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diff --git a/13116-0.txt b/13116-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec272fe --- /dev/null +++ b/13116-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8559 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13116 *** + +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 13116 *** |