses, and made him promise to write much; if
anything happened to him, he must write and tell it at once, and must
always consider that bad news would afflict two hearts at home. She
only spoke to me to bid me drink my coffee warm, as the morning air
would be chilly.
Grandmother, too, concerned herself entirely with Lorand: they enquired
whether he had all he required for the journey, whether he had taken his
certificates with him--and a thousand other matters. I was rather
surprised than jealous at all this, for as a rule the youngest son gets
all the petting.
When our carriage drove up we took our travelling coats and said adieu
in turn to the household. Mother, leaning on Lorand's shoulder, came
with us to the gate whispering every kind of tender word to him; thrice
she embraced and kissed him. And then came my turn.
She embraced me and kissed me on the cheek, then tremblingly whispered
in my ear these words:
"My darling boy,--take care of your brother Lorand!" I take care of
Lorand? the child of the young man? the weak of the strong? the later
born guide the elder. The whole journey long this idea distracted me,
and I could not explain it to myself.
Of the impressions of the journey I retain no very clear recollections:
I think I slept very much in the carriage. The journey to Pressburg
lasted from early morning till late evening; only as twilight came on
did a new thought begin to keep me awake, a thought to which as yet I
had paid no attention: "What kind of a child could it be, for whom I was
now being exchanged? Who was to usurp my place at table, in my bed-room,
and in my mother's heart? Was she small or large? beautiful or ugly?
obedient or contrary? had she brothers or sisters, to whom I was to be a
brother? was she as much afraid of me as I was of her?"
For I was very much afraid of her.
Naturally, I dreaded the thought of the child who was meeting me at the
cross-roads with the avowed intention of taking my place as my mother's
child, giving me instead her own parents. Were they reigning princes,
still the loss would be mine. I confess that I felt a kind of sweet
bitterness in the idea that my substitute might be some dull, malicious
creature, whose actions would often cause mother to remember me. But if,
on the contrary, she were some quiet, angelic soul, who would soon steal
my mother's love from me! In every respect I trembled with fear of that
creature who had been born that she might be exchanged for me.
Towards evening grandmother told us that the town which we were going to
was visible. I was sitting with my back to the horses, and so I was
obliged to turn round in order to see. In the distance I could see the
four-columned white skeleton of a building, which was first apparent to
the eye.
"What a gigantic charnel-house," I remarked to grandmother.
"It is no charnel-house, my child, but it is the ruin of the citadel of
(Pressburg) Pozsony."[5]
[Footnote 5: Pozsony. A town in Hungary is called by the Germans
Pressburg.]
A curious ruin it is. This first impression ever remained in my mind: I
regarded it as a charnel-house.
It was quite late when we entered the town, which was very large
compared to ours. I had never seen such elegant display in shop-windows
before and it astonished me as I noticed that there were paved sidewalks
reserved for pedestrians. They must be all fine lords who live in this
city.
Mr. Fromm, the baker, to whose house I was to be taken, had informed us
that we need not go to an hotel as he had room for all of us, and would
gladly welcome us, especially as the expense of the journey was borne by
us. We found his residence by following the written address. He owned a
fine four-storied house in the Fürsten allee,[6] with his open shop in
front on the sign of which peaceful lions were painted in gold holding
rolls and cakes between their teeth.
[Footnote 6: Princes avenue.]
Mr. Fromm himself was waiting for us outside his shop door, and hastened
to open the carriage door himself. He was a round-faced, portly little
man, with a short black moustache, black eyebrows, and close-cropped,
thick, flour-white hair. The good fellow helped grandmother to alight
from the carriage: shook hands with Lorand, and began to speak to them
in German: when I alighted, he put his hand on my head with a peculiar
smile:
"Iste puer?"
Then he patted me on the cheeks.
"Bonus, bonus."
His addressing me in Latin had two advantages; firstly, as I could not
speak German, nor he Magyar, this use of a neutral tongue removed all
suspicions of our being deaf and dumb; secondly, it at once inspired me
with a genuine respect for the honest fellow, who had dabbled in the
sciences, and had, beyond his technical knowledge of his own business,
some acquaintance with the language of Cicero. Mr. Fromm made room for
grandmother and Lorand to pass before him up a narrow stone staircase,
while he kept his hand continuously on my head, as if that were the part
of me by which he could best hold me.
"Veni puer. Hic puer secundus, filius meus."
So there was a boy in the house, a new terror for me.
"Est studiosus."
What, that boy! That was good news: we could go to school together.
"Meus filius magnus asinus."
That was a fine acknowledgment from a father.
"Nescit pensum nunquam scit."
Then he discontinued to speak of the young student, and pantomimically
described something, from which I gathered that "meus filius," on this
occasion was condemned to starve, until he had learnt his lessons, and
was confined to his room.
This was no pleasant idea to me.
Well, and what about "mea filia?"
I had never seen a house that was like Mr. Fromm's inside. Our home was
only one-storied, with wide rooms, and broad corridors, a courtyard and
a garden: here we had to enter first by a narrow hall: then to ascend a
winding stair, that would not admit two abreast. Then followed a rapid
succession of small and large doors, so that when we came out upon the
balconied corridor, and I gazed down into the deep, narrow courtyard, I
could not at all imagine how I had reached that point, and still less
how I could ever find my way out. "Father" Fromm led us directly from
the corridor into the reception room, where two candles were burning
(two in our honor), and the table laid for "gouter." It seemed they had
expected us earlier. Two women were seated at the window, Mrs. Fromm and
her mother. Mrs. Fromm was a tall slender person; she had grey curls (I
don't know why I should not call them "Schneckles," for that is their
name) in front, large blue eyes, a sharp German nose, a prominent chin
and a wart below her mouth.
The "Gross-mamma" was the exact counterpart of Mrs. Fromm, only about
thirty years older, a little more slender, and sharper in feature: she
had also grey "Schneckles"--though I did not know until ten years later
that they were not her own:--she too had that wart, though in her case
it was on the chin.
In a little low chair was sitting that certain personage with whom they
wished to exchange me.
Fanny was my junior by a year:--she resembled neither father nor mother,
with the exception that the family wart, in the form of a little brown
freckle, was imprinted in the middle of her left cheek. During the whole
time that elapsed before our arrival here I had been filled with
prejudices against her, prejudices which the sight of her made only more
alarming. She had an ever-smiling, pink and white face, mischievous blue
eyes, and a curious snub-nose; when she smiled, little dimples formed in
her cheeks and her mouth was ever ready to laugh. When she did laugh,
her double row of white teeth sparkled; in a word she was as ugly as the
devil.
All three were busy knitting as we entered. When the door opened, they
all put down their knitting. I kissed the hands of both the elder
ladies, who embraced me in return, but my attention was entirely devoted
to the little lively witch, who did not wait a moment, but ran to meet
grandmother, threw herself upon her neck, and kissed her passionately;
then, bowing and curtseying before us, kissed Lorand twice, actually
gazing the while into his eyes.
A cold chill seized me. If this little snub-nosed devil dared to go so
far as to kiss me, I did not know what would become of me in my terror.
Yet I could not avoid this dilemma in any way. The terrible little
witch, having done with the others, rushed upon me, embraced me, and
kissed me so passionately that I was quite ashamed; then twining her arm
in mine, dragged me to the little arm-chair from which she had just
risen, and compelled me to sit down, though we could scarcely find room
in it for us both. Then she told many things to me in that unknown
tongue, the only result of which was to persuade me that my poor good
mother would have a noisy baggage to take the place of her quiet,
obedient little son; I felt sure her days would be embittered by that
restless tongue. Her mouth did not stop for one moment, yet I must
confess that she had a voice like a bell.
That was again a family peculiarity. Mother Fromm was endowed with an
inexhaustible store of that treasure called eloquence: and a sharp,
strong voice, too, which forbade the interruption of any one else, with
a flow like that of the purling stream. The grandmamma had an equally
generous gift, only she had no longer any voice: only every second word
was audible, like one of those barrel-organs, in which an occasional
note, instead of sounding, merely blows.
Our business was to listen quietly.
For my part, that was all the easier, as I could not suspect what was
the subject of this flow of barbarian words; all I understood was that,
when the ladies spoke to me, they addressed me as "Istok,"[7] a jest
which I found quite out of place, not knowing that it was the German for
"Why don't you eat?" For you must know the coffee was brought
immediately, with very fine little cakes, prepared especially for us
under the personal supervision of Father Fromm.
[Footnote 7: "Issdoch," the German for "but eat." (Why don't you eat?)
While Istok is a nickname for Stephan in Magyar.]
Even that little snub-nosed demon said "Issdoch," seized a cake, dipped
it in my coffee, and forcibly crammed it into my mouth, when I did not
wish to understand her words.
But I was not at all hungry. All kinds of things were brought onto the
table, but I did not want anything. Father Fromm kept calling out
continually in student guise "Comedi! Comedi!" a remark which called
forth indignant remonstrances from mamma and grossmamma; how could he
call his own dear "Kugelhuff"[8] a "comedy!!!"
[Footnote 8: A cake eaten everywhere in Hungary.]
Fanny in sooth required no coaxing. At first sight anyone could see that
she was the spoiled child of the family, to whom everything was allowed.
She tried everything, took a double portion of everything and only after
taking what she required did she ask "darf ich?"[9]--and I understood
immediately from the tone of her voice and the nodding of her head, that
she meant to ask "if she might."
[Footnote 9: i. e., darf ich, "may I?"]
Then instead of finishing her share she had the audacity to place her
leavings on my plate, an action which called forth rebuke enough from
Grossmamma. I did not understand what she said, but I strongly suspected
that she abused her for wishing to accustom the "new child" to eating a
great deal. Generally speaking, I had brought from home the suspicion
that, when two people were speaking German before me, they were surely
hatching some secret plot against me, the end of which would be, either
that I would not get something, or would not be taken somewhere, where
I wished to go.
I would not have tasted anything the little snub-nose gave me, if only
for the reason that it was she who had given it. How could she dare to
touch my plate with those dirty little hands of hers, that were just
like cats-paws?
Then she gave everything I would not accept to the little kitten;
however, the end of it all was, that she again turned to me, and asked
me to play with the kitten.
Incomprehensible audacity! To ask me, who was already a school-student,
to play with a tiny kitten.
"Shoo!" I said to the malicious creature; a remark which,
notwithstanding the fact that it seemed to belong to some
strange-tongued nationality, the animal understood, for it immediately
leaped down off the table and ran away. This caused the little snub-nose
to get angry with me, and she took her sensitive revenge upon me, by
going across to my grandmother, whom she tenderly caressed, kissing her
hand, and then nestled to her bosom, turning her back on me; once or
twice she looked back at me, and if at the moment my eye was on her,
sulkily flung back her head; as if that was any great misfortune to me.
Little imp! She actually occupied my place beside my grandmother--and
before my eyes too.
Well, and why did I gaze at her, if I was so very angry with her? I will
tell you truly; it was only that I might see to what extremes she would
carry her audacity. I would far rather have been occupied in the
fruitless task of attempting to discover something intelligent in a
conversation that was being carried on before me in a strange tongue: an
effort that is common to all men who have a grain of human curiosity
flowing in their veins, and that, as is well-known, always remains
unsuccessful.
Still one combination of mine did succeed. That name "Henrik"
often struck my ear. Father Fromm was called Henrik, but he
himself uttered the name: that therefore could not be other than
his son. My grandmother spoke of him in pitiful tones, whereas
Father Fromm assumed a look of inexorable severity, when he gave
information on this subject; and as he spoke I gathered frequently
the words "prosodia,"--"pensum"--"labor"--"vocabularium"--and
many other terms common to dog-Latin: among which words like
"secunda"--"tertia"--"carcer" served as a sufficiently trustworthy
compass to direct me to the following conclusion: My friend Henrik might
not put in an appearance to-day at supper, because he did not know his
lessons, and was to remain imprisoned in the house until he could
im
|
Books a portion of the original MS. of 1559 may
have been retained. The marginal notes, which specify particular dates,
chiefly refer to the years 1566, or 1567, and they leave no doubt in
regard to the actual period when the bulk of the MS. was written, as
those bearing the date 1567 are clearly posterior to the transcription
of the pages where they occur. Some of these notes, as well as a number
of minute corrections, are evidently in Knox's own hand; but the latter
part of Book Fourth could not have been transcribed until the close of
the year 1571. This is proved by the circumstance that the words, "BOT
WNTO THIS DAY, THE 17. OF DECEMBER 1571," form an integral part of the
text, near the foot of fol. 359, in "The Ressonyng betuix the Maister of
Maxwell and John Knox." The whole of this section indeed is written
somewhat hastily, like a scroll-copy, probably by Richard Bannatyne, his
Secretary, from dictation; but whether it was merely rewritten in 1571,
or first added in that year to complete Book Fourth, must be left to
conjecture.
I.--MANUSCRIPT OF 1566.--IN THE EDITOR'S POSSESSION.
The accompanying leaf exhibits an accurate fac-simile of part of the
first page of the MS; and it is worthy of notice, that in the Wodrow
Miscellany, vol. i. p. 287, a fac-simile of a paper entitled "The Kirkis
Testimonial, &c.," dated 26th December 1565, is evidently by the same
hand.[4] It has the signatures of three of the Superintendents, Erskine
of Dun, John Spottiswood, and John Wynram, as well as that of John Knox.
As this was a public document, and was no doubt written by the Clerk of
the General Assembly, we may infer that Knox's amanuensis, in 1566, was
either John Gray, who was Scribe or Clerk to the Assembly from 1560 till
his death in 1574, or one of the other Scribes whom Knox mentions, in
his interview with Queen Mary, in 1563, as having implicit confidence in
their fidelity. But this is no very important point to determine, since
the Manuscript itself bears such unequivocal proofs of having passed
through the Author's hands. Two short extracts, (corresponding with
pages 109 and 115 of this volume,) are also selected on account of the
marginal notes, both of which I think are in Knox's own hand. Further
specimens of such notes or corrections will be given in the next volume.
At fol. 249, four leaves are left blank to allow the form of "The
Election of the Superintendant" to be inserted; but this can be supplied
from either the Glasgow MS. or the early printed copies. A more
important omission would have been the First Book of Discipline, but
this the MS. fortunately contains, in a more genuine state than is
elsewhere preserved; and it will form no unimportant addition to the
next volume of the History.
The volume consists of 388 folios, chiefly written, as already stated,
in the year 1566. No trace of its earlier possessors can be discovered;
but the name of "Mr. Matthew Reid, Minister of North-Berwick" (from 1692
to 1729,) written on the first page, identifies it with a notice, which
is given by the Editor of the 1732 edition: "There is also a complete
MS. copy of the first four Books of this History belonging now to Mr.
Gavin Hamilton, Bookseller in Edinburgh, which formerly belonged to the
late Reverend Mr. Matthew Reid, Minister of the Gospel at North-Berwick;
it is written in a very old hand, the old spelling is kept, and I am
informed that it exactly agrees with the Glasgow MS., with which it was
collated, during the time this edition was a printing." (page liii.)
This MS., came into the possession of the Rev. John Jamieson, D.D.,
probably long before the publication of his Etymological Dictionary in
1808, where he mentions his having two MSS. of Knox's History, (this,
and the one marked No. VIII.) in his list of authorities; but neither of
them was known, and consequently had never been examined by Dr. M'Crie.
At the sale of Dr. Jamieson's library in 1839, both MSS. were purchased
by the Editor.
In the firm persuasion that this MS. must have been written not only
during the Reformer's life, but under his immediate inspection, and that
all the existing copies were derived from it, more or less directly, I
should have held it a most unprofitable labour to have collated the
other MSS., for no other purpose than to notice the endless variations,
omissions, and mistakes of later transcribers. The reader may think I
have paid too much regard in this respect to the various readings or
errors in Vautrollier's suppressed edition, and in the Glasgow
Manuscript; but these copies being the only ones referable to the
sixteenth century, are deserving of greater attention than those of a
more recent age, while the variations pointed out frequently serve to
account for the mistakes in the later transcripts.
But before explaining the manner in which this edition has been printed,
it may be proper to enumerate the other Manuscripts which are known to
be preserved; and I may take this opportunity of expressing to the
several Proprietors my grateful acknowledgments for the free use of the
copies specified.
II.--VAUTR. EDIT.--PRINTED AT LONDON IN 1586 OR 1587.
This edition, described at page xxxix, is here introduced as
representing an intermediate MS., from which some of the existing copies
were apparently derived. Thomas Vautrollier the printer, a native of
France, came to England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign. He
retired to Scotland in the year 1584, and printed several works at
Edinburgh in that and the following year. In 1586, he returned to
London, carrying with him a manuscript copy of Knox's History, which he
put to press; but all the copies were seized before the work was
completed. The manuscript copy which he had obtained is not known to be
preserved; but there is no reason to doubt that it was taken directly
from the MS. of 1566. This appears from the marginal notes and a variety
of minute coincidences, perceptible on collating the printed portion. We
may likewise conclude, that from it several of the later transcripts
were taken of the introductory portion, and the Fourth Book, to complete
the text of the unfinished printed volume.
III. MS. G.--IN THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, GLASGOW.
In folio, containing 242 leaves, written before the end of the sixteenth
century. This MS. was long considered to be the earliest and most
authentic copy of the History, and consequently no small degree of
importance was attached to it.
Many years ago, (before I was aware of the existence of the MS. of
1566,) I obtained, through the Rev. Dr. M'Turk, late Professor of
Ecclesiastical History, the use of this Manuscript for the purpose of
collation; but I found that the text was so faithfully given in the
Edinburgh edition 1732, folio, with the single exception of omitting
such marginal notes as the MS. contains, that an entire collation of the
text might only have exhibited slight occasional changes in orthography.
At that time the MS. formed two volumes, in the old parchment covers,
with uncut leaves; it has since been half-bound in one volume, and the
edges unmercifully cropped.
At the beginning of the volume there is inserted a separate leaf, being
the title of a distinct work, having the signature of "M. Jo. Knox," in
1581, probably the nephew of the Reformer, who became Minister of
Melrose. It has no connexion with the volume in which it is preserved;
but it led to some vague conjectures that the writer of the History
itself may have been "the younger Mr. Knox, seeing the former died in
the year 1572, and the other was alive nine years after;" or else,
"that the latter Mr. Knox had perfected the work, pursuant to the order
of the General Assembly in the year 1573 or 1574, so far as it was to be
found in this MS."[5] Respecting the time of transcription, one minute
circumstance is worthy of notice: Knox in one place introduces the
words, "as may be, &c., _in this year_ 1566," the copier has made it,
"in this year 1586," an error not likely to have been committed
previously to that year. But the hand-writing is clearly of a date about
1590, although the Fourth Book may have been a few years earlier. The
absence of all those peculiar blunders which occur in Vautrollier's
edition, evinces that the Glasgow MS. was derived from some other
source; while the marginal notes in that edition are a sufficient proof
that the MS. in question was not the one employed by the English
printer. It is in fact a tolerably accurate copy of the MS. of 1566,
with the exception of the marginal notes, and the entire omission of the
First Book of Discipline. Nearly all the marginal notes in the First and
Third Books are omitted; and others having been incorporated with the
text, led to the supposition that Knox himself had revised the History
at a later period of life.
[Illustration: Signature: M Jo. Knox. augusti 18 a^o 1581]
This manuscript was presented to the University of Glasgow by the Rev.
Robert Fleming, Minister of a Scotish Congregation in London, and son of
the author of "The Fulfilling of the Scriptures." Wodrow communicated to
Bishop Nicolson, a collation of the MS. with Buchanan's folio edition of
1644, pointing out many of his interpolations. This letter was inserted
by Nicolson in the Appendix to his Scotish Historical Library.[6]
IV. MS. A. (1.)--IN THE ADVOCATES LIBRARY.
In 4to, pp. 403. This MS. was acquired by the Faculty of Advocates, in
1792, with the mass of Wodrow's MSS.--It is very neatly written by
Charles Lumisden, whose name (but partially erased) with the date 1643,
occurs on the fly-leaf. Wodrow was correct in imagining that the greater
portion of the volume was transcribed from Vautrollier's edition, some
of the more glaring typographical errors being corrected; but in fact
this copy was made from a previous transcript by Lumisden, to be
mentioned as No. X. MS. W. It contains however the Fourth Book of the
History; and Wodrow has collated the whole very carefully with the
Glasgow MS., and has marked the chief corrections and variations in the
margin.
V. MS. A. (2.)--IN THE ADVOCATES LIBRARY.
In folio. This volume also belonged to the Wodrow collection. It is
written in a very careless, slovenly manner, after the year 1639, by one
Thomas Wood; and is scarcely entitled to be reckoned in the number of
the MSS., as it omits large portions. Thus, on the title of Book Fourth,
it is called "A Collection from the Fourth Book," &c.
VI. MS. E.--IN THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, EDINBURGH.
In folio, 143 leaves, written in an ordinary hand, apparently about the
year 1635. It contains the Four Books, and includes both the First and
Second Books of Discipline; but it omits all the marginal notes, and
displays very little accuracy on the part of the transcriber. It is in
fact a transcript from the identical copy of Vautrollier's edition,
described as No. XIII., from its adopting the various marginal
corrections and emendations on the printed portions of that copy.
VII. MS. I.--IN THE POSSESSION OF DAVID IRVING, LL. D.
In folio, 266 leaves, written in a neat hand, and dated 1641. It
contains the Four Books; but, like the three preceding MSS., it may
without doubt be regarded as a transcript from Vautrollier's edition,
with the addition of Book Fourth of the History. It also contains both
the First and Second Books of Discipline, copied from Calderwood's
printed edition of 1621, with such minute fidelity, as even to add the
list of typographical "Errata" at the end, with the references to the
page and line of that edition.
VIII. MS. L. (2.)--IN THE EDITOR'S POSSESSION.
In folio, 180 leaves, written probably between 1620 and 1630. It wants
several leaves at the beginning, and breaks off with the Third Book,
adding the Acts of Parliament against the Mass, &c., passed in 1560. It
formerly belonged to the Rev. Dr. Jamieson, and was purchased at his
sale in 1839. The press-marks on the fly leaf may probably identify the
collection to which it formerly belonged, "2 H. 16.--Hist. 51," and "a.
66." Notwithstanding a MS. note by Dr. Jamieson, it is a transcript of
no value, corresponding in most points with Vautrollier's edition.
IX. MS. N.--IN THE LIBRARY AT NEWTONDON.
In folio, pp. 387. This is a MS. of still less importance, but it serves
to show the rarity of Vautrollier's printed edition, previously to the
appearance of Buchanan's editions in 1644. On the first leaf, the
celebrated covenanting Earl of Glencairne has written,--
"This is the copie of Johne Knox his Chronicle, coppiede in the yeere of
God 1643.--GLENCAIRNE."
It is in fact a literal transcript from a defective copy of the old
suppressed edition; as the blanks in the MS. at pages 156, 157, and
pages 166, 167, which break off, or commence at the middle of a
sentence, would be completely supplied by pages 225, 226, and pages 239,
240, of Vautrollier's text. At page 347, only the heads of the
Confession of Faith are inserted, "but (it is added) yee shall find them
fullie set downe in the first Parliament of King James the Sext, holden
at Edinburgh the 15 of December 1567, by James Earle of Murray, Regent
to this Realme."
This MS. ends with page 546 of the printed copy; and after the words
"would not suffer this corrupt generation to approve," instead of
commencing with the Book of Discipline, from page 547, there is added,
"_And because the whole Booke of Discipline, both First and Secund, is
sensyne printed by the selfe in one Booke, I cease to insert it heere,
and referres the reader to the said booke. Finis._"
X. MS. W.--IN THE POSSESSION OF RICHARD WHYTOCK, ESQ., EDINBURGH.
In 4to, pp. 452, not perfect. It is in the hand-writing of Charles
Lumisden, who succeeded his father as Minister of Duddingstone, and who,
during the reign of Charles the First, was much employed in
transcribing. It is unquestionably copied from Vautrollier's printed
edition, but many of the palpable mistakes have been corrected, and the
orthography improved. In general the marginal notes are retained, while
some others, apparently derived from David Buchanan's printed text, are
added in a different hand. Like Vautrollier's edition, at page 560, this
MS. breaks off with the first portion of the Book of Discipline, at the
end of Book Third of the History.
Such are the MANUSCRIPT copies of Knox's History which are known to be
preserved. There are however still existing detached portions of the
History, made with the view of completing the defective parts of
Vautrollier's edition; and these may also be briefly indicated.
XI. MS. C.--In the Library of the Church of Scotland. This MS., in
folio, was purchased by the General Assembly in 1737, from the executors
of the Rev. Matthew Crawfurd. The volume is in the old parchment cover,
and has the autograph of "Alex. Colvill" on the first page. But it
contains only the preliminary leaves of the text, and the concluding
portion of the First Book of Discipline, (the previous portion being
oddly copied at the end of it;) and Book Fourth of the History, all in
the hand of a Dutch amanuensis, about 1640, for the purpose of supplying
the imperfections of the suppressed edition.
XII. MS. M.--In a copy of Vautrollier's edition, which belonged to the
Rev. Dr. M'Crie, and is now in the possession of his son, the Rev.
Thomas M'Crie, the same portions are supplied in an early hand,
containing eight leaves at the beginning, and ninety-nine at the end,
along with a rude ornamented title, and a portrait of Knox, copied by
some unpractised hand from one of the old engravings. It contains the
concluding portion of the First Book of Discipline, but several of the
paragraphs in Book Fourth of the History are abridged or omitted.
XIII. MS. L. (3.)--A copy of the same volume, with these portions
similarly supplied, and including both the First and Second Books of
Discipline, appeared at the sale of George Paton's Library, in 1809. It
is now in the Editor's possession. A number of the errors in printing
have been carefully corrected on the margin, in an old hand; and the MS.
portions are written in the same hand with No. VI. MS. E. of the entire
work, which is literally transcribed from this identical copy.
XIV. and XV. MSS. L. (4 and 5.)--I have also a separate transcript of
Book Fourth, in folio, 44 leaves, written about the year 1640; and
another portion, in small 8vo, written in a still older hand, for the
purpose of being bound with the suppressed edition.
PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE HISTORY.
Vautrollier's unfinished and suppressed edition, in 1586 or 1587, has
already been noticed at page xxxii. The fate of this edition is thus
recorded by Calderwood, in his larger MS. History:--"February 1586.
Vauttrollier the printer took with him a copy of Mr. Knox's History to
England, and printed twelve hundred of them; the Stationers, at the
Archbishop's command, seized them the 18 of February [1586-7]; it was
thought that he would get leave to proceed again, because the Council
perceived that it would bring the Queen of Scots in detestation." The
execution of the unfortunate Queen, which followed so soon after, or the
death of the Printer himself, in 1588, may have prevented its
completion. But copies had speedily come into circulation in its
unfinished state. Thus Dr. (afterwards Archbishop) Bancroft, who
frequently quotes this suppressed edition, says,--"If euer you meete
with the Historie of the Church of Scotland, penned by Maister Knox, and
printed by Vautrouillier: reade the pages quoted here in the
margent."--(A Survay of the pretended Holy Discipline, &c. Imprinted at
London, by Iohn Wolfe, 1593, 4to, p. 48.)
It is most inaccurately printed.[7] This may have been partly owing to
the state of the MS. which he had procured in Scotland, as well as to
haste in printing, and ignorance of the names of persons and places
which occur in the work.
The following is a fac-simile reprint of the first page, which
corresponds with pages 10-11 of the present volume:--
CHVRCH OF SCOTLAND. 17
BY THESE ARTICLES which God of his mercifull prouidence causeth the
enemies of his truth to keepe in their registers maye appeare how
mercifully God hath looked vppon this realme, retayning within it
some sparke of his light, euen in the time of greatest darknes.
Neither ought any m[=a] to wonder albeit that some things be obscurely
and some thinges doubtfully spoken. But rather ought al faithfull
to magnifie Gods mercy who without publike doctrine gaue so great
light. And further we ought to consider that seeing that the
enemies of Iesus Christe gathered the foresaide articles there
vppon to accuse the persones aforesaide, that they woulde depraue
the meaninge of Gods seruauntes so farre as they coulde, as we
doubt not but they haue done, in the heads of excommunication,
swearing and of matrimony: In the which it is no doubt but the
seruaunts of God did damne the abuse onelye, and not the right
ordinance of God: for who knowes not that excommunication in these
dayes was altogeather abused? That swearing aboundeth without
punishment or remorse of conscience: And that diuorcementes was
made, for such causes as worldly men had inuented: but to our
history. Albeit that the accusation of the Bishop and of his
complices was very grieuous, yet God so assisted his seruauntes
partly by inclining the kinges heart to gentlenes (for diuerse of
them were his great familiars) and partly by giuing bold and godly
aunswers to their accusators, that the enemies in the ende were
frustrate of their purpose. For while the Bishop in mockage saide
to Adam reade of blaspheming, read beleeue ye that God is in
heauen? he answered Not as I do the sacramentes seuen: whereat the
bishop thinking to haue triumphed said: Sir loe
Vautrollier's edition is a small 8vo, commencing with signature B, page
17, and breaking off with signature Mm, page 560, or near the beginning
of the 5th chapter of the Book of Discipline, which Knox has introduced
at the conclusion of Book Third of his History. Copies of this volume in
fine condition are of rare occurrence.
The edition of the History published at London by David Buchanan in
1644, and reprinted at Edinburgh in the same year, in all probability
under his own inspection, will be more particularly noticed in the
following volume. It might perhaps have been well had this publication
been actually prohibited, as Milton[8] seems to indicate was not
unlikely to have taken place. So much use at least had been made of the
unwarrantable liberties taken by the Editor, in altering and adding
passages, as for a length of time to throw discredit on the whole work.
At length there appeared the very accurate edition, published at
Edinburgh 1732, with a Life of the author, by the Rev. Matthew Crawfurd.
Besides this and the two editions published in a more popular form by
William M'Gavin, at Glasgow, there are numerous modernized and spurious
republications, all of them taken from Buchanan's interpolated
editions, and published at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dundee, between the
years 1731 and 1832. Even at an early period, both Calderwood, who had
made such copious extracts from the work, and Spottiswood, who expressed
his doubts respecting its authorship, appear to have employed
Vautrollier's inaccurate edition. The necessity of publishing the work
with greater care and in its most genuine form, will therefore by
readily admitted. The acquisition of the Manuscript of 1566, has enabled
the Editor to accomplish this, to a certain extent, by presenting the
text of the History in the precise form "wherein he hath continued and
perfectly ended at the year of God 1564," according to the declaration
made to the first General Assembly which met after his death. Having
such a MS. to follow, I have adhered to it with much more scrupulous
accuracy, in regard to the othography,[9] than otherwise might have been
deemed advisable. At first sight, indeed, the language may appear
somewhat uncouth, and it may require a Glossary to be subjoined; but it
was of essential importance that the work should be published in its
original form, with the Author's own marginal notes and relections, as
the genuine production of the great SCOTISH REFORMER.
* * * * *
The labour bestowed by the Author in collecting information, with the
desire of giving a true and faithful History of these transactions,
rendered it also desirable that more than ordinary care should be
bestowed in illustrating his narrative. For this purpose, I have taken
considerable pains to identify the persons and places mentioned in the
course of this History. Knox himself, on more than one occasion, states,
that while he was careful in relating facts, he was no observer of
_times_ and _seasons_, in other words, that he made no pretensions to
minute accuracy in dates. It became the more necessary to devote
particular attention, either to confirm or correct his dates, by
reference to contemporary documents; and no source that was accessible
has been overlooked, although I am fully sensible that I may have failed
in making suitable use of the information thus obtained. I have at least
endeavoured to avoid cumbering the page with notes, unless where they
seemed necessary to illustrate the text; and I consider no apology to be
required for the Articles inserted in the Appendix.
THE FIRST BOOKE OF THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATIOUN OF RELIGIOUN WITHIN
THE REALME OF SCOTLAND: CONTEANYNG THE MANER AND BY WHAT PERSONS THE
LIGHT OF CHRISTIS EVANGELL HATH BENE MANIFESTED UNTO THIS REALME, AFTER
THAT HORRIBLE AND UNIVERSALL DEFECTIOUN FROM THE TREWTH, WHICH HES CUME
BY THE MEANES OF THAT ROMANE ANTICHRIST.
THE PREFACE.
TO THE GENTILL READAR, GRACE AND PEACE FROME GOD THE FATHER OF OUR LORD
JESUS CHRIST, WITH THE PERPETUALL ENCREASE OF THE HOLY SPREIT.[10]
It is not unknowen, Christeane Reader, that the same clud[11] of
ignorance, that long hath darkened many realmes under this accurssed
kingdome of that Romane Antichrist, hath also owercovered this poore
Realme; that idolatrie[12] hath bein manteined, the bloode of innocentis
hath bene sched, and Christ Jesus his eternall treuth hath bene
abhorred, detested, and blasphemed. But that same God that caused light
to schyne out of darknes, in the multitud of his mercyes, hath of long
tyme opened the eis[13] of some evin within this Realme, to see the
vanitie of that which then was universally embrased for trew religioun;
and hes gevin unto them strenth to oppone thame selfis unto the same:
and now, into these our last and moist corrupt dayis, hath maid his
treuth so to triumphe amonges us, that, in despyte of Sathan,
hipochrisye is disclosed, and the trew wyrschipping of God is manifested
to all the inhabitantis of this realme whose eis[14] Sathan blyndis not,
eyther by thair fylthy lustes, or ellis by ambitioun, and insatiable
covetousnes, which maek them repung to the power of God working by his
worde.
And becaus we ar not ignorant what diverse bruittis war dispersed of us,
the professoures of Jesus Christ within this realme, in the begynnyng
of our interprise, ordour was lackin, that all our proceidingis should
be committed to register; as that thei war, by such as then paynfullie
travailled[15] boith by toung and pen; and so was collected a just
volume, (as after will appeir,) conteanyng thingis done frome the
fyftie-awght[16] year of God, till the arrivall of the Quenis Majestie
furth of France,[17] with the which the Collectour and Writtar for that
tyme was content, and never mynded further to have travailled in that
kynd of writting.[18] But, after invocatioun of the name of God, and
after consultatioun with some faythfull,[19] what was thought by thame
expedient to advance Goddis glorie, and to edifie this present
generatioun, and the posteritie to come, it was concluded, that
faythfull rehersall should be maid of such personages as God had maid
instrumentis of his glorie, by opponyng of thame selfis to manifest
abuses, superstitioun, and idolatrie; and, albeit thare be no great
nomber, yet ar thei mo then the Collectour wold have looked for at the
begynnyng, and thairfoir is the volume some what enlarged abuif his
expectatioun: And yit, in the begynnyng, mon we crave of all the gentill
Readaris, not to look of us such ane History as shall expresse all
thingis that have occurred within this Realme, during the tyme of this
terrible conflict that hes bene betuix the sanctes of God and these
bloody wolves who clame to thame selves the titill of clargie, and to
have authoritie ower the saules of men; for, with the Pollicey,[20] mynd
we to meddill no further then it hath Religioun mixed with it. And
thairfoir albeit that many thingis which wer don be omitted, yit, yf we
invent no leys, we think our selves blamless in that behalf. Of one
other [thing] we mon foirwarne the discreat Readaris, which is, that
thei be not offended that the sempill treuth be spokin without
partialitie; for seing that of men we neyther hunt for reward, nor yitt
for vane[21] glorie, we litill pass by the approbatioun of such as
seldome judge weill of God and of his workis. Lett not thairfoir the
Readar wonder, albeit that our style vary and speik diverslie of men,
according as thei have declared thame selves sometymes ennemyes and
sometymes freindis, sometymes fervent, sometymes cold, sometymes
constant, and sometymes changeable in the cause of God and of his holy
religioun: for, in this our simplicitie, we suppoise that the Godlie
shall espy our purpose, which is, that God may be praised for his mercy
schawin, this present age may be admonished to be thankfull for Goddis
benefittis offerred, and the posteritie to cum may be instructed how
wonderouslie hath the light of Christ Jesus prevailled against darkness
in this last and most corrupted age.
HISTORIÆ INITIUM.[22]
In the Scrollis of Glasgw is found mentioun of one whais name is not
expressed,[23] that, in the year of God 1422, was burnt for heresye;[24]
bot what war his opinionis, or by what ordour he was condempned, it
appearis not evidentlie. But our Cronikilles mack mentioun, that in the
dayis of King James the First, about the year of God 1431, was
deprehended in the Universitie of Sanctandrose, one named Paull
Craw,[25] a Bohame,[26] who was accused of heresye befoir such as then
war called Doctouris of Theologie. His accusatioun consisted
principallye, that he followed Johnne Husse and Wyckleif, in the
opinioun of the sacrament, who denyed that the substance of braid and
wyn war changed be vertew of any wourdis; or that confessioun should be
maid to preastis; or yitt prayeris to sanctes departed. Whill that God
geve unto him grace to resist thame, and not to consent to thair
impietie, he was committed to the secular judge, (for our bischoppis
follow Pilat, who boith did condempne, and also wesche[27] his handis,)
who condempned him to the fyre; in the quhilk he was consumed in the
said citie of Sanctandrose, about the time afoir writtin. And to declair
thame selvis to be the generatioun of Sathan, who, from the begynnyng,
hath bein ennemy to the treuth, and he that desyrith the same to be hyd
frome the knowledge of men, thei putt a ball of brass in his mouth, to
the end that he should nott geve confessioun of his fayth to the people,
neyther yit that thei should understand the defence which he had against
thair injust accusatioun and condemnatioun.
Bot that thair fatheris practise did nott greatlie advance thair
kingdome of darknes, nether yit was it able utterlie to extingueise the
trewth: For albeit, that in the dayis of Kingis James the Secund and
Thrid, we fynd small questioun of religioun moved within this Realme,
yit in the tyme of King James the Fourt, in the saxt year of his reigne,
and in the twenty-twa yeir of his age, which was in the year of God
1494, war summoned befoir the King and his Great Counsell, by Robert
Blackedar called Archebischope of Glasgw,[28] the nomber of thretty
personis, remanyng some in Kyle-Stewart, some in Kingis-Kyile, and some
in Cunyghame;[29] amonges whome,[30] George Campbell of Sesnok, Adame
Reid of Barskymming, Johne Campbell of New Mylnes, Andro Shaw of
Polkemmate, Helen Chalmour Lady Pokillie,[31] [Marion][32] Chalmours
Lady Stairs: These war called the LOLARDIS OF KYLE. Thei war accused of
the Articles following, as we have receaved thame furth of the
Register[33] Glasgw.
* * * * *
I. First, That Images ar not to be had, nor yitt to be wirschepped.
II. That the Reliques of Sanctes are not to be wirschepped.
III. That Lawis and Ordinances of men vary frome tyme to tyme, and that
by the Pape.
IV. That it is not lauchfull to feght, or to defend the fayth. (We
translait according to the barbarousnes of thair Latine and
dictament.[34])
V. That Christ gave power to Petir onlie, and not to his successouris,
to bynd and lowse within the Kyrk.
VI. That Christ ordeyned no Preastis to consecrat.
VII. That after the consecratioun in the Messe, thare remanes braid;[35]
and that thair is nott the naturall body of Christ.
VIII. That teythes aught not to be given to Ecclesiasticall men, (as
thei war then called.)
IX. That Christ at his cuming has tackin away power from Kingis to
judge.[36
|
ecessary to Produce Same--Influence in Guiding a Stronger
Hand--Avoiding an Unnatural and Cramped Position--Effect of the
Brain on Guided Hand--Separating Characteristics from Guided Joint
Signature--Detecting Writing by a System of Measurement
CHAPTER XVI
TALES TOLD BY HANDWRITING
Telling the Nationality, Sex and Age of Anyone Who Executes
Handwriting--Americans and Their Style of Writing--How English, German,
and French Write--Gobert, the French Expert, and How He Saved
Dreyfus--Miser Paine and His Millions Saved by an Expert--Writing
with Invisible Ink--Professor Braylant's Secret Writing Without
Ink--Professor Gross Discovers a Simple Secret Writing Method With a
Piece of Pointed Hardwood--A System Extensively Used--Studying the
Handwriting of Authors--How to Determine a Person's Character and
Disposition by Handwriting
CHAPTER XVII
WORKINGS OF THE GOVERNMENT SECRET SERVICE
Officials of This Department Talk About Their Work--How Criminals
Are Traced, Caught and Punished--Its Work Extending to All
Departments--Secret Service Districts--Reports Made to the Treasury
Department--Good Money and Bad--How to Detect the False--System of
Numbering United States Notes Explained--Counterfeiting on the
Decrease--Counterfeiting Gold Certificates--Bank Tellers and
Counterfeits--The Best Secret Service in the World
CHAPTER XVIII
CHARACTER AND TEMPERAMENT INDICATED BY HANDWRITING
A Man's Handwriting a Part of Himself--Handwriting and
Personality--Cheap Postage and Typewriters Playing Havoc with
Writing by Hand--Old Time Correspondence Vanishing--Two Divisions
of Handwriting--Fashion Has Changed Even Writing--Characteristic
Writing of Different Professions--One's Handwriting a Sure Index to
Character and Temperament--Personality of Handwriting--Handwriting
a Voiceless Speaking--A Neglected Science--Interest in Disputed
Handwriting Rapidly Coming to the Front--Set Writing Copies no
Longer the Rule--Formal Handwriting--Education's Effect on
Writing--Handwriting and Personality--The Character and
Temperament of Writers Easily Told--Honest, Eccentric, and Weak
People--How to Determine Character by Writing--The Marks of Truth
and Straightforwardness--How Perseverance and Patience Are
Indicated in Writing--Economy, Generosity and Liberality Easily
Shown in Writing--The Character and Temperament of Any Writer
Easily Shown--Studying Character from Handwriting a Fascinating
Work--Rules for Its Study--Links in a Chain That Cannot be
Hidden--A Person's Writing a Surer Index to Character Than His Face
CHAPTER XIX
HANDWRITING EXPERTS AS WITNESSES
Who May Testify As An Expert--Bank Officials and Bank Employes Always
Desired--Definition of Expert and Opinion Evidence--Both Witness
and Advocate--Witness in Cross Examination--Men Who Have Made the
Science of Disputed Handwriting a Study--Objections to Appear in
Court--Experts Contradicting Each Other--The Truth or Falsity of
Handwriting--Sometimes a Mass of Doubtful Speculations--Paid Experts
and Veracity--Present Method of Dealing with Disputed Handwriting
Experts--How the Bench and Bar Regard the System--Remedies
Proposed--Should an Expert Be an Adviser of the Court?--Free
from Cross-Examination--Opinions of Eminent Judges on Expert
Testimony--Experts Who Testify Without Experience--What a Bank
Cashier or Teller Bases His Opinions on--Actions and Deductions of
the Trained Handwriting Expert--Admitting Evidence of Handwriting
Experts--Occupation and Theories That Make an Expert--Difference
Between an Expert and a Witness--Experts and Test Writing--What
Constitutes An Expert in Handwriting--Present Practice Regarding
Experts--Assuming to Be a Competent Expert--Testing a Witness with
Prepared Forged Signatures--Care in Giving Answers--A Writing
Teacher As an Expert--Familiarity with Signatures--What a Dash,
Blot, or Distortion of a Letter Shows--What a Handwriting Expert
Should Confine Himself to--Parts of Writing Which Demand the
Closest Attention--American and English Laws on Experts in
Handwriting--Examination of Disputed Handwriting
CHAPTER XX
TAMPERED, ERASED AND MANIPULATED PAPER
Sure Rules for the Detection of Forged and Fraudulent Writing of Any
Kind--European Professor Gives Rules for Detecting Fraud--How to Tell
Alterations Made on Checks, Drafts, and Business Paper--An Infallible
System Discovered--Results Always Satisfactory--Can Be Used by
Anyone--Vapor of Iodine a Valuable Agent--Paper That Has Been Wet or
Moistened--Colors That Tampered Paper Assumes--Tracing Written
Characters with Water--Making Writing Legible--How to Tell Paper
That Has Been Erased or Rubbed--What a Light Will Disclose--Erasing
with Bread Crumbs--Hard to Detect--How to Discover Traces of
Manipulation--Erased Surface Made Legible--Treating Partially
Erased Paper--Detecting Nature of Substance Used for Erasing--Use
of Bread Crumbs Colors Papers--Tracing Writing with a Glass
Rod--Tracing Writing Under Paper--Writing With Glass Tubes Instead
of Pens--What Physical Examination Reveals--Erasing Substance of
Paper--Reproducing Pencil Writing in a Letter Press--Kind of Paper
to Use in Making Experiments--Detecting Fraud in Old Papers--The
Rubbing and Writing Method
CHAPTER XXI
FORGERY AS A PROFESSION
How Professional Forgers Work--Valuable Points for Bankers and Business
Men--Personnel of a Professional Forgery Gang--The Scratcher,
Layer-down, Presenter and Middleman--How Banks Are Defrauded by
Raised and Forged Paper--Detailed Method of the Work--Dividing the
Spoils--Action in Case of Arrest--Employing Attorneys--What "Fall"
Money Is--Fixing a Jury--Politicians with a Pull--Protecting
Criminals--Full Description of How Checks and Drafts Are
Altered--Alterations, Erasures and Chemicals--Raising Any Paper--Alert
Cashiers and Tellers--Different Methods of Protection
CHAPTER XXII
A FAMOUS FORGERY
The Morey-Garfield Letter--Attempt to Defeat Mr. Garfield for the
Presidency--A Clumsy Forgery--Both Letters Reproduced--Evidences of
Forgery Pointed Out--The Work of an Illiterate Man--Crude Imitations
Apparent--Undoubtedly the Greatest Forgery of the Age--General
Garfield's Quick Disclaimer Kills Effect of the Forgery--The Letters
Compared and Evidences of Forgery Made Complete
CHAPTER XXIII
A WARNING TO BANKS AND BUSINESS HOUSES
Information for Those Who Handle Commercial and Legal
Documents--Peculiarity of Handwriting--Methods Employed in
Forgery--Means Employed for Erasing Writing--Care to Be Used in
Writing--Specimens of Originals and Alterations--Means of Discovering
and Demonstrating Forgery--Disputed Signatures--Free Hand or Composite
Signatures--Important Facts for the Banking and Business Public--How
to Use the Microscope and Photography to Detect Forgery--Applying
Chemical Tests--How to Handle Documents and Papers to Be
Preserved--The Value of Expert Testimony--Using Chemical,
Mechanical and Clerical Preventatives
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW FORGERS ALTER BANK NOTES
Bankers Easily Deceived--How Ten One Hundred Dollar Bills Are Made out
of Nine--How to Detect Altered Bank Notes--Making a Ten-Dollar Bill
out of a Five--A Ten Raised to Fifty--How Two-Dollar Bills are Raised
to a Higher Denomination--Bogus Money in Commercial Colleges--Action
of the United States Treasury Department--Engraving a Greenback--How
They Are Printed--Making a Vignette--Beyond the Reach of Rascals--How
Bank Notes Are Printed, Signed and Issued by the Government--Safeguards
to Foil Forgers, Counterfeiters and Alterers of Bank Notes--Devices to
Raise Genuine Bank Notes--Split Notes--Altering Silver Certificates
APPENDIX
This follows with many pages of Illustrations and Descriptions of
Various Kinds of Genuine, Traced, Forged and Simulated Writings and
Autograph Signatures of Bankers, Statesmen, Jurists, Authors, Writers
and the Leading Public Characters of the World; Individual Autographs
of Every President of the United States; Freak Signatures and Curious
and Complicated Writing; and Scores of Other Interesting and
Instructive Autographs and Writings of Various Kinds That Will Prove
of Great Worth and Value
PREFACE
But few writers in the United States have expended their genius in the
field of disputed, forged, or fraudulent handwriting. In France and
Germany the subject has been more studied, and in both languages
several valuable books have appeared, while in this country it is only
recently that disputed handwriting has been looked upon as one of the
sciences.
Up to the time of the publication of this work nothing has appeared in
the United States on the subject of disputed handwriting, short
magazine and newspaper articles sufficing.
Interest in disputed handwriting and writing of all kinds is being
rapidly developed, and is a study and research with which the banker
and business man of the future must and will be perfectly familiar. A
place will be made for the science among the permanent, necessary, and
most helpful studies of the day.
No effort has been spared by the author of this work to make every
feature of handwriting accurate. This work is the result of years of
practical study in the field of disputed handwriting, and personal
application has demonstrated that the facts and suggestions given will
be found absolutely correct. The aim has been to make this the
standard work on this subject.
In conclusion, the author wishes to acknowledge a debt to the leading
handwriting experts of the United States and Europe for many
suggestions that have materially assisted him in the preparation of
this work. We trust it will prove a material aid to the bankers,
business men and professional men of the United States.
THE AUTHOR.
DISPUTED HANDWRITING
CHAPTER I
HOW TO STUDY FORGED AND DISPUTED SIGNATURES
All Titles Depend Upon the Genuineness of Signatures--Comparing Genuine
With Disputed Signatures--A Word About Fac-simile Signatures--Conditions
Affecting Production of Signatures--Process of Evolving a
Signature--Evidence of Experience in Handling or Mishandling a
Pen--Signatures Most Difficult to Read--Simulation of Signature by
Expert Penman--Hard to Imitate an Untrained Hand--A Well-known
Banker Presents Some Valuable Points--Perfectly Imitated Writings
and Signatures--Bunglingly Executed Forgeries--The Application of
Chemical Tests--Rules of Courts on Disputed Signatures--Forgers
Giving Appearance of Age to Paper and Ink--Proving the Falsity of
Testimony--Determining the Genuineness or Falsity by Anatomy or
Skeleton--Making a Magnified Copy of a Signature--Effectiveness of
the Photograph Process--Deception the Eye Will Not Detect--When Pen
Strokes Cross Each Other--Experimenting With Crossed Lines--Signatures
Written With Different Inks--Deciding Order of Sequence in
Writing--An Important and Interesting Subject for Bankers--Determining
the Genuineness of a Written Document--Ingenuity of Rogues Constantly
Takes New Forms--A Systematic Analysis Will Detect Disputed
Signatures.[1]
[1] Note illustrations of various kinds of forged, simulated, and
genuine handwriting in Appendix, with careful descriptions of same.
The title to money and property of all kinds depends so lately upon
the genuineness of signatures that no study or inquiry can be more
interesting than one relating to the degree of certainty with which
genuine writings can be distinguished from those which are
counterfeited.
When comparing a disputed signature with a series of admittedly
genuine signatures of the same person whose signature is being
disputed, the general appearance and pictorial effect of the writing
will suggest, as the measure of resemblances or differences
predominates, an impression upon the mind of the examiner as to the
genuine or forged character of the signature in question. When it is
understood that to make a forgery available for the purposes of its
production it must resemble in general appearance the writing of the
person whose signature it purports to represent, it follows as a
reasonable conclusion that resemblances in general appearances alone
must be secondary factors in establishing the genuineness of a
signature by comparison--and the fact that two signatures look alike
is not always evidence that they were written by the same person.
As an illustration of the uncertainty of an impression produced by the
general appearances and close resemblance of signatures, even to an
expert observer, is manifested when the fac-simile signatures of the
signers of the Declaration of American Independence, as executed by
different engravers, are examined. On comparing each individual
fac-simile made by one engraver, with the fac-simile of the same
signature made by another engraver, they will be found to exactly
coincide in general appearance as to form and pictorial effect, and so
much so, that the fac-similes of the same signature made by different
engravers cannot be told one from the other. On examining them by the
use of the microscope they may be easily determined as the work of
different persons. While this is likewise true of the resemblances in
general appearance which a disputed signature may have when compared
with a genuine signature of the same person, it is also true that the
measure of difference occurring in the general appearance of a
disputed signature, when compared with genuine ones of the same
person, are not always evidence of forgery.
There are many conditions affecting the production of signatures,
habitually and uniformly apart from the causes which prevent a person
from writing signatures twice precisely alike, under the influence of
normal conditions of execution. The effect of fatigue, excitement,
haste, or the use of a different pen from that with which the
standards were written, are well known conditions operating to
materially affect the general appearance of the writing, and may have
been, in one form or another, an attendant cause when the questioned
signature was produced, and thus have given to the latter some
variation from the signatures of the same person, executed under the
influence of normal surroundings.
In the process of evolving a signature, which must be again and again
repeated from an early age till death, new ideas occur from time to
time, are tried, modified, improved, and finally embodied in the
design. The idea finally worked out may be merely a short method of
writing the necessary sequence of characters, or it may present some
novelty to the eye. Signatures consisting almost exclusively of
straight up-and-down strokes, looking at a short distance like a row
of needles with very light hair-lines to indicate the separate
letters; signatures begun at the beginning or the end and written
without removing the pen from the paper; signatures which are entirely
illegible and whose component parts convey only the mutilated
rudiments of letters, are not uncommon. All such signatures strike the
eye and arrest the attention, and thus accomplish the object of their
authors. The French signature frequently runs upward from left to
right, ending with a strong down nourish in the opposite direction.
All these, even the most illegible examples, give evidence of
experience in handling or mishandling the pen. The signature most
difficult to read is frequently the production of the hand which
writes most frequently, and it is very much harder to decipher than
the worst specimens of an untrained hand. The characteristics of the
latter are usually an evident painstaking desire to imitate faulty
ideals of the letters one after the other, without any attempt to
attain a particular effect by the signature as a whole. In very
extreme cases, the separate letters of the words constituting the
signature are not even joined together.
A simulation of such a signature by an expert penman will usually
leave enough traces of his ability in handling the pen to pierce his
disguise. Even a short, straight stroke, into which he is likely to
relapse against his will, gives evidence against the pretended
difficulties of the act which he intends to convey. It is nearly as
difficult for a master of the pen to imitate an untrained hand as for
the untrained hand to write like an expert penman. The difference
between an untrained signature and the trembling tracing of his
signature by an experienced writer who is ill or feeble, is that in
the former may be seen abundant instances of ill-directed strength,
and in the latter equally abundant instances of well-conceived design,
with a failure of the power to execute it.
Observations such as the preceding are frequently of great value in
aiding the expert to understand the phenomena which he meets, and they
belong to a class which does not require the application of standards
of measure, but only experience and memory of other similar instances
of which the history was known, and a sound judgment to discern the
significance of what is seen.
No general rules other than those referred to above can be given to
guide the student of handwriting in such cases, but the differences
will become sufficiently apparent with sufficient practice.
A well-known banker, writing to the author of this work, makes some
points on the subject which are rather disturbing. His fundamental
proposition is that the judgment of experts is of no value when based
as it ordinarily is, only upon an inspection of an alleged fraudulent
signature, either with the naked eye or with the eye aided by
magnifying glasses, and upon a comparison of its appearance with that
of a writing or signature, admitted or known to the expert, to be
genuine, of the same party.
He alleges, in fact, that writing and signatures can be so perfectly
imitated that ocular inspection cannot determine which is true and
which is false, and that the persons whose signatures are in
controversy are quite as unable as anybody to decide that question.
Nevertheless, the law permits experts to give their opinions to
juries, who often have nothing except those opinions to control their
decisions, and who naturally give them in favor of the side which is
supported by the greatest number of experts, or by experts of the
highest repute.
Decisions upon such testimony this banker regards as no better than,
if quite as good as, the result of drawing lots. Of course he cannot
mean to include under these observations, that class of forgeries
which are so bunglingly executed as to be readily detected by the eye,
even of persons not specially expert. He can only mean to say that
imitations are possible and even common, which are so exact that their
counterfeit character is not determinable by inspection, even when
aided by glasses.
At first blush this contention of the banker is extremely a most
unsatisfactory view of the case, and the more correct it looks likely
to be, the more unsatisfactory. Courts may go beyond inspection and
apply chemical on the tests, but such tests cannot be resorted to in
the innumerable cases of checks and orders for money and property
which are passed upon every day in the business world, and either
accepted as genuine or rejected as counterfeit. But the real truth is,
in fully ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that no check or order is
paid merely upon confidence in the genuineness of the signature, and
without knowledge of the party to whom the payment is made, or some
accompanying circumstance or circumstances tending to inspire
confidence in the good faith of the transaction. In that aspect, the
danger of deception as to the genuineness of signatures loses most of
its terrors.
It is one of the recognized rules of court to admit as admissible
testimony, the opinions of experts, whether the whole or any specified
portion of an instrument was, or was not written by the same hand,
with the same ink, and at the same time, which question arises when an
addition to, or alteration of, an instrument is charged. It must be
recollected that at this time It is a very easy matter for experienced
forgers and rascals to so prepare ink that it may appear to the eye to
be of the age required, and it is next to impossible for any expert to
give any information in regard to the age of a certain writing. In
many instances experts have easily detected the kind of ink employed,
and have also successfully shown the falsity of testimony that the
whole of a writing in controversy was executed at the same time, and
with the same ink.
James D. Peacock, a London barrister, who has given considerable time
and study to disputed handwritings, lays great stress upon the ability
of determining the genuineness or falsity of a writing by what he
calls its "anatomy" or "skeleton." He says that some persons in making
successive strokes, make the turn from one to another sharply angular,
while others make it rounded or looping. Writings produced in both
ways appear the same to the eye, but under a magnifying glass the
difference in the mode of executing is shown. As illustrating that
point, he makes the following statement in respect to a case involving
the genuineness of the alleged signature of an old man whose
handwriting was fine and tremulous:
"On making a magnified copy of the signature, I found that the
tremulous appearance of the letters was due to the fact that they were
made up of a series of dashes, standing at varying angles with each
other, and further, that these strokes, thus enlarged, were precisely
like these constituting the letters in the body of the note, which
were acknowledged to have been written by the alleged forger of the
note. Upon the introduction of this testimony the criminal withdrew
the plea of not guilty and implored the mercy of the court."
As one means of determining whether the whole of a writing was
executed at the same time, and with the same ink, or at different
times, and with different inks, Mr. Peacock further says that the
photographic process is very effective because it not only copies the
forms of letters but takes notice of differences in the color of two
inks which are inappreciable by the eye. He states that:
"Where there is the least particle of yellow present in a color, the
photograph will take notice of the fact by making the picture blacker,
just in proportion as the yellow predominates, so that a very light
yellow will take a deep black. So any shade of green, or blue, or red,
where there is an imperceptible amount of yellow, will pink by the
photographic process more or less black, while either a red or blue
varying to a purple, will show more or less paint as the case may be."
As to deception which the eye will not detect, in regard to the age of
paper, he says:
"I have repeatedly examined papers which have been made to appear old
by various methods, such as washing with coffee, with tobacco, and by
being carried in the pocket, near the person, by being smoked or
partially burned, and in various other ways. I have in my possession a
paper which has passed the ordeal of many examinations by experts and
others, which purports to be two hundred years old, and to have been
saved from the Boston fire. The handwriting is a perfect fac-simile of
that of Thomas Addington, the town clerk of Boston, two hundred years
ago, and yet the paper is not over two years old."
The most remarkable case of deception to the eye, even when aided by
magnifying glasses, is in determining when two pen strokes cross each
other, which stroke was made first. Mr. Peacock does not explain how
the deception is possible, but that it occurs as matter of fact, he
shows by an account of a very decisive experiment. Taking ten
different kinds of ink, most commonly on sale, he drew lines on a
piece of paper in such a way as to produce a hundred points of
crossing and so that a line drawn with each of ink passed both over
and under all the lines drawn with the other inks. He, of course,
knew, in respect to each point of crossing, which ink was first
applied, but the appearance to the eye corresponded with the fact in
only forty-three cases. In thirty-seven cases the appearance was
contrary to the fact, and in the remaining cases the eye was unable to
come to any decision.
By wetting another piece of paper with a liquid compound acting as a
solvent of ink, and pressing it upon the paper marked with lines, a
thin layer of ink was transferred to the wet paper, and that shown
correctly which was the superposed ink at every one of the one hundred
points of crossing.
Many cases have occurred, in signatures written with different inks,
where some letters in one cross, some letters in another, in which it
becomes important to decide the order of sequence in writing. It is
also frequently important to decide the order of sequence in writing.
It is also frequently important when the genuineness of an addition,
as of a date, is the thing in dispute.
No subject can be more important or interesting to the business public
or especially to bankers than that of the reliability of the lists of
the genuineness of written papers. While it is true that in most cases
there is some ear-mark beside the appearance of a signature, whereby
to determine the genuineness of a document, it is also true that in
many cases, and frequently in cases of great magnitude, payments are
made on no other basis than the appearance of a writing. The most
common class of these last cases is where "A" has been long known to
be an endorser for "B," and where the connection between the two,
which leads to the endorsements, is well known. There is nothing in
the appearance in the market of a note of "B" endorsed by "A," that
is, in any degree calculated to excite suspicion or to put a
prospective purchaser upon his inquiry. If the endorsement of "A"
resembles his usual handwriting, it is almost always accepted as
genuine and if losses result from its proving to be counterfeit, they
are set down to the score, not of imprudence, but of unavoidable
misfortune.
Thus, as the ingenuity of rogues constantly takes new forms, the ways
and means by which they can be baffled in these enterprises are
constantly being multiplied. The telegraph and telephone give
facilities for promptly verifying a signature where one is in doubt.
It happens not infrequently that the desire to get a given number of
words into a definite space leads to an entirely unusual and foreign
style of writing, in which the accustomed characteristics are so
obscured or changed that only a systematic analysis can detect them.
If there be no apparent reason for this appearance in lack of space,
the cause may be the physical state of the writer or an attempt at
simulation. If a sufficient number of genuine signatures are
available, it can generally be determined which of these two
explanations is the right one.
Note illustrations of various kinds of handwriting in Appendix at end
of this book. Particular attention is directed to the descriptions and
analysis. They should be studied carefully.
CHAPTER II
FORGERY BY TRACING
Forgeries Perpetrated by the Aid of Tracing a Common and Dangerous
Method--Using Transparent Tracing Paper--How the Movements are
Directed--Formal, Broken and Nervous Lines--Retouched Lines and
Shades--Tracing Usually Presents a Close Resemblance to the
Genuine--Traced Forgeries Not Exact Duplicates of Their
Originals--The Danger of an Exact Duplication--Forgers Usually
Unable to Exactly Reproduce Tracing--Using Pencil or Carbon-Guided
Lines--Retouching Revealed under the Microscope--Tracing with Pen
and Ink Over a Transparency--Making a Practice and Study of
Signatures--Forgeries and Tracings Made by Skilful Imitators Most
Difficult of Detection--Free-Hand Forgery and Tracing--A Few
Important Matters to Observe in Detecting Forgery by
Tracing--Photographs a Great Aid in Detecting Tracing--How to
Compare Imitated and Traced Writing--Furrows Traced by Pen Nibs--Tracing
Made by an Untrained Hand--Tracing with Pen and Ink Over a
Transparency--Internal Evidence of Forgery by Tracing--Forgeries
Made by Skilful Imitators--How to Determine Evidences of Forgery by
Tracing--Remains of Tracings--Examining Paper in Transmitted
Light--Freely Written Tracings--A Dangerous Method of Forgery.
Forgery by tracing is one of the most common and most dangerous
methods of forgery.
There are two general methods of perpetrating forgeries, one by the
aid of tracing, the other by free-hand writing. These methods differ
widely in details, according to the circumstances of each case.
Tracing can only be employed when a signature or writing is present in
the exact or approximate form of the desired reproduction. It may then
be done by placing the writing to be forged upon a transparency over a
strong light, and then superimposing the paper upon which the forgery
is to be made. The outline of the writing underneath will then appear
sufficiently plain to enable it to be traced with pen or pencil, so as
to produce a very accurate copy upon the superimposed paper. If the
outline is with a pencil, it is afterward marked over with ink.
Again, tracings are made by placing transparent tracing-paper over the
writing to be copied and then tracing the lines over with a pencil.
This tracing is then penciled or blackened upon the obverse side. When
it is placed upon the paper on which the forgery is made, the lines
upon the tracing are retraced with a stylus or other smooth hard
point, which impresses upon the paper underneath a faint outline,
which serves as a guide to the forged imitation.
In forgeries perpetrated by the aid of tracing, the internal evidence
is more or less conclusive according to the skill of the forger. In
the perpetration of a forgery the mind, instead of being occupied in
the usual function of supplying matter to be recorded, devotes its
special attention to superintendence of the hand, directing its
movements, so that the hand no longer glides naturally and
automatically over the paper, but moves slowly with a halting,
vacillating motion, as the eye passes to and from the copy to the pen,
moving under the specific control of the will. Evidence of such a
forgery is manifest in the formal, broken, nervous lines, the uneven
flow of the ink, and the often retouched lines and shades. These
evidences are unmistakable when studied with the aid of a microscope.
Also, further evidence is adduced by a careful comparison of the
disputed writing, noting the pen-pressure or absence of any of the
delicate unconscious forms, relations, shades, etc., characteristic of
the standard writing.
Forgeries by tracings usually present a close resemblance in general
form to the genuine, and are therefore most sure to deceive the
unfamiliar or casual observer. It sometimes happens that the original
writing from which the tracings were made is discovered, in which case
the closely duplicated forms will be positive evidence of forgery. The
degree to which one signature of writing duplicates another may be
readily seen by placing one over the other, and holding them to a
window or other strong light, or by close comparative measurements.
Traced forgeries, however, are not, as is usually supposed,
necessarily exact duplicates of their originals, since it is very easy
to move the paper by accident or design while the tracing is being
made, or while making the transfer copy from it; so that while it
serves as a guide to the general features of the original, it will
not, when tested, be an exact duplication. The danger of an exact
duplication is quite generally understood by persons having any
knowledge of forgery, and is therefore avoided. Another difficulty is
that the very delicate features of the original writing are more or
less obscured by the opaqueness of two sheets of paper, and are
therefore changed or omitted from the forged simulation, and their
absence is usually supplied, through force of habit, by equally
delicate unconscious characteristics from the writing of the forger.
Again, the forger rarely possesses the requisite skill to exactly
reproduce his tracing. Much of the minutiae of the original writing is
more or less microscopic, and from that reason passes unobserved by
the forger. Outlines of writing to be forged are sometimes simply
drawn with a pencil, and then worked up in ink. Such outlines will not
usually furnish so good an imitation as to form, since they depend
wholly upon the imitative skill of the forger.
Besides the forementioned evidences of forgery by tracing, where
pencil or carbon guide-lines are used which must necessarily be
removed by rubber, there are liable to remain some slight fragments of
the tracing lines, while the mill finish of the paper will be impaired
and its fiber more or less torn out, so as to lie loose upon the
surface. Also the ink will be more or less ground off from the paper,
thus giving the lines a gray and lifeless appearance. And as
retouchings are usually made after the guide-lines have been removed,
the ink, wherever they occur, will have a more black and fresh
appearance than elsewhere. All these phenomena are plainly manifest
under the microscope. Where the tracing is made directly with pen and
ink over a transparency, as is often done, no rubbing is necessary,
and of course, the phenomena from rubbering does not appear.
Where signatures or other writings have been forged by previously
making a study and practice of the writing, to be copied until it has
been to a greater or less degree idealized, the hand must be trained
to its imitation so that it can be written with a more or less
approximation as to form and natural freedom.
Forgeries and tracings made by skilful imitators are the most
difficult of detection, as the internal evidence of forgery by tracing
is mostly absent. The evidence of free-hand forgery and tracing is
chiefly in the greater liability of the forger to inject into the
writing his own unconscious habit and to fail to reproduce with
sufficient accuracy that of the original writing, so that when
subjected to rigid analysis and microscopic inspection, the
spuriousness is made manifest and demonstrable. Specific attention
should be given to any hesitancy in form or movement in tracing which
is manifest in angularity or change of direction of lines, changed
relations and proportions of letters, slant of the writing, its
mechanical arrangement, disconnected lines, retouched shades, etc.
Photographs, greatly enlarged, of both the signatures in question and
the exemplars placed side by side for comparison will greatly aid in
making plain any evidence of forgery.
If practicable, use for comparison as standards both the imitated
writing and that of the imitator's traced writing. These methods,
employed by skilled and experienced examiners, will rarely fail of
establishing the true relationship between any two disputed
handwritings and more especially where the question of a forged or
traced signature is under discussion.
Under the microscope tracing by the pen-nibs are usually easily
visible, and they differ with every variety of pen employed. A stiff,
fine-pointed pen makes two comparatively deep lines a short distance
apart, which appear blacker in the writing than the space between
them, because they fill with ink, which afterwards dries and produces
a thicker layer of black sediment than those elsewhere. The variations
of pressure upon the pen can be easily noticed by the alternate
widening and narrowing of the band between these two furrows. The
tracing appears knotty and uneven when made by an untrained hand,
while it appears uniformly thin, and generally tremulous or in zigzags
when made by a weak but trained hand.
Where the tracing is made directly with pen and ink over a
transparency, as is often done, no rubbing is necessary, and of course
the phenomena from rubbering do not appear.
Where signatures or other writings have been forged by previously
making a study and practice of the writing to be copied until it has
been to a greater or less degree idealized, the hand must be trained
to its imitation so that it can be written with a more or less
approximation as to form and with natural freedom.
Forgeries thus made by skilful imitators are the most difficult of
detection, as the internal evidence of forgery by tracing is mostly
absent. The evidence of free-hand forgery is chiefly in the greater
liability of the forger to inject into the writing his own unconscious
habit, and to fail to reproduce with sufficient accuracy that of the
original writing, so that when subjected to rigid analysis and
microscopic inspection, the spuriousness is made manifest and
demonstrable. Specific attention should be given to any hesitancy in
form or movement, manifest in angularity or change of direction of
lines, changed relations and proportions of letters, slant of the
writing, its mechanical arrangement, disconnected lines, retouched
shades, etc.
Photographs, greatly enlarged, of both the signatures in question and
the exemplars placed side by side
|
year. Harry, a princely fellow, a
young lieutenant of cavalry, had fallen at the battle of Manassas and
ever since that day the mother had steadily declined until now the end
had almost come. The likeness of the dead boy was photographed vividly
upon her heart and every tender chord was ceaselessly vibrating from the
presence of a grief, that recreated fancies and memories that brought
back to her the vanished idol. God's peace had settled upon the old home
and its hearth stones, one beautiful Sabbath morning, as the Colonel,
his daughter and old Clarissa had assembled in Mrs. Seymours's bed
chamber. The light of the morning sun shimmered through open windows,
and the shadows of the tree boughs like imprisoned fairies danced in
cotilion upon the polished floor. "The birds are singing so sweetly
to-day," observed the sick lady.
"Yes indeed, they are," replied her husband.
"My dear," she said as she turned her face to him, "I have been greatly
troubled by a horrid dream."
"Land sakes alive ole missis," interrupted Clarissa, "don't yu pester
yoursef to def erbout dreams these outlandish times. Dey is bad enuff
goodness nose widout dreaming dreams. Ned he jumped clean outen de bed
tother nite hollering for his ole muskit lak he was agwine to war--his
eyes fairly a sot in his head lak a craw-fish and a tarryfying me to def
and hollering 'fire! fire!' and a foaming at the mouf lak a mad dog, und
duz yu know what I dun ole missis? when dat drotted nigger hollered
fire! fire! I jes retched ober de table an' got de pale of water an' I
put out dat fire fore Ned skovered whay hit war. Dat fool nigger walks
perpendikler, now yu heers my racket." She laughed again and again as
she continued: "And Ned he wanted to fight; he was most drounded."
There was little of sentiment and less of diplomacy in the character of
Colonel Seymour; though he was exceedingly tolerant toward Clarissa with
her little vagaries and superstitions. What the dream of the good lady
was has never been known--the narrative was rudely broken off by the
interruption of Clarissa.
Would you know sweet Alice more intimately? I cannot portray her as she
deserves; her heart was like so many little cells into which were
unceasingly dropping the honey of blue thistle blossoms of charity. In
every den of wretchedness; in every hovel where squalor and disease
disputed all other dominions, she was a beam of sunshine, giving warmth
and cheer and joy. The little star-eyed daisies in the meadow would turn
up their tiny faces to greet her with smiles as she would pass them day
after day with the little basket upon her arm; God had put her here
among these poor people--among the deluded negroes as his missionary,
and I am quite sure He was pleased with her work. I cannot describe her
beauty and grace of person better than in the natural and characteristic
language of Clarissa "Miss Alice," she would say, "Yu is the most
butifullest white gal I ever seed in de wurrel; yer cheek is jes lak
mellow wine-sop apples, und yer eyes is blu und bright lak agate
marbles, und yer teeth as white as de dribben snow, und when yer laffs,
pen pon it, even de birds in de trees stops to lisen; und yu is jes as
suple und spry as de clown in de show."
Golden tresses like a nimbus of glory adorned her queenly head. Eyes of
blue graduated to the softest tint; cheeks that transfered the deep
blush from tender spring blossoms. Something in her there was that set
you to thinking of those "strange back-grounds of Raphael--that hectic
and deep brief twilight in which Southern suns fall asleep." With Alice
in her presence, Clarissa felt no evil; when the storm came with
blinding fire, its fierce thunders, her refuge was by her side. She was
her inspiration, her providence. The gentle hand upon the hot brow and
there came relief; an old fashioned lullaby from her sweet lips and the
fevered pickaninny in the cradle would turn upon his side and fall into
a grateful slumber. A prayer spoken out of a heart touched by pity or
sorrow, and instantly another heart would be uplifted in thanksgiving.
She exercised too a power over the freed slaves that made captive to her
will almost all the stubborn and rebellious negroes. Old Ned would have
plucked out his eyes for her and cast them at her feet; so would
Clarissa, so would Clarabel; so would old Caesar and Hannah and Joshua.
Only these rebelled against her influence, to wit: Aleck, Miles and
Ephraim. Clarissa would say to her young mistress so inquisitively,
"Miss Alice, why don't yu git married? Peers like child yer is too
sweet and pretty to live allus by yer lone, lorn self. Yer aint allers
gwine to be 'ticin an butiful like yer is now. By and by de crow's foot
is agwine to cum into yer lubly face and dere is gwine to be kurlikus
and frowns in yo eyes jes lak yo mammy's; she used to be pretty und
lubly jes' lak you, and whar is she now? De boys aint gwine to brak
their necks over you when yer gets ole an' ugly, nuther. Now dey is lak
a passel ov yallow jackets a swarmin' a-roun my house, and axin me dis
ting an' tuther ting about dare sweetheart, and bress yo dear life I has
to keep a patchin' up de fence whar dey climbs ober to keep de horgs an'
cattle beastes out o de crap. Dey is afraid to cum to de 'grate house;'
skeert of yu an' ole marser. Ole Mars John aint gwine to be here allus,
nuther; see how cranksided he is gettin' an' so ill an' contrawy that
we das'nt projec' wid him no mo; an' whar wud yu be chile in dis grate,
big house und dis grate big plantashun wid de cussed niggers a marchin'
an' a beatin' drums an' a shootin' guns lak ole Sherman's army, treadin'
down de corn an' 'taters und a momickin' up de chickins und de sheepses
und de cattle beastes? 'Taint agwine to do nohow. Dat it aint. I kin
count fourteen portly yung 'uns dat wud jump clean akross de crick fer
yer any hour God sends."
Alice could only silently hearken to the force of such plain,
matter-of-fact reasoning, but poor girl, there was not a single niche in
her heart into which she could lift an idol. Within the shrine there
were nothing but soulless effigies, so faded and old and lifeless that
they recalled only battle-fields and sepulchres. "Will her prince never
come, into whose eyes she can see mirrored her own self, her soul in its
beauty, love and happiness?" Do you ask? There is a medallion that hangs
by a golden chain across her fair bosom. "How long had she worn it
there," think you? Ever since
"She was a child and he was a child,
In his kingdom by the sea;
When she loved with a love that was more than love,
Alice and Arthur McRae."
CHAPTER II.
OUR SCOTCH-IRISH.
A person on entering the library in an old-fashioned mansion, situated
in the heart of a country that was very beautiful in the landscaping of
nature, at eleven a. m. of the 12th of November, would have observed a
venerable gentleman reclining upon an antique sofa, plainly upholstered
in morocco. The gentleman was reading from a book entitled, "The Life
and Speeches of Daniel Webster." The stranger might have further
observed, that the right hand of the old gentleman would now and again
move with some energy of expression, as if he were punctuating a
particular paragraph by an emphatic dissent. If the reader had been
asked for an opinion as to the character and ability of the illustrious
commoner, whose views were so logically expressed in the memoir, he
would have said without hesitation, that "He possessed the acumen of the
wisest of statesmen, but that his opinions as a strict constructionist
were extra hazardous, indeed out of harmony with the true theory of a
republican form of government--a government of co-ordinate states that
had entered voluntarily into a compact for a more perfect union. But (he
may have continued) against the doctrine of nullification, indeed
against the ordinances of secession, the irony of fate, through this
great man, projected an argument whose logic was irrefutable in its last
analysis. Foreshadowed events put into the mouth of Mr. Webster a
menace, whose uninterpretable meaning in 1833 was clearly understood
when the baleful power of the storm swept from the high seas the last
privateer with its letter of marque, disbanded the last armed scout
south of the breakwater of the Delaware, and broke the heart of the
greatest warrior since Charlemagne; a chieftain more honored in defeat
than Hannibal, or Napoleon, or Sobieski, or the great Frederick. This
master craftsman in the construction corps of the Republic; whose
resourceful intellect engrafted a principle as fixed and inviolable into
the Constitution as fate, propelled against the equity of 'peaceful
separation' the weight of an overmastering influence. This menace to the
South marked the tumultuous heart-beats of the commercial North, when it
contemplated the separation of indestructible states. It made of the
Republic a huge camp of instruction, into which the nations of the earth
were perpetually dumping their refuse populations; it girdled the South
with a cincture of embattled mercenaries; it imparted to the
Constitution a disciplinary vigor; it gave to partisan legislation an
inspiration; it gave to centralized power an omnipotent reserve that
unnerved every arm, paralyzed every tongue, and rendered organized
effort abortive in the crucial struggle for Southern independence. But,
sir, (and the eyes of the old man would gleam as with the light of an
overpowering genius), a government created by the States, amendable by
the States, preserved by the States, may be annihilated by the States."
It was one of those leaky, bleak November days, when the weather, out of
temper with itself, is continually making wry faces at the rain and the
forest and the cattle, that a gentleman lately arrived from the auld
town of Edinboro, shook the glistening rain-drops from his shaggy talma
in the great hall of Ingleside, as he observed to the host with a smile,
"Thot it was a wee bit scrowie, but the weether wad be fayre in its ain
gude time." It was indeed one of those leaden days that occasionally
comes in the Southland with the November chills, pinching the herds that
are out upon the glades and meadows, when the winds sang in the tree
boughs with a strange and melancholy rhythm. A sailor passing up the
forward ladder from the forecastle to observe the weather would say,
with a shudder, that it was a "greasy day," and that the sky and shrouds
and storm-sails were leaky. Col. Seymour, upon ordinary occasions, was a
gentleman of discrimination, and his judgment of character was fairly
correct. Like the true Scotch Southron, as he was, he had his own
ideals, his own loves and his own idiosyncrasies. He loved Scotland and
her people, her memories, her history, her renown, her trossachs, her
lakes, her mountains; they were his people, and Scotland was the "ain
love of his fayther and mither." He had not forgotten the language of
her beautiful hills and vales, though he was a boy when, with his
parents, he bade adieu to his bonny country to find a home across the
water in the Old North State, so prodigal and impartial in the
distribution of honors and riches to all who came with clean hands and
stout hearts. So when the neat and genteel Scotchman gave his name as
Hugh McAden, the old man's heart impulsively warmed towards his guest,
for he knew of a verity that a McAden everywhere was a man of honor--the
name, an open sesame to the hearts and homes of Scotch Americans.
"I will make you very comfortable to-day, sir," he observed, as he
escorted Mr. McAden to his library. There were great hickory logs, half
consumed, resting upon the antiquated brass andirons in the fire-place,
giving warmth and cheer to the whole room. The stranger, rubbing his
hands vigorously, for they were very cold and stiff, observed
interrogatively, "You do not let the chill ond weet coom into the
hoose?"
"No indeed," replied the Colonel with a broad smile, "these inflictions
are for other folks, whose liberty is upon the highways and in the
forests in such weather."
"Ah, for ither fauk; maybe the naygurs," laughingly suggested the
Scotchman.
"Yes, you can hear the guns in the woods, where they are hunting cattle
not their own. You can see drunken squads marching upon the roads upon
such a day."
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "ond do ye call this free America? May-be ye hae no
goovernment as ye haed lang syne, ond no law ither."
The Colonel assured the gentleman that public affairs were at sixes and
sevens, and the negroes now held the mastery over their former owners,
and their discipline was not over indulgent.
"Ond do the naygurs make the laws for sic as you?" he enquired in a
startled way.
"Oh yes," replied the Colonel, quite seriously.
"Alack-a-day!" exclaimed the astonished man. "The deil take sic a
goovernment, ond the deil tak sic a coontry, ond the deil tak the
naygurs! Coom to Edinboro, mon, where there is not o'ermuch siller, but
where ivery mon is his ain laird, ond his hoose is his ain hame. Ye ken
fine that I am a stranger hereaboot. Ond will the naygurs harm a poor
mishanalled mon like me?" he enquired in alarm. The Colonel, with an
effort to conceal his mirth, reassured his friend that no harm would
come to him.
"Ond wad ye say," the Scotchman interrupted, "that amang the naygurs
ond sic a government, that a puir body wad hae the protection o' his ain
queen?" he again asked, with his fears still unsubdued. The amiable
host, shaking from an effort at self-control, again remarked that the
carpet-bag government had made no attempt at personal violence upon
strangers, and that he was as safe here as in his own city of Edinboro;
and the Scotchman laughed away his fears.
"Sic an auld fule!" he exclaimed in great glee. "I am hardly masel in
these lowlands," the Scotchman continued, as the conversation changed
into more agreeable channels. "Ye hae na moontains ond bonnie hills
hereaboot," he continued, as he looked from the window upon the
low-lying fields and meadows.
"But, my friend," replied the Colonel, "if you will abide with me for
awhile you will quite forget your mountains, for there is a charm and
freshness in the landscape here when you become familiar with it."
"I am sure of thot," quickly answered the guest; "but ye ken fine that a
puir body must abide in his ain hame. What wad a man do in th' Soothland
wi' his beezeness in Edinboro?" And the Scotchman smiled as he asked the
unanswerable question. "Ah, well," the Colonel replied with an assumed
dignity, "you would do as we do."
"Ond what is thot?" asked the Scotchman.
"Swear and vapor from early morn to dewy eve."
"Ah! thot wad na do, thot wad na do," he replied, horrified at such a
suggestion, "The meenister in holy kirk wad discipline a puir body, ond
the deil wad be to play. I guess I'll gang hame agen ond do as ilka fauk
do in th' auld toon."
The Colonel had not been so happy in many a day as with the plain,
matter-of-fact Scotchman, in a sense, a type and representative of his
own people, and a man who could speak so eloquently of the fadeless
glory of old Scotland.
"Hae ye nae gude wife ond bairns?" he enquired.
"Yes, an invalid wife and an only child, sir," said the Colonel, as
tears began to gather in his eyes. "My only son, sir, was slain in
battle some years ago."
"Ond was it for sic a goovernment as ye hae noo, that ye gaed up your
bonnie lad to dee?" he asked quite innocently.
The old man bowed his head in silent grief. He could not answer, and he
walked across the room and looked out upon the murky sky--a funereal
coverlid, it appeared, laid over the grave of poor Harry.
"Puir lad," uttered Mr. McAden, half aside, as he drew his handkerchief
across his face and gazed abstractedly into the blazing fire. It was
quite an interval before the Colonel was able to subdue this paroxysm of
grief that had quite overcome him, and, availing himself of the earliest
opportunity to excuse himself, withdrew from the room. To Mr. McAden the
moment was fraught with sincere sorrow. He had unwittingly opened the
sluice-way at the veteran's heart, and great tides, crimsoned, as it
seemed, with the blood of poor Harry, were pouring into it. He could
find no surcease only in the oft-repeated exclamation of reproach.
"Sic an auld fule! Sic an auld fule! But I thocht the mon was o'er happy
in the love of his gude wife ond the bairn. Haed I thocht thot the lad
had deed in battle, I wad na gaed him sic a sair thrust in his auld
heart."
The Colonel retired to his own chamber to repair the injury that had
been done to his feelings, and presently he returned with a smiling
face, accompanied by his daughter, and he said, introducing her.
"This sir, is my daughter, Alice."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. McAden, rising with extended hand, "The lassie is
like the sire, Coonel. I can see the fayther in her een."
"And the counterpart of her mither in all except the een," replied her
father.
"You ond the gude wife ond the lassie must coom to Edinboro, Coonel; ye
ken fine thot her rooyal men ond weemen are i' th' groond noo, ond there
are memorials here ond there in the auld kirk-yards where their puir
bodies are laid, but our men ond weemen still are vera fayre ond gentle,
ond we niver put our een upon a naygur. Ond, now thot I can abide nae
langer wi' ye, will ye nae tell me a wee bit o' the history o' our ain
fauk in the Soothland, for ye ken fine thot the auld anes wad be askin
aboot this ane ond thot ane, in fine all aboot the Scotch in your ain
coontry, when I gae hame to Edinboro."
The subject referred to by the Scotchman was full of a picturesque
interest, and no man in the Southland took a higher delight in imparting
such information as he could command, than Colonel Seymour. Turning his
old arm-chair so that he could observe his guest more closely, he began:
"The characteristics of these people are ineffaceably impressed upon our
civilization. Indeed they are as deeply grounded into the religious and
social soil of North Carolina, as though they had taken root like the
rhododendron under the rocks and in the fissures of our hills and
mountains. The Scotch-Irish American, with gigantic strides, has at last
sat himself down upon the loftiest pinnacle of our 19th century
civilization. He has never yielded to oppression; he has never
compounded with evil. These brave people, bringing hither the virtues of
their fathers as well as their own, have given North Carolina its most
luminous page. They made the earliest industry of the Cape Fear--the
industry of colonization. It was an industry that sought to provide
homes for the people, and to dignify labor and life in the midst of
surroundings that taxed every resource of action, and the ultimate verge
of human daring; an industry that employed the plainest instruments--the
axe to hew down the forest, and the plow to turn the furrow. Their
primitive sires in these early settlements did not control those
powerful auxiliaries that now multiply the skill of man; nor did they
enjoy the aristocracy of the recognized power of wealth. They cared
nothing for mammonism, that some philosophical crank has defined to be a
physical force that makes men invertebrates. Here was life with the
struggle of pioneers; a struggle for place rather than for position; for
homes rather than castles, that prepared the intellect for a higher
development, and man for ultimate power. The victory of the axe and plow
were the pre-ordained antecedents to the victory of the forum and
pulpit, and the triumph over the crude obstructions of nature was the
divine prophecy of undisciplined toil. Out of the ruggedness of such an
epoch came forth a condition of virtue and integrity; of honest and
honorable convictions; of sincere patriotism; of a race of men who
looked to themselves only, and originated within this scant domain the
literature of economic life. It was here that the domestic sentiment
displayed its captivating charm. Nowhere on earth was there a more
generous love for children, and whenever this attribute of the heart
appears, the prophetic benediction of Christ, as childhood lay in His
hallowed arms, is fulfilled. Here was social life, too, in its freedom,
picturesqueness and animation, without demoralizing conditions. Away
northward and southward, bays and rivers stretched their wedded waves,
hills holding in their dead grasp the secrets of centuries; the ancient
miracles of fire and water where chaos had been transfixed in its
primeval heavings; all these were here subject to the mighty mastery
that men should eventually exert, and side by side with humble homes,
arose schools and churches--emblems of the power and purity of the
people. Here the ambassadors of Christ were persuasive with tongue,
fervent in spirit; they felt that their religion was more ancient than
government, higher than any influence; more sacred than any trust; a
religion that was benevolence in its gentlest mood, courage in its
boldest daring, affection in its intensest power; philanthropy in its
widest reach; patriotism in its most impassioned vigor; reason in its
broadest display; the mighty heart that throbbed through every artery;
fed every muscle; sped the hidden springs of an electric current through
every nerve. Such were and are "oor ain fauk in th' Soothland."
"Ah, I ken fine," replied the Scotchman with enthusiasm, "that your
forebears came from the hielands, and yoor knowledge of the gude fauk in
yoor ain coontry quite surprises me. Did ye not say that yoor fayther
ond mither came from Edinboro?" he inquired with animation.
"Yes," replied the Colonel, "in the good old days; and they lie buried
side by side in the little cemetery over the hill yonder, where I shall
rest after a wee bit."
"These are bonnie lands hereaboot, but there is mony a glade in auld
Scotland where a puir body may sleep as tranquilly," said the Scotchman
with feeling, "ond when I dee my sepulchre shall be near the auld hame
where there are no naygurs ond no sic a goovernment, in th' shadow o'
th' auld kirk o' my fayther ond mither."
CHAPTER III.
THE ASSASSINS OF THE PEACE OF THE SOUTH.
To the people of the South the infliction of the carpet-bag government
was an outrage that "smelled to heaven." The changed character--the
degradation of the South was a deplorable consequence--it was the
inoculating of a virus into the circulation of the body politic that it
will take a century to cleanse.
The power of attainting and confiscating, forbidden by the law from a
full knowledge of its lamentable use by the factious parliaments of
Great Britain, was shamelessly exercised by local jurisdictions of the
South until nothing was left to the most virtuous of patriots but their
name, their character, and the fragrance of their great and illustrious
actions, to go down to posterity. A stranger coming to any legislature
would have taken it at one time for a disorderly club-room, where
ignorant and vicious partisans, white and black, were assembled to lay
plans for their own aggrandizement and the prostration of the country.
At another time he would suppose it to be a hustings for the delivery of
electioneering harangues; at another, an areopagus for the condemnation
of all virtuous men; then a theatre, for the entertainment of a most
diverted auditory; always a laboratory for the compounding of alarms,
conspiracies and panics. In the deliberations of the members there was
no check to the license of debate, or the prodigal expenditure of money;
no voice to control their judgments of outlawry and sequestration.
Radamanthus himself, in some stage of his infernal process, would at
least listen to his victim; "First he punisheth, then he listeneth, and
lastly he compelleth to confess." The inventors of mythology could not
conceive of a Tartarus so regardless of the forms of justice as not to
allow the souls of the condemned to speak for themselves; but
reconstruction, trampling upon all laws, denied to the long-suffering
people of the South the right to plead their innocence in the face of
the concentrated accumulation of frightful accusations, all founded upon
the "baseless fabric of a vision."
Centuries ago the last saurian died in the ooze of the bad lands in
Kansas, but by an unnatural law of reproduction the carpet bagger and
scalawag, with the same destructive instincts, with the same malodorous
presence, found its bed of slime in the heart of the South and disported
with a devilish energy. Monsters of malice, spawning evil gendering
fanaticism, focussed their evil eye upon the millions of freedmen, whose
destiny and happiness were closely interwoven with their old masters;
with masters who had yielded their swords but not their honor; who were
"discouraged, yet erect; perplexed, yet not unto despair; pursued, yet
not forsaken; smitten down, yet not conquered." The poor negro, under
the seductive charms of these human serpents, languished, and
languishing, did die.
The carpet-baggers preached to the negroes an anti-slavery God, from the
gospel of hate, of revenge. Slavery was the tempest of their poor souls,
and revenge must assuage the swollen floods. "The thronged cities--the
marks of Southern prosperity and the monuments of Southern
civilization," said they, "are yours, yours to enjoy, to alienate, to
transmit to posterity. Your empire is established indestructibly
throughout the new South. This land shall not be permitted to remain as
a lair for the wild beasts that have clutched at the throat of this
republic to destroy it. We have heard the cries of our Israel in
bondage, and we have come to give you the land that flows with milk and
honey." Poor black souls! What a delusion! The day will surely come when
the curtain shall be drawn and the deceivers, active and dormant, in
this dark tragedy, shall be dragged before the footlights to receive the
curse of an indignant reprobation. Poor negro! He is starving for bread
and they give him the elective franchise. He begs to be emancipated from
hunger, and they decree that he shall be a freedman.
Who will dare assert that the pride, the patriotism, the spirit of the
South was not alarmingly compromised by the issues of the Civil War?--a
war that was the exercise of both violence and discipline by sovereign
authority. We are told that wars are an evil, come when they may; they
are just or unjust, moral or immoral, civilized or savage, as the
ingredients of violated rights--demand of reparation and refusal--shall
be observed, neglected or abused. Perhaps the prostrated South should
have been advertent to this fact before she delivered the first blow.
But whether right or wrong, when the armies were disbanded, when it
yielded its organic being--its sovereignty--to overwhelming resources
and numbers, the law of nations laid upon the paramount sovereignty
obligations which have never been performed, either in letter or spirit.
The government that re-instated its authority was bound by a circle of
morals, including the obligations of justice and mercy, reciprocally
acting and reacting.
The emancipation of five million slaves was a supplemental act of war; a
renewed declaration that the tramp of embattled armies should echo and
re-echo from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, until the foot of a slave
should not press its "polluted" soil. Their enfranchisement was neither
an act of war or of exasperation, but an act of diplomacy,
extra-hazardous as results have shown, with the effect of humiliating
the conquered South. It introduced throughout the South a sacrilegious
arm against the fairest superstructure of Christian manhood the world
has ever known; stamped the history of the nation with dishonor, and
betrayed the proudest experiment in favor of the rights of man. It
taught the freedmen, through the vicious counsel of intriguing,
designing demagogues, that their liberty was still insecure; that to
accomplish it in its ultimate triumph and blessing, the savage axe must
be laid at the root of the social institutions; that they must lay
violent hands upon the men, women and children who had made their
emancipation an accomplished fact. Hence a war whose horrors should be
accentuated by the lighted torch was inaugurated, and an inglorious
campaign of reprisals by placable tools, whose zeal to preserve what
they now purposed in their blind fanaticism to destroy, was a few years
before as ardent and persevering.
Poor, pitiable, deluded human beings, who as chattels real--impedimenta
of Southern plantations--had guarded the peace of the home, and many of
whom were faithful unto death!
Reconstruction superimposed an artificial citizenship--a citizenship
essentially lacking in every resource of intellectual strength--it was
without ideals or examples for the government of the freedmen of the
proud Southern commonwealths. The allegiance of the negroes was as
friable as a rope of sand; they were without a definite conception of
the responsibilities of sovereignty--without a fixed principle to guide
them in governmental policy--with impulses of brutish suggestion, and
under masters more inexorable, more exacting than those they had
deserted upon the abandoned plantations. How painful was such a crisis
that split up the old South into disgraced and bleeding fragments!
We come to speak for a moment of the microbes that ate their way into
the hearts of the seceded commonwealths, while the ruins of southern
homes were still smoking; and before the blood of chivalrous southrons
had dried upon our battle-fields. I commend the chalice to the lips of
those who will deny the truth of what is herein written and desire that
such a man might realize a bare modicum of what was suffered and
endured. The elective franchise was the panacea for every evil; an
antispasmodic, when there were occasional exacerbations in the public
mind; our fathers valued the elective franchise because in its patriotic
expression was the covenant of freemen.
When our hopes were feeblest, and our horizon darkest, the scalawag fled
like a hound to the sheltering woods whence he sallied forth like an
outlaw. The reddened disc of the sun that went down at Appomattox gave
him an inspiration for his hellish work, and he went out in the gloom of
the starless night, declaring with a more vicious temper than did Henry
of Agincourt "the fewer the men the greater the honor" or in its
appropriate paraphrase "the deeper the pockets the greater the spoil."
His philanthropy and selfish interests never clash. He claimed always to
be rigidly righteous, and was seen in the camp-meeting and the church
sanctified and demure to a proverb. He spoke of the poor negro in
paroxysms of charity--a most rare benevolence which employed its means
in theft and crime; a charity which performs its vows and gives its alms
with money plundered from the freedmen. The scalawag like other
unclassified vermin was without respectable antecedents; with an acute
sense of smell like the "lap-heavy" scout of the Andes, he sought his
prey when there was no fear of the approach of man. As an Irish
barrister once wrote upon the door of a plebians' carriage, "Why do you
laugh?" so the humorist of the sixties could have written upon the
shirt-front of the scalawag "Why do people hold their noses?" He was
never mentioned by naturalists, unless under some other name he was
paired off with the vulture. In reconstruction days the transformation
of this abortion of nature from vulture to serpent was made without the
break of a feather or the splitting of a talon. With a seductive grimace
he whispered into the open ear of the freedmen "In the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt not surely die." He was as much an augury of
evil as the brood of ravens that once alighted upon Vespasian's pillar.
Had he been seen plying his vocation in the first empire Napoleon would
have said to Fouche, "Shoot the accursed beast on the spot." The carpet
bagger when not fighting the pestiferous vermin in the Chickahominy
swamps was pilfering. He went into the army conscripted like a
gentleman; he came out of the army at night when the back of the sentry
was turned and without a furlough, like a patriot. These twain were the
autocrats of the new south, which had its christening in the blood of
heroes; they were the furies that rode the red harlot around the circle,
when her flanks were still wet with human slaughter, and her speed was
increased by the jeering negroes. When Sister Charity in an occasional
fit would fall unconsciously into the receptive bosom of her black lover
in the prayer-meeting, with the wild exclamation "Bress Gord I sees de
hosses und de charyut er cumin!" they would clap their hands in joy and
shout, "Persevere in the good cause my sister." When old deacon Johnson
upon some happy suggestion from the "sliding elder" would turn up the
white of one eye, they would turn up the whites of the others; and when
deacon Thompson came around for alms for the heathen, they would slip
under the pennies a brass-button and inwardly thank God they were not
like the poor publican or
|
one mouth, and the sugar disappeared.
"I think I'll go," he said, as he crunched the lump. "Yes, I'll be
hanged if I don't go."
"That's more than probable," said Harold.
"Yes, I'd like to clear off for a bit from this kennel."
"What kennel?"
"This kennel--London. Do you go the length of denying that London's a
kennel?"
"I don't do anything of the sort."
"You'd best not. I was thinking if a run to Australia, or California, or
Timbuctoo would not be healthy just now."
"Oh."
"Yes, I made up my mind yesterday, that if I don't have better hands
soon, I'll chuck up the whole game. That's the sort of new potatoes that
I am."
"The Legitimate?"
"The Legitimate be frizzled! Am I to continue paying for the suppers
that other tarty chips eat? That's what I want you to tell me. You know
what a square deal is, Wynne, as well as most people."
"I believe I do."
"Well, then, you can tell me if I'm to pay for dry champagne for her
guests."
"Whose guests?"
"Great Godfrey! haven't I been telling you? Mrs. Mowbray's guests. Who
else's would they be? Do you mean to tell me that, in addition to giving
people free boxes at the Legitimate every night to see W. S. late of
Stratford upon Avon, it's my business to supply dry champagne all round
after the performance?"
"Well," said Harold, "to speak candidly to you, I've always been of
the opinion that the ideal proprietor of a theatre is one who supplies
really comfortable stalls free, and has really sound champagne handed
round at intervals during the performance. I also frankly admit that
I haven't yet met with any manager who quite realized my ideas in this
matter. Archie, my lad, the sooner you get down to Abbeylands the better
it will be for yourself."
"I'll go. Mind you, I don't cry off when I know the chaps that she asks
to supper--I'll flutter the dimes for anyone I know; but I'm hanged if
I do it for the chaps that chip in on her invite. They'll not draw cards
from my pack, Wynne. No, I'll see them in the port of Hull first. That's
the sort of new potatoes that I am."
"Give me your hand, Archie," cried Harold. "I always thought you nothing
better than a millionaire, but I find that you're a man after all."
"I'll make things hum at the Legitimate yet," said Archie--his voice was
fast approaching the shouting stage. "I'll send them waltzing round. I
thought once upon a time that, when she laid her hand upon my head
and said, 'Poor old Archie,' I could go on for ever--that to see the
decimals fluttering about her would be the loveliest sight on earth
for the rest of my life. But I'm tired of that show now, Wynne. Great
Godfrey! I can get my hair smoothed down at a barber's for sixpence, and
yet I believe that she charged me a thousand pounds for every time she
patted my head. A decimal for a pat--a pat!"
"You could buy the whole Irish nation for less money, according to some
people's ideas--but they're wrong," said Harold.
"Wynne," said Archie, solemnly. "I've been going it blind for some time.
Shakespeare's a fraud. I'll shoot those pheasants."
He had picked up his hat, and in another minute Harold saw him sending
his pair of chestnuts down the street at a pace that showed a creditable
amount of self-restraint on the part of Archie.
Three days afterwards Harold got a letter from Mrs. Lampson, giving him
a number of commissions to execute for her--delicate matters that could
not be intrusted to any one except a confidential agent. The postscript
mentioned that Archie Brown had arrived a few days before and had
charmed every one with his shyness. On this account she could scarcely
believe, she said, that he was a millionaire. She added that Lady
Innisfail and her daughter had just arrived at Abbeylands, that the Miss
Avon about whom she had inquired, had accepted her invitation and was
coming to Abbeylands on the next day; and finally, Mrs. Lampson said
that her father was dull enough to make people believe that he was
really reformed. He was inquiring when Miss Avon was coming, and he
shared the fate of all men (and women) who were unfortunate enough to
be reformed: he had become deadly dull. Lady Innisfail had assured her,
however, that it was very rarely that a Hardened Reprobate permanently
reformed--even with the incentive of acute rheumatism--before he was
sixty-five, so that it would be unwise to be despondent about
Lord Fotheringay. If this was so--and Lady Innisfail was surely an
authority--Mrs. Lampson said that she looked forward to such a lapse on
the part of her father as would restore him to the position of interest
which he had always occupied in the eyes of the world.
Harold lay back in his chair and laughed heartily at the reference made
by his sister to the shyness of Archie, and also to the fact of Norah
Innisfail's sitting at the table with the Young Reprobate as well as the
Old. He wondered if the conversation had yet turned upon the management
of the Legitimate Theatre.
It was after he had lunched on the next Tuesday that Harold received
this letter--written by his sister the previous day. He had passed
an hour with Beatrice, who was to start by the four-twenty train for
Abbeylands station. He had said goodbye to her for a week, and already
he was feeling so lonely that he was soon pacing his room calling
himself a fool for having elected to remain in town while she was to go.
He thought how they might have had countless strolls through the fine
park at Abbeylands--through the picturesque ruins of the old Abbey--on
the banks of the little trout stream. Instead of being by her side among
those interesting scenes, he would have to remain--he had been foolish
enough to make the choice--in the neighbourhood of nothing more joyous
than St. James's Palace.
This was bad enough; but not merely would he be away from the landscapes
at Abbeylands, the elements of life in those landscapes would be
represented by Beatrice and Another.
Yes; she would certainly appear with someone at her side--in the place
he might have occupied if he had not been such a fool.
An hour had passed before he had got the better of his impulse to call
a hansom and drive to the railway terminus and take a seat beside her in
the train. When the clock had struck four, and it was therefore too late
for him to entertain the idea of going with her, he became more inclined
to take a reasonable view of the situation.
"I was right." he said, as he seated himself in front of the fire,
and stared into the smouldering coals. "Yes, I was right. No one must
suspect that we are--bound to one another"--the words were susceptible
of a sufficiently liberal interpretation. "The penetration of Edmund
Airey will be at fault for the first time, and the others who had so
many suspicions at Castle Innisfail, will find themselves completely at
fault."
He began to think how, though he had been cruelly dealt with by Fate in
some respects--in respect of his own father, for instance, and also in
respect of his own poverty--he had still much to be thankful for.
He was beloved by the loveliest woman whom he had ever seen--the only
woman for whom he had ever felt a passion. And the peculiar position
which she occupied, had enabled him to see her every day and to kiss her
exquisite face--there was none to make him afraid. Such obstacles in the
way of a lover's freedom as the Average Father, the Vigilant Mother
and the Athletic Brother he had never encountered. And then a curious
circumstance--the thought of Beatrice as a part of the landscapes around
Abbeylands caused him to lay special emphasis upon this--had enabled him
to bind the girl to him with a bond which in her eyes at least--yes, in
his eyes too, by heaven, he felt--was not susceptible of being loosened.
Yes, the ways of Providence were wonderful, he felt. If he had not met
Mr. Playdell.... and so forth.
But now Beatrice was his own. She might stray through the autumn
woods by the side of Edmund Airey or any man whom she might meet at
Abbeylands; she would feel upon her finger the ring that he had placed
there--the ring that----
He sprang to his feet with a sudden cry.
"Good God! the Ring! the Ring!"
He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It pointed to four-seventeen.
He pulled out his watch. It pointed to four-twenty-two.
He rushed to the sofa where an overcoat was lying. He had it on him in a
moment. He snatched up a railway guide and stuffed it into his pocket.
In another minute he was in a hansom, driving as fast as the hansomeer
thought consistent with public safety--a trifle over that which the
police authorities thought consistent with public safety--in the
direction of the Northern Railway terminus.
CHAPTER XLII.--ON THE RING AND THE LOOK.
|HE tried, while in the hansom, to unravel the mysteries of the system
by which passengers were supposed to reach Brackenshire. He found the
four-twenty train from London indicated in its proper order. This was
the train by which he had invariably travelled to Abbeylands--it was the
last train in the day that carried passengers to Abbeylands Station, for
the station was on a short branch line, the junction being Mowern.
On reaching the terminus he lost no time in finding a responsible
official--one whose chastely-braided uniform looked repressful of tips.
"I want to get to Mowern Junction before the four-twenty train from here
goes on to Abbeylands. Can I do it?" said Harold.
"Next train to the Junction five-thirty-two, sir," said the official.
"That's too late for me," said Harold. "The train leaves the Junction
for Abbeylands a quarter of an hour after arriving at Mowern. Is there
no local train that I might manage to catch that would bring me to the
Junction?"
"None that would serve your purpose, sir."
Harold clearly saw how it was that this company could never get their
dividend over four per cent.
"Why is there so long a wait at Mowern?" he asked.
"Waits for Ditchford Mail, sir."
"And at what time does a train start for Ditch-ford?"
"Can't tell, sir. Ditchford is on the Nethershire system--they have
running powers over our line to Mowern."
Harold whipped out his guide, and found Ditch-ford in the index. By an
inspiration he turned at once to the page devoted to the Nethershire
service of trains. He found that, by an exquisite system of timing the
trains, it was possible to reach a station a mile from Ditchford on the
one line, just six minutes after the departure of the last local train
to Ditchford on the other line. It took a little ingenuity, no doubt,
on the part of the Directors of both lines to accomplish this, but still
they managed to do it.
"I beg pardon, sir," said an official wearing a uniform that suggested
tolerance of views in the matter of tips--the more important official
had moved away. "I beg pardon, sir. Why not take the four-fifty-five
to Mindon, and change into the Ditchford local train--that'll reach the
junction four minutes before the express? I know it, sir. I was
stationed at change into the Ditchford local train--that'll reach the
junction four minutes before the express? I know it, sir. I was
stationed at that part of the system."
To glance at the clock, and to perceive that he had time enough to drive
to the Nethershire terminus, and to transfer a coin to the unconscious
but not reluctant hand of the official of the liberal views, occupied
Harold but a moment. At four-fifty-five he was in the Nethershire train
on his way to Mindon.
He had not waited to verify the man's statement as to the trains, but
in the railway carriage he did so, and he found that the beautiful
complications of the two systems were at least susceptible of the
interpretation put on them.
For the next two hours Harold felt that he could devote himself, if
he had the mind, to the problem of the ring that had been so suddenly
suggested to him.
It did not require him to spend more than the merest fraction of this
time in order to convince him that the impulse upon which he had acted,
was one that he would have been a fool to repress.
The ring which he had put on her finger, and which she had worn
since, and would most certainly wear--he had imagined her doing so--at
Abbeylands, could not fail to be recognized both by his father and his
sister. It had belonged to his mother, and it was unique. It had flashed
upon him suddenly that, unless he was content that his father and sister
should learn that he had given her that ring, it would be necessary for
him to prevent Beatrice from wearing it even for an hour at Abbeylands.
Apart altogether from the question of the circumstances under which he
had put the ring upon her finger--circumstances which he had good reason
for desiring to conceal--the fact that he had given to her the object
which he valued most highly in the world, and which his father and
sister knew that he so valued, would suggest to both these persons as
much as would ruin him.
His father would, he knew, be extremely glad to discover some pretext to
cut off the last penny of his allowance; and assuredly he would regard
this gift of the ring as an ample pretext for adopting such a course of
action. Indeed, Lord Fotheringay had never been at a loss for a pretext
for reducing his son's allowance; and now that he was posing--with
but indifferent success, as Harold had learned from Mrs. Lampson's
postscript--as a Reformed Sinner, he would, his son knew, think that,
in cutting off his son's allowance, he was only acting consistently with
the traditions of Reformed Sinners.
The Reformed Sinner is usually a sinner whose capacity to enjoy the
pleasures of sin has become dulled, and thus he is intolerant of the
sins of others, and particularly intolerant of the capacity of others to
enjoy sin. This is why he reduces the allowances of his children. Like
the man who advances to the position of teetotal lecturer, after having
served for some time as the teetotal lecturer's Example, he knows all
about the evil which he means to combat--to be more exact, which he
means his children to combat.
All this Harold knew perfectly well. He knew that the only difference
that the reform of his father would make to him, was that, while his
father had formerly cut down his allowance with a courteously worded
apology, he would now stop it altogether without an apology.
How could he have failed to remember, when he put that ring upon her
finger, how great were the chances that it would be seen there by his
father or his sister?
This was the question which occupied his thoughts for the first hour
of his journey. He lay back looking out on the gray October landscapes
through which the train rushed--the wood glowing in crimson and brown
like a mighty smouldering furnace--the groups of children picking
blackberries on the embankments--the canal boat moving slowly along the
gray waterway--and he asked himself how he had been such a fool as to
overlook the likelihood of the ring being seen on her hand by his father
or his sister.
The truth was, that he had at that time not considered the possibility
of her going to Abbey-lands. He knew that Mrs. Lampson intended inviting
her; but he felt certain that, when she heard that he was not going, she
would not accept the invitation. She would not have accepted it, if it
had not suddenly occurred to him that the fact of her going while he
remained in town would be to his advantage.
Would he be in time to prevent the disaster which he foresaw would occur
if she appeared in the drawing-room at Abbeylands wearing the ring?
He looked at his watch. The train was three minutes late in reaching
several of the stations on its route, and it was delayed for another
three minutes when there was only a single line of rails. How would
it be possible for the train to make up so great a loss during the
remainder of the journey?
He reminded the guard at one of many intolerable stoppages, that the
train was long behind its time. The guard could not agree with him, it
was only about seven minutes late, he assured Harold.
On it went, and it seemed as if the engine-driver had a clearer sense of
his responsibilities than the guard, for during the next thirty miles,
he managed to save over two minutes. All this Harold noticed with more
interest than he had ever taken in the details of any railway journey.
When at last Mindon was reached, and he left the train to change into
the one which was to carry him on to the Junction, he found that this
train had not yet come up. Here was another point to be considered.
Would the train come up in time?
He was not left for long in suspense. The long row of lighted carriages
ran up to the platform before he had been waiting for two minutes, and
in another two minutes the train was steaming away with him.
He looked at his watch once more, and then he was able to give himself
a rest, for he saw that unless some accident were to happen, he would be
at Mowern Junction before the train should leave for Abbeylands Station
on the branch line.
In running into the Junction, the train went past the platform of the
branch line. A number of carriages were there, and at the side glass of
one compartment he saw the profile of Beatrice.
The little cry that she gave, when he opened the door of the compartment
and spoke her name, had something of terror as well as delight in it.
"Harold! How on earth--" she began.
"I have a rather important message for you," he said. "Will you take a
turn with me on the platform? There is plenty of time. The train does
not start for six minutes."
She was out of the carriage in a moment. "Mr. Wynne has a message for
me--it is probably from Mrs. Lampson," she said to her maid, who was in
the same compartment.
CHAPTER XLIII.--ON THE SON OF APHRODITE.
|WHAT can be the matter? How did you manage to come here? You must have
travelled by the same train as we came by. Oh, Harold, my husband, I am
so glad to see you. You have changed your mind--you are coming on with
me? Oh, I see it all now. You meant all along to give me this delightful
surprise."
The words came from her in a torrent as she put her hand on his arm--he
could feel the ring on her finger.
"No, no," said he; "everything remains as it was this morning. I only
wish that I were going on with you. Providentially something occurred to
me when I was sitting alone after lunch. That is why I came. I managed
to catch a train that brought me here just now--the train I was in ran
past this platform and I saw your face."
"What can have occurred to you that you could not tell me in a letter?"
she asked, her face still bearing the look of glad surprise that had
come to it when she had heard the sound of his voice.
"We shall have to go into a waiting-room, or--better still--an empty
carriage," said he. "I see several men whom I know, and--worse luck!
women--they are on their way to Abbeylands, and if they saw us together
in this confidential way, they would never cease chattering when they
arrived. We shall get into a compartment--there is one that still
remains unlighted, it will be the best for our purpose; there will be no
chance of a prying face appearing at the window."
"Shall we have time?" she asked.
"Plenty of time. By getting into the carriage you will run no chance of
being left behind--the worst that can happen is that I may be carried on
with you."
"The worst? Oh, that is the best--the best." They had strolled to the
end of the platform where it was dimly lighted, and in an instant,
apparently unobserved by anyone, they had got into an unlighted
compartment at the rear of the train, and Harold shut the door
quietly, so as not to attract the attention of the three or four men in
knickerbockers who were stretching their legs on the platform until the
train was ready to start.
"We are fortunate," said he. "Those men outside will be your
fellow-guests for the week. None of them will think of glancing into
a dark carriage; but if one of them does so, he will be nothing the
wiser."
"And now--and now," she cried.
"And now, my dearest, you remember the ring that I put upon your
finger?"
"This ring? Do you think it likely that I have forgotten it already?"
she whispered.
"No, no, dearest; it was I who forgot it," he said. "It was I who forgot
that my father and my sister are perfectly certain to recognize that
ring if you wear it at Abbeylands: they will be certain to see it on
your linger, and they will question you as to how it came into your
possession."
"Of course they will," she said, after a pause. "You told me that it was
a ring that belonged to your mother. There can only be one such ring in
the world. Oh, they could not fail to recognize it. The little chubby
wicked Eros surrounded by the rubies--I have looked at the design every
day--every night--sometimes the firelight gleaming upon the circle of
rubies has made them seem to me a band of blood. Was that the idea of
the artist who made the design, I wonder--a circle of blood with the god
Eros in the centre."
She had taken off her glove, and had laid the hand with the ring in one
of his hands.
He had never felt her hand so soft and warm before. His hand became
hot through holding hers. His heart was beating as it had never beaten
before.
The force of his grasp pressed the sharply cut cameo into his flesh. The
image of that wicked little god, the son of Aphrodite, was stamped upon
him. It seemed as if some of his blood would mingle with the blood that
sparkled and beat within the heart of the rubies.
He had forgotten the object of his mission to her. Still holding her
hand with the ring, he put his arm under the sealskin coat that reached
to her feet, and held her close to him while he kissed her as he had
never before kissed her.
Suddenly he seemed to recollect why he was with her. He had not hastened
down from London for the sake of the kiss.
"My beloved, my beloved!" he murmured--each word sounded like a sob--"I
should like to remain with you for ever."
She did not say a word. She did not need to say a word. He could feel
the tumult of her heart, and she knew it.
"For God's sake, Beatrice, let me speak to you," he said.
It was a strange entreaty. His arm was about her, his hand was holding
one of hers, she was simply passive by his side; and yet he implored of
her to let him speak to her.
It was some moments before she could laugh, however; which was also
strange, for the humour of the matter which called for that laugh, was
surely capable of being appreciated by her immediately.
She gave a laugh and then a sigh.
The carriage was dark, but a stray gleam of light from a side platform
now and again came upon her face, and her features were brought into
relief with the clearness and the whiteness of a lily in a jungle.
As she gave that laugh--or was it a sigh?--he started, perceiving that
the expression of her features was precisely that which the artist in
the antique had imparted to the features of the little chrysoprase Eros
in the centre of that blood-red circle of the ring.
"Why do you laugh, Beatrice?8 said he.
"Did I laugh, Harold?" said she. "No--no--I think--yes, I think it was a
sigh--or was it you who sighed, my love?"
"God knows," said he. "Oh, the ring--the ring!"
"It feels like a band of burning metal," she said.
"It is almost a pain for me to wear it. Have you not heard of the
curious charms possessed by rings, Harold--the strange spells which they
carry with them? The ring is a mystery--a mystic symbol. It means what
has neither beginning nor ending--it means perfection--completeness--it
means love--love's completeness."
"That is what your ring must mean to us, my beloved," said he. "Whether
you take it from your finger or let it remain there, it will still mean
the completeness of such love as is ours."
"And I am to take it off, Harold?"
"Only so long as you stay at Abbeylands, Beatrice. What does it matter
for one week? You will see, dearest, how my plans--my hopes--must
certainly he destroyed if that ring is seen on your finger by my father
or my sister. It is not for the sake of my plans only that I wish you to
refrain from wearing it for a week; it is for your sake as well."
"Would they fancy that I had stolen it, dear?" she asked, looking up to
his face with a smile.
"They might fancy worse things than that, Beatrice," said he. "Do
not ask me. You may be sure that I am advising you aright--that the
consequences of that ring being recognized on your finger would be more
serious than you could understand."
"Did I not say something to you a few days ago about the completeness of
my trust in you, Harold?" she whispered. "Well, the ring is the symbol
of this completeness also. I trust you implicitly in everything. I have
given myself up to you. I will do whatever you may tell me. I will not
take the ring off until I reach Abbeylands, but I shall take it off
then, and only replace it on my finger every night."
"My darling, my darling! Such love as you have given to me is God's best
gift to the world."
He had committed himself to an opinion practically to the same effect
upon more than one previous occasion.
And now, as then, the expression of that opinion was followed by a long
silence, as their faces came together.
"Beatrice," he said, in a tremulous voice.
"Harold."
"I shall go on with you to Abbeylands. Come what may, we shall not now
be separated."
But they were separated that very instant. The carriage was flooded with
light--the chastened flood that comes from an oil lamp inserted in a
hollow in the roof--and they were no longer in each others arms. They
heard the sound of the porter's feet on the roof of the next carriage.
"It is so good of you to come," said she.
There was now perhaps three inches of a space separating them.
"Good?" said he. "I'm afraid that's not the word. We shall be under one
roof."
"Yes," she said slowly, "under one roof."
"Tickets for Ashmead," intoned a voice at the carriage window.
"We are for Abbeylands Station," said Harold.
"Abb'l'ns," said the guard. "Why, sir, you know the Abb'l'ns train
started six minutes ago."
CHAPTER XLIV.--ON THE SHORTCOMINGS OF A SYSTEM.
|HAROLD was out of the compartment in a moment. Did the guard mean that
the train had actually left for Abbeylands? It had left six minutes
before, the guard explained, and the station-master added his guarantee
to the statement.
Harold looked around--from platform to platform--as if he fancied that
there was a conspiracy between the officials to conceal the train.
How could the train leave without taking all its carriages with it?
It did nothing of the kind, the station-master said, firmly but
respectfully.
The guard went on with his business of cutting neat triangles out of
the tickets of the passengers in the carriages that were alongside the
platform--passengers bound for Ashmead.
"But I--we--my--my wife and I got into one of the carriages of the
Abbeylands train," said Harold, becoming indignant, after the fashion
of his countrymen, when they have made a mistake either on a home or
foreign railway. "What sort of management is it that allows one
portion of a train to go in one direction and another part in another
direction?"
"It's our system, sir," said the official. "You see, sir, there're never
many passengers for either the Abbeyl'n's"--being a station-master he
did not do an unreasonable amount of clipping in regard to the
names--"or the Ashm'd branch, so the Staplehurst train is divided--only
we don't light the lamps in the Ashm'd portion until we're ready to
start it. Did you get into a carriage that had a lamp, sir?"
"I've seen some bungling at railway stations before now," said Harold,
"but bang me if I ever met the equal of this."
"This isn't properly speaking a station, sir, it's a junction," said
the official, mildly, but with the force of a man who has said the last
word.
"That simply means that greater bungling may be found at a junction than
at a station," said Harold. "Is it not customary to give some notice
of the departure of a train at a junction as well as a station, my good
man?"
The official became reasonably irritated at being called a good man.
"The train left for Abbeyl'n's according to reg'lation, sir," said he.
"If you got into a compartment that had no lamp----"
"Oh, I've no time for trifling," said Harold. "When does the next train
leave for Abbey-lands?"
"At eight-sixteen in the morning," said the official.
"Great heavens! You mean to say that there's no train to-night?"
"You see, if a carriage isn't lighted, sir, we----"
The man perceived the weakness of Harold's case--from the standpoint
of a railway official--and seemed determined not to lose sight of it.
"Contributory negligence" he knew to be the most valuable phrase that a
railway official could have at hand upon any occasion.
"And how do you expect us to go on to Abbeylands to-night?" asked
Harold.
"There's a very respectable hotel a mile from the junction, sir," said
the man. "Ruins of the Priory, sir--dates back to King John, page 84
_Tourist's Guide to Brackenshire_."
"Oh," said Harold, "this is quite preposterous." He went to where
Beatrice was seated watching, with only a moderate amount of interest,
the departure of five passengers for Ashmead.
"Well, dear?" said she, as Harold came up.
"For straightforward, pig-headed stupidity I'll back a railway company
against any institution in the world," said he. "The last train has
left for Abbeylands. Did you ever know of such stupidity? And yet the
shareholders look for six per cent, out of such a system."
"Perhaps," said she timidly--"perhaps we were in some degree to blame."
He laughed. It was so like a woman to suggest the possibility of some
blame attaching to the passengers when a railway company could be
indicted. To the average man such an idea is as absurd as beginning to
argue with a person at whom one is at liberty to swear.
"It seems that there is a sort of hotel a mile away," said he. "We
cannot be starved, at any rate."
"And I--you--we shall have to stay there?" said she.
He gave a sort of shrug--an Englishman's shrug--about as like the real
thing as an Englishman's bow, or a Chinaman's cheer.
"What can we do?" said he. "When a railway company such as this--oh,
come along, Beatrice. I am hungry--hungry--hungry!"
He caught her by the arm.
"Yes, Harold--husband," said she.
He started.
"Husband! Husband!" he said. "I never thought of that. Oh, my
beloved--my beloved!"
He stood irresolute for a moment.
Then he gave a curious laugh, and she felt his hand tighten upon her arm
for a moment.
"Yes," he whispered. "You heard the words that--that man said while our
hands were together? 'Whom God hath joined'--God--that is Love. Love
is the bond that binds us together. Every union founded on Love is
sacred--and none other is sacred--in the sight of heaven."
"And you do not doubt my love," she said.
"Doubt it? oh, my Beatrice, I never knew what it was before now." They
left the station together, after he had written and despatched in her
name a telegram to her maid, directing her to explain to Mrs. Lampson
that her mistress had unfortunately missed the train, but meant to go by
the first one in the morning.
By chance a conveyance was found outside, and in it they drove to the
Priory Hotel which, they were amazed to find, promised comfort as well
as picturesqueness.
It was a long ivy-covered house, and bore every token of being a portion
of the ancient Priory among the ruins of which it was standing. Great
elms were in front of the house, and on one side there were apple trees,
and at the other there was a garden reaching almost to where a ruined
arch was held together by its own ivy.
As they were in the act of entering the porch, a ray of moonlight
gleamed upon the ruins, and showed the trimmed grass plots and neat
gravel walks among the cloisters.
Harold pointed out the picturesque effect to Beatrice, and they stood
for some moments before entering the house.
The old waiter, whose moderately white shirt front constituted a very
distinctive element of the hall with its polished panels of old oak, did
not bustle forward when he saw them admiring the ruins.
"Upon my word," said Harold, entering, "this is a place worth seeing.
That touch of moonlight was very effective."
"Yes, sir," said the waiter; "I'm glad you're pleased with it. We try to
do our best in this way for our patrons. Mrs. Mark will be glad to know
that you thought highly of our moonlight, sir."
The man was only a waiter, but he was as solemn as a butler, as he
opened the door of a room that seemed ready to do duty as a coffee-room.
It had a low groined ceiling, and long narrow windows.
An elderly maid was lighting candles in sconces round the walls.
"Really," said Harold, "we may be glad that the bungling at the junction
brought us here."
"Yes, sir," said the man with waiter-like acquiescence; "they do bungle
things sometimes at that junction."
"We were on our way to Abbeylands," said Harold, "but those idiots on
the platform allowed us to get into the wrong carriages--the carriages
that were going to Ashmead. We shall stay here for the night. The
station-master recommended us to go here, and I'm much obliged to him.
It's the only sensible--"
"Yes, sir: he's a brother to Mrs. Mark--Mrs. Mark is our proprietor,"
said the waiter.
"_Mrs_. Mark," said Harold.
"Yes, sir: she's our proprietor."
Harold thought that, perhaps, when the owner of an hotel was a woman,
she might reasonably be called the proprietor.
"Oh, well, perhaps a maid might show my--my wife to a room, while I see
what we can get for dinner--supper, I suppose we should call it."
The middle-aged woman who was lighting the candles came forward smiling,
as she adroitly extinguished the wax taper by the application of her
finger and thumb. With her Beatrice disappeared.
Harold quite expected that he was about to
|
on to Bloomsbury
Square. Yet there was still no sign of pursuit. Nor did anything occur
all that afternoon to interrupt the serenity of the bride and
bridegroom. They went together to the mercer's and to the milliner's,
and Irene made her purchases on a very modest scale, and well within the
limits of her pocket-money, while her husband discreetly waited at the
door of the shop, and exercised a patience rare after the halcyon days
of the honeymoon.
"How good you are to wait for me!" said Irene, as she rejoined him;
"shopkeepers are so slow, and they pester one so to buy more than one
wants."
"If you were like Mrs. Skerritt, who haunts every sale-room and bids for
everything she sees, your catalogue of wants would not be completed half
so easily," answered Herrick; "jealous though I am of your absence, I
must own you have been vastly quick."
"But pray who is Mrs. Skerritt?" asked Irene. "Stay, she is the lady who
was so kind to you. I should like to know her."
"Nay, love, I think it were better not, though there are great ladies
who ask her to their houses, and pretend to adore her--Lady Mary
Montagu, for instance. But my young wife must choose her friends with
the utmost discretion."
"I wish for no friends whom you do not care for," said his bride; "and
now, Herrick, when am I to see the new comedy? It is hard that all the
town should have admired my husband's play, while I know so little about
it."
"Shall we go to Drury Lane this evening?"
"I should love to go."
"Then you shall. Lavendale has hired a box for the run of my play--he
always does things in a princely style--and we can have it all to
ourselves this evening. 'Twill be our first public appearance as man and
wife, and all the town will guess we are married, and will envy me my
prize."
They dined, or pretended to dine, at four, and then Lavendale's chariot
drove them to Drury Lane.
What a delight it was for Irene to sit by her lover-husband's side, and
watch and listen while the story of the play unfolded itself--to hear
the audience laugh and applaud at each brisk retort, each humorous or
fondly tender fancy! The play was a story of love and lovers, the old,
old story which has been telling itself ever since creation, and which
yet seems ever new to the actors in it. There were wit and passion and
freshness and manly spirit in Herrick's play, but there was not a single
indecency; and the older school of wits and scribblers wondered
exceedingly how so milk-and-waterish a comedy could take the town. Mrs.
Manley, in a dark little box yonder, whispering behind her fan to a
superannuated buck in a periwig that reached his knees, protested that
the play was the tamest she had ever sat out.
"Tamer than _The Conscious Lovers_," she said, "though poor Dick lived
in such fear of his wife that he dared never give free scope to his wit,
lest Mrs. Molly should take offence at him. O, for the days of Etherege
and Wycherley!"
"Nay, I protest," said the buck, adjusting a stray curl with his
pocket-comb, and ogling the house with weak elderly eyes; "the play may
be decent, but it is not tame. Those scenes between Nancy and Wilks are
vastly fine. Stap my vitals if I have not been between laughing and
crying all the evening; and this is the seventh time I have seen the
piece. I wonder who that pretty creature is in my Lord Lavendale's box,
in a plain gray gown and a cherry-coloured hood? She is the finest
woman--present company excepted--I have ogled for a decade."
"The gentleman sitting beside her is the author of the play," said Mrs.
Manley, screwing up her eyes to peer across the width of the pit. "She
is some vizard Miss that ought to be sitting in the slips, I'll be
sworn."
"Nay, I'll take my oath she is a modest woman."
"But to sit alone in a box with a bachelor, and a notorious rake into
the bargain--Lavendale's boon companion!"
"O, you are talking of the days before the deluge. Mr. Durnford has
turned sober, and sits in Parliament. He is one of the doughtiest
knights in Sir Robert's phalanx--a rising man, madam; and as for
Lavendale, he too has turned sober. One hardly ever meets him at
White's, or any of the other chocolate-houses. I am told he is dying."
"When he is dead you may tell me of his sobriety and I will believe
you," retorted the bluestocking, "but till then forgive me if I doubt
your veracity or your information. It was only last June I saw Lavendale
at Vauxhall intriguing with Lady Judith Topsparkle. I almost knocked
against them in one of the dark walks, and a woman who saunters in a
dark walk at midnight, hanging on the arm of a former lover--"
"Is in a fair way to forget her duty to a latter husband," asserted the
buck, regaling himself with a pinch of smoked rappee out of the handle
of his clouded cane.
Three or four of Durnford's acquaintance came to the box in the course
of the evening, and were duly presented to his bride, whom they had all
recognised as the beauty and heiress of Arlington Street, a star that
had flashed upon the town for a brief space, to disappear into rustic
obscurity.
"I feared, Mrs. Bosworth, that this poor little smoky town of ours was
never again to be illumined by your beauty," said Mr. Philter, who was
one of the first to press an entrance into the box.
"Mrs. Bosworth belongs only to history," said Herrick; "I have the
honour to present you to Mrs. Durnford."
"What, Herrick! you astound me. Can fortune have been so lavish, and can
destiny have been so blind, when your obedient servant Thomas Philter
still sighs and worships at the shrine of beauty a miserable bachelor?"
"I have heard you boast 'tis your own fault," laughed Herrick. "It is
Philter who is wilful and reluctant, not Venus who is unkind."
"I grant that good easy lady has always been gracious," answered the
scribbler gaily; "but how did you manage this business, Durnford? how
reconcile a wealthy landed gentleman to the incongruity of a man of
letters as a son-in-law?"
"Faith, Philter, since the incongruity seemed somewhat irreconcilable,
we have taken the matter into our own hands. 'Twas Parson Keith who tied
the knot, at ten o'clock this morning."
"The Reverend Alexander is the most useful man of the age, and this new
Mayfair chapel is the true gate of Paradise," said Philter; and then
with much flourish he congratulated Irene upon her marriage with his
friend.
"Your father will come round, madam," he said. "They all do. They curse
and rage and stamp and blaspheme for a time, are more furious than in a
fit of podagra; but after a storm comes a calm, and the tyrant softens
to the doating grandfather. No argument so potent as a son and heir to
melt the heart of a wealthy landowner."
"I'm afraid, Philter, your impressions of the paternal character are
mostly derived from the stage," said Durnford. "In a comedy the sternest
parent is obliged to yield. No father's wrath can survive the fifth act.
The curtain cannot come down till the lovers are forgiven. But in actual
life I take it there is such a thing as an obstinate anger which lasts
till the grave. However, we mean to soften Mr. Bosworth, if dutiful
feeling and a proper sense of our own misconduct can soften him."
"Do you mean to tell him you repent, eh, you dog?" asked Philter.
"Not for the world would I utter such a lie. I glory in the rebellion
which has gained me this dearest prize."
CHAPTER II.
"O, TO WHAT END, EXCEPT A JEALOUS ONE?"
The married lovers were startled at their breakfast next morning by the
arrival of Mdlle. Latour in a hackney chair. She had travelled up from
Fairmile to the Hercules Pillars in Piccadilly by the heavy night coach,
and had come from the inn in a chair. She looked worn and haggard with
fatigue and anxiety.
"I knew where I should find my runaway," she said, clasping Irene in her
arms, and covering her fair young face with tearful kisses. "I went
first to Mr. Durnford's lodgings, where the woman told me he was staying
at Lord Lavendale's house in Bloomsbury, and the same chair brought me
here. O Irene, what a trick you have played us!"
"I loved him too well to give him up," faltered the girl. "If there had
been any hope of winning my father's consent I would have waited for
it. But tell me, Maman, how does he take my disobedience? Is he
dreadfully angry?"
"Alas, yes, _ma chérie_, his anger is indeed dreadful. I can conceive no
kind of wrath more terrible. It is a silent anger. He sits alone in his
room, or paces the corridors, and none of us dare approach him. Once he
went into Mrs. Layburne's room, and was closeted with her for an hour;
and then that awful calm broke in a tempest of angry words. Do not think
that I listened at the door, Rena, in a prying spirit. I was in the
hall, near enough to hear those furious tones, but not one word of
speech. I could hear her voice, and it had a mocking sound. I believe in
my heart, Rena, that the woman is a demoniac, and would glory in any
misfortune of her master's. She has brooded over that house like an evil
spirit, and the domestic quiet of our lives has been pain and grief to
her. And now she flaps her wings like a bird of evil omen, and croaks
out her rapture, and riots in your father's anguish."
"Why should he suffer anguish?" asked Irene. "I have married an honest
man."
"Ah, but he had his own ambitious schemes for your marriage. You were to
be a great lady, or you were at least to join wealth to wealth. Consider
that he has given himself up so long to the labour of money-making that
he has grown to think of money as the beginning and end of life. He will
die with his mind full of 'Change Alley and the rise and fall of
stocks."
"Then how could I help disappointing him--I who care so little for
money?" pleaded Rena.
"And so Mrs. Layburne has been playing the devil," said Durnford. "Well,
I am not surprised. I have heard some particulars of that lady's history
from those who were familiar with her in her youth, early in Queen
Anne's reign, and who remember her as a handsome fury, with the voice of
an angel and the temper of a fiend. She sang in _Camilla_ with
Valentini, that first mongrel opera in which two or three of the
principal performers sang in Italian and all the rest in English. It was
just before Congreve and Vanbrugh opened their new theatre in the
Haymarket. She was then in the heyday of her beauty. She is not so old a
woman as you may think her. She wore herself out untimely by the
indulgence of an evil temper. But what of her health, Mademoiselle?
Think you she is long for this world?"
"I believe that a few weeks will see that stormy nature at rest for
ever."
"Then, Rena, the sooner we beard the lion--nay, I mean no disrespect to
your father--the better for all of us. If Mademoiselle has no objection,
we will take her back in our coach. I mean to start for Fairmile as soon
as ever we can get a team of horses from the livery-yard."
"What, you will take Rena back to her father!"
"Only to justify my conduct and hers, and to obtain his forgiveness."
"What, in his present mood," exclaimed the little Frenchwoman, with a
scared countenence, "before time has softened him, while his anger rages
at white heat! You ought to wait at least a year. Let him begin to miss
his daughter's presence; to yearn after her, to mourn for her as one who
is dead; and then let her stand before him suddenly some day, rising
like a ghost out of the grave of the past, and fall on her knees at his
feet. That will be the hour for pardon."
"I have a bolder card to play," said Durnford, "and I mean to play it.
Mrs. Layburne is an element in my calculations; and I must have this
business settled with the Squire while she is above ground."
"Better wait till she is dead and forgotten. Be assured she will never
act the peacemaker. She will fan the flame of Mr. Bosworth's fury and
goad him to vengeance. She hates my innocent Rena, hates every creature
to whom the Squire was ever civil."
"Her very hatred may be made subservient to our interests. There is no
use in arguing the matter, dear Mademoiselle. I mean to have an
understanding with Mr. Bosworth, and I think I shall succeed in
convincing him that he has very little right to be angry."
"You are an obstinate young man," said Mademoiselle, with a shrug which
expressed a kind of despairing resignation.
"Did my father send in pursuit of me?" asked Rena.
"Not he. When we told him you were missing--'twas I had to do it, I, who
had been appointed by him as your guardian, and who had kept so bad a
watch--he grew white with anger, and for some moments was speechless.
Then he said in a strange voice, which he tried to make calm and steady,
'She has run off with her penniless lover, I make no doubt. So be it.
She may starve with him, beg, thieve, die on the gallows with him, for
all I care.' I tell you this, Mr. Durnford, to show you the kind of
temper he is in, and how unwise it were to make your supplication to him
at such a time."
"And he gave no orders for pursuit, made no offer of going after us in
person?" asked Durnford, ignoring the lady's advice.
"Not once did he suggest such a thing. 'She has gone out of my house
like an ingrate,' he said; 'I have done with her.' That was all. It was
at breakfast-time we missed you, and I went to him straight with the
news. About an hour later there came a man who had seen a coach-and-four
waiting by the wicket-gate, and that seemed conclusive evidence to Mr.
Bosworth. He had no further doubt as to what had happened."
Durnford rang, and requested that a messenger should be sent to the
livery-yard to order a coach-and-four. And then he pressed Mademoiselle
to refresh herself at the breakfast-table, which was somewhat
luxuriously provided. The servants brought a fresh chocolate-pot and a
dish of rolls for the new-comer, and although Mademoiselle was too
agitated to have any appetite, her quondam pupil hung about her
affectionately, and insisted upon her taking a good breakfast.
"And so this fine house belongs to Lord Lavendale," said the little
Frenchwoman. "Are you to live here always?"
"Nay, Mademoiselle, do not think so meanly of me as to suppose I would
be content to lodge my wife in another man's house, even if I were
satisfied to live at free quarters as a bachelor, which I was not. No,
to oblige Lavendale, who was very pressing, I accepted the use of this
fine house for my honeymoon. It is a kind of enchanted palace in which
we are to begin the fairy tale of married life; but so soon as we sober
down a little, Rena and I mean to find a home of our own. We shall look
for some rustic cottage in one of the villages near London, Chelsea or
Battersea, most likely--for I must not be far from the House--and we
shall begin domestic life in an unpretending manner. We will not take a
fine house, as poor Steele did, and call it a hovel, and be over head
and ears in debt, and our furniture pledged to a good-natured friend.
No, we will live from hand to mouth if needs must, but we will pay our
way. I have a trifle put by, and I count upon my comedy for giving me
the money to furnish our nest."
"And if the Squire should turn me out of doors, as I reckon he will in a
day or so, may I come and be your housekeeper?" asked Mademoiselle. "I
should save you a servant, for I can cook as well as teach, and I would
do all your housework into the bargain, for the sake of being near Rena.
I have saved a little money, so I should not be any expense to you; and
I would have my little room apart, like Mrs. Layburne, so as not to
disturb your _tête-à-tête_ life as married lovers."
"Dearest Maman, I should love to have you with us, but not to work for
us. That would never do, would it, Herrick?"
"No, indeed, love. And though we are not rich, we shall be able to
afford some stout serving-wench. But if Mademoiselle would keep house
for us, go to market occasionally, and toss an omelette or mix a salad
now and then, just to show our silly British drudge how such things
should be done--"
"I will do all that, and more. I love the cares of the _ménage_."
After this came much hugging and kissing between governess and pupil,
and then a footman announced that the coach was at the door, and they
all three started for Fairmile.
* * * * *
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the four horses, a fresh
relay from Kingston, drew up in front of the Squire's door. It had not
entered into his mind that his runaway daughter could be so brazen as to
come back to the house she had deserted yet awhile, so he issued no
orders for her exclusion. She and her husband walked into the house
boldly, to the alarm of the old butler, and were ushered straight to the
small parlour, the Squire's den, where he sat in a dejected attitude
beside a desk strewn and heaped with papers. Uppermost among them was a
document in several folios, tied together with green ferret, which
looked suspiciously like a will.
He started at his daughter's entrance, lifted his heavy head, and glared
at her with angry eyes under scowling brows.
"What, madam, do you dare to intrude upon the solitude of the parent you
have outraged?" and then recognising Durnford close at his wife's elbow,
"and to bring your pauper-husband at your tail? _That_ is an insolence
which you will both repent. Leave my house this instant, fellow, or I
will have you kicked out of it by my servants."
"I doubt if there is one of them strong enough for the office," said
Herrick; "do not vent your spleen upon me, Mr. Bosworth, till you have
heard what I have to say in my own defence. That I am here to-day must
show you that I mean honestly."
"Honestly, sir! there is no such thing as honesty in a man who steals
an heiress. You have secured your prize, I take it. You have bound her
fast in matrimony."
"Yes, sir, we are bound to each other for life. We were married at the
chapel in Curzon Street at ten o'clock yesterday morning."
"What, by the Reverend Couple-Beggars, by that scurvy dealer in
marriage-lines, Parson Keith? A highly respectable marriage, altogether
worthy of a landed gentleman's daughter and heiress--a marriage to be
proud of. Leave my house, woman! You and I have nothing more to do with
each other."
"Father," she pleaded, sinking on her knee at his feet, where he sat
scowling at her, not having stirred from his brooding attitude since her
entrance; "father, can you be so cruel to me for having married the man
of my choice? As to your fortune, with all hope of being rich in days to
come, I resign it without a sigh. What I saw of wealth and splendour,
pleasure and fashion, last winter, only served to show me how false and
hollow such things are, and how one's heart may ache in the midst of
them. I can be happy with the man I love in humble circumstances, or
can rejoice in his good fortune if ever he should grow rich: but I
cannot be happy without your forgiveness."
"Then you may perish in your sorrow, for I can never forgive. You had
best drop sentiment, wench; blot me out of your life, as I have blotted
you out of mine. You have had your own way. You had a father, you have a
husband; be content to think, you have profited by the exchange."
"Why are you so angry?" she asked piteously.
"Why?" he echoed, "why?" and then bringing his clenched fist down upon
the document of many folios, "because I had built all my hopes on
you--because I had speculated and hoarded, and calculated and thought,
in order to amass a mighty fortune for you and your heirs. I would have
made you a Duchess, girl. Yes, by Heaven, I had negotiations in hand
with a ducal house, and you would have been taken to town a few weeks
hence to be courted by the heir to a dukedom. I should have lived to see
my daughter mistress of half a dozen palaces--"
"Not your daughter, sir," said Herrick gravely; "your daughter has long
been mistress of one narrow house--a tenement which none would care to
dispute with her."
"What are you raving about, fellow?"
The Squire started to his feet, and looked at Durnford in a kind of
savage bewilderment.
"I am here to reveal the trick that has been played upon you, sir, and
to justify myself as a man of honour," answered Herrick. "I stole no
heiress when I took this dear girl from beneath your roof. I counselled
no disobedience to a father when I urged her to fly with me. I
speculated upon no future fortune, hoped nothing from your relenting
bounty. The girl I loved was a nameless waif who for thirteen years has
been imposed upon you as a daughter, and who loves you and reverences
you as truly as if she were indeed your child."
"Not my daughter?" muttered the Squire; "not my daughter? It is a foul
lie--a lie hatched by you, sir, to cozen and torment me--an outrageous,
obvious, shallow, impudent lie!"
"Should I invent a lie which deprives my wife of any claim to your
wealth? However indifferent I may be to riches, I am too much a man of
the world to so wantonly sacrifice my wife's prospects."
"Upon what grounds?" cried Bosworth. "What proof?" And then suddenly
gripping Irene by the arm, "Unfasten your bodice, girl. Let me see your
right shoulder."
He almost tore the upper part of the bodice from the fair and dimpled
shoulder in his furious impatience, and there at the top of the arm was
revealed a deep cicatrice, the scar of a wound healed long ago.
"Out of my sight, you beggar's brat!" he cried huskily. "Yes, I have
been tricked, deluded, cozened damnably. But by whom? There could be
only two concerned in it. Bridget and that other one--that she-devil.
Follow me, both of you. We'll have it out! We'll have it out!"
He dashed out of the room and along the corridor with the rapid
movements of a madman, and they followed him to Mrs. Layburne's room.
She who had once been the delight of crowded playhouses, the admired of
bucks and wits in the days of the Godolphin ministry, now presented the
saddest spectacle of hopeless decay.
She lay on a sofa beside a pinched and poverty-stricken fire, burning
dully in one of those iron grates by means of which our forefathers
contrived to keep themselves cold while they were mocked by the
semblance and abstract idea of heat. A small table with a basin that had
held broth, and two or three medicine bottles, stood near her. Her gaunt
and wasted form was clad in a dingy printed calico dressing-gown, over
which her white hair fell in neglect and abandonment. Her eyes--once the
stars of a playhouse--now looked unnaturally large in her pinched and
shrunken countenance--unnaturally bright, too, with the lustre of
disease; while on each hollow cheek there burned a hectic spot, which
made the sickly pallor of the skin only the more livid by contrast.
She looked up with a startled air when the Squire burst into her room,
followed immediately by Herrick and Irene. She struggled into a sitting
position, and sat trembling, either with the effort of shifting her
attitude, or with the agitation caused by this strange intrusion.
"Do you see this girl?" demanded Bosworth, thrusting Irene in front of
him. "Do you see her, woman?"
"Ay, sir, I see her well enough. My sight is not yet so dim but I can
recognise a familiar face."
"Who and what is she?"
"Your daughter; your disobedient rebellious daughter, whom you were
howling about yesterday, and whom you welcome home to-day."
"She is not my daughter, and you know it. She is a pauper's nameless
brat, foisted upon me by you, by you, she-devil, so that you might be
able to twit and laugh at me, to revel in the sight of my discomfiture,
before you sink into the grave. _This_ was your vengeance upon me, was
it--your vengeance upon me for not having been more your victim than I
was, though God knows I paid dear enough for my folly! _This_ is what
your innuendoes and mysterious speeches of yesterday hinted at, though I
was too dull to understand them."
"What makes you think she is less than your daughter?" asked Mrs.
Layburne, with a mocking smile, a smile that seemed to gloat over the
Squire's agony of rage.
"What?--this," pointing to the naked shoulder, from which kerchief and
bodice had been so rudely wrenched away. "This scar, which _you_ pointed
out to me when first this beggar-brat was brought into my house. 'You
may always know her by that mark,' you said: ''twill last her
lifetime.' And I forgot all about the mark, and loved the impostor that
was foisted upon me, and believed in her, and toiled for her, and
schemed for her as my very daughter. It flashed upon me all at once--the
memory of that scar, and your words and voice as you showed it--just
now, when her husband yonder told me what his wife is; and I knew in a
moment that I had been duped. Why did you do this thing, Barbara?"
"Why? To be even with you, as I told you I would be--ay, swore it by my
mother's grave, when you forsook me to marry a fine lady. I told you I
would have my revenge, and I have lived to enjoy it. Mr. Durnford has
only anticipated my confession. I should have told you everything upon
my death-bed. I have feasted upon the bare thought of that parting hour,
when you should learn how your discarded mistress had tricked you."
"Devil!" muttered Bosworth. "What had you to gain by such an infamy?"
"Everything! Revenge! 'the most luscious morsel that the devil puts into
the sinner's mouth.' That is what the Preacher says of it. I have tasted
that sweet morsel, chewed and mumbled it many a time by anticipation, as
I have sat by this desolate hearth. It has been sweeter to me than the
applause of the playhouse, the lights, the music, the flattery, the
jewels, and savoury suppers, and wines, and rioting. I have watched your
growing love for another man's child, while your own, your _wife's_
child, lay mouldering in her grave. I have seen you gloating over your
schemes for a spurious daughter's aggrandisement--heard you praise her
beauty and boast of her likeness to your ancestors. Poor fool, poor
fool! To think that a man of the world, a speculator of 'Change Alley,
could be so easily hoodwinked!"
"When was the change made?" asked Bosworth, ringing the bell furiously.
"Bridget must have been concerned in it. I will prosecute you both for
felony."
"Prosecute a dying woman! fie for shame, Squire! Where is your
humanity?"
"I would drag you from your death-bed to a gaol if the law would let me.
Whatever I can do I will; be sure of that, Jezebel."
"Is it come to Jezebel? I was your Helen once, your Cleopatra, the
sovereign beauty of the world."
"Ay, 'tis a quick transmutation which such cattle as you make--from your
dupe's brief vision of beauty and love to the hag that will turn and
rend him. Where is Bridget?" (to the servant who answered the bell;)
"bring her to me this instant."
"I think I had best take my wife from the reach of your violence, sir,
now that I have convinced you that I did you no wrong in marrying her,"
said Durnford, with his arm round Irene, as if to shelter her in this
moral tempest, this confusion and upheaval of all the baser elements in
human nature.
"Take her away. Yes, remove her from my sight at once and for ever. Let
me forget how I have loved her, that I may less deeply loathe her."
"Father," cried Irene piteously, holding out her arms to him, "do not
forget that you have loved me, and that I have returned your love
measure for measure. Is there no tie but that of blood? I have been
brought up under your roof, and you have been kind to me, and I am sure
I love you as much as daughters love their fathers. If you scorn me, do
not scorn my love."
"You poor beggar's brat," muttered the Squire contemptuously, yet with a
relenting look at the pale pathetic face, "you are the lightest sinner
of them all, perhaps. But to have been cheated--to have taken a
vagabond's spawn to my breast--"
"She is no vagabond's child, but of as gentle blood on the father's side
as your own. She comes of a good old Hampshire family--as old as William
the Norman. Her father was Philip Chumleigh, the son of a younger son, a
gentleman born and bred."
"I thought as much when I saw him dead and stark upon Flamestead
Common," said the Squire. "So-ho, mistress," to Bridget, who came in
with a cowed air, and guilt written in every feature; "you were in the
conspiracy to cheat your master with a supposititious child; but I'd
have you to know that you were accomplice in a felony, for which you
shall swing higher than Jack Sheppard, if there's justice in this land."
"O sir, is it hanging?" exclaimed the nurse, "and I as innocent as the
unborn babe. Never would such a thought have come into my head, to put
another into my darling's place; but she made me do it, and I was half
distracted--loving them both so well--so full of sorrow for the little
angel that was gone, and of tenderness for her that was left, and
she--Mrs. Layburne--threatened me she would say 'twas by my neglect my
precious treasure died, though God knows I neglected nothing, and
watched day and night. But I was scarcely in my right senses; so I gave
way, and held my tongue, and once done it was done for ever--there was
no going back upon it. And when I saw your honour so fond of my pretty
one, and she growing nearer and dearer to you every day, I thought it
was well as it was. You had something to love."
"Something, but not of my own blood--something that had no right to my
affection, an impostor, an alien, a sham, a cheat, a mockery. You had
better have poisoned me, woman. It would have been a kinder thing to
do."
"It was her doing," sobbed Bridget, pointing to Mrs. Layburne, who
listened and looked on with a ghastly smile, the exultation of a fiend
doomed to everlasting torment, and rejoicing in the agony of another.
"'Twas all her doing, and I knew it was a sin, and have been troubled
with the thought of it ever since; yes, I have never known real peace
and comfort since I did her bidding. But she told me 'twas a good thing
to do; your heart was so set on the child that it would all but kill you
to lose her, and one child was equal to another in the sight of God, and
the one that was left would grow up to be a blessing to you, did you but
think she was your daughter; and so I yielded, and let her lie to you.
But, O sir, as you are a Christian, do not punish that innocent lamb for
our sin. Do not take your love from her."
"It is gone," cried the Squire. "She has become hateful to me."
"She shall trouble you no more, sir," said Irene, with a quiet dignity,
which moved her husband almost to tears. "I am very sorry that you
should have been cheated, but you must at least own that I have been an
innocent impostor. You have been very good to me, sir, and I have loved
you as a father should be loved, and though you may hate me, my heart
cannot turn so quickly. It cleaves to you still, sir. Good-bye."
She dropped on her knee again and kissed his reluctant hand, then put
her hand in her husband's, and glided from the room with him, Mdlle.
Latour following.
"We had best go back to London in the coach that brought us," said
Herrick. "Will you come with us, Mademoiselle, or will you follow us
later?"
"I will follow in a day or two," answered the little Frenchwoman. "It
would seem like sneaking away to go to-day. I will wait till the tempest
is lulled. I am really sorry for that poor man, savage as he is in his
chagrin and disappointment; I will see the end of it. That woman is a
devil."
"Can you forgive me, Rena, for having sprung this surprise upon you?"
asked Herrick, drawing his young wife to his breast, and kissing away
her tears. "Or do I seem to have been cruel? I feared your courage might
fail if I told you what was coming: and I wanted to have you face to
face with your sham father and that wicked witch yonder. I was prepared
for her denial of the facts."
"How did you make this discovery, Herrick?"
"That is a long story, dearest. You shall know all about it by and by.
And now, dear love, you are my very own. No tyrannical father can come
between my orphan wife and me. We stand each alone, love, and all in all
to each other."
"I am content to be yours and yours only," she said, looking up at him
with adoring eyes.
|
their efforts to cling to him, he threw them
overboard one after another, either to the sailors in the boats, who
held out their arms to catch them, or into the river, whence they
were dragged out before the current had time to carry them away.
This wholesale deliverance accomplished, M. de Morin was making ready
to get away as fast as he could by diving into the river, when he
thought he heard a cry from the after part of the ship. He turned and
gazed anxiously towards the spot.
There, by the light of the conflagration, appeared a child of from
seven to eight years of age, who had taken refuge in the wheel-house,
and, from the midst of the flames surrounding him on every side, was
tearfully holding out his little arms to M. de Morin.
He hesitated for a second, for they cried out from the boats—
"Do not venture—it is certain death! The fire is spreading towards
the powder, and the ship will blow up, we must get away."
And, indeed, the boats were already being pulled away.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "you leave me my my fate! Be it so! I will not
abandon this poor little soul."
And then, creeping at one time along the vessel's side, at another
catching hold of a rope, or a shroud, sometimes making his way along
the deck itself, he went aft through the flames despite every
obstacle, braving every danger.
At length he reached the wheel-house, mounted it, seized the child in
his arms, and with him plunged into the river, without even calling
on the boats to come to his assistance.
One of them saw him and got up to him just as the current was
whirling him towards a snag, under which he would have been sucked by
the stream, a bruised and bleeding mass.
Some moments afterwards, as the cutter was close by with the
flotilla, a loud report was heard. The wretched slave-ship was
engulfed in the Nile.
Madame de Guéran, standing on the poop of the "Khedive," had been a
trembling, agitated, spectator of all these scenes, and when MM.
Périères and de Morin came on board, she rushed to them, grasped them
by the hands, and utterly overcome, burst into tears.
CHAPTER IV.
The "Khedive," towing the flotilla, resumed her onward course; and,
except the sailors on watch, everybody on board was sound asleep.
Madame de Guéran had retired to her cabin, and her three companions,
enveloped from head to foot in coverings to protect them from the
mosquitoes, lay stretched at full length on the poop.
Miss Poles alone, indefatigable as ever, walked up and down the deck.
She passed in review the occurrences of the night, called to mind the
exploits of MM. de Morin and Périères, and debated within herself as
to the one on whom she should bestow her still wavering heart.
Daybreak found her still in suspense, but her attention was then
attracted to the sights surrounding her. A few yards from the steamer
were numbers of hippopotami, who saluted the dawn by wallowing in the
Nile; long lines of crocodiles basked in the first rays of the rising
sun; herds of huge buffaloes, with outstretched necks and lowered
heads, were drinking at the stream. In the distance, already lit up,
forests of mimosas and flowering soonts were seen surrounding a
village of the Baggara tribe, those hardy horsemen and bold bandits
who give only a grudging allegiance to the Egyptian Government. Soon
the river itself became animated; quite a fleet of light canoes,
hollowed out of the trunks of the tamarind trees, crowded round the
steamer, manned by fishermen of the Shillook tribe, who possess an
immense extent of territory on the western bank of the Nile. In
subjection to Egypt, this numerous, compact tribe, whose villages
form an unbroken line along the river, musters more than twelve
hundred thousand souls.
If civilization should ever penetrate into these territories, if the
innumerable river-side tribes would unite together in one common
interest, would obey one sole will, what tremendous power their ruler
would possess, what weighty influence would be brought to bear upon
the world by the African nation, now held in such contempt that even
the most insignificant of European kingdoms would scorn to be named
in the same breath with it! But the variety of religions, multiplied
_ad infinitum_, or, to speak more correctly, the diverse beliefs and
so-called religious superstitions will ever hold these tribes apart.
The Mahomedans have a horror, either instinctive or instilled, of all
these people, whom they stigmatise as pagans, and the latter, in
their turn, loath the very name of Islamism, a name which to them
means their own subjection and enslavement. Thanks to our
missionaries, Christianity, and it alone, may one day perhaps succeed
in uniting these scattered souls, and may replace ignorance and
superstition by knowledge and faith.
The passengers on board the "Khedive" saw nothing during the whole
day but the vanguard of the Shillooks, for the Baggaras were denizens
of the soil through which they were then passing. But on the morrow,
villages succeeded the fishermen's canoes, and as the flotilla hove
to for the purpose of laying in a stock of wood and durra, those on
board were not sorry to have an opportunity of inspecting a village
and making the acquaintance of its inhabitants.
A European who, without any transition stages, preparatory lessons,
or preliminary studies, might suddenly find himself in Africa proper,
in a Shillook village, would have some difficulty in persuading
himself that he was awake, and might feel induced to ask whether he
had not been transported, during sleep or by sudden death, to another
planet. Imagine a collection of comical mud huts, looking like a
large field of button mushrooms; round the majority of the huts a
cordon of dried dung, set on fire at night by the natives, for the
purpose of keeping the mosquitoes at a distance and frightening the
hippopotami and the lions; in the centre of the village, a species of
square with one shady spot, furnished by a solitary tree on which are
hung the drums, beaten, in case of alarm, to summon the inhabitants
to arms. In this square, on mats and buffalo skins, spread out here
and there, lie or squat the Shillooks, in utter laziness, sleeping or
slowly inhaling the smoke from large pipes with bowls of clay. They
are completely naked, but their bodies are encrusted with a thick
coating, either of cowdung, or cinders, intended to protect them from
the attacks of insects. Some are greyish in colour; these are the
poor people, who cannot afford any other covering than the cinders of
their own particular hearths. Others, the wealthy owners of a few
cattle, make use of dung, and are a dirty red. Even their faces do
not escape, every feature being hidden under the layers of filth
which, as far as appearances go, seem natural to their skin.
But, nevertheless, they are not entirely without the desire to
please, and, if they neglect their bodies, if coats of dirt take the
place of coats of cloth, they take the greatest pains with their
hair, devoting whole days to the adornment of it, and are quite
capable, on this score, of giving any number of points to the most
conceited of civilized beings. The hair, rendered stiff by the
application of clay or grease, is dressed in the shape of a fan, or a
top-knot, or a helmet above the head. The bird kingdom evidently
furnishes them with models, and, in this case, cocks and guinea fowls
take the place of the wax heads in vogue amongst Parisian
hairdressers.
The women, occupied in household affairs, obliged to nurse the
babies, who may be seen grovelling in all the mud in the village, and
entrusted with the care of the cattle, for which they have a
prodigious respect, devote less time to their hair, contenting
themselves with a little frizzing or a curl here and there. By way of
making up for this, they pay a certain amount of respect to their
bodies, and they fasten round their waists, before and behind, pieces
of calf's skin, which hang down as far as their knees, forming thus a
garment something like a pair of bathing drawers, but permitting a
complete side view of their thighs and legs. This covering,
incomplete though it be, is only used by the married women. The young
girls remain quite naked until their marriage, and that, for certain
reasons which will be explained, is frequently deferred until late in
life. Amongst the Shillooks the man alone provides the dowry,
consisting of a number of cattle, varying according to his means,
which become the property of his father-in-law. If the wife is sent
back by her husband or leaves him, her father has to repay the dowry,
and it is consequently to his interest to prevent all squabbles, if
possible, and, if not, to bring about a speedy reconciliation. The
introduction of this custom into France might possibly have its
advantages. At all events our Parisian mothers-in-law, instead of
fanning the flame, would exert themselves to put it out. In the
meanwhile, until this suggested reform is carried out, we may
congratulate the Shillook ladies on their primitive mode of dress. We
shall very soon come to lands where man alone is clothed, and woman,
whether girl, wife, or widow, young or old, ugly or pretty, never by
any chance puts anything on.
None of the Shillooks, however rich in cattle, thought of offering
even a cup of milk to the Europeans. Their laziness, stronger than
their curiosity, chained them to the spot where they had first been
seen. They opened their large eyes, scanned the strangers from head
to foot, but remained unmoved. Enveloped in their dirt, of one sort
or another, their inert bodies might have been taken for abandoned
corpses, or mummies of ancient Egypt.
As the Europeans were leaving the village, a few natives thought fit
to follow them. They looked like dusky shadows, with their lazy mode
of walking, their wonderfully skinny limbs, their flat chests and
their small heads, made to appear smaller still by the immense
coiffure on top of them. Some were armed with long serrated lances,
others with club-headed, sharp-pointed sticks. Eminently practical,
the Shillooks make their weapons serve also as fishing-tackle; they
disdain the bow and arrow, and replace them by a kind of harpoon,
intended for the benefit of the crocodiles and hippopotami.
They appeared, moreover, disposed to give their visitors an
opportunity of witnessing their mode of fishing, and some of them
brought with them their light canoes, which they never leave on the
banks of the Nile, carrying them, after each expedition, on their
shoulders back to the village.
Night was falling as the handful of Europeans, followed by a few
natives, wended their way towards the river and their flotilla. The
hour was propitious for a hippopotamus hunt. This animal, after
disporting himself in the river during the day, betakes himself in
the evening to some plain or pasture land, where he grazes like other
ruminants, his amphibious qualities enabling him to vary his
pleasures. The hunters let him go inland, and as soon as they know
his retreat they approach him with lighted torches, shouting and
beating their drums. The hippopotamus, in alarm and anxious to regain
the river, goes back there by the way he came. Then another set of
hunters, posted on either side of his path, let fly at him with their
formidable harpoons, to each of which is attached, by means of a line
about twenty feet long, a float or buoy. The wounded animal carries
away with him the shaft which has pierced him, rushes to the Nile and
plunges down to a considerable depth under water, the better to hide
himself. But the buoys float on the surface, showing his course, and
when, weakened by loss of blood, he rises to the surface of the
stream, he is attacked anew, despatched and dragged to the shore to
be cut up.
The Europeans assisted at an attack made after this fashion upon a
magnificent male hippopotamus, and, from the boats which had brought
them from the "Khedive," they had a capital view of every incident of
the hunting or fishing, by whichever name it may be called. For more
than an hour the animal struggled against death, dyeing the water of
the Nile with his blood, and from time to time, coming up to the
surface, he raised his enormous head, noisily inhaled the fresh air,
and fixed his eyes on the tiny canoes surrounding, and gradually
closing in upon him.
M. de Morin, desirous of putting an end to the creature's sufferings,
fired and hit him in the head. The hippopotamus gave vent to a
fearful roar, leaped almost out of the water, and then plunged
beneath the stream, once more leaving behind him a rather dangerous
eddy. The natives protested, when they saw M. de Morin take up his
gun, fearing, no doubt, that if he killed the beast he would lay
claim to it. But when they saw that the shot had not taken effect,
they passed, without any intermediate stage, from extreme anger to
uncontrollable and very obstreperous mirth. Shrieks of laughter
resounded from all the canoes, and every finger was pointed in
ridicule at the clumsy white man, who, though carrying thunder and
lightning with him, in the shape of a gun, yet missed his aim.
M. de Morin was bent on having his revenge, and opportunely thought
of a certain piece of advice given by the hunters. Consequently, when
about ten minutes afterwards, the head of the animal re-appeared, he
aimed behind the ear, the vulnerable part, and the shot took effect.
A final roar, a dying groan was heard, a fresh stream of blood
mingled with the waters of the Nile, and the animal, not having
strength enough to get under water again, was towed ashore by the
line attached to the harpoon, and marked, as we have already said, by
a float.
To the great delight of the natives, M. de Morin, who was deemed to
be a personage of some importance in their eyes, apparently scorned
his share of the quarry, for he ordered the rowers to pull him to the
"Khedive." But the escort of the expedition, who were all together on
board the boat set apart for their use, had also followed with eager
eyes all the incidents of the chase, actuated, undoubtedly, by the
very natural feeling that hippopotamus flesh would be a variety in
their daily ration, that when well dried by the sun and properly
cooked it would afford them an excellent meal, and that, from every
point of view, it would be absurd to leave so savoury a prey to such
wretches, such contemptible heathens as the Shillooks. No sooner did
the thought strike them than a dozen soldiers jumped into the boat
belonging to their diahbeeah, landed, ran in amongst the natives,
and, seizing the rope by which they were hauling the hippopotamus
ashore, proceeded, in their turn, to tow the beast in the direction
of the flotilla.
The Shillooks at once gave vent to fearful yells; some rushed off to
the village for reinforcements, others beat the drum for assistance,
and, from all points of the compass, shoals of natives, club in hand
and canoe on back, appeared in sight, as if by enchantment.
The Nubians had, by this time, regained their boat. They had taken
the hippopotamus in tow, and were on the point of reaching their
diahbeeah, when more than a hundred canoes, placed in the water with
inconceivable rapidity, in a solid, compact mass, forming, as it
were, a single raft, and manned by a crowd of infuriated natives,
brandishing their arms and shrieking for vengeance, advanced against
the Franco-Egyptian flotilla.
The expenditure of a few rounds of ammunition would have done for the
Shillooks, notwithstanding their numbers. Nothing would have been
easier, either, than to run the "Khedive" full steam ahead right into
the middle of the canoes. But though such an act of barbarity might
find favour in some eyes, it was repulsive, not only to the
Europeans, but also to the Egyptian Commander, seeing that the
natives had not attacked until after provocation on the part of the
Nubian soldiers.
M. de Morin, who had been watching the turn of events from his boat,
now thought it high time to interfere. Telling his rowers to pull
alongside the boat occupied by the escort, he took hold of a hatchet
and, without further ado, cut the rope by which the hippopotamus was
being towed. The Shillooks stopped at once, and, forgetting all about
their intended revenge, only thought of regaining the spoil they had
so nearly lost.
Restitution having been thus made, M. de Morin bethought himself of
another necessary duty. He accordingly made for the vessel to which
the Nubians had just returned, grumbling and rather ashamed of their
failure. He called Nassar, reprimanded him sharply for having allowed
his men to attempt such an act of robbery, and ordered the immediate
administration, in his presence, of ten lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails
to the back of each of the five men who had been the first to
quit their vessel. At this time, on the eve of the departure of the
Egyptian man-of-war, when the expedition was about to be left to its
own resources, it was of the greatest importance, for the safety of
all, to impose strict discipline on the escort, and to make it
perfectly clear that the power of punishment was vested in the
Europeans.
M. de Morin's firmness produced an excellent effect on all these men,
who are just as ready to bite the hand that pats them as they are to
lick the one that strikes them, provided always that the striker is
possessed of assured force and incontestable authority. The white man
rose a hundred degrees in the estimation of the negroes, and became
at once, in their eyes, the veritable chief of the caravan.
The flotilla now resumed its voyage up stream. Throughout the day the
town of Fashoda, the extreme limit of Egyptian rule, had been in
sight, and our travellers were now entering a new region, Negro-land
proper.
On the following day the expedition passed the mouth of the river
Sobat, latitude 9°21'14' north, and a few miles farther on reached
the Bahr Giraffe, a small river entering the Nile, between the Sobat
and the Bahr-el-Gazal. Some hours later they came to the last-named
river, and up it the Europeans, adhering strictly to their programme,
had to make their way, leaving the Egyptian steamer to continue on
her course up the White Nile as far as Gondokoro.
After having taken a cordial leave of the Commander of the "Khedive,"
of whom they could not speak too highly, Madame de Guéran and her
companions went on board the vessel set apart for their use. The tow-ropes
were cast off, the diahbeeahs hoisted their huge sails, and the
European expedition, unsupported and unprotected, obliged to rely
upon its own resources, veered off, under a parting salute from the
guns of the "Khedive."
CHAPTER V.
Serious difficulties and obstacles without number were destined to
present themselves on the very first day, as if to warn the
travellers that two courses alone were open to them—either to retrace
their steps whilst there was yet time, or to nerve themselves to the
accomplishment of their perilous undertaking.
The Gazelle River, or Bahr-el-Gazal, up which they were sailing,
bears no resemblance to the Nile. The latter, above Khartoum, is a
majestic stream, increasing in volume as its sources are approached.
Its banks are occasionally encumbered with floating plants, but a
powerful current runs through their midst, and leaves a superb
passage way, often quite free and clear, to the vessels which
navigate it. The Gazelle River, on the contrary, resembles a huge
marsh, whose waters appear to lie stagnant and overgrown by
vegetation. A passage has to be made, at the cost of extreme and
tedious exertion, through a narrow channel, amidst a mass of
nenuphars, dense papyrus rushes, and small plants, called "selt,"
which choke every opening, close up every crevice, and, so to speak,
bind one obstacle to another.
Mdlle. Tinne, in 1863, Schweinfurth, in 1869, and Baker, in 1870, had
already been stopped by this vegetable barrier, and the expedition of
1873 met with similar difficulties. At length the flotilla was
utterly unable to move ahead, in spite of a favourable wind and the
power of the huge sails.
Then the escort, the fifty bearers, and the adult negroes, who had
been rescued by the Egyptian steamer, had to leave the boats, plunge
waist-high in the marsh, lay hold of long ropes, and drag each vessel
along by sheer force, one after the other. MM. de Morin, Périères,
and Delange were anxious to lend a band, but, like Louis XIV., whose
grandeur kept him on shore, they were confined to their vessel by the
fear of losing caste in the eyes of the negroes, who, looking down
upon manual labour, hold in slight esteem any white man who is
imprudent enough to put himself on a par with them and share their
work.
The trio were, nevertheless, obliged to join them, not to help, but
to rescue them. These marshes, or floating islets, and all this
luxuriant vegetation, serve as haunts, or cover, for herds of
hippopotami and countless crocodiles. As a rule, the shouting and
singing of the blacks, and the encouraging voices of those on board
the boats, drive away all these creatures, which could be seen
hurrying off towards the dense thickets, where their instinct told
them they would be safe. But it occasionally happened that one of
them, sound asleep on his bed of roses, would suddenly emerge from
the middle of a brake, and show signs of attacking the strangers who
were venturesome enough to intrude on his domain. Then one of the
three Parisians, or, sometimes, all three together, roused by the
shouts of the terrified blacks, would leave their vessel, and advance
against the common enemy. The struggle was never very prolonged, for
the crocodiles, though their ferocity is very great, invariably take
to flight when attacked in earnest.
Though these incidents of the voyage, the sudden disembarkation and
hurried chase, made the time pass quickly enough for most of the
travellers, the trusty Joseph did not appear to appreciate them. His
master, in order to give him something to do and prevent his growing
so fat as to present later on a toothsome morsel for some cannibal,
had decided that he should take part in all the excursions, to carry
the spare rifles and ammunition.
Having thus taken the field, Joseph found himself compelled to wade
through the marshes, struggle against the too importunate rushes, and
advance against the crocodiles, and with a very bad grace he
submitted, much to the amusement of Miss Beatrice Poles. The
unfortunate man, nevertheless, really deserved commiseration. His
white skin and soft flesh excited the curiosity and the appetite, not
only of the crocodiles (which would not have been very dangerous,
seeing that M. de Morin was at hand to defend his servant), but of
the leeches, green flies, and tiger mosquitoes which abound in the
districts watered by the Bahr-el-Grazal. The leeches were the
principal offenders, audaciously making their war inside his leggings
and inflicting many a bleeding wound. The poor fellow began to find
out that he was paying rather a high price in advance for his lovely
slave girls and elephants' tusks.
Whilst Joseph groaned and removed from his calves some obstinate
leech which, never having tasted so succulent a dish, persisted in
its endeavours to continue its repast, Madame de Guéran, Miss Poles,
and their three companions, their work over for the day, reclined on
board their boat, dragged onward by three hundred arms, and gazed at
the surrounding scenery.
It is impossible to give any adequate idea of these strange regions,
and it is difficult to realize that you are sailing in a river or on
board ship. You are induced to think that you are on _terra firma_,
in a vast plain watered by rivulets, and interspersed with pools and
insignificant lakes. The sun finds a mirror in all these waters and
lends additional splendour to massive stems, to flowers of every hue,
to plants of every kind, revelling in a perpetual bath, to nenuphars
red, white and blue, and to magnificent thickets of the papyrus,
which raise their crowns twenty feet above the surrounding flood.
Round these stems, large as sugar canes, were fastened at nightfall
the ropes which secured the flotilla. The darkness prevented any
further attempt to carve out a passage along the narrow channel, and
it would have been simply inhuman to leave the crowd of haulers in
the midst of a dense vegetation when at each step they ran the risk
of being lost to view.
CHAPTER VI.
At sunrise MM. Périères and de Morin gave the order to move on, but
the escort, bearers, and slaves all remained motionless. They were
seated on deck, huddled together, inert, and deaf to all commands.
M. Périères summoned one of the Nubians, who had been appointed to
the post of overseer, and told him to take one of the drums which
hung on the mast and give such a roll on it that the meaning of the
signal could not be mistaken.
The man obeyed, but the noise did not produce any visible effect on
those on board the neighbouring boats. They, one and all, remained
perfectly silent and passive.
Then the two young men, in astonishment and something akin to alarm,
despatched the Nubian in search of Nassar, who turned up in a few
moments in a state of exasperation.
"What is the matter?" asked M. de Morin, curtly.
"The matter is," replied the guide, "that our men refuse to tow the
boats as they did yesterday."
"Why?"
"The escort say that they were engaged to protect you and to defend
you in case of attack, but not to do any hauling work."
"And their companions—what do they say?"
"Much the same; they were engaged as bearers, and nobody has a right
to make them do anything in connection with the boats."
"They have no other motives for their refusal to work than these?"
"They pretend also that they were hurt yesterday by the 'om-souf,'
and they do not care about exposing themselves to it any more."
This is the Arabic name given to a plant covered with spines which
lacerate the flesh and draw blood.
"Anything else?" asked M. de Morin.
"Yes; they state that to-day they will be in greater danger still if
they push on through the marshes, because the hippopotami and
crocodiles have neared us during the night, and surround us on all
sides."
"And what have you done to overcome the insubordination of your men?"
"I have threatened them and beaten them; but they refuse to obey."
"It is a planned thing, then?"
"Yes; I fear it is a regular plot."
"Very well," exclaimed M. de Morin. "We shall never reach our
journey's end if I do not bring these people to reason at once."
And, so saying, he went in the direction of a temporary bridge
connecting his own boat with that of the escort.
M. Périères stopped him.
"My dear fellow," said he, "I beg of you not to do anything until you
have heard what I have to say. Our guide appears to possess great
influence over these men, who, as a rule, both fear and obey him. If,
in spite of the reproofs which he has administered, the blows which
he has struck, they persist in their disobedience, it shows that the
plot is a serious business. We must put an end to it, of course; in
that I am entirely with you. But do not let us waste our strength, I
beg of you. What were you going to do? Give an order to crack the
ringleader's skull, in case of resistance? We shall, no doubt, be
reduced to that extremity some day, but, possibly, just now, we might
find some other method of intimidation."
"Do you know of any?" asked M. de Morin.
"I think I do. Will you let me try it?"
"With all the pleasure in life. I do not care about killing anybody;
I only insist, in the common interest, upon being obeyed."
"And so you shall—I answer for it."
M. Périères called Nassar, who had discreetly withdrawn, and asked
him at what hour the men usually breakfasted.
"At seven o'clock," answered the guide.
"Where are their rations for this morning?"
"On the overseer's boat. They are now getting ready the durra and the
meat you promised them yesterday as a reward for their exertions."
"Very well. Tell the cooks to suspend operations. Neither the escort
nor the bearers shall eat to-day until they have worked. It is of no
use telling them so beforehand; go back to them and let them rest at
their ease."
About an hour after this conversation a certain amount of animation
was visible amongst the Nubians, who began to yawn and stretch
themselves, some even exerting themselves to the extent of standing
upright. Their appetites returned, and very soon, as the wild beasts
in a menagerie become restless on the approach of feeding time, so
all the negroes took to walking about and turning their longing eyes
towards the overseer's boat, where their daily breakfast was usually
prepared.
But the hour passed, the mists of the morning were dissipated by the
burning rays of the sun, and still no breakfast made its appearance.
Then, both soldiers and bearers began to grumble, and growl, and
gesticulate, and the boldest, or the hungriest man amongst them went
up to Nassar, who was seated in a corner, tranquilly smoking his
pipe, and opened the proceedings.
"We are hungry," said he.
"Well, eat," replied the guide, puffing away at his pipe.
"We cannot, because no one has brought us our breakfast."
"That is because there is no one to bring it to you. See if you can
find somebody."
The black went and told his comrades what the guide had said.
"He is right," exclaimed a chorus of voices.
A dozen Nubians were selected by their comrades and despatched as
envoys extraordinary. They speedily gained the overseer's boat, and
went with timid, hesitating steps towards the cook-house and
provision store, but stopped in dismay on seeing that both these
places were hermetically closed.
After noting their disappointment, M. Périères joined them in a
casual sort of way, and asked them what they meant by coming on board
without being sent for.
"We came," murmured one of them, "in search of our breakfast."
"What breakfast?" asked the Frenchman, with an air of astonishment.
"You are no longer in my service, and, consequently, I am not bound
to feed you."
Light now began to dawn on their understandings.
"My friends and I," resumed M. Périères—the interpreter, Ali,
translating his words—"agreed to share our provisions with you,
because we hoped by to-morrow to reach the Nuehr territory, and soon
afterwards the Meshera of Rek. But you refuse to tow the boats, and
as we are in consequence threatened with a prolonged sojourn here, we
shall keep our provisions to ourselves. If you make up your minds to
work you shall have your dinner, but you will get no breakfast to-day.
Go and tell your comrades what I have said, and do not come near
me again unless I send for you."
The Nubians left the boat with a very downcast air, and went to give
an account of their interview. A good deal of murmuring and shouting
ensued, but at length all the blacks, soldiers and bearers, persuaded
by the common-sense portion of the community, and, above all, acted
on by their empty stomachs, plunged into the marsh, seized the tow
ropes, and began to haul away with a will.
Two hours afterwards, M. Périères ordered them on board again, and
there they found awaiting them a substantial repast, with the
additional luxury of a plentiful supply of coffee. Touched by this
delicate attention, and moved still more by the firmness displayed by
the Europeans, the haulers lost no time in resuming their arduous
toil and, towards evening, in spite of the slow rate of progress, the
flotilla reached the Nuehr district.
This numerous tribe, whose territory extends southward of the
Shillook district, resembles its neighbours in manners and customs.
But, if proximity induces resemblance, it also engenders
unconquerable enmity; for, in Africa, the fact of two tribes being
contiguous to each other suffices to breed hatred and warfare between
them. And so it happens that the Nuehrs are of necessity a most
warlike race, ever ready to defend their frontier on the north
against the Shillooks, and on the south against the Dinkas.
As soon as the inhabitants perceived the European fleet they rushed
to their light canoes and brought off goats and sheep in exchange for
ornaments. For a few coloured glass beads, worth about a couple of
francs, M. Delange, who was at the head of the commissariat
department, procured a splendid sheep. Joseph's delight on seeing the
conclusion of the bargain knew no bounds—he had not been deceived,
and soon, very soon, he would set eyes on that country where, for
next to nothing, he could lay in a stock of slaves and ivory.
Notwithstanding all the obstacles to its progress, the flotilla was
not long in reaching the point where the Bahr-el-Arab, a somewhat
important affluent of the Bahr-el-Gazal, joins that river, if,
indeed, such a name can be given to a vast marsh, without current,
and choked with vegetation. Thanks to that junction, the progress of
the boats was accelerated considerably; the rushes became less dense,
and the passage way was enlarged. There was no longer any necessity
to tow the boats; the oars and poles were sufficient to propel them,
and very soon the sails were brought into requisition.
On the following evening the flotilla arrived at the end of its
voyage, Port Rek, a post established in a district belonging to the
Dinka tribe, on an islet surrounded by insalubrious swamps. The
journey by water was over, and the Europeans had now to turn their
attention to the definite formation of a caravan for the purpose of
proceeding by land on their way southwards.
But a whole week elapsed before the Rek traders were able to procure
the large number of bearers required by the expedition, and, in
addition to this, considerable time was consumed in landing all the
baggage, provisions of all kinds, and the articles for barter and
exchange which were on board the boats. All these affairs led to
delay, and to while away their leisure hours and escape from the
pestilential marshes, where so many Europeans have succumbed, our
travellers resolved upon an elephant hunt or two in the
neighbourhood.
CHAPTER VII.
The English Captain, Burton, in one of his works, advances the theory
that the elephant possesses an instinct quite equal to the natural
intelligence, not only of the Africans, but also of numbers of
Europeans. We are, therefore, at liberty to devote a page or two to
an animal created by nature
|
ochua without wrinkle or
wetting.
_St. Fanchea_, or _Faine_, is said by Butler to have been an Irish saint
of the sixth century. Patrick quotes that St. Endeus desiring to become
a monk, his companions approached to dissuade him; but, upon the prayers
of St. Faine, and her making the sign of the cross, their feet stuck to
the earth like immovable stones, until by repentance they were loosed
and went their way.
_St. Fulgentius_, according to Butler, died on the 1st of January, 533,
sometimes went barefoot, never undressed to take rest, nor ate flesh
meat, but chiefly lived on pulse and herbs, though when old he admitted
the use of a little oil. He preached, explained mysteries, controverted
with heretics, and built monasteries. Butler concludes by relating, that
after his death, a bishop named Pontian was assured in a vision of
Fulgentius’s immortality; that his relics were translated to Bourges,
where they are venerated; and that the saint’s head is in the church of
the archbishop’s seminary.
NEW YEAR’S DAY.
The King of Light, father of aged Time,
Hath brought about that day, which is the prime
To the slow gliding months, when every eye
Wears symptoms of a sober jollity;
And every hand is ready to present
Some service in a real compliment.
Whilst some in golden letters write their love,
Some speak affection by a ring or glove,
Or pins and points (for ev’n the peasant may
After his ruder fashion, be as gay
As the brisk courtly sir,) and thinks that he
Cannot, without a gross absurdity,
Be this day frugal, and not spare his friend
Some gift, to show his love finds not an end
With the deceased year.
POOLES’S ENG. PARNASSUS.
In the volume of “ELIA,” an excellent paper begins with “Every man hath
two birthdays: two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon
revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration. The one
is that which in an especial manner he termeth _his_. In the gradual
desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnizing our proper
birthday hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who reflect
nothing at all about the matter, nor understand any thing beyond the
cake and orange. But the birth of a new year is of an interest too wide
to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of
January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time,
and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam.
“Of all sound of all bells--(bells, the music nighest bordering upon
heaven)--most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the old
year. I never hear it without a gathering-up of my mind to a
concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past
twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed, or neglected--in
that regretted time. I begin to know its worth as when a person dies. It
takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a contemporary,
when he exclaimed,
‘I saw the skirts of the departing year.’
“The elders with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely
to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution; and the
ringing out of the old year was kept by them with circumstances of
peculiar ceremony. In those days the sound of those midnight chimes,
though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to
bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce
conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that concerned
me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels
practically that he is mortal.”
Ringing out the old and ringing in the new year, with “a merry new year!
a happy new year to you!” on new year’s day, were greetings that moved
sceptred pride, and humble labour, to smiles and kind feelings in
former times; and why should they be unfashionable in our own?
Dr. Drake observes, in “Shakspeare and his Times,” that the ushering in
of the new year, or new year’s tide, with rejoicings, presents, and good
wishes, was a custom observed, during the 16th century, with great
regularity and parade, and was as cordially celebrated in the court of
the prince as in the cottage of the peasant.
The Rev. T. D. Fosbroke, in his valuable “Encyclopedia of Antiquities,”
adduces various authorities to show that congratulations, presents, and
visits were made by the Romans on this day. The origin, he says, is
ascribed to Romulus and Tatius, and that the usual presents were figs
and dates, covered with leaf-gold, and sent by clients to patrons,
accompanied with a piece of money, which was expended to purchase the
statues of deities. He mentions an amphora (a jar) which still exists,
with an inscription denoting that it was a new year’s present from the
potters to their patroness. He also instances from Count Caylus a piece
of Roman pottery, with an inscription wishing “a happy new year to you;”
another, where a person wishes it to himself and his son; and three
medallions, with the laurel leaf, fig, and date; one, of Commodus;
another, of Victory; and a third, Janus, standing in a temple, with an
inscription, wishing a happy new year to the emperor. New year’s gifts
were continued under the Roman emperors until they were prohibited by
Claudius. Yet in the early ages of the church the Christian emperors
received them; nor did they wholly cease, although condemned by
ecclesiastical councils on account of the pagan ceremonies at their
presentation.
The Druids were accustomed on certain days to cut the sacred misletoe
with a golden knife, in a forest dedicated to the gods, and to
distribute its branches with much ceremony as new year’s gifts among the
people.
The late Rev. John Brand, in his “Popular Antiquities” edited by Mr.
Ellis observes from Bishop Stillingfleet, that among the Saxons of the
North, the festival of the new year was observed with more than ordinary
jollity and feasting, and by sending new year’s gifts to one another.
Mr. Fosbroke notices the continuation of the Roman practice during the
middle ages; and that our kings, and the nobility especially,
interchanged presents. Mr. Ellis quotes Matthew Paris, who appears to
show that Henry III _extorted_ new year’s gifts; and he cites from a
MS. of the public revenue, anno 5, Edward VI. an entry of “rewards given
on new year’s day to the king’s officers and servants in ordinary
155_l._ 5_s._, and to their servants that present the king’s majestie
with new year’s gifts.” An orange stuck with cloves seems, by reference
to Mr. Fosbroke and our early authors, to have been a popular new year’s
gift. Mr. Ellis suggests, that the use of this present may be
ascertained from a remark by old Lupton, that the flavour of wine is
improved, and the wine itself preserved from mouldiness, by an orange or
lemon stuck with cloves being hung within the vessel so as not to touch
the liquor.
Thomas Naogeorgus, in “The Popish Kingdome,” a Latin poem written in
1553, and Englished by Barnabe Googe, after remarking on days of the old
year, urges this recollection:
The next to this is Newe yeares day whereon to every frende,
They costly presents in do bring, and Newe yeares giftes do sende,
These giftes the husband gives his wife, and father eke the childe,
And maister on his men bestowes the like, with favour milde.
Honest old Latimer, instead of presenting Henry VIII. with a purse of
gold, as was customary, for a new year’s gift, put into the king’s hand
a New Testament, with a leaf conspicuously doubled down at Hebrews xiii.
4, which, on reference, will be found to have been worthy of all
acceptation, though not perhaps well accepted. Dr. Drake is of opinion
that the wardrobe and jewellery of queen Elizabeth were principally
supported by these annual contributions on new year’s day. He cites
lists of the new year’s gifts presented to her, from the original rolls
published in her Progresses by Mr. Nichols; and from these it appears
that the greatest part, if not all the peers and peeresses of the realm,
all the bishops, the chief officers of state, and several of the queen’s
household servants, even down to her apothecaries, master cook, serjeant
of the pastry, &c. gave new year’s gifts to her majesty; consisting, in
general, either of a sum of money, or jewels, trinkets, wearing apparel,
&c. The largest sum given by any of the temporal lords was 20_l._; but
the archbishop of Canterbury gave 40_l._, the archbishop of York 30_l._,
and the other spiritual lords 20_l._ and 10_l._; many of the temporal
lords and great officers, and most of the peeresses, gave rich gowns,
petticoats, shifts, silk stockings, garters, sweet-bags, doublets,
mantles embroidered with precious stones, looking-glasses, fans,
bracelets, caskets studded with jewels, and other costly trinkets. Sir
Gilbert Dethick, garter king at arms, gave a book of the States in
William the Conqueror’s time; Absolon, the master of the Savoy, gave a
Bible covered with cloth of gold, garnished with silver gilt, and plates
of the royal arms; the queen’s physician presented her with a box of
foreign sweetmeats; another physician presented a pot of green ginger,
and a pot of orange flowers; her apothecaries gave her a box of
lozenges, a box of ginger candy, a box of green ginger, and pots of
other conserves. Mrs. Blanch a Parry gave her majesty a little gold
comfit-box and spoon; Mrs. Morgan gave a box of cherries, and one of
apricots. The queen’s master cook and her serjeant of the pastry,
presented her with various confectionary and preserves. Putrino, an
Italian, gave her two pictures; Ambrose Lupo gave her a box of lute
strings, and a glass of sweet water, each of three other Italians
presented her with a pair of sweet gloves; a cutler gave her a meat
knife having a fan haft of bone, with a conceit in it; Jeromy Bassano
gave two drinking glasses; and Smyth, the dustman, presented her majesty
with two bolts of cambrick. Some of these gifts to Elizabeth call to
recollection the tempting articles which Autolycus, in the “Winter’s
Tale,” invites the country girls to buy: he enters singing,
Lawn, as white as driven snow;
Cypress, black as e’er was crow;
Gloves, as sweet as damask roses
Masks for faces, and for noses;
Bugle bracelet, necklace-amber,
Perfume for a lady’s chamber;
Golden quoifs, and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears;
Pins, and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:
Come, buy of me, come: come buy, come buy;
Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry,
Come, buy, &c.
Dr. Drake says, that though Elizabeth made returns to the new year’s
gifts, in plate and other articles, yet she took sufficient care that
the balance should be in her own favour.
No. 4982, in the Catalogue for 1824, of Mr. Rodd, of Great
Newport-street, is a roll of vellum, ten feet long, containing the new
year’s gifts from king James I. to the persons whose names are therein
mentioned on the 1st of January 1605, with the new year’s gifts that his
majesty received the same day; the roll is signed by James himself and
certain officers of his household.
In a “Banquet of Jests, 1634,” 12mo. there is a pleasant story of
Archee, the king’s jester, who, having fooled many, was fooled himself.
Coming to a nobleman, upon new year’s day, to bid him good-morrow,
Archee received twenty pieces of gold; but, covetously desiring more, he
shook them in his hand, and said they were too light. The donor
answered: “I prithee, Archee, let me see them again, for there is one
amongst them I would be loth to part with:” Archee, expecting the sum to
be increased, returned the pieces to his lordship; who put them in his
pocket with this remark, “I once gave money into a fool’s hand, who had
not the wit to keep it.”
Pins were acceptable new year’s gifts to the ladies, instead of the
wooden skewers which they used till the end of the fifteenth century.
Sometimes they received a composition in money: and hence allowances for
their separate use is still denominated “pin-money.”
Gloves were customary new year’s gifts. They were more expensive than in
our times, and occasionally a money present was tendered instead: this
was called “glove-money.” Sir Thomas More, as lord chancellor, decreed
in favour of a Mrs. Croaker against the lord Arundel. On the following
new year’s day, in token of her gratitude, she presented sir Thomas with
a pair of gloves, containing forty angels. “It would be against good
manners,” said the chancellor, “to forsake a gentlewoman’s new year’s
gift, and I accept the gloves; their _lining_ you will be pleased
otherwise to bestow.”
Mr. Brand relates from a curious MS. in the British Museum, of the date
of 1560, that the boys of Eton school used on this day to play for
little new year’s gifts before and after supper; and also to make
verses, which they presented to the provost and masters, and to each
other: new year’s gifts of verses, however, were not peculiar to
schoolboys. A poet, the beauties of whose poetry are justly remarked to
be “of a kind which time has a tendency rather to hallow than to
injure,” Robert Herrick, presents us, in his Hesperides, with “a New
Year’s Gift sent to Sir Simon Steward.” He commences it merrily, and
goes on to call it
------------------------------- a jolly
Verse, crown’d with ivy and with holly;
That tells of winter’s tales and mirth,
That milk-maids make about the hearth;
Of Christmas’ sports, the wassail bowl,
That tost-up after fox-i’ th’ hole;
Of blind-man-buff, and of the care
That young men have to shoe the mare;
Of twelfth-tide cakes, of pease and beans,
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes:
Of crackling laurel, which fore-sounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds
Of those, and such like things, for shift,
We send, _instead of New Year’s Gift_.
Read then, and when your faces shine
With buxom meat and cap’ring wine
Remember us in cups full crown’d
And let our city-health go round.
Then, as ye sit about your embers,
Call not to mind the fled Decembers
But think on these, that are t’appear
As daughters to the instant year;
And to the bagpipes all address
Till sleep take place of weariness.
And thus throughout, with Christmas plays,
Frolick the full twelve holidays.
Mr. Ellis, in a note on Brand, introduces a poetical new year’s gift in
Latin, from the stern Buchanan to the unhappy Mary of Scotland.
“New year’s gifts,” says Dr. Drake, “were given and received, with the
mutual expression of good wishes, and particularly that of a happy new
year. The compliment was sometimes paid at each other’s doors in the
form of a song; but more generally, especially in the north of England
and in Scotland, the house was entered very early in the morning, by
some young men and maidens selected for the purpose, who presented the
spiced bowl, and hailed you with the gratulations of the season.” To
this may be added, that it was formerly the custom in Scotland to _send_
new year’s gifts on new year’s eve; and on new year’s day to wish each
other a happy new year, and _ask_ for a new year’s gift. There is a
citation in Brand, from the “Statistical Account of Scotland,”
concerning new year’s gifts to servant maids by their masters; and it
mentions that “there is a large stone, about nine or ten feet high, and
four broad, placed upright in a plain, in the (Orkney) isle of North
Ronaldshay; but no tradition is preserved concerning it, whether erected
in memory of any signal event, or for the purpose of administering
justice, or for religious worship. The writer of this (the parish
priest) has seen fifty of the inhabitants assembled there, on the first
day of the year, dancing by moonlight, with no other music than their
own singing.”
In Mr. Stewart’s “Popular Superstitions of the Highlands,” there is some
account of the Candlemas bull, on new year’s eve, as introductory to the
new year. The term Candlemas, applied to this season, is supposed to
have originated in some old religious ceremonies performed by
candlelight. The Bull is a passing cloud, which Highland imagination
perverts into the form of that animal; as it rises or falls or takes
peculiar directions, of great significancy to the seers, so does it
prognosticate good or bad weather. The more northern nations anciently
assigned portentous qualities to the winds of new year’s eve. One of
their old legends in Brand may be thus versified--the last line eking
out the verse:
If New Year’s eve night-wind blow _south_,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If _west_, much milk, and fish in the sea;
If _north_, much cold, and storms there will be;
If _east_, the trees will bear much fruit
If _north-east_, flee it man and brute.
Mr. Stewart says, that as soon as night sets in it is the signal with
the Strathdown highlander for the suspension of his usual employment,
and he directs his attention to more agreeable callings. The men form
into bands with tethers and axes, and, shaping their course to the
juniper bushes, they return home laden with mighty loads, which are
arranged round the fire to-day till morning. A certain discreet person
is despatched to the _dead and living ford_ to draw a pitcher of water
in profound silence, without the vessel touching the ground, lest its
virtue should be destroyed, and on his return all retire to rest. Early
on new year’s morning the _Usque-Cashrichd_, or water from _the dead and
living ford_, is drank, as a potent charm, until next new year’s day,
against the spells of witchcraft, the malignity of evil eyes, and the
activity of all infernal agency. The qualified highlander then takes a
large brush, with which he profusely asperses the occupants of all beds;
from whom it is not unusual for him to receive ungrateful remonstrances
against ablution. This ended, and the doors and windows being thoroughly
closed, and all crevices stopped, he kindles piles of the collected
juniper, in the different apartments, till the vapour from the burning
branches condenses into opaque clouds, and coughing, sneezing, wheezing,
gasping, and other demonstrations of suffocation ensue. The operator,
aware that the more intense the “smuchdan,” the more propitious the
solemnity, disregards these indications, and continues, with streaming
eyes and averted head, to increase the fumigation, until in his own
defence he admits the air to recover the exhausted household and
himself. He then treats the horses, cattle, and other bestial stock in
the town with the same smothering, to keep them from harm throughout the
year. When the gude-wife gets up, and having ceased from coughing, has
gained sufficient strength to reach the bottle _dhu_, she administers
its comfort to the relief of the sufferers: laughter takes place of
complaint, all the family get up, wash their faces, and receive the
visits of their neighbours, who arrive full of gratulations peculiar to
the day. _Mu nase choil orst_, “My Candlemas bond upon you” is the
customary salutation, and means, in plain words, “You owe me a new
year’s gift.” A point of great emulation is, who shall salute the other
first; because the one who does so is entitled to a gift from the person
saluted. Breakfast, consisting of all procurable luxuries, is then
served, the neighbours not engaged are invited to partake, and the day
ends in festivity.
_Riding stang_, a custom that will be observed on hereafter, prevails in
some parts of England on new year’s day to the present hour. The “stang”
is a cowl-staff; the cowl is a water-vessel, borne by two persons on the
cowl-staff, which is a stout pole whereon the vessel hangs. “Where’s the
cowl-staff?” cries Ford’s wife, when she purposes to get Falstaff into a
large buck-basket, with two handles; the cowl-staff, or “stang,” is
produced, and, being passed through the handles, the fat knight is borne
off by two of Ford’s men. A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1791,
says, that in Westmoreland and Cumberland, on the 1st of January,
multitudes assemble early in the morning with baskets and “stangs,” and
whoever does not join them, whether inhabitant or stranger, is
immediately mounted across the “stang,” and carried, shoulder height, to
the next public-house, where sixpence liberates the prisoner. Women are
seized in this way, and carried in baskets--the sex being privileged
from riding “stang,” in compliment, perhaps, to the use of side-saddles.
In the same part of the country, no one is allowed to work on new year’s
day, however industrious. Mr. Ellis shows that it was a new year’s day
custom in ancient Rome for tradesmen to work a little only, for luck’s
sake, that they might have constant business all the year after.
A communication in an English journal of January 1824 relates, that in
Paris on new year’s day, which is called _le jour d’étrennes_, parents
bestow portions on their children, brothers on their sisters, and
husbands make presents to their wives. Carriages may be seen rolling
through the streets with cargoes of _bon-bons_, _souvenirs_, and the
variety of _et cæteras_ with which little children and grown-up children
are bribed into good humour; and here and there pastrycooks are to be
met with, carrying upon boards enormous temples, pagodas, churches, and
playhouses, made of fine flour and sugar, and the embellishments which
render French pastry so inviting. But there is one street in Paris to
which a new year’s day is a whole year’s fortune--this is the _Rue des
Lombards_, where the wholesale confectioners reside; for in Paris every
trade and profession has its peculiar quarter. For several days
preceding the 1st of January, this street is completely blocked up by
carts and waggons laden with cases of sweetmeats for the provinces.
These are of every form and description which the most singular fancy
could imagine; bunches of carrots, green peas, boots and shoes, lobsters
and crabs, hats, books, musical instruments, gridirons, frying-pans, and
saucepans; all made of sugar, and coloured to imitate reality, and all
made with a hollow within to hold the _bon-bons_. The most prevailing
device is what is called a _cornet_, that is, a little cone ornamented
in different ways with a bag to draw over the large end, and close it
up. In these things, the prices of which vary from one franc (tenpence)
to fifty, the _bon-bons_ are presented by those who choose to be at the
expense of them, and by those who do not, they are only wrapped in a
piece of paper; but _bon-bons_ in some way or other must be presented.
It would not, perhaps, be an exaggeration to state that the amount
expended for presents on new year’s day in Paris, for sweetmeats alone,
exceeds 500,000 francs, or 20,000_l._ sterling. Jewellery is also sold
to a very large amount, and the fancy articles exported in the first
week in the year to England and other countries, is computed at
one-fourth of the sale during the twelve months. In Paris it is by no
means uncommon for a man of 8,000 or 10,000 francs a year to make
presents on new year’s day which cost him a fifteenth part of his
income. No person able to give must on this day pay a visit
empty-handed. Every body accepts, and every man gives according to the
means which he possesses. Females alone are excepted from the charge of
giving. A pretty woman, respectably connected, may reckon her new year’s
presents at something considerable. Gowns, jewellery, gloves, stockings,
and artificial flowers, fill her drawing-room; for in Paris it is a
custom to display all the gifts, in order to excite emulation, and to
obtain as much as possible. At the palace the new year’s day is a
complete _jour de fête_. Every branch of the royal family is then
expected to make handsome presents to the king. For the six months
preceding January 1824, the female branches were busily occupied in
preparing presents of their own manufacture, which would fill at least
two common-sized waggons. The duchess de Berri painted an entire room of
japanned pannels, to be set up in the palace; and the duchess of Orleans
prepared an elegant screen. An English gentleman who was admitted
suddenly into the presence of the duchess de Berri two months before,
found her, and three of her maids of honour, lying on the carpet,
painting the legs of a set of chairs, which were intended for the king.
The day commences with the Parisians, at an early hour, by the
interchange of their visits and _bon-bons_. The nearest relations are
visited first, until the furthest in blood have had their calls; then
friends and acquaintances. The conflict to anticipate each other’s
calls, occasions the most agreeable and whimsical scenes among these
proficients in polite attentions. In these visits, and in gossiping at
the confectioners’ shops, which are the great lounge for the occasion,
the morning of new year’s day is passed; a dinner is given by some
member of the family to all the rest, and the evening concludes, like
Christmas day, with cards, dancing, or any other amusement that may be
preferred. One of the chief attractions to a foreigner in Paris is the
exhibition, which opens there on new year’s day, of the finest specimens
of the Sevres china manufactured at the royal establishment in the
neighbourhood of Versailles during the preceding year.
Undoubtedly, new year’s gifts originated in heathen observances, and
were grossly abused in after ages; yet latterly they became a rational
and pleasant mode of conveying our gentle dispositions towards those we
esteem. Mr. Audley, in his compendious and useful “Companion to the
Almanack,” says, with truth, that they are innocent, if not
praiseworthy; and he quotes this amiable sentiment from Bourne: “If I
send a new year’s gift to my friend, it shall be a token of my
friendship; if to my benefactor, a token of my gratitude; if to the
poor, which at this season must never be forgot, it shall be to make
their hearts sing for joy, and give praise and adoration to the Giver of
all good gifts.” The Jews on the first day of their new year give
sumptuous entertainments, and joyfully wish each other “a happy new
year.” This salutation is not yet obsolete even with us; but the new
year’s gift seldom arrives, except to honest rustics from their equals;
it is scarcely remembered with a view to its use but by young persons,
who, “unvexed with all the cares of gain,” have read or heard tell of
such things, and who, with innocent hearts, feeling the kindness of the
sentiment, keep up the good old custom among one another, till mixture
with the world, and “long experience, makes them sage,” and sordid.
New year’s day in London is not observed by any public festivity; but
little social dining parties are frequently formed amongst friends; and
convivial persons may be found at taverns, and in publicans’ parlours,
regaling on the occasion. Dr Forster relates, in his “Perennial
Calendar,” that many people make a point to wear some new clothes on
this day, and esteem the omission as unlucky: the practice, however,
from such motives, must obviously be confined to the uninformed. The
only open demonstration of joy in the metropolis, is the ringing of
merry peals from the belfries of the numerous steeples, late on the eve
of the new year, and until after the chimes of the clock have sounded
its last hour.
On new year’s day the man of business opens new account-books. “A good
beginning makes a good ending.” Let every man open an account to
himself; and to begin the new year that he may expect to say at its
termination--it has been a _good_ year. In the hilarity of the season
let him not forget that to the needy it is a season of discomfort.
There is a satisfaction
In doing a good action:
and he who devises liberal things will find his liberality return to him
in a full tide of happiness. An economist can afford to be generous.
“Give me neither poverty nor riches,” prayed the wise man. To him who is
neither encumbered by wealth, nor dispirited by indigence, the stores of
enjoyment are unlocked.
He who holds fast the _Golden Mean_,
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man’s door,
Embitt’ring all his state.
The tallest pines feel most the pow’r
Of wintry blasts; the loftiest tow’r
Comes heaviest to the ground;
The bolts that spare the mountain’s side
His cloud-capt eminence divide,
And spread the ruin round.
The well-inform’d philosopher
Rejoices with a wholesome fear,
And hopes, in spite of pain;
If Winter bellow from the North,
Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing
And Nature laughs again.
If hindrances obstruct thy way,
Thy magnanimity display,
And let thy strength be seen;
But oh! if fortune fill thy sail
With more than a propitious gale,
Take half thy canvass in.
_Cowper._
CHRONOLOGY.
1308. On the 1st of January in this year, William Tell, the Swiss
patriot, associated himself on this day with a band of his countrymen,
against the tyranny of their oppressors. For upwards of three centuries
the opposition was carried on, and terminated by the treaty of
Westphalia in 1648, declaring the independence of Switzerland.
1651. On the 1st of January Charles II. was crowned at Scone king of the
Scots. Charles, when a child, was weak in the legs, and ordered to wear
_steel-boots_. Their weight so annoyed him that he pined till recreation
became labour. An old rocker took off the _steel-boots_, and concealed
them; promising the countess of Dorset, who was Charles’s governess,
that she would take any blame for the act on herself. Soon afterwards
the king, Charles I., coming into the nursery, and seeing his boy’s legs
without the boots, angrily demanded who had done it? “It was I, sir,”
said the rocker, “who had the honour, some thirty years since, to attend
on your highness, in _your_ infancy, when _you_ had the same infirmity
wherewith now the prince, your very own son is troubled; and then the
lady Cary, (afterwards countess of Monmouth) commanded _your
steel-boots_ to be taken off, who, blessed be God, since have gathered
strength, and arrived at a good stature.” Clare, chaplain to Charles
II., at the time the affair happened, related this anecdote to old
Fuller, who in 1660, contemplating “the restoration,” tells the story,
and quaintly exclaims, “the nation is too noble, when his majesty shall
return from foreign parts, to impose any other _steel-boots_ upon him,
than the observing the laws of the land, which are his own _stockings_,
that so with joy and comfort he may enter on what was his own
inheritance.” The nation forgot the “steel-boots,” and Charles forgot
the “stockings.”
1801. January 1. The Union of Great Britain with Ireland commenced
according to act of parliament, and the event was solemnized by the
hoisting of a new royal flag on the Tower of London, accompanied by the
firing of guns there and in St. James’s Park. On the 3d the king
received the great seal of Great Britain from the lord chancellor, and
causing it to be defaced, presented to him a new great seal for the
United Kingdom. On the same day, January 1st, 1801, Piazzi, the
astronomer at Palermo, discovered a new primary planet, making an
eleventh of that order: he called it Ceres, from the goddess of that
name, who was highly esteemed by the ancients of Sicily.
* * * * *
Usually at this period the rigour of cold is severely felt. The
indisposition of _lie-a-beds_ to face its severity is pleasantly
pictured by Mr. Leigh Hunt, in a paper in the Indicator. He imagines one
of those persons to express himself in these terms:
“On opening my eyes, the first thing that meets them is my own breath
rolling forth, as if in the open air, like smoke out of a
cottage-chimney. Think of this symptom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and
see the window all frozen over. Think of that. Then the servant comes
in. ‘It is very cold this morning, is it not?’--‘Very cold, sir.’--‘Very
cold indeed, isn’t it?’--‘Very cold indeed, sir.’--‘More than usually
so, isn’t it, even for this weather?’ (Here the servant’s wit and good
nature are put to a considerable test, and the inquirer lies on thorns
for the answer.) ‘Why, Sir..... I think it _is_.’ (Good creature! There
is not a better, or more truth-telling servant going.) ‘I must rise,
however--Get me some warm water.’--Here comes a fine interval between
the departure of the servant and the arrival of the hot water; during
which, of course, it is of ‘no use’ to get up. The hot water comes. ‘Is
it quite hot?’--‘Yes, sir.’--‘Perhaps too hot for shaving: I must wait a
little?’--‘No, sir;
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