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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature
+and Science,  April, 1876., by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science,  April, 1876.
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 21, 2004 [EBook #13242]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added
+by the transcriber.
+
+
+
+
+LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
+
+April, 1876.
+
+Vol. XVII, No. 100.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  THE CENTURY ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.
+    IV.--THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION UNDER ROOF.
+
+  SKETCHES OF INDIA.
+    IV.--CONCLUSION.
+
+  THE COLLEGE STUDENT by JAMES MORGAN HART.
+
+  SONNET by MAURICE THOMPSON.
+
+  THE HOUSE THAT SUSAN BUILT by SARAH WINTER KELLOGG.
+
+  AFTER A YEAR by KATE HILLARD.
+
+  THE BERKSHIRE LADY by THOMAS HUGHES.
+
+  THE SABBATH OF THE LOST
+
+  THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS by MRS. E. LYNN LINTON.
+    CHAPTER XXIX. THE FRIEND OF THE FUTURE.
+    CHAPTER XXX. MAYA--DELUSION.
+    CHAPTER XXXI. BY THE BROAD.
+    CHAPTER XXXII. PALMAM QUI NON MERUIT.
+
+  THE SING-SONG OF MALY COE by CHARLES G. LELAND.
+
+  LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA BY LADY BARKER.
+
+  DINNER IN A STATE PRISON by MARGARET HOSMER.
+
+  FAREWELL by AUBER FORESTIER.
+
+  THE INSTRUCTION OF DEAF MUTES by JENNIE EGGLESTON ZIMMERMAN.
+
+  OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
+    THE CITY OF VIOLETS by ELISE POLKO.
+    LA BEFANA.
+    ERNESTO ROSSI.
+    BISHOP THIRLWALL'S PRECOCITY.
+    FREAKS OF KLEPTOMANIA.
+
+  LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
+    BOOKS RECEIVED.
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  THE BRIDGE ACROSS LANSDOWNE RAVINE, CONNECTING MEMORIAL AND
+    HORTICULTURAL HALLS.
+  GIRARD AVENUE BRIDGE--ONE OF THE APPROACHES TO THE EXHIBITION GROUNDS.
+  MAIN BUILDING.
+  MACHINERY HALL.
+  HON. JOSEPH R. HAWLEY, PRESIDENT OF THE CENTENNIAL COMMISSION.
+  GENERAL ALFRED T. GOSHORN, DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE CENTENNIAL
+    COMMISSION.
+  JOHN WELSH, ESQ., PRESIDENT OF THE CENTENNIAL BOARD OF FINANCE.
+  AGRICULTURAL BUILDING.
+  HORTICULTURAL HALL.
+  MEMORIAL HALL, WITH EXTENSION.
+  INDIGO-FACTORY NEAR ALLAHABAD.
+  MUSSULMAN SCHOOL AT ALLAHABAD.
+  MALERS AND SONTALS.
+  GRAIN-AND-FLOUR MERCHANT OF PATNA.
+  A TIGER-HUNT, ELEPHANT-BACK.
+  BENGAL WATER-CARRIERS.
+  BRAHMANS OF BENGAL.
+  BENGALESE OF LOW CASTE.
+  CHARIOT OF THE PROCESSION OF THE RATTJATTRA, AT JAGHERNATH.
+  THE PORT OF CALCUTTA.
+
+
+
+
+LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE
+
+OF
+
+_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_.
+
+APRIL, 1876.
+Vol. XVII, No. 100.
+
+
+
+
+THE CENTURY ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.
+
+IV.--THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION UNDER ROOF.
+
+[Illustration: THE BRIDGE ACROSS LANSDOWNE RAVINE, CONNECTING MEMORIAL
+AND HORTICULTURAL HALLS.]
+
+None of the European exhibitions we have sketched partook of the
+nature of an anniversary or was designed to commemorate an historical
+event. Some idea of celebrating the close of the calendar half-century
+may have helped to determine the choice of 1851 as the year for
+holding the first London fair; but if so, it was only with reference
+to the general progress during this period, and not to any notable
+fact at its commencement. Still less did the later exhibitions owe any
+portion of their significance and interest to their connection with a
+date. They afforded occasion for comparison and rivalry, but no shape
+loomed up out of the past claiming to preside over the festival, to
+have its toils and achievements remembered, and to be credited with a
+share in the production of the harvests garnered by its successors.
+
+In our case it is very different. Here was the birth-year of the Union
+coming apace. It forced itself upon our contemplation. It appealed
+not merely to the average passion of grown-up boys for hurrahs,
+gun-firing, bell-ringing, and rockets sulphureous and oratorical. It
+addressed us in a much more sober tone and assumed a far more
+didactic aspect. Looking from its throne of clouds o'er half the (New)
+World--and indeed, as we have shown, constructively over the Old as
+well--it summoned us to the wholesome moral exercise of pausing a
+moment in our rapid career to revert to first principles, moral,
+social and political, and to explore the germs of our marvelous
+material progress. Nor could we assume this office as exclusively for
+our own benefit. The rest of Christendom silently assigned it to the
+youngest born for the common good. Circumstances had placed in our
+hands the measuring-rod of Humanity's growth, and all stood willing to
+gather upon our soil for its application, so far as that could be
+made by the method devised and perfected within the past quarter of
+a century. It was here, a thousand leagues away from the scene of the
+first enterprise of the kind, that the culminating experiment was to
+be tried.
+
+[Illustration: GIRARD AVENUE BRIDGE--ONE OF THE APPROACHES TO THE
+EXHIBITION GROUNDS.]
+
+To what point on a continent as broad as the Atlantic were they to
+come? The European fairs were hampered with no question of locality.
+That Austria should hold hers at Vienna, France at Paris, and Britain
+at London, were foregone conclusions. But the United States have a
+plurality of capitals, political, commercial, historical and State.
+Washington, measured by house-room and not by magnificent distances,
+was too small. New York, acting with characteristic haste, had already
+indulged in an exposition, and it lacked, moreover, the rich cluster
+of associations that might have hallowed its claims as the "commercial
+metropolis." Among the State capitals Boston alone had the needed
+historical eminence, but, besides the obvious drawback of its
+situation, its capacity and its commissariat resources, except for
+a host of disembodied intellects, must prove insufficient. There
+remained the central city of the past, the seat of the Continental
+Congress, of the Convention and of the first administrations under
+the Constitution which it framed--the halfway-house between North and
+South of the early warriors and statesmen, and the workshop in which
+the political machinery that has since been industriously filed at
+home and more or less closely copied abroad was originally forged.
+Where else could the two ends of the century be so fitly brought
+together? Here was the Hall of 1776; the other hall that nearly two
+years earlier received the first assemblage of "that hallowed name
+that freed the Atlantic;" the modest building in a bed-chamber of
+which the Declaration of Independence was penned; and other localities
+rich with memories of the men of our heroic age.
+
+The space of a few blocks covered the council-ground of the Union.
+Those few acres afforded room enough for the beating of its political
+heart for twenty-five years, from the embryonic period to that of
+maturity--from the meeting of a consulting committee of subject
+colonists to the establishment of unchallenged and symmetrical
+autonomy.
+
+The growth of Philadelphia from this contracted germ was only less
+remarkable than that of the government. The capital of the provincial
+rebels had expanded into one fit for an empire, comparable to Vienna
+as a site for a World's Exposition and a caravanserai for those who
+should attend it. Such advantages would have caused its selection had
+the question been submitted in the first instance to the unbiased vote
+of various quarters of the Union, all expected and all prepared to
+contribute an equal quota, according to population and means, of the
+cost. But the enterprise of the community itself anticipated such
+decision. Its own citizens hastened to appropriate the idea and
+shoulder the responsibility. They felt that the standpoint wherefrom
+they were able to address their countrymen was a commanding one, and
+they lost no time in lifting up their voice. Aware that those who
+take the initiative have always to carry more than their share of the
+burden, they were very moderate in their calls for aid; and the demand
+for that they rested chiefly upon the same ground which naturally
+sustained part of their own calculations of reimbursement in some
+shape, direct or indirect--local self-interest. The dislike to the
+entire loss of a large outlay on an uncertain event is not peculiar to
+this commercial age. Appeals on the side of patriotism and of
+public enthusiasm over the jubilee of a century would be at least as
+effective with the American people as with any other in the world;
+but they could not be expected to be all-powerful, and to need no
+assistance from the argument of immediate and palpable advantage.
+In default of subscriptions to the main fund from distant towns and
+States, these were invited to provide for the cost of collecting,
+transporting and arranging their individual shares of the display.
+This they have generally, and in many cases most liberally, done, in
+addition to direct subscriptions greater in amount than the provinces
+of either Austria, France or England made to their respective
+expositions. Withal, it could surprise no one that Pennsylvania and
+her chief city would have to be the main capitalists of an undertaking
+located on their own soil.
+
+These came forward with a promptness that at once raised the movement
+above the status of a project. The city with a million and a half, and
+the State with a million, replenished the exchequer of the association
+after a fashion that ensured in every quarter confidence in its
+success, and at the same time extinguished what little disposition
+may have been manifested elsewhere to cavil at the choice of location.
+These large subventions very properly contemplated something more than
+the encouragement of a transient display, and were for the most part
+devoted to the erection of structures of a permanent character, such
+as the Art-Gallery or Memorial Hall and the Horticultural Building. To
+endowments of this description, called forth by the occasion, we might
+add the Girard Avenue Bridge, the finest in the country, erected by
+the city at the cost of a million and a half, and leading direct to
+the exhibition grounds. The concession of two hundred and sixty
+acres of the front of Fairmount Park, with the obliteration of costly
+embellishments that occupied the ground taken for the new exposition
+buildings, may be viewed in the light of another contribution.
+
+[Illustration: MAIN BUILDING.]
+
+A treasury meant to accommodate seven millions of dollars--three
+millions less than the Vienna outlay--still showed an aching void,
+which was but partially satisfied by the individual subscriptions of
+Philadelphians. It became necessary to sound the financial tocsin
+in the ears of all the Union. Congress, States, cities, counties,
+schools, churches, citizens and children were appealed to for
+subscriptions. The shares were fixed at the convenient size of ten
+dollars each, hardly the market-value of the stock-certificate,
+"twenty-four by twenty inches on the best bank-note paper," which
+became the property of each fortunate shareholder on the instant of
+payment. But these seductive pictures belonged to a class of art with
+which the moneyed public had become since '73 unhappily too familiar.
+They had to jostle, in the gallery of the stock-market, a vast
+and various collection exhaustive of the whole field of allegory,
+mythological and technical, and framed in the most bewitching aureoles
+of blue, red and green printer's ink. It seemed in '72 much more
+probable that the Coon Swamp and Byzantium Trans-Continental Railway
+would be able, the year after completion, to pay eight per cent. on
+fifty thousand dollars of bonds to the mile, sold at seventy in the
+hundred, than it did in '75 that ten millions of fifty-cent tickets
+could be disposed of in six months at any point on the Continent. Thus
+it happened that the exchange of Mr. Spinner's twenty square inches of
+allegory for the three square feet of Messrs. Ferris & Darley's went
+on slowly, and it became painfully obvious that the walls of but an
+imperceptible minority of American homes would have the patriotic
+faith and fervor of their occupants attested a century hence by these
+capacious engravings, as that of a hundred years ago is by rusty
+muskets and Cincinnati diplomas.
+
+Still, the stock did not altogether go a-begging. The adjacent
+State of New Jersey signed for the sum of $100,000, more remote New
+Hampshire and Connecticut for $10,000 each, and little Delaware for
+the same. Kansas gave $25,000. Five thousand were voted by the city
+of Wilmington, and a thin fusillade of ten-dollar notes played slowly
+from all points of the compass. This was kept up to the last, and with
+some increase of activity, but it was a mere affair of pickets, that
+could not be decisive.
+
+Undismayed, the managers fought their way through fiscal brake and
+brier, the open becoming more discernible with each effort, till in
+February, 1876, Congress rounded off their strong box with the neat
+capping of a million and a half. The entire cost of administration and
+construction was thus covered, and the association distinguished from
+all its predecessors by the assurance of being able on the opening day
+to invite its thousands of guests to floors laden with the wealth of
+the world, but with not an ounce of debt.
+
+The assistance extended in another and indirect form by the States
+collectively and individually was valuable. Congress appropriated
+$505,000 for the erection of a building and the collection therein
+of whatever the different Federal departments could command of the
+curious and instructive. Massachusetts gave for a building of her own,
+and for aiding the contribution of objects by her citizens, $50,000;
+New York for a like purpose, $25,000; New Hampshire, Nevada and West
+Virginia, $20,000 each; Ohio, $13,000; Illinois, $10,000; and
+other States less sums. The States in all, and in both forms of
+contribution, have given over four hundred thousand dollars--not
+a fourth, strange to say, of the sums appropriated by foreign
+governments in securing an adequate display of the resources, energy
+and ingenuity of their peoples. It does not approach the donation of
+Japan, and little more than doubles that of Spain. In explanation, it
+may be alleged that our exhibitors, being less remote, will encounter
+less expense, and a larger proportion of them will be able to face
+their own expenses.
+
+Great as is the value to a country of a free and facile interchange of
+commodities and ideas between its different parts, of not less--under
+many circumstances far greater--importance is its wide and complete
+intercourse with foreign lands. Provincial differences are never
+so marked as national. The latter are those of distinct
+idiosyncrasies--the former, but modifications of one and the same. To
+study members of our own family is only somewhat to vary the study of
+ourselves. Really to learn we must go outside of that circle. Hence
+the tremendous effect of the world-searching commerce of modern times
+in the enlightenment and enrichment of the race.
+
+For the best fruits of the exposition its projectors and all concerned
+in its success looked abroad. In this estimate of highest results they
+had the example of Europe. It was remembered that British exports
+rose from one hundred and thirty-one millions sterling in 1850 to two
+hundred and fourteen in 1853--an increase equal to our average annual
+export at present, and double what it was at that time. The declared
+satisfaction of Austria with her apparent net loss of seven millions
+of dollars by the exhibition of 1873, in view of the offset she
+claimed in the stimulus it gave to her domestic industry and the
+extended market it earned for her foreign trade, was also eloquent. We
+must therefore address the world in the way most likely to ensure its
+attention and attendance. The chief essential to that end was that it
+should be official. Government must address government.
+
+[Illustration: MACHINERY HALL.]
+
+Naturally, this necessity was apparent from the beginning. Congress
+was addressed betimes, and the consequence was a sufficiently sonorous
+act of date March 3, 1871, assuming in the title to "provide for
+celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of American independence."
+It made, however, no provision at all for that purpose financially. On
+the contrary, it provided very stringently that the Federal treasury
+should not be a cent the worse for anything contained in the bill. It
+furnished, however, the stamp wanted. It "created" the United States
+Centennial Commission, and it directed the President, as soon as
+the private corporators should have perfected their work, to address
+foreign nations, through their diplomatic representatives and our
+own, in its behalf. A commissioner and alternate were appointed by the
+President, on the nomination of the respective governors, from each
+State and Territory, who should have "exclusive control" of the
+exhibition.
+
+Subsequently, an act of June 1, 1872, established a Centennial Board
+of Finance, as a body corporate, to manage the fisc of the exhibition,
+provide ways and means for the construction of the buildings according
+to the plans adopted by the commission, and after the close of the
+exhibition to convert its property into cash and divide the same,
+after paying debts, _pro rata_ among the stockholders. This was to be
+done under the supervision of the commission, which was to wind up
+the board, audit its accounts, and make report to the President of the
+financial outcome of the affair. An inroad on the terms of this act
+is made by the law of last winter, which makes preferred stock of
+the million and a half then subscribed by the Federal government--a
+provision, however, the literal enforcement of which, by the covering
+back of so much money into the treasury of the United States, is,
+in our opinion, not probable. It will doubtless be made a permanent
+appropriation, in some form, for the promotion of the arts of industry
+and taste.
+
+Ten millions of dollars was the authorized capital of the new board.
+Events have proved the amplitude of this estimate.
+
+As early as the third day of July, 1873, the President was enabled,
+by the notification of the governor of Pennsylvania, to make formal
+proclamation that provision had been made for the completion of the
+exposition structures by the time contemplated. Nearly three years was
+thus allotted for preparation to home and foreign exhibitors. A
+year later (June 5, 1874) an act of a single sentence requested the
+President "to extend, in the name of the United States, a respectful
+and cordial invitation to the governments of other nations to be
+represented and take part in" the exposition; "_Provided, however_,
+that the United States shall not be liable, directly or indirectly,
+for any expenses attending such exposition, or by reason of the same."
+The abundant caution of this _italically_ emphatic reservation will
+scarcely preclude the extension to the representatives of foreign
+governments of such measure of hospitality, on occasion, as they may
+have in the like case offered our own.
+
+Acts permitting the Centennial medals to be struck at the mint, and
+admitting free of duty articles designed for exhibition, were passed
+in June, 1874. The Secretary of the Treasury gave effect to the
+latter by a clear and satisfactory schedule of regulations. Under its
+operation foreign exhibitors have all their troubles at home; their
+goods, once on board ship, reaching the interior of the building with
+more facility and less of red tape than they generally meet with in
+attaining the point of embarkation.
+
+The answers of the nations were all that could be desired, and largely
+beyond any anticipation. Their government appropriations will exceed
+an aggregate of two millions in our currency. Great Britain, with
+Australia and Canada, gives for the expenses of her share of the
+display $250,000 in gold; France, $120,000; Germany, _$171,000_;
+Austria, $75,000; Italy, $38,000 from the government direct, and the
+same sum from the Chamber of Commerce, which is better, as indicating
+enlightenment and energy among her business-men; Spain, amid all her
+distractions, $150,000; Japan, an unknown quantity in the calculations
+of 1851, no less than $600,000; Sweden, $125,000; Norway, $44,000;
+Ecuador, $10,000; the Argentine Confederation, $60,000; and many
+others make ample provision not yet brought to figures, among them
+Egypt, China, Brazil, Chili, Venezuela, and that strange political
+cousin of ours at the antipodes, begotten and sturdily nurtured by the
+Knickerbockers, the Orange Free State. In all, we may reckon at forty
+the governments which have made the affair a matter of public concern,
+and have ranked with the ordinary and regular cares of administration
+the interest of their people in being adequately represented at
+Philadelphia. Many other states will be represented by considerable
+displays sent at private expense. It results that we shall have
+twenty-one acres under roof of the best products of the outer
+world--more than the entire area of the London exposition of 1851. A
+Muscovite journal, the _Golos_, expresses a wide popular sentiment in
+declaring that our exposition "will have immense political importance
+in the way of international relations." The people suspect they have
+found what they have long needed--a great commercial, industrial and
+political 'change to aid in regulating and equalizing the market of
+ideas and making a common fund of that article of trade, circulating
+freely and interchangeable everywhere at sight. Practically, the
+territory of the United States is an island like Great Britain.
+Everything that comes to Philadelphia, save a little from Canada, will
+traverse the sea. We are assuming the metropolitan character, whereto
+isolation is a step. All the imperial centres, old and new, have been
+seated on islands or promontories. Look at England, Holland, Venice,
+Carthage, Syracuse, Tyre, Rome and Athens. Shall we add New York and
+San Francisco--little wards as they are of a continental metropolis?
+
+A unanimous, graceful and cordial bow of acceptance having thus swept
+round the globe in response to the invitation of the youngest
+member of the family, let us glance at the preparations made for the
+comfortable entertainment of so august an assemblage. An impression
+that its host was not yet fully out of the woods, that the
+chestnut-burs were still sticking in his hair, and that the wolf, the
+buffalo and the Indian were among his intimate daily chums, may have
+tended to modify its anticipations of a stylish reception. The rough
+but hearty ways of a country cousin who wished to retaliate for city
+hospitalities probably limited the calculations of the expectant
+world. This afforded the cousin aforesaid opportunity for a new
+surprise, of which he fully determined to avail himself. It is not
+his habit to aim too low, and that was not his failing in the present
+instance.
+
+[Illustration: HON. JOSEPH R. HAWLEY, PRESIDENT OF THE CENTENNIAL
+COMMISSION.]
+
+The edifices, according to the original plan, were to excel their
+European exemplars not less in elegance and elaboration than in
+completeness for their practical purposes, in adaptation and in
+capacity. The uncertainty, however, of success in raising the
+necessary funds in time enforced the abandonment of much that was
+merely ornate--a circumstance which was proved fortunate by the excess
+in the demands of exhibitors over all calculations, since the means
+it was at first proposed to bestow upon the artistic finish of the
+buildings were needed to provide additional space. As it is, the
+architectural results actually attained are above the average of such
+structures in general effect. The Main Building strikes the eye, at an
+angle of vision proper to its extent, more pleasingly than either
+of the English or French structures; while for the massiveness and
+dignity unattainable by glass and iron Memorial Hall has no rival
+among them, and its facade is inferior chiefly in richness of detail
+to the main entrance at Vienna. Were it otherwise, some shortcoming
+in point of external beauty might be pardoned in erections which are
+meant to stand but for a few months, and which can have no pretensions
+to the monumental character belonging to true architecture.
+Suitability to their transient purpose is the great thing to be
+considered; and their merit in that regard is amply established.
+Mr. P. Cunliffe Owen, familiar with all the minutiae of previous
+expositions, declares them supreme "in thoroughness of plan and energy
+of construction"--a judgment designed to coyer the whole conception
+and administration of the exhibition, and one which, coming from a
+disinterested and competent foreign observer, may be cited as an
+amply expressive tribute to the zeal and fidelity of those in control.
+Ex-Governor Hawley of Connecticut, president of the commission, is
+a native of North Carolina, and brings to the cause a combination
+of Southern ardor with Northern tenacity. The secretary of the
+commission, Mr. John L. Campbell of Indiana, was a good second in
+that bureaucratic branch of the management. The trying charge
+of supervising the work generally, conducting negotiations and
+correspondence, and leading as one harmonious body to the objective
+point of success an army of artists, contractors, superintendents,
+clerks, exhibitors, railroad companies and State and national
+commissioners, fell to General A.T. Goshorn of Ohio, director-general.
+We do not know that anything more eloquent can be said of him than
+simply thus to name what he had to do and point to what he has done.
+The duties of procuring the ways and means and controlling their
+expenditure devolved upon the Centennial Board of Finance. Of this
+body Mr. John Welsh is Chairman; Mr. Frederick Fraley, Treasurer; and
+Mr. Thomas Cochran, Chief of the Building Committee. Their office
+was fixed upon the grounds at an early stage of the proceedings. Mr.
+Welsh, more fortunate than Wren, has been able while yet in the flesh
+to point to his monument, and see it rising around him from day to
+day.
+
+The exposition is peculiarly fortunate in its site. Had historical
+associations determined the choice of the ground, the array of them
+in Fairmount Park would have sufficed to justify that which has
+been made. Its eminences are dotted with the country-houses of the
+Revolutionary statesmen and with trees under which they held converse.
+On one of them Robert Morris, our American Beaumarchais, enjoyed
+his financial zenith and fell to its nadir. To another the wit and
+geniality of Peters were wont to summon for relaxation the staid
+Washington, the meditative Jefferson, Rittenhouse the man of
+mathematics, the gay La Fayette with enthusiasm as yet undamped by
+Olmuetz, and his fellow-_emigres_ of two other stamps, Talleyrand and
+the citizen-king that was to be. The house of one of the Penns looked
+down into a secluded dell which he aptly dubbed Solitude, but which
+is now the populous abode of monkeys, bears and a variety of other
+animals, more handsomely housed than any similar collection in
+America.
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL ALFRED T. GOSHORN, DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE
+CENTENNIAL COMMISSION.]
+
+Knolls not appropriated by the villas of the old time, or from which
+they have disappeared, offered admirable locations for some of the
+buildings of the exposition, and a broad and smooth plateau, situated
+precisely where it was wanted, at the point nearest the city, offered
+itself for the largest two, the Main Building and Machinery Hall, with
+room additional for the Art Building. The amphitheatrical depression
+flanked on the east by this long wall of granite and glass, and
+spreading northward to the heights occupied by Horticultural Hall and
+the Agricultural Building, was assigned to the mushroom city to be
+formed of the various State and foreign head-quarters, restaurants,
+the Women's Pavilion, the United States Government Building, that of
+the press, a monster dairy, a ditto brewery, and a medley of other
+outcroppings of public and private spirit. To this motley and
+incoherent assemblage a quiet lakelet nearly in the centre would
+supply a sorely-wanted feature of repose, were it not to be vexed by
+a fountain, giving us over bound and helpless to the hurly-burly.
+But that is what every one will come for. When each member of the
+congregated world "tries its own expressive power," madness not
+inappropriately rules the hour. Once in a hundred years a six months'
+carnival is allowable to so ponderous a body. Civilization here aims
+to see itself not simply as in a glass, but in a multitude of glasses.
+To steer its optics through the architectural muddle in the basin
+before us it will need the retina that lies behind the facets of a
+fly.
+
+[Illustration: JOHN WELSH, ESQ., PRESIDENT OF THE CENTENNIAL BOARD OF
+FINANCE.]
+
+Eighteen hundred and eighty feet long, four hundred and sixty-four
+wide, forty-eight to the cornice and seventy to the roof-tree, are
+figures as familiar by this time to every living being in the United
+States as pictures of the Main Building. At each corner a square tower
+runs up to a level with the roof, and four more are clustered in the
+centre of the edifice and rise to the height of a hundred and twenty
+feet from a base of forty-eight feet square. These flank a central
+dome one hundred and twenty feet square at base and springing on iron
+trusses of delicate and graceful design to an apex ninety-six feet
+above the pavement--the exact elevation of the interior of the old
+Capitol rotunda. The transept, the intersection of which with the nave
+forms this pavilion, is four hundred and sixteen feet long. On each
+side of it is another of the same length and one hundred feet in
+width, with aisles of forty-eight feet each. Longitudinally, the
+divisions of the interior correspond with these transverse lines.
+A nave one hundred and twenty feet wide and eighteen hundred and
+thirty-two feet long--said to be unique for combined length and
+width--is accompanied by two side avenues a hundred feet wide, and as
+many aisles forty-eight feet wide. An exterior aisle twenty-four feet
+wide, and as many high to a half-roof or clerestory, passes round the
+whole building except where interrupted by the main entrances in the
+centres of the sides and ends and a number of minor ones between.
+
+The iron columns which support the central nave and transept are
+forty-five feet high, the roof between rising to seventy. Those of
+the side avenues and transepts are of the same height, with a
+roof-elevation of sixty-five feet. The columns of the centre space
+are seventy-two feet high. In all, the columns number six hundred
+and seventy-two. They stand twenty-two feet apart upon foundations of
+solid masonry. Being of rolled iron, bolted together in segments, they
+can, like the other constituents of the building, be taken apart and
+erected elsewhere when the gentlemen of the commission, their good
+work done and the century duly honored, shall fold their tents like
+the Arabs, though not so silently.
+
+A breadth of thirty feet will be left to the main promenades along and
+athwart, of fifteen feet to the principal ones on either side, and of
+ten feet to all the others. Narrow highways these for traversing the
+kingdoms of the world, but, combined, they nearly equal the bottom
+depth of the Suez Canal, very far exceed the five feet of the Panama
+Railway, and still farther the camel-track that sufficed a few
+centuries ago to link our ancestors to the Indies. The berths of
+the nations run athwartship, or north and south as the great ark is
+anchored. The classes of objects are separated by lines running in the
+opposite direction. Noah may be supposed to have followed some such
+arrangement in his storage of zoological zones and families. He had
+the additional aid of decks; which our assemblers of the universe
+decline, small balconies of observation being the only galleries of
+the Main Building. Those at the different stages of the central towers
+will be highly attractive to students who prefer the general to the
+particular, or who, exhausted for the time, retire to clear their
+brains from the dust of detail and muster their faculties for another
+charge on the vast army of art. From this perch one may survey mankind
+from China to Peru through "long-drawn aisles" flooded with mellow
+light, the subdued tones of the small surface that glass leaves open
+to the paint-brush relieved with a few touches of positive color to
+destroy monotony. These are assisted by the colored glass louvres,
+which have no other artistic merit, but serve, where they are placed
+over the side-entrances, to indicate the nation to whose department
+belongs that particular vomitorium.
+
+Four miles of water- and drainage-pipe underlie the twenty-one and a
+half acres of plank floor in this building. The pillars and trusses
+contain thirty-six hundred tons of iron. The contract for it was
+awarded in July, 1874, and it was completed in eighteen months, being
+ready for the reception of goods early in January last. The cost
+was $1,420,000, and in mechanical execution the iron-, glass-
+and wood-work is pronounced fully equal to either of the British
+structures and superior to those of the Continent. In economy of
+material for producing a given result it is probable that the iron
+trusses and supports of the English buildings are as much excelled as
+the iron bridges of this country surpass those of Great Britain in the
+combination of lightness with strength. Our metal is better, and its
+greater cost has united with the scarcity of labor which so stimulated
+ingenuity in other departments of industry to enforce tenuity of form.
+Foreign engineers wonder that our viaducts stand, but somehow they do
+stand.
+
+The turrets and eagles of galvanized sheet iron, not being intended
+to support anything but jokes, need not be criticized as part of
+the construction. The tiled pavements of the vestibules, designed to
+sustain, besides criticism of the he-who-walks-may-read order, the
+impact of the feet of all nations, are more important. Their pattern
+is very fair--their solidity will doubtless stand the test. The turf
+and shrubbery meant to brighten the _entourage_, especially at the
+carriage concourse on the east front, we can hardly hope will fare so
+well. The defence of their native soil, to prevent its being rent from
+them by the heedless tread of millions and scattered abroad in the
+shape of dust, will demand the most untiring struggles of the guardian
+patriots in the Centennial police service.
+
+Shall we step northward from the middle of this building to Memorial
+Hall, or thread the great nave to the western portal and enter the
+twin tabernacle sacred to Vulcan? The answer readily suggests itself:
+substantials before dessert--Mulciber before the Muses. Let us get
+the film of coal-smoke, the dissonance of clanking iron and the
+unloveliness of cog-wheels from off our senses before offering them
+to the beautiful, pure and simple. We come from the domain of finished
+products, complete to the last polish, silently self-asserting and
+wooing the almighty dollar with all their simpers. We pass to their
+noisy hatching- and training-ground, where all the processes of
+their creation from embryo to maturity are to be rehearsed for
+our edification. We shall here become learned in the biography of
+everything a machine can create, from an iron-clad to a penknife or
+a pocket-handkerchief. In the centre of the immense hall, fourteen
+hundred and two by three hundred and sixty feet and covering fourteen
+acres, the demiurges of this nest of Titans, an engine--which if
+really of fourteen hundred horse-power must be the largest hitherto
+known--is getting together its bones of cast and thews of wrought
+iron, and seems already like the first lion "pawing to be free." Its
+first throb one would fancy inevitably fatal to the shell of timber
+and glass that surrounds it.
+
+[Illustration: AGRICULTURAL BUILDING.]
+
+Before it is brought to the test let us explore that shell. To
+our eye, its external appearance is more pleasing than that of the
+building we just left. The one central and four terminal towers, with
+their open, kiosk-like tops, are really graceful, and the slender
+spires which surmount them are preferable to the sham of sheet-iron
+turrets. Thanks, too, to the necessity of projecting an annex for
+hydraulic engines from one side of the middle, the building is
+distinguished by the possession of a front. The main cornice is forty
+feet in height upon the outside; the interior height being seventy
+feet in the two main longitudinal avenues and forty feet in the one
+central and two side aisles. The avenues are each ninety feet in
+width, and the aisles sixty, with a space of fifteen feet for free
+passage in the former and ten in the latter. A transept ninety feet
+broad crosses the main building into that for hydraulics, bringing
+up against a tank sixty by one hundred and sixty feet, whereinto
+the water-works are to precipitate, Versailles fashion, a cataract
+thirty-five feet high by-forty wide.
+
+The substitution of timber for iron demands a closer placing of the
+pillars. They are consequently but sixteen feet apart "in the
+row," the spans being correspondingly more contracted. This has
+the compensating advantage, aesthetically speaking, of offering more
+surface for decorative effect, and the opportunity has been fairly
+availed of. The coloring of the roof, tie-rods and piers expands over
+the turmoil below the cooling calm of blue and silver. To this the
+eye, distracted with the dance of bobbins and the whirl of shafts, can
+turn for relief, even as Tubal Cain, pausing to wipe his brow, lifted
+his wearied gaze to the welkin.
+
+Machinery Hall has illustrated, from its earliest days, the process of
+development by gemmation. Southward, toward the sun, it has shot forth
+several lusty sprouts. The hydraulic avenue which we have mentioned
+covers an acre, being two hundred and eight by two hundred and ten
+feet. Cheek by jowl with water is its neighbor fire, safe behind bars
+in the boiler-house of the big engine; and next branches out, over
+another acre and more, or forty-eight thousand square feet, the domain
+of shoes and leather under a roof of its own.
+
+Including galleries and the leather, fire and water suburbs, this
+structure affords more than fifteen acres of space. Over that area it
+rose like an exhalation in the spring and early summer of 1875. At the
+close of winter it existed only in the drawings of Messrs. Pettit &
+Wilson. Under the hands of Mr. Philip Quigley it was ready to shelter
+a great Fourth of July demonstration. This matches the rapidity of
+growth of its neighbor before described. The Main Building, designed
+by the same firm, had its foundations laid by Mr. R.J. Dobbins,
+contractor, in the fall of 1874, but nothing further could be done
+till the following spring. The first column was erected, an iron
+Maypole, on the first day of the month of flowers, and the last on the
+27th of October. Three weeks later the last girder was in place. All
+had been done with the precision of machinery, no pillar varying half
+an inch from its line. Machinery, indeed, rolled the quadrant-shaped
+sections of each column and riveted their flanges together with
+hydraulic hammers; great steam-derricks dropped each on its appointed
+seat; and the main tasks of manual labor in either building were
+painting, glazing, floor-laying and erecting the ground-wall of
+masonry, from five to seven feet high, that fills in the outer columns
+all round to a level with the heads of theorists who, holding that _la
+propriete c'est le vol_, assert the propriety of theft.
+
+Following Belmont Avenue, the Appian Way of the Centennial, to the
+north-west, we penetrate a mob of edifices, fountains, restaurants,
+government offices, etc., and reach the Agricultural Building--the
+palace of the farmer. The hard fate of which he habitually
+complains--that of being thrust into a corner save when he is wanted
+for tax-paying purposes--does not forsake him here. The commission
+does not tax him, however, and the boreal region whereto he and his
+belongings are consigned is in no other way objectionable than as
+not being nearer the front. The building is worthy of a Centennial
+agricultural fair. Five hundred and forty by eight hundred and twenty
+feet, with ten acres and a quarter under roof, it equals the halls of
+a dozen State cattle-shows, The style is Gothic, the three transepts
+looking like those of as many cathedrals stripped of the roof, the
+extrados taking its place. The nave that spits them is a hundred and
+twenty-five feet wide, with an elevation of seventy-five feet. An
+ecclesiastical aspect is imparted by the great oriel over the main
+entrance, and the resemblance is aided by a central tower that
+suggests the "cymbals glorious swinging uproarious" in honor of the
+apotheosis of the plough. The materials of this bucolic temple are
+wood and glass. The contract price was $250,000. Its contents will
+be more cosmopolitan than could have been anticipated when it was
+planned. Germany claims five thousand feet and Spain six thousand.
+Among other countries, tropical America is fully represented.
+
+Besides this indoor portion of the world's farm-steading, a barnyard
+of correspondent magnitude is close at hand, where all domestic
+animals will be accommodated, and the Weirs, Landseers and Bonheurs
+will find many novelties for the portfolio. A race-track, too, is an
+addendum of course. What would our Pan-Athenaic games be without it?
+
+From this exhibition of man's power over the fruits of the earth and
+the beasts of the field we cross a ravine where the forest is allowed
+to disport itself in ignorance of his yoke, and ascend another
+eminence where floral beauty, gathered from all quarters of the globe,
+is fed in imprisonment on its native soil and breathes its native
+climate. We predict that woman will seek her home among the flowers on
+the hill rather than in the atelier specially prepared for her in the
+valley we have passed. Her tremendous struggles through the mud, while
+yet the grounds were all chaos, to get sight of the first plants that
+appeared in the Horticultural Building, left no doubt of this in our
+mind.
+
+[Illustration: HORTICULTURAL HALL.]
+
+No site could have been more happily chosen for this beautiful
+congress-hall of flowers. It occupies a bluff that overlooks the
+Schuylkill a hundred feet below to the eastward, and is bounded by the
+deep channels of a pair of brooks equidistant on the north and south
+sides. Up the banks of these clamber the sturdy arboreal natives as
+though to shelter in warm embrace their delicate kindred from abroad.
+Broad walks and terraces prevent their too close approach and the
+consequent exclusion of sunlight.
+
+For the expression of its purpose, with all the solidity and grace
+consistent with that, the Moresque structure before us is not excelled
+by any within the grounds. The curved roofs of the forcing-houses
+would have the effect upon the eye of weakening the base, but that,
+being of glass and showing the greenery within, their object explains
+itself at once, and we realize the strong wall rising behind them and
+supporting the lofty range of iron arches and fretwork that springs
+seventy-two feet to the central lantern. The design of the side
+portals and corner towers may be thought somewhat feeble. They and the
+base in its whole circuit might with advantage have been a little more
+emphasized by masonry. The porticoes or narrow verandahs above them on
+the second story are in fine taste. The eruption of flag-poles is,
+of course, a transient disease, peculiar to the season. They have no
+abiding-place on a permanent structure like this, and will disappear
+with the exposition.
+
+Entering from the side by a neat flight of steps in dark marble, we
+find ourselves in a gayly-tiled vestibule thirty feet square, between
+forcing-houses each a hundred by thirty feet. Advancing, we enter
+the great conservatory, two hundred and thirty by eighty feet, and
+fifty-five high, much the largest in this country, and but a trifle
+inferior in height to the palm-houses of Chatsworth and Kew. A gallery
+twenty feet from the floor will carry us up among the dates and
+cocoanuts that are to be. The decorations of this hall are in keeping
+with the external design. The woodwork looks out of place amid so much
+of harder material; but there is not much of it.
+
+Outside promenades, four in number and each a hundred feet long, lead
+along the roofs of the forcing-houses, and contribute to the portfolio
+of lovely views that enriches the Park. Other prospects are offered
+by the upper floors of the east and west fronts; the aerial terrace
+embracing in all seventeen thousand square feet. The extreme
+dimensions of the building are three hundred and eighty by one hundred
+and ninety-three feet. Restaurants, reception-rooms and offices
+occupy the two ends. The contractor who has performed his work so
+satisfactorily is Mr. John Rice.
+
+A few years hence this winter-garden will, with one exception to which
+we next proceed, be the main attraction at the Park. It will by that
+time be effectively supplemented by thirty-five surrounding acres of
+out-door horticulture, to which the soil of decomposed gneiss is well
+suited.
+
+Passing from the bloom of Nature, we complete our circuit with that
+which springs from the pencil, the chisel and the burin. Here we
+alight upon another instance of inadequate calculation. That the
+art-section of the exposition would fill a building three hundred and
+sixty-five by two hundred and ten feet, affording eighty-nine thousand
+square feet of wall-surface for pictures, must, when first proposed,
+have struck the most imaginative of the projectors as a dream. The
+actual result is that it proved indispensably necessary to provide an
+additional building of very nearly equal dimensions, or three hundred
+and forty-nine by a hundred and eighty-six feet, to receive the
+contributions offered; and this after the promulgation of a strict
+requirement that "all works of art must be of a high order of merit."
+Half the space in the extension had been claimed by Great Britain,
+Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Italy before ground was broken
+for its foundation; and recent demands at home have rendered necessary
+a further projection of the wings, with the effect of giving to the
+building the form of a Greek cross.
+
+This building is on the rear, or north side, of Memorial Hall, and is
+the first portion of the fine-art department that meets the eye of
+one coming from Horticultural Hall. It is of comparatively temporary
+character, being built of brick instead of the solid granite that
+composes the pile in front of it. Its architectural pretensions are of
+course inferior. It is the youngest of all the exposition buildings,
+the present spring witnessing its commencement and completion. The
+drying of such green walls in such manner as to render them safe for
+valuable pictures has been compassed by the use of "asbestos" brick,
+which is said to be fire- as well as water-proof. Failure in this
+regard would be of the less moment, inasmuch as a great proportion
+of the contents will be drawings and engravings. In interior plan the
+extension will closely imitate the main building.
+
+Memorial Hall, as its name implies, contemplates indefinite
+durability. What Virginia and Massachusetts granite, in alliance with
+Pennsylvania iron, on a basis of a million and a half of dollars,
+can effect in that direction, seems to have been done. The facade,
+designed by Mr. Schwarzmann, is in ultra-Renaissance; the arch and
+balustrade and open arcade quite overpowering pillar and pediment. The
+square central tower, or what under a circular dome would be the
+drum, is quite in harmony with the main front so tar as proportion
+and outline are concerned; but there is too much blank surface on
+the sides to match the more "noisy" details below it. This apart, the
+unity of the building is very striking. That its object, of supplying
+the best light for pictures and statuary, is not lost sight of, is
+evidenced by the fact that three-fourths of the interior space is
+lighted from above, and the residue has an ample supply from lofty
+windows. The figures of America, Art, Science, etc. which stud the
+dome and parapet were built on the spot, and will do very well for the
+present. The eagles are too large in proportion, and could easily fly
+away with the allegorical damsels at their side.
+
+The eight arched windows of the corner towers, twelve and a half by
+thirty-four feet, are utilized for art-display. Munich fills two with
+stained glass: England also claims a place in them. The iron doors of
+the front are inlaid with bronze panels bearing the insignia of the
+States; the artist prudently limiting himself to that modest range of
+subjects in recognition of the impossibility of eclipsing Ghiberti
+at six months' notice. Thirty years is not too much time to devote
+to completing the ornamentation of this building. Five, seven or ten
+millions of people will pass through it in the course of its first
+year, and among them will be some capable of making sound suggestions
+for its finish. The wisdom that comes from a multitude of counsels
+will remain to be sifted. Then will remain the creation of the artists
+who are to carry the counsels into execution. We shall be fortunate if
+the next three decades bring us men thoroughly equal to the task.
+
+[Illustration: MEMORIAL HALL, WITH EXTENSION.]
+
+It would be an unpardonable neglect of the maxim which enjoins
+gratitude to the bridge that carries us safely over were we to
+complete our tour of the exposition structures without a glance at the
+graceful erections, diverse in magnitude and design, which overleap
+the depressions so attractive to the student of the picturesque and
+so trying to the pedestrian. The aesthetic capabilities of bridge
+architecture are very great, and a fine field is here offered for
+their display. The flat expanses of Hyde Park, the Champs de Mars
+and the Prater could afford no such exhibition. The ground and the
+buildings became, perforce, two sharply distinct things; and the
+blending into unity of landscape and architecture could be but
+imperfectly attained. Here the case is very different. With the aid of
+an art that embraces in its province alike the fairy trellis and the
+monumental arch and pilaster, the lines of Memorial Hall and
+other permanent edifices may be led over the three hundred acres
+appropriated to the exposition. From the foundation of a bridge-pier
+to the crowning statue of America, the artist finds an uninterrupted
+range.
+
+The work of his foster-brother, the artisan, has certainly been well
+done. The structures we have been traversing are, in their way, works
+of art--very worthy, if not the choicest conceivable, blossoms of
+our century-plant. For fitness, the quality that underlies beauty
+throughout Nature from the plume to the tendril and the petal, they
+have not been surpassed in their kind. Every flange, bolt, sheet and
+abutment has been well thought out. Whatever the purpose, to bind or
+to brace, to lift or to support, everything tells.
+
+
+
+
+SKETCHES OF INDIA.
+
+IV.--CONCLUSION.
+
+
+The Koutab Minar, which I had first viewed nine miles off from one
+of the little kiosquelets crowning the minarets of the Jammah
+Masjid, improved upon closer acquaintance. One recognizes in the word
+"minaret" the diminutive of "minar," the latter being to the former
+as a tower to a turret. This minar of Koutab's--it was erected by the
+Mussulman general Koutab-Oudeen-Eibeg in the year 1200 to commemorate
+his success over the Rajput emperor Pirthi-Raj--is two hundred and
+twenty feet high, and the cunning architect who designed it managed to
+greatly intensify its suggestion of loftiness by its peculiar shape.
+Instead of erecting a shaft with unbroken lines, he placed five
+truncated cones one upon another in such a way that the impression
+of their successively lessening diameters should be lengthened by the
+four balconies which result from the projection of each lower cone
+beyond the narrower base of the cone placed on it--thus borrowing, as
+it were, the perspective effects of five shafts and concentrating them
+upon one. The lower portion, too, shows the near color of red--it is
+built of the universal red sandstone with which the traveler becomes
+so familiar--while the upper part reveals the farther color of white
+from its marble casing. Each cone, finally, is carved into reeds, like
+a bundle of buttresses supporting a weight enormous not by reason of
+massiveness, but of pure height.
+
+The group of ruins about the Koutab Minar was also very fascinating
+to me. The Gate of Aladdin, a veritable fairy portal, with its
+bewildering wealth of arabesques and flowing traceries in white marble
+inlaid upon red stone; the Tomb of Altamsh; the Mosque of Koutab,--all
+these, lying in a singular oasis of trees and greenery that forms a
+unique spot in the arid and stony ruin-plain of Delhi, drew me with
+great power. I declared to Bhima Gandharva that it was not often in a
+lifetime that we could get so many centuries together to talk with at
+once, and wrought upon him to spend several days with me, unattended
+by servants, in this tranquil society of the dead ages, which still
+live by sheer force of the beautiful that was in them.
+
+"Very pretty," said my companion, "but not by force of the beautiful
+alone. Do you see that iron pillar?" We were walking in the court of
+the Mosque of Koutab, and Bhima pointed, as he spoke, to a plain iron
+shaft about a foot in diameter rising in the centre of the enclosed
+space to a height of something over twenty feet. "Its base is sunken
+deeper in the ground than the upper part is high. It is in truth a
+gigantic nail, which, according to popular tradition, was constructed
+by an ancient king who desired to play Jael to a certain Sisera that
+was in his way. It is related that King Anang Pal was not satisfied
+with having conquered the whole of Northern India, and that a certain
+Brahman, artfully seizing upon the moment when his mind was foolish
+with the fumes of conquest, informed him there was but one obstacle
+to his acquisition of eternal power. 'What is that?' said King Anang
+Pal.--'It is,' said the Brahman, 'the serpent Sechnaga, who lies under
+the earth and stops it, and who at the same time has charge of Change
+and Revolution.--'Well, and what then?' said King Anang Pal.--'If the
+serpent were dead there would be no change,' said the Brahman.--'Well,
+and what then?' said King Anang Pal.--'If you should cause to be
+constructed a great nail of iron, I will show you a spot where it
+shall be driven so as to pierce the head of the serpent.' It was done;
+and the nail--being this column which you now contemplate--was duly
+driven. Then the Brahman departed from the court. Soon the king's mind
+began to work, to question, to doubt, to harass itself with a thousand
+speculations, until his curiosity was inflamed to such a degree that
+he ordered the nail to be drawn out. With great trouble and outlay
+this was done: slowly the heavy mass rose, while the anxious king
+regarded it. At last the lower end came to his view. Rama! it was
+covered with blood. 'Down with it again!' cries the joyful king:
+'perhaps the serpent is not yet dead, and is escaping even now.'
+But, alas! it would not remain stable in any position, pack and shove
+howsoever they might. Then the wise Brahman returned. 'O king,' said
+he, in reply to the monarch's interrogatories, 'your curiosity has
+cost you your kingdom: the serpent has escaped. Nothing in the world
+can again give stability to the pillar or to your reign.' And it was
+true. Change still lived, and King Anang Pal, being up, quickly went
+down. It is from this pillar that yon same city gets its name. In the
+tongue of these people _dilha_ is, being interpreted, 'tottering;' and
+hence Dilhi or Delhi. It must be confessed, however, that this is not
+the account which the iron pillar gives of itself, for the inscription
+there declares it to have been erected as a monument of victory by
+King Dhara in the year 317, and it is known as the Lath (or pillar) of
+Dhara."
+
+[Illustration: INDIGO-FACTORY NEAR ALLAHABAD.]
+
+Next day we took train for Agra, which might be called Shah Jehan's
+"other city," for it was only after building the lovely monument to
+his queen--the Taj Mahal--which has made Agra famous all over
+the world, that he removed to Delhi, or that part of it known as
+Shahjehanabad. Agra, in fact, first attained its grandeur under Akbar,
+and is still known among the natives as Akbarabad.
+
+"But I am all for Shah Jehan," I said as, after wandering about the
+great citadel and palace at the south of the city, we came out on the
+bank of the Jumna and started along the road which runs by the river
+to the Taj Mahal. "A prince in whose reign and under whose direct
+superintendence was fostered the style of architecture which produced
+that little Mouti Masjid (Pearl Mosque) which we saw a moment ago--not
+to speak of the Jammah Masjid of Delhi which we saw there, or of the
+Taj which we are now going to see--must have been a spacious-souled
+man, with frank and pure elevations of temper within him, like that
+exquisite white marble superstructure of the Mouti Masjid which rises
+from a terrace of rose, as if the glow of crude passion had thus
+lifted itself into the pure white of tried virtue."
+
+A walk of a mile--during which my companion reviewed the uglinesses
+as well as the beauties of the great Mogol reign with a wise and
+impartial calmness that amounted to an affectionate rebuke of my
+inconsiderate effusiveness--brought us to the main gate of the long
+red stone enclosure about the Taj. This is itself a work of art--in
+red stone banded with white marble, surmounted by kiosques, and
+ornamented with mosaics in onyx and agate. But I stayed not to look
+at these, nor at the long sweep of the enclosure, crenellated and
+pavilioned. Hastening through the gate, and moving down a noble alley
+paved with freestone, surrounded on both sides with trees, rare plants
+and flowers, and having a basin running down its length studded with
+water-jets, I quickly found myself in front of that bewilderment of
+incrustations upon white marble which constitutes the visitor's first
+impression of this loveliest of Love's memorials.
+
+I will not describe the Taj. This is not self-denial: the Taj cannot
+_be_ described. One can, it is true, inform one's friends that the red
+stone platform upon which the white marble mausoleum stands runs some
+nine hundred and sixty feet east and west by three hundred and twenty
+north and south; that the dome is two hundred and seventy feet high;
+that the incrustations with which the whole superstructure is covered
+without and within are of rock-crystal, chalcedony, turquoise,
+lapis-lazuli, agate, carnaline, garnet, oynx, sapphire, coral, Pannah
+diamonds, jasper, and conglomerates, brought respectively from
+Malwa, Asia Minor, Thibet, Ceylon, Temen, Broach, Bundelcund, Persia,
+Colombo, Arabia, Pannah, the Panjab, and Jessalmir; that there are,
+besides the mausoleum, two exquisite mosques occupying angles of the
+enclosure, the one built because it is the Moslem custom to have
+a house of prayer near the tomb, the other because the architect's
+passion for symmetry demanded another to answer to the first, whence
+it is called _Jawab_ ("the answer"); that out of a great convention of
+all the architects of the East one Isa (Jesus) Mohammed was chosen to
+build this monument, and that its erection employed twenty thousand
+men from 1630 to 1647, at a total cost of twelve millions of dollars;
+and, finally, that the remains of the beautiful queen variously known
+as Mumtazi Mahal, Mumtazi Zemani and Taj Bibi, as well as those of her
+royal husband, Shah Jehan, who built this tomb to her memory, repose
+here.
+
+[Illustration: MUSSULMAN SCHOOL AT ALLAHABAD.]
+
+But this is not description. The only way to get an idea of the Taj
+Mahal is--to go and see it.
+
+"But it is ten thousand miles!" you say.
+
+"But it is the Taj Mahal," I reply with calmness. And no one who has
+seen the Taj will regard this answer as aught but conclusive.
+
+But we had to leave it finally--it and Agra--and after a railway
+journey of some twelve hours, as we were nearing Allahabad my
+companion began, in accordance with his custom, to give me a little
+preliminary view of the peculiarities of the town.
+
+"We are now approaching," he said, "a city which distinguishes itself
+from those which you have seen by the fact that besides a very rich
+past it has also a very bright future. It is situated at the southern
+point of the Lower Doab, whose fertile and richly-cultivated plains
+you have been looking at to-day. These plains, with their wealth,
+converge to a point at Allahabad, narrowing with the approach of the
+two rivers,--the Ganges and the Jumna--that enclose them. The Doab,
+in fact, derives its name from _do_, "two," and _ab_, "rivers." But
+Allahabad, besides being situated at the junction of the two great
+water-ways of India--for here the Jumna unites with the Ganges--is
+also equally distant from the great extremes of Bombay, Calcutta,
+and Lahore, and here centres the railway system which unites these
+widely-separated points. Add to this singular union of commercial
+advantages the circumstance--so important in an India controlled by
+Englishmen--that the climate, though warm, is perfectly wholesome, and
+you will see that Allahabad must soon be a great emporium of trade."
+
+"Provided," I suggested, "Benares yonder--Benares is too close by to
+feel uninterested--will let it be so."
+
+"Oh! Benares is the holy city. Benares is the blind Teiresias of
+India: it has beheld the Divine Form, and in this eternal grace its
+eyes have even lost the power of seeing those practical advancements
+which usually allure the endeavors of large cities. Allahabad,
+although antique and holy also, has never become so wrapped up in
+religious absorption."
+
+On the day after our arrival my companion and I were driven by
+an English friend engaged in the cultivation of indigo to an
+indigo-factory near the town, in compliance with a desire I had
+expressed to witness the process of preparing the dye for market.
+
+"Not long ago," I said to our friend as we were rolling out of the
+city, "I was wandering along the banks of that great lagoon of Florida
+which is called the Indian River, and my attention was often attracted
+to the evidences of extensive cultivation which everywhere abounded.
+Great ditches, growths of young forests upon what had evidently been
+well-ploughed fields within a century past, and various remains of
+settlements constantly revealed themselves. On inquiry I learned that
+these were the remains of those great proprietary indigo-plantations
+which were cultivated here by English grantees soon after Florida
+first came under English protection, and which were afterward
+mournfully abandoned to ruin upon the sudden recession of Florida by
+the English government."
+
+"They are ruins of interest to me," said our English friend, "for one
+of them--perhaps some one that you beheld--represents the wreck of my
+great-great-grandfather's fortune. He could not bear to stay among the
+dreadful Spaniards and Indians; and so, there being nobody to sell to,
+he simply abandoned homestead, plantations and all, and returned to
+England, and, finding soon afterward that the East India Company was
+earnestly bent upon fostering the indigo-culture of India, he
+came here and recommenced planting. Since then we've all been
+indigo-planters--genuine 'blue blood,' we call ourselves."
+
+Indigo itself had a very arduous series of toils to encounter before
+it could manage to assert itself in the world. The ardent advocates
+of its azure rival, woad, struggled long before they would allow its
+adoption. In 1577 the German government officially prohibited the use
+of indigo, denouncing it as that pernicious, deceitful and corrosive
+substance, the Devil's dye. It had, indeed, a worse fate in England,
+where hard names were supplemented by harsh acts, for in 1581 it was
+not only pronounced _anathema maranatha_ by act of Parliament, but the
+people were authorized to institute search for it in their neighbors'
+dye-houses, and were empowered to destroy it wherever found. Not more
+than two hundred years have passed since this law was still in force.
+It was only after a determined effort, which involved steady
+losses for many years, that the East India Company succeeded in
+re-establishing the culture of indigo in Bengal. The Spanish and
+French in Central America and the West Indies had come to be large
+growers, and the production of St. Domingo was very large. But the
+revolt in the latter island, the Florida disasters and the continual
+unsettlement of Mexico, all worked favorably for the planters of
+India, who may now be called the indigo-producers of the world.
+
+[Illustration: MALERS AND SONTALS.]
+
+The seed is usually sown in the latter part of October in Bengal, as
+soon as the annual deposit of the streams has been reduced by drainage
+to a practicable consistency, though the sowing-season lasts quite on
+to the end of November. On dry ground the plough is used, the _ryots_,
+or native farm-laborers, usually planting under directions proceeding
+from the factory. There are two processes of extracting the dye, known
+as the method "from fresh leaves" and that "from dry leaves." I found
+them here manufacturing by the former process. The vats or cisterns of
+stone were in pairs, the bottom of the upper one of each couple being
+about on a level with the top of the lower, so as to allow the liquid
+contents of the former to run freely into the latter. The upper is the
+fermenting vat, or "steeper," and is about twenty feet square by three
+deep. The lower is the "beater," and is of much the same dimensions
+with the upper, except that its length is five or six feet greater. As
+the twigs and leaves of the plants are brought in from the fields the
+cuttings are placed in layers in the steeper, logs of wood secured by
+bamboo withes are placed upon the surface to prevent overswelling, and
+water is then pumped on or poured from buckets to within a few inches
+of the top. Fermentation now commences, and continues for fourteen or
+fifteen hours, varying with the temperature of the air, the wind,
+the nature of the water used and the ripeness of the plants. When the
+agitation of the mass has begun to subside the liquor is racked off
+into the lower vat, the "beater," and ten men set to work lustily
+beating it with paddles (_busquets_), though this is sometimes done by
+wheels armed with paddle-like appendages. Meanwhile, the upper vat is
+cleaned out, and the refuse mass of cuttings stored up to be used as
+fuel or as fertilizing material. After an hour and a half's vigorous
+beating the liquor becomes flocculent. The precipitation is sometimes
+hastened by lime-water. The liquor is then drained off the dye by the
+use of filtering-cloths, heat being also employed to drain off the
+yellow matter and to deepen the color. Then the residuum is pressed in
+bags, cut into three-inch cubes, dried in the drying-house and sent to
+market.
+
+The dry-leaf process depends also upon maceration, the leaves being
+cropped from the ripe plant, and dried in the hot sunshine during two
+days, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon.
+
+On the next day, at an early hour in the morning, my companion and
+I betook us to the Plain of Alms. I have before mentioned that
+Allahabad, the ancient city of Prayaga, is doubly sanctified because
+it is at the junction of the Jumna and the Gauges, and these two
+streams are affluents of its sanctity as well as of its trade. The
+great plain of white sand which is enclosed between the blue lake-like
+expanses of the two meeting rivers is the Plain of Alms. In truth,
+there are three rivers which unite here--the Ganges, the Jumna and
+the Saravasti--and this thrice-hallowed spot is known in the Hindu
+mythologic system as the Triveni.
+
+"But where is the third?" I asked as we stood gazing across the
+unearthly-looking reaches of white sand far down the blue sweep of the
+mysterious waters.
+
+"Thereby hangs a tale," replied my companion. "It is invisible here,
+but I will show you what remains of it presently when we get into the
+fort. Here is a crowd of pilgrims coming to bathe in the purifying
+waters of the confluence: let us follow them."
+
+As they reached the shore a Brahman left his position under a great
+parasol and placed himself in front of the troop of believers, who,
+without regard to sex, immediately divested themselves of all clothing
+except a narrow cloth about the loins, and followed him into the
+water. Here they proceeded to imitate his motions, just as pupils in
+a calisthenic class follow the movements of their teacher, until the
+ceremonies of purification were all accomplished.
+
+[Illustration: GRAIN-AND-FLOUR MERCHANT OF PATNA.]
+
+"A most villainous-faced penitent!" I exclaimed as one of their number
+came out, and, as if wearied by his exertions, lay down near us on the
+sand.
+
+Bhima Gandharva showed his teeth: "He is what your American soldiers
+called in the late war a substitute. Some rich Hindu, off somewhere
+in India, has found the burden of his sins pressing heavily upon
+him, while at the same time the cares of this world, or maybe bodily
+infirmities, prevent him from visiting the Triveni. Hence, by the most
+natural arrangement in the world, he has hired this man to come in his
+place and accomplish his absolution for him."
+
+Striking off to the westward from the Plain of Alms, we soon entered
+the citadel of Akbar, which he built so as to command the junction of
+the two streams. Passing the Lath (pillar) of Asoka, my companion led
+me down into the old subterranean Buddhistic temple of Patal Pouri
+and showed me the ancient Achaya Bat, or sacred tree-trunk, which its
+custodians declare to be still living, although more than two thousand
+years old. Presently we came to a spot under one of the citadel towers
+where a feeble ooze of water appeared.
+
+"Behold," said my friend, "the third of the Triveni rivers! This is
+the river Saravasti. You must know that once upon a time, Saravasti,
+goddess of learning, was tripping along fresh from the hills to the
+west of Yamuna (the Jumna), bearing in her hand a book. Presently she
+entered the sandy country, when on a sudden a great press of frightful
+demons uprose, and so terrified her that in the absence of other
+refuge she sank into the earth. Here she reappears. So the Hindus
+fable."
+
+On our return to our quarters we passed a verandah where an old
+pedagogue was teaching a lot of young Mussulmans the accidence
+of Oordoo, a process which he accomplished much as the "singing
+geography" man used to impart instruction in the olden days when I was
+a boy--to wit, by causing the pupils to sing in unison the A, B,
+C. Occasionally, too, the little, queer-looking chaps squatted
+tailor-wise on the floor would take a turn at writing the Arabic
+character on their slates. A friendly hookah in the midst of the
+group betrayed the manner in which the wise man solaced the labors of
+education.
+
+On the next day, as our indigo-planter came to drive us to the Gardens
+of Chusru, he said, "An English friend of mine who is living in the
+Moffussil--the Moffussil is anywhere _not_ in Calcutta, Bombay or
+Madras--not far from Patna has just written me that word has been
+brought from one of the Sontal villages concerning the depredations of
+a tiger from which the inhabitants have recently suffered, and that
+a grand hunt, elephant-back, has been organized through the combined
+contributions of the English and native elephant-owners. He presses me
+to come, and as an affair of this sort is by no means common--for it
+is no easy matter to get together and support a dozen elephants and
+the army of retainers considered necessary in a great hunt--I thought
+perhaps you would be glad to accompany me."
+
+Of course I was; and Bhima Gandharva, though he would not take any
+active part in the hunt, insisted upon going along in order to see
+that no harm came to me.
+
+On the next day, therefore, we all took train and fared south-eastward
+toward Calcutta, as far as to Bhagalpur, where we left the railway,
+sending our baggage on to Calcutta, and took private conveyance to
+a certain spot among the Rajmahal Mountains, where the camp had been
+fixed by retainers on the day before. It was near a village of
+the Sontals, which we passed before reaching it, and which was a
+singular-enough spectacle with its round roofed huts and a platform at
+its entrance, upon which, and under which, were ghastly heaps of the
+skulls of animals slain by the villagers. These Sontals reminded me
+of the Gonds whom I had seen, though they seemed to be far manlier
+representatives of the autochthonal races of India than the former.
+They are said to number about a million, and inhabit a belt of country
+some four hundred miles long by one hundred broad, including the
+Rajmahal Mountains, and extending from near the Bay of Bengal to the
+edge of Behar. So little have they been known that when in the year
+1855 word was brought to Calcutta that the Sontals had risen and were
+murdering the Europeans, many of the English are said to have asked
+not only _Who_ are the Sontals? but _What_ are the Sontals?
+
+The more inaccessible tops of the same mountains, the Rajmahal, are
+occupied by a much ruder set of people, the Malers, who appear to have
+been pushed up here by the Sontals, as the Sontals were themselves
+pressed by the incoming Aryans.
+
+[Illustration: A TIGER-HUNT, ELEPHANT-BACK.]
+
+As we arrived at the camp I realized the words of our English
+friend concerning the magnitude of the preparations for a tiger-hunt
+undertaken on the present scale. The tents of the sportsmen, among
+whom were several English army officers and civil officials, besides
+a native rajah, were pitched in a beautiful glade canopied by large
+trees, and near these were the cooking-tents and the lodging-places
+of the servants, of whom there was the liberal allowance which
+is customary in India. Through the great tree-trunks I could see
+elephants, camels and horses tethered about the outskirts of the camp,
+while the carts, elephant-pads and other _impedimenta_ lying about
+gave the whole the appearance of an army at bivouac. Indeed, it was
+not an inconsiderable force that we could have mustered. There were
+fifteen or twenty elephants in the party. Every elephant had two men,
+the _mahaut_ and his assistant; every two camels, one man; every
+cart, two men; besides whom were the _kholassies_ (tent-pitchers),
+the _chikarries_ (native huntsmen to mark down and flush the tiger),
+letter-carriers for the official personages, and finally the personal
+servants of the party, amounting in all to something like a hundred
+and fifty souls. The commissary arrangements of such a body of men and
+beasts were no light matter, and had on this occasion been placed by
+contract in the hands of a flour-and-grain merchant from Patna. As
+night drew on the scene became striking in the extreme, and I do not
+think I felt the fact of India more keenly at any time than while
+Bhima Gandharva and I, slipping away from a party who were making
+merry over vast allowances of pale ale and cheroots, went wandering
+about under the stars and green leaves, picking our way among the huge
+forms of the mild-countenanced elephants and the bizarre figures of
+the camels.
+
+[Illustration: BENGAL WATER-CARRIERS.]
+
+On the next day, after a leisurely breakfast at eight--the hunt was
+to begin at midday--my kind host assigned me an elephant, and his
+servants proceeded to equip me for the hunt, placing in my howdah
+brandy, cold tea, cheroots, a rifle, a smooth-bore, ammunition, an
+umbrella, and finally a blanket.
+
+"And what is the blanket for?" I asked.
+
+"For the wild-bees; and if your elephant happens to stir up a nest
+of them, the very best thing in the world you can do is to throw it
+incontinently over your head," added my host, laughing.
+
+The tiger had been marked down in a spot some three miles from camp,
+and when our battle-array, which had at first taken up the line of
+march in a very cozy and gentleman-militia sort of independence,
+had arrived within a mile of our destination the leader who had
+been selected to direct our movements caused us all to assume more
+systematic dispositions, issued orders forbidding a shot to be fired
+at any sort of game, no matter how tempting, less than the royal
+object of our chase, and then led the way down the glade, which now
+began to spread out into lower and wetter ground covered by tall
+grasses and thickets. The hunt now began in earnest. Hot, flushed,
+scratched as to the face by the tall reeds, rolling on my ungainly
+animal's back as if I were hunting in an open boat on a chopping
+sea, I had the additional nervous distraction of seeing many sorts
+of game--deer, wild-hogs, peafowl, partridges--careering about in the
+most exasperating manner immediately under my gun-muzzle. To add to my
+dissatisfaction, presently I saw a wild-hog dash out of a thicket
+with her young litter immediately across our path, and as my elephant
+stepped excitedly along one of his big fore feet crunched directly
+down on a beautiful little pig, bringing a quickly-smothered squeak
+which made me quite cower before the eye of Bhima Gandharva as he
+stood looking calmly forward beside me. So we tramped on through the
+thickets and grasses. An hour passed; the deployed huntsmen had
+again drawn in together, somewhat bored; we were all red-faced and
+twig-tattooed; no tiger was to be found; we gathered into a sort of
+circle and were looking at each other with that half-foolish, half-mad
+disconsolateness which men's faces show when they are unsuccessfully
+engaged in a matter which does not amount to much even after it _is_
+successfully achieved,--when suddenly my elephant flourished his
+trunk, uttered a shrill trumpeting sound, and dashed violently to one
+side, just as I saw a grand tiger, whose coat seemed to be all alive
+with throbbing spots, flying through the air past me to the haunches
+of the less wary elephant beside which mine had been walking.
+Instantly the whole party was in commotion. "_Bagh! bagh!_" yelled the
+mahauts and attendants: the elephants trumpeted and charged hither and
+thither. The tiger seemed to become fairly insane under the fusillade
+which greeted him; he leapt so desperately from one side to the other
+as to appear for a few moments almost ubiquitous, while at every
+discharge the frantic natives screamed "_Lugga! lugga!_" without
+in the least knowing whether he _was_ hit (_lugga_) or not, till
+presently, when I supposed he must have received at least forty shots
+in his body, he fell back from a desperate attempt to scale the back
+of the rajah's elephant, and lay quite still.
+
+[Illustration: BRAHMANS OF BENGAL.]
+
+"I thought that last shot of mine would finish him," said one of
+the English civil officials as we all crowded around the magnificent
+beast.
+
+"Whether it did or not, I distinctly saw him cringe at _my_ shot,"
+hotly said another. "There's always a peculiar look a tiger has when
+he gets his death-wound: it's unmistakable when you once know it."
+
+"And I'll engage to eat him," interjected a third, "if I didn't blow
+off the whole side of his face with my smooth-bore when he stuck his
+muzzle up into my howdah."
+
+"Gentlemen," said our leader, a cool and model old hunter, "the
+shortest way to settle who is the owner of this tiger-skin is to
+examine the perforations in it."
+
+Which we all accordingly fell to doing.
+
+"B----, I'm afraid you've a heavy meal ahead of you: his muzzle is as
+guiltless of harm as a baby's," said one of the claimants.
+
+"Well," retorted B----, "but I don't see any sign of that big bore of
+yours, either."
+
+"By Jove!" said the leader in some astonishment as our search
+proceeded unsuccessfully, "has _anybody_ hit him? Maybe he died of
+fright."
+
+At this moment Bhima Gandharva calmly advanced, lifted up the great
+fore leg of the tiger and showed us a small blue hole just underneath
+it: at the same time he felt along the tiger's skin on the opposite
+side to the hole, rolled the bullet about under the cuticle where
+it had lodged after passing through the animal, and deftly making an
+incision with his knife drew it forth betwixt his thumb and finger. He
+handed it to the gentleman whose guests we were, and to whom the
+rifle belonged which had been placed in our howdah, and then modestly
+withdrew from the circle.
+
+"There isn't another rifle in camp that carries so small a bullet,"
+said our host, holding up the ball, "and there can't be the least
+doubt that the Hindu is the man who killed him."
+
+Not another bullet-hole was to be found.
+
+"When _did_ you do it?" I asked of Bhima. "I knew not that you had
+fired at all."
+
+"When he made his first leap from the thicket," he said quietly. "I
+feared he was going to land directly on you. The shot turned him."
+
+At this the three discomfited claimants of the tiger-skin (which
+belongs to him who kills) with the heartiest English good-nature burst
+into roars of laughter, each at himself as well as the others, and
+warmly shook Bhima's hand amid a general outbreak of applause from the
+whole company.
+
+Then amid a thousand jokes the tiffin-baskets were brought out, and we
+had a royal lunch while the tiger was "padded"--i.e., placed on one
+of the unoccupied elephants; and finally we got us back to camp, where
+the rest of the day was devoted to dinner and cheroots.
+
+From the tiger to the town, from the cries of jackals to those of
+street-venders,--this is an easy transition in India; and it was only
+the late afternoon of the second day after the tiger-hunt when my
+companion and I were strolling along the magnificent Esplanade of
+Calcutta, having cut across the mountains, elephant-back, early in the
+morning to a station where we caught the down-train.
+
+[Illustration: BENGALESE OF LOW CASTE.]
+
+Solidity, wealth, trade, ponderous ledgers, capacious ships'
+bottoms, merchandise transformed to magnificence, an ample-stomached
+_bourgeoisie_,--this is what comes to one's mind as one faces the
+broad walk in front of Fort William and looks across the open space to
+the palaces, the domes, the columns of modern and English Calcutta;
+or again as one wanders along the strand in the evening when the
+aristocrats of commerce do congregate, and, as it were, gazette the
+lengths of their bank-balances in the glitter of their equipages and
+appointments; or again as one strolls about the great public gardens
+or the amplitudes of Tank Square, whose great tank of water suggests
+the luxury of the dwellers hereabout; or the numerous other paths of
+comfort which are kept so by constant lustrations from the skins
+of the water-bearers. The whole situation seems that of ease and
+indulgence. The very circular verandahs of the rich men's dwellings
+expand like the ample vests of trustees and directors after dinner.
+The city extends some four and a half miles along the left bank of the
+Hooghly, and its breadth between the "Circular Road" and the river
+is about a mile and a half. If one cuts off from this space that part
+which lies south of a line drawn eastward from the Beebee Ross Ghat
+to the Upper Circular Road--the northern portion thus segregated being
+the native town--one has a veritable city of palaces; and when
+to these one adds the magnificent suburbs lying beyond the old
+circumvallation of the "Mahratta Ditch"--Chitpore, Nundenbagh,
+Bobar, Simla, Sealdah, Entally, Ballygunge, Bhovaneepore, Allypore,
+Kidderpore--together with the riverward-sloping lawns and stately
+mansions of "Garden Reach" on the sea-side of town, and the great
+dockyards and warehouses of the right bank of the river opposite the
+city, one has enclosed a space which may probably vie with any similar
+one in the world for the appearances and the realities of wealth
+within it.
+
+But if one should allow this first impression of Calcutta--an
+impression in which good eating and the general pampering of the flesh
+seem to be the most prominent features--to lead one into the belief
+that here is nothing but money-making and grossness, one would commit
+a serious mistake. It is among the rich babous, or commercial natives,
+of Calcutta that the remarkable reformatory movement known as "Young
+India" has had its origin, and it would really seem that the very same
+qualities of patience, of prudence, of foresight and of good sense
+which have helped these babous to accumulate their wealth are now
+about being applied to the nobler and far more difficult work of
+lifting their countrymen out of the degradations of old outworn
+customs and faiths upon some higher plane of reasonable behavior.
+
+"In truth," said Bhima Gandharva to me one day as were taking our
+customary stroll along the Esplanade, "you have now been from the west
+of this country to the east of it. You have seen the Past of India: I
+wish that you may have at least a glimpse of its Future. Here comes a
+young babou of my acquaintance, to whom I will make you known. He is
+an enthusiastic member of 'Young India:' he has received a liberal
+education at one of the numerous schools which his order has so
+liberally founded in modern years, and you will, I am convinced, be
+pleased with the wisdom and moderation of his sentiments."
+
+Just as I was reaching out my hand to take that of the babou, in
+compliance with Bhima's introduction, an enormous adjutant--one of
+the great pouched cranes (_arghilahs_) that stalk about Calcutta
+under protection of the law, and do much of the scavenger-work of the
+city--walked directly between us, eyeing each of us with his red round
+eyes in a manner so ludicrous that we all broke forth in a fit of
+laughter that lasted for several minutes, while the ungainly bird
+stalked away with much the stolid air of one who has seen something
+whereof he thinks but little.
+
+The babou addressed me in excellent English, and after some
+preliminary inquiries as to my stay in Calcutta, accompanied by
+hospitable invitations, he gradually began, in response to my evident
+desire, to talk of the hopes and fears of the new party.
+
+"It is our great misfortune," said he, "that we have here to do with
+that portion of my countrymen which is perhaps most deeply sunk in the
+mire of ancient custom. We have begun by unhesitatingly leading in the
+front ourselves whenever any disagreeable consequences are to be borne
+by reason of our infringement of the old customs. Take, for example,
+the problem of the peculiar position of women among the Hindus.
+Perhaps"--and here the babou's voice grew very grave and earnest--"the
+human imagination is incapable of conceiving a lot more wretched than
+that of the Hindu widow. By immemorial tradition she could escape it
+only through the flames of the _satti_, the funeral-pile upon which
+she could burn herself with the dead body of her husband. But the
+_satti_ is now prohibited by the English law, and the poor woman who
+loses her husband is, according to custom, stripped of her clothing,
+arrayed in coarse garments and doomed thenceforth to perform the most
+menial offices of the family for the remainder of her life, as one
+accursed beyond redemption. To marry again is impossible: the man who
+marries a widow suffers punishments which no one who has not lived
+under the traditions of caste can possibly comprehend. The wretched
+widow has not even the consolations which come from books: the decent
+Hindu woman does not know how to read or write. There was still one
+avenue of escape from this life. She might have become a _nautchni_.
+What wonder that there are so many of these? How, then, to deal with
+this fatal superstition, or rather conglomerate of superstitions,
+which seems to suffer no more from attack than a shadow? We have begun
+the revolution by marrying widows just as girls are married, and by
+showing that the loss of caste--which indeed we have quite abolished
+among ourselves--entails necessarily none of those miserable
+consequences which the priests have denounced; and we strike still
+more deeply at the root of the trouble by instituting schools where
+our own daughters, and all others whom we can prevail upon to
+send, are educated with the utmost care. In our religion we retain
+Brahma--by whom we mean the one supreme God of all--and abolish all
+notions of the saving efficacy of merely ceremonial observances,
+holding that God has given to man the choice of right and wrong,
+and the dignity of exercising his powers in such accordance with his
+convictions as shall secure his eternal happiness. To these cardinal
+principles we subjoin the most unlimited toleration for other
+religions, recognizing in its fullest extent the law of the adaptation
+of the forms of relief to the varying moulds of character resulting
+from race, climate and all those great conditions of existence which
+differentiate men one from another."
+
+[Illustration: CHARIOT OF THE PROCESSION OF THE RATTJATTRA, AT
+JAGHERNATH.]
+
+"How," I asked, "do the efforts of the Christian missionaries comport
+with your own sect's?"
+
+"Substantially, we work together. With the sincerest good wishes for
+their success--for every sensible man must hail any influence
+which instills a single new idea into the wretched Bengalee of low
+condition--I am yet free to acknowledge that I do not expect the
+missionaries to make many converts satisfactory to themselves, for
+I am inclined to think them not fully aware of the fact that in
+importing Christianity among the Hindus they have not only brought the
+doctrine, but they have brought the _Western form_ of it, and I fear
+that they do not recognize how much of the nature of substance this
+matter of form becomes when one is attempting to put new wine into old
+bottles. Nevertheless, God speed them! I say. We are all full of hope.
+Signs of the day meet us everywhere. It is true that still, if you put
+yourself on the route to Orissa, you will meet thousands of pilgrims
+who are going to the temple at Jaghernath (what your Sunday-school
+books call Juggernaut) for the purpose of worshiping the hideous idols
+which it contains; and although the English policemen accompany the
+procession of the Rattjattra--when the idol is drawn on the monstrous
+car by the frenzied crowd of fanatics--and enforce the law which now
+forbids the poor insane devotees from casting themselves beneath
+the fatal wheels, still, it cannot be denied that the devotees are
+_there_, nor that Jaghernath is still the Mecca of millions of debased
+worshipers. It is also true that the pretended exhibitions of the
+tooth of Buddha can still inspire an ignorant multitude of people to
+place themselves in adoring procession and to debase themselves with
+the absurd rites of frenzy and unreason. Nor do I forget the fact that
+my countrymen are broken up into hundreds of sects, and their language
+frittered into hundreds of dialects. Yet, as I said, we are full of
+hope, and there can be no man so bold as to limit the capabilities of
+that blood which flows in English veins as well as in Hindu. Somehow
+or other, India is now not so gloomy a topic to read of or to talk
+of as it used to be. The recent investigations of Indian religion and
+philosophy have set many European minds upon trains of thought which
+are full of novelty and of promise. India is not the only land--you
+who are from America know it full well--where the current orthodoxy
+has become wholly unsatisfactory to many of the soberest and most
+practically earnest men; and I please myself with believing that it is
+now not wholly extravagant to speak of a time when these two hundred
+millions of industrious, patient, mild-hearted, yet mistaken Hindus
+may be found leaping joyfully forward out of their old shackles toward
+the larger purposes which reveal themselves in the light of progress."
+
+At the close of our conversation, which was long and to me intensely
+interesting, the babou informed us that he had recently become
+interested with a company of Englishmen in reclaiming one of the
+numerous and hitherto wholly unused islands in the Sunderbunds for the
+purpose of devoting it to the culture of rice and sugar-cane, and
+that if we cared to penetrate some of the wildest and most picturesque
+portions of that strange region he would be glad to place at our
+disposal one of the boats of the company, which we would find lying at
+Port Canning. I eagerly accepted the proposition; and on the next day,
+taking the short railway which connects Calcutta and Port Canning, we
+quickly arrived at the latter point, and proceeded to bestow ourselves
+comfortably in the boat for a lazy voyage along the winding streams
+and canals which intersect the great marshes. It was not long after
+leaving Port Canning ere we were in the midst of the aquatic plants,
+the adjutants, the herons, the thousand sorts of water-birds, the
+crocodiles, which here abound.
+
+[Illustration: THE PORT OF CALCUTTA.]
+
+The Sunderbunds--as the natives term that alluvial region which
+terminates the delta of the Ganges--can scarcely be considered either
+land or sea, but rather a multitudinous reticulation of streams, the
+meshes of which are represented by islands in all the various stages
+of consistency between water and dry land. Sometimes we floated along
+the lovely curves of canals which flowed underneath ravishing arches
+formed by the meeting overhead of great trees which leaned to each
+other from either bank; while again our course led us between shores
+which were mere plaits and interweavings of the long stems and
+broad leaves of gigantic water-plants. The islands were but little
+inhabited, and the few denizens we saw were engaged either in fishing
+or in the manufacture of salt from the brackish water. Once we landed
+at a collection of huts where were quartered the laborers of another
+company which had been successfully engaged in prosecuting the same
+experiment of rice-culture which our friend had just undertaken. It
+was just at the time when the laborers were coming in from the fields.
+The wife of the one to whose hut my curiosity led me had prepared his
+evening meal of rice and curry, and he was just sitting down to it as
+I approached. With incredible deftness he mingled the curry and the
+rice together--he had no knife, fork or spoon--by using the end-joints
+of his thumb and fingers: then, when he had sufficiently amalgamated
+the mass, he rolled up a little ball of it, placed the ball upon
+his crooked thumb as a boy does a marble, and shot it into his mouth
+without losing a grain. Thus he despatched his meal, and I could not
+but marvel at the neatness and dexterity which he displayed, with
+scarcely more need of a finger-bowl at the end than the most delicate
+feeder you shall see at Delmonico's.
+
+The crops raised upon the rich alluvium of these islands were
+enormous, and if the other difficulties attending cultivation in
+such a region could be surmounted, there seemed to be no doubt of
+our friend the babou's success in his venture. But it was a wild and
+lonesome region, and as we floated along, after leaving the island,
+up a canal which flamed in the sunset like a great illuminated baldric
+slanting across the enormous shoulder of the world, a little air came
+breathing over me as if it had just blown from the mysterious regions
+where space and time are not, or are in different forms from those
+we know. A sense of the crudity of these great expanses of
+sea-becoming-land took possession of me; the horizon stretched away
+like a mere endless continuation of marshes and streams; the face of
+my companion was turned off sea-ward with an expression of ineffably
+mellow tranquillity; a glamour came about as if the world were again
+formless and void, and as if the marshes were chaos. I shivered with a
+certain eager expectation of beholding the shadowy outline of a great
+and beautiful spirit moving over the face of the waters to create a
+new world. I drew my gaze with difficulty from the heavens and turned
+toward my companion.
+
+He was gone. The sailors also had disappeared.
+
+And there, as I sat in that open boat, midst of the Sunderbunds, at
+my domestic antipodes, happened to me the most wondrous transformation
+which the tricksy stage-carpenters and scene-shifters of the brain
+have ever devised. For this same far-stretching horizon, which had
+just been alluring my soul into the depths of the creative period,
+suddenly contracted itself four-square into the somewhat yellowed
+walls of a certain apartment which I need not now further designate,
+and the sun and his flaming clouds became no more nor less than a
+certain half dozen of commonplace pictures upon these same yellowish
+walls; and the boat wherefrom I was about to view the birth of
+continents degraded itself into a certain--or, I had more accurately
+said, a very uncertain--cane chair, wherein I sit writing these lines
+and mourning for my lost Bhima Gandharva.
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLEGE STUDENT.
+
+
+The most marked trait in American college life is its spirit of caste.
+This same spirit, it is true, manifests itself in other lands--in
+England, France and Germany. In fact, it reached its extreme
+development in the last-named country: the very term _Philistia_ is of
+German coinage. The causes that originated and kept alive this
+spirit in Europe are obvious. During the Middle Ages students enjoyed
+privileges such as made them, in the strictest legal sense, a distinct
+class. Thus, they had the right to wear side-arms, and had their own
+courts of justice. Some of these privileges have survived, in England
+and Germany at least, to the present day. Yet even in Germany the old
+student spirit is evidently on the wane, and is doomed to extinction
+at a day not far distant. In America, on the contrary, where like
+causes have never operated, the spirit exists in force. It is due
+to peculiar causes--to college life, to locality and to the mode of
+teaching.
+
+The tendency to monkish seclusion lingers in England and America,
+the lands that have led the van in political and social progress. The
+motives that urged the monks of the olden time to turn their backs
+upon the world and bury themselves in cloisters were praiseworthy:
+but for such havens of peace, letters might have perished. When the
+Reformation was carried out in England, and the sequestration of
+Church property left immense convents idle, it was only natural that
+the newly-established colleges and halls should convert the buildings
+to their own uses. The dormitory system of Oxford and Cambridge,
+accordingly, has an historic right of being; and, growing by natural
+laws, it has become so rooted in the national life that nothing short
+of a political revolution, greater even than that of the seventeenth
+century, could eradicate it. The founders of our earliest colleges
+were governed by the desire to make them conform as closely as might
+be to the English model. There is scarcely the trace of a disposition
+to look to the institutions of continental Europe for guidance. This
+was a matter of course. The founders of our colleges and the men
+whom they selected to be teachers were Englishmen by descent or by
+education, trained after the English fashion--seeking freedom in
+America, yet at heart sympathizing with English thought, English
+habits and English prejudices. Hence the establishment of our
+dormitory system--not at once nor in all the fullness of a system. The
+colleges were at first little more than schools. The scholars boarded
+with the professors: there were no funds for the erection of separate
+buildings. But soon we see the evidences of a persistent effort to
+make each college an embryonic Oxford or Cambridge. Harvard, Yale and
+Princeton before completing the first half century of existence were
+committed to the dormitory system. Other colleges have followed the
+example thus set. The exceptions are too few to need enumeration.
+
+The mildest judgment that can be passed upon the system is that it has
+cost us dear. Were all the figures accurately ascertained and summed
+up, were we able to see at a glance all the money that has been
+expended for land and brick and mortar by the hundreds of colleges
+between Maine and California, even such an aggregate, startling enough
+in itself, would fail to reveal the whole truth. We should have to
+go behind the figures--to consider what might have been effected by a
+more judicious investment of those millions--how many professorships
+might have been permanently established, how many small colleges, now
+dragging out a sickly existence, too poor to live, too good to die,
+might have become vigorous branches in the tree of knowledge. What
+have we in return for the outlay? A series of structures concerning
+which the most ardent friend of the system cannot but admit that
+they are inelegant, uninspiring and unpractical. Some of the newer
+dormitories at Harvard and Yale, it is true, are decided improvements.
+They are well built and supplied with many conveniences that will
+serve to make student life less heathenish. But they can scarcely be
+called beautiful, and they certainly are not inspiring. The heart of
+the student or the visitor at Oxford swells within him at the sight of
+the grand architecture, the brilliant windows, the velvet turf. It is
+pardonable in us to wish for ourselves a like refining beauty. But
+is it not becoming in us to confess, without repining, that we cannot
+realize the wish? Oxford is not merely the growth of ages: it is the
+product of certain peculiar ages which have gone. Men build now for
+practical purposes, not for the glorification of architecture. The
+spirit of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance will probably never
+return, or, if it should, it will come as a folk-spirit, neither
+springing from nor governed by the colleges, but carrying them along
+with it. Hence, our colleges may content themselves with playing a
+less ostentatious part, and the most zealous alumnus need not think
+less of his alma mater for observing her limitations.
+
+We are not concerned with the dormitory system in all its bearings,
+but only in so far as it directly affects the student. The fact is
+significant that a large majority of our collegians pass their term
+of four years, vacations excepted, in practical seclusion. They are
+gathered in large numbers in dingy and untidy caravanseries, where
+the youthful spirit is unchecked by the usual obligations to respect
+private property and individual quiet. President Porter, in his work
+on _The American Colleges_, endeavors to prove that the dormitory
+system is, upon the whole, favorable to discipline. The facts are
+against his argument. The evils of student life are two--vice and
+disorder. So far as the former is concerned, no system has succeeded,
+or will ever succeed, in extirpating it. Vice may be punished, but
+it is too deeply rooted in human nature to be wholly cured. Its
+predominating forms are drinking and gambling, neither of which is
+checked by the dormitory system. At Oxford, for instance, both
+these vices prevail despite the most elaborate system of gates and
+night-patrols. Our college faculties must perforce content themselves
+with detecting vice, and punishing it when detected. The most
+satisfactory and appropriate means of detection is to watch closely
+the way in which the student performs his college duties. No man
+can waste his time over cards or the bottle without betraying his
+dissipation in the recitation-room. Here, and not in the dormitory,
+is the professor's hold upon the student. The dormitory system, so far
+from restraining, rather tends to diffuse vice and render its practice
+easy.
+
+Disorder is different from vice. The latter, the doing of things wrong
+in themselves or made wrong by force of opinion, shuns observation:
+the former courts it. The disorderly act is in many instances harmless
+enough in itself, and the evil lies in doing it in an improper place
+and at an improper time. Hence it is that good students, who would
+scorn to stoop to vice, so often suffer themselves to be led to the
+commission of an act of disorder. We may even go to the extent of
+admitting that occasionally college disorder is not without a certain
+color of reason. It is the youthful way of resenting a real or an
+imaginary grievance. When a class discovers that it or some of its
+members have been treated too severely, according to its standard, by
+a certain professor, what more natural than to create a disturbance in
+the recitation-room or in public? In itself considered, the act is a
+youthful ebullition, and we might be tempted at first to look upon it
+as something venial and pass it by in silence. Reflection, however,
+should lead us to the opposite conclusion. There is nothing that a
+college faculty cannot afford to pardon sooner than disorder.
+The reason is almost self-evident. There is nothing that ruins so
+effectually the general tone of the college and demoralizes all the
+students, good and bad. Vice moves in rather narrow circles--much more
+narrow than those in authority are apt to perceive. It does not affect
+the great body of students, who are filled with robust life, and whose
+very faults are conceits and extravagances rather than misdeeds. But
+disorder spreads from one to another: originating with the morally
+perverse, it gathers sufficient volume and momentum to overpower at
+times even the very best. To protect the better class of students,
+then, were there no other reason, the faculty is bound to interfere
+energetically and in season. Its position is not unlike that of the
+commander of a regiment. The colonel will not unfrequently wink at a
+certain amount of dissipation among the officers, and even among the
+privates. He may say to himself that the offence is one hard to prove,
+that perhaps it will wear itself out in time, that perhaps it is best
+not to draw the reigns too tightly. But no commanding officer
+can afford to tolerate for an instant the slightest movement of
+insubordination. He must put it down on the spot, without regard to
+consequences, and without stopping to inquire into abstract questions
+of right and wrong. No one, of course, will assert that the head of
+a college is to act according to the military code. The differences
+between soldier life and college life are fundamental. Yet there are
+certain resemblances which prompt and justify the wish that a touch at
+least of the military spirit might be infused into our colleges.
+The spirit, be it carefully observed, and not the forms, for the
+incompatibility between the military and the literary-scientific
+methods has been demonstrated repeatedly, the most recent evidence
+being furnished by those colleges that have attempted to combine,
+under the terms of the Congressional land-grant, agriculture, the
+mechanic arts, classical studies and military tactics. But a touch of
+the military spirit would be possible and beneficial in many ways.
+It would make the relationship between professor and student
+more tolerable for both parties. The mental drill and substantial
+information acquired through the college course are undoubtedly great.
+Still greater is the formative influence exercised by the body of
+students upon the individual member. But the greatest lesson of the
+course--and the one which seems to have escaped the otherwise close
+observation of President Porter--should be the lesson of deference to
+position and authority. This deference to one's superiors in age and
+position, this respect due to the professor simply because he is a
+professor, and aside from any consideration of his personal character
+or attainments, should be the first thing to impress itself upon the
+student's mind, the last to forsake it. For it is a high moral gain,
+a controlling principle that will stand the graduate in good stead
+through all the vicissitudes of after-life. Unless it be acquired we
+may say with propriety that the college course has fallen short of its
+highest aim. For the acquisition of this spirit of respect, military
+training is superior to civil. One officer salutes another, the
+private salutes his officer, simply because the person saluted is an
+officer. It may be that he is disagreeable or boorish in manners, or
+even notoriously incompetent. This matters not: so long as he wears
+the epaulettes he is entitled to an officer's salute. Honor is shown,
+not to the transient owner of the title, but to the title itself.
+
+The inculcation of a kindred spirit in all our colleges is devoutly to
+be wished. It exists already in some of the older ones, especially
+in the New England States, and in not a few of the very
+recently-established ones. But even where it does exist it has not
+full sway: it does not set, as it should set, the keynote to college
+life in all its variations. And in very many colleges it is unable to
+establish itself because of gross disorder. Should this opinion seem
+harsh and sweeping, the reader, if a student or a graduate, has only
+to recall to mind the instances that he himself must have observed of
+discontent and disorder growing out of trifling causes and culminating
+perhaps in a "class-strike." Let him consider the waste of time,
+the ill-temper, the censorious, invidious spirit engendered by this
+fermentation, the loss of faith in the conduct, and even the honesty,
+of the faculty. Can he conceive of anything more likely to frustrate
+all the aims of college study? Yet in nine-tenths of the cases of
+public disorder it will be safe to assume that the dormitory
+system lies at the base of the evil. Where it does not occasion the
+grievance, it furnishes at least the machinery for carrying matters
+to a direct issue. Community of life suggests of itself community of
+action. The inmates of a dormitory acquire insensibly the habit of
+standing by one another. This is so evident that it needs no proof.
+But an illustration of the workings of the dormitory system and its
+opposite in one and the same place will not come amiss. When the
+Cornell University was founded, some of the trustees opposed the
+erection of dormitories. Others, assuming that the people of Ithaca,
+to whom a college was a novelty, could not or would not furnish
+sufficient accommodation, argued that dormitories were an absolute
+necessity. They carried the point: the Cascadilla was converted into a
+large boarding-house for both professors and students, and the greater
+part of South University was laid out in student-rooms. Both buildings
+were full. This state of affairs lasted during the first year and part
+of the second. Disturbances of various kinds were not infrequent; and
+although no one of them was very serious, yet in the aggregate they
+were a severe tax upon the faculty's time and patience. But before the
+end of the second year many of the students discovered that life
+in town was more comfortable, and accordingly they gave up their
+university rooms. At the opening of the academic year 1870-1871
+perhaps three-fourths, certainly two-thirds, were lodged in town. The
+change was significant. During the entire year, although individual
+students were disciplined for individual offences, the faculty was
+not once forced to punish public disorder. This phenomenon will appear
+still more remarkable when we consider that meanwhile the so-called
+"class-feeling" had sprung up, and that students admitted from other
+colleges had endeavored to introduce certain traditional practices.
+The year 1870-1871 was perhaps too good to be repeated. The next year
+witnessed at least one discouraging exhibition of student-manners, and
+since then there have been explosions from time to time. For all that,
+the general tone at Cornell is excellent. The transitory disturbances
+seem to leave behind them no abiding ill-will, and there is
+certainly less friction between faculty and students than at any like
+institution. Nowhere in this country is college life more free from
+petty annoyance, dislike and mistrust, and hereditary prejudices. It
+should be added, that those students who now reside in the university
+buildings belong almost exclusively to what is known as the working
+corps. They are type-setters in the printing-office, or are engaged
+upon the university farm, or in the workshops connected with the
+department of the mechanic arts. Their time is too valuable to them to
+be wasted. The experience of the Sheffield Scientific School resembles
+that of Cornell. In one respect it is even better. This school has
+never had a dormitory system. Its managers, imbued thoroughly with the
+German and French spirit of study, have resisted successfully from the
+outset every inducement to follow the usual college system. Although
+growing up in the shadow of one of the oldest colleges in the country,
+and exposed to formidable competition, and still more formidable
+criticism, the Sheffield Scientific has adhered strictly to its
+self-appointed mission. It has regarded instruction in science as
+its sole object. Whatever tended to this object has been adopted:
+everything else has been rejected as irrelevant. We are not concerned
+in this place with the general reputation of the Sheffield Scientific
+at home and abroad. Singling out only one of its many merits, we can
+point to it with pride as the first institution to solve effectually
+the knotty problem of discipline. The means of its success are
+anything but occult. It has made its pupils feel from the moment
+of entrance that they were young men, and must act as such. It has
+refused to encumber itself with expensive and useless dormitories,
+and the faculty has in the main left the students to themselves. But
+whenever interference became necessary, it has acted promptly, without
+undue haste or severity, and also without vacillation. Here, at least,
+we do not find the ruinous practice of suspending a student one week,
+only to take him back the next. The mere existence, then, of the
+Sheffield Scientific--to say nothing of its success--by the side of
+the powerful corporation of Yale College is fatal to every argument in
+favor of the dormitory system.
+
+Most of our colleges are situated in small towns. To this
+circumstance, more than to any other, perhaps, is due the
+exclusiveness which, in its exaggerated manifestations, is so puzzling
+to the city visitor. Petty items of life and character, intrigues,
+quarrels and social jealousies have an importance which the world
+outside cannot understand. They affect the college more or less
+directly. The professor finds it doubly hard to exercise his vocation
+in a place where the details of his home life are known and exposed
+to comment. The student's power for mischief is increased. He has
+only too much reason for believing that he is indispensable from the
+business point of view. Besides, as every one knows, close contact in
+narrow circles has a tendency to cramp the mind. Trifling annoyances,
+real or imaginary, are apt to rankle in the spirit unless they
+be brushed away by the quick, firm touch of the great world.
+_Kleinstaedtisches Leben_, despite its many advantages, fails to
+develop the burgher in every direction. It leaves him one-sided, if
+not exactly narrow-minded. Professor C.K. Adams, in his admirable
+essay upon "State Universities,"[1] has touched upon this point with
+reference to studies. His words should be carefully weighed: "If the
+best education consisted simply of making perfect recitations and
+keeping out of mischief, the smallest college would be incomparably
+the best college. But the best education is far more than that.
+Perhaps it is correct to say that it is an inspiration rather than an
+acquisition. It comes not simply from industry and steady habits, but
+far more largely from that kindling and glowing zeal which is best
+begotten by familiar contact with large libraries and museums and
+enthusiastic specialists.... It is the stir, the enthusiasm, the
+unceasing activity, and, above all, the constant intercourse with men
+of the same pursuits and the same ambitions, that develop the greatest
+energies and secure the highest successes."
+
+[Footnote 1: _North American Review_, Oct., 1875.]
+
+Professor Adams, it will be observed, is contrasting small colleges
+with larger ones. We are not bound by his concessions in favor of the
+former. And we may also take the liberty of advancing his comparison
+a step by claiming for large cities, no less than for large colleges,
+the superiority over small ones. Without intending disrespect, we may
+even put the direct question, Would not your own university, for whose
+advantages you are contending, be better off to-day had it been placed
+in Detroit instead of Ann Arbor? Is there not something dwarfing
+in the atmosphere of a small country town, where character is
+undiversified and life uneventful? Were books the sole source of
+knowledge, were the acquisition of ideas and principles the sole aim,
+we could wish for our professors and students nothing better than
+monotony of life. But success, whether in professional or
+scholarly pursuits, depends largely upon temper and practical
+judgment--qualities which are developed by contact with the busy
+world. Whoever has had the experience, knows that life in large cities
+is both stimulating and sobering. It enlarges one's range of ideas
+and sympathies: it also keeps idiosyncrasies within proper bounds. The
+individual does not lose his individuality, but rather intensifies
+it: he loses only the exaggerated sense of his own importance. We must
+regard it, then, as unfortunate that so many of our seats of learning
+are out of the world, so to speak. Our professors would probably
+do their work better--that is to say, with greater freshness of
+spirit--and would exert a wider influence, were they thrown more in
+the company of men of the world. In like manner, our colleges would
+play a more direct part in the affairs of the country. The history of
+the German universities suggests a lesson. Is it a mere accident that
+the oldest and the youngest German universities are in large cities?
+In the Middle Ages, before the political organization of the country
+had fairly entered upon its morbid process of disintegration, we find
+Vienna, Prague[2] and Leipsic heading the list. Subsequently, each
+petty duke and count, moved by the sense of his autonomy, sought
+to establish a university of his own. The Reformation increased the
+spirit of rivalry. Most of these second- and third-rate universities
+have passed away or have been merged in others. The three youngest,
+Berlin, Munich and Strasburg, are all in large cities, and are
+all three the direct offspring of political and educational
+reorganization. As Germany is now constituted, it would be impossible
+to found a new university in a small town. Such places as Jena,
+Erlangen, Greifswald, Rostock, Marburg and Giessen barely hold their
+own against the strong movement in favor of concentration.
+
+[Footnote 2: Heidelberg comes between Vienna and Leipsic, but
+Heidelberg was then a much more important town than at present.]
+
+The wholesome influence of large surroundings upon students is
+perhaps even more marked than upon professors. History teaches us with
+singular clearness that small towns are precisely the ones in which
+student character is distorted out of all proportion. No better
+example can be found than the University of Jena. From the time of its
+foundation down to the present century the name of Jena stood for all
+that was wild, absurd, and outrageous. In a village whose permanent
+population did not exceed four thousand, students were crowded by
+hundreds and thousands. To speak without exaggeration, they ruled
+Philistia with a rod of iron, in defiance of law and order, and not
+infrequently of decency itself. On this point we have an eye-witness
+of unquestionable veracity. In 1798, Steffens, a young Dane brimful of
+enthusiastic admiration for German learning, arrived in the course
+of his travels at Jena. He gives the following account of his first
+impressions of German student manners:[3] "I looked out into the
+neighborhood so strange to me, and a restless suspicion of what was
+to come ran through my mind. Then we heard in I the distance a loud
+shouting like the voices of a number of men, and nearer and nearer
+they seemed to come. Lights had been brought shortly before, and,
+as the uproar was close upon us, a servant burst in to warn us to
+extinguish them. We asked with curiosity why, and what the shouting
+mob wanted. We suspected, indeed, that it was students. The servant
+told us that they were on their way to the house of Professor A----,
+who was unpopular with them--I knew not why--to salute him with their
+Pereat, or college damnation. The cry of some hundred students grew
+plainer and plainer. 'Out with lights!' was called, and just then
+we heard the panes of glass clatter when the warning was not quickly
+enough complied with. I confess that this circumstance, occurring so
+soon after my arrival, filled me with a kind of gloom. It was not such
+things as this that had called me to Jena: these were not the voices
+which I had wished and expected to hear, and my first night was a sad
+one."
+
+[Footnote 3: _German Universities_. Translated by W.L. Gage.
+Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1874. Steffens little imagined at
+the time that he was destined to become a German professor.]
+
+Jena, be it said in her praise, is no longer what she was: her
+students no longer break window-panes or perform the _Gaensemarsch_ or
+elect their beer-duke of Lichtenhain. The great herd has scattered,
+and the few who are left dwell with their professors in peace. But has
+the spirit of brutality passed wholly away? Perhaps loving parents who
+have placed their sons under the "protecting" influence of some quiet
+country town believe so. It is almost a pity to disturb their
+faith. Yet truth is uncompromising. Let us record and ponder the
+fact--epithets are superfluous--that in the year of grace 1874, in
+a small college town not one hundred miles distant from the City
+of Brotherly Love, students supposed to be guided and restrained by
+influences more distinctively "Christian" than any that ever mitigated
+the barbarism of Jena, could become utterly lost to all recollection
+of father and mother, brother and sister, could forget their own
+manhood, could steal under cover of night to the house of an unpopular
+professor and bombard the windows, to the peril of his wife and
+mother, and of his child in the cradle.
+
+Truly, we have been surfeited with mistaken praise of small colleges
+and rural virtue. We have a right to demand that our colleges,
+whatever they may undertake or omit, shall teach at least the
+first lesson of life--manliness. This lesson is not best learned
+by withdrawing one's self from the world, burying one's self in an
+obscure and unrefined village, foregoing social intercourse with
+amiable men and women, and wrapping one's self in a mantle of
+traditional prejudice. President Porter, although a staunch defender
+of the existing college system, concedes its weakness. He says (p.
+168): "It is no paradox to say that the first essay of the student's
+independence [i.e., the independence of college as contrasted with
+school] is often an act of prostrate subserviency to the opinion of
+the college community. This opinion he has little share in forming:
+he does little else than yield himself to the sentiment which he finds
+already formed.... It [this community] is eminently a law unto itself,
+making and enforcing such laws as no other community would recognize
+or understand--laws which are often strangely incongruous with the
+usually received commandments of God and man.... No community is
+swayed more completely by the force of public opinion. In none does
+public opinion solidify itself into so compact and homogeneous a
+force. Before its power the settled judgments of individual opinion
+are often abandoned or overborne, the sacred associations of
+childhood are relaxed, the plainest dictates of truth and honor are
+misinterpreted or defied."
+
+It may surprise us to find the author contending, only a few pages
+farther on, for "the civilizing and culturing influences which spring
+from college residence and college associations." The truth is that
+the case has two sides to it. No friend of education could wish to
+see student opinion or student sentiment banished wholly from student
+life--to reduce study to a mere intellectual process without any trace
+of _esprit de corps_. Some such spirit is not only good in itself, but
+is natural and unavoidable. Three hundred or four hundred young men
+cannot associate freely day by day for years in succession, pursuing
+the same studies under the guidance of the same teachers, without
+establishing a certain community of sentiment and action, from which
+the student's intellectual efforts must derive a great share of
+their nourishment. Yet, admitting the principle, we cannot justify or
+palliate the excess to which it has been carried. We insist upon the
+observance of certain limits, which no man, whether old or young,
+learned or unlearned, is at liberty to transgress. And when these
+limits are transgressed we have a right to regard the offenders as all
+the more culpable because of their advantages. The circumstance that
+they come of a "good stock," as it is called, and are pursuing liberal
+studies, is only an aggravation of the offence. We expect youthful
+extravagances, waste of time, neglect of opportunities, exaggerated
+self-importance, a supercilious way of looking down upon the
+outside world--these are all phases of growth, and are usually
+short-lived--but we cannot tolerate any violation of the rights of
+property, any overawing of individual conscience, any breach of public
+order, any disregard of public decency. Such offences we must resent
+and punish, not only for the sake of those injured, but in the best
+interests of the offenders themselves. We cannot afford to let the
+most promising class of our young men entertain even for the brief
+period of four years false and pernicious views of the fundamental
+principles of life. It is the duty of every community to suppress
+error _en voie de fait_, wherever it may occur. And if it is our
+duty to suppress, it is no less our duty to prevent. Common sense
+and experience teach us that danger must arise from gathering large
+numbers of young men in places too small to hold them in check. Are
+we not at liberty to borrow an example from the history of President
+Porter's own college? In the days when the president was a young
+professor, Yale was a small college and New Haven was a small town.
+The name of the college then was, to speak mildly, notorious. The Yale
+of thirty or forty years ago seemed to personify everything that was
+obnoxious and lawless in our college life: in no other place did the
+conflict between "town" and "gown" assume such dimensions and lead to
+such deplorable results. Yet the Yale of to-day, although the number
+of students has trebled, will compare favorably with any college
+or university. The students, without having lost a particle of true
+manliness and independence, riot less and learn more: they show in
+every way that they are better students and better citizens. Wherein,
+then, lies the secret of the change? Evidently, in the circumstance
+that the city has outgrown the college. New Haven is no longer an
+insignificant town, but has become the seat of a large local trade and
+the centre of heavy manufacturing and railroad interests. Like other
+cities, it has established a paid fire department and a strong police
+force for the protection of all its residents, the college included.
+It is no longer overshadowed, much less over-awed, by the college. On
+the contrary, the observation forces itself upon the visitor in New
+Haven that the college, notwithstanding its numerous staff of able
+professors, notwithstanding its great body of students, its libraries
+and scientific collections, is far from playing the leading part in
+municipal matters. It is only one among many factors. Life and its
+relations are on an ampler scale: the wealth and refinement of the
+permanent population are great, and are growing unceasingly. In a few
+years more New Haven will be fairly within the vortex of New York.
+This change, which has come about so gradually that those living in it
+perhaps fail to perceive it readily, has affected the college in many
+ways. It has made the life of the professors more agreeable, more
+generous, so to speak, and it has toned down the student spirit
+of caste. The young man who enters Yale feels, from the moment of
+matriculation, that he is indeed in a large city, and must conform
+to its regulations--that there are such beings as policemen and
+magistrates, whom he cannot provoke with impunity. Even were this all,
+it would be gain enough. But there is another gain of a far higher
+nature. The student perceives that outside his college world lies a
+larger world that he cannot overlook--a world whose society is worth
+cultivating, whose opinions are backed by wealth and prestige. It does
+not follow from this that he ceases to be a student. Companions and
+study make him feel that he is leading a peculiar life, that he is a
+member of an independent organization. But he does not feel--and this
+is the main point--that he has retired from the world or that he can
+set himself up against the world.
+
+In this connection we have to be on our guard against the opposite
+extreme--namely, the inference that the larger a city the better for
+the college. The very largest cities are perhaps not favorable to
+the growth of institutions of learning. Even in Germany, where the
+university system rests upon a different basis and adapts itself more
+readily to circumstances, the leading capitals, Berlin and Vienna, are
+at a disadvantage. The expenses of living are so great as to deter all
+but the wealthy or the very ambitious, and the pomp and pageantry
+of court and nobility, the numerous _personnel_ of the several
+departments of state, finance, war and justice throw the less
+ostentatious votaries of science and letters into the shade.
+Nevertheless, the universities of Berlin and Vienna can scarcely
+be said to be threatened with permanent decline. The governments of
+Prussia and Austria recognize the necessity of a great university in
+a great capital to give tone to the administrative departments and to
+resist the spread of the spirit of materialism. Besides, the resident
+population of each of these cities is entitled to a university, and
+would be sufficient of itself to support one. We may rest assured,
+therefore, that the Prussian government will act in the future as
+it has done in the past, by sparing no efforts to make the
+Frederico-Gulielma the head of the Prussian system in fact as well as
+in name. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the present hard times
+and the unsettled state of society in Berlin tend to restrict the
+number of students. The remarkable contrast presented in the sudden
+growth of the Leipsic University shows how even matters of education
+are influenced by social and economic laws. This Saxon city seems
+marked out by Nature for a seat of learning. It combines almost all
+attractions and advantages. It is accessible from every quarter, the
+climate is good for North Germany, and the neighborhood is pleasant,
+although anything but picturesque. The newer houses are well built,
+rooms and board are not expensive. The inhabitants are wealthy and
+highly cultured, the book-trade is enormous, and the banking-business
+considerable. Yet trade does not move with the fever-heat of
+speculation: the life of the city is quiet and regular. Amusements
+of a high order are within the reach of every one. These minor
+attractions, combined with the more important ones offered by the
+university itself, will explain to us how it is that Leipsic has taken
+the foremost rank. Students who are used to city ways, and who would
+have chosen Berlin ten or twenty years ago, now come here because of
+the cheapness of living. Others, tired of the monotony of the smaller
+university towns, come to get a foretaste of the world that awaits
+them after the completion of their studies. The temper of the
+students is admirable. Rarely if ever do they betray any traces of the
+hectoring spirit which still lingers at Heidelberg, for instance.
+But for the display of corps-caps and cannon boots and an occasional
+swagger in the street, one might pass an entire semester in Leipsic
+without realizing that the city contains three thousand students.
+Undoubtedly, the young men perceive, like their colleagues of Yale,
+that their surroundings are too much for them.
+
+Another prolific source of trouble is the class system. Whether this
+system is to be maintained as it is, or to be modified, or to be
+abandoned for another more in accordance with the needs of the age,
+are questions which must be kept in abeyance. The answer will
+depend upon the view which we take of higher education in the main.
+Meanwhile, let us consider the system in its operations during the
+past and at the present day. Here, as so often before, Germany affords
+us a warning example of the dangers consequent upon the recognition
+of class distinctions. The comparatively harmless practice of
+_Deposition_--a burlesque student-initiation which sprang up in the
+sixteenth century and obtained a quasi sanction from no less a
+person than Luther--degenerated in the seventeenth century into
+_Pennalisimus_. Newly-matriculated students, called Pennalists (the
+modern term is _Fuechse_), were maltreated by the elder ones, the
+Schorists, and were pillaged and forced to perform menial services
+"such as a sensible master would hesitate to exact of his servant[4]."
+The Schorists considered themselves a licensed corporation. To give an
+idea of their deportment, not merely toward the younger students, but
+even toward the university itself, it will suffice to state that they
+conducted their orgies at times in the public streets without fear
+or shame. In 1660, during the student insurrection at Jena,
+they assaulted and dispersed the Academic Senate in session. The
+governmental rescripts of those days are taken up with accounts of the
+evil and the means proposed for curing it. The matter was even brought
+before the Imperial Diet. Pennalismus was not suppressed until the
+close of the century, after the various governments had resorted to
+the most stringent measures. Such excesses have, of course, never
+been committed in America; yet we observe the same spirit of
+insubordination to superiors and domination over inferiors betraying
+itself in the New World. When we hear of "rushing," "hazing,"
+"smoking-out" and the like, we must admit to ourselves that the animus
+is the same, although the form be only ludicrous. And what shall we
+say to performances such as the explosion of nitro-glycerine? Much may
+be urged in extenuation of the offences of the German students in the
+seventeenth century. Their sensibilities were blunted by the horrors
+of a Thirty Years' War; they had been born and reared amid bloodshed
+and rapine; some of them must have served in the campaigns of Baner,
+Torstenson and Wrangel, where human life went for nothing, and honor
+for less than nothing. Some of them, perhaps, could not name their
+parents. They were waifs of the camp, their only education the crumbs
+of knowledge picked up in the camp-school mentioned by Schiller in his
+_Wallenstein_. Our students, on the contrary, are anxiously shielded
+against temptation and are carefully trained for their work. Why,
+then, should they be the only set of persons to disobey, as a set, the
+rules of public order? The answer suggests itself: Because they have
+acquired the habit of joint action without the sense of individual
+responsibility.
+
+[Footnote 4: The words of the decree of the Imperial Diet, 1654. See
+Von Raumer, _Geschichte. der Pedagogik_, iv. 45.]
+
+The advantages of the present system of instruction by classes are
+not to be overlooked. Yet they are attended with one serious evil.
+The members of a class, reciting day by day, term after term, upon the
+same subjects, acquire the notion of a certain average of work. The
+class, as a unit, has only so much to learn, and the professor is not
+to exceed this maximum. Furthermore, each class gauges its work by
+the work of its predecessors. The Sophomore class of this year, for
+instance, is not willing to do more than the Sophomore class of last
+year. To introduce more difficult text-books, or to increase the
+number of hours, or to lengthen the lessons, is injustice. The notion
+of unity extends itself to social relations. Each member considers
+himself identified with his comrades. Tradition--everywhere a power,
+and especially powerful in college--establishes nice distinctions. It
+lays down the rule that one class shall not wear beaver hats or carry
+canes--that another class shall steal the town-gates on a particular
+night of the year or publish scurrilous pamphlets. Each member of the
+class must do certain things or must refrain from them, not because
+he wishes to, but because he is a member of the class. The strength of
+this community of feeling and interests can be estimated only by one
+who has experienced it. Were its operations confined to the relations
+among students, they would be less formidable. We might perhaps
+shrug our shoulders and leave the young men "to fight it out among
+themselves." The case becomes quite different, however, when a class
+arrays itself in opposition to its professor or to the entire faculty.
+Then we see plainly the dangers of insubordination. The immature and
+inexperienced set themselves above their elders: they arrogate to
+themselves the right of deciding what they shall learn, how much they
+shall learn, how they shall learn it. And, being a class, they
+stand or fall as a class. They exhibit tenacity of purpose and an
+unscrupulous use of improper means. Many a professor has learned to
+his cost what it is to be defied by his class.
+
+An example will be more instructive than vague generalities. About
+seven years ago a gentleman was engaged by one of our colleges to take
+charge of a new department until a permanent appointee might be found.
+The resident faculty committed one blunder after another. It added the
+new study outright without adjusting it to the previous studies. It
+also fixed upon Saturday as the day for beginning. Thus, the students
+were prejudiced against their new instructor before they had even seen
+him. Besides, they regarded the innovation as an "interloper." The
+victim to student rule may now tell his own story: "I took the 6 A.M.
+train Saturday morning from the city. After breakfast I was directed
+by the president to go to a certain room, unaccompanied, to meet the
+Sophomore class. One hundred hyenas! My entrance was greeted with
+groans, 'Ahas!' 'Hums!' I spent half an hour in the vain attempt to
+explain the subject. Before I was half through I had made up my mind
+to return to the city by the first train. On leaving the room I met
+Professor ----, who comprehended the situation at a glance. He said
+that he had been through it all himself--that it had taken him two
+years to get control of his classes. I learned afterward that this is
+the usual time allowed for such purpose. The president on meeting me,
+said in his usual abrupt, nervous brogue, 'It's nothing against the
+men, sir! It would be just the same if it were anybody else, sir!
+(!!!). Just go on, sir.' I finally decided 'to go on, sir,' but I
+hardly retain my self-respect when I remember how I submitted for
+three months to a series of petty annoyances unworthy the lowest
+_gamins_ of New York. Students purposely made mistakes to give others
+an opportunity to groan. The Sophomore class was divided into two
+sections after the third week. By dint of strict watching, which
+so absorbed my attention that I could do little in the way of
+instruction, I succeeded in obtaining tolerable order. Usually, a
+painful silence was observed, every one knowing that there was a
+hand-to-hand fight going on for the mastery. The Junior class could
+not be divided because of other studies. Their recitations (?)
+continued to be a bedlam, a pandemonium. I afterward learned that some
+students, who already had some knowledge of the subject, remained
+on purpose to create disturbance. One of them, a son of a trustee, I
+caught blowing snuff through the room. It was a favorite trick of the
+class to drop a bundle of snuff in the stove. Each one of the
+fifteen recitations that I had with this class was spoiled by some
+disturbance. On two occasions some of them stole the keys of the room
+and locked me in with part of the class. Fortunately, I was able to
+drive back the bolt. The president was less lucky. Twice he and his
+entire class were obliged to climb down from the window by a ladder.
+There is no use in multiplying words. The treatment to which I
+was subjected was shameful. What made it even worse was, that the
+authorities permitted such conduct toward one whom they had invited
+to take the initiative in beginning a new study. It was a
+perfectly-understood thing that I had accepted the temporary
+appointment more to relieve the college than for my own benefit."
+
+The writer of the above is now one of the leading professors in
+another college. His name and reputation are among the best in the
+land. He writes concerning his present position: "We have here two
+hundred and fifty students, all told. The utmost courtesy prevails,
+both in the recitation-room and in the streets. During the five years
+that we have been in existence as a college I do not remember that a
+single rude act has been committed toward any professor. I attribute
+this to a variety of circumstances. We began with a small body
+of students, who gave tone to the subsequent ones. We have no
+dormitories. The college is in a city too large to be controlled by
+students. Nothing could be pleasanter than the intercourse between
+town and college. Not a gate has been carried off, no loud shouting is
+heard. If there are night-revels, nobody ever hears of them. We have
+no prizes, no honors, no marking system. We hold rigid examinations,
+and watch the tendency to negligence if it shows itself."
+
+One circumstance may lead us to take a more hopeful view of the
+situation. The colleges--and consequently the classes--are growing
+larger. At Yale and Harvard, for instance, the classes exceed two
+hundred on entrance. It is clear that so large a body cannot cohere
+very firmly. The sense of homogeneousness is lost. Furthermore, the
+class is divided into sections and sub-sections. The occasions on
+which the student can see his entire class together are becoming
+comparatively few. The so-called elective studies will also help to
+keep down the class spirit. In many colleges the curriculum is no
+longer an inflexible routine. On reaching a certain standing the
+student, although not entirely free to select his studies, has at
+least an option. He may take German instead of Greek, French in place
+of Latin, advanced mathematics or the natural sciences in place of
+both. Whatever estimate we may set upon the intrinsic value of
+such options, we can scarcely doubt their efficacy in the matter of
+discipline. The class which branches out on different lines of study
+has already ceased to be a class. The results of the system of free
+selection established at the Cornell University are very instructive.
+We find here three or four courses of study, now running parallel, now
+overlapping one another, and outside of them the elective students who
+follow partial courses or specialties. The university has scrupulously
+refrained from the official use of the terms Senior, Junior, Sophomore
+and Freshman, and arranges the students' names in the index in
+alphabetical order. The sections in certain departments, especially in
+the modern languages and history, are made up of students of all four
+years. Even the courses themselves are not inflexible. The policy
+of accepting _bona fide_ equivalents has been adopted, and has given
+satisfaction to both teachers and pupils. There are probably not
+twenty students in the university at this moment who have recited side
+by side on exactly the same subjects and in the same order for three
+years. Hence the absence of any strong class feeling. Although those
+who have attended the university the same number of years may try hard
+at times to convince themselves and others that they are a class in
+the ordinary sense, they meet with little success. Individual freedom
+of opinion and conduct is the rule, and such a thing as class coercion
+is an impossibility. At one time it was argued by the adversaries of
+the university that this laxity must result in lowering the standard
+of scholarship. But recent events lead us to the opposite conclusion.
+The Saratoga regatta last summer proved that the Cornell students are
+not wanting in muscle, and the inter-collegiate contest of this winter
+shows still more conclusively that they are not wanting in brains.
+Cornell entered in four of the six contests, and won four prizes--one
+second and three firsts. Two of these first prizes, be it observed,
+far outrank the others as tests of scholarship--namely, those in Greek
+and in mathematics. No shallow theory of luck will explain this sudden
+and remarkable success. The older colleges will do well to inquire
+into causes, and to ask themselves if their young rival is not
+possessed of a new power--if sturdiness of character and independence
+of thought are not more efficient than mere routine. After all, is it
+surprising that the institution which is most liberal should attract
+to itself the most progressive minds?
+
+JAMES MORGAN HART.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+  I saw a garden-bed on which there grew,
+    Low down amid gay grass, a violet,
+    With flame of poppy flickering over it,
+  And many gaudy spikes and blossoms new,
+  Round which the wind with amorous whispers blew.
+  There came a maid, gold-haired and lithe and strong,
+    With limbs whereof the delicate perfumed flesh
+    Was like a babe's. She broke the flowering mesh
+    Of flaunting weeds, and plucked the modest bloom
+  To wear it on her bosom all day long.
+    So in pure breasts pure things find welcomest room,
+  And poppied epics, flushed with blood and wrong,
+  Are crushed to reach love's violets of song.
+
+MAURICE THOMPSON.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE THAT SUSAN BUILT.
+
+
+Susan--Susan Summerhaze--was twenty-nine, and had never had a lover.
+You smile. You people have a way of smiling at the mention of a maiden
+lady who has never had a lover, as though there was a very good joke
+in the matter. You ought to be ashamed to smile. You have a tear for
+the girl at the grave of her lover, and for the bride of a month in
+her widow's cap, and even for her who mourns a lover changed. But
+in each of these cases the woman has had her romance: her spirit has
+thrilled to enchanted music; there is a consecrated something in her
+nature; a tender memory is hers for ever.
+
+Nothing is so pathetic as the insignificant. Than a dead blank,
+better a path marked by--well, anything, perhaps, except dishonor. The
+colorless, commonplace life was especially dreary to my Susan, because
+of a streak of romance--and a broad streak it was--that ran from end
+to end of her nature.
+
+It's another provoking way you people have of laughing at romantic
+young women. Sentimental, you call them. I tell you it's the most
+womanly thing in the world to be sentimental. A woman's affections
+reaching out toward a man's heart is as much a part of Nature, and
+just as pretty a thing in Nature, as the morning-glory--or let us take
+the old and oft-used yet good illustration of the ivy and the
+oak. When the woman's reaching affections attain the sought heart,
+everybody cries out, "How sweet and tender and graceful!" But if they
+miss of the hold, then there is derision. Here, as everywhere else,
+there are cheers for success and no pity for failure.
+
+Well, however you may receive it, the truth must be acknowledged: my
+Susan was sentimental. She had had her longings and dreams, and an
+abundance of those great vague heartaches which only sentimental
+people can have. She had gone through with the whole--the sweet hopes,
+the yearning expectancy, the vague anxiety, the brooding doubt, the
+slow giving up--the reluctant acceptance of her fading life. Her
+romance died hard. Very gradually, and with many a protest, the woman
+of heartaches and sentiment glided into the practical and commonplace
+maiden lady who served on all sorts of committees and watched with
+sick people.
+
+At an early age, when she was barely sixteen, the suggestion had been
+forced on Susan that it was her duty to spread her wings and leave
+the paternal nest to earn her living. Of course she went to teaching.
+That's what such people as Susan always do in like circumstances. At
+first her earnings went into the family fund to buy bread for little
+mouths that were not to blame for being hungry, and shoes for little
+feet that did not know wherefore they had been set to travel life's
+road. But after a while a portion of Susan's salary came to be
+deposited in bank as her very own money, to have and to hold. She had
+now reached the giving-up period of her life, when the heartaches were
+dulling, and the nameless longings were being resolved into occasional
+lookings back to the time when there had been hopes of deliverance
+from the commonplace. Having tasted the sweets of being a capitalist,
+Susan came in process of time to be eager at money-getting and at
+money-saving and at speculating. The day arrived when my sentimental
+Susan had United States bonds and railroad stocks, and owned a half
+acre in city lots in a great, teeming, tempestuous State metropolis.
+
+It was at this period in her affairs that Susan received a gift
+of fifteen hundred dollars from her bachelor uncle Adolphus, "as a
+token," so the letter of transmission read, "of my approval of your
+industry and of your business ability and successes, and as a mark of
+my gratitude for your kindness to me twenty-one years ago when I was
+sick at your father's house. You were the only one of my brother's
+children that showed me any consideration."
+
+"Twenty-one years ago!" exclaimed Gertrude, Susan's younger sister,
+when she had read the letter through. "Why, that was before I was
+born! How in the world could I show him consideration? I wish to
+goodness he'd come here now and get sick. I'd show him consideration:
+I'd tend him like an own mother."
+
+"Susie didn't tend him like an own mother," said Brother Tom, who was
+two years younger than Susan. "I remember all about it. All she did
+for him was to keep the flies off with an apple-tree limb, and she was
+for ever letting it drop on his face."
+
+"I recollect all about it," said Susan: "I pity myself now when I
+remember how tired and sleepy I used to get. The room was always so
+quiet--not a sound in it but the buzzing of the lazy flies and poor
+uncle's hard breathing. I used to feel as though I were in prison or
+all alone at a funeral."
+
+"But self-abnegation has its reward, Susie," said Brother Tom, lifting
+his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, I'm free to acknowledge that I performed the duties at that
+bedside very reluctantly," Susan answered. "I had many a cry over my
+hard fate. Indeed, I believe I always had to wash off the tear-stains
+before going to the task. I can recall now just how the little
+red-eyed girl looked standing before the glass with towel and brush.
+But still, I did keep the flies off, and I did bring uncle fresh water
+from the well, and perhaps I deserve a reward all the more because the
+work was distasteful."
+
+"Mother used to try to make me do it," said Brother Tom. "I remember
+how I used to slip away from the table while she was pouring out
+father's fourth cup of coffee, and put for the playground, to escape
+that fly-brush. I wasn't a good boy, alas! or I might now be a happy
+man with all my debts paid. I wish my mother had trounced me and made
+me keep those flies off Uncle Adolphus."
+
+Brother Tom was one of those people who are always trying to say and
+look funny things. Sometimes he succeeded, and sometimes he didn't.
+
+"Anyhow, I think it's a shame," Gertrude said, pouting--"downright
+mean for Uncle Adolphus to give you all that money, and never give me
+a cent."
+
+"Very likely." Susan replied dryly.
+
+"Well, it is, Susie. You've got lots more money now than you know what
+to do with: you don't need that money at all."
+
+"Don't I?"
+
+"No, you don't, Susie: you know you don't. You never go into society,
+and you wear your dresses the same way all the time, just as Grandma
+Summerhaze does. But I'm just making my _debut_"--and Gertrude flushed
+and tossed her head with a pretty confusion, because she was conscious
+of having made a sounding speech--"and I need lots of things, such as
+the rest of the girls have."
+
+"My dear Gertrude," began Brother Tom, "'beauty unadorned'--"
+
+"Oh, do, pray, Tom, have mercy upon us!" Gertrude said testily.
+"Unfortunately, I happen not to be a beauty, so I need some adorning.
+Moreover, I don't admit that beauty can do without adorning. There's
+Minnie Lathrop: she's a beauty, but she wouldn't improve herself by
+leaving off flowers and ribbons and laces, and dressing herself like
+a nun. Dear me! she does have the loveliest things! Mine are so shabby
+beside them. I'm about the tag-end of our set, anyhow, in matters of
+dress. I think, Susie, you might give me a hundred or two dollars."
+
+"To waste in ribbons and bonnets?" asked business-woman Susan.
+
+"Why, Susie, how you do talk! A body would think you had never worn a
+ribbon, and that you'd gone bareheaded all the days of your life. But
+you needn't talk: it's not so long ago but I can remember when you
+were as fond of dress as any girl in the city. I remember how you used
+to tease mamma for pretty things."
+
+"Which I never got, even though I was earning them over and over."
+Susan spoke half sadly, half bitterly.
+
+"Well, you ought to have had nice things, Susie, when you were in
+society," Gertrude insisted. "Girls can't get married if they're
+shabby and old-fashioned."
+
+"That's true," said Susan gravely.
+
+"I think," continued her sister, "it's the meanest feeling, the
+sheep-ish-est"--Gertrude syllabled the word to make sure of her hold
+on it--"in this world to know that the gentlemen are ashamed to show
+you attention. Now, I'm cleverer and better-looking than lots of girls
+in our set--Delia Spaulding, for instance--but I don't have half the
+attention she receives, just on account of her fixings and furbelows."
+
+"And Miss Spaulding always manages to keep ahead in those
+sublimities," said Brother Tom.
+
+"Yes," assented Gertrude briskly. "No matter what on earth the rest
+of us girls get, Delia Spaulding manages to have something to cast
+us into the shade. It makes me so mad! Now, last week at Mrs.
+Gildersleeve's, when I dressed for the party I thought I looked really
+nice. I felt a complacency toward myself, as Margaret Pillsbury would
+say. But when I got to the party, there was Delia Spaulding prinked
+out with such lights and shades and lustres that I looked plain as
+a Quaker in comparison with her--or with any of the other girls, for
+that matter. Do you know, Susie, what the feeling is to be always
+behind in dress?"
+
+"Yes," Susan answered, a piteous shadow coming into her face as
+memories of the heart-burning days were evoked, "but I am glad to have
+done with all the vanity and heartache that comes of it."
+
+"But yet, Susie, you ought to know how to feel for me."
+
+"I do know how," Susan answered.
+
+"Then why don't you help me across some of the heartache?"
+
+"I might help you into a worse heartache by my meddling," Susan
+suggested.
+
+"You don't want anybody to marry you because you dress well and are
+stylish?" said Brother Tom, undertaking to explain Susan's meaning.
+
+"I don't know that I want anybody to marry me for any reason,"
+Gertrude flashed out, her cheeks flushing, "but I like to go, once in
+a while, to young people's gatherings, and then I like to be dressed
+so that gentlemen are not ashamed to be seen with me."
+
+"A fellow ought to have pluck enough to stand up for the merit of a
+young lady, no matter how she's dressed."
+
+"Now, Tom, for pity's sake, don't talk heroics," said Gertrude. "I've
+seen you at parties shying around the poorly-dressed girls and picking
+out the pretty-plumaged birds. I know all about your heroism. I'm not
+blaming you, you understand: I don't like to dance or promenade with
+a gentleman not well dressed. Next to looking well yourself, you wish
+your partner to look well. That's nature.--But what are you going to
+do with your fifteen hundred dollars, anyhow, Susie?"
+
+"I shall add something to it and build a house on one of my lots."
+
+"'Pon my soul!" said Brother Tom, laughing.
+
+"How perfectly absurd!" exclaimed Gertrude. "Suppose your house should
+burn down as soon as it's finished, as the First Congregational church
+did?"
+
+"I'd get the insurance on it, as the Congregational church didn't."
+
+"What in the world do you want with a house? Are you going to live in
+it yourself? Are you going to get married?" asked Brother Tom.
+
+"I have two objects in building the house," Susan explained. "One is
+to secure a good investment for my money: the other is to exercise my
+ingenuity in planning a model house."
+
+"And in the mean time I am to keep on being Miss Nobody," Gertrude
+said warmly, "and lose all the chances of fortune. I wouldn't have
+believed, Susie, that you could be so hard-hearted;" and tears began
+to gather in Miss Gertrude's pretty eyes. "It must be that you want an
+old-maid sister for company," she added with some spite.'
+
+Tom went out of the room whistling. He was apt to run if he perceived
+a fight waxing. He had a soft place in his silly heart for his pretty
+young sister. He wished Susan would do something for Gertrude:
+he thought she might. He'd feel considerably more comfortable
+in escorting Gertrude to parties if she ranked higher in the
+dress-circle. He'd help her if he could, but he was already behind at
+his tailor's and at Hunsaker's cigar-shop.
+
+"I'm invited to Mrs. Alderson's next week," Gertrude continued, "and
+I've nothing on earth to wear but that everlasting old white muslin
+that I've worn five times hand-running."
+
+"I heard you say that Amanda Stewart had worn one dress to all the
+parties of this season," Susan remarked.
+
+"Amanda Stewart can afford to wear one dress: her father's worth
+millions, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows she can have a dozen
+new dresses for every day of the year. But we poor folks have got
+to give ocular demonstration of our ability to have new dresses, or
+nobody will ever believe that we can. Everybody knows that I wear that
+white muslin because I can't afford any other, I do wish I could have
+a new dress for Mrs. Alderson's: it will be a dreadfully select party.
+I've rung all the changes possible on that white muslin: I've worn
+pink trimmings, and white trimmings, and blue trimmings, and I've worn
+flowers; and now I'm at my wit's end."
+
+"I wish I were able to advise you," Susan said.
+
+"Advise me?" Gertrude exclaimed impatiently. "What good would advice
+do? It takes money to get up changes in evening dresses."
+
+"You poor little goose!" said Susan with a grave smile, "I suppose I
+was once just as foolish. Well, here are twenty-five dollars you may
+have. It is really all I can spare, for I mean to go at building my
+house immediately."
+
+"Susie, you're a duck!" cried the delighted Gertrude, eagerly taking
+the bills. "I can get along nicely with twenty-five dollars for this
+time, but, oh dear! the next time!"
+
+But Susan did not heed her sister's foreboding cry. Getting pencil and
+paper, she was soon engaged in sketching the ground-floor of a cottage
+house. It was to cost about twenty-six hundred dollars. This was
+years before the day of high prices, when a very cozy house could be
+compassed for twenty-six hundred.
+
+The following three weeks were very busy weeks for Susan, though all
+she did was to work at the plan of her house. Her mother grumbled.
+Brother Tom made his jokes, and Gertrude "feazed," to use her own
+word. The neighbors came and went, and still Susan continued to
+sit with drawing-tools at her desk, sketching plan after plan, and
+rejecting one after another.
+
+"I declare, Susie," said her sister, "I don't believe Christopher Wren
+gave as much thought to the planning of St. Paul's as you have to that
+cottage you're going to build. I believe in my heart you've made a
+thousand diagrams."
+
+"Well," Susan retorted, "I don't suppose anybody's been hurt by them."
+
+"You wouldn't say that if you had to clear up the library every
+morning as I have to. Those sketches of yours are everywhere, lying
+around loose. I have picked them up and picked them up, till they've
+tired me out. 'Parlor, dining-room, kitchen, pantry:' I've read this
+and read it, till it runs in my head all day, like 'rich man, poor
+man, beggar-man, thief.' I've marked off the figures on all the
+papering in this house into 'parlor, dining-room, kitchen, pantry."
+
+"I don't see a mite of reason in Susan's being so particular about
+that house," said the mother, "seein' she's going to rent it. Now, if
+she was going to live in it herself, or any of the rest of the
+family, it would be different, Anyway, these plans all look to me like
+first-rate ones," she continued, glancing from one to another of half
+a dozen under her spectacles--"plenty good enough for renting-houses.
+Now, this one is right pretty, 'pears to me, and right handy.--What's
+the reason this one won't do, Susan?"
+
+"Why, mother, don't you see the fault?" Susan replied. "There's no way
+of getting to the dining-room except through the kitchen."
+
+"To be sure!" said the mother. "Of course that would never do, for,
+of all things, I do despise to have folks stalking through my kitchen
+when the pots and kittles are all in a muss, as they're always like to
+be at meal-times. What ever did you draw it this way for, Susan?"
+
+"Well, I didn't see how it was coming out till it was finished."
+
+"To be sure! Well, now, what's the matter with this one?" and the
+mother singled out another sketch. "This one seems to be about right."
+
+"Why, yes, I think it's splendid," said Gertrude, leaning over her
+mother's shoulder and studying the plan under consideration. "There's
+the cellar-way opening from the pantry, and there's a movable slide
+between dining-room and pantry, right over the sink.--Why, Susie, I
+think this is wonderfully nice. Why don't you adopt this plan?"
+
+"The objection to it is that the pantry has no window: it would be as
+dark as a pocket. Don't you see there can't be a window?"
+
+"So there can't," said Gertrude.
+
+"That spoils the whole thing," said the mother. "If there's anything I
+do despise, it's this thing of fumblin' 'round in a dark pantry; and,
+before everything else, I want my mouldin'-board so I can see what
+goes into my bread. Now, I never noticed about that window, and I
+s'pose would never have minded about it till the house was built an'
+I'd gone in to mix my bread. Then wouldn't I have been in a pretty
+pickle? Clean beat! Well, I suppose there's something or other the
+matter with all these plans?"
+
+"Yes," said Susan, "they're all faulty."
+
+"I don't see any fault in this one, Susie," said Gertrude.
+
+"That one has the kitchen chimney in the pantry," Susan explained.
+
+"Dear me! that would never do," said the mother. "Of all things, I
+dote on a cool pantry. What with the baking and the laundry-work, that
+chimney would keep the pantry all the while het up. It would be handy
+for canned fruits and jellies in the winter, though--so many of ours
+froze and bursted last winter."
+
+"Now, this one," said Gertrude--"I'm sure this is all right, Susie. I
+can't see anything wrong about this one."
+
+"Why, don't you see? That kitchen hasn't a door in it except the
+cellar-door," said Susan.
+
+"Well, I declare!" Gertrude said. "What ridiculous plans you do make,
+Susie! The idea of planning a kitchen without a door!"
+
+"Why, that would never do, Susan," the mother objected. "Folks never
+could take all the victuals and things down through the cellar."
+
+"I warrant I could plan a house, and a model house, the first time,"
+Gertrude boasted.
+
+"Try it," replied Susan quietly.
+
+"I know I can," Gertrude insisted, settling herself with paper and
+pencil.
+
+"I believe I'll try my hand," said the mother. "I've housekept so long
+I likely know what are the belongings of a handy house;" and she too
+settled herself with paper and pencil and spectacles.
+
+There was silence for a few minutes as the three drew lines and rubbed
+them out.
+
+Presently Brother Tom came in. "Well, for ever!" he exclaimed, with
+the inevitable laugh. "What are you people all about? Have you all
+gone house-mad? Are you, too, going to build a house, Gert?"
+
+"No, I'm just helping Susie: she can't get any plan to suit her."
+
+"Why don't you call on me, Susie? Let me have a pencil and a scrap of
+paper: I can plan a house in the half of no time."
+
+"Here," Susan answered, furnishing the required materials, and
+enjoying, meanwhile, the thought of the discomfiture which, as she
+felt sure, awaited these volunteer architects.
+
+"Do see mother's plan!" laughed Gertrude after a while, peeping over
+that lady's shoulder. "Her kitchen is large enough for a prosperous
+livery-stable, and it has ten windows; and here's the parlor--nothing
+but a goods-box; and she hasn't any way of gettin; to the second
+floor."
+
+"Put in an elevator," said Brother Tom.
+
+This drew Gertrude's attention to Tom's sketch, so she went across,
+and looked it over. Man-like, he had left out of his plan everything
+in the way of a pantry or closet, though he had a handsome
+smoking-room and a billiard-hall.
+
+Not at all disconcerted by the criticisms of his plan, Tom proceeded
+with wonderful contrivance to run a partition with his pencil
+across one end of his roomy smoking apartment for pantry and ladies'
+clothes-presses.
+
+"That's just like a man," Gertrude said. "He'd have all the dishes and
+all the ladies' dresses toted through the smoking-room."
+
+"Well, see here," Tom said: "I can take closets off this bedroom;" and
+the division-line was quickly run.
+
+"And, pray, whose bedroom is that supposed to be?" Gertrude asked. "It
+might answer for a retired bachelor who has nothing to store but an
+extra shirt: it wouldn't do for a young lady with such hoops as they
+wear these days. She couldn't squeeze in between the bed and washstand
+to save her flounces. You ain't an architect, Tom: that's certain."
+
+"Well, now, let's see your plan," challenged the gentleman; and he
+began to read from Gertrude's paper: "'Parlor, sewing-room--' Now
+that's extravagant, Gert. I think your women-folks might get along
+without a special sewing-room. Why can't they sew in the dining-room?"
+
+"That's handsome, and very gallant," answered Gertrude. "Your men can
+have a billiard-room and a smoking-room, while my poor women can't
+even have a comfortable place for darning the men's stockings and
+sewing on their shirt-buttons. Oh, men are such selfish creatures!"
+
+"Well, now," said Brother Tom, "I'll leave it to Susie if those
+tenants of hers can afford to have a special sewing-room."
+
+"And I'll leave it to Susie if--"
+
+But Susan interrupted her: "You and Tom must settle your disputes
+without my help. There, now! I think I have my plan decided upon at
+last. After a hundred and one trials I believe I have a faultless
+sketch."
+
+"Let's see it," said one and another, all gathering about the speaker.
+
+Susan explained her plan. The only objection to it came from the
+mother. She was afraid if things were made so dreadful handy the folks
+would get to be lazy; and, anyhow, there wasn't any use in having
+things so nice in a rented house: they'd get put out of kilter right
+away.
+
+But Susan had set out to build a perfect house, and she was not to be
+frightened from her object. So in process of time there were delivered
+into the owner's hands the keys of the house that Susan had built.
+
+Three lines in a morning paper inviting a tenant brought a throng of
+applicants. Susan, like the generality of landlords, had her face
+set against tenants with certain encumbrances, so a score or more of
+applicants had been refused the house before the close of the first
+day.
+
+Toward evening a gentleman called to see Miss Summerhaze, announcing
+himself as Mr. Falconer. When Susan entered the parlor she found a
+heavy-set, rather short man, who had bright gray eyes, a broad full
+forehead, and was altogether a very good-looking person.
+
+"I have called," he said immediately, "to inquire about the house you
+have advertised for rent on North Jefferson street."
+
+"I am ready to answer your inquiries," said Susan, like the
+business-woman she was.
+
+After the questions usual in such circumstances, by which Mr. Falconer
+satisfied himself that the house would probably answer his purpose,
+it became Susan's turn to satisfy herself that he was such a tenant as
+she desired for her model house. "Before going to look at the house,"
+she said, "I ought to ask you some questions, for I feel particular
+about who goes into it."
+
+Susan had occasion at a later day to remember the shade of uneasiness
+that came into Mr. Falconer's face at this point. "I trust I shall be
+able to answer all your questions to your satisfaction," he said.
+
+"Do you keep dogs?" This is the first question Susan asked.
+
+Mr. Falconer smiled, and looked as though he wondered what that had to
+do with the matter.
+
+"I ask," Susan hastened to explain, "because dogs often tear up the
+grounds."
+
+"Well, no, I don't keep dogs," Mr. Falconer answered.
+
+"Have you boys?"
+
+Mr. Falconer smiled quietly, and replied, "No, I haven't any boys."
+
+"Three or four rough boys will ruin a house in a few months," Susan
+said in her justification. "Have you any children?--a large family?"
+
+"What do people do who have large families and who must rent houses?"
+Mr. Falconer asked.
+
+"Why, go to people more anxious to rent than I am."
+
+"No," said Mr. Falconer, returning to the question: "I am
+unfortunately a bachelor."
+
+"Do you propose keeping bachelor's hall?" Susan asked in quick
+concern. "Excuse me, but I could not think of renting the house to a
+bachelor or bachelors. It is a rare man who is a house-keeper. Things
+would soon be at sixes and sevens with a set of men in the house."
+
+"I do not wish to rent the house for myself, but for a friend."
+
+"Well, I propose the same questions in reference to your friend that I
+have asked concerning yourself."
+
+"Well, then," Mr. Falconer replied, still smiling, "my friend does not
+keep dogs; she has no boys; she has one little girl."
+
+"Your friend is a lady--a widow?"
+
+"No--yes, I mean to say."
+
+"Do I understand that she is a widow?"
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+There was a confusion in Mr. Falconer's manner that Susan remembered
+afterward.
+
+"Can you give me references, Mr. Falconer?" and Susan looked him
+straight in the eye.
+
+"Well, yes. Mr. Hamilton of the Hamilton Block I know, and Mr.
+Dorsheimer of the Metropolitan Hotel. I am also acquainted with Andrew
+Richardson, banker, and with John Y. Martindale, M.C."
+
+"Those references are sufficient," Susan said, her confidence
+restored. "I will make inquiries, and if everything is right, as I
+have no doubt it is, you can have the house if you should find that it
+suits you. Will you go over now and look at it? It is scarcely a half
+block from here."
+
+"Yes, if you please: I should like the matter settled as soon as
+possible."
+
+So Susan put on her bonnet and brought a bunch of keys, and walked
+away with Mr. Falconer to show the house which she had built. And a
+proud woman was Susan as she did this, and a perfect right had Susan
+to be a proud woman. She had, indeed, built a model house as far
+as twenty-six hundred dollars could do this. That amount was never,
+perhaps, put into brick and mortar in better shape. So Mr. Falconer
+thought, and so he said very cordially.
+
+"Oh," sighed our poor Susan when she was again at home, "how good it
+seems to have such appreciation!"
+
+Susan made inquiries of Mr. Hamilton of the Hamilton Block concerning
+Mr. Falconer.
+
+"Very nice man--very nice man, indeed!" Mr. Hamilton answered briskly:
+"deals on the square, and always up to time."
+
+So the papers were drawn up, and Mr. Falconer paid the first month's
+rent--forty dollars.
+
+"Here, Gertrude," Susan said, handing her sister a roll of bills:
+"half the rent of my house I shall allow you. Make yourself as pretty
+as you can with it."
+
+"Oh, you blessed darling angel!" Gertrude cried in a transport.
+"You're the best sister that ever lived, Susie: you really are. Make
+myself pretty! I tell you I mean to shine like a star with this money.
+Twenty dollars a month! Delia Spaulding spends five times as much, I
+suppose. But never mind. I have an eye and I have fingers: I'll make
+my money do wonders."
+
+This Gertrude indeed did. She knew instinctively what colors and what
+shapes would suit her form and face and harmonize with her general
+wardrobe. So she wasted nothing in experiments or in articles to be
+discarded because unbecoming or inharmonious. If Gertrude's toilets
+were less expensive than Delia Spaulding's, they were more unique
+and more picturesque. Indeed, there was not in her set a more
+prettily-dressed girl than Gertrude, and scarcely a prettier girl. Her
+society among the gentlemen was soon quoted at par, and then rose to a
+premium.
+
+Promptly on the first day of the second month Mr. Falconer called to
+pay Susan's rent.
+
+"How does your friend like the house?" she asked with a pardonable
+desire to hear her house praised.
+
+"Very much indeed. She says it is the most complete house of its kind
+that she ever saw. Who was your architect, Miss Summerhaze? I
+ask because the question has been asked of me by a gentleman who
+contemplates building an inexpensive residence."
+
+"I planned the house," Susan answered, a light coming into her face.
+
+"Indeed! In all its details?"
+
+"Yes, I planned everything."
+
+"Have you studied architecture?"
+
+"Not until I undertook to plan that house."
+
+"That is your first effort? You never planned a house before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You ought to turn builder: you ought to open an architect's office."
+
+Susan laughed at the novel suggestion, for that was before the days
+when women were showing their heads in all the walks of life.
+
+"'Miss Summerhaze, Architect:' that would make a very unique card. It
+would get abundant advertising free of expense, for everybody would
+talk about it. There is no reason," continued Mr. Falconer, "why women
+should not be architects: they have the taste, and they are the best
+judges as to household conveniences--the only proper judges, indeed."
+
+This has now a very commonplace sound, but for the period it was
+fresh and original, and seemed so to Susan. Indeed, the idea was
+fascinating: she thought Mr. Falconer a wonderfully bright and
+suggestive man.
+
+"I wish there were other things women could do besides teaching and
+taking in sewing," Susan said.
+
+"Well, why don't you put yourself in the lead in this matter, Miss
+Summerhaze? Somebody or bodies must step to the front. A revolution in
+these matters is bound to come. Why shouldn't you become an architect?
+Why shouldn't you go into a work for which you have evidently
+remarkable talent? Why shouldn't you become a builder?"
+
+"Well," said Susan, smiling, "there is no pressing call for me to earn
+money. I have had my work-day, and have sufficient means to meet my
+simple wants. Besides, I am not pining or rusting in idleness. The
+management of my little means gives me employment. I happen to be
+one of those exceptional women who 'want but little here below,'
+especially in the way of ribbons and new bonnets. As you perceive, I
+give myself little concern about matters of dress."
+
+"And why shouldn't you give yourself concern about matters of dress,
+Miss Summerhaze? Pardon me, but I think it your duty to look as well
+as you can. You cannot do this without bestowing thought on matters of
+dress."
+
+"Why," said Susan, laughing, "what possible difference can it make to
+anybody how I look?"
+
+"It makes a difference to every person whom you encounter," Mr.
+Falconer replied incisively.
+
+"To you?" Susan challenged laughingly.
+
+"Yes, a good deal of difference to me," the gentleman replied
+promptly. "The sight of a woman artistically dressed affects me like
+fine music or a fine painting."
+
+"But have you no commendation for the woman who is independent enough
+to rise above the vanities of fashion?" Susan asked with some warmth.
+
+"Most certainly I have. I admire the woman who rises above vanities of
+whatever nature. By all means throw the vanities of dress overboard,
+but don't let sense and taste go with them. But I am making a lengthy
+call: I had forgotten myself. Excuse me. Good-morning;" and Mr.
+Falconer went out, and left Susan standing in the parlor just opposite
+an oil-painting over the mantel.
+
+She lifted her eyes to the picture. A simple little landscape it was,
+where cows stood in a brook which wound in and out among drooping
+willows. Susan always liked to look at this picture, because she knew
+it was well painted. The cows had a look of quiet enjoyment in their
+shapely figures. A coolness was painted in the brook and a soft
+wind in the willow-branches. She stood there before it this morning
+thinking how sweet it would be to move some man's soul as a fine
+painting might move it. Then she sighed, and went to divide her
+month's rent with her sister.
+
+"Gertrude," she said, "do I look very old-fashioned?"
+
+"Of course you do," said Gertrude. "You look fully as old-fashioned as
+grandma does--more old-fashioned than mother does. I do wish, Susie,
+you would dress better. You make me feel terribly sheepish sometimes.
+You can afford to dress well."
+
+"I have decided to get a new dress," said Susan. "What shall it be?
+and how shall it be made? Something for the street."
+
+"Oh, I know exactly what you ought to have," Gertrude said with
+enthusiasm. "A dark-blue merino, a shade lighter than a navy, with
+blue velvet bretelles. You would look superb in it, Susie: you'd be
+made over new."
+
+"I never looked superb in anything," said Susan with a smile through
+which one saw a heartache.
+
+"Because you never had pretty things to wear, Susie--because you never
+dressed becomingly." The tears were actually in Gertrude's eyes, so
+keen was her sympathy with any woman who didn't wear pretty things.
+"Mayn't I go and select your dress this afternoon? Please let me: I
+know the exact shade you ought to have."
+
+Susan gave her consent, and away sailed Gertrude to the shops,
+brimming with interest.
+
+Through the enterprising management of this exuberant lady the new
+blue dress soon arrived from the dressmaker's, bearing at its throat a
+white favor in the shape of a good-sized bill. But then the dress was
+handsome and stylish, and Susan when duly arrayed in it did indeed
+seem made over.
+
+"Susie, you look really handsome," Gertrude said when she had wound
+her sister's abundant chestnut hair into a stylish coil, and had
+arranged with artistic touches the inevitable laces and ribbons. "Just
+come to the glass and look at yourself."
+
+To the mirror went Susan--poor Susan who had always thought herself
+plain--and there, sure enough, was a handsome face looking into hers,
+growing momently handsomer with surprise and pleasure kindling in the
+eye and spreading over cheek and brow.
+
+Susan, be it understood, was by no means an ill-favored woman even in
+her old-fashioned dress. She had a very good complexion, blue eyes,
+large and dark and warm; and a mouth of some character, with mobile
+lips and bright even teeth. But nobody had ever called her handsome
+till to-day, neither had anybody called her plain. She had simply
+passed unmarked. But what she had all along needed was somebody
+to develop her resources, somebody to do just what had been done
+to-day--to get her into a dress that would bring out her clear
+complexion, that would harmonize with the shade of her earnest eyes;
+to take her hair out of that hard twist at the back of the head, and
+lay it tiara-like, a bright mass, above the brow; to substitute soft
+lace for stiff, glazed linen, and a graceful knot of ribbon for
+that rectangular piece of gold with a faded ambrotype in it called a
+breastpin. And, too, she needed that walk she took in the crisp air to
+bring the glow into her cheek; and then she needed that meeting with
+Mr. Falconer, which chanced in that walk, to heighten the glow and to
+brighten her already pleased eyes. The meeting took place at the door
+of her house. It was an arrested, lingering look which he gave
+her, and doubtless it was the character of this look, conscious and
+significant, that deepened the glow in her face,
+
+"I wonder if I affected him like a fine picture or a fine strain of
+music?" Susan asked herself in passing him.
+
+"Miss Summerhaze must be acting on the hint I gave her," thought
+Mr. Falconer; and he went on with a little smile about his mouth. It
+pleased him to think he had influenced her.
+
+Thus it was that this man and this woman came to think of each other.
+And now you are guessing that this thinking of each other advanced
+into a warmer interest--that these two people fell in love if they
+were not too far gone in years for such nonsense. Well for us all that
+there are hearts that are never too old for the sweet nonsense--the
+nonsense that is more sensible than half the philosophy of the sages.
+Your guess is so good that I should feel chagrined if I were one of
+those writers who delight in mysteries and in surprising the
+reader. But my highest aim is to tell a straight-forward story, so
+I acknowledge the guess correct, so far, at least, as my Susan is
+concerned. I have said that the romance in her nature died hard; but
+it never died at all. This man, this almost stranger, was rousing it
+as warmth and light stir the sleeping asphodels of spring. The foolish
+Susan came to think of Mr. Falconer whenever she made her toilet--to
+thrill at every sight of him and at his lightest word. But this was
+not till after many other meetings and interviews than those this
+story has recorded. As Mr. Falconer was frequently at the house which
+Susan built, and as this was less than a block removed from the one
+she occupied, there naturally occurred many a chance meeting, when
+some significant glance or word would send Susan's heart searching for
+its meaning.
+
+And these chance meetings were not all.
+
+"Who was it that called, Susie?" Gertrude asked one evening when
+her sister came up from a half-hour's interview with some one in the
+parlor.
+
+"The gentleman who rents my house," Susan replied, her face turned
+from Gertrude.
+
+"What is he for ever coming here for?"
+
+"He came to tell me that there were some screws loose in a
+door-hinge," Susan answered.
+
+"For pity's sake!" exclaimed Gertrude. "That's a great thing to come
+bothering about! Why didn't he get a screw-driver and screw up the
+screws?"
+
+"It's my place to keep the house in order," said Susan.
+
+"The report of things out of order usually sets landlords in a feaze,
+but you keep as serene as the moon with your tenant's complaints.
+He's always finding something out of order, which seems strange,
+considering that the house is brand-new."
+
+Not many days after Gertrude had occasion to repeat her question to
+Susan: "Who was it called?"
+
+She received the reply she was expecting: "The man who rents my
+house."
+
+"Indeed! What's the matter now? another screw loose?" Gertrude asked.
+
+"He wanted to suggest an alteration in the pantry."
+
+"Why, he's for ever wanting alterations made! I don't see how you can
+be so patient with his criticisms: we all know you are house-proud.
+I wouldn't listen to that man: he'll ruin your house with his
+improvements. I don't know, anyhow, what he can mean by saying in
+one breath that it is a perfect house, and in the next asking for an
+alteration."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said Susan; and then her heart went into a
+happy wondering as to what Mr. Falconer could mean.
+
+"What is it this time?" Gertrude asked about three days after in
+reference to "the man who rents my house," as described by Susan.
+"Does he want another story put on your house?"
+
+"No, he simply wanted to say that it would suit him to pay the rent
+semi-monthly, instead of monthly," Susan answered somewhat warmly.
+
+"And, pray, what's his notion for that?" Gertrude asked.
+
+"I didn't inquire," replied Susan shortly, resenting the evident
+criticism in her sister's tone.
+
+But Susan did inquire why it was--inquired not of Mr. Falconer, but of
+her own heart.
+
+"I don't see any reason for his making two errands to do a thing that
+could be done in one call. Instead of putting off pay-day, after the
+manner of most men, he proposes to anticipate it. Well, perhaps you
+and he understand it: I don't."
+
+Why was this? Was it because it would double his visits to her? Was
+Susan vain or foolish that she thus questioned herself?
+
+It was perhaps a little singular that Mr. Falconer's name had never
+passed between these two sisters; neither had Gertrude ever seen the
+gentleman who made these frequent business-calls on Susan.
+
+"The man who rents my house:" this reply told something--all that
+Gertrude cared to know on the subject; whereas the reply, "Mr.
+Falconer," would have conveyed no information. And because the name
+had never been mentioned Susan was startled one morning after one
+of Gertrude's fine parties. She was sitting at the window with a new
+magazine while the young people talked over the party.
+
+"I liked him so much," said Gertrude. "He says such bright, sensible
+things: he's so original. Some men are good to dance, and some are
+good to talk: he's good for both."
+
+"I heard him when he asked for an introduction to you," said Brother
+Tom. "He designated you as the young lady in the blonde dress: then he
+said, 'Her dress is exquisite--just the color of golden hair. I never
+saw a more beautiful toilette.'"
+
+"Isn't that delightful?" cried Gertrude in a transport. "You precious
+old Tom, to hear that! I'll give you a kiss for it."
+
+"I wonder," said Brother Tom, recovering, "if he can be the same
+Falconer I've heard the boys talk about?"
+
+Susan had been hearing in an indolent way the talk between Tom and
+Gertrude, but now her heart was bounding, and she was listening
+intently.
+
+"They tell about a Falconer who holds rather suspicious relations with
+a handsome woman somewhere in the city. He rents a house for her where
+she lives all alone, except that there's a baby and a servant-girl."
+
+Alas for Susan! she knew but too well that this was her Mr. Falconer.
+
+Tom continued: "The fellows have quizzed him about his lady, and have
+tried to find out who she is, and how he's connected with her, but
+he's close as a clam about the matter."
+
+"Perhaps it's a widowed sister," Gertrude suggested.
+
+"Then why doesn't he say so? and why doesn't he go there and live with
+her, instead of boarding at a hotel? and why doesn't she ever go out
+with him? They say she never goes out at all, but keeps hid away there
+like a criminal."
+
+"I'd like to know how the fellows, as you call them, could have
+found all this out unless they employ spies?" Gertrude spoke testily,
+feeling a strong inclination to stand up for the man who had paid
+her a handsome compliment. "There probably are two Falconers. I know
+there's nothing wrong about my Mr. Falconer, otherwise Mr. Richmond
+wouldn't have introduced him to me."
+
+"I wish I had thought to inquire if he's the man, but till this moment
+I've not thought of that talk of the boys since I heard it. It takes
+women to remember scandal and repeat it," said Brother Tom sagely.
+"But I'll inquire about it, Gerty. Don't go to dreaming about Mr.
+Falconer till I find out."
+
+"Hold your tongue, you great _idjiot_!" said Gertrude, wrapping with
+lazy grace a bright shawl about her and settling herself on a sofa
+to nap off the party drowsiness. "Go on down town and find out," she
+continued, her heavily-lashed lids dropping over the sleepy eyes: "go
+along!"
+
+So Tom went down town, Gertrude went to sleep, and Susan was left to
+her thoughts. What had these thoughts been about all these weeks
+that the question had never arisen as to the connection between Mr.
+Falconer and the woman who occupied her house, "Who is she?" Now,
+indeed, Susan asked the question with a burning at her heart. If she
+was simply a friend or a sister, why this reticence and mystery
+of which Tom had spoken? If she was his wife, why any reticence or
+mystery? Besides, Mr. Falconer had said he was a bachelor.
+
+Susan could contrive no answers to these questions that brought any
+relief to her vexed heart. She had no courage to make inquiries of
+others, lest the character of her interest might be discovered. Guilt
+made her cowardly.
+
+She was yet turning the matter over and over when Brother Tom
+returned. She scanned his face with a keen scrutiny, eager to get at
+what he had learned, yet not daring to ask a question.
+
+When Tom had pinched Gertrude's drowsy ear into consciousness he
+poured into it this unwelcome information: "I've found out that your
+Mr. Falconer is the man. But who the lady is I have not been able to
+discover. She is an inscrutable mystery--a good heroine for Wilkie
+Collins."
+
+"Who told you?" Gertrude demanded in a challenging tone.
+
+"Jack Sidmore: he knows your Mr. Falconer well. Why, Falconer's no
+new man: he's an old resident here. He's of the firm of Falconer,
+Trowbridge & Co., grain-dealers on Canal street. You know Phil
+Trowbridge?"
+
+"I'm sure there's nothing wrong about Mr. Falconer, or he wouldn't
+have been at Minnie Lathrop's party." said Gertrude resolutely.
+
+"Well, Jack Sidmore knows the gentleman, and he says there is no doubt
+he has suspicious relations with Miss or Madam The-Lord-knows-who. So,
+you see, you're to drop Mr. Falconer like a hot potato--to give him
+the cut direct."
+
+"It would be a shame to if he's all right, and I feel certain he is,"
+said Gertrude, still showing fight.
+
+"Now, look here, Gert: don't be foolish. It won't do to compromise
+yourself. Be advised by me: I'm your guardian angel, you know. You can
+spare Mr. Falconer: your train will be long enough with him cut off."
+
+"He's the most interesting acquaintance I've made this winter," said
+Gertrude persistently.
+
+"Don't you say so, Sue? Oughtn't Gertrude to cut him? You've heard
+what we've been talking about, haven't you?"
+
+"Please don't appeal to me," Susan managed to say without lifting her
+eyes from the blurred page before her.
+
+She had been more than once on the point of telling Gertrude and Tom
+what she knew about Mr. Falconer--that it was her house he had
+rented for his friend, etc. But everything about the matter was so
+indefinite. She was fearful of exposing her unhappy heart, and she had
+withal some vague hope of unsnarling the tangled skein when she should
+find opportunity to think. So she allowed them to finish up their
+discussion and to leave the room without a hint of the facts in her
+knowledge.
+
+When they had gone the set, statuesque features relaxed. A stricken
+look settled like a shadow over them. You would have said, "It will
+never depart: that face can never brighten again."
+
+The thing in Susan's heart was not despair. There was the
+suffering that comes from the blight of a sweet hope, from the rude
+dispossession of a good long withheld. But overriding everything else
+was humiliation--a feeling of degradation, such as some deed of shame
+would engender. Her spirit was in the dust, for she knew now that she
+had given her love unasked. Was not this enough, after all the years
+of longing and dreary waiting and sickening commonplace? Could not
+the Fates have let her off from this cup, so bitter to a proud woman's
+lips? Why should she be delivered over to an unworthy love? Why should
+they exact this uttermost farthing of anguish her heart could pay? But
+is he unworthy? is this proved? asked the sweet voice of Hope. Then
+the face which you were sure could never brighten, did brighten, but,
+alas! so little; for there was another voice, a voice that dismayed:
+"Why otherwise the silence, the mystery?" Persistently the question
+was repeated, till Mrs. Summerhaze came in and asked Susan to do some
+marketing for dinner.
+
+"You look all fagged, anyway: the fresh air 'll be good for you."
+
+So Susan put on her bonnet and went out, feeling there was nothing
+could do her any good. She drew her veil down, the better to shut away
+her suffering from people, and a little way from home turned into a
+meat-market. She was in the centre of the shop before she discovered
+Mr. Falconer a few yards away, his back turned to her. She
+involuntarily caught at her veil to make sure it was closely drawn.
+She held it securely down, and hurried away at random to the remotest
+part of the shop, though her ear was all the while strained to hear
+what Mr. Falconer was saying.
+
+He was ordering sundry packages to be sent to No. 649 North Jefferson
+street--Susan's house. In her remote corner, from behind her veil,
+with eager eyes Susan looked at the face that to her had been so
+noble, at the form which had seemed full of graceful strength. She
+would have yielded up her life there to have had that face and form
+now as it had been to her. He went out of the shop, and she went about
+making her purchases in a dazed kind of way that caused the shopman
+to stare. Then she wandered up the street past her home to 649 North
+Jefferson street, to the house she had built with such abounding
+pride and pleasure. How changed it now seemed! It had become a haunted
+house--haunted by the ghosts of her faith and peace.
+
+For three days Susan as much as possible kept away from the family,
+and appeared very much engaged with Prescott's _Conquest of Peru_. But
+at the breakfast-table on the third day she received a start. Gertrude
+and Tom had been at a party the evening before. (They averaged some
+four parties a week.) Tom looked surly and Gertrude defiant.
+
+"Why, Tom, what's the matter with you?" the mother asked. "'Pears to
+me I never did see you so pouty as you be this morning. What's gone
+crooked?"
+
+"Perhaps Gertrude can inform you," Tom answered severely.
+
+Gertrude flushed with annoyance, but tossed her head.
+
+"Why, what's happened, Gertrude?"
+
+"Nothing for Tom to make such a fuss about. He's mad at me because I
+won't insult a gentleman who is invited to the best houses, and who is
+received by the most particular young ladies of my acquaintance."
+
+"At any rate," retorted Tom, "I heard Jack Sidmore tell his sister
+that she was not to recognize Mr. Falconer. I have warned Gertrude
+that a great many people believe him to be a suspicious character, and
+some know him to be such, so far as women are concerned, and yet last
+night Gertrude accepted his company home."
+
+"Hadn't you gone home with Delia Spaulding? Was I to come trapesing
+home alone?" said Gertrude by way of justification.
+
+"Now, Gert, be fair: didn't I tell you that I'd be back immediately?"
+
+"Yes, but I knew something about the length of your 'immediatelies'
+when Delia Spaulding was concerned."
+
+"You might have had Phil Trowbridge as an escort."
+
+"Phil Trowbridge! I hate him!" said Gertrude with such vehemence that
+the very line which parted her hair was crimsoned.
+
+"Well, what's that other man done?" asked the mother, who had not lost
+her interest in the original question. "What do folks have against
+him?"
+
+"Why, he's rented a house and set up a woman in it, and nobody knows
+who she is, and he won't let out a word about her. If she's an honest
+wife or his sister or a reputable friend, why the deuce doesn't he
+say so? Jack Sidmore says there isn't any doubt but that the woman
+is Falconer's mistress, to speak in plain English. Hang it! Gertrude
+can't take a hint."
+
+"Falconer! Why, Susan, ain't that the name of the man who rented your
+house?" cried the mother.
+
+Susan felt all their eyes turned on her, and knew that she was
+cornered. So she said "Yes," and raised her coffee-cup to her lips,
+but set it down quickly, as she felt her hand trembling.
+
+"And did he rent it for a _lady friend?_" Tom asked, putting a
+significant stress on the last two words.
+
+"He did," Susan answered.
+
+"And is there living in your house, right here beside us, a mysterious
+woman with a baby?" Gertrude asked eagerly.
+
+"There's a woman living in my house, and she has a little girl," said
+Susan on the defensive.
+
+"And does Mr. Falconer visit her?"
+
+"Perhaps so: I have no spies out."
+
+"Why, Susie! how strange! You never told me a word about it. I never
+dreamed that Mr. Falconer was the man who had rented your house, and
+who has been running here so much," Gertrude said.
+
+"Well, I'd get that woman out of my house as quick as ever I could if
+I was you, Susan," said Mrs. Summerhaze. "Like as not the house will
+get a bad name, so you'll have trouble renting it."
+
+"I'm more concerned about Gertrude's name," Tom said.
+
+Gertrude's eyes flashed daggers at Tom.
+
+"Of course Gertrude mustn't keep company with Mr. Falconer," said the
+mother. "Young girls can't be too particular who they 'sociate with."
+
+Susan said nothing on the subject, though by far the most concerned
+of the party on her sister's account. It was significant and alarming,
+the warmth and persistence with which Gertrude defended Mr. Falconer.
+It was evident that her interest was in some way enlisted. Was it
+sympathy she felt, or was hers a generous stand against a possible
+injustice? Whatever the feeling, there was danger in this young and
+ardent girl becoming the partisan of an interesting man. Yet how could
+she, the involved, bewildered Susan, dare warn Gertrude? How could
+she ever do it? Would it not seem even to her own heart that she was
+acting selfishly? How could she satisfy her own conscience that she
+was not moved by jealousy? Besides, what could she say? Gertrude knew
+all that she could tell her of Mr. Falconer and his relations--knew
+everything except that she, Susan, had loved--and, alas! did yet love
+unasked--this unworthy man.
+
+Ought she, as her mother had advised, demand possession of her house?
+She shrunk from striking at a man--above all, this man--whom so many
+were assaulting. No. She would leave God to deal with him. Besides,
+there might be nothing wrong. All might yet be explained, all might
+yet be set to rights, all--unless, unless Gertrude--Oh, why should
+there arise this new and terrible complication? Gertrude with her
+youth and beauty and enthusiasm--why must she be drawn into the
+wretchedness?
+
+For days, feverish, haunted days, Susan went over and over these
+questions and speculations. In the mean time, Tom entered another
+complaint against Gertrude. "She gave the greater part of last evening
+to the fellow," he said.
+
+"The party was stiff and stupid: Margaret Pillsbury's parties always
+are--no dancing, no cards. Mr. Falconer was the only man there who
+could say anything." This was Gertrude's defence, given with some
+confusion, and with more of doggedness than defiance in her tone.
+
+"I told you, Gertrude, you had ought to stop keeping company with Mr.
+Falconer," said her mother.
+
+"If she doesn't stop, she will force me to insult the gentleman," said
+Brother Tom resolutely.
+
+Gertrude looked at the speaker as though she would like to bite him
+with all her might.
+
+"Now, don't go to getting into a fuss," the mother said to Tom.
+"Gertrude must stop, or else she'll have to stop going to parties and
+stay to home."
+
+Gertrude did not speak, but Susan, glancing up, saw a set look in the
+young face that struck a terror to her heart. She believed that
+she could interpret her sister's every look and mood--that she knew
+Gertrude by heart.
+
+"By their opposition they are only strengthening her interest:" this
+was Susan's conclusion.
+
+In the mean time, Mr. Falconer's next pay-day was approaching. With a
+dreadful kind of fascination Susan counted the hours that must bring
+the interview with him. She longed yet dreaded to meet him. Would he
+look changed to her? would she seem changed to him? How should she
+behave? how would he behave? Would she be able to maintain a calm
+coldness, or would her conscious manner betray her mistrust, her
+wounded heart? So great, at times, grew her dread of the meeting that
+she was tempted to absent herself, and to ask her mother or Tom to see
+Mr. Falconer and receive the rent-money. But she did not dare trust
+either of these. Tom might take that opportunity of conveying
+the insult with which he had threatened Mr. Falconer, while the
+plain-spoken mother would be certain to forbid him Gertrude's society,
+and probably give him notice to vacate Susan's house. No, she must
+stay at home and abide the meeting; and, after all, what would she not
+rather do and suffer than miss it?
+
+But an interview with Mr. Falconer came sooner than Susan had
+anticipated. It was in the early evening, immediately after tea, that
+the servant brought her Mr. Falconer's card, on which was written, "An
+emergency! May I see you immediately?"
+
+Susan hid the card in her dress-pocket, and went wondering and
+blundering down stairs and into the parlor.
+
+Mr. Falconer rose and came quickly forward. His manner was nervous
+and hurried; "I thank you for this prompt response to my appeal,
+Miss Summerhaze. You can do a great kindness for me; and not for me
+only--you can serve a woman who is in sore need of a friend."
+
+Susan's heart was ready to leap from her bosom. Was she to be asked
+to befriend this woman toward whom people's eyes were turning in
+mistrust, and about whom their lips were whispering?
+
+"May I depend on you?" Mr. Falconer asked.
+
+"Go on," said Susan vaguely.
+
+"But may I depend upon you? upon your secresy?"
+
+"In all that is honest you may depend upon me," she replied.
+
+"Briefly, then. The lady for whom I rented your house is my sister. I
+could never tell you her story: it ought never to be told. But the
+man she married betrayed all her trust, and made her life one long
+nightmare of horrors. At length, in a drunken fury one wretched autumn
+night, in the rain and sleet, he turned her and her baby into the
+street at midnight, and bolted the doors against them. Then she
+resolved to fly from him and be rid of him for ever. A train was about
+leaving the depot, some three blocks distant. Without bonnet or shawl,
+the damp ice in her hair and on her garments, she entered the car, the
+only woman in it. She came to me. Thank God! she had me to come to!"
+
+Mr. Falconer was crying; so was Susan.
+
+"The beneficent law gives the child to the father," Mr. Falconer
+continued. "The father is now in the city seeking the child. He has
+his detectives at work, and I have mine. In his very camp there is a
+man in my service. Fortunately, I out-money him. Now, my sister knows
+of Patterson's being here. (The man's name is Patterson.) She has
+grown pitifully nervous, and is full of apprehension. She is very
+lonely. I must get her away from that house, and yet I must keep
+her here with me: she has no one else to look to. I don't know, Miss
+Summerhaze, why I should come to you for help when there are hundreds
+of others here whom I have known so much longer. I am following an
+impulse."
+
+He paused and looked at Susan, as if waiting for her reply. Happy
+Susan! Eager, trembling, her face glowing with a tender enthusiasm, a
+tearful ecstasy, feeling that it would be sweet to die in the service
+of this man whom her thoughts had so wronged, she gave her answer: "I
+am so glad you have come to me! Anything on earth I can do to aid you
+I will do with all my heart--as for myself. Let your sister come here
+if that will suit you."
+
+It was what he wanted.
+
+"I am sorry I have not made your sister's acquaintance: would it be
+convenient for me to go with you this evening and get acquainted with
+her?"
+
+"Perfectly convenient, and I should be glad to have you go."
+
+"I will bring my bonnet and shawl, and we will go at once."
+
+"If you please."
+
+Susan quickly crossed the parlor, but stopped at the door: "Perhaps
+your sister would feel more secure and more at peace to come to us
+right away--to-night. Sha'n't I bring her away to-night?"
+
+"It would be a great mercy if you would do so, Miss Summerhaze," Mr.
+Falconer replied with an earnest thankfulness in his voice.
+
+"Then please wait a few minutes till I explain things a little to my
+mother;" and with a quick, light step Susan hurried away.
+
+Great were the surprise and interest awakened in the household by the
+revelation she made in the next ten minutes.
+
+"Have her come right along to-night, poor thing!" the mother said,
+overflowing with sympathy.
+
+Gertrude was triumphant. There was a warm glow on her cheek, and such
+a happy light in her eyes as Susan afterward remembered with a pang.
+"She had better have my room: it is so much more cheerful than the
+guest-chamber," Gertrude said.
+
+Even Brother Tom, though demonstrated to have been on the wrong side,
+was pleased, for he was good-natured and generous in his light manner.
+
+So Susan went back to Mr. Falconer, feeling that she had wings and
+could soar to the heavens. And she was happier yet as she walked that
+half block, her arm in his, feeling its warmth and strength. It is
+all very well to speculate in stocks and to build houses, but for such
+hearts as Susan's there is perhaps something better.
+
+Too soon for one of them their brief walk was ended, and Susan sat in
+the neat, plainly-furnished parlor waiting the return of Mr. Falconer,
+who had gone to seek his sister. When at length the door opened, Susan
+sat forgetful, her gaze intent on the rare face that appeared by
+Mr. Falconer's side. It was not that the face was beautiful, though
+perhaps it was, or had been. It was picturesque, made so in great
+measure by a stricken look it had, and a strange still whiteness.
+It was one of those haunting faces that will not let themselves be
+forgotten--a face that solemnized, because it indexed the mortal agony
+of a human soul.
+
+"Miss Summerhaze, this is my sister, Mrs. Patterson." said Mr.
+Falconer,
+
+With a sweet cordiality of manner the lady held out her hand: "My
+brother has often told me about you: I am very glad to make your
+acquaintance."
+
+Susan was greatly interested. "And I am very glad too," she said,
+a tremor in her voice. She wanted to run away and cry off the great
+flood of sympathy that was choking her. "Dear lady, may I kiss
+you?" she wanted to say. "Poor dear! she needs brooding." This Susan
+thought, and she wished she dared put out her arms and draw the sad
+face to her bosom, the sad heart against her own.
+
+They talked over their plans, and then Mrs. Patterson and the little
+girl went home with Susan.
+
+During Mrs. Patterson's stay with the Summerhazes, Mr. Falconer made
+frequent calls, though his movements were marked by great caution,
+lest they might betray the pursued wife to her husband. These calls
+were of a general character, designed for the household, and not
+exclusively for Mrs. Patterson. And they were continued after the lady
+had returned to No. 649. But they were to Susan tortures. They were
+but opportunities for noting the interest between Mr. Falconer and
+Gertrude. This was evident not alone to Susan, or she might have had
+some chance of charging it to the invention of her jealousy. Tom and
+Mrs. Summerhaze had both remarked it.
+
+"He's well to do, Tom says, and stands respectable with the
+business-men," the mother commented to Susan; "and Gertrude 'pears
+fond of him, and he does of her; so I can't see any good reason why
+they shouldn't marry if they want one another. Anyhow, it's better for
+girls to marry and settle down and learn to housekeep--"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Susan's heart with pathetic impatience, "it's
+better, but--"
+
+"Instead of going to parties in thin shoes and cobweb frocks: I wonder
+they don't all take the dipthery. And then they set up till morning.
+I couldn't ever stand that: I'd be laid up with sick headache every
+time. Besides, they eat them unhealthy oysters and Charlotte rooshes,
+and such like: no wonder so many people get the dyspepsy. Yes, I think
+Gertrude had better take Mr. Falconer if he wants her to. Ain't that
+your mind about it, Susan?"
+
+"She had better accept him if--if--they love each other." Then Susan
+grew faint and soul-sick, and something in her heart seemed to die, as
+though she had spoken the fatal words that made them each other's for
+ever--that cut her loose from her sweet romance and sent her drifting
+into the gloom.
+
+That evening Mr. Falconer called. Susan said she was not well, and
+kept her room. Gertrude had planned to go to the opera with Tom, but
+she decided to remain at home. Long after Tom had gone out Susan in
+her chamber above could hear from the parlor the murmur of voices--Mr.
+Falconer's and Gertrude's. They were low and deep: the topic between
+them was evidently no light one. While she listened her imagination
+was busy concerning their subject, their attitudes, their looks, and
+even their words. And every imagining was such a pain that she tried
+to close her ear against their voices. Then she went to her mother's
+room. Here, being forced to reply to commonplaces when all her thought
+was strained to the parlor, she was soon driven back to her own
+chamber. She turned the gas low and lay on a lounge, her face buried
+in the cushion, abandoned to a wrecked feeling.
+
+After a time she heard some one enter her room. She sat up, and saw
+Gertrude standing beside her, the gas turned high. She wished her
+sister would go away: she hated the sight of that beautiful, glad
+face. She turned her eyes away from it, and then, ashamed to begrudge
+the young thing her happiness, she lifted her stained lids, to
+Gertrude's face and smiled all she possibly could. She tried in that
+moment to feel glad that the disappointment and grief had come to
+her instead of Gertrude. Her heart was inured to a hard lot, but
+Gertrude's had always been sheltered. It would be a pity to have it
+turned out into the cold: her own had long been used to chill and to
+hunger.
+
+"Susie, won't you go with us sleigh-riding to-morrow evening?"
+Gertrude asked. "Mr. Falconer and I have planned a sleighing-party for
+to-morrow evening. They say the sleighing is perfectly superb."
+
+"Is that what you've been doing?" Susan asked, feeling somehow that
+there would be a relief in hearing that it was all.
+
+"That's a part of what we've been doing." A rosy glow came into
+Gertrude's cheek, and the old mean, jealous feeling came back into
+Susan's heart. "Mr. Falconer wants you to go," said Gertrude.
+
+"He does not," Susan returned in a fierce tone. She was forgetting
+herself: her heart was giddy and blind with the sudden wave of
+bitterness that came pouring over it. "He wants you: nobody wants me.
+Go away!"
+
+"Of course I'll go away if you want me to," Gertrude replied, pouting
+and looking injured, but yet lingering at Susan's side. She had
+come to tell something, and she didn't wish to be defrauded of the
+pleasure. "I guess you're asleep yet, Susie. Wake up and look at
+this;" and Gertrude held her beautiful white hand before Susan's eyes,
+and pointed to a superb solitaire diamond that blazed like a star on
+her finger. She sat down beside her sister. "I'm engaged, Susie, and
+I came up here to ask your blessing, and you're so cross to me;" and
+Gertrude put her head on Susan's shoulder and shed a few tears.
+
+Susan could have cried out with frantic pain. "But," she thought,
+"I knew it was coming. After all, I am glad to have the suspense
+ended--to be brought to face the matter squarely."
+
+In response to Gertrude's reproach Susan said in a low tone that was
+almost a whisper, "I congratulate you: I think you are doing well."
+
+"Of course I'm doing well," Gertrude said, lifting her head and
+speaking with triumphant animation. "He's wealthy and handsome, and
+half the girls in our set are dying for him. But we've been about the
+same as engaged for months. But about two weeks ago we had an awful
+quarrel, all about nothing. But we were both so spunky I don't believe
+we ever would have made up in the wide world if it hadn't been for
+Mr. Falconer. He just went back and forth between us until I agreed
+to grant Phil an interview. So Phil came round to-night; and don't you
+believe the conceited thing brought the ring along!"
+
+Susan was listening with wide-opened, staring eyes, like one in a
+trance. It wasn't Mr. Falconer, then; and who in the world was Phil?
+Was she awake? Had she heard aright? Yes, there was the ring and there
+was Gertrude, and she was still speaking: "I've already picked out my
+bridesmaids, I'm going to have Nellie Trowbridge--Phil's sister, you
+know--she's going to stand with Tom; and you're going to stand with
+Mr. Falconer, because he's the senior partner in Phil's firm: and then
+I'm going to have Delia Spaulding and Minnie Lathrop, because they'll
+make a good exhibition, they're so stylish."
+
+On and on Gertrude went, talking of white satin and tulle and lace and
+bridal veils and receptions. And Susan sat and listened with a happy
+light in her eyes, and now and then laughed a little glad laugh or
+spoke some sweet word of sympathy.
+
+At a late hour in the night Susan put her arms around her sister and
+kissed the happy young face once, twice, three times, and said, in no
+whisper now, "God bless you, dear!" Then Gertrude went away to happy
+dreams, and left Susan to happy thoughts--at last.
+
+No, not at last. The "at last" did not come till the next evening,
+when by Mr. Falconer's side, warm and snug under the great wolf-robe,
+Susan heard something. With the something there came at length to the
+tired, hungry, waiting heart the thrill, the transport, the enchanted
+music that makes this earth a changed world.
+
+SARAH WINTER KELLOGG.
+
+
+
+
+AFTER A YEAR.
+
+  Dear! since they laid thee underneath the snow
+    But one brief year with all its days hath past.
+    Methought its hurrying moments flew too fast:
+  I would have had them lingering, move more slow;
+  For of the past one happy thing I know,
+    That thou wert of it; but these swift days flee,
+    And bear me to a future void of thee.
+  Yet still I feel that ever as I go
+  I know thee better, and I love thee more.
+    As one withdraws from a tall mountain's base
+      To see its summit, bright, remote and high,
+  So hath my heart through distance learnt its lore,
+    The knowledge of thy soul's most secret grace--
+      Those silent heights that lose themselves in sky.
+
+KATE HILLARD.
+
+
+
+
+THE BERKSHIRE LADY.
+
+
+_To the Editor of Lippincot's Magazine_:
+
+SIR: There are few pleasanter ways of passing a desultory hour than
+haphazard reading amongst old numbers of a good magazine. I say
+advisedly "a desultory hour," for when it comes to more than that the
+habit is apt to become demoralizing. And, excellent as many English
+magazines are, I must own that for this particular purpose I give
+the preference to our American cousins. It would not be easy to say
+precisely why, but so it is. One feels lighter after them than one
+does after the same time given to their English confreres. It may be
+that there is more abandon, more tumbling in them--much more of that
+borderland writing (if one may use the phrase) so good, as I think,
+for magazine purposes, which you skim with a kind of titillating doubt
+in your mind whether it is jest or earnest--whether you are to take
+seriously, or the writer intended you to take seriously, what he
+is telling you; and so you may drop into a sort of dreamy
+_Alice-in-Wonderland_ state, prepared to accept whatever comes next in
+a purely receptive condition, and without any desire to ask questions.
+
+It was in such a frame of mind, and with considerable satisfaction,
+that I found myself some time since sitting in a friend's house with
+a spare corner of time on my hands, in a comfortable armchair, and a
+number of old _Lippincotts_ on the table by my side, the odds and
+ends of the collection of a young countrywoman of mine of literary and
+Transatlantic tastes. I glanced through some half dozen numbers taken
+up at hazard, recognizing here and there an old friend--for I have
+been an on-and-off reader in these pages for years--and getting just
+pleasantly pricked with a number of new ideas, as to which I felt no
+responsibility--no need of ticketing or labeling or packing them--when
+I came suddenly upon a paper which sharply roused me from my mood of
+_laisser aller_. It was by your accomplished and amusing contributor
+Lady Blanche Murphy, and the subject just such a one as one would wish
+to happen on under the circumstances--Slains Castle, one of the oldest
+and most romantic of the grim palace-keeps which are dotted over
+Scotland, round which legends cluster so thick that there is not one
+of their towers, scarcely a slender old mullioned window, which is not
+specially connected with some stirring tale of love, war or crime. But
+Slains stands pre-eminent among Scotch castles on other grounds, and
+has an interest which the doings of the earls of Errol, its lords,
+could never have won for it. The Wizard of the North has thrown his
+spell over it, and, whether Sir Walter Scott intended it or not,
+Slains is accepted now as the Elangowan Castle in _Guy Mannering_.
+
+Now, with all these rich stores to work on, these exceeding many
+flocks and herds of Northern legend and glamour, Lady Blanche should
+surely have been content, and not have descended into the South of
+England, upon a quiet country-house in Berkshire, to seize its one
+ewe lamb and claim that the heroine of the story which I hope to tell
+before I get to the end of my paper was none other than the termagant
+Countess Mary, hereditary lord high constable of Scotland, and the
+owner of Slains Castle at the beginning of last century.
+
+Sir, I am bound to admit that this audacious claim spoilt my
+wanderings up and down the pages of your excellent magazine, and I
+resolved that whenever I should find time I would write to you to
+revindicate the claims of the "Berkshire Lady" to be native born and
+entirely unconnected with the Countess Mary or Slains Castle. I can
+scarcely remember the time when I did not know the story, which indeed
+all Berkshire boys--or at any rate all Bath-road Berkshire boys--took
+as regularly as measles in early youth. But let me explain to
+New-World readers what I mean by a Bath-road Berkshire boy. Our royal
+county of Berks is in shape somewhat like a highlow or ancle-jack boot
+with the toe toward London, and at the tip of the toe Windsor Castle,
+which, as we all know, looks down on the Thames as it finally leaves
+the county, of which it has formed the northern boundary for more than
+one hundred miles. The sweet river--for in spite of all pollution it
+is still sweet at Windsor--has run all along the top of the boot
+and down the instep, and along the toes, taking Oxford, Abingdon,
+Wallingford, Henley, Reading and Maidenhead in its way, with other
+places historically interesting in a small way over here, but which
+would scarcely be known by name even in the best-drilled classes of
+your public schools. Along the sole of the boot, from the heel at
+Hungerford, but sloping gently upward till it joins the Thames at
+Reading, runs another stream (a river we call it in little England)--
+
+  The Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned.
+
+Now, before the Great Western Railway had opened up the county the
+only main line of road which passed through it was the great Bath
+road, which entered near the toe at Windsor and ran along the sole for
+the greater part of the way by the side of the Kennet to the extreme
+heel at Hungerford. All the northern part of the county--the Thames
+valley and Vale of White Horse, and the hill-district which separates
+these from the Vale of Kennet--was at that time pierced only by
+cross-country roads, and remained during the pre-railroad era one of
+the most primitive districts of the West of England. Its inhabitants
+retained their broad drawling speech, very slightly modified from
+Tudor times, and looked with a mixture of distrust and envy even on
+their fellow county brethren in the Kennet Valley, who were being
+demoralized by their daily intercourse with London through the
+constantly growing traffic of the Bath road. Along that thoroughfare,
+besides strings of post-chaises, vans and wagons, ran daily more than
+one hundred coaches most of which started from Bristol, and made the
+journey to London in the day. The best of them did their ten miles an
+hour, and so punctually that many of the inhabitants preferred setting
+their watches by the "York House." the "Tantivy" or the "Bristol Mail"
+rather than by the village clock. It were much to be desired that
+their gigantic successor would follow their excellent example more
+faithfully in this matter.
+
+Notwithstanding the distrust with which we of the back country were
+bred to regard the metropolitan varnish which was thus undermining the
+ancient Berkshire habits and speech along our one great artery, it was
+always, I am bound to admit, a high day for the dweller in uncorrupted
+Berkshire when business or pleasure drew him from his home in the
+downs or rich pastures of the primitive northern half of the county by
+devious parish ways to the nearest point on the great Bath road, where
+he was to meet the coach which would carry him in a few hours "in
+amongst the tide of men." I can still vividly recall the pleasing
+thrill of excitement which ran through us when we caught the first
+faint clink of hoof and roll of wheels, which told of the approach
+of the coach before the leaders appeared over the brow of the gentle
+slope some two hundred yards from the cross-roads, where, recently
+deposited from the family phaeton (dog-carts not having been yet
+invented), we had been waiting with our trunk beside us in joyful
+expectation. Thrice happy if, as the coach pulled up to take us on
+board, we heard the inspiring words "room in front," and proceeded to
+scramble up and take our seats behind the box, waving a cheerful
+adieu to the sober family servant as he turned his horse's head slowly
+homeward, his mission discharged.
+
+The habit of our family, and of most others, was to attach ourselves
+to one particular coach or coachman on the road, as thus special
+attention was secured for ladies or children traveling alone, and
+preference as to places should there happen to be a glut of would-be
+passengers. I cannot honestly say that the old Bath-road coachman
+was, as a rule, an attractive member of society, though the mellowing
+effects of time and the traditions of the road (helped largely by the
+immortal sayings and doings of Mr. Tony Weller) have done much for his
+class. He was often a silent, short-tempered fellow, with a very keen
+eye for half-crowns, and no information to speak of as to the country
+which passed daily under his eyes. But there were plenty of exceptions
+to the rule, of whom Bob Naylor was perhaps the most remarkable
+example. He had no doubt been selected as our guardian on the road for
+his kindly and genial nature and great love of children, and for his
+repute as one of the safest of whips. But, besides these sterling
+qualities, he was gifted with irrepressible spirits, a good voice and
+ear, and a special delight in the exercise of them. To county magnate
+or parson or stranger seated by him on the box he could be as decorous
+as a churchwarden, and talk of politics or cattle or county business
+with all due solemnity. But he was only at his best when "the front"
+was occupied by boys, or at any rate with a strong sprinkling of boys,
+amongst whom he was quite at his ease, and who were even more eager
+to hear than he to sing and talk. And of both songs and talk he had
+a curious and ample store. Of songs his own special favorites, I
+remember, were a long ballad in which a faithful soldier is informed
+on his return to his native village that his own true love "lives with
+her own granny dear," which he, his mind running in military grooves,
+takes for "grenadier," with temporarily distressing results--though
+all comes right at last--and a lyrical description of an upset of his
+coach, the only one he ever had, written by a gifted hostler. But on
+call he could give "The Tight Little Island," "Rule Britannia" or any
+one of a dozen other insular melodies.
+
+Then his talk was racy of his beloved road, of which he would recount
+the glories even in the days of its decline, when the cormorant iron
+way was already swallowing stage after stage of the best of it. He
+would narrate to us the doings and feats of mighty whips--notably of
+a never-to-be-forgotten dinner at the Pelican Inn, Newbury, to which
+were gathered the _elite_ of the Bath-road cracksmen. At that great
+repast we heard how "for wittles there was trout, speckled like a
+dane dog, weal as wite as allablaster, sherry-wite-wine, red-port,
+and everything in season. Then for company there was Sir Pay (Sir H.
+Peyton), Squire Willy boys (Vielbois), Cherry Bob, Long Dick, _and_
+I; and where would you go to find five sech along any road out of
+London?" But his crowning story, which he never missed as he cracked
+his four bays along on the first stage west out of Reading, was that
+of the Berkshire Lady, which, alas! my gifted countrywoman has now
+laid covetous hands on and claimed for that dour Lady Mary Hay,
+hereditary lord high constable of Scotland,
+
+The "Berkshire Lady" is so bound up in my mind with my early friend
+of the road, from whom I first heard it, that I have let Memory fairly
+run away with me. But now, if your readers will pardon me for this
+gossip, I will promise to stick to my text.
+
+At the beginning of the last century the fortune of one of the last of
+the "Great Clothiers of the West," John Kendrick, was inherited by a
+young lady, his granddaughter, who thus became the mistress of Calcott
+Park, past which the Bath road runs, three miles to the west of
+Reading. The house stands some three hundred yards from the road,
+facing due south, with a background of noble timber behind it, and
+in front a gentle slope of fine green turf, on which the deer seem to
+delight in grouping themselves at the most picturesque points. Miss
+Kendrick is said to have been beautiful and accomplished, and it is
+certain that she was an eccentric young person, who turned a deaf
+ear to the suits of many wooers, for, as the ballad quoted by your
+contributor says--
+
+  Many noble persons courted
+  This young lady, 'tis reported;
+  But their labor was in vain:
+  They could not her love obtain.
+
+This metrical version of the story is, I fear, lost except the
+fragments which I shall quote; at least I have sought for it in vain
+in all likely quarters since reading Lady Blanche's article.
+
+So Miss Kendrick lived a lonely and stately life in Calcott Park.
+
+Now, at this time there was a young gentleman of the name of Benjamin
+Child, a barrister of the Temple, belonging to the western circuit, of
+which Reading is the first assize-town. He came of a family which had
+seen better days, but his ancestors had suffered in the civil war, and
+he had no fortune but his good looks. His practice was as slender as
+his means, but nevertheless he managed to ride the western circuit
+after the judges of assize. The arrival of the judges in a county-town
+in those days was a signal for hospitalities and festivities in which
+the circuit barristers were welcome guests, and one spring assizes
+Benjamin Child found himself at a wedding and ball, where no doubt he
+carried himself as a young gentleman of good birth and town breeding
+should.
+
+Next morning he received at his lodgings a written challenge,
+which alleged that he had grievously injured the writer at the
+entertainments on the previous day, and appointed a meeting in Calcott
+Park on the following morning to settle the affair in mortal combat.
+In those days no gentleman could refuse such an invitation,
+and accordingly Child appeared at the appointed time and place,
+accompanied by another young barrister as his second. The rendezvous
+was at a spot near the present lodge, and the young men on arriving
+found the lawn occupied by two women in masks, while a carriage
+was drawn up under some trees hard by. They were naturally in some
+embarrassment, from which they were scarcely relieved when the ladies
+advanced to meet them, and Child learned that one of them was his
+challenger, the mortal offence being that he had won her heart at the
+Reading ball, and that she had come there to demand satisfaction.
+
+  So, now take your choice, says she--
+  Either fight or marry me.
+
+  Said he, Madam, pray, what mean ye?
+  In my life I ne'er have seen ye,
+  Pray, unmask, your visage show,
+  Then I'll tell you, ay or no.
+
+  _Lady_. I shall not my face uncover
+  Till the marriage rites are over.
+  Therefore, take you which you will--
+  Wed me, sir, or try your skill.
+
+Benjamin Child retires to consult with his friend, who advises him--
+
+  If my judgment may be trusted,
+  Wed her, man: you can't be worsted.
+  If she's rich, you rise in fame;
+  If she's poor, you are the same.
+
+This advice, coupled perhaps with the figure and appearance of his
+challenger, and the family coach in the background, prevails, and the
+two young men and the masked ladies drive to Tilchurst parish church,
+where the priest is waiting. After the ceremony the bride,
+
+  With a courteous, kind behavior,
+  Did present his friend a favor:
+  Then she did dismiss him straight,
+  That he might no longer wait.
+
+They then drive, the bride still masked, to Calcott House, where he is
+left alone in a fair parlor for two hours, till
+
+  He began to grieve at last,
+  For he had not broke his fast.
+
+Then the steward appears and asks his business, and
+
+  There was peeping, laughing, jeering,
+  All within the lawyer's hearing;
+  But his bride he could not see.
+  "Would I were at home!" said he.
+
+At last the denouement comes. The lady of the house appears and
+addresses him:
+
+  _Lady_. Sir, my servants have related
+  That some hours you have waited
+  In my parlor. Tell me who
+  In this house you ever knew?
+
+  _Gentleman_. Madam, if I have offended
+  It is more than I intended.
+  A young lady brought me here.
+  "That is true," said she, "my dear."
+
+His challenger was the heiress of Calcott, where he lived with her for
+many years; and
+
+  Now he's clothed in rich attire,
+  Not inferior to a squire.
+  Beauty, honor, riches, store!
+  What can man desire more?
+
+They had two daughters, through one of whom the property has descended
+to the Blagraves, the present owners.
+
+And so ends the story of "The Berkshire Lady," and if it should meet
+the eye of your accomplished contributor I trust she will for ever
+hereafter give up all claim on behalf of Lady Mary Hay.
+
+Perhaps, too, some of your readers may be led to visit the scene
+of these doings if they ever come to wander about the old country.
+Reading is only an hour from London now-a-days, and I will promise
+them that they will not easily find a fairer corner in all England.
+The Bath road, it is true, is now comparatively deserted, and no
+well-appointed coaches flash by in front of Calcott Park. But it is
+an easy three miles' walk or ride from Reading Station, and by missing
+one train the pilgrim may get a glimpse of English country-life under
+its most favorable aspects, while at the same time, if skeptical as
+to this "strange yet true narration," as the metrical chronicler calls
+it, he may at any rate satisfy himself as to the marriage of B. Child
+and the Berkshire Lady, and the birth of their two daughters, by
+inspecting the parish register at Tilchurst church for the years 1710
+to 1713.
+
+THOMAS HUGHES.
+
+
+
+
+THE SABBATH OF THE LOST[1].
+
+
+  Mid homes eternal of the blessed
+    Erewhile beheld in trance of prayer,
+  A secret wish the saint possessed
+    To see the regions of despair.
+
+  The Power in whose omniscient ken
+    The thoughts of every heart abide
+  Sent him to those lost souls of men,
+    A splendid spirit for his guide--
+
+  Michael, the warrior, the prince
+    Of those before the throne who dwell,
+  The brightest of archangels since,
+    Eclipsed, the son of morning fell.
+
+  Down through the voids of light they sped
+    Till Heaven's anthems faintly rung
+  Through darkening space, and overhead
+    Earth's planets dim and dwindled hung.
+
+  Still downward into lurid gloom
+    The saint and angel took their way,
+  Moving within a clear cool room,
+    The light benign of heavenly day.
+
+  The wretched thronged on every side.
+    "Have mercy on us, radiant twain!
+  O Paul! beloved of God!" they cried,
+    "Pray Heaven for surcease of our pain."
+
+  "Weep, weep, unhappy ones, bewail!
+    We too our prayers and tears will lend:
+  Our supplication may prevail,
+    And haply God some respite send."
+
+  Then upward from the lost there swept
+    Entreaty multitudinous,
+  As every wave of ocean wept:
+    "O Christ! have mercy upon us!"
+
+  And as their clamor rose on high
+    Beyond the pathway of the sun,
+  Heav'n's happy legions joined the cry,
+    Their voices melting into one.
+
+  The saint, up-gazing through the dew
+    Of pity brimming o'er his eyes,
+  Discerned in Heav'n's remotest blue
+    The Son of God lean from the skies.
+
+  Then through their agonies were heard
+    The tones which still'd the angry sea,
+  The voice of the Eternal Word:
+    "And do ye ask repose of me?
+
+  "Me whom ye pierced with curse and jeer,
+    Whose mortal thirst ye quenched with gall?
+  I died for your immortal cheer:
+    What profit have I of you all?
+
+  "Liars, traducers, proud in thought,
+    Misers! no offering of psalms
+  Or prayer or thanks ye ever brought--
+    No deed of penitence or alms."
+
+  Michael and Paul at that dread speech,
+    With all the myriads of Heaven,
+  Fell on their faces to beseech
+    Peace for the lost one day in seven.
+
+  The Son of God, who hearkens prayer,
+    In mercy to those souls forlorn
+  Bade that their torments should forbear
+    From Sabbath eve to Monday morn.
+
+  The torments swarmed forth at the gate--
+    Hell's solemn guardians let them pass:
+  Those awful cherubim who wait
+    All sorrowful surveyed the mass.
+
+  But from the lost a single cry,
+    Which rang rejoicing through the spheres:
+  "O blessed Son of God most high!
+    Two nights, a day, no pain or tears?"
+
+  "O Son of God, for ever blessed!
+    Praise and give thanks, all spirits sad:
+  A day, two nights of perfect rest?
+    So much on earth we never had!"
+
+[Footnote 1: See Fauriel, _Hist. de la Poesie provencale_, tom. i. ch.
+8.]
+
+
+
+
+THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.
+
+BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL."
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+THE FRIEND OF THE FUTURE.
+
+
+Instead of going home when she left Steel's Corner, Leam turned up
+into the wood, making for the old hiding-place where she and Alick had
+so often sat in the first days of her desolation and when he had been
+her sole comforter. She was very sorrowful, and oppressed with doubts
+and self-reproaches. As she climbed the steep wood-path, her eyes
+fixed on the ground, her empty basket in her hand, and her heart as
+void of hope or joy as was this of flowers, she thought over the last
+hour as she might have thought over a death. How sorry she was that
+Alick had said those words! how grieved that he loved her like this,
+when she did not love him, when she could never have loved him if even
+she had not been a Spaniard and her mother's daughter!
+
+But she did not wish that he was different from what he was, so that
+she might have been able to return his love. Leam had none of that
+shifting uncertainty, that want of a central determination, which
+makes so many women transact their lives by an If. She knew what she
+did not feel, and she did not care to regret the impossible, to tamper
+with the indefinite. She knew that she neither loved Alick nor, wished
+to love him. Whether she had unwittingly deceived him in the first
+place, and in the second ought to sacrifice herself for him, unloving,
+was each a question on which she pondered full of those doubts and
+self-reproaches that so grievously beset her.
+
+As she was wandering drearily onward Mr. Gryce saw her from a side
+path. He struck off to meet her, smiling, for he had taken a strong
+affection for this strange and beautiful young creature, which he
+justified to himself as interest in her history.
+
+This acute, suspicious and inquisitive old heathen had some queer
+notions packed away in his wallet of biological speculations--notions
+which supplemented the fruits of his natural gifts, and which
+he always managed to harmonize with what he already knew by more
+commonplace means. He had been long in the East, whence he had brought
+a cargo of half-scientific, half-superstitious fancies--belief
+in astrology, mesmerism, spiritualism, and cheiromancy the most
+prominent. He could cast a horoscope, summon departed spirits, heal
+the sick and read the reticent by mesmeric force, and explain the past
+as well as prophesy the future by the lines in the hand.
+
+So at least he said; and people were bound to believe that he believed
+in himself when he said so. He had once looked at Leam's hand, and had
+seen something there which, translated by his rules, had helped him
+on the road that he had already opened for himself by private inquiry
+based on the likelihood of things. Crime, love, sorrow--it was no
+ordinary history that was printed in the lines of her feverish little
+palm, as it was no ordinary character that looked out from her intense
+pathetic face. There was something almost as interesting here as a
+meditation on the mystic Nirvana or a discourse on that persistent
+residuum of all myths--Maya, delusion.
+
+It was to follow up the line thus opened to him that he had attached
+himself with so much zeal to his landlord, unsympathetic as such a man
+as Sebastian Dundas must needs be to a metaphysical and superstitious
+student of humanity, a born detective, shrewd, inquisitive and
+suspicious. But he attached himself for the sake of Leam and her
+future, saying often to himself, "By and by. She will come to me by
+and by, when I can be useful to her."
+
+Meanwhile, Leam received his cares with the characteristic
+indifference of youth for the attentions of age. She was not at the
+back of the motives which prompted him, and thought him tiresome with
+his mild way of getting to know so many things that were no concern of
+his. The shrewd guesses which he was making, and the terrible mosaic
+that he was piecing together out of such stray fragments as he could
+pick up--and he was always picking them up--were hidden from her; and
+she understood nothing of the mingled surmise and certainty which made
+his interest in her partly retrospective and partly prophetic, as
+he fitted in bit by bit that hidden thing in the past or foresaw the
+discovery that must come in the future. She only thought him tiresome
+and inquisitive, and wished that he would not come so often to see
+papa.
+
+It did not take a large amount of that faculty of thought-reading
+which Mr. Gryce claimed as so peculiarly his own to see that something
+unusual had happened to disturb poor Leam to-day. As she came on, so
+wrapped in the sorrow of her thoughts that the world around her was
+as a world that is dead--taking no heed of the flowers, the birds,
+the sweet spring scents, the glory of the deep-blue sky, while the
+flickering shadows of the budding branches played over her like the
+shadow of the net in which she had entangled herself--she looked the
+very embodiment of despair. Her face, never joyous, was now infinitely
+tragic. Her dark eyes were bright with the tears that lay behind them;
+her proud mouth had drooped at the corners; she was walking as one
+who neither knows where she is nor sees what is before her, as one for
+whom there is no sun by day and no stars for the night--lost to all
+sense but the one faculty of suffering. She did not even see that some
+one stood straight in the path before her, till "Whither and whence?"
+asked Mr. Gryce, barring her way.
+
+Then she started and looked up. Evidently she had not heard him. He
+repeated the question with a difference. "Ah! good-morning to you,
+Miss Dundas. Where are you going? where have you been?" he said in
+his soft, low-pitched, lisping voice, with the provincial accent
+struggling through its patent affectation.
+
+"I am going to the yew tree and I have been to Steel's Corner," she
+answered slowly, in her odd, almost mathematically exact manner of
+reply.
+
+"From Steel's Corner! And how is that excellent young man, our deputy
+shepherd?" he asked.
+
+"Better," she said with even more than her usual curtness, and she was
+never prolix.
+
+"He has been fearfully ill, poor fellow!" said Mr. Gryce, in the
+manner of an ejaculation.
+
+She looked at the flowers with which the wood was golden and azure.
+"Yes," was her not too eloquent assent.
+
+"And you have been sorry?"
+
+"Every one has been sorry," said Leam evasively.
+
+"Yes, you have been sorry," he repeated: "I have read it in your
+face."
+
+He had done nothing of the kind: he had guessed it from the fact of
+her daily visits, and he had surmised a special interest from that
+other group of facts which had first set him thinking--namely, that
+Steel's Corner owned a laboratory--two, for the matter of that; that
+old Dr. Corfield was a clever toxicologist; that Leam had stayed there
+during her father's honeymoon; and that her stepmother had died on
+the night of her arrival. "And your average Englishman calls himself
+a creature with brains and inductive powers!" was his unspoken
+commentary on the finding of the coroner's jury and the verdict of the
+coroner. "Bull is a fool," the old heathen used to think, hugging his
+own superior sagacity as a gift beyond those which Nature had allowed
+to Bull in the abstract.
+
+"I have known him since I was a child. Of course, I have been sorry,"
+said Leam coldly.
+
+She disliked being questioned as much as being touched. The two,
+indeed, were correlative.
+
+"Early friendships are very dear," said Mr. Gryce, watching her. He
+was opening the vein of another idea which he had long wanted to work.
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Don't you think so?" he asked.
+
+"They may be," was her reluctant answer.
+
+"No, they are--believe me, they are. The happiest fate that man or
+woman can have is to marry the early friend--transform the playmate of
+childhood into the lover of maturity, the companion of age."
+
+Leam made no reply. She was afraid of this soft-voiced, large-eyed,
+benevolent old man who seemed able to read the hidden things of life
+at will. It disturbed her that he should speak at this moment of the
+happiness lying in the fulfillment of youthful friendship by the way
+of mature love; and, proud and self-restrained as her bearing was, Mr.
+Gryce saw through the calmer surface into the disturbance beneath.
+
+"Don't you think so?" he asked for the second time.
+
+"How should I know?" Leam answered, raising her eyes, but not looking
+into her companion's face--looking an inch or two above his head. "I
+have seen too little to say which is best."
+
+"True, my child, I had forgotten that," he said kindly. "Will you take
+my word for it, then, in lieu of your own experience?"
+
+"That depends," said Leam. "What is good for one is not good for all."
+
+"But safety is always good," returned Mr. Gryce, meaning to fall back
+on the safety of love and happiness if he had made a bad shot by his
+aim at safety from the detection of crime.
+
+A scared look passed over Leam's face. It was a look that meant a cry.
+She pressed her hands together and involuntarily drew back a step,
+cowering. She felt as if some strong hand had struck her a heavy blow,
+and that it had made her reel. "You are cruel to say that. Why should
+I marry--?" She began in a defiant tone, and then she stopped. Was she
+not betraying herself for the very fear of discovery?
+
+"Alick Corfield, for instance?" put in Mr. Gryce, at a venture. "He
+may serve for an illustration as well as any one else," he added with
+a soothing kind of indifference, troubled by the intense terror that
+came for one moment into her face. How soon he had startled her
+from her poor little hiding-place! How easy the assumption of
+extraordinary, powers based on the clever use of ordinary faculties!
+Your true magician is, after all, only your quiet and accurate
+observer. "You are not vexed that I speak of him when I want a
+name?" he asked, after a pause to give Leam time to regain her
+self-possession, to readjust the screen, to fasten once more the mask.
+
+"Why should I be vexed?" she said in a low voice.
+
+"He is not disagreeable to you?"
+
+"No, he is my friend," she answered.
+
+"And a good fellow," said Mr. Gryce, lisping over a maple twig. "Don't
+you think so?"
+
+"He is good," responded Leam like a dry and lifeless echo.
+
+"An admirable son."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A devoted friend--a friend to be trusted to the death; a man without
+his price, incorruptible, with whom a secret, say, would be as safe as
+if buried in the grave. He would not give it even to the wind, and no
+reed on his land would whisper 'Midas has ass's ears.'"
+
+"He is good," she repeated with a shiver. Yet the sun was shining and
+the spring-tide air was sweet and warm.
+
+"And he would make the most faithful and indulgent husband."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Do you not agree with me?"
+
+"How should I know?" she answered; and she said no more, though she
+still shivered.
+
+"Be sure of it--take my word for it," he said again, earnestly.
+
+"It is nothing to me. And I hate your word _indulgent_!" cried Leam
+with a flash of her mother's fierceness.
+
+Mr. Gryce, still watching her, smiled softly to himself. His love of
+knowledge, as he euphemistically termed his curiosity, was roused to
+the utmost, and he was like a hunter who has struck an obscure
+trail. He wished to follow this thing to the end, and to know in what
+relations she and her old friend stood together--if Alick knew what
+he, Mr. Gryce, knew now, and had offered to marry her notwithstanding;
+and whether, if he had offered, Leam had refused or accepted.
+Observation and induction were hurrying him very near the point. Her
+changing color, her averted eyes, her effort to maintain the pride and
+coldness which were as a rule maintained without effort, the spasm
+of terror that had crossed her face when he had spoken of Alick's
+fidelity, all confirmed him in his belief that he was on the right
+track, and that the lines in her hand coincided with the facts of
+her tragic life. Tragic indeed--one of those lives fated from the
+beginning, doomed to sorrow and to crime like the Orestes, the
+Oedipus, of old.
+
+But if he was curious, he was compassionate: if he tortured her now,
+it was that he might care for her hereafter. That hereafter would
+come--he knew that--and then he would make himself her salvation.
+
+He thought all this as he still watched her, Leam standing there like
+a creature fascinated, longing to break the spell and escape, and
+unable.
+
+"Tell me," then said Mr. Gryce in a soft and crooning kind of voice,
+coming nearer to her, "what do you think of gratitude?"
+
+"Gratitude is good," said Leam slowly, in the manner of one whose
+answer is a completed thesis.
+
+"But how far?"
+
+"I do not know what you mean," she answered with a weary sigh.
+
+Again he smiled: it was a soft, sleepy, soothing kind of smile, that
+was almost an opiate.
+
+"You are not good at metaphysics?" he said, coming still nearer and
+passing his short thick hands over her head carressingly.
+
+"I am not good at anything," she answered dreamily.
+
+"Yes, at many things--to answer me for one--but bad at dialectics."
+
+"I do not understand your hard words," said Leam, her sense of injury
+at being addressed in an unknown tongue rousing her from the torpor
+creeping over her.
+
+How much she wished that he would release her! She had no power to
+leave him of her own free-will. A certain compelling something in
+Mr. Gryce always forced her to do just as he wished--to answer his
+questions, stay when he stopped, follow when he beckoned. She resented
+in feeling, but she obeyed in fact; and he valued her obedience more
+than he regretted her resentment.
+
+"How far would you go to prove your gratitude?" he continued.
+
+"I do not know," said Leam, the weary sigh repeated.
+
+"Would you marry for gratitude where you did not love?"
+
+"No," she answered in a low voice.
+
+"Would you marry for fear, then, if not for gratitude or love? If you
+were in the power of a man, would you marry that man to save yourself
+from all chance of betrayal? I have known women who would. Are you one
+of them?"
+
+Again he passed his hands over her head and across and down her face.
+His voice sounded sweet and soft as honey: it was like a cradle-song
+to a tired child. Leam's eyes drooped heavily. A mist seemed stealing
+up before her through which everything was transformed--by which the
+sunshine became as a golden web wherein she was entangled, and the
+shadows as lines of the net that held her--where the songs of the
+birds melted into distant harmonies echoing the sleepy sweetness of
+that soft compelling voice, and where the earth was no longer solid,
+but a billowy cloud whereon she floated rather than stood. A strange
+sense of isolation possessed her. It was as if she were alone in the
+universe, with some all-powerful spirit who was questioning her of the
+secret things of life, and whose questions she must answer. Mr. Gryce
+was not the tenant of Lionnet, as the world knew him, but a mild yet
+awful god, in whose presence she stood revealed, and who was reading
+her soul, like her past, through and through. She was before him there
+as a criminal before a judge--discovered, powerless--and all attempt
+at concealment was at an end.
+
+"Tell me what you know," said the soft and honeyed voice, ever
+sweeter, ever more soothing, more deadening to her senses.
+
+Leam's whole form drooped, yielded, submitted. In another moment she
+would have made full confession, when suddenly the harsh cry of
+a frightened bird near at hand broke up the sleepy harmonies and
+scattered the compelling charm. Leam started, flung back her head,
+opened her eyes wide and fixed them full on her inquisitor. Then she
+stiffened herself as if for a personal resistance, passed her hands
+over her face as if she were brushing it from cobwebs, and said in a
+natural voice, offended, haughty, cold, "I did not hear what you said.
+I was nearly asleep."
+
+"Wake, then," said Mr. Gryce, making a movement as if he too were
+brushing away cobwebs from her face. After a pause he took both her
+hands in his. "Child," he said, speaking naturally, without a lisp
+and with a broader provincial accent than usual--speaking, too, with
+ill-concealed emotion--"some day you will need a friend. When that day
+dawns come to me. Promise me this. I know your life and what lies in
+the past. Do not start--no, nor cover your face, my child. I am safe,
+and so are you. You must feel this, that I may be of use to you when
+you want me; for you will want me some day, and I shall be the only
+one who can save you."
+
+"What do you know?" asked Leam, making one supreme effort over herself
+and confronting him.
+
+"Everything," said Mr. Gryce solemnly.
+
+"Then I am lost," she answered in a low voice.
+
+"You are saved," he said with tenderness. "Do not be afraid of me:
+rather thank God that He has given you into my care. You have
+two friends now instead of one, and the latest the most powerful.
+Good-bye, my poor misguided and bewildered child. A greater than you
+or I once said, 'Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, because
+she loved much.' Cannot you take that to yourself? If not now, nor yet
+when remorse is your chief thought, you will later. Till then, trust
+and hope."
+
+He turned to leave her, tears in his eyes.
+
+"Stay!" cried Leam, but he only shook his head and waved his hand.
+
+"Not now," he said, smiling as he broke through the wood, leaving her
+with the impression that a chasm had suddenly opened at her feet, into
+which sooner or later she must fall.
+
+She stood a few moments where the old philosopher and born detective
+had left her, then went up the path to the hiding-place where she
+had so often before found the healing to be had from Nature and
+solitude--to the old dark-spreading yew, which somehow seemed to be
+more her friend than any human being could be or was--more than even
+Alick in his devotedness or Mr. Gryce in his protection. And there,
+sitting on the lowest branch, and sitting so still that the birds
+came close to her and were not afraid, she dreamed herself back to the
+desolate days of her innocent youth--those days which were before she
+had committed a crime or gained friend or lover.
+
+She had been miserable enough then--one alone in the world and one
+against the world. But how gladly she would have exchanged her present
+state for the worst of her days then! How she wished that she had died
+with mamma, or, living, had not taken it as her duty to avenge those
+wrongs which the saints allowed! Oh, what a tangled dream it all was!
+she so hideously guilty in fact, and yet that thought of hers, if
+unreal and insane, that had not been a sin.
+
+But she must wake to the reality of the present, not sit here dreaming
+over the past and its mystery of loving crime. She must go on as if
+life were a mere holiday-time of peace with her, where no avenging
+Furies followed her, lurking in the shadows, no sorrows threatened
+her, looking out with scared, scarred faces from the distance. She
+must carry her burden to the end, remembering that it was one of her
+own making, and for self-respect must be borne with that courage of
+despair which lets no one see what is suffered. Of what good to dream,
+to lament? She must live with dignity while she chose to live. When
+her grief had grown too great for her strength, then she could take
+counsel with herself whether the fire of life was worth the trouble of
+keeping alight, or might not rather be put out without more ado.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+MAYA--DELUSION.
+
+
+Leam was not dedicated to peace to-day. As she turned out of the road
+she came upon the rectory pony-carriage--Adelaide driving Josephine
+and little Fina--just as it had halted in the highway for Josephine to
+speak to her brother.
+
+Adelaide was looking very pretty. Her delicate pink cheeks were rather
+more flushed and her blue eyes darker and fuller of expression than
+usual. Change of air had done her good, and Edgar's evident admiration
+was even a better stimulant. She and her mother had ended their
+absence from North Aston by a visit to the lord lieutenant of the
+county, and she was not sorry to be able to speak familiarly of
+certain great personages met there as her co-guests--the prime
+minister for one and an archbishop for another. And as Edgar was, she
+knew, influenced by the philosophy of fitness more than most men, she
+thought the prime minister and the archbishop good cards to play at
+this moment.
+
+Edgar was listening to her, pleased, smiling, thinking how pretty
+she looked, and taking her social well-being and roll-call of grand
+friendships as gems that enriched him too--flowers in his path as well
+as roses in her hand, and as a sunny sky overarching both alike. She
+really was a very charming girl--just the wife for an English country
+gentleman--just the mistress for a place like the Hill, the heart of
+the man owning the Hill not counting.
+
+But when Leam turned from the wood-path into the road, Edgar felt
+like a man who has allowed himself to be made enthusiastic over but
+an inferior bit of art, knowing better. Her beautiful face, with its
+glorious eyes so full of latent passion, dreaming thought, capacity
+for sorrow--all that most excites yet most softens the heart of a man;
+her exquisite figure, so fine in its lines, so graceful yet not weak,
+so tender yet not sensual; as she stood there in the sunlight the
+gleam of dusky gold showing on the edges of her dark hair; her very
+attitude and action as she held a basket full of wild-flowers which
+with unconscious hypocrisy she had picked to give herself the color of
+an excuse for her long hiding in the yew tree,--all dwarfed, eclipsed
+Adelaide into a mere milk-and-roses beauty of a type to be seen
+by hundreds in a day; while Leam--who was like this peerless Leam?
+Neither Spain nor England could show such a one as she. Ah, where
+was the philosophy of fitness now, when this exquisite creation, more
+splendid than fit, came to the front?
+
+Edgar went forward to meet her, that look of love surprised out of
+concealment which told so much on his face. Adelaide saw it, and
+Josephine saw it, and the eyes of the latter grew moist, but the lips
+of the other only closed more tightly. She accepted the challenge, and
+she meant to conquer in the fight.
+
+Wearied by her emotions, saddened both by the love that had been
+confessed and the friendship that had been offered, this meeting with
+Edgar Harrowby seemed to Leam like home and rest to one very tired and
+long lost. The bright spring day, which until now had been as gray as
+winter, suddenly broke upon her with a sense of warmth and beauty, and
+her sad face reflected in its tender, evanescent smile the delight of
+which she had become thus suddenly conscious. She laid her hand in
+his frankly: he had never seen her so frankly glad to meet him; and a
+look, a gesture, from Leam--grave, proud, reticent Leam--meant as much
+as cries of joy and caresses from others.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Dundas: where have you been?" said Edgar, his
+accent of familiar affection, which meant "Beloved Leam," in nowise
+overlaid by the formality of the spoken "Miss Dundas."
+
+"Into the wood," said Leam, her hand, as if for proof thereof,
+stirring the flowers.
+
+"It is a new phase to see you given to rural delights and
+wild-flowers, Leam," said Adelaide with a little laugh.
+
+"But how pleasant that our dear Leam should have found such a nice
+amusement!" said Josephine.
+
+"As picking primroses and bluebells, Joseph?" And Adelaide laughed
+again.
+
+Somehow, her laugh, which was not unmusical, was never pleasant. It
+did not seem to come from the heart, and was the farthest in the world
+removed from mirth.
+
+Leam looked at her coldly. "I like flowers," she said, carrying her
+head high.
+
+"So do I," said Edgar with the intention of taking her part. "What are
+these things?" holding up a few cuckoo-flowers that were half hidden
+like delicate shadows among the primroses.
+
+"You certainly show your liking by your knowledge. I thought every
+schoolboy knew the cuckoo-flower!" cried Adelaide, trying to seem
+natural and not bitter in her banter, and not succeeding.
+
+"I can learn. Never too late to mend, you know. And Miss Dundas shall
+teach me," said Edgar.
+
+"I do not know enough: I cannot teach you," Leam answered, taking him
+literally.
+
+"My dear Leam, how frightfully literal you are!" said Adelaide. "Do
+you think it looks pretty? Do you really believe that Major Harrowby
+was in earnest about your giving him botanical lessons?"
+
+"I believe people I respect," returned Leam gravely.
+
+"Thanks," said Edgar warmly, his face flushing.
+
+Adelaide's face flushed too. "Are you going through life taking as
+gospel all the unmeaning badinage which gentlemen permit themselves
+to talk to ladies?" she asked from the heights of her superior wisdom.
+"Remember, Leam, at your age girls cannot be too discreet."
+
+"I do not understand you," said Leam, fixing her eyes on the fair face
+that strove so hard to conceal the self within from the world without,
+and to make impersonal and aphoristic what was in reality passionate
+disturbance.
+
+"A girl who has been four years at a London boarding-school not to
+understand such a self-evident little speech as that!" cried Adelaide,
+with well-acted surprise. "How can you be insincere? I must say I have
+no faith, myself, in Bayswater _ingenues_: have you, Edgar?" with the
+most graceful little movement of her head, her favorite action, and
+one that generally made its mark.
+
+"I do not understand you," said Leam again. "I only know that you are
+rude: you always are."
+
+She spoke in her most imperturbable manner and with her quietest face.
+Nothing roused in her so much the old Leam of pride and disdain
+as these encounters with Adelaide Birkett. The two were like the
+hereditary foes of old-time romance, consecrated to hate from their
+birth upward.
+
+"Come, come, fair lady, you are rather hard on our young friend," said
+Edgar with a strange expression in his eyes--angry, intense, and yet
+uncertain. He wanted to protect Leam, yet he did not want to offend
+Adelaide; and though he was angry with this last, he did not wish her
+to see that he was.
+
+"Dear Leam! I am sure she is very sweet and nice," breathed Josephine;
+but little Fina, playing with Josephine's chatelaine, said in her
+childish treble, "No, no, she is not nice: she is cross, and never
+laughs, and she has big eyes. They frighten me at night, and then I
+scream. Your are far nicer, Missy Joseph."
+
+Adelaide laughed outright; Josephine was embarrassed between the weak
+good-nature that could not resist even a child's caressing words and
+her constitutional pain at giving pain; Edgar tried to smile at the
+little one's pertness as a thing below the value of serious notice,
+while feeling all that a man does feel when the woman whom he loves
+is in trouble and he cannot defend her; but Leam herself said to the
+child, gravely and without bitterness, "I am not cross, Fina, and
+laughing is not everything."
+
+"Right, Miss Dundas!" said Edgar warmly. "If the little puss were
+older she would understand you better. You unconscionable little
+sinner! what do you mean? hey?" good-humoredly taking Fina by the
+shoulders.
+
+"Oh, pray don't try and make the child a hypocrite," said Adelaide.
+"You, of all people in the world, Edgar, objecting to her naive
+truth!--you, who so hate and despise deception!"
+
+While she had spoken Fina had crawled over Josephine's lap to the
+side where Edgar was standing. She put up her fresh little face to be
+kissed. "I don't like Learn, and I do like you," she said, stroking
+his beard.
+
+And Edgar, being a man, was therefore open to female flattery, whether
+it was the frank flattery of an infant Venus hugging a waxen Cupid
+or the more subtle overtures of a withered Ninon taking God for her
+latest lover--with interludes.
+
+"But you should like Leam too," he said, fondling her, "I want you to
+love me, but you should love her as well."
+
+"Oh, any one can get the love of children who is kind to them," said
+Adelaide. "You know you are a very kind man, Edgar," in a quiet,
+matter-of-fact way. "All animals and children love you. It is a gift
+you have, but it is only because you are kind."
+
+The context stood without any need of an interpreter to make it
+evident.
+
+"But I am sure that Leam is kind to Fina," blundered Josephine.
+
+"And the child dislikes her so much?" was Adelaide's reply, made in
+the form of an interrogation and with arched eyebrows.
+
+"Fina is like the discontented little squirrel who was never happy,"
+said Josephine, patting the plump little hand that still meandered
+through the depths of Edgar's beard.
+
+"I am happy with you, Missy Joseph," pouted Fina; "and you," to Edgar,
+whom she again lifted up her face to kiss, kisses and sweeties being
+her twin circumstances of Paradise.
+
+"And with sister Leam: say 'With Leam,' else I will not kiss you,"
+said Edgar, holding her off.
+
+She struggled, half laughing, half minded to cry. "I want to kiss
+you," she cried.
+
+"Say 'With Leam,' and then I will," said Edgar.
+
+The child's face flushed a deeper crimson, her struggles became more
+earnest, more vicious, and her laugh lost itself in the puckered
+preface of tears.
+
+"Don't make her cry because she will not tell a falsehood,"
+remonstrated Adelaide quietly.
+
+"She does not like me. Saying that she does would not be true, and
+would not make her," added Leam just as quietly and with a kind of
+hopeless acceptance of undeserved obloquy.
+
+On which Edgar, not wishing to prolong a scene that began to be
+undignified, released the child, who scrambled back to Josephine's
+lap and hid her flushed and disordered little face on the comfortable
+bosom made by Nature for the special service of discomposed childhood.
+
+"She is right to like you best," said Leam, associating Edgar as the
+brother with Josephine's generous substitution of maternity.
+
+"I don't think so. You are the one she should love--who deserves her
+love," he answered emphatically.
+
+"Come, Joseph," cried Adelaide. "If these two are going to bandy
+compliments, you and I are not wanted."
+
+"Don't go, Adelaide: I have worlds yet to say to you," said Edgar.
+
+"Thanks! another time. I do not like to see things of which I
+disapprove," was her answer, touching her ponies gently and moving
+away slowly.
+
+When she had drawn off out of earshot she beckoned Edgar with her
+whip. It was impolitic, but she was too deeply moved to make accurate
+calculations. "Dear Edgar, do not be offended with me," she said
+in her noblest, most sisterly manner. "Of course I do not wish to
+interfere, and it is no business of mine, but is it right to fool that
+unhappy girl as you are doing? I put it to you, as one woman anxious
+for the happiness and reputation of another--as an old friend who
+values you too much to see you make the mistake you are making now
+without a word of warning. It can be no business of mine, outside the
+purest regard and consideration for you as well as for her. I do not
+like her, but I do not want to see her in a false position and with a
+damaged character through you."
+
+Had they been alone, Edgar would probably have accepted this
+remonstrance amicably enough. He might even have gone a long way in
+proving it needless. But in the presence of Josephine his pride took
+the alarm, and the weapon intended for Leam cut Adelaide's fingers
+instead.
+
+He listened patiently till she ended, then he drew himself up.
+"Thanks!" he drawled affectedly. "You are very kind both to Miss
+Dundas and myself. All the world knows that the most vigilant overseer
+a pretty girl can have is a pretty woman. When the reputation of Miss
+Dundas is endangered by me, it will then be time for her father to
+interfere. Meanwhile, thanks! I like her quite well enough to take
+care of her."
+
+"Now, Adelaide, you have vexed him," said Josephine in dismay as Edgar
+strode back to where Leam remained waiting for him.
+
+"I have done my duty," said Adelaide, drawing her lips into a thin
+line and lowering her eyebrows; and her friend knew her moods and
+respected them.
+
+On this point of warning Edgar against an entanglement with Leam she
+did really think that she had done her duty. She knew that she wished
+to marry him herself--in fact, meant to marry him--and that she would
+probably have been his wife before now had it not been for this girl
+and her untimely witcheries; but though, naturally enough, she was not
+disposed to love Leam any the more because she had come between her
+and her intended husband, she thought that she would have borne the
+disappointment with becoming magnanimity if she had been of the
+right kind for Edgar's wife. With Adelaide, as with so many among us,
+conventional harmony was a religion in itself, and he who despised its
+ritual was a blasphemer. And surely that harmony was not be found in
+the marriage of an English gentleman of good degree with the daughter
+of a dreadful low-class Spanish woman--a girl who at fifteen years
+of age had prayed to the saints, used her knife as a whanger, and
+maintained that the sun went round the earth because mamma said so,
+and mamma knew! No, if Edgar married any one but herself, let him at
+least marry some one as well fitted for him as herself, not one like
+Leam Dundas.
+
+For the sake of the neighborhood at large the mistress of the Hill
+ought to be a certain kind of person--they all knew of what kind--and
+a queer, unconformable creature like Leam set up there as the Mrs.
+Harrowby of the period would throw all things into confusion. Whatever
+happened, that must be prevented if possible, for Edgar's own sake and
+for the sake of the society of the place.
+
+All of which thoughts strengthened Adelaide in her conviction that she
+had done what she ought to have done in warning Edgar against Leam,
+and that she was bound to be faithful in her course so long as he was
+persistent in his.
+
+Meanwhile, Edgar returned to Leam, who had remained standing in the
+middle of the road waiting for him. Nothing belonged less to Leam
+than forwardness or flattery to men; and it was just one of those odd
+coincidences which sometimes happen that as Edgar had not wished her
+good-bye, she felt herself bound to wait his return. But it had the
+look of either a nearer intimacy than existed between them, or of
+Leam's laying herself out to win the master of the Hill as she would
+not have laid herself out to win the king of Spain. In either case it
+added fuel to the fire, and confirmed Adelaide more and more in the
+course she had taken. "Look there!" she said to Josephine, pointing
+with her whip across the field, the winding way having brought them in
+a straight line with the pair left on the road.
+
+"Very bold, I must say," said Josephine; "but Leam is such a
+child!--she does not understand things as we do," she added by way of
+apology and defence.
+
+"Think not?" was Adelaide's reply; and then she whipped her ponies and
+said no more.
+
+"Why does Miss Birkett hate me?" asked Leam when Edgar came back.
+
+"Because--Shall I tell you?" he answered with a look which she could
+not read.
+
+"Yes, tell me."
+
+"Because you are more beautiful than she is, and she is jealous of
+you. She is very good in her own way, but she does not like rivals
+near her throne; and you are her rival without knowing it."
+
+Leam had looked straight at Edgar when he began to speak, but now she
+dropped her eyes. For the first time in her life she did not disclaim
+his praise, nor feel it a thing that she ought to resent. On the
+contrary, it made her heart beat with a sudden throb that almost
+frightened her with its violence, and that seemed to break down her
+old self in its proud reticence and cold control, leaving her soft,
+subdued, timid, humble--childlike, and yet not a child. Her face was
+pale; her eyelids seemed weighted over her eyes, so that she could
+not raise them; her breath came with so much difficulty that she was
+forced to unclose her lips for air; she trembled as if with a sudden
+chill, and yet her veins seemed running with fire; and she felt as
+if the earth moved under her feet. What malady was this that had
+overtaken her so suddenly? What did it all mean? It was something like
+that strange sensation which she had had a few hours back in the
+wood, when Mr. Gryce had seemed to her like some compelling spirit
+questioning her of her life, while she was his victim, forced to
+reveal all. And yet it was the same, with a difference. That had been
+torture covered down by an anodyne: this was in its essence ecstasy,
+if on the outside pain.
+
+"Look at me, Leam," half whispered Edgar, bending over her.
+
+She raised her eyes with shame and difficulty--very slowly, for their
+lids were so strangely heavy; very shyly, for there was something in
+them, she herself did not know what, which she did not wish him to
+see. Nevertheless, she raised them because he bade her. How sweet and
+strange it was to obey him against her own desire! Did he know that
+she looked at him because he told her to do so? and that she would
+have rather kept her eyes to the ground? Yes, she raised them and met
+his.
+
+Veiled, humid, yearning, those eyes of hers told all--all that she
+herself did not know, all that Edgar had now hoped, now feared, as
+passion or prudence had swayed him, as love or fitness had seemed the
+best circumstance of life.
+
+"Leam!" he said in an altered voice: she scarcely recognized it as
+his. He took her hand in his, when suddenly there came two voices on
+the air, and Mr. Gryce and Sebastian Dundas, disputing hotly on the
+limits of the Unknowable, turned the corner and came upon them.
+
+Then the moment and its meaning passed, the enchanted vision faded,
+and all that remained of that brief foretaste of Paradise before the
+serpent had entered or the forbidden fruit been tasted was the bald,
+prosaic fact of Major Harrowby bidding Miss Dundas good-day, too much
+pressed for time to stop and talk on the Unknowable.
+
+"Disappointed, baulked, ill-used!" were Edgar's first angry thoughts
+as he strode along the road: his second, those that were deepest and
+truest to his real self, came with a heavy sigh. "Saved just in time
+from making a fool of myself," he said below his breath, his eyes
+turned in the direction of the Hill. "It must be a warning for the
+future. I must be more on my guard, unless indeed I make up my mind to
+tempt fortune and take the plunge--for happiness such as few men have,
+or for the ruin of everything."
+
+Meanwhile, pending this determination, Edgar kept himself out of
+Leam's way, and days passed before they met again. And when they did
+next meet it was in the churchyard, in the presence of the assembled
+congregation, with Alick Corfield as the centre of congratulation
+on his first resumption of duty, and Leam and Edgar separated by the
+crowd and stiffened by conventionality into coldness.
+
+Maya--delusion! That strange trouble, sweet and thrilling, which
+disturbed Leam's whole being; Edgar's unfathomable eyes, which seemed
+almost to burn as she looked at them; his altered voice, scarcely
+recognizable it was so changed--all a mere phantasy born of a
+dream--all, what is so much in this life of ours, a mockery, a
+mistake, a vague hope without roots, a shadowy heaven that had
+no place in fact, the cold residuum of enthralling and bewitching
+myths--all Maya, delusion!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+BY THE BROAD.
+
+
+After that scene in the pony-carriage Leam began to take it to heart
+that little Fina did not love her. Hitherto, solicitous only to do
+her duty unrelated to sentiment, she had not cared to win the child's
+rootless and unmeaning affection: now she longed to hear her say to
+Major Harrowby, "I love Leam." She did not care about her saying it to
+any one else, but she thought it would be pleasant to see Edgar smile
+on her as he had smiled at Josephine when Fina had crawled on to her
+lap that day of Maya, and said, "You are far nicer, Missy Joseph."
+
+She would like to have Edgar's good opinion. Indeed, that was only
+proper gratitude to a friend, not unwomanly submission to the great
+young man of the place. He was invariably kind to her, and he had done
+much to make her cheerless life less dreary. He had lent her books to
+read, and had shown her pretty places in the district which she would
+never have seen but for him: he talked to her as if he liked talking
+to her, and he had defended her when Adelaide was rude. It was
+right, then, that she should wish to please him and show him that she
+deserved his respect.
+
+Hence she put out her strength to win Fina's love that she might hear
+her say, when next Major Harrowby asked her, "Yes, I love Leam."
+
+But who ever gained by conscious endeavor the love that was not given
+by the free sympathies of Nature? Hearts have been broken and lives
+ruined before now for the want of a spell strong enough to turn
+the natural course of feeling; and Leam's success with Fina was no
+exception to the common experience. The more she sought to please her
+the less she succeeded; and, save that the child grew disobedient in
+proportion to the new indulgences granted, no change was effected.
+
+How should there be a change? Leam could not romp, was not fond
+of kissing, knew no childish games, could not enter into childish
+nonsense, was entirely incapable of making believe, never seemed to
+be thinking of what she was about, and had big serious eyes that
+oppressed the little one with a sense of awe not conducive to love,
+and of which she dreamed with terrifying adjuncts when she had had too
+much cake too late at night. What there was of sterling in Leam had
+no charm for, because no point of contact with, Fina. Thus, all her
+efforts went astray, and the child loved her no better for being
+coaxed by methods that did not amuse her. At the end of all she still
+said with her pretty pout that Leam was cross--she would not talk to
+her about mamma.
+
+One day Learn took Fina for a walk to the Broad. It was the
+most unselfish thing she could do, for her solitary rambles, her
+unaccompanied rides, were her greatest pleasures; save, indeed, when
+the solitude of these last was interrupted by Major Harrowby. This,
+however, had not been nearly so often since the return of the families
+as before; for Adelaide's pony-carriage was wellnigh ubiquitous, and
+Edgar did not care that the rector's sarcastic daughter should see him
+escorting Leam in lonely places three or four times a week. Thus, the
+girl had fallen back into her old habits of solitude, and to take
+the child with her was a sacrifice of which she herself only knew the
+extent.
+
+But, if blindly and with uncertain feet, stumbling often and straying
+wide, Leam did desire to find the narrow way and walk in it--to know
+the better thing and do it. At the present moment she knew nothing
+better than to give nurse a holiday and burden herself with an
+uncongenial little girl as her charge and companion when she would
+rather have been alone. So this was how it came about that on this
+special day the two set out for the Broad, where Fina had a fancy to
+go.
+
+The walk was pleasant enough, Leam was not called on to rack her
+brains--those non-inventive brains of hers, which could not imagine
+things that never happened--for stories wherewith to while away the
+time, as Fina ran alone, happy in picking the spring flowers growing
+thick on the banks and hedgerows. Thus the one was amused and the
+other was left to herself undisturbed; which was an arrangement that
+kept Leam's good intentions intact, but prevented the penance which
+they included from becoming too burdensome. Indeed, her penance was so
+light that she thought it not so great a hardship, after all, to make
+little Fina her companion in her rambles if she would but run on alone
+and content herself with picking flowers that neither scratched nor
+stung, and where therefore neither the surgery of needles nor the
+dressing of dock-leaves was required, nor yet the supplementary
+soothing of kisses and caresses for her tearful, sobbing, angry pain.
+
+The Broad, always one of the prettiest points in the landscape, was
+to-day in one of its most interesting phases. The sloping banks were
+golden with globe-flowers and marsh "mary-buds," and round the margin,
+was a broad belt of silver where the starry white ranunculus grew. All
+sorts of the beautiful aquatic plants of spring were flowering--some
+near the edges, apparently just within reach, tempting and perilous,
+and some farther off and manifestly hopeless: the leaves of the
+water-lilies, which later would be set like bosses of silver and gold
+on the shimmering blue, had risen to the surface in broad, green,
+shining platters, and the low-lying branches of the trees at the edge
+dipped in the water and swayed with the running stream.
+
+It was the loveliest bit of death and danger to be found for miles
+round--so lovely that it might well have tempted the sorrowful to take
+their rest for ever in a grave so sweet, so eloquent of eternal peace.
+Even Leam, with all the unspoken yearnings, the formless hopes, of
+youth stirring in her heart, thought how pleasant it would be to go to
+sleep among the flowers and wake up only when she had found mamma in
+heaven; while Fina, dazzled by the rank luxuriance before her, ran
+forward to the water's edge with a shrill cry of delight.
+
+Leam called to her to stand back, to come away from the water and the
+bank, which, shelving abruptly, was a dangerous place for a child. The
+footing was insecure and the soil treacherous--by no means a proper
+playground for the rash, uncertain feet of six. Twice or thrice Leam
+called, but Fina would not hear, and began gathering the flowers with
+the bold haste of a child disobeying orders and resolved to make
+the most of her opportunity before the time came of her inevitable
+capture.
+
+Thus Leam, walking fast, came up to her and took her by the arm in
+high displeasure. "Fina, did you not hear me? You must not stand
+here," she said,
+
+"Don't, Leam, you hurt me--you are cross: leave me alone," screamed
+Fina, twisting her little body to free herself from her step-sister's
+hand.
+
+"Be quiet. You will fall into the river and be drowned if you go on
+like this," said Leam, tightening her hold; and those small nervous
+hands of hers had an iron grasp when she chose to put out her
+strength.
+
+"Leave me alone. You hurt me--oh, you hurt me so much!" screamed Fina,
+still struggling.
+
+"Come with me, then. Do as you are bid and come away," returned Leam,
+slightly relaxing her grasp. Though she was angry with the child, she
+did not want to hurt her.
+
+"I shan't. Leave me alone. You are a cross, ugly thing, and I hate
+you," was Fina's sobbing reply.
+
+With a sudden wrench she tore herself from the girl's hands, slipped,
+staggered, shrieked, and the next moment was in the water, floating
+downward with the current and struggling vainly to get out; while
+Leam, scarcely understanding what she saw, stood paralyzed and
+motionless on the bank.
+
+Fortunately, at this instant Josephine drove up. She was alone,
+driving her gray ponies in the basket phaeton, and saw the child
+struggling in the stream, with Learn standing silent, helpless, struck
+to stone as it seemed, watching her without making an effort to save
+her. "Leam! Fina! save her! save her!" cried Josephine, who herself
+had enough to do to hold her ponies, in their turn startled by her own
+sudden cries. "Leam, save her!" she repeated; and then breaking down
+into helpless dismay she began to sob and scream with short, sharp
+hysterical shrieks as her contribution to the misery of the moment.
+Poor Josephine! it was all that she could do, frightened as she was
+at her own prancing ponies, distracted at the sight of Fina's danger,
+horrified at Leam's apparent apathy.
+
+As things turned out, it was the best that she could have done, for
+her voice roused Leam's faculties into active life again, and broke
+the spell of torpor into which horror had thrown them. "Holy St. Jago,
+help me!" she said, instinctively turning back to first traditions and
+making the sign of the cross, which she did not often make now, and
+only when surprised out of conscious into automatic action.
+
+Running down and along the bank, with one hand she seized the branch
+of an oak that swept into the water, then plunged in up to her
+shoulders to catch the child drifting down among the white ranunculus.
+Fortunately, Fina was still near enough to the shore to be caught as
+she drifted by without absolute danger of drowning to Leam, who waded
+back to land, drawing the child with her, not much the worse for her
+dangerous moment save for the fright which she had suffered and the
+cold of her dripping clothes; in both of which conditions Leam was her
+companion.
+
+So soon as she was safe on shore the child began to scream and cry
+piteously, as was perhaps but natural, and when she saw Josephine she
+tore herself away from Leam and ran up to her as if for protection.
+"Take me home to nurse," she sobbed, climbing into the little low
+phaeton and clinging to Josephine, who was also weeping and trembling
+hysterically. "Leam pushed me in: take me away from her."
+
+"You say what is not true, Fina," said Leam gravely, trembling as much
+as Josephine, though her eyes were dry and she did not sob. "You fell
+in because you would not let me hold you."
+
+"You pushed me in, and I hate you," reiterated Fina, cowering close to
+the bosom of her warm, soft friend.
+
+"Do you believe this?" asked Leam, turning to Josephine and speaking
+with all her old pride of voice and bearing. Nevertheless, she was as
+white as those flowers on the water. It was madame's child who accused
+her of attempting to kill her, and it was the child whom she had so
+earnestly desired to win who now said, "I hate her," to the sister of
+the man to whom she longed to hear her say, "I love Leam."
+
+"Believe that you pushed her in--that you wanted to drown dear little
+Fina? No!" cried Josephine in broken sentences through her tears.
+"She mistakes.--You must not say such dreadful things, my darling,"
+to Fina. "Dear sister Leam would not hurt a hair of your head, I am
+sure."
+
+"She did: she pushed me in on purpose," persisted the shivering child,
+beginning to cry afresh.
+
+On which, a little common sense dawning on Josephine's distracted
+mind, she did her best to stop her own hysterical sympathy,
+remembering that to go home, change their wet clothes, have something
+warm to drink and be put to bed would be more to the purpose for
+both at this moment than to stand there crying, shivering and
+recriminating, with herself as the weak and loving judge, inclining to
+both equally, to settle the vexed question of accident or malice.
+
+"Good gracious! why are we waiting here?" she cried, drying her eyes
+quickly and ceasing to sob. "You will both get your deaths from cold
+if you stand here in your wet clothes.--Come in, dear Leam, and I will
+drive you home at once.--Fina, my darling, leave off crying, that's
+my little angel. I will take you to papa, and you will be all right
+directly. I cannot bear to see you cry so much, dear Fina: don't, my
+pet."
+
+Which only made the little one weep I and sob the more, children,
+like women, liking nothing better than to be commiserated because of
+distress which they could; control without difficulty if they would.
+
+Seating the child at the bottom of the carriage and covering her with
+the rug, Josephine flicked her ponies, which were glad enough to
+be off and doing something to which they were accustomed, and soon
+brought her dripping charge to Ford House, where they found Mr. Dundas
+in the porch drawing on his gloves, his horse standing at the door.
+
+"Good heavens! what is all this about?" he cried, rushing forward to
+receive the disconsolate cargo, unloading one by one the whole group
+dank and dismal--Josephine's scared face swollen with tears, white
+and red in the wrong places; Leam's set like a mask, blanched, rigid,
+tragic; Fina's now flushed and angry, now pale and frightened, with
+a child's swift-varying emotions; and the garments of the last two
+clinging like cerements and dripping small pools on the gravel.
+
+"Learn pushed me into the river," said Fina, beginning to cry afresh,
+and holding on by Josephine, who now kissed and coaxed her, and said,
+"Fina, my darling, don't say such a wicked thing of poor Leam: it is
+so naughty, so very naughty," and then took to hugging her again, as
+the mood of the instant swayed her toward the child or the girl,
+but always full of womanly weakness and kindness to each, and only
+troubled that she had to make distinctions, as it were, between them.
+
+"What is it you say, Fina?" asked Mr. Dundas slowly--"Leam pushed you
+into the river?"
+
+"Yes," sobbed Fina.
+
+"I did not, papa. And I went in myself to save her," said Leam,
+holding her head very straight and high.
+
+Mr. Dundas looked at her keenly, sternly. "Well, no, Leam," he
+answered, with, as it seemed to her, marked coldness and in a strange
+voice: "with all your unpleasant temper I do not like to suppose you
+could be guilty of the crime of murder."
+
+The girl shuddered visibly. Her proud little head drooped, her fixed
+and fearless eyes sank shamed to the ground. "I have always taken care
+of Fina," she said in a humbled voice, as if it was a plea for pardon
+that she was putting forward.
+
+"You pushed me in, and you did it on purpose," repeated Fina; and Mr.
+Dundas was shocked at himself to find that he speculated for a moment
+on the amount of truth there might be in the child's statement.
+
+Cold, trembling, distressed, Leam turned away. Would that sin of hers
+always thus meet her face to face? Should she never be free from
+its shadow? Go where she would, it followed her, ineffaceable,
+irreparable--the shame of it never suffered to die out, its remorse
+never quenched, the sword always above her head, to fall she knew not
+when, but to fall some day: yes, that she did know.
+
+"But you must go up stairs now," said Josephine with a creditable
+effort after practicality: "we shall have you both seriously ill
+unless you get your clothes changed at once."
+
+Mr. Dundas looked at her kindly. "How wise and good you are!" he said
+with almost enthusiasm; and Josephine, her eyes humid with glad tears,
+her cheeks flushed with palpitating joy, sank in soul to him again,
+as so often before, and offered the petition of her humble love, which
+wanted only his royal signature to make an eternal bond.
+
+"I love little Fina," she said tremulously. It was as if she had said,
+"I love you."
+
+Then she turned into the house and indulged her maternal instinct by
+watching nurse as she undressed the child, put her in a warm bath,
+gave her some hot elderberry wine and water, laid her in her little
+bed, and with many kisses bade her go to sleep and forget all about
+everything till tea-time. And the keen relish with which she
+followed all these nursery details marked her fitness for the post
+of pro-mother so distinctly that it made nurse look at her more than
+once, and think--also made her say, as a feeler--"Law, miss! what a
+pity you've not had one of your own!"
+
+Her tenderness of voice and action with the child when soothing her at
+the door had also made Sebastian think, and the child's fondness for
+this soft-faced, weak and kindly woman was setting a mark on the man's
+mind, well into middle age as she was. He began to ask himself whether
+the blighted tree could ever put forth leaves again? whether there was
+balm in Gilead yet for him, and nepenthe for the past in the happiness
+of the future. He thought there might be, and that he had sat long
+enough now by the open grave of his dead love. It was time to close
+it, and leave what it held to the keeping of a dormant memory only--a
+memory that would never die, but that was serene, passive and at rest.
+
+So he pondered as he rode, and told Josephine's virtues as golden
+beads between his fingers, to which his acceptance would give their
+due value, wanting until now--their due value, merited if not won. And
+for himself, would she make him happy? On the whole he thought that
+she would. She worshiped him, perhaps, as he had worshiped that other,
+and it was pleasant to Sebastian Dundas to be worshiped. He might do
+worse, if also he might do better; but at least in taking Josephine he
+knew what he was about, and Fina would not be made unhappy. He forgot
+Leam. Yes, he would take Josephine for his wife by and by, when the
+fitting moment came, and in doing so he would begin life anew and be
+once more made free of joy.
+
+He was one of those men resilient if shallow, and resilient perhaps
+because shallow, who, persecuted by an evil fortune, are practically
+unconquerable--men who, after they have been prostrated by a blow
+severe enough to shatter the strongest heart, come back to their old
+mental place after a time smiling, in nowise crushed or mutilated, and
+as ready to hope and love and believe and plan as before--men who are
+never ennobled by sorrow, never made more serious in their thoughts,
+more earnest in their aims, though, as Sebastian had been, they may
+be fretful enough while the sore is open--men who seem to be the
+unresisting sport of the unseen powers, buffeted, tortured as we see
+helpless things on earth--dogs beaten and horses lashed--for the mere
+pleasure of the stronger in inflicting pain, and for no ultimate good
+to be attained by the chastening. The souls of such men are like
+those weighted tumblers of pith: knocked down twenty times, on
+the twenty-first they stand upright, and nothing short of absolute
+destruction robs them of their elasticity. As now when Sebastian
+planned the base-lines of his new home with Josephine, and built
+thereon a pretty little temple of friendship armed like love.
+
+His heart was broken, he said to himself, but Josephine held the
+fragments, and he would make himself tolerably content with the rivet.
+Still, it was broken all the same; which simply meant that of the two
+he loved madame the better, and would have chosen her before the other
+could she have come back; but that failing, this other would do, even
+Josephine's love being better than no love at all. Besides, she
+had her own charms, if of a sober kind. She was a sweet-tempered,
+soft-hearted creature, with the aroma of remembrance round her
+when she was young and pretty and unattainable: consequently, being
+unattainable, held as the moral pot of gold under the rainbow,
+which, could it have been caught, would have made all life glad. The
+sentimental rest which she and her people had afforded during the
+turbulent times of that volcanic Pepita had also its sweet savor of
+association that did not make her less delightful in the present;
+and when he looked at her now, faded as she was, he used to try and
+conjure back her image, such as it had been when she was a pretty,
+blushing, affectionate young girl, who loved him as flowers love the
+sun, innocently, unconsciously, and without the power of repulsion.
+
+Also, she had the aroma of remembrance about her from another
+side--remembrance when she had been madame's chosen friend and
+favorite, and the unconscious chaperon, poor dear! who had made his
+daily visits to Lionnet possible and respectable. He pitied her a
+little now when he thought of how he had used her as Virginie's hood
+and his own mask then; and he pitied her so much that he took it on
+his conscience, as a duty which he owed her and the right, to make
+her happy at last. Yes, it was manifestly his duty--unquestionably the
+right thing to do. The petition must be signed, the suppliant raised;
+Ahasuerus must exalt his Esther, his loving, faithful, humble Esther;
+and when inclination models itself as duty the decision is not far
+off.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+PALMAM QUI NON MERUIT.
+
+
+All North Aston rang with the story of little Fina's peril,
+Josephine's admirable devotion and Leam's shameful neglect--so
+shameful as to be almost criminal. It was the apportionment of
+judgment usual with the world. The one who had incurred no kind of
+risk, and had done only what was pleasant to her, received unbounded
+praise, while the one who was of practical use got for her personal
+peril and discomfort universal blame. They said she had allowed the
+child to run into danger by her own carelessness, and then had done
+nothing to save her: and they wondered beneath their breath if she had
+really wished the little one to be drowned. She was an odd girl, you
+know, they whispered from each to each--moody, uncomfortable, and
+unlike any one else; and though she had certainly behaved admirably to
+little Fina, so far as they could see, yet it was not quite out of the
+nature of things that she should wish to get rid of the child, who,
+after all, was the child of no one knows whom, and very likely spoilt
+and tiresome enough.
+
+But no one said this aloud. They only whispered it to each other,
+their comments making no more noise than the gliding of snakes through
+the evening grass.
+
+As for Fina, she suffered mainly from a fit of indigestion consequent
+on the shower of sweetmeats which fell on her from all hands as the
+best consolation for her willful little ducking known to sane men and
+women presumably acquainted with the elements of physiology. She was
+made restless, too, from excitement by reason of the multiplicity of
+toys which every one thought it incumbent on him and her to bestow;
+for it was quite a matter for public rejoicing that she had not been
+drowned, and Josephine, as her reputed savior, leapt at a bound to the
+highest pinnacle of popular favor.
+
+It made not the slightest difference in the estimation of these clumsy
+thinkers that the thing for which Josephine was praised was a pure
+fiction, just as the thing for which Leam was condemned was a pure
+fiction. Society at North Aston had the need of hero-worship on it at
+this moment, and a mythic heroine did quite as well for the occasion
+as a real one.
+
+No one was so lavish of her praise as Adelaide. It was really
+delightful to note the generosity with which she eulogized her friend
+Joseph, and the pleasure that she had in dwelling on her heroism;
+Josephine deprecating her praises in that weak, conscious, and
+blushing way which seems to accept while disclaiming.
+
+She invariably said, "No, Adelaide, I do not deserve the credit of it:
+it was Leam who saved the child;" but she said it in that voice and
+manner which every one takes to mean more modesty than truth, and
+which therefore no one believes as it is given; the upshot being that
+it simply brings additional grist to the mill whence popularity is
+ground out.
+
+Her disclaimers were put down to her good-natured desire to screen
+Leam: she had always been good to that extraordinary young person,
+they said. But then Josephine Harrowby was good to every one, and if
+she had a fault it was the generalized character of her benevolence,
+which made her praise of no value, you see, because she praised every
+one alike, and took all that glittered for gold. Hence, her assurances
+that Leam had really and truly put herself into (the appearance of)
+actual danger to save Fina from drowning, while she herself had done
+nothing more heroic than take the dripping pair of them home when all
+was over--she forgot to add, sit in the carriage and scream--went for
+nothing, and the popular delusion for all. She was still the
+heroine of the day, and <ipalmam qui non meruit_ the motto which the
+unconscious satirists bestowed on her.
+
+She did not mean it to be so--quite the contrary--but wrong comes
+about from good intentions to the full as often as from evil ones.
+Her design was simply to be truthful, as so much conscientious
+self-respect, in the first instance, and to do justice to Leam in
+the second; but between her good-natured advocacy and Adelaide's
+undisguised hostility maybe the former did Leam the most harm.
+
+The child's past danger was quite sufficient reason why Josephine
+should come more frequently than usual to Ford House. It was only
+natural that she should wish to know how the little one went on. The
+cold, sore throat, rheumatic fever, measles that never came, might
+yet be always on the way, and the woman's fond fears were only to be
+quieted by the comforting assurance of her daily observation. Leam
+did get a cold, and a severe one, but then Leam was grown up and
+could take care of herself. Fina was the natural charge of universal
+womanhood, and no one who was a woman at all could fail to be
+interested in such a pretty, caressing little creature. And then
+Sebastian Dundas loved best the child which was not his own; and
+that, too, had its weight with Josephine, who somehow seemed to
+have forgotten by now that little Fina was madame's child--false and
+faithless madame--and was not part and parcel of the man she loved,
+as also in some strange sense her own. Madame's initial dedication had
+touched her deeply both at the time and ever after; the likeness of
+name was again another tie; and that subtle resemblance to herself
+which every one saw and spoke of seemed to round off all into an
+harmonious whole, and give her a right which even Mrs. Birkett did not
+possess.
+
+It was about a week after the accident when Josephine went one
+morning, as usual, to ask after Fina, and be convinced by personal
+inspection that the pretty little featherhead, the child of many
+loves, was well. She was met in the drawing-room by Mr. Dundas, who
+when he greeted her took both her hands in his in a more effusive
+manner than he had ever permitted himself to show since Pepita's
+death, save once before he had decided on madame and when Josephine
+had one day touched an old chord tenderly.
+
+Holding her thus, he led her to the sofa with a certain look of
+purpose in his face, of loving proprietorship in his bearing, that
+made poor fond Josephine's foolish heart knock loudly against her
+ribs.
+
+Was it then coming at last, that reward of constancy for which she
+had borne so much suspense, so many delays, such long dull days and
+tearful nights? Was the rickety idol of her whole life's worship
+really about to bless her with his smiles?
+
+She cast down her eyes, trembling, blushing. She was thirty-five years
+of age, but she was only a great girl still, and her love had the
+freshness which belongs to the cherished sentiment of girlhood ripened
+into the confessed, patient, unchanging love of maturity.
+
+"You have been always good to me, Josephine," began Mr. Dundas, still
+holding her hand.
+
+Josephine did not answer, save through the crimson of her telltale
+cheeks and the smile akin to tears about her quivering mouth.
+
+"I think you have always liked me," he went on to say, looking down
+into her face.
+
+Josephine closed her hand over his more warmly and glanced up swiftly,
+bashfully. Was there much doubt of it? had there ever been any doubt
+of it?
+
+"And I have always liked you," he added; and then he paused.
+
+She looked up again, this time a certain tender reproach and surprise
+lying behind her evident delight and love.
+
+"Had not my darling Virginie come between us you would have been my
+wife long ago," said Mr. Dundas, the certainty of her acceptance at
+any time of their acquaintance as positive to him as that the famished
+hound would accept food, the closed pimpernel expand in the sunlight.
+"I was always fond of you, even in poor Pepita's time, though of
+course, as a man of honor, I could neither encourage nor show my
+affection. But Virginie--she took me away from the whole world, and I
+lost you, as well as herself, for that one brief month of happiness."
+
+His eyes filled up with tears. Though he was wooing his third bride,
+he did not conceal his regret for his second.
+
+By an effort of maidenly reserve over feminine sympathy Josephine
+refrained from throwing her arms round his neck and weeping on his
+shoulder for pity at his past sorrow. She had none of the vice of
+jealousy, and she could honestly and tenderly pity the man whom she
+loved for his grief at the loss of the woman whom he had preferred to
+herself. She did, however, refrain, and Sebastian could only guess at
+her impulse. But he made a tolerably accurate guess, though he seemed
+to see nothing. He knew that his way was smooth before him, and that
+he need not give himself a moment's trouble about the ending. And
+though, as a rule, a man likes the excitement of doubt and the
+sentiment of difficulties to be overcome, still there are times when,
+if he is either very weary or too self-complacent to care to strive,
+he is glad to be assured that he has won before he has wooed, and has
+only to claim the love that is waiting for him. Which was what Mr.
+Dundas felt now when he noted the simplicity with which Josephine
+showed her heart while believing she was hiding it so absolutely, and
+knew that he had only to speak to have the whole thing concluded.
+
+"And now I have only half a heart to offer you," he said plaintively:
+"the other half is in the grave with my beloved. But if you care to
+ally yourself to one who has been the sport of sorrow as I have, if
+you care to make the last years of my life happy, and will be content
+with the ashes rather than the fires, I will do my best to make you
+feel that you have not sacrificed yourself in vain. Will it be
+a sacrifice, Josephine?" he asked in a lower tone, and with the
+exquisite sweetness which love and pleading give to even a commonplace
+voice.
+
+"I have loved you all my life," said Josephine simply; and then
+dissolving into happy tears she hid her face in his breast and felt
+that heaven was sometimes very near to earth.
+
+Sebastian passed his arms round her ample comely form and pressed her
+to his heart, tenderly and without affectation. It was pleasant to him
+to see her devotion, to feel her love; and though he disliked tears,
+as a man should, still tears of joy were a tribute which he did not
+despise in essence if the method might have been more congenial.
+
+"Dear Josephine!" he said. "I always knew what a good soul you were."
+
+This was the way in which Sebastian Dundas wooed and won an
+honest-hearted English lady who loved him, and who, virtue for virtue,
+was infinitely his superior--a wooing in striking contrast with the
+methods which he had employed to gain the person of a low-class,
+half-savage Spanish girl, whom he had loved for her beauty and who
+took him for her pleasure; also in striking contrast with those
+he employed to gain Madame de Montfort, a clever adventuress, who
+balanced him, in hand, against her bird in the bush, and decided that
+to make sure of the less was better than to wait for the chance of the
+greater. But Josephine felt nothing humiliating in his lordliness. She
+loved him, she was a woman devoid of self-esteem; hence humiliation
+from his hand was impossible.
+
+Just then pretty little Fina came running to the window from the
+garden, where she was playing.
+
+"Come here, poppet," said Mr. Dundas, holding out his left hand, his
+right round comely Josephine.
+
+She came through the open window and ran up to him. "Nice papa!" she
+lisped, stroking his hand.
+
+He took her on his knee, "I have I given you a new mamma, Fina," he
+said, kissing her; and then he kissed Josephine for emphasis. "Will
+you be good to her and love her very much? This is your mamma.".
+
+"Will you love me, little Fina?" asked Josephine in a voice full of
+emotion, taking the child's fair head between her hands. "Will you
+like me to be your mamma?"
+
+"Yes," cried Fina, clapping her hands. "I shall like a nice new mamma
+instead of Learn. I hate Leam: she is cross and has big eyes."
+
+"Oh, we must not hate poor Leam," remonstrated Josephine tenderly.
+
+"I cannot understand the child's aversion," said Mr. Dundas in a
+half-musing, half-suspicious way. "Leam seems to be all that is good
+and kind to her, but nothing that she does can soften the little
+creature's dislike. It must be natural instinct," he added in a lower
+voice.
+
+"Yes, perhaps it is," assented Josephine, who would have answered,
+"Yes, perhaps it is," to anything else that her lover might have said.
+
+"Where is Leam, my little Fina? Do you know?" asked Sebastian of the
+child.
+
+"In the garden. She is coming in," answered Fina; and at the word Leam
+passed before the window as Fina had done.
+
+"Leam, my child, come in: I want to speak to you," said her father,
+with unwonted kindness; and Leam, too, as Fina had done before her,
+passed through the open window and came in.
+
+The two middle-aged lovers were still sitting side by side and close
+together on the sofa. Fina was on her stepfather's knee, caressing his
+hand and Josephine's, which were clasped together on her little lap,
+while his other arm encircled the substantial waist of his promised
+bride, whose disengaged hand rested on his shoulder.
+
+"Leam," said the father, "I have given you--"
+
+He stopped. The name which he was about to utter, with all its
+passionate memories, was left unsaid. He remembered in time Leam's
+former renunciation of the new mamma whom he had once before proposed.
+
+"I have asked Josephine Harrowby to be my wife," he said after a short
+pause. "She has consented, and made me very happy. Let me hope that it
+will make you happy too."
+
+He spoke with forced calmness and something of sternness under his
+apparent serenity. In heart he was troubled, remembering the past and
+half fearing the future. How would she bear herself? Would she accept
+his relations pleasantly, or defy and reject as before?
+
+Leam looked at the triad gravely. It was a family group with which she
+felt that she had no concern. She was outside it--as much alone as in
+a strange country. She knew in that deepest self which does not palm
+and lie to us that all her efforts to put herself in harmony with
+her life were in vain. Race, education and that fearful memory stood
+between her and her surroundings, and she never lost the perception of
+her loneliness save when she was with Edgar. At this moment she looked
+on as at a picture of love and gladness with which she had nothing
+in common; nevertheless, she accepted what she saw, and if not
+expansive--which was not her way--was, as her father said afterward,
+"perfectly satisfactory." She went up to the sofa slowly and held out
+her hand. "You are welcome," she said gravely to Josephine, but the
+contempt which she had always had for her father, though she had tried
+so hard of late to wear it down, surged up afresh, and she could
+not turn her eyes his way. What a despicable thing that must be, she
+thought--that thing he called his heart--to shift from one to
+the other so easily! To her, the keynote of whose character was
+single-hearted devotion, this facile, fluid love, which could be
+poured out with equal warmth on every one alike, was no love at
+all. It was a degraded kind of self-indulgence for which she had no
+respect; and though she did not feel for Josephine as she had felt for
+madame--as her mother's enemy--she despised her father even more now
+than before.
+
+Also a rapid thought crossed her mind, bringing with it a deadly
+trouble. "If Josephine was her stepmother, would Major Harrowby be her
+stepfather?" They were brother and sister, and she had an idea that
+the family followed the relations of its members. She did not know
+why, but she would rather not have Major Harrowby for her stepfather
+or for any relation by law. She preferred that he should be wholly
+unconnected with her--just her friend unrelated: that was all.
+
+"Thank you, dear Leam!" said Josephine gratefully; and Leam, looking
+at her with large mournful eyes, said in a soft but surprised tone of
+voice, "Thank me!--why?"
+
+"That you accept me as your stepmother so sweetly, and do not hate me
+for it," said Josephine.
+
+Leam glanced with a pained look at Fina. "I have done with hate," she
+answered. "It is not my business what papa likes to do."
+
+"Sensible at last!" cried Mr. Dundas with a half-mocking, half-kindly
+triumph in his voice.
+
+Leam turned pale. "But you must not think that _I_ forget mamma as you
+do," she said with emphasis, her lip quivering.
+
+"No, dear Leam, I would be the last to wish that you should forget
+your own mamma for me," said Josephine humbly. "Only try to love me
+a little for myself, as your friend, and I will be satisfied. Love
+always your own mamma, but me too a little."
+
+"You are good," said Leam softly, her eyes filling with tears. "I do
+like you very much; but mamma--there is only one mother for me. None
+of papa's wives could ever be mamma to me."
+
+"But friend?" said Josephine, half sobbing.
+
+"Friend? yes," returned Leam; and for the first time in her life she
+bent her proud little head and kissed Josephine on her cheek. "And I
+will be good to you," she said quietly, "for you are good." She did
+not add, "And Edgar's sister."
+
+The families approved of this marriage. Every one said it was what
+ought to have been when Pepita died, and that Mr. Dundas had missed
+his way and lost his time by taking that doubtful madame meanwhile.
+Adelaide and her mother were especially congratulatory; but, though
+the rector said he was glad for the sake of poor Josephine, who had
+always been a favorite of his, yet he could not find terms of too
+great severity for Sebastian. For a man to marry three times--it was
+scarcely moral; and he wondered at the Harrowbys for allowing one of
+their own to be the third venture. And then, though Josephine was a
+good girl enough, she was but a weak sister at the best; and to
+think of any man in his senses taking her as the successor of that
+delightful and superior madame!
+
+Mrs. Birkett dissented from these views, and said it would keep the
+house together and be such a nice thing for Fina and Leam: both
+would be the better for a woman's influence and superintendence, and
+Josephine was very good.
+
+"Yes," said the rector with his martial air--"good enough, I admit,
+but confoundedly slow."
+
+To Edgar, Adelaide expressed herself with delightful enthusiasm.
+She was not often stirred to such a display of feeling. "It is _the_
+marriage of the county," she said with her prettiest smile--"the very
+thing for every one."
+
+"Think so?" was his reply, made by no means enthusiastically. "If
+Joseph likes it, that is all that need be said; but it is a marvel
+to me how she can--such an unmanly creature as he is! such a muff all
+through!"
+
+"Well, I own he would not have been my choice exactly," said Adelaide
+with a nice little look. "I like something stronger and more decided
+in a man; but it is just as well that we all do not like the same
+person; and then, you see, there are Leam and the child to be
+considered. Lean is such an utterly unfit person to bring up Fina:
+she is ruining her, indeed, as it is, with her capricious temper and
+variable moods; and dear Josephine's quiet amiability and good sense
+will be so valuable among them. I think we ought to be glad, as
+Christians, that such a chance is offered them."
+
+"Whatever else you may be, at least you are no hypocrite," said Edgar
+with a forced smile that did not look much like approbation.
+
+She chose to accept it simply. "No," she answered quite tranquilly, "I
+am not a hypocrite."
+
+"At all events, you do not disguise your dislike to Leam Dundas," he
+said.
+
+"No: why should I? I confess it honestly, I do not like her. The
+daughter of such a woman as her mother was; up to fifteen years of age
+a perfect savage; a heathen with a temper that makes me shudder when I
+think of it; capable of any crime. No, don't look shocked, Edgar: I am
+sure of it. That girl could commit murder; and I verily believe that
+she did push Fina into the water, as the child says, and that if
+Josephine had not got there in time she would have let her drown. And
+if I think all this, how can I like her?"
+
+"No, if you think all this, as you say, you cannot like her," replied
+Edgar coldly. "I don't happen to agree with you, however, and I think
+your assumptions monstrous."
+
+"You are not the first man blinded by a pair of dark eyes, Edgar,"
+said Adelaide with becoming mournfulness. "It makes me sorry to see
+such a mind as yours dazzled out of its better sense, but you will
+perhaps come right in time. At all events, Josephine's marriage with
+Mr. Dundas will give you a kind of fatherly relation with Leam that
+may show you the truth of what I say."
+
+"Fatherly relation! what rubbish!" cried Edgar, irritated out of his
+politeness.
+
+Adelaide smiled. "Well, you would be rather a young father for her,"
+she answered. "Still, the character of the relation will be, as I say,
+fatherly."
+
+Edgar laughed impatiently.
+
+"Society will accept it in that light," said Adelaide gravely, glad to
+erect even this barrier of shadows between the man of her choice and
+the girl whom she both dreaded and disliked.
+
+And she was right in her supposition. Brother and sister marrying
+daughter and father would not be well received in a narrow society
+like North Aston, where the restrictions of law and elemental morality
+were supplemented by an adventitious code of denial which put Nature
+into a strait waistcoat and shackled freedom of action and opinion
+with chains and bands of iron. Perhaps it was some such thought as
+this on his own part that made Edgar profess himself disgusted with
+this marriage, and declare loudly that Sebastian Dundas was not worthy
+of such a girl as Josephine. His hearers smiled in their sleeves when
+he said so, and thought that Josephine Harrowby, thirty-five years of
+age, fat and freckled, was not so far out in her running to have got
+at last--they always put in "at last"--the owner of Ford House. It was
+more than she might have expected, looking at things all round; and
+Edgar was as unreasonable as proud men always are. With the redundancy
+of women as we have it in England, happy the head of the house who can
+get rid of his superfluous petticoats anyhow in honor and sufficiency.
+This was the verdict of society on the affair--the two extremities of
+the line wherefrom the same fact was viewed.
+
+As for Josephine herself, dear soul! she was supremely happy. It was
+almost worth while to have waited so long, she thought, to have such
+an exquisite reward at last. She went back ten years in her life, and
+grew quite girlish and fresh-looking, and what was wanting in romance
+on Sebastian's part was made up in devotion and adoration on hers.
+
+Sebastian himself took pleasure in her happiness, her adoration, the
+supreme content of her rewarded love. It made him glad to think that
+he had given so good a creature so much happiness; and he warmed his
+soul at his rekindled ashes as a philosophic widower generally knows
+how.
+
+Only Leam began to look pitifully mournful and desolate, and to shrink
+back into a solitude which Edgar never invaded, and whence even Alick
+was banished; and Edgar was irritable, unpleasant, moody, would
+take no interest in the approaching marriage, and, save that his
+settlements on Josephine were liberal, seemed to hold himself
+personally aggrieved by her choice, and conducted himself altogether
+as if he had been injured somehow thereby, and his wishes disregarded.
+
+He was very disagreeable, and caused Joseph many bitter hours, till
+at last he took a sudden resolution, and to the relief of every one
+at the Hill went off to London, promising to be back in time for
+"that little fool's wedding with her sentimental muff," as he
+disrespectfully called his sister and Sebastian Dundas, but giving no
+reason why he went, and taking leave of no one--not even of Adelaide,
+nor yet of Leam.
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+THE SING-SONG OF MALY COE.[1]
+
+  In he city of Whampo'
+  Live Joss-pidgin-man[2] name Coe:
+  Mister Coe he missionaly,[3]
+  Catchee one cow-chilo,[4] Maly.
+
+  Father-man he leadee[5] book,
+  Maly talkee with the cook:
+  Good olo[6] father talkee Josh,[7]
+  But China-woman talkee bosh.
+
+  Bym'by Maly gettee so
+  She only Pidgin-English know,[8]
+  And father-man he solly[9] see
+  She thinkee leason[10] like Chinee.
+
+  One day some flin[11] flom[12] Boston come
+  And askee, "Mister Coe at home?"
+  He servant go to opee door,
+  But Maly lun[13] chop-chop[14] before.
+
+  An' stlanger[15] say when in he come,
+  "Is Mister Coe, my dear, at home?"
+  And Maly answer velly tlue,
+  "My thinkee this tim no can do."[16]
+
+  He olo father, still as mouse,
+  Chin-chin Joss topsidey house:[17]
+  Allo tim he make Joss-pidgin,[18]
+  What you Fan-kwai[19] callee 'ligion.
+
+  He gentleum much stare galow[20]
+  To hearee girley talkee so;
+  And say, "Dear child, may I inquire
+  Which form of faith you most admire?"
+
+  And Maly answer he request:
+  "My like Chinee Joss-pidgin best:
+  My love Kwan-wan[21] with chilo neat,
+  And Joss-stick[22] smellee velly sweet."
+
+  "Afong, our olo cook down stairs,
+  Make teachee Maly Chinee players:[23]
+  Say, if my chin-chin Fo[24]--oh joy!--
+  Nex time my born, my bornee boy!"[25]
+
+  "An' then my gettee nicey-new
+  A ittle dacket[26]--towsers too--And
+  And lun about with allo[27] boys,
+  In bu'ful boots that makee noise."
+
+  Tear come in he gentleum eyes,
+  And then he anger 'gin to lise:[28]
+  He wailo[29] scoldee Mister Coe
+  For 'glectin' little Maly so.
+
+  An' Mister Coe feel velly sore,
+  So go an' scoldy comprador;
+  An' comprador, with hollor[30] shook,
+  Lun[31] downy stairs and beatee cook.
+
+  And worsey allo-allo pain,
+  Maly go Boston homo 'gain:
+  No filee-clackers[32] any more,
+  Nor talk with cook and comprador.
+
+  MORAL PIDGIN.
+
+  If Boston girley be let go,
+  She sartin sure to b'lieve in Fo,
+  And the next piecee of her plan
+  Is to lun lound[33] and act like man.
+
+  So, little chilos,[34] mind you look,
+  And nevee talkee with the cook:
+  You make so-fashion, first you know
+  You catchee sclape,[35] like Maly Coe.
+
+CHARLES G. LELAND.
+
+[Footnote 1: "The Ballad of Mary Coe."]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Joss-pidgin-man_, clergyman.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Missionary.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Had a female child.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Leadee_ or _leedee_, read.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Olo_, old.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Talkee Josh_ (or Joss), converses on religion.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Pidgin-English_, the patois spoken in China,
+meaning business-English, _pigeon_ being the ordinary Chinese
+pronunciation of English.]
+
+[Footnote 9: _Solly_, sorry.]
+
+[Footnote 10: _Leason_, reason.]
+
+[Footnote 11: _Flin_, friend.]
+
+[Footnote 12: _Flom_, from.]
+
+[Footnote 13: _Lun_, run.]
+
+[Footnote 14: _Chop-chop_, fast.]
+
+[Footnote 15: _Stlanger_, stranger.]
+
+[Footnote 16: "I think it can't be done"--i.e., "You cannot see him."]
+
+[Footnote 17: _Chin-chin Joss top-sidey house_, he is praying up
+stairs.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Devotion.]
+
+[Footnote 19: _Fan-kwai_, foreigner; lit. "foreign devil."]
+
+
+[Footnote 20: _Galow, galaw_ or _gala_, a meaningless word, but much
+used.]
+
+[Footnote 21: _Kwan-wan_, a Chinese female divinity represented with a
+babe in her arms.]
+
+[Footnote 22: _Joss-stick_, a stick composed of fragrant gum, etc.,
+burnt as incense.]
+
+[Footnote 23: Prayers.]
+
+[Footnote 24: _Chin-chin Fo_, worship Buddha.]
+
+[Footnote 25: Chinese women believe that by frequent repetition of
+a prayer to Fo they can secure the privilege of being born again as
+males.]
+
+[Footnote 26: _Dacket_, jacket.]
+
+[Footnote 27: _Allo_, all.]
+
+[Footnote 28: _Lise_, rise.]
+
+[Footnote 29: _Wailo_, run, go.]
+
+[Footnote 30: Horror.]
+
+[Footnote 31: Run.]
+
+[Footnote 32: Fire-crackers.]
+
+[Footnote 33: Run round.]
+
+[Footnote 34: Children.]
+
+[Footnote 35: Scrape.]
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.
+
+BY LADY BARKER.
+
+
+MARITZBURG. November, 1875.
+
+The weather at the beginning of this month was lovely and the climate
+perfection, but now (I am writing on its last day) it is getting very
+hot and trying. If ever people might stand excused for talking about
+the weather when they meet, it is we Natalians, for, especially at
+this time of year, it varies from hour to hour. All along the coast
+one hears of terrible buffeting and knocking about among the shipping
+in the open roadsteads which have to do duty for harbors in these
+parts; and it was only a few days ago that the lifeboat, with the
+English mail on board, capsized in crossing the bar at D'Urban. The
+telegram was--as telegrams always are--terrifying in its vagueness,
+and spoke of the mail-bags as "floating about." When one remembers the
+vast size of the breakers on which this floating would take place, it
+sounded hopeless for our letters. They turned up, however, a few days
+later--in a pulpy state, it is true, but quite readable, though
+the envelopes were curiously blended and engrafted upon the letters
+inside--so much so that they required to be taken together, for it
+was impossible to separate them. I had recourse to the expedient
+of spreading my letters on a dry towel and draining them before
+attempting to dissever the leaves. Still, we were all only too
+thankful to get our correspondence in any shape or form, for precious
+beyond the power of words to express are home-letters to us, so far
+away from home.
+
+But to return to our weather. At first it was simply perfect. Bright
+hot days--not too hot, for a light breeze tempered even the midday
+heat--and crisp, bracing nights succeeded each other during the first
+fortnight. The country looked exquisitely green in its luxuriant
+spring tints over hill and dale, and the rich red clay soil made a
+splendid contrast on road and track with the brilliant green on either
+hand. Still, people looked anxiously for more rain, declaring that not
+half enough had fallen to fill tanks or "shuits" (as the ditches are
+called), and it took four days of continuous downpour to satisfy these
+thirsty souls even for the moment. Toward the middle of the month the
+atmosphere became more oppressive and clouds began to come up in thick
+masses all round the horizon, and gradually spread themselves over the
+whole sky. The day before the heaviest rain, though not particularly
+oppressive, was remarkable for the way in which all manner of animals
+tried to get under shelter at nightfall. The verandah was full of big
+frogs: if a door remained open for a moment they hopped in, and then
+cried like trapped birds when they found themselves in a corner. As
+for the winged creatures, it was something wonderful the numbers in
+which they flew in at the windows wherever a light attracted them.
+I was busy writing English letters that evening: I declare the
+cockroaches fairly drove me away from the table by the mad way in
+which they flung themselves into my ink-bottle, whilst the smell of
+singed moths at the other lamp was quite overpowering. Well, after
+this came rain indeed--not rain according to English ideas, but a
+tropical deluge, as many inches falling in a few hours as would fill
+your rain-gauges for months. I believe my conduct was very absurd that
+first rainy night. The little house had just been newly papered, and
+as the ceiling was not one to inspire confidence, consisting as it did
+merely of boards roughly joined together and painted white, through
+which and through the tiles beyond the sky could be seen quite
+plainly, I suffered the gravest doubts about the water getting in and
+spoiling my pretty new paper. Accordingly, whenever any burst of rain
+came heavier than its immediate predecessor, I jumped out of bed in a
+perfect agony of mind, and roamed, candle in hand, all over the
+house to see if I could not detect a leak anywhere. But the
+unpromising-looking roof and ceiling stood the test bravely, and not a
+drop of all that descending downpour found its way to my new walls.
+
+By the way, I must describe the house to you, remarking, first of all,
+that architecture, so far as my observation extends, is at its lowest
+ebb in South Africa. I have not seen a single pretty building of any
+sort or kind since I arrived, although in these small houses it would
+be so easy to break by gable and porch the severe simplicity of the
+unvarying straight line in which they are built. Whitewashed outer
+walls with a zinc roof are not uncommon, and they make a bald and
+hideous combination until kindly, luxuriant Nature has had time to
+step in and cover up man's ugly handiwork with her festoons of roses
+and passion-flowers. Most of the houses have, fortunately, red-tiled
+roofs, which are not so ugly, and mine is among the number. It is so
+squat and square, however, that, as our landlord happens to be
+the chief baker of Maritzburg, it has been proposed to christen it
+"Cottage Loaf," but this idea requires consideration on account of the
+baker's feelings. In the mean time, it is known briefly as "Smith's,"
+that being the landlord's name. It has, as all the houses here have, a
+broad projecting roof extending over a wide verandah. Within are four
+small rooms, two on either side of a narrow passage which runs from
+one end to the other. By a happy afterthought, a kitchen has been
+added beyond this extremely simple ground-plan, and on the
+opposite side a corresponding projection which closely resembles a
+packing-case, and which has been painted a bright blue inside and out.
+This is the dining-room, and evidently requires to be severely handled
+before its present crude and glaring tints can be at all toned down.
+At a little distance stands the stable, saddle-room, etc., and a good
+bedroom for English servants, and beyond that, again, among large
+clumps of rose-bushes, a native hut. It came up here half built--that
+is, the frame was partly put together elsewhere--and it resembled a
+huge crinoline more than anything else in its original state. Since
+that, however, it has been made more secure by extra pales of bamboo,
+each tied in its place with infinite trouble and patience by a knot
+every inch or two. The final stage consisted of careful thatching
+with thick bundles of grass laid on the framework, and secured by
+long ropes of grass binding the whole together. The door is the very
+smallest opening imaginable, and inside it is of course pitch dark.
+All this labor was performed by stalwart Kafir women, one of whom, a
+fearfully repulsive female, informed my cook that she had just been
+bought back by her original husband. Stress of circumstances had
+obliged him to sell her, and she had been bought by three other
+husband-masters since then, but was now resold, a bargain, to her
+first owner, whom, she declared, she preferred to any of the others.
+But few as are these rooms, they yet are watertight--which is a great
+point out here--and the house, being built of large, awkward blocks
+of stone, is cool and shady. When I have arranged things a little, it
+will be quite comfortable and pretty; and I defy any one to wish for a
+more exquisite view than can be seen from any corner of the verandah.
+We are on the brow of a hill which slopes gently down to the hollow
+wherein nestles the picturesque little town, or rather village, of
+Maritzburg. The intervening distance of a mile or so conceals the
+real ugliness and monotony of its straight streets, and hides all
+architectural shortcomings. The clock-tower, for instance, is quite a
+feature in the landscape, and from here one cannot perceive that the
+clock does not go. Nothing can be prettier than the effect of the
+red-tiled roofs and white walls peeping out from among thick clumps
+of trees, whilst beyond the ground rises again to low hills with deep
+purple fissures and clefts in their green sides. It is only a couple
+of years since this little house was built and the garden laid out,
+and yet the shrubs and trees are as big as if half a dozen years had
+passed over their leafy heads. As for the roses, I never saw anything
+like the way they flourish at their own sweet will. Scarcely a leaf is
+to be seen on the ugly straggling tree--nothing but masses of roses of
+every tint and kind and old-fashioned variety. The utmost I can do
+in the way of gathering daily basketsful appears only in the light of
+judicious pruning, and next day a dozen blossoms have burst forth to
+supply the place of each theft of mine. And there is such a variety
+of trees! Oaks and bamboos, blue gums and deodars, seem to flourish
+equally well within a yard or two of each other, and the more distant
+flower-beds are filled with an odd mixture of dahlias and daturas,
+white fleur-de-lis and bushy geraniums, scarlet euphorbias and
+verbenas. But the weeds! They are a chronic eyesore and grief to every
+gardener. On path and grass-plat, flower-bed and border, they flaunt
+and flourish. "Jack," the Zulu refugee, wages a feeble and totally
+inadequate warfare against them with a crooked hoe, but he is only a
+quarter in earnest, and stops to groan and take snuff so often that
+the result is that our garden is precisely in the condition of the
+garden of the sluggard, gate and all. This hingeless condition of the
+gate, however, is, I must in fairness state, neither Jack's nor our
+fault. It is a new gate, but no one will come out from the town to
+hang it. That is my standing grievance. Because we live about a mile
+from the town it is next to impossible to get anything done. The town
+itself is one of the shabbiest assemblages of dwellings I have
+ever seen in a colony. It is not to be named on the same day with
+Christchurch, the capital of Canterbury, New Zealand, which ten years
+ago was decently paved and well lighted by gas. Poor sleepy Maritzburg
+consists now, at more than forty years of age (Christchurch is not
+twenty-five yet), of a few straight, wide, grass-grown streets, which
+are only picturesque at a little distance on account of their having
+trees on each side. On particularly dark nights a dozen oil-lamps
+standing at long intervals apart are lighted, but when it is even
+moderately starlight these aids to finding one's way about are
+prudently dispensed with. There is not a single handsome and hardly a
+decent building in the whole place. The streets, as I saw them after
+rain, are veritable sloughs of despond, but they are capable of being
+changed by dry weather into deserts of dust. It is true, I have only
+been as yet twice down to the town, but on both visits it reminded me
+more of the sleepy villages in Washington Irving's stories than of a
+smart, modern, go-ahead colonial "city." There are some fairly good
+shops, but they make no show outside, and within the prices of most of
+the articles sold are nearly double the same things would bring either
+at Melbourne or at Christchurch. As D'Urban is barely a month away
+from London in point of communication, and New Zealand (when I knew
+it) nearly treble the distance and time, this is a great puzzle to me.
+
+A certain air of quaint interest and life is given to the otherwise
+desolate streets by the groups of Kafirs and the teams of wagons which
+bring fuel and forage into the town every day. Twenty bullocks drag
+these ponderous contrivances--bullocks so lean that one wonders how
+they have strength to carry their wide-spreading horns aloft; bullocks
+of a stupidity and obstinacy unparalleled in the natural history of
+horned beasts. At their head walks a Kafir lad called a "forelooper,"
+who tugs at a rope fastened to the horns of the leading oxen, and in
+moments of general confusion invariably seems to pull the wrong string
+and get the whole team into an inextricable tangle of horns and yokes.
+Sometimes of a quiet Sunday morning these teams and wagons I see
+"out-spanned" on the green slopes around Maritzburg, making a
+picturesque addition to the sylvan scenery. Near each wagon a light
+wreath of smoke steals up into the summer air, marking where some
+preparation of "mealies" is on foot, and the groups of grazing
+oxen--"spans," as each team is called--give the animation of animal
+life which I miss so sadly at every turn in this part of the world.
+
+In Maritzburg itself I only noticed two buildings which made the least
+effect. One is the government house, standing in a nice garden and
+boasting of a rather pretty porch, but otherwise reminding one--except
+for the sentinel on duty--of a quiet country rectory: the other is a
+small block comprising the public offices. The original idea of this
+square building must have come from a model dairy. But the crowning
+absurdity of the place is the office of the colonial secretary,
+which stands nearly opposite. I am told that inside it is tolerably
+comfortable, being the remains of an old Dutch building: outside, it
+can only be compared to a dilapidated barn on a bankrupt farm,
+and when it was first pointed out to me I had great difficulty,
+remembering similar buildings in other colonies, in believing it was a
+public office.
+
+The native police look very smart and shiny in their white suits, and
+must be objects of envy to their black brethren on account of their
+"knobkerries," the knobbed sticks which they alone are permitted to
+carry officially in their hands. The native loves a stick, and as he
+is forbidden to carry either an assegai--which is a very formidable
+weapon indeed--or even a knobkerry, only one degree less dangerous,
+he consoles himself with a wand or switch in case of coming across
+a snake. You never see a Kafir without something of the sort in his
+hand: if he is not twirling a light stick, then he has a sort of rude
+reed pipe from which he extracts sharp and tuneless sounds. As a race,
+the Kafirs make the effect of possessing a fine _physique_: they walk
+with an erect bearing and a light step, but in true leisurely savage
+fashion. I have seen the black race in four different quarters of the
+globe, and I never saw one single individual move quickly of his
+own free will. We must bear in mind, however, that it is a new and
+altogether revolutionary idea to a Kafir that he should do any work at
+all. Work is for women--war or idleness for men; consequently, their
+fixed idea is to do as little as they can; and no Kafir will work
+after he has earned money enough to buy a sufficient number of wives
+who will work for him. "Charlie," our groom--who is, by the way, a
+very fine gentleman and speaks "Ingeliss" after a strange fashion
+of his own--only condescends to work until he can purchase a wife.
+Unfortunately, the damsel whom he prefers is a costly article, and her
+parents demand a cow, a kettle and a native hut as the price of her
+hand--or hands, rather--so Charlie grunts and groans through about
+as much daily work as an English boy of twelve years old could manage
+easily. He is a very amusing character, being exceedingly proud,
+and will only obey his own master, whom he calls his great inkosi
+or chief. He is always lamenting the advent of the inkosi-casa, or
+chieftainess, and the piccaninnies and their following, especially the
+"vaiter," whom he detests. In his way, Charlie is a wag, and it is as
+good as a play to see his pretence of stupidity when the "vaiter"
+or French butler desires him to go and eat "sa paniche." Charlie
+understands perfectly that he is told to go and get his breakfast of
+mealy porridge, but he won't admit that it is to be called "paniche,"
+preferring his own word "scoff;" so he shakes his head violently and
+says, "Nay, nay, paniche." Then, with many nods, "Scoff, ja;" and
+so in this strange gibberish of three languages he and the Frenchman
+carry on quite a pretty quarrel. Charlie also "mocks himself" of the
+other servants, I am informed, and asserts that he is the "indema"
+or headman. He freely boxes the ears of Jack, the Zulu refugee--poor
+Jack, who fled from his own country, next door, the other day, and
+arrived here clad in only a short flap made of three bucks' tails.
+That is only a month ago, and "Jack" is already quite a _petit maitre_
+about his clothes. He ordinarily wears a suit of knickerbockers and
+a shirt of blue check bound with red, and a string of beads round his
+neck, but he cries like a baby if he tears his clothes, or still worse
+if the color of the red braid washes out. At first he hated civilized
+garments, even when they were only two in number, and begged to be
+allowed to assume a sack with holes for the arms, which is the Kafir
+compromise when near a town between clothes and flaps made of the
+tails of wild beasts or strips of hide. But he soon came to delight in
+them, and is now always begging for "something to wear."
+
+I confess I am sorry for Jack. He is the kitchen-boy, and is learning
+with much pains and difficulty the _wrong language_. My cook is
+also French, and, naturally, all that Jack learns is French, and
+not English. Imagine poor Jack's dismay when, after his three years'
+apprenticeship to us is ended, he seeks perhaps to better himself,
+and finds that no one except madame can understand him! Most of
+their dialogues are carried on by pantomime and the incessant use,
+in differing tones of voice, of the word "Ja." Jack is a big,
+loutish young man, but very ugly and feeble, and apparently under the
+impression that he is perpetually "wanted" to answer for the little
+indiscretion, whatever it was, on account of which he was forced to
+flee over the border. He is timid and scared to the last degree, and
+abjectly anxious to please if it does not entail too much exertion.
+He is, as it were, apprenticed to us for three years. We are bound to
+feed and clothe and doctor him, and he is to work for us, in his own
+lazy fashion, for small wages. The first time Jack broke a plate his
+terror and despair were quite edifying to behold. Madame called him
+a "maladroit" on the spot. Jack learned this word, and after his work
+was over seated himself gravely on the ground with the fragments of
+the plate, which he tried to join together, but gave up the attempt at
+last, announcing in his own tongue that it was "dead." After a little
+consideration he said slowly, several times, "Maldraw, ja," and hit
+himself a good thump at each "ja." _Now_, I grieve to say, Jack
+breaks plates, dishes and cups with a perfectly easy and unembarrassed
+conscience, and is already far too civilized to care in the least for
+his misfortunes in that line. Whenever a fowl is killed--and I came
+upon Jack slowly putting one to death the other day with a pair of
+nail-scissors--he possesses himself of a small store of feathers,
+which he wears tastefully placed over his left ear. A gay ribbon, worn
+like a bandeau across the forehead, is what he really loves. Jack
+is very proud of a tawdry ribbon of many colors with a golden ground
+which I found for him the other day, only he never can make up his
+mind where to wear it; and I often come upon him sitting in the shade
+with the ribbon in his hands, gravely considering the question.
+
+The Pickle and plague of the establishment, however, is the boy Tom,
+a grinning young savage fresh from his kraal, up to any amount
+of mischief, who in an evil hour has been engaged as the baby's
+body-servant. I cannot trust him with the child out of my sight for a
+moment, for he "snuffs" enormously, and smokes coarse tobacco out of
+a cow's horn, and is anxious to teach the baby both these
+accomplishments. Tom wears his snuff-box--which is a brass cylinder
+a couple of inches long--in either ear impartially, there being huge
+slits in the cartilage for the purpose, and the baby never rests till
+he gets possession of it and sneezes himself nearly into fits. Tom
+likes nursing Baby immensely, and croons to him in a strange buzzing
+way which lulls him to sleep invariably. He is very anxious, however,
+to acquire some words of English, and I was much startled the other
+day to hear in the verandah my own voice saying, "What is it, dear?"
+over and over again. This phrase proceeded from Tom, who kept on
+repeating it, parrot-fashion--an exact imitation, but with no idea of
+its meaning. I had heard the baby whimpering a little time before, and
+Tom had remarked that these four words produced the happiest effect in
+restoring good-humor; so he learned them, accent and all, on the spot,
+and used them as a spell or charm on the next opportunity. I think
+even the poor baby was puzzled. But one cannot feel sure of what
+Tom will do next. A few evenings ago I trusted him to wheel the
+perambulator about the garden-paths, but, becoming anxious in a very
+few minutes to know what he was about, I went to look for him. I found
+him grinning in high glee, watching the baby's efforts at cutting his
+teeth on a live young bird. Master Tom had spied a nest, climbed the
+tree, and brought down the poor little bird, which he presented to
+the child, who instantly put it into his mouth. When I arrived on the
+scene Baby's mouth was full of feathers, over which he was making a
+very disgusted face, and the unhappy bird was nearly dead of fright
+and squeezing, whilst Tom was in such convulsions of laughter that
+I nearly boxed his ears. He showed me by signs how Baby insisted on
+sucking the bird's head, and conveyed his intense amusement at the
+idea. I made Master Tom climb the tree instantly and put the poor
+little half-dead creature back into its nest, and sent for Charlie to
+explain to him he should have no sugar--the only punishment Tom cares
+about--for two days. I often think, however, that I must try and
+find another penalty, for when Tom's allowance of sugar is stopped he
+"requisitions" that of every one else, and so gets rather more
+than usual. He is immensely proud of the brass chin-strap of an old
+artillery bushy which has been given to him. He used to wear it across
+his forehead in the favorite Kafir fashion, but as the baby always
+made it his first business to pull this shining strap down over Tom's
+eyes, and eventually over Tom's mouth, it has been transferred to his
+neck.
+
+These Kafir-lads make excellent nurse-boys generally, and English
+children are very fond of them. Nurse-girls are rare, as the Kafir
+women begin their lives of toil so early that they are never very
+handy or gentle in a house, and boys are easier to train as servants.
+I heard to-day, however, of an excellent Kafir nurse-maid who was
+the daughter of a chief, and whose only drawback was the size of
+her family. She was actually and truly one of _eighty_ brothers and
+sisters, her father being a rich man with twenty-five wives. That
+simply means that he had twenty-five devoted slaves, who worked
+morning, noon and night for him in field and mealy-patch without
+wages. Jack the Zulu wanted to be nurse-boy dreadfully, and used to
+follow Nurse about with a towel rolled up into a bundle, and another
+towel arranged as drapery, dandling an imaginary baby on his arm,
+saying plaintively, "Piccaninny, piccaninny!" This Nurse translated
+to mean that he was an experienced nurse-boy, and had taken care of a
+baby in his own country, but as I had no confidence in maladroit Jack,
+who chanced to be very deaf besides, he was ruthlessly relegated to
+his pots and pans.
+
+It is very curious to see the cast-off clothes of all the armies of
+Europe finding their way hither. The natives of South Africa prefer an
+old uniform coat or tunic to any other covering, and the effect of a
+short scarlet garment when worn with bare legs is irresistibly droll.
+The apparently inexhaustible supply of old-fashioned English coatees
+with their worsted epaulettes is just coming to an end, and being
+succeeded by ragged red tunics, franc-tireurs' brownish-green jackets
+and much-worn Prussian gray coats. Kafir-Land may be looked upon as
+the old-clothes shop of all the fighting world, for sooner or later
+every cast-off scrap of soldier's clothing drifts toward it. Charlie
+prides himself much upon the possession of an old gray great-coat, so
+patched and faded that it may well have been one of those which toiled
+up the slopes of Inkerman that rainy Sunday morning twenty years ago;
+whilst scampish Tom got well chaffed the other day for suddenly making
+his appearance clad in a stained red tunic with buff collar and cuffs,
+and the number of the old "dirty Half-hundred" in tarnished metal on
+the shoulder-scales. "Sir Garnet," cried Charlie the witty,
+whilst Jack affected to prostrate himself before the grinning imp,
+exclaiming, "O great inkosi!"
+
+Charlie is angry with me just now, and looks most reproachfully my way
+on all occasions. The cause is that he was sweeping away sundry huge
+spiders' webs from the roof of the verandah (the work of a single
+night) when I heard him coughing frightfully. I gave him some
+lozenges, saying, "Do your cough good, Charlie." Charlie received them
+in both hands held like a cup, the highest form of Kafir gratitude,
+and gulped them all down on the spot. Next day I heard the same
+dreadful cough, and told F---- to give him some more lozenges. But
+Charlie would have none of them, alleging he "eats plenty to-morrow's
+yesterday, and dey no good at all;" and he evidently despises me and
+my remedies.
+
+If only there were no hot winds! But the constant changes are so
+trying and so sudden. Sometimes we have a hot, scorching gale all day,
+drying and parching one's very skin up, and shriveling one's lovely
+roses like the blast from a furnace: then in the afternoon a dark
+cloud sails suddenly up from behind the hills to the west. It is over
+the house before one knows it is coming: a loud clap of thunder shakes
+the very ground beneath one's feet, others follow rapidly, and a
+thunderstorm bewilders one for some ten minutes or so. A few drops of
+cold rain fall to the sound of the distant thunder, now rolling away
+eastward, which yet "struggles and howls at fits." It is not always
+distant, but we have not yet seen a real thunderstorm; only a few of
+these short, sudden electrical disturbances, which come and go
+more like explosions than anything else. A few days ago there was a
+duststorm which had a very curious effect as we looked down upon it
+from this hill. All along the roads one could watch the dust being
+caught up, as it were, and whirled along in dense clouds, whilst the
+poor little town itself was absolutely blotted out by the blinding
+masses of fine powder. For half an hour or so we could afford to
+watch and smile at our neighbors' plight, but soon we had to flee
+for shelter ourselves within the house, for a furious hot gale drove
+heavily up behind the dust and nearly blew us away altogether. Still,
+there was no thunderstorm, though we quite wished for one to cool
+the air and refresh the parched and burnt-up grass and flowers. Such
+afternoons are generally pretty sure to be succeeded by a cold night,
+and perhaps a cold, damp morning; and one can already understand
+that these alternations during the summer months are apt to produce
+dysentery among young children. I hear just now of a good many such
+cases among babies.
+
+I have been so exceedingly busy this month packing, arranging and
+settling that there has been but little time for going about and
+seeing the rather pretty environs of Maritzburg; besides which, the
+weather is dead against excursions, changing as it does to rain or
+threatening thunderstorms nearly every afternoon. One evening we
+ventured out for a walk in spite of growlings and spittings up above
+among the crass-looking clouds. Natal is not a nice country, for women
+at all events, to walk in. You have to keep religiously to the road
+or track, for woe betide the rash person who ventures on the grass,
+though from repeated burnings all about these hills it is quite short.
+There is a risk of your treading on a snake, and a certainty of your
+treading on a frog. You will soon find your legs covered with small
+and pertinacious ticks, who have apparently taken a "header" into your
+flesh and made up their minds to die sooner than let go. They must
+be the bull-dogs of the insect tribe, these ticks, for a sharp needle
+will scarcely dislodge them. At the last extremity of extraction
+they only burrow their heads deeper into the skin, and will lose this
+important part of their tiny bodies sooner than yield to the gentlest
+leverage. Then there are myriads of burs which cling to you in green
+and brown scales of roughness, and fringe your petticoats with their
+sticky little lumps. As for the poor petticoats themselves, however
+short you may kilt them, you bring them back from a walk deeply
+flounced with the red clay of the roads; and as the people who wash do
+not seem to consider this a disadvantage, and take but little pains to
+remove the earth-stains, one's garments gradually acquire, even when
+clean, a uniform bordering of dingy red. All the water at this time
+of year is red too, as the rivers are stirred up by the heavy summer
+rains, and resemble angry muddy ditches more than fresh-water streams.
+I miss at every turn the abundance of clear, clean, sparkling water
+in the creeks and rivers of my dear New Zealand, and it is only after
+heavy rain, when every bath and large vessel has been turned into a
+receptacle during the downpour, that one can compass the luxury of
+an inviting-looking bath or glass of drinking-water. Of course this
+turbid water renders it pretty difficult to get one's clothes properly
+washed, and the substitute for a mangle is an active Kafir, who makes
+the roughly-dried clothes up into a neat parcel, places them on a
+stone and dances up and down upon them for as long or short a time as
+he pleases. Fuel is so enormously dear that the cost of having clothes
+ironed is something astounding, and altogether washing is one of
+the many costly items of Natalian housekeeping. When I remember the
+frantic state of indignation and alarm we were all in in England three
+years ago when coals rose to L2 10s. a ton, and think how cheap I
+should consider that price for fuel here, I can't help a melancholy
+smile. Nine solid sovereigns purchase you a tolerable-sized load of
+wood, about equal for cooking purposes to a ton of coal; but whereas
+the coal is at all events some comfort and convenience to use, the
+wood is only a source of additional trouble and expense. It has to be
+cut up and dried, and finally coaxed and cajoled by incessant use of
+the bellows into burning. Besides the price of fuel, provisions of all
+sorts seem to me to be dear and bad. Milk is sold by the quart bottle:
+it is now fourpence per bottle, but rises to sixpence during the
+winter. Meat is eightpence a pound, but it is so thin and bony, and
+of such indifferent quality, that there is very little saving in that
+respect. I have not tasted any really good butter since we arrived,
+and we pay two shillings a pound for cheesy, rancid stuff. I hear that
+"mealies," the crushed maize, are also very dear, and so is forage for
+the horses. Instead of the horses being left out on the run night and
+day, summer and winter, as they used to be in New Zealand, with an
+occasional feed of oats for a treat, they need to be carefully housed
+at night and well fed with oaten straw and mealies to give them a
+chance against the mysterious and fatal "horse-sickness," which
+kills them in a few hours. Altogether, so far as my very limited
+experience--of only a few weeks, remember--goes, I should say that
+Natal was an expensive place to live in, owing to the scarcity and
+dearness of the necessaries of life. I am told that far up in the
+country food and fuel are cheap and good, and that it is the dearness
+and difficulty of transport which forces Maritzburg to depend for
+its supplies entirely on what is grown in its own immediate vicinity,
+where there is not very much land under cultivation; so we must look
+to the coming railway to remedy all that.
+
+If only one could eat flowers, or if wheat and other cereals grew as
+freely and luxuriously as flowers grow, how nice it would be! On the
+open grassy downs about here the blossoms are lovely--beautiful lilies
+in scarlet and white clusters, several sorts of periwinkles, heaths,
+cinnerarias, both purple and white, and golden bushes of citisus or
+Cape broom, load the air with fragrance. By the side of every "spruit"
+or brook one sees clumps of tall arum lilies filling every little
+water-washed hollow in the brook, and the ferns which make each ditch
+and water-course green and plumy have a separate shady beauty of their
+own. This is all in Nature's own free, open garden, and when the least
+cultivation or care is added to her bounteous luxuriance a magnificent
+garden for fruit, vegetables and flowers is the result; always
+supposing you are fortunate enough to be able to induce these lazy
+Kafirs to dig the ground for you.
+
+About a fortnight ago I braved the dirt and disagreeables of a
+cross-country walk in showery weather--for we have not been able to
+meet with a horse to suit us yet--and went to see a beautiful garden
+a couple of miles away. It was approached by a long double avenue of
+blue gum trees, planted only nine years ago, but tall and stately as
+though a century had passed over their lofty, pointed heads, and with
+a broad red clay road running between the parallel lines of trees. The
+ordinary practice of clearing away the grass as much as possible round
+a house strikes an English eye as bare and odd, but when one hears
+that it is done to avoid snakes, it becomes a necessary and harmonious
+adjunct to the rest of the scene. In this instance I found these
+broad smooth walks, with their deep rich red color, a very
+beautiful contrast to the glow of brilliant blossoms in the enormous
+flower-beds. For this garden was not at all like an ordinary garden,
+still less like a prim English parterre. The beds were as large as
+small fields, slightly raised and bordered by a thick line of violets.
+Large shrubs of beautiful semitropical plants made tangled heaps of
+purple, scarlet and white blossoms on every side; the large creamy
+bells of the datura drooped toward the reddish earth; thorny shrubs of
+that odd bluish-green peculiar to Australian foliage grew side by side
+with the sombre-leaved myrtle. Every plant grew in the most liberal
+fashion; green things which we are accustomed to see in England in
+small pots shoot up here to the height of laurel bushes; a screen of
+scarlet euphorbia made a brilliant line against a background formed by
+a hedge of shell-like cluster-roses, and each pillar of the verandah
+of the little house had its own magnificent creeper. Up one standard
+an ipomea twined closely; another pillar was hidden by the luxuriance
+of a trumpet-honeysuckle; whilst a third was thickly covered by an
+immense passion-flower. In shady, damp places grew many varieties
+of ferns and blue hydrangeas, whilst other beds were filled by gay
+patches of verbenas of every hue and shade. The sweet-scented verbena
+is one of the commonest and most successful shrubs in a Natal garden,
+and just now the large bushes of it which one sees in every direction
+are covered by tapering spikes of its tiny white blossoms. But the
+feature of this garden was roses--roses on each side whichever way you
+turned, and I should think of at least a hundred different sorts.
+Not the stiff standard rose tree of an English garden, with its few
+precious blossoms, to be looked at from a distance and admired with
+respectful gravity. No: in this garden the roses grow as they might
+have grown in Eden--untrained, unpruned, in enormous bushes covered
+entirely by magnificent blossoms, each bloom of which would have won
+a prize at a rose-show. There was one cloth-of-gold rose bush that
+I shall never forget--its size, its fragrance, its wealth of
+creamy-yellowish blossoms. A few yards off stood a still bigger and
+more luxuriant pyramid, some ten feet high, covered with the large,
+delicate and regular pink bloom of the souvenir de Malmaison. When I
+talk of _a_ bush I only mean one especial bush which caught my eye. I
+suppose there were fifty cloth-of-gold and fifty souvenir rose bushes
+in that garden. Red roses, white roses, tea roses, blush-roses, moss
+roses, and, last not least, the dear old-fashioned, homely cabbage
+rose, sweetest and most sturdy of all. You could wander for acres and
+acres among fruit trees and plantations of oaks and willows and
+other trees, but you never got away from the roses. There they were,
+beautiful, delicious things at every turn--hedges of them, screens of
+them and giant bushes of them on either hand. As I have said before,
+though kept free from weeds by some half dozen scantily-clad but
+stalwart Kafirs with their awkward hoes, it was not a bit like a trim
+English garden. It was like a garden in which Lalla Rookh might have
+wandered by moonlight talking sentimental philosophy with her minstrel
+prince under old Fadladeen's chaperonage, or a garden that Boccaccio
+might have peopled with his Arcadian fine ladies and gentlemen. It was
+emphatically a poet's or a painter's garden, not a gardener's garden.
+Then, as though nothing should be wanting to make the scene lovely,
+one could hear through the fragrant silence the tinkling of the little
+"spruit" or brook at the bottom of the garden, and the sweet song of
+the Cape canary, the same sort of greenish finch which is the parent
+stock of all our canaries, and whose acquaintance I first made in
+Madeira. A very sweet warbler it is, and the clear, flute-like notes
+sounded prettily among the roses. From blossom to blossom lovely
+butterflies flitted, perching quite fearlessly on the red clay walk
+just before me, folding and unfolding their big painted wings. Every
+day I see a new kind of butterfly, and the moths which one comes upon
+hidden away under the leaves of the creepers during the bright noisy
+day are lovely beyond the power of words. One little fellow is a great
+pet of mine. He wears pure white wings, with vermilion stripes drawn
+in regular horizontal lines across his back, and between the lines are
+shorter, broken streaks of black, which is at once neat and uncommon;
+but he is always in the last stage of sleepiness when I see him.
+
+I am so glad little G---- is not old enough to want to catch them all
+and impale them upon corks in a glass case; so the pretty creatures
+live out their brief and happy life in the sunshine, without let or
+hinderance from him.
+
+The subject of which my mind is most full just now is the purchase of
+a horse. F---- has a fairly good chestnut cob of his own; G----
+has become possessed, to his intense delight, of an aged and
+long-suffering Basuto pony, whom he fidgets to death during the day
+by driving him all over the place, declaring he is "only showing
+him where the nicest grass grows;" and I want a steed to draw my
+pony-carriage and to carry me. F---- and I are at dagger's drawn on
+this question. He wants to buy me a young, handsome, showy horse of
+whom his admirers predict that "he will steady down presently," whilst
+my affections are firmly fixed on an aged screw who would not turn
+his head if an Armstrong gun were fired behind him. His owner says
+Scotsman is "rising eleven:" F---- declares Scotsman will never see
+his twentieth birthday again. F---- points out to me that Scotsman has
+had rough times of it, apparently, in his distant youth, and that he
+is strangely battered about the head, and has a large notch out of one
+ear. I retaliate by reminding him how sagely the old horse picked his
+way, with a precision of judgment which only years can give, through
+the morass which lies at the foot of the hill, and which must be
+crossed every time I go into town (and there is nowhere else to go).
+That morass is a bog in summer and a honey-comb of deep ruts and
+holes in winter, which, you must bear in mind, is the dry season here.
+Besides his tact in the matter of the morass, did I not drive Scotsman
+the other day to the park, and did he not comport himself in the
+most delightfully sedate fashion? You require experience to be on the
+lookout for the perils of Maritzburg streets, it seems, for all
+their sleepy, deserted, tumble-down air. First of all, there are the
+transport-wagons, with their long span of oxen straggling all across
+the road, and a nervous bullock precipitating himself under your
+horse's nose. The driver, too, invariably takes the opportunity of a
+lady passing him to crack his whip violently, enough to startle any
+horse except Scotsman. Then when you have passed the place where the
+wagons most do congregate, and think you are tolerably safe and
+need only look out for ruts and holes in the street, lo! a furious
+galloping behind you, and some half dozen of the "gilded youth" of
+Maritzburg dash past you, stop, wheel round and gallop past again,
+until you are almost blinded with dust or smothered with mud,
+according to the season. This peril occurred several times during
+my drive to and from the park, and I can only remark that dear old
+Scotsman kept his temper better than I did: perhaps he was more
+accustomed to Maritzburg manners.
+
+When the park was reached at last, across a frail and uncertain wooden
+bridge shaded by large weeping willows, I found it the most
+creditable thing I had yet seen. It is admirably laid out, the natural
+undulations of the ground being made the most of, and exceedingly well
+kept. This in itself is a difficult matter where all vegetation runs
+up like Jack's famous beanstalk, and where the old proverb about the
+steed starving whilst his grass is growing falls completely to the
+ground. There are numerous drives, made level by a coating of smooth
+black shale, and bordered by a double line of syringas and oaks,
+with hedges of myrtle or pomegranate. In some places the roads run
+alongside the little river--a very muddy torrent when I saw it--and
+then the oaks give way to great drooping willows, beneath whose
+trailing branches the river swirled angrily. On fine Saturday
+afternoons the band of the regiment stationed here plays on a clear
+space under some shady trees--for you can never sit or stand on the
+grass in Natal, and even croquet is played on bare leveled earth--and
+everybody rides or walks or drives about. When I saw the park there
+was not a living creature in it, for it was, as most of our summer
+afternoons are, wet and cold and drizzling; but, considering that
+there was no thunderstorm likely to break over our heads that day, I
+felt that I could afford to despise a silent Scotch mist. We varied
+our afternoon weather last week by a hailstorm, of which the stones
+were as big as large marbles. I was scoffed at for remarking this, and
+assured it was "nothing, absolutely nothing," to _the_ great hailstorm
+of two years ago, which broke nearly every tile and pane of glass in
+Maritzburg, and left the town looking precisely as though it had been
+bombarded. I have seen photographs of some of the ruined houses, and
+it is certainly difficult to believe that hail could have done so much
+mischief. Then, again, stories reach me of a certain thunderstorm one
+Sunday evening just before I arrived in which the lightning struck a
+room in which a family was assembled at evening prayers, killing the
+poor old father with the Bible in his hand, and knocking over every
+member of the little congregation. My informant said, "I assure you
+it seemed as though the lightning were poured out of heaven in a jug.
+There were no distinct flashes: the heavens appeared to split open and
+pour down a flood of blazing violet light." I have seen nothing like
+this yet, but can quite realize what such a storm must be like, for I
+have observed already how different the color of the lightning is. The
+flashes I have seen were exactly of the lilac color he described, and
+they followed each other with a rapidity of succession unknown in
+less electric regions. And yet my last English letters were full of
+complaints of the wet weather in London, and much self-pity for the
+long imprisonment in-doors. Why, those very people don't know what
+weather inconveniences are. If London streets are muddy, at all events
+there are no dangerous morasses in them. No matter how much it rains,
+people get their comfortable meals three times a day. _Here_, rain
+means a risk of starvation (if the little wooden bridge between us and
+the town were to be swept away) and a certainty of short commons.
+A wet morning means damp bread for breakfast and a thousand other
+disagreeables. No, I have no patience with the pampered Londoners,
+who want perpetual sunshine in addition to their other blessings, for
+saying one word about discomfort. They are all much too civilized and
+luxurious, and their lives are made altogether too smooth for them.
+Let them come out here and try to keep house on the top of a hill
+with servants whose language they don't understand, a couple of
+noisy children and a small income, and then, as dear Mark Twain says,
+"they'll know something about woe."
+
+
+
+
+DINNER IN A STATE PRISON.
+
+
+An invitation to take dinner with a friend in the State's prison
+was something new and exciting to a quiet little body like me, and I
+re-read Ruth Denham's kindly-worded note to that effect, and thought
+how odd it was that we should meet again in this way after ten years'
+separation and all the changes that had intervened in both our lives.
+We had parted last on the night of our grand closing-school party,
+after having been friends and fellow-pupils for five years. She was
+then fifteen, and the prettiest, brightest and cleverest girl at
+Lynnhope. I was younger, and felt distinguished by her friendship, and
+heart-broken at the idea of losing her, for she was going abroad with
+her family, while I remained to complete my studies at the institute.
+
+I had plenty of letters the first year, but then her father died, and
+with him went his reputed fortune. A painful change occurred in the
+position of the Welfords in consequence, and Ruth became a teacher, as
+I heard, until she met and married a young man from the West, whither
+she returned with him immediately after the ceremony. She had written
+to me once after becoming Ruth Denham, and her letter was kind and
+cordial as her old self, but the correspondence thus renewed soon
+ceased. I was also an orphan, but a close attendant at the couch of
+my invalid aunt; and Ruth's new strange life was too crowded with
+pressing duties to permit her to write regularly to her girlhood's
+companion, whom she had not seen for years. My aunt had now recovered
+so far as to indulge a taste for travel. We were on our way by the
+great railroad to the Pacific coast, and we stopped at the small
+capital of one of the newest States to discover that Ruth Denham was
+a resident there, the wife of the lieutenant-governor, who was
+consequently the warden of the State prison. The note I held in my
+hand was in answer to one I had despatched to her an hour before
+by the hands of a Chinaman from the hotel, and it was as glad and
+affectionate as I could wish:
+
+    "My husband is quite ill with sciatica, which completely
+    lames him, as well as causing him intense pain. I am his only
+    attendant, or I would fly to you at once, my dearest Jenny. I
+    am so sorry you leave by the midnight train for San Francisco
+    to-morrow, but must be content to see you as much of the
+    day as you can spare us, and hope for a longer visit on your
+    return. We dine at four: may I not send the carriage for you
+    as early as two o'clock?
+
+    "Your loving friend,
+
+    "RUTH DENHAM."
+
+I had my aunt's permission to leave her, and was ready at the
+appointed hour to find the carriage there to the minute; and a very
+comfortable, easy conveyance it proved over one of the worst roads I
+ever traveled on.
+
+The prison was about a mile from the outskirts of the straggling town,
+which boasted two or three fine State buildings, in strong contrast
+with its scattering and mostly mean and shambling dwellings. Some
+hot springs had been discovered near the site, and over them had been
+erected a wooden hotel and baths of the simplest order of architecture
+and on the barest possible plan of ornament or comfort. Just beyond
+this edifice was the prison, situated at the rise of one hill and
+under the shadow of another and more considerable one. It was built of
+a softish, light-colored stone dug from a neighboring quarry, as the
+driver told me, and looking even at a cursory glance too destructible
+and crumbling to secure such desperate and determined inmates.
+
+"They used to keep 'em in a sort o' wooden shed," said my driver,
+alluding to the prisoners, "until they got this shebang fixed up.
+Pretty smart lot of chaps they were, for they built it themselves
+mostly, and made good time on it, too."
+
+It was surrounded by a high wooden fence, within which a stone wall of
+the same material as the building was in course of construction.
+
+"If it wasn't Sunday," said my companion as we drove through the
+guarded gate, "you could see 'em at work, for they're putting up their
+defences, and doing it first-rate, too."
+
+I had only time for a glance at the inside of the enclosure. We were
+already at the principal entrance, which was a wide door opening into
+a hall, with a staircase leading up to the second floor. On the right
+hand was a strongly-grated iron door opening into the main corridor
+between the cells: the other side seemed to be devoted to offices and
+quarters for the guards. I saw knots of men about, but only the two
+at the entrance appeared to be armed, and they had that lounging, easy
+air, that belongs to security and the absence of thought. It was in
+every respect opposite to my preconceived idea of a penitentiary, and
+all recollection of its first design fled when I saw Ruth's cheery
+face, bright and handsome as ever, beaming on me from the first
+landing, and felt her warm, firm arms clasping me in an embrace of
+affectionate welcome. It was my friend's home, and nothing else, from
+that moment, and a very pretty, daintily-ordered home it was. She had
+five rooms on the second floor, with a kitchen below: this was her
+parlor in front, a bright, well-furnished room, tastefully ornamented
+with pictures, some of which I recognized as her own paintings in our
+school-days; and here was her dining-room to the left, with a small
+guest-chamber that she hoped I would occupy when I returned. The other
+rooms on the west of the parlor were hers and Nellie's--Oh, I had not
+seen Nellie, her five-year-old, nor her dear husband, who was so much
+better to-day, though he could not rise without difficulty; and would
+I therefore come and see him?
+
+As Ruth gave me thus a passing glance at her household arrangements,
+I saw through the open door of an apartment back of the dining-room a
+light shower of plaster fall to the ground, marking the oilcloth that
+covered the floor, and for one instant sending out into the hall a
+puff of whitish dust.
+
+"Oh, that is one of the effects of our terribly dry climate," said
+Ruth, following my glance and noticing the dust: "every little while
+portions of our walls crumble and fall in like that. There is no
+doubt a sad litter in Mr. Foster the clerk's room, where that shower
+occurred: he has gone to the city for the day, however, and it can be
+cleared before his return. Here is my husband, Jenny."
+
+In a recess by the parlor window, on a lounge, Mr. Denham was trying
+to disguise the necessity for keeping his tortured limb extended by an
+appearance of smiling ease. He was a handsome, frank-faced man, with
+a firm, fearless eye and a gentle, kindly mouth, and I could readily
+understand my friend's look of sweet content when I saw him and her
+child Nellie, who was hanging over her papa with the fond protecting
+air of a precocious nurse. I sat down quickly beside them to prevent
+my host's attempting to rise, and the hour that elapsed before dinner
+flew by in interesting conversation.
+
+"I am so sorry I had to go for a little while," said Ruth, returning
+to announce that meal, "but my good Wang-Ho is sick to-day, and I had
+to help him a little."
+
+"Where is Lester, Ruth?" asked her husband.
+
+"Oh, he is kind and helpful as ever, but he does not understand making
+dessert, you know, Edward."
+
+"That's true, and Miss Jane will excuse you, I am sure, for she and
+I have been reviewing the principal features of pioneer-life, and she
+professes herself rather in love with it than otherwise."
+
+"It is all so fresh and enjoyable, despite its discomforts and
+inconveniences," I said; "and need I quote a stronger argument in its
+favor than yourself, my dear Ruth? You seem perfectly happy, and I
+really cannot see why you should not be so."
+
+She had her golden-haired little girl in one arm, and she laid the
+other hand caressingly on her husband's shoulder, "There is none:
+I _am_ happy," she said in a low, earnest tone; and then added
+laughingly, "or I shall be as soon as Edward gets well of sciatica and
+Wang-Ho recovers from his chills."
+
+Mr. Denham begged us to go before him, and his wife led the way to the
+dining-room.
+
+"Poor fellow!" she whispered, "he suffers horribly when he moves, and
+I tried to persuade him to have his dinner sent into the parlor, but
+in honor of your presence he will come, and he doesn't want us to see
+him wince and writhe under the effort."
+
+Just as we entered the dining-room a young man came in by another
+door, carrying a tray with dishes. I had seen plenty of Chinamen,
+but this was not one, nor could I reconcile his appearance with the
+position of a servant. He was tall, well-made, and his face, though
+unnaturally pale, was decidedly good-looking. He wore a pair of coarse
+gray pantaloons with a remarkable stripe down one leg, but had on a
+beautifully clean and fine, white shirt fastened at the throat with a
+diamond button. The weather was warm, and he was without coat or vest,
+and had a sash of red knitted silk, such as Mexicans wear, round his
+middle.
+
+Ruth took the dishes from him and placed them on the table. "Please
+tell Wang-Ho about the coffee, Lester," she said as he retired.
+
+"Is that man a servant, Ruth?" I asked in an astonished whisper.
+
+"No," she replied in the same low tone: "he is a murderer condemned
+for life."
+
+Mr. Denham hobbled in and slid down upon a seat. I appreciated his
+gallant attention, but it was painful to see the effort it cost:
+besides, much as I had seen, and familiar as I was becoming with
+pioneer life, to be waited on at dinner by a young and handsome
+murderer condemned to prison for life was a sensation new and
+startling, and I was full of curiosity as to the nature of his crime
+and the peculiar administration of the Western penal code that made
+house-servants of convicts. Seeing my perturbation, Ruth evidently
+intended to relieve it by the explanatory remark of "He is a 'trusty,'
+Jenny dear," but really threw no light whatever on the subject.
+
+It was a very nice dinner, served tastefully and with a home comfort
+about everything connected with the table that seemed most unlike
+a prison. Mr. Denham's intelligence and cheerfulness added to the
+delusion that I was enjoying the hospitalities of a cultivated Eastern
+home. He and his wife had kept themselves thoroughly familiar with all
+topics of general interest through the medium of periodicals, and had
+much to ask about the actual progress of improvements they had read of
+and the changes occurring among dear and familiar Eastern scenes.
+
+Lester came in again with the empty tray, and quietly gathered the
+plates from the table preparatory to placing dessert. I wanted to look
+at him--indeed, a fascination I could not resist drew my eyes to his
+face like a magnet--yet, somehow, I dared not keep them there: the
+consciousness of meeting his glance, and feeling that I should then be
+ashamed of my curiosity, made them drop uneasily every time he turned;
+and once when I found his gaze rest on me an instant, I felt myself
+color violently under the quiet look of his steel-gray eyes.
+
+One thing was very observable in the little group: the child Nellie
+was intensely fond of the man, and he himself seemed to entertain and
+constantly endeavor to express an exalted admiration for Mr. Denham.
+While the latter was speaking Lester's animated looks followed every
+word and gesture: he anticipated his unexpressed wishes, and watched
+to save him the trouble of moving or asking for anything.
+
+"No, no, Nellie, stay and finish your dinner: Lester is not quite
+ready for you yet." Her mother said this in reference to the child's
+eagerness to follow the trusty attendant from the room, and her
+neglect of her meal in consequence. "Nellie is in the habit of
+carrying up the sugar and cream for the coffee, and she thinks Lester
+cannot possibly get on if she does not assist," said Ruth in smiling
+explanation as Nellie hastened after him.
+
+The next instant there was the mingled sound of a heavy fall or
+succession of falls outside, and one quick, stifled scream from the
+child.
+
+"The dumb-waiter, quick! It has broken from its weights and scalded
+Nell with the hot coffee," cried Ruth, making a spring toward the door
+by which Lester had gone out.
+
+Her husband, forgetting his lameness, was instantly at her side, but
+some force held the door against them both, and abandoning it after
+the first effort, the father turned hurriedly to the one leading
+into the hall. I sat nearest that, and in the excitement I had moved
+quickly aside, so that when it was flung violently open the moment
+before my host the governor of the prison reached it, I was thrust
+back against the wall, from which place, half dead with fright, I saw
+the hall crowded with convicts, the foremost of whom held a pistol
+directly toward Mr. Denham's head.
+
+It snapped with a sharp report, and when the smoke cleared I found
+Mr. Denham had dodged the fire and was closed in a scuffle with the
+villain for the weapon. A dozen more seemed to spring on him from the
+threshold; I heard his wife's cry of agony; and then the door at the
+other side burst in, and Lester, with his gray eyes gleaming like a
+flame, bounded over the body of a bloody convict that fell from his
+grasp as he broke into the room. Quick as thought he caught up one
+of the heavy chairs in his hands, and bringing it down with desperate
+force on the heads of the governor's assailants, felled one, while the
+other staggered back and dropped his pistol. Mr. Denham caught it
+like a flash, and fired it in the face of a wretch who was aiming
+at Lester's heart. The convicts fell back, and over their bodies the
+governor and his aid sprang into the crowded hall.
+
+"The child! the child! O God! my little daughter!" It was Ruth's voice
+in tones of such anguish and terror as I never before heard uttered by
+human voice.
+
+She was looking from the window into the yard below, and there she
+beheld Nellie lifted up as a shield against the guns of the guards by
+a party of the escaping convicts. The little creature was deadly white
+and perfectly silent: her great blue eyes were wide and frozen with
+fright, and her little hands were clasped in entreating agony and
+stretched toward her mother.
+
+"Stand behind me and shoot them down, governor," cried Lester, dealing
+steady blows with the now broken chair, and trying to make his own
+body a shield for Mr. Denham. The governor continued to fire on the
+convicts, who were pouring in a steady stream down the stairs from
+out of the room where I had seen the shower of dust, and through the
+ceiling of which, as it was afterward, proved, they had cut a hole,
+and so escaped from the upper corridor of the prison.
+
+I tried to hold Ruth in my arms, for in her frenzy to reach her child
+she had flung up the window and endeavored to drop from it at the risk
+of her life. "They will not dare to hurt her: God will protect her
+innocent life," was all I could say, when a random ball from below
+struck the window-frame, and, glancing off, stunned without wounding
+the wretched mother. She fell, jarred by the shock, and I drew her as
+well as I could behind the door, on the other side of which lay the
+two bleeding prisoners who had tried to take her husband's life.
+
+Groans, shouts, curses, yells and pistol-shots sounded in the hall and
+on the stairs; only the back of the chair remained in Lester's grasp,
+but heaps of men felled by its weight and crushed by their struggling
+fellows had tumbled down and been kicked over the broken balustrade to
+the hall below.
+
+The guards had rallied from their surprise, and sparing the escaped
+for the sake of the precious shield they bore, turned their fire upon
+the escaping, cutting them off until the whole corridor below was
+blocked with wounded, dead and dying. One more man appeared at the
+clerk's door: he was a powerful fellow with a horse-pistol and a
+stone-hammer. Lester had staggered back from a flying iron bar aimed
+at his head by a villain he struck at without reaching, and who had
+bounded down the stairs to receive his death from the guard's musket
+at the door. The prisoner with the horse-pistol saw his advantage,
+and, cursing the governor in blasphemous rage, aimed at him as he
+fled. Recovering himself, Lester struck for his arm, but not soon
+enough to stop the fire: the charge reached its object, but not his
+heart, as it was meant to do. It glanced aside, and Mr. Denham's
+pistol dropped: his right arm fell maimed at his side; but the field
+was clear, and Lester, catching the fallen pistol, went down the
+stairs over the bodies in a series of flying leaps.
+
+"Where's my wife?" exclaimed Mr. Denham, turning round dizzily and
+trying to steady his head with his uninjured hand. "Tell her I've gone
+for Nellie;" and he made an effort to rush after Lester, but,
+reaching the top of the stairs, dropped suddenly upon a convict's body
+stretched there by his own pistol. Then I saw by the reddish hole
+in his trousers just below the knee that he had been wounded before,
+though he did not know it, and was now streaming with blood.
+
+"Where's Nell? where's Edward?" asked Ruth, sitting up with a ghastly
+face, and looking at me in a bewildered stare.
+
+"All right, all safe, tell the lady," cried a clear, exulting voice
+from below: "here's sweet little Miss Nellie, without a scratch on
+her."
+
+It was Lester's shout from the yard, and it rang through all the
+building.
+
+"Do you hear, Ruth? do you hear?" I screamed, beside myself with joy
+and thankfulness. "He has saved your husband a dozen times, that hero,
+and now he brings back your child to you. Oh, what a noble fellow! how
+I envy him his feelings!"
+
+He was in the room by this time with Nellie in his arms: he heard me
+and gave me just one look. I never saw him again, but I never shall
+forget it, for it revealed the long agony of a blighted life that
+moment struggling into hope again through expiation. He did not wait
+for Ruth's broken cry of gratitude, but was gone as soon as the child
+was in her arms.
+
+"Come, boys," I heard him cry cheerily outside, "lend a hand to help
+the governor to his room: he's got a scratch or two, and the doctor's
+coming to dress them. He will be all right again before we can get
+things set straight round here."
+
+Governor Denham's wounds were not so slight as Lester hoped, but they
+were not dangerous, and when, to prevent my aunt's alarm for my safety
+(for the news of "the break" spread rapidly through the town), I
+parted from my friends before nightfall and rode back to the hotel
+as I had come, I left three of the most excitedly grateful and happy
+people behind me I had ever seen.
+
+"I suppose it is no use to urge it further, Ruth darling," said her
+husband as we parted, "but I really wish you would go to San Francisco
+with our friend and let Nellie have a chance to forget the shock
+she has endured. You need the change too, if you would ever think of
+yourself."
+
+"It is because I do think of myself that I prefer to remain where I am
+happiest," said Ruth decidedly. "As for Nell, she is a pioneer child,
+and will soon be as merry and fearless as ever. But, Jenny dear, we
+owe you an apology for the novel dinner-party we have given you. When
+you come back it will seem like a frightful dream, and not a reality,
+we shall all be so quiet and orderly again." As we stood alone in the
+hall, from which every sign of the late terrible conflict had been
+removed save the bloodstains that had sunk into the stone beyond the
+power of a hasty washing to obliterate, Ruth said in a low whispering
+tone that was full of pent-up feeling, "I told you that Lester was
+a murderer condemned for life, Jenny, but there were extenuating
+circumstances in connection with his crime. That is not his name we
+call him by: I do not even know his real one, but I am convinced that
+he belongs to educated and reputable people, and that he suffers the
+keenest remorse for the wild life that led him so terribly astray. He
+became desperately attached to a Spanish girl, who was married as a
+child to a brutal fellow who deserted her, and she thought him dead.
+She and Lester were to be married, I believe, when the missing husband
+reappeared and tormented them both. The girl he treated shockingly,
+and it was in a fit of rage at his abuse of her that Lester killed
+him; but appearances were all against the deed, and he was convicted
+of murder in the second degree and sentenced for life. Edward is kind
+and discriminating, and he pitied him. Lester told his story freely,
+and my husband gained his lasting gratitude by taking care of the
+wretched girl and paying her passage in a vessel bound for her native
+town in Mexico. The only favor we could show him here was to separate
+him from the wretches in the common prison by making him a 'trusty'
+or prison-servant. He understood our motive in doing so, and was very
+thankful and most reliable. What we owe him to-day you know: he makes
+light of it, protesting that he only picked up Nell from the gulch
+where the escaped convicts had dropped her on their way to the hills;
+but he cannot lessen the debt: it is too great to be calculated even."
+
+The subsequent report proved that twenty-eight prisoners had conspired
+to effect the break, and by secreting the tools they wrought with in
+their sleeves passed in on Saturday from the wall-building to cut an
+entrance through the ceiling of their own corridor into the loft above
+Mr. Foster's room, through which they dropped while the family were at
+dinner, choosing that hour so as to produce a surprise and secure the
+child, who always went below with Lester to help carry up the coffee.
+Of the whole number, five were killed outright and six wounded: twelve
+escaped uninjured, but were nearly all afterward retaken; and five
+repented their share in the movement or lacked courage to carry it
+out, and so remained in the prison. The most interesting item of the
+whole came to me at San Francisco in my friend's letter. It said: "We
+are looking forward with great delight to your visit, and planning
+every pleasure our sterile life can yield to make it enjoyable. But
+you will not see Lester: he is gone. His pardon, full and entire in
+view of his courage and fidelity, and the manly stand he took against
+the murderous plotters, came on Monday last, and at nightfall he left
+the prison to go by the stage to meet the midnight train. 'To Mexico!'
+were his last words to us. Heaven bless him, and grant him wisdom and
+courage to retrieve the past and open a fair bright future!"
+
+MARGARET HOSMER.
+
+
+
+
+FAREWELL.
+
+    [From Friederich Bodenstedt's _Aus dem Nachlasse
+    Mirza-Schaffys._]
+
+
+  Aloft the moon in heaven's dome.
+    Sultry the night, tempests foretelling:
+  For the last time before I roam
+    I see the surf in splendor swelling.
+
+  A ship glides by, a shadowy form,
+    Faint roseate lights around me sparkle,
+  A gathering mist precedes the storm,
+    And far-off forest tree-tops darkle.
+
+  The silver-crested waves are lashing
+    The pebbly shore tumultuously:
+  Absorbed I watch their ceaseless dashing,
+    Myself as still as bush or tree.
+
+  Within arise fond memories
+    Of moonlight evenings long since vanished,
+  Once full of life as waves and breeze,
+    From this familiar shore now banished.
+
+  Hushed in the grove is the birds' song,
+    Spring's blossoms tempests caused to perish;
+  Yet what through eye and ear did throng
+    The heart for evermore will cherish.
+
+AUBER FORESTIER.
+
+
+
+
+THE INSTRUCTION OF DEAF MUTES.
+
+
+While I was a teacher in the Illinois Institution for the Deaf and
+Dumb the following letters were written by some of the pupils. The
+first was written the day after Thanksgiving, and ran thus:
+
+    "DEAR MOTHER: We had Thanks be unto God, no school yesterday,
+    Turkey mince-pies, and many other kinds of fruits."
+
+The day after Christmas a boy wrote: "We had Glory to God in the
+highest, no school yesterday, and a fine time." What he really meant
+to say was, that they had a motto in evergreens of "Glory to God in
+the Highest," and they had also a holiday.
+
+This motto, by the way, got up by the pupils themselves, was striking.
+It was placed over one of the dining-room doors, and the ceiling
+being very low it was necessarily put just under it. A single glance
+sufficed to show the utter impossibility of getting the "Glory" any
+higher.
+
+The younger pupils write in almost every letter, "There are ----
+pupils in this institution, ---- boys and ---- girls. All of the
+pupils are well, but some are sick." This is English pretty badly
+broken.
+
+These letters serve to illustrate a remark which Principal Peet of the
+New York institution made to me not long ago: "The great difficulty in
+instructing deaf mutes is in teaching them the English language."
+In this, of course, he had reference to the deaf mutes of our own
+country, and his statement appears, on its face, paradoxical. That
+American children should learn at least to read the English language,
+even when they cannot speak it, seems quite a matter of course. The
+fact is, however, different. The first disadvantage under which the
+deaf mute labors is the limited extent to which his mental powers have
+been developed. This deficiency is attributable to two causes--his
+deprivation of the immense amount of information to be gained by the
+sense of hearing, and his want of language. Before an infant, one
+possessed of all its faculties, has acquired at least an understanding
+of articulate language, it has but vague and feeble ideas. No clear,
+distinct conception is shaped in its mind. "Ideas," says M. Marcel in
+his essay on the _Study of Languages_, "are not innate: they must be
+received before they can be communicated. This is so true that native
+curiosity impels us to listen long before we can speak.... Impression
+... must therefore precede expression." Real thought, therefore,
+it will be seen, grows with the child's acquisition of language--an
+acquisition which is obtained in the earlier years entirely through
+the organ of hearing. This principal avenue to the mind is closed
+to the deaf mute. It is evident, therefore, that, lacking these two
+fundamental sources of all knowledge, his mental growth is incredibly
+slower than that of the hearing child. All that can be learned by
+means of the other senses is, however, learned rapidly, these being
+quickened and stimulated by the absence of one. Hence, the deaf-mute
+child of eight or ten years of age often appears as bright and
+intelligent as his more favored playmate. The latter, however, has a
+store of knowledge and a fund of thought wholly unknown to the deaf
+mute.
+
+But it is the want of written language, and the obstacles in the way
+of its acquirement, which constitute the chief disability of the deaf
+mute in the attempt to gain an education. If you set a child of seven
+years of age to learn Greek, requiring him to receive and express his
+ideas wholly in that language, you would not hope for any very clear
+expression of those ideas with less than a year's instruction, nor
+would you expect him to appreciate the delicate beauties of the
+_Odyssey_ in that length of time. The progress of the deaf mute in
+any language, even the most simply constructed, is greatly slower than
+that of the hearing child. The latter is assisted at every step by
+his previous knowledge of his vernacular. The former does not think in
+words, as you have done from your earliest recollection. Undertake to
+do your thinking in a foreign tongue, of which you have but a limited
+knowledge: the attempt is discouraging. The deaf mute thinks in signs.
+This, his only vehicle of thought, is a hindrance instead of a help in
+learning written language, there being no analogy whatever between the
+two methods of expressing ideas.
+
+With these tremendous odds against him the deaf-mute child is set to
+the task of acquiring a knowledge of written language. His ideas (in
+signs) shape themselves in this wise: "Horses, two, run fast." Of
+course he does not think these words. The idea of a horse, its shape
+and color, is probably imaged in his mind, or if the horse be not
+present to his sight, the sign which he uses for that animal comes
+into his thought. He next touches or grasps or holds up two of his
+fingers, which he uses on all occasions to express number. Then
+the idea of running by means of its sign, and lastly that of speed,
+suggest themselves, the last two, however, being probably closely
+connected, as in our own minds.
+
+
+Observe, here, that the order in which the thoughts arrange themselves
+is different from the manner of those who think by means of words. The
+main idea is "horse," and he gives it the preference, as the older and
+more simply constructed languages always did. It is reserved for our
+cultured and perfected language to describe an object before
+telling what that object is. Who will say that it is according to
+philosophical principles that we say, "A fine large red apple,"
+instead of "An apple, fine, red, large"? A deaf-mute boy tells me that
+he saw two dogs fighting yesterday. He explains it in signs in this
+manner: "Dogs, two, fight; first, second ear bit, blood much. Second
+ran, hid; saw yesterday, I." Thus the fact is arranged in his mind.
+Let him attempt to translate--for it is nothing but translation--this
+simple statement into English. The perplexity which first seizes the
+hapless school-boy over his "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"
+is nothing to it. Like him, he must go hunting, as if for a needle
+in a haystack, for the word to put first. It is the last idea in his
+sign-sentence. Then he slowly learns to pick out the words and arrange
+them in English order--an order, as I said before, not founded on
+philosophical principles, but in most instances wholly arbitrary.
+This is by no means an easy task. Years of training do not ensure
+him against ludicrous lapses. A fair percentage of the whole number
+educated learn to construct sentences with tolerable accuracy; a
+smaller percentage of these acquire fluency, precision and, in some
+rare instances, grace of expression; but a large proportion never
+become good English scholars.
+
+The method of beginning their instruction is by means of simple
+familiar objects, or, where these cannot be obtained, illustrations
+of them. A picture of a horse is placed, at one end of the teacher's
+blackboard. Instantly two fingers of each hand go up to the top of
+each little head. If it were a picture of an animal with longer ears,
+each would make an ass of himself. So far so good, only they do not
+know the name of this animal, familiar as they are with him. The
+teacher writes the name under the picture. The article "A" is also
+written, which, though it puzzles them, they must take on trust. It
+cannot be explained at this stage. The teacher then holds up an ear
+of corn. Of course they know that very well, and make the sign for it,
+shelling the fore finger. It is then laid upon the opposite end of
+the blackboard, and its name written under it. A short pause, with a
+glance first at the horse and then at the corn, soon brings out
+the sign for "eats," which is written in its proper place, and the
+sentence is complete. The little "ignorants," as they are dubbed by
+the older pupils, are then plunged head and ears into the task of
+learning to form the written characters as well as the construction of
+sentences. It is setting foot in an unexplored wilderness. No ray of
+light penetrates the darkness of that wilderness save the tiny torch
+just placed in their hands.
+
+Mr. Isaac Lewis Peet, principal of the New York institution, before
+referred to in this paper, has lately been preparing a textbook for
+the use of deaf-mute instructors, which promises to be of great
+value. It reduces the whole of the earlier stages of instruction to a
+perfected system, by which each part of speech, with the various
+moods and tenses of the verbs, the different cases of nouns, etc., is
+brought out in successive stages entirely by means of sentences. A
+few illustrations will suffice to show the scope of the work, which
+promises to be of much value also in the ordinary school-room, for
+which it is likewise designed by the author. An object, such as a
+pitcher, is placed on the teacher's desk. A pupil is required to come
+forward and touch it. The teacher then asks the question, writing it
+upon the blackboard or spelling it upon his fingers, "What did John
+do?" Answer, "He touched the pitcher." A change from a boy to a girl
+brings out another pronoun; a change of objects, another noun; a
+change of actions, another verb.
+
+In this way, by gradual, systematic stages, the language is taught by
+actual and constant use, the teacher doing away entirely with signs
+in the school-room. This is an end constantly aimed at in deaf-mute
+instruction, as it forces the pupils to use language instead of signs
+to express their thoughts. By constant effort at first, and constant
+practice, words gradually take the place of signs in their modes of
+thought, though not perhaps entirely.
+
+Objective ideas are readily acquired by deaf mutes, their perceptive
+faculties being usually keen and quick. Abstract subjects are less
+readily apprehended, and sometimes cause great surprise. One Sunday
+morning Dr. Gillett, principal of the Illinois institution, had for
+the Scripture lesson in the chapel the "Resurrection." When he had
+made it plain and simple for the comprehension of the new pupils, some
+of the ideas, brought out by the lesson caused great astonishment, and
+even consternation among them. The little fellows shook their heads in
+utter skepticism at the thought of themselves dying.
+
+"I'm not going to die," said one. "Sick people die: I'm well and
+strong;" standing on his feet and shaking his arms in attestation of
+the fact.
+
+"But you will be sick some time," said Dr. G., "and you will have to
+die."
+
+But they did not believe him in the least. The next morning one little
+fellow met the principal and said, "You said yesterday I was going to
+die: well, here I am, and I ain't dead yet."
+
+On Monday morning, when they assembled in school, they were still full
+of the new ideas. "Dr. Gillett had said they all had to die: would
+they, truly?" they asked me. I could only confirm the statement.
+Whereupon they all began drawing graves, tombstones, weeping willows,
+and all such funereal paraphernalia upon the blackboards. It was
+a solemn scene, save for my own irrepressible laughter, which they
+thought very unaccountable when they learned that I must suffer a like
+fate. I explained as cheerfully as I could the delights of going to
+heaven, whereupon one boy burst into tears, saying he did not want to
+go to heaven: he would rather go home and see his mother.
+
+One asked if we should go to heaven in the cars. I said I had been
+told that we should go through the air, perhaps fly there. A little
+girl immediately held up a wood-cut of a vulture, saying, "Ugly thing!
+I don't want to be one." A boy whose new skates lay spoiling for the
+ice in his trunk asked if he could skate there. Not having quite
+the faith of the author of _Gates Ajar_, I could not answer "Yes"
+unhesitatingly. A girl asked if fishes went to heaven. I answered
+"No." "Where, then?" I replied that we ate the fishes, but was greatly
+troubled afterward lest she should confound me with the question,
+"What becomes of the snakes?"
+
+In addition to the ordinary one-hand alphabet, the only one commonly
+used by deaf mutes, there are five others. One of these is the
+two-hand alphabet, sometimes used by hearing children at school. It is
+clumsy and inconvenient, however. A second is made by the arms alone.
+Still a third is formed by means of the body and arms also, in
+various positions, to represent the different letters, and is used
+in signaling at a distance. It is not often learned by deaf mutes,
+however. A fourth is made entirely with the feet. But the most curious
+of all is the facial or expression alphabet. Various emotions and
+passions expressed on the face represent, by means of their initial
+letters, the letters of the alphabet. Thus, A is indicated by an
+expression of avarice, B by boldness, C by curiosity, D by devotion,
+etc. This alphabet is sometimes so admirably rendered that words can
+easily be spelled by means of it by the spectators.
+
+Deaf mutes also excel in pantomime. A large amount of gesture and
+pantomime is naturally employed in their conversation, and it thus
+becomes easy to train them to perform pantomimic plays. I have seen
+one young man, a deaf mute, whose narration in this manner of a hunter
+who made a pair of buckskin breeches, hung them up during the summer,
+drew them on when the rainy season came on, and found a hornet's nest
+within, was interpreted amid roars of laughter. Thus told, it was far
+more vivid than words could have possibly made it, and infinitely more
+amusing.
+
+The sign-language, growing slowly from natural signs--i.e., signs
+representing the shape, quality or use of objects, or the action
+expressed by verbs--has at length become a perfected system. This
+language is the same throughout Europe and America, so that deaf mutes
+from any country of Christendom who have acquired the regular system
+can readily communicate with each other, however diverse their
+nationality. Being formed from analogy, many of the signs are
+exceedingly expressive. Thus, the sign for "headache" is made by
+darting the two forefingers toward each other just in front of the
+forehead. The sign for "summer" is drawing the curved forefinger
+across the brow, as if wiping off the sweat. "Heat," or rather
+"hotness," is expressed by blowing with open mouth into the hand,
+and then shaking it suddenly as if burned. "Flame" and "fire" are
+represented by a quivering, upward motion of all the fingers. The
+memory of the ancient ruffled shirt of our forefathers is perpetuated
+in the sign for "genteel," "gentility" or "fine." It is the whole open
+hand, with fingers pointing upward, shaken in front of the breast.
+"Gentleman" and "lady" are expressed by the signs for "man"
+(the hat-brim) and "woman" (the bonnet-string), followed by the
+ruffled-shirt sign. The sign for "Jesus" is doubtless the most tender
+and touching in the whole language. It is made by touching the palm
+of each hand in succession with the middle finger of the other. This
+represents the print of the nails. The name "Jesus" itself does not
+convey so pathetic and expressive a meaning as does this sign.
+
+Hearing persons who understand the sign-language sometimes find it
+exceedingly convenient as a means of communicating when they wish to
+be private, I remember an amusing incident occurring at a festival
+which I attended while teaching in the Illinois institution. Another
+teacher and myself sat apart, surrounded by entire strangers. Near
+by stood a lady in a gorgeous green silk dress, with many gaudy
+accessories. My companion remarked in signs to me upon her striking
+costume. I replied in like manner, expressing my appreciation of so
+magnificent a proportion of apple-green silk. There was a great deal
+of lady, but a great deal more of dress.
+
+"See them dummies, Jake," she remarked to her husband at her side,
+whose dazzling expanse of bright-figured velvet waistcoat and massive
+gold chain was in admirable keeping with his wife's attire. It was a
+_landscape_, begging the word, after Turner's own heart. "Them's two
+dummies from the asylum, I know," she continued. "Let's watch 'em make
+signs." And she gazed upon us from the serene heights of green sward
+with an amused, patronizing smile.
+
+We dared not laugh. Dummies we had been dubbed, and dummies we must
+remain to the end of the scene. Were ever mortals in such a fix? We
+talked _them_ over well, however, while suffering tortures from our
+pent-up emotions.
+
+"That there one's rayther good-looking," ventured the proprietor of
+the velvet and gold.
+
+"Not so mighty, either," said his wife, bridling. "Face is too
+chalky-like, and the other one is too fat." This was near being the
+death of us both, as the two critics together would have turned
+the scale at near five hundred. Consternation seized us just then,
+however, as we saw a fellow-teacher approaching us who would be sure
+to address us in spoken language and reveal us as two cheats. Hastily
+retreating from the scene, we made our way to an anteroom, where it
+was not considered a sin to laugh.
+
+The instruction of deaf mutes in articulate speech has of late years
+attracted considerable attention in both Europe and America. In
+some of the European schools, in the Clark Institute at Northampton,
+Massachusetts, and in a few of our State institutions it is brought
+to great perfection. There are also special schools for this system of
+teaching in most of our large cities. The majority of pupils in these
+schools converse with ease, and understand readily what is said
+to them by means of the motion of the lips. The Clark Institute at
+Northampton, already referred to, under the conduct of Miss Harriet
+Rogers, is the largest and most widely known of the schools for this
+special method of instruction in this country. This is not a
+State institution, but one endowed by the munificence of a private
+gentleman, and consequently subject to none of the restrictions
+imposed on the public institutions. Of course, only the most promising
+pupils are sent there, and from these a careful selection is made, by
+which means the highest possible success is ensured. Some of the
+State institutions, however, burdened as they are with a large and
+unassorted mass of pupils, have made most encouraging progress in
+this direction. Of these, one of the most successful is the Illinois
+institution. In its last published report the correspondence between
+the principal and the parents of those pupils who have been taught by
+this method is given, showing the utmost satisfaction at the progress
+made and results attained.
+
+Deaf mutes are divided into two classes--viz., entire mutes and
+semi-mutes. The first comprises those who either have been born deaf
+or have become so at so early an age as to have retained no knowledge
+of articulate speech. The second class embraces those who have lost
+their hearing after attaining such an age as still to be able to talk.
+Speech is more easily and perfectly learned if the pupil has learned
+to read before the loss of hearing. A knowledge of the sounds and
+powers of the letters enables him to acquire the pronunciation of new
+words with much greater facility than would be otherwise possible,
+giving him a foundation on which to build his acquisition of spoken
+language. To this last class, semi-mutes, articulation is invaluable,
+enabling them to pursue their education with less difficulty, and
+also to retain their power of communication with the outside world. In
+regard to entire mutes, the utility of the accomplishment is seriously
+questioned by some experienced educators. The fact must be admitted
+that, while a much larger number of entire mutes can be taught to
+converse intelligently and agreeably than would be imagined by those
+unacquainted with the results obtained, the great mass of the deaf and
+dumb must still be instructed wholly by means of written language. In
+most instances, to ensure success, instruction should be begun at a
+very much earlier age than it is possible to receive them into school,
+and constantly practiced by all who hold communication with the pupil,
+doing away entirely with the habit of using signs. It also requires
+pupils of bright, quick mind, keen perceptive faculties, and an amount
+of intelligence and perseverance on the part of the parents not found
+in the average parent of deaf mutes; for it is well known that a
+very large proportion of deaf mutes come from the poorer and more
+illiterate classes. This is mainly attributable to the fact that by
+far the larger number lose their hearing in infancy or early childhood
+through disease--scarlet fever, measles and diphtheria being probably
+the most frequent causes of deafness. Among those able to give
+skillful nursing and to obtain good medical aid the number of cases
+resulting in deafness is reduced to a minimum. Accidents, too, causing
+deafness, occur more frequently among those unable to give their
+children proper care. Congenital deafness is also probably greater
+among the laboring classes, and is undoubtedly due to similar causes.
+
+The methods used in the teaching of articulation form a subject of
+much interest. The system has materially changed within the past few
+years. The first step to be taken is to convey a knowledge of the
+powers of the consonants and sounds of the vowels. Formerly, this
+was done by what was called the "imitation method." The letter H was
+usually the point of attack, the aspirate being the simplest of all
+the powers of the letters. The teacher, holding up the hand of the
+pupil, makes the aspirate by breathing upon his palm. This is soon
+imitated, and thus a starting-point is gained. The feeling produced
+upon the hand is the method of giving him an idea of the powers of the
+consonants. A later and better system is that called "visible speech."
+This is a system of symbols representing positions of the mouth and
+tongue and all the organs of speech, and if the pupil does what
+the symbols direct he cannot help giving the powers of the letters
+correctly. By this method a more distinct and perfect articulation is
+gained, with one-half the labor of the other method. As fast as
+the powers of the letters are learned, the spelling of words is
+undertaken. Many words are pronounced perfectly after a few trials:
+others, however, often defy the most strenuous and persevering effort.
+
+Entire mutes who undertake articulation are like hearing children
+endeavoring to keep up the full curriculum of a modern school and
+pursue the study of music in addition: the ordinary studies demand
+all the energies of the child. Articulation consumes much time and
+strength. Exceptional cases are of course to be found which are indeed
+a triumph of culture, but the great mass of the deaf and dumb must
+always be content with written language.
+
+Articulation is also exceedingly trying to the unused or long-disused
+throat and lungs. In this the teachers are likewise sufferers. The
+tax upon the vocal organs is necessarily much greater than that in
+ordinary speaking schools. But the disuse of the vocal organs in
+articulate speech does not indicate that they are wholly unused. A
+lady visiting an institution for the deaf and dumb a few years ago
+poetically called the pupils the "children of silence." Considering
+the tremendous volume of noise they are able to keep up with both
+feet and throat, the title is amusingly inappropriate. A deaf-and-dumb
+institution is the noisiest place in the world.
+
+In summing up the results usually attained, let no discontented
+taxpayer grumble at the large outlays annually made in behalf of the
+deaf and dumb. If they learned absolutely nothing in the school-room,
+the intelligence they gain by contact with each other, by the lectures
+in signs, by intercourse with teachers, and the regular and systematic
+physical habits acquired, are of untold value. Add to this a tolerable
+acquaintance with the common English branches, such as reading,
+writing, arithmetic--one of their most useful acquirements--geography
+and history, and we have an amount of education which is of
+incalculable value.
+
+JENNIE EGGLESTON ZIMMERMAN.
+
+
+
+
+OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
+
+THE CITY OF VIOLETS.
+
+
+Wartburg, with its pleasant memories of delightful excursions during
+the previous summer, was covered with snow, as if buried in slumber,
+when I dashed past it on the 25th of March. A gray mantle of mist
+obscured the sky, and by all the roadsides stood bushes loaded with
+green buds shivering in the frosty air. The exquisite landscape, which
+I had last seen glowing with such brilliant hues, now appeared robed
+in one monotonous tint of gray, and the ancient towers and pointed
+roofs of Weimar loomed with a melancholy aspect through the dense
+fog. Only the welcome of my faithful friends, Gerhard Rohlfs and
+his pretty, fair-haired wife, was blithe and gay. The brave desert
+wanderer and bird of passage has now built himself a little wigwam or
+nest near the railway-station: the grand duke of Weimar gave him for
+the purpose a charming piece of ground with a delightful view. On the
+25th of March a light veil of snow still rested on the ground, but two
+days later we were listening to the notes of the lark and gathering
+violets to take to Schiller's house and adorn the table of the beloved
+singer. Everything was illumined by the brilliant sunlight--the
+narrow bedstead on which he died, and all the numerous withered
+laurel-wreaths and bouquets of flowers that filled it--while outside,
+in Schiller's little garden, in the bed where his bust is placed,
+violets nodded at us between the leaves of the luxuriant ivy.
+
+And we carried in our hands bouquets of violets when we stood before
+Goethe's house to pay our respects to the lady who in these bustling
+days remains a revered memento of the times of Carl Augustus and his
+poet-friend--Ottilie von Goethe. The beloved daughter-in-law of
+the great master of song lives in the poet's house in the utmost
+seclusion: few strangers know that she receives visitors. Only on rare
+occasions is the classic little _salon_ opened in the evening to
+a select few--only now and then, when the health of the aged lady
+permits it, a circle of faithful friends gather round her listening
+eagerly to her vivid descriptions of long-past days. The grand
+duke himself often knocks at this door, and the grand duchess and
+princesses take pleasure in coming hither. With deep emotion we
+crossed the threshold over which Goethe's coffin was borne, and with
+light step ascended the broad, easy staircase of the house that we
+had so often heard described. Half-effaced frescoes, which had gleamed
+over the head of the king of poesy, looked down upon us, and our eyes
+wandered over the bronze figures past which Goethe had walked day
+after day.
+
+On reaching the second story, Ottilie von Goethe came forward to greet
+us, looking like an apparition from another world. Her figure was
+small and fragile, but there was an aristocratic repose in all her
+movements. A white lace cap trimmed with dark-red velvet bows rested
+on her hair, which was arranged over her temples in thick gray curls,
+framing her face, from which a pair of brown eyes greeted us with a
+bright, cordial glance. A white knit shawl covered her shoulders and a
+black silk dress fell around her in ample folds. At her side stood her
+younger sister, a canoness, who was paying her a few days' visit--an
+amiable lady with a very cheerful temperament. Ottilie von Goethe
+shared the violets with her. An easy conversation commenced. Frau von
+Goethe was very much interested in Herr Rohlfs' travels and Edward
+Vogel's fate, and said that one of her grandsons also cherished the
+same ardent, restless longing to see foreign countries and people.
+Then she spoke of her own journeys to Italy, "a long, long time ago,"
+and of the charms of Venice and Verona. Underlying the words was a
+slight tone of regret that she was now not only bound to the spot, but
+also to the house, for invalids cannot venture out of doors to enjoy
+the spring until the first of May, and September drives them back into
+their quiet cell. "How often one longs for a distant horizon!" she
+sighed. My eyes wandered over the wilderness of ancient roofs upon
+which the windows of Goethe's house looked out, and discovered a small
+spot where the blue mountain-peaks appeared.
+
+"Why, there is a distant horizon!" I involuntarily exclaimed.
+
+"Ah, but even that is so near!" replied Frau von Goethe, smiling.
+
+The room where we were, as well as the adjoining apartment into which
+we were allowed to peep, was full of relics of all kinds. Each article
+probably had its special history, from the paintings and drawings
+on the walls and the old-fashioned chests, chairs and tables, to the
+cups, vases, glasses, coverlets, and cushions arranged in the neatest
+order, some standing or lying around the apartment, others visible
+through the glass doors of a cupboard. But the most interesting object
+to me was the portrait of Goethe painted by Stieler. It has been
+made familiar to all by copies, and represents the poet, though at
+an advanced age, in the full possession of his physical strength. He
+holds in his hand a letter, from which he is in the act of looking up:
+the face is turned slightly aside. It seems as if the glance was one
+of greeting to some friend who is just entering. The colors are still
+wonderfully fresh and the expression bewitching. The large eyes beam
+with the fire of genius, Olympian majesty is enthroned upon the brow,
+and the curve of the lips possesses unequaled grace and beauty. A more
+aristocratic, noble mouth cannot be imagined. Who could have resisted
+the eloquence of those lips?
+
+"This picture is not in the least idealized: it is a perfect likeness
+of my father-in-law," observed Frau von Goethe, and added that this
+portrait by Stieler was one of the best which had ever been painted.
+Not far from the superb portrait of the father appears the melancholy
+face of the son, August von Goethe, but I sought in vain for a picture
+of the bud so early broken, Goethe's granddaughter, the lovely Alma,
+who died in Vienna.
+
+Fran von Goethe noticed with evident pleasure our eager interest in
+her surroundings, and showed us many a relic. As she spoke of the
+radiance of those long-past days which still gilded her quiet life,
+she seemed to me like the venerable figure in the tale of the "Seven
+Ravens," who relates marvelous stories to a listening group. Gradually
+a throng of shapes from the dim past entered the small room and
+gathered round the speaker, who suddenly became transfigured by the
+light of youth. She was again the poet's cheerful nurse, the fair
+flower of the household, the happy mother, the intellectual woman, the
+centre of a brilliant circle. I gazed as if at a buried world, which
+suddenly became once more alive: its inhabitants, clad in antique
+garments, walked past us, stared in astonishment, and seemed to say,
+We too were happy and beloved, feted and praised, the blue sky arched
+over us also, and we plucked violets and rejoiced in their fragrance
+till the deep, heavy sleep came.
+
+  Wait--only wait:
+  Soon thou too will rest.
+
+It was a cold, feeble hand I respectfully kissed at parting, and I
+remained under its spell, lingering in the strange world conjured
+up by Ottilie von Goethe, till we stood before Goethe's pretty
+summer-house and the blue violets peeped at us from the turf. The
+windows stood wide open, the mild breeze swept gently in, and the sun
+also looked to see if everything was in order in "der alte Herr's"
+rooms. Far away between the trees gleamed the white pillars of the
+house, and the ground at our feet was covered with a blue carpet. It
+is said that nowhere in North Germany are there so many violets as
+in the vicinity of Weimar. And why? Because, as the people poetically
+say, "der alte Herr," whenever he went to walk, always filled his
+pockets with violet-seeds, and scattered them everywhere with lavish
+hands.
+
+ELISE POLKO.
+
+
+
+
+LA BEFANA.
+
+
+Putting out of the question the Piazza of St. Peter's with Bernini's
+encircling colonnades, which is a special thing and unlike anything
+else in the world, the Piazza Navona is the handsomest piazza in Rome.
+It is situated in the thickest and busiest part of the city, far out
+of the usual haunts of the foreign residents, and nearly in the centre
+of that portion of the city which is enclosed between the Corso and
+the great curving sweep of the Tiber. It is handsome, not only
+from its great space and regular shape--a somewhat elongated double
+cube--but from its three fountains richly ornamented with statuary
+of no mean artistic excellence, and from the clean and convenient
+pavement which, intended for foot-passengers only, occupies all the
+space save a carriage-way close to the houses encircling it. This
+large extent of pavement, well provided with benches, and protected
+from the incursion of carriages, which make almost every other part of
+Rome more or less unsafe for all save the most wide-awake passengers,
+renders the Piazza Navona a playground specially adapted for
+nurses and their charges, who may generally be seen occupying it in
+considerable numbers. But on the occasion on which I wish to call the
+reader's attention to it the scene it presents is a very different and
+far more locally characteristic one.
+
+We will suppose it to be about midnight on the fifth of January, the
+day preceding the well-known revel, now come to be mainly a children's
+festival, which English people call Twelfth Night and celebrate by the
+consumption of huge plumcakes and the drawing of lots for the offices
+of king and queen of the revels. The Italians call it the festival
+of the "Befana," the word being a readily-perceived corruption of
+"Epifania." Of course the sense and meaning of the original term have
+been entirely forgotten, and the Befana of the Italian populace is a
+sort of witch, mainly benevolent indeed, and especially friendly to
+children, to whom in the course of the night she brings presents, to
+be found by them in the morning in a stocking or a shoe or any
+other such fantastic hiding-place. But Italians are all more or less
+children of a larger growth, and at Rome especially the populace of
+all ages, ever ready for _circenses_ in any form, make a point of
+"keeping" the festival of the Befana, who holds her high court on her
+own night in the Piazza Navona.
+
+We will betake ourselves thither about midnight, as I have said. It
+is a bitterly cold night, and the stars are shining brilliantly in the
+clear, steely-looking sky--such a night as Rome has still occasionally
+at this time of year, and as she used to have more frequently when
+Horace spoke of incautious early risers getting nipped by the cold.
+One of the first things that strikes us as we make our way to the
+place of general rendezvous muffled in our thickest and heaviest
+cloaks and shawls is the apparent insensibility of this people to the
+cold. One would have expected it to be just the reverse. But whether
+it be that their organisms have stored up such a quantity of sunshine
+during the summer as enables them to defy the winter's cold, or
+whether their Southern blood runs more rapidly in their veins, it is
+certain that men, women and children--and especially the women--will
+for amusement's sake expose themselves to a degree of cold and
+inclement weather that a Northerner would shrink from.
+
+For some days previously, in preparation for the annual revel,
+a series of temporary booths have by special permission of the
+municipality been erected around the piazza. In these will be sold
+every kind of children's toys--of the more ordinary sorts, that is
+to say; for Roman children have never yet been rendered fastidious in
+this respect by the artistic inventions that have been provided for
+more civilized but perhaps not happier childhood. There will also be
+a store of masks, colored dominoes, harlequins' dresses, monstrous and
+outrageous pasteboard noses, and, especially and above all, every kind
+of contrivance for making a noise. In this latter kind the peculiar
+and characteristic specialty of the day are straight tin trumpets
+some four or five feet in length. These are in universal request among
+young and old; and the general preference for them is justified by the
+peculiarly painful character of the note which they produce. It is a
+very loud and vibrating sound of the harshest possible quality. One
+feels when hearing it as if the French phrase of "skinning the ears"
+were not a metaphorical but a literal description of the result of
+listening to the sound. And when hundreds of blowers of these are
+wandering about the streets in all parts of the town, but especially
+in the neighborhood of the Piazza Navona, making night hideous with
+their braying, it may be imagined that those who go to their beds
+instead of doing homage to the Befana have not a very good time of it
+there.
+
+It is a curious thing that the Italians, who are denizens of "the land
+of song," should take especial delight in mere abundance of discordant
+noise. Yet such is unquestionably the case. They are in their festive
+hours the most noisy people on earth. And the farther southward you
+go the more pronounced and marked is the propensity. You may hear boys
+and men imitating the most inharmonious and vociferous street-cries
+solely for the purpose of exercising their lungs and making a noise.
+The criers of the newspapers in the streets must take an enthusiastic
+delight in their trade; and I have heard boys in the street who had
+no papers to sell, and nothing on earth to do with the business,
+screaming out the names of the different papers at the hour of their
+distribution at the utmost stretch of their voices, and for no reason
+on earth save the pleasure of doing it--just as one cock begins to
+crow when he hears another.
+
+The crowd on the piazza is so thick and close-packed that it is a
+difficult matter to move in any direction when you are once within it,
+but good-humor and courtesy are universal. An Italian crowd is always
+the best-behaved crowd in the world--partly, I take it, from the
+natural patience of the people, and the fact that nobody is ever in a
+hurry to move from the place in which he may happen to be; and partly
+as a consequence of the general sobriety. Even on such a night of
+saturnalia as this of the Befana very little drunkenness is to be
+seen. Although the crowd is so dense that every one's shoulder is
+closely pressed against that of his neighbor, there is a great deal of
+dancing going on. Here and there a ring is formed, carved out, as it
+were, from the solid mass of human beings, in which some half dozen
+couples are revolving more or less in time to the braying of a bagpipe
+or scraping of a fiddle, executing something which has more or less
+semblance to a waltz. The mode in which these rings are formed is at
+once simple and efficacious. Any couple who feel disposed to dance
+link themselves together and begin to bump themselves against their
+immediate neighbors. These accept the intimation with the most perfect
+good-humor, and assist in shoving back those behind them. A space
+is thus gained in the first instance barely enough for the original
+couple to gyrate in. But by violently and persistently dancing
+up against the foremost of the little ring the area is gradually
+enlarged: first one other couple and then another are moved to follow
+the example, and they in their turn assist in bumping out the limits
+of the ring till it has become some twenty feet or so in diameter.
+These impromptu ball-rooms rarely much exceed that size, but dozens
+of them may be found in the course of one's peregrinations around the
+large piazza. The occupants of some of them will be found to consist
+of town-bred Romans, and those of others of people from the country.
+There is no mistaking them one for the other, and the two elements
+rarely mingle together. The differences to be observed in the bearing
+and ways of the two are not a little amusing, and often suggestive of
+considerations not uninstructive to the sociologist. The probabilities
+are that the music in the case of the first mentioned of the above
+classes will be found to consist of a fiddle--in that of the latter,
+of a bagpipe, the old classical _cornamusa_, which has been the
+national instrument of the hill-country around the Campagna for it
+would be dangerous to say how many generations. In either case there
+seems to be an intimate connection between the music and the spirit of
+the public for which it is provided. The peasant of the Campagna and
+of the Latian, Alban and Sabine hills takes his pleasure, even that of
+the dance, as an impertinent Frenchman said of us Anglo-Saxons, _moult
+tristement_. That indescribable air of sadness which, as so many
+observers have concurred in noting, broods over the district which
+they inhabit seems to have communicated itself to the inmost nature
+and character of the populations. They are a stern, sad, sombre and
+silent race, for what I have said above of a tendency to noisiness and
+vociferation must be understood to apply to the town-populations only.
+Their dance is generally much slower than that of the city-folk. In
+these latter days increased communication has taught some of them to
+assimilate their dancing with more or less successful imitation to the
+waltz, but in many cases these parties of peasants may still be seen
+practicing the old dances, now wholly unknown in the city. But whether
+they are keeping to their old figures and methods or endeavoring to
+follow new ones, the difference in their bearing is equally striking.
+The dancing of peasants must necessarily be for the most part heavy
+and awkward, but despite this the men of the Campagna and the hills
+are frequently not without a certain dignity of bearing, and the women
+often, though perhaps not quite so frequently, far from devoid of
+grace. Especially may the former quality be observed if, as is likely,
+the dancers belong to the class of mounted herdsmen, who pass their
+lives on horseback, and whose exclusive duty it is to tend the herds
+of half-wild cattle that roam over the plains around Rome. These are
+the "butteri" of whom I wrote on a former occasion in these pages--the
+aristocracy of the Campagna. And it is likely that dancers on the
+Piazza Navona on a Befana night should belong to this class, for the
+Campagna shepherd is probably too poor, too abject and too little
+civilized to indulge in any such pastime.
+
+Little of either grace or dignity will be observed in the
+Terpsichorean efforts of the Roman _plebs_ of the present day.
+Lightness, _brio_, enjoyment and an infinite amount of "go" may be
+seen, and plenty of laughter heard, and "lazzi"--sallies more or less
+imbued with wit, or at least fun, and more or less repeatable to ears
+polite. But there is a continual tendency in the dancing to pass
+into horse-play and romping which would not be observed among the
+peasantry. In a word, there is a touch of blackguardism in the city
+circles, which phase could not with any justice or propriety be
+applied to the country parties.
+
+But it is time to go home. The moon is waning: _suadentque cadentia
+sidera somnum_, if only there were any hope of being able to be
+persuaded by their reasonable suggestions. But truly the town seems to
+afford little hope of it. We make our way out of the crowd with some
+difficulty and more patience, and are sensible of a colder nip in the
+January night-air as we emerge from it into the neighboring streets.
+But even there, though the racket gradually becomes less as we leave
+the piazza behind us, there is in every street the braying of those
+abominable tin trumpets, and we shall probably turn wearily in our
+beds at three or four in the morning and thank Heaven that the Befana
+visits us but once a year.
+
+T.A.T.
+
+
+
+
+ERNESTO ROSSI.
+
+
+The stage of Paris has long been conceded to be the first in the
+world. In France the player is not only born--he must be made. Before
+the embryo performer achieves the honors of a public debut he has been
+trained in the classes of the Conservatoire to declaim the verse of
+Racine and to lend due point and piquancy to the prose of Moliere.
+He is taught to tread in the well-beaten path of French dramatic art,
+fenced in and hedged around with sacred traditions. If he attempts
+to embody any one of the characters of the classic drama, every tone,
+every gesture, every peculiarity of make-up, every shade and style in
+his costume, is prescribed to him beforehand. Originality of treatment
+and of conception is above all things to be avoided. So spoke Moliere,
+so looked Lekain, so stepped Talma; therefore all the succeeding
+generations of players must so speak and look and walk. Let us imagine
+the process transferred to our English stage--the shades of Burbage
+and Betterton prescribing how Hamlet and Richard III. should be
+played--the manners of the seventeenth century forcibly transferred
+to our modern stage. The process would be intolerable. Worse still, it
+would have the effect on our comparatively undramatic race of crushing
+out every spark of originality and of wholly hindering the development
+of histrionic talent. With the French such results are happily, to a
+certain extent, impossible. There is scarcely any French man or woman
+of ordinary intelligence who does not possess sufficient capacity for
+acting to be capable of being trained into a very fair performer. The
+preponderance of beautiful women on the French stage above those to
+be found in other stations of life may be accounted for on the ground
+that any young girl of the lower classes possessing extraordinary
+beauty and ordinary intelligence can readily, from the bent of her
+national characteristics, be trained into an actress. But while the
+high-comedy theatres and those of the melodrama flourish, there can
+be no doubt but that the highest type of acting finds no chance for
+development in France. The actor who possesses one spark of genius
+soon escapes from the galling fetters of classicism and tradition, and
+takes refuge in comedy or in melodrama. Thus did Frederic Lemaitre
+in his prime, and thus, too, in later days, did the accomplished and
+brilliant Lafontaine.
+
+From these causes, or from others of a kindred nature, the French
+tragic stage has within our generation possessed no actor of
+commanding genius. One actress indeed adorned it for a few brief
+years--the great Rachel. But she, strange and unnatural production
+of unnatural art, was a phenomenon, and one not likely to be soon
+reproduced. The art of the Comedie Francaise is to-day inimitable.
+Like Thalberg's playing, it is the very apotheosis of the mechanical.
+There talent is trained and cut and trimmed into one set fashion, till
+the very magnitude of the work becomes imposing, as the gardens of
+Le Notre in their grand extent almost console the spectator for the
+absence of virgin forests and of free-gushing streams. But could the
+forest be brought side by side with the parterre, could Niagara pour
+its emerald floods or Trenton its amber cascades side by side with the
+Fountain of Latona or the Great Basin of Neptune, Nature, terrible
+in her grandeur, would rule supreme. Such has been the comparison
+afforded by the appearance of Ernesto Rossi on the Parisian stage.
+It was Shakespeare and genius coming into direct competition with
+perfectly-trained talent and with Racine.
+
+Early last October a modest announcement was made that Signor Rossi
+would give two performances at the Salle Ventadour, one of them to
+be for the benefit of the sufferers by the Southern inundations.
+_Othello_ was the play selected for both occasions. The first night
+arrived. The unlucky opera-house, shorn of its ancient popularity, was
+not half filled. Public curiosity was not specially aroused. Nobody
+cared particularly to see an Italian actor perform in a translation of
+a play by an English dramatist. Of the scanty audience present,
+fully one-half were Italians, and the rest were mostly English, lured
+thither by the desire of comparing the new actor with his great
+rival, Salvini. There was a sprinkling of Americans and a scanty
+representation of the Parisian public.
+
+When Othello came upon the stage the foreign actor received but a cool
+and unenthusiastic greeting. His appearance was a disappointment
+to those familiar with the majestic bearing and picturesque garb of
+Salvini. His dress was unbecoming, and the dusky tint of his stage
+complexion accorded ill with his blue eyes. Then, too, his conception
+of the character jarred on the ideas of those who had seen the other
+great Italian actor. It was hard to dethrone the majestic and princely
+Moor, the stately general of Salvini's conception, to give place to
+the frank, free-hearted soldier, intoxicated with the gladness of
+successful wooing, that Rossi brings before us. Certain melodramatic
+points, also, in the earlier acts, such as the "Ha!" wherewith Rossi
+with upraised arms starts from Desdemona when Brabantio reminds him
+
+  "She has deceived her father, and may thee,"
+
+seemed exaggerated and out of place. In the scenes with Iago he
+equaled Salvini, yet did not in any one point surpass him. Nor did
+he in any way imitate him. The fury of the two Othellos is widely
+different. Salvini is the fiercer, for Rossi's rage has a background
+of intensest suffering. One is an enraged tiger, the other a wounded
+lion. Both are maddened--the one with wrath, the other with pain.
+But in the last act, with the unutterable anguish of its closing
+scenes--the swift remorse, the unavailing agony of that noble nature,
+too late undeceived, the wild, pathetic tenderness wherewith Othello
+clasped the dead Desdemona to his heart, smoothing back her loosened
+tresses with an inarticulate cry of almost superhuman love and
+woe--the horror of the catastrophe was all swallowed up in a sympathy
+whose pain was wellnigh too great to be aroused by mimic despair. The
+fall of the curtain was greeted with a tempest of applause. Men
+sprang to their feet and wildly waved their hats in the air. Shouts of
+"Bravo, Rossi!" and "Vive Rossi!" arose on all sides. Ladies stood
+up in the boxes waving their handkerchiefs, and every hand and throat
+joined in the universal uproar. Before noon the next day every seat in
+the house was engaged for the second representation. The great actors
+of the French stage came to study the acting of this new genius who
+had so suddenly made his appearance in their midst. To this sudden
+success succeeded the announcement of a prolonged engagement, the
+failing health of the younger Rossi having decided his father to
+relinquish all immediate idea of an American tour.
+
+The second character that Rossi assumed was Hamlet, and in this he
+achieved the greatest success of his Parisian engagement. The opera
+of Thomas had rendered the public familiar with the personage of the
+hero, and the magnates of the Grand Opera came to the Salle Ventadour
+to study this new and forcible presentment of the baritone prince,
+who wails and warbles through the operatic travesty of Shakespeare's
+masterpiece. That the impersonation will prove wholly acceptable to
+all Shakespearian critics in England or America is extremely doubtful.
+For the Hamlet of Rossi is mad--undeniably, unmistakably mad--from the
+moment of his interview with the Ghost. But once accept that view, and
+the characterization stands unrivaled upon our modern stage. Nothing
+can be imagined at once more powerful or more pathetic than that
+picture of a "noble mind o'erthrown," alternating between crushed,
+hopeless misery and wild excitement--thirsting for the rest and peace
+that only death can bestow, yet shrinking from the fearful leap
+into the dim unknown beyond the grave. The scene with the Queen is
+inimitably grand. One feels that the entrance of the Ghost comes
+only in time to stay the frenzied hand, and then follows the swift
+revulsion when Hamlet, melting into tenderest pathos, kneels at his
+mother's feet to beseech her to repent--a mood that changes anew to
+frenzy when his wild wandering thoughts are turned toward the King.
+It is only in the last scene of the play that the approach of death
+scatters the clouds that have so long obscured the grief-tortured
+brain. Nothing can be imagined finer or more picturesque than this
+closing scene. On the raised dais in the centre of the stage, and
+on the throne from which the King has been hurled, the dying prince,
+conqueror and sovereign in this last supreme moment, dominates the
+scene of death and carnage, triumphant over all, even in the clutches
+of his own relentless doom.
+
+As the Hamlet of Rossi is unmistakably mad, so his Macbeth is an
+undeniable craven and criminal. I can compare this personation to
+nothing so much as to that of a man haunted by a fiend. For the steps
+of Macbeth are dogged ever by an unseen devil--namely, his own evil
+yet coward nature. He is wicked and he is afraid. The whole physique
+of Rossi in the scene in the first act where the king heaps favors and
+commendations on his valiant warrior was eloquent of conscious guilt:
+the constrained attitude, the shifting, uneasy glance, told, louder
+than words, of a wicked purpose and a stinging conscience. From
+the moment of the murder the wretched thane lives in a perpetual
+atmosphere of fear. He is afraid of everything--first of his own
+unwashed hands, and next of the dead king; then of Banquo and of
+Banquo's ghost; and finally he is afraid of all the world. It is only
+at the last that the mere physical courage of the soldier reasserts
+itself, and Macbeth, driven to bay by Fate, fights with the fierce
+energy of despair.
+
+As to Rossi's Lear, it is not to be criticised. Words fail when the
+heartstrings are thrilled to trembling and to tears. The pathos
+of Lear's recognition of Cordelia was past the power of words to
+describe. He stands at first gazing in vague bewilderment at the face
+of his child, then into the darkened and troubled gaze steals anew the
+light of reason and of recognition: unutterable sorrow, inexpressible
+remorse, sweep across the quivering features, and with an inarticulate
+sob Lear would fain sink on his knees at his wronged daughter's feet
+to pray for pardon. That people rose and left the house in a very
+passion of tears is the fittest criticism that can be bestowed upon
+this personation.
+
+The list of the Shakesperian characters closed with Romeo. Rossi was
+the divinest of lovers, in spite of his forty years and his stalwart
+proportions, and the balcony scene was an exquisite love-duet that
+needed not the aid of music to lend it sweetness. But in the Italian
+version the play was so cut and garbled that there could be little
+pleasure in listening to it for any one familiar with the original.
+
+Outside of his Shakespearian repertoire, Rossi has appeared in only
+two plays--the _Kean_ of the elder Dumas, and _Nero_, a tragedy
+by Signer Cosso, The first, originally written for Lemaitre, is an
+ill-constructed, improbable melodrama. But it contains one grand
+scene--namely, that where Kean, whilst playing Hamlet, goes mad upon
+the stage; and this scene Rossi renders superbly. As to Nero, it is
+marvelous to witness the complete eclipse of the refined, accomplished
+gentleman and intellectual actor behind the brutal physiognomy of the
+wicked emperor. It is Hamlet transformed into a prize-fighter.
+
+In person, Signor Rossi is less strikingly handsome than is his
+rival, Salvini, but he possesses a singularly attractive and pleasing
+countenance. He is a Piedmontese, blue-eyed and fair-complexioned,
+with chestnut hair, the abundant locks of which are just touched with
+gray. He is tall and finely proportioned, with the chest of a Hercules
+and the hands and feet of a duchess. Off the stage he is peculiarly
+pleasing in manner, and is said to be a noble-hearted and generous
+gentleman, as well as an amiable and genial companion, singularly free
+from conceit and delighting in his art.
+
+L.H.H.
+
+
+
+
+BISHOP THIRLWALL'S PRECOCITY.
+
+
+We do not remember to have seen in the various notices relative to the
+late Bishop Connop Thirlwall, the well-known historian, any mention
+of his precocity, which must have been almost without a parallel.
+Thirlwall came of a long line of clergymen. His father was chaplain
+to Dr. Percy (_Percy's Reliques_), bishop of Dromore, and in 1809
+he published some specimens of the early genius of his son under
+the title of "_Primitiae; or, Essays and Poems on Various Subjects,
+Religious, Moral and Entertaining._ By Connop Thirlwall, eleven years
+of age. Dedicated by permission to the Bishop of Dromore." In the
+preface it is stated that at three years old Connop read English so
+well that he was taught Latin, and at four read Greek with an ease and
+fluency that astonished all who heard him. An accidental circumstance
+revealed his talent for composition when he was seven. Mrs. Thirlwall
+told her elder son, in her husband's absence, to write out his
+thoughts on a certain subject. Connop asked leave to do the same, and
+produced to her astonishment the following: "How uncertain is life!
+for no man can tell in what hour he shall leave the world. What
+numbers are snatched away in the bloom of youth, and turn the fine
+expectation of parents into sorrow! All the promising pleasures of
+this life will fade, and we shall be buried in the dust. God takes
+away a good prince from his subjects only to transplant him into
+everlasting joy in heaven. A good man is not dispirited by death,
+for it only takes him away that he may feel the pleasures of a better
+world. Death comes unawares, but never takes virtue with it. Edward
+VI. died in his minority, and disappointed his subjects, to whom he
+had promised a happy reign." These reflections were probably
+suggested by some sermon the boy had heard, but the composition is an
+extraordinary piece of work at such an age.
+
+His effusions are on various themes, and comprise quite a pretty
+little poem, written when he was eleven, on Tintern Abbey. But perhaps
+the most remarkable circumstance of all is that this youthful prodigy
+lived to amply fulfill the promise of his youth, and proved as
+sagacious and moderate in the use of knowledge as he was marvelous
+in his powers of acquiring it. There is a remarkable tribute to these
+powers in John Stuart Mill's _Autobiography_, where he says: "The
+speaker with whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly
+every word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since bishop of
+St. David's, then a chancery barrister, unknown except by a high
+reputation for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge Union. His speech
+was in answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered ten sentences I
+set him down as the best speaker I had ever heard, and I have never
+since heard any one whom I placed above him."
+
+
+
+
+FREAKS OF KLEPTOMANIA.
+
+
+A few months ago England, more especially the part thereof contiguous
+to royal Windsor, was thrown into consternation by the report that
+a box had been discovered, sunk just below water-mark in the Thames,
+attached by a string to a tree, and containing a number of keys, which
+were believed to belong to doors leading to the royal jewel-coffers.
+The nine days' wonder which this intelligence, naturally enough,
+produced, has since had a curious explanation. They were not keys of
+the royal apartments at all, but Eton keys, the fruits of the
+kleptic propensities of an unfortunate Eton boy, who--like a very
+distinguished and noble member of Mr. Disraeli's cabinet, who is said
+even now not to be able to resist the temptation offered at cabinet
+councils by "Dizzy's" green kid gloves--had already paid the penalty
+for similar offences by being sent away. A most extraordinary
+instance of this propensity occurred a few years ago at a very wealthy
+nobleman's house in the north of England. During a visit there
+a lady's diamonds disappeared. There was great and general
+consternation, and the detective police were summoned from London. The
+jewels were subsequently discovered in a closet attached to the noble
+host's dressing-room.
+
+
+
+
+LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
+
+
+Round my House: Notes of Rural Life in France in Peace and War. By
+Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
+
+The time has at last come when Englishmen and Americans seem disposed
+to study the character of the French people with some care and to
+judge it with impartiality. The overthrow of its military power did
+less to lower the nation in the eyes of foreigners than its subsequent
+course has done to raise it; and now that it is fairly entering on
+a new career in a mood and under auspices that cannot but awaken
+the strongest hopes, we have probably seen the last of the typical
+Frenchman of the Anglo-Saxon imagination--a being capable of the most
+frantic actions and incapable of a serious thought, a compound of
+frivolity and ferocity, the fit subject and facile instrument of a
+despotism that knew how to gratify his vanity while restraining his
+mad ebullitions. Among the excuses that might be offered for such
+misconceptions is the dearth of information in the literature of
+France itself in regard to the life and habits of the general mass of
+the population. In these days it is to novels that we chiefly go
+for pictures of character and manners, and French novels are almost
+exclusively devoted to pictures of Parisian manners. Balzac, it
+is true, has given us delineations of provincial life; but the
+delineations of Balzac are often more enigmatical than the problems
+of real life, and even if we could always accept the portraitures they
+give us as undistorted, they generally presuppose a knowledge on the
+part of the reader on those points on which the foreigner is most apt
+to be ignorant. In any case, we shall be best instructed by a writer
+who both understands our lack and is able to supply it, and these
+qualifications, with others scarcely less essential, Mr. Hamerton
+has brought to his task. He has thoroughly familiarized himself with
+French usages, but he has not lost his sense of the difference between
+them and those of his own land, and of the consequent necessity for
+explaining as well as describing, and of tracing peculiarities to
+their source. If he is free from the common prejudices of the foreign
+observer, he has not adopted the passions or the partialities of the
+native. He can write with fairness of different classes and factions,
+and can discriminate between ordinary impulses and actions and those
+that have their origin in strong excitement. Finally, he neither
+overloads us with facts and statistics nor seeks to amuse us with
+fancies or caricatures. He is always sober and always agreeable.
+
+The matter of this volume was collected during a fixed residence of
+several years in one of the central provinces of France. No doubt Mr.
+Hamerton had a previous acquaintance with the country and with its
+language far exceeding that of the mere tourist, and his wife, it
+appears, is a Frenchwoman, the daughter of an ex-prefet. But he makes
+few allusions to any former experiences, and draws no comparisons
+between the conditions of life or the characteristics of the people in
+different provinces. This is perhaps to be considered a defect in the
+book, though it might not have possessed the same attractiveness had
+its scope been wider. It is an advantage, too, that the locality was
+not one which excites curiosity by its strongly marked features or
+abnormal types. Travelers often seem to imagine that they have only to
+tell us about Brittany or Gascony to win our interest, whereas it is
+precisely such regions that have the least novelty for us, just as
+the scenery of the Scottish Highlands has been made more familiar
+to Americans than that of almost any other part of Britain. Mr.
+Hamerton's house, as he gives us clearly to understand, though he
+suppresses names, was in the neighborhood of Autun. The situation
+was a strictly rural one, but with easy access to the town and the
+feasibility of reaching Paris, Lyons or Geneva in a night's journey
+by rail. It had, he writes, "one very valuable characteristic in great
+perfection--namely, variety. There was nothing in it very striking at
+first sight, but we had a little of everything." It was in an elevated
+plain about fifteen miles in diameter and nearly circular, girt by a
+circus of hills rising fifteen hundred feet above the general level.
+A trout stream ran through the property. There were pretty estates
+around of about two hundred acres each, with houses in general of
+modest dimensions and architecture, though occasionally aspiring to
+the dignity of chateaux. Roman and mediaeval remains, with architecture
+of different periods, were to be found in the city, as well as a
+public library and art-gallery, cafes and the inevitable _cercle_. The
+flora, owing to the diversities of elevation, was varied, and while
+vineyards clothed the foot of the slopes and gigantic old chestnuts
+looked down on them from above, the vegetation of the hill-tops
+was that of Lancashire or Scotland. It follows, of course, that the
+pursuits and habits of the population were correspondingly various,
+and there was ample opportunity for studying the different classes of
+society, from the noblesse to the peasants. The results of this study
+are presented, not in the form of labored analyses, but in easy and
+flowing sketches, sometimes in the form of narrative, always full of
+illustrative details, and winning without much discussion or argument
+a ready assent to the author's conclusions. Many statements in the
+book will, of course, not be new to generally well-informed readers,
+but it is not often that they come with the same force and freshness
+from direct observation, and still more rarely is their relation to
+each other or their bearing on the subject to which they relate
+so clearly and correctly indicated. Among the points on which Mr.
+Hamerton has thus thrown a stronger light are the characteristics and
+position of French ladies, divided, "in this part of the world," he
+writes, "into two distinct classes: the home women and the visiting
+women--_les femmes d'interieur_, and _les femmes du monde_; the exact
+theory of the _mariage de convenance_, which is popularly but
+wrongly considered as based on mere mercenary motives; and the mental
+condition of the peasant, with his natural quickness of intellect and
+his stupendous ignorance, his adherence to tradition and ingrained
+superstitiousness, and his suspicion of the nobles and tendency to
+emancipate himself from clerical influence. It is France in a state
+of transition that Mr. Hamerton paints, and his anticipations have
+already to some extent been justified by events. "My hope for France
+is," he says, "that a system of regularly-working representative
+government may be the final result of the long and eventful
+revolution, and that this form of government may give the country
+certain measures which it very greatly needs. A thorough system
+of national education is one of them, a real religious equality is
+another. These would never be conceded by a French monarchy of any
+type with which past experience has made the country familiar.... The
+only chance of real representation lies in the Republic."
+
+
+
+
+_BOOKS RECEIVED_.
+
+
+Improved Diary, or Marginal Index-Book of Daily Record: a Diary
+provided with Marginal Indices so arranged that any day of the year
+may be referred to at once, and the various subject-matters recorded
+in it may be arranged for ready reference, together with Calendars,
+Interest Table, etc. Devised and arranged by M.N. Lovell. Published
+exclusively by the Erie Publishing Co., Erie, Pa.
+
+The Review of Gen. Sherman's Memoirs. Examined Chiefly in the light of
+its own Evidence. By C.W. Moulton. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co.
+
+The Chevalier Casse-Cou: The Search for Ancestors. Translated from the
+French original. By Thomas Picton. New York: R.M. De Witt.
+
+Proceedings of American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, held
+at Hartford, Conn., Sept. 28, 1875. Baltimore: Wm. K. Boyle & Sons.
+
+Brief Biographies. Vol. II. English Radical Leaders. By R.J. Hinton.
+New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
+
+Foot Notes; or, Walking as a Fine Art. By Alfred Barren. Wallingford,
+Conn.: Wallingford Printing Co.
+
+Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education. No. 7.
+Washington: Government Printing-office.
+
+In Doors and Out; or, Views from the Chimney-corner. By Oliver Optic.
+Boston: Lee & Shepard.
+
+Among my Books. (Second Series.) By Jas. Russell Lowell. Boston: James
+R. Osgood & Co.
+
+The Reading Club and Handy Speaker, No. 3. By George M. Baker. Boston:
+Lee & Shepard.
+
+Her Dearest Foe. (Leisure-Hour Series.) By Mrs Alexander. New York:
+Henry Holt & Co.
+
+Pebbles from Old Pathways. By Minnie Ward Patterson. Chicago: C.J.
+Burroughs & Co.
+
+Bridge and Tunnel Centres. By John B. McMaster. New York: D. Van
+Nostrand.
+
+Safety Valves. By Richard H. Buel, C.E. New York: D. Van Nostrand.
+
+Guido and Lita. By the Marquis of Lorne. New York: Macmillan & Co.
+
+The Asbury Twins. By Sophie May. Boston: Lee & Shepard.
+
+Sea-Weed and Sand: Poems. By Ben Wood Davis.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular
+Literature and Science,  April, 1876., by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE ***
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