diff options
Diffstat (limited to '13778-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 13778-0.txt | 6653 |
1 files changed, 6653 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/13778-0.txt b/13778-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..082397c --- /dev/null +++ b/13778-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6653 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13778 *** + +Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great + +Elbert Hubbard + +Memorial Edition + +Printed and made into a Book by The Roycrofters, +who are in East Aurora, Erie County, New York + +Wm. H. Wise & Co. + +New York + +1916 + + +Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women + + + + +CONTENTS + +ELBERT HUBBARD II vii +ELIZABETH B. BROWNING 15 +MADAME GUYON 41 +HARRIET MARTINEAU 67 +CHARLOTTE BRONTE 93 +CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 113 +ROSA BONHEUR 133 +MADAME DE STAEL 161 +ELIZABETH FRY 187 +MARY LAMB 213 +JANE AUSTEN 235 +EMPRESS JOSEPHINE 257 +MARY W. SHELLEY 283 + + + + +ELBERT HUBBARD II + +BERT HUBBARD + + We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we can + not put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread and + that is to be done strenuously, other work to do for our delight + and that is to be done heartily; neither is to be done by halves + or shifts, but with a will; and what is not worth this effort is + not to be done at all. + --_John Ruskin_ + + +I am Elbert Hubbard's son, and I am entirely familiar with the proposition +that "Genius never reproduces." + +Heretofore, it has always been necessary to sign my name, "Elbert Hubbard +II"--but now there is an embarrassment in that signature, an assumption +that I do not feel. + +There is no Second Elbert Hubbard. To five hundred Roycrofters, to the +Village of East Aurora, and to a few dozen personal friends scattered over +the face of the earth, I am Bert Hubbard, plain Bert Hubbard--and as Bert +Hubbard I want to be known to you. + +I lay no claim to having inherited Elbert Hubbard's Genius, his +Personality, his Insight into the Human Heart. I am another and totally +different sort of man. + +I know my limitations. + +Also, I am acquainted with such ability as I possess, and I believe that +it can be directed to serve you. + +I got my schooling in East Aurora. + +I have never been to College. But I have traveled across this Country +several times with my Father. + +I have traveled abroad with him. One time we walked from Edinburgh to +London to prove that we could do it. + +My Father has been my teacher--and I do not at all envy the College Man. + +For the last twenty years I have been working in the Roycroft Shops. + +I believe I am well grounded in Business--also, in Work. + +When I was twelve years old my father transferred Ali Baba to the +garden--and I did the chores around the house and barn for a dollar a +week. From that day forward I earned every dollar that ever came to me. + +I fed the printing-press at four dollars a week. Then, when we purchased a +gas-engine, I was promoted to be engineer, and given a pair of long +overalls. + +Two or three years later I was moved into the General Office, where I +opened mail and filled in orders. + +Again, I was promoted into the Private Office and permitted to sign my +name under my Father's, on checks. + +Then the responsibility of purchasing materials was given me. + +One time or another I have worked in every Department of the Roycroft +Shops. + +My association with Elbert Hubbard has been friendly, brotherly. I have +enjoyed his complete confidence--and I have tried to deserve it. + +He believed in me, loved me, hoped for me. Whether I disappointed him at +times is not important. I know my average must have pleased him, because +the night he said Farewell to the Roycrofters he spoke well of me, very +well of me, and he left the Roycroft Institution in my charge. + +He sailed away on the "Lusitania" intending to be gone several weeks. His +Little Journey has been prolonged into Eternity. + +But the work of Elbert and Alice Hubbard is not done. With them one task +was scarcely under way when another was launched. Whether complete or +incomplete, there had to be an end to their effort sometime, and this is +the end. + +Often Elbert Hubbard would tell the story of Tolstoy, who stopped at the +fence to question the worker in the field, "My Man, if you knew you were +to die tomorrow, what would you do today?" And the worker begrimed with +sweat would answer, "I would plow!" + +That's the way Elbert Hubbard lived and died, and yet he did more--he +planned for the future. He planned the future of the Roycroft Shop. Death +did not meet him as a stranger. He came as a sometime-expected friend. +Father was not unprepared. + +The plan that would have sustained us the seven weeks he was in Europe +will sustain us seven years--and another seven years. + +Elbert Hubbard's work will go on. + +I know of no Memorial that would please Elbert Hubbard half so well as to +broaden out the Roycroft Idea. + +So we will continue to make handmade Furniture, hand-hammered Copper, +Modeled Leather. We shall still triumph in the arts of Printing and +Bookmaking. + +The Roycroft Inn will continue to swing wide its welcoming door, and the +kind greeting is always here for you. + +"The Fra" will not miss an issue, and you who have enjoyed it in the past +will continue to enjoy it! + +"The Philistine" belonged to Elbert Hubbard. He wrote it himself for just +twenty years and one month. No one else could have done it as he did. No +one else can now do it as he did. + +So, for very sentimental reasons--which overbalance the strong temptation +to continue "The Philistine"--I consider it a duty to pay him the tribute +of discontinuing the little Magazine of Protest. + +The Roycrofters, Incorporated, is a band of skilled men and women. For +years they have accomplished the work that has invited your admiration. +You may expect much of them now. The support they have given me, the +confidence they have in me, is as a great mass of power and courage +pushing me on to success. + +This thought I would impress upon you: It will not be the policy of The +Roycrofters to imitate or copy. This place from now on is what we make it. +The past is past, the future spreads a golden red against the eastern sky. + +I have the determination to make a Roycroft Shop--that Elbert Hubbard, +leaning out over the balcony, will look down and say, "Good boy, +Bert--good boy!" + +I have Youth and Strength. + +I have Courage. + +My Head is up. + +Forward--all of us--March! + + + + +ELIZABETH B. BROWNING + + I have been in the meadows all the day, + And gathered there the nosegay that you see; + Singing within myself as bird or bee + When such do fieldwork on a morn of May. + _Irreparableness_ + +[Illustration: ELIZABETH B. BROWNING] + + +Writers of biography usually begin their preachments with the rather +startling statement, "The subject of this memoir was born"----Here follows +a date, the name of the place and a cheerful little Mrs. Gamp anecdote: +this as preliminary to "launching forth." + +It was the merry Andrew Lang, I believe, who filed a general protest +against these machine-made biographies, pleading that it was perfectly +safe to assume the man was born; and as for the time and place it mattered +little. But the merry man was wrong, for Time and Place are often masters +of Fate. + +For myself, I rather like the good old-fashioned way of beginning at the +beginning. But I will not tell where and when Elizabeth was born, for I do +not know. And I am quite sure that her husband did not know. The +encyclopedias waver between London and Herefordshire, just according as +the writers felt in their hearts that genius should be produced in town or +country. One man, with opinions pretty well ossified on this subject, +having been challenged for his statement that Mrs. Browning was born at +Hope End, rushed into print in a letter to the "Gazette" with the +countercheck quarrelsome to the effect, "You might as well expect +throstles to build nests on Fleet Street 'buses, as for folks of genius +to be born in a big city." As apology for the man's ardor I will explain +that he was a believer in the Religion of the East and held that spirits +choose their own time and place for materialization. + +Mrs. Ritchie, authorized by Mr. Browning, declared Burn Hill, Durham, the +place, and March Sixth, Eighteen Hundred Nine, the time. In reply, John H. +Ingram brings forth a copy of the Tyne "Mercury," for March Fourteenth, +Eighteen Hundred Nine, and points to this: + +"In London, the wife of Edward M. Barrett, of a daughter." + +Mr. Browning then comes forward with a fact that derricks can not budge, +that is, "Newspapers have ever had small regard for truth." Then he adds, +"My wife was born March Sixth, Eighteen Hundred Six, at Carlton Hall, +Durham, the residence of her father's brother." One might ha' thought that +this would be the end on't, but it wasn't, for Mr. Ingram came out with +this sharp rejoinder: "Carlton Hall was not in Durham, but in Yorkshire. +And I am authoritatively informed that it did not become the residence of +S. Moulton Barrett until some time after Eighteen Hundred Ten. Mr. +Browning's latest suggestions in this matter can not be accepted. In +Eighteen Hundred Six, Edward Barrett, not yet twenty years of age, is +scarcely likely to have already been the father of the two children +assigned to him." And there the matter rests. Having told this much I +shall proceed to launch forth. + +The earlier years of Elizabeth Barrett's life were spent at Hope End, near +Ledbury, Herefordshire. I visited the place and thereby added not only one +day, but several to my life, for Ali counts not the days spent in the +chase. There is a description of Hope End written by an eminent clergyman, +to whom I was at once attracted by his literary style. This gentleman's +diction contains so much clearness, force and elegance that I can not +resist quoting him verbatim: "The residentiary buildings lie on the ascent +of the contiguous eminences, whose projecting parts and bending +declivities, modeled by Nature, display astonishing harmoniousness. It +contains an elegant profusion of wood, disposed in the most careless yet +pleasing order; much of the park and its scenery is in view of the +residence, from which vantage-point it presents a most agreeable +appearance to the enraptured beholder." So there you have it! + +Here Elizabeth Barrett lived until she was twenty. She never had a +childhood--'t was dropped out of her life in some way, and a Greek grammar +inlaid instead. Of her mother we know little. She is never quoted; never +referred to; her wishes were so whisperingly expressed that they have not +reached us. She glides, a pale shadow, across the diary pages. Her +husband's will was to her supreme; his whim her conscience. We know that +she was sad, often ill, that she bore eight children. She passed out +seemingly unwept, unhonored and unsung, after a married existence of +sixteen years. + +Elizabeth Barrett had the same number of brothers and sisters that +Shakespeare had; and we know no more of the seven Barretts who were +swallowed by oblivion than we do of the seven Shakespeares that went not +astray. + +Edward Moulton Barrett had a sort of fierce, passionate, jealous affection +for his daughter Elizabeth. He set himself the task of educating her from +her very babyhood. He was her constant companion, her tutor, adviser, +friend. When six years old she studied Greek, and when nine made +translations in verse. Mr. Barrett looked on this sort of thing with much +favor, and tightened his discipline, reducing the little girl's hours for +study to a system as severe as the laws of Draco. Of course, the child's +health broke. From her thirteenth year she appears to us like a beautiful +spirit with an astral form; or she would, did we not perceive that this +beautiful form is being racked with pain. No wonder some one has asked, +"Where then was the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children?" + +But this brave spirit did not much complain. She had a will as strong as +her father's, and felt a Spartan pride in doing all that he asked and a +little more. She studied, wrote, translated, read and thought. + +And to spur her on and to stimulate her, Mr. Barrett published several +volumes of her poems. It was immature, pedantic work, but still it had a +certain glow and gave promise of the things yet to come. + +One marked event in the life of Elizabeth Barrett occurred when Hugh +Stuart Boyd arrived at Hope End. He was a fine, sensitive, soul--a poet by +nature and a Greek scholar of repute. He came on Mr. Barrett's invitation +to take Mr. Barrett's place as tutor. The young girl was confined to her +bed through the advice of physicians; Boyd was blind. + +Here at once was a bond of sympathy. No doubt this break in the monotony +of her life gave fresh courage to the fair young woman. The gentle, +sightless poet relaxed the severe hours of study. Instead of grim digging +in musty tomes they talked: he sat by her bedside holding the thin hands +(for the blind see by the sense of touch), and they talked for hours--or +were silent, which served as well. Then she would read to the blind man +and he would recite to her, for he had the blind Homer's memory. She grew +better, and the doctors said that if she had taken her medicine regularly, +and not insisted on getting up and walking about as guide for the blind +man, she might have gotten entirely well. + +In that fine poem, "Wine of Cyprus," addressed to Boyd, we see how she +acknowledges his goodness. There is no wine equal to the wine of +friendship; and love is only friendship--plus something else. There is +nothing so hygienic as friendship. + +Hell is a separation, and Heaven is only a going home to our friends. + +Mr. Barrett's fortune was invested in sugar-plantations in Jamaica. +Through the emancipation of the blacks his fortune took to itself wings. +He had to give up his splendid country home--to break the old ties. It was +decided that the family should move to London. Elizabeth had again taken +to her bed. The mattress on which she lay was borne down the steps by four +men; one man might have carried her alone, for she weighed only +eighty-five pounds, so they say. + + * * * * * + +Crabb Robinson, who knew everything and everybody, being very much such a +man as John Kenyon, has left on record the fact that Mr. Kenyon had a face +like a Benedictine monk, a wit that never lagged, a generous heart, and a +tongue that ran like an Alpine cascade. + +A razor with which you can not shave may have better metal in it than one +with a perfect edge. One has been sharpened and the other not. And I am +very sure that the men who write best do not necessarily know the most; +Fate has put an edge on them--that's all. A good kick may start a stone +rolling, when otherwise it rests on the mountain-side for a generation. + +Kenyon was one type of the men who rest on the mountain-side. He dabbled +in poetry, wrote book-reviews, collected rare editions, attended first +nights, spoke mysteriously of "stuff" he was working on; and sometimes +confidentially told his lady friends of his intention to bring it out when +he had gotten it into shape, asking their advice as to bindings, etc. Men +of this type rarely bring out their stuff, for the reason that they never +get it into shape. When they refer to the novel they have on the stocks, +they refer to a novel they intend to write. It is yet in the ink-bottle. +And there it remains--all for the want of one good kick--but perhaps it's +just as well. + +Yet these friendly beings are very useful members of society. They are +brighter companions and better talkers than the men who exhaust +themselves in creative work and at odd times favor their friends with +choice samples of literary irritability. John Kenyon wrote a few bright +little things, but his best work was in the encouragement he gave others. +He sought out all literary lions and tamed them with his steady glance. +They liked his prattle and good-cheer, and he liked them for many +reasons--one of which was because he could go away and tell how he advised +them about this, that and the other. Then he fed them, too. + +And so unrivaled was Kenyon in this line that he won for himself the title +of "The Feeder of Lions." Now, John Kenyon--rich, idle, bookish and +generous--saw in the magazines certain fine little poems by one Elizabeth +Barrett. He also ascertained that she had published several books. Mr. +Kenyon bought one of these volumes and sent it by a messenger with a +little note to Miss Barrett telling how much he had enjoyed it, and craved +that she would inscribe her name and his on the fly-leaf and return by +bearer. Of course she complied with such a modest request so gracefully +expressed; these things are balm to poets' souls. Next, Mr. Kenyon called +to thank Miss Barrett for the autograph. Soon after, he wrote to inform +her of a startling fact that he had just discovered: they were kinsmen, +cousins or something--a little removed, but cousins still. In a few weeks +they wrote letters back and forth beginning thus: Dear Cousin. + +And I am glad of this cousinly arrangement between lonely young people. +They grasp at it; and it gives an excuse for a bit of closer relationship +than could otherwise exist with propriety. Goodness me! is he not my +cousin? Of course he may call as often as he chooses. It is his right. + +But let me explain here that at this time Mr. Kenyon was not so very +young--that is, he was not absurdly young: he was fifty. But men who +really love books always have young hearts. Kenyon's father left him a +fortune, no troubles had ever come his way, and his was not the +temperament that searches them out. He dressed young, looked young, acted +young, felt young. + +No doubt John Kenyon sincerely admired Elizabeth Barrett, and prized her +work. And while she read his mind a deal more understandingly than he did +her poems, she was grateful for his kindly attention and well-meant +praise. He set about to get her poems into better magazines and to find +better publishers for her work. He was not a gifted poet himself, but to +dance attendance on one afforded a gratification to his artistic impulse. +He could not write sublime verse himself, but he could tell others how. So +Miss Barrett showed her poems to Mr. Kenyon, and Mr. Kenyon advised that +the P's be made bolder and the tails to the Q's be lengthened. He also +bought her a new kind of manuscript paper, over which a quill pen would +glide with glee: it was the kind Byron used. But best of all, Mr. Kenyon +brought his friends to call on Miss Barrett; and many of these friends +were men with good literary instincts. The meeting with these strong minds +was no doubt a great help to the little lady, shut up in a big house and +living largely in dreams. + +Mary Russell Mitford was in London about this time on a little visit, and +of course was sought out by John Kenyon, who took her sightseeing. She was +fifty years old, too; she spoke of herself as an old maid, but didn't +allow others to do so. Friends always spoke of her as "Little Miss +Mitford," not because she was little, but because she acted so. Among +other beautiful sights that Mr. Kenyon wished to show gushing little Mary +Mitford was a Miss Barrett who wrote things. So together they called on +Miss Barrett. + +Little Miss Mitford looked at the pale face in its frame of dark curls, +lying back among the pillows. Little Miss Mitford bowed and said it was a +fine day; then she went right over and kissed Miss Barrett, and these two +women held each other's hands and talked until Mr. Kenyon twisted +nervously and hinted that it was time to go. + +Miss Barrett had not been out for two months, but now these two insisted +that she should go with them. The carriage was at the door, they would +support her very tenderly, Mr. Kenyon himself would drive--so there could +be no accidents and they would bring her back the moment she was tired. +So they went, did these three, and as Mr. Kenyon himself drove there were +no accidents. + +I can imagine that James the coachman gave up the reins that day with only +an inward protest, and after looking down and smiling reassurance Mr. +Kenyon drove slowly towards the Park; little Miss Mitford forgot her +promise not to talk incessantly; and the "dainty, white-porcelain lady" +brushed back the raven curls from time to time and nodded indulgently. + +Not long ago I called at Number Seventy-four Gloucester Place, where the +Barretts lived. It is a plain, solid brick house, built just like the ten +thousand other brick houses in London where well-to-do tradesmen live. The +people who now occupy the house never heard of the Barretts, and surely do +not belong to a Browning Club. I was told that if I wanted to know +anything about the place I should apply to the "Agent," whose name is +'Opkins and whose office is in Clifford Court, off Fleet Street. The house +probably has not changed in any degree in these fifty years, since little +Miss Mitford on one side and Mr. Kenyon on the other, tenderly helped Miss +Barrett down the steps and into the carriage. + +I lingered about Gloucester Place for an hour, but finding that I was +being furtively shadowed by various servants, and discovering further that +a policeman had been summoned to look after my case, I moved on. + +That night after the ride, Miss Mitford wrote a letter home and among +other things she said: "I called today at a Mr. Barrett's. The eldest +daughter is about twenty-five. She has some spinal affection, but she is a +charming, sweet young woman who reads Greek as I do French. She has +published some translations from Æschylus and some striking poems. She is +a delightful creature, shy, timid and modest." + +The next day Mr. Kenyon gave a little dinner in honor of Miss Mitford, who +was the author of a great book called, "Our Village." That night when Miss +Mitford wrote her usual letter to the folks down in the country, telling +how she was getting along, she described this dinner-party. She says: +"Wordsworth was there--an adorable old man. Then there was Walter Savage +Landor, too, as splendid a person as Mr. Kenyon himself, but not so full +of sweetness and sympathy. But best of all, the charming Miss Barrett, who +translated the most difficult of the Greek plays, 'Prometheus Bound.' She +has written most exquisite poems, too, in almost every modern style. She +is so sweet and gentle, and so pretty that one looks at her as if she were +some bright flower." Then in another letter Miss Mitford adds: "She is of +a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either +side of a most expressive face; large tender eyes, richly fringed by dark +lashes; a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness that I had +some difficulty in persuading a friend that she was really the translator +of Æschylus and the author of the 'Essay on Mind.'" + +When Miss Mitford went back home, she wrote Miss Barrett a letter 'most +every day. She addresses her as "My Sweet Love," "My Dearest Sweet," and +"My Sweetest Dear." She declares her to be the gentlest, strongest, +sanest, noblest and most spiritual of all living persons. And moreover she +wrote these things to others and published them in reviews. She gave +Elizabeth Barrett much good advice and some not so good. Among other +things she says: "Your one fault, my dear, is obscurity. You must be +simple and plain. Think of the stupidest person of your acquaintance, and +when you have made your words so clear that you are sure he will +understand, you may venture to hope it will be understood by others." + +I hardly think that this advice caused Miss Barrett to bring her lines +down to the level of the stupidest person she knew. She continued to write +just as she chose. Yet she was grateful for Miss Mitford's glowing +friendship, and all the pretty gush was accepted, although perhaps with +good large pinches of the Syracuse product. + +Of course there are foolish people who assume that gushing women are +shallow, but this is jumping at conclusions. A recent novel gives us a +picture of "a tall soldier," who, in camp, was very full of brag and +bluster. We are quite sure that when the fight comes on this man with the +lubricated tongue will prove an arrant coward; we assume that he will run +at the first smell of smoke. But we are wrong--he stuck; and when the flag +was carried down in the rush, he rescued it and bore it bravely so far to +the front that when he came back he brought another--the tawdry, red flag +of the enemy! + +I slip this in here just to warn hasty folk against the assumption that +talkative people are necessarily vacant-minded. Man has a many-sided +nature, and like the moon reveals only certain phases at certain times. +And as there is one side of the moon that is never revealed at all to +dwellers on the planet Earth, so mortals may unconsciously conceal certain +phases of soul-stuff from each other. + +Miss Barrett seems to have written more letters and longer ones to Miss +Mitford than to any of her other correspondents, save one. Yet she was +aware of this rather indiscreet woman's limitations and wrote down to her +understanding. + +To Richard H. Horne she wrote freely and at her intellectual best. With +this all-round, gifted man she kept up a correspondence for many years; +and her letters now published in two stout volumes afford a literary +history of the time. At the risk of being accused of lack of taste, I wish +to say that these letters of Miss Barrett's are a deal more interesting to +me than any of her longer poems. They reveal the many-sided qualities of +the writer, and show the workings of her mind in various moods. Poetry is +such an exacting form that it never allows the author to appear in +dressing-gown and slippers; neither can he call over the back fence to his +neighbor without loss of dignity. + +Horne was author, editor and publisher. His middle name was Henry, but +following that peculiar penchant of the ink-stained fraternity to play +flimflam with their names, he changed the Henry to Hengist; so we now see +it writ thus: R. Hengist Horne. + +He found a market for Miss Barrett's wares. More properly, he insisted +that she should write certain things to fit certain publications in which +he was interested. They collaborated in writing several books. They met +very seldom, and their correspondence has a fine friendly flavor about it, +tempered with a disinterestedness that is unique. They encourage each +other, criticize each other. They rail at each other in witty quips and +quirks, and at times the air is so full of gibes that it looks as if a +quarrel were appearing on the horizon--no bigger than a man's hand--but +the storm always passes in a gentle shower of refreshing compliments. + +Meantime, dodging in and out, we see the handsome, gracious and kindly +John Kenyon. + +Much of the time Miss Barrett lived in a darkened room, seeing no one but +her nurse, the physician and her father. Fortune had smiled again on +Edward Barrett--a legacy had come his way, and although he no longer owned +the black men in Jamaica, yet they were again working for him. Sugar-cane +mills ground slow, but small. + +The brilliant daughter had blossomed in intellect until she was beyond her +teacher. She was so far ahead that he called to her to wait for him. He +could read Greek; she could compose in it. But she preferred her native +tongue, as every scholar should. Now, Mr. Barrett was jealous of the fame +of his daughter. The passion of father for daughter, of mother for +son--there is often something very loverlike in it--a deal of whimsy! Miss +Barrett's darkened room had been illumined by a light that the gruff and +goodly merchant wist not of. Loneliness and solitude and physical pain and +heart-hunger had taught her things that no book recorded nor tutor knew. +Her father could not follow her; her allusions were obscure, he said, +wilfully obscure; she was growing perverse. + +Love is a pain at times. To ease the hurt the lover would hurt the +beloved. He badgers her, pinches her, provokes her. One step more and he +may kill her. + +Edward Barrett's daughter, she of the raven curls and gentle ways, was +reaching a point where her father's love was not her life. A good way to +drive love away is to be jealous. He had seen it coming years before; he +brooded over it; the calamity was upon him. Her fame was growing: some one +called her the Shakespeare of women. First, her books had been published +at her father's expense; next, editors were willing to run their own +risks, and now messengers with bank-notes waited at the door and begged to +exchange the bank-notes for manuscript. John Kenyon said, "I told you so," +but Edward Barrett scowled. He accused her foolishly; he attempted to +dictate to her--she must use this ink or that. Why? Because he said so. He +quarreled with her to ease the love-hurt that was smarting in his heart. + +Poor, little, pale-faced poet! Earthly success has nothing left for thee! +Thy thoughts, too great for speech, fall on dull ears. Even thy father, +for whom thou first took up pen, doth not understand thee! and a mother's +love thou hast never known. And fame without love--how barren! Heaven is +thy home. Let slip thy thin, white hands on the thread of life and glide +gently out at ebb of tide--out into the unknown. It can not but be better +than this--God understands! Compose thy troubled spirit, give up thy vain +hopes. See! thy youth is past, little woman; look closely! there are gray +hairs in thy locks, thy face is marked with lines of care, and have I not +seen signs of winter in thy veins? Earth holds naught for thee. Come, take +thy pen and write, just a last good-by, a tender farewell, such as thou +alone canst say. Then fold thy thin hands, and make peace with all by +passing out and away, out and away--God understands! + + * * * * * + +Elizabeth Barrett was thirty-seven, and Miss Mitford, up to London from +the country for a couple of days, wrote home that she had lost her winsome +beauty. + +John Kenyon had turned well into sixty, but he carried his years in a +jaunty way. He wore a moss-rose bud in the lapel of his well-fitting coat. +His linen was immaculate, and the only change people saw in him was that +he wore spectacles in place of a monocle. + +The physicians allowed Mr. Kenyon to visit the darkened room whenever he +chose, for he never stayed so very long, neither was he ever the bearer of +bad news. + +Did the greatest poetess of the age (temporarily slightly indisposed) know +one Browning--Robert Browning, a writer of verse? Why, no; she had never +met him, but of course she knew of him, and had read everything he had +written. He had sent her one of his books once. He was surely a man of +brilliant parts--so strong and farseeing! He lives in Italy, with the +monks, they say. What a pity the English people do not better appreciate +him! + +"But he may succeed yet," said Mr. Kenyon. "He is not old." + +"Oh, of course, such genius must some day be recognized. But he may be +gone then--how old did you say he was?" + +Mr. Kenyon had not said; but he now explained that Mr. Browning was +thirty-four, that is to say, just the age of himself, ahem! Furthermore, +Mr. Browning did not live in Italy--that is, not now, for at that present +moment he was in London. In fact, Mr. Kenyon had lunched with him an hour +before. They had talked of Miss Barrett (for who else was there among +women worth talking of!) and Mr. Browning had expressed a wish to see her. +Mr. Kenyon had expressed a wish that Mr. Browning should see her, and now +if Miss Barrett would express a wish that Mr. Browning should call and see +her, why, Mr. Kenyon would fetch him--doctors or no doctors. + +And he fetched him. + +And I'm glad, aren't you? + +Now Robert Browning was not at all of the typical poet type. In stature, +he was rather short; his frame was compact and muscular. In his youth, he +had been a wrestler--carrying away laurels of a different sort from those +which he was to wear later. His features were inclined to be heavy; in +repose his face was dull, and there was no fire in his glance. He wore +loose-fitting, plain, gray clothes, a slouch-hat and thick-soled shoes. At +first look you would have said he was a well-fed, well-to-do country +squire. On closer acquaintance you would have been impressed with his +dignity, his perfect poise and his fine reserve. And did you come to know +him well enough you would have seen that beneath that seemingly phlegmatic +outside there was a spiritual nature so sensitive and tender that it +responded to all the finer thrills that play across the souls of men. Yet +if there ever was a man who did not wear his heart upon his sleeve for +daws to peck at, it was Robert Browning. He was clean, wholesome, manly, +healthy, inside and out. He was master of self. + +Of course, the gentle reader is sure that the next act will show a tender +love-scene. And were I dealing with the lives of Peter Smith and Martha +the milkmaid, the gentle reader might be right. + +But the love of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett is an instance of +the Divine Passion. Take off thy shoes, for the place whereon thou +standest is holy ground! This man and woman had gotten well beyond the +first flush of youth; there was a joining of intellect and soul which +approaches the ideal. I can not imagine anything so preposterous as a +"proposal" passing between them; I can not conceive a condition of +hesitancy and timidity leading up to a dam-bursting "avowal." They met, +looked into each other's eyes, and each there read his fate: no coyness, +no affectation, no fencing--they loved. Each at once felt a heart-rest in +the other. Each had at last found the other self. + +That exquisite series of poems, "Sonnets From the Portuguese," written by +Elizabeth Barrett before her marriage and presented to her husband +afterward, was all told to him over and over by the look from her eyes, +the pressure of her hands, and in gentle words (or silence) that knew +neither shame nor embarrassment. + +And now it seems to me that somewhere in these pages I said that +friendship was essentially hygienic. I wish to make that remark again, and +to put it in italics. The Divine Passion implies the most exalted form of +friendship that man can imagine. + +Elizabeth Barrett ran up the shades and flung open the shutters. The +sunlight came dancing through the apartment, flooding each dark corner and +driving out all the shadows that lurked therein. It was no longer a +darkened room. + +The doctor was indignant; the nurse resigned. + +Miss Mitford wrote back to the country that Miss Barrett was "really +looking better than she had for years." + +As for poor Edward Moulton Barrett--he raved. He tried to quarrel with +Robert Browning, and had there been only a callow youth with whom to deal, +Browning would simply have been kicked down the steps, and that would have +been an end of it. But Browning had an even pulse, a calm eye and a temper +that was imperturbable. His will was quite as strong as Mr. Barrett's. + +And so it was just a plain runaway match--the ideal thing after all. One +day when the father was out of the way they took a cab to Marylebone +Parish Church and were married. The bride went home alone, and it was a +week before her husband saw her; because he would not be a hypocrite and +go ask for her by her maiden name. And had he gone, rung the bell and +asked to see Elizabeth Barrett Browning, no one would have known whom he +wanted. At the end of the week, the bride stole down the steps alone, +leading her dog Flush by a string, and met her lover-husband on the +corner. Next day, they wrote back from Calais, asking forgiveness and +craving blessings, after the good old custom of Gretna Green. But Edward +Moulton Barrett did not forgive--still, who cares! + +Yet we do care, too, for we regret that this man, so strong and manly in +many ways, could not be reconciled to this exalted love. Old men who nurse +wrath are pitiable sights. Why could not Mr. Barrett have followed the +example of John Kenyon? + +Kenyon commands both our sympathy and admiration. When the news came to +him that Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were gone, it is said that +he sobbed like a youth to whom has come a great, strange sorrow. For +months he was not known to smile, yet after a year he visited the happy +home in Florence. When John Kenyon died he left by his will fifty thousand +dollars "to my beloved and loving friends, Robert Browning and Elizabeth +Barrett, his wife." + +The old-time novelists always left their couples at the church-door. It +was not safe to follow further--they wished to make a pleasant story. It +seems meet to take our leave of the bride and groom at the church: life +often ends there. However, it sometimes is the place where life really +begins. It was so with Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning--they had +merely existed before; now, they began to live. + +Much, very much has been written concerning this ideal mating, and of the +life of Mr. and Mrs. Browning in Italy. But why should I write of the +things of which George William Curtis, Kate Field, Anthony Trollope and +James T. Fields have written? No, we will leave the happy pair at the +altar, in Marylebone Parish Church, and while the organ peals the +wedding-march we will tiptoe softly out. + + + + +MADAME GUYON + + To me remains nor place nor time; + My country is in every clime; + I can be calm and free from care, + On any shore, since God is there. + + While place we seek or place we shun, + The soul finds happiness in none; + But with a God to guide our way, + 'Tis equal joy to go or stay. + + Could I be cast where Thou art not, + That were indeed a dreadful lot; + But regions none remote I call, + Secure of finding God in all. + _God Is Everywhere_ + +[Illustration: MADAME GUYON] + + +Jeanne Marie Bouvier sat one day writing at her little oaken desk, when +her father approached and, kissing her very gently on the forehead, told +her that he had arranged for her marriage, and that her future husband was +soon to arrive. Jeanne's fingers lost their cunning, the pen dropped; she +arose to her feet, but her tongue was dumb. + +Jeanne Marie was only sixteen, but you would have thought her twenty, for +she was tall and dignified--she was as tall as her father: she was five +feet nine. She had a splendid length of limb, hips that gave only a +suggestion of curve line, a slender waist, a shapely, well-poised neck, +and a head that might have made a Juno envious. The face and brow were not +those of Venus--rather they belonged to Minerva; for the nose was large, +the chin full, and the mouth no pea's blossom. The hair was light brown, +but when the sun shone on it people said it was red. It was as generous in +quantity and unruly in habits as the westerly wind. Her eyes were all +colors, changing according to her mood. Withal, she had freckles, and no +one was ever so rash as to call her pretty. + +Now, Jeanne's father had not kissed her for two years, for he was a very +busy man: he had not time for soft demonstration. He was rich, he was +religious, and he was looked upon as a model citizen in every way. + +The daughter had grown like a sunflower, and her intellect had unfolded as +a moss-rose turns from bud to blossom. This splendid girl had thought and +studied and dreamed dreams. She had imagined she heard a voice speaking to +her: "Arise, maiden, and prepare thee, for I have a work for thee to do!" + +Her wish and prayer was to enter a convent, and after consecrating herself +to God in a way that would allow of no turning back, to go forth and give +to men and women the messages that had come to her. And these things +filled the heart of the worthy bourgeois with alarm; so he said to his +wife one day: "That girl will be a foot taller than I am in a year, and +even now when I give her advice, she opens her big eyes and looks at me in +a way that thins my words to whey. She will get us into trouble yet! She +may disgrace us! I think--I think I'll find her a husband." + +Yet that would not have been a difficult task. She was loved by a score of +youths, but had never spoken to any of them. They stood at corners and +sighed as she walked by; and others, with religious bent, timed her hours +for mass and took positions in church from whence they could see her +kneel. Still others patroled the narrow street that led to her home, with +hopes that she might pass that way, so that they might touch the hem of +her garment. + +These things were as naught to Jeanne Marie. She had never yet seen a man +for whose intellect she did not have both a pity and a contempt. + +But Claude Bouvier did not pick a husband for his daughter from among the +simple youths of the town. He wrote to a bachelor friend, Jacques Guyon by +name, and told him he could have the girl if he wanted her--that is, after +certain little preliminaries had been arranged. + +Now, Jacques Guyon had been at the Bouvier residence on a visit three +months before, and had looked the lass over stealthily with peculiar +interest, and had intimated that if Monsieur Bouvier wished to get rid of +her it could be brought about. So, after some weeks had passed, Monsieur +bethought him of the offer of Jacques Guyon, and he concluded that +inasmuch as Guyon was rich and respectable it would be a good match. + +So he wrote to Guyon, and Guyon replied that he would come, probably +within a fortnight--just as soon as his rheumatism got better. + +Monsieur Claude Bouvier read the letter, and walking into the next room, +surprised Jeanne Marie by kissing her tenderly on her forehead--all as +herein truthfully recorded. + + * * * * * + +So Jacques Guyon came, came in his carriage, with two servants riding on +horseback in front and another riding on horseback behind. Jeanne Marie +sat on the floor, tailor fashion, up in her little room of the old stone +house, and peeked out of the diamond-paned gable-window very cautiously; +and she was sorely disappointed. + +In some of her dreams (and these dreams she thought were very bad), she +had pictured a lover coming alone on a foam-flecked charger; and as the +steed paused, the rider leaped lightly from saddle to ground, kissing his +hand to her as she peeked through the curtains. For he discovered her when +she hoped he would not, but she did not care much if he did. + +But Monsieur Guyon's eyes did not search the windows. He got out of the +carriage with difficulty, and his breath came wheezy and short as he +mounted the steps. His complexion was dusty blue, his nose tinged with +carmine, his eyes watery, and his girth aldermanic. He was growing old, +and, saddest of all, he was growing old rebelliously and therefore +ungracefully--dyeing his whiskers purple. + +That evening when Jeanne Marie was introduced to Monsieur Guyon at dinner +she found him very polite and very gracious. His breeches were real black +velvet and his stockings were silk, and the buckles on his shoes were +polished silver and the frill of his shirt was finest lace. His +conversation was directed mostly to Jeanne's father, so Jeanne did not +feel nearly so uncomfortable as she had expected. + +The next day a notary came, and long papers were written out, and red and +green seals placed on them, and then everybody held up his right hand as +the notary mumbled something, and then all signed their names. The room +seemed to be teetering up and down, and it looked quite like rain. +Monsieur Bouvier stood on his tiptoes and again kissed his daughter on the +forehead, and Monsieur Guyon, taking her hand, lifted the long, slender +fingers to his lips, and told her that she would soon be a great lady and +the mistress of a splendid mansion, and have everything that one needed to +make one happy. + +And so they were married by a bishop, with two priests and three curates +to assist. The ceremony was held at the great stone church; and as the +procession came out, the verger had a hard time to keep the crowd back, so +that the little girls in white could go before and strew flowers in their +pathway. The organ pealed, and the chimes clanged and rang as if the tune +and the times were out of joint; then other bells from other parts of the +old town answered, and across the valley rang mellow and soft the +chapel-bell of Montargis Castle. + +Jeanne was seated in a carriage--how she got there she never knew; by her +side sat Jacques Guyon. The post-boys were lashing their horses into a +savage run, like devils running away with the souls of innocents, and +behind clattered the mounted, liveried servant. People on the sidewalks +waved good-bys and called God-bless-yous. Soon the sleepy old town was +left behind and the horses slowed down to a lazy trot. Jeanne looked back, +like Lot's wife: only a church-spire could be seen. She hoped that she +might be turned into a pillar of salt--but she wasn't. She crouched into +the corner of the seat and cried a good honest cry. + +And Monsieur Jacques Guyon smiled and muttered to himself, "Her father +said she was a bit stubborn, but I'll see that she gets over it!" + +And this was over three hundred years ago. It doesn't seem like it, but it +was. + + * * * * * + +Read the lives of great men and you will come to the conclusion that it is +harder to find a gentleman than a genius. While the clock ticks off the +seconds, count on your fingers--within five minutes, if you can--five such +gentlemen as Sir Philip Sidney! Of course, I know before you speak that +Fenelon will be the first on your tongue. Fenelon, the low-voiced, the +mild, the sympathetic, the courtly, the gracious! Fenelon, favored by the +gods with beauty and far-reaching intellect! Fenelon, who knew the gold of +silence. Fenelon, on whose lips dwelt grace, and who by the magic of his +words had but to speak to be believed and to be beloved. + +When Louis the Little made that most audacious blunder which cost France +millions in treasure and untold loss in men and women, Fenelon wrote to +the Prime Minister: "These Huguenots have many virtues that must be +acknowledged and conserved. We must hold them by mildness. We can not +produce conformity by force. Converts made in this manner are hypocrites. +No power is great enough to bind the mind--thought forever escapes. Give +civil liberty to all, not by approving all religions, but by permitting in +patience what God allows." + +"You shall go as missionary to these renegades!" was the +answer--half-ironical, half-earnest. + +"I will go only on one condition." + +"And that is?" + +"That from my province you withdraw all armed men--all sign of compulsion +of every sort!" + +Fenelon was of noble blood, but his sympathies were ever with the people. +The lowly, the weak, the oppressed, the persecuted--these were ever the +objects of his solicitude--these were first in his mind. + +It was in prison that Fenelon first met Madame Guyon. Fenelon was +thirty-seven, she was forty. He occasionally preached at Montargis, and +while there had heard of her goodness, her piety, her fervor, her +resignation. He had small sympathy for many of her peculiar views, but now +she was sick and in prison and he went to her and admonished her to hold +fast and to be of good-cheer. + +Twelve years before this Madame Guyon had been left a widow. She was the +mother of five children--two were dead. The others were placed under the +care of kind kinsmen; and Madame Guyon went forth to give her days to +study and to teaching. This action of placing her children partly in the +care of others has been harshly criticized. But there is one phase of the +subject that I have never seen commented upon--and that is that a mother's +love for her offspring bears a certain ratio to the love she bore their +father. Had Madame Guyon ever carried in her arms a love-child, I can not +conceive of her allowing this child to be cared for by others--no matter +how competent. + +The favor that had greeted Madame Guyon wherever she went was very great. +Her animation and devout enthusiasm won her entrance into the homes of +the great and noble everywhere. She organized societies of women that met +for prayer and conversation on exalted themes. The burden of her +philosophy was "Quietism"--the absolute submission of the human soul to +the will of God. Give up all, lay aside all striving, all reaching +out, all unrest, cease penance and lie low in the Lord's hand. +He doeth all things well. Make life one continual prayer for +holiness--wholeness--harmony; and thus all good will come to us--we +attract the good; we attract God--He is our friend--His spirit dwells with +us. She taught of power through repose, and told that you can never gain +peace by striving for it like fury. + +This philosophy, stretching out in limitless ramifications, bearing on +every phase and condition of life, touched everywhere with mysticism, +afforded endless opportunity for thought. + +It is the same philosophy that is being expressed by thousands of +prominent men and women today. It embraced all that is vital and best in +our so-called "advanced thought"; for in good sooth none of our new +"liberal sects" has anything that has not been taught before in olden +time. + +But Madame Guyon's success was too great. The guardians of a dogmatic +religion are ever on the scent for heresy. They are jealous, and fearful, +and full of alarm lest their "institution" shall topple. Quietism was +making head, and throughout France the name of Madame Guyon was becoming +known. She went from town to town, and from city to city, and gave courses +of lectures. Women flocked to hear her, they organized clubs. Preachers +sometimes appeared and argued with her, but by the high fervor of her +speech she quickly silenced them. Then they took revenge by thundering +sermons against her after she had gone. As she traveled she left in her +wake a pyrotechnic display of elocutionary denunciation. They dared her to +come back and fight it out. The air was full of challenges. One prelate +was good enough to say, "This woman may teach primitive Christianity--but +if people find God everywhere, what's to become of us!" + +And although the theme is as great as Fate and as serious as Death, one +can not suppress a smile to think how the fear of losing their jobs has +ever caused men to run violently to and fro and up and down in the earth, +crying peace, peace, when there is no peace. + +Now, it was the denunciation and wild demonstration of her fearing foes +that advertised the labors of Madame Guyon. For strong people are not so +much advertised by their loving friends as by their rabid enemies. + +This happened quite a while ago; but as mankind moves in a circle (and not +always a spiral, either) it might have happened yesterday. Make the scene +Ohio: slip Bossuet out and Doctor Buckley in; condense the virtues of Miss +Frances E. Willard and Miss Susan B. Anthony into one, and let this one +stand for Madame Guyon; call it New Transcendentalism, dub the Madame a +New Woman, and there you have it! + +But with this difference: petitions to the President of the United States +to arrest this female offender and shut her up in the Chicago jail, +indefinitely, after a mock trial, would avail not. Yet persecution has its +compensation, and the treatment that Madame Guyon received emphasized the +truths she taught and sent them ringing through the schools and salons and +wherever thinking people gathered themselves together. Yes, persecution +has its compensation. In its state of persecution a religion is pure, if +ever; its decline begins when its prosperity commences. Prosperous men are +never wise and seldom good. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of +you! + +Surely, persecution has its compensation! When Madame Guyon was sick and +in prison, was she not visited by Fenelon? Ah, 'twas worth the cost. +Sympathy is the first attribute of love as well as its last. And I am not +sure but that sympathy is love's own self, vitalized mayhap by some divine +actinic ray. Only a thorn-crowned, bleeding Christ could win the adoration +of the world. Only the souls who have suffered are well loved. Thus does +Golgotha find its recompense. Hark ye and take courage, ye who are in +bonds! Gracious spirits, seen or unseen, will minister to you now, where +otherwise they would have passed without a sign! But from the day Fenelon +met Madame Guyon his fortune began to decline. People looked at him +askance. By a grim chance he was made one of a committee of three to +investigate the charges brought against the woman. The court took a year +for its task. Fenelon read everything that Madame Guyon had published, +conversed much with her, inquired into her history and when asked for his +verdict said, "I find no fault in her." + +He talked with Madame de Maintenon, and Madame de Maintenon talked with +the King, and the offender was released. + +Soon Fenelon began to utter in his sermons the truths he had learned from +Madame Guyon. And he gave her due credit. He explained that she was a good +Catholic--that she loved the Church--that she lived up to all the Church +taught, and besides knowing all that Churchmen knew she knew many things +beside. + +Have a care, Archbishop of Cambrai! Enemies are upon thy track. Defend not +defenseless womanhood: knowest thou not what they have said of her? Speak +what thou art taught and keep thy inmost thoughts for thyself alone. Have +a care, Fenelon! thy bishopric hangs by a spider's thread. + +The years kept slipping past as the years will. Twelve summers had come, +and twelve times had autumn leaves known their time to fall. Madame Guyon +was again in prison. A stranger was Archbishop of Cambrai: Fenelon no +longer a counselor of kings--a tutor of royalty. His voice was silenced, +his pen chained. He was allowed to retire to a rural parish. There he +lived with the peasants--revered, beloved. The country where he dwelt was +battle-scarred and bleeding; the smoke of devastation still hung over it. +Not a family but had been robbed of its best. Death had stalked rampant. +Fenelon shared the poverty of the people, their lowliness, their sorrows. +All the tragedy of their life was his; he said to them, "I know, I know!" + +Twelve years of Madame Guyon's life were spent in prison. Toward the last +she was allowed to live in nominal freedom. But despotism, with savage +leer and stealthy step, saw that Fenelon was kept far away. In those +declining days, when the shadows were lengthening toward the east, her +time and talents were given to teaching the simple rudiments of knowledge +to the peasantry, to alleviating their material wants and to ministering +to the sick. It was a forced retirement, and yet it was a retirement that +was in every way in accord with her desires. But in spite of the +persecution that followed her, and the obloquy heaped upon her name, and +the bribe of pardon if she would but recant, she never retracted nor +wavered in her inward or outward faith, even in the estimation of a hair. +The firm reticence as to the supreme secrets of her life, and her +steadfast loyalty to that which she honestly believed was truth, must ever +command the affectionate admiration of all those who prize integrity of +mind and purity of purpose, who hold fast to the divinity of love, and who +believe in the things unseen which are eternal. + + * * * * * + +The town of Montargis is one day's bicycle journey from Paris. As for the +road, though one be a wayfaring man and from the States he could not err +therein. You simply follow the Seine as if you were intent on discovering +its source, keeping to the beautiful highway that follows the winding +stream. And what a beautiful, clear, clean bit of water it is! In Paris, +your washerwoman takes your linen to the river, just as they did in the +days of Pharaoh, and the bundle comes back sweet as the breath of June. +Imagine the result of such recklessness in Chicago! + +But as I rode out of Paris that bright May day it seemed Monday all along +the way; for dames with baskets balanced on their heads were making their +way to the waterside, followed by troops of barefoot or sabot-shod +children. There was one fine young woman with a baby in her arms, and the +innocent firstborn was busily taking its breakfast as the mother walked +calmly along, bearing on her well-poised head the family wash. And a mile +farther on, as if she had seen her rival and gone her one better, was +another woman with a two-year-old cherub perched secure on top of the +gently swaying basket, proud as a cardinal about to be consecrated. It was +a study in balancing that I have never seen before nor since; and I only +ask those to believe it who know things so true that they dare not tell +them. As the day wore on, I saw that the wash was being completed, for the +garments were spread out on the greenest of green grass, or on the bushes +that lined the way. By ten o'clock I was nearing Fontainebleau, and the +clothes were nearly ready to take in--but not quite. For while waiting for +the warm sun and the gentle breeze to dry them, the thrifty dames, who +were French and make soup out of everything, put in the time by laundering +the children. It seemed like that economic stroke of good housewives who +use the soapy wash-water for scrubbing the kitchen-floor. There they were, +dozens of hopefuls on whom the fate of the nation rested--creepers to +ten-year-olds--being scrubbed and dipped, or playing parlez-vous tag in +lieu of towel, as innocent of clothes as Carlyle's imaginary House of +Lords. + +And so I passed off from the road that traced the Seine to a road that +kept company with the canal. I followed the towpath, even in spite of +warnings that 't was 'gainst the law. It was a one-horse canal, for many +of the gaily painted boats were drawn only by a single, shaggy-limbed +Percheron. The boats were sharp-prowed and narrow; and on some were +bareheaded women knitting, and men carving curious things out of blocks of +wood, as they journeyed. And I said to myself, if "it is the pace that +kills," these people are making a strong bid for immortality. I hailed the +lazily moving craft, waving my hat, and the slow-going tourists called +back cheerily. + +By and by I came to a great, wide plain that stretched away like a +tideless summer sea. The wheat and lentils and pulse were planted in long +strips. In one place I thought I could trace the good old American flag +(that you never really love unless you are on a foreign shore) made with +alternate strips of millet and peas, with a goodly patch of cabbages in +the corner for stars. But possibly this was imagination, for I had been +thinking that in a week it would be the Fourth of July and I was far from +home--in a land where firecrackers are unknown. + +Coming to a little rise of ground, I could see, lying calm and quiet amid +the world of rich, growing grain, the town of Montargis. Across on the +blue hillside was Montargis Castle, framed in a mass of foliage. I stopped +to view the scene, and the echo of vesper-bells came pealing gently over +the miles, as the nodding poppies at my feet bowed reverently in the +breeze. + +Villages in France viewed from a distance seem so restful and idyllic. +There is no sound of strife, no trace of rivalry, no vain pride; only +white houses--the homes of good men and gentle women, and cherub children; +and all the church-steeples truly point to God. Yet on closer view--but +what of that! + +When I reached the town, the church whose spire I had seen from the +distance beckoned me first. I turned off from the wide thoroughfare, +intending just to get a glance at the outside of the building as I passed. +But the great iron gates thrown invitingly open, and a rusty, dusty dog +of Flanders lying in the entry waiting for his master, told me that there +was service within. So I entered, passing through the noiseless, swinging +door, and into the dim twilight of the house of prayer. A score of people +were there, and standing in the aisle was a white-robed priest. He was +speaking, and his voice came so gently, so sure withal, so exquisitely +modulated, that I paused and, leaning against a pillar, listened. I think +it was the first time I ever heard a preacher speaking in a large church +who did not speak so loud that an echo chased his sentences round and +round the vaulted dome and strangled the sense. The tone was +conversational and the manner so free from canting conventionality that I +moved up closer to get a view of the face. + +It was too dark to see well, but I came under the spell of the man's +earnest eloquence. The sacred stillness, the falling night, the odor from +incense and banks of flowers piled about the feet of an image of the Holy +Virgin--evidently brought by the peasantry, having nothing else to +give--made a combination of melting conditions that would have subdued a +heart of stone. + +The preacher ceased to speak, and as he raised his hands in benediction, +I, involuntarily, with the other worshipers, knelt on the stone floor and +bowed my head in silent reverie. + +Suddenly, I was aroused by a crashing noise at my elbow, and glancing +round saw that an old man near me had merely dropped his cane. A heavy +cudgel it was that falling on the stone flagging sent a thundering +reverberation through the vaulted chambers. + +The worshipers were slipping out, one by one, and soon no one was left but +the old man of the cudgel and myself. He wore wooden shoes, and was +holding the cordwood fast between his knees, rolling his hat nervously in +his big hands. "He's a stranger, too," I said to myself; "he is the man +who owns the rusty dog of Flanders, and he is waiting to give the priest +some message!" + +I leaned over towards my neighbor and asked, "The priest--what is his +name?" + +"Father Francis, Monsieur!" and the old man swayed back and forward in his +seat as if moved by some inward emotion, still fingering his hat. + +Just then the priest came out from behind the altar, wearing a black robe +instead of the white one. He moved down with a sort of quiet majesty +straight towards us. We arose as one man; it was as though some one had +pressed a button. + +Father Francis walked by me, bowing slightly, and shook hands with my old +neighbor. They stood talking in an undertone. + +A last struggling ray of light from the dying sun came in over the chancel +and flooded the great room for an instant. It allowed me to get a good +look at the face of the priest. As I stood there staring at him I heard +him say to the old man as he bade him good-by, "Yes, tell her I'll be +there in the morning." + +Then he turned to me, and I was still staring. And as I stared I was +repeating to myself the words the people said when Dante used to pass, +"There is the man who has been to Hell!" + +"You are an Englishman?" said Father Francis to me pleasantly as he held +out his hand. "Yes," I said; "I am an Englishman--that is, no--an +American!" + +I was wondering if he had really heard me make that Dante remark; and +anyway, I had been rudely staring at him and listening with both ears to +his conversation with the old man. I tried to roll my hat, and had I a +cudgel I would surely have dropped it; and with it all I wondered if the +dog of Flanders waiting outside was not getting impatient for me! + +"Oh, an American! I'm glad--I have very dear friends in America!" + +Then I saw that Father Francis did not look so much like the exiled +Florentine as I had thought, for his smile was winning as that of a woman, +the corners of his mouth did not turn down, and the nose had not the Roman +curve. Dante was an exile: this man was at home--and would have been, +anywhere. + +He was tall, slender and straight; he must have been sixty years old, but +the face in spite of its furrows was singularly handsome. Grave, yet not +depressed, it showed such feminine delicacy of feeling, such grace, such +high intellect, that I stood and gazed as I might at a statue in bronze. +But plain to see, he was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. The +face spake of one to whom might have come a great tribulation, and who by +accepting it had purchased redemption for all time from all the petty +troubles of earth. + +"You must stay here as long as you wish, and you will come to our old +church again, I hope!" said the Father. He smiled, nodded his head and +started to leave me alone. + +"Yes, yes, I'll come again--I'll come in the morning, for I want to talk +with you about Madame Guyon--she was married in this church they told +me--is that true?" I clutched a little. Here was a man I could not afford +to lose--one of the elect! + +"Oh, yes; that was a long time ago, though. Are you interested in Madame +Guyon? I am glad--not to know Fenelon seems a misfortune. He used to +preach from that very pulpit, and Madame was baptized at that font and +confirmed here. I have pictures of them both; and I have their books--one +of the books is a first edition. Do you care for such things?" + +When I was broke in London, in the Fall of Eighty-nine! Do I care for such +things? I can not recall what I said, but I remembered that this +brown-skinned priest with his liquid, black eyes, and the look of sorrow +on his handsome face, stood out before me like the picture of a saint. + +I made an engagement to meet him the next morning, when he bethought him +of his promise to the old man of the cudgel and wooden shoes. + +"Come now, then--come with me now. My house is just next door!" + +And so we walked up the main aisle of the old church, around the altar +where Madame Guyon used to kneel, and by a crooked, little passageway +entered a house fully as old as the church. A woman who might have been as +old as the house was setting the table in a little dining-room. She looked +up at me through brass-rimmed spectacles, and without orders or any one +saying a word she whisked off the tablecloth, replaced it with a snowy, +clean one, and put on two plates instead of one. Then she brought in +toasted brown bread and tea, and a steaming dish of lentils, and +fresh-picked berries in a basket all lined with green leaves. + +It was not a very sumptuous repast, but 't was enough. Afterward I learned +that Father Francis was a vegetarian. He did not tell me so, neither did +he apologize for absence of fermented drink, nor for his failure to supply +tobacco and pipes. + +Now, I have heard that there be priests who hold in their cowled heads +choice recipes for spiced wines, and who carry hidden away in their hearts +all the mysteries of the chafing-dish; but Father Francis was not one of +these. His form was thin, but the bronze of his face was the bronze that +comes from red corpuscles, and the strongly corded neck and calloused, +bony hands told of manly abstinence and exercise in the open air, and +sleep that follows peaceful thoughts, knowing no chloral. + +After the meal, Father Francis led the way to his little study upstairs. +He showed me his books and read to me from his one solitary "First +Edition." Then he unlocked a little drawer in an old chiffonier and +brought out a package all wrapped in chamois. This parcel held two +miniature portraits, one of Fenelon and one of Madame Guyon. + +"That picture of Fenelon belonged to Madame Guyon. He had it painted for +her and sent it to her while she was in prison at Vincennes. The other I +bought in Paris--I do not know its history." + +The good priest had work to do, and let me know it very gently, thus: "You +have come a long way, brother, the road was rough--I know you must be +weary. Come, I'll show you to your room." + +He lighted a candle and took me to a bedroom at the end of the hall. It +was a little room, very clean, but devoid of all ornament, save a picture +of the Madonna and her Babe, that hung over the head of the little iron +bedstead. It was a painting--not very good. I think Father Francis painted +it himself; the face of the Holy Mother was very human--divinely human--as +motherhood should be. + +Father Francis was right: the way had been rough and I was tired. + +The treetops sang a cooing lullaby and the nightwinds sighed solemnly as +they wandered through the hallway and open doors. It did not take me long +to go to sleep. Later, the wind blew up fresh and cool. I was too sleepy +to get up and hunt for more covering, and yet I was cold as I curled up in +a knot and dreamed I was first mate with Peary on an expedition in search +of the North Pole. And the last I remember was a vision of a gray-robed +priest tiptoeing across the stone floor; of his throwing over me a heavy +blanket and then hastily tiptoeing out again. + +The matin-bells, or the birds, or both, awoke me early, but when I got +downstairs I found my host had preceded me. His fine face looked fresh and +strong, and yet I wondered when he had slept. + +After breakfast, the old housekeeper hovered near. + +"What is it, Margaret?" said the Father, gently. + +"You haven't forgotten your engagement?" asked the woman, with just a +quaver of anxiety. + +"Oh no, Margaret"; then turning to me, "Come, you shall go with me--we +will talk of Fenelon and Madame Guyon as we walk. It is eight miles and +back, but you will not mind the distance. Oh, didn't I tell you where I'm +going? You saw the old man at the church last night--it is his +daughter--she is dying--dying of consumption. She has not been a good +girl. She went away to Paris, three years ago, and her parents never heard +from her. We tried to find her, but could not; and now she has come home +of her own accord--come home to die. I baptized her twenty years ago--how +fast the time has flown!" + +The priest took a stout staff from the corner, and handing me its mate we +started away. Down the white, dusty highway we went; out on the stony road +where yesterday, as the darkness gathered, trudged an old man in wooden +shoes and with a cordwood cudgel--at his heels a dog of Flanders. + + + + +HARRIET MARTINEAU + + You better live your best and act your best and think your best + today; for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and all the + other tomorrows that follow. + --_Life's Uses_ + +[Illustration: HARRIET MARTINEAU] + + +I believe it was Thackeray who once expressed a regret that Harriet +Martineau had not shown better judgment in choosing her parents. + +She was born into one of those big families where there is not love enough +to go 'round. The mother was a robustious woman with a termagant temper; +she was what you call "practical." She arose each morning, like Solomon's +ideal wife, while it was yet dark, and proceeded to set her house in +order. She made the children go to bed when they were not sleepy and get +up when they were. There was no beauty-sleep in that household, not even +forty winks; and did any member prove recreant and require a douse of cold +water, not only did he get the douse but he also heard quoted for a year +and a day that remark concerning the sluggard, "A little sleep, a little +slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come +as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man." + +This big, bustling Amazon was never known to weep but once, and that was +when Lord Nelson died. To show any emotion would have been to reveal a +weakness, and a caress would have been proof positive of folly. Life was +a stern business and this earth-journey a warfare. She cooked, she swept, +she scrubbed, she sewed. + +And although she withheld every loving word and kept back all +demonstration of affection, yet her children were always well cared for: +they were well clothed, they had plenty to eat, and a warm place to sleep. +And in times of sickness this mother would send all others to rest, and +herself would watch by the bedside until the shadows stole away and the +sunrise came again. I wonder where you have lived all your life if you +have never known a woman like that? + +In the morning, as soon as the breakfast things were done and the men +folks had gone to the cloth-factory, Mrs. Martineau would marshal her +daughters in the sitting-room to sew. And there they sewed for four hours +every forenoon for more than four years; and as they sewed some one would +often read aloud to them, for Mrs. Martineau believed in +education--education gotten on the wing. + +Sewing-machines and knitting-machines have done more to emancipate women +than all the preachers. Think of the days when every garment worn by men, +women and children was made by the never-resting hands of women! + +And as the girls in that thrifty Norwich household sewed and listened to +the reader, they occasionally spoke in monotone of what was read---all +save Harriet: Harriet sewed. And the other girls thought Harriet very +dull, and her mother was sure of it, and called her stupid, and sometimes +shook her and railed at her, endeavoring to arouse her out of her +lethargy. + +Harriet has herself left on record somewhat of her feelings in those days. +In her child-heart there was a great aching void. Her life was wrong--the +lives about her were wrong--she did not know how, and could not then trace +the subject far enough to tell why. She was a-hungered, she longed for +tenderness, for affection and the close confidence that knows no repulse. +She wanted them all to throw down their sewing for just five minutes, and +sit in the silence with folded hands. She longed for her mother to hold +her on her lap so, that she could pillow her head on her shoulder with her +arms about her neck, and have a real good cry. Then all her troubles and +pains would be gone. + +But the slim little girl never voiced any of these foolish thoughts; she +knew better. She choked back her tears and leaning over her sewing tried +hard to be "good." + +"She is so stupid that she never listens to what one reads to her," said +her mother one day. + +One of that family still lives. I saw him not long ago and talked with him +face to face concerning some of the things here written--Doctor James +Martineau, ninety-two years old. + +The others are all dead now--all are gone. In the cemetery at Norwich is +a plain, slate slab, "To the Memory of Elizabeth Martineau, Mother of +Harriet Martineau." * * * And so she sleeps, remembered for what? As the +mother of a stupid little girl who tried hard to be good, but didn't +succeed very well, and who did not listen when they read aloud. + + * * * * * + +It seems sometimes that there is no such thing as a New Year--it is only +the old year come back. These folks about us--have they not lived before? +Surely they are the same creatures that have peopled earth in the days +agone; they are busy about the same things, they chase after the same +trifles, they commit the same mistakes, and blunder as men have always +blundered. + +Only last week, a teacher in one of the primary schools of Chicago +reported to her principal that a certain little boy in her room was so +hopelessly dull and perverse that she despaired of teaching him anything. +The child would sit with open mouth and look at her as she would talk to +the class, and five minutes afterward he could not or would not repeat +three words of what had been said. She had scolded him, made him stand on +the floor, kept him in after school, and even whipped him--but all in +vain. The principal looked into the case, scratched his head, stroked his +whiskers, coughed, and decided that the public-school funds should not be +wasted in trying to "teach imbeciles," and so reported to the parents. He +advised them to send the boy to a Home for the Feeble-Minded, sending the +message by an older brother. So the parents took the child to the Home and +asked that he be admitted. The Matron took the little boy on her lap, +talked to him, read to him, showed him pictures and said to the astonished +parents, "This child has fully as much intelligence as any of your other +children, perhaps more--but he is deaf!" + +Harriet Martineau from her twelfth year was very deaf, and she was also +devoid of the senses of taste and smell. + +"Oh, these are terrible tribulations to befall a mortal!" we exclaim with +uplifted hands. But on sober second thought I am not sure that I know what +is a tribulation and what a blessing. I'm not positive that I would know a +blessing should I see it coming up the street. For as I write it comes to +me that the Great Big Black Things that have loomed against the horizon of +my life, threatening to devour me, simply loomed and nothing more. They +harmed me not. The things that have really made me miss my train have +always been sweet, soft, pretty, pleasant things of which I was not in +the, least afraid. + +Mother Nature is kind, and if she deprives us of one thing she gives us +another, and happiness seems to be meted out to each and all in equal +portions. Harriet's afflictions caused her to turn her mind to other +things than those which filled the hearts of girls of her own age. Society +chatter held nothing for her, she could not hear it if she would; and she +ate the food that agreed with her, not that which was merely pleasant to +the taste. She began to live in a world of thought and ideas. The silence +meant much. + +"The first requisite is that man should be a good animal." I used to +think that Herbert Spencer in voicing this aphorism struck twelve. But I +am no longer enthusiastic about the remark. The senses of most dumb +animals are far better developed than those of man. Hounds can trace +footsteps over flat rocks, even though a shower has fallen in the +interval; cats can see in the dark; rabbits hear sounds that men never +hear; horses detect an impurity in water that a chemical analysis does not +reveal, and homing pigeons would gain nothing by carrying a compass. And +so I feel safe in saying that if any man were so good and perfect an +animal that he had the hound's sense of smell, the cat's eyesight, the +rabbit's sense of hearing, the horse's sense of taste, and the homing +pigeon's "locality," he would not be one whit better prepared to +appreciate Kipling's "Dipsy Chanty," and not a hair's breadth nearer a +point where he could write a poem equal to it. + +No college professor can see so far as a Sioux Indian, neither can he hear +so well as a native African. There are rays of light that no unaided human +eye can trace, and there are sounds subtler than human ear can detect. +These five bodily faculties that we are pleased to call the senses were +developed by savage man. He holds them in common with the brute. And now +that man is becoming partly civilized he is in danger of losing them. +Faculties not used are taken away. Dame Nature seems to consider that +anything you do not utilize is not needed; and as she is averse to +carrying dead freight she drops it out. + +But man can think, and the more he thinks and the further he projects his +thought, the less need he has for his physical senses. Homer's matchless +vision was the rich possession of a blind man; Milton never saw Paradise +until he was sightless, and Helen Keller knows a world of things that were +neither told to her in lectures nor read from books. The far-reaching +intellect often goes with a singularly imperfect body, and these things +seem to point to the truth that the body is one thing and the soul +another. + +I make no argument for impoverished vitality, nor do I plead the cause of +those who enjoy poor health. Yet how often do we find that the +confessional of a family or a neighborhood is the bedside of one who sees +the green fields only as did the Lady of Shalott, by holding a +looking-glass so that it reflects the out-of-doors. Let me carry that +simile one step further, and say that the mirror of the soul when kept +free from fleck and stain, reveals the beauties of the universe. And I am +not sure but that the soul, freed from the distractions of sense and the +trammels of flesh, glides away to a height where things are observed for +the first time in their true proportions. + +"The soul knows all things," says Emerson, "and knowledge is only a +remembering." + + * * * * * + +The Martineaus were Huguenots, a stern, sturdy stock that suffered exile +rather than forego the right of free-thought and free speech. These are +the people who are the salt of the earth. And yet as I read history I see +that they are the people who have been hunted by dogs, and followed by +armed men carrying fagots. The driving of the Huguenots from France came +near bankrupting the land, and the flight of Jews and Huguenots into +England helped largely to make that country the counting-house of the +world. Take the Quakers, Puritans, Huguenots and other refugees from +America and it is no longer the land of the free or the home of the brave. + +Of the seven Presidents who presided over the deliberations of that first +Continental Congress in Philadelphia, three were Huguenots: Henry Laurens, +John Jay and Elias Boudinot, and in the seats there were Puritans not a +few. + +"By God, Sir, we can not afford to persecute the Quakers," said a certain +American a long while ago. "Their religion may be wrong, but the people +who cling to an idea are the only people we need. If we must persecute, +let us persecute the complacent." + +Harriet Martineau had all the restless independence of will that marked +her ancestry. She set herself to acquire knowledge, and she did. When she +was twenty she spoke three languages and could read in four. She knew +history, astronomy, physical science, and it crowded her teacher in +mathematics very hard to keep one lesson in advance of her. Besides, she +could sew and cook and "keep house." Yet it was all gathered by labor and +toil and lift. By taking thought she had added cubits to her stature. + +But at twenty, a great light suddenly shone around her. Love came and +revealed the wonders of Earth and Heaven. She had ever been of a religious +nature, but now her religion was vitalized and spiritualized. Deity was no +longer a Being who dwelt at a great distance among the stars, but the +Divine Life was hers. It flowed through her, nourished her and gave her +strength. + +Renan suggests that one reason why religion remains on such a material +plane for many is because they have never known a great and vitalizing +love--a love where intellect, spirit and sex find their perfect mate. Love +is the great enlightener. And in my own mind I am fully persuaded that +comparatively few mortals ever experience this rebirth that a great love +gives. We grope our way through life. Nature's first thought is for +reproduction of the species; she has so overloaded physical passion that +men and women marry when the blood is warm and intellect callow. Girls +marry for life the first man that offers, and forever put behind them the +possibilities of a love that would enable them to lift up their eyes to +the hills from whence cometh their help. Very, very seldom do the years +that bring a calmer pulse reveal a mating of mind and spirit. + +When love came to Harriet, she began to write, her first book being a +little volume called "Devotional Exercises." These daily musings on Divine +things and these sweetly limpid prayers were all written out first for +herself and her lover. But it came to her that what was a help to them +might be a help to others. A publisher was found, and the little work had +a large sale and found appreciative readers for many years. + +Today, out under the trees, I read this first book written by Miss +Martineau. How gently sweet and perfect are these prayers asking for a +clean heart and a right spirit! And yet at this time Harriet Martineau had +gotten well beyond the idea that God was a great, big man who could be +beseeched and moved to alter His plans because some creature on the planet +Earth asked it. Her religion was pure Theism, with no confounding dogmas +about who was to be saved and who damned. The state of infants who died +unbaptized and of the heathen who passed away without ever having heard of +Jesus did not trouble her at all. She already accepted the truth of +necessity, believing that every act of life was the result of a cause. We +do what we do, and are what we are, on account of impulses given us by +previous training, previous acts or conditions under which we live and +have lived. + +If then, everything in this world happens because something else happened +a thousand years ago or yesterday, and the result could not possibly be +different from what it is, why besiege Heaven with prayers? + +The answer is simple. Prayer is an emotional exercise; an endeavor to +bring the will into a state of harmony with the Divine Will; a rest and a +composure that gives strength by putting us in position to partake of the +strength of the Universal. The man who prays today is as a result stronger +tomorrow, and thus is prayer answered. By right thinking does the race +grow. An act is only a crystallized thought; and this young girl's little +book was designed as a help to right thinking. The things it taught are so +simple that no man need go to a theological seminary to learn them: the +Silence will tell him all if he will but listen and incline his heart. +Love had indeed made Harriet's spirit free. And to no woman can love mean +so much as to one who is aware that she is physically deficient. Homely +women are apt to make the better wives, and in all my earth-pilgrimage I +never saw a more devoted love--a diviner tenderness--than that which +exists between a man of my acquaintance, sound in every sense and splendid +in physique, and his wife, who has been blind from her birth. For weeks +after I first met this couple there rang in my ears that expression of +Victor Hugo's, "To be blind and to be loved--what happier fate!" + +But Harriet's lover was poor in purse and his family was likewise poor, +and the thrifty Martineaus vigorously opposed the mating. In fact, +Harriet's mother hooted at it and spoke of it with scorn; and Harriet +answered not back, but hid her love away in her heart--biding the time +when her lover should make for himself a name and a place, and have money +withal to command the respect of even mill-owners. + +So the days passed, and the months went by, and three years counted +themselves with the eternity that lies behind. Harriet's lover had indeed +proved himself worthy. He had worked his way through college, had been +graduated at the Divinity School, and his high reputation for character +and his ability as a speaker won for him at once a position to which many +older than he aspired. He became the pastor of the Unitarian Church at +Manchester--and this was no small matter! + +Now Norwich, where the Martineaus lived, is a long way from Manchester, +where Harriet's lover preached, or it was then, in stagecoach times. It +cost money, too, to send letters. + +And there was quite an interval once when Harriet sent several letters, +and anxiously looked for one; but none arrived. + +Then word came that the brilliant young preacher was ill; he wished to see +his betrothed. She started to go to him, but her parents opposed such an +unprecedented thing. She hesitated, deferred her visit--intending soon to +go at all hazards--hoping all the while to hear better news. + +Word came that Harriet's lover was dead. Soon after this the Martineau +mills, through various foolish speculations, got into a bad way. +Harriet's father found himself with more debts than he could pay; his +endeavors to buffet the storm broke his health--he gave up hope, +languished and died. + +Mrs. Martineau and the family were thus suddenly deprived of all means of +support. The boys were sent to work in the mills, and the two older girls, +having five sound senses each, found places where they could do housework +and put money in their purses. Harriet Martineau stayed at home and kept +house. She also studied, read and wrote a little--there was no other way! + + + * * * * * + +Six years passed, and the name of Harriet Martineau was recognized as a +power in the land. Her "Illustrations of Political Economy" had sold well +up into the hundred thousands. The little stories were read by old and +young, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. Sir Robert Peel had written +Harriet a personal letter of encouragement; Lord Brougham had paid for and +given away a thousand copies of the booklets; Richard Cobden had publicly +endorsed them; Coleridge had courted the author; Florence Nightingale had +sung her praises, and the Czar of Russia had ordered that "all the books +of Harriet Martineau's found in Russia shall be destroyed." Besides, she +had incurred the wrath of King Philippe of France, who after first +lavishly praising her and ordering the "Illustrations" translated into +French, to be used in the public schools, suddenly discovered a hot +chapter entitled, "The Error Called the Divine Right of Kings," and +although Philippe was only a "citizen-king" he made haste to recall his +kind words. + +And I wish here to remark in parentheses that the author who has not made +warm friends and then lost them in an hour by writing things that did not +agree with the preconceived idea of these friends, has either not written +well or not been read. Every preacher who preaches ably has two doors to +his church--one where the people come in and another through which he +preaches them out. And I do not see how any man, even though he be +divine, could expect or hope to have as many as twelve disciples and hold +them for three years without being doubted, denied and betrayed. If you +have thoughts, and honestly speak your mind, Golgotha for you is not far +away. + +Harriet Martineau was essentially an agitator. She entered into life in +its fullest sense, and no phase of existence escaped her keen and +penetrating investigation. From writing books giving minute directions to +housemaids, to lengthy advice to prime ministers, her work never lagged. +She was widely read, beloved, respected, feared and well hated. + +When her political-economy tales were selling their best, the Government +sent her word that on application she could have a pension of two hundred +pounds a year for life. A pension of this kind comes nominally as a reward +for excellent work or heroic service. But a pension may mean something +else: it often implies that the receiver shall not offend nor affront the +one that bestows it. Could we trace the true inner history of pensions +granted by monarchies, we would find that they are usually diplomatic +moves. + +Harriet made no response to the generous offer of a lifelong maintenance +from the State, but continued to work away after her own methods. Yet the +offer of a pension did her good in one way: it suggested the wisdom of +setting aside a sum that would support her when her earning powers were +diminished. From her two books written concerning her trip to America she +received the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars. With this she +purchased an insurance policy in the form of a deferred annuity, providing +that from her fiftieth year to her death she should receive the annual sum +of five hundred dollars. Nowhere in all the realm of Grub Street do we +find a man who set such an example of cool wisdom for this crippled woman. +At this time she was supporting her mother, who had become blind, and also +a brother, who was a slave to drink. + +Twenty-five years after the first offer of pension, the Government renewed +the proposition. But Harriet said that her needs were few and her wants +simple; that she had enough anyway, and besides, she could not consent to +the policy of pensioning one class of persons for well-doing and +forgetting all the toilers who have worked just as conscientiously, but +along lowly lines; if she ever did need aid, she would do as other old +women were obliged to do, that is, apply to the parish. + +Miss Martineau wrote for the "Daily London News" alone, sixteen hundred +forty-two editorials. She also wrote more than two hundred magazine +articles, and published upwards of fifty books. Her work was not classic, +for it was written for the times. That her influence for good on the +thought of the times was wide and far-reaching, all thoughtful men agree. +And he who influences the thought of his times influences all the times +that follow. He has made his impress on eternity. + + * * * * * + +Opinions may differ as to what constitutes Harriet Martineau's best work, +but my view is that her translation and condensation of Auguste Comte's +six volumes into two will live when all her other work is forgotten. +Comte's own writings were filled with many repetitions and rhetorical +flounderings. He was more of a philosopher than a writer. He had an idea +too big for him to express, but he expressed at it right bravely. Miss +Martineau, trained writer and thinker, did not translate verbally: she +caught the idea, and translated the thought rather than the language. And +so it has come about that her work has been literally translated back into +French and is accepted as a textbook of Positivism, while the original +books of the philosopher are merely collected by museums and bibliophiles +as curiosities. + +Comte taught that man passes through three distinct mental stages in his +development: First, man attributes all phenomena to a "Personal God," and +to this God he servilely prays. Second, he believes in a "Supreme +Essence," a "Universal Principle" or a "First Cause," and seeks to +discover its hiding-place. Third, he ceases to hunt out the unknowable, +and is content to live and work for a positive present good, fully +believing that what is best today can not fail to bring the best results +tomorrow. + +Harriet had long considered that one reason for the very slow advancement +of civilization was that men had ever busied themselves with supernatural +concerns; and in fearsome endeavors to make themselves secure for another +world had neglected this. Man had tried to make peace with the skies +instead of peace with his neighbor. She also thought she saw clearly that +right living was one thing, and a belief in theological dogma another. +That these things sometimes go together, she of course admitted, but a +belief in a "vicarious atonement" and a "miraculous conception" she did +not believe made a man a gentler husband, a better neighbor or a more +patriotic citizen. Man does what he does because he thinks at the moment +it is the best thing to do. And if you could make men believe that peace, +truth, honesty and industry were the best standards to adopt--bringing the +best results--all men would adopt them. + +There are no such things as reward and punishment, as these terms are +ordinarily used: there are only good results and bad results. We sow, and +reap what we have sown. + +Miss Martineau had long believed these things, but Comte proved +them--proved them in six ponderous tomes--and she set herself the task to +simplify his philosophy. + +There is one point of attraction that Comte's thought had for Harriet +Martineau that I have never seen mentioned in print--that is, his mental +attitude on the value of love in a well-ordered life. + +In the springtime of his manhood, Auguste Comte, sensitive, confiding, +generous, loved a beautiful girl. She did not share his intellectual +ambitions, his divine aspiration: she was only a beautiful animal. Man +proposes, but is not always accepted. She married another, and Comte was +disconsolate--for a day. + +He pondered the subject, read the lives of various great men, talked with +monks and sundry friars gray, and after five years wrote out at length the +reasons why a man, in order to accomplish a far-reaching and splendid +work, must live the life of a celibate. "To achieve," said Comte, "you +must be married to your work." + +Comte lived for some time content in this philosophy, constantly +strengthening it and buttressing it against attack; for we believe a thing +first and skirmish for our proof afterward. But when past forty, and his +hair was turning to silver, and crow's-feet were showing themselves in his +fine face, and when there was a halt in his step and his laughter had died +away into a weary smile, he met a woman whose nature was as finely +sensitive and as silkenly strong as his own. She had intellect, +aspiration, power. She was gentle, and a womanly woman withal; his best +mood was matched by hers, she sympathized with his highest ideal. + +They loved and they married. + +The crow's-feet disappeared from Comte's face, the halt in his step was +gone, the laugh returned, and people said that the silver in his hair was +becoming. + +Shortly after, Comte set himself to work overhauling all the foolish +things he had said about the necessity of celibacy. He declared that a man +without his mate only stumbled his way through life. There was the male +man and the female man, and only by working together could these two souls +hope to progress. It requires two to generate thought. Comte felt sure +that he was writing the final word. He avowed that there was no more to +say. He declared that should his wife go hence the fountains of his soul +would dry up, his mind would famish, and the light of his life would go +out in darkness. + +The gods were envious of such love as this. + +Comte's mate passed away. + +He was stricken dumb; the calamity was too great for speech or tears. + +But five years after, he got down his books and went over his manuscripts +and again revised his philosophy of what constitutes the true condition +for the highest and purest thought. To have known a great and exalted love +and have it fade from your grasp and flee as shadow, living only in +memory, is the highest good, he wrote. A great sorrow at one stroke +purchases a redemption from all petty troubles; it sinks all trivial +annoyances into nothingness, and grants the man lifelong freedom from all +petty, corroding cares. His feelings have been sounded to their +depths--the plummet has touched bottom. Fate has done her worst: she has +brought him face to face with the Supreme Calamity, and thereafter there +is nothing that can inspire terror. + +The memory of a great love can never die from out the heart. It affords a +ballast 'gainst all the storms that blow. And although it lends an +unutterable sadness, it imparts an unspeakable peace. + +A great love, even when fully possessed, affords no complete +gratification. There is an essence in it that eludes all ownership. Its +highest use seems to be a purifying impulse for nobler endeavor. It says +at the last, "Arise, and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest." + +Where there is this haunting memory of a great love lost there is always +forgiveness, charity, and a sympathy that makes the man brother to all who +endure and suffer. The individual himself is nothing; he has nothing to +hope for, nothing to gain, nothing to win, nothing to lose; for the first +time and the last he has a selflessness that is wide as the world, and +wherein there is no room for the recollection of a wrong. In this memory +of a great love, there is a nourishing source of strength by which the +possessor lives and works; he is in communication with elemental +conditions. + +Harriet Martineau was a lifelong widow of the heart. That first great +passion of her early womanhood, the love that was lost, remained with her +all the days of her life: springing fresh every morning, her last thought +as she closed her eyes at night. Other loves came to her, attachments +varying in nature and degree, but in this supreme love all was fused and +absorbed. In this love, you get the secret of power. + +A great love is a pain, yet it is a benison and a benediction. If we carry +any possession from this world to another it is the memory of a great +love. For even in the last hour, when the coldness of death shall creep +into the stiffening limbs, and the brain shall be stunned and the thoughts +stifled, there shall come to the tongue a name, a name not mentioned aloud +for years--there shall come a name; and as the last flickering rays of +life flare up to go out on earth forever, the tongue will speak this name +that was long, long ago burned into the soul by the passion of a love that +fadeth not away. + + + + +CHARLOTTE BRONTE + + I was not surprised, when I went down into the hall, to see that + a brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the + night, and to feel through the open glass door the breathing of a + fresh and fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so + happy. A beggar woman and her little boy, pale, ragged objects + both, were coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all + the money I happened to have in my purse--some three or four + shillings: good or bad they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks + cawed and blither birds sung, but nothing was so merry or so + musical as my own rejoicing heart. + --_Jane Eyre_ + +[Illustration: CHARLOTTE BRONTE] + + +Rumor has it that there be Americans who are never happy unless passing +for Englishmen. And I think I have discovered a like anomaly on the part +of the sons of Ireland--a wish to pass for Frenchmen. On Continental +hotel-registers the good, honest name of O'Brian often turns queer +somersaults, and more than once in "The States" does the kingly prefix of +O evolve itself into Van or De, which perhaps is quite proper, seeing they +all mean the same thing. One cause of this tendency may lie in the fact +that Saint Patrick was a native of France; although Saint Patrick may or +may not have been chosen patron saint on account of his nationality. But +the patron saint of Ireland being a Frenchman, what more natural, and +therefore what more proper, than that the whole Emerald Isle should slant +toward the people who love art and rabbit-stew! Anyway, from the proud +patronymic of Patricius to plain Pat is quite a drop, and my heart is with +Paddy in his efforts to get back. + +When Patrick Prunty of County Down, Ireland, shook off the shackles of +environment, and the mud of the peat-bog, and went across to England, +presenting himself at the gates of Saint John's College, Cambridge, +asking for admittance, I am glad he handed in his name as Mr. P. Bronte, +accent on the last syllable. + +There is a gentle myth abroad that preachers are "called," while other men +adopt a profession or get a job, but no Protestant Episcopal clergyman I +have ever known, and I have known many, ever made any such claim. They +take up the profession because it supplies honors and a "living." Then +they can do good, too, and all men want to do good. So they hie them to a +divinity school and are taught the mysteries of theological tierce and +thrust; and interviewing a clerical tailor they are ready to accept the +honors and partake of the living. After a careful study of the life of +Patrick Bronte I can not find that his ambition extended beyond the +desirable things I have named--that is to say, inclusively, honors and a +living. + +He was tall, athletic, dark, and surely a fellow of force and ambition to +set his back on the old and boldly rap for admittance at the gates of +Cambridge. He was a pretty good student, too, although a bit quarrelsome +and sometimes mischievous--throwing his force into quite unnecessary ways, +as Irishmen are apt to do. He fell in love, of course, and has not an +Irishman in love been likened to Vesuvius in state of eruption? We know of +at least one charming girl who refused to marry him, because he declined, +unlike Othello, to tell the story of his life. And it was assumed that any +man who would not tell who "his folks" were, was a rogue and a varlet and +a vagrom at heart. And all the while Monsieur Bronte had nothing worse to +conceal than that he was from County Down and his name Prunty. He wouldn't +give in and tell the story of his life to slow music, and so the girl wept +and then stormed, and finally Bronte stormed and went away, and the girl +and her parents were sure that the Frenchman was a murderer escaping +justice. Fortunate, aye, thrice fortunate is it for the world that neither +Bronte nor the girl wavered even in the estimation of a hair. + +Bronte got through school and came out with tuppence worth of honors. When +thirty, we find him established as curate at the shabby little town of +Hartshead, in Yorkshire. Little Miss Branwell, from Penzance, came up +there on a visit to her uncle, and the Reverend Mr. Bronte at once fell +violently in love with her dainty form and gentle ways. I say "violently," +for that's the kind of man Bronte was. Darwin says, "The faculty of +amativeness is not aroused except by the unfamiliar." Girls who go away +visiting, wearing their best bib and tucker, find lovers without fail. +One-third of all marriages in the United States occur in just this way: +the bib and tucker being sprung on the young man as a surprise, dazzles +and hypnotizes him into an avowal and an engagement. + +And so they were married--were the Reverend Patrick Bronte and Miss Maria +Branwell. He was big, bold and dictatorial; she was little, shy and +sensitive. The babies came--one in less than a year, then a year apart. +The dainty little woman had her troubles, we are sure of that. Her voice +comes to us only as a plaintive echo. When she asked to have the bread +passed, she always apologized. Once her aunt sent her a present of a +pretty silk dress, for country clergymen's wives do not have many +luxuries--don't you know that?--and Patrick Bronte cut the dress into +strips before her eyes and then threw the pieces, and the little slippers +to match, into the fireplace, to teach his wife humility. He used to +practise with a pistol and shoot in the house to steady the lady's nerves, +and occasionally he got plain drunk. A man like Bronte in a little town +with a tired little wife, and with inferior people, is a despot. He busies +himself with trifles, looks after foolish details, and the neighbors let +him have his own way and his wife has to, and the result is that he +becomes convinced in his own mind that he is the people and that wisdom +will die with him. + +And yet Bronte wrote some pretty good poetry, and had faculties that +rightly developed might have made him an excellent man. He should have +gone down to London (or up, because it is south) and there come into +competition with men as strong as himself. Fate should have seized him by +the hair and bumped his head against stone walls and cuffed him +thoroughly, and kicked him into line, teaching him humility, then out of +the scrimmage we might have gotten a really superior product. + +Mrs. Bronte became a confirmed invalid. A man can not always badger a +woman; God is good--she dies. Little Maria Branwell had been married eight +years; when she passed out she left six children, "all of a size," a +neighbor woman has written. Over her grave is a tablet erected by her +husband informing the wayfarer that "she has gone to meet her Savior." At +the bottom is this warning to all women: "Be ye also ready; for in such an +hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh." + +Five of these motherless children were girls and one a boy. + +As you stand there in that stone church at Haworth reading the inscription +above Maria Branwell's grave, you can also read the death record of the +babes she left. The mother died on September Fifteenth, Eighteen Hundred +Twenty-one; her oldest daughter, Maria, on May Sixth, Eighteen Hundred +Twenty-five; Elizabeth, June Fifteenth, Eighteen Hundred Twenty-five; +Patrick Branwell, on September Twenty-fourth, Eighteen Hundred +Forty-eight; Emily, December Nineteenth, Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight; +Anne, May Twenty-eighth, Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine; and Charlotte, on +March Thirty-first, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-five. Those whom the gods love +die young: the Reverend Patrick Bronte lived to be eighty-five years old. + + * * * * * + +I got out of the train at Keighley, which you must pronounce "Keethley," +and leaving my valise with the station-master started on foot for Haworth, +four miles away. + +Keighley is a manufacturing town where various old mansions have been +turned into factories, and new factories have sprung up, square, +spick-span, trimmed-stone buildings, with fire-escapes and red tanks on +top. + +One of these old mansions I saw had a fine copper roof that shone in the +sun like a monster Lake Superior agate. It stands a bit back from the +road, and on one great gatepost is a brass plate reading "Cardigan Hall," +and on the other a sign, "No Admittance--Apply at the Office." So I +applied at the office, which is evidently the ancient lodge, and asked if +Mr. Cardigan was in. Four clerks perched on high stools, crouching over +big ledgers, dropped their pens and turning on their spiral seats looked +at me with staring eyes, and with mouths wide open. I repeated the +question and one of the quartette, a wheezy little old man in spectacles +and with whiskers on his neck, clambered down from his elevated position +and ambled over near, walking around me, eying me curiously. + +"Go wan wi' yer wurruk, ye idlers!" he suddenly commanded the others. And +then he explained to me that Mr. Cardigan was not in, neither was Mr. +Jackson. In fact, Mr. Cardigan had not been in for a hundred years--being +dead. But if I wanted to look at goods I could be accommodated with +bargains fully five per cent below Lunnon market. The little old man was +in such serious earnest that I felt it would be a sin to continue a joke. +I explained that I was only a tourist in search of the picturesque, and +thereby did I drop ten points in the old man's estimation. But this did I +learn, that Lord Cardigan has won deathless fame by attaching his name to +a knit jacket, just as the name Jaeger will go clattering down the +corridors of time attached to a "combination suit." + +This splendid old mansion was once the ancestral home of a branch of the +noble family of Cardigan. But things got somewhat shuffled, through too +many hot suppers up to London (being south), and stacks of reds and stacks +of blues were drawn in towards the dealer, and so the old mansion fell +under the hammer of the auctioneer. What an all-powerful thing is an +auctioneer's hammer! And now from the great parlors, and the library, and +the "hall," and the guest-chambers echo the rattle of spinning-jennies and +the dull booming of whirling pulleys. And above the song of whirring +wheels came the songs of girls at their work--voices that alone might have +been harsh and discordant, but blending with the monotone of the factory's +roar were really melodious. + +"We cawn't keep the nasty things from singin'," said the old man +apologetically. + +"Why should you?" I asked. + +"Huh, mon! but they sing sacred songs, and chaunts, and a' that, and say +all together from twenty rooms, a hundred times a day, 'Aws ut wuz in th' +beginnin,' uz now awn ever shawl be, worl' wi'out end, Aamen.' It's not +right. I've told Mr. Jackson. Listen now, didn't I tell ye?" + +"Then you are a Churchman?" + +And the old man wiped his glasses and told me that he was a Churchman, +although an unworthy one, and had been for fifty-four years, come +Michaelmas. Yes, he had always lived here, was born only across the beck +away--his father was gamekeeper for Lord Cardigan, and afterwards agent. +He had been to Haworth many times, although not for ten years. He knew the +Reverend Patrick Bronte well, for the Incumbent from Haworth used to +preach at Keighley once a year, and sometimes twice. Bronte was a fine +man, with a splendid voice for intoning, and very strict about keeping out +all heresies and such. He had a lot of trouble, had Bronte: his wife died +and left him with eight or ten children, all smart, but rather wild. They +gave him a lot of bother, especially the boy. One of the girls married Mr. +Bronte's curate, Mr. Nicholls, a very decent kind of man who comes to +Keighley once a year, and always comes to the factory to ask how things +are going. + +Yes, Mr. Nicholls' first wife died years and years ago. She used to write +things--novels; but no one should read novels; novels are stories that are +not so--things that never happened; they tell of folks that never was. + +Having no argument to present in way of rebuttal, I shook hands with the +old man and started away. He walked with me to the road to put me on the +right way to Haworth. + +Looking back as I reached the corner, I saw four "clarks" watching me +intently from the office windows, and above the roar and jangle of +machinery was borne on the summer breeze the sound of sacred song--shrill +feminine voices: + +"Aws ut wuz in th' beginnin', uz now awn ever shawl be, worl' wi'out +end--Aamen!" + + * * * * * + +As one moves out of Keighley the country becomes stony; the trees are left +behind, and there rises on all sides billow on billow of purple heather. +The way is rough as the Pilgrim's Progress road to Paradise. These +hillside moors are filled with springs that high up form rills, then +brooks, then cascades or "becks," and along the Haworth road, wherever one +of these hurrying, scurrying, dancing becks crosses the highway, there is +a factory devoted to keeping alive the name of Cardigan. Next to the +factory is a "pub.," and publics and factories checker themselves all +along the route. Mixed in with these are long rows of tenement-houses well +built of stone, with slate roofs, but with a grimy air of desolation about +them that surely drives their occupants to drink. To have a home a man +must build it himself. Forty houses in a row, all alike, are not homes at +all. + +I believe an observant man once wrote of the hand being subdued to what it +works in. The man who wrote that surely never tramped along the Haworth +road as the bell rang for twelve o'clock. From out the factories poured a +motley mob of men, women and children, not only with hands dyed, but with +clothing, faces and heads as well. Girls with bright-green hair, and +lemon-colored faces, leered and jeered at me as they hastened pellmell +with hats askew, and stockings down, and dragging shawls, for home or +public-house. Red and maroon children ran, and bright-scarlet men smoked +stolidly, taking their time with genuine grim Yorkshire sullen sourness. + +"How far is it to Haworth?" I asked one such specimen. + +"Ef ye pay th' siller for a double pot a' 'arf and 'arf. Hi might tell +ye"; and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward a ginshop near by. + +"Very well," said I; "I'll buy you a double pot of 'arf and 'arf, this +time." + +The man seemed a bit surprised, but no smile came over his spattered +rainbow face as he led the way into the drink-shop. The place was crowded +with men and women scrambling for penny sandwiches and drinks fermented +and spirituous. Some of these women had babies at their breasts, the +babies being brought by appointment by older children who stayed at home +while the mothers worked. And as the mothers gulped their Triple XXX, and +swallowed hunks of black bread, the little innocents dined. The mothers +were rather kindly disposed, though, and occasionally allowed the +youngsters to take sips out of their foaming glasses, or at least to drain +them. Suddenly a woman with purple hair spied me and called in falsetto: + +"Ah, Sawndy McClure has caught a gen'l'mon. Why didn't I see 'im fust an' +'arve 'im fer a pet?" + +There was a guffaw at my expense and 'arf and 'arf as well, for all the +party, or else quarrel. As it was, my stout stick probably saved me from +the "personal touch." I stayed until the factory-bells rang, and out my +new-found friends scurried for fear of being the fatal five minutes late +and getting locked out. Some of them shook my hand as they went, and +others pounded me on the back for luck, and several of the girls got my +tag and shouted, "You're it!" + +I used to think that Yorkshire folks were hopelessly dull and sublimely +stupid, quarrelsome withal and pigheaded to the thirty-second degree; but +I have partially come to the conclusion that their glum ways often conceal +a peculiar kind of grim humor, and beneath the tough husk is considerable +good nature. + +The absence of large trees makes it possible to see the village of Haworth +several miles away. It seems to cling to the stony hillside as if it +feared being blown into space. There is a hurrying, rushing rill here, +too, that turns a little woolen-mill. Then there is a "Black Bull" tavern, +with a stable-yard at the side and rows of houses on the one street, all +very straight up and down. One misses the climbing roses of the ideal +merry England, and the soft turf and spreading yews and the flowering +hedgerows where throstles and linnets play hide-and-seek the livelong day. +It is all cold gray stone, lichen-covered, and the houses do not invite +you to enter, and the gardens bid no welcome, and only the great purple +wastes of moorland greet you as a friend and brother. + +Outside the Black Bull sits a solitary hostler, who feels it would be a +weakness to show any good humor. So he bottles his curiosity and scowls +from under red, bushy eyebrows. + +Turning off the main street is a narrow road leading to the church--square +and gray and cold. Next to it is the parsonage, built of the same +material, and beyond is the crowded city of the dead. + +I plied the knocker at the parsonage door and asked for the rector. He was +away at Kendal to attend a funeral, but his wife was at home--a pleasant, +matronly woman of near sixty, with smooth, white hair. She came to the +door knitting furiously, but from her regulation smile I saw that visitors +were not uncommon. + +"You want to see the home of the Brontes? That's right, come right in. +This was the study of the Reverend Patrick Bronte, Incumbent of this +Parish for fifty years." + +She sang her little song and knitted and shifted the needles and measured +the foot, for the stocking was nearly done. It was a blue stocking +(although she wasn't) with a white toe; and all the time she led me from +room to room telling me about the Brontes--how there were the father, +mother and six children. They all came together. The mother died shortly, +and then two of the little girls died. That left three girls and Branwell +the boy. He was petted and made too much of by his father and everybody. +He was the one that always was going to do great things. He made the girls +wait on him and cuffed them if they didn't, and if they did, and all the +time told of the things he was going to do. But he never did them, for he +spent most of his time at the taverns. After a while he died--died of the +tremens. + +The three Bronte girls, Emily, Charlotte and Annie, wrote a novel apiece, +and never showed them to their father or to any one. They called 'emselves +Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, and their novels were the greatest ever +written--they wrote them 'emselves with no man to help. Their father was +awful mad about it, but when the money began to come in he felt better. +Emily died when she was twenty-seven. She was the brightest of them all; +then Annie died, and only Charlotte and the old man were left. Charlotte +married her father's curate, but old Mr. Bronte wouldn't go to the +wedding: he went to the Black Bull instead. Miss Wooler gave the bride +away--some one had to give her away, you know. The bride was thirty-eight. +She died in less them a year, and old Mr. Bronte and Charlotte's husband +lived here alone together. + +This was Charlotte's room; this is the desk where she wrote "Jane +Eyre"--leastwise they say it is. This is the chair she sat in, and under +that framed glass are several sheets of her manuscript. The writing is +almost too small to read; and so fine and yet so perfect and neat! She was +a wonderful tidy body, very small and delicate and gentle, yet with a good +deal of her father's energy. + +Here are letters she wrote: you can look at them if you choose. This +footstool she made and covered herself. It is filled with +heather-blossoms--just as she left it. Those books were hers, too--many of +them given to her by great authors. See, there is Thackeray's name written +by himself, and a letter from him pasted inside the front cover. He was a +big man they say, but he wrote very small, and Charlotte wrote just like +him, only better, and now there are hundreds of folks write like 'em both. +Then here's a book with Miss Martineau's name, and another from Robert +Browning--do you know who he was? + +Yes, the church is always open. Go in and stay as long as you choose; at +the door is a poorbox and if you wish to put something in you can do so--a +sixpence most visitors put in, or a shilling if you insist upon it. You +know we are not a rich parish--the wool all goes to Manchester now, and +the factory-hands are on half-pay and times are scarce. You will come +again some time, come when the heather is in bloom, won't you? That's +right. Oh, stay! the boxwood there in the garden was planted by +Charlotte's own hands--perhaps you would like a sprig of it--there, I +thought you would! + + * * * * * + +All who write concerning the Brontes dwell on the sadness and the tragedy +of their lives. They picture Charlotte's earth-journey as one devoid of +happiness, lacking all that sweetens and makes for satisfaction. They +forget that she wrote "Jane Eyre," and that no person utterly miserable +ever did a great work; and I assume that they know not of the wild, +splendid, intoxicating joy that follows a performance well done. To be +sure, "Jane Eyre" is a tragedy, but the author of a tragedy must be +greater than the plot--greater than his puppets. He is their creator, and +his life runs through and pervades theirs, just as the life of our Creator +flows through us. In Him we live and move and have our being. And I submit +that the writer of a tragedy is not cast down or undone at the time he +pictures his heroic situations and conjures forth his strutting spirits. +When the play ends and the curtain falls on the fifth act, there is still +one man alive, and that is the author. He may be gorged with crime and +surfeited with blood, but there is a surging exultation in his veins as he +views the ruin that his brain has wrought. + +Charlotte loved the great stretch of purple moors, hill on hill fading +away into eternal mist. And the wild winds that sighed and moaned at +casements or raged in sullen wrath, tugging at the roof, were her friends. +She loved them all, and thought of them as visiting spirits. They were her +properties, and no writer who ever lived has made such splendid use of +winds and storm-clouds and driving rain as did Charlotte Bronte. People +who point to the chasing, angry clouds and the swish of dripping +rosebushes blown against the cottage-windows as proof of Charlotte +Bronte's chronic depression know not the eager joy of a storm walk. And I +am sure they never did as one I know did last night: saddle a horse at ten +o'clock and gallop away into the darkness; splash, splash in the sighing, +moaning, bellowing, driving November rain. There's joy for you! ye who +toast your feet on the fender and cultivate sick headache around the +base-burner--there's a life that ye never guess! + +But Charlotte knew the clouds by night and the swift-sailing moon that +gave just one peep out and disappeared. She knew the rifts where the stars +shone through, and out alone in the breeze that blew away her cares she +lifted her voice in thankfulness for the joy of mixing with the elements, +and that her spirit was one with the boisterous winds of heaven. + +People who live in beautiful, quiet valleys, where roses bloom all the +year through, are not necessarily happy. + +Southern California--the Garden of Eden of the world--evolves just as many +cases per capita of melancholia as bleak, barren Maine. Wild, rocky, +forbidding Scotland has produced more genius to the acre than beautiful +England: and I have found that sailor Jack, facing the North Atlantic +winter storms, year after year, is a deal jollier companion than the +Florida cracker whose chief adversary is the mosquito. + +Charlotte Bronte wrote three great books: "Jane Eyre," "Shirley" and +"Villette." From the lonely, bleak parsonage on that stony hillside she +sent forth her swaying filament of thought and lassoed the world. She +lived to know that she had won. Money came to her, all she needed, honors, +friends and lavish praise. She was the foremost woman author of her day. +Her name was on every tongue. She had met the world in fair fight; without +patrons, paid advocates, or influential friends she made her way to the +very front. Her genius was acknowledged. She accomplished all that she set +out to do and more--far more. The great, the learned, the titled, the +proud--all those who reverence the tender heart and far-reaching +mind--acknowledged her as queen. + +So why prate of her sorrows! Did she not work them up into art? Why weep +over her troubles when these were the weapons with which she won? Why sit +in sackcloth on account of her early death, when it is appointed unto all +men once to die, and with her the grave was swallowed up in victory? + + + + +CHRISTINA ROSSETTI + + My life is but a working-day, + Whose tasks are set aright: + A while to work, a while to pray, + And then a quiet night. + And then, please God, a quiet night + Where Saints and Angels walk in white. + One dreamless sleep from work and sorrow, + But reawakening on the morrow. + --_In Patience_ + +[Illustration: CHRISTINA ROSSETTI] + + +As a study in heredity, the Rossetti family is most interesting. Genius +seems so sporadic a stuff that when we find an outcrop along the line of a +whole family we are wont to mark it on memory's chart in red. We talk of +the Herschels, of Renan and his sister, of the Beechers, and the Fields, +in a sort of awe, mindful that Nature is parsimonious in giving out +transcendent talent, and may never do the like again. So who can forget +the Rossettis--two brothers, Dante Gabriel and William Michael, and two +sisters, Maria and Christina--each of whom stands forth as far above the +ordinary, yet all strangely dependent upon one another? + +The girls sing songs to the brothers, and to each other, inscribing poems +to "my loving sister"; when Dante Gabriel, budding forth as artist, wishes +a model for a Madonna, he chooses his sister Christina, and in his sketch +mantles the plain features with a divine gentleness and heavenly splendor +such as only the loving heart can conjure forth. In the last illness of +Maria, Christina watches away the long, lagging hours of night, almost +striving with her brothers for the right of serving; and at +Birchington-on-the-Sea, Dante Gabriel waits for death, wearing out his +friends by insane suspicions, and only the sister seems equal to +ministering to this mind diseased, plucking from memory its rooted sorrow. + +In a few years Christina passes out, and of the four, only William is +left; and the task of his remaining years is to put properly before the +world the deathless lives of his brother and sisters gone. + +Gabriel Rossetti, father of the illustrious four, was an Italian poet who +wrote patriotic hymns, and wrote them so well that he was asked to sing +them elsewhere than in Italy. This edict of banishment was followed by an +order that the poet be arrested and executed. + +The orders of banishment and execution appear quite Milesian viewed across +the years, but to Rossetti it was no joke. To keep his head in its proper +place and to preserve his soul alive, he departed one dark night for +England. He arrived penniless, with no luggage save his lyre, but with +muse intact. Yet it was an Italian lyre, and therefore of small avail for +amusing Britons. Very naturally, Rossetti made the acquaintance of other +refugees, and exile makes fast friends. It is only in prosperity that we +throw our friends overboard. + +He came to know the Polidori family--Tuscan refugees--proud, intellectual +and rich. He loved one of the daughters of Seignior Polidori, and she +loved him. He was forty and she was twenty-three--but what of that! A +position as Professor of Languages was secured for him in King's College. +He rented the house at Thirty-eight Charlotte Street, off Portland Place, +and there, on February Seventeenth, Eighteen Hundred Twenty-seven, was +born their first child, Maria Francesca; on May Twelfth, Eighteen Hundred +Twenty-eight, was born Dante Gabriel; on September Twenty-fifth, Eighteen +Hundred Twenty-nine, William Michael; on December Fifth, Eighteen Hundred +Thirty, Christina Georgiana. The mother of this quartette was a sturdy +little woman with sparkling wit and rare good sense. She used to remark +that her children were all of a size, and that it was no more trouble to +bring up four than one, a suggestion thrown in here gratis for the benefit +of young married folks, in the hope that they will mark and inwardly +digest. In point of well-ballasted, all-round character, fit for Earth or +Heaven, none of the four Rossetti children was equal to his parents. They +all seem to have had nerves outside of their clothes. Perhaps this was +because they were brought up in London. A city is no place for +children--nor grown people either, I often think. Birds and children +belong in the country. Paved streets, stone sidewalks, smoke-begrimed +houses, signs reading, "Keep Off the Grass", prying policemen, and zealous +ash-box inspectors are insulting things to greet the gaze of the little +immigrants fresh from God. Small wonder is it, as they grow up, that they +take to drink and drugs, seeking in these a respite from the rattle of +wheels and the never-ending cramp of unkind condition. But Nature +understands herself: the second generation, city-bred, is impotent. + +No pilgrim from "the States" should visit the city of London without +carrying two books: a Baedeker's "London" and Hutton's "Literary +Landmarks." The chief advantage of the former is that it is bound in +flaming red, and carried in the hand, advertises the owner as an American, +thus saving all formal introductions. In the rustle, bustle and tussle of +Fleet Street, I have held up my book to a party of Americans on the +opposite sidewalk, as a ship runs up her colors, and they, seeing the +sign, in turn held up theirs in merry greeting; and we passed on our way +without a word, ships that pass in the afternoon and greet each other in +passing. Now, I have no desire to rival the flamboyant Baedeker, nor to +eclipse my good friend Laurence Hutton. But as I can not find that either +mentions the name "Rossetti," I am going to set down (not in malice) the +places in London that are closely connected with the Rossetti family, +nothing extenuating. + +London is the finest city in the world for the tourist who desires liberty +as wide as the wind, and who wishes to live cheaply and live well. In New +York, if you want lodgings at a moderate price, you must throttle your +pride and forsake respectability; but they do things different in Lunnon, +you know. From Gray's Inn Road to Portland Place, and from Oxford Street +to Euston Road, there is just about a square mile--a section, as they say +out West--of lodging-houses. Once this part of London was given up to the +homes of the great and purse-proud and all that. It is respectable yet, +and if you are going to be in London a week you can get a good room in one +of these old-time mansions, and pay no more for it than you would pay for +a room in an American hotel for one day. And as for meals, your landlady +will get you anything you want and serve it for you in the daintiest +style, and you will also find that a shilling and a little courtesy will +go a very long way in securing creature comforts. American women in London +can live in this way just as well as men. If you are a schoolma'am from +Peoria, taking your vacation, follow my advice and make your home in the +"Bedford District," within easy reach of Stopford Brooke's chapel, and +your London visit will stand out forever as a bright oasis in memory's +desert waste. All of which I put in here because Larry Hutton forgot to +mention it and Mein Herr Baedeker didn't think it worth while. + +When in London I usually get a room near the British Museum for ten +shillings a week; and when I want to go anywhere I walk up to the Gower +Street Station, past the house where the mother of Charles Dickens had her +Young Ladies' Establishment, and buying a ticket at the "Booking-Office" +am duly set down near the desired objective point. You can go anywhere by +the "Metropolitan," or if you prefer to take Mr. Gladstone's advice, you +climb to the top of an Oxford Street bus, and if you sit next the driver +you have a directory, guide and familiar friend all at your service. + +Charlotte Street is a narrow little passage running just two squares, +parallel with Portland Place. The houses are built in blocks of five (or +more), of the plainest of plain bricks. The location is not far from the +Gower Street Station of the Metropolitan Railway, and only a few minutes' +walk from the British Museum. Number Thirty-eight is the last but one on +the east side of the street. When I first saw it, there was a sign in the +window, "Apartments," and back of this fresh cambric curtains. Then the +window had been cleaned, too, for a single day of neglect in London tells +its tale, as does the record of crime on a rogue's face. I paused and +looked the place over with interest. I noted that the brass plate with the +"No. 38" on it had been polished until it had been nearly polished out of +sight, like a machine-made sonnet too much gone over. The steps had been +freshly sanded, and a little lemon-tree nodding in one of the windows made +the rusty old house look quite inviting. A stout little woman with a big +market-basket, bumped into me and apologized, for I had stepped backwards +to get a better look at the upstairs windows. The stout little woman set +down her basket on the steps, took a bunch of keys from a pocket under her +big, white, starched apron, selected one, turned to me, smiled, and asked, +"Mebbe, Sir, you wasn't looking for apartments, I dunno?" Then she +explained that the house was hers, and that if I would step in she would +show me the rooms. There were two of 'em she could spare. The first floor +front was already let, and so was the front parlor--to a young barrister. +Her husband was a ticket-taker at Euston Station, and didn't get much +since last cutdown. Would I care to pay as much as ten shillings, and +would I want breakfast? It would only be ninepence, and I could have +either a chop or ham and eggs. She looked after her boarders herself, just +as if they were her own folks, and only took respectable single gentlemen +who came well recommended. She knew I would like the room, and if ten +shillings was too much I could have the back room for seven and six. + +I thought the back room would answer; but explained that I was an American +and was going to remain in London only a short time. Of course the lady +knew I was an American: she knew it from my hat and from my foreign accent +and--from the red book I had in my hand. And did I know the McIntyres that +lived in Michigan? + +I evaded the question by asking if she knew the Rossettis who once lived +in this house. "Oh, yes; I know Mr. William and Miss Christina. They came +here together a year ago, and told me they were born here and that their +brother Dante and their sister, too, were born here. I think they were all +writin' folks, weren't they? Miss Rossetti anyway writes poetry, I know +that. One of my boarders gave me one of her books for Christmas. I'll show +it to you. You don't think seven and six is too much for a room like this, +do you?" + +I inwardly noted that the ceilings were much lower than those of my room +in Russell Square and that the furniture was old and worn and that the +room looked out on an army of sooty chimney-pots, but I explained that +seven and six seemed a very reasonable price, and that ninepence for +breakfast with ham and eggs was cheap enough, provided the eggs were +strictly fresh. + +So I paid one week's rent in advance on the spot, and going back to +Russell Square told my landlady that I had found friends in another part +of the city and would not return for two days. My sojourn at Number +Thirty-eight Charlotte Street developed nothing further than the meager +satisfaction of sleeping for two nights in the room in which Dante Gabriel +Rossetti was born, and making the acquaintance of the worthy ticket-taker, +who knew all four of the Rossettis, as they had often passed through his +gate. + +Professor Rossetti lived for twelve years at Thirty-eight Charlotte +Street; he then moved to Number Fifty in the next block, which is a +somewhat larger house. It was here that Mazzini used to come. The house +had been made over somewhat, and is now used as an office by the Registrar +of Vital Statistics. This is the place where Dante Gabriel and a young man +named Holman Hunt had a studio, and where another young artist by the +name of William Morris came to visit them; and here was born "The Germ," +that queer little chipmunk magazine in which first appeared "Hand and +Soul" and "The Blessed Damozel," written by Dante Gabriel when eighteen, +the same age at which Bryant wrote "Thanatopsis." William Bell Scott used +to come here, too. Scott was a great man in his day. He had no hair on his +head or face, not even eyebrows. Every follicle had grown aweary and quit. +But Mr. Scott was quite vain of the shape of his head, for well he might +be, since several choice sonnets had been combed out of it. Sometimes when +the wine went round and things grew merry, then sentimental, then +confidential, Scott would snatch off his wig to display to the company his +fine phrenological development, and tell a story about Nelson, who, too, +used to wear a wig just like his, and after every battle would take it off +and hand it over to his valet to have the bullets combed out of it. + +The elder Rossetti died in this house, and was carried to Christ Church in +Woburn Square, and thence to Highgate. His excellent wife waited to see +the genius of her children blossom and be acknowledged. She followed +thirty years later, and was buried in the same grave with her husband, +where, later, Christina was to join them. + +Frances Mary Polidori was born at Forty-two Broad Street, Golden Square, +the same street in which William Blake was born. I found the street and +Golden Square, but could not locate the house. The policeman on the beat +declared that no one by the name of Rossetti or Blake was in business +thereabouts; and further he never heard of Polly Dory. William Michael +Rossetti's home is one in a row of houses called Saint Edmund's Terrace. +It is near the Saint John's Road Station, just a step from Regent's Park, +and faces the Middlesex Waterworks. It is a fine old house, built of stone +I should judge, stuccoed on the outside. With a well-known critic I called +there, and found the master wearing a long dressing-gown that came to his +heels, a pair of new carpet slippers and a black plush cap, all so dusty +that we guessed the owner had been sifting ashes in the cellar. He was +most courteous and polite. He worships at the shrine of Whitman, Emerson +and Thoreau, and regards America as the spot from whence must come the +world's intellectual hope. "Great thoughts, like beautiful flowers, are +produced by transplantation and the commingling of many elements." These +are his words, and the fact that the Rossetti genius is the result of +transplanting need not weigh in the scale as 'gainst the truth of the +remark. Shortly after this call, at an Art Exhibition, I again met William +Michael Rossetti. I talked with him some moments--long enough to discover +that he was not aware we had ever met. This caused me to be rather less +in love with the Rossetti genius than I was before. + +The wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti died, aged twenty-nine, at Fourteen +Chatham Place, near Blackfriars Bridge. The region thereabouts has been +changed by the march of commerce, and if the original house where the +artist lived yet stands I could not find it. It was here that the +Preraphaelites made history: Madox Brown, Burne-Jones, Ruskin, William +Morris and the MacDonalds. Burne-Jones married one of the MacDonald +daughters; Mr. Poynter, now Director of the National Gallery, another; Mr. +Kipling still another--with Rudyard Kipling as a result, followed in due +course by Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd, who are quite as immortal as the +rest. + +At this time Professor Rossetti was dead, and William Michael, Maria, +Christina and the widowed mother were living at One Hundred Sixty-six +Albany Street, fighting off various hungry wolves that crouched around the +door. Albany Street is rather shabby now, and was then, I suppose. At One +Hundred Twelve Albany Street lives one Dixon, who takes marvelous +photographs of animals in the Zoological Gardens, with a pocket camera, +and then enlarges the pictures a hundred times. These pictures go the +round world over and command big prices. Mr. Dixon was taking for me, at +the National Gallery, the negatives from which I made photogravures for my +Ruskin-Turner book. Mr. Dixon knows more in an artistic and literary way +than any other man in London (I believe), but he is a modest gentleman and +only emits his facts under cross-examination or under the spell of +inspiration. Together we visited the house at One Hundred Sixty-six Albany +Street. + +It was vacant at the time, and we rummaged through every room, with the +result that we concluded it makes very little difference where genius is +housed. On one of the windows of a little bedroom we found the word +"Christina" cut with a diamond. When and by whom it was done I do not +know. Surely the Rossettis had no diamonds when they lived here. But Mr. +Dixon had a diamond and with his ring he cut beneath the word just noted +the name, "Dante Gabriel Rossetti." I have recently heard that the +signature has been identified as authentic by a man who was familiar with +Rossetti's handwriting. + +When the firm of Morris and Company, Dealers in Art Fabrics, was gotten +under way, and Dante Gabriel had ceased to argue details with that +pre-eminently sane man, William Morris, his finances began to prosper. +Morris directed and utilized the energies of his partners. He marshaled +their virtues into a solid phalanx and marched them on to victory. No +doubt that genius usually requires a keeper. But Morris was a genius +himself and a giant in more ways than one, for he ruled his own spirit, +thus proving himself greater than one who taketh a city. + +In Eighteen Hundred Sixty-two, we find Dante Gabriel throwing out the fact +that his income was equal to about ten thousand dollars a year. He took +the beautiful house at Eighteen Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, near the little +street where lived a Scotchman by the name of Thomas Carlyle, and in the +same block where afterwards lived George Eliot, and where she died. He +wanted his brother and sisters and his mother to share his prosperity, and +so he planned that they should all come and live with him; and besides, +Mr. Swinburne and George Meredith were to come, too. It was to be one big +happy family. But the good old mother knew the human heart better than did +her brilliant son. She has left on record these words: "Yes, my children +all have talent, great talent; I only wish they had a little commonsense!" + +So for the present she remained with William, her daughters, and her two +aged unmarried sisters in the plain old house in Albany Street. But Dante +Gabriel moved to Cheyne Walk, and began that craze for collecting blue +china that has swept like a blight over the civilized world. His +collection was sold for three thousand five hundred dollars some years +after--to pay his debts--less than one-half of what it had cost him. Yet +when he had money he generously divided it with the folks up in Albany +Street. But by and by William, too, got to making money, and the quarters +at Number One Hundred Sixty-six were abandoned for something better. + +William was married and had taken a house of his own--I don't know where. +The rest of the household consisted of the widow, Mrs. Rossetti, Miss +Charlotte Lydia Polidori, Maria and Christina--and seven cats. And so we +find this family of five women living in peace and comfort, with their +books and pictures and cats, at Thirty Torrington Square, in a drowsy, +faded, ebb-tide mansion. Maria was never strong; she fell into a decline +and passed away. The management of the household then devolved on +Christina. Her burdens must have been heavy in those days, or did she make +them light by cheerful doing? She gave up society, refused the thought of +marriage, and joined that unorganized sisterhood of mercy--the women who +toil that others may live. But she sang at her work, as the womanly woman +ever does. For although a woman may hold no babe in her arms, the lullaby +leaps to her tongue, and at eventide she sings songs to the children of +her brain--sweet idealization of the principle of mother-love. + +Christina Rossetti comes to us as one of those splendid stars that are so +far away they are seen only at rare intervals. She never posed as a +"literary person"--reading her productions at four-o'clocks, and winning +high praise from the unbonneted and the discerning society editor. She +never even sought a publisher. Her first volume of verses was issued by +her grandfather Polidori unknown to her--printed by his own labor when +she was seventeen and presented to her. What a surprise it must have been +to this gentle girl to have one of her own books placed in her hands! +There seems to have been an almost holy love in this proud man's heart for +his granddaughter. His love was blind, or near-sighted at least, as love +is apt to be (and I am glad!), for some of the poems in this little volume +are sorry stuff. Later, her brothers issued her work and found market for +it; and once we find Dante Gabriel almost quarreling with that worthy +Manxman, Hall Caine, because the Manxman was compiling a volume of the +best English sonnets and threatening to leave Christina Rossetti out. + +Christina had the faculty of seizing beautiful moments, exalted feelings, +sublime emotions, and working them up into limpid song that comes echoing +to us as from across soft seas. In all her lines there is a half-sobbing +undertone--the sweet minor chord that is ever present in the songs of the +Choir Invisible, whose music is the gladness as well as the sadness of the +world. + +I have a dear friend who is an amateur photographic artist, which be it +known is quite a different thing from a kodak fiend. The latter is +continually snapping a machine at incongruous things; he delights in +catching people in absurd postures; he pictures the foolish, the +irrelevant, the transient and the needless. But what does my friend +picture? I'll tell you. He catches pictures only of beautiful objects: +swaying stalks of goldenrod, flights of thistle-down, lichen on old stone +walls, barks of trees, oak-leaves, bunches of acorns, single sprays of +apple-blossoms. Last Spring he found two robins building a nest in a +cherry-tree: he placed his camera near them, and attaching a fine wire to +spring the shutter, took a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Robin Redbreast laying +down the first coarse straws for their nest. Then he took a picture every +day for thirty days of that nest--from the time four blue eggs are shown +until four, wide-open mouths are held hungrily for dainty grubs. This +series of photographs forms an Epic of Creation. So, if you ask me to +solve the question of whether photography is art, I'll answer: it all +depends upon what you picture, and how you present it. + +Christina Rossetti focused her thought on the beautiful object and at the +best angle, so the picture she brings us is nobly ordered and richly +suggestive. + +And so the days passed in study, writing, housework, and caring for old +ladies three. Dante Gabriel, talented, lovable, erratic, had gotten into +bad ways, as a man will who turns night into day and tries to get the +start of God Almighty, thinking he has found a substitute for exercise and +oxygen. Finally he was taken to Birchington, on the Isle of Thanet (where +Octave found her name). He was mentally ill, to a point where he had +through his delusions driven away all his old-time friends. + +Christina, aged fifty-one, and the mother, aged eighty-two, went to take +care of him, and they did for him with all the loving tenderness what +they might have done for a sick baby; but with this difference--they had +to fight his strength. Yet still there were times when his mind was sweet +and gentle as in the days of old; and toward the last these periods of +restful peace increased, and there were hours when the brother, sister and +aged mother held sweet converse, almost as when children they were taught +at this mother's knee. Dante Gabriel Rossetti died April Ninth, Eighteen +Hundred Ninety-two. His grave is in the old country churchyard at +Birchington. + +Two years afterward the mother passed out; in Eighteen Hundred Ninety, +Eliza Polidori died, aged eighty-seven; and in Eighteen Hundred +Ninety-three, her sister Charlotte joined her, aged eighty-four. In +Christ's Church, Woburn Square, you can see memorial tablets to these fine +souls, and if you get acquainted with the gentle old rector he will show +you a pendant star and crescent, set with diamonds, given by the Sultan +during the Crimean war, "To Miss Charlotte Lydia Polidori for +distinguished services as Nurse." And he will also show you a silver +communion set marked with the names of these three sisters, followed by +that of "Christina Georgiana Rossetti." + +And so they all went to their soul's rest and left Christina alone in the +big house with its echoing halls--too big by half for its lonely, +simple-hearted mistress and her pets. She felt that her work was done, and +feeling so, the end soon came. She died December Twenty-ninth, Eighteen +Hundred Ninety-four--passing from a world that she had never much loved, +where she had lived a life of sacrifice, suffering many partings, enduring +many pains. Glad to go, rejoicing that the end was nigh, and soothed by +the thought that beyond lay a Future, she fell asleep. + + + + +ROSA BONHEUR + + The boldness of her conceptions is sublime. As a Creative Artist + I place her first among women, living or dead. And if you ask me + why she thus towers above her fellows, by the majesty of her work + silencing every detractor, I will say it is because she listens + to God, and not to man. She is true to self. + --_Victor Hugo_ + +[Illustration: ROSA BONHEUR] + + +When I arrive in Paris I always go first to the Y.M.C.A. headquarters in +the Rue de Treville--that fine building erected and presented to the +Association by Banker Stokes of New York. There's a good table-d'hote +dinner there every day for a franc; then there tare bathrooms and +writing-rooms and reading-rooms, and all are yours if you are a stranger. +The polite Secretary does not look like a Christian: he has a very tight +hair-cut, a Vandyke beard and lists of lodgings that can be had for +twenty, fifteen or ten francs a week. Or, should you be an American +Millionaire and be willing to pay thirty francs a week, the secretary +knows a nice Protestant lady who will rent you her front parlor on the +first floor and serve you coffee each morning without extra charge. + +Not being a millionaire, I decided, the last time I was there, on a room +at fifteen francs a week on the fourth floor. A bright young fellow was +called up, duly introduced, and we started out to inspect the quarters. + +The house we wanted was in a little side street that leads off the +Boulevard Montmartre. It was a very narrow and plain little street, and I +was somewhat disappointed. Yet it was not a shabby street, for there are +none such in Paris; all was neat and clean, and as I caught sight of a +birdcage hanging in one of the windows and a basket of ferns in another I +was reassured and rang the bell. + +The landlady wore a white cap, a winning smile and a big white apron. A +bunch of keys dangling at her belt gave the necessary look of authority. +She was delighted to see me--everybody is glad to see you in Paris--and +she would feel especially honored if I would consent to remain under her +roof. She only rented her rooms to those who were sent to her by her +friends, and among her few dear friends none was so dear as Monsieur ze +Secretaire of ze Young Men Christians. + +And so I was shown the room--away up and up and up a dark winding stairway +of stone steps with an iron balustrade. It was a room about the size of a +large Jordan-Marsh drygoods-box. + +The only thing that tempted me to stay was the fact that the one window +was made up of little diamond panes set in a leaden sash, and that this +window looked out on a little courtway where a dozen palms and as many +ferns grew lush and green in green tubs and where in the center a fountain +spurted. So a bargain was struck and the landlady went downstairs to find +her husband to send him to the Gare Saint Lazare after my luggage. + +What a relief it is to get settled in your own room! It is home and this +is your castle. You can do as you please here; can I not take mine ease in +mine inn? + +I took off my coat and hung it on the corner of the high bedpost of the +narrow, little bed and hung my collar and cuffs on the floor; and then +leaned out of the window indulging in a drowsy dream of sweet content. +'Twas a long, dusty ride from Dieppe, but who cares--I was now settled, +with rent paid for a week! + +All around the courtway were flower-boxes in the windows; down below, the +fountain cheerfully bubbled and gurgled, and from clear off in the unseen +rumbled the traffic of the great city. And coming from somewhere, as I sat +there, was the shrill warble of a canary. I looked down and around, but +could not see the feathered songster, as the novelists always call a bird. +Then I followed the advice of the Epworth League and looked up, not down, +out, not in, and there directly over my head hung the cage all tied up in +chiffon (I think it was chiffon). I was surprised, for I felt sure it +could not be possible there was a room higher than mine--when I had come +up nine stairways! Then I was more surprised; for just as I looked up, a +woman looked down and our eyes met. We both smiled a foolish smile of +surprise; she dodged in her head and I gazed at the houses opposite with +an interest quite unnecessary. + +She was not a very young woman, nor very pretty--in fact, she was rather +plain--but when she leaned out to feed her pet and found a man looking up +at her she proved her divine femininity beyond cavil. Was there ever a +more womanly action? And I said to myself, "She is not handsome--but God +bless her, she is human!" + +Details are tiresome--so suffice it to say that next day the birdcage was +lowered that I might divide my apple with Dickie (for he was very fond of +apple). The second day, when the cage was lowered I not only fed Dickie +but wrote a message on the cuttlefish. The third day, there was a note +twisted in the wires of the cage inviting me up to tea. + +And I went. + + * * * * * + +There were four girls living up there in one attic-room. Two of these +girls were Americans, one English and one French. One of the American +girls was round and pink and twenty; the other was older. It was the older +one that owned the bird, and invited me up to tea. She met me at the door, +and we shook hands like old-time friends. I was introduced to the trinity +in a dignified manner, and we were soon chatting in a way that made Dickie +envious, and he sang so loudly that one of the girls covered the cage with +a black apron. + +With four girls I felt perfectly safe, and as for the girls there was not +a shadow of a doubt that they were safe, for I am a married man. I knew +they must be nice girls, for they had birds and flower-boxes. I knew they +had flower-boxes, for twice it so happened that they sprinkled the flowers +while I was leaning out of the window wrapped in reverie. + +This attic was the most curious room I ever saw. It was large--running +clear across the house. It had four gable-windows, and the ceiling sloped +down on the sides, so there was danger of bumping your head if you played +pussy-wants-a-corner. Each girl had a window that she called her own, and +the chintz curtains, made of chiffon (I think it was chiffon), were tied +back with different-colored ribbons. This big room was divided in the +center by a curtain made of gunny-sack stuff, and this curtain was covered +with pictures such as were never seen on land or sea. The walls were +papered with brown wrapping-paper, tacked up with brass-headed nails, and +this paper was covered with pictures such as were never seen on sea or +land. + +The girls were all art students, and when they had nothing else to do they +worked on the walls, I imagined, just as the Israelites did in Jerusalem +years ago. One half of the attic was studio, and this was where the table +was set. The other half of the attic had curious chairs and divans and +four little iron beds enameled in white and gold, and each bed was so +smoothly made up that I asked what they were for. White Pigeon said they +were bric-a-brac--that the Attic Philosophers rolled themselves up in the +rugs on the floor when they wished to sleep; but I have thought since that +White Pigeon was chaffing me. + +White Pigeon was the one I saw that first afternoon when I looked up, not +down, out, not in. She was from White Pigeon, Michigan, and from the very +moment I told her I had a cousin living at Coldwater who was a conductor +on the Lake Shore, we were as brother and sister. White Pigeon was thirty +or thirty-five, mebbe; she had some gray hairs mixed in with the brown, +and at times there was a tinge of melancholy in her laugh and a sort of +half-minor key in her voice. I think she had had a Past, but I don't know +for sure. + +Women under thirty seldom know much, unless Fate has been kind and cuffed +them thoroughly, so the little peachblow Americaine did not interest me. +The peachblow was all gone from White Pigeon's cheek, but she was fairly +wise and reasonably good--I'm certain of that. She called herself a +student and spoke of her pictures as "studies," but she had lived in Paris +ten years. Peachblow was her pupil--sent over from Bradford, Pennsylvania, +where her father was a "producer." White Pigeon told me this after I had +drunk five cups of tea and the Anglaise and the Soubrette were doing the +dishes. Peachblow the while was petulantly taking the color out of a +canvas that was a false alarm. + +White Pigeon had copied a Correggio in the Louvre nine years before, and +sold the canvas to a rich wagon-maker from South Bend. Then orders came +from South Bend for six more Louvre masterpieces. It took a year to +complete the order and brought White Pigeon a thousand dollars. She kept +on copying and occasionally receiving orders from America; and when no +orders came, potboilers were duly done and sent to worthy Hebrews in Saint +Louis who hold annual Art Receptions and sell at auction paintings painted +by distinguished artists with unpronounceable names, who send a little of +their choice work to Saint Louis, because the people in Saint Louis +appreciate really choice things. + +"And the mural decorations--which one of you did those?" I remarked, as a +long pause came stealing in. + +"Did you hear what Mr. Littlejourneys asked?" called White Pigeon to the +others. + +"No; what was it?" + +"He wants to know which one of us decorated the walls!" + +"Mr. Littlejourneys meant illumined the walls," jerked Peachblow, over her +shoulder. + +Then Anglaise gravely brought a battered box of crayon and told me I must +make a picture somewhere on the wall or ceiling: all the pictures were +made by visitors--no visitor was ever exempt. + +I took the crayons and made a picture such as was never seen on land or +sea. Having thus placed myself on record, I began to examine the other +decorations. There were heads and faces, and architectural scraps, trees +and animals, and bits of landscape and ships that pass in the night. Most +of the work was decidedly sketchy, but some of the faces were very good. + +Suddenly my eye spied the form of a sleeping dog, a great shaggy Saint +Bernard with head outstretched on his paws, sound asleep. I stopped and +whistled. + +The girls laughed. + +"It is only the picture of a dog," said Soubrette. + +"I know; but you should pay dog-tax on such a picture--did you draw it?" I +asked White Pigeon. + +"Did I! If I could draw like that, would I copy pictures in the Louvre?" + +"Well, who drew it?" + +"Can't you guess?" + +"Of course I can guess. I am a Yankee--I guess Rosa Bonheur." + +"Well, you have guessed right." + +"Stop joking and tell me who drew the Saint Bernard." + +"Madame Rosalie, or Rosa Bonheur, as you call her." + +"But she never came here!" + +"Yes, she did--once. Soubrette is her great-grandniece, or something." + +"Yes, and Madame Bonheur pays my way and keeps me in the Ecole des Beaux +Arts. I'm not ashamed for Monsieur Littlejourneys to know!" said Soubrette +with a pretty pout; "I'm from Lyons, and my mother and Madame Rosalie used +to know each other years ago." + +"Will Madame Rosalie, as you call her, ever come here again?" + +"Perhaps." + +"Then I'll camp right here till she comes!" + +"You might stay a year and then be disappointed." + +"Then can't we go to see her?" + +"Never; she does not see visitors." + +"We might go visit her home," mused Soubrette, after a pause. + +"Yes, if she is away," said Anglaise. + +"She's away now," said Soubrette; "she went to Rouen yesterday." + +"Well, when shall we go?" + +"Tomorrow." + + * * * * * + +And so Soubrette could not think of going when it looked so much like +rain, and Anglaise could not think of going without Soubrette, and +Peachblow was getting nervous about the coming examinations, and must +study, as she knew she would just die if she failed to pass. + +"You will anyway--sometime!" said White Pigeon. + +"Don't urge her; she may change her mind and go with you," dryly remarked +Anglaise with back towards us as she dusted the mantel. + +Then I expressed my regret that the trinity could not go, and White Pigeon +expressed her regret because they had to stay at home. And as we went down +the stairs together we chanted the Kyrie eleison for our small sins, +easing conscience by the mutual confession that we were arrant hypocrites. + +"But still," mused White Pigeon, not quite satisfied, "we really did not +tell an untruth--that is, we did not deceive them--they understood--I +wouldn't tell a real whopper, would you?" + +"I don't know--I think I did once." + +"Tell me about it," said White Pigeon. + +But I was saved, for just as we reached the bottom stair there was a +slight jingling of keys, and the landlady came up through the floor with a +big lunch-basket. She pushed the basket into my hands and showering us +with Lombardy French pushed us out of the door, and away we went into the +morning gray, the basket carried between us. The basket had a hinged +cover, and out of one corner emerged the telltale neck of a bottle. It did +not look just right; suppose we should meet some one from Coldwater? + +But we did not meet any one from Coldwater. And when we reached the +railway-station we were quite lost in the crowd, for there were dozens of +picnickers all carrying baskets, and from the cover of each basket emerged +the neck of a bottle. We felt quite at home packed away in a Classe Trois +carriage with a chattering party of six High-School botanizing youngsters. +When the guard came to the window, touched his cap, addressing me as Le +Professeur, and asked for the tickets for my family, they all laughed. + +Fontainebleau was the fourth stop from Paris. My family scampered out and +away and we followed leisurely after. Fontainebleau is quite smug. There +is a fashionable hotel near the station, before which a fine tall fellow +in uniform parades. He looked at our basket with contempt, and we looked +at him in pity. Just beyond the hotel are smart shops with windows filled +with many-colored trifles to tempt the tourist. The shops gradually grew +smaller and less gay, and residences with high stone walls in front took +their places, and over these walls roses nodded. Then there came a wide +stretch of pasture, and the town of Fontainebleau was left behind. + +The sun came out and came out and came out; birds chirruped in the +hedgerows and the daws in the high poplars called and scolded. The mist +still lingered on the distant hills, and we could hear the tinkle of +sheep-bells and the barking of a dog coming out of the nothingness. + +White Pigeon wore flat-soled shoes and measured off the paces with an easy +swing. We walked in silence, filled with the rich quiet of country sounds +and country sights. What a relief to get away from noisy, bustling, busy +Paris! God made the country! + +All at once the mists seemed to lift from the long range of hills on the +right and revealed the dark background of forest, broken here and there +with jutting rocks and beetling crags. We stopped and sat down on the +bank-side to view the scene. Close up under the shadow of the dark forest +nestled a little white village. Near it was the red-tile roof of an old +mansion, half-lost in the foliage. All around this old mansion I could +make out a string of small buildings or additions to the original chateau. + +I looked at White Pigeon and she looked at me. + +"Yes; that is the place!" she said. + +The sun's rays were growing warmer. I took off my coat and tucked it +through the handle of the basket. White Pigeon took off her jacket to keep +it company, and toting the basket, slung on my cane between us, we moved +on up the gently winding way to the village of By. Everybody was asleep at +By, or else gone on a journey. Soon we came to the old, massive, +moss-covered gateposts that marked the entrance to the mansion. A chain +was stretched across the entrance and we crawled under. The driveway was +partly overgrown with grass, and the place seemed to be taking care of +itself. Half a dozen long-horned Bonnie Brier Bush cows were grazing on +the lawn, their calves with them; and evidently these cows and calves were +the only mowing-machines employed. On this wide-stretching meadow were +various old trees; one elm I saw had fallen split through the center--each +part prostrate, yet growing green. + +Close up about the house there was an irregular stone wall and an +ornamental iron gate with a pull-out Brugglesmith bell at one side. We +pulled the bell and were answered by a big shaggy Saint Bernard that came +barking and bouncing around the corner. I thought at first our time had +come. But this giant of a dog only approached within about ten feet, then +lay down on the grass and rolled over three times to show his goodwill. He +got up with a fine, cheery smile shown in the wag of his tail, just as a +little maid unlocked the gate. + +"Don't you know that dog?" asked White Pigeon. + +"Certainement--he is on the wall of your room." + +We were shown into a little reception-parlor, where we were welcomed by a +tall, handsome woman, about White Pigeon's age. + +The woman kissed White Pigeon on one cheek, and I afterwards asked White +Pigeon why she didn't turn to me the other, and she said I was a fool. + +Then the tall woman went to the door and called up the stairway: +"Antoine, Antoine, guess who it is? It's White Pigeon!" + +A man came down the stairs three steps at a time, and took both of White +Pigeon's hands in his, after the hearty manner of a gentleman of France. +Then I was introduced. + +Antoine looked at our lunch-basket with the funniest look I ever saw, and +asked what it was. + +"Lunch," said White Pigeon; "I can not tell a lie!" + +Antoine made wild gesticulations of displeasure, denouncing us in +pantomime. + +But White Pigeon explained that we only came on a quiet picnic in search +of ozone and had dropped in to make a little call before we went on up to +the forest. But could we see the horses? + +Antoine would be most delighted to show Monsieur Littlejourneys anything +that was within his power. In fact, everything hereabouts was the absolute +property of Monsieur Littlejourneys to do with as he pleased. + +He disappeared up the stairway to exchange his slippers for shoes, and the +tall woman went in another direction for her hat. I whispered to White +Pigeon, "Can't we see the studio?" + +"Are we from Chicago, that we should seek to prowl through a private +house, when the mistress is away? No; there are partly finished canvases +up there that are sacred." + +"Come this way," said Antoine. He led us out through the library, then +the dining-room and through the kitchen. + +It is a very comfortable old place, with no extra furniture--the French +know better than to burden themselves with things. + +The long line of brick stables seemed made up of a beggarly array of empty +stalls. We stopped at a paddock, and Antoine opened the gate and said, +"There they are!" + +"What?" + +"The horses." + +"But these are broncos." + +"Yes; I believe that is what you call them. Monsieur Bill of Buffalo, New +York, sent them as a present to Madame Rosalie when he was in Paris." + +There they were--two ewe-necked cayuses--one a pinto with a wall-eye; the +other a dun with a black line down the back. + +I challenged Antoine to saddle them and we would ride. The tall lady took +it in dead earnest, and throwing her arms around Antoine's neck begged him +not to commit suicide. + +"And the Percherons--where are they?" + +"Goodness! we have no Perches." + +"Those that served as models for the 'Horse Fair,' I mean." + +White Pigeon took me gently by the sleeve, and turning to the others +apologized for my ignorance, explaining that I did not know the "Marche +aux Chevaux" was painted over forty years ago, and that the models were +all Paris cart-horses. + +Antoine called up a little old man, who led out two shaggy little cobs, +and I was told that these were the horses that Madame drove. A roomy, +old-fashioned basket phaeton was backed out; White Pigeon and I stepped in +to try it, and Antoine drew us once around the stable-yard. This is the +only carriage Madame uses. There were doves, and chickens, and turkeys, +and rabbits; and these horses we had seen, with the cows on the lawn, make +up all the animals owned by the greatest of living animal-painters. + +Years ago Rosa Bonheur had a stableful of horses and a kennel of dogs and +a park with deer. Many animals were sent as presents. One man forwarded a +lion, and another a brace of tigers, but Madame made haste to present them +to the Zoological Garden at Paris, because the folks at By would not +venture out of their houses--a report having been spread that the lions +were loose. + +"An animal-painter no more wants to own the objects he paints than a +landscape-artist wishes a deed for the mountain he is sketching," said +Antoine. + +"Or to marry his model," interposed White Pigeon. + +"If you see your model too often, you will lose her," added the Tall Lady. + +We bade our friends good-by and trudged on up the hillside to the storied +Forest of Fontainebleau. We sat down on a log and watched the winding +Seine stretching away like a monstrous serpent, away down across the +meadow; just at our feet was the white village of By; beyond was Thomeray, +and off to the left rose the spires of Fontainebleau. + +"And who is this Antoine and who is the Tall Lady?" I asked, as White +Pigeon began to unpack the basket. + +"It's quite a romance; are you sure you want to hear it?" + +"I must hear it." + +And so between bites White Pigeon told me the story. + +The Tall Lady is a niece of Madame Rosalie's. She was married to an army +officer at Bordeaux when she was sixteen years old. Her husband treated +her shamefully; he beat her and forced her to write begging letters and to +borrow money of her relatives, and then he would take this money and waste +it gambling and in drink. In short, he was a Brute. + +Madame Rosalie accidentally heard of all this, and one day went down to +Bordeaux and took the Tall Lady away from the Brute and told him she would +kill him if he followed. + +"Did she paint a picture of the Brute?" + +"Keep quiet, please!" + +She told him she would kill him if he followed, and although she is +usually very gentle I believe she would have kept her word. Well, she +brought the Tall Lady with her to By, and this old woman and this young +woman loved each other very much. + +Now, Madame Rosalie had a butler and combination man of business, by name +of Jules Carmonne. He was a painter of some ability and served Madame in +many ways right faithfully. Jules loved the Tall Lady, or said he did, but +she did not care for him. He was near fifty and asthmatic and had watery +eyes. He made things very uncomfortable for the Tall Lady. + +One night Jules came to Madame Rosalie in great indignation and said he +could not consent to remain longer on account of the way things were going +on. What was the trouble? Trouble enough, when the Tall Lady was sneaking +out of the house after decent folks were in bed, to meet a strange man +down in the evergreens! Well I guess so!! + +How did he know? + +Ah, he had followed her. Moreover, he had concealed himself in the +evergreens and waited for them, to make sure. + +Yes, and who was the man? + +A young rogue of a painter from Fontainebleau named Antoine de +Channeville. + +Madame Rosalie took Jules Carmonne at his word. She said she was sorry he +could not stay, but he might go if he wished to, of course. And she paid +him his salary on the spot--with two months more to the end of the year. + +The next day Madame Rosalie drove her team of shaggy ponies down to +Fontainebleau and called on the young rogue of an artist. He came out +bareheaded and quaking to where she sat in the phaeton waiting. She +flecked the off pony twice and told him that as Carmonne had left her she +must have a man to help her. Would he come? And she named as salary a sum +about five times what he was then making. + +Antoine de Channeville seized the wheel of the phaeton for support, gasped +several gasps, and said he would come. + +He was getting barely enough to eat out of his work, anyway, although he +was a very worthy young fellow. And he came. + +He and the Tall Lady were married about six months after. + +"And about the Brute and--and the divorce!" + +"Gracious goodness! How do I know? I guess the Brute died or something; +anyway, Antoine and the Tall Lady are man and wife, and are devoted lovers +besides. They have served Madame Rosalie most loyally for these fifteen +years. They say Madame Rosalie has made her will and has left them the +mansion and everything in it for their ownest own, with a tidy sum besides +to put on interest." + +It was four o'clock when we got back to the railroad-station at +Fontainebleau. We missed the train we expected to take, and had an hour to +wait. White Pigeon said she did not care so very much, and I'm sure I +didn't. So we sat down in the bright little waiting-room, and White Pigeon +told me many things about Madame Rosalie and her early life that I had +never known before. + + * * * * * + +Early in the century there lived in Bordeaux a struggling artist (artists +always struggle, you know) by the name of Raymond Bonheur. He found life a +cruel thing, for bread was high in price and short in weight, and no one +seemed to appreciate art except the folks who had no money to buy. But the +poor can love as well as the rich, and Raymond married. In his nervous +desire for success, Raymond Bonheur said that if he could only have a son +he would teach him how to do it, and the son would achieve the honors that +the world withheld from the father. + +So the days came and went, and a son was expected--a firstborn--an heir. +There wasn't anything to be heir to except genius, but there was plenty of +that. The heir was to bear the name of the father--Raymond Bonheur. + +Prayers were offered and thanksgivings sung. + +The days were fulfilled. The child was born. + +The heir was a girl. + +Raymond Bonheur cursed wildly and tousled his hair like a bouffe artist. +He swore he had been tricked, trapped, seduced, undone. He would have +bought strong drink, but he had no money, and credit, like hope, was gone. + +The little mother cried. + +But the baby grew, although it wasn't a very big baby. They named her +Rosa, because the initial was the same as Raymond, but they always called +her Rosalie. + +Then in a year another baby came, and that was a boy. In two years +another, but Raymond never forgave his wife that first offense. He +continued to struggle, trying various styles of pictures and ever hoping +he would yet hit on what the public desired. Mr. Vanderbilt had not yet +made his famous remark about the public, and how could Raymond plagiarize +it in advance? + +At last he got money enough to get to Paris--ah, yes, Paris, Paris, there +talent is appreciated! + +In Paris another baby was born--it was looked upon as a calamity. The poor +little mother of the four little shivering Bonheurs ceased to struggle. +She lay quite still, and they covered her face with a white sheet and +talked in whispers, and walked on tiptoe, for she was dead. + +When an artist can not succeed, he begins to teach art--that is, he shows +others how. Raymond Bonheur put his four children out among kinsmen in +four different places, and became drawing-master in a private school. Rosa +Bonheur was ten years old: a pug-nosed, square-faced little girl in a +linsey-woolsey dress, wooden shoon, with a yellow braid hanging down her +back tied with a shoestring. She could draw--all children can draw--and +the first things children draw are animals. + +Her father had taught her a little and laughed at her foolish little lions +and tigers, all duly labeled. + +When twelve years of age the good people with whom she lived said she must +learn dressmaking. She should be an artist of the needle. But after some +months she rebelled and, making her way across the city to where her +father was, demanded that he should teach her drawing. Raymond Bonheur +hadn't much will--this controversy proved that--the child mastered, and +the father, who really was an accomplished draftsman, began giving daily +lessons to the girl. Soon they worked together in the Louvre, copying +pictures. + +It was a queer thing to teach a girl art--there were no women artists +then. People laughed to see a little girl with yellow braid mixing paints +and helping her father in the Louvre; others said it wasn't right. + +"Let's cut off the braid, and I'll wear boy's clothes and be a boy," said +funny little Rosalie. + +Next day, Raymond Bonheur had a close-cropped boy in loose trousers and +blue blouse to help him. + +The pictures they copied began to sell. Buyers said the work was strong +and true. Prosperity came that way, and Raymond Bonheur got his four +children together and rented three rooms in a house at One Hundred +Fifty-seven Faubourg Saint Honore. + +Rosalie saw that her father had always tried to please the public; she +would please no one but herself. He had tried many forms; she would stick +to one. She would paint animals and nothing else. + +When eighteen years old, she painted a picture of rabbits, for the Salon. +The next year she tried again. She made the acquaintance of an honest old +farmer at Villiers and went to live in his household. She painted +pictures of all the livestock he possessed, from rabbits to a Norman +stallion. One of the pictures she then made was that of a favorite Holland +cow. A collector came down from Paris and offered three hundred francs for +the picture. + +"Merciful Jesus!" said the pious farmer; "say nothing, but get the money +quick! The live cow herself isn't worth half that!" + +The members of the Bonheur family married, one by one, including the +father. Rosa did not marry: she painted. She discarded all teachers, all +schools; she did not listen to the suggestions of patrons, and even +refused to make pictures to order. + +And be it said to her credit, she never has allowed a buyer to dictate the +subject. She followed her own ideas in everything; she wore men's clothes, +and does even unto this day. + +When she was twenty-five, the Salon awarded her a gold medal. The +Ministere des Beaux Arts paid her three thousand francs for her "Labourge +Nivernais." + +Raymond Bonheur grew ill in Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, but before he +passed out he realized that his daughter, then twenty-seven years old, was +on a level with the greatest masters, living or dead. + +She began "The Horse Fair" when twenty-eight. It was the largest canvas +ever attempted by an animal-painter. It was exhibited at the Salon in +Eighteen Hundred Fifty-three, and all the gabble of jealous competitors +was lost in the glorious admiration it excited. It became the rage of +Paris. All the honors the Salon could bestow were heaped upon the young +woman, and by special decision all her work henceforth was declared exempt +from examination by the Jury of Admission. Rosa Bonheur, five feet four, +weighing one hundred twenty pounds, was bigger than the Salon. + +But success did not cause her to swerve a hair's breadth from her manner +of work or life. She refused all social invitations, and worked away after +her own method as industriously as ever. When a picture was completed, she +set her price on it and it was sold. + +In Eighteen Hundred Sixty she bought this fine old house at By, that she +might work in quiet. Society tried to follow her, and in Eighteen Hundred +Sixty-four the Emperor Napoleon and Empress Eugenie went to By, and the +Empress pinned to the blue blouse of Rosa Bonheur the Cross of the Legion +of Honor, the first time, I believe, that the distinction was ever +conferred on a woman. + +And now at seventy-four she is still in love with life, and while taking a +woman's tender interest in all sweet and gentle things, has yet an +imagination that in its strength and boldness is splendidly masculine. + +Rosa Bonheur has received all the honors that man can give. She is rich; +no words of praise that tongue can utter can add to her fame; and she is +loved by all who know her. + + + + +MADAME DE STAEL + + Far from gaining assurance in meeting Bonaparte oftener, he + intimidated me daily more and more. I confusedly felt that no + emotion of the heart could possibly take effect upon him. He + looks upon a human being as a fact or as a thing, but not as a + fellow-creature. He does not hate any more than he loves; there + is nothing for him but himself; all other things are so many + ciphers. The force of his will lies in the imperturbable + calculation of his selfishness. + --_Reflections_ + +[Illustration: MADAME DE STAEL] + + +Fate was very kind to Madame De Stael. + +She ran the gamut of life from highest love to direst pain--from rosy dawn +to blackest night. Name if you can another woman who touched life at so +many points! Home, health, wealth, strength, honors, affection, applause, +motherhood, loss, danger, death, defeat, sacrifice, humiliation, illness, +banishment, imprisonment, escape. Again comes hope--returning strength, +wealth, recognition, fame tempered by opposition, home, a few friends, and +kindly death--cool, all-enfolding death. + +If Harriet Martineau showed poor judgment in choosing her parents, we can +lay no such charge to the account of Madame De Stael. + +They called her "The Daughter of Necker," and all through life she +delighted in the title. The courtier who addressed her thus received a +sunny smile and a gentle love-tap on his cheek for pay. A splendid woman +is usually the daughter of her father, just as strong men have noble +mothers. + +Jacques Necker was born in Geneva, and went up to the city, like many +another country boy, to make his fortune. He carried with him to Paris +innocence, health, high hope, and twenty francs in silver. He found a +place as porter or "trotter" in a bank. Soon they made him clerk. + +A letter came one day from a correspondent asking for a large loan, and +setting forth a complex financial scheme in which the bank was invited to +join. M. Vernet, the head of the establishment, was away, and young Necker +took the matter in hand. He made a detailed statement of the scheme, +computed probable losses, weighed the pros and cons, and when the employer +returned, the plan, all worked out, was on his desk, with young Necker's +advice that the loan be made. + +"You seem to know all about banking!" was the sarcastic remark of M. +Vernet. + +"I do," was the proud answer. + +"You know too much; I'll just put you back as porter." + +The Genevese accepted the reduction and went back as porter without +repining. A man of small sense would have resigned his situation at once, +just as men are ever forsaking Fortune when she is about to smile; witness +Cato committing suicide on the very eve of success. + +There is always a demand for efficient men; the market is never glutted; +the cities are hungry for them--but the trouble is, few men are efficient. + +"It was none of his business!" said M. Vernet to his partner, trying to +ease conscience with reasons. + +"Yes; but see how he accepted the inevitable!" + +"Ah! true, he has two qualities that are the property only of strong men: +confidence and resignation. I think--I think I was hasty!" + +So young Necker was reinstated, and in six months was cashier, in three +years a partner. + +Not long after, he married Susanna Curchod, a poor governess. + +But Mademoiselle Curchod was rich in mental endowment: refined, gentle, +spiritual, she was a true mate to the high-minded Necker. She was a Swiss, +too, and if you know how a young man and a young woman, countryborn, in a +strange city are attracted to each other, you will better understand this +particular situation. + +Some years before, Gibbon had loved and courted the beautiful Mademoiselle +Curchod in her quiet home in the Jura Mountains. They became engaged. +Gibbon wrote home, breaking the happy news to his parents. + +"Has the beautiful Curchod of whom you sing, a large dowry?" inquired the +mother. + +"She has no dowry! I can not tell a lie," was the meek answer. The mother +came on and extinguished the match in short order. + +Gibbon never married. But he frankly tells us all about his love for +Susanna Curchod, and relates how he visited her, in her splendid Paris +home. "She greeted me without embarrassment," says Gibbon, resentfully; +"and in the evening Necker left us together in the parlor, bade me +good-night, and lighting a candle went off to bed!" + +Gibbon, historian and philosopher, was made of common clay (for authors +are made of clay, like plain mortals), and he could not quite forgive +Madame Necker for not being embarrassed on meeting her former lover, +neither could he forgive Necker for not being jealous. + +But that only daughter of the Neckers, Germaine, pleased Gibbon--pleased +him better than the mother, and Gibbon extended his stay in Paris and +called often. + +"She was a splendid creature," Gibbon relates; "only seventeen, but a +woman grown, physically and mentally; not handsome, but dazzling, +brilliant, emotional, sensitive, daring!" + +Gibbon was a bit of a romanticist, as all historians are, and he no doubt +thought it would be a fine denouement to life's play to capture the +daughter of his old sweetheart, and avenge himself on Fate and the +unembarrassed Madame Necker and the unpiqued husband, all at one fell +stroke--and she would not be dowerless either. Ha, ha! + +But Gibbon forgot that he was past forty, short in stature, and short of +breath, and "miles around," as Talleyrand put it. + +"I quite like you," said the daring daughter, as the eloquent Gibbon sat +by her side at a dinner. + +"Why shouldn't you like me--I came near being your papa!" + +"I know, and would I have looked like you?" + +"Perhaps." + +"What a calamity!" + +Even then she possessed that same bubbling wit that was hers years later +when she sat at table with D'Alembert. On one side of the great author was +Madame Recamier, famous for beauty (and later for a certain +"Beauty-Cream"), on the other the daughter of Necker. + +"How fortunate!" exclaimed D'Alembert with rapture; "how fortunate I sit +between Wit and Beauty!" + +"Yes, and without possessing either," said Wit. + +No mistake, the girl's intellect was too speedy even for Gibbon. She +fenced all 'round him and over him, and he soon discovered that she was +icily gracious to every one, save her father alone. For him she seemed to +outpour all the lavish love of her splendid womanhood. It was unlike the +usual calm affection of father and daughter. It was a great and absorbing +love, of which even the mother was jealous. + +"I can't just exactly make 'em out," said Gibbon, and withdrew in good +order. + +Before Necker was forty he had accumulated a fortune, and retired from +business to devote himself to literature and the polite arts. + +"I have earned a rest," he said; "besides, I must have leisure to educate +my daughter." + +Men are constantly "retiring" from business, but someway the expected +Elysium of leisure forever eludes us. Necker had written several good +pamphlets and showed the world that he had ability outside of +money-making. He was appointed Resident Minister of Geneva at the Court +of France. Soon after he became President of the French East India +Company, because there was no one else with mind broad enough to fill the +place. His house was the gathering-place of many eminent scholars and +statesmen. Necker was quiet and reserved; his wife coldly brilliant, +cultured, dignified, religious. The daughter made good every deficiency in +both. + +She was tall, finely formed, but her features were rather heavy, and in +repose there was a languor in her manner and a blankness in her face. This +seeming dulness marks all great actors, but the heaviness is only on the +surface; it often covers a sleeping volcano. On recognizing an +acquaintance, Germaine Necker's face would be illumined, and her smile +would light a room. She could pronounce a man's name so he would be ready +to throw himself at her feet, or over a precipice for her. And she could +listen in a way that complimented; and by a sigh, a nod, an exclamation, +bring out the best--such thoughts as a man never knew he had. She made +people surprise themselves with their own genius; thus proving that to +make a good impression means to make the man pleased with himself. "Any +man can be brilliant with her," said a nettled competitor; "but if she +wishes, she can sink all women in a room into creeping things." + +She knew how to compliment without flattering; her cordiality warmed like +wine, and her ready wit, repartee, and ability to thaw all social ice and +lead conversation along any line, were accomplishments which perhaps have +never been equaled. The women who "entertain" often only depress; they are +so glowing that everybody else feels himself punk. And these people who +are too clever are very numerous; they seem inwardly to fear rivals, and +are intent on working while it is called the day. + +Over against these are the celebrities who sit in a corner and smile +knowingly when they are expected to scintillate. And the individual who +talks too much at one time is often painfully silent at another--as if he +had made New-Year resolves. But the daughter of Necker entered into +conversation with candor and abandon; she gave herself to others, and knew +whether they wished to talk or to listen. On occasion, she could +monopolize conversation until she seemed the only person in the room; but +all talent was brighter for the added luster of her own. This simplicity, +this utter frankness, this complete absence of self-consciousness, was +like the flight of a bird that never doubts its power, simply because it +never thinks of it. Yet continual power produces arrogance, and the soul +unchecked finally believes in its own omniscience. + +Of course such a matrimonial prize as the daughter of Necker was sought +for, even fought for. But the women who can see clear through a man, like +a Roentgen ray, do not invite soft demonstration. They give passion a +chill. Love demands a little illusion; it must be clothed in mystery. And +although we find evidences that many youths stood in the hallways and +sighed, the daughter of Necker never saw fit by a nod to bring them to her +feet. She was after bigger game--she desired the admiration and +approbation of archbishops, cardinals, generals, statesmen, great authors. + +Germaine Necker had no conception of what love is. + +Many women never have. Had this fine young woman met a man with intellect +as clear, mind as vivid, and heart as warm as her own, and had he pierced +her through with a wit as strong and keen as she herself wielded, her +pride would have been broken and she might have paused. Then they might +have looked into each other's eyes and lost self there. And had she thus +known love it would have been a complete passion, for the woman seemed +capable of it. + +A better pen than mine has written, "A woman's love is a dog's love." The +dog that craves naught else but the presence of his master, who is +faithful to the one and whines out his life on that master's grave, +waiting for the caress that never comes and the cheery voice that is never +heard--that's the way a woman loves! A woman may admire, respect, revere +and obey, but she does not love until a passion seizes upon her that has +in it the abandon of Niagara. Do you remember how Nancy Sikes crawls inch +by inch to reach the hand of Bill, and reaching it, tenderly caresses the +coarse fingers that a moment before clutched her throat, and dies +content? That's the love of woman! The prophet spoke of something +"passing the love of woman," but the prophet was wrong--there's nothing +does. + +So Germaine Necker, the gracious, the kindly, the charming, did not love. +However, she married--married Baron De Stael, the Swedish Ambassador. He +was thirty-seven, she was twenty. De Stael was good-looking, polite, +educated. He always smiled at the right time, said bright things in the +right way, kept silence when he should, and made no enemies because he +agreed with everybody about everything. Stipulations were made; a long +agreement was drawn up; it was signed by the party of the first and duly +executed by the party of the second part; sealed, witnessed, sworn to, and +the priest was summoned. + +It was a happy marriage. The first three years of married life were the +happiest Madame De Stael ever knew, she said long afterward. + +Possibly there are hasty people who imagine they detect tincture of iron +somewhere in these pages: these good people will say, "Gracious me! why +not?" + +And so I will at once admit that these respectable, well-arranged, and +carefully planned marriages are often happy and peaceful. + +The couple may "raise" a large family and slide through life and out of it +without a splash. I will also admit that love does not necessarily imply +happiness--more often 't is a pain, a wild yearning, and a vague unrest; a +haunting sense of heart-hunger that drives a man into exile repeating +abstractedly the name "Beatrice! Beatrice!" And so all the moral I will +make now is simply this: the individual who has not known an all-absorbing +love has not the spiritual vision that is a passport to Paradise. He +forever yammers between the worlds, fit for neither Heaven nor Hell. + + * * * * * + +Necker retired from business that he might enjoy peace; his daughter +married for the same reason. It was stipulated that she should never be +separated from her father. She who stipulates is lost, so far as love +goes--but no matter! Married women in France are greater lions in society +than maidens can possibly hope to be. The marriage-certificate serves at +once as a license for brilliancy, daring, splendor, and it is also a badge +of respectability. The marriage-certificate is a document that in all +countries is ever taken care of by the woman and never by the man. + +And this document is especially useful in France, as French dames know. +Frenchmen are afraid of an unmarried woman--she means danger, damages, a +midnight marriage and other awful things. An unmarried woman in France can +not hope to be a social leader; and to be a social leader was the one +ambition of Madame De Stael. + +It was called the salon of Madame De Stael now. Baron De Stael was known +as the husband of Madame De Stael. The salon of Madame Necker was only a +matter of reminiscence. The daughter of Necker was greater than her +father, and as for Madame Necker, she was a mere figure in towering +headdress, point lace and diamonds. Talleyrand summed up the case when he +said, "She is one of those dear old things that have to be tolerated." + +Madame De Stael had a taste for literature from early womanhood. She +wrote beautiful little essays and read them aloud to her company, and her +manuscripts had a circulation like unto her father's bank-notes. She had +the faculty of absorbing beautiful thoughts and sentiments, and no woman +ever expressed them in a more graceful way. People said she was the +greatest woman author of her day. "You mean of all time," corrected +Diderot. They called her "the High Priestess of Letters," "the Minerva of +Poetry," "Sappho Returned," and all that. Her commendation meant success +and her indifference failure. She knew politics, too, and her hands were +on all wires. Did she wish to placate a minister, she invited him to call, +and once there he was as putty in her hands. She skimmed the surface of +all languages, all arts, all history, but best of all she knew the human +heart. + +Of course there was a realm of knowledge she wist not of--the initiates of +which never ventured within her scope. She had nothing for them--they kept +away. But the proud, the vain, the ambitious, the ennui-ridden, the +people-who-wish-to-be, and who are ever looking for the strong man to give +them help--these thronged her parlors. + +And when you have named these you have named all those who are foremost in +commerce, politics, art, education, philanthropy and religion. The world +is run by second-rate people. The best are speedily crucified, or else +never heard of until long after they are dead. + +Madame De Stael, in Seventeen Hundred Eighty-eight, was queen of the +people who ran the world---at least the French part of it. + +But intellectual power, like physical strength, endures but for a day. +Giants who have a giant's strength and use it like a giant must be put +down. If you have intellectual power, hide it! + +Do thy daily work in thine own little way and be content. The personal +touch repels as well as attracts. Thy presence is a menace--thy existence +an affront--beware! They are weaving a net for thy feet, and hear you not +the echo of hammering, as of men building a scaffold? + +Go read history! Thinkest thou that all men are mortal save thee alone, +and that what has befallen others can not happen to thee? + +The Devil has no title to this property he now promises. Fool! thou hast +no more claim on Fate than they who have gone before, and what has come to +others in like conditions must come to thee. God himself can not stay it; +it is so written in the stars. Power to lead men! Pray that thy prayer +shall ne'er be granted--'t is to be carried to the topmost pinnacle of +Fame's temple tower, and there cast headlong upon the stones beneath. +Beware! beware!! + + * * * * * + +Madame De Stael was of an intensely religious nature throughout her entire +life; such characters swing between license and asceticism. But the charge +of atheism told largely against her even among the so-called liberals, for +liberals are often very illiberal. Marie Antoinette gathered her skirts +close about her and looked at the "Minerva of Letters" with suspicion in +her big, open eyes; cabinet officers forgot her requests to call, and when +a famous wit once coolly asked, "Who was that Madame De Stael we used to +read about?" people roared with laughter. + +Necker, as Minister of Finance, had saved the State from financial ruin; +then had been deposed and banished; then recalled. In September, Seventeen +Hundred Ninety, he was again compelled to flee. He escaped to Switzerland, +disguised as a pedler. The daughter wished to accompany him, but this was +impossible, for only a week before she had given birth to her first child. + +But favor came back, and in the mad tumult of the times the freedom of wit +and sparkle of her salon became a need to the poets and philosophers, if +city wits can be so called. + +Society shone as never before. In it was the good nature of the mob. It +was no time to sit quietly at home and enjoy a book--men and women must +"go somewhere," they must "do something." The women adopted the Greek +costume and appeared in simple white robes caught at the shoulders with +miniature stilettos. Many men wore crape on their arms in pretended memory +of friends who had been kissed by Madame Guillotine. There was fever in +the air, fever in the blood, and the passions held high carnival. In +solitude, danger depresses all save the very strongest, but the mob (ever +the symbol of weakness) is made up of women--it is an effeminate thing. It +laughs hysterically at death and cries, "On with the dance!" Women +represent the opposite poles of virtue. + +The fever continues: a "poverty party" is given by Madame De Stael, where +men dress in rags and women wear tattered gowns that ill conceal their +charms. "We must get used to it," she said, and everybody laughed. Soon, +men in the streets wear red nightcaps, women appear in nightgowns, rich +men wear wooden shoes, and young men in gangs of twelve parade the avenues +at night carrying heavy clubs, hurrahing for this or that. + +Yes, society in Paris was never so gay. + +The salons were crowded, and politics was the theme. When the discussion +waxed too warm, some one would start a hymn and all would chime in until +the contestants were drowned out and in token of submission joined in the +chorus. + +But Madame De Stael was very busy all these days. Her house was filled +with refugees, and she ran here and there for passports and pardons, and +beseeched ministers and archbishops for interference or assistance or +amnesty or succor and all those things that great men can give or bestow +or effect or filch. And when her smiles failed to win the wished-for +signature, she still had tears that would move a heart of brass. + +About this time Baron De Stael fades from our vision, leaving with Madame +three children. + +"It was never anything but a 'mariage de convenance' anyway, what of it ?" +and Madame bursts into tears and throws herself into Farquar's arms. + +"Compose yourself, my dear--you are spoiling my gown," says the Duchesse. + +"I stood him as long as I could," continued Madame. + +"You mean he stood you as long as he could." + +"You naughty thing!--why don't you sympathize with me?" + +Then both women fall into a laughing fit that is interrupted by the +servant, who announces Benjamin Constant. + +Constant came as near winning the love of Madame De Stael as any man ever +did. He was politician, scholar, writer, orator, courtier. But with it all +he was a boor, for when he had won the favor of Madame De Stael he wrote a +long letter to Madame Charriere, with whom he had lived for several years +in the greatest intimacy, giving reasons why he had forsaken her, and +ending with an ecstacy in praise of the Stael. + +If a man can do a thing more brutal than to humiliate one woman at the +expense of another, I do not know it. And without entering any defense for +the men who love several women at one time, I wish to make a clear +distinction between the men who bully and brutalize women for their own +gratification and the men who find their highest pleasure in pleasing +women. The latter may not be a paragon, yet as his desire is to give +pleasure, not to corral it, he is a totally different being from the man +who deceives, badgers, humiliates, and quarrels with one who can not +defend herself, in order that he may find an excuse for leaving her. + +A good many of Constant's speeches were written by Madame De Stael, and +when they traveled together through Germany he no doubt was a great help +to her in preparing the "De l'Allemagne." + +But there was a little man approaching from out the mist of obscurity who +was to play an important part in the life of Madame De Stael. He had heard +of her wide-reaching influence, and such an influence he could not afford +to forego--it must be used to further his ends. + +Yet the First Consul did not call on her, and she did not call on the +First Consul. They played a waiting game, "If he wishes to see me, he +knows that I am home Thursdays!" she said with a shrug. + +"Yes, but a man in his position reverses the usual order: he does not make +the first call!" + +"Evidently!" said Madame, and the subject dropped with a dull thud. + +Word came from somewhere that Baron De Stael was seriously ill. The wife +was thrown into a tumult of emotion. She must go to him at once--a wife's +duty was to her husband first of all. She left everything, and hastening +to his bedside, there ministered to him tenderly. But death claimed him. +The widow returned to Paris clothed in deep mourning. Crape was tied on +the door-knocker and the salon was closed. + +The First Consul sent condolences. + +"The First Consul is a joker," said Dannion solemnly, and took snuff. + +In six weeks the salon was again opened. Not long after, at a dinner, +Napoleon and Madame De Stael sat side by side. "Your father was a great +man," said Napoleon. + +He had gotten in the first compliment when she had planned otherwise. She +intended to march her charms in a phalanx upon him, but he would not have +it so. Her wit fell flat and her prettiest smile brought only the remark, +"If the wind veers north it may rain." + +They were rivals--that was the trouble. France was not big enough for +both. + +Madame De Stael's book about Germany had been duly announced, puffed, +printed. Ten thousand copies were issued and--seized upon by Napoleon's +agents and burned. + +"The edition is exhausted," cried Madame, as she smiled through her tears +and searched for her pocket-handkerchief. + +The trouble with the book was that nowhere in it was Napoleon mentioned. +Had Napoleon never noticed the book, the author would have been woefully +sorry. As it was she was pleased, and when the last guest had gone she and +Benjamin Constant laughed, shook hands, and ordered lunch. + +But it was not so funny when Fouche called, apologized, coughed, and said +the air in Paris was bad. + +So Madame De Stael had to go--it was "Ten Years of Exile." In that book +you can read all about it. She retired to Coppet, and all the griefs, +persecutions, disappointments and heartaches were doubtless softened by +the inward thought of the distinction that was hers in being the first +woman banished by Napoleon and of being the only woman he thoroughly +feared. + +When it came Napoleon's turn to go and the departure for Elba was at hand, +it will be remembered he bade good-by personally to those who had served +him so faithfully. It was an affecting scene when he kissed his generals +and saluted the swarthy grenadiers in the same way. When told of it Madame +picked a petal or two from her bouquet and said, "You see, my dears, the +difference is this: while Judas kissed but one, the Little Man kissed +forty." + +Napoleon was scarcely out of France before Madame was back in Paris with +all her books and wit and beauty. An ovation was given the daughter of +Necker such as Paris alone can give. + +But Napoleon did not stay at Elba, at least not according to any accounts +I have read. + +When word came that he was marching on Paris, Madame hastily packed up her +manuscripts and started in hot haste for Coppet. + +But when the eighty days had passed and the bugaboo was safely on board +the "Bellerophon," she came back to the scenes she loved so well and to +what for her was the only heaven--Paris. + +She has been called a philosopher and a literary light. But she was only +socio-literary. Her written philosophy does not represent the things she +felt were true--simply those things she thought it would be nice to say. +She cultivated literature, only that she might shine. Love, wealth, +health, husband, children--all were sacrificed that she might lead society +and win applause. No one ever feared solitude more: she must have those +about her who would minister to her vanity and upon whom she could shower +her wit. As a type her life is valuable, and in these pages that traverse +the entire circle of feminine virtues and foibles she surely must have a +place. + +In her last illness she was attended daily by those faithful subjects who +had all along recognized her sovereignty--in Society she was Queen. She +surely won her heart's desire, for to that bed from which she was no more +to rise, courtiers came and kneeling kissed her hand, and women by the +score whom she had befriended paid her the tribute of their tears. + +She died in Paris aged fifty-one. + + * * * * * + +When you are in Switzerland and take the little steamer that plies on Lake +Leman from Lausanne to Geneva, you will see on the western shore a tiny +village that clings close around a chateau, like little oysters around the +parent shell. This is the village of Coppet that you behold, and the +central building that seems to be a part of the very landscape is the +Chateau De Necker. This was the home of Madame De Stael and the place +where so many refugees sought safety. + +"Coppet is Hell in motion," said Napoleon. "The woman who lives there has +a petticoat full of arrows that could hit a man were he seated on a +rainbow. She combines in her active head and strong heart Rousseau and +Mirabeau; and then shields herself behind a shift and screams if you +approach. To attract attention to herself she calls, 'Help, help!'" + +The man who voiced these words was surely fit rival to the chatelaine of +this vine-covered place of peace that lies smiling an ironical smile in +the sunshine on yonder hillside. + +Coppet bristles with history. + +Could Coppet speak it must tell of Voltaire and Rousseau, who had knocked +at its gates; of John Calvin; of Montmorency; of Hautville (for whom +Victor Hugo named a chateau); of Fanny Burney and Madame Recamier and +Girardin (pupil of Rousseau); and Lafayette and hosts of others who are to +us but names, but who in their day were greatest among all the sons of +men. + +Chief of all was the great Necker, who himself planned and built the main +edifice that his daughter "might ever call it home." Little did he know +that it would serve as her prison, and that from here she would have to +steal away in disguise. But yet it was the place she called home for full +two decades. Here she wrote and wept and laughed and sang: hating the +place when here, loving it when away. Here she came when De Stael had +died, and here she brought her children. Here she received the caresses of +Benjamin Constant, and here she won the love of pale, handsome Rocco, and +here, "when past age," gave birth to his child. Here and in Paris, in +quick turn, the tragedy and comedy of her life were played; and here she +sleeps. + +In the tourist season there are many visitors at the chateau. A grave old +soldier, wearing on his breast the Cross of the Legion of Honor, meets you +at the lodge and conducts you through the halls, the salon and the +library. There are many family portraits, and mementos without number, to +bring back the past that is gone forever. Inscribed copies of books from +Goethe and Schiller and Schlegel and Byron are in the cases, and on the +walls are to be seen pictures of Necker, Rocco, De Stael and Albert, the +firstborn son, decapitated in a duel by a swinging stroke from a German +saber, on account of a king and two aces held in his sleeve. + +Beneath the old chateau dances a mountain brook, cold from the Jura; in +the great courtway is a fountain and fish-pond, and all around are +flowering plants and stately palms. All is quiet and orderly. No children +play, no merry voices call, no glad laughter echoes through these courts. +Even the birds have ceased to sing. + +The quaint chairs in the parlors are pushed back with precision against +the wall, and the funereal silence that reigns supreme seems to say that +death yesterday came, and an hour ago all the inmates of the gloomy +mansion, save the old soldier, followed the hearse afar and have not yet +returned. + +We are conducted out through the garden, along gravel walks, across the +well-trimmed lawn; and before a high iron gate, walled in on both sides +with massive masonry, the old soldier stops, and removes his cap. Standing +with heads uncovered, we are told that within rests the dust of Madame De +Stael, her parents, her children, and her children's children--four +generations in all. + +The steamer whistles at the wharf as if to bring us back from dream and +mold and death, and we hasten away, walking needlessly fast, looking back +furtively to see if grim spectral shapes are following after. None is +seen, but we do not breathe freely until aboard the steamer and two short +whistles are heard, and the order is given to cast off. We push off slowly +from the stone pier, and all is safe. + + + + +ELIZABETH FRY + + When thee builds a prison, thee had better build with the thought + ever in thy mind that thee and thy children may occupy the cells. + --_Report on Paris Prisons, Addressed to the King of France_ + +[Illustration: ELIZABETH FRY] + + +The Mennonite, Dunkard, Shaker, Oneida Communist, Mormon and Quaker are +all one people, varying only according to environment. + +They are all Come-Outers. + +They turn to plain clothes, hard work, religious thought, eschewing the +pomps and vanities of the world--all for the same reasons. Scratch any one +of them and you will find the true type. The monk of the Middle Ages was +the same man, his peculiarity being an extreme asceticism that caused him +to count sex a mistake on the part of God. And this same question has been +a stumbling-block for ages to the type we now have under the glass. A man +who gives the question of sex too much attention is very apt either to +have no wife at all or else four or five. If a Franciscan friar of the +olden time happened to glance at a clothesline on which, gaily waving in +the wanton winds, was a smock-frock, he wore peas in his sandals for a +month and a day. + +The Shaker does not count women out because the founder of the sect was a +woman, but he is a complete celibate and depends on Gentiles to populate +the earth. The Dunkard quotes Saint Paul and marries because he must, but +regards romantic love as a thing of which Deity is jealous, and also a bit +ashamed. The Oneida Community clung to the same thought, and to +obliterate selfishness held women in common, tracing pedigree, after the +manner of ancient Sparta, through the female line, because there was no +other way. The Mormon incidentally and accidentally adopted polygamy. + +The Quakers have for the best part looked with disfavor on passionate +love. In the worship of Deity they separate women from men. But all +oscillations are equalized by swingings to the other side. The Quakers +have often discarded a distinctive marriage-ceremony, thus slanting toward +natural selection. And I might tell you of how in one of the South +American States there is a band of Friends who have discarded the rite +entirely, making marriage a private and personal contract between the man +and the woman--a sacred matter of conscience; and should the man and woman +find after a trial that their mating was a mistake, they are as free to +separate as they were to marry, and no obloquy is attached in any event. +Harriet Martineau, Quaker in sympathy, although not in name, being an +independent fighter armed with a long squirrel-rifle of marvelous range +and accuracy, pleaded strongly and boldly for a law that would make +divorce as free and simple as marriage. Harriet once called marriage a +mouse-trap, and thereby sent shivers of surprise and indignation up a +bishop's back. + +But there is one thing among all these quasi-ascetic sects that has ever +been in advance of the great mass of humanity from which they are +detached parts: they have given woman her rights; whereas, the mass has +always prated, and does yet, mentioning it in statute law, that the male +has certain natural "rights," and the women only such rights as are +granted her by the males. And the reason of this wrong-headed attitude on +part of the mob is plain. It rules by force, whereas the semi-ascetic +sects decry force, using only moral suasion, falling back on the Christ +doctrine of non-resistance. This has given their women a chance to prove +that they have just as able minds as the men, if not better. + +That these non-resistants are the salt of the earth none who know them can +deny. It was the residents of the monasteries in the Middle Ages who kept +learning and art from dying off the face of Europe. They built such +churches and performed such splendid work in art that we are hushed into +silence before the dignity of the ruins of Melrose, Dryburgh and Furness. +There are no paupers among the Quakers, a "criminal class" is a thing no +Mennonite understands, no Dunkard is a drunkard, the Oneida Communists +were all well educated and in dollars passing rich, while the Mormons have +accumulated wealth at the rate of over eleven hundred dollars a man per +year, which is more than three times as good a record as can be shown by +New York or Pennsylvania. And further, until the Gentiles bore down upon +her, Utah had no use for either prisons, asylums or almshouses. Until the +Gentiles crowded into Salt Lake City, there was no "tenderloin district," +no "dangerous class," no gambling "dives." Instead, there was universal +order, industry, sobriety. It is well to recognize the fact that the +quasi-ascetic, possessed of a religious idea, persecuted to a point that +holds him to his work, is the best type of citizen the world has ever +known. Tobacco, strong drink, and opium alternately lull and excite, +soothe and elevate, but always destroy; yet they do not destroy our +ascetic, for he knows them not. He does not deplete himself by drugs, +rivalry, strife or anger. He believes in co-operation, not competition. He +works and prays. He keeps a good digestion, an even pulse, a clear +conscience; and as man's true wants are very few, our subject grows rich +and has not only ample supplies for himself, but is enabled to minister to +others. He is earth's good Samaritan. It was Tolstoy and his daughter who +started soup-houses in Russia and kept famine at bay. Your true monk never +passed by on the other side; ah, no! the business of the old-time priest +was to do good. The Quaker is his best descendant--he is the true +philanthropist. + +If jeered, hooted and finally oppressed, these protesters will form a clan +or sect and adopt a distinctive garb and speech. If persecuted, they will +hold together, as cattle on the prairies huddle against the storm. But if +left alone the Law of Reversion to Type catches the second generation, and +the young men and maidens secrete millinery, just as birds do a brilliant +plumage, and the strange sect merges into and is lost in the mass. The +Jews did not say, Go to, we will be peculiar, but, as Mr. Zangwill has +stated, they have remained a peculiar people simply because they have been +proscribed. + +The successful monk, grown rich and feeling secure, turns voluptuary and +becomes the very thing that he renounced in his monastic vows. +Over-anxious bicyclists run into the object they wish to avoid. We are +attracted to the thing we despise; and we despise it because it attracts. +A recognition of this principle will make plain why so many temperance +fanatics are really drunkards trying hard to keep sober. In us all is the +germ of the thing we hate; we become like the thing we hate; we are the +thing we hate. Ex-Quakers in Philadelphia, I am told, are very dressy +people. But before a woman becomes a genuine admitted non-Quaker, the +rough, gray woolen dress shades off by almost imperceptible degrees into a +dainty silken lilac, whose generous folds have a most peculiar and +seductive rustle; the bonnet becomes smaller, and pertly assumes a +becoming ruche, from under which steal forth daring, winsome ringlets; +while at the neck, purest of cream-white kerchiefs jealously conceal the +charms that a mere worldly woman might reveal. Then the demi-monde, +finding themselves neglected, bribe the dressmakers and adopt the costume. + +Thus does civilization, like the cyclone, move in spirals. + + * * * * * + +In a sermon preached at the City Temple, June Eighteenth, Eighteen Hundred +Ninety-six, Doctor Joseph Parker said: "There it was--there! at Smithfield +Market, a stone's throw from here, that Ridley and Latimer were burned. +Over this spot the smoke of martyr fires hovered. And I pray for a time +when they will hover again. Aye, that is what we need! the rack, the +gallows, chains, dungeons, fagots!" + +Yes, those are his words, and it was two days before it came to me that +Doctor Parker knew just what he was talking about. Persecution can not +stamp out virtue, any more than man's effort can obliterate matter. Man +changes the form of things, but he does not cancel their essence. And this +is as true of the unseen attributes of spirit as it is of the elements of +matter. Did the truths taught by Latimer and Ridley go out with the flames +that crackled about their limbs? Were their names written for the last +time in smoke? 'T were vain to ask. The bishop who instigated their +persecution gave them certificates for immortality. But the bishop did not +know it--bishops who persecute know not what they do. + +Let us guess the result if Jesus had been eminently successful, gathering +about him, with the years, the strong and influential men of Jerusalem! +Suppose he had fallen asleep at last of old age, and, full of honors, been +carried to his own tomb, patterned after that of Joseph of Arimathea, but +richer far--what then? And if Socrates had apologized and had not drunk of +the hemlock, how about his philosophy, and would Plato have written the +"Phædo"? + +No religion is pure except in its state of poverty and persecution; the +good things of earth are our corrupters. All life is from the sun, but +fruit too well loved of the sun falls first and rots. The religion that is +fostered by the State and upheld by a standing army may be a pretty good +religion, but it is not the Christ religion, call you it "Christianity" +never so loudly. + +Martyr and persecutor are usually cut off the same piece. They are the +same type of man; and looking down the centuries they seem to have shifted +places easily. As to which is persecutor and which is martyr is only a +question of transient power. They are constantly teaching the trick to +each other, just as scolding parents have saucy children. They are both +good people; their sincerity can not be doubted. Marcus Aurelius, the best +emperor Rome ever had, persecuted the Christians; while Caligula, Rome's +worst emperor, didn't know there were any Christians in his dominions, and +if he had known would not have cared. + +The persecutor and the martyr both belong to the cultus known as "Muscular +Christianity," the distinguishing feature of which is a final appeal to +force. We should, however, respect it for the frankness of the name in +which it delights--Muscular Christianity being a totally different thing +from Christianity, which smitten turns the other cheek. + +But the Quaker, best type of the non-resistant quasi-ascetic, is the +exception that proves the rule; he may be persecuted, but he persecutes +not again. He is the best authenticated type living of primitive +Christian. That the religion of Jesus was a purely reactionary movement, +suggested by the smug complacency and voluptuous condition of the times, +most thinking men agree. Where rich Pharisees adopt a standard of life +that can only be maintained by devouring widows' houses and oppressing the +orphan, the needs of the hour bring to the front a man who will swing the +pendulum to the other side. When society plays tennis with truth, and +pitch-and-toss with all the expressions of love and friendship, certain +ones will confine their speech to yea, yea, and nay, nay. When men utter +loud prayers on street corners, some one will suggest that the better way +to pray is to retire to your closet and shut the door. When self-appointed +rulers wear purple and scarlet and make broad their phylacteries, some one +will suggest that honest men had better adopt a simplicity of attire. When +a whole nation grows mad in its hot endeavor to become rich, and the +Temple of the Most High is cumbered by the seats of money-changers, +already in some Galilean village sits a youth, conscious of his Divine +kinship, plaiting a scourge of cords. + +The gray garb of the Quaker is only a revulsion from a flutter of ribbons +and a towering headgear of hues that shame the lily and rival the rainbow. +Beau Brummel, lifting his hat with great flourish to nobility and standing +hatless in the presence of illustrious nobodies, finds his counterpart in +William Penn, who was born with his hat on and uncovers to no one. The +height of Brummel's hat finds place in the width of Penn's. + +Quakerism is a protest against an idle, vain, voluptuous and selfish life. +It is the natural recoil from insincerity, vanity and gormandism which, +growing glaringly offensive, causes these certain men and women to "come +out" and stand firm for plain living and high thinking. And were it not +for this divine principle in humanity that prompts individuals to separate +from the mass when sensuality threatens to hold supreme sway, the race +would be snuffed out in hopeless night. These men who come out effect +their mission, not by making all men Come-Outers, but by imperceptibly +changing the complexion of the mass. They are the true and literal saviors +of mankind. + + * * * * * + +Norwich has several things to recommend it to the tourist, chief of which +is the cathedral. Great, massive, sullen structure--begun in the Eleventh +Century--it adheres more closely to its Norman type than does any other +building in England. + +Within sound of the tolling bells of this great cathedral, aye, almost +within the shadow of its turrets, was born, in Seventeen Hundred Eighty, +Elizabeth Gurney. Her line of ancestry traced directly back to the De +Gournays who came with William the Conqueror, and laid the foundations of +this church and of England's civilization. To the sensitive, imaginative +girl this sacred temple, replete with history, fading off into storied +song and curious legend, meant much. She haunted its solemn transepts, and +followed with eager eyes the carved bosses on the ceiling, to see if the +cherubs pictured there were really alive. She took children from the +street and conducted them thither, explaining that it was her grandfather +who laid the mortar between the stones and reared the walls and placed the +splendid colored windows, on which reflections of real angels were to be +seen, and where Madonnas winked when the wind was east. And the children +listened with open mouths and marveled much, and this encouraged the pale +little girl with the wondering eyes, and she led them to the tomb of Sir +William Boleyn, whose granddaughter, Anne Boleyn, used often to come here +and garland with flowers the grave above which our toddlers talked in +whispers, and where, yesterday, I, too, stood. + +And so Elizabeth grew in years and in stature and in understanding; and +although her parents were not members of the Established Religion, yet a +great cathedral is greater than sect, and to her it was the true House of +Prayer. It was there that God listened to the prayers of His children. She +loved the place with an idolatrous love and with all the splendid +superstition of a child, and thither she went to kneel and ask fulfilment +of her heart's desire. All the beauties of ancient and innocent days moved +radiant and luminous in the azure of her mind. But time crept on and a +woman's penetrating comprehension came to her, and the dreams of youth +shifted off into the realities of maturity, and she saw that many who came +to pray were careless, frivolous people, and that the vergers did their +work without more reverence than did the stablemen who cared for her +father's horses. And once when twilight was veiling the choir, and all the +worshipers had departed, she saw a curate strike a match on the +cloister-wall, to light his pipe, and then with the rector laugh loudly, +because the bishop had forgotten and read his "Te Deum Laudamus" before +his "Gloria in Excelsis." + +By degrees it came to her that the lord bishop of this holy place was in +the employ of the State, and that the State was master too of the army and +the police and the ships that sailed away to New Zealand, carrying in +their holds women and children, who never came back, and men who, like the +lord bishop, had forgotten this and done that when they should have done +the other. + +Once, in the streets of Norwich she saw a dozen men with fetters riveted +to their legs, all fastened to one clanking chain, breaking stone in the +drizzle of a winter rain. And the thought came to her that the rich +ladies, wrapped in furs, who rolled by in their carriages, going to the +cathedral to pray, were no more God's children than these wretches +breaking stone from the darkness of a winter morning until darkness +settled over the earth again at night. + +She saw plainly the patent truth that, if some people wore gaudy and +costly raiment, others must dress in rags; if some ate and drank more than +they needed, and wasted the good things of earth, others must go hungry; +if some never worked with their hands, others must needs toil +continuously. + +The Gurneys were nominally Friends, but they had gradually slipped away +from the directness of speech, the plainness of dress, and the simplicity +of the Quakers. They were getting rich on government contracts--and who +wants to be ridiculous anyway? So, with consternation, the father and +mother heard the avowal of Elizabeth to adopt the extreme customs of the +Friends. They sought to dissuade her. They pointed out the uselessness of +being singular, and the folly of adopting a mode of life that makes you a +laughing-stock. But this eighteen-year-old girl stood firm. She had +resolved to live the Christ-life and devote her energies to lessening the +pains of earth. Life was too short for frivolity; no one could afford to +compromise with evil. She became the friend of children; the champion of +the unfortunate; she sided with the weak; she was their friend and +comforter. Her life became a cry in favor of the oppressed, a defense of +the downtrodden, an exaltation of self-devotion, a prayer for universal +sympathy, liberty and light. She pleaded for the vicious, recognizing that +all are sinners and that those who do unlawful acts are no more sinners in +the eyes of God than we who think them so. + +The religious nature and sex-life are closely akin. The woman possessing a +high religious fervor is also capable of a great and passionate love. But +the Norwich Friends did not believe in a passionate love, except as the +work of the devil. Yet this they knew, that marriage tames a woman as +nothing else can. They believed in religion, of course--but not an +absorbing, fanatical religion! Elizabeth should get married--it would cure +her mental maladies: exaltation of spirit in a girl is a dangerous thing +anyway. Nothing subdues like marriage. + +It may not be generally known, but your religious ascetic is a great +matchmaker. In all religious communities, especially rural communities, +men who need wives need not advertise--there are self-appointed +committees of old ladies who advise and look after such matters closely. +The immanence of sex becomes vicarious, and that which once dwelt in the +flesh is now a thought: like men-about-town, whose vices finally become +simply mental, so do these old ladies carry on courtships by power of +attorney. + +And so the old ladies found a worthy Quaker man who would make a good +husband for Elizabeth. The man was willing. He wrote a letter to her from +his home in London, addressing it to her father. The letter was brief and +businesslike. It described himself in modest but accurate terms. He +weighed ten stone and was five feet eight inches high; he was a merchant +with a goodly income; and in disposition was all that was to be +desired--at least he said so. His pedigree was standard. + +The Gurneys looked up this Mr. Fry, merchant, of London, and found all as +stated. He checked O.K. He was invited to visit at Norwich; he came, he +saw, and was conquered. He liked Elizabeth, and Elizabeth liked him--she +surely did or she would never have married him. + +Elizabeth bore him twelve children. Mr. Fry was certainly an excellent and +amiable man. I find it recorded, "He never in any way hampered his wife's +philanthropic work," and with this testimonial to the excellence of Mr. +Fry's character we will excuse him from these pages and speak only of his +wife. + +Contrary to expectations, Elizabeth was not tamed by marriage. She looked +after her household with diligence; but instead of confining her "social +duties" to following hotly after those in station above her, she sought +out those in the stratum beneath. Soon after reaching London she began +taking long walks alone, watching the people, especially the beggars. The +lowly and the wretched interested her. She saw, girl though she was, that +beggardom and vice were twins. + +In one of her daily walks, she noticed on a certain corner a frowsled +woman holding a babe, and thrusting out a grimy hand for alms, telling a +woeful tale of a dead soldier husband to each passer-by. Elizabeth stopped +and talked with the woman. As the day was cold, she took off her mittens +and gave them to the beggar, and went her way. The next day she again saw +the woman on the same corner and again talked with her, asking to see the +baby held so closely within the tattered shawl. An intuitive glance +(mother herself or soon to be) told her that this sickly babe was not the +child of the woman who held it. She asked questions that the woman evaded. +Pressed further, the beggar grew abusive, and took refuge in curses, with +dire threats of violence. Mrs. Fry withdrew, and waiting for nightfall +followed the woman: down a winding alley, past rows of rotting tenements, +into a cellar below a ginshop. There, in this one squalid room, she found +a dozen babies, all tied fast in cribs or chairs, starving, or dying of +inattention. The woman, taken by surprise, did not grow violent this time: +she fled, and Mrs. Fry, sending for two women Friends, took charge of the +sufferers. + +This sub-cellar nursery opened the eyes of Mrs. Fry to the grim fact that +England, professing to be Christian, building costly churches, and +maintaining an immense army of paid priests, was essentially barbaric. She +set herself to the task of doing what she could while life lasted to +lessen the horror of ignorance and sin. + +Newgate Prison then, as now, stood in the center of the city. It was +necessary to have it in a conspicuous place so that all might see the +result of wrongdoing and be good. Along the front of the prison were +strong iron gratings, where the prisoners crowded up to talk with their +friends. Through these gratings the unhappy wretches called to strangers +for alms, and thrust out long wooden spoons for contributions, that would +enable them to pay their fines. There was a woman's department; but if the +men's department was too full, men and women were herded together. + +Mrs. Fry worked for her sex, so of these I will speak. Women who had +children under seven years of age took them to prison with them; every +week babes were born there, so that at one time, in the year Eighteen +Hundred Twenty-six, we find there were one hundred ninety women and one +hundred children in Newgate. There was no bedding. No clothing was +supplied, and those who had no friends outside to supply them clothing +were naked or nearly so, and would have been entirely were it not for that +spark of divinity which causes the most depraved of women to minister to +one another. Women hate only their successful rivals. The lowest of women +will assist one another when there is a dire emergency. + +In this pen, awaiting trial, execution or transportation, were girls of +twelve to senile, helpless creatures of eighty. All were thrust together. +Hardened criminals, besotted prostitutes, maidservants accused of stealing +thimbles, married women suspected of blasphemy, pure-hearted, +brave-natured girls who had run away from brutal parents or more brutal +husbands, insane persons--all were herded together. All the keepers were +men. Patroling the walls were armed guards, who were ordered to shoot all +who tried to escape. These guards were usually on good terms with the +women prisoners--hobnobbing at will. When the mailed hand of government +had once thrust these women behind iron bars, and relieved virtuous +society of their presence, it seemed to think it had done its duty. +Inside, no crime was recognized save murder. These women fought, +overpowered the weak, stole from and maltreated each other. Sometimes, +certain ones would combine for self-defense, forming factions. Once, the +Governor of the prison, bewigged, powdered, lace-befrilled, ventured +pompously into the women's department without his usual armed guard; +fifty hags set upon him. In a twinkling his clothing was torn to shreds +too small for carpet-rags, and in two minutes by the sand-glass, when he +got back to the bars, lustily calling for help, he was as naked as a +cherub, even if not as innocent. + +Visitors who ventured near to the grating were often asked to shake hands, +and if once a grip was gotten upon them the man was drawn up close, while +long, sinewy fingers grabbed his watch, handkerchief, neckscarf or +hat--all was pulled into the den. Sharp nailmarks on the poor fellow's +face told of the scrimmage, and all the time the guards on the walls and +the spectators roared with laughter. Oh, it was awfully funny! + +One woman whose shawl was snatched and sucked into the maelstrom +complained to the police, and was told that folks inside of Newgate could +not be arrested, and that a good motto for outsiders was to keep away from +dangerous places. + +Every morning at nine a curate read prayers at the prisoners. The curate +stood well outside the grating; while all the time from inside loud cries +of advice were given and sundry remarks tendered him concerning his +personal appearance. The frightful hilarity of the mob saved these +wretches from despair. But the curate did his duty: he who has ears to +hear let him hear. Waiting in the harbor were ships loading their freight +of sin, crime and woe for Botany Bay; at Tyburn every week women were +hanged. Three hundred offenses were punishable with death; but, as in the +West, where horse-stealing is the supreme offense, most of the hangings +were for smuggling, forgery or shoplifting. England being a nation of +shopkeepers could not forgive offenses that might injure a haberdasher. + +Little Mrs. Fry, in the plainest of Quaker gray dress, with bonnet to +match, stood outside Newgate and heard the curate read prayers. She +resolved to ask the Governor of the prison if she might herself perform +the office. The Governor was polite, but stated there was no precedent for +such an important move--he must have time to consider. Mrs. Fry called +again, and permission was granted, with strict orders that she must not +attempt to proselyte, and, further, she had better not get too near the +grating. + +Mrs. Fry gave the great man a bit of fright by quietly explaining thus: +"Sir, if thee kindly allows me to pray with the women, I will go inside." + +The Governor asked her to say it again. She did so, and a bright thought +came to the great man: he would grant her request, writing an order that +she be allowed to go inside the prison whenever she desired. It would +teach her a lesson and save him from further importunity. + +So little Mrs. Fry presented the order, and the gates were swung open and +the iron quickly snapped behind her. She spoke to the women, addressing +the one who seemed to be leader as sister, and asked the others to follow +her back into the courtway away from the sound of the street, so they +could have prayers. They followed dumbly. She knelt on the stone pavement +and prayed in silence. Then she arose and read to them the One Hundred +Seventh Psalm. Again she prayed, asking the others to kneel with her. A +dozen knelt. She arose and went her way amid a hush of solemn silence. + +Next day, when she came again, the ribaldry ceased on her approach, and +after the religious service she remained inside the walls an hour +conversing with those who wished to talk with her, going to all the +children that were sick and ministering to them. + +In a week she called all together and proposed starting a school for the +children. The mothers entered into the project gladly. A governess, +imprisoned for theft, was elected teacher. A cell-room was cleaned out, +whitewashed, and set apart for a schoolroom, with the permission of the +Governor, who granted the request, explaining, however, that there was no +precedent for such a thing. The school prospered, and outside the +schoolroom door hungry-eyed women listened furtively for scraps of +knowledge that might be tossed overboard. + +Mrs. Fry next organized classes for these older children, gray-haired, +bowed with sin--many of them. There were twelve in each class, and they +elected a monitor from their numbers, agreeing to obey her. Mrs. Fry +brought cloth from her husband's store, and the women were taught to sew. +The Governor insisted that there was no precedent for it, and the guards +on the walls said that every scrap of cloth would be stolen, but the +guards were wrong. + +The day was divided up into regular hours for work and recreation. Other +good Quaker women from outside came in to help; and the taproom kept by a +mercenary guard was done away with, and an order established that no +spirituous liquors should be brought into Newgate. The women agreed to +keep away from the grating on the street, except when personal friends +came; to cease begging; to quit gambling. They were given pay for their +labor. A woman was asked for as turnkey, instead of a man. All guards were +to be taken from the walls that overlooked the women's department. The +women were to be given mats to sleep on, and blankets to cover them when +the weather was cold. The Governor was astonished! He called a council of +the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen. They visited the prison, and found for +the first time that order had come out of chaos at Newgate. + +Mrs. Fry's requests were granted, and this little woman awoke one morning +to find herself famous. + +From Newgate she turned her attention to other prisons; she traveled +throughout England, Scotland and Ireland, visiting prisons and asylums. +She became well feared by those in authority, for her firm and gentle +glance went straight to every abuse. Often she was airily turned away by +some official clothed in a little brief authority, but the man usually +lived to know his mistake. + +She was invited by the French Government to visit the prisons of Paris and +write a report, giving suggestions as to what reforms should be made. She +went to Belgium, Holland and Germany, being received by kings and queens +and prime ministers--as costume, her plain gray dress always sufficing. +She treated royalty and unfortunates alike--simply as equals. She kept +constantly in her mind the thought that all men are sinners before God: +there are no rich, no poor; no high, no low; no bond, no free. Conditions +are transient, and boldly did she say to the King of France that he should +build prisons with the idea of reformation, not revenge, and with the +thought ever before him that he himself or his children might occupy these +cells--so vain are human ambitions. To Sir Robert Peel and his Cabinet she +read the story concerning the gallows built by Haman. "Thee must not shut +out the sky from the prisoner; thee must build no dark cells--thy children +may occupy them," she said. + +John Howard and others had sent a glimmering ray of truth through the fog +of ignorance concerning insanity. The belief was growing that insane +people were really not possessed of devils after all. Yet still, the cell +system, strait jacket and handcuffs were in great demand. In no asylum +were prisoners allowed to eat at tables. Food was given to each in tin +basins, without spoons, knives or forks. Glass dishes and china plates +were considered especially dangerous; they told of one man who in an +insane fit had cut his throat with a plate, and of another who had +swallowed a spoon. + +Visiting an asylum at Worcester, Mrs. Fry saw the inmates receive their +tin dishes, and, crouched on the floor, eating like wild beasts. She asked +the chief warden for permission to try an experiment. He dubiously granted +it. With the help of several of the inmates she arranged a long table, +covered it with spotless linen brought by herself, placed bouquets of wild +flowers on the table, and set it as she did at her own home. Then she +invited twenty of the patients to dinner. They came, and a clergyman, who +was an inmate, was asked to say grace. All sat down, and the dinner passed +off as quietly and pleasantly as could be wished. + +And these were the reforms she strove for, and put into practical +execution everywhere. She asked that the word asylum be dropped, and home +or hospital used instead. In visiting asylums, by her presence she said to +the troubled spirits, Peace, be still! For half a century she toiled with +an increasing energy and a never-flagging animation. She passed out full +of honors, beloved as woman was never yet loved--loved by the unfortunate, +the deformed, the weak, the vicious. She worked for a present good, here +and now, believing that we can reach the future only through the present. +In penology nothing has been added to her philosophy, and we have as yet +not nearly carried out her suggestions. + +Generation after generation will come and go, nations will rise, grow old, +and die, kings and rulers will be forgotten, but so long as love kisses +the white lips of pain will men remember and revere the name of Elizabeth +Fry, Friend of Humanity. + + + + +MARY LAMB + + Her education in youth was not much attended to, and she happily + missed all the train of female garniture which passeth by the + name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or + providence, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, + without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon + that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls they should + be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their + chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it, but I can answer + for it that it maketh (if worse comes to worst) most incomparable + old maids. + --_Essays of Elia_ + +[Illustration: MARY LAMB] + + +I sing the love of brother and sister. For he who tells the tale of +Charles and Mary Lamb's life must tell of a love that was an uplift to +this brother and sister in childhood, that sustained them in the +desolation of disaster, and was a saving solace even when every hope +seemed gone and reason veiled her face. + +This love caused the flowers of springtime to bloom for them again and +again, and attracted such a circle of admirers that, as we read the +records of their lives, set forth in the letters they received and wrote, +we forget poverty, forget calamity, and behold only the radiant, smiling +faces of loving, trusting, trustful friends. + +The mother of Charles and Mary Lamb was a woman of fine natural endowment, +of spirit and of aspiration. She married a man much older than herself. We +know but little about John Lamb; we know nothing of his ancestry. Neither +do we care to. He was not good enough to attract, nor bad enough to be +interesting. He called himself a scrivener, but in fact he was a valet. He +was neutral salts; and I say this just after having read his son's amiable +mention of him under the guise of "Lovel," and with the full knowledge +also that "he danced well, was a good judge of vintage, played the +harpsichord, and recited poetry on occasion." + +When a woman of spirit stands up before a priest and makes solemn promise +to live with a man who plays the harpsichord and is a good judge of +vintage, and to love until either he or she dies, she sows the seeds of +death and disorder. Of course, I know that men and women who make promises +before priests know not at the time what they do; they find out +afterwards. + +And so they were married, were John Lamb and Elizabeth Field; and probably +very soon thereafter Elizabeth had a premonition that this union only held +in store a glittering blade of steel for her heart. For she grew ill and +dispirited, and John found companionship at the alehouse, and came +stumbling home asking what the devil was the reason his wife couldn't meet +him with a smile and a kiss and a' that, as a dutiful wife should! + +Elizabeth began to live more and more within herself. We often hear +foolish men taunt women with inability to keep secrets. But women who talk +much often do keep secrets--there are nooks in their hearts where the sun +never enters, and where those nearest them are never allowed to look. More +lives are blasted by secrecy than by frankness--ay! a thousand times. Why +should such a thing as a secret ever exist? 'Tis preposterous, and is +proof positive of depravity. If you and I are to live together, my life +must be open as the ether and all my thoughts be yours. If I keep back +this and that, you will find it out some day and suspect, with reason, +that I also keep back the other. Ananias and Sapphira met death, not so +much for simple untruthfulness as for keeping something back. + +Elizabeth Lamb sought to protect herself against an unappreciative mate by +secrecy (perhaps she had to), and the habit grew until she kept secrets as +a business--she kept foolish little secrets. Did she get a letter from her +aunt, she read it in suggestive silence and then put it in her pocket. If +visitors called she never mentioned it, and when the children heard of it +weeks afterward they marveled. + +And so shy little Mary Lamb wondered what it was her mother kept locked up +in the bottom drawer of the bureau, and Mary was told that children must +not ask questions--little girls should be seen and not heard. + +At night, Mary would dream of the things that were in that drawer, and +sometimes great, big, black things would creep out through the keyhole and +grow bigger and bigger until they filled the room so full that you +couldn't breathe, and then little Mary would cry aloud and scream, and her +father would come with a strap that was kept on a nail behind the +kitchen-door and teach her better than to wake everybody up in the middle +of the night. + +Yet Mary loved her mother, and sought in many ways to meet her wishes, and +all the time her mother kept the bureau-drawer locked, and away somewhere +on a high shelf was hidden all tenderness--all the gentle, loving words +and the caresses which children crave. + +And little Mary's life seemed full of troubles, and the world a grievous +place where everybody misunderstands everybody else; and at nighttime she +would often hide her face in the pillow and cry herself to sleep. + +But when she was ten years of age a great joy came into her life--a baby +brother came! And all the love in the little girl's heart was poured out +for the puny baby boy. Babies are troublesome things, anyway, where folks +are awful poor and where there are no servants and the mother is not so +very strong. And so Mary became the baby's own little foster-mother, and +she carried him about, and long before he could lisp a word she had told +him all the hopes and secrets of her heart, and he cooed and laughed, and +lying on the floor, kicked his heels in the air and treated hope and love +and ambition alike. + +I can not find that Mary ever went to school. She stayed at home and +sewed, did housework, and took care of the baby. All her learning came by +absorption. When the boy was three years old she taught him his letters, +and did it so deftly and well that he used to declare he could always +read--and this is as it should be. When seven years of age the boy was +sent to the Blue-Coat School. This was brought about through the influence +of Mr. Salt, for whom John Lamb worked. Mr. Salt was a Bencher, and be it +known a Bencher in England is not exactly the same thing as a Bencher in +America. Mr. Salt took quite a notion to little Mary Lamb, and once when +she came to his office with her father's dinner, the honorable Bencher +chucked her under the chin, said she was a fine little girl, and asked her +if she liked to read. And when she answered, "Oh, yes, sir!" and then +added, "If you please!" the Bencher laughed, and told her she was welcome +to take any book in his library. And so we find she spent many happy hours +in the great man's library; and it was through her importunities that Mr. +Salt got banty Charles the scholarship in Christ's Hospital School. + +Now the Blue-Coat boys are a curiosity to every sight-seer in London--and +have been for these hundred years and more. Their long-tailed blue coats, +buckle-shoes, and absence of either hats or caps bring the Yankee up with +a halt. To conduct an American around to the vicinity of Christ's Hospital +and let him discover a "Blue-Coat" for himself is a sensation. The costume +is exactly the same as that worn by Edward, "the Boy King," who founded +the school; and these youngsters, like the birds, never grow old. You lean +against the high iron fence, and looking through the bars watch the boys +frolic and play, just as visitors looked in the Eighteenth Century; and +I've never been by Christ's Hospital yet when curious people did not stand +and stare. And one thing the Blue-Coats seem to prove, and that is that +hats are quite superfluous. + +One worthy man from Jamestown, New York, was so impressed by these hatless +boys that he wrote a book proving that the wearing of hats was what has +kept the race in bondage to ignorance all down the ages. By statistics he +proved that the Blue-Coats had attained distinction quite out of ratio to +their number, and cited Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, Charles Lamb and many +others as proof. This man returned to Jamestown hatless, and had he not +caught cold and been carried off by pneumonia, would have spread his +hatless gospel, rendering the name of Knox the Hatter infamous, and +causing the word "Derby" to be henceforth a byword and a hissing. + +When little Charles Lamb tucked the tails of his long blue coat under his +belt and played leap-frog in the school-yard every morning at ten minutes +after 'leven, his sister, wan, yellow and dreamy, used to come and watch +him through these selfsame iron bars. She would wave the corner of her +rusty shawl in loving token, and he would answer back and would have +lifted his hat if he had had one. When the bell rang and the boys went +pellmell into the entry-way, Charles would linger and hold one hand above +his head as the stone wall swallowed him, and the sister knowing that all +was well would hasten back to her work in Little Queen Street, hard by, to +wait for the morrow when she could come again. + +"Who is that girl always hanging 'round after you?" asked a tall, handsome +boy, called Ajax, of little Charles Lamb. + +"Wh' why, don't you know--that, wh' why that's my sister Mary!" + +"How should I know when you have never introduced me!" loftily replied +Ajax. + +And so the next day, at ten minutes after 'leven, Charles and the mighty +Ajax came down to the fence, and Charles had to call to Mary not to run +away, and Charles introduced Ajax to Mary and they shook hands through the +fence. And the next week Ajax, who was known in private life as Samuel +Taylor Coleridge, called at the house in Little Queen Street where the +Lambs lived, and they all had gin and water, and the elder Lamb played the +harpsichord, a secondhand one that had been presented by Mr. Salt, and +recited poetry, and Coleridge talked the elder Lamb under the table and +argued the entire party into silence. Coleridge was only seventeen then, +but a man grown, and already took snuff like a courtier, tapping the lid +of the box meditatively and flashing a conundrum the while on the admiring +company. + +Mary kept about as close run of the Blue-Coat School as if she had been a +Blue-Coat herself. Still, she felt it her duty to keep one lesson in +advance of her brother, just to know that he was progressing well. + +He continued to go to school until he was fourteen, when he was set to +work in the South Sea Company's office, because his income was needed to +keep the family. Mary was educating the boy with the help of Mr. Salt's +library, for a boy as fine as Charles must be educated, you know. By and +by the bubble burst, and young Lamb was transferred to the East India +Company's office, and being promoted was making nearly a hundred pounds a +year. + +And Mary sewed and borrowed books and toiled incessantly, but was ill at +times. People said her head was not just right--she was overworked and +nervous or something! The father had lost his place on account of too much +gin and water, especially gin; the mother was almost helpless from +paralysis, and in the family was an aged maiden aunt to be cared for. The +only regular income was the salary of Charles. + +There they lived in their poverty and lowliness, hoping for better things! + +Charles was working away over the ledgers, and used to come home fagged +and weary, and Coleridge was far away, and there was no boy to educate +now, and only sick and foolish and quibbling people on whom to strike +fire. The demnition grind did its work for Mary Lamb as surely as it is +today doing it for countless farmers' wives in Iowa and Illinois. + +Thus ran the years away. + +Mary Lamb, aged thirty-two, gentle, intelligent and wondrous kind, in +sudden frenzy seized a knife from the table and with one thrust sank the +blade into her mother's heart. Charles Lamb, in an adjoining room, hearing +the commotion, entered quickly and taking the knife from his sister's +hand, put his arm about her and tenderly led her away. + +Returning in a few moments, the mother was dead. + +Women often make a shrill outcry at sight of a mouse; men curse roundly +when large, buzzing, blue-bottle flies disturb their after-dinner nap; but +let occasion come and the stuff of which heroes are made is in us all. I +think well of my kind. + +Charles Lamb made no outcry, he shed no tears, he spoke no word of +reproach. He met each detail of that terrible issue as coolly, calmly and +surely as if he had been making entries in his journal. No man ever loved +his mother more, but she was dead now--she was dead. He closed the staring +eyes, composed the stiffening limbs, kept curious sightseers at bay, and +all the time thought of what he could do to protect the living--she who +had wrought this ruin. + +Charles was twenty-one--a boy in feeling and temperament, a frolicsome, +heedless boy. In an hour he had become a man. + +It requires a subtler pen than mine to trace the psychology of this +tragedy; but let me say this much, it had its birth in love, in unrequited +love; and the outcome of it was an increase in love. + +O God! how wonderful are Thy works! Thou makest the rotting log to nourish +banks of violets, and from the stagnant pool at Thy word springs forth the +lotus that covers all with fragrance and beauty! + + * * * * * + +Coleridge in his youth was brilliant--no one disputes that. He dazzled +Charles and Mary Lamb from the very first. Even when a Blue-Coat he could +turn a pretty quatrain, and when he went away to Cambridge and once in a +long while wrote a letter down to "My Own C.L.," it was a feast for the +sister, too. Mary was different from other girls: she didn't "have +company," she was too honest and serious and earnest for society--her +ideals too high. Coleridge--handsome, witty, philosophic Coleridge--was +her ideal. She loved him from afar. + +How vain it is to ponder in our minds the what-might-have-been! Yet how +can we help wondering what would have been the result had Coleridge wedded +Mary Lamb! In many ways it seems it would have been an ideal mating, for +Mary Lamb's mental dowry made good Coleridge's every deficiency, and his +merits equalized all that she lacked. He was sprightly, headstrong, +erratic, emotional; she was equally keen-witted, but a conservative in her +cast of mind. That she was capable of a great and passionate love there is +no doubt, and he might have been. Mary Lamb would have been his anchor to +win'ard, but as it was he drifted straight on to the rocks. Her mental +troubles came from a lack of responsibility--a rusting away of unused +powers in a dull, monotonous round of commonplace. Had her heart found its +home I can not conceive of her in any other light than as a splendid, +earnest woman--sane, well-poised, and doing a work that only the strong +can do. Coleridge has left on record the statement that she was the only +woman he ever met who had a "logical mind"--that is to say, the only woman +who ever understood him when he talked his best. + +Coleridge made progress at the Blue-Coat School: he became "Deputy +Grecian," or head scholar. This secured him a scholarship at Cambridge, +and thither he went in search of honors. But his revolutionary and +Unitarian principles did not serve him in good stead, and he was placed +under the ban. + +At the same time a youth by the name of Robert Southey was having a like +experience at Oxford. Other youths had tried in days agone to shake +Cambridge and Oxford out of their conservatism, and the result was that +the embryo revolutionists speedily found themselves warned off the campus. +So through sympathy Coleridge and Southey met. Coleridge also brought +along a young philosopher and poet, who had also been a Blue-Coat, by the +name of Lovell. + +These three young men talked philosophy, and came to the conclusion that +the world was wrong. They said society was founded on a false +hypothesis--they would better things. And so they planned packing up and +away to America to found an Ideal Community on the banks of the +Susquehanna. But hold! a society without women is founded on a false +hypothesis--that's so--what to do? Now in America there are no women but +Indian squaws. + +But resource did not fail them--Southey thought of the Fricker family, a +mile out on the Bristol road. There were three fine, strong, intelligent +girls--what better than to marry 'em? The world should be peopled from the +best. The girls were consulted and found willing to reorganize society on +the communal basis, and so the three poets married the three sisters--more +properly, each of the three poets married a sister. "Thank God," said +Lamb, "that there were not four of those Fricker girls, or I, too, would +have been bagged, and the world peopled from the best!" + +Southey got the only prize out of the hazard; Lovell's wife was so-so, and +Coleridge drew a blank, or thought he did, which was the same thing; for +as a man thinketh so is she. The thought of a lifetime on the banks of the +Susquehanna with a woman who was simply pink and good, and who was never +roused into animation even by his wildest poetic bursts, took all ambition +out of him. + +Funds were low and the emigration scheme was temporarily pigeonholed. +After a short time Coleridge declared his mind was getting mildewed and +packed off to London for mental oxygen and a little visit, leaving his +wife in Southey's charge. + +He was gone two years. + +Lovell soon followed suit, and Southey had three sisters in his household, +all with babies. + +In the meantime we find Southey installed at "Greta," just outside of the +interesting town of Keswick, where the water comes down at Lodore. Southey +was a general: he knew that knowledge consists in having a clerk who can +find the thing. He laid out research work and literary schemes enough for +several lifetimes, and the three sisters were hard at it. It was a little +community of their own--all working for Southey, and glad of it. +Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy lived at Grasmere, thirteen miles away, +and they used to visit back and forth. When you go to Keswick you should +tramp that thirteen miles--the man who hasn't tramped from Keswick to +Grasmere has dropped something out of his life. In merry jest, tipped with +acid, some one called them "The Lake Poets," as if there were poets and +lake poets. And Lamb was spoken of as "a Lake Poet by grace." Literary +London grinned, as we do when some one speaks of the Sweet Singer of +Michigan or the Chicago Muse. But the term of contempt stuck and, like the +words Methodist, Quaker and Philistine, soon ceased to be a term of +reproach and became something of which to be proud. + +There is a lead-pencil factory at Keswick, established in the year +Eighteen Hundred. Pencils are made there today exactly as they were made +then, and when you see the factory you are willing to believe it. All +visitors at Keswick go to the pencil-factory and buy pencils, such as +Southey used, and get their names stamped on each pencil while they wait, +without extra charge. On the wall is a silhouette picture of Southey, +showing a needlessly large nose, and the gentlemanly old proprietor will +tell you that Dorothy Wordsworth made the picture; and then he will show +you a letter written by Charles Lamb, framed under glass, wherein C.L. +says all pencils are fairish good, but no pencils are so good as Keswick +pencils. + +For a while, when times were hard, Coleridge's wife worked here making +pencils, while her archangel husband (a little damaged) went with +Wordsworth to study metaphysics at Gottingen. When Coleridge came back and +heard what his wife had done, he reproved her--gently but firmly. Mrs. +Ajax in a pencil-factory wearing a check apron with a bib!--huh!! + +Southey had concluded that if Coleridge and Lovell were good samples of +socialism he would stick to individualism. So he joined the Church of +England, became a Monarchist, sang the praises of royalty, got a pension, +became Poet Laureate, and rich--passing rich. + +"Wh-wh-when he secured for himself the services of three good women he +made a wise move," said C.L. + +And all the time Coleridge and Lamb were in correspondence: and when +Coleridge was in London he kept close run of the Lambs. The father and old +aunt had passed out, and Charles and Mary lived together in rooms. They +seemed to have moved very often--their record followed them. When the +other tenants heard that "she's the one that killed her mother," they +ceased to let their children play in the hallways, and the landlord +apologized, coughed, and raised the rent. Poor Charles saw the point and +did not argue it. He looked for other lodgings and having found 'em went +home and said to Mary, "It's too noisy here. Sister--I can't stand +it--we'll have to go!" + +Charles was a literary man now: a bookkeeper by day and a literary man by +night. He wrote to please his sister, and all his jokes were for her. +There is a genuine vein of pathos in all true humor, but think of the fear +and the love and the tenderness that are concealed in Charles Lamb's work +that was designed only to fight off dread calamity! And Mary copied and +read and revised for her brother, and he told it all to her before he +wrote it, and together they discussed it in detail. Charles studied +mathematics, just to keep his genius under, he declared. Mary smiled and +said it wasn't necessary. + +Coleridge used to drop in, and the Stoddarts, Hazlitts, Godwin and Lovell, +too. Then Southey was up in London and he called, and so did Wordsworth +and Dorothy, for Coleridge had spread Lamb's fame. And Dorothy and Mary +kissed each other and held hands under the table, and when Dorothy went +back to Grasmere she wrote many beautiful letters to Mary and urged her to +come and visit her--yes, come to Grasmere and live. The one point they +held in common was a love for Coleridge; and as he belonged to neither +there was no room for jealousy. The Fricker girls were all safely married, +but Charles and Mary could not think of going--they needs must hide in a +big city. "I hate your damned throstles and larks and bobolinks," said +C.L., in feigned contempt. "I sing the praises of the 'Salutation and the +Cat' and a snug fourth-floor back." + +They could not leave London, for over them ever hung that black cloud of a +mind diseased. + +"I can do nothing--think nothing. Mary has another of her bad spells--we +saw it coming, and I took her away to a place of safety," writes Charles +to Coleridge. + +One writer tells of seeing Charles and Mary walking across Hampstead +Heath, hand in hand, both crying. They were on the way to the asylum. + +Fortunately these "illnesses" gave warning and Charles would ask his +employer leave for a "holiday," and stay at home trying by gentle mirth +and work to divert the dread visitor of unreason. + +After each illness, in a few weeks the sister would be restored to her +own, very weak and her mind a blank as to what had gone before. And so she +never remembered that supreme calamity. She knew the deed had been done, +but Heaven had absolved her gentle spirit from all participation in it. +She often talked of her mother, wrote of her, quoted her, and that they +should sometime be again united was her firm faith. + +The "Tales from Shakespeare" was written at the suggestion of Godwin, +seconded by Charles. The idea that she herself could write seemed never to +have occurred to Mary, until Charles swore with a needless oath that all +the ideas he ever had she supplied. + +"Charles, dear, you've been drinking again!" said Mary. But the "Tales" +sold and sold well; fame came that way and more money than the simple, +plain, homekeeping bodies needed. So they started a pension-roll for +sundry old ladies, and to themselves played high and mighty patron, and +figured and talked and joked over the blue teacups as to what they should +do with their money--five hundred pounds a year! Goodness gracious, if the +Bank of England gets in a pinch advise C.L., at Thirty-four Southampton +Buildings, third floor, second turning to the left but one. + +A Mrs. Reynolds was one of the pensioners, but no one knew it but Mrs. +Reynolds, and she never told. She was a Lady of the Old School, and used +often to dine with the Lambs and get her snuffbox filled. Her husband had +been a ship-captain or something, and when the tea was strong she would +take snuff and tell the visitors about him and swear she had ever been +true to his memory, though God knows all good-looking and clever widows +are sorely tried in this scurvy world! + +Mrs. Reynolds met Thomas Hood at a "Saturday Evening" at the Lambs', and +he was so taken with her that he has told us "she looked like an elderly +wax doll in half-mourning, and when she spoke it was as if by an +artificial process; she always kept up the gurgle and buzz until run +down." + +Mrs. Reynolds' sole claim to literary distinction was the fact that she +had known Goldsmith and he had presented her with an inscribed copy of +"The Deserted Village." + +But we all have a tender place in our hearts for the elderly wax doll +because the Lambs were so gentle and patient with her, and once a year +went to Highgate and put a shilling vase of flowers over the grave of the +Captain to whose memory she was ever true. + +These friendless old souls used to meet and mix at the Lambs' with those +whose names are now deathless. You can not write the history of English +Letters and leave the Lambs out. They were the loved and loving friends of +Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, De Quincey, Jeffrey and Godwin. They won +the recognition of all who prize the far-reaching intellect--the subtle +imagination. The pathos and tenderness of their lives entwine us with +tendrils that hold our hearts in thrall. + +They adopted a little girl, a beautiful little girl by the name of Emma +Isola. And never was there child that was a greater joy to parents than +was Emma Isola to Charles and Mary. The wonder is they did not spoil her +with admiration, and by laughing at all her foolish little pranks. Mary +set herself the task of educating this little girl, and formed a class the +better to do it--a class of three: Emma Isola, William Hazlitt's son and +Mary Victoria Novello. I met Mary Victoria once; she's over eighty years +of age now. Her form is a little bent, but her eye is bright and her smile +is the smile of youth. Folks call her Mary Cowden-Clarke. + +And I want you to remember, dearie, that it was Mary Lamb who introduced +the other Mary to Shakespeare, by reading to her the manuscript of the +"Tales." And further, that it was the success of the "Tales" that fired +Mary Cowden-Clarke with an ambition also to do a great Shakespearian work. +There may be a question about the propriety of calling the "Tales" a great +work--their simplicity seems to forbid it--but the term is all right when +applied to that splendid life-achievement, the "Concordance," of which +Mary Lamb was the grandmother. + +Emma Isola married Edward Moxon, and the Moxon home was the home of Mary +Lamb whenever she wished to make it so, to the day of her death. The +Moxons did good by stealth, and were glad they never awoke and found it +fame. + +"What shall I do when Mary leaves me, never to return?" once said Charles +to Manning. But Mary lived for full twenty years after Charles had gone, +and lived only in loving memory of him who had devoted his life to her. +She seemed to exist just to talk of him and to garland the grave in the +little old churchyard at Edmonton, where he sleeps. Wordsworth says, "A +grave is a tranquillizing object: resignation in time springs up from it +as naturally as wild flowers bespread the turf." Her work was to look +after the "pensioners" and carry out the wishes of "my brother Charles." + +But the pensioners were laid away to rest, one after the other, and the +gentle Mary, grown old and feeble, became a pensioner, too, but thanks to +that divine humanity that is found in English hearts, she never knew it. +To the last, she looked after "the worthy poor," and carried flowers once +a year to the grave of the gallant Captain Reynolds at Highgate, and never +tired of sounding the praises of Charles and excusing the foibles of +Coleridge. She lived only in the past, and its loving memories were more +than a ballast 'gainst the ills of the present. + +And so she went down into the valley and entered the great shadow, telling +in cheerful, broken musings of a brother's love. + +And then she was carried to the churchyard at Edmonton. There she rests in +the grave with her brother. In life they were never separated, and in +death they are not divided. + + + + +JANE AUSTEN + + Delaford is a nice place I can tell you; exactly what I call a + nice, old-fashioned place, full of comforts, quite shut in with + great garden-walls that are covered with fruit-trees, and such a + mulberry-tree in the corner. Then there is a dovecote, some + delightful fish-ponds, and a very pretty canal, and everything, + in short, that one could wish for; and moreover it's close to the + church and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike road. + --_Sense and Sensibility_ + +[Illustration: JANE AUSTEN] + + +It was at Cambridge, England, I met him--a fine, intelligent clergyman he +was, too. + +"He's not a 'Varsity man," said my new acquaintance, speaking of Doctor +Joseph Parker, the world's greatest preacher. "If he were, he wouldn't do +all these preposterous things, you know." + +"He's a little like Henry Irving," I ventured apologetically. + +"True, and what absurd mannerisms--did you ever see the like! Yes, one's +from Yorkshire and the other's from Cornwall, and both are Philistines." + +He laughed at his little joke and so did I, for I always try to be polite. + +So I went my way, and as I strolled it came to me that my clerical friend +was right--a university course might have taken all the individuality out +of these strong men and made of their genius a purely neutral decoction. +And when I thought further and considered how much learning has done to +banish wisdom, it was a satisfaction to remember that Shakespeare at +Oxford did nothing beyond making the acquaintance of an inn-keeper's wife. + +It hardly seems possible that a Harvard degree would have made a stronger +man of Abraham Lincoln; or that Edison, whose brain has wrought greater +changes than that of any other man of the century, was the loser by not +being versed in physics as taught at Yale. + +The Law of Compensation never rests, and the men who are taught too much +from books are not taught by Deity. Most education in the past has failed +to awaken in its subject a degree of intellectual consciousness. It is the +education that the Jesuits served out to the Indian. It made him +peaceable, but took all dignity out of him. From a noble red man he +descended into a dirty Injun, who signed away his heritage for rum. + +The world's plan of education has mostly been priestly--we have striven to +inculcate trust and reverence. We have cited authorities and quoted +precedents and given examples: it was a matter of memory; while all the +time the whole spiritual acreage was left untilled. + +A race educated in this way never advances, save as it is jolted out of +its notions by men with either a sublime ignorance of, or an indifference +to, what has been done and said. These men are always called barbarians by +their contemporaries: they are jeered and hooted. They supply much mirth +by their eccentricities. After they are dead the world sometimes canonizes +them and carves on their tombs the word "Savior." + +Do I then plead the cause of ignorance? Well, yes, rather so. A little +ignorance is not a dangerous thing. A man who reads too much--who +accumulates too many facts-gets his mind filled to the point of +saturation; matters then crystallize and his head becomes a solid thing +that refuses to let anything either in or out. In his soul there is no +guest-chamber. His only hope for progress lies in another incarnation. + +And so a certain ignorance seems a necessary equipment for the doing of a +great work. To live in a big city and know what others are doing and +saying; to meet the learned and powerful, and hear their sermons and +lectures; to view the unending shelves of vast libraries is to be +discouraged at the start. And thus we find that genius is essentially +rural--a country product. Salons, soirees, theaters, concerts, lectures, +libraries, produce a fine mediocrity that smiles at the right time and +bows when 't is proper, but it is well to bear in mind that George Eliot, +Elizabeth Barrett, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen were all country +girls, with little companionship, nourished on picked-up classics, having +a healthy ignorance of what the world was saying and doing. + + * * * * * + +It is over a hundred years since Jane Austen lived. But when you tramp +that five miles from Overton, where the railroad-station is, to Steventon, +where she was born, it doesn't seem like it. Rural England does not change +much. Great fleecy clouds roll lazily across the blue, overhead, and the +hedgerows are full of twittering birds that you hear but seldom see; and +the pastures contain mild-faced cows that look at you with wide-open eyes +over the stone walls; and in the towering elm-trees that sway their +branches in the breeze crows hold a noisy caucus. And it comes to you that +the clouds and the blue sky and the hedgerows and the birds and the cows +and the crows are all just as Jane Austen knew them--no change. These +stone walls stood here then, and so did the low slate-roofed barns and the +whitewashed cottages where the roses clamber over the doors. + +I paused in front of one of these snug, homely, handsome, pretty little +cottages and looked at the two exact rows of flowers that lined the little +walk leading from gate to cottage-door. The pathway was made from +coal-ashes and the flowerbeds were marked off with pieces of broken +crockery set on edge. 'T was an absent-minded, impolite thing to do--to +stand leaning on a gate and critically examine the landscape-gardening, +evidently an overworked woman's gardening, at that. + +As I leaned there the door opened and a little woman with sleeves rolled +up appeared. I mumbled an apology, but before I could articulate it, she +held out a pair of scissors and said, "Perhaps, sir, you'd like to clip +some of the flowers--the roses over the door are best!" + +Three children hung to her skirts, peeking, round faces from behind, and +quite accidentally disclosing a very neat ankle. + +I took the scissors and clipped three splendid Jacqueminots and said it +was a beautiful day. She agreed with me and added that she was just +finishing her churning and if I'd wait a minute until the butter came, +she'd give me a drink of buttermilk. + +I waited without urging and got the buttermilk, and as the children had +come out from hiding I was minded to give them a penny apiece. Two coppers +were all I could muster, so I gave the two boys each a penny and the +little girl a shilling. The mother protested that she had no change and +that a bob was too much for a little girl like that, but I assumed a +Big-Bonanza air and explained that I was from California where the +smallest change is a dollar. + +"Go thank the gentleman, Jane." + +"That's right, Jane Austen, come here and thank me!" + +"How did you know her name was Jane Austen--Jane Austen Humphreys?" + +"I didn't know--I only guessed." + +Then little Mrs. Humphreys ceased patting the butter and told me that she +named her baby girl for Jane Austen, who used to live near here a long +time ago. Jane Austen was one of the greatest writers that ever +lived--the Rector said so. The Reverend George Austen preached at +Steventon for years and years, and I should go and see the church--the +same church where he preached and where Jane Austen used to go. And +anything I wanted to know about Jane Austen's books the Rector could tell, +for he was a wonderful learned man was the Rector--"Kiss the gentleman, +Jane." + +So I kissed Jane Austen's round, rosy cheek and stroked the tousled heads +of the boys by way of blessing, and started for Steventon to interview the +Rector who was very wise. + +And the clergyman who teaches his people the history of their +neighborhood, and tells them of the excellent men and women who once lived +thereabouts, is both wise and good. And the present Rector at Steventon is +both--I'm sure of that. + + * * * * * + +It was a very happy family that lived in the Rectory at Steventon from +Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five to Eighteen Hundred One. There were five +boys and two girls, and the younger girl's name was Jane. Between her and +James, the oldest boy, lay a period of twelve years of three hundred and +sixty-five days each, not to mention leap-years. + +The boys were sent away to be educated, and when they came home at holiday +time they brought presents for the mother and the girls, and there was +great rejoicing. + +James was sent to Oxford. The girls were not sent away to be educated--it +was thought hardly worth while then to educate women, and some folks still +hold to that belief. When the boys came home, they were made to stand by +the door-jamb, and a mark was placed on the casing, with a date, which +showed how much they had grown. And they were catechized as to their +knowledge, and cross-questioned and their books inspected; and so we find +one of the sisters saying, once, that she knew all the things her brothers +knew, and besides that she knew all the things she knew herself. + +There was plenty of books in the library, and the girls made use of them. +They would read to their father "because his eyesight was bad," but I can +not help thinking this a clever ruse on the part of the good Rector. + +I do not find that there were any secrets in that household or that either +Mr. or Mrs. Austen ever said that children should be seen and not heard. +It was a little republic of letters--all their own. Thrown in on +themselves for not many of the yeomanry thereabouts could read, there was +developed a fine spirit of comradeship among parents and children, +brothers and sisters, servants and visitors, that is a joy to contemplate. +Before the days of railroads, a "visitor" was more of an institution than +he is now. He stayed longer and was more welcome; and the news he brought +from distant parts was eagerly asked for. Nowadays we know all about +everything, almost before it happens, for yellow journalism is so alert +that it discounts futurity. + +In the Austen household had lived and died a son of Warren Hastings. The +lad had so won the love of the Austens that they even spoke of him as +their own; and this bond also linked them to the great outside world of +statecraft. The things the elders discussed were the properties, too, of +the children. + +Then once a year the Bishop came--came in knee-breeches, hobnailed shoes, +and shovel hat, and the little church was decked with greens. The Bishop +came from Paradise, little Jane used to think, and once, to be polite, she +asked him how all the folks were in Heaven. Then the other children +giggled and the Bishop spilt a whole cup of tea down the front of his +best coat, and coughed and choked until he was very red in the face. + +When Jane was ten years old there came to live at the Rectory a daughter +of Mrs. Austen's sister. She came to them direct from France. Her name was +Madame Fenillade. She was a widow and only twenty-two. Once, when little +Jane overheard one of the brothers say that Monsieur Fenillade had kissed +Mademoiselle Guillotine, she asked what he meant and they would not tell +her. + +Now Madame spoke French with grace and fluency, and the girls thought it +queer that there should be two languages--English and French--so they +picked up a few words of French, too, and at the table would gravely say +"Merci, Papa," and "S'il vous plait, Mamma." Then Mr. Austen proposed that +at table no one should speak anything but French. So Madame told them what +to call the sugar and the salt and the bread, and no one called anything +except by its French name. In two weeks each of the whole dozen persons +who sat at that board, as well as the girl who waited on table, had a +bill-of-fare working capital of French. In six months they could converse +with ease. + +And science with all its ingenuity has not yet pointed out a better way +for acquiring a new language than the plan the Austens adopted at +Steventon Rectory. We call it the "Berlitz Method" now. + +Madame Fenillade's widowhood rested lightly upon her, and she became +quite the life of the whole household. + +One of the Austen boys fell in love with the French widow; and surely it +would be a very stupid country boy that wouldn't love a French widow like +that! + +And they were married and lived happily ever afterward. + +But before Madame married and moved away she taught the girls charades, +and then little plays, and a theatrical performance was given in the barn. + +Then a play could not be found that just suited, so Jane wrote one and +Cassandra helped, and Madame criticized and the Reverend Mr. Austen +suggested a few changes. Then it was all rewritten. And this was the first +attempt at writing for the public by Jane Austen. + + * * * * * + +Jane Austen wrote four great novels, "Pride and Prejudice" was begun when +she was twenty and finished a year later. The old father started a course +of novel-reading on his own account in order to fit his mind to pass +judgment on his daughter's work. He was sure it was good, but feared that +love had blinded his eyes, and he wanted to make sure. After six months' +comparison he wrote to a publisher explaining that he had the manuscript +of a great novel that would be parted with for a consideration. He assured +the publisher that the novel was as excellent as any Miss Burney, Miss +Edgeworth, or any one else ever wrote. + +Now publishers get letters like that by every mail, and when Mr. Austen +received his reply it was so antarctic in sentiment that the manuscript +was stored away in the garret, where it lay for just eleven years before +it found a publisher. But in the meantime Miss Austen had written three +other novels--not with much hope that any one would publish them, but to +please her father and the few intimate friends who read and sighed and +smiled in quiet. + +The year she was thirty years of age her father died--died with no thought +that the world would yet endorse his own loving estimate of his daughter's +worth. + +After the father's death financial troubles came, and something had to be +done to fight off possible hungry wolves. The manuscript was hunted out, +dusted, gone over, and submitted to publishers. They sniffed at it and +sent it back. Finally a man was found who was bold enough to read. He +liked it, but wouldn't admit the fact. Yet he decided to print it. He did +so. The reading world liked it and said so, although not very loudly. +Slowly the work made head, and small-sized London drafts were occasionally +sent by publishers to Miss Austen with apologies because the amounts were +not larger. + +Now, in reference to writing books it may not be amiss to explain that no +one ever said, "Now then, I'll write a story!" and sitting down at table +took up pen and dipping it in ink, wrote. Stories don't come that way. +Stories take possession of one--incident after incident--and you write in +order to get rid of 'em--with a few other reasons mixed in, for motives, +like silver, are always found mixed. Children play at keeping house: and +men and women who have loved think of the things that have happened, then +imagine all the things that might have happened, and from thinking it all +over to writing it out is but a step. You begin one chapter and write it +this forenoon; and do all you may to banish the plot, the next chapter is +all in your head before sundown. Next morning you write chapter number +two, to unload it, and so the story spins itself out into a book. All this +if you live in the country and have time to think and are not broken in +upon by too much work and worry--save the worry of the ever-restless +mind. Whether the story is good or not depends upon what you leave out. + +The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of +the marble block as are not needed. Really happy people do not write +stories--they accumulate adipose tissue and die at the top through fatty +degeneration of the cerebrum. A certain disappointment in life, a +dissatisfaction with environment, is necessary to stir the imagination to +a creative point. If things are all to your taste you sit back and enjoy +them. You forget the flight of time, the march of the seasons, your future +life, family, country--all, just as Antony did in Egypt. A deadly, +languorous satisfaction comes over you. Pain, disappointment, unrest or a +joy that hurts, are the things that prick the mind into activity. + +Jane Austen lived in a little village. She felt the narrowness of her +life--the inability of those beyond her own household to match her +thoughts and emotions. Love came that way--a short heart-rest, a being +understood, were hers. The gates of Paradise swung ajar and she caught a +glimpse of the glories within, and sighed and clasped her hands and bowed +her head in a prayer of thankfulness. + +When she arose from her knees the gates were closed; the way was dark; she +was alone--alone in a little quibbling, carping village, where tired folks +worked and gossiped, ate, drank, slept. Her home was pleasant, to be +sure, but man is a citizen of the world, not of a house. + +Jane Austen began to write--to write about these village people. Jane was +tall, and twenty--not very handsome, but better, she was good-looking. She +looked good because she was. She was pious, but not too pious. She used to +go calling among the parishioners, visiting the sick, the lowly, the +troubled. Then when Great Folks came down from London to "the Hall," she +went with the Rector to call on them too, for the Rector was servant to +all--his business was to minister: he was a Minister. And the Reverend +George Austen was a bit proud of his younger daughter. She was just as +tall as he, and dignified and gentle: and the clergyman chuckled quietly +to himself to see how she was the equal in grace and intellect of any Fine +Lady from London town. + +And although the good Rector prayed, "From all vanity and pride of spirit, +good Lord, deliver us," it never occurred to him that he was vain of his +tall daughter Jane, and I'm glad it didn't. There is no more crazy +bumblebee gets into a mortal's bonnet than the buzzing thought that God is +jealous of the affection we have for our loved ones. If we are ever +damned, it will be because we have too little love for our fellows, not +too much. + +But, egad! brother, it's no small delight to be sixty and a little stooped +and a trifle rheumatic, and have your own blessed daughter, sweet and +stately, comb your thinning gray locks, help you on with your overcoat, +find your cane, and go trooping with you, hand in hand, down the lane on +merciful errand bent. It's a temptation to grow old and feign sciatica; +and if you could only know that, some day, like old King Lear, upon your +withered cheek would fall Cordelia's tears, the thought would be a solace. + +So Jane Austen began to write stories about the simple folks she knew. She +wrote in the family sitting-room at a little mahogany desk that she could +shut up quickly if prying neighbors came in to tell their woes and ask +questions about all those sheets of paper! And all she wrote she read to +her father and to her sister Cassandra. And they talked it all over +together and laughed and cried and joked over it. The kind old minister +thought it a good mental drill for his girls to write and express their +feelings. The two girls collaborated--that is to say, one wrote and the +other looked on. Neither girl had been "educated," except what their +father taught them. But to be born into a bookish family, and inherit the +hospitable mind and the receptive heart, is better than to be sent to +Harvard Annex. Preachers, like other folks, sometimes assume a virtue when +they have it not. But George Austen didn't pretend--he was. And that's the +better plan, for no man can deceive his children--they take his exact +measurement, whether others ever do or not--and the only way to win and +hold the love of a child (or a grown-up) is to be frank and simple and +honest. I've tried both schemes. + +I can not find that George Austen ever claimed he was only a worm of the +dust, or pretended to be more or less than he was, or to assume a +knowledge that he did not possess. He used to say: "My dears, I really do +not know. But let's keep the windows open and light may yet come." + +It was a busy family of plain, average people--not very rich, and not very +poor. There were difficulties to meet, and troubles to share, and joys to +divide. + +Jane Austen was born in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five; "Jane Eyre" in +Eighteen Hundred Sixteen--one year before Jane Austen died. + +Charlotte Bronte knew all about Jane Austen, and her example fired +Charlotte's ambition. Both were daughters of country clergymen. Charlotte +lived in the North of England on the wild and treeless moors, where the +searching winds rattled the panes and black-faced sheep bleated piteously. +Jane Austen lived in the rich quiet of a prosperous farming country, where +bees made honey and larks nested. The Reverend Patrick Bronte disciplined +his children: George Austen loved his. In Steventon there is no "Black +Bull"; only a little dehorned inn, kept by a woman who breeds canaries, +and will sell you a warranted singer for five shillings, with no charge +for the cage. At Steventon no red-haired Yorkshiremen offer to give fight +or challenge you to a drinking-bout. + +The opposites of things are alike, and that is why the world ties Jane +Eyre and Jane Austen in one bundle. Their methods of work were totally +different: their effects gotten in different ways. Charlotte Bronte +fascinates by startling situations and highly colored lights that dance +and glow, leading you on in a mad chase. There's pain, unrest, tragedy in +the air. The pulse always is rapid and the temperature high. + +It is not so with Jane Austen. She is an artist in her gentleness, and the +world is today recognizing this more and more. The stage now works its +spells by her methods--without rant, cant or fustian--and as the years go +by this must be so more and more, for mankind's face is turned toward +truth. + +To weave your spell out of commonplace events and brew a love-potion from +every-day materials is high art. When Kipling takes three average soldiers +of the line, ignorant, lying, swearing, smoking, dog-fighting soldiers, +who can even run on occasion, and by telling of them holds a world in +thrall--that's art! In these soldiers three we recognize something very +much akin to ourselves, for the thing that holds no relationship to us +does not interest us--we can not leave the personal equation out. This +fact is made plain in "The Black Riders," where the devils dancing in +Tophet look up and espying Steve Crane address him thus: "Brother!" + +Jane Austen's characters are all plain, every-day folks. The work is +always quiet. There are no entangling situations, no mysteries, no +surprises. + +Now, to present a situation, an emotion, so it will catch and hold the +attention of others, is largely a knack--you practise on the thing until +you do it well. This one thing I do. But the man who does this thing is +not intrinsically any greater than those who appreciate it--in fact, they +are all made of the same kind of stuff. Kipling himself is quite a +commonplace person. He is neither handsome nor magnetic. He is plain and +manly and would fit in anywhere. If there was a trunk to be carried +upstairs, or an ox to get out of a pit, you'd call on Kipling if he +chanced that way, and he'd give you a lift as a matter of course, and then +go on whistling with hands in his pockets. His art is a knack practised to +a point that gives facility. + +Jane Austen was a commonplace person. She swept, sewed, worked, and did +the duty that lay nearest her. She wrote because she liked to, and because +it gave pleasure to others. She wrote as well as she could. She had no +thought of immortality, or that she was writing for the ages--no more than +Shakespeare had. She never anticipated that Southey, Coleridge, Lamb, +Guizot and Macaulay would hail her as a marvel of insight, nor did she +suspect that a woman as great as George Eliot would declare her work +flawless. + +But today strong men recognize her books as rarely excellent, because they +show the divinity in all things, keep close to the ground, gently +inculcate the firm belief that simple people are as necessary as great +ones, that small things are not necessarily unimportant, and that nothing +is really insignificant. It all rings true. + +And so I sing the praises of the average woman--the woman who does her +work, who is willing to be unknown, who is modest and unaffected, who +tries to lessen the pains of earth, and to add to its happiness. She is +the true guardian angel of mankind! + +No book published in Jane Austen's lifetime bore her name on the +title-page; she was never lionized by society; she was never two hundred +miles from home; she died when forty-two years of age, and it was sixty +years before a biography was attempted or asked for. She sleeps in the +cathedral at Winchester, and not so very long ago a visitor, on asking the +verger to see her grave, was conducted thither, and the verger asked: "Was +she anybody in particular? So many folks ask where she's buried, you +know!" + +But this is changed now, for when the verger took me to her grave and we +stood by that plain black marble slab, he spoke intelligently of her life +and work. And many visitors now go to the cathedral, only because it is +the resting-place of Jane Austen, who lived a beautiful, helpful life and +produced great art, yet knew it not. + + + + +EMPRESS JOSEPHINE + + You have met General Bonaparte in my house. Well--he it is who + would supply a father's place to the orphans of Alexander de + Beauharnais, and a husband's to his widow. I admire the General's + courage, the extent of his information, for on all subjects he + talks equally well, and the quickness of his judgment, which + enables him to seize the thoughts of others almost before they + are expressed; but, I confess it, I shrink from the despotism he + seems desirous of exercising over all who approach him. His + searching glance has something singular and inexplicable, which + imposes even on our Directors; judge if it may not intimidate a + woman. Even--what ought to please me--the force of a passion, + described with an energy that leaves not a doubt of his + sincerity, is precisely the cause which arrests the consent I am + often on the point of pronouncing. + --_Letters of Josephine_ + +[Illustration: EMPRESS JOSEPHINE] + + +It was a great life, dearie, a great life! Charles Lamb used to study +mathematics to subdue his genius, and I'll have to tinge truth with gray +in order to keep this little sketch from appearing like a red Ruritania +romance. + +Josephine was born on an island in the Caribbean Sea, a long way from +France. The Little Man was an islander, too. They started for France about +the same time, from different directions--each, of course, totally unaware +that the other lived. They started on the order of that joker, Fate, in +order to scramble Continental politics, and make omelet of the world's +pretensions. + +Josephine's father was Captain Tascher. Do you know who Captain Tascher +was? Very well, there is satisfaction then in knowing that no one else +does either. He seems to have had no ancestors; and he left no successor +save Josephine. + +We know a little less of Josephine's mother than we do of her father. She +was the daughter of a Frenchman whom the world had plucked of both money +and courage, and he moved to the West Indies to vegetate and brood on the +vanity of earthly ambitions. Young Captain Tascher married the planter's +daughter in the year Seventeen Hundred Sixty-two. The next year a +daughter was born, and they called her name Josephine. + +Not long after her birth, Captain Tascher thought to mend his prospects by +moving to one of the neighboring islands. His wife went with him, but they +left the baby girl in the hands of a good old aunt, until they could +corral fortune and make things secure, for this world at least. + +They never came back, for they died and were buried. + +Josephine never had any recollection of her parents. But the aunt was +gentle and kindly, and life was simple and cheap. There was plenty to eat, +and no clothing to speak of was required, for the Equator was only a +stone's throw away; in fact, it was in sight of the house, as Josephine +herself has said. + +There was a Catholic church near, but no school. Yet Josephine learned to +read and write. She sang with the negroes and danced and swam and played +leap-frog. When she was nine years old, her aunt told her she must not +play leap-frog any more, but she should learn to embroider and to play the +harp and read poetry. Then she would grow up and be a fine lady. + +And Josephine thought it a bit hard, but said she would try. + +She was tall and slender, but not very handsome. Her complexion was rather +yellow, her hands bony. But the years brought grace, and even if her +features were not pretty she had one thing that was better, a gentle +voice. So far as I know, no one ever gave her lessons in voice culture +either. Perhaps the voice is the true index of the soul. Josephine's voice +was low, sweet, and so finely modulated that when she spoke others would +pause to listen--not to the words, just to the voice. + +Occasionally, visitors came to the island and were received at the old +rambling mansion where Josephine's aunt lived. From them the girl learned +about the great, outside world with its politics and society and strife +and rivalry; and when the visitor went away Josephine had gotten from him +all he knew. So the young woman became wise without school and learned +without books. A year after the memorable year of Seventeen Hundred +Seventy-six, there came to the island, Vicomte Alexander Beauharnais. He +had come direct from America, where he had fought on the side of the +Colonies against the British. He was full of Republican principles. +Paradoxically, he was also rich and idle and somewhat of an adventurer. + +He called at the old aunt's, Madame Renaudin's, and called often. He fell +violently in love with Josephine. I say violently, for that was the kind +of man he was. He was thirty, she was fifteen. His voice was rough and +guttural, so I do not think he had much inward grace. Josephine's fine +instincts rebelled at thought of accepting his proffered affection. She +explained that she was betrothed to another, a neighboring youth of about +her own age, whose thoughts and feelings matched hers. + +Beauharnais said that was nothing to him, and appealed to the old folks, +displaying his title, submitting an inventory of his estate; and the old +folks agreed to look into the matter. They did so and explained to +Josephine that she should not longer hold out against the wishes of those +who had done so much for her. + +And so Josephine relented and they were married, although it can not +truthfully be said that they lived happily ever afterward. They started +for France, on their wedding-tour. In six weeks they arrived in Paris. +Returned soldiers and famed travelers are eagerly welcomed by society; +especially is this so when the traveler brings a Creole wife from the +Equator. The couple supplied a new thrill, and society in Paris is always +eager for a new thrill. + +Vicomte Beauharnais and his wife became quite the rage. It was expected +that the Creole lady would be beautiful but dull; instead, she was not so +very beautiful, but very clever. She dropped into all the graceful ways of +polite society intuitively. + +In a year, domestic life slightly interfered with society's claims--a son +was born. They called his name Eugene. + +Two more years and a daughter was born. They called her name Hortense. + +Josephine was only twenty, but the tropics and social experience and +maternity had given ripeness to her life. She became thoughtful and +inclined rather to stay at home with her babies than chase fashion's +butterflies. + +Beauharnais chased fashion's butterflies, and caught them, too, for he +came home late and quarreled with his wife--a sure sign. + +He drank a little, gamed more, sought excitement, and talked politics +needlessly loud in underground cafes. + +Men who are woefully lax in their marriage relations are very apt to +regard their wives with suspicion. If Beauharnais had been weighed in the +balances he would have been found wanton. He instituted proceedings +against Josephine for divorce. + +And Josephine packed up a few scanty effects and taking her two children +started for her old home in the West Indies. It took all the money she had +to pay passage. + +It was the old, old story--a few years of gay life in the great city, then +cruelty too great for endurance, tears, shut white lips, a firm +resolve--and back to the old farm where homely, loyal hearts await, and +outstretched arms welcome the sorrowful, yet glad return. + +Beauharnais failed to get his divorce. The court said "no cause for +action." He awoke, stared stupidly about, felt the need of sympathy in his +hour of undoing, and looked for--Josephine. + +She was gone. + +He tried absinthe, gambling, hot dissipation; but he could not forget. He +had sent away his granary and storehouse; his wand of wealth and heart's +desire. Two ways opened for peace, only two: a loaded pistol--or get her +back. + +First he would try to get her back, and the pistol should be held in +reserve in case of failure. + +Josephine forgave and came back; for a good woman forgives to seventy +times seven. + +Beauharnais met her with all the tenderness a lover could command. The +ceremony of marriage was again sacredly solemnized. They retired to the +country and with their two children lived three of the happiest months +Josephine ever knew; at least Josephine said so, and the fact that she +made the same remark about several other occasions is no reason for +doubting her sincerity. Then they moved back to Paris. + +Beauharnais sobered his ambitions, and kept good hours. He was a soldier +in the employ of the king, but his sympathies were with the people. He was +a Republican with a Royalist bias, but some said he was a Royalist with a +Republican bias. + +Josephine looked after her household, educated her children, did much +charitable work, and knew what was going on in the State. + +But those were troublous times. Murder was in the air and revolution was +rife. That mob of a hundred thousand women had tramped out to Versailles +and brought the king back to Paris. He had been beheaded, and Marie +Antoinette had followed him. The people were in power and Beauharnais had +labored to temper their wrath with reason. He had even been Chairman of +the Third Convention. He called himself Citizen. But the fact that he was +of noble birth was remembered, and in September of Seventeen Hundred +Ninety-three, three men called at his house. When Josephine looked out of +the window, she saw by the wan light of the moon a file of soldiers +standing stiff and motionless. + +She knew the time had come. They marched Citizen Beauharnais to the +Luxembourg. + +In a few feverish months, they came back for his wife. Her they placed in +the nunnery of the Carmelites--that prison where, but a few months before, +a mob relieved the keepers of their vigils by killing all their charges. + +Robespierre was supreme. Now, Robespierre had come into power by undoing +Danton. Danton had helped lug in the Revolution, but when he touched a +match to the hay he did not really mean to start a conflagration, only a +bonfire. + +He tried to dampen the blaze, and Robespierre said he was a traitor and +led him to the guillotine. Robespierre worked the guillotine until the +bearings grew hot. Still, the people who rode in the death-tumbrel did not +seem so very miserable. Despair pushed far enough completes the circle and +becomes peace--a peace like unto security. It is the last stage: hope is +gone, but the comforting thought of heroic death and an eternal sleep +takes its place. + +When Josephine at the nunnery of the Carmelites received from the +Luxembourg prison a package containing a generous lock of her husband's +hair, she knew it had been purchased from the executioner. + +Now the prison of the Carmelites was unfortunately rather crowded. In +fact, it was full to the roof-tile. Five ladies were obliged to occupy one +little cell. One of these ladies in the cell with Josephine was Madame +Fontenay. Now Madame Fontenay was fondly loved by Citizen Tallien, who was +a member of the Assembly over which Citizen Robespierre presided. Citizen +Tallien did not explain his love for Madame to the public, because Madame +chanced to be the wife of another. So how could Robespierre know that when +he imprisoned Madame he was touching the tenderest tie that bound his +friend Tallien to earth? + +Robespierre sent word to the prison of the Carmelites that Madame Fontenay +and Madame Beauharnais should prepare for death--they were guilty of +plotting against the people. + +Now, Tallien came daily to the prison of the Carmelites, not to visit of +course, but to see that the prisoners were properly restrained. A +cabbage-stalk was thrown out of a cell-window, and Tallien found in the +stalk a note from his ladylove to this effect: "I am to die in two days; +to save me you must overthrow Robespierre." + +The next day there was trouble when the Convention met. Tallien got the +platform and denounced Robespierre in a Cassius voice as a traitor--the +arch-enemy of the people--a plotter for self. To emphasize his remarks he +brandished a glittering dagger. Other orations followed in like vein. All +orders that Robespierre had given out were abrogated by acclamation. Two +days and Robespierre was made to take a dose of the medicine he had so +often prescribed for others. He was beheaded by Samson, his own servant, +July Fifteenth, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-four. + +Immediately all "suspects" imprisoned on his instigation were released. + +Madame Fontenay and the widow Beauharnais were free. Soon after this +Madame Fontenay became Madame Tallien. Josephine got her children back +from the country, but her property was gone and she was in sore straits. +But she had friends, yet none so loyal and helpful as Citizen Tallien and +his wife. Their home was hers. And it was there she met a man by the name +of Barras, and there too she met a man who was a friend of Barras; by +name, Bonaparte--Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte was twenty-six. He was five +feet two inches high and weighed one hundred twenty pounds. He was +beardless and looked like a boy, and at that time his face was illumined +by an eruption. + +Out of employment and waiting for something to turn up, he yet had a very +self-satisfied manner. + +His peculiar way of listening to conversation--absorbing everything and +giving nothing out--made one uncomfortable. Josephine, seven years his +senior, did not like the youth. She had had a wider experience and been +better brought up than he, and she let him know it, but he did not seem +especially abashed. + + * * * * * + +Exactly what the French Revolution was, no one has yet told us. Read +"Carlyle" backward or forward and it is grand: it puts your head in a +whirl of heroic intoxication, but it does not explain the Revolution. + +Suspicion, hate, tyranny, fear, mawkish sentimentality, mad desire, were +in the air. One leader was deposed because he did nothing, and his +successor was carried to the guillotine because he did too much. +Convention after convention was dissolved and re-formed. + +On the Fourth of October, Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, there was a howl +and a roar and a shriek from forty thousand citizens of Paris. + +No one knew just what they wanted--the forty thousand did not explain. +Perhaps it was nothing--only the leaders who wanted power. They demanded +that the Convention should be dissolved: certain men must be put out and +others put in. + +The Convention convened and all the members felt to see if their heads +were in proper place--tomorrow they might not be. The room was crowded to +suffocation. Spectators filled the windows, perched on the +gallery-railing, climbed and clung on the projecting parts of columns. + +High up on one of these columns sat the young man Bonaparte, silent, +unmoved, still waiting for something to turn up. + +The Convention must protect itself, and the call was for Barras. Barras +had once successfully parleyed with insurrection--he must do so again. +Barras turned bluish-white, for he knew that to deal with this mob +successfully a man must be blind and deaf to pity. He struggled to his +feet--he looked about helplessly--the Convention silently waited to catch +the words of its savior. + +High up on a column Barras spied the lithe form of the artillery major, +whom he had seen, with face of bronze, deal out grape and canister at +Toulon. Barras raised his hand and pointing to the young officer cried, +"There, there is the man who can save you!" + +The Convention nominated the little man by acclamation as commander of the +city's forces. He slid down from his perch, took half an hour to ascertain +whether the soldiers were on the side of the mob or against it--for it was +usually a toss-up--and decided to accept the command. Next day the mob +surrounded the Tuileries in the name of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. +The Terrorists entreated the soldiers to throw down their arms, then they +reviled and cajoled and cursed and sang, and the women as usual were in +the vanguard. Paris recognized the divine right of insurrection. Who dare +shoot into such a throng! + +The young artillery major dare. He gave the word and red death mowed wide +swaths, and the balls spat against the walls and sang through the windows +of the Church of Saint Roche where the mob was centered. Again and again +he fired. It began at four by the clock, and at six all good people, and +bad, had retired to their homes, and Paris was law-abiding. The Convention +named Napoleon, General of the Interior, and the French Revolution became +from that moment a thing that was. + + * * * * * + +Of course, no one in Paris was so much talked of as the young artillery +officer. Josephine was a bit proud that she had met him, and possibly a +little sorry that she had treated him so coldly. He only wished to be +polite! + +Josephine was an honest woman, but still, she was a woman. She desired to +be well thought of, and to be well thought of by men in power. Her son +Eugene was fifteen, and she had ambitions for him; and to this end she saw +the need of keeping in touch with the Powers. Josephine was a politician +and a diplomat, for all women are diplomats. She arrayed Eugene in his +Sunday-best and told him to go to the General of the Interior and explain +that his name was Eugene Beauharnais, that his father was the martyred +patriot, General Beauharnais, and that this beloved father's sword was in +the archives over which Providence had placed the General of the Interior. +Furthermore, the son should request that the sword of his father be given +him so that it might be used in defense of France if need be. + +And it was so done. + +The whole thing was needlessly melodramatic, and Napoleon laughed. The +poetry of war was to him a joke. But he stroked the youth's curls, asked +after his mother, and ordered his secretary to go fetch that sword. + +So the boy carried the sword home and was very happy, and his mother was +very happy and proud of him, and she kissed him on both cheeks and kissed +the sword and thought of the erring, yet generous man who once had +carried it. Then she thought it would be but proper for her to go and +thank the man who had given the sword back; for had he not stroked her +boy's curls and told him he was a fine young fellow, and asked after his +mother! + +So the next day she went to call on the man who had so graciously given +the sword back. She was kept waiting a little while in the anteroom, for +Napoleon always kept people waiting--it was a good scheme. When admitted +to the presence, the General of the Interior, in simple corporal's dress, +did not remember her. Neither did he remember about giving the sword +back--at least he said so. He was always a trifler with women, though; and +it was so delicious to have this tearful widow remove her veil and +explain--for gadzooks! had she not several times allowed the mercury to +drop to zero for his benefit? + +And so she explained, and gradually it all came back to him--very slowly +and after cross-questioning--and then he was so glad to see her. When she +went away, he accompanied her to the outer door, bareheaded, and as they +walked down the long hallway she noted the fact that he was not so tall as +she by three inches. He shook hands with her as they parted, and said he +would call on her when he had gotten a bit over the rush. + +Josephine went home in a glow. She did not like the man--he had humiliated +her by making her explain who she was, and his manner, too, was +offensively familiar. And yet he was a power, there was no denying that, +and to know men of power is a satisfaction to any woman. He was twenty +years younger than Beauharnais, the mourned--twenty years! Then +Beauharnais was tall and had a splendid beard and wore a dangling sword. +Beauharnais was of noble birth, educated, experienced, but he was dead; +and here was a beardless boy being called the Chief Citizen of France. +Well, well, well! + +She was both pleased and hurt--hurt to think she had been humbled, and +pleased to think such attentions had been paid her. In a few days the +young general called on the widow to crave forgiveness for not having +recognized her when she had called on him. It was very stupid in him, +very! She forgave him. + +He complimented Eugene in terse, lavish terms, and when he went away +kissed Hortense, who was thirteen and thought herself too big to be kissed +by a strange man. But Napoleon said they all seemed just like old friends. +And seeming like old friends he called often. + +Josephine knew Paris and Parisian society thoroughly. Fifteen years of +close contact in success and defeat with statesmen, soldiers, diplomats, +artists and literati had taught her much. It is probable that she was the +most gifted woman in Paris. Now, Napoleon learned by induction as +Josephine had, and as all women do, and as genius must, for life is +short--only dullards spend eight years at Oxford. He absorbed Josephine +as the devilfish does its prey. And to get every thought and feeling that +a good woman possesses you must win her completest love. In this close +contact she gives up all--unlike Sapphira--holding nothing back. + +Among educated people, people of breeding and culture, Napoleon felt ill +at ease. With this woman at his side he would be at home anywhere. And +feeling at once that he could win her only by honorable marriage he +decided to marry her. + +He was ambitious. Has that been remarked before? Well, one can not always +be original--still I think the facts bear out the statement. + +Josephine was ambitious, too, but some way in this partnership she felt +that she would bring more capital into the concern than he, and she +hesitated. + +But power had given dignity to the Little Man; his face had taken on the +cold beauty of marble. Success was better than sarsaparilla. Josephine was +aware of his growing power, and his persistency was irresistible; and so +one evening when he dropped in for a moment, her manner told all. He just +took her in his arms, and kissing her very tenderly whispered, "My dear, +together we will win," and went his way. When he wished to be, Napoleon +was the ideal lover; he was master of that fine forbearance, flavored with +a dash of audacity, that women so appreciate. He never wore love to a +frazzle, nor caressed the object of his affections into fidgets; neither +did he let her starve, although at times she might go hungry. + +However, the fact remains that Josephine married the man to get rid of +him; but that's a thing women are constantly doing. + +The ceremony was performed by a Justice of the Peace, March Ninth, +Seventeen Hundred Ninety-six. It was just five months since the bride had +called to thank the groom for giving back her husband's sword, and fifteen +months after this husband's death. Napoleon was twenty-seven; Josephine +was thirty-three, but the bridegroom swore he was twenty-eight and the +lady twenty-nine. As a fabricator he wins our admiration. + +Twelve days after the marriage, Napoleon set out for Italy as +Commander-in-Chief of the army. To trace the brilliant campaign of that +year, when the tricolor of France was carried from the Bay of Biscay to +the Adriatic Sea, is not my business. Suffice it to say that it placed the +name of Bonaparte among the foremost names of military leaders of all +time. But amid the restless movement of grim war and the glamour of +success he never for a day forgot his Josephine. His letters breathe a +youthful lover's affection, and all the fond desires of his heart were +hers. Through her he also knew the pulse and temperature of Paris--its +form and pressure. + +It was a year before they saw each other. She came on to Milan and met him +there. They settled in Montebello, at a beautiful country seat, six miles +from the city. From there he conducted negotiations for peace--and she +presided over the gay social circles of the ancient capital. "I gain +provinces; you win hearts," said Napoleon. It was a very Napoleonic +remark. + +Napoleon had already had Eugene with him, and together they had seen the +glory of battle. Now Hortense was sent for, and they were made Napoleon's +children by adoption. These were days of glowing sunshine and success and +warm affection. + +And so Napoleon with his family returned to France amid bursts of +applause, proclaimed everywhere the Savior of the State, its Protector, +and all that. Civil troubles had all vanished in the smoke of war with +foreign enemies. Prosperity was everywhere, the fruits of conquest had +satisfied all, and the discontented class had been drawn off into the army +and killed or else was now cheerfully boozy with success. + +Napoleon made allies of all powers he could not easily undo, and proffered +his support--biding his time. Across the English Channel he looked and +stared with envious eyes. Josephine had tasted success and known defeat. +Napoleon had only tasted success. She begged that he would rest content +and hold secure that which he had gained. Success in its very nature must +be limited, she said. He laughed and would not hear of it. For the first +time she felt her influence over him was waning. She had given her all; he +greedily absorbed, and now had come to believe in his own omniscience. He +told her that on a pinch he could get along without her--within himself +he held all power. Then he kissed her hand in mock gallantry and led her +to the door, as he would be alone. + +When Napoleon started on the Egyptian campaign, Josephine begged to go +with him; other women went, dozens of them. They seemed to look upon it as +a picnic party. But Napoleon, insisting that absence makes the heart grow +fonder, said his wife should remain behind. + +Josephine was too good and great for the wife of such a man. She saw +through him. She understood him, and only honest men are willing to be +understood. He was tired of her, for she no longer ministered to his +vanity. He had captured her, and now he was done with her. Besides that, +she sided with the peace party, and this was intolerable. Still he did not +beat her with a stick; he treated her most graciously, and installing her +at beautiful Malmaison, provided her everything to make her happy. And if +"things" could make one happy, she would have been. + +And as for the Egyptian campaign, it surely was a picnic party, or it was +until things got so serious that frolic was supplanted by fear. You can't +frolic with your hair on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine. +Napoleon did not write to his wife. He frolicked. Occasionally his +secretary sent her a formal letter of instruction, and when she at last +wrote him asking an explanation for such strange silence, the Little Man +answered her with accusations of infidelity. + +Josephine decided to secure a divorce, and there is pretty good proof that +papers were prepared; and had the affair been carried along, the courts +would have at once allowed the separation on statutory grounds. However, +the papers were destroyed, and Josephine decided to live it out. But +Napoleon had heard of these proposed divorce proceedings and was furious. +When he came back, it was with the intention of immediate legal +separation--in any event separation. + +He came back and held out haughtily for three days, addressing her as +"Madame," and refusing so much as to shake hands. After the three days he +sued for peace and cried it out on his knees with his head in her lap. It +was not genuine humility, only the humility that follows debauch. Napoleon +had many kind impulses, but his mood was selfish indifference to the +rights or wishes of others. He did not hold hate, yet the thought of +divorce from Josephine was palliated in his own mind by the thought that +she had first suggested it. "I took her at her word," he once said to +Bertram, as if the thing were pricking him. + +And so matters moved on. There was war, and rumors of war, alway; but the +vanquished paid the expenses. It was thought best that France should be +ruled by three consuls. Three men were elected, with Napoleon as First +Consul. The First Consul bought off the Second and Third Consuls and +replaced them with two wooden men from the Tenth Ward. + +Josephine worked for the glory of France and for her husband: she was +diplomat and adviser. She placated enemies and made friends. + +France prospered, and in the wars the foreigner usually not only paid the +bills, but a goodly tribute beside. Nothing is so good as war to make +peace at home. An insurrectionist at home makes a splendid soldier abroad. +Napoleon's battles were won by the "dangerous class." As the First Consul +was Emperor in fact, the wires were pulled, and he was made so in name. +His wife was made Empress: it must be so, as a breath of disapproval might +ruin the whole scheme. Josephine was beloved by the people, and the people +must know that she was honored by her husband. With a woman's intuition, +Josephine saw the end--power grows until it topples. She pleaded, +begged--it was of no avail--the tide swept her with it, but whither, +whither? she kept asking. + +Meantime Hortense had been married to Louis, brother of Napoleon. In due +time Napoleon found himself a grandfather. He both liked it and didn't. He +considered himself a youth and took a pride in being occasionally mistaken +for a recruit, and here some newspaper had called him "granddaddy," and +people had laughed! He was not even a father, except by law--not +Nature--and that's no father at all, for Nature does not recognize law. He +joked with Josephine about it, and she turned pale. + +There is no subject on which men so deceive themselves as concerning their +motives for doing certain things. On no subject do mortals so deceive +themselves as their motives for marriage. Their acts may be all right, but +the reasons they give for doing them never are. Napoleon desired a new +wife, because he wished a son to found a dynasty. + +"You have Eugene!" said Josephine. + +"He's my son by proxy," said Napoleon, with a weary smile. + +All motives, like ores, are found mixed, and counting the whole at one +hundred, Napoleon's desire for a son after the flesh should stand as +ten--other reasons ninety. All men wish to be thought young. Napoleon was +forty, and his wife was forty-seven. Talleyrand had spoken of them as Old +Mr. and Mrs. Bonaparte. + +A man of forty is only a giddy youth, according to his own estimate. Girls +of twenty are his playfellows. A man of sixty, with a wife forty, and +babies coming, is not old--bless me! But suppose his wife is nearly +seventy--what then! Napoleon must have a young wife. Then by marrying +Marie Louise, Austria could be held as friend: it was very necessary to do +this. Austria must be secured as an ally at any cost--even at the cost of +Josephine. It was painful, but must be done for the good of France. The +State should stand first in the mind of every loyal, honest man: all else +is secondary. + +So Josephine was divorced, but was provided with an annuity that was +preposterous in its lavish proportions. It amounted to over half a million +dollars a year. I once knew a man who, on getting home from the club at +two o'clock in the morning, was reproached by his wife for his shocking +condition. He promptly threw the lady over the banisters. Next day he +purchased her a diamond necklace at the cost of a year's salary, but she +could not wear it out in society for a month on account of her black eye. + +Napoleon divorced Josephine that he might be the father of a line of +kings. When he abdicated in Eighteen Hundred Fifteen, he declared his son, +the child of Marie Louise, "Napoleon the Second, Emperor of France," and +the world laughed. The son died before he had fairly reached manhood's +estate. Napoleon the Third, son of Hortense, Queen of Holland, the +grandson of Josephine, reigned long and well as Emperor of France. The +Prince Imperial--a noble youth--great-grandson of Josephine, was killed in +Africa while fighting the battle of the nation that undid Napoleon. + +Josephine was a parent of kings: Napoleon was not. + +When Bonaparte was banished to Elba, and Marie Louise was nowhere to be +seen, Josephine wrote to him words of consolation, offering to share his +exile. + +She died not long after--on the Second of June, Eighteen Hundred Fourteen. + +After viewing that gaudy tomb at the Invalides, and thinking of the +treasure in tears and broken hearts that it took to build it, it will rest +you to go to the simple village church at Ruel, a half-hour's ride from +the Arc de Triomphe, where sleeps Josephine, Empress of France. + + + + +MARY W. SHELLEY + + Shelley, beloved! the year has a new name from any thou knowest. + When Spring arrives, leaves that you never saw will shadow the + ground, and flowers you never beheld will star it, and the grass + will be of another growth. Thy name is added to the list which + makes the earth bold in her age, and proud of what has been. + Time, with slow, but unwearied feet, guides her to the goal that + thou hast reached; and I, her unhappy child, am advanced still + nearer the hour when my earthly dress shall repose near thine, + beneath the tomb of Cestius. + --_Journal of Mary Shelley_ + +[Illustration: MARY SHELLEY] + + +When Emerson borrowed from Wordsworth that fine phrase about plain living +and high thinking, no one was more astonished than he that Whitman and +Thoreau should take him at his word. He was decidedly curious about their +experiment. But he kept a safe distance between himself and the +shirt-sleeved Walt; and as for Henry Thoreau--bless me! Emerson regarded +him only as a fine savage, and told him so. Of course, Emerson loved +solitude, but it was the solitude of a library or an orchard, and not the +solitude of plain or wilderness. Emerson looked upon Beautiful Truth as an +honored guest. He adored her, but it was with the adoration of the +intellect. He never got her tag in jolly chase of comradery; nor did he +converse with her, soft and low, when only the moon peeked out from behind +the silvery clouds, and the nightingale listened. He never laid himself +open to damages. And when he threw a bit of a bomb into Harvard Divinity +School it was the shrewdest bid for fame that ever preacher made. + +I said "shrewd"--that's the word. + +Emerson had the instincts of Connecticut--that peculiar development of men +who have eked out existence on a rocky soil, banking their houses against +grim Winter or grimmer savage foes. With this Yankee shrewdness went a +subtle and sweeping imagination, and a fine appreciation of the excellent +things that men have said and done. But he was never so foolish as to +imitate the heroic--he, simply admired it from afar. He advised others to +work their poetry up into life, but he did not do so himself. He never +cast the bantling on the rocks, nor caused him to be suckled with the +she-wolf's teat. He admired "abolition" from a distance. When he went away +from home it was always with a return ticket. He has summed up Friendship +in an essay as no other man ever has, and yet there was a self-protective +aloofness in his friendship that made icicles gather, as George William +Curtis has explained. + +In no relation of his life was there a complete abandon. His "Essay on +Self-Reliance" is beef, iron and wine, and "Works and Days" is a tonic for +tired men; and yet I know that, in spite of all his pretty talk about +living near Nature's heart, he never ventured into the woods outside of +hallooing distance from the house. He could neither ride a horse, shoot, +nor sail a boat--and being well aware of it, never tried. All his farming +was done by proxy; and when he writes to Carlyle late in life, explaining +how he is worth forty thousand dollars, well secured by first mortgages, +he makes clear one-half of his ambition. + +And yet, I call him master, and will match my admiration for him 'gainst +that of any other, six nights and days together. But I summon him here +only to contrast his character with that of another--another who, like +himself, was twice married. + +In his "Essay on Love" Emerson reveals just an average sophomore insight; +and in his work I do not find a mention or a trace of influence exercised +by either of the two women he wedded, nor by any other woman. Shelley was +what he was through the influence of the two women he married. + +Shelley wrecked the life of one of these women. She found surcease of +sorrow in death; and when her body was found in the Serpentine he had a +premonition that the hungry waves were waiting for him, too. But before +her death and through her death, she pressed home to him the bitterest +sorrow that man can ever know: the combined knowledge that he has mortally +injured a human soul and the sense of helplessness to minister to its +needs. Harriet Westbrook said to Shelley, drink ye all of it. And could he +speak now he would say that the bitterness of the potion was a formative +influence as potent as that of the gentle ministrations of Mary +Wollstonecraft, who broke over his head the precious vase of her heart's +love and wiped his feet with the hairs of her head. + +In the poetic sweetness, gentleness, lovableness and beauty of their +natures, Emerson and Shelley were very similar. In a like environment they +would have done the same things. A pioneer ancestry with its struggle for +material existence would have given Shelley caution; and a noble +patronymic, fostered by the State, lax in its discipline, would have made +Emerson toss discretion to the winds. + +Emerson and Shelley were both apostles of the good, the true and the +beautiful. One of them rests at Sleepy Hollow, his grave marked by a great +rough-hewn boulder, while overhead the winds sigh a requiem through the +pines. The ashes of the other were laid beneath the moss-grown wall of the +Eternal City, and the creeping vines and flowers, as if jealous of the +white, carven marble, snuggle close over the spot with their leaves and +petals. + +Yet both of these men achieved immortality, for their thoughts live again +in the thoughts of the race, and their hopes and their aspirations mingle +and are one with the men and women of earth who think and feel and dream. + + + * * * * * + +It was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin who awoke in Shelley such a burst of +song that men yet listen to its cadence. It was she who gave his soul +wings: her gentle spirit blending with his made music that has enriched +the world. Without her he was fast beating out his life against the bars +of unkind condition, but together they worked and sang. All his lines were +recited to her, all were weighed in the critical balances of her woman's +judgment. She it was who first wrote it out, and then gave it back. +Together they revised; and after he had passed on, she it was who +collected the scattered leaves, added the final word, and gave us the book +we call "Shelley's Poems." Perhaps we might call all poetry the child of +parents, but with Shelley's poems this is literally true. Mary Shelley +delighted in the name Wollstonecraft. It was her mother's name; and was +not Mary Wollstonecraft the foremost intellectual woman of her day--a +woman of purpose, forceful yet gentle, appreciative, kind? + +Mary Wollstonecraft was born in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine; and tiring +of the dull monotony of a country town went up to London when yet a child +and fought the world alone. By her own efforts she grew learned; she had +all science, all philosophy, all history at her fingers' ends. She became +able to speak several languages, and by her pen an income was secured that +was not only sufficient for herself, but ministered to the needs of an +aged father and mother and sisters as well. + +Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one great book (which is all any one can write): +"A Vindication of the Rights of Woman." It sums up all that has since been +written on the subject. Like an essay by Herbert Spencer, it views the +matter from every side, anticipates every objection--exhausts the subject. +The literary style of Mary Wollstonecraft's book is Johnsonese, but its +thought forms the base of all that has come after. It is the +great-great-grandmother of all woman's clubs and these thousand efforts +that women are now putting forth along economic, artistic and social +lines. But we have nearly lost sight of Mary Wollstonecraft. Can you name +me, please, your father's grandmother? Aye, I thought not; then tell me +the name of the man who is now Treasurer of the United States! + +And so you see we do not know much about other people, after all. But Mary +Wollstonecraft pushed the question of woman's freedom to its farthest +limit; I told you that she exhausted the subject. She prophesied a day +when woman would have economic freedom--that is, be allowed to work at any +craft or trade for which her genius fitted her and receive a proper +recompense. Woman would also have social freedom: the right to come and go +alone--the privilege of walking upon the street without the company of a +man--the right to study and observe. Next, woman would have political +freedom: the right to record her choice in matters of lawmaking. And +last, she would yet have sex freedom: the right to bestow her love without +prying police and blundering law interfering in the delicate relations of +married life. + +To make herself understood. Mary Wollstonecraft explained that society was +tainted with the thought that sex was unclean; but she held high the ideal +that this would yet pass away, and that the idea of holding one's mate by +statute law would become abhorrent to all good men and women. She declared +that the assumption that law could join a man and a woman in holy wedlock +was preposterous, and that the caging of one person by another for a +lifetime was essentially barbaric. Only the love that is free and +spontaneous and that holds its own by the purity, the sweetness, the +tenderness and the gentleness of its life is divine. And further, she +declared it her belief that when a man had found his true mate such a +union would be for life--it could not be otherwise. And the man holding +his mate by the excellence that was in him, instead of by the aid of the +law, would be placed, loverlike, on his good behavior, and be a stronger +and manlier being. Such a union, freed from the petty, spying and +tyrannical restraints of present usage, must come ere the race could far +advance. + +Mary Wollstonecraft's book created a sensation. It was widely read and +hotly denounced. A few upheld it: among these was William Godwin. But the +air was so full of taunt and threat that Miss Wollstonecraft thought best +to leave England for a time. She journeyed to Paris, and there wrote and +translated for certain English publishers. In Paris she met Gilbert Imlay, +an American, seemingly of very much the same temperament as herself. She +was thirty-six, he was somewhat younger. They began housekeeping on the +ideal basis. In a year a daughter was born to them. When this baby was +three months old, Imlay disappeared, leaving Mary penniless and +friendless. + +It was a terrible blow to this trusting and gentle woman. But after a good +cry or two, philosophy came to her rescue and she decided that to be +deserted by a man who did not love her was really not so bad as to be tied +to him for life. She earned a little money and in a short time started +back for England with her babe and scanty luggage--sorrowful, yet brave +and unsubdued. She might have left her babe behind, but she scorned the +thought. She would be honest and conceal nothing. Right must win. + +Now, I am told that an unmarried woman with a babe at her breast is not +received in England into the best society. The tale of Mary's misfortune +had preceded her, and literary London laughed a hoarse, guttural guffaw, +and society tittered to think how this woman who had written so smartly +had tried some of her own medicine and found it bitter. Publishers no +longer wanted her work, old friends failed to recognize her, and one man +to whom she applied for work brought a rebuke upon his head, that lasted +him for years. + +Godwin, philosopher, idealist, enthusiast and reformer, who made it his +rule to seek out those in trouble, found her and told a needless lie by +declaring he had been commissioned by a certain nameless publisher to get +her to write certain articles about this and that. Then he emptied his +pockets of all the small change he had, as an advance payment, and he +hadn't very much, and started out to find the publisher who would buy the +prospective "hot stuff." Fortunately he succeeded. + +After a few weeks, Mr. Godwin, bachelor, aged forty, found himself very +much in love with Mary Wollstonecraft and her baby. Her absolute purity of +purpose, her frankness, honesty and high ideals surpassed anything he had +ever dreamed of finding incarnated in woman. He became her sincere lover; +and she, the discarded, the forsaken, reciprocated; for it seems that the +tendrils of affection, ruthlessly uprooted, cling to the first object that +presents itself. + +And so they were married; yes, these two who had so generously repudiated +the marriage-tie were married March Twenty-ninth, Seventeen Hundred +Ninety-seven, at Old Saint Pancras Church, for they had come to the sane +conclusion that to affront society was not wise. + +On August Thirtieth, in the year Seventeen Hundred Ninety-seven, was born +to them a daughter. Then the mother died--died did brave Mary +Wollstonecraft, and left behind a girl baby one week old. And it was this +baby, grown to womanhood, who became Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. + + * * * * * + +William Godwin wrote one great book: "Political Justice." It is a work so +high and noble in its outlook that only a Utopia could ever realize its +ideals. When men are everywhere willing to give to other men all the +rights they demand for themselves, and co-operation takes the place of +competition, then will Godwin's philosophy be not too great and good for +daily food. Among the many who read his book and thought they saw in it +the portent of a diviner day was one Percy Bysshe Shelley. + +And so it came to pass that about the year Eighteen Hundred Thirteen, this +Percy Bysshe Shelley called on Godwin, who was living in a rusty, musty +tenement in Somerstown. The young man was twenty: tall and slender, with +as handsome a face as was ever given to mortal. The face was pale as +marble: the features almost feminine in their delicacy: thin lips, +straight nose, good teeth, abundant, curling hair, and eyes so dreamy and +sorrowful that women on the street would often turn and follow the "angel +soul garbed in human form." + +This man Shelley was sick at heart, bereft, perplexed, in sore straits, +and to whom should he turn for advice in this time of undoing but to +Godwin, the philosopher! Besides, Godwin had been the husband of Mary +Wollstonecraft, and the splendid precepts of these two had nourished into +being all the latent excellence of the youth. Yes, he would go to Godwin, +the Plato of England! + +And so he went to Godwin. + +Now, this young man Shelley was of noble blood. His grandfather was Sir +Bysshe Shelley, Bart., and worth near three hundred thousand pounds, all +of which would some day come to our pale-faced youth. But the youth was a +republican--he believed in the brotherhood of man. He longed to benefit +his fellows, to lift them out of the bondage of fear, and sin, and +ignorance. After reading Hume, and Godwin, and Wollstonecraft, he had +decided that Christianity as defined by the Church of England was a +failure: it was only an organized fetish, kept in place by the State, and +devoid of all that thrills to noble thinking and noble doing. + +And so young Shelley at Oxford had written a pamphlet to this end, +explaining the matter to the world. + +A copy being sent to the headmaster of the school, young Shelley was +hustled off the premises in short order, and a note was sent to his father +requesting that the lad be well flogged and kept several goodly leagues +from Oxford. + +Shelley the elder was furious that his son should so disgrace the family +name, and demanded he should write another pamphlet supporting the Church +of England and recanting all the heresy he had uttered. Young Percy +replied that conscience would not admit of his doing this. The father said +conscience be blanked: and further used almost the same words that were +used by Professor Jowett some years later to a certain skeptical youth. + +Professor Jowett sent for the youth and said, "Young man, I am told that +you say you can not find God. Is this true?" + +"Yes, sir," said the youth. + +"Well, you will please find Him before eight o'clock tonight or get out of +this college." + +Shelley was not allowed to return home, and moreover his financial +allowance was cut off entirely. + +And so he wandered up to London and chewed the cud of bitter fancy, +resolved to starve before he would abate one jot or tittle of what he +thought was truth. And he might have starved had not his sisters sent him +scanty sums of money from time to time. The messenger who carried the +money to him was a young girl by the name of Harriet Westbrook, round and +smooth and pink and sixteen. Percy was nineteen. Harriet was the daughter +of an innkeeper and did not get along very well at home. She told Percy +about it, and of course she knew his troubles, and so they talked about it +over the gate, and mutually condoled with each other. + +Soon after this Harriet had a fresh quarrel with her folks; and with the +tears yet on her pretty lashes ran straight to Shelley's lodging and +throwing herself into his arms proposed that they cease to fight unkind +Fate, and run away together and be happy ever afterward. + +And so they ran away. + +Shelley's father instanced this as another proof of depravity and said, +"Let 'em go!" The couple went to Scotland. In a few months they came back +from Scotland, because no one can really be happy away from home. Besides +they were out of money--and neither one had ever earned any money--and as +the Westbrooks were willing to forgive, even if the Shelleys were not, +they came back. But the Westbrooks were only willing to forgive in +consideration of Percy and Harriet being properly married by a clergyman +of the Church of England. Now, Shelley had not wavered in his +Godwin-Wollstonecraft theories, but he was chivalrous and Harriet was +tearful, and so he gracefully waived all private considerations and they +were duly married. It was a quiet wedding. + +In a short time a baby was born. + +Harriet was amiable, being healthy and having very moderate sensibilities. +She had no opinion on any subject, and in no degree sympathized with +Shelley's wild aspirations. She thought a title would be nice, and urged +that her husband make peace by renouncing his "infidelity." Literature was +silly business anyway, and folks should do as other folks did. If they +didn't, lawks-a-daisy! there was trouble!! + +And so, with income cut off, banished from home, from school, out of +employment, with a wife who had no sympathy with him--who could not +understand him--whose pitiful weakness stung him and wrung him, he thought +of Godwin, the philosopher: for at the last philosophy is the cure for all +our ills. + +Godwin was glad to see Shelley--Godwin was glad to see any one. Godwin was +fifty-five, bald, had a Socratic forehead, was smooth-cheeked, shabby and +genteel. Yes, Godwin was the author of "Political Justice"--but that was +written quite a while before, twenty years! + +One of the girls was sent out for a quart of half-and-half, and the pale +visitor cast his eyes around this family room, which served for +dining-room, library and parlor. Godwin had married again--Shelley had +heard that, but he was a bit shocked to find that the great man who was +once mate to Mary Wollstonecraft had married a shrew. The sound of her +high-pitched voice convinced the visitor at once that she was a very +commonplace person. + +There were three girls and a boy in the room, busy at sewing or reading. +None of them was introduced, but the air of the place was Bohemian, and +the conversation soon became general. All talked except one of the girls: +she sat reading, and several times when the young man glanced over her way +she was looking at him. Shelley stayed an hour, spending a very pleasant +time, but as he had no opportunity of stating his case to the philosopher +he made an engagement to call again. + +As he groped his way downstairs and walked homewards he mused. The widow +Clairmont, whom Godwin had married, was a worldling, that was sure; her +daughter Jane was good-looking and clever, but both she and Charles, the +boy, were the children of their mother--he had picked them out +intuitively. The little young woman with brown eyes and merry ways was +Fanny Godwin, the first child of Mary Wollstonecraft and adopted daughter +of Godwin. The tall slender girl who was so very quiet was the daughter of +Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. + +"Ye gods, what a pedigree!" said Shelley. + +The young man called again, and after explaining his situation was advised +to go back home and make peace with his wife and father at any cost of +personal intellectual qualms. Philosophy was all right; but life was one +thing and philosophy another. Live with Harriet as he had vowed to +do--love was a good deal glamour, anyway; write poetry, of course, if he +felt like it, but keep it to himself. The world was not to be moved by +enthusiastic youth. Godwin had tried it--he had been an enthusiastic youth +himself, and that was why he now lived in Somerstown instead of +Piccadilly. Move in the line of least resistance. + +Shelley went away shocked and stunned. Going by Old Saint Pancras Church +he turned back to step in a moment and recover his scattered senses. He +walked through the cool, dim, old building, out into the churchyard, where +toppling moss-covered gray slabs marked the resting-places of the sleeping +dead. All seemed so cool and quiet and calm there! The dead are at rest: +they have no vexatious problems. + +A few people were moving about, carelessly reading the inscriptions. The +young man unconsciously followed their example; he passed slowly along one +of the walks, scanning the stones. His eye fell upon the word +"Wollstonecraft," marked on a plain little slate slab. He paused and, +leaning over removed his hat and read, and then glancing just beyond, saw +seated on the grass--the tall girl. She held a book in her hands, but she +was looking at him very soberly. Their eyes met, and they smiled just a +little. The young man sat down on the turf on the other side of the grave +from the girl, and they talked of the woman by whose dust they watched: +and the young man found that the tall girl was an Ancestor-Worshiper and a +mystic, and moreover had a flight of soul that held him in awe. Besides, +in form and feature, she was rarely beautiful. She was quiet, but she +could talk. + +The next day, as Percy Shelley strolled through the churchyard of Old +Saint Pancras, the tall girl was there again with her book, in the same +place. + + * * * * * + +When Shelley made that first call at the Godwins he was twenty. The three +girls he met were fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, respectively. Mary being +the youngest in years, but the most mature, she would have easily passed +for the oldest. Now, all three of these girls were dazzled by the beauty +and grace and intellect of the strange, pale-faced visitor. + +He came to the house again and again during the next few months. All the +girls loved him violently, for that's the way girls under eighteen often +love. Mr. Godwin soon discovered the fact that all his girls loved +Shelley. They lost appetite, and were alternately in chills of fear and +fevers of ecstacy. Mr. Godwin, being a kind man and a good, took occasion +to explain to them that Mr. Shelley was a married man, and although it was +true he did not live on good terms with his wife, yet she was his lawful +wife, and marriage was a sacred obligation: of course, pure philosophy or +poetic justice took a different view, but in society the marriage-tie must +not be held lightly. In short, Shelley was married and that was all there +was about it. + +Shelley still continued to call, coming via Saint Pancras Church. In a few +months, Mary confided to Jane that she and Shelley were about to elope, +and Jane must make peace and explain matters after they were gone. + +Jane cried and declared she would go, too--she would go or die: she would +go as servant, scullion--anything, but go she would. Shelley was +consulted, and to prevent tragedy consented to Jane going as maid to Mary, +his well-beloved. + +So the trinity eloped. It being Shelley's second elopement, he took the +matter a little more coolly than did the girls, who had never eloped +before. Having reached Dover, and while waiting at a hotel for the boat, +the landlord suddenly appeared and breathlessly explained to Shelley, "A +fat woman has just arrived and swears that you have run away with her +girls!" + +It was Mrs. Godwin. + +The party got out by the back way and hired a small boat to take them to +Calais. They embarked in a storm, and after beating about all night, came +in sight of France the next morning as the sun arose. + +Godwin was very much grieved and shocked to think that Shelley had broken +in upon established order and done this thing. But Shelley had read +Godwin's book and simply taken the philosopher at his word: "The impulses +of the human heart are just and right; they are greater than law, and must +be respected." + +The runaways seemed to have had a jolly time in France as long as their +money lasted. They bought a mule to carry their luggage, and walked. +Jane's feet blistered, however, and they seated her upon the luggage upon +the mule, and as the author of "Queen Mab" led the patient beast, Mary +with a switch followed behind. After some days Shelley sprained his ankle, +and then it was his turn to ride while Mary led the mule and Jane trudged +after. + +Thus they journeyed for six weeks, writing poetry, discussing philosophy; +loving, wild, free and careless, until they came to Switzerland. One +morning they counted their money and found they had just enough to take +them to England. + +Arriving in London the Godwins were not inclined to take them back, and +society in general looked upon them with complete disfavor. + +Shelley's father was now fully convinced of his son's depravity, but doled +out enough money to prevent actual starvation. Shelley began to perceive +that any man who sets himself against the established order--the order +that the world has been thousands of years in building up--will be ground +into the dust. The old world may be wrong, but it can not be righted in a +day, and so long as a man chooses to live in society he must conform, in +the main, to society usages. These old ways that have done good service +all the years can not be replaced by the instantaneous process. If changed +at all they must change as man changes, and man must change first. It is +man that must be reformed, not custom. + +Shelley and Mary Godwin were mates if ever such existed. In a year Mary +had developed from a child into splendid womanhood--a beautiful, superior, +earnest woman. By her own efforts, of course aided by Shelley (for they +were partners in everything), she became versed in the classics and delved +deeply into the literature of a time long past. Unlike her mother, Mary +Shelley could do no great work alone. The sensitiveness and the delicacy +of her nature precluded that self-reliant egoism which can create. She +wrote one book, "Frankenstein," which in point of prophetic and +allegorical suggestion stamps the work as classic: but it was written +under the immediate spell of Shelley's presence. Shelley also could not +work alone, and without her the world's disfavor must have whipped him +into insanity and death. + +As it was they sought peace in love and Italy, living near Lord Byron in +great intimacy, and befriended by him in many ways. + +But peace was not for Shelley. Calamity was at the door. He could never +forget how he had lifted Harriet Westbrook into a position for which she +was not fitted and then left her to flounder alone. And when word came +that Harriet had drowned herself, his cup of woe was full. Shortly before +this, Fanny Godwin had gone away with great deliberation, leaving an empty +laudanum-bottle to tell the tale. + +On December Thirtieth, Eighteen Hundred Sixteen, Shelley and Mary Godwin +were married at Saint Mildred's Church, London. Both had now fully +concluded with Godwin that man owes a duty to the unborn and to society, +and that to place one's self in opposition to custom is at least very bad +policy. But although Shelley had made society tardy amends, society would +not forgive; and in a long legal fight to obtain possession of his +children, Ianthe and Charles, of whom Harriet was the mother, the Court of +Chancery decided against Shelley, on the grounds that he was "an unfit +person, being an atheist and a republican." + +About this time was born little Allegra, "the Dawn," child of Lord Byron +and Jane Clairmont. Then afterwards came bickerings with Byron and threats +of a duel and all that. + +Finally there was a struggle between Byron and Miss Clairmont for the +child: but death solved the issue and the beautiful little girl passed +beyond the reach of either. + +And so we find Shelley's heart wrung by the sorrows of others and by his +own; and when Mary and he laid away in death their bright boy William and +their baby girl Clara, the Fates seemed to have done their worst. But man +seems to have a certain capacity for pain, and beyond this even God can +not go. + +Shelley struggled on and with Mary's help continued to write. + +Another babe was born and the world grew brighter. They were now on the +shores of the Mediterranean with a little group of enthusiasts who thought +and felt as they did. For the first time they realized that, after all, +they were a part of the world, and linked to the human race--not set off +alone, despised, forsaken. + +Then to join their little community were coming Leigh Hunt and his +wife--Leigh Hunt, who had lain in prison for the right of free thought and +free speech. What a joy to greet and welcome such a man to their home! + +And so Shelley, blithe and joyous, sailed away to meet his friend. But +Shelley never came back to his wife and baby boy. A few days after, the +waves cast his body up on the beach, and you know the rest--how the +faithful Trelawney and Byron made the funeral-pyre and reduced the body to +ashes. + +Mary was twenty-six years old then. She continued to live--to +live only in the memory of her Shelley and with the firm thought in her +mind that they would be united again. She seemed to exist but to care for +her boy, and to do as best she could the work that Shelley had left +undone. + +The boy grew into a fine youth, and was as devoted to his mother as she +was to him. The title of the estate with all its vast wealth descended to +him, and together she lived out her days, tenderly cared for to the last, +dying in her son's arms, aged fifty-four. + +She has told us that the first sixteen years of her life were spent in +waiting for her Shelley, eight years she lived with him in divinest +companionship, and twenty-eight years she waited and worked to prepare +herself to rejoin him. + + * * * * * + +SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF FAMOUS WOMEN," BEING +VOLUME TWO OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED AND +ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS AND +PRODUCED BY THE ROYCROFTERS, AT THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN EAST AURORA, +ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, MCMXXII + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Journeys to the Homes of the +Great, Vol. 2 of 14, by Elbert Hubbard + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13778 *** |