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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:41:24 -0700 |
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diff --git a/old/13116-8.txt b/old/13116-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cc985f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13116-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8954 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, Vol. 17, No. 97, January, 1876, by Various, Edited by John +Foster Kirk + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, +No. 97, January, 1876 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: August 4, 2004 [eBook #13116] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOL. 17, NO. 97, JANUARY, 1876*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added + by the transcriber. + + Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 13116-h.htm or 13116-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/1/13116/13116-h/13116-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/1/13116/13116-h.zip) + + + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE + +January, 1876. + +Volume XVII, No. 97 + + + + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + THE CENTURY: ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL. + I.--GENERAL PROGRESS. + + UP THE THAMES + THIRD PAPER by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + + LINES WRITTEN AT VENICE IN OCTOBER, 1865 by FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. + + SKETCHES OF INDIA. + I. + + LADY ARTHUR EILDON'S DYING LETTER by THE AUTHOR OF "BLINDPITS." + + THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + + A DEAD LOVE by F.A. HILLARD. + + GENTILHOMME AND GENTLEMAN by G. COLMACHE. + + SPECIAL PLEADING by SIDNEY LANIER. + + THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS by MRS. E. LYNN LINTON + CHAPTER XVII. WHAT MUST COME. + CHAPTER XVIII. RECKONING WITH LEAM. + CHAPTER XIX. AT STEEL'S CORNER. + CHAPTER XX. IN HER MOTHER'S PLACE. + + FAMISHING PORTUGAL. + + AT THE OLD PLANTATION. + TWO PAPERS.--I. by ROBERT WILSON. + + OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. '76. by LATIENNE. + + THE KREUZESSCHULE. + OBER-AMMERGAU, Bavaria, Oct. 4, 1875. + + VARESE. + + A STATE GOVERNOR IN THE RÔLE OF ENOCH ARDEN + + THE PALATINE LIGHT. + + NOTES. + + LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + Books Received. + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + HAMPTON COURT--WEST FRONT. + HAMPTON COURT--LOOKING UP THE RIVER. + ENTRANCE TO WOLSEY'S HALL. + MIDDLE QUADRANGLE, HAMPTON COURT. + ARCHWAY IN HAMPTON COURT. + WOLSEY. + PORTICO LEADING TO GARDENS. + CENTRE AVENUE. + HAMPTON COURT--GARDEN FRONT. + GATE TO PRIVATE GARDEN. + BUSHY PARK. + GARRICK'S VILLA. + RIVER SCENE, THAMES DITTON. + WOLSEY'S TOWER, ESHER. + CLAREMONT. + CLIVE'S MONUMENT. + PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. + WALTON CHURCH. + KINGSTON CHURCH. + A DWELLING AT MAZAGON. + HINDU TEMPLE IN THE BLACK TOWN, BOMBAY. + JAIN TEMPLES AT SUNAGHUR. + THE VESTIBULE OF THE GRAND SHAÎTYA OK KARLI. + SCULPTURED FIGURES IN THE VESTIBULE OF THE GREAT SHAÎTYA OF KARLI. + + + + +[Illustration: The CENTURY: ITS FRUITS and its FESTIVAL.] + + +THE CENTURY: ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL. + +I.--GENERAL PROGRESS. + + +This of ours is a conceited century. In intense self-consciousness +it exceeds any of its late predecessors. Its activity in externally +directed thought is accompanied by an almost corresponding use of +introverted reflection. Its inheritance, and the additions it has +made, can make or will make thereto, supply an ever-present theme. It +delights to stand back from its work, like the painter from his easel, +to scan the effect of each new touch--to note what has been done and +to measure what remains. It is a great living and breathing entity, +informed with the concrete life of three generations of mankind +the most alert and the most restless of all that have existed. +This sensation of exceptional endowments is self-nourishing and +ever-growing; and our little nook of time is coming to view all the +paths of the past, broad or narrow, direct or interlacing, straight or +obscure, as so many roads laid out and graded for the one purpose of +leading straight to its gate. It sounds its own praises and celebrates +itself at all opportunities. But with all this there is a wholesome +recognition of responsibility. Nobility obliges, it is prompt to +confess, and to act accordingly. It sees flaws in its regal diamonds, +spots that still sully on its ermine; and is not slow to address +itself to the duty of their removal. + +If the century understands itself, it may be said likewise to +understand the others better than they did themselves. It collects +their respective autobiographies and their mutual criticisms. The real +truths, half truths and delusions each has added to the accumulating +common stock it sifts and weighs, mercilessly piling a dustheap beyond +Mr. Boffin's wildest dreams, and rescuing, on the other hand, from +the old wastebasket many discarded scraps of real but till now +unacknowledged value. Busy in gathering stores of its own, it is able +to find time for digesting those bequeathed to it, and for executing +both tasks with a good deal of care. It brings skepticism to its aid +in both, and subjects new and old conclusions to almost equally close +analysis. Each new pebble it picks up upon the shore of the Newtonian +ocean it holds up square and askew to the light, and cross-examines +color, texture and form. Now and then, being but mortal after all, it +chuckles too hastily over a brilliant find, but the blunder is not apt +to wait long for correction. Just now it appears to be overhauling its +accounts in the item of science, taking stock of its discoveries in +that field, balancing bad against good, and determining profit and +loss. Some once-promising entries have to undergo a black mark, while +a few claims that were despaired of come to the fore. This proceeding +is only preparatory, however, to a new departure on a bolder scale. +Scientific progress knows only partial checks. Its movement is that of +a force _en échelon_: one line may get into trouble and recoil, while +the others and the general front continue to advance. Theory does not +profess to be certainty. It is only tentative, and subject necessarily +to frequent errors, for the elimination of which the severely +skeptical spirit of the laws to which it is now held furnishes the +best appliance. Modern science possesses an internal _vis +medicatrix_ which prevents its suffering seriously from excesses +or irregularities. When it ventures to touch the shield of the +Unknowable, it is only with the butt of its lance, and the inevitable +overthrow is accepted with the least modicum of humiliation. + +In that science which assumes to marshal all the others, philosophic +and judicial history, ours ought to be the foremost age, if only +because it has the aid of all the others. It does more, however, than +they can be said to have contemplated. It widens the scope of history, +and more precisely formalizes its functions. It makes of the old +chroniclers so many moral statisticians, fully utilizing at the same +time their services as collectors of material facts. The deductions +thus arrived at it aims to test by the methods of the exact sciences. +It invites, in a certain degree, moral philosophy to don the trammels +of mathematics and decorate its shadowy shoulders with the substantial +yoke of the calculus. Such is the programme of a school too young as +yet to have matured its shape, but full of vigor and confidence, and +a very promising outgrowth from the elder and more stately academy +of abstract historical inquiry and generalization. The latter has +redeveloped and freshened up for us the pictures of the ancient +story-tellers, and has furthermore had them, so to speak, engraved and +scattered among the people, until we have come to live in the midst of +their times and enjoy an intimate knowledge of the actual condition +of human polity and intelligence at any given period. Through the long +gallery or the thick portfolio thus presented to our eye we may trace +the common thread of motive under the varying conditions of time and +circumstance. This thread able hands are aiding us to discover. + +To what segment of time shall we assign the name of Nineteenth +Century? In A.D. 1800 there was dispute as to which was properly its +first year, the question being settled in favor of 1801. Having thus +struck out the first of the eighteen hundreds, we may take the liberty +of similarly ostracizing the last twenty-four or twenty-five, which +are yet to come, and start the nineteenth century as far back in the +eighteenth. If we look farther behind us, the centuries will be found +often to overlap in this way. Coming events cast their shadows before, +and the morning twilight of the new age is refracted deeply into the +sky of the old one. Of no case can this be more truly said than of +that in point. Not only America, but Christendom, may safely date +the century's commencement about 1775 or 1776. The narrowest isthmus +between the mains of past and present will cover those years. + +England and France were then both at the outset of a new political +era, sharply divided from that preceding. The amiable and decorous +Louis XVI., with his lovely consort, had just ousted from Versailles +the Du Barrys and the Maupeons. George III., a sovereign similar in +youth and respectability of character, had a few years before in like +manner improved the tone of the English court, and, after the first +flush of welcome from his subjects, surprised and delighted to have an +Englishman and a gentleman once more upon the throne, was getting over +his early lessons in adversity from the birch of Wilkes and Junius, +and entering upon a second series from that of Washington, all +preparatory to the longest and most brilliant reign in British annals. +Frederick II. was an old man, occupied with assuring to the power he +had created the position it now holds as the first in Europe. Clive, +in the House of Lords, was nursing a still younger bantling, now +an empire twice as populous as Europe was at that period. Under the +equally rugged hand of the young princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, Russia +was having her Mongolian epidermis indued with the varnish Napoleon +so signally failed to scrape off, and was for the first time taking a +place among the great powers of the West. The curtain, in short, was +in the act of rising on the Europe of to-day. Anson had lately brought +the Pacific to light, and Cook was completing his work. The crust of +Spanish monopoly in the trade of four-fifths of the North and South +American coasts had been broken, and England was preparing to replace +it, at some points, by her own. This was, of itself, a New World, +geographical and commercial. + +Under Linnæus and Buffon, another world, wider still, was unfolding +its wonders and subjecting them to a classification which has since +been but little changed, vast as have been the subsequent accessions +of knowledge and attainments in methods of interpretation. Before +them, the study of the organic creation can scarcely be said to have +existed. The inorganic was as little reduced to system, and in its +broadest aspect was not even looked at. Buffon's acute but for the +most part empiric speculations on the structure of the globe were a +step in advance; but the science of geology he did not recognize, and +left to be shaped a very little later by Hutton. Priestley, Cavendish +and Lavoisier were dissecting the impalpable air and making the +gaseous form of substances as familiar and manageable as the solid. +Hence true analytic chemistry. Astronomy, an older science, had +derived new precision from the first observed transit of Venus, +imperfect as were the data obtained and the calculations made. + +Contemporaneous with this sudden apparition of new fields of +scientific discovery and enlargement of the old was an intellectual +movement of a more general character than that necessarily involved +in the progress of natural philosophy. The French Encyclopædists took +hold of social, moral and juridical questions with an unsparing vigor +that could not be gainsaid. The art of criticism was simultaneously +introduced, perfected and applied. Many of the wrongs and follies +that paralyzed thought and industry were dragged to light. Hoary +absurdities that smothered law and gospel under the foul mass of +privilege and superstition, and made them a curse instead of a +blessing, shrank before the storm of ridicule and denunciation. Those +which did not at once succumb were placed in a position of publicity +and exposure in which they could not long survive. The great upheaval +of which the French Revolution was a part was thus originated. + +Sounder political ideas were brought within reach of the masses, till +then not recipient, it may almost be said, of any political ideas +at all. Statesmen and governments were similarly enlightened, +Adam Smith's declaration of commercial antedated by two years Mr. +Jefferson's of political independence. The atrocities of the English +criminal code, approaching those of Draco, were put in process of +correction, though, as usual in British reforms, it took half a +century to effect their complete removal; a woman having been, if we +recollect rightly, hanged for a trifling theft in the last years of +George IV. This same slowness of that conservative but persevering +people is calculated to blind us to the operation among them of +deep-seated and active influences. Hardly till 1815 can we discover +in England any fervor, much less efficiency, in the demand for an +extension of popular rights and relaxation of the grasp of privilege. +Irish manufactures continued to be distinctly and rigidly repelled +from competition with English by formal statute; Jewish and Catholic +disqualification was maintained; the game-laws and the rotten-borough +system, which conferred on the nobility and gentry arbitrary power +over the purse and person of the commonalty, were determinedly upheld; +counsel was only nominally allowed to the defendant in criminal cases; +chancery withheld or plundered without resistance or appeal; and there +can be no doubt that life and property were better protected by law +in France at the fall of the First Napoleon than in Great Britain. +Nevertheless, the movement had begun in the latter country forty years +before. A generation had passed since the battle of Culloden, and the +island was at length indissolubly and efficiently one. It shared fully +in the intellectual impulse of the day. Victorious in all its latest +struggles and freed from all sources of internal danger, it might +naturally have been expected to enter at once on a career of +improvement more marked than in the case of its neighbors. It is not +easy to assign reasons for failure in this respect, unless we seek +them in disgust at the subsequent dismemberment and disturbance of +the empire by the fruits of popular agitations in America, Ireland +and France. The reaction due to such causes was probably sufficient +to defeat all liberal efforts. The leading English writers of the +Revolutionary period were strong Tories. Such were Johnson, the Lake +poets after their brief swing to the opposite extreme, and Scott. +All these except the first belong as well to the time of successful +reform, and Johnson may be claimed by the eighteenth century; which +serves to illustrate the blight cast upon British literature by the +prolonged resistance of British statesmen to the prevailing current--a +resistance which took its keynote from the dying recantation and +protest of the Whig Chatham. + +The opening of the epoch, then, was as marked in Great Britain as +elsewhere. Only in special fields she afterward fell behind, and lost +something like half the century. In others she kept abreast, or even +in advance. + +Criticism was not content to exercise its new powers and apply its +newly-framed laws exclusively in the investigation of any branch of +philosophy. It brought them to bear upon the arts. The discovery of +the buried cities of Campania aided in attracting renewed attention to +the art-stores of Italy, ancient and modern. The principles of taste +and beauty which they illustrated were searchingly analyzed and +carefully explained. Painting and sculpture began slowly to emit their +rays through the eclipse of more than a century. The allied art shared +in this second and secondary renaissance. Haydn was in full fruit, +Mozart ripening, and Music watched, in the cradle of Beethoven, her +budding Shakespeare. A fourth Teuton was studying the symphonies of +the spheres; and within the first five years of the century, while +the "crowning mercy" of Yorktown was maturing, a planet that had never +before dawned on the eye of man took its place with the ancient six, +and "swam into the ken" of Herschel. + +We have said enough to vindicate our assumed chronology and justify +our readjustment of the calendar. Europe may well be invited to +celebrate her own political, social and material centennial in 1876, +as truly as that of America. Her intellectual revival indisputably +contributed, through Franklin, Laurens, the Lees and others who were +immediately within its influence, to bring on the American movement; +and her thought, in turn, has since that juncture as certainly +gravitated, in many of its chief manifestations, toward that of the +New World. Hers is the jubilee not less than ours. The humblest cot +on her broad bosom is the brighter for '76. By no means the least +fortunate of the beneficiaries is Great Britain herself. Contrast her +present position as a government and a society with what it was when +Liberty Bell announced the dismemberment of her empire. Her rank among +the nations has notably improved. The population of England, Scotland +and Wales was then estimated below eight and a half millions--a +numerical approximation, by the way, to the three millions of the +colonies not sufficiently considered when we measure the stoutness +of her struggle against them with France and Holland combined. Of the +continental powers, the French numbered perhaps twenty-two millions, +Spain twelve, the Low Countries six, Germany thirty, Prussia seven, +and so on. From the ratio of one to nearly three, as compared with +France, she has, if we include pacified and assimilated Ireland--an +element now of strength instead of weakness--advanced to an equality. +She has equally gained on the others, except Prussia, with its +aggregation of new provinces. She may, furthermore, in the event of an +internecine conflict with a combination, count upon the unwillingness +of America to see her annihilated; not the least just of Tallyrand's +observations expressing his conviction that, though the two great +Anglo-Saxon powers might quarrel with each other, they would not push +such a dispute for the benefit of a third party. But, dismissing +the question of mere brute strength, Britain's sentiment of pride is +conciliated by the spectacle of an advance in the numbers speaking her +tongue from eleven or twelve to eighty millions within the century, +and that in considerable part at the expense of other languages; +millions of foreign immigrants, parents or children, having abandoned +their vernacular in favor of hers. + +Let us now essay a light sketch of the stream at whose source we have +glanced. Light and superficial it must be, for to attempt more were +to confront the vast and many-sided theme of modern civilization. +The nineteenth century, the child of history, has the stature of +its progenitor. It would fill more libraries. Conditions, forces, +results,--all have been multiplied. But a few centuries ago the world, +as known and studied, was a corner of the Levant, with its slender and +simple apparatus of life, social, political and industrial. Later, +its boundaries were extended over the remaining shores of the same +landlocked sea. Again a step, but not an expansion, and it looked +helplessly west upon the Atlantic: its ancient domain of the East +almost forgotten. Then that long gaze was gratified, and Cathay +was seen. With that came actual expansion, which continued in both +directions of the globe's circuit until now. At length the world of +thought, of inquiry and of common interest is becoming coincident with +the sphere. + +In the direction of international politics progress during the century +has not kept pace with the advance in other walks. We are accustomed +to speak of Europe as forming a republic of nations, but that cannot +be said with much more truth than it could have been in the middle +of the sixteenth century. A sense of the value to the peace of the +continent of a balance of power was then recognized; and the object +was attained in some measure as soon as the career of Charles V., +which had inculcated the lesson, admitted at his abdication of an +application of it. Treaties were then framed, as they have been +constantly since, for this purpose, and the observation of them was +perhaps as faithful. The passions of nations, like those of men, +furnish reason with its slowest and latest conquests. The great wars +of the French Revolution, and the short and sharp ones which have, +after an indispensable breathing-spell, recently followed it, were as +causeless and as defiant of the compacts designed to prevent them as +those of the Reformation period or of the Thirty Years. They were so +many confessions that an efficient international code is one of the +inventions for which we must look to the future. It is something, +meanwhile, that, with the extinction of feudalism and the concretion +of the detached provinces with which it had macadamized Christendom, +the ceaseless fusillade of little wars, which played like a lambent +flame of mephitic gas over the surface of each country, has come to an +end. The petty sovereignties which made up Germany, France and Italy +have been within a few generations absorbed into three masses--so many +police districts which have proved tolerably effective in keeping +the peace within the large territories they cover. The nations, thus +massing themselves for exterior defence, and maintaining a healthy +system of graduated and distributed powers, original or conferred, +for the support of domestic order and activity, have cultivated +successfully the field of home politics. + +In that the change for the better is certainly vast. It is difficult +for Americans, whose acquaintance with European history is usually +derived from compends, to realize what an incubus of complicated +and conflicting privileges, restrictions and forms has, within the +century, been lifted from the energies of the Old World. The sweeping +reforms in French law are but a small part of what has been done. All +the neighbors of France, from Derry to the Dardanelles, have shared +in the blessing. We may be assisted to an idea of it by turning to the +experience of our own country, whose condition in this regard was +so exceptionally good at the beginning of the period in point. The +constitutions of our States have been repeatedly altered, and they are +now very different in their details from the old colonial charters, +liberal and elastic as these for the most part were. Yet American +innovations are but child's play to those of Europe, which has not +reached the position we held at the beginning, and has a great +deal still to do. In France the people are not trained to local +self-government, but they have an excellent police, and the rights +of person and property are well protected. In Italy, which has only +within a few years ceased to be a mere geographical expression, +municipal rights and the independence of the commune are on a +stronger basis, but the police is bad, though far better than when +the Peninsula was divided among half a dozen powers. Both have but +commenced arming themselves with the chief safeguard of Germany, +popular education. The great fact with them all is, that, despite the +drawbacks of external pressure and large standing armies, they are +at liberty to pursue the path of domestic reform as far as they have +light enough to perceive it or purpose enough to require it. + +All this is an immense gain. It reflects itself in the improved social +condition of the people--a result, of course, not wholly due to it. +Crime, though the newspapers make us familiar with more of it than +formerly, has notably diminished. The savage classes of the great +capitals, populous as some of the old kingdoms, are controlled like +a menagerie by its keepers. A residuum of the untamable will always +exist, inaccessible to education or "moral suasion," and amenable only +to force. This force seems sufficiently supplied by the baton of the +constable, and we may hope that even in volcanic Paris an eruption +of barricades will henceforth cease, unless simply as a somewhat +flamboyant expression of political sentiment, the gamin throwing up +paving-stones and omnibuses as the independent British voter throws +up his hat at the hustings. But it will not do to expect too much from +any ameliorating cause or chain of causes. Race-characteristics cannot +be annihilated. Man is an animal, and the Parisian turbulent. The +Commune has done its worst probably, and the Internationale, which +threatened at one time to loom up as a modern Vehmgericht, has +subsided. Whatever may hereafter come of such slumbering perils, the +beneficent forces which so largely repress and reduce them are none +the less real. + +The marked advance of the masses in physical well-being is a +great--some would say the greatest--item in social profit and loss. +Food is everywhere better in quality and more regular in supply. The +English record of the corn-market for six centuries shows a remarkable +alteration in favor of steadiness in price. The uncertainties of +the seasons are discounted or neutralized by the average struck +by increased variety of products and multiplied sources of supply. +Famines become infrequent. That of 1847 in Ireland, bad as it was, +would have been worse a hundred years earlier. A given population is +more regularly and better fed than one-fifth of its number would at +that time have been. A city of four millions would then have been an +impossibility. Dress and lodging are better, and relatively cheaper. +Hygiene is more understood, imperfect as is its application. Some +diseases due to its disregard have disappeared or been localized. As a +result, men have gained in weight and size and in length of life. + +In the character of their recreations--a thing largely governed by +national idiosyncrasy--the masses have advanced. And this we may say +without losing sight of the devastations of intemperance since the +distillation of grain was introduced, about a century and a half ago. +With an enhanced demand upon man's faculties civilization brings an +increased use of stimulants. There are many of these unknown to former +generations. In noting those which attack the health by storm we are +apt to overlook others which proceed more stealthily by sap. Of these +are coffee, tea, chocolate, the rich spices and more substantial +accessions to the modern table, all stimulating and inviting to +excess, but all, as truly, nutritious and apt to take the place of +other aliment, thus adapting the measure of their use, as a rule, +to the demands of the system. The consumption of opium, the one +dissipation of the Chinese till now unadded to the three or four of +the Caucasian, is said to be extending. If so, a _Counter-blast_ to it +from king or commonwealth will be as ineffectual as against its allied +narcotic. Prohibitory laws will be even more unavailing than in +the case of ardent spirits. It will run its course--a short one, +we trust--and be followed or joined by new drugs contributed by +conscienceless trade. + +Intemperance--we use the word in its special but most common +signification--is debasing. Compensation, so far as it goes, is found +in the abandonment by those communities among whom it is most rife of +certain gross amusements, such as cock-fighting and the prize-ring. +Bull-and bear-baiting, too, so prominent among the _deliciæ_ of +England's maiden queen, have died out. Isolated Spain, fenced off by +the Pyrenees from the breeze of benevolence wafted from the virtuous +and bibulous North, still utilizes the Manchegan or Estremaduran bull +as a means of conferring "happy despatch" on her superannuated horses +and absorbing the surplus belligerence of her "roughs." She seems, +however, disposed to tire of this feast of equine and taurine blood, +and the last relic of the arena will before many years follow its +cognate brutalities. For obvious reasons, bull-fighting can be the +sport, habitually, of but an infinitesimal fraction of the people. +They share with the other races of the Continent the simple pleasures +of dance and song. These enjoyments, as we go north and are driven +within doors from the pure and temperate air by a more unfriendly +climate, form an increasingly intimate alliance with strong drink, +until in the so-called gardens of Germany Calliope and Gambrinus are +inseparable friends. Farther still toward the Pole the voice of the +Muse gradually dies away upon the sodden atmosphere; and she, having +outlasted her successive Southern associates, wine and beer, in turn +gives place to brandy pure and simple--a beverage itself frost-proof +and only suited to frost-proof men. + +The long nights and indoor days of the North are favorable to another +and more desirable trait of modern social progress--education. The +potency of such a meteorological cause in making popular a taste for +knowledge the instances of Iceland, Scotland, Scandinavia and North +Germany, to say nothing of New England, leave us no room to doubt. +It is, of course, not the only cause. Ability to read and write is as +universal in China and Japan, as in the countries we have named. In +the case of the Orientals it cannot be ascribed, either, wholly to +that conviction of the importance, as a conservative guarantee, +of elevating the popular mind and taste, which belongs to the +enlightenment of the day. Instinctive recognition of this need +manifests itself in a simultaneous move in the direction of universal +education at government expense throughout the two continents. All +the populations snatch up their satchels and hurry to school. Athens +revives the Academe and reinstates the Olympic games under a literary +avatar. Italy follows suit. Hornbooks open and shut with a suggestive +snap under the pope's nose, and Young Rome calculates its future with +slate and pencil. Gaul, fresh from one year's term in the severest of +all schools, adversity, joins the procession, close by John Bull, who, +_more suo_, pauses first to decide whether the youthful mind shall +take its pap with the spoon of orthodoxy or heterodoxy, or neither. +With him the question between Church schools and national schools +is complicated by one which is common to other nations--whether +attendance shall be compulsory or voluntary only. The tendency is +toward the former, which has long been in practice in some of the +States of the Union; and it seems not unlikely that Christendom will, +before many years, revert, in this important matter, to the Spartan +view that children are the property of the state. + +Lavish beyond precedent are the provisions made by governments and +individuals everywhere for the promotion of this great object. Private +endowment of schools and colleges was never before so frequent and +liberal, and nothing so quickly disarms the caution of the average +taxpayer as an appeal for common schools. From California eastward to +Japan it is honored along the whole line, the unanimous "Yea" being +the most eloquent and hopeful word the modern world emits. Of the +slumbering power that till recently lay hidden in coal and water, and +which has so incalculably multiplied the material strength of man, +much has been said; but we fail to appreciate the unevoked fund +of intellect upon which he has additionally to draw. The highest +expectation of results to be witnessed and enjoyed by the approaching +generations involves no postulate of human perfectibility, It finds +ample warrant in what has been accomplished under our eyes. A century +ago only Scotland and two or three of the American colonies could +be said to possess a system of common schools. From those feeble and +smouldering sparks what a flame has spread! The space it has covered +and the fructifying light and warmth it has produced may in some +measure be gauged by the newspaper press and the vast bulk of +popularized information in book-form created since then. This shows +the increase in the numerical ratio of readers to the aggregate of +population. + +A difficulty exists in the provision of officers for this great +army of pupils. They cannot always be raised from the ranks. The +thoroughness of a teacher's knowledge is not acquired by the requisite +proportion. Normal schools demand more and more attention. But here we +arrive at a field of detail that would lead us far beyond the limit +of these articles. We pass naturally from the subject of education +to what is, in the narrower but most generally accepted sense of the +word--mental training--- its leading object of pursuit. + +If, in the broader and truer meaning of education--that which assumes +the impalpable part of man to be something more than a sponge for +facts--- the slender phalanx of _the men who know_ will ever +remain, proportionally, a small band, it is at least certain that in +acquaintance with natural phenomena and their relations the masses +of the nineteenth century stand out from their forefathers as eminent +philosophers. Our age may be almost said to have created rather than +extended science, so mighty is the bulk of what it has added by the +side of what it found. + +In mathematics, the branch which most nearly approaches pure reason, +least advance has been made. There was least room for it. Newton, +when, at quite a mature period of his career, Euclid was first brought +to his attention, laid the book down after a cursory glance with +the remark that it was only fit for children, its propositions being +self-evident. Yet to those truisms Newton added very little. His work +lay in their development and application. Laplace and Biot belong to +our own day; but their task, too, consisted in the employment of old +rules. The most effective tools of the mathematician are framed from +the Arab algebra and Napier's logarithms. The science itself without +application is, like logic, a soul without a body. + +The field most fruitful under its application is that of astronomy. +Here, progress has been great. A measuring-rod has been provided for +the depths of space by the ascertainment of the sun's distance within +a three-hundredth part of that body's diameter. The existence of +a cosmic ether, a resisting medium, has been established, and its +retarding influence calculated. Many of the nebulae have been reduced, +and others proved to be in a gaseous condition, like comets. The +latter bodies have been chained down to regular orbits, followed +far beyond those of the old planets, and brought into genealogical +relations with these through the links of bolides and asteroids. The +family circle of planets proper has been immensely increased, a new +visitant to the central fire appearing every few years or even months. +Newton connected the most distant points of the universe by the one +principle of gravitation: the spectroscope unites them by identity +of structure and composition. Improved instruments have detected the +parallax of a number of the fixed stars, and traced motion in both +solar and stellar systems as units. Coming homeward from the distant +heavens, the advances of astronomy diminish as we near what may be +called the old planets and our pale companion the moon. The existence +of a lunar atmosphere and the habitability of Mars are still debated; +with, we believe, the odds against both. But the star-gazers make +their craft useful in a novel way when it reaches the earth. Upon +the precession of the equinoxes they erect a fabric of retrograde +chronology, and set a clock to geologic time. Here Sir Isaac is +brought to grief. His excursions beyond the Deluge are proved blind +guides. He misleads us among the ages as sadly as Archbishop Usher. +The profoundest of laymen and the most learned of clerics are equally +at sea in locating creation. That successive phases of animate +existence were rising and fading with the oscillations of the earth's +inclination to its orbit never occurred to him to whom "all was +light." To probe the stars was to him a simpler process than to +anatomize the globe upon which he stood. + +This is the less remarkable when we reflect what a hard fight geology +has had. A generation after Newton's death fossils were referred +for their origin to a certain "plastic power" in Nature--mere idle +whittlings of bone that had never known an outfit of flesh and +blood. Then came a long and motley procession of cosmogonies, every +speculator, from John Wesley down to Pye Smith, insisting warmly +on what seemed good in his own eyes. The last stand was made on the +antiquity of man, and it is only a dozen years since the ablest of +British--perhaps since Cuvier of modern--geologists, Sir Charles +Lyell, yielded to the preponderance of evidence, and confessed that +the era of man's appearance on earth had been made too recent. A few +determined skirmishers still linger behind the line of retreat, like +Ney at the bridge of Kowno, and fire some fruitless shots at the +advancing enemy. This is well. Tribulation and opposition are good +for any creed, scientific or other. It weeds out the weak ones and +strengthens those that are to stand. + +The mapping out of extinct faunas and floras and assigning pedigree +to existing species are by no means the whole province of geologists. +Productive industry owes to them a vast saving of time and cost in +searching for useful minerals. They distinguish the same strata in +widely separated districts by means of the characteristic fossils, +and are thus enabled to guide the miner. A geological survey of its +territory is one of the first cares of an enlightened government, and +a geologist is the one scientific official the leading States of the +Union agree in maintaining. The science has moved forward steadily +from its original office of studying buried deposits and classifying +extinct organisms, until the hard and fast line between fossil and +recent has disappeared, the continuous action of ordinary causes in +past and present been established, and an unbroken domain assigned +to the laws of the visible creation. Deep-sea soundings have extended +inquiry, slight enough as yet, to that immensely preponderant portion +of the globe's crust that is covered by water. Penetrating the ocean +is like penetrating the rocks, inasmuch as it introduces us to some of +the same primal forms of life; but it presents them in an active and +sentient state. Neptune's ravished secrets vindicate the Neptunists, +while Pluto is relegated to the abode assigned him by classic myths, +where he and his comrade, Vulcan, keep their furnaces alight and +project their slag and smoke through many a roaring chimney. + +Upon (as beneath) the deep, science is erecting for itself new homes. +It tracks the wandering wind, and moves at ease, calmly as a surveyor +with chain and compass, through the eddies of the cyclone. It maps for +the sailor the currents, aerial and subaqueous, of each spot on the +unmarked main, and sends him warning far ahead of the tempest. It +divides with the thermometer the mass of brine into horizontal zones, +and assigns to each its special population. + +A hundred years ago, only the surface of the land was studied, and but +a small part of that. All beneath its surface was a mystery, and the +lore of the sea was untouched. Now, knowledge has penetrated to the +central fire, and of the sea it can be no longer said that man's +"control stops with its shores." The pathway of his messenger from +continent to continent he has laid deep in its chalky ooze, while over +it silt silently, flake by flake, as they have been falling since æons +before his creation, the induviæ of the earliest creatures. + +And this his messenger at the bottom of the sea is back in its old +home. First hidden in the electron cast up by the waves of the Baltic, +it was left there, uncomprehended and barren, till our century. During +all that time it was calling from the clouds to man's dazzled eye and +deafened ear. It pervaded the air he breathed, the ground he trod and +the frame which constituted him. It bore his will from brain to hand, +and guarded his life, through the (so-called) spontaneously acting +muscles of the thorax, during the half or third of his life during +which his will slumbered. At length its call was hearkened to +intelligently. Franklin made it articulate. Its twin Champollions came +in Volta and Galvani. Its few first translated words have, under a +host of elucidators, swelled to volumes. They link into one language +the dialects of light, motion and heat. The indurated turpentine of +the Pomeranian beach speaks the tongue of the farthest star. + +The sciences, like the nations and like bees, as they grow too large +for their hive are perpetually swarming and colonizing. Not that +colonization is followed, as in the case of the similitude, by +independence. Their mutual bonds become closer and closer. But +convenience and (so to speak) comfort require the nominal separation. +So electricity sets up for itself; and chemistry, the metropolis, +swells into other offshoots. So numerous and so great are these that +the old alchemists, unlimited range through the material, immaterial +and supernatural as they claimed for their art, would rub their eyes, +bleared over blowpipe and alembic, at sight of its present riches. The +half-hewn block handed down by these worthies--not by any means + + Like that great Dawn which baffled Angelo + Left shapeless, grander for its mystery, + +but blurred and scratched all over with childish and unmeaning +scrawls--has been wholly transformed. Chemistry no longer assumes to +read our future, but it does a great deal to brighten our present. +Laboring to supply the wants and enhance the pleasures and security +of daily life, it makes excursions with a sure foot in the opposite +direction of abstruse problems in natural philosophy. It analyzes all +substances, determines their relations, and tries to guide the artisan +in utilizing its acquisitions for the general good. To enumerate +these, or to give the merest sketch of chemical progress within the +century, would fill many pages. It has enriched and invigorated all +the arts by supplying new material and new processes. Illuminating +gas, photography, the anæsthetics, the artificial fertilizers, +quinine, etc. are a few of its more familiarly known contributions. +It has aided medical jurisprudence, and so far checked crime. Besides +enlarging the pharmacopoeia, it has promoted sanitary reform in many +ways, notably by ascertaining the media of contagion in disease and +providing for their detection and removal. Its triumphs are so closely +interwoven with the appliances of common life that we are prone to +lose sight of them. From the aniline dye that beautifies a picture or +a dress, to the explosive that lifts a reef or mines the Alps for a +highway, the gradations are infinite and multiform. + +Heavy as is the draft of the material sciences upon the thought +and energy of the century, it has not monopolized them. No trifling +resources have been left for mere abstract investigation. If +meta-physics stands, despite the labors of Stewart, Hamilton, Hegel, +Comte, very much where it did when Socrates ran amuck among the +casuistical Quixotes of his day, and left the philosophic tilters of +Greece, the knights-errant in search of the supreme good, in the same +plight with the chivalry of Spain after Cervantes, the science of +mind, and particularly mental pathology, has made some steps forward +on crutches furnished by the medical profession. The treatment of +insanity is on a more rational and efficient footing. The statistician +collects, and invites the moral philosopher to collate, the records of +crime. The naturalist studies the life of the lower animals, and gives +the _coup de grace_ to the uncompromising distinction drawn by human +conceit between instinct and intelligence. + +In the walks of comparative philology much has been accomplished. +Sanskrit has been exhumed. Aryan and Semitic roots are traced back +to an almost synchronous antiquity. The decipherment of the Egyptian +inscriptions seems to bring us into communication with a still more +remote form of language. More recent periods derive new light from the +Etruscan tombs and the Assyrian bricks. Linguists deem themselves in +sight of something better than the "bow-wow" theory, and are no longer +content to let the calf, the lamb and the child bleat in one and the +same vocabulary of labials, and with no other rudiments than "ma" and +"pa" "speed the soft intercourse from pole to pole." As yet, that part +of mankind which knows not its right hand from its left is the only +one possessed of a worldwide lingo. The flux that is to weld all +tongues into one, and produce a common language like a common unit of +weight, measure and coinage, remains to be discovered. A Chinese pig, +transplanted to an Anglo-Saxon stye, has no difficulty in instituting +immediate converse with his new friend, but the gentleman who travels +in Europe needs to carry an assortment of dialects for use on opposite +sides of the same rivulet or the same hill. However, as the French +franc has been adopted by four other nations, and the French litre and +mètre by a greater number, one and the same mail and postage made to +serve Europe and America, and passports been abolished, we may venture +to picture to ourselves the time when the German shall consent to +clear his throat, the Frenchman his nose, the Spaniard his tonsils and +the Englishman the tip of his tongue--when all shall become as little +children and be mutually comprehensible. Commerce at present is +doing more than the philosophers to that end. While the countrymen +of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Max Müller persist in burying their +laboriously heaped treasures under a load of black-letter type and +words and sentences the most fearfully and wonderfully made, the +skipper scatters English words with English calico and American clocks +among all the isles. A picturesque fringe of pigeon English decorates +the coasts of Africa, Asia and Oceanica. It might be deeper, and +doubtless will be, for our mother-tongue will very certainly be +supreme in the world of trade for at least a couple of centuries to +come. If we were only half as sure of its being adopted by France as +by Fiji! + +If almighty steam and sail must remain unequal to this task, wondrous +indeed are their other potencies. They have contracted the globe like +a dried apple, only in a far greater degree. In 1776 three years +was the usual allotment of the grand tour. Beginning at London, it +extended to Naples and occasionally Madrid. It often left out Vienna, +and more frequently Berlin. In the same period you may now put a +girdle round the earth ninefold thick. You may, given the means +and the faculties, set up business establishments at San Francisco, +Yokohama, Shanghai, Canton, Calcutta, Bombay, Alexandria, Rome, Paris, +London and New York, and visit each once a quarter. The goods to +supply them may travel, however bulky, on the same ship and nearly the +same train in point of speed with yourself. Nowhere farther than a few +weeks from home in person, nowhere are you more remote verbally than a +few hours. The Red Sea opens to your footsteps, as it did to those of +Moses; and the lightning that bears your words cleaves the pathway of +Alexander and the New World for which he wept. + +It is really hard to mention these innovations on the old ways, so +vast and so sudden, without degenerating into rhetoric or bombast. The +spread-eagle style comes naturally to an epoch that soars on quick +new wing above all the others. We have it in all shapes--- equally +startling and true in figures of arithmetic or figures of speech. Any +school-boy can tell you, if you give him the dimensions of the Great +Pyramid and state thirty-three thousand pounds one foot high in a +minute as the conventional horse-power, how many hours it would take a +pony-team picked out of the hundreds of thousands of steam-engines on +the two continents to raise it. He will reduce to the same prosaic but +eloquent form a number of like problems illustrative of the command +obtained over some of the forces of Nature, and their employment +in multiplying and economizing manual strength and dexterity and +stimulating ingenuity. When we come to contemplate the whole edifice +of modern production, it seems to simplify itself into one new motor +applied to the old mechanical powers, which may perhaps in turn be +condensed into one--the inclined plane. This helps to the impression +that the structure is not only sure to be enlarged, as we see it +enlarging day by day, but to grow into novel and more striking +aspects. Additional motors will probably be discovered, or some we +already possess in embryo may be developed into greater availability. +These, operating on an ever-growing stock of material, will convince +our era that it is but introductory to a more magnificent and not far +distant future. + +Magnificent the century is justified in styling its work. What matter +could do for mind and steam for the hand it has done. But is there +any gain in the eye and intellect which perceive, and the hand which +fixes, beauty and truth? Is there any addition to the simple lines, as +few and rudimental as the mechanical powers, which embody proportion +and harmony, or in the fibres of emotion, as scant but as infinite in +their range of tone as the strings of the primeval harp, which ask and +respond to no motor but the touch of genius? Have we surpassed the old +song, the old story, the old picture, the old temple? + +Such questions must be answered in the negative. The age, recognizing +perforce the inherent capabilities of the race as a constant quantity, +contents itself so far with endeavoring to adapt and reproduce, or at +most imitate, such manifestations of the artistic sense as it finds +excellent in the past. The day for originality may come ere long, +and nothing can be lost in striving for it, but a capacity for the +beautiful at first hand cannot come without an appreciation of it at +second hand. With the number of cultivated minds so vastly increased +as compared with any previous period, the greater variety of objects +and conditions presented to them, the multiplicity of races to +which they belong, and consequently of distinct race-characteristics +imbedded in them and brought into play, and the impulse communicated +by greater general activity, the expectation is allowably sanguine +that the nineteenth century will plant an art as well as an industry +of its own. Wealth, culture and peace seldom fail to win this final +crown. They are busily gathering together the jewels of the past, +endless in diversity of charm. Museum, gallery, library swell as never +before. The earth is not mined for iron and coal alone. Statue, vase +and gem are disentombed. Pictures are rescued from the grime of years +and neglect. All are copied by sun or hand, and sent in more or less +elaboration into hall or cottage. In literature our possessions +could scarce be more complete, and they are even more universally +distributed. The nations compete with each other in adding to this +equipment for a new revival, which seems, on the surface, to have more +in its favor than had that of the cinque-cento. + + + + +UP THE THAMES + +THIRD PAPER. + +[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT--WEST FRONT.] + + +Today our movement shall be up the Thames by rail, starting on the +south side of the river to reach an objective point on the north bank. +So crooked is the stream, and so much more crooked are the different +systems of railways, with their competing branches crossing each other +and making the most audacious inroads on each other's territory, that +the direction in which we are traveling at any given moment, or the +station from which we start, is a very poor index to the quarter for +which we are bound. The railways, to say nothing of the river, that +wanders at its own sweet will, as water commonly does in a country +offering it no obstructions, are quite defiant of their geographical +names. The Great Western runs north, west and south-east; the +South-western strikes south, south-east and north-west; while +the Chatham and Dover distributes itself over most of the region +south-east of London, closing its circuit by a line along the coast +of the Channel that completes a triangle. We can go almost anywhere +by any road. It is necessary, however, in this as in other mundane +proceedings, to make a selection. We must have a will before we find +a way. Let our way, then, be to Waterloo Station on the Southwestern +rail. + +[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT--LOOKING UP THE RIVER.] + +Half an hour's run lands us at Hampton Court, with a number of +fellow-passengers to keep us company if we want them, and in fact +whether we want them or not. Those who travel into or out of a city of +four millions must lay their account with being ever in a crowd. +Our consolation is, that in the city the crowd is so constant and so +wholly strange to us as to defeat its effect, and create the feeling +of solitude we have so often been told of; while outside of it, at the +parks and show-places, the amplitude of space, density and variety of +plantations, and multiplicity of carefully designed turns, nooks and +retreats, are such that retirement of a more genuine character is +within easy reach. The crowd, we know, is about us, but it does +not elbow us, and we need hardly see it. The current of humanity, +springing from one or a dozen trains or steamboats, dribbles away, +soon after leaving its parent source, into a multitude of little +divergent channels, like irrigating water, and covers the surface +without interference. + +It would be a curious statistical inquiry how many visitors Hampton +Court has lost since the Cartoons were removed in 1865 to the +South Kensington Museum. Actually, of course, the whole number has +increased, is increasing, and is not going to be diminished. The +query is, How many more there would be now were those eminent bits of +pasteboard--slit up for the guidance of piece-work at a Flemish loom, +tossed after the weavers had done with them into a lumber-room, then +after a century's neglect disinterred by the taste of Rubens and +Charles I., brought to England, their poor frayed and faded fragments +glued together and made the chief decoration of a royal palace--still +in the place assigned them by the munificence and judgment of Charles? +For our part--and we may speak for most Americans--when we heard, +thought or read of Hampton Court, we thought of the Cartoons. +Engravings of them were plenty--much more so than of the palace +itself. Numbers of domestic connoisseurs know Raphael principally as +the painter of the Cartoons. + +A few who have not heard of them have heard of Wolsey. The pursy +old cardinal furnishes the surviving one of the two main props of +Hampton's glory. An oddly-assorted pair, indeed--the delicate Italian +painter, without a thought outside of his art, and the bluff English +placeman, avid of nothing but honors and wealth. And the association +of either of them with the spot is comparatively so slight. Wolsey +held the ground for a few years, only by lease, built a mere fraction +of the present edifice, and disappeared from the scene within half a +generation. What it boasts, or boasted, of the other belongs to +the least noted of his works--half a dozen sketches meant for +stuff-patterns, and never intended to be preserved as pictures. +Pictures they are, nevertheless, and all the more valuable and +surprising as manifesting such easy command of hand and faculty, such +a matter-of-course employment of the utmost resources of art on +a production designed to have no continuing existence except as +finished, rendered and given to the world by a "base mechanical," with +no sense of art at all. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO WOLSEY'S HALL.] + +Royalty, and the great generally, availed themselves of their +opportunities to select the finest locations and stake out the best +claims along these shores. Of elevation there is small choice, a level +surface prevailing. What there is has been generally availed of for +park or palace, with manifest advantage to the landscape. The curves +of the river are similarly utilized. Kew and Hampton occupy peninsulas +so formed. The latter, with Bushy Park, an appendage, fills a +water-washed triangle of some two miles on each side. The southern +angle is opposite Thames Ditton, a noted resort for brethren of the +angle, with an ancient inn as popular, though not as stylish and +costly, as the Star and Garter at Richmond. The town and palace of +Hampton lie about halfway up the western side of the demesne. The +view up and down the river from Hampton Bridge is one of the crack +spectacles of the neighborhood. Satisfied with it, we pass through the +principal street, with the Green in view to our left and Bushy Park +beyond it, to the main entrance. This is part of the original palace +as built by the cardinal. It leads into the first court. This, with +the second or Middle Quadrangle, may all be ascribed to him, with some +changes made by Henry VIII. and Christopher Wren. The colonnade of +coupled Ionic pillars which runs across it on the south or right-hand +side as you enter was designed by Wren. It is out of keeping with its +Gothic surroundings. Standing beneath it, you see on the opposite side +of the square Wolsey's Hall. It looks like a church. The towers on +either side of the gateway between the courts bear some relics of the +old faith in the shape of terra-cotta medallions, portraits of the +Roman emperors. These decorations were a present to the cardinal +from Leo X. The oriel windows by their side bear contributions in +a different taste from Henry VIII. They are the escutcheons of +that monarch. The two popes, English and Italian, are well met. +Our engravings give a good idea of the style of these parts of the +edifice. The first or outer square is somewhat larger than the middle +one, which is a hundred and thirty-three feet across from north to +south, and ninety-one in the opposite direction, or in a line with the +longest side of the whole palace. + +A stairway beneath the arch leads to the great hall, one hundred +and six feet by forty. This having been well furbished recently, its +aspect is probably little inferior in splendor to that which it wore +in its first days. The open-timber roof, gay banners, stained windows +and groups of armor bring mediaeval magnificence very freshly before +us. The ciphers and arms of Henry and his wife, Jane Seymour, are +emblazoned on one of the windows, indicating the date of 1536 or 1537. +Below them were graciously left Wolsey's imprint--his arms, with a +cardinal's hat on each side, and the inscription, "The Lord Thomas +Wolsey, Cardinal legat de Latere, archbishop of Yorke and chancellor +of Englande." The tapestry of the hall illustrates sundry passages in +the life of Abraham. A Flemish pupil of Raphael is credited with their +execution or design. + +This hall witnessed, certainly in the reign of George I., and +according to tradition in that of Elizabeth, the mimic reproduction +of the great drama with which it is associated. It is even said that +Shakespeare took part here in his own play, _King Henry VIII., or the +Fall of Wolsey_. In 1558 the hall was resplendent with one thousand +lamps, Philip and Mary holding their Christmas feast. The princess +Elizabeth was a guest. The next morning she was compliant or politic +enough to hear matins in the queen's closet. + +The Withdrawing Room opens from the hall. It is remarkable for its +carved and illuminated ceiling of oak. Over the chimney is a portrait +of Wolsey in profile on wood, not the least interesting of a long list +of pictures which are a leading attraction of the place. These are +assembled, with few exceptions, in the third quadrangle, built in +1690. Into this we next pass. It takes the place of three of the +five original courts, said to have been fully equal to the two which +remain. + +[Illustration: MIDDLE QUADRANGLE, HAMPTON COURT.] + +The modern or Eastern Quadrangle is a hundred and ten by a hundred and +seventeen feet. It is encircled by a colonnade like that in the middle +square, and has nothing remarkable, architecturally, about it. In the +public rooms that surround us there are, according to the catalogue, +over a thousand pictures. Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Veronese, Titian, +Giulio Romano, Murillo and a host of lesser names of the Italian and +Spanish schools, with still more of the Flemish, are represented. To +most visitors, who may see elsewhere finer works by these masters, the +chief attraction of the walls is the series of original portraits by +Holbein, Vandyck, Lely and Kneller. The two full-lengths of Charles I. +by Vandyck, on foot and on horseback, both widely known by engravings, +are the gems of this department, as a Vandyck will always be of any +group of portraits. + +[Illustration: ARCHWAY IN HAMPTON COURT.] + +Days may be profitably and delightfully spent in studying this fine +collection. The first men and women of England for three centuries +handed down to us by the first artists she could command form a +spectacle in which Americans can take a sort of home interest. Nearly +all date before 1776, and we have a rightful share in them. Each +head and each picture is a study. We have art and history together. +Familiar as we may be with the events with which the persons +represented are associated, it is impossible to gaze upon their +lineaments, set in the accessories of their day by the ablest hands +guided by eyes that saw below the surface, and not feel that we have +new readings of British annals. + +[Illustration: WOLSEY.] + +Among the most ancient heads is a medallion of Henry VII. by +Torregiano, the peppery and gifted Florentine who executed the +marvelous chapel in Westminster Abbey and broke the nose of Michael +Angelo. English art--or rather art in England--may be said to date +from him. He could not create a school of artists in the island--the +material did not exist--but the few productions he left there stood +out so sharply from anything around them that the possessors of the +wealth that was then beginning to accumulate employed it in drawing +from the Continent additional treasures from the newly-found world +of beauty. The riches of England have grown apace, and her collectors +have used them liberally, if not always wisely, until her galleries, +in time, have come to be sought by the connoisseurs, and even the +artists, of the Continent. + +[Illustration: PORTICO LEADING TO GARDENS.] + +The last picture-gallery we traverse is the only one at Hampton Court +specially built for its purpose; and it is empty. This is the room +erected by Sir Christopher Wren for the reception of the Cartoons. +It leads us to the corridor that opens on the garden-front. We leave +behind us, in addition to the state apartments, a great many others +which are peopled by other inhabitants than the big spiders, said to +be found nowhere else, known as cardinals. The old palace is not kept +wholly for show, but is made useful in the political economy of +the kingdom by furnishing a retreat to impecunious members of the +oligarchy. Certain families of distressed aristocrats are harbored +here--clearly a more wholesome arrangement than letting them take +their chance in the world and bring discredit on their class. + +[Illustration: CENTRE AVENUE.] + +Emerging on the great gardens, forty four acres in extent, we find +ourselves on broad walks laid out with mathematical regularity, and +edged by noble masses of yew, holly, horse-chestnut, etc. almost as +rectangular and circular. We are here struck with the great advantage +derived in landscape gardening from the rich variety of large +evergreens possible in the climate of Britain. The holly, unknown as +an outdoor plant in this country north of Philadelphia, is at home in +the north of Scotland, eighteen degrees nearer the pole. We are more +fortunate with the Conifers, many of the finest of which family are +perfectly hardy here. But we miss the deodar cedar, the redwood and +Washingtonia of California, and the cedar of Lebanon. These, unless +perhaps the last, cannot be depended on much north of the latitude of +the _Magnolia grandiflora._ They thrive all over England, with others +almost as beautiful, and as delicate north of the Delaware. Of the +laurel tribe, also hardy in England, our Northern States have but a +few weakly representatives. So with the Rhododendra. + +[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT--GARDEN FRONT.] + +When, tired of even so charming a scene of arboreal luxury, we knock +at the Flower-Pot gate to the left of the palace, and are admitted +into the private garden, we make the acquaintance of another stately +stranger we have had the honor at home of meeting only under glass. +This is the great vine, ninety years or a hundred old, of the Black +Hamburg variety. It does not cover as much space as the Carolina +Scuppernong--the native variety that so surprised and delighted +Raleigh's Roanoke Island settlers in 1585--often does. But its +bunches, sometimes two or three thousand in number, are much larger +than the Scuppernong's little clumps of two or three. They weigh +something like a pound each, and are thought worthy of being reserved +for Victoria's dessert. Her own family vine has burgeoned so broadly +that three thousand pounds of grapes would not be a particularly large +dish for a Christmas dinner for the united Guelphs. + +[Illustration: GATE TO PRIVATE GARDEN.] + +We must not forget the Labyrinth, "a mighty maze, but not without a +plan," that has bewildered generations of young and old children since +the time of its creator, William of Orange. It is a feature of the +Dutch style of landscape gardening imprinted by him upon the Hampton +grounds. He failed to impress a like stamp upon that chaos of queer, +shapeless and contradictory means to beneficent ends, the British +constitution. + +Hampton Court, notwithstanding the naming of the third quadrangle the +Fountain Court, and the prominence given to a fountain in the design +of the principal grounds, is not rich in waterworks. Nature has done a +good deal for it in that way, the Thames embracing it on two sides +and the lowness of the flat site placing water within easy reach +everywhere. This superabundance of the element did not content the +magnificent Wolsey. He was a man of great ideas, and to secure a head +for his jets he sought an elevated spring at Combe Wood, more than two +miles distant. To bring this supply he laid altogether not less than +eight miles of leaden pipe weighing twenty-four pounds to the foot, +and passing under the bed of the Thames. Reduced to our currency +of to-day, these conduits must have cost nearly half a million of +dollars. They do their work yet, the gnawing tooth of old _Edax rerum_ +not having penetrated far below the surface of the earth. Better +hydraulic results would now be attained at a considerably reduced cost +by a steam-engine and stand-pipe. At the beginning of the sixteenth +century this motor was not even in embryo, unless we accept the story +of Blasco de Garay's steamer that manoeuvred under the eye of Charles +V. as fruitlessly as Fitch's and Fulton's before Napoleon. Coal, its +dusky pabulum, was also practically a stranger on the upper Thames. +The ancient fire-dogs that were wont to bear blazing billets hold +their places in the older part of the palace. + +[Illustration: BUSHY PARK.] + +Crossing the Kingston road, which runs across the peninsula and skirts +the northern boundary of Hampton Park, we get into its continuation, +Bushy Park. This is larger than the chief enclosure, but less +pretentious. We cease to be oppressed by the palace and its excess of +the artificial. The great avenues of horse-chestnut, five in number, +and running parallel with a length of rather more than a mile and an +aggregate breadth of nearly two hundred yards, are formal enough in +design, but the mass of foliage gives them the effect of a wood. They +lead nowhere in particular, and are flanked by glades and copses in +which the genuinely rural prevails. Cottages gleam through the trees. +The lowing of kine, the tinkling of the sheep-bell, the gabble +of poultry, lead you away from thoughts of prince and city. Deer +domesticated here since long before the introduction of the turkey +or the guinea-hen bear themselves with as quiet ease and freedom +from fear as though they were the lords of the manor and held the +black-letter title-deeds for the delicious stretch of sward over +which they troop. Less stately, but scarce more shy, indigenes are +the hares, lineal descendants of those which gave sport to Oliver +Cromwell. When that grim Puritan succeeded to the lordship of the +saintly cardinal, he was fain, when the Dutch, Scotch and Irish +indulged him with a brief chance to doff his buff coat, to take +relaxation in coursing. We loiter by the margin of the ponds he dug +in the hare-warren, and which were presented as nuisances by the grand +jury in 1662. The complaint was that by turning the water of the "New +River" into them the said Oliver had made the road from Hampton Wick +boggy and unsafe. Another misdemeanor of the deceased was at the same +time and in like manner denounced. This was the stopping up of the +pathway through the warren. The palings were abated, and the path is +open to all nineteenth-century comers, as it probably will be to those +of the twentieth, this being a land of precedent, averse to change. +We may stride triumphantly across the location of the Cromwellian +barricades, and not the less so, perhaps, for certain other barricades +which he helped to erect in the path of privilege. + +Directing our steps to the left, or westward, we again reach the river +at the town of Hampton. It is possessed of pretty water-views, but of +little else of note except the memory and the house of Garrick. +Hither the great actor, after positively his last night on the stage, +retired, and settled the long contest for his favor between the Muses +of Tragedy and Comedy by inexorably turning his back on both. He +did not cease to be the delight of polished society, thanks to his +geniality and to literary and conversational powers capable of making +him the intimate of Johnson and Reynolds. More fortunate in his +temperament and temper than his modern successor, Macready, he never +fretted that his profession made him a vagabond by act of Parliament, +or that his adoption of it in place of the law had prevented his +becoming, by virtue of the same formal and supreme stamp, the equal +of the Sampson Brasses plentiful in his day as in ours among their +betters of that honorable vocation. His self-respect was of tougher if +not sounder grain. "Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow," +was the motto supplied him by his friend and neighbor, Pope, but +obeyed long before he saw it in the poetic form. + +[Illustration: GARRICK'S VILLA.] + +Garrick's house is separated from its bit of "grounds," which run down +to the water's edge, by the highway. It communicates with them by a +tunnel, suggested by Johnson. It was not a very novel suggestion, +but the excavation deserves notice as probably the one engineering +achievement of old Ursus major. We may fancy the Titan of the pen and +the tea-table, in his snuffy habit as he lived and as photographed +by Boswell, Mrs. Thrale, Fanny Burney, and their epitomizer Macaulay, +diving under the turnpike and emerging among the osiers and water-rats +to offer his orisons at the shrine of Shakespeare. For, in the fashion +of the day, Garrick erected a little brick "temple," and placed +therein a statue of the man it was the study of his life to interpret. +The temple is there yet. The statue, a fine one by Roubillac, now +adorns the hall of the British Museum, a much better place for it. +Garrick, and not Shakespeare, is the _genius loci_. + +[Illustration: RIVER SCENE, THAMES DITTON.] + +This is but one, if the most striking, of a long row of villas that +overlook the river, each with its comfortable-looking and rotund trees +and trim plat in front, with sometimes a summer-house snuggling down +to the ripples. These riverside colonies, thrown out so rapidly by the +metropolis, have no colonial look. We cannot associate the idea of a +new settlement with rich turf, graveled walks and large trees devoid +of the gaunt and forlorn look suggestive of their fellows' having +been hewn away from their side. The houses have some of the pertness, +rawness and obtrusiveness of youth, but it is not the youth of the +backwoods. + +Bob and sinker are in their glory hereabouts. Fishing-rods in the +season and good weather form an established part of the scenery. From +the banks of the stream, from the islands and from box-like boats +called punts in the middle of the water, their slender arches project. +It becomes a source of speculation how the breed of fish is kept up. +Seth Green has never operated on the Thames. Were he to take it under +his wing, a sum in the single rule of three points to the conclusion +that all London would take its seat under these willows and extract +ample sustenance from the invisible herds. If perch and dace can hold +their own against the existing pressure and escape extinction, how +would they multiply with the fostering aid of the spawning-box! We are +not deep in the mysteries of the angle, but we believe English waters +do not boast the catfish. They ought to acquire him. He is almost +as hard to extirpate as the perch, would be quite at home in these +sluggish pools under the lily-pads, and would harmonize admirably with +the eel in the pies and other gross preparations which delight the +British palate. He hath, moreover, a John Bull-like air in his +broad and burly shape, his smooth and unscaly superficies and the +_noli-me-tangere_ character of his dorsal fin. Pity he was unknown to +Izaak Walton! + +At this particular point the piscatory effect is intensified by the +dam just above Hampton Bridge. Two parts of a river are especially +fine for fishing. One is the part above the dam, and the other the +part below. These two divisions may be said, indeed, in a large sense +to cover all the Thames. Moulsey Lock, while favorable to fish and +fishermen, is unfavorable to dry land. Yet there is said to be no +malaria. Hampton Court has proved a wholesome residence to every +occupant save its founder. + +[Illustration: WOLSEY'S TOWER, ESHER.] + +The angler's capital is Thames Ditton, and his capitol the Swan Inn. +Ditton is, like many other pretty English villages, little and old. It +is mentioned in _Domesday Boke_ as belonging to the bishop of Bayeux +in Normandy, famous for the historic piece of tapestry. Wadard, +a gentleman with a Saxon name, held it of him, probably for the +quit--rent of an annual eel-pie, although the consideration is not +stated. The clergy were, by reason of their frequent meagre days and +seasons, great consumers of fish. The phosphorescent character of that +diet may have contributed, if we accept certain modern theories of +animal chemistry as connected in some as yet unexplained way with +psychology, to the intellectual predominance of that class of the +population in the Middle Ages. That occasional fasting, whether +voluntary and systematic as in the cloisters, or involuntary and +altogether the reverse of systematic in Grub street, helps to clear +the wits, with or without the aid of phosphorus, is a fixed fact. The +stomach is apt to be a stumbling-block to the brain. We are not prone +to associate prolonged and productive mental effort with a fair round +belly with fat capon lined. It was not the jolly clerics we read of +in song, but the lean ascetic brethren who were numerous enough to +balance them, that garnered for us the treasures of ancient literature +and kept the mind of Christendom alive, if only in a state of +suspended animation. It was something that they prevented the mace of +chivalry from utterly braining humankind. + +The Thames is hereabouts joined from the south by a somewhat +exceptional style of river, characterized by Milton as "the sullen +Mole, that runneth underneath," and by Pope, in dutiful imitation, as +"the sullen Mole that hides his diving flood." Both poets play on the +word. In our judgment, Milton's line is the better, since moles do not +dive and have no flood--two false figures in one line from the precise +and finical Pope! Thomson contributes the epithet of "silent," which +will do well enough as far as it goes, though devoid even of the +average force of Jamie. But, as we have intimated, it is a queer +river. Pouring into the Thames by several mouths that deviate over +quite a delta, its channel two or three miles above is destitute in +dry seasons of water. Its current disappears under an elevation called +White Hill, and does not come again to light for almost two miles, +resembling therein several streams in the United States, notably Lost +River in North-eastern Virginia, which has a subterranean course of +the same character and about the same length, but has not yet found +its Milton or Pope, far superior as it is to its English cousin in +natural beauty. + +For this defect art and association amply atone. On the southern side +of the Mole, not far from the underground portion of its course--"the +Swallow" as it is called--stand the charming and storied seats of +Esher and Claremont. + +Esher was an ancient residence of the bishops of Winchester. Wolsey +made it for a time his retreat after being ousted from Hampton Court. +A retreat it was to him in every sense. He dismissed his servants +and all state, and cultivated the deepest despondency. His inexorable +master, however, looked down on him, from his ravished towers hard by, +unmoved, and, as the sequel in a few years proved, unsatisfied in +his greed. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was called upon for a +contribution. He loyally surrendered to the king the whole estate of +Esher, a splendid mansion with all appurtenances and a park a mile +in diameter. Henry annexed Esher to Hampton Court, and continued his +research for new subjects of spoliation. His daughter Mary gave Esher +back to the see of Winchester. Elizabeth bought it and bestowed it on +Lord Howard of Effingham, who well earned it by his services against +the Armada. Of the families who subsequently owned the place, the +Pelhams are the most noted. Now it has passed from their hands. That +which has alone been preserved of the palace of Wolsey is an embattled +gatehouse that looks into the sluggish Mole, and joins it mayhap in +musing over "the days that we have seen." + +[Illustration: CLAREMONT.] + +Claremont, its next neighbor, unites, with equal or greater charms of +landscape, in preaching the old story of the decadence of the great. +Lord Clive, the Indian conqueror and speculator, built the house from +the designs of Capability Browne at a cost of over a hundred thousand +pounds. His dwelling and his monument remain to represent Clive. After +him, two or three occupants removed, came Leopold of Belgium, with +his bride, the Princess Charlotte, pet and hope of the British +nation. Their stay was more transient still--a year only, when death +dissipated their dream and cleared the way to the throne for Victoria. +Leopold continued to hold the property, and it became a generation +later the asylum of Louis Philippe. To an ordinary mind the miseries +of any one condemned to make this lovely spot his home are not apt to +present themselves as the acme of despair. A sensation of relief and +lulling repose would be more reasonably expected, especially after +so stormy a career as that of Louis. The change from restless and +capricious Paris to dewy shades and luxurious halls in the heart of +changeless and impregnable England ought, on common principles, to +have promoted the content and prolonged the life of the old king. +Possibly it did, but if so, the French had not many months' escape +from a second Orleans regency, for the exile's experience of Claremont +was brief. We may wander over his lawns, and reshape to ourselves his +reveries. Then we may forget the man who lost an empire as we look up +at the cenotaph of him who conquered one. Both brought grist to +Miller Bull, the fortunate and practical-minded owner of such vast +water-privileges. His water-power seems proof against all floods, +while the corn of all nations must come to his door. Standing under +these drooping elms, by this lazy stream, we hear none of the clatter +of the great mill, and we cease to dream of affixing a period to its +noiseless and effective work. + +[Illustration: CLIVE'S MONUMENT.] + +If we are not tired of parks for today, five minutes by rail will +carry us west to Oatlands Park, with its appended, and more or less +dependent, village of Walton-upon-Thames. But a surfeit even of +English country-houses and their pleasances is a possible thing; +and nowhere are they more abundant than within an hour's walk of our +present locality. So, taking Ashley Park, Burwood Park, Pains Hill +and many others, as well as the Coway Stakes--said by one school of +antiquarians to have been planted in the Thames by Cæsar, and by +another to be the relics of a fish-weir--Walton Church and Bradshaw's +house, for granted, we shall turn to the east and finish the purlieus +of Hampton with a glance at the old Saxon town of Kingston-on-Thames. +Probably an ardent Kingstonian would indignantly disown the impression +our three words are apt to give of the place. It is a rapidly--growing +town, and "Egbert, the first king of all England," who held a council +at "Kyningestun, famosa ilia locus," in 838, would be at a loss to +find his way through its streets could he revisit it. It has the +population of a Saxon county. Viewed from the massive bridge, with +the church-tower rising above an expanse of sightly buildings, it +possesses the least possible resemblance to the cluster of wattled +huts that may be presumed to have sheltered Egbert and his peers. + +[Illustration: PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.] + +A more solid memento of the Saxons is preserved in the King's +Stone. This has been of late years set up in the centre of the town, +surrounded with an iron railing, and made visible to all comers, +skeptical or otherwise. Tradition credits it with having been that +upon which the kings of Wessex were crowned, as those of Scotland down +to Longshanks, and after him the English, were on the red sandstone +palladium of Scone. From the list of ante-Norman monarchs said to +have received the sceptre upon it the poetically inclined visitor will +select for chief interest Edwy, whose coronation was celebrated in +great state in his seventeenth year. How he fell in love with and +married secretly his cousin Elgiva; how Saint Dunstan and his equally +saintly though not regularly beatified ally, Odo, archbishop of +Canterbury, indignant at a step taken against their fulminations and +protests, and jealous of the fair queen, tore her from his arms, burnt +with hot iron the bloom out of her cheeks, and finally put her +to death with the most cruel tortures; and how her broken-hearted +boy-lord, dethroned and hunted, died before reaching twenty,--is a +standing dish of the pathetic. Unfortunately, the story, handed down +to us with much detail, appears to be true. We must not accept it, +however, as an average illustration of life in that age of England. +The five hundred years before the Conquest do not equal, in the bloody +character of their annals, the like period succeeding it. Barbarous +enough the Anglo-Saxons were, but wanton cruelty does not seem to have +been one of their traits. To produce it some access of religious fury +was usually requisite. It was on the church doors that the skins of +their Danish invaders were nailed. + +[Illustration: WALTON CHURCH.] + +[Illustration: KINGSTON CHURCH.] + +Kingston has no more Dunstans. Alexandra would be perfectly safe in +its market-place. The rosy maidens who pervade its streets need not +envy her cheeks, and the saints and archbishops who are to officiate +at her husband's induction as head of the Anglican Church have their +anxieties at present directed to wholly different quarters. They have +foes within and foes without, but none in the palace. + +Kingston bids fair to revert, after a sort, to the metropolitan +position it boasted once, but has lost for nine centuries. The capital +is coming to it, and will cover the four remaining miles within +a decade or two at the existing rate of progress. Kingston may be +assigned to the suburbs already. It is much nearer London, in point +of time, than Union Square in New York to the City Hall. A slip of +country not yet endowed with trottoirs and gas-lamps intervenes. Call +this park, as you do the square miles of such territory already deep +within the metropolis. + +London's jurisdiction, as marked by the Boundary Stone, extends much +farther up the river than we have as yet gone. Nor are the swans her +only vicegerents. The myrmidons of Inspector Bucket, foot and horse, +supplement those natatory representatives. So do the municipalities +encroach upon and overspread the country, as it is eminently proper +they should, seeing that to the charters so long ago exacted, and so +long and so jealously guarded, by the towns, so much of the liberty +enjoyed by English-speaking peoples is due. Large cities may be under +some circumstances, according to an often-quoted saying, plague-spots +on the body politic, but their growth has generally been commensurate +with that of knowledge and order, and indicative of anything but a +diseased condition of the national organism. + +But here we are, under the shadow of the departed Nine Elms and of +the official palace of the Odos, deep enough in Lunnon to satisfy the +proudest Cockney, in less time than we have taken in getting off that +last commonplace on political economy. Adam Smith and Jefferson never +undertook to meditate at thirty-five miles an hour. + +EDWARD C. BRUCE. + + + + +LINES WRITTEN AT VENICE IN OCTOBER, 1865. + + Sleep, Venice, sleep! the evening gun resounds + Over the waves that rock thee on their breast: + The bugle blare to kennel calls the hounds + Who sleepless watch thy waking and thy rest. + + Sleep till the night-stars do the day-star meet, + And shuddering echoes o'er the water run, + Rippling through every glass-green, wavering street + The stern good-morrow of thy guardian Hun. + + Still do thy stones, O Venice! bid rejoice, + With their old majesty, the gazer's eye, + In their consummate grace uttering a voice, + From every line, of blended harmony. + + Still glows the splendor of the wondrous dreams + Vouchsafed thy painters o'er each sacred shrine, + And from the radiant visions downward streams + In visible light an influence divine. + + Still through thy golden day and silver night + Sings his soft jargon the gay gondolier, + And o'er thy floors of liquid malachite + Slide the black-hooded barks to mystery dear. + + Like Spanish beauty in its sable veil, + They rustle sideling through the watery way, + The wild, monotonous cry with which they hail + Each other's passing dying far away. + + As each steel prow grazes the island strands + Still ring the sweet Venetian voices clear, + And wondering wanderers from far, free lands + Entranced look round, enchanted listen here. + + From the far lands of liberty they come-- + England's proud children and her younger race; + Those who possess the Past's most noble home, + And those who claim the Future's boundless space. + + Pitying they stand. For thee who would not weep? + Well it beseems these men to weep for thee, + Whose flags (as erst they own) control the deep, + Whose conquering sails o'ershadow every sea. + + Yet not in pity only, but in hope, + Spring the hot tears the brave for thee may shed: + Thy chain shall prove but a sand-woven rope; + But sleep thou still: the sky is not yet red. + + Sleep till the mighty helmsman of the world, + By the Almighty set at Fortune's wheel, + Steers toward thy freedom, and, once more unfurled, + The banner of St. Mark the sun shall feel. + + Then wake, then rise, then hurl away thy yoke, + Then dye with crimson that pale livery, + Whose ghastly white has been the jailer's cloak + For years flung o'er thy shame and misery! + + Rise with a shout that down thy Giants' Stair + Shall thy old giants bring with thundering tread-- + The blind crusader standing stony there, + And him, the latest of thy mighty dead. + + Whose patriot heart broke at the Austrian's foot, + Whose ashes under the black marble lie, + From whose dry dust, stirred by the voice, shall shoot + The glorious growth of living liberty. + + FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. + + + + +SKETCHES OF INDIA. + +I. + + +"Come," says my Hindu friend, "let us do Bombay." + +The name of my Hindu friend is Bhima Gandharva. At the same time, his +name is _not_ Bhima Gandharva. But--for what is life worth if one may +not have one's little riddle?--in respect that he is _not_ so +named let him be so called, for thus will a pretty contradiction +be accomplished, thus shall I secure at once his privacy and his +publicity, and reveal and conceal him in a breath. + +It is eight o'clock in the morning. We have met--Bhima Gandharva and +I--in "The Fort." The Fort is to Bombay much as the Levee, with +its adjacent quarters, is to New Orleans; only it is--one may say +_Hibernice_--a great deal more so. It is on the inner or harbor side +of the island of Bombay. Instead of the low-banked Mississippi, the +waters of a tranquil and charming haven smile welcome out yonder from +between wooded island-peaks. Here Bombay has its counting-houses, its +warehouses, its exchange, its "Cotton Green," its docks. But not its +dwellings. This part of the Fort where we have met is, one may say, +only inhabited for six hours in the day--from ten in the morning until +four in the afternoon. At the former hour Bombay is to be found +here engaged at trade: at the latter it rushes back into the various +quarters outside the Fort which go to make up this many-citied city. +So that at this particular hour of eight in the morning one must +expect to find little here that is alive, except either a philosopher, +a stranger, a policeman or a rat. + +"Well, then," I said as Bhima Gandharva finished communicating this +information to me, "we are all here." + +"How?" + +"There stand you, a philosopher; here I, a stranger; yonder, the +policeman; and, heavens and earth! what a rat!" I accompanied this +exclamation by shooing a big musky fellow from behind a bale of cotton +whither I had just seen him run. + +Bhima Gandharva smiled in a large, tranquil way he has, which is like +an Indian plain full of ripe corn. "I find it curious," he said, "to +compare the process which goes on here in the daily humdrum of trade +about this place with that which one would see if one were far up +yonder at the northward, in the appalling solitudes of the mountains, +where trade has never been and will never be. Have you visited the +Himalaya?" + +I shook my head. + +"Among those prodigious planes of snow," continued the Hindu, "which +when level nevertheless frighten you as if they were horizontal +precipices, and which when perpendicular nevertheless lull you with a +smooth deadly half-sense of confusion as to whether you should refer +your ideas of space to the slope or the plain, there reigns at this +moment a quietude more profound than the Fort's. But presently, as +the sun beats with more fervor, rivulets begin to trickle from exposed +points; these grow to cataracts and roar down the precipices; masses +of undermined snow plunge into the abysses; the great winds of the +Himalaya rise and howl, and every silence of the morning becomes +a noise at noon. A little longer, and the sun again decreases; the +cataracts draw their heads back into the ice as tortoises into their +shells; the winds creep into their hollows, and the snows rest. So +here. At ten the tumult of trade will begin: at four it will quickly +freeze again into stillness. One might even carry this parallelism +into more fanciful extremes. For, as the vapors which lie on the +Himalaya in the form of snow have in time come from all parts of the +earth, so the tide of men that will presently pour in here is made up +of people from the four quarters of the globe. The Hindu, the African, +the Arabian, the Chinese, the Tartar, the European, the American, the +Parsee, will in a little while be trading or working here." + +[Illustration: A DWELLING AT MAZAGON.] + +"What a complete _bouleversement_," I said, seating myself on a +bale of cotton and looking toward the fleets of steamers and vessels +collected off the great cotton-presses awaiting their cargoes, "this +particular scene effects in the mind of a traveler just from America! +India has been to me, as the average American, a dream of terraced +ghauts, of banyans and bungalows, of Taj Mahals and tigers, of sacred +rivers and subterranean temples, and--and that sort of thing. I +come here and land in a big cotton-yard. I ask myself, 'Have I left +Jonesville--dear Jonesville!--on the other side of the world, in order +to sit on an antipodal cotton-bale?'" + +"There is some more of India," said Bhima Gandharva gently. "Let us +look at it a little." + +One may construct a good-enough outline map of this wonderful land in +one's mind by referring its main features to the first letter of the +alphabet. Take a capital A; turn it up side down; imagine that the +inverted triangle forming the lower half of the letter is the +Deccan, the left side representing the Western Ghauts, the right side +representing the Eastern Ghauts, and the cross-stroke standing for +the Vindhya Mountains; imagine further that a line from right to left +across the upper ends of the letter, trending upward as it is drawn, +represents the Himalaya, and that enclosed between them and the +Vindhyas is Hindustan proper. Behind--i.e. to the north of--the +centre of this last line rises the Indus, flowing first north-westward +through the Vale of Cashmere, then cutting sharply to the south and +flowing by the way of the Punjab and Scinde to where it empties at +Kurrachee. Near the same spot where the Indus originates rises also +the Brahmaputra, but the latter empties its waters far from the +former, flowing first south-eastward, then cutting southward and +emptying into the Gulf of Bengal. Fixing, now, in the mind the sacred +Ganges and Jumna, coming down out of the Gangetic and Jumnatic peaks +in a general south-easterly direction, uniting at Allahabad and +emptying into the Bay of Bengal, and the Nerbudda River flowing over +from the east to the west, along the southern bases of the Vindhyas, +until it empties at the important city of Brooch, a short distance +north of Bombay, one will have thus located a number of convenient +points and lines sufficient for general references. + +This A of ours is a very capital A indeed, being some nineteen hundred +miles in length and fifteen hundred in width. Lying on the western +edge of this peninsula is Bombay Island. It is crossed by the line +of 19° north latitude, and is, roughly speaking, halfway between the +Punjab on the north and Ceylon on the south. Its shape is that of a +lobster, with his claws extended southward and his body trending +a little to the west of north. The larger island of Salsette lies +immediately north, and the two, connected by a causeway, enclose the +noble harbor of Bombay. Salsette approaches near to the mainland at +its northern end, and is connected with it by the railway structure. +These causeways act as break-waters and complete the protection of the +port. The outer claw, next to the Indian Ocean, of the lobster-shaped +Bombay Island is the famous Malabar Hill; the inner claw is the +promontory of Calaba; in the curved space between the two is the body +of shallow water known as the Back Bay, along whose strand so many +strange things are done daily. As one turns into the harbor around +the promontory of Calaba--which is one of the European quarters of the +manifold city of Bombay, and is occupied by magnificent residences +and flower-gardens--one finds just north of it the great docks and +commercial establishments of the Fort; then an enormous esplanade +farther north; across which, a distance of about a mile, going still +northward, is the great Indian city called Black Town, with its motley +peoples and strange bazars; and still farther north is the Portuguese +quarter, known as Mazagon. + +As we crossed the great esplanade to the north of the Fort--Bhima +Gandharva and I--and strolled along the noisy streets, I began to +withdraw my complaint. It was not like Jonesville. It was not like any +one place or thing, but like a hundred, and all the hundred _outré_ +to the last degree. Hindu beggars, so dirty that they seemed to have +returned to dust before death; three fakirs, armed with round-bladed +daggers with which they were wounding themselves apparently in the +most reckless manner, so as to send streams of blood flowing to the +ground, and redly tattooing the ashes with which their naked bodies +were covered; Parsees with their long noses curving over their +moustaches, clothed in white, sending one's thoughts back to Ormuz, +to Persia, to Zoroaster, to fire-worship and to the strangeness of the +fate which drove them out of Persia more than a thousand years ago, +and which has turned them into the most industrious traders and +most influential citizens of a land in which they are still exiles; +Chinese, Afghans--the Highlanders of the East--Arabs, Africans, +Mahrattas, Malays, Persians, Portuguese half-bloods; men that called +upon Mohammed, men that called upon Confucius, upon Krishna, upon +Christ, upon Gotama the Buddha, upon Rama and Sita, upon Brahma, upon +Zoroaster; strange carriages shaded by red domes that compressed +a whole dream of the East in small, and drawn by humped oxen, +alternating with palanquins, with stylish turnouts of the latest mode, +with cavaliers upon Arabian horses; half-naked workmen, crouched +in uncomfortable workshops and ornamenting sandal-wood boxes; dusky +curb-stone shopkeepers, rushing at me with strenuous offerings of +their wares; lines of low shop-counters along the street, backed by +houses rising in many stories, whose black pillared verandahs +were curiously carved and painted: cries, chafferings, bickerings, +Mussulman prayers, Arab oaths extending from "Praise God that you +exist" to "Praise God _although_ you exist;"--all these things +appealed to the confused senses. + +The tall spire of a Hindu temple revealed itself. + +[Illustration: HINDU TEMPLE IN THE BLACK TOWN, BOMBAY.] + +"It seems to me," I said to Bhima Gandharva, "that your steeples--as +we would call them in Jonesville--represent, in a sort of way, your +cardinal doctrine: they seem to be composed of a multitude of little +steeples, all like the big one, just as you might figure your Supreme +Being in the act of absorbing a large number of the faithful who had +just arrived from the dismal existence below. And then, again, your +steeple looks as if it might be the central figure of your theistic +scheme, surrounded by the three hundred millions of your lesser +deities. How do you get on, Bhima Gandharva, with so many claims on +your worshiping faculties? I should think you would be well lost in +such a jungle of gods?" + +"My friend," said Bhima Gandharva, "a short time ago a play was +performed in this city which purported to be a translation into the +Mahratta language of the _Romeo and Juliet_ which Shakespeare wrote. +It was indeed a very great departure from that miraculous work, which +I know well, but among its many deviations from the original was one +which for the mournful and yet humorous truth of it was really worthy +of the Master. Somehow, the translator had managed to get a modern +Englishman into the play, who, every time that one of my countrymen +happened to be found in leg-reach, would give him a lusty kick and cry +out 'Damn fool!' Why is the whole world like this Englishman?--upon +what does it found its opinion that the Hindu is a fool? Is it upon +our religion? Listen! I will recite you some matters out of our +scriptures: Once upon a time Arjuna stood in his chariot betwixt +his army and the army of his foes. These foes were his kinsmen. +Krishna--even that great god Krishna--moved by pity for Arjuna, had +voluntarily placed himself in Arjuna's chariot and made himself the +charioteer thereof. Then--so saith Sanjaya--in order to encourage him, +the ardent old ancestor of the Kurus blew his conch-shell, sounding +loud as the roar of a lion. Then on a sudden trumpets, cymbals, drums +and horns were sounded. That noise grew to an uproar. And, standing on +a huge car drawn by white horses, the slayer of Madhu and the son +of Pandu blew their celestial trumpets. Krishna blew his horn called +Panchajanya; the Despiser of Wealth blew his horn called the Gift +of the Gods; he of dreadful deeds and wolfish entrails blew a great +trumpet called Paundra; King Yudishthira, the son of Kunti, blew the +Eternal Victory; Nakula and Sahadeva blew the Sweet-toned and the +Blooming-with-Jewels. The king of Kashi, renowned for the excellence +of his bow, and Shikandin in his huge chariot, Dhrishtyadumna, and +Virata, and Satyaki, unconquered by his foes, and Drupada and the sons +of Drupadi all together, and the strong-armed son of Subhadrá, each +severally blew their trumpets. That noise lacerated the hearts of the +sons of Dhartarashtra, and uproar resounded both through heaven and +earth. Now when Arjuna beheld the Dhartarashtras drawn up, and that +the flying of arrows had commenced, he raised his bow, and then +addressed these words to Krishna: + +"'Now that I have beheld this kindred standing here near together for +the purpose of fighting, my limbs give way and my face is bloodless, +and tremor is produced throughout my body, and my hair stands on end. +My bow Gandiva slips from my hand, and my skin burns. Nor am I able +to remain upright, and my mind is as it were whirling round. Nor do I +perceive anything better even when I shall have slain these relations +in battle, I seek not victory, Krishna, nor a kingdom, nor pleasures. +What should we do with a kingdom, Govinda? What with enjoyments, or +with life itself? Those very men on whose account we might desire a +kingdom, enjoyments or pleasures are assembled for battle. Teachers, +fathers, and even sons, and grandfathers, uncles, fathers-in-law, +grandsons, brothers-in-law, with connections also,--these I would not +wish to slay, though I were slain myself, O Killer of Madhu! not even +for the sake of the sovereignty of the triple world--how much less +for that of this earth! When we had killed the Dhartarashtras, what +pleasure should we have, O thou who art prayed to by mortals? How +could we be happy after killing our own kindred, O Slayer of Madhu? +Even if they whose reason is obscured by covetousness do not perceive +the crime committed in destroying their own tribe, should we not +know how to recoil from such a sin? In the destruction of a tribe +the eternal institutions of the tribe are destroyed. These laws being +destroyed, lawlessness prevails. From the existence of lawlessness the +women of the tribe become corrupted; and when the women are corrupted, +O son of Vrishni! confusion of caste takes place. Confusion of caste +is a gate to hell. Alas! we have determined to commit a great crime, +since from the desire of sovereignty and pleasures we are prepared to +slay our own kin. Better were it for me if the Dhartarashtras, being +armed, would slay me, harmless and unresisting in the fight.' + +[Illustration: JAIN TEMPLES AT SUNAGHUR.] + +"Having thus spoken in the midst of the battle, Arjuna, whose heart +was troubled with grief, let fall his bow and arrow and sat down on +the bench of the chariot." + +"Well," I asked after a short pause, during which the Hindu kept his +eyes fixed in contemplation on the spire of the temple, "what did +Krishna have to say to that?" + +"He instructed Arjuna, and said many wise things. I will tell you +some of them, here and there, as they are scattered through the +holy _Bhagavad-Gitá_: Then between the two armies, Krishna, smiling, +addressed these words to him, thus downcast: + +"'Thou hast grieved for those who need not be grieved for, yet thou +utterest words of wisdom. The wise grieve not for dead or living. But +never at any period did I or thou or these kings of men not exist, nor +shall any of us at any time henceforward cease to exist. There is no +existence for what does not exist, nor is there any non-existence for +what exists.... These finite bodies have been said to belong to an +eternal, indestructible and infinite spirit.... He who believes that +this spirit can kill, and he who thinks that it can be killed--both of +these are mistaken. It neither kills nor is killed. It is born, and +it does not die.... Unborn, changeless, eternal both as to future and +past time, it is not slain when the body is killed.... As the soul +in this body undergoes the changes of childhood, prime and age, so it +obtains a new body hereafter.... As a man abandons worn-out clothes +and take other new ones, so does the soul quit worn-out bodies and +enter other new ones. Weapons cannot cleave it, fire cannot burn +it, nor can water wet it, nor can wind dry it. It is impenetrable, +incombustible, incapable of moistening and of drying. It is constant; +it can go everywhere; it is firm, immovable and eternal. And even +if thou deem it born with the body and dying with the body, still, +O great-armed one! thou art not right to grieve for it. For to +everything generated death is certain: to everything dead regeneration +is certain.... One looks on the soul as a miracle; another speaks of +it as a miracle; another hears of it as a miracle; but even when he +has heard of it, not one comprehends it.... When a man's heart is +disposed in accordance with his roaming senses, it snatches away his +spiritual knowledge as the wind does a ship on the waves.... He who +does not practice devotion has neither intelligence nor reflection. +And he who does not practice reflection has no calm. How can a man +without calm obtain happiness? The self-governed man is awake in that +which is night to all other beings: that in which other beings are +awake is night to the self-governed. He into whom all desires enter in +the same manner as rivers enter the ocean, which is always full, yet +does not change its bed, can obtain tranquillity.... Love or hate +exists toward the object of each sense. One should not fall into the +power of these two passions, for they are one's adversaries.... Know +that passion is hostile to man in this world. As fire is surrounded +by smoke, and a mirror by rust, and a child by the womb, so is this +universe surrounded by passion.... They say that the senses are great. +The heart is greater than the senses. But the intellect is greater +than the heart, and passion is greater than the intellect.... + +[Illustration: THE VESTIBULE OF THE GRAND SHAÎTYA OK KARLI.] + +"'I and thou, O Arjuna! have passed through many transmigrations. I +know all these. Thou dost not know them.... For whenever there is a +relaxation of duty, O son of Bharata! and an increase of impiety, +I then reproduce myself for the protection of the good and the +destruction of evil-doers. I am produced in every age for the purpose +of establishing duty.... Some sacrifice the sense of hearing and the +other senses in the fire of restraint. Others, by abstaining from +food, sacrifice life in their life. (But) the sacrifice of spiritual +knowledge is better than a material sacrifice.... By this knowledge +thou wilt recognize all things whatever in thyself, and then in me. He +who possesses faith acquires spiritual knowledge. He who is devoid of +faith and of doubtful mind perishes. The man of doubtful mind enjoys +neither this world nor the other, nor final beatitude. Therefore, +sever this doubt which exists in thy heart, and springs from +ignorance, with thy sword of knowledge: turn to devotion and arise, O +son of Bharata!... + +"'Learn my superior nature, O hero! by means of which this world is +sustained. I am the cause of the production and dissolution of the +whole universe. There exists no other thing superior to me. On me are +all the worlds suspended, as numbers of pearls on a string. I am the +savor of waters, and the principle of light in the moon and sun, the +mystic syllable _Om_ in the Vedas, the sound in the ether, the essence +of man in men, the sweet smell in the earth; and I am the brightness +in flame, the vitality in all beings, and the power of mortification +in ascetics. Know, O son of Prithá! that I am the eternal seed of all +things which exist. I am the intellect of those who have intellect: +I am the strength of the strong.... And know that all dispositions, +whether good, bad or indifferent, proceed also from me. I do not exist +in them, but they in me.... I am dear to the spiritually wise beyond +possessions, and he is dear to me. A great-minded man who is convinced +that _Vasudevu_ (Krishna) _is everything_ is difficult to find.... +If one worships any inferior personage with faith, I make his faith +constant. Gifted with such faith, he seeks the propitiation of this +personage, and from him receives the pleasant objects of his desires, +which (however) were sent by me alone. But the reward of these +little-minded men is finite. They who sacrifice to the gods go to the +gods: they who worship me come to me. I am the immolation. I am the +whole sacrificial rite. I am the libation to ancestors. I am the +drug. I am the incantation. I am the fire. I am the incense. I am +the father, the mother, the sustainer, the grandfather of this +universe--the path, the supporter, the master, the witness, the +habitation, the refuge, the friend, the origin, the dissolution, the +place, the receptacle, the inexhaustible seed. I heat. I withhold +and give the rain. I am ambrosia and death, the existing and the +non-existing. Even those who devoutly worship other gods with the gift +of faith worship me, but only improperly. I am the same to all beings. +I have neither foe nor friend. I am the beginning and the middle and +the end of existing things. Among bodies I am the beaming sun. Among +senses I am the heart. Among waters I am the ocean. Among mountains I +am Himalaya. Among trees I am the banyan; among men, the king; among +weapons, the thunderbolt; among things which count, time; among +animals, the lion; among purifiers, the wind. I am Death who seizes +all: I am the birth of those who are to be. I am Fame, Fortune, +Speech, Memory, Meditation, Perseverance and Patience among feminine +words. I am the game of dice among things which deceive: I am splendor +among things which are shining. Among tamers I am the rod; among means +of victory I am polity; among mysteries I am silence, the knowledge of +the wise.... + +"'They who know me to be the God of this universe, the God of gods and +the God of worship--they who know me to be the God of this universe, +the God of gods and the God of worship--yea, they who know me to be +these things in the hour of death, they know me indeed.'" + +[Illustration: SCULPTURED FIGURES IN THE VESTIBULE OF THE GREAT +SHAÎTYA OF KARLI.] + +When my friend finished these words there did not seem to be anything +particular left in heaven or earth to talk about. At any rate, there +was a dead pause for several minutes. Finally, I asked--and I protest +that in contrast with the large matters wherof Bhima Gandharva had +discoursed my voice (which is American and slightly nasal) sounded +like nothing in the world so much as the squeak of a sick rat--"When +were these things written?" + +"At least nineteen hundred and seventy-five years ago, we feel sure. +How much earlier we do not know." + +We now directed our course toward the hospital for sick and disabled +animals which has been established here in the most crowded portion of +Black Town by that singular sect called the Jains, and which is only +one of a number of such institutions to be found in the large cities +of India. This sect is now important more by influence than by numbers +in India, many of the richest merchants of the great Indian cities +being among its adherents, though by the last census of British India +there appears to be but a little over nine millions of Jains and +Buddhists together, out of the one hundred and ninety millions of +Hindus in British India. The tenets of the Jains are too complicated +for description here, but it may be said that much doubt exists as +to whether it is an old religion of which Brahmanism and Buddhism are +varieties, or whether it is itself a variety of Buddhism. Indeed, +it does not seem well settled whether the pure Jain doctrine +was atheistical or theistical. At any rate, it is sufficiently +differentiated from Brahmanism by its opposite notion of castes, and +from Buddhism by its cultus of nakedness, which the Buddhists abhor. +The Jains are split into two sects--the _Digambaras_, or nude Jains, +and the _Svetambaras_, or clothed Jains, which latter sect seem to +be Buddhists, who, besides the Tirthankars (i.e. mortals who have +acquired the rank of gods by devout lives, in whom all the Jains +believe), worship also the various divinities of the Vishnu system. +The Jains themselves declare this system to date from a period ten +thousand years before Christ, and they practically support this +traditional antiquity by persistently regarding and treating the +Buddhists as heretics from their system. At any event, their +religion is an old one. They seem to be the gymnosophists, or naked +philosophers, described by Clitarchos as living in India at the time +of the expedition of Alexander, and their history crops out in various +accounts--that of Clement of Alexandria, then of the Chinese Fu-Hian +in the fourth and fifth centuries, and of the celebrated Chinese +Hiouen-Tsang in the seventh century, at which last period they appear +to have been the prevailing sect in India, and to have increased +in favor until in the twelfth century the Rajpoots, who had become +converts to Jainism, were schismatized into Brahmanism and deprived +the naked philosophers of their prestige. + +The great distinguishing feature of the Jains is the extreme to which +they push the characteristic tenderness felt by the Hindus for animals +of all descriptions. Jaina is, distinctly, _the purified_. The priests +eat no animal food; indeed, they are said not to eat at all after +noon, lest the insects then abounding should fly into their mouths +and be crushed unwittingly. They go with a piece of muslin bound over +their mouths, in order to avoid the same catastrophe, and carry a soft +brush wherewith to remove carefully from any spot upon which they are +about to sit such insects as might be killed thereby. + +"Ah, how my countryman Bergh would luxuriate in this scene!" I said as +we stood looking upon the various dumb exhibitions of so many phases +of sickness, of decrepitude and of mishap--quaint, grotesque, yet +pathetic withal--in the precincts of the Jain hospital. Here were +quadrupeds and bipeds, feathered creatures and hairy creatures, large +animals and small, shy and tame, friendly and predatory--horses, +horned cattle, rats, cats, dogs, jackals, crows, chickens; what not. +An attendant was tenderly bandaging the blinking lids of a sore-eyed +duck: another was feeding a blind crow, who, it must be confessed, +looked here very much like some fat member of the New York Ring +cunningly availing himself of the more toothsome rations in the sick +ward of the penitentiary. My friend pointed out to me a heron with a +wooden leg. "Suppose a gnat should break his shoulder-blade," I said, +"would they put his wing in a sling?" + +[Illustrations: INTERIOR OF THE GREAT SHAÎTYA OF KARLI.] + +Bhima Gandharva looked me full in the face, and, smiling gently, said, +"They would if they could." + +The Jains are considered to have been the architects _par excellence_ +of India, and there are many monuments, in all styles, of their skill +in this kind. The strange statues of the Tirthankars in the gorge +called the Ourwhaï of Gwalior were (until injured by the "march of +improvement") among the most notable of the forms of rock-cutting. +These vary in size from statuettes of a foot in height to colossal +figures of sixty feet, and nothing can be more striking than these +great forms, hewn from the solid rock, represented entirely nude, +with their impassive countenances, which remind every traveler of +the Sphinx, their grotesque ears hanging down to their shoulders, and +their heads, about which plays a ring of serpents for a halo, or out +of which grows the mystical three-branched _Kalpa Vrich_, or Tree of +Knowledge. + +The sacred hill of Sunaghur, lying a few miles to the south of +Gwalior, is one of the Meccas of the Jains, and is covered with +temples in many styles, which display the fertility of their +architectural invention: there are over eighty of these structures in +all. + +"And now," said Bhima Gandharva next day, "while you are thinking upon +temples, and wondering if the Hindus have all been fools, you should +complete your collection of mental materials by adding to the sight +you have had of a Hindu temple proper, and to the description you have +had of Jain temples proper, a sight of those marvelous subterranean +works of the Buddhists proper which remain to us. We might select +our examples of these either at Ellora or at Ajunta (which are on the +mainland a short distance to the north-east of Bombay), the latter +of which contains the most complete series of purely Buddhistic caves +known in the country; or, indeed, we could find Buddhistic caves just +yonder on Salsette. But let us go and see Karli at once: it is the +largest _shaîtya_ (or cave-temple) in India." + +Accordingly, we took railway at Bombay, sped along the isle, over the +bridge to the island of Salsette, along Salsette to Tannah, then +over the bridge which connects Salsette with the mainland, across the +narrow head of Bombay harbor, and so on to the station at Khandalla, +about halfway between Bombay and Poonah, where we disembarked. The +caves of Karli are situated but a few miles from Khandalla, and in +a short time we were standing in front of a talus at the foot of a +sloping hill whose summit was probably five to six hundred feet high. +A flight of steps cut in the hillside led up to a ledge running out +from an escarpment which was something above sixty feet high before +giving off into the slope of the mountain. From the narrow and +picturesque valley a flight of steps cut in the hillside led up to the +platform. We could not see the façade of the shaîtya on account of +the concealing boscage of trees. On ascending the steps, however, and +passing a small square Brahmanic chapel, where we paid a trifling +fee to the priests who reside there for the purpose of protecting the +place, the entire front of the excavation revealed itself, and with +every moment of gazing grew in strangeness and solemn mystery. + +The shaîtya is hewn in the solid rock of the mountain. Just to the +left of the entrance stands a heavy pillar (_Silasthamba_) completely +detached from the temple, with a capital upon whose top stand four +lions back to back. On this pillar is an inscription in Pali, which +has been deciphered, and which is now considered to fix the date +of the excavation conclusively at not later than the second century +before the Christian era. The eye took in at first only the vague +confusion of windows and pillars cut in the rock. It is supposed +that originally a music-gallery stood here in front, consisting of +a balcony supported out from the two octagonal pillars, and probably +roofed or having a second balcony above. But the woodwork is now gone. +One soon felt one's attention becoming concentrated, however, upon a +great arched window cut in the form of a horseshoe, through which one +could look down what was very much like the nave of a church running +straight back into the depths of the hill. Certainly, at first, as one +passes into the strange vestibule which intervenes still between the +front and the interior of the shaîtya, one does not think at all--one +only _feels_ the dim sense of mildness raying out from the great +faces of the elephants, and of mysterious far-awayness conveyed by the +bizarre postures of the sculptured figures on the walls. + +Entering the interior, a central nave stretches back between two +lines of pillars, each of whose capitals supports upon its abacus two +kneeling elephants: upon each elephant are seated two figures, most +of which are male and female pairs. The nave extends eighty-one feet +three inches back, the whole length of the temple being one hundred +and two feet three inches. There are fifteen pillars on each side +the nave, which thus enclose between themselves and the wall two +side-aisles, each about half the width of the nave, the latter being +twenty-five feet and seven inches in width, while the whole width from +wall to wall is forty-five feet and seven inches. At the rear, in a +sort of apse, are seven plain octagonal pillars--the other thirty are +sculptured. Just in front of these seven pillars is the _Daghaba_--a +domed structure covered by a wooden parasol. The Daghaba is the +reliquary in which or under which some relic of Gotama Buddha +is enshrined. The roof of the shaîtya is vaulted, and ribs of +teak-wood--which could serve no possible architectural purpose--reveal +themselves, strangely enough, running down the sides. + +As I took in all these details, pacing round the dark aisles, and +finally resuming my stand near the entrance, from which I perceived +the aisles, dark between the close pillars and the wall, while the +light streamed through the great horseshoe window full upon the +Daghaba at the other end, I exclaimed to Bhima Gandharva, "Why, it is +the very copy of a Gothic church--the aisles, the nave, the vaulted +roof, and all--and yet you tell me it was excavated two thousand years +ago!" + +"The resemblance has struck every traveler," he replied. "And, strange +to say, all the Buddhist cave-temples are designed upon the same +general plan. There is always the organ-loft, as you see there; always +the three doors, the largest one opening on the nave, the smaller ones +each on its side-aisle; always the window throwing its light directly +on the Daghaba at the other end; always, in short, the general +arrangement of the choir of a Gothic round or polygonal apse +cathedral. It is supposed that the devotees were confined to the front +part of the temple, and that the great window through which the light +comes was hidden from view, both outside by the music-galleries and +screens, and inside through the disposition of the worshipers in +front. The gloom of the interior was thus available to the priests for +the production of effects which may be imagined." + +Emerging from the temple, we saw the Buddhist monastery (_Vihara_), +which is a series of halls and cells rising one above the other in +stories connected by flights of steps, all hewn in the face of the +hill at the side of the temple. We sat down on a fragment of rock near +a stream of water with which a spring in the hillside fills a little +pool at the entrance of the Vihara. "Tell me something of Gotama +Buddha," I said. "Recite some of his deliverances, O Bhima +Gandharva!--you who know everything." + +"I will recite to you from the _Sutta Nipata_, which is supposed by +many pundits of Ceylon to contain several of the oldest examples of +the Pali language. It professes to give the conversation of Buddha, +who died five hundred and forty-three years before Christ lived on +earth; and these utterances are believed by scholars to have been +brought together at least more than two hundred years before the +Christian era. The _Mahámangala Sutta_, of the _Nipata Sutta_, says, +for example: 'Thus it was heard by me. At a certain time Bhagavá +(Gotama Buddha) lived at Sávatthi in Jetavana, in the garden of +Anáthupindika. Then, the night being far advanced, a certain god, +endowed with a radiant color illuminating Jetavana completely, came to +where Bhagavá was, [and] making obeisance to him, stood on one side. +And, standing on one side, the god addressed Bhagavá in [these] +verses: + + "1. Many gods and men, longing after what is good, have + considered many things as blessings. Tell us what is the + greatest blessing. + + "2. Buddha said: Not serving fools, but serving the wise, and + honoring those worthy of being honored: this is the greatest + blessing. + + "3. The living in a fit country, meritorious deeds done in a + former existence, the righteous establishment of one's self: + this is the greatest blessing. + + "4. Extensive knowledge and science, well-regulated discipline + and well-spoken speech: this is the greatest blessing. + + "5. The helping of father and mother, the cherishing of child + and wife, and the following of a lawful calling: this is the + greatest blessing. + + "6. The giving alms, a religious life, aid rendered to + relatives, blameless acts: this is the greatest blessing. + + "7. The abstaining from sins and the avoiding them, the + eschewing of intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds: this + is the greatest blessing. + + "8. Reverence and humility, contentment and gratefulness, the + hearing of the law in the right time: this is the greatest + blessing. + + "9. Patience and mild speech, the association with those + who have subdued their passions, the holding of religious + discourse in the right time: this is the greatest blessing. + + "10. Temperance and charity, the discernment of holy truth, the + perception of Nibbána: this is the greatest blessing. + + "11. The mind of any one unshaken by the ways of the world, + exemption from sorrow, freedom from passion, and security: + this is the greatest blessing. + + "12. Those who having done these things become invincible on + all sides, attain happiness on all sides: this is the greatest + blessing." + +"At another time also Gotama Buddha was discoursing on caste. You know +that the Hindus are divided into the Brahmans, or the priestly +caste, which is the highest; next the Kshatriyas, or the warrior and +statesman caste; next the Vaishyas, or the herdsman and farmer caste; +lastly, the Sudras, or the menial caste. Now, once upon a time the two +youths Vásettha and Bháradvaja had a discussion as to what constitutes +a Brahman. Thus, Vásettha and Bháradvaja went to the place where +Bhagavá was, and having approached him were well pleased with him; and +having finished a pleasing and complimentary conversation, they sat +down on one side. Vásettha, who sat down on one side, addressed Buddha +in verse: ... + + "3. O Gotama! we have a controversy regarding [the distinctions + of] birth. Thus know, O wise one! the point of difference + between us: Bháradvaja says that a Brahman is such by reason + of his birth. + + "4. But I affirm that he is such by reason of his conduct.... + + "7. Bhagavá replied: ... + + "53. I call him alone a Brahman who is fearless, eminent, + heroic, a great sage, a conqueror, freed from attachments--one + who has bathed in the waters of wisdom, and is a Buddha. + + "54. I call him alone a Brahman who knows his former abode, who + sees both heaven and hell, and has reached the extinction of + births. + + "55. What is called 'name' or 'tribe' in the world arises from + usage only. It is adopted here and there by common consent. + + "56. It comes from long and uninterrupted usage, and from the + false belief of the ignorant. Hence the ignorant assert that a + Brahman is such from birth. + + "57. One is not a Brahman nor a non-Brahman by birth: by his + conduct alone is he a Brahman, and by his conduct alone is he + a non-Brahman, + + "58. By his conduct he is a husbandman, an artisan, a merchant, + a servant; + + "59. By his conduct he is a thief, a warrior, a sacrificer, a + king.... + + "62. One is a Brahman from penance, charity, observance of the + moral precepts and the subjugation of the passions. Such is + the best kind of Brahmanism." + +"That would pass for very good republican doctrine in Jonesville," I +said. "What a pity you have all so backslidden from your orthodoxies +here in India, Bhima Gandharva! In my native land there is a region +where many orange trees grow. Sometimes, when a tree is too heavily +fertilized, it suddenly shoots out in great luxuriance, and looks as +if it were going to make oranges enough for the whole world, so to +speak. But somehow, no fruit comes: it proves to be all wood and no +oranges, and presently the whole tree changes and gets sick and good +for nothing. It is a disease which the natives call 'the dieback.' +Now, it seems to me that when you old Aryans came from--from--well, +from wherever you _did_ come from--you branched out at first into a +superb magnificence of religions and sentiments and imaginations and +other boscage. But it looks now as if you were really bad off with the +dieback." + +It was, however, impossible to perceive that Bhima Gandharva's smile +was like anything other than the same plain full of ripe corn. + + + + +LADY ARTHUR EILDON'S DYING LETTER. + +I. + + +Lady Arthur Eildon was a widow: she was a remarkable woman, and her +husband, Lord Arthur Eildon, had been a remarkable man. He was a +brother of the duke of Eildon, and was very remarkable in his day for +his love of horses and dogs. But this passion did not lead him into +any evil ways: he was a thoroughly upright, genial man, with a frank +word for every one, and was of course a general favorite. "He'll just +come in and crack away as if he was ane o' oorsels," was a remark +often made concerning him by the people on his estates; for he had +estates which had been left to him by an uncle, and which, with +the portion that fell to him as a younger son, yielded him an ample +revenue, so that he had no need to do anything. + +What talents he might have developed in the army or navy, or even +in the Church, no one knows, for he never did anything in this world +except enjoy himself; which was entirely natural to him, and not the +hard work it is to many people who try it. He was in Parliament for +a number of years, but contented himself with giving his vote. He +did not distinguish himself. He was not an able or intellectual man: +people said he would never set the Thames on fire, which was true; +but if an open heart and hand and a frank tongue are desirable things, +these he had. As he took in food, and it nourished him without further +intervention on his part, so he took in enjoyment and gave it out to +the people round him with equal unconsciousness. Let it not be said +that such a man as this is of no value in a world like ours: he is at +once an anodyne and a stimulant of the healthiest and most innocent +kind. + +As was meet, he first saw the lady who was to be his wife in the +hunting-field. She was Miss Garscube of Garscube, an only child and +an heiress. She was a fast young lady when as yet fastness was a rare +development:--a harbinger of the fast period, the one swallow that +presages summer, but does not make it--and as such much in the mouths +of the public. + +Miss Garscube was said to be clever--she was certainly eccentric--and +she was no beauty, but community of tastes in the matter of horses and +dogs drew her and Lord Arthur together. + +On one of the choicest of October days, when she was following the +hounds, and her horse had taken the fences like a creature with wings, +he came to one which he also flew over, but fell on the other side, +throwing off his rider--on soft grass, luckily. But almost before an +exclamation of alarm could leave the mouths of the hunters behind, +Miss Garscube was on her feet and in the saddle, and her horse away +again, as if both had been ignorant of the little mishap that had +occurred. Lord Arthur was immediately behind, and witnessed this bit +of presence of mind and pluck with unfeigned admiration: it won his +heart completely; and on her part she enjoyed the genuineness of his +homage as she had never enjoyed anything before, and from that day +things went on and prospered between them. + +People who knew both parties regretted this, and shook their heads +over it, prophesying that no good could come of it. Miss Garscube's +will had never been crossed in her life, and she was a "clever" woman: +Lord Arthur would not submit to her domineering ways, and she would +wince under and be ashamed of his want of intellect. All this was +foretold and thoroughly believed by people having the most perfect +confidence in their own judgment, so that Lord Arthur and his wife +ought to have been, in the very nature of things, a most wretched +pair. But, as it turned out, no happier couple existed in Great +Britain. Their qualities must have been complementary, for they +dovetailed into each other as few people do; and the wise persons +who had predicted the contrary were entirely thrown out in their +calculations--a fact which they speedily forgot; nor did it diminish +their faith in their own wisdom, as, indeed, how could one slight +mistake stand against an array of instances in which their predictions +had been verified to the letter? + +Lord Arthur might not have the intellect which fixes the attention of +a nation, but he had plenty for his own fireside--at least, his wife +never discovered any want of it--and as for her strong will, they +had only one strong will between them, so that there could be no +collision. Being thus thoroughly attached and thoroughly happy, what +could occur to break up this happiness? A terrible thing came to +pass. Having had perfect health up to middle life, an acutely painful +disease seized Lord Arthur, and after tormenting him for more than a +year it changed his face and sent him away. + +There is nothing more striking than the calmness and dignity with +which people will meet death--even people from whom this could not +have been expected. No one who did not know it would have guessed how +Lord Arthur was suffering, and he never spoke of it, least of all to +his wife; while she, acutely aware of it and vibrating with sympathy, +never spoke of it to him; and they were happy as those are who know +that they are drinking the last drops of earthly happiness. He died +with his wife's hand in his grasp: she gave the face--dead, but with +the appearance of life not vanished from it--one long, passionate +kiss, and left him, nor ever looked on it again. + +Lady Arthur secluded herself for some weeks in her own room, seeing no +one but the servants who attended her; and when she came forth it was +found that her eccentricity had taken a curious turn: she steadily +ignored the death of her husband, acting always as if he had gone on a +journey and might at any moment return, but never naming him unless it +was absolutely necessary. She found comfort in this simulated delusion +no doubt, just as a child enjoys a fairy-tale, knowing perfectly well +all the time that it is not true. People in her own sphere said +her mind was touched: the common people about her affirmed without +hesitation that she was "daft." She rode no more, but she kept all +the horses and dogs as usual. She cultivated a taste she had for +antiquities; she wrote poetry--- ballad poetry--which people who were +considered judges thought well of; and flinging these and other things +into the awful chasm that had been made in her life, she tried her +best to fill it up. She set herself to consider the poor man's case, +and made experiments and gave advice which confirmed her poorer +brethren in their opinion that she was daft; but as her hand was +always very wide open, and they pitied her sorrow, she was much loved, +although they laughed at her zeal in preserving old ruins and her +wrath if an old stone was moved, and told, and firmly believed, that +she wrote and posted letters to Lord Arthur. What was perhaps more to +the purpose of filling the chasm than any of these things, Lady Arthur +adopted a daughter, an orphan child of a cousin of her own, who came +to her two years after her husband's death, a little girl of nine. + + +II. + +Alice Garscube's education was not of the stereotyped kind. When +she came to Garscube Hall, Lady Arthur wrote to the head-master of +a normal school asking if he knew of a healthy, sagacious, +good-tempered, clever girl who had a thorough knowledge of the +elementary branches of education and a natural taste for teaching. Mr. +Boyton, the head-master, replied that he knew of such a person whom he +could entirely recommend, having all the qualities mentioned; but +when he found that it was not a teacher for a village school that her +ladyship wanted, but for her own relation, he wrote to say that he +doubted the party he had in view would hardly be suitable: her father, +who had been dead for some years, was a workingman, and her mother, +who had died quite recently, supported herself by keeping a little +shop, and she herself was in appearance and manner scarcely enough +of the lady for such a situation. Now, Lady Arthur, though a firm +believer in birth and race, and by habit and prejudice an aristocrat +and a Tory, was, we know, eccentric by nature, and Nature will always +assert itself. She wrote to Mr. Boyton that if the girl he recommended +was all he said, she was a lady inside, and they would leave the +outside to shift for itself. Her ladyship had considered the matter. +She could get decayed gentlewomen and clergymen and officers' +daughters by the dozen, but she did not want a girl with a sickly +knowledge of everything, and very sickly ideas of her own merits and +place and work in the world: she wanted a girl of natural sagacity, +who from her cradle had known that she came into the world to do +something, and had learned how to do it. + +Miss Adamson, the normal-school young lady recommended, wrote thus to +Lady Arthur: + + "MADAM: I am very much tempted to take the situation you offer + me. If I were teacher of a village school, as I had intended, + when my work in the school was over I should have had my time + to myself; and I wish to stipulate that when the hours of + teaching Miss Garscube are over I may have the same privilege. + If you engage me, I think, so far as I know myself, you will + not be disappointed. + + "I am," etc. etc. + +To which Lady Arthur: + + "So far as I can judge, you are the very thing I want. Come, + and we shall not disagree about terms," etc. etc. + +Thus it came about that Miss Garscube was unusually lucky in the +matter of her education and Miss Adamson in her engagement. Although +eccentric to the pitch of getting credit for being daft, Lady Arthur +had a strong vein of masculine sense, which in all essential things +kept her in the right path. Miss Adamson and she suited each other +thoroughly, and the education of the two ladies and the child may be +said to have gone on simultaneously. Miss Adamson had an absorbing +pursuit: she was an embryo artist, and she roused a kindred taste in +her pupil; so that, instead of carrying on her work in solitude, as +she had expected to do, she had the intense pleasure of sympathy +and companionship. Lady Arthur often paid them long visits in their +studio; she herself sketched a little, but she had never excelled in +any single pursuit except horsemanship, and that she had given up at +her husband's death, as she had given up keeping much company or going +often into society. + +In this quiet, unexciting, regular life Lady Arthur's antiquarian +tastes grew on her, and she went on writing poetry, the quantity of +which was more remarkable than the quality, although here and there in +the mass of ore there was an occasional sparkle from fine gold (there +are few voluminous writers in which this accident does not occur). She +superintended excavations, and made prizes of old dust and stones +and coins and jewelry (or what was called ancient jewelry: it looked +ancient enough, but more like rusty iron to the untrained eye than +jewelry) and cooking utensils supposed to have been used by some noble +savages or other. Of these and such like she had a museum, and she +visited old monuments and cairns and Roman camps and Druidical remains +and old castles, and all old things, with increasing interest. There +were a number of places near or remote to which she was in the habit +of making periodical pilgrimages--places probably dear to her from +whim or association or natural beauty or antiquity. When she fixed a +time for such an excursion, no weather changed her purpose: it might +pour rain or deep snow might be on the ground: she only put four +horses to her carriage instead of two, and went on her way. She was +generally accompanied in these expeditions by her two young friends, +who got into the spirit of the thing and enjoyed them amazingly. They +were in the habit of driving to some farm-house, where they left the +carriage and on foot ascended the hill they had come to call on, most +probably a hill with the marks of a Roman camp on it--there are many +such in the south of Scotland--hills called "the rings" by the people, +from the way in which the entrenchments circle round them like rings. + +Dear to Lady Arthur's heart was such a place as this. Even when the +ground was covered with snow or ice she would ascend with the help of +a stick or umbrella, a faint adumbration of the Alpine Club when as +yet the Alpine Club lurked in the future and had given no hint of its +existence. On the top of such a hill she would eat luncheon, thinking +of the dust of legions beneath her foot, and drink wine to the memory +of the immortals. The coachman and the footman who toiled up the hill +bearing the luncheon-basket, and slipping back two steps for every one +they took forward, had by no means the same respect for the immortal +heroes. The coachman was an old servant, and had a great regard for +Lady Arthur both as his mistress and as a lady of rank, besides being +accustomed to and familiar with her whims, and knowing, as he said, +"the best and the warst o' her;" but the footman was a new acquisition +and young, and he had not the wisdom to see at all times the duty of +giving honor to whom honor is due, nor yet had he the spirit of the +born flunkey; and his intercourse with the nobility, unfortunately, +had not impressed him with any other idea than that they were mortals +like himself; so he remarked to his fellow-servant, "Od! ye wad think, +if she likes to eat her lunch amang snawy slush, she might get enough +of it at the fut o' the hill, without gaun to the tap." + +"Weel, I'll no deny," said the older man, "but what it's daftlike, but +if it is her leddyship's pleasure, it's nae business o' oors." + +"Pleasure!" said the youth: "if she ca's this pleasure, her friends +should see about shutting her up: it's time." + +"She says the Romans once lived here," said John. + +"If they did," Thomas said, "I daur say _they_ had mair sinse than sit +down to eat their dinner in the middle o' snaw if they had a house to +tak it in." + +"Her leddyship does na' tak the cauld easy," said John. + +"She has the constitution o' a horse," Thomas remarked. + +"Man," said John, "that shows a' that ye ken about horses: there's no +a mair delicate beast on the face o' the earth than the horse. They +tell me a' the horses in London hae the influenza the now." + +"Weel, it'll be our turn next," said Thomas, "if we dinna tak +something warm." + +When luncheon was over her ladyship as often as not ordered her +servants to take the carriage round by the turnpike-road to a given +point, where she arranged to meet it, while she herself struck right +over the hills as the crow flies, crossing the burns on her way in the +same manner as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, only the water did +not stand up on each side and leave dry ground for her to tread on; +but she ignored the water altogether, and walked straight through. +The young ladies, knowing this, took an extra supply of stockings and +shoes with them, but Lady Arthur despised such effeminate ways and +drove home in the footgear she set out in. She was a woman of robust +health, and having grown stout and elderly and red-faced, when out +on the tramp and divested of externals she might very well have been +taken for the eccentric landlady of a roadside inn or the mistress +of a luncheon-bar; and probably her young footman did not think she +answered to her own name at all. + +There is a divinity that doth hedge a king, but it is the king's +wisdom to keep the hedge close and well trimmed and allow no gaps: if +there are gaps, people see through them and the illusion is destroyed. +Lady Arthur was not a heroine to her footman; and when she traversed +the snow-slush and walked right through the burns, he merely endorsed +the received opinion that she wanted "twopence of the shilling." If +she had been a poor woman and compelled to take such a journey in such +weather, people would have felt sorry for her, and have been ready to +subscribe to help her to a more comfortable mode of traveling; but +in Lady Arthur's case of course there was nothing to be done but to +wonder at her eccentricity. + +But her ladyship knew what she was about. The sleep as well as the +food of the laboring man is sweet, and if nobility likes to labor, it +will partake of the poor man's blessing. The party arrived back among +the luxurious appointments of Garscube Hall (which were apt to pall on +them at times) legitimately and bodily _tired_, and that in itself +was a sensation worth working for. They had braved difficulty and +discomfort, and not for a nonsensical and fruitless end, either: it +can never be fruitless or nonsensical to get face to face with Nature +in any of her moods. The ice-locked streams, the driven snow, the +sleep of vegetation, a burst of sunshine over the snow, the sough of +the winter wind, Earth waiting to feel the breath of spring on her +face to waken up in youth and beauty again, like the sleeping princess +at the touch of the young prince,--all these are things richly to +be enjoyed, especially by strong, healthy people: let chilly and +shivering mortals sing about cozy fires and drawn curtains if they +like. Besides, Miss Adamson had the eye of an artist, upon which +nothing, be it what it may, is thrown away. + +But an expedition to a hill with "rings" undertaken on a long +midsummer day looked fully more enjoyable to the common mind: John, +and even the footman approved of that, and another individual, who +had become a frequent visitor at the hall, approved of it very highly +indeed, and joined such a party as often as he could. + +This was George Eildon, the only son of a brother of the late Lord +Arthur. + +Now comes the tug--well, not of war, certainly, but, to change the +figure--now comes the cloud no bigger than a man's hand which is to +obscure the quiet sunshine of the regular and exemplary life of these +three ladies. + +Having been eight years at Garscube Hall, as a matter of necessity +and in the ordinary course of Nature, Alice Garscube had grown up to +womanhood. With accustomed eccentricity, Lady Arthur entirely +ignored this. As for bringing her "out," as the phrase is, she had +no intention of it, considering that one of the follies of life: Lady +Arthur was always a law to herself. Alice was a shy, amiable girl, who +loved her guardian fervently (her ladyship had the knack of gaining +love, and also of gaining the opposite in pretty decisive measure), +and was entirely swayed by her; indeed, it never occurred to her +to have a will of her own, for her nature was peculiarly sweet and +guileless. + + +III. + +Lady Arthur thought George Eildon a good-natured, rattling lad, with +very little head. This was precisely the general estimate that had +been formed of her late husband, and people who had known both thought +George the very fac-simile of his uncle Arthur. If her ladyship had +been aware of this, it would have made her very indignant: she had +thought her husband perfect while living, and thought of him as very +much more than perfect now that he lived only in her memory. But she +made George very welcome as often as he came: she liked to have him in +the house, and she simply never thought of Alice and him in connection +with each other. She always had a feeling of pity for George. + +"You know," she would say to Miss Adamson and Alice--"you know, George +was of consequence for the first ten years of his life: it was thought +that his uncle the duke might never marry, and he was the heir; +but when the duke married late in life and had two sons, George was +extinguished, poor fellow! and it was hard, I allow." + +"It is not pleasant to be a poor gentleman," said Miss Adamson. + +"It is not only not pleasant," said Lady Arthur, "but it is a +false position, which is very trying, and what few men can fill to +advantage. If George had great abilities, it might be different, with +his connection, but I doubt he is doomed to be always as poor as a +church mouse." + +"He may get on in his profession perhaps," said Alice, sharing in +Lady Arthur's pity for him. (George Eildon had been an attaché to some +foreign embassy.) + +"Never," said Lady Arthur decisively. "Besides, it is a profession +that is out of date now. Men don't go wilily to work in these days; +but if they did, the notion of poor George, who could not keep a +secret or tell a lie with easy grace if it were to save his life--the +notion of making him a diplomatist is very absurd. No doubt statesmen +are better without original ideas--their business is to pick out the +practical ideas of other men and work them well--but George wants +ability, poor fellow! They ought to have put him into the Church: he +reads well, he could have read other men's sermons very effectively, +and the duke has some good livings in his gift." + +Now, Miss Adamson had been brought up a Presbyterian of the +Presbyterians, and among people to whom "the paper" was abhorrent: +to read a sermon was a sin--to read another man's sermon was a sin +of double-dyed blackness. However, either her opinions were being +corrupted or enlightened, either she was growing lax in principle or +she was learning the lesson of toleration, for she allowed the remarks +of Lady Arthur to pass unnoticed, so that that lady did not need to +advance the well-known opinion and practice of Sir Roger de Coverley +to prop her own. + +Miss Adamson merely said, "Do you not underrate Mr. Eildon's +abilities?" + +"I think not. If he had abilities, he would have been showing them by +this time. But of course I don't blame him: few of the Eildons have +been men of mark--none in recent times except Lord Arthur--but they +have all been respectable men, whose lives would stand inspection; and +George is the equal of any of them in that respect. As a clergyman he +would have set a good example." + +Hearing a person always pitied and spoken slightingly of does not +predispose any one to fall in love with that person. Miss Garscube's +feelings of this nature still lay very closely folded up in the bud, +and the early spring did not come at this time to develop them in the +shape of George Eildon; but Mr. Eildon was sufficiently foolish and +indiscreet to fall in love with her. Miss Adamson was the only one of +the three ladies cognizant of this state of affairs, but as her creed +was that no one had any right to make or meddle in a thing of this +kind, she saw as if she saw not, though very much interested. She saw +that Miss Garscube was as innocent of the knowledge that she had made +a conquest as it was possible to be, and she felt surprised that Lady +Arthur's sight was not sharper. But Lady Arthur was--or at least had +been--a woman of the world, and the idea of a penniless man allowing +himself to fall in love seriously with a penniless girl in actual +life could not find admission into her mind: if she had been writing +a ballad it would have been different; indeed, if you had only known +Lady Arthur through her poetry, you might have believed her to be a +very, romantic, sentimental, unworldly person, for she really was all +that--on paper. + +Mr. Eildon was very frequently in the studio where Miss Adamson and +her pupil worked, and he was always ready to accompany them in their +excursions, and, Lady Arthur said, "really made himself very useful." + +It has been said that John and Thomas both approved of her ladyship's +summer expeditions in search of the picturesque, or whatever else she +might take it into her head to look for; and when she issued orders +for a day among the hills in a certain month of August, which had been +a specially fine month in point of weather, every one was pleased. +But John and Thomas found it nearly as hard work climbing with the +luncheon-basket in the heat of the midsummer sun as it was when they +climbed to the same elevation in midwinter; only they did not slip +back so fast, nor did they feel that they were art and part in a +"daftlike" thing. + +"Here," said Lady Arthur, raising her glass to her lips--"here is to +the memory of the Romans, on whose dust we are resting." + +"Amen!" said Mr. Eildon; "but I am afraid you don't find their dust a +very soft resting-place: they were always a hard people, the Romans." + +"They were a people I admire," said Lady Arthur. "If they had not been +called away by bad news from home, if they had been able to stay, our +civilization might have been a much older thing than it is.--What do +_you_ think, John?" she said, addressing her faithful servitor. "Less +than a thousand years ago all that stretch of country that we see so +richly cultivated and studded with cozy farm-houses was brushwood +and swamp, with a handful of savage inhabitants living in wigwams and +dressing in skins." + +"It may be so," said John--"no doubt yer leddyship kens best--but I +have this to say: if they were savages they had the makin' o' men in +them. Naebody'll gar me believe that the stock yer leddyship and me +cam o' was na a capital gude stock." + +"All right, John," said Mr. Eildon, "if you include me." + +"It was a long time to take, surely," said Alice--"a thousand years to +bring the country from brushwood and swamp to corn and burns confined +to their beds," + +"Nature is never in a hurry, Alice," replied Lady Arthur. + +"But she is always busy in a wonderfully quiet way," said Miss +Adamson. "Whenever man begins to work he makes a noise, but no one +hears the corn grow or the leaves burst their sheaths: even the clouds +move with noiseless grace." + +"The clouds are what no one can understand yet, I suppose," said Mr. +Eildon, "but they don't always look as if butter wouldn't melt in +their mouths, as they are doing to-day. What do you say to thunder?" + +"That is an exception: Nature does all her best work quietly." + +"So does man," remarked George Eildon. + +"Well, I dare say you are right, after all," said Miss Adamson, who +was sketching. "I wish I could paint in the glitter on the blade of +that reaping-machine down in the haugh there: see, it gleams every +time the sun's rays hit it. It is curious how Nature makes the most +of everything to heighten her picture, and yet never makes her bright +points too plentiful." + +Just at that moment the sun's rays seized a small pane of glass in the +roof of a house two or three miles off down the valley, and it shot +out light and sparkles that dazzled the eye to look at. + +"That is a fine effect," cried Alice: "it looks like the eye of an +archangel kindling up," + +"What a flight of fancy, Alice!" Lady Arthur said. "That +reaping-machine does its work very well, but it will be a long time +before it gathers a crust of poetry about it: stopping to clear +a stone out of its way is different from a lad and a lass on the +harvest-rig, the one stopping to take a thorn out of the finger of the +other." + +"There are so many wonderful things," said Alice, "that one gets +always lost among them. How the clouds float is wonderful, and that +with the same earth below and the same heaven above, the heather +should be purple, and the corn yellow, and the ferns green, is +wonderful; but not so wonderful, I think, as that a man by the touch +of genius should have made every one interested in a field-laborer +taking a thorn out of the hand of another field-laborer. Catch your +poet, and he'll soon make the machine interesting." + +"Get a thorn into your finger, Alice," said George Eildon, "and I'll +take it out if it is so interesting." + +"You could not make it interesting," said she. + +"Just try," he said. + +"But trying won't do. You know as well as I that there are things no +trying will ever do. I am trying to paint, for instance, and in time I +shall copy pretty well, but I shall never do more." + +"Hush, hush!" said Miss Adamson. "I'm often enough in despair myself, +and hearing you say that makes me worse. I rebel at having got just so +much brain and no more; but I suppose," she said with a sigh, "if +we make the best of what we have, it's all right, and if we had +well-balanced minds we should be contented." + +"Would you like to stay here longer among the hills and the sheep?" +said Lady Arthur. "I have just remembered that I want silks for my +embroidery, and I have time to go to town: I can catch the afternoon +train. Do any of you care to go?" + +"It is good to be here," said Mr. Eildon, "but as we can't stay +always, we may as well go now. I suppose." + +And John, accustomed to sudden orders, hurried off to get his horses +put to the carriage. + +Lady Arthur, upon the whole, approved of railways, but did not use +them much except upon occasion; and it was only by taking the train +she could reach town and be home for dinner on this day. + +They reached the station in time, and no more. Mr. Eildon ran and got +tickets, and John was ordered to be at the station nearest Garscube +Hall to meet them when they returned. + +Embroidery, being an art which high-born dames have practiced from the +earliest ages, was an employment that had always found favor in the +sight of Lady Arthur, and to which she turned when she wanted change +of occupation. She took a very short time to select her materials, and +they were back and seated in the railway carriage fully ten minutes +before the train started. They beguiled the time by looking about the +station: it was rather a different scene from that where they had been +in the fore part of the day. + +"There's surely a mistake," said Mr. Eildon, pointing to a large +picture hanging on the wall of three sewing-machines worked by three +ladies, the one in the middle being Queen Elizabeth in her ruff, the +one on the right Queen Victoria in her widow's cap: the princess +of Wales was very busy at the third. "Is not that what is called an +anachronism, Miss Adamson? Are not sewing-machines a recent invention? +There were none in Elizabeth's time, I think?" + +"There are people," said Lady Arthur, "who have neither common sense +nor a sense of the ridiculous." + +"But they have a sense of what will pay," answered her nephew. "That +appeals to the heart of the nation--that is, to the masculine heart. +If Queen Bess had been handling a lancet, and Queen Vic pounding in a +mortar with a pestle, assisted by her daughter-in-law, the case would +have been different; but they are at useful womanly work, and the +machines will sell. They have fixed themselves in our memories +already: that's the object the advertiser had when he pressed the +passion of loyalty into his service." + +"How will the strong-minded Tudor lady like to see herself revived in +that fashion, if she can see it?" asked Miss Garscube. + +"She'll like it well, judging by myself," said George: "that's true +fame. I should be content to sit cross-legged on a board, stitching +pulpit-robes, in a picture, if I were sure it would be hung up three +hundred years after this at all the balloon-stations and have the then +Miss Garscubes making remarks about me." + +"They might not make very complimentary remarks, perhaps," said Alice. + +"If they thought of me at all I should be satisfied," said he. + +"Couldn't you invent an iron bed, then?" said Miss Adamson, looking at +a representation of these articles hanging alongside the three royal +ladies. "Perhaps they'll last three hundred years, and if you could +bind yourself up with the idea of sweet repose--" + +"They won't last three hundred years," said Lady Arthur--"cheap and +nasty, new-fangled things!" + +"They maybe cheap and nasty," said George, "but new-fangled they are +not: they must be some thousands of years old. I am afraid, my dear +aunt, you don't read your Bible." + +"Don't drag the Bible in among your nonsense. What has it to do with +iron beds?" said Lady Arthur. + +"If you look into Deuteronomy, third chapter and eleventh verse," +said he "you'll find that Og, king of Bashar used an iron bed. It is +probably in existence yet, and it must be quite old enough to make it +worth your while to look after it: perhaps Mr. Cook would personally +conduct you, or if not I should be glad to be your escort." + +"Thank you," she said: "when I go in search of Og's bed I'll take you +with me." + +"You could not do better: I have the scent of a sleuth-hound for +antiquities." + +As they were speaking a man came and hung up beside the queens and +the iron beds a big white board on which were printed in large black +letters the words, "My Mother and I"--nothing more. + +"What _can_ the meaning of that be?" asked Lady Arthur. + +"To make you ask the meaning of it," said Mr. Eildon. "I who am +skilled in these matters have no doubt that it is the herald of some +soothing syrup for the human race under the trials of teething." He +was standing at the carriage-door till the train would start, and he +stood aside to let a young lady and a boy in deep mourning enter. The +pair were hardly seated when the girl's eye fell on the great white +board and its announcement. She bent her head and hid her face in her +handkerchief: it was not difficult to guess that she had very recently +parted with her mother for ever, and the words on the board were more +than she could stand unmoved. + +Miss Adamson too had been thinking of her mother, the hard-working +woman who had toiled in her little shop to support her sickly husband +and educate her daughter--the kindly patient face, the hands that had +never spared themselves, the footsteps that had plodded so incessantly +to and fro. The all that had been gone so long came back to her, and +she felt almost the pang of first separation, when it seemed as if the +end of her life had been extinguished and the motive-power for work +had gone. But she carried her mother in her heart: with her it was +still "my mother and I." + +Lady Arthur did not think of her mother: she had lost her early, +and besides, her thoughts and feelings had been all absorbed by her +husband. + +Alice Garscube had never known her mother, and as she looked gravely +at the girl who was crying behind her handkerchief, she envied +her--she had known her mother. + +As for Mr. Eildon, he had none but bright and happy thoughts connected +with his mother. It was true, she was a widow, but she was a kind and +stately lady, round whom her family moved as round a sun and centre, +giving light and heat and all good cheer; he could afford to joke +about "my mother and I." + +What a vast deal of varied emotion these words must have stirred in +the multitudes of travelers coming and going in all directions! + +In jumping into the carriage when the last bell rang, Mr. Eildon +missed his footing and fell back, with no greater injury, fortunately, +than grazing the skin, of his hand. + +"Is it much hurt?" Lady Arthur asked. + +He held it up and said, "'Who ran to help me when I fell?'" + +"The guard," said Miss Garscube. + +"'Who kissed the place to make it well?'" he continued. + +"You might have been killed," said Miss Adamson. + +"That would not have been a pretty story to tell," he said. "I shall +need to wait till I get home for the means of cure: 'my mother and I' +will manage it. You're not of a pitiful nature, Miss Garscube." + +"I keep my pity for a pitiful occasion," she said. + +"If you had grazed your hand, I would have applied the prescribed +cure." + +"Well, but I'm very glad I have not grazed my hand," + +"So am I," he said. + +"Let me see it," she said. He held it out. "Would something not need +to be done for it?" she asked. + +"Yes. Is it interesting--as interesting as the thorn?" + +"It is nothing," said Lady Arthur: "a little lukewarm water is all +that it needs;" and she thought, "That lad will never do anything +either for himself or to add to the prestige of the family. I hope his +cousins have more ability." + + +IV. + +But what these cousins were to turn out no one knew. They had that +rank which gives a man what is equivalent to a start of half a +lifetime over his fellows, and they promised well; but they were only +boys as yet, and Nature puts forth many a choice blossom and bud that +never comes to maturity, or, meeting with blight or canker on the way, +turns out poor fruit. The eldest, a lad in his teens, was traveling +on the Continent with a tutor: the second, a boy who had been always +delicate, was at home on account of his health. George Eildon was +intimate with both, and loved them with a love as true as that he bore +to Alice Garscube: it never occurred to him that they had come into +the world to keep him out of his inheritance. He would have laughed at +such an idea. Many people would have said that he was laughing on +the wrong side of his mouth: the worldly never can understand the +unworldly. + +Mr. Eildon gave Miss Garscube credit for being at least as unworldly +as himself: he believed thoroughly in her genuineness, her fresh, +unspotted nature; and, the wish being very strong, he believed that +she had a kindness for him. + +When he and his hand got home he found it quite able to write her +a letter, or rather not so much a letter as a burst of enthusiastic +aspiration, asking her to marry him. + +She was startled; and never having decided on anything in her life, +she carried this letter direct to Lady Arthur. + +"Here's a thing," she said, "that I don't know what to think of." + +"What kind of thing, Alice?" + +"A letter." + +"Who is it from?" + +"Mr. Eildon." + +"Indeed! I should not think a letter from him would be a complicated +affair or difficult to understand." + +"Neither is it: perhaps you would read it?" + +"Certainly, if you wish it." When she had read the document she said, +"Well I never gave George credit for much wisdom, but I did not think +he was foolish enough for a thing like this; and I never suspected it. +Are you in love too?" and Lady Arthur laughed heartily: it seemed to +strike her in a comic light. + +"No. I never thought of it or of him either," Alice said, feeling +queer and uncomfortable. + +"Then that simplifies matters. I always thought George's only chance +in life was to marry a wealthy woman, and how many good, accomplished +women there are, positively made of money, who would give anything to +marry into our family!" + +"Are there?" said Alice. + +"To be sure there are. Only the other day I read in a newspaper that +people are all so rich now money is no distinction: rank is, however. +You can't make a lawyer or a shipowner or an ironmaster into a peer of +several hundred years' descent." + +"No, you can't," said Alice; "but Mr. Eildon is not a peer, you know." + +"No, but he is the grandson of one duke and the nephew of another; and +if he could work for it he might have a peerage of his own, or if he +had great wealth he would probably get one. For my own part, I don't +count much on rank or wealth" (she believed this), "but they are +privileges people have no right to throw away." + +"Not even if they don't care for them?" asked Alice, + +"No: whatever you have it is your duty to care for and make the best +of." + +"Then, what am I to say to Mr. Eildon?" + +"Tell him it is absurd; and whatever you say, put it strongly, that +there may be no more of it. Why, he must know that you would be +beggars." + +Acting up to her instructions, Alice wrote thus to Mr. Eildon: + + "DEAR MR. EILDON: Your letter surprised me. Lady Arthur says + it is absurd; besides, I don't care for you a bit. I don't + mean that I dislike you, for I don't dislike any one. We + wonder you could be so foolish, and Lady Arthur says there + must be no more of it; and she is right. I hope you will + forget all about this, and believe me to be your true friend, + + "ALICE GARSCUBE. + + "P.S. Lady Arthur says you haven't got anything to live on; + but if you had all the wealth in the world, it wouldn't make + any difference. + + "A. G." + +This note fell into George Eildon's mind like molten lead dropped on +living flesh. "She is not what I took her to be," he said to +himself, "or she never could have written that, even at Lady Arthur's +suggestion; and Lady Arthur ought to have known better." + +And she certainly ought to have known better; yet he might have found +some excuse for Alice if he had allowed himself to think, but he did +not: he only felt, and felt very keenly. + +In saying that Mr. Eildon and Miss Garscube were penniless, the remark +is not to be taken literally, for he had an income of fifteen hundred +pounds, and she had five hundred a year of her own; but in the eyes of +people moving in ducal circles matrimony on two thousand pounds seems +as improvident a step as that of the Irishman who marries when he has +accumulated sixpence appears to ordinary beings. + +Mr. Eildon spent six weeks at a shooting-box belonging to his uncle +the duke, after which he went to London, where he got a post under +government--a place which was by no means a sinecure, but where there +was plenty of work not over-paid. Before leaving he called for a few +minutes at Garscube Hall to say good-bye, and that was all they saw of +him. + +Alice missed him: a very good thing, of which she had been as +unconscious as she was of the atmosphere, had been withdrawn from her +life. George's letter had nailed him to her memory: she thought of him +very often, and that is a dangerous thing for a young lady to do if +she means to keep herself entirely fancy free. She wondered if his +work was very hard work, and if he was shut in an office all day; she +did not think he was made for that; it seemed as unnatural as putting +a bird into a cage. She made some remark of this kind to Lady Arthur, +who laughed and said, "Oh, George won't kill himself with hard work." +From that time forth Alice was shy of speaking of him to his aunt. +But she had kept his letter, and indulged herself with a reading of it +occasionally; and every time she read it she seemed to understand it +better. It was a mystery to her how she had been so intensely stupid +as not to understand it at first. And when she found a copy of her own +answer to it among her papers--one she had thrown aside on account of +a big blot--she wondered if it was possible she had sent such a thing, +and tears of shame and regret stood in her eyes. "How frightfully +blind I was!" she said to herself. But there was no help for it: the +thing was done, and could not be undone. She had grown in wisdom since +then, but most people reach wisdom through ignorance and folly. + +In these circumstances she found Miss Adamson a very valuable friend. +Miss Adamson had never shared Lady Arthur's low estimate of Mr. +Eildon: she liked his sweet, unworldly nature, and she had a regard +for him as having aims both lower and higher than a "career." That +he should love Miss Garscube seemed to her natural and good, and +that happiness might be possible even to a duke's grandson on such a +pittance as two thousand pounds a year was an article of her belief: +she pitied people who go through life sacrificing the substance for +the shadow. Yes, Miss Garscube could speak of Mr. Eildon to her friend +and teacher, and be sure of some remark that gave her comfort. + + +V. + +A year sped round again, and they heard of Mr. Eildon being in +Scotland at the shooting, and as he was not very far off, they +expected to see him any time. But it was getting to the end of +September, and he had paid no visit, when one day, as the ladies were +sitting at luncheon, he came in, looking very white and agitated. They +were all startled: Miss Garscube grew white also, and felt herself +trembling. Lady Arthur rose hurriedly and said, "What is it, George? +what's the matter?" + +"A strange thing has happened," he said. "I only heard of it a +few minutes ago: a man rode after me with the telegram. My cousin +George--Lord Eildon--has fallen down a crevasse in the Alps and been +killed. Only a week ago I parted with him full of life and spirit, +and I loved him as if he had been my brother;" and he bent his head to +hide tears. + +They were all silent for some moments: then in a low voice Lady Arthur +said, "I am sorry for his father." + +"I am sorry for them all," George said. "It is terrible;" then after a +little he said, "You'll excuse my leaving you: I am going to Eildon at +once: I may be of some service to them. I don't know how Frank will be +able to bear this." + +After he had gone away Alice felt how thoroughly she was nothing to +him now: there had been no sign in his manner that he had ever thought +of her at all, more than of any other ordinary acquaintance. If he had +only looked to her for the least sympathy! But he had not. "If he only +knew how well I understand him now!" she thought. + +"It is a dreadful accident," said Lady Arthur, "and I am sorry for the +duke and duchess." She said this in a calm way. It had always been her +opinion that Lord Arthur's relations had never seen the magnitude of +_her_ loss, and this feeling lowered the temperature of her sympathy, +as a wind blowing over ice cools the atmosphere. "I think George's +grief very genuine," she continued: "at the same time he can't but see +that there is only that delicate lad's life, that has been hanging so +long by a hair, between him and the title." + +"Lady Arthur!" exclaimed Alice in warm tones. + +"I know, my dear, you are thinking me very unfeeling, but I am not: I +am only a good deal older than you. George's position to-day is very +different from what it was a year ago. If he were to write to you +again, I would advise another kind of answer." + +"He'll never write again," said Alice in a tone which struck the ear +of Lady Arthur, so that when the young girl left the room she turned +to Miss Adamson and said, "Do you think she really cares about him?" + +"She has not made me her confidante," that lady answered, "but my own +opinion is that she does care a good deal for Mr. Eildon." + +"Do you really think so?" exclaimed Lady Arthur. "She said she did not +at the time, and I thought then, and think still, that it would not +signify much to George whom he married; and you know he would be so +much the better for money. But if he is to be his uncle's successor, +that alters the case entirely. I'll go to Eildon myself, and bring him +back with me." + +Lady Arthur went to Eildon and mingled her tears with those of the +stricken parents, whose grief might have moved a very much harder +heart than hers. But they did not see the state of their only +remaining son as Lady Arthur and others saw it; for, while it was +commonly thought that he would hardly reach maturity, they were +sanguine enough to believe that he was outgrowing the delicacy of his +childhood. + +Lady Arthur asked George to return with her to Garscube Hall, but +he said he could not possibly do so. Then she said she had told Miss +Adamson and Alice that she would bring him with her, and they would be +disappointed. + +"Tell them," he said, "that I have very little time to spare, and I +must spend it with Frank, when I am sure they will excuse me." + +They excused him, but they were not the less disappointed, all the +three ladies; indeed, they were so much disappointed that they did not +speak of the thing to each other, as people chatter over and thereby +evaporate a trifling defeat of hopes. + +Mr. Eildon left his cousin only to visit his mother and sisters for a +day, and then returned to London; from which it appeared that he was +not excessively anxious to visit Garscube Hall. + +But everything there went on as usual. The ladies painted, they went +excursions, they wrote ballads; still, there was a sense of something +being amiss--the heart of their lives seemed dull in its beat. + +The more Lady Arthur thought of having sent away such a matrimonial +prize from her house, the more she was chagrined; the more Miss +Garscube tried not to think of Mr. Eildon, the more her thoughts would +run upon him; and even Miss Adamson, who had nothing to regret or +reproach herself with, could not help being influenced by the change +of atmosphere. + +Lady Arthur's thoughts issued in the resolution to re-enter society +once more; which resolution she imparted to Miss Adamson in the first +instance by saying that she meant to go to London next season. + +"Then our plan of life here will be quite broken up," said Miss A. + +"Yes, for a time." + +"I thought you disliked society?" + +"I don't much like it: it is on account of Alice I am going. I may +just as well tell you: I want to bring her and George together again +if possible." + +"Will she go if she knows that is your end?" + +"She need not know." + +"It is not a very dignified course," Miss Adamson said. + +"No, and if it were an ordinary case I should not think of it." + +"But you think him a very ordinary man?" + +"A duke is different. Consider what an amount of influence Alice +would have, and how well she would use it; and he may marry a vain, +frivolous, senseless woman, incapable of a good action. Indeed, most +likely, for such people are sure to hunt him." + +"I would not join in the hunt," said Miss Adamson. "If he is the man +you suppose him to be, the wound his self-love got will have killed +his love; and if he is the man I think, no hunters will make him their +prey. A small man would know instantly why you went to London, and +enjoy his triumph." + +"I don't think George would: he is too simple; but if I did not think +it a positive duty, I would not go. However, we shall see: I don't +think of going before the middle of January." + +Positive duties can be like the animals that change color with what +they feed on. + + +VI. + +When the middle of January came, Lady Arthur, who had never had an +illness in her life, was measuring her strength in a hand-to-hand +struggle with fever. The water was blamed, the drainage was blamed, +various things were blamed. Whether it came in the water or out of the +drains, gastric fever had arrived at Garscube Hall: the gardener took +it, his daughter took it, also Thomas the footman, and others of the +inhabitants, as well as Lady Arthur. The doctor of the place came and +lived In the house; besides that, two of the chief medical men from +town paid almost daily visits. Bottles of the water supplied to the +hall were sent to eminent chemists for analysis: the drainage was +thoroughly examined, and men were set to make it as perfect and +innocuous as it is in the nature of drainage to be. + +Lady Arthur wished Miss Adamson and Alice to leave the place for a +time, but they would not do so: neither of them was afraid, and they +stayed and nursed her ladyship well, relieving each other as it was +necessary. + +At one point of her illness Lady Arthur said to Miss Adamson, who was +alone with her, "Well, I never counted on this. Our family have all +had a trick of living to extreme old age, never dying till they could +not help it; but it will be grand to get away so soon." + +Miss Adamson looked at her. "Yes," she said, "it's a poor thing, +life, after the glory of it is gone, and I have always had an intense +curiosity to see what is beyond. I never could see the sense of making +a great ado to keep people alive after they are fifty. Don't look +surprised. How are the rest of the people that are ill?" She often +asked for them, and expressed great satisfaction when told they were +recovering. "It will be all right," she said, "if I am the only death +in the place; but there is one thing I want you to do. Send off a +telegram to George Eildon and tell him I want to see him immediately: +a dying person can say what a living one can't, and I'll make it all +right between Alice and him before I go." + +Miss Adamson despatched the telegram to Mr. Eildon, knowing that she +could not refuse to do Lady Arthur's bidding at such a time, although +her feeling was against it. The answer came: Mr. Eildon had just +sailed for Australia. + +When Lady Arthur heard this she said, "I'll write to him." When she +had finished writing she said, "You'll send this to him whenever you +get his address. I wish we could have sent it off at once, for it will +be provoking if I don't die, after all; and I positively begin to feel +as if that were not going to be my luck at this time." + +Although she spoke in this way, Miss Adamson knew it was not from +foolish irreverence. She recovered, and all who had had the fever +recovered, which was remarkable, for in other places it had been very +fatal. + +With Lady Arthur's returning strength things at the hall wore into +their old channels again. When it was considered safe many visits +of congratulation were paid, and among others who came were George +Eildon's mother and some of his sisters. They were constantly having +letters from George: he had gone off very suddenly, and it was not +certain when he might return. + +Alice heard of George Eildon with interest, but not with the vital +interest she had felt in him for a time: that had worn away. She had +done her best to this end by keeping herself always occupied, and many +things had happened in the interval; besides, she had grown a woman, +with all the good sense and right feeling belonging to womanhood, and +she would have been ashamed to cherish a love for one who had entirely +forgotten her. She dismissed her childish letter, which had given her +so much vexation, from her memory, feeling sure that George Eildon had +also forgotten it long ago. She did not know of the letter Lady Arthur +had written when she believed herself to be dying, and it was well she +did not. + + +VII. + +Every one who watched the sun rise on New Year's morning, 1875, will +bear witness to the beauty of the sight. Snow had been lying all over +the country for some time, and a fortnight of frost had made it hard +and dry and crisp. The streams must have felt very queer when they +were dropping off into the mesmeric trance, and found themselves +stopped in the very act of running, their supple limbs growing stiff +and heavy and their voices dying in their throats, till they were +thrown into a deep sleep, and a strange white, still, glassy beauty +stole over them by the magic power of frost. The sun got up rather +late, no doubt--between eight and nine o'clock--probably saying to +himself, "These people think I have lost my power--that the Ice King +has it all his own way. I'll let them see: I'll make his glory pale +before mine." + +Lady Arthur was standing at her window when she saw him look over the +shoulder of a hill and throw a brilliant deep gold light all over the +land covered with snow as with a garment, and every minute crystal +glittered as if multitudes of little eyes had suddenly opened and were +gleaming and winking under his gaze. To say that the bosom of Mother +Earth was crusted with diamonds is to give the impression of dullness +unless each diamond could be endowed with life and emotion. Then he +threw out shaft after shaft of color--scarlet and crimson and blue and +amber and green--which gleamed along the heavens, kindling the cold +white snow below them into a passion of beauty: the colors floated and +changed form, and mingled and died away. Then the sun drew his thick +winter clouds about him, disappeared, and was no more seen that day. +He had vindicated his majesty. + +Lady Arthur thought it was going to be a bright winter day, and at +breakfast she proposed a drive to Cockhoolet Castle, an old place +within driving distance to which she paid periodical visits: they +would take luncheon on the battlements and see all over the country, +which must be looking grand in its bridal attire. + +John was called in and asked if he did not think it was going to be +a fine day. He glanced through the windows at the dark, +suspicious-looking clouds and said, "Weel, my leddy, I'll no uphaud +it." This was the answer of a courtier and an oracle, not to mention +a Scotchman. It did not contradict Lady Arthur, it did not commit +himself, and it was cautious. + +"I think it will be a fine day of its kind," said the lady, "and we'll +drive to Cockhoolet. Have the carriage ready at ten." + +"If we dinna wun a' the gate, we can but turn again," John thought as +he retired to execute his orders. + +"It is not looking so well as it did in the morning," said Miss +Adamson as they entered the carriage, "but if we have an adventure we +shall be the better for it." + +"We shall have no such luck," said Lady Arthur: "what ever happens out +of the usual way now? There used to be glorious snowstorms long ago, +but the winters have lost their rigor, and there are no such long +summer days now as there were when I was young. Neither persons nor +things have that spirit in them they used to have;" and she smiled, +catching in thought the fact that to the young the world is still as +fresh and fair as it has appeared to all the successive generations it +has carried on its surface. + +"This is a wiselike expedition," said Thomas to John. + +"Ay," said John, "I'm mista'en if this is no a day that'll be heard +tell o' yet;" and they mounted to their respective places and started. + +The sky was very grim and the wind had been gradually rising. The +three ladies sat each in her corner, saying little, and feeling that +this drive was certainly a means to an end, and not an end in itself. +Their pace had not been very quick from the first, but it became +gradually slower, and the hard dry snow was drifting past the windows +in clouds. At last they came to a stand altogether, and John appeared +at the window like a white column and said, "My leddy, we'll hae to +stop here." + +"Stop! why?" + +"Because it's impossible to wun ony farrer." + +"Nonsense! There's no such word as impossible." + +"The beasts might maybe get through, but they wad leave the carriage +ahint them." + +"Let me out to look about," said Lady Arthur. + +"Ye had better bide where ye are," said John: "there's naething to be +seen, and ye wad but get yersel' a' snaw. We might try to gang back +the road we cam." + +"Decidedly not," said Lady Arthur, whose spirits were rising to the +occasion: "we can't be far from Cockhoolet here?" + +"Between twa and three mile," said John dryly. + +"We'll get out and walk," said her ladyship, looking at the other +ladies. + +"Wi' the wind in yer teeth, and sinking up to yer cuits at every step? +Ye wad either be blawn ower the muir like a feather, or planted amang +the snaw like Lot's wife. I might maybe force my way through, but I +canna leave the horses," said John. + +Lady Arthur was fully more concerned for her horses than herself: she +said, "Take out the horses and go to Cockhoolet: leave them to rest +and feed, and tell Mr. Ormiston to send for us. We'll sit here very +comfortably till you come back: it won't take you long. Thomas will go +too, but give us in the luncheon-basket first." + +The men, being refreshed from the basket, set off with the horses, +leaving the ladies getting rapidly snowed up in the carriage. As the +wind rose almost to a gale, Lady Arthur remarked "that it was at least +better to be stuck firm among the snow than to be blown away." + +It is a grand thing to suffer in a great cause, but if you suffer +merely because you have done a "daftlike" thing, the satisfaction is +not the same. + +The snow sifted into the carriage at the minutest crevice like fine +dust, and, melting, became cold, clammy and uncomfortable. To be set +down in a glass case on a moor without shelter in the height of a +snowstorm has only one recommendation: it is an uncommon situation, +a novel experience. The ladies--at least Lady Arthur--must, one would +think, have felt foolish, but it is a chief qualification in a leader +that he never acknowledges that he is in the wrong: if he once does +that, his prestige is gone. + +The first hour of isolation wore away pretty well, owing to the +novelty of the the position; the second also, being devoted to +luncheon; the third dragged a good deal; but when it came to the +fourth; with light beginning to fail and no word of rescue, matters +looked serious. The cold was becoming intense--a chill, damp cold that +struck every living thing through and through. What could be keeping +the men? Had they lost their way, or what could possibly have +happened? + +"This is something like an adventure," said Lady Arthur cheerily. + +"It might pass for one," said Miss Adamson, "if we could see our way +out of it. I wonder if we shall have to sit here all night?" + +"If we do," said Lady Arthur, "we can have no hope of wild beasts +scenting us out or of being attacked by banditti." + +"Nor of any enamored gentleman coming to the rescue," said Miss +Adamson: "it will end tamely enough. I remember reading a story of +travel among savages, in which at the close of the monthly instalment +the travelers were left buried alive except their heads, which were +above ground, but set on fire. That was a very striking situation, yet +it all came right; so there is hope for us, I think." + +"Oh, don't make me laugh," said Alice: "I really can't laugh, I am so +stiff with cold." + +"It's a fine discipline to our patience to sit here," said Lady +Arthur. "If I had thought we should have to wait so long, I would have +tried what I could do while it was light." + + +VIII. + +At length they heard a movement among the snow, and voices, and +immediately a light appeared at the window, shining through the +snow-blind, which was swept down by an arm and the carriage-door +opened. + +"Are you all safe?" were the first words they heard. + +"In the name of wonder, George, how are you here? Where are John and +Thomas?" cried Lady Arthur. + +"I'll tell you all about it after," said George Eildon: "the thing is +to get you out of this scrape. I have a farm-cart and pair, and two +men to help me: you must just put up with roughing it a little." + +"Oh, I am so thankful!" said Alice. + +The ladies were assisted out of the carriage into the cart, and +settled among plenty of straw and rugs and shawls, with their backs to +the blast. Mr. Eildon shut the door of the carriage, which was left +to its fate, and then got in and sat at the feet of the ladies. Mr. +Ormiston's servant mounted the trace-horse and Thomas sat on the front +of the cart, and the cavalcade started to toil through the snow. + +"Do tell us, George, how you are here. I thought it was only heroes of +romance that turned up when their services were desperately needed." + +"There have been a good many heroes of romance to-day," said Mr. +Eildon. "The railways have been blocked in all directions; three +trains with about six hundred passengers have been brought to a stand +at the Drumhead Station near this; many of the people have been half +frozen and sick and fainting. I was in the train going south, and very +anxious to get on, but it was impossible. I got to Cockhoolet with a +number of exhausted travelers just as your man arrived, and we came +off as soon as we could to look for you. You have stood the thing much +better than many of my fellow-travelers." + +"Indeed!" said Lady Arthur, "and have all the poor people got housed?" + +"Most of them are at the station-house and various farm-houses. Mr. +Forester, Mr. Ormiston's son-in-law, started to bring up the last of +them just as I started for you." + +"Well, I must say I have enjoyed it," Lady Arthur said, "but how are +we to get home to-night?" + +"You'll not get home to-night: you'll have to stay at Cockhoolet, and +be glad if you can get home to-morrow." + +"And where have you come from, and where are you going to?" she asked. + +"I came from London--I have only been a week home from Australia--and +I am on my way to Eildon. But here we are." + +And the hospitable doors of Cockhoolet were thrown wide, sending out a +glow of light to welcome the belated travelers. + +Mrs. Ormiston and her daughter, Mrs. Forester--who with her husband +was on a visit at Cockhoolet--received them and took them to +rooms where fires made what seemed tropical heat compared with the +atmosphere in the glass case on the moor. + +Miss Garscube was able for nothing but to go to bed, and Miss Adamson +stayed with her in the room called Queen Mary's, being the room that +unfortunate lady occupied when she visited Cockhoolet. + +On this night the castle must have thought old times had come back +again, there was such a large and miscellaneous company beneath its +roof. But where were the knights in armor, the courtiers in velvet and +satin, the boars' heads, the venison pasties, the wassail-bowls? Where +were the stately dames in stiff brocade, the shaven priests, the +fool in motley, the vassals, the yeomen in hodden gray and broad blue +bonnet? Not there, certainly. + +No doubt, Lady Arthur Eildon was a direct descendant of one of "the +queen's Maries," but in her rusty black gown, her old black bonnet set +awry on her head, her red face, her stout figure, made stouter by a +sealskin jacket, you could not at a glance see the connection. The +house of Eildon was pretty closely connected with the house of Stuart, +but George Eildon in his tweed suit, waterproof and wideawake looked +neither royal nor romantic. We may be almost sure that there was a +fool or fools in the company, but they did not wear motley. In short, +as yet it is difficult to connect the idea of romance with railway +rugs, waterproofs, India-rubbers and wide-awakes and the steam of tea +and coffee: three hundred years hence perhaps it may be possible. +Who knows? But for all that, romances go on, we may be sure, whether +people are clad in velvet or hodden gray. + +Lady Arthur was framing a romance--a romance which had as much of the +purely worldly in it as a romance can hold. She found that George was +on his way to see his cousin, Lord Eildon, who within two days had +had a severe access of illness. It seemed to her a matter of certainty +that George would be duke of Eildon some day. If she had only had +the capacity to have despatched that letter she had written when she +believed she was dying, after him to Australia! Could she send it to +him yet? She hesitated: she could hardly bring herself to compromise +the dignity of Alice, and her own. She had a short talk with him +before they separated for the night. + +"I think you should go home by railway to-morrow," he said. "It is +blowing fresh now, and the trains will all be running to-morrow. I am +sorry I have to go by the first in the morning, so I shall probably +not see you then," + +"I don't know," she said: "it is a question if Alice will be able to +travel at all to-morrow." + +"She is not ill, is she?" he said. "It is only a little fatigue from +exposure that ails her, isn't it?" + +"But it may have bad consequences," said Lady Arthur: "one never can +tell;" and she spoke in an injured way, for George's tones were not +encouraging. "And John, my coachman--I haven't seen him--he ought to +have been at hand at least: if I could depend on any one, I thought it +was him." + +"Why, he was overcome in the drift to-day: your other man had to leave +him behind and ride forward for help. It was digging him out of the +snow that kept us so long in getting to you. He has been in bed ever +since, but he is getting round quite well." + +"I ought to have known that sooner," she said. + +"I did not want to alarm you unnecessarily." + +"I must go and see him;" and she held out her hand to say good-night. +"But you'll come to Garscube Hall soon: I shall be anxious to hear +what you think of Frank. When will you come?" + +"I'll write," he said. + +Lady Arthur felt that opportunity was slipping from her, and she grew +desperate. "Speaking of writing," she said, "I wrote to you when I +had the fever last year and thought I was dying: would you like to see +that letter?" + +"No," he said: "I prefer you living." + +"Have you no curiosity? People can say things dying that they couldn't +say living, perhaps." + +"Well, they have no business to do so," he said. "It is taking an +unfair advantage, which a generous nature never does; besides, it is +more solemn to live than die." + +"Then you don't want the letter?" + +"Oh yes, if you like." + +"Very well: I'll think of it. Can you show me the way to John's place +of refuge?" + +They found John sitting up in bed, and Mrs, Ormiston ministering to +him: the remains of a fowl were on a plate beside him, and he was +lifting a glass of something comfortable to his lips. + +"I never knew of this, John," said his mistress, "till just a few +minutes ago. This is sad." + +"Weel, it doesna look very sad," said John, eying the plate and the +glass. "Yer leddyship and me hae gang mony a daftlike road, but I +think we fairly catched it the day." + +"I don't know how we can be grateful enough to you, Mrs. Ormiston," +said Lady Arthur, turning to their hostess. + +"Well, you know we could hardly be so churlish as to shut our doors on +storm-stayed travelers: we are very glad that we had it in our power +to help them a little." + +"It's by ordinar' gude quarters," said John: "I've railly enjoyed that +hen. Is 't no time yer leddyship was in yer bed, after siccan a day's +wark?" + +"We'll take the hint, John," said Lady Arthur; and in a little while +longer most of Mr. Ormiston's unexpected guests had lost sight of the +day's adventure in sleep. + + +IX. + +By dawn of the winter's morning all the company, the railway pilgrims, +were astir again--not to visit a shrine, or attend a tournament, or to +go hunting or hawking, or to engage in a foray or rieving expedition, +as guests of former days at the castle may have done, but quietly to +make their way to the station as the different trains came up, the +fresh wind having done more to clear the way than the army of men +that had been set to work with pickaxe and shovel. But although the +railways and the tweeds and the India-rubbers were modern, the castle +and the snow and the hospitality were all very old-fashioned--the snow +as old as that lying round the North Pole, and as unadulterated; the +hospitality old as when Eve entertained Raphael in Eden, and as true, +blessing those that give and those that take. + +Mr. Eildon left with the first party that went to the station; Lady +Arthur and the young ladies went away at midday; John was left to +take care of himself and his carriage till both should be more fit for +traveling. + +Of the three ladies, Alice had suffered most from the severe cold, and +it was some time before she entirely recovered from the effects of it. +Lady Arthur convinced herself that it was not merely the effects +of cold she was suffering from, and talked the case over with Miss +Adamson, but that lady stoutly rejected Lady Arthur's idea. "Miss +Garscube has got over that long ago, and so has Mr. Eildon," she said +dryly. "Alice has far more sense than to nurse a feeling for a man +evidently indifferent to her." These two ladies had exchanged opinions +exactly. George Eildon had only called once, and on a day when they +were all from home: he had written several times to his aunt regarding +Lord Eildon's health, and Lady Arthur had written to him and had told +him her anxiety about the health of Alice. He expressed sympathy and +concern, as his mother might have done, but Lady Arthur would not +allow herself to see that the case was desperate. + +She had a note from her sister-in-law, Lady George, who said "that she +had just been at Eildon, and in her opinion Frank was going, but his +parents either can't or won't see this, or George either. It is a sad +case--so young a man and with such prospects--but the world abounds in +sad things," etc., etc. But sad as the world is, it is shrewd with a +wisdom of its own, and it hardly believed in the grief of Lady George +for an event which would place her own son in a position of honor and +affluence. But many a time George Eildon recoiled from the people who +did not conceal their opinion that he might not be broken-hearted +at the death of his cousin. There is nothing that true, honorable, +unworldly natures shrink from more than having low, unworthy feelings +and motives attributed to them. + + +X. + +Lady Arthur Eildon made up her mind. "I am supposed," she said to +herself, "to be eccentric: why not get the good of such a character?" +She enclosed her dying letter to her nephew, which was nothing less +than an appeal to him on behalf of Alice, assuring him of her belief +that Alice bitterly regretted the answer she had given his letter, and +that if she had it to do over again it would be very different. When +Lady Arthur did this she felt that she was not doing as she would be +done by, but the stake was too great not to try a last throw for it. +In an accompanying note she said, "I believe that the statements in +this letter still hold true. I blamed myself afterward for having +influenced Alice when she wrote to you, and now I have absolved my +conscience." (Lady Arthur put it thus, but she hardly succeeded +in making herself believe it was a case of conscience: she was too +sharp-witted. It is self-complacent stupidity that is morally small.) +"If this letter is of no interest to you, I am sure I am trusting it +to honorable hands." + +She got an answer immediately. "I thank you," Mr. Eildon said, "for +your letters, ancient and modern: they are both in the fire, and so +far as I am concerned shall be as if they had never been." + +It was in vain, then, all in vain, that she had humbled herself before +George Eildon. Not only had her scheme failed, but her pride suffered, +as your finger suffers when the point of it is shut by accident in the +hinge of a door. The pain was terrible. She forgot her conscience, how +she had dealt treacherously--for her good, as she believed, but still +treacherously--with Alice Garscube: she forgot everything but her +own pain, and those about her thought that decidedly she was very +eccentric at this time. She snubbed her people, she gave orders and +countermanded them, so that her servants did not know what to do or +leave undone, and they shook their heads among themselves and remarked +that the moon was at the full. + +But of course the moon waned, and things calmed down a little. In the +next note she received from her sister-in-law, among other items +of news she was told that her nephew meant to visit her +shortly--"Probably," said his mother, "this week, but I think it will +only be a call. He says Lord Eildon is rather better, which has put us +all in good spirits," etc. + +Now, Lady Arthur did not wish to see George Eildon at this time--not +that she could not keep a perfect and dignified composure in any +circumstances, but her pride was still in the hinge of the door--and +she went from home every day. Three days she had business in town: the +other days she drove to call on people living in the next county. As +she did not care for going about alone, she took Miss Adamson always +with her, but Alice only once or twice: she was hardly able for +extra fatigue every day. But Miss Garscube was recovering health and +spirits, and looks also, and when Lady Arthur left her behind she +thought, "Well, if George calls to-day, he'll see that he is not a +necessary of life at least." She felt very grateful that it was so, +and had no objections that George should see it. + +He did see it, for he called that day, but he had not the least +feeling of mortification: he was unfeignedly glad to see Alice looking +so well, and he had never, he thought, seen her look better. After +they had spoken in the most quiet and friendly way for a little she +said, "And how is your cousin, Lord Eildon?" + +"Nearly well: his constitution seems at last fairly to have taken +a turn in the right direction. The doctors say that not only is he +likely to live as long as any of us, but that the probability is he +will be a robust man yet." + +"Oh, I am glad of it--I am heartily glad of it!" + +"Why are you so very glad?" + +"Because you are: it has made you very happy--you look so." + +"I am excessively happy because you believe I am happy. Many people +don't: many people think I am disappointed. My own mother thinks so, +and yet she is a good woman. People will believe that you wish the +death of your dearest friend if he stands between you and material +good. It is horrible, and I have been courted and worshiped as the +rising sun;" and he laughed. "One can afford to laugh at it now, but +it was very sickening at the time. I can afford anything, Alice: I +believe I can even afford to marry, if you'll marry a hard-working man +instead of a duke." + +"Oh, George," she said, "I have been so ashamed of that letter I +wrote." + +"It was a wicked little letter," he said, "but I suppose it was the +truth at the time: say it is not true now." + +"It is not true now," she repeated, "but I have not loved you very +dearly all the time; and if you had married I should have been very +happy if you had been happy. But oh," she said, and her eyes filled +with tears, "this is far better." + +"You love me now?" + +"Unutterably." + +"I have loved you all the time, all the time. I should not have been +happy if I had heard of your marriage." + +"Then how were you so cold and distant the day we stuck on the moor?" + +"Because it was excessively cold weather: I was not going to warm +myself up to be frozen again. I have never been in delicate health, +but I can't stand heats and chills." + +"I do believe you are not a bit wiser than I am. I hear the carriage: +that's Lady Arthur come back. How surprised she will be!" + +"I am not so sure of that," George said. "I'll go and meet her." + +When he appeared Lady Arthur shook hands tranquilly and said, "How do +you do?" + +"Very well," he said. "I have been testing the value of certain +documents you sent me, and find they are worth their weight in gold." + +She looked in his face. + +"Alice is mine," he said, "and we are going to Bashan for our +wedding-tour. If you'll seize the opportunity of our escort, you may +hunt up Og's bed." + +"Thank you," she said: "I fear I should be _de trop_." + +"Not a bit; but even if you were a great nuisance, we are in the humor +to put up with anything." + +"I'll think of it. I have never traveled in the character of a +nuisance yet--at least, so far as I know--and it would be a new +sensation: that is a great inducement." + +Lady Arthur rushed to Miss Adamson's room with the news, and the +two ladies had first a cry and then a laugh over it. "Alice will be +duchess yet," said Lady Arthur: "that boy's life has hung so long by a +thread that he must be prepared to go, and he would be far better away +from the cares and trials of this world, I am sure;" which might be +the truth, but it was hard to grudge the boy his life. + +Lady Arthur was in brilliant spirits at dinner that evening. "I +suppose you are going to live on love," she said. + +"I am going to work for my living," said George. + +"Very right," she said; "but, although I got better last year, I can't +live for ever, and when I'm gone Alice will have the Garscube estates: +I have always intended it." + +"Madam," said George, "do you not know that the great lexicographer +has said in one of his admirable works, 'Let no man suffer his +felicity to depend upon the death of his aunt'?" + +It is said that whenever a Liberal ministry comes in Mr. Eildon will +be offered the governorship of one of the colonies. Lady Arthur may +yet live to be astonished by his "career," and at least she is not +likely to regret her dying letter. + +THE AUTHOR OF "BLINDPITS." + + + + +THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. + + +"What is that black mass yonder, far up the beach, just at the edge of +the breakers?" + +The fisherman to whom we put the question drew in his squid-line, hand +over hand, without turning his head, having given the same answer for +half a dozen years to summer tourists: "Wreck. Steamer. Creole." + +"Were there many lives lost?" + +"It's likely. This is the worst bit of coast in the country, The +Creole was a three-decker," looking at it reflectively, "Lot of good +timber there." + +As we turned our field-glasses to the black lump hunched out of the +water, like a great sea-monster creeping up on the sand, we saw still +farther up the coast a small house perched on a headland, with a flag +flying in the gray mist, and pointed it out to the Jerseyman, who +nodded: "That there wooden shed is the United States signal station;" +adding, after a pause, "Life-saving service down stairs." + +"Old Probabilities! The house he lives in!" + +"Life-boats!" + +Visions of the mysterious old prophet who utters his oracles through +the morning paper, of wrecks and storms, and of heroic men carrying +lines through the night to sinking ships, filled our brains. +Townspeople out for their summer holiday have keen appetites for the +romantic and extraordinary, and manufacture them (as sugar from beets) +out of the scantiest materials. We turned our backs on the fisherman +and his squid-line. The signal station and the hull of the lost vessel +were only a shed and timber to him. How can any man be alive to the +significance of a wreck and fluttering flag which he sees twenty times +a day? Noah, no doubt, after a year in the ark, came to look upon it +as so much gopher-wood, and appreciated it as a good job of joinery +rather than a divine symbol. + +We believe, however, that our readers will find in the wrecked Creole +and the wooden shed, and the practical facts concerning them, matter +suggestive enough to hold them a little space. They fill a yet +unwritten page in the history of our government, and of great and +admirable work done by it, of which the nation at large has been +given but partial knowledge. Or, if we choose to look more deeply into +things, we may find in the old hulk and commonplace building hints as +significant of the Infinite Order and Power underlying all ordinary +things, and of our relations to it, as in the long-ago Deluge and the +ark riding over it. + +The little wooden house stands upon a lonely stretch of coast in Ocean +county, New Jersey. Several miles of low barren marshes and sands gray +with poverty-grass on the north separate it from Manasquan Inlet and +the pine woods and scattered farm-houses which lie along its shore, +while half a mile below, on the south, is the head of Barnegat Bay, +a deep, narrow estuary which runs into and along the Jersey coast for +more than half its extent, leaving outside a strip of sandy beach, +never more than a mile wide. All kinds of sea fish and fowl take +refuge in this bay and the interminable reedy marshes, and for a few +weeks in the snipe-and duck-season sportsmen from New York find their +way to "Shattuck's" and the houses of other old water-dogs along the +bay. But during the rest of the year the wooden shed and its occupants +are left to the companionship of the sea and the winds. + +The little building (with a gigantic "No. 10" whitewashed outside) +stands close to the breakers, just above high-water mark in winter. It +is divided into two large rooms, upper and lower, with a tiny kitchen +in the rear and an equally comfortless bedroom overhead. The doors of +the lower room (which, like those of a barn, fill the whole end of the +house) being closed, we sought for Old Probabilities up stairs, and +found very little at first sight to gratify curiosity or any craving +for mystery. There was a large wooden room, with walls and floor of +unpainted boards, the ceiling hung with brilliantly colored flags, a +telegraphic apparatus, one or two desks, books, writing materials--a +scientific working-room, in short, with its implements in that order +which implied that only men had used them. + +There were in 1874 one hundred and eight such signal stations as +this, modest, inexpensive little offices, established over the United +States, from the low sea-coast plains to the topmost peak of the Rocky +Mountains. + +If we were accurate chroniclers, we should have to go back to +Aristotle and the Chaldeans to show the origin and purpose of these +little offices, just as Carlyle has to unearth Ulfila the Moesogoth to +explain a word he uses to his butter-man. The world is so new, after +all, and things so inextricably tangled up in it! In this case, as +it is the sun and wind and rain which are the connecting links, it is +easy enough to bring past ages close to us. The Chaldeans, building +their great embankments or raiding upon Job's herds, are no longer a +myth to us when we remember that they were wet by the rain and anxious +about the weather and their crops, just as we are; in fact, they felt +such matters so keenly, and were so little able to cope with these +unknown forces, that they made gods of them, and then, beyond prayers +and sacrifices, troubled themselves no further about the matter. +Even the shrewd, observant Hebrews, living out of doors, a race of +shepherds and herdsmen, never looked for any rational cause for wind +or storm, but regarded them, if not as gods, as the messengers of God, +subject to no rules. It was He who at His will covered the heavens +with clouds, who prepared rain, who cast forth hoar-frost like ashes: +the stormy wind fulfilled His word. Men searched into the construction +of their own minds, busied themselves with subtle philosophies, with +arts and sciences, conquered the principles of Form and Color, and +made not wholly unsuccessful efforts to solve the mystery of the sun +and stars; but it was not until 340 B.C. that any notice was taken of +the every-day matters of wind and heat and rain. + +Aristotle, the Gradgrind of philosophers, first noted down the known +facts on this subject in his work _On Meteors_. His theories and +deductions were necessarily erroneous, but he struck the foundation of +all science, the collection of known facts. Theophrastus, one of his +pupils, made a compilation of prognostics concerning rain, wind +and storm, and there investigation ceased for ages. For nearly two +thousand years the citizens of the world rose every morning to rejoice +in fair weather or be wet by showers, to see their crops destroyed +by frost or their ships by winds, and never made a single attempt to +discover any scientific reason or rules in the matter--apparently +did not suspect that there was any cause or effect behind these daily +occurrences. They accounted for wind or rain as our grandfathers did +for a sudden death, by the "visitation of God." In fact, Nature--which +is the expression of Law most inexorable and minute--was the very last +place where mankind looked to find law at all. + +About two hundred and thirty years ago Torricelli discovered that +the atmosphere, the space surrounding the earth, which seemed more +intangible than a dream, had weight and substance, and invented the +barometer, the tiny tube and drop of mercury by which it could be +seized and held and weighed as accurately as a pound of lead. As soon +as this invisible air was proved to be matter, the whole force of +scientific inquiry was directed toward it. The thermometer, by which +its heat or cold could be measured--the hygrometer, which weighed, +literally by a hair, its moisture or dryness--were the results of the +research of comparatively a few years. Somewhat later came the curious +instrument which measures its velocity. As soon as it was thus made +practicable for any intelligent observer to handle, weigh and test +every quality of the air, it became evident that wind and storm, even +the terrible cyclone, were not irresponsible forces, carrying health +or death to and fro where they listed, but the result of plain, +immutable; laws. It was an American in this our Quaker City who +reduced the wind to a commonplace effect of a most ordinary cause. +Franklin, one winter's day passing with a lighted candle out of a warm +room into a cold one, saw that as he held it above his head the flame +was blown outward before him: when he held it near the floor, the +flame was blown into the room. The shrewd observer stood in the +doorway, instead of hurrying out, as most of us would have done, +to save the wasting candle. The warm air in the heated room, he +conjectured, was expanded by the heat, consequently it rose as high as +it could, and made a way for itself out of the room at the upper part +of the doorway, while the heavier cold air from without rushed in +below to fill the vacated space. What if he took the equatorial +regions or great tracts of arid desert for the heated room? The air +over them, subjected by the heat to constant rarefaction, must +rise, must overflow above, and must force the colder air from the +surrounding regions in below. Two sheets of air will thus set in +vertically on both sides, rise, and again separate above. Here was an +explanation of the great, steady, uninterrupted aërial currents which, +at the rate of from fifteen to eighteen miles per hour, sweep the +surface of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The candle, no doubt, was +wasted, but the secret of the trade-winds was discovered. + +The idea was correct as far as it went. It did not go very far, it is +true. It had not taken into account the earth's rotation, whose force, +according to Herschel, "gives at least one-half of their average +momentum to all the winds which occur over the whole world;" nor the +infinite variation in the movements of the atmosphere which we call +winds, caused by the change in the sun's motion, by the differing +amounts of vapor held in them, by the physical configuration of the +earth below, by the vicinity of the sea or arid deserts, and by the +passage of storms or electric currents. + +The science of meteorology, especially as regards wind, is as yet +searching for general principles, which can only be deduced from +countless facts. We do not now, like Saint Paul, talk of the wind +Euroclydon as of a special agent of God, but describe it by stating +that it is an aërial ascending current over the Mediterranean, +produced by the heated sands of Africa and Arabia. We can even measure +its heat at 200° Fahrenheit, and its velocity at fifty-four miles per +hour. But it attacks us just as unexpectedly as it did the apostle, +and brings disease and death to Naples or Palermo to-day just as +surely as it did to Cambyses. The popular verdict on the matter +would no doubt be that when meteorologists can not only describe the +sirocco, but give warning of its coming, their science will justify +its claim to consideration. The common sense of mankind always demands +as a royalty from every science daily practical benefits to the mass +of men and women. It is not enough for meteorologists to have proved +that the atmosphere varies in weight, in temperature or velocity of +motion according to fixed rules, or to be able to explain why no rain +falls on a certain portion of the coast of Portugal, while a like +coast-exposure in England is incessantly drenched; or to have +determined beyond a doubt that precisely as the ocean of water, +under the influence of the moon and wind, ebbs and flows and has +its succession of storms or calms, the ocean of air in which we +are enveloped answers to the influence of the sun in great tidal +movements, and has also its vast steadily moving waves of cold or heat +or moisture. These discoveries of general truths must be brought to +bear directly on men's daily life before they will have fulfilled +their true purpose. It would seem as if nothing were more easy than to +bring them so to bear. Meteorology, more intimately perhaps than any +other science, concerns our ordinary affairs. The health of mankind, +navigation, agriculture, commerce, the hourly business and needs of +every man, from the merchant sending out his cargo and the consumptive +waiting for death in the east wind, to the laundress hanging out +the family wash, are ruled by that most mysterious, most uncurbed +of powers, the weather. We may rub along through life with scanty +knowledge of the history of dead nations or the philosophy of living +ones, but heat and cold, the climate of the coming winter, yesterday's +rainfall or to-morrow's frost, are matters which take hold of every +one of us and affect us every hour of the day. Now, to bring the known +general truths of this science to practical rules, or to base upon +them predictions of storms or changes in the weather during any +future period, requires, as Sir John Herschel stated twelve years ago, +"patient, incessant and laborious observations, carried on in +every region of the globe." One reason why this is required is the +perpetually shifting conditions of heat, wind and storm. A man who sat +down to work a mathematical problem in the days of Job, if there was +such a man, found its result just the same as the school-boy does +to-day: figures not only never lie, but never alter. But the man who +solves an equation of which the winds and waters are members finds +that the sum to be added varies with every hour. There are, so far +as is yet known, no regularly recurring cycles of weather on which +to base predictions: the conditions of heat and wind and moisture are +never precisely the same at any given point. Hence the necessity, if +we would give the science stability and bring it to bear on our daily +life, of educated, skilled observers at different points to collect +and report simultaneously the daily details of the present conditions. + +It is this daily detail of fact which the United States government +supplies through the little stations of observation one of which we +have stumbled into on the Jersey beach. Americans, indeed, have from +the first taken hold of this science with a most characteristic effort +to reduce it to practical uses, to bring it at once to bear on the +well-being at least of farmers and navigators. Dove had no sooner +published his chart of isothermal lines and charts, showing the +temperature throughout the world of each month, and also of abnormal +temperatures, than our government issued the _Army Meteorological +Register_ for the United States, which for accuracy and fullness had +never been equaled. In these the temperature and rainfall for each +month of the year were shown. The forecasts of the weather now +published daily in this country, and which come so directly home to +every man's business that Old Probabilities is a real personage to +us all, have been given in England for several years under the +supervision of Admiral Fitzroy. + +But it is high time now that we should come back to our little wooden +house on the beach, and tell what we know of its occupants and uses. +The courteous gentleman (in a blue flannel suit for "roughing it") +who sits at the telegraphic wires is Sergeant G----, belonging to the +Signal Service Department of the army. Instruction in this department +is given at Fort Whipple, Va. One hundred officers besides Sergeant +G---- are now in charge of stations, with 139 privates as assistants. +The average force at Fort Whipple is 140 men. These men are, in point +of fact, soldiers liable to be called into active service in the +field: their duty there, however, is not fighting, but signaling and +telegraphy--a duty quite as dangerous as the bearing of arms. Fresh +recruits for this service are divided into those capable of receiving +instruction only in field duty and those for "full service," which +includes, with military signaling and telegraphy, the taking +of meteoric observations, the collating and publication of such +observations, and the deduction from them of correct results. Passing +two examinations successfully in the latter course, the signal-service +soldier is detailed for duty at a post as assistant, and after six +months' satisfactory service is returned to Fort Whipple for the +special instruction given to observer-sergeants. When qualified for +this work he is detailed, as a vacancy occurs, for actual service. + +Having thus discovered how our friend the sergeant came into his +post, we looked about to see what he had to do there. The +brilliantly-colored flags overhead drew the eye first. These flags +serve the purpose of an international language on the high seas, where +no other language is practicable. Twenty thousand distinct messages +can be sent by them. Rogers's system has been, adopted by the United +States Navy, the Lighthouse Board, the United States Coast Survey and +the principal lines of steamers. Each flag represents a number, and +four flags can be hoisted at once on the staff. With the flags there +is given a book containing the meaning of each number. Thus, a wrecked +ship cries silently to the shore, "Send a lifeboat" by flags 3, 8, 9, +or says that she is sinking by 6, 3, 2; or a vessel under full sail +hails another by 8, 6, 0, or bids her "_bon voyage_" with 8, 9, 7. +Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing colors in cloudy days or +when the flags will not fly, other systems of signaling are used: that +of cones similar to umbrellas being considered in the English service +one of the most efficient, a different arrangement of cones on the +staff representing the nine numerals. Men may convert themselves into +cones in an emergency by raising or letting fall their arms, and two +men thus give any signal necessary. As the flags, however, belong +more especially to Sergeant G---- 's duty on the field of battle or to +exceptional cases of storm and danger, we pass them by to examine into +his daily round of duty. Outside, a queer little house of lattice-work +perched on a headland shelters the thermometers and barometers: on +a still higher point directly over the foaming breakers is the +anemometer, the little instrument which measures the swiftness of the +fiercest cyclone as easily as the lightest spring breeze. It consists +of four brass cups shaped to catch the wind, and attached to the ends +of two horizontal iron rods, which cross each other and are supported +in the middle by a long pole on which they turn freely. The cups +revolve with just one-third of the wind's velocity, and make five +hundred revolutions whilst a mile of wind passes over them. A register +of these revolutions is made by machinery similar to a gas-meter. +The popular idea, by the way, of the speed of the wind runs very far +beyond the truth: we are apt to say of a racer that he goes like the +wind, when the fact is the horse of a good strain of blood leaves the +laggard tempest far behind; the ordinary winds of every day travel +only five miles an hour, a breeze of sixteen and a quarter miles an +hour being strong enough to cause great discomfort in town or field: +thirty-three miles is dangerous at sea, and sixty-five miles a violent +hurricane, sweeping all before it. + +Our friend the sergeant examines seven times a day at stated periods +the condition of the atmosphere as to heat, weight and moisture, the +velocity of the wind, the kind, amount and speed of the clouds, and +measures the rainfall and the ocean swell: all these observations are +recorded, and three are daily reported to headquarters at Washington. +In these telegrams a cipher is used--as much, we presume, to ensure +accuracy in the figures as for purposes of secresy. In this cipher the +fickle winds are given the names of women with a covert sarcasm +quite out of place in the respectable old weather-prophet whom every +housewife consults before the day's work begins. Thus, when the +telegraph operator receives the mysterious message, "Francisco Emily +alone barge churning did frosty guarding hungry," how is he to know +that it means "San Francisco Evening. Rep. Barom. 29.40, Ther. 61, +Humidity 18 per cent., Velocity of wind 41 miles per hour, 840 +pounds pressure, Cirro-stratus. N.W. 1/4 to 2/4, Cumulo-stratus East, +Rainfall 2.80 inch."? + +Besides these simultaneous reports from the one hundred and eight +United States stations which are telegraphed to the central office +at Washington, there are received there daily three hundred and +eighty-three volunteer reports from every part of the country, these +being the system of meteorological observations under control of the +Smithsonian Institution for twenty-four years, and given in charge to +the Signal Service Bureau in 1874. In addition to these, again, are +simultaneous reports from Russia, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, +France, England, Algiers, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, +Portugal, Switzerland, Canada--in all two hundred and fourteen. When +we add together, therefore, the + +United States Signal Service reports 108 +Volunteer reports 383 +International reports 214 +Reports of medical corps of army 123 + +we have a grand total of eight hundred and twenty-eight daily +simultaneous reports received at the central office, where +Brigadier-General Albert J. Myer and his brevet aide, Captain H.W. +Howgate (or, if you choose, Old Probabilities himself), wait to scan +through these many watchful eyes the heavens around the world +and utter incessant prophecies and warnings. Besides the regular +observations, report is also made of casual phenomena--lightning, +auroras, time of first and last frosts, etc., etc. + +The history of the Signal Service Bureau and the establishment of +these stations and telegraph-lines, bringing the whole country under +the instant oversight of one intelligent observer, would, if it were +briefly written, be full of points of dramatic interest. As yet it +must be gathered out of acts of Congress and official reports. The +service has now existed for fourteen years, but is still without that +full recognition by Congress which would ensure its permanency. +"With interests depending on its daily work as great as can by any +possibility rest upon any other branch of the service, it is yet +regarded as an experiment, an offshoot of regular army service +existing on sufferance, liable at any moment to be hindered in its +operations, if not totally abolished." The benefit of this daily work, +however, affects too nearly and constantly the mass of the people to +allow much danger of its final extinction. What the real value of this +practical work is can be gathered not only from the dry statistics of +annual reports, but from the increased confidence placed in it by the +people, the unscientific working majority. + +The help given to farmers should rank perhaps first in estimating the +value of this work. At midnight of each day the midnight forecast is +telegraphed to twenty centres of distribution, located strictly with +regard to the agricultural population. The telegrams, as soon as +received, are printed by signal-service men, rapidly enveloped in +wrappers already stamped and addressed, and sent by the swiftest +conveyance to every post-office which can be reached before 2 P.M. of +the same day, and when received are displayed on bulletin-boards. The +average time elapsing from the moment when the bulletin leaves the +central office until it reaches every post-office from Maine to +Florida is ten hours. In 1874, 6286 of these farmers' bulletins +were issued, and when we consider that by each one of them reliable +information as to the chances of success or failure in planting or +reaping was given, we gain some idea of the directness and force of +the work of this bureau. + +The river reports of the office include not only regular daily +observations of the changing depths of the great water-highways, +but forecasts of coming floods or sudden rises and falls of the +river-levels. Before the great floods in the Mississippi Valley in +1874 the warnings given by this means, and which could have been given +by no other, saved an incalculable amount of property and human life. +Bulletins are also issued regarding approaching freezing of our canals +in the winter months, and have enabled shippers to avoid the accidents +common heretofore when enormous quantities of grain, etc. in transit +have been detained by this means, to the serious disturbance of the +market. + +Cautionary day and night signals are displayed at the principal ports +and harbors when dangerous winds or storms are anticipated. In +one year 762 of these warning signals were displayed, and 561 were +verified by storms of destructive winds which otherwise would not have +been foreseen. In not a single instance during the last two years has +a great storm reached, without warning from the office, the lakes or +seaports of the country. The amount of shipping, property and life +thus saved to the country is simply incalculable. + +Tri-daily deductions or probabilities of the weather, wind and storms, +with part of the data on which they rest, are published in all the +principal papers of the country, and each man and woman can testify as +to their use of them. Who now goes to be married or to bury his dead +or to begin a journey without consulting the two oracular lines in +italics at the head of the leading column? They have come to take part +in our domestic lives. The people would miss politics or the markets +or literature out of the paper with less regret than Probabilities +should the service be discontinued. + +Besides this practical labor, there is the publication of nine daily +charts on which are inscribed 2160 readings of different instruments, +giving an accurate view of the general meteoric condition; monthly +charts and charts condensing the results of years of observation; +records furnished for the study of scientific men more comprehensive +and regular than can be offered by any similar institution in any +country. + +A special bit of history comes to light respecting our little wooden +shed at the head of Barnegat Bay. An act of Congress approved March, +1873, authorized the establishment of signal stations at lighthouses +or life-saving stations along dangerous coasts, and the connection of +the same by telegraphs, thirty thousand dollars being appropriated +for that end. In consequence, signal stations were established on the +Massachusetts coast, from Norfolk, Va., to Cape Hatteras, and +more closely along this dangerous lee-shore of New Jersey, and +telegraph-lines were laid connecting them with each other and also +with the central office. The plan for the future is to net the whole +coast--the lake, Atlantic and Pacific shores--with these stations and +telegraph-wires. By this means information of coming storms can be +conveyed by signal to vessels, or of wrecks, by telegraph, to other +life-saving stations: the close watch kept upon the ocean-swell +and currents will give warning inland of approaching changes in the +weather; for it is a singular fact that the ocean-swell communicates +this intelligence more quickly than the barometer, in quite another +sense than the poet's + + Every wave has tales to tell + Of storms far out at sea. + +Our little station belongs to the advanced guard of this proposed line +which is to encircle the coast, the whole work of establishing these +stations and telegraph-lines having been, done by Sergeant G---- +and his comrades. Indeed, when we look at all the work done by our +blue-coated friend, his steady, unintermitting attention to duty by +day and night year after year, his comfortless quarters in the wooden +shed on the lonely beach, and the almost absolute solitude for an +educated man during many months of the year, we begin to think his +station not the least honorable among the soldiers of the republic. +Almost any man, set down on the battle-field, one army to meet and +another to back him, with the crash of music and arms, the magnetic +fury of combat blazing in the air, would rise to the height of the +moment and prove himself manly. But to be faithful to petty tasks hour +after hour, through all kinds of privation and weather, for years, is +quite a different matter. + +The reports of the chief officer give us a hint of some of the +privations borne by the observer-sergeants, educated young fellows +like our friend. In 1872 the chief ordered one of these men to +establish a station on the western coast of Alaska and on the island +of St. Paul in Behring Sea, which was done, the observer continuing +for a year in that farthest outpost. His record of frozen fogs which +wrap the island like a pall, of cyclones from the Asian seas that lash +its rocky coast, of vast masses of electric clouds seen nowhere else +which sweep incessantly over it toward the Pole, reads more like the +story of a nightmare dream than a scientific statement. + +In the next spring the chief ordered another sergeant to found a +station on Mount Mitchell, the highest mountain-peak east of the +Mississippi. Professor Mitchell discovered and measured this mountain +about twenty years ago. While taking meteorological observations upon +it he was overtaken by a storm, lost his way, and was dashed to pieces +over one of its terrible precipices. Several years after his death the +government, suddenly recognizing his right to some acknowledgment from +science, ordered his body to be disinterred and buried on the topmost +peak of the mountain. It was a work of weeks, the body in its coffin +being carried by the hardy mountaineers up almost impassable heights. +But it reached the top at last, and lies there in the sky above all +human life, with the mountain for a monument. One is startled by such +a pathetic whim of poetic justice in a government. It was to this peak +that the sergeant was ordered to carry his instruments and to make an +abiding-place for himself. And here, after two days' journey from +the base, he arrived at night in a storm of snow and hail--the guides +having cleared the way with axes--set up his instruments, and took +observations above the clouds while trees and rocks were sheeted with +ice, and there was no shelter for himself or his companions from +the furious tempests. A hut was built after a few days, and here the +observer remained with the lonely grave as companion, taking hourly +observations during several months. + +Another officer was sent to the top of Pike's Peak, where he lived in +a rudely-constructed cabin until his health broke down; he was then +replaced by another, who after a year was obliged to yield also. As +soon as one soldier succumbs in these perilous outposts another goes +forward. The rarity of the air at this great altitude (nearly thirteen +thousand feet) produces nausea, fever and dizziness: added to this +were the intense cold and exposure to terrific storms. Sergeant +Seyboth records several nights when he with his companions were +forced, in a driving tempest, to leave the shelter of their hut and +work all night heaping rocks upon its roof to keep it from being blown +away; beneath them, many thousand feet, was the rolling sea of clouds. +Again and again these men were lost in the drifted snow of the cañons +while passing from station to station, and barely escaped with their +lives. So imminent, indeed, was their danger during the winter of 1873 +that prayers for their safety were offered continually in the churches +below. + +Frederick Meyer, another of these signal-service soldiers, was sent on +the North Polar expedition with Captain Hall. No such marvelous tale +as that contained in his formal report was ever found in fiction. +Sergeant Meyer made observations every three hours on the voyage +north, and hourly when coming south, during a year and two months. At +the end of that time, as is well known to our readers, he, with part +of the crew of the Polaris, was deserted by the ship, and left on a +floe of ice in 79° north latitude, the steamer going southward without +attempting their relief. Even in that moment of extremity he made +an effort to secure the case containing his observations, but it was +washed away from him by heavy seas. For six months these nineteen +human beings drifted on the mass of ice over the polar seas, through +all the darkness and horrors of an Arctic winter, without fire except +such as was made by burning one of their boats--a feeble blaze +daily, enough to warm a quart of water in which to soak their +pemmican--without shelter save such as the heaped ice and snow +afforded, and on starvation diet. After four months the floe began +to melt so rapidly that it was but twenty yards wide. "We dared not +sleep," says Sergeant Meyer, "fearing the ice would break under us and +we should find our grave in the Arctic Sea." Several times the ice did +break beneath them, and they were washed into the flood, but scrambled +up again on the fast-melting floe. During the whole of this time the +signal-service soldier continued faithful to his work, taking such +observations as were possible with the instruments left to him. The +boat had been burned long before, and they warmed their water with +an Esquimaux lamp. On April 22d their provisions consisted of but ten +biscuits. Starvation was before them when a bear was shot, and they +lived on its raw meat for two weeks. At the end of that time a steamer +passed within sight. The poor wretches on the ice hoisted a flag and +shouted, but the vessel passed out of sight. Another ship a few days +later came within the horizon and disappeared. The next day was foggy: +again a steamer was sighted, and for hours the shipwrecked crew strove +to make themselves seen and heard through the fog, firing shots, +hoisting their torn flag and shouting at the tops of their voices. +They were seen at last, and taken aboard the Tigress, "more like +ghastly spectres who had come up through hell," says one of the +narrators, "than living men." + +The pay of the signal-service soldiers is small, and it is hardly to +be supposed that they are all enthusiasts in science, or so in love +with meteorology that they cheerfully brave danger and hardships such +as these for its sake. We must look for the secret of their loyalty +to their steady, tedious work in that quiet devotion to duty which +we find in the majority of honest men--the feeling that they must +go through with what they have once undertaken. And, after all, +the majority of men are honest, and loyalty to irksome work is so +commonplace a matter that it is only when we see it carry a man +steadily through great and sudden peril, or consider how in its great +total the work of obscure individuals has lifted humanity to higher +levels in the last three centuries, that we can understand how good a +thing it is. + +At some future time we shall ransack the lower floor of the little +house on the beach and discover what is to be found there. + +REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + + + + +A DEAD LOVE. + + + O Rose! within my bloomy croft, + Where hidden sweets compacted dwell, + The wanton wind with breathings soft, + To perfect flower thy bud shall swell, + Then steal thy rich perfume, + Tarnish both grace and bloom, + Until, thy pearly prime being past, + Withered and dead thou'lt lie at last. + + O gleaming Night! whose cloudy hair + Waves dark amid its woven light, + Bestudded thick with jewels rare, + Than royal diadem more bright, + Lo! the white hands of Day + Shall strip thy gauds away, + And in the twilight of the morn + Mock thy estate with cold-eyed scorn. + + My love, O Rose! hath had a day + As fair, a fate as quick, as thine: + All wrapped in perfumed sleep I lay + Till my fond fancies grew divine, + And sweet Elysium seemed + Around me as I dreamed. + The rose is dead, the dawn comes fast: + Joy dies, but grief awakes at last. + + F.A. HILLARD. + + + + +GENTILHOMME AND GENTLEMAN. + + +"Le dernier gentilhomme de France vient de mourir!" exclaimed the +_Figaro_ a short time ago when recording the death of the Count de +Cambis. But the announcement has been made so often during the last +century that we are led to hope that the race may not be extinct +yet. Every generation of Frenchmen has boasted the possession of its +"first" and lamented the loss of its "last" "gentilhomme de France," +and on each occasion have hasty English journalists of the day joined +both in the glorification and the lamentation over the individuals +thus commemorated by their own countrymen. The term "gentilhomme" is +so liable to be confounded with "gentleman" that it needs explaining, +for, despite the similarity of derivation, no two words can be more +distinct. The French gentilhomme must be of noble blood: he must be +of ancient and distinguished race, for no _nouveau parvenu_ can ever +aspire to be cited as a _vrai gentilhomme_, while the qualifications +necessary for sustaining the character seem to be wholly confined to +the one virtue of generosity. Whenever you hear it said of a man, "Il +s'est conduit en vrai gentilhomme," be sure that it means no more than +that he performed a simple act of justice in a courteous and graceful +manner. The sacred and self-imposed qualities which make up the +significance of the English word "gentleman" no Frenchman, nor +indeed any foreigner, can understand, and the word itself is never +translated, but always left in its original English. Bulwer defines +the appellation more clearly than any other author when he says, "The +word _gentleman_ has become a title peculiar to us--not, as in other +countries, resting on pedigree and coats-of-arms, but embracing all +who unite gentleness with manhood." + +Now the gentilhomme of France is an entirely different type. He _must_ +rely on pedigree and coats-of-arms; he must be sudden and quick in +quarrel; he must fling away his money freely amongst the _roture_; he +must be what is called a _beau joueur_--that is to say, he may lose at +the gaming-table the dowry of his mother, the marriage-portion of +his sister, everything, in short, save his temper; he may defraud a +creditor, and be the first to laugh at the fraud. "One God, one +love, one king!" is the cry of the good old English gentleman. But in +religion the gentilhomme Français may declare with Henri Quatre that +"Paris vaut bien une messe;" in love he may pledge his faith to as +many mistresses as that same valiant sovereign; and in politics he +may cry, "Vive le Roi! vive la Ligue!" and yet remain a _parfait +gentilhomme_ in spite of all. + +Every generation seems to have furnished its _parfait gentilhomme par +excellence_. The court of Louis Quatorze boasted of its Chevalier de +Grammont, from whose own confession we learn that he gloried in the +skill with which he cheated the poor Count de Camma at Lyons and the +cunning with which he eluded payment of his bill at the inn. + +Then came M. de Montrond, and he again was _premier gentilhomme de +France_ while he lived and _le dernier des gentilhommes Français_ +when he died. M. de Montrond belonged to two generations, two +strongly-contrasted epochs. At his first ball at court he wore a +powdered _cadogan_ and danced in _talons rouges_: at his last he +lolled with bald head against a doorway, in varnished boots and +starched cravat. His existence has remained an enigma to this hour. +Although solicited to accept office by every party that rose to power +during his life, he steadfastly refused, and yet, by virtue of +his quality of premier gentilhomme de France, possessed unbounded +influence with them all. The explanation he gave of his system was +cynical enough: "A man must march straight to the cash-box and secure +the money, without waiting in the ante-room or the bureau: the power +is sure to follow." He chatted politics sometimes, but never "talked" +them, and seldom failed to introduce the names of one or more of the +forty-three duchesses, countesses and marquises whose peace of mind he +boasted of having wrecked for ever. Is it not strange that such frothy +frivolity could have obtained dominion for more than fifty years over +the most critical people in the world? But Montrond always declared +that no man in France would ever take the trouble to read a book +if once he had taken the trouble to read the preface. Even by the +capricious and pedantic yet ignorant society of fashionable London his +fantastical dominion was acknowledged; and the reason of this will be +understood at once in the fearlessness with which he uttered his rule +of conduct: "Every man of distinction should settle his income at ten +thousand pounds a year, and never trouble himself whether or not he +possesses as much for the capital." This premier gentilhomme de France +was proud of his want of reading, and used often to declare that the +only two books he had ever skimmed were the wearisome _Henriade_ +of Voltaire and the frivolous _Liaisons Dangereuses_ of Laclos. +No research, no analysis of character, can be found to explain the +strange inconsistency by which M. de Montrond was, notwithstanding, +entrusted by every government under which he lived with the most +important secrets, the most serious negotiations--sent abroad to stay +revolutions, summoned home to remodel constitutions, and consulted +on every point as though he had spent his whole life in the study of +Montesquieu or Colbert. Such was the moral life of the man pronounced +the premier gentilhomme de France by the fathers and grandfathers of +the present generation. + +Let us glance at the physical side of his existence--the outward and +visible sign of the distinctive title with which he was honored. M. +de Montrond began his career by the study of arms, wine, women and +dice--which constituted the accomplishments necessary for a gentleman +of the period--in the regiment of Royal Flanders. Theodore Lamette +was his first colonel, Douai his first garrison-town. Soon after his +arrival there every man in the place became his devoted friend, every +woman his willing slave, and every tradesman his ready creditor. It +so happened that a detachment of Royal Cravattes had sought temporary +quarters in the same town; and among the officers was a certain Comte +de Champagne, a great duelist and gamester. From this man, by some +good fortune, over which a veil has always been thrown by Montrond's +friends, he won a considerable sum, and on finding, after suffering +a considerable time to elapse, that no sign of payment was made, +he proclaimed his intention of taking steps--not according, but in +opposition, to the law--in order to obtain his due. Montrond knew +himself to be a wretched swordsman, and therefore resolved at once +to replace his want of skill by audacity. He sent his servant to the +stable where four-and-twenty goodly steeds belonging to the Count de +Champagne were champing their oats in all security, with orders to +carry them off and leave in lieu of the magnificent animals a message +to the effect that M. de Montrond would sell the stud to pay himself, +and hand over the balance to the Count de Champagne. In a few hours, +as he had expected, he was called to the field, and presented himself +before the great duelist with a phlegmatic humor which completely +upset the count's own self-possession. Montrond was hit hard at +the first lunge. He had intended to be; and the result has become +historical in the annals of dueling. He had been pierced in the breast +by his adversary's sword, and was evidently thought by the latter to +have received his death-wound. In token of this belief the Count de +Champagne lowered his weapon, and then M. de Montrond, making one +desperate thrust, drove his sword right through his adversary's heart. +The Count de Champagne fell dead without a cry, without a struggle. +Then M. de Montrond rose covered with glory and with honor, for in +such adventures lay the fame of the gentilhommes of that time. + +It would be impossible to recount the long catalogue of M. de +Montrond's triumphs after this. He became the idol of fashion--as much +with the Directoire as he had been with the old court--and under the +patronage of Madame Tallien he was permitted to carry amongst the +stern republicans the habits and morals of the Régence. It was at +this moment of his life that the one act of expiation of the past took +place. He worked with right good-will for the benefit of the exiled +nobles, many of whom were recalled through his influence, which was +so great that he found means to persuade the unkempt rulers of the +Republic to invite to their banquets the pardoned émigrés, and to show +that they felt no rancor and experienced no dread. + +We were about to follow the example of Montrond himself, and forget +that he was married--"just as little as possible," as he was wont to +say, but legally, notwithstanding. He married during the Revolutionary +movement a _grande dame_, a divorced lady, a certain Duchesse de +Fleury, who had sought in this union nothing more than the protection +of her property against the name of her first husband, through which +it would have been infallibly condemned to confiscation. Many of +the great ladies of that time had done likewise, thus defrauding the +Republic. But the Duchesse de Fleury neglected the most important +precaution of all--that of securing protection against the protector +she had chosen, who at once seized the property--more gayly perhaps, +but quite as effectually as the Republic would have done. The terms +of the marriage-contract may be quoted as a specimen of the motives +by which the premier gentilhomme de France was governed in the +transaction. After the declaration that the Duchesse de Fleury had +brought to the _communauté_ certain houses and lands, besides an +income of forty thousand livres, we find added by way of set-off to +this fortune that the count engaged himself to bring yearly the sum +of a hundred thousand francs--the produce of his wits. After a little +while, the premier gentilhomme having exercised the said wits in +spending the produce of the houses and lands of Madame de Fleury, and +Madame de Fleury not being able to return the compliment by selling +the wits of the Count de Montrond, the two went on their respective +ways, leaving to Providence the task of redeeming the lands which the +wits had sold and the income which the wits had scattered to the four +winds of heaven. + +Space is wanting to recount the struggles of the different parties +which succeeded each other with such frightful rapidity in France +to obtain possession of the Count de Montrond's influence. But he +remained true to one principle, the one with which he started--"to +make straight for the cash-box." Yet with all this prosaic prudence, +amid the poetry of his position, the moral of this man's life was +fulfilled to the very letter. The Count de Montrond managed to outlive +every pecuniary resource save the one afforded by the remembrance of +"auld lang syne" and the unforgotten days of bygone love. He died in +the house of Madame Hamelin, after having been soothed and sheltered +by this friend and protectress through the revolutionary storm of +1848. He died dependent, subject to the same changes and caprice he +had so long inflicted upon others. + +Montrond's successor, the Count de Cambis, the man who has represented +the premier gentilhomme de France in our day, died lately at as good +an old age as the Count de Montrond. _Autres tems, autres moeurs_: no +more cheating at cards, no more beating the watch, as in the case of +the Chevalier de Grammont; no more dueling and killing the adversary +by surprise, as in that of the Count de Montrond. When the bourgeois +king, Louis Philippe, succeeded to the elder branch, the gentilhomme +Français entirely lost his prestige, and the necessity of his +existence was ignored. Everything bourgeois had become the fashion at +court: the court itself was denominated a _basse-cour_ (farm-yard) by +the Faubourg St. Germain, and all who frequented it "les oies de Frère +Philippe" or "les canards d'Orléans." The Count de Cambis appeared at +that moment at the Tuileries in search of office. His name stood high +in the annals of the French noblesse: society had, however, ceased to +confound the gentilhomme with the roué. The conditions necessary +to fulfill the character were changed, and it was now the bourgeois +gentilhomme and not the gentilhomme roué whose claim to the vacant +place was more likely to be accepted. The Count de Cambis had held the +place of honorary equerry to the Duc d'Angoulême, having obtained +it less on account of his patent of nobility than by reason of his +unblemished character. He was now in search of some place about the +court, and soon found favor in the eyes of the citizen-king, to whom +the quiet virtues of the Tiers-État were of more value than the flash +and tinsel of the Régence. The count was of fine, commanding person +and handsome countenance: moreover, he was "the man with a story," and +a painful one it was, creative of the greatest interest in the tender +bosoms of the Orleans princesses. Although poor, belonging to a ruined +family, his prospects had been good at the court of Charles Dix, and +one of the greatest ladies of the court had cast her eyes upon him as +a suitable _parti_ for her daughter. The young lady, nothing loath, +had accepted with alacrity the proposition of marriage, seconded as +it was by the Duchesse d'Angoulême, and backed by the promise of high +office on its realization. A marriage is easy to arrange in France; +not so the execution of the marriage-contract, which is rendered as +wearisome by delays as the still more dilatory proceedings of the law; +and therefore it was deemed advisable, in order to pass this dismal +period, to despatch the Count de Cambis to Holland for the purchase of +horses for the royal stable. Arrived at The Hague, he was seized with +an attack of smallpox, which laid him prostrate on the low flock bed +of the miserable little inn to which he had been conveyed on landing +from the boat. Here he lay for some time incognito, his identity +unknown to any save the faithful valet who attended him, until he had +perfectly recovered from the disease, which, however, was found to +have left the most frightful traces of its passage in scar and seam +and furrow from forehead to chin. The handsome young cavalier who +landed so full of hope and spirits on the quay at The Hague rose from +his bed with a face bloated and discolored, seamed and scarred +and pockmarked, his once luxuriant locks grown thin and dank, his +eyelashes gone, his whole appearance so changed that as he gazed at +himself for the first time in the looking-glass he was overwhelmed +with such despair that, as he owned afterward to his friends, he would +have thrown himself from the window at which he stood into the canal +below had he not been prevented by the strong arm of his servant, +Dulac. A terrible period of anguish and depression followed on this +first excitement, but he awoke from it and returned to life once more, +a sadder and a wiser man. When the first impression of horror and +dismay had passed away his resolution was taken at once. He resolved +to disengage the lady from her vow, and sat down to write the words +which were to rend his heart in twain. At that moment Dulac entered +the room with a packet of letters just arrived from Paris by +estafette. Amongst them was one from the young lady's mother, full of +sweet pleasantry and graceful mirth, describing the gay doings at the +Tuileries, and the delight her daughter had experienced at the idea of +being allowed to attend the Duchesse d'Angoulême to the ball about to +be given in honor of the visit to Paris of some one or other of the +Spanish princes. She described with the greatest vivacity all the +details of the toilet to be worn by her chère petite Adèle and the +kindness of the royal princess, and ended with the most affectionate +expressions of regret at the absence from the fête of her daughter's +affianced lover, writing in playful terms of the danger in which +Adèle's heart would have been placed at the accession of so many new +and handsome cavaliers in attendance on the Spanish prince had it not +been for the precaution of wearing, as the safest shield against all +attacks, the locket which contained the portrait of her brave and +beautiful lover--the miniature he had given her on his departure. +He turned from the perusal of the letter with a deadly chill at his +heart: he crushed it in his hand, and threw it on the blazing logs +upon the hearth, holding it down with the tongs until every fiery +spark had disappeared, then watched the blackened flakes as they flew +one by one up the chimney; and when the last had disappeared he dashed +the tears from his eyes, and, to the great surprise and consternation +of Dulac, ordered him to pack up and prepare for their immediate +return to France. + +That very evening he set out by the passage-boat, and arrived in +Paris on the very night of the ball at the Tuileries. With the strange +self-immolation which is generated in some characters by despair +he caused himself to be driven by the quay round to the Place Louis +Quinze, and made the driver stop so that he might torture himself +with the sight of the lights and the shadows of the dancers. He then +alighted at his own door beneath the gateway in the Rue de Rivoli, +which at that hour was silent and deserted, for the line of carriages +were all setting down in the courtyard of the Place du Carrousel. The +gaping valets merely nodded acquiescence to the password he muttered +as, muffled up to the chin, he glided noiselessly over the polished +floor of the vestibule and hurried up the stairs. Dulac was well +pleased to be home again, anticipating with delight the enjoyment of +that repose which after such a long arid rapid journey he had well +earned. What, therefore, was his consternation when _Monsieur le +Comte_ announced his intention of attending the ball, ordering him +to prepare in all haste his court-costume for the purpose! Dulac was +accustomed to obey without opposition, and, although wondering at this +sudden vagary on the part of his master, usually so reasonable in +all things, hastened to do his bidding. The toilet was completed in +silence. A few tears were shed by Dulac over the thin lank locks he +was called upon to friz, and when all was completed and he held aloft +the girandole to light him down the back stairs used by members of the +royal household to gain admission to the state apartments of the +royal palace without passing through the crowd in the ante-room, the +faithful fellow turned heartbroken to his master's chamber. + +The Count de Cambis entered the ballroom at the moment when a +quadrille was being made up, and the very instinct of his love--for +it could not be mere chance--led him at once to the room and the place +where Mademoiselle de B---- was seated beside her mother. The count +has often told his friends that he trembled so violently that for a +few minutes he could neither speak nor move, but stood gazing upon +the young lady silent, motionless, as if rooted to the spot. The +whole seemed as if passing before him in a magic-lantern, and when +at length, recalled to himself by the amazement expressed upon the +countenances of both ladies, he ventured to ask his beautiful fiancée +for her hand in the dance, it was no wonder that she did not recognize +his voice, so choked and husky was it with emotion. But the young lady +turned abruptly away with an impatient gesture, and looked imploringly +at her mother for help against the intrusion of the repulsive gallant +she had secured. At a signal from the matron, which did not escape +the count, she bent her head, and the count, stooping also, caught the +whisper, "Nay, mon enfant, ugly as he is, he must not be refused, or +you cannot dance with any other partners all night." With pouting lips +and tearful eyes the young lady extended her hand, but by the time +she had raised her eyes again the suppliant had vanished through the +doorway, his disappearance as mysterious as his first apparition, and, +strange to say, was seen no more. He had caught sight of the locket, +the miniature of himself, with the bright eyes and flowing hair, the +long black eyelashes and glossy moustache. It seemed to reproach him +with the fraud he was premeditating against the lovely girl to whom, +if he listened to the dictates of honor, he must henceforth be as one +dead--as one, indeed, who had died many years before. + +His anguish was intense. The test of love had been deceptive, the +ordeal had failed, the verdict had been given against him. He went +back to his chamber, where Dulac was still busily engaged in unpacking +his valise, bade the astounded valet replace everything he had already +taken out, and hurry at once to the Poste aux Chevaux to command +horses for the return journey to The Hague. As soon as he arrived at +that place he wrote a long letter to the young lady's mother releasing +her daughter from all obligation toward himself, and announcing his +determination never to intrude himself upon her notice again. The +Duchesse d'Angoulême, whose experience of life was of its bitterness +alone, is said to have interfered to prevent the affair from becoming +public, and to have assisted in finding another _parti_ for the +deserted fair one. + +Meanwhile, the Restoration with its disappointments and broken vows +was replaced by the government of Louis Philippe with its hopes and +promises. The Count de Cambis, whose official position was annihilated +by the storm which swept over the kingdom, found himself immediately, +with the whole army of officials, compelled to choose between poverty +and obscurity or treachery to his former benefactors. When this combat +is allowed to take place between the heart and the stomach, the latter +generally carries the day; and so it did in this case. The Count de +Cambis did but follow the majority in binding himself at once to the +interests of the Orleans family. Louis Philippe, who, like all French +sovereigns, displayed undue eagerness to make use of the old servants +of the preceding dynasty, was not slow to avail himself of the offer +of service made by the Count de Cambis. A place was found for him as +superintendent of the royal stud, and here he really displayed that +disinterestedness in his dealings which entitled him to the highest +consideration. The Duke of Orleans, whose aristocratic tastes always +inclined him to favor distinction of birth, treated the Count de +Cambis with especial preference; and on his side the count was careful +to flatter the instincts of His Royal Highness by assuming the manners +and gait of the ancient raffinés of the Garde Royale. One of +the duke's chief delights consisted in fashioning his household +regulations after the model set by the Due d'Angoulême, and the count +became his chief counsel and adviser in every matter concerning +the etiquette to be observed in a well-ordered court. The tradition +preserved to the latest hour of the existence of the royal stables +tells of the fatality which rendered the Count de Cambis the avenger +of the Restoration he had denied through his share in the catastrophe +which deprived the throne of July of its heir. + +It was the 13th of July, 1842. The day was fine. The duke appeared at +a window which looked into the courtyard where the Count de Cambis +was giving orders concerning the day's service. "The victoria to-day," +called out His Royal Highness from the balcony.--"And Tom?" was the +question sent upward to the duke.--"No, let me have Kent: he goes +best with Ridge," returned the duke.--"But Kent has been much worked +lately, monseigneur, and--."--"Well, well, Cambis, as you like: you +know best," was the final reply as the duke turned away from the +window and retreated into the chamber. Just then one of the grooms, +who had been standing at a respectful distance and had overheard the +words, came forward and in a voice full of mystery begged to inform M. +le Comte that something was wrong with Tom, who had been observed to +be restless and irritable the whole morning, and inquired whether it +would not be well to have him doctored. "Pooh! pooh!" exclaimed +the count. "You are all chicken-hearted in _your_ stable--always +complaining of Tom, whose only fault lies in his spirit. He only shows +his thorough breeding, and the duke wishes to make a gallant display +on starting. There is a crowd already gathered round the gate to +see him drive off." So Tom was harnessed, and the postilion who rode +Piedefer declares that from the very first he argued ill of Tom's +temper, for he observed a vicious expression in his eye, and a +distension of the nostrils which never boded good. + +The Duke of Orleans was driven from the palace-gate full of health and +spirits. He was to proceed to Neuilly to bid farewell to his mother, +Queen Amélie, at the little summer château there. Detractors of +the duke's character will tell you that on the way he stopped and +prolonged to undue length a visit he should not have made at all, and +that consequently he was compelled to urge the postilion to greater +speed. Whatever the cause, just at the entrance of the Route de la +Révolte the dreaded outburst of temper on the part of the irascible +Tom took place. At first merely fidgety, and managed with the greatest +delicacy by the English postilion, then ill-tempered and capricious, +swerving from side to side, necessitating in self-defence the use of +the whip--"But only gently and lighthanded, as one's obliged to do +sometimes, just to show 'em who's master," was the poor fellow's +explanation amid the bitter tears he shed when recounting the +catastrophe--when suddenly Tom reared and plunged, and set off at a +mad gallop which no human hand could have had the power to arrest. +The postilion kept a cool head and steady seat: not so the Duke of +Orleans, who rose to his feet in alarm just as the wheels of the +carriage struck against a stone. The shock caused him to lose his +balance: he was dashed violently to the ground, and in a few hours the +hope of France lay dead in the small back shop of a petty tradesman in +the avenue. + +The blow was a dreadful one--far heavier than that of a mere domestic +bereavement. It was felt that the royal family had lost its hold, not +of authority, but of sentiment, upon the nation--that the dynasty for +which such sacrifices had been made was wrecked for ever. But no blame +was attached to any individual save by the Count de Cambis himself, +who acknowledged the grievous responsibility he had incurred by +instantly sending in his resignation and withdrawing from court. In +vain did Louis Philippe endeavor to persuade him to return; in vain +did the queen herself, even amid the desolation of the first storm of +grief, disclaim any imputation of blame to the count; in vain did +the Duc de Némours write with his own hand the urgent request that he +would resume office, were it only for a time, in order to display to +the world the conviction felt by every member of the royal family of +the utter absence of any neglect or carelessness on his part. It was +of no avail: the Count de Cambis remained steady to his purpose of +retirement, and disappeared entirely from court. + +It was not until the summer of 1847 that a renewal of intercourse took +place. The day was a festival, and the approaches to the palace were +thronged till a late hour. A garden below the windows, surrounded by +a low iron grating, and called the garden of the Count de Paris, had +just been closed for the night; the sound of the drums beating the +_retraite_ was already dying in the distance; the crowd had all +withdrawn, and yet one solitary figure still remained, leaning +disconsolately against the railing, gazing wistfully into the garden, +and every now and then casting furtive glances up at the balcony into +which opened the window of the apartment occupied by the Duchess of +Orleans. Presently a child came down the steps and walked straight to +the gate against which the stranger was leaning, his forehead pressed +against the grating, his hand grasping the iron bars. In a moment the +key was turned in the lock, a little hand was placed within that of +the Count de Cambis, and a gentle voice whispered in his ear, "Come +in! come in! We are all there to-night--grandpère and all. We want +to see you so much. It is mamma's fête." There was no resisting this +appeal. Le premier gentilhomme de France would have been compelled +to forego his title had he refused the invitation, and clasping +the child's hand he traversed the garden in silence, and soon found +himself in the midst of the royal family assembled to celebrate the +fête of St. Hélène in the privacy of domestic affection. The sight +of the well-remembered faces, the smiles and greetings of the royal +family, the cordial kindness of the king, the silent sympathy of +the queen, the gentle welcome of the duchess, at length brought +consolation to the wounded spirit of the count, and without further +ado he consented at once to resume his old position; and the next day, +when he was seen galloping beside the royal carriage up the Champs +Élysées, he was greeted with hearty shouts of recognition by the +promenaders on either side. Everything now went on in the old train. +He was readmitted to the intimacy of the Orleans family, and retained +his place and the confidence of his master until the revolution +of February drove the Orleans family into exile. He retired into +obscurity with a grace and dignity befitting the premier gentilhomme +de France--without reproach, without a stain upon his escutcheon. He +refused the most tempting offers of employment at the imperial +court, and was seen no more, save when now and then, passing down the +boulevard with hurried steps, he was recognized by his long white hair +and braided jacket, with the persistent cipher of the royal house to +which he had been for so many years attached. Then, as he hastened +along with riding-whip in hand and jingling spurs upon his heels, +some old bourgeois sipping his demi-tasse at the door of a café would +exclaim, "There goes the Count de Cambis, le dernier gentilhomme de +France!" + +A desperate attempt was made by the imperialists to set up a premier +gentilhomme of their own in the person of Count Morny, who sought to +revive the traditions of De Grammont and of De Montrond. He was brave, +he was witty, his _physique_ might be said to realize the ideal of the +role, but his _morale_ was founded on the theories of the Bonaparte +school. De Grammont tells us how he cheated the greasy cattle-dealer; +De Montrond makes us laugh when he relates how in his tour of +mediation with Prince Talleyrand he was wont to take bribes from two +rival princes, each willing to pay a heavy sum that the other might +be baffled; but neither De Grammont nor De Montrond would ever have +consented to soil his hands with such vile commercial speculations as +the Houillères d'Anzin or the Vieille Montagne, or condescend to such +disgraceful financial mystification as the "Affaire Jecker" of Mexico. + +It would be impossible to explain the difference which exists between +the "gentilhomme" and the "gentleman." It is felt and understood, +but cannot be described. The term "gentleman" itself is conventional. +Neither birth nor accomplishments, nor even gentle manners, are +necessary for undisputed assumption of the title. The man who acts +as a lawyer's clerk cannot be called a gentleman, according to Judge +Keating's decision, because, the title having no place in the language +of the law, if he chanced to be indicted for a criminal offence he +would be denominated a "laborer." Serjeant Talfourd's sweeping theory, +of the term "gentleman" being legally applicable to every man who has +nothing to do and is out of the workhouse, cannot be accepted, as it +would of necessity include thieves, mendicants and out-door paupers. +The American police have been compelled, to defend the border-line of +gentility against the encroachments of their vagabond gold-seekers, +card-sharpers and ruffians, and confine the term to those of +respectable calling. In California the term may be applied to every +individual of the male gender and the Caucasian race, the line being +drawn at Chinamen. An American writer contests the acceptance of the +term, in England as being too vague and uncertain for comprehension by +foreigners, and suggests that some less conventional designation than +those now in use should be found to indicate the idea. To the moral +sense it would be natural to suppose that character rather than +calling would be the most important point in the consideration of +the question; but it is not so. In the four-oared race of gentlemen +amateurs held last year at Agecroft in Lancashire the prize of +silver plate was won by a crew taken from a club composed entirely of +colliers, who had been allowed to row under protest, they not being +acknowledged as "_gentlemen_ amateurs." The race over and the prize +won by the colliers, an investigation took place by the committee. +The result was unanimity of the vote against acceptance of the +qualification of the winners. Here, then, occurred the best +illustration of the comprehension of the term by the moderns, for +the "gentlemen," deeming that money _must_ be a salvo to pride in +the bosom of all whose quality of gentleman remains unacknowledged, +subscribed a handsome sum to be distributed amongst the disappointed +crew. But here, again, the proof was given of the vague uncertainty of +the term, for the crew of colliers were _gentlemen_ enough to refuse +the proffered gift with scorn. + +G. COLMACHE. + + + + +SPECIAL PLEADING. + + Time, bring back my lord to me: + Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company? + Here's but a heart-break sandy waste + 'Twixt this and thee. Why, killing haste + Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee! + + Oh, would that I might divine + Thy name beyond the zodiac sign + Wherefrom our times-to-come descend. + He called thee _Sometime_. Change it, friend: + _Now-time_ soundeth far more fine. + + Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me: + Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-tree + And broods as gray as any dove, + And calls, _When wilt thou come, O Love_? + And pleads across the waste to thee. + + Good Moment, that giv'st him me, + Wast ever in love? Maybe, maybe + Thou'lt be this heavenly velvet time + When Day and Night as rhyme and rhyme + Set lip to lip dusk-modestly; + + Or haply some noon afar, + --O life's top bud, mixt rose and star! + How ever can thine utmost sweet + Be star-consummate, rose-complete, + Till thy rich reds full opened are? + + Well, be it dusk-time or noon-time, + I ask but one small, small boon, Time: + Come thou in night, come thou in day, + I care not, I care not: have thine own way, + But only, but only, come soon, Time. + + SIDNEY LANIER. + + + + +THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS. + +BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL." + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +WHAT MUST COME. + + +If Madame de Montfort could not teach Leam some of the things +generally considered essential to the education of a gentlewoman, if +her orthography was disorderly, her grammar shaky, her knowledge of +geography, history and language best expressed by _x_, and her moral +perceptions never clear and seldom straight, she was yet far in +advance of a girl whose training in all things was so infinitely below +even her own dwarfed standard. Madame could read with native grace +and commendable fluency, making nimble leapfrogs over the heads of the +exceptionally hard passages, but Leam had to spell every third word, +and then she made a mess of it, Madame did know that eight and seven +are fifteen, but Leam could not get beyond five and five are ten and +one over makes eleven. If madame thought deception the indispensable +condition of pleasant companionship, and lies the current coin of good +society--in which she certainly sided with the majority of believing +Christians--Leam would be none the worse for a little softening of +that crude out-speaking of hers, which was less sincerity than the +hardness of youthful ignorance and the insolence of false pride. If +madame was only lacquer, and not clear gold all through, Leam had not +the grace of even the thinnest layer of varnish, and might well take +lessons in the religion of appearances and that thing which we call +"manner." Madame did know at least how to bear herself with the +seeming of a lady, and could say her shibboleth as it ought to be +said. Thus, she ate with delicacy and held her knife nicely poised and +balanced, but Leam grasped hers like a whanger, and cut off pieces of +meat anyhow, which as often as not she took from the point. Mamma had +eaten with her knife grasped also like a whanger, and why might not +she? she said when madame remonstrated and gave her a lecture on the +aesthetics of the table. And why should she not make her bread her +plate, and hold both bread and meat in her hand if she liked? Why +was she to wipe her lips when she drank? and why, traveling farther +afield, was she to speak when she was spoken to if she would rather be +silent? Why get up from her chair when ladies like Mrs, Harrowby and +Mrs. Birkett came into the room? They did not get up from their chairs +when she went into their rooms, and mamma never did. And why might she +not say what she thought and show what she disliked? Mamma said what +she thought and showed what she disliked, and mamma's rule was her +law. + +All these objections madame had to combat, and all these things to +teach, and many more besides. And as Leam was young, and as even +the hardest youth is unconsciously plastic because unconsciously +imitative, the suave instructress did really make some impression; +so that when she assured the incredulous neighborhood of Leam's +improvement she had more solid data than always underlaid her words, +and was partly justified in her assertion. + +Religion, too, was another point on which the forces of new and old +met in collision. Madame was of course what is meant by the word +"religious." Like all persons trading on falsehood and living +in deception, her orthodoxy was undoubted, and the most rigid +investigation could not have discovered an unsound spot anywhere. +She would as soon have thought of questioning her own existence as of +doubting the literal exactness of the first chapter of Genesis, +and she thought science an awfully wicked thing because it went +to disprove the story of the six days. She firmly believed in the +personality of Satan and material fires for wicked souls; and the +sweet way in which she lamented the probable paucity of the saved was +extremely edifying, not to say touching. This childlike acceptance, +this faithful orthodoxy, was one of the things for which the rector +liked her so well. He had a profound contempt for science and +skepticism together; and an unbeliever, even if learned in the stars +and old bones, ranked with him as a knave or a fool, and sometimes +both. His pet joke, which was not original, was that there was only +one letter of difference between septic and skeptic, and of the two +the skeptic was the more unsavory. + +Being then pious, madame had hung about her walls short texts in fancy +lettering, with a great deal of scroll-work in gold and carmine to +make them look pretty. When she came into possession of Leam's mind, +she was shocked at her ignorance of all the sayings that were so +familiar to herself and other persons of respectability. Leam knew +nothing but a few barbarous prayers to saints, used more after the +fashion of charms than anything else, the ave and the paternoster said +incorrectly and not understood when said. Wherefore madame caused to +be illuminated some texts for her room too, as lessons always before +her eyes, and counter-charms to those heathenish invocations in which +the child put her sole faith and trust of salvation. And among other +things she gave her the Ten Commandments, very charmingly done. +Round each commandment were pictures, emblems, symbolic flowers, all +enclosed in fancy scroll-work of an elaborate kind. Really, it was a +very creditable piece of bastard art, and Mr. Dundas was moved almost +to tears by it. Madame did it herself--so she said with a tender +little smile--as her pleasant surprise for poor dear Leam on her +fifteenth birthday. And Leam was so far tamed in that she suffered +the Tables to be hung up in her bedroom, and even found pleasure in +looking at them. The pictures of Ruth and Naomi; of the thief running +away with the money-bags; of a woman lying prostrate with long hair, +and a broken lily at her side; of a murdered man prone in the snow, +and a frightened-looking bravo, half covering his face in his cloak, +fleeing away in the darkness, with a bowl marked "poison" and a dagger +dripping with blood in the margin,--all these pictures, which stood +against the commandments they illustrated, fascinated her greatly. The +colors and the gilding, the flowers and the emblems, pleased her, +and she took the texts sandwiched between as the jalap in the jam. At +first she thought it impious to have them there at all, because they +were in the Bible, and mamma used to say that good Christians never +read the Bible. It was a holy book which only priests might use, and +when those pigs of Protestants looked into it and read it, just as +they would read the newspaper, they profaned it. But by force of habit +she reconciled herself to the profanity, and by frequent looking at +the art got the literature into her head. And when it was there she +did not find anything in it to be afraid of or to condemn as too +mysteriously holy for her knowledge. All of which was so much to the +good; and Mr. Dundas had no words strong enough whereby to express his +gratitude to the fair woman who had saved his child from destruction +by giving her the Ten Commandments made pretty by adjuncts of bastard +art. + +But had it not been for Alick Corfield, Madame la Marquise de Montfort +would not have made quite so much way. Alick and Leam used to meet +in Steel's Wood; and when Leam carried her perplexities to Alick, and +Alick told her that she ought to yield and gave her the reasons why, +after first fiercely combating him, telling him he was stupid, wicked, +unkind, she always ended by promising to obey; and when Leam promised +the things agreed to might be considered done. In point of fact, +then, it was Alick who was really moulding her, in excess of that +unconscious plasticity and imitation already spoken of. But this was +one of the things which the world did not know, and where judgment +went awry in consequence. + +Of course the neighborhood saw what was coming--what must come, +indeed, by the very force of circumstances. The friendship which had +sprung up from the first between Mr. Dundas and madame could not stop +at friendship now, when both were free and evidently so necessary +to each other. For madame, with that noble frankness backed by wise +reticence characteristic of her, had told every one of her loss by +which she had been necessitated to become Leam's governess; always +adding, "So that I am glad to be able to work, seeing that I am +obliged to do so, as I could not borrow, even for a short time: I am +too proud for that, and I hope too honest." + +Wherefore, as she was evidently Leam's salvation, according to her own +account, and Sebastian was confessedly her income, and a very good one +too, there was no reason why their several lines should not coalesce +in an indissoluble union, and one home be made to serve them instead +of two. As indeed it came about. + +When the year of conventional mourning had been perfected, on the +anniversary of the very day when poor Pepita died, the final words +were said, the last frail barrier of madame's conjugal memories +and widowed regrets was removed, and Sebastian Dundas went home +the gladdest man in England. All that long bad past was now to be +redeemed, and he had made a good bargain with life to have passed +through even so much misery to come at the end into such reward. + +Nothing startled him, nothing chilled him. When madame, laying +her hand on his arm, said in a kind of playful candor infinitely +bewitching, "Remember, dear friend, I told you beforehand that I have +lost _all_ my fortune; in marrying me you marry only myself with my +past, my child and my liabilities," his mind repudiated the idea of +the flimsiest shadow on that past, the faintest blur on its spotless +record. As for her child, it was his: he would give it his name, it +should be dearer to him than his own; which, all things considered, +was not an overwhelming provision of love; and her liabilities, +whatever they were, he would be glad to discharge them as a proof of +his love for her and the forging of another golden link between them. + +He doubted nothing, believed all, and loved as much as he believed. +He was happy, radiant, content: the woman whom he loved loved him, and +had consented to become his wife. In giving her dear self to him she +was also accepting security and devotion at his hands; and what more +can a true man want than to be of good service to the woman he loves? +If women like to minister, it is the pride of men to protect; and if +the vow to endow with all his worldly goods is a fable in fact, it is +true as an instinctive feeling. + +When Mrs. Harrowby heard that the marriage was positively arranged, +she sat with her daughters at a kind of inquest on their dead +friendship with Sebastian Dundas, and came to the conclusion that +they must know something more definite now about this person calling +herself Madame la Marquise de Montfort. As a stranger it was all +very well to overlook the vagueness of her biography--they were +not committed to anything really dangerous by simply visiting a +householder among them--but it was another matter if she was to be +married to one of themselves. Then they must learn who she really +was, and Mr. Dundas must satisfy them scrupulously, else they should +decline to know her. + +"It will make a great gap in our society," said kindly Josephine, who, +having the most to suffer, had forgiven the most readily. + +"Gap or no gap, it is what we owe to ourselves," said Mrs. Harrowby. + +"And to Edgar," added Maria. + +"I shall call on Sebastian to-morrow," said Mrs. Harrowby, laying +aside her knitting with the air of a minister who has dictated his +protocol and has now only to sign the clean copy. + +"Sleep on it, mamma," pleaded Josephine. + +"It will make no difference," returned the mother; and her elder two +echoed in concert, "I hope not." + +The next day Mrs. Harrowby did call on Mr. Dundas, and, finding that +gentleman at home, succeeded in speaking her mind. She conveyed her +ultimatum as a corporate not individual resolution, speaking in the +name of the "ladies of the place," which she was scarcely entitled to +do. + +Mr. Dundas declined to satisfy her. Indeed, it would have been +difficult for him to have done so, seeing that he knew no more of +Madame de Montfort, his intended wife, than what they all knew; which +was substantially nothing, unless her fancy autobiography could be +called something. He spoke, however, as if he had her private memoirs +and all the branches, roots and hole of the family tree in his pocket; +and he spoke loftily, with the intimation that she was superior; to +all at North Aston, Mrs. Harrowby herself included. + +This interview, with its demand unsatisfied and its assertions +unproved, sent the coolness already existing between the Hill and +Andalusia Cottage down to freezing-point; and the worst of it was that +Mrs. Harrowby did not find backers. The neighborhood did not take up +the cause as she expected it would. It halted midway and faced both +sides, in the manner so dear to English respectability--less cordial +to Mr. Dundas and madame than it would have been had Mrs. Harrowby +been friendly, but unwilling to follow her to the bitter end. As they +said to each other, it was all very well for Mrs. Harrowby to be so +severe on the marriage, because she was angry and disappointed--and an +angry and disappointed mother is ever unreasonable--but they who +had no daughters to marry, really they did not see why they should +persecute that poor madame who was such pleasant company, and +had behaved herself with so much propriety since she came. And if +Sebastian Dundas was going to make a second mistake, that was his +lookout, and would be his punishment. + +On the whole, the neighborhood when polled was decidedly more friendly +than hostile. The Corfields and Fairbairns were, as they had always +been, neutrals of a genial tint, more for than against; Mr. and Mrs. +Birkett were warm partisans; and only Adelaide joined hands with the +Hill and said that Mrs. Harrowby was justified in her renunciation +and that madame was a wretch. And for the first time in her life +the rector's daughter spoke compassionately of Leam and humanely of +Pepita, saying of the one how much she pitied her, having such a woman +for a stepmother; of the other, that, horrible as she was, at least +they knew the worst of her, which was more than they could say of +madame. + +She made her father very angry when she said these things, but she +repeated them, nevertheless; and she knew that he dared not scold her +too severely before the world for fear of that little something called +conscience, and knowledge of the reason why he believed in Madame de +Montfort so implicitly. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +RECKONING WITH LEAM. + + +The announcement of her father's intended marriage with madame came +on Leam with a crushing sense of terror and despair. Unobservant youth +sees little, and even what it does see it does not comprehend. Though +the girl had accustomed herself by slow degrees to many works and ways +which mamma had never known; though the faculties which had been, as +it were, imprisoned by that close-set, hide-bound love of hers were +now a little loosened and set free; though the activities of youth +were stirring in her, and her inner life, if still isolated, was a +shade more expanded than of old,--yet she had no desire for greater +change, and she had no keener vision for the world outside herself +than before. She saw nothing of that diabolical thing which her +father and madame had been so long plotting as the outcome of their +friendship, the parable of which her education had been the text. If +her intelligence was warping out from the narrow limits in which her +mother had confined it, it was still below the average--as much as her +feverish love and tenacious loyalty were above. All that she knew +was, mamma dead was the same as mamma living, only to be more tenderly +dealt with, as she could not defend herself; and that she wondered how +papa could be so wicked as to affront her now that she was not able to +punish him and let him know what she thought of him. + +When he told her that he was going to give her a new mother, one whom +she must love as she had loved her own poor dear mamma--- he was so +happy he could afford to be tender even to that terrible past and poor +Pepita--Leam's first sensation was one of terror, her first movement +one of repulsion. She flung off the hand which he had laid on her +shoulder and drew back a few steps, facing him, her breath held, her +tragic eyes flashing, her face struck to stone by what she had heard. + +"Well, my dear, you need not look so surprised," said Mr. Dundas +jauntily. "And you need not look so terrified. Your new mother will +not hurt you," + +"She shall not be my mother, papa," said Learn: "I will not own her." + +"You will do what I tell you to do," her father returned with +admirable self-command. + +"Not when you tell me to do a crime," flashed Leam. + +Mr. Dundas smiled. "Your words are a trifle strong," he said. + +"It is a crime," she reiterated. "But if you have forgotten mamma, and +want to affront her now that she cannot defend herself, I have not, +and never will." + +Mr. Dundas smiled again. If he was so happy that he could afford to +be tender to the past, so also could he afford to be patient with +the present. "Foolish child!" he said compassionately: "you do not +understand things yet." + +"I understand that I love mamma, and will not have this wicked woman +in her place," said Leam hotly. + +"I think you will," he answered, playing with his watch-guard. "And in +the future, my little daughter, you will thank me." + +"Thank you? For what?" asked Leam. "You made mamma miserable when she +lived: you and your madame helped to kill her, and now you put this +woman in her place! Papa, I wonder Saint Jago lets you live." + +"As Saint Jago is kind enough to leave me in peace, perhaps you +will follow his example. What a saint allows my little daughter may +accept," said Mr. Dundas mockingly. + +"No," said Leam with pathetic solemnity, "if the saints forget mamma, +I will not." + +"My dear, you are a fool," said Mr. Dundas. + +"You may call me what you like, but madame shall not be my mother," +returned Leam. + +"Madame will be your mother because she will be my wife," said +Mr. Dundas slowly. "Unfortunately for you--perhaps for myself +also--neither you nor I can alter the law of the land. The child must +accept the consequences of the father's act." + +"Then I will kill her," cried Leam. + +Her father laughed gayly. "I think we will brave this desperate +danger," he said. "It is a fearful threat, I grant--an awful +peril--but we must brave it, for all that." + +"Papa," said Leam, "I will pray to the saints that when you die you +may not go to heaven with mamma and me." + +It was her last bolt, her supreme effort at threat and entreaty, and +it meant everything. If her words of themselves would have amused +Mr. Dundas as a child's ignorant impertinence, the superstition of an +untaught, untutored mind, her looks and manner affected him painfully. +True, he did not love her--on the contrary, he disliked her--but, all +the same, she was his child; and, dissected, realized, it was rather +an awful thing that she had said. It showed an amount of hatred and +contempt which went far beyond his dislike for her, and made him +shudder at the strength of feeling, the tenacity of hate, in one so +young. + +If more absurdity than good sense is talked about natural affection, +still there is a residuum of fact underneath the folly; and Leam's +words had struck down to that small residuum in her father's heart. It +was not that he was wounded sentimentally so much as in his sense of +proprietorship, his paternal superiority, and he was angry rather than +sorrowful. It made him feel that he had borne with her waywardness +long enough now: it was time to put a stop to it. "Now, Leam, no more +insolence and no more nonsense," he said sternly. "You have tried my +patience long enough. This day month I marry Madame de Montfort, with +or without your pleasure, my little girl. In a month after that I +bring her home here as my wife, consequently your mother, the mistress +of the house and of you. I give you the best guide, the best friend, +you have ever had or could have: you will live to value her as she +deserves. Your own mother was not fit to guide you: your new one will +make you all that my dearest hopes would have you. Now go. Think over +what I have said. If you do not like our arrangements, so much the +worse for you." + +"The saints will never let her come here as my mother. I will pray to +them night and day to kill her." said Leam in a deep voice, clenching +her hands and setting her small square teeth, as her mother used to +set hers, like a trap. + +Naturally, the second Mrs. Dundas could not be brought home without +a certain upsetting of the old order and a rearrangement of things +to suit the new. And the upsetting was not stinted, nor were the +exertions of Mr. Dundas. He superintended everything himself, to the +choice of a tea-cup, the looping of a curtain, and racked his brains +to make his beloved's bower the fit expression of his love, though +never to his mind could it be worthy of her deserving. There was not +an ornament in the place but was dedicated to her, placed where she +could see it on such and such an occasion, and shifted twenty times a +day for a more advantageous position. Everything which the house +had of most beautiful was pressed into her service, and even Leam's +natural rights of inheritance were ignored for madame's better +endowing. Lace, jewelry, trinkets, all that had been Pepita's, was +now hers, and the man's restless desire to make her rich and her home +beautiful seemed insatiable. + +But there was always Leam in the background with whom he had to +reckon--Leam, who wandered through the house in her straight-cut, +plain black gown, made in the deepest fashion of mourning devisable, +pale, silent, feverish, like an avenging spirit on his track; undoing +what he had done if he had profaned an embodied memory of her mother, +and as impervious to his anger as he was to her despair. + +One day he carried from the drawing-room to the boudoir which was to +be madame's, and had been Pepita's, a certain Spanish vase which had +been a favorite ornament with her because it reminded her of home. +He firmly fixed it on the bracket destined for it, opposite the couch +where he longed so ardently to see his fair and queenly loved one +sitting--he by her side in the lovers' paradise of secure content; but +the next time he went into the room he found it lying in fragments on +the floor. None of the servants knew how the mischance had happened: +the window was not open, and none of them had been in the room. +How, then, came it there, broken on the floor? When he asked Leam, +wandering by in that pale, feverish, avenging way of hers, he knew the +truth. + +"Yes," she said defiantly, "I broke it. It was mamma's, and your +madame shall not have it." + +"If you intend to go on like this I shall have you sent to school or +shut up in a lunatic asylum," cried Mr. Dundas in extreme wrath. + +"Then I shall be alone with mamma, and shall not see you or your +madame," answered Leam, unconquered. + +"You are a hardened, shameful, wicked girl," said her father angrily. +"Madame is an angel of goodness to undertake the care of such a +wretched creature as you are. I could not do too much for her if I +gave her all I had, and you can never be grateful enough for such a +mother." + +"She is not my mother, and she shall not pollute mamma's things," Leam +answered with passionate solemnity. "If you give them to her I will +break or burn them. Mamma's things are her own, and she shall not be +made unhappy in heaven." + +Provoked beyond himself, Sebastian Dundas said scornfully, "Heaven! +You talk of heaven as if you knew all about it, Leam, like the next +parish. How do you know she is there, and not in the place of torment +instead? Your mother was scarcely of the stuff of which angels are +made." + +"Then if she is in the place of torment, she is unhappy enough as +it is, and need not be made more so," said faithful Leam, suddenly +breaking into piteous weeping; adding through her sobs, "and madame +shall not have her things." + +Her tenacity carried the day so far that Mr. Dundas left off +rearranging the old, and sent up to London for things new and without +embarrassing memories attached to them. On which Leam swept off all +that had been her mother's, and locked up her treasures in her own +private cupboard, carrying the key in the hiding-place which that +mother had taught her to use, the thick coils of her hair. And her +father, warned by that episode of the vase, and a little dominated, +not to say appalled, by her resolute fidelity, shut his eyes to her +domestic larceny and let her carry off her relics in safety. + +So the time passed, miserably enough to the one, if full of hope and +the promise of joy to the other; and the wedding morning came whereon +Sebastian Dundas was to be made, as he phrased it, happy for life. + +It had been madame's desire that Leam should be her bridesmaid. She +had laid great stress on this, and her lover would have gratified her +if he could. He had no wish that way--rather the contrary--but her +will was his law, and he did his best to carry it into effect. But +when he told Leam what he wanted--and he told her quite carelessly, +and so much as a matter of course that he hoped she too would accept +her position as a matter of course--the girl, enlightened by love if +not by knowledge, broke into a torrent of disdain that soon showed him +how sleeveless his errand was likely to be. + +He did his best, and tried all methods from pleading to threatening, +but Leam was immovable. No power on earth should bend her, she said, +or make her take part in that wicked day. She go to church? She would +expect to be struck dead if she did. She expected, indeed, that all of +them would be struck dead. She had prayed the saints so hard, so hard, +to prevent this marriage, she was sure they would at the last; and if +they did not, she would never believe in them nor pray to them again. +But she did believe in them, and she was sure they would punish this +dreadful crime. No, she would take no part in it. Why should she put +herself in the way of being punished when she was not to blame? + +So Mr. Dundas had the mortification of carrying to his bride-elect +the intelligence that he had been worsted in his conflict with his +daughter, and that her hatred and reluctance were to be neither +concealed nor overcome. + +Madame was sorry, she said with her sweetest air of patience and +liberal comprehension. She would have liked the dear girl to have been +her bridesmaid: it would have been appropriate and touching. But +as she declined--and her feelings were easy to be understood and +honorable, if a little extreme--she, madame, elected to be married +as a widow should, with only Mrs. Birkett and Mr. Fairbairn as the +witnesses, Mr. Fairbairn to give her away for form's sake. The dear +rector of course would marry them in this simple manner. They must +hope that time and her own unvarying affection--Mr. Dundas called it +sweetness, angelic patience, greatness of soul--would soften poor Leam +into loving acceptance of what would be so much to her good when she +could be got to understand it. Meanwhile they must be patient--content +to go gradually and gain her bit by bit. She, madame, would be +quite content with her presence in the room, when they returned to +breakfast, in the pretty white muslin frock ordered from town as the +sign of her participation in the event. + +But when the morning came, where was Leam? The most diligent search +failed to discover her, and the only person who could have betrayed +her whereabouts was the last whom they would have thought of asking. + +Of course, Mr. Dundas was properly distressed at this strange +disappearance, and madame was unduly afflicted. She proposed that the +marriage should be delayed till the girl was found, but the lover was +stronger than the father, and she was overruled--yielding because it +is the duty of the wife to yield, but only because of that duty--for +her own part desirous of delay until they were assured of the safety +of Leam. + +The ceremony, however, was performed within the canonical hours, the +rector a little tremulous and apparently suffering from sore throat; +and as the happy pair drove away, madame, remembering her advent and +her objects more than a year ago now, could not but confess that she +had done better than she expected, and, her conscience whispered, +better than she deserved. + +All this time Leam was sitting on the lower branches of the yew tree +beneath which that godless ruffian had murdered his poor sweetheart +two generations ago in Steel's Wood. It was a lonely corner, where no +one would have gone by choice at the best of times, but now, with its +bad name and evil association, it was entirely deserted. Leam had made +it her hiding-place ever since madame had taken her in hand to teach +her the correct pronunciation of Shibboleth, and she had escaped +from her teaching and run away into the wood, armed banditti and wild +beasts notwithstanding. And one day, hunting in it for fungi, Alick +Corfield had found her sitting there, and thenceforth they had shared +the retreat between them. + +No one knew that they met there, and no one suspected it--not even +Mrs. Corfield, who believed, after the manner of mothers who bring up +their boys at home, that she knew the whole of her son's life from end +to end, and that he had not a thought kept back from her, nor had ever +committed an action of which she was not cognizant. + +Alick had installed Leam as the girl-queen of his imagination, and +paid her the homage which she seemed to him to deserve more than many +a real queen crowned and sceptered or princess born in the purple. It +pleased him to write bad poems to her as his Infanta, his royal rose, +his pomegranate flower, his nestling eagle waiting for strength to +fly upward to the sun--all with halting feet and strained metaphor. +He drew pictures of her by the dozen, mostly symbolic and all out +of drawing, but expressive of his admiration, his hope, his respect; +while to Leam he was little better than a two-legged talking dog whose +knowledge interested and whose goodness swayed her, but on whose neck +she set her little foot and kept it there. She always treated him with +profound disdain, even when he told her curious things that were like +fairy-tales, some of which she did not believe if they were too far +removed from the narrow area of her personal experience. Thus, when he +assured her that certain plants fed on flies as men feed on meat, she +told him with her sublime Spanish calm, "I do not believe it." And she +said the same when he one day informed her that the planets could be +weighed and their distance from the earth and the sun measured. In +the beginning she knew nothing--neither whether the earth was round or +flat, nor what was the meaning of the stars, nor the name of one wild +flower excepting daisies, nor of one great man. That fallow waste +called her mind was virgin ground in truth, but Alick was patient, +and labored hard at the stubborn soil; and when madame had given the +credit to her own tact and those ugly little books from which she +taught, it was to him really that Leam's microscopic amount of +plasticity and reception was due. + +These secret meetings amused Leam, and kept her from that ceaseless +inward contemplation of her mother which else was her only voluntary +occupation. They gave her a sense of power, as well as of successful +rebellion to her father, that gratified her pride. To be sure, +they were not what mamma would have liked. Alick Corfield was an +Englishman, and mamma hated the English. But then, Leam reflected, she +had not known Alick: if she had, she would have seen there was no harm +in him, and that he was not teaching her things which a child of Spain +ought not to know, and which Saint Jago would be angry with her for +learning. And perhaps now that mamma was up in heaven, and knew all +that went on here at home, she would not mind her little Leama seeing +Alick Corfield so often. In her prayers she told her very faithfully +all that she had done and felt and thought; she never deceived her a +hair's breadth; and as she had asked her permission so often and so +humbly, she made sure now that it was granted. Mamma could not refuse +her when she asked her so earnestly; and she was not angry, but on the +contrary glad, that her little heart had such a good dog to care for +her, and that she was defying el señor papa, that false image of the +false saint. + +For the rest, it was only natural that she should like the air of +quasi adventure and independence which this unknown, intercourse with +Alick gave her. And as she was still in that conscienceless phase of +youth when liking means everything, and honor without love is a grass +having neither root nor flower, she continued to meet her faithful +dog, and to learn from him--not all that he could tell her, but what +she chose to accept. + +So here it was, perched among the lower branches of the yew tree in +Steel's Wood, that Leam spent her father's wedding-day with Madame la +Marquise de Montfort; and when she became hungry Alick went home and +brought her some dry bread and grapes from Steel's Corner, Dry bread +and grapes--this was all that she would have, she said. She was not +greedy like the English, who thought of nothing but eating, she added +in her disdainful way; and if Alick brought her anything but bread and +grapes, she would fling it into the wood. On his life he was not to +touch anything on papa's table. She would rather die of hunger than +eat their wicked food. She wondered it did not choke them both. + +"Now go," she said superbly, "and come back soon: I am hungry," as if +her sense of inconvenience was a catastrophe which heaven and earth +should be moved to avert. + +But young and so beautiful as she was, her little tricks of pride and +arbitrariness were just so many additional charms to Alick; and if +she had not flouted and commanded him, he would have thought that +something terrible was about to happen: had she become docile, +grateful, familiar, he would have expected her to die before the day +was out. He liked her superb assumption of superiority. She was his +girl-queen, and he was her slave; she was his mistress, and he was her +dog; and, dog-like, he fawned at her feet even when she rated him and +placed her little foot on his neck. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +AT STEEL'S CORNER. + + +"I hope you will not be bored, my boy, but I am thinking of bringing +that wretched Leam Dundas here for a few days. I don't like a girl +of her age and character to be left for a full month alone. It is +not right, for who knows what she may not do? If she ran away on the +wedding-day, she may run away again, and then where would we all be? +I cannot think what her father was about to leave her unprotected like +this. So I shall just take and bring her here; and if you are bored +with her, you must make the best of it." + +Mrs. Corfield and Alick were sitting in the "work-room" on the morning +of the fifth day after the marriage, when the thought struck the +little woman of the propriety of Leam's visit to them for the month of +her father's absence. She did not see her son's face when she spoke, +being busy with her wood-carving. If she had, she would not have +thought that the presence of Leam Dundas would bore or annoy him. The +clumsy features gladdened into smiles, the dull eye brightened, the +dim complexion flushed: if ever a face expressed supreme delight, +Alick's did then; and it expressed what he felt, for, as we know, the +one love of his boyish life was this girl-queen of his fancy. Not that +he was in love with her in the ordinary sense of being in love. He +was too reverent and she too young for vulgar passion or commonplace +sentiment. She was something precious to his imagination, not his +senses, like a child-queen to her courtier, a high-born lady to her +page. He bore with her girlish temper, her girlish insolence of pride, +her ignorant opposition, with the humility of strength bending its +neck to weakness--the devotion and unselfish sweetness characteristic +of him in other of his relations than those with Leam. Judge, then, if +he was likely to be bored, as his mother feared, or if this project of +a closer domestication with her was not rather a "bit of blue" in +his sky which made these early autumn days gladder than the gladdest +summer-time. + +To will and to do were synonymous with Mrs. Corfield: her motto was +_velle est agere_; and a resolve once taken was like iron at white +heat, struck into the shape of deed on the instant. Darting up from +her chair, birdlike and angular, she put away her work. "Order the +trap," she said briskly, "and come with me. We will go at once, before +that poor creature has had time to do anything, wild, or silly." + +"I do not think she would do anything wild or silly, mother," said +Alick in a deprecating voice. It galled him to hear his darling spoken +of so slightingly. + +"No? What has she ever done that was rational?" cried his mother +sharply. "From the beginning, when she was a baby of three months old, +and howled at me because I kissed her, and that dreadful mother of +hers flew at me like a wildcat and said I had the evil eye, Leam +Dundas has been more like some changeling than an ordinary English +girl. I declare it sometimes makes my heart ache to, see her with +those awful eyes of hers, looking as if she had seen one does not +know what--as if she was being literally burnt up alive with sorrow. +However, don't let us discuss her: let us fetch her and save her from +herself. That is more to the purpose at this moment." + +And Alick said "Yes," and went out to order the trap with alacrity. + +When they reached Andalusia Cottage, the first thing they saw was a +strange workman from Sherrington painting out the name which in his +early love-days for his Spanish bride Sebastian Dundas had put up in +bold letters across the gate-posts. The original name of the place had +been Ford House, but the old had had to give place to the new in +those days as in these, and Ford House had been rechristened Andalusia +Cottage as a testimony and an homage. Mrs. Corfield questioned the +man in her keen inquisitorial way as to what he was about; and when +he told her that the posts were to show "Virginia" now instead of +"Andalusia," her great disgust, to judge by the sharp things which she +said to him, seemed as if it took in the innocent hand as well as the +peccant head. "I do think Sebastian Dundas is bewitched," she said +disdainfully to her son as they drove up to the house. "Did any one +ever hear of such a lunatic? Changing the name of his house with +his wives in this manner, and expecting us to remember all his +absurdities! Such a man as that to be a father! Lord of the creation, +indeed! He is no better than a court fool." Which last scornful +ejaculation brought the trap to the front door and into the presence +of Leam. + +Standing on the lawn bareheaded in the morning sunshine, doing nothing +and apparently seeing nothing, dressed in the deepest mourning she +could make for herself, and with her high comb and mantilla as in +olden days, her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands clasped in each +other, her wan face set and rigid, her whole attitude one of mute, +unfathomable despair,--for the instant even Mrs. Corfield, with all +her constitutional contempt for youth, felt hushed, as in the presence +of some deep human tragedy, at the sight of this poor sorrowful child, +this miserable mourner of fifteen. Instead of speaking in her usual +quick manner, the sharp-faced little woman, poor Pepita's "crooked +stick," went up to the girl quietly and softly touched her arm. + +Leam slowly raised her eyes. She did not start or cry out as a +creature naturally would if startled, but she seemed as if she +gradually and with difficulty awakened from sleep, or from something +even more profound than sleep. "Yes?" she said in answer to the touch. +"What do you want?" + +It was an odd question, and Leam's grave intensity made it all the +more odd. But Mrs, Corfield was not easily disconcerted, and it was +"only Leam" at the worst. + +"I want you," she answered briskly, "Tell the maid to pack up your +box, take off that lace thing on your head, and come home with me for +a day or two. You need not stay longer than you like, but it will be +better for you than moping here, thinking of all sorts of things you +had better not think of." + +"Why do my thoughts vex you?" asked Learn gravely. "I was not thinking +of you." + +Mrs. Corfield laughed a little confusedly. "I don't suppose you +were," she said, "but you see I did think of you. But whether you +were thinking of me or not, you certainly look as if you would be the +better for a little rousing. You were standing there like a statue +when we came up." + +"I was listening to mamma," said Leam with an air of grave rebuke. + +Mrs. Corfield rubbed her nose vigorously. "You would do better to come +and talk to me instead," she said. + +Learn transfixed her with her eyes. "I like mamma's company best," she +said in the stony way which she had when stiffening herself against +outside influence. + +"But if you come to us, you can listen to her as much as you like," +said Alick soothingly. "We will not hinder you; and, as my mother +says, it is not good for you to be here alone." + +"I like it," said Leam. + +"Nonsense! then you should not like it. It is not natural for a girl +of your age to like it. Come with us," cried Mrs. Corfield: "why not?" + +"I have something to do," Leam answered solemnly. + +"What can a chit of a thing like you have to do? Come with us, I tell +you." Mrs. Corfield said this heartily rather than roughly, though +really she could not be bothered, as she said to herself, to stand +there wasting her time in arguing with a girl like Leam. It was too +ridiculous. + +Leam looked at her with mingled tragedy and contempt, and disdained to +answer. + +"What have you got to do?" again asked Mrs. Corfield. + +"I shall not tell you," answered Leam, holding her head very high. + +How, indeed, should she tell this little sharp-faced woman that she +was thinking how she could prevent madame from coming here as her +home? The saints had deserted her; she had prayed to them, threatened +them, coaxed, entreated, but they had not heard her; and now she had +nothing but herself, only her poor little frail hands and bewildered +brain, to protect her mother's memory from insult and revenge her +wrongs. The fever in her veins had given her mamma's face sorrowful +and weeping, meeting her wherever she turned--mamma's voice, faint +as the softest summer breeze in the trees, whispering to her, "Little +Leama, I am unhappy. Sweet heart, do not let me be unhappy." For five +days this fancy had haunted her, but it had not become distinct enough +for guidance. She was listening now, as she was listening always, for +mamma to tell her what to do. She was sure she would show her in time +how to prevent that wicked woman from living here, bearing her name, +taking her place: mamma could trust her to take care of her, now that +she could not take care of herself. As she had said to papa, if all +the world, the saints, and God himself deserted hers she, her child, +would not. + +She would not tell these thoughts, even to Alick. They were a secret, +sacred between her and mamma, and no one must share them. If, then, +she went with this bird-like, insistent woman, she would talk to her +and not let her think: she and Alick would stand between herself and +mamma's spirit, and then mamma would perhaps leave her again, and go +back to heaven angry with her. No, she would not go, and she lifted up +her eyes to say so. + +As she looked up Alick whispered softly, "Come." + +Feverish, excited, her brain clouded by her false fancies, Leam did +not recognize his voice. To her it was her mother sighing through the +sunny stillness, bidding her go with them, perhaps to find some method +of hinderance or revenge which she could not devise for herself. They +were clever and knew more than she did; perhaps her mother and the +saints had sent them as her helpers. + +It seemed almost an eternity during which these thoughts passed +through her brain, while she stood looking at Mrs. Corfield so +intently that the little woman was obliged to lower her eyes. Not that +Leam saw her. She was thinking, listening, but not seeing, though her +tragic eyes seemed searching Mrs. Corfield's very soul. Then, glancing +upward to the sky, she said with an air of self-surrender, which Alick +understood if his mother did not, "Yes, I will go with you: mamma says +I may." + +"It is my belief, Alick," said Mrs. Corfield, when she had left them +to prepare for her visit, "that poor child is going crazy, if she is +not so already. She always was queer, but she is certainly not in her +right mind now. What a shame of Sebastian Dundas to bring her up as he +has done, and now to leave her like this! How glad I am I thought of +having her at Steel's Corner!" + +"Yes, mother, it was a good thing. Just like you, though," said Alick +affectionately. + +"You must help me with her, Alick," answered his mother. "I have done +what I know I ought to do, but she will be an awful nuisance all the +same. She is so odd and cold and impertinent, one does not know how to +take her." + +Alick flushed and turned away his head. "I will take her off your +hands as much as I can," he said in a constrained voice. + +"That's my dear boy--do," was his mother's unsuspecting rejoinder as +Leam came down stairs ready to go. + +Steel's Corner was a place of unresting intellectual energies. Dr. +Corfield, a man shut up in his laboratory with piles of +extracts, notes, arguments, never used, but always to be used, an +experimentalist deep in many of the toughest problems of chemical +analysis, but neither ambitious nor communicative, was the one +peaceable element in the house. To be sure, Alick would have been both +broader in his aims and more concentrated in his objects had he been +left to himself. As it was, the incessant demands made on him by his +mother kept him too in a state of intellectual nomadism; and no one +could weary of monotony where Mrs. Corfield set the pattern, unless +it was of the monotony of unrest. This perpetual taking up of +new subjects, new occupations, made thoroughness the one thing +unattainable. Mrs. Corfield was a woman who went in for everything. +She was by turns scientific and artistic, a student and a teacher, but +she was too discursive to be accurate, and she was satisfied with a +proficiency far below perfection. In philosophy she was what might be +called a woman of antepenultimates, referring all the more intricate +moral and intellectual phenomena to mind and spirit; but she was +intolerant of any attempt to determine the causation of her favorite +causes, and she derided the modern doctrines of evolution and inherent +force as atheistic because materialistic. The two words meant the same +thing with her; and the more shadowy and unintelligible people made +the _causa causarum_ the more she believed in their knowledge and +their piety. The bitterest quarrel she had ever had was with an old +friend, an unimaginative anatomist, who one day gravely proved to her +that spirits must be mere filmy bags, pear-shaped, if indeed they +had any visual existence at all. Bit by bit he eliminated all the +characteristics and circumstances of the human form on the principle +of the non-survival of the useless and unadaptable. For of what use +are shapes and appliances if you have nothing for them to do?--if you +have no need to walk, to grasp, nor yet to sit? Of what use organs +of sense when you have no brain to which they lead?--when you are +substantially all brain and the result independent of the method? +Hence he abolished by logical and anatomical necessity, as well as the +human form, the human face with eyes, ears, nose and mouth, and by +the inexorable necessities of the case came down to a transparent bag, +pear-shaped, for the better passage of his angels through the air. + +"A fulfillment of the old proverb that extremes meet," he said by +way of conclusion. "The beginning of man an ascidian--his ultimate +development as an angel, a pear-shaped, transparent bag." + +Mrs. Corfield never forgave her old friend, and even now if any one +began a conversation on the theory of development and evolution she +invariably lost her temper and permitted herself to say rude things. +Her idea of angels and souls in bliss was the good orthodox notion of +men and women with exactly the same features and identity as they had +when in the flesh, but infinitely more beautiful; retaining the Ego, +but the Ego refined and purified out of all trace of human weakness, +all characteristic passions, tempers and proclivities; and the +pear-shaped bag was as far removed from the truth, as she held it, on +the one side as Leam's materialistic conception was on the other. The +character and condition of departed souls was one of the subjects on +which she was very positive and very aggressive, and Leam had a hard +fight of it when her hostess came to discuss her mother's present +personality and whereabouts, and wanted to convince her of her +transformation. + +All the same, the little woman was kind-hearted and conscientious, but +she was not always pleasant. She wanted the grace and sweetness known +genetically as womanliness, as do most women who hold the doctrine of +feminine moral supremacy, with base man, tyrant, enemy and inferior, +holding down the superior being by force of brute strength and +responsible for all her faults. And she wanted the smoothness of +manner known as good breeding. Though a gentlewoman by birth, she gave +one the impression of a pert chambermaid matured into a tyrannical +landlady. + +But she meant kindly by Leam when she took her from the loneliness of +her father's house, and her very sharpness and prickly spiritualism +were for the child's enduring good. Her attempts, however, to make +Leam regard mamma in heaven as in any wise different from mamma on +earth were utterly abortive. Leam's imagination could not compass the +thaumaturgy tried to be inculcated. Mamma, if mamma at all, was +mamma as she had known her; and if as she had known her, then she was +unhappy and desolate, seeing what a wicked thing this was that papa +had done. She clung to this point as tenaciously as she clung to +her love; and nothing that Mrs. Corfield, or even Alick, could say +weakened by one line her belief in mamma's angry sorrow and the +saints' potent and sometimes peccant humanity. + +Among other scientific appliances at Steel's Corner was a small +off-kind of laboratory for Alick and his mother, to prevent their +troubling the doctor and to enable them to help him when necessary: it +was an auxiliary fitted up in what was rightfully the stick-house. The +sticks had had to make way for retorts and crucibles, and as yet no +harm had come of it, though the servants said they lived in terror of +their lives, and the neighbors expected daily to hear that the inmates +of Steel's Corner had been blown into the air. Into this evil-smelling +and unbeautiful place Leam was introduced with infinite reluctance +on her own part. The bad smell made her sick, she said, turning round +disdainfully on Alick, and she did not wonder now at anything he might +say or do if he could bear to live in such a horrid place as this. + +When he showed off a few simple experiments to amuse her--made crystal +trees, a shower of snow, a heavy stone out of two empty-looking +bottles, spilt mercury and set her to gather it up again, showed her +prisms, and made her look through a bit of tourmaline, and in every +way conceivable to him strewed the path of learning with flowers--then +she began to feel a little interest in the place and left off making +wry faces at the dirt and the smells. + +One day when she was there her eye caught a very small phial with a +few letters like a snake running spirally round it. + +"What is that funny little bottle?" she asked, pointing it out. "What +does it say?" + +"Poison," said Alick. + +"What is poison?" she asked. + +"Do you mean what it is? or what it does?" he returned. + +"Both. You are stupid," said Leam. + +"What it does is to kill people, but I cannot tell you all in a breath +what it is, for it is so many things." + +"How does it kill people?" At her question Leam turned suddenly round +on him, her eyes full of a strange light. + +"Some poisons kill in one way and some in another," answered Alick. + +Leam pondered for a few moments; then she asked, "How much poison is +there in the world?" + +"An immense deal," said Alick: "I cannot possibly tell you how much." + +"And it all kills?" + +"Yes, it all kills, else it is not poison." + +"And every one?" + +"Yes, every one if enough is taken." + +"What is enough?" she asked, still so serious, so intent. + +Alick laughed. "That depends on the material," he said. "One grain of +some and twenty of others." + +"Don't laugh," said Leam with her Spanish dignity: "I am serious. You +should not laugh when I am serious." + +"I did not mean to offend you," faltered Alick humbly. "Will you +forgive me?" + +"Yes," said Leam superbly, "if you will not laugh again. Tell me about +poison." + +"What can I tell you? I scarcely know what it is you want to hear." + +"What is poison?" + +"Strychnine, opium, prussic acid, belladonna, aconite--oh, thousands +of things." + +"How do they kill?" + +"Well, strychnine gives awful pain and convulsions--makes the back +into an arch; opium sends you to sleep; prussic acid stops the action +of the heart; and so on." + +"What is that?" asked Leam, pointing to the small phial with its +snake-like spiral label. + +"Prussic acid--awfully strong. Two drops of that would kill the +strongest man in a moment." + +"In a moment?" asked Learn. + +"Yes: he would fall dead directly." + +"Would it be painful?" + +"No, not at all, I believe." + +"Show it me," said Learn. + +He took the bottle from the shelf. It was a sixty-minim bottle, quite +full, stoppered and secured. + +She held out her hand for it, and he gave it to her. "Two drops!" +mused Leam. + +"Yes, two drops," returned Alick. + +"How many drops are here?" + +"Sixty." + +"Is it nasty?" + +"No--like very strong bitter almonds or cherry-water; only in excess," +he said. "Here is some cherry-water. Will you have a little in some +water? It is not nasty, and it will not hurt you." + +"No," said Leam with an offended air: "I do not want your horrid +stuff." + +"It would not hurt you, and it is really rather nice," returned Alick +apologetically. + +"It is horrid," said Learn. + +"Well, perhaps you are better without it," Alick answered, quietly +taking the bottle of prussic acid from her hands and replacing it on +the shelf, well barricaded by phials and pots. + +"You should not have taken it till I gave it you," said Leam proudly. +"You are rude." + +From this time the laboratory had the strangest fascination for Leam. +She was never tired of going there, never tired of asking questions, +all bearing on the subject of poisons, which seemed to have possessed +her. Alick, unsuspecting, glad to teach, glad to see her interest +awakened in anything he did or knew, in his own honest simplicity +utterly unable to imagine that things could turn wrong on such a +matter, told her all she asked and a great deal more; and still Leam's +eyes wandered ever to the shelf where the little phial of thirty +deaths was enclosed within its barricades. + +One day while they were there Mrs. Corfield called Alick. + +"Wait for me, I shall not be long," he said to Leam, and went out to +his mother. + +As he turned Learnm's eyes went again to that small phial of death on +the shelf. + +"Take it, Leama! take it, my heart!" she heard her mother whisper. + +"Yes, mamma," she said aloud; and leaping like a young panther on the +bench, reached to the shelf and thrust the little bottle in her hair. +She did not know why she took it: she had no motive, no object. It was +mamma who told her--so her unconscious desire translated itself--but +she had no clear understanding why. It was instinct, vague but +powerful, lying at the back of her mind, unknown to herself that it +was there; and all of which she was conscious was a desire to possess +that bottle of poison, and not to let them know here that she had +taken it. + +This was on the afternoon of her last day at the Corfields. She was +to go home to-night in preparation for the arrival of her father and +madame to-morrow, and in a few hours she would be away. She did not +want Alick to come back to the laboratory. She was afraid that he +would miss the bottle which she had secured so almost automatically +if so superstitiously: Alick must not come back. She must keep that +bottle. She hurried across the old-time stick-house, locked the door +and took the key with her, then met Alick coming back to finish his +lesson on the crystallization of alum, and said, "I am tired of your +colored doll's jewelry. Come and tell me about flowers," leading the +way to the garden. + +Doubt and suspicion were qualities unknown to Alick Corfield. It never +occurred to him that his young queen was playing a part to hide the +truth, befooling him for the better concealment of her misdeeds. He +was only too happy that she condescended to suggest how he should +amuse her; so he went with her into the garden, where she sat on the +rustic chair, and he brought her flowers and told her the names and +the properties as if he had been a professor. + +At last Leam sighed. "It is very tiresome," she said wearily. "I +should like to know as much as you do, but half of it is nonsense, and +it makes my head ache to learn. I wish I had my dolls here, and that +you could make them talk as mamma used. Mamma made them talk and go +to sleep, but you are stupid: you can speak only of flowers that +don't feel, and about your silly crystals that go to water if they +are touched. I like my zambomba and my dolls best. They do not go to +water; my zambomba makes a noise, and my dolls can be beaten when they +are naughty." + +"But you see I am not a girl," said Alick blushing. + +"No," said Leam, "you are only a boy. What a pity!" + +"I am sorry if you would like me better as a girl," said Alick. + +She looked at him superbly. Then her face changed to something that +was almost affection as she answered in a softer tone, "You would be +better as a girl, of course, but you are good for a boy, and I like +you the best of every one in England now. If only you had been an +Andalusian woman!" she sighed, as, in obedience to Mrs. Corfield's +signal, she got up to prepare for dinner, and then home for her father +and madame to-morrow. + + +CHAPTER XX. + +IN HER MOTHER'S PLACE. + + +Whatever madame's past life had been--and it had been such as a +handsome woman without money or social status, fond of luxury and to +whom work was abhorrent, with a clear will and very distinct knowledge +of her own desires, clever and destitute of moral principle, finds +made to her hand--whatever ugly bits were hidden behind the veil of +decent pretence which she had worn with such grace during her sojourn +at North Aston, she did honestly mean to do righteously now. + +She had deceived the man who had married her in such adoring good +faith--granted; but when he had reconciled himself to as much of the +cheat as he must know, she meant to make him happy--so happy that he +should not regret what he had done. Though she was no marquise, only +plain Madame de Montfort--so far she must confess for policy's sake, +and to forestall discovery by ruder means, but what remained beyond +she must keep secret as the grave, trusting to favorable fortune and +man's honor for her safety--though the story of the fraudulent trustee +was untrue, and she never had more money than the three hundred pounds +brought in her box wherewith to plant her roots in the North Aston +soil--though all the Lionnet bills were yet to be paid, and her +husband must pay them, with awkward friends in London occasionally +turning up to demand substantial sops, else they would show their +teeth unpleasantly,--still, she would get his forgiveness, and she +would make him happy. + +And she would be good to Leam. She would be so patient, forbearing, +tender, she would at last force the child to love her. It was a new +luxury to this woman, who had knocked about the world so long and so +disreputably, to feel safe and able to be good. She wondered what it +would be like as time went on--if the rest which she felt now at the +cessation of the struggle and the consciousness of her security would +become monotonous or be always restful. At all events, she knew +that she was happy for the day, and she trusted to her own tact and +management to make the future as fair as the present. + +The home-coming was triumphant. Because the rector was inwardly +grieved at the loss of his ewe-lamb--for he had lost her in that +special sense of spiritual proprietorship which had been his--he was +determined to make a demonstration of his joy. He and Mrs. Birkett +meant to stand by Mrs. Dundas as they had stood by Madame la Marquise +de Montfort, and to publish their partisanship broadly. When, +therefore, the travelers returned to North Aston, they found the +rector and his wife waiting to receive them at their own door. +Over the gate was an archway of evergreens with "Welcome!" in white +chrysanthemums, and the posts were wreathed with boughs and ribbons, +but leaving "Virginia Cottage" in its glossy evidence of the new +regime. The drive was bordered all through with flowers from the +rectory garden, and Lionnet too had been ransacked, and the hall was +festooned from end to end with garlands, like a transformation-scene +in a pantomime. One might have thought it the home-coming of a young +earl with his girl-bride, rather than that of a middle-aged widower of +but moderate means with his second wife, one of whose past homes had +been in St. John's Wood, and one of her many names Mrs. Harrington. + +But it pleased the good souls who thus displayed their sympathy, and +it gratified those for whom it had all been done; and both husband and +wife expressed their gratitude warmly, and lived up to the occasion in +the emotion of the moment. + +When their effusiveness had a little calmed, down, when Mrs. Dundas +had caressed her child--which poor Mrs. Birkett gave up to her with +tears--and Mr. Dundas had also taken it in his arms and called it +"Little Miss Dundas" and "My own little Fina" tenderly--when, the +servants had been spoken to prettily and the bustle had somewhat +subsided, Mrs. Dundas looked round for something missing. "And where +is dear Leam?" she asked with her gracious air and sweet smile. + +It was very nice of her to be the first to miss the girl. The father +had forgotten her, friends had overlooked her, but the stepmother, the +traditional oppressor, was thoughtful of her, and wanted to include +her in the love afloat. This little circumstance made a deep +impression on the three witnesses. It was a good omen for Leam, and +promised what indeed her new mother did honestly design to perform. + +"Even that little savage must be tamed by such persistent sweetness," +said Mr. Birkett to his wife, while she, with a kindly half-checked +sigh, true to her central quality of maternity and love of peace all +round, breathed "Poor little Leam!" compassionately. + +Leam, however, was no more to the fore at the home-coming than she had +been at the marriage, and much searching went on before she was found. +She was unearthed at last. The gardener had seen her shrink away into +the shrubbery when the carriage-wheels were heard coming up the road, +and he gave information to the cook, by whom the truant was tracked +and brought to her ordeal. + +Mrs. Birkett went out by the French window to meet her as she came +slowly up the lawn draped in the deep mourning which for the very +contrariety of love she had made deeper since the marriage, her young +head bent to the earth, her pale face rigid with despair, her heart +full of but one feeling, her brain racked with but one thought, "Mamma +is crying in heaven: mamma must not cry, and this stranger must be +swept from her place." + +She did not know how this was to be done; she only knew that it must +be done. She had all along expected the saints to work some miracle +of deliverance for her, and she looked hourly for its coming. She had +prayed to them so passionately that she could not understand why they +had not answered. Still, she trusted them. She had told them she was +angry, and that she thought them cruel for their delay; and in her +heart she believed that they knew they had done wrong, and that the +miracle would be wrought before too late. It was for mamma, not for +herself. Madame must be swept like a snake out of the house, that +mamma might no longer be pained in heaven. Personally, it made no +difference whether she had to see madame at Lionnet or here at home, +but it made all the difference to mamma, and that was all for which +she cared. + +Thinking these things, she met Mrs. Birkett midway on the lawn, the +kind soul having come out to speak a soothing word before the poor +child went in, to let her feel that she was sympathized with, not +abandoned by them all. Fond as she was of madame, the new Mrs, Dundas, +and little as she knew of Leam, the facts of the case were enough for +her, and she saw Adelaide and herself in the child's sorrow and poor +Pepita's successor. "My dear," she said affectionately as she met the +girl walking so slowly up the lawn, "I dare say this is a trial to +you, but you must accept it for your good. I know what you must feel, +but it is better for you to have a good kind stepmother, who will be +your friend and instructress, than to be left with no one to guide +you." + +Leam's sad face lifted itself up to the speaker. "It cannot be good +for me if it is against mamma," she said. + +"But, Leam, dear child, be reasonable. Your mamma, poor dear! is dead, +and, let us trust, in heaven." The good soul's conscience pricked her +when she said this glib formula, of which in this present instance +she believed nothing. "Your father has the most perfect right to marry +again. Neither the Church nor the Bible forbids it; and you cannot +expect him to remain single all his life--when he needs a wife so +much, too, on your account--because he was married to your dear mamma +when she was alive. Besides, she has done with this life and all the +things of the earth by now; and even if she has not, she will be happy +to see you, her dear child, well cared for and kindly mothered." + +Leam raised her eyes with sorrowful skepticism, melancholy contempt. +It was the old note of war, and she responded to it. "I know mamma," +she said; "I know what she is feeling." + +She would have none of their spiritual thaumaturgy--none of that +unreal kind of transformation with which they had tried to modify +their first teaching. There was no satisfaction in imagining mamma +something different from her former self--no more the real, fervid, +passionate, jealous Pepita than those pear-shaped transparent bags, +so logically constructed by Mrs. Corfield's philosopher, are like the +ideal angels of loving fancy. If mamma saw and knew what was going +on here at this present moment--and Mrs. Birkett was not the bold +questioner to doubt this continuance of interest--she felt as she +would have felt when alive, and she would be angry, jealous, weeping, +unhappy. + +Mrs. Birkett was puzzled what to say for the best to this +uncomfortable fanatic, this unreasonable literalist. When believers +have to formularize in set words their hazy notions of the feelings +and conditions of souls in bliss, they make but a lame business of it; +and nothing that the dear woman could propound, keeping on the side of +orthodox spirituality, carried comfort or conviction to Leam. Her one +unalterable answer was always simply, "I know mamma: I know what she +is feeling," and no argument could shake her from her point. + +At last Mrs. Birkett gave up the contest. "Well, my child," she +said, sighing, "I can only hope that the constant presence of your +stepmother, her kindness and sweetness, will in time soften your +feeling toward her." + +Leam looked at her earnestly. "It is not for myself," she said: "it is +for mamma." + +And she said it with such pathetic sincerity, such an accent of deep +love and self-abandonment to her cause, that the rector's wife felt +her eyes filling up involuntarily with tears. Wrong-headed, dense, +perverse as Leam was, her filial piety was at the least both touching +and sincere, she said to herself, a pang passing through her heart. +Adelaide would not speak of her if she were dead as this poor ignorant +child spoke of her mother. Yet she had been to Adelaide all that the +best and most affectionate kind of English mother can be, while Pepita +had been a savage, now cruel and now fond; one day making her teeth +meet in her child's arm, another day stifling her with caresses; +treating her by times as a woman, by times as a toy, and never +conscientious or judicious. + +All the same, Leam's fidelity, if touching, was embarrassing as things +were; so was her belief in the continued existence of her mother. But +what can be done with those uncompromising reasoners who will carry +their creeds straight to their ultimates, and will not be put off with +eclectic compromises of this part known and that hidden--so much sure +and so much vague? Mrs. Birkett determined that her husband should +talk to the child and try to get a little common sense into her head, +but she doubted the success of the process, perhaps because in her +heart she doubted the skill of the operator. + +By this time they reached the window, and the woman and the girl +passed through into the room. + +Mrs. Dundas came forward to meet her stepdaughter kindly--not warmly, +not tumultuously--with her quiet, easy, waxen grace that never saw +when things were wrong, and that always assumed the halcyon seas even +in the teeth of a gale. For her greeting she bent forward to kiss the +girl's face, saying, "My dear child, I am glad to see you," but Leam +turned away her head. + +"I am not glad to see you, and I will not kiss you," she said. + +Her father frowned, his wife smiled. "You are right, my dear: it is a +foolish habit," she said tranquilly, "but we are such slaves to silly +habits," she added, looking at the rector and his wife in her pretty +philosophizing way, while they smiled approvingly at her ready wit and +serene good-temper. + +"Will you say the same to me, Leam?" asked her father with an attempt +at jocularity, advancing toward her. + +"Yes," said Leam gravely, drawing back a step. + +"Tell me, Mrs, Birkett, what can be done with such an impracticable +creature?" cried Mr. Dundas. + +"She will come right: in time, dear husband," said the late marquise +sweetly; and Mrs. Birkett echoed, looking at the girl kindly, "Oh yes, +she will come right in time." + +"If you mean by coming right, letting you be my mamma, I never will," +cried Leam, fronting her stepmother. + +"Silence, Leam!" cried Mr. Dundas angrily. + +His wife laid her taper fingers tenderly on his. "No, no, dear +husband: let her speak," she pleaded, her voice and manner admirably +effective. "It is far better for her to say what she feels than to +brood over it in silence. I can wait till she comes to me of her own +accord and says, 'Mamma, I love you: forgive me the past'" + +"You are an angel," said Mr. Dundas, pressing her hand to his lips, +his eyes moist and tender. + +"I always said it," the rector added huskily--"the most noble-natured +woman of my acquaintance." + +"I never will come to you and say, 'Mamma, I love you,' and ask you to +forgive me for being true to my own mamma," said Learn. "I am mamma's +daughter, no other person's." + +Mrs. Dundas smiled. "You will be; mine, sweet child," she said. + +How ugly Leam's persistent hate looked by the side of so much +unwearied goodness! Even Mrs. Birkett, who pitied the poor child, +thought her tenacity too morbid, too dreadful; and the rector honestly +held her as one possessed, and regretted in his own mind that the +Church had no formula for efficient exorcism. Believing, as he did, in +the actuality of Satan, the theory of demoniacal possession came easy +as the explanation of abnormal qualities. + +Her father raged against himself in that he had given life to so much +moral deformity. And yet it was not from him that she inherited "that +cursed Spanish blood," he said, turning away with a groan, including +Pepita, Leam, all his past with its ruined love and futile dreams, its +hope and its despair, in that one bitter word. + +"Don't say that, papa: mamma and I are true. It is you English that +are bad and false," said Leam at bay. + +Mrs. Dundas raised her hand, "Hush, hush, my child!" she said in a +tone of gentle authority. "Say of me and to me what you like, but +respect your father." + +"Oh, Leam has never done that," cried Mr. Dundas with intense +bitterness. + +"No," said Leam, "I never have. You made mamma unhappy when she was +alive: you are making her unhappy now. I love mamma: how can I love +you?" + +And then, her words realizing her thoughts in that she seemed to see +her mother visibly before her, sorrowful and weeping while all this +gladness was about in the place which had once been hers, and whence +she was now thrust aside--these flowers of welcome, these smiling +faces, this general content, she alone unhappy, she who had once been +queen and mistress of all--the poor child's heart broke down, and +she rushed from the room, too proud to let them see her cry, but too +penetrated with anguish to restrain the tears. + +"I am sure I don't know what on earth we can do with that girl," +said Mr. Dundas with a dash of his old weak petulance, angry with +circumstance and unable to dominate it--the weak petulance which had +made Pepita despise him so heartily, and had winged so many of her +shafts. + +"Time and patience," said madame with her grand air of noble +cheerfulness. But she had just a moment's paroxysm of dismay as she +looked through the coming years, and thought of life shared between +Leam's untamable hate and her husband's unmanly peevishness. For that +instant it seemed to her that she had bought her personal ease and +security at a high price. + +As Leam went up stairs the door of her stepmother's room was standing +open. The maid had unpacked the boxes most in request, and was now at +tea in the servants' hall, telling of her adventures in Paris, where +master and mistress had spent the honeymoon, and in her own way the +heroine of the hour, like her betters in the parlor. The world seemed +all wrong everywhere, life a cheat and love a torture, to Leam, as she +stood within the open door, looking at the room which had been hers +and her mother's, now transformed and appropriated to this stranger, +She did not understand how papa could have done it. The room in which +mamma had lived, the room in which she had died, the window from +which she used to look, the very mirror that used to reflect back her +beautiful and beloved face--ah, if it could only have kept what it +reflected!--and papa to have given all this away to another woman! +Poor mamma! no wonder she was unhappy. What could she, Leam, do to +prevent all this wickedness if the blessed ones were idle and would +not help her? + +Her eyes fell on a bottle placed on the console where madame's night +appliances were ranged--her night-light and the box of matches, her +Bible and a hymn-book, a tablespoon, a carafe full of water and a +tumbler, and this bottle marked "Cherry-water--one tablespoonful for +a dose." In madame's handwriting underneath stood, "For my troublesome +heart." Only about two tablespoonsful were left. + +Leam took the bottle in one hand, the other thrust itself mechanically +into her hair. No one was about, and the house was profoundly still, +save for the voices coming up from the room below in a subdued and +not unpleasant murmur, with now and then the child's shrill babble +breaking in through the deeper tones like occasional notes in a +sonata. Out of doors were all the pleasant sights and sounds of the +peaceful evening coming on after the labors of the busy day. The birds +were calling to each other in the woods before nesting for the night; +the homing rooks flew round and round their trees, cawing loudly; the +village dogs barked their welcome to their masters as they came off +the fields and the day's work; and the setting sun dyed the autumn +leaves a brighter gold, a deeper crimson, a richer russet. It was +all so peaceful, all so happy, in this soft mild evening of the late +September--all seemed so full of promise, so eloquent of future joy, +to those who had just begun their new career. + +But Leam knew nothing of the poetry of the moment--felt nothing of +its pathetic irony in view of the deed she was half-unconsciously +designing. She saw only, at first dimly, then distinctly, that here +were the means by which mamma's enemy might be punished and swept from +mamma's place, and that if she failed her opportunity now she would be +a traitor and a coward, and would fail in her love and duty to mamma. +No, she would not fail. Why should she? It was the way which the +saints themselves had opened, the thing she had to do; and the sooner +it was done the better for mamma. + +She uncorked the bottle of cherry-water, good for that troublesome +heart of poor madame's. All that Alick had told her of the action +of poisons came back upon her as clearly as her mother's words, +her mother's voice. This cherry-water, too, had the smell of bitter +almonds, and was own sister to that in the little phial in her other +hand. Now she understood it all--why she had been taken to Steel's +Corner, why Alick had taught her about poisons, and why her mamma +had told her to steal that bottle. She looked at it with its eloquent +paper marked "Poison" wound about it spirally like a snake, uncorked +it and emptied half into the cherry-water. + +"Two drops are enough, and there are more than two there," she said to +herself. "Mamma must be safe now." And with this she left the room and +went into her own to watch and wait. + +It was early to-night when Mrs. Dundas retired. There were certain +things which she wanted to do on this her first night in her new home; +and among them she wanted to put that green velvet pocket-book, gold +embroidered, in some absolutely safe place, where it would not be seen +by prying eyes or fall into dangerous hands. She did not intend to +destroy its contents. She knew enough of the uncertainty of life to +hold by all sorts of anchorages; and though things looked safe and +sweet enough now, they might drift into the shallows again, and she +wished her little Fina's future to be assured by one or other of those +charged with it--if the stepfather failed, then to fall back on the +father. Wherefore she elected to keep these papers in a safe place +rather than destroy them, and the safest place she could think of +was Pepita's jewel-case, now her own. It had a curious lock, which no +other key than its own would fit--a lock that would have baffled even +a "cracksman" and his whole bunch of skeleton keys. + +In putting them away, obliged for the need of space to take off the +paper wrappings, she was foolish enough to look at the photographs +within--just one last look before banishing them for ever from her +sight, as an honest wife should--and the sight of the handsome young +face which she had loved sincerely in its day, and which was the face +of her child's father, shook her nerves more than she liked them to be +shaken. That troublesome heart of hers had begun to play her strange +tricks of late with palpitation and irregularity. She could not afford +that her nerve should fail her. That gone, nothing would remain to her +but a wreck. But her cherry-water was a pleasant and safe calmant, and +she knew exactly how much to take. + +Her maid saw nothing more to-night than she had seen on any other +night of her service. Her mistress, if not quite so sweet to her as to +Mrs. Birkett, say, or the rector, was yet fairly amiable as mistresses +go, and to-night was neither better nor worse than ordinary. Her +attendance went on in the usual routine, with nothing to remark, bad +or good; and then madame laid her fair head on the pillow, and took +a tablespoonful of her calmant to check the palpitation that had +come on, and to still her nerves, which that last look backward had +somewhat disturbed. + +How beautiful she looked! Fair and lovely as she had always been to +the eyes of Sebastian Dundas, never had she looked so grand as now. +Her yellow hair was lying spread out on the pillow like a glory: one +white arm was flung above her head, the other hung down from the bed. +Her pale face, with her mouth half open as if in a smile at the happy +things she dreamt, peaceful and pure as a saint's, seemed to him the +very embodiment of all womanly truth and sweetness. He leaned over her +with a yearning rapture that was almost ecstasy. This noble, loving +woman was his own, his life, his future. No more dark moods of +despair, no more angry passions, disappointment and remorse; all was +to be cloudless sunshine, infinite delight, unending peace and love. + +"My darling, oh my love!" he said tenderly, laying his hand on her +glossy golden hair and kissing her. "Virginie, give me one word of +love on your first night at home." + +She was silent. Was her sleep so deep that even love could not awake +her? He kissed her again and raised her head on his arm. It fell back +without power, and then he saw that the half-opened mouth had a little +froth clinging about the lips. + +A cry rang through the house--cry on cry. The startled servants ran up +trembling at they knew not what, to find their master clasping in his +arms the fair dead body of his newly-married wife. + +"Dead--she is dead," they passed in terrified whispers from each to +each. + +Leam, standing upright in her room, in her clinging white night-dress, +her dark hair hanging to her knees, her small brown feet bare above +the ankle--not trembling, but tense, listening, her heart on fire, her +whole being as it were pressed together, and concentrated on the one +thought, the one purpose--heard the words passed from lip to lip. +"Dead," they said--"dead!" + +Lifting up her rapt face and raising her outstretched arms high above +her head, with no sense of sin, no consciousness of cruelty, only with +the feeling of having done that thing which had been laid on her to +do--of having satisfied and avenged her mother--she cried aloud in +a voice deepened by the pathos of her love, the passion of her deed, +into an exultant hymn of sacrifice, "Mamma, are you happy now? Mamma! +mamma! leave off crying: there is no one in your place now." + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +FAMISHING PORTUGAL. + + +The following paper contains the substance of a remarkable letter and +accompanying documents recently received from Portugal: + +LISBON, September, 1875. + +You wish to know what truth there is in the cable reports of "a +drought in the north and south of Portugal, and a threatened famine +in two or three provinces." Shall I tell you all? Well, then, Heaven +nerve me for the task! I shall have an unpleasant story to narrate. + +You, who have been in Portugal, need not be reminded that the kingdom +consists of six provinces--Minho, Tras-os-Montes, Beira, Estremadura, +Alemtejo and Algarve. In the early part of this summer a drought +affected the whole kingdom. Toward the end of July abundant rain fell +in Minho, where two products only are raised--wine ("port wine") +and maize. The rain, which, had it fallen in Alemtejo, the principal +wheat-province of the kingdom, would have done incalculable good, +benefited neither the vineyards of Minho nor the maize-crop anywhere. +The consequence is, that this last-named crop, the principal +bread-food of the country, has failed, and famine prevails throughout +the land. Having lived in America, I know what you, so accustomed to +freedom and plenty, will say to this: + +"France, Sprain, Morocco, England--all these countries are near to +Portugal. If she is short of bread, let her simply exchange wine for +it, and there need be no fears of a famine." + +Ah, my dear American friends, little do you suspect the artlessness +of this reply. Know, then, that those who own the wines of Portugal do +not lack for bread, and those who lack for bread do not own the wines; +that the first of these classes are the aristocrats and foreigners who +live in the cities or abroad, and the second the people at large; +that there exists an abyss between these classes so profound that no +political institutions yet devised have been able to bridge it; that +there is no credit given by one class to the other, and few dealings +occur between them; and that the laws of Portugal discourage the +importation of grain into the kingdom. + +You are a straightforward people, and dive at once to the bottom of +a subject. "Why do not the Portuguese devote themselves so largely to +the cultivation of grain that there need never be danger of famine?" +you will now ask. My answer to this is: The people do not own the +land. + +"What! Were the reforms of Pombal, the French Revolution, the +Portuguese revolution of 1820 and the various constitutions since that +date, the abolition of serfdom and mortmain, and the law of 1832, all +ineffectual to emancipate the Portuguese peasant from the thralldom of +land?" + +Alas! they were indeed all in vain, and the Portuguese peasantry +stands to-day at the very lowest step of European civilization--far +beneath all others. The number of agricultural workers in Portugal is +about eight hundred and seventy-five thousand. Of this number, +some seven hundred thousand are hired laborers, farm-servants, +_emphyteutas_ (you shall presently know the meaning of this ominous +word) and metayers; that is to say, persons who may cultivate only +such products as their employers or landlords choose, and the latter +in their greed and short-sightedness always choose that the former +shall cultivate wine. The remainder, or some one hundred and +seventy-five thousand, consist chiefly of small proprietors, owning +three, four, five and ten acre patches of land, often intersected by +other properties, and therefore not adapted for the cultivation of +grain: such of the _emphyteutas_ and metayers as are practically free +to cultivate what they please make up the remainder of this class. + +The quantity of land devoted to grain is therefore exactly what the +aristocratic land-owners choose to make it; and, never suspecting that +a well-fed peasant is more efficient as a laborer than a famished one, +they have made it barely enough, in good years, to keep the miserable +population from entirely perishing. The product in such years is about +six bushels of edible grain per head of total population, together +with a little pulse and a taste of fish or bacon on rare occasions. In +unfavorable years, like the present one, the product of edible grain +falls to five bushels per head, and unless the government suspends the +corn laws for the whole country--which since 1855 it has usually done +on such occasions--famine ensues. The nation (excepting, of course, +the court and aristocracy, who live in or near Lisbon and Oporto) is +thus kept always at the brink of starvation, and every mishap in these +artificial and tyrannical arrangements consigns fresh thousands to the +grave. + +The population of Portugal was the same in 1798 that it is +to-day--viz., about four millions--and there has been no time between +those periods when it was greater. Knowing, as we do, that the law +of social progress is growth--in other words, that the condition of +individual development, both physical and intellectual, is that degree +of freedom which finds its expression in the increase of numbers--what +does this portentous fact of a stationary population bespeak? Simply, +the utmost degradation of body and mind; vice in its most hideous +forms; filth, disease, unnatural crimes; a hell upon earth. These are +always the characteristics of nations which have been prevented from +growing. The melancholy proofs of a condition of affairs in Portugal +which admits of this description shall presently be forthcoming. + +Antonio de Leon Pinelo, who was one of the greatest lawyers and +historians that Spain ever produced, very profoundly remarked that no +man could possibly understand the history of slavery in America who +had not first mastered the subject of Spanish _encomiedas_. With equal +truth it may be said that the solution of Portuguese history lies +in the subject of _emphyteusis_. Emphyteusis (Greek: zmphutehuis, +"ingrafting," "implanting," and perhaps, metaphorically, +"ameliorating") is a lease of land where the tenant agrees to improve +it and pay a certain rent. The origin of this tenure is Greek, and it +was probably first adopted in Rome after the conquest of the Achaean +League (B.C. 146), when Greece became a Roman province. It was carried +into Carthage B.C. 145, and into Spain and Portugal about B.C. 133, +when those countries fell beneath the Roman arms. Whenever this +occurred the first act of the conquerors was to assume the ownership +of the land. They then leased it on emphyteusis, either to +the original occupiers, to their own soldiers, or to settlers +("carpet-baggers"). The rent was called _vectigal_, and decurions +(corporals in the army) were usually employed to collect it and +administer the lands. + +Syria, Greece, Carthage, and the Iberian Peninsula were the first +countries to succumb to the Roman arms outside of Italy. These +conquests all occurred within the space of fifty-seven years (from 190 +to 133 B.C.), and this was doubtless the period when emphyteusis was +first employed upon an extensive scale. Originally, the tenants +were liable to have their rents increased, and to be evicted at the +pleasure of the state, and thus lose the benefit of any improvements +effected by them. The result was, that no improvements were effected. +The forests were cut down, the orchards destroyed, the lands exhausted +by incessant cropping; and by the beginning of the present era the +entire coasts of the Mediterranean were exploited. + +This great historical fact is replete with significance--not only to +Portugal, but also to the rest of the world, even to America, which, +by abandoning its public lands to the rapacity of monopolists and the +vandalism of ignorant immigrants, is preparing for itself a future +filled with forebodings of evil. + +The ruin of the lands of Carthage, Spain, etc. eventually hastened the +ruin of Italy. It put an end to the legitimate supplies of grain which +those countries had been accustomed to contribute; it forced their +populations to crowd into already overcrowded Italy, and increase the +requirements of food in a country which had been exploited like their +own, and, though not so rapidly, yet by similar means;[1] and it gave +rise to the servile wars, to the most corrupt period in Roman history, +to the Empire, and to the endless series of consequences in its train. + +[Footnote 1: Although the various states of Italy were conquered +by Rome before Greece was, it is probable that emphyteusis was not +employed in those states until after the year B.C. 146--between that +and B.C. 120.] + +After the Western Empire had apparently fallen beneath the Northern +arms--that is to say, five hundred years later--and not until then, +the Roman Code ameliorated the baneful tenure of emphyteusis. A law of +the emperor Zenos (A.D. 474-491) fixed whatever had theretofore been +uncertain in the nature and incidents of emphyteusis. The tenant was +guaranteed from increase of rent and from eviction--the alienation +of the property by the state being held thenceforth to affect the +quit-rent only--and finally he obtained full power to dispose of the +land, which nevertheless remained subject to the quit-rent in whatever +hands it might be. Before these reforms were effected, Portugal was +conquered by the Visigoths, the Roman proprietors of the soil were +expelled, and their laws and institutions suppressed. This occurred +in the year 476. Whether emphyteusis in any form remained is not quite +certain, but it seems not; and during this government, and the Moorish +one which superseded it in the year 711, the Iberian Peninsula enjoyed +an interval of prosperity to which it had been a stranger for ages. + +In the eleventh century this happy condition of affairs was disturbed +by the appearance of certain Spanish crusading knights, who, issuing +from the mountainous parts of the country adjacent to their own, began +to war against the Moorish authorities. In the course of a century, +and with little voluntary aid from the peasants, who distrusted +them and their religious pretensions and promises of advantage, they +managed to acquire possession of the country. Now, what do you suppose +was one of the first acts committed by these adventurers? Nothing less +than the re-enactment of the odious Roman tenure of emphyteusis, and +that in its most ancient and worst form--liability to increased +rent and to eviction; not only this, but with certain base services +combined. The wretched inhabitants were required to work so many days +in the week for these lords, to break up a certain amount of waste +land; to furnish so many cattle; to kill so many birds; to provide (in +rural districts remote from the sea) so many salt fish; to furnish so +much incense or so many porringers, iron tools, pairs of shoes, etc. + +Talk of the Western Empire having "declined and fallen," as Messrs. +Gibbon and Wegg put it! Why, here it was again, and with the worst +of its ancient crimes inscribed upon its code of law. Emphyteusis was +reintroduced into Portugal by King Diniz (Dennis) in the year 1279, +and was followed by its usual effects--ruin and depopulation. In +1394 was born Prince Henry. He was the son of John I. and Philippa, +daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and was therefore the +nephew of Henry IV. of England. Perceiving and commiserating the +wretchedness of the people, and casting about him for a remedy, +Henry saw but one: that was departure from the land, emigration, +colonization, escape from the tyranny of the soil, of nobles and of +ecclesiastics--a tyranny which both his illustrious rank and his piety +forbade him to oppose. Hence his intense devotion to the discovery and +colonization of strange lands, which is in vain to be accounted for +on the ground of a mere passion, the only one usually advanced by +unthinking historians. + +The results of this mania, as it was then considered, of Prince Henry +are well known--the discovery of Madeira, the Azores, Senegambia, +Angola, Benguela, etc., and, after Prince Henry's death, the Cape of +Good Hope, Goa, Macao, the islands, etc.; all of which were colonized +by Portuguese. These colonies, and the commerce which sprang up with +them, afforded outlets for the downtrodden serfs of Portugal. Such was +the beneficial result of this partial measure of freedom that in +the course of the following two centuries Portugal became one of the +leading nations of the world, with a population of 5,000,000 and a +flag respected in every clime. + +Unhappily, this interval of prosperity to Portugal was the cause of +infinite misery to the negro race. The discoveries in Africa and Asia +afforded a career to the enslaved Portuguese; yet, by leading, as they +did, to the discovery of America, they were eventually the cause of +the slave-trade, which without America could not have flourished. Such +will ever be the result of the attempt to palliate instead of cure +evil. Moreover, the discovery of America and the resulting slave-trade +were the cause of Portugal's retrogression to the point whence she had +started in Prince Henry's time. When gold and slaves rendered maritime +discovery profitable to the aristocratic class, all the nobles went +into it--not only the aristocrats of Portugal, but those also of +Spain, England, France, Holland, Italy. They all went into the trade +of acquiring empires, and it is not to be wondered at if in this +rivalry of greed and violence Portugal, exploited and burdened with +serfdom and other features of bad government at home, was distanced +and overcome. Her colonies were captured and reduced by foreign +enemies, or invaded and ruined by one of the several political +diseases from which she had never wholly rid herself. For example, the +once magnificent city of Goa, which formerly contained a population of +150,000 Christians and 50,000 Mohammedans, is now an almost deserted +ruin, with but 40,000 inhabitants, _chiefly ecclesiastical_. + +When Pombal assumed the reins of government in 1750 the population of +Portugal had been reduced to less than 2,000,000: there was neither +agriculture, manufactures, army nor navy. Perceiving this state of +affairs, and recognizing the cause of it, Pombal caused the vines to +be torn up by the roots and corn planted in their place. Ruffianism +was crushed, the Jesuits were banished, the nobility were taught +to respect the civil law, the peasantry were encouraged. After +twenty-seven years of reforms and prosperity Pombal was dismissed +from office and the old abuses were reinstated, among them those worst +incidents of emphyteusis which had been devised by the base ring of +nobles and ecclesiastics who held the land in their grasp. + +These abuses remained without material change until 1832, and thus you +have a complete history of emphyteusis from the first to the last day +of its institution in Portugal. In truth, however, its last day has +not come even yet, for many of its incidents still linger in the code +of laws. + +Now for its effects on the land. What growth of forest trees had +followed the abolition of emphyteusis under the Gothic and Saracenic +monarchs was destroyed under the government of Christian nobles, and +to-day there is scarcely a tree in Portugal--the woods, including +fruit and nut trees, covering less than 400,000 out of 22,000,000 +acres, the entire area of the country. The destruction of the woods, +to say nothing of its effects upon the rainfall, caused the top soil +to be washed away, and thus impoverished the arable land, filling the +rivers with earth, rendering them innavigable, and converting them +from gently-flowing streams to devastating torrents, which annually +bestrew the valleys and plains with sand and stones.[2] In the next +place, emphyteusis has caused every kind of improvement to be avoided. +The soil has been exhausted by over-cropping; public works, like +roads, wells, irrigating canals, etc., have been neglected; and the +numerous works left by the industrious Saracens have been allowed to +go to ruin. Finally, the tenant, being placed entirely in the power of +the lord, was continually kept at the point of starvation. To escape +this dreadful fate he has committed every conceivable offence against +the laws of Nature and humanity. Tyranny and starvation have made +of him a liar, thief, smuggler, assassin, beast. The very ground is +tainted with his tread, the air is redolent of his crimes. + +[Footnote 2: The Mondega annually overflows its banks, changes its +course and buries thousands of once fertile acres under sand and +stones; the Vonga has converted the once productive land between +Aveiro and Ovar into a vast morass; the Douro is periodically +converted into a frightful and resistless torrent which sweeps +everything before it.] + +I am aware of the eminently legal, and therefore judicial, mind of +Americans; therefore I shall give nothing of importance on my own +testimony alone. It shall be seen what the Portuguese peasant is from +the descriptions that travelers have written, and from the fragments +of statistical evidence which the deeply-culpable ruling classes have +permitted to be published. + +But first let me describe the degree of destitution to which the +peasant has been reduced, for without this destitution this criminal +character would not have been his. + +Baron Forrester says:[3] "The poverty of the inhabitants of the +interior of Portugal is equal to that of the Irish." (This was written +in 1851, immediately after the Irish famine.) "The wretchedness of +their condition checks marriage and promotes clandestine intercourse." +William Doria writes:[4] "The inhabitants (all ages) do not obtain +half (scarcely one-third) as much as the minimum of animal food +required to sustain active vitality, which is one hundred grammes, +about one-fifth of a pound, per day." Marques says:[5] "The daily +ration of an able-bodied man should consist of at least twelve hundred +grammes, of which one-fourth (about three-fifths of a pound) should be +animal food. The Portuguese soldier (much better fed than the peasant) +receives but seventeen grammes (little over half an ounce) of animal +food." Notwithstanding the superior food of the soldier, such is the +hatred of the peasant for the aristocratic classes, in whose service +the army is employed, that he will mutilate himself to escape the +conscription.[6] Says Malte-Brun: "During four months of the year +the inhabitants of the Algarve have little to eat but raw figs. This +causes a disease called _mal de veriga_, which sweeps away numbers of +the people." Says Doria: "All the women work in the fields;" and Dr. +Farr[7] tells us that "when women are employed in any but domestic +labors they discharge the duties of mother imperfectly, and the +mortality of children is high." Says Forrester: "Leavened bread +is beginning to be known in the principal cities, but not in the +provinces. Gourds, cabbages and turnip-sprouts, with bread made from +chestnuts (which are always wormy), form the peasant's diet." "In +Algarve carob-beans are commonly roasted, ground into flour and made +into bread." Says Da Silva:[8] "The growth of the peasantry is stunted +by insufficient nourishment, which consists largely of chestnuts, +beans and chick-peas." + +[Footnote 3: _Prize Essay on Portugal_, London, 1854.] + +[Footnote 4: _Parliamentary Papers_, London, 1870.] + +[Footnote 5: _Estudos Estatisticos, hygienicos e administrativas sobre +as doenças e a mortalidade do exercito Portuguez_, etc., by Dr. José +Antonio Marques, Lisbon, 1862.] + +[Footnote 6: Doria, p. 184.] + +[Footnote 7: The Registrar-General of England.] + +[Footnote 8: L.A. Rebello da Silva (minister of marine), _Economia. +Rural_, Lisbon, 1868.] + +The utmost area of land which the average Portuguese peasant can +cultivate is two and a half acres: in the United States the average of +cultivated land per laborer is over thirty-two acres; on prairie-land +sixty acres is not uncommon. Forrester writes: "In the Alto Douro, the +richest portion of the kingdom, the villages are formed of wretched +hovels with unglazed windows and without chimneys. Instead of bread or +the ordinary necessaries of life, one finds only filth, wretchedness +and death. Emigration is the one thought of the people." + +Now for the moral, intellectual and physical results of the +destitution thus evinced. The work entitled _Voyage du Duc du Châtelet +en Portugal_, although usually quoted under this title, was really +written by M. Comartin, a royalist of La Vendée, and written during +the French Revolution. If it had any bias at all, that bias was all in +favor of Portugal, yet this is his description of her people: "Il est, +je pense, peu de peuple plus laid que celui de Portugal. Il est petit, +basané, mal conformé. L'intérieur répond, en général, assez à cette +repoussante envelope, surtout à Lisbonne, où les hommes paroissent +réunir tous les vices de l'âme et du corps. II y a, au reste, entre +la capitale et le nord de ce royaume, une différence marquée sous ces +deux rapports. Dans les provinces septentrionales, les hommes sont +moins noirs et moin laids, plus francs, plus lians dans la société, +bien plus braves et plus laborieux, mais encore plus asservis, s'il +est possible, aux préjugés. Cette différence existe également pour +les femmes; elles sont beaucoup plus blanches que celles du sud. +Les Portugais, considérés en général, sont vindicatifs bas, vains, +railleurs, présomptueux à l'excès, jaloux. et ignorans. Après avoir +retracé les défauts que j'ai cru appercevoir en eux, je serois injuste +si je me taisois sur leurs bonnes qualités. Ils sont attachés à leur +patrie, amis géneréux, fidèles, sobres, charitables. Ils seroient bons +Chrètiens si le fanatisme ne les aveugloit pas. Ils sont si accoutumés +aux pratiques de la religion qu'ils sont plus superstitieux que +dévots. Les hidalgos, ou les grands de Portugal, sont très bornés dans +leur éducation, orgueilleux et insolens; vivant dans la plus grande +ignorance, ils ne sortent presque jamais de leur pays pour aller voir +les autres peuples." Time and changed circumstances have somewhat +softened these traits, but their general correctness is still +recognizable. + +"Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices and you have the Portuguese +character," says Dr. Southey. "They are deceitful and cowardly--have +no public spirit nor national character," says Semple. "The morals of +both sexes are lax in the extreme; assassination is a common +offence; they rank about as low in the social scale as any people +of Christendom," says McCulloch. "Their songs are licentious: the +national dance or the _toffa_ is so lascivious that every stranger who +sees it must deplore the corruption of the people, and regret to find +such exhibitions permitted, not only in the country, but in the heart +of towns, and even on the stage," says Malte-Brun. "Portugal is a +paradise inhabited by demons and brutes," says Madame Junot--a phrase +taken probably from Byron's description of Cintra. + +My countrymen will be enraged with me for thus repeating the worst +that has been said about them, but I repeat it for their own benefit, +like the surgeon, who, to save the patient's life, cruelly probes +the wound or lays bare the corruption from which he is suffering. +Moreover, I shall have still darker spots to exhibit in a national +character which has been stamped with centuries of feudal and +ecclesiastical tyranny. + +In a country possessing a fair share of the natural resources commonly +in demand a free and prosperous population will double in numbers +every fifteen years, an increase of about 4-1/2 per cent. per annum +compounded. The United States, a country rich in natural resources, +and one whose government offers but few obstacles to freedom and +individual prosperity, has doubled its population every twenty-two and +a half years since 1790. This is equal to over 3 per cent. per +annum. In that country the annual number of births in every 10,000 +of population is 500,[9] of immigrants, 75; total increase, 575. The +deaths are 250, leaving 325 in 10,000, or 3-1/2 per cent. gain as the +net result of the year's growth and decay of population. + +There is no reason for believing that the proportion of births in +Portugal is less than it is in Germany, or even the United States: on +the contrary, "in climates where the waste of human life is excessive +from the combined causes of disease and poverty affecting the mass of +the inhabitants, the number of births is proportionately greater +than is experienced in countries more favorably circumstanced.... +Population does not so much increase because more are born, as because +fewer die."[10] Hence, the presumption is that the rate of births in +Portugal is equal to that in Carthagena de Colombia, where it is 8 to +10 per cent., or at least that of some parts of Mexico, where it is +6.21 per cent. Yet the population of Portugal has not increased during +a hundred years. What, then, has become of the 250,000 human beings +annually called into existence in Portugal? One-half of them took +their chances with the rest of the population, were registered at +birth, died according to rule, were duly entered upon statistical +tables and buried in consecrated ground: the other half were strangled +by their mothers, flung into ditches, exposed to die, starved to +death, assassinated in some manner. The crimes of foeticide +and infanticide have become so common that there is scarcely a +peasant-woman in Portugal not guilty of them, either as principal or +accessory. + +[Footnote 9: It is understood, of course, that the census figures of +births are admittedly and grossly inaccurate.] + +[Footnote 10: Porter's _Progress_, p. 21.] + +Illegitimacy is more common in Portugal than in any country of Europe. +This fact can be proved from a comparison of marriages, births and +baptisms; but since the statistics on these subjects are defective, +the better testimony is to be derived from the number of deposits at +the foundling hospitals. The foundling of the house of Misericordia in +Lisbon, that of the Real Casapin in Belem and the foundling at Oporto +together receive nearly five thousand foundlings during the year, of +whom two-thirds[11] perish in the establishments, which thus become +"charnels and houses of woe." Almost every town or village in the +kingdom has its _roda dos expostos_--literally, a "wheel for exposed +ones"--where, upon the ringing of a bell, the children deposited in +a turning-basket or wheel are passed into the interior of the +establishment without inquiry. Although their term of stay is limited +to a few weeks, less than one-half of them ever pass out of the +establishment alive! Says Dr. T. de Carvalho: "The _roda_ is the +_açouque_ ('slaughter-house') for children. It is the permanent and +legal means of infanticide. _Abaixo a roda dos expostos!_" + +Notwithstanding this frightful mortality, the number of infants always +on hand in the foundlings of Portugal is nearly 40,000, or 1 per cent +of the entire population. One-eighth of all the reported births in the +kingdom become foundlings: as for the non-reported ones, their fate +is known only to the recording angel. Says Claudio Adriano da Costa: +"Promiscuous intercourse has become common all over the country;" +and he attributes it, though I think superficially, to the "misplaced +indulgence to concubinage awarded by the rodas."[12] + +[Footnote 11: During the thirteen years from 1840-52 the number of +children deposited in the Oporto foundling was 15,608, of whom no less +than 11,310, or 72.4 per cent.--_nearly three-fourths_--died while in +the hospital. Most of the remainder died during infancy after leaving +the hospital.] + +[Footnote 12: In some districts of Portugal the proportion of married +to single persons is as 1 to 173!] + +The true cause of Portuguese immorality and crime is the unequal +distribution of wealth, which leaves the mass of the inhabitants a +prey to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the tyranny of the powerful +and wealthy and the despair of insecurity. The origin of this evil +state of affairs was the tenure of emphyteusis: its active and +unfeeling promoters have been always the nobility and ecclesiastics, +and its only powerful enemy, the only hope of the people, the Crown. + +After what has been mentioned it is unnecessary to speak of minor +crimes--- of street assassinations, highway robberies and the +like. Your own McCulloch will inform you that according to official +information reported to the Cortes there occurred in one year, and +merely in the two districts of Oporto and Guarda, no less than three +hundred and forty-two assassinations and four hundred and sixty +robberies. It is true that life is not quite so insecure now as when +McCulloch wrote. Some few rays of light have penetrated the profound +abyss of misery and evil in which the country was then plunged; +nevertheless, the improvement has been but slow and partial, and +nothing short of revolution can accelerate it. There is but one man +in the world who possesses the means to render that revolution +successful, and that man--His Majesty Dom Pedro II., the emperor of +Brazil--is now, or soon will be, on his way to the United States. +May he not peruse in vain this sad account of famine and crime in +Portugal! + +There are persons with nervous organisms so abused that a sudden cry, +whether it be of boisterousness or despair, will cause them great +agony: so there are others with moral susceptibilities so overstrained +that the story of a nation's misery and crime, such as I have +endeavored to sketch, will evoke within them more pain than interest. +Regard for such exceptional persons has created a namby-pambyism in +literature which would banish these topics--the greatest and holiest +in which human sympathy can be enlisted--to the domains of science. +But science cannot aid unhappy Portugal. Sympathy and prayer alone can +mitigate our sufferings. Therefore sympathize with and pray for us, +you who stand in the broad glare of freedom, filled with plenty and +surrounded by promise, Pray for unhappy Portugal! + + + + +AT THE OLD PLANTATION. + +TWO PAPERS.--I. + + +The life of the low-country South Carolina planter, until broken up by +the war, had changed but little since colonial times. It was the life +which Washington lived at Mount Vernon, with some slight differences +of local custom. The two-storied house, with its ten or twenty rooms +and broad piazza, had probably been built in ante-Revolutionary days +by the British country gentleman or Huguenot exile from whom the +present owner drew his descent. I well remember how the old house +at Hanover bore near the top of the chimney stack the legend "_Peu à +peu_" written with a stick in the soft mortar with which the bricks +had been covered. The old Huguenot builder had burned his bricks by +guess, and three times the work had to stop until the kiln could +be replenished and a new lot prepared. The top was finally reached, +however, and the triumphant _Peu à peu_ was only his French way +of proclaiming to posterity _Perseverantia vincit omnia_. In many +instances, however, fire has destroyed the original structure--a +danger to which the country residence is specially exposed--but the +new one has usually been modeled after that which it succeeded. Indian +names, flowing softly from the tongue, have usually come down with +the tracts to which they originally belonged, as _Pooshee, Wantoot, +Wampee, Wapahoula_, though Chelsea, White Hall, Sarrazin's or +Sans Souci often betrays the English or French origin of the first +patentee. + +To understand the home and life of the wealthy Carolina planter we +must remember that he was the most contented man in the world. The +greed of gain was unknown to him, and his deep-rooted conservatism +forbade everything like speculation. Solid, substantial comfort and +large-hearted hospitality were the objects in all his expenditures. He +never invested his surplus money except in another plantation to +put his surplus negroes on, for he never sold a negro except for +incorrigible bad qualities or to pay some pressing debt. He had no +expensive tastes except for rare old madeira and racing-stock, from +the last of which his splendid saddle-horses were always selected; +and these were usually of the best and purest blood. He was as much at +home in the saddle as an English fox-hunter or a Don Cossack, and the +only wheeled vehicles in his spacious carriage-house were the heavy +family coach, and the light sulky in which his summer trips were made +between the pineland and the plantation. + +Come back with me now to the days when the North-eastern Railroad was +a possibility of the future, and join me in a Christmas visit to old +Pooshee. We take the little steamer for the head of Cooper River, the +December sun being warm enough to tempt us from the close cabin to +the airy deck. The graceful spire of old St. Michael's cuts sharply +against the sky, reminding you, if you have visited the suburbs of +London, of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, that fine specimen of Sir +Christopher Wren's style, after which it was modeled. The old +customhouse looks just as it did when Governor Rutledge had the tea +locked up in its store-rooms, and the gray moss droops in weeping +festoons from the live-oaks of beautiful Magnolia. I wonder how the +miles of green marsh through which we pass can seem to you such a +dreary waste. To my eye it is all alive with interest. I never tire +of watching how the lonely white heron spears his scaly prey, how the +clapper-rail floats on his raft of matted rushes, how the marsh-wren +jerks his saucy little tail over his bottle-shaped nest, or how +with quick and certain stroke the oyster-catcher extracts the juicy +"native" from his bivalved citadel. We are now getting above the +salt-water line, and on either hand the rice-fields, now covered +with water, stretch away from the banks, their surface covered with +countless thousands of ducks. As the winding river brings the channel +somewhat nearer to the shore, the splash of the paddles startles the +feeding multitude, and they rise with a rush and roar of wings which +might be heard for miles. Could we stop for a day or two at Rice Hope, +we might have rare sport among the mallards and bald-pates as they +fly out between sunset and dark, or in the early morning from behind +a well-constructed blind. But we must decline the cordial invitation +which urges us to do so as the boat casts off from the landing, and in +a couple of hours more we step ashore at Fairlawn, where we find the +carriage waiting to take us over the twelve remaining miles of our +journey. The road, like the marsh, may seem lonely and tedious to +you, but I know every turn and bend of it, and the trees are all old +friends. I'm sure I know that green heron which "skowks" to me as he +springs from the rail of the bridge, and there is something familiar +in the bark of the black squirrel which has just rushed up that pine. +Hark! that was the yelp of a turkey. Stop the horses for a moment and +we may see them. One, two, four, seven! What a splendid old gobbler +last crossed the road, and no guns loaded! And there is the track +of as noble a buck as I ever saw: that's where he jumped into the +pea-field, and ten to one he's lying now in that patch of sedge. + +"Well!" I think I hear you say, "you have seen more to interest you in +a hundred yards than I should have found in two miles." + +Exactly; and that is why I enjoy the country so much. Learn to love +Nature in her every mood and to study her every feature, and you will +never know the feeling of loneliness if you keep outside the walls of +a jail. But we are at the outer gate, and our journey is nearly over. +At the end of a long enclosed road, shaded by trees--which, however, +do not form an avenue, such as you may see near the coast, where the +live-oaks flourish more vigorously--stands the spacious mansion, with +its white walls, green Venetian shutters and red tin roof. There is no +enclosure about it save that which is formed by the rail fences of the +distant fields. The "yard" contains about forty acres of grassy +lawn shaded by spreading forest trees--white-oaks, water-oaks and +hickories--from which hang the graceful folds of the Spanish moss. The +out-buildings are scattered about without the slightest reference to +distance, except in the case of the kitchen, which is at the back and +some twenty yards from the dwelling. The stable and carriage-house +stand on either side, _in front_, but at a distance sufficient to +prevent unsightliness or discomfort. In the background are the large +"cotton-houses," with their bleaching-platforms, the "gin-house," the +corn-house, the fodder-house and the poultry-house, which is nearly +as large as any of them; while nearer the mansion are grouped the +"loom-house," the dairy and the oven-shed, under which is built the +huge brick oven capable of baking to a sugary confection several +bushels of yam "slips" at a time. On the left is the "negro-yard" +(never called "the quarter" in this region), with its fifty or sixty +substantial cabins, each gleaming with whitewash and having its own +little vegetable patch and chicken-house. + +It is Saturday evening, and the sun is just entering the heavy +cloud-bank which rests on the western horizon as we drive up to the +door. Our genial and venerable host, "the old doctor," is at the +stables superintending the feeding of his horses, and thither we bend +our steps with a sense of exhilaration which only the crisp, fresh +country air can impart, and a new vigor thrilling through every muscle +as the foot presses the green and springy sod. Our old friend is a +worthy representative of the old _régime_, the only change which the +lapse of thirty years has made in his costume being the substitution +of black for blue broadcloth in the velvet-collared, brass-buttoned, +narrow-skirted coat with its side-pocket flaps. The collar sits as +high in the neck; the red silk handkerchief peeps out behind; the +trousers are cut with the "full fall," over which hangs the watch +fob-chain with its heavy seals; the low-crowned beaver hat has the +same wide brim; and the silver snuff-box is still redolent of Scotch +maccaboy. + +"The hounds have got fat waiting for you, and the birds are almost +tame enough to put salt on their tails," says the old gentleman after +the hearty welcome is over. "Old Nannie says the foxes are eating up +all her turkeys, and Loudon tells me that he sees deer-tracks coming +out of the new ground every morning." + +"How _are_ ye, gentlemen?" says stout John Myers, the "obeshay," which +is negro for "overseer."--"I say, there! you Cuffee, that basket ain't +half full o' corn.--I s'pose you're goin' to clean out all the game by +Chris'mas?--You Cæsar, why don't you fill up old Chester's stall with +trash? You niggers are gittin' too lazy to live;" and he walks off to +see that the negroes, who are watching us with open mouths and eyes, +do not allow their astonishment to interfere with the comfort of the +horses. Five sturdy negro men are doing the work of two boys, forking +in the "pine-trash" from the huge pile outside, and bringing ear-corn +in oak bushel-baskets on their shoulders from the corn-house three +hundred yards away. + +We cross over to this building when the stable-door has been locked +and watch the eager crowd which is waiting for the weekly "'lowance." +Sturdy, strapping women, with muscular arms and stout calves freely +displayed under the skirts which are tucked around their waists, +are standing in picturesque attitudes or sitting on their upturned +baskets, while ragged, wild-looking little "picknies" are clinging +to the said skirts and peeping with great staring eyes at the strange +"buckrah man." Each will take the week's supply of ear-corn and +potatoes for her household--a peck for each member of the family, +large and small--and will grind her own grist at the mill-house, or +more probably trade away the entire supply at the cross-roads store +for flour, sugar and coffee. + +"Why, Rose, is that you? How are you, and how are the children?" + +"De Lawd! Wha' dat? who dat da' talk me? Bless de Lawd! da' nyoung +maussa! Ki! enty you tek wife yet? Go 'way! Look! he done got bayd +(beard) same like ole nanny-goat! Bless de Lawd!" + +"I'm glad to see you looking so young, Kitty: your children must be +grown up." + +"Tenk de Lawd, maussa," with a low curtsey, "I day yah yet! Dem +pickny, da big man an' 'oman now. Enty you got one piece t'bacca fo' +po' ole nigger?" + +The tobacco is forthcoming, together with a few gaudy +head-handkerchiefs and little parcels of sugar, and "nyoung maussa" +has it all his own way with the simple creatures. These negroes are as +near the original wild African type as if a few years instead of more +than a century of contact with civilization had passed over them. +They are all the direct descendants of original importations, chiefly +Ghoolahs and Ashantees; indeed, "Gullah niggah" is a favorite term +of playful reproach among them. Their _male_ names are still largely +Ashantee, as "Cudjo," "Cuffee," "Quarcoo," "Quashee," etc., and +their dialect, a mixture of "pigeon English" and Ghoolah, strongly +impregnated with the French of the Huguenot masters of their +forefathers, is simply incomprehensible to a stranger, whether white +or black. Indeed, when excited and talking rapidly even those who +have grown up among them can scarcely understand the lingo. "Coom, +Hondree," says an old nurse to her little charge at bedtime, "le' we +tek fire go atop:" in English, "Come, Henry, let's take a light and go +up stairs." "Child" is "pickny;" "white man" (or woman), "buckrah;" +"I don't know," "Me no sabbée;" "Is it not?" "Enty?"; "watermelon" is +"attermillion" or "mutwilliam;" and so on. + +Paying a medical visit, I enter a house where the patient is a sick +child: the old crone who is sitting in the doorway with a boy's head +between her knees, performing the office of which monkeys are so fond, +calls out, "Lindy! de buckrah coom." + +"What's the matter with the child?" I inquire. + +"Ki, maussa! me no sabbée wha' do a pickny," replies the intelligent +Lindy, who wishes me to know that she knows nothing about the case. + +We shall see more of them before leaving the plantation. + +A day on the water and a long drive are excellent preparatives for +a supper of broad rice-waffles toasted crisp and brown before the +crackling hickory fire, of smoking spare-ribs and luscious tripe, +of rich, fragrant Java coffee with boiled milk and cream; nor does a +sound night's sleep unfit one for enjoying at breakfast a repetition +of the same, substituting link sausages and black pudding for the +tripe and spare-ribs, and superadding feathery muffins and soft-boiled +eggs. + +It is Sunday morning, but the service to-day is at the other end of +the parish, some twenty miles away. The sky seems brighter and the +grass more green than on the work-days of the week: the birds sing +more cheerily, and seem to know that for one day they are safe from +man's persecution. Certain it is that the wary crow will on that day +eye you saucily as you pass within ten yards of him, while on any +other you cannot approach him within a hundred. At ten o'clock the +household is assembled in the drawing-room, the piano--with, it may +be, a flute accompaniment--is made to do the organ's duty, and the +full service of the Prayer-Book is read and sung and listened to with +reverent attention. There are yet two hours to dinner, and as the +wild, wailing chant from the negro-yard comes to our ears we determine +to visit their chapel. If there was one point in which, more than +in others, the Carolina planter was faithful to his duty, it was in +securing the privileges of religion to his slaves. Every plantation +had its chapel, sometimes rivaling in its appointments the churches +for the whites. One of the largest congregations of the Protestant +Episcopal Church in South Carolina, having lost its silver during the +sack of Columbia, is still using the sterling communion service of a +chapel for negroes which was burned upon a neighboring plantation. The +missionary is to-day upon another portion of his circuit, and we have +a specimen of genuine African Christianity. On one side the rough +benches are filled with men clad, for once in the week, in _clean_ +cotton shirts, with coat and pants of heavy "white plains," some young +dandies here and there being "fixed up" with old black silk waistcoats +and flashy neckties, holding conspicuously old mashed beaver hats, +which have been carefully wetted to make them shine. On the other are +ranged the women, the front benches holding the sedate old "maumas," +with gaudy yellow and red kerchiefs tied about their heads in stiff +high turbans, and others folded _à la_ Lady Washington over their +bosoms; behind them sit the young women in white woolen "frocks," +without handkerchiefs on head or breast; while the children who +are not minding babies at home or hunting rabbits in the woods are +gathered about the door. + +Old Bob, the preacher, rises and fixes his eyes severely on the small +fry near the door: "We's gwine to wushup de Lawd, an' I desiah dem +chilluns to know dat no noise nor laffin', nor no so't o' onbehavin', +kin be 'lowed; so min' wot you's 'bout dere. You yerry me? (hear me)." + +Then, adjusting the great silver-rimmed spectacles and opening a +ragged prayer-book (upside down), he proceeds to read over the hymn, +the whole congregation listening with rapt attention. As he utters the +last word all rise together, the old women with closed eyes, heads on +one side and hands crossed over their breasts, and he begins to "line +out," dividing the words rhythmically into spondaic measure, with the +accent strongly on every second syllable and the falling inflection +invariably on the last uttered: + + When I'--kin read'--my ti'--tul clear'-- + To man'--shuns in'--de skies'. + +Immediately the old mauma at the end of the front bench "sets de +tchune," a sad, quavering minor, and pitched so high that any attempt +to follow it seems utterly hopeless. But no: the women all strike in +on the same soaring key, while the men, by a skillful management of +the _falsetto_, keep up with the screamiest flights. As they wail out +the last word, "skies," the women all curtsey with a sharp jerk of the +body and the men droop their heads upon their breasts--a token that +the strophe is ended; and the next two lines follow in the same +manner. Then follows the prayer, in which due remembrance is made of +"ole maussa" and "nyoung missis an' maussa," and all their friends +and visitors. We are considerate enough to withdraw before the +sermon, lest our presence should embarrass the preacher, but a little +eavesdropping gives us an opportunity of hearing how practically +he deals with "lyin' an' tiefin', an' onbehavin' 'mongst de nyoung +'omans," and how he holds up "de obeshay," as Saint Paul did the +magistrate, in terror to those who "play 'possum w'en de grass too +t'ick," or "stick t'orn in he finger so he can't pick 'nuff cotton +w'en de sun too hot." With our withdrawal is removed a restraint which +has chilled the active devotion of the assembly, and soon the singing +begins again, accompanied now, however, by the heavy tramp of feet +and the clapping of hands keeping time to the sad, wailing minor which +characterizes all their music. The hymn, too, is no longer selected +from the prayer-book, but from some unwritten collection better +adapted to their ideas of "heart-religion": + + De angel cry out A-men, + A-men! A-men! + De angel cry out A-men! + I'se bound to de promis' lan'! + + I da gwine up to hebbin in a long w'ite robe, + Long w'ite robe! long w'ite robe! + My Sabiour tell me wear dat robe + W'en I meet him in de promis' lan'! + +We've a great deal before us during the coming week, for we must give +a day to the partridges (never called "quail" in the South), and we +have a fox-hunt or two in the mornings, and that old buck to look +after whose tracks I showed you in the road; besides the ducks +and turkeys which are waiting to be shot, and all the Christmas +frolicking, from which the ladies will not excuse us. We will +therefore take this quiet Sunday afternoon for a walk among the fields +and woods to see what manner of country we are in. Bending our steps +first toward the huge old oak which seems to hang upon the very edge +of the green hill near the house, we suddenly find ourselves just over +a large basin enclosed with an octagonal brick wall, except where the +clear water runs out over silvery gravel between curbings of heavy +plank. This is the spring, and a queer sort of spring it is. Just +under the tree-roots the water is but a few inches deep over a bed +of bluish-gray limestone, and in no part of the basin, which is about +twelve by twenty feet, does it seem to be more than a half fathom in +depth. But just under the ledge of rock a shelving hole slopes back +under the hill, the bottom of which no man has ever found. This hole +is only about three feet by two, and the narrow outlet to the basin is +but four inches deep, and loses itself within fifty yards in an oozy +bog. Yet, peering into the depth, you catch a glimpse of the black +head and beady white eyes of a mudfish at least two feet long, and +presently of the silvery side of a three-pound bass which glides +across the opening. Drop a line with the cork set at ten feet, and you +will draw out of the very bosom of the earth a mess of fat perch and +bream each as large and as thick as your hand, and eels three feet in +length are sometimes caught in the basin at night. Two miles away, +in the direction of the "run," there are on Woodboo plantation two +similar basins connected by a shallow streamlet, and with no outlet +which a minnow could navigate: one of them is large enough for a +little skiff to float on, and the gray rock slopes down to a centre +depth of ten feet. Just where the sides meet is a long, irregular +fissure, out of which huge bass, pike, jack and mudfish are constantly +emerging, and into which they retreat when disturbed. Hundreds of +perch, bream and young bass sport in the shallow parts, and are easily +caught with rod and line, the water being so clear that you can watch +the fish gorging the bait, and strike when the entire hook disappears. +Now, where do these fish live? where do they breed? and upon what do +they feed? But the mystery does not end there. About a mile in the +opposite direction as we walk through a little belt of wet pineland, +where the woodcock runs across our path or whistles up from the wet +leaves, we come suddenly upon a dozen or more little basins, the +largest not over six feet by nine, which have no outlet whatever. One +hole about two feet in diameter goes sheer down between two pine trees +to a depth never yet fathomed: you cannot see it until right on it, +and you cannot use a rod, but drop your line about twelve feet deep, +and your cork will go down like lead, while you pull up red perch and +blue bream until your arm wearies of the sport. I have caught five +dozen in a winter's afternoon, for the fish bite best in the coldest +weather, the temperature of the water being sixty-two degrees the year +round, irrespective of the weather. You must go fifteen miles before +reaching another of these springs or fountains, and then ten more +to the last of the chain, the famous Eutaw Springs of Revolutionary +memory. Here, then, must be a subterranean river or reservoir at least +twenty-eight miles long, teeming with the same fish which swim in the +surface-streams, yet having no discoverable connection with any of +these. We meet with no rocks or stones anywhere, but our walk leads +us past many marl-pits from which numerous fossil remains have been +obtained. The fertile and superstitious imagination of the negroes has +not been idle in such a suggestive field, and they have peopled these +fountains with spirits which they call "cymbies," akin to the undine +and the kelpie. On Saturday nights you may hear a strange rhythmic, +thumping sound from the spring, and looking out you may see by the +wild, fitful glare of lightwood torches dark figures moving to and +fro. These are the negro women at their laundry-work, knee-deep in the +stream, beating the clothes with heavy clubs. They are merry enough +when together, but not one of them will go alone for a "piggin" of +water, and if you slip up in the shadow of the old oak and throw a +stone into the spring, the entire party will rush away at the splash, +screaming with fear, convinced that the "cymbie" is after them. + +Leaving the spring behind us, we pass up the long lane between two +cotton-fields of a hundred acres each, in which the blackened stalks +are still standing, as are the dried cornstalks and gray pea-vines in +the field beyond. These will remain until the early spring, when they +will be cut down and "listed in" with the hoe, for not a foot of this +rich and profitable plantation has ever been broken with the plough. +Incredible as it may appear, there is not a plough or a work-horse, +and but one old mule, upon this highly-cultivated tract of one +thousand acres. All the hauling is done by ox-teams, with three sturdy +negroes to each cart, and the heavy cotton-hoe does everything else. +Where one man and a plough could till three acres, twenty men and +women with hoes 'ridge up the ground, scatter manure in the furrows, +and draw the ridges down on it again. True, the surface only is +scratched, and the soil is soon exhausted, but who cares for that when +there is abundance of rich timber-land from which to clear new fields? +and as to economizing labor, that is the last thing a planter cares +about, for what are the negroes to do? None are ever sold, the +"picknies" who swarm around every cabin growing up to stock the +plantations bought for each child as he or she "comes of age or is +married," and work has to be made for them to do. + +"What shall I put the hands at to-day, sir?" asked an overseer of an +old planter when the last bale of cotton had been packed. + +"Hum! let's see! Well, set them to filling up the old ditches and +digging new ones." + +For the same reason power-gins and saw-mills found little favor, the +single-treadle "foot-gin" and the saw-pit and cross-cut employing ten +times as many hands. It was the aim of every large planter to produce +and manufacture by hand-power everything needed on the place. Of +course, it required a heavy expenditure of labor and land to raise +provisions for such an army of unprofitable workers, on which account +slave capital was the poorest paying property in the world. The +planter was wealthy, but he owned only land and negroes: when the +latter were emancipated the former became useless; and this is the +reason why the war so utterly ruined the rich land-owners of the +South. + +ROBERT WILSON. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +'76. + + + Pass, '75, across the Styx! + Make way for stately '76, + Who comes with mincing, minuet pace, + Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face-- + An antiquated kerchief on: + White-capped, like Martha Washington; + Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod, + To give no Nineteenth Century nod; + Nay, but a courtesy profound, + Whose look demure consults the ground. + O rare-seen bloom! No flower perennial, + This aloe-crowned Dame Centennial! + + She comes with shades of days long fled-- + Knee-breeched; long silk-stockingèd; + Well-braided queues; bright-buckled shoon + That flash with diamonds; gold galloon + On rebel uniforms of blue--- + A color that this land found _true_; + Three-cornered hats, and plumes that flew + Through conflicts where men dare and do. + A patriot throng, a gallant host, + Our Dame Centennial's train can boast. + + O aloe-flower upon her brow! + Of what strange birth-pangs breathest thou, + The while we gaze with dreamy eyes + Back o'er a sea of memories, + And see thy seed of foreign skies + Here washt, to spring beneath our sun + And ripen till its bloom is won! + What storms have rocked thy stem aslant, + O changeful-nurtured Century-Plant! + Whose living flower now opens bland + Its kindly promise o'er the land! + With blood and tears 'twas watered, + The bud whose blossom now is spread + A floral cap her head upon, + Who, _à la_ Martha Washington, + Our Dame Centennial now appears, + Our '76, our crown of years! + + Brave preparations thee await, + O dame arrayed in olden state! + For thee, for thee, Penn's city stands + And stretches forth inviting hands + To guests of home and foreign lands, + And gathers all historic pride + Of ancient records at her side, + With gifts from all, on thee to rain + Who bring'st such mem'ries in thy train. + + Hail, city well named "Brother's Love!" + The Quaker City of the dove, + That fain would call a land to fling + Its spites away, and 'neath thy wing + Renew the treaty made by Penn + In the wildwood with wilder men; + Yet true men still! Be this the token--- + loyal faith, a pledge unbroken! + + O year that wear'st thy aloe-flower + So proudly! may thy touch have power + Of healing! May thy visage bland + Drive threatening discord from the land, + And thronèd Peace more firmly fix! + Then shall the elder '76, + From out the eighteenth century's band + Of Time's host in the shadowy land, + Greet thee as one true soul may smile + Upon another, where nor guile + Nor sorrow can its brightness dim. + So greet the clear-eyed seraphim-- + So once in Eden's sinless bower + Unfading flower smiled on flower. + + LATIENNE. + + + + +THE KREUZESSCHULE. + +OBER-AMMERGAU, BAVARIA, OCT. 4, 1875. + + +The town lies at the end of a lovely green valley. Behind it are +fir-clad mountains with rocky peaks: on one side a great square rocky +peak, which towers above all and is surmounted by a cross. On each +side of the valley sloping hills, fir-clad to the top. A rapid, clear +stream runs by on the edge of the village. Green pastures dotted with +haymakers, a few scattered trees and a distant town fill the charming +valley. Virginia creepers hang on the walls, and gay flowers fill +pretty balconies and peep through sunny little casements. All is +simple and neat, and the bright fresco pictures on the fronts of many +houses lighten it all. + +On a high hill overlooking the town they are placing a colossal +crucifixion group, presented by King Ludwig II. in _Erinnerung an die +Passionsspiele_--in memory of the Passion play--Christ on the cross, +with the Virgin and St. John, one on each side. The two latter were +ready to be hoisted on to the pedestal: the former is partly up the +hill. All are surrounded by heavy planking, so that it is impossible +to judge of the artistic merit, but the great group cannot fail to +have a fine effect when viewed from a distance. + +Yesterday (October 3d) was the eventful day. Our tickets had been +ordered by telegraph, and we had "the best seats." The performance was +to begin at nine o'clock, and at a quarter before nine we were in our +places. + +The building in which the play is given is of plain rough wood without +paint ("or polish"); in the interior a gallery and two side-galleries, +below them a parterre, and on each side of it a standing-place, all of +plain, unpainted boards. The orchestra was sunk below the level of the +stage, the proscenium painted to represent columns and entablature. +The curtain represented, or seemed intended to represent, Jerusalem. +The whole place could not probably contain over six hundred people, +and was about half full. There were very few foreigners. + +The play to be represented was not the "Passion play," which is given +every ten years, but the _Kreuzesschule_, which is played once in +fifty years--last in 1825. In it the play is taken from the Old +Testament, and the tableaux from the New Testament--the reverse of the +Passion play. + +The orchestra began punctually at nine o'clock. There were about +twenty performers, and they played with skill and taste. The selection +of music was admirable. They commenced with a sort of prelude, slow +and declamatory. Perfect silence reigned, and the deep interest of +the spectators was, from the first and throughout, shown in their +expressive faces. Men and women at times shed tears, and made not the +slightest effort to hide their emotion. The black head-*kerchiefs of +many of the women spectators, tight to the skull with ends hanging +down behind, seemed in harmony with the scene. + +The prelude ended, the Chorus entered with slow and dignified +pace--seven men and women from one side, six from the other, all in a +kind of Oriental costume, picturesque and handsome. The tallest came +first, and so on in gradation, so that when ranged in front of the +curtain they formed a kind of pyramid. The central figure then began +the prologue, an explanation. Then the basso commenced singing an +air, during which the Chorus divided, falling back to the sides and +kneeling, while the curtain rose, displaying the first tableau. This +lasted nearly three minutes, during which time the figures were really +perfectly motionless. The basso finished his air and the tenor sang +another while the curtain was up. This tableau represented the cross +supported by an angel, while grouped around were men, women +and children looking up at it in adoration. This was the +"Kreuzesschule"--the school of the Cross--the prologue to the piece. +The picture had the simplicity of the best school: no affected +attitudes--all plain, earnest and beautiful. When the curtain fell the +Chorus again took their places in front of it, a duet was sung, then a +chorus, and then they countermarched and retired in quiet dignity. + +Then came the first part. A prelude by the orchestra, and the curtain +rises on Abel, dressed in sheep skin, by his altar, from which +smoke ascends, he returning thanks. Enter Cain in leopard skin, much +disturbed and angry. They discourse, Abel all sweetness, Cain bitter +and cross. An angel in blue mantle, like one of Raphael's in the +"Loggia," appears at the side and comforts Abel. Then Eve in white +dress--evidently it had been a puzzle to dress her--and buskins, who +says sweet words to Cain. Then Adam in sheep skin, very sad at all +this difficulty. Eve sweetly strives to reconcile Cain to his brother, +and appeals to him with much feeling. He discourses at length, then +appears to relent and embraces Abel, but is evidently playing the +hypocrite, and as the curtain falls you see that hate is in his heart. + +The curtain down, the orchestra plays a prelude, the Chorus enters +as before, and the leader speculates on Cain's behavior. "Is he +honest?"--"Ah no, his heart is full of hate: he meditates evil." +The Chorus divides as before, falls back and the curtain rises. This +tableau represents the hate and rage of the people and Pharisees +toward Christ, who drives the traders out of the Temple. In grouping, +costume, color, tone, action and completeness it was truly a marvelous +picture. The stage was crowded with figures: Christ in the centre, +behind--a row of columns on each side--a scourge in his left hand, his +right upheld in admirable action; in the background a group in +wild confusion; on the right, richly dressed priests and Pharisees, +indignant and fierce; in front, sellers of sheep and doves, +money-changers and traders of various kinds. All the elements of a +great picture were here shown in the highest degree, and no words of +praise could be too strong to express the idea of its merits and its +charm. This tableau lasted nearly two minutes, with the most complete +steadiness, the basso singing an aria. The curtain then fell, and the +Chorus, taking its place, sang and retired as before. This ended the +first part, Cain's hate prefiguring the hatred toward Christ. + +Then came Part Second. The curtain rose on Cain by the side of his +ruined in a soliloquy. Enter Abel, gentle and mild. Eve comes in, +and again tries to make peace, and Cain again plays the hypocrite +and invites his brother into the wood on some pretext. They retire, +leaving Eve disturbed by she knows not what. Adam enters, shares her +fears and goes out to seek his sons. Thunder and lightning, admirably +represented, and then enter Cain disheveled and disturbed. His mother +knows not what has happened, but is agonized and calls for her Abel. +An angel appears at the side and discloses all by asking Cain, "Where +is thy brother?" and then announcing the fiat of the Most High to him. +He rushes off as Adam enters bearing the body of Abel; and his mother, +sitting down beside the dead body, makes a most touching picture of +a _Pietà_. Adam with upstretched arms appeals to God, and the curtain +falls. This was the "Blutschuld"--the crime of blood--and prefigured +the betrayal of Christ by Judas for the thirty pieces of silver. + +After a most beautiful prelude by the orchestra, the Chorus again +enters; the leader expresses his horror at Cain's action and his +pity for a fate thus given over to Satan; they again divide, and the +curtain rises on the tableau of Judas receiving the money. At the end +the high priest and other priests, in appropriate costume, stand on a +platform beyond a railing. Judas in the centre, by a table, is +taking the money from an attendant: all around are groups, admirably +arranged, expressing, in face and attitude, wonder or pleasure or +disgust. The same artistic ideas and beautiful arrangement and the +same unaffected simplicity. This tableau lasted one minute and a half, +while the tenor sang an aria, "Oh, better for him that he had never +been born." + +The third part was _Das Opfermahl_--the offering of bread and wine +by Melchisedek to Abraham, prefiguring the Last Supper. Prelude by +orchestra. The curtain rises, displaying Melchisedek before an altar, +on which are bread and wine. Four attendants are near him. He, in +a flowing white robe, discourses to them. The scene is simple +and natural. Enter Abraham and attendants on one side and Lot and +attendants on the other, all dressed in Roman mantles, buskins and +helmets. The stage was filled and the grouping admirable. Abraham +and Lot discourse, embrace and part, Lot and his followers retiring. +Melchisedek comes forward and addresses Abraham, who replies at some +length. Then Melchisedek prepares his bread and wine, takes some, +then offers to Abraham, who eats and drinks. Meantime, a most charming +chorus of Handel is sung behind the scenes, while Melchisedek and his +attendants offer the bread and wine to all of Abraham's suite, who +partake reverentially. Tableau and chorus, and the curtain descends. +The ease and simple quiet action of all this scene were remarkable. + +Enter Chorus as before: leader speaks. They divide and the curtain +rises on the tableau of the Last Supper. I know not whether it +was taken from any one picture--I think not--but it was simply and +effectively grouped, and it recalled both Lionardo and Andrea del +Sarto. This lasted two and a half minutes, during which time the +contralto sang an air of Mozart's. + +The fourth part--_Die Ergebung_ (Resignation)--was represented in the +play by Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, +prefiguring the agony of Christ in the Garden. + +After a prelude by the orchestra the curtain rose and discovered +Abraham and Isaac in loving discourse, with figures in the background, +admirably costumed and grouped. An angel in white robe and blue mantle +appears and delivers his heavenly message to the astounded Abraham. +His agony was simply and feelingly depicted. He appears at last +resigned, when Sarah, in red robe and Eastern headdress, enters to +renew his grief. The beauty of this woman was of the highest order in +feature and expression, and her dress was truly artistic. The scene +between these two was most touchingly acted. Isaac reappears, thinking +that he is simply going on a journey, and, scarcely comprehending his +mother's great grief, presents his companion to her as a comfort and +stay, thus prefiguring John and Mary at the cross. Abraham and Isaac +depart, and the curtain falls. + +Then another prelude by the orchestra, and the Chorus appears: the +leader delivers the epilogue. They divide and kneel, and the curtain +rises on the tableau of the scene in Gethsemane. + +Christ, on an elevation, is kneeling: an angel stands in front of him. +Below, the apostles are all asleep in groups. Behind, in the centre, +Judas advances with the soldiers, who bear tall lanterns. It was like +a picture of Carpaccio, and worthy of that great master. This tableau +lasted two and a quarter minutes, during which time the tenor sang an +aria. + +The fifth part--_Es ist vollbracht_ (It is fulfilled)--represents +Abraham going out to sacrifice his son, prefiguring the Crucifixion. +The curtain rises on Sarah, full of agony, which is most simply and +powerfully depicted. Attendants enter, who tell a long story: then +Abraham and Isaac appear, and there is a most striking scene--Sarah +fainting, the friend sustaining her, the others grouped around in +various picturesque attitudes. An angel appears, simple and practical, +like those of the good old painters, and delivers the blessing. The +curtain falls. + +Again the orchestra in a superb prelude: then the Chorus appears, +and, after the epilogue, divides and kneels as the curtain rises on +a tableau which my imagination never could have pictured, for its +wonderful completeness, its power, its feeling, its artistic beauty +and its marvelous expression far exceeded any idea that I had of the +power of men and women to represent such a picture--the Crucifixion. + +The stage was crowded with figures, Christ in the centre, fully +extended on the cross, with no signs whatever of support to disturb +the illusion--the thieves on one side and the other, with arms over +the cross, as frequently represented; the group at the foot of the +cross so touchingly tender--the soldiers, the priests, the people--all +grouped with such consummate skill, such harmony of colors, such +appropriateness and vigor of expression, as have never, to my +thinking, been excelled in the greatest pictures of the greatest +masters. Here was most remarkably shown the wonderful artistic talent +and feeling of these simple people. There was nothing repulsive in any +way, scarcely painful, except tenderly so. You breathlessly gazed on +this wondrous scene, and when, after three minutes, the curtain fell, +you were speechless with admiration and emotion. A lovely air by the +soprano accompanied this tableau, and after the curtain fell a grand +chorus completed the fifth part. + +The sixth part--_Durch Dunkel zum Lichte_ (through Darkness to +Light)--ended the programme. The play represented Joseph, with all his +honors upon him, receiving his old father and his brothers--prefiguring +the Ascension of Christ. + +After the prelude by the orchestra the curtain rises and discovers +old Jacob, surrounded by his sons in various groups. The scene and +costumes were admirable and appropriate. In the midst of a discourse +Joseph bursts in in fine attire, followed by a great train, among +which are two darkies, taken bodily from Flemish pictures. After much +embracing and blessing and forgiveness, the curtain falls as Jacob +with outstretched arms thanks the Lord and prophesies all good things. + +Then again the orchestra, and again our Chorus enters on the scene, +and after the epilogue, "At last all woe is ended," they divide and +kneel, as the curtain rises on the scene of the Ascension. This was +most simply represented. Christ ascends from the tomb, standing on it, +surrounded by angels, while figures appropriately grouped around make +a picture which recalled Perugino. The basso sings an aria, and a +grand chorus, "Alleluja!" ends this most remarkable performance. + +There was no delay nor interruption throughout. Not the sound of a +hammer nor the whisper of a prompter was ever heard. There was no +applause whatever from the audience until the end, and then it seemed +to come from the strangers. The three hours--for the end was precisely +at twelve--seemed not more than one, so filled was the mind with the +simple, grand beauty and the artistic completeness of the whole thing. +No personality appears for an instant. There are no bills to tell the +names of the actors, nor did any actor or actress at any time look +toward the audience. + +Never since early childhood have the Bible stories been brought back +with such vividness, such tender and absorbing interest. Tradition, +faith and earnestness have made this a people of artists. If one could +believe, as all must wish, that love of money-making and speculation +will not invade this simple village, to the demoralization of its +people, the satisfaction would be most complete. Be that as it may, I +shall always owe a debt of gratitude to Ober-Ammergau, and as long as +memory lasts shall remember _Die Kreuzesschule_. + +J.W.F. + + + + +VARESE. + +Varese is an ancient little town on a hill overlooking the small lake +of the same name in the midst of the mountainous country between +Como and Lago Maggiore, and a little to the southward of the Lake of +Lugano. It is within a very few miles of the Swiss frontier. All +this lacustrine region has for many generations been celebrated as a +specially privileged one. It is Italy without the enervating heat and +aridity which are such serious drawbacks to the enjoyment of its other +charms by Northern folk. It is Switzerland without the rigidity of its +climate and the comparative poverty of the northern vegetation. You +have the oleander and cactus around your feet, while the snow-peaks +high above your head are rose-colored morning and evening by a +southern sun. You wander amid groves of Spanish chestnut, and may hear +the while the Swiss-sounding cattle-bells from Alpine pastures high +above them. The lakes themselves, with their branching arms and bays +and their fairy-like islands, are of course a feature of ever-varying +and incomparable beauty. + +Accordingly, Fortune's favorites of all countries have long, even from +the old Roman times downward, thickly studded the district with their +villas and gardens and palaces and parks. But the possession of a +villa on one of the Italian lakes implies that the happy owner is +nothing very much less than a millionaire. And it has been reserved +for these quite latter days to find the means of placing within the +reach of the many all the delights which were heretofore the exclusive +privilege of the few. In no instance has this been done with so +complete a measure of success as at Varese. The hotel is situated +about a mile from the little town. Its gardens look down on the lake, +the intervening slope being covered with forest. To the left, as one +stands at the garden-front of the house, looking toward the lake, are +the hills in the midst of which the Lake of Lugano nestles, and on +the right, beyond the Lago Maggiore, is a view of Monte Rosa with its +eternal snows, perhaps the finest to be found anywhere. I have seen +Monte Rosa and its chain very finely from the top of the pass called +the Col di Tenda, between Turin and Nice, but I think the view from +the terrace in front of this house is finer. Immediately at the back +of the house we have the hills--mountains they would be called in any +other part of Europe--of which Monte Generoso, now covered with snow, +though with a hotel on the top, is the most conspicuous. The country +more immediately around us is a district of rolling hills, partly +vineyard, but in a larger degree wooded, and here and there +diversified by the well-cared-for gardens of some large villa. Our +outlook, it will be admitted, is pleasant enough. The house I am +speaking of, now known under the style and title of the "Excelsior +Hotel," was recently a magnificent villa of the Morosini family at +Venice. The name will not be new to any who have visited Venice; for +the traveler, even if his tastes did not lead him to take any heed of +such matters, will not have been allowed by the _ciceroni_ to overlook +the tombs of the doges of that family in the grand old church of the +beheaded Saint John, _San Giovanni decollata,_ or "San Zuan Degolà," +as the soft-lisping Venetians call it. Yes, the Morosini were very +great men in their day: more than one of the brightest chapters in +the history of the great republic on the Adriatic is filled with their +name. But now their place knows them no more: the family is extinct. +The last scion of the race, an old lady who died quite recently at +Varese, is said to have declared that it was time for a Morosini to +retire from the scene when their house was about to be turned into an +inn. Poor old lady! One could have wished that she had vanished before +that desecration had been threatened, especially as her end was so +near at hand; for it would, I fear, have been too much to wish that +the Excelsior Hotel should have been kept out of existence for another +generation. + +The Morosini had palaces among the most splendid of that city of +palaces, Venice, as may be seen to the present day. But this Varese +villa was their place of delight and enjoyment. And truly the ideas +which we generally attach to the word "villa" are scarcely +represented by the magnificent building to which the public are now +indiscriminately invited. It is an enormous pile of building, the vast +garden-frontage of which makes considerable claims to architectural +magnificence. There are, especially in Switzerland, very magnificent +and palace-like hotels which have been built for the purpose they +now serve, but the fact that they were so built has very effectually +prevented even the most splendid among them from rivaling, or indeed +approaching, the grandiose magnificence of this superb hostelrie, +which has chosen its name in no idle spirit of vaunting. For building +is costly, space is precious, and the necessity of finding a due +return for the capital employed is the paramount rule which the +architect has to keep ever in mind. The old Morosini, who raised this +pile with the abundant profits of the trade with the East when Venice +had the monopoly of it, were curbed in their architectural ambition by +no such considerations. The building of this Villa Morosini must +have cost a sum which no possible amount of success in the way of +hotel-keeping could ever be expected to pay a tolerable interest on. +But the sum for which it was purchased by the present proprietors by +no means represents the whole of the capital which has been expended +on it as it now stands. It needed the expenditure of no less a sum +than sixty thousand pounds sterling to adapt it in all respects to its +present purpose, and it is now really such a hotel as does not +exist elsewhere in Europe. The whole of the ground floor of the vast +building, looking in its entire length on the trimly-kept gardens and +on the lake below them, is devoted to public rooms, the spaciousness +of which is such that even if the entire house were filled to its +utmost capacity they would never be in the least degree crowded. +First on the right hand is the breakfast-room. Then comes an enormous +dining-hall, the coved ceiling of which, supported by noble pillars +and ornamented with stuccoes in relief, is in perfect keeping with the +style of the rest of the ornamentation. Next to the dining-room is +a reading-room well furnished with papers and books: then comes a +so-called ladies' drawing-room, though I do not observe that that +better half of the creation has the smallest wish to monopolize it. +Next to that is the very handsome general drawing-room; then a large +music-room with a grand pianoforte and harmonium; then an equally +spacious smoking-room; and, lastly, a billiard-room;--truly a princely +suite of rooms. The manager speaks English perfectly, and the results +of his English education may be seen in the admirably comfortable and +clean arrangements of the chambers and every part of the house. The +bedrooms are all warmed with hot air, and really nothing has been +neglected which can contribute to ensure the comfort of the inmates. + +And all this can be enjoyed for nine francs per diem! A palace to live +in, placed in one of the choicest spots in the world, abundant and +well-skilled service, an excellently well-kept and well-served table, +charming gardens, and all for about two dollars a day! Truly wonderful +are the possibilities brought within our reach by _co-operation!_ +Still, I do not suppose that quite the same results could be attained +without the fortunate chance which placed a magnificent palace at the +disposal of the present proprietors at doubtless a comparatively very +small cost. _Morosini "nobis hæc otra fecit"_ The princely expenditure +of that noble family in days long since gone by provided for us nomads +these enjoyments; for one is afraid to guess what the cost at the +present day of erecting such a pile would be. Throughout a large part +of the house, in the huge corridors and antechambers, a great deal +of the old furniture and the vast marble chimney-pieces and mural +decorations remain as the Morosini left them, and contribute their +part toward persuading us that we are not dwellers in a vulgar inn, +but the guests of some magnificent old doge, who leaves his friends +the most complete liberty and independence, and merely gratifies the +commercial traditions of his race by requesting us _pro formâ_ to drop +a small present to his domestics at parting. + +There are a great variety of charming drives and walks in the +neighborhood in every direction; and the whole district is full of +the villas and well-kept gardens of the rich Milanese, who have +chosen this favored spot for their country residences. I have said +_well-kept_ gardens advisedly; and it is worth noting that the love +of gardens and gardening seems to be a specialty of the Milanese among +all the Italians. One sees in other parts of Italy the remains of care +and magnificence of this sort--at Rome especially; but all (though +in many cases belonging to owners still wealthy as well as noble) +dilapidated, little cared for, and speaking in melancholy tones of +decay and perished splendor. A ruined building may be an extremely +picturesque object, but a ruined garden can never be other than a +melancholy and repulsive one. But the whole of this district testifies +to the love of the Milanese for their gardens; and most of them are +on a truly princely scale of magnificence. There is one villa which I +will mention, because the owner of it is doing there what recalls +to our minds strikingly the old days which saw the creation of that +Italian splendor the remains of which we still admire, and suggests +that it is not beyond hope that the privileged soil of Italy and the +genius for the arts which seems inherent in this people may, under +their new political circumstances, lead to yet another renaissance. +The villa I am alluding to is in the immediate neighborhood of Varese, +on a rising ground above the town, commanding the most magnificent +views of Monte Rosa, Monte Viso and the country between the lakes of +Como and Maggiore. It is a new creation, and is the property and the +work of the Milanese banker, Signor Ponti. The house and gardens +are well worth a visit--if the traveler is fortunate enough to be +permitted to see them--for the sake of the happy originality of idea +which has inspired the architecture of the former and the excellent +taste which has turned the favorable circumstances of the ground to +the best account in laying out the latter. But the feature which I +specially wished to mention is the ornamentation of the principal +_salon_ or ball-room in the villa. When permitted to visit it we found +Signor Bertini, a Milanese artist well known in all parts of Italy, +engaged in putting the last touches to a series of frescoes which form +the principal ornamentation of the room. The four largest paintings +commemorate the glories of Italy in the history of human discovery. +In one the monk, Guido of Arezzo, the inventor of modern musical +notation, is teaching a class of four boys to sing from the page of an +illuminated missal--a really charming composition. In another Columbus +is showing to the Spanish monarchs the natives of the newly-found +world whom he had brought home with him. In a third Galileo is showing +to the astonished pope, by means of a telescope, the wonders of that +other newly-found world of which he was the discoverer. The fourth +shows us the very striking and lifelike figure of Volta explaining +the wonders of the "pile" to which he has given his name to the First +Napoleon. The whole of these, as well as of the other decorations of +the room, are in "real fresco"--that is to say, the colors are laid +on while the mortar is yet wet (whence the name _fresco_), and thus +become so entirely incorporated with the substance of the wall that +the painting is indestructible save by the destruction of at least +the coating of the latter. Of course, it is evident that a painting so +executed admits of no second touch. The hand of the artist must +obey his thought with absolutely unfailing fidelity or the work is +worthless. Hence the special difficulty of this description of art, +and the necessity of a very high degree of mastery in him who attempts +it. In the present case Signor Bertini has succeeded admirably. But +I was especially struck by the taste and liberality of the Milanese +banker, who, instead of making his room gorgeous with damask hangings +and satin and velvet, which any man who has cash in his pocket may +have, is giving encouragement to the art of his country, and doing at +this day exactly that which the Strozzi, the Borghesi, the Medici and +so many other bankers and merchants did three hundred and odd years +ago, and by doing made Italy what it was. + +T.A.T. + + + + +A STATE GOVERNOR IN THE RÔLE OF ENOCH ARDEN. + + +The conventional romance of the long-lost husband returning home just +in time to interrupt the second nuptials of his wife is told of Samuel +Cranston, governor of Rhode Island, who died in 1727, after being +elected to that office thirty-two times in succession. + +It appears that when quite a young man Mr. Cranston married Mary, a +granddaughter of Roger Williams. Soon after the marriage he went to +sea, was captured by pirates and carried to some country--Algiers, +it is supposed--where he was detained for several years without +being able to communicate with his family. Meanwhile, Mrs. Cranston, +believing him to be dead, accepted an offer of marriage, and was on +the eve of the nuptial ceremonies when her first husband arrived in +Boston. There he heard the news of the proposed marriage, but there +being no such thing then as telegraphs or railroads, he started for +home by means of post-horses as fast as they could carry him. When he +reached Howland's Ferry, just before night, he learned that his wife +was to be married that very evening. "With increased speed he flew to +Newport, but not until the wedding-guests had begun to assemble. She +was called by a servant into the kitchen, 'a person being there +who wished to speak with her.' A man in sailor's habit advanced and +informed her that her husband had arrived in Boston, and requested him +to inform her that he was on his way to Newport." It does not appear +that the hero of this romance made any attempt to find out if his wife +had become more attached to his rival, with the purpose of remaining +incognito should he find this to be the fact. On the contrary, after +being questioned very closely by her, he advanced toward her, "raised +his cap, and pointing to a scar on his forehead, said, 'Do you +recollect that scar?'" Whereupon she at once recognized him, though +the romance is marred by the absence of the assurance that she "flew +into his arms." This may be inferred, however, for the returned +wanderer became the hero of the evening, entertaining the +wedding-guests with an account of his adventures and sufferings among +the pirates. + + + + +THE PALATINE LIGHT. + + +This phenomenon appeared off the northern coast of Block Island about +1720, and reappeared at irregular intervals down to the year 1832, +since which it has not been seen. A common impression of those seeing +it for the first time was that it was a light on board of some ship, +or a ship on fire when very bright. Arnold, in his _History of Rhode +Island_, gives an account of it, and also of the tradition which +assigned to it a strange origin. "This light," he remarks, "has been +the theme of much learned discussion within the present century, +and, while the superstition connected with it is of course rejected, +science has failed thus far in giving it a satisfactory explanation." +Dr. Aaron C. Willey, a resident physician of Block Island, wrote a +careful account of the phenomenon in 1811, which was published at the +time in the _Parthenon_, whatever that may have been. He says: "Its +appellation originated from that of a ship called the Palatine, which +was designedly cast away at this place in the beginning of the last +century, in order to conceal, as tradition reports, the inhuman +treatment and murder of some of its unfortunate passengers." This was +an emigrant ship bound from Holland to Pennsylvania. Some seventeen +of the survivors were landed on the island, but they all died except +three. One lady, it was said, having "much gold and silver plate on +board," refused to land. The ship floated off the rocks, and soon +after disappeared for ever. Dr, Willey says he saw this light in +February, 1810. "It was twilight, and the light was then large and +greatly lambent, very bright, broad at the bottom and terminating +acutely upward. From each side seemed to issue rays of faint light +similar to those perceptible in any blaze placed in the open air +at night. It continued about fifteen minutes from the time I first +observed it, then gradually became smaller and more dim until it +was entirely extinguished." The same gentleman saw it again in the +following December, when he thought it was a light on board of some +vessel until undeceived. It moved along apparently parallel to the +shore on this occasion, after a time falling behind the doctor, who +was riding along the coast. Finally, it stopped, then moved off some +rods and stopped again. The same authority declares that he had been +told by a gentleman living near the sea that it had often been so +bright as to "illuminate considerably the walls of his room through +the windows." This happened only when the light was within half a mile +from the shore, for it was "often seen blazing at six or seven miles' +distance, and strangers supposed it to be a vessel on fire." + +M.H. + + + + +NOTES. + +It is not very extraordinary that printers' ink is a poor pigment for +painting sunsets or sunrises. The strange thing is that travelers and +sentimentalizers obstinately ignore the fact, and hang their paper +walls with more scenery of that description than any other. What a +gallery of alpine, arctic and marine sunsets we have, and how blank an +impression do they all produce! From any of them, done with a clever +pen by one who undertakes to describe what he has freshly seen, we +gather that the spectacle must have been very fine, and must have +deeply delighted the spectator. We can even catch some tints here +and there, but they are fugitive, and each escapes the eye before it +grasps the next one. If we shut our eyes on Tennyson's page we may +realize a glimpse of Mont Blanc blushing through "a thousand shadowy +penciled valleys," and have a momentary pleasure; but the poet's +picture does not abide with us. Some one devotes a couple of pages +to mapping out the infinitude of half-tints that composed a summer's +evening view looking seaward from the North Cape--a good subject +faithfully gone into, but still not a satisfactory sketch even of the +reality. The pen and type will outline and shade, but cannot color. +They give us some fair landscapes made up of form and effect; they can +compass a cavernous bit of Rembrandt, a curtain of fog or shower, or +a staircase of wood and rock climbing into the distance, just as they +can sometimes faintly depict the infinite chiaroscuro of the Miserere +in St. Peter's; but the monochrome, in music as in painting, is their +limit. + + * * * * * + +Has photography dealt hardly with portrait-painting as a branch of +art, or has it benefited it by weeding out the feeble? The Memorial +Exhibition will assist in determining. It will, we hope, allow the +best living painters in this department to be fully represented by the +side of their predecessors. We shall then see if the Inmans, Neagles, +and Sullys are an extinct species, and if the ranks of their pupils +have melted away before the cannon-like camera. We cannot believe that +the sun, always exaggerating perspective except when rectified by +the stereoscope, and more or less falsifying light and shade by the +chemical effect of different rays, is to be the only limner of faces. +Thus imperfect even in mechanical execution, it seems impossible that +he should supersede future Vandycks. As Webster used to say to young +lawyers, there is plenty of room up stairs. Painters may fearlessly +aim to get above the sun. Take one of Sully's women and compare it +with the smoothest print softened into inanity by the dots of the +retoucher of negatives--the representative of the element of art in +the process. A difference exists equivalent to that between brain and +no brain. No woman, "primp" herself for the sitting as she may, can +present her soul to the dapper gentleman under the canopy of black +velvet as Sully saw it. She does not know herself, as reflected in her +lineaments, as he did; and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the +knight of the tripod does not know her at all. + +The same is true of John Neagle as a perpetuator of character with the +pencil. Men were his best subjects. In individualizing them he has had +no superior, if an equal, among American artists. His finish was not +always good, and his coloring for that reason occasionally crude. +In female heads he was less happy: character-painters generally are. +Stuart's women are equally defective, but in a rather different way, +being hard and angular in drawing. + + * * * * * + +England is determined not to shrink from the solution of the +time-honored problem of the result of the meeting between an +irresistible force and an impregnable target. Her iron-clads have +piled pellicle on pellicle of iron till two feet thick has become +their normal shell. Everything thinner has been punctured, and now +an eighty-ton gun, to cost sixty thousand pounds, is getting ready to +perforate that. There must be a stopping-point for all this somewhere. +Perhaps the fate of armor afloat may soon be settled finally by the +torpedo, as its efficiency on land was disposed of by the bullet, +and the men-at-arms of the sea no longer lord it over hosts of wooden +yeomanry. Happy the nation that can look on with its hands firmly +in its pockets while others lavish their treasure in seeking the new +philosopher's stone! + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Nero: An Historical Play. By W.W. Story. Edinburgh and London: Wm. +Blackwood & Sons; New York: Scribner, Welford & Armstrong, + +The fashion of so-called historical dramas is spreading, but the +standard is lowering. When Mr. Swinburne wrote _Chastelard_, whatever +its faults, it was entitled to the name of drama: last year he +published _Bothwell_, which, whatever its beauties, does not deserve +to be so ranked. Tennyson's _Queen Mary_ followed during the +past summer, and many similar attempts may be expected from less +illustrious pens. It is an unfortunate direction for dramatic and +poetic composition to have taken, tending to impair the excellence of +both styles, while fulfilling the exigencies of neither. _Bothwell_ +and _Queen Mary_ are not historical dramas, but versified chronicles, +a certain number of pages of the annals of Scotland and England in +metre, divided into acts and scenes and distributed into parts. Such +a production, be it called what it may, must necessarily lack the +essential qualities of the true drama, while it introduces into a +branch of literature which belongs to the imagination the realism +against which art is struggling. The latest specimen of this new +school is Mr. Story's _Nero_, for, although by his preface it appears +that the publication did not follow the writing for several years, it +comes to the world in the wake of the aforementioned works. It is to +be remembered that Mr. Story's pen is as versatile as his talent is +various. He has given the public two law-books, commonly attributed to +his eminent father; the delightful _Roba di Roma_, which embodies the +actual animate beauty and interest of Roman life; a volume of poems, +_Graffiti d'Italia_, full of fine dramatic fragments and studies of +character in the manner of Browning, descriptions which are pictures, +and sweet verses which live in the heart; and a number of essays in +the pleasantest style of table-talk. Moreover, we are to bear in mind +that this gentleman is not an author by profession, but one of +the most distinguished living sculptors. But the very merit of his +productions subjects them to a code of criticism more severe than that +by which amateur performances are usually judged, and the faults one +finds are by comparison with a standard which makes fault-finding +flattery. In the first place, one cannot turn over a few pages of Mr. +Story's _Nero_ without perceiving that he is imbued with the knowledge +of classical things and times, and with the study of Shakespeare and +the old English playwrights. The turn of the phrases and the march of +the passages recall those best models, though without imitation. As +in them, there is less beauty than vigor and spirit: the dialogue is +strewn with expressions as striking as they are simple. Speaking of +Claudius's murder, Burrhus says: + + And Agrippina, startled, pushed him down + The dark declivity to death. + +Agrippina herself to Nero: + + Oh what a day it was + When, with a shout that seemed to rend the air, + The army hailed you Cæsar! _My poor heart + Shook like the standards straining to the breeze + With that great cheer of triumph_. + +The finest portions of the play are those in which Agrippina has the +principal part, and, notwithstanding some flaws and inconsistencies +in the character, which is evidently meant to be complete and +homogeneous, the whole impression is very forcible and _single_. Her +final menace (Act ii., Scene 5) when Nero defies her, the terrible +scene in which she tries to regain her failing influence by kindling +unholy fire in his blood, her rage at the inaction and ignorance of +her forced retirement, her monologue when she knows that her last +hour has come, are all of a piece and exceedingly well sustained. The +dramatic ends of the play would have been better answered if she and +her son had been the central figures, and the tragedy had ended with +her death. Poppæa is closely studied: her petty, feline personality +contrasts well with the large, imperial presence of Agrippina. Nero +himself is not so successful as a whole: his puerility in the first +part is overdone, though as the play goes on the creation takes +definite shape, and becomes at once more complex and more distinct. +The invariable recurrence of his vanity at the most tremendous moments +is admirably managed: it is like an unconscious trick of look or +gesture for which we watch. In his first outburst of grief at Poppæa's +death he cries: + + How still she lies! + How perfect in her calm! No more distress, + No agitations more, no joy, no pain. + I'll keep her as she is. Fire shall not burn + That lovely shape; but it shall sleep embalmed-- + Thus, thus for ever in the Julian tomb, + And she shall be enrolled among the gods. + A splendid temple shall be raised to her, + A public funeral be hers, _and I + The funeral eulogy myself will speak_. + +There are some impressive dramatic situations, the finest of which is +at the close of the second act, after the murder of Britannicus, the +result of a threat from Agrippina to dethrone her refractory son in +behalf of the rightful heir: + + _Nero_. How is Britannicus? + + _Agrip_. Dead. + + _Nero_. Are you sure? + + _Agrip_. Go see his corpse there, and assure yourself. + + _Nero_. Dead? Poor Britannicus! who might have sat + Upon this very throne instead of me! + + _Agrip_. Nero! + + _Nero_. My mother! + + _Agrip_. Ah! I understand. + + _Nero_. Take him and make him emperor--if you can. + +This has what the French call the _coup de fouet_. But the power and +progress of the play are clogged by two faults--defective construction +and a curious diffuseness and lack of concentration in many of the +scenes and speeches. The action is sadly impeded, for instance, by the +author's not making one business of Seneca's death, but spinning it +out through four scenes of going and coming, as also with Poppæa's, +and even more with Nero's, where the intercalation of long +conversations with changes of places and personages is hurtful, almost +destructive, to the effect. This appears to be the result of too close +an adherence to fact, which brings us back to our original grievance +against dramatizing history. The loss of force from lack of +concentration probably arises from carelessness, haste or want of +revision. From the same causes may spring, too, sundry anachronisms of +expression, such as "For God's sake;" vulgarisms like "Leave me alone" +for "Let me alone;" extraordinary commonplaces, as in the comparison +of popular favor to a weathercock, and of woman's love to a flower +worn, then thrown aside; and a constant lapsing from the energy and +spirit of the dialogue into flatness, familiarity and triviality. +There is an occasional not unwholesome coarseness which recalls Mr. +Story's Elizabethan masters, as in the following passage: + + What a crew is this + Which just have fled! Foul suckers that drop off + When they no more can on their victims gorge! + This Tigellinus.... + Within his sunshine basked and buzzed and stung; + And, now the shadow comes, off, like a fly-- + A pestilent and stinking fly--he goes! + +But it is unpardonable to make even Nero say, "I have to rinse my +mouth after her kiss." + +The fine qualities of the composition give the blemishes relief, and +the material deserved that Mr. Story should work it up to its utmost +possible perfection. + + * * * * * + +Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher. With Letters and other Family +Memorials. Edited by the Survivor of her Family. Boston: Roberts +Brothers. + +There are in this work several elements of a gentle but unfailing +interest, such as generally attaches to the class of books to which +it belongs. It gives us some delineations of bygone manners and social +changes, glimpses of many more or less notable persons, and above all +the record of a life which, without being in the usual sense of these +terms eventful or distinguished, stands forth as one in a great degree +self-determined and bearing a strong impress of individuality. Mrs +Fletcher was one of those women who easily become the central figures +of the circles in which they move, and who owe this position, not +to any transcendent qualities, but to the combined and irresistible +influence of great personal charms, a high degree of mental vivacity, +and those sympathetic and harmonizing qualities which it is so +difficult to define, but which are equally distinct from mere +amiability on the one hand and intense self-devotion on the other. +There seems to be in such characters a hint of heroic possibilities +that would only be narrowed and despoiled of some of their charm if +put to the test of action. Lord Brougham compared Mrs. Fletcher to +Madame Roland, but she had neither the soaring intellect nor the +self-assertive tendencies that mark the representative of a cause. +Principle, however, counted for much more with her than with the sex +generally, and one can easily believe that her tenacity in adhering to +it would have been proof against any ordeal whether of persecution +or persuasion. This trait was not more strikingly illustrated by +the strength and fervency of her Whiggism amid the reactionary +tide produced by the excesses of the French Revolution than by the +circumstances of her marriage. The only child of a small landed +proprietor in Yorkshire, she had no lack of opportunities for +gratifying her father's ambition by marrying in a rank far above her +own. Nor was it her ardent affection for the man of her choice that +made her strong against entreaties and reproaches. She would probably +have been capable of any sacrifice of feeling imposed by her sense of +duty, but it was this latter sentiment that forbade the sacrifice. +"I was not, perhaps," she writes, "what in the language of romance +is called in love with Mr. Fletcher, but I was deeply and tenderly +attached to him. He had inspired a confidence and regard I had never +felt for any other man. I could not bear the thought of marrying in +opposition to my father's will, but I was resolved _on principle_ +never to marry so long as Mr. Fletcher remained single." He was twenty +years her senior, without fortune, and hindered, instead of aided, in +his struggle at the Scottish bar by his prominence as an advocate of +reform. These, she admits, were "sound and rational objections," +and could she have prevailed on Mr. Fletcher to release her from the +engagement, this solution, she confesses, would have been less painful +to her than offending her father. But her lover remaining firm, she +decided after two years, having come of age in the interval, to take +the step dictated by honor as well as inclination, and which the event +proved to have been, as she anticipated, "best for the interest and +happiness of all parties." + +Her married life lasted thirty-seven years, and she survived her +husband nearly thirty more, dying in 1858 at the age of eighty-seven. +Her career was, on the whole, one of singular happiness and +prosperity, made so in part by fortunate circumstances, but in a still +greater degree by her sunny temperament, her power of attracting and +retaining friends, her unflagging interest in public affairs and her +unshaken belief in human progress. Jeffrey and Brougham were among her +earliest friends, Carlyle and Mazzini among her latest, and there have +been few Englishmen of note in the present century whose names do not +appear in the list. Unfortunately, they appear for the most part as +names only. They occur incidentally in a record intended not for +the public, but for the writer's own family, whose interest in her +personal history needed no stimulant and called for no extraneous +details. Here and there we find a passage calculated to whet if not +to satisfy a more general curiosity, such as the account of a +conversation with Wordsworth after his return from Italy in 1837, +and some letters from Mazzini written soon after his first arrival in +England, But even these belong not to the memoir itself, but to the +editor's additions. The book is therefore not to be judged by a mere +literary standard, or read with expectations founded on a general +knowlege of the writer's position and associations. On all with +whom she came in contact Mrs. Fletcher produced the impression of +a character singularly round and complete. Something of the same +influence is felt in the perusal of her unaffected narrative, and with +readers of a reflective turn may prove a sufficient compensation for +the lack of more ordinary attractions. + + * * * * * + +_Books Received_. + +Notes on the Manufacture of Pottery among Savage Races. By Ch. Fred. +Hartt, A.M. Rio de Janeiro: Printed at the office of the "South +American Mail." + +The History of My Friends; or, Home-Life with Animals. Translated from +the French of Emile Achard. New York; G.P. Putnam's Sons. + +The Cultivation of Art, and its Relations to Religious Puritanism and +Money-Getting. By A.R. Cooper. New York: Chas. P. Somerby. + +Health Fragments; or, Steps toward a True Life. By Geo. H. Everett, +M.D. New York: Chas. P. Somerby. + +Sewerage and Sewage Utilization. By Prof. W.H. Corfield, M.A. New +York: D. Van Nostrand. + +Notes of Travel in South-western Africa. By C.J. Andersson. New York: +G.P. Putnam's Sons. + +St. George and St. Michael: A Novel. By George Macdonald. New York: +J.B. Ford & Co. + +Water and Water-Supply. By W.H. Corfield, M.A., M.D. New York: D. Van +Nostrand. + +Home Pastorals, Ballads and Lyrics. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: James R. +Osgood & Co. + +Soul Problems, with other Papers. By Joseph E. Peck. New York: Chas. +P. Somerby. + +Scripture Speculations. By Halsey R. Stevens. New York: Charles P. +Somerby. + +Antiquity of Christianity. By John Alberger. New York: Chas. P. +Somerby. + +The Ship in the Desert. By Joaquin Miller. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOL. 17, NO. 97, JANUARY, 1876*** + + +******* This file should be named 13116-8.txt or 13116-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/1/13116 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, No. 97, January, 1876</p> +<p>Author: Various</p> +<p>Release Date: August 4, 2004 [eBook #13116]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOL. 17, NO. 97, JANUARY, 1876***</p> +<br /> +<br /> +<h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3> +<br /> +<br /> + <div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and the list of + illustrations were added by the transcriber. + </div> + <hr class="full" /> + + <h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1> + + <h4>OF</h4> + + <h2>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</h2> + + <h4>VOLUME XVII.</h4><br /> + <br /> + + <div class="figcenter"> + <img width="100" + src="images/1.jpg" + alt="Title Page Decoration" /> + </div><br /> + <br /> + + <h3>PHILADELPHIA:<br /> + J.B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO.</h3> + + <h4>1876</h4><br /> + <br /> + <hr /> + <br /> + <br /> + + + <h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> + + <div class="toc"> + <p><a href="#illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</a></p> + + <p>THE CENTURY: ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.</p> + + <p class="i4">I.--GENERAL PROGRESS. + <a href="#page9">9</a></p> + + <p>UP THE THAMES</p> + + <p class="i4">THIRD PAPER. by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + <a href="#page21">21</a></p> + + <p>LINES WRITTEN AT VENICE IN OCTOBER, 1865. by FRANCES + ANNE KEMBLE.<a href="#page35">35</a></p> + + <p>SKETCHES OF INDIA.</p> + + <p class="i4">I. <a href="#page37">37</a></p> + + <p>LADY ARTHUR EILDON'S DYING LETTER. by THE AUTHOR OF + "BLINDPITS." <a href="#page52">52</a></p> + + <p>THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + <a href="#page72">72</a></p> + + <p>A DEAD LOVE. by F.A. HILLARD. + <a href="#page80">80</a></p> + + <p>GENTILHOMME AND GENTLEMAN. by G. COLMACHE. + <a href="#page81">81</a></p> + + <p>SPECIAL PLEADING. by SIDNEY LANIER. + <a href="#page89">89</a></p> + + <p>THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS. by MRS. E. LYNN + LINTON.</p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XVII. WHAT MUST COME. + <a href="#page90">90</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XVIII. RECKONING WITH LEAM. + <a href="#page93">93</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XIX. AT STEEL'S CORNER. + <a href="#page98">98</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XX. IN HER MOTHER'S PLACE. + <a href="#page104">104</a></p> + + <p>FAMISHING PORTUGAL. <a href="#page111">111</a></p> + + <p>AT THE OLD PLANTATION. by ROBERT WILSON.</p> + + <p class="i4">TWO PAPERS.--I. + <a href="#page118">118</a></p> + + <p>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</p> + + <p class="i4">'76. by LATIENNE. + <a href="#page124">124</a></p> + + <p>THE KREUZESSCHULE. by J.W.F. + <a href="#page125">125</a></p> + + <p class="i4">OBER-AMMERGAU, Bavaria, Oct. 4, 1875.</p> + + <p>VARESE. by T.A.T. <a href="#page128">128</a></p> + + <p>A STATE GOVERNOR IN THE RÔLE OF ENOCH ARDEN + <a href="#page131">131</a></p> + + <p>THE PALATINE LIGHT. by M.H. + <a href="#page132">132</a></p> + + <p>NOTES. <a href="#page132">132</a></p> + + <p>LITERATURE OF THE DAY. <a href="#page134">134</a></p> + + <p><i>Books Received</i>. <a href="#page136">136</a></p> + </div> + <hr /> + <a name="illustrations" + id="illustrations"></a> + + <h4>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig9">The CENTURY: ITS + FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig21">HAMPTON COURT--WEST + FRONT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig22">HAMPTON + COURT--LOOKING UP THE RIVER.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig23">ENTRANCE TO WOLSEY'S + HALL.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig24">MIDDLE QUADRANGLE, + HAMPTON COURT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig25-1">ARCHWAY IN HAMPTON + COURT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig25-2">WOLSEY.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig26-1">PORTICO LEADING TO + GARDENS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig26-2">CENTRE + AVENUE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig27-1">HAMPTON + COURT--GARDEN FRONT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig27-2">GATE TO PRIVATE + GARDEN.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig28">BUSHY PARK.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig29">GARRICK'S + VILLA.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig30">RIVER SCENE, THAMES + DITTON.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig31">WOLSEY'S TOWER, + ESHER.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig32">CLAREMONT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig33-1">CLIVE'S + MONUMENT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig33-2">PRINCESS + CHARLOTTE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig34-1">WALTON + CHURCH.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig34-2">KINGSTON + CHURCH.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig38">A DWELLING AT + MAZAGON.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig40">HINDU TEMPLE IN THE + BLACK TOWN, BOMBAY.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig42">JAIN TEMPLES AT + SUNAGHUR.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig44">THE VESTIBULE OF THE + GRAND SHAÎTYA OK KARLI.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig46">SCULPTURED FIGURES IN + THE VESTIBULE OF THE GREAT SHAÎTYA OF KARLI.</a></p> + <hr /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" + id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span> + + <h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1> + + <h3>OF</h3> + + <h2><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</i></h2> + <hr class="short" /> + + <h4>January, 1876.</h4> + <hr class="short" /> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/9.jpg" + name="fig9" + id="fig9"><img width="100%" + src="images/9.jpg" + alt="THE CENTURY: ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL." /></a> + </div> + + <h4>I.—GENERAL PROGRESS.</h4> + + <p>This of ours is a conceited century. In intense + self-consciousness it exceeds any of its late predecessors. Its + activity in externally directed thought is accompanied by an + almost corresponding use of introverted reflection. Its + inheritance, and the additions it has made, can make or will + make thereto, supply an ever-present theme. It delights to + stand back from its work, like the painter from his easel, to + scan the effect of each new touch—to note what has been + done and to measure what remains. It is a great living and + breathing entity, informed with the concrete life of three + generations of mankind the most alert and the most restless of + all that have existed. This sensation of exceptional endowments + is self-nourishing and ever-growing; and our little nook of + time is coming to view all the paths of the past, broad or + narrow, direct or interlacing, straight or obscure, as so many + roads laid out and graded for the one purpose of leading + straight to its gate. It sounds its own praises and celebrates + itself at all opportunities. But with all this there is a + wholesome recognition of responsibility. Nobility obliges, it + is prompt to confess, and to act accordingly. It sees flaws in + its <span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" + id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span> regal diamonds, spots that + still sully on its ermine; and is not slow to address itself + to the duty of their removal.</p> + + <p>If the century understands itself, it may be said likewise + to understand the others better than they did themselves. It + collects their respective autobiographies and their mutual + criticisms. The real truths, half truths and delusions each has + added to the accumulating common stock it sifts and weighs, + mercilessly piling a dustheap beyond Mr. Boffin's wildest + dreams, and rescuing, on the other hand, from the old + wastebasket many discarded scraps of real but till now + unacknowledged value. Busy in gathering stores of its own, it + is able to find time for digesting those bequeathed to it, and + for executing both tasks with a good deal of care. It brings + skepticism to its aid in both, and subjects new and old + conclusions to almost equally close analysis. Each new pebble + it picks up upon the shore of the Newtonian ocean it holds up + square and askew to the light, and cross-examines color, + texture and form. Now and then, being but mortal after all, it + chuckles too hastily over a brilliant find, but the blunder is + not apt to wait long for correction. Just now it appears to be + overhauling its accounts in the item of science, taking stock + of its discoveries in that field, balancing bad against good, + and determining profit and loss. Some once-promising entries + have to undergo a black mark, while a few claims that were + despaired of come to the fore. This proceeding is only + preparatory, however, to a new departure on a bolder scale. + Scientific progress knows only partial checks. Its movement is + that of a force <i>en échelon</i>: one line may get into + trouble and recoil, while the others and the general front + continue to advance. Theory does not profess to be certainty. + It is only tentative, and subject necessarily to frequent + errors, for the elimination of which the severely skeptical + spirit of the laws to which it is now held furnishes the best + appliance. Modern science possesses an internal <i>vis + medicatrix</i> which prevents its suffering seriously from + excesses or irregularities. When it ventures to touch the + shield of the Unknowable, it is only with the butt of its + lance, and the inevitable overthrow is accepted with the least + modicum of humiliation.</p> + + <p>In that science which assumes to marshal all the others, + philosophic and judicial history, ours ought to be the foremost + age, if only because it has the aid of all the others. It does + more, however, than they can be said to have contemplated. It + widens the scope of history, and more precisely formalizes its + functions. It makes of the old chroniclers so many moral + statisticians, fully utilizing at the same time their services + as collectors of material facts. The deductions thus arrived at + it aims to test by the methods of the exact sciences. It + invites, in a certain degree, moral philosophy to don the + trammels of mathematics and decorate its shadowy shoulders with + the substantial yoke of the calculus. Such is the programme of + a school too young as yet to have matured its shape, but full + of vigor and confidence, and a very promising outgrowth from + the elder and more stately academy of abstract historical + inquiry and generalization. The latter has redeveloped and + freshened up for us the pictures of the ancient story-tellers, + and has furthermore had them, so to speak, engraved and + scattered among the people, until we have come to live in the + midst of their times and enjoy an intimate knowledge of the + actual condition of human polity and intelligence at any given + period. Through the long gallery or the thick portfolio thus + presented to our eye we may trace the common thread of motive + under the varying conditions of time and circumstance. This + thread able hands are aiding us to discover.</p> + + <p>To what segment of time shall we assign the name of + Nineteenth Century? In A.D. 1800 there was dispute as to which + was properly its first year, the question being settled in + favor of 1801. Having thus struck out the first of the eighteen + hundreds, we may take the liberty of similarly ostracizing the + last twenty-four or twenty-five, which are yet to come, and + start the nineteenth century as far back in the eighteenth. If + we look farther behind us, the centuries will be + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" + id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> found often to overlap in + this way. Coming events cast their shadows before, and the + morning twilight of the new age is refracted deeply into the + sky of the old one. Of no case can this be more truly said + than of that in point. Not only America, but Christendom, + may safely date the century's commencement about 1775 or + 1776. The narrowest isthmus between the mains of past and + present will cover those years.</p> + + <p>England and France were then both at the outset of a new + political era, sharply divided from that preceding. The amiable + and decorous Louis XVI., with his lovely consort, had just + ousted from Versailles the Du Barrys and the Maupeons. George + III., a sovereign similar in youth and respectability of + character, had a few years before in like manner improved the + tone of the English court, and, after the first flush of + welcome from his subjects, surprised and delighted to have an + Englishman and a gentleman once more upon the throne, was + getting over his early lessons in adversity from the birch of + Wilkes and Junius, and entering upon a second series from that + of Washington, all preparatory to the longest and most + brilliant reign in British annals. Frederick II. was an old + man, occupied with assuring to the power he had created the + position it now holds as the first in Europe. Clive, in the + House of Lords, was nursing a still younger bantling, now an + empire twice as populous as Europe was at that period. Under + the equally rugged hand of the young princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, + Russia was having her Mongolian epidermis indued with the + varnish Napoleon so signally failed to scrape off, and was for + the first time taking a place among the great powers of the + West. The curtain, in short, was in the act of rising on the + Europe of to-day. Anson had lately brought the Pacific to + light, and Cook was completing his work. The crust of Spanish + monopoly in the trade of four-fifths of the North and South + American coasts had been broken, and England was preparing to + replace it, at some points, by her own. This was, of itself, a + New World, geographical and commercial.</p> + + <p>Under Linnæus and Buffon, another world, wider still, + was unfolding its wonders and subjecting them to a + classification which has since been but little changed, vast as + have been the subsequent accessions of knowledge and + attainments in methods of interpretation. Before them, the + study of the organic creation can scarcely be said to have + existed. The inorganic was as little reduced to system, and in + its broadest aspect was not even looked at. Buffon's acute but + for the most part empiric speculations on the structure of the + globe were a step in advance; but the science of geology he did + not recognize, and left to be shaped a very little later by + Hutton. Priestley, Cavendish and Lavoisier were dissecting the + impalpable air and making the gaseous form of substances as + familiar and manageable as the solid. Hence true analytic + chemistry. Astronomy, an older science, had derived new + precision from the first observed transit of Venus, imperfect + as were the data obtained and the calculations made.</p> + + <p>Contemporaneous with this sudden apparition of new fields of + scientific discovery and enlargement of the old was an + intellectual movement of a more general character than that + necessarily involved in the progress of natural philosophy. The + French Encyclopædists took hold of social, moral and + juridical questions with an unsparing vigor that could not be + gainsaid. The art of criticism was simultaneously introduced, + perfected and applied. Many of the wrongs and follies that + paralyzed thought and industry were dragged to light. Hoary + absurdities that smothered law and gospel under the foul mass + of privilege and superstition, and made them a curse instead of + a blessing, shrank before the storm of ridicule and + denunciation. Those which did not at once succumb were placed + in a position of publicity and exposure in which they could not + long survive. The great upheaval of which the French Revolution + was a part was thus originated.</p> + + <p>Sounder political ideas were brought within reach of the + masses, till then not recipient, it may almost be said, of any + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" + id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span> political ideas at all. + Statesmen and governments were similarly enlightened, Adam + Smith's declaration of commercial antedated by two years Mr. + Jefferson's of political independence. The atrocities of the + English criminal code, approaching those of Draco, were put + in process of correction, though, as usual in British + reforms, it took half a century to effect their complete + removal; a woman having been, if we recollect rightly, + hanged for a trifling theft in the last years of George IV. + This same slowness of that conservative but persevering + people is calculated to blind us to the operation among them + of deep-seated and active influences. Hardly till 1815 can + we discover in England any fervor, much less efficiency, in + the demand for an extension of popular rights and relaxation + of the grasp of privilege. Irish manufactures continued to + be distinctly and rigidly repelled from competition with + English by formal statute; Jewish and Catholic + disqualification was maintained; the game-laws and the + rotten-borough system, which conferred on the nobility and + gentry arbitrary power over the purse and person of the + commonalty, were determinedly upheld; counsel was only + nominally allowed to the defendant in criminal cases; + chancery withheld or plundered without resistance or appeal; + and there can be no doubt that life and property were better + protected by law in France at the fall of the First Napoleon + than in Great Britain. Nevertheless, the movement had begun + in the latter country forty years before. A generation had + passed since the battle of Culloden, and the island was at + length indissolubly and efficiently one. It shared fully in + the intellectual impulse of the day. Victorious in all its + latest struggles and freed from all sources of internal + danger, it might naturally have been expected to enter at + once on a career of improvement more marked than in the case + of its neighbors. It is not easy to assign reasons for + failure in this respect, unless we seek them in disgust at + the subsequent dismemberment and disturbance of the empire + by the fruits of popular agitations in America, Ireland and + France. The reaction due to such causes was probably + sufficient to defeat all liberal efforts. The leading + English writers of the Revolutionary period were strong + Tories. Such were Johnson, the Lake poets after their brief + swing to the opposite extreme, and Scott. All these except + the first belong as well to the time of successful reform, + and Johnson may be claimed by the eighteenth century; which + serves to illustrate the blight cast upon British literature + by the prolonged resistance of British statesmen to the + prevailing current—a resistance which took its keynote + from the dying recantation and protest of the Whig + Chatham.</p> + + <p>The opening of the epoch, then, was as marked in Great + Britain as elsewhere. Only in special fields she afterward fell + behind, and lost something like half the century. In others she + kept abreast, or even in advance.</p> + + <p>Criticism was not content to exercise its new powers and + apply its newly-framed laws exclusively in the investigation of + any branch of philosophy. It brought them to bear upon the + arts. The discovery of the buried cities of Campania aided in + attracting renewed attention to the art-stores of Italy, + ancient and modern. The principles of taste and beauty which + they illustrated were searchingly analyzed and carefully + explained. Painting and sculpture began slowly to emit their + rays through the eclipse of more than a century. The allied art + shared in this second and secondary renaissance. Haydn was in + full fruit, Mozart ripening, and Music watched, in the cradle + of Beethoven, her budding Shakespeare. A fourth Teuton was + studying the symphonies of the spheres; and within the first + five years of the century, while the "crowning mercy" of + Yorktown was maturing, a planet that had never before dawned on + the eye of man took its place with the ancient six, and "swam + into the ken" of Herschel.</p> + + <p>We have said enough to vindicate our assumed chronology and + justify our readjustment of the calendar. Europe may well be + invited to celebrate her own political, social and material + centennial in 1876, as truly as that of America. Her + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" + id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span> intellectual revival + indisputably contributed, through Franklin, Laurens, the + Lees and others who were immediately within its influence, + to bring on the American movement; and her thought, in turn, + has since that juncture as certainly gravitated, in many of + its chief manifestations, toward that of the New World. Hers + is the jubilee not less than ours. The humblest cot on her + broad bosom is the brighter for '76. By no means the least + fortunate of the beneficiaries is Great Britain herself. + Contrast her present position as a government and a society + with what it was when Liberty Bell announced the + dismemberment of her empire. Her rank among the nations has + notably improved. The population of England, Scotland and + Wales was then estimated below eight and a half + millions—a numerical approximation, by the way, to the + three millions of the colonies not sufficiently considered + when we measure the stoutness of her struggle against them + with France and Holland combined. Of the continental powers, + the French numbered perhaps twenty-two millions, Spain + twelve, the Low Countries six, Germany thirty, Prussia + seven, and so on. From the ratio of one to nearly three, as + compared with France, she has, if we include pacified and + assimilated Ireland—an element now of strength instead + of weakness—advanced to an equality. She has equally + gained on the others, except Prussia, with its aggregation + of new provinces. She may, furthermore, in the event of an + internecine conflict with a combination, count upon the + unwillingness of America to see her annihilated; not the + least just of Tallyrand's observations expressing his + conviction that, though the two great Anglo-Saxon powers + might quarrel with each other, they would not push such a + dispute for the benefit of a third party. But, dismissing + the question of mere brute strength, Britain's sentiment of + pride is conciliated by the spectacle of an advance in the + numbers speaking her tongue from eleven or twelve to eighty + millions within the century, and that in considerable part + at the expense of other languages; millions of foreign + immigrants, parents or children, having abandoned their + vernacular in favor of hers.</p> + + <p>Let us now essay a light sketch of the stream at whose + source we have glanced. Light and superficial it must be, for + to attempt more were to confront the vast and many-sided theme + of modern civilization. The nineteenth century, the child of + history, has the stature of its progenitor. It would fill more + libraries. Conditions, forces, results,—all have been + multiplied. But a few centuries ago the world, as known and + studied, was a corner of the Levant, with its slender and + simple apparatus of life, social, political and industrial. + Later, its boundaries were extended over the remaining shores + of the same landlocked sea. Again a step, but not an expansion, + and it looked helplessly west upon the Atlantic: its ancient + domain of the East almost forgotten. Then that long gaze was + gratified, and Cathay was seen. With that came actual + expansion, which continued in both directions of the globe's + circuit until now. At length the world of thought, of inquiry + and of common interest is becoming coincident with the + sphere.</p> + + <p>In the direction of international politics progress during + the century has not kept pace with the advance in other walks. + We are accustomed to speak of Europe as forming a republic of + nations, but that cannot be said with much more truth than it + could have been in the middle of the sixteenth century. A sense + of the value to the peace of the continent of a balance of + power was then recognized; and the object was attained in some + measure as soon as the career of Charles V., which had + inculcated the lesson, admitted at his abdication of an + application of it. Treaties were then framed, as they have been + constantly since, for this purpose, and the observation of them + was perhaps as faithful. The passions of nations, like those of + men, furnish reason with its slowest and latest conquests. The + great wars of the French Revolution, and the short and sharp + ones which have, after an indispensable breathing-spell, + recently followed it, were as causeless and as defiant of the + compacts designed to prevent them as those of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" + id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span> Reformation period or of the + Thirty Years. They were so many confessions that an + efficient international code is one of the inventions for + which we must look to the future. It is something, + meanwhile, that, with the extinction of feudalism and the + concretion of the detached provinces with which it had + macadamized Christendom, the ceaseless fusillade of little + wars, which played like a lambent flame of mephitic gas over + the surface of each country, has come to an end. The petty + sovereignties which made up Germany, France and Italy have + been within a few generations absorbed into three + masses—so many police districts which have proved + tolerably effective in keeping the peace within the large + territories they cover. The nations, thus massing themselves + for exterior defence, and maintaining a healthy system of + graduated and distributed powers, original or conferred, for + the support of domestic order and activity, have cultivated + successfully the field of home politics.</p> + + <p>In that the change for the better is certainly vast. It is + difficult for Americans, whose acquaintance with European + history is usually derived from compends, to realize what an + incubus of complicated and conflicting privileges, restrictions + and forms has, within the century, been lifted from the + energies of the Old World. The sweeping reforms in French law + are but a small part of what has been done. All the neighbors + of France, from Derry to the Dardanelles, have shared in the + blessing. We may be assisted to an idea of it by turning to the + experience of our own country, whose condition in this regard + was so exceptionally good at the beginning of the period in + point. The constitutions of our States have been repeatedly + altered, and they are now very different in their details from + the old colonial charters, liberal and elastic as these for the + most part were. Yet American innovations are but child's play + to those of Europe, which has not reached the position we held + at the beginning, and has a great deal still to do. In France + the people are not trained to local self-government, but they + have an excellent police, and the rights of person and property + are well protected. In Italy, which has only within a few years + ceased to be a mere geographical expression, municipal rights + and the independence of the commune are on a stronger basis, + but the police is bad, though far better than when the + Peninsula was divided among half a dozen powers. Both have but + commenced arming themselves with the chief safeguard of + Germany, popular education. The great fact with them all is, + that, despite the drawbacks of external pressure and large + standing armies, they are at liberty to pursue the path of + domestic reform as far as they have light enough to perceive it + or purpose enough to require it.</p> + + <p>All this is an immense gain. It reflects itself in the + improved social condition of the people—a result, of + course, not wholly due to it. Crime, though the newspapers make + us familiar with more of it than formerly, has notably + diminished. The savage classes of the great capitals, populous + as some of the old kingdoms, are controlled like a menagerie by + its keepers. A residuum of the untamable will always exist, + inaccessible to education or "moral suasion," and amenable only + to force. This force seems sufficiently supplied by the baton + of the constable, and we may hope that even in volcanic Paris + an eruption of barricades will henceforth cease, unless simply + as a somewhat flamboyant expression of political sentiment, the + gamin throwing up paving-stones and omnibuses as the + independent British voter throws up his hat at the hustings. + But it will not do to expect too much from any ameliorating + cause or chain of causes. Race-characteristics cannot be + annihilated. Man is an animal, and the Parisian turbulent. The + Commune has done its worst probably, and the Internationale, + which threatened at one time to loom up as a modern + Vehmgericht, has subsided. Whatever may hereafter come of such + slumbering perils, the beneficent forces which so largely + repress and reduce them are none the less real.</p> + + <p>The marked advance of the masses in physical well-being is a + great—some would say the greatest—item in social + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" + id="page15"></a>[pg 15]</span> profit and loss. Food is + everywhere better in quality and more regular in supply. The + English record of the corn-market for six centuries shows a + remarkable alteration in favor of steadiness in price. The + uncertainties of the seasons are discounted or neutralized + by the average struck by increased variety of products and + multiplied sources of supply. Famines become infrequent. + That of 1847 in Ireland, bad as it was, would have been + worse a hundred years earlier. A given population is more + regularly and better fed than one-fifth of its number would + at that time have been. A city of four millions would then + have been an impossibility. Dress and lodging are better, + and relatively cheaper. Hygiene is more understood, + imperfect as is its application. Some diseases due to its + disregard have disappeared or been localized. As a result, + men have gained in weight and size and in length of + life.</p> + + <p>In the character of their recreations—a thing largely + governed by national idiosyncrasy—the masses have + advanced. And this we may say without losing sight of the + devastations of intemperance since the distillation of grain + was introduced, about a century and a half ago. With an + enhanced demand upon man's faculties civilization brings an + increased use of stimulants. There are many of these unknown to + former generations. In noting those which attack the health by + storm we are apt to overlook others which proceed more + stealthily by sap. Of these are coffee, tea, chocolate, the + rich spices and more substantial accessions to the modern + table, all stimulating and inviting to excess, but all, as + truly, nutritious and apt to take the place of other aliment, + thus adapting the measure of their use, as a rule, to the + demands of the system. The consumption of opium, the one + dissipation of the Chinese till now unadded to the three or + four of the Caucasian, is said to be extending. If so, a + <i>Counter-blast</i> to it from king or commonwealth will be as + ineffectual as against its allied narcotic. Prohibitory laws + will be even more unavailing than in the case of ardent + spirits. It will run its course—a short one, we + trust—and be followed or joined by new drugs contributed + by conscienceless trade.</p> + + <p>Intemperance—we use the word in its special but most + common signification—is debasing. Compensation, so far as + it goes, is found in the abandonment by those communities among + whom it is most rife of certain gross amusements, such as + cock-fighting and the prize-ring. Bull-and bear-baiting, too, + so prominent among the <i>deliciæ</i> of England's maiden + queen, have died out. Isolated Spain, fenced off by the + Pyrenees from the breeze of benevolence wafted from the + virtuous and bibulous North, still utilizes the Manchegan or + Estremaduran bull as a means of conferring "happy despatch" on + her superannuated horses and absorbing the surplus belligerence + of her "roughs." She seems, however, disposed to tire of this + feast of equine and taurine blood, and the last relic of the + arena will before many years follow its cognate brutalities. + For obvious reasons, bull-fighting can be the sport, + habitually, of but an infinitesimal fraction of the people. + They share with the other races of the Continent the simple + pleasures of dance and song. These enjoyments, as we go north + and are driven within doors from the pure and temperate air by + a more unfriendly climate, form an increasingly intimate + alliance with strong drink, until in the so-called gardens of + Germany Calliope and Gambrinus are inseparable friends. Farther + still toward the Pole the voice of the Muse gradually dies away + upon the sodden atmosphere; and she, having outlasted her + successive Southern associates, wine and beer, in turn gives + place to brandy pure and simple—a beverage itself + frost-proof and only suited to frost-proof men.</p> + + <p>The long nights and indoor days of the North are favorable + to another and more desirable trait of modern social + progress—education. The potency of such a meteorological + cause in making popular a taste for knowledge the instances of + Iceland, Scotland, Scandinavia and North Germany, to say + nothing of New England, leave us no room to doubt. It is, of + course, not the only cause. Ability to read and write is as + universal in China <span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" + id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span> and Japan, as in the + countries we have named. In the case of the Orientals it + cannot be ascribed, either, wholly to that conviction of the + importance, as a conservative guarantee, of elevating the + popular mind and taste, which belongs to the enlightenment + of the day. Instinctive recognition of this need manifests + itself in a simultaneous move in the direction of universal + education at government expense throughout the two + continents. All the populations snatch up their satchels and + hurry to school. Athens revives the Academe and reinstates + the Olympic games under a literary avatar. Italy follows + suit. Hornbooks open and shut with a suggestive snap under + the pope's nose, and Young Rome calculates its future with + slate and pencil. Gaul, fresh from one year's term in the + severest of all schools, adversity, joins the procession, + close by John Bull, who, <i>more suo</i>, pauses first to + decide whether the youthful mind shall take its pap with the + spoon of orthodoxy or heterodoxy, or neither. With him the + question between Church schools and national schools is + complicated by one which is common to other + nations—whether attendance shall be compulsory or + voluntary only. The tendency is toward the former, which has + long been in practice in some of the States of the Union; + and it seems not unlikely that Christendom will, before many + years, revert, in this important matter, to the Spartan view + that children are the property of the state.</p> + + <p>Lavish beyond precedent are the provisions made by + governments and individuals everywhere for the promotion of + this great object. Private endowment of schools and colleges + was never before so frequent and liberal, and nothing so + quickly disarms the caution of the average taxpayer as an + appeal for common schools. From California eastward to Japan it + is honored along the whole line, the unanimous "Yea" being the + most eloquent and hopeful word the modern world emits. Of the + slumbering power that till recently lay hidden in coal and + water, and which has so incalculably multiplied the material + strength of man, much has been said; but we fail to appreciate + the unevoked fund of intellect upon which he has additionally + to draw. The highest expectation of results to be witnessed and + enjoyed by the approaching generations involves no postulate of + human perfectibility, It finds ample warrant in what has been + accomplished under our eyes. A century ago only Scotland and + two or three of the American colonies could be said to possess + a system of common schools. From those feeble and smouldering + sparks what a flame has spread! The space it has covered and + the fructifying light and warmth it has produced may in some + measure be gauged by the newspaper press and the vast bulk of + popularized information in book-form created since then. This + shows the increase in the numerical ratio of readers to the + aggregate of population.</p> + + <p>A difficulty exists in the provision of officers for this + great army of pupils. They cannot always be raised from the + ranks. The thoroughness of a teacher's knowledge is not + acquired by the requisite proportion. Normal schools demand + more and more attention. But here we arrive at a field of + detail that would lead us far beyond the limit of these + articles. We pass naturally from the subject of education to + what is, in the narrower but most generally accepted sense of + the word—mental training—- its leading object of + pursuit.</p> + + <p>If, in the broader and truer meaning of education—that + which assumes the impalpable part of man to be something more + than a sponge for facts—- the slender phalanx of <i>the + men who know</i> will ever remain, proportionally, a small + band, it is at least certain that in acquaintance with natural + phenomena and their relations the masses of the nineteenth + century stand out from their forefathers as eminent + philosophers. Our age may be almost said to have created rather + than extended science, so mighty is the bulk of what it has + added by the side of what it found.</p> + + <p>In mathematics, the branch which most nearly approaches pure + reason, least advance has been made. There was least room for + it. Newton, when, at quite a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" + id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span> mature period of his career, + Euclid was first brought to his attention, laid the book + down after a cursory glance with the remark that it was only + fit for children, its propositions being self-evident. Yet + to those truisms Newton added very little. His work lay in + their development and application. Laplace and Biot belong + to our own day; but their task, too, consisted in the + employment of old rules. The most effective tools of the + mathematician are framed from the Arab algebra and Napier's + logarithms. The science itself without application is, like + logic, a soul without a body.</p> + + <p>The field most fruitful under its application is that of + astronomy. Here, progress has been great. A measuring-rod has + been provided for the depths of space by the ascertainment of + the sun's distance within a three-hundredth part of that body's + diameter. The existence of a cosmic ether, a resisting medium, + has been established, and its retarding influence calculated. + Many of the nebulae have been reduced, and others proved to be + in a gaseous condition, like comets. The latter bodies have + been chained down to regular orbits, followed far beyond those + of the old planets, and brought into genealogical relations + with these through the links of bolides and asteroids. The + family circle of planets proper has been immensely increased, a + new visitant to the central fire appearing every few years or + even months. Newton connected the most distant points of the + universe by the one principle of gravitation: the spectroscope + unites them by identity of structure and composition. Improved + instruments have detected the parallax of a number of the fixed + stars, and traced motion in both solar and stellar systems as + units. Coming homeward from the distant heavens, the advances + of astronomy diminish as we near what may be called the old + planets and our pale companion the moon. The existence of a + lunar atmosphere and the habitability of Mars are still + debated; with, we believe, the odds against both. But the + star-gazers make their craft useful in a novel way when it + reaches the earth. Upon the precession of the equinoxes they + erect a fabric of retrograde chronology, and set a clock to + geologic time. Here Sir Isaac is brought to grief. His + excursions beyond the Deluge are proved blind guides. He + misleads us among the ages as sadly as Archbishop Usher. The + profoundest of laymen and the most learned of clerics are + equally at sea in locating creation. That successive phases of + animate existence were rising and fading with the oscillations + of the earth's inclination to its orbit never occurred to him + to whom "all was light." To probe the stars was to him a + simpler process than to anatomize the globe upon which he + stood.</p> + + <p>This is the less remarkable when we reflect what a hard + fight geology has had. A generation after Newton's death + fossils were referred for their origin to a certain "plastic + power" in Nature—mere idle whittlings of bone that had + never known an outfit of flesh and blood. Then came a long and + motley procession of cosmogonies, every speculator, from John + Wesley down to Pye Smith, insisting warmly on what seemed good + in his own eyes. The last stand was made on the antiquity of + man, and it is only a dozen years since the ablest of + British—perhaps since Cuvier of modern—geologists, + Sir Charles Lyell, yielded to the preponderance of evidence, + and confessed that the era of man's appearance on earth had + been made too recent. A few determined skirmishers still linger + behind the line of retreat, like Ney at the bridge of Kowno, + and fire some fruitless shots at the advancing enemy. This is + well. Tribulation and opposition are good for any creed, + scientific or other. It weeds out the weak ones and strengthens + those that are to stand.</p> + + <p>The mapping out of extinct faunas and floras and assigning + pedigree to existing species are by no means the whole province + of geologists. Productive industry owes to them a vast saving + of time and cost in searching for useful minerals. They + distinguish the same strata in widely separated districts by + means of the characteristic fossils, and are thus enabled to + guide the miner. A geological survey of its territory is one of + the first cares of an enlightened government, and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" + id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span> a geologist is the one + scientific official the leading States of the Union agree in + maintaining. The science has moved forward steadily from its + original office of studying buried deposits and classifying + extinct organisms, until the hard and fast line between + fossil and recent has disappeared, the continuous action of + ordinary causes in past and present been established, and an + unbroken domain assigned to the laws of the visible + creation. Deep-sea soundings have extended inquiry, slight + enough as yet, to that immensely preponderant portion of the + globe's crust that is covered by water. Penetrating the + ocean is like penetrating the rocks, inasmuch as it + introduces us to some of the same primal forms of life; but + it presents them in an active and sentient state. Neptune's + ravished secrets vindicate the Neptunists, while Pluto is + relegated to the abode assigned him by classic myths, where + he and his comrade, Vulcan, keep their furnaces alight and + project their slag and smoke through many a roaring + chimney.</p> + + <p>Upon (as beneath) the deep, science is erecting for itself + new homes. It tracks the wandering wind, and moves at ease, + calmly as a surveyor with chain and compass, through the eddies + of the cyclone. It maps for the sailor the currents, aerial and + subaqueous, of each spot on the unmarked main, and sends him + warning far ahead of the tempest. It divides with the + thermometer the mass of brine into horizontal zones, and + assigns to each its special population.</p> + + <p>A hundred years ago, only the surface of the land was + studied, and but a small part of that. All beneath its surface + was a mystery, and the lore of the sea was untouched. Now, + knowledge has penetrated to the central fire, and of the sea it + can be no longer said that man's "control stops with its + shores." The pathway of his messenger from continent to + continent he has laid deep in its chalky ooze, while over it + silt silently, flake by flake, as they have been falling since + æons before his creation, the induviæ of the + earliest creatures.</p> + + <p>And this his messenger at the bottom of the sea is back in + its old home. First hidden in the electron cast up by the waves + of the Baltic, it was left there, uncomprehended and barren, + till our century. During all that time it was calling from the + clouds to man's dazzled eye and deafened ear. It pervaded the + air he breathed, the ground he trod and the frame which + constituted him. It bore his will from brain to hand, and + guarded his life, through the (so-called) spontaneously acting + muscles of the thorax, during the half or third of his life + during which his will slumbered. At length its call was + hearkened to intelligently. Franklin made it articulate. Its + twin Champollions came in Volta and Galvani. Its few first + translated words have, under a host of elucidators, swelled to + volumes. They link into one language the dialects of light, + motion and heat. The indurated turpentine of the Pomeranian + beach speaks the tongue of the farthest star.</p> + + <p>The sciences, like the nations and like bees, as they grow + too large for their hive are perpetually swarming and + colonizing. Not that colonization is followed, as in the case + of the similitude, by independence. Their mutual bonds become + closer and closer. But convenience and (so to speak) comfort + require the nominal separation. So electricity sets up for + itself; and chemistry, the metropolis, swells into other + offshoots. So numerous and so great are these that the old + alchemists, unlimited range through the material, immaterial + and supernatural as they claimed for their art, would rub their + eyes, bleared over blowpipe and alembic, at sight of its + present riches. The half-hewn block handed down by these + worthies—not by any means</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Like that great Dawn which baffled Angelo</p> + + <p>Left shapeless, grander for its mystery,</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>but blurred and scratched all over with childish and + unmeaning scrawls—has been wholly transformed. Chemistry + no longer assumes to read our future, but it does a great deal + to brighten our present. Laboring to supply the wants and + enhance the pleasures and security of daily life, it makes + excursions with a sure foot in the opposite direction of + abstruse problems <span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" + id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span> in natural philosophy. It + analyzes all substances, determines their relations, and + tries to guide the artisan in utilizing its acquisitions for + the general good. To enumerate these, or to give the merest + sketch of chemical progress within the century, would fill + many pages. It has enriched and invigorated all the arts by + supplying new material and new processes. Illuminating gas, + photography, the anæsthetics, the artificial + fertilizers, quinine, etc. are a few of its more familiarly + known contributions. It has aided medical jurisprudence, and + so far checked crime. Besides enlarging the pharmacopoeia, + it has promoted sanitary reform in many ways, notably by + ascertaining the media of contagion in disease and providing + for their detection and removal. Its triumphs are so closely + interwoven with the appliances of common life that we are + prone to lose sight of them. From the aniline dye that + beautifies a picture or a dress, to the explosive that lifts + a reef or mines the Alps for a highway, the gradations are + infinite and multiform.</p> + + <p>Heavy as is the draft of the material sciences upon the + thought and energy of the century, it has not monopolized them. + No trifling resources have been left for mere abstract + investigation. If meta-physics stands, despite the labors of + Stewart, Hamilton, Hegel, Comte, very much where it did when + Socrates ran amuck among the casuistical Quixotes of his day, + and left the philosophic tilters of Greece, the knights-errant + in search of the supreme good, in the same plight with the + chivalry of Spain after Cervantes, the science of mind, and + particularly mental pathology, has made some steps forward on + crutches furnished by the medical profession. The treatment of + insanity is on a more rational and efficient footing. The + statistician collects, and invites the moral philosopher to + collate, the records of crime. The naturalist studies the life + of the lower animals, and gives the <i>coup de grace</i> to the + uncompromising distinction drawn by human conceit between + instinct and intelligence.</p> + + <p>In the walks of comparative philology much has been + accomplished. Sanskrit has been exhumed. Aryan and Semitic + roots are traced back to an almost synchronous antiquity. The + decipherment of the Egyptian inscriptions seems to bring us + into communication with a still more remote form of language. + More recent periods derive new light from the Etruscan tombs + and the Assyrian bricks. Linguists deem themselves in sight of + something better than the "bow-wow" theory, and are no longer + content to let the calf, the lamb and the child bleat in one + and the same vocabulary of labials, and with no other rudiments + than "ma" and "pa" "speed the soft intercourse from pole to + pole." As yet, that part of mankind which knows not its right + hand from its left is the only one possessed of a worldwide + lingo. The flux that is to weld all tongues into one, and + produce a common language like a common unit of weight, measure + and coinage, remains to be discovered. A Chinese pig, + transplanted to an Anglo-Saxon stye, has no difficulty in + instituting immediate converse with his new friend, but the + gentleman who travels in Europe needs to carry an assortment of + dialects for use on opposite sides of the same rivulet or the + same hill. However, as the French franc has been adopted by + four other nations, and the French litre and mètre by a + greater number, one and the same mail and postage made to serve + Europe and America, and passports been abolished, we may + venture to picture to ourselves the time when the German shall + consent to clear his throat, the Frenchman his nose, the + Spaniard his tonsils and the Englishman the tip of his + tongue—when all shall become as little children and be + mutually comprehensible. Commerce at present is doing more than + the philosophers to that end. While the countrymen of Wilhelm + von Humboldt and Max Müller persist in burying their + laboriously heaped treasures under a load of black-letter type + and words and sentences the most fearfully and wonderfully + made, the skipper scatters English words with English calico + and American clocks among all the isles. A picturesque fringe + of pigeon English decorates the coasts of Africa, Asia and + Oceanica. It might be <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" + id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span> deeper, and doubtless will + be, for our mother-tongue will very certainly be supreme in + the world of trade for at least a couple of centuries to + come. If we were only half as sure of its being adopted by + France as by Fiji!</p> + + <p>If almighty steam and sail must remain unequal to this task, + wondrous indeed are their other potencies. They have contracted + the globe like a dried apple, only in a far greater degree. In + 1776 three years was the usual allotment of the grand tour. + Beginning at London, it extended to Naples and occasionally + Madrid. It often left out Vienna, and more frequently Berlin. + In the same period you may now put a girdle round the earth + ninefold thick. You may, given the means and the faculties, set + up business establishments at San Francisco, Yokohama, + Shanghai, Canton, Calcutta, Bombay, Alexandria, Rome, Paris, + London and New York, and visit each once a quarter. The goods + to supply them may travel, however bulky, on the same ship and + nearly the same train in point of speed with yourself. Nowhere + farther than a few weeks from home in person, nowhere are you + more remote verbally than a few hours. The Red Sea opens to + your footsteps, as it did to those of Moses; and the lightning + that bears your words cleaves the pathway of Alexander and the + New World for which he wept.</p> + + <p>It is really hard to mention these innovations on the old + ways, so vast and so sudden, without degenerating into rhetoric + or bombast. The spread-eagle style comes naturally to an epoch + that soars on quick new wing above all the others. We have it + in all shapes—- equally startling and true in figures of + arithmetic or figures of speech. Any school-boy can tell you, + if you give him the dimensions of the Great Pyramid and state + thirty-three thousand pounds one foot high in a minute as the + conventional horse-power, how many hours it would take a + pony-team picked out of the hundreds of thousands of + steam-engines on the two continents to raise it. He will reduce + to the same prosaic but eloquent form a number of like problems + illustrative of the command obtained over some of the forces of + Nature, and their employment in multiplying and economizing + manual strength and dexterity and stimulating ingenuity. When + we come to contemplate the whole edifice of modern production, + it seems to simplify itself into one new motor applied to the + old mechanical powers, which may perhaps in turn be condensed + into one—the inclined plane. This helps to the impression + that the structure is not only sure to be enlarged, as we see + it enlarging day by day, but to grow into novel and more + striking aspects. Additional motors will probably be + discovered, or some we already possess in embryo may be + developed into greater availability. These, operating on an + ever-growing stock of material, will convince our era that it + is but introductory to a more magnificent and not far distant + future.</p> + + <p>Magnificent the century is justified in styling its work. + What matter could do for mind and steam for the hand it has + done. But is there any gain in the eye and intellect which + perceive, and the hand which fixes, beauty and truth? Is there + any addition to the simple lines, as few and rudimental as the + mechanical powers, which embody proportion and harmony, or in + the fibres of emotion, as scant but as infinite in their range + of tone as the strings of the primeval harp, which ask and + respond to no motor but the touch of genius? Have we surpassed + the old song, the old story, the old picture, the old + temple?</p> + + <p>Such questions must be answered in the negative. The age, + recognizing perforce the inherent capabilities of the race as a + constant quantity, contents itself so far with endeavoring to + adapt and reproduce, or at most imitate, such manifestations of + the artistic sense as it finds excellent in the past. The day + for originality may come ere long, and nothing can be lost in + striving for it, but a capacity for the beautiful at first hand + cannot come without an appreciation of it at second hand. With + the number of cultivated minds so vastly increased as compared + with any previous period, the greater variety of objects and + conditions presented to them, the multiplicity of races + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" + id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span> to which they belong, and + consequently of distinct race-characteristics imbedded in + them and brought into play, and the impulse communicated by + greater general activity, the expectation is allowably + sanguine that the nineteenth century will plant an art as + well as an industry of its own. Wealth, culture and peace + seldom fail to win this final crown. They are busily + gathering together the jewels of the past, endless in + diversity of charm. Museum, gallery, library swell as never + before. The earth is not mined for iron and coal alone. + Statue, vase and gem are disentombed. Pictures are rescued + from the grime of years and neglect. All are copied by sun + or hand, and sent in more or less elaboration into hall or + cottage. In literature our possessions could scarce be more + complete, and they are even more universally distributed. + The nations compete with each other in adding to this + equipment for a new revival, which seems, on the surface, to + have more in its favor than had that of the + cinque-cento.</p> + + <h2>UP THE THAMES</h2> + + <h4>THIRD PAPER.</h4> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/21.jpg" + name="fig21" + id="fig21"><img width="100%" + src="images/21.jpg" + alt="HAMPTON COURT--WEST FRONT." /></a>HAMPTON + COURT—WEST FRONT. + </div> + + <p>Today our movement shall be up the Thames by rail, starting + on the south side of the river to reach an objective point on + the north bank. So crooked is the stream, and so much more + crooked are the different systems of railways, with their + competing branches crossing each other and making the most + audacious inroads on each other's territory, that the direction + in which we are traveling at any given moment, or the station + from which we start, is a very poor index to the quarter for + which we are bound. The railways, to say nothing of the river, + that wanders at its own sweet will, as water commonly does in a + country offering it no obstructions, are quite defiant of their + geographical names. The Great Western runs north, west and + south-east; the South-western strikes + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" + id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span> south, south-east and + north-west; while the Chatham and Dover distributes itself + over most of the region south-east of London, closing its + circuit by a line along the coast of the Channel that + completes a triangle. We can go almost anywhere by any road. + It is necessary, however, in this as in other mundane + proceedings, to make a selection. We must have a will before + we find a way. Let our way, then, be to Waterloo Station on + the Southwestern rail.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/22.jpg" + name="fig22" + id="fig22"><img width="100%" + src="images/22.jpg" + alt="HAMPTON COURT--LOOKING UP THE RIVER." /> + </a>HAMPTON COURT—LOOKING UP THE RIVER. + </div> + + <p>Half an hour's run lands us at Hampton Court, with a number + of fellow-passengers to keep us company if we want them, and in + fact whether we want them or not. Those who travel into or out + of a city of four millions must lay their account with being + ever in a crowd. Our consolation is, that in the city the crowd + is so constant and so wholly strange to us as to defeat its + effect, and create the feeling of solitude we have so often + been told of; while outside of it, at the parks and + show-places, the amplitude of space, density and variety of + plantations, and multiplicity of carefully designed turns, + nooks and retreats, are such that retirement of a more genuine + character is within easy reach. The crowd, we know, is about + us, but it does not elbow us, and we need hardly see it. The + current of humanity, springing from one or a dozen trains or + steamboats, dribbles away, soon after leaving its parent + source, into a multitude of little divergent channels, like + irrigating water, and covers the surface without + interference.</p> + + <p>It would be a curious statistical inquiry how many visitors + Hampton Court has lost since the Cartoons were removed in 1865 + to the South Kensington Museum. Actually, of course, the whole + number has increased, is increasing, and is not going to be + diminished. The query is, How many more there would be now were + those eminent bits of pasteboard—slit up for the guidance + of piece-work at a Flemish loom, tossed after the weavers had + done with them into a lumber-room, then after a century's + neglect disinterred by the taste of Rubens and Charles I., + brought to England, their poor frayed and faded fragments glued + together and made the chief decoration of a royal + palace—still in the place assigned them by the + munificence and judgment of Charles? For our part—and we + may speak for most Americans—when we heard, thought or + read of Hampton Court, we thought of the Cartoons. Engravings + of them were plenty—much more so than of the palace + itself. Numbers of domestic connoisseurs know Raphael + principally as the painter of the Cartoons.</p> + + <p>A few who have not heard of them have heard of Wolsey. The + pursy old cardinal furnishes the surviving one of the two main + props of Hampton's glory. An oddly-assorted pair, + indeed—the delicate Italian painter, without a thought + outside of his art, and the bluff English placeman, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" + id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span> avid of nothing but honors + and wealth. And the association of either of them with the + spot is comparatively so slight. Wolsey held the ground for + a few years, only by lease, built a mere fraction of the + present edifice, and disappeared from the scene within half + a generation. What it boasts, or boasted, of the other + belongs to the least noted of his works—half a dozen + sketches meant for stuff-patterns, and never intended to be + preserved as pictures. Pictures they are, nevertheless, and + all the more valuable and surprising as manifesting such + easy command of hand and faculty, such a matter-of-course + employment of the utmost resources of art on a production + designed to have no continuing existence except as finished, + rendered and given to the world by a "base mechanical," with + no sense of art at all.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/23.jpg" + name="fig23" + id="fig23"><img width="100%" + src="images/23.jpg" + alt="ENTRANCE TO WOLSEY'S HALL." /></a>ENTRANCE TO + WOLSEY'S HALL. + </div> + + <p>Royalty, and the great generally, availed themselves of + their opportunities to select the finest locations and stake + out the best claims along these shores. Of elevation there is + small choice, a level surface prevailing. What there is has + been generally availed of for park or palace, with manifest + advantage to the landscape. The curves of the river are + similarly utilized. Kew and Hampton occupy peninsulas so + formed. The latter, with Bushy Park, an appendage, fills a + water-washed triangle of some two miles on each side. The + southern angle is opposite Thames Ditton, a noted resort for + brethren of the angle, with an ancient inn as popular, though + not as stylish and costly, as the Star and Garter at Richmond. + The town and palace of Hampton lie about halfway up the western + side of the demesne. The view up and down the river from + Hampton Bridge is one of the crack spectacles of the + neighborhood. Satisfied with it, we pass through the principal + street, with the Green in view to our left and Bushy Park + beyond it, to the main entrance. This is part of the original + palace as built by the cardinal. It leads into the first court. + This, with the second or Middle Quadrangle, may all be ascribed + to him, with some changes made by Henry VIII. and Christopher + Wren. The colonnade of coupled Ionic pillars which runs across + it on the south or right-hand side as you enter was designed by + Wren. It is out of keeping with its Gothic surroundings. + Standing beneath it, you see on the opposite side of the square + Wolsey's Hall. It looks <span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" + id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span> like a church. The towers on + either side of the gateway between the courts bear some + relics of the old faith in the shape of terra-cotta + medallions, portraits of the Roman emperors. These + decorations were a present to the cardinal from Leo X. The + oriel windows by their side bear contributions in a + different taste from Henry VIII. They are the escutcheons of + that monarch. The two popes, English and Italian, are well + met. Our engravings give a good idea of the style of these + parts of the edifice. The first or outer square is somewhat + larger than the middle one, which is a hundred and + thirty-three feet across from north to south, and ninety-one + in the opposite direction, or in a line with the longest + side of the whole palace.</p> + + <p>A stairway beneath the arch leads to the great hall, one + hundred and six feet by forty. This having been well furbished + recently, its aspect is probably little inferior in splendor to + that which it wore in its first days. The open-timber roof, gay + banners, stained windows and groups of armor bring mediaeval + magnificence very freshly before us. The ciphers and arms of + Henry and his wife, Jane Seymour, are emblazoned on one of the + windows, indicating the date of 1536 or 1537. Below them were + graciously left Wolsey's imprint—his arms, with a + cardinal's hat on each side, and the inscription, "The Lord + Thomas Wolsey, Cardinal legat de Latere, archbishop of Yorke + and chancellor of Englande." The tapestry of the hall + illustrates sundry passages in the life of Abraham. A Flemish + pupil of Raphael is credited with their execution or + design.</p> + + <p>This hall witnessed, certainly in the reign of George I., + and according to tradition in that of Elizabeth, the mimic + reproduction of the great drama with which it is associated. It + is even said that Shakespeare took part here in his own play, + <i>King Henry VIII., or the Fall of Wolsey</i>. In 1558 the + hall was resplendent with one thousand lamps, Philip and Mary + holding their Christmas feast. The princess Elizabeth was a + guest. The next morning she was compliant or politic enough to + hear matins in the queen's closet.</p> + + <p>The Withdrawing Room opens from the hall. It is remarkable + for its carved and illuminated ceiling of oak. Over the chimney + is a portrait of Wolsey in profile on wood, not the least + interesting of a long list of pictures which are a leading + attraction of the place. These are assembled, with few + exceptions, in the third quadrangle, built in 1690. Into this + we next pass. It takes the place of three of the five original + courts, said to have been fully equal to the two which + remain.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/24.jpg" + name="fig24" + id="fig24"><img width="100%" + src="images/24.jpg" + alt="MIDDLE QUADRANGLE, HAMPTON COURT." /></a>MIDDLE + QUADRANGLE, HAMPTON COURT. + </div> + + <p>The modern or Eastern Quadrangle + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" + id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span> is a hundred and ten by a + hundred and seventeen feet. It is encircled by a colonnade + like that in the middle square, and has nothing remarkable, + architecturally, about it. In the public rooms that surround + us there are, according to the catalogue, over a thousand + pictures. Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Veronese, Titian, Giulio + Romano, Murillo and a host of lesser names of the Italian + and Spanish schools, with still more of the Flemish, are + represented. To most visitors, who may see elsewhere finer + works by these masters, the chief attraction of the walls is + the series of original portraits by Holbein, Vandyck, Lely + and Kneller. The two full-lengths of Charles I. by Vandyck, + on foot and on horseback, both widely known by engravings, + are the gems of this department, as a Vandyck will always be + of any group of portraits.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/25-1.jpg" + name="fig25-1" + id="fig25-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/25-1.jpg" + alt="ARCHWAY IN HAMPTON COURT." /></a>ARCHWAY IN + HAMPTON COURT. + </div> + + <p>Days may be profitably and delightfully spent in studying + this fine collection. The first men and women of England for + three centuries handed down to us by the first artists she + could command form a spectacle in which Americans can take a + sort of home interest. Nearly all date before 1776, and we have + a rightful share in them. Each head and each picture is a + study. We have art and history together. Familiar as we may be + with the events with which the persons represented are + associated, it is impossible to gaze upon their lineaments, set + in the accessories of their day by the ablest hands guided by + eyes that saw below the surface, and not feel that we have new + readings of British annals.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/25-2.jpg" + name="fig25-2" + id="fig25-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/25-2.jpg" + alt="WOLSEY." /></a>WOLSEY. + </div> + + <p>Among the most ancient heads is a medallion of Henry VII. by + Torregiano, the peppery and gifted Florentine who executed the + marvelous chapel in Westminster Abbey and broke the nose of + Michael Angelo. English art—or rather art in + England—may be said to date from him. He could not create + a school of artists in the island—the material did not + exist—but the few productions he left there stood out so + sharply from anything <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" + id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span> around them that the + possessors of the wealth that was then beginning to + accumulate employed it in drawing from the Continent + additional treasures from the newly-found world of beauty. + The riches of England have grown apace, and her collectors + have used them liberally, if not always wisely, until her + galleries, in time, have come to be sought by the + connoisseurs, and even the artists, of the Continent.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/26-1.jpg" + name="fig26-1" + id="fig26-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/26-1.jpg" + alt="PORTICO LEADING TO GARDENS." /></a>PORTICO + LEADING TO GARDENS. + </div> + + <p>The last picture-gallery we traverse is the only one at + Hampton Court specially built for its purpose; and it is empty. + This is the room erected by Sir Christopher Wren for the + reception of the Cartoons. It leads us to the corridor that + opens on the garden-front. We leave behind us, in addition to + the state apartments, a great many others which are peopled by + other inhabitants than the big spiders, said to be found + nowhere else, known as cardinals. The old palace is not kept + wholly for show, but is made useful in the political economy of + the kingdom by furnishing a retreat to impecunious members of + the oligarchy. Certain families of distressed aristocrats are + harbored here—clearly a more wholesome arrangement than + letting them take their chance in the world and bring discredit + on their class.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/26-2.jpg" + name="fig26-2" + id="fig26-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/26-2.jpg" + alt="CENTRE AVENUE." /></a>CENTRE AVENUE. + </div> + + <p>Emerging on the great gardens, forty four acres in extent, + we find ourselves on broad walks laid out with mathematical + regularity, and edged by noble masses of yew, holly, + horse-chestnut, etc. almost as rectangular and circular. We are + here struck with the great advantage derived in landscape + gardening from the rich variety of large evergreens possible in + the climate of Britain. The holly, unknown as an outdoor plant + in this country north of Philadelphia, is at home in the north + of Scotland, eighteen degrees nearer the pole. We are more + fortunate with the Conifers, many of the finest of which family + are perfectly hardy here. But we miss the deodar cedar, the + redwood and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" + id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span> Washingtonia of California, + and the cedar of Lebanon. These, unless perhaps the last, + cannot be depended on much north of the latitude of the + <i>Magnolia grandiflora.</i> They thrive all over England, + with others almost as beautiful, and as delicate north of + the Delaware. Of the laurel tribe, also hardy in England, + our Northern States have but a few weakly representatives. + So with the Rhododendra.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/27-1.jpg" + name="fig27-1" + id="fig27-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/27-1.jpg" + alt="HAMPTON COURT—GARDEN FRONT." /></a>HAMPTON + COURT—GARDEN FRONT. + </div> + + <p>When, tired of even so charming a scene of arboreal luxury, + we knock at the Flower-Pot gate to the left of the palace, and + are admitted into the private garden, we make the acquaintance + of another stately stranger we have had the honor at home of + meeting only under glass. This is the great vine, ninety years + or a hundred old, of the Black Hamburg variety. It does not + cover as much space as the Carolina Scuppernong—the + native variety that so surprised and delighted Raleigh's + Roanoke Island settlers in 1585—often does. But its + bunches, sometimes two or three thousand in number, are much + larger than the Scuppernong's little clumps of two or three. + They weigh something like a pound each, and are thought worthy + of being reserved for Victoria's dessert. Her own family vine + has burgeoned so broadly that three thousand pounds of grapes + would not be a particularly large dish for a Christmas dinner + for the united Guelphs.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/27-2.jpg" + name="fig27-2" + id="fig27-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/27-2.jpg" + alt="GATE TO PRIVATE GARDEN." /></a>GATE TO PRIVATE + GARDEN. + </div> + + <p>We must not forget the Labyrinth, "a mighty maze, but not + without a plan," that has bewildered generations of young and + old children since the time of its creator, William of Orange. + It is a feature of the Dutch style of landscape gardening + imprinted by him upon the Hampton grounds. He failed to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" + id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span> impress a like stamp upon + that chaos of queer, shapeless and contradictory means to + beneficent ends, the British constitution.</p> + + <p>Hampton Court, notwithstanding the naming of the third + quadrangle the Fountain Court, and the prominence given to a + fountain in the design of the principal grounds, is not rich in + waterworks. Nature has done a good deal for it in that way, the + Thames embracing it on two sides and the lowness of the flat + site placing water within easy reach everywhere. This + superabundance of the element did not content the magnificent + Wolsey. He was a man of great ideas, and to secure a head for + his jets he sought an elevated spring at Combe Wood, more than + two miles distant. To bring this supply he laid altogether not + less than eight miles of leaden pipe weighing twenty-four + pounds to the foot, and passing under the bed of the Thames. + Reduced to our currency of to-day, these conduits must have + cost nearly half a million of dollars. They do their work yet, + the gnawing tooth of old <i>Edax rerum</i> not having + penetrated far below the surface of the earth. Better hydraulic + results would now be attained at a considerably reduced cost by + a steam-engine and stand-pipe. At the beginning of the + sixteenth century this motor was not even in embryo, unless we + accept the story of Blasco de Garay's steamer that manoeuvred + under the eye of Charles V. as fruitlessly as Fitch's and + Fulton's before Napoleon. Coal, its dusky pabulum, was also + practically a stranger on the upper Thames. The ancient + fire-dogs that were wont to bear blazing billets hold their + places in the older part of the palace.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/28.jpg" + name="fig28" + id="fig28"><img width="100%" + src="images/28.jpg" + alt="BUSHY PARK." /></a>BUSHY PARK. + </div> + + <p>Crossing the Kingston road, which runs across the peninsula + and skirts the northern boundary of Hampton Park, we get into + its continuation, Bushy Park. This is larger than the chief + enclosure, but less pretentious. We cease to be oppressed by + the palace and its excess of the artificial. The great avenues + of horse-chestnut, five in number, and running parallel with a + length of rather more than a mile and an aggregate breadth of + nearly two hundred yards, are formal enough in design, but the + mass of foliage gives them the effect of a wood. They lead + nowhere in particular, and are flanked by glades and copses in + which the genuinely rural prevails. Cottages gleam through the + trees. The lowing of kine, the tinkling of the sheep-bell, the + gabble of poultry, lead you away from thoughts of prince and + city. Deer domesticated here since long before the introduction + of the turkey or the guinea-hen bear themselves with as quiet + ease and freedom from fear as though they were the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" + id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span> lords of the manor and held + the black-letter title-deeds for the delicious stretch of + sward over which they troop. Less stately, but scarce more + shy, indigenes are the hares, lineal descendants of those + which gave sport to Oliver Cromwell. When that grim Puritan + succeeded to the lordship of the saintly cardinal, he was + fain, when the Dutch, Scotch and Irish indulged him with a + brief chance to doff his buff coat, to take relaxation in + coursing. We loiter by the margin of the ponds he dug in the + hare-warren, and which were presented as nuisances by the + grand jury in 1662. The complaint was that by turning the + water of the "New River" into them the said Oliver had made + the road from Hampton Wick boggy and unsafe. Another + misdemeanor of the deceased was at the same time and in like + manner denounced. This was the stopping up of the pathway + through the warren. The palings were abated, and the path is + open to all nineteenth-century comers, as it probably will + be to those of the twentieth, this being a land of + precedent, averse to change. We may stride triumphantly + across the location of the Cromwellian barricades, and not + the less so, perhaps, for certain other barricades which he + helped to erect in the path of privilege.</p> + + <p>Directing our steps to the left, or westward, we again reach + the river at the town of Hampton. It is possessed of pretty + water-views, but of little else of note except the memory and + the house of Garrick. Hither the great actor, after positively + his last night on the stage, retired, and settled the long + contest for his favor between the Muses of Tragedy and Comedy + by inexorably turning his back on both. He did not cease to be + the delight of polished society, thanks to his geniality and to + literary and conversational powers capable of making him the + intimate of Johnson and Reynolds. More fortunate in his + temperament and temper than his modern successor, Macready, he + never fretted that his profession made him a vagabond by act of + Parliament, or that his adoption of it in place of the law had + prevented his becoming, by virtue of the same formal and + supreme stamp, the equal of the Sampson Brasses plentiful in + his day as in ours among their betters of that honorable + vocation. His self-respect was of tougher if not sounder grain. + "Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow," was the motto + supplied him by his friend and neighbor, Pope, but obeyed long + before he saw it in the poetic form.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/29.jpg" + name="fig29" + id="fig29"><img width="100%" + src="images/29.jpg" + alt="GARRICK'S VILLA." /></a>GARRICK'S VILLA. + </div> + + <p>Garrick's house is separated from its bit of "grounds," + which run down to the water's edge, by the highway. It + communicates with them by a tunnel, suggested by Johnson. It + was not a very novel suggestion, but the excavation deserves + notice as probably the one engineering achievement of old Ursus + major. We may fancy the Titan of the pen and the tea-table, in + his snuffy habit as he lived and as photographed by Boswell, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" + id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span> Mrs. Thrale, Fanny Burney, + and their epitomizer Macaulay, diving under the turnpike and + emerging among the osiers and water-rats to offer his + orisons at the shrine of Shakespeare. For, in the fashion of + the day, Garrick erected a little brick "temple," and placed + therein a statue of the man it was the study of his life to + interpret. The temple is there yet. The statue, a fine one + by Roubillac, now adorns the hall of the British Museum, a + much better place for it. Garrick, and not Shakespeare, is + the <i>genius loci</i>.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/30.jpg" + name="fig30" + id="fig30"><img width="100%" + src="images/30.jpg" + alt="RIVER SCENE, THAMES DITTON." /></a>RIVER SCENE, + THAMES DITTON. + </div> + + <p>This is but one, if the most striking, of a long row of + villas that overlook the river, each with its + comfortable-looking and rotund trees and trim plat in front, + with sometimes a summer-house snuggling down to the ripples. + These riverside colonies, thrown out so rapidly by the + metropolis, have no colonial look. We cannot associate the idea + of a new settlement with rich turf, graveled walks and large + trees devoid of the gaunt and forlorn look suggestive of their + fellows' having been hewn away from their side. The houses have + some of the pertness, rawness and obtrusiveness of youth, but + it is not the youth of the backwoods.</p> + + <p>Bob and sinker are in their glory hereabouts. Fishing-rods + in the season and good weather form an established part of the + scenery. From the banks of the stream, from the islands and + from box-like boats called punts in the middle of the water, + their slender arches project. It becomes a source of + speculation how the breed of fish is kept up. Seth Green has + never operated on the Thames. Were he to take it under his + wing, a sum in the single rule of three points to the + conclusion that all London would take its seat under these + willows and extract ample sustenance from the invisible herds. + If perch and dace can hold their own against the existing + pressure and escape extinction, how would they multiply with + the fostering aid of the spawning-box! We are not deep in the + mysteries of the angle, but we believe English waters do not + boast the catfish. They ought to acquire him. He is almost as + hard to extirpate as the perch, would be quite at home in these + sluggish pools under the lily-pads, and would harmonize + admirably with the eel in the pies and other gross preparations + which delight the British palate. He hath, moreover, a John + Bull-like air in his broad and burly shape, his smooth and + unscaly superficies and the <i>noli-me-tangere</i> character of + his dorsal fin. Pity he was unknown to Izaak Walton!</p> + + <p>At this particular point the piscatory effect is intensified + by the dam just above Hampton Bridge. Two parts of a river are + especially fine for fishing. One is the part above the dam, and + the other the part below. These two divisions may be said, + indeed, in a large sense to cover all the Thames. Moulsey Lock, + while favorable to fish and fishermen, is unfavorable to dry + land. Yet there is said <span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" + id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span> to be no malaria. Hampton + Court has proved a wholesome residence to every occupant + save its founder.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/31.jpg" + name="fig31" + id="fig31"><img width="100%" + src="images/31.jpg" + alt="WOLSEY'S TOWER, ESHER." /></a>WOLSEY'S TOWER, + ESHER. + </div> + + <p>The angler's capital is Thames Ditton, and his capitol the + Swan Inn. Ditton is, like many other pretty English villages, + little and old. It is mentioned in <i>Domesday Boke</i> as + belonging to the bishop of Bayeux in Normandy, famous for the + historic piece of tapestry. Wadard, a gentleman with a Saxon + name, held it of him, probably for the quit—rent of an + annual eel-pie, although the consideration is not stated. The + clergy were, by reason of their frequent meagre days and + seasons, great consumers of fish. The phosphorescent character + of that diet may have contributed, if we accept certain modern + theories of animal chemistry as connected in some as yet + unexplained way with psychology, to the intellectual + predominance of that class of the population in the Middle + Ages. That occasional fasting, whether voluntary and systematic + as in the cloisters, or involuntary and altogether the reverse + of systematic in Grub street, helps to clear the wits, with or + without the aid of phosphorus, is a fixed fact. The stomach is + apt to be a stumbling-block to the brain. We are not prone to + associate prolonged and productive mental effort with a fair + round belly with fat capon lined. It was not the jolly clerics + we read of in song, but the lean ascetic brethren who were + numerous enough to balance them, that garnered for us the + treasures of ancient literature and kept the mind of + Christendom alive, if only in a state of suspended animation. + It was something that they prevented the mace of chivalry from + utterly braining humankind.</p> + + <p>The Thames is hereabouts joined from the south by a somewhat + exceptional style of river, characterized by Milton as "the + sullen Mole, that runneth underneath," and by Pope, in dutiful + imitation, as "the sullen Mole that hides his diving flood." + Both poets play on the word. In our judgment, Milton's line is + the better, since moles do not dive and have no flood—two + false figures in one line from the precise and finical Pope! + Thomson contributes the epithet of "silent," which will do well + enough as far as it goes, though devoid even of the average + force of Jamie. But, as we have intimated, it is a queer river. + Pouring into the Thames by several mouths that deviate over + quite a delta, its channel two or three miles above is + destitute in dry seasons of water. Its current disappears under + an elevation called White Hill, and does not come again to + light for almost two miles, resembling therein several streams + in the United States, notably Lost River in North-eastern + Virginia, which has a subterranean course of the same character + and about the same length, but has not yet found its Milton or + Pope, far superior as it is to its English cousin in natural + beauty.</p> + + <p>For this defect art and association amply atone. On the + southern side of the Mole, not far from the underground portion + of its course—"the Swallow" as it is called—stand + the charming and storied seats of Esher and Claremont.</p> + + <p>Esher was an ancient residence of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" + id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span> bishops of Winchester. Wolsey + made it for a time his retreat after being ousted from + Hampton Court. A retreat it was to him in every sense. He + dismissed his servants and all state, and cultivated the + deepest despondency. His inexorable master, however, looked + down on him, from his ravished towers hard by, unmoved, and, + as the sequel in a few years proved, unsatisfied in his + greed. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was called upon for a + contribution. He loyally surrendered to the king the whole + estate of Esher, a splendid mansion with all appurtenances + and a park a mile in diameter. Henry annexed Esher to + Hampton Court, and continued his research for new subjects + of spoliation. His daughter Mary gave Esher back to the see + of Winchester. Elizabeth bought it and bestowed it on Lord + Howard of Effingham, who well earned it by his services + against the Armada. Of the families who subsequently owned + the place, the Pelhams are the most noted. Now it has passed + from their hands. That which has alone been preserved of the + palace of Wolsey is an embattled gatehouse that looks into + the sluggish Mole, and joins it mayhap in musing over "the + days that we have seen."</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/32.jpg" + name="fig32" + id="fig32"><img width="100%" + src="images/32.jpg" + alt="CLAREMONT." /></a>CLAREMONT. + </div> + + <p>Claremont, its next neighbor, unites, with equal or greater + charms of landscape, in preaching the old story of the + decadence of the great. Lord Clive, the Indian conqueror and + speculator, built the house from the designs of Capability + Browne at a cost of over a hundred thousand pounds. His + dwelling and his monument remain to represent Clive. After him, + two or three occupants removed, came Leopold of Belgium, with + his bride, the Princess Charlotte, pet and hope of the British + nation. Their stay was more transient still—a year only, + when death dissipated their dream and cleared the way to the + throne for Victoria. Leopold continued to hold the property, + and it became a generation later the asylum of Louis Philippe. + To an ordinary mind the miseries of any one condemned to make + this lovely spot his home are not apt to present themselves as + the acme of despair. A sensation of relief and lulling repose + would be more reasonably expected, especially after so stormy a + career as that of Louis. The change from restless and + capricious Paris to dewy shades and luxurious halls in the + heart of changeless and impregnable England ought, on common + principles, to have promoted the content and prolonged the life + of the old king. Possibly it did, but if so, the French had not + many months' escape from a second Orleans regency, for the + exile's experience of Claremont was brief. We may wander over + his lawns, and reshape to ourselves his reveries. Then + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" + id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span> we may forget the man who + lost an empire as we look up at the cenotaph of him who + conquered one. Both brought grist to Miller Bull, the + fortunate and practical-minded owner of such vast + water-privileges. His water-power seems proof against all + floods, while the corn of all nations must come to his door. + Standing under these drooping elms, by this lazy stream, we + hear none of the clatter of the great mill, and we cease to + dream of affixing a period to its noiseless and effective + work.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/33-1.jpg" + name="fig33-1" + id="fig33-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/33-1.jpg" + alt="CLIVE'S MONUMENT." /></a>CLIVE'S MONUMENT. + </div> + + <p>If we are not tired of parks for today, five minutes by rail + will carry us west to Oatlands Park, with its appended, and + more or less dependent, village of Walton-upon-Thames. But a + surfeit even of English country-houses and their pleasances is + a possible thing; and nowhere are they more abundant than + within an hour's walk of our present locality. So, taking + Ashley Park, Burwood Park, Pains Hill and many others, as well + as the Coway Stakes—said by one school of antiquarians to + have been planted in the Thames by Cæsar, and by another to be + the relics of a fish-weir—Walton Church and Bradshaw's + house, for granted, we shall turn to the east and finish the + purlieus of Hampton with a glance at the old Saxon town of + Kingston-on-Thames. Probably an ardent Kingstonian would + indignantly disown the impression our three words are apt to + give of the place. It is a rapidly—growing town, and + "Egbert, the first king of all England," who held a council at + "Kyningestun, famosa ilia locus," in 838, would be at a loss to + find his way through its streets could he revisit it. It has + the population of a Saxon county. Viewed from the massive + bridge, with the church-tower rising above an expanse of + sightly buildings, it possesses the least possible resemblance + to the cluster of wattled huts that may be presumed to have + sheltered Egbert and his peers.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/33-2.jpg" + name="fig33-2" + id="fig33-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/33-2.jpg" + alt="PRINCESS CHARLOTTE." /></a>PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. + </div> + + <p>A more solid memento of the Saxons is preserved in the + King's Stone. This has been of late years set up in the centre + of the town, surrounded with an iron railing, and made visible + to all comers, skeptical or otherwise. Tradition credits it + with having been that upon which the kings of Wessex were + crowned, as those of Scotland down to Longshanks, and after him + the English, were on the red sandstone palladium of Scone. From + the list of ante-Norman monarchs said to have received the + sceptre upon it <span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" + id="page34"></a>[pg 34]</span> the poetically inclined + visitor will select for chief interest Edwy, whose + coronation was celebrated in great state in his seventeenth + year. How he fell in love with and married secretly his + cousin Elgiva; how Saint Dunstan and his equally saintly + though not regularly beatified ally, Odo, archbishop of + Canterbury, indignant at a step taken against their + fulminations and protests, and jealous of the fair queen, + tore her from his arms, burnt with hot iron the bloom out of + her cheeks, and finally put her to death with the most cruel + tortures; and how her broken-hearted boy-lord, dethroned and + hunted, died before reaching twenty,—is a standing + dish of the pathetic. Unfortunately, the story, handed down + to us with much detail, appears to be true. We must not + accept it, however, as an average illustration of life in + that age of England. The five hundred years before the + Conquest do not equal, in the bloody character of their + annals, the like period succeeding it. Barbarous enough the + Anglo-Saxons were, but wanton cruelty does not seem to have + been one of their traits. To produce it some access of + religious fury was usually requisite. It was on the church + doors that the skins of their Danish invaders were + nailed.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/34-1.jpg" + name="fig34-1" + id="fig34-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/34-1.jpg" + alt="WALTON CHURCH." /></a>WALTON CHURCH. + </div> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/34-2.jpg" + name="fig34-2" + id="fig34-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/34-2.jpg" + alt="KINGSTON CHURCH." /></a>KINGSTON CHURCH. + </div> + + <p>Kingston has no more Dunstans. Alexandra would be perfectly + safe in its market-place. The rosy maidens who pervade its + streets need not envy her cheeks, and the saints and + archbishops who are to officiate at her husband's induction as + head of the Anglican Church have their anxieties at present + directed to wholly <span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" + id="page35"></a>[pg 35]</span> different quarters. They have + foes within and foes without, but none in the palace.</p> + + <p>Kingston bids fair to revert, after a sort, to the + metropolitan position it boasted once, but has lost for nine + centuries. The capital is coming to it, and will cover the four + remaining miles within a decade or two at the existing rate of + progress. Kingston may be assigned to the suburbs already. It + is much nearer London, in point of time, than Union Square in + New York to the City Hall. A slip of country not yet endowed + with trottoirs and gas-lamps intervenes. Call this park, as you + do the square miles of such territory already deep within the + metropolis.</p> + + <p>London's jurisdiction, as marked by the Boundary Stone, + extends much farther up the river than we have as yet gone. Nor + are the swans her only vicegerents. The myrmidons of Inspector + Bucket, foot and horse, supplement those natatory + representatives. So do the municipalities encroach upon and + overspread the country, as it is eminently proper they should, + seeing that to the charters so long ago exacted, and so long + and so jealously guarded, by the towns, so much of the liberty + enjoyed by English-speaking peoples is due. Large cities may be + under some circumstances, according to an often-quoted saying, + plague-spots on the body politic, but their growth has + generally been commensurate with that of knowledge and order, + and indicative of anything but a diseased condition of the + national organism.</p> + + <p>But here we are, under the shadow of the departed Nine Elms + and of the official palace of the Odos, deep enough in Lunnon + to satisfy the proudest Cockney, in less time than we have + taken in getting off that last commonplace on political + economy. Adam Smith and Jefferson never undertook to meditate + at thirty-five miles an hour.</p> + + <p class="author">EDWARD C. + BRUCE.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" + id="page36"></a>[pg 36]</span> + + <h2>LINES WRITTEN AT VENICE IN OCTOBER, 1865.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Sleep, Venice, sleep! the evening gun resounds</p> + + <p class="i2">Over the waves that rock thee on their + breast:</p> + + <p>The bugle blare to kennel calls the hounds</p> + + <p class="i2">Who sleepless watch thy waking and thy + rest.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Sleep till the night-stars do the day-star meet,</p> + + <p class="i2">And shuddering echoes o'er the water + run,</p> + + <p>Rippling through every glass-green, wavering + street</p> + + <p class="i2">The stern good-morrow of thy guardian + Hun.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Still do thy stones, O Venice! bid rejoice,</p> + + <p class="i2">With their old majesty, the gazer's + eye,</p> + + <p>In their consummate grace uttering a voice,</p> + + <p class="i2">From every line, of blended harmony.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Still glows the splendor of the wondrous dreams</p> + + <p class="i2">Vouchsafed thy painters o'er each sacred + shrine,</p> + + <p>And from the radiant visions downward streams</p> + + <p class="i2">In visible light an influence divine.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Still through thy golden day and silver night</p> + + <p class="i2">Sings his soft jargon the gay + gondolier,</p> + + <p>And o'er thy floors of liquid malachite</p> + + <p class="i2">Slide the black-hooded barks to mystery + dear.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Like Spanish beauty in its sable veil,</p> + + <p class="i2">They rustle sideling through the watery + way,</p> + + <p>The wild, monotonous cry with which they hail</p> + + <p class="i2">Each other's passing dying far away.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>As each steel prow grazes the island strands</p> + + <p class="i2">Still ring the sweet Venetian voices + clear,</p> + + <p>And wondering wanderers from far, free lands</p> + + <p class="i2">Entranced look round, enchanted listen + here.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>From the far lands of liberty they come—</p> + + <p class="i2">England's proud children and her younger + race;</p> + + <p>Those who possess the Past's most noble home,</p> + + <p class="i2">And those who claim the Future's + boundless space.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Pitying they stand. For thee who would not weep?</p> + + <p class="i2">Well it beseems these men to weep for + thee,</p> + + <p>Whose flags (as erst they own) control the deep,</p> + + <p class="i2">Whose conquering sails o'ershadow every + sea.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Yet not in pity only, but in hope,</p> + + <p class="i2">Spring the hot tears the brave for thee + may shed:</p> + + <p>Thy chain shall prove but a sand-woven rope;</p> + + <p class="i2">But sleep thou still: the sky is not yet + red.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Sleep till the mighty helmsman of the world,</p> + + <p class="i2">By the Almighty set at Fortune's + wheel,</p> + + <p>Steers toward thy freedom, and, once more + unfurled,</p> + + <p class="i2">The banner of St. Mark the sun shall + feel.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Then wake, then rise, then hurl away thy yoke,</p> + + <p class="i2">Then dye with crimson that pale + livery,</p> + + <p>Whose ghastly white has been the jailer's cloak</p> + + <p class="i2">For years flung o'er thy shame and + misery!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Rise with a shout that down thy Giants' Stair</p> + + <p class="i2">Shall thy old giants bring with + thundering tread—</p> + + <p>The blind crusader standing stony there,</p> + + <p class="i2">And him, the latest of thy mighty + dead.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Whose patriot heart broke at the Austrian's + foot,</p> + + <p class="i2">Whose ashes under the black marble + lie,</p> + + <p>From whose dry dust, stirred by the voice, shall + shoot</p> + + <p class="i2">The glorious growth of living + liberty.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="author">FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.</p> + </div> + </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" + id="page37"></a>[pg 37]</span> + + <h2>SKETCHES OF INDIA.</h2> + + <h4>I.</h4> + + <p>"Come," says my Hindu friend, "let us do Bombay."</p> + + <p>The name of my Hindu friend is Bhima Gandharva. At the same + time, his name is <i>not</i> Bhima Gandharva. But—for + what is life worth if one may not have one's little + riddle?—in respect that he is <i>not</i> so named let him + be so called, for thus will a pretty contradiction be + accomplished, thus shall I secure at once his privacy and his + publicity, and reveal and conceal him in a breath.</p> + + <p>It is eight o'clock in the morning. We have met—Bhima + Gandharva and I—in "The Fort." The Fort is to Bombay much + as the Levee, with its adjacent quarters, is to New Orleans; + only it is—one may say <i>Hibernice</i>—a great + deal more so. It is on the inner or harbor side of the island + of Bombay. Instead of the low-banked Mississippi, the waters of + a tranquil and charming haven smile welcome out yonder from + between wooded island-peaks. Here Bombay has its + counting-houses, its warehouses, its exchange, its "Cotton + Green," its docks. But not its dwellings. This part of the Fort + where we have met is, one may say, only inhabited for six hours + in the day—from ten in the morning until four in the + afternoon. At the former hour Bombay is to be found here + engaged at trade: at the latter it rushes back into the various + quarters outside the Fort which go to make up this many-citied + city. So that at this particular hour of eight in the morning + one must expect to find little here that is alive, except + either a philosopher, a stranger, a policeman or a rat.</p> + + <p>"Well, then," I said as Bhima Gandharva finished + communicating this information to me, "we are all here."</p> + + <p>"How?"</p> + + <p>"There stand you, a philosopher; here I, a stranger; yonder, + the policeman; and, heavens and earth! what a rat!" I + accompanied this exclamation by shooing a big musky fellow from + behind a bale of cotton whither I had just seen him run.</p> + + <p>Bhima Gandharva smiled in a large, tranquil way he has, + which is like an Indian plain full of ripe corn. "I find it + curious," he said, "to compare the process which goes on here + in the daily humdrum of trade about this place with that which + one would see if one were far up yonder at the northward, in + the appalling solitudes of the mountains, where trade has never + been and will never be. Have you visited the Himalaya?"</p> + + <p>I shook my head.</p> + + <p>"Among those prodigious planes of snow," continued the + Hindu, "which when level nevertheless frighten you as if they + were horizontal precipices, and which when perpendicular + nevertheless lull you with a smooth deadly half-sense of + confusion as to whether you should refer your ideas of space to + the slope or the plain, there reigns at this moment a quietude + more profound than the Fort's. But presently, as the sun beats + with more fervor, rivulets begin to trickle from exposed + points; these grow to cataracts and roar down the precipices; + masses of undermined snow plunge into the abysses; the great + winds of the Himalaya rise and howl, and every silence of the + morning becomes a noise at noon. A little longer, and the sun + again decreases; the cataracts draw their heads back into the + ice as tortoises into their shells; the winds creep into their + hollows, and the snows rest. So here. At ten the tumult of + trade will begin: at four it will quickly freeze again into + stillness. One might even carry this parallelism into more + fanciful extremes. For, as the vapors which lie on the Himalaya + in the form of snow have in time come from all parts of the + earth, so the tide of men that will presently pour in here is + made up of people from the four quarters of the globe. The + Hindu, the African, the Arabian, the Chinese, the Tartar, the + European, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" + id="page38"></a>[pg 38]</span> the American, the Parsee, + will in a little while be trading or working here."</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/38.jpg" + name="fig38" + id="fig38"><img width="100%" + src="images/38.jpg" + alt="A DWELLING AT MAZAGON." /></a>A DWELLING AT + MAZAGON. + </div> + + <p>"What a complete <i>bouleversement</i>," I said, seating + myself on a bale of cotton and looking toward the fleets of + steamers and vessels collected off the great cotton-presses + awaiting their cargoes, "this particular scene effects in the + mind of a traveler just from America! India has been to me, as + the average American, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" + id="page39"></a>[pg 39]</span> a dream of terraced ghauts, + of banyans and bungalows, of Taj Mahals and tigers, of + sacred rivers and subterranean temples, and—and that + sort of thing. I come here and land in a big cotton-yard. I + ask myself, 'Have I left Jonesville—dear + Jonesville!—on the other side of the world, in order + to sit on an antipodal cotton-bale?'"</p> + + <p>"There is some more of India," said Bhima Gandharva gently. + "Let us look at it a little."</p> + + <p>One may construct a good-enough outline map of this + wonderful land in one's mind by referring its main features to + the first letter of the alphabet. Take a capital A; turn it up + side down; imagine that the inverted triangle forming the lower + half of the letter is the Deccan, the left side representing + the Western Ghauts, the right side representing the Eastern + Ghauts, and the cross-stroke standing for the Vindhya + Mountains; imagine further that a line from right to left + across the upper ends of the letter, trending upward as it is + drawn, represents the Himalaya, and that enclosed between them + and the Vindhyas is Hindustan proper. Behind—i.e. to the + north of—the centre of this last line rises the Indus, + flowing first north-westward through the Vale of Cashmere, then + cutting sharply to the south and flowing by the way of the + Punjab and Scinde to where it empties at Kurrachee. Near the + same spot where the Indus originates rises also the + Brahmaputra, but the latter empties its waters far from the + former, flowing first south-eastward, then cutting southward + and emptying into the Gulf of Bengal. Fixing, now, in the mind + the sacred Ganges and Jumna, coming down out of the Gangetic + and Jumnatic peaks in a general south-easterly direction, + uniting at Allahabad and emptying into the Bay of Bengal, and + the Nerbudda River flowing over from the east to the west, + along the southern bases of the Vindhyas, until it empties at + the important city of Brooch, a short distance north of Bombay, + one will have thus located a number of convenient points and + lines sufficient for general references.</p> + + <p>This A of ours is a very capital A indeed, being some + nineteen hundred miles in length and fifteen hundred in width. + Lying on the western edge of this peninsula is Bombay Island. + It is crossed by the line of 19° north latitude, and is, + roughly speaking, halfway between the Punjab on the north and + Ceylon on the south. Its shape is that of a lobster, with his + claws extended southward and his body trending a little to the + west of north. The larger island of Salsette lies immediately + north, and the two, connected by a causeway, enclose the noble + harbor of Bombay. Salsette approaches near to the mainland at + its northern end, and is connected with it by the railway + structure. These causeways act as break-waters and complete the + protection of the port. The outer claw, next to the Indian + Ocean, of the lobster-shaped Bombay Island is the famous + Malabar Hill; the inner claw is the promontory of Calaba; in + the curved space between the two is the body of shallow water + known as the Back Bay, along whose strand so many strange + things are done daily. As one turns into the harbor around the + promontory of Calaba—which is one of the European + quarters of the manifold city of Bombay, and is occupied by + magnificent residences and flower-gardens—one finds just + north of it the great docks and commercial establishments of + the Fort; then an enormous esplanade farther north; across + which, a distance of about a mile, going still northward, is + the great Indian city called Black Town, with its motley + peoples and strange bazars; and still farther north is the + Portuguese quarter, known as Mazagon.</p> + + <p>As we crossed the great esplanade to the north of the + Fort—Bhima Gandharva and I—and strolled along the + noisy streets, I began to withdraw my complaint. It was not + like Jonesville. It was not like any one place or thing, but + like a hundred, and all the hundred <i>outré</i> to the + last degree. Hindu beggars, so dirty that they seemed to have + returned to dust before death; three fakirs, armed with + round-bladed daggers with which they were wounding themselves + apparently in the most reckless manner, so as to send streams + of blood flowing to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" + id="page40"></a>[pg 40]</span> ground, and redly tattooing + the ashes with which their naked bodies were covered; + Parsees with their long noses curving over their moustaches, + clothed in white, sending one's thoughts back to Ormuz, to + Persia, to Zoroaster, to fire-worship and to the strangeness + of the fate which drove them out of Persia more + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" + id="page41"></a>[pg 41]</span> than a thousand years ago, + and which has turned them into the most industrious traders + and most influential citizens of a land in which they are + still exiles; Chinese, Afghans—the Highlanders of the + East—Arabs, Africans, Mahrattas, Malays, Persians, + Portuguese half-bloods; men that called upon Mohammed, men + that called upon Confucius, upon Krishna, upon Christ, upon + Gotama the Buddha, upon Rama and Sita, upon Brahma, upon + Zoroaster; strange carriages shaded by red domes that + compressed a whole dream of the East in small, and drawn by + humped oxen, alternating with palanquins, with stylish + turnouts of the latest mode, with cavaliers upon Arabian + horses; half-naked workmen, crouched in uncomfortable + workshops and ornamenting sandal-wood boxes; dusky + curb-stone shopkeepers, rushing at me with strenuous + offerings of their wares; lines of low shop-counters along + the street, backed by houses rising in many stories, whose + black pillared verandahs were curiously carved and painted: + cries, chafferings, bickerings, Mussulman prayers, Arab + oaths extending from "Praise God that you exist" to "Praise + God <i>although</i> you exist;"—all these things + appealed to the confused senses.</p> + + <p>The tall spire of a Hindu temple revealed itself.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/40.jpg" + name="fig40" + id="fig40"><img width="100%" + src="images/40.jpg" + alt="HINDU TEMPLE IN THE BLACK TOWN, BOMBAY." /> + </a>HINDU TEMPLE IN THE BLACK TOWN, BOMBAY. + </div> + + <p>"It seems to me," I said to Bhima Gandharva, "that your + steeples—as we would call them in + Jonesville—represent, in a sort of way, your cardinal + doctrine: they seem to be composed of a multitude of little + steeples, all like the big one, just as you might figure your + Supreme Being in the act of absorbing a large number of the + faithful who had just arrived from the dismal existence below. + And then, again, your steeple looks as if it might be the + central figure of your theistic scheme, surrounded by the three + hundred millions of your lesser deities. How do you get on, + Bhima Gandharva, with so many claims on your worshiping + faculties? I should think you would be well lost in such a + jungle of gods?"</p> + + <p>"My friend," said Bhima Gandharva, "a short time ago a play + was performed in this city which purported to be a translation + into the Mahratta language of the <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> which + Shakespeare wrote. It was indeed a very great departure from + that miraculous work, which I know well, but among its many + deviations from the original was one which for the mournful and + yet humorous truth of it was really worthy of the Master. + Somehow, the translator had managed to get a modern Englishman + into the play, who, every time that one of my countrymen + happened to be found in leg-reach, would give him a lusty kick + and cry out 'Damn fool!' Why is the whole world like this + Englishman?—upon what does it found its opinion that the + Hindu is a fool? Is it upon our religion? Listen! I will recite + you some matters out of our scriptures: Once upon a time Arjuna + stood in his chariot betwixt his army and the army of his foes. + These foes were his kinsmen. Krishna—even that great god + Krishna—moved by pity for Arjuna, had voluntarily placed + himself in Arjuna's chariot and made himself the charioteer + thereof. Then—so saith Sanjaya—in order to + encourage him, the ardent old ancestor of the Kurus blew his + conch-shell, sounding loud as the roar of a lion. Then on a + sudden trumpets, cymbals, drums and horns were sounded. That + noise grew to an uproar. And, standing on a huge car drawn by + white horses, the slayer of Madhu and the son of Pandu blew + their celestial trumpets. Krishna blew his horn called + Panchajanya; the Despiser of Wealth blew his horn called the + Gift of the Gods; he of dreadful deeds and wolfish entrails + blew a great trumpet called Paundra; King Yudishthira, the son + of Kunti, blew the Eternal Victory; Nakula and Sahadeva blew + the Sweet-toned and the Blooming-with-Jewels. The king of + Kashi, renowned for the excellence of his bow, and Shikandin in + his huge chariot, Dhrishtyadumna, and Virata, and Satyaki, + unconquered by his foes, and Drupada and the sons of Drupadi + all together, and the strong-armed son of Subhadrá, each + severally blew their trumpets. That noise lacerated the hearts + of the sons of Dhartarashtra, and uproar resounded both through + heaven and earth. Now when Arjuna beheld + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" + id="page42"></a>[pg 42]</span> the Dhartarashtras drawn up, + and that the flying of arrows had commenced, he raised his + bow, and then addressed these words to Krishna:</p> + + <p>"'Now that I have beheld this kindred standing here near + together for the purpose of fighting, my limbs give way and my + face is bloodless, and tremor is produced throughout my body, + and my hair stands on end. My bow Gandiva + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" + id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span> slips from my hand, and my + skin burns. Nor am I able to remain upright, and my mind is + as it were whirling round. Nor do I perceive anything better + even when I shall have slain these relations in battle, I + seek not victory, Krishna, nor a kingdom, nor pleasures. + What should we do with a kingdom, Govinda? What with + enjoyments, or with life itself? Those very men on whose + account we might desire a kingdom, enjoyments or pleasures + are assembled for battle. Teachers, fathers, and even sons, + and grandfathers, uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, + brothers-in-law, with connections also,—these I would + not wish to slay, though I were slain myself, O Killer of + Madhu! not even for the sake of the sovereignty of the + triple world—how much less for that of this earth! + When we had killed the Dhartarashtras, what pleasure should + we have, O thou who art prayed to by mortals? How could we + be happy after killing our own kindred, O Slayer of Madhu? + Even if they whose reason is obscured by covetousness do not + perceive the crime committed in destroying their own tribe, + should we not know how to recoil from such a sin? In the + destruction of a tribe the eternal institutions of the tribe + are destroyed. These laws being destroyed, lawlessness + prevails. From the existence of lawlessness the women of the + tribe become corrupted; and when the women are corrupted, O + son of Vrishni! confusion of caste takes place. Confusion of + caste is a gate to hell. Alas! we have determined to commit + a great crime, since from the desire of sovereignty and + pleasures we are prepared to slay our own kin. Better were + it for me if the Dhartarashtras, being armed, would slay me, + harmless and unresisting in the fight.'</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/42.jpg" + name="fig42" + id="fig42"><img width="100%" + src="images/42.jpg" + alt="JAIN TEMPLES AT SUNAGHUR." /></a>JAIN TEMPLES AT + SUNAGHUR. + </div> + + <p>"Having thus spoken in the midst of the battle, Arjuna, + whose heart was troubled with grief, let fall his bow and arrow + and sat down on the bench of the chariot."</p> + + <p>"Well," I asked after a short pause, during which the Hindu + kept his eyes fixed in contemplation on the spire of the + temple, "what did Krishna have to say to that?"</p> + + <p>"He instructed Arjuna, and said many wise things. I will + tell you some of them, here and there, as they are scattered + through the holy <i>Bhagavad-Gitá</i>: Then between the + two armies, Krishna, smiling, addressed these words to him, + thus downcast:</p> + + <p>"'Thou hast grieved for those who need not be grieved for, + yet thou utterest words of wisdom. The wise grieve not for dead + or living. But never at any period did I or thou or these kings + of men not exist, nor shall any of us at any time henceforward + cease to exist. There is no existence for what does not exist, + nor is there any non-existence for what exists.... These finite + bodies have been said to belong to an eternal, indestructible + and infinite spirit.... He who believes that this spirit can + kill, and he who thinks that it can be killed—both of + these are mistaken. It neither kills nor is killed. It is born, + and it does not die.... Unborn, changeless, eternal both as to + future and past time, it is not slain when the body is + killed.... As the soul in this body undergoes the changes of + childhood, prime and age, so it obtains a new body + hereafter.... As a man abandons worn-out clothes and take other + new ones, so does the soul quit worn-out bodies and enter other + new ones. Weapons cannot cleave it, fire cannot burn it, nor + can water wet it, nor can wind dry it. It is impenetrable, + incombustible, incapable of moistening and of drying. It is + constant; it can go everywhere; it is firm, immovable and + eternal. And even if thou deem it born with the body and dying + with the body, still, O great-armed one! thou art not right to + grieve for it. For to everything generated death is certain: to + everything dead regeneration is certain.... One looks on the + soul as a miracle; another speaks of it as a miracle; another + hears of it as a miracle; but even when he has heard of it, not + one comprehends it.... When a man's heart is disposed in + accordance with his roaming senses, it snatches away his + spiritual knowledge as the wind does a ship on the waves.... He + who does not practice devotion has neither intelligence nor + reflection. And <span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" + id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span> he who does not practice + reflection has no calm. How can a man without calm obtain + happiness? The self-governed man is awake in that which is + night to all other beings: that in which other beings are + awake is night to the self-governed. He into whom all + desires enter in the same manner as rivers enter the ocean, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" + id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span> which is always full, yet + does not change its bed, can obtain tranquillity.... Love or + hate exists toward the object of each sense. One should not + fall into the power of these two passions, for they are + one's adversaries.... Know that passion is hostile to man in + this world. As fire is surrounded by smoke, and a mirror by + rust, and a child by the womb, so is this universe + surrounded by passion.... They say that the senses are + great. The heart is greater than the senses. But the + intellect is greater than the heart, and passion is greater + than the intellect....</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/44.jpg" + name="fig44" + id="fig44"><img width="100%" + src="images/44.jpg" + alt="THE VESTIBULE OF THE GRAND SHAÎTYA OK KARLI." /> + </a>THE VESTIBULE OF THE GRAND SHAÎTYA OK KARLI. + </div> + + <p>"'I and thou, O Arjuna! have passed through many + transmigrations. I know all these. Thou dost not know them.... + For whenever there is a relaxation of duty, O son of Bharata! + and an increase of impiety, I then reproduce myself for the + protection of the good and the destruction of evil-doers. I am + produced in every age for the purpose of establishing duty.... + Some sacrifice the sense of hearing and the other senses in the + fire of restraint. Others, by abstaining from food, sacrifice + life in their life. (But) the sacrifice of spiritual knowledge + is better than a material sacrifice.... By this knowledge thou + wilt recognize all things whatever in thyself, and then in me. + He who possesses faith acquires spiritual knowledge. He who is + devoid of faith and of doubtful mind perishes. The man of + doubtful mind enjoys neither this world nor the other, nor + final beatitude. Therefore, sever this doubt which exists in + thy heart, and springs from ignorance, with thy sword of + knowledge: turn to devotion and arise, O son of Bharata!...</p> + + <p>"'Learn my superior nature, O hero! by means of which this + world is sustained. I am the cause of the production and + dissolution of the whole universe. There exists no other thing + superior to me. On me are all the worlds suspended, as numbers + of pearls on a string. I am the savor of waters, and the + principle of light in the moon and sun, the mystic syllable + <i>Om</i> in the Vedas, the sound in the ether, the essence of + man in men, the sweet smell in the earth; and I am the + brightness in flame, the vitality in all beings, and the power + of mortification in ascetics. Know, O son of Prithá! + that I am the eternal seed of all things which exist. I am the + intellect of those who have intellect: I am the strength of the + strong.... And know that all dispositions, whether good, bad or + indifferent, proceed also from me. I do not exist in them, but + they in me.... I am dear to the spiritually wise beyond + possessions, and he is dear to me. A great-minded man who is + convinced that <i>Vasudevu</i> (Krishna) <i>is everything</i> + is difficult to find.... If one worships any inferior personage + with faith, I make his faith constant. Gifted with such faith, + he seeks the propitiation of this personage, and from him + receives the pleasant objects of his desires, which (however) + were sent by me alone. But the reward of these little-minded + men is finite. They who sacrifice to the gods go to the gods: + they who worship me come to me. I am the immolation. I am the + whole sacrificial rite. I am the libation to ancestors. I am + the drug. I am the incantation. I am the fire. I am the + incense. I am the father, the mother, the sustainer, the + grandfather of this universe—the path, the supporter, the + master, the witness, the habitation, the refuge, the friend, + the origin, the dissolution, the place, the receptacle, the + inexhaustible seed. I heat. I withhold and give the rain. I am + ambrosia and death, the existing and the non-existing. Even + those who devoutly worship other gods with the gift of faith + worship me, but only improperly. I am the same to all beings. I + have neither foe nor friend. I am the beginning and the middle + and the end of existing things. Among bodies I am the beaming + sun. Among senses I am the heart. Among waters I am the ocean. + Among mountains I am Himalaya. Among trees I am the banyan; + among men, the king; among weapons, the thunderbolt; among + things which count, time; among animals, the lion; among + purifiers, the wind. I am Death who seizes all: I am the birth + of those who are to be. I am Fame, Fortune, Speech, Memory, + Meditation, Perseverance and Patience among feminine words. I + am the game of dice among things which + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" + id="page46"></a>[pg 46]</span> deceive: I am splendor among + things which are shining. Among tamers I am the rod; among + means of victory I am polity; among mysteries I am silence, + the knowledge of the wise....</p> + + <p>"'They who know me to be the God of this universe, the God + of gods and the God of worship—they who know me to be the + God of this universe, the God of gods and the God of + worship—yea, they <span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" + id="page47"></a>[pg 47]</span> who know me to be these + things in the hour of death, they know me indeed.'"</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/46.jpg" + name="fig46" + id="fig46"><img width="100%" + src="images/46.jpg" + alt="SCULPTURED FIGURES IN THE VESTIBULE OF THE GREAT SHAÎTYA OF KARLI." /> + </a>SCULPTURED FIGURES IN THE VESTIBULE OF THE GREAT + SHAÎTYA OF KARLI. + </div> + + <p>When my friend finished these words there did not seem to be + anything particular left in heaven or earth to talk about. At + any rate, there was a dead pause for several minutes. Finally, + I asked—and I protest that in contrast with the large + matters wherof Bhima Gandharva had discoursed my voice (which + is American and slightly nasal) sounded like nothing in the + world so much as the squeak of a sick rat—"When were + these things written?"</p> + + <p>"At least nineteen hundred and seventy-five years ago, we + feel sure. How much earlier we do not know."</p> + + <p>We now directed our course toward the hospital for sick and + disabled animals which has been established here in the most + crowded portion of Black Town by that singular sect called the + Jains, and which is only one of a number of such institutions + to be found in the large cities of India. This sect is now + important more by influence than by numbers in India, many of + the richest merchants of the great Indian cities being among + its adherents, though by the last census of British India there + appears to be but a little over nine millions of Jains and + Buddhists together, out of the one hundred and ninety millions + of Hindus in British India. The tenets of the Jains are too + complicated for description here, but it may be said that much + doubt exists as to whether it is an old religion of which + Brahmanism and Buddhism are varieties, or whether it is itself + a variety of Buddhism. Indeed, it does not seem well settled + whether the pure Jain doctrine was atheistical or theistical. + At any rate, it is sufficiently differentiated from Brahmanism + by its opposite notion of castes, and from Buddhism by its + cultus of nakedness, which the Buddhists abhor. The Jains are + split into two sects—the <i>Digambaras</i>, or nude + Jains, and the <i>Svetambaras</i>, or clothed Jains, which + latter sect seem to be Buddhists, who, besides the Tirthankars + (i.e. mortals who have acquired the rank of gods by devout + lives, in whom all the Jains believe), worship also the various + divinities of the Vishnu system. The Jains themselves declare + this system to date from a period ten thousand years before + Christ, and they practically support this traditional antiquity + by persistently regarding and treating the Buddhists as + heretics from their system. At any event, their religion is an + old one. They seem to be the gymnosophists, or naked + philosophers, described by Clitarchos as living in India at the + time of the expedition of Alexander, and their history crops + out in various accounts—that of Clement of Alexandria, + then of the Chinese Fu-Hian in the fourth and fifth centuries, + and of the celebrated Chinese Hiouen-Tsang in the seventh + century, at which last period they appear to have been the + prevailing sect in India, and to have increased in favor until + in the twelfth century the Rajpoots, who had become converts to + Jainism, were schismatized into Brahmanism and deprived the + naked philosophers of their prestige.</p> + + <p>The great distinguishing feature of the Jains is the extreme + to which they push the characteristic tenderness felt by the + Hindus for animals of all descriptions. Jaina is, distinctly, + <i>the purified</i>. The priests eat no animal food; indeed, + they are said not to eat at all after noon, lest the insects + then abounding should fly into their mouths and be crushed + unwittingly. They go with a piece of muslin bound over their + mouths, in order to avoid the same catastrophe, and carry a + soft brush wherewith to remove carefully from any spot upon + which they are about to sit such insects as might be killed + thereby.</p> + + <p>"Ah, how my countryman Bergh would luxuriate in this scene!" + I said as we stood looking upon the various dumb exhibitions of + so many phases of sickness, of decrepitude and of + mishap—quaint, grotesque, yet pathetic withal—in + the precincts of the Jain hospital. Here were quadrupeds and + bipeds, feathered creatures and hairy creatures, large animals + and small, shy and tame, friendly and predatory—horses, + horned cattle, rats, cats, dogs, jackals, crows, chickens; what + not. An attendant was tenderly bandaging the blinking lids of a + sore-eyed duck: another was feeding a blind crow, who, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" + id="page48"></a>[pg 48]</span> it must be confessed, looked + here very much like some fat member of the New York Ring + cunningly availing himself of the more toothsome rations in + the sick ward of the penitentiary. My friend pointed out to + me a heron with a wooden leg. "Suppose a gnat should break + his shoulder-blade," I said, "would they put his wing in a + sling?"</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/48.jpg" + name="fig48" + id="fig48"><img width="100%" + src="images/48.jpg" + alt="INTERIOR OF THE GREAT SHAÎTYA OF KARLI." /> + </a>INTERIOR OF THE GREAT SHAÎTYA OF KARLI. + </div> + + <p>Bhima Gandharva looked me full in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" + id="page49"></a>[pg 49]</span> the face, and, smiling + gently, said, "They would if they could."</p> + + <p>The Jains are considered to have been the architects <i>par + excellence</i> of India, and there are many monuments, in all + styles, of their skill in this kind. The strange statues of the + Tirthankars in the gorge called the Ourwhaï of Gwalior + were (until injured by the "march of improvement") among the + most notable of the forms of rock-cutting. These vary in size + from statuettes of a foot in height to colossal figures of + sixty feet, and nothing can be more striking than these great + forms, hewn from the solid rock, represented entirely nude, + with their impassive countenances, which remind every traveler + of the Sphinx, their grotesque ears hanging down to their + shoulders, and their heads, about which plays a ring of + serpents for a halo, or out of which grows the mystical + three-branched <i>Kalpa Vrich</i>, or Tree of Knowledge.</p> + + <p>The sacred hill of Sunaghur, lying a few miles to the south + of Gwalior, is one of the Meccas of the Jains, and is covered + with temples in many styles, which display the fertility of + their architectural invention: there are over eighty of these + structures in all.</p> + + <p>"And now," said Bhima Gandharva next day, "while you are + thinking upon temples, and wondering if the Hindus have all + been fools, you should complete your collection of mental + materials by adding to the sight you have had of a Hindu temple + proper, and to the description you have had of Jain temples + proper, a sight of those marvelous subterranean works of the + Buddhists proper which remain to us. We might select our + examples of these either at Ellora or at Ajunta (which are on + the mainland a short distance to the north-east of Bombay), the + latter of which contains the most complete series of purely + Buddhistic caves known in the country; or, indeed, we could + find Buddhistic caves just yonder on Salsette. But let us go + and see Karli at once: it is the largest <i>shaîtya</i> + (or cave-temple) in India."</p> + + <p>Accordingly, we took railway at Bombay, sped along the isle, + over the bridge to the island of Salsette, along Salsette to + Tannah, then over the bridge which connects Salsette with the + mainland, across the narrow head of Bombay harbor, and so on to + the station at Khandalla, about halfway between Bombay and + Poonah, where we disembarked. The caves of Karli are situated + but a few miles from Khandalla, and in a short time we were + standing in front of a talus at the foot of a sloping hill + whose summit was probably five to six hundred feet high. A + flight of steps cut in the hillside led up to a ledge running + out from an escarpment which was something above sixty feet + high before giving off into the slope of the mountain. From the + narrow and picturesque valley a flight of steps cut in the + hillside led up to the platform. We could not see the + façade of the shaîtya on account of the concealing + boscage of trees. On ascending the steps, however, and passing + a small square Brahmanic chapel, where we paid a trifling fee + to the priests who reside there for the purpose of protecting + the place, the entire front of the excavation revealed itself, + and with every moment of gazing grew in strangeness and solemn + mystery.</p> + + <p>The shaîtya is hewn in the solid rock of the mountain. + Just to the left of the entrance stands a heavy pillar + (<i>Silasthamba</i>) completely detached from the temple, with + a capital upon whose top stand four lions back to back. On this + pillar is an inscription in Pali, which has been deciphered, + and which is now considered to fix the date of the excavation + conclusively at not later than the second century before the + Christian era. The eye took in at first only the vague + confusion of windows and pillars cut in the rock. It is + supposed that originally a music-gallery stood here in front, + consisting of a balcony supported out from the two octagonal + pillars, and probably roofed or having a second balcony above. + But the woodwork is now gone. One soon felt one's attention + becoming concentrated, however, upon a great arched window cut + in the form of a horseshoe, through which one could look down + what was very much like the nave of a church running straight + back into the depths of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" + id="page50"></a>[pg 50]</span> the hill. Certainly, at + first, as one passes into the strange vestibule which + intervenes still between the front and the interior of the + shaîtya, one does not think at all—one only + <i>feels</i> the dim sense of mildness raying out from the + great faces of the elephants, and of mysterious far-awayness + conveyed by the bizarre postures of the sculptured figures + on the walls.</p> + + <p>Entering the interior, a central nave stretches back between + two lines of pillars, each of whose capitals supports upon its + abacus two kneeling elephants: upon each elephant are seated + two figures, most of which are male and female pairs. The nave + extends eighty-one feet three inches back, the whole length of + the temple being one hundred and two feet three inches. There + are fifteen pillars on each side the nave, which thus enclose + between themselves and the wall two side-aisles, each about + half the width of the nave, the latter being twenty-five feet + and seven inches in width, while the whole width from wall to + wall is forty-five feet and seven inches. At the rear, in a + sort of apse, are seven plain octagonal pillars—the other + thirty are sculptured. Just in front of these seven pillars is + the <i>Daghaba</i>—a domed structure covered by a wooden + parasol. The Daghaba is the reliquary in which or under which + some relic of Gotama Buddha is enshrined. The roof of the + shaîtya is vaulted, and ribs of teak-wood—which + could serve no possible architectural purpose—reveal + themselves, strangely enough, running down the sides.</p> + + <p>As I took in all these details, pacing round the dark + aisles, and finally resuming my stand near the entrance, from + which I perceived the aisles, dark between the close pillars + and the wall, while the light streamed through the great + horseshoe window full upon the Daghaba at the other end, I + exclaimed to Bhima Gandharva, "Why, it is the very copy of a + Gothic church—the aisles, the nave, the vaulted roof, and + all—and yet you tell me it was excavated two thousand + years ago!"</p> + + <p>"The resemblance has struck every traveler," he replied. + "And, strange to say, all the Buddhist cave-temples are + designed upon the same general plan. There is always the + organ-loft, as you see there; always the three doors, the + largest one opening on the nave, the smaller ones each on its + side-aisle; always the window throwing its light directly on + the Daghaba at the other end; always, in short, the general + arrangement of the choir of a Gothic round or polygonal apse + cathedral. It is supposed that the devotees were confined to + the front part of the temple, and that the great window through + which the light comes was hidden from view, both outside by the + music-galleries and screens, and inside through the disposition + of the worshipers in front. The gloom of the interior was thus + available to the priests for the production of effects which + may be imagined."</p> + + <p>Emerging from the temple, we saw the Buddhist monastery + (<i>Vihara</i>), which is a series of halls and cells rising + one above the other in stories connected by flights of steps, + all hewn in the face of the hill at the side of the temple. We + sat down on a fragment of rock near a stream of water with + which a spring in the hillside fills a little pool at the + entrance of the Vihara. "Tell me something of Gotama Buddha," I + said. "Recite some of his deliverances, O Bhima + Gandharva!—you who know everything."</p> + + <p>"I will recite to you from the <i>Sutta Nipata</i>, which is + supposed by many pundits of Ceylon to contain several of the + oldest examples of the Pali language. It professes to give the + conversation of Buddha, who died five hundred and forty-three + years before Christ lived on earth; and these utterances are + believed by scholars to have been brought together at least + more than two hundred years before the Christian era. The + <i>Mahámangala Sutta</i>, of the <i>Nipata Sutta</i>, + says, for example: 'Thus it was heard by me. At a certain time + Bhagavá (Gotama Buddha) lived at Sávatthi in + Jetavana, in the garden of Anáthupindika. Then, the + night being far advanced, a certain god, endowed with a radiant + color illuminating Jetavana completely, came to where + Bhagavá was, [and] making obeisance to him, stood on one + side. And, standing on one + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" + id="page51"></a>[pg 51]</span> side, the god addressed + Bhagavá in [these] verses:</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>"1. Many gods and men, longing after what is good, have + considered many things as blessings. Tell us what is the + greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"2. Buddha said: Not serving fools, but serving the wise, + and honoring those worthy of being honored: this is the + greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"3. The living in a fit country, meritorious deeds done + in a former existence, the righteous establishment of one's + self: this is the greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"4. Extensive knowledge and science, well-regulated + discipline and well-spoken speech: this is the greatest + blessing.</p> + + <p>"5. The helping of father and mother, the cherishing of + child and wife, and the following of a lawful calling: this + is the greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"6. The giving alms, a religious life, aid rendered to + relatives, blameless acts: this is the greatest + blessing.</p> + + <p>"7. The abstaining from sins and the avoiding them, the + eschewing of intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds: + this is the greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"8. Reverence and humility, contentment and gratefulness, + the hearing of the law in the right time: this is the + greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"9. Patience and mild speech, the association with those + who have subdued their passions, the holding of religious + discourse in the right time: this is the greatest + blessing.</p> + + <p>"10. Temperance and charity, the discernment of holy + truth, the perception of Nibbána: this is the + greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"11. The mind of any one unshaken by the ways of the + world, exemption from sorrow, freedom from passion, and + security: this is the greatest blessing.</p> + + <p>"12. Those who having done these things become invincible + on all sides, attain happiness on all sides: this is the + greatest blessing."</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>"At another time also Gotama Buddha was discoursing on + caste. You know that the Hindus are divided into the Brahmans, + or the priestly caste, which is the highest; next the + Kshatriyas, or the warrior and statesman caste; next the + Vaishyas, or the herdsman and farmer caste; lastly, the Sudras, + or the menial caste. Now, once upon a time the two youths + Vásettha and Bháradvaja had a discussion as to + what constitutes a Brahman. Thus, Vásettha and + Bháradvaja went to the place where Bhagavá was, + and having approached him were well pleased with him; and + having finished a pleasing and complimentary conversation, they + sat down on one side. Vásettha, who sat down on one + side, addressed Buddha in verse: ...</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>"3. O Gotama! we have a controversy regarding [the + distinctions of] birth. Thus know, O wise one! the point of + difference between us: Bháradvaja says that a + Brahman is such by reason of his birth.</p> + + <p>"4. But I affirm that he is such by reason of his + conduct....</p> + + <p>"7. Bhagavá replied: ...</p> + + <p>"53. I call him alone a Brahman who is fearless, eminent, + heroic, a great sage, a conqueror, freed from + attachments—one who has bathed in the waters of + wisdom, and is a Buddha.</p> + + <p>"54. I call him alone a Brahman who knows his former + abode, who sees both heaven and hell, and has reached the + extinction of births.</p> + + <p>"55. What is called 'name' or 'tribe' in the world arises + from usage only. It is adopted here and there by common + consent.</p> + + <p>"56. It comes from long and uninterrupted usage, and from + the false belief of the ignorant. Hence the ignorant assert + that a Brahman is such from birth.</p> + + <p>"57. One is not a Brahman nor a non-Brahman by birth: by + his conduct alone is he a Brahman, and by his conduct alone + is he a non-Brahman,</p> + + <p>"58. By his conduct he is a husbandman, an artisan, a + merchant, a servant;</p> + + <p>"59. By his conduct he is a thief, a warrior, a + sacrificer, a king....</p> + + <p>"62. One is a Brahman from penance, charity, observance + of the moral precepts and the subjugation of the passions. + Such is the best kind of Brahmanism."</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>"That would pass for very good republican doctrine in + Jonesville," I said. "What a pity you have all so backslidden + from your orthodoxies here in India, Bhima Gandharva! In my + native land there is a region where many orange trees grow. + Sometimes, when a tree is too heavily fertilized, it suddenly + shoots out in great luxuriance, and looks as if it were going + to make oranges enough for the whole world, so to speak. But + somehow, no fruit comes: it proves to be all wood and no + oranges, and presently the whole tree changes and gets sick and + good for nothing. It is a disease which the natives call 'the + dieback.' Now, it seems to me that when you old Aryans came + from—from—well, from wherever you <i>did</i> come + from—you branched out at first into a superb magnificence + of religions and sentiments and imaginations and other boscage. + But it looks now as if you were really bad off with the + dieback."</p> + + <p>It was, however, impossible to perceive that Bhima + Gandharva's smile was like anything other than the same plain + full of ripe corn.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" + id="page52"></a>[pg 52]</span> + + <h2>LADY ARTHUR EILDON'S DYING LETTER.</h2> + + <h4>I.</h4> + + <p>Lady Arthur Eildon was a widow: she was a remarkable woman, + and her husband, Lord Arthur Eildon, had been a remarkable man. + He was a brother of the duke of Eildon, and was very remarkable + in his day for his love of horses and dogs. But this passion + did not lead him into any evil ways: he was a thoroughly + upright, genial man, with a frank word for every one, and was + of course a general favorite. "He'll just come in and crack + away as if he was ane o' oorsels," was a remark often made + concerning him by the people on his estates; for he had estates + which had been left to him by an uncle, and which, with the + portion that fell to him as a younger son, yielded him an ample + revenue, so that he had no need to do anything.</p> + + <p>What talents he might have developed in the army or navy, or + even in the Church, no one knows, for he never did anything in + this world except enjoy himself; which was entirely natural to + him, and not the hard work it is to many people who try it. He + was in Parliament for a number of years, but contented himself + with giving his vote. He did not distinguish himself. He was + not an able or intellectual man: people said he would never set + the Thames on fire, which was true; but if an open heart and + hand and a frank tongue are desirable things, these he had. As + he took in food, and it nourished him without further + intervention on his part, so he took in enjoyment and gave it + out to the people round him with equal unconsciousness. Let it + not be said that such a man as this is of no value in a world + like ours: he is at once an anodyne and a stimulant of the + healthiest and most innocent kind.</p> + + <p>As was meet, he first saw the lady who was to be his wife in + the hunting-field. She was Miss Garscube of Garscube, an only + child and an heiress. She was a fast young lady when as yet + fastness was a rare development:—a harbinger of the fast + period, the one swallow that presages summer, but does not make + it—and as such much in the mouths of the public.</p> + + <p>Miss Garscube was said to be clever—she was certainly + eccentric—and she was no beauty, but community of tastes + in the matter of horses and dogs drew her and Lord Arthur + together.</p> + + <p>On one of the choicest of October days, when she was + following the hounds, and her horse had taken the fences like a + creature with wings, he came to one which he also flew over, + but fell on the other side, throwing off his rider—on + soft grass, luckily. But almost before an exclamation of alarm + could leave the mouths of the hunters behind, Miss Garscube was + on her feet and in the saddle, and her horse away again, as if + both had been ignorant of the little mishap that had occurred. + Lord Arthur was immediately behind, and witnessed this bit of + presence of mind and pluck with unfeigned admiration: it won + his heart completely; and on her part she enjoyed the + genuineness of his homage as she had never enjoyed anything + before, and from that day things went on and prospered between + them.</p> + + <p>People who knew both parties regretted this, and shook their + heads over it, prophesying that no good could come of it. Miss + Garscube's will had never been crossed in her life, and she was + a "clever" woman: Lord Arthur would not submit to her + domineering ways, and she would wince under and be ashamed of + his want of intellect. All this was foretold and thoroughly + believed by people having the most perfect confidence in their + own judgment, so that Lord Arthur and his wife ought to have + been, in the very nature of things, a most wretched pair. But, + as it turned out, no happier couple existed in Great Britain. + Their qualities must have been complementary, for they + dovetailed into each <span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" + id="page53"></a>[pg 53]</span> other as few people do; and + the wise persons who had predicted the contrary were + entirely thrown out in their calculations—a fact which + they speedily forgot; nor did it diminish their faith in + their own wisdom, as, indeed, how could one slight mistake + stand against an array of instances in which their + predictions had been verified to the letter?</p> + + <p>Lord Arthur might not have the intellect which fixes the + attention of a nation, but he had plenty for his own + fireside—at least, his wife never discovered any want of + it—and as for her strong will, they had only one strong + will between them, so that there could be no collision. Being + thus thoroughly attached and thoroughly happy, what could occur + to break up this happiness? A terrible thing came to pass. + Having had perfect health up to middle life, an acutely painful + disease seized Lord Arthur, and after tormenting him for more + than a year it changed his face and sent him away.</p> + + <p>There is nothing more striking than the calmness and dignity + with which people will meet death—even people from whom + this could not have been expected. No one who did not know it + would have guessed how Lord Arthur was suffering, and he never + spoke of it, least of all to his wife; while she, acutely aware + of it and vibrating with sympathy, never spoke of it to him; + and they were happy as those are who know that they are + drinking the last drops of earthly happiness. He died with his + wife's hand in his grasp: she gave the face—dead, but + with the appearance of life not vanished from it—one + long, passionate kiss, and left him, nor ever looked on it + again.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur secluded herself for some weeks in her own room, + seeing no one but the servants who attended her; and when she + came forth it was found that her eccentricity had taken a + curious turn: she steadily ignored the death of her husband, + acting always as if he had gone on a journey and might at any + moment return, but never naming him unless it was absolutely + necessary. She found comfort in this simulated delusion no + doubt, just as a child enjoys a fairy-tale, knowing perfectly + well all the time that it is not true. People in her own sphere + said her mind was touched: the common people about her affirmed + without hesitation that she was "daft." She rode no more, but + she kept all the horses and dogs as usual. She cultivated a + taste she had for antiquities; she wrote poetry—- ballad + poetry—which people who were considered judges thought + well of; and flinging these and other things into the awful + chasm that had been made in her life, she tried her best to + fill it up. She set herself to consider the poor man's case, + and made experiments and gave advice which confirmed her poorer + brethren in their opinion that she was daft; but as her hand + was always very wide open, and they pitied her sorrow, she was + much loved, although they laughed at her zeal in preserving old + ruins and her wrath if an old stone was moved, and told, and + firmly believed, that she wrote and posted letters to Lord + Arthur. What was perhaps more to the purpose of filling the + chasm than any of these things, Lady Arthur adopted a daughter, + an orphan child of a cousin of her own, who came to her two + years after her husband's death, a little girl of nine.</p> + + <h4>II.</h4> + + <p>Alice Garscube's education was not of the stereotyped kind. + When she came to Garscube Hall, Lady Arthur wrote to the + head-master of a normal school asking if he knew of a healthy, + sagacious, good-tempered, clever girl who had a thorough + knowledge of the elementary branches of education and a natural + taste for teaching. Mr. Boyton, the head-master, replied that + he knew of such a person whom he could entirely recommend, + having all the qualities mentioned; but when he found that it + was not a teacher for a village school that her ladyship + wanted, but for her own relation, he wrote to say that he + doubted the party he had in view would hardly be suitable: her + father, who had been dead for some years, was a workingman, and + her mother, who had died quite recently, supported herself by + keeping a little shop, and she herself was in appearance and + manner scarcely <span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" + id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span> enough of the lady for such a + situation. Now, Lady Arthur, though a firm believer in birth + and race, and by habit and prejudice an aristocrat and a + Tory, was, we know, eccentric by nature, and Nature will + always assert itself. She wrote to Mr. Boyton that if the + girl he recommended was all he said, she was a lady inside, + and they would leave the outside to shift for itself. Her + ladyship had considered the matter. She could get decayed + gentlewomen and clergymen and officers' daughters by the + dozen, but she did not want a girl with a sickly knowledge + of everything, and very sickly ideas of her own merits and + place and work in the world: she wanted a girl of natural + sagacity, who from her cradle had known that she came into + the world to do something, and had learned how to do it.</p> + + <p>Miss Adamson, the normal-school young lady recommended, + wrote thus to Lady Arthur:</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>"MADAM: I am very much tempted to take the situation you + offer me. If I were teacher of a village school, as I had + intended, when my work in the school was over I should have + had my time to myself; and I wish to stipulate that when + the hours of teaching Miss Garscube are over I may have the + same privilege. If you engage me, I think, so far as I know + myself, you will not be disappointed.</p> + + <p>"I am," etc. etc.</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>To which Lady Arthur:</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>"So far as I can judge, you are the very thing I want. + Come, and we shall not disagree about terms," etc. etc.</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>Thus it came about that Miss Garscube was unusually lucky in + the matter of her education and Miss Adamson in her engagement. + Although eccentric to the pitch of getting credit for being + daft, Lady Arthur had a strong vein of masculine sense, which + in all essential things kept her in the right path. Miss + Adamson and she suited each other thoroughly, and the education + of the two ladies and the child may be said to have gone on + simultaneously. Miss Adamson had an absorbing pursuit: she was + an embryo artist, and she roused a kindred taste in her pupil; + so that, instead of carrying on her work in solitude, as she + had expected to do, she had the intense pleasure of sympathy + and companionship. Lady Arthur often paid them long visits in + their studio; she herself sketched a little, but she had never + excelled in any single pursuit except horsemanship, and that + she had given up at her husband's death, as she had given up + keeping much company or going often into society.</p> + + <p>In this quiet, unexciting, regular life Lady Arthur's + antiquarian tastes grew on her, and she went on writing poetry, + the quantity of which was more remarkable than the quality, + although here and there in the mass of ore there was an + occasional sparkle from fine gold (there are few voluminous + writers in which this accident does not occur). She + superintended excavations, and made prizes of old dust and + stones and coins and jewelry (or what was called ancient + jewelry: it looked ancient enough, but more like rusty iron to + the untrained eye than jewelry) and cooking utensils supposed + to have been used by some noble savages or other. Of these and + such like she had a museum, and she visited old monuments and + cairns and Roman camps and Druidical remains and old castles, + and all old things, with increasing interest. There were a + number of places near or remote to which she was in the habit + of making periodical pilgrimages—places probably dear to + her from whim or association or natural beauty or antiquity. + When she fixed a time for such an excursion, no weather changed + her purpose: it might pour rain or deep snow might be on the + ground: she only put four horses to her carriage instead of + two, and went on her way. She was generally accompanied in + these expeditions by her two young friends, who got into the + spirit of the thing and enjoyed them amazingly. They were in + the habit of driving to some farm-house, where they left the + carriage and on foot ascended the hill they had come to call + on, most probably a hill with the marks of a Roman camp on + it—there are many such in the south of + Scotland—hills called "the rings" by the people, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" + id="page55"></a>[pg 55]</span> from the way in which the + entrenchments circle round them like rings.</p> + + <p>Dear to Lady Arthur's heart was such a place as this. Even + when the ground was covered with snow or ice she would ascend + with the help of a stick or umbrella, a faint adumbration of + the Alpine Club when as yet the Alpine Club lurked in the + future and had given no hint of its existence. On the top of + such a hill she would eat luncheon, thinking of the dust of + legions beneath her foot, and drink wine to the memory of the + immortals. The coachman and the footman who toiled up the hill + bearing the luncheon-basket, and slipping back two steps for + every one they took forward, had by no means the same respect + for the immortal heroes. The coachman was an old servant, and + had a great regard for Lady Arthur both as his mistress and as + a lady of rank, besides being accustomed to and familiar with + her whims, and knowing, as he said, "the best and the warst o' + her;" but the footman was a new acquisition and young, and he + had not the wisdom to see at all times the duty of giving honor + to whom honor is due, nor yet had he the spirit of the born + flunkey; and his intercourse with the nobility, unfortunately, + had not impressed him with any other idea than that they were + mortals like himself; so he remarked to his fellow-servant, + "Od! ye wad think, if she likes to eat her lunch amang snawy + slush, she might get enough of it at the fut o' the hill, + without gaun to the tap."</p> + + <p>"Weel, I'll no deny," said the older man, "but what it's + daftlike, but if it is her leddyship's pleasure, it's nae + business o' oors."</p> + + <p>"Pleasure!" said the youth: "if she ca's this pleasure, her + friends should see about shutting her up: it's time."</p> + + <p>"She says the Romans once lived here," said John.</p> + + <p>"If they did," Thomas said, "I daur say <i>they</i> had mair + sinse than sit down to eat their dinner in the middle o' snaw + if they had a house to tak it in."</p> + + <p>"Her leddyship does na' tak the cauld easy," said John.</p> + + <p>"She has the constitution o' a horse," Thomas remarked.</p> + + <p>"Man," said John, "that shows a' that ye ken about horses: + there's no a mair delicate beast on the face o' the earth than + the horse. They tell me a' the horses in London hae the + influenza the now."</p> + + <p>"Weel, it'll be our turn next," said Thomas, "if we dinna + tak something warm."</p> + + <p>When luncheon was over her ladyship as often as not ordered + her servants to take the carriage round by the turnpike-road to + a given point, where she arranged to meet it, while she herself + struck right over the hills as the crow flies, crossing the + burns on her way in the same manner as the Israelites crossed + the Red Sea, only the water did not stand up on each side and + leave dry ground for her to tread on; but she ignored the water + altogether, and walked straight through. The young ladies, + knowing this, took an extra supply of stockings and shoes with + them, but Lady Arthur despised such effeminate ways and drove + home in the footgear she set out in. She was a woman of robust + health, and having grown stout and elderly and red-faced, when + out on the tramp and divested of externals she might very well + have been taken for the eccentric landlady of a roadside inn or + the mistress of a luncheon-bar; and probably her young footman + did not think she answered to her own name at all.</p> + + <p>There is a divinity that doth hedge a king, but it is the + king's wisdom to keep the hedge close and well trimmed and + allow no gaps: if there are gaps, people see through them and + the illusion is destroyed. Lady Arthur was not a heroine to her + footman; and when she traversed the snow-slush and walked right + through the burns, he merely endorsed the received opinion that + she wanted "twopence of the shilling." If she had been a poor + woman and compelled to take such a journey in such weather, + people would have felt sorry for her, and have been ready to + subscribe to help her to a more comfortable mode of traveling; + but in Lady Arthur's case of course there was nothing to be + done but to wonder at her eccentricity.</p> + + <p>But her ladyship knew what she was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" + id="page56"></a>[pg 56]</span> about. The sleep as well as + the food of the laboring man is sweet, and if nobility likes + to labor, it will partake of the poor man's blessing. The + party arrived back among the luxurious appointments of + Garscube Hall (which were apt to pall on them at times) + legitimately and bodily <i>tired</i>, and that in itself was + a sensation worth working for. They had braved difficulty + and discomfort, and not for a nonsensical and fruitless end, + either: it can never be fruitless or nonsensical to get face + to face with Nature in any of her moods. The ice-locked + streams, the driven snow, the sleep of vegetation, a burst + of sunshine over the snow, the sough of the winter wind, + Earth waiting to feel the breath of spring on her face to + waken up in youth and beauty again, like the sleeping + princess at the touch of the young prince,—all these + are things richly to be enjoyed, especially by strong, + healthy people: let chilly and shivering mortals sing about + cozy fires and drawn curtains if they like. Besides, Miss + Adamson had the eye of an artist, upon which nothing, be it + what it may, is thrown away.</p> + + <p>But an expedition to a hill with "rings" undertaken on a + long midsummer day looked fully more enjoyable to the common + mind: John, and even the footman approved of that, and another + individual, who had become a frequent visitor at the hall, + approved of it very highly indeed, and joined such a party as + often as he could.</p> + + <p>This was George Eildon, the only son of a brother of the + late Lord Arthur.</p> + + <p>Now comes the tug—well, not of war, certainly, but, to + change the figure—now comes the cloud no bigger than a + man's hand which is to obscure the quiet sunshine of the + regular and exemplary life of these three ladies.</p> + + <p>Having been eight years at Garscube Hall, as a matter of + necessity and in the ordinary course of Nature, Alice Garscube + had grown up to womanhood. With accustomed eccentricity, Lady + Arthur entirely ignored this. As for bringing her "out," as the + phrase is, she had no intention of it, considering that one of + the follies of life: Lady Arthur was always a law to herself. + Alice was a shy, amiable girl, who loved her guardian fervently + (her ladyship had the knack of gaining love, and also of + gaining the opposite in pretty decisive measure), and was + entirely swayed by her; indeed, it never occurred to her to + have a will of her own, for her nature was peculiarly sweet and + guileless.</p> + + <h4>III.</h4> + + <p>Lady Arthur thought George Eildon a good-natured, rattling + lad, with very little head. This was precisely the general + estimate that had been formed of her late husband, and people + who had known both thought George the very fac-simile of his + uncle Arthur. If her ladyship had been aware of this, it would + have made her very indignant: she had thought her husband + perfect while living, and thought of him as very much more than + perfect now that he lived only in her memory. But she made + George very welcome as often as he came: she liked to have him + in the house, and she simply never thought of Alice and him in + connection with each other. She always had a feeling of pity + for George.</p> + + <p>"You know," she would say to Miss Adamson and + Alice—"you know, George was of consequence for the first + ten years of his life: it was thought that his uncle the duke + might never marry, and he was the heir; but when the duke + married late in life and had two sons, George was extinguished, + poor fellow! and it was hard, I allow."</p> + + <p>"It is not pleasant to be a poor gentleman," said Miss + Adamson.</p> + + <p>"It is not only not pleasant," said Lady Arthur, "but it is + a false position, which is very trying, and what few men can + fill to advantage. If George had great abilities, it might be + different, with his connection, but I doubt he is doomed to be + always as poor as a church mouse."</p> + + <p>"He may get on in his profession perhaps," said Alice, + sharing in Lady Arthur's pity for him. (George Eildon had been + an attaché to some foreign embassy.)</p> + + <p>"Never," said Lady Arthur decisively. "Besides, it is a + profession that is out of date now. Men don't go wilily to work + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" + id="page57"></a>[pg 57]</span> in these days; but if they + did, the notion of poor George, who could not keep a secret + or tell a lie with easy grace if it were to save his + life—the notion of making him a diplomatist is very + absurd. No doubt statesmen are better without original + ideas—their business is to pick out the practical + ideas of other men and work them well—but George wants + ability, poor fellow! They ought to have put him into the + Church: he reads well, he could have read other men's + sermons very effectively, and the duke has some good livings + in his gift."</p> + + <p>Now, Miss Adamson had been brought up a Presbyterian of the + Presbyterians, and among people to whom "the paper" was + abhorrent: to read a sermon was a sin—to read another + man's sermon was a sin of double-dyed blackness. However, + either her opinions were being corrupted or enlightened, either + she was growing lax in principle or she was learning the lesson + of toleration, for she allowed the remarks of Lady Arthur to + pass unnoticed, so that that lady did not need to advance the + well-known opinion and practice of Sir Roger de Coverley to + prop her own.</p> + + <p>Miss Adamson merely said, "Do you not underrate Mr. Eildon's + abilities?"</p> + + <p>"I think not. If he had abilities, he would have been + showing them by this time. But of course I don't blame him: few + of the Eildons have been men of mark—none in recent times + except Lord Arthur—but they have all been respectable + men, whose lives would stand inspection; and George is the + equal of any of them in that respect. As a clergyman he would + have set a good example."</p> + + <p>Hearing a person always pitied and spoken slightingly of + does not predispose any one to fall in love with that person. + Miss Garscube's feelings of this nature still lay very closely + folded up in the bud, and the early spring did not come at this + time to develop them in the shape of George Eildon; but Mr. + Eildon was sufficiently foolish and indiscreet to fall in love + with her. Miss Adamson was the only one of the three ladies + cognizant of this state of affairs, but as her creed was that + no one had any right to make or meddle in a thing of this kind, + she saw as if she saw not, though very much interested. She saw + that Miss Garscube was as innocent of the knowledge that she + had made a conquest as it was possible to be, and she felt + surprised that Lady Arthur's sight was not sharper. But Lady + Arthur was—or at least had been—a woman of the + world, and the idea of a penniless man allowing himself to fall + in love seriously with a penniless girl in actual life could + not find admission into her mind: if she had been writing a + ballad it would have been different; indeed, if you had only + known Lady Arthur through her poetry, you might have believed + her to be a very, romantic, sentimental, unworldly person, for + she really was all that—on paper.</p> + + <p>Mr. Eildon was very frequently in the studio where Miss + Adamson and her pupil worked, and he was always ready to + accompany them in their excursions, and, Lady Arthur said, + "really made himself very useful."</p> + + <p>It has been said that John and Thomas both approved of her + ladyship's summer expeditions in search of the picturesque, or + whatever else she might take it into her head to look for; and + when she issued orders for a day among the hills in a certain + month of August, which had been a specially fine month in point + of weather, every one was pleased. But John and Thomas found it + nearly as hard work climbing with the luncheon-basket in the + heat of the midsummer sun as it was when they climbed to the + same elevation in midwinter; only they did not slip back so + fast, nor did they feel that they were art and part in a + "daftlike" thing.</p> + + <p>"Here," said Lady Arthur, raising her glass to her + lips—"here is to the memory of the Romans, on whose dust + we are resting."</p> + + <p>"Amen!" said Mr. Eildon; "but I am afraid you don't find + their dust a very soft resting-place: they were always a hard + people, the Romans."</p> + + <p>"They were a people I admire," said Lady Arthur. "If they + had not been called away by bad news from home, if they had + been able to stay, our civilization might have been a much + older thing <span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" + id="page58"></a>[pg 58]</span> than it is.—What do + <i>you</i> think, John?" she said, addressing her faithful + servitor. "Less than a thousand years ago all that stretch + of country that we see so richly cultivated and studded with + cozy farm-houses was brushwood and swamp, with a handful of + savage inhabitants living in wigwams and dressing in + skins."</p> + + <p>"It may be so," said John—"no doubt yer leddyship kens + best—but I have this to say: if they were savages they + had the makin' o' men in them. Naebody'll gar me believe that + the stock yer leddyship and me cam o' was na a capital gude + stock."</p> + + <p>"All right, John," said Mr. Eildon, "if you include me."</p> + + <p>"It was a long time to take, surely," said Alice—"a + thousand years to bring the country from brushwood and swamp to + corn and burns confined to their beds,"</p> + + <p>"Nature is never in a hurry, Alice," replied Lady + Arthur.</p> + + <p>"But she is always busy in a wonderfully quiet way," said + Miss Adamson. "Whenever man begins to work he makes a noise, + but no one hears the corn grow or the leaves burst their + sheaths: even the clouds move with noiseless grace."</p> + + <p>"The clouds are what no one can understand yet, I suppose," + said Mr. Eildon, "but they don't always look as if butter + wouldn't melt in their mouths, as they are doing to-day. What + do you say to thunder?"</p> + + <p>"That is an exception: Nature does all her best work + quietly."</p> + + <p>"So does man," remarked George Eildon.</p> + + <p>"Well, I dare say you are right, after all," said Miss + Adamson, who was sketching. "I wish I could paint in the + glitter on the blade of that reaping-machine down in the haugh + there: see, it gleams every time the sun's rays hit it. It is + curious how Nature makes the most of everything to heighten her + picture, and yet never makes her bright points too + plentiful."</p> + + <p>Just at that moment the sun's rays seized a small pane of + glass in the roof of a house two or three miles off down the + valley, and it shot out light and sparkles that dazzled the eye + to look at.</p> + + <p>"That is a fine effect," cried Alice: "it looks like the eye + of an archangel kindling up,"</p> + + <p>"What a flight of fancy, Alice!" Lady Arthur said. "That + reaping-machine does its work very well, but it will be a long + time before it gathers a crust of poetry about it: stopping to + clear a stone out of its way is different from a lad and a lass + on the harvest-rig, the one stopping to take a thorn out of the + finger of the other."</p> + + <p>"There are so many wonderful things," said Alice, "that one + gets always lost among them. How the clouds float is wonderful, + and that with the same earth below and the same heaven above, + the heather should be purple, and the corn yellow, and the + ferns green, is wonderful; but not so wonderful, I think, as + that a man by the touch of genius should have made every one + interested in a field-laborer taking a thorn out of the hand of + another field-laborer. Catch your poet, and he'll soon make the + machine interesting."</p> + + <p>"Get a thorn into your finger, Alice," said George Eildon, + "and I'll take it out if it is so interesting."</p> + + <p>"You could not make it interesting," said she.</p> + + <p>"Just try," he said.</p> + + <p>"But trying won't do. You know as well as I that there are + things no trying will ever do. I am trying to paint, for + instance, and in time I shall copy pretty well, but I shall + never do more."</p> + + <p>"Hush, hush!" said Miss Adamson. "I'm often enough in + despair myself, and hearing you say that makes me worse. I + rebel at having got just so much brain and no more; but I + suppose," she said with a sigh, "if we make the best of what we + have, it's all right, and if we had well-balanced minds we + should be contented."</p> + + <p>"Would you like to stay here longer among the hills and the + sheep?" said Lady Arthur. "I have just remembered that I want + silks for my embroidery, and I have time to go to town: I can + catch the afternoon train. Do any of you care to go?"</p> + + <p>"It is good to be here," said Mr. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" + id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span> Eildon, "but as we can't stay + always, we may as well go now. I suppose."</p> + + <p>And John, accustomed to sudden orders, hurried off to get + his horses put to the carriage.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur, upon the whole, approved of railways, but did + not use them much except upon occasion; and it was only by + taking the train she could reach town and be home for dinner on + this day.</p> + + <p>They reached the station in time, and no more. Mr. Eildon + ran and got tickets, and John was ordered to be at the station + nearest Garscube Hall to meet them when they returned.</p> + + <p>Embroidery, being an art which high-born dames have + practiced from the earliest ages, was an employment that had + always found favor in the sight of Lady Arthur, and to which + she turned when she wanted change of occupation. She took a + very short time to select her materials, and they were back and + seated in the railway carriage fully ten minutes before the + train started. They beguiled the time by looking about the + station: it was rather a different scene from that where they + had been in the fore part of the day.</p> + + <p>"There's surely a mistake," said Mr. Eildon, pointing to a + large picture hanging on the wall of three sewing-machines + worked by three ladies, the one in the middle being Queen + Elizabeth in her ruff, the one on the right Queen Victoria in + her widow's cap: the princess of Wales was very busy at the + third. "Is not that what is called an anachronism, Miss + Adamson? Are not sewing-machines a recent invention? There were + none in Elizabeth's time, I think?"</p> + + <p>"There are people," said Lady Arthur, "who have neither + common sense nor a sense of the ridiculous."</p> + + <p>"But they have a sense of what will pay," answered her + nephew. "That appeals to the heart of the nation—that is, + to the masculine heart. If Queen Bess had been handling a + lancet, and Queen Vic pounding in a mortar with a pestle, + assisted by her daughter-in-law, the case would have been + different; but they are at useful womanly work, and the + machines will sell. They have fixed themselves in our memories + already: that's the object the advertiser had when he pressed + the passion of loyalty into his service."</p> + + <p>"How will the strong-minded Tudor lady like to see herself + revived in that fashion, if she can see it?" asked Miss + Garscube.</p> + + <p>"She'll like it well, judging by myself," said George: + "that's true fame. I should be content to sit cross-legged on a + board, stitching pulpit-robes, in a picture, if I were sure it + would be hung up three hundred years after this at all the + balloon-stations and have the then Miss Garscubes making + remarks about me."</p> + + <p>"They might not make very complimentary remarks, perhaps," + said Alice.</p> + + <p>"If they thought of me at all I should be satisfied," said + he.</p> + + <p>"Couldn't you invent an iron bed, then?" said Miss Adamson, + looking at a representation of these articles hanging alongside + the three royal ladies. "Perhaps they'll last three hundred + years, and if you could bind yourself up with the idea of sweet + repose—"</p> + + <p>"They won't last three hundred years," said Lady + Arthur—"cheap and nasty, new-fangled things!"</p> + + <p>"They maybe cheap and nasty," said George, "but new-fangled + they are not: they must be some thousands of years old. I am + afraid, my dear aunt, you don't read your Bible."</p> + + <p>"Don't drag the Bible in among your nonsense. What has it to + do with iron beds?" said Lady Arthur.</p> + + <p>"If you look into Deuteronomy, third chapter and eleventh + verse," said he "you'll find that Og, king of Bashar used an + iron bed. It is probably in existence yet, and it must be quite + old enough to make it worth your while to look after it: + perhaps Mr. Cook would personally conduct you, or if not I + should be glad to be your escort."</p> + + <p>"Thank you," she said: "when I go in search of Og's bed I'll + take you with me."</p> + + <p>"You could not do better: I have the scent of a sleuth-hound + for antiquities."</p> + + <p>As they were speaking a man came and hung up beside the + queens and the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" + id="page60"></a>[pg 60]</span> iron beds a big white board + on which were printed in large black letters the words, "My + Mother and I"—nothing more.</p> + + <p>"What <i>can</i> the meaning of that be?" asked Lady + Arthur.</p> + + <p>"To make you ask the meaning of it," said Mr. Eildon. "I who + am skilled in these matters have no doubt that it is the herald + of some soothing syrup for the human race under the trials of + teething." He was standing at the carriage-door till the train + would start, and he stood aside to let a young lady and a boy + in deep mourning enter. The pair were hardly seated when the + girl's eye fell on the great white board and its announcement. + She bent her head and hid her face in her handkerchief: it was + not difficult to guess that she had very recently parted with + her mother for ever, and the words on the board were more than + she could stand unmoved.</p> + + <p>Miss Adamson too had been thinking of her mother, the + hard-working woman who had toiled in her little shop to support + her sickly husband and educate her daughter—the kindly + patient face, the hands that had never spared themselves, the + footsteps that had plodded so incessantly to and fro. The all + that had been gone so long came back to her, and she felt + almost the pang of first separation, when it seemed as if the + end of her life had been extinguished and the motive-power for + work had gone. But she carried her mother in her heart: with + her it was still "my mother and I."</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur did not think of her mother: she had lost her + early, and besides, her thoughts and feelings had been all + absorbed by her husband.</p> + + <p>Alice Garscube had never known her mother, and as she looked + gravely at the girl who was crying behind her handkerchief, she + envied her—she had known her mother.</p> + + <p>As for Mr. Eildon, he had none but bright and happy thoughts + connected with his mother. It was true, she was a widow, but + she was a kind and stately lady, round whom her family moved as + round a sun and centre, giving light and heat and all good + cheer; he could afford to joke about "my mother and I."</p> + + <p>What a vast deal of varied emotion these words must have + stirred in the multitudes of travelers coming and going in all + directions!</p> + + <p>In jumping into the carriage when the last bell rang, Mr. + Eildon missed his footing and fell back, with no greater + injury, fortunately, than grazing the skin, of his hand.</p> + + <p>"Is it much hurt?" Lady Arthur asked.</p> + + <p>He held it up and said, "'Who ran to help me when I + fell?'"</p> + + <p>"The guard," said Miss Garscube.</p> + + <p>"'Who kissed the place to make it well?'" he continued.</p> + + <p>"You might have been killed," said Miss Adamson.</p> + + <p>"That would not have been a pretty story to tell," he said. + "I shall need to wait till I get home for the means of cure: + 'my mother and I' will manage it. You're not of a pitiful + nature, Miss Garscube."</p> + + <p>"I keep my pity for a pitiful occasion," she said.</p> + + <p>"If you had grazed your hand, I would have applied the + prescribed cure."</p> + + <p>"Well, but I'm very glad I have not grazed my hand,"</p> + + <p>"So am I," he said.</p> + + <p>"Let me see it," she said. He held it out. "Would something + not need to be done for it?" she asked.</p> + + <p>"Yes. Is it interesting—as interesting as the + thorn?"</p> + + <p>"It is nothing," said Lady Arthur: "a little lukewarm water + is all that it needs;" and she thought, "That lad will never do + anything either for himself or to add to the prestige of the + family. I hope his cousins have more ability."</p> + + <h4>IV.</h4> + + <p>But what these cousins were to turn out no one knew. They + had that rank which gives a man what is equivalent to a start + of half a lifetime over his fellows, and they promised well; + but they were only boys as yet, and Nature puts forth many a + choice blossom and bud that never comes to maturity, or, + meeting with blight or canker on the way, turns out poor fruit. + The eldest, a lad in his teens, was traveling on the Continent + with a tutor: the second, a boy who had + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" + id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span> been always delicate, was at + home on account of his health. George Eildon was intimate + with both, and loved them with a love as true as that he + bore to Alice Garscube: it never occurred to him that they + had come into the world to keep him out of his inheritance. + He would have laughed at such an idea. Many people would + have said that he was laughing on the wrong side of his + mouth: the worldly never can understand the unworldly.</p> + + <p>Mr. Eildon gave Miss Garscube credit for being at least as + unworldly as himself: he believed thoroughly in her + genuineness, her fresh, unspotted nature; and, the wish being + very strong, he believed that she had a kindness for him.</p> + + <p>When he and his hand got home he found it quite able to + write her a letter, or rather not so much a letter as a burst + of enthusiastic aspiration, asking her to marry him.</p> + + <p>She was startled; and never having decided on anything in + her life, she carried this letter direct to Lady Arthur.</p> + + <p>"Here's a thing," she said, "that I don't know what to think + of."</p> + + <p>"What kind of thing, Alice?"</p> + + <p>"A letter."</p> + + <p>"Who is it from?"</p> + + <p>"Mr. Eildon."</p> + + <p>"Indeed! I should not think a letter from him would be a + complicated affair or difficult to understand."</p> + + <p>"Neither is it: perhaps you would read it?"</p> + + <p>"Certainly, if you wish it." When she had read the document + she said, "Well I never gave George credit for much wisdom, but + I did not think he was foolish enough for a thing like this; + and I never suspected it. Are you in love too?" and Lady Arthur + laughed heartily: it seemed to strike her in a comic light.</p> + + <p>"No. I never thought of it or of him either," Alice said, + feeling queer and uncomfortable.</p> + + <p>"Then that simplifies matters. I always thought George's + only chance in life was to marry a wealthy woman, and how many + good, accomplished women there are, positively made of money, + who would give anything to marry into our family!"</p> + + <p>"Are there?" said Alice.</p> + + <p>"To be sure there are. Only the other day I read in a + newspaper that people are all so rich now money is no + distinction: rank is, however. You can't make a lawyer or a + shipowner or an ironmaster into a peer of several hundred + years' descent."</p> + + <p>"No, you can't," said Alice; "but Mr. Eildon is not a peer, + you know."</p> + + <p>"No, but he is the grandson of one duke and the nephew of + another; and if he could work for it he might have a peerage of + his own, or if he had great wealth he would probably get one. + For my own part, I don't count much on rank or wealth" (she + believed this), "but they are privileges people have no right + to throw away."</p> + + <p>"Not even if they don't care for them?" asked Alice,</p> + + <p>"No: whatever you have it is your duty to care for and make + the best of."</p> + + <p>"Then, what am I to say to Mr. Eildon?"</p> + + <p>"Tell him it is absurd; and whatever you say, put it + strongly, that there may be no more of it. Why, he must know + that you would be beggars."</p> + + <p>Acting up to her instructions, Alice wrote thus to Mr. + Eildon:</p> + + <blockquote> + <p>"DEAR MR. EILDON: Your letter surprised me. Lady Arthur + says it is absurd; besides, I don't care for you a bit. I + don't mean that I dislike you, for I don't dislike any one. + We wonder you could be so foolish, and Lady Arthur says + there must be no more of it; and she is right. I hope you + will forget all about this, and believe me to be your true + friend,</p> + + <p>"ALICE GARSCUBE.</p> + + <p>"P.S. Lady Arthur says you haven't got anything to live + on; but if you had all the wealth in the world, it wouldn't + make any difference.</p> + + <p>"A. G."</p> + </blockquote> + + <p>This note fell into George Eildon's mind like molten lead + dropped on living flesh. "She is not what I took her to be," he + said to himself, "or she never could have written that, even at + Lady Arthur's suggestion; and Lady Arthur ought to have known + better."</p> + + <p>And she certainly ought to have known + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" + id="page62"></a>[pg 62]</span> better; yet he might have + found some excuse for Alice if he had allowed himself to + think, but he did not: he only felt, and felt very + keenly.</p> + + <p>In saying that Mr. Eildon and Miss Garscube were penniless, + the remark is not to be taken literally, for he had an income + of fifteen hundred pounds, and she had five hundred a year of + her own; but in the eyes of people moving in ducal circles + matrimony on two thousand pounds seems as improvident a step as + that of the Irishman who marries when he has accumulated + sixpence appears to ordinary beings.</p> + + <p>Mr. Eildon spent six weeks at a shooting-box belonging to + his uncle the duke, after which he went to London, where he got + a post under government—a place which was by no means a + sinecure, but where there was plenty of work not over-paid. + Before leaving he called for a few minutes at Garscube Hall to + say good-bye, and that was all they saw of him.</p> + + <p>Alice missed him: a very good thing, of which she had been + as unconscious as she was of the atmosphere, had been withdrawn + from her life. George's letter had nailed him to her memory: + she thought of him very often, and that is a dangerous thing + for a young lady to do if she means to keep herself entirely + fancy free. She wondered if his work was very hard work, and if + he was shut in an office all day; she did not think he was made + for that; it seemed as unnatural as putting a bird into a cage. + She made some remark of this kind to Lady Arthur, who laughed + and said, "Oh, George won't kill himself with hard work." From + that time forth Alice was shy of speaking of him to his aunt. + But she had kept his letter, and indulged herself with a + reading of it occasionally; and every time she read it she + seemed to understand it better. It was a mystery to her how she + had been so intensely stupid as not to understand it at first. + And when she found a copy of her own answer to it among her + papers—one she had thrown aside on account of a big + blot—she wondered if it was possible she had sent such a + thing, and tears of shame and regret stood in her eyes. "How + frightfully blind I was!" she said to herself. But there was no + help for it: the thing was done, and could not be undone. She + had grown in wisdom since then, but most people reach wisdom + through ignorance and folly.</p> + + <p>In these circumstances she found Miss Adamson a very + valuable friend. Miss Adamson had never shared Lady Arthur's + low estimate of Mr. Eildon: she liked his sweet, unworldly + nature, and she had a regard for him as having aims both lower + and higher than a "career." That he should love Miss Garscube + seemed to her natural and good, and that happiness might be + possible even to a duke's grandson on such a pittance as two + thousand pounds a year was an article of her belief: she pitied + people who go through life sacrificing the substance for the + shadow. Yes, Miss Garscube could speak of Mr. Eildon to her + friend and teacher, and be sure of some remark that gave her + comfort.</p> + + <h4>V.</h4> + + <p>A year sped round again, and they heard of Mr. Eildon being + in Scotland at the shooting, and as he was not very far off, + they expected to see him any time. But it was getting to the + end of September, and he had paid no visit, when one day, as + the ladies were sitting at luncheon, he came in, looking very + white and agitated. They were all startled: Miss Garscube grew + white also, and felt herself trembling. Lady Arthur rose + hurriedly and said, "What is it, George? what's the + matter?"</p> + + <p>"A strange thing has happened," he said. "I only heard of it + a few minutes ago: a man rode after me with the telegram. My + cousin George—Lord Eildon—has fallen down a + crevasse in the Alps and been killed. Only a week ago I parted + with him full of life and spirit, and I loved him as if he had + been my brother;" and he bent his head to hide tears.</p> + + <p>They were all silent for some moments: then in a low voice + Lady Arthur said, "I am sorry for his father."</p> + + <p>"I am sorry for them all," George said. "It is terrible;" + then after a little he said, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" + id="page63"></a>[pg 63]</span> "You'll excuse my leaving + you: I am going to Eildon at once: I may be of some service + to them. I don't know how Frank will be able to bear + this."</p> + + <p>After he had gone away Alice felt how thoroughly she was + nothing to him now: there had been no sign in his manner that + he had ever thought of her at all, more than of any other + ordinary acquaintance. If he had only looked to her for the + least sympathy! But he had not. "If he only knew how well I + understand him now!" she thought.</p> + + <p>"It is a dreadful accident," said Lady Arthur, "and I am + sorry for the duke and duchess." She said this in a calm way. + It had always been her opinion that Lord Arthur's relations had + never seen the magnitude of <i>her</i> loss, and this feeling + lowered the temperature of her sympathy, as a wind blowing over + ice cools the atmosphere. "I think George's grief very + genuine," she continued: "at the same time he can't but see + that there is only that delicate lad's life, that has been + hanging so long by a hair, between him and the title."</p> + + <p>"Lady Arthur!" exclaimed Alice in warm tones.</p> + + <p>"I know, my dear, you are thinking me very unfeeling, but I + am not: I am only a good deal older than you. George's position + to-day is very different from what it was a year ago. If he + were to write to you again, I would advise another kind of + answer."</p> + + <p>"He'll never write again," said Alice in a tone which struck + the ear of Lady Arthur, so that when the young girl left the + room she turned to Miss Adamson and said, "Do you think she + really cares about him?"</p> + + <p>"She has not made me her confidante," that lady answered, + "but my own opinion is that she does care a good deal for Mr. + Eildon."</p> + + <p>"Do you really think so?" exclaimed Lady Arthur. "She said + she did not at the time, and I thought then, and think still, + that it would not signify much to George whom he married; and + you know he would be so much the better for money. But if he is + to be his uncle's successor, that alters the case entirely. + I'll go to Eildon myself, and bring him back with me."</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur went to Eildon and mingled her tears with those + of the stricken parents, whose grief might have moved a very + much harder heart than hers. But they did not see the state of + their only remaining son as Lady Arthur and others saw it; for, + while it was commonly thought that he would hardly reach + maturity, they were sanguine enough to believe that he was + outgrowing the delicacy of his childhood.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur asked George to return with her to Garscube + Hall, but he said he could not possibly do so. Then she said + she had told Miss Adamson and Alice that she would bring him + with her, and they would be disappointed.</p> + + <p>"Tell them," he said, "that I have very little time to + spare, and I must spend it with Frank, when I am sure they will + excuse me."</p> + + <p>They excused him, but they were not the less disappointed, + all the three ladies; indeed, they were so much disappointed + that they did not speak of the thing to each other, as people + chatter over and thereby evaporate a trifling defeat of + hopes.</p> + + <p>Mr. Eildon left his cousin only to visit his mother and + sisters for a day, and then returned to London; from which it + appeared that he was not excessively anxious to visit Garscube + Hall.</p> + + <p>But everything there went on as usual. The ladies painted, + they went excursions, they wrote ballads; still, there was a + sense of something being amiss—the heart of their lives + seemed dull in its beat.</p> + + <p>The more Lady Arthur thought of having sent away such a + matrimonial prize from her house, the more she was chagrined; + the more Miss Garscube tried not to think of Mr. Eildon, the + more her thoughts would run upon him; and even Miss Adamson, + who had nothing to regret or reproach herself with, could not + help being influenced by the change of atmosphere.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur's thoughts issued in the resolution to re-enter + society once more; which resolution she imparted to Miss + Adamson in the first instance by saying + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" + id="page64"></a>[pg 64]</span> that she meant to go to + London next season.</p> + + <p>"Then our plan of life here will be quite broken up," said + Miss A.</p> + + <p>"Yes, for a time."</p> + + <p>"I thought you disliked society?"</p> + + <p>"I don't much like it: it is on account of Alice I am going. + I may just as well tell you: I want to bring her and George + together again if possible."</p> + + <p>"Will she go if she knows that is your end?"</p> + + <p>"She need not know."</p> + + <p>"It is not a very dignified course," Miss Adamson said.</p> + + <p>"No, and if it were an ordinary case I should not think of + it."</p> + + <p>"But you think him a very ordinary man?"</p> + + <p>"A duke is different. Consider what an amount of influence + Alice would have, and how well she would use it; and he may + marry a vain, frivolous, senseless woman, incapable of a good + action. Indeed, most likely, for such people are sure to hunt + him."</p> + + <p>"I would not join in the hunt," said Miss Adamson. "If he is + the man you suppose him to be, the wound his self-love got will + have killed his love; and if he is the man I think, no hunters + will make him their prey. A small man would know instantly why + you went to London, and enjoy his triumph."</p> + + <p>"I don't think George would: he is too simple; but if I did + not think it a positive duty, I would not go. However, we shall + see: I don't think of going before the middle of January."</p> + + <p>Positive duties can be like the animals that change color + with what they feed on.</p> + + <h4>VI.</h4> + + <p>When the middle of January came, Lady Arthur, who had never + had an illness in her life, was measuring her strength in a + hand-to-hand struggle with fever. The water was blamed, the + drainage was blamed, various things were blamed. Whether it + came in the water or out of the drains, gastric fever had + arrived at Garscube Hall: the gardener took it, his daughter + took it, also Thomas the footman, and others of the + inhabitants, as well as Lady Arthur. The doctor of the place + came and lived In the house; besides that, two of the chief + medical men from town paid almost daily visits. Bottles of the + water supplied to the hall were sent to eminent chemists for + analysis: the drainage was thoroughly examined, and men were + set to make it as perfect and innocuous as it is in the nature + of drainage to be.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur wished Miss Adamson and Alice to leave the place + for a time, but they would not do so: neither of them was + afraid, and they stayed and nursed her ladyship well, relieving + each other as it was necessary.</p> + + <p>At one point of her illness Lady Arthur said to Miss + Adamson, who was alone with her, "Well, I never counted on + this. Our family have all had a trick of living to extreme old + age, never dying till they could not help it; but it will be + grand to get away so soon."</p> + + <p>Miss Adamson looked at her. "Yes," she said, "it's a poor + thing, life, after the glory of it is gone, and I have always + had an intense curiosity to see what is beyond. I never could + see the sense of making a great ado to keep people alive after + they are fifty. Don't look surprised. How are the rest of the + people that are ill?" She often asked for them, and expressed + great satisfaction when told they were recovering. "It will be + all right," she said, "if I am the only death in the place; but + there is one thing I want you to do. Send off a telegram to + George Eildon and tell him I want to see him immediately: a + dying person can say what a living one can't, and I'll make it + all right between Alice and him before I go."</p> + + <p>Miss Adamson despatched the telegram to Mr. Eildon, knowing + that she could not refuse to do Lady Arthur's bidding at such a + time, although her feeling was against it. The answer came: Mr. + Eildon had just sailed for Australia.</p> + + <p>When Lady Arthur heard this she said, "I'll write to him." + When she had finished writing she said, "You'll send this to + him whenever you get his address. I wish we could have sent it + off at once, for it will be provoking if I don't die, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" + id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span> after all; and I positively + begin to feel as if that were not going to be my luck at + this time."</p> + + <p>Although she spoke in this way, Miss Adamson knew it was not + from foolish irreverence. She recovered, and all who had had + the fever recovered, which was remarkable, for in other places + it had been very fatal.</p> + + <p>With Lady Arthur's returning strength things at the hall + wore into their old channels again. When it was considered safe + many visits of congratulation were paid, and among others who + came were George Eildon's mother and some of his sisters. They + were constantly having letters from George: he had gone off + very suddenly, and it was not certain when he might return.</p> + + <p>Alice heard of George Eildon with interest, but not with the + vital interest she had felt in him for a time: that had worn + away. She had done her best to this end by keeping herself + always occupied, and many things had happened in the interval; + besides, she had grown a woman, with all the good sense and + right feeling belonging to womanhood, and she would have been + ashamed to cherish a love for one who had entirely forgotten + her. She dismissed her childish letter, which had given her so + much vexation, from her memory, feeling sure that George Eildon + had also forgotten it long ago. She did not know of the letter + Lady Arthur had written when she believed herself to be dying, + and it was well she did not.</p> + + <h4>VII.</h4> + + <p>Every one who watched the sun rise on New Year's morning, + 1875, will bear witness to the beauty of the sight. Snow had + been lying all over the country for some time, and a fortnight + of frost had made it hard and dry and crisp. The streams must + have felt very queer when they were dropping off into the + mesmeric trance, and found themselves stopped in the very act + of running, their supple limbs growing stiff and heavy and + their voices dying in their throats, till they were thrown into + a deep sleep, and a strange white, still, glassy beauty stole + over them by the magic power of frost. The sun got up rather + late, no doubt—between eight and nine + o'clock—probably saying to himself, "These people think I + have lost my power—that the Ice King has it all his own + way. I'll let them see: I'll make his glory pale before + mine."</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur was standing at her window when she saw him look + over the shoulder of a hill and throw a brilliant deep gold + light all over the land covered with snow as with a garment, + and every minute crystal glittered as if multitudes of little + eyes had suddenly opened and were gleaming and winking under + his gaze. To say that the bosom of Mother Earth was crusted + with diamonds is to give the impression of dullness unless each + diamond could be endowed with life and emotion. Then he threw + out shaft after shaft of color—scarlet and crimson and + blue and amber and green—which gleamed along the heavens, + kindling the cold white snow below them into a passion of + beauty: the colors floated and changed form, and mingled and + died away. Then the sun drew his thick winter clouds about him, + disappeared, and was no more seen that day. He had vindicated + his majesty.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur thought it was going to be a bright winter day, + and at breakfast she proposed a drive to Cockhoolet Castle, an + old place within driving distance to which she paid periodical + visits: they would take luncheon on the battlements and see all + over the country, which must be looking grand in its bridal + attire.</p> + + <p>John was called in and asked if he did not think it was + going to be a fine day. He glanced through the windows at the + dark, suspicious-looking clouds and said, "Weel, my leddy, I'll + no uphaud it." This was the answer of a courtier and an oracle, + not to mention a Scotchman. It did not contradict Lady Arthur, + it did not commit himself, and it was cautious.</p> + + <p>"I think it will be a fine day of its kind," said the lady, + "and we'll drive to Cockhoolet. Have the carriage ready at + ten."</p> + + <p>"If we dinna wun a' the gate, we can but turn again," John + thought as he retired to execute his + orders.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" + id="page66"></a>[pg 66]</span> + + <p>"It is not looking so well as it did in the morning," said + Miss Adamson as they entered the carriage, "but if we have an + adventure we shall be the better for it."</p> + + <p>"We shall have no such luck," said Lady Arthur: "what ever + happens out of the usual way now? There used to be glorious + snowstorms long ago, but the winters have lost their rigor, and + there are no such long summer days now as there were when I was + young. Neither persons nor things have that spirit in them they + used to have;" and she smiled, catching in thought the fact + that to the young the world is still as fresh and fair as it + has appeared to all the successive generations it has carried + on its surface.</p> + + <p>"This is a wiselike expedition," said Thomas to John.</p> + + <p>"Ay," said John, "I'm mista'en if this is no a day that'll + be heard tell o' yet;" and they mounted to their respective + places and started.</p> + + <p>The sky was very grim and the wind had been gradually + rising. The three ladies sat each in her corner, saying little, + and feeling that this drive was certainly a means to an end, + and not an end in itself. Their pace had not been very quick + from the first, but it became gradually slower, and the hard + dry snow was drifting past the windows in clouds. At last they + came to a stand altogether, and John appeared at the window + like a white column and said, "My leddy, we'll hae to stop + here."</p> + + <p>"Stop! why?"</p> + + <p>"Because it's impossible to wun ony farrer."</p> + + <p>"Nonsense! There's no such word as impossible."</p> + + <p>"The beasts might maybe get through, but they wad leave the + carriage ahint them."</p> + + <p>"Let me out to look about," said Lady Arthur.</p> + + <p>"Ye had better bide where ye are," said John: "there's + naething to be seen, and ye wad but get yersel' a' snaw. We + might try to gang back the road we cam."</p> + + <p>"Decidedly not," said Lady Arthur, whose spirits were rising + to the occasion: "we can't be far from Cockhoolet here?"</p> + + <p>"Between twa and three mile," said John dryly.</p> + + <p>"We'll get out and walk," said her ladyship, looking at the + other ladies.</p> + + <p>"Wi' the wind in yer teeth, and sinking up to yer cuits at + every step? Ye wad either be blawn ower the muir like a + feather, or planted amang the snaw like Lot's wife. I might + maybe force my way through, but I canna leave the horses," said + John.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur was fully more concerned for her horses than + herself: she said, "Take out the horses and go to Cockhoolet: + leave them to rest and feed, and tell Mr. Ormiston to send for + us. We'll sit here very comfortably till you come back: it + won't take you long. Thomas will go too, but give us in the + luncheon-basket first."</p> + + <p>The men, being refreshed from the basket, set off with the + horses, leaving the ladies getting rapidly snowed up in the + carriage. As the wind rose almost to a gale, Lady Arthur + remarked "that it was at least better to be stuck firm among + the snow than to be blown away."</p> + + <p>It is a grand thing to suffer in a great cause, but if you + suffer merely because you have done a "daftlike" thing, the + satisfaction is not the same.</p> + + <p>The snow sifted into the carriage at the minutest crevice + like fine dust, and, melting, became cold, clammy and + uncomfortable. To be set down in a glass case on a moor without + shelter in the height of a snowstorm has only one + recommendation: it is an uncommon situation, a novel + experience. The ladies—at least Lady Arthur—must, + one would think, have felt foolish, but it is a chief + qualification in a leader that he never acknowledges that he is + in the wrong: if he once does that, his prestige is gone.</p> + + <p>The first hour of isolation wore away pretty well, owing to + the novelty of the the position; the second also, being devoted + to luncheon; the third dragged a good deal; but when it came to + the fourth; with light beginning to fail and no word of rescue, + matters looked serious. The cold was becoming intense—a + chill, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" + id="page67"></a>[pg 67]</span> damp cold that struck every + living thing through and through. What could be keeping the + men? Had they lost their way, or what could possibly have + happened?</p> + + <p>"This is something like an adventure," said Lady Arthur + cheerily.</p> + + <p>"It might pass for one," said Miss Adamson, "if we could see + our way out of it. I wonder if we shall have to sit here all + night?"</p> + + <p>"If we do," said Lady Arthur, "we can have no hope of wild + beasts scenting us out or of being attacked by banditti."</p> + + <p>"Nor of any enamored gentleman coming to the rescue," said + Miss Adamson: "it will end tamely enough. I remember reading a + story of travel among savages, in which at the close of the + monthly instalment the travelers were left buried alive except + their heads, which were above ground, but set on fire. That was + a very striking situation, yet it all came right; so there is + hope for us, I think."</p> + + <p>"Oh, don't make me laugh," said Alice: "I really can't + laugh, I am so stiff with cold."</p> + + <p>"It's a fine discipline to our patience to sit here," said + Lady Arthur. "If I had thought we should have to wait so long, + I would have tried what I could do while it was light."</p> + + <h4>VIII.</h4> + + <p>At length they heard a movement among the snow, and voices, + and immediately a light appeared at the window, shining through + the snow-blind, which was swept down by an arm and the + carriage-door opened.</p> + + <p>"Are you all safe?" were the first words they heard.</p> + + <p>"In the name of wonder, George, how are you here? Where are + John and Thomas?" cried Lady Arthur.</p> + + <p>"I'll tell you all about it after," said George Eildon: "the + thing is to get you out of this scrape. I have a farm-cart and + pair, and two men to help me: you must just put up with + roughing it a little."</p> + + <p>"Oh, I am so thankful!" said Alice.</p> + + <p>The ladies were assisted out of the carriage into the cart, + and settled among plenty of straw and rugs and shawls, with + their backs to the blast. Mr. Eildon shut the door of the + carriage, which was left to its fate, and then got in and sat + at the feet of the ladies. Mr. Ormiston's servant mounted the + trace-horse and Thomas sat on the front of the cart, and the + cavalcade started to toil through the snow.</p> + + <p>"Do tell us, George, how you are here. I thought it was only + heroes of romance that turned up when their services were + desperately needed."</p> + + <p>"There have been a good many heroes of romance to-day," said + Mr. Eildon. "The railways have been blocked in all directions; + three trains with about six hundred passengers have been + brought to a stand at the Drumhead Station near this; many of + the people have been half frozen and sick and fainting. I was + in the train going south, and very anxious to get on, but it + was impossible. I got to Cockhoolet with a number of exhausted + travelers just as your man arrived, and we came off as soon as + we could to look for you. You have stood the thing much better + than many of my fellow-travelers."</p> + + <p>"Indeed!" said Lady Arthur, "and have all the poor people + got housed?"</p> + + <p>"Most of them are at the station-house and various + farm-houses. Mr. Forester, Mr. Ormiston's son-in-law, started + to bring up the last of them just as I started for you."</p> + + <p>"Well, I must say I have enjoyed it," Lady Arthur said, "but + how are we to get home to-night?"</p> + + <p>"You'll not get home to-night: you'll have to stay at + Cockhoolet, and be glad if you can get home to-morrow."</p> + + <p>"And where have you come from, and where are you going to?" + she asked.</p> + + <p>"I came from London—I have only been a week home from + Australia—and I am on my way to Eildon. But here we + are."</p> + + <p>And the hospitable doors of Cockhoolet were thrown wide, + sending out a glow of light to welcome the belated + travelers.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Ormiston and her daughter, Mrs. Forester—who with + her husband was on a visit at Cockhoolet—received them + and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" + id="page68"></a>[pg 68]</span> took them to rooms where + fires made what seemed tropical heat compared with the + atmosphere in the glass case on the moor.</p> + + <p>Miss Garscube was able for nothing but to go to bed, and + Miss Adamson stayed with her in the room called Queen Mary's, + being the room that unfortunate lady occupied when she visited + Cockhoolet.</p> + + <p>On this night the castle must have thought old times had + come back again, there was such a large and miscellaneous + company beneath its roof. But where were the knights in armor, + the courtiers in velvet and satin, the boars' heads, the + venison pasties, the wassail-bowls? Where were the stately + dames in stiff brocade, the shaven priests, the fool in motley, + the vassals, the yeomen in hodden gray and broad blue bonnet? + Not there, certainly.</p> + + <p>No doubt, Lady Arthur Eildon was a direct descendant of one + of "the queen's Maries," but in her rusty black gown, her old + black bonnet set awry on her head, her red face, her stout + figure, made stouter by a sealskin jacket, you could not at a + glance see the connection. The house of Eildon was pretty + closely connected with the house of Stuart, but George Eildon + in his tweed suit, waterproof and wideawake looked neither + royal nor romantic. We may be almost sure that there was a fool + or fools in the company, but they did not wear motley. In + short, as yet it is difficult to connect the idea of romance + with railway rugs, waterproofs, India-rubbers and wide-awakes + and the steam of tea and coffee: three hundred years hence + perhaps it may be possible. Who knows? But for all that, + romances go on, we may be sure, whether people are clad in + velvet or hodden gray.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur was framing a romance—a romance which had + as much of the purely worldly in it as a romance can hold. She + found that George was on his way to see his cousin, Lord + Eildon, who within two days had had a severe access of illness. + It seemed to her a matter of certainty that George would be + duke of Eildon some day. If she had only had the capacity to + have despatched that letter she had written when she believed + she was dying, after him to Australia! Could she send it to him + yet? She hesitated: she could hardly bring herself to + compromise the dignity of Alice, and her own. She had a short + talk with him before they separated for the night.</p> + + <p>"I think you should go home by railway to-morrow," he said. + "It is blowing fresh now, and the trains will all be running + to-morrow. I am sorry I have to go by the first in the morning, + so I shall probably not see you then,"</p> + + <p>"I don't know," she said: "it is a question if Alice will be + able to travel at all to-morrow."</p> + + <p>"She is not ill, is she?" he said. "It is only a little + fatigue from exposure that ails her, isn't it?"</p> + + <p>"But it may have bad consequences," said Lady Arthur: "one + never can tell;" and she spoke in an injured way, for George's + tones were not encouraging. "And John, my coachman—I + haven't seen him—he ought to have been at hand at least: + if I could depend on any one, I thought it was him."</p> + + <p>"Why, he was overcome in the drift to-day: your other man + had to leave him behind and ride forward for help. It was + digging him out of the snow that kept us so long in getting to + you. He has been in bed ever since, but he is getting round + quite well."</p> + + <p>"I ought to have known that sooner," she said.</p> + + <p>"I did not want to alarm you unnecessarily."</p> + + <p>"I must go and see him;" and she held out her hand to say + good-night. "But you'll come to Garscube Hall soon: I shall be + anxious to hear what you think of Frank. When will you + come?"</p> + + <p>"I'll write," he said.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur felt that opportunity was slipping from her, and + she grew desperate. "Speaking of writing," she said, "I wrote + to you when I had the fever last year and thought I was dying: + would you like to see that letter?"</p> + + <p>"No," he said: "I prefer you living."</p> + + <p>"Have you no curiosity? People can say things dying that + they couldn't say living, + perhaps."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" + id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span> + + <p>"Well, they have no business to do so," he said. "It is + taking an unfair advantage, which a generous nature never does; + besides, it is more solemn to live than die."</p> + + <p>"Then you don't want the letter?"</p> + + <p>"Oh yes, if you like."</p> + + <p>"Very well: I'll think of it. Can you show me the way to + John's place of refuge?"</p> + + <p>They found John sitting up in bed, and Mrs, Ormiston + ministering to him: the remains of a fowl were on a plate + beside him, and he was lifting a glass of something comfortable + to his lips.</p> + + <p>"I never knew of this, John," said his mistress, "till just + a few minutes ago. This is sad."</p> + + <p>"Weel, it doesna look very sad," said John, eying the plate + and the glass. "Yer leddyship and me hae gang mony a daftlike + road, but I think we fairly catched it the day."</p> + + <p>"I don't know how we can be grateful enough to you, Mrs. + Ormiston," said Lady Arthur, turning to their hostess.</p> + + <p>"Well, you know we could hardly be so churlish as to shut + our doors on storm-stayed travelers: we are very glad that we + had it in our power to help them a little."</p> + + <p>"It's by ordinar' gude quarters," said John: "I've railly + enjoyed that hen. Is 't no time yer leddyship was in yer bed, + after siccan a day's wark?"</p> + + <p>"We'll take the hint, John," said Lady Arthur; and in a + little while longer most of Mr. Ormiston's unexpected guests + had lost sight of the day's adventure in sleep.</p> + + <h4>IX.</h4> + + <p>By dawn of the winter's morning all the company, the railway + pilgrims, were astir again—not to visit a shrine, or + attend a tournament, or to go hunting or hawking, or to engage + in a foray or rieving expedition, as guests of former days at + the castle may have done, but quietly to make their way to the + station as the different trains came up, the fresh wind having + done more to clear the way than the army of men that had been + set to work with pickaxe and shovel. But although the railways + and the tweeds and the India-rubbers were modern, the castle + and the snow and the hospitality were all very + old-fashioned—the snow as old as that lying round the + North Pole, and as unadulterated; the hospitality old as when + Eve entertained Raphael in Eden, and as true, blessing those + that give and those that take.</p> + + <p>Mr. Eildon left with the first party that went to the + station; Lady Arthur and the young ladies went away at midday; + John was left to take care of himself and his carriage till + both should be more fit for traveling.</p> + + <p>Of the three ladies, Alice had suffered most from the severe + cold, and it was some time before she entirely recovered from + the effects of it. Lady Arthur convinced herself that it was + not merely the effects of cold she was suffering from, and + talked the case over with Miss Adamson, but that lady stoutly + rejected Lady Arthur's idea. "Miss Garscube has got over that + long ago, and so has Mr. Eildon," she said dryly. "Alice has + far more sense than to nurse a feeling for a man evidently + indifferent to her." These two ladies had exchanged opinions + exactly. George Eildon had only called once, and on a day when + they were all from home: he had written several times to his + aunt regarding Lord Eildon's health, and Lady Arthur had + written to him and had told him her anxiety about the health of + Alice. He expressed sympathy and concern, as his mother might + have done, but Lady Arthur would not allow herself to see that + the case was desperate.</p> + + <p>She had a note from her sister-in-law, Lady George, who said + "that she had just been at Eildon, and in her opinion Frank was + going, but his parents either can't or won't see this, or + George either. It is a sad case—so young a man and with + such prospects—but the world abounds in sad things," + etc., etc. But sad as the world is, it is shrewd with a wisdom + of its own, and it hardly believed in the grief of Lady George + for an event which would place her own son in a position of + honor and affluence. But many a time George Eildon recoiled + from the people who did not conceal their opinion that he might + not be broken-hearted <span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" + id="page70"></a>[pg 70]</span> at the death of his cousin. + There is nothing that true, honorable, unworldly natures + shrink from more than having low, unworthy feelings and + motives attributed to them.</p> + + <h4>X.</h4> + + <p>Lady Arthur Eildon made up her mind. "I am supposed," she + said to herself, "to be eccentric: why not get the good of such + a character?" She enclosed her dying letter to her nephew, + which was nothing less than an appeal to him on behalf of + Alice, assuring him of her belief that Alice bitterly regretted + the answer she had given his letter, and that if she had it to + do over again it would be very different. When Lady Arthur did + this she felt that she was not doing as she would be done by, + but the stake was too great not to try a last throw for it. In + an accompanying note she said, "I believe that the statements + in this letter still hold true. I blamed myself afterward for + having influenced Alice when she wrote to you, and now I have + absolved my conscience." (Lady Arthur put it thus, but she + hardly succeeded in making herself believe it was a case of + conscience: she was too sharp-witted. It is self-complacent + stupidity that is morally small.) "If this letter is of no + interest to you, I am sure I am trusting it to honorable + hands."</p> + + <p>She got an answer immediately. "I thank you," Mr. Eildon + said, "for your letters, ancient and modern: they are both in + the fire, and so far as I am concerned shall be as if they had + never been."</p> + + <p>It was in vain, then, all in vain, that she had humbled + herself before George Eildon. Not only had her scheme failed, + but her pride suffered, as your finger suffers when the point + of it is shut by accident in the hinge of a door. The pain was + terrible. She forgot her conscience, how she had dealt + treacherously—for her good, as she believed, but still + treacherously—with Alice Garscube: she forgot everything + but her own pain, and those about her thought that decidedly + she was very eccentric at this time. She snubbed her people, + she gave orders and countermanded them, so that her servants + did not know what to do or leave undone, and they shook their + heads among themselves and remarked that the moon was at the + full.</p> + + <p>But of course the moon waned, and things calmed down a + little. In the next note she received from her sister-in-law, + among other items of news she was told that her nephew meant to + visit her shortly—"Probably," said his mother, "this + week, but I think it will only be a call. He says Lord Eildon + is rather better, which has put us all in good spirits," + etc.</p> + + <p>Now, Lady Arthur did not wish to see George Eildon at this + time—not that she could not keep a perfect and dignified + composure in any circumstances, but her pride was still in the + hinge of the door—and she went from home every day. Three + days she had business in town: the other days she drove to call + on people living in the next county. As she did not care for + going about alone, she took Miss Adamson always with her, but + Alice only once or twice: she was hardly able for extra fatigue + every day. But Miss Garscube was recovering health and spirits, + and looks also, and when Lady Arthur left her behind she + thought, "Well, if George calls to-day, he'll see that he is + not a necessary of life at least." She felt very grateful that + it was so, and had no objections that George should see it.</p> + + <p>He did see it, for he called that day, but he had not the + least feeling of mortification: he was unfeignedly glad to see + Alice looking so well, and he had never, he thought, seen her + look better. After they had spoken in the most quiet and + friendly way for a little she said, "And how is your cousin, + Lord Eildon?"</p> + + <p>"Nearly well: his constitution seems at last fairly to have + taken a turn in the right direction. The doctors say that not + only is he likely to live as long as any of us, but that the + probability is he will be a robust man yet."</p> + + <p>"Oh, I am glad of it—I am heartily glad of it!"</p> + + <p>"Why are you so very glad?"</p> + + <p>"Because you are: it has made you very happy—you look + so."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" + id="page71"></a>[pg 71]</span> + + <p>"I am excessively happy because you believe I am happy. Many + people don't: many people think I am disappointed. My own + mother thinks so, and yet she is a good woman. People will + believe that you wish the death of your dearest friend if he + stands between you and material good. It is horrible, and I + have been courted and worshiped as the rising sun;" and he + laughed. "One can afford to laugh at it now, but it was very + sickening at the time. I can afford anything, Alice: I believe + I can even afford to marry, if you'll marry a hard-working man + instead of a duke."</p> + + <p>"Oh, George," she said, "I have been so ashamed of that + letter I wrote."</p> + + <p>"It was a wicked little letter," he said, "but I suppose it + was the truth at the time: say it is not true now."</p> + + <p>"It is not true now," she repeated, "but I have not loved + you very dearly all the time; and if you had married I should + have been very happy if you had been happy. But oh," she said, + and her eyes filled with tears, "this is far better."</p> + + <p>"You love me now?"</p> + + <p>"Unutterably."</p> + + <p>"I have loved you all the time, all the time. I should not + have been happy if I had heard of your marriage."</p> + + <p>"Then how were you so cold and distant the day we stuck on + the moor?"</p> + + <p>"Because it was excessively cold weather: I was not going to + warm myself up to be frozen again. I have never been in + delicate health, but I can't stand heats and chills."</p> + + <p>"I do believe you are not a bit wiser than I am. I hear the + carriage: that's Lady Arthur come back. How surprised she will + be!"</p> + + <p>"I am not so sure of that," George said. "I'll go and meet + her."</p> + + <p>When he appeared Lady Arthur shook hands tranquilly and + said, "How do you do?"</p> + + <p>"Very well," he said. "I have been testing the value of + certain documents you sent me, and find they are worth their + weight in gold."</p> + + <p>She looked in his face.</p> + + <p>"Alice is mine," he said, "and we are going to Bashan for + our wedding-tour. If you'll seize the opportunity of our + escort, you may hunt up Og's bed."</p> + + <p>"Thank you," she said: "I fear I should be <i>de + trop</i>."</p> + + <p>"Not a bit; but even if you were a great nuisance, we are in + the humor to put up with anything."</p> + + <p>"I'll think of it. I have never traveled in the character of + a nuisance yet—at least, so far as I know—and it + would be a new sensation: that is a great inducement."</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur rushed to Miss Adamson's room with the news, and + the two ladies had first a cry and then a laugh over it. "Alice + will be duchess yet," said Lady Arthur: "that boy's life has + hung so long by a thread that he must be prepared to go, and he + would be far better away from the cares and trials of this + world, I am sure;" which might be the truth, but it was hard to + grudge the boy his life.</p> + + <p>Lady Arthur was in brilliant spirits at dinner that evening. + "I suppose you are going to live on love," she said.</p> + + <p>"I am going to work for my living," said George.</p> + + <p>"Very right," she said; "but, although I got better last + year, I can't live for ever, and when I'm gone Alice will have + the Garscube estates: I have always intended it."</p> + + <p>"Madam," said George, "do you not know that the great + lexicographer has said in one of his admirable works, 'Let no + man suffer his felicity to depend upon the death of his + aunt'?"</p> + + <p>It is said that whenever a Liberal ministry comes in Mr. + Eildon will be offered the governorship of one of the colonies. + Lady Arthur may yet live to be astonished by his "career," and + at least she is not likely to regret her dying letter.</p> + + <p class="author">THE AUTHOR OF + "BLINDPITS."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" + id="page72"></a>[pg 72]</span> + + <h2>THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH.</h2> + + <p>"What is that black mass yonder, far up the beach, just at + the edge of the breakers?"</p> + + <p>The fisherman to whom we put the question drew in his + squid-line, hand over hand, without turning his head, having + given the same answer for half a dozen years to summer + tourists: "Wreck. Steamer. Creole."</p> + + <p>"Were there many lives lost?"</p> + + <p>"It's likely. This is the worst bit of coast in the country, + The Creole was a three-decker," looking at it reflectively, + "Lot of good timber there."</p> + + <p>As we turned our field-glasses to the black lump hunched out + of the water, like a great sea-monster creeping up on the sand, + we saw still farther up the coast a small house perched on a + headland, with a flag flying in the gray mist, and pointed it + out to the Jerseyman, who nodded: "That there wooden shed is + the United States signal station;" adding, after a pause, + "Life-saving service down stairs."</p> + + <p>"Old Probabilities! The house he lives in!"</p> + + <p>"Life-boats!"</p> + + <p>Visions of the mysterious old prophet who utters his oracles + through the morning paper, of wrecks and storms, and of heroic + men carrying lines through the night to sinking ships, filled + our brains. Townspeople out for their summer holiday have keen + appetites for the romantic and extraordinary, and manufacture + them (as sugar from beets) out of the scantiest materials. We + turned our backs on the fisherman and his squid-line. The + signal station and the hull of the lost vessel were only a shed + and timber to him. How can any man be alive to the significance + of a wreck and fluttering flag which he sees twenty times a + day? Noah, no doubt, after a year in the ark, came to look upon + it as so much gopher-wood, and appreciated it as a good job of + joinery rather than a divine symbol.</p> + + <p>We believe, however, that our readers will find in the + wrecked Creole and the wooden shed, and the practical facts + concerning them, matter suggestive enough to hold them a little + space. They fill a yet unwritten page in the history of our + government, and of great and admirable work done by it, of + which the nation at large has been given but partial knowledge. + Or, if we choose to look more deeply into things, we may find + in the old hulk and commonplace building hints as significant + of the Infinite Order and Power underlying all ordinary things, + and of our relations to it, as in the long-ago Deluge and the + ark riding over it.</p> + + <p>The little wooden house stands upon a lonely stretch of + coast in Ocean county, New Jersey. Several miles of low barren + marshes and sands gray with poverty-grass on the north separate + it from Manasquan Inlet and the pine woods and scattered + farm-houses which lie along its shore, while half a mile below, + on the south, is the head of Barnegat Bay, a deep, narrow + estuary which runs into and along the Jersey coast for more + than half its extent, leaving outside a strip of sandy beach, + never more than a mile wide. All kinds of sea fish and fowl + take refuge in this bay and the interminable reedy marshes, and + for a few weeks in the snipe-and duck-season sportsmen from New + York find their way to "Shattuck's" and the houses of other old + water-dogs along the bay. But during the rest of the year the + wooden shed and its occupants are left to the companionship of + the sea and the winds.</p> + + <p>The little building (with a gigantic "No. 10" whitewashed + outside) stands close to the breakers, just above high-water + mark in winter. It is divided into two large rooms, upper and + lower, with a tiny kitchen in the rear and an equally + comfortless bedroom overhead. The doors of the lower room + (which, like those of a barn, fill the whole end of the house) + being closed, we sought for Old Probabilities up stairs, and + found very little at <span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" + id="page73"></a>[pg 73]</span> first sight to gratify + curiosity or any craving for mystery. There was a large + wooden room, with walls and floor of unpainted boards, the + ceiling hung with brilliantly colored flags, a telegraphic + apparatus, one or two desks, books, writing + materials—a scientific working-room, in short, with + its implements in that order which implied that only men had + used them.</p> + + <p>There were in 1874 one hundred and eight such signal + stations as this, modest, inexpensive little offices, + established over the United States, from the low sea-coast + plains to the topmost peak of the Rocky Mountains.</p> + + <p>If we were accurate chroniclers, we should have to go back + to Aristotle and the Chaldeans to show the origin and purpose + of these little offices, just as Carlyle has to unearth Ulfila + the Moesogoth to explain a word he uses to his butter-man. The + world is so new, after all, and things so inextricably tangled + up in it! In this case, as it is the sun and wind and rain + which are the connecting links, it is easy enough to bring past + ages close to us. The Chaldeans, building their great + embankments or raiding upon Job's herds, are no longer a myth + to us when we remember that they were wet by the rain and + anxious about the weather and their crops, just as we are; in + fact, they felt such matters so keenly, and were so little able + to cope with these unknown forces, that they made gods of them, + and then, beyond prayers and sacrifices, troubled themselves no + further about the matter. Even the shrewd, observant Hebrews, + living out of doors, a race of shepherds and herdsmen, never + looked for any rational cause for wind or storm, but regarded + them, if not as gods, as the messengers of God, subject to no + rules. It was He who at His will covered the heavens with + clouds, who prepared rain, who cast forth hoar-frost like + ashes: the stormy wind fulfilled His word. Men searched into + the construction of their own minds, busied themselves with + subtle philosophies, with arts and sciences, conquered the + principles of Form and Color, and made not wholly unsuccessful + efforts to solve the mystery of the sun and stars; but it was + not until 340 B.C. that any notice was taken of the every-day + matters of wind and heat and rain.</p> + + <p>Aristotle, the Gradgrind of philosophers, first noted down + the known facts on this subject in his work <i>On Meteors</i>. + His theories and deductions were necessarily erroneous, but he + struck the foundation of all science, the collection of known + facts. Theophrastus, one of his pupils, made a compilation of + prognostics concerning rain, wind and storm, and there + investigation ceased for ages. For nearly two thousand years + the citizens of the world rose every morning to rejoice in fair + weather or be wet by showers, to see their crops destroyed by + frost or their ships by winds, and never made a single attempt + to discover any scientific reason or rules in the + matter—apparently did not suspect that there was any + cause or effect behind these daily occurrences. They accounted + for wind or rain as our grandfathers did for a sudden death, by + the "visitation of God." In fact, Nature—which is the + expression of Law most inexorable and minute—was the very + last place where mankind looked to find law at all.</p> + + <p>About two hundred and thirty years ago Torricelli discovered + that the atmosphere, the space surrounding the earth, which + seemed more intangible than a dream, had weight and substance, + and invented the barometer, the tiny tube and drop of mercury + by which it could be seized and held and weighed as accurately + as a pound of lead. As soon as this invisible air was proved to + be matter, the whole force of scientific inquiry was directed + toward it. The thermometer, by which its heat or cold could be + measured—the hygrometer, which weighed, literally by a + hair, its moisture or dryness—were the results of the + research of comparatively a few years. Somewhat later came the + curious instrument which measures its velocity. As soon as it + was thus made practicable for any intelligent observer to + handle, weigh and test every quality of the air, it became + evident that wind and storm, even the terrible cyclone, were + not irresponsible forces, carrying health or death to and fro + where they <span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" + id="page74"></a>[pg 74]</span> listed, but the result of + plain, immutable; laws. It was an American in this our + Quaker City who reduced the wind to a commonplace effect of + a most ordinary cause. Franklin, one winter's day passing + with a lighted candle out of a warm room into a cold one, + saw that as he held it above his head the flame was blown + outward before him: when he held it near the floor, the + flame was blown into the room. The shrewd observer stood in + the doorway, instead of hurrying out, as most of us would + have done, to save the wasting candle. The warm air in the + heated room, he conjectured, was expanded by the heat, + consequently it rose as high as it could, and made a way for + itself out of the room at the upper part of the doorway, + while the heavier cold air from without rushed in below to + fill the vacated space. What if he took the equatorial + regions or great tracts of arid desert for the heated room? + The air over them, subjected by the heat to constant + rarefaction, must rise, must overflow above, and must force + the colder air from the surrounding regions in below. Two + sheets of air will thus set in vertically on both sides, + rise, and again separate above. Here was an explanation of + the great, steady, uninterrupted aërial currents which, + at the rate of from fifteen to eighteen miles per hour, + sweep the surface of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The + candle, no doubt, was wasted, but the secret of the + trade-winds was discovered.</p> + + <p>The idea was correct as far as it went. It did not go very + far, it is true. It had not taken into account the earth's + rotation, whose force, according to Herschel, "gives at least + one-half of their average momentum to all the winds which occur + over the whole world;" nor the infinite variation in the + movements of the atmosphere which we call winds, caused by the + change in the sun's motion, by the differing amounts of vapor + held in them, by the physical configuration of the earth below, + by the vicinity of the sea or arid deserts, and by the passage + of storms or electric currents.</p> + + <p>The science of meteorology, especially as regards wind, is + as yet searching for general principles, which can only be + deduced from countless facts. We do not now, like Saint Paul, + talk of the wind Euroclydon as of a special agent of God, but + describe it by stating that it is an aërial ascending + current over the Mediterranean, produced by the heated sands of + Africa and Arabia. We can even measure its heat at 200° + Fahrenheit, and its velocity at fifty-four miles per hour. But + it attacks us just as unexpectedly as it did the apostle, and + brings disease and death to Naples or Palermo to-day just as + surely as it did to Cambyses. The popular verdict on the matter + would no doubt be that when meteorologists can not only + describe the sirocco, but give warning of its coming, their + science will justify its claim to consideration. The common + sense of mankind always demands as a royalty from every science + daily practical benefits to the mass of men and women. It is + not enough for meteorologists to have proved that the + atmosphere varies in weight, in temperature or velocity of + motion according to fixed rules, or to be able to explain why + no rain falls on a certain portion of the coast of Portugal, + while a like coast-exposure in England is incessantly drenched; + or to have determined beyond a doubt that precisely as the + ocean of water, under the influence of the moon and wind, ebbs + and flows and has its succession of storms or calms, the ocean + of air in which we are enveloped answers to the influence of + the sun in great tidal movements, and has also its vast + steadily moving waves of cold or heat or moisture. These + discoveries of general truths must be brought to bear directly + on men's daily life before they will have fulfilled their true + purpose. It would seem as if nothing were more easy than to + bring them so to bear. Meteorology, more intimately perhaps + than any other science, concerns our ordinary affairs. The + health of mankind, navigation, agriculture, commerce, the + hourly business and needs of every man, from the merchant + sending out his cargo and the consumptive waiting for death in + the east wind, to the laundress hanging out the family wash, + are ruled by that most mysterious, most uncurbed of powers, the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" + id="page75"></a>[pg 75]</span> weather. We may rub along + through life with scanty knowledge of the history of dead + nations or the philosophy of living ones, but heat and cold, + the climate of the coming winter, yesterday's rainfall or + to-morrow's frost, are matters which take hold of every one + of us and affect us every hour of the day. Now, to bring the + known general truths of this science to practical rules, or + to base upon them predictions of storms or changes in the + weather during any future period, requires, as Sir John + Herschel stated twelve years ago, "patient, incessant and + laborious observations, carried on in every region of the + globe." One reason why this is required is the perpetually + shifting conditions of heat, wind and storm. A man who sat + down to work a mathematical problem in the days of Job, if + there was such a man, found its result just the same as the + school-boy does to-day: figures not only never lie, but + never alter. But the man who solves an equation of which the + winds and waters are members finds that the sum to be added + varies with every hour. There are, so far as is yet known, + no regularly recurring cycles of weather on which to base + predictions: the conditions of heat and wind and moisture + are never precisely the same at any given point. Hence the + necessity, if we would give the science stability and bring + it to bear on our daily life, of educated, skilled observers + at different points to collect and report simultaneously the + daily details of the present conditions.</p> + + <p>It is this daily detail of fact which the United States + government supplies through the little stations of observation + one of which we have stumbled into on the Jersey beach. + Americans, indeed, have from the first taken hold of this + science with a most characteristic effort to reduce it to + practical uses, to bring it at once to bear on the well-being + at least of farmers and navigators. Dove had no sooner + published his chart of isothermal lines and charts, showing the + temperature throughout the world of each month, and also of + abnormal temperatures, than our government issued the <i>Army + Meteorological Register</i> for the United States, which for + accuracy and fullness had never been equaled. In these the + temperature and rainfall for each month of the year were shown. + The forecasts of the weather now published daily in this + country, and which come so directly home to every man's + business that Old Probabilities is a real personage to us all, + have been given in England for several years under the + supervision of Admiral Fitzroy.</p> + + <p>But it is high time now that we should come back to our + little wooden house on the beach, and tell what we know of its + occupants and uses. The courteous gentleman (in a blue flannel + suit for "roughing it") who sits at the telegraphic wires is + Sergeant G——, belonging to the Signal Service + Department of the army. Instruction in this department is given + at Fort Whipple, Va. One hundred officers besides Sergeant + G—— are now in charge of stations, with 139 + privates as assistants. The average force at Fort Whipple is + 140 men. These men are, in point of fact, soldiers liable to be + called into active service in the field: their duty there, + however, is not fighting, but signaling and telegraphy—a + duty quite as dangerous as the bearing of arms. Fresh recruits + for this service are divided into those capable of receiving + instruction only in field duty and those for "full service," + which includes, with military signaling and telegraphy, the + taking of meteoric observations, the collating and publication + of such observations, and the deduction from them of correct + results. Passing two examinations successfully in the latter + course, the signal-service soldier is detailed for duty at a + post as assistant, and after six months' satisfactory service + is returned to Fort Whipple for the special instruction given + to observer-sergeants. When qualified for this work he is + detailed, as a vacancy occurs, for actual service.</p> + + <p>Having thus discovered how our friend the sergeant came into + his post, we looked about to see what he had to do there. The + brilliantly-colored flags overhead drew the eye first. These + flags serve the purpose of an international language on the + high seas, where no other + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" + id="page76"></a>[pg 76]</span> language is practicable. + Twenty thousand distinct messages can be sent by them. + Rogers's system has been, adopted by the United States Navy, + the Lighthouse Board, the United States Coast Survey and the + principal lines of steamers. Each flag represents a number, + and four flags can be hoisted at once on the staff. With the + flags there is given a book containing the meaning of each + number. Thus, a wrecked ship cries silently to the shore, + "Send a lifeboat" by flags 3, 8, 9, or says that she is + sinking by 6, 3, 2; or a vessel under full sail hails + another by 8, 6, 0, or bids her "<i>bon voyage</i>" with 8, + 9, 7. Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing colors in + cloudy days or when the flags will not fly, other systems of + signaling are used: that of cones similar to umbrellas being + considered in the English service one of the most efficient, + a different arrangement of cones on the staff representing + the nine numerals. Men may convert themselves into cones in + an emergency by raising or letting fall their arms, and two + men thus give any signal necessary. As the flags, however, + belong more especially to Sergeant G—— 's duty + on the field of battle or to exceptional cases of storm and + danger, we pass them by to examine into his daily round of + duty. Outside, a queer little house of lattice-work perched + on a headland shelters the thermometers and barometers: on a + still higher point directly over the foaming breakers is the + anemometer, the little instrument which measures the + swiftness of the fiercest cyclone as easily as the lightest + spring breeze. It consists of four brass cups shaped to + catch the wind, and attached to the ends of two horizontal + iron rods, which cross each other and are supported in the + middle by a long pole on which they turn freely. The cups + revolve with just one-third of the wind's velocity, and make + five hundred revolutions whilst a mile of wind passes over + them. A register of these revolutions is made by machinery + similar to a gas-meter. The popular idea, by the way, of the + speed of the wind runs very far beyond the truth: we are apt + to say of a racer that he goes like the wind, when the fact + is the horse of a good strain of blood leaves the laggard + tempest far behind; the ordinary winds of every day travel + only five miles an hour, a breeze of sixteen and a quarter + miles an hour being strong enough to cause great discomfort + in town or field: thirty-three miles is dangerous at sea, + and sixty-five miles a violent hurricane, sweeping all + before it.</p> + + <p>Our friend the sergeant examines seven times a day at stated + periods the condition of the atmosphere as to heat, weight and + moisture, the velocity of the wind, the kind, amount and speed + of the clouds, and measures the rainfall and the ocean swell: + all these observations are recorded, and three are daily + reported to headquarters at Washington. In these telegrams a + cipher is used—as much, we presume, to ensure accuracy in + the figures as for purposes of secresy. In this cipher the + fickle winds are given the names of women with a covert sarcasm + quite out of place in the respectable old weather-prophet whom + every housewife consults before the day's work begins. Thus, + when the telegraph operator receives the mysterious message, + "Francisco Emily alone barge churning did frosty guarding + hungry," how is he to know that it means "San Francisco + Evening. Rep. Barom. 29.40, Ther. 61, Humidity 18 per cent., + Velocity of wind 41 miles per hour, 840 pounds pressure, + Cirro-stratus. N.W. 1/4 to 2/4, Cumulo-stratus East, Rainfall + 2.80 inch."?</p> + + <p>Besides these simultaneous reports from the one hundred and + eight United States stations which are telegraphed to the + central office at Washington, there are received there daily + three hundred and eighty-three volunteer reports from every + part of the country, these being the system of meteorological + observations under control of the Smithsonian Institution for + twenty-four years, and given in charge to the Signal Service + Bureau in 1874. In addition to these, again, are simultaneous + reports from Russia, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, + England, Algiers, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, + Portugal, Switzerland, Canada—in all two hundred and + fourteen. When we add together, therefore, + the</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" + id="page77"></a>[pg 77]</span> + + <table summary="" + align="center"> + <tr> + <td align="left">United States Signal Service + reports</td> + + <td> </td> + + <td align="right">108</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align="left">Volunteer reports</td> + + <td> </td> + + <td align="right">383</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align="left">International reports</td> + + <td> </td> + + <td align="right">214</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td align="left">Reports of medical corps of army</td> + + <td> </td> + + <td align="right">123</td> + </tr> + </table> + + <p>we have a grand total of eight hundred and twenty-eight + daily simultaneous reports received at the central office, + where Brigadier-General Albert J. Myer and his brevet aide, + Captain H.W. Howgate (or, if you choose, Old Probabilities + himself), wait to scan through these many watchful eyes the + heavens around the world and utter incessant prophecies and + warnings. Besides the regular observations, report is also made + of casual phenomena—lightning, auroras, time of first and + last frosts, etc., etc.</p> + + <p>The history of the Signal Service Bureau and the + establishment of these stations and telegraph-lines, bringing + the whole country under the instant oversight of one + intelligent observer, would, if it were briefly written, be + full of points of dramatic interest. As yet it must be gathered + out of acts of Congress and official reports. The service has + now existed for fourteen years, but is still without that full + recognition by Congress which would ensure its permanency. + "With interests depending on its daily work as great as can by + any possibility rest upon any other branch of the service, it + is yet regarded as an experiment, an offshoot of regular army + service existing on sufferance, liable at any moment to be + hindered in its operations, if not totally abolished." The + benefit of this daily work, however, affects too nearly and + constantly the mass of the people to allow much danger of its + final extinction. What the real value of this practical work is + can be gathered not only from the dry statistics of annual + reports, but from the increased confidence placed in it by the + people, the unscientific working majority.</p> + + <p>The help given to farmers should rank perhaps first in + estimating the value of this work. At midnight of each day the + midnight forecast is telegraphed to twenty centres of + distribution, located strictly with regard to the agricultural + population. The telegrams, as soon as received, are printed by + signal-service men, rapidly enveloped in wrappers already + stamped and addressed, and sent by the swiftest conveyance to + every post-office which can be reached before 2 P.M. of the + same day, and when received are displayed on bulletin-boards. + The average time elapsing from the moment when the bulletin + leaves the central office until it reaches every post-office + from Maine to Florida is ten hours. In 1874, 6286 of these + farmers' bulletins were issued, and when we consider that by + each one of them reliable information as to the chances of + success or failure in planting or reaping was given, we gain + some idea of the directness and force of the work of this + bureau.</p> + + <p>The river reports of the office include not only regular + daily observations of the changing depths of the great + water-highways, but forecasts of coming floods or sudden rises + and falls of the river-levels. Before the great floods in the + Mississippi Valley in 1874 the warnings given by this means, + and which could have been given by no other, saved an + incalculable amount of property and human life. Bulletins are + also issued regarding approaching freezing of our canals in the + winter months, and have enabled shippers to avoid the accidents + common heretofore when enormous quantities of grain, etc. in + transit have been detained by this means, to the serious + disturbance of the market.</p> + + <p>Cautionary day and night signals are displayed at the + principal ports and harbors when dangerous winds or storms are + anticipated. In one year 762 of these warning signals were + displayed, and 561 were verified by storms of destructive winds + which otherwise would not have been foreseen. In not a single + instance during the last two years has a great storm reached, + without warning from the office, the lakes or seaports of the + country. The amount of shipping, property and life thus saved + to the country is simply incalculable.</p> + + <p>Tri-daily deductions or probabilities of the weather, wind + and storms, with part of the data on which they rest, are + published in all the principal papers of the country, and each + man and woman can <span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" + id="page78"></a>[pg 78]</span> testify as to their use of + them. Who now goes to be married or to bury his dead or to + begin a journey without consulting the two oracular lines in + italics at the head of the leading column? They have come to + take part in our domestic lives. The people would miss + politics or the markets or literature out of the paper with + less regret than Probabilities should the service be + discontinued.</p> + + <p>Besides this practical labor, there is the publication of + nine daily charts on which are inscribed 2160 readings of + different instruments, giving an accurate view of the general + meteoric condition; monthly charts and charts condensing the + results of years of observation; records furnished for the + study of scientific men more comprehensive and regular than can + be offered by any similar institution in any country.</p> + + <p>A special bit of history comes to light respecting our + little wooden shed at the head of Barnegat Bay. An act of + Congress approved March, 1873, authorized the establishment of + signal stations at lighthouses or life-saving stations along + dangerous coasts, and the connection of the same by telegraphs, + thirty thousand dollars being appropriated for that end. In + consequence, signal stations were established on the + Massachusetts coast, from Norfolk, Va., to Cape Hatteras, and + more closely along this dangerous lee-shore of New Jersey, and + telegraph-lines were laid connecting them with each other and + also with the central office. The plan for the future is to net + the whole coast—the lake, Atlantic and Pacific + shores—with these stations and telegraph-wires. By this + means information of coming storms can be conveyed by signal to + vessels, or of wrecks, by telegraph, to other life-saving + stations: the close watch kept upon the ocean-swell and + currents will give warning inland of approaching changes in the + weather; for it is a singular fact that the ocean-swell + communicates this intelligence more quickly than the barometer, + in quite another sense than the poet's</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Every wave has tales to tell</p> + + <p>Of storms far out at sea.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Our little station belongs to the advanced guard of this + proposed line which is to encircle the coast, the whole work of + establishing these stations and telegraph-lines having been, + done by Sergeant G—— and his comrades. Indeed, when + we look at all the work done by our blue-coated friend, his + steady, unintermitting attention to duty by day and night year + after year, his comfortless quarters in the wooden shed on the + lonely beach, and the almost absolute solitude for an educated + man during many months of the year, we begin to think his + station not the least honorable among the soldiers of the + republic. Almost any man, set down on the battle-field, one + army to meet and another to back him, with the crash of music + and arms, the magnetic fury of combat blazing in the air, would + rise to the height of the moment and prove himself manly. But + to be faithful to petty tasks hour after hour, through all + kinds of privation and weather, for years, is quite a different + matter.</p> + + <p>The reports of the chief officer give us a hint of some of + the privations borne by the observer-sergeants, educated young + fellows like our friend. In 1872 the chief ordered one of these + men to establish a station on the western coast of Alaska and + on the island of St. Paul in Behring Sea, which was done, the + observer continuing for a year in that farthest outpost. His + record of frozen fogs which wrap the island like a pall, of + cyclones from the Asian seas that lash its rocky coast, of vast + masses of electric clouds seen nowhere else which sweep + incessantly over it toward the Pole, reads more like the story + of a nightmare dream than a scientific statement.</p> + + <p>In the next spring the chief ordered another sergeant to + found a station on Mount Mitchell, the highest mountain-peak + east of the Mississippi. Professor Mitchell discovered and + measured this mountain about twenty years ago. While taking + meteorological observations upon it he was overtaken by a + storm, lost his way, and was dashed to pieces over one of its + terrible precipices. Several years after his death the + government, suddenly recognizing his right to some + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" + id="page79"></a>[pg 79]</span> acknowledgment from science, + ordered his body to be disinterred and buried on the topmost + peak of the mountain. It was a work of weeks, the body in + its coffin being carried by the hardy mountaineers up almost + impassable heights. But it reached the top at last, and lies + there in the sky above all human life, with the mountain for + a monument. One is startled by such a pathetic whim of + poetic justice in a government. It was to this peak that the + sergeant was ordered to carry his instruments and to make an + abiding-place for himself. And here, after two days' journey + from the base, he arrived at night in a storm of snow and + hail—the guides having cleared the way with + axes—set up his instruments, and took observations + above the clouds while trees and rocks were sheeted with + ice, and there was no shelter for himself or his companions + from the furious tempests. A hut was built after a few days, + and here the observer remained with the lonely grave as + companion, taking hourly observations during several + months.</p> + + <p>Another officer was sent to the top of Pike's Peak, where he + lived in a rudely-constructed cabin until his health broke + down; he was then replaced by another, who after a year was + obliged to yield also. As soon as one soldier succumbs in these + perilous outposts another goes forward. The rarity of the air + at this great altitude (nearly thirteen thousand feet) produces + nausea, fever and dizziness: added to this were the intense + cold and exposure to terrific storms. Sergeant Seyboth records + several nights when he with his companions were forced, in a + driving tempest, to leave the shelter of their hut and work all + night heaping rocks upon its roof to keep it from being blown + away; beneath them, many thousand feet, was the rolling sea of + clouds. Again and again these men were lost in the drifted snow + of the cañons while passing from station to station, and + barely escaped with their lives. So imminent, indeed, was their + danger during the winter of 1873 that prayers for their safety + were offered continually in the churches below.</p> + + <p>Frederick Meyer, another of these signal-service soldiers, + was sent on the North Polar expedition with Captain Hall. No + such marvelous tale as that contained in his formal report was + ever found in fiction. Sergeant Meyer made observations every + three hours on the voyage north, and hourly when coming south, + during a year and two months. At the end of that time, as is + well known to our readers, he, with part of the crew of the + Polaris, was deserted by the ship, and left on a floe of ice in + 79° north latitude, the steamer going southward without + attempting their relief. Even in that moment of extremity he + made an effort to secure the case containing his observations, + but it was washed away from him by heavy seas. For six months + these nineteen human beings drifted on the mass of ice over the + polar seas, through all the darkness and horrors of an Arctic + winter, without fire except such as was made by burning one of + their boats—a feeble blaze daily, enough to warm a quart + of water in which to soak their pemmican—without shelter + save such as the heaped ice and snow afforded, and on + starvation diet. After four months the floe began to melt so + rapidly that it was but twenty yards wide. "We dared not + sleep," says Sergeant Meyer, "fearing the ice would break under + us and we should find our grave in the Arctic Sea." Several + times the ice did break beneath them, and they were washed into + the flood, but scrambled up again on the fast-melting floe. + During the whole of this time the signal-service soldier + continued faithful to his work, taking such observations as + were possible with the instruments left to him. The boat had + been burned long before, and they warmed their water with an + Esquimaux lamp. On April 22d their provisions consisted of but + ten biscuits. Starvation was before them when a bear was shot, + and they lived on its raw meat for two weeks. At the end of + that time a steamer passed within sight. The poor wretches on + the ice hoisted a flag and shouted, but the vessel passed out + of sight. Another ship a few days later came within the horizon + and disappeared. The next day was foggy: again a steamer was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" + id="page80"></a>[pg 80]</span> sighted, and for hours the + shipwrecked crew strove to make themselves seen and heard + through the fog, firing shots, hoisting their torn flag and + shouting at the tops of their voices. They were seen at + last, and taken aboard the Tigress, "more like ghastly + spectres who had come up through hell," says one of the + narrators, "than living men."</p> + + <p>The pay of the signal-service soldiers is small, and it is + hardly to be supposed that they are all enthusiasts in science, + or so in love with meteorology that they cheerfully brave + danger and hardships such as these for its sake. We must look + for the secret of their loyalty to their steady, tedious work + in that quiet devotion to duty which we find in the majority of + honest men—the feeling that they must go through with + what they have once undertaken. And, after all, the majority of + men are honest, and loyalty to irksome work is so commonplace a + matter that it is only when we see it carry a man steadily + through great and sudden peril, or consider how in its great + total the work of obscure individuals has lifted humanity to + higher levels in the last three centuries, that we can + understand how good a thing it is.</p> + + <p>At some future time we shall ransack the lower floor of the + little house on the beach and discover what is to be found + there.</p> + + <p class="author">REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.</p> + + <h2>A DEAD LOVE.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>O Rose! within my bloomy croft,</p> + + <p class="i2">Where hidden sweets compacted dwell,</p> + + <p>The wanton wind with breathings soft,</p> + + <p class="i2">To perfect flower thy bud shall + swell,</p> + + <p class="i4">Then steal thy rich perfume,</p> + + <p class="i4">Tarnish both grace and bloom,</p> + + <p>Until, thy pearly prime being past,</p> + + <p>Withered and dead thou'lt lie at last.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>O gleaming Night! whose cloudy hair</p> + + <p class="i2">Waves dark amid its woven light,</p> + + <p>Bestudded thick with jewels rare,</p> + + <p class="i2">Than royal diadem more bright,</p> + + <p class="i4">Lo! the white hands of Day</p> + + <p class="i4">Shall strip thy gauds away,</p> + + <p>And in the twilight of the morn</p> + + <p>Mock thy estate with cold-eyed scorn.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>My love, O Rose! hath had a day</p> + + <p class="i2">As fair, a fate as quick, as thine:</p> + + <p>All wrapped in perfumed sleep I lay</p> + + <p class="i2">Till my fond fancies grew divine,</p> + + <p class="i4">And sweet Elysium seemed</p> + + <p class="i4">Around me as I dreamed.</p> + + <p>The rose is dead, the dawn comes fast:</p> + + <p>Joy dies, but grief awakes at last.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="author">F.A. HILLARD.</p> + </div> + </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" + id="page81"></a>[pg 81]</span> + + <h2>GENTILHOMME AND GENTLEMAN.</h2> + + <p>"Le dernier gentilhomme de France vient de mourir!" + exclaimed the <i>Figaro</i> a short time ago when recording the + death of the Count de Cambis. But the announcement has been + made so often during the last century that we are led to hope + that the race may not be extinct yet. Every generation of + Frenchmen has boasted the possession of its "first" and + lamented the loss of its "last" "gentilhomme de France," and on + each occasion have hasty English journalists of the day joined + both in the glorification and the lamentation over the + individuals thus commemorated by their own countrymen. The term + "gentilhomme" is so liable to be confounded with "gentleman" + that it needs explaining, for, despite the similarity of + derivation, no two words can be more distinct. The French + gentilhomme must be of noble blood: he must be of ancient and + distinguished race, for no <i>nouveau parvenu</i> can ever + aspire to be cited as a <i>vrai gentilhomme</i>, while the + qualifications necessary for sustaining the character seem to + be wholly confined to the one virtue of generosity. Whenever + you hear it said of a man, "Il s'est conduit en vrai + gentilhomme," be sure that it means no more than that he + performed a simple act of justice in a courteous and graceful + manner. The sacred and self-imposed qualities which make up the + significance of the English word "gentleman" no Frenchman, nor + indeed any foreigner, can understand, and the word itself is + never translated, but always left in its original English. + Bulwer defines the appellation more clearly than any other + author when he says, "The word <i>gentleman</i> has become a + title peculiar to us—not, as in other countries, resting + on pedigree and coats-of-arms, but embracing all who unite + gentleness with manhood."</p> + + <p>Now the gentilhomme of France is an entirely different type. + He <i>must</i> rely on pedigree and coats-of-arms; he must be + sudden and quick in quarrel; he must fling away his money + freely amongst the <i>roture</i>; he must be what is called a + <i>beau joueur</i>—that is to say, he may lose at the + gaming-table the dowry of his mother, the marriage-portion of + his sister, everything, in short, save his temper; he may + defraud a creditor, and be the first to laugh at the fraud. + "One God, one love, one king!" is the cry of the good old + English gentleman. But in religion the gentilhomme + Français may declare with Henri Quatre that "Paris vaut + bien une messe;" in love he may pledge his faith to as many + mistresses as that same valiant sovereign; and in politics he + may cry, "Vive le Roi! vive la Ligue!" and yet remain a + <i>parfait gentilhomme</i> in spite of all.</p> + + <p>Every generation seems to have furnished its <i>parfait + gentilhomme par excellence</i>. The court of Louis Quatorze + boasted of its Chevalier de Grammont, from whose own confession + we learn that he gloried in the skill with which he cheated the + poor Count de Camma at Lyons and the cunning with which he + eluded payment of his bill at the inn.</p> + + <p>Then came M. de Montrond, and he again was <i>premier + gentilhomme de France</i> while he lived and <i>le dernier des + gentilhommes Français</i> when he died. M. de Montrond + belonged to two generations, two strongly-contrasted epochs. At + his first ball at court he wore a powdered <i>cadogan</i> and + danced in <i>talons rouges</i>: at his last he lolled with bald + head against a doorway, in varnished boots and starched cravat. + His existence has remained an enigma to this hour. Although + solicited to accept office by every party that rose to power + during his life, he steadfastly refused, and yet, by virtue of + his quality of premier gentilhomme de France, possessed + unbounded influence with them all. The explanation he gave of + his system was cynical enough: "A man must march straight to + the cash-box and secure the money, without waiting + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" + id="page82"></a>[pg 82]</span> in the ante-room or the + bureau: the power is sure to follow." He chatted politics + sometimes, but never "talked" them, and seldom failed to + introduce the names of one or more of the forty-three + duchesses, countesses and marquises whose peace of mind he + boasted of having wrecked for ever. Is it not strange that + such frothy frivolity could have obtained dominion for more + than fifty years over the most critical people in the world? + But Montrond always declared that no man in France would + ever take the trouble to read a book if once he had taken + the trouble to read the preface. Even by the capricious and + pedantic yet ignorant society of fashionable London his + fantastical dominion was acknowledged; and the reason of + this will be understood at once in the fearlessness with + which he uttered his rule of conduct: "Every man of + distinction should settle his income at ten thousand pounds + a year, and never trouble himself whether or not he + possesses as much for the capital." This premier gentilhomme + de France was proud of his want of reading, and used often + to declare that the only two books he had ever skimmed were + the wearisome <i>Henriade</i> of Voltaire and the frivolous + <i>Liaisons Dangereuses</i> of Laclos. No research, no + analysis of character, can be found to explain the strange + inconsistency by which M. de Montrond was, notwithstanding, + entrusted by every government under which he lived with the + most important secrets, the most serious + negotiations—sent abroad to stay revolutions, summoned + home to remodel constitutions, and consulted on every point + as though he had spent his whole life in the study of + Montesquieu or Colbert. Such was the moral life of the man + pronounced the premier gentilhomme de France by the fathers + and grandfathers of the present generation.</p> + + <p>Let us glance at the physical side of his + existence—the outward and visible sign of the distinctive + title with which he was honored. M. de Montrond began his + career by the study of arms, wine, women and dice—which + constituted the accomplishments necessary for a gentleman of + the period—in the regiment of Royal Flanders. Theodore + Lamette was his first colonel, Douai his first garrison-town. + Soon after his arrival there every man in the place became his + devoted friend, every woman his willing slave, and every + tradesman his ready creditor. It so happened that a detachment + of Royal Cravattes had sought temporary quarters in the same + town; and among the officers was a certain Comte de Champagne, + a great duelist and gamester. From this man, by some good + fortune, over which a veil has always been thrown by Montrond's + friends, he won a considerable sum, and on finding, after + suffering a considerable time to elapse, that no sign of + payment was made, he proclaimed his intention of taking + steps—not according, but in opposition, to the + law—in order to obtain his due. Montrond knew himself to + be a wretched swordsman, and therefore resolved at once to + replace his want of skill by audacity. He sent his servant to + the stable where four-and-twenty goodly steeds belonging to the + Count de Champagne were champing their oats in all security, + with orders to carry them off and leave in lieu of the + magnificent animals a message to the effect that M. de Montrond + would sell the stud to pay himself, and hand over the balance + to the Count de Champagne. In a few hours, as he had expected, + he was called to the field, and presented himself before the + great duelist with a phlegmatic humor which completely upset + the count's own self-possession. Montrond was hit hard at the + first lunge. He had intended to be; and the result has become + historical in the annals of dueling. He had been pierced in the + breast by his adversary's sword, and was evidently thought by + the latter to have received his death-wound. In token of this + belief the Count de Champagne lowered his weapon, and then M. + de Montrond, making one desperate thrust, drove his sword right + through his adversary's heart. The Count de Champagne fell dead + without a cry, without a struggle. Then M. de Montrond rose + covered with glory and with honor, for in such adventures lay + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" + id="page83"></a>[pg 83]</span> the fame of the gentilhommes + of that time.</p> + + <p>It would be impossible to recount the long catalogue of M. + de Montrond's triumphs after this. He became the idol of + fashion—as much with the Directoire as he had been with + the old court—and under the patronage of Madame Tallien + he was permitted to carry amongst the stern republicans the + habits and morals of the Régence. It was at this moment + of his life that the one act of expiation of the past took + place. He worked with right good-will for the benefit of the + exiled nobles, many of whom were recalled through his + influence, which was so great that he found means to persuade + the unkempt rulers of the Republic to invite to their banquets + the pardoned émigrés, and to show that they felt + no rancor and experienced no dread.</p> + + <p>We were about to follow the example of Montrond himself, and + forget that he was married—"just as little as possible," + as he was wont to say, but legally, notwithstanding. He married + during the Revolutionary movement a <i>grande dame</i>, a + divorced lady, a certain Duchesse de Fleury, who had sought in + this union nothing more than the protection of her property + against the name of her first husband, through which it would + have been infallibly condemned to confiscation. Many of the + great ladies of that time had done likewise, thus defrauding + the Republic. But the Duchesse de Fleury neglected the most + important precaution of all—that of securing protection + against the protector she had chosen, who at once seized the + property—more gayly perhaps, but quite as effectually as + the Republic would have done. The terms of the + marriage-contract may be quoted as a specimen of the motives by + which the premier gentilhomme de France was governed in the + transaction. After the declaration that the Duchesse de Fleury + had brought to the <i>communauté</i> certain houses and + lands, besides an income of forty thousand livres, we find + added by way of set-off to this fortune that the count engaged + himself to bring yearly the sum of a hundred thousand + francs—the produce of his wits. After a little while, the + premier gentilhomme having exercised the said wits in spending + the produce of the houses and lands of Madame de Fleury, and + Madame de Fleury not being able to return the compliment by + selling the wits of the Count de Montrond, the two went on + their respective ways, leaving to Providence the task of + redeeming the lands which the wits had sold and the income + which the wits had scattered to the four winds of heaven.</p> + + <p>Space is wanting to recount the struggles of the different + parties which succeeded each other with such frightful rapidity + in France to obtain possession of the Count de Montrond's + influence. But he remained true to one principle, the one with + which he started—"to make straight for the cash-box." Yet + with all this prosaic prudence, amid the poetry of his + position, the moral of this man's life was fulfilled to the + very letter. The Count de Montrond managed to outlive every + pecuniary resource save the one afforded by the remembrance of + "auld lang syne" and the unforgotten days of bygone love. He + died in the house of Madame Hamelin, after having been soothed + and sheltered by this friend and protectress through the + revolutionary storm of 1848. He died dependent, subject to the + same changes and caprice he had so long inflicted upon + others.</p> + + <p>Montrond's successor, the Count de Cambis, the man who has + represented the premier gentilhomme de France in our day, died + lately at as good an old age as the Count de Montrond. + <i>Autres tems, autres moeurs</i>: no more cheating at cards, + no more beating the watch, as in the case of the Chevalier de + Grammont; no more dueling and killing the adversary by + surprise, as in that of the Count de Montrond. When the + bourgeois king, Louis Philippe, succeeded to the elder branch, + the gentilhomme Français entirely lost his prestige, and + the necessity of his existence was ignored. Everything + bourgeois had become the fashion at court: the court itself was + denominated a <i>basse-cour</i> (farm-yard) by the Faubourg St. + Germain, and all who frequented it "les oies de Frère + Philippe" <span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" + id="page84"></a>[pg 84]</span> or "les canards + d'Orléans." The Count de Cambis appeared at that + moment at the Tuileries in search of office. His name stood + high in the annals of the French noblesse: society had, + however, ceased to confound the gentilhomme with the + roué. The conditions necessary to fulfill the + character were changed, and it was now the bourgeois + gentilhomme and not the gentilhomme roué whose claim + to the vacant place was more likely to be accepted. The + Count de Cambis had held the place of honorary equerry to + the Duc d'Angoulême, having obtained it less on + account of his patent of nobility than by reason of his + unblemished character. He was now in search of some place + about the court, and soon found favor in the eyes of the + citizen-king, to whom the quiet virtues of the + Tiers-État were of more value than the flash and + tinsel of the Régence. The count was of fine, + commanding person and handsome countenance: moreover, he was + "the man with a story," and a painful one it was, creative + of the greatest interest in the tender bosoms of the Orleans + princesses. Although poor, belonging to a ruined family, his + prospects had been good at the court of Charles Dix, and one + of the greatest ladies of the court had cast her eyes upon + him as a suitable <i>parti</i> for her daughter. The young + lady, nothing loath, had accepted with alacrity the + proposition of marriage, seconded as it was by the Duchesse + d'Angoulême, and backed by the promise of high office + on its realization. A marriage is easy to arrange in France; + not so the execution of the marriage-contract, which is + rendered as wearisome by delays as the still more dilatory + proceedings of the law; and therefore it was deemed + advisable, in order to pass this dismal period, to despatch + the Count de Cambis to Holland for the purchase of horses + for the royal stable. Arrived at The Hague, he was seized + with an attack of smallpox, which laid him prostrate on the + low flock bed of the miserable little inn to which he had + been conveyed on landing from the boat. Here he lay for some + time incognito, his identity unknown to any save the + faithful valet who attended him, until he had perfectly + recovered from the disease, which, however, was found to + have left the most frightful traces of its passage in scar + and seam and furrow from forehead to chin. The handsome + young cavalier who landed so full of hope and spirits on the + quay at The Hague rose from his bed with a face bloated and + discolored, seamed and scarred and pockmarked, his once + luxuriant locks grown thin and dank, his eyelashes gone, his + whole appearance so changed that as he gazed at himself for + the first time in the looking-glass he was overwhelmed with + such despair that, as he owned afterward to his friends, he + would have thrown himself from the window at which he stood + into the canal below had he not been prevented by the strong + arm of his servant, Dulac. A terrible period of anguish and + depression followed on this first excitement, but he awoke + from it and returned to life once more, a sadder and a wiser + man. When the first impression of horror and dismay had + passed away his resolution was taken at once. He resolved to + disengage the lady from her vow, and sat down to write the + words which were to rend his heart in twain. At that moment + Dulac entered the room with a packet of letters just arrived + from Paris by estafette. Amongst them was one from the young + lady's mother, full of sweet pleasantry and graceful mirth, + describing the gay doings at the Tuileries, and the delight + her daughter had experienced at the idea of being allowed to + attend the Duchesse d'Angoulême to the ball about to + be given in honor of the visit to Paris of some one or other + of the Spanish princes. She described with the greatest + vivacity all the details of the toilet to be worn by her + chère petite Adèle and the kindness of the + royal princess, and ended with the most affectionate + expressions of regret at the absence from the fête of + her daughter's affianced lover, writing in playful terms of + the danger in which Adèle's heart would have been + placed at the accession of so many new and handsome + cavaliers in attendance on the Spanish prince had it not + been for the precaution of wearing, as the safest shield + against all attacks, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" + id="page85"></a>[pg 85]</span> the locket which contained + the portrait of her brave and beautiful lover—the + miniature he had given her on his departure. He turned from + the perusal of the letter with a deadly chill at his heart: + he crushed it in his hand, and threw it on the blazing logs + upon the hearth, holding it down with the tongs until every + fiery spark had disappeared, then watched the blackened + flakes as they flew one by one up the chimney; and when the + last had disappeared he dashed the tears from his eyes, and, + to the great surprise and consternation of Dulac, ordered + him to pack up and prepare for their immediate return to + France.</p> + + <p>That very evening he set out by the passage-boat, and + arrived in Paris on the very night of the ball at the + Tuileries. With the strange self-immolation which is generated + in some characters by despair he caused himself to be driven by + the quay round to the Place Louis Quinze, and made the driver + stop so that he might torture himself with the sight of the + lights and the shadows of the dancers. He then alighted at his + own door beneath the gateway in the Rue de Rivoli, which at + that hour was silent and deserted, for the line of carriages + were all setting down in the courtyard of the Place du + Carrousel. The gaping valets merely nodded acquiescence to the + password he muttered as, muffled up to the chin, he glided + noiselessly over the polished floor of the vestibule and + hurried up the stairs. Dulac was well pleased to be home again, + anticipating with delight the enjoyment of that repose which + after such a long arid rapid journey he had well earned. What, + therefore, was his consternation when <i>Monsieur le Comte</i> + announced his intention of attending the ball, ordering him to + prepare in all haste his court-costume for the purpose! Dulac + was accustomed to obey without opposition, and, although + wondering at this sudden vagary on the part of his master, + usually so reasonable in all things, hastened to do his + bidding. The toilet was completed in silence. A few tears were + shed by Dulac over the thin lank locks he was called upon to + friz, and when all was completed and he held aloft the + girandole to light him down the back stairs used by members of + the royal household to gain admission to the state apartments + of the royal palace without passing through the crowd in the + ante-room, the faithful fellow turned heartbroken to his + master's chamber.</p> + + <p>The Count de Cambis entered the ballroom at the moment when + a quadrille was being made up, and the very instinct of his + love—for it could not be mere chance—led him at + once to the room and the place where Mademoiselle de + B—— was seated beside her mother. The count has + often told his friends that he trembled so violently that for a + few minutes he could neither speak nor move, but stood gazing + upon the young lady silent, motionless, as if rooted to the + spot. The whole seemed as if passing before him in a + magic-lantern, and when at length, recalled to himself by the + amazement expressed upon the countenances of both ladies, he + ventured to ask his beautiful fiancée for her hand in + the dance, it was no wonder that she did not recognize his + voice, so choked and husky was it with emotion. But the young + lady turned abruptly away with an impatient gesture, and looked + imploringly at her mother for help against the intrusion of the + repulsive gallant she had secured. At a signal from the matron, + which did not escape the count, she bent her head, and the + count, stooping also, caught the whisper, "Nay, mon enfant, + ugly as he is, he must not be refused, or you cannot dance with + any other partners all night." With pouting lips and tearful + eyes the young lady extended her hand, but by the time she had + raised her eyes again the suppliant had vanished through the + doorway, his disappearance as mysterious as his first + apparition, and, strange to say, was seen no more. He had + caught sight of the locket, the miniature of himself, with the + bright eyes and flowing hair, the long black eyelashes and + glossy moustache. It seemed to reproach him with the fraud he + was premeditating against the lovely girl to whom, if he + listened to the dictates of honor, he must henceforth be as one + dead—as one, indeed, who had died many years + before.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" + id="page86"></a>[pg 86]</span> + + <p>His anguish was intense. The test of love had been + deceptive, the ordeal had failed, the verdict had been given + against him. He went back to his chamber, where Dulac was still + busily engaged in unpacking his valise, bade the astounded + valet replace everything he had already taken out, and hurry at + once to the Poste aux Chevaux to command horses for the return + journey to The Hague. As soon as he arrived at that place he + wrote a long letter to the young lady's mother releasing her + daughter from all obligation toward himself, and announcing his + determination never to intrude himself upon her notice again. + The Duchesse d'Angoulême, whose experience of life was of + its bitterness alone, is said to have interfered to prevent the + affair from becoming public, and to have assisted in finding + another <i>parti</i> for the deserted fair one.</p> + + <p>Meanwhile, the Restoration with its disappointments and + broken vows was replaced by the government of Louis Philippe + with its hopes and promises. The Count de Cambis, whose + official position was annihilated by the storm which swept over + the kingdom, found himself immediately, with the whole army of + officials, compelled to choose between poverty and obscurity or + treachery to his former benefactors. When this combat is + allowed to take place between the heart and the stomach, the + latter generally carries the day; and so it did in this case. + The Count de Cambis did but follow the majority in binding + himself at once to the interests of the Orleans family. Louis + Philippe, who, like all French sovereigns, displayed undue + eagerness to make use of the old servants of the preceding + dynasty, was not slow to avail himself of the offer of service + made by the Count de Cambis. A place was found for him as + superintendent of the royal stud, and here he really displayed + that disinterestedness in his dealings which entitled him to + the highest consideration. The Duke of Orleans, whose + aristocratic tastes always inclined him to favor distinction of + birth, treated the Count de Cambis with especial preference; + and on his side the count was careful to flatter the instincts + of His Royal Highness by assuming the manners and gait of the + ancient raffinés of the Garde Royale. One of the duke's + chief delights consisted in fashioning his household + regulations after the model set by the Due d'Angoulême, + and the count became his chief counsel and adviser in every + matter concerning the etiquette to be observed in a + well-ordered court. The tradition preserved to the latest hour + of the existence of the royal stables tells of the fatality + which rendered the Count de Cambis the avenger of the + Restoration he had denied through his share in the catastrophe + which deprived the throne of July of its heir.</p> + + <p>It was the 13th of July, 1842. The day was fine. The duke + appeared at a window which looked into the courtyard where the + Count de Cambis was giving orders concerning the day's service. + "The victoria to-day," called out His Royal Highness from the + balcony.—"And Tom?" was the question sent upward to the + duke.—"No, let me have Kent: he goes best with Ridge," + returned the duke.—"But Kent has been much worked lately, + monseigneur, and—."—"Well, well, Cambis, as you + like: you know best," was the final reply as the duke turned + away from the window and retreated into the chamber. Just then + one of the grooms, who had been standing at a respectful + distance and had overheard the words, came forward and in a + voice full of mystery begged to inform M. le Comte that + something was wrong with Tom, who had been observed to be + restless and irritable the whole morning, and inquired whether + it would not be well to have him doctored. "Pooh! pooh!" + exclaimed the count. "You are all chicken-hearted in + <i>your</i> stable—always complaining of Tom, whose only + fault lies in his spirit. He only shows his thorough breeding, + and the duke wishes to make a gallant display on starting. + There is a crowd already gathered round the gate to see him + drive off." So Tom was harnessed, and the postilion who rode + Piedefer declares that from the very first he argued ill of + Tom's temper, for he observed a vicious expression in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" + id="page87"></a>[pg 87]</span> his eye, and a distension of + the nostrils which never boded good.</p> + + <p>The Duke of Orleans was driven from the palace-gate full of + health and spirits. He was to proceed to Neuilly to bid + farewell to his mother, Queen Amélie, at the little + summer château there. Detractors of the duke's character + will tell you that on the way he stopped and prolonged to undue + length a visit he should not have made at all, and that + consequently he was compelled to urge the postilion to greater + speed. Whatever the cause, just at the entrance of the Route de + la Révolte the dreaded outburst of temper on the part of + the irascible Tom took place. At first merely fidgety, and + managed with the greatest delicacy by the English postilion, + then ill-tempered and capricious, swerving from side to side, + necessitating in self-defence the use of the whip—"But + only gently and lighthanded, as one's obliged to do sometimes, + just to show 'em who's master," was the poor fellow's + explanation amid the bitter tears he shed when recounting the + catastrophe—when suddenly Tom reared and plunged, and set + off at a mad gallop which no human hand could have had the + power to arrest. The postilion kept a cool head and steady + seat: not so the Duke of Orleans, who rose to his feet in alarm + just as the wheels of the carriage struck against a stone. The + shock caused him to lose his balance: he was dashed violently + to the ground, and in a few hours the hope of France lay dead + in the small back shop of a petty tradesman in the avenue.</p> + + <p>The blow was a dreadful one—far heavier than that of a + mere domestic bereavement. It was felt that the royal family + had lost its hold, not of authority, but of sentiment, upon the + nation—that the dynasty for which such sacrifices had + been made was wrecked for ever. But no blame was attached to + any individual save by the Count de Cambis himself, who + acknowledged the grievous responsibility he had incurred by + instantly sending in his resignation and withdrawing from + court. In vain did Louis Philippe endeavor to persuade him to + return; in vain did the queen herself, even amid the desolation + of the first storm of grief, disclaim any imputation of blame + to the count; in vain did the Duc de Némours write with + his own hand the urgent request that he would resume office, + were it only for a time, in order to display to the world the + conviction felt by every member of the royal family of the + utter absence of any neglect or carelessness on his part. It + was of no avail: the Count de Cambis remained steady to his + purpose of retirement, and disappeared entirely from court.</p> + + <p>It was not until the summer of 1847 that a renewal of + intercourse took place. The day was a festival, and the + approaches to the palace were thronged till a late hour. A + garden below the windows, surrounded by a low iron grating, and + called the garden of the Count de Paris, had just been closed + for the night; the sound of the drums beating the + <i>retraite</i> was already dying in the distance; the crowd + had all withdrawn, and yet one solitary figure still remained, + leaning disconsolately against the railing, gazing wistfully + into the garden, and every now and then casting furtive glances + up at the balcony into which opened the window of the apartment + occupied by the Duchess of Orleans. Presently a child came down + the steps and walked straight to the gate against which the + stranger was leaning, his forehead pressed against the grating, + his hand grasping the iron bars. In a moment the key was turned + in the lock, a little hand was placed within that of the Count + de Cambis, and a gentle voice whispered in his ear, "Come in! + come in! We are all there to-night—grandpère and + all. We want to see you so much. It is mamma's fête." + There was no resisting this appeal. Le premier gentilhomme de + France would have been compelled to forego his title had he + refused the invitation, and clasping the child's hand he + traversed the garden in silence, and soon found himself in the + midst of the royal family assembled to celebrate the fête + of St. Hélène in the privacy of domestic + affection. The sight of the well-remembered faces, the smiles + and greetings of the royal family, the cordial kindness of the + king, the silent sympathy of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" + id="page88"></a>[pg 88]</span> the queen, the gentle welcome + of the duchess, at length brought consolation to the wounded + spirit of the count, and without further ado he consented at + once to resume his old position; and the next day, when he + was seen galloping beside the royal carriage up the Champs + Élysées, he was greeted with hearty shouts of + recognition by the promenaders on either side. Everything + now went on in the old train. He was readmitted to the + intimacy of the Orleans family, and retained his place and + the confidence of his master until the revolution of + February drove the Orleans family into exile. He retired + into obscurity with a grace and dignity befitting the + premier gentilhomme de France—without reproach, + without a stain upon his escutcheon. He refused the most + tempting offers of employment at the imperial court, and was + seen no more, save when now and then, passing down the + boulevard with hurried steps, he was recognized by his long + white hair and braided jacket, with the persistent cipher of + the royal house to which he had been for so many years + attached. Then, as he hastened along with riding-whip in + hand and jingling spurs upon his heels, some old bourgeois + sipping his demi-tasse at the door of a café would + exclaim, "There goes the Count de Cambis, le dernier + gentilhomme de France!"</p> + + <p>A desperate attempt was made by the imperialists to set up a + premier gentilhomme of their own in the person of Count Morny, + who sought to revive the traditions of De Grammont and of De + Montrond. He was brave, he was witty, his <i>physique</i> might + be said to realize the ideal of the role, but his <i>morale</i> + was founded on the theories of the Bonaparte school. De + Grammont tells us how he cheated the greasy cattle-dealer; De + Montrond makes us laugh when he relates how in his tour of + mediation with Prince Talleyrand he was wont to take bribes + from two rival princes, each willing to pay a heavy sum that + the other might be baffled; but neither De Grammont nor De + Montrond would ever have consented to soil his hands with such + vile commercial speculations as the Houillères d'Anzin + or the Vieille Montagne, or condescend to such disgraceful + financial mystification as the "Affaire Jecker" of Mexico.</p> + + <p>It would be impossible to explain the difference which + exists between the "gentilhomme" and the "gentleman." It is + felt and understood, but cannot be described. The term + "gentleman" itself is conventional. Neither birth nor + accomplishments, nor even gentle manners, are necessary for + undisputed assumption of the title. The man who acts as a + lawyer's clerk cannot be called a gentleman, according to Judge + Keating's decision, because, the title having no place in the + language of the law, if he chanced to be indicted for a + criminal offence he would be denominated a "laborer." Serjeant + Talfourd's sweeping theory, of the term "gentleman" being + legally applicable to every man who has nothing to do and is + out of the workhouse, cannot be accepted, as it would of + necessity include thieves, mendicants and out-door paupers. The + American police have been compelled, to defend the border-line + of gentility against the encroachments of their vagabond + gold-seekers, card-sharpers and ruffians, and confine the term + to those of respectable calling. In California the term may be + applied to every individual of the male gender and the + Caucasian race, the line being drawn at Chinamen. An American + writer contests the acceptance of the term, in England as being + too vague and uncertain for comprehension by foreigners, and + suggests that some less conventional designation than those now + in use should be found to indicate the idea. To the moral sense + it would be natural to suppose that character rather than + calling would be the most important point in the consideration + of the question; but it is not so. In the four-oared race of + gentlemen amateurs held last year at Agecroft in Lancashire the + prize of silver plate was won by a crew taken from a club + composed entirely of colliers, who had been allowed to row + under protest, they not being acknowledged as "<i>gentlemen</i> + amateurs." The race over and the prize won by the colliers, an + investigation took <span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" + id="page89"></a>[pg 89]</span> place by the committee. The + result was unanimity of the vote against acceptance of the + qualification of the winners. Here, then, occurred the best + illustration of the comprehension of the term by the + moderns, for the "gentlemen," deeming that money <i>must</i> + be a salvo to pride in the bosom of all whose quality of + gentleman remains unacknowledged, subscribed a handsome sum + to be distributed amongst the disappointed crew. But here, + again, the proof was given of the vague uncertainty of the + term, for the crew of colliers were <i>gentlemen</i> enough + to refuse the proffered gift with scorn.</p> + + <p class="author">G. COLMACHE.</p> + + <h2>SPECIAL PLEADING.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Time, bring back my lord to me:</p> + + <p>Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company?</p> + + <p class="i2">Here's but a heart-break sandy waste</p> + + <p class="i2">'Twixt this and thee. Why, killing + haste</p> + + <p>Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Oh, would that I might divine</p> + + <p>Thy name beyond the zodiac sign</p> + + <p class="i2">Wherefrom our times-to-come descend.</p> + + <p class="i2">He called thee <i>Sometime</i>. Change + it, friend:</p> + + <p><i>Now-time</i> soundeth far more fine.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me:</p> + + <p>Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-tree</p> + + <p class="i2">And broods as gray as any dove,</p> + + <p class="i2">And calls, <i>When wilt thou come, O + Love</i>?</p> + + <p>And pleads across the waste to thee.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Good Moment, that giv'st him me,</p> + + <p>Wast ever in love? Maybe, maybe</p> + + <p class="i2">Thou'lt be this heavenly velvet time</p> + + <p class="i2">When Day and Night as rhyme and rhyme</p> + + <p>Set lip to lip dusk-modestly;</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Or haply some noon afar,</p> + + <p>—O life's top bud, mixt rose and star!</p> + + <p class="i2">How ever can thine utmost sweet</p> + + <p class="i2">Be star-consummate, rose-complete,</p> + + <p>Till thy rich reds full opened are?</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Well, be it dusk-time or noon-time,</p> + + <p>I ask but one small, small boon, Time:</p> + + <p class="i2">Come thou in night, come thou in day,</p> + + <p class="i2">I care not, I care not: have thine own + way,</p> + + <p>But only, but only, come soon, Time.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="author">SIDNEY LANIER.</p> + </div> + </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" + id="page90"></a>[pg 90]</span> + + <h2>THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.</h2> + + <h4>BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL."</h4> + + <h4>CHAPTER XVII.</h4> + + <h4>WHAT MUST COME.</h4> + + <p>If Madame de Montfort could not teach Leam some of the + things generally considered essential to the education of a + gentlewoman, if her orthography was disorderly, her grammar + shaky, her knowledge of geography, history and language best + expressed by <i>x</i>, and her moral perceptions never clear + and seldom straight, she was yet far in advance of a girl whose + training in all things was so infinitely below even her own + dwarfed standard. Madame could read with native grace and + commendable fluency, making nimble leapfrogs over the heads of + the exceptionally hard passages, but Leam had to spell every + third word, and then she made a mess of it, Madame did know + that eight and seven are fifteen, but Leam could not get beyond + five and five are ten and one over makes eleven. If madame + thought deception the indispensable condition of pleasant + companionship, and lies the current coin of good + society—in which she certainly sided with the majority of + believing Christians—Leam would be none the worse for a + little softening of that crude out-speaking of hers, which was + less sincerity than the hardness of youthful ignorance and the + insolence of false pride. If madame was only lacquer, and not + clear gold all through, Leam had not the grace of even the + thinnest layer of varnish, and might well take lessons in the + religion of appearances and that thing which we call "manner." + Madame did know at least how to bear herself with the seeming + of a lady, and could say her shibboleth as it ought to be said. + Thus, she ate with delicacy and held her knife nicely poised + and balanced, but Leam grasped hers like a whanger, and cut off + pieces of meat anyhow, which as often as not she took from the + point. Mamma had eaten with her knife grasped also like a + whanger, and why might not she? she said when madame + remonstrated and gave her a lecture on the aesthetics of the + table. And why should she not make her bread her plate, and + hold both bread and meat in her hand if she liked? Why was she + to wipe her lips when she drank? and why, traveling farther + afield, was she to speak when she was spoken to if she would + rather be silent? Why get up from her chair when ladies like + Mrs, Harrowby and Mrs. Birkett came into the room? They did not + get up from their chairs when she went into their rooms, and + mamma never did. And why might she not say what she thought and + show what she disliked? Mamma said what she thought and showed + what she disliked, and mamma's rule was her law.</p> + + <p>All these objections madame had to combat, and all these + things to teach, and many more besides. And as Leam was young, + and as even the hardest youth is unconsciously plastic because + unconsciously imitative, the suave instructress did really make + some impression; so that when she assured the incredulous + neighborhood of Leam's improvement she had more solid data than + always underlaid her words, and was partly justified in her + assertion.</p> + + <p>Religion, too, was another point on which the forces of new + and old met in collision. Madame was of course what is meant by + the word "religious." Like all persons trading on falsehood and + living in deception, her orthodoxy was undoubted, and the most + rigid investigation could not have discovered an unsound spot + anywhere. She would as soon have thought of questioning her own + existence as of doubting the literal exactness of the first + chapter of Genesis, and she thought science an awfully wicked + thing because it went to disprove the story of the six days. + She firmly believed in the personality of Satan and material + fires for wicked souls; and the sweet way in which she lamented + the probable paucity <span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" + id="page91"></a>[pg 91]</span> of the saved was extremely + edifying, not to say touching. This childlike acceptance, + this faithful orthodoxy, was one of the things for which the + rector liked her so well. He had a profound contempt for + science and skepticism together; and an unbeliever, even if + learned in the stars and old bones, ranked with him as a + knave or a fool, and sometimes both. His pet joke, which was + not original, was that there was only one letter of + difference between septic and skeptic, and of the two the + skeptic was the more unsavory.</p> + + <p>Being then pious, madame had hung about her walls short + texts in fancy lettering, with a great deal of scroll-work in + gold and carmine to make them look pretty. When she came into + possession of Leam's mind, she was shocked at her ignorance of + all the sayings that were so familiar to herself and other + persons of respectability. Leam knew nothing but a few + barbarous prayers to saints, used more after the fashion of + charms than anything else, the ave and the paternoster said + incorrectly and not understood when said. Wherefore madame + caused to be illuminated some texts for her room too, as + lessons always before her eyes, and counter-charms to those + heathenish invocations in which the child put her sole faith + and trust of salvation. And among other things she gave her the + Ten Commandments, very charmingly done. Round each commandment + were pictures, emblems, symbolic flowers, all enclosed in fancy + scroll-work of an elaborate kind. Really, it was a very + creditable piece of bastard art, and Mr. Dundas was moved + almost to tears by it. Madame did it herself—so she said + with a tender little smile—as her pleasant surprise for + poor dear Leam on her fifteenth birthday. And Leam was so far + tamed in that she suffered the Tables to be hung up in her + bedroom, and even found pleasure in looking at them. The + pictures of Ruth and Naomi; of the thief running away with the + money-bags; of a woman lying prostrate with long hair, and a + broken lily at her side; of a murdered man prone in the snow, + and a frightened-looking bravo, half covering his face in his + cloak, fleeing away in the darkness, with a bowl marked + "poison" and a dagger dripping with blood in the + margin,—all these pictures, which stood against the + commandments they illustrated, fascinated her greatly. The + colors and the gilding, the flowers and the emblems, pleased + her, and she took the texts sandwiched between as the jalap in + the jam. At first she thought it impious to have them there at + all, because they were in the Bible, and mamma used to say that + good Christians never read the Bible. It was a holy book which + only priests might use, and when those pigs of Protestants + looked into it and read it, just as they would read the + newspaper, they profaned it. But by force of habit she + reconciled herself to the profanity, and by frequent looking at + the art got the literature into her head. And when it was there + she did not find anything in it to be afraid of or to condemn + as too mysteriously holy for her knowledge. All of which was so + much to the good; and Mr. Dundas had no words strong enough + whereby to express his gratitude to the fair woman who had + saved his child from destruction by giving her the Ten + Commandments made pretty by adjuncts of bastard art.</p> + + <p>But had it not been for Alick Corfield, Madame la Marquise + de Montfort would not have made quite so much way. Alick and + Leam used to meet in Steel's Wood; and when Leam carried her + perplexities to Alick, and Alick told her that she ought to + yield and gave her the reasons why, after first fiercely + combating him, telling him he was stupid, wicked, unkind, she + always ended by promising to obey; and when Leam promised the + things agreed to might be considered done. In point of fact, + then, it was Alick who was really moulding her, in excess of + that unconscious plasticity and imitation already spoken of. + But this was one of the things which the world did not know, + and where judgment went awry in consequence.</p> + + <p>Of course the neighborhood saw what was coming—what + must come, indeed, by the very force of circumstances. The + friendship which had sprung up from the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" + id="page92"></a>[pg 92]</span> first between Mr. Dundas and + madame could not stop at friendship now, when both were free + and evidently so necessary to each other. For madame, with + that noble frankness backed by wise reticence characteristic + of her, had told every one of her loss by which she had been + necessitated to become Leam's governess; always adding, "So + that I am glad to be able to work, seeing that I am obliged + to do so, as I could not borrow, even for a short time: I am + too proud for that, and I hope too honest."</p> + + <p>Wherefore, as she was evidently Leam's salvation, according + to her own account, and Sebastian was confessedly her income, + and a very good one too, there was no reason why their several + lines should not coalesce in an indissoluble union, and one + home be made to serve them instead of two. As indeed it came + about.</p> + + <p>When the year of conventional mourning had been perfected, + on the anniversary of the very day when poor Pepita died, the + final words were said, the last frail barrier of madame's + conjugal memories and widowed regrets was removed, and + Sebastian Dundas went home the gladdest man in England. All + that long bad past was now to be redeemed, and he had made a + good bargain with life to have passed through even so much + misery to come at the end into such reward.</p> + + <p>Nothing startled him, nothing chilled him. When madame, + laying her hand on his arm, said in a kind of playful candor + infinitely bewitching, "Remember, dear friend, I told you + beforehand that I have lost <i>all</i> my fortune; in marrying + me you marry only myself with my past, my child and my + liabilities," his mind repudiated the idea of the flimsiest + shadow on that past, the faintest blur on its spotless record. + As for her child, it was his: he would give it his name, it + should be dearer to him than his own; which, all things + considered, was not an overwhelming provision of love; and her + liabilities, whatever they were, he would be glad to discharge + them as a proof of his love for her and the forging of another + golden link between them.</p> + + <p>He doubted nothing, believed all, and loved as much as he + believed. He was happy, radiant, content: the woman whom he + loved loved him, and had consented to become his wife. In + giving her dear self to him she was also accepting security and + devotion at his hands; and what more can a true man want than + to be of good service to the woman he loves? If women like to + minister, it is the pride of men to protect; and if the vow to + endow with all his worldly goods is a fable in fact, it is true + as an instinctive feeling.</p> + + <p>When Mrs. Harrowby heard that the marriage was positively + arranged, she sat with her daughters at a kind of inquest on + their dead friendship with Sebastian Dundas, and came to the + conclusion that they must know something more definite now + about this person calling herself Madame la Marquise de + Montfort. As a stranger it was all very well to overlook the + vagueness of her biography—they were not committed to + anything really dangerous by simply visiting a householder + among them—but it was another matter if she was to be + married to one of themselves. Then they must learn who she + really was, and Mr. Dundas must satisfy them scrupulously, else + they should decline to know her.</p> + + <p>"It will make a great gap in our society," said kindly + Josephine, who, having the most to suffer, had forgiven the + most readily.</p> + + <p>"Gap or no gap, it is what we owe to ourselves," said Mrs. + Harrowby.</p> + + <p>"And to Edgar," added Maria.</p> + + <p>"I shall call on Sebastian to-morrow," said Mrs. Harrowby, + laying aside her knitting with the air of a minister who has + dictated his protocol and has now only to sign the clean + copy.</p> + + <p>"Sleep on it, mamma," pleaded Josephine.</p> + + <p>"It will make no difference," returned the mother; and her + elder two echoed in concert, "I hope not."</p> + + <p>The next day Mrs. Harrowby did call on Mr. Dundas, and, + finding that gentleman at home, succeeded in speaking her mind. + She conveyed her ultimatum as a corporate not individual + resolution, speaking in the name of the "ladies of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" + id="page93"></a>[pg 93]</span> the place," which she was + scarcely entitled to do.</p> + + <p>Mr. Dundas declined to satisfy her. Indeed, it would have + been difficult for him to have done so, seeing that he knew no + more of Madame de Montfort, his intended wife, than what they + all knew; which was substantially nothing, unless her fancy + autobiography could be called something. He spoke, however, as + if he had her private memoirs and all the branches, roots and + hole of the family tree in his pocket; and he spoke loftily, + with the intimation that she was superior; to all at North + Aston, Mrs. Harrowby herself included.</p> + + <p>This interview, with its demand unsatisfied and its + assertions unproved, sent the coolness already existing between + the Hill and Andalusia Cottage down to freezing-point; and the + worst of it was that Mrs. Harrowby did not find backers. The + neighborhood did not take up the cause as she expected it + would. It halted midway and faced both sides, in the manner so + dear to English respectability—less cordial to Mr. Dundas + and madame than it would have been had Mrs. Harrowby been + friendly, but unwilling to follow her to the bitter end. As + they said to each other, it was all very well for Mrs. Harrowby + to be so severe on the marriage, because she was angry and + disappointed—and an angry and disappointed mother is ever + unreasonable—but they who had no daughters to marry, + really they did not see why they should persecute that poor + madame who was such pleasant company, and had behaved herself + with so much propriety since she came. And if Sebastian Dundas + was going to make a second mistake, that was his lookout, and + would be his punishment.</p> + + <p>On the whole, the neighborhood when polled was decidedly + more friendly than hostile. The Corfields and Fairbairns were, + as they had always been, neutrals of a genial tint, more for + than against; Mr. and Mrs. Birkett were warm partisans; and + only Adelaide joined hands with the Hill and said that Mrs. + Harrowby was justified in her renunciation and that madame was + a wretch. And for the first time in her life the rector's + daughter spoke compassionately of Leam and humanely of Pepita, + saying of the one how much she pitied her, having such a woman + for a stepmother; of the other, that, horrible as she was, at + least they knew the worst of her, which was more than they + could say of madame.</p> + + <p>She made her father very angry when she said these things, + but she repeated them, nevertheless; and she knew that he dared + not scold her too severely before the world for fear of that + little something called conscience, and knowledge of the reason + why he believed in Madame de Montfort so implicitly.</p> + + <h4>CHAPTER XVIII.</h4> + + <h4>RECKONING WITH LEAM.</h4> + + <p>The announcement of her father's intended marriage with + madame came on Leam with a crushing sense of terror and + despair. Unobservant youth sees little, and even what it does + see it does not comprehend. Though the girl had accustomed + herself by slow degrees to many works and ways which mamma had + never known; though the faculties which had been, as it were, + imprisoned by that close-set, hide-bound love of hers were now + a little loosened and set free; though the activities of youth + were stirring in her, and her inner life, if still isolated, + was a shade more expanded than of old,—yet she had no + desire for greater change, and she had no keener vision for the + world outside herself than before. She saw nothing of that + diabolical thing which her father and madame had been so long + plotting as the outcome of their friendship, the parable of + which her education had been the text. If her intelligence was + warping out from the narrow limits in which her mother had + confined it, it was still below the average—as much as + her feverish love and tenacious loyalty were above. All that + she knew was, mamma dead was the same as mamma living, only to + be more tenderly dealt with, as she could not defend herself; + and that she wondered how papa could be so wicked as to affront + her now <span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" + id="page94"></a>[pg 94]</span> that she was not able to + punish him and let him know what she thought of him.</p> + + <p>When he told her that he was going to give her a new mother, + one whom she must love as she had loved her own poor dear + mamma—- he was so happy he could afford to be tender even + to that terrible past and poor Pepita—Leam's first + sensation was one of terror, her first movement one of + repulsion. She flung off the hand which he had laid on her + shoulder and drew back a few steps, facing him, her breath + held, her tragic eyes flashing, her face struck to stone by + what she had heard.</p> + + <p>"Well, my dear, you need not look so surprised," said Mr. + Dundas jauntily. "And you need not look so terrified. Your new + mother will not hurt you,"</p> + + <p>"She shall not be my mother, papa," said Learn: "I will not + own her."</p> + + <p>"You will do what I tell you to do," her father returned + with admirable self-command.</p> + + <p>"Not when you tell me to do a crime," flashed Leam.</p> + + <p>Mr. Dundas smiled. "Your words are a trifle strong," he + said.</p> + + <p>"It is a crime," she reiterated. "But if you have forgotten + mamma, and want to affront her now that she cannot defend + herself, I have not, and never will."</p> + + <p>Mr. Dundas smiled again. If he was so happy that he could + afford to be tender to the past, so also could he afford to be + patient with the present. "Foolish child!" he said + compassionately: "you do not understand things yet."</p> + + <p>"I understand that I love mamma, and will not have this + wicked woman in her place," said Leam hotly.</p> + + <p>"I think you will," he answered, playing with his + watch-guard. "And in the future, my little daughter, you will + thank me."</p> + + <p>"Thank you? For what?" asked Leam. "You made mamma miserable + when she lived: you and your madame helped to kill her, and now + you put this woman in her place! Papa, I wonder Saint Jago lets + you live."</p> + + <p>"As Saint Jago is kind enough to leave me in peace, perhaps + you will follow his example. What a saint allows my little + daughter may accept," said Mr. Dundas mockingly.</p> + + <p>"No," said Leam with pathetic solemnity, "if the saints + forget mamma, I will not."</p> + + <p>"My dear, you are a fool," said Mr. Dundas.</p> + + <p>"You may call me what you like, but madame shall not be my + mother," returned Leam.</p> + + <p>"Madame will be your mother because she will be my wife," + said Mr. Dundas slowly. "Unfortunately for you—perhaps + for myself also—neither you nor I can alter the law of + the land. The child must accept the consequences of the + father's act."</p> + + <p>"Then I will kill her," cried Leam.</p> + + <p>Her father laughed gayly. "I think we will brave this + desperate danger," he said. "It is a fearful threat, I + grant—an awful peril—but we must brave it, for all + that."</p> + + <p>"Papa," said Leam, "I will pray to the saints that when you + die you may not go to heaven with mamma and me."</p> + + <p>It was her last bolt, her supreme effort at threat and + entreaty, and it meant everything. If her words of themselves + would have amused Mr. Dundas as a child's ignorant + impertinence, the superstition of an untaught, untutored mind, + her looks and manner affected him painfully. True, he did not + love her—on the contrary, he disliked her—but, all + the same, she was his child; and, dissected, realized, it was + rather an awful thing that she had said. It showed an amount of + hatred and contempt which went far beyond his dislike for her, + and made him shudder at the strength of feeling, the tenacity + of hate, in one so young.</p> + + <p>If more absurdity than good sense is talked about natural + affection, still there is a residuum of fact underneath the + folly; and Leam's words had struck down to that small residuum + in her father's heart. It was not that he was wounded + sentimentally so much as in his sense of proprietorship, his + paternal superiority, and he was angry rather than sorrowful. + It made him feel that he had borne with her waywardness long + enough now: it was time to put a stop to it. "Now, Leam, no + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" + id="page95"></a>[pg 95]</span> more insolence and no more + nonsense," he said sternly. "You have tried my patience long + enough. This day month I marry Madame de Montfort, with or + without your pleasure, my little girl. In a month after that + I bring her home here as my wife, consequently your mother, + the mistress of the house and of you. I give you the best + guide, the best friend, you have ever had or could have: you + will live to value her as she deserves. Your own mother was + not fit to guide you: your new one will make you all that my + dearest hopes would have you. Now go. Think over what I have + said. If you do not like our arrangements, so much the worse + for you."</p> + + <p>"The saints will never let her come here as my mother. I + will pray to them night and day to kill her." said Leam in a + deep voice, clenching her hands and setting her small square + teeth, as her mother used to set hers, like a trap.</p> + + <p>Naturally, the second Mrs. Dundas could not be brought home + without a certain upsetting of the old order and a + rearrangement of things to suit the new. And the upsetting was + not stinted, nor were the exertions of Mr. Dundas. He + superintended everything himself, to the choice of a tea-cup, + the looping of a curtain, and racked his brains to make his + beloved's bower the fit expression of his love, though never to + his mind could it be worthy of her deserving. There was not an + ornament in the place but was dedicated to her, placed where + she could see it on such and such an occasion, and shifted + twenty times a day for a more advantageous position. Everything + which the house had of most beautiful was pressed into her + service, and even Leam's natural rights of inheritance were + ignored for madame's better endowing. Lace, jewelry, trinkets, + all that had been Pepita's, was now hers, and the man's + restless desire to make her rich and her home beautiful seemed + insatiable.</p> + + <p>But there was always Leam in the background with whom he had + to reckon—Leam, who wandered through the house in her + straight-cut, plain black gown, made in the deepest fashion of + mourning devisable, pale, silent, feverish, like an avenging + spirit on his track; undoing what he had done if he had + profaned an embodied memory of her mother, and as impervious to + his anger as he was to her despair.</p> + + <p>One day he carried from the drawing-room to the boudoir + which was to be madame's, and had been Pepita's, a certain + Spanish vase which had been a favorite ornament with her + because it reminded her of home. He firmly fixed it on the + bracket destined for it, opposite the couch where he longed so + ardently to see his fair and queenly loved one sitting—he + by her side in the lovers' paradise of secure content; but the + next time he went into the room he found it lying in fragments + on the floor. None of the servants knew how the mischance had + happened: the window was not open, and none of them had been in + the room. How, then, came it there, broken on the floor? When + he asked Leam, wandering by in that pale, feverish, avenging + way of hers, he knew the truth.</p> + + <p>"Yes," she said defiantly, "I broke it. It was mamma's, and + your madame shall not have it."</p> + + <p>"If you intend to go on like this I shall have you sent to + school or shut up in a lunatic asylum," cried Mr. Dundas in + extreme wrath.</p> + + <p>"Then I shall be alone with mamma, and shall not see you or + your madame," answered Leam, unconquered.</p> + + <p>"You are a hardened, shameful, wicked girl," said her father + angrily. "Madame is an angel of goodness to undertake the care + of such a wretched creature as you are. I could not do too much + for her if I gave her all I had, and you can never be grateful + enough for such a mother."</p> + + <p>"She is not my mother, and she shall not pollute mamma's + things," Leam answered with passionate solemnity. "If you give + them to her I will break or burn them. Mamma's things are her + own, and she shall not be made unhappy in heaven."</p> + + <p>Provoked beyond himself, Sebastian Dundas said scornfully, + "Heaven! You talk of heaven as if you knew all about it, Leam, + like the next parish. How do + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" + id="page96"></a>[pg 96]</span> you know she is there, and + not in the place of torment instead? Your mother was + scarcely of the stuff of which angels are made."</p> + + <p>"Then if she is in the place of torment, she is unhappy + enough as it is, and need not be made more so," said faithful + Leam, suddenly breaking into piteous weeping; adding through + her sobs, "and madame shall not have her things."</p> + + <p>Her tenacity carried the day so far that Mr. Dundas left off + rearranging the old, and sent up to London for things new and + without embarrassing memories attached to them. On which Leam + swept off all that had been her mother's, and locked up her + treasures in her own private cupboard, carrying the key in the + hiding-place which that mother had taught her to use, the thick + coils of her hair. And her father, warned by that episode of + the vase, and a little dominated, not to say appalled, by her + resolute fidelity, shut his eyes to her domestic larceny and + let her carry off her relics in safety.</p> + + <p>So the time passed, miserably enough to the one, if full of + hope and the promise of joy to the other; and the wedding + morning came whereon Sebastian Dundas was to be made, as he + phrased it, happy for life.</p> + + <p>It had been madame's desire that Leam should be her + bridesmaid. She had laid great stress on this, and her lover + would have gratified her if he could. He had no wish that + way—rather the contrary—but her will was his law, + and he did his best to carry it into effect. But when he told + Leam what he wanted—and he told her quite carelessly, and + so much as a matter of course that he hoped she too would + accept her position as a matter of course—the girl, + enlightened by love if not by knowledge, broke into a torrent + of disdain that soon showed him how sleeveless his errand was + likely to be.</p> + + <p>He did his best, and tried all methods from pleading to + threatening, but Leam was immovable. No power on earth should + bend her, she said, or make her take part in that wicked day. + She go to church? She would expect to be struck dead if she + did. She expected, indeed, that all of them would be struck + dead. She had prayed the saints so hard, so hard, to prevent + this marriage, she was sure they would at the last; and if they + did not, she would never believe in them nor pray to them + again. But she did believe in them, and she was sure they would + punish this dreadful crime. No, she would take no part in it. + Why should she put herself in the way of being punished when + she was not to blame?</p> + + <p>So Mr. Dundas had the mortification of carrying to his + bride-elect the intelligence that he had been worsted in his + conflict with his daughter, and that her hatred and reluctance + were to be neither concealed nor overcome.</p> + + <p>Madame was sorry, she said with her sweetest air of patience + and liberal comprehension. She would have liked the dear girl + to have been her bridesmaid: it would have been appropriate and + touching. But as she declined—and her feelings were easy + to be understood and honorable, if a little extreme—she, + madame, elected to be married as a widow should, with only Mrs. + Birkett and Mr. Fairbairn as the witnesses, Mr. Fairbairn to + give her away for form's sake. The dear rector of course would + marry them in this simple manner. They must hope that time and + her own unvarying affection—Mr. Dundas called it + sweetness, angelic patience, greatness of soul—would + soften poor Leam into loving acceptance of what would be so + much to her good when she could be got to understand it. + Meanwhile they must be patient—content to go gradually + and gain her bit by bit. She, madame, would be quite content + with her presence in the room, when they returned to breakfast, + in the pretty white muslin frock ordered from town as the sign + of her participation in the event.</p> + + <p>But when the morning came, where was Leam? The most diligent + search failed to discover her, and the only person who could + have betrayed her whereabouts was the last whom they would have + thought of asking.</p> + + <p>Of course, Mr. Dundas was properly distressed at this + strange disappearance, and madame was unduly afflicted. She + proposed that the marriage should be + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" + id="page97"></a>[pg 97]</span> delayed till the girl was + found, but the lover was stronger than the father, and she + was overruled—yielding because it is the duty of the + wife to yield, but only because of that duty—for her + own part desirous of delay until they were assured of the + safety of Leam.</p> + + <p>The ceremony, however, was performed within the canonical + hours, the rector a little tremulous and apparently suffering + from sore throat; and as the happy pair drove away, madame, + remembering her advent and her objects more than a year ago + now, could not but confess that she had done better than she + expected, and, her conscience whispered, better than she + deserved.</p> + + <p>All this time Leam was sitting on the lower branches of the + yew tree beneath which that godless ruffian had murdered his + poor sweetheart two generations ago in Steel's Wood. It was a + lonely corner, where no one would have gone by choice at the + best of times, but now, with its bad name and evil association, + it was entirely deserted. Leam had made it her hiding-place + ever since madame had taken her in hand to teach her the + correct pronunciation of Shibboleth, and she had escaped from + her teaching and run away into the wood, armed banditti and + wild beasts notwithstanding. And one day, hunting in it for + fungi, Alick Corfield had found her sitting there, and + thenceforth they had shared the retreat between them.</p> + + <p>No one knew that they met there, and no one suspected + it—not even Mrs. Corfield, who believed, after the manner + of mothers who bring up their boys at home, that she knew the + whole of her son's life from end to end, and that he had not a + thought kept back from her, nor had ever committed an action of + which she was not cognizant.</p> + + <p>Alick had installed Leam as the girl-queen of his + imagination, and paid her the homage which she seemed to him to + deserve more than many a real queen crowned and sceptered or + princess born in the purple. It pleased him to write bad poems + to her as his Infanta, his royal rose, his pomegranate flower, + his nestling eagle waiting for strength to fly upward to the + sun—all with halting feet and strained metaphor. He drew + pictures of her by the dozen, mostly symbolic and all out of + drawing, but expressive of his admiration, his hope, his + respect; while to Leam he was little better than a two-legged + talking dog whose knowledge interested and whose goodness + swayed her, but on whose neck she set her little foot and kept + it there. She always treated him with profound disdain, even + when he told her curious things that were like fairy-tales, + some of which she did not believe if they were too far removed + from the narrow area of her personal experience. Thus, when he + assured her that certain plants fed on flies as men feed on + meat, she told him with her sublime Spanish calm, "I do not + believe it." And she said the same when he one day informed her + that the planets could be weighed and their distance from the + earth and the sun measured. In the beginning she knew + nothing—neither whether the earth was round or flat, nor + what was the meaning of the stars, nor the name of one wild + flower excepting daisies, nor of one great man. That fallow + waste called her mind was virgin ground in truth, but Alick was + patient, and labored hard at the stubborn soil; and when madame + had given the credit to her own tact and those ugly little + books from which she taught, it was to him really that Leam's + microscopic amount of plasticity and reception was due.</p> + + <p>These secret meetings amused Leam, and kept her from that + ceaseless inward contemplation of her mother which else was her + only voluntary occupation. They gave her a sense of power, as + well as of successful rebellion to her father, that gratified + her pride. To be sure, they were not what mamma would have + liked. Alick Corfield was an Englishman, and mamma hated the + English. But then, Leam reflected, she had not known Alick: if + she had, she would have seen there was no harm in him, and that + he was not teaching her things which a child of Spain ought not + to know, and which Saint Jago would be angry with her for + learning. And <span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" + id="page98"></a>[pg 98]</span> perhaps now that mamma was up + in heaven, and knew all that went on here at home, she would + not mind her little Leama seeing Alick Corfield so often. In + her prayers she told her very faithfully all that she had + done and felt and thought; she never deceived her a hair's + breadth; and as she had asked her permission so often and so + humbly, she made sure now that it was granted. Mamma could + not refuse her when she asked her so earnestly; and she was + not angry, but on the contrary glad, that her little heart + had such a good dog to care for her, and that she was + defying el señor papa, that false image of the false + saint.</p> + + <p>For the rest, it was only natural that she should like the + air of quasi adventure and independence which this unknown, + intercourse with Alick gave her. And as she was still in that + conscienceless phase of youth when liking means everything, and + honor without love is a grass having neither root nor flower, + she continued to meet her faithful dog, and to learn from + him—not all that he could tell her, but what she chose to + accept.</p> + + <p>So here it was, perched among the lower branches of the yew + tree in Steel's Wood, that Leam spent her father's wedding-day + with Madame la Marquise de Montfort; and when she became hungry + Alick went home and brought her some dry bread and grapes from + Steel's Corner, Dry bread and grapes—this was all that + she would have, she said. She was not greedy like the English, + who thought of nothing but eating, she added in her disdainful + way; and if Alick brought her anything but bread and grapes, + she would fling it into the wood. On his life he was not to + touch anything on papa's table. She would rather die of hunger + than eat their wicked food. She wondered it did not choke them + both.</p> + + <p>"Now go," she said superbly, "and come back soon: I am + hungry," as if her sense of inconvenience was a catastrophe + which heaven and earth should be moved to avert.</p> + + <p>But young and so beautiful as she was, her little tricks of + pride and arbitrariness were just so many additional charms to + Alick; and if she had not flouted and commanded him, he would + have thought that something terrible was about to happen: had + she become docile, grateful, familiar, he would have expected + her to die before the day was out. He liked her superb + assumption of superiority. She was his girl-queen, and he was + her slave; she was his mistress, and he was her dog; and, + dog-like, he fawned at her feet even when she rated him and + placed her little foot on his neck.</p> + + <h4>CHAPTER XIX.</h4> + + <h4>AT STEEL'S CORNER.</h4> + + <p>"I hope you will not be bored, my boy, but I am thinking of + bringing that wretched Leam Dundas here for a few days. I don't + like a girl of her age and character to be left for a full + month alone. It is not right, for who knows what she may not + do? If she ran away on the wedding-day, she may run away again, + and then where would we all be? I cannot think what her father + was about to leave her unprotected like this. So I shall just + take and bring her here; and if you are bored with her, you + must make the best of it."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Corfield and Alick were sitting in the "work-room" on + the morning of the fifth day after the marriage, when the + thought struck the little woman of the propriety of Leam's + visit to them for the month of her father's absence. She did + not see her son's face when she spoke, being busy with her + wood-carving. If she had, she would not have thought that the + presence of Leam Dundas would bore or annoy him. The clumsy + features gladdened into smiles, the dull eye brightened, the + dim complexion flushed: if ever a face expressed supreme + delight, Alick's did then; and it expressed what he felt, for, + as we know, the one love of his boyish life was this girl-queen + of his fancy. Not that he was in love with her in the ordinary + sense of being in love. He was too reverent and she too young + for vulgar passion or commonplace sentiment. She was something + precious to his imagination, not his senses, like a child-queen + to her courtier, a high-born lady to her + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" + id="page99"></a>[pg 99]</span> page. He bore with her + girlish temper, her girlish insolence of pride, her ignorant + opposition, with the humility of strength bending its neck + to weakness—the devotion and unselfish sweetness + characteristic of him in other of his relations than those + with Leam. Judge, then, if he was likely to be bored, as his + mother feared, or if this project of a closer domestication + with her was not rather a "bit of blue" in his sky which + made these early autumn days gladder than the gladdest + summer-time.</p> + + <p>To will and to do were synonymous with Mrs. Corfield: her + motto was <i>velle est agere</i>; and a resolve once taken was + like iron at white heat, struck into the shape of deed on the + instant. Darting up from her chair, birdlike and angular, she + put away her work. "Order the trap," she said briskly, "and + come with me. We will go at once, before that poor creature has + had time to do anything, wild, or silly."</p> + + <p>"I do not think she would do anything wild or silly, + mother," said Alick in a deprecating voice. It galled him to + hear his darling spoken of so slightingly.</p> + + <p>"No? What has she ever done that was rational?" cried his + mother sharply. "From the beginning, when she was a baby of + three months old, and howled at me because I kissed her, and + that dreadful mother of hers flew at me like a wildcat and said + I had the evil eye, Leam Dundas has been more like some + changeling than an ordinary English girl. I declare it + sometimes makes my heart ache to, see her with those awful eyes + of hers, looking as if she had seen one does not know + what—as if she was being literally burnt up alive with + sorrow. However, don't let us discuss her: let us fetch her and + save her from herself. That is more to the purpose at this + moment."</p> + + <p>And Alick said "Yes," and went out to order the trap with + alacrity.</p> + + <p>When they reached Andalusia Cottage, the first thing they + saw was a strange workman from Sherrington painting out the + name which in his early love-days for his Spanish bride + Sebastian Dundas had put up in bold letters across the + gate-posts. The original name of the place had been Ford House, + but the old had had to give place to the new in those days as + in these, and Ford House had been rechristened Andalusia + Cottage as a testimony and an homage. Mrs. Corfield questioned + the man in her keen inquisitorial way as to what he was about; + and when he told her that the posts were to show "Virginia" now + instead of "Andalusia," her great disgust, to judge by the + sharp things which she said to him, seemed as if it took in the + innocent hand as well as the peccant head. "I do think + Sebastian Dundas is bewitched," she said disdainfully to her + son as they drove up to the house. "Did any one ever hear of + such a lunatic? Changing the name of his house with his wives + in this manner, and expecting us to remember all his + absurdities! Such a man as that to be a father! Lord of the + creation, indeed! He is no better than a court fool." Which + last scornful ejaculation brought the trap to the front door + and into the presence of Leam.</p> + + <p>Standing on the lawn bareheaded in the morning sunshine, + doing nothing and apparently seeing nothing, dressed in the + deepest mourning she could make for herself, and with her high + comb and mantilla as in olden days, her eyes fixed on the + ground and her hands clasped in each other, her wan face set + and rigid, her whole attitude one of mute, unfathomable + despair,—for the instant even Mrs. Corfield, with all her + constitutional contempt for youth, felt hushed, as in the + presence of some deep human tragedy, at the sight of this poor + sorrowful child, this miserable mourner of fifteen. Instead of + speaking in her usual quick manner, the sharp-faced little + woman, poor Pepita's "crooked stick," went up to the girl + quietly and softly touched her arm.</p> + + <p>Leam slowly raised her eyes. She did not start or cry out as + a creature naturally would if startled, but she seemed as if + she gradually and with difficulty awakened from sleep, or from + something even more profound than sleep. "Yes?" she said in + answer to the touch. "What do you want?"</p> + + <p>It was an odd question, and Leam's + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" + id="page100"></a>[pg 100]</span> grave intensity made it all + the more odd. But Mrs, Corfield was not easily disconcerted, + and it was "only Leam" at the worst.</p> + + <p>"I want you," she answered briskly, "Tell the maid to pack + up your box, take off that lace thing on your head, and come + home with me for a day or two. You need not stay longer than + you like, but it will be better for you than moping here, + thinking of all sorts of things you had better not think + of."</p> + + <p>"Why do my thoughts vex you?" asked Learn gravely. "I was + not thinking of you."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Corfield laughed a little confusedly. "I don't suppose + you were," she said, "but you see I did think of you. But + whether you were thinking of me or not, you certainly look as + if you would be the better for a little rousing. You were + standing there like a statue when we came up."</p> + + <p>"I was listening to mamma," said Leam with an air of grave + rebuke.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Corfield rubbed her nose vigorously. "You would do + better to come and talk to me instead," she said.</p> + + <p>Learn transfixed her with her eyes. "I like mamma's company + best," she said in the stony way which she had when stiffening + herself against outside influence.</p> + + <p>"But if you come to us, you can listen to her as much as you + like," said Alick soothingly. "We will not hinder you; and, as + my mother says, it is not good for you to be here alone."</p> + + <p>"I like it," said Leam.</p> + + <p>"Nonsense! then you should not like it. It is not natural + for a girl of your age to like it. Come with us," cried Mrs. + Corfield: "why not?"</p> + + <p>"I have something to do," Leam answered solemnly.</p> + + <p>"What can a chit of a thing like you have to do? Come with + us, I tell you." Mrs. Corfield said this heartily rather than + roughly, though really she could not be bothered, as she said + to herself, to stand there wasting her time in arguing with a + girl like Leam. It was too ridiculous.</p> + + <p>Leam looked at her with mingled tragedy and contempt, and + disdained to answer.</p> + + <p>"What have you got to do?" again asked Mrs. Corfield.</p> + + <p>"I shall not tell you," answered Leam, holding her head very + high.</p> + + <p>How, indeed, should she tell this little sharp-faced woman + that she was thinking how she could prevent madame from coming + here as her home? The saints had deserted her; she had prayed + to them, threatened them, coaxed, entreated, but they had not + heard her; and now she had nothing but herself, only her poor + little frail hands and bewildered brain, to protect her + mother's memory from insult and revenge her wrongs. The fever + in her veins had given her mamma's face sorrowful and weeping, + meeting her wherever she turned—mamma's voice, faint as + the softest summer breeze in the trees, whispering to her, + "Little Leama, I am unhappy. Sweet heart, do not let me be + unhappy." For five days this fancy had haunted her, but it had + not become distinct enough for guidance. She was listening now, + as she was listening always, for mamma to tell her what to do. + She was sure she would show her in time how to prevent that + wicked woman from living here, bearing her name, taking her + place: mamma could trust her to take care of her, now that she + could not take care of herself. As she had said to papa, if all + the world, the saints, and God himself deserted hers she, her + child, would not.</p> + + <p>She would not tell these thoughts, even to Alick. They were + a secret, sacred between her and mamma, and no one must share + them. If, then, she went with this bird-like, insistent woman, + she would talk to her and not let her think: she and Alick + would stand between herself and mamma's spirit, and then mamma + would perhaps leave her again, and go back to heaven angry with + her. No, she would not go, and she lifted up her eyes to say + so.</p> + + <p>As she looked up Alick whispered softly, "Come."</p> + + <p>Feverish, excited, her brain clouded by her false fancies, + Leam did not recognize his voice. To her it was her + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" + id="page101"></a>[pg 101]</span> mother sighing through the + sunny stillness, bidding her go with them, perhaps to find + some method of hinderance or revenge which she could not + devise for herself. They were clever and knew more than she + did; perhaps her mother and the saints had sent them as her + helpers.</p> + + <p>It seemed almost an eternity during which these thoughts + passed through her brain, while she stood looking at Mrs. + Corfield so intently that the little woman was obliged to lower + her eyes. Not that Leam saw her. She was thinking, listening, + but not seeing, though her tragic eyes seemed searching Mrs. + Corfield's very soul. Then, glancing upward to the sky, she + said with an air of self-surrender, which Alick understood if + his mother did not, "Yes, I will go with you: mamma says I + may."</p> + + <p>"It is my belief, Alick," said Mrs. Corfield, when she had + left them to prepare for her visit, "that poor child is going + crazy, if she is not so already. She always was queer, but she + is certainly not in her right mind now. What a shame of + Sebastian Dundas to bring her up as he has done, and now to + leave her like this! How glad I am I thought of having her at + Steel's Corner!"</p> + + <p>"Yes, mother, it was a good thing. Just like you, though," + said Alick affectionately.</p> + + <p>"You must help me with her, Alick," answered his mother. "I + have done what I know I ought to do, but she will be an awful + nuisance all the same. She is so odd and cold and impertinent, + one does not know how to take her."</p> + + <p>Alick flushed and turned away his head. "I will take her off + your hands as much as I can," he said in a constrained + voice.</p> + + <p>"That's my dear boy—do," was his mother's unsuspecting + rejoinder as Leam came down stairs ready to go.</p> + + <p>Steel's Corner was a place of unresting intellectual + energies. Dr. Corfield, a man shut up in his laboratory with + piles of extracts, notes, arguments, never used, but always to + be used, an experimentalist deep in many of the toughest + problems of chemical analysis, but neither ambitious nor + communicative, was the one peaceable element in the house. To + be sure, Alick would have been both broader in his aims and + more concentrated in his objects had he been left to himself. + As it was, the incessant demands made on him by his mother kept + him too in a state of intellectual nomadism; and no one could + weary of monotony where Mrs. Corfield set the pattern, unless + it was of the monotony of unrest. This perpetual taking up of + new subjects, new occupations, made thoroughness the one thing + unattainable. Mrs. Corfield was a woman who went in for + everything. She was by turns scientific and artistic, a student + and a teacher, but she was too discursive to be accurate, and + she was satisfied with a proficiency far below perfection. In + philosophy she was what might be called a woman of + antepenultimates, referring all the more intricate moral and + intellectual phenomena to mind and spirit; but she was + intolerant of any attempt to determine the causation of her + favorite causes, and she derided the modern doctrines of + evolution and inherent force as atheistic because + materialistic. The two words meant the same thing with her; and + the more shadowy and unintelligible people made the <i>causa + causarum</i> the more she believed in their knowledge and their + piety. The bitterest quarrel she had ever had was with an old + friend, an unimaginative anatomist, who one day gravely proved + to her that spirits must be mere filmy bags, pear-shaped, if + indeed they had any visual existence at all. Bit by bit he + eliminated all the characteristics and circumstances of the + human form on the principle of the non-survival of the useless + and unadaptable. For of what use are shapes and appliances if + you have nothing for them to do?—if you have no need to + walk, to grasp, nor yet to sit? Of what use organs of sense + when you have no brain to which they lead?—when you are + substantially all brain and the result independent of the + method? Hence he abolished by logical and anatomical necessity, + as well as the human form, the human face with eyes, ears, nose + and mouth, and by the inexorable + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" + id="page102"></a>[pg 102]</span> necessities of the case + came down to a transparent bag, pear-shaped, for the better + passage of his angels through the air.</p> + + <p>"A fulfillment of the old proverb that extremes meet," he + said by way of conclusion. "The beginning of man an + ascidian—his ultimate development as an angel, a + pear-shaped, transparent bag."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Corfield never forgave her old friend, and even now if + any one began a conversation on the theory of development and + evolution she invariably lost her temper and permitted herself + to say rude things. Her idea of angels and souls in bliss was + the good orthodox notion of men and women with exactly the same + features and identity as they had when in the flesh, but + infinitely more beautiful; retaining the Ego, but the Ego + refined and purified out of all trace of human weakness, all + characteristic passions, tempers and proclivities; and the + pear-shaped bag was as far removed from the truth, as she held + it, on the one side as Leam's materialistic conception was on + the other. The character and condition of departed souls was + one of the subjects on which she was very positive and very + aggressive, and Leam had a hard fight of it when her hostess + came to discuss her mother's present personality and + whereabouts, and wanted to convince her of her + transformation.</p> + + <p>All the same, the little woman was kind-hearted and + conscientious, but she was not always pleasant. She wanted the + grace and sweetness known genetically as womanliness, as do + most women who hold the doctrine of feminine moral supremacy, + with base man, tyrant, enemy and inferior, holding down the + superior being by force of brute strength and responsible for + all her faults. And she wanted the smoothness of manner known + as good breeding. Though a gentlewoman by birth, she gave one + the impression of a pert chambermaid matured into a tyrannical + landlady.</p> + + <p>But she meant kindly by Leam when she took her from the + loneliness of her father's house, and her very sharpness and + prickly spiritualism were for the child's enduring good. Her + attempts, however, to make Leam regard mamma in heaven as in + any wise different from mamma on earth were utterly abortive. + Leam's imagination could not compass the thaumaturgy tried to + be inculcated. Mamma, if mamma at all, was mamma as she had + known her; and if as she had known her, then she was unhappy + and desolate, seeing what a wicked thing this was that papa had + done. She clung to this point as tenaciously as she clung to + her love; and nothing that Mrs. Corfield, or even Alick, could + say weakened by one line her belief in mamma's angry sorrow and + the saints' potent and sometimes peccant humanity.</p> + + <p>Among other scientific appliances at Steel's Corner was a + small off-kind of laboratory for Alick and his mother, to + prevent their troubling the doctor and to enable them to help + him when necessary: it was an auxiliary fitted up in what was + rightfully the stick-house. The sticks had had to make way for + retorts and crucibles, and as yet no harm had come of it, + though the servants said they lived in terror of their lives, + and the neighbors expected daily to hear that the inmates of + Steel's Corner had been blown into the air. Into this + evil-smelling and unbeautiful place Leam was introduced with + infinite reluctance on her own part. The bad smell made her + sick, she said, turning round disdainfully on Alick, and she + did not wonder now at anything he might say or do if he could + bear to live in such a horrid place as this.</p> + + <p>When he showed off a few simple experiments to amuse + her—made crystal trees, a shower of snow, a heavy stone + out of two empty-looking bottles, spilt mercury and set her to + gather it up again, showed her prisms, and made her look + through a bit of tourmaline, and in every way conceivable to + him strewed the path of learning with flowers—then she + began to feel a little interest in the place and left off + making wry faces at the dirt and the smells.</p> + + <p>One day when she was there her eye caught a very small phial + with a few letters like a snake running spirally round it.</p> + + <p>"What is that funny little bottle?" she + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" + id="page103"></a>[pg 103]</span> asked, pointing it out. + "What does it say?"</p> + + <p>"Poison," said Alick.</p> + + <p>"What is poison?" she asked.</p> + + <p>"Do you mean what it is? or what it does?" he returned.</p> + + <p>"Both. You are stupid," said Leam.</p> + + <p>"What it does is to kill people, but I cannot tell you all + in a breath what it is, for it is so many things."</p> + + <p>"How does it kill people?" At her question Leam turned + suddenly round on him, her eyes full of a strange light.</p> + + <p>"Some poisons kill in one way and some in another," answered + Alick.</p> + + <p>Leam pondered for a few moments; then she asked, "How much + poison is there in the world?"</p> + + <p>"An immense deal," said Alick: "I cannot possibly tell you + how much."</p> + + <p>"And it all kills?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, it all kills, else it is not poison."</p> + + <p>"And every one?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, every one if enough is taken."</p> + + <p>"What is enough?" she asked, still so serious, so + intent.</p> + + <p>Alick laughed. "That depends on the material," he said. "One + grain of some and twenty of others."</p> + + <p>"Don't laugh," said Leam with her Spanish dignity: "I am + serious. You should not laugh when I am serious."</p> + + <p>"I did not mean to offend you," faltered Alick humbly. "Will + you forgive me?"</p> + + <p>"Yes," said Leam superbly, "if you will not laugh again. + Tell me about poison."</p> + + <p>"What can I tell you? I scarcely know what it is you want to + hear."</p> + + <p>"What is poison?"</p> + + <p>"Strychnine, opium, prussic acid, belladonna, + aconite—oh, thousands of things."</p> + + <p>"How do they kill?"</p> + + <p>"Well, strychnine gives awful pain and + convulsions—makes the back into an arch; opium sends you + to sleep; prussic acid stops the action of the heart; and so + on."</p> + + <p>"What is that?" asked Leam, pointing to the small phial with + its snake-like spiral label.</p> + + <p>"Prussic acid—awfully strong. Two drops of that would + kill the strongest man in a moment."</p> + + <p>"In a moment?" asked Learn.</p> + + <p>"Yes: he would fall dead directly."</p> + + <p>"Would it be painful?"</p> + + <p>"No, not at all, I believe."</p> + + <p>"Show it me," said Learn.</p> + + <p>He took the bottle from the shelf. It was a sixty-minim + bottle, quite full, stoppered and secured.</p> + + <p>She held out her hand for it, and he gave it to her. "Two + drops!" mused Leam.</p> + + <p>"Yes, two drops," returned Alick.</p> + + <p>"How many drops are here?"</p> + + <p>"Sixty."</p> + + <p>"Is it nasty?"</p> + + <p>"No—like very strong bitter almonds or cherry-water; + only in excess," he said. "Here is some cherry-water. Will you + have a little in some water? It is not nasty, and it will not + hurt you."</p> + + <p>"No," said Leam with an offended air: "I do not want your + horrid stuff."</p> + + <p>"It would not hurt you, and it is really rather nice," + returned Alick apologetically.</p> + + <p>"It is horrid," said Learn.</p> + + <p>"Well, perhaps you are better without it," Alick answered, + quietly taking the bottle of prussic acid from her hands and + replacing it on the shelf, well barricaded by phials and + pots.</p> + + <p>"You should not have taken it till I gave it you," said Leam + proudly. "You are rude."</p> + + <p>From this time the laboratory had the strangest fascination + for Leam. She was never tired of going there, never tired of + asking questions, all bearing on the subject of poisons, which + seemed to have possessed her. Alick, unsuspecting, glad to + teach, glad to see her interest awakened in anything he did or + knew, in his own honest simplicity utterly unable to imagine + that things could turn wrong on such a matter, told her all she + asked and a great deal more; and still Leam's eyes wandered + ever to the shelf where the little phial of thirty deaths was + enclosed within its barricades.</p> + + <p>One day while they were there Mrs. Corfield called + Alick.</p> + + <p>"Wait for me, I shall not be long," he said to Leam, and + went out to his + mother.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" + id="page104"></a>[pg 104]</span> + + <p>As he turned Learnm's eyes went again to that small phial of + death on the shelf.</p> + + <p>"Take it, Leama! take it, my heart!" she heard her mother + whisper.</p> + + <p>"Yes, mamma," she said aloud; and leaping like a young + panther on the bench, reached to the shelf and thrust the + little bottle in her hair. She did not know why she took it: + she had no motive, no object. It was mamma who told + her—so her unconscious desire translated itself—but + she had no clear understanding why. It was instinct, vague but + powerful, lying at the back of her mind, unknown to herself + that it was there; and all of which she was conscious was a + desire to possess that bottle of poison, and not to let them + know here that she had taken it.</p> + + <p>This was on the afternoon of her last day at the Corfields. + She was to go home to-night in preparation for the arrival of + her father and madame to-morrow, and in a few hours she would + be away. She did not want Alick to come back to the laboratory. + She was afraid that he would miss the bottle which she had + secured so almost automatically if so superstitiously: Alick + must not come back. She must keep that bottle. She hurried + across the old-time stick-house, locked the door and took the + key with her, then met Alick coming back to finish his lesson + on the crystallization of alum, and said, "I am tired of your + colored doll's jewelry. Come and tell me about flowers," + leading the way to the garden.</p> + + <p>Doubt and suspicion were qualities unknown to Alick + Corfield. It never occurred to him that his young queen was + playing a part to hide the truth, befooling him for the better + concealment of her misdeeds. He was only too happy that she + condescended to suggest how he should amuse her; so he went + with her into the garden, where she sat on the rustic chair, + and he brought her flowers and told her the names and the + properties as if he had been a professor.</p> + + <p>At last Leam sighed. "It is very tiresome," she said + wearily. "I should like to know as much as you do, but half of + it is nonsense, and it makes my head ache to learn. I wish I + had my dolls here, and that you could make them talk as mamma + used. Mamma made them talk and go to sleep, but you are stupid: + you can speak only of flowers that don't feel, and about your + silly crystals that go to water if they are touched. I like my + zambomba and my dolls best. They do not go to water; my + zambomba makes a noise, and my dolls can be beaten when they + are naughty."</p> + + <p>"But you see I am not a girl," said Alick blushing.</p> + + <p>"No," said Leam, "you are only a boy. What a pity!"</p> + + <p>"I am sorry if you would like me better as a girl," said + Alick.</p> + + <p>She looked at him superbly. Then her face changed to + something that was almost affection as she answered in a softer + tone, "You would be better as a girl, of course, but you are + good for a boy, and I like you the best of every one in England + now. If only you had been an Andalusian woman!" she sighed, as, + in obedience to Mrs. Corfield's signal, she got up to prepare + for dinner, and then home for her father and madame + to-morrow.</p> + + <h4>CHAPTER XX.</h4> + + <h4>IN HER MOTHER'S PLACE.</h4> + + <p>Whatever madame's past life had been—and it had been + such as a handsome woman without money or social status, fond + of luxury and to whom work was abhorrent, with a clear will and + very distinct knowledge of her own desires, clever and + destitute of moral principle, finds made to her + hand—whatever ugly bits were hidden behind the veil of + decent pretence which she had worn with such grace during her + sojourn at North Aston, she did honestly mean to do righteously + now.</p> + + <p>She had deceived the man who had married her in such adoring + good faith—granted; but when he had reconciled himself to + as much of the cheat as he must know, she meant to make him + happy—so happy that he should not regret what he had + done. Though she was no <span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" + id="page105"></a>[pg 105]</span> marquise, only plain Madame + de Montfort—so far she must confess for policy's sake, + and to forestall discovery by ruder means, but what remained + beyond she must keep secret as the grave, trusting to + favorable fortune and man's honor for her + safety—though the story of the fraudulent trustee was + untrue, and she never had more money than the three hundred + pounds brought in her box wherewith to plant her roots in + the North Aston soil—though all the Lionnet bills were + yet to be paid, and her husband must pay them, with awkward + friends in London occasionally turning up to demand + substantial sops, else they would show their teeth + unpleasantly,—still, she would get his forgiveness, + and she would make him happy.</p> + + <p>And she would be good to Leam. She would be so patient, + forbearing, tender, she would at last force the child to love + her. It was a new luxury to this woman, who had knocked about + the world so long and so disreputably, to feel safe and able to + be good. She wondered what it would be like as time went + on—if the rest which she felt now at the cessation of the + struggle and the consciousness of her security would become + monotonous or be always restful. At all events, she knew that + she was happy for the day, and she trusted to her own tact and + management to make the future as fair as the present.</p> + + <p>The home-coming was triumphant. Because the rector was + inwardly grieved at the loss of his ewe-lamb—for he had + lost her in that special sense of spiritual proprietorship + which had been his—he was determined to make a + demonstration of his joy. He and Mrs. Birkett meant to stand by + Mrs. Dundas as they had stood by Madame la Marquise de + Montfort, and to publish their partisanship broadly. When, + therefore, the travelers returned to North Aston, they found + the rector and his wife waiting to receive them at their own + door. Over the gate was an archway of evergreens with + "Welcome!" in white chrysanthemums, and the posts were wreathed + with boughs and ribbons, but leaving "Virginia Cottage" in its + glossy evidence of the new regime. The drive was bordered all + through with flowers from the rectory garden, and Lionnet too + had been ransacked, and the hall was festooned from end to end + with garlands, like a transformation-scene in a pantomime. One + might have thought it the home-coming of a young earl with his + girl-bride, rather than that of a middle-aged widower of but + moderate means with his second wife, one of whose past homes + had been in St. John's Wood, and one of her many names Mrs. + Harrington.</p> + + <p>But it pleased the good souls who thus displayed their + sympathy, and it gratified those for whom it had all been done; + and both husband and wife expressed their gratitude warmly, and + lived up to the occasion in the emotion of the moment.</p> + + <p>When their effusiveness had a little calmed, down, when Mrs. + Dundas had caressed her child—which poor Mrs. Birkett + gave up to her with tears—and Mr. Dundas had also taken + it in his arms and called it "Little Miss Dundas" and "My own + little Fina" tenderly—when, the servants had been spoken + to prettily and the bustle had somewhat subsided, Mrs. Dundas + looked round for something missing. "And where is dear Leam?" + she asked with her gracious air and sweet smile.</p> + + <p>It was very nice of her to be the first to miss the girl. + The father had forgotten her, friends had overlooked her, but + the stepmother, the traditional oppressor, was thoughtful of + her, and wanted to include her in the love afloat. This little + circumstance made a deep impression on the three witnesses. It + was a good omen for Leam, and promised what indeed her new + mother did honestly design to perform.</p> + + <p>"Even that little savage must be tamed by such persistent + sweetness," said Mr. Birkett to his wife, while she, with a + kindly half-checked sigh, true to her central quality of + maternity and love of peace all round, breathed "Poor little + Leam!" compassionately.</p> + + <p>Leam, however, was no more to the fore at the home-coming + than she had been at the marriage, and much searching went on + before she was found. She was unearthed at last. The gardener + had seen her shrink away into the shrubbery + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" + id="page106"></a>[pg 106]</span> when the carriage-wheels + were heard coming up the road, and he gave information to + the cook, by whom the truant was tracked and brought to her + ordeal.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Birkett went out by the French window to meet her as + she came slowly up the lawn draped in the deep mourning which + for the very contrariety of love she had made deeper since the + marriage, her young head bent to the earth, her pale face rigid + with despair, her heart full of but one feeling, her brain + racked with but one thought, "Mamma is crying in heaven: mamma + must not cry, and this stranger must be swept from her + place."</p> + + <p>She did not know how this was to be done; she only knew that + it must be done. She had all along expected the saints to work + some miracle of deliverance for her, and she looked hourly for + its coming. She had prayed to them so passionately that she + could not understand why they had not answered. Still, she + trusted them. She had told them she was angry, and that she + thought them cruel for their delay; and in her heart she + believed that they knew they had done wrong, and that the + miracle would be wrought before too late. It was for mamma, not + for herself. Madame must be swept like a snake out of the + house, that mamma might no longer be pained in heaven. + Personally, it made no difference whether she had to see madame + at Lionnet or here at home, but it made all the difference to + mamma, and that was all for which she cared.</p> + + <p>Thinking these things, she met Mrs. Birkett midway on the + lawn, the kind soul having come out to speak a soothing word + before the poor child went in, to let her feel that she was + sympathized with, not abandoned by them all. Fond as she was of + madame, the new Mrs, Dundas, and little as she knew of Leam, + the facts of the case were enough for her, and she saw Adelaide + and herself in the child's sorrow and poor Pepita's successor. + "My dear," she said affectionately as she met the girl walking + so slowly up the lawn, "I dare say this is a trial to you, but + you must accept it for your good. I know what you must feel, + but it is better for you to have a good kind stepmother, who + will be your friend and instructress, than to be left with no + one to guide you."</p> + + <p>Leam's sad face lifted itself up to the speaker. "It cannot + be good for me if it is against mamma," she said.</p> + + <p>"But, Leam, dear child, be reasonable. Your mamma, poor + dear! is dead, and, let us trust, in heaven." The good soul's + conscience pricked her when she said this glib formula, of + which in this present instance she believed nothing. "Your + father has the most perfect right to marry again. Neither the + Church nor the Bible forbids it; and you cannot expect him to + remain single all his life—when he needs a wife so much, + too, on your account—because he was married to your dear + mamma when she was alive. Besides, she has done with this life + and all the things of the earth by now; and even if she has + not, she will be happy to see you, her dear child, well cared + for and kindly mothered."</p> + + <p>Leam raised her eyes with sorrowful skepticism, melancholy + contempt. It was the old note of war, and she responded to it. + "I know mamma," she said; "I know what she is feeling."</p> + + <p>She would have none of their spiritual + thaumaturgy—none of that unreal kind of transformation + with which they had tried to modify their first teaching. There + was no satisfaction in imagining mamma something different from + her former self—no more the real, fervid, passionate, + jealous Pepita than those pear-shaped transparent bags, so + logically constructed by Mrs. Corfield's philosopher, are like + the ideal angels of loving fancy. If mamma saw and knew what + was going on here at this present moment—and Mrs. Birkett + was not the bold questioner to doubt this continuance of + interest—she felt as she would have felt when alive, and + she would be angry, jealous, weeping, unhappy.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Birkett was puzzled what to say for the best to this + uncomfortable fanatic, this unreasonable literalist. When + believers have to formularize in set words their hazy notions + of the feelings and conditions of souls in bliss, they make + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" + id="page107"></a>[pg 107]</span> but a lame business of it; + and nothing that the dear woman could propound, keeping on + the side of orthodox spirituality, carried comfort or + conviction to Leam. Her one unalterable answer was always + simply, "I know mamma: I know what she is feeling," and no + argument could shake her from her point.</p> + + <p>At last Mrs. Birkett gave up the contest. "Well, my child," + she said, sighing, "I can only hope that the constant presence + of your stepmother, her kindness and sweetness, will in time + soften your feeling toward her."</p> + + <p>Leam looked at her earnestly. "It is not for myself," she + said: "it is for mamma."</p> + + <p>And she said it with such pathetic sincerity, such an accent + of deep love and self-abandonment to her cause, that the + rector's wife felt her eyes filling up involuntarily with + tears. Wrong-headed, dense, perverse as Leam was, her filial + piety was at the least both touching and sincere, she said to + herself, a pang passing through her heart. Adelaide would not + speak of her if she were dead as this poor ignorant child spoke + of her mother. Yet she had been to Adelaide all that the best + and most affectionate kind of English mother can be, while + Pepita had been a savage, now cruel and now fond; one day + making her teeth meet in her child's arm, another day stifling + her with caresses; treating her by times as a woman, by times + as a toy, and never conscientious or judicious.</p> + + <p>All the same, Leam's fidelity, if touching, was embarrassing + as things were; so was her belief in the continued existence of + her mother. But what can be done with those uncompromising + reasoners who will carry their creeds straight to their + ultimates, and will not be put off with eclectic compromises of + this part known and that hidden—so much sure and so much + vague? Mrs. Birkett determined that her husband should talk to + the child and try to get a little common sense into her head, + but she doubted the success of the process, perhaps because in + her heart she doubted the skill of the operator.</p> + + <p>By this time they reached the window, and the woman and the + girl passed through into the room.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Dundas came forward to meet her stepdaughter + kindly—not warmly, not tumultuously—with her quiet, + easy, waxen grace that never saw when things were wrong, and + that always assumed the halcyon seas even in the teeth of a + gale. For her greeting she bent forward to kiss the girl's + face, saying, "My dear child, I am glad to see you," but Leam + turned away her head.</p> + + <p>"I am not glad to see you, and I will not kiss you," she + said.</p> + + <p>Her father frowned, his wife smiled. "You are right, my + dear: it is a foolish habit," she said tranquilly, "but we are + such slaves to silly habits," she added, looking at the rector + and his wife in her pretty philosophizing way, while they + smiled approvingly at her ready wit and serene good-temper.</p> + + <p>"Will you say the same to me, Leam?" asked her father with + an attempt at jocularity, advancing toward her.</p> + + <p>"Yes," said Leam gravely, drawing back a step.</p> + + <p>"Tell me, Mrs, Birkett, what can be done with such an + impracticable creature?" cried Mr. Dundas.</p> + + <p>"She will come right: in time, dear husband," said the late + marquise sweetly; and Mrs. Birkett echoed, looking at the girl + kindly, "Oh yes, she will come right in time."</p> + + <p>"If you mean by coming right, letting you be my mamma, I + never will," cried Leam, fronting her stepmother.</p> + + <p>"Silence, Leam!" cried Mr. Dundas angrily.</p> + + <p>His wife laid her taper fingers tenderly on his. "No, no, + dear husband: let her speak," she pleaded, her voice and manner + admirably effective. "It is far better for her to say what she + feels than to brood over it in silence. I can wait till she + comes to me of her own accord and says, 'Mamma, I love you: + forgive me the past'"</p> + + <p>"You are an angel," said Mr. Dundas, pressing her hand to + his lips, his eyes moist and tender.</p> + + <p>"I always said it," the rector added huskily—"the most + noble-natured woman of my acquaintance."</p> + + <p>"I never will come to you and say, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" + id="page108"></a>[pg 108]</span> 'Mamma, I love you,' and + ask you to forgive me for being true to my own mamma," said + Learn. "I am mamma's daughter, no other person's."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Dundas smiled. "You will be; mine, sweet child," she + said.</p> + + <p>How ugly Leam's persistent hate looked by the side of so + much unwearied goodness! Even Mrs. Birkett, who pitied the poor + child, thought her tenacity too morbid, too dreadful; and the + rector honestly held her as one possessed, and regretted in his + own mind that the Church had no formula for efficient exorcism. + Believing, as he did, in the actuality of Satan, the theory of + demoniacal possession came easy as the explanation of abnormal + qualities.</p> + + <p>Her father raged against himself in that he had given life + to so much moral deformity. And yet it was not from him that + she inherited "that cursed Spanish blood," he said, turning + away with a groan, including Pepita, Leam, all his past with + its ruined love and futile dreams, its hope and its despair, in + that one bitter word.</p> + + <p>"Don't say that, papa: mamma and I are true. It is you + English that are bad and false," said Leam at bay.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Dundas raised her hand, "Hush, hush, my child!" she + said in a tone of gentle authority. "Say of me and to me what + you like, but respect your father."</p> + + <p>"Oh, Leam has never done that," cried Mr. Dundas with + intense bitterness.</p> + + <p>"No," said Leam, "I never have. You made mamma unhappy when + she was alive: you are making her unhappy now. I love mamma: + how can I love you?"</p> + + <p>And then, her words realizing her thoughts in that she + seemed to see her mother visibly before her, sorrowful and + weeping while all this gladness was about in the place which + had once been hers, and whence she was now thrust + aside—these flowers of welcome, these smiling faces, this + general content, she alone unhappy, she who had once been queen + and mistress of all—the poor child's heart broke down, + and she rushed from the room, too proud to let them see her + cry, but too penetrated with anguish to restrain the tears.</p> + + <p>"I am sure I don't know what on earth we can do with that + girl," said Mr. Dundas with a dash of his old weak petulance, + angry with circumstance and unable to dominate it—the + weak petulance which had made Pepita despise him so heartily, + and had winged so many of her shafts.</p> + + <p>"Time and patience," said madame with her grand air of noble + cheerfulness. But she had just a moment's paroxysm of dismay as + she looked through the coming years, and thought of life shared + between Leam's untamable hate and her husband's unmanly + peevishness. For that instant it seemed to her that she had + bought her personal ease and security at a high price.</p> + + <p>As Leam went up stairs the door of her stepmother's room was + standing open. The maid had unpacked the boxes most in request, + and was now at tea in the servants' hall, telling of her + adventures in Paris, where master and mistress had spent the + honeymoon, and in her own way the heroine of the hour, like her + betters in the parlor. The world seemed all wrong everywhere, + life a cheat and love a torture, to Leam, as she stood within + the open door, looking at the room which had been hers and her + mother's, now transformed and appropriated to this stranger, + She did not understand how papa could have done it. The room in + which mamma had lived, the room in which she had died, the + window from which she used to look, the very mirror that used + to reflect back her beautiful and beloved face—ah, if it + could only have kept what it reflected!—and papa to have + given all this away to another woman! Poor mamma! no wonder she + was unhappy. What could she, Leam, do to prevent all this + wickedness if the blessed ones were idle and would not help + her?</p> + + <p>Her eyes fell on a bottle placed on the console where + madame's night appliances were ranged—her night-light and + the box of matches, her Bible and a hymn-book, a tablespoon, a + carafe full of water and a tumbler, and this bottle marked + "Cherry-water—one tablespoonful for a dose." In madame's + handwriting <span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" + id="page109"></a>[pg 109]</span> underneath stood, "For my + troublesome heart." Only about two tablespoonsful were + left.</p> + + <p>Leam took the bottle in one hand, the other thrust itself + mechanically into her hair. No one was about, and the house was + profoundly still, save for the voices coming up from the room + below in a subdued and not unpleasant murmur, with now and then + the child's shrill babble breaking in through the deeper tones + like occasional notes in a sonata. Out of doors were all the + pleasant sights and sounds of the peaceful evening coming on + after the labors of the busy day. The birds were calling to + each other in the woods before nesting for the night; the + homing rooks flew round and round their trees, cawing loudly; + the village dogs barked their welcome to their masters as they + came off the fields and the day's work; and the setting sun + dyed the autumn leaves a brighter gold, a deeper crimson, a + richer russet. It was all so peaceful, all so happy, in this + soft mild evening of the late September—all seemed so + full of promise, so eloquent of future joy, to those who had + just begun their new career.</p> + + <p>But Leam knew nothing of the poetry of the moment—felt + nothing of its pathetic irony in view of the deed she was + half-unconsciously designing. She saw only, at first dimly, + then distinctly, that here were the means by which mamma's + enemy might be punished and swept from mamma's place, and that + if she failed her opportunity now she would be a traitor and a + coward, and would fail in her love and duty to mamma. No, she + would not fail. Why should she? It was the way which the saints + themselves had opened, the thing she had to do; and the sooner + it was done the better for mamma.</p> + + <p>She uncorked the bottle of cherry-water, good for that + troublesome heart of poor madame's. All that Alick had told her + of the action of poisons came back upon her as clearly as her + mother's words, her mother's voice. This cherry-water, too, had + the smell of bitter almonds, and was own sister to that in the + little phial in her other hand. Now she understood it + all—why she had been taken to Steel's Corner, why Alick + had taught her about poisons, and why her mamma had told her to + steal that bottle. She looked at it with its eloquent paper + marked "Poison" wound about it spirally like a snake, uncorked + it and emptied half into the cherry-water.</p> + + <p>"Two drops are enough, and there are more than two there," + she said to herself. "Mamma must be safe now." And with this + she left the room and went into her own to watch and wait.</p> + + <p>It was early to-night when Mrs. Dundas retired. There were + certain things which she wanted to do on this her first night + in her new home; and among them she wanted to put that green + velvet pocket-book, gold embroidered, in some absolutely safe + place, where it would not be seen by prying eyes or fall into + dangerous hands. She did not intend to destroy its contents. + She knew enough of the uncertainty of life to hold by all sorts + of anchorages; and though things looked safe and sweet enough + now, they might drift into the shallows again, and she wished + her little Fina's future to be assured by one or other of those + charged with it—if the stepfather failed, then to fall + back on the father. Wherefore she elected to keep these papers + in a safe place rather than destroy them, and the safest place + she could think of was Pepita's jewel-case, now her own. It had + a curious lock, which no other key than its own would + fit—a lock that would have baffled even a "cracksman" and + his whole bunch of skeleton keys.</p> + + <p>In putting them away, obliged for the need of space to take + off the paper wrappings, she was foolish enough to look at the + photographs within—just one last look before banishing + them for ever from her sight, as an honest wife + should—and the sight of the handsome young face which she + had loved sincerely in its day, and which was the face of her + child's father, shook her nerves more than she liked them to be + shaken. That troublesome heart of hers had begun to play her + strange tricks of late with palpitation and irregularity. She + could not afford that her nerve should fail her. That gone, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" + id="page110"></a>[pg 110]</span> nothing would remain to her + but a wreck. But her cherry-water was a pleasant and safe + calmant, and she knew exactly how much to take.</p> + + <p>Her maid saw nothing more to-night than she had seen on any + other night of her service. Her mistress, if not quite so sweet + to her as to Mrs. Birkett, say, or the rector, was yet fairly + amiable as mistresses go, and to-night was neither better nor + worse than ordinary. Her attendance went on in the usual + routine, with nothing to remark, bad or good; and then madame + laid her fair head on the pillow, and took a tablespoonful of + her calmant to check the palpitation that had come on, and to + still her nerves, which that last look backward had somewhat + disturbed.</p> + + <p>How beautiful she looked! Fair and lovely as she had always + been to the eyes of Sebastian Dundas, never had she looked so + grand as now. Her yellow hair was lying spread out on the + pillow like a glory: one white arm was flung above her head, + the other hung down from the bed. Her pale face, with her mouth + half open as if in a smile at the happy things she dreamt, + peaceful and pure as a saint's, seemed to him the very + embodiment of all womanly truth and sweetness. He leaned over + her with a yearning rapture that was almost ecstasy. This + noble, loving woman was his own, his life, his future. No more + dark moods of despair, no more angry passions, disappointment + and remorse; all was to be cloudless sunshine, infinite + delight, unending peace and love.</p> + + <p>"My darling, oh my love!" he said tenderly, laying his hand + on her glossy golden hair and kissing her. "Virginie, give me + one word of love on your first night at home."</p> + + <p>She was silent. Was her sleep so deep that even love could + not awake her? He kissed her again and raised her head on his + arm. It fell back without power, and then he saw that the + half-opened mouth had a little froth clinging about the + lips.</p> + + <p>A cry rang through the house—cry on cry. The startled + servants ran up trembling at they knew not what, to find their + master clasping in his arms the fair dead body of his + newly-married wife.</p> + + <p>"Dead—she is dead," they passed in terrified whispers + from each to each.</p> + + <p>Leam, standing upright in her room, in her clinging white + night-dress, her dark hair hanging to her knees, her small + brown feet bare above the ankle—not trembling, but tense, + listening, her heart on fire, her whole being as it were + pressed together, and concentrated on the one thought, the one + purpose—heard the words passed from lip to lip. "Dead," + they said—"dead!"</p> + + <p>Lifting up her rapt face and raising her outstretched arms + high above her head, with no sense of sin, no consciousness of + cruelty, only with the feeling of having done that thing which + had been laid on her to do—of having satisfied and + avenged her mother—she cried aloud in a voice deepened by + the pathos of her love, the passion of her deed, into an + exultant hymn of sacrifice, "Mamma, are you happy now? Mamma! + mamma! leave off crying: there is no one in your place + now."</p> + + <p>[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" + id="page111"></a>[pg 111]</span> + + <h2>FAMISHING PORTUGAL.</h2> + + <p>The following paper contains the substance of a remarkable + letter and accompanying documents recently received from + Portugal:</p> + + <p>LISBON, September, 1875.</p> + + <p>You wish to know what truth there is in the cable reports of + "a drought in the north and south of Portugal, and a threatened + famine in two or three provinces." Shall I tell you all? Well, + then, Heaven nerve me for the task! I shall have an unpleasant + story to narrate.</p> + + <p>You, who have been in Portugal, need not be reminded that + the kingdom consists of six provinces—Minho, + Tras-os-Montes, Beira, Estremadura, Alemtejo and Algarve. In + the early part of this summer a drought affected the whole + kingdom. Toward the end of July abundant rain fell in Minho, + where two products only are raised—wine ("port wine") and + maize. The rain, which, had it fallen in Alemtejo, the + principal wheat-province of the kingdom, would have done + incalculable good, benefited neither the vineyards of Minho nor + the maize-crop anywhere. The consequence is, that this + last-named crop, the principal bread-food of the country, has + failed, and famine prevails throughout the land. Having lived + in America, I know what you, so accustomed to freedom and + plenty, will say to this:</p> + + <p>"France, Sprain, Morocco, England—all these countries + are near to Portugal. If she is short of bread, let her simply + exchange wine for it, and there need be no fears of a + famine."</p> + + <p>Ah, my dear American friends, little do you suspect the + artlessness of this reply. Know, then, that those who own the + wines of Portugal do not lack for bread, and those who lack for + bread do not own the wines; that the first of these classes are + the aristocrats and foreigners who live in the cities or + abroad, and the second the people at large; that there exists + an abyss between these classes so profound that no political + institutions yet devised have been able to bridge it; that + there is no credit given by one class to the other, and few + dealings occur between them; and that the laws of Portugal + discourage the importation of grain into the kingdom.</p> + + <p>You are a straightforward people, and dive at once to the + bottom of a subject. "Why do not the Portuguese devote + themselves so largely to the cultivation of grain that there + need never be danger of famine?" you will now ask. My answer to + this is: The people do not own the land.</p> + + <p>"What! Were the reforms of Pombal, the French Revolution, + the Portuguese revolution of 1820 and the various constitutions + since that date, the abolition of serfdom and mortmain, and the + law of 1832, all ineffectual to emancipate the Portuguese + peasant from the thralldom of land?"</p> + + <p>Alas! they were indeed all in vain, and the Portuguese + peasantry stands to-day at the very lowest step of European + civilization—far beneath all others. The number of + agricultural workers in Portugal is about eight hundred and + seventy-five thousand. Of this number, some seven hundred + thousand are hired laborers, farm-servants, <i>emphyteutas</i> + (you shall presently know the meaning of this ominous word) and + metayers; that is to say, persons who may cultivate only such + products as their employers or landlords choose, and the latter + in their greed and short-sightedness always choose that the + former shall cultivate wine. The remainder, or some one hundred + and seventy-five thousand, consist chiefly of small + proprietors, owning three, four, five and ten acre patches of + land, often intersected by other properties, and therefore not + adapted for the cultivation of grain: such of the + <i>emphyteutas</i> and metayers as are practically free to + cultivate what they please make up the remainder of this + class.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" + id="page112"></a>[pg 112]</span> + + <p>The quantity of land devoted to grain is therefore exactly + what the aristocratic land-owners choose to make it; and, never + suspecting that a well-fed peasant is more efficient as a + laborer than a famished one, they have made it barely enough, + in good years, to keep the miserable population from entirely + perishing. The product in such years is about six bushels of + edible grain per head of total population, together with a + little pulse and a taste of fish or bacon on rare occasions. In + unfavorable years, like the present one, the product of edible + grain falls to five bushels per head, and unless the government + suspends the corn laws for the whole country—which since + 1855 it has usually done on such occasions—famine ensues. + The nation (excepting, of course, the court and aristocracy, + who live in or near Lisbon and Oporto) is thus kept always at + the brink of starvation, and every mishap in these artificial + and tyrannical arrangements consigns fresh thousands to the + grave.</p> + + <p>The population of Portugal was the same in 1798 that it is + to-day—viz., about four millions—and there has been + no time between those periods when it was greater. Knowing, as + we do, that the law of social progress is growth—in other + words, that the condition of individual development, both + physical and intellectual, is that degree of freedom which + finds its expression in the increase of numbers—what does + this portentous fact of a stationary population bespeak? + Simply, the utmost degradation of body and mind; vice in its + most hideous forms; filth, disease, unnatural crimes; a hell + upon earth. These are always the characteristics of nations + which have been prevented from growing. The melancholy proofs + of a condition of affairs in Portugal which admits of this + description shall presently be forthcoming.</p> + + <p>Antonio de Leon Pinelo, who was one of the greatest lawyers + and historians that Spain ever produced, very profoundly + remarked that no man could possibly understand the history of + slavery in America who had not first mastered the subject of + Spanish <i>encomiedas</i>. With equal truth it may be said that + the solution of Portuguese history lies in the subject of + <i>emphyteusis</i>. Emphyteusis (Greek: zmphutehuis, + "ingrafting," "implanting," and perhaps, metaphorically, + "ameliorating") is a lease of land where the tenant agrees to + improve it and pay a certain rent. The origin of this tenure is + Greek, and it was probably first adopted in Rome after the + conquest of the Achaean League (B.C. 146), when Greece became a + Roman province. It was carried into Carthage B.C. 145, and into + Spain and Portugal about B.C. 133, when those countries fell + beneath the Roman arms. Whenever this occurred the first act of + the conquerors was to assume the ownership of the land. They + then leased it on emphyteusis, either to the original + occupiers, to their own soldiers, or to settlers + ("carpet-baggers"). The rent was called <i>vectigal</i>, and + decurions (corporals in the army) were usually employed to + collect it and administer the lands.</p> + + <p>Syria, Greece, Carthage, and the Iberian Peninsula were the + first countries to succumb to the Roman arms outside of Italy. + These conquests all occurred within the space of fifty-seven + years (from 190 to 133 B.C.), and this was doubtless the period + when emphyteusis was first employed upon an extensive scale. + Originally, the tenants were liable to have their rents + increased, and to be evicted at the pleasure of the state, and + thus lose the benefit of any improvements effected by them. The + result was, that no improvements were effected. The forests + were cut down, the orchards destroyed, the lands exhausted by + incessant cropping; and by the beginning of the present era the + entire coasts of the Mediterranean were exploited.</p> + + <p>This great historical fact is replete with + significance—not only to Portugal, but also to the rest + of the world, even to America, which, by abandoning its public + lands to the rapacity of monopolists and the vandalism of + ignorant immigrants, is preparing for itself a future filled + with forebodings of evil.</p> + + <p>The ruin of the lands of Carthage, Spain, etc. eventually + hastened the ruin of Italy. It put an end to the legitimate + supplies of grain which those countries + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" + id="page113"></a>[pg 113]</span> had been accustomed to + contribute; it forced their populations to crowd into + already overcrowded Italy, and increase the requirements of + food in a country which had been exploited like their own, + and, though not so rapidly, yet by similar + means;<a id="footnotetag1" + name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> + and it gave rise to the servile wars, to the most corrupt + period in Roman history, to the Empire, and to the endless + series of consequences in its train.</p> + + <p>After the Western Empire had apparently fallen beneath the + Northern arms—that is to say, five hundred years + later—and not until then, the Roman Code ameliorated the + baneful tenure of emphyteusis. A law of the emperor Zenos (A.D. + 474-491) fixed whatever had theretofore been uncertain in the + nature and incidents of emphyteusis. The tenant was guaranteed + from increase of rent and from eviction—the alienation of + the property by the state being held thenceforth to affect the + quit-rent only—and finally he obtained full power to + dispose of the land, which nevertheless remained subject to the + quit-rent in whatever hands it might be. Before these reforms + were effected, Portugal was conquered by the Visigoths, the + Roman proprietors of the soil were expelled, and their laws and + institutions suppressed. This occurred in the year 476. Whether + emphyteusis in any form remained is not quite certain, but it + seems not; and during this government, and the Moorish one + which superseded it in the year 711, the Iberian Peninsula + enjoyed an interval of prosperity to which it had been a + stranger for ages.</p> + + <p>In the eleventh century this happy condition of affairs was + disturbed by the appearance of certain Spanish crusading + knights, who, issuing from the mountainous parts of the country + adjacent to their own, began to war against the Moorish + authorities. In the course of a century, and with little + voluntary aid from the peasants, who distrusted them and their + religious pretensions and promises of advantage, they managed + to acquire possession of the country. Now, what do you suppose + was one of the first acts committed by these adventurers? + Nothing less than the re-enactment of the odious Roman tenure + of emphyteusis, and that in its most ancient and worst + form—liability to increased rent and to eviction; not + only this, but with certain base services combined. The + wretched inhabitants were required to work so many days in the + week for these lords, to break up a certain amount of waste + land; to furnish so many cattle; to kill so many birds; to + provide (in rural districts remote from the sea) so many salt + fish; to furnish so much incense or so many porringers, iron + tools, pairs of shoes, etc.</p> + + <p>Talk of the Western Empire having "declined and fallen," as + Messrs. Gibbon and Wegg put it! Why, here it was again, and + with the worst of its ancient crimes inscribed upon its code of + law. Emphyteusis was reintroduced into Portugal by King Diniz + (Dennis) in the year 1279, and was followed by its usual + effects—ruin and depopulation. In 1394 was born Prince + Henry. He was the son of John I. and Philippa, daughter of John + of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and was therefore the nephew of + Henry IV. of England. Perceiving and commiserating the + wretchedness of the people, and casting about him for a remedy, + Henry saw but one: that was departure from the land, + emigration, colonization, escape from the tyranny of the soil, + of nobles and of ecclesiastics—a tyranny which both his + illustrious rank and his piety forbade him to oppose. Hence his + intense devotion to the discovery and colonization of strange + lands, which is in vain to be accounted for on the ground of a + mere passion, the only one usually advanced by unthinking + historians.</p> + + <p>The results of this mania, as it was then considered, of + Prince Henry are well known—the discovery of Madeira, the + Azores, Senegambia, Angola, Benguela, etc., and, after Prince + Henry's death, the Cape of Good Hope, Goa, Macao, the islands, + etc.; all of which were colonized by Portuguese. These + colonies, and the commerce which sprang + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" + id="page114"></a>[pg 114]</span> up with them, afforded + outlets for the downtrodden serfs of Portugal. Such was the + beneficial result of this partial measure of freedom that in + the course of the following two centuries Portugal became + one of the leading nations of the world, with a population + of 5,000,000 and a flag respected in every clime.</p> + + <p>Unhappily, this interval of prosperity to Portugal was the + cause of infinite misery to the negro race. The discoveries in + Africa and Asia afforded a career to the enslaved Portuguese; + yet, by leading, as they did, to the discovery of America, they + were eventually the cause of the slave-trade, which without + America could not have flourished. Such will ever be the result + of the attempt to palliate instead of cure evil. Moreover, the + discovery of America and the resulting slave-trade were the + cause of Portugal's retrogression to the point whence she had + started in Prince Henry's time. When gold and slaves rendered + maritime discovery profitable to the aristocratic class, all + the nobles went into it—not only the aristocrats of + Portugal, but those also of Spain, England, France, Holland, + Italy. They all went into the trade of acquiring empires, and + it is not to be wondered at if in this rivalry of greed and + violence Portugal, exploited and burdened with serfdom and + other features of bad government at home, was distanced and + overcome. Her colonies were captured and reduced by foreign + enemies, or invaded and ruined by one of the several political + diseases from which she had never wholly rid herself. For + example, the once magnificent city of Goa, which formerly + contained a population of 150,000 Christians and 50,000 + Mohammedans, is now an almost deserted ruin, with but 40,000 + inhabitants, <i>chiefly ecclesiastical</i>.</p> + + <p>When Pombal assumed the reins of government in 1750 the + population of Portugal had been reduced to less than 2,000,000: + there was neither agriculture, manufactures, army nor navy. + Perceiving this state of affairs, and recognizing the cause of + it, Pombal caused the vines to be torn up by the roots and corn + planted in their place. Ruffianism was crushed, the Jesuits + were banished, the nobility were taught to respect the civil + law, the peasantry were encouraged. After twenty-seven years of + reforms and prosperity Pombal was dismissed from office and the + old abuses were reinstated, among them those worst incidents of + emphyteusis which had been devised by the base ring of nobles + and ecclesiastics who held the land in their grasp.</p> + + <p>These abuses remained without material change until 1832, + and thus you have a complete history of emphyteusis from the + first to the last day of its institution in Portugal. In truth, + however, its last day has not come even yet, for many of its + incidents still linger in the code of laws.</p> + + <p>Now for its effects on the land. What growth of forest trees + had followed the abolition of emphyteusis under the Gothic and + Saracenic monarchs was destroyed under the government of + Christian nobles, and to-day there is scarcely a tree in + Portugal—the woods, including fruit and nut trees, + covering less than 400,000 out of 22,000,000 acres, the entire + area of the country. The destruction of the woods, to say + nothing of its effects upon the rainfall, caused the top soil + to be washed away, and thus impoverished the arable land, + filling the rivers with earth, rendering them innavigable, and + converting them from gently-flowing streams to devastating + torrents, which annually bestrew the valleys and plains with + sand and stones.<a id="footnotetag2" + name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a> + In the next place, emphyteusis has caused every kind of + improvement to be avoided. The soil has been exhausted by + over-cropping; public works, like roads, wells, irrigating + canals, etc., have been neglected; and the numerous works + left by the industrious Saracens have been allowed to go to + ruin. Finally, the tenant, being placed entirely in the + power of the lord, was continually kept at the point of + starvation. To escape this dreadful fate he has committed + every conceivable offence against the laws of Nature and + humanity. Tyranny <span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" + id="page115"></a>[pg 115]</span> and starvation have made of + him a liar, thief, smuggler, assassin, beast. The very + ground is tainted with his tread, the air is redolent of his + crimes.</p> + + <p>I am aware of the eminently legal, and therefore judicial, + mind of Americans; therefore I shall give nothing of importance + on my own testimony alone. It shall be seen what the Portuguese + peasant is from the descriptions that travelers have written, + and from the fragments of statistical evidence which the + deeply-culpable ruling classes have permitted to be + published.</p> + + <p>But first let me describe the degree of destitution to which + the peasant has been reduced, for without this destitution this + criminal character would not have been his.</p> + + <p>Baron Forrester says:<a id="footnotetag3" + name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3"><sup>3</sup></a> + "The poverty of the inhabitants of the interior of Portugal + is equal to that of the Irish." (This was written in 1851, + immediately after the Irish famine.) "The wretchedness of + their condition checks marriage and promotes clandestine + intercourse." William Doria writes:<a id="footnotetag4" + name="footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4"><sup>4</sup></a> + "The inhabitants (all ages) do not obtain half (scarcely + one-third) as much as the minimum of animal food required to + sustain active vitality, which is one hundred grammes, about + one-fifth of a pound, per day." Marques + says:<a id="footnotetag5" + name="footnotetag5"></a><a href="#footnote5"><sup>5</sup></a> + "The daily ration of an able-bodied man should consist of at + least twelve hundred grammes, of which one-fourth (about + three-fifths of a pound) should be animal food. The + Portuguese soldier (much better fed than the peasant) + receives but seventeen grammes (little over half an ounce) + of animal food." Notwithstanding the superior food of the + soldier, such is the hatred of the peasant for the + aristocratic classes, in whose service the army is employed, + that he will mutilate himself to escape the + conscription.<a id="footnotetag6" + name="footnotetag6"></a><a href="#footnote6"><sup>6</sup></a> + Says Malte-Brun: "During four months of the year the + inhabitants of the Algarve have little to eat but raw figs. + This causes a disease called <i>mal de veriga</i>, which + sweeps away numbers of the people." Says Doria: "All the + women work in the fields;" and Dr. Farr<a id="footnotetag7" + name="footnotetag7"></a><a href="#footnote7"><sup>7</sup></a> + tells us that "when women are employed in any but domestic + labors they discharge the duties of mother imperfectly, and + the mortality of children is high." Says Forrester: + "Leavened bread is beginning to be known in the principal + cities, but not in the provinces. Gourds, cabbages and + turnip-sprouts, with bread made from chestnuts (which are + always wormy), form the peasant's diet." "In Algarve + carob-beans are commonly roasted, ground into flour and made + into bread." Says Da Silva:<a id="footnotetag8" + name="footnotetag8"></a><a href="#footnote8"><sup>8</sup></a> + "The growth of the peasantry is stunted by insufficient + nourishment, which consists largely of chestnuts, beans and + chick-peas."</p> + + <p>The utmost area of land which the average Portuguese peasant + can cultivate is two and a half acres: in the United States the + average of cultivated land per laborer is over thirty-two + acres; on prairie-land sixty acres is not uncommon. Forrester + writes: "In the Alto Douro, the richest portion of the kingdom, + the villages are formed of wretched hovels with unglazed + windows and without chimneys. Instead of bread or the ordinary + necessaries of life, one finds only filth, wretchedness and + death. Emigration is the one thought of the people."</p> + + <p>Now for the moral, intellectual and physical results of the + destitution thus evinced. The work entitled <i>Voyage du Duc du + Châtelet en Portugal</i>, although usually quoted under + this title, was really written by M. Comartin, a royalist of La + Vendée, and written during the French Revolution. If it + had any bias at all, that bias was all in favor of Portugal, + yet this is his description of her people: "Il est, je pense, + peu de peuple plus laid que celui de Portugal. Il est petit, + basané, mal conformé. L'intérieur + répond, en général, assez à cette + repoussante envelope, surtout à Lisbonne, où les + hommes paroissent réunir tous les + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" + id="page116"></a>[pg 116]</span> vices de l'âme et du + corps. II y a, au reste, entre la capitale et le nord de ce + royaume, une différence marquée sous ces deux + rapports. Dans les provinces septentrionales, les hommes + sont moins noirs et moin laids, plus francs, plus lians dans + la société, bien plus braves et plus + laborieux, mais encore plus asservis, s'il est possible, aux + préjugés. Cette différence existe + également pour les femmes; elles sont beaucoup plus + blanches que celles du sud. Les Portugais, + considérés en général, sont + vindicatifs bas, vains, railleurs, présomptueux + à l'excès, jaloux. et ignorans. Après + avoir retracé les défauts que j'ai cru + appercevoir en eux, je serois injuste si je me taisois sur + leurs bonnes qualités. Ils sont attachés + à leur patrie, amis géneréux, + fidèles, sobres, charitables. Ils seroient bons + Chrètiens si le fanatisme ne les aveugloit pas. Ils + sont si accoutumés aux pratiques de la religion + qu'ils sont plus superstitieux que dévots. Les + hidalgos, ou les grands de Portugal, sont très + bornés dans leur éducation, orgueilleux et + insolens; vivant dans la plus grande ignorance, ils ne + sortent presque jamais de leur pays pour aller voir les + autres peuples." Time and changed circumstances have + somewhat softened these traits, but their general + correctness is still recognizable.</p> + + <p>"Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices and you have the + Portuguese character," says Dr. Southey. "They are deceitful + and cowardly—have no public spirit nor national + character," says Semple. "The morals of both sexes are lax in + the extreme; assassination is a common offence; they rank about + as low in the social scale as any people of Christendom," says + McCulloch. "Their songs are licentious: the national dance or + the <i>toffa</i> is so lascivious that every stranger who sees + it must deplore the corruption of the people, and regret to + find such exhibitions permitted, not only in the country, but + in the heart of towns, and even on the stage," says Malte-Brun. + "Portugal is a paradise inhabited by demons and brutes," says + Madame Junot—a phrase taken probably from Byron's + description of Cintra.</p> + + <p>My countrymen will be enraged with me for thus repeating the + worst that has been said about them, but I repeat it for their + own benefit, like the surgeon, who, to save the patient's life, + cruelly probes the wound or lays bare the corruption from which + he is suffering. Moreover, I shall have still darker spots to + exhibit in a national character which has been stamped with + centuries of feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny.</p> + + <p>In a country possessing a fair share of the natural + resources commonly in demand a free and prosperous population + will double in numbers every fifteen years, an increase of + about 4-1/2 per cent. per annum compounded. The United States, + a country rich in natural resources, and one whose government + offers but few obstacles to freedom and individual prosperity, + has doubled its population every twenty-two and a half years + since 1790. This is equal to over 3 per cent. per annum. In + that country the annual number of births in every 10,000 of + population is 500,<a id="footnotetag9" + name="footnotetag9"></a><a href="#footnote9"><sup>9</sup></a> + of immigrants, 75; total increase, 575. The deaths are 250, + leaving 325 in 10,000, or 3-1/2 per cent. gain as the net + result of the year's growth and decay of population.</p> + + <p>There is no reason for believing that the proportion of + births in Portugal is less than it is in Germany, or even the + United States: on the contrary, "in climates where the waste of + human life is excessive from the combined causes of disease and + poverty affecting the mass of the inhabitants, the number of + births is proportionately greater than is experienced in + countries more favorably circumstanced.... Population does not + so much increase because more are born, as because fewer + die."<a id="footnotetag10" + name="footnotetag10"></a><a href="#footnote10"><sup>10</sup></a> + Hence, the presumption is that the rate of births in + Portugal is equal to that in Carthagena de Colombia, where + it is 8 to 10 per cent., or at least that of some parts of + Mexico, where it is 6.21 per cent. Yet the population of + Portugal has not increased during a hundred years. What, + then, has become of the 250,000 human beings annually called + into existence in Portugal? One-half + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" + id="page117"></a>[pg 117]</span> of them took their chances + with the rest of the population, were registered at birth, + died according to rule, were duly entered upon statistical + tables and buried in consecrated ground: the other half were + strangled by their mothers, flung into ditches, exposed to + die, starved to death, assassinated in some manner. The + crimes of foeticide and infanticide have become so common + that there is scarcely a peasant-woman in Portugal not + guilty of them, either as principal or accessory.</p> + + <p>Illegitimacy is more common in Portugal than in any country + of Europe. This fact can be proved from a comparison of + marriages, births and baptisms; but since the statistics on + these subjects are defective, the better testimony is to be + derived from the number of deposits at the foundling hospitals. + The foundling of the house of Misericordia in Lisbon, that of + the Real Casapin in Belem and the foundling at Oporto together + receive nearly five thousand foundlings during the year, of + whom two-thirds<a id="footnotetag11" + name="footnotetag11"></a><a href="#footnote11"><sup>11</sup></a> + perish in the establishments, which thus become "charnels + and houses of woe." Almost every town or village in the + kingdom has its <i>roda dos expostos</i>—literally, a + "wheel for exposed ones"—where, upon the ringing of a + bell, the children deposited in a turning-basket or wheel + are passed into the interior of the establishment without + inquiry. Although their term of stay is limited to a few + weeks, less than one-half of them ever pass out of the + establishment alive! Says Dr. T. de Carvalho: "The + <i>roda</i> is the <i>açouque</i> ('slaughter-house') + for children. It is the permanent and legal means of + infanticide. <i>Abaixo a roda dos expostos!</i>"</p> + + <p>Notwithstanding this frightful mortality, the number of + infants always on hand in the foundlings of Portugal is nearly + 40,000, or 1 per cent of the entire population. One-eighth of + all the reported births in the kingdom become foundlings: as + for the non-reported ones, their fate is known only to the + recording angel. Says Claudio Adriano da Costa: "Promiscuous + intercourse has become common all over the country;" and he + attributes it, though I think superficially, to the "misplaced + indulgence to concubinage awarded by the + rodas."<a id="footnotetag12" + name="footnotetag12"></a><a href="#footnote12"><sup>12</sup></a></p> + + <p>The true cause of Portuguese immorality and crime is the + unequal distribution of wealth, which leaves the mass of the + inhabitants a prey to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the + tyranny of the powerful and wealthy and the despair of + insecurity. The origin of this evil state of affairs was the + tenure of emphyteusis: its active and unfeeling promoters have + been always the nobility and ecclesiastics, and its only + powerful enemy, the only hope of the people, the Crown.</p> + + <p>After what has been mentioned it is unnecessary to speak of + minor crimes—- of street assassinations, highway + robberies and the like. Your own McCulloch will inform you that + according to official information reported to the Cortes there + occurred in one year, and merely in the two districts of Oporto + and Guarda, no less than three hundred and forty-two + assassinations and four hundred and sixty robberies. It is true + that life is not quite so insecure now as when McCulloch wrote. + Some few rays of light have penetrated the profound abyss of + misery and evil in which the country was then plunged; + nevertheless, the improvement has been but slow and partial, + and nothing short of revolution can accelerate it. There is but + one man in the world who possesses the means to render that + revolution successful, and that man—His Majesty Dom Pedro + II., the emperor of Brazil—is now, or soon will be, on + his way to the United States. May he not peruse in vain this + sad account of famine and crime in Portugal!</p> + + <p>There are persons with nervous organisms so abused that a + sudden cry, whether it be of boisterousness or despair, will + cause them great agony: so there are others with moral + susceptibilities so overstrained that the story of a nation's + misery and crime, such as I have endeavored + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" + id="page118"></a>[pg 118]</span> to sketch, will evoke + within them more pain than interest. Regard for such + exceptional persons has created a namby-pambyism in + literature which would banish these topics—the + greatest and holiest in which human sympathy can be + enlisted—to the domains of science. But science cannot + aid unhappy Portugal. Sympathy and prayer alone can mitigate + our sufferings. Therefore sympathize with and pray for us, + you who stand in the broad glare of freedom, filled with + plenty and surrounded by promise, Pray for unhappy + Portugal!</p> + + <h2>AT THE OLD PLANTATION.</h2> + + <h4>TWO PAPERS.—I.</h4> + + <p>The life of the low-country South Carolina planter, until + broken up by the war, had changed but little since colonial + times. It was the life which Washington lived at Mount Vernon, + with some slight differences of local custom. The two-storied + house, with its ten or twenty rooms and broad piazza, had + probably been built in ante-Revolutionary days by the British + country gentleman or Huguenot exile from whom the present owner + drew his descent. I well remember how the old house at Hanover + bore near the top of the chimney stack the legend "<i>Peu + à peu</i>" written with a stick in the soft mortar with + which the bricks had been covered. The old Huguenot builder had + burned his bricks by guess, and three times the work had to + stop until the kiln could be replenished and a new lot + prepared. The top was finally reached, however, and the + triumphant <i>Peu à peu</i> was only his French way of + proclaiming to posterity <i>Perseverantia vincit omnia</i>. In + many instances, however, fire has destroyed the original + structure—a danger to which the country residence is + specially exposed—but the new one has usually been + modeled after that which it succeeded. Indian names, flowing + softly from the tongue, have usually come down with the tracts + to which they originally belonged, as <i>Pooshee, Wantoot, + Wampee, Wapahoula</i>, though Chelsea, White Hall, Sarrazin's + or Sans Souci often betrays the English or French origin of the + first patentee.</p> + + <p>To understand the home and life of the wealthy Carolina + planter we must remember that he was the most contented man in + the world. The greed of gain was unknown to him, and his + deep-rooted conservatism forbade everything like speculation. + Solid, substantial comfort and large-hearted hospitality were + the objects in all his expenditures. He never invested his + surplus money except in another plantation to put his surplus + negroes on, for he never sold a negro except for incorrigible + bad qualities or to pay some pressing debt. He had no expensive + tastes except for rare old madeira and racing-stock, from the + last of which his splendid saddle-horses were always selected; + and these were usually of the best and purest blood. He was as + much at home in the saddle as an English fox-hunter or a Don + Cossack, and the only wheeled vehicles in his spacious + carriage-house were the heavy family coach, and the light sulky + in which his summer trips were made between the pineland and + the plantation.</p> + + <p>Come back with me now to the days when the North-eastern + Railroad was a possibility of the future, and join me in a + Christmas visit to old Pooshee. We take the little steamer for + the head of Cooper River, the December sun being warm enough to + tempt us from the close cabin to the airy deck. The graceful + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" + id="page119"></a>[pg 119]</span> spire of old St. Michael's + cuts sharply against the sky, reminding you, if you have + visited the suburbs of London, of St. + Martin's-in-the-Fields, that fine specimen of Sir + Christopher Wren's style, after which it was modeled. The + old customhouse looks just as it did when Governor Rutledge + had the tea locked up in its store-rooms, and the gray moss + droops in weeping festoons from the live-oaks of beautiful + Magnolia. I wonder how the miles of green marsh through + which we pass can seem to you such a dreary waste. To my eye + it is all alive with interest. I never tire of watching how + the lonely white heron spears his scaly prey, how the + clapper-rail floats on his raft of matted rushes, how the + marsh-wren jerks his saucy little tail over his + bottle-shaped nest, or how with quick and certain stroke the + oyster-catcher extracts the juicy "native" from his bivalved + citadel. We are now getting above the salt-water line, and + on either hand the rice-fields, now covered with water, + stretch away from the banks, their surface covered with + countless thousands of ducks. As the winding river brings + the channel somewhat nearer to the shore, the splash of the + paddles startles the feeding multitude, and they rise with a + rush and roar of wings which might be heard for miles. Could + we stop for a day or two at Rice Hope, we might have rare + sport among the mallards and bald-pates as they fly out + between sunset and dark, or in the early morning from behind + a well-constructed blind. But we must decline the cordial + invitation which urges us to do so as the boat casts off + from the landing, and in a couple of hours more we step + ashore at Fairlawn, where we find the carriage waiting to + take us over the twelve remaining miles of our journey. The + road, like the marsh, may seem lonely and tedious to you, + but I know every turn and bend of it, and the trees are all + old friends. I'm sure I know that green heron which "skowks" + to me as he springs from the rail of the bridge, and there + is something familiar in the bark of the black squirrel + which has just rushed up that pine. Hark! that was the yelp + of a turkey. Stop the horses for a moment and we may see + them. One, two, four, seven! What a splendid old gobbler + last crossed the road, and no guns loaded! And there is the + track of as noble a buck as I ever saw: that's where he + jumped into the pea-field, and ten to one he's lying now in + that patch of sedge.</p> + + <p>"Well!" I think I hear you say, "you have seen more to + interest you in a hundred yards than I should have found in two + miles."</p> + + <p>Exactly; and that is why I enjoy the country so much. Learn + to love Nature in her every mood and to study her every + feature, and you will never know the feeling of loneliness if + you keep outside the walls of a jail. But we are at the outer + gate, and our journey is nearly over. At the end of a long + enclosed road, shaded by trees—which, however, do not + form an avenue, such as you may see near the coast, where the + live-oaks flourish more vigorously—stands the spacious + mansion, with its white walls, green Venetian shutters and red + tin roof. There is no enclosure about it save that which is + formed by the rail fences of the distant fields. The "yard" + contains about forty acres of grassy lawn shaded by spreading + forest trees—white-oaks, water-oaks and + hickories—from which hang the graceful folds of the + Spanish moss. The out-buildings are scattered about without the + slightest reference to distance, except in the case of the + kitchen, which is at the back and some twenty yards from the + dwelling. The stable and carriage-house stand on either side, + <i>in front</i>, but at a distance sufficient to prevent + unsightliness or discomfort. In the background are the large + "cotton-houses," with their bleaching-platforms, the + "gin-house," the corn-house, the fodder-house and the + poultry-house, which is nearly as large as any of them; while + nearer the mansion are grouped the "loom-house," the dairy and + the oven-shed, under which is built the huge brick oven capable + of baking to a sugary confection several bushels of yam "slips" + at a time. On the left is the "negro-yard" (never called "the + quarter" in this region), with its fifty or sixty substantial + cabins, each <span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" + id="page120"></a>[pg 120]</span> gleaming with whitewash and + having its own little vegetable patch and chicken-house.</p> + + <p>It is Saturday evening, and the sun is just entering the + heavy cloud-bank which rests on the western horizon as we drive + up to the door. Our genial and venerable host, "the old + doctor," is at the stables superintending the feeding of his + horses, and thither we bend our steps with a sense of + exhilaration which only the crisp, fresh country air can + impart, and a new vigor thrilling through every muscle as the + foot presses the green and springy sod. Our old friend is a + worthy representative of the old <i>régime</i>, the only + change which the lapse of thirty years has made in his costume + being the substitution of black for blue broadcloth in the + velvet-collared, brass-buttoned, narrow-skirted coat with its + side-pocket flaps. The collar sits as high in the neck; the red + silk handkerchief peeps out behind; the trousers are cut with + the "full fall," over which hangs the watch fob-chain with its + heavy seals; the low-crowned beaver hat has the same wide brim; + and the silver snuff-box is still redolent of Scotch + maccaboy.</p> + + <p>"The hounds have got fat waiting for you, and the birds are + almost tame enough to put salt on their tails," says the old + gentleman after the hearty welcome is over. "Old Nannie says + the foxes are eating up all her turkeys, and Loudon tells me + that he sees deer-tracks coming out of the new ground every + morning."</p> + + <p>"How <i>are</i> ye, gentlemen?" says stout John Myers, the + "obeshay," which is negro for "overseer."—"I say, there! + you Cuffee, that basket ain't half full o' corn.—I s'pose + you're goin' to clean out all the game by Chris'mas?—You + Cæsar, why don't you fill up old Chester's stall with + trash? You niggers are gittin' too lazy to live;" and he walks + off to see that the negroes, who are watching us with open + mouths and eyes, do not allow their astonishment to interfere + with the comfort of the horses. Five sturdy negro men are doing + the work of two boys, forking in the "pine-trash" from the huge + pile outside, and bringing ear-corn in oak bushel-baskets on + their shoulders from the corn-house three hundred yards + away.</p> + + <p>We cross over to this building when the stable-door has been + locked and watch the eager crowd which is waiting for the + weekly "'lowance." Sturdy, strapping women, with muscular arms + and stout calves freely displayed under the skirts which are + tucked around their waists, are standing in picturesque + attitudes or sitting on their upturned baskets, while ragged, + wild-looking little "picknies" are clinging to the said skirts + and peeping with great staring eyes at the strange "buckrah + man." Each will take the week's supply of ear-corn and potatoes + for her household—a peck for each member of the family, + large and small—and will grind her own grist at the + mill-house, or more probably trade away the entire supply at + the cross-roads store for flour, sugar and coffee.</p> + + <p>"Why, Rose, is that you? How are you, and how are the + children?"</p> + + <p>"De Lawd! Wha' dat? who dat da' talk me? Bless de Lawd! da' + nyoung maussa! Ki! enty you tek wife yet? Go 'way! Look! he + done got bayd (beard) same like ole nanny-goat! Bless de + Lawd!"</p> + + <p>"I'm glad to see you looking so young, Kitty: your children + must be grown up."</p> + + <p>"Tenk de Lawd, maussa," with a low curtsey, "I day yah yet! + Dem pickny, da big man an' 'oman now. Enty you got one piece + t'bacca fo' po' ole nigger?"</p> + + <p>The tobacco is forthcoming, together with a few gaudy + head-handkerchiefs and little parcels of sugar, and "nyoung + maussa" has it all his own way with the simple creatures. These + negroes are as near the original wild African type as if a few + years instead of more than a century of contact with + civilization had passed over them. They are all the direct + descendants of original importations, chiefly Ghoolahs and + Ashantees; indeed, "Gullah niggah" is a favorite term of + playful reproach among them. Their <i>male</i> names are still + largely Ashantee, as "Cudjo," "Cuffee," "Quarcoo," "Quashee," + etc., and their dialect, a mixture of "pigeon English" and + Ghoolah, strongly impregnated with the French of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" + id="page121"></a>[pg 121]</span> Huguenot masters of their + forefathers, is simply incomprehensible to a stranger, + whether white or black. Indeed, when excited and talking + rapidly even those who have grown up among them can scarcely + understand the lingo. "Coom, Hondree," says an old nurse to + her little charge at bedtime, "le' we tek fire go atop:" in + English, "Come, Henry, let's take a light and go up stairs." + "Child" is "pickny;" "white man" (or woman), "buckrah;" "I + don't know," "Me no sabbée;" "Is it not?" "Enty?"; + "watermelon" is "attermillion" or "mutwilliam;" and so + on.</p> + + <p>Paying a medical visit, I enter a house where the patient is + a sick child: the old crone who is sitting in the doorway with + a boy's head between her knees, performing the office of which + monkeys are so fond, calls out, "Lindy! de buckrah coom."</p> + + <p>"What's the matter with the child?" I inquire.</p> + + <p>"Ki, maussa! me no sabbée wha' do a pickny," replies + the intelligent Lindy, who wishes me to know that she knows + nothing about the case.</p> + + <p>We shall see more of them before leaving the plantation.</p> + + <p>A day on the water and a long drive are excellent + preparatives for a supper of broad rice-waffles toasted crisp + and brown before the crackling hickory fire, of smoking + spare-ribs and luscious tripe, of rich, fragrant Java coffee + with boiled milk and cream; nor does a sound night's sleep + unfit one for enjoying at breakfast a repetition of the same, + substituting link sausages and black pudding for the tripe and + spare-ribs, and superadding feathery muffins and soft-boiled + eggs.</p> + + <p>It is Sunday morning, but the service to-day is at the other + end of the parish, some twenty miles away. The sky seems + brighter and the grass more green than on the work-days of the + week: the birds sing more cheerily, and seem to know that for + one day they are safe from man's persecution. Certain it is + that the wary crow will on that day eye you saucily as you pass + within ten yards of him, while on any other you cannot approach + him within a hundred. At ten o'clock the household is assembled + in the drawing-room, the piano—with, it may be, a flute + accompaniment—is made to do the organ's duty, and the + full service of the Prayer-Book is read and sung and listened + to with reverent attention. There are yet two hours to dinner, + and as the wild, wailing chant from the negro-yard comes to our + ears we determine to visit their chapel. If there was one point + in which, more than in others, the Carolina planter was + faithful to his duty, it was in securing the privileges of + religion to his slaves. Every plantation had its chapel, + sometimes rivaling in its appointments the churches for the + whites. One of the largest congregations of the Protestant + Episcopal Church in South Carolina, having lost its silver + during the sack of Columbia, is still using the sterling + communion service of a chapel for negroes which was burned upon + a neighboring plantation. The missionary is to-day upon another + portion of his circuit, and we have a specimen of genuine + African Christianity. On one side the rough benches are filled + with men clad, for once in the week, in <i>clean</i> cotton + shirts, with coat and pants of heavy "white plains," some young + dandies here and there being "fixed up" with old black silk + waistcoats and flashy neckties, holding conspicuously old + mashed beaver hats, which have been carefully wetted to make + them shine. On the other are ranged the women, the front + benches holding the sedate old "maumas," with gaudy yellow and + red kerchiefs tied about their heads in stiff high turbans, and + others folded <i>à la</i> Lady Washington over their + bosoms; behind them sit the young women in white woolen + "frocks," without handkerchiefs on head or breast; while the + children who are not minding babies at home or hunting rabbits + in the woods are gathered about the door.</p> + + <p>Old Bob, the preacher, rises and fixes his eyes severely on + the small fry near the door: "We's gwine to wushup de Lawd, an' + I desiah dem chilluns to know dat no noise nor laffin', nor no + so't o' onbehavin', kin be 'lowed; so min' wot you's 'bout + dere. You yerry me? (hear + me)."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" + id="page122"></a>[pg 122]</span> + + <p>Then, adjusting the great silver-rimmed spectacles and + opening a ragged prayer-book (upside down), he proceeds to read + over the hymn, the whole congregation listening with rapt + attention. As he utters the last word all rise together, the + old women with closed eyes, heads on one side and hands crossed + over their breasts, and he begins to "line out," dividing the + words rhythmically into spondaic measure, with the accent + strongly on every second syllable and the falling inflection + invariably on the last uttered:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>When I'—kin read'—my ti'—tul + clear'—</p> + + <p>To man'—shuns in'—de skies'.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Immediately the old mauma at the end of the front bench + "sets de tchune," a sad, quavering minor, and pitched so high + that any attempt to follow it seems utterly hopeless. But no: + the women all strike in on the same soaring key, while the men, + by a skillful management of the <i>falsetto</i>, keep up with + the screamiest flights. As they wail out the last word, + "skies," the women all curtsey with a sharp jerk of the body + and the men droop their heads upon their breasts—a token + that the strophe is ended; and the next two lines follow in the + same manner. Then follows the prayer, in which due remembrance + is made of "ole maussa" and "nyoung missis an' maussa," and all + their friends and visitors. We are considerate enough to + withdraw before the sermon, lest our presence should embarrass + the preacher, but a little eavesdropping gives us an + opportunity of hearing how practically he deals with "lyin' an' + tiefin', an' onbehavin' 'mongst de nyoung 'omans," and how he + holds up "de obeshay," as Saint Paul did the magistrate, in + terror to those who "play 'possum w'en de grass too t'ick," or + "stick t'orn in he finger so he can't pick 'nuff cotton w'en de + sun too hot." With our withdrawal is removed a restraint which + has chilled the active devotion of the assembly, and soon the + singing begins again, accompanied now, however, by the heavy + tramp of feet and the clapping of hands keeping time to the + sad, wailing minor which characterizes all their music. The + hymn, too, is no longer selected from the prayer-book, but from + some unwritten collection better adapted to their ideas of + "heart-religion":</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>De angel cry out A-men,</p> + + <p class="i2">A-men! A-men!</p> + + <p>De angel cry out A-men!</p> + + <p class="i2">I'se bound to de promis' lan'!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>I da gwine up to hebbin in a long w'ite robe,</p> + + <p class="i2">Long w'ite robe! long w'ite robe!</p> + + <p>My Sabiour tell me wear dat robe</p> + + <p class="i2">W'en I meet him in de promis' lan'!</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>We've a great deal before us during the coming week, for we + must give a day to the partridges (never called "quail" in the + South), and we have a fox-hunt or two in the mornings, and that + old buck to look after whose tracks I showed you in the road; + besides the ducks and turkeys which are waiting to be shot, and + all the Christmas frolicking, from which the ladies will not + excuse us. We will therefore take this quiet Sunday afternoon + for a walk among the fields and woods to see what manner of + country we are in. Bending our steps first toward the huge old + oak which seems to hang upon the very edge of the green hill + near the house, we suddenly find ourselves just over a large + basin enclosed with an octagonal brick wall, except where the + clear water runs out over silvery gravel between curbings of + heavy plank. This is the spring, and a queer sort of spring it + is. Just under the tree-roots the water is but a few inches + deep over a bed of bluish-gray limestone, and in no part of the + basin, which is about twelve by twenty feet, does it seem to be + more than a half fathom in depth. But just under the ledge of + rock a shelving hole slopes back under the hill, the bottom of + which no man has ever found. This hole is only about three feet + by two, and the narrow outlet to the basin is but four inches + deep, and loses itself within fifty yards in an oozy bog. Yet, + peering into the depth, you catch a glimpse of the black head + and beady white eyes of a mudfish at least two feet long, and + presently of the silvery side of a three-pound bass which + glides across the opening. Drop a line with the cork set at ten + feet, and you will draw out of the very bosom of the earth a + mess of fat perch and bream each as large and as thick as your + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" + id="page123"></a>[pg 123]</span> hand, and eels three feet + in length are sometimes caught in the basin at night. Two + miles away, in the direction of the "run," there are on + Woodboo plantation two similar basins connected by a shallow + streamlet, and with no outlet which a minnow could navigate: + one of them is large enough for a little skiff to float on, + and the gray rock slopes down to a centre depth of ten feet. + Just where the sides meet is a long, irregular fissure, out + of which huge bass, pike, jack and mudfish are constantly + emerging, and into which they retreat when disturbed. + Hundreds of perch, bream and young bass sport in the shallow + parts, and are easily caught with rod and line, the water + being so clear that you can watch the fish gorging the bait, + and strike when the entire hook disappears. Now, where do + these fish live? where do they breed? and upon what do they + feed? But the mystery does not end there. About a mile in + the opposite direction as we walk through a little belt of + wet pineland, where the woodcock runs across our path or + whistles up from the wet leaves, we come suddenly upon a + dozen or more little basins, the largest not over six feet + by nine, which have no outlet whatever. One hole about two + feet in diameter goes sheer down between two pine trees to a + depth never yet fathomed: you cannot see it until right on + it, and you cannot use a rod, but drop your line about + twelve feet deep, and your cork will go down like lead, + while you pull up red perch and blue bream until your arm + wearies of the sport. I have caught five dozen in a winter's + afternoon, for the fish bite best in the coldest weather, + the temperature of the water being sixty-two degrees the + year round, irrespective of the weather. You must go fifteen + miles before reaching another of these springs or fountains, + and then ten more to the last of the chain, the famous Eutaw + Springs of Revolutionary memory. Here, then, must be a + subterranean river or reservoir at least twenty-eight miles + long, teeming with the same fish which swim in the + surface-streams, yet having no discoverable connection with + any of these. We meet with no rocks or stones anywhere, but + our walk leads us past many marl-pits from which numerous + fossil remains have been obtained. The fertile and + superstitious imagination of the negroes has not been idle + in such a suggestive field, and they have peopled these + fountains with spirits which they call "cymbies," akin to + the undine and the kelpie. On Saturday nights you may hear a + strange rhythmic, thumping sound from the spring, and + looking out you may see by the wild, fitful glare of + lightwood torches dark figures moving to and fro. These are + the negro women at their laundry-work, knee-deep in the + stream, beating the clothes with heavy clubs. They are merry + enough when together, but not one of them will go alone for + a "piggin" of water, and if you slip up in the shadow of the + old oak and throw a stone into the spring, the entire party + will rush away at the splash, screaming with fear, convinced + that the "cymbie" is after them.</p> + + <p>Leaving the spring behind us, we pass up the long lane + between two cotton-fields of a hundred acres each, in which the + blackened stalks are still standing, as are the dried + cornstalks and gray pea-vines in the field beyond. These will + remain until the early spring, when they will be cut down and + "listed in" with the hoe, for not a foot of this rich and + profitable plantation has ever been broken with the plough. + Incredible as it may appear, there is not a plough or a + work-horse, and but one old mule, upon this highly-cultivated + tract of one thousand acres. All the hauling is done by + ox-teams, with three sturdy negroes to each cart, and the heavy + cotton-hoe does everything else. Where one man and a plough + could till three acres, twenty men and women with hoes 'ridge + up the ground, scatter manure in the furrows, and draw the + ridges down on it again. True, the surface only is scratched, + and the soil is soon exhausted, but who cares for that when + there is abundance of rich timber-land from which to clear new + fields? and as to economizing labor, that is the last thing a + planter cares about, for what are the negroes to do? None are + ever sold, the "picknies" who swarm around + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" + id="page124"></a>[pg 124]</span> every cabin growing up to + stock the plantations bought for each child as he or she + "comes of age or is married," and work has to be made for + them to do.</p> + + <p>"What shall I put the hands at to-day, sir?" asked an + overseer of an old planter when the last bale of cotton had + been packed.</p> + + <p>"Hum! let's see! Well, set them to filling up the old + ditches and digging new ones."</p> + + <p>For the same reason power-gins and saw-mills found little + favor, the single-treadle "foot-gin" and the saw-pit and + cross-cut employing ten times as many hands. It was the aim of + every large planter to produce and manufacture by hand-power + everything needed on the place. Of course, it required a heavy + expenditure of labor and land to raise provisions for such an + army of unprofitable workers, on which account slave capital + was the poorest paying property in the world. The planter was + wealthy, but he owned only land and negroes: when the latter + were emancipated the former became useless; and this is the + reason why the war so utterly ruined the rich land-owners of + the South.</p> + + <p class="author">ROBERT WILSON.</p> + + <h2>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2> + + <h4>'76.</h4> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Pass, '75, across the Styx!</p> + + <p>Make way for stately '76,</p> + + <p>Who comes with mincing, minuet pace,</p> + + <p>Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face—</p> + + <p>An antiquated kerchief on:</p> + + <p>White-capped, like Martha Washington;</p> + + <p>Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod,</p> + + <p>To give no Nineteenth Century nod;</p> + + <p>Nay, but a courtesy profound,</p> + + <p>Whose look demure consults the ground.</p> + + <p>O rare-seen bloom! No flower perennial,</p> + + <p>This aloe-crowned Dame Centennial!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>She comes with shades of days long fled—</p> + + <p>Knee-breeched; long silk-stockingèd;</p> + + <p>Well-braided queues; bright-buckled shoon</p> + + <p>That flash with diamonds; gold galloon</p> + + <p>On rebel uniforms of blue—-</p> + + <p>A color that this land found <i>true</i>;</p> + + <p>Three-cornered hats, and plumes that flew</p> + + <p>Through conflicts where men dare and do.</p> + + <p>A patriot throng, a gallant host,</p> + + <p>Our Dame Centennial's train can boast.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>O aloe-flower upon her brow!</p> + + <p>Of what strange birth-pangs breathest thou,</p> + + <p>The while we gaze with dreamy eyes</p> + + <p>Back o'er a sea of memories,</p> + + <p>And see thy seed of foreign skies</p> + + <p>Here washt, to spring beneath our sun</p> + + <p>And ripen till its bloom is won!</p> + + <p>What storms have rocked thy stem aslant,</p> + + <p>O changeful-nurtured Century-Plant!</p> + + <p>Whose living flower now opens bland</p> + + <p>Its kindly promise o'er the land!</p> + + <p>With blood and tears 'twas watered,</p> + + <p>The bud whose blossom now is spread</p> + + <p>A floral cap her head upon,</p> + + <p>Who, <i>à la</i> Martha Washington,</p> + + <p>Our Dame Centennial now appears,</p> + + <p>Our '76, our crown of years!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Brave preparations thee await,</p> + + <p>O dame arrayed in olden state!</p> + + <p>For thee, for thee, Penn's city stands</p> + + <p>And stretches forth inviting hands</p> + + <p>To guests of home and foreign lands,</p> + + <p>And gathers all historic pride</p> + + <p>Of ancient records at her side,</p> + + <p>With gifts from all, on thee to rain</p> + + <p>Who bring'st such mem'ries in thy train.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Hail, city well named "Brother's Love!"</p> + + <p>The Quaker City of the dove,</p> + + <p>That fain would call a land to fling</p> + + <p>Its spites away, and 'neath thy wing</p> + + <p>Renew the treaty made by Penn</p> + + <p>In the wildwood with wilder men;</p> + + <p>Yet true men still! Be this the token—-</p> + + <p>loyal faith, a pledge unbroken!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>O year that wear'st thy aloe-flower</p> + + <p>So proudly! may thy touch have power</p> + + <p>Of healing! May thy visage bland</p> + + <p>Drive threatening discord from the land,</p> + + <p>And thronèd Peace more firmly fix!</p> + + <p>Then shall the elder '76,</p> + + <p>From out the eighteenth century's band</p> + + <p>Of Time's host in the shadowy land,</p> + + <p>Greet thee as one true soul may smile</p> + + <p>Upon another, where nor guile</p> + + <p>Nor sorrow can its brightness dim.</p> + + <p>So greet the clear-eyed seraphim—</p> + + <p>So once in Eden's sinless bower</p> + + <p>Unfading flower smiled on flower.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="author">LATIENNE.</p> + </div> + </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" + id="page125"></a>[pg 125]</span> + + <h2>THE KREUZESSCHULE.</h2> + + <h4>OBER-AMMERGAU, Bavaria, Oct. 4, 1875.</h4> + + <p>The town lies at the end of a lovely green valley. Behind it + are fir-clad mountains with rocky peaks: on one side a great + square rocky peak, which towers above all and is surmounted by + a cross. On each side of the valley sloping hills, fir-clad to + the top. A rapid, clear stream runs by on the edge of the + village. Green pastures dotted with haymakers, a few scattered + trees and a distant town fill the charming valley. Virginia + creepers hang on the walls, and gay flowers fill pretty + balconies and peep through sunny little casements. All is + simple and neat, and the bright fresco pictures on the fronts + of many houses lighten it all.</p> + + <p>On a high hill overlooking the town they are placing a + colossal crucifixion group, presented by King Ludwig II. in + <i>Erinnerung an die Passionsspiele</i>—in memory of the + Passion play—Christ on the cross, with the Virgin and St. + John, one on each side. The two latter were ready to be hoisted + on to the pedestal: the former is partly up the hill. All are + surrounded by heavy planking, so that it is impossible to judge + of the artistic merit, but the great group cannot fail to have + a fine effect when viewed from a distance.</p> + + <p>Yesterday (October 3d) was the eventful day. Our tickets had + been ordered by telegraph, and we had "the best seats." The + performance was to begin at nine o'clock, and at a quarter + before nine we were in our places.</p> + + <p>The building in which the play is given is of plain rough + wood without paint ("or polish"); in the interior a gallery and + two side-galleries, below them a parterre, and on each side of + it a standing-place, all of plain, unpainted boards. The + orchestra was sunk below the level of the stage, the proscenium + painted to represent columns and entablature. The curtain + represented, or seemed intended to represent, Jerusalem. The + whole place could not probably contain over six hundred people, + and was about half full. There were very few foreigners.</p> + + <p>The play to be represented was not the "Passion play," which + is given every ten years, but the <i>Kreuzesschule</i>, which + is played once in fifty years—last in 1825. In it the + play is taken from the Old Testament, and the tableaux from the + New Testament—the reverse of the Passion play.</p> + + <p>The orchestra began punctually at nine o'clock. There were + about twenty performers, and they played with skill and taste. + The selection of music was admirable. They commenced with a + sort of prelude, slow and declamatory. Perfect silence reigned, + and the deep interest of the spectators was, from the first and + throughout, shown in their expressive faces. Men and women at + times shed tears, and made not the slightest effort to hide + their emotion. The black head-*kerchiefs of many of the women + spectators, tight to the skull with ends hanging down behind, + seemed in harmony with the scene.</p> + + <p>The prelude ended, the Chorus entered with slow and + dignified pace—seven men and women from one side, six + from the other, all in a kind of Oriental costume, picturesque + and handsome. The tallest came first, and so on in gradation, + so that when ranged in front of the curtain they formed a kind + of pyramid. The central figure then began the prologue, an + explanation. Then the basso commenced singing an air, during + which the Chorus divided, falling back to the sides and + kneeling, while the curtain rose, displaying the first tableau. + This lasted nearly three minutes, during which time the figures + were really perfectly motionless. The basso finished his air + and the tenor sang another while the curtain was up. This + tableau represented the cross supported by an angel, while + grouped around were men, women and children looking up at it in + adoration. This was the "Kreuzesschule"—the school of the + Cross—the prologue to the piece. The picture had the + simplicity of the best school: no affected attitudes—all + plain, earnest and beautiful. When the curtain fell the Chorus + again took their places in front of it, a duet was sung, then a + chorus, and then they countermarched and retired in quiet + dignity.</p> + + <p>Then came the first part. A prelude by the orchestra, and + the curtain <span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" + id="page126"></a>[pg 126]</span> rises on Abel, dressed in + sheep skin, by his altar, from which smoke ascends, he + returning thanks. Enter Cain in leopard skin, much disturbed + and angry. They discourse, Abel all sweetness, Cain bitter + and cross. An angel in blue mantle, like one of Raphael's in + the "Loggia," appears at the side and comforts Abel. Then + Eve in white dress—evidently it had been a puzzle to + dress her—and buskins, who says sweet words to Cain. + Then Adam in sheep skin, very sad at all this difficulty. + Eve sweetly strives to reconcile Cain to his brother, and + appeals to him with much feeling. He discourses at length, + then appears to relent and embraces Abel, but is evidently + playing the hypocrite, and as the curtain falls you see that + hate is in his heart.</p> + + <p>The curtain down, the orchestra plays a prelude, the Chorus + enters as before, and the leader speculates on Cain's behavior. + "Is he honest?"—"Ah no, his heart is full of hate: he + meditates evil." The Chorus divides as before, falls back and + the curtain rises. This tableau represents the hate and rage of + the people and Pharisees toward Christ, who drives the traders + out of the Temple. In grouping, costume, color, tone, action + and completeness it was truly a marvelous picture. The stage + was crowded with figures: Christ in the centre, behind—a + row of columns on each side—a scourge in his left hand, + his right upheld in admirable action; in the background a group + in wild confusion; on the right, richly dressed priests and + Pharisees, indignant and fierce; in front, sellers of sheep and + doves, money-changers and traders of various kinds. All the + elements of a great picture were here shown in the highest + degree, and no words of praise could be too strong to express + the idea of its merits and its charm. This tableau lasted + nearly two minutes, with the most complete steadiness, the + basso singing an aria. The curtain then fell, and the Chorus, + taking its place, sang and retired as before. This ended the + first part, Cain's hate prefiguring the hatred toward + Christ.</p> + + <p>Then came Part Second. The curtain rose on Cain by the side + of his ruined in a soliloquy. Enter Abel, gentle and mild. Eve + comes in, and again tries to make peace, and Cain again plays + the hypocrite and invites his brother into the wood on some + pretext. They retire, leaving Eve disturbed by she knows not + what. Adam enters, shares her fears and goes out to seek his + sons. Thunder and lightning, admirably represented, and then + enter Cain disheveled and disturbed. His mother knows not what + has happened, but is agonized and calls for her Abel. An angel + appears at the side and discloses all by asking Cain, "Where is + thy brother?" and then announcing the fiat of the Most High to + him. He rushes off as Adam enters bearing the body of Abel; and + his mother, sitting down beside the dead body, makes a most + touching picture of a <i>Pietà</i>. Adam with + upstretched arms appeals to God, and the curtain falls. This + was the "Blutschuld"—the crime of blood—and + prefigured the betrayal of Christ by Judas for the thirty + pieces of silver.</p> + + <p>After a most beautiful prelude by the orchestra, the Chorus + again enters; the leader expresses his horror at Cain's action + and his pity for a fate thus given over to Satan; they again + divide, and the curtain rises on the tableau of Judas receiving + the money. At the end the high priest and other priests, in + appropriate costume, stand on a platform beyond a railing. + Judas in the centre, by a table, is taking the money from an + attendant: all around are groups, admirably arranged, + expressing, in face and attitude, wonder or pleasure or + disgust. The same artistic ideas and beautiful arrangement and + the same unaffected simplicity. This tableau lasted one minute + and a half, while the tenor sang an aria, "Oh, better for him + that he had never been born."</p> + + <p>The third part was <i>Das Opfermahl</i>—the offering + of bread and wine by Melchisedek to Abraham, prefiguring the + Last Supper. Prelude by orchestra. The curtain rises, + displaying Melchisedek before an altar, on which are bread and + wine. Four attendants are near him. He, in a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" + id="page127"></a>[pg 127]</span> flowing white robe, + discourses to them. The scene is simple and natural. Enter + Abraham and attendants on one side and Lot and attendants on + the other, all dressed in Roman mantles, buskins and + helmets. The stage was filled and the grouping admirable. + Abraham and Lot discourse, embrace and part, Lot and his + followers retiring. Melchisedek comes forward and addresses + Abraham, who replies at some length. Then Melchisedek + prepares his bread and wine, takes some, then offers to + Abraham, who eats and drinks. Meantime, a most charming + chorus of Handel is sung behind the scenes, while + Melchisedek and his attendants offer the bread and wine to + all of Abraham's suite, who partake reverentially. Tableau + and chorus, and the curtain descends. The ease and simple + quiet action of all this scene were remarkable.</p> + + <p>Enter Chorus as before: leader speaks. They divide and the + curtain rises on the tableau of the Last Supper. I know not + whether it was taken from any one picture—I think + not—but it was simply and effectively grouped, and it + recalled both Lionardo and Andrea del Sarto. This lasted two + and a half minutes, during which time the contralto sang an air + of Mozart's.</p> + + <p>The fourth part—<i>Die Ergebung</i> + (Resignation)—was represented in the play by Abraham's + willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, prefiguring + the agony of Christ in the Garden.</p> + + <p>After a prelude by the orchestra the curtain rose and + discovered Abraham and Isaac in loving discourse, with figures + in the background, admirably costumed and grouped. An angel in + white robe and blue mantle appears and delivers his heavenly + message to the astounded Abraham. His agony was simply and + feelingly depicted. He appears at last resigned, when Sarah, in + red robe and Eastern headdress, enters to renew his grief. The + beauty of this woman was of the highest order in feature and + expression, and her dress was truly artistic. The scene between + these two was most touchingly acted. Isaac reappears, thinking + that he is simply going on a journey, and, scarcely + comprehending his mother's great grief, presents his companion + to her as a comfort and stay, thus prefiguring John and Mary at + the cross. Abraham and Isaac depart, and the curtain falls.</p> + + <p>Then another prelude by the orchestra, and the Chorus + appears: the leader delivers the epilogue. They divide and + kneel, and the curtain rises on the tableau of the scene in + Gethsemane.</p> + + <p>Christ, on an elevation, is kneeling: an angel stands in + front of him. Below, the apostles are all asleep in groups. + Behind, in the centre, Judas advances with the soldiers, who + bear tall lanterns. It was like a picture of Carpaccio, and + worthy of that great master. This tableau lasted two and a + quarter minutes, during which time the tenor sang an aria.</p> + + <p>The fifth part—<i>Es ist vollbracht</i> (It is + fulfilled)—represents Abraham going out to sacrifice his + son, prefiguring the Crucifixion. The curtain rises on Sarah, + full of agony, which is most simply and powerfully depicted. + Attendants enter, who tell a long story: then Abraham and Isaac + appear, and there is a most striking scene—Sarah + fainting, the friend sustaining her, the others grouped around + in various picturesque attitudes. An angel appears, simple and + practical, like those of the good old painters, and delivers + the blessing. The curtain falls.</p> + + <p>Again the orchestra in a superb prelude: then the Chorus + appears, and, after the epilogue, divides and kneels as the + curtain rises on a tableau which my imagination never could + have pictured, for its wonderful completeness, its power, its + feeling, its artistic beauty and its marvelous expression far + exceeded any idea that I had of the power of men and women to + represent such a picture—the Crucifixion.</p> + + <p>The stage was crowded with figures, Christ in the centre, + fully extended on the cross, with no signs whatever of support + to disturb the illusion—the thieves on one side and the + other, with arms over the cross, as frequently represented; the + group at the foot of the cross so touchingly tender—the + soldiers, the priests, the people—all grouped with such + consummate <span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" + id="page128"></a>[pg 128]</span> skill, such harmony of + colors, such appropriateness and vigor of expression, as + have never, to my thinking, been excelled in the greatest + pictures of the greatest masters. Here was most remarkably + shown the wonderful artistic talent and feeling of these + simple people. There was nothing repulsive in any way, + scarcely painful, except tenderly so. You breathlessly gazed + on this wondrous scene, and when, after three minutes, the + curtain fell, you were speechless with admiration and + emotion. A lovely air by the soprano accompanied this + tableau, and after the curtain fell a grand chorus completed + the fifth part.</p> + + <p>The sixth part—<i>Durch Dunkel zum Lichte</i> (through + Darkness to Light)—ended the programme. The play + represented Joseph, with all his honors upon him, receiving his + old father and his brothers—prefiguring the Ascension of + Christ.</p> + + <p>After the prelude by the orchestra the curtain rises and + discovers old Jacob, surrounded by his sons in various groups. + The scene and costumes were admirable and appropriate. In the + midst of a discourse Joseph bursts in in fine attire, followed + by a great train, among which are two darkies, taken bodily + from Flemish pictures. After much embracing and blessing and + forgiveness, the curtain falls as Jacob with outstretched arms + thanks the Lord and prophesies all good things.</p> + + <p>Then again the orchestra, and again our Chorus enters on the + scene, and after the epilogue, "At last all woe is ended," they + divide and kneel, as the curtain rises on the scene of the + Ascension. This was most simply represented. Christ ascends + from the tomb, standing on it, surrounded by angels, while + figures appropriately grouped around make a picture which + recalled Perugino. The basso sings an aria, and a grand chorus, + "Alleluja!" ends this most remarkable performance.</p> + + <p>There was no delay nor interruption throughout. Not the + sound of a hammer nor the whisper of a prompter was ever heard. + There was no applause whatever from the audience until the end, + and then it seemed to come from the strangers. The three + hours—for the end was precisely at twelve—seemed + not more than one, so filled was the mind with the simple, + grand beauty and the artistic completeness of the whole thing. + No personality appears for an instant. There are no bills to + tell the names of the actors, nor did any actor or actress at + any time look toward the audience.</p> + + <p>Never since early childhood have the Bible stories been + brought back with such vividness, such tender and absorbing + interest. Tradition, faith and earnestness have made this a + people of artists. If one could believe, as all must wish, that + love of money-making and speculation will not invade this + simple village, to the demoralization of its people, the + satisfaction would be most complete. Be that as it may, I shall + always owe a debt of gratitude to Ober-Ammergau, and as long as + memory lasts shall remember <i>Die Kreuzesschule</i>.</p> + + <p class="author">J.W.F.</p> + + <h3>VARESE.</h3> + + <p>Varese is an ancient little town on a hill overlooking the + small lake of the same name in the midst of the mountainous + country between Como and Lago Maggiore, and a little to the + southward of the Lake of Lugano. It is within a very few miles + of the Swiss frontier. All this lacustrine region has for many + generations been celebrated as a specially privileged one. It + is Italy without the enervating heat and aridity which are such + serious drawbacks to the enjoyment of its other charms by + Northern folk. It is Switzerland without the rigidity of its + climate and the comparative poverty of the northern vegetation. + You have the oleander and cactus around your feet, while the + snow-peaks high above your head are rose-colored morning and + evening by a southern sun. You wander amid groves of Spanish + chestnut, and may hear the while the Swiss-sounding + cattle-bells from Alpine pastures high above them. The lakes + themselves, with their branching arms and bays and their + fairy-like islands, are of course a feature of ever-varying and + incomparable beauty.</p> + + <p>Accordingly, Fortune's favorites of all countries have long, + even from the old Roman times downward, thickly studded + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" + id="page129"></a>[pg 129]</span> the district with their + villas and gardens and palaces and parks. But the possession + of a villa on one of the Italian lakes implies that the + happy owner is nothing very much less than a millionaire. + And it has been reserved for these quite latter days to find + the means of placing within the reach of the many all the + delights which were heretofore the exclusive privilege of + the few. In no instance has this been done with so complete + a measure of success as at Varese. The hotel is situated + about a mile from the little town. Its gardens look down on + the lake, the intervening slope being covered with forest. + To the left, as one stands at the garden-front of the house, + looking toward the lake, are the hills in the midst of which + the Lake of Lugano nestles, and on the right, beyond the + Lago Maggiore, is a view of Monte Rosa with its eternal + snows, perhaps the finest to be found anywhere. I have seen + Monte Rosa and its chain very finely from the top of the + pass called the Col di Tenda, between Turin and Nice, but I + think the view from the terrace in front of this house is + finer. Immediately at the back of the house we have the + hills—mountains they would be called in any other part + of Europe—of which Monte Generoso, now covered with + snow, though with a hotel on the top, is the most + conspicuous. The country more immediately around us is a + district of rolling hills, partly vineyard, but in a larger + degree wooded, and here and there diversified by the + well-cared-for gardens of some large villa. Our outlook, it + will be admitted, is pleasant enough. The house I am + speaking of, now known under the style and title of the + "Excelsior Hotel," was recently a magnificent villa of the + Morosini family at Venice. The name will not be new to any + who have visited Venice; for the traveler, even if his + tastes did not lead him to take any heed of such matters, + will not have been allowed by the <i>ciceroni</i> to + overlook the tombs of the doges of that family in the grand + old church of the beheaded Saint John, <i>San Giovanni + decollata,</i> or "San Zuan Degolà," as the + soft-lisping Venetians call it. Yes, the Morosini were very + great men in their day: more than one of the brightest + chapters in the history of the great republic on the + Adriatic is filled with their name. But now their place + knows them no more: the family is extinct. The last scion of + the race, an old lady who died quite recently at Varese, is + said to have declared that it was time for a Morosini to + retire from the scene when their house was about to be + turned into an inn. Poor old lady! One could have wished + that she had vanished before that desecration had been + threatened, especially as her end was so near at hand; for + it would, I fear, have been too much to wish that the + Excelsior Hotel should have been kept out of existence for + another generation.</p> + + <p>The Morosini had palaces among the most splendid of that + city of palaces, Venice, as may be seen to the present day. But + this Varese villa was their place of delight and enjoyment. And + truly the ideas which we generally attach to the word "villa" + are scarcely represented by the magnificent building to which + the public are now indiscriminately invited. It is an enormous + pile of building, the vast garden-frontage of which makes + considerable claims to architectural magnificence. There are, + especially in Switzerland, very magnificent and palace-like + hotels which have been built for the purpose they now serve, + but the fact that they were so built has very effectually + prevented even the most splendid among them from rivaling, or + indeed approaching, the grandiose magnificence of this superb + hostelrie, which has chosen its name in no idle spirit of + vaunting. For building is costly, space is precious, and the + necessity of finding a due return for the capital employed is + the paramount rule which the architect has to keep ever in + mind. The old Morosini, who raised this pile with the abundant + profits of the trade with the East when Venice had the monopoly + of it, were curbed in their architectural ambition by no such + considerations. The building of this Villa Morosini must have + cost a sum which no possible amount of success in the way of + hotel-keeping could ever be expected to pay a tolerable + interest on. But the sum for which it was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" + id="page130"></a>[pg 130]</span> purchased by the present + proprietors by no means represents the whole of the capital + which has been expended on it as it now stands. It needed + the expenditure of no less a sum than sixty thousand pounds + sterling to adapt it in all respects to its present purpose, + and it is now really such a hotel as does not exist + elsewhere in Europe. The whole of the ground floor of the + vast building, looking in its entire length on the + trimly-kept gardens and on the lake below them, is devoted + to public rooms, the spaciousness of which is such that even + if the entire house were filled to its utmost capacity they + would never be in the least degree crowded. First on the + right hand is the breakfast-room. Then comes an enormous + dining-hall, the coved ceiling of which, supported by noble + pillars and ornamented with stuccoes in relief, is in + perfect keeping with the style of the rest of the + ornamentation. Next to the dining-room is a reading-room + well furnished with papers and books: then comes a so-called + ladies' drawing-room, though I do not observe that that + better half of the creation has the smallest wish to + monopolize it. Next to that is the very handsome general + drawing-room; then a large music-room with a grand + pianoforte and harmonium; then an equally spacious + smoking-room; and, lastly, a billiard-room;—truly a + princely suite of rooms. The manager speaks English + perfectly, and the results of his English education may be + seen in the admirably comfortable and clean arrangements of + the chambers and every part of the house. The bedrooms are + all warmed with hot air, and really nothing has been + neglected which can contribute to ensure the comfort of the + inmates.</p> + + <p>And all this can be enjoyed for nine francs per diem! A + palace to live in, placed in one of the choicest spots in the + world, abundant and well-skilled service, an excellently + well-kept and well-served table, charming gardens, and all for + about two dollars a day! Truly wonderful are the possibilities + brought within our reach by <i>co-operation!</i> Still, I do + not suppose that quite the same results could be attained + without the fortunate chance which placed a magnificent palace + at the disposal of the present proprietors at doubtless a + comparatively very small cost. <i>Morosini "nobis hæc + otra fecit"</i> The princely expenditure of that noble family + in days long since gone by provided for us nomads these + enjoyments; for one is afraid to guess what the cost at the + present day of erecting such a pile would be. Throughout a + large part of the house, in the huge corridors and + antechambers, a great deal of the old furniture and the vast + marble chimney-pieces and mural decorations remain as the + Morosini left them, and contribute their part toward persuading + us that we are not dwellers in a vulgar inn, but the guests of + some magnificent old doge, who leaves his friends the most + complete liberty and independence, and merely gratifies the + commercial traditions of his race by requesting us <i>pro + formâ</i> to drop a small present to his domestics at + parting.</p> + + <p>There are a great variety of charming drives and walks in + the neighborhood in every direction; and the whole district is + full of the villas and well-kept gardens of the rich Milanese, + who have chosen this favored spot for their country residences. + I have said <i>well-kept</i> gardens advisedly; and it is worth + noting that the love of gardens and gardening seems to be a + specialty of the Milanese among all the Italians. One sees in + other parts of Italy the remains of care and magnificence of + this sort—at Rome especially; but all (though in many + cases belonging to owners still wealthy as well as noble) + dilapidated, little cared for, and speaking in melancholy tones + of decay and perished splendor. A ruined building may be an + extremely picturesque object, but a ruined garden can never be + other than a melancholy and repulsive one. But the whole of + this district testifies to the love of the Milanese for their + gardens; and most of them are on a truly princely scale of + magnificence. There is one villa which I will mention, because + the owner of it is doing there what recalls to our minds + strikingly the old days which saw the creation of that Italian + splendor the remains of which we still admire, and suggests + that it is <span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" + id="page131"></a>[pg 131]</span> not beyond hope that the + privileged soil of Italy and the genius for the arts which + seems inherent in this people may, under their new political + circumstances, lead to yet another renaissance. The villa I + am alluding to is in the immediate neighborhood of Varese, + on a rising ground above the town, commanding the most + magnificent views of Monte Rosa, Monte Viso and the country + between the lakes of Como and Maggiore. It is a new + creation, and is the property and the work of the Milanese + banker, Signor Ponti. The house and gardens are well worth a + visit—if the traveler is fortunate enough to be + permitted to see them—for the sake of the happy + originality of idea which has inspired the architecture of + the former and the excellent taste which has turned the + favorable circumstances of the ground to the best account in + laying out the latter. But the feature which I specially + wished to mention is the ornamentation of the principal + <i>salon</i> or ball-room in the villa. When permitted to + visit it we found Signor Bertini, a Milanese artist well + known in all parts of Italy, engaged in putting the last + touches to a series of frescoes which form the principal + ornamentation of the room. The four largest paintings + commemorate the glories of Italy in the history of human + discovery. In one the monk, Guido of Arezzo, the inventor of + modern musical notation, is teaching a class of four boys to + sing from the page of an illuminated missal—a really + charming composition. In another Columbus is showing to the + Spanish monarchs the natives of the newly-found world whom + he had brought home with him. In a third Galileo is showing + to the astonished pope, by means of a telescope, the wonders + of that other newly-found world of which he was the + discoverer. The fourth shows us the very striking and + lifelike figure of Volta explaining the wonders of the + "pile" to which he has given his name to the First Napoleon. + The whole of these, as well as of the other decorations of + the room, are in "real fresco"—that is to say, the + colors are laid on while the mortar is yet wet (whence the + name <i>fresco</i>), and thus become so entirely + incorporated with the substance of the wall that the + painting is indestructible save by the destruction of at + least the coating of the latter. Of course, it is evident + that a painting so executed admits of no second touch. The + hand of the artist must obey his thought with absolutely + unfailing fidelity or the work is worthless. Hence the + special difficulty of this description of art, and the + necessity of a very high degree of mastery in him who + attempts it. In the present case Signor Bertini has + succeeded admirably. But I was especially struck by the + taste and liberality of the Milanese banker, who, instead of + making his room gorgeous with damask hangings and satin and + velvet, which any man who has cash in his pocket may have, + is giving encouragement to the art of his country, and doing + at this day exactly that which the Strozzi, the Borghesi, + the Medici and so many other bankers and merchants did three + hundred and odd years ago, and by doing made Italy what it + was.</p> + + <p class="author">T.A.T.</p> + + <h3>A STATE GOVERNOR IN THE RÔLE OF ENOCH ARDEN.</h3> + + <p>The conventional romance of the long-lost husband returning + home just in time to interrupt the second nuptials of his wife + is told of Samuel Cranston, governor of Rhode Island, who died + in 1727, after being elected to that office thirty-two times in + succession.</p> + + <p>It appears that when quite a young man Mr. Cranston married + Mary, a granddaughter of Roger Williams. Soon after the + marriage he went to sea, was captured by pirates and carried to + some country—Algiers, it is supposed—where he was + detained for several years without being able to communicate + with his family. Meanwhile, Mrs. Cranston, believing him to be + dead, accepted an offer of marriage, and was on the eve of the + nuptial ceremonies when her first husband arrived in Boston. + There he heard the news of the proposed marriage, but there + being no such thing then as telegraphs or railroads, he started + for home by means of post-horses as fast as they could carry + him. When he reached <span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" + id="page132"></a>[pg 132]</span> Howland's Ferry, just + before night, he learned that his wife was to be married + that very evening. "With increased speed he flew to Newport, + but not until the wedding-guests had begun to assemble. She + was called by a servant into the kitchen, 'a person being + there who wished to speak with her.' A man in sailor's habit + advanced and informed her that her husband had arrived in + Boston, and requested him to inform her that he was on his + way to Newport." It does not appear that the hero of this + romance made any attempt to find out if his wife had become + more attached to his rival, with the purpose of remaining + incognito should he find this to be the fact. On the + contrary, after being questioned very closely by her, he + advanced toward her, "raised his cap, and pointing to a scar + on his forehead, said, 'Do you recollect that scar?'" + Whereupon she at once recognized him, though the romance is + marred by the absence of the assurance that she "flew into + his arms." This may be inferred, however, for the returned + wanderer became the hero of the evening, entertaining the + wedding-guests with an account of his adventures and + sufferings among the pirates.</p> + + <h3>THE PALATINE LIGHT.</h3> + + <p>This phenomenon appeared off the northern coast of Block + Island about 1720, and reappeared at irregular intervals down + to the year 1832, since which it has not been seen. A common + impression of those seeing it for the first time was that it + was a light on board of some ship, or a ship on fire when very + bright. Arnold, in his <i>History of Rhode Island</i>, gives an + account of it, and also of the tradition which assigned to it a + strange origin. "This light," he remarks, "has been the theme + of much learned discussion within the present century, and, + while the superstition connected with it is of course rejected, + science has failed thus far in giving it a satisfactory + explanation." Dr. Aaron C. Willey, a resident physician of + Block Island, wrote a careful account of the phenomenon in + 1811, which was published at the time in the <i>Parthenon</i>, + whatever that may have been. He says: "Its appellation + originated from that of a ship called the Palatine, which was + designedly cast away at this place in the beginning of the last + century, in order to conceal, as tradition reports, the inhuman + treatment and murder of some of its unfortunate passengers." + This was an emigrant ship bound from Holland to Pennsylvania. + Some seventeen of the survivors were landed on the island, but + they all died except three. One lady, it was said, having "much + gold and silver plate on board," refused to land. The ship + floated off the rocks, and soon after disappeared for ever. Dr, + Willey says he saw this light in February, 1810. "It was + twilight, and the light was then large and greatly lambent, + very bright, broad at the bottom and terminating acutely + upward. From each side seemed to issue rays of faint light + similar to those perceptible in any blaze placed in the open + air at night. It continued about fifteen minutes from the time + I first observed it, then gradually became smaller and more dim + until it was entirely extinguished." The same gentleman saw it + again in the following December, when he thought it was a light + on board of some vessel until undeceived. It moved along + apparently parallel to the shore on this occasion, after a time + falling behind the doctor, who was riding along the coast. + Finally, it stopped, then moved off some rods and stopped + again. The same authority declares that he had been told by a + gentleman living near the sea that it had often been so bright + as to "illuminate considerably the walls of his room through + the windows." This happened only when the light was within half + a mile from the shore, for it was "often seen blazing at six or + seven miles' distance, and strangers supposed it to be a vessel + on fire."</p> + + <p class="author">M.H.</p> + + <h3>NOTES.</h3> + + <p>It is not very extraordinary that printers' ink is a poor + pigment for painting sunsets or sunrises. The strange thing is + that travelers and sentimentalizers obstinately ignore the + fact, and hang their paper walls with more scenery of that + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" + id="page133"></a>[pg 133]</span> description than any other. + What a gallery of alpine, arctic and marine sunsets we have, + and how blank an impression do they all produce! From any of + them, done with a clever pen by one who undertakes to + describe what he has freshly seen, we gather that the + spectacle must have been very fine, and must have deeply + delighted the spectator. We can even catch some tints here + and there, but they are fugitive, and each escapes the eye + before it grasps the next one. If we shut our eyes on + Tennyson's page we may realize a glimpse of Mont Blanc + blushing through "a thousand shadowy penciled valleys," and + have a momentary pleasure; but the poet's picture does not + abide with us. Some one devotes a couple of pages to mapping + out the infinitude of half-tints that composed a summer's + evening view looking seaward from the North Cape—a + good subject faithfully gone into, but still not a + satisfactory sketch even of the reality. The pen and type + will outline and shade, but cannot color. They give us some + fair landscapes made up of form and effect; they can compass + a cavernous bit of Rembrandt, a curtain of fog or shower, or + a staircase of wood and rock climbing into the distance, + just as they can sometimes faintly depict the infinite + chiaroscuro of the Miserere in St. Peter's; but the + monochrome, in music as in painting, is their limit.</p> + <hr /> + + <p>Has photography dealt hardly with portrait-painting as a + branch of art, or has it benefited it by weeding out the + feeble? The Memorial Exhibition will assist in determining. It + will, we hope, allow the best living painters in this + department to be fully represented by the side of their + predecessors. We shall then see if the Inmans, Neagles, and + Sullys are an extinct species, and if the ranks of their pupils + have melted away before the cannon-like camera. We cannot + believe that the sun, always exaggerating perspective except + when rectified by the stereoscope, and more or less falsifying + light and shade by the chemical effect of different rays, is to + be the only limner of faces. Thus imperfect even in mechanical + execution, it seems impossible that he should supersede future + Vandycks. As Webster used to say to young lawyers, there is + plenty of room up stairs. Painters may fearlessly aim to get + above the sun. Take one of Sully's women and compare it with + the smoothest print softened into inanity by the dots of the + retoucher of negatives—the representative of the element + of art in the process. A difference exists equivalent to that + between brain and no brain. No woman, "primp" herself for the + sitting as she may, can present her soul to the dapper + gentleman under the canopy of black velvet as Sully saw it. She + does not know herself, as reflected in her lineaments, as he + did; and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the knight of + the tripod does not know her at all.</p> + + <p>The same is true of John Neagle as a perpetuator of + character with the pencil. Men were his best subjects. In + individualizing them he has had no superior, if an equal, among + American artists. His finish was not always good, and his + coloring for that reason occasionally crude. In female heads he + was less happy: character-painters generally are. Stuart's + women are equally defective, but in a rather different way, + being hard and angular in drawing.</p> + <hr /> + + <p>England is determined not to shrink from the solution of the + time-honored problem of the result of the meeting between an + irresistible force and an impregnable target. Her iron-clads + have piled pellicle on pellicle of iron till two feet thick has + become their normal shell. Everything thinner has been + punctured, and now an eighty-ton gun, to cost sixty thousand + pounds, is getting ready to perforate that. There must be a + stopping-point for all this somewhere. Perhaps the fate of + armor afloat may soon be settled finally by the torpedo, as its + efficiency on land was disposed of by the bullet, and the + men-at-arms of the sea no longer lord it over hosts of wooden + yeomanry. Happy the nation that can look on with its hands + firmly in its pockets while others lavish their treasure in + seeking the new philosopher's + stone!</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" + id="page134"></a>[pg 134]</span> + + <h2>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h2> + + <p>Nero: An Historical Play. By W.W. Story. Edinburgh and + London: Wm. Blackwood & Sons; New York: Scribner, Welford + & Armstrong,</p> + + <p>The fashion of so-called historical dramas is spreading, but + the standard is lowering. When Mr. Swinburne wrote + <i>Chastelard</i>, whatever its faults, it was entitled to the + name of drama: last year he published <i>Bothwell</i>, which, + whatever its beauties, does not deserve to be so ranked. + Tennyson's <i>Queen Mary</i> followed during the past summer, + and many similar attempts may be expected from less illustrious + pens. It is an unfortunate direction for dramatic and poetic + composition to have taken, tending to impair the excellence of + both styles, while fulfilling the exigencies of neither. + <i>Bothwell</i> and <i>Queen Mary</i> are not historical + dramas, but versified chronicles, a certain number of pages of + the annals of Scotland and England in metre, divided into acts + and scenes and distributed into parts. Such a production, be it + called what it may, must necessarily lack the essential + qualities of the true drama, while it introduces into a branch + of literature which belongs to the imagination the realism + against which art is struggling. The latest specimen of this + new school is Mr. Story's <i>Nero</i>, for, although by his + preface it appears that the publication did not follow the + writing for several years, it comes to the world in the wake of + the aforementioned works. It is to be remembered that Mr. + Story's pen is as versatile as his talent is various. He has + given the public two law-books, commonly attributed to his + eminent father; the delightful <i>Roba di Roma</i>, which + embodies the actual animate beauty and interest of Roman life; + a volume of poems, <i>Graffiti d'Italia</i>, full of fine + dramatic fragments and studies of character in the manner of + Browning, descriptions which are pictures, and sweet verses + which live in the heart; and a number of essays in the + pleasantest style of table-talk. Moreover, we are to bear in + mind that this gentleman is not an author by profession, but + one of the most distinguished living sculptors. But the very + merit of his productions subjects them to a code of criticism + more severe than that by which amateur performances are usually + judged, and the faults one finds are by comparison with a + standard which makes fault-finding flattery. In the first + place, one cannot turn over a few pages of Mr. Story's + <i>Nero</i> without perceiving that he is imbued with the + knowledge of classical things and times, and with the study of + Shakespeare and the old English playwrights. The turn of the + phrases and the march of the passages recall those best models, + though without imitation. As in them, there is less beauty than + vigor and spirit: the dialogue is strewn with expressions as + striking as they are simple. Speaking of Claudius's murder, + Burrhus says:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>And Agrippina, startled, pushed him down</p> + + <p>The dark declivity to death.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Agrippina herself to Nero:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i10">Oh what a day it was</p> + + <p>When, with a shout that seemed to rend the air,</p> + + <p>The army hailed you Cæsar! <i>My poor + heart</i></p> + + <p><i>Shook like the standards straining to the breeze</i></p> + + <p><i>With that great cheer of triumph.</i></p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>The finest portions of the play are those in which Agrippina + has the principal part, and, notwithstanding some flaws and + inconsistencies in the character, which is evidently meant to + be complete and homogeneous, the whole impression is very + forcible and <i>single</i>. Her final menace (Act ii., Scene 5) + when Nero defies her, the terrible scene in which she tries to + regain her failing influence by kindling unholy fire in his + blood, her rage at the inaction and ignorance of her forced + retirement, her monologue when she knows that her last hour has + come, are all of a piece and exceedingly well sustained. The + dramatic ends of the play would have been better answered if + she and her son had been the central figures, and the tragedy + had ended with her death. Poppæa is closely studied: her + petty, feline personality contrasts well with the large, + imperial presence of Agrippina. Nero himself is not so + successful as a whole: his puerility in the first part is + overdone, though as the play goes on the creation takes + definite shape, and becomes at once more complex and more + distinct. The invariable recurrence of his vanity at the most + tremendous moments is admirably managed: it is like an + unconscious trick of look or gesture for which we watch. In his + first outburst of grief at Poppæa's death he + cries:</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" + id="page135"></a>[pg 135]</span> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i10">How still she lies!</p> + + <p>How perfect in her calm! No more distress,</p> + + <p>No agitations more, no joy, no pain.</p> + + <p>I'll keep her as she is. Fire shall not burn</p> + + <p>That lovely shape; but it shall sleep + embalmed—</p> + + <p>Thus, thus for ever in the Julian tomb,</p> + + <p>And she shall be enrolled among the gods.</p> + + <p>A splendid temple shall be raised to her,</p> + + <p>A public funeral be hers, <i>and I</i></p> + + <p><i>The funeral eulogy myself will speak.</i></p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>There are some impressive dramatic situations, the finest of + which is at the close of the second act, after the murder of + Britannicus, the result of a threat from Agrippina to dethrone + her refractory son in behalf of the rightful heir:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Nero</i>. How is Britannicus?</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Agrip</i>. Dead.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Nero</i>. Are you sure?</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Agrip</i>. Go see his corpse there, and assure + yourself.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Nero</i>. Dead? Poor Britannicus! who might have + sat</p> + + <p>Upon this very throne instead of me!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Agrip</i>. Nero!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Nero</i>. My mother!</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Agrip</i>. Ah! I understand.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p><i>Nero</i>. Take him and make him emperor—if + you can.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>This has what the French call the <i>coup de fouet</i>. But + the power and progress of the play are clogged by two + faults—defective construction and a curious diffuseness + and lack of concentration in many of the scenes and speeches. + The action is sadly impeded, for instance, by the author's not + making one business of Seneca's death, but spinning it out + through four scenes of going and coming, as also with + Poppæa's, and even more with Nero's, where the + intercalation of long conversations with changes of places and + personages is hurtful, almost destructive, to the effect. This + appears to be the result of too close an adherence to fact, + which brings us back to our original grievance against + dramatizing history. The loss of force from lack of + concentration probably arises from carelessness, haste or want + of revision. From the same causes may spring, too, sundry + anachronisms of expression, such as "For God's sake;" + vulgarisms like "Leave me alone" for "Let me alone;" + extraordinary commonplaces, as in the comparison of popular + favor to a weathercock, and of woman's love to a flower worn, + then thrown aside; and a constant lapsing from the energy and + spirit of the dialogue into flatness, familiarity and + triviality. There is an occasional not unwholesome coarseness + which recalls Mr. Story's Elizabethan masters, as in the + following passage:</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i10">What a crew is this</p> + + <p>Which just have fled! Foul suckers that drop off</p> + + <p>When they no more can on their victims gorge!</p> + + <p>This Tigellinus....</p> + + <p>Within his sunshine basked and buzzed and stung;</p> + + <p>And, now the shadow comes, off, like a + fly—</p> + + <p>A pestilent and stinking fly—he goes!</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>But it is unpardonable to make even Nero say, "I have to + rinse my mouth after her kiss."</p> + + <p>The fine qualities of the composition give the blemishes + relief, and the material deserved that Mr. Story should work it + up to its utmost possible perfection.</p> + <hr /> + + <p>Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher. With Letters and other + Family Memorials. Edited by the Survivor of her Family. Boston: + Roberts Brothers.</p> + + <p>There are in this work several elements of a gentle but + unfailing interest, such as generally attaches to the class of + books to which it belongs. It gives us some delineations of + bygone manners and social changes, glimpses of many more or + less notable persons, and above all the record of a life which, + without being in the usual sense of these terms eventful or + distinguished, stands forth as one in a great degree + self-determined and bearing a strong impress of individuality. + Mrs Fletcher was one of those women who easily become the + central figures of the circles in which they move, and who owe + this position, not to any transcendent qualities, but to the + combined and irresistible influence of great personal charms, a + high degree of mental vivacity, and those sympathetic and + harmonizing qualities which it is so difficult to define, but + which are equally distinct from mere amiability on the one hand + and intense self-devotion on the other. There seems to be in + such characters a hint of heroic possibilities that would only + be narrowed and despoiled of some of their charm if put to the + test of action. Lord Brougham compared Mrs. Fletcher to Madame + Roland, but she had neither the soaring intellect nor the + self-assertive tendencies that mark the representative of a + cause. Principle, however, counted for much more with her than + with the sex generally, and one can easily believe that her + tenacity in adhering to it would have been proof against any + ordeal whether of persecution or persuasion. This trait was not + more strikingly illustrated by the strength and fervency of her + Whiggism amid the reactionary tide produced by the excesses of + the French Revolution than by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" + id="page136"></a>[pg 136]</span> the circumstances of her + marriage. The only child of a small landed proprietor in + Yorkshire, she had no lack of opportunities for gratifying + her father's ambition by marrying in a rank far above her + own. Nor was it her ardent affection for the man of her + choice that made her strong against entreaties and + reproaches. She would probably have been capable of any + sacrifice of feeling imposed by her sense of duty, but it + was this latter sentiment that forbade the sacrifice. "I was + not, perhaps," she writes, "what in the language of romance + is called in love with Mr. Fletcher, but I was deeply and + tenderly attached to him. He had inspired a confidence and + regard I had never felt for any other man. I could not bear + the thought of marrying in opposition to my father's will, + but I was resolved <i>on principle</i> never to marry so + long as Mr. Fletcher remained single." He was twenty years + her senior, without fortune, and hindered, instead of aided, + in his struggle at the Scottish bar by his prominence as an + advocate of reform. These, she admits, were "sound and + rational objections," and could she have prevailed on Mr. + Fletcher to release her from the engagement, this solution, + she confesses, would have been less painful to her than + offending her father. But her lover remaining firm, she + decided after two years, having come of age in the interval, + to take the step dictated by honor as well as inclination, + and which the event proved to have been, as she anticipated, + "best for the interest and happiness of all parties."</p> + + <p>Her married life lasted thirty-seven years, and she survived + her husband nearly thirty more, dying in 1858 at the age of + eighty-seven. Her career was, on the whole, one of singular + happiness and prosperity, made so in part by fortunate + circumstances, but in a still greater degree by her sunny + temperament, her power of attracting and retaining friends, her + unflagging interest in public affairs and her unshaken belief + in human progress. Jeffrey and Brougham were among her earliest + friends, Carlyle and Mazzini among her latest, and there have + been few Englishmen of note in the present century whose names + do not appear in the list. Unfortunately, they appear for the + most part as names only. They occur incidentally in a record + intended not for the public, but for the writer's own family, + whose interest in her personal history needed no stimulant and + called for no extraneous details. Here and there we find a + passage calculated to whet if not to satisfy a more general + curiosity, such as the account of a conversation with + Wordsworth after his return from Italy in 1837, and some + letters from Mazzini written soon after his first arrival in + England, But even these belong not to the memoir itself, but to + the editor's additions. The book is therefore not to be judged + by a mere literary standard, or read with expectations founded + on a general knowlege of the writer's position and + associations. On all with whom she came in contact Mrs. + Fletcher produced the impression of a character singularly + round and complete. Something of the same influence is felt in + the perusal of her unaffected narrative, and with readers of a + reflective turn may prove a sufficient compensation for the + lack of more ordinary attractions.</p> + <hr /> + + <h4><i>Books Received</i>.</h4> + + <p>Notes on the Manufacture of Pottery among Savage Races. By + Ch. Fred. Hartt, A.M. Rio de Janeiro: Printed at the office of + the "South American Mail."</p> + + <p>The History of My Friends; or, Home-Life with Animals. + Translated from the French of Emile Achard. New York; G.P. + Putnam's Sons.</p> + + <p>The Cultivation of Art, and its Relations to Religious + Puritanism and Money-Getting. By A.R. Cooper. New York: Chas. + P. Somerby.</p> + + <p>Health Fragments; or, Steps toward a True Life. By Geo. H. + Everett, M.D. New York: Chas. P. Somerby.</p> + + <p>Sewerage and Sewage Utilization. By Prof. W.H. Corfield, + M.A. New York: D. Van Nostrand.</p> + + <p>Notes of Travel in South-western Africa. By C.J. Andersson. + New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.</p> + + <p>St. George and St. Michael: A Novel. By George Macdonald. + New York: J.B. Ford & Co.</p> + + <p>Water and Water-Supply. By W.H. Corfield, M.A., M.D. New + York: D. Van Nostrand.</p> + + <p>Home Pastorals, Ballads and Lyrics. By Bayard Taylor. + Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.</p> + + <p>Soul Problems, with other Papers. By Joseph E. Peck. New + York: Chas. P. Somerby.</p> + + <p>Scripture Speculations. By Halsey R. Stevens. New York: + Charles P. Somerby.</p> + + <p>Antiquity of Christianity. By John Alberger. New York: Chas. + P. Somerby.</p> + + <p>The Ship in the Desert. By Joaquin Miller. Boston: Roberts + Brothers.</p> + <hr class="full" /> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote1" + name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a> + + <p>Although the various states of Italy were conquered by + Rome before Greece was, it is probable that emphyteusis was + not employed in those states until after the year B.C. + 146—between that and B.C. 120.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote2" + name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a> + + <p>The Mondega annually overflows its banks, changes its + course and buries thousands of once fertile acres under + sand and stones; the Vonga has converted the once + productive land between Aveiro and Ovar into a vast morass; + the Douro is periodically converted into a frightful and + resistless torrent which sweeps everything before it.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote3" + name="footnote3"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag3">(return)</a> + + <p><i>Prize Essay on Portugal</i>, London, 1854.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote4" + name="footnote4"></a><b>Footnote 4:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag4">(return)</a> + + <p><i>Parliamentary Papers</i>, London, 1870.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote5" + name="footnote5"></a><b>Footnote 5:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag5">(return)</a> + + <p><i>Estudos Estatisticos, hygienicos e administrativas + sobre as doenças e a mortalidade do exercito + Portuguez</i>, etc., by Dr. José Antonio Marques, + Lisbon, 1862.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote6" + name="footnote6"></a><b>Footnote 6:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag6">(return)</a> + + <p>Doria, p. 184.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote7" + name="footnote7"></a><b>Footnote 7:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag7">(return)</a> + + <p>The Registrar-General of England.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote8" + name="footnote8"></a><b>Footnote 8:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag8">(return)</a> + + <p>L.A. Rebello da Silva (minister of marine), <i>Economia. + Rural</i>, Lisbon, 1868.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote9" + name="footnote9"></a><b>Footnote 9:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag9">(return)</a> + + <p>It is understood, of course, that the census figures of + births are admittedly and grossly inaccurate.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote10" + name="footnote10"></a><b>Footnote 10:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag10">(return)</a> + + <p>Porter's <i>Progress</i>, p. 21.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote11" + name="footnote11"></a><b>Footnote 11:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag11">(return)</a> + + <p>During the thirteen years from 1840-52 the number of + children deposited in the Oporto foundling was 15,608, of + whom no less than 11,310, or 72.4 per cent.—<i>nearly + three-fourths</i>—died while in the hospital. Most of + the remainder died during infancy after leaving the + hospital.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote12" + name="footnote12"></a><b>Footnote 12:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag12">(return)</a> + + <p>In some districts of Portugal the proportion of married + to single persons is as 1 to 173!</p> + </blockquote> + <hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOL. 17, NO. 97, JANUARY, 1876***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 13116-h.txt or 13116-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/1/13116">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/1/13116</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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--- /dev/null +++ b/old/13116-h/images/48.jpg diff --git a/old/13116-h/images/9.jpg b/old/13116-h/images/9.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..196bace --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13116-h/images/9.jpg diff --git a/old/13116.txt b/old/13116.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..75c7d4d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13116.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8954 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, Vol. 17, No. 97, January, 1876, by Various, Edited by John +Foster Kirk + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, +No. 97, January, 1876 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: August 4, 2004 [eBook #13116] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR +LITERATURE AND SCIENCE, VOL. 17, NO. 97, JANUARY, 1876*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added + by the transcriber. + + Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 13116-h.htm or 13116-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/1/13116/13116-h/13116-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/1/13116/13116-h.zip) + + + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE + +January, 1876. + +Volume XVII, No. 97 + + + + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + ILLUSTRATIONS + + THE CENTURY: ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL. + I.--GENERAL PROGRESS. + + UP THE THAMES + THIRD PAPER by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + + LINES WRITTEN AT VENICE IN OCTOBER, 1865 by FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. + + SKETCHES OF INDIA. + I. + + LADY ARTHUR EILDON'S DYING LETTER by THE AUTHOR OF "BLINDPITS." + + THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + + A DEAD LOVE by F.A. HILLARD. + + GENTILHOMME AND GENTLEMAN by G. COLMACHE. + + SPECIAL PLEADING by SIDNEY LANIER. + + THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS by MRS. E. LYNN LINTON + CHAPTER XVII. WHAT MUST COME. + CHAPTER XVIII. RECKONING WITH LEAM. + CHAPTER XIX. AT STEEL'S CORNER. + CHAPTER XX. IN HER MOTHER'S PLACE. + + FAMISHING PORTUGAL. + + AT THE OLD PLANTATION. + TWO PAPERS.--I. by ROBERT WILSON. + + OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. '76. by LATIENNE. + + THE KREUZESSCHULE. + OBER-AMMERGAU, Bavaria, Oct. 4, 1875. + + VARESE. + + A STATE GOVERNOR IN THE ROLE OF ENOCH ARDEN + + THE PALATINE LIGHT. + + NOTES. + + LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + Books Received. + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + HAMPTON COURT--WEST FRONT. + HAMPTON COURT--LOOKING UP THE RIVER. + ENTRANCE TO WOLSEY'S HALL. + MIDDLE QUADRANGLE, HAMPTON COURT. + ARCHWAY IN HAMPTON COURT. + WOLSEY. + PORTICO LEADING TO GARDENS. + CENTRE AVENUE. + HAMPTON COURT--GARDEN FRONT. + GATE TO PRIVATE GARDEN. + BUSHY PARK. + GARRICK'S VILLA. + RIVER SCENE, THAMES DITTON. + WOLSEY'S TOWER, ESHER. + CLAREMONT. + CLIVE'S MONUMENT. + PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. + WALTON CHURCH. + KINGSTON CHURCH. + A DWELLING AT MAZAGON. + HINDU TEMPLE IN THE BLACK TOWN, BOMBAY. + JAIN TEMPLES AT SUNAGHUR. + THE VESTIBULE OF THE GRAND SHAITYA OK KARLI. + SCULPTURED FIGURES IN THE VESTIBULE OF THE GREAT SHAITYA OF KARLI. + + + + +[Illustration: The CENTURY: ITS FRUITS and its FESTIVAL.] + + +THE CENTURY: ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL. + +I.--GENERAL PROGRESS. + + +This of ours is a conceited century. In intense self-consciousness +it exceeds any of its late predecessors. Its activity in externally +directed thought is accompanied by an almost corresponding use of +introverted reflection. Its inheritance, and the additions it has +made, can make or will make thereto, supply an ever-present theme. It +delights to stand back from its work, like the painter from his easel, +to scan the effect of each new touch--to note what has been done and +to measure what remains. It is a great living and breathing entity, +informed with the concrete life of three generations of mankind +the most alert and the most restless of all that have existed. +This sensation of exceptional endowments is self-nourishing and +ever-growing; and our little nook of time is coming to view all the +paths of the past, broad or narrow, direct or interlacing, straight or +obscure, as so many roads laid out and graded for the one purpose of +leading straight to its gate. It sounds its own praises and celebrates +itself at all opportunities. But with all this there is a wholesome +recognition of responsibility. Nobility obliges, it is prompt to +confess, and to act accordingly. It sees flaws in its regal diamonds, +spots that still sully on its ermine; and is not slow to address +itself to the duty of their removal. + +If the century understands itself, it may be said likewise to +understand the others better than they did themselves. It collects +their respective autobiographies and their mutual criticisms. The real +truths, half truths and delusions each has added to the accumulating +common stock it sifts and weighs, mercilessly piling a dustheap beyond +Mr. Boffin's wildest dreams, and rescuing, on the other hand, from +the old wastebasket many discarded scraps of real but till now +unacknowledged value. Busy in gathering stores of its own, it is able +to find time for digesting those bequeathed to it, and for executing +both tasks with a good deal of care. It brings skepticism to its aid +in both, and subjects new and old conclusions to almost equally close +analysis. Each new pebble it picks up upon the shore of the Newtonian +ocean it holds up square and askew to the light, and cross-examines +color, texture and form. Now and then, being but mortal after all, it +chuckles too hastily over a brilliant find, but the blunder is not apt +to wait long for correction. Just now it appears to be overhauling its +accounts in the item of science, taking stock of its discoveries in +that field, balancing bad against good, and determining profit and +loss. Some once-promising entries have to undergo a black mark, while +a few claims that were despaired of come to the fore. This proceeding +is only preparatory, however, to a new departure on a bolder scale. +Scientific progress knows only partial checks. Its movement is that of +a force _en echelon_: one line may get into trouble and recoil, while +the others and the general front continue to advance. Theory does not +profess to be certainty. It is only tentative, and subject necessarily +to frequent errors, for the elimination of which the severely +skeptical spirit of the laws to which it is now held furnishes the +best appliance. Modern science possesses an internal _vis +medicatrix_ which prevents its suffering seriously from excesses +or irregularities. When it ventures to touch the shield of the +Unknowable, it is only with the butt of its lance, and the inevitable +overthrow is accepted with the least modicum of humiliation. + +In that science which assumes to marshal all the others, philosophic +and judicial history, ours ought to be the foremost age, if only +because it has the aid of all the others. It does more, however, than +they can be said to have contemplated. It widens the scope of history, +and more precisely formalizes its functions. It makes of the old +chroniclers so many moral statisticians, fully utilizing at the same +time their services as collectors of material facts. The deductions +thus arrived at it aims to test by the methods of the exact sciences. +It invites, in a certain degree, moral philosophy to don the trammels +of mathematics and decorate its shadowy shoulders with the substantial +yoke of the calculus. Such is the programme of a school too young as +yet to have matured its shape, but full of vigor and confidence, and +a very promising outgrowth from the elder and more stately academy +of abstract historical inquiry and generalization. The latter has +redeveloped and freshened up for us the pictures of the ancient +story-tellers, and has furthermore had them, so to speak, engraved and +scattered among the people, until we have come to live in the midst of +their times and enjoy an intimate knowledge of the actual condition +of human polity and intelligence at any given period. Through the long +gallery or the thick portfolio thus presented to our eye we may trace +the common thread of motive under the varying conditions of time and +circumstance. This thread able hands are aiding us to discover. + +To what segment of time shall we assign the name of Nineteenth +Century? In A.D. 1800 there was dispute as to which was properly its +first year, the question being settled in favor of 1801. Having thus +struck out the first of the eighteen hundreds, we may take the liberty +of similarly ostracizing the last twenty-four or twenty-five, which +are yet to come, and start the nineteenth century as far back in the +eighteenth. If we look farther behind us, the centuries will be found +often to overlap in this way. Coming events cast their shadows before, +and the morning twilight of the new age is refracted deeply into the +sky of the old one. Of no case can this be more truly said than of +that in point. Not only America, but Christendom, may safely date +the century's commencement about 1775 or 1776. The narrowest isthmus +between the mains of past and present will cover those years. + +England and France were then both at the outset of a new political +era, sharply divided from that preceding. The amiable and decorous +Louis XVI., with his lovely consort, had just ousted from Versailles +the Du Barrys and the Maupeons. George III., a sovereign similar in +youth and respectability of character, had a few years before in like +manner improved the tone of the English court, and, after the first +flush of welcome from his subjects, surprised and delighted to have an +Englishman and a gentleman once more upon the throne, was getting over +his early lessons in adversity from the birch of Wilkes and Junius, +and entering upon a second series from that of Washington, all +preparatory to the longest and most brilliant reign in British annals. +Frederick II. was an old man, occupied with assuring to the power he +had created the position it now holds as the first in Europe. Clive, +in the House of Lords, was nursing a still younger bantling, now +an empire twice as populous as Europe was at that period. Under the +equally rugged hand of the young princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, Russia +was having her Mongolian epidermis indued with the varnish Napoleon +so signally failed to scrape off, and was for the first time taking a +place among the great powers of the West. The curtain, in short, was +in the act of rising on the Europe of to-day. Anson had lately brought +the Pacific to light, and Cook was completing his work. The crust of +Spanish monopoly in the trade of four-fifths of the North and South +American coasts had been broken, and England was preparing to replace +it, at some points, by her own. This was, of itself, a New World, +geographical and commercial. + +Under Linnaeus and Buffon, another world, wider still, was unfolding +its wonders and subjecting them to a classification which has since +been but little changed, vast as have been the subsequent accessions +of knowledge and attainments in methods of interpretation. Before +them, the study of the organic creation can scarcely be said to have +existed. The inorganic was as little reduced to system, and in its +broadest aspect was not even looked at. Buffon's acute but for the +most part empiric speculations on the structure of the globe were a +step in advance; but the science of geology he did not recognize, and +left to be shaped a very little later by Hutton. Priestley, Cavendish +and Lavoisier were dissecting the impalpable air and making the +gaseous form of substances as familiar and manageable as the solid. +Hence true analytic chemistry. Astronomy, an older science, had +derived new precision from the first observed transit of Venus, +imperfect as were the data obtained and the calculations made. + +Contemporaneous with this sudden apparition of new fields of +scientific discovery and enlargement of the old was an intellectual +movement of a more general character than that necessarily involved +in the progress of natural philosophy. The French Encyclopaedists took +hold of social, moral and juridical questions with an unsparing vigor +that could not be gainsaid. The art of criticism was simultaneously +introduced, perfected and applied. Many of the wrongs and follies +that paralyzed thought and industry were dragged to light. Hoary +absurdities that smothered law and gospel under the foul mass of +privilege and superstition, and made them a curse instead of a +blessing, shrank before the storm of ridicule and denunciation. Those +which did not at once succumb were placed in a position of publicity +and exposure in which they could not long survive. The great upheaval +of which the French Revolution was a part was thus originated. + +Sounder political ideas were brought within reach of the masses, till +then not recipient, it may almost be said, of any political ideas +at all. Statesmen and governments were similarly enlightened, +Adam Smith's declaration of commercial antedated by two years Mr. +Jefferson's of political independence. The atrocities of the English +criminal code, approaching those of Draco, were put in process of +correction, though, as usual in British reforms, it took half a +century to effect their complete removal; a woman having been, if we +recollect rightly, hanged for a trifling theft in the last years of +George IV. This same slowness of that conservative but persevering +people is calculated to blind us to the operation among them of +deep-seated and active influences. Hardly till 1815 can we discover +in England any fervor, much less efficiency, in the demand for an +extension of popular rights and relaxation of the grasp of privilege. +Irish manufactures continued to be distinctly and rigidly repelled +from competition with English by formal statute; Jewish and Catholic +disqualification was maintained; the game-laws and the rotten-borough +system, which conferred on the nobility and gentry arbitrary power +over the purse and person of the commonalty, were determinedly upheld; +counsel was only nominally allowed to the defendant in criminal cases; +chancery withheld or plundered without resistance or appeal; and there +can be no doubt that life and property were better protected by law +in France at the fall of the First Napoleon than in Great Britain. +Nevertheless, the movement had begun in the latter country forty years +before. A generation had passed since the battle of Culloden, and the +island was at length indissolubly and efficiently one. It shared fully +in the intellectual impulse of the day. Victorious in all its latest +struggles and freed from all sources of internal danger, it might +naturally have been expected to enter at once on a career of +improvement more marked than in the case of its neighbors. It is not +easy to assign reasons for failure in this respect, unless we seek +them in disgust at the subsequent dismemberment and disturbance of +the empire by the fruits of popular agitations in America, Ireland +and France. The reaction due to such causes was probably sufficient +to defeat all liberal efforts. The leading English writers of the +Revolutionary period were strong Tories. Such were Johnson, the Lake +poets after their brief swing to the opposite extreme, and Scott. +All these except the first belong as well to the time of successful +reform, and Johnson may be claimed by the eighteenth century; which +serves to illustrate the blight cast upon British literature by the +prolonged resistance of British statesmen to the prevailing current--a +resistance which took its keynote from the dying recantation and +protest of the Whig Chatham. + +The opening of the epoch, then, was as marked in Great Britain as +elsewhere. Only in special fields she afterward fell behind, and lost +something like half the century. In others she kept abreast, or even +in advance. + +Criticism was not content to exercise its new powers and apply its +newly-framed laws exclusively in the investigation of any branch of +philosophy. It brought them to bear upon the arts. The discovery of +the buried cities of Campania aided in attracting renewed attention to +the art-stores of Italy, ancient and modern. The principles of taste +and beauty which they illustrated were searchingly analyzed and +carefully explained. Painting and sculpture began slowly to emit their +rays through the eclipse of more than a century. The allied art shared +in this second and secondary renaissance. Haydn was in full fruit, +Mozart ripening, and Music watched, in the cradle of Beethoven, her +budding Shakespeare. A fourth Teuton was studying the symphonies of +the spheres; and within the first five years of the century, while +the "crowning mercy" of Yorktown was maturing, a planet that had never +before dawned on the eye of man took its place with the ancient six, +and "swam into the ken" of Herschel. + +We have said enough to vindicate our assumed chronology and justify +our readjustment of the calendar. Europe may well be invited to +celebrate her own political, social and material centennial in 1876, +as truly as that of America. Her intellectual revival indisputably +contributed, through Franklin, Laurens, the Lees and others who were +immediately within its influence, to bring on the American movement; +and her thought, in turn, has since that juncture as certainly +gravitated, in many of its chief manifestations, toward that of the +New World. Hers is the jubilee not less than ours. The humblest cot +on her broad bosom is the brighter for '76. By no means the least +fortunate of the beneficiaries is Great Britain herself. Contrast her +present position as a government and a society with what it was when +Liberty Bell announced the dismemberment of her empire. Her rank among +the nations has notably improved. The population of England, Scotland +and Wales was then estimated below eight and a half millions--a +numerical approximation, by the way, to the three millions of the +colonies not sufficiently considered when we measure the stoutness +of her struggle against them with France and Holland combined. Of the +continental powers, the French numbered perhaps twenty-two millions, +Spain twelve, the Low Countries six, Germany thirty, Prussia seven, +and so on. From the ratio of one to nearly three, as compared with +France, she has, if we include pacified and assimilated Ireland--an +element now of strength instead of weakness--advanced to an equality. +She has equally gained on the others, except Prussia, with its +aggregation of new provinces. She may, furthermore, in the event of an +internecine conflict with a combination, count upon the unwillingness +of America to see her annihilated; not the least just of Tallyrand's +observations expressing his conviction that, though the two great +Anglo-Saxon powers might quarrel with each other, they would not push +such a dispute for the benefit of a third party. But, dismissing +the question of mere brute strength, Britain's sentiment of pride is +conciliated by the spectacle of an advance in the numbers speaking her +tongue from eleven or twelve to eighty millions within the century, +and that in considerable part at the expense of other languages; +millions of foreign immigrants, parents or children, having abandoned +their vernacular in favor of hers. + +Let us now essay a light sketch of the stream at whose source we have +glanced. Light and superficial it must be, for to attempt more were +to confront the vast and many-sided theme of modern civilization. +The nineteenth century, the child of history, has the stature of +its progenitor. It would fill more libraries. Conditions, forces, +results,--all have been multiplied. But a few centuries ago the world, +as known and studied, was a corner of the Levant, with its slender and +simple apparatus of life, social, political and industrial. Later, +its boundaries were extended over the remaining shores of the same +landlocked sea. Again a step, but not an expansion, and it looked +helplessly west upon the Atlantic: its ancient domain of the East +almost forgotten. Then that long gaze was gratified, and Cathay +was seen. With that came actual expansion, which continued in both +directions of the globe's circuit until now. At length the world of +thought, of inquiry and of common interest is becoming coincident with +the sphere. + +In the direction of international politics progress during the century +has not kept pace with the advance in other walks. We are accustomed +to speak of Europe as forming a republic of nations, but that cannot +be said with much more truth than it could have been in the middle +of the sixteenth century. A sense of the value to the peace of the +continent of a balance of power was then recognized; and the object +was attained in some measure as soon as the career of Charles V., +which had inculcated the lesson, admitted at his abdication of an +application of it. Treaties were then framed, as they have been +constantly since, for this purpose, and the observation of them was +perhaps as faithful. The passions of nations, like those of men, +furnish reason with its slowest and latest conquests. The great wars +of the French Revolution, and the short and sharp ones which have, +after an indispensable breathing-spell, recently followed it, were as +causeless and as defiant of the compacts designed to prevent them as +those of the Reformation period or of the Thirty Years. They were so +many confessions that an efficient international code is one of the +inventions for which we must look to the future. It is something, +meanwhile, that, with the extinction of feudalism and the concretion +of the detached provinces with which it had macadamized Christendom, +the ceaseless fusillade of little wars, which played like a lambent +flame of mephitic gas over the surface of each country, has come to an +end. The petty sovereignties which made up Germany, France and Italy +have been within a few generations absorbed into three masses--so many +police districts which have proved tolerably effective in keeping +the peace within the large territories they cover. The nations, thus +massing themselves for exterior defence, and maintaining a healthy +system of graduated and distributed powers, original or conferred, +for the support of domestic order and activity, have cultivated +successfully the field of home politics. + +In that the change for the better is certainly vast. It is difficult +for Americans, whose acquaintance with European history is usually +derived from compends, to realize what an incubus of complicated +and conflicting privileges, restrictions and forms has, within the +century, been lifted from the energies of the Old World. The sweeping +reforms in French law are but a small part of what has been done. All +the neighbors of France, from Derry to the Dardanelles, have shared +in the blessing. We may be assisted to an idea of it by turning to the +experience of our own country, whose condition in this regard was +so exceptionally good at the beginning of the period in point. The +constitutions of our States have been repeatedly altered, and they are +now very different in their details from the old colonial charters, +liberal and elastic as these for the most part were. Yet American +innovations are but child's play to those of Europe, which has not +reached the position we held at the beginning, and has a great +deal still to do. In France the people are not trained to local +self-government, but they have an excellent police, and the rights +of person and property are well protected. In Italy, which has only +within a few years ceased to be a mere geographical expression, +municipal rights and the independence of the commune are on a +stronger basis, but the police is bad, though far better than when +the Peninsula was divided among half a dozen powers. Both have but +commenced arming themselves with the chief safeguard of Germany, +popular education. The great fact with them all is, that, despite the +drawbacks of external pressure and large standing armies, they are +at liberty to pursue the path of domestic reform as far as they have +light enough to perceive it or purpose enough to require it. + +All this is an immense gain. It reflects itself in the improved social +condition of the people--a result, of course, not wholly due to it. +Crime, though the newspapers make us familiar with more of it than +formerly, has notably diminished. The savage classes of the great +capitals, populous as some of the old kingdoms, are controlled like +a menagerie by its keepers. A residuum of the untamable will always +exist, inaccessible to education or "moral suasion," and amenable only +to force. This force seems sufficiently supplied by the baton of the +constable, and we may hope that even in volcanic Paris an eruption +of barricades will henceforth cease, unless simply as a somewhat +flamboyant expression of political sentiment, the gamin throwing up +paving-stones and omnibuses as the independent British voter throws +up his hat at the hustings. But it will not do to expect too much from +any ameliorating cause or chain of causes. Race-characteristics cannot +be annihilated. Man is an animal, and the Parisian turbulent. The +Commune has done its worst probably, and the Internationale, which +threatened at one time to loom up as a modern Vehmgericht, has +subsided. Whatever may hereafter come of such slumbering perils, the +beneficent forces which so largely repress and reduce them are none +the less real. + +The marked advance of the masses in physical well-being is a +great--some would say the greatest--item in social profit and loss. +Food is everywhere better in quality and more regular in supply. The +English record of the corn-market for six centuries shows a remarkable +alteration in favor of steadiness in price. The uncertainties of +the seasons are discounted or neutralized by the average struck +by increased variety of products and multiplied sources of supply. +Famines become infrequent. That of 1847 in Ireland, bad as it was, +would have been worse a hundred years earlier. A given population is +more regularly and better fed than one-fifth of its number would at +that time have been. A city of four millions would then have been an +impossibility. Dress and lodging are better, and relatively cheaper. +Hygiene is more understood, imperfect as is its application. Some +diseases due to its disregard have disappeared or been localized. As a +result, men have gained in weight and size and in length of life. + +In the character of their recreations--a thing largely governed by +national idiosyncrasy--the masses have advanced. And this we may say +without losing sight of the devastations of intemperance since the +distillation of grain was introduced, about a century and a half ago. +With an enhanced demand upon man's faculties civilization brings an +increased use of stimulants. There are many of these unknown to former +generations. In noting those which attack the health by storm we are +apt to overlook others which proceed more stealthily by sap. Of these +are coffee, tea, chocolate, the rich spices and more substantial +accessions to the modern table, all stimulating and inviting to +excess, but all, as truly, nutritious and apt to take the place of +other aliment, thus adapting the measure of their use, as a rule, +to the demands of the system. The consumption of opium, the one +dissipation of the Chinese till now unadded to the three or four of +the Caucasian, is said to be extending. If so, a _Counter-blast_ to it +from king or commonwealth will be as ineffectual as against its allied +narcotic. Prohibitory laws will be even more unavailing than in +the case of ardent spirits. It will run its course--a short one, +we trust--and be followed or joined by new drugs contributed by +conscienceless trade. + +Intemperance--we use the word in its special but most common +signification--is debasing. Compensation, so far as it goes, is found +in the abandonment by those communities among whom it is most rife of +certain gross amusements, such as cock-fighting and the prize-ring. +Bull-and bear-baiting, too, so prominent among the _deliciae_ of +England's maiden queen, have died out. Isolated Spain, fenced off by +the Pyrenees from the breeze of benevolence wafted from the virtuous +and bibulous North, still utilizes the Manchegan or Estremaduran bull +as a means of conferring "happy despatch" on her superannuated horses +and absorbing the surplus belligerence of her "roughs." She seems, +however, disposed to tire of this feast of equine and taurine blood, +and the last relic of the arena will before many years follow its +cognate brutalities. For obvious reasons, bull-fighting can be the +sport, habitually, of but an infinitesimal fraction of the people. +They share with the other races of the Continent the simple pleasures +of dance and song. These enjoyments, as we go north and are driven +within doors from the pure and temperate air by a more unfriendly +climate, form an increasingly intimate alliance with strong drink, +until in the so-called gardens of Germany Calliope and Gambrinus are +inseparable friends. Farther still toward the Pole the voice of the +Muse gradually dies away upon the sodden atmosphere; and she, having +outlasted her successive Southern associates, wine and beer, in turn +gives place to brandy pure and simple--a beverage itself frost-proof +and only suited to frost-proof men. + +The long nights and indoor days of the North are favorable to another +and more desirable trait of modern social progress--education. The +potency of such a meteorological cause in making popular a taste for +knowledge the instances of Iceland, Scotland, Scandinavia and North +Germany, to say nothing of New England, leave us no room to doubt. +It is, of course, not the only cause. Ability to read and write is as +universal in China and Japan, as in the countries we have named. In +the case of the Orientals it cannot be ascribed, either, wholly to +that conviction of the importance, as a conservative guarantee, +of elevating the popular mind and taste, which belongs to the +enlightenment of the day. Instinctive recognition of this need +manifests itself in a simultaneous move in the direction of universal +education at government expense throughout the two continents. All +the populations snatch up their satchels and hurry to school. Athens +revives the Academe and reinstates the Olympic games under a literary +avatar. Italy follows suit. Hornbooks open and shut with a suggestive +snap under the pope's nose, and Young Rome calculates its future with +slate and pencil. Gaul, fresh from one year's term in the severest of +all schools, adversity, joins the procession, close by John Bull, who, +_more suo_, pauses first to decide whether the youthful mind shall +take its pap with the spoon of orthodoxy or heterodoxy, or neither. +With him the question between Church schools and national schools +is complicated by one which is common to other nations--whether +attendance shall be compulsory or voluntary only. The tendency is +toward the former, which has long been in practice in some of the +States of the Union; and it seems not unlikely that Christendom will, +before many years, revert, in this important matter, to the Spartan +view that children are the property of the state. + +Lavish beyond precedent are the provisions made by governments and +individuals everywhere for the promotion of this great object. Private +endowment of schools and colleges was never before so frequent and +liberal, and nothing so quickly disarms the caution of the average +taxpayer as an appeal for common schools. From California eastward to +Japan it is honored along the whole line, the unanimous "Yea" being +the most eloquent and hopeful word the modern world emits. Of the +slumbering power that till recently lay hidden in coal and water, and +which has so incalculably multiplied the material strength of man, +much has been said; but we fail to appreciate the unevoked fund +of intellect upon which he has additionally to draw. The highest +expectation of results to be witnessed and enjoyed by the approaching +generations involves no postulate of human perfectibility, It finds +ample warrant in what has been accomplished under our eyes. A century +ago only Scotland and two or three of the American colonies could +be said to possess a system of common schools. From those feeble and +smouldering sparks what a flame has spread! The space it has covered +and the fructifying light and warmth it has produced may in some +measure be gauged by the newspaper press and the vast bulk of +popularized information in book-form created since then. This shows +the increase in the numerical ratio of readers to the aggregate of +population. + +A difficulty exists in the provision of officers for this great +army of pupils. They cannot always be raised from the ranks. The +thoroughness of a teacher's knowledge is not acquired by the requisite +proportion. Normal schools demand more and more attention. But here we +arrive at a field of detail that would lead us far beyond the limit +of these articles. We pass naturally from the subject of education +to what is, in the narrower but most generally accepted sense of the +word--mental training--- its leading object of pursuit. + +If, in the broader and truer meaning of education--that which assumes +the impalpable part of man to be something more than a sponge for +facts--- the slender phalanx of _the men who know_ will ever +remain, proportionally, a small band, it is at least certain that in +acquaintance with natural phenomena and their relations the masses +of the nineteenth century stand out from their forefathers as eminent +philosophers. Our age may be almost said to have created rather than +extended science, so mighty is the bulk of what it has added by the +side of what it found. + +In mathematics, the branch which most nearly approaches pure reason, +least advance has been made. There was least room for it. Newton, +when, at quite a mature period of his career, Euclid was first brought +to his attention, laid the book down after a cursory glance with +the remark that it was only fit for children, its propositions being +self-evident. Yet to those truisms Newton added very little. His work +lay in their development and application. Laplace and Biot belong to +our own day; but their task, too, consisted in the employment of old +rules. The most effective tools of the mathematician are framed from +the Arab algebra and Napier's logarithms. The science itself without +application is, like logic, a soul without a body. + +The field most fruitful under its application is that of astronomy. +Here, progress has been great. A measuring-rod has been provided for +the depths of space by the ascertainment of the sun's distance within +a three-hundredth part of that body's diameter. The existence of +a cosmic ether, a resisting medium, has been established, and its +retarding influence calculated. Many of the nebulae have been reduced, +and others proved to be in a gaseous condition, like comets. The +latter bodies have been chained down to regular orbits, followed +far beyond those of the old planets, and brought into genealogical +relations with these through the links of bolides and asteroids. The +family circle of planets proper has been immensely increased, a new +visitant to the central fire appearing every few years or even months. +Newton connected the most distant points of the universe by the one +principle of gravitation: the spectroscope unites them by identity +of structure and composition. Improved instruments have detected the +parallax of a number of the fixed stars, and traced motion in both +solar and stellar systems as units. Coming homeward from the distant +heavens, the advances of astronomy diminish as we near what may be +called the old planets and our pale companion the moon. The existence +of a lunar atmosphere and the habitability of Mars are still debated; +with, we believe, the odds against both. But the star-gazers make +their craft useful in a novel way when it reaches the earth. Upon +the precession of the equinoxes they erect a fabric of retrograde +chronology, and set a clock to geologic time. Here Sir Isaac is +brought to grief. His excursions beyond the Deluge are proved blind +guides. He misleads us among the ages as sadly as Archbishop Usher. +The profoundest of laymen and the most learned of clerics are equally +at sea in locating creation. That successive phases of animate +existence were rising and fading with the oscillations of the earth's +inclination to its orbit never occurred to him to whom "all was +light." To probe the stars was to him a simpler process than to +anatomize the globe upon which he stood. + +This is the less remarkable when we reflect what a hard fight geology +has had. A generation after Newton's death fossils were referred +for their origin to a certain "plastic power" in Nature--mere idle +whittlings of bone that had never known an outfit of flesh and +blood. Then came a long and motley procession of cosmogonies, every +speculator, from John Wesley down to Pye Smith, insisting warmly +on what seemed good in his own eyes. The last stand was made on the +antiquity of man, and it is only a dozen years since the ablest of +British--perhaps since Cuvier of modern--geologists, Sir Charles +Lyell, yielded to the preponderance of evidence, and confessed that +the era of man's appearance on earth had been made too recent. A few +determined skirmishers still linger behind the line of retreat, like +Ney at the bridge of Kowno, and fire some fruitless shots at the +advancing enemy. This is well. Tribulation and opposition are good +for any creed, scientific or other. It weeds out the weak ones and +strengthens those that are to stand. + +The mapping out of extinct faunas and floras and assigning pedigree +to existing species are by no means the whole province of geologists. +Productive industry owes to them a vast saving of time and cost in +searching for useful minerals. They distinguish the same strata in +widely separated districts by means of the characteristic fossils, +and are thus enabled to guide the miner. A geological survey of its +territory is one of the first cares of an enlightened government, and +a geologist is the one scientific official the leading States of the +Union agree in maintaining. The science has moved forward steadily +from its original office of studying buried deposits and classifying +extinct organisms, until the hard and fast line between fossil and +recent has disappeared, the continuous action of ordinary causes in +past and present been established, and an unbroken domain assigned +to the laws of the visible creation. Deep-sea soundings have extended +inquiry, slight enough as yet, to that immensely preponderant portion +of the globe's crust that is covered by water. Penetrating the ocean +is like penetrating the rocks, inasmuch as it introduces us to some of +the same primal forms of life; but it presents them in an active and +sentient state. Neptune's ravished secrets vindicate the Neptunists, +while Pluto is relegated to the abode assigned him by classic myths, +where he and his comrade, Vulcan, keep their furnaces alight and +project their slag and smoke through many a roaring chimney. + +Upon (as beneath) the deep, science is erecting for itself new homes. +It tracks the wandering wind, and moves at ease, calmly as a surveyor +with chain and compass, through the eddies of the cyclone. It maps for +the sailor the currents, aerial and subaqueous, of each spot on the +unmarked main, and sends him warning far ahead of the tempest. It +divides with the thermometer the mass of brine into horizontal zones, +and assigns to each its special population. + +A hundred years ago, only the surface of the land was studied, and but +a small part of that. All beneath its surface was a mystery, and the +lore of the sea was untouched. Now, knowledge has penetrated to the +central fire, and of the sea it can be no longer said that man's +"control stops with its shores." The pathway of his messenger from +continent to continent he has laid deep in its chalky ooze, while over +it silt silently, flake by flake, as they have been falling since aeons +before his creation, the induviae of the earliest creatures. + +And this his messenger at the bottom of the sea is back in its old +home. First hidden in the electron cast up by the waves of the Baltic, +it was left there, uncomprehended and barren, till our century. During +all that time it was calling from the clouds to man's dazzled eye and +deafened ear. It pervaded the air he breathed, the ground he trod and +the frame which constituted him. It bore his will from brain to hand, +and guarded his life, through the (so-called) spontaneously acting +muscles of the thorax, during the half or third of his life during +which his will slumbered. At length its call was hearkened to +intelligently. Franklin made it articulate. Its twin Champollions came +in Volta and Galvani. Its few first translated words have, under a +host of elucidators, swelled to volumes. They link into one language +the dialects of light, motion and heat. The indurated turpentine of +the Pomeranian beach speaks the tongue of the farthest star. + +The sciences, like the nations and like bees, as they grow too large +for their hive are perpetually swarming and colonizing. Not that +colonization is followed, as in the case of the similitude, by +independence. Their mutual bonds become closer and closer. But +convenience and (so to speak) comfort require the nominal separation. +So electricity sets up for itself; and chemistry, the metropolis, +swells into other offshoots. So numerous and so great are these that +the old alchemists, unlimited range through the material, immaterial +and supernatural as they claimed for their art, would rub their eyes, +bleared over blowpipe and alembic, at sight of its present riches. The +half-hewn block handed down by these worthies--not by any means + + Like that great Dawn which baffled Angelo + Left shapeless, grander for its mystery, + +but blurred and scratched all over with childish and unmeaning +scrawls--has been wholly transformed. Chemistry no longer assumes to +read our future, but it does a great deal to brighten our present. +Laboring to supply the wants and enhance the pleasures and security +of daily life, it makes excursions with a sure foot in the opposite +direction of abstruse problems in natural philosophy. It analyzes all +substances, determines their relations, and tries to guide the artisan +in utilizing its acquisitions for the general good. To enumerate +these, or to give the merest sketch of chemical progress within the +century, would fill many pages. It has enriched and invigorated all +the arts by supplying new material and new processes. Illuminating +gas, photography, the anaesthetics, the artificial fertilizers, +quinine, etc. are a few of its more familiarly known contributions. +It has aided medical jurisprudence, and so far checked crime. Besides +enlarging the pharmacopoeia, it has promoted sanitary reform in many +ways, notably by ascertaining the media of contagion in disease and +providing for their detection and removal. Its triumphs are so closely +interwoven with the appliances of common life that we are prone to +lose sight of them. From the aniline dye that beautifies a picture or +a dress, to the explosive that lifts a reef or mines the Alps for a +highway, the gradations are infinite and multiform. + +Heavy as is the draft of the material sciences upon the thought +and energy of the century, it has not monopolized them. No trifling +resources have been left for mere abstract investigation. If +meta-physics stands, despite the labors of Stewart, Hamilton, Hegel, +Comte, very much where it did when Socrates ran amuck among the +casuistical Quixotes of his day, and left the philosophic tilters of +Greece, the knights-errant in search of the supreme good, in the same +plight with the chivalry of Spain after Cervantes, the science of +mind, and particularly mental pathology, has made some steps forward +on crutches furnished by the medical profession. The treatment of +insanity is on a more rational and efficient footing. The statistician +collects, and invites the moral philosopher to collate, the records of +crime. The naturalist studies the life of the lower animals, and gives +the _coup de grace_ to the uncompromising distinction drawn by human +conceit between instinct and intelligence. + +In the walks of comparative philology much has been accomplished. +Sanskrit has been exhumed. Aryan and Semitic roots are traced back +to an almost synchronous antiquity. The decipherment of the Egyptian +inscriptions seems to bring us into communication with a still more +remote form of language. More recent periods derive new light from the +Etruscan tombs and the Assyrian bricks. Linguists deem themselves in +sight of something better than the "bow-wow" theory, and are no longer +content to let the calf, the lamb and the child bleat in one and the +same vocabulary of labials, and with no other rudiments than "ma" and +"pa" "speed the soft intercourse from pole to pole." As yet, that part +of mankind which knows not its right hand from its left is the only +one possessed of a worldwide lingo. The flux that is to weld all +tongues into one, and produce a common language like a common unit of +weight, measure and coinage, remains to be discovered. A Chinese pig, +transplanted to an Anglo-Saxon stye, has no difficulty in instituting +immediate converse with his new friend, but the gentleman who travels +in Europe needs to carry an assortment of dialects for use on opposite +sides of the same rivulet or the same hill. However, as the French +franc has been adopted by four other nations, and the French litre and +metre by a greater number, one and the same mail and postage made to +serve Europe and America, and passports been abolished, we may venture +to picture to ourselves the time when the German shall consent to +clear his throat, the Frenchman his nose, the Spaniard his tonsils and +the Englishman the tip of his tongue--when all shall become as little +children and be mutually comprehensible. Commerce at present is +doing more than the philosophers to that end. While the countrymen +of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Max Mueller persist in burying their +laboriously heaped treasures under a load of black-letter type and +words and sentences the most fearfully and wonderfully made, the +skipper scatters English words with English calico and American clocks +among all the isles. A picturesque fringe of pigeon English decorates +the coasts of Africa, Asia and Oceanica. It might be deeper, and +doubtless will be, for our mother-tongue will very certainly be +supreme in the world of trade for at least a couple of centuries to +come. If we were only half as sure of its being adopted by France as +by Fiji! + +If almighty steam and sail must remain unequal to this task, wondrous +indeed are their other potencies. They have contracted the globe like +a dried apple, only in a far greater degree. In 1776 three years +was the usual allotment of the grand tour. Beginning at London, it +extended to Naples and occasionally Madrid. It often left out Vienna, +and more frequently Berlin. In the same period you may now put a +girdle round the earth ninefold thick. You may, given the means +and the faculties, set up business establishments at San Francisco, +Yokohama, Shanghai, Canton, Calcutta, Bombay, Alexandria, Rome, Paris, +London and New York, and visit each once a quarter. The goods to +supply them may travel, however bulky, on the same ship and nearly the +same train in point of speed with yourself. Nowhere farther than a few +weeks from home in person, nowhere are you more remote verbally than a +few hours. The Red Sea opens to your footsteps, as it did to those of +Moses; and the lightning that bears your words cleaves the pathway of +Alexander and the New World for which he wept. + +It is really hard to mention these innovations on the old ways, so +vast and so sudden, without degenerating into rhetoric or bombast. The +spread-eagle style comes naturally to an epoch that soars on quick +new wing above all the others. We have it in all shapes--- equally +startling and true in figures of arithmetic or figures of speech. Any +school-boy can tell you, if you give him the dimensions of the Great +Pyramid and state thirty-three thousand pounds one foot high in a +minute as the conventional horse-power, how many hours it would take a +pony-team picked out of the hundreds of thousands of steam-engines on +the two continents to raise it. He will reduce to the same prosaic but +eloquent form a number of like problems illustrative of the command +obtained over some of the forces of Nature, and their employment +in multiplying and economizing manual strength and dexterity and +stimulating ingenuity. When we come to contemplate the whole edifice +of modern production, it seems to simplify itself into one new motor +applied to the old mechanical powers, which may perhaps in turn be +condensed into one--the inclined plane. This helps to the impression +that the structure is not only sure to be enlarged, as we see it +enlarging day by day, but to grow into novel and more striking +aspects. Additional motors will probably be discovered, or some we +already possess in embryo may be developed into greater availability. +These, operating on an ever-growing stock of material, will convince +our era that it is but introductory to a more magnificent and not far +distant future. + +Magnificent the century is justified in styling its work. What matter +could do for mind and steam for the hand it has done. But is there +any gain in the eye and intellect which perceive, and the hand which +fixes, beauty and truth? Is there any addition to the simple lines, as +few and rudimental as the mechanical powers, which embody proportion +and harmony, or in the fibres of emotion, as scant but as infinite in +their range of tone as the strings of the primeval harp, which ask and +respond to no motor but the touch of genius? Have we surpassed the old +song, the old story, the old picture, the old temple? + +Such questions must be answered in the negative. The age, recognizing +perforce the inherent capabilities of the race as a constant quantity, +contents itself so far with endeavoring to adapt and reproduce, or at +most imitate, such manifestations of the artistic sense as it finds +excellent in the past. The day for originality may come ere long, +and nothing can be lost in striving for it, but a capacity for the +beautiful at first hand cannot come without an appreciation of it at +second hand. With the number of cultivated minds so vastly increased +as compared with any previous period, the greater variety of objects +and conditions presented to them, the multiplicity of races to +which they belong, and consequently of distinct race-characteristics +imbedded in them and brought into play, and the impulse communicated +by greater general activity, the expectation is allowably sanguine +that the nineteenth century will plant an art as well as an industry +of its own. Wealth, culture and peace seldom fail to win this final +crown. They are busily gathering together the jewels of the past, +endless in diversity of charm. Museum, gallery, library swell as never +before. The earth is not mined for iron and coal alone. Statue, vase +and gem are disentombed. Pictures are rescued from the grime of years +and neglect. All are copied by sun or hand, and sent in more or less +elaboration into hall or cottage. In literature our possessions +could scarce be more complete, and they are even more universally +distributed. The nations compete with each other in adding to this +equipment for a new revival, which seems, on the surface, to have more +in its favor than had that of the cinque-cento. + + + + +UP THE THAMES + +THIRD PAPER. + +[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT--WEST FRONT.] + + +Today our movement shall be up the Thames by rail, starting on the +south side of the river to reach an objective point on the north bank. +So crooked is the stream, and so much more crooked are the different +systems of railways, with their competing branches crossing each other +and making the most audacious inroads on each other's territory, that +the direction in which we are traveling at any given moment, or the +station from which we start, is a very poor index to the quarter for +which we are bound. The railways, to say nothing of the river, that +wanders at its own sweet will, as water commonly does in a country +offering it no obstructions, are quite defiant of their geographical +names. The Great Western runs north, west and south-east; the +South-western strikes south, south-east and north-west; while +the Chatham and Dover distributes itself over most of the region +south-east of London, closing its circuit by a line along the coast +of the Channel that completes a triangle. We can go almost anywhere +by any road. It is necessary, however, in this as in other mundane +proceedings, to make a selection. We must have a will before we find +a way. Let our way, then, be to Waterloo Station on the Southwestern +rail. + +[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT--LOOKING UP THE RIVER.] + +Half an hour's run lands us at Hampton Court, with a number of +fellow-passengers to keep us company if we want them, and in fact +whether we want them or not. Those who travel into or out of a city of +four millions must lay their account with being ever in a crowd. +Our consolation is, that in the city the crowd is so constant and so +wholly strange to us as to defeat its effect, and create the feeling +of solitude we have so often been told of; while outside of it, at the +parks and show-places, the amplitude of space, density and variety of +plantations, and multiplicity of carefully designed turns, nooks and +retreats, are such that retirement of a more genuine character is +within easy reach. The crowd, we know, is about us, but it does +not elbow us, and we need hardly see it. The current of humanity, +springing from one or a dozen trains or steamboats, dribbles away, +soon after leaving its parent source, into a multitude of little +divergent channels, like irrigating water, and covers the surface +without interference. + +It would be a curious statistical inquiry how many visitors Hampton +Court has lost since the Cartoons were removed in 1865 to the +South Kensington Museum. Actually, of course, the whole number has +increased, is increasing, and is not going to be diminished. The +query is, How many more there would be now were those eminent bits of +pasteboard--slit up for the guidance of piece-work at a Flemish loom, +tossed after the weavers had done with them into a lumber-room, then +after a century's neglect disinterred by the taste of Rubens and +Charles I., brought to England, their poor frayed and faded fragments +glued together and made the chief decoration of a royal palace--still +in the place assigned them by the munificence and judgment of Charles? +For our part--and we may speak for most Americans--when we heard, +thought or read of Hampton Court, we thought of the Cartoons. +Engravings of them were plenty--much more so than of the palace +itself. Numbers of domestic connoisseurs know Raphael principally as +the painter of the Cartoons. + +A few who have not heard of them have heard of Wolsey. The pursy +old cardinal furnishes the surviving one of the two main props of +Hampton's glory. An oddly-assorted pair, indeed--the delicate Italian +painter, without a thought outside of his art, and the bluff English +placeman, avid of nothing but honors and wealth. And the association +of either of them with the spot is comparatively so slight. Wolsey +held the ground for a few years, only by lease, built a mere fraction +of the present edifice, and disappeared from the scene within half a +generation. What it boasts, or boasted, of the other belongs to +the least noted of his works--half a dozen sketches meant for +stuff-patterns, and never intended to be preserved as pictures. +Pictures they are, nevertheless, and all the more valuable and +surprising as manifesting such easy command of hand and faculty, such +a matter-of-course employment of the utmost resources of art on +a production designed to have no continuing existence except as +finished, rendered and given to the world by a "base mechanical," with +no sense of art at all. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO WOLSEY'S HALL.] + +Royalty, and the great generally, availed themselves of their +opportunities to select the finest locations and stake out the best +claims along these shores. Of elevation there is small choice, a level +surface prevailing. What there is has been generally availed of for +park or palace, with manifest advantage to the landscape. The curves +of the river are similarly utilized. Kew and Hampton occupy peninsulas +so formed. The latter, with Bushy Park, an appendage, fills a +water-washed triangle of some two miles on each side. The southern +angle is opposite Thames Ditton, a noted resort for brethren of the +angle, with an ancient inn as popular, though not as stylish and +costly, as the Star and Garter at Richmond. The town and palace of +Hampton lie about halfway up the western side of the demesne. The +view up and down the river from Hampton Bridge is one of the crack +spectacles of the neighborhood. Satisfied with it, we pass through the +principal street, with the Green in view to our left and Bushy Park +beyond it, to the main entrance. This is part of the original palace +as built by the cardinal. It leads into the first court. This, with +the second or Middle Quadrangle, may all be ascribed to him, with some +changes made by Henry VIII. and Christopher Wren. The colonnade of +coupled Ionic pillars which runs across it on the south or right-hand +side as you enter was designed by Wren. It is out of keeping with its +Gothic surroundings. Standing beneath it, you see on the opposite side +of the square Wolsey's Hall. It looks like a church. The towers on +either side of the gateway between the courts bear some relics of the +old faith in the shape of terra-cotta medallions, portraits of the +Roman emperors. These decorations were a present to the cardinal +from Leo X. The oriel windows by their side bear contributions in +a different taste from Henry VIII. They are the escutcheons of +that monarch. The two popes, English and Italian, are well met. +Our engravings give a good idea of the style of these parts of the +edifice. The first or outer square is somewhat larger than the middle +one, which is a hundred and thirty-three feet across from north to +south, and ninety-one in the opposite direction, or in a line with the +longest side of the whole palace. + +A stairway beneath the arch leads to the great hall, one hundred +and six feet by forty. This having been well furbished recently, its +aspect is probably little inferior in splendor to that which it wore +in its first days. The open-timber roof, gay banners, stained windows +and groups of armor bring mediaeval magnificence very freshly before +us. The ciphers and arms of Henry and his wife, Jane Seymour, are +emblazoned on one of the windows, indicating the date of 1536 or 1537. +Below them were graciously left Wolsey's imprint--his arms, with a +cardinal's hat on each side, and the inscription, "The Lord Thomas +Wolsey, Cardinal legat de Latere, archbishop of Yorke and chancellor +of Englande." The tapestry of the hall illustrates sundry passages in +the life of Abraham. A Flemish pupil of Raphael is credited with their +execution or design. + +This hall witnessed, certainly in the reign of George I., and +according to tradition in that of Elizabeth, the mimic reproduction +of the great drama with which it is associated. It is even said that +Shakespeare took part here in his own play, _King Henry VIII., or the +Fall of Wolsey_. In 1558 the hall was resplendent with one thousand +lamps, Philip and Mary holding their Christmas feast. The princess +Elizabeth was a guest. The next morning she was compliant or politic +enough to hear matins in the queen's closet. + +The Withdrawing Room opens from the hall. It is remarkable for its +carved and illuminated ceiling of oak. Over the chimney is a portrait +of Wolsey in profile on wood, not the least interesting of a long list +of pictures which are a leading attraction of the place. These are +assembled, with few exceptions, in the third quadrangle, built in +1690. Into this we next pass. It takes the place of three of the +five original courts, said to have been fully equal to the two which +remain. + +[Illustration: MIDDLE QUADRANGLE, HAMPTON COURT.] + +The modern or Eastern Quadrangle is a hundred and ten by a hundred and +seventeen feet. It is encircled by a colonnade like that in the middle +square, and has nothing remarkable, architecturally, about it. In the +public rooms that surround us there are, according to the catalogue, +over a thousand pictures. Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Veronese, Titian, +Giulio Romano, Murillo and a host of lesser names of the Italian and +Spanish schools, with still more of the Flemish, are represented. To +most visitors, who may see elsewhere finer works by these masters, the +chief attraction of the walls is the series of original portraits by +Holbein, Vandyck, Lely and Kneller. The two full-lengths of Charles I. +by Vandyck, on foot and on horseback, both widely known by engravings, +are the gems of this department, as a Vandyck will always be of any +group of portraits. + +[Illustration: ARCHWAY IN HAMPTON COURT.] + +Days may be profitably and delightfully spent in studying this fine +collection. The first men and women of England for three centuries +handed down to us by the first artists she could command form a +spectacle in which Americans can take a sort of home interest. Nearly +all date before 1776, and we have a rightful share in them. Each +head and each picture is a study. We have art and history together. +Familiar as we may be with the events with which the persons +represented are associated, it is impossible to gaze upon their +lineaments, set in the accessories of their day by the ablest hands +guided by eyes that saw below the surface, and not feel that we have +new readings of British annals. + +[Illustration: WOLSEY.] + +Among the most ancient heads is a medallion of Henry VII. by +Torregiano, the peppery and gifted Florentine who executed the +marvelous chapel in Westminster Abbey and broke the nose of Michael +Angelo. English art--or rather art in England--may be said to date +from him. He could not create a school of artists in the island--the +material did not exist--but the few productions he left there stood +out so sharply from anything around them that the possessors of the +wealth that was then beginning to accumulate employed it in drawing +from the Continent additional treasures from the newly-found world +of beauty. The riches of England have grown apace, and her collectors +have used them liberally, if not always wisely, until her galleries, +in time, have come to be sought by the connoisseurs, and even the +artists, of the Continent. + +[Illustration: PORTICO LEADING TO GARDENS.] + +The last picture-gallery we traverse is the only one at Hampton Court +specially built for its purpose; and it is empty. This is the room +erected by Sir Christopher Wren for the reception of the Cartoons. +It leads us to the corridor that opens on the garden-front. We leave +behind us, in addition to the state apartments, a great many others +which are peopled by other inhabitants than the big spiders, said to +be found nowhere else, known as cardinals. The old palace is not kept +wholly for show, but is made useful in the political economy of +the kingdom by furnishing a retreat to impecunious members of the +oligarchy. Certain families of distressed aristocrats are harbored +here--clearly a more wholesome arrangement than letting them take +their chance in the world and bring discredit on their class. + +[Illustration: CENTRE AVENUE.] + +Emerging on the great gardens, forty four acres in extent, we find +ourselves on broad walks laid out with mathematical regularity, and +edged by noble masses of yew, holly, horse-chestnut, etc. almost as +rectangular and circular. We are here struck with the great advantage +derived in landscape gardening from the rich variety of large +evergreens possible in the climate of Britain. The holly, unknown as +an outdoor plant in this country north of Philadelphia, is at home in +the north of Scotland, eighteen degrees nearer the pole. We are more +fortunate with the Conifers, many of the finest of which family are +perfectly hardy here. But we miss the deodar cedar, the redwood and +Washingtonia of California, and the cedar of Lebanon. These, unless +perhaps the last, cannot be depended on much north of the latitude of +the _Magnolia grandiflora._ They thrive all over England, with others +almost as beautiful, and as delicate north of the Delaware. Of the +laurel tribe, also hardy in England, our Northern States have but a +few weakly representatives. So with the Rhododendra. + +[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT--GARDEN FRONT.] + +When, tired of even so charming a scene of arboreal luxury, we knock +at the Flower-Pot gate to the left of the palace, and are admitted +into the private garden, we make the acquaintance of another stately +stranger we have had the honor at home of meeting only under glass. +This is the great vine, ninety years or a hundred old, of the Black +Hamburg variety. It does not cover as much space as the Carolina +Scuppernong--the native variety that so surprised and delighted +Raleigh's Roanoke Island settlers in 1585--often does. But its +bunches, sometimes two or three thousand in number, are much larger +than the Scuppernong's little clumps of two or three. They weigh +something like a pound each, and are thought worthy of being reserved +for Victoria's dessert. Her own family vine has burgeoned so broadly +that three thousand pounds of grapes would not be a particularly large +dish for a Christmas dinner for the united Guelphs. + +[Illustration: GATE TO PRIVATE GARDEN.] + +We must not forget the Labyrinth, "a mighty maze, but not without a +plan," that has bewildered generations of young and old children since +the time of its creator, William of Orange. It is a feature of the +Dutch style of landscape gardening imprinted by him upon the Hampton +grounds. He failed to impress a like stamp upon that chaos of queer, +shapeless and contradictory means to beneficent ends, the British +constitution. + +Hampton Court, notwithstanding the naming of the third quadrangle the +Fountain Court, and the prominence given to a fountain in the design +of the principal grounds, is not rich in waterworks. Nature has done a +good deal for it in that way, the Thames embracing it on two sides +and the lowness of the flat site placing water within easy reach +everywhere. This superabundance of the element did not content the +magnificent Wolsey. He was a man of great ideas, and to secure a head +for his jets he sought an elevated spring at Combe Wood, more than two +miles distant. To bring this supply he laid altogether not less than +eight miles of leaden pipe weighing twenty-four pounds to the foot, +and passing under the bed of the Thames. Reduced to our currency +of to-day, these conduits must have cost nearly half a million of +dollars. They do their work yet, the gnawing tooth of old _Edax rerum_ +not having penetrated far below the surface of the earth. Better +hydraulic results would now be attained at a considerably reduced cost +by a steam-engine and stand-pipe. At the beginning of the sixteenth +century this motor was not even in embryo, unless we accept the story +of Blasco de Garay's steamer that manoeuvred under the eye of Charles +V. as fruitlessly as Fitch's and Fulton's before Napoleon. Coal, its +dusky pabulum, was also practically a stranger on the upper Thames. +The ancient fire-dogs that were wont to bear blazing billets hold +their places in the older part of the palace. + +[Illustration: BUSHY PARK.] + +Crossing the Kingston road, which runs across the peninsula and skirts +the northern boundary of Hampton Park, we get into its continuation, +Bushy Park. This is larger than the chief enclosure, but less +pretentious. We cease to be oppressed by the palace and its excess of +the artificial. The great avenues of horse-chestnut, five in number, +and running parallel with a length of rather more than a mile and an +aggregate breadth of nearly two hundred yards, are formal enough in +design, but the mass of foliage gives them the effect of a wood. They +lead nowhere in particular, and are flanked by glades and copses in +which the genuinely rural prevails. Cottages gleam through the trees. +The lowing of kine, the tinkling of the sheep-bell, the gabble +of poultry, lead you away from thoughts of prince and city. Deer +domesticated here since long before the introduction of the turkey +or the guinea-hen bear themselves with as quiet ease and freedom +from fear as though they were the lords of the manor and held the +black-letter title-deeds for the delicious stretch of sward over +which they troop. Less stately, but scarce more shy, indigenes are +the hares, lineal descendants of those which gave sport to Oliver +Cromwell. When that grim Puritan succeeded to the lordship of the +saintly cardinal, he was fain, when the Dutch, Scotch and Irish +indulged him with a brief chance to doff his buff coat, to take +relaxation in coursing. We loiter by the margin of the ponds he dug +in the hare-warren, and which were presented as nuisances by the grand +jury in 1662. The complaint was that by turning the water of the "New +River" into them the said Oliver had made the road from Hampton Wick +boggy and unsafe. Another misdemeanor of the deceased was at the same +time and in like manner denounced. This was the stopping up of the +pathway through the warren. The palings were abated, and the path is +open to all nineteenth-century comers, as it probably will be to those +of the twentieth, this being a land of precedent, averse to change. +We may stride triumphantly across the location of the Cromwellian +barricades, and not the less so, perhaps, for certain other barricades +which he helped to erect in the path of privilege. + +Directing our steps to the left, or westward, we again reach the river +at the town of Hampton. It is possessed of pretty water-views, but of +little else of note except the memory and the house of Garrick. +Hither the great actor, after positively his last night on the stage, +retired, and settled the long contest for his favor between the Muses +of Tragedy and Comedy by inexorably turning his back on both. He +did not cease to be the delight of polished society, thanks to his +geniality and to literary and conversational powers capable of making +him the intimate of Johnson and Reynolds. More fortunate in his +temperament and temper than his modern successor, Macready, he never +fretted that his profession made him a vagabond by act of Parliament, +or that his adoption of it in place of the law had prevented his +becoming, by virtue of the same formal and supreme stamp, the equal +of the Sampson Brasses plentiful in his day as in ours among their +betters of that honorable vocation. His self-respect was of tougher if +not sounder grain. "Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow," +was the motto supplied him by his friend and neighbor, Pope, but +obeyed long before he saw it in the poetic form. + +[Illustration: GARRICK'S VILLA.] + +Garrick's house is separated from its bit of "grounds," which run down +to the water's edge, by the highway. It communicates with them by a +tunnel, suggested by Johnson. It was not a very novel suggestion, +but the excavation deserves notice as probably the one engineering +achievement of old Ursus major. We may fancy the Titan of the pen and +the tea-table, in his snuffy habit as he lived and as photographed +by Boswell, Mrs. Thrale, Fanny Burney, and their epitomizer Macaulay, +diving under the turnpike and emerging among the osiers and water-rats +to offer his orisons at the shrine of Shakespeare. For, in the fashion +of the day, Garrick erected a little brick "temple," and placed +therein a statue of the man it was the study of his life to interpret. +The temple is there yet. The statue, a fine one by Roubillac, now +adorns the hall of the British Museum, a much better place for it. +Garrick, and not Shakespeare, is the _genius loci_. + +[Illustration: RIVER SCENE, THAMES DITTON.] + +This is but one, if the most striking, of a long row of villas that +overlook the river, each with its comfortable-looking and rotund trees +and trim plat in front, with sometimes a summer-house snuggling down +to the ripples. These riverside colonies, thrown out so rapidly by the +metropolis, have no colonial look. We cannot associate the idea of a +new settlement with rich turf, graveled walks and large trees devoid +of the gaunt and forlorn look suggestive of their fellows' having +been hewn away from their side. The houses have some of the pertness, +rawness and obtrusiveness of youth, but it is not the youth of the +backwoods. + +Bob and sinker are in their glory hereabouts. Fishing-rods in the +season and good weather form an established part of the scenery. From +the banks of the stream, from the islands and from box-like boats +called punts in the middle of the water, their slender arches project. +It becomes a source of speculation how the breed of fish is kept up. +Seth Green has never operated on the Thames. Were he to take it under +his wing, a sum in the single rule of three points to the conclusion +that all London would take its seat under these willows and extract +ample sustenance from the invisible herds. If perch and dace can hold +their own against the existing pressure and escape extinction, how +would they multiply with the fostering aid of the spawning-box! We are +not deep in the mysteries of the angle, but we believe English waters +do not boast the catfish. They ought to acquire him. He is almost +as hard to extirpate as the perch, would be quite at home in these +sluggish pools under the lily-pads, and would harmonize admirably with +the eel in the pies and other gross preparations which delight the +British palate. He hath, moreover, a John Bull-like air in his +broad and burly shape, his smooth and unscaly superficies and the +_noli-me-tangere_ character of his dorsal fin. Pity he was unknown to +Izaak Walton! + +At this particular point the piscatory effect is intensified by the +dam just above Hampton Bridge. Two parts of a river are especially +fine for fishing. One is the part above the dam, and the other the +part below. These two divisions may be said, indeed, in a large sense +to cover all the Thames. Moulsey Lock, while favorable to fish and +fishermen, is unfavorable to dry land. Yet there is said to be no +malaria. Hampton Court has proved a wholesome residence to every +occupant save its founder. + +[Illustration: WOLSEY'S TOWER, ESHER.] + +The angler's capital is Thames Ditton, and his capitol the Swan Inn. +Ditton is, like many other pretty English villages, little and old. It +is mentioned in _Domesday Boke_ as belonging to the bishop of Bayeux +in Normandy, famous for the historic piece of tapestry. Wadard, +a gentleman with a Saxon name, held it of him, probably for the +quit--rent of an annual eel-pie, although the consideration is not +stated. The clergy were, by reason of their frequent meagre days and +seasons, great consumers of fish. The phosphorescent character of that +diet may have contributed, if we accept certain modern theories of +animal chemistry as connected in some as yet unexplained way with +psychology, to the intellectual predominance of that class of the +population in the Middle Ages. That occasional fasting, whether +voluntary and systematic as in the cloisters, or involuntary and +altogether the reverse of systematic in Grub street, helps to clear +the wits, with or without the aid of phosphorus, is a fixed fact. The +stomach is apt to be a stumbling-block to the brain. We are not prone +to associate prolonged and productive mental effort with a fair round +belly with fat capon lined. It was not the jolly clerics we read of +in song, but the lean ascetic brethren who were numerous enough to +balance them, that garnered for us the treasures of ancient literature +and kept the mind of Christendom alive, if only in a state of +suspended animation. It was something that they prevented the mace of +chivalry from utterly braining humankind. + +The Thames is hereabouts joined from the south by a somewhat +exceptional style of river, characterized by Milton as "the sullen +Mole, that runneth underneath," and by Pope, in dutiful imitation, as +"the sullen Mole that hides his diving flood." Both poets play on the +word. In our judgment, Milton's line is the better, since moles do not +dive and have no flood--two false figures in one line from the precise +and finical Pope! Thomson contributes the epithet of "silent," which +will do well enough as far as it goes, though devoid even of the +average force of Jamie. But, as we have intimated, it is a queer +river. Pouring into the Thames by several mouths that deviate over +quite a delta, its channel two or three miles above is destitute in +dry seasons of water. Its current disappears under an elevation called +White Hill, and does not come again to light for almost two miles, +resembling therein several streams in the United States, notably Lost +River in North-eastern Virginia, which has a subterranean course of +the same character and about the same length, but has not yet found +its Milton or Pope, far superior as it is to its English cousin in +natural beauty. + +For this defect art and association amply atone. On the southern side +of the Mole, not far from the underground portion of its course--"the +Swallow" as it is called--stand the charming and storied seats of +Esher and Claremont. + +Esher was an ancient residence of the bishops of Winchester. Wolsey +made it for a time his retreat after being ousted from Hampton Court. +A retreat it was to him in every sense. He dismissed his servants +and all state, and cultivated the deepest despondency. His inexorable +master, however, looked down on him, from his ravished towers hard by, +unmoved, and, as the sequel in a few years proved, unsatisfied in +his greed. Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was called upon for a +contribution. He loyally surrendered to the king the whole estate of +Esher, a splendid mansion with all appurtenances and a park a mile +in diameter. Henry annexed Esher to Hampton Court, and continued his +research for new subjects of spoliation. His daughter Mary gave Esher +back to the see of Winchester. Elizabeth bought it and bestowed it on +Lord Howard of Effingham, who well earned it by his services against +the Armada. Of the families who subsequently owned the place, the +Pelhams are the most noted. Now it has passed from their hands. That +which has alone been preserved of the palace of Wolsey is an embattled +gatehouse that looks into the sluggish Mole, and joins it mayhap in +musing over "the days that we have seen." + +[Illustration: CLAREMONT.] + +Claremont, its next neighbor, unites, with equal or greater charms of +landscape, in preaching the old story of the decadence of the great. +Lord Clive, the Indian conqueror and speculator, built the house from +the designs of Capability Browne at a cost of over a hundred thousand +pounds. His dwelling and his monument remain to represent Clive. After +him, two or three occupants removed, came Leopold of Belgium, with +his bride, the Princess Charlotte, pet and hope of the British +nation. Their stay was more transient still--a year only, when death +dissipated their dream and cleared the way to the throne for Victoria. +Leopold continued to hold the property, and it became a generation +later the asylum of Louis Philippe. To an ordinary mind the miseries +of any one condemned to make this lovely spot his home are not apt to +present themselves as the acme of despair. A sensation of relief and +lulling repose would be more reasonably expected, especially after +so stormy a career as that of Louis. The change from restless and +capricious Paris to dewy shades and luxurious halls in the heart of +changeless and impregnable England ought, on common principles, to +have promoted the content and prolonged the life of the old king. +Possibly it did, but if so, the French had not many months' escape +from a second Orleans regency, for the exile's experience of Claremont +was brief. We may wander over his lawns, and reshape to ourselves his +reveries. Then we may forget the man who lost an empire as we look up +at the cenotaph of him who conquered one. Both brought grist to +Miller Bull, the fortunate and practical-minded owner of such vast +water-privileges. His water-power seems proof against all floods, +while the corn of all nations must come to his door. Standing under +these drooping elms, by this lazy stream, we hear none of the clatter +of the great mill, and we cease to dream of affixing a period to its +noiseless and effective work. + +[Illustration: CLIVE'S MONUMENT.] + +If we are not tired of parks for today, five minutes by rail will +carry us west to Oatlands Park, with its appended, and more or less +dependent, village of Walton-upon-Thames. But a surfeit even of +English country-houses and their pleasances is a possible thing; +and nowhere are they more abundant than within an hour's walk of our +present locality. So, taking Ashley Park, Burwood Park, Pains Hill +and many others, as well as the Coway Stakes--said by one school of +antiquarians to have been planted in the Thames by Caesar, and by +another to be the relics of a fish-weir--Walton Church and Bradshaw's +house, for granted, we shall turn to the east and finish the purlieus +of Hampton with a glance at the old Saxon town of Kingston-on-Thames. +Probably an ardent Kingstonian would indignantly disown the impression +our three words are apt to give of the place. It is a rapidly--growing +town, and "Egbert, the first king of all England," who held a council +at "Kyningestun, famosa ilia locus," in 838, would be at a loss to +find his way through its streets could he revisit it. It has the +population of a Saxon county. Viewed from the massive bridge, with +the church-tower rising above an expanse of sightly buildings, it +possesses the least possible resemblance to the cluster of wattled +huts that may be presumed to have sheltered Egbert and his peers. + +[Illustration: PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.] + +A more solid memento of the Saxons is preserved in the King's +Stone. This has been of late years set up in the centre of the town, +surrounded with an iron railing, and made visible to all comers, +skeptical or otherwise. Tradition credits it with having been that +upon which the kings of Wessex were crowned, as those of Scotland down +to Longshanks, and after him the English, were on the red sandstone +palladium of Scone. From the list of ante-Norman monarchs said to +have received the sceptre upon it the poetically inclined visitor will +select for chief interest Edwy, whose coronation was celebrated in +great state in his seventeenth year. How he fell in love with and +married secretly his cousin Elgiva; how Saint Dunstan and his equally +saintly though not regularly beatified ally, Odo, archbishop of +Canterbury, indignant at a step taken against their fulminations and +protests, and jealous of the fair queen, tore her from his arms, burnt +with hot iron the bloom out of her cheeks, and finally put her +to death with the most cruel tortures; and how her broken-hearted +boy-lord, dethroned and hunted, died before reaching twenty,--is a +standing dish of the pathetic. Unfortunately, the story, handed down +to us with much detail, appears to be true. We must not accept it, +however, as an average illustration of life in that age of England. +The five hundred years before the Conquest do not equal, in the bloody +character of their annals, the like period succeeding it. Barbarous +enough the Anglo-Saxons were, but wanton cruelty does not seem to have +been one of their traits. To produce it some access of religious fury +was usually requisite. It was on the church doors that the skins of +their Danish invaders were nailed. + +[Illustration: WALTON CHURCH.] + +[Illustration: KINGSTON CHURCH.] + +Kingston has no more Dunstans. Alexandra would be perfectly safe in +its market-place. The rosy maidens who pervade its streets need not +envy her cheeks, and the saints and archbishops who are to officiate +at her husband's induction as head of the Anglican Church have their +anxieties at present directed to wholly different quarters. They have +foes within and foes without, but none in the palace. + +Kingston bids fair to revert, after a sort, to the metropolitan +position it boasted once, but has lost for nine centuries. The capital +is coming to it, and will cover the four remaining miles within +a decade or two at the existing rate of progress. Kingston may be +assigned to the suburbs already. It is much nearer London, in point +of time, than Union Square in New York to the City Hall. A slip of +country not yet endowed with trottoirs and gas-lamps intervenes. Call +this park, as you do the square miles of such territory already deep +within the metropolis. + +London's jurisdiction, as marked by the Boundary Stone, extends much +farther up the river than we have as yet gone. Nor are the swans her +only vicegerents. The myrmidons of Inspector Bucket, foot and horse, +supplement those natatory representatives. So do the municipalities +encroach upon and overspread the country, as it is eminently proper +they should, seeing that to the charters so long ago exacted, and so +long and so jealously guarded, by the towns, so much of the liberty +enjoyed by English-speaking peoples is due. Large cities may be under +some circumstances, according to an often-quoted saying, plague-spots +on the body politic, but their growth has generally been commensurate +with that of knowledge and order, and indicative of anything but a +diseased condition of the national organism. + +But here we are, under the shadow of the departed Nine Elms and of +the official palace of the Odos, deep enough in Lunnon to satisfy the +proudest Cockney, in less time than we have taken in getting off that +last commonplace on political economy. Adam Smith and Jefferson never +undertook to meditate at thirty-five miles an hour. + +EDWARD C. BRUCE. + + + + +LINES WRITTEN AT VENICE IN OCTOBER, 1865. + + Sleep, Venice, sleep! the evening gun resounds + Over the waves that rock thee on their breast: + The bugle blare to kennel calls the hounds + Who sleepless watch thy waking and thy rest. + + Sleep till the night-stars do the day-star meet, + And shuddering echoes o'er the water run, + Rippling through every glass-green, wavering street + The stern good-morrow of thy guardian Hun. + + Still do thy stones, O Venice! bid rejoice, + With their old majesty, the gazer's eye, + In their consummate grace uttering a voice, + From every line, of blended harmony. + + Still glows the splendor of the wondrous dreams + Vouchsafed thy painters o'er each sacred shrine, + And from the radiant visions downward streams + In visible light an influence divine. + + Still through thy golden day and silver night + Sings his soft jargon the gay gondolier, + And o'er thy floors of liquid malachite + Slide the black-hooded barks to mystery dear. + + Like Spanish beauty in its sable veil, + They rustle sideling through the watery way, + The wild, monotonous cry with which they hail + Each other's passing dying far away. + + As each steel prow grazes the island strands + Still ring the sweet Venetian voices clear, + And wondering wanderers from far, free lands + Entranced look round, enchanted listen here. + + From the far lands of liberty they come-- + England's proud children and her younger race; + Those who possess the Past's most noble home, + And those who claim the Future's boundless space. + + Pitying they stand. For thee who would not weep? + Well it beseems these men to weep for thee, + Whose flags (as erst they own) control the deep, + Whose conquering sails o'ershadow every sea. + + Yet not in pity only, but in hope, + Spring the hot tears the brave for thee may shed: + Thy chain shall prove but a sand-woven rope; + But sleep thou still: the sky is not yet red. + + Sleep till the mighty helmsman of the world, + By the Almighty set at Fortune's wheel, + Steers toward thy freedom, and, once more unfurled, + The banner of St. Mark the sun shall feel. + + Then wake, then rise, then hurl away thy yoke, + Then dye with crimson that pale livery, + Whose ghastly white has been the jailer's cloak + For years flung o'er thy shame and misery! + + Rise with a shout that down thy Giants' Stair + Shall thy old giants bring with thundering tread-- + The blind crusader standing stony there, + And him, the latest of thy mighty dead. + + Whose patriot heart broke at the Austrian's foot, + Whose ashes under the black marble lie, + From whose dry dust, stirred by the voice, shall shoot + The glorious growth of living liberty. + + FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. + + + + +SKETCHES OF INDIA. + +I. + + +"Come," says my Hindu friend, "let us do Bombay." + +The name of my Hindu friend is Bhima Gandharva. At the same time, his +name is _not_ Bhima Gandharva. But--for what is life worth if one may +not have one's little riddle?--in respect that he is _not_ so +named let him be so called, for thus will a pretty contradiction +be accomplished, thus shall I secure at once his privacy and his +publicity, and reveal and conceal him in a breath. + +It is eight o'clock in the morning. We have met--Bhima Gandharva and +I--in "The Fort." The Fort is to Bombay much as the Levee, with +its adjacent quarters, is to New Orleans; only it is--one may say +_Hibernice_--a great deal more so. It is on the inner or harbor side +of the island of Bombay. Instead of the low-banked Mississippi, the +waters of a tranquil and charming haven smile welcome out yonder from +between wooded island-peaks. Here Bombay has its counting-houses, its +warehouses, its exchange, its "Cotton Green," its docks. But not its +dwellings. This part of the Fort where we have met is, one may say, +only inhabited for six hours in the day--from ten in the morning until +four in the afternoon. At the former hour Bombay is to be found +here engaged at trade: at the latter it rushes back into the various +quarters outside the Fort which go to make up this many-citied city. +So that at this particular hour of eight in the morning one must +expect to find little here that is alive, except either a philosopher, +a stranger, a policeman or a rat. + +"Well, then," I said as Bhima Gandharva finished communicating this +information to me, "we are all here." + +"How?" + +"There stand you, a philosopher; here I, a stranger; yonder, the +policeman; and, heavens and earth! what a rat!" I accompanied this +exclamation by shooing a big musky fellow from behind a bale of cotton +whither I had just seen him run. + +Bhima Gandharva smiled in a large, tranquil way he has, which is like +an Indian plain full of ripe corn. "I find it curious," he said, "to +compare the process which goes on here in the daily humdrum of trade +about this place with that which one would see if one were far up +yonder at the northward, in the appalling solitudes of the mountains, +where trade has never been and will never be. Have you visited the +Himalaya?" + +I shook my head. + +"Among those prodigious planes of snow," continued the Hindu, "which +when level nevertheless frighten you as if they were horizontal +precipices, and which when perpendicular nevertheless lull you with a +smooth deadly half-sense of confusion as to whether you should refer +your ideas of space to the slope or the plain, there reigns at this +moment a quietude more profound than the Fort's. But presently, as +the sun beats with more fervor, rivulets begin to trickle from exposed +points; these grow to cataracts and roar down the precipices; masses +of undermined snow plunge into the abysses; the great winds of the +Himalaya rise and howl, and every silence of the morning becomes +a noise at noon. A little longer, and the sun again decreases; the +cataracts draw their heads back into the ice as tortoises into their +shells; the winds creep into their hollows, and the snows rest. So +here. At ten the tumult of trade will begin: at four it will quickly +freeze again into stillness. One might even carry this parallelism +into more fanciful extremes. For, as the vapors which lie on the +Himalaya in the form of snow have in time come from all parts of the +earth, so the tide of men that will presently pour in here is made up +of people from the four quarters of the globe. The Hindu, the African, +the Arabian, the Chinese, the Tartar, the European, the American, the +Parsee, will in a little while be trading or working here." + +[Illustration: A DWELLING AT MAZAGON.] + +"What a complete _bouleversement_," I said, seating myself on a +bale of cotton and looking toward the fleets of steamers and vessels +collected off the great cotton-presses awaiting their cargoes, "this +particular scene effects in the mind of a traveler just from America! +India has been to me, as the average American, a dream of terraced +ghauts, of banyans and bungalows, of Taj Mahals and tigers, of sacred +rivers and subterranean temples, and--and that sort of thing. I +come here and land in a big cotton-yard. I ask myself, 'Have I left +Jonesville--dear Jonesville!--on the other side of the world, in order +to sit on an antipodal cotton-bale?'" + +"There is some more of India," said Bhima Gandharva gently. "Let us +look at it a little." + +One may construct a good-enough outline map of this wonderful land in +one's mind by referring its main features to the first letter of the +alphabet. Take a capital A; turn it up side down; imagine that the +inverted triangle forming the lower half of the letter is the +Deccan, the left side representing the Western Ghauts, the right side +representing the Eastern Ghauts, and the cross-stroke standing for +the Vindhya Mountains; imagine further that a line from right to left +across the upper ends of the letter, trending upward as it is drawn, +represents the Himalaya, and that enclosed between them and the +Vindhyas is Hindustan proper. Behind--i.e. to the north of--the +centre of this last line rises the Indus, flowing first north-westward +through the Vale of Cashmere, then cutting sharply to the south and +flowing by the way of the Punjab and Scinde to where it empties at +Kurrachee. Near the same spot where the Indus originates rises also +the Brahmaputra, but the latter empties its waters far from the +former, flowing first south-eastward, then cutting southward and +emptying into the Gulf of Bengal. Fixing, now, in the mind the sacred +Ganges and Jumna, coming down out of the Gangetic and Jumnatic peaks +in a general south-easterly direction, uniting at Allahabad and +emptying into the Bay of Bengal, and the Nerbudda River flowing over +from the east to the west, along the southern bases of the Vindhyas, +until it empties at the important city of Brooch, a short distance +north of Bombay, one will have thus located a number of convenient +points and lines sufficient for general references. + +This A of ours is a very capital A indeed, being some nineteen hundred +miles in length and fifteen hundred in width. Lying on the western +edge of this peninsula is Bombay Island. It is crossed by the line +of 19 deg. north latitude, and is, roughly speaking, halfway between the +Punjab on the north and Ceylon on the south. Its shape is that of a +lobster, with his claws extended southward and his body trending +a little to the west of north. The larger island of Salsette lies +immediately north, and the two, connected by a causeway, enclose the +noble harbor of Bombay. Salsette approaches near to the mainland at +its northern end, and is connected with it by the railway structure. +These causeways act as break-waters and complete the protection of the +port. The outer claw, next to the Indian Ocean, of the lobster-shaped +Bombay Island is the famous Malabar Hill; the inner claw is the +promontory of Calaba; in the curved space between the two is the body +of shallow water known as the Back Bay, along whose strand so many +strange things are done daily. As one turns into the harbor around +the promontory of Calaba--which is one of the European quarters of the +manifold city of Bombay, and is occupied by magnificent residences +and flower-gardens--one finds just north of it the great docks and +commercial establishments of the Fort; then an enormous esplanade +farther north; across which, a distance of about a mile, going still +northward, is the great Indian city called Black Town, with its motley +peoples and strange bazars; and still farther north is the Portuguese +quarter, known as Mazagon. + +As we crossed the great esplanade to the north of the Fort--Bhima +Gandharva and I--and strolled along the noisy streets, I began to +withdraw my complaint. It was not like Jonesville. It was not like any +one place or thing, but like a hundred, and all the hundred _outre_ +to the last degree. Hindu beggars, so dirty that they seemed to have +returned to dust before death; three fakirs, armed with round-bladed +daggers with which they were wounding themselves apparently in the +most reckless manner, so as to send streams of blood flowing to the +ground, and redly tattooing the ashes with which their naked bodies +were covered; Parsees with their long noses curving over their +moustaches, clothed in white, sending one's thoughts back to Ormuz, +to Persia, to Zoroaster, to fire-worship and to the strangeness of the +fate which drove them out of Persia more than a thousand years ago, +and which has turned them into the most industrious traders and +most influential citizens of a land in which they are still exiles; +Chinese, Afghans--the Highlanders of the East--Arabs, Africans, +Mahrattas, Malays, Persians, Portuguese half-bloods; men that called +upon Mohammed, men that called upon Confucius, upon Krishna, upon +Christ, upon Gotama the Buddha, upon Rama and Sita, upon Brahma, upon +Zoroaster; strange carriages shaded by red domes that compressed +a whole dream of the East in small, and drawn by humped oxen, +alternating with palanquins, with stylish turnouts of the latest mode, +with cavaliers upon Arabian horses; half-naked workmen, crouched +in uncomfortable workshops and ornamenting sandal-wood boxes; dusky +curb-stone shopkeepers, rushing at me with strenuous offerings of +their wares; lines of low shop-counters along the street, backed by +houses rising in many stories, whose black pillared verandahs +were curiously carved and painted: cries, chafferings, bickerings, +Mussulman prayers, Arab oaths extending from "Praise God that you +exist" to "Praise God _although_ you exist;"--all these things +appealed to the confused senses. + +The tall spire of a Hindu temple revealed itself. + +[Illustration: HINDU TEMPLE IN THE BLACK TOWN, BOMBAY.] + +"It seems to me," I said to Bhima Gandharva, "that your steeples--as +we would call them in Jonesville--represent, in a sort of way, your +cardinal doctrine: they seem to be composed of a multitude of little +steeples, all like the big one, just as you might figure your Supreme +Being in the act of absorbing a large number of the faithful who had +just arrived from the dismal existence below. And then, again, your +steeple looks as if it might be the central figure of your theistic +scheme, surrounded by the three hundred millions of your lesser +deities. How do you get on, Bhima Gandharva, with so many claims on +your worshiping faculties? I should think you would be well lost in +such a jungle of gods?" + +"My friend," said Bhima Gandharva, "a short time ago a play was +performed in this city which purported to be a translation into the +Mahratta language of the _Romeo and Juliet_ which Shakespeare wrote. +It was indeed a very great departure from that miraculous work, which +I know well, but among its many deviations from the original was one +which for the mournful and yet humorous truth of it was really worthy +of the Master. Somehow, the translator had managed to get a modern +Englishman into the play, who, every time that one of my countrymen +happened to be found in leg-reach, would give him a lusty kick and cry +out 'Damn fool!' Why is the whole world like this Englishman?--upon +what does it found its opinion that the Hindu is a fool? Is it upon +our religion? Listen! I will recite you some matters out of our +scriptures: Once upon a time Arjuna stood in his chariot betwixt +his army and the army of his foes. These foes were his kinsmen. +Krishna--even that great god Krishna--moved by pity for Arjuna, had +voluntarily placed himself in Arjuna's chariot and made himself the +charioteer thereof. Then--so saith Sanjaya--in order to encourage him, +the ardent old ancestor of the Kurus blew his conch-shell, sounding +loud as the roar of a lion. Then on a sudden trumpets, cymbals, drums +and horns were sounded. That noise grew to an uproar. And, standing on +a huge car drawn by white horses, the slayer of Madhu and the son +of Pandu blew their celestial trumpets. Krishna blew his horn called +Panchajanya; the Despiser of Wealth blew his horn called the Gift +of the Gods; he of dreadful deeds and wolfish entrails blew a great +trumpet called Paundra; King Yudishthira, the son of Kunti, blew the +Eternal Victory; Nakula and Sahadeva blew the Sweet-toned and the +Blooming-with-Jewels. The king of Kashi, renowned for the excellence +of his bow, and Shikandin in his huge chariot, Dhrishtyadumna, and +Virata, and Satyaki, unconquered by his foes, and Drupada and the sons +of Drupadi all together, and the strong-armed son of Subhadra, each +severally blew their trumpets. That noise lacerated the hearts of the +sons of Dhartarashtra, and uproar resounded both through heaven and +earth. Now when Arjuna beheld the Dhartarashtras drawn up, and that +the flying of arrows had commenced, he raised his bow, and then +addressed these words to Krishna: + +"'Now that I have beheld this kindred standing here near together for +the purpose of fighting, my limbs give way and my face is bloodless, +and tremor is produced throughout my body, and my hair stands on end. +My bow Gandiva slips from my hand, and my skin burns. Nor am I able +to remain upright, and my mind is as it were whirling round. Nor do I +perceive anything better even when I shall have slain these relations +in battle, I seek not victory, Krishna, nor a kingdom, nor pleasures. +What should we do with a kingdom, Govinda? What with enjoyments, or +with life itself? Those very men on whose account we might desire a +kingdom, enjoyments or pleasures are assembled for battle. Teachers, +fathers, and even sons, and grandfathers, uncles, fathers-in-law, +grandsons, brothers-in-law, with connections also,--these I would not +wish to slay, though I were slain myself, O Killer of Madhu! not even +for the sake of the sovereignty of the triple world--how much less +for that of this earth! When we had killed the Dhartarashtras, what +pleasure should we have, O thou who art prayed to by mortals? How +could we be happy after killing our own kindred, O Slayer of Madhu? +Even if they whose reason is obscured by covetousness do not perceive +the crime committed in destroying their own tribe, should we not +know how to recoil from such a sin? In the destruction of a tribe +the eternal institutions of the tribe are destroyed. These laws being +destroyed, lawlessness prevails. From the existence of lawlessness the +women of the tribe become corrupted; and when the women are corrupted, +O son of Vrishni! confusion of caste takes place. Confusion of caste +is a gate to hell. Alas! we have determined to commit a great crime, +since from the desire of sovereignty and pleasures we are prepared to +slay our own kin. Better were it for me if the Dhartarashtras, being +armed, would slay me, harmless and unresisting in the fight.' + +[Illustration: JAIN TEMPLES AT SUNAGHUR.] + +"Having thus spoken in the midst of the battle, Arjuna, whose heart +was troubled with grief, let fall his bow and arrow and sat down on +the bench of the chariot." + +"Well," I asked after a short pause, during which the Hindu kept his +eyes fixed in contemplation on the spire of the temple, "what did +Krishna have to say to that?" + +"He instructed Arjuna, and said many wise things. I will tell you +some of them, here and there, as they are scattered through the +holy _Bhagavad-Gita_: Then between the two armies, Krishna, smiling, +addressed these words to him, thus downcast: + +"'Thou hast grieved for those who need not be grieved for, yet thou +utterest words of wisdom. The wise grieve not for dead or living. But +never at any period did I or thou or these kings of men not exist, nor +shall any of us at any time henceforward cease to exist. There is no +existence for what does not exist, nor is there any non-existence for +what exists.... These finite bodies have been said to belong to an +eternal, indestructible and infinite spirit.... He who believes that +this spirit can kill, and he who thinks that it can be killed--both of +these are mistaken. It neither kills nor is killed. It is born, and +it does not die.... Unborn, changeless, eternal both as to future and +past time, it is not slain when the body is killed.... As the soul +in this body undergoes the changes of childhood, prime and age, so it +obtains a new body hereafter.... As a man abandons worn-out clothes +and take other new ones, so does the soul quit worn-out bodies and +enter other new ones. Weapons cannot cleave it, fire cannot burn +it, nor can water wet it, nor can wind dry it. It is impenetrable, +incombustible, incapable of moistening and of drying. It is constant; +it can go everywhere; it is firm, immovable and eternal. And even +if thou deem it born with the body and dying with the body, still, +O great-armed one! thou art not right to grieve for it. For to +everything generated death is certain: to everything dead regeneration +is certain.... One looks on the soul as a miracle; another speaks of +it as a miracle; another hears of it as a miracle; but even when he +has heard of it, not one comprehends it.... When a man's heart is +disposed in accordance with his roaming senses, it snatches away his +spiritual knowledge as the wind does a ship on the waves.... He who +does not practice devotion has neither intelligence nor reflection. +And he who does not practice reflection has no calm. How can a man +without calm obtain happiness? The self-governed man is awake in that +which is night to all other beings: that in which other beings are +awake is night to the self-governed. He into whom all desires enter in +the same manner as rivers enter the ocean, which is always full, yet +does not change its bed, can obtain tranquillity.... Love or hate +exists toward the object of each sense. One should not fall into the +power of these two passions, for they are one's adversaries.... Know +that passion is hostile to man in this world. As fire is surrounded +by smoke, and a mirror by rust, and a child by the womb, so is this +universe surrounded by passion.... They say that the senses are great. +The heart is greater than the senses. But the intellect is greater +than the heart, and passion is greater than the intellect.... + +[Illustration: THE VESTIBULE OF THE GRAND SHAITYA OK KARLI.] + +"'I and thou, O Arjuna! have passed through many transmigrations. I +know all these. Thou dost not know them.... For whenever there is a +relaxation of duty, O son of Bharata! and an increase of impiety, +I then reproduce myself for the protection of the good and the +destruction of evil-doers. I am produced in every age for the purpose +of establishing duty.... Some sacrifice the sense of hearing and the +other senses in the fire of restraint. Others, by abstaining from +food, sacrifice life in their life. (But) the sacrifice of spiritual +knowledge is better than a material sacrifice.... By this knowledge +thou wilt recognize all things whatever in thyself, and then in me. He +who possesses faith acquires spiritual knowledge. He who is devoid of +faith and of doubtful mind perishes. The man of doubtful mind enjoys +neither this world nor the other, nor final beatitude. Therefore, +sever this doubt which exists in thy heart, and springs from +ignorance, with thy sword of knowledge: turn to devotion and arise, O +son of Bharata!... + +"'Learn my superior nature, O hero! by means of which this world is +sustained. I am the cause of the production and dissolution of the +whole universe. There exists no other thing superior to me. On me are +all the worlds suspended, as numbers of pearls on a string. I am the +savor of waters, and the principle of light in the moon and sun, the +mystic syllable _Om_ in the Vedas, the sound in the ether, the essence +of man in men, the sweet smell in the earth; and I am the brightness +in flame, the vitality in all beings, and the power of mortification +in ascetics. Know, O son of Pritha! that I am the eternal seed of all +things which exist. I am the intellect of those who have intellect: +I am the strength of the strong.... And know that all dispositions, +whether good, bad or indifferent, proceed also from me. I do not exist +in them, but they in me.... I am dear to the spiritually wise beyond +possessions, and he is dear to me. A great-minded man who is convinced +that _Vasudevu_ (Krishna) _is everything_ is difficult to find.... +If one worships any inferior personage with faith, I make his faith +constant. Gifted with such faith, he seeks the propitiation of this +personage, and from him receives the pleasant objects of his desires, +which (however) were sent by me alone. But the reward of these +little-minded men is finite. They who sacrifice to the gods go to the +gods: they who worship me come to me. I am the immolation. I am the +whole sacrificial rite. I am the libation to ancestors. I am the +drug. I am the incantation. I am the fire. I am the incense. I am +the father, the mother, the sustainer, the grandfather of this +universe--the path, the supporter, the master, the witness, the +habitation, the refuge, the friend, the origin, the dissolution, the +place, the receptacle, the inexhaustible seed. I heat. I withhold +and give the rain. I am ambrosia and death, the existing and the +non-existing. Even those who devoutly worship other gods with the gift +of faith worship me, but only improperly. I am the same to all beings. +I have neither foe nor friend. I am the beginning and the middle and +the end of existing things. Among bodies I am the beaming sun. Among +senses I am the heart. Among waters I am the ocean. Among mountains I +am Himalaya. Among trees I am the banyan; among men, the king; among +weapons, the thunderbolt; among things which count, time; among +animals, the lion; among purifiers, the wind. I am Death who seizes +all: I am the birth of those who are to be. I am Fame, Fortune, +Speech, Memory, Meditation, Perseverance and Patience among feminine +words. I am the game of dice among things which deceive: I am splendor +among things which are shining. Among tamers I am the rod; among means +of victory I am polity; among mysteries I am silence, the knowledge of +the wise.... + +"'They who know me to be the God of this universe, the God of gods and +the God of worship--they who know me to be the God of this universe, +the God of gods and the God of worship--yea, they who know me to be +these things in the hour of death, they know me indeed.'" + +[Illustration: SCULPTURED FIGURES IN THE VESTIBULE OF THE GREAT +SHAITYA OF KARLI.] + +When my friend finished these words there did not seem to be anything +particular left in heaven or earth to talk about. At any rate, there +was a dead pause for several minutes. Finally, I asked--and I protest +that in contrast with the large matters wherof Bhima Gandharva had +discoursed my voice (which is American and slightly nasal) sounded +like nothing in the world so much as the squeak of a sick rat--"When +were these things written?" + +"At least nineteen hundred and seventy-five years ago, we feel sure. +How much earlier we do not know." + +We now directed our course toward the hospital for sick and disabled +animals which has been established here in the most crowded portion of +Black Town by that singular sect called the Jains, and which is only +one of a number of such institutions to be found in the large cities +of India. This sect is now important more by influence than by numbers +in India, many of the richest merchants of the great Indian cities +being among its adherents, though by the last census of British India +there appears to be but a little over nine millions of Jains and +Buddhists together, out of the one hundred and ninety millions of +Hindus in British India. The tenets of the Jains are too complicated +for description here, but it may be said that much doubt exists as +to whether it is an old religion of which Brahmanism and Buddhism are +varieties, or whether it is itself a variety of Buddhism. Indeed, +it does not seem well settled whether the pure Jain doctrine +was atheistical or theistical. At any rate, it is sufficiently +differentiated from Brahmanism by its opposite notion of castes, and +from Buddhism by its cultus of nakedness, which the Buddhists abhor. +The Jains are split into two sects--the _Digambaras_, or nude Jains, +and the _Svetambaras_, or clothed Jains, which latter sect seem to +be Buddhists, who, besides the Tirthankars (i.e. mortals who have +acquired the rank of gods by devout lives, in whom all the Jains +believe), worship also the various divinities of the Vishnu system. +The Jains themselves declare this system to date from a period ten +thousand years before Christ, and they practically support this +traditional antiquity by persistently regarding and treating the +Buddhists as heretics from their system. At any event, their +religion is an old one. They seem to be the gymnosophists, or naked +philosophers, described by Clitarchos as living in India at the time +of the expedition of Alexander, and their history crops out in various +accounts--that of Clement of Alexandria, then of the Chinese Fu-Hian +in the fourth and fifth centuries, and of the celebrated Chinese +Hiouen-Tsang in the seventh century, at which last period they appear +to have been the prevailing sect in India, and to have increased +in favor until in the twelfth century the Rajpoots, who had become +converts to Jainism, were schismatized into Brahmanism and deprived +the naked philosophers of their prestige. + +The great distinguishing feature of the Jains is the extreme to which +they push the characteristic tenderness felt by the Hindus for animals +of all descriptions. Jaina is, distinctly, _the purified_. The priests +eat no animal food; indeed, they are said not to eat at all after +noon, lest the insects then abounding should fly into their mouths +and be crushed unwittingly. They go with a piece of muslin bound over +their mouths, in order to avoid the same catastrophe, and carry a soft +brush wherewith to remove carefully from any spot upon which they are +about to sit such insects as might be killed thereby. + +"Ah, how my countryman Bergh would luxuriate in this scene!" I said as +we stood looking upon the various dumb exhibitions of so many phases +of sickness, of decrepitude and of mishap--quaint, grotesque, yet +pathetic withal--in the precincts of the Jain hospital. Here were +quadrupeds and bipeds, feathered creatures and hairy creatures, large +animals and small, shy and tame, friendly and predatory--horses, +horned cattle, rats, cats, dogs, jackals, crows, chickens; what not. +An attendant was tenderly bandaging the blinking lids of a sore-eyed +duck: another was feeding a blind crow, who, it must be confessed, +looked here very much like some fat member of the New York Ring +cunningly availing himself of the more toothsome rations in the sick +ward of the penitentiary. My friend pointed out to me a heron with a +wooden leg. "Suppose a gnat should break his shoulder-blade," I said, +"would they put his wing in a sling?" + +[Illustrations: INTERIOR OF THE GREAT SHAITYA OF KARLI.] + +Bhima Gandharva looked me full in the face, and, smiling gently, said, +"They would if they could." + +The Jains are considered to have been the architects _par excellence_ +of India, and there are many monuments, in all styles, of their skill +in this kind. The strange statues of the Tirthankars in the gorge +called the Ourwhai of Gwalior were (until injured by the "march of +improvement") among the most notable of the forms of rock-cutting. +These vary in size from statuettes of a foot in height to colossal +figures of sixty feet, and nothing can be more striking than these +great forms, hewn from the solid rock, represented entirely nude, +with their impassive countenances, which remind every traveler of +the Sphinx, their grotesque ears hanging down to their shoulders, and +their heads, about which plays a ring of serpents for a halo, or out +of which grows the mystical three-branched _Kalpa Vrich_, or Tree of +Knowledge. + +The sacred hill of Sunaghur, lying a few miles to the south of +Gwalior, is one of the Meccas of the Jains, and is covered with +temples in many styles, which display the fertility of their +architectural invention: there are over eighty of these structures in +all. + +"And now," said Bhima Gandharva next day, "while you are thinking upon +temples, and wondering if the Hindus have all been fools, you should +complete your collection of mental materials by adding to the sight +you have had of a Hindu temple proper, and to the description you have +had of Jain temples proper, a sight of those marvelous subterranean +works of the Buddhists proper which remain to us. We might select +our examples of these either at Ellora or at Ajunta (which are on the +mainland a short distance to the north-east of Bombay), the latter +of which contains the most complete series of purely Buddhistic caves +known in the country; or, indeed, we could find Buddhistic caves just +yonder on Salsette. But let us go and see Karli at once: it is the +largest _shaitya_ (or cave-temple) in India." + +Accordingly, we took railway at Bombay, sped along the isle, over the +bridge to the island of Salsette, along Salsette to Tannah, then +over the bridge which connects Salsette with the mainland, across the +narrow head of Bombay harbor, and so on to the station at Khandalla, +about halfway between Bombay and Poonah, where we disembarked. The +caves of Karli are situated but a few miles from Khandalla, and in +a short time we were standing in front of a talus at the foot of a +sloping hill whose summit was probably five to six hundred feet high. +A flight of steps cut in the hillside led up to a ledge running out +from an escarpment which was something above sixty feet high before +giving off into the slope of the mountain. From the narrow and +picturesque valley a flight of steps cut in the hillside led up to the +platform. We could not see the facade of the shaitya on account of +the concealing boscage of trees. On ascending the steps, however, and +passing a small square Brahmanic chapel, where we paid a trifling +fee to the priests who reside there for the purpose of protecting the +place, the entire front of the excavation revealed itself, and with +every moment of gazing grew in strangeness and solemn mystery. + +The shaitya is hewn in the solid rock of the mountain. Just to the +left of the entrance stands a heavy pillar (_Silasthamba_) completely +detached from the temple, with a capital upon whose top stand four +lions back to back. On this pillar is an inscription in Pali, which +has been deciphered, and which is now considered to fix the date +of the excavation conclusively at not later than the second century +before the Christian era. The eye took in at first only the vague +confusion of windows and pillars cut in the rock. It is supposed +that originally a music-gallery stood here in front, consisting of +a balcony supported out from the two octagonal pillars, and probably +roofed or having a second balcony above. But the woodwork is now gone. +One soon felt one's attention becoming concentrated, however, upon a +great arched window cut in the form of a horseshoe, through which one +could look down what was very much like the nave of a church running +straight back into the depths of the hill. Certainly, at first, as one +passes into the strange vestibule which intervenes still between the +front and the interior of the shaitya, one does not think at all--one +only _feels_ the dim sense of mildness raying out from the great +faces of the elephants, and of mysterious far-awayness conveyed by the +bizarre postures of the sculptured figures on the walls. + +Entering the interior, a central nave stretches back between two +lines of pillars, each of whose capitals supports upon its abacus two +kneeling elephants: upon each elephant are seated two figures, most +of which are male and female pairs. The nave extends eighty-one feet +three inches back, the whole length of the temple being one hundred +and two feet three inches. There are fifteen pillars on each side +the nave, which thus enclose between themselves and the wall two +side-aisles, each about half the width of the nave, the latter being +twenty-five feet and seven inches in width, while the whole width from +wall to wall is forty-five feet and seven inches. At the rear, in a +sort of apse, are seven plain octagonal pillars--the other thirty are +sculptured. Just in front of these seven pillars is the _Daghaba_--a +domed structure covered by a wooden parasol. The Daghaba is the +reliquary in which or under which some relic of Gotama Buddha +is enshrined. The roof of the shaitya is vaulted, and ribs of +teak-wood--which could serve no possible architectural purpose--reveal +themselves, strangely enough, running down the sides. + +As I took in all these details, pacing round the dark aisles, and +finally resuming my stand near the entrance, from which I perceived +the aisles, dark between the close pillars and the wall, while the +light streamed through the great horseshoe window full upon the +Daghaba at the other end, I exclaimed to Bhima Gandharva, "Why, it is +the very copy of a Gothic church--the aisles, the nave, the vaulted +roof, and all--and yet you tell me it was excavated two thousand years +ago!" + +"The resemblance has struck every traveler," he replied. "And, strange +to say, all the Buddhist cave-temples are designed upon the same +general plan. There is always the organ-loft, as you see there; always +the three doors, the largest one opening on the nave, the smaller ones +each on its side-aisle; always the window throwing its light directly +on the Daghaba at the other end; always, in short, the general +arrangement of the choir of a Gothic round or polygonal apse +cathedral. It is supposed that the devotees were confined to the front +part of the temple, and that the great window through which the light +comes was hidden from view, both outside by the music-galleries and +screens, and inside through the disposition of the worshipers in +front. The gloom of the interior was thus available to the priests for +the production of effects which may be imagined." + +Emerging from the temple, we saw the Buddhist monastery (_Vihara_), +which is a series of halls and cells rising one above the other in +stories connected by flights of steps, all hewn in the face of the +hill at the side of the temple. We sat down on a fragment of rock near +a stream of water with which a spring in the hillside fills a little +pool at the entrance of the Vihara. "Tell me something of Gotama +Buddha," I said. "Recite some of his deliverances, O Bhima +Gandharva!--you who know everything." + +"I will recite to you from the _Sutta Nipata_, which is supposed by +many pundits of Ceylon to contain several of the oldest examples of +the Pali language. It professes to give the conversation of Buddha, +who died five hundred and forty-three years before Christ lived on +earth; and these utterances are believed by scholars to have been +brought together at least more than two hundred years before the +Christian era. The _Mahamangala Sutta_, of the _Nipata Sutta_, says, +for example: 'Thus it was heard by me. At a certain time Bhagava +(Gotama Buddha) lived at Savatthi in Jetavana, in the garden of +Anathupindika. Then, the night being far advanced, a certain god, +endowed with a radiant color illuminating Jetavana completely, came to +where Bhagava was, [and] making obeisance to him, stood on one side. +And, standing on one side, the god addressed Bhagava in [these] +verses: + + "1. Many gods and men, longing after what is good, have + considered many things as blessings. Tell us what is the + greatest blessing. + + "2. Buddha said: Not serving fools, but serving the wise, and + honoring those worthy of being honored: this is the greatest + blessing. + + "3. The living in a fit country, meritorious deeds done in a + former existence, the righteous establishment of one's self: + this is the greatest blessing. + + "4. Extensive knowledge and science, well-regulated discipline + and well-spoken speech: this is the greatest blessing. + + "5. The helping of father and mother, the cherishing of child + and wife, and the following of a lawful calling: this is the + greatest blessing. + + "6. The giving alms, a religious life, aid rendered to + relatives, blameless acts: this is the greatest blessing. + + "7. The abstaining from sins and the avoiding them, the + eschewing of intoxicating drink, diligence in good deeds: this + is the greatest blessing. + + "8. Reverence and humility, contentment and gratefulness, the + hearing of the law in the right time: this is the greatest + blessing. + + "9. Patience and mild speech, the association with those + who have subdued their passions, the holding of religious + discourse in the right time: this is the greatest blessing. + + "10. Temperance and charity, the discernment of holy truth, the + perception of Nibbana: this is the greatest blessing. + + "11. The mind of any one unshaken by the ways of the world, + exemption from sorrow, freedom from passion, and security: + this is the greatest blessing. + + "12. Those who having done these things become invincible on + all sides, attain happiness on all sides: this is the greatest + blessing." + +"At another time also Gotama Buddha was discoursing on caste. You know +that the Hindus are divided into the Brahmans, or the priestly +caste, which is the highest; next the Kshatriyas, or the warrior and +statesman caste; next the Vaishyas, or the herdsman and farmer caste; +lastly, the Sudras, or the menial caste. Now, once upon a time the two +youths Vasettha and Bharadvaja had a discussion as to what constitutes +a Brahman. Thus, Vasettha and Bharadvaja went to the place where +Bhagava was, and having approached him were well pleased with him; and +having finished a pleasing and complimentary conversation, they sat +down on one side. Vasettha, who sat down on one side, addressed Buddha +in verse: ... + + "3. O Gotama! we have a controversy regarding [the distinctions + of] birth. Thus know, O wise one! the point of difference + between us: Bharadvaja says that a Brahman is such by reason + of his birth. + + "4. But I affirm that he is such by reason of his conduct.... + + "7. Bhagava replied: ... + + "53. I call him alone a Brahman who is fearless, eminent, + heroic, a great sage, a conqueror, freed from attachments--one + who has bathed in the waters of wisdom, and is a Buddha. + + "54. I call him alone a Brahman who knows his former abode, who + sees both heaven and hell, and has reached the extinction of + births. + + "55. What is called 'name' or 'tribe' in the world arises from + usage only. It is adopted here and there by common consent. + + "56. It comes from long and uninterrupted usage, and from the + false belief of the ignorant. Hence the ignorant assert that a + Brahman is such from birth. + + "57. One is not a Brahman nor a non-Brahman by birth: by his + conduct alone is he a Brahman, and by his conduct alone is he + a non-Brahman, + + "58. By his conduct he is a husbandman, an artisan, a merchant, + a servant; + + "59. By his conduct he is a thief, a warrior, a sacrificer, a + king.... + + "62. One is a Brahman from penance, charity, observance of the + moral precepts and the subjugation of the passions. Such is + the best kind of Brahmanism." + +"That would pass for very good republican doctrine in Jonesville," I +said. "What a pity you have all so backslidden from your orthodoxies +here in India, Bhima Gandharva! In my native land there is a region +where many orange trees grow. Sometimes, when a tree is too heavily +fertilized, it suddenly shoots out in great luxuriance, and looks as +if it were going to make oranges enough for the whole world, so to +speak. But somehow, no fruit comes: it proves to be all wood and no +oranges, and presently the whole tree changes and gets sick and good +for nothing. It is a disease which the natives call 'the dieback.' +Now, it seems to me that when you old Aryans came from--from--well, +from wherever you _did_ come from--you branched out at first into a +superb magnificence of religions and sentiments and imaginations and +other boscage. But it looks now as if you were really bad off with the +dieback." + +It was, however, impossible to perceive that Bhima Gandharva's smile +was like anything other than the same plain full of ripe corn. + + + + +LADY ARTHUR EILDON'S DYING LETTER. + +I. + + +Lady Arthur Eildon was a widow: she was a remarkable woman, and her +husband, Lord Arthur Eildon, had been a remarkable man. He was a +brother of the duke of Eildon, and was very remarkable in his day for +his love of horses and dogs. But this passion did not lead him into +any evil ways: he was a thoroughly upright, genial man, with a frank +word for every one, and was of course a general favorite. "He'll just +come in and crack away as if he was ane o' oorsels," was a remark +often made concerning him by the people on his estates; for he had +estates which had been left to him by an uncle, and which, with +the portion that fell to him as a younger son, yielded him an ample +revenue, so that he had no need to do anything. + +What talents he might have developed in the army or navy, or even +in the Church, no one knows, for he never did anything in this world +except enjoy himself; which was entirely natural to him, and not the +hard work it is to many people who try it. He was in Parliament for +a number of years, but contented himself with giving his vote. He +did not distinguish himself. He was not an able or intellectual man: +people said he would never set the Thames on fire, which was true; +but if an open heart and hand and a frank tongue are desirable things, +these he had. As he took in food, and it nourished him without further +intervention on his part, so he took in enjoyment and gave it out to +the people round him with equal unconsciousness. Let it not be said +that such a man as this is of no value in a world like ours: he is at +once an anodyne and a stimulant of the healthiest and most innocent +kind. + +As was meet, he first saw the lady who was to be his wife in the +hunting-field. She was Miss Garscube of Garscube, an only child and +an heiress. She was a fast young lady when as yet fastness was a rare +development:--a harbinger of the fast period, the one swallow that +presages summer, but does not make it--and as such much in the mouths +of the public. + +Miss Garscube was said to be clever--she was certainly eccentric--and +she was no beauty, but community of tastes in the matter of horses and +dogs drew her and Lord Arthur together. + +On one of the choicest of October days, when she was following the +hounds, and her horse had taken the fences like a creature with wings, +he came to one which he also flew over, but fell on the other side, +throwing off his rider--on soft grass, luckily. But almost before an +exclamation of alarm could leave the mouths of the hunters behind, +Miss Garscube was on her feet and in the saddle, and her horse away +again, as if both had been ignorant of the little mishap that had +occurred. Lord Arthur was immediately behind, and witnessed this bit +of presence of mind and pluck with unfeigned admiration: it won his +heart completely; and on her part she enjoyed the genuineness of his +homage as she had never enjoyed anything before, and from that day +things went on and prospered between them. + +People who knew both parties regretted this, and shook their heads +over it, prophesying that no good could come of it. Miss Garscube's +will had never been crossed in her life, and she was a "clever" woman: +Lord Arthur would not submit to her domineering ways, and she would +wince under and be ashamed of his want of intellect. All this was +foretold and thoroughly believed by people having the most perfect +confidence in their own judgment, so that Lord Arthur and his wife +ought to have been, in the very nature of things, a most wretched +pair. But, as it turned out, no happier couple existed in Great +Britain. Their qualities must have been complementary, for they +dovetailed into each other as few people do; and the wise persons +who had predicted the contrary were entirely thrown out in their +calculations--a fact which they speedily forgot; nor did it diminish +their faith in their own wisdom, as, indeed, how could one slight +mistake stand against an array of instances in which their predictions +had been verified to the letter? + +Lord Arthur might not have the intellect which fixes the attention of +a nation, but he had plenty for his own fireside--at least, his wife +never discovered any want of it--and as for her strong will, they +had only one strong will between them, so that there could be no +collision. Being thus thoroughly attached and thoroughly happy, what +could occur to break up this happiness? A terrible thing came to +pass. Having had perfect health up to middle life, an acutely painful +disease seized Lord Arthur, and after tormenting him for more than a +year it changed his face and sent him away. + +There is nothing more striking than the calmness and dignity with +which people will meet death--even people from whom this could not +have been expected. No one who did not know it would have guessed how +Lord Arthur was suffering, and he never spoke of it, least of all to +his wife; while she, acutely aware of it and vibrating with sympathy, +never spoke of it to him; and they were happy as those are who know +that they are drinking the last drops of earthly happiness. He died +with his wife's hand in his grasp: she gave the face--dead, but with +the appearance of life not vanished from it--one long, passionate +kiss, and left him, nor ever looked on it again. + +Lady Arthur secluded herself for some weeks in her own room, seeing no +one but the servants who attended her; and when she came forth it was +found that her eccentricity had taken a curious turn: she steadily +ignored the death of her husband, acting always as if he had gone on a +journey and might at any moment return, but never naming him unless it +was absolutely necessary. She found comfort in this simulated delusion +no doubt, just as a child enjoys a fairy-tale, knowing perfectly well +all the time that it is not true. People in her own sphere said +her mind was touched: the common people about her affirmed without +hesitation that she was "daft." She rode no more, but she kept all +the horses and dogs as usual. She cultivated a taste she had for +antiquities; she wrote poetry--- ballad poetry--which people who were +considered judges thought well of; and flinging these and other things +into the awful chasm that had been made in her life, she tried her +best to fill it up. She set herself to consider the poor man's case, +and made experiments and gave advice which confirmed her poorer +brethren in their opinion that she was daft; but as her hand was +always very wide open, and they pitied her sorrow, she was much loved, +although they laughed at her zeal in preserving old ruins and her +wrath if an old stone was moved, and told, and firmly believed, that +she wrote and posted letters to Lord Arthur. What was perhaps more to +the purpose of filling the chasm than any of these things, Lady Arthur +adopted a daughter, an orphan child of a cousin of her own, who came +to her two years after her husband's death, a little girl of nine. + + +II. + +Alice Garscube's education was not of the stereotyped kind. When +she came to Garscube Hall, Lady Arthur wrote to the head-master of +a normal school asking if he knew of a healthy, sagacious, +good-tempered, clever girl who had a thorough knowledge of the +elementary branches of education and a natural taste for teaching. Mr. +Boyton, the head-master, replied that he knew of such a person whom he +could entirely recommend, having all the qualities mentioned; but +when he found that it was not a teacher for a village school that her +ladyship wanted, but for her own relation, he wrote to say that he +doubted the party he had in view would hardly be suitable: her father, +who had been dead for some years, was a workingman, and her mother, +who had died quite recently, supported herself by keeping a little +shop, and she herself was in appearance and manner scarcely enough +of the lady for such a situation. Now, Lady Arthur, though a firm +believer in birth and race, and by habit and prejudice an aristocrat +and a Tory, was, we know, eccentric by nature, and Nature will always +assert itself. She wrote to Mr. Boyton that if the girl he recommended +was all he said, she was a lady inside, and they would leave the +outside to shift for itself. Her ladyship had considered the matter. +She could get decayed gentlewomen and clergymen and officers' +daughters by the dozen, but she did not want a girl with a sickly +knowledge of everything, and very sickly ideas of her own merits and +place and work in the world: she wanted a girl of natural sagacity, +who from her cradle had known that she came into the world to do +something, and had learned how to do it. + +Miss Adamson, the normal-school young lady recommended, wrote thus to +Lady Arthur: + + "MADAM: I am very much tempted to take the situation you offer + me. If I were teacher of a village school, as I had intended, + when my work in the school was over I should have had my time + to myself; and I wish to stipulate that when the hours of + teaching Miss Garscube are over I may have the same privilege. + If you engage me, I think, so far as I know myself, you will + not be disappointed. + + "I am," etc. etc. + +To which Lady Arthur: + + "So far as I can judge, you are the very thing I want. Come, + and we shall not disagree about terms," etc. etc. + +Thus it came about that Miss Garscube was unusually lucky in the +matter of her education and Miss Adamson in her engagement. Although +eccentric to the pitch of getting credit for being daft, Lady Arthur +had a strong vein of masculine sense, which in all essential things +kept her in the right path. Miss Adamson and she suited each other +thoroughly, and the education of the two ladies and the child may be +said to have gone on simultaneously. Miss Adamson had an absorbing +pursuit: she was an embryo artist, and she roused a kindred taste in +her pupil; so that, instead of carrying on her work in solitude, as +she had expected to do, she had the intense pleasure of sympathy +and companionship. Lady Arthur often paid them long visits in their +studio; she herself sketched a little, but she had never excelled in +any single pursuit except horsemanship, and that she had given up at +her husband's death, as she had given up keeping much company or going +often into society. + +In this quiet, unexciting, regular life Lady Arthur's antiquarian +tastes grew on her, and she went on writing poetry, the quantity of +which was more remarkable than the quality, although here and there in +the mass of ore there was an occasional sparkle from fine gold (there +are few voluminous writers in which this accident does not occur). She +superintended excavations, and made prizes of old dust and stones +and coins and jewelry (or what was called ancient jewelry: it looked +ancient enough, but more like rusty iron to the untrained eye than +jewelry) and cooking utensils supposed to have been used by some noble +savages or other. Of these and such like she had a museum, and she +visited old monuments and cairns and Roman camps and Druidical remains +and old castles, and all old things, with increasing interest. There +were a number of places near or remote to which she was in the habit +of making periodical pilgrimages--places probably dear to her from +whim or association or natural beauty or antiquity. When she fixed a +time for such an excursion, no weather changed her purpose: it might +pour rain or deep snow might be on the ground: she only put four +horses to her carriage instead of two, and went on her way. She was +generally accompanied in these expeditions by her two young friends, +who got into the spirit of the thing and enjoyed them amazingly. They +were in the habit of driving to some farm-house, where they left the +carriage and on foot ascended the hill they had come to call on, most +probably a hill with the marks of a Roman camp on it--there are many +such in the south of Scotland--hills called "the rings" by the people, +from the way in which the entrenchments circle round them like rings. + +Dear to Lady Arthur's heart was such a place as this. Even when the +ground was covered with snow or ice she would ascend with the help of +a stick or umbrella, a faint adumbration of the Alpine Club when as +yet the Alpine Club lurked in the future and had given no hint of its +existence. On the top of such a hill she would eat luncheon, thinking +of the dust of legions beneath her foot, and drink wine to the memory +of the immortals. The coachman and the footman who toiled up the hill +bearing the luncheon-basket, and slipping back two steps for every one +they took forward, had by no means the same respect for the immortal +heroes. The coachman was an old servant, and had a great regard for +Lady Arthur both as his mistress and as a lady of rank, besides being +accustomed to and familiar with her whims, and knowing, as he said, +"the best and the warst o' her;" but the footman was a new acquisition +and young, and he had not the wisdom to see at all times the duty of +giving honor to whom honor is due, nor yet had he the spirit of the +born flunkey; and his intercourse with the nobility, unfortunately, +had not impressed him with any other idea than that they were mortals +like himself; so he remarked to his fellow-servant, "Od! ye wad think, +if she likes to eat her lunch amang snawy slush, she might get enough +of it at the fut o' the hill, without gaun to the tap." + +"Weel, I'll no deny," said the older man, "but what it's daftlike, but +if it is her leddyship's pleasure, it's nae business o' oors." + +"Pleasure!" said the youth: "if she ca's this pleasure, her friends +should see about shutting her up: it's time." + +"She says the Romans once lived here," said John. + +"If they did," Thomas said, "I daur say _they_ had mair sinse than sit +down to eat their dinner in the middle o' snaw if they had a house to +tak it in." + +"Her leddyship does na' tak the cauld easy," said John. + +"She has the constitution o' a horse," Thomas remarked. + +"Man," said John, "that shows a' that ye ken about horses: there's no +a mair delicate beast on the face o' the earth than the horse. They +tell me a' the horses in London hae the influenza the now." + +"Weel, it'll be our turn next," said Thomas, "if we dinna tak +something warm." + +When luncheon was over her ladyship as often as not ordered her +servants to take the carriage round by the turnpike-road to a given +point, where she arranged to meet it, while she herself struck right +over the hills as the crow flies, crossing the burns on her way in the +same manner as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, only the water did +not stand up on each side and leave dry ground for her to tread on; +but she ignored the water altogether, and walked straight through. +The young ladies, knowing this, took an extra supply of stockings and +shoes with them, but Lady Arthur despised such effeminate ways and +drove home in the footgear she set out in. She was a woman of robust +health, and having grown stout and elderly and red-faced, when out +on the tramp and divested of externals she might very well have been +taken for the eccentric landlady of a roadside inn or the mistress +of a luncheon-bar; and probably her young footman did not think she +answered to her own name at all. + +There is a divinity that doth hedge a king, but it is the king's +wisdom to keep the hedge close and well trimmed and allow no gaps: if +there are gaps, people see through them and the illusion is destroyed. +Lady Arthur was not a heroine to her footman; and when she traversed +the snow-slush and walked right through the burns, he merely endorsed +the received opinion that she wanted "twopence of the shilling." If +she had been a poor woman and compelled to take such a journey in such +weather, people would have felt sorry for her, and have been ready to +subscribe to help her to a more comfortable mode of traveling; but +in Lady Arthur's case of course there was nothing to be done but to +wonder at her eccentricity. + +But her ladyship knew what she was about. The sleep as well as the +food of the laboring man is sweet, and if nobility likes to labor, it +will partake of the poor man's blessing. The party arrived back among +the luxurious appointments of Garscube Hall (which were apt to pall on +them at times) legitimately and bodily _tired_, and that in itself +was a sensation worth working for. They had braved difficulty and +discomfort, and not for a nonsensical and fruitless end, either: it +can never be fruitless or nonsensical to get face to face with Nature +in any of her moods. The ice-locked streams, the driven snow, the +sleep of vegetation, a burst of sunshine over the snow, the sough of +the winter wind, Earth waiting to feel the breath of spring on her +face to waken up in youth and beauty again, like the sleeping princess +at the touch of the young prince,--all these are things richly to +be enjoyed, especially by strong, healthy people: let chilly and +shivering mortals sing about cozy fires and drawn curtains if they +like. Besides, Miss Adamson had the eye of an artist, upon which +nothing, be it what it may, is thrown away. + +But an expedition to a hill with "rings" undertaken on a long +midsummer day looked fully more enjoyable to the common mind: John, +and even the footman approved of that, and another individual, who +had become a frequent visitor at the hall, approved of it very highly +indeed, and joined such a party as often as he could. + +This was George Eildon, the only son of a brother of the late Lord +Arthur. + +Now comes the tug--well, not of war, certainly, but, to change the +figure--now comes the cloud no bigger than a man's hand which is to +obscure the quiet sunshine of the regular and exemplary life of these +three ladies. + +Having been eight years at Garscube Hall, as a matter of necessity +and in the ordinary course of Nature, Alice Garscube had grown up to +womanhood. With accustomed eccentricity, Lady Arthur entirely +ignored this. As for bringing her "out," as the phrase is, she had +no intention of it, considering that one of the follies of life: Lady +Arthur was always a law to herself. Alice was a shy, amiable girl, who +loved her guardian fervently (her ladyship had the knack of gaining +love, and also of gaining the opposite in pretty decisive measure), +and was entirely swayed by her; indeed, it never occurred to her +to have a will of her own, for her nature was peculiarly sweet and +guileless. + + +III. + +Lady Arthur thought George Eildon a good-natured, rattling lad, with +very little head. This was precisely the general estimate that had +been formed of her late husband, and people who had known both thought +George the very fac-simile of his uncle Arthur. If her ladyship had +been aware of this, it would have made her very indignant: she had +thought her husband perfect while living, and thought of him as very +much more than perfect now that he lived only in her memory. But she +made George very welcome as often as he came: she liked to have him in +the house, and she simply never thought of Alice and him in connection +with each other. She always had a feeling of pity for George. + +"You know," she would say to Miss Adamson and Alice--"you know, George +was of consequence for the first ten years of his life: it was thought +that his uncle the duke might never marry, and he was the heir; +but when the duke married late in life and had two sons, George was +extinguished, poor fellow! and it was hard, I allow." + +"It is not pleasant to be a poor gentleman," said Miss Adamson. + +"It is not only not pleasant," said Lady Arthur, "but it is a +false position, which is very trying, and what few men can fill to +advantage. If George had great abilities, it might be different, with +his connection, but I doubt he is doomed to be always as poor as a +church mouse." + +"He may get on in his profession perhaps," said Alice, sharing in +Lady Arthur's pity for him. (George Eildon had been an attache to some +foreign embassy.) + +"Never," said Lady Arthur decisively. "Besides, it is a profession +that is out of date now. Men don't go wilily to work in these days; +but if they did, the notion of poor George, who could not keep a +secret or tell a lie with easy grace if it were to save his life--the +notion of making him a diplomatist is very absurd. No doubt statesmen +are better without original ideas--their business is to pick out the +practical ideas of other men and work them well--but George wants +ability, poor fellow! They ought to have put him into the Church: he +reads well, he could have read other men's sermons very effectively, +and the duke has some good livings in his gift." + +Now, Miss Adamson had been brought up a Presbyterian of the +Presbyterians, and among people to whom "the paper" was abhorrent: +to read a sermon was a sin--to read another man's sermon was a sin +of double-dyed blackness. However, either her opinions were being +corrupted or enlightened, either she was growing lax in principle or +she was learning the lesson of toleration, for she allowed the remarks +of Lady Arthur to pass unnoticed, so that that lady did not need to +advance the well-known opinion and practice of Sir Roger de Coverley +to prop her own. + +Miss Adamson merely said, "Do you not underrate Mr. Eildon's +abilities?" + +"I think not. If he had abilities, he would have been showing them by +this time. But of course I don't blame him: few of the Eildons have +been men of mark--none in recent times except Lord Arthur--but they +have all been respectable men, whose lives would stand inspection; and +George is the equal of any of them in that respect. As a clergyman he +would have set a good example." + +Hearing a person always pitied and spoken slightingly of does not +predispose any one to fall in love with that person. Miss Garscube's +feelings of this nature still lay very closely folded up in the bud, +and the early spring did not come at this time to develop them in the +shape of George Eildon; but Mr. Eildon was sufficiently foolish and +indiscreet to fall in love with her. Miss Adamson was the only one of +the three ladies cognizant of this state of affairs, but as her creed +was that no one had any right to make or meddle in a thing of this +kind, she saw as if she saw not, though very much interested. She saw +that Miss Garscube was as innocent of the knowledge that she had made +a conquest as it was possible to be, and she felt surprised that Lady +Arthur's sight was not sharper. But Lady Arthur was--or at least had +been--a woman of the world, and the idea of a penniless man allowing +himself to fall in love seriously with a penniless girl in actual +life could not find admission into her mind: if she had been writing +a ballad it would have been different; indeed, if you had only known +Lady Arthur through her poetry, you might have believed her to be a +very, romantic, sentimental, unworldly person, for she really was all +that--on paper. + +Mr. Eildon was very frequently in the studio where Miss Adamson and +her pupil worked, and he was always ready to accompany them in their +excursions, and, Lady Arthur said, "really made himself very useful." + +It has been said that John and Thomas both approved of her ladyship's +summer expeditions in search of the picturesque, or whatever else she +might take it into her head to look for; and when she issued orders +for a day among the hills in a certain month of August, which had been +a specially fine month in point of weather, every one was pleased. +But John and Thomas found it nearly as hard work climbing with the +luncheon-basket in the heat of the midsummer sun as it was when they +climbed to the same elevation in midwinter; only they did not slip +back so fast, nor did they feel that they were art and part in a +"daftlike" thing. + +"Here," said Lady Arthur, raising her glass to her lips--"here is to +the memory of the Romans, on whose dust we are resting." + +"Amen!" said Mr. Eildon; "but I am afraid you don't find their dust a +very soft resting-place: they were always a hard people, the Romans." + +"They were a people I admire," said Lady Arthur. "If they had not been +called away by bad news from home, if they had been able to stay, our +civilization might have been a much older thing than it is.--What do +_you_ think, John?" she said, addressing her faithful servitor. "Less +than a thousand years ago all that stretch of country that we see so +richly cultivated and studded with cozy farm-houses was brushwood +and swamp, with a handful of savage inhabitants living in wigwams and +dressing in skins." + +"It may be so," said John--"no doubt yer leddyship kens best--but I +have this to say: if they were savages they had the makin' o' men in +them. Naebody'll gar me believe that the stock yer leddyship and me +cam o' was na a capital gude stock." + +"All right, John," said Mr. Eildon, "if you include me." + +"It was a long time to take, surely," said Alice--"a thousand years to +bring the country from brushwood and swamp to corn and burns confined +to their beds," + +"Nature is never in a hurry, Alice," replied Lady Arthur. + +"But she is always busy in a wonderfully quiet way," said Miss +Adamson. "Whenever man begins to work he makes a noise, but no one +hears the corn grow or the leaves burst their sheaths: even the clouds +move with noiseless grace." + +"The clouds are what no one can understand yet, I suppose," said Mr. +Eildon, "but they don't always look as if butter wouldn't melt in +their mouths, as they are doing to-day. What do you say to thunder?" + +"That is an exception: Nature does all her best work quietly." + +"So does man," remarked George Eildon. + +"Well, I dare say you are right, after all," said Miss Adamson, who +was sketching. "I wish I could paint in the glitter on the blade of +that reaping-machine down in the haugh there: see, it gleams every +time the sun's rays hit it. It is curious how Nature makes the most +of everything to heighten her picture, and yet never makes her bright +points too plentiful." + +Just at that moment the sun's rays seized a small pane of glass in the +roof of a house two or three miles off down the valley, and it shot +out light and sparkles that dazzled the eye to look at. + +"That is a fine effect," cried Alice: "it looks like the eye of an +archangel kindling up," + +"What a flight of fancy, Alice!" Lady Arthur said. "That +reaping-machine does its work very well, but it will be a long time +before it gathers a crust of poetry about it: stopping to clear +a stone out of its way is different from a lad and a lass on the +harvest-rig, the one stopping to take a thorn out of the finger of the +other." + +"There are so many wonderful things," said Alice, "that one gets +always lost among them. How the clouds float is wonderful, and that +with the same earth below and the same heaven above, the heather +should be purple, and the corn yellow, and the ferns green, is +wonderful; but not so wonderful, I think, as that a man by the touch +of genius should have made every one interested in a field-laborer +taking a thorn out of the hand of another field-laborer. Catch your +poet, and he'll soon make the machine interesting." + +"Get a thorn into your finger, Alice," said George Eildon, "and I'll +take it out if it is so interesting." + +"You could not make it interesting," said she. + +"Just try," he said. + +"But trying won't do. You know as well as I that there are things no +trying will ever do. I am trying to paint, for instance, and in time I +shall copy pretty well, but I shall never do more." + +"Hush, hush!" said Miss Adamson. "I'm often enough in despair myself, +and hearing you say that makes me worse. I rebel at having got just so +much brain and no more; but I suppose," she said with a sigh, "if +we make the best of what we have, it's all right, and if we had +well-balanced minds we should be contented." + +"Would you like to stay here longer among the hills and the sheep?" +said Lady Arthur. "I have just remembered that I want silks for my +embroidery, and I have time to go to town: I can catch the afternoon +train. Do any of you care to go?" + +"It is good to be here," said Mr. Eildon, "but as we can't stay +always, we may as well go now. I suppose." + +And John, accustomed to sudden orders, hurried off to get his horses +put to the carriage. + +Lady Arthur, upon the whole, approved of railways, but did not use +them much except upon occasion; and it was only by taking the train +she could reach town and be home for dinner on this day. + +They reached the station in time, and no more. Mr. Eildon ran and got +tickets, and John was ordered to be at the station nearest Garscube +Hall to meet them when they returned. + +Embroidery, being an art which high-born dames have practiced from the +earliest ages, was an employment that had always found favor in the +sight of Lady Arthur, and to which she turned when she wanted change +of occupation. She took a very short time to select her materials, and +they were back and seated in the railway carriage fully ten minutes +before the train started. They beguiled the time by looking about the +station: it was rather a different scene from that where they had been +in the fore part of the day. + +"There's surely a mistake," said Mr. Eildon, pointing to a large +picture hanging on the wall of three sewing-machines worked by three +ladies, the one in the middle being Queen Elizabeth in her ruff, the +one on the right Queen Victoria in her widow's cap: the princess +of Wales was very busy at the third. "Is not that what is called an +anachronism, Miss Adamson? Are not sewing-machines a recent invention? +There were none in Elizabeth's time, I think?" + +"There are people," said Lady Arthur, "who have neither common sense +nor a sense of the ridiculous." + +"But they have a sense of what will pay," answered her nephew. "That +appeals to the heart of the nation--that is, to the masculine heart. +If Queen Bess had been handling a lancet, and Queen Vic pounding in a +mortar with a pestle, assisted by her daughter-in-law, the case would +have been different; but they are at useful womanly work, and the +machines will sell. They have fixed themselves in our memories +already: that's the object the advertiser had when he pressed the +passion of loyalty into his service." + +"How will the strong-minded Tudor lady like to see herself revived in +that fashion, if she can see it?" asked Miss Garscube. + +"She'll like it well, judging by myself," said George: "that's true +fame. I should be content to sit cross-legged on a board, stitching +pulpit-robes, in a picture, if I were sure it would be hung up three +hundred years after this at all the balloon-stations and have the then +Miss Garscubes making remarks about me." + +"They might not make very complimentary remarks, perhaps," said Alice. + +"If they thought of me at all I should be satisfied," said he. + +"Couldn't you invent an iron bed, then?" said Miss Adamson, looking at +a representation of these articles hanging alongside the three royal +ladies. "Perhaps they'll last three hundred years, and if you could +bind yourself up with the idea of sweet repose--" + +"They won't last three hundred years," said Lady Arthur--"cheap and +nasty, new-fangled things!" + +"They maybe cheap and nasty," said George, "but new-fangled they are +not: they must be some thousands of years old. I am afraid, my dear +aunt, you don't read your Bible." + +"Don't drag the Bible in among your nonsense. What has it to do with +iron beds?" said Lady Arthur. + +"If you look into Deuteronomy, third chapter and eleventh verse," +said he "you'll find that Og, king of Bashar used an iron bed. It is +probably in existence yet, and it must be quite old enough to make it +worth your while to look after it: perhaps Mr. Cook would personally +conduct you, or if not I should be glad to be your escort." + +"Thank you," she said: "when I go in search of Og's bed I'll take you +with me." + +"You could not do better: I have the scent of a sleuth-hound for +antiquities." + +As they were speaking a man came and hung up beside the queens and +the iron beds a big white board on which were printed in large black +letters the words, "My Mother and I"--nothing more. + +"What _can_ the meaning of that be?" asked Lady Arthur. + +"To make you ask the meaning of it," said Mr. Eildon. "I who am +skilled in these matters have no doubt that it is the herald of some +soothing syrup for the human race under the trials of teething." He +was standing at the carriage-door till the train would start, and he +stood aside to let a young lady and a boy in deep mourning enter. The +pair were hardly seated when the girl's eye fell on the great white +board and its announcement. She bent her head and hid her face in her +handkerchief: it was not difficult to guess that she had very recently +parted with her mother for ever, and the words on the board were more +than she could stand unmoved. + +Miss Adamson too had been thinking of her mother, the hard-working +woman who had toiled in her little shop to support her sickly husband +and educate her daughter--the kindly patient face, the hands that had +never spared themselves, the footsteps that had plodded so incessantly +to and fro. The all that had been gone so long came back to her, and +she felt almost the pang of first separation, when it seemed as if the +end of her life had been extinguished and the motive-power for work +had gone. But she carried her mother in her heart: with her it was +still "my mother and I." + +Lady Arthur did not think of her mother: she had lost her early, +and besides, her thoughts and feelings had been all absorbed by her +husband. + +Alice Garscube had never known her mother, and as she looked gravely +at the girl who was crying behind her handkerchief, she envied +her--she had known her mother. + +As for Mr. Eildon, he had none but bright and happy thoughts connected +with his mother. It was true, she was a widow, but she was a kind and +stately lady, round whom her family moved as round a sun and centre, +giving light and heat and all good cheer; he could afford to joke +about "my mother and I." + +What a vast deal of varied emotion these words must have stirred in +the multitudes of travelers coming and going in all directions! + +In jumping into the carriage when the last bell rang, Mr. Eildon +missed his footing and fell back, with no greater injury, fortunately, +than grazing the skin, of his hand. + +"Is it much hurt?" Lady Arthur asked. + +He held it up and said, "'Who ran to help me when I fell?'" + +"The guard," said Miss Garscube. + +"'Who kissed the place to make it well?'" he continued. + +"You might have been killed," said Miss Adamson. + +"That would not have been a pretty story to tell," he said. "I shall +need to wait till I get home for the means of cure: 'my mother and I' +will manage it. You're not of a pitiful nature, Miss Garscube." + +"I keep my pity for a pitiful occasion," she said. + +"If you had grazed your hand, I would have applied the prescribed +cure." + +"Well, but I'm very glad I have not grazed my hand," + +"So am I," he said. + +"Let me see it," she said. He held it out. "Would something not need +to be done for it?" she asked. + +"Yes. Is it interesting--as interesting as the thorn?" + +"It is nothing," said Lady Arthur: "a little lukewarm water is all +that it needs;" and she thought, "That lad will never do anything +either for himself or to add to the prestige of the family. I hope his +cousins have more ability." + + +IV. + +But what these cousins were to turn out no one knew. They had that +rank which gives a man what is equivalent to a start of half a +lifetime over his fellows, and they promised well; but they were only +boys as yet, and Nature puts forth many a choice blossom and bud that +never comes to maturity, or, meeting with blight or canker on the way, +turns out poor fruit. The eldest, a lad in his teens, was traveling +on the Continent with a tutor: the second, a boy who had been always +delicate, was at home on account of his health. George Eildon was +intimate with both, and loved them with a love as true as that he bore +to Alice Garscube: it never occurred to him that they had come into +the world to keep him out of his inheritance. He would have laughed at +such an idea. Many people would have said that he was laughing on +the wrong side of his mouth: the worldly never can understand the +unworldly. + +Mr. Eildon gave Miss Garscube credit for being at least as unworldly +as himself: he believed thoroughly in her genuineness, her fresh, +unspotted nature; and, the wish being very strong, he believed that +she had a kindness for him. + +When he and his hand got home he found it quite able to write her +a letter, or rather not so much a letter as a burst of enthusiastic +aspiration, asking her to marry him. + +She was startled; and never having decided on anything in her life, +she carried this letter direct to Lady Arthur. + +"Here's a thing," she said, "that I don't know what to think of." + +"What kind of thing, Alice?" + +"A letter." + +"Who is it from?" + +"Mr. Eildon." + +"Indeed! I should not think a letter from him would be a complicated +affair or difficult to understand." + +"Neither is it: perhaps you would read it?" + +"Certainly, if you wish it." When she had read the document she said, +"Well I never gave George credit for much wisdom, but I did not think +he was foolish enough for a thing like this; and I never suspected it. +Are you in love too?" and Lady Arthur laughed heartily: it seemed to +strike her in a comic light. + +"No. I never thought of it or of him either," Alice said, feeling +queer and uncomfortable. + +"Then that simplifies matters. I always thought George's only chance +in life was to marry a wealthy woman, and how many good, accomplished +women there are, positively made of money, who would give anything to +marry into our family!" + +"Are there?" said Alice. + +"To be sure there are. Only the other day I read in a newspaper that +people are all so rich now money is no distinction: rank is, however. +You can't make a lawyer or a shipowner or an ironmaster into a peer of +several hundred years' descent." + +"No, you can't," said Alice; "but Mr. Eildon is not a peer, you know." + +"No, but he is the grandson of one duke and the nephew of another; and +if he could work for it he might have a peerage of his own, or if he +had great wealth he would probably get one. For my own part, I don't +count much on rank or wealth" (she believed this), "but they are +privileges people have no right to throw away." + +"Not even if they don't care for them?" asked Alice, + +"No: whatever you have it is your duty to care for and make the best +of." + +"Then, what am I to say to Mr. Eildon?" + +"Tell him it is absurd; and whatever you say, put it strongly, that +there may be no more of it. Why, he must know that you would be +beggars." + +Acting up to her instructions, Alice wrote thus to Mr. Eildon: + + "DEAR MR. EILDON: Your letter surprised me. Lady Arthur says + it is absurd; besides, I don't care for you a bit. I don't + mean that I dislike you, for I don't dislike any one. We + wonder you could be so foolish, and Lady Arthur says there + must be no more of it; and she is right. I hope you will + forget all about this, and believe me to be your true friend, + + "ALICE GARSCUBE. + + "P.S. Lady Arthur says you haven't got anything to live on; + but if you had all the wealth in the world, it wouldn't make + any difference. + + "A. G." + +This note fell into George Eildon's mind like molten lead dropped on +living flesh. "She is not what I took her to be," he said to +himself, "or she never could have written that, even at Lady Arthur's +suggestion; and Lady Arthur ought to have known better." + +And she certainly ought to have known better; yet he might have found +some excuse for Alice if he had allowed himself to think, but he did +not: he only felt, and felt very keenly. + +In saying that Mr. Eildon and Miss Garscube were penniless, the remark +is not to be taken literally, for he had an income of fifteen hundred +pounds, and she had five hundred a year of her own; but in the eyes of +people moving in ducal circles matrimony on two thousand pounds seems +as improvident a step as that of the Irishman who marries when he has +accumulated sixpence appears to ordinary beings. + +Mr. Eildon spent six weeks at a shooting-box belonging to his uncle +the duke, after which he went to London, where he got a post under +government--a place which was by no means a sinecure, but where there +was plenty of work not over-paid. Before leaving he called for a few +minutes at Garscube Hall to say good-bye, and that was all they saw of +him. + +Alice missed him: a very good thing, of which she had been as +unconscious as she was of the atmosphere, had been withdrawn from her +life. George's letter had nailed him to her memory: she thought of him +very often, and that is a dangerous thing for a young lady to do if +she means to keep herself entirely fancy free. She wondered if his +work was very hard work, and if he was shut in an office all day; she +did not think he was made for that; it seemed as unnatural as putting +a bird into a cage. She made some remark of this kind to Lady Arthur, +who laughed and said, "Oh, George won't kill himself with hard work." +From that time forth Alice was shy of speaking of him to his aunt. +But she had kept his letter, and indulged herself with a reading of it +occasionally; and every time she read it she seemed to understand it +better. It was a mystery to her how she had been so intensely stupid +as not to understand it at first. And when she found a copy of her own +answer to it among her papers--one she had thrown aside on account of +a big blot--she wondered if it was possible she had sent such a thing, +and tears of shame and regret stood in her eyes. "How frightfully +blind I was!" she said to herself. But there was no help for it: the +thing was done, and could not be undone. She had grown in wisdom since +then, but most people reach wisdom through ignorance and folly. + +In these circumstances she found Miss Adamson a very valuable friend. +Miss Adamson had never shared Lady Arthur's low estimate of Mr. +Eildon: she liked his sweet, unworldly nature, and she had a regard +for him as having aims both lower and higher than a "career." That +he should love Miss Garscube seemed to her natural and good, and +that happiness might be possible even to a duke's grandson on such a +pittance as two thousand pounds a year was an article of her belief: +she pitied people who go through life sacrificing the substance for +the shadow. Yes, Miss Garscube could speak of Mr. Eildon to her friend +and teacher, and be sure of some remark that gave her comfort. + + +V. + +A year sped round again, and they heard of Mr. Eildon being in +Scotland at the shooting, and as he was not very far off, they +expected to see him any time. But it was getting to the end of +September, and he had paid no visit, when one day, as the ladies were +sitting at luncheon, he came in, looking very white and agitated. They +were all startled: Miss Garscube grew white also, and felt herself +trembling. Lady Arthur rose hurriedly and said, "What is it, George? +what's the matter?" + +"A strange thing has happened," he said. "I only heard of it a +few minutes ago: a man rode after me with the telegram. My cousin +George--Lord Eildon--has fallen down a crevasse in the Alps and been +killed. Only a week ago I parted with him full of life and spirit, +and I loved him as if he had been my brother;" and he bent his head to +hide tears. + +They were all silent for some moments: then in a low voice Lady Arthur +said, "I am sorry for his father." + +"I am sorry for them all," George said. "It is terrible;" then after a +little he said, "You'll excuse my leaving you: I am going to Eildon at +once: I may be of some service to them. I don't know how Frank will be +able to bear this." + +After he had gone away Alice felt how thoroughly she was nothing to +him now: there had been no sign in his manner that he had ever thought +of her at all, more than of any other ordinary acquaintance. If he had +only looked to her for the least sympathy! But he had not. "If he only +knew how well I understand him now!" she thought. + +"It is a dreadful accident," said Lady Arthur, "and I am sorry for the +duke and duchess." She said this in a calm way. It had always been her +opinion that Lord Arthur's relations had never seen the magnitude of +_her_ loss, and this feeling lowered the temperature of her sympathy, +as a wind blowing over ice cools the atmosphere. "I think George's +grief very genuine," she continued: "at the same time he can't but see +that there is only that delicate lad's life, that has been hanging so +long by a hair, between him and the title." + +"Lady Arthur!" exclaimed Alice in warm tones. + +"I know, my dear, you are thinking me very unfeeling, but I am not: I +am only a good deal older than you. George's position to-day is very +different from what it was a year ago. If he were to write to you +again, I would advise another kind of answer." + +"He'll never write again," said Alice in a tone which struck the ear +of Lady Arthur, so that when the young girl left the room she turned +to Miss Adamson and said, "Do you think she really cares about him?" + +"She has not made me her confidante," that lady answered, "but my own +opinion is that she does care a good deal for Mr. Eildon." + +"Do you really think so?" exclaimed Lady Arthur. "She said she did not +at the time, and I thought then, and think still, that it would not +signify much to George whom he married; and you know he would be so +much the better for money. But if he is to be his uncle's successor, +that alters the case entirely. I'll go to Eildon myself, and bring him +back with me." + +Lady Arthur went to Eildon and mingled her tears with those of the +stricken parents, whose grief might have moved a very much harder +heart than hers. But they did not see the state of their only +remaining son as Lady Arthur and others saw it; for, while it was +commonly thought that he would hardly reach maturity, they were +sanguine enough to believe that he was outgrowing the delicacy of his +childhood. + +Lady Arthur asked George to return with her to Garscube Hall, but +he said he could not possibly do so. Then she said she had told Miss +Adamson and Alice that she would bring him with her, and they would be +disappointed. + +"Tell them," he said, "that I have very little time to spare, and I +must spend it with Frank, when I am sure they will excuse me." + +They excused him, but they were not the less disappointed, all the +three ladies; indeed, they were so much disappointed that they did not +speak of the thing to each other, as people chatter over and thereby +evaporate a trifling defeat of hopes. + +Mr. Eildon left his cousin only to visit his mother and sisters for a +day, and then returned to London; from which it appeared that he was +not excessively anxious to visit Garscube Hall. + +But everything there went on as usual. The ladies painted, they went +excursions, they wrote ballads; still, there was a sense of something +being amiss--the heart of their lives seemed dull in its beat. + +The more Lady Arthur thought of having sent away such a matrimonial +prize from her house, the more she was chagrined; the more Miss +Garscube tried not to think of Mr. Eildon, the more her thoughts would +run upon him; and even Miss Adamson, who had nothing to regret or +reproach herself with, could not help being influenced by the change +of atmosphere. + +Lady Arthur's thoughts issued in the resolution to re-enter society +once more; which resolution she imparted to Miss Adamson in the first +instance by saying that she meant to go to London next season. + +"Then our plan of life here will be quite broken up," said Miss A. + +"Yes, for a time." + +"I thought you disliked society?" + +"I don't much like it: it is on account of Alice I am going. I may +just as well tell you: I want to bring her and George together again +if possible." + +"Will she go if she knows that is your end?" + +"She need not know." + +"It is not a very dignified course," Miss Adamson said. + +"No, and if it were an ordinary case I should not think of it." + +"But you think him a very ordinary man?" + +"A duke is different. Consider what an amount of influence Alice +would have, and how well she would use it; and he may marry a vain, +frivolous, senseless woman, incapable of a good action. Indeed, most +likely, for such people are sure to hunt him." + +"I would not join in the hunt," said Miss Adamson. "If he is the man +you suppose him to be, the wound his self-love got will have killed +his love; and if he is the man I think, no hunters will make him their +prey. A small man would know instantly why you went to London, and +enjoy his triumph." + +"I don't think George would: he is too simple; but if I did not think +it a positive duty, I would not go. However, we shall see: I don't +think of going before the middle of January." + +Positive duties can be like the animals that change color with what +they feed on. + + +VI. + +When the middle of January came, Lady Arthur, who had never had an +illness in her life, was measuring her strength in a hand-to-hand +struggle with fever. The water was blamed, the drainage was blamed, +various things were blamed. Whether it came in the water or out of the +drains, gastric fever had arrived at Garscube Hall: the gardener took +it, his daughter took it, also Thomas the footman, and others of the +inhabitants, as well as Lady Arthur. The doctor of the place came and +lived In the house; besides that, two of the chief medical men from +town paid almost daily visits. Bottles of the water supplied to the +hall were sent to eminent chemists for analysis: the drainage was +thoroughly examined, and men were set to make it as perfect and +innocuous as it is in the nature of drainage to be. + +Lady Arthur wished Miss Adamson and Alice to leave the place for a +time, but they would not do so: neither of them was afraid, and they +stayed and nursed her ladyship well, relieving each other as it was +necessary. + +At one point of her illness Lady Arthur said to Miss Adamson, who was +alone with her, "Well, I never counted on this. Our family have all +had a trick of living to extreme old age, never dying till they could +not help it; but it will be grand to get away so soon." + +Miss Adamson looked at her. "Yes," she said, "it's a poor thing, +life, after the glory of it is gone, and I have always had an intense +curiosity to see what is beyond. I never could see the sense of making +a great ado to keep people alive after they are fifty. Don't look +surprised. How are the rest of the people that are ill?" She often +asked for them, and expressed great satisfaction when told they were +recovering. "It will be all right," she said, "if I am the only death +in the place; but there is one thing I want you to do. Send off a +telegram to George Eildon and tell him I want to see him immediately: +a dying person can say what a living one can't, and I'll make it all +right between Alice and him before I go." + +Miss Adamson despatched the telegram to Mr. Eildon, knowing that she +could not refuse to do Lady Arthur's bidding at such a time, although +her feeling was against it. The answer came: Mr. Eildon had just +sailed for Australia. + +When Lady Arthur heard this she said, "I'll write to him." When she +had finished writing she said, "You'll send this to him whenever you +get his address. I wish we could have sent it off at once, for it will +be provoking if I don't die, after all; and I positively begin to feel +as if that were not going to be my luck at this time." + +Although she spoke in this way, Miss Adamson knew it was not from +foolish irreverence. She recovered, and all who had had the fever +recovered, which was remarkable, for in other places it had been very +fatal. + +With Lady Arthur's returning strength things at the hall wore into +their old channels again. When it was considered safe many visits +of congratulation were paid, and among others who came were George +Eildon's mother and some of his sisters. They were constantly having +letters from George: he had gone off very suddenly, and it was not +certain when he might return. + +Alice heard of George Eildon with interest, but not with the vital +interest she had felt in him for a time: that had worn away. She had +done her best to this end by keeping herself always occupied, and many +things had happened in the interval; besides, she had grown a woman, +with all the good sense and right feeling belonging to womanhood, and +she would have been ashamed to cherish a love for one who had entirely +forgotten her. She dismissed her childish letter, which had given her +so much vexation, from her memory, feeling sure that George Eildon had +also forgotten it long ago. She did not know of the letter Lady Arthur +had written when she believed herself to be dying, and it was well she +did not. + + +VII. + +Every one who watched the sun rise on New Year's morning, 1875, will +bear witness to the beauty of the sight. Snow had been lying all over +the country for some time, and a fortnight of frost had made it hard +and dry and crisp. The streams must have felt very queer when they +were dropping off into the mesmeric trance, and found themselves +stopped in the very act of running, their supple limbs growing stiff +and heavy and their voices dying in their throats, till they were +thrown into a deep sleep, and a strange white, still, glassy beauty +stole over them by the magic power of frost. The sun got up rather +late, no doubt--between eight and nine o'clock--probably saying to +himself, "These people think I have lost my power--that the Ice King +has it all his own way. I'll let them see: I'll make his glory pale +before mine." + +Lady Arthur was standing at her window when she saw him look over the +shoulder of a hill and throw a brilliant deep gold light all over the +land covered with snow as with a garment, and every minute crystal +glittered as if multitudes of little eyes had suddenly opened and were +gleaming and winking under his gaze. To say that the bosom of Mother +Earth was crusted with diamonds is to give the impression of dullness +unless each diamond could be endowed with life and emotion. Then he +threw out shaft after shaft of color--scarlet and crimson and blue and +amber and green--which gleamed along the heavens, kindling the cold +white snow below them into a passion of beauty: the colors floated and +changed form, and mingled and died away. Then the sun drew his thick +winter clouds about him, disappeared, and was no more seen that day. +He had vindicated his majesty. + +Lady Arthur thought it was going to be a bright winter day, and at +breakfast she proposed a drive to Cockhoolet Castle, an old place +within driving distance to which she paid periodical visits: they +would take luncheon on the battlements and see all over the country, +which must be looking grand in its bridal attire. + +John was called in and asked if he did not think it was going to be +a fine day. He glanced through the windows at the dark, +suspicious-looking clouds and said, "Weel, my leddy, I'll no uphaud +it." This was the answer of a courtier and an oracle, not to mention +a Scotchman. It did not contradict Lady Arthur, it did not commit +himself, and it was cautious. + +"I think it will be a fine day of its kind," said the lady, "and we'll +drive to Cockhoolet. Have the carriage ready at ten." + +"If we dinna wun a' the gate, we can but turn again," John thought as +he retired to execute his orders. + +"It is not looking so well as it did in the morning," said Miss +Adamson as they entered the carriage, "but if we have an adventure we +shall be the better for it." + +"We shall have no such luck," said Lady Arthur: "what ever happens out +of the usual way now? There used to be glorious snowstorms long ago, +but the winters have lost their rigor, and there are no such long +summer days now as there were when I was young. Neither persons nor +things have that spirit in them they used to have;" and she smiled, +catching in thought the fact that to the young the world is still as +fresh and fair as it has appeared to all the successive generations it +has carried on its surface. + +"This is a wiselike expedition," said Thomas to John. + +"Ay," said John, "I'm mista'en if this is no a day that'll be heard +tell o' yet;" and they mounted to their respective places and started. + +The sky was very grim and the wind had been gradually rising. The +three ladies sat each in her corner, saying little, and feeling that +this drive was certainly a means to an end, and not an end in itself. +Their pace had not been very quick from the first, but it became +gradually slower, and the hard dry snow was drifting past the windows +in clouds. At last they came to a stand altogether, and John appeared +at the window like a white column and said, "My leddy, we'll hae to +stop here." + +"Stop! why?" + +"Because it's impossible to wun ony farrer." + +"Nonsense! There's no such word as impossible." + +"The beasts might maybe get through, but they wad leave the carriage +ahint them." + +"Let me out to look about," said Lady Arthur. + +"Ye had better bide where ye are," said John: "there's naething to be +seen, and ye wad but get yersel' a' snaw. We might try to gang back +the road we cam." + +"Decidedly not," said Lady Arthur, whose spirits were rising to the +occasion: "we can't be far from Cockhoolet here?" + +"Between twa and three mile," said John dryly. + +"We'll get out and walk," said her ladyship, looking at the other +ladies. + +"Wi' the wind in yer teeth, and sinking up to yer cuits at every step? +Ye wad either be blawn ower the muir like a feather, or planted amang +the snaw like Lot's wife. I might maybe force my way through, but I +canna leave the horses," said John. + +Lady Arthur was fully more concerned for her horses than herself: she +said, "Take out the horses and go to Cockhoolet: leave them to rest +and feed, and tell Mr. Ormiston to send for us. We'll sit here very +comfortably till you come back: it won't take you long. Thomas will go +too, but give us in the luncheon-basket first." + +The men, being refreshed from the basket, set off with the horses, +leaving the ladies getting rapidly snowed up in the carriage. As the +wind rose almost to a gale, Lady Arthur remarked "that it was at least +better to be stuck firm among the snow than to be blown away." + +It is a grand thing to suffer in a great cause, but if you suffer +merely because you have done a "daftlike" thing, the satisfaction is +not the same. + +The snow sifted into the carriage at the minutest crevice like fine +dust, and, melting, became cold, clammy and uncomfortable. To be set +down in a glass case on a moor without shelter in the height of a +snowstorm has only one recommendation: it is an uncommon situation, +a novel experience. The ladies--at least Lady Arthur--must, one would +think, have felt foolish, but it is a chief qualification in a leader +that he never acknowledges that he is in the wrong: if he once does +that, his prestige is gone. + +The first hour of isolation wore away pretty well, owing to the +novelty of the the position; the second also, being devoted to +luncheon; the third dragged a good deal; but when it came to the +fourth; with light beginning to fail and no word of rescue, matters +looked serious. The cold was becoming intense--a chill, damp cold that +struck every living thing through and through. What could be keeping +the men? Had they lost their way, or what could possibly have +happened? + +"This is something like an adventure," said Lady Arthur cheerily. + +"It might pass for one," said Miss Adamson, "if we could see our way +out of it. I wonder if we shall have to sit here all night?" + +"If we do," said Lady Arthur, "we can have no hope of wild beasts +scenting us out or of being attacked by banditti." + +"Nor of any enamored gentleman coming to the rescue," said Miss +Adamson: "it will end tamely enough. I remember reading a story of +travel among savages, in which at the close of the monthly instalment +the travelers were left buried alive except their heads, which were +above ground, but set on fire. That was a very striking situation, yet +it all came right; so there is hope for us, I think." + +"Oh, don't make me laugh," said Alice: "I really can't laugh, I am so +stiff with cold." + +"It's a fine discipline to our patience to sit here," said Lady +Arthur. "If I had thought we should have to wait so long, I would have +tried what I could do while it was light." + + +VIII. + +At length they heard a movement among the snow, and voices, and +immediately a light appeared at the window, shining through the +snow-blind, which was swept down by an arm and the carriage-door +opened. + +"Are you all safe?" were the first words they heard. + +"In the name of wonder, George, how are you here? Where are John and +Thomas?" cried Lady Arthur. + +"I'll tell you all about it after," said George Eildon: "the thing is +to get you out of this scrape. I have a farm-cart and pair, and two +men to help me: you must just put up with roughing it a little." + +"Oh, I am so thankful!" said Alice. + +The ladies were assisted out of the carriage into the cart, and +settled among plenty of straw and rugs and shawls, with their backs to +the blast. Mr. Eildon shut the door of the carriage, which was left +to its fate, and then got in and sat at the feet of the ladies. Mr. +Ormiston's servant mounted the trace-horse and Thomas sat on the front +of the cart, and the cavalcade started to toil through the snow. + +"Do tell us, George, how you are here. I thought it was only heroes of +romance that turned up when their services were desperately needed." + +"There have been a good many heroes of romance to-day," said Mr. +Eildon. "The railways have been blocked in all directions; three +trains with about six hundred passengers have been brought to a stand +at the Drumhead Station near this; many of the people have been half +frozen and sick and fainting. I was in the train going south, and very +anxious to get on, but it was impossible. I got to Cockhoolet with a +number of exhausted travelers just as your man arrived, and we came +off as soon as we could to look for you. You have stood the thing much +better than many of my fellow-travelers." + +"Indeed!" said Lady Arthur, "and have all the poor people got housed?" + +"Most of them are at the station-house and various farm-houses. Mr. +Forester, Mr. Ormiston's son-in-law, started to bring up the last of +them just as I started for you." + +"Well, I must say I have enjoyed it," Lady Arthur said, "but how are +we to get home to-night?" + +"You'll not get home to-night: you'll have to stay at Cockhoolet, and +be glad if you can get home to-morrow." + +"And where have you come from, and where are you going to?" she asked. + +"I came from London--I have only been a week home from Australia--and +I am on my way to Eildon. But here we are." + +And the hospitable doors of Cockhoolet were thrown wide, sending out a +glow of light to welcome the belated travelers. + +Mrs. Ormiston and her daughter, Mrs. Forester--who with her husband +was on a visit at Cockhoolet--received them and took them to +rooms where fires made what seemed tropical heat compared with the +atmosphere in the glass case on the moor. + +Miss Garscube was able for nothing but to go to bed, and Miss Adamson +stayed with her in the room called Queen Mary's, being the room that +unfortunate lady occupied when she visited Cockhoolet. + +On this night the castle must have thought old times had come back +again, there was such a large and miscellaneous company beneath its +roof. But where were the knights in armor, the courtiers in velvet and +satin, the boars' heads, the venison pasties, the wassail-bowls? Where +were the stately dames in stiff brocade, the shaven priests, the +fool in motley, the vassals, the yeomen in hodden gray and broad blue +bonnet? Not there, certainly. + +No doubt, Lady Arthur Eildon was a direct descendant of one of "the +queen's Maries," but in her rusty black gown, her old black bonnet set +awry on her head, her red face, her stout figure, made stouter by a +sealskin jacket, you could not at a glance see the connection. The +house of Eildon was pretty closely connected with the house of Stuart, +but George Eildon in his tweed suit, waterproof and wideawake looked +neither royal nor romantic. We may be almost sure that there was a +fool or fools in the company, but they did not wear motley. In short, +as yet it is difficult to connect the idea of romance with railway +rugs, waterproofs, India-rubbers and wide-awakes and the steam of tea +and coffee: three hundred years hence perhaps it may be possible. +Who knows? But for all that, romances go on, we may be sure, whether +people are clad in velvet or hodden gray. + +Lady Arthur was framing a romance--a romance which had as much of the +purely worldly in it as a romance can hold. She found that George was +on his way to see his cousin, Lord Eildon, who within two days had +had a severe access of illness. It seemed to her a matter of certainty +that George would be duke of Eildon some day. If she had only had +the capacity to have despatched that letter she had written when she +believed she was dying, after him to Australia! Could she send it to +him yet? She hesitated: she could hardly bring herself to compromise +the dignity of Alice, and her own. She had a short talk with him +before they separated for the night. + +"I think you should go home by railway to-morrow," he said. "It is +blowing fresh now, and the trains will all be running to-morrow. I am +sorry I have to go by the first in the morning, so I shall probably +not see you then," + +"I don't know," she said: "it is a question if Alice will be able to +travel at all to-morrow." + +"She is not ill, is she?" he said. "It is only a little fatigue from +exposure that ails her, isn't it?" + +"But it may have bad consequences," said Lady Arthur: "one never can +tell;" and she spoke in an injured way, for George's tones were not +encouraging. "And John, my coachman--I haven't seen him--he ought to +have been at hand at least: if I could depend on any one, I thought it +was him." + +"Why, he was overcome in the drift to-day: your other man had to leave +him behind and ride forward for help. It was digging him out of the +snow that kept us so long in getting to you. He has been in bed ever +since, but he is getting round quite well." + +"I ought to have known that sooner," she said. + +"I did not want to alarm you unnecessarily." + +"I must go and see him;" and she held out her hand to say good-night. +"But you'll come to Garscube Hall soon: I shall be anxious to hear +what you think of Frank. When will you come?" + +"I'll write," he said. + +Lady Arthur felt that opportunity was slipping from her, and she grew +desperate. "Speaking of writing," she said, "I wrote to you when I +had the fever last year and thought I was dying: would you like to see +that letter?" + +"No," he said: "I prefer you living." + +"Have you no curiosity? People can say things dying that they couldn't +say living, perhaps." + +"Well, they have no business to do so," he said. "It is taking an +unfair advantage, which a generous nature never does; besides, it is +more solemn to live than die." + +"Then you don't want the letter?" + +"Oh yes, if you like." + +"Very well: I'll think of it. Can you show me the way to John's place +of refuge?" + +They found John sitting up in bed, and Mrs, Ormiston ministering to +him: the remains of a fowl were on a plate beside him, and he was +lifting a glass of something comfortable to his lips. + +"I never knew of this, John," said his mistress, "till just a few +minutes ago. This is sad." + +"Weel, it doesna look very sad," said John, eying the plate and the +glass. "Yer leddyship and me hae gang mony a daftlike road, but I +think we fairly catched it the day." + +"I don't know how we can be grateful enough to you, Mrs. Ormiston," +said Lady Arthur, turning to their hostess. + +"Well, you know we could hardly be so churlish as to shut our doors on +storm-stayed travelers: we are very glad that we had it in our power +to help them a little." + +"It's by ordinar' gude quarters," said John: "I've railly enjoyed that +hen. Is 't no time yer leddyship was in yer bed, after siccan a day's +wark?" + +"We'll take the hint, John," said Lady Arthur; and in a little while +longer most of Mr. Ormiston's unexpected guests had lost sight of the +day's adventure in sleep. + + +IX. + +By dawn of the winter's morning all the company, the railway pilgrims, +were astir again--not to visit a shrine, or attend a tournament, or to +go hunting or hawking, or to engage in a foray or rieving expedition, +as guests of former days at the castle may have done, but quietly to +make their way to the station as the different trains came up, the +fresh wind having done more to clear the way than the army of men +that had been set to work with pickaxe and shovel. But although the +railways and the tweeds and the India-rubbers were modern, the castle +and the snow and the hospitality were all very old-fashioned--the snow +as old as that lying round the North Pole, and as unadulterated; the +hospitality old as when Eve entertained Raphael in Eden, and as true, +blessing those that give and those that take. + +Mr. Eildon left with the first party that went to the station; Lady +Arthur and the young ladies went away at midday; John was left to +take care of himself and his carriage till both should be more fit for +traveling. + +Of the three ladies, Alice had suffered most from the severe cold, and +it was some time before she entirely recovered from the effects of it. +Lady Arthur convinced herself that it was not merely the effects +of cold she was suffering from, and talked the case over with Miss +Adamson, but that lady stoutly rejected Lady Arthur's idea. "Miss +Garscube has got over that long ago, and so has Mr. Eildon," she said +dryly. "Alice has far more sense than to nurse a feeling for a man +evidently indifferent to her." These two ladies had exchanged opinions +exactly. George Eildon had only called once, and on a day when they +were all from home: he had written several times to his aunt regarding +Lord Eildon's health, and Lady Arthur had written to him and had told +him her anxiety about the health of Alice. He expressed sympathy and +concern, as his mother might have done, but Lady Arthur would not +allow herself to see that the case was desperate. + +She had a note from her sister-in-law, Lady George, who said "that she +had just been at Eildon, and in her opinion Frank was going, but his +parents either can't or won't see this, or George either. It is a sad +case--so young a man and with such prospects--but the world abounds in +sad things," etc., etc. But sad as the world is, it is shrewd with a +wisdom of its own, and it hardly believed in the grief of Lady George +for an event which would place her own son in a position of honor and +affluence. But many a time George Eildon recoiled from the people who +did not conceal their opinion that he might not be broken-hearted +at the death of his cousin. There is nothing that true, honorable, +unworldly natures shrink from more than having low, unworthy feelings +and motives attributed to them. + + +X. + +Lady Arthur Eildon made up her mind. "I am supposed," she said to +herself, "to be eccentric: why not get the good of such a character?" +She enclosed her dying letter to her nephew, which was nothing less +than an appeal to him on behalf of Alice, assuring him of her belief +that Alice bitterly regretted the answer she had given his letter, and +that if she had it to do over again it would be very different. When +Lady Arthur did this she felt that she was not doing as she would be +done by, but the stake was too great not to try a last throw for it. +In an accompanying note she said, "I believe that the statements in +this letter still hold true. I blamed myself afterward for having +influenced Alice when she wrote to you, and now I have absolved my +conscience." (Lady Arthur put it thus, but she hardly succeeded +in making herself believe it was a case of conscience: she was too +sharp-witted. It is self-complacent stupidity that is morally small.) +"If this letter is of no interest to you, I am sure I am trusting it +to honorable hands." + +She got an answer immediately. "I thank you," Mr. Eildon said, "for +your letters, ancient and modern: they are both in the fire, and so +far as I am concerned shall be as if they had never been." + +It was in vain, then, all in vain, that she had humbled herself before +George Eildon. Not only had her scheme failed, but her pride suffered, +as your finger suffers when the point of it is shut by accident in the +hinge of a door. The pain was terrible. She forgot her conscience, how +she had dealt treacherously--for her good, as she believed, but still +treacherously--with Alice Garscube: she forgot everything but her +own pain, and those about her thought that decidedly she was very +eccentric at this time. She snubbed her people, she gave orders and +countermanded them, so that her servants did not know what to do or +leave undone, and they shook their heads among themselves and remarked +that the moon was at the full. + +But of course the moon waned, and things calmed down a little. In the +next note she received from her sister-in-law, among other items +of news she was told that her nephew meant to visit her +shortly--"Probably," said his mother, "this week, but I think it will +only be a call. He says Lord Eildon is rather better, which has put us +all in good spirits," etc. + +Now, Lady Arthur did not wish to see George Eildon at this time--not +that she could not keep a perfect and dignified composure in any +circumstances, but her pride was still in the hinge of the door--and +she went from home every day. Three days she had business in town: the +other days she drove to call on people living in the next county. As +she did not care for going about alone, she took Miss Adamson always +with her, but Alice only once or twice: she was hardly able for +extra fatigue every day. But Miss Garscube was recovering health and +spirits, and looks also, and when Lady Arthur left her behind she +thought, "Well, if George calls to-day, he'll see that he is not a +necessary of life at least." She felt very grateful that it was so, +and had no objections that George should see it. + +He did see it, for he called that day, but he had not the least +feeling of mortification: he was unfeignedly glad to see Alice looking +so well, and he had never, he thought, seen her look better. After +they had spoken in the most quiet and friendly way for a little she +said, "And how is your cousin, Lord Eildon?" + +"Nearly well: his constitution seems at last fairly to have taken +a turn in the right direction. The doctors say that not only is he +likely to live as long as any of us, but that the probability is he +will be a robust man yet." + +"Oh, I am glad of it--I am heartily glad of it!" + +"Why are you so very glad?" + +"Because you are: it has made you very happy--you look so." + +"I am excessively happy because you believe I am happy. Many people +don't: many people think I am disappointed. My own mother thinks so, +and yet she is a good woman. People will believe that you wish the +death of your dearest friend if he stands between you and material +good. It is horrible, and I have been courted and worshiped as the +rising sun;" and he laughed. "One can afford to laugh at it now, but +it was very sickening at the time. I can afford anything, Alice: I +believe I can even afford to marry, if you'll marry a hard-working man +instead of a duke." + +"Oh, George," she said, "I have been so ashamed of that letter I +wrote." + +"It was a wicked little letter," he said, "but I suppose it was the +truth at the time: say it is not true now." + +"It is not true now," she repeated, "but I have not loved you very +dearly all the time; and if you had married I should have been very +happy if you had been happy. But oh," she said, and her eyes filled +with tears, "this is far better." + +"You love me now?" + +"Unutterably." + +"I have loved you all the time, all the time. I should not have been +happy if I had heard of your marriage." + +"Then how were you so cold and distant the day we stuck on the moor?" + +"Because it was excessively cold weather: I was not going to warm +myself up to be frozen again. I have never been in delicate health, +but I can't stand heats and chills." + +"I do believe you are not a bit wiser than I am. I hear the carriage: +that's Lady Arthur come back. How surprised she will be!" + +"I am not so sure of that," George said. "I'll go and meet her." + +When he appeared Lady Arthur shook hands tranquilly and said, "How do +you do?" + +"Very well," he said. "I have been testing the value of certain +documents you sent me, and find they are worth their weight in gold." + +She looked in his face. + +"Alice is mine," he said, "and we are going to Bashan for our +wedding-tour. If you'll seize the opportunity of our escort, you may +hunt up Og's bed." + +"Thank you," she said: "I fear I should be _de trop_." + +"Not a bit; but even if you were a great nuisance, we are in the humor +to put up with anything." + +"I'll think of it. I have never traveled in the character of a +nuisance yet--at least, so far as I know--and it would be a new +sensation: that is a great inducement." + +Lady Arthur rushed to Miss Adamson's room with the news, and the +two ladies had first a cry and then a laugh over it. "Alice will be +duchess yet," said Lady Arthur: "that boy's life has hung so long by a +thread that he must be prepared to go, and he would be far better away +from the cares and trials of this world, I am sure;" which might be +the truth, but it was hard to grudge the boy his life. + +Lady Arthur was in brilliant spirits at dinner that evening. "I +suppose you are going to live on love," she said. + +"I am going to work for my living," said George. + +"Very right," she said; "but, although I got better last year, I can't +live for ever, and when I'm gone Alice will have the Garscube estates: +I have always intended it." + +"Madam," said George, "do you not know that the great lexicographer +has said in one of his admirable works, 'Let no man suffer his +felicity to depend upon the death of his aunt'?" + +It is said that whenever a Liberal ministry comes in Mr. Eildon will +be offered the governorship of one of the colonies. Lady Arthur may +yet live to be astonished by his "career," and at least she is not +likely to regret her dying letter. + +THE AUTHOR OF "BLINDPITS." + + + + +THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH. + + +"What is that black mass yonder, far up the beach, just at the edge of +the breakers?" + +The fisherman to whom we put the question drew in his squid-line, hand +over hand, without turning his head, having given the same answer for +half a dozen years to summer tourists: "Wreck. Steamer. Creole." + +"Were there many lives lost?" + +"It's likely. This is the worst bit of coast in the country, The +Creole was a three-decker," looking at it reflectively, "Lot of good +timber there." + +As we turned our field-glasses to the black lump hunched out of the +water, like a great sea-monster creeping up on the sand, we saw still +farther up the coast a small house perched on a headland, with a flag +flying in the gray mist, and pointed it out to the Jerseyman, who +nodded: "That there wooden shed is the United States signal station;" +adding, after a pause, "Life-saving service down stairs." + +"Old Probabilities! The house he lives in!" + +"Life-boats!" + +Visions of the mysterious old prophet who utters his oracles through +the morning paper, of wrecks and storms, and of heroic men carrying +lines through the night to sinking ships, filled our brains. +Townspeople out for their summer holiday have keen appetites for the +romantic and extraordinary, and manufacture them (as sugar from beets) +out of the scantiest materials. We turned our backs on the fisherman +and his squid-line. The signal station and the hull of the lost vessel +were only a shed and timber to him. How can any man be alive to the +significance of a wreck and fluttering flag which he sees twenty times +a day? Noah, no doubt, after a year in the ark, came to look upon it +as so much gopher-wood, and appreciated it as a good job of joinery +rather than a divine symbol. + +We believe, however, that our readers will find in the wrecked Creole +and the wooden shed, and the practical facts concerning them, matter +suggestive enough to hold them a little space. They fill a yet +unwritten page in the history of our government, and of great and +admirable work done by it, of which the nation at large has been +given but partial knowledge. Or, if we choose to look more deeply into +things, we may find in the old hulk and commonplace building hints as +significant of the Infinite Order and Power underlying all ordinary +things, and of our relations to it, as in the long-ago Deluge and the +ark riding over it. + +The little wooden house stands upon a lonely stretch of coast in Ocean +county, New Jersey. Several miles of low barren marshes and sands gray +with poverty-grass on the north separate it from Manasquan Inlet and +the pine woods and scattered farm-houses which lie along its shore, +while half a mile below, on the south, is the head of Barnegat Bay, +a deep, narrow estuary which runs into and along the Jersey coast for +more than half its extent, leaving outside a strip of sandy beach, +never more than a mile wide. All kinds of sea fish and fowl take +refuge in this bay and the interminable reedy marshes, and for a few +weeks in the snipe-and duck-season sportsmen from New York find their +way to "Shattuck's" and the houses of other old water-dogs along the +bay. But during the rest of the year the wooden shed and its occupants +are left to the companionship of the sea and the winds. + +The little building (with a gigantic "No. 10" whitewashed outside) +stands close to the breakers, just above high-water mark in winter. It +is divided into two large rooms, upper and lower, with a tiny kitchen +in the rear and an equally comfortless bedroom overhead. The doors of +the lower room (which, like those of a barn, fill the whole end of the +house) being closed, we sought for Old Probabilities up stairs, and +found very little at first sight to gratify curiosity or any craving +for mystery. There was a large wooden room, with walls and floor of +unpainted boards, the ceiling hung with brilliantly colored flags, a +telegraphic apparatus, one or two desks, books, writing materials--a +scientific working-room, in short, with its implements in that order +which implied that only men had used them. + +There were in 1874 one hundred and eight such signal stations as +this, modest, inexpensive little offices, established over the United +States, from the low sea-coast plains to the topmost peak of the Rocky +Mountains. + +If we were accurate chroniclers, we should have to go back to +Aristotle and the Chaldeans to show the origin and purpose of these +little offices, just as Carlyle has to unearth Ulfila the Moesogoth to +explain a word he uses to his butter-man. The world is so new, after +all, and things so inextricably tangled up in it! In this case, as +it is the sun and wind and rain which are the connecting links, it is +easy enough to bring past ages close to us. The Chaldeans, building +their great embankments or raiding upon Job's herds, are no longer a +myth to us when we remember that they were wet by the rain and anxious +about the weather and their crops, just as we are; in fact, they felt +such matters so keenly, and were so little able to cope with these +unknown forces, that they made gods of them, and then, beyond prayers +and sacrifices, troubled themselves no further about the matter. +Even the shrewd, observant Hebrews, living out of doors, a race of +shepherds and herdsmen, never looked for any rational cause for wind +or storm, but regarded them, if not as gods, as the messengers of God, +subject to no rules. It was He who at His will covered the heavens +with clouds, who prepared rain, who cast forth hoar-frost like ashes: +the stormy wind fulfilled His word. Men searched into the construction +of their own minds, busied themselves with subtle philosophies, with +arts and sciences, conquered the principles of Form and Color, and +made not wholly unsuccessful efforts to solve the mystery of the sun +and stars; but it was not until 340 B.C. that any notice was taken of +the every-day matters of wind and heat and rain. + +Aristotle, the Gradgrind of philosophers, first noted down the known +facts on this subject in his work _On Meteors_. His theories and +deductions were necessarily erroneous, but he struck the foundation of +all science, the collection of known facts. Theophrastus, one of his +pupils, made a compilation of prognostics concerning rain, wind +and storm, and there investigation ceased for ages. For nearly two +thousand years the citizens of the world rose every morning to rejoice +in fair weather or be wet by showers, to see their crops destroyed +by frost or their ships by winds, and never made a single attempt to +discover any scientific reason or rules in the matter--apparently +did not suspect that there was any cause or effect behind these daily +occurrences. They accounted for wind or rain as our grandfathers did +for a sudden death, by the "visitation of God." In fact, Nature--which +is the expression of Law most inexorable and minute--was the very last +place where mankind looked to find law at all. + +About two hundred and thirty years ago Torricelli discovered that +the atmosphere, the space surrounding the earth, which seemed more +intangible than a dream, had weight and substance, and invented the +barometer, the tiny tube and drop of mercury by which it could be +seized and held and weighed as accurately as a pound of lead. As soon +as this invisible air was proved to be matter, the whole force of +scientific inquiry was directed toward it. The thermometer, by which +its heat or cold could be measured--the hygrometer, which weighed, +literally by a hair, its moisture or dryness--were the results of the +research of comparatively a few years. Somewhat later came the curious +instrument which measures its velocity. As soon as it was thus made +practicable for any intelligent observer to handle, weigh and test +every quality of the air, it became evident that wind and storm, even +the terrible cyclone, were not irresponsible forces, carrying health +or death to and fro where they listed, but the result of plain, +immutable; laws. It was an American in this our Quaker City who +reduced the wind to a commonplace effect of a most ordinary cause. +Franklin, one winter's day passing with a lighted candle out of a warm +room into a cold one, saw that as he held it above his head the flame +was blown outward before him: when he held it near the floor, the +flame was blown into the room. The shrewd observer stood in the +doorway, instead of hurrying out, as most of us would have done, +to save the wasting candle. The warm air in the heated room, he +conjectured, was expanded by the heat, consequently it rose as high as +it could, and made a way for itself out of the room at the upper part +of the doorway, while the heavier cold air from without rushed in +below to fill the vacated space. What if he took the equatorial +regions or great tracts of arid desert for the heated room? The air +over them, subjected by the heat to constant rarefaction, must +rise, must overflow above, and must force the colder air from the +surrounding regions in below. Two sheets of air will thus set in +vertically on both sides, rise, and again separate above. Here was an +explanation of the great, steady, uninterrupted aerial currents which, +at the rate of from fifteen to eighteen miles per hour, sweep the +surface of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The candle, no doubt, was +wasted, but the secret of the trade-winds was discovered. + +The idea was correct as far as it went. It did not go very far, it is +true. It had not taken into account the earth's rotation, whose force, +according to Herschel, "gives at least one-half of their average +momentum to all the winds which occur over the whole world;" nor the +infinite variation in the movements of the atmosphere which we call +winds, caused by the change in the sun's motion, by the differing +amounts of vapor held in them, by the physical configuration of the +earth below, by the vicinity of the sea or arid deserts, and by the +passage of storms or electric currents. + +The science of meteorology, especially as regards wind, is as yet +searching for general principles, which can only be deduced from +countless facts. We do not now, like Saint Paul, talk of the wind +Euroclydon as of a special agent of God, but describe it by stating +that it is an aerial ascending current over the Mediterranean, +produced by the heated sands of Africa and Arabia. We can even measure +its heat at 200 deg. Fahrenheit, and its velocity at fifty-four miles per +hour. But it attacks us just as unexpectedly as it did the apostle, +and brings disease and death to Naples or Palermo to-day just as +surely as it did to Cambyses. The popular verdict on the matter +would no doubt be that when meteorologists can not only describe the +sirocco, but give warning of its coming, their science will justify +its claim to consideration. The common sense of mankind always demands +as a royalty from every science daily practical benefits to the mass +of men and women. It is not enough for meteorologists to have proved +that the atmosphere varies in weight, in temperature or velocity of +motion according to fixed rules, or to be able to explain why no rain +falls on a certain portion of the coast of Portugal, while a like +coast-exposure in England is incessantly drenched; or to have +determined beyond a doubt that precisely as the ocean of water, +under the influence of the moon and wind, ebbs and flows and has +its succession of storms or calms, the ocean of air in which we +are enveloped answers to the influence of the sun in great tidal +movements, and has also its vast steadily moving waves of cold or heat +or moisture. These discoveries of general truths must be brought to +bear directly on men's daily life before they will have fulfilled +their true purpose. It would seem as if nothing were more easy than to +bring them so to bear. Meteorology, more intimately perhaps than any +other science, concerns our ordinary affairs. The health of mankind, +navigation, agriculture, commerce, the hourly business and needs of +every man, from the merchant sending out his cargo and the consumptive +waiting for death in the east wind, to the laundress hanging out +the family wash, are ruled by that most mysterious, most uncurbed +of powers, the weather. We may rub along through life with scanty +knowledge of the history of dead nations or the philosophy of living +ones, but heat and cold, the climate of the coming winter, yesterday's +rainfall or to-morrow's frost, are matters which take hold of every +one of us and affect us every hour of the day. Now, to bring the known +general truths of this science to practical rules, or to base upon +them predictions of storms or changes in the weather during any +future period, requires, as Sir John Herschel stated twelve years ago, +"patient, incessant and laborious observations, carried on in +every region of the globe." One reason why this is required is the +perpetually shifting conditions of heat, wind and storm. A man who sat +down to work a mathematical problem in the days of Job, if there was +such a man, found its result just the same as the school-boy does +to-day: figures not only never lie, but never alter. But the man who +solves an equation of which the winds and waters are members finds +that the sum to be added varies with every hour. There are, so far +as is yet known, no regularly recurring cycles of weather on which +to base predictions: the conditions of heat and wind and moisture are +never precisely the same at any given point. Hence the necessity, if +we would give the science stability and bring it to bear on our daily +life, of educated, skilled observers at different points to collect +and report simultaneously the daily details of the present conditions. + +It is this daily detail of fact which the United States government +supplies through the little stations of observation one of which we +have stumbled into on the Jersey beach. Americans, indeed, have from +the first taken hold of this science with a most characteristic effort +to reduce it to practical uses, to bring it at once to bear on the +well-being at least of farmers and navigators. Dove had no sooner +published his chart of isothermal lines and charts, showing the +temperature throughout the world of each month, and also of abnormal +temperatures, than our government issued the _Army Meteorological +Register_ for the United States, which for accuracy and fullness had +never been equaled. In these the temperature and rainfall for each +month of the year were shown. The forecasts of the weather now +published daily in this country, and which come so directly home to +every man's business that Old Probabilities is a real personage to +us all, have been given in England for several years under the +supervision of Admiral Fitzroy. + +But it is high time now that we should come back to our little wooden +house on the beach, and tell what we know of its occupants and uses. +The courteous gentleman (in a blue flannel suit for "roughing it") +who sits at the telegraphic wires is Sergeant G----, belonging to the +Signal Service Department of the army. Instruction in this department +is given at Fort Whipple, Va. One hundred officers besides Sergeant +G---- are now in charge of stations, with 139 privates as assistants. +The average force at Fort Whipple is 140 men. These men are, in point +of fact, soldiers liable to be called into active service in the +field: their duty there, however, is not fighting, but signaling and +telegraphy--a duty quite as dangerous as the bearing of arms. Fresh +recruits for this service are divided into those capable of receiving +instruction only in field duty and those for "full service," which +includes, with military signaling and telegraphy, the taking +of meteoric observations, the collating and publication of such +observations, and the deduction from them of correct results. Passing +two examinations successfully in the latter course, the signal-service +soldier is detailed for duty at a post as assistant, and after six +months' satisfactory service is returned to Fort Whipple for the +special instruction given to observer-sergeants. When qualified for +this work he is detailed, as a vacancy occurs, for actual service. + +Having thus discovered how our friend the sergeant came into his +post, we looked about to see what he had to do there. The +brilliantly-colored flags overhead drew the eye first. These flags +serve the purpose of an international language on the high seas, where +no other language is practicable. Twenty thousand distinct messages +can be sent by them. Rogers's system has been, adopted by the United +States Navy, the Lighthouse Board, the United States Coast Survey and +the principal lines of steamers. Each flag represents a number, and +four flags can be hoisted at once on the staff. With the flags there +is given a book containing the meaning of each number. Thus, a wrecked +ship cries silently to the shore, "Send a lifeboat" by flags 3, 8, 9, +or says that she is sinking by 6, 3, 2; or a vessel under full sail +hails another by 8, 6, 0, or bids her "_bon voyage_" with 8, 9, 7. +Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing colors in cloudy days or +when the flags will not fly, other systems of signaling are used: that +of cones similar to umbrellas being considered in the English service +one of the most efficient, a different arrangement of cones on the +staff representing the nine numerals. Men may convert themselves into +cones in an emergency by raising or letting fall their arms, and two +men thus give any signal necessary. As the flags, however, belong +more especially to Sergeant G---- 's duty on the field of battle or to +exceptional cases of storm and danger, we pass them by to examine into +his daily round of duty. Outside, a queer little house of lattice-work +perched on a headland shelters the thermometers and barometers: on +a still higher point directly over the foaming breakers is the +anemometer, the little instrument which measures the swiftness of the +fiercest cyclone as easily as the lightest spring breeze. It consists +of four brass cups shaped to catch the wind, and attached to the ends +of two horizontal iron rods, which cross each other and are supported +in the middle by a long pole on which they turn freely. The cups +revolve with just one-third of the wind's velocity, and make five +hundred revolutions whilst a mile of wind passes over them. A register +of these revolutions is made by machinery similar to a gas-meter. +The popular idea, by the way, of the speed of the wind runs very far +beyond the truth: we are apt to say of a racer that he goes like the +wind, when the fact is the horse of a good strain of blood leaves the +laggard tempest far behind; the ordinary winds of every day travel +only five miles an hour, a breeze of sixteen and a quarter miles an +hour being strong enough to cause great discomfort in town or field: +thirty-three miles is dangerous at sea, and sixty-five miles a violent +hurricane, sweeping all before it. + +Our friend the sergeant examines seven times a day at stated periods +the condition of the atmosphere as to heat, weight and moisture, the +velocity of the wind, the kind, amount and speed of the clouds, and +measures the rainfall and the ocean swell: all these observations are +recorded, and three are daily reported to headquarters at Washington. +In these telegrams a cipher is used--as much, we presume, to ensure +accuracy in the figures as for purposes of secresy. In this cipher the +fickle winds are given the names of women with a covert sarcasm +quite out of place in the respectable old weather-prophet whom every +housewife consults before the day's work begins. Thus, when the +telegraph operator receives the mysterious message, "Francisco Emily +alone barge churning did frosty guarding hungry," how is he to know +that it means "San Francisco Evening. Rep. Barom. 29.40, Ther. 61, +Humidity 18 per cent., Velocity of wind 41 miles per hour, 840 +pounds pressure, Cirro-stratus. N.W. 1/4 to 2/4, Cumulo-stratus East, +Rainfall 2.80 inch."? + +Besides these simultaneous reports from the one hundred and eight +United States stations which are telegraphed to the central office +at Washington, there are received there daily three hundred and +eighty-three volunteer reports from every part of the country, these +being the system of meteorological observations under control of the +Smithsonian Institution for twenty-four years, and given in charge to +the Signal Service Bureau in 1874. In addition to these, again, are +simultaneous reports from Russia, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, +France, England, Algiers, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, +Portugal, Switzerland, Canada--in all two hundred and fourteen. When +we add together, therefore, the + +United States Signal Service reports 108 +Volunteer reports 383 +International reports 214 +Reports of medical corps of army 123 + +we have a grand total of eight hundred and twenty-eight daily +simultaneous reports received at the central office, where +Brigadier-General Albert J. Myer and his brevet aide, Captain H.W. +Howgate (or, if you choose, Old Probabilities himself), wait to scan +through these many watchful eyes the heavens around the world +and utter incessant prophecies and warnings. Besides the regular +observations, report is also made of casual phenomena--lightning, +auroras, time of first and last frosts, etc., etc. + +The history of the Signal Service Bureau and the establishment of +these stations and telegraph-lines, bringing the whole country under +the instant oversight of one intelligent observer, would, if it were +briefly written, be full of points of dramatic interest. As yet it +must be gathered out of acts of Congress and official reports. The +service has now existed for fourteen years, but is still without that +full recognition by Congress which would ensure its permanency. +"With interests depending on its daily work as great as can by any +possibility rest upon any other branch of the service, it is yet +regarded as an experiment, an offshoot of regular army service +existing on sufferance, liable at any moment to be hindered in its +operations, if not totally abolished." The benefit of this daily work, +however, affects too nearly and constantly the mass of the people to +allow much danger of its final extinction. What the real value of this +practical work is can be gathered not only from the dry statistics of +annual reports, but from the increased confidence placed in it by the +people, the unscientific working majority. + +The help given to farmers should rank perhaps first in estimating the +value of this work. At midnight of each day the midnight forecast is +telegraphed to twenty centres of distribution, located strictly with +regard to the agricultural population. The telegrams, as soon as +received, are printed by signal-service men, rapidly enveloped in +wrappers already stamped and addressed, and sent by the swiftest +conveyance to every post-office which can be reached before 2 P.M. of +the same day, and when received are displayed on bulletin-boards. The +average time elapsing from the moment when the bulletin leaves the +central office until it reaches every post-office from Maine to +Florida is ten hours. In 1874, 6286 of these farmers' bulletins +were issued, and when we consider that by each one of them reliable +information as to the chances of success or failure in planting or +reaping was given, we gain some idea of the directness and force of +the work of this bureau. + +The river reports of the office include not only regular daily +observations of the changing depths of the great water-highways, +but forecasts of coming floods or sudden rises and falls of the +river-levels. Before the great floods in the Mississippi Valley in +1874 the warnings given by this means, and which could have been given +by no other, saved an incalculable amount of property and human life. +Bulletins are also issued regarding approaching freezing of our canals +in the winter months, and have enabled shippers to avoid the accidents +common heretofore when enormous quantities of grain, etc. in transit +have been detained by this means, to the serious disturbance of the +market. + +Cautionary day and night signals are displayed at the principal ports +and harbors when dangerous winds or storms are anticipated. In +one year 762 of these warning signals were displayed, and 561 were +verified by storms of destructive winds which otherwise would not have +been foreseen. In not a single instance during the last two years has +a great storm reached, without warning from the office, the lakes or +seaports of the country. The amount of shipping, property and life +thus saved to the country is simply incalculable. + +Tri-daily deductions or probabilities of the weather, wind and storms, +with part of the data on which they rest, are published in all the +principal papers of the country, and each man and woman can testify as +to their use of them. Who now goes to be married or to bury his dead +or to begin a journey without consulting the two oracular lines in +italics at the head of the leading column? They have come to take part +in our domestic lives. The people would miss politics or the markets +or literature out of the paper with less regret than Probabilities +should the service be discontinued. + +Besides this practical labor, there is the publication of nine daily +charts on which are inscribed 2160 readings of different instruments, +giving an accurate view of the general meteoric condition; monthly +charts and charts condensing the results of years of observation; +records furnished for the study of scientific men more comprehensive +and regular than can be offered by any similar institution in any +country. + +A special bit of history comes to light respecting our little wooden +shed at the head of Barnegat Bay. An act of Congress approved March, +1873, authorized the establishment of signal stations at lighthouses +or life-saving stations along dangerous coasts, and the connection of +the same by telegraphs, thirty thousand dollars being appropriated +for that end. In consequence, signal stations were established on the +Massachusetts coast, from Norfolk, Va., to Cape Hatteras, and +more closely along this dangerous lee-shore of New Jersey, and +telegraph-lines were laid connecting them with each other and also +with the central office. The plan for the future is to net the whole +coast--the lake, Atlantic and Pacific shores--with these stations and +telegraph-wires. By this means information of coming storms can be +conveyed by signal to vessels, or of wrecks, by telegraph, to other +life-saving stations: the close watch kept upon the ocean-swell +and currents will give warning inland of approaching changes in the +weather; for it is a singular fact that the ocean-swell communicates +this intelligence more quickly than the barometer, in quite another +sense than the poet's + + Every wave has tales to tell + Of storms far out at sea. + +Our little station belongs to the advanced guard of this proposed line +which is to encircle the coast, the whole work of establishing these +stations and telegraph-lines having been, done by Sergeant G---- +and his comrades. Indeed, when we look at all the work done by our +blue-coated friend, his steady, unintermitting attention to duty by +day and night year after year, his comfortless quarters in the wooden +shed on the lonely beach, and the almost absolute solitude for an +educated man during many months of the year, we begin to think his +station not the least honorable among the soldiers of the republic. +Almost any man, set down on the battle-field, one army to meet and +another to back him, with the crash of music and arms, the magnetic +fury of combat blazing in the air, would rise to the height of the +moment and prove himself manly. But to be faithful to petty tasks hour +after hour, through all kinds of privation and weather, for years, is +quite a different matter. + +The reports of the chief officer give us a hint of some of the +privations borne by the observer-sergeants, educated young fellows +like our friend. In 1872 the chief ordered one of these men to +establish a station on the western coast of Alaska and on the island +of St. Paul in Behring Sea, which was done, the observer continuing +for a year in that farthest outpost. His record of frozen fogs which +wrap the island like a pall, of cyclones from the Asian seas that lash +its rocky coast, of vast masses of electric clouds seen nowhere else +which sweep incessantly over it toward the Pole, reads more like the +story of a nightmare dream than a scientific statement. + +In the next spring the chief ordered another sergeant to found a +station on Mount Mitchell, the highest mountain-peak east of the +Mississippi. Professor Mitchell discovered and measured this mountain +about twenty years ago. While taking meteorological observations upon +it he was overtaken by a storm, lost his way, and was dashed to pieces +over one of its terrible precipices. Several years after his death the +government, suddenly recognizing his right to some acknowledgment from +science, ordered his body to be disinterred and buried on the topmost +peak of the mountain. It was a work of weeks, the body in its coffin +being carried by the hardy mountaineers up almost impassable heights. +But it reached the top at last, and lies there in the sky above all +human life, with the mountain for a monument. One is startled by such +a pathetic whim of poetic justice in a government. It was to this peak +that the sergeant was ordered to carry his instruments and to make an +abiding-place for himself. And here, after two days' journey from +the base, he arrived at night in a storm of snow and hail--the guides +having cleared the way with axes--set up his instruments, and took +observations above the clouds while trees and rocks were sheeted with +ice, and there was no shelter for himself or his companions from +the furious tempests. A hut was built after a few days, and here the +observer remained with the lonely grave as companion, taking hourly +observations during several months. + +Another officer was sent to the top of Pike's Peak, where he lived in +a rudely-constructed cabin until his health broke down; he was then +replaced by another, who after a year was obliged to yield also. As +soon as one soldier succumbs in these perilous outposts another goes +forward. The rarity of the air at this great altitude (nearly thirteen +thousand feet) produces nausea, fever and dizziness: added to this +were the intense cold and exposure to terrific storms. Sergeant +Seyboth records several nights when he with his companions were +forced, in a driving tempest, to leave the shelter of their hut and +work all night heaping rocks upon its roof to keep it from being blown +away; beneath them, many thousand feet, was the rolling sea of clouds. +Again and again these men were lost in the drifted snow of the canons +while passing from station to station, and barely escaped with their +lives. So imminent, indeed, was their danger during the winter of 1873 +that prayers for their safety were offered continually in the churches +below. + +Frederick Meyer, another of these signal-service soldiers, was sent on +the North Polar expedition with Captain Hall. No such marvelous tale +as that contained in his formal report was ever found in fiction. +Sergeant Meyer made observations every three hours on the voyage +north, and hourly when coming south, during a year and two months. At +the end of that time, as is well known to our readers, he, with part +of the crew of the Polaris, was deserted by the ship, and left on a +floe of ice in 79 deg. north latitude, the steamer going southward without +attempting their relief. Even in that moment of extremity he made +an effort to secure the case containing his observations, but it was +washed away from him by heavy seas. For six months these nineteen +human beings drifted on the mass of ice over the polar seas, through +all the darkness and horrors of an Arctic winter, without fire except +such as was made by burning one of their boats--a feeble blaze +daily, enough to warm a quart of water in which to soak their +pemmican--without shelter save such as the heaped ice and snow +afforded, and on starvation diet. After four months the floe began +to melt so rapidly that it was but twenty yards wide. "We dared not +sleep," says Sergeant Meyer, "fearing the ice would break under us and +we should find our grave in the Arctic Sea." Several times the ice did +break beneath them, and they were washed into the flood, but scrambled +up again on the fast-melting floe. During the whole of this time the +signal-service soldier continued faithful to his work, taking such +observations as were possible with the instruments left to him. The +boat had been burned long before, and they warmed their water with +an Esquimaux lamp. On April 22d their provisions consisted of but ten +biscuits. Starvation was before them when a bear was shot, and they +lived on its raw meat for two weeks. At the end of that time a steamer +passed within sight. The poor wretches on the ice hoisted a flag and +shouted, but the vessel passed out of sight. Another ship a few days +later came within the horizon and disappeared. The next day was foggy: +again a steamer was sighted, and for hours the shipwrecked crew strove +to make themselves seen and heard through the fog, firing shots, +hoisting their torn flag and shouting at the tops of their voices. +They were seen at last, and taken aboard the Tigress, "more like +ghastly spectres who had come up through hell," says one of the +narrators, "than living men." + +The pay of the signal-service soldiers is small, and it is hardly to +be supposed that they are all enthusiasts in science, or so in love +with meteorology that they cheerfully brave danger and hardships such +as these for its sake. We must look for the secret of their loyalty +to their steady, tedious work in that quiet devotion to duty which +we find in the majority of honest men--the feeling that they must +go through with what they have once undertaken. And, after all, +the majority of men are honest, and loyalty to irksome work is so +commonplace a matter that it is only when we see it carry a man +steadily through great and sudden peril, or consider how in its great +total the work of obscure individuals has lifted humanity to higher +levels in the last three centuries, that we can understand how good a +thing it is. + +At some future time we shall ransack the lower floor of the little +house on the beach and discover what is to be found there. + +REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + + + + +A DEAD LOVE. + + + O Rose! within my bloomy croft, + Where hidden sweets compacted dwell, + The wanton wind with breathings soft, + To perfect flower thy bud shall swell, + Then steal thy rich perfume, + Tarnish both grace and bloom, + Until, thy pearly prime being past, + Withered and dead thou'lt lie at last. + + O gleaming Night! whose cloudy hair + Waves dark amid its woven light, + Bestudded thick with jewels rare, + Than royal diadem more bright, + Lo! the white hands of Day + Shall strip thy gauds away, + And in the twilight of the morn + Mock thy estate with cold-eyed scorn. + + My love, O Rose! hath had a day + As fair, a fate as quick, as thine: + All wrapped in perfumed sleep I lay + Till my fond fancies grew divine, + And sweet Elysium seemed + Around me as I dreamed. + The rose is dead, the dawn comes fast: + Joy dies, but grief awakes at last. + + F.A. HILLARD. + + + + +GENTILHOMME AND GENTLEMAN. + + +"Le dernier gentilhomme de France vient de mourir!" exclaimed the +_Figaro_ a short time ago when recording the death of the Count de +Cambis. But the announcement has been made so often during the last +century that we are led to hope that the race may not be extinct +yet. Every generation of Frenchmen has boasted the possession of its +"first" and lamented the loss of its "last" "gentilhomme de France," +and on each occasion have hasty English journalists of the day joined +both in the glorification and the lamentation over the individuals +thus commemorated by their own countrymen. The term "gentilhomme" is +so liable to be confounded with "gentleman" that it needs explaining, +for, despite the similarity of derivation, no two words can be more +distinct. The French gentilhomme must be of noble blood: he must be +of ancient and distinguished race, for no _nouveau parvenu_ can ever +aspire to be cited as a _vrai gentilhomme_, while the qualifications +necessary for sustaining the character seem to be wholly confined to +the one virtue of generosity. Whenever you hear it said of a man, "Il +s'est conduit en vrai gentilhomme," be sure that it means no more than +that he performed a simple act of justice in a courteous and graceful +manner. The sacred and self-imposed qualities which make up the +significance of the English word "gentleman" no Frenchman, nor +indeed any foreigner, can understand, and the word itself is never +translated, but always left in its original English. Bulwer defines +the appellation more clearly than any other author when he says, "The +word _gentleman_ has become a title peculiar to us--not, as in other +countries, resting on pedigree and coats-of-arms, but embracing all +who unite gentleness with manhood." + +Now the gentilhomme of France is an entirely different type. He _must_ +rely on pedigree and coats-of-arms; he must be sudden and quick in +quarrel; he must fling away his money freely amongst the _roture_; he +must be what is called a _beau joueur_--that is to say, he may lose at +the gaming-table the dowry of his mother, the marriage-portion of +his sister, everything, in short, save his temper; he may defraud a +creditor, and be the first to laugh at the fraud. "One God, one +love, one king!" is the cry of the good old English gentleman. But in +religion the gentilhomme Francais may declare with Henri Quatre that +"Paris vaut bien une messe;" in love he may pledge his faith to as +many mistresses as that same valiant sovereign; and in politics he +may cry, "Vive le Roi! vive la Ligue!" and yet remain a _parfait +gentilhomme_ in spite of all. + +Every generation seems to have furnished its _parfait gentilhomme par +excellence_. The court of Louis Quatorze boasted of its Chevalier de +Grammont, from whose own confession we learn that he gloried in the +skill with which he cheated the poor Count de Camma at Lyons and the +cunning with which he eluded payment of his bill at the inn. + +Then came M. de Montrond, and he again was _premier gentilhomme de +France_ while he lived and _le dernier des gentilhommes Francais_ +when he died. M. de Montrond belonged to two generations, two +strongly-contrasted epochs. At his first ball at court he wore a +powdered _cadogan_ and danced in _talons rouges_: at his last he +lolled with bald head against a doorway, in varnished boots and +starched cravat. His existence has remained an enigma to this hour. +Although solicited to accept office by every party that rose to power +during his life, he steadfastly refused, and yet, by virtue of +his quality of premier gentilhomme de France, possessed unbounded +influence with them all. The explanation he gave of his system was +cynical enough: "A man must march straight to the cash-box and secure +the money, without waiting in the ante-room or the bureau: the power +is sure to follow." He chatted politics sometimes, but never "talked" +them, and seldom failed to introduce the names of one or more of the +forty-three duchesses, countesses and marquises whose peace of mind he +boasted of having wrecked for ever. Is it not strange that such frothy +frivolity could have obtained dominion for more than fifty years over +the most critical people in the world? But Montrond always declared +that no man in France would ever take the trouble to read a book +if once he had taken the trouble to read the preface. Even by the +capricious and pedantic yet ignorant society of fashionable London his +fantastical dominion was acknowledged; and the reason of this will be +understood at once in the fearlessness with which he uttered his rule +of conduct: "Every man of distinction should settle his income at ten +thousand pounds a year, and never trouble himself whether or not he +possesses as much for the capital." This premier gentilhomme de France +was proud of his want of reading, and used often to declare that the +only two books he had ever skimmed were the wearisome _Henriade_ +of Voltaire and the frivolous _Liaisons Dangereuses_ of Laclos. +No research, no analysis of character, can be found to explain the +strange inconsistency by which M. de Montrond was, notwithstanding, +entrusted by every government under which he lived with the most +important secrets, the most serious negotiations--sent abroad to stay +revolutions, summoned home to remodel constitutions, and consulted +on every point as though he had spent his whole life in the study of +Montesquieu or Colbert. Such was the moral life of the man pronounced +the premier gentilhomme de France by the fathers and grandfathers of +the present generation. + +Let us glance at the physical side of his existence--the outward and +visible sign of the distinctive title with which he was honored. M. +de Montrond began his career by the study of arms, wine, women and +dice--which constituted the accomplishments necessary for a gentleman +of the period--in the regiment of Royal Flanders. Theodore Lamette +was his first colonel, Douai his first garrison-town. Soon after his +arrival there every man in the place became his devoted friend, every +woman his willing slave, and every tradesman his ready creditor. It +so happened that a detachment of Royal Cravattes had sought temporary +quarters in the same town; and among the officers was a certain Comte +de Champagne, a great duelist and gamester. From this man, by some +good fortune, over which a veil has always been thrown by Montrond's +friends, he won a considerable sum, and on finding, after suffering +a considerable time to elapse, that no sign of payment was made, +he proclaimed his intention of taking steps--not according, but in +opposition, to the law--in order to obtain his due. Montrond knew +himself to be a wretched swordsman, and therefore resolved at once +to replace his want of skill by audacity. He sent his servant to the +stable where four-and-twenty goodly steeds belonging to the Count de +Champagne were champing their oats in all security, with orders to +carry them off and leave in lieu of the magnificent animals a message +to the effect that M. de Montrond would sell the stud to pay himself, +and hand over the balance to the Count de Champagne. In a few hours, +as he had expected, he was called to the field, and presented himself +before the great duelist with a phlegmatic humor which completely +upset the count's own self-possession. Montrond was hit hard at +the first lunge. He had intended to be; and the result has become +historical in the annals of dueling. He had been pierced in the breast +by his adversary's sword, and was evidently thought by the latter to +have received his death-wound. In token of this belief the Count de +Champagne lowered his weapon, and then M. de Montrond, making one +desperate thrust, drove his sword right through his adversary's heart. +The Count de Champagne fell dead without a cry, without a struggle. +Then M. de Montrond rose covered with glory and with honor, for in +such adventures lay the fame of the gentilhommes of that time. + +It would be impossible to recount the long catalogue of M. de +Montrond's triumphs after this. He became the idol of fashion--as much +with the Directoire as he had been with the old court--and under the +patronage of Madame Tallien he was permitted to carry amongst the +stern republicans the habits and morals of the Regence. It was at +this moment of his life that the one act of expiation of the past took +place. He worked with right good-will for the benefit of the exiled +nobles, many of whom were recalled through his influence, which was +so great that he found means to persuade the unkempt rulers of the +Republic to invite to their banquets the pardoned emigres, and to show +that they felt no rancor and experienced no dread. + +We were about to follow the example of Montrond himself, and forget +that he was married--"just as little as possible," as he was wont to +say, but legally, notwithstanding. He married during the Revolutionary +movement a _grande dame_, a divorced lady, a certain Duchesse de +Fleury, who had sought in this union nothing more than the protection +of her property against the name of her first husband, through which +it would have been infallibly condemned to confiscation. Many of +the great ladies of that time had done likewise, thus defrauding the +Republic. But the Duchesse de Fleury neglected the most important +precaution of all--that of securing protection against the protector +she had chosen, who at once seized the property--more gayly perhaps, +but quite as effectually as the Republic would have done. The terms +of the marriage-contract may be quoted as a specimen of the motives +by which the premier gentilhomme de France was governed in the +transaction. After the declaration that the Duchesse de Fleury had +brought to the _communaute_ certain houses and lands, besides an +income of forty thousand livres, we find added by way of set-off to +this fortune that the count engaged himself to bring yearly the sum +of a hundred thousand francs--the produce of his wits. After a little +while, the premier gentilhomme having exercised the said wits in +spending the produce of the houses and lands of Madame de Fleury, and +Madame de Fleury not being able to return the compliment by selling +the wits of the Count de Montrond, the two went on their respective +ways, leaving to Providence the task of redeeming the lands which the +wits had sold and the income which the wits had scattered to the four +winds of heaven. + +Space is wanting to recount the struggles of the different parties +which succeeded each other with such frightful rapidity in France +to obtain possession of the Count de Montrond's influence. But he +remained true to one principle, the one with which he started--"to +make straight for the cash-box." Yet with all this prosaic prudence, +amid the poetry of his position, the moral of this man's life was +fulfilled to the very letter. The Count de Montrond managed to outlive +every pecuniary resource save the one afforded by the remembrance of +"auld lang syne" and the unforgotten days of bygone love. He died in +the house of Madame Hamelin, after having been soothed and sheltered +by this friend and protectress through the revolutionary storm of +1848. He died dependent, subject to the same changes and caprice he +had so long inflicted upon others. + +Montrond's successor, the Count de Cambis, the man who has represented +the premier gentilhomme de France in our day, died lately at as good +an old age as the Count de Montrond. _Autres tems, autres moeurs_: no +more cheating at cards, no more beating the watch, as in the case of +the Chevalier de Grammont; no more dueling and killing the adversary +by surprise, as in that of the Count de Montrond. When the bourgeois +king, Louis Philippe, succeeded to the elder branch, the gentilhomme +Francais entirely lost his prestige, and the necessity of his +existence was ignored. Everything bourgeois had become the fashion at +court: the court itself was denominated a _basse-cour_ (farm-yard) by +the Faubourg St. Germain, and all who frequented it "les oies de Frere +Philippe" or "les canards d'Orleans." The Count de Cambis appeared at +that moment at the Tuileries in search of office. His name stood high +in the annals of the French noblesse: society had, however, ceased to +confound the gentilhomme with the roue. The conditions necessary +to fulfill the character were changed, and it was now the bourgeois +gentilhomme and not the gentilhomme roue whose claim to the vacant +place was more likely to be accepted. The Count de Cambis had held the +place of honorary equerry to the Duc d'Angouleme, having obtained +it less on account of his patent of nobility than by reason of his +unblemished character. He was now in search of some place about the +court, and soon found favor in the eyes of the citizen-king, to whom +the quiet virtues of the Tiers-Etat were of more value than the flash +and tinsel of the Regence. The count was of fine, commanding person +and handsome countenance: moreover, he was "the man with a story," and +a painful one it was, creative of the greatest interest in the tender +bosoms of the Orleans princesses. Although poor, belonging to a ruined +family, his prospects had been good at the court of Charles Dix, and +one of the greatest ladies of the court had cast her eyes upon him as +a suitable _parti_ for her daughter. The young lady, nothing loath, +had accepted with alacrity the proposition of marriage, seconded as +it was by the Duchesse d'Angouleme, and backed by the promise of high +office on its realization. A marriage is easy to arrange in France; +not so the execution of the marriage-contract, which is rendered as +wearisome by delays as the still more dilatory proceedings of the law; +and therefore it was deemed advisable, in order to pass this dismal +period, to despatch the Count de Cambis to Holland for the purchase of +horses for the royal stable. Arrived at The Hague, he was seized with +an attack of smallpox, which laid him prostrate on the low flock bed +of the miserable little inn to which he had been conveyed on landing +from the boat. Here he lay for some time incognito, his identity +unknown to any save the faithful valet who attended him, until he had +perfectly recovered from the disease, which, however, was found to +have left the most frightful traces of its passage in scar and seam +and furrow from forehead to chin. The handsome young cavalier who +landed so full of hope and spirits on the quay at The Hague rose from +his bed with a face bloated and discolored, seamed and scarred +and pockmarked, his once luxuriant locks grown thin and dank, his +eyelashes gone, his whole appearance so changed that as he gazed at +himself for the first time in the looking-glass he was overwhelmed +with such despair that, as he owned afterward to his friends, he would +have thrown himself from the window at which he stood into the canal +below had he not been prevented by the strong arm of his servant, +Dulac. A terrible period of anguish and depression followed on this +first excitement, but he awoke from it and returned to life once more, +a sadder and a wiser man. When the first impression of horror and +dismay had passed away his resolution was taken at once. He resolved +to disengage the lady from her vow, and sat down to write the words +which were to rend his heart in twain. At that moment Dulac entered +the room with a packet of letters just arrived from Paris by +estafette. Amongst them was one from the young lady's mother, full of +sweet pleasantry and graceful mirth, describing the gay doings at the +Tuileries, and the delight her daughter had experienced at the idea of +being allowed to attend the Duchesse d'Angouleme to the ball about to +be given in honor of the visit to Paris of some one or other of the +Spanish princes. She described with the greatest vivacity all the +details of the toilet to be worn by her chere petite Adele and the +kindness of the royal princess, and ended with the most affectionate +expressions of regret at the absence from the fete of her daughter's +affianced lover, writing in playful terms of the danger in which +Adele's heart would have been placed at the accession of so many new +and handsome cavaliers in attendance on the Spanish prince had it not +been for the precaution of wearing, as the safest shield against all +attacks, the locket which contained the portrait of her brave and +beautiful lover--the miniature he had given her on his departure. +He turned from the perusal of the letter with a deadly chill at his +heart: he crushed it in his hand, and threw it on the blazing logs +upon the hearth, holding it down with the tongs until every fiery +spark had disappeared, then watched the blackened flakes as they flew +one by one up the chimney; and when the last had disappeared he dashed +the tears from his eyes, and, to the great surprise and consternation +of Dulac, ordered him to pack up and prepare for their immediate +return to France. + +That very evening he set out by the passage-boat, and arrived in +Paris on the very night of the ball at the Tuileries. With the strange +self-immolation which is generated in some characters by despair +he caused himself to be driven by the quay round to the Place Louis +Quinze, and made the driver stop so that he might torture himself +with the sight of the lights and the shadows of the dancers. He then +alighted at his own door beneath the gateway in the Rue de Rivoli, +which at that hour was silent and deserted, for the line of carriages +were all setting down in the courtyard of the Place du Carrousel. The +gaping valets merely nodded acquiescence to the password he muttered +as, muffled up to the chin, he glided noiselessly over the polished +floor of the vestibule and hurried up the stairs. Dulac was well +pleased to be home again, anticipating with delight the enjoyment of +that repose which after such a long arid rapid journey he had well +earned. What, therefore, was his consternation when _Monsieur le +Comte_ announced his intention of attending the ball, ordering him +to prepare in all haste his court-costume for the purpose! Dulac was +accustomed to obey without opposition, and, although wondering at this +sudden vagary on the part of his master, usually so reasonable in +all things, hastened to do his bidding. The toilet was completed in +silence. A few tears were shed by Dulac over the thin lank locks he +was called upon to friz, and when all was completed and he held aloft +the girandole to light him down the back stairs used by members of the +royal household to gain admission to the state apartments of the +royal palace without passing through the crowd in the ante-room, the +faithful fellow turned heartbroken to his master's chamber. + +The Count de Cambis entered the ballroom at the moment when a +quadrille was being made up, and the very instinct of his love--for +it could not be mere chance--led him at once to the room and the place +where Mademoiselle de B---- was seated beside her mother. The count +has often told his friends that he trembled so violently that for a +few minutes he could neither speak nor move, but stood gazing upon +the young lady silent, motionless, as if rooted to the spot. The +whole seemed as if passing before him in a magic-lantern, and when +at length, recalled to himself by the amazement expressed upon the +countenances of both ladies, he ventured to ask his beautiful fiancee +for her hand in the dance, it was no wonder that she did not recognize +his voice, so choked and husky was it with emotion. But the young lady +turned abruptly away with an impatient gesture, and looked imploringly +at her mother for help against the intrusion of the repulsive gallant +she had secured. At a signal from the matron, which did not escape +the count, she bent her head, and the count, stooping also, caught the +whisper, "Nay, mon enfant, ugly as he is, he must not be refused, or +you cannot dance with any other partners all night." With pouting lips +and tearful eyes the young lady extended her hand, but by the time +she had raised her eyes again the suppliant had vanished through the +doorway, his disappearance as mysterious as his first apparition, and, +strange to say, was seen no more. He had caught sight of the locket, +the miniature of himself, with the bright eyes and flowing hair, the +long black eyelashes and glossy moustache. It seemed to reproach him +with the fraud he was premeditating against the lovely girl to whom, +if he listened to the dictates of honor, he must henceforth be as one +dead--as one, indeed, who had died many years before. + +His anguish was intense. The test of love had been deceptive, the +ordeal had failed, the verdict had been given against him. He went +back to his chamber, where Dulac was still busily engaged in unpacking +his valise, bade the astounded valet replace everything he had already +taken out, and hurry at once to the Poste aux Chevaux to command +horses for the return journey to The Hague. As soon as he arrived at +that place he wrote a long letter to the young lady's mother releasing +her daughter from all obligation toward himself, and announcing his +determination never to intrude himself upon her notice again. The +Duchesse d'Angouleme, whose experience of life was of its bitterness +alone, is said to have interfered to prevent the affair from becoming +public, and to have assisted in finding another _parti_ for the +deserted fair one. + +Meanwhile, the Restoration with its disappointments and broken vows +was replaced by the government of Louis Philippe with its hopes and +promises. The Count de Cambis, whose official position was annihilated +by the storm which swept over the kingdom, found himself immediately, +with the whole army of officials, compelled to choose between poverty +and obscurity or treachery to his former benefactors. When this combat +is allowed to take place between the heart and the stomach, the latter +generally carries the day; and so it did in this case. The Count de +Cambis did but follow the majority in binding himself at once to the +interests of the Orleans family. Louis Philippe, who, like all French +sovereigns, displayed undue eagerness to make use of the old servants +of the preceding dynasty, was not slow to avail himself of the offer +of service made by the Count de Cambis. A place was found for him as +superintendent of the royal stud, and here he really displayed that +disinterestedness in his dealings which entitled him to the highest +consideration. The Duke of Orleans, whose aristocratic tastes always +inclined him to favor distinction of birth, treated the Count de +Cambis with especial preference; and on his side the count was careful +to flatter the instincts of His Royal Highness by assuming the manners +and gait of the ancient raffines of the Garde Royale. One of +the duke's chief delights consisted in fashioning his household +regulations after the model set by the Due d'Angouleme, and the count +became his chief counsel and adviser in every matter concerning +the etiquette to be observed in a well-ordered court. The tradition +preserved to the latest hour of the existence of the royal stables +tells of the fatality which rendered the Count de Cambis the avenger +of the Restoration he had denied through his share in the catastrophe +which deprived the throne of July of its heir. + +It was the 13th of July, 1842. The day was fine. The duke appeared at +a window which looked into the courtyard where the Count de Cambis +was giving orders concerning the day's service. "The victoria to-day," +called out His Royal Highness from the balcony.--"And Tom?" was the +question sent upward to the duke.--"No, let me have Kent: he goes +best with Ridge," returned the duke.--"But Kent has been much worked +lately, monseigneur, and--."--"Well, well, Cambis, as you like: you +know best," was the final reply as the duke turned away from the +window and retreated into the chamber. Just then one of the grooms, +who had been standing at a respectful distance and had overheard the +words, came forward and in a voice full of mystery begged to inform M. +le Comte that something was wrong with Tom, who had been observed to +be restless and irritable the whole morning, and inquired whether it +would not be well to have him doctored. "Pooh! pooh!" exclaimed +the count. "You are all chicken-hearted in _your_ stable--always +complaining of Tom, whose only fault lies in his spirit. He only shows +his thorough breeding, and the duke wishes to make a gallant display +on starting. There is a crowd already gathered round the gate to +see him drive off." So Tom was harnessed, and the postilion who rode +Piedefer declares that from the very first he argued ill of Tom's +temper, for he observed a vicious expression in his eye, and a +distension of the nostrils which never boded good. + +The Duke of Orleans was driven from the palace-gate full of health and +spirits. He was to proceed to Neuilly to bid farewell to his mother, +Queen Amelie, at the little summer chateau there. Detractors of +the duke's character will tell you that on the way he stopped and +prolonged to undue length a visit he should not have made at all, and +that consequently he was compelled to urge the postilion to greater +speed. Whatever the cause, just at the entrance of the Route de la +Revolte the dreaded outburst of temper on the part of the irascible +Tom took place. At first merely fidgety, and managed with the greatest +delicacy by the English postilion, then ill-tempered and capricious, +swerving from side to side, necessitating in self-defence the use of +the whip--"But only gently and lighthanded, as one's obliged to do +sometimes, just to show 'em who's master," was the poor fellow's +explanation amid the bitter tears he shed when recounting the +catastrophe--when suddenly Tom reared and plunged, and set off at a +mad gallop which no human hand could have had the power to arrest. +The postilion kept a cool head and steady seat: not so the Duke of +Orleans, who rose to his feet in alarm just as the wheels of the +carriage struck against a stone. The shock caused him to lose his +balance: he was dashed violently to the ground, and in a few hours the +hope of France lay dead in the small back shop of a petty tradesman in +the avenue. + +The blow was a dreadful one--far heavier than that of a mere domestic +bereavement. It was felt that the royal family had lost its hold, not +of authority, but of sentiment, upon the nation--that the dynasty for +which such sacrifices had been made was wrecked for ever. But no blame +was attached to any individual save by the Count de Cambis himself, +who acknowledged the grievous responsibility he had incurred by +instantly sending in his resignation and withdrawing from court. In +vain did Louis Philippe endeavor to persuade him to return; in vain +did the queen herself, even amid the desolation of the first storm of +grief, disclaim any imputation of blame to the count; in vain did +the Duc de Nemours write with his own hand the urgent request that he +would resume office, were it only for a time, in order to display to +the world the conviction felt by every member of the royal family of +the utter absence of any neglect or carelessness on his part. It was +of no avail: the Count de Cambis remained steady to his purpose of +retirement, and disappeared entirely from court. + +It was not until the summer of 1847 that a renewal of intercourse took +place. The day was a festival, and the approaches to the palace were +thronged till a late hour. A garden below the windows, surrounded by +a low iron grating, and called the garden of the Count de Paris, had +just been closed for the night; the sound of the drums beating the +_retraite_ was already dying in the distance; the crowd had all +withdrawn, and yet one solitary figure still remained, leaning +disconsolately against the railing, gazing wistfully into the garden, +and every now and then casting furtive glances up at the balcony into +which opened the window of the apartment occupied by the Duchess of +Orleans. Presently a child came down the steps and walked straight to +the gate against which the stranger was leaning, his forehead pressed +against the grating, his hand grasping the iron bars. In a moment the +key was turned in the lock, a little hand was placed within that of +the Count de Cambis, and a gentle voice whispered in his ear, "Come +in! come in! We are all there to-night--grandpere and all. We want +to see you so much. It is mamma's fete." There was no resisting this +appeal. Le premier gentilhomme de France would have been compelled +to forego his title had he refused the invitation, and clasping +the child's hand he traversed the garden in silence, and soon found +himself in the midst of the royal family assembled to celebrate the +fete of St. Helene in the privacy of domestic affection. The sight +of the well-remembered faces, the smiles and greetings of the royal +family, the cordial kindness of the king, the silent sympathy of +the queen, the gentle welcome of the duchess, at length brought +consolation to the wounded spirit of the count, and without further +ado he consented at once to resume his old position; and the next day, +when he was seen galloping beside the royal carriage up the Champs +Elysees, he was greeted with hearty shouts of recognition by the +promenaders on either side. Everything now went on in the old train. +He was readmitted to the intimacy of the Orleans family, and retained +his place and the confidence of his master until the revolution +of February drove the Orleans family into exile. He retired into +obscurity with a grace and dignity befitting the premier gentilhomme +de France--without reproach, without a stain upon his escutcheon. He +refused the most tempting offers of employment at the imperial +court, and was seen no more, save when now and then, passing down the +boulevard with hurried steps, he was recognized by his long white hair +and braided jacket, with the persistent cipher of the royal house to +which he had been for so many years attached. Then, as he hastened +along with riding-whip in hand and jingling spurs upon his heels, +some old bourgeois sipping his demi-tasse at the door of a cafe would +exclaim, "There goes the Count de Cambis, le dernier gentilhomme de +France!" + +A desperate attempt was made by the imperialists to set up a premier +gentilhomme of their own in the person of Count Morny, who sought to +revive the traditions of De Grammont and of De Montrond. He was brave, +he was witty, his _physique_ might be said to realize the ideal of the +role, but his _morale_ was founded on the theories of the Bonaparte +school. De Grammont tells us how he cheated the greasy cattle-dealer; +De Montrond makes us laugh when he relates how in his tour of +mediation with Prince Talleyrand he was wont to take bribes from two +rival princes, each willing to pay a heavy sum that the other might +be baffled; but neither De Grammont nor De Montrond would ever have +consented to soil his hands with such vile commercial speculations as +the Houilleres d'Anzin or the Vieille Montagne, or condescend to such +disgraceful financial mystification as the "Affaire Jecker" of Mexico. + +It would be impossible to explain the difference which exists between +the "gentilhomme" and the "gentleman." It is felt and understood, +but cannot be described. The term "gentleman" itself is conventional. +Neither birth nor accomplishments, nor even gentle manners, are +necessary for undisputed assumption of the title. The man who acts +as a lawyer's clerk cannot be called a gentleman, according to Judge +Keating's decision, because, the title having no place in the language +of the law, if he chanced to be indicted for a criminal offence he +would be denominated a "laborer." Serjeant Talfourd's sweeping theory, +of the term "gentleman" being legally applicable to every man who has +nothing to do and is out of the workhouse, cannot be accepted, as it +would of necessity include thieves, mendicants and out-door paupers. +The American police have been compelled, to defend the border-line of +gentility against the encroachments of their vagabond gold-seekers, +card-sharpers and ruffians, and confine the term to those of +respectable calling. In California the term may be applied to every +individual of the male gender and the Caucasian race, the line being +drawn at Chinamen. An American writer contests the acceptance of the +term, in England as being too vague and uncertain for comprehension by +foreigners, and suggests that some less conventional designation than +those now in use should be found to indicate the idea. To the moral +sense it would be natural to suppose that character rather than +calling would be the most important point in the consideration of +the question; but it is not so. In the four-oared race of gentlemen +amateurs held last year at Agecroft in Lancashire the prize of +silver plate was won by a crew taken from a club composed entirely of +colliers, who had been allowed to row under protest, they not being +acknowledged as "_gentlemen_ amateurs." The race over and the prize +won by the colliers, an investigation took place by the committee. +The result was unanimity of the vote against acceptance of the +qualification of the winners. Here, then, occurred the best +illustration of the comprehension of the term by the moderns, for +the "gentlemen," deeming that money _must_ be a salvo to pride in +the bosom of all whose quality of gentleman remains unacknowledged, +subscribed a handsome sum to be distributed amongst the disappointed +crew. But here, again, the proof was given of the vague uncertainty of +the term, for the crew of colliers were _gentlemen_ enough to refuse +the proffered gift with scorn. + +G. COLMACHE. + + + + +SPECIAL PLEADING. + + Time, bring back my lord to me: + Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company? + Here's but a heart-break sandy waste + 'Twixt this and thee. Why, killing haste + Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee! + + Oh, would that I might divine + Thy name beyond the zodiac sign + Wherefrom our times-to-come descend. + He called thee _Sometime_. Change it, friend: + _Now-time_ soundeth far more fine. + + Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me: + Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-tree + And broods as gray as any dove, + And calls, _When wilt thou come, O Love_? + And pleads across the waste to thee. + + Good Moment, that giv'st him me, + Wast ever in love? Maybe, maybe + Thou'lt be this heavenly velvet time + When Day and Night as rhyme and rhyme + Set lip to lip dusk-modestly; + + Or haply some noon afar, + --O life's top bud, mixt rose and star! + How ever can thine utmost sweet + Be star-consummate, rose-complete, + Till thy rich reds full opened are? + + Well, be it dusk-time or noon-time, + I ask but one small, small boon, Time: + Come thou in night, come thou in day, + I care not, I care not: have thine own way, + But only, but only, come soon, Time. + + SIDNEY LANIER. + + + + +THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS. + +BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL." + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +WHAT MUST COME. + + +If Madame de Montfort could not teach Leam some of the things +generally considered essential to the education of a gentlewoman, if +her orthography was disorderly, her grammar shaky, her knowledge of +geography, history and language best expressed by _x_, and her moral +perceptions never clear and seldom straight, she was yet far in +advance of a girl whose training in all things was so infinitely below +even her own dwarfed standard. Madame could read with native grace +and commendable fluency, making nimble leapfrogs over the heads of the +exceptionally hard passages, but Leam had to spell every third word, +and then she made a mess of it, Madame did know that eight and seven +are fifteen, but Leam could not get beyond five and five are ten and +one over makes eleven. If madame thought deception the indispensable +condition of pleasant companionship, and lies the current coin of good +society--in which she certainly sided with the majority of believing +Christians--Leam would be none the worse for a little softening of +that crude out-speaking of hers, which was less sincerity than the +hardness of youthful ignorance and the insolence of false pride. If +madame was only lacquer, and not clear gold all through, Leam had not +the grace of even the thinnest layer of varnish, and might well take +lessons in the religion of appearances and that thing which we call +"manner." Madame did know at least how to bear herself with the +seeming of a lady, and could say her shibboleth as it ought to be +said. Thus, she ate with delicacy and held her knife nicely poised and +balanced, but Leam grasped hers like a whanger, and cut off pieces of +meat anyhow, which as often as not she took from the point. Mamma had +eaten with her knife grasped also like a whanger, and why might not +she? she said when madame remonstrated and gave her a lecture on the +aesthetics of the table. And why should she not make her bread her +plate, and hold both bread and meat in her hand if she liked? Why +was she to wipe her lips when she drank? and why, traveling farther +afield, was she to speak when she was spoken to if she would rather be +silent? Why get up from her chair when ladies like Mrs, Harrowby and +Mrs. Birkett came into the room? They did not get up from their chairs +when she went into their rooms, and mamma never did. And why might she +not say what she thought and show what she disliked? Mamma said what +she thought and showed what she disliked, and mamma's rule was her +law. + +All these objections madame had to combat, and all these things to +teach, and many more besides. And as Leam was young, and as even +the hardest youth is unconsciously plastic because unconsciously +imitative, the suave instructress did really make some impression; +so that when she assured the incredulous neighborhood of Leam's +improvement she had more solid data than always underlaid her words, +and was partly justified in her assertion. + +Religion, too, was another point on which the forces of new and old +met in collision. Madame was of course what is meant by the word +"religious." Like all persons trading on falsehood and living +in deception, her orthodoxy was undoubted, and the most rigid +investigation could not have discovered an unsound spot anywhere. +She would as soon have thought of questioning her own existence as of +doubting the literal exactness of the first chapter of Genesis, +and she thought science an awfully wicked thing because it went +to disprove the story of the six days. She firmly believed in the +personality of Satan and material fires for wicked souls; and the +sweet way in which she lamented the probable paucity of the saved was +extremely edifying, not to say touching. This childlike acceptance, +this faithful orthodoxy, was one of the things for which the rector +liked her so well. He had a profound contempt for science and +skepticism together; and an unbeliever, even if learned in the stars +and old bones, ranked with him as a knave or a fool, and sometimes +both. His pet joke, which was not original, was that there was only +one letter of difference between septic and skeptic, and of the two +the skeptic was the more unsavory. + +Being then pious, madame had hung about her walls short texts in fancy +lettering, with a great deal of scroll-work in gold and carmine to +make them look pretty. When she came into possession of Leam's mind, +she was shocked at her ignorance of all the sayings that were so +familiar to herself and other persons of respectability. Leam knew +nothing but a few barbarous prayers to saints, used more after the +fashion of charms than anything else, the ave and the paternoster said +incorrectly and not understood when said. Wherefore madame caused to +be illuminated some texts for her room too, as lessons always before +her eyes, and counter-charms to those heathenish invocations in which +the child put her sole faith and trust of salvation. And among other +things she gave her the Ten Commandments, very charmingly done. +Round each commandment were pictures, emblems, symbolic flowers, all +enclosed in fancy scroll-work of an elaborate kind. Really, it was a +very creditable piece of bastard art, and Mr. Dundas was moved almost +to tears by it. Madame did it herself--so she said with a tender +little smile--as her pleasant surprise for poor dear Leam on her +fifteenth birthday. And Leam was so far tamed in that she suffered +the Tables to be hung up in her bedroom, and even found pleasure in +looking at them. The pictures of Ruth and Naomi; of the thief running +away with the money-bags; of a woman lying prostrate with long hair, +and a broken lily at her side; of a murdered man prone in the snow, +and a frightened-looking bravo, half covering his face in his cloak, +fleeing away in the darkness, with a bowl marked "poison" and a dagger +dripping with blood in the margin,--all these pictures, which stood +against the commandments they illustrated, fascinated her greatly. The +colors and the gilding, the flowers and the emblems, pleased her, +and she took the texts sandwiched between as the jalap in the jam. At +first she thought it impious to have them there at all, because they +were in the Bible, and mamma used to say that good Christians never +read the Bible. It was a holy book which only priests might use, and +when those pigs of Protestants looked into it and read it, just as +they would read the newspaper, they profaned it. But by force of habit +she reconciled herself to the profanity, and by frequent looking at +the art got the literature into her head. And when it was there she +did not find anything in it to be afraid of or to condemn as too +mysteriously holy for her knowledge. All of which was so much to the +good; and Mr. Dundas had no words strong enough whereby to express his +gratitude to the fair woman who had saved his child from destruction +by giving her the Ten Commandments made pretty by adjuncts of bastard +art. + +But had it not been for Alick Corfield, Madame la Marquise de Montfort +would not have made quite so much way. Alick and Leam used to meet +in Steel's Wood; and when Leam carried her perplexities to Alick, and +Alick told her that she ought to yield and gave her the reasons why, +after first fiercely combating him, telling him he was stupid, wicked, +unkind, she always ended by promising to obey; and when Leam promised +the things agreed to might be considered done. In point of fact, +then, it was Alick who was really moulding her, in excess of that +unconscious plasticity and imitation already spoken of. But this was +one of the things which the world did not know, and where judgment +went awry in consequence. + +Of course the neighborhood saw what was coming--what must come, +indeed, by the very force of circumstances. The friendship which had +sprung up from the first between Mr. Dundas and madame could not stop +at friendship now, when both were free and evidently so necessary +to each other. For madame, with that noble frankness backed by wise +reticence characteristic of her, had told every one of her loss by +which she had been necessitated to become Leam's governess; always +adding, "So that I am glad to be able to work, seeing that I am +obliged to do so, as I could not borrow, even for a short time: I am +too proud for that, and I hope too honest." + +Wherefore, as she was evidently Leam's salvation, according to her own +account, and Sebastian was confessedly her income, and a very good one +too, there was no reason why their several lines should not coalesce +in an indissoluble union, and one home be made to serve them instead +of two. As indeed it came about. + +When the year of conventional mourning had been perfected, on the +anniversary of the very day when poor Pepita died, the final words +were said, the last frail barrier of madame's conjugal memories +and widowed regrets was removed, and Sebastian Dundas went home +the gladdest man in England. All that long bad past was now to be +redeemed, and he had made a good bargain with life to have passed +through even so much misery to come at the end into such reward. + +Nothing startled him, nothing chilled him. When madame, laying +her hand on his arm, said in a kind of playful candor infinitely +bewitching, "Remember, dear friend, I told you beforehand that I have +lost _all_ my fortune; in marrying me you marry only myself with my +past, my child and my liabilities," his mind repudiated the idea of +the flimsiest shadow on that past, the faintest blur on its spotless +record. As for her child, it was his: he would give it his name, it +should be dearer to him than his own; which, all things considered, +was not an overwhelming provision of love; and her liabilities, +whatever they were, he would be glad to discharge them as a proof of +his love for her and the forging of another golden link between them. + +He doubted nothing, believed all, and loved as much as he believed. +He was happy, radiant, content: the woman whom he loved loved him, and +had consented to become his wife. In giving her dear self to him she +was also accepting security and devotion at his hands; and what more +can a true man want than to be of good service to the woman he loves? +If women like to minister, it is the pride of men to protect; and if +the vow to endow with all his worldly goods is a fable in fact, it is +true as an instinctive feeling. + +When Mrs. Harrowby heard that the marriage was positively arranged, +she sat with her daughters at a kind of inquest on their dead +friendship with Sebastian Dundas, and came to the conclusion that +they must know something more definite now about this person calling +herself Madame la Marquise de Montfort. As a stranger it was all +very well to overlook the vagueness of her biography--they were +not committed to anything really dangerous by simply visiting a +householder among them--but it was another matter if she was to be +married to one of themselves. Then they must learn who she really +was, and Mr. Dundas must satisfy them scrupulously, else they should +decline to know her. + +"It will make a great gap in our society," said kindly Josephine, who, +having the most to suffer, had forgiven the most readily. + +"Gap or no gap, it is what we owe to ourselves," said Mrs. Harrowby. + +"And to Edgar," added Maria. + +"I shall call on Sebastian to-morrow," said Mrs. Harrowby, laying +aside her knitting with the air of a minister who has dictated his +protocol and has now only to sign the clean copy. + +"Sleep on it, mamma," pleaded Josephine. + +"It will make no difference," returned the mother; and her elder two +echoed in concert, "I hope not." + +The next day Mrs. Harrowby did call on Mr. Dundas, and, finding that +gentleman at home, succeeded in speaking her mind. She conveyed her +ultimatum as a corporate not individual resolution, speaking in the +name of the "ladies of the place," which she was scarcely entitled to +do. + +Mr. Dundas declined to satisfy her. Indeed, it would have been +difficult for him to have done so, seeing that he knew no more of +Madame de Montfort, his intended wife, than what they all knew; which +was substantially nothing, unless her fancy autobiography could be +called something. He spoke, however, as if he had her private memoirs +and all the branches, roots and hole of the family tree in his pocket; +and he spoke loftily, with the intimation that she was superior; to +all at North Aston, Mrs. Harrowby herself included. + +This interview, with its demand unsatisfied and its assertions +unproved, sent the coolness already existing between the Hill and +Andalusia Cottage down to freezing-point; and the worst of it was that +Mrs. Harrowby did not find backers. The neighborhood did not take up +the cause as she expected it would. It halted midway and faced both +sides, in the manner so dear to English respectability--less cordial +to Mr. Dundas and madame than it would have been had Mrs. Harrowby +been friendly, but unwilling to follow her to the bitter end. As they +said to each other, it was all very well for Mrs. Harrowby to be so +severe on the marriage, because she was angry and disappointed--and an +angry and disappointed mother is ever unreasonable--but they who +had no daughters to marry, really they did not see why they should +persecute that poor madame who was such pleasant company, and +had behaved herself with so much propriety since she came. And if +Sebastian Dundas was going to make a second mistake, that was his +lookout, and would be his punishment. + +On the whole, the neighborhood when polled was decidedly more friendly +than hostile. The Corfields and Fairbairns were, as they had always +been, neutrals of a genial tint, more for than against; Mr. and Mrs. +Birkett were warm partisans; and only Adelaide joined hands with the +Hill and said that Mrs. Harrowby was justified in her renunciation +and that madame was a wretch. And for the first time in her life +the rector's daughter spoke compassionately of Leam and humanely of +Pepita, saying of the one how much she pitied her, having such a woman +for a stepmother; of the other, that, horrible as she was, at least +they knew the worst of her, which was more than they could say of +madame. + +She made her father very angry when she said these things, but she +repeated them, nevertheless; and she knew that he dared not scold her +too severely before the world for fear of that little something called +conscience, and knowledge of the reason why he believed in Madame de +Montfort so implicitly. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +RECKONING WITH LEAM. + + +The announcement of her father's intended marriage with madame came +on Leam with a crushing sense of terror and despair. Unobservant youth +sees little, and even what it does see it does not comprehend. Though +the girl had accustomed herself by slow degrees to many works and ways +which mamma had never known; though the faculties which had been, as +it were, imprisoned by that close-set, hide-bound love of hers were +now a little loosened and set free; though the activities of youth +were stirring in her, and her inner life, if still isolated, was a +shade more expanded than of old,--yet she had no desire for greater +change, and she had no keener vision for the world outside herself +than before. She saw nothing of that diabolical thing which her +father and madame had been so long plotting as the outcome of their +friendship, the parable of which her education had been the text. If +her intelligence was warping out from the narrow limits in which her +mother had confined it, it was still below the average--as much as her +feverish love and tenacious loyalty were above. All that she knew +was, mamma dead was the same as mamma living, only to be more tenderly +dealt with, as she could not defend herself; and that she wondered how +papa could be so wicked as to affront her now that she was not able to +punish him and let him know what she thought of him. + +When he told her that he was going to give her a new mother, one whom +she must love as she had loved her own poor dear mamma--- he was so +happy he could afford to be tender even to that terrible past and poor +Pepita--Leam's first sensation was one of terror, her first movement +one of repulsion. She flung off the hand which he had laid on her +shoulder and drew back a few steps, facing him, her breath held, her +tragic eyes flashing, her face struck to stone by what she had heard. + +"Well, my dear, you need not look so surprised," said Mr. Dundas +jauntily. "And you need not look so terrified. Your new mother will +not hurt you," + +"She shall not be my mother, papa," said Learn: "I will not own her." + +"You will do what I tell you to do," her father returned with +admirable self-command. + +"Not when you tell me to do a crime," flashed Leam. + +Mr. Dundas smiled. "Your words are a trifle strong," he said. + +"It is a crime," she reiterated. "But if you have forgotten mamma, and +want to affront her now that she cannot defend herself, I have not, +and never will." + +Mr. Dundas smiled again. If he was so happy that he could afford to +be tender to the past, so also could he afford to be patient with +the present. "Foolish child!" he said compassionately: "you do not +understand things yet." + +"I understand that I love mamma, and will not have this wicked woman +in her place," said Leam hotly. + +"I think you will," he answered, playing with his watch-guard. "And in +the future, my little daughter, you will thank me." + +"Thank you? For what?" asked Leam. "You made mamma miserable when she +lived: you and your madame helped to kill her, and now you put this +woman in her place! Papa, I wonder Saint Jago lets you live." + +"As Saint Jago is kind enough to leave me in peace, perhaps you +will follow his example. What a saint allows my little daughter may +accept," said Mr. Dundas mockingly. + +"No," said Leam with pathetic solemnity, "if the saints forget mamma, +I will not." + +"My dear, you are a fool," said Mr. Dundas. + +"You may call me what you like, but madame shall not be my mother," +returned Leam. + +"Madame will be your mother because she will be my wife," said +Mr. Dundas slowly. "Unfortunately for you--perhaps for myself +also--neither you nor I can alter the law of the land. The child must +accept the consequences of the father's act." + +"Then I will kill her," cried Leam. + +Her father laughed gayly. "I think we will brave this desperate +danger," he said. "It is a fearful threat, I grant--an awful +peril--but we must brave it, for all that." + +"Papa," said Leam, "I will pray to the saints that when you die you +may not go to heaven with mamma and me." + +It was her last bolt, her supreme effort at threat and entreaty, and +it meant everything. If her words of themselves would have amused +Mr. Dundas as a child's ignorant impertinence, the superstition of an +untaught, untutored mind, her looks and manner affected him painfully. +True, he did not love her--on the contrary, he disliked her--but, all +the same, she was his child; and, dissected, realized, it was rather +an awful thing that she had said. It showed an amount of hatred and +contempt which went far beyond his dislike for her, and made him +shudder at the strength of feeling, the tenacity of hate, in one so +young. + +If more absurdity than good sense is talked about natural affection, +still there is a residuum of fact underneath the folly; and Leam's +words had struck down to that small residuum in her father's heart. It +was not that he was wounded sentimentally so much as in his sense of +proprietorship, his paternal superiority, and he was angry rather than +sorrowful. It made him feel that he had borne with her waywardness +long enough now: it was time to put a stop to it. "Now, Leam, no more +insolence and no more nonsense," he said sternly. "You have tried my +patience long enough. This day month I marry Madame de Montfort, with +or without your pleasure, my little girl. In a month after that I +bring her home here as my wife, consequently your mother, the mistress +of the house and of you. I give you the best guide, the best friend, +you have ever had or could have: you will live to value her as she +deserves. Your own mother was not fit to guide you: your new one will +make you all that my dearest hopes would have you. Now go. Think over +what I have said. If you do not like our arrangements, so much the +worse for you." + +"The saints will never let her come here as my mother. I will pray to +them night and day to kill her." said Leam in a deep voice, clenching +her hands and setting her small square teeth, as her mother used to +set hers, like a trap. + +Naturally, the second Mrs. Dundas could not be brought home without +a certain upsetting of the old order and a rearrangement of things +to suit the new. And the upsetting was not stinted, nor were the +exertions of Mr. Dundas. He superintended everything himself, to the +choice of a tea-cup, the looping of a curtain, and racked his brains +to make his beloved's bower the fit expression of his love, though +never to his mind could it be worthy of her deserving. There was not +an ornament in the place but was dedicated to her, placed where she +could see it on such and such an occasion, and shifted twenty times a +day for a more advantageous position. Everything which the house +had of most beautiful was pressed into her service, and even Leam's +natural rights of inheritance were ignored for madame's better +endowing. Lace, jewelry, trinkets, all that had been Pepita's, was +now hers, and the man's restless desire to make her rich and her home +beautiful seemed insatiable. + +But there was always Leam in the background with whom he had to +reckon--Leam, who wandered through the house in her straight-cut, +plain black gown, made in the deepest fashion of mourning devisable, +pale, silent, feverish, like an avenging spirit on his track; undoing +what he had done if he had profaned an embodied memory of her mother, +and as impervious to his anger as he was to her despair. + +One day he carried from the drawing-room to the boudoir which was to +be madame's, and had been Pepita's, a certain Spanish vase which had +been a favorite ornament with her because it reminded her of home. +He firmly fixed it on the bracket destined for it, opposite the couch +where he longed so ardently to see his fair and queenly loved one +sitting--he by her side in the lovers' paradise of secure content; but +the next time he went into the room he found it lying in fragments on +the floor. None of the servants knew how the mischance had happened: +the window was not open, and none of them had been in the room. +How, then, came it there, broken on the floor? When he asked Leam, +wandering by in that pale, feverish, avenging way of hers, he knew the +truth. + +"Yes," she said defiantly, "I broke it. It was mamma's, and your +madame shall not have it." + +"If you intend to go on like this I shall have you sent to school or +shut up in a lunatic asylum," cried Mr. Dundas in extreme wrath. + +"Then I shall be alone with mamma, and shall not see you or your +madame," answered Leam, unconquered. + +"You are a hardened, shameful, wicked girl," said her father angrily. +"Madame is an angel of goodness to undertake the care of such a +wretched creature as you are. I could not do too much for her if I +gave her all I had, and you can never be grateful enough for such a +mother." + +"She is not my mother, and she shall not pollute mamma's things," Leam +answered with passionate solemnity. "If you give them to her I will +break or burn them. Mamma's things are her own, and she shall not be +made unhappy in heaven." + +Provoked beyond himself, Sebastian Dundas said scornfully, "Heaven! +You talk of heaven as if you knew all about it, Leam, like the next +parish. How do you know she is there, and not in the place of torment +instead? Your mother was scarcely of the stuff of which angels are +made." + +"Then if she is in the place of torment, she is unhappy enough as +it is, and need not be made more so," said faithful Leam, suddenly +breaking into piteous weeping; adding through her sobs, "and madame +shall not have her things." + +Her tenacity carried the day so far that Mr. Dundas left off +rearranging the old, and sent up to London for things new and without +embarrassing memories attached to them. On which Leam swept off all +that had been her mother's, and locked up her treasures in her own +private cupboard, carrying the key in the hiding-place which that +mother had taught her to use, the thick coils of her hair. And her +father, warned by that episode of the vase, and a little dominated, +not to say appalled, by her resolute fidelity, shut his eyes to her +domestic larceny and let her carry off her relics in safety. + +So the time passed, miserably enough to the one, if full of hope and +the promise of joy to the other; and the wedding morning came whereon +Sebastian Dundas was to be made, as he phrased it, happy for life. + +It had been madame's desire that Leam should be her bridesmaid. She +had laid great stress on this, and her lover would have gratified her +if he could. He had no wish that way--rather the contrary--but her +will was his law, and he did his best to carry it into effect. But +when he told Leam what he wanted--and he told her quite carelessly, +and so much as a matter of course that he hoped she too would accept +her position as a matter of course--the girl, enlightened by love if +not by knowledge, broke into a torrent of disdain that soon showed him +how sleeveless his errand was likely to be. + +He did his best, and tried all methods from pleading to threatening, +but Leam was immovable. No power on earth should bend her, she said, +or make her take part in that wicked day. She go to church? She would +expect to be struck dead if she did. She expected, indeed, that all of +them would be struck dead. She had prayed the saints so hard, so hard, +to prevent this marriage, she was sure they would at the last; and if +they did not, she would never believe in them nor pray to them again. +But she did believe in them, and she was sure they would punish this +dreadful crime. No, she would take no part in it. Why should she put +herself in the way of being punished when she was not to blame? + +So Mr. Dundas had the mortification of carrying to his bride-elect +the intelligence that he had been worsted in his conflict with his +daughter, and that her hatred and reluctance were to be neither +concealed nor overcome. + +Madame was sorry, she said with her sweetest air of patience and +liberal comprehension. She would have liked the dear girl to have been +her bridesmaid: it would have been appropriate and touching. But +as she declined--and her feelings were easy to be understood and +honorable, if a little extreme--she, madame, elected to be married +as a widow should, with only Mrs. Birkett and Mr. Fairbairn as the +witnesses, Mr. Fairbairn to give her away for form's sake. The dear +rector of course would marry them in this simple manner. They must +hope that time and her own unvarying affection--Mr. Dundas called it +sweetness, angelic patience, greatness of soul--would soften poor Leam +into loving acceptance of what would be so much to her good when she +could be got to understand it. Meanwhile they must be patient--content +to go gradually and gain her bit by bit. She, madame, would be +quite content with her presence in the room, when they returned to +breakfast, in the pretty white muslin frock ordered from town as the +sign of her participation in the event. + +But when the morning came, where was Leam? The most diligent search +failed to discover her, and the only person who could have betrayed +her whereabouts was the last whom they would have thought of asking. + +Of course, Mr. Dundas was properly distressed at this strange +disappearance, and madame was unduly afflicted. She proposed that the +marriage should be delayed till the girl was found, but the lover was +stronger than the father, and she was overruled--yielding because it +is the duty of the wife to yield, but only because of that duty--for +her own part desirous of delay until they were assured of the safety +of Leam. + +The ceremony, however, was performed within the canonical hours, the +rector a little tremulous and apparently suffering from sore throat; +and as the happy pair drove away, madame, remembering her advent and +her objects more than a year ago now, could not but confess that she +had done better than she expected, and, her conscience whispered, +better than she deserved. + +All this time Leam was sitting on the lower branches of the yew tree +beneath which that godless ruffian had murdered his poor sweetheart +two generations ago in Steel's Wood. It was a lonely corner, where no +one would have gone by choice at the best of times, but now, with its +bad name and evil association, it was entirely deserted. Leam had made +it her hiding-place ever since madame had taken her in hand to teach +her the correct pronunciation of Shibboleth, and she had escaped +from her teaching and run away into the wood, armed banditti and wild +beasts notwithstanding. And one day, hunting in it for fungi, Alick +Corfield had found her sitting there, and thenceforth they had shared +the retreat between them. + +No one knew that they met there, and no one suspected it--not even +Mrs. Corfield, who believed, after the manner of mothers who bring up +their boys at home, that she knew the whole of her son's life from end +to end, and that he had not a thought kept back from her, nor had ever +committed an action of which she was not cognizant. + +Alick had installed Leam as the girl-queen of his imagination, and +paid her the homage which she seemed to him to deserve more than many +a real queen crowned and sceptered or princess born in the purple. It +pleased him to write bad poems to her as his Infanta, his royal rose, +his pomegranate flower, his nestling eagle waiting for strength to +fly upward to the sun--all with halting feet and strained metaphor. +He drew pictures of her by the dozen, mostly symbolic and all out +of drawing, but expressive of his admiration, his hope, his respect; +while to Leam he was little better than a two-legged talking dog whose +knowledge interested and whose goodness swayed her, but on whose neck +she set her little foot and kept it there. She always treated him with +profound disdain, even when he told her curious things that were like +fairy-tales, some of which she did not believe if they were too far +removed from the narrow area of her personal experience. Thus, when he +assured her that certain plants fed on flies as men feed on meat, she +told him with her sublime Spanish calm, "I do not believe it." And she +said the same when he one day informed her that the planets could be +weighed and their distance from the earth and the sun measured. In +the beginning she knew nothing--neither whether the earth was round or +flat, nor what was the meaning of the stars, nor the name of one wild +flower excepting daisies, nor of one great man. That fallow waste +called her mind was virgin ground in truth, but Alick was patient, +and labored hard at the stubborn soil; and when madame had given the +credit to her own tact and those ugly little books from which she +taught, it was to him really that Leam's microscopic amount of +plasticity and reception was due. + +These secret meetings amused Leam, and kept her from that ceaseless +inward contemplation of her mother which else was her only voluntary +occupation. They gave her a sense of power, as well as of successful +rebellion to her father, that gratified her pride. To be sure, +they were not what mamma would have liked. Alick Corfield was an +Englishman, and mamma hated the English. But then, Leam reflected, she +had not known Alick: if she had, she would have seen there was no harm +in him, and that he was not teaching her things which a child of Spain +ought not to know, and which Saint Jago would be angry with her for +learning. And perhaps now that mamma was up in heaven, and knew all +that went on here at home, she would not mind her little Leama seeing +Alick Corfield so often. In her prayers she told her very faithfully +all that she had done and felt and thought; she never deceived her a +hair's breadth; and as she had asked her permission so often and so +humbly, she made sure now that it was granted. Mamma could not refuse +her when she asked her so earnestly; and she was not angry, but on the +contrary glad, that her little heart had such a good dog to care for +her, and that she was defying el senor papa, that false image of the +false saint. + +For the rest, it was only natural that she should like the air of +quasi adventure and independence which this unknown, intercourse with +Alick gave her. And as she was still in that conscienceless phase of +youth when liking means everything, and honor without love is a grass +having neither root nor flower, she continued to meet her faithful +dog, and to learn from him--not all that he could tell her, but what +she chose to accept. + +So here it was, perched among the lower branches of the yew tree in +Steel's Wood, that Leam spent her father's wedding-day with Madame la +Marquise de Montfort; and when she became hungry Alick went home and +brought her some dry bread and grapes from Steel's Corner, Dry bread +and grapes--this was all that she would have, she said. She was not +greedy like the English, who thought of nothing but eating, she added +in her disdainful way; and if Alick brought her anything but bread and +grapes, she would fling it into the wood. On his life he was not to +touch anything on papa's table. She would rather die of hunger than +eat their wicked food. She wondered it did not choke them both. + +"Now go," she said superbly, "and come back soon: I am hungry," as if +her sense of inconvenience was a catastrophe which heaven and earth +should be moved to avert. + +But young and so beautiful as she was, her little tricks of pride and +arbitrariness were just so many additional charms to Alick; and if +she had not flouted and commanded him, he would have thought that +something terrible was about to happen: had she become docile, +grateful, familiar, he would have expected her to die before the day +was out. He liked her superb assumption of superiority. She was his +girl-queen, and he was her slave; she was his mistress, and he was her +dog; and, dog-like, he fawned at her feet even when she rated him and +placed her little foot on his neck. + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +AT STEEL'S CORNER. + + +"I hope you will not be bored, my boy, but I am thinking of bringing +that wretched Leam Dundas here for a few days. I don't like a girl +of her age and character to be left for a full month alone. It is +not right, for who knows what she may not do? If she ran away on the +wedding-day, she may run away again, and then where would we all be? +I cannot think what her father was about to leave her unprotected like +this. So I shall just take and bring her here; and if you are bored +with her, you must make the best of it." + +Mrs. Corfield and Alick were sitting in the "work-room" on the morning +of the fifth day after the marriage, when the thought struck the +little woman of the propriety of Leam's visit to them for the month of +her father's absence. She did not see her son's face when she spoke, +being busy with her wood-carving. If she had, she would not have +thought that the presence of Leam Dundas would bore or annoy him. The +clumsy features gladdened into smiles, the dull eye brightened, the +dim complexion flushed: if ever a face expressed supreme delight, +Alick's did then; and it expressed what he felt, for, as we know, the +one love of his boyish life was this girl-queen of his fancy. Not that +he was in love with her in the ordinary sense of being in love. He +was too reverent and she too young for vulgar passion or commonplace +sentiment. She was something precious to his imagination, not his +senses, like a child-queen to her courtier, a high-born lady to her +page. He bore with her girlish temper, her girlish insolence of pride, +her ignorant opposition, with the humility of strength bending its +neck to weakness--the devotion and unselfish sweetness characteristic +of him in other of his relations than those with Leam. Judge, then, if +he was likely to be bored, as his mother feared, or if this project of +a closer domestication with her was not rather a "bit of blue" in +his sky which made these early autumn days gladder than the gladdest +summer-time. + +To will and to do were synonymous with Mrs. Corfield: her motto was +_velle est agere_; and a resolve once taken was like iron at white +heat, struck into the shape of deed on the instant. Darting up from +her chair, birdlike and angular, she put away her work. "Order the +trap," she said briskly, "and come with me. We will go at once, before +that poor creature has had time to do anything, wild, or silly." + +"I do not think she would do anything wild or silly, mother," said +Alick in a deprecating voice. It galled him to hear his darling spoken +of so slightingly. + +"No? What has she ever done that was rational?" cried his mother +sharply. "From the beginning, when she was a baby of three months old, +and howled at me because I kissed her, and that dreadful mother of +hers flew at me like a wildcat and said I had the evil eye, Leam +Dundas has been more like some changeling than an ordinary English +girl. I declare it sometimes makes my heart ache to, see her with +those awful eyes of hers, looking as if she had seen one does not +know what--as if she was being literally burnt up alive with sorrow. +However, don't let us discuss her: let us fetch her and save her from +herself. That is more to the purpose at this moment." + +And Alick said "Yes," and went out to order the trap with alacrity. + +When they reached Andalusia Cottage, the first thing they saw was a +strange workman from Sherrington painting out the name which in his +early love-days for his Spanish bride Sebastian Dundas had put up in +bold letters across the gate-posts. The original name of the place had +been Ford House, but the old had had to give place to the new in +those days as in these, and Ford House had been rechristened Andalusia +Cottage as a testimony and an homage. Mrs. Corfield questioned the +man in her keen inquisitorial way as to what he was about; and when +he told her that the posts were to show "Virginia" now instead of +"Andalusia," her great disgust, to judge by the sharp things which she +said to him, seemed as if it took in the innocent hand as well as the +peccant head. "I do think Sebastian Dundas is bewitched," she said +disdainfully to her son as they drove up to the house. "Did any one +ever hear of such a lunatic? Changing the name of his house with +his wives in this manner, and expecting us to remember all his +absurdities! Such a man as that to be a father! Lord of the creation, +indeed! He is no better than a court fool." Which last scornful +ejaculation brought the trap to the front door and into the presence +of Leam. + +Standing on the lawn bareheaded in the morning sunshine, doing nothing +and apparently seeing nothing, dressed in the deepest mourning she +could make for herself, and with her high comb and mantilla as in +olden days, her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands clasped in each +other, her wan face set and rigid, her whole attitude one of mute, +unfathomable despair,--for the instant even Mrs. Corfield, with all +her constitutional contempt for youth, felt hushed, as in the presence +of some deep human tragedy, at the sight of this poor sorrowful child, +this miserable mourner of fifteen. Instead of speaking in her usual +quick manner, the sharp-faced little woman, poor Pepita's "crooked +stick," went up to the girl quietly and softly touched her arm. + +Leam slowly raised her eyes. She did not start or cry out as a +creature naturally would if startled, but she seemed as if she +gradually and with difficulty awakened from sleep, or from something +even more profound than sleep. "Yes?" she said in answer to the touch. +"What do you want?" + +It was an odd question, and Leam's grave intensity made it all the +more odd. But Mrs, Corfield was not easily disconcerted, and it was +"only Leam" at the worst. + +"I want you," she answered briskly, "Tell the maid to pack up your +box, take off that lace thing on your head, and come home with me for +a day or two. You need not stay longer than you like, but it will be +better for you than moping here, thinking of all sorts of things you +had better not think of." + +"Why do my thoughts vex you?" asked Learn gravely. "I was not thinking +of you." + +Mrs. Corfield laughed a little confusedly. "I don't suppose you +were," she said, "but you see I did think of you. But whether you +were thinking of me or not, you certainly look as if you would be the +better for a little rousing. You were standing there like a statue +when we came up." + +"I was listening to mamma," said Leam with an air of grave rebuke. + +Mrs. Corfield rubbed her nose vigorously. "You would do better to come +and talk to me instead," she said. + +Learn transfixed her with her eyes. "I like mamma's company best," she +said in the stony way which she had when stiffening herself against +outside influence. + +"But if you come to us, you can listen to her as much as you like," +said Alick soothingly. "We will not hinder you; and, as my mother +says, it is not good for you to be here alone." + +"I like it," said Leam. + +"Nonsense! then you should not like it. It is not natural for a girl +of your age to like it. Come with us," cried Mrs. Corfield: "why not?" + +"I have something to do," Leam answered solemnly. + +"What can a chit of a thing like you have to do? Come with us, I tell +you." Mrs. Corfield said this heartily rather than roughly, though +really she could not be bothered, as she said to herself, to stand +there wasting her time in arguing with a girl like Leam. It was too +ridiculous. + +Leam looked at her with mingled tragedy and contempt, and disdained to +answer. + +"What have you got to do?" again asked Mrs. Corfield. + +"I shall not tell you," answered Leam, holding her head very high. + +How, indeed, should she tell this little sharp-faced woman that she +was thinking how she could prevent madame from coming here as her +home? The saints had deserted her; she had prayed to them, threatened +them, coaxed, entreated, but they had not heard her; and now she had +nothing but herself, only her poor little frail hands and bewildered +brain, to protect her mother's memory from insult and revenge her +wrongs. The fever in her veins had given her mamma's face sorrowful +and weeping, meeting her wherever she turned--mamma's voice, faint +as the softest summer breeze in the trees, whispering to her, "Little +Leama, I am unhappy. Sweet heart, do not let me be unhappy." For five +days this fancy had haunted her, but it had not become distinct enough +for guidance. She was listening now, as she was listening always, for +mamma to tell her what to do. She was sure she would show her in time +how to prevent that wicked woman from living here, bearing her name, +taking her place: mamma could trust her to take care of her, now that +she could not take care of herself. As she had said to papa, if all +the world, the saints, and God himself deserted hers she, her child, +would not. + +She would not tell these thoughts, even to Alick. They were a secret, +sacred between her and mamma, and no one must share them. If, then, +she went with this bird-like, insistent woman, she would talk to her +and not let her think: she and Alick would stand between herself and +mamma's spirit, and then mamma would perhaps leave her again, and go +back to heaven angry with her. No, she would not go, and she lifted up +her eyes to say so. + +As she looked up Alick whispered softly, "Come." + +Feverish, excited, her brain clouded by her false fancies, Leam did +not recognize his voice. To her it was her mother sighing through the +sunny stillness, bidding her go with them, perhaps to find some method +of hinderance or revenge which she could not devise for herself. They +were clever and knew more than she did; perhaps her mother and the +saints had sent them as her helpers. + +It seemed almost an eternity during which these thoughts passed +through her brain, while she stood looking at Mrs. Corfield so +intently that the little woman was obliged to lower her eyes. Not that +Leam saw her. She was thinking, listening, but not seeing, though her +tragic eyes seemed searching Mrs. Corfield's very soul. Then, glancing +upward to the sky, she said with an air of self-surrender, which Alick +understood if his mother did not, "Yes, I will go with you: mamma says +I may." + +"It is my belief, Alick," said Mrs. Corfield, when she had left them +to prepare for her visit, "that poor child is going crazy, if she is +not so already. She always was queer, but she is certainly not in her +right mind now. What a shame of Sebastian Dundas to bring her up as he +has done, and now to leave her like this! How glad I am I thought of +having her at Steel's Corner!" + +"Yes, mother, it was a good thing. Just like you, though," said Alick +affectionately. + +"You must help me with her, Alick," answered his mother. "I have done +what I know I ought to do, but she will be an awful nuisance all the +same. She is so odd and cold and impertinent, one does not know how to +take her." + +Alick flushed and turned away his head. "I will take her off your +hands as much as I can," he said in a constrained voice. + +"That's my dear boy--do," was his mother's unsuspecting rejoinder as +Leam came down stairs ready to go. + +Steel's Corner was a place of unresting intellectual energies. Dr. +Corfield, a man shut up in his laboratory with piles of +extracts, notes, arguments, never used, but always to be used, an +experimentalist deep in many of the toughest problems of chemical +analysis, but neither ambitious nor communicative, was the one +peaceable element in the house. To be sure, Alick would have been both +broader in his aims and more concentrated in his objects had he been +left to himself. As it was, the incessant demands made on him by his +mother kept him too in a state of intellectual nomadism; and no one +could weary of monotony where Mrs. Corfield set the pattern, unless +it was of the monotony of unrest. This perpetual taking up of +new subjects, new occupations, made thoroughness the one thing +unattainable. Mrs. Corfield was a woman who went in for everything. +She was by turns scientific and artistic, a student and a teacher, but +she was too discursive to be accurate, and she was satisfied with a +proficiency far below perfection. In philosophy she was what might be +called a woman of antepenultimates, referring all the more intricate +moral and intellectual phenomena to mind and spirit; but she was +intolerant of any attempt to determine the causation of her favorite +causes, and she derided the modern doctrines of evolution and inherent +force as atheistic because materialistic. The two words meant the same +thing with her; and the more shadowy and unintelligible people made +the _causa causarum_ the more she believed in their knowledge and +their piety. The bitterest quarrel she had ever had was with an old +friend, an unimaginative anatomist, who one day gravely proved to her +that spirits must be mere filmy bags, pear-shaped, if indeed they +had any visual existence at all. Bit by bit he eliminated all the +characteristics and circumstances of the human form on the principle +of the non-survival of the useless and unadaptable. For of what use +are shapes and appliances if you have nothing for them to do?--if you +have no need to walk, to grasp, nor yet to sit? Of what use organs +of sense when you have no brain to which they lead?--when you are +substantially all brain and the result independent of the method? +Hence he abolished by logical and anatomical necessity, as well as the +human form, the human face with eyes, ears, nose and mouth, and by +the inexorable necessities of the case came down to a transparent bag, +pear-shaped, for the better passage of his angels through the air. + +"A fulfillment of the old proverb that extremes meet," he said by +way of conclusion. "The beginning of man an ascidian--his ultimate +development as an angel, a pear-shaped, transparent bag." + +Mrs. Corfield never forgave her old friend, and even now if any one +began a conversation on the theory of development and evolution she +invariably lost her temper and permitted herself to say rude things. +Her idea of angels and souls in bliss was the good orthodox notion of +men and women with exactly the same features and identity as they had +when in the flesh, but infinitely more beautiful; retaining the Ego, +but the Ego refined and purified out of all trace of human weakness, +all characteristic passions, tempers and proclivities; and the +pear-shaped bag was as far removed from the truth, as she held it, on +the one side as Leam's materialistic conception was on the other. The +character and condition of departed souls was one of the subjects on +which she was very positive and very aggressive, and Leam had a hard +fight of it when her hostess came to discuss her mother's present +personality and whereabouts, and wanted to convince her of her +transformation. + +All the same, the little woman was kind-hearted and conscientious, but +she was not always pleasant. She wanted the grace and sweetness known +genetically as womanliness, as do most women who hold the doctrine of +feminine moral supremacy, with base man, tyrant, enemy and inferior, +holding down the superior being by force of brute strength and +responsible for all her faults. And she wanted the smoothness of +manner known as good breeding. Though a gentlewoman by birth, she gave +one the impression of a pert chambermaid matured into a tyrannical +landlady. + +But she meant kindly by Leam when she took her from the loneliness of +her father's house, and her very sharpness and prickly spiritualism +were for the child's enduring good. Her attempts, however, to make +Leam regard mamma in heaven as in any wise different from mamma on +earth were utterly abortive. Leam's imagination could not compass the +thaumaturgy tried to be inculcated. Mamma, if mamma at all, was +mamma as she had known her; and if as she had known her, then she was +unhappy and desolate, seeing what a wicked thing this was that papa +had done. She clung to this point as tenaciously as she clung to +her love; and nothing that Mrs. Corfield, or even Alick, could say +weakened by one line her belief in mamma's angry sorrow and the +saints' potent and sometimes peccant humanity. + +Among other scientific appliances at Steel's Corner was a small +off-kind of laboratory for Alick and his mother, to prevent their +troubling the doctor and to enable them to help him when necessary: it +was an auxiliary fitted up in what was rightfully the stick-house. The +sticks had had to make way for retorts and crucibles, and as yet no +harm had come of it, though the servants said they lived in terror of +their lives, and the neighbors expected daily to hear that the inmates +of Steel's Corner had been blown into the air. Into this evil-smelling +and unbeautiful place Leam was introduced with infinite reluctance +on her own part. The bad smell made her sick, she said, turning round +disdainfully on Alick, and she did not wonder now at anything he might +say or do if he could bear to live in such a horrid place as this. + +When he showed off a few simple experiments to amuse her--made crystal +trees, a shower of snow, a heavy stone out of two empty-looking +bottles, spilt mercury and set her to gather it up again, showed her +prisms, and made her look through a bit of tourmaline, and in every +way conceivable to him strewed the path of learning with flowers--then +she began to feel a little interest in the place and left off making +wry faces at the dirt and the smells. + +One day when she was there her eye caught a very small phial with a +few letters like a snake running spirally round it. + +"What is that funny little bottle?" she asked, pointing it out. "What +does it say?" + +"Poison," said Alick. + +"What is poison?" she asked. + +"Do you mean what it is? or what it does?" he returned. + +"Both. You are stupid," said Leam. + +"What it does is to kill people, but I cannot tell you all in a breath +what it is, for it is so many things." + +"How does it kill people?" At her question Leam turned suddenly round +on him, her eyes full of a strange light. + +"Some poisons kill in one way and some in another," answered Alick. + +Leam pondered for a few moments; then she asked, "How much poison is +there in the world?" + +"An immense deal," said Alick: "I cannot possibly tell you how much." + +"And it all kills?" + +"Yes, it all kills, else it is not poison." + +"And every one?" + +"Yes, every one if enough is taken." + +"What is enough?" she asked, still so serious, so intent. + +Alick laughed. "That depends on the material," he said. "One grain of +some and twenty of others." + +"Don't laugh," said Leam with her Spanish dignity: "I am serious. You +should not laugh when I am serious." + +"I did not mean to offend you," faltered Alick humbly. "Will you +forgive me?" + +"Yes," said Leam superbly, "if you will not laugh again. Tell me about +poison." + +"What can I tell you? I scarcely know what it is you want to hear." + +"What is poison?" + +"Strychnine, opium, prussic acid, belladonna, aconite--oh, thousands +of things." + +"How do they kill?" + +"Well, strychnine gives awful pain and convulsions--makes the back +into an arch; opium sends you to sleep; prussic acid stops the action +of the heart; and so on." + +"What is that?" asked Leam, pointing to the small phial with its +snake-like spiral label. + +"Prussic acid--awfully strong. Two drops of that would kill the +strongest man in a moment." + +"In a moment?" asked Learn. + +"Yes: he would fall dead directly." + +"Would it be painful?" + +"No, not at all, I believe." + +"Show it me," said Learn. + +He took the bottle from the shelf. It was a sixty-minim bottle, quite +full, stoppered and secured. + +She held out her hand for it, and he gave it to her. "Two drops!" +mused Leam. + +"Yes, two drops," returned Alick. + +"How many drops are here?" + +"Sixty." + +"Is it nasty?" + +"No--like very strong bitter almonds or cherry-water; only in excess," +he said. "Here is some cherry-water. Will you have a little in some +water? It is not nasty, and it will not hurt you." + +"No," said Leam with an offended air: "I do not want your horrid +stuff." + +"It would not hurt you, and it is really rather nice," returned Alick +apologetically. + +"It is horrid," said Learn. + +"Well, perhaps you are better without it," Alick answered, quietly +taking the bottle of prussic acid from her hands and replacing it on +the shelf, well barricaded by phials and pots. + +"You should not have taken it till I gave it you," said Leam proudly. +"You are rude." + +From this time the laboratory had the strangest fascination for Leam. +She was never tired of going there, never tired of asking questions, +all bearing on the subject of poisons, which seemed to have possessed +her. Alick, unsuspecting, glad to teach, glad to see her interest +awakened in anything he did or knew, in his own honest simplicity +utterly unable to imagine that things could turn wrong on such a +matter, told her all she asked and a great deal more; and still Leam's +eyes wandered ever to the shelf where the little phial of thirty +deaths was enclosed within its barricades. + +One day while they were there Mrs. Corfield called Alick. + +"Wait for me, I shall not be long," he said to Leam, and went out to +his mother. + +As he turned Learnm's eyes went again to that small phial of death on +the shelf. + +"Take it, Leama! take it, my heart!" she heard her mother whisper. + +"Yes, mamma," she said aloud; and leaping like a young panther on the +bench, reached to the shelf and thrust the little bottle in her hair. +She did not know why she took it: she had no motive, no object. It was +mamma who told her--so her unconscious desire translated itself--but +she had no clear understanding why. It was instinct, vague but +powerful, lying at the back of her mind, unknown to herself that it +was there; and all of which she was conscious was a desire to possess +that bottle of poison, and not to let them know here that she had +taken it. + +This was on the afternoon of her last day at the Corfields. She was +to go home to-night in preparation for the arrival of her father and +madame to-morrow, and in a few hours she would be away. She did not +want Alick to come back to the laboratory. She was afraid that he +would miss the bottle which she had secured so almost automatically +if so superstitiously: Alick must not come back. She must keep that +bottle. She hurried across the old-time stick-house, locked the door +and took the key with her, then met Alick coming back to finish his +lesson on the crystallization of alum, and said, "I am tired of your +colored doll's jewelry. Come and tell me about flowers," leading the +way to the garden. + +Doubt and suspicion were qualities unknown to Alick Corfield. It never +occurred to him that his young queen was playing a part to hide the +truth, befooling him for the better concealment of her misdeeds. He +was only too happy that she condescended to suggest how he should +amuse her; so he went with her into the garden, where she sat on the +rustic chair, and he brought her flowers and told her the names and +the properties as if he had been a professor. + +At last Leam sighed. "It is very tiresome," she said wearily. "I +should like to know as much as you do, but half of it is nonsense, and +it makes my head ache to learn. I wish I had my dolls here, and that +you could make them talk as mamma used. Mamma made them talk and go +to sleep, but you are stupid: you can speak only of flowers that +don't feel, and about your silly crystals that go to water if they +are touched. I like my zambomba and my dolls best. They do not go to +water; my zambomba makes a noise, and my dolls can be beaten when they +are naughty." + +"But you see I am not a girl," said Alick blushing. + +"No," said Leam, "you are only a boy. What a pity!" + +"I am sorry if you would like me better as a girl," said Alick. + +She looked at him superbly. Then her face changed to something that +was almost affection as she answered in a softer tone, "You would be +better as a girl, of course, but you are good for a boy, and I like +you the best of every one in England now. If only you had been an +Andalusian woman!" she sighed, as, in obedience to Mrs. Corfield's +signal, she got up to prepare for dinner, and then home for her father +and madame to-morrow. + + +CHAPTER XX. + +IN HER MOTHER'S PLACE. + + +Whatever madame's past life had been--and it had been such as a +handsome woman without money or social status, fond of luxury and to +whom work was abhorrent, with a clear will and very distinct knowledge +of her own desires, clever and destitute of moral principle, finds +made to her hand--whatever ugly bits were hidden behind the veil of +decent pretence which she had worn with such grace during her sojourn +at North Aston, she did honestly mean to do righteously now. + +She had deceived the man who had married her in such adoring good +faith--granted; but when he had reconciled himself to as much of the +cheat as he must know, she meant to make him happy--so happy that he +should not regret what he had done. Though she was no marquise, only +plain Madame de Montfort--so far she must confess for policy's sake, +and to forestall discovery by ruder means, but what remained beyond +she must keep secret as the grave, trusting to favorable fortune and +man's honor for her safety--though the story of the fraudulent trustee +was untrue, and she never had more money than the three hundred pounds +brought in her box wherewith to plant her roots in the North Aston +soil--though all the Lionnet bills were yet to be paid, and her +husband must pay them, with awkward friends in London occasionally +turning up to demand substantial sops, else they would show their +teeth unpleasantly,--still, she would get his forgiveness, and she +would make him happy. + +And she would be good to Leam. She would be so patient, forbearing, +tender, she would at last force the child to love her. It was a new +luxury to this woman, who had knocked about the world so long and so +disreputably, to feel safe and able to be good. She wondered what it +would be like as time went on--if the rest which she felt now at the +cessation of the struggle and the consciousness of her security would +become monotonous or be always restful. At all events, she knew +that she was happy for the day, and she trusted to her own tact and +management to make the future as fair as the present. + +The home-coming was triumphant. Because the rector was inwardly +grieved at the loss of his ewe-lamb--for he had lost her in that +special sense of spiritual proprietorship which had been his--he was +determined to make a demonstration of his joy. He and Mrs. Birkett +meant to stand by Mrs. Dundas as they had stood by Madame la Marquise +de Montfort, and to publish their partisanship broadly. When, +therefore, the travelers returned to North Aston, they found the +rector and his wife waiting to receive them at their own door. +Over the gate was an archway of evergreens with "Welcome!" in white +chrysanthemums, and the posts were wreathed with boughs and ribbons, +but leaving "Virginia Cottage" in its glossy evidence of the new +regime. The drive was bordered all through with flowers from the +rectory garden, and Lionnet too had been ransacked, and the hall was +festooned from end to end with garlands, like a transformation-scene +in a pantomime. One might have thought it the home-coming of a young +earl with his girl-bride, rather than that of a middle-aged widower of +but moderate means with his second wife, one of whose past homes had +been in St. John's Wood, and one of her many names Mrs. Harrington. + +But it pleased the good souls who thus displayed their sympathy, and +it gratified those for whom it had all been done; and both husband and +wife expressed their gratitude warmly, and lived up to the occasion in +the emotion of the moment. + +When their effusiveness had a little calmed, down, when Mrs. Dundas +had caressed her child--which poor Mrs. Birkett gave up to her with +tears--and Mr. Dundas had also taken it in his arms and called it +"Little Miss Dundas" and "My own little Fina" tenderly--when, the +servants had been spoken to prettily and the bustle had somewhat +subsided, Mrs. Dundas looked round for something missing. "And where +is dear Leam?" she asked with her gracious air and sweet smile. + +It was very nice of her to be the first to miss the girl. The father +had forgotten her, friends had overlooked her, but the stepmother, the +traditional oppressor, was thoughtful of her, and wanted to include +her in the love afloat. This little circumstance made a deep +impression on the three witnesses. It was a good omen for Leam, and +promised what indeed her new mother did honestly design to perform. + +"Even that little savage must be tamed by such persistent sweetness," +said Mr. Birkett to his wife, while she, with a kindly half-checked +sigh, true to her central quality of maternity and love of peace all +round, breathed "Poor little Leam!" compassionately. + +Leam, however, was no more to the fore at the home-coming than she had +been at the marriage, and much searching went on before she was found. +She was unearthed at last. The gardener had seen her shrink away into +the shrubbery when the carriage-wheels were heard coming up the road, +and he gave information to the cook, by whom the truant was tracked +and brought to her ordeal. + +Mrs. Birkett went out by the French window to meet her as she came +slowly up the lawn draped in the deep mourning which for the very +contrariety of love she had made deeper since the marriage, her young +head bent to the earth, her pale face rigid with despair, her heart +full of but one feeling, her brain racked with but one thought, "Mamma +is crying in heaven: mamma must not cry, and this stranger must be +swept from her place." + +She did not know how this was to be done; she only knew that it must +be done. She had all along expected the saints to work some miracle +of deliverance for her, and she looked hourly for its coming. She had +prayed to them so passionately that she could not understand why they +had not answered. Still, she trusted them. She had told them she was +angry, and that she thought them cruel for their delay; and in her +heart she believed that they knew they had done wrong, and that the +miracle would be wrought before too late. It was for mamma, not for +herself. Madame must be swept like a snake out of the house, that +mamma might no longer be pained in heaven. Personally, it made no +difference whether she had to see madame at Lionnet or here at home, +but it made all the difference to mamma, and that was all for which +she cared. + +Thinking these things, she met Mrs. Birkett midway on the lawn, the +kind soul having come out to speak a soothing word before the poor +child went in, to let her feel that she was sympathized with, not +abandoned by them all. Fond as she was of madame, the new Mrs, Dundas, +and little as she knew of Leam, the facts of the case were enough for +her, and she saw Adelaide and herself in the child's sorrow and poor +Pepita's successor. "My dear," she said affectionately as she met the +girl walking so slowly up the lawn, "I dare say this is a trial to +you, but you must accept it for your good. I know what you must feel, +but it is better for you to have a good kind stepmother, who will be +your friend and instructress, than to be left with no one to guide +you." + +Leam's sad face lifted itself up to the speaker. "It cannot be good +for me if it is against mamma," she said. + +"But, Leam, dear child, be reasonable. Your mamma, poor dear! is dead, +and, let us trust, in heaven." The good soul's conscience pricked her +when she said this glib formula, of which in this present instance +she believed nothing. "Your father has the most perfect right to marry +again. Neither the Church nor the Bible forbids it; and you cannot +expect him to remain single all his life--when he needs a wife so +much, too, on your account--because he was married to your dear mamma +when she was alive. Besides, she has done with this life and all the +things of the earth by now; and even if she has not, she will be happy +to see you, her dear child, well cared for and kindly mothered." + +Leam raised her eyes with sorrowful skepticism, melancholy contempt. +It was the old note of war, and she responded to it. "I know mamma," +she said; "I know what she is feeling." + +She would have none of their spiritual thaumaturgy--none of that +unreal kind of transformation with which they had tried to modify +their first teaching. There was no satisfaction in imagining mamma +something different from her former self--no more the real, fervid, +passionate, jealous Pepita than those pear-shaped transparent bags, +so logically constructed by Mrs. Corfield's philosopher, are like the +ideal angels of loving fancy. If mamma saw and knew what was going +on here at this present moment--and Mrs. Birkett was not the bold +questioner to doubt this continuance of interest--she felt as she +would have felt when alive, and she would be angry, jealous, weeping, +unhappy. + +Mrs. Birkett was puzzled what to say for the best to this +uncomfortable fanatic, this unreasonable literalist. When believers +have to formularize in set words their hazy notions of the feelings +and conditions of souls in bliss, they make but a lame business of it; +and nothing that the dear woman could propound, keeping on the side of +orthodox spirituality, carried comfort or conviction to Leam. Her one +unalterable answer was always simply, "I know mamma: I know what she +is feeling," and no argument could shake her from her point. + +At last Mrs. Birkett gave up the contest. "Well, my child," she +said, sighing, "I can only hope that the constant presence of your +stepmother, her kindness and sweetness, will in time soften your +feeling toward her." + +Leam looked at her earnestly. "It is not for myself," she said: "it is +for mamma." + +And she said it with such pathetic sincerity, such an accent of deep +love and self-abandonment to her cause, that the rector's wife felt +her eyes filling up involuntarily with tears. Wrong-headed, dense, +perverse as Leam was, her filial piety was at the least both touching +and sincere, she said to herself, a pang passing through her heart. +Adelaide would not speak of her if she were dead as this poor ignorant +child spoke of her mother. Yet she had been to Adelaide all that the +best and most affectionate kind of English mother can be, while Pepita +had been a savage, now cruel and now fond; one day making her teeth +meet in her child's arm, another day stifling her with caresses; +treating her by times as a woman, by times as a toy, and never +conscientious or judicious. + +All the same, Leam's fidelity, if touching, was embarrassing as things +were; so was her belief in the continued existence of her mother. But +what can be done with those uncompromising reasoners who will carry +their creeds straight to their ultimates, and will not be put off with +eclectic compromises of this part known and that hidden--so much sure +and so much vague? Mrs. Birkett determined that her husband should +talk to the child and try to get a little common sense into her head, +but she doubted the success of the process, perhaps because in her +heart she doubted the skill of the operator. + +By this time they reached the window, and the woman and the girl +passed through into the room. + +Mrs. Dundas came forward to meet her stepdaughter kindly--not warmly, +not tumultuously--with her quiet, easy, waxen grace that never saw +when things were wrong, and that always assumed the halcyon seas even +in the teeth of a gale. For her greeting she bent forward to kiss the +girl's face, saying, "My dear child, I am glad to see you," but Leam +turned away her head. + +"I am not glad to see you, and I will not kiss you," she said. + +Her father frowned, his wife smiled. "You are right, my dear: it is a +foolish habit," she said tranquilly, "but we are such slaves to silly +habits," she added, looking at the rector and his wife in her pretty +philosophizing way, while they smiled approvingly at her ready wit and +serene good-temper. + +"Will you say the same to me, Leam?" asked her father with an attempt +at jocularity, advancing toward her. + +"Yes," said Leam gravely, drawing back a step. + +"Tell me, Mrs, Birkett, what can be done with such an impracticable +creature?" cried Mr. Dundas. + +"She will come right: in time, dear husband," said the late marquise +sweetly; and Mrs. Birkett echoed, looking at the girl kindly, "Oh yes, +she will come right in time." + +"If you mean by coming right, letting you be my mamma, I never will," +cried Leam, fronting her stepmother. + +"Silence, Leam!" cried Mr. Dundas angrily. + +His wife laid her taper fingers tenderly on his. "No, no, dear +husband: let her speak," she pleaded, her voice and manner admirably +effective. "It is far better for her to say what she feels than to +brood over it in silence. I can wait till she comes to me of her own +accord and says, 'Mamma, I love you: forgive me the past'" + +"You are an angel," said Mr. Dundas, pressing her hand to his lips, +his eyes moist and tender. + +"I always said it," the rector added huskily--"the most noble-natured +woman of my acquaintance." + +"I never will come to you and say, 'Mamma, I love you,' and ask you to +forgive me for being true to my own mamma," said Learn. "I am mamma's +daughter, no other person's." + +Mrs. Dundas smiled. "You will be; mine, sweet child," she said. + +How ugly Leam's persistent hate looked by the side of so much +unwearied goodness! Even Mrs. Birkett, who pitied the poor child, +thought her tenacity too morbid, too dreadful; and the rector honestly +held her as one possessed, and regretted in his own mind that the +Church had no formula for efficient exorcism. Believing, as he did, in +the actuality of Satan, the theory of demoniacal possession came easy +as the explanation of abnormal qualities. + +Her father raged against himself in that he had given life to so much +moral deformity. And yet it was not from him that she inherited "that +cursed Spanish blood," he said, turning away with a groan, including +Pepita, Leam, all his past with its ruined love and futile dreams, its +hope and its despair, in that one bitter word. + +"Don't say that, papa: mamma and I are true. It is you English that +are bad and false," said Leam at bay. + +Mrs. Dundas raised her hand, "Hush, hush, my child!" she said in a +tone of gentle authority. "Say of me and to me what you like, but +respect your father." + +"Oh, Leam has never done that," cried Mr. Dundas with intense +bitterness. + +"No," said Leam, "I never have. You made mamma unhappy when she was +alive: you are making her unhappy now. I love mamma: how can I love +you?" + +And then, her words realizing her thoughts in that she seemed to see +her mother visibly before her, sorrowful and weeping while all this +gladness was about in the place which had once been hers, and whence +she was now thrust aside--these flowers of welcome, these smiling +faces, this general content, she alone unhappy, she who had once been +queen and mistress of all--the poor child's heart broke down, and +she rushed from the room, too proud to let them see her cry, but too +penetrated with anguish to restrain the tears. + +"I am sure I don't know what on earth we can do with that girl," +said Mr. Dundas with a dash of his old weak petulance, angry with +circumstance and unable to dominate it--the weak petulance which had +made Pepita despise him so heartily, and had winged so many of her +shafts. + +"Time and patience," said madame with her grand air of noble +cheerfulness. But she had just a moment's paroxysm of dismay as she +looked through the coming years, and thought of life shared between +Leam's untamable hate and her husband's unmanly peevishness. For that +instant it seemed to her that she had bought her personal ease and +security at a high price. + +As Leam went up stairs the door of her stepmother's room was standing +open. The maid had unpacked the boxes most in request, and was now at +tea in the servants' hall, telling of her adventures in Paris, where +master and mistress had spent the honeymoon, and in her own way the +heroine of the hour, like her betters in the parlor. The world seemed +all wrong everywhere, life a cheat and love a torture, to Leam, as she +stood within the open door, looking at the room which had been hers +and her mother's, now transformed and appropriated to this stranger, +She did not understand how papa could have done it. The room in which +mamma had lived, the room in which she had died, the window from +which she used to look, the very mirror that used to reflect back her +beautiful and beloved face--ah, if it could only have kept what it +reflected!--and papa to have given all this away to another woman! +Poor mamma! no wonder she was unhappy. What could she, Leam, do to +prevent all this wickedness if the blessed ones were idle and would +not help her? + +Her eyes fell on a bottle placed on the console where madame's night +appliances were ranged--her night-light and the box of matches, her +Bible and a hymn-book, a tablespoon, a carafe full of water and a +tumbler, and this bottle marked "Cherry-water--one tablespoonful for +a dose." In madame's handwriting underneath stood, "For my troublesome +heart." Only about two tablespoonsful were left. + +Leam took the bottle in one hand, the other thrust itself mechanically +into her hair. No one was about, and the house was profoundly still, +save for the voices coming up from the room below in a subdued and +not unpleasant murmur, with now and then the child's shrill babble +breaking in through the deeper tones like occasional notes in a +sonata. Out of doors were all the pleasant sights and sounds of the +peaceful evening coming on after the labors of the busy day. The birds +were calling to each other in the woods before nesting for the night; +the homing rooks flew round and round their trees, cawing loudly; the +village dogs barked their welcome to their masters as they came off +the fields and the day's work; and the setting sun dyed the autumn +leaves a brighter gold, a deeper crimson, a richer russet. It was +all so peaceful, all so happy, in this soft mild evening of the late +September--all seemed so full of promise, so eloquent of future joy, +to those who had just begun their new career. + +But Leam knew nothing of the poetry of the moment--felt nothing of +its pathetic irony in view of the deed she was half-unconsciously +designing. She saw only, at first dimly, then distinctly, that here +were the means by which mamma's enemy might be punished and swept from +mamma's place, and that if she failed her opportunity now she would be +a traitor and a coward, and would fail in her love and duty to mamma. +No, she would not fail. Why should she? It was the way which the +saints themselves had opened, the thing she had to do; and the sooner +it was done the better for mamma. + +She uncorked the bottle of cherry-water, good for that troublesome +heart of poor madame's. All that Alick had told her of the action +of poisons came back upon her as clearly as her mother's words, +her mother's voice. This cherry-water, too, had the smell of bitter +almonds, and was own sister to that in the little phial in her other +hand. Now she understood it all--why she had been taken to Steel's +Corner, why Alick had taught her about poisons, and why her mamma +had told her to steal that bottle. She looked at it with its eloquent +paper marked "Poison" wound about it spirally like a snake, uncorked +it and emptied half into the cherry-water. + +"Two drops are enough, and there are more than two there," she said to +herself. "Mamma must be safe now." And with this she left the room and +went into her own to watch and wait. + +It was early to-night when Mrs. Dundas retired. There were certain +things which she wanted to do on this her first night in her new home; +and among them she wanted to put that green velvet pocket-book, gold +embroidered, in some absolutely safe place, where it would not be seen +by prying eyes or fall into dangerous hands. She did not intend to +destroy its contents. She knew enough of the uncertainty of life to +hold by all sorts of anchorages; and though things looked safe and +sweet enough now, they might drift into the shallows again, and she +wished her little Fina's future to be assured by one or other of those +charged with it--if the stepfather failed, then to fall back on the +father. Wherefore she elected to keep these papers in a safe place +rather than destroy them, and the safest place she could think of +was Pepita's jewel-case, now her own. It had a curious lock, which no +other key than its own would fit--a lock that would have baffled even +a "cracksman" and his whole bunch of skeleton keys. + +In putting them away, obliged for the need of space to take off the +paper wrappings, she was foolish enough to look at the photographs +within--just one last look before banishing them for ever from her +sight, as an honest wife should--and the sight of the handsome young +face which she had loved sincerely in its day, and which was the face +of her child's father, shook her nerves more than she liked them to be +shaken. That troublesome heart of hers had begun to play her strange +tricks of late with palpitation and irregularity. She could not afford +that her nerve should fail her. That gone, nothing would remain to her +but a wreck. But her cherry-water was a pleasant and safe calmant, and +she knew exactly how much to take. + +Her maid saw nothing more to-night than she had seen on any other +night of her service. Her mistress, if not quite so sweet to her as to +Mrs. Birkett, say, or the rector, was yet fairly amiable as mistresses +go, and to-night was neither better nor worse than ordinary. Her +attendance went on in the usual routine, with nothing to remark, bad +or good; and then madame laid her fair head on the pillow, and took +a tablespoonful of her calmant to check the palpitation that had +come on, and to still her nerves, which that last look backward had +somewhat disturbed. + +How beautiful she looked! Fair and lovely as she had always been to +the eyes of Sebastian Dundas, never had she looked so grand as now. +Her yellow hair was lying spread out on the pillow like a glory: one +white arm was flung above her head, the other hung down from the bed. +Her pale face, with her mouth half open as if in a smile at the happy +things she dreamt, peaceful and pure as a saint's, seemed to him the +very embodiment of all womanly truth and sweetness. He leaned over her +with a yearning rapture that was almost ecstasy. This noble, loving +woman was his own, his life, his future. No more dark moods of +despair, no more angry passions, disappointment and remorse; all was +to be cloudless sunshine, infinite delight, unending peace and love. + +"My darling, oh my love!" he said tenderly, laying his hand on her +glossy golden hair and kissing her. "Virginie, give me one word of +love on your first night at home." + +She was silent. Was her sleep so deep that even love could not awake +her? He kissed her again and raised her head on his arm. It fell back +without power, and then he saw that the half-opened mouth had a little +froth clinging about the lips. + +A cry rang through the house--cry on cry. The startled servants ran up +trembling at they knew not what, to find their master clasping in his +arms the fair dead body of his newly-married wife. + +"Dead--she is dead," they passed in terrified whispers from each to +each. + +Leam, standing upright in her room, in her clinging white night-dress, +her dark hair hanging to her knees, her small brown feet bare above +the ankle--not trembling, but tense, listening, her heart on fire, her +whole being as it were pressed together, and concentrated on the one +thought, the one purpose--heard the words passed from lip to lip. +"Dead," they said--"dead!" + +Lifting up her rapt face and raising her outstretched arms high above +her head, with no sense of sin, no consciousness of cruelty, only with +the feeling of having done that thing which had been laid on her to +do--of having satisfied and avenged her mother--she cried aloud in +a voice deepened by the pathos of her love, the passion of her deed, +into an exultant hymn of sacrifice, "Mamma, are you happy now? Mamma! +mamma! leave off crying: there is no one in your place now." + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +FAMISHING PORTUGAL. + + +The following paper contains the substance of a remarkable letter and +accompanying documents recently received from Portugal: + +LISBON, September, 1875. + +You wish to know what truth there is in the cable reports of "a +drought in the north and south of Portugal, and a threatened famine +in two or three provinces." Shall I tell you all? Well, then, Heaven +nerve me for the task! I shall have an unpleasant story to narrate. + +You, who have been in Portugal, need not be reminded that the kingdom +consists of six provinces--Minho, Tras-os-Montes, Beira, Estremadura, +Alemtejo and Algarve. In the early part of this summer a drought +affected the whole kingdom. Toward the end of July abundant rain fell +in Minho, where two products only are raised--wine ("port wine") +and maize. The rain, which, had it fallen in Alemtejo, the principal +wheat-province of the kingdom, would have done incalculable good, +benefited neither the vineyards of Minho nor the maize-crop anywhere. +The consequence is, that this last-named crop, the principal +bread-food of the country, has failed, and famine prevails throughout +the land. Having lived in America, I know what you, so accustomed to +freedom and plenty, will say to this: + +"France, Sprain, Morocco, England--all these countries are near to +Portugal. If she is short of bread, let her simply exchange wine for +it, and there need be no fears of a famine." + +Ah, my dear American friends, little do you suspect the artlessness +of this reply. Know, then, that those who own the wines of Portugal do +not lack for bread, and those who lack for bread do not own the wines; +that the first of these classes are the aristocrats and foreigners who +live in the cities or abroad, and the second the people at large; +that there exists an abyss between these classes so profound that no +political institutions yet devised have been able to bridge it; that +there is no credit given by one class to the other, and few dealings +occur between them; and that the laws of Portugal discourage the +importation of grain into the kingdom. + +You are a straightforward people, and dive at once to the bottom of +a subject. "Why do not the Portuguese devote themselves so largely to +the cultivation of grain that there need never be danger of famine?" +you will now ask. My answer to this is: The people do not own the +land. + +"What! Were the reforms of Pombal, the French Revolution, the +Portuguese revolution of 1820 and the various constitutions since that +date, the abolition of serfdom and mortmain, and the law of 1832, all +ineffectual to emancipate the Portuguese peasant from the thralldom of +land?" + +Alas! they were indeed all in vain, and the Portuguese peasantry +stands to-day at the very lowest step of European civilization--far +beneath all others. The number of agricultural workers in Portugal is +about eight hundred and seventy-five thousand. Of this number, +some seven hundred thousand are hired laborers, farm-servants, +_emphyteutas_ (you shall presently know the meaning of this ominous +word) and metayers; that is to say, persons who may cultivate only +such products as their employers or landlords choose, and the latter +in their greed and short-sightedness always choose that the former +shall cultivate wine. The remainder, or some one hundred and +seventy-five thousand, consist chiefly of small proprietors, owning +three, four, five and ten acre patches of land, often intersected by +other properties, and therefore not adapted for the cultivation of +grain: such of the _emphyteutas_ and metayers as are practically free +to cultivate what they please make up the remainder of this class. + +The quantity of land devoted to grain is therefore exactly what the +aristocratic land-owners choose to make it; and, never suspecting that +a well-fed peasant is more efficient as a laborer than a famished one, +they have made it barely enough, in good years, to keep the miserable +population from entirely perishing. The product in such years is about +six bushels of edible grain per head of total population, together +with a little pulse and a taste of fish or bacon on rare occasions. In +unfavorable years, like the present one, the product of edible grain +falls to five bushels per head, and unless the government suspends the +corn laws for the whole country--which since 1855 it has usually done +on such occasions--famine ensues. The nation (excepting, of course, +the court and aristocracy, who live in or near Lisbon and Oporto) is +thus kept always at the brink of starvation, and every mishap in these +artificial and tyrannical arrangements consigns fresh thousands to the +grave. + +The population of Portugal was the same in 1798 that it is +to-day--viz., about four millions--and there has been no time between +those periods when it was greater. Knowing, as we do, that the law +of social progress is growth--in other words, that the condition of +individual development, both physical and intellectual, is that degree +of freedom which finds its expression in the increase of numbers--what +does this portentous fact of a stationary population bespeak? Simply, +the utmost degradation of body and mind; vice in its most hideous +forms; filth, disease, unnatural crimes; a hell upon earth. These are +always the characteristics of nations which have been prevented from +growing. The melancholy proofs of a condition of affairs in Portugal +which admits of this description shall presently be forthcoming. + +Antonio de Leon Pinelo, who was one of the greatest lawyers and +historians that Spain ever produced, very profoundly remarked that no +man could possibly understand the history of slavery in America who +had not first mastered the subject of Spanish _encomiedas_. With equal +truth it may be said that the solution of Portuguese history lies +in the subject of _emphyteusis_. Emphyteusis (Greek: zmphutehuis, +"ingrafting," "implanting," and perhaps, metaphorically, +"ameliorating") is a lease of land where the tenant agrees to improve +it and pay a certain rent. The origin of this tenure is Greek, and it +was probably first adopted in Rome after the conquest of the Achaean +League (B.C. 146), when Greece became a Roman province. It was carried +into Carthage B.C. 145, and into Spain and Portugal about B.C. 133, +when those countries fell beneath the Roman arms. Whenever this +occurred the first act of the conquerors was to assume the ownership +of the land. They then leased it on emphyteusis, either to +the original occupiers, to their own soldiers, or to settlers +("carpet-baggers"). The rent was called _vectigal_, and decurions +(corporals in the army) were usually employed to collect it and +administer the lands. + +Syria, Greece, Carthage, and the Iberian Peninsula were the first +countries to succumb to the Roman arms outside of Italy. These +conquests all occurred within the space of fifty-seven years (from 190 +to 133 B.C.), and this was doubtless the period when emphyteusis was +first employed upon an extensive scale. Originally, the tenants +were liable to have their rents increased, and to be evicted at the +pleasure of the state, and thus lose the benefit of any improvements +effected by them. The result was, that no improvements were effected. +The forests were cut down, the orchards destroyed, the lands exhausted +by incessant cropping; and by the beginning of the present era the +entire coasts of the Mediterranean were exploited. + +This great historical fact is replete with significance--not only to +Portugal, but also to the rest of the world, even to America, which, +by abandoning its public lands to the rapacity of monopolists and the +vandalism of ignorant immigrants, is preparing for itself a future +filled with forebodings of evil. + +The ruin of the lands of Carthage, Spain, etc. eventually hastened the +ruin of Italy. It put an end to the legitimate supplies of grain which +those countries had been accustomed to contribute; it forced their +populations to crowd into already overcrowded Italy, and increase the +requirements of food in a country which had been exploited like their +own, and, though not so rapidly, yet by similar means;[1] and it gave +rise to the servile wars, to the most corrupt period in Roman history, +to the Empire, and to the endless series of consequences in its train. + +[Footnote 1: Although the various states of Italy were conquered +by Rome before Greece was, it is probable that emphyteusis was not +employed in those states until after the year B.C. 146--between that +and B.C. 120.] + +After the Western Empire had apparently fallen beneath the Northern +arms--that is to say, five hundred years later--and not until then, +the Roman Code ameliorated the baneful tenure of emphyteusis. A law of +the emperor Zenos (A.D. 474-491) fixed whatever had theretofore been +uncertain in the nature and incidents of emphyteusis. The tenant was +guaranteed from increase of rent and from eviction--the alienation +of the property by the state being held thenceforth to affect the +quit-rent only--and finally he obtained full power to dispose of the +land, which nevertheless remained subject to the quit-rent in whatever +hands it might be. Before these reforms were effected, Portugal was +conquered by the Visigoths, the Roman proprietors of the soil were +expelled, and their laws and institutions suppressed. This occurred +in the year 476. Whether emphyteusis in any form remained is not quite +certain, but it seems not; and during this government, and the Moorish +one which superseded it in the year 711, the Iberian Peninsula enjoyed +an interval of prosperity to which it had been a stranger for ages. + +In the eleventh century this happy condition of affairs was disturbed +by the appearance of certain Spanish crusading knights, who, issuing +from the mountainous parts of the country adjacent to their own, began +to war against the Moorish authorities. In the course of a century, +and with little voluntary aid from the peasants, who distrusted +them and their religious pretensions and promises of advantage, they +managed to acquire possession of the country. Now, what do you suppose +was one of the first acts committed by these adventurers? Nothing less +than the re-enactment of the odious Roman tenure of emphyteusis, and +that in its most ancient and worst form--liability to increased +rent and to eviction; not only this, but with certain base services +combined. The wretched inhabitants were required to work so many days +in the week for these lords, to break up a certain amount of waste +land; to furnish so many cattle; to kill so many birds; to provide (in +rural districts remote from the sea) so many salt fish; to furnish so +much incense or so many porringers, iron tools, pairs of shoes, etc. + +Talk of the Western Empire having "declined and fallen," as Messrs. +Gibbon and Wegg put it! Why, here it was again, and with the worst +of its ancient crimes inscribed upon its code of law. Emphyteusis was +reintroduced into Portugal by King Diniz (Dennis) in the year 1279, +and was followed by its usual effects--ruin and depopulation. In +1394 was born Prince Henry. He was the son of John I. and Philippa, +daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and was therefore the +nephew of Henry IV. of England. Perceiving and commiserating the +wretchedness of the people, and casting about him for a remedy, +Henry saw but one: that was departure from the land, emigration, +colonization, escape from the tyranny of the soil, of nobles and of +ecclesiastics--a tyranny which both his illustrious rank and his piety +forbade him to oppose. Hence his intense devotion to the discovery and +colonization of strange lands, which is in vain to be accounted for +on the ground of a mere passion, the only one usually advanced by +unthinking historians. + +The results of this mania, as it was then considered, of Prince Henry +are well known--the discovery of Madeira, the Azores, Senegambia, +Angola, Benguela, etc., and, after Prince Henry's death, the Cape of +Good Hope, Goa, Macao, the islands, etc.; all of which were colonized +by Portuguese. These colonies, and the commerce which sprang up with +them, afforded outlets for the downtrodden serfs of Portugal. Such was +the beneficial result of this partial measure of freedom that in +the course of the following two centuries Portugal became one of the +leading nations of the world, with a population of 5,000,000 and a +flag respected in every clime. + +Unhappily, this interval of prosperity to Portugal was the cause of +infinite misery to the negro race. The discoveries in Africa and Asia +afforded a career to the enslaved Portuguese; yet, by leading, as they +did, to the discovery of America, they were eventually the cause of +the slave-trade, which without America could not have flourished. Such +will ever be the result of the attempt to palliate instead of cure +evil. Moreover, the discovery of America and the resulting slave-trade +were the cause of Portugal's retrogression to the point whence she had +started in Prince Henry's time. When gold and slaves rendered maritime +discovery profitable to the aristocratic class, all the nobles went +into it--not only the aristocrats of Portugal, but those also of +Spain, England, France, Holland, Italy. They all went into the trade +of acquiring empires, and it is not to be wondered at if in this +rivalry of greed and violence Portugal, exploited and burdened with +serfdom and other features of bad government at home, was distanced +and overcome. Her colonies were captured and reduced by foreign +enemies, or invaded and ruined by one of the several political +diseases from which she had never wholly rid herself. For example, the +once magnificent city of Goa, which formerly contained a population of +150,000 Christians and 50,000 Mohammedans, is now an almost deserted +ruin, with but 40,000 inhabitants, _chiefly ecclesiastical_. + +When Pombal assumed the reins of government in 1750 the population of +Portugal had been reduced to less than 2,000,000: there was neither +agriculture, manufactures, army nor navy. Perceiving this state of +affairs, and recognizing the cause of it, Pombal caused the vines to +be torn up by the roots and corn planted in their place. Ruffianism +was crushed, the Jesuits were banished, the nobility were taught +to respect the civil law, the peasantry were encouraged. After +twenty-seven years of reforms and prosperity Pombal was dismissed +from office and the old abuses were reinstated, among them those worst +incidents of emphyteusis which had been devised by the base ring of +nobles and ecclesiastics who held the land in their grasp. + +These abuses remained without material change until 1832, and thus you +have a complete history of emphyteusis from the first to the last day +of its institution in Portugal. In truth, however, its last day has +not come even yet, for many of its incidents still linger in the code +of laws. + +Now for its effects on the land. What growth of forest trees had +followed the abolition of emphyteusis under the Gothic and Saracenic +monarchs was destroyed under the government of Christian nobles, and +to-day there is scarcely a tree in Portugal--the woods, including +fruit and nut trees, covering less than 400,000 out of 22,000,000 +acres, the entire area of the country. The destruction of the woods, +to say nothing of its effects upon the rainfall, caused the top soil +to be washed away, and thus impoverished the arable land, filling the +rivers with earth, rendering them innavigable, and converting them +from gently-flowing streams to devastating torrents, which annually +bestrew the valleys and plains with sand and stones.[2] In the next +place, emphyteusis has caused every kind of improvement to be avoided. +The soil has been exhausted by over-cropping; public works, like +roads, wells, irrigating canals, etc., have been neglected; and the +numerous works left by the industrious Saracens have been allowed to +go to ruin. Finally, the tenant, being placed entirely in the power of +the lord, was continually kept at the point of starvation. To escape +this dreadful fate he has committed every conceivable offence against +the laws of Nature and humanity. Tyranny and starvation have made +of him a liar, thief, smuggler, assassin, beast. The very ground is +tainted with his tread, the air is redolent of his crimes. + +[Footnote 2: The Mondega annually overflows its banks, changes its +course and buries thousands of once fertile acres under sand and +stones; the Vonga has converted the once productive land between +Aveiro and Ovar into a vast morass; the Douro is periodically +converted into a frightful and resistless torrent which sweeps +everything before it.] + +I am aware of the eminently legal, and therefore judicial, mind of +Americans; therefore I shall give nothing of importance on my own +testimony alone. It shall be seen what the Portuguese peasant is from +the descriptions that travelers have written, and from the fragments +of statistical evidence which the deeply-culpable ruling classes have +permitted to be published. + +But first let me describe the degree of destitution to which the +peasant has been reduced, for without this destitution this criminal +character would not have been his. + +Baron Forrester says:[3] "The poverty of the inhabitants of the +interior of Portugal is equal to that of the Irish." (This was written +in 1851, immediately after the Irish famine.) "The wretchedness of +their condition checks marriage and promotes clandestine intercourse." +William Doria writes:[4] "The inhabitants (all ages) do not obtain +half (scarcely one-third) as much as the minimum of animal food +required to sustain active vitality, which is one hundred grammes, +about one-fifth of a pound, per day." Marques says:[5] "The daily +ration of an able-bodied man should consist of at least twelve hundred +grammes, of which one-fourth (about three-fifths of a pound) should be +animal food. The Portuguese soldier (much better fed than the peasant) +receives but seventeen grammes (little over half an ounce) of animal +food." Notwithstanding the superior food of the soldier, such is the +hatred of the peasant for the aristocratic classes, in whose service +the army is employed, that he will mutilate himself to escape the +conscription.[6] Says Malte-Brun: "During four months of the year +the inhabitants of the Algarve have little to eat but raw figs. This +causes a disease called _mal de veriga_, which sweeps away numbers of +the people." Says Doria: "All the women work in the fields;" and Dr. +Farr[7] tells us that "when women are employed in any but domestic +labors they discharge the duties of mother imperfectly, and the +mortality of children is high." Says Forrester: "Leavened bread +is beginning to be known in the principal cities, but not in the +provinces. Gourds, cabbages and turnip-sprouts, with bread made from +chestnuts (which are always wormy), form the peasant's diet." "In +Algarve carob-beans are commonly roasted, ground into flour and made +into bread." Says Da Silva:[8] "The growth of the peasantry is stunted +by insufficient nourishment, which consists largely of chestnuts, +beans and chick-peas." + +[Footnote 3: _Prize Essay on Portugal_, London, 1854.] + +[Footnote 4: _Parliamentary Papers_, London, 1870.] + +[Footnote 5: _Estudos Estatisticos, hygienicos e administrativas sobre +as doencas e a mortalidade do exercito Portuguez_, etc., by Dr. Jose +Antonio Marques, Lisbon, 1862.] + +[Footnote 6: Doria, p. 184.] + +[Footnote 7: The Registrar-General of England.] + +[Footnote 8: L.A. Rebello da Silva (minister of marine), _Economia. +Rural_, Lisbon, 1868.] + +The utmost area of land which the average Portuguese peasant can +cultivate is two and a half acres: in the United States the average of +cultivated land per laborer is over thirty-two acres; on prairie-land +sixty acres is not uncommon. Forrester writes: "In the Alto Douro, the +richest portion of the kingdom, the villages are formed of wretched +hovels with unglazed windows and without chimneys. Instead of bread or +the ordinary necessaries of life, one finds only filth, wretchedness +and death. Emigration is the one thought of the people." + +Now for the moral, intellectual and physical results of the +destitution thus evinced. The work entitled _Voyage du Duc du Chatelet +en Portugal_, although usually quoted under this title, was really +written by M. Comartin, a royalist of La Vendee, and written during +the French Revolution. If it had any bias at all, that bias was all in +favor of Portugal, yet this is his description of her people: "Il est, +je pense, peu de peuple plus laid que celui de Portugal. Il est petit, +basane, mal conforme. L'interieur repond, en general, assez a cette +repoussante envelope, surtout a Lisbonne, ou les hommes paroissent +reunir tous les vices de l'ame et du corps. II y a, au reste, entre +la capitale et le nord de ce royaume, une difference marquee sous ces +deux rapports. Dans les provinces septentrionales, les hommes sont +moins noirs et moin laids, plus francs, plus lians dans la societe, +bien plus braves et plus laborieux, mais encore plus asservis, s'il +est possible, aux prejuges. Cette difference existe egalement pour +les femmes; elles sont beaucoup plus blanches que celles du sud. +Les Portugais, consideres en general, sont vindicatifs bas, vains, +railleurs, presomptueux a l'exces, jaloux. et ignorans. Apres avoir +retrace les defauts que j'ai cru appercevoir en eux, je serois injuste +si je me taisois sur leurs bonnes qualites. Ils sont attaches a leur +patrie, amis genereux, fideles, sobres, charitables. Ils seroient bons +Chretiens si le fanatisme ne les aveugloit pas. Ils sont si accoutumes +aux pratiques de la religion qu'ils sont plus superstitieux que +devots. Les hidalgos, ou les grands de Portugal, sont tres bornes dans +leur education, orgueilleux et insolens; vivant dans la plus grande +ignorance, ils ne sortent presque jamais de leur pays pour aller voir +les autres peuples." Time and changed circumstances have somewhat +softened these traits, but their general correctness is still +recognizable. + +"Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard's vices and you have the Portuguese +character," says Dr. Southey. "They are deceitful and cowardly--have +no public spirit nor national character," says Semple. "The morals of +both sexes are lax in the extreme; assassination is a common +offence; they rank about as low in the social scale as any people +of Christendom," says McCulloch. "Their songs are licentious: the +national dance or the _toffa_ is so lascivious that every stranger who +sees it must deplore the corruption of the people, and regret to find +such exhibitions permitted, not only in the country, but in the heart +of towns, and even on the stage," says Malte-Brun. "Portugal is a +paradise inhabited by demons and brutes," says Madame Junot--a phrase +taken probably from Byron's description of Cintra. + +My countrymen will be enraged with me for thus repeating the worst +that has been said about them, but I repeat it for their own benefit, +like the surgeon, who, to save the patient's life, cruelly probes +the wound or lays bare the corruption from which he is suffering. +Moreover, I shall have still darker spots to exhibit in a national +character which has been stamped with centuries of feudal and +ecclesiastical tyranny. + +In a country possessing a fair share of the natural resources commonly +in demand a free and prosperous population will double in numbers +every fifteen years, an increase of about 4-1/2 per cent. per annum +compounded. The United States, a country rich in natural resources, +and one whose government offers but few obstacles to freedom and +individual prosperity, has doubled its population every twenty-two and +a half years since 1790. This is equal to over 3 per cent. per +annum. In that country the annual number of births in every 10,000 +of population is 500,[9] of immigrants, 75; total increase, 575. The +deaths are 250, leaving 325 in 10,000, or 3-1/2 per cent. gain as the +net result of the year's growth and decay of population. + +There is no reason for believing that the proportion of births in +Portugal is less than it is in Germany, or even the United States: on +the contrary, "in climates where the waste of human life is excessive +from the combined causes of disease and poverty affecting the mass of +the inhabitants, the number of births is proportionately greater +than is experienced in countries more favorably circumstanced.... +Population does not so much increase because more are born, as because +fewer die."[10] Hence, the presumption is that the rate of births in +Portugal is equal to that in Carthagena de Colombia, where it is 8 to +10 per cent., or at least that of some parts of Mexico, where it is +6.21 per cent. Yet the population of Portugal has not increased during +a hundred years. What, then, has become of the 250,000 human beings +annually called into existence in Portugal? One-half of them took +their chances with the rest of the population, were registered at +birth, died according to rule, were duly entered upon statistical +tables and buried in consecrated ground: the other half were strangled +by their mothers, flung into ditches, exposed to die, starved to +death, assassinated in some manner. The crimes of foeticide +and infanticide have become so common that there is scarcely a +peasant-woman in Portugal not guilty of them, either as principal or +accessory. + +[Footnote 9: It is understood, of course, that the census figures of +births are admittedly and grossly inaccurate.] + +[Footnote 10: Porter's _Progress_, p. 21.] + +Illegitimacy is more common in Portugal than in any country of Europe. +This fact can be proved from a comparison of marriages, births and +baptisms; but since the statistics on these subjects are defective, +the better testimony is to be derived from the number of deposits at +the foundling hospitals. The foundling of the house of Misericordia in +Lisbon, that of the Real Casapin in Belem and the foundling at Oporto +together receive nearly five thousand foundlings during the year, of +whom two-thirds[11] perish in the establishments, which thus become +"charnels and houses of woe." Almost every town or village in the +kingdom has its _roda dos expostos_--literally, a "wheel for exposed +ones"--where, upon the ringing of a bell, the children deposited in +a turning-basket or wheel are passed into the interior of the +establishment without inquiry. Although their term of stay is limited +to a few weeks, less than one-half of them ever pass out of the +establishment alive! Says Dr. T. de Carvalho: "The _roda_ is the +_acouque_ ('slaughter-house') for children. It is the permanent and +legal means of infanticide. _Abaixo a roda dos expostos!_" + +Notwithstanding this frightful mortality, the number of infants always +on hand in the foundlings of Portugal is nearly 40,000, or 1 per cent +of the entire population. One-eighth of all the reported births in the +kingdom become foundlings: as for the non-reported ones, their fate +is known only to the recording angel. Says Claudio Adriano da Costa: +"Promiscuous intercourse has become common all over the country;" +and he attributes it, though I think superficially, to the "misplaced +indulgence to concubinage awarded by the rodas."[12] + +[Footnote 11: During the thirteen years from 1840-52 the number of +children deposited in the Oporto foundling was 15,608, of whom no less +than 11,310, or 72.4 per cent.--_nearly three-fourths_--died while in +the hospital. Most of the remainder died during infancy after leaving +the hospital.] + +[Footnote 12: In some districts of Portugal the proportion of married +to single persons is as 1 to 173!] + +The true cause of Portuguese immorality and crime is the unequal +distribution of wealth, which leaves the mass of the inhabitants a +prey to the vicissitudes of the seasons, the tyranny of the powerful +and wealthy and the despair of insecurity. The origin of this evil +state of affairs was the tenure of emphyteusis: its active and +unfeeling promoters have been always the nobility and ecclesiastics, +and its only powerful enemy, the only hope of the people, the Crown. + +After what has been mentioned it is unnecessary to speak of minor +crimes--- of street assassinations, highway robberies and the +like. Your own McCulloch will inform you that according to official +information reported to the Cortes there occurred in one year, and +merely in the two districts of Oporto and Guarda, no less than three +hundred and forty-two assassinations and four hundred and sixty +robberies. It is true that life is not quite so insecure now as when +McCulloch wrote. Some few rays of light have penetrated the profound +abyss of misery and evil in which the country was then plunged; +nevertheless, the improvement has been but slow and partial, and +nothing short of revolution can accelerate it. There is but one man +in the world who possesses the means to render that revolution +successful, and that man--His Majesty Dom Pedro II., the emperor of +Brazil--is now, or soon will be, on his way to the United States. +May he not peruse in vain this sad account of famine and crime in +Portugal! + +There are persons with nervous organisms so abused that a sudden cry, +whether it be of boisterousness or despair, will cause them great +agony: so there are others with moral susceptibilities so overstrained +that the story of a nation's misery and crime, such as I have +endeavored to sketch, will evoke within them more pain than interest. +Regard for such exceptional persons has created a namby-pambyism in +literature which would banish these topics--the greatest and holiest +in which human sympathy can be enlisted--to the domains of science. +But science cannot aid unhappy Portugal. Sympathy and prayer alone can +mitigate our sufferings. Therefore sympathize with and pray for us, +you who stand in the broad glare of freedom, filled with plenty and +surrounded by promise, Pray for unhappy Portugal! + + + + +AT THE OLD PLANTATION. + +TWO PAPERS.--I. + + +The life of the low-country South Carolina planter, until broken up by +the war, had changed but little since colonial times. It was the life +which Washington lived at Mount Vernon, with some slight differences +of local custom. The two-storied house, with its ten or twenty rooms +and broad piazza, had probably been built in ante-Revolutionary days +by the British country gentleman or Huguenot exile from whom the +present owner drew his descent. I well remember how the old house +at Hanover bore near the top of the chimney stack the legend "_Peu a +peu_" written with a stick in the soft mortar with which the bricks +had been covered. The old Huguenot builder had burned his bricks by +guess, and three times the work had to stop until the kiln could +be replenished and a new lot prepared. The top was finally reached, +however, and the triumphant _Peu a peu_ was only his French way +of proclaiming to posterity _Perseverantia vincit omnia_. In many +instances, however, fire has destroyed the original structure--a +danger to which the country residence is specially exposed--but the +new one has usually been modeled after that which it succeeded. Indian +names, flowing softly from the tongue, have usually come down with +the tracts to which they originally belonged, as _Pooshee, Wantoot, +Wampee, Wapahoula_, though Chelsea, White Hall, Sarrazin's or +Sans Souci often betrays the English or French origin of the first +patentee. + +To understand the home and life of the wealthy Carolina planter we +must remember that he was the most contented man in the world. The +greed of gain was unknown to him, and his deep-rooted conservatism +forbade everything like speculation. Solid, substantial comfort and +large-hearted hospitality were the objects in all his expenditures. He +never invested his surplus money except in another plantation to +put his surplus negroes on, for he never sold a negro except for +incorrigible bad qualities or to pay some pressing debt. He had no +expensive tastes except for rare old madeira and racing-stock, from +the last of which his splendid saddle-horses were always selected; +and these were usually of the best and purest blood. He was as much at +home in the saddle as an English fox-hunter or a Don Cossack, and the +only wheeled vehicles in his spacious carriage-house were the heavy +family coach, and the light sulky in which his summer trips were made +between the pineland and the plantation. + +Come back with me now to the days when the North-eastern Railroad was +a possibility of the future, and join me in a Christmas visit to old +Pooshee. We take the little steamer for the head of Cooper River, the +December sun being warm enough to tempt us from the close cabin to +the airy deck. The graceful spire of old St. Michael's cuts sharply +against the sky, reminding you, if you have visited the suburbs of +London, of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, that fine specimen of Sir +Christopher Wren's style, after which it was modeled. The old +customhouse looks just as it did when Governor Rutledge had the tea +locked up in its store-rooms, and the gray moss droops in weeping +festoons from the live-oaks of beautiful Magnolia. I wonder how the +miles of green marsh through which we pass can seem to you such a +dreary waste. To my eye it is all alive with interest. I never tire +of watching how the lonely white heron spears his scaly prey, how the +clapper-rail floats on his raft of matted rushes, how the marsh-wren +jerks his saucy little tail over his bottle-shaped nest, or how +with quick and certain stroke the oyster-catcher extracts the juicy +"native" from his bivalved citadel. We are now getting above the +salt-water line, and on either hand the rice-fields, now covered +with water, stretch away from the banks, their surface covered with +countless thousands of ducks. As the winding river brings the channel +somewhat nearer to the shore, the splash of the paddles startles the +feeding multitude, and they rise with a rush and roar of wings which +might be heard for miles. Could we stop for a day or two at Rice Hope, +we might have rare sport among the mallards and bald-pates as they +fly out between sunset and dark, or in the early morning from behind +a well-constructed blind. But we must decline the cordial invitation +which urges us to do so as the boat casts off from the landing, and in +a couple of hours more we step ashore at Fairlawn, where we find the +carriage waiting to take us over the twelve remaining miles of our +journey. The road, like the marsh, may seem lonely and tedious to +you, but I know every turn and bend of it, and the trees are all old +friends. I'm sure I know that green heron which "skowks" to me as he +springs from the rail of the bridge, and there is something familiar +in the bark of the black squirrel which has just rushed up that pine. +Hark! that was the yelp of a turkey. Stop the horses for a moment and +we may see them. One, two, four, seven! What a splendid old gobbler +last crossed the road, and no guns loaded! And there is the track +of as noble a buck as I ever saw: that's where he jumped into the +pea-field, and ten to one he's lying now in that patch of sedge. + +"Well!" I think I hear you say, "you have seen more to interest you in +a hundred yards than I should have found in two miles." + +Exactly; and that is why I enjoy the country so much. Learn to love +Nature in her every mood and to study her every feature, and you will +never know the feeling of loneliness if you keep outside the walls of +a jail. But we are at the outer gate, and our journey is nearly over. +At the end of a long enclosed road, shaded by trees--which, however, +do not form an avenue, such as you may see near the coast, where the +live-oaks flourish more vigorously--stands the spacious mansion, with +its white walls, green Venetian shutters and red tin roof. There is no +enclosure about it save that which is formed by the rail fences of the +distant fields. The "yard" contains about forty acres of grassy +lawn shaded by spreading forest trees--white-oaks, water-oaks and +hickories--from which hang the graceful folds of the Spanish moss. The +out-buildings are scattered about without the slightest reference to +distance, except in the case of the kitchen, which is at the back and +some twenty yards from the dwelling. The stable and carriage-house +stand on either side, _in front_, but at a distance sufficient to +prevent unsightliness or discomfort. In the background are the large +"cotton-houses," with their bleaching-platforms, the "gin-house," the +corn-house, the fodder-house and the poultry-house, which is nearly +as large as any of them; while nearer the mansion are grouped the +"loom-house," the dairy and the oven-shed, under which is built the +huge brick oven capable of baking to a sugary confection several +bushels of yam "slips" at a time. On the left is the "negro-yard" +(never called "the quarter" in this region), with its fifty or sixty +substantial cabins, each gleaming with whitewash and having its own +little vegetable patch and chicken-house. + +It is Saturday evening, and the sun is just entering the heavy +cloud-bank which rests on the western horizon as we drive up to the +door. Our genial and venerable host, "the old doctor," is at the +stables superintending the feeding of his horses, and thither we bend +our steps with a sense of exhilaration which only the crisp, fresh +country air can impart, and a new vigor thrilling through every muscle +as the foot presses the green and springy sod. Our old friend is a +worthy representative of the old _regime_, the only change which the +lapse of thirty years has made in his costume being the substitution +of black for blue broadcloth in the velvet-collared, brass-buttoned, +narrow-skirted coat with its side-pocket flaps. The collar sits as +high in the neck; the red silk handkerchief peeps out behind; the +trousers are cut with the "full fall," over which hangs the watch +fob-chain with its heavy seals; the low-crowned beaver hat has the +same wide brim; and the silver snuff-box is still redolent of Scotch +maccaboy. + +"The hounds have got fat waiting for you, and the birds are almost +tame enough to put salt on their tails," says the old gentleman after +the hearty welcome is over. "Old Nannie says the foxes are eating up +all her turkeys, and Loudon tells me that he sees deer-tracks coming +out of the new ground every morning." + +"How _are_ ye, gentlemen?" says stout John Myers, the "obeshay," which +is negro for "overseer."--"I say, there! you Cuffee, that basket ain't +half full o' corn.--I s'pose you're goin' to clean out all the game by +Chris'mas?--You Caesar, why don't you fill up old Chester's stall with +trash? You niggers are gittin' too lazy to live;" and he walks off to +see that the negroes, who are watching us with open mouths and eyes, +do not allow their astonishment to interfere with the comfort of the +horses. Five sturdy negro men are doing the work of two boys, forking +in the "pine-trash" from the huge pile outside, and bringing ear-corn +in oak bushel-baskets on their shoulders from the corn-house three +hundred yards away. + +We cross over to this building when the stable-door has been locked +and watch the eager crowd which is waiting for the weekly "'lowance." +Sturdy, strapping women, with muscular arms and stout calves freely +displayed under the skirts which are tucked around their waists, +are standing in picturesque attitudes or sitting on their upturned +baskets, while ragged, wild-looking little "picknies" are clinging +to the said skirts and peeping with great staring eyes at the strange +"buckrah man." Each will take the week's supply of ear-corn and +potatoes for her household--a peck for each member of the family, +large and small--and will grind her own grist at the mill-house, or +more probably trade away the entire supply at the cross-roads store +for flour, sugar and coffee. + +"Why, Rose, is that you? How are you, and how are the children?" + +"De Lawd! Wha' dat? who dat da' talk me? Bless de Lawd! da' nyoung +maussa! Ki! enty you tek wife yet? Go 'way! Look! he done got bayd +(beard) same like ole nanny-goat! Bless de Lawd!" + +"I'm glad to see you looking so young, Kitty: your children must be +grown up." + +"Tenk de Lawd, maussa," with a low curtsey, "I day yah yet! Dem +pickny, da big man an' 'oman now. Enty you got one piece t'bacca fo' +po' ole nigger?" + +The tobacco is forthcoming, together with a few gaudy +head-handkerchiefs and little parcels of sugar, and "nyoung maussa" +has it all his own way with the simple creatures. These negroes are as +near the original wild African type as if a few years instead of more +than a century of contact with civilization had passed over them. +They are all the direct descendants of original importations, chiefly +Ghoolahs and Ashantees; indeed, "Gullah niggah" is a favorite term +of playful reproach among them. Their _male_ names are still largely +Ashantee, as "Cudjo," "Cuffee," "Quarcoo," "Quashee," etc., and +their dialect, a mixture of "pigeon English" and Ghoolah, strongly +impregnated with the French of the Huguenot masters of their +forefathers, is simply incomprehensible to a stranger, whether white +or black. Indeed, when excited and talking rapidly even those who +have grown up among them can scarcely understand the lingo. "Coom, +Hondree," says an old nurse to her little charge at bedtime, "le' we +tek fire go atop:" in English, "Come, Henry, let's take a light and go +up stairs." "Child" is "pickny;" "white man" (or woman), "buckrah;" +"I don't know," "Me no sabbee;" "Is it not?" "Enty?"; "watermelon" is +"attermillion" or "mutwilliam;" and so on. + +Paying a medical visit, I enter a house where the patient is a sick +child: the old crone who is sitting in the doorway with a boy's head +between her knees, performing the office of which monkeys are so fond, +calls out, "Lindy! de buckrah coom." + +"What's the matter with the child?" I inquire. + +"Ki, maussa! me no sabbee wha' do a pickny," replies the intelligent +Lindy, who wishes me to know that she knows nothing about the case. + +We shall see more of them before leaving the plantation. + +A day on the water and a long drive are excellent preparatives for +a supper of broad rice-waffles toasted crisp and brown before the +crackling hickory fire, of smoking spare-ribs and luscious tripe, +of rich, fragrant Java coffee with boiled milk and cream; nor does a +sound night's sleep unfit one for enjoying at breakfast a repetition +of the same, substituting link sausages and black pudding for the +tripe and spare-ribs, and superadding feathery muffins and soft-boiled +eggs. + +It is Sunday morning, but the service to-day is at the other end of +the parish, some twenty miles away. The sky seems brighter and the +grass more green than on the work-days of the week: the birds sing +more cheerily, and seem to know that for one day they are safe from +man's persecution. Certain it is that the wary crow will on that day +eye you saucily as you pass within ten yards of him, while on any +other you cannot approach him within a hundred. At ten o'clock the +household is assembled in the drawing-room, the piano--with, it may +be, a flute accompaniment--is made to do the organ's duty, and the +full service of the Prayer-Book is read and sung and listened to with +reverent attention. There are yet two hours to dinner, and as the +wild, wailing chant from the negro-yard comes to our ears we determine +to visit their chapel. If there was one point in which, more than +in others, the Carolina planter was faithful to his duty, it was in +securing the privileges of religion to his slaves. Every plantation +had its chapel, sometimes rivaling in its appointments the churches +for the whites. One of the largest congregations of the Protestant +Episcopal Church in South Carolina, having lost its silver during the +sack of Columbia, is still using the sterling communion service of a +chapel for negroes which was burned upon a neighboring plantation. The +missionary is to-day upon another portion of his circuit, and we have +a specimen of genuine African Christianity. On one side the rough +benches are filled with men clad, for once in the week, in _clean_ +cotton shirts, with coat and pants of heavy "white plains," some young +dandies here and there being "fixed up" with old black silk waistcoats +and flashy neckties, holding conspicuously old mashed beaver hats, +which have been carefully wetted to make them shine. On the other are +ranged the women, the front benches holding the sedate old "maumas," +with gaudy yellow and red kerchiefs tied about their heads in stiff +high turbans, and others folded _a la_ Lady Washington over their +bosoms; behind them sit the young women in white woolen "frocks," +without handkerchiefs on head or breast; while the children who +are not minding babies at home or hunting rabbits in the woods are +gathered about the door. + +Old Bob, the preacher, rises and fixes his eyes severely on the small +fry near the door: "We's gwine to wushup de Lawd, an' I desiah dem +chilluns to know dat no noise nor laffin', nor no so't o' onbehavin', +kin be 'lowed; so min' wot you's 'bout dere. You yerry me? (hear me)." + +Then, adjusting the great silver-rimmed spectacles and opening a +ragged prayer-book (upside down), he proceeds to read over the hymn, +the whole congregation listening with rapt attention. As he utters the +last word all rise together, the old women with closed eyes, heads on +one side and hands crossed over their breasts, and he begins to "line +out," dividing the words rhythmically into spondaic measure, with the +accent strongly on every second syllable and the falling inflection +invariably on the last uttered: + + When I'--kin read'--my ti'--tul clear'-- + To man'--shuns in'--de skies'. + +Immediately the old mauma at the end of the front bench "sets de +tchune," a sad, quavering minor, and pitched so high that any attempt +to follow it seems utterly hopeless. But no: the women all strike in +on the same soaring key, while the men, by a skillful management of +the _falsetto_, keep up with the screamiest flights. As they wail out +the last word, "skies," the women all curtsey with a sharp jerk of the +body and the men droop their heads upon their breasts--a token that +the strophe is ended; and the next two lines follow in the same +manner. Then follows the prayer, in which due remembrance is made of +"ole maussa" and "nyoung missis an' maussa," and all their friends +and visitors. We are considerate enough to withdraw before the +sermon, lest our presence should embarrass the preacher, but a little +eavesdropping gives us an opportunity of hearing how practically +he deals with "lyin' an' tiefin', an' onbehavin' 'mongst de nyoung +'omans," and how he holds up "de obeshay," as Saint Paul did the +magistrate, in terror to those who "play 'possum w'en de grass too +t'ick," or "stick t'orn in he finger so he can't pick 'nuff cotton +w'en de sun too hot." With our withdrawal is removed a restraint which +has chilled the active devotion of the assembly, and soon the singing +begins again, accompanied now, however, by the heavy tramp of feet +and the clapping of hands keeping time to the sad, wailing minor which +characterizes all their music. The hymn, too, is no longer selected +from the prayer-book, but from some unwritten collection better +adapted to their ideas of "heart-religion": + + De angel cry out A-men, + A-men! A-men! + De angel cry out A-men! + I'se bound to de promis' lan'! + + I da gwine up to hebbin in a long w'ite robe, + Long w'ite robe! long w'ite robe! + My Sabiour tell me wear dat robe + W'en I meet him in de promis' lan'! + +We've a great deal before us during the coming week, for we must give +a day to the partridges (never called "quail" in the South), and we +have a fox-hunt or two in the mornings, and that old buck to look +after whose tracks I showed you in the road; besides the ducks +and turkeys which are waiting to be shot, and all the Christmas +frolicking, from which the ladies will not excuse us. We will +therefore take this quiet Sunday afternoon for a walk among the fields +and woods to see what manner of country we are in. Bending our steps +first toward the huge old oak which seems to hang upon the very edge +of the green hill near the house, we suddenly find ourselves just over +a large basin enclosed with an octagonal brick wall, except where the +clear water runs out over silvery gravel between curbings of heavy +plank. This is the spring, and a queer sort of spring it is. Just +under the tree-roots the water is but a few inches deep over a bed +of bluish-gray limestone, and in no part of the basin, which is about +twelve by twenty feet, does it seem to be more than a half fathom in +depth. But just under the ledge of rock a shelving hole slopes back +under the hill, the bottom of which no man has ever found. This hole +is only about three feet by two, and the narrow outlet to the basin is +but four inches deep, and loses itself within fifty yards in an oozy +bog. Yet, peering into the depth, you catch a glimpse of the black +head and beady white eyes of a mudfish at least two feet long, and +presently of the silvery side of a three-pound bass which glides +across the opening. Drop a line with the cork set at ten feet, and you +will draw out of the very bosom of the earth a mess of fat perch and +bream each as large and as thick as your hand, and eels three feet in +length are sometimes caught in the basin at night. Two miles away, +in the direction of the "run," there are on Woodboo plantation two +similar basins connected by a shallow streamlet, and with no outlet +which a minnow could navigate: one of them is large enough for a +little skiff to float on, and the gray rock slopes down to a centre +depth of ten feet. Just where the sides meet is a long, irregular +fissure, out of which huge bass, pike, jack and mudfish are constantly +emerging, and into which they retreat when disturbed. Hundreds of +perch, bream and young bass sport in the shallow parts, and are easily +caught with rod and line, the water being so clear that you can watch +the fish gorging the bait, and strike when the entire hook disappears. +Now, where do these fish live? where do they breed? and upon what do +they feed? But the mystery does not end there. About a mile in the +opposite direction as we walk through a little belt of wet pineland, +where the woodcock runs across our path or whistles up from the wet +leaves, we come suddenly upon a dozen or more little basins, the +largest not over six feet by nine, which have no outlet whatever. One +hole about two feet in diameter goes sheer down between two pine trees +to a depth never yet fathomed: you cannot see it until right on it, +and you cannot use a rod, but drop your line about twelve feet deep, +and your cork will go down like lead, while you pull up red perch and +blue bream until your arm wearies of the sport. I have caught five +dozen in a winter's afternoon, for the fish bite best in the coldest +weather, the temperature of the water being sixty-two degrees the year +round, irrespective of the weather. You must go fifteen miles before +reaching another of these springs or fountains, and then ten more +to the last of the chain, the famous Eutaw Springs of Revolutionary +memory. Here, then, must be a subterranean river or reservoir at least +twenty-eight miles long, teeming with the same fish which swim in the +surface-streams, yet having no discoverable connection with any of +these. We meet with no rocks or stones anywhere, but our walk leads +us past many marl-pits from which numerous fossil remains have been +obtained. The fertile and superstitious imagination of the negroes has +not been idle in such a suggestive field, and they have peopled these +fountains with spirits which they call "cymbies," akin to the undine +and the kelpie. On Saturday nights you may hear a strange rhythmic, +thumping sound from the spring, and looking out you may see by the +wild, fitful glare of lightwood torches dark figures moving to and +fro. These are the negro women at their laundry-work, knee-deep in the +stream, beating the clothes with heavy clubs. They are merry enough +when together, but not one of them will go alone for a "piggin" of +water, and if you slip up in the shadow of the old oak and throw a +stone into the spring, the entire party will rush away at the splash, +screaming with fear, convinced that the "cymbie" is after them. + +Leaving the spring behind us, we pass up the long lane between two +cotton-fields of a hundred acres each, in which the blackened stalks +are still standing, as are the dried cornstalks and gray pea-vines in +the field beyond. These will remain until the early spring, when they +will be cut down and "listed in" with the hoe, for not a foot of this +rich and profitable plantation has ever been broken with the plough. +Incredible as it may appear, there is not a plough or a work-horse, +and but one old mule, upon this highly-cultivated tract of one +thousand acres. All the hauling is done by ox-teams, with three sturdy +negroes to each cart, and the heavy cotton-hoe does everything else. +Where one man and a plough could till three acres, twenty men and +women with hoes 'ridge up the ground, scatter manure in the furrows, +and draw the ridges down on it again. True, the surface only is +scratched, and the soil is soon exhausted, but who cares for that when +there is abundance of rich timber-land from which to clear new fields? +and as to economizing labor, that is the last thing a planter cares +about, for what are the negroes to do? None are ever sold, the +"picknies" who swarm around every cabin growing up to stock the +plantations bought for each child as he or she "comes of age or is +married," and work has to be made for them to do. + +"What shall I put the hands at to-day, sir?" asked an overseer of an +old planter when the last bale of cotton had been packed. + +"Hum! let's see! Well, set them to filling up the old ditches and +digging new ones." + +For the same reason power-gins and saw-mills found little favor, the +single-treadle "foot-gin" and the saw-pit and cross-cut employing ten +times as many hands. It was the aim of every large planter to produce +and manufacture by hand-power everything needed on the place. Of +course, it required a heavy expenditure of labor and land to raise +provisions for such an army of unprofitable workers, on which account +slave capital was the poorest paying property in the world. The +planter was wealthy, but he owned only land and negroes: when the +latter were emancipated the former became useless; and this is the +reason why the war so utterly ruined the rich land-owners of the +South. + +ROBERT WILSON. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +'76. + + + Pass, '75, across the Styx! + Make way for stately '76, + Who comes with mincing, minuet pace, + Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face-- + An antiquated kerchief on: + White-capped, like Martha Washington; + Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod, + To give no Nineteenth Century nod; + Nay, but a courtesy profound, + Whose look demure consults the ground. + O rare-seen bloom! No flower perennial, + This aloe-crowned Dame Centennial! + + She comes with shades of days long fled-- + Knee-breeched; long silk-stockinged; + Well-braided queues; bright-buckled shoon + That flash with diamonds; gold galloon + On rebel uniforms of blue--- + A color that this land found _true_; + Three-cornered hats, and plumes that flew + Through conflicts where men dare and do. + A patriot throng, a gallant host, + Our Dame Centennial's train can boast. + + O aloe-flower upon her brow! + Of what strange birth-pangs breathest thou, + The while we gaze with dreamy eyes + Back o'er a sea of memories, + And see thy seed of foreign skies + Here washt, to spring beneath our sun + And ripen till its bloom is won! + What storms have rocked thy stem aslant, + O changeful-nurtured Century-Plant! + Whose living flower now opens bland + Its kindly promise o'er the land! + With blood and tears 'twas watered, + The bud whose blossom now is spread + A floral cap her head upon, + Who, _a la_ Martha Washington, + Our Dame Centennial now appears, + Our '76, our crown of years! + + Brave preparations thee await, + O dame arrayed in olden state! + For thee, for thee, Penn's city stands + And stretches forth inviting hands + To guests of home and foreign lands, + And gathers all historic pride + Of ancient records at her side, + With gifts from all, on thee to rain + Who bring'st such mem'ries in thy train. + + Hail, city well named "Brother's Love!" + The Quaker City of the dove, + That fain would call a land to fling + Its spites away, and 'neath thy wing + Renew the treaty made by Penn + In the wildwood with wilder men; + Yet true men still! Be this the token--- + loyal faith, a pledge unbroken! + + O year that wear'st thy aloe-flower + So proudly! may thy touch have power + Of healing! May thy visage bland + Drive threatening discord from the land, + And throned Peace more firmly fix! + Then shall the elder '76, + From out the eighteenth century's band + Of Time's host in the shadowy land, + Greet thee as one true soul may smile + Upon another, where nor guile + Nor sorrow can its brightness dim. + So greet the clear-eyed seraphim-- + So once in Eden's sinless bower + Unfading flower smiled on flower. + + LATIENNE. + + + + +THE KREUZESSCHULE. + +OBER-AMMERGAU, BAVARIA, OCT. 4, 1875. + + +The town lies at the end of a lovely green valley. Behind it are +fir-clad mountains with rocky peaks: on one side a great square rocky +peak, which towers above all and is surmounted by a cross. On each +side of the valley sloping hills, fir-clad to the top. A rapid, clear +stream runs by on the edge of the village. Green pastures dotted with +haymakers, a few scattered trees and a distant town fill the charming +valley. Virginia creepers hang on the walls, and gay flowers fill +pretty balconies and peep through sunny little casements. All is +simple and neat, and the bright fresco pictures on the fronts of many +houses lighten it all. + +On a high hill overlooking the town they are placing a colossal +crucifixion group, presented by King Ludwig II. in _Erinnerung an die +Passionsspiele_--in memory of the Passion play--Christ on the cross, +with the Virgin and St. John, one on each side. The two latter were +ready to be hoisted on to the pedestal: the former is partly up the +hill. All are surrounded by heavy planking, so that it is impossible +to judge of the artistic merit, but the great group cannot fail to +have a fine effect when viewed from a distance. + +Yesterday (October 3d) was the eventful day. Our tickets had been +ordered by telegraph, and we had "the best seats." The performance was +to begin at nine o'clock, and at a quarter before nine we were in our +places. + +The building in which the play is given is of plain rough wood without +paint ("or polish"); in the interior a gallery and two side-galleries, +below them a parterre, and on each side of it a standing-place, all of +plain, unpainted boards. The orchestra was sunk below the level of the +stage, the proscenium painted to represent columns and entablature. +The curtain represented, or seemed intended to represent, Jerusalem. +The whole place could not probably contain over six hundred people, +and was about half full. There were very few foreigners. + +The play to be represented was not the "Passion play," which is given +every ten years, but the _Kreuzesschule_, which is played once in +fifty years--last in 1825. In it the play is taken from the Old +Testament, and the tableaux from the New Testament--the reverse of the +Passion play. + +The orchestra began punctually at nine o'clock. There were about +twenty performers, and they played with skill and taste. The selection +of music was admirable. They commenced with a sort of prelude, slow +and declamatory. Perfect silence reigned, and the deep interest of +the spectators was, from the first and throughout, shown in their +expressive faces. Men and women at times shed tears, and made not the +slightest effort to hide their emotion. The black head-*kerchiefs of +many of the women spectators, tight to the skull with ends hanging +down behind, seemed in harmony with the scene. + +The prelude ended, the Chorus entered with slow and dignified +pace--seven men and women from one side, six from the other, all in a +kind of Oriental costume, picturesque and handsome. The tallest came +first, and so on in gradation, so that when ranged in front of the +curtain they formed a kind of pyramid. The central figure then began +the prologue, an explanation. Then the basso commenced singing an +air, during which the Chorus divided, falling back to the sides and +kneeling, while the curtain rose, displaying the first tableau. This +lasted nearly three minutes, during which time the figures were really +perfectly motionless. The basso finished his air and the tenor sang +another while the curtain was up. This tableau represented the cross +supported by an angel, while grouped around were men, women +and children looking up at it in adoration. This was the +"Kreuzesschule"--the school of the Cross--the prologue to the piece. +The picture had the simplicity of the best school: no affected +attitudes--all plain, earnest and beautiful. When the curtain fell the +Chorus again took their places in front of it, a duet was sung, then a +chorus, and then they countermarched and retired in quiet dignity. + +Then came the first part. A prelude by the orchestra, and the curtain +rises on Abel, dressed in sheep skin, by his altar, from which +smoke ascends, he returning thanks. Enter Cain in leopard skin, much +disturbed and angry. They discourse, Abel all sweetness, Cain bitter +and cross. An angel in blue mantle, like one of Raphael's in the +"Loggia," appears at the side and comforts Abel. Then Eve in white +dress--evidently it had been a puzzle to dress her--and buskins, who +says sweet words to Cain. Then Adam in sheep skin, very sad at all +this difficulty. Eve sweetly strives to reconcile Cain to his brother, +and appeals to him with much feeling. He discourses at length, then +appears to relent and embraces Abel, but is evidently playing the +hypocrite, and as the curtain falls you see that hate is in his heart. + +The curtain down, the orchestra plays a prelude, the Chorus enters +as before, and the leader speculates on Cain's behavior. "Is he +honest?"--"Ah no, his heart is full of hate: he meditates evil." +The Chorus divides as before, falls back and the curtain rises. This +tableau represents the hate and rage of the people and Pharisees +toward Christ, who drives the traders out of the Temple. In grouping, +costume, color, tone, action and completeness it was truly a marvelous +picture. The stage was crowded with figures: Christ in the centre, +behind--a row of columns on each side--a scourge in his left hand, his +right upheld in admirable action; in the background a group in +wild confusion; on the right, richly dressed priests and Pharisees, +indignant and fierce; in front, sellers of sheep and doves, +money-changers and traders of various kinds. All the elements of a +great picture were here shown in the highest degree, and no words of +praise could be too strong to express the idea of its merits and its +charm. This tableau lasted nearly two minutes, with the most complete +steadiness, the basso singing an aria. The curtain then fell, and the +Chorus, taking its place, sang and retired as before. This ended the +first part, Cain's hate prefiguring the hatred toward Christ. + +Then came Part Second. The curtain rose on Cain by the side of his +ruined in a soliloquy. Enter Abel, gentle and mild. Eve comes in, +and again tries to make peace, and Cain again plays the hypocrite +and invites his brother into the wood on some pretext. They retire, +leaving Eve disturbed by she knows not what. Adam enters, shares her +fears and goes out to seek his sons. Thunder and lightning, admirably +represented, and then enter Cain disheveled and disturbed. His mother +knows not what has happened, but is agonized and calls for her Abel. +An angel appears at the side and discloses all by asking Cain, "Where +is thy brother?" and then announcing the fiat of the Most High to him. +He rushes off as Adam enters bearing the body of Abel; and his mother, +sitting down beside the dead body, makes a most touching picture of +a _Pieta_. Adam with upstretched arms appeals to God, and the curtain +falls. This was the "Blutschuld"--the crime of blood--and prefigured +the betrayal of Christ by Judas for the thirty pieces of silver. + +After a most beautiful prelude by the orchestra, the Chorus again +enters; the leader expresses his horror at Cain's action and his +pity for a fate thus given over to Satan; they again divide, and the +curtain rises on the tableau of Judas receiving the money. At the end +the high priest and other priests, in appropriate costume, stand on a +platform beyond a railing. Judas in the centre, by a table, is +taking the money from an attendant: all around are groups, admirably +arranged, expressing, in face and attitude, wonder or pleasure or +disgust. The same artistic ideas and beautiful arrangement and the +same unaffected simplicity. This tableau lasted one minute and a half, +while the tenor sang an aria, "Oh, better for him that he had never +been born." + +The third part was _Das Opfermahl_--the offering of bread and wine +by Melchisedek to Abraham, prefiguring the Last Supper. Prelude by +orchestra. The curtain rises, displaying Melchisedek before an altar, +on which are bread and wine. Four attendants are near him. He, in +a flowing white robe, discourses to them. The scene is simple +and natural. Enter Abraham and attendants on one side and Lot and +attendants on the other, all dressed in Roman mantles, buskins and +helmets. The stage was filled and the grouping admirable. Abraham +and Lot discourse, embrace and part, Lot and his followers retiring. +Melchisedek comes forward and addresses Abraham, who replies at some +length. Then Melchisedek prepares his bread and wine, takes some, +then offers to Abraham, who eats and drinks. Meantime, a most charming +chorus of Handel is sung behind the scenes, while Melchisedek and his +attendants offer the bread and wine to all of Abraham's suite, who +partake reverentially. Tableau and chorus, and the curtain descends. +The ease and simple quiet action of all this scene were remarkable. + +Enter Chorus as before: leader speaks. They divide and the curtain +rises on the tableau of the Last Supper. I know not whether it +was taken from any one picture--I think not--but it was simply and +effectively grouped, and it recalled both Lionardo and Andrea del +Sarto. This lasted two and a half minutes, during which time the +contralto sang an air of Mozart's. + +The fourth part--_Die Ergebung_ (Resignation)--was represented in the +play by Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command, +prefiguring the agony of Christ in the Garden. + +After a prelude by the orchestra the curtain rose and discovered +Abraham and Isaac in loving discourse, with figures in the background, +admirably costumed and grouped. An angel in white robe and blue mantle +appears and delivers his heavenly message to the astounded Abraham. +His agony was simply and feelingly depicted. He appears at last +resigned, when Sarah, in red robe and Eastern headdress, enters to +renew his grief. The beauty of this woman was of the highest order in +feature and expression, and her dress was truly artistic. The scene +between these two was most touchingly acted. Isaac reappears, thinking +that he is simply going on a journey, and, scarcely comprehending his +mother's great grief, presents his companion to her as a comfort and +stay, thus prefiguring John and Mary at the cross. Abraham and Isaac +depart, and the curtain falls. + +Then another prelude by the orchestra, and the Chorus appears: the +leader delivers the epilogue. They divide and kneel, and the curtain +rises on the tableau of the scene in Gethsemane. + +Christ, on an elevation, is kneeling: an angel stands in front of him. +Below, the apostles are all asleep in groups. Behind, in the centre, +Judas advances with the soldiers, who bear tall lanterns. It was like +a picture of Carpaccio, and worthy of that great master. This tableau +lasted two and a quarter minutes, during which time the tenor sang an +aria. + +The fifth part--_Es ist vollbracht_ (It is fulfilled)--represents +Abraham going out to sacrifice his son, prefiguring the Crucifixion. +The curtain rises on Sarah, full of agony, which is most simply and +powerfully depicted. Attendants enter, who tell a long story: then +Abraham and Isaac appear, and there is a most striking scene--Sarah +fainting, the friend sustaining her, the others grouped around in +various picturesque attitudes. An angel appears, simple and practical, +like those of the good old painters, and delivers the blessing. The +curtain falls. + +Again the orchestra in a superb prelude: then the Chorus appears, +and, after the epilogue, divides and kneels as the curtain rises on +a tableau which my imagination never could have pictured, for its +wonderful completeness, its power, its feeling, its artistic beauty +and its marvelous expression far exceeded any idea that I had of the +power of men and women to represent such a picture--the Crucifixion. + +The stage was crowded with figures, Christ in the centre, fully +extended on the cross, with no signs whatever of support to disturb +the illusion--the thieves on one side and the other, with arms over +the cross, as frequently represented; the group at the foot of the +cross so touchingly tender--the soldiers, the priests, the people--all +grouped with such consummate skill, such harmony of colors, such +appropriateness and vigor of expression, as have never, to my +thinking, been excelled in the greatest pictures of the greatest +masters. Here was most remarkably shown the wonderful artistic talent +and feeling of these simple people. There was nothing repulsive in any +way, scarcely painful, except tenderly so. You breathlessly gazed on +this wondrous scene, and when, after three minutes, the curtain fell, +you were speechless with admiration and emotion. A lovely air by the +soprano accompanied this tableau, and after the curtain fell a grand +chorus completed the fifth part. + +The sixth part--_Durch Dunkel zum Lichte_ (through Darkness to +Light)--ended the programme. The play represented Joseph, with all his +honors upon him, receiving his old father and his brothers--prefiguring +the Ascension of Christ. + +After the prelude by the orchestra the curtain rises and discovers +old Jacob, surrounded by his sons in various groups. The scene and +costumes were admirable and appropriate. In the midst of a discourse +Joseph bursts in in fine attire, followed by a great train, among +which are two darkies, taken bodily from Flemish pictures. After much +embracing and blessing and forgiveness, the curtain falls as Jacob +with outstretched arms thanks the Lord and prophesies all good things. + +Then again the orchestra, and again our Chorus enters on the scene, +and after the epilogue, "At last all woe is ended," they divide and +kneel, as the curtain rises on the scene of the Ascension. This was +most simply represented. Christ ascends from the tomb, standing on it, +surrounded by angels, while figures appropriately grouped around make +a picture which recalled Perugino. The basso sings an aria, and a +grand chorus, "Alleluja!" ends this most remarkable performance. + +There was no delay nor interruption throughout. Not the sound of a +hammer nor the whisper of a prompter was ever heard. There was no +applause whatever from the audience until the end, and then it seemed +to come from the strangers. The three hours--for the end was precisely +at twelve--seemed not more than one, so filled was the mind with the +simple, grand beauty and the artistic completeness of the whole thing. +No personality appears for an instant. There are no bills to tell the +names of the actors, nor did any actor or actress at any time look +toward the audience. + +Never since early childhood have the Bible stories been brought back +with such vividness, such tender and absorbing interest. Tradition, +faith and earnestness have made this a people of artists. If one could +believe, as all must wish, that love of money-making and speculation +will not invade this simple village, to the demoralization of its +people, the satisfaction would be most complete. Be that as it may, I +shall always owe a debt of gratitude to Ober-Ammergau, and as long as +memory lasts shall remember _Die Kreuzesschule_. + +J.W.F. + + + + +VARESE. + +Varese is an ancient little town on a hill overlooking the small lake +of the same name in the midst of the mountainous country between +Como and Lago Maggiore, and a little to the southward of the Lake of +Lugano. It is within a very few miles of the Swiss frontier. All +this lacustrine region has for many generations been celebrated as a +specially privileged one. It is Italy without the enervating heat and +aridity which are such serious drawbacks to the enjoyment of its other +charms by Northern folk. It is Switzerland without the rigidity of its +climate and the comparative poverty of the northern vegetation. You +have the oleander and cactus around your feet, while the snow-peaks +high above your head are rose-colored morning and evening by a +southern sun. You wander amid groves of Spanish chestnut, and may hear +the while the Swiss-sounding cattle-bells from Alpine pastures high +above them. The lakes themselves, with their branching arms and bays +and their fairy-like islands, are of course a feature of ever-varying +and incomparable beauty. + +Accordingly, Fortune's favorites of all countries have long, even from +the old Roman times downward, thickly studded the district with their +villas and gardens and palaces and parks. But the possession of a +villa on one of the Italian lakes implies that the happy owner is +nothing very much less than a millionaire. And it has been reserved +for these quite latter days to find the means of placing within the +reach of the many all the delights which were heretofore the exclusive +privilege of the few. In no instance has this been done with so +complete a measure of success as at Varese. The hotel is situated +about a mile from the little town. Its gardens look down on the lake, +the intervening slope being covered with forest. To the left, as one +stands at the garden-front of the house, looking toward the lake, are +the hills in the midst of which the Lake of Lugano nestles, and on +the right, beyond the Lago Maggiore, is a view of Monte Rosa with its +eternal snows, perhaps the finest to be found anywhere. I have seen +Monte Rosa and its chain very finely from the top of the pass called +the Col di Tenda, between Turin and Nice, but I think the view from +the terrace in front of this house is finer. Immediately at the back +of the house we have the hills--mountains they would be called in any +other part of Europe--of which Monte Generoso, now covered with snow, +though with a hotel on the top, is the most conspicuous. The country +more immediately around us is a district of rolling hills, partly +vineyard, but in a larger degree wooded, and here and there +diversified by the well-cared-for gardens of some large villa. Our +outlook, it will be admitted, is pleasant enough. The house I am +speaking of, now known under the style and title of the "Excelsior +Hotel," was recently a magnificent villa of the Morosini family at +Venice. The name will not be new to any who have visited Venice; for +the traveler, even if his tastes did not lead him to take any heed of +such matters, will not have been allowed by the _ciceroni_ to overlook +the tombs of the doges of that family in the grand old church of the +beheaded Saint John, _San Giovanni decollata,_ or "San Zuan Degola," +as the soft-lisping Venetians call it. Yes, the Morosini were very +great men in their day: more than one of the brightest chapters in +the history of the great republic on the Adriatic is filled with their +name. But now their place knows them no more: the family is extinct. +The last scion of the race, an old lady who died quite recently at +Varese, is said to have declared that it was time for a Morosini to +retire from the scene when their house was about to be turned into an +inn. Poor old lady! One could have wished that she had vanished before +that desecration had been threatened, especially as her end was so +near at hand; for it would, I fear, have been too much to wish that +the Excelsior Hotel should have been kept out of existence for another +generation. + +The Morosini had palaces among the most splendid of that city of +palaces, Venice, as may be seen to the present day. But this Varese +villa was their place of delight and enjoyment. And truly the ideas +which we generally attach to the word "villa" are scarcely +represented by the magnificent building to which the public are now +indiscriminately invited. It is an enormous pile of building, the vast +garden-frontage of which makes considerable claims to architectural +magnificence. There are, especially in Switzerland, very magnificent +and palace-like hotels which have been built for the purpose they +now serve, but the fact that they were so built has very effectually +prevented even the most splendid among them from rivaling, or indeed +approaching, the grandiose magnificence of this superb hostelrie, +which has chosen its name in no idle spirit of vaunting. For building +is costly, space is precious, and the necessity of finding a due +return for the capital employed is the paramount rule which the +architect has to keep ever in mind. The old Morosini, who raised this +pile with the abundant profits of the trade with the East when Venice +had the monopoly of it, were curbed in their architectural ambition by +no such considerations. The building of this Villa Morosini must +have cost a sum which no possible amount of success in the way of +hotel-keeping could ever be expected to pay a tolerable interest on. +But the sum for which it was purchased by the present proprietors by +no means represents the whole of the capital which has been expended +on it as it now stands. It needed the expenditure of no less a sum +than sixty thousand pounds sterling to adapt it in all respects to its +present purpose, and it is now really such a hotel as does not +exist elsewhere in Europe. The whole of the ground floor of the vast +building, looking in its entire length on the trimly-kept gardens and +on the lake below them, is devoted to public rooms, the spaciousness +of which is such that even if the entire house were filled to its +utmost capacity they would never be in the least degree crowded. +First on the right hand is the breakfast-room. Then comes an enormous +dining-hall, the coved ceiling of which, supported by noble pillars +and ornamented with stuccoes in relief, is in perfect keeping with the +style of the rest of the ornamentation. Next to the dining-room is +a reading-room well furnished with papers and books: then comes a +so-called ladies' drawing-room, though I do not observe that that +better half of the creation has the smallest wish to monopolize it. +Next to that is the very handsome general drawing-room; then a large +music-room with a grand pianoforte and harmonium; then an equally +spacious smoking-room; and, lastly, a billiard-room;--truly a princely +suite of rooms. The manager speaks English perfectly, and the results +of his English education may be seen in the admirably comfortable and +clean arrangements of the chambers and every part of the house. The +bedrooms are all warmed with hot air, and really nothing has been +neglected which can contribute to ensure the comfort of the inmates. + +And all this can be enjoyed for nine francs per diem! A palace to live +in, placed in one of the choicest spots in the world, abundant and +well-skilled service, an excellently well-kept and well-served table, +charming gardens, and all for about two dollars a day! Truly wonderful +are the possibilities brought within our reach by _co-operation!_ +Still, I do not suppose that quite the same results could be attained +without the fortunate chance which placed a magnificent palace at the +disposal of the present proprietors at doubtless a comparatively very +small cost. _Morosini "nobis haec otra fecit"_ The princely expenditure +of that noble family in days long since gone by provided for us nomads +these enjoyments; for one is afraid to guess what the cost at the +present day of erecting such a pile would be. Throughout a large part +of the house, in the huge corridors and antechambers, a great deal +of the old furniture and the vast marble chimney-pieces and mural +decorations remain as the Morosini left them, and contribute their +part toward persuading us that we are not dwellers in a vulgar inn, +but the guests of some magnificent old doge, who leaves his friends +the most complete liberty and independence, and merely gratifies the +commercial traditions of his race by requesting us _pro forma_ to drop +a small present to his domestics at parting. + +There are a great variety of charming drives and walks in the +neighborhood in every direction; and the whole district is full of +the villas and well-kept gardens of the rich Milanese, who have +chosen this favored spot for their country residences. I have said +_well-kept_ gardens advisedly; and it is worth noting that the love +of gardens and gardening seems to be a specialty of the Milanese among +all the Italians. One sees in other parts of Italy the remains of care +and magnificence of this sort--at Rome especially; but all (though +in many cases belonging to owners still wealthy as well as noble) +dilapidated, little cared for, and speaking in melancholy tones of +decay and perished splendor. A ruined building may be an extremely +picturesque object, but a ruined garden can never be other than a +melancholy and repulsive one. But the whole of this district testifies +to the love of the Milanese for their gardens; and most of them are +on a truly princely scale of magnificence. There is one villa which I +will mention, because the owner of it is doing there what recalls +to our minds strikingly the old days which saw the creation of that +Italian splendor the remains of which we still admire, and suggests +that it is not beyond hope that the privileged soil of Italy and the +genius for the arts which seems inherent in this people may, under +their new political circumstances, lead to yet another renaissance. +The villa I am alluding to is in the immediate neighborhood of Varese, +on a rising ground above the town, commanding the most magnificent +views of Monte Rosa, Monte Viso and the country between the lakes of +Como and Maggiore. It is a new creation, and is the property and the +work of the Milanese banker, Signor Ponti. The house and gardens +are well worth a visit--if the traveler is fortunate enough to be +permitted to see them--for the sake of the happy originality of idea +which has inspired the architecture of the former and the excellent +taste which has turned the favorable circumstances of the ground to +the best account in laying out the latter. But the feature which I +specially wished to mention is the ornamentation of the principal +_salon_ or ball-room in the villa. When permitted to visit it we found +Signor Bertini, a Milanese artist well known in all parts of Italy, +engaged in putting the last touches to a series of frescoes which form +the principal ornamentation of the room. The four largest paintings +commemorate the glories of Italy in the history of human discovery. +In one the monk, Guido of Arezzo, the inventor of modern musical +notation, is teaching a class of four boys to sing from the page of an +illuminated missal--a really charming composition. In another Columbus +is showing to the Spanish monarchs the natives of the newly-found +world whom he had brought home with him. In a third Galileo is showing +to the astonished pope, by means of a telescope, the wonders of that +other newly-found world of which he was the discoverer. The fourth +shows us the very striking and lifelike figure of Volta explaining +the wonders of the "pile" to which he has given his name to the First +Napoleon. The whole of these, as well as of the other decorations of +the room, are in "real fresco"--that is to say, the colors are laid +on while the mortar is yet wet (whence the name _fresco_), and thus +become so entirely incorporated with the substance of the wall that +the painting is indestructible save by the destruction of at least +the coating of the latter. Of course, it is evident that a painting so +executed admits of no second touch. The hand of the artist must +obey his thought with absolutely unfailing fidelity or the work is +worthless. Hence the special difficulty of this description of art, +and the necessity of a very high degree of mastery in him who attempts +it. In the present case Signor Bertini has succeeded admirably. But +I was especially struck by the taste and liberality of the Milanese +banker, who, instead of making his room gorgeous with damask hangings +and satin and velvet, which any man who has cash in his pocket may +have, is giving encouragement to the art of his country, and doing at +this day exactly that which the Strozzi, the Borghesi, the Medici and +so many other bankers and merchants did three hundred and odd years +ago, and by doing made Italy what it was. + +T.A.T. + + + + +A STATE GOVERNOR IN THE ROLE OF ENOCH ARDEN. + + +The conventional romance of the long-lost husband returning home just +in time to interrupt the second nuptials of his wife is told of Samuel +Cranston, governor of Rhode Island, who died in 1727, after being +elected to that office thirty-two times in succession. + +It appears that when quite a young man Mr. Cranston married Mary, a +granddaughter of Roger Williams. Soon after the marriage he went to +sea, was captured by pirates and carried to some country--Algiers, +it is supposed--where he was detained for several years without +being able to communicate with his family. Meanwhile, Mrs. Cranston, +believing him to be dead, accepted an offer of marriage, and was on +the eve of the nuptial ceremonies when her first husband arrived in +Boston. There he heard the news of the proposed marriage, but there +being no such thing then as telegraphs or railroads, he started for +home by means of post-horses as fast as they could carry him. When he +reached Howland's Ferry, just before night, he learned that his wife +was to be married that very evening. "With increased speed he flew to +Newport, but not until the wedding-guests had begun to assemble. She +was called by a servant into the kitchen, 'a person being there +who wished to speak with her.' A man in sailor's habit advanced and +informed her that her husband had arrived in Boston, and requested him +to inform her that he was on his way to Newport." It does not appear +that the hero of this romance made any attempt to find out if his wife +had become more attached to his rival, with the purpose of remaining +incognito should he find this to be the fact. On the contrary, after +being questioned very closely by her, he advanced toward her, "raised +his cap, and pointing to a scar on his forehead, said, 'Do you +recollect that scar?'" Whereupon she at once recognized him, though +the romance is marred by the absence of the assurance that she "flew +into his arms." This may be inferred, however, for the returned +wanderer became the hero of the evening, entertaining the +wedding-guests with an account of his adventures and sufferings among +the pirates. + + + + +THE PALATINE LIGHT. + + +This phenomenon appeared off the northern coast of Block Island about +1720, and reappeared at irregular intervals down to the year 1832, +since which it has not been seen. A common impression of those seeing +it for the first time was that it was a light on board of some ship, +or a ship on fire when very bright. Arnold, in his _History of Rhode +Island_, gives an account of it, and also of the tradition which +assigned to it a strange origin. "This light," he remarks, "has been +the theme of much learned discussion within the present century, +and, while the superstition connected with it is of course rejected, +science has failed thus far in giving it a satisfactory explanation." +Dr. Aaron C. Willey, a resident physician of Block Island, wrote a +careful account of the phenomenon in 1811, which was published at the +time in the _Parthenon_, whatever that may have been. He says: "Its +appellation originated from that of a ship called the Palatine, which +was designedly cast away at this place in the beginning of the last +century, in order to conceal, as tradition reports, the inhuman +treatment and murder of some of its unfortunate passengers." This was +an emigrant ship bound from Holland to Pennsylvania. Some seventeen +of the survivors were landed on the island, but they all died except +three. One lady, it was said, having "much gold and silver plate on +board," refused to land. The ship floated off the rocks, and soon +after disappeared for ever. Dr, Willey says he saw this light in +February, 1810. "It was twilight, and the light was then large and +greatly lambent, very bright, broad at the bottom and terminating +acutely upward. From each side seemed to issue rays of faint light +similar to those perceptible in any blaze placed in the open air +at night. It continued about fifteen minutes from the time I first +observed it, then gradually became smaller and more dim until it +was entirely extinguished." The same gentleman saw it again in the +following December, when he thought it was a light on board of some +vessel until undeceived. It moved along apparently parallel to the +shore on this occasion, after a time falling behind the doctor, who +was riding along the coast. Finally, it stopped, then moved off some +rods and stopped again. The same authority declares that he had been +told by a gentleman living near the sea that it had often been so +bright as to "illuminate considerably the walls of his room through +the windows." This happened only when the light was within half a mile +from the shore, for it was "often seen blazing at six or seven miles' +distance, and strangers supposed it to be a vessel on fire." + +M.H. + + + + +NOTES. + +It is not very extraordinary that printers' ink is a poor pigment for +painting sunsets or sunrises. The strange thing is that travelers and +sentimentalizers obstinately ignore the fact, and hang their paper +walls with more scenery of that description than any other. What a +gallery of alpine, arctic and marine sunsets we have, and how blank an +impression do they all produce! From any of them, done with a clever +pen by one who undertakes to describe what he has freshly seen, we +gather that the spectacle must have been very fine, and must have +deeply delighted the spectator. We can even catch some tints here +and there, but they are fugitive, and each escapes the eye before it +grasps the next one. If we shut our eyes on Tennyson's page we may +realize a glimpse of Mont Blanc blushing through "a thousand shadowy +penciled valleys," and have a momentary pleasure; but the poet's +picture does not abide with us. Some one devotes a couple of pages +to mapping out the infinitude of half-tints that composed a summer's +evening view looking seaward from the North Cape--a good subject +faithfully gone into, but still not a satisfactory sketch even of the +reality. The pen and type will outline and shade, but cannot color. +They give us some fair landscapes made up of form and effect; they can +compass a cavernous bit of Rembrandt, a curtain of fog or shower, or +a staircase of wood and rock climbing into the distance, just as they +can sometimes faintly depict the infinite chiaroscuro of the Miserere +in St. Peter's; but the monochrome, in music as in painting, is their +limit. + + * * * * * + +Has photography dealt hardly with portrait-painting as a branch of +art, or has it benefited it by weeding out the feeble? The Memorial +Exhibition will assist in determining. It will, we hope, allow the +best living painters in this department to be fully represented by the +side of their predecessors. We shall then see if the Inmans, Neagles, +and Sullys are an extinct species, and if the ranks of their pupils +have melted away before the cannon-like camera. We cannot believe that +the sun, always exaggerating perspective except when rectified by +the stereoscope, and more or less falsifying light and shade by the +chemical effect of different rays, is to be the only limner of faces. +Thus imperfect even in mechanical execution, it seems impossible that +he should supersede future Vandycks. As Webster used to say to young +lawyers, there is plenty of room up stairs. Painters may fearlessly +aim to get above the sun. Take one of Sully's women and compare it +with the smoothest print softened into inanity by the dots of the +retoucher of negatives--the representative of the element of art in +the process. A difference exists equivalent to that between brain and +no brain. No woman, "primp" herself for the sitting as she may, can +present her soul to the dapper gentleman under the canopy of black +velvet as Sully saw it. She does not know herself, as reflected in her +lineaments, as he did; and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the +knight of the tripod does not know her at all. + +The same is true of John Neagle as a perpetuator of character with the +pencil. Men were his best subjects. In individualizing them he has had +no superior, if an equal, among American artists. His finish was not +always good, and his coloring for that reason occasionally crude. +In female heads he was less happy: character-painters generally are. +Stuart's women are equally defective, but in a rather different way, +being hard and angular in drawing. + + * * * * * + +England is determined not to shrink from the solution of the +time-honored problem of the result of the meeting between an +irresistible force and an impregnable target. Her iron-clads have +piled pellicle on pellicle of iron till two feet thick has become +their normal shell. Everything thinner has been punctured, and now +an eighty-ton gun, to cost sixty thousand pounds, is getting ready to +perforate that. There must be a stopping-point for all this somewhere. +Perhaps the fate of armor afloat may soon be settled finally by the +torpedo, as its efficiency on land was disposed of by the bullet, +and the men-at-arms of the sea no longer lord it over hosts of wooden +yeomanry. Happy the nation that can look on with its hands firmly +in its pockets while others lavish their treasure in seeking the new +philosopher's stone! + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Nero: An Historical Play. By W.W. Story. Edinburgh and London: Wm. +Blackwood & Sons; New York: Scribner, Welford & Armstrong, + +The fashion of so-called historical dramas is spreading, but the +standard is lowering. When Mr. Swinburne wrote _Chastelard_, whatever +its faults, it was entitled to the name of drama: last year he +published _Bothwell_, which, whatever its beauties, does not deserve +to be so ranked. Tennyson's _Queen Mary_ followed during the +past summer, and many similar attempts may be expected from less +illustrious pens. It is an unfortunate direction for dramatic and +poetic composition to have taken, tending to impair the excellence of +both styles, while fulfilling the exigencies of neither. _Bothwell_ +and _Queen Mary_ are not historical dramas, but versified chronicles, +a certain number of pages of the annals of Scotland and England in +metre, divided into acts and scenes and distributed into parts. Such +a production, be it called what it may, must necessarily lack the +essential qualities of the true drama, while it introduces into a +branch of literature which belongs to the imagination the realism +against which art is struggling. The latest specimen of this new +school is Mr. Story's _Nero_, for, although by his preface it appears +that the publication did not follow the writing for several years, it +comes to the world in the wake of the aforementioned works. It is to +be remembered that Mr. Story's pen is as versatile as his talent is +various. He has given the public two law-books, commonly attributed to +his eminent father; the delightful _Roba di Roma_, which embodies the +actual animate beauty and interest of Roman life; a volume of poems, +_Graffiti d'Italia_, full of fine dramatic fragments and studies of +character in the manner of Browning, descriptions which are pictures, +and sweet verses which live in the heart; and a number of essays in +the pleasantest style of table-talk. Moreover, we are to bear in mind +that this gentleman is not an author by profession, but one of +the most distinguished living sculptors. But the very merit of his +productions subjects them to a code of criticism more severe than that +by which amateur performances are usually judged, and the faults one +finds are by comparison with a standard which makes fault-finding +flattery. In the first place, one cannot turn over a few pages of Mr. +Story's _Nero_ without perceiving that he is imbued with the knowledge +of classical things and times, and with the study of Shakespeare and +the old English playwrights. The turn of the phrases and the march of +the passages recall those best models, though without imitation. As +in them, there is less beauty than vigor and spirit: the dialogue is +strewn with expressions as striking as they are simple. Speaking of +Claudius's murder, Burrhus says: + + And Agrippina, startled, pushed him down + The dark declivity to death. + +Agrippina herself to Nero: + + Oh what a day it was + When, with a shout that seemed to rend the air, + The army hailed you Caesar! _My poor heart + Shook like the standards straining to the breeze + With that great cheer of triumph_. + +The finest portions of the play are those in which Agrippina has the +principal part, and, notwithstanding some flaws and inconsistencies +in the character, which is evidently meant to be complete and +homogeneous, the whole impression is very forcible and _single_. Her +final menace (Act ii., Scene 5) when Nero defies her, the terrible +scene in which she tries to regain her failing influence by kindling +unholy fire in his blood, her rage at the inaction and ignorance of +her forced retirement, her monologue when she knows that her last +hour has come, are all of a piece and exceedingly well sustained. The +dramatic ends of the play would have been better answered if she and +her son had been the central figures, and the tragedy had ended with +her death. Poppaea is closely studied: her petty, feline personality +contrasts well with the large, imperial presence of Agrippina. Nero +himself is not so successful as a whole: his puerility in the first +part is overdone, though as the play goes on the creation takes +definite shape, and becomes at once more complex and more distinct. +The invariable recurrence of his vanity at the most tremendous moments +is admirably managed: it is like an unconscious trick of look or +gesture for which we watch. In his first outburst of grief at Poppaea's +death he cries: + + How still she lies! + How perfect in her calm! No more distress, + No agitations more, no joy, no pain. + I'll keep her as she is. Fire shall not burn + That lovely shape; but it shall sleep embalmed-- + Thus, thus for ever in the Julian tomb, + And she shall be enrolled among the gods. + A splendid temple shall be raised to her, + A public funeral be hers, _and I + The funeral eulogy myself will speak_. + +There are some impressive dramatic situations, the finest of which is +at the close of the second act, after the murder of Britannicus, the +result of a threat from Agrippina to dethrone her refractory son in +behalf of the rightful heir: + + _Nero_. How is Britannicus? + + _Agrip_. Dead. + + _Nero_. Are you sure? + + _Agrip_. Go see his corpse there, and assure yourself. + + _Nero_. Dead? Poor Britannicus! who might have sat + Upon this very throne instead of me! + + _Agrip_. Nero! + + _Nero_. My mother! + + _Agrip_. Ah! I understand. + + _Nero_. Take him and make him emperor--if you can. + +This has what the French call the _coup de fouet_. But the power and +progress of the play are clogged by two faults--defective construction +and a curious diffuseness and lack of concentration in many of the +scenes and speeches. The action is sadly impeded, for instance, by the +author's not making one business of Seneca's death, but spinning it +out through four scenes of going and coming, as also with Poppaea's, +and even more with Nero's, where the intercalation of long +conversations with changes of places and personages is hurtful, almost +destructive, to the effect. This appears to be the result of too close +an adherence to fact, which brings us back to our original grievance +against dramatizing history. The loss of force from lack of +concentration probably arises from carelessness, haste or want of +revision. From the same causes may spring, too, sundry anachronisms of +expression, such as "For God's sake;" vulgarisms like "Leave me alone" +for "Let me alone;" extraordinary commonplaces, as in the comparison +of popular favor to a weathercock, and of woman's love to a flower +worn, then thrown aside; and a constant lapsing from the energy and +spirit of the dialogue into flatness, familiarity and triviality. +There is an occasional not unwholesome coarseness which recalls Mr. +Story's Elizabethan masters, as in the following passage: + + What a crew is this + Which just have fled! Foul suckers that drop off + When they no more can on their victims gorge! + This Tigellinus.... + Within his sunshine basked and buzzed and stung; + And, now the shadow comes, off, like a fly-- + A pestilent and stinking fly--he goes! + +But it is unpardonable to make even Nero say, "I have to rinse my +mouth after her kiss." + +The fine qualities of the composition give the blemishes relief, and +the material deserved that Mr. Story should work it up to its utmost +possible perfection. + + * * * * * + +Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher. With Letters and other Family +Memorials. Edited by the Survivor of her Family. Boston: Roberts +Brothers. + +There are in this work several elements of a gentle but unfailing +interest, such as generally attaches to the class of books to which +it belongs. It gives us some delineations of bygone manners and social +changes, glimpses of many more or less notable persons, and above all +the record of a life which, without being in the usual sense of these +terms eventful or distinguished, stands forth as one in a great degree +self-determined and bearing a strong impress of individuality. Mrs +Fletcher was one of those women who easily become the central figures +of the circles in which they move, and who owe this position, not +to any transcendent qualities, but to the combined and irresistible +influence of great personal charms, a high degree of mental vivacity, +and those sympathetic and harmonizing qualities which it is so +difficult to define, but which are equally distinct from mere +amiability on the one hand and intense self-devotion on the other. +There seems to be in such characters a hint of heroic possibilities +that would only be narrowed and despoiled of some of their charm if +put to the test of action. Lord Brougham compared Mrs. Fletcher to +Madame Roland, but she had neither the soaring intellect nor the +self-assertive tendencies that mark the representative of a cause. +Principle, however, counted for much more with her than with the sex +generally, and one can easily believe that her tenacity in adhering to +it would have been proof against any ordeal whether of persecution +or persuasion. This trait was not more strikingly illustrated by +the strength and fervency of her Whiggism amid the reactionary +tide produced by the excesses of the French Revolution than by the +circumstances of her marriage. The only child of a small landed +proprietor in Yorkshire, she had no lack of opportunities for +gratifying her father's ambition by marrying in a rank far above her +own. Nor was it her ardent affection for the man of her choice that +made her strong against entreaties and reproaches. She would probably +have been capable of any sacrifice of feeling imposed by her sense of +duty, but it was this latter sentiment that forbade the sacrifice. +"I was not, perhaps," she writes, "what in the language of romance +is called in love with Mr. Fletcher, but I was deeply and tenderly +attached to him. He had inspired a confidence and regard I had never +felt for any other man. I could not bear the thought of marrying in +opposition to my father's will, but I was resolved _on principle_ +never to marry so long as Mr. Fletcher remained single." He was twenty +years her senior, without fortune, and hindered, instead of aided, in +his struggle at the Scottish bar by his prominence as an advocate of +reform. These, she admits, were "sound and rational objections," +and could she have prevailed on Mr. Fletcher to release her from the +engagement, this solution, she confesses, would have been less painful +to her than offending her father. But her lover remaining firm, she +decided after two years, having come of age in the interval, to take +the step dictated by honor as well as inclination, and which the event +proved to have been, as she anticipated, "best for the interest and +happiness of all parties." + +Her married life lasted thirty-seven years, and she survived her +husband nearly thirty more, dying in 1858 at the age of eighty-seven. +Her career was, on the whole, one of singular happiness and +prosperity, made so in part by fortunate circumstances, but in a still +greater degree by her sunny temperament, her power of attracting and +retaining friends, her unflagging interest in public affairs and her +unshaken belief in human progress. Jeffrey and Brougham were among her +earliest friends, Carlyle and Mazzini among her latest, and there have +been few Englishmen of note in the present century whose names do not +appear in the list. Unfortunately, they appear for the most part as +names only. They occur incidentally in a record intended not for +the public, but for the writer's own family, whose interest in her +personal history needed no stimulant and called for no extraneous +details. Here and there we find a passage calculated to whet if not +to satisfy a more general curiosity, such as the account of a +conversation with Wordsworth after his return from Italy in 1837, +and some letters from Mazzini written soon after his first arrival in +England, But even these belong not to the memoir itself, but to the +editor's additions. The book is therefore not to be judged by a mere +literary standard, or read with expectations founded on a general +knowlege of the writer's position and associations. On all with +whom she came in contact Mrs. Fletcher produced the impression of +a character singularly round and complete. Something of the same +influence is felt in the perusal of her unaffected narrative, and with +readers of a reflective turn may prove a sufficient compensation for +the lack of more ordinary attractions. + + * * * * * + +_Books Received_. + +Notes on the Manufacture of Pottery among Savage Races. By Ch. Fred. +Hartt, A.M. Rio de Janeiro: Printed at the office of the "South +American Mail." + +The History of My Friends; or, Home-Life with Animals. Translated from +the French of Emile Achard. New York; G.P. Putnam's Sons. + +The Cultivation of Art, and its Relations to Religious Puritanism and +Money-Getting. By A.R. Cooper. New York: Chas. P. Somerby. + +Health Fragments; or, Steps toward a True Life. By Geo. H. Everett, +M.D. New York: Chas. P. Somerby. + +Sewerage and Sewage Utilization. By Prof. W.H. Corfield, M.A. New +York: D. Van Nostrand. + +Notes of Travel in South-western Africa. By C.J. Andersson. New York: +G.P. Putnam's Sons. + +St. George and St. Michael: A Novel. By George Macdonald. New York: +J.B. Ford & Co. + +Water and Water-Supply. By W.H. Corfield, M.A., M.D. New York: D. Van +Nostrand. + +Home Pastorals, Ballads and Lyrics. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: James R. +Osgood & Co. + +Soul Problems, with other Papers. By Joseph E. Peck. New York: Chas. +P. Somerby. + +Scripture Speculations. By Halsey R. Stevens. New York: Charles P. +Somerby. + +Antiquity of Christianity. By John Alberger. New York: Chas. P. +Somerby. + +The Ship in the Desert. By Joaquin Miller. 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