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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13655 ***</div>
<div class="trans-note">
Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and the list of
illustrations were added by the transcriber.
</div>
<hr class="full" />
<h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1>
<h3>OF</h3>
<h2><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</i></h2>
<hr class="short" />
<h4>March, 1876.<br />
Vol. XVII. No. 99.</h4>
<hr class="short" />
<h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3>
<div class="toc">
<p><a href="#illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</a></p>
<p>THE CENTURY—ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.</p>
<p class="i4">III.—PAST
EXPOSITIONS.<a href="#page265">265</a></p>
<p>SKETCHES OF INDIA.</p>
<p class="i4">III. <a href="#page283">283</a></p>
<p>LIFE-SAVING STATIONS by REBECCA HARDING
DAVIS.<a href="#page300">300</a></p>
<p>THE EUTAW FLAG.<a href="#page311">311</a></p>
<p class="i4">II. <a href="#page316">316</a></p>
<p class="i4">III. <a href="#page320">320</a></p>
<p>CONVENT LIFE AND WORK by LADY BLANCHE
MURPHY.<a href="#page322">322</a></p>
<p>THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.</p>
<p class="i4">BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA
KEMBALL."</p>
<p class="i4">CHAPTER XXV. SMALL CAUSES.
<a href="#page334">334</a></p>
<p class="i4">CHAPTER XXVI. THE GREEN YULE.
<a href="#page341">341</a></p>
<p class="i4">CHAPTER XXVII. IN THE
BALANCE.<a href="#page344">344</a></p>
<p class="i4">CHAPTER XXVIII. ONLY A
DREAM.<a href="#page348">348</a></p>
<p>LOVE'S SEPULCHRE by KATE
HILLARD.<a href="#page354">354</a></p>
<p>LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA by LADY BARKER.
<a href="#page355">355</a></p>
<p>A SYLVAN SEARCH by MARY B.
DODGE.<a href="#page366">366</a></p>
<p>THE SONGS OF MIRZA-SCHAFFY by AUBER
FORESTIER.<a href="#page367">367</a></p>
<p>TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN by SIDNEY
LANIER.<a href="#page375">375</a></p>
<p>CHARLES KINGSLEY: A REMINISCENCE by ELLIS
YARNALL.<a href="#page376">376</a></p>
<p>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</p>
<p class="i4">A WOMAN'S OPINION OF PARIS AND THE PARISIANS
by L. H. H.<a href="#page381">381</a></p>
<p class="i4">THE COLLEGIO ROMANO by T.A.
T.<a href="#page383">383</a></p>
<p class="i4">TRADES UNIONISM IN ITS INFANCY.
<a href="#page386">386</a></p>
<p class="i4">MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
<a href="#page387">387</a></p>
<p class="i4">THE EARLIEST PRINTED BOOKS by M.
H.<a href="#page389">389</a></p>
<p class="i4">FLOWERS VS. FLIES.
<a href="#page389">389</a></p>
<p>LITERATURE OF THE DAY. <a href="#page390">390</a></p>
<p><i>Books Received.</i> <a href="#page392">392</a></p>
</div>
<hr />
<h4><a name="illustrations" id="illustrations"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig265">THE GREAT ANNUAL
FAIR AT NIZHNEE-NOVGOROD.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig266">CRYSTAL
PALACE--LONDON EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1851.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig267">INTERIOR VIEW OF THE
TRANSEPT OF CRYSTAL PALACE.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig268">NEW YORK EXHIBITION
BUILDING, 1853.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig270">CORK EXHIBITION
BUILDING, 1853.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig272">DUBLIN EXHIBITION
BUILDING, 1853.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig274">MUNICH EXHIBITION
BUILDING, 1854.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig276">MANCHESTER
EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1857.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig277">FLORENCE EXHIBITION
BUILDING, 1861</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig278">PARIS EXPOSITION
BUILDING AND GROUNDS, 1867.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig279">GRAND VESTIBULE OF
THE PARIS EXPOSITION BUILDING, 1867.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig280">VIENNA EXPOSITION
BUILDING AND GROUNDS, 1873.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig281">ROTUNDA OF THE
VIENNA EXPOSITION BUILDING, 1873.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig284">MUSSULMAN WOMAN OF
BHOPAL.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig286">A NAUTCH-GIRL (OR
BAYADÈRE) OF ULWUR.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig287">A NAUTCHNI (OR
BAYADÈRE) OF BARODA.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig288">THE CATHACKS (OR
DANCING MEN) OF BHOPAL.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig290">BURIAL PLACE OF THE
RAJAHS OF JHANSI.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig291">TOMB OF ALLUM
SAYED.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig294">PEASANTS OF THE
DOUAB.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig296">HINDU BANKERS OF
DELHI.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig298">THE GRAND HALL OF
THE DEWANI KHAS IN THE PALACE OF DELHI.</a></p>
<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig300">THE JAMMAH MASJID AT
DELHI.</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265"></a></span>
THE CENTURY—ITS FRUITS AND ITS FESTIVAL.</h2>
<h4>III.—PAST EXPOSITIONS.</h4>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/265.jpg"
name="fig265"
id="fig265"><img width="100%"
src="images/265.jpg"
alt="THE GREAT ANNUAL FAIR AT NIZHNEE-NOVGOROD." />
</a>THE GREAT ANNUAL FAIR AT NIZHNEE-NOVGOROD.
</div>
<p>We have presented a feeble sketch of a century that stands
out from its fellows, not as a mere continuation, or even
intensification, of them—a hundred annual circuits of the
earth in its orbit as little distinguished by intellectual or
material achievement as those repetitions of the old beaten
track through space are by astronomical incident—but as
an epoch <i>sui generis</i>, a century <i>d'elite</i>, picked
out from the long ranks of time for special service, charged by
Fate with an extraordinary duty, and decorated for its
successful performance. Those of its historic comrades even
partially so honored are few indeed. They will not make a
platoon—scarce a corporal's guard. We should seek them,
for instance, in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page266"
id="page266"></a>[pg 266]</span> the Periclean age, when
eternal beauty, and something very like eternal truth,
gained a habitation upon earth through the chisel and the
pen; in the first years of the Roman empire, when the whole
temperate zone west of China found itself politically and
socially a unit, at rest but for the labors of peace; and in
the sixteenth century, when the area fit for the support of
man was suddenly doubled, when the nominal value of his
possessions was additionally doubled by the mines of Mexico
and Peru, and when his mental implements were in a far
greater proportion multiplied by the press.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/266.jpg"
name="fig266"
id="fig266"><img width="100%"
src="images/266.jpg"
alt="CRYSTAL PALACE—LONDON EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1851." />
</a>CRYSTAL PALACE—LONDON EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1851.
</div>
<p>The last of these periods comes nearest to our standard. The
first had undying brilliance in certain fields, but the scope
of its influence was geographically narrow, and its excessively
active thought was not what we are wont to consider practically
productive, its conquests in the domain of physical science
being but slender. The second was in no sense originative,
mankind being occupied, quietly and industriously, in making
themselves comfortable in the pleasant hush after the secular
rattle of spear and shield. The third was certainly full of
results in art, science and the diffusion of intelligence
through the upper and middle strata of society. It might well
have celebrated the first centennial of the discovery of
printing or of the discovery of America by assembling the fresh
triumphs of European art, so wonderful to us in their decay,
with the still more novel productions of Portuguese India and
Spanish America. But the length of sea—voyages prosecuted
in small vessels with imperfect knowledge of winds and
currents, and the difficulties of land-transportation when
roads were almost unknown, would have restricted the display to
meagre proportions, particularly had Vienna been the site
selected. Few visitors could have attended from distant
countries, and the masses of the vicinage could only have
stared. The idea, indeed, of getting up an exhibition to be
chiefly supported by the intelligent curiosity of the bulk of
the people would not have been apt to occur to any one. The
political and educational condition
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267"
id="page267"></a>[pg 267]</span> of these was at the end of
the century much what it had been at the beginning. Labor
and the laborer had gained little.</p>
<p>The weapon-show, depicted in <i>Old Mortality</i>, and the
market-fair, as vivid in the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>,
exemplify the expositions of those days. To them were added a
variety of church festivals, or "functions," still a great
feature of the life of Catholic countries. Trade and frolic
divided these among themselves in infinite gradation of
respective share, now the ell-wand, and now the quarter-staff
or the fiddler's bow, representing the sceptre of the Lord of
Misrule. "At Christe's Kirk on the Grene that day" the
Donnybrook element would appear to have predominated. The
mercantile feature was naturally preferred by gentle Goldy, and
the hapless investor in green spectacles may be counted the
first dissatisfied exhibitor on record at a modern exposition,
for he skirts the century.</p>
<p>Looking eastward, we find these rallies of the people, the
time-honored stalking-grounds of tale-writers and students of
character generally, swell into more imposing proportions. The
sea dwindles and the land broadens. Transportation and travel
become difficult and hazardous. Merchant and customer, running
alike a labyrinthine gauntlet of taxes, tolls and arbitrary
exactions by the wolves of schloss and château, found it
safest to make fewer trips and concentrate their transactions.
The great nations, with many secondary trade-tournaments, as
they may be termed, had each a principal one. From the great
fair of Leipsic, with the intellectual but very bulky commodity
of books for its specialty to-day, we pass to the two
Novgorods—one of them no more than a tradition, having
been annihilated by Peter the Great when, with the instinct of
great rulers for deep water, he located the new capital of his
vast interior empire on the only available harbor it possessed.
Its successor, known from its numerous namesakes by the
designation of "New," draws convoys of merchandise from a vast
tributary belt bounded by the Arctic and North Pacific oceans
and the deserts of Khiva. This traffic exceeds a hundred
millions of dollars annually. The medley of tongues and
products due to the united contributions of Northern Siberia,
China and Turkestan is hardly to be paralleled elsewhere on the
globe. <i>Was</i>, insists the all-conquering railway as it
moves inexorably eastward, and relegates the New Novgorod, with
its modern fairs, to the stranded condition of the old one,
with its traditional expositions. As,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268"
id="page268"></a>[pg 268]</span> however, the rail must have
a terminus somewhere, if only temporary, the caravans of
camels, oxen, horses, boats and sledges will converge to a
movable entrepôt that will assume more and more an
inter-Asiatic instead of an inter-national character. The
furs, fossil ivory, sheepskins and brick tea brought by them
after voyages often reaching a year and eighteen months,
come, strictly enough, under the head of raw products.
Still, it is the best they can bring; which cannot be said
of what Europe offers in exchange—articles mostly of
the class and quality succinctly described as "Brummagem."
It is obvious that prizes, diplomas, medals, commissioners
and juries would be thrown away here. The palace of glass
and iron can only loom in the distant future, like the
cloud-castle in Cole's <i>Voyage of Life</i>. It may
possibly be essayed in a generation or two, when
Ekaterinenborg, built up into a great city by the copper,
iron, gold, and, above all, the lately-opened coal-mines of
the Ural, shall have become the focus of the Yenisei, Amour,
Yang-tse and Indus system of railways. But here, again, we
are overstepping our century.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/267.jpg"
name="fig267"
id="fig267"><img width="100%"
src="images/267.jpg"
alt="INTERIOR VIEW OF THE TRANSEPT OF CRYSTAL PALACE." />
</a>INTERIOR VIEW OF THE TRANSEPT OF CRYSTAL PALACE.
</div>
<p>To us it seems odd that in the days when an autocratic
decree could summarily call up "all the world" to be taxed, and
when, in prompt obedience to it, the people of all the regions
gathered to a thousand cities, the idea of numbering and
comparing, side by side, goods, handicrafts, arts, skill,
faculties and energies, as well as heads, never occurred to
rulers or their counselors. If it did, it was never put in
practice. The difficulties to which we have before adverted
stood in the way of that combination of individual effort to
which the great displays of our day are mainly indebted for
their success; but what the government might have accomplished
toward overcoming distance and defective means of transport is
evidenced by the mighty current of objects of art, luxury and
curiosity which flowed toward the metropolis. Obelisks,
colossal statues, and elephants and giraffes by the score are
articles of traffic not particularly easy to handle even
now.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/268.jpg"
name="fig268"
id="fig268"><img width="100%"
src="images/268.jpg"
alt="NEW YORK EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1853." /></a>NEW
YORK EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1853.
</div>
<p>At the annual exposition of the Olympic games we have the
feature of a distribution of prizes. They were conferred,
however, only on horses, poets and athletes—a conjunction
certainly in advance of the asses and savants that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269"
id="page269"></a>[pg 269]</span> constituted the especial
care of the French army in Egypt, but not up to the modern
idea of the comprehensiveness of human effort. While our
artists confess it almost a vain hope to rival the cameo
brooch that fastened the scanty garment of the Argive
charioteer, or the statue spattered with the foam of his
horses and shrouded in the dust of his furious
wheel—while they are content to be teachable,
moreover, by the exquisite embroidery and lacework in gold
and cotton thread displayed at another semi-religious and
similarly ancient reunion at Benares,—they claim the
alliance and support of many classes of craftsmen
unrepresented on the Ganges or Ilissus. These were, in the
old days, ranked with slaves, many of whom were merchants
and tradesmen; and they labor yet in some countries under
the social ban of courts, no British merchant or
cotton-lord, though the master of millions, being
presentable at Buckingham Palace, itself the product of the
counting-room and the loom. Little, however, does this
slight appear to affect the sensibilities of the noble army
of producers, who loyally rejoice to elevate their
constitutional sovereign on their implements as the Frankish
prolétaries did upon their shields.</p>
<p>The family of expositions with which we are directly
concerned is, like others of plebeian origin, at some loss as
to the roots of its ancestral tree. We may venture to locate
them in the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1756-57 the
London Society of Arts offered prizes for specimens of
decorative manufactures, such as tapestry, carpets and
porcelain. This was part of the same movement with that which
brought into being the Royal Academy, with infinitely less
success in the promotion of high art than has attended the
development of taste, ingenuity and economy in the wider if
less pretentious field.</p>
<p>France's first exhibition of industry took place in 1798. It
was followed by others under the Consulate and Empire in 1801,
1802, 1806. In 1819 the French expositions became regular. Each
year attested an advance, and drew more and more the attention
of adjacent countries. The international idea had not yet
suggested itself. The tendency was rather to the less than the
more comprehensive, geographically speaking. Cities took the
cue from the central power, and got up each its own show, of
course inviting outside competition. The nearest resemblance to
the grand displays of the past quarter of a century was perhaps
that of Birmingham in 1849, which had yet no government
recognition; but the French exposition of five years earlier
had a leading influence in bringing on the London Fair of 1851,
which had its inception as early as 1848—one year before
the Birmingham display.</p>
<p>The getting up of a World's Fair was an afterthought; the
original design having been simply an illustration of British
industrial advancement, in friendly rivalry with that which was
becoming, across the Channel, too brilliant to be ignored. The
government's contribution, in the first instance, was meagre
enough—merely the use of a site. Rough discipline in
youth is England's system with all her bantlings. She is but a
frosty parent if at bottom kindly, and, when she has a shadow
of justification, proud. In the present instance she stands
excused by the sore shock caused her conservatism by the
conceit of a building of glass and iron four times as long as
St. Paul's, high enough to accommodate comfortably one of her
ancestral elms, and capacious enough to sustain a general
invitation to all mankind to exhibit and admire.</p>
<p>Novelty and innovation attended the first step of the great
movement. The design of the structure made architects rub their
eyes, and yet its origin was humble and practical enough. The
Adam of crystal palaces, like him of Eden, was a gardener. When
Joseph Paxton raised the palm-house at Chatsworth he little
suspected that he was building for the world—that, to
borrow a simile from his own vocation, he was setting a bulb
which would expand into a shape of as wide note as the domes of
Florence and St. Sophia. And the cost of his new production was
so absurdly low—eighty thousand pounds by the contract.
The <span class="pagenum"><a name="page270"
id="page270"></a>[pg 270]</span> cheapness of his plan was
its great merit in the eyes of the committee, and that which
chiefly determined its selection over two hundred and
forty-four competitors. This new cathedral for the
apotheosis of industry resembled those of the old worship in
the attributes of nave, aisles and transepts; and these
features have been, by reason in great degree of the
requirements of construction, continued in its successors.
Galleries were added to the original design to secure space
additional to what was naturally deemed at first an ample
allowance for all comers. Before ground had been well broken
the demands of British exhibitors alone ran up to four
hundred and seventeen thousand superficial feet instead of
the two hundred and ten thousand—half the whole
area—allotted them. The United States were offered
forty thousand feet; France, fifty thousand, afterward
increased to sixty-five; the Zollverein, thirty thousand,
and India the same. A comparison of the whole number of
exhibitors, as distributed between Great Britain and other
countries, indicates that the equal division of the
superficial space was a tolerably accurate guess. They
numbered 7381 from the mother-country and her colonies, and
6556 from the rest of the world. Certainly, a change this
from the first French exhibition, held in the dark days of
the Directory, when the list reached but 110 names. We shall
dismiss the statistics of this exhibition with the remark
that it has precedence of its fellows in financial success
as well as in time, having cleared a hundred and seventy-odd
thousand pounds, and left the Kensington Museum as a
memorial of that creditable feat, besides sending its
cast-off but still serviceable induviæ to Sydenham,
where it enshrines another museum, chiefly of architectural
reproductions in plaster, in a sempiternal coruscation of
fountains, fireworks and fiddle-bows. The palace of industry
has become the palace of the industrial—abundantly
useful still if it lure him from the palace of gin. The
chrism of Thackeray's inaugural ode will not have been
dishonored.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/270.jpg"
name="fig270"
id="fig270"><img width="100%"
src="images/270.jpg"
alt="CORK EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1853." /></a>CORK
EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1853.
</div>
<p>The first of the great fairs, in so many respects a model to
all that came after, was beset at the outset by the same
difficulty in arrangement encountered by them. How to reconcile
the two headings of subjects and nations, groups of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271"
id="page271"></a>[pg 271]</span> objects and groups of
exhibitors, the endowments and progress of different races
and the advance of mankind generally in the various fields
of effort, was, and is, a problem only approximately to be
solved. It was yet more complicated in 1851 from the
compression of the entire display into one building of
simple and symmetrical form, instead of dispersing certain
classes of objects, bulky and requiring special appliances
for their proper display, into subsidiary
structures—the plan so effectively employed in
Fairmount Park. A sort of compromise was arrived at which
rendered possible the mapping of both countries and
subjects, especially in the reports, and to some extent in
the exhibition itself, without making the spectacle one of
confusion. The visitor was enabled to accomplish his double
voyage through the depths of the sea of glass without a
great deal of backing and filling, and to find his log,
after it was over, reasonably coherent.</p>
<p>The articles displayed were ranged under thirty heads. The
preponderance of matter of fact was shown in the concession of
four of these to raw material, nineteen to manufactures, and
<i>one</i> to the fine arts. Twenty-nine atoms of earth to one
of heaven! Of course the one-thirtieth whereinto the multiform
and elastic shape of genius was invited, like the afreet into
his chest, to condense itself, had to be subdivided—an
intaglio and a temple, a scarabæus and a French
battle-picture, being very different things. This was
accomplished, and the Muses made as comfortable as could be
expected. They soon asserted the pre-eminence theirs by right
divine, and came to be the leading attraction of the affair,
next to the Koh-i-noor. On this barbaric contribution of the
gorgeous East the French observers, a little jealous perhaps,
were severe. One of them says: "They rely on the sun to make it
sparkle," and, when the fog is too thick, on gas. The curiosity
about it, in the eyes of this incisive Gaul, was "not the
divinity, but the worshipers." All day long a crowd filed
solemnly by it under the supervision of a detachment of police,
each pilgrim bestowing upon the fetish, "an egg-shaped lump of
glass," half a second's adoration, and then moving reluctantly
on. Thousands of far more beautiful things were around it, but
none embodying in so small a space so many dollars and cents,
and none therefore so brilliant in the light of the nineteenth
century. As this light, nevertheless, is that in which we live,
move and have our being, we must accept it, and turn to
substantials, wrought and unwrought.</p>
<p>On our way to this feast of solids we must step for a moment
into St. Paul's and listen to the great commemorative concert
of sixty-five hundred voices that swept all cavilers, foreign
and domestic, off their feet, brought tears to the most sternly
critical eye, and caused the composer, Cramer, to exclaim, as
he looked up into the great dome, filled with the volume of
harmony, "Cosa stupenda! stupenda! La gloria
d'Inghilterra!"</p>
<p>A transition, indeed, from this to coal and iron—from
a concord of sweet sounds to the rumble into hold, car and cart
of thirty-five millions of tons of coal and two and a half
millions of iron, the yearly product at that time of England!
She has since doubled that of iron, and nearly trebled her
extract of coal, whatever her progress in the harvest of good
music and good pictures. Forced by economical necessity and
assisted by chemistry, she makes her fuel, too, go a great deal
farther than it did in 1851, when the estimate was that
eighty-one per cent. of that consumed in iron-smelting was
lost, and when the "duty" of a bushel of coal burnt in a
steam-engine was less than half what it now is. The United
States have the benefit of these improvements, at the same time
that their yield of coal has swelled from four millions of tons
at that time to more than fifty now, and of iron in a large
though not equal ratio. The Lake Superior region, which rested
its claims on a sample of its then annual product of one
hundred tons of copper, now exports seven hundred thousand tons
of iron ore.</p>
<p>Steel, now replacing iron in some of its heaviest uses,
appeared as almost an article of luxury in the shape of knives,
scissors and the like. The success of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272"
id="page272"></a>[pg 272]</span> the Hindus in its
production was quite envied and admired, though they had
probably advanced little since Porus deemed thirty pounds a
present fit for Alexander; their rude appliances beating
Sheffield an hour and a half in the four hours demanded by
the most adroit forgers of the city of whittles for its
elimination from the warm bath of iron and carbon. Bessemer,
with his steel-mines, as his furnaces at the ore-bank may be
termed, was then in the future. The steel rails over which
we now do most of our traveling were undreamed of. Bar iron
did duty on all the eighty-eight hundred miles of American
and sixty-five hundred of British railway; not many, if at
all, more than are now laid, in this country at least, with
steel. This poetic and historic metal has become as truly a
raw product as potatoes. The poets will have to drop it. The
glory of Toledo—of her swords bent double in the
scabbard, of her rapiers that bore into one's interior only
the titillating sensation of a spoonful of vanilla ice, and
of her decapitating sabres that left the culprit whole so
long as he forbore to sneeze—is trodden under foot of
men.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/272.jpg"
name="fig272"
id="fig272"><img width="100%"
src="images/272.jpg"
alt="DUBLIN EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1853." /></a>DUBLIN
EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1853.
</div>
<p>In crude materials the Union is at home. It was so in 1851,
and is still; but then it was not so much at home in anything
else as now. We have advanced in that field too, since we sent
no silver, and from Colorado no gold, no canned fruits, meats
or fish, and no wine but some Cincinnati Catawba, thin and
acid, according to the verdict of the imbibing jury. We
adventured timidly into manufacturing competition with the
McCormick reaper, which all Europe proceeded straightway to
pirate; ten or twelve samples of cotton and three of woolen
goods; Ericsson's caloric-engine; a hydrostatic pump; some
nautical instruments; Cornelius's chandeliers for burning lard
oil—now the light of other days, thanks to our new riches
in kerosene; buggies of a tenuity so marvelous in Old-World
eyes that their half-inch tires were likened to the miller of
Ferrette's legs, so thin that Talleyrand pronounced his
standing an act of the most desperate bravery; soap enough to
answer Coleridge's cry for a detergent for the lower Rhine; and
one bridge model, forerunner of the superb iron erections that
have since leaped over rivers and ravines in hundreds.</p>
<p>Meagre enough was the display of our craftsmen by the side
of that made by their brethren of the other side. It could have
been scarce visible to Britannia, looking down from a pinnacle
of calico ready for a year's export over and above her home
consumption, long enough, if
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"
id="page273"></a>[pg 273]</span> unrolled, to put a girdle
thirty times round the globe, though not all of it warranted
to stand the washing-test that would be imposed by the briny
part of the circuit.</p>
<p>And yet there were visible in the American department germs
of original inventions and adaptations, the development and
fructification of which in the near future were foreseen by
acute observers. Our metallic life-boats were then unknown to
other countries, those of England being all of wood. The
screw-propeller was quite a new thing, though the Princeton had
carried it, or been carried by it, into the Mediterranean ten
years before. Engines designed for its propulsion attracted
special attention. The side-wheel reigned supreme among British
war-steamers, although some of the altered liners which cut
such an imposing figure till the Sebastopol forts in '55
checked, and iron-clads in '62 finished, their career, were
under way. A model of one of them, The Queen, was exhibited as
the highest exemplification of "the progress of art as applied
to shipbuilding during the last eighteen centuries"—a
progress entirely eclipsed by that of the subsequent eighteen
years.</p>
<p>We sent no steam fire-engines, no locomotives, and no cars.
Our great printing-presses, since largely borrowed from and
imported by Europe, were scarcely noticed. Not so with "a most
beautiful little machine" for making card wire-cloth, copied
from America. Recognition of the supreme merits of the pianos
of Chickering, Steinway and the rest was still wanting, Erard's
Parisian instruments bearing the bell. Borden's
meat-biscuit—to revert to the practical—caused
quite a sensation, the Admiralty being overloaded with spoiled
and condemned <i>preserved</i> meat. The American
daguerreotypes on exhibition were pronounced decidedly superior
to those of France, and still more to those of England. Whipple
displayed the first photograph taken of the moon, thus securing
to this country the credit of having broken ground for the
application of the new art to astronomy. No photograph of a
star or of the sun had been obtained. The distance between the
United States and Europe in the application and improvement of
photography cannot be said, notwithstanding our advantage in
climate, to have been since widened. A field of competition
still lies open before them in the fixing of color by the
camera and the sensitive surface. The sun still insists on
doing his work with India ink and keeping his spectral palette
strictly to himself. For cheap and popular renderings of color
man was then, as now, fain to have recourse to the press. The
English exhibited some chromatic printing, far inferior to the
chromo-lithographs of today.</p>
<p>And this brings us to art. One out of thirty in the
programme, it was, as it always will be on these occasions,
nearer thirty to one in the estimation of assembled
sight-seers. The dry goods and machinery, even the bald,
shadeless and ugly (however comfortable) model cottages of the
inevitable Prince Albert, failed to draw like the things which
flattered the lust of the eye; as the pigs and pumpkins of an
"agricultural horse-trot" attract but a wayside glance from the
procession to the grand stand. We are all dwellers in a vast
picture-gallery, with frescoed dome above and polychromed
sculpture and mosaic pavement on the floor below. Its merits we
perceive, enjoy and interpret according to our individual gifts
and education. But it makes amateurs in some sort of every
mother's son or daughter, of us; and we hasten to plunge,
confident each in his particular grammar of the beautiful, into
the study of what imitative gallery may be offered us. Though
the financial idea may have been uppermost in the minds of the
devotees of the Mountain of Light, and their pleasure in the
march past that of a stroll through the vaults of the Bank of
England, they also expected to see in it the combined
brilliance of all diamonds. Not finding that, we dare say few
of them paid it a second visit, but, led by a like craving for
dazzle, sought more legitimate intoxication in marble, canvas,
porcelain and chased and cast
metals.</p>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274"></a>[pg 274]</span>
There they saw the diamond put into harness by the Hindus
and used for drilling gems as it is now for drilling railway
tunnels. In the carpets and shawls of the same region was to be
traced an exact and unfaltering instinct for color, the tints
falling into their proper places like those of the
rainbow—the result not a picture, any more than the
rainbow is a picture, but a blotted study rubbed up with the
palette-knife, or what in music would be a fantasia.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/274.jpg"
name="fig274"
id="fig274"><img width="100%"
src="images/274.jpg"
alt="MUNICH EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1854." /></a>MUNICH
EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1854.
</div>
<p>From the Asiatic display, more complete by far than any
before known, the eye passed to the works of the more
disciplined hand and fancy and the more scholastic
color-notions of Europe. There was young Munich with
Müller's lions and the anti-realistic figures of
Schwanthaler; Austria with Monti's veiled heads, henceforth to
be credited to Lombardy; Prussia with Rauch; and Denmark with
Thorwaldsen—all pure form, copied without color from
Nature, from convention and from the antique. Then came design
and color united in ceramics—in the marvelously delicate
flowers of Dresden, purified in the porcelain-furnace as by
fire; in the stately vases of Sèvres, just but varied in
proportion, unfathomable in the rich depths of their
ground-shadows, and exact and brilliant in the superimposed
details; the more raw but promising efforts of Berlin, marked,
like the jewelry from the same city, by faithful study of
Nature; and, blending the decorative with the economic, the
works of the English Wedgwoods and Mintons, infinite in variety
of style and utility, and often pleasing in design. Italy,
though supplying from her ancient stores so many of the models
and so much of the inspiration of the countries named, seems to
have forgotten Faenza and Etruria, and to prefer solid stone as
a material to preparations of clay and flint. Her Venetian
glass has markedly declined, at the same time that glass
elsewhere—notably, the stained windows of Munich and the
smaller objects of France and Bohemia—shows a great
advance in perfection of manufacture and manageability for art
purposes.</p>
<p>In that debatable land where the artistic and the convenient
meet at the fire-side and the tea-table, English invention,
enterprise and solicitude for the comfort and presentability of
home shone conspicuous. Domestic art finds in the island a
congenial home, and helps to make one for the islanders.
English interiors, often incongruous and sombre in their
decorations, at least produce the always pleasant sensation of
physical comfort, the attainment of which the average Briton
will class among the fine arts. Lovely as the Graces are, they
need a little editing to harmonize them with a coal fire.</p>
<p>This halfway house of the nineteenth century, the house of
glass in which it boldly ensconced itself to throw stones at
its benighted relations, will ever be a landmark to the
traveler over the somewhat arid expanse of industrial and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275"
id="page275"></a>[pg 275]</span> commercial history. Its
humblest statistics will be preserved, and coming
generations will read with interest that 42,809 persons
visited it, on an average, each day, that these rose on one
day to 109,915, and that there were at one time in the
building 93,224, or six thousand more than Domitian's most
tempting and sanguinary bill of theatrical fare could have
drawn into the Coliseum. Its length, by the way, was exactly
equal to the circumference of the Flavian
amphitheatre—1848 feet.</p>
<p>A new home (of progress)! who'll follow? "I," quoth New
York. The British empire had taken three years in preparation:
New York was ready with less than two. Not quite ready, either,
we are apt to say now, but most creditably so for the time and
the means of a few enterprising private men bestowed upon it.
And up to this time the display of '53 under the Karnak-like
shadow of the Croton Reservoir has not been equaled on our
soil.</p>
<p>Architecturally, the building was superior to that of
London, and showed itself less cramped by the peculiarities of
the novel material. The form was that of a Greek cross, with a
central dome a hundred and forty-eight feet high, and eight
towers at the salients of seventy feet. The space, including
galleries, did not reach a third of that afforded by its
prototype, but proved equal to the demand.</p>
<p>Considering the absence of any formal public character in
the movement and the brief notice, foreign exhibitors came
forward in tolerable force. They could not expect to address
through this display each other's commercial constituencies, as
very few visitors would traverse the Atlantic: they could reach
only the people of the United States. This difficulty must
interfere—though much less now than twenty years ago,
when the means of ocean-travel were but a fraction of what they
are at present—with the strictly international complexion
of any exposition in this country. If, however—as we are
already assured beyond peradventure will be the case with the
Centennial—our neighbors over the way send us a full
representation of their products, and a delegation of visitors
from their most intelligent classes, not inferior in numbers,
for example, to the Germans who went to London, and the English
who repaired in '73 to Vienna, we shall claim a cosmopolitan
character for our exposition, and hold that it well fills its
place in the line of progress.</p>
<p>What Europe did send to New York sufficed to prove the
superiority of our own artisans in such labor-saving
contrivances as suited the conditions of the country. The
foreign implements and machines were more cumbrous in both
complexity and weight of parts than ours. In the finer
departments of manufacture, the Gobelin tapestry, the French
glass, porcelain and silks, the broadcloths of England and
Prussia, and a host of other such articles, could expect no
rivalry here. The slender contributions of statuary and
paintings hardly sufficed to illustrate the conceded
superiority of the Old World in art. Crawford and Powers did
very well by the side of the other, disciples of the antique,
their chief opposition coming from some indifferent
plaster-casts of Thorwaldsen's <i>Twelve Apostles</i>. In point
of popularity, Kiss's spirited melodramatic group of the
<i>Amazon and Tiger</i> threw them all into the shade. Its
triumph at London was almost as marked, and the innumerable
reductions of it met with everywhere show it to be one of the
few hits of modern sculpture.</p>
<p>The general result of the exhibition was to encourage our
manufacturers, without giving them a great deal of food for
higher ambition; while our artists and the taste of their
patrons, actual and possible, were disappointed of the
instruction they had reason to expect, and which the ateliers
of Europe will supply in fuller measure this year.</p>
<p>The succeeding years present us with an epidemic of
expositions, most of them, often on the slenderest grounds,
arrogating the title of "international." The sprightly little
city of Cork was one year ahead of New York. Then came Dublin
in '53, Munich in '54, Paris in '55, Manchester in '57 (of art
exclusively, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page276"
id="page276"></a>[pg 276]</span> and very brilliant),
Florence in '61, London again in '62, Amsterdam in '64; and
in '65 the mania had overspread the globe, that year
witnessing exhibitions dubbed "international" in Dublin, New
Zealand, Oporto, Cologne and Stettin, with perhaps some
outliers we have missed. Then ensued a lull or a mitigation
till the moribund empire of France and the remodeled empire
of Austro-Hungary flared up into the magnificent
demonstrations of '67 and '73. To these last we shall devote
the remainder of this article, with but a glance at the
second British of 1862.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/276.jpg"
name="fig276"
id="fig276"><img width="100%"
src="images/276.jpg"
alt="MANCHESTER EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1857." />
</a>MANCHESTER EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1857.
</div>
<p>This, held upon the same ground with its forerunner of
eleven years previous, affords a better measure of progress. It
developed a manifest advance in designs for ornamental
manufactures. The schools of decorative art were beginning to
tell. Carpets, hangings, furniture, stuffs for wear, encaustic
tiles, etc. showed a sounder taste; and this in the foreign as
well as the British stalls. French porcelain was more fully
represented than before, and in finer designs. The Paris
exhibition of '55, more extensively planned, though less of a
financial success, than the London one it followed, was not
without effect on the industry and art-culture of France. The
United States also showed that they had not been idle. Our
fabrics of vulcanized rubber and sewing-machines were boons to
Europe she has not been slow to seize. The latter are now sold
in England, with trifling modifications and new trademarks, at
from one-third to one-half the price our people have to
pay.</p>
<p>The secret of making money out of these great fairs seemed
to have been lost. Although England's second took in much more
than the first, and four times as much as the first French,
four hundred and sixty thousand pounds having entered its
treasury, it failed to leave any such profitable memorials of
profit.</p>
<p>By this time the spirit of French emulation was stirred to
its inmost depths. They had gone to London, argued the Gauls,
under every disadvantage. To prove that they had returned
covered with glory, they hunted every nook and corner of
numerical analysis. Out of 18,000 exhibitors of all nations,
they had <span class="pagenum"><a name="page277"
id="page277"></a>[pg 277]</span> had but 1747, and yet Paris
had received thirty-nine council medals, or honors of the
first order, per million of inhabitants, against fourteen
per million accorded to London. She had beaten the
metropolis of fog not only in general, but in detail. In
every branch, from the most solid to the most sentimental,
she was victorious. For machinery a million of gamins beat a
million of Cockneys in the proportion of seven to six; in
the economical and chemical arts, four to one; in the
geographical and geometrical, eight to three; and in the
fine arts, Waterloo was reversed to the tune of twenty to
four.</p>
<p>Nothing could be more conclusive; but to take a bond of fate
it was determined to imitate England in trying a second
display, and supplement '53 with '67 more effectively than
Albion had '51 with '62. In what gallant style this
determination was carried out we all remember. France did put
forth her strength. She illustrated the Second Empire with an
outpouring of her own genius and energy the variety and
comprehensiveness of which no other nation could pretend to
equal; and she called together the nearest approach to a rally
of the nations that had yet been seen.</p>
<p>The casket of these assembled treasures was hardly worthy of
them, so far as the effect of the mass went. It needed a facade
as badly as does a confectioner's plum-cake. Had the vitreous
mass been dumped upon the Champs de Mars from the clouds in a
viscous state like the Alpine <i>mers de glace</i>, it would
have assumed much such a thick disk-like shape as it actually
wore. Then decorate it with some spun-sugar pinnacles and some
flags of silver paper, and the confiseur stood confessed.
Nevertheless, motive was there. Catch anything French without
it.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/277.jpg"
name="fig277"
id="fig277"><img width="100%"
src="images/277.jpg"
alt="FLORENCE EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1861" />
</a>FLORENCE EXHIBITION BUILDING, 1861
</div>
<p>The pavilion consisted of seven concentric ovals, the arcs
and their radii effecting the duplicate division of objects and
countries. Outside, under the eaves and in the surrounding
area, the peoples were encamped around their possessions. The
gastric fluid being the universal solvent, the festive board
was assigned the position nearest the building, a continuous
shed protecting the restaurants of all nations, each with its
proper specialty in the way of viands and service. Necessarily,
there was in the carrying out of the latter idea a good deal of
the sham and theatrical. But that gave the thing more zest, and
the saloons were by no means the least effective feature of the
appliances for introducing the races to each other. Tired of
the tender intercourse of chopsticks, forks and fingers,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278"
id="page278"></a>[pg 278]</span> they could exchange visits
in their drawing-rooms; most of the known styles of
dwelling-place, if we except the snow-huts of the Esquimaux,
the burrows of the Kamtchadales and the boats of Canton,
having representatives.</p>
<p>The United States government took particular interest in
this exposition, and published a long and detailed report made
by its commissioners. Our contributions were not worthy of the
country, and showed but little novelty. Implements of farming
and of war, pianos, sewing-machines and locomotives attracted
chief attention. The pianos were "unreservedly praised." The
wines, California having come to the rescue, were pronounced an
improvement on previous specimens. The only trait of our
engines that was admired or borrowed appears to have been that
which had least to do with the organism of the
machine—the cab. In cars our ideas have fruited better,
and Pullman and Westinghouse have gained a firm foothold in
England, with whose endorsement their way is open across the
Channel. In the arts we are credited with seventy-five
pictures, against a hundred and twenty-three from England and
six hundred and fifty-two from France.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/278.jpg"
name="fig278"
id="fig278"><img width="100%"
src="images/278.jpg"
alt="PARIS EXPOSITION BUILDING AND GROUNDS, 1867." />
</a>PARIS EXPOSITION BUILDING AND GROUNDS, 1867.
</div>
<p>Here France was at home, and felt it. The works of Dubray,
Triquetti, Yvon, Giraud, Gérôme, Dubufe,
Toulmouche, Courbet, Troyon, Rosa Bonheur and others exhibited
the route toward the naturalistic taken by her modern school,
so different from that pursued by the Pre-Raphaelites in
England. The Düsseldorf school has been drawn into the
same path—France's one conquest from Prussia, who made at
the same time a stout struggle in defence of the classic manner
through Kaulbach. The drawings and paintings of art-students
maintained by the French government in Italy attested an
enlightened liberality other governments, general or local,
would do well to imitate. The cost of supporting a few score of
pupils in Rome could in no way be better bestowed for the
promotion of commerce, manufactures and education. Taste has
unquestionably a high economic value. But this is only one
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279"
id="page279"></a>[pg 279]</span> of France's ways of
recognizing the fact. The government École des Beaux
Arts at Paris contained, in 1875, a hundred and seventy-two
students of architecture, a hundred and eighty-three of
painting, forty of sculpture and two hundred and fifty of
engraving.</p>
<p>As a corollary to this assiduous culture, French art
collectively was at the exposition "first, and the rest
nowhere." The old works sent by Italy stood by themselves; and
in mosaic, Salviati's glass, and statuary led by Vela's <i>Last
Moments of Napoleon</i>, the modern studios of that country
ranked in the front. Prussia had some heliographic maps, then a
new thing, and chromos, also in the bud; Austria and England,
fine architectural drawings; and Eastlake, Stanfield, Landseer,
Frith and Faed crossed pencils with the French. But nothing
modern of the kind could stand by the porcelain of
Sèvres, the glass of St. Louis and Baccarat, the bronzes
of other French producers, the vast collection of drawings of
ancient and mediaeval monuments and architecture in France, her
book-binding and illustration by Bida and Doré, her
jewelry and her art-manufactures as a whole. In carriages she
had obviously studied the turnouts of American workshops to
advantage.</p>
<p>In agricultural machinery all civilized exhibitors had gone
to school to our artisans.</p>
<p>One of our specialties, a postal-car, appeared under the
Prussian flag. So did things more legitimately the property of
the nascent empire. The Krupp gun cast its substance, as well
as its shadow, before. A locomotive destined for India made
Bull rub his eyes. Chemicals in every grade of purity spoke the
potency of the German alembic.</p>
<p>The probability that the production of beetroot-sugar would
before many years attain a position among the industries of
this country gave interest in the eyes of American visitors to
the display of European machinery employed so successfully in
that business. Labor-saving machinery we have not generally
been in the habit of borrowing. Neither, on the other hand, has
Europe been accustomed to draw from us crude material for the
finest manufactures; and the balance was set even by the
admirable quality of the glass made from American sand and the
porcelain moulded in American kaolin. The latter substance, a
silicate of alumina, is not found in England, and at but few
points on the Continent. We have it in abundance and of the
finest quality.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/279.jpg"
name="fig279"
id="fig279"><img width="100%"
src="images/279.jpg"
alt="GRAND VESTIBULE OF THE PARIS EXPOSITION BUILDING, 1867." />
</a>GRAND VESTIBULE OF THE PARIS EXPOSITION BUILDING, 1867.
</div>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280"></a>[pg 280]</span>
The extraordinary steps made within five years in the arts
of destruction were illustrated by the twelve-inch Armstrong
rifles of England and the Essen gun, throwing a 1212-pound
shot. In 1862 the heaviest projectile shown did not exceed one
hundred pounds. For field-service the limit of practice in
weight seems long ago to have been reached: for forts and ships
it cannot be far off. Armor and projectiles must soon bring
each other to a standstill; as when, in the Italian wars of the
fifteenth century, offence and defence reached the <i>reductio
ad absurdum</i> of the incapacity of men-at-arms to inflict
serious injury upon each other, or even to pick themselves up
when the weight of their armor, with some aid from the clumsy
blows of an antagonist, had overthrown them. Assailant and
assailed were <i>in equilibrio</i>, and personal equilibrium
could not be restored. Some such inane result may be witnessed
when a pair of hostile iron-clads, out of sight of their
nursing convoys, shall meet alone upon the deep; with the
disagreeable difference that they will, if they go down, have a
great deal farther to fall than the cuirassiers of the
land.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/280.jpg"
name="fig280"
id="fig280"><img width="100%"
src="images/280.jpg"
alt="VIENNA EXPOSITION BUILDING AND GROUNDS, 1873." />
</a>VIENNA EXPOSITION BUILDING AND GROUNDS, 1873.
</div>
<p>Since 1851 a new commercial cement had come into operation
in the adoption by neighboring powers of the French metrical
system. England and America still hold out against the
mètre and the gramme; and the press of both occasionally
levels at it the old jokes of making the spheres weigh a pound
of butter and the polar axis measure a yard of calico. With the
innovation, however, our merchants have become perforce
familiar, a large share of their imported commodities being
invoiced in accordance with it. Its immense superiority to our
complicated and arbitrary weights and measures, in the tables
whereof the same word often has half a dozen meanings, is
beyond argument. In the United States it has earned a
quasi-official adoption, but the force of habit among the
people has yet to be overcome.</p>
<p>We may here give, in evidence of the increasing hold these
expositions have upon the popular mind, the gradual
multiplication of the numbers exhibiting. At
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281"
id="page281"></a>[pg 281]</span> London, in '51, the
exhibitors were 13,937; at Paris, '55, 23,954; at London,
'62, 28,653; and at Paris, '67, 50,226.</p>
<p>Austria, with admirable spirit, determined to anticipate her
turn to enter the lists of peace. Undismayed by Solferino and
Sadowa, she had found her Antaeus in Andrassy. Her capital city
was advancing with immense strides in beauty and extent.
Geographically and ethnically it was, like the empire itself, a
meeting-ground of north and south, east and west. Isolated from
the sea, it offered for the transport of heavy articles a
system of railways proved by the event to be sufficiently
effective. It was decided that the march of progress should be
more than kept up, and that the building, with its appendages,
should be an improvement on all its predecessors in extent, in
architectural effect and in solidity of material. The
dimensions are so variously stated, owing largely to difference
of opinion as to what should be embraced within the
admeasurement, that we are at a loss how to give them. To the
main building, however, was assigned a capacity of
seventy-three thousand five hundred and ninety-three square
mètres. Sixty-three hundred and eighty of these were
awarded to France, ten mètres less to England; and
thirteen hundred and sixty to the United States. The
marquee-like rotunda rose to a height of two hundred and fifty
feet, with a diameter at base of three hundred and fifty-four.
The principal entrance, with piers and arches of cut stone
profusely decorated with statues and reliefs, was in highly
satisfactory contrast to the fragile shells of glass and cast
iron that sheltered the earlier exhibitions.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/281.jpg"
name="fig281"
id="fig281"><img width="100%"
src="images/281.jpg"
alt="ROTUNDA OF THE VIENNA EXPOSITION BUILDING, 1873." />
</a>ROTUNDA OF THE VIENNA EXPOSITION BUILDING, 1873.
</div>
<p>Perhaps in all this solid work the demands of time had not
been duly considered. Certainly, the display was not punctual
to the appointed period of opening. Exceptionally bad weather
was another drawback, and the greed of the Viennese
hotel-keepers a third. For such, among other reasons, the
enterprise was financially a failure—a fact which little
concerns those who went to study and learn, and those who three
years later have to describe. If the darkening
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282"
id="page282"></a>[pg 282]</span> of the imperial exchequer
prove more than a passing shadow, and an ultimate loss on
the speculation cease to be matter of question, the few
millions it cost may be recovered by the disbanding of a
regiment or two. For one brigade, out of half a million
soldiers, to bring the world and its wealth to the seat of
government, is doing better than the usual work of the
bayonet.</p>
<p>The country and the city themselves were a study to
foreigners in many of the modes of life. The extent to which
the utilization, as stationary and locomotive machines, of
pigs, cows, women and dogs was carried elicited constant remark
from the Western tourists, with sundry moral conclusions
perhaps too hastily arrived at. This outside feature of the
exposition may serve as an admonition to put our own
surroundings in order. They are not apt to expose us to such
comments as naturally occur to those who have never seen dogs
and damsels in harness together; but other vulnerable points
may peradventure be descried. We must demonstrate our
civilization to be complete at all points, and not simply a
coddled exotic under glass. What if our Viennese guests,
physically a stouter race than we, should pronounce our women
<i>too</i> obviously not hod-carriers, and painfully
unaccustomed to wheeling anything heavier than an arm-chair or
a piano-stool?</p>
<p>In that land of music concerts could not fail to be a
leading feature. The Boston improvement of emphasizing the bass
with discharges of distant artillery, or its equivalent, the
slamming of cellar-doors nearer by, was not attained. Noise and
harmony were kept at arm's length apart.</p>
<p>The illustration of homes was made a specialty. As at Paris,
the peoples brought their dwellings, or, more often, the
dwellings came without their occupants. The four-footed and
feathered live-stock were of more indubitable authenticity. The
display of all the European breeds of cattle and
horses—English Durhams, Alderneys and racers, Russian
trotters, Holstein cows and Flemish mares, the gray oxen of
Hungary and the buffaloes of the Campagna, the wild red pigs of
the Don and the razor-backs of Southern France—was
calculated to amuse, if but moderately to edify, our breeders
of Ohio, Kentucky and New York. A thousand horses and fifteen
hundred horned cattle comprised this congress, while two
hundred and fifty pigs were deemed enough to represent the
grunters of all nations.</p>
<p>Of animals in another form, the preserved meats of
Australia, sent sound across the tropics to the amount of
seventeen thousand tons in 1872, against <i>four</i> tons in
1866, had their use of instruction to our packers. So with the
improved display of agricultural produce from Southern Russia,
our chief competitor in the grain-market. Our reapers and
threshers are supplanting, in Eastern Europe, the ridiculous
flails, sickles and straight-handled scythes that figured at
New York in 1853. We have sent the Dacians, Huns and Sarmatians
weapons to cut our own commercial throats. There are more
enriching articles of export than wheat, as we must continue to
learn.</p>
<p>In turning to other provinces, we find that England was
foremost in machinery, the United States, "the only rival,"
says a British critic, "from whom we had anything to fear,"
being feebly represented, as we were in other respects, thanks
to certain irregularities in the management of our
commissioners sufficiently discussed at the time. The British
carpets out-shone the display of any competitor, the influence
of her new schools of decorative design being unmistakably
marked.</p>
<p>The Aubusson carpets of France still maintained their
position, as did the velvet, faïence, tapestry,
engravings, books, marine photographs, etc. of the same
country. Italy made her usual contribution in the arts. Among
the Austrian objects of this class the opals of Hungary were
prominent.</p>
<p>India was unexpectedly complete in her collection: not only
her modern industry, but her antiquities, had abundant
specimens.</p>
<p>Much criticism has been expended upon the alleged lavish and
indiscriminate distribution of medals and diplomas at Vienna.
But, however numerous <span class="pagenum"><a name="page283"
id="page283"></a>[pg 283]</span> the undeserving who
obtained them, the deserving must at the same time have had
their share: the shower that fell on the unjust could not
have missed the just. Therefore we note that, despite our
slender show, one hundred and seventy-eight medals for Merit
and sixty-nine for Progress, two for the Fine Arts (German
Bierstadt and French Healey) and five for Good Taste, came
to America. The National Bureau of Education, the Lighthouse
Board and the State of Massachusetts obtained "Grand
Diplomas of Honor" for documents. The like honor was awarded
to the city of Boston and the Smithsonian Institution, and
to four private exhibitors for the more palpable
contributions of tool-making machinery, steam-machinery,
mowing-machines and dentistry. This list does not teach us
much. The prizes are, unless awarded with the most
intelligent and conscientious precision, valuable chiefly as
advertisements to the recipients, who can earn, and
generally have earned, better advertisements in other
shapes.</p>
<p>Thus have the chief powers of Western and Central Europe
displayed their mettle in peaceful tourney. The visor of a
young and unknown knight is now barred for the fray. He has,
like the rest in these days of modern chivalry, to be his own
herald and blow his own preliminary blast. It is a tolerably
sonorous one. Let the event show that he speaks not through
brass alone.</p>
<h2>SKETCHES OF INDIA.</h2>
<h3>III.</h3>
<p>Thus we fared leisurely along. We passed Cabul merchants
peddling their dried fruit on shaggy-haired camels; to these
succeeded, in more lonesome portions of the road, small groups
of Korkas, wretched remnants of one of the autochthonal
families of Central India—even lower in the scale of
civilization than the Gónds, among whom they are found;
and to these the richly-caparisoned elephants of some wealthy
Bhopal gentleman making a journey. We lingered long among the
marvelous old Buddhistic <i>topes</i> or tumuli of Sanchi, and
I interested my companion greatly in describing the mounds of
the United States, with which I was familiar, and whose
resemblance to these richly-sculptured and variously-ornamented
ruins, though rude and far off, was quite enough to set his
active fancy to evolving all manner of curious hypotheses going
to explain such similarity. The whole way, by Sangor,
Gharispore, Bhilsa, Sanchi, Sonori, presented us with the most
interesting relics of the past, and the frequent recurrence of
the works of the once prevalent Buddhistic faith continually
incited us to new discussions of the yet unsolved question, Why
has Buddha's religion, which once had such entire possession of
this people's hearts, so entirely disappeared from the
land?</p>
<p>And, as nothing could be more completely contrasted with the
desert asceticism which Buddha's tenets inculcated than the
luxury into which Mohammed's creed has flowered, so nothing
could have more strikingly broken in upon our discussions of
the Buddhistic monuments than the view which we at last
obtained of the lovely Mohammedan city of Bhopal. To the south
and east ran a strip of country as barren and heartacheish as
if the very rocks and earth had turned Buddhist, beyond which a
range of low rounded hills, not unlike <i>topes</i>, completed
the ascetic suggestion. But, turning from this, we saw
Mohammedanism at its very loveliest. Minarets, domes, palaces,
gardens, the towers of the citadel, waters of lovely lakes, all
mingled <span class="pagenum"><a name="page284"
id="page284"></a>[pg 284]</span> themselves together in the
voluptuous light of the low sun: there was a sense of music,
of things that sparkled, of pearly lustres, of shimmering
jewels, of softness, of delight, of luxury. Bhopal looked
over the ragged valley like a sultan from the window of his
zenana regarding afar off an unkempt hermit in his solitude.
My companion had arranged for permission to enter the town,
and it was not <span class="pagenum"><a name="page285"
id="page285"></a>[pg 285]</span> long ere we were installed
in the house of a friend of Bhima Gandharva's, whose guests
we remained during our stay in Bhopal.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:60%;">
<a href="images/284.jpg"
name="fig284"
id="fig284"><img width="100%"
src="images/284.jpg"
alt="MUSSULMAN WOMAN OF BHOPAL." /></a>MUSSULMAN WOMAN
OF BHOPAL.
</div>
<p>On a rock at the summit of a hill commanding this
interesting city stands the fort of Fatehgarh, built by a
certain Afghan adventurer, Dost Mohammed Khan, who, in a time
when this part of India must have been a perfect paradise for
all the free lances of the East, was so fortunate as to win the
favor of Aurungzebe, and to receive as evidence thereof a
certain district in Malwa. The Afghan seems to have lost no
time in improving the foothold thus gained, and he thus founded
the modern district of Bhopal, which was formerly divided
between Malwa and Góndwana, one gate of the town
standing in the former and one in the latter country. Dost
Mohammed Khan appears, indeed, to have been not the only
adventurer who bettered his fortunes in Bhopal. It is a curious
fact, and one well illustrating the liberality which has
characterized much of the more modern history of the Bhopal
government, that no long time ago it was administered by a
regency consisting of three persons—one a Hindu, one a
Mohammedan, and the other a Christian. This Christian is
mentioned by Sir John Malcolm as "Shahzed Musseah, or
Belthazzar Bourbona" (by which Sir John means <i>Shahzahad
Messiah</i>—a native appellation signifying "the
Christian prince"—or <i>Balthazar of Bourbon</i>), and is
described by that officer, to whom he was well known, as a
brave soldier and an able man. He traced his lineage to a
certain Frenchman calling himself John of Bourbon, who in the
time of Akbar was high in favor and position at Delhi. His
widow, the princess Elizabeth of Bourbon, still resides at
Bhopal in great state, being possessed of abundant wealth and
ranking second only to the Begum. She is the acknowledged head
of a large number of descendants of John of Bourbon, amounting
to five or six hundred, who remain at Bhopal and preserve their
faith—having a church and Catholic priest of their
own—as well as the traditions of their ancestry, which,
according to their claim, allies them to the royal blood of
France.</p>
<p>No mention of Bhopal can fail to pay at least a hasty
tribute in commemoration of the forcible character and liberal
politics of the Begum, who has but of late gone to her account
after a long and sometimes trying connection with the
administration of her country's affairs. After the death of her
husband—who was accidentally killed by a pistol in the
hands of a child not long after the treaty with the English in
1818—their nephew, then in his minority, was considered
as the future nawab, and was betrothed to their daughter, the
Begum being regent during his minority. When the time came,
with his majority, for the nuptials, the Begum refused to allow
the marriage to take place, for reasons which need not here be
detailed. After much dispute a younger brother of the nephew
was declared more eligible, but the Begum still managed in one
way or another to postpone matters, much to his
dissatisfaction. An arbitration finally resulted in placing him
on the throne, but his reign was short, and he died after a few
years, leaving the Begum again in practical charge of
affairs—a position which she improved by instituting many
wise and salutary reforms and bringing the state of Bhopal to a
condition of great prosperity. The Pearl Mosque (<i>Monti
Masjid</i>), which stands immediately in front of the palace,
was built at her instance in imitation of the great
cathedral-mosque of Delhi, and presents a charming evidence of
her taste, as well as of the architectural powers still
existing in this remarkable race.</p>
<p>The town proper of Bhopal is enclosed by a
much—decayed wall of masonry some two miles in circuit,
within which is a fort, similar both in its condition and
material to the wall. Outside these limits is a large
commercial quarter (<i>gunge</i>). The beautiful lake running
off past the town to the south is said to be artificial in its
origin, and to have been produced at the instance of Bho Pal,
the minister of King Bohoje, as long ago as the sixth century,
by damming up the waters of the Bess (or Besali) River, for the
purpose <span class="pagenum"><a name="page286"
id="page286"></a>[pg 286]</span> of converting an arid
section into fertile land. It is still called the Bhopal
Tal.</p>
<div class="figleft"
style="width:65%;">
<a href="images/286.jpg"
name="fig286"
id="fig286"><img width="100%"
src="images/286.jpg"
alt="A NAUTCH-GIRL (OR BAYADÈRE) OF ULWUR." />
</a>A NAUTCH-GIRL (OR BAYADÈRE) OF ULWUR.
</div>
<p>If this were a ponderous folio of travels, one could detail
the pleasures and polite attentions of one's Bhopalese host; of
the social <i>utter-pán</i>; of the sprinklings with
rose-water; of the dreamy talks over fragrant hookahs; of the
wanderings among bazaars filled with moving crowds of people
hailing from all the ports that lie between Persia and the
Góndwana; of the <i>fêtes</i> where the
Nautch-girl of Baroda contended in graceful emulation with the
nautch-girl of Ulwur, and the cathacks (or male dancers) with
both; of elegantly-perfumed Bhopalese young men; of the palaces
of nobles guarded by soldiers whose accoutrements ranged from
the musket to the morion; of the Moharum, when the Mohammedan
celebrates the New Year. But what would you have? A sketch is a
sketch. We have got only to the heart of India: the head and
the whole prodigious eastern side are not yet reached. It is
time one were off for Jhansi.</p>
<p>At Bioura we encountered modern civilization again in the
shape of the south-west branch of the Grand Trunk road, which
leads off from the main stem at Agra. The Grand Trunk is not a
railroad, but a firm and smooth highway, with which the English
have united Calcutta to the North-west Provinces and to the
west of India. Much of this great roadway is metaled with
<i>kunkur</i>, an oolitic limestone found near the surface of
the soil in Hindustan; and all Anglo-India laughed at the joke
of an irreverent punster who, <i>apropos</i> of the fact that
this application of kunkur to the road-bed was made under the
orders of Lord William Bentinck, then governor-general, dubbed
that gentleman William the Kunkurer.</p>
<p>We had abandoned our <i>chapaya</i>—which, we may add
for the benefit of future travelers, we had greatly improved as
against jolting by causing it to be suspended upon a pair of
old springs which we found, a relic of some antique break-down,
in a village on the route—and after a short journey on
elephants were traveling <i>dâk</i>; that is, by post.
The <i>dâk-gharri</i> is a comfortable-enough long
carriage on four wheels, and constitutes the principal mode of
conveyance for travelers in India besides the railway. It
contains a mattress inside, for it goes night and day, and
one's baggage is strapped on top, much as in an American
stage-coach after the "boot" is full.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287"
id="page287"></a>[pg 287]</span> Frequent relays of horses
along the route enable the driver to urge his animals from
one station to the other with great speed, and the only
other stoppages are at the <i>dâk</i>-bungalows.</p>
<p>"I have discovered," I said to Bhima Gandharva after a short
experience of the <i>dâk-gharri</i> and the
<i>dâk</i>-bungalows—"I have discovered a general
remark about India which is <i>not</i> absurd: all the horses
are devils and all the <i>dâk</i>-bungalow servants are
patriarchs."</p>
<p>"If you judge by the heels of the former and the beards of
the latter, it is true," he said.</p>
<p>This little passage was based on the experience of the last
relay, which was, however, little more than a repetition of
many previous ones. My friend and I having arranged ourselves
comfortably in the <i>dâk-gharri</i> as soon as it was
announced ready to start, the long and marvelously lean Indian
who was our driver signified to his team by the usual
horse-language that we should be glad to go. The horse did not
even agitate his left ear—a phenomenon which I associate
with a horse in that moment when he is quietly making up his
mind to be fractious. "Go, my brother," said the driver in a
mellifluous and really fraternal tone of voice. The horse
disdained to acknowledge the tie: he stood still.</p>
<div class="figleft"
style="width:60%;">
<a href="images/287.jpg"
name="fig287"
id="fig287"><img width="100%"
src="images/287.jpg"
alt="A NAUTCHNI(OR BAYADÈRE) OF BARODA." />
</a>A NAUTCHNI (OR BAYADÈRE) OF BARODA.
</div>
<p>Then the driver changed the relationship, with an access of
tenderness in voice and in adjuration. "Go, my son," he
entreated. But the son stood as immovable as if he were going
to remain a monument of filial impiety to all time.</p>
<p>"Go, my grandson, my love." This seemed entirely too much
for the animal, and produced apparently a sense of abasement in
him which was in the highest degree uncomplimentary to his
human kinsman and lover. He lay down. In so doing he broke
several portions of the ragged harness, and then proceeded,
with the most deliberate absurdity, to get himself thoroughly
tangled in the remainder.</p>
<p>"I think I should be willing," I said to my companion, "to
carry that horse to Jhansi on my own shoulders if I could have
the pleasure of seeing him blown from one of the rajah's cannon
in the, fort."</p>
<p>But the driver, without the least appearance of
discomposure, had dismounted, and with his long deft Hindu
fingers soon released the animal, patched up his gear, replaced
him between the shafts and resumed his
place.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288" id="page288"></a>[pg 288]</span>
</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/288.jpg"
name="fig288"
id="fig288"><img width="100%"
src="images/288.jpg"
alt="THE CATHACKS (OR DANCING MEN) OF BHOPAL." />
</a>THE CATHACKS (OR DANCING MEN) OF BHOPAL.
</div>
<p>Another round of consanguinities: the animal still remained
immovable, till presently he lunged out with a wicked kick
which had nearly obliterated at one blow the whole line of his
ancestry and collateral relatives as represented in the driver.
At this the latter became as furious as he had before been
patient: he belabored the horse, assistants ran from the
stables, the whole party yelled and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289"
id="page289"></a>[pg 289]</span> gesticulated at the little
beast simultaneously, and he finally broke down the road at
a pace which the driver did not suffer him to relax until we
arrived at the bungalow where we intended to stop for
supper.</p>
<p>A venerable old Mohammedan in a white beard that gave him
the majesty of Moses advanced for the purpose of ascertaining
our wants.</p>
<p>"Had he any mutton-chops?" asked Bhima Gandharva in
Hindustani, the <i>lingua franca</i> of the country.</p>
<p>"Cherisher of the humble! no."</p>
<p>"Any beefsteak?"</p>
<p>"Nourisher of the poor! no."</p>
<p>"Well, then, I <i>hear</i> a chicken," said my friend,
conclusively.</p>
<p>"O great king," said the Mohammedan, turning to me, "there
<i>is</i> a chicken."</p>
<p>In a twinkling the cook caught the chicken: its head was
turned toward Mecca. Bismillah! O God the Compassionate, the
Merciful! the poor fowl's head flew off, and by the time we had
made our ablutions supper was ready.</p>
<p>Turning across the ridges to the north-eastward from Sipri,
we were soon making our way among the tanks and groves which
lie about the walls of Jhansi. Here, as at Poona, there was
ever present to me a sense of evil destinies, of blood, of
treacheries, which seemed to linger about the trees and the
tanks like exhalations from the old crimes which have stained
the soil of the country. For Jhansi is in the Bundelcund, and
the Bundelcund was born in great iniquity. The very
name—which properly is <i>Bundelakhand,</i> or "the
country of the Bundelas"—has a history thickly set about
with the terrors of caste, of murder and of usurpation. Some
five hundred years ago a certain Rajput prince, Hurdeo Sing,
committed the unpardonable sin of marrying a slave
(<i>bundi</i>), and was in consequence expelled from the
Kshatriya caste to which he belonged. He fled with his disgrace
into this region, and after some years found opportunity at
least to salve his wounds with blood and power. The son of the
king into whose land he had escaped conceived a passion for the
daughter of the slave wife. It must needs have been a mighty
sentiment, for the conditions which Hurdeo Sing exacted were of
a nature to try the strongest love. These were, that the
nuptial banquet should be prepared by the unmentionable hands
of the slave wife herself, and that the king and his court
should partake of it—a proceeding which would involve the
loss of their caste also. But the prince loved, and his love
must have lent him extraordinary eloquence, for he prevailed on
his royal father to accept the disgrace. If one could only stop
here, and record that he won his bride, succeeded his
magnanimous old parent on the throne, lived a long and happy
life with his queen, and finally died regretted by his loving
people! But this is in the Bundelcund, and the facts are, that
the treacherous Hurdeo Sing caused opium to be secretly put
into all the dishes of the wedding-feast, and when the
unsuspecting revelers were completely stupefied by the drug had
the whole party assassinated, after which he possessed himself
of the throne and founded the Bundelcund.</p>
<p>One does not wonder that the hills and forests of such a
land became the hiding-places of the strangling Thugs, the home
of the poisoning Dacoits, the refuge of conspirators and
insurgents and the terror of Central India.</p>
<p>As for Jhansi, the district in whose capital we were now
sojourning, its people must have tasted many of the sorrows of
anarchy and of despotism even in recent times. It was
appurtenant no long time ago to the Bundela rajah of Ourcha:
from him it passed by conquest into the possession of the
Peishwa. These small districts were all too handy for being
tossed over as presents to favorites: one finds them falling
about among the greedy subordinates of conquerors like nuts
thrown out to school-boys. The Peishwa gave Jhansi to a
soubahdar: the British government then appeared, and effected
an arrangement by which the soubahdar should retain it as
hereditary rajah on the annual payment of twenty-four thousand
rupees. This so-called rajah, Ramchund Rao, died without issue
in 1835. Amid great disputes as to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290"
id="page290"></a>[pg 290]</span> succession the British
arbitrators finally decided in favor of Rugonath Rao; but
new quarrels straightway arose, a great cry being made that
Rugonath Rao was a leper, and that a leper ought not to be a
rajah. His death in some three years settled that
difficulty, only to open fresh ones among the conflicting
claimants. These perplexing questions the British finally
concluded quite effectually by assuming charge of the
government themselves, though this was attended with
trouble, for the stout old mother of Ramchund Rao made armed
resistance from the fort or castellated residence of the
rajahs, which stands on its great rock overlooking the town
of Jhansi. A commission finally decreed the succession to
Baba Gunghadar Rao, but retained the substantial power until
the revenues had recovered from the depression consequent
upon these anarchic disturbances.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/290.jpg"
name="fig290"
id="fig290"><img width="100%"
src="images/290.jpg"
alt="BURIAL PLACE OF THE RAJAHS OF JHANSI." />
</a>BURIAL PLACE OF THE RAJAHS OF JHANSI.
</div>
<p>"At any rate," I said as Bhima Gandharva finished this
narrative while we were walking about the burial-place of the
rajahs of Jhansi, and occupying ourselves with tracing the
curious admixture of Moslem with Hindu architecture presented
by the tombs, "these rajahs, if they loved each other but
little in life, appear to have buried each other with proper
enough observances: the cenotaphs are worthy of tenderer
remembrances."</p>
<p>"Yes," he said: "this part of India is everywhere a land of
beautiful tombs <span class="pagenum"><a name="page291"
id="page291"></a>[pg 291]</span> which enclose ugly
memories. I recall one tomb, however, near which I have
spent many hours of tranquil meditation, and which is at
once lovely without and within: it is the tomb of the Muslim
saint Allum Sayed at Baroda. It was built of stones taken
from an old Jain temple whose ruins are still visible near
by; and with a singular fitness, in view of its material,
the Muslim architect has mingled his own style with the
Hindu, so that an elegant union of the keen and naked Jain
asceticism with the mellower and richer fancy of the
luxurious Mohammedan has resulted in a perfect work of that
art which makes death lovely by recalling its spiritual
significance. Besides, a holy silence broods about the
cactus and the euphorbian foliage, so that a word will send
the paroquets, accustomed to such unbroken stillness, into
hasty flights. The tomb proper is in the chamber at the
centre, enclosed by delicately-trellised walls of stone. I
can easily fancy that the soul of Allum Sayed is sitting by
his grave, like a faithful dog loath to quit his dead
master.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/291.jpg"
name="fig291"
id="fig291"><img width="100%"
src="images/291.jpg"
alt="TOMB OF ALLUM SAYED." /></a>TOMB OF ALLUM SAYED.
</div>
<p>Jhansi was once in the enjoyment of a considerable trade.
The caravans from the Deccan to Furruckabad and other places in
the Douab were in the habit of stopping here, and there was
much trafficking in the cloths of Chanderi and in bows, arrows
and spears—the weapons of the Bundela tribes—which
were here manufactured. Remnants of the wealth then acquired
remain; and on the evening of the same day when we were
wandering among the rajahs' tombs we proceeded to the house of
a rich friend of Bhima Gandharva's, where we were to witness a
<i>nautch</i>, or dance, executed by a wandering troop of
Mewati bayadères. We arrived about nine o'clock: a
servant sprinkled us with rose-water, and we were ushered into
a large saloon, where the bayadères were seated with a
couple of musicians, one of whom played the tam-tam and another
a sort of violin. When the family of our host, together with a
few friends, were seated at the end of the room opposite the
bayadères, the signal was given, and the music commenced
with a soft <span class="pagenum"><a name="page292"
id="page292"></a>[pg 292]</span> and indescribably
languorous air. One of the bayadères rose with a
lithe and supple movement of the body not comparable to
anything save the slow separating of a white scud from the
main cloud which one sees on a summer's day high up in the
cirrus regions. She was attired in a short jacket, a scarf,
and a profusion of floating stuff that seemed at once to
hide and expose. Presently I observed that her jewelry was
glittering as it does not glitter when one is still, yet her
feet were not moving. I also heard a gentle tinkling from
her anklets and bracelets. On regarding her more steadily, I
saw that her whole body was trembling in gentle and yet
seemingly intense vibrations, and she maintained this
singular agitation while she assumed an attitude of much
grace, extending her arms and spreading out her scarf in
gracefully-waving curves. In these slow and languid changes
of posture, which accommodated themselves to the music like
undulations in running water to undulations in the sand of
its bed, and in the strange trembling of her body, which
seemed to be an inner miniature dance of the nerves,
consisted her entire performance. She intensified the
languid nature of her movements by the languishing
coquetries of her enormous black eyes, from which she sent
piercing glances between half-closed lids. It was a dance
which only southern peoples understand. Any one who has ever
beheld the <i>slow juba</i> of the negro in the Southern
United States will recognize its affinity to these
movements, which, apparently deliberate, are yet surcharged
with intense energy and fire.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:75%;">
<a href="images/292.jpg"
name="fig292"
id="fig292"><img width="100%"
src="images/292.jpg"
alt="MEWATI DANCING-GIRL." /></a>MEWATI DANCING-GIRL.
</div>
<p>Her performance being finished, the bayadère was
succeeded by others, each of whom appeared to have her
specialty—one imitating by her postures a
serpent-charmer; another quite unequivocally representing a
man-charmer; another rapidly executing what seemed an
interminable pirouette. Finally, all joined in a song and a
closing round, adding the sound of clapping hands to the more
energetic measures of the
music.</p>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293"></a>[pg 293]</span>
"I can now understand," I said when the nautch was finished,
"the remark of the shah of Persia which set everybody laughing
not long ago in England. During his visit to that country,
being present at a ball where ladies and gentlemen were
enjoying themselves in a somewhat laborious way in dancing, he
finally asked, 'Why do you not make your servants do this for
you?' It is at least entertaining to see a nautch, but to wade
through the English interpretation of a waltz, <i>hic labor hoc
opus est</i>, and the servants <i>ought</i> to perform it."</p>
<p>"Do you know," said Bhima Gandharva, "that much the same
national mode of thought which prompts the Hindu to have his
dancing done by the nautch-girls also prompts him to have his
tax-gathering and general governing done by the English? We are
often asked why the spectacle has so often been seen of our
native princes quietly yielding up their kingdoms to strangers,
and even why we do not now rise and expel the foreigner from
power over us. The truth is, most Hindus are only glad to get
some one else to do the very hard work of governing. The
Englishman is always glad to get a French cook, because the
French can cook better than the English. Why should not we be
also glad to get English governors, when the English govern so
much better than the Hindus? In truth, governing and cooking
are very like—the successful ruler, like the successful
cook, has only to consult the tastes of his employers; and upon
any proper theory of politics government becomes just as purely
an economic business as cooking. You do not cook your own
dinner: why? Because you desire to devote your time to
something better and higher. So we do not collect taxes and lay
them out for the public convenience, because there are other
things we prefer to do. I am amazed at the modern ideas of
government: it is looked upon as an end, as an objective result
in itself, whereas it is really only the merest of means toward
leaving a man at leisure to attend to his private affairs. The
time will come"—and here the Hindu betrayed more energy
than I had hitherto ever seen him display—"when the world
will have its whole governing work done upon contract by those
best fitted for it, and when such affairs will be looked upon
as belonging simply to the police function of existence, which
negatively secures us from harm, without at all positively
touching the substantial advancement of man's life."</p>
<p>The next day we fared northward toward Agra, by Duttiah,
Gwalior and Dholepore. Learning at Agra that the
northward-bound train—for here we had come upon complete
civilization again in the East Indian Railway—would pass
in an hour, we determined to reserve the Taj Mahal (the lovely
Pearl Mosque of Agra) until we should be returning from Delhi
to Calcutta. Bhima Gandharva desired me, however, to see the
Douab country and the old sacred city of Mattra; and so when we
had reached Hatras Station, a few miles north of Agra, we
abandoned the railway and struck across to the south-westward,
toward Mattra, in a hired carriage.</p>
<p>We were now veritably in ancient Hindustan. It was among
these level plains through which we were rolling that the
antique Brahmins came and propounded that marvelous system
which afterward took the whole heart of the land. Nothing could
have been more striking than to cast one's eye thus over the
wide cotton-fields—for one associates cotton with the
New—and find them cultivated by these bare-legged and
breech-clouted peasants of the Douab, with ploughs which
consisted substantially of a crooked stick shod with iron at
the end, and with other such farming-implements out of the time
that one thinks of as forty centuries back. Yet in spite of
this primitive rudeness of culture, and of an aridity of soil
necessitating troublesome irrigation, these plains have for a
prodigious period of time supported a teeming population; and I
could not help crying out to Bhima Gandharva that if we had a
few millions of these gentle and patient peasants among the
cotton-fields of the United States, the South would quickly
become a Garden of Delight
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294"
id="page294"></a>[pg 294]</span> and the planters could
build Jammah Masjids with rupees for marble.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:80%;">
<a href="images/294.jpg"
name="fig294"
id="fig294"><img width="100%"
src="images/294.jpg"
alt="PEASANTS OF THE DOUAB." /></a>PEASANTS OF THE
DOUAB.
</div>
<p>The conservatism which has preserved for so long a time the
ancient rude methods of industry begins to grow on one as one
passes between these villages of people who seem to be living
as if they were perfectly sure that God never intended them to
live any other way.</p>
<p>"It is not long," said my friend, "since
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295"
id="page295"></a>[pg 295]</span> a British officer of
engineers, on some expedition or other, was encamped for the
night at no great distance from here. His tent had been
pitched near one of those Persian water-wheels such as you
have seen, which, although of great antiquity, are perhaps
as ingeniously adapted to the purpose of lifting water as
any machine ever invented. The creaking of the wheel annoyed
him very much, and after a restless night, owing to that
cause, he rose and went out of his tent and inquired of the
proprietor of the wheel (a native) why in the name of Heaven
he never greased it. 'Because,' said the conservative Hindu,
'I have become so accustomed to the noise that I can only
sleep soundly while it is going on: when it stops, then I
wake, and knowing from the cessation of the sound that my
bullock-driver is neglecting his duty, I go out and beat
him.' Thus, even the conservation of the useless comes in
time to create habits which are useful."</p>
<p>"It is true," I replied, "and it recalls to me a somewhat
unusual illustration. A summer or two ago a legal friend of
mine, who is the possessor of a large family of children, came
into the court-room one morning with very red eyes, and to my
inquiry concerning the cause of the same he replied: 'To tell
you the truth, I can't go to sleep unless a child is crying
about the house somewhere; but my wife left town yesterday for
the summer with all the children, and I haven't had a wink the
whole night.'"</p>
<p>A drive of some five hours brought us to Mattra after dark,
and as we crossed the bridge of boats over the sacred Jumna
(the <i>Yamuna</i> of the Sanscrit poems) he seemed indeed
thrice holy, with his bosom full of stars. Mattra, which lies
immediately on the western bank of the river, stands next to
Benares among the holy cities of the Hindus: here both the soil
and the river-water are consecrated, for this was the
birthplace of Krishna, or, more properly speaking, the scene of
that avatar of Vishnu which is known as Krishna. When we rose
early in the morning and repaired to the river-bank, hundreds
of the faithful were ascending and descending the numerous
ghâts leading down the high bank to the water, while a
still more animated crowd of both sexes were standing up to
their middle in the stream, throwing the water in this
direction and that, and mingling their personal ablutions with
the rites of worship in such a way as might at once clean both
souls and bodies. Evidences of the holy character of the town
met us everywhere as we strolled back to our lodgings. Sacred
monkeys, painted red over their hind quarters in consecration
to the monkey-god Hanuman, capered and grinned about us, and
sacred bulls obstructed our way along the narrow and dirty
streets, while everywhere we saw pictures representing
Krishna—sometimes much like an Apollo in the guise of a
youthful shepherd playing the flute to a group of young girls,
who danced under a tree; sometimes as a Hercules strangling a
serpent or performing other feats of physical strength.</p>
<p>Fabulous stories are told of the early wealth and glory of
Mattra. Ferishta relates that when Mahmoud of Ghazni had
arrived with his troops in the neighborhood in the year 1017,
he heard of this rich city consecrated to Krishna Vasu-Deva,
and straightway marching upon it captured it and gave it up to
plunder. Writing of it afterward to the governor of Ghazni, he
declared that such another city could not be built within two
centuries; that it contained one thousand edifices "as firm as
the faith of the faithful," and mostly built of marble; that
among the temples had been found five golden idols in whose
heads were ruby eyes worth fifty thousand dinars; that in
another was a sapphire weighing four hundred <i>miskals</i>
(the present <i>miskal</i> of Bosrah is seventy-two grains),
the image itself producing, after being melted, ninety-eight
thousand three hundred <i>miskals</i> of pure gold; and that
besides these there were captured one hundred silver idols,
each of which was a camel's load.</p>
<p>We spent a pleasant morning in wandering about the old
ruined fort which was built here by Jey Singh (or Jaya Sinha),
the famous astronomer, and we were particularly attracted, each
in his <span class="pagenum"><a name="page296"
id="page296"></a>[pg 296]</span> own contemplative and quiet
way, by the ruins of an observatory which we found on the
roof of one of the buildings, where the remains of old
dials, horizontal circles and mural instruments lay
scattered about. I think the only remark made by either of
us was when Bhima Gandharva declared in a voice of much
earnestness, from behind a broken gnomon where he had
ensconced himself, that he
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297"
id="page297"></a>[pg 297]</span> saw Time lying yonder on
his back, with his head on a broken dial, nearly asleep.</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/296.jpg"
name="fig296"
id="fig296"><img width="100%"
src="images/296.jpg"
alt="HINDU BANKERS OF DELHI." /></a>HINDU BANKERS OF
DELHI.
</div>
<p>Returning to Hatras Station on the same day, we again took
the train, and this time did not leave it until we had crossed
the great tubular bridge over the Jumna and come to a
standstill in the station at Delhi. Here we found one of the
apparently innumerable friends of Bhima Gandharva, a banker of
Delhi, awaiting us with a carriage, and we were quickly driven
to his residence—a circumstance, by the way, which I
discovered next day to be a legitimate matter of felicitation
to myself, for there is, strange to say, no hotel in Delhi for
Europeans, travelers being dependent upon the accommodations of
a <i>dâk</i>-bungalow, where one is lodged for a rupee a
day.</p>
<p>In the morning we made an early start for the palace of the
padishahs, which stands near the river, and indeed may be said
to constitute the eastern portion of the city, having a wall of
a mile in extent on its three sides, while the other abuts
along the offset of the Jumna upon which Delhi is built.
Passing under a splendid Gothic arch in the centre of a tower,
then along a vaulted aisle in the centre of which was an
octagonal court of stone, the whole route being adorned with
flowers carved in stone and inscriptions from the Koran, we
finally gained the court of the palace, in which is situated
the Dewani Khas, the famous throne-room which contained the
marvelous "peacock throne." I found it exteriorly a beautiful
pavilion of white marble crowned by four domes of the same
material, opening on one side to the court, on the other to the
garden of the palace. On entering, my eye was at first
conscious only of a confused interweaving of traceries and
incrustations of stones, nor was it until after a few moments
that I could bring myself to any definite singling out of
particular elements from the general dream of flowing and
intricate lines; but presently I was enabled to trace with more
discriminating pleasure the flowers, the arabesques, the
inscriptions which were carved or designed in incrustations of
smaller stones, or inlaid or gilt on ceiling, arch and
pillar.</p>
<p>Yet what a sense of utter reverse of fortune comes upon one
after the first shock of the beauty of these delicate stone
fantasies! Wherever we went—in the Dewani Aum or hall of
audience; in the Akbari Hammun or imperial baths; in the Sammam
Burj or private palace of the padishahs, that famous and
beautiful palace over whose gate the well-known inscription
stands, "If there is a Paradise on earth, it is here;" in the
court, in the garden—everywhere was abandonment,
everywhere the filthy occupations of birds, everywhere dirt,
decay, desolation.</p>
<p>It was therefore a prodigious change when, emerging from the
main gate of the palace, we found ourselves in the great
thoroughfare of Delhi, the Chandni Chowk (literally "Shining
street"), which runs straight to the Lahore gate of the city.
Here an immense number of daily affairs were transacting
themselves, and the Present eagerly jostled the Past out of the
road. The shops were of a size which would have seemed very
absurd to an enterprising American tradesman, and those dealing
in the same commodities appeared to be mostly situated
together—here the shoemakers, there the bankers, and so
on.</p>
<p>The gold-embroidered cloths—Delhi is famous for
them—made me think of those embroidered in stone which we
had just seen in the Dewani Khas. These people seem to dream in
curves and flowing lines, as the German dreams in chords and
meandering tones, the Italian in colors and ripe forms.</p>
<p>("And as the American—?" said Bhima Gandharva with a
little smile as we were walking down the Chandni Chowk.</p>
<p>"The American does not dream—yet," I answered.)</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:80%;">
<a href="images/298.jpg"
name="fig298"
id="fig298"><img width="100%"
src="images/298.jpg"
alt="THE GRAND HALL OF THE DEWANI KHAS IN THE PALACE OF DELHI." />
</a>THE GRAND HALL OF THE DEWANI KHAS IN THE PALACE OF
DELHI.
</div>
<p>We saw much of the embroidered fabrics known as "kincob"
(properly, <i>kunkhwab</i>) and "kalabatu;" and Bhima Gandharva
led me into an inner apartment where a <i>nakad</i> was
manufacturing the gold thread (called <i>kalabatoon</i>) for
these curious loom embroideries. The kalabatoon consists of
gold wire wound about a silk thread; and nothing could better
illustrate the deftness <span class="pagenum"><a name="page298"
id="page298"></a>[pg 298]</span> of the Hindu fingers than
the motions of the workman whom we saw. Over a polished
steel hook hung from the ceiling the end of a reel of
slightly twisted silk thread was passed. This end was tied
to a spindle with a long bamboo shank, which was weighted
and nearly reached the floor. Giving the shank of the
spindle a smart roll along his thigh, the workman set it
going with great <span class="pagenum"><a name="page299"
id="page299"></a>[pg 299]</span> velocity: then applying to
the revolving thread the end of a quantity of gold wire
which was wound upon a different reel, the gold wire twisted
itself in with the silk thread and made a length of
kalabatoon about as long as the workman. The kalabatoon was
then reeled off on a separate reel, and the process
continually repeated.</p>
<p>We stopped at the office of our banker for a moment on our
way along the Chandni Chowk in order to effect some changes of
money. As we were leaving, Bhima Gandharva inquired if I had
observed the young man in the red cotton turban who had
politely broken off in our favor a long negotiation with our
banker, which he resumed when we had finished our little
business.</p>
<p>"Of course I did," I replied. "What a beautiful young man he
was! His aquiline nose, his fair complexion, his brilliant
eyes, his lithe form, his intelligent and vivacious
expression,—all these irresistibly attracted me to
him."</p>
<p>"Ha!" said Bhima Gandharva, as if he were clearing his
throat. He grasped my arm: "Come, I thought I saw the young
man's father standing near the door as we passed out. I wonder
if <i>he</i> will irresistibly attract you?" He made me retrace
my steps to the banker's office: "There he is."</p>
<p>He was the image of the son in feature, yet his face was as
repulsive as his son's was beautiful: the Devil after the fall,
compared with the angel he was before it, would have presented
just such a contrast.</p>
<p>"They are two Vallàbhácháryas," said my
companion as we walked away. "You know that the trading
community of India, comprehended under the general term of
Baniahs, is divided into numerous castes, which transmit their
avocations from father to son and preserve themselves free from
intermixture with others. The two men you saw are probably on
some important business negotiation connected with Bombay or
the west of India; for they are Bhattias, who are also
followers of the most singular religion the world has ever
known—that of the Vallàbháchárya or
Maharaja sect. These are Epicureans who have quite exceeded, as
well in their formal creeds as in their actual practices, the
wildest dreams of any of those mortals who have endeavored to
make a religion of luxury. They are called
Vallàbhácháryas, from <i>Vallabha</i>, the
name of their founder, who dates from 1479, and
<i>áchárya</i>, a "leader." Their <i>Pushti
Marga</i>, or eat-and-drink doctrine, is briefly this: In the
centre of heaven (<i>Gouloka</i>) sits Krishna, of the
complexion of a dark cloud, clad in yellow, covered with
unspeakable jewels, holding a flute. He is accompanied by
Roaha, his wife, and also by three hundred millions of Gopis,
or female attendants, each of whom has her own palace and three
millions of private maids and waiting-women. It appears that
once upon a time two over-loving Gopis quarreled about the god,
and, as might be expected in a place so given over to love,
they fell from heaven as a consequence. Animated by love for
them, Krishna descended from heaven, incarnated himself in the
form of Vallabha (founder of the sect), and finally redeemed
them. Vallabha's descendants are therefore all gods, and
reverence is paid them as such, the number of them being now
sixty or seventy. To God belong all things—<i>Tan</i>
(the body), <i>Man</i> (the mind) and <i>Dhan</i> (earthly
possessions). The Vallàbhácháryas
therefore give up all first to be enjoyed by their god,
together with his descendants (the Maharajas, as they royally
term themselves) and his representatives, the gosains or
priestly teachers. Apply these doctrines logically, and what a
carnival of the senses results! A few years ago one Karsandas
Mulji, a man of talent and education, was sued for libel in the
court at Bombay by this sect, whose practices he had been
exposing. On the trial the evidence revealed such a mass of
iniquity, such a complete subversion of the natural proprietary
feelings of manhood in the objects of its love, such systematic
worship of beastly sin, as must for ever give the
Vallàbhácháryas pre-eminence among those
who have manufactured authority for crime out of the laws of
virtue. For the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page300"
id="page300"></a>[pg 300]</span>
Vallàbhácháryas derive their scriptural
sanction from the eighth book of the <i>Bhagavata
Purana</i>, which they have completely falsified from its
true meaning in their translation called the <i>Prem
Sagar</i>, or "Ocean of Love." You saw the son? In twenty
years—for these people cannot last long—trade
and cunning and the riot of all the senses will have made
him what you saw the father."</p>
<div class="figcenter"
style="width:100%;">
<a href="images/300.jpg"
name="fig300"
id="fig300"><img width="100%"
src="images/300.jpg"
alt="THE JAMMAH MASJID AT DELHI." /></a>THE JAMMAH
MASJID AT DELHI.
</div>
<p>On the next day we visited the Jammah Masjid, the "Great
Mosque" of Shah Jehan the renowned, and the glory of Delhi.
Ascending the flight of steps leading to the principal
entrance, we passed under the lofty arch of the gateway and
found ourselves in a great court four hundred and fifty feet
square, paved with red stone, in the centre of which a large
basin supplied by several fountains contained the water for
ceremonial ablutions. On three sides ran light and graceful
arcades, while the fourth was quite enclosed by the mass of the
mosque proper. Crossing the court and ascending another
magnificent flight of stone steps, our eyes were soon
commanding the façade of the great structure, and
reveling in those prodigious contrasts of forms and colors
which it presents. No building could, for this very reason,
suffer more from that lack of simultaneity which is involved in
any description by words; for it is the vivid shock of seeing,
in one stroke of the eye, these three ripe and luxuriant domes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301"
id="page301"></a>[pg 301]</span> (each of which at the same
time offers its own subsidiary opposition of white and black
stripes), relieved by the keen heights of the two flanking
minarets,—it is this, together with the noble
admixtures of reds, whites and blacks in the stones, crowned
by the shining of the gilded minaret-shafts, which fills the
eye of the beholder with a large content of beautiful form
and color.</p>
<p>As one's eye becomes cooler one begins to distinguish in the
front, which is faced with slabs of pure white marble, the
divisions adorned by inscriptions from the Koran inlaid in
letters of black marble, and the singularly airy little
pavilions which crown the minarets. We ascended one of the
minarets by a winding staircase of one hundred and thirty
steps, and here, while our gaze took flight over Delhi and
beyond, traversing in a second the achievements of many
centuries and races, Bhima Gandharva told me of the glories of
old Delhi. Indranechta—as Delhi appears in the fabulous
legends of old India, and as it is still called by the
Hindus—dates its own birth as far back as three thousand
years before our era. It was fifty-seven years before the time
of Christ that the name of Delhi began to appear in history.
Its successive destructions (which a sketch like this cannot
even name) left enormous quantities of ruins, and as its
successive rebuildings were accomplished by the side of (not
upon) these remains, the result has been that from the garden
of Shahlimar, the site of which is on the north-west of the
town, to beyond the Kantab Minar, whose tall column I could
plainly distinguish rising up nine miles off to the south-west,
the plain of Delhi presents an accumulation and variety of
ruins not to be surpassed in the whole world.</p>
<h2>LIFE-SAVING STATIONS.</h2>
<p>With their enthusiasm fairly kindled for the work which the
government carries on in the signal-service department of the
little house on the beach,<a id="footnotetag1"
name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a>
our exploring party descended the narrow ladder and found
themselves in a ten-by-twelve room, warmed by a stove and
surrounded by benches. It is used, the old captain who has
volunteered as guide tells us, by the men on the life-saving
service during the nine months in which they are on duty. A
cheerful fire was burning in the stove, and we gathered
about it: the wind blew a stronger gale each moment outside,
barring out the far sea-horizon with a wall of gray mist.
The tide rolled up on the shelving beach beneath the square
window with a sullen, treacherous roar.</p>
<p>"It's the bar that gives the sea that sound," said the
captain. "This is the ugliest bit of coast for vessels from
Nova Scotia to Florida. It's like this," drawing his finger
across the table in the vain effort to map out the matter
intelligibly to a landsman's comprehension. "Here's the Jersey
coast. You've got to hug it close with your vessel to make New
York harbor—there; and all along it, from Sandy Hook to
Cape May, runs the bar—so. Broken, but so much the worse.
A nor'-easter drives you on it, sure. I've known from sixteen
to twenty wracks in a winter on this coast before the companies
or government took up the
matter."</p>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id="page302"></a>[pg 302]</span>
"That only argued bad seamanship," said one of his
listeners. "When every ship's captain knew the bar—"</p>
<p>"That's precisely what they didn't know. It alters with
every year; and on a dark night, with a driving sea and wind
both against you, there's small chance of clearing it. However,
I don't mean to say that all of them vessels were wracked fair
and square. It got to be customary with owners of wornout
coast-schooners to send them out with light cargoes and run
them on the Jersey bar. The captain and crew would time it so's
they could get ashore, and the sea would soon break up the
vessel, and then up they goes to York for insurance on ship and
cargo. There was a good deal of that sort of work went on when
I was a boy, until the underwriters got wind of it and
established the wracking system."</p>
<p>"This building?—"</p>
<p>"No, no! Don't confound the two things. This is government
work altogether, and maintained solely for the saving of life.
The crew of the lifeboat here are not allowed to touch a pound
of freight or baggage on a wracked ship. The wracking-masters
were appointed and paid by the board of underwriters in New
York. Old Captain Brown was general agent on this beach. They
took the coast in charge, as you might say, long before this
government service was started. It was managed—like
this," resorting again to his finger and the imaginary lines on
the table. "A vessel came ashore on the bar. The first man who
saw it gave warning to the wracking-master, who took command of
the men ashore and the cargo in behalf of the insurance
companies."</p>
<p>"Were there any signals then to rouse the coast in case of
wreck?"</p>
<p>"Lord save you! no: every man warned his neighbor. There
weren't but a few scattered folks along the coast then, but in
time of a wrack you'd see them in the dead of night ready and
waiting along the beach. No need of your signal-flags for them,
I reckon. They knew there'd be dead men and plenty of wrack
coming ashore before morning."</p>
<p>"And every man was ready to go out in his boat?" cried an
enthusiastic townsman, "or to carry a line to the sinking
ship?"</p>
<p>"Well—hardly," said the captain with a dry smile.
"Folks that know the water don't go exactly that way to work.
There was regular wracking-boats, built for the surf, and crews
for each, you see: best man in the starn. The man in the starn,
he generally owned the boat and chose his crew. Picked men. He
kept them year after year. Then the wracking-masters hired him,
his boat and his crew. Best crew chosen first, of course. Two
dollars a day each was reckoned good pay. They got famous
names, some of them surfboat crews," reflectively. "There was
William Chadwick—Bill Shattuck he goes by—his crew
was known from Sandy Hook to Hatteras. There's one of them now:
he can tell you about it better than me.—Hello,
Jake!"</p>
<p>We looked out of the window and saw the fisherman whom we
had met in the afternoon lazily drawing his slow length along
the beach, two or three blue mackerel dangling from his hand:
he had not enough of energy, apparently, to hold them up. This
was the fellow whom, an hour before, we had pitied as a dull
soul to whom the wreck was "timber" and the life-saving station
a "shed." We all had a vague ideal before us of a gallant
sailor, with eyes of fire and nerves of steel, plunging into
the cruel surf to rescue the sinking ship. We accepted the
slouching Jacob instead with disrelish. He was not the stuff of
which heroes in books are made.</p>
<p>"Jake," said the captain, "where is Shattuck's boat now? I
was speaking of it to the gentlemen here."</p>
<p>"Take a cigar," interpolated one of the party.</p>
<p>Jacob took a cigar, bit off the end and dropped easily into
a seat: "Bill's boat? Well, it's drawed up ashore at the head
of Barnegat—down there. You kin see it out of the window
ef you like."</p>
<p>"There is very seldom any call for the surf-boats and crews
in summer," explained the captain. "The men follow fishing
usually. But in winter they're
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303"
id="page303"></a>[pg 303]</span> always ready if a ship
comes on the bar."</p>
<p>"Your crew has done good service in saving life, I hear,
Jacob?" said one of the strangers.</p>
<p>"Well, I dunno. We're generally the first called on by the
wracking-master. Sure of the best pay. There's Shattuck and
Curtis and Van Note and George Johnson, and Fleming in the
starn," checking them off with his fingers—"all good men
to bring off trade in a heavy pull."</p>
<p>"You don't mean that these surf boat crews are paid to save
the cargo, and that human life is left to the care of the
government?" cried a listener indignantly.</p>
<p>"The government undertakes the life-saving service, and
we're paid by the wracking-master, certainly," said Jacob
calmly. "To save the cargo. But the human bein's is took out
first. Of course. As you say. It's not likely any man's a-goin'
to bring trade out of a wrack's long's there's a live critter
aboard."</p>
<p>"There's not one of these men," said the captain with a
little heat in his tone, "who has not saved many a life at the
risk of his own. Isn't that true, Jacob?"</p>
<p>"I dunno. We jist work ahead at what's got to be done. I
know Van Note saved <i>my</i> life. The way of it was this. It
was the time the Clara Brookman went down: you mind the Clara
Brookman, cap'n? She was homeward bound after a long
cruise—three year—and she struck the bar just
below, a mile or two. It was a swashin' sea an' a black night.
Our surfboat was overturned with thirteen aboard: 'leven of us
was picked up by the other boat. The men, they stood in the
starn an' hauled us aboard by main force—lifted us clear
out of the water. Van Note's a tremendous musc'lar fellar, he
is. He caught me by the wrist jest as I was goin' down for the
last time: I'm not a small fish, either," slapping his brawny
thigh. "Yes, sir. Van Note and I never mixed much together
afore or sence. But he did that for me: I don't deny it."</p>
<p>"You remember some terrible scenes of suffering no doubt,
Jacob?"</p>
<p>"Well, I've seen vessels pretty well smashed up, sir. There
was the Alabama, coast-schooner: all the crew went down on her
in full sight; and the Annandale: she was a coal-brig, and she
run aground on a December night. It was a terrible storm: but
one surfboat got out to her. They took off what they
could—the women and part of the crew. I was a boy then,
and I mind seein' them come ashore, their beards and clothes
frozen stiff. After the boat left, some of the crew jumped into
the sea, but they couldn't live in it two minutes. It was nigh
dawn when the boat got out to the brig agen, and there wasn't a
livin' soul aboard of her; only the body of the mate lashed
tight to the mainmast, a solid mass of ice. He couldn't be got
down, and I've heerd my father say it was awful to see him,
with one hand held out as if p'intin' to shore, rockin' to and
fro there overhead till the brig went under. Months after, some
of the bodies of the crew was thrown up by the tide; they was
as fresh as if they'd jest gone to sleep."</p>
<p>"How could that be? Where had they been?"</p>
<p>"Sucked into the sand. Them heavy nothe-easters always
throws up a bar, an' they was sucked under it. When the bar
give way the tide threw them up. But as soon as the air tetched
them they began to moulder."</p>
<p>There was a short silence. The evening was gathering fast,
cold and threatening, the little fire threw our shadows high up
on the wall, and the wail of the wind and thunder of the
incoming tide gave a ghastly significance to this
matter-of-fact catalogue of horrors. As we looked through the
little window at the vast gray plain of water, it seemed as if
every wave covered a wreck or dead men's bones.</p>
<p>"Now, George Johnson," continued Jacob, "he was the first
man as saw the John Minturn come ashore. That was the worst
storm I ever seen on this coast.—You mind it, cap'n?"</p>
<p>The captain nodded gravely: "February 15, 1846. It was the
night old Phoebe Hall died, and I was sitting with
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page304"
id="page304"></a>[pg 304]</span> the body when I heerd the
guns fired from the Minturn," he remarked.—"But go on,
Jacob," waving his pipe.</p>
<p>"The current was a-settin' south. Sech a tide hadn't been
knowd sence the oldest men could remember: the sea broke over
all the mashes clear up to the farm-houses. Well, sir, I was
but a lad, but I couldn't sleep: seemed as ef I ought to be a
doin' something, I didn't rightly know what. About three
o'clock in the morning I heerd a gun, and in a minute another,
'Mother,' I says, 'there's a vessel on the bar.' So, as I gets
on my clothes, she makes me a mug of hot coffee. 'You must
drink this, Jacob, an' eat some'at,' she says, 'before you go
out.' So to quiet her I takes the mug, but I hadn't half drunk
it when I hears shouting outside. It was one of the Shattucks:
he says, 'There's a ship come ashore up by Barnegat' I says,
'No,' I says: 'the guns are from off the inlet.' So I runs one
way, and Shattuck the other. The night was dark as pitch, and
the storm drivin' like hell. And we was both right, for there
was two vessels—a coast-schooner down by Squan, where I
goes, and this big ship, the John Minturn, just here," pointing
with his thumb over his shoulder to the beach outside and bar
beyond.</p>
<p>"Were there many lives lost?"</p>
<p>"Over three hundred—all but fourteen. They come ashore
tied on to boards or hencoops or the like—seven of the
crew and seven passengers. We tried to launch the surfboat, but
the boat was never built that could live on that sea. She was
bound from New Orleans to New York, and the most of her
passengers were wealthy people, going to the North for the
winter. At least, so we jedged from her papers and the bodies
and clothes of them that come ashore—some pretty little
children, I mind, babies and their black nurses, and their
mothers—delicate women with valooable rings on their
hands. Some of them's buried in the graveyard in the village,
and their friends took some away."</p>
<p>"There was the Minerva, too," said the captain as Jacob
paused to light his cigar again. "I forgit how many emigrants
went down on that ship, but I remember picking up on the beach
next day a clay pipe, with a stem nigh a yard long, not even
chipped. It seemed curious that a useless thing like that
should be washed safe ashore and hundreds of human lives be
lost. And there was the New Era—went down near Deal:
three hundred emigrants drowned. The captain had nailed down
the hatches on them. Oh, that's generally done," he added,
seeing the look of horror on our faces: "in a storm the
steerage can't be managed otherwise."</p>
<p>"I remember," said one of the listeners, "an incident which
occurred when I was in China about ten years ago. Five hundred
Chinese soldiers were being taken across the Inland Sea to
quell an insurrection: when off Hoang-Ho the ship sprung a
leak. The boats could only give a chance of escape to about
eighty. The troops were all ordered on deck, while a detachment
was selected to fill the boats. The rest remained immovable,
standing under arms without a word, until the ship went
down."</p>
<p>Somebody reminded him of the story of the Birkenhead, which
sank within four miles of the English coast with a regiment
aboard that was coming home after five years' absence in India.
They too stood in solid rank on deck, their homes almost in
sight, while the women and children were taken off and the ship
slowly sank, the officers, with swords drawn, presenting arms
to Death.</p>
<p>"Discipline! discipline!" said the captain. "But one
wouldn't have looked for it in them heathen Chinees."</p>
<p>Duty! duty! we thought, and were quite sure heathenism had
never interfered with that kind of heroism.</p>
<p>"Now, the usual run of American sailors," said Jacob, who
felt by this time that his final verdict was needed, wouldn't
have done that. Passengers is easier managed in time of a storm
than sailors, especially them of coast-ships. Passengers is
like sheep: they're so skeert they'll do what you bids 'em; but
the sailors broach the liquor first thing. I'd rather manage so
many pigs <span class="pagenum"><a name="page305"
id="page305"></a>[pg 305]</span> than sailors when they get
holt of the grog. There was the City of New York. When she
went down the mate stood with a club in his hand to keep the
crew off the Scotch ale which was part of the freight. Well;
sir, they got it, and thar they stayed, drinkin', till the
vessel parted amidships: couldn't be got off no-how. There
was three hundred passengers landed from that ship. We used
the apparatus for her: government had taken hold of the
matter then."</p>
<p>"Before we say anything about the government service, one
question about the Jersey wreckers. They bear a bad name. The
story goes that the Barnegat pirates in old times drew vessels
ashore by false lights, and plundered the shipwrecked people.
How about that, Jacob? Honestly, now!"</p>
<p>"Well, sir, them stories is onjust. Them men as is called
Barnegat pirates are not us fishermen—never were: they're
from the main—colliers and sech—as come down to a
wrack, and they will have something to kerry home when they're
kept up all night. They do their share of stealin', I'll
confess; but from Sandy Hook to Cape May it's innocent to what
is done on Long Island. It's the stevedores and rigger-men on
Long Island—reg'lar New York roughs. No man or woman was
ever robbed on this beach till they was dead. Of course I don't
mean their trunks and sech, but not the body. The Long
Islanders cut off the fingers of livin' people for rings, but
the Barnegat men never touch the body till it's dead.
<i>No</i>, sir."</p>
<p>"And you understand," interposed the captain eagerly, "these
Barnegat robbers are a very different class from Jacob and the
crews of surf boats?"</p>
<p>"Certainly. We understand the noble work which these
wrecking-crews have done.—By the way, how do they choose
their captain, Jacob—the man in the stern, as you call
him? The most brave, heroic fellow, I suppose?"</p>
<p>"I dunno about that," with a perplexed air. "We don't
calcoolate much on heroism and sech: we choose the man that's
got the best judgment of the sea—a keerful, firm man.
These six men hes got to obey him—hes got to put their
lives altogether in his hand, you see. They don't want a
headlong fellow: they want a man that knows the
water—thorough."</p>
<p>"Besides," added the captain, "it is as with any other
business—the best crew is surest of employment and pay.
Each owner of a wracking-boat chooses his men for their muscle
and skill: and the wracking-master chooses the best boat and
crew. There's competition, competition. On the contrary, the
life-saving service, like all other government work, for a good
many years fell into the hands of politicians: the
superintendent was chosen because he had given some help to his
party, and he appointed his own friends as lifeboat-men, often
tavern loafers like himself. A harness-maker from Bricksburg
held the place of master of the station below here for
years—a man who probably never was in a boat, and
certainly would not go in one in a heavy sea."</p>
<p>"One would hardly expect to find fishermen in this solitary
corner of the world struggling for political preferment on the
seats of a lifeboat," laughed one of the party.</p>
<p>But the captain could see no joke in it: "Well, sir, it's a
fact that it was done. And the consequence was, the people's
money was thrown away, and hundreds of human beings was left to
perish within sight of land. If the administration—"</p>
<p>But while the captain and his companions labor over the
well-trodden road thus opened, we will look into the work done
in the house on the beach with the help of authorities more
accurate than himself and Jacob.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, the first effort anywhere to stop the enormous
loss of human life by shipwreck was made by that most selfish
of rulers, George IV., and the first lifeboat was built by a
London coachmaker, Lukin, who, it is said, had never seen the
sea. After that other models of lifeboats were produced in
England, none of which proved satisfactory until in 1850 the
duke of Northumberland offered one hundred guineas as a prize
for the best model, which was gained by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306"
id="page306"></a>[pg 306]</span> James Beeching. A
modification of his boat is now used by the National
Lifeboat Institution, to which the entire care of the
English life-saving service is committed. There is probably
no object on which the British nation has more zealously
expended sentiment, enthusiasm and money than this service,
yet despite its grand record of work done there can be no
doubt that it has been grossly mismanaged, and is
ineffective to cope with the actual need. The roll of the
National Lifeboat Institution numbers names of the most
noble, humane and wealthy men and women in Great Britain;
the queen is its patron; its resources are amply sufficient;
no pains have been spared to secure the most scientific and
perfect appliances. The whole work is made, in a degree, a
matter of sentiment—exalted and humane sentiment, but,
like all other emotional service, apt to be gusty and at
times unpractical. The man who saves human life is rewarded
with silver or gold medals: the individual lifeboats are
themes of essays and song, and when one wears out a tablet
is raised with the record of its services. It is the
beautiful and touching custom, too, for mourners to offer a
memorial lifeboat to the memory of their dead, instead of a
painted window or a showy monument. But with all this
genuine feeling and actual expenditure of time and money the
fact remains that the loss of human life from shipwreck is
five hundred per cent. larger on the coast of Great Britain
than on our own, although there are 242 stations on their
comparatively small extent of shore, and but 104 on our
whole Atlantic seaboard. In three cases of shipwreck on the
English coast in 1875 the loss of life was directly
traceable to the lack of some necessary appliance or to the
absence of guards at the stations. In one instance there
were no means of telegraphing for boats or aid: in the case
of the Deutschland, as late as last November, where the
disaster occurred on a stretch of coast known as the most
dangerous in England (except that of Norfolk)—a spot
where shipwrecks have been numbered literally by
thousands—there was no lifeboat nor any means of
taking a line to the ship. The secret of these failures lies
in the fact that the institution relies for its work on
spontaneous service and emotion, and is not, like ours, a
legalized, systematic business. No permanent force or watch
is kept at the stations: a reward of seven shillings is paid
to anybody who gives notice of a wreck to the coxswain of
the boat. The crews of the boats are volunteers, and if they
do not happen to report themselves at the time of a
disaster, their places are filled with any good oarsmen who
offer. In short, the whole system is based upon the
occasional zeal and heroism of men, instead of tried and
paid skill, fitness for the work and a simple sense of
duty.</p>
<p>Our own life-saving service is founded on wholly different
principles. It dates from 1848, when Hon. William Newell of New
Jersey (incited probably by the recent terrible loss of the
John Minturn, of which the captain told us) brought before
Congress the frightful dangers of the coast of that State, and
procured an appropriation of ten thousand dollars for
"providing surf boats, carronades, etc. for the better
protection of life and property from shipwreck on the coast
between Sandy Hook and Little Egg Harbor." The next session a
similar appropriation was obtained. Small houses were built and
furnished, but no persons were paid or authorized to take
charge of them, and the business was managed in the
well-meaning but slipshod English fashion. In 1854 the wreck of
the Powhatan on Squan Beach and the loss of three hundred lives
produced a storm of public indignation which aroused Congress,
and twenty thousand dollars were appropriated for lifeboats,
etc. for the coast of New Jersey, and a similar sum for the
ocean side of Long Island. A superintendent was appointed for
each coast and a keeper for each of the houses, but for sixteen
years no regular crews were employed. It was during this
period, too, that the petty offices of superintendent and
keeper became the reward of small village politicians, and
wreckers who, like Jacob, had worked for years without pay in
saving human life, showed their righteous indignation at these
political <span class="pagenum"><a name="page307"
id="page307"></a>[pg 307]</span> favorites by refusing to
work under them. Several terrible disasters in the winter of
1870 and '71 called public attention again to the subject,
and Captain John Faunce was appointed by the department to
inspect the coast and the stations. He reported the houses
as generally in a filthy, dilapidated condition, and often
so far gone as to be worthless; the apparatus rusty, and
many of the most necessary articles wanting; in some
stations nothing which could be carried away was left; the
keepers were utterly unfit for their position, and the crews
which they employed worse. Yet, notwithstanding this
mismanagement and lack of system, and although no regular
official record had been kept, there was proof that 4163
lives had been saved and $716,000 worth of property.</p>
<p>In 1871, S.I. Kimball, to whom the Revenue Marine Bureau was
then given in charge, proceeded to completely reorganize the
service. New houses were built or the old ones repaired and
enlarged; competent men were appointed as keepers, and strict
orders given as to the selection of experienced and skillful
surfmen as crews; the houses were thoroughly furnished with
every appliance requisite in time of disaster, for which the
keeper is held responsible. The average distance between the
stations is three miles. Immediate proof of the efficacy of the
improvements in the service was given, as in the twenty-two
wrecks occurring that season on the Long Island and New Jersey
coasts not a single life was lost. In a word, Mr. Kimball began
successfully the seemingly hopeless task of converting the
dirty, ruinous station-houses and their lazy, disorderly
keepers and crews, scattered along the coast, to the order,
discipline and efficiency of forts and drilled soldiers, and
the result proved that order and discipline, when evolved out
of the worst materials, can grapple with and conquer even the
sea. In 1873 the seventy-one station-houses were increased to
eighty-one, the line having been extended along the coasts of
Cape Cod and Rhode Island. Congress having appropriated one
hundred thousand dollars for the establishment of new stations,
twenty-three were contracted for, giving the Maine coast five;
New Hampshire, one; Massachusetts, five; Virginia, two; North
Carolina, ten. The connection between the life-saving and
storm-signal service was effected at several stations, thus
supplying telegraphic communication between the department and
the coast outposts. This, probably, was the most marked advance
made by the service: it was the nerve-line which brought the
working members under control of an intelligent head. In
thirty-two wrecks occurring during the year on the coasts where
stations were established but one life had been lost.</p>
<p>The unprecedented success of the service to this point
justified its demand for larger means and fuller powers. In the
last session of the Forty-second Congress a bill was introduced
by Hon. John Lynch of Maine to provide for the establishment of
additional stations on the North Atlantic seaboard, and
directing the Secretary of the Treasury to report the points on
the entire sea and lake coasts at which stations would best
subserve the interests of humanity and commerce, with estimates
of the cost. This bill passed, and was approved March 3, 1873.
The commission appointed consisted of Mr. Kimball, Captain John
Faunce and Captain J.H. Merryman. Their report is the result of
minute examination into the wrecks and disasters on every mile
of coast for the previous ten years—a research into
ghastly horrors for a practical end unparalleled perhaps in
accuracy and patience. They recommended the erection of
twenty-three life-saving stations complete, twenty-two lifeboat
stations and five houses of refuge. The first class, containing
all appliances for saving life on stranded vessels, and manned
by regular crews during the winter months, were for flat
beaches with outlying bars distant from settlements, and were
required on certain points of the shores of the great lakes and
on the Atlantic coast as far south as Hatteras. "Upon the coast
of Florida the shores are so bold," the report states, "that
stranded vessels are usually thrown high enough upon the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308"
id="page308"></a>[pg 308]</span> beach to permit easy escape
from them; therefore the usual apparatus belonging to the
complete stations are not considered necessary. The section
of that coast from Indian River Inlet to Cape Florida is
almost destitute of inhabitants, and persons cast upon its
inhospitable shores are liable to perish from starvation and
thirst, from inability to reach the remote settlements."
Upon these coasts it was recommended that houses of refuge
should be built large enough to accommodate twenty-five
persons, supplied with provisions to support them for ten
days, and provided with surfboat, oars and sails. For the
majority of points on the Pacific and lake coasts, where
disasters were infrequent, lifeboats only were considered
necessary, these in general to be manned by volunteer crews.
It was proposed that these crews should be paid for services
rendered at each wreck, and a system of rewards adopted in
the shape of medals of honor. The estimated cost of a
life-saving station complete was $5302; of a house of
refuge, $2995; of a lifeboat station, $4790. A bill founded
on this report was prepared by Mr. Kimball, the chief both
of the Revenue Marine and Life-saving Service, and became a
law June, 1874. This bill provides for the protection of the
entire lake and sea-coasts of the United States by a cordon
of stations, lifeboats or houses of refuge placed at all
dangerous points. The stations on the Pacific coast are not
yet built, but it is hoped that all will be finished and in
working order by the fall of 1876. The United States will
then offer to the shipwrecked voyager security and
protection through her vast extent of coast such as is
afforded by no other nation. The measures promoting this end
were carried through Congress by Senators Newell, Stockton,
Hamlin, Boutwell, Chandler and Frelinghuysen, and
Representatives Lynch, Hale of Maine, Cox, Hooper and
Conger. But the actual credit of this great national work of
humanity is due to Sumner I. Kimball, who not only conceived
the idea of the complete guarding of the coast and prepared
the bill for Congress, but has reorganized the entire system
and carried it out successfully in all of its minute
practical details.</p>
<p>The work accomplished by the service may be clearly
understood by a glance at the following figures. There is no
record of the loss of life on stranded vessels previous to its
formation in 1848. There remain only the terrible legends, such
as those which the captain and Jacob told us, of numbers of
emigrant ships and steamers yearly going down with three to
four hundred souls on board. The coasts of Long Island and New
Jersey have justly been called "the despair of mariners and
shipowners." During the first twenty years of the operation of
the service, despite its mismanagement, the number of lives
lost yearly was reduced to an average of twenty-five. Since
1871 the period of its reorganization, the loss of life on the
coasts of New Jersey and Long Island has averaged but one per
annum. The report for these four years, inclusive of the whole
coast guarded by stations, is—</p>
<table summary="statistics">
<tr>
<td>Total number of disasters,</td>
<td align="right">185</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total number of lives imperiled,</td>
<td align="right">2583</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total number of lives saved,</td>
<td align="right">2564</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total number of lives lost,</td>
<td align="right">19</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total number of shipwrecked persons sheltered at
the stations,</td>
<td align="right">368</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total number of days' shelter afforded,</td>
<td align="right">1307</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total value of property imperiled,</td>
<td align="right">$6,293,658</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total value of property saved,</td>
<td align="right">4,514,756</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Total value of property lost,</td>
<td align="right">1,742,902</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Included in this report are the fourteen lives lost on the
Italian bark Giovanni near Provincetown, Cape Cod, in a storm
unprecedented for its terrors. A story found its way into the
papers at the time that the powder used in the mortar was damp,
and that from this trifling neglect help could not be extended
from the station. A strict investigation was made, and it was
proved by the testimony of the people in Provincetown that all
the apparatus was in perfect order and the keepers and surfmen
exerted themselves heroically in aid of the doomed vessel, but
that she was stranded so far from shore that it was simply
impossible to reach her. In another case, that of the
Vicksburg, wrecked on the Long Island coast, where a life was
lost through the remissness of the keeper, the whole force of
the station was discharged, and the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page309"
id="page309"></a>[pg 309]</span> order to that effect read
to every crew in the service.</p>
<p>The localities of the stations and houses of refuge now
legally authorized are—</p>
<table summary="numbers of stations and houses of refuge">
<tr>
<td>Districts.</td>
<td>Location.</td>
<td>Stations.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">1st.</td>
<td>Coasts of Maine and New Hampshire,</td>
<td align="right">6 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">2d.</td>
<td>Coast of Massachusetts,</td>
<td align="right">14 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">3d.</td>
<td>Coasts of Long Island and Rhode Island,</td>
<td align="right">36 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">4th.</td>
<td>Coast of New Jersey,</td>
<td align="right">39 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">5th.</td>
<td>Coasts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia,</td>
<td align="right">8 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">6th.</td>
<td>Coasts of Virginia and North Carolina,</td>
<td align="right">10 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">7th.</td>
<td>Eastern coast of Florida,</td>
<td align="right"> 5<a id="footnotetag2"
name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">8th.</td>
<td>Coasts of Lakes Ontario and Erie,</td>
<td align="right">9 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">9th.</td>
<td>Coasts of Lakes Huron and Superior,</td>
<td align="right">9 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">10th.</td>
<td>Coast of Lake Michigan,</td>
<td align="right">12 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right">11th.</td>
<td>Pacific coast,</td>
<td align="right">8 </td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>While we have been looking into these facts and figures the
exploring party in the house on the beach have told many a
terrible tale of shipwreck and half-hinted horrors, among
others that of the ill-fated Giovanni.</p>
<p>"Suppose that a ship should be driven on this bar in the
middle of the night, a storm raging," said one of the party,
"what would then be the keeper's duty?"</p>
<p>The captain threw open the door of the larger room, which in
the fading light looked full, but for a moment only, of ghostly
shadows. There we saw boats suspended halfway from the ceiling,
other mysterious apparatus ranged on either side, anchors,
great cables coiled accurately in heaps, and all in as exact
neatness as though upon the deck of a man-of-war.</p>
<p>"When a wrack is sighted," said the captain, "the
signal-officer up stairs telegraphs to the other near stations,
whose keepers at once send their lifeboats, cars and surfmen
here. The ship is signaled—by flags in daytime, by
rockets at night." He opened a closet in which were arranged
the cases of lights, with books of instruction for their use.
"The keepers ought to understand these as well as all other
apparatus in the station, and under the new management they
usually do. The keeper here is an old wracker, and has 'good
judgment of the sea,' as Jacob would say. <i>He</i> never made
harness or friends in Congress," the captain threw in with fine
satire. "If the ship can be reached by a boat, this lifeboat is
run into the surf. It moves on wheels, you see, and in two
minutes ought to be launched and the men aboard. This ridge on
the outside is an air-tight chamber for giving buoyancy. Here
are the oars swung in place and the buckets for bailing, as you
see."</p>
<p>"Is this the English lifeboat?"</p>
<p>"No, sir. Two years ago the service imported a lifeboat and
rocket apparatus from England to test them here. The lifeboat
was found to be nearly perfect, but too heavy for launching on
our flat beaches with light crews: she weighed four thousand
pounds. This boat was invented by Lieutenant Stodder."</p>
<p>"But if the sea be too heavy for the lifeboat to live in
it?"</p>
<p>"Then we give the ship a line: the ball is fired from this
mortar, the line being fastened to the shot by a spiral wire.
Mortar, powder and matches are set, you see, ready for
instantaneous use. The ball must be shot so that the line falls
over the ship. Not an easy mark to hit in the night and the
storm driving. Sometimes it is not done until after many
trials: sometimes, as in the case of the Giovanni, it cannot be
reached at all. I saw the Argyle go down eight years ago with
all on board, after we had tried all night to reach her. One
man was washed ashore, and we made a rope of hands out beyond
the first breaker, and so got him in."</p>
<p>"The men farthest out on the line had not much better chance
than he?"</p>
<p>"No, but the man had to be got in," carelessly. "I was going
to say that as soon as the line does fall over the ship it is
hauled aboard. There is a hauling-line fastened to it, and a
hawser to the hauling-line. Here they all are in order. When
the hawser reaches the ship it is made taut and secured to the
mizzentop or mainmast, high enough to swing clear of the
taffrail. It is fastened on shore by this sand-anchor. Then we
send over the breeches-buoy," pointing to a complete suit of
india-rubber very similar in appearance to that used by Paul
Boyton. "One man can be sent safely to shore in that. But we
use the life-car most frequently."</p>
<p>"A boat?"</p>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id="page310"></a>[pg 310]</span>
"You may call it a covered boat if you will. That life-car,
sir, was invented by Captain Douglass Ottinger, and this is the
first one ever used. It was sent out to the ship Ayrshire, and
more than two hundred souls were saved by it when there was no
other way of giving them human help. There she is, sir." He
laid his hand with a good deal of feeling on the queer shell
that hung from the ceiling.</p>
<p>The Ottinger life-car, the patent for which the generous
inventor gave to the; public, is simply an egg-shaped case with
bands of cork about it. Along the top are iron rings through
which it is slung on the hawser. The car is drawn by another
line from the shore to the vessel. It opens by means of a door
or lid two feet square on top. Eleven passengers can be crowded
inside. The lid is then screwed down and the car drawn
ashore.</p>
<p>"Eleven!" cried one of the party. "It would not hold four
comfortably."</p>
<p>"Men in that extremity are not apt to stand on the order of
their going," said another.</p>
<p>"Nor women, neither," added the captain; "though women
always do cry out to go in the open boat rather than the car,
though there isn't half the chance for them."</p>
<p>"How is it ventilated?"</p>
<p>"Ventilated? Lord bless you! What would be the good of it if
it wasn't air-tight? It's under the water all the time, upside
down, over and over a hundred times. There's air in it enough
to last 'em for three minutes, and it's calculated that it can
be brought ashore in less time. I've seen husbands put their
wives into it, and mothers their little babies—them
standing on deck, never hoping to live to see them again."</p>
<p>"And when it was opened—"</p>
<p>"Well, sir, there's curious things seen on the beach on
nights of shipwreck. I'm no hand at describing. Some men
stagger out of the car sick, some crying or praying, some as
cool as if they'd just stepped off the train."</p>
<p>The captain locked the rocket-closet, hung the key on the
nail and rearranged a coil of rope which had been displaced.
"Things have to be shipshape when the lives of a crew may
depend on a missing match or wet powder. The houses," he added
as we came out of the door and he stopped to close it, "are
built every three miles along the beach. From November 15 until
April 15 the keeper and six surfmen live in this house, and
take watches, patrolling the beach night and day, meeting
halfway between the stations. Chief Kimball's plan is that
there shall be an unbroken line of sentries along this
dangerous coast during the six stormy months."</p>
<p>When the hearty old captain had left us, and we found our
way again across the marshes, the solitude of the night and
stormy sky and the moaning sea became oppressive again, and
took on all their old meaning of death and disaster. But we
looked back at the square black shadow of the little house upon
the headland with its fluttering flag, and at the red light
burning in the window, and felt a sense of protection and trust
in the government which we had never known before.</p>
<p class="author">REBECCA HARDING
DAVIS.</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311"></a></span>
THE EUTAW FLAG.<a id="footnotetag3"
name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3"><sup>3</sup></a></h2>
<p>In the early spring of the year 1780 two ladies attired in
morning <i>négligé</i> were sitting together in
the parlor of a fine old country mansion in lower South
Carolina. The remains of two or three huge hickory logs were
smouldering on the capacious hearth, for the cool air of the
early morning made fires still comfortable, though as the day
wore on and the southern sun gathered power the small-paned
windows which opened on the lawn had been raised to admit the
soft breeze, which already whispered of opening flowers and
breathed the sweet fragrance of the jessamine and magnolia.
These same embers would have furnished heat enough in a house
of modern construction to have made the room intolerable, but
as they reposed upon their bed of ashes in the depths of the
wide-mouthed chimney-place, lazily sending up their little
curls of smoke, they served only to create a draught-power
which cooled the apartment by the free circulation of the
flower-scented air. The wide lawn was green with the fresh
spring grass, amid which a lively company of field-larks were
busily searching for grasshoppers and grubs, their gay yellow
breasts and jetty breastpins glancing in the sunlight as they
raised their heads from time to time to utter their soft
whistling notes. The blackbirds puffed their feathers and
sounded their singular call from the branches of the old pecan
tree, and the flashing of the oriole enlivened the sombre
foliage of the enormous live-oaks in the avenue. Three or four
deer-hounds were stretched about under the broad benches of the
piazza or snapped at the flies under the shade of the
rose-bushes, already heavy with bloom, paying no attention to
the tame doe which jingled her little bell over their very
heads as she stretched up to browse the young shoots of
"rose-candy" above them. Two mocking-birds, one perched on the
chimney-stack of the house, and the other on a straggling spray
of the wild-orange hedge, vied with each other in imitating the
medley of bird-language which made the air vocal on every side,
pouring a rich flood of melody through the open windows and
into the appreciative ears of the ladies who sat within.</p>
<p>"What a lovely day!" exclaimed the elder of the two as she
dropped her piece of embroidery and rose to look out upon the
scene.</p>
<p>"Oh, how I wish we could take a long ride! Here have I been
staying at Oaklands three whole weeks, and I have not been in
the saddle once! I declare, Jane, this horrid war will never be
over;" and Rebecca Stead drew a long sigh and leaned her pretty
head thoughtfully against the sash.</p>
<p>"Well, suppose we ride over to The Willows?" answered Jane
Elliott with a ringing laugh. "If you'll take the old
broken-winded mare, I'll take one of the plough-mules, and
Billy can go with us on the other. Wouldn't it be fun?"</p>
<p>In response to the bell, Billy soon made his
appearance—an elderly negro of most respectable
appearance, dressed in a blue cloth coat with large brass
buttons, a red plush waistcoat with flaps nearly reaching his
knees, and a pair of yellow breeches with plated knee-buckles
and coarse blue worsted stockings. A single glance at his face
and bearing was enough to show his sense of importance and his
keen appreciation of the responsibility of his position. He
listened with a look of utter amazement to the orders of his
young mistress, and then replied in a tone of stern authority,
such as none but an old family negro servant could assume:
"Miss Jane, dat mule nebber had no saddle 'pon he back sence he
been born."</p>
<p>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page312" id="page312"></a>[pg 312]</span>
"Well, Billy, it's high time he should know how it
feels."</p>
<p>"He wi' kick you' brains out 'fore you git on um, an' broke
you' neck 'fore you kin git from here to de gate."</p>
<p>"Oh nonsense, Billy! Have the saddle put on him at once, and
get the old mare for Miss Rebecca."</p>
<p>"Miss 'Becca can't ride de ole mare tid-day, 'cause she 'way
down in de pasture, an' anybody can't ketch um in tree hour
time; an' you can't ride de mule, Miss Jane, 'cause you ma done
tell me I must tek good care o' you an' de house w'ile she
gone, an' I ain't gwine let you broke you' neck or you'
arm—not tid-day." And Billy quietly walked out and closed
the door, leaving the young ladies half vexed and half amused
at his summary disposal of their scheme.</p>
<p>"After Tarleton's troop and that horrid Tory Ball took my
saddle-pony out of the pasture," said Miss Elliott, "mamma sent
all the blooded horses to General Lincoln, and we hear that
they were turned over to the Virginia Light Horse."</p>
<p>"Yes," replied Miss Stead with a mischievous smile, "and I
hear that Colonel Washington has taken the beautiful bay mare
for his own mount, and named her 'Jane.'"</p>
<p>"That's a piece of his Virginia impudence," rejoined Miss
Elliott. "I have met him only once, at General Izard's, and I
think he has taken a great liberty with my name. They say he
behaved splendidly at Trenton and Princeton."</p>
<p>"Oh, I wish he would call while I am here," said her
companion. "They say he is an elegant rider. I wonder if he
looks like the general? I don't believe any Virginian can ride
better than our young men. I wonder if he can take up a handful
of sand at a gallop, like cousin John Izard?"</p>
<p>"Or jump his horse on the table," suggested Miss Elliott
with a roguish glance, "as I've heard that Mr. Izard did one
day after a club-dinner."</p>
<p>Miss Stead colored slightly as she said that the gentlemen
all complained of the strength of the last box of claret
received from Charleston before the club was broken up.</p>
<p>"I hear that Colonel Washington is a fine swordsman," said
Miss Elliott, "and that his troop are all bold riders. They
have fought Tarleton's Legion once or twice in skirmishes, and
they say the red-coats are rather shy of them."</p>
<p>Just at this point the conversation was interrupted by the
entrance of Billy, bearing a peace-offering in the shape of a
huge waiter of luncheon. Billy was butler and major-domo to the
establishment, and the young ladies could not restrain their
mirth at the profusion and variety with which the faithful
fellow was evidently trying to make amends for the
disappointment which his high sense of duty had compelled him
to inflict upon them. Had there been a dozen instead of two,
there would have been ample provision for their wants upon the
broad silver salver. Cakes and jellies, preserves and
sandwiches, tarts and ruddy apples, a decanter of sherry and a
stand of liqueurs, left barely room enough for the dainty
little plates and glasses, while Billy's special apology
appeared in the form of two steaming little tumblers of
rum-punch, the characteristic beverage of the day. All severity
of tone and manner had disappeared, and there was something
almost chivalric in the deferential smile and rude grace with
which the old fellow handed his waiter to the ladies and
assured them of the harmless mildness of the punch. Depositing
his burden upon a little stand within easy reach of the sofa,
Billy turned to leave, but paused as his eye wandered down the
opening vista of the avenue, and after gazing for a moment in
silence he suddenly exclaimed, "Dere's two sojer gemplemans
comin' t'rough de big gate."</p>
<p>In an instant both the young ladies were on their feet and
at the window, for such an announcement was cause enough for
excitement in that time of war, when the "sojer gemplemans"
might prove to be either friends or foes. Charleston had
already narrowly escaped capture during the previous summer by
General Prevost, who, although compelled to retire on Savannah,
had worsted Lincoln's militia army, destroying about one-fourth
of the little force. In October had occurred the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313"
id="page313"></a>[pg 313]</span> disastrous, attack upon
Savannah, in which the gallant Pulaski lost his life, and
Jasper, the hero of Fort Sullivan, received his death-wound.
Sumter, the "Game-Cock" of Carolina, had retired from the
State with his handful of followers badly demoralized;
Marion, the "Swamp-Fox," was concealed with his little band
among the cypress-bays and canebrakes of the Pedee; and a
tone of gloom and despondency prevailed among the people. In
the neighborhood of Charleston all was uncertainty. The
plantation residences were occupied chiefly by ladies, the
gentlemen being generally with the army. Tarleton's Legion
had become widely known and feared on account of the dashing
forays which that famous command was constantly making under
the lead of its brave and impetuous chief. No wonder, then,
that the hearts of the two young ladies at Oaklands beat
quick with anxiety as they strained their gaze down the
avenue, uncertain whether they should see the hated scarlet
uniforms of the British troopers or the welcome blue of the
Continental cavalry.</p>
<p>But the "big gate" to which Billy had alluded was a full
quarter of a mile distant, and although the first glance
satisfied the excited watchers that their visitors were
friends, little more could be certain until they should
approach more nearly. Patience, however, was hardly to be
expected under the circumstances, and its place was effectually
supplied by a little red morocco-covered spy-glass which Miss
Elliott took from the table. Scarcely was it brought to bear
upon the approaching horsemen when she laid it down as suddenly
as she had seized it, the rich color mantling to her
forehead.</p>
<p>"Why, Jane," said her friend, "am I not to have a look at
the strangers? Oh, I declare—yes, I <i>do</i> believe I
know that horse. It must be—"</p>
<p>"It is Colonel Washington and some other officer whom I do
not know," said Miss Elliott, who had regained her
self-possession completely. "You have your wish, Rebecca."</p>
<p>The two visitors cantered rapidly up the broad avenue, and
found Billy waiting to receive them. One was a tall,
soldierly-looking man of about twenty-eight, his fine face
bronzed by exposure, and his easy seat in the saddle betokening
one who had been a horseman from his youth. He wore the blue
coat with yellow facings and the buckskin breeches of the
Continental cavalry, his red sash bound over a broad sword-belt
which supported a strong sabre, while the handsome and
well-muscled bay mare which he rode carried a leather
portmanteau in addition to the heavy bearskin holster. His
large cavalry-boots were well bespattered, and his whole
bearing was that of an officer on duty, rather than of a
gallant bent on visiting lady fair. His companion was a mere
youth, seemingly not over seventeen, well mounted also, and
dressed in the simple uniform of an orderly, but evidently the
friend and social equal of his superior officer. The young man
sat his horse with the ease and grace of one born to the
saddle, and his fiery chestnut seemed to know and understand
his rider thoroughly. Like the other, he was provided with
holsters and portmanteau, a heavy blue cavalry cloak being
strapped over the unstuffed saddle-tree. Entering the
drawing-room, Colonel Washington presented his companion to
Miss Elliott as "Mr. Peyton of Virginia," and both gentlemen
were in turn presented to Miss Stead, who received their
courtly bows with one of those graceful, sweeping courtesies
which may be ranked among the lost arts of a past generation.
Billy had followed the guests to the parlor-door, where he
stood as if waiting orders.</p>
<p>"You seem to have ridden far," said: the fair hostess when
the ordinary salutations had passed. "Let me order your horses
to the stable to be fed."</p>
<p>"I thank you very kindly, miss, but there will be scarcely
time, for we are under marching orders, and must be in
Charleston before sunset," replied the colonel with a bow; and
there was something in his tone which faintly suggested a
mental desire to see the said marching orders in Jericho.</p>
<p>Perhaps young Peyton detected this, for he said immediately,
"I think we had <span class="pagenum"><a name="page314"
id="page314"></a>[pg 314]</span> best accept Miss Elliott's
kindness, for we have a long ride before us, and we cannot
tell what orders may be awaiting us at the end of it."</p>
<p>"I believe Peyton is right," said the colonel, "and if you
will permit me I will ask him to give some directions to the
servant."</p>
<p>Billy, however, had heard enough to give him his cue, and
had disappeared, nor did the summons of the bell bring him back
until full ten minutes had elapsed. When he did return it was
to bring in two more tumblers of punch, but this time of "the
regulation size" and strength, which were handed to the guests
and disposed of with bow and sentiment; and then the young
orderly went out with him to see the horses stripped and the
holsters deposited on the piazza before the animals were led
off to be fed.</p>
<p>"We shall have to defer accepting your invitation to attend
the dress parade until your return to camp," said Miss
Elliott.</p>
<p>"I regret to be obliged to say that the fortunes of war have
deprived us for the present of that honor. My orders extend to
the command, which broke camp this morning and is now on its
march to Charleston."</p>
<p>"Oh, what are we to do? We felt so safe while they were near
us."</p>
<p>The remark burst involuntarily from Miss Stead, who blushed
and cast down her eyes as if conscious of having said too much
for maidenly propriety, but the smile of acknowledgment on
Colonel Washington's face gave way to a look of grave anxiety
as he replied, "No lady of Carolina shall ever need a defender
while a man of my command is left to draw a sword; but we have
news of movements on the enemy's part which require our
presence nearer to the city, and I have advised that all
noncombatants who can possibly move into Charleston should do
so at their earliest convenience. Perhaps we may meet there in
a few days."</p>
<p>A momentary pallor had overspread Miss Elliott's face, but
it was succeeded immediately by a proud flush as she said, "It
is true, then, that General Clinton has left Savannah and is
moving on Charleston?"</p>
<p>"Such is the report, and I fear we are badly prepared to
meet him."</p>
<p>"We have a righteous cause, and God is on our side," replied
the brave girl with flashing eyes. "Governor Rutledge has
issued a call for all men not in service to take up arms, and
the whole upper country will swarm down to meet these hireling
British."</p>
<p>"So we all hope and expect; and if they are only in good
time, there will be no fear of the result."</p>
<p>"Fear! Who fears these upstart baronets and their insolent
soldiers? Oh, how I wish women could fight! If the men can't
drive them back, let <i>us</i> take the field, and Clinton
shall never set his foot in the streets of Charleston;" and the
brave little beauty looked as if she meant every word she
said.</p>
<p>"The men cannot fail to be heroes when the eyes of such
women are upon them," exclaimed the gallant colonel, looking
with amused admiration at the lovely face all aglow with
patriotic excitement. "But you must let us do the fighting,
Miss Elliott, while you cheer and support us with your smiles
and your prayers.—Peyton, what do you think would be the
result of a charge by a squadron of ladies upon Tarleton's
Legion?"</p>
<p>"I can't answer for Tarleton," laughingly replied the
orderly, who had just entered the room, "but I am afraid I
should throw down my arms and desert in the face of the
enemy."</p>
<p>"You are an ungallant fellow, Peyton, to hint even that the
ladies could ever be your enemies."</p>
<p>"Oh, do look there!" cried Miss Stead with a silvery laugh,
and pointing through the open window: "shall we take the issue
of that struggle as an omen?"</p>
<p>The whole party rushed to the window and looked out on the
lawn. A brilliant redbird, the proximity of whose nest perhaps
had fired his timid heart with courage, had made a savage
assault on a bluejay, the colors of whose feathers were
strikingly suggestive of the Continental uniform. For a moment
the two <span class="pagenum"><a name="page315"
id="page315"></a>[pg 315]</span> combatants fluttered in
angry strife, and the result seemed doubtful, when a female
mocking-bird flew from her nest in the shrubbery and drove
them both ingloriously from the field.</p>
<p>"That settles the matter," exclaimed Colonel Washington,
laughing gayly. "If Governor Rutledge calls out the ladies, I
shall throw up my commission at once, and retire in good order
to the security of private life."</p>
<p>"Perhaps then Lieutenant Peyton would succeed to the
command?" rejoined Miss Elliott, glancing archly at the young
orderly.</p>
<p>"I am almost sorry that your corps has not been organized,
miss, for I might then consider myself gazetted for promotion,
and claim my lieutenant's commission over your signature." The
young man spoke in a tone of gay badinage, but a shade of
annoyance came over his features as he added with a slight bow,
"I am only plain 'Mr.' Peyton as yet."</p>
<p>"I beg pardon," said Miss Elliott, "but I thought
'lieutenant' was an ensign's proper title."</p>
<p>"If Peyton were the ensign of the troop, his office would be
a sinecure," laughed the colonel, "seeing we have no standard
for him to carry."</p>
<p>"You surely don't mean, colonel, that your gallant corps
fights without colors?" said Miss Stead.</p>
<p>"Why, we cannot use those that we captured from the enemy,
and I fear our lady friends will be unable to present us with a
stand until the war is over and silk becomes more
plentiful."</p>
<p>Miss Elliott's eyes flashed with a sudden impulse, and the
color deepened on her cheek as she eagerly asked, "Would you
carry so poor a little flag as a Carolina girl can present to
you? Many a good knight has gone into battle with no richer
standard than a lady's scarf."</p>
<p>"If Miss Elliott will honor my command by entrusting her
kerchief to its keeping, I swear to fly it in the face of
Tarleton's Legion and defend it to the last drop of my
blood."</p>
<p>"Then let this be your flag," cried the noble girl with a
burst of enthusiasm which echoed that which rung in Colonel
Washington's tones. A large <i>fauteuil</i>, covered with heavy
crimson silk embroidered with raised laurel-leaves, was
standing near. Miss Elliott seized, as she spoke, the scissors
from her work-basket, and in a moment had cut out the
rectangular piece which covered the back and offered it to her
distinguished guest. Washington bowed low with courtly grace
and touched his lips to the fair hand which presented it, while
young Peyton, carried away by the excitement of the moment,
sprang to his feet with a cheer which started the wild birds
from the shrubbery: "Colonel Washington, I claim the right, by
Miss Elliott's commission, to carry that flag into action, and
I swear that it shall never be stained with dishonor while
Walter Peyton has a right hand to grasp its staff."</p>
<p>"Take it, my boy," said the colonel in a voice tremulous
with emotion, "and guard it with your life. With God's help we
will make that flag a terror to the enemies of our
country.—Miss Elliott, accept a soldier's gratitude for
your precious gift to-day. No prouder banner ever waved over
battle-field or claimed the devotion of patriotic hearts. It
shall be fringed and mounted this very night in Charleston, and
I pledge my sacred honor that Washington's Light Horse shall
prove worthy of their trust."</p>
<p>There was a pause in the conversation which was broken by
young Peyton, who rattled on for some time with Miss Stead in
that light vein which the most serious circumstances cannot
long repress when youth and beauty meet. Colonel Washington
spoke but little, and with an evident effort at gayety which
ill agreed with the earnest, thoughtful look which settled on
his features, while Miss Elliott could not conceal the
embarrassment which her heightened color and downcast eyes
betrayed as she toyed with her embroidery, avoiding the glances
of deep and ardent yet restrained admiration with which her
distinguished guest regarded her. The hour had arrived when the
soldiers must resume their journey; and while Rebecca Stead
stood watching from the piazza the final preparations which the
young orderly was making for the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316"
id="page316"></a>[pg 316]</span> march, Colonel Washington
took the hand of his fair hostess and after a moment's
hesitation bowed low and pressed it to his lips, but with
somewhat more of warmth than was required by the stately
courtesy of the day. Their eyes met for an instant, and
then, without one word of spoken adieu, they parted. When
Miss Stead turned to join her friend she found herself alone
with old Billy, who was gazing after the fast-receding forms
of the troopers. "Mass' Tahlton done ketch de debbil ef he
meet dem Virginia man to-night," said the old fellow
sententiously as he slowly retired into his pantry.</p>
<h3>II.</h3>
<p>On the 12th of May, 1780, General Lincoln, after sustaining
a close siege of more than a month's duration, surrendered
Charleston, with five thousand men and four hundred pieces of
artillery, into the hands of Sir Henry Clinton. The dark cloud
which had long been threatening Lower Carolina now settled like
a pall over the whole State, and but for two causes the whole
issue of the war might have been changed. One of these was the
severity of Cornwallis, who succeeded Clinton in the command,
and who by his unwise policy drove the despondent people to
desperation: the other was the indomitable courage and
self-devoted heroism of the women, which encouraged and
strengthened the flagging patriotism of the men. The militia
who had been captured with the city regarded themselves as
absolved from a parole which did not protect them from
enlistment in the ranks of the Crown, and the irregular bands
of Marion, Pickens and Sumter received large accessions.
Mill-saws were roughly forged into sabres and pewter table-ware
melted and beaten into slugs for the shot-guns with which the
men were armed. The British dared not forage except in force,
the pickets were shot from ambushes, and their Tory allies hung
whenever captured. In August the disastrous battle of Camden
destroyed Gates's army, and the Congress sent Greene to
supersede him. Making his head-quarters in North Carolina, this
experienced commander divided his force and sent General
Morgan, with about one thousand men, into South Carolina to
harass Cornwallis in the rear. The latter at once sent Tarleton
with eleven hundred troopers, among them his famous Legion, to
cut off Morgan or drive him back upon Greene. In the latter
part of December the Americans were in the region of the upper
Broad River, in Spartanburg district, South Carolina, Morgan
having but one hundred and thirty mounted men—they could
hardly be called cavalry—among whom was Washington's
troop.</p>
<p>It was about nine o'clock on the night of the 16th of
January, 1781, that the little army was encamped between the
Pacolet and Broad rivers, near a piece of thin woodland known
as Hannah's Cowpens. The weather was very cold, for the
elevation of that part of the country produces a temperature
equal in severity to that of a much higher latitude, but
neither tents nor shanties protected the sleeping soldiers from
the frosty air. Here and there a rough shelter of pine boughs
heaped together to windward of the smouldering camp-fires told
of a squad who had not been too weary to work for a little show
of comfort; but in most cases the men were stretched out on the
bare ground, their feet toward the embers and their arms
wrapped up with them in their tattered blankets, which scarcely
served to keep out the cold. The regular troops, who had seen
some service, might have been easily distinguished from the
less experienced militia by their superior sleeping
arrangements. Two and sometimes three men would be found
wrapped in one blanket, "spoon-fashion," with another blanket
stretched above them on four stakes to serve as a tent-fly, and
their fires were usually large and well covered with green
branches to prevent their burning out too rapidly. One and all,
however, slept as soundly as if reposing on beds of down, while
the same quiet stars smiled on them and on the anxious wives
and mothers who lay waking and praying in many a distant home.
In and out among the weird and shifting shadows of the outer
lines <span class="pagenum"><a name="page317"
id="page317"></a>[pg 317]</span> the dim figures of the
sentinels stalked with their old "Queen Anne" muskets at the
"right-shoulder shift," or tramped back and forth along
their beats at the double quick to keep their blood in
circulation. At a little distance from the infantry camp the
horses of Washington's dragoons and M'Call's mounted
Georgians were picketed in groups of ten, the saddles piled
together, and a sentinel paced between every two groups,
while the men were stretched around their fires, sleeping on
their arms like the infantry, for it was known that Tarleton
had crossed the Pacolet that day, and an attack was expected
at any time. A party of officers were asleep near one of the
fires, with nothing, however, to distinguish them from the
men but the red or buff facings of their heavy cloaks. One
of these lay with his face to the stars, sleeping as
placidly as if his boyish form were safe beneath his
mother's roof. One arm lay across his chest, clasping to his
body the staff of a small cavalry flag, while the other
stretched along his side, the hand resting unconsciously
upon a holster-case of pistols. As the glare of the
neighboring fire played over his features it was easy to
recognize Walter Peyton, guarding faithfully, even in his
sleep, the banner which Jane Elliott had cut from her
mother's parlor <i>fauteuil</i>, and which had already
become known to the enemy. A rough log cabin stood a little
way from the bivouac, before which two sentinels in the
uniform of the Continental regulars were pacing up and down.
The gleam of the roaring lightwood fire flashed through the
open seams between the logs, and heavy volumes of smoke
rolled out of the clay chimney. Just in front of the huge
fire-place stood the tall, burly figure of Morgan, and near
him were grouped, in earnest consultation, the manly figure
of William Washington, the brave and knightly John Eager
Howard of Maryland, McDowell, Triplett, Cunningham and other
officers of the field and staff. Determination not unmingled
with gloom was visible upon the faces of all. Every
arrangement had been made for the probable fight of the
morrow, and the council was about to disperse, when the
silence of the night was broken by the call of a distant
sentinel, taken up and repeated along the line. Morgan
instantly despatched an orderly, to the bivouac of the
guard, and the party were soon cheered by the intelligence
that a courier had just arrived who reported the near
approach of Pickens with three hundred Carolina
riflemen—a timely and valuable addition to the little
force of patriots.</p>
<p>The first gray pencilings of dawn were scarcely visible when
the slumbering camp was roused by the rolling notes of the
reveille from the drum of little Solly
Barrett,<a id="footnotetag4"
name="footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4"><sup>4</sup></a>
the drummer-boy of Howard's Maryland Regulars. Fully
refreshed by a good night's rest, the men prepared and ate
their breakfasts with but little delay, and by seven o'clock
the entire force was in line of battle, awaiting the
approach of the enemy.</p>
<p>Tarleton, flushed with the assurance of easy victory, had
made a forced march during the night, and his command was much
jaded when at eight o'clock he came in sight of Morgan's
outposts: notwithstanding this, however, he determined, as was
fully expected by those who knew his disposition and mode of
warfare, to attack the American lines forthwith. It must be
left to the historian to tell how the battle raged with varying
fortunes until Howard's gallant Marylanders taught the British
regulars that the despised provincials had learned the trick of
the bayonet, and decided the issue of the day. Up to this
moment the cavalry, which had been posted in reserve behind a
slight wooded eminence, had been chafing for a hand in the
fray. As has been stated, these troops consisted of McCall's
mounted militia and Washington's Light Dragoons. The latter
were all well mounted and armed, for their frequent successes
in skirmishes with the enemy's horse kept them well supplied.
They were a crack corps, and well had they earned their
reputation. Just as Howard's regulars turned savagely
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318"
id="page318"></a>[pg 318]</span> on their disorderly
pursuers and put them to the rout, a squadron of British
light horse made a dash at McCall, whose men were unused to
the sabre, and had been demoralized by the first
bayonet-charge of the enemy, which they had sustained on
foot. Now was Washington's chance.</p>
<p>"Are you ready, men? Charge!" The words were scarcely off
his lips ere the noble mare which he rode shot forward, touched
by her rider's spur. With a wild yell, which drowned the
regular cheer of the Englishmen, the men dashed after their
brave and impetuous leader, who was ever the first to cross a
sabre with the enemy. Rising in his stirrups as the gallant
chestnut answered the spur, Walter Peyton looked backward at
the men as he raised the light staff of his little banner and
shook its folds to the breeze, and the next moment he was close
by the side of his chief in the very thickest of the
mêlée. For a moment all was dust and confusion,
for Tarleton's veterans were not the men to break at the first
onset, and they met the furious charge of the Virginians with a
determination which promised a bloody and doubtful struggle.
One stout fellow, mounted on a powerful horse, singled out the
young ensign as his special quarry, not noticing, in his ardor
to capture the daring little rebel flag, that the trooper who
rode next to it was the gallant colonel himself. Reining back
his horse almost upon its haunches, he had raised his sabre in
the very act to strike when that of Washington came down with
tremendous force, severing the upper muscles of his sword-arm,
and at the same instant Peyton, for the first time observing
his danger, dropped his rein and, grasping the flagstaff with
both hands, swung it full in the face of his assailant. The
man's horse shied violently as the folds of the little banner
flapped across his eyes, and as his rider fell heavily from the
saddle dashed at full speed through the British line. Already
this had begun to waver, and in another moment the
panicstricken troopers were flying in wild confusion toward
their reserve. To rally a body of frightened cavalry is no easy
matter under any circumstances, but when a determined pursuing
force is pressing hotly on the rear it becomes a simple
impossibility. The entire command gave way as the fugitives
approached, and in a little while was in full retreat. Colonel
Washington, as usual far in advance of his men, caught sight of
the British commander, who, with two of his aides, was
endeavoring to rally a favorite regiment, and without a thought
of support pressed toward the group, accompanied only by Peyton
with Jane Elliott's flag and a little bugler, a mere boy, who
carried no sword, but who had drawn a pistol from his holster
and kept close to the colors all through the day.</p>
<p>Tarleton was not deficient in personal courage, and turned
to meet his old enemy in a hand-to-hand encounter. The officer
nearest him struck at Washington as he passed, but missed his
blow and received a bullet in his side from the young bugler's
pistol.</p>
<p>"Carter," cried Tarleton to the other aide, who rode near
him, "a captain's brevet if you take that woman's petticoat,"
pointing with his sword to the saucy little flag, the story of
which had reached the British camps.</p>
<p>But it was no woman's hand which was there to defend it, and
as the Englishman wheeled his horse for the attack Peyton's
pistol flashed almost in his face, and he fell forward on his
charger's neck, convulsively clasping it as the animal ran
wildly forward unguided toward the American lines. Meanwhile,
the two commanders had crossed swords, and as both were good
fencers, a duel <i>à l'outrance</i> seemed imminent. But
Tarleton had no time for chivalrous encounters. His opponent
beat down his guard, and with a sudden thrust wounded the
British colonel in the hand. The latter drew a pistol, and as
he wheeled to follow his flying squadrons discharged it at his
adversary, the ball taking effect near the knee. The battle was
now really at an end, and the pursuit was abandoned at this
point.</p>
<p>As Walter Peyton lay down beside his camp-fire that night it
was with a body <span class="pagenum"><a name="page319"
id="page319"></a>[pg 319]</span> worn down by excitement and
fatigue, but with a heart beating high with pride as he
looked at the flag he had so gallantly defended, and
remembered his colonel's words of commendation, which he
more than hoped meant promotion to a captain's
commission.</p>
<p>In the city of Charleston all was gloom and sorrow except in
the little circle of society which boasted of its loyalty to
the Crown. Scarcely a family but had some representative in the
Continental ranks, and as all intelligence reached the city
through British channels, the darkest side of every encounter
between the armies was the first which the imprisoned patriots
saw. The non-combatant members of all the planters' families
had moved into the city before its capitulation, and while the
ladies permitted the visits and acquaintance of the English
officers, they never lost an opportunity to show them how
hateful they esteemed the royal cause.</p>
<p>It was nearly a month after the victory at the Cowpens that
Miss Elliott was sitting with her mother one evening in the
parlor of their city residence. Conspicuous among the furniture
was a large and comfortable arm-chair upholstered in heavy
crimson silk damask, but while everything else in the room was
neat and even elegant, this chair appeared to be more fit for
the lumber-closet, the entire square of silk having been cut
from the back, leaving the underlining of coarse striped cotton
exposed to view. The tones of the curfew or "first bell," which
may still be heard nightly in the seagirt old city, had just
died away when a loud rap came from the heavy brass knocker on
the street-door, and in a few moments old Billy appeared to
announce "Captain Fraser."</p>
<p>A look of slight annoyance passed over the face of the elder
lady as she arranged the snowy ruffles of her cap, while the
deepened color and sparkling eyes of the younger, with the
almost imperceptible sarcasm of her smile, seemed to indicate
mingled pleasure, defiance and contempt. The visitor who
entered was resplendent in the gay scarlet and glittering lace
of the British uniform, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page320"
id="page320"></a>[pg 320]</span> his redundancy of ruffles, powder
and sword-knot betokened the military exquisite, his bearing
presenting a singular mixture of high breeding and haughty
insolence. With his right hand laid upon the spot where his
heart was supposed to be, while his left daintily supported the
leathern scabbard of his sword, he bowed until the stiff little
queue of his curled wig pointed straight at the heavy cornice.
The ladies swept the floor with their graceful courtesies, that
of the younger presenting the least touch of exaggeration as
with folded arms and downcast eyes she sank backward before her
guest. Another knock was heard, and when the names of three
more of the garrison officers were announced, Miss Elliott
whispered to Billy a hasty message to some of her fair friends
in the neighborhood to come in and help her entertain them.
These impromptu parties were quite common, and in a little
while the room was sparkling with beauty, gallantry and wit. It
may seem strange that the patriotic belles of the day, the fair
Brewtons and Pinckneys and Rutledges, the Ravenels and Mazycks,
should have cultivated such pleasant associations with the
enemies of their country. But among the officers they had many
old friends and acquaintances of <i>ante-bellum</i> days, and
not a few marriages had established even closer ties. Thus,
Lord Campbell, the last royal governor, was husband to Sarah
Izard, the sister of General Ralph Izard, who was
brother-in-law to our former acquaintance, Rebecca Stead; and
even General Washington had invited Admiral Fairfax to dine, on
the ground that a state of war did not preclude the exchange of
social civilities between gentlemen who served under opposing
flags.</p>
<p>Mrs. Elliott received the attentions of her daughter's
visitors with dignified grace, but with a degree of reserve
which it was impossible altogether to conceal, and to which the
officers had become too much accustomed to feel any offence;
while the younger ladies drove the keen darts of their sarcasm
home to the feelings of their hostile guests, who were forced
to submit to it or forego entirely the pleasures of female
society.</p>
<p>"May I ask if Company K has been on duty at the picket-lines
to-day?" asked Miss Elliott of Captain Fraser, who had just
sauntered up to her chair.</p>
<p>"May I answer the question after the fashion of my
ancestors," was the reply, "by asking why you should think
so?"</p>
<p>"Only because you seem to be suffering from fatigue, which a
long march might explain."</p>
<p>Fraser's company was notoriously a "fancy corps," whose
severest duty was generally to furnish the guard at
head-quarters and to go through a dress parade every evening at
the Battery.</p>
<p>"Ah, no, but I have been on inspection duty, and it's a
bore, I assure you."</p>
<p>"Inspecting the flower-gardens, I presume, to be sure that
there are no rattlesnakes under the rose-bushes, or the
milliner-shops, to see that no palmetto cockades are made. May
I insist upon a seat for you? Not <i>that</i> chair," she added
hastily and with heightened color as the captain was about to
occupy the mutilated <i>fauteuil</i>: "excuse me, but that is a
'reserved seat.'"</p>
<p>"Ah, I see—beg pardon," said Fraser with a slight
sneer, for the story of Washington's flag was generally known,
and also Miss Elliott's aversion to the use of the chair by any
British officer. "Somebody seems to have carried off the back
of that one."</p>
<p>"When last heard from," said the beauty with curling lip,
"it was at Colonel Tarleton's back."</p>
<p>"Tarleton should be court-martialed for that affair at
Cowpens," said Fraser with some warmth, and forgetting the
proffered seat he prepared to take his leave.</p>
<p>"Perhaps Captain Fraser would like to have had a hand in the
'affair' also," added Miss Elliott with a demure smile. This
allusion to Tarleton's wound was too much for the gallant
captain, and again elevating the point of his queue toward the
ceiling, but this time without his hand to his heart, he left
the room with a face somewhat redder than his uniform.</p>
<h3>III.</h3>
<p>There are defeats which are more glorious than victory, and
one of these it was which, on the 8th of September, 1781, gave
to Jane Elliott's flag the title which has come down with it to
posterity. In the earlier days of its history the saucy little
standard was known to the gallant men who followed it to action
as "Tarleton's Terror," and sometimes it is even now spoken of
as "the Cowpens Banner." But the name by which its brave
custodians most love to call it is "the Eutaw Flag," It is hard
to realize as one stands beside the lovely fountains which flow
to-day as they did a hundred—or perhaps a
thousand—years ago, that close by these placid waters was
fought one of the most desperate and bloody struggles of a long
and cruel war. The sunfish and bream floated with quivering
fins or darted among the rippling shadows on that autumn
morning as we see them doing now. The mocking-bird sang among
the overhanging branches the same varied song which gladdens
our ears, and the wild deer then, as now, lay peacefully in the
shady coverts of the neighboring woods. Who knows what they may
have thought when they heard their only enemy, man, ring out
his bugle-call to slip the war-dogs on his fellows, or when the
sharp crack of the rifle told them for the first time of safety
to themselves and of death to their wonted destroyers?</p>
<p>Already had "Light-horse Harry" Lee struck the first blow
victoriously in the capture of Coffin and the discomfiture of
his force. Already for several hours the old black oaks had
quivered beneath the thunder of artillery more fearfully
destructive than that of Heaven itself as Williams hurled back
from his field-battery the iron hail with which the enemy
strove to overwhelm him. Already had Howard's gallant
Marylanders, the heroes of the Cowpens, crossed bayonets with
the veteran "Irish Buffs" and forced them in confusion from the
field. Majoribanks, with his regulars, grenadiers and infantry,
was strongly posted behind a copse too dense to be forced by
cavalry, and yet to dislodge him was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321"
id="page321"></a>[pg 321]</span> Colonel Washington's
special duty. Pointing with his sword toward a narrow
passage near the water, he dashed the spurs into the flanks
of his gallant mare and called on his men to follow. There
was a momentary pause, for the duty was of the most
desperate character, but Captain Peyton snatched the little
banner which he had carried so long from the hand of the
sergeant who had succeeded to its charge, and raising it
above his head spurred after his leader. As the silken folds
fluttered out on the air a ringing cheer went up from the
troop, and the whole line, wheeling into sections so as to
pass through the narrow gap, dashed forward as one man. It
was a daring attempt, and terribly did they pay for their
audacity. A perfect storm of bullets greeted the brave
Virginians, and nearly one-half of them went down, horse and
man, beneath its fearful breath ere the other half were in
the midst of the enemy's ranks. Those were days when a
certain simplicity of character made the soldier believe
that bayonets and sabres were terrible weapons and meant to
do terrible work. No rewards were then offered for "a dead
cavalryman" or for "a bloody bayonet." There were cloven
skulls at Eutaw as at Crecy, and men were transfixed by each
other's deadly bayonet-thrusts. As Washington, maddened by
the loss of his brave troopers, swung his sharp blade like
the flail of death, a shot from the musket of a tall
grenadier pierced the lung of his noble bay, and as the
falling steed rolled over on her gallant rider the man
shortened his musket and buried the sharp steel in the
colonel's body. A second thrust would have followed with
deadly result had not the British major, Majoribanks, seized
the arm of the soldier and demanded the surrender of his
fallen and bleeding foe. The tide of battle had receded like
some huge swell of ocean, and as the wounded hero struggled
to his feet he found himself surrounded by enemies, to
contend with whom would have been folly. Turning his feeble
glance for a second toward the retreating remnant of his
shattered command, he caught a glimpse through the smoke and
dust of his little battle-flag fluttering in the distance,
and fast receding toward the point whence Hampton's bugles
were already sounding the rally. Neither William Washington
nor his "Eutaw Flag" was ever again in battle for the
country, for the captivity of the former terminated only
with the war, and the latter fades from history from that
date until, in 1827, Jane Washington, for seventeen years a
widow, presented it as a precious inheritance to the gallant
corps of Charleston citizen soldiery, who still guard its
folds from dishonor, as they do the name of the knightly
paladin which they bear. The wedding was celebrated soon
after the establishment of peace. Major Majoribanks escaped
the carnage of the day, but he lived not to deliver his
distinguished prisoner at Charleston. Sickening on the
retreat with the deadly malaria of the Carolina swamps, he
died near Black Oak, and his mossy grave may be seen to-day
by the roadside, marked by a simple stone and protected from
desecration by a wooden paling. It stands near the gate of
Woodboo plantation, which old Stephen Mazyck, the Huguenot,
first settled, about twenty-five miles from Eutaw and
forty-three from Charleston. On the banks of the Cooper,
amid the lovely scenes of "Magnolia," Charleston's city of
the dead, there stands a marble shaft enwreathed in the
folds of the rattlesnake, the symbol of Revolutionary
patriotism, and beneath it rests all that was mortal of
William Washington and Jane Elliott his wife.</p>
<p>ROBERT WILSON.</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322"></a></span>
CONVENT LIFE AND WORK.</h2>
<p>To those who have had but little opportunity to examine the
inner workings of the Catholic Church the subject of the
conventual life has always been something of a puzzle. Of
course it has been difficult for them to obtain a personal
insight into its details, just as it would be difficult to gain
admittance into the mosque of St. Sophia or a Hindu community
of religious. Curiosity, unsatisfied, betakes itself to
hearsay, and since those who know most are generally most
silent about their knowledge, it is to the gossip of ignorance
or prejudice that curiosity looks for an answer. Distorted
views or imaginary descriptions end by being received into the
mill of public opinion, and issue thence ground into gospel
truth and invested with mysterious (because fictitious)
interest. It is strange that a phase of life which is in
constant practice at the present day, often within a stone's
throw of our own doors, and which has personal ramifications in
the families of our neighbors and acquaintances, should still
be so much of a phenomenon to the public mind. In England,
France, Italy, Germany and America I have been familiarly
acquainted with it, have studied its principles and its details
under many varying forms, and never found it less interesting
because it was <i>not</i> mysterious. Human, fallible beings
are the inhabitants of monasteries either for males or females,
with individual peculiarities and different sympathies—by
no means machines, but free and intelligent agents, each with a
character as individual as that of separate flowers in a large
garden—full of personality and of human imperfection.</p>
<p>In Rome, not far from the Fountain of Trevi—of whose
waters it is said that they have the power to ensure the return
to Rome of any one who has drunk of them in a cup not
heretofore devoted to common purposes—is the spacious
convent called San Domenico e Sisto. Here the first convent of
Dominican friars was established, and the spot is historic
ground in the annals of the order of Preachers. In the
turbulent thirteenth century, when papal, feudal and democratic
parties opposed each other in Rome, and the vigorous sap of
half-tamed barbarian life still coursed through the pulses of
Italy, Saint Dominic rose like a reformer, a lawgiver and a
peace-maker. On the other side of the Tiber, entrenched behind
baronial walls and fiercely protected by baronial champions,
was a convent of women whose practice of their vows had become
too relaxed for such a bad example to be allowed to remain
unreproved. The ecclesiastical authorities wished peremptorily
to disestablish the convent and filter its inmates through some
neighboring religious houses more zealous and more edifying in
their conduct. But the nuns, who were mostly of noble families,
appealed to their charters, their immunities and exemption from
papal jurisdiction. Their fathers and brothers, the formidable
barons who held within the papal city many strongholds well
garrisoned, took up their quarrel and dared the world to
dispossess the refractory sisterhood. Saint Dominic had just
brought his friars to the dilapidated house then known as San
Sisto, had caused rapid repairs to be made, and in his fervor
had created round himself a nucleus of ardent reformers. The
Gordian knot was referred to him, and with characteristic
abruptness he promised to cut it at once. He came alone to the
gates of the convent, presented no credentials from pope or
cardinal, and asked an interview with the abbess. He spoke of
the holiness of an austere life, the reward of those that
"follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth," the merit of
obedience, the need of reform, the great work that his order
was doing for God, and the call for more laborers in the field:
he proposed to the nuns to be his helpers among their own sex,
and his coheiresses in the heavenly
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323"
id="page323"></a>[pg 323]</span> reward of the future. His
eloquence and zeal soon melted the haughty resolve of the
rebellious but still noble-minded women. Roused to a new
sense of power and responsibility, they embraced his rigid
rule, and with the enthusiasm of their sex, that never halts
midway in reform, became models of austerity. The better to
signify to the world the spiritual change wrought in their
temper, they migrated from the abode which they had sworn to
make the symbol and palladium of their independence, and
went to San Sisto, Saint Dominic taking his monks to
repeople the convent across the Tiber left vacant by the
submissive sisterhood.</p>
<p>It is with this new house, henceforth called San Domenico e
Sisto, that one of my earliest recollections of conventual life
is connected. The order is one which enjoins strict enclosure.
The dress is of coarse white serge or flannel, consisting of a
long, narrow tunic with flowing sleeves drawn over tight ones
of linen; a <i>scapular</i> or stole (i.e., a piece of straight
stuff half a yard broad worn hanging from the shoulders both
behind and before); a leathern girdle round the waist, from
which hangs a rosary, large, common and set in steel; strong,
thick sandals; a linen wimple enveloping the face and hiding
the ears, neck and roots of the hair; a woolen veil, black for
the professed nuns, white for the novices, and of white
<i>linen</i> for the lay sisters; and over all an immense black
cloak, falling around the figure in statuesque folds.</p>
<p>In this order, and almost invariably in every other, a
candidate is admitted at first as a <i>postulant</i> for a
period of six months—a sort of preliminary trial of her
fitness for the religious life. She wears ordinary clothes
during this time—plain and black, of course, but not of
any prescribed shape. Sometimes, however, she is required by
custom to wear a plain black cap. After six months she is
admitted as a novice—<i>i.e.</i>, she solemnly puts off
the secular dress and wears the habit of the order, making the
vows of poverty, chastity and obedience for the space of one
year only. The details of the ceremony vary in different
orders, but the ceremony itself is called in all by the generic
name of "clothing" or "taking the white veil." In orders where
a white woolen veil is the badge of profession (these are not
many) a linen one is equally the mark of the novice and the lay
sister. Although there exists for convenience' sake a
distinction between choir-nuns and lay sisters—the former
paying a dowry to the common fund on the day of their entrance,
and the latter bringing their manual service to the house
instead of any offering—still, the difference is not
spiritual, and beyond the mere distribution of labor is not
practically discernible. In orders where the education of youth
is the primary object, the lay sisters, under the supervision
of the choir-nun to whose charge the housekeeping is directly
entrusted, perform all the menial service, which would
otherwise make too many inroads on the time of the teaching
nuns; but in other orders, the Carmelites for instance, the
lowest work, be it of the kitchen, the laundry or the chamber,
is undertaken in turn by every member of the community. When
Madame Louise, the daughter of Louis XV. of France, became a
Carmelite nun, the first task assigned her was the washing of
coarse dishes and the sweeping of floors. A parallel case is
that of the Cistercian monks, who to this day, at their famous
farm-monastery at Mount St. Bernard, England, are bound by
their rule to labor with their hands so many hours a day. No
exception is made for the abbot himself; and when we visited
the establishment a few years ago we had to wait some time for
the abbot, who was digging in a distant field. Scholar and
savant are not exempt any more than the humblest member of the
brotherhood; and as it is a very learned order, and attracts
many recent converts to Catholicism, it is not infrequently
that one recognizes in the monk-laborer, digging potatoes or
hoeing turnips, some Anglican clergyman of delicate nurture and
scholarly renown. To this monastery, entirely self-supported by
its extensive farm, is attached a boys' reformatory, one of
whose products is the most excellent
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page324"
id="page324"></a>[pg 324]</span> butter known in England.
Tailoring, shoemaking, carpentry, turning, etc. are all
taught under the supervision of the monks: those among the
boys who wish it are helped to emigrate, and others
apprenticed at the proper time to the trades they have
already been taught at Mount St. Bernard.</p>
<p>To resume our sketch of the Dominican nuns in Rome. It is
the custom in Italy for a young lady about to "enter religion"
to choose a godmother or <i>madrina</i>, a lady of proper age
and mature experience, who acts as her chaperon during the few
weeks preceding the "clothing." She comes forth from the
convent where she has been a postulant, and, dressed in the
garb of the world, makes formal visits to all her relations,
friends and patrons, assists at public ceremonies in the local
churches, even visits some places of interest, such as museums
and galleries. This is her solemn farewell to the world, and
she is supposed thus to have another trial given to the
steadfastness of her resolve, another chance to abandon it
before it is too late. A young girl of an illustrious Roman
family, but of very slender fortune, was about to enter the
Dominican order at the time to which I allude, in 1853. Her
only sister had for some years been a nun of a strictly
enclosed order, and Mademoiselle G——, having chosen
as her madrina an English Catholic lady who had been enabled to
show her some kindness while still in the world, went to bid
farewell to this elder sister. The meeting was very affecting:
the sisters could not see each other face to face—a thick
grating separated them. The elder had long been a spiritual
guide to the younger: she had led her mind in the direction of
the cloister, and now rejoiced sincerely that God had smoothed
away the family difficulties and pecuniary embarrassments which
for some time had stood in the way of her vocation. Still,
natural affection was not stifled in the generous, unselfish
heart of the cloistered nun, and she wept with her sister at
the thought that, though the walls of the same city would hold
them both till death, and hardly a few blocks of houses
separate their convent homes, yet in the flesh they should
never meet again. The English godmother sat in a remote corner
of the cool, shady parlor, sympathizing in silence with the
touching scene, but keeping as much in the background as
etiquette and custom allowed, that she might not intrude on
this last farewell. At length the curtain behind the grating
fell, and the young girl had severed the tenderest link that
bound her to the world. Many other visits were paid—some
to friends of Mademoiselle G——'s parents (she had
long been an orphan), some to ecclesiastical personages who had
interested themselves to procure her admission into the
Dominican community. With repeated blessings the young girl
left their presence, every day advancing nearer to her
spiritual bridal.</p>
<p>At last the day came. Early in the morning the madrina
arrived at the convent with her two little girls of six and
eight years old dressed in white as bridesmaids, or, as the
Italian term <i>angiolini</i> has it, little angels. They bore
delicate baskets filled with white flowers to strew before the
"bride," and their office during the ceremony was to hold the
novice's gloves, fan and handkerchief. The young girl herself,
looking pale and earnest, walked up the aisle of the convent
chapel in bridal robes of white silk, with a veil and wreath on
her head, and round her neck a string of pearls, an heirloom in
the G—— family. Her brother, the only male
representative of her once powerful house, was present in the
outer chapel, full of grief at a sacrifice which he had never
countenanced, and ready to claim that morning the only legacy
of his sister the promise of which he had been able to
secure—the thick coils of her black hair when they should
have been cut off preparatory to her taking the novice's veil.
The scene was very solemn. The nuns sat in their carved stalls
within the grating whose black bars divided them from the
"bride" and her friends in the ante-chapel: the chant of psalms
and versicles came down from a hidden gallery, and the priest
in rich vestments stood at the foot of the altar within the
railing. The service went on in the midst of a palpable hush;
the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page325"
id="page325"></a>[pg 325]</span> very air seemed hardly to
vibrate; the bride, attended by her two angiolini, left her
gorgeous kneeling-chair and advanced to the open door in the
grating, where the priest met her. Question and answer were
interchanged in Italian, and the young girl vowed that of
her own free will she left the world and joined the order of
St. Dominic. Prayers in Latin followed, then again a chanted
psalm, and Mademoiselle G—— was led away through
the iron-grated door, which was then closed. It was not long
ere she reappeared in the long close tunic of white serge,
her head covered with a temporary veil of coarse linen and
her feet shod in sandals. A procession of nuns, each bearing
a lighted taper, escorted her to the foot of the altar
(everything was visible through the grating), and she knelt
before the officiating priest. A white woolen veil was
handed to him, which he blessed with holy water, the sign of
the cross and the prescribed ejaculations accompanying these
rites: he then laid it on her head as a "symbol of the
virgin modesty" to which she was now pledged. Two nuns were
at hand to pin it into the right folds while a silver ring
was being blessed in the same manner as the veil. This was
placed on the ring-finger of the left hand as a "symbol of
the intimate union and espousal with Christ" signified by
her renunciation of the world. The scapular of white serge,
similarly blessed, was then laid upon her shoulders as a
type of the "yoke of obedience and sacrifice;" and lastly,
the black cloak, signifying charity, covering and enveloping
the whole person. Then in a loud, firm voice, instinct with
passion and resolve, she read, standing, the formal
declaration of her religious vows. When this was over the
mother-superior led the novice, now Sister Maria Colomba, to
a small table on which lay a bridal wreath of white roses
and a crown of thorns. She asked her solemnly which was her
choice in life, and the novice took up the crown of thorns
and placed it on her head. This typical ceremony I never saw
performed in any other order. Shortly after the crown of
thorns was exchanged for that of roses, the superior saying,
"Inasmuch as thou hast chosen the crown which thy Saviour
wore, He rewards thee with that which is a shadow of the
heavenly crown reserved for His spouses in heaven." This
bridal token the new nun wears during the whole day.</p>
<p>To a few ladies and to the angiolini a special permission to
enter the enclosure was given in honor of the day: a festive
meal was served in the bare, cool refectory, the rule of
silence being relaxed for the special occasion, and the nuns
wearing a happy, child-like expression that hardly varied in
the face of the youngest novice and that of the septuagenarian
"mother." The strangers were shown through the dormitories, the
kitchen, the laundry, the garden, the community-room, where
embroidery, painting and study diversify the labors of the
broom and the dishcloth, and everywhere the same exquisite
neatness struck the eye. Everything used in the house was of
the coarsest description—the linen like sack-cloth, but
speckless; the delf as thick and rough as if made for sailors;
the floors mostly of brick or stone; the furniture of unpainted
deal. Over each bed, which is only a board on trestles covered
with heavy sacking, is a common crucifix and a sprig of box or
olive blessed on Palm Sunday. The sisters sleep in their
tunics. The library is common property, but no one may use or
read any book save by permission of the superioress. The rules
of fasting and abstinence are not exactly the same in every
convent of the order, but the broad rule is that meat should be
eaten only on great holidays, vegetables and farinaceous
preparations, such as most Italians are not unskilled in,
forming the staple of the nuns' food. Fish is almost as rare a
luxury as meat. Their bread is coarse and brown, and their
drink indifferently water or a wine so sour that it is
practically vinegar. Not that these nuns are not good cooks and
bakers: witness the delicate sweetmeats, biscuits and pastry
they offer to strangers on such festival days as the one just
described, the fruit-preserves in blocks sold for their
sustenance by the nuns at Funchal, Madeira, and the fairy
frostwork of sugar seen on great occasions in French
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326"
id="page326"></a>[pg 326]</span> convents. No womanly art is
a stranger to the deft fingers of cloistered nuns.
Bookbinding is a pursuit well known among them, as is also
the mounting in delicate filigree of the "Agnus Dei" or
waxen representation of the Lamb of God, blessed by the pope
at Easter and distributed throughout Christendom from the
papal metropolis. Another convent industry is the
preparation of the wafers used in the celebration of
mass.</p>
<p>These Dominicanesses rise at four in the morning and dine at
eleven, making after that only one slight meal in the
evening—bread and vegetables, for instance, or a
saucerful of macaroni. At stated times they assemble in the
chapel for the singing of the "divine office," and always have
an early mass, at which the whole community receives holy
communion. This is administered by the priest through a square
opening in the iron grating dividing the nuns from the altar.
At eight, or at latest nine o'clock in the evening, all are in
bed, whence they rise again at midnight (in some orders at two
o'clock in the morning, but this custom involves rising
somewhat later, generally five o'clock) for matins and
lauds.</p>
<p>The duties of separate departments are judiciously divided
among the sisters. There is the infirmarian; the
<i>économe</i>, or housekeeper, to whose share falls the
supplying of the larder; the librarian, the sacristan, the
portress (often in cloistered orders this position, which is
exceptional in its exemptions, involves the ordering of outside
business matters), the care-taker of the garments and linen,
the gardener, the secretary, the mistress and sub-mistress of
novices. The house is managed like clockwork. Punctually as the
bell rings each sister goes to the task appointed for that
hour, and leaves it, no matter how important or absorbing it
may be, for the duty appointed by the rule for the next
division of time. Silence prevails among the sisters at almost
all hours: for at most three times a day speech is permitted,
and seldom for more than half an hour at a time. During meals
one sister reads the <i>Lives of the Saints</i> aloud. Each in
her turn takes the place of server at table. The superioress
alone has power to dispense with the rule of silence in case of
necessity, as she transacts most of the business, social or
legal, of her community.</p>
<p>During the year of novitiate the novices are under the
direct rule of the mistress of novices, whose authority over
them is paramount, though she herself is of course under a vow
of obedience to the superior. When a novice receives a visit
from one in the world she is accompanied by the "mistress," and
if the visitor be a near relation and a woman the curtain
behind the grating is withdrawn; if only a friend, the visitor
does not even see the nun, as the thick curtain is drawn, and
the only communication possible is by speech. It is generally
possible, on any necessity arising, to obtain a special
permission to break through the rule of enclosure: this is done
by applying to the superior-general of the order, or in Rome to
the Holy Father, whose authority naturally supersedes all
others. Sometimes the power to dispense lies with the local
superior, but it is a prerogative seldom used, and wisely so.
In every order the internal government of each house is of an
elective form, but when once chosen the superiors exercise
absolute authority. The community meets every three years (in
some orders every year) and chooses by vote a superioress, an
assistant superioress and a mistress of novices. Only the
professed nuns have a vote, and the majority carry the day.
These "officers," once appointed, rule the house and choose all
minor deputies themselves. The heads alone of each house
assemble at the death of the superior-general (or abbess, as
she is styled in some of the more ancient orders) and choose
another, equally by vote, the election being sometimes decided
by only one vote. This assembly is called a "chapter." The
generals of most orders reside in Rome.</p>
<p>The year after the "clothing" of Sister Maria Colomba we
witnessed the final ceremony of her "profession"—that is,
of her assuming the black veil and renewing her religious vows
<i>for life</i>. Hitherto, she had been free to return to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327"
id="page327"></a>[pg 327]</span> world and marry: henceforth
such a return (unless by a dispensation so rarely given that
it is practically non-existent) would be sacrilege. The
details of the ceremony vary in different orders, and with
those which are not cloistered the scene is far less
impressive. What we were going to see included the most
solemn forms ever used. This time the whole service took
place behind the grating: there were no "bridesmaids" now,
no shadow of worldly pomp was borrowed to enhance the last
and momentous consecration of religion. The novice knelt
between the superior and the mistress of novices, each
bearing a lighted taper. The white veil was taken from her
head, and a black one, previously blessed with holy water
sprinkled over it in the form of a cross, substituted: the
low chant of the unseen choir of nuns sounded impressively
as the echo of another world. Then came the renewal of the
dread vows, binding now until death, and the voice of the
young girl seemed firm though low: her face wore a calm,
peaceful look, subdued by the solemn occasion, yet
irrepressibly suggesting a joy unknown in the world, where
joy is seldom free from passion. The most interesting
ceremony, however, was yet to come. The slow chant shaped
itself into the words of the psalm <i>De Profundis</i>, the
special prayer which in the Catholic Church is reserved for
the dead, and four professed nuns advanced toward their new
sister, who was now prostrate at the foot of the altar. Each
held the corner of a funeral pall, which they slowly;
dropped over the figure of Sister Maria Colomba, and,
kneeling, held it over her until the last verse of the psalm
had been sung. This suggestive ceremony closed the service.
It is a forcible and picturesque type of the complete
severance of the nun's future life and interests from the
outside world, the death of her heart to all carnal
affections, the "dying daily" which Saint Paul calls the
"life" of the Christian soul. A long procession accompanied
the newly-professed nun to the inner rooms of the convent,
and for this one day again she wore over the black veil the
bridal wreath, which to-morrow would be put away until
required for her last adornment in the coffin.</p>
<p>Ten years after our farewell to Sister Maria Colomba behind
the bars of the convent-parlor we saw her again, and, armed
with a papal permission, were shown by her over the whole
convent. Those rare occasions when a stranger is allowed to
penetrate the "enclosure" are always gala-days for the nuns. I
remarked the blithe, youthful look that shone on all their
faces: Sister Maria Colomba herself, from a pale, nervous girl,
had expanded into a strong, hale, buxom woman. The glow of
health was on her cheek, the sparkle of innocent mirth shone in
her eye. There was one among the sisters who gleefully asked me
to guess at her age. She was a sweet, fresh-complexioned,
matronly woman. "Not more than fifty, good mother," was the
answer.</p>
<p>She laughed and gently clapped her hands. "Add twenty years
to that," she answered with an innocent burst of pride. Then
she told how she had entered the order while yet in her
"teens," had held half the offices of trust in the community,
and had never missed any of the most rigid fasts or absented
herself once from the midnight office, never having known so
much as a day's ill-health. "Ah, a nun's life is a healthy one,
child, as well as a happy one," she said in conclusion.</p>
<p>We went over the kitchen, laundry, refectory, dormitories,
chapel, garden, etc. Just the same as before—a little
"calvary" at one end of the garden and a rough picture of a
Madonna in an arbor, the long, echoing corridors spotless as
the deck of a man-of-war, and the smiling faces making a very
flower-garden of the community-room. We left loaded with
specimens of the nuns' work—Agnus Deis in frames of
silver filigree dotted with white roses and hanging from white
satin ribbon-bows; flake-like biscuits of peculiar flavor; and
baskets, pincushions, etc. of delicate workmanship. I do not
know whether this convent is still in the hands of the
Dominicanesses, so many in Rome having become barracks since
the new royal <span class="pagenum"><a name="page328"
id="page328"></a>[pg 328]</span> authority superseded that
of the pope. But the picture of San Domenico e Sisto as it
was in 1853 and 1863 may yet interest many who perhaps will
never have the opportunity of seeing such an establishment
for themselves.</p>
<p>This is a very fair sample of the convents of the stricter
and cloistered orders: there are some exceptional houses, such
as that of the Sepolte Vive, where the rule is far more
austere. There is but one convent of this description in Rome,
and I believe one or two in France. It is a noteworthy fact
that most of the strictest observances of penance originated in
France, and are continued there to this day. This convent of
the Sepolte Vive ("Buried Alive") is not formally sanctioned by
the papal authority, but only <i>tolerated</i>. The nuns were
forbidden more than ten years ago to admit any more novices,
and although the individual zeal of those who started the order
was not exactly censured, still a tacit intimation of its being
considered excessive and imprudent was given by the highest
ecclesiastical court. Among their customs (which much resemble
those of the Trappist monks) these nuns have that of digging
their own graves, and as the cemetery is small and included in
the "enclosure," the oldest graves are opened after a period of
forty or fifty years, and the crumbling contents ejected to
make room for the lately deceased. The death of a nun's nearest
relation, be it father, mother, brother or sister, is made
known to the superior alone, and she in her turn announces it,
<i>not</i> to the bereaved one, but to the whole sisterhood, in
this manner: They are all assembled in the community-room, and
admonished to "pray for the soul of the father or mother" (as
the case may be) "of one among their number." To the day of her
death the nun never knows how near and dear by the ties of
Nature may have been the soul for which she has prayed every
day since the announcement was made.</p>
<p>The Sepolte Vive, when found guilty of any breach of the
rule, are labeled with a ticket attached to their habit, and on
which their fault is written in large, conspicuous
letters—for instance, "Disobedience," "Curiosity,"
"Talkativeness"—and this they wear at their ordinary
avocations for as many hours as the superioress commands. They
never undress on going to bed, and wear the same habit winter
and summer, the stuff being too hot for the one and too cold
for the other; so that at all times the penance is the same. On
the wrists many of them wear iron manacles that graze the skin
and cause constant irritation at every turn of the hand: this
is sometimes imposed as a penance, but very often is
voluntarily inflicted on themselves by zealous members of the
sisterhood. Before the prohibition to receive additional
novices the sisterhood consisted of a fixed number, and when a
vacancy occurred by the death of one the place was filled by
the first on the list of postulants. <i>This list was always a
large one</i>, and generally contained many names belonging to
the noblest families of Rome. These details were gathered from
the same lady who acted as madrina to the Dominican nun Sister
Maria Colomba; and when she and a friend obtained permission
from the pope to penetrate the "enclosure," the nuns told her
that it was <i>twenty years</i> since the same privilege had
been granted. For almost the space of a generation no stranger
had been seen or heard by them, for not even the privilege of a
grated and curtained parlor interview is allowed to the Sepolte
Vive. And yet with all this unparalleled refinement of
austerity they were as blithe and healthy a body of women, as
cheerful and youthful in manner, as peaceful and calm in
appearance, as could be found among the Sisters of Charity or
the lay members of an association of Mercy.</p>
<p>The Carmelites are an order spread wide over the Christian
world. The reform of Saint Teresa was sadly needed among these
nuns three hundred years ago, and the recital of the vehement
opposition made to her efforts shows the merit due to her. At
the present day the order is one of the strictest in existence.
The habit is of coarse brown serge, including the tunic and
scapular, a cord <span class="pagenum"><a name="page329"
id="page329"></a>[pg 329]</span> round the waist, sandals
(in England and other northern climates shoes are allowed),
a black veil and an ample white cloak. They rise at two
o'clock, winter and summer alike, to sing matins, and when
they retire to rest at night one of their number walks
through the corridors—in this order each nun has a
cell—springing a rattle and repeating in a clear tone
a verse of Scripture to serve as a subject of meditation
before going to sleep. In the choir the Carmelites are only
permitted the use of three notes, the reason alleged for
this restriction being that the service of God must not run
the risk of becoming an occasion of temptation to the
singers. These nuns are very strictly cloistered, and their
rules regarding visitors are much the same as those
described at length in the beginning of this paper.</p>
<p>The cloistered orders are less numerous, but also less
known, than the communities formed for active duty, such as
education and nursing the sick; but in describing their
constitution and rules we show the reader the true basis on
which the more modern and active orders are constituted. The
traditions of the spiritual life came down through them, and
they represent the principle of vicarious oblation which
animates all the different phases of convent life; i.e. the
substitution of a small body of voluntary servants of God for
the entire world, which ought to be perpetually engaged in His
service and worship. The Benedictines, Capuchins and Visitation
nuns are also cloistered, but the last are the only ones of
this description who are likewise teachers of youth. Many very
superior women belong to this order, which, except for the
enclosure, practices no special physical austerities. The
principle of the rule is the subduing of the will and the
curbing of the spirit. The order is a recent one, and was
instituted by Saint Francis of Sales while Beza ruled in Geneva
and the Reformation had just disturbed the religious balance of
Europe. With consummate prudence the new order was directed to
employ the means best understood by the age. Cold calculation
had succeeded to ardent zeal: the public mind no longer
instinctively revered the old heroic type of dragon-tamers, be
they called Roland or Saint Benedict. The new current required
a new rudder, and the Visitation nuns supplied the need. At
first they were not even meant to be cloistered, but to form a
kind of missionary society (as their very name implies) among
the Calvinists of Savoy and France. This original intention was
soon overruled by the Italian advisers of Saint Francis: the
southern European mind has ever been slow to conceive the idea
of a more spiritual protection than bolts and bars. But even in
their cloistered sphere the Visitation nuns clung to useful,
active work, and became a teaching order. They and the
Ursulines (who in Italy, at least, are cloistered) shared this
task among them till the more modern order of the "Sacred
Heart" almost monopolized it. I have myself known women of the
most tried virtue and rare learning among the "Visitandines."
Their rule is less strict about visitors, and even strangers
are admitted to the parlor without a curtain being drawn behind
the grating. Their features are thus perfectly visible, and you
can even shake hands between the bars.</p>
<p>Even to this day there is hardly a noble family of Catholic
Europe that has not one or more representatives among the
religious orders. In England, both among "converts" and
families of old Catholic stock, there are many girls whose
names have been absorbed into those given at the same time as
the ring and veil of a novice. In Flanders there are fully half
a dozen convents—at Bruges, Antwerp and
Louvain—emphatically called "English," and founded by
scions of great English families exiled for their adherence to
the old faith under Elizabeth and James I. They are mostly
Augustinians. The new order of the "Sacred Heart" has drawn to
it women from Russia, Spain, America, as well as from its
native land of France, and the Sisters of Charity have won a
worldwide fame in the hospitals of the East and the recent
battle-fields of the West.</p>
<p>I have dwelt chiefly on the life of the old contemplative,
cloistered orders, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page330"
id="page330"></a>[pg 330]</span> because they are less known
to the public and more mistakes are made about their
constitution and rules, and also because in these old
cradle-institutions are hidden the roots of the whole
religious system which to this day crops out so vigorously
in works of mercy over every land where the Catholic Church
has a foothold. Among the uncloistered orders of religious
women—and here we expect to be better understood and
more fairly met by those whose knowledge of "religion" is
not personal—there are many that fulfill heroic
missions, perform useful tasks, or even silent,
uncomplaining drudgery. In all large European towns the
<i>cornette</i> of the Sister of St. Vincent of Paul is seen
in hospital, prison and asylum, in the garret of the dying
workman as well as by the bed where the warrior lies in
state—in the humble schools of the lowest suburbs and
in the <i>crèches</i> of the darkest byways.</p>
<p>The crèche—so called in remembrance of the crib
of Bethlehem—is an institution of the greatest use to
poor women obliged to work for their living. They either find
their children an insuperable bar to their labor, or else a
source of constant anxiety during their absence. To the
crèche, however, they can take the little ones in the
early morning and leave them till late at night, paying only a
small sum, such as five cents a day, if they are able, while if
circumstances warrant their being exempted even this is not
required. The house is supported chiefly by voluntary
contributions, and the sisters often have lay assistants eager
to share in their labor of love. The children are taken in at
all ages, the tiniest, unweaned infant not excepted: there are
little cots of all sizes prepared for them, an abundance of
milk, toys for the older ones, picture-books, etc. They are fed
three times a day, washed and combed before being sent home
(although constant applicants are expected to bring their
children tidy and neat on first arrival), and if the mother
fails to return at night, they are of course housed with the
tenderest care. As there would be no room to accommodate
permanent baby-boarders without impairing the original
intention for which the crèche is opened, these little
waifs, if not claimed after three nights and days, are sent to
the foundling asylum: this, however, does not often occur.
There are many of these institutions scattered through France:
London has two, and New York will soon have one—perhaps
by this time it has already been opened. A woman earning her
bread by hard work would have to leave her children in the care
of some neighbor, who most likely would fail in her task or
teach the children bad things, and demand some compensation all
the same. If the eldest child were left in charge of younger
infants, as is so often the case with the honest poor, the
chances are that it will break or injure its spine by carrying
the little ones. All this anxiety is avoided by this beautiful
and inviting arrangement, which is generally under the
management of the Sisters of Charity. The London crèches
have a night school for working girls and grown women in
connection with the principal part of the institution; also a
Sunday school for children. Among the rules is one which
forbids the wearing of artificial flowers or any tawdry finery
during school-time. But in another part of London artificial
flowers in a Sunday bonnet are a sign of a reclaimed female
drunkard, as the clergyman has hit on the ingenious method of
advising the women to leave off drinking, that they may be able
to afford some Sunday finery wherewith to please their
husbands' eyes and to hold up their heads with the best in
church!</p>
<p>Old age is as helpless as infancy, and less attractive in
its helplessness, so that the task undertaken by the Little
Sisters of the Poor is still more meritorious when performed in
the devoted spirit which characterizes them. They are literally
the servants of beggars: they are bound to possess nothing and
to hoard nothing; they live on the refuse of refuse, begging
the crumbs from rich men's tables to feed the hungry ones under
their care, and when these are satisfied sitting down to the
scanty remains. They have a large establishment in London,
which I once visited, but which has since been
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page331"
id="page331"></a>[pg 331]</span> divided into two, the aim
of both continuing the same. The sisters wear a very
unpretending black gown and cap: when out of doors they add
to this a poke-bonnet and thick veil, with a large black
shawl. They have a little donkey-cart, which they drive
themselves, and which makes daily pilgrimages all over town,
stopping at the houses of the rich of all denominations and
receiving contributions of that which is too often thought
below the cook's while to claim as a perquisite. So laden,
the Little Sisters return to their old people, and a
transformation begins in the vast kitchen. No one would
believe what savory dishes they manufacture out of the
leavings and parings of great houses: everything is sifted,
cleaned, washed, as the case requires; each kind of food is
carefully separated and placed in its appointed place; an
immense cauldron is continually on the fire, and soups and
jellies are in a constant state of fusion and preparation.
Puddings of all sorts come out of the renovating oven:
joints of roast meat are the only things which are
exceptional, and sometimes the more generous charity of some
outsider adds even this luxury to the usual fare. The Little
Sisters of the Poor clothe as well as feed their charges:
for this, too, they trust to charity, and left-off clothes
are a great boon to them. They are so ingenious that there
is hardly a thing of which they cannot make a deft use. They
have houses in New York and Philadelphia, and already do an
immense deal of good among the destitute aged poor.</p>
<p>The Order of Sion is a rather peculiar one, its principal
object being the conversion to Christianity and subsequent
education of young Jewesses. It has been founded within the
last forty years by the brothers Ratisbonne, both of them Jews
of distinction converted to Christianity. The elder brother
(they are both priests now) superintends the order in Europe:
the younger resides at the mother-house at Jerusalem. The
convent is an educational establishment, where the daughters of
Orientals of all kinds are received—Jews, Arabs, Syrians,
Armenians, etc. In Europe the houses, of course, do not confine
themselves to Jewish pupils, else they would find less work
than their many hands could do, but receive boarders and give a
solid education like the other and more fashionable convents.
As a child I lived nearly a year in one of these houses, a
large, roomy, silent villa, two hours from Paris. Behind the
house was a garden and grove crossed in all directions by
bewildering little paths leading into unexpected hollows where
a rustic altar and statuette of Our Lady would be placed, or a
crucifix erected in startling loneliness on a little hillock. A
wide avenue of lime trees, where the pupils might be seen early
in the morning studying their tasks, or in the afternoon eating
their luncheon of grapes and brown bread, traversed this grove
in a straight line, and here on certain feast-days nuns and
pupils would form picturesque processions, with the customary
banners, tapers, white veils and swelling hymns. Here the
Ratisbonne brothers came to rest from their work of furthering
the interests of the order—the elder a fatherly, portly
man with white hair and a gentle manner, the younger a bronzed,
black-bearded man, a true Oriental, with enthusiasm expressed
in every line of his countenance and every flash of his
piercing eye. He was only on a visit at that time, and then, as
now, made Jerusalem his permanent home. There are one or two
convents of this order in England, but I think none as yet in
America.</p>
<p>The convent of the Assumption at Auteuil, a suburb of Paris,
is one renowned for its excellent educational advantages. I
spent a week there one winter on a visit to a near relative
among the pupils, and had an opportunity to observe the
clock-like life of the place. All the girls I have known to be
educated there were better scholars than any brought up
elsewhere. There were many English and American girls, besides
Poles, Germans and West Indian Creoles. The war of 1860-64 left
traces of strange animosity among the Northern and Southern
children: it was hardly credible that such a spirit could
animate young children so long removed from the immediate home
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page332"
id="page332"></a>[pg 332]</span> influences that would
otherwise have accounted for the feeling. Among the nuns
were several English women, clever and deeply read, but
softer-hearted than most scholars who have had too much to
do with the world. There was also a sister of Père
Hyacinthe among the Assumptionists, and the great orator
himself often came to the convent-chapel to preach simple
little sermons to the school-girls. His sister was terribly
crushed by the news of his defection from the Catholic
Church, and, I believe, refused even to see him again.</p>
<p>A very beautiful scene which I witnessed on the 8th of
December in this convent was the renewal of the vows. The mass
was celebrated in the chapel at five in the morning, of course
by gas- and candle-light. The body of the chapel was perfectly
clear, the community sat in carved wooden stalls round the
altar, the pupils assisted from the galleries above, and hidden
under the gallery was the small but very perfect choir of nuns
and children. The hymns of Père Hermann, a famous
pianist and composer, a pupil of Liszt, a convert from Judaism,
and afterward a Carmelite friar, are very popular in France,
and of these the music chiefly consisted. At the communion the
superioress stepped forward, wearing the white woolen mantle
(which with a purple tunic is the complete dress of this order)
and knelt to receive the holy sacrament. A nun in the same
costume, bearing a lighted taper and bowing almost to the
ground, stood on each side of her as the priest communicated
her, and so on till the whole sisterhood had each knelt
separately and the bowing figures, like attendant angels, had
done homage to each as the tabernacle, for a time, of the
blessed sacrament. When the mass was over each professed sister
solemnly read over the formula of her religious vows before a
table on which lay a crucifix, which each reverently kissed in
token of rededication of herself to the divine service.</p>
<p>The order of the Good Shepherd is one that is known
throughout the world. It has branch houses in every country.
The one to which I shall specially refer is in New York. It
stands on the banks of the East River, overlooking Astoria and
Long Island, and from its top windows the eye reaches far up
the Sound. Like all convents, it is marvelously clean. The
order is devoted to the reclaiming of fallen women, and in this
instance the house is a government reformatory. A certain
annual subsidy is guaranteed by the city authorities, but
voluntary contributions and the industry of the inmates give
more than half toward the real support of the house. Three
sorts of women are under the care of the nuns: (1) those whom
the judges send there as criminals for a specified term; (2)
those whom their friends send in hope of their being quietly
reformed without the intervention of justice; and (3) those who
seek of their own accord to do penance and earn forgiveness for
their sins. This is of course the most hopeful class, and it
frequently happens that these penitents become in time
permanent inmates, and even nuns. In the latter case, as the
rule of the order does not allow of the reception of any woman
with a stain on her reputation, they are clothed in the habit
of the Carmelite Third Order (brown serge tunic and black
veil), in which the austerities are not very great. They go
through the usual novitiate and make their vows in the regular
manner: they are then called "Magdalens," and inhabit a portion
of the house reserved for them, say their office at stated
hours in their own chapel, contiguous to that of the Good
Shepherd nuns, and live under obedience to the superioress of
the latter. I saw about a dozen of them taking their evening
walk in a pretty enclosed garden by the river-side. Other women
who do not feel inclined to so full a renunciation of their
liberty bind themselves by a promise, good for one year only,
to the service of the house, and wear a semi-religious kind of
cap and a scarlet badge with the letter <i>P</i> or <i>F</i>:
they are divided into two classes, under the patronage of Saint
Joseph and Saint Patrick. They renew the promise from year to
year, and often spend their lives in this lay sisterhood of
penance. Every inmate, be she prisoner or penitent, is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333"
id="page333"></a>[pg 333]</span> taught to sew, first by
hand, then on the machine: many on their first entrance are
so ignorant that they do not know on which finger to place
the thimble, but after a while most are able to do a good
day's work on common shirts and linen articles which the
order contracts for with the wholesale shops. Another source
of profit to the house is the laundry, but this is conducted
exclusively by the nuns themselves. They do all the washing
of surplices, altar-cloths, etc. for most of the Catholic
churches of New York, for the convents and colleges, and for
many private families. The fluting on children's frocks and
the polish on shirts is something wonderful, and the young
nun who superintends the concern seemed to be a real
enthusiast in the matter. The nuns' dormitories, as well as
those of the prisoners, are miracles of neatness; the
refectories likewise. There are various immense airy halls
where the nuns and girls sit sewing, and where a stranger
sees a spectacle new to most people, certainly unexpected by
the greater number—that of an assemblage of ugly
faces, each belonging to an <i>unfortunate</i> whose
temptations are usually understood to lie originally in her
fatal beauty. Many of them are scarcely fourteen, and if
once admitted, the melancholy chance is that they will be
here again time after time: the sentences are seldom long
enough to afford room for thought and conversion. Among the
penitents the cases are far more hopeful, but the gentle
sisters never forget their kind, conciliatory manner toward
all; and unless a perverse demon whispers to their ear that
these nuns are their <i>jailers</i>, the poor prisoners see
little to remind them that they are not in a voluntarily
chosen home.</p>
<p>Nuns are by no means a shiftless, unbusiness-like set of
women: they can look after themselves as well as after the poor
and forlorn: many of them, were they in the world, would be
called strong-minded, blue-stockinged women. At Montreal there
is a large establishment of the Sisters of the
Congrégation de Notre Dame, generally called
Congregation Sisters, founded by Margaret Bourgeoys. They are
the great educational sisters of Lower Canada. They own St.
Paul's Island, some distance above the city: this is their
farm, and one of the nuns, called the sister économe,
has to visit it frequently and superintend matters, being the
stewardess and committee of ways and means and revenue
department combined. Of course a good horse is desirable for
these drives, and their horses being one source of profit, the
économe feels that the reputation of the breed ought not
to be depreciated by her own "turnout." The young men of the
town often meet her on the road and try to distance her, but
this she will never permit, and her horse, faultlessly groomed
and in splendid condition, always comes off the winner in these
innocent races. One day, however, the bishop, having heard of
this rivalry on the road, sent for her and remonstrated,
alleging that such "fast" conduct might lend itself to
scandalous rumors, and was altogether unbecoming in a
<i>religious</i>. The nun smiled, and protested that she was
ready to obey her superiors' orders in every particular, as all
good Catholics and good religious are bound to do, but slyly
insinuated the following cogent argument: "Does not Your
Lordship think, however, that, since our convent lives partly
on the reputation of this famous breed of trotters, it is
hardly for the credit of the house that its representative
conveyance should drag along as dejectedly as a street-vendor's
donkey-cart?" What the bishop's reply was "the deponent sayeth
not," but we may infer that this shrewd woman was at least as
capable of controlling a wide meshwork of business details as
he was of managing his diocese. Now, there are many such women
in convents, for the religious life leads not, as people think,
to a renunciation of your own self-dependence, but on the
contrary to the highest kind of confidence in your own power
<i>when backed by the help of Almighty God</i>. Saint Teresa of
Spain once said these memorable words: "Teresa and tenpence are
nothing: Teresa, tenpence <i>and God</i> are omnipotent."</p>
<p class="author">LADY BLANCHE
MURPHY.</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334"></a></span>
THE ATONEMENT OF LEAM DUNDAS.</h2>
<h4>BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON, AUTHOR OF "PATRICIA KEMBALL."</h4>
<h3>CHAPTER XXV.</h3>
<h3>SMALL CAUSES.</h3>
<p>The frost came early this year; and by the second week in
December the ponds and shallows in the neighborhood of North
Aston were covered with ice that made good sliding-grounds for
the children. Presently it grew and spread till the deeper
waters were frozen over, and a skating-rink was formed of the
Broad that bore the heavier weights without danger. It was a
merry time for the North Astonians; and even the elder men
strapped on their skates and took colds and contusions in their
endeavors to double back on their supple youth and to forget
the stiffer facts of time. As for the young people, they were
in the full swing of innocent enjoyment; and the girls wished
that the frost would last through the whole of the winter, so
that they might make up skating-parties with the boys every
day, and avoid the unmeaning deadness of "tender" weather.</p>
<p>This ice had been in perfect condition for three days and
the Broad had been thronged, but Leam had not appeared. All the
other young ladies of the country had come, Adelaide Birkett
one of the most diligent in her attendance, for was not Edgar
Harrowby one of the most constant in his? But though more than
one pair of eyes had looked anxiously along the road that led
to Ford House, which some people still continued to call
Andalusia Cottage, no lithe, graceful figure had been seen
gliding between the frosted hedgerows, and Edgar, like Alick,
had skated in disappointment, the former with the feeling of an
actor playing to an empty house when he made his finest turns
and she was not there to see them; the latter with the
self-reproach of one taking enjoyment abroad while the beloved
is sitting in solitude and dreariness at home.</p>
<p>At last, on the fourth day, she came down with her father;
and to at least two on the ground the advent of a
slender-waisted girl with dark eyes and small feet changed the
whole aspect of things, and made life for the moment infinitely
more beautiful and desirable than it had been. It was a
brilliant day, with as fine a sun as England can show in
winter—no wind, but a clear air, crisp, dry and
exhilarating, Every one was there—Edgar, the most
graceful of the skaters; Alick, the most awkward; Dr. Corfield,
essaying careful little spurts, schoolboy fashion, along the
edges; and the portly rector, proud to show his past
superiority in sharp criticism on the style of the present day
as a voucher for his own greater grace and skill in the days
when he too was an Adonis for the one part and an Admirable
Crichton for the other, and carried no superfluous flesh about
his ribs. Among them, too, looking on the scene as if it was
something in which he had no inherited share, as if these were
not men and women to whom he was sib on Adam's side, but
cunningly contrived machines whose movements he contemplated
with benign indifference, was to be seen the mild philosophic
occupant of Lionnet—that Mr. Gryce of whom no one knew
more than that he studied dead languages through the day and
caught moths and beetles in the twilight, had come without
letters of introduction and was never seen at church; hence
that he was a man of whom to beware, and a dangerous element
among them. The pendulum of acceptance, which had swung so far
on one side in the unguaranteed reception of Madame de
Montfort, had now gone back to the corresponding extent on the
other; and no one, not even Mr. Birkett as the clergyman, nor
Mr. Dundas as the landlord, had held out a finger to the
new-comer, not to speak of a hand; while all regarded his
presence at North Aston as rather a liberty than otherwise.
Nevertheless, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page335"
id="page335"></a>[pg 335]</span> as time would show, though
he had come there without purpose and lived among the people
without interest, he would not be found without his uses,
and one at least of the threads making up the skein of life
at North Aston would be placed in his hands.</p>
<p>As Leam came to the side both Edgar Harrowby and Alick
Corfield turned to greet her, the usually sad face of the
curate, already brightened by fresh air and exercise, brighter
still at seeing her, the handsome head of the squire held a
little higher as his figure involuntarily straightened and he
put out his best powers in her honor. But Alick's shambling
legs carried him fastest, and he was first at the edge, the
neighborhood looking on, prepared to build a Tower of Babel
heaven high on the foundation of a single brick. Leam Dundas
had not yet been fitted with her hypothetical mate, and people
wanted to see to whom they were to give her.</p>
<p>"Oh, come on with me!" cried Alick as soon as he came up,
speaking with the unconscious familiarity of gladness at the
advent for which he had watched so long. He held out his arm to
Leam crooked awkwardly at the elbow.</p>
<p>"No," said Leam a little shortly.</p>
<p>She always stiffened when Alick spoke to her before folk
with anything like intimacy in his manner. He was her good
friend, granted, and she liked him in a way and respected him
in a way, though he was still too much after the pattern of her
former slave and dog to gain her best esteem. She was one of
those women who are arbitrary and disdainful to masculine
weakness, and require to be absolutely dominated by men if they
are to respect them as men like to be respected by women, and
as—<i>pace</i> the Shriekers—the true woman likes
to respect men. And Alick, though he had her in his hands and
might destroy her at a word—clergyman, too, as he was,
and thus possessing the key to higher things than she
knew—was always so humble, so subservient, he made her
feel as if she was his superior—not, as it should have
been, that he was hers. In consequence, girl-like, proud and
shy, she treated him with more disdain than she ought to have
done, and used the power which he himself gave her without much
consideration as to its effect. Besides, she did not wish to
let people think he knew too much of her. With the nervous
fancy of youth, ever believing itself to be transparent and
understood all through, she imagined it would be seen that he
had the right to speak to her familiarly—that he had her
in his hand to destroy her at a word if so minded. Wherefore
she said "No" shortly, and turned away her eyes as her protest
against his glad face, crooked elbow and eager offer.</p>
<p>"I will not let you fall, and it is very jolly," cried Alick
cheerily, more like the boyish Alick of former days than the
ascetic young curate of modern times.</p>
<p>"I do not like it," said Leam.</p>
<p>Alick's countenance fell; and when his face, always long,
became longer still, with a congealed-looking skin, sad,
red-lidded eyes and a hanging under lip, it was not lovely.
Indeed, according to the miserable fatality which so often
makes the spiritually best the physically worst—like the
gods whom the Athenians enclosed in outer cases of satyrs and
hideous masks of misshapen men—Alick's face was never
lovely. But his soul? If that could have been seen, the old
carved parable of the Greeks would have been justified.</p>
<p>"Nonsense, Leam! Why cannot you do as others do?" cried Mr.
Dundas.</p>
<p>He wanted to get rid of her for a while, and he was not
unwilling that Alick, whose affection he suspected, should rid
him of her for ever if he cared to saddle himself for life with
such an uncomfortable companion.</p>
<p>"I do not like it," repeated Leam.</p>
<p>"Nonsense!" said her father again. "Other girls are on. Why
should you not join them? I see Adelaide Birkett and the
Fairbairns. Why not go to them with Alick?"</p>
<p>"It looks silly balancing one's self on the edge of a knife.
And I should fall," said Leam.</p>
<p>"No, you shall not fall," Alick pleaded. "I will undertake
that you shall not."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336"></a>[pg 336]</span>
His arm was still held out, always awkwardly crooked.</p>
<p>Leam lifted her eyes. "No," she said with her old calm
decision, and moved away. Four years ago she would have
supplemented her refusal by the words, "You are stupid. You
tease me," Now she contented herself with action and
accent.</p>
<p>Alick, very sorry, moist-eyed from disappointment, but not
caring to stand there and get chilled—for our good Alick
was a little afraid of cold, after the manner of mothers' sons
in general—skated off again to keep up his circulation,
his knees bent, his chin forward, his arms swinging as
balance-weights to his long body, the ends of his white woolen
comforter flying behind him, and his legs running anywhere, the
clumsiest and most ungraceful skater on the Broad. All the
same, he never fell, and he went faster than even Edgar in his
perfection of manly elegance.</p>
<p>Edgar had watched the whole of this little scene between
Leam and Alick while seeming to be occupied only in executing
his spread eagles and outside curves to perfection, and it was
no secret to him what it meant. The demon of masculine vanity,
never far off where a pretty woman was concerned, entered and
took possession of him. He would succeed where Alick Corfield
had failed, and Leam, who refused her old friend, should
gratify her new. He had been guiding Adelaide over the ice, but
she was rather too stiff in her movements, not sufficiently
pliant nor yielding to be a very pleasant skating companion.
And he had been pushing Josephine along the slide, but Joseph
was too stout and short-breathed to be an ideal convoy; also he
had been racing and half romping with the Fairbairn girls, who
slipped and tumbled and laughed and screamed—more
hoydenish than he thought pleasing; but now he intended to
reward himself with Leam, whose action he was sure would be all
that was delightful, even though unaccustomed, and who would
look so well on his arm. Her slight and supple figure against
his breadth and height and sense of solidity and strength, her
dark hair and his beard of tawny brown, her large dark eyes and
his of true Saxon blue, her southern face, oval in shape,
cream-colored in tint, and his, square, open, ruddy,
Scandinavian,—yes, they would make a splendid pair by
their very contrast; and Edgar, narrowing his ambition to his
circumstances, was quietly resolved to win the day over Alick
Corfield by inducing Leam to cross the Broad with him after she
had so manifestly refused her old friend. It was but a small
object of ambition, but we must do what we can, thought Edgar;
and it is the best wisdom to content ourselves with mice when
we have no lions to destroy. He did not, however, rush up to
her with Alick's tactless precipitancy. He waited just long
enough for her to desire, and not so long as to disappoint;
then, speaking to Adelaide by the way, and giving her and
Josephine each a helping hand, he came in a series of clean,
showy curves to where Leam and her father were standing.</p>
<p>Leam was glad to meet again this handsome man who had seen
so much and who talked so well. He was something different from
the rest, and so far superior to them all. But, not being one
of those instinctive girls who yield without pressure and fall
in love at first sight, there were no flushings nor
palpitations as Edgar came up; only a grave little smile stole
half timidly over her face, and she forgot that he had insulted
her mother's country by calling her the prettiest Andalusian he
had ever seen.</p>
<p>"Do you skate, Miss Dundas?" asked Edgar after a while,
during which he had been talking of different matters,
beginning with the weather, that camel of English conversation,
and ending with the state of the ice and the chances of a thaw.
His five minutes of commonplaces seemed an eternity to
Adelaide, watching them jealously from a distance.</p>
<p>"No," said Leam.</p>
<p>"I want her to learn; and this is a good opportunity," put
in her father.</p>
<p>"You are right. It is a capital exercise and a graceful
accomplishment," said Edgar. "I think a woman never
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page337"
id="page337"></a>[pg 337]</span> looks better than when she
is skating," he added carelessly.</p>
<p>"I think she looks silly," said Leam.</p>
<p>He laughed. "That is because you are not English <i>pur
sang</i>," he cried gayly. "If you had only the brave old Norse
blood in you, you would take to the frost and ice like second
nature."</p>
<p>"No, I am not English <i>pur sang</i>," answered Leam
gravely. "I am more than half Spanish," a little proudly.</p>
<p>"Hang it all, you can't make it more than half!" said her
father testily.</p>
<p>"And that makes such a splendid combination," said Edgar,
slightly lowering his voice as, ignoring his remark, he turned
away from Mr. Dundas and gave himself wholly to Leam. "Spanish
for art and poetry and all the fervid beauty of the
South—English for the courage, the hardihood, the energy
of the North. You ought to cultivate the characteristics of
both nationalities, Miss Dundas," in a louder tone; "and to do
justice to one of them you ought to learn to skate."</p>
<p>"That's right, Edgar; so I say," cried Mr. Dundas, who had
heard only the last part.</p>
<p>"I cannot learn," said Leam; but her face became strangely
flushed, and she felt her resolution growing limp as her cheeks
grew red.</p>
<p>"Yes, you can. I could teach you in half an hour," cried
Edgar, pulling down his coat-cuffs with an air.</p>
<p>"Go, Leam: let Major Harrowby give you a lesson," said her
father. "Perhaps he is a better teacher than that
shambling-looking Alick. Go, child."</p>
<p>"Shall I?" asked Edgar. "At least let me assist you to cross
the ice, if without skates at first."</p>
<p>He held out his hand.</p>
<p>"I shall fall," objected reluctant Leam.</p>
<p>"No, you shall not. I will answer for that. Come. Will you
not trust me?" This last phrase was said half tenderly, half
with an offended kind of remonstrance, and he was still holding
out his hand.</p>
<p>"Go, Leam," urged her father.</p>
<p>"It is silly, and I shall fall," repeated Leam.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, she put her hand in Edgar's, and he took her
on his arm in triumph.</p>
<p>At first her steps were slow and timid; but as her feet grew
more accustomed to the unusual ground, as she gained more
confidence in the strong arm that held her like a bar of iron,
as her youth began to assert itself in the physical pleasure of
the fresh air and the gliding movement, she lost her shyness
and timidity, and she found herself almost laughing—she,
who never laughed and only so rarely smiled.</p>
<p>"You like it?" he asked, looking down on her with a man's
admiration for a pretty woman marked in every line and
feature.</p>
<p>"Yes, so much!" she answered, her usual reserved,
self-centred manner for the moment lost.</p>
<p>"Now you will know how to trust me in future," he said not
very loudly.</p>
<p>She looked up to him, carrying her eyes right into his.
"Yes, I will," she answered simply.</p>
<p>At this moment Alick joined them, and Leam suddenly lost her
new-found joy.</p>
<p>"I am glad you have come on at last," said her faithful dog,
effacing himself and his disappointment with an effort.</p>
<p>"They made me," Leam replied.</p>
<p>"I hope not against your will and not to your displeasure,"
said Edgar, still looking down into her face with the man's
admiration of a woman's beauty so strongly marked in his
own.</p>
<p>"No," she answered: "I have liked it."</p>
<p>"Let us take her between us, major, and give her a good
spin," said Alick, grasping the upper part of her arm
uncomfortably.</p>
<p>Edgar slightly pressed the hand he held crosswise. "Would
you like to double your protectors?" he asked. "Shall I share
my office?"</p>
<p>"No," said Leam. "I like best to be with one person
only."</p>
<p>"And possession being the nine points, let us go on,"
laughed Edgar, whirling her away. "By the by, would you have
preferred my giving you to Mr. Corfield
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338"
id="page338"></a>[pg 338]</span> as 'the one person only'?"
he asked with affected doubt, making pretence of wishing to
know her mind. He was skating rapidly now. It was as good as
flying to Leam, and she was happy and very grateful.</p>
<p>"I would rather be with you," she answered.</p>
<p>"Thanks!" said Edgar, and smiled.</p>
<p>"He is awkward, and you are not," continued Leam, anxious to
explain. "But I like him very much. He is good and kind; and he
cannot help being awkward, can he?"</p>
<p>"No," said Edgar coldly. "So you like him very much, do
you?"</p>
<p>"Very much," repeated Leam with loyal emphasis, "He has
always been my friend here."</p>
<p>"I hope for the future that I may be included in that sacred
place," said Edgar after a pause.</p>
<p>Leam looked at him slowly, fixedly. "You will never be so
good to me as he is," she answered.</p>
<p>It was the man's heart that beat now, the man's cheek that
flushed. Who could keep his pulses still when those eyes were
turned to his with, as it seemed, such maddening meaning? "I
will try," he said; and from that moment the die was cast.
Edgar put himself in competition with Alick: he lowered his
pride to such a rivalry as this, and threw his whole energies
into the determination to surpass and supplant a man for whom
even the least personable of his own sex need have had no
fear.</p>
<p>He kept Leam for a long time after this, laying ground-lines
for the future; forgetting Adelaide and the suitability which
had hitherto been such an important factor in his calculations;
forgetting his horror of Pepita, whose daughter Leam was, and
his contempt for weak, fusionless Mr. Dundas, who was her
father; forgetting the conventional demands of his class,
intolerant of foreign blood; forgetting all but the words which
said that Alick was her best friend here, and doubted his
(Edgar's) ever being so good to her as that other had been. It
was on his heart now to convince her that he could be as good
to her as Alick, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page123"
id="page123"></a>[pg 123]</span> and, if she would allow
him, a great deal better. At last he slackened, and pulled
up at the group of which the Fairbairn girls and Adelaide
Birkett were the most conspicuous members.</p>
<p>"What a long skate you have had!" said Susy Fairbairn
ruefully, for all that she was a good-tempered girl and not
disposed to measure her neighbor's wheat by her own bushel. But
this was a special matter; for Edgar Harrowby was the pride of
the place, and they took count of his doings as of their local
prince, and envied the lucky queen of the hour bitterly or
sadly according to the mood and the person.</p>
<p>"It was the first time I had tried," said Leam, all aglow
with the unwonted exercise and unusual excitement.</p>
<p>"I suppose you began by saying you could not and would not,
and then did more than any one else?" said Adelaide in an acrid
voice, veiling a very displeased face with a very unpleasant
smile; but the veil was too transparent and showed the
displeasure with palpable plainness.</p>
<p>Leam looked at her in a half-surprised way. Jealousy was a
passion of which she was wholly ignorant, and she did not
understand the key-note. She knew nothing of the unspoken
affair between Edgar and the rector's daughter, and could not
read between the lines. Why was Adelaide cross because she had
been a long time upon the ice? Did it hurt her? They had not
been near her—not interfered with her in any way: why
should she be vexed that they, Major Harrowby and herself, had
been enjoying themselves? So she thought, gazing at Adelaide
with the serious, searching look which always irritated that
young lady, and at this moment almost unbearably.</p>
<p>"I wonder they did not teach you at school that it was rude
to stare as you do, Leam," she cried with impolitic haste and
bitterness. "What are you looking at? Am I changing into a
monster, or what?"</p>
<p>"I am looking at you because you are so cross about
nothing," answered Leam gravely. "What does it matter to any
one if I have been on the ice long or no? Why should you be
angry?" <span class="pagenum"><a name="page339"
id="page339"></a>[pg 339]</span> "Angry!" said Adelaide with
supreme disdain. "I am not sufficiently interested in what
you do, Leam, to be angry or cross, as you call it. I
confess I do not like affectation: that is all."</p>
<p>"Neither do I like affectation," returned Leam. "People
should say what they feel."</p>
<p>"Indeed! That might not always be agreeable," said Adelaide
with her most sarcastic air. "Perhaps it is as well that the
laws of politeness keep one's mouth shut at times, and that we
do not say what we feel."</p>
<p>"It would be better," insisted Leam.</p>
<p>"I wonder if you would say so were I to tell you what I
thought of you now?" Adelaide replied, measuring her scornfully
with her eyes.</p>
<p>"Why should you not? What have I done to be ashamed of?"
Leam asked.</p>
<p>"And you call yourself natural and not affected!" Adelaide
cried, turning away abruptly.—"How wrong," she said in a
low voice to Edgar, "turning the head of such a silly child as
this!"</p>
<p>Edgar laughed. The vein of cruelty traversing his nature
made him find more amusement than chagrin in Adelaide's patent
jealousy: he thought she was silly, and he was rather amazed at
her want of dignity; still, it was amusing, and he enjoyed it
as so much fun.</p>
<p>But when he laughed Leam's discomfiture was complete. "I am
sorry I came on the ice at all," she said with a mixture of her
old pride and new softness that made her infinitely lovely, the
proud little head held high, but the beautiful eyes dewy. "I
have offended every one, and I do not know why." Just then
Alick came rambling by. She held out her hand to him. Here at
least was her friend and faithful follower. He would not jeer
at her nor laugh, nor yet look cross and angry, as if she had
done wrong. "Take me to papa," she said superbly, making as if
to withdraw her other hand from Edgar.</p>
<p>Alick's homely face brightened like the morning.
"Certainly," he said.</p>
<p>"Certainly not," flashed Edgar proudly, taking both her
hands in his crosswise and grasping them even more firmly than
before. "You are in my charge, Miss Dundas, and I can give you
up to no one else—not even by your own desire."</p>
<p>Adelaide's slight cast became an unmistakable squint; the
Fairbairn girls fluttered, half frightened at the chance of a
fracas; Alick looked irresolute; Edgar looked haughty and
displeased; Leam tragic and proud, partly bewildered, partly
distressed.</p>
<p>Then Edgar cut the whole thing short by taking her away in
silence, but like a whirlwind, saying, when half over the
ground and well out of hearing, "What have I done to you, Miss
Dundas, that you should try to throw me over like that?"</p>
<p>"You laughed at me," said Leam.</p>
<p>"Laughed at you? You are dreaming."</p>
<p>"You did," she persisted.</p>
<p>"Pardon me: I laughed because my little friend Adelaide was
so cross at your skating. It was fun to see her so angry."</p>
<p>"I saw no fun in it," Leam returned. "I only saw that she
was angry with me, and impertinent, and that then you laughed
at me."</p>
<p>"I swear to you I did not," cried Edgar earnestly. "Will you
believe me? Tell me, Miss Dundas, that you exonerate me from
such a charge. Tell me that you are sure I did not laugh at
you."</p>
<p>Leam looked at him with her large luminous eyes serious,
questioning. "If you say so, I must believe you," she answered
slowly, "but I thought you did."</p>
<p>"If you could read my heart, you would know I did not," he
said emphatically.</p>
<p>They were close on the bank now, where Mr. Dundas was
walking with the rector.</p>
<p>"Say you believe me," Edgar almost whispered in his rich
musical voice, so sweet and tender. "Say it, I beseech you! You
do not know how I shall suffer else."</p>
<p>She looked at him again. "I do," she said in the manner of a
surrender, the grave little smile which was her most eloquent
expression of pleasure stealing over her face.</p>
<p>"Thank you," said Edgar: "now you have made me
happy."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340"></a>[pg 340]</span>
"I do not understand why," she answered with serious
simplicity.</p>
<p>"Perhaps you will some day," he replied as her father came
down to receive her, rather more content with her than he
usually was, seeing that Edgar Harrowby—Major Harrowby,
the possessor of the Hill and some thousands a year—had
singled her out for his special attention, and had made a
picture on the ice almost as pretty as an illustrated
weekly.</p>
<p>But Edgar, not wishing to go too far in the way of
provocation, nor to burn his boats behind him before he had
decided on his settlement, skated off to Adelaide so soon as he
had deposited Leam, and by a few judicious praises and
well-administered tendernesses of voice and look succeeded in
bringing her back to her normal condition of quiescent resolve
and satisfaction. Then, when she was her smiling self
again—for if she had frowns for many others, she had
always smiles for the Harrowbys as a race, and specially for
Edgar as an individual—he said, in the manner of one
wishing to know the truth of a thing, "What made you so savage
to Miss Dundas just now?"</p>
<p>"I cannot bear her," said Adelaide with energy.</p>
<p>"No, I see that you dislike her; but why?"</p>
<p>"I can hardly tell you: she has never done anything very
bad, but I always feel as if she could, she is so silent, so
reserved, so odd altogether."</p>
<p>"A woman's reason!" he laughed, "Dr. Fell over again."</p>
<p>"It may be," returned Adelaide coldly, "but I believe in my
own instinctive dislikes. I felt the same kind of mistrust for
that wretched woman who called herself Madame de Montfort,
about whom papa and mamma and the whole place went mad. And
after her death quite odd-enough stories came out to justify my
doubts and condemn her faithful friends. Every one said she
poisoned herself because she knew that she would be unmasked
and she was afraid to face the ordeal. And her debts, I
believe, were frightful; though it served that ridiculous Mr.
Dundas right for marrying such a creature."</p>
<p>"But granting that this woman was an adventuress, as you
say, what has that to do with Miss Dundas?"</p>
<p>"Nothing, of course: I only mentioned her to show you that I
have some accuracy of judgment, and that when I say I dislike
Leam Dundas my opinion ought to be taken as worth
consideration."</p>
<p>Adelaide said this quietly, in the well-bred but absolutely
positive manner which she would have when they were married and
she differed from him in opinion. It was the moral
arbitrariness of the superior being, which, amusing now in the
maiden, might become wearisome, not to say oppressive, in the
wife.</p>
<p>"Well, I do not know her as you do, of course, but I cannot
see why you should dislike her so much," persisted Edgar.</p>
<p>"Trust me, some day it will be seen why," she answered. "I
feel confident that before long Leam will show herself in her
true colors, and those will be black. I pity the man who will
ever be her husband."</p>
<p>Edgar laughed somewhat forcedly, then looked at Leam walking
up the road alone, and thought that her husband would not need
much pity for his state. Her beauty stood with him for moral
qualities and intellectual graces. Given such a face as hers,
such a figure, and all the rest was included. And when he
thought of her eyes and the maddening way in which they looked
into his; of the grave little smile, evanescent, delicate,
subtle, the very aroma of a smile, so different from the coarse
hilarity of your commonplace English girls; of the reticence
and pride which gave such value to her smaller graces; of the
enchanting look and accent which had accompanied her act of
self-surrender just now—that acceptance of his word and
renunciation of her own fancy which had put him in the place
and given him the honor of a conqueror,—he accused
Adelaide in his heart of prejudice and jealousy, and despised
her for her littleness. In fact, he was nearer to loving Leam
Dundas because of these strictures than he would have been had
the rector's daughter praised her; and Adelaide,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341"
id="page341"></a>[pg 341]</span> usually so politic, had
made a horribly bad move by her unguarded confession of
distrust and dislike.</p>
<p>The whole episode, however, had been lost in its true
meaning to all save one—that one the Mr. Gryce of
Lionnet, who already knew what there was to be known of every
family in the place, and who had the faculty of dovetailing
parts into a whole characteristic of the born detective.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3>
<h3>THE GREEN YULE.</h3>
<p>The frost broke suddenly, and was succeeded by damp, close,
unseasonable weather, continuing up to Christmas, and giving
the "green yule" which the proverb says "makes a fat
churchyard." That proverb was justified sadly enough at North
Aston, for typhus set in among the low-lying cottages, and, as
in olden times, when jail-fever struck the lawyer at the bar
and the judge on the bench in stern protest against the
foulness they fostered, so now the sins of the wealthy
landlords in suffering such cottages as these in the bottom to
exist reacted on their own class, and the fever entered other
dwellings beside those of the peasants.</p>
<p>Two of the gentry were struck down by it—Alick
Corfield and the new occupant of Lionnet, that Mr. Gryce who
never went to church, and who was assumed in consequence to
have neither a soul to be saved by God nor a heart to be
touched by man. And these were just the two who, according to
the theory of the good or evil of a man's deeds returned to him
in kind, had the most reason to expect exemption. For Alick had
spent his strength in visiting the sick as a faithful pastor
should, and Mr. Gryce had taken them material help with royal
abundance. Both together they had to pay the price of
principle, always an expensive luxury, and never personally so
safe a card to play in the game of life as selfishness. For
virtue has not only to be contented with its own reward, as we
constantly hear, but has to accept punishment for its good
deeds, vice for the most part carrying off the blue ribbons and
the gold medals, while poor virtue, shivering in the corner,
gets fitted with the fool's cap or is haled into the
marketplace to be pelted in the pillory. As was seen now in
North Aston.</p>
<p>The rector, who never went into an infected cottage nor
suffered a parishioner to stand between the wind and his
security, kept his portly strength and handsome flesh intact,
but Alick nearly lost his life as the practical comment on his
faithful ministry; and Mr. Gryce, who, if he did not carry
spiritual manna wherewith to feed hungry souls, did take
quinine and port wine, money and comforting substances
generally, for half-starved aching bodies, was also laid hold
of by that inexorable law which knows nothing about
providential immunities from established consequences on
account of the good motives of the actors. This would have been
called heresy by the North Astonian families, who professed to
trust themselves to superior care, but none the less used
Condy's Fluid as a means whereby the work of Providence might
be rendered easier to it, nor disdained precipitate flight from
the protection in which they all said dolefully they believed.
But there is a wide difference between saying and doing, and
men who are shocked by words of frank unbelief find faithless
deeds both natural and in reason.</p>
<p>In spite, then, of that expressed trust in Providence which
is part of the garniture of English respectability, a great
fear fell on the North Aston gentry when these two of their own
circle were attacked. The fever, while it had confined itself
to the ill-drained, picturesque little cottages below, was
lamentable enough, but not more than lamentable on the broad
platform of a common humanity; and those who had lost nothing
told those who had lost all that they must bear their cross
with patience, seeing that it was the divine will that it
should be so. Now, when the fiery epidemic had come upon the
gentry face to face in their homes, it was a monster from which
they must flee without delay, for no one knew whose house was
safe, nor for how long his own might remain
uninfected.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342"></a>[pg 342]</span>
Mrs. Harrowby and her daughters went off to Cheltenham two
days after Alick was announced as "down," to find there the
security of living which had failed them here. They were people
of the highest respectability—people who are the very
pith and marrow of English social virtue; but they had not been
touched with the divine fire of self-sacrifice for humanity,
and they had no desire to hush the groans of the afflicted if
they thereby ran the risk of having to gnash their own teeth.
They could do no good at home. As Mrs. Harrowby said, as one
propounding a self-evident paradox, how could they go and see
the sick or help to nurse ploughmen and their children? They
would only catch the fever themselves, and so spread it still
farther. And every one knows what a wicked thing that is to do.
Cook had orders to supply a certain amount of soup and wine
when asked for, which was more to the purpose than any mere
sentimental kindness, of no use to the one and highly dangerous
to the other; and as Edgar had a great deal to do in the house
and stables, it was as well, she said with the air of one
undergoing something disagreeable for high principles, to get
out of his way and leave him to his bricks and mortar
undisturbed. Gentlemen, she said, as the clamp holding all
together, do not like to be interfered with in their own
domain. That fever in the bottom was such an admirable lever of
womanly good sense! So they went and enjoyed themselves at
Cheltenham as much as it was in the Harrowby nature to do, and
even Josephine's kind heart consoled itself in the Pump-room
while their miserable tenants at home sickened and died as
comfortably as circumstances would allow.</p>
<p>The Fairbairns, too, found themselves obliged to pay a
long-promised visit to London now on the instant, and swept out
of the place with even more than their characteristic
promptitude; and the rector would have given up his charge to a
substitute if he could. But floating clerical labor was just
then scarce, and he could not find any one to take his place in
the Valley of the Shadow, though he offered the liberal terms
which are dictated by fear. He sent away his wife and daughter,
but he himself was bound to his post, and had to make the best
of the bad bit of cord that held him. He used to say with his
grand manner of martyrdom that, whatever he suffered, he must
pull the laboring-oar to the end, and attend to the sheep
committed to his charge. And he said it so often that he got at
last to believe in his own devotion. All the same, that
laboring-oar of his pulled nothing heavier than a cock-boat,
and in waters no stormier than a duck-pond; and when his sheep
had the rot he was too delicate about the hands to meddle with
them. He preached to the living and he buried the dead
surrounded by all the protective appliances that science has
devised or money can supply. When the epidemic was over he too
talked of Providence and his trust therein, and how he had been
mercifully spared as his reward.</p>
<p>Mrs. Birkett's native indolence would have kept her at home,
well fumigated and isolated, even in such a strait of fear and
danger as this in which they all were, and Adelaide was racked
with torment at leaving Leam unwatched and unhindered in the
same place as Edgar; yet, being more afraid of the fever than
even of a potential rival, she agreed with her father that in
justice to themselves they ought to go now at once; and Pace,
who was to remain to take care of the rector, packed up their
best dresses, and sent them off with Adelaide's maid shared
between them. She prophesied, however, that their things would
all be spoiled before they returned, and then they would know
her value. As Mr. Dundas elected to remain at home, not being
afraid of infection and being tired of travel, Mrs. Birkett
insisted on taking little Fina with her. This was her
contribution to the sum of philanthropy and self-sacrifice in
the world, and it was not despicable; for Fina was restless and
only six years of age, and Mrs. Birkett was indolent and soon
tired.</p>
<p>Thus, the whole society of the place was reduced now to the
rector, Mr. Dundas and Leam, with Edgar Harrowby left
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343"
id="page343"></a>[pg 343]</span> alone at the Hill. The
Corfields did not count, because of Alick's illness, by
which they were put in quarantine; and if Mr. Gryce at
Lionnet had not been the cipher he was, his illness too
would have disbarred him.</p>
<p>There was nothing of the saint by nature nor of the
instinctive philanthropist about Leam. She was too concentrated
for general benevolence, and men and women whom she did not
know were little more than symbols to her. When she loved it
was with her whole heart, her whole being: failing this kind of
love, she had but weak affections and no curiosity, in which
much of our ordinary charity consists. When the servants told
her of such and such distressing circumstances, she was sorry
because they were sorry, not because she realized in her own
emotions the troubles she did not share or see. When prompted
she sent improper things in the way of diet and useless things
in the way of dress for the benefit of the poor fever
patients—and she sent generously—but it never
occurred to her as possible that she should go to see them in
their own homes. When we read of a cyclone in China which has
killed half a hundred mandarins and a small army of coolies, we
realize the sorrow of the survivors no more than we realize the
distress of a disturbed ant-hill; and Leam's attitude of mind
toward the poor of her native village was precisely the same as
ours toward the Chinese killed in a cyclone or the ants
murdered in their hill.</p>
<p>But she went daily to Steel's Corner, because she knew the
Corfields and in her own way liked Alick. Mrs. Corfield assured
her there was no danger, not a particle, with her free use of
disinfectants and her cunning devices of ventilation. And Leam
believed her, and acted on her belief, which gave her a false
look of heroism and devotion that won the heart of poor
Pepita's "crooked stick" for ever. She thought it so good of
the girl, so brave and unselfish; and you could scarcely have
expected such nice feeling from Leam, now could you? she used
to ask her husband half a dozen times a day, ringing the
changes on Leam's good qualities as no one in the place had
ever rung them before, and disturbing the poor doctor in his
calculations on the varying strength of henbane and aconite
till he wished that Leam Dundas had never been born. Mrs.
Corfield was just as wrong in ascribing heroic qualities to the
girl for her daily visits to ask after Alick as she had been
when she had credited her with moral faults because of her
intellectual ignorance. She was not afraid because she knew
nothing about infection, and had therefore the boldness of
ignorance, and she went daily to ask after Alick because she
somehow slipped into the groove of doing so; and a groove was a
great thing to conservative Leam. Nevertheless, she was really
concerned at the illness of her first North Astonian friend,
and wished that he would soon get well. She never thought that
if he died she would be rid of the only person who knew her
deadly secret. Leam was not one who would care to buy her own
safety at the price of another's destruction; and, more than
this, she was not afraid that Alick would betray her.</p>
<p>This, then, was the condition of things at North Aston at
this moment: the villagers dying of fever in the bottom, the
families seeking safety in flight, Leam going daily to Steel's
Corner to ask after Alick and sit for precisely half an hour
with Mrs. Corfield, and Edgar not so much taken up with bricks
and mortar as not to understand times and habits, and
therefore, through that understanding, seeing her for some part
of every day. And the more he saw of her the more he yearned to
see, and the stronger grew her strange fascination over him. To
him, at least, the fever had not been an unmitigated evil; and
though he was sometimes inclined to quarrel with the fact that
Leam went daily to Steel's Corner to inquire after Alick
Corfield, yet, as he got the grain and Alick only the husk, he
submitted to the process by which the best was winnowed to his
side. As the gain of that winnowing process became more evident
he grew philosophically convinced that nothing is so charming
in a woman as faithful friendship for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page344"
id="page344"></a>[pg 344]</span> a sick man, and that
sitting daily for half an hour, always at exactly the same
time, with an afflicted mother is the most delightful act of
charity to be imagined.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3>
<h3>IN THE BALANCE.</h3>
<p>Riding was one of the accomplishments brought by Leam from
school, though she had never been able to thoroughly conquer
either her timidity or her reluctance. Her childish days of
inaction and inclusion had left their mark on her for life,
and, moreover, she was not of the race or kind whence, by any
process of education possible, could have been evolved a girl
of the florid, fearless, energetic kind usually held as the
type of the English maiden. Hence she was never quite happy on
horseback, and always wondered how it was that people could be
enthusiastic about riding. Nevertheless, she had learnt to sit
with grace, if not with confidence, and she was too proud to
show the discomfort she felt. Her father had bought for her use
the showiest chestnut to be had in the market; and as he wished
her to ride sometimes with him, if oftener with only the groom
at her heels, and as, again, she had honestly set herself to
please him, she used to mount her Red Coat, as she called her
beast, punctually every other day, and carry her dislike to the
exercise as the penance it was fitting she should perform. And
besides all this, that devouring fever in her blood, that
oppressive consciousness rather than active remembrance, lying
always at the back of her life, was best soothed by long hours
alone in the open air. For when she had only the groom behind
her, Leam—to whom all men were as yet powers
undesignated, and a man of low degree a mere animal that made
intelligible sounds on occasions and was of a little more use
than a dog—forgot him altogether, and was as much alone
as if he had not been there.</p>
<p>Once or twice before the hegira of the gentry she had
chanced to meet Major Harrowby in her rides, and he had turned
with her and accompanied her, which was half a pain to' Leam
and half a pleasure. The pain was connected with her reins and
her stirrups, her saddle and the girths, the restless way in
which the chestnut moved his ears, the discomposing toss of his
small impatient head, the snorts which frightened her as the
heralds of an outbreak, and his inclination to dance sideways
into the hedge rather than walk discreetly in the middle of the
road, whereby her seat was disturbed and her courage tried, she
all the while not liking to show that she was ill at ease. The
pleasure was personal, arising from the strange sense of
protection that she felt in Edgar's society and the charming
way in which he talked to her. He had seen a great deal, and he
had a facile tongue, and between fact and color, memory and
make-up, his stories were delightful. Also, after the manner of
men who seek to influence a young girl's mind and heart, he
lent her books to read, and he marked his favorite passages,
which he discussed afterward. They were not passages of
abstract thought and impersonal sentiment, like the penciled
notes in Alick Corfield's literary loans, but scenes of passion
or of pathos, going straight to the heart of youth, which feels
rather than reflects, or descriptions of places which were
equal to pictures of human life. Under Alick's guidance she had
fallen asleep over Wordsworth—under Edgar's she dreamed
beneath the stars over Byron, and had heartaches without
knowing why.</p>
<p>If they had met sometimes, and by chance, before the
families went away, they met now continually, and not by
chance. But as Edgar's passion and reason were not in accord,
he restrained himself, for him marvelously, and neither made
love to her in earnest nor flirted with her in jest. Indeed,
Leam was too intense to be approached at any time with levity.
As well dress the Tragic Muse in the costume of a Watteau
shepherdess as ply Leam Dundas with the pretty follies found so
useful with other women. She did not understand them, and it
seemed useless to try to make her. If Edgar paid her any of the
trivial <span class="pagenum"><a name="page345"
id="page345"></a>[pg 345]</span> compliments always on his
lips for women, Leam used to look at him with her serious
eyes and ask him how could he possibly know what she was
like—he, who scarcely knew her at all. If he praised
her beauty, she used to turn away her head offended and tell
him he was rude. He felt as if he could never touch her,
never hold her: his ways were not as hers; and if her
fascination for him increased, so did his trouble.</p>
<p>He was in doubt on both sides—for her and for
himself. He could not read that silent, irresponsive nature
nor measure his influence over her. By no blushes when they
met, no girlish poutings when he kept away, by no covert
reproaches, no ill-concealed gladness, no tremors and no
consciousness could he gain the smallest clew to guide him. She
was always the same—grave, gentle, laconic,
self-possessed. But who that looked into her eyes could fail to
see underneath her Spanish pride and more than Oriental reserve
that fund of passion lying hidden like the waters of an
artesian well, waiting only to be brought to the surface? He
had not yet brought that hidden treasure into the light of the
sun and of love, and he wondered if ever he should. And if he
should, would it be for happiness? Leam was the kind of girl to
love madly under the orange trees and myrtles, to break one's
heart for when brothers interposed in the moonlight with
rapiers and daggers and caught her away for conventual
discipline or for marriage with the don; but as the mistress of
an English home, the every-day wife of an English squire with a
character to keep up and an example to set, was she fit for
that? She was so quaint, so original, there were such depths of
passionate thought and feeling side by side with such strange
shallows of social and intellectual ignorance—though
reticent she was so direct, though tenacious so simple, her
love, if difficult to win, had such marvelous vitality when
won—that he felt as if she spoke a language sweeter and
purer in many of its tones than the current speech of society,
but a language with which neither his own people nor that
society would ever be familiar.</p>
<p>Amorous and easily impressed as he was, her beauty drew him
with its subtle charm, but his doubt and her pride interposed
barriers which even he dared not disregard; and at the end of
two months he was no nearer than at the beginning that
understanding which he would have established with any other
pretty woman in less than a week. And he was no surer of
himself and what he did really desire. Yet, accustomed as he
was to loves as easily won as the gathering of a flower by the
wayside, and to the knowledge that Adelaide Birkett, his social
match in all things, was ready to pick up the handkerchief when
he should think fit to throw it, this very doubt both of
himself and Leam made half the interest if all the perplexity
of the situation. He knew, as well as he knew that the
Corinthian shaft should bear the Corinthian capital, if it was
Leam whom he loved it was Adelaide whom he ought to marry. She
would carry incense to the gods of British respectability as a
squire's lady should, doing nothing that should not be done and
leaving as little undone that should be done. She would preside
at the Hill dinners with grace and join the meet at the
coverside with punctuality; she would dress as became her
position, but neither extravagantly nor questionably, and she
would be more likely to stint than to squander; she would live
as a polite Christian should, in the odor of genteel
righteousness, not a fibre laid cross to the conventional
grain, not a note out of tune with the orthodox chord. Yes, it
was the rector's daughter whom he ought to marry, but it was
Pepita's whom he loved. Yet how would things go with such a
perplexing iconoclast at the head of affairs? Imagine the
feelings of an English squire, M.H. of his county, loving dogs
and horses as some women love children, and regarding poaching
and vulpicide as crimes almost as bad as murder—imagine
his feelings when his beautiful wife, grave and simple, should
say at a hunt-dinner, "I do not like riding. I think hunting
stupid and cruel: an army of men in red coats after a poor
little hare—it is horrid! I think poaching
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346"
id="page346"></a>[pg 346]</span> quite right. God gave
beasts and birds to us all alike, and your preserves are
robberies. I would like to save all the foxes, and I hate
the dogs when they catch them;" for be sure she would never
learn to call them hounds. What would he feel? It would be
an incongruous kind of thing altogether, Edgar used to think
when meditating on life as seen through the curling clouds
of his cigar.</p>
<p>But he loved her—he loved her: daily with more
passion, because daily holding a stronger check on himself, and
so accumulating by concentration. It was the old combat between
love and reason, personal desires and social feelings, and as
yet it was undecided which side would win. Now it was Adelaide
and her exact suitability for her part, when he would avoid
Leam Dundas for days; now it was Leam and his fervid love for
her, his passion of doubt, his fever of longing, when he would
all but commit himself and tempt the fortune of the future
irrevocably.</p>
<p>One day, during this, time of sickness in the village and
Edgar's lonely residence at the Hill, Leam was riding along the
Green Lanes, a pretty bit of quiet country, when she heard the
well-known hoofs thundering rapidly behind her, and in due time
Major Harrowby drew rein at her side. "I saw you from the
Sherrington road," he said, his eyes kindling with pleasure at
the meeting.</p>
<p>Leam smiled, that pretty little fluttering smile which was
so peculiarly her own, playing like a flicker of tender
sunshine over her face, but she felt gladder than she showed.
It was not her way to flourish her feelings like flags in the
face of men. Her reticence was part of her dislike to noise and
glare. "I am glad to see you," she returned quietly, her eyes
raised for a moment to his.</p>
<p>"I sometimes fear I annoy you by joining you so often," said
Edgar.</p>
<p>"No, you do not annoy me," Leam answered.</p>
<p>"It is a pleasure to know at least as much as that," he
returned with a forced laugh.</p>
<p>"Yes? But why should you think that you annoy me?" she
asked.</p>
<p>"Oh, perhaps you see too much of me, and so get tired of me.
The thing is possible," he said, stroking his horse's ears.</p>
<p>Leam looked at him as she had looked before, but this time
without the smile. "Are you tired of me that you say so?" she
asked.</p>
<p>"No, no, no! How can you say such a thing—how dream
it?" cried Edgar. "How could I be tired of you? Why, you are
the sunshine of my life, the one thing I "—he checked
himself—"I look forward to meeting," he added
awkwardly.</p>
<p>"Then why should I be tired of you?" she returned. "You are
kind to me; you tell me things I do not know; and," with
maddening unconsciousness of how her words might be taken,
"there is no one else."</p>
<p>This was the nearest approach to a compliment that Leam had
ever made. She meant simply that, as there was no one else to
tire her, how could her pleasant friend Major Harrowby possibly
do so? But Edgar naturally took her words awry. "And if there
were anyone else I suppose I should be nowhere? My part has not
often been that of a <i>pis aller</i>," with a deep flush of
displeasure.</p>
<p>"Why do you say that?" she asked in a slight tone of
surprise. "You would be always where you are."</p>
<p>"With you?"</p>
<p>Her face asked his meaning.</p>
<p>"I mean, would you always hold me as much your friend,
always care for me as much as you do now—if, indeed, you
care for me at all—if any one else was here?" he
explained.</p>
<p>Leam turned her troubled eyes to the ground. "I do not
change like the wind," she answered, wishing he would not talk
of her at all.</p>
<p>"No, I do not think you do or would," returned Edgar,
bending his head nearer to hers as he drew his horse closer. "I
should think that once loved would be always loved with you,
Miss Dundas?" He said this in a low voice that slightly
trembled.</p>
<p>She was silent. She had a consciousness of unknown dangers,
sweet and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page347"
id="page347"></a>[pg 347]</span> perilous, closing around
her—dangers which she must avoid she scarcely knew
how, only vaguely conscious as she was that they were about.
Then she said, with an effort, "I do not like myself talked
of. It does not matter what I am."</p>
<p>"To me everything!" cried Edgar impulsively.</p>
<p>"You say what you do not mean," returned Leam. "I am not
your sister; how, then, should it matter?"</p>
<p>Her grave simplicity was more seductive to him than the most
coquettish wiles would have been. She was so entirely at sea in
the art of love-making that her very ignorance provoked a more
explicit declaration. "Are there only sisters in the world?"
he asked passionately, yet angry with himself for skirting so
near to the edge of peril.</p>
<p>"No: there are mothers," said Leam.</p>
<p>Edgar caught his breath, but again checked himself just in
time to prevent the words "and wives," that rose to his lips.
"And friends," he substituted, with evident constraint and as
awkwardly as before. It was not often that a woman had been
able to disconcert Edgar Harrowby so strangely as did this
ignorant and innocent half-breed Spanish girl.</p>
<p>"And friends," repeated Leam. "But they are not much."</p>
<p>"Alick Corfield? He is my good friend," she answered
quietly.</p>
<p>"Yes, I know how much you like him." An understanding ear
would have caught the sneering undertone in these words.</p>
<p>"Yes, I like him," responded Leam with unmoved gravity.</p>
<p>"And you are sorry that he is ill—very sorry, awfully
sorry?"</p>
<p>"I am sorry."</p>
<p>"Would you be as pained if I were ill? and would you come
every day to the Hill to ask after me, as you go to Steel's
Corner to ask after him?"</p>
<p>"I would be pained if you were ill, but I would not go to
the Hill every day," said Leam.</p>
<p>"No? Why this unfair preference?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Because I am not afraid of Mrs. Corfield," she
answered.</p>
<p>"And you are of my mother?"</p>
<p>"Yes. She is severe."</p>
<p>"It is severe in you to say so," said Edgar gently.</p>
<p>"No," said Leam with her proud air. "It is true."</p>
<p>"Then you would not like to be my mother's daughter?" asked
Edgar, both inflamed and troubled.</p>
<p>Leam looked him straight in the face, utterly unconscious
of his secret meaning. "No," she answered, her head held high,
her dark eyes proud and fixed, and her small mouth resolute,
almost hard. "I would like to be no one's daughter but
mamma's."</p>
<p>"I do love your fidelity," cried Edgar with a burst of
admiration. "You are the most loyal girl I know."</p>
<p>She turned pale: her head drooped. "Let us talk of something
else," she said in an altered voice. "Myself is displeasing to
me."</p>
<p>"But if it pleases me?"</p>
<p>"That is impossible," said Leam. "How can it please
you?"</p>
<p>Was it craft? was it indifference? or was it honest
ignorance of the true motive of a man's words and looks? Edgar
pondered for a moment, but could come to no definite conclusion
save rejection of that one hypothesis of craft. Leam was too
savagely direct, too uncompromising, to be artful. No man who
understood women only half so well as Edgar Harrowby understood
them could have credited such a character as hers with
deception.</p>
<p>He wavered, then, between the alternative of indifference or
ignorance. If the one, he felt bound by self-respect to
overcome it—that self-respect which a man of his
temperament puts into his successes with women; if the other,
he must enlighten it. "Does it not please you to talk of those
you like?" he asked after a short pause.</p>
<p>"Yes," said Leam, her face suddenly softening into
tenderness as she thought of her mother; of whom Edgar did not
think. "Talk to me of Spain and all that you did
there."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348"></a>[pg 348]</span>
"And that would be of what you like?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Of what I love," returned Leam in a low voice, her eyes
lifted to his, soft and humid.</p>
<p>"How can I read you? What can I think? What do you want me
to believe?" cried Edgar in strange trouble.</p>
<p>"What have I said?" she asked with grave surprise. "Why do
you speak like this?"</p>
<p>"Are you playing with me, or do you want me to understand
that you have made me happy?" he cried, his face, voice,
bearing, all changed, all full of an unknown something that
half allured and half frightened her.</p>
<p>She turned aside her head with her cold, proud, shrinking
air. "I am not playing with you; and you are silly to say I
have made you happy," she said, shaking her reins lightly and
quickening her chestnut's uneasy pace; and Edgar, quickening
the pace of his heavy bay, thought it wiser to let the moment
pass, and so stand free and still wavering—in doubt and
committed to nothing.</p>
<p>Thus the time wore on, with frequent meetings, always
crowded with doubts and fears, hopes, joys, displeasures in a
tangled heap together, till the drying winds of March set in
and cleared off the last of the fever, which had by now worn
itself away, and by degrees the things of North Aston went back
to their normal condition. The families came into residence
again, and save for the widow's wail and the orphan's cry in
the desolated village below, life passed as it had always
passed, and the strong did not spend their strength in bearing
the burdens of the weak.</p>
<p>The greatest social event that had taken place in
consequence of the epidemic was, that Mr. Dundas had made
acquaintance with his new tenant at Lionnet. Full of painful
memories for him as the place was, he could not let the poor
fellow die, he said, with no Christian soul near him. As a
landlord he felt that he owed this mark of humanity to one of
whom, if nothing absolutely good was known, neither was there
anything absolutely bad, save that negative misdemeanor of not
coming to church. As this was not an unpardonable offence to a
man who had traveled much if he had thought little, Mr. Dundas
let his humanity get the upper hand without much difficulty. By
which it came about that he and his new tenant became friends,
as the phrase goes, and that thus another paragraph was added
to the restricted page of life as North Aston knew it.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h3>
<h3>ONLY A DREAM.</h3>
<p>Of all those who lived through the fever, poor Alick
Corfield's case had been the most desperate while it lasted.
Mr. Gryce, his fellow-sufferer, had been up and about his usual
work, extracting Aryan roots and impaling Lepidoptera for a
month and more, while Alick was still in bed among ice-bags and
Condy's Fluid, and as bad as at the beginning—indeed,
worse, having had a relapse which nothing but his wiry
constitution, backed by his mother's scientific nursing, could
have pulled him through. Gradually the danger passed, and this
time his convalescence was solid, and, though slow,
uninterrupted. He began to creep about the house by the aid of
sticks and arms, and he came down stairs for the first time on
the day when the Harrowbys and Birketts returned home; but he
remained in strict quarantine, and Steel's Corner was
scrupulously avoided by the neighbors as the local lazaretto
which it would be sinful to invade. By all but Leam, who went
daily to ask after the invalid, and to keep the mother company
for exactly half an hour by the clock.</p>
<p>One day when she went on her usual errand Mrs. Corfield met
her at the hall-door, "Alick will be glad to see you, my dear,"
she called out, radiant with happiness, as the girl crossed the
threshold. "We are in the drawing-room to-day, as brisk and
bonny as a bird: such a treat for him, poor dear!"</p>
<p>"I am glad," said Leam, who held a basket of early spring
flowers in her hand. "Now you are happy."
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349"
id="page349"></a>[pg 349]</span> Tears came into the poor
mother's haggard eyes. "Happy, child! You do not know what I
feel," she said with tremulous emotion. "Only a mother who
has been so near to the loss of her dearest, so near to
heartbreak and despair, as I have been, can know the blessed
joy of the reprieve."</p>
<p>"How you love him!" said Leam in a half whisper. "I loved
mamma like that."</p>
<p>"Yes, poor child! I remember," said Mrs. Corfield with
compassion. She forgot that at the time she had thought the
girl's love and despair, both the one and the other,
exaggerated and morbid. She met her now on the platform of
sympathy, and her mind saw what it brought to-day as it had
seen what it had brought before, but she was not conscious of
the contradiction.</p>
<p>"I thought I should have died too when she did. I wish I
had," said Leam, looking up to the sky with dreamy love, as if
she still thought to meet her mother's face in the blue
depths.</p>
<p>"My poor dear! it was terrible for you," sighed the elder
woman sympathetically. "But you must not always mourn, you
know. There is a time for everything, even for forgetting, and
for being happy after sorrow."</p>
<p>"Never a time for me to forget mamma, nor to be happy," said
Leam.</p>
<p>"Why not?" answered Mrs. Corfield in her impatient way. "You
are young, nice-looking, in tolerably good health, but you are
black round your eyes to-day. You have friends: I am sure all
of us, from my husband downward, think a great deal of you. And
Alick has always been your friend. Why should you not be
happy?"</p>
<p>Leam put the question by. "Yes, you have always been kind to
me," she answered. "I remember when mamma died how you wanted
to be kind then. But I did not understand you as I do now. And
how good Alick was! How sorry I should have been if anything
had happened to him now!" Her beautiful face grew tender with
the thought. She did really love Alick in her girlish, sisterly
way.</p>
<p>Mrs. Corfield looked at her. "Have you never loved any one
else as you loved your poor mother?" she asked.</p>
<p>Leam lifted her eyes. "Never," she answered simply. "I have
liked a few people since, but love as I loved mamma? No!"</p>
<p>"Leam, I am going to ask you a straightforward question, and
you must give me a straightforward answer: Which do you like
best, my boy or Edgar Harrowby?" Mrs. Corfield asked this
suddenly, as if she wanted to surprise the girl's secret
thought rather than have a deliberate answer.</p>
<p>"I like them differently," began Leam without affectation.
"Alick is so unlike Major Harrowby in every way. And then I
have known him so long—since I was a mere child. I feel
that I can say what I like to him: I always did. But Major
Harrowby is a stranger, and I am—I don't know: it is all
different. I cannot say what I mean." She hesitated, stopped,
grew pale, glanced aside and looked disturbed; then putting on
her old air of cold pride, she drew herself a few paces away
and said, "Why do you ask me such a question, Mrs. Corfield?
You should not."</p>
<p>Mrs. Corfield sighed. If Edgar was undecided between his
personal desires and conventional fitness, she was undecided
between her longing to see Alick happy and her dislike to his
being happy in any way but the one she should design for him.
He had raved a good deal during his illness, and had said many
mad things connected with Leam—always Leam; and since his
convalescence his mother had seen clearly enough how his heart
was toward her. His pleasure when he heard that she had been
there, his childish delight in anything that she had brought
for him, the feverishness with which he waited to hear her
step, her voice from a distance, always demanding that the
doors should be left open so that he might hear her,—all
betrayed to his mother as plainly as confession would have done
the real thoughts of his heart, and cast a trouble into her own
whence she saw no present satisfactory issue. Though she was
fond of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page350"
id="page350"></a>[pg 350]</span> Leam now, and grateful to
her for her faithful visits during Alick's illness, yet,
just as Edgar doubted of her fitness as a wife for the
master of the Hill, so did she doubt of her fitness as a
daughter-in-law for Steel's Corner. As a friend she was
pleasant enough, with her quaint ways and pretty face; but
as one of the Corfield family, bound to them for ever
—what then would she be? But again, if Alick really
loved her, she would not like to see him disappointed. So,
what between her dislike to the marriage should it ever be,
and her fear for Alick's unhappiness should he ask and be
refused, the poor mother was in a state of confused feelings
and contradictory wishes which did not agree with a nature
like hers, given to mathematical certainties and averse to
loose ends and frayed edges anywhere. As nothing more was to
be got out of Leam at this moment, and as Mrs. Corfield knew
that Alick would be impatient, they went into the
drawing-room together, Leam carrying her basket of spring
flowers for her old friend.</p>
<p>It was pitiful to see the poor fellow. Thin, gaunt, plainer
than ever, if also ennobled by that almost saintly dignity
which is given by illness, the first impression made on Leam
was one of acute physical repulsion: the second only gave room
to compassion. Fortunately, that little shudder of hers was
unnoticed, and Alick saw only the beloved face, more beautiful
to him than anything out of heaven, with its grave intensity of
look that seemed so full of thought and feeling, turned to
him—saw only those glorious eyes fixed once more straight
on his— felt only the small hand which seemed to give him
new life to touch lying clasped in his own, weak, wasted,
whitened, like a dead hand for color against the warm olive of
her skin. It was almost worth while to have been separated so
long to have this joy of meeting; and he thought his pain and
danger not too dearly bought by this exquisite pleasure of
knowing that she had pitied him and cared for him.</p>
<p>He raised himself from his pillows as he took her small,
warm, fibrous hand, and his pallid face brightened into a
tearful smile. "Ah!" he said, drawing a deep breath, "I am so
glad to see you again!"</p>
<p>"I am glad to see you too," said Leam with a certain sudden
embarrassment, she did not know why, but it came from something
that she saw in his eyes and could not explain even to
herself.</p>
<p>"Are you?" He pressed her hand, which he still held. "It
does me good to hear you say so," he replied.</p>
<p>"I have brought you some flowers," then said Leam, a little
coldly, drawing away her hand, which she hated to have either
held or pressed.</p>
<p>He took them with a pleased smile. "Our pretty
wild-flowers!" he said gratefully, burying his face in them, so
cool and fresh and fragrant as they were. "They are like the
giver," he added after a pause, "only not so sweet."</p>
<p>"Do you remember when I persisted to you there were no
wild-flowers in England?" asked Leam, wishing that Alick would
not pay her compliments.</p>
<p>"Do I remember? That was the first time I saw you," cried
Alick. "Of what else have I thought ever since?"</p>
<p>"You like wild-flowers and celandine, do you not?" asked
poor Leam, desperately disturbed. "I found them in the wood as
I came here."</p>
<p>"And picked them for me?—up in the corner there by
Barton's? I know. And you went up the lane for them—for
me?" he repeated.</p>
<p>"Yes," said Leam.</p>
<p>"For me?" he asked again.</p>
<p>"Why, yes: for whom else could it have been?" answered Leam
in the tone of grave rebuke he knew so well—the tone
which always expressed, "You are stupid."</p>
<p>Alick's lip quivered. "You are so good," he said.</p>
<p>"Am I?" asked Leam seriously.</p>
<p>Then something passed over her face, a kind of gray shadow
of remembrance, and she dropped her eyes. Was she good? and
could he think so?</p>
<p>A silence fell between them, and each knew of what the other
was thinking; then Leam said suddenly, to break that terrible
silence, which she felt was more betraying than even speech
would have been, "I am sorry you have been so ill. How
dreadfully ill you have been!"</p>
<p>"Yes," he said, "I have been bad enough, I believe, but by
God's grace I have been spared."</p>
<p>"It would have been more grace not to have let you get ill
in the beginning," said Leam gravely.</p>
<p>Alick looked distressed. Should he never Christianize this
pagan? "Don't say that, dear," he remonstrated. "We must not
call in question His will."</p>
<p>"Things are things," said Leam with her quiet positiveness.
"If they are bad, they are bad, whoever sends them."</p>
<p>"No. God cannot send us evil," cried Alick.</p>
<p>"Then He does not send us disease or sorrow," answered Leam.
"If He does, it is silly to say they are good, or that He is
kind to make us ill and wretched. I cannot tell stories. And
all you people do."</p>
<p>"Leam, you pain me so much when you talk like this. It is
bad, dear—impious and unchristian. Ah! can I never bring
you to the true way?" he cried with real pain.</p>
<p>"You cannot make me tell stories or talk nonsense because
you say it is religious," replied Leam, impervious and
unconvinced. "I like better to tell the truth and call things
by their right names."</p>
<p>"And you cannot feel that we are little children walking in
the dark and that we must accept by faith?" said Alick.</p>
<p>She shook her head, then answered with a certain tone of
triumph in her voice, "Well, yes, it is the dark: so let it be
the dark, and do not pretend you understand when you do not. Do
not say God made you ill in one breath, and in another that He
is kind. It is silly."</p>
<p>"Now, my boy, don't excite yourself," said Mrs. Corfield,
bustling into the room and noting how the thin cheek had
flushed and how bright and feverish the hollow eyes of her
invalid were looking. "You know the doctor says you are not to
be excited or tired. It is the worst thing in the world for
you."</p>
<p>"I am neither, mother: don't alarm yourself," he answered;
"but I must have a little talk with Leam. I have not seen her
for so long. How long is it, mother?"</p>
<p>"Well, my dear, you have been ill for over ten weeks," she
said as she went to the window with a sudden gasp.</p>
<p>"Ten weeks gone out of my life!" he replied.</p>
<p>"We have all been sorry," said Leam a little vaguely.</p>
<p>His eyes grew moist. He was weak and easily moved. "Were you
very sorry?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Very," she answered, for her quite warmly.</p>
<p>"Then you did not want me to die?" He said this with a
yearning look, raising himself again on his elbow to meet her
eyes more straightly.</p>
<p>"Want you to die?" she repeated in astonishment. "Why should
I want you to die? I want you to get well and live."</p>
<p>He took her hand again. "God bless you!" he said, and turned
his face to the pillow to conceal that he was weeping.</p>
<p>Again that gray look of remembrance, passed over her face.
She knew now what he had meant. "No," she said slowly, "I do
not want you to die. You are good, and would harm no one."</p>
<p>After this visit Leam saw Alick whenever she called at the
house, which, however, was not so often as heretofore, and week
by week became still more seldom. Something was growing up in
her heart against him that made his presence a discomfort. It
was not fear nor moral dislike, but it was a personal distaste
that threatened to become unconquerable. She hated to be with
him; hated to see his face looking at her with such yearning
tenderness as abashed her somehow and made her lower her eyes;
hated his endeavors to convert her to an orthodox acceptance of
mysteries she could not understand and of explanations she
could not believe; hated his sadness, hated his joy: she only
wished that he would go away and leave her alone. What did he
mean? What did he want? He was changing from the blushing,
awkward, subservient dog of his early youth, and from the still
subservient if also more argumentative pastor of these later
days alike, and she did not like the new Alick who was
gradually creeping into the place of the old.</p>
<p>When Mrs. Corfield spoke of taking him to the sea for change
of air, her heart bounded as if a weight had been suddenly
removed, and she said, "Yes, he ought to go," so warmly that
the mother was surprised, wondering if she cared so much for
him that the idea of his getting good elated her beyond herself
and made her forget her usual reserve. She instinctively
contrived not to see him alone now when she went to Steel's
Corner during his tedious convalescence, for the poor fellow
mended but slowly, if surely. Either she had only a short time
to stay, and so stood for a moment, making serious talk
impossible, or she took little Fina with her, or maybe she
entangled Mrs. Corfield in the conversation so that she should
not leave them alone, the vague fear and distaste possessing
her making her strangely <i>rusée</i> and on the alert.
But one day she was caught. It had to come, and it was only a
question of time. She knew that, as we know when our doom is
upon us.</p>
<p>Leam had not intended to go in to-day, but Alick, who was in
the garden rejoicing in the warmth and freshness of this tender
April noontide, came to meet her at the second gate, and asked
her to come and sit with him on the garden-seat, there where
the budding lilacs began to show their bloom, and there where
they sat on that fatal day when she had hidden the little phial
in her hair and bade him tell her of flowers till she
tired.</p>
<p>She hesitated, and was on the point of refusing, when he
took her by the upper part of her arm as if to hold her. "Do,"
he pleaded. "I want to say something to you."</p>
<p>"I have no time to stay," she answered, shrinking from his
touch.</p>
<p>"Yes, yes, time enough for all I have to say," he returned.
"I beg you to come with me to-day, Leam—I beg it; and I
do not often ask a favor of you."</p>
<p>There was something in his manner that seemed to compel Leam
to consent in spite of herself. True, he besought, but also he
seemed almost to command; and if he did not command, then his
earnestness was so strong that she was forced to yield to it.
Trembling, but with her proud little head held
straight—wondering what was coming, and vaguely conscious
that whatever it was it would be pain—Leam let him take
her to the garden-seat where the budding lilacs spoke of
springtime freshness and summer beauty. Alick was trembling
too, but from excitement, not from fear. He had made up his
mind now, and when he had once resolved he was not wavering. He
would ask her to share his life, accept his love, and he would
thus take on himself half the burden of her sin. This was how
he felt it. If he married her, knowing all that he knew, he
would make himself the partner of her crime, because he would
accept her past like her present—like her future; and
thus he would be equally guilty with her before God. But he
would trust to prayer and the Supreme Mercy to save her and
him. He would carry no merits of devotion as his own claim, but
he would have freed her of half her guilt, and he would be
content to bear his own portion of punishment for this
unfathomable gain. It was the man's love, but also the soul's
passionate promise of sacrifice and redemption, that gave him
boldness to plead, power to ask for a grace to which, had this
deep stain of sin never tainted her, he would not have dared to
aspire. But, as it was, his love was her greater safety, and
what he gained in earthly joy he would lose in spiritual peace,
while her partial forgiveness would be bought by the loss of
his security of salvation. Not that she understood all this or
ever should, but it gave him courage.</p>
<p>"When you first saw me, Leam, after my illness you said that
you wanted me to live," he began in a low voice, husky with
emotion. "Do you mean this?"</p>
<p>"Yes," she said, looking straight before her.</p>
<p>"Live for you?" he asked.</p>
<p>"For us all," she answered.</p>
<p>"No, not for us all—for you," he returned with
insistence.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page353" id="page353"></a>[pg 353]</span>
"That would be silly," said Leam quietly. "I am not the only
person in the world: you have your mother."</p>
<p>"For my mother, perhaps; but for the world, nothing. You are
the world to me," said Alick. "Give me your love, and I care
for nothing else. Tell me you will be my wife, and I can live
then—live as nothing else can make me. Leam, can you love
me, dear? I have loved you from the first moment I saw you.
Will you be my wife?"</p>
<p>"Your wife!" cried Leam with an involuntary gesture of
repulsion. "You are dreaming."</p>
<p>"No, no: I am in full earnest. Tell me that you love me,
Leam. Oh, I believe that you do. Surely I have not deceived
myself so far. Why should you have come every day—every
day, as you have done—if you do not love me? Yes, you
do—I know you, do. Say so, Leam, my darling, my beloved,
and put me out of my misery of suspense."</p>
<p>"You are my good friend: I love you like a friend; but a
wife—that is different," faltered Leam.</p>
<p>"Yes, but it will come if you try," pleaded Alick, shifting
his point from confidence to entreaty. "Won't you try to love
me as I love you, Leam? Won't you try to love me as a wife
loves her husband?"</p>
<p>She turned away. "I cannot," she answered in a low voice,
yet firm and distinct. It was a voice in which even the most
sanguine must have recognized the accent of hopeless certainty,
inevitable despair.</p>
<p>"Leam, it will be your salvation," cried Alick, taking her
hands. He meant her spiritual salvation, not her personal
safety: it was a prayer, not a threat.</p>
<p>"You would not force me by anything you may know?" asked
Leam in the same low, firm, distinct voice. "Not even for
safety, Alick."</p>
<p>"Which I would buy with my own," he answered—"with my
eternal salvation."</p>
<p>"I am not worthy of such love," said Leam trembling. "And
oh, dear Alick, do not blame me, but I cannot return it," she
added piteously.</p>
<p>She saw him start and heard him moan when she said this, but
for a moment he was silent. He seemed half stunned as if by a
heavy blow, but one that he was doing his best to bear. "Tell
me so again, Leam. Let me be convinced," he then said with
pathetic calmness, looking into her face. "You cannot love
me?—never? never?"</p>
<p>"Never," she said, her voice breaking.</p>
<p>Alick covered his face in his hands, and she saw the tears
trickle slowly through his fingers. He made no com-plaint, no
protestation, only covered up his face and prayed, weeping,
recognizing his fate.</p>
<p>She was sorry and heart-struck. She felt cruel, selfish,
ungrateful, but for all that she could not yield nor say that
she would marry him, trying to love him. Confused images of
something dearer than this as the love of her life passed
before her mind. They were images without recognizable form or
tangible substance, but they were the true love, and this was
not like them. No, she could not yield. Sorry as she might be
for him, and was, she could not promise to marry him.</p>
<p>"Yes," he then said after a pause, lifting up his wan face,
tear-stained and disordered, but making a sad attempt to
smile—"yes, dear Leam, I was, as you say, dreaming. We
shall always be friends, though—brother and sister, as we
have been—to the end of our lives, shall we not?"</p>
<p>"Yes," was her answer, tears in her own eyes and a kind of
wonder at her hardness running through her repugnance.</p>
<p>"Thank you, darling, thank you! If you want a friend, and I
can be that friend and can serve you, you will come to me, will
you not? You may want me some day, and you know that I shall
not fail you. Don't you know that, my royal Leam?"</p>
<p>"I am sure of you," she half whispered, shuddering. To be in
his power and to have rejected him! It all seemed very terrible
and confused to Leam, to whom things complex and entangled were
abhorrent.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354"></a>[pg 354]</span>
"And now forget all this. I was only dreaming, dear. Why,
no, of course you could not have married me—never
could—never, never! I know that well enough now. You see
I have been ill," nervously plucking at his hands, "and have
had strange fancies, and I do not know myself or anything about
me quite yet. But forget it all. It was only a sick fancy, and
I thought what did not exist"</p>
<p>"I am sorry to have hurt you even in fancy," said Leam;
giving a sigh of relief. "I do not like to see you unhappy,
Alick. You are so-good to me."</p>
<p>"And to the end of my life I shall be what I have been," he
said earnestly. "You can trust me, Leam."</p>
<p>"I am sorry I have hurt you," she said again, bending
forward and looking up into his face. "But it was only a
dream, was it not?" pleadingly.</p>
<p>He smiled pitifully, "Yes, dear, only a dream," he answered,
turning away his head. After a while he took her hand and
looked into her face, "And now it has passed," he said, calm
that she should not be sorry.</p>
<p class="center">[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p>
<h2>LOVE'S SEPULCHRE.</h2>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Build for my love a costly sepulchre;</p>
<p class="i2">Not underneath cathedral arches dim,</p>
<p>Where the sad soul may wake to comfort her</p>
<p class="i2">The stately music of a funeral hymn;</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Nor on some wind-swept hill, whose wavering
grass</p>
<p class="i2">Sways to the summer breezes blowing
free,</p>
<p>While the great cedars, rustling as they pass,</p>
<p class="i2">Murmur a cadence of the mournful sea;</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Not in the arched depths of the solemn woods,</p>
<p class="i2">Within the flickering shadows cool and
deep,</p>
<p>Where the still wing of silence ever broods,</p>
<p class="i2">And woos the weary soul to dreamless
sleep.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>But build it in the temple of my heart,</p>
<p class="i2">And from the sacred and mysterious
shrine</p>
<p>A flame of deathless memory shall start,</p>
<p class="i2">Tended by Sorrow and by Love divine.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>All sweetest recollections of past joy</p>
<p class="i2">Shall haunt that shrine, to make it
heavenly fair:</p>
<p>All memories of bliss without alloy</p>
<p class="i2">Shall cluster in undying beauty
there.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>There quiet peace shall hold resistless sway:</p>
<p class="i2">Softer than snow the holy hush shall
be.</p>
<p>Till even Sorrow gently glide away,</p>
<p class="i2">And Love divine alone keep watch with
me.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="author">KATE
HILLARD.</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page355" id="page355"></a>[pg 355]</span>
LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.</h2>
<h3>BY LADY BARKER.</h3>
<p class="author">ALGOA BAY, October 23, 1875.</p>
<p>Two days ago we steamed out of Table Bay on just such a
gray, drizzling afternoon as that on which we entered it. But
the weather cleared directly we got out to sea, and since then
it has carried us along as though we had been on a pleasant
summer cruise. All yesterday we were coasting along the low
downs which edge the dangerous sea-board for miles upon miles.
From the deck of the Edinburgh Castle the effect is monotonous
enough, although just now everything is brightly green; and,
with their long ribbon fringe of white breaker-foam glinting in
the spring sunshine, the stretches of undulating hillocks
looked their best. This part of the coast is well lighted, and
it was always a matter of felicitation at night when, every
eighty miles or so, the guiding rays of a lighthouse shone out
in the soft gloom of the starlight night. One of these lonely
towers stands more than eight hundred feet above the sea-level,
and warns ships off the terrible Agulhas Bank.</p>
<p>We have dropped our anchor this fresh bright morning a mile
or so from the shore on which Port Elizabeth stands. Algoa Bay
is not much of a shelter, and it is always a chance whether a
sudden south-easter may not come tearing down upon the
shipping, necessitating a sudden tripping of anchors and
running out to sea to avoid the fate which is staring us
warningly in the face in the shape of the gaunt ribs or rusty
cylinders of sundry cast-away vessels. To-day the weather is on
its good behavior; the south-easter rests on its</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p class="i10">aëry nest</p>
<p>As still as a brooding dove;</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>and sun and sea are doing their best to show off the queer
little straggling town creeping up the low sandy hills that lie
before us. I am assured that Port Elizabeth is a flourishing
mercantile place. From the deck of our ship I can't at all
perceive that it is flourishing, or doing anything except
basking in the pleasant sunshine. But when I go on shore an
hour or two later I am shown a store which takes away my
breath, and before whose miscellaneous contents the
stoutest-hearted female shopper must needs <i>baisser son
pavilion</i>. Everything in this vast emporium looked as neat
and orderly as possible, and, though the building was twice as
big as the largest co-operative store in London, there was no
hurry or confusion. Thimbles and ploughs, eau-de-cologne and
mangles, American stoves, cotton dresses of astounding patterns
to suit the taste of Dutch ladies, harmoniums and
flat-irons,—all stood peaceably side by side together.
But these were all "unconsidered trifles" next the more serious
business of the establishment, which was wool—wool in
every shape and stage and bale. In this department, however,
although for the sake of the dear old New Zealand days my heart
warms at the sight of the huge packages, I was not supposed to
take any interest; so we pass quickly out into the street
again, get into a large open carriage driven by a black
coachman, and make the best of our way up to a villa on the
slope of the sandy hill. Once I am away from the majestic
influence of that store the original feeling of Port Elizabeth
being rather a dreary place comes back upon me; but we drive
all about—to the Park, which may be said to be in its
swaddling-clothes <i>as</i> a park, and to the Botanic Gardens,
where the culture of foreign and colonial flowers and shrubs is
carried on under the chronic difficulties of too much sun and
wind and too little water. Everywhere there is building going
on—very modest building, it is true, with rough-and-ready
masonry or timber, and roofs of zinc painted in strips of light
colors, but everywhere there are
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356"
id="page356"></a>[pg 356]</span> signs of progress and
growth. People look bored, but healthy, and it does not
surprise me in the least to hear that though there are a
good many inhabitants, there is not much society. A pretty
little luncheon and a pleasant hour's chat in a cool, shady
drawing-room, with plenty of new books and music and
flowers, gave me an agreeable impression to carry back on
board the ship; which, by the way, seemed strangely silent
and deserted when we returned, for most of our
fellow-passengers had disembarked here on their way to
different parts of the interior.</p>
<p>As I saunter up and down the clean, smart-looking deck of
what has been our pleasant floating home during these past four
weeks, I suddenly perceive a short, squat pyramid on the shore,
standing out oddly enough among the low-roofed houses. If it
had only been red instead of gray, it might have passed for the
model of the label on Bass's beer—bottles; but, even as
it is, I feel convinced that there is a story connected with
it: and so it proves, for this ugly, most unsentimental-looking
bit of masonry was built long ago by a former governor as a
record of the virtues and perfections of his dead wife, whom,
among other lavish epithets of praise, he declares to have been
"the most perfect of women." Anyhow, there it stands, on what
was once a lonely strip of sand and sea, a memorial—if
one can only believe the stone story, now nearly a hundred
years old—of a great love and a great sorrow; and one can
envy the one and pity the other just as much when looking at
this queer, unsightly monument as when one stands on the pure
marble threshold of the exquisite Taj Mahal at Agra, and reads
that it too, in all its grace and beauty, was reared "in memory
of an undying love."</p>
<p>Although the day has been warm and balmy, the evening air
strikes chill and raw, and our last evening on board the dear
old ship has to be spent under shelter, for it is too cold to
sit on deck. With the first hours of daylight next morning we
have to be up and packing, for by ten o'clock we must be on
board the Florence, a small, yacht-like coasting-steamer which
can go much closer into the sand-blocked harbors scooped by the
action of the rivers all along the coast. It is with a very
heavy heart that I, for one, say good-bye to the Edinburgh
Castle, where I have passed so many happy hours and made some
pleasant acquaintances. A ship is a very forcing-house of
friendship, and no one who has not taken a voyage can realize
how rapidly an acquaintance grows and ripens into a friend
under the lonely influences of sea and sky. We have all been so
happy together, everything has been so comfortable, everybody
so kind, that one would indeed be cold-hearted if, when the
last moment of our halcyon voyage arrived, it could bring with
it anything short of a regret.</p>
<p>With the same chivalrous goodness and courtesy which has
taken thought for the comfort of our every movement since we
left Dartmouth, our captain insists on seeing us safely on
board the Florence (what a toy-boat she looks after our stately
ship!) and satisfying himself that we can be comfortably
settled once more in our doll's house of a new cabin. Then
there comes a reluctant "Good-bye" to him and all our kind
care-takers of the Edinburgh Castle; and the last glimpse we
catch of her—for the Florence darts out of the bay like a
swallow in a hurry—is her dipping her ensign in courteous
farewell to us.</p>
<p>In less than twenty-four hours we had reached another little
port, some hundred and fifty miles or so up the coast, called
East London. Here the harbor is again only an open roadstead,
and hardly any vessel drawing more than three or four feet of
water can get in at all near the shore, for between us and it
is a bar of shifting sand, washed down, day by day, by the
strong current of the river Buffalo. All the cargo has to be
transferred to lighters, and a little tug steamer bustles
backward and forward with messages of entreaty to those said
lighters to come out and take away their loads. We had dropped
our anchor by daylight, yet at ten o'clock scarcely a boat had
made its appearance alongside,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page357"
id="page357"></a>[pg 357]</span> and every one was fuming
and fretting at the delay and consequent waste of fine
weather and daylight. That is to say, it was a fine bright
day overhead, with sunshine and sparkle all round, but the
heavy roll of the sea never ceased for a moment. From one
side to the other, until her ports touched the water,
backward and forward, with slow, monotonous heaving, our
little vessel swayed with the swaying rollers until
everybody on board felt sick and sorry. "This is
comparatively a calm day," I was told: "you can't possible
imagine from this what rolling really is." But I <i>can</i>
imagine quite easily, and do not at all desire a closer
acquaintance with this restless Indian Ocean. Breakfast is a
moment of penance: little G—— is absolutely
fainting from agonies of sea-sickness, though he has borne
all our South-Atlantic tossings with perfect equanimity; and
it is with real joy that I hear the lifeboat is alongside,
and that the kind-hearted captain of the Florence
(<i>how</i> kind sailors are!) offers to take babies, nurse
and me on shore, so as to escape a long day of this
agonizing rolling. In happy unconsciousness of what landing
at East London, even in a lifeboat, meant when a bar had to
be crossed, we were all tumbled and bundled, more or less
unceremoniously, into the great, roomy boat, and were
immediately taken in hand by the busy little tug. For half a
mile or more we made good progress in her wake, being in a
position to set at naught the threatening water-mountains
which came tumbling in furious haste from seaward. It was
not until we seemed close to the shore and all our troubles
over that the tug was obliged to cast us off, owing to the
rapidly shoaling water, and we prepared to make the best of
our own way in. Bad was that best, indeed, though the peril
came and went so quickly that it is but a confused
impression I retain of what seemed to me a really terrible
moment. One instant I hear felicitations exchanged between
our captain—who sits protectingly close to me and
poor, fainting little G——, who lies like death
in my arms—and the captain of the lifeboat. The next
moment, in spite of sudden panic and presence of danger, I
could laugh to hear the latter sing out in sharpest tones of
terror and dismay, "Ah, you would, would you?" coupled with
rapid orders to the stout rowers and shouts to us of "Look
out!" and I <i>do</i> look out, to see on one side sand
which the retreating wave has sucked dry, and in which the
boat-seems trying to bury herself as though she were a mole:
on the other hand there towers above us a huge green wave,
white-crested and curled, which is rushing at us like a
devouring monster. I glance, as I think, for the last time,
at the pale nurse, on whose lap lies the baby placidly
sucking his bottle. I see a couple of sailors lay hold of
her and the child with one hand each, whilst with the other
they cling desperately to the thwarts. A stout seafaring man
flings the whole weight of his ponderous pilot-coated body
upon G—— and me: I hear a roar of water, and,
lo! we are washed right up alongside of the rude
landing-place, still <i>in</i> the boat indeed, but wet and
frightened to the last degree. Looking back on it all, I can
distinctly remember that it was not the sight of the
overhanging wave which cost me my deadliest pang of
sickening fright, but the glimpse I caught of the shining,
cruel-looking sand, sucking us in so silently and greedily.
We were all trembling so much that it seemed as impossible
to stand upright on the earth as on the tossing waters, and
it was with reeling, drunken-looking steps that we rolled
and staggered through the heavy sand-street until we reached
the shelter of an exceedingly dirty hotel. Everything in it
required courage to touch, and it was with many qualms that
I deposited limp little G—— on a filthy sofa.
However, the mistress of the house looked clean, and so did
the cups and saucers she quickly produced; and by the time
we had finished a capital breakfast we were all quite in
good spirits again, and so sharpened up as to be able to
"mock ourselves" of our past perils and present discomforts.
Outside there were strange, beautiful shrubs in flower, tame
pigeons came cooing and bowing in at the door, and above all
there was an enchanting
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358"
id="page358"></a>[pg 358]</span> freshness and balminess in
the sunny air.</p>
<p>In about an hour "Capting Florence" (as G——
styles our new commander) calls for us and takes us out
sight-seeing. First and foremost, across the river to the
rapidly-growing railway lines, where a brand-new locomotive was
hissing away with full steam up. Here we were met and welcomed
by the energetic superintendent of this iron road, and, to my
intense delight, after explaining to me what a long distance
into the interior the line had to go and how fast it was
getting on, considering the difficulties in the way of doing
anything in South Africa, from washing a pocket-handkerchief up
to laying down a railway, he proposed that we should get
<i>on</i> the engine and go as far as the line was open for
anything like safe traveling. Never were such delightful five
minutes as those spent in whizzing along through the park-like
country and cutting fast through the heavenly air. In vain did
I smell that my serge skirts were getting dreadfully singed, in
vain did I see most uncertain bits of rail before me: it was
all too perfectly enchanting to care for danger or disgrace,
and I could have found it in my heart to echo G——'s
plaintive cry for "More!" when we came to the end and had to
get off. But it consoled us a little to watch the
stone-breaking machine crunching up small rocks as though they
had been lumps of sugar, and after looking at that we set off
for the unfinished station, and could take in, even in its
present skeleton state, how commodious and handsome it will all
be some day. You are all so accustomed to be whisked about the
civilized world when and where you choose that it is difficult
to make you understand the enormous boon the first line of
railway is to a new country—not only for the convenience
of travelers, but for the transport of goods, the setting free
of hundreds of cattle and horses and drivers—all sorely
needed for other purposes—and the fast-following effects
of opening up the resources of the back districts. In these
regions labor is the great difficulty, and one needs to hold
both patience and temper fast with both one's hands when
watching either Kafir or Coolie at work. The white man cannot
or will not do much with his hands out here, so the navvies are
slim-looking blacks, who jabber and grunt and sigh a good deal
more than they work.</p>
<p>It is a fortunate circumstance that the delicious air keeps
us all in a chronic state of hunger, for it appears in South
Africa that one is expected to eat every half hour or so. And,
shamed am I to confess, we <i>do</i> eat—and eat with a
good appetite too—a delicious luncheon at the
superintendent's, albeit it followed closely on the heels of
our enormous breakfast at the dirty hotel. Such a pretty little
bachelor's box as it was!—so cool and quiet and
neat!—built somewhat after the fashion of the Pompeian
houses, with a small square garden full of orange trees in the
centre, and the house running round this opening in four
corridors. After lunch a couple of nice, light Cape carts came
to the door, and we set off to see a beautiful garden whose
owner had all a true Dutchman's passion for flowers. Here was
fruit as well as flowers. Pine-apples and jasmine,
strawberries and honeysuckle, grew side by side with bordering
orange trees, feathery bamboos and sheltering gum trees. In the
midst of the garden stood a sort of double platform, up whose
steep border we all climbed: from this we got a good idea of
the slightly undulating land all about, waving down like
solidified billows to where the deep blue waters sparkled and
rolled restlessly beyond the white line of waves ever breaking
on the bar. I miss animal life sadly in these parts: the dogs I
see about the streets are few in number, and miserably currish
specimens of their kind. "Good dogs don't answer out here," I
am told: that is to say, they get a peculiar sort of distemper,
or ticks bite them, or they got weak from loss of blood, or
become degenerate in some way. The horses and cattle are small
and poor-looking, and hard-worked, very dear to buy and very
difficult to keep and to feed. I don't even see many cats, and
a pet bird is a rarity. However, as we stood on the breezy
platform I saw a most beautiful wild bird fly over the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page359"
id="page359"></a>[pg 359]</span> rose-hedge just below us.
It was about as big as a crow, but with a strange iridescent
plumage. When it flitted into the sunshine its back and
wings shone like a rainbow, and the next moment it looked
perfectly black and velvety in the shade. Now a
turquoise-blue tint comes out on its spreading wings, and a
slant in the sunshine turns the blue into a chrysoprase
green. Nobody could tell me its name: our Dutch host spoke
exactly like Hans Breitmann, and declared it was a "bid of a
crow," and so we had to leave it and the platform and come
down to more roses and tea. There was so much yet to be seen
and to be done that we could not stay long, and, laden with
magnificent bouquets of <i>gloire de Dijon</i> roses and
honeysuckle, and divers strange and lovely flowers, we drove
off again in our Cape carts. I observed that instead of
saying "Whoa!" or checking the horses in anyway by the
reins, the driver always whistles to them—long, low
whistle—and they stand quite still directly. We bumped
up and down, over extraordinarily rough places, and finally
slid down a steep cutting to the brink of the river Buffalo,
over which we were ferried, all standing, on a big punt, or
rather pontoon. A hundred yards or so of rapid driving then
took us to a sort of wharf which projected into the river,
where the important-looking little tug awaited us; and no
sooner were we all safely on board—rather a large
party by this time, for we had gone on picking up stragglers
ever since we started, only three in number, from the
hotel—than she sputtered and fizzed herself off
up-stream. By this time it was the afternoon, and I almost
despair of making you see the woodland beauty of that broad
mere, fringed down to the water's edge on one side with
shrubs and tangle of roses and woodbine, with ferns and
every lovely green creeping thing. That was on the bank
which was sheltered from the high winds: the other hillside
showed the contrast, for there, though green indeed, only a
few feathery tufts of pliant shrubs had survived the force
of some of these south-eastern gales. We paddled steadily
along in mid-stream, and from the bridge (where little
G—— and I had begged "Capting Florence" to let
us stand) one could see the double of each leaf and tendril
and passing cloud mirrored sharp and clear in the
crystalline water. The lengthening shadows from rock and
fallen crag were in some places flung quite across our
little boat, and so through the soft, lovely air, flooded
with brightest sunshine, we made our way, up past Picnic
Creek, where another stream joins the Buffalo, and makes
miniature green islands and harbors at its mouth, up as far
as the river was navigable for even so small a steamer as
ours. Every one was sorry when it became time to turn, but
there was no choice: the sun-burned, good-looking captain of
the tug held up a warning hand, and round we went with a
wide sweep, under the shadows, out into the sunlight, down
the middle of the stream, all too soon to please us.</p>
<p>Before we left East London, however, there was one more
great work to be glanced at, and accordingly we paid a hasty
visit to the office of the superintendent of the new
harbor-works, and saw plans and drawings of what will indeed be
a magnificent achievement when carried out. Yard by yard, with
patient under-sea sweeping, all that waste of sand brought down
by the Buffalo is being cleared away; yard by yard, two massive
arms of solidest masonry are stretching themselves out beyond
those cruel breakers: the river is being forced into so narrow
a channel that the rush of the water must needs carry the sand
far out to sea in future, and scatter it in soundings where it
cannot accumulate into such a barrier as that which now
exists.</p>
<p>Lighthouses will guard this safe entrance into a tranquil
anchorage, and so, at some not too far distant day, there is
good hope that East London may be one of the most valuable
harbors on this vast coast; and when her railway has reached
even the point to which it is at present projected, nearly two
hundred miles away, it will indeed be a thriving place. Even
now, there is a greater air of movement and life and progress
about the little seaport, what with the railway
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360"
id="page360"></a>[pg 360]</span> and the harbor-works, than
at any other place I have yet seen; and each great
undertaking is in the hands of men of first-rate ability and
experience, who are as persevering as they are energetic.
After looking well over these most interesting plans there
was nothing left for us to do except to make a sudden raid
on the hotel, pick up our shawls and bags, pay a most
moderate bill of seven shillings and sixpence for breakfast
for three people and luncheon for two, and the use of a room
all day, piteously entreat the mistress of the inn to sell
us half a bottle of milk for G——'s breakfast
to-morrow—as he will not drink the preserved
milk—and so back again on board the tug. The
difficulty about milk and butter is the first trouble which
besets a family traveling in these parts. Everywhere milk is
scarce and poor, and the butter such as no charwoman would
touch in England. In vain does one behold from the sea
thousands of acres of what looks like undulating green
pasturage, and inland the same waving green hillocks stretch
as far as the eye can reach: there is never a sheep or cow
to be seen, and one hears that there is no water, or that
the grass is sour, or that there is a great deal of sickness
about among the animals in that locality. Whatever the
cause, the result is the same—namely, that one has to
go down on one's knees for a cupful of milk, which is but
poor, thin stuff at its best, and that Irish salt butter out
of a tub is a costly delicacy.</p>
<p>Having secured this precious quarter of a bottle of milk,
for which I was really as grateful as though it had been the
Koh-i-noor, we hastened back to the wharf and got on board the
little tug again. "Now for the bridge!" cry G—— and
I, for has not Captain Florence promised us a splendid but safe
tossing across the bar? And faithfully he and the bar and the
boat keep their word, for we are in no danger, it seems, and
yet we appear to leap like a race-horse across the strip of
sand, receiving a staggering buffet first on one paddle-wheel
and then on the other from the angry guardian breakers, which
seem sworn foes of boats and passengers. Again and again are we
knocked aside by huge billows, as though the poor little tug
were a walnut-shell; again and again do we recover ourselves,
and blunder bravely on, sometimes with but one paddle in the
water, sometimes burying our bowsprit in a big green wave too
high to climb, and dashing right through it as fast as if we
shut our eyes and went at everything. The spray flies high over
our heads, G—— and I are drenched over and over
again, but we shake the sparkling water off our coats, for all
the world like Newfoundland dogs, and are all right again in a
moment, "Is that the very last?" asks G——
reluctantly as we take our last breaker like a five-barred
gate, flying, and find ourselves safe and sound, but quivering
a good deal, in what seems comparatively smooth water. Is it
smooth, though? Look at the Florence and all the other vessels.
Still at it, see-saw, backward and forward, roll, roll, roll!
How thankful we all are to have escaped a long day of
sickening, monotonous motion! But there is the getting on board
to be accomplished, for the brave little tug dare not come too
near to her big sister steamboat or she would roll over on her.
So we signal for a boat, and quickly the largest which the
Florence possesses is launched and manned—no easy task in
such a sea, but accomplished in the smartest and most
seamanlike fashion. The sides of the tug are low, so it is not
very difficult to scramble and tumble into the boat, which is
laden to the water's edge by new passengers from East London
and their luggage. When, however, we have reached the rolling
Florence it is no easy matter to get out of the said boat and
on board. There is a ladder let down, indeed, from the
Florence's side, but how are we to use it when one moment half
a dozen rungs are buried deep in the sea, and the next instant
ship and ladder and all have rolled right away from us? It has
to be done, however, and what a tower of strength and
encouragement does "Capting Florence" prove himself at this
juncture! We are all to sit perfectly still: no one is to move
until his <span class="pagenum"><a name="page361"
id="page361"></a>[pg 361]</span> name is called, and then he
is to come unhesitatingly and do exactly what he is
told.</p>
<p>"Pass up the baby!" is the first order which I hear given,
and that astonishing baby is "passed up" accordingly. I use the
word "astonishing" advisedly, for never was an infant so
bundled about uncomplainingly. He is just as often upside down
as not; he is generally handed from one quartermaster to the
other by the gathers of his little blue flannel frock; seas
break over his cradle on deck, but nothing disturbs him. He
grins and sleeps and pulls at his bottle through everything,
and grows fatter and browner and more impudent every day. On
this occasion, when—after rivaling Léotard's most
daring feats on the trapeze in my scramble up the side of a
vessel which was lurching away from me—I at last reached
the deck, I found the ship's carpenter nursing the baby, who
had seized the poor man's beard firmly with one hand, and with
the finger and thumb of the other was attempting to pick out
one of his merry blue eyes. "Avast there!" cried the
long-suffering sailor, and gladly relinquished the mischievous
bundle to me.</p>
<p>Up with the anchor, and off we go once more into the
gathering darkness of what turns out to be a wet and windy
night. Next day the weather had recovered its temper, and I was
called upon deck directly after breakfast to see the "Gates of
St. John," a really fine pass on the coast where the river
Umzimvubu rushes through great granite cliffs into the sea. If
the exact truth is to be told, I must confess I am a little
disappointed with this coast-scenery. I have heard so much of
its beauty, and as yet, though I have seen it under
exceptionally favorable conditions of calm weather, which has
allowed us to stand in very close to shore, I have not seen
anything really fine until these "Gates" came in view. It has
all been monotonous, undulating downs, here and there dotted
with trees, and in some places the ravines were filled with
what we used to call in New Zealand <i>bush</i>—i.e.,
miscellaneous greenery. Here and there a bold cliff or tumbled
pile of red rock makes a landmark for the passing ships, but
otherwise the uniformity is great indeed. The ordinary weather
along this coast is something frightful, and the great
reputation of our little Florence is built on the method in
which she rides dry and safe as a duck among these stormy
waters. Now that we are close to "fair Natal," the country
opens out and improves in beauty. There are still the same
sloping, rolling downs, but higher downs rise behind them, and
again beyond are blue and purpling hills. Here and there, too,
are clusters of fat, dumpy haystacks, which in reality are no
haystacks at all, but Kafir kraals. Just before we pass the
cliff and river which marks where No-Man's Land ends and Natal
begins these little locations are more frequently to be
observed, though what their inhabitants subsist on is a marvel
to me, for we are only a mile or so from shore, and all the
seeing power of all the field-glasses on board fails to discern
a solitary animal. We can see lots of babies crawling about the
hole which serves as door to a Kafir hut, and they are all as
fat as little pigs; but what do they live on? Buttermilk, I am
told—that is to say, sour milk, for the true Kafir palate
does not appreciate fresh, sweet milk—and a sort of
porridge made of <i>mealies</i>. I used to think "mealies" was
a coined word for potatoes, but it really signifies maize or
Indian corn, which is rudely crushed and ground, and forms the
staple food of man and beast.</p>
<p>In the mean time, we are speeding gayly over the bright
waters, never very calm along this shore. Presently we come to
a spot clearly marked by some odd-colored, tumbled-down cliffs
and the remains of a great iron butt, where, more than a
hundred years ago, the Grosvenor, a splendid clipper ship, was
wrecked. The men nearly all perished or were made away with,
but a few women were got on shore and carried off as prizes to
the kraals of the Kafir "inkosis" or chieftains. What sort of
husbands these stalwart warriors made to their reluctant brides
tradition does not say, but it is a fact that almost all the
children were born mad, and their descendants are,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page362"
id="page362"></a>[pg 362]</span> many of them, lunatics or
idiots up to the present time. As the afternoon draws on a
chill mist creeps over the hills and provokingly blots out
the coast, which gets more beautiful every league we go. I
wanted to remain up and see the light on the bluff just
outside Port d'Urban, but a heavy shower drove me down to my
wee cabin before ten o'clock. Soon after midnight the
rolling of the anchor-chains and the sudden change of motion
from pitching and jumping to the old monotonous roll told us
that we were once more outside a bar, with a heavy sea on,
and that there we must remain until the tug came to fetch
us. But, alas! the tug had to make short work of it next
morning, on account of the unaccommodating state of the
tide, and all our hopes of breakfasting on shore were dashed
by a hasty announcement at 5 A.M. that the tug was
alongside, the mails were rapidly being put on board of her,
and that she could not wait for passengers or anything else,
because ten minutes later there would not be water enough to
float her over the bar.</p>
<p>"When shall <i>we</i> be able to get over the bar?" I asked
dolefully.</p>
<p>"Not until the afternoon," was the prompt and uncompromising
reply, delivered through my keyhole by the authority in charge
of us. And he proved to be quite right; but I am bound to say
the time passed more quickly than we had dared to hope or
expect, for an hour later a bold little fishing-boat made her
way through the breakers and across the bar in the teeth of
wind and rain, bringing F—— on board. He has been
out here these eight months, and looks a walking advertisement
of the climate and temperature of our new home, so absolutely
healthy is his appearance. He is very cheery about liking the
place, and particularly insists on the blooming faces and
sturdy limbs I shall see belonging to the young Natalians.
Altogether, he appears thoroughly happy and contented, liking
his work, his position, everything and everybody; which is all
extremely satisfactory to hear. There is so much to tell and so
much to behold that, as G—— declares, "it is
afternoon directly," and, the signal-flag being up, we trip our
anchor once more and rush at the bar, two quartermasters and an
officer at the wheel, the pilot and captain on the bridge, all
hands on deck and on the alert, for always, under the most
favorable circumstances, the next five minutes hold a peril in
every second, "Stand by for spray!" sings out somebody, and we
do stand by, luckily for ourselves, for "spray" means the top
of two or three waves. The dear little Florence is as plucky as
she is pretty, and appears to shut her eyes and lower her head
and go <i>at</i> the bar. Scrape, scrape, scrape! "We've stuck!
No, we haven't! Helm hard down! Over!" and so we are. Among the
breakers, it is true, buffeted hither and thither, knocked
first to one side and then to the other; but we keep right on,
and a few more turns of the screw take us into calm water under
the green hills of the bluff. The breakers are behind us, we
have twenty fathoms of water under our keel, the voyage is
ended and over, the captain takes off his straw hat to mop his
curly head, everybody's face loses the expression of anxiety
and rigidity it has worn these past ten minutes, and boats
swarm like locusts round the ship. The baby is passed over the
ship's side for the last time, having been well kissed and
petted and praised by every one as he was handed from one to
the other, and we row swiftly away to the low sandy shore of
the "Point."</p>
<p>Only a few warehouses, or rather sheds of warehouses, are to
be seen, and a rude sort of railway-station, which appears to
afford indiscriminate shelter to boats as well as to engines.
There are leisurely trains which saunter into the town of
D'Urban, a mile and a half away, every half hour or so, but one
of these "crawlers" had just started. The sun was very hot, and
we voyagers were all sadly weary and headachy. But the best of
the colonies is the prompt, self-sacrificing kindness of
old-comers to new-comers. A gentleman had driven down in his
own nice, comfortable pony-carriage, and without a moment's
hesitation he insisted on our all getting into it and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363"
id="page363"></a>[pg 363]</span> making the best of our way
to our hotel. It is too good an offer to be refused, for the
sun is hot and the babies are tired to death; so we start,
slowly enough, to plough our way through heavy sand up to
the axles. If the tide had been out we could have driven
quickly along the hard, dry sand; but we comfort ourselves
by remembering that there had been water enough on the bar,
and make the best of our way through clouds of impalpable
dust to a better road, of which a couple of hundred yards
land us at our hotel. It looks bare and unfurnished enough,
in all conscience, but it is a new place, and must be
furnished by degrees. At all events, it is tolerably clean
and quiet, and we can wash our sunburned faces and hands,
and, as nurse says, "turn ourselves round."</p>
<p>Coolies swarm in every direction, picturesque fish- and
fruit-sellers throng the verandah of the kitchen a little way
off, and everything looks bright and green and fresh, having
been well washed by the recent rains. There are still, however,
several feet of dust in the streets, for they are <i>made</i>
of dust; and my own private impression is, that all the water
in the harbor would not suffice to lay the dust of D'Urban for
more than half an hour. With the restlessness of people who
have been cooped up on board ship for a month, we insist, the
moment it is cool enough, on being taken out for a walk.
Fortunately, the public gardens are close at hand, and we amuse
ourselves very well in them for an hour or two, but we are all
thoroughly tired and worn out, and glad to get to bed, even in
gaunt, narrow rooms on hard pallets.</p>
<p>The two following days were spent in looking after and
collecting our cumbrous array of boxes and baskets. Tin baths,
wicker chairs and baskets, all had to be counted and recounted,
until one got weary of the word "luggage;" but that is the
penalty of drafting babies about the world. In the intervals of
the serious business of tracing No. 5 or running No. 10 to
earth in the corner of a warehouse, I made many pleasant
acquaintances and received kindest words and notes of welcome
from unknown friends. All this warm-hearted, unconventional
kindness goes far to make the stranger forget his "own people
and his father's house," and feel at once at home amid strange
and unfamiliar scenes. After all, "home" is portable, luckily,
and a welcoming smile and hand-clasp act as a spell to create
it in any place. We also managed, after business-hours, when it
was of no use making expeditions to wharf or custom-house after
recusant carpet-bags, to drive to the Botanic Gardens. They are
extensive and well kept, but seem principally devoted to
shrubs. I was assured that this is the worst time of year for
flowers, as the plants have not yet recovered from the winter
drought. A dry winter and wet summer is the correct atmospheric
fashion here: in winter everything is brown and dusty and dried
up, in summer green and fragrant and well watered. The gardens
are in good order, and I rather regretted not being able to
examine them more thoroughly. Another afternoon we drove to the
Berea, a sort of suburban Richmond, where the rich
semi-tropical vegetation is cleared away in patches, and villas
with pretty pleasure-grounds are springing up in every
direction. The road winds up the luxuriantly-clothed slopes,
with every here and there lovely sea-views of the harbor, with
the purpling lights of the Indian Ocean stretching away beyond.
Every villa must have an enchanting prospect from its front
door, and one can quite understand how alluring to the
merchants and business—men of D'Urban must be the idea of
getting away after office-hours, and sleeping on such; high
ground in so fresh and healthy an: atmosphere. And here I must
say that we Maritzburgians (I am only one in prospective) wage
a constant and deadly warfare with the D'Urbanites on the score
of the health and convenience of our respective cities.
<i>We</i> are two thousand feet above the sea and fifty-two
miles inland, so we talk in a pitying tone of the poor
D'Urbanites as dwellers in a very hot and unhealthy place.
"Relaxing" is the word we apply to their climate when we want
to be particularly nasty, and they retaliate by reminding
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364"
id="page364"></a>[pg 364]</span> us that they are ever so
much older than we are (which is an advantage in a colony),
and that they are on the coast, and can grow all manner of
nice things which we cannot compass, to say nothing of their
climate being more equable than ours, and their
thunderstorms, though longer in duration, mere flashes in
the pan compared to what we in our amphitheatre of hills
have to undergo at the hands of the electric current. We
never can find answer to that taunt, and if the D'Urbanites
only follow up their victory by allusions to their abounding
bananas and other fruits, their vicinity to the shipping,
and consequent facility of getting almost anything quite
easily, we are completely silenced, and it is a wonder if we
retain presence of mind enough to murmur "Flies." On the
score of dust we are about equal, but I must in fairness
confess that D'Urban is a more lively and a better-looking
town than Maritzburg when you are in it, though the effect
from a distance is not so good. It is very odd how unevenly
the necessaries of existence are distributed in this
country. Here at D'Urban anything hard in the way of stone
is a treasure: everything is soft and friable: sand and
finest shingle, so fine as to be mere dust, are all the
available material for road-making. I am told that later on
I shall find that a cartload of sand in Maritzburg is indeed
a rare and costly thing: there we are all rock, a sort of
flaky, slaty rock underlying every place. Our last day, or
rather half day, in D'Urban was very full of sightseeing and
work. F—— was extremely anxious for me to see
the sun rise from the signal-station on the bluff, and
accordingly he, G—— and I started with the
earliest dawn. We drove through the sand again in a hired
and springless Cape cart down to the Point, got into the
port-captain's boat and rowed across a little strip of sand
at the foot of a winding path cut out of the dense
vegetation which makes the bluff such a refreshingly green
headland to eyes of wave-worn voyagers. A stalwart Kafir
carried our picnic basket, with tea and milk, bread and
butter and eggs, up the hill, and it was delightful to
follow the windings of the path through beautiful bushes
bearing strange and lovely flowers, and knit together in
patches in a green tangle by the tendrils of a convolvulus
or clematis, or sort of wild, passion-flower, whose blossoms
were opening to the fresh morning air. It was a cool but
misty morning, and though we got to our destination in ample
time, there was never any sunrise at all to be seen. In
fact, the sun steadily declined to get up the whole day, so
far as I knew, for the sea looked gray and solemn and
sleepy, and the land kept its drowsy mantle of haze over its
flat shore; which haze thickened and deepened into a Scotch
mist as the morning wore on. We returned by the leisurely
railway—a railway so calm and stately in its method of
progression that it is not at all unusual to see a passenger
step calmly out of the train when it is at its fullest speed
of crawl, and wave his hand to his companions as he
disappears down the by-path leading to his little home. The
passengers are conveyed at a uniform rate of sixpence a
head, which sixpence is collected promiscuously by a small
boy at odd moments during the journey. There are no nice
distinctions of class, either, for we all travel amicably
together in compartments which are a judicious mixture of a
third-class carriage and a cattle-truck. Of course, wood is
the only fuel used, and that but sparingly, for it is
exceedingly costly.</p>
<p>There was still much to be done by the afternoon—many
visitors to receive, notes to write and packages to arrange,
for our traveling of these fifty-two miles spreads itself over
a good many hours, as you will see. About three o'clock the
government mule-wagon came to the door. It may truly and
literally be described as "stopping the way," for not only is
the wagon itself a huge and cumbrous machine, but it is drawn
by eight mules in pairs, and driven by a couple of black
drivers. I say "driven by a couple of drivers," because the
driving was evidently an affair of copartnership: one held the
reins—such elaborate reins as they were! a confused
tangle of leather—and the other had the care of two or
three whips of differing lengths. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365"
id="page365"></a>[pg 365]</span> drivers were both jet
black—not Kafirs, but Cape blacks—descendants of
the old slaves taken by the Dutch. They appeared to be great
friends, these two, and took earnest counsel together at
every rut and drain and steep pinch of the road, which
stretched away, over hill and dale, before us, a broad red
track, with high green hedges on either hand. Although the
rain had not yet fallen long or heavily, the ditches were
all running freely with red, muddy water, and the dust had
already begun to cake itself into a sticky, pasty red clay.
The wagon was shut in by curtains at the back and sides, and
could hold eight passengers easily. Luckily for the poor
mules, however, we were only five grown-up people, including
the drivers. The road was extremely pretty, and the town
looked very picturesque as we gradually rose above it and
looked down on it and the harbor together. Of a fine, clear
afternoon it would have been still nicer, though I was much
congratulated on the falling rain on account of the absence
of its alternative—dust. Still, it was possible to
have too much of a good thing, and by the time we reached
Pine Town, only fourteen miles away, the heavy roads were
beginning to tell on the poor mules, and the chill damp of
the closing evening made us all only too thankful to get
under the shelter of a roadside inn (or hotel, as they are
called here), which was snug and bright and comfortable
enough to be a credit to any colony. It seemed the most
natural thing in the world to be told that this inn was not
only a favorite place for people to come out to from D'Urban
to spend their holiday time in fine weather (there is a
pretty little church in the village hard by), but also that
it was quite <i>de rigueur</i> for all honeymoons to be
spent amid its pretty scenery.</p>
<p>A steady downpour of rain all through the night made our
early start next day an affair of doubt and discouragement and
dismal prophecy; but we persevered, and accomplished another
long stage through a cold persistent drizzle before reaching an
inn, where we enjoyed simply the best breakfast I ever tasted,
or at all events the best I have tasted in Natal. The mules
were also unharnessed, and after taking, each, a good roll on
the damp grass, turned out in the drizzling rain for a rest and
a nibble until their more substantial repast was ready. The
rain cleared up from time to time, but an occasional heavy
shower warned us that the weather was still sulky. It was in
much better heart and spirits, however, that we made a second
start about eleven o'clock, and struggled on through heavy
roads up and down weary hills, slipping here, sliding there,
and threatening to stick everywhere. Our next stage was to a
place where the only available shelter was a filthy inn, at
which we lingered as short a time as practicable—only
long enough, in fact, to feed the mules—and then, with
every prospect of a finer afternoon, set out once more on the
last and longest stage of our journey. All the way the road has
been very beautiful, in spite of the shrouding mist, especially
at the Inchanga Pass, where round the shoulder of the hill as
fair a prospect of curved green hills, dotted with clusters of
timber exactly like an English park, of distant ranges rising
in softly-rounded outlines, with deep violet shadows in the
clefts and pale green lights on the slopes, stretches before
you as the heart of painter could desire. Nestling out of sight
amid this rich pasture-land are the kraals of a large Kafir
location, and no one can say that these, the children of the
soil, have not secured one of the most favored spots. To me it
all looked like a fair mirage. I am already sick of beholding
all this lovely country lying around, and yet of being told
that food and fuel are almost at famine-prices. People say,
"Oh, but you should see it in winter. <i>Now</i> it is green,
and there is plenty of feed on it, but three months ago no
grass-eating creature could have picked up a living on all the
country-side. It is all as brown and bare as parchment for half
the year. <i>This</i> is the spring." Can you not imagine how
provoking it is to hear such statements made by old settlers,
who know the place only too well, and to find out that all the
radiant beauty which greets the traveler's eye is illusive, for
in many places there are
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366"
id="page366"></a>[pg 366]</span> miles and miles without a
drop of water for the flock and herds; consequently, there
are no means of transport for all this fuel until the days
of railways? Besides which, through Natal lies the great
highway to the Diamond Fields, the Transvaal and the Free
States, and all the opening-up country beyond; so it is more
profitable to drive a wagon than to till a farm. Every beast
with four legs is wanted to drag building materials or
provisions. The supply of beef becomes daily more precarious
and costly, for the oxen are all "treking," and one hears of
nothing but diseases among animals—"horse sickness,"
pleuro-pneumonia, fowl sickness (I feel it an impertinence
for the poultry to presume to be ill), and even dogs set up
a peculiar and fatal sort of distemper among themselves.</p>
<p>But to return to the last hours of our journey. The mules
struggle bravely along, though their ears are beginning to flap
about any way, instead of being held straight and sharply
pricked forward, and the encouraging cries of "Pull up,
Capting! now then, Blue-bok, hi!" become more and more
frequent: the driver in charge of the whips is less nice in his
choice of a scourge with which to urge on the patient animals,
and whacks them soundly with whichever comes first. The
children have long ago wearied of the confinement and darkness
of the back seats of the hooded vehicle; we are all black and
blue from jolting in and out of deep holes hidden by mud which
occur at every yard; but still our flagging spirits keep pretty
good, for <i>our</i> little Table Mountain has been left
behind, whilst before us, leaning up in one corner of an
amphitheatre of hills, are the trees which mark where
Maritzburg nestles. The mules see it too, and, sniffing their
stables afar off, jog along faster. Only one more rise to pull
up: we turn a little off the high-road, and there, amid a young
plantation of trees, with roses, honeysuckle and
passion-flowers climbing up the posts of the wide verandah, a
fair and enchanting prospect lying at our feet, stands our new
home, with its broad red tiled roof stretching out a friendly
welcome to the tired, belated travelers.</p>
<h2>A SYLVAN SEARCH.</h2>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<h4>I.</h4>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>From tales of rural gods I rose,</p>
<p class="i2">And sought them through the woody
deeps,</p>
<p>Where, held in shadowy, sweet repose,</p>
<p class="i2">The sunshine, like Endymion,
sleeps—</p>
<p>Where murmurous waters softly sing</p>
<p class="i2">To listening branches, bended low,</p>
<p>And tuneful birds on waving wing,</p>
<p class="i2">As Zephyrus, gently come and go.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza"></div>
<div class="stanza">
<h4>II.</h4>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Vainly I sought the gods, yet heard</p>
<p class="i2">Their whispering spirits say to mine,</p>
<p>"Who seeks us finds the forests stirred</p>
<p class="i2">By myriad voices all divine,</p>
<p>And learns that still the mystic spell</p>
<p class="i2">Of fauns and dryads fills the place</p>
<p>With beauty myths have failed to tell—</p>
<p class="i2">One god in every hidden face."</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="author">MARY B.
DODGE.</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page367" id="page367"></a></span>
THE SONGS OF MIRZA-SCHAFFY.</h2>
<p>It was in Vienna during the stormy days of October, 1848.
The sky was lurid with the glow of surrounding conflagrations:
roof and turret were illumined by the glaring reflection of the
sea of fire, while the broad Danube madly stretched forth its
blood-red tongue to the blood-red walls of the city. The
clashing of weapons and rolling of drums resounded through the
streets. Every house became in its turn a fortress, every
window a porthole. During these days of horror there assembled
in the evening at the dwelling of Friedrich Bodenstedt a circle
of friends, who sought in conversation on literary topics some
relief after the agitating experiences of the day.</p>
<p>"Bodenstedt," exclaimed Auerbach on one of these occasions,
"tell us of your adventures in the East. Awake with blithesome
touch the memories of your past: transport us into a new world
where will be dispelled the gloom of the present."</p>
<p>"Yes, do," chimed in the rest, drawing their chairs closer
together.</p>
<p>"Tell us, above all, of your famous teacher, Mirza-Schaffy,"
added Kaufmann.</p>
<p>One usually narrates one's experiences best in a circle of
sympathetic listeners, and even under ordinary circumstances
Bodenstedt was esteemed a good talker. Soon a spirit of
cheerfulness prevailed, and as the friends sat far into the
night, the tumult without, the burning suburbs, the beat of
drums and the firing of cannons were forgotten.</p>
<p>Night after night the friends met—poets, philosophers,
men of learning, artists—and sat, to use Bodenstedt's own
words, "on the carpet of expectation, smoked the pipe of
satisfaction, saw the sunshine of wine sparkle up from the
flask, and fished for words of pearls with the delicate nets of
the ears." The story of Eastern life grew and rounded in its
proportions, and Auerbach, who seemed most of all entranced,
insisted that the source of so fascinating a narrative should
be guided through the "canal of the pen into the sea of
publicity." Bodenstedt demurred, maintaining that the "art-hewn
path from the head to the hand" was far more difficult to
traverse than the natural one from the mouth to the ear.</p>
<p>"Yes, but it leads farther," rejoined Auerbach, "and what
pleases us, who listen, you may rest assured, with critical
ears, cannot fail to please in more extended circles."</p>
<p>Upon this foundation arose that delightful book, <i>A
Thousand and One Days in the Orient</i>, which was the occasion
of one of the most amusing mystifications and controversies
that ever occupied the German literary world.</p>
<p>Friedrich Bodenstedt was born at Peine in Hanover, April 21,
1819. Notwithstanding his precocious intellectuality and
remarkable poetic talents, he was condemned by his parents to a
mercantile career. After a mournful apprenticeship he managed,
however, to escape from this uncongenial employment, and
pursued a course of study at Göttingen, Munich and Berlin,
devoting himself chiefly to philology and history. The year
1840 found him in Moscow as private tutor in the family of
Prince Galitzin, and shortly after he published his first
volume of poetry. Later, he was appointed teacher of languages
at the Tiflis Gymnasium, and the result of his learned
investigations here were given to the world in his <i>People of
Caucasus</i>, in which, however, were wholly thrust into the
background poetical reminiscences evoked, as we have seen, by
gifted and genial friends.</p>
<p>During his sojourn in Tiflis, the mountain-encompassed
capital of Georgia, Bodenstedt undertook the study of the
Tartar language, finding it to be a universally-employed means
of communication with the many-tongued races of Caucasus. Among
the numerous teachers recommended to him, he selected one
called <span class="pagenum"><a name="page368"
id="page368"></a>[pg 368]</span> Mirza-Schaffy, "the wise
man of Gjändsha," being attracted to him partly because
of his calm, dignified demeanor, partly because he possessed
a sufficient knowledge of Russian, with which Bodenstedt was
perfectly familiar, to render intercourse easy and
agreeable.</p>
<p>Here it may not be amiss to observe that "Mirza" is a title
which placed before a proper name signifies
"scribe"—after a name it designates a prince. Thus,
Mirza-Schaff[^y] means "Scribe Schaffy," but
Schaffy-Mirzâ would mean "Prince Schaffy." Each word,
when pronounced separately, has the accent on the last
syllable, but together they are pronounced as one word, with
the accent on the final syllable.</p>
<p>The Tartars possess no such brilliant stores of literature
as the Persians, but they are endowed with a manly vigor which
the latter have lost. Mirza-Schaffy was a Tartar by birth,
nurtured with Persian culture, and was, when Bodenstedt made
his acquaintance, in December, 1843, a man of some forty years
of age, of very stately appearance and excessive neatness. He
wore a soft silken suit, about which he carelessly draped a
blue Turkish cloak, while a tall black sheep-skin hat of
sugar-loaf form adorned his shapely head. A dark, well-tended
beard framed his handsomely chiseled face, whose calm, earnest
expression was heightened by the deep, rich hue of his
complexion, and his large, serious eyes were void of the usual
cunning of his class. His high-heeled slippers, whose purity he
miraculously preserved unimpaired when mud was at its height in
the streets of Tiflis, he left always at the threshold of his
pupil's room, pressing carpet and divan only with his
immaculate variegated stockings.</p>
<p>But Mirza-Schaffy's main charm lay in his thorough
genuineness, his earnestness of purpose and the tranquillity of
his whole being. Misfortune and sorrow had visited him in many
forms, leaving their impress on his brow, yet he had not been
crushed; and thoroughly as he appreciated the refined
enjoyments of life, he could most gracefully renounce luxuries
attainable only by Fortune's favorites. So long as he could
have his <i>tschibuq</i> filled with good tobacco and his
goblet with good wine, both of which were plentiful in Tiflis,
he seemed content with the entire dispensation of the world.
Highly as he prized, however, the beneficent effects of wine,
he was an enemy to excess, having made moderation in all things
the law of his life.</p>
<p>The whole atmosphere surrounding the man produced a deep and
lasting impression on Bodenstedt, who, longing to immortalize
the name of one who had unfolded to him the treasures of
Eastern lore, and from whom he had derived so much pleasure and
profit, conceived the idea of representing his teacher in his
public characterization with poetic freedom, as a type of the
Eastern poet and man of learning. Poet, Mirza-Schaffy was not
in reality, for although he was skilled in the art of rhyming,
and could translate with ease any simple song from the Persian
into the Tartar language, Bodenstedt found only one of his
original efforts which was worthy of preservation. The song
referred to was one hurled, as it were, at the head of an
offending mullah who had derided Mirza-Schaffy for his
tenderness to wine, and reads as follows:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Mullah! pure is our wine:</p>
<p class="i2">It to revile were sin.</p>
<p>Shouldst thou censure my word,</p>
<p class="i2">May'st find truth therein!</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>No devotion hath me</p>
<p class="i2">To thy mosque led to pray:</p>
<p>Through wine render'd free,</p>
<p class="i2">I have chanced there to stray.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>All other poems introduced into the <i>Thousand and One Days
in the Orient</i> are entirely of Bodenstedt's own composition,
were designed to add flavor to the picture of an Eastern divan
of wisdom, and were usually written while the impression was
fresh of intercourse with the wise man of Gjändsha.
Shortly after the appearance of the book, which was well
received by the public, the publisher proposed to Bodenstedt to
issue separately the poems contained in it; and this was
finally done in an attractive volume entitled <i>The Songs of
Mirza-Schaffy</i>, many additions being made to the original
collection. Of these, one of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369"
id="page369"></a>[pg 369]</span> most fresh and sparkling is
a spring song, which has never before appeared in English,
and which we present as a fitting introduction:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>When young Spring up mountain-peaks doth hie,</p>
<p class="i2">And the sunbeams scatter stores of
snow—</p>
<p>When the trees put forth their leaflets shy,</p>
<p class="i2">And amid grass the first wild flower doth
blow—</p>
<p class="i4">When in yonder vale</p>
<p class="i4">Fleeth in a gale</p>
<p class="i2">All the dolesome rain and wintry
wail,</p>
<p class="i4">Rings from upland air</p>
<p class="i6">Forth to many a clime,</p>
<p class="i4">"Oh, how wond'rous fair</p>
<p class="i6">Is the glad spring-time!"</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>When the glaciers quail 'neath hot sunbeams,</p>
<p class="i2">And all Nature into life doth
spring—</p>
<p>When from mountain-sides gush forth cool
streams,</p>
<p class="i2">And with sounds of glee the forests
ring—</p>
<p class="i4">Fragrant zephyrs too</p>
<p class="i4">Stray the green meads through</p>
<p class="i2">And the heavens smile, serene and
blue.</p>
<p class="i4">While from upland air</p>
<p class="i6">Rings to many a clime,</p>
<p class="i4">"Oh, how wond'rous fair</p>
<p class="i6">Is the glad spring-time!"</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>And was it not in the days of spring</p>
<p class="i2">That thy heart and mine, O maiden
fair!</p>
<p>Were united, while our lips did cling</p>
<p class="i2">In their first long kiss, so sweet and
rare?</p>
<p class="i4">What the glad grove sang</p>
<p class="i4">Through the wide vale rang,</p>
<p class="i2">And the fresh stream from the mountain
sprang.</p>
<p class="i4">While the upland air</p>
<p class="i6">Wafted forth its rhyme,</p>
<p class="i4">"Oh, how wond'rous fair</p>
<p class="i6">Is the glad spring-time!"</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Seldom has a volume of poems been received with more general
applause. Their renown spread rapidly through their native
land; constantly increasing demand for copies rendered needful
frequent new editions, to which at divers times were added by
the author freshly-created poems; and the interest is still
alive, now nearly quarter of a century after their first
appearance, when they have passed their fiftieth edition. They
have been at one time or other translated into most of the
modern tongues of Europe; and that they have never gained
popularity with us is due probably to the fact that in those
which have been translated into our tongue neither the essence
nor the form of the original has been preserved. By the title
no mystification was ever designed: it came, as it were, of
itself, and the purport of the narrative through which the main
songs were interwoven being well known, it was never, supposed
that a doubt concerning the authorship could arise.
Nevertheless, the critics accepted them as translations from
the Persian, and sharp lines of distinction were drawn between
the poet, Mirza-Schaffy, and his translator, Friedrich
Bodenstedt, not precisely to the advantage of the latter. Many
a hearty laugh did Bodenstedt indulge in on reading in one or
another learned dissertation that he was the possessor of a
very neat poetic talent, and frequently reminded one in his
original compositions of the works of his genial teacher,
Mirza-Schaffy, of which he had given admirable translations,
though without attaining to the excellence of the original.
Now, a poet, in the wildest flights of his imagination, could
not hope for a more brilliant success for the poetic fiction of
his own creation than to have it accepted by the world as a
living reality. In this he would naturally delight, even though
his own personality were for a time thrust into the background,
precisely like a loving father whose children meet with better
fortune in life than himself. Sundry renditions into foreign
tongues were even announced as direct translations from the
Persian.</p>
<p>After the death of the real Mirza-Schaffy in 1852, which was
duly announced by the press, sundry efforts were made by
Eastern travelers to visit his grave in Tiflis and gain those
particulars concerning him and his writings which Bodenstedt
was supposed to have selfishly withheld from the public. Of
these, one of the most prominent was Professor H. Brugsch,
secretary of the Prussian embassy to Persia in 1860, who in his
book of travels thus descants on his futile efforts: "No one
could inform us where the last earthly remains of a certain
Mirza-Schaffy were laid to rest. We consoled ourselves with the
reflection that neither mounds nor monuments are requisite to
preserve a poet's fame, but that through his songs is his name
transmitted to posterity. Yet even here we were doomed to
disappointment. No one whom we encountered knew aught of the
songs of the jovial, genial Mirza-Schaffy which in our German
Fatherland <span class="pagenum"><a name="page370"
id="page370"></a>[pg 370]</span> have penetrated to the very
life of the people."</p>
<p>Some years later the Russian imperial state counselor
Bergé, while chief of educational institutions in
Caucasus, also made the matter a subject of investigation, and
in the year 1870 gave the history thereof to the world in the
<i>Journal of the German Oriental Society</i>. He tells of his
vain efforts to learn something of the genius of Mirza-Schaffy
in his own land, and the amusement he created by his queries
concerning possible posthumous works, and finally settles the
question beyond dispute concerning the authorship of the
poems.</p>
<p>After this, Bodenstedt yielded to the solicitations of
friends to give in the pages of the popular German magazine
<i>Daheim</i> a correct version of the whole affair.</p>
<p>Let the reader present to his mind's eye a picture of the
Eastern scribe, clad in the apparel before described, seated on
the comfortable divan, with legs crossed after the fashion of
the country, the long <i>tschibuq</i> caressingly held in one
hand, the other uplifted, and with finger pointed to his brow,
haranguing the German man of letters at his side on the
advantages to be enjoyed under his tuition, and on the idle
pretensions of those who call themselves learned without so
much as comprehending the sacred languages. He cherished,
however, the pious hope that in the course of time, thanks to
his efforts, the enlightenment of the East might take effect in
the West, which hope was strengthened by the encouraging fact
that Bodenstedt was the fifth scholar who had felt the need of
migrating to Tiflis to profit by his instructions. In his
excess of national modesty the wise man of Gjändsha only
styled himself the first wise man of the East, but since the
children of the West dwelt under a dark cloud of unbelief, it
resulted as a matter of course that he must be the wisest of
all men.</p>
<p>"I, Mirza-Schaffy," said he to his pupil, "am the first wise
man of the East, consequently thou, as my disciple, art the
second. But misunderstand me not. I have a friend, Omar
Effendi, an extremely wise man, who verily is not third among
the learned scribes of the land. Did not I live, and were Omar
Effendi thy teacher, he would be first, and thou the second
wise man."</p>
<p>On being asked what he should do if told that the wise men
of the West would consider him as deficient in enlightenment as
he did them, he rejoined, "What could I do but be amazed at
their folly? What new thing can I learn from their opinions
when they merely repeat my own?" Hence the song:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Shall I laugh or fall to wailing</p>
<p class="i2">That the most of men so dumb are,</p>
<p>Ever borrowed thoughts retailing,</p>
<p class="i2">And in mother-wit so mum are?</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>No: thanksgiving heavenward rise</p>
<p class="i2">That fools so crowd this generation,</p>
<p>Else the wisdom of the wise</p>
<p class="i2">Would be lost to observation.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Numerous rivals envied Mirza-Schaffy his lessons, for each
of which he was paid a whole silver ruble—an unusually
high tuition-fee. Most formidable among these was Mirza-Jussuf
(Joseph), the wise man of Bagdad, who called one day on
Bodenstedt and boldly informed him that the revered
Mirza-Schaffy was an Ischekj ("an ass") among the bearers of
wisdom—that he could not write properly, and could not
sing at all. "And what is wisdom without song?" he exclaimed.
"What is Mirza-Schaffy compared with me?" With bewildering
eloquence he set forth his own superior accomplishments,
dwelling largely on his name, which had been exalted by the
Hebrew poet Moses as well as by the Persian poet Hafiz, and
exerting himself to prove that the significance of a great name
must be transmitted to all future bearers thereof. He was still
speaking when a measured tread was heard in the ante-chamber,
and Mirza-Schaffy himself drew near. He appeared to comprehend
intuitively the cause of the guest's presence, for he cast on
Jussuf, who had become suddenly stricken with modesty, a glance
of withering contempt, and was about giving vent to his
emotions when Bodenstedt interposed with the words,
"Mirza-Schaffy, wise man of Gjändsha, what have my ears
heard? You undertake to instruct me, and you can neither write
nor sing! You are an <span class="pagenum"><a name="page371"
id="page371"></a>[pg 371]</span> Ischekj among the bearers
of wisdom: thus sayeth Mirza-Jussuf, the wise man of
Bagdad."</p>
<p>Without deigning a word of reply, Mirza-Schaffy clapped his
hands, a sign at which the servant usually brought him a fresh
pipe, but this time he demanded his thick-soled slippers. With
one of these he proceeded to so unmercifully belabor the wise
man of Bagdad that the latter besought mercy with the most
appealing words and gestures. But the chastiser was inexorable.
"What?" said he. "I cannot sing, dost thou say? Wait, I will
make music for thee! And I cannot write, either? Let it be,
then, on thy head!" Whimpering and writhing beneath the blows
accompanying these words, the wise man of Bagdad staggered
toward the door and vanished from sight.</p>
<p>More calmly than might have been anticipated did
Mirza-Schaffy return from the contest of wisdom, and promptly
taking his usual seat on the divan, he began to exhort his
German disciple to lend no ear to such false teachers as Jussuf
and his fellows, whose name, he said, was legion, whose avarice
was greater than their wisdom, and whose aim was to plunder,
not teach, their pupils.</p>
<p>Later, Jussuf strove to win Bodenstedt by repeated messages,
accompanied by songs in the most exquisite handwriting.
Mirza-Schaffy's opinion concerning these compositions is
embodied in quite a number of songs, of which space must be
found for one:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Forsooth! is Mirza-Jussuf a very well-read man!</p>
<p>Now searcheth he Hafiz, now searcheth the Koran,</p>
<p>Now Dshamy and Chakany, and now the
<i>Gülistan</i>.</p>
<p>Here stealeth he a symbol, and there doth steal a
flower,</p>
<p>Here robbeth precious thoughts, and there a true
word's power.</p>
<p>He giveth as his own what has been said before,</p>
<p>Transplanted! the whole world into his tedious
lore;</p>
<p>And proudly decketh he his prey with borrowed
plumes,</p>
<p>Then flauntingly that this is poetry assumes.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>How differently lives and sings Mirza-Schaffy!</p>
<p>A glowing star his heart to lighten paths of
gloom,</p>
<p>His mind a blooming garden, filled with sweet
perfume,</p>
<p>And in his rich creations no plagiarist is he:</p>
<p>His songs are full of beauty, and perfect as can
be.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Mirza-Schaffy himself was a miracle of skill in chirography:
none could equal him in wielding the <i>kalem</i>. His aim was
not to impart a precise regularity to the characters, but to
indicate by the writing the matter and style. Proverbs or
utterances of wisdom were indited by him in a firm, bold hand
with unadorned simplicity; love-songs with delicate, clear-cut
lines, attractive capricious curves, enigmatical, almost
illegible minuteness, designed to set forth the type of female
character. The chirography of the songs to wine and earthly
pleasure is full of fire and flourish—that of the songs
of lamentation neat, legible and unadorned. To impart this
skill to his pupil was one of his most earnest endeavors.</p>
<p>One day, when inspired by choice wine and soothed by the
fragrant fumes of his <i>tschibuq</i>, Mirza-Schaffy was moved
to tell of the love his heart had cherished—love such as
man had never before known. The object of his adoration was
Zuléikha, daughter of Ibrahim, the chan of
Gjändsha. Her eyes, darker than the night, shone with a
brighter glow than the stars of heaven: passing description
were the graceful loveliness of her form, the dainty perfection
of hands and feet, her soft hair long as eternity, and the
sweet mouth whose breath was more fragrant than the roses of
Schiraz. He who was destined to be her slave had watched her
daily for six months—as she sat on the housetop at midday
with her companions, or on moonlight evenings when she amused
herself with the dancing of her slaves—before he received
so much as a sign that she deemed him worthy of her regard. He
rejoiced in the splendor of her countenance, but dared no more
approach her than the sun in whose warm rays he might bask. By
day he was compelled to exercise the utmost caution, as his
life would have been in jeopardy had Ibrahim Chan descried him
casting loving looks at Zuléikha, but in the evening he
was safe to draw attention to himself, as after eight o'clock
the old man never crossed his threshold. Then the flames of the
lover's heart burst into song, and he gave utterance to a
<i>ghazel</i> now of <span class="pagenum"><a name="page372"
id="page372"></a>[pg 372]</span> Hafiz, now of Firdusa,
while still more frequently he sang his own songs.</p>
<p>Finally, Ibrahim Chan set forth on an expedition against the
enemies of Moscow, and thus was afforded a rare opportunity for
the enamored Mirza to present himself and his songs to the fair
one's notice. One dark evening, when the ladies had failed to
appear on the housetop, as Mirza-Schaffy was turning
disappointed away he was accosted by a closely-veiled female,
who, bidding him follow her, led the way to a secluded spot
where interruption would be improbable, and thus addressed him:
"I am Fatima, the confidential attendant of Zuléikha. My
mistress hath gazed on thee with the eye of satisfaction. The
resonance of thy voice hath delighted her ear, the purport of
thy songs touched her heart. I am come of my own accord,
without my lady's bidding, to let thee drink hope from the
fountain of my words, because I wish thee well."</p>
<p>"Has, then, Zuléikha not closed her ear to the
poorest of her slaves?" exclaimed the overjoyed Mirza. "And
will my heart not be lacerated by the thorn of her displeasure?
Allah min! Allah bir! The God of thousands is one only God!
Great is His goodness and wonderful are His ways! What have I
done that He hath guided the stream of my songs to the sea of
beauty?"</p>
<p>Fatima told him he did well to prize the merciful goodness
of Allah and the loveliness of her mistress, who was a "jewel
in the ring of beauty, a pearl in the shell of fortune." Her
noble lady, she said, would have given token of her favor
before had not her virtuous modesty exceeded her beauty, and
had she not feared the displeasure of her father, who tenderly
loved her and would never consent to her stooping to a poor
mirza. Then she proceeded to tell how Achmed Chan of Avaria,
who was at the war with Ibrahim Chan, was suing for
Zuléikha's hand, which was promised by the father should
he return triumphant from the campaign. This would render
prompt action desirable, and Fatima suggested that
Mirza-Schaffy should appear on the following evening, when the
call to prayer resounded from the minaret, before the garden
with his choicest offering of song, to which, the messenger was
ready to wager, would be accorded a rosebud. Intoxicated with
joy, Mirza-Schaffy bestowed on the friendly Fatima his purse,
his watch and all the valuables about him, also promising a
talisman to cure a black spot on her left cheek; and they
parted with the understanding that they should meet, again for
further communication.</p>
<p>And here, in exemplification of the learned scribe's
rejoinders to his pupil's queries concerning the significance
of the thorn of displeasure and the rosebud, is introduced the
song:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>The thorn is token of rejection,</p>
<p class="i2">Of disapproval and of scorn:</p>
<p>If she to union hath objection,</p>
<p class="i2">She giveth me as sign a thorn.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Yet if, instead, the maiden throws me</p>
<p class="i2">A tender rosebud as a token,</p>
<p>That fate propitious is it shows me,</p>
<p class="i2">And bids me wait with faith unbroken.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>But if a full-blown rose she tenders,</p>
<p class="i2">Its open chalice is a token</p>
<p>Which boldest hope in me engenders;</p>
<p class="i2">Through it her love is clearly
spoken.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>On the ensuing evening Mirza-Schaffy presented himself
promptly at the appointed place, prepared with a love-song
which he knew none of womankind could resist. The evening was
calm and clear, and on the housetop, alone with Fatima, was
plainly discernible Zuléikha, her veil slightly drawn
aside in token of favor. Taking courage, the enamored Mirza
pushed back his cap in order to display his freshly shaven
head, of whose whiteness he was excessively proud, and which he
felt to be irresistible to maidens' eyes, and began to sing his
song, having first cast a written copy folded about a double
almond-kernel, as a keepsake at the feet of beauty. The song
given at this point is excessively flowery, and declares the
maiden's eyes to be brighter than those of the wild gazelle,
her form more ethereal than the slender pine, and pronounces
the wooer, his heart and his tuneful lay to be but slaves of
her loveliness. This by way of preparation, the highest point
of the offering being the concluding
stanzas:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page373" id="page373"></a>[pg 373]</span>
</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>With faithful heart and hopefully</p>
<p class="i2">Approach I now Love's sacred bower,</p>
<p>And cast this wistful song at thee,</p>
<p class="i2">This fragrant song, as
question-flower.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Accept with joy or scornfully,</p>
<p class="i2">Give my heart death or consolation,</p>
<p>Cast rosebud, rose, or thorn at me,</p>
<p class="i2">I humbly wait thy revelation.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Smilingly the maiden cast a rosebud at her waiting suitor,
and for the first time fully displayed to him her beauteous
face. From this moment new life dawned on our Mirza, and for
six weeks he basked in the sunshine of felicity ere threatening
clouds loomed up in his horizon. Then Ibrahim Chan returned
from the war, and with him came his daughter's suitor. A troop
of horsemen had been despatched to Avaria for the bridal gift,
and on their return they were to conduct Achmed Chan and his
chosen lady home. Prize combats and festivities were planned to
celebrate the return of the heroes, and at Zuléikha's
request a singing festival was likewise to take place. All the
singers of the land were invited and bidden to prepare their
choicest lays extolling the sovereign lady of the fête:
to the victorious competitor would be accorded the right to
break the instruments of his opponents.</p>
<p>Now was the time for Mirza-Schaffy to gather all his
courage, for he knew the crisis of his destiny to be at hand.
He arranged with Fatima that the day of the singing festival
should be likewise that of his flight with Zuléikha, for
he was troubled with no doubt concerning the success of his
lyrical efforts. An Armenian who was about setting forth with a
caravan was confided in, and engaged to reserve camels for and
accord protection to the fugitives.</p>
<p>The minutes seemed like days, the hours like years, until
the announcement was heralded that Ibrahim Chan had sallied
forth with his guests to the prize combat, and that the ladies
awaited the minstrels. They were assembled on the housetop,
lovely matrons and maidens, and there was spread a large carpet
on which set two players on the <i>sass</i> and
<i>tshengir</i>, between whom each singer in turn took his
place to sing his offering to the sound of strings. The
handsomest boy in Gjändsha was appointed to hand to each
singer a silver plate, wherewith to conceal from the eye of
beauty the emotions depicted in his countenance while singing.
Twenty singers stood in a circle and stepped forth one after
the other, Mirza-Schaffy, as the youngest of the number, coming
last. All other emanations he felt to be faint sparks in
comparison with the fire of his own. How could it be otherwise,
considering the source of his inspiration? As he sang his heart
swelled with ecstasy, and when he concluded there lay at his
feet a full-blown rose. He was victor of the festival, yet so
filled was he with thoughts of his beloved that he remembered
not to break the instruments of the vanquished.</p>
<p>The flight was effected; the bride, although awaiting the
coming of the bridegroom in bridal array, offering all due
resistance as he led her from her home; indeed, so zealous was
she to be faithful to the customs of her country that her cries
would have roused the household had not the prudent Fatima
interposed. On reaching the caravan a double security seemed to
arise from the Armenian proving to be the accepted lover of
Fatima; and Zuléikha, although deeming it a degradation
for a daughter of Ali to unite her destinies with an
unbeliever, was herself too strongly in the bondage of love to
withhold her consent. Then how happy were they all! and what
precautions were taken for their safety! Nevertheless, they
were overtaken by the angry father and the outraged suitor of
his choice. Zuléikha and Fatima were rudely snatched
from the protection of their lovers, and the learned
scribe—we blush to write it—received on the very
soles which had borne him to the summit of bliss the
ignominious blows of the bastinado.</p>
<p>From that day Mirza-Schaffy had felt indisposed to bestow
his affections on mortal woman, and since the sun of his hopes
had set dwelt serenely in the moonlight of remembrance. As
Zuléikha, the embodiment of all virtue and beauty, had
loved him, he believed himself to be an object of adoration to
all feminine hearts, and grimly resolved that all
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374"
id="page374"></a>[pg 374]</span> womankind must suffer in
expiation of his own sufferings.</p>
<p>During the winter there arrived another student from
Germany, who, becoming acquainted with Bodenstedt, arranged to
share with him the lessons in Tartar and Persian, which
Mirza-Schaffy was pleased to call "hours of wisdom." In course
of time other friends joined the circle, so that finally arose
a formal divan, where the wise man of Gjändsha discoursed
less on personalities, dwelling chiefly on general effusions of
wisdom, interspersed with many a song. One of the latter reads
as though designed by Bodenstedt to indicate the relation borne
by Mirza-Schaffy to his own productions:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Thou art of my song the begetter;</p>
<p class="i2">Its drapery putteth my wand on;</p>
<p>Thou yieldest the purest of marble,</p>
<p class="i2">And I lay the sculpturing hand on.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Thou givest the spirit, the essence:</p>
<p class="i2">Me for utt'rance alone mak'st demand
on—</p>
<p>Oft my power's deficient, and madly</p>
<p class="i2">Thy crude thoughts I haste to expand
on.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>Sundry songs extolling the beneficence of wine and earthly
pleasure arose at this period. Of these we find none more
attractive than that which owed its origin to a conversation
held in the divan of wisdom concerning certain Russians and
Georgians who drank wine more freely than the camels drank
water, yet had gained no inspiration therefrom:</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>From wine's fiery fascination</p>
<p class="i2">From the goblet's mystic pleasure,</p>
<p>Poison foams, and sweet refreshment,</p>
<p>Beauty flows, and degradation,</p>
<p class="i2">As the drinker's worth may measure,</p>
<p>According to his brain's assessment.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>In debasement deeply sunken</p>
<p class="i2">Lies the fool, through wine's might
captur'd:</p>
<p>When <i>he</i> drinks becomes he drunken;</p>
<p class="i2">When <i>we</i> drink we are
enraptured.</p>
<p class="i2">Sparkling gleams of wit, worth
dreaming,</p>
<p class="i2">Flash from tongues like angel's
seeming,</p>
<p class="i2">And with ardor we are teeming,</p>
<p>And alone with beauty drunken.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Well resembles wine the shower</p>
<p class="i2">Which to mire fresh mire amasses,</p>
<p>But to fair fields brings a dower</p>
<p class="i2">Rich in blessing as it passes.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>One evening Bodenstedt discovered his worthy teacher singing
before a house on whose roof sat a graceful maiden, and from
the man's whole manner then and thereafter concluded that in
the long-faithful heart had been at last replaced the image of
Zuléikha. And so it proved. On the very evening when he
was returning home with softened heart after the recital of the
joys and sorrows of his first love, Mirza-Schaffy's attention
had been arrested by a lovely maiden who, as he pushed back his
cap—solely, of course, to cool his heated brow—gave
incontestable evidences of being smitten with him. When he went
to his couch that night sleep refused to visit his eyelids, and
as he restlessly tossed to and fro, the image of
Zuléikha haunting him with reproachful mien, his
thoughts turned ever to the peerless maiden who menaced further
fidelity to the old love. Ere morning dawned he had resolved to
break the spell, and for several days avoided the locality of
the fair enticer. But the attraction became finally too strong
to resist. He went, he saw the maiden, and she bestowed on him
a glance which rendered him her slave for life;</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>A wond'rous glance hath met my eyes:</p>
<p class="i2">The magic of this moment rare</p>
<p>Worketh for aye a fresh surprise,</p>
<p class="i2">A miracle beyond compare.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>A question, therefore, ask I thee—</p>
<p class="i2">Pay heed, sweet life whom I
adore—</p>
<p>Was that fond glance bestowed on me?</p>
<p class="i2">A token give, then, I implore.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>And round thee could my strong arm cling,</p>
<p class="i2">Might I to thee life consecrate,</p>
<p>Loud jubilees my heart would sing,</p>
<p class="i2">And these to thee I'd dedicate.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>The first interview presents decidedly a comical side. By a
confidential attendant Mirza-Schaffy was introduced on the roof
disguised in female costume, his face and flowing beard
modestly covered with a long veil. Luckily, he was not doomed
long to such undignified concealment, for he soon managed,
through his beauty and genius, to win favor in the eyes of the
lady's mother, and she promised to intercede in his behalf with
the stern old father. The latter, however, having eyes neither
for beauty nor poetry, thought only to demand what means of
support the bold intruder had to offer his daughter, and when
he learned how small these were, withheld his consent until the
suitor could secure a professorship in some institution of
learning. <span class="pagenum"><a name="page375"
id="page375"></a>[pg 375]</span> Although loath to renounce
his freedom, Mirza-Schaffy determined for Hafisa's sake to
make application, as he had often been advised to do, at the
Tiflis Gymnasium for the position of teacher of Tartaric.
But, alas! there was prepared for our poor Mirza a
humiliation second only to the bastinado. His reply was a
portentous document in the Russian language, of which he
could not read a word. Hafisa's father demanded sight of it,
had it interpreted by a learned mullah, and it proved to be
a summons for the applicant to appear at an appointed hour
for examination. This was too much. Mirza-Schaffy, the first
wise man of the East, the pride of his race, the pearl in
the shell of poetry, to be examined in his own language!
Hafisa's father declared his belief that the mirza's wisdom
was as doubtful as his fortune, and the wise man himself
began to wonder whether his wisdom had not gone "pleasuring
in the dusk of the evening." Moreover, during the conference
with the mullah certain revelations came to light concerning
the lack of orthodoxy in the mirza's belief and the frequent
slurs it was his wont to cast on the powerful mullahs; and
this set the old father hopelessly against him, causing him
to revoke all promise of possible consent. Such being the
case, Mirza-Schaffy had no heart to brave the humiliation of
an examination. Shortly after, however, he was honored with
a call to the new school at Gjändsha, and Hafisa's
father dying about the same time, all obstacles were removed
to a union with the maiden of his choice. And so with his
bride he returned to his native place, and felt that the
summit of earthly bliss was attained.</p>
<p>Friedrich Bodenstedt has been a very prolific author, having
published several volumes of poetry, besides numerous romances,
tales and miscellaneous works. He is one of a committee of
poets and men of learning appointed not long since to
retranslate the works of Shakespeare. At present he is adding
to his well-earned laurels through his volume <i>Aus dem
Nachlasse Mirza-Schaffys</i>. The book is divided into seven
parts, the first of which is dedicated to love. Then there are
songs of earthly pleasure, songs of consolation, sayings of
wisdom, stories in rhyme of Eastern romance, a series of
problems and a "bouquet of cypresses and roses."</p>
<p class="author">AUBER FORESTIER.</p>
<h2>TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.</h2>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>Look where a three-point star shall weave his
beam</p>
<p>Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream,</p>
<p>Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seem</p>
<p>Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;</p>
<p>So in this night of art thy soul doth show</p>
<p>Her excellent double in the steadfast flow</p>
<p>Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth
go:</p>
<p>At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below.</p>
<p>E'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky</p>
<p>(Each star must round an arduous orbit fly),</p>
<p>Full calm thine image in our love doth lie,</p>
<p>A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity.</p>
<p>So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st,
serene—</p>
<p>Art's artist, Love's dear woman, Fame's good
queen!</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="author">SIDNEY
LANIER.</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376"></a></span>
CHARLES KINGSLEY: A REMINISCENCE.</h2>
<p>The heat of London in the midsummer of 1857, even to my
American apprehension, was intense. The noise of the streets
oppressed me, and perhaps the sight now and again of
freshly-watered flowers which beautify so many of the
window-ledges, and which seem to flourish and bloom whatever
the weather, filled me the more with a desire for the quiet of
green fields and the refreshing shade of trees. I had just
returned from Switzerland, and the friends with whom I had been
journeying in that land of all perfections had gone back to
their home among the wealds and woods of Essex. I began to feel
that sense of solitude which weighs heavily on a stranger in
the throng of a great city; so that it was with keen pleasure I
looked forward to a visit to Mr. Kingsley. A most kind
invitation had come from him, offering me "a bed and all
hospitality in their plain country fashion."</p>
<p>At four in the afternoon of a hot July day I started for
Winchfield, which is the station on the London and Southampton
Railway nearest to Eversley—a journey of an hour and a
half. I took a fly at Winchfield for Eversley, a distance of
six miles. My way lay over wide silent moors: now and then a
quiet farmstead came in view—<i>moated granges</i> they
might have been—but these were few and far between, this
part of Hampshire being owned in large tracts. It was a little
after six when I drew near to the church and antique brick
dwelling-house adjoining it which were the church and rectory
of Eversley. There were no other houses near, so that it was
evidently a wide and scattered parish. Old trees shaded the
venerable irregularly-shaped parsonage, ivy and creeping plants
covered the walls, and roses peeped out here and there. Mr.
Kingsley himself met me at the open hall-door, and there was
something in his clear and cheerful tone that gave a peculiar
sense of welcome to his greeting. "Very glad to see you," said
he. Then taking my bag from the fly, "Let me show you your room
at once, that you may make yourself comfortable." So, leading
the way, he conducted me up stairs and along a somewhat
intricate passage to a room in the oldest part of the house. It
was a quaint apartment, with leaden casements, a low ceiling,
an uneven floor—a room four hundred years old, as Mr.
Kingsley told me, but having withal a very habitable look. "I
hope you'll be comfortable here," said my host as he turned to
go—"as comfortable as one can be in a cottage. Have you
everything you want? There will be a tea-dinner or a dinner-tea
in about half an hour." Then, as he lingered, he asked, "When
did you see Forster last?"</p>
<p>"Six weeks ago," I said—"in London. He had just
received news of the vacancy at Leeds, and at once determined
to offer himself as the Liberal candidate. He went to Leeds for
this purpose, but subsequently withdrew his name. I gather from
his speech at the banquet his supporters gave him afterward
that this was a mistake, and that if he had stood he would have
been elected."</p>
<p>"Ah," said Kingsley, "I should like to see Forster in
Parliament. He is not the man, however, to make head against
the <i>tracasseries</i> of an election contest."</p>
<p>Some other talk we had, and then he left me, coming back
before long to conduct me to the drawing-room. Two gentlemen
were there—one a visitor who soon took leave; the other,
the tutor to Mr. Kingsley's son. Mrs. Kingsley came in now and
shook hands with me cordially, and I had very soon the sense of
being at one with them all. Our having mutual friends did much
toward this good understanding, but it was partly that we
seemed at once to have so much to talk of on the events of the
day, and on English matters in which I took keen interest.</p>
<p>India was naturally our first subject,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377"
id="page377"></a>[pg 377]</span> and the great and absorbing
question of the mutiny. I told what the London news was in
regard to it, and how serious was the look of things.
Kingsley said there must be great blame somewhere—that
as to the British rule in India, no man could doubt that it
had been a great blessing to the country, but the individual
Englishman had come very far short of his duty in his
dealings with the subject race: a reckoning was sure to
come. <i>Oakfield</i> was mentioned—a story by William
Arnold of which the scene was laid in India, and which
contained evidence of this ill-treatment of the Hindoos by
their white masters. Kingsley spoke highly of this book. I
said I thought it had hardly been appreciated in England.
Kingsley thought the reason was it was too
didactic—there was too much moralizing. Only the few
could appreciate this: the many did not care for it in a
novel.</p>
<p>Our tea-dinner was announced: it was served in the hall.
Mrs. Kingsley spoke laughingly of their being obliged to make
this their dining-room. The talk at the table fell on American
affairs. Sumner's name was mentioned. I said he was in London,
and that I had had a long conversation with him a few days
before. Would I give them his address? they asked: they must
have a visit from him. I said he would be glad to visit them, I
was sure, for when I told him I was coming here he said he
envied me. He was at present engaged in a round of
dinners—expected to go to France in August to stay with
De Tocqueville, but would be again in England in the autumn.
Kingsley spoke of Brooks's death—of the suddenness of it
seeming almost a judgment. I said Brooks, as I happened to
know, was thought a good fellow before the assault—that
he really had good qualities, and was liked even by Northern
men. "So we have heard from others," said Kingsley, "and one
can well believe it. The man who suffers for a bad system is
often the best man—one with attractive qualities."
Charles I. and Louis XVI. were instances he gave to illustrate
this. A recent article in the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> on
slavery was spoken of. I said it had attracted a good deal of
attention with us, because we saw immediately it could only
have been written by an American. Of slavery Mr. Kingsley spoke
in calm and moderate words. I told him his introductory chapter
to <i>Two Years Ago</i> showed that he appreciated the
difficulties with which the question was encumbered. He said it
would be strange if he did not see these difficulties,
considering that he was of West Indian descent (his grandfather
had married a West Indian heiress). He admitted that the result
of emancipation in the West Indies was not encouraging as it
regarded the material condition of the islands, especially of
Jamaica, and he was quite able to understand how powerfully
this fact would weigh on our Southern planters, and how it
tended to close their ears to all anti-slavery argument. They
could hardly be expected to look beyond this test of
sugar-production to the moral progress of the black race which
freedom alone could ensure.</p>
<p>Our pleasant meal being over, we strolled out on the lawn
and sat down under one of the fine old trees, where we
continued our talk about slavery. Mr. Kingsley said he could
quite believe any story he might hear of cruelty practiced upon
slaves. He knew too well his own nature, and felt that under
the influence of sudden anger he would be capable of deeds as
violent as any of which we read. This, of course, was putting
out of view the restraints which religion would impose; but it
was safe for no man to have the absolute control of others.</p>
<p>He left us to go into the house, and Mrs. Kingsley then
spoke of his parochial labors. She wished I could spend a
Sunday with them—"I should so like you to see the
congregation he has. The common farm-laborers come morning and
afternoon: the reason is, he preaches so that they can
understand him. I wish you could have been with us last Sunday,
we had such an interesting person here—Max Müller,
the great linguist and Orientalist. But we can't have pleasant
<i>meets</i> here: we have only one spare
room."</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378"></a>[pg 378]</span>
"How old is Max Müller?" I asked.</p>
<p>"Twenty-eight, and he scarcely looks to be twenty-two."</p>
<p>"How long has Mr. Kingsley been here?" I asked.</p>
<p>"Fifteen years—two years as curate, and then the
living becoming vacant, it was given to him."</p>
<p>She told me a funeral was to take place directly—that
of a poor woman who had been a great sufferer. "Ah, here it
comes," she said.</p>
<p>There was the bier borne on men's shoulders and a little
company of mourners, the peasantry of the neighborhood, the men
wearing smock-frocks. They were awaiting the clergyman at the
lichgate. Mr. Kingsley appeared at the moment in his surplice,
and the procession entered the churchyard, he saying as he
walked in front the solemn sentences with which the service
begins. It was the scene which I had witnessed in another part
of Hampshire some years before, when the author of <i>The
Christian Year</i> was the officiating clergyman. Mrs. Kingsley
and I joined the procession and entered the church. It was a
small, oddly-arranged interior—brick pavements,
high-backed pews, the clerk's desk adjoining the reading-desk,
but a little lower. Mr. Kingsley read the service in a measured
tone, which enabled him to overcome the defect in his utterance
noticeable in conversation. At the grave the rest of the office
was said, and here the grief of the poor mourners overcame
them. The family group consisted of the husband of the
deceased, a grown-up daughter and a son, a boy of fifteen. All
were much moved, but the boy the most. He cried
bitterly—a long wail, as if he could not be comforted.
Mr. Kingsley tried to console him, putting his arm over his
shoulders. He said words of sympathy to the others also. They
went their way over the heath to their desolate home. Mr. and
Mrs. Kingsley spoke of the life of toil which had thus ended,
and of the patience with which long-continued bodily pain had
been borne. It was clear that the popular author was first of
all a parish priest.</p>
<p>We now went into his study, where he lighted a long pipe,
and we then returned to a part of the lawn which he called his
quarter-deck, and where we walked up and down for near an hour.
What an English summer evening it was!—dewy and still.
Now and then a slight breeze stirred in the leaves and brought
with it wafts of delicate odors from the flowers somewhere
hidden in the deep shadows, though as yet it was not night and
the sweet twilight lay about us like a charm. He asked if I
knew Maurice. I did slightly—had breakfasted with him six
weeks before, and had seen enough of him to understand the
strong personal influence he exerted. "I owe all that I am to
Maurice," said Kingsley, "I aim only to teach to others what I
get from him. Whatever facility of expression I have is God's
gift, but the views I endeavor to enforce are those which I
learn from Maurice. I live to interpret him to the people of
England."</p>
<p>A talk about the influence of the Oxford writers came next:
on this subject I knew we should not agree, though of course it
was interesting to me to hear Mr. Kingsley's opinion. He spoke
with some asperity of one or two of the leaders, though his
chief objection was to certain young men who had put themselves
forward as champions of the movement. Of Mr. Keble he spoke
very kindly. He said he had at one time been much under the
influence of these writings. I mentioned Alexander Knox as
being perhaps the forerunner of the Oxford men. "Ah," he said,
"I owe my knowledge of that good man to Mrs. Kingsley: you must
talk with her about him." We joined the party in the
drawing-room, and there was some further conversation on this
subject.</p>
<p>At about ten o'clock the bell was rung, the servants came
in, prayers were said, and the ladies (Mrs. Kingsley and their
daughter's governess) bid us good-night. Then to Mr. Kingsley's
study, where the rest of the evening was spent—from
half-past ten to half-past twelve—the pipe went on, and
the talk—a continuous flow. Quakerism was a subject.
George <span class="pagenum"><a name="page379"
id="page379"></a>[pg 379]</span> Fox, Kingsley said, was his
admiration: he read his <i>Journal</i>
constantly—thought him one of the most remarkable men
that age produced. He liked his hostility to Calvinism. "How
little that fellow Macaulay," he said, "could understand
Quakerism! A man needs to have been in Inferno himself to
know what the Quakers meant in what they said and did." He
referred me to an article of his on Jacob Boehme and the
mystic writers, in which he had given his views in regard to
Fox.</p>
<p>We talked about his parish work: he found it, he said, a
great help to him, adding emphatically that his other labor was
secondary to this. He had trained himself not to be annoyed by
his people calling on him when he was writing. If he was to be
their priest, he must see them when it suited them to come; and
he had become able if called off from his writing to go on
again the moment he was alone. I asked him when he wrote. He
said in the morning almost always: sometimes, when much pushed,
he had written for an hour in the evening, but he always had to
correct largely the next morning work thus done. Daily
exercise, riding, hunting, together with parish work, were
necessary to keep him in a condition for writing: he aimed to
keep himself in rude health. I asked whether <i>Alton Locke</i>
had been written in that room. "Yes," he said—"from four
to eight in the mornings; and a young man was staying with me
at the time with whom every day I used to ride, or perhaps
hunt, when my task of writing was done."</p>
<p>A fine copy of St. Augustine attracted my attention on his
shelves—five volumes folio bound in vellum. "Ah," he
said, "that <i>is</i> a treasure I must show you;" and taking
down a volume he turned to the fly-leaf, where were the words
"Charles Kingsley from Thomas Carlyle," and above them "Thomas
Carlyle from John Sterling." One could understand that Carlyle
had thus handed on the book, notwithstanding its sacred
associations, knowing that to Kingsley it would have a
threefold value. My eye caught also a relic of curious
interest—a fragment from one of the vessels of the
Spanish Armada. It lay on the mantelpiece: I could well
understand Kingsley's pleasure in possessing it.</p>
<p>At the breakfast-table the next morning we had much talk in
regard to American writers. Kingsley admitted Emerson's high
merit, but thought him too fragmentary a writer and thinker to
have enduring fame. He had meant that this should be implied as
his opinion in the title he gave to
<i>Phaethon</i>—"Loose Thoughts for Loose
Thinkers"—a book he had written in direct opposition to
what he understood to be the general teaching of Emerson. I
remarked upon the great beauty of some of Emerson's later
writings and the marvelous clearness of insight which was shown
in his <i>English Traits</i>. Kingsley acquiesced in this, but
referred to some American poetry, so called, which Emerson had
lately edited, and in his preface had out-Heroded Herod.
Kingsley said the poems were the production of a coarse,
sensual mind. His reference, of course, was to Walt Whitman,
and I had no defence to make. Of Lowell, Mr. Kingsley spoke
very highly: his <i>Fable for Critics</i> was worthy of
Rabelais. Mr. Froude, who is Kingsley's brother-in-law, had
first made him acquainted with Lowell's poetry. Hawthorne's
style he thought was exquisite: there was scarcely any modern
writing equal to it. Of all his books he preferred the
<i>Blithedale Romance</i>.</p>
<p>We talked of Mr. Froude, whom Kingsley spoke of as his
dearest friend: he thought Froude sincerely regretted ever
having written the <i>Nemesis of Faith</i>. Mr. Helps, author
of <i>Friends in Council</i>, he spoke of as his near neighbor
there in Hampshire, and his intimate friend. Mr. Charles Reade
he knew, and I think he said he was also a neighbor: his
<i>Christie Johnston</i> he thought showed high original power.
Mrs. Gaskell we talked of, whose <i>Life of Charlotte
Bronté</i> had just then been published: Mr. Kingsley
thought it extremely interesting and "slightly slanderous." He
told me of the author of <i>Tom Brown's School-days</i>, a copy
of which, fresh from the publishers, was lying on his table.
Mr. Hughes <span class="pagenum"><a name="page380"
id="page380"></a>[pg 380]</span> is now so well known to us
I need only mention that Mr. Kingsley spoke of him as an old
pupil of Arnold's and a spiritual child of Maurice. He spoke
most warmly of him, and offered me a letter of introduction
to him. I could not avail myself of this, having so little
time to remain in London.</p>
<p>I must mention, as showing further Mr. Kingsley's state of
mind toward Maurice, that he had named his son after him. He
spoke of the boy as being intended for the army: the family, he
said, had been soldiers for generations. "That is the
profession England will need for the next five-and-twenty
years." Of Forster he said, "What a pity he had not been put in
the army at the age of eighteen!—he would have been a
general now. England has need of such men." I note this as
showing the curious apprehension of war which he, an
Englishman, felt eighteen years ago, and which he expressed to
me, an American. How little either of us thought of the
struggle which men of English blood were to engage in in three
years from that time! How little I could dream that one of the
decisive battles of the world was so soon to be fought in my
own State, Pennsylvania!</p>
<p>Our morning was spent in all this varied talk, walking
partly on the lawn, partly in the study. His pipe was still his
companion. He seemed to need to walk incessantly, such was his
nervous activity of temperament. He asked me if it annoyed me
for him to walk so much up and down his study. The slight
impediment in his speech one forgot as one listened to the flow
of his discourse. He talked a volume while I was with him, and
what he said often rose to eloquence. There was humor too in
it, of which I can give no example, for it was fine and
delicate. But what most impressed me was his perfect simplicity
of character. He talked of his wife with the strongest
affection—wished I could remain longer with them, if only
to know her better. Nothing could be more tender than his
manner toward her. He went for her when we were in the study,
and the last half hour of my stay she sat with us. She is one
of five sisters who are all married to eminent men.</p>
<p>It occurs to me to note, as among my last recollections of
our talk, that I spoke of Spurgeon, whom I had heard in London
a short time before, and was very favorably impressed with. I
could not but commend his simple, strong Saxon speech, the
charm of his rich full voice, and above all the earnest aim
which I thought was manifest in all he uttered. Mr. Kingsley
said he was glad to hear this, for he had been told of
occasional irreverences of Spurgeon's, and of his giving way
now and then to a disposition to make a joke of things. Not
that he objected altogether to humor in sermons: he had his own
temptations in this way. "One must either weep at the follies
of men or laugh at them," he added. I told him Mr. Maurice had
spoken to me of Mr. Spurgeon as no doubt an important influence
for good in the land, and he said this was on the whole his own
opinion. He told me, however, of teaching of quite another
character, addressed to people of cultivation mainly, and to
him peculiarly acceptable. His reference was to Robertson's
<i>Sermons</i>: he showed me the volume—the first series
—just then published. The mention of this book perhaps
led to a reference by Mr. Kingsley to the Unitarians of New
England, of whom he spoke very kindly, adding, in effect, that
their error was but a natural rebound from Calvinism, that
dreary perversion of God's boundless love.</p>
<p>But I had now to say good-bye to these new friends, who had
come to seem old friends, so full and cordial had been their
hospitality, and so much had we found to talk of in the
quickly-passing hours of my visit. Mr. Kingsley drove me three
miles on my way to Winchfield. His talk with me was
interspersed with cheery and friendly words to his horse, with
whom he seemed to be on very intimate terms. "Come and see us
again," he said as we parted: "the second visit, you know, is
always the best."</p>
<p class="author">ELLIS
YARNALL.</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id="page381"></a></span>
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2>
<h3>A WOMAN'S OPINION OF PARIS AND THE PARISIANS.</h3>
<p>I have now lived in Paris two consecutive years, and during
this time the question has often been put to me, "How do you
like Paris and the Parisians?" That question I will now try to
answer.</p>
<p>Like Paris? Of course I do—heartily and truly. Cold
indeed must the heart be that does not find space in its depths
for a true affection for the fair queen-city which welcomes all
strangers so kindly and hospitably, which has a smile for all,
and which at the wide banquet of her bounty sets forth food for
every phase of mental hunger. Do you wish to study? Her
libraries lie open to your research—her monuments, her
galleries, her public institutions are given to your
inspection, freely and without price. Do you seek amusement?
Paris, in that respect, is like the rollicking heroine of
<i>Barbe-Bleu:</i> there is none like Boulotte, "quand il
s'agit de batifoler." Do you wish to hide yourself in depths of
unbroken quiet? There are in her very heart lonely streets
where scarce a cart ever penetrates, and in her suburbs green
shaded nooks where the spirit of Solitude reigns supreme.</p>
<p>Life runs on such smooth and well-oiled wheels for all
humanity in Paris that half the cares that torture us are cast
aside as soon as we enter her precincts. Take, for instance,
the grand question of housekeeping. Fancy living in a land
where all the servants are skilled and civil, if not all
trustworthy and honest; where washing-days and ironing-days and
baking-days are unknown; where there are no staircases to sweep
down and no front-door steps to scour; where rents and eating
and all other household expenses may be gauged in accordance
with one's purse. If you wish to entertain, you may give a
soirée that will cost ten dollars if you cannot afford
to give a ball that costs five thousand. Nothing is <i>de
rigueur</i> in Paris. It is neither incumbent upon you to be
housed splendidly nor to feast sumptuously—to drive your
own carriage nor to entertain an army of servants. "Do the best
you can" is the motto of Parisian life. And so it often happens
that in a small room, up half a dozen flights of stairs, with a
cup of tea for sole refreshment and music or conversation for
sole amusement, one will find some of the pleasantest society
in Paris. You do not get champagne and boned turkey and the
German, but you hear sometimes a little music, such as one pays
untold gold to hear at the opera, or a fragment of declamation
by some noted elocutionist, or a new poem fresh from the pen of
some celebrated writer. And you have always conversation; that
is to say, the wit and sparkle of the wittiest and brightest
nation on the face of the earth. In a world that is becoming
more and more a Paradise of Fools the charm of sheer brain and
brightness is irresistible. To live in such an intellectual
centre is in itself delightful. Paris is a veritable <i>Foire
aux Idées</i>. Its criticism, keen as the sword of
Saladin, overwhelming as the battle-axe of Coeur de Lion, is in
itself a study. It is not so much the intellectual productions
of Paris as the comments they call forth that are at once
instructive and fascinating.</p>
<p>When we turn from the world of intellect to that of ordinary
life the same charm haunts our footsteps. Everything is so well
done, so gracefully and so winningly presented! The exquisite
perfume of refinement hangs about every trivial detail. Your
washerwoman is a lady, and your coalman a Chesterfield. If a
Frenchman is ever rude, he is rude with malice prepense and
aforethought. He knows better, we may be sure. Patrick may err
on the score of politeness from ignorance, but Alphonse is a
beast only because he chooses to be bestial. All the traditions
of his race run counter <span class="pagenum"><a name="page382"
id="page382"></a>[pg 382]</span> to his conduct when he
forgets the supreme suavity that should characterize a
Gaul.</p>
<p>And yet it is possible for an American—or rather an
Anglo-Saxon—to live for years in the midst of this
brilliant, polished, fascinating people, and never to feel
specially interested in them, either individually or
nationally. What is the reason? Why is it that, loving Paris
like a second home, we do not take the Parisians to our hearts
as brothers and sisters, or at least as dear first cousins? The
causes are many and various. In the first place, the Parisians
do not like us. The popularity which Americans were said to
possess in Paris has vanished with the Empire—that is, if
it really existed. It probably was nothing more at any time
than the courtesy shown by an astute sovereign of a nation of
shopkeepers to a nation of purchasers. To-day Americans are not
popular in Parisian society. It is almost impossible that they
should be. Our ideas, our social customs, our notions of right
and wrong, are diametrically opposed to all the social theories
of France. Our girls, with their free frank ways and their
liberty of speech and action, are so many disreputable horrors
in Parisian eyes. Madame la Comtesse de St. Germain would as
soon think of taking her daughters to see Schneider as of
permitting them to associate with young ladies who are allowed
to receive morning calls from gentlemen without the presence of
their parents—who call the male friends of their
childhood by their first names—and who are suffered to
witness <i>Faust</i> at the opera and <i>La Haine</i> at La
Gaîté. Americans, especially wealthy ones, usually
draw around them a vast circle of French acquaintances, it is
true, but these are mostly sponges and adventurers, well born
and well bred, it may be, but decidedly, to use a vulgar but
expressive American idiom, "on the make." Of the pure and inner
sanctuary of French society scarce a glimpse is afforded to
these alien eyes. It would not amuse them very much if it were,
for, by all accounts, this hallowed inner circle is as dull as
it is exclusive. The charm of French society is to be found in
those salons which are frequented by the kings of Parisian
Bohemia—journalists, poets, dramatists,
artists—wherein the Republic is queen and Victor Hugo a
god.</p>
<p>Two great and ineradicable defects underlie the brightness
and fascination of the external part of French
character—namely, selfishness and insincerity. Perfect in
manner, in dress, in grace, in suavity, in sweetness it may be,
the French are utterly and wholly unreliable. They resemble the
phantom woman in the story told by Leigh Hunt, that was only a
suit of clothes, with no face beneath the hood and no body
inside of the robes; or rather those malignant spirits that
look like fair women when seen in front, but when seen from
behind show only as hollow shells.</p>
<p>And the tradespeople, the bourgeoisie—your dressmaker,
your milliner, your tailor, your butcher and baker and
candlestick-maker—skilled and suave and generally
charming—O heaven and earth! how they do lie! Not
occasionally, not when hard-pressed, not when truth will not do
as well, but persistently, calmly, eternally. "I swear to you,
monsieur," will your Parisian say, "that your work shall be
done in two hours," Esteem yourself fortunate if it is finished
in two days: very probably two weeks will see it still
uncompleted. Send for a workman to execute some little job
about your house. "He will come at once—yes, at once."
Days roll round, and he never comes at all. Your dressmaker
agrees to make you a dress for a certain price: your bill comes
home for half as much again. An American in Paris ordered an
extra door-key, giving the original key as a pattern. The key
was to cost four francs. Here is a copy of the bill as
presented:</p>
<table summary="bill for door-key">
<tr>
<td></td>
<td>Francs.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>For taking off lock (a process wholly unnecessary,
by the by), </td>
<td>1-1/2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>For putting it on again,</td>
<td>1-1/2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Workman's time,</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Journey from shop (about half a square),</td>
<td>1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Key,</td>
<td>4</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td>——</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> Total</td>
<td>9</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Another American sent for a bell-hanger to inspect an
electric bell which was <span class="pagenum"><a name="page383"
id="page383"></a>[pg 383]</span> thought to be out of order,
but which proved on inspection to be all right. He got a
bill of five francs, whereof one item ran thus: "<i>For
looking at the bell</i>, 2 francs." He had not touched the
thing, be it borne in mind.</p>
<p>I cannot refrain from here making answer to a remark too
often heard from American lips, that America is as immoral as
France—that American society is every whit as depraved as
the French. It is <i>not</i>. The immorality of America is as a
festering wound on an otherwise healthy body: the immorality of
France is like a scrofulous taint that poisons the whole
life-current. One gets weary and heartsick with the old eternal
song, the everlasting theme, which is sung and told and
dramatized and written about and painted—that flies in
your face at every corner and stares up at you from every inch
of printed paper, every square of colored canvas, in the whole
nationality. And to sum up at last this, "a woman's opinion," I
will freely state that the longer I live in France the more I
admire the Parisians and the less I like them.</p>
<p class="author">L. H. H.</p>
<h3>THE COLLEGIO ROMANO.</h3>
<p>The Collegio Romano was always worth a visit, because it
contained the celebrated Kircherian Museum and the admirable
observatory presided over by Father Secchi, the
world-celebrated astronomer. But these are matters sufficiently
treated of by the guide-books, and may be left to them. Of the
story of the enormous building they have less to tell, though
there is much of curious interest to be told. But neither is
that my object on the present occasion. My purpose is to speak
of the strangely-changed fortunes and destinies of the old
historic pile, and of what it now is and is to be. But little
in Rome, as we all know, has remained unchanged in these
strange latter days. But few things—at least few material
things—have experienced such a change as the Collegio
Romano. The "Collegio Romano" was in fact nothing more than
the principal convent of the Jesuits. The establishment was
founded immediately after the institution of the order, and
mainly by the care and energy of Saint Francisco Borgia, the
third general of the order. The present building, however, was
raised in the pontificate of Gregory XIII. by the Florentine
architect Ammanati, the first stone having been laid in 1582.
It is an enormous mass of building—enormous even among
the huge structures for which Rome above all other cities is
remarkable—situated near the church of the Gesù
and not far from the Piazza di Venezia. There is nothing
remarkable in its outward appearance save the vast size, the
object of the builders having evidently been only to adapt it
in a business-like way to the purposes to which it was
destined. These included not only the provision of a residence
for the fathers of the order resident in Rome, and for the
all-but all-powerful general of the terrible order—the
"Black Pope," as the Romans were wont to call him—but
also all the <i>locale</i> necessary for a very large
educational establishment, whence the building took its
name.</p>
<p>The Jesuits, like all other members of the almost
innumerable monastic establishments in Rome, have, as we all
know, been turned out of their homes, their property has
been—or rather is being—sold, and the convents have
become national property. Many of these are vast buildings, but
no one of them is to be compared with the great Jesuit convent,
which was the central home and head-quarters of the "Company of
Jesus." And a memorable day it was in Rome, and a very singular
sight, when, the dreaded fathers of the terrible "Company"
having taken their departure, the few remaining goods and
chattels in the convent were sold by public auction. Few and
not of much value were the articles to be sold; for the fathers
are not men to take no heed of those shadows which coming
events cast before them, and they had long foreseen that their
day in Rome was at an end, and had contrived to leave as little
as might be to the spoiler. None the less was it a strange
sight, as I say, to see the <i>profanum vulgus</i> of the
buyers of old furniture, and the still more numerous herd
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page384"
id="page384"></a>[pg 384]</span> of the curious, looking on
with very diversified feelings—some with bitterness
enough in their hearts—pushing and tramping through
those noble corridors and vast halls and secret cells, on
which no profane gaze had rested for more than three hundred
years.</p>
<p>There has been abundance of doubt, but no difficulty, in
disposing of the great number of buildings which have thus come
into the possession of the nation. Many of the smaller convents
have been sold in the same manner as the other property of the
ousted communities. But this has not been done—and indeed
could hardly have been done—in the case of the larger
buildings; and there has been a competition very much in the
nature of a scramble for the appropriation of them by the heads
of the several governmental departments. That of Public
Instruction, now worthily represented by Signor Bonghi, has
succeeded in laying hands on perhaps the grandest prize of all,
the great Jesuit establishment of the Collegio Romano; and,
looking to the uses to which it is being put by Signor Bonghi,
it may, I think, be said that it could not have been better
bestowed. Under his auspices it is intended to assume, and is
indeed rapidly assuming, the functions of the still vaster pile
of building in Great Russell street, London, known to all the
world as the British Museum, as will be seen from the following
statement of the purposes it is intended to serve and of the
various matters to be housed in it.</p>
<p>On the ground-floor there is already established a "Museo
Scolastico-Pedagogico"—a museum of all the means and
appurtenances that are used, or have been used, in different
countries for the ends and purposes of instruction. This is the
idea and the creation of Signor Bonghi; and it will, I think,
be admitted that it is a very happy one and likely to be
fruitful in good results. A visit to it is more interesting
than might perhaps at first sight be imagined. I may mention
that on asking the very competent and enlightened director of
the establishment what people he considered to have done most
and as foremost in the work of educating the masses, he said
that the Germans had done most theoretically and in the way of
thinking on the philosophy of the matter, but that the
Americans had done most practically in the way of improving the
material means for popular education.</p>
<p>On the first and second floors the great national library,
the "Biblioteca Vittorio Emmanuele," is—or, it would
perhaps be more accurate to say, will be—placed and made
accessible to the public. At Florence there exists the
celebrated Magliabecchian Library, which when Florence became
the capital of Italy was called the National
Library—somewhat ungratefully, it will probably be
thought, to the learned and indefatigable collector who gave
his life and his means to the formation of it, and then
bequeathed it to his native city. And I am inclined to believe
that this library is still, for all the general working
purposes of a nineteenth-century student, the best in Italy. In
Rome, when the Eternal City in its turn became the capital of a
New Italy, there existed nothing that deserved to be called a
national library, and the present minister of Public
Instruction set about doing what was possible to supply the
want. The Company of Jesus possessed a fine and valuable
library, containing about one hundred and seventy thousand
volumes. This, when the Jesuits were turned out, was declared
national property, and it forms the nucleus of the new Victor
Emmanuel Library. While the Jesuits inhabited their old home it
was arranged in one very fine hall built in the form of a
cross, which will continue to be one of the principal
receptacles, in the new establishment. It was in the middle of
1874 that the Italian government took possession of this
collection. To this have been added forty-eight other
libraries, the former property of the suppressed convents of
the city and provinces of Rome. They were placed for the nonce
in the cells which had been inhabited by the Jesuit fathers.
The mass of books thus collected amounts to about four hundred
thousand volumes. It will be seen at
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385"
id="page385"></a>[pg 385]</span> once that the labor of
reducing to order, classifying and arranging such a confused
mass must be truly herculean. But the first librarian of the
Victor Emmanuel Library, Signor Carlo Castellani, well known
in the literary world as a palaeographer of great eminence,
is laboring at the colossal task with an energy and a zeal
that have already accomplished much, and is daily making
sensible advances in the work. It is, however, also evident
that four hundred thousand volumes thus collected must
include an immense number of duplicates; and, worse still,
that (as may be readily supposed from the sources whence the
books have come) one special branch of general literature
will be represented in very undue proportion. Of course, the
greater portion of the conventual libraries was theological.
It may be presumed that classical and (old) historical
literature will be found to exist, the former in tolerable
completeness (so far as regards old and in many cases now
obsolete editions), and the latter in considerable
abundance. But of modern literature little or nothing can be
expected, even of Italian, and still less of any other
language. Among the number of volumes which has been
mentioned there are some seven or eight thousand
manuscripts, and perhaps an equal number of the editions of
the fifteenth century, which go far to make the library an
interesting one to the learned and to the student and lover
of bibliography, but are of very little avail toward
rendering the collection worth much as a national
<i>working</i> library. The question then arises, What means
has Italy of procuring such a library for her capital?
Something may be probably expected from the liberality of
her Parliament in furtherance of this great national object.
But for the present, in the depressed (though improving)
state of the Italian finances, this cannot be much. There
exists in Italy a law similar to that on the same subject in
England, by which every publisher is obliged to deposit one
copy of every book published in the national library. But
this copy at present is sent to the Magliabecchian Library
at Florence. Signor Castellani hopes that the privilege may
be transferred, as seems but reasonable, to Rome. But I do
not see why it should be necessary thus to impoverish
Florence to enrich the capital. In England the law requires
eleven copies which are distributed to the great libraries
of the three kingdoms. It is true that this exaction has
sometimes been complained of, and it is said that in the
case of very costly illustrated works the tax is a very
heavy one, and that in some instances it has operated to
make the production of certain books impossible. And perhaps
it may be reasonable to make some regulation by which such
works should be exempted from the obligation. But in
ordinary cases the tax is an almost inappreciable one, and,
such as it is, must of course fall ultimately on the writers
and readers of books—mainly on the latter—for
the benefit of which classes libraries exist. It seems to
me, therefore, that a somewhat larger number of copies than
one or two might reasonably and advantageously be exacted
from publishers. And if three or four copies were delivered
to the great Roman library, there would be the means of
effecting very advantageous exchanges with other countries.
I asked Signor Castellani what increase in the number of
volumes the <i>locale</i> now at the disposal of the library
would be capable of accommodating. He said that there would
be room for about seven hundred thousand volumes, evidently
a quite inadequate provision for the future. Many years will
not elapse before the measure which is now demanded at the
British Museum—viz., the removal of all the various
collections housed there to other localities, and the
dedication of the entire building to the library—will
become necessary at the old Collegio Romano. Vast as the
building is, the entirety of it is not at all too large for
the Roman library of the future. Or—since we
<i>are</i> allowing our thoughts to consider events which
cast their shadows before as if they were accomplished
facts—may it not perhaps be found better some of these
days to move the whole of the present collection to the
Vatican, to be united with the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386"
id="page386"></a>[pg 386]</span> colossal and almost unknown
hoards there buried in one collection? As it is, a new
reading-room, after the model of that existing at the
National Library in Paris, is about to be built in the
courtyard of the Collegio Romano. The classification,
arrangement and methods of working the library will be
copied in great measure from those introduced by Mr. Panizzi
at the British Museum. Unlike the liberal practice of the
great German libraries, no volume will be on any account
permitted to leave the library. I was sorry to find that in
one all-important respect the Roman practice as regards the
national library will differ from that of London. The
collection is being catalogued in slips, to be kept, after
the fashion of booksellers, in boxes made for the purpose,
and there is no present intention of making any catalogue in
volumes accessible to the public. Of course it is impossible
to allow the public to have access to the slips; and all who
have ever really used a great library know but too well that
a library the catalogue of which is not accessible to the
student is at least <i>half</i> useless. Even putting aside
the numerous cases in which an inquirer knows of the
existence of such or such a work, but is not aware of the
author's name, and cannot therefore ask for or obtain the
book in question, it happens more often than not that a
person inquiring on any given subject finds his best guide
to the available sources of information in the
catalogue.</p>
<p>I have not left myself room, I fear, to say anything on the
present occasion of the other highly interesting collections
which are at present lodged, or in the course of being placed,
under the all-sheltering roof of the Collegio Romano. I must
content myself with simply enumerating them, with the hope of
giving some account of them at some future time. I may briefly
state, then, that the celebrated Kircherian Museum, formed
toward the close of the sixteenth century by the learned Jesuit
father Kircher, still occupies the rooms on the ground-floor,
with a somewhat improved arrangement, which it occupied when
the fathers of the Company inhabited the building. The
collection of ancient Roman marbles discovered in the
excavations of the buried city of Ostia have been brought
thence, and arranged in rooms also on the third floor—a
fact which strikes one as not a little to the credit of the
handiwork of Ammanati, the Florentine architect. Also on the
third floor there is an exceedingly interesting collection, of
which I hope to speak somewhat more at length another time. It
is called a palaeo-ethnographical museum, and consists of a
large collection of the implements of all sorts of the people
belonging to the pre-historic period, together with a similar
gathering of articles used by the uncivilized races of the
present day. The interest of such a comparative study as is
here suggested is, as may be readily understood, very great. On
the fourth floor there is a very considerable collection of
objects illustrating Italian art of the ante-Roman period, and
also a Museum of Industrial Art, conceived on the plan of the
English School of Art at South Kensington.</p>
<p class="author">T. A. T.</p>
<h3>TRADES UNIONISM IN ITS INFANCY.</h3>
<p>In these days of trades unionism and strikes an account of
the germ of such associations in this country is not without
interest. So far back as 1806 a remarkable trial arising out of
such a combination took place before the recorder of
Philadelphia and a jury. It lasted three days and excited
extraordinary interest. Jared Ingersoll and Joseph Hopkinson
were counsel for the prosecution, and Caesar A. Rodney and
Walter Franklin for the defence.</p>
<p>The defendants, eight in number, were indicted for not being
content to work at the usual prices, but contriving to increase
and augment them, and for endeavoring to prevent by threats,
menaces and other unlawful means other artificers from working
at the usual rate, and uniting into a club or combination to
make and ordain unlawful and arbitrary rules to govern those
engaged in their trade, and unjustly exact great sums of money
by means thereof.</p>
<p>The evidence went to show in the clearest manner that a
system of frightful <span class="pagenum"><a name="page387"
id="page387"></a>[pg 387]</span> thralldom had been put in
force. A witness named Harrison stated that when he reached
the United States in 1794 he found this system of terrorism
prevalent. He went to work for a Mr. Bedford, and presently
got a hint that if he did not join the association of
journeymen shoemakers he was liable to be "scabbed," which
meant that men would not work in the same shop, nor board or
lodge in the same house, nor would they work at all for the
same employer. The case of this man seemed exceptionally
hard. He made shoes exclusively, and when "a turn-out came
to raise the wages on boots" he remonstrated, pleading that
shoes did not enter into the question, and urging that he
had a sick wife and a large family. But it was all to no
purpose. He then resolved that he would turn a "scab"
unknown to the association, and continue his work; but
having a neighbor whom it was impossible for him to deceive,
he went to him and said that he knew his circumstances, and
that his family must perish or go to "the bettering-house"
unless he continued to work. This neighbor, Swain, replied
that he knew his condition was desperate, but that a man had
better make any sacrifice than turn a "scab" at that time.
He presently informed against him, and Mr. Bedford (his
employer) was warned that he must discharge his "scabs." He
refused, saying that, "Let the consequence be what it might,
we should sink or swim together." However, one Saturday
night, when all but Harrison and a man named Logan had left
him, Bedford's resolution gave way, and he exclaimed, "I
don't know what the devil I am to do: they will ruin me in
the end. I wish you would go to the body and pay a fine, if
not very large, in order to set the shop free once more."
The fine offered was refused, and Mr. Bedford's shop
remained "under scab" for a year. Still, Mr. Bedford, who
must have been a very plucky fellow, would not give Harrison
up, but removed in 1802 to Trenton. Harrison stated that
although he could not, had Mr. Bedford given him up, have
got work anywhere else, and that he might have ground him
down to any terms, yet he (Bedford) very nobly always gave
him full price. At length, by paying a fine, Harrison became
reconciled to his persecutors, and Bedford's shop was once
more free.</p>
<p>William Forgrave said that "the name of a 'scab' is very
dangerous: men of this description have been hurt when out at
night." He had been threatened, and joined the association from
fear of personal injury. A vast deal more of evidence was given
and eloquent speeches delivered by counsel, but the foregoing
gives the sum and substance of the case.</p>
<p>In the course of the summing up Recorder Levy said: "To make
an artificial regulation is not to regard the excellence of the
work or quality of the material, but to fix a positive and
arbitrary price, governed by no standard, but dependent on the
will of the few who are interested.... What, then, is the
operation of this kind of conduct upon the commerce of the
city? It exposes it to inconveniences, if not to ruin:
therefore it is against the public welfare. How does it operate
upon the defendants? We see that those who are in indigent
circumstances, and who have families to maintain, have declared
here on oath that it was impossible for them to hold out. They
were interdicted from all employment in future if they did not
continue to persevere in the measures taken by the journeymen
shoemakers. Does not such a regulation tend to involve
necessitous men in the commission of crimes? If they are
prevented working for six weeks, it might lead them to procure
support for their wives and children by burglary, larceny or
highway robbery."</p>
<p>The jury found the defendants "guilty of a combination to
raise their wages," and the court sentenced them to pay a fine
of eight dollars each, with costs of suit, and to stand
committed till paid.</p>
<h3>MORAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS.</h3>
<p>One of our popular clergymen, in a late Sunday discourse
upon the Bible in the public schools, labored to show that the
question was a very unimportant one.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388"
id="page388"></a>[pg 388]</span> because none were much
interested in it except infidels and politicians—a
sufficiently absurd position for a professed teacher of the
people to assume. Doubtless it is a folly to fan into flame
the slumbering embers of a quarrel, but it is a greater
folly to pretend, in the face of the common sense of the
people, that all signs of fire are extinguished or never
existed where there is so much inflammable material about
and the "wind of doctrine" running high.</p>
<p>This question of secular education for our public schools is
in fact one of the most difficult of solution. Chicago has met
it in a summary manner by excluding the Bible from all her free
schools, but this does not settle the question, because both
believers and unbelievers in the various creeds of the churches
admit that there should be provision made for the training of
the moral faculties of the children in our public schools. Many
of them, especially in cities and large manufacturing centres,
come out of the dark alleys where intemperance, poverty and
ignorance tend to arrest the development of their higher
sentiments. For the unfortunate children of such homes the
sessions of the public school afford the only glimpse of a
better life, the only chance for moral and æsthetic
culture. Protestants, as a rule, honestly believe that the
reading of the Bible at the opening of school tends to waken
and develop the moral aspirations of the child. Just as
honestly and conscientiously do Catholics disbelieve in the
efficacy of Bible reading, while they boldly condemn secular
education as a principle. Father Muller, priest of the
congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, in his work upon public
school education, published three years ago in Boston, says:
"The language of the Vicar of Christ in regard to godless
education is very plain and unmistakable".... "Our Holy Father,
Pope Pius IX., has declared that Catholics cannot approve of a
system of educating youth unconnected with the Catholic faith
and the power of the Church".... "The voice of common sense,
the voice of sad experience, the voice of Catholic bishops, and
especially the voice of the Holy Father, is raised against and
condemns the public school system as a huge humbug, injuring
and not promoting personal virtue and good citizenship, and as
being most pernicious to the Catholic faith and life and all
good morals. A pastor, therefore, cannot maintain the contrary
opinion without incurring guilt before God and the Church. He
cannot allow parents to send their children to such schools of
infidelity. He cannot give them absolution and say, <i>Innocens
sum</i>."</p>
<p>According to the <i>American Annual Cyclopædia</i> for
1875, the Roman Catholic Church has in the United States 1
cardinal, 8 archbishops, 54 bishops, 4872 priests, 4731
churches, 1902 chapels, 68 colleges, 511 academies, and a lay
membership numbering over 6,000,000. This shows a great and
increasing prosperity of that Church in this country; yet our
institutions have nothing to fear from that prosperity unless
the principles of Catholicity support the "one-man power"
against the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, the
foundation-principle of republicanism. Patriotic Catholic
citizens claim that there is no conflict. They love their
Church and their country, and will labor to preserve peace and
harmony. Yet how can harmony be maintained while a large and
increasing number of our tax-paying citizens, accepting their
Church and its head as infallible, are forced by their
spiritual allegiance to send their children to Catholic
schools, though at the same time paying taxes to support those
"godless" public schools condemned by the infallible Church? To
take the ground that these two powers, the Catholic Church and
our government, do not conflict, because one is a spiritual and
the other a civil power, is simply absurd. We see that they
<i>do</i> conflict. The pope interferes with the civil rights
of our citizens when—as, for example, in his encyclical
letter of December 8, 1874—he commands all Catholics to
treat the liberty of speech, of the press, of conscience and of
worship, the separation of Church and State and the secular
education of youth, as "<i>reprobatas, proscriptas, atque
damnatas</i>."</p>
<h3><span class="pagenum"><a name="page389" id="page389"></a></span>
THE EARLIEST PRINTED BOOKS.</h3>
<p>A recent lecture of the Rev. Dr. Storrs in New York, before
the Society for the Advancement of Science and Art, must have
been very interesting to an ordinary audience, but for one
composed of professed promoters of learning it could hardly
have been sufficiently exact to give general satisfaction if
the newspaper reports of it were at all correct. They represent
the lecturer as saying that an immense number of books date
back to 1450. Now, the first printed book bearing a date is the
<i>Psalter</i> of Füst and Schoeffer, 1457. A
<i>portion</i> of the Bible was printed by Gutenberg and
Füst in 1450, but the work was so expensive and so
imperfect that it was abandoned. In 1452, after Schoeffer
joined the firm, another Bible is supposed to have been
printed, but no copy of it is known to exist. Of course it is
well known that many of the earliest printed books are without
date, but none could have been printed before 1450; and there
is no proof, we believe, that the Bible said to be of 1455 bore
that or any date. In that year the firm of Gutenberg, Füst
and Schoeffer dissolved. L. Grégoire in his
<i>Dictionnaire Encyclopédique</i>, published in Paris
in 1817, says that there are only three or four copies of the
Füst Bible known to exist. Dr. Storrs, however, says,
without giving his authority, that there are fifteen.</p>
<p>The sole idea of the early printers was to imitate exactly
the manuscript characters of the scribes. The initial letters
of the Bibles and the numbers of the chapters were therefore
added with a pen in blue and red ink alternately; and there is
not the slightest doubt that these first books were palmed off
upon an unsuspecting public as manuscripts. All the servants or
employés of Füst and Schoeffer were put under
solemn oath to divulge nothing of the secret concerning
printing. It is to the policy which the first printers exerted
to conceal their art that we owe the tradition of the Devil and
Dr. Faustus. Füst having printed off quite a number of
Bibles, and had the large initial letters added by hand, he
took them to Paris and sold them for about fifty dollars
apiece. The scribes demanded about ten times that sum, and they
earned the money, for it must have been an herculean task to
copy, as they did, every letter of the Bible with such
exquisite care, and then draw and illuminate the heads of the
chapters and the initial letters. It was a marvel how this new
man could produce these ponderous books at so low a rate. And
then the uniformity of the letters and the pages increased the
wonder, until the cry of "sorcerer" was raised: complaints
before the magistrates were made against him, his lodgings were
searched and a great number of copies were found and
confiscated. The populace in their ignorance and superstition
declared that he was in league with the devil, and that the red
ink with which the books were embellished was his blood. It is
a satisfaction to know that the Parliament of Paris passed an
act to discharge the sorcerer from all prosecution in
consideration of <i>the usefulness of his art</i>.</p>
<p class="author">M. H.</p>
<h3>FLOWERS VS. FLIES.</h3>
<p>An Irish clergyman is said to have discovered last autumn a
charming antidote to flies, which it is only a pity he could
not have lighted on rather earlier in the season. Having
occasion to change his abode, he sent on his window-plants,
calceolarias and geraniums, to that which he intended to occupy
several days before he went himself, and immediately found that
he was pestered with flies, whereas previously he had enjoyed
perfect immunity from the nuisance. A more agreeable remedy
cannot be conceived. Next autumn let our windows be a blaze of
brilliancy, so that all visitors to the Centennial may say, at
all events, "There are no flies in
Philadelphia."</p>
<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390"></a></span>
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h2>
<p>Shakespeare Hermeneutics; or, The Still Lion. Being an Essay
towards the Restoration of Shakespeare's Text. By C.M. Ingleby,
M.A., LL.D. London: Trübner & Co.</p>
<p>Setting aside those who care merely to see a play on the
stage, it may be said that of Shakespeare there are readers and
readers; and both classes have rights and privileges which
should be treated with deference. The reader who studies every
line should not fleer at him who studies not at all. Have we
not a right to read a play of Shakespeare's through in two
short hours, surrendering ourselves, unvexed by logic or
grammar, to the enchantment which scenes and phrases and words
conjure up as they glide through our minds? When all the
atmosphere is tremulous with airs from heaven or blasts from
hell, must we, forsooth! stop and philosophically investigate
what Hamlet means by a "<i>dram of eale"</i>? Must we lose a
scruple of the sport by turning aside to find out what Malvolio
means by the "<i>lady of the Strachey</i>"? If Timon chooses to
invite <i>Ullorxa</i> to his feast, are we to bar the door
because no one ever heard the name before? No: let us have our
Shakespeare (is he not as much ours as yours?) free from all
notes, on a page purified from the musty cobwebs of
black-letter pedants. We want no jargon of bickering critics to
drown the music that sings at Heaven's gate. Give us those
immortal plays just as Shakespeare wrote them, that we may read
them without let or hinderance.</p>
<p>But, fair and softly, is not this the very point at which we
are striving? With all our twistings and turnings, our
patchings and piecings, have we aught else in view than to
decipher just what Shakespeare wrote? Where are Shakespeare's
exact words to be found? Not in the so-called Quartos; for they
are said by Shakespeare's intimate and dear friends to have
been "maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealthes of
injurious impostors," and taken down perhaps from the lips of
some of the actors, bribed by stoops of liquor at
<i>Yaughan's</i> (and from the gibberish here and there set
down it is to be feared that the potations were at times pottle
deep). Nor can we take the Folio in which all his dramas were
first collected: Shakespeare never saw a line of it; for seven
years he had been hid in death's dateless night when that
volume was printed. What, then, is to be done? The Quartos and
Folios are all the authority we have, and none of them present
what can be held to have been undeniably Shakespeare's exact
words. In dealing with the text we must never for a moment
forget that there stands, and will for ever stand, as
interpreters between us and Shakespeare, a crew of dishonest
actors or of more or less ignorant compositors. Is such a text,
thus transmitted, to be held in reverence so deep that not a
syllable is to be changed for fear of the cry that we are
tampering with the words of Shakespeare? Is the curse in his
epitaph on the mover of his bones to hang over his text? Small
reverence for Shakespeare does it betoken, in our opinion, to
believe this. Rather, let us regard these pages of the Folio as
what they virtually are in so many cases—namely, as but
little better than our modern proof-sheets. And they should be
dealt with accordingly by a modern critic; but only on one
condition precedent: he must be Shakespeare's peer. In default
of this we can only humbly erase here, and reverently suggest
there, summoning to our aid all possible knowledge, lest in
plucking up the tares we pluck up the wheat also.</p>
<p>And this is really all that textual criticism for the last
hundred and forty years has aimed at—merely to get at
what Shakespeare really wrote. We know that he could not write
sheer nonsense, and yet at times sheer nonsense mows at us from
his printed page. Those who clamor for Shakespeare's text, pure
and simple, divested of all notes and annotations, have no idea
how much thought and time have been expended on every line,
—nay, on every word, on every comma,—in the text of
any good modern edition of his dramas, and with the single aim,
be it remembered, of revealing exactly what the poet wrote.</p>
<p>It must not, however, be thought that since the original
texts of Shakespeare's plays are so corrupt, any criticaster
has good leave to expunge or expand at will, under a roving
commission to hack and hew wheresoever and howsoever it may
please him, under the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page391"
id="page391"></a>[pg 391]</span> plea of restoring the text.
On the contrary, since we cannot fulfill the condition
precedent of being Shakespeare's peers, we must exercise the
greatest caution in changing a reading of the Quartos or
Folios, lest in condemning the text as corrupt we pass
judgment on our own wit.</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<p>He who the sword of Heaven would bear</p>
<p>Must be as holy as severe.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>And we must be very sure that the passage is corrupt before
we set about amending it. First and last, we must remember that
primal elder law, that of two readings the more difficult is to
be preferred. <i>Durior lectio preferenda 'st</i> should be a
frontlet between our brows. The weaker reading or the plainer
meaning is more likely to be a printer's interpretation of what
he failed to comprehend.</p>
<p>But to understand Shakespeare's meaning in a degree that
will authorize us to amend the text, we must understand
Shakespeare's speech; that is, we must be thoroughly familiar
with the words and usages of Elizabethan English; and not only
with Elizabethan words and phrases, but also, as far as
possible, with the very pronunciation.</p>
<p>This fundamental principle is well enforced and illustrated
in Dr. Ingleby's book, which was originally published in one of
the Annuals of the German Shakespeare Society under the title
of <i>The Still Lion</i>, a title suggested by a passage in De
Quincey, where the danger of meddling with Milton's text is
compared to that of meddling with a still lion, which may be
neither dead nor sleeping, but merely shamming. Dr. Ingleby
substitutes Shakespeare for Milton, and maintains that the mass
of Shakespearian emendations that have been proposed during the
last twenty years are needless; and that corruptions have been
assumed where none exist, owing to the limited knowledge
possessed by the critics. Thus, for instance, in the <i>Comedy
of Errors</i> (I. i. 152) the Duke bids Aegeon to "seek thy
<i>help</i> by beneficial <i>help</i>." At once there is a
chorus from all of us, sciolists, of "Corruption!"
"Sophistication!" "Cacophonous repetition!" etc. etc. "But
gently, friends," says Dr. Ingleby: "may not 'help' have borne
a different or a special meaning in Elizabethan English?" and
turning to medical writers and books on medicine of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (among them Dr. John Hall,
Shakespeare's own son-in-law), he proves that <i>heal</i> and
<i>help</i> having a common origin, <i>help</i> was used by
Shakespeare's contemporaries as a synonym for <i>cure,
deliverance</i>. The text, then, is perfectly correct,
Ægeon being bid to seek his <i>deliverance</i> from the
doom of death by the <i>help</i> of what friends he can find.
The lion's slumbers were here of the lightest, and happy men be
our dole to have escaped with whole skins. Thus Dr. Ingleby
takes up passage after passage of Shakespeare that has been
pronounced corrupt, and shows that the fault imputed to it lies
not in the text, but in the lack of requisite knowledge, be it
of language, of usage, of manners and customs, or even of
Elizabethan spelling and grammar, on the part of the critic.
The mischief that ignorance has done in the past is
irrevocable, but such impressive warnings as Dr. Ingleby gives
us may help, in both senses of the word, in the future. We may
be spared, hereafter, the infliction of numberless "felicitous"
conjectures, on which the following is scarcely a parody. It
was proposed many years ago in sport by the late
deeply-lamented Chauncey Wright, and, as far as we know, has
never yet appeared in print, though it may live to be gravely
noted down in some future Variorum, being a genuine echo of
many a note by Zachary Jackson or Andrew Beckett. In <i>As You
Like It</i> occur the familiar lines, "And thus our life ...
finds ... books in the running brooks, sermons in stones," etc.
"This is stark nonsense, and must be remedied. Who ever found a
<i>book</i> in a <i>rivulet</i> or a <i>sermon</i> in a
<i>rock?</i> It is clearly an error of a most ignorant or
careless compositor, who has transposed the nouns. Read,
'<i>stones in the running brooks and sermons in books</i>.'
Sense is vindicated. Stones are frequently found in brooks.
David chose smooth <i>pebbles from the brook</i>, and sermons
are quite frequently printed and sold in a book-form. By this
restoration Shakespeare's wonderful observation is," etc.,
etc., etc.</p>
<p>Great as is the service done in particular cases, the most
valuable part of <i>The Still Lion</i> is the moral which it
points, that "successful emendation is the fruit of severe
study and research on the one hand, and of rare sensibility and
sense on the other." And in our opinion Dr. Ingleby might have
gone even farther, and demanded for it a spark of that creative
power which is genius. But it must not be inferred that all the
difficult passages in Shakespeare can be thus explained away.
Despite all learning, or acuteness, or genius, there remains a
considerable number that have never yet been solved, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="page392"
id="page392"></a>[pg 392]</span> never will be, in general
acceptation, till the crack of doom. These, however, bear so
small a proportion to the vast mass of perplexing riddles
that have been satisfactorily settled that, like an
infinitely small quantity in mathematics, they may be
neglected. Therefore, let not him who wishes to read his
Shakespeare unalloyed by notes and textual comment, despise
the painful critic or accuse him of playing at loggats with
the words of Shakespeare. It is through the labors of
critics that the text is in such a shape that the work-a-day
reader can read it at all. In the Folios and Quartos we see
Shakespeare as through a glass darkly, but, thanks to those
drudges, the commentators, in numberless places we can now
see him face to face.</p>
<p>The Orphan of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments and
Drawings. By William Makepeace Thackeray. With some notes by
Anne Isabella Thackeray. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott &
Co.</p>
<p>The artistic sense—the vivid conception of things and
persons in their external aspects and with a constant regard to
their groupings and the effect upon the spectator—made
itself peculiarly prominent in all that Thackeray wrote. It is
not that he gives us elaborate descriptions: this, indeed, is
the resource of writers who are lacking in the faculty
mentioned, and are consequently obliged to reach the result, if
at all, by inferior means. His power lay in the selection of
traits which were strictly characteristic, in making every act
or phrase indicative of individuality. An astute critic,
therefore—one gifted with that keenness of vision to
which the exercise of the office unhappily implies a
claim—should have been able to infer Thackeray's
dexterity with the pencil from the methods of his literary
work. There was, however, no room for conjecture on this point,
as the fact was early a matter of notoriety, and many of the
illustrations in his books were known to be from his own
sketches. Recently, too, a publication containing some of his
earliest and slightest work in this way attracted considerable
attention, with the fortunate result of calling out the volume
before us, which embodies the best specimens of his skill
reproduced by a method that renders every line an exact
transcript, and accompanied by facsimiles of whatever written
text or comment appeared on the same page. Many of them partake
more or less of the nature of caricature, and if the execution
alone be considered, they show that Thackeray might, in default
of talents of a different order, have pursued this line with as
much success as some of its cleverest cultivators. But what
distinguishes the drolleries in this book is the inventiveness
shown in the conception and the characteristic ingenuity of the
details. The designs for "Playing Cards," in which the tray of
spades is represented by the figures of Johnson, Boswell and
Gibbon, and a scene at "Dr. Birch's School" does duty for the
seven of hearts, are especially felicitous in this way; while a
different but not less familiar trait is exhibited in some
carefully-drawn "Initial Letters," embodying charming bits of
child-life and quaint allusions to well-known scenes in history
and romance. "Othello" in the form of "Dandy Jim of Souf
Caroline," and "The Little Assessor of Tübingen"—a
mysterious personage of whom the author refused to reveal the
secret—are equally amusing and suggestive. There are some
half hundred subjects of the same or other kinds in the volume,
which, as a mere picture-book, is full of entertainment for
readers of all ages, while for those with whom the name of
Thackeray is a dear household word it will have a still higher
charm, calling up as it does so many associations connected
with the author and the man, and seeming like a fragment of the
biography which has been vainly looked for.</p>
<h3><i>Books Received.</i></h3>
<p>The Illustrated Annual Register of Rural Affairs for 1876.
By J.J. Thomas. Albany: Luther Tucker & Son.</p>
<p>The Chevalier Casse-Cou: The Red Camellia. By Fortuné
Du Boisgobey. Translated from the French by Thos. Picton. New
York: Robert M. De Witt.</p>
<p>Household Elegancies. By Mrs. C.S. Jones and Henry T.
Williams. New York: Henry T. Williams.</p>
<p>The Children's Treasury of English Song. By Francis Turner
Palgrave. New York: Macmillan & Co.</p>
<p>Stories from the Lips of the Teacher. By O.B. Frothingham.
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.</p>
<p>Songs of Three Centuries. Edited by J.G. Whittier. Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co.</p>
<p>Roddy's Reality. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: G.P.
Putnam's Sons.</p>
<hr class="full" />
<blockquote class="footnote">
<p>
<a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b> <a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a>
</p>
<p>See the article entitled "The House on the Beach," in
<i>Lippincott's Magazine</i> for January. Since the
publication of that paper a letter of distinction has been
received by General Albert J. Myer from the International
Congress of Geographical Sciences, held in Paris in 1875,
which states that the United States signal service appeared
to the Congress to deserve an exceptional reward. "This
service, so remarkably organized, has been the cause of
such progress in meteorological science that the
distinctions provided by the regulations of the Congress
would not be commensurate for it." The letter of
distinction was therefore sent as the highest award decreed
by the Congress.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="footnote">
<p>
<a id="footnote2"
name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b>
<a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a>
</p>
<p>Houses of refuge.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="footnote">
<p>
<a id="footnote3"
name="footnote3"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b>
<a href="#footnotetag3">(return)</a>
</p>
<p>This fine old relic of the Revolution is preserved by
the Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, South
Carolina. It was borne by Colonel William Washington's
corps at Cowpens and Eutaw.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="footnote">
<p>
<a id="footnote4"
name="footnote4"></a><b>Footnote 4:</b>
<a href="#footnotetag4">(return)</a>
</p>
<p>"Solly" resided for many years after the war at Easton,
Maryland. A good portrait of him is still there.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr class="full" />
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13655 ***</div>
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