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  <head>
    <title>
      The $30,000 Bequest, by Mark Twain
    </title>
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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 142 ***</div>

    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <h1>
      THE $30,000 BEQUEST
    </h1>
    <h2>
      and Other Stories
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      by Mark Twain
    </h2>
    <h3>
      (Samuel L. Clemens)
    </h3>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0006.jpg" alt="0006 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0006.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
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      <img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover " width="100%" /><br />
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    <h5>
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    </h5>
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p class="toc">
        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
      </p>
      <p>
        <br />
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE $30,000 BEQUEST </a>
      </p>
      <div class="toc2">
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
        </p>
        <br />
      </div>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A DOG'S TALE </a>
      </p>
      <div class="toc2">
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER I </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER II </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER III </a>
        </p>
        <br />
      </div>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL? </a>
      </p>
      <div class="toc2">
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER I </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER II </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER III </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER IV </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER V </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER VI </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER VII </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER IX </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER X </a>
        </p>
        <br />
      </div>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> A CURE FOR THE BLUES </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> THE CURIOUS BOOK </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> A HELPLESS SITUATION </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> EDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> THE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE </a>
      </p>
      <div class="toc2">
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0022"> Chapter I </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0023"> Chapter II </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0024"> Chapter III </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0025"> Chapter IV </a>
        </p>
        <p class="toc">
          <a href="#link2HCH0026"> Chapter V </a>
        </p>
        <br />
      </div>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> HOW TO TELL A STORY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> GENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE &ldquo;TWO-YEAR-OLDS&rdquo; </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> AMENDED OBITUARIES </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0047"> A MONUMENT TO ADAM </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0048"> A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION TO &ldquo;THE NEW GUIDE OF THE <br />
        CONVERSATION IN PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH&rdquo; </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0050"> ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0051"> POST-MORTEM POETRY (1) </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0052"> THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0053"> PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0054"> DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD? </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0055"> EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0056"> EVE'S DIARY </a>
      </p>
      <p class="toc">
        <a href="#link2H_4_0057"> EXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY </a>
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <h1>
      THE $30,000 BEQUEST
    </h1>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER I
    </h2>
    <p>
      Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants,
      and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church
      accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far West
      and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the
      Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was
      unknown in Lakeside&mdash;unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody
      and his dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.
    </p>
    <p>
      Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only
      high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five years
      old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years; he had begun in his
      marriage-week at four hundred dollars a year, and had climbed steadily up,
      a hundred dollars a year, for four years; from that time forth his wage
      had remained eight hundred&mdash;a handsome figure indeed, and everybody
      conceded that he was worth it.
    </p>
    <p>
      His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although&mdash;like himself&mdash;a
      dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she
      did, after her marriage&mdash;child as she was, aged only nineteen&mdash;was
      to buy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay down the cash
      for it&mdash;twenty-five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by
      fifteen. She instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares
      by the nearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred per cent. a year.
      Out of Saladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the
      savings-bank, sixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a
      hundred and fifty out of his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a
      year, then, and meantime two children had arrived and increased the
      expenses, but she banked two hundred a year from the salary, nevertheless,
      thenceforth. When she had been married seven years she built and furnished
      a pretty and comfortable two-thousand-dollar house in the midst of her
      garden-acre, paid half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven
      years later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out
      earning its living.
    </p>
    <p>
      Earning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long ago bought
      another acre or two and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant people
      who were willing to build, and would be good neighbors and furnish a
      general comradeship for herself and her growing family. She had an
      independent income from safe investments of about a hundred dollars a
      year; her children were growing in years and grace; and she was a pleased
      and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy in her children, and the
      husband and the children were happy in her. It is at this point that this
      history begins.
    </p>
    <p>
      The youngest girl, Clytemnestra&mdash;called Clytie for short&mdash;was
      eleven; her sister, Gwendolen&mdash;called Gwen for short&mdash;was
      thirteen; nice girls, and comely. The names betray the latent
      romance-tinge in the parental blood, the parents' names indicate that the
      tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate family, hence all four of
      its members had pet names, Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one&mdash;Sally;
      and so was Electra's&mdash;Aleck. All day long Sally was a good and
      diligent book-keeper and salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and
      faithful mother and housewife, and thoughtful and calculating business
      woman; but in the cozy living-room at night they put the plodding world
      away, and lived in another and a fairer, reading romances to each other,
      dreaming dreams, comrading with kings and princes and stately lords and
      ladies in the flash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim and
      ancient castles.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II
    </h2>
    <p>
      Now came great news! Stunning news&mdash;joyous news, in fact. It came
      from a neighboring state, where the family's only surviving relative
      lived. It was Sally's relative&mdash;a sort of vague and indefinite uncle
      or second or third cousin by the name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a
      bachelor, reputed well off and corresponding sour and crusty. Sally had
      tried to make up to him once, by letter, in a bygone time, and had not
      made that mistake again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should
      shortly die, and should leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for
      love, but because money had given him most of his troubles and
      exasperations, and he wished to place it where there was good hope that it
      would continue its malignant work. The bequest would be found in his will,
      and would be paid over. PROVIDED, that Sally should be able to prove to
      the executors that he had <i>Taken no notice of the gift by spoken word or
      by letter, had made no inquiries concerning the moribund's progress toward
      the everlasting tropics, and had not attended the funeral.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      As soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the tremendous emotions
      created by the letter, she sent to the relative's habitat and subscribed
      for the local paper.
    </p>
    <p>
      Man and wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never mention the
      great news to any one while the relative lived, lest some ignorant person
      carry the fact to the death-bed and distort it and make it appear that
      they were disobediently thankful for the bequest, and just the same as
      confessing it and publishing it, right in the face of the prohibition.
    </p>
    <p>
      For the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with his books, and
      Aleck could not keep her mind on her affairs, not even take up a
      flower-pot or book or a stick of wood without forgetting what she had
      intended to do with it. For both were dreaming.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thir-ty thousand dollars!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      All day long the music of those inspiring words sang through those
      people's heads.
    </p>
    <p>
      From his marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had been upon the purse, and
      Sally had seldom known what it was to be privileged to squander a dime on
      non-necessities.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thir-ty thousand dollars!&rdquo; the song went on and on. A vast sum, an
      unthinkable sum!
    </p>
    <p>
      All day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how to invest it, Sally in
      planning how to spend it.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was no romance-reading that night. The children took themselves away
      early, for their parents were silent, distraught, and strangely
      unentertaining. The good-night kisses might as well have been impressed
      upon vacancy, for all the response they got; the parents were not aware of
      the kisses, and the children had been gone an hour before their absence
      was noticed. Two pencils had been busy during that hour&mdash;note-making;
      in the way of plans. It was Sally who broke the stillness at last. He
      said, with exultation:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, it'll be grand, Aleck! Out of the first thousand we'll have a horse
      and a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a skin lap-robe for winter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck responded with decision and composure&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Out of the <i>capital</i>? Nothing of the kind. Not if it was a million!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out of his face.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Aleck!&rdquo; he said, reproachfully. &ldquo;We've always worked so hard and been
      so scrimped: and now that we are rich, it does seem&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his supplication had touched
      her. She said, with gentle persuasiveness:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise. Out of the
      income from it&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and good you are!
      There will be a noble income and if we can spend that&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not <i>all </i>of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a part of
      it. That is, a reasonable part. But the whole of the capital&mdash;every
      penny of it&mdash;must be put right to work, and kept at it. You see the
      reasonableness of that, don't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so long. Six months
      before the first interest falls due.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;maybe longer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Longer, Aleck? Why? Don't they pay half-yearly?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>That </i>kind of an investment&mdash;yes; but I sha'n't invest in that
      way.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What way, then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For big returns.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Big. That's good. Go on, Aleck. What is it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Coal. The new mines. Cannel. I mean to put in ten thousand. Ground floor.
      When we organize, we'll get three shares for one.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By George, but it sounds good, Aleck! Then the shares will be worth&mdash;how
      much? And when?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;About a year. They'll pay ten per cent. half yearly, and be worth thirty
      thousand. I know all about it; the advertisement is in the Cincinnati
      paper here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Land, thirty thousand for ten&mdash;in a year! Let's jam in the whole
      capital and pull out ninety! I'll write and subscribe right now&mdash;tomorrow
      it maybe too late.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck stopped him and put him back
      in his chair. She said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't lose your head so. <i>We</i> mustn't subscribe till we've got the
      money; don't you know that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was not wholly
      appeased.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Aleck, we'll <i>have </i>it, you know&mdash;and so soon, too. He's
      probably out of his troubles before this; it's a hundred to nothing he's
      selecting his brimstone-shovel this very minute. Now, I think&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck shuddered, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How <i>can </i>you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it is perfectly
      scandalous.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, well, make it a halo, if you like, <i>I</i> don't care for his
      outfit, I was only just talking. Can't you let a person talk?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But why should you <i>want </i>to talk in that dreadful way? How would
      you like to have people talk so about <i>you</i>, and you not cold yet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not likely to be, for <i>one </i>while, I reckon, if my last act was
      giving away money for the sake of doing somebody a harm with it. But never
      mind about Tilbury, Aleck, let's talk about something worldly. It does
      seem to me that that mine is the place for the whole thirty. What's the
      objection?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All the eggs in one basket&mdash;that's the objection.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty? What do you mean
      to do with that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is no hurry; I am going to look around before I do anything with
      it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right, if your mind's made up,&rdquo; sighed Sally. He was deep in thought
      awhile, then he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a year from now.
      We can spend that, can't we, Aleck?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck shook her head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, dear,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;it won't sell high till we've had the first
      semi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Shucks, only <i>that</i>&mdash;and a whole year to wait! Confound it, I&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, do be patient! It might even be declared in three months&mdash;it's
      quite within the possibilities.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!&rdquo; and Sally jumped up and kissed his wife in
      gratitude. &ldquo;It'll be three thousand&mdash;three whole thousand! how much
      of it can we spend, Aleck? Make it liberal!&mdash;do, dear, that's a good
      fellow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to the pressure and
      conceded a sum which her judgment told her was a foolish extravagance&mdash;a
      thousand dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times and even in that way
      could not express all his joy and thankfulness. This new access of
      gratitude and affection carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of prudence,
      and before she could restrain herself she had made her darling another
      grant&mdash;a couple of thousand out of the fifty or sixty which she meant
      to clear within a year of the twenty which still remained of the bequest.
      The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I want to hug you!&rdquo; And he did it. Then he got his notes and sat down
      and began to check off, for first purchase, the luxuries which he should
      earliest wish to secure. &ldquo;Horse&mdash;buggy&mdash;cutter&mdash;lap-robe&mdash;patent-leathers&mdash;dog&mdash;plug-hat&mdash;
      church-pew&mdash;stem-winder&mdash;new teeth&mdash;<i>say</i>, Aleck!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have you got the twenty
      thousand invested yet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, there's no hurry about that; I must look around first, and think.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you are ciphering; what's it about?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes out of the
      coal, haven't I?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you getting along?
      Where have you arrived?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not very far&mdash;two years or three. I've turned it over twice; once in
      oil and once in wheat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggregate?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think&mdash;well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and eighty
      thousand clear, though it will probably be more.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our way at last, after
      all the hard sledding. Aleck!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the missionaries&mdash;what
      real right have we care for expenses!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's just like your generous
      nature, you unselfish boy.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and just enough to
      say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather than to himself, since but for
      her he should never have had the money.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss they forgot and
      left the candle burning in the parlor. They did not remember until they
      were undressed; then Sally was for letting it burn; he said they could
      afford it, if it was a thousand. But Aleck went down and put it out.
    </p>
    <p>
      A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme that would turn
      the hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it had had time
      to get cold.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III
    </h2>
    <p>
      The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a Thursday sheet;
      it would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury's village and
      arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on Friday, more than a
      day too late for the benefactor to die and get into that week's issue, but
      in plenty of time to make connection for the next output. Thus the Fosters
      had to wait almost a complete week to find out whether anything of a
      satisfactory nature had happened to him or not. It was a long, long week,
      and the strain was a heavy one. The pair could hardly have borne it if
      their minds had not had the relief of wholesome diversion. We have seen
      that they had that. The woman was piling up fortunes right along, the man
      was spending them&mdash;spending all his wife would give him a chance at,
      at any rate.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last the Saturday came, and the <i>Weekly Sagamore</i> arrived. Mrs.
      Eversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian parson's wife, and
      was working the Fosters for a charity. Talk now died a sudden death&mdash;on
      the Foster side. Mrs. Bennett presently discovered that her hosts were not
      hearing a word she was saying; so she got up, wondering and indignant, and
      went away. The moment she was out of the house, Aleck eagerly tore the
      wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's swept the columns for the
      death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was not anywhere mentioned. Aleck
      was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and the force of habit required
      her to go through the motions. She pulled herself together and said, with
      a pious two-per-cent. trade joyousness:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Damn his treacherous hide, I wish&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sally! For shame!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't care!&rdquo; retorted the angry man. &ldquo;It's the way <i>you </i>feel, and
      if you weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and say so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck said, with wounded dignity:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things. There is no
      such thing as immoral piety.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt to
      save his case by changing the form of it&mdash;as if changing the form
      while retaining the juice could deceive the expert he was trying to
      placate. He said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't really mean immoral piety,
      I only meant&mdash;meant&mdash;well, conventional piety, you know; er&mdash;shop
      piety; the&mdash;the&mdash;why, <i>you </i>know what I mean. Aleck&mdash;the&mdash;well,
      where you put up that plated article and play it for solid, you know,
      without intending anything improper, but just out of trade habit, ancient
      policy, petrified custom, loyalty to&mdash;to&mdash;hang it, I can't find
      the right words, but <i>you </i>know what I mean, Aleck, and that there
      isn't any harm in it. I'll try again. You see, it's this way. If a person&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You have said quite enough,&rdquo; said Aleck, coldly; &ldquo;let the subject be
      dropped.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm willing,&rdquo; fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat from his
      forehead and looking the thankfulness he had no words for. Then, musingly,
      he apologized to himself. &ldquo;I certainly held threes&mdash;<i>I know</i> it&mdash;but
      I drew and didn't fill. That's where I'm so often weak in the game. If I
      had stood pat&mdash;but I didn't. I never do. I don't know enough.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Confessedly defeated, he was properly tame now and subdued. Aleck forgave
      him with her eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      The grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the front
      again; nothing could keep it in the background many minutes on a stretch.
      The couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury's death-notice.
      They discussed it every which way, more or less hopefully, but they had to
      finish where they began, and concede that the only really sane explanation
      of the absence of the notice must be&mdash;and without doubt was&mdash;that
      Tilbury was not dead. There was something sad about it, something even a
      little unfair, maybe, but there it was, and had to be put up with. They
      were agreed as to that. To Sally it seemed a strangely inscrutable
      dispensation; more inscrutable than usual, he thought; one of the most
      unnecessary inscrutable he could call to mind, in fact&mdash;and said so,
      with some feeling; but if he was hoping to draw Aleck he failed; she
      reserved her opinion, if she had one; she had not the habit of taking
      injudicious risks in any market, worldly or other.
    </p>
    <p>
      The pair must wait for next week's paper&mdash;Tilbury had evidently
      postponed. That was their thought and their decision. So they put the
      subject away and went about their affairs again with as good heart as they
      could.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, if they had but known it, they had been wronging Tilbury all the
      time. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the letter; he was dead, he had
      died to schedule. He was dead more than four days now and used to it;
      entirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead as any other new person in the
      cemetery; dead in abundant time to get into that week's <i>Sagamore</i>,
      too, and only shut out by an accident; an accident which could not happen
      to a metropolitan journal, but which happens easily to a poor little
      village rag like the <i>Sagamore</i>. On this occasion, just as the
      editorial page was being locked up, a gratis quart of strawberry ice-water
      arrived from Hostetter's Ladies and Gents Ice-Cream Parlors, and the
      stickful of rather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got crowded
      out to make room for the editor's frantic gratitude.
    </p>
    <p>
      On its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice got pied. Otherwise it
      would have gone into some future edition, for <i>weekly Sagamores</i> do
      not waste &ldquo;live&rdquo; matter, and in their galleys &ldquo;live&rdquo; matter is immortal,
      unless a pi accident intervenes. But a thing that gets pied is dead, and
      for such there is no resurrection; its chance of seeing print is gone,
      forever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let him rave in his
      grave to his fill, no matter&mdash;no mention of his death would ever see
      the light in the <i>Weekly Sagamore</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV
    </h2>
    <p>
      Five weeks drifted tediously along. The <i>Sagamore </i>arrived regularly
      on the Saturdays, but never once contained a mention of Tilbury Foster.
      Sally's patience broke down at this point, and he said, resentfully:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Damn his livers, he's immortal!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck give him a very severe rebuke, and added with icy solemnity:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How would you feel if you were suddenly cut off just after such an awful
      remark had escaped out of you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Without sufficient reflection Sally responded:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it <i>in</i> me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Pride had forced him to say something, and as he could not think of any
      rational thing to say he flung that out. Then he stole a base&mdash;as he
      called it&mdash;that is, slipped from the presence, to keep from being
      brayed in his wife's discussion-mortar.
    </p>
    <p>
      Six months came and went. The <i>Sagamore </i>was still silent about
      Tilbury. Meantime, Sally had several times thrown out a feeler&mdash;that
      is, a hint that he would like to know. Aleck had ignored the hints. Sally
      now resolved to brace up and risk a frontal attack. So he squarely
      proposed to disguise himself and go to Tilbury's village and
      surreptitiously find out as to the prospects. Aleck put her foot on the
      dangerous project with energy and decision. She said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What can you be thinking of? You do keep my hands full! You have to be
      watched all the time, like a little child, to keep you from walking into
      the fire. You'll stay right where you are!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, Aleck, I could do it and not be found out&mdash;I'm certain of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sally Foster, don't you know you would have to inquire around?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I was.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to prove to the executors that
      you never inquired. What then?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply; there wasn't anything to
      say. Aleck added:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now then, drop that notion out of your mind, and don't ever meddle with
      it again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap? He is
      on the watch, and fully expecting you to blunder into it. Well, he is
      going to be disappointed&mdash;at least while I am on deck. Sally!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you ever make an
      inquiry. Promise!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; with a sigh and reluctantly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then Aleck softened and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we can wait; there is no hurry.
      Our small dead-certain income increases all the time; and as to futures, I
      have not made a mistake yet&mdash;they are piling up by the thousands and
      tens of thousands. There is not another family in the state with such
      prospects as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in eventual wealth.
      You know that, don't you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then be grateful for what God is doing for us and stop worrying. You do
      not believe we could have achieved these prodigious results without His
      special help and guidance, do you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hesitatingly, &ldquo;N-no, I suppose not.&rdquo; Then, with feeling and admiration,
      &ldquo;And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in watering a stock or putting up
      a hand to skin Wall Street I don't give in that <i>you </i>need any
      outside amateur help, if I do wish I&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, <i>do</i> shut up! I know you do not mean any harm or any
      irreverence, poor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth without
      letting out things to make a person shudder. You keep me in constant
      dread. For you and for all of us. Once I had no fear of the thunder, but
      now when I hear it I&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Her voice broke, and she began to cry, and could not finish. The sight of
      this smote Sally to the heart and he took her in his arms and petted her
      and comforted her and promised better conduct, and upbraided himself and
      remorsefully pleaded for forgiveness. And he was in earnest, and sorry for
      what he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could make up for it.
    </p>
    <p>
      And so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply over the matter, resolving
      to do what should seem best. It was easy to <i>promise </i>reform; indeed
      he had already promised it. But would that do any real good, any permanent
      good? No, it would be but temporary&mdash;he knew his weakness, and
      confessed it to himself with sorrow&mdash;he could not keep the promise.
      Something surer and better must be devised; and he devised it. At cost of
      precious money which he had long been saving up, shilling by shilling, he
      put a lightning-rod on the house.
    </p>
    <p>
      At a subsequent time he relapsed.
    </p>
    <p>
      What miracles habit can do! and how quickly and how easily habits are
      acquired&mdash;both trifling habits and habits which profoundly change us.
      If by accident we wake at two in the morning a couple of nights in
      succession, we have need to be uneasy, for another repetition can turn the
      accident into a habit; and a month's dallying with whiskey&mdash;but we
      all know these commonplace facts.
    </p>
    <p>
      The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit&mdash;how it grows! what
      a luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment,
      how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with
      their beguiling fantasies&mdash;oh yes, and how soon and how easily our
      dream life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused
      together that we can't quite tell which is which, any more.
    </p>
    <p>
      By and by Aleck subscribed to a Chicago daily and for the <i>Wall Street
      Pointer</i>. With an eye single to finance she studied these as diligently
      all the week as she studied her Bible Sundays. Sally was lost in
      admiration, to note with what swift and sure strides her genius and
      judgment developed and expanded in the forecasting and handling of the
      securities of both the material and spiritual markets. He was proud of her
      nerve and daring in exploiting worldly stocks, and just as proud of her
      conservative caution in working her spiritual deals. He noted that she
      never lost her head in either case; that with a splendid courage she often
      went short on worldly futures, but heedfully drew the line there&mdash;she
      was always long on the others. Her policy was quite sane and simple, as
      she explained it to him: what she put into earthly futures was for
      speculation, what she put into spiritual futures was for investment; she
      was willing to go into the one on a margin, and take chances, but in the
      case of the other, &ldquo;margin her no margins&rdquo;&mdash;she wanted to cash in a
      hundred cents per dollar's worth, and have the stock transferred on the
      books.
    </p>
    <p>
      It took but a very few months to educate Aleck's imagination and Sally's.
      Each day's training added something to the spread and effectiveness of the
      two machines. As a consequence, Aleck made imaginary money much faster
      than at first she had dreamed of making it, and Sally's competency in
      spending the overflow of it kept pace with the strain put upon it, right
      along. In the beginning, Aleck had given the coal speculation a
      twelvemonth in which to materialize, and had been loath to grant that this
      term might possibly be shortened by nine months. But that was the feeble
      work, the nursery work, of a financial fancy that had had no teaching, no
      experience, no practice. These aids soon came, then that nine months
      vanished, and the imaginary ten-thousand-dollar investment came marching
      home with three hundred per cent. profit on its back!
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were speechless for joy.
      Also speechless for another reason: after much watching of the market,
      Aleck had lately, with fear and trembling, made her first flyer on a
      &ldquo;margin,&rdquo; using the remaining twenty thousand of the bequest in this risk.
      In her mind's eye she had seen it climb, point by point&mdash;always with
      a chance that the market would break&mdash;until at last her anxieties
      were too great for further endurance&mdash;she being new to the margin
      business and unhardened, as yet&mdash;and she gave her imaginary broker an
      imaginary order by imaginary telegraph to sell. She said forty thousand
      dollars' profit was enough. The sale was made on the very day that the
      coal venture had returned with its rich freight. As I have said, the
      couple were speechless, they sat dazed and blissful that night, trying to
      realize that they were actually worth a hundred thousand dollars in clean,
      imaginary cash. Yet so it was.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of a margin; at least
      afraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her cheek to the extent
      that this first experience in that line had done.
    </p>
    <p>
      Indeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization that they were
      rich sank securely home into the souls of the pair, then they began to
      place the money. If we could have looked out through the eyes of these
      dreamers, we should have seen their tidy little wooden house disappear,
      and two-story brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it take its place;
      we should have seen a three-globed gas-chandelier grow down from the
      parlor ceiling; we should have seen the homely rag carpet turn to noble
      Brussels, a dollar and a half a yard; we should have seen the plebeian
      fireplace vanish away and a recherche, big base-burner with isinglass
      windows take position and spread awe around. And we should have seen other
      things, too; among them the buggy, the lap-robe, the stove-pipe hat, and
      so on.
    </p>
    <p>
      From that time forth, although the daughters and the neighbors saw only
      the same old wooden house there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck and
      Sally and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry about the imaginary
      gas-bills, and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort: &ldquo;What of it?
      We can afford it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Before the couple went to bed, that first night that they were rich, they
      had decided that they must celebrate. They must give a party&mdash;that
      was the idea. But how to explain it&mdash;to the daughters and the
      neighbors? They could not expose the fact that they were rich. Sally was
      willing, even anxious, to do it; but Aleck kept her head and would not
      allow it. She said that although the money was as good as in, it would be
      as well to wait until it was actually in. On that policy she took her
      stand, and would not budge. The great secret must be kept, she said&mdash;kept
      from the daughters and everybody else.
    </p>
    <p>
      The pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they were determined to
      celebrate, but since the secret must be kept, what could they celebrate?
      No birthdays were due for three months. Tilbury wasn't available,
      evidently he was going to live forever; what the nation <i>could </i>they
      celebrate? That was Sally's way of putting it; and he was getting
      impatient, too, and harassed. But at last he hit it&mdash;just by sheer
      inspiration, as it seemed to him&mdash;and all their troubles were gone in
      a moment; they would celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid idea!
    </p>
    <p>
      Aleck was almost too proud of Sally for words&mdash;she said <i>she </i>never
      would have thought of it. But Sally, although he was bursting with delight
      in the compliment and with wonder at himself, tried not to let on, and
      said it wasn't really anything, anybody could have done it. Whereat Aleck,
      with a prideful toss of her happy head, said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, certainly! Anybody could&mdash;oh, anybody! Hosannah Dilkins, for
      instance! Or maybe Adelbert Peanut&mdash;oh, <i>dear</i>&mdash;yes! Well,
      I'd like to see them try it, that's all. Dear-me-suz, if they could think
      of the discovery of a forty-acre island it's more than <i>I</i> believe
      they could; and as for the whole continent, why, Sally Foster, you know
      perfectly well it would strain the livers and lights out of them and <i>then</i>
      they couldn't!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The dear woman, she knew he had talent; and if affection made her
      over-estimate the size of it a little, surely it was a sweet and gentle
      crime, and forgivable for its source's sake.
    </p>
    <p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER V
    </h2>
    <p>
      The celebration went off well. The friends were all present, both the
      young and the old. Among the young were Flossie and Gracie Peanut and
      their brother Adelbert, who was a rising young journeyman tinner, also
      Hosannah Dilkins, Jr., journeyman plasterer, just out of his
      apprenticeship. For many months Adelbert and Hosannah had been showing
      interest in Gwendolen and Clytemnestra Foster, and the parents of the
      girls had noticed this with private satisfaction. But they suddenly
      realized now that that feeling had passed. They recognized that the
      changed financial conditions had raised up a social bar between their
      daughters and the young mechanics. The daughters could now look higher&mdash;and
      must. Yes, must. They need marry nothing below the grade of lawyer or
      merchant; poppa and momma would take care of this; there must be no
      mesalliances.
    </p>
    <p>
      However, these thinkings and projects of theirs were private, and did not
      show on the surface, and therefore threw no shadow upon the celebration.
      What showed upon the surface was a serene and lofty contentment and a
      dignity of carriage and gravity of deportment which compelled the
      admiration and likewise the wonder of the company. All noticed it and all
      commented upon it, but none was able to divine the secret of it. It was a
      marvel and a mystery. Three several persons remarked, without suspecting
      what clever shots they were making:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's as if they'd come into property.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That was just it, indeed.
    </p>
    <p>
      Most mothers would have taken hold of the matrimonial matter in the old
      regulation way; they would have given the girls a talking to, of a solemn
      sort and untactful&mdash;a lecture calculated to defeat its own purpose,
      by producing tears and secret rebellion; and the said mothers would have
      further damaged the business by requesting the young mechanics to
      discontinue their attentions. But this mother was different. She was
      practical. She said nothing to any of the young people concerned, nor to
      any one else except Sally. He listened to her and understood; understood
      and admired. He said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I get the idea. Instead of finding fault with the samples on view, thus
      hurting feelings and obstructing trade without occasion, you merely offer
      a higher class of goods for the money, and leave nature to take her
      course. It's wisdom, Aleck, solid wisdom, and sound as a nut. Who's your
      fish? Have you nominated him yet?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No, she hadn't. They must look the market over&mdash;which they did. To
      start with, they considered and discussed Brandish, rising young lawyer,
      and Fulton, rising young dentist. Sally must invite them to dinner. But
      not right away; there was no hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair,
      and wait; nothing would be lost by going slowly in so important a matter.
    </p>
    <p>
      It turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside of three weeks Aleck
      made a wonderful strike which swelled her imaginary hundred thousand to
      four hundred thousand of the same quality. She and Sally were in the
      clouds that evening. For the first time they introduced champagne at
      dinner. Not real champagne, but plenty real enough for the amount of
      imagination expended on it. It was Sally that did it, and Aleck weakly
      submitted. At bottom both were troubled and ashamed, for he was a high-up
      Son of Temperance, and at funerals wore an apron which no dog could look
      upon and retain his reason and his opinion; and she was a W. C. T. U.,
      with all that that implies of boiler-iron virtue and unendurable holiness.
      But there it was; the pride of riches was beginning its disintegrating
      work. They had lived to prove, once more, a sad truth which had been
      proven many times before in the world: that whereas principle is a great
      and noble protection against showy and degrading vanities and vices,
      poverty is worth six of it. More than four hundred thousand dollars to the
      good. They took up the matrimonial matter again. Neither the dentist nor
      the lawyer was mentioned; there was no occasion, they were out of the
      running. Disqualified. They discussed the son of the pork-packer and the
      son of the village banker. But finally, as in the previous case, they
      concluded to wait and think, and go cautiously and sure.
    </p>
    <p>
      Luck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful saw a great and risky
      chance, and took a daring flyer. A time of trembling, of doubt, of awful
      uneasiness followed, for non-success meant absolute ruin and nothing short
      of it. Then came the result, and Aleck, faint with joy, could hardly
      control her voice when she said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The suspense is over, Sally&mdash;and we are worth a cold million!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sally wept for gratitude, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are free at last, we
      roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve
      Cliquot!&rdquo; and he got out a pint of spruce-beer and made sacrifice, he
      saying &ldquo;Damn the expense,&rdquo; and she rebuking him gently with reproachful
      but humid and happy eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      They shelved the pork-packer's son and the banker's son, and sat down to
      consider the Governor's son and the son of the Congressman.
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI
    </h2>
    <p>
      It were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and bounds the Foster
      fictitious finances took from this time forth. It was marvelous, it was
      dizzying, it was dazzling. Everything Aleck touched turned to fairy gold,
      and heaped itself glittering toward the firmament. Millions upon millions
      poured in, and still the mighty stream flowed thundering along, still its
      vast volume increased. Five millions&mdash;ten millions&mdash;twenty&mdash;thirty&mdash;was
      there never to be an end?
    </p>
    <p>
      Two years swept by in a splendid delirium, the intoxicated Fosters
      scarcely noticing the flight of time. They were now worth three hundred
      million dollars; they were in every board of directors of every prodigious
      combine in the country; and still as time drifted along, the millions went
      on piling up, five at a time, ten at a time, as fast as they could tally
      them off, almost. The three hundred double itself&mdash;then doubled again&mdash;and
      yet again&mdash;and yet once more.
    </p>
    <p>
      Twenty-four hundred millions!
    </p>
    <p>
      The business was getting a little confused. It was necessary to take an
      account of stock, and straighten it out. The Fosters knew it, they felt
      it, they realized that it was imperative; but they also knew that to do it
      properly and perfectly the task must be carried to a finish without a
      break when once it was begun. A ten-hours' job; and where could <i>they
      </i>find ten leisure hours in a bunch? Sally was selling pins and sugar
      and calico all day and every day; Aleck was cooking and washing dishes and
      sweeping and making beds all day and every day, with none to help, for the
      daughters were being saved up for high society. The Fosters knew there was
      one way to get the ten hours, and only one. Both were ashamed to name it;
      each waited for the other to do it. Finally Sally said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Somebody's got to give in. It's up to me. Consider that I've named it&mdash;never
      mind pronouncing it out aloud.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck colored, but was grateful. Without further remark, they fell. Fell,
      and&mdash;broke the Sabbath. For that was their only free ten-hour
      stretch. It was but another step in the downward path. Others would
      follow. Vast wealth has temptations which fatally and surely undermine the
      moral structure of persons not habituated to its possession.
    </p>
    <p>
      They pulled down the shades and broke the Sabbath. With hard and patient
      labor they overhauled their holdings and listed them. And a long-drawn
      procession of formidable names it was! Starting with the Railway Systems,
      Steamer Lines, Standard Oil, Ocean Cables, Diluted Telegraph, and all the
      rest, and winding up with Klondike, De Beers, Tammany Graft, and Shady
      Privileges in the Post-office Department.
    </p>
    <p>
      Twenty-four hundred millions, and all safely planted in Good Things,
      gilt-edged and interest-bearing. Income, $120,000,000 a year. Aleck
      fetched a long purr of soft delight, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it enough?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is, Aleck.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stand pat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Retire from business?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am agreed. The good work is finished; we will take a long rest and
      enjoy the money.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good! Aleck!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, dear?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How much of the income can we spend?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The whole of it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from his limbs. He did
      not say a word; he was happy beyond the power of speech.
    </p>
    <p>
      After that, they broke the Sabbaths right along as fast as they turned up.
      It is the first wrong step that counts. Every Sunday they put in the whole
      day, after morning service, on inventions&mdash;inventions of ways to
      spend the money. They got to continuing this delicious dissipation until
      past midnight; and at every seance Aleck lavished millions upon great
      charities and religious enterprises, and Sally lavished like sums upon
      matters to which (at first) he gave definite names. Only at first. Later
      the names gradually lost sharpness of outline, and eventually faded into
      &ldquo;sundries,&rdquo; thus becoming entirely&mdash;but safely&mdash;undescriptive.
      For Sally was crumbling. The placing of these millions added seriously and
      most uncomfortably to the family expenses&mdash;in tallow candles. For a
      while Aleck was worried. Then, after a little, she ceased to worry, for
      the occasion of it was gone. She was pained, she was grieved, she was
      ashamed; but she said nothing, and so became an accessory. Sally was
      taking candles; he was robbing the store. It is ever thus. Vast wealth, to
      the person unaccustomed to it, is a bane; it eats into the flesh and bone
      of his morals. When the Fosters were poor, they could have been trusted
      with untold candles. But now they&mdash;but let us not dwell upon it. From
      candles to apples is but a step: Sally got to taking apples; then soap;
      then maple-sugar; then canned goods; then crockery. How easy it is to go
      from bad to worse, when once we have started upon a downward course!
    </p>
    <p>
      Meantime, other effects had been milestoning the course of the Fosters'
      splendid financial march. The fictitious brick dwelling had given place to
      an imaginary granite one with a checker-board mansard roof; in time this
      one disappeared and gave place to a still grander home&mdash;and so on and
      so on. Mansion after mansion, made of air, rose, higher, broader, finer,
      and each in its turn vanished away; until now in these latter great days,
      our dreamers were in fancy housed, in a distant region, in a sumptuous
      vast palace which looked out from a leafy summit upon a noble prospect of
      vale and river and receding hills steeped in tinted mists&mdash;and all
      private, all the property of the dreamers; a palace swarming with liveried
      servants, and populous with guests of fame and power, hailing from all the
      world's capitals, foreign and domestic.
    </p>
    <p>
      This palace was far, far away toward the rising sun, immeasurably remote,
      astronomically remote, in Newport, Rhode Island, Holy Land of High
      Society, ineffable Domain of the American Aristocracy. As a rule they
      spent a part of every Sabbath&mdash;after morning service&mdash;in this
      sumptuous home, the rest of it they spent in Europe, or in dawdling around
      in their private yacht. Six days of sordid and plodding fact life at home
      on the ragged edge of Lakeside and straitened means, the seventh in
      Fairyland&mdash;such had been their program and their habit.
    </p>
    <p>
      In their sternly restricted fact life they remained as of old&mdash;plodding,
      diligent, careful, practical, economical. They stuck loyally to the little
      Presbyterian Church, and labored faithfully in its interests and stood by
      its high and tough doctrines with all their mental and spiritual energies.
      But in their dream life they obeyed the invitations of their fancies,
      whatever they might be, and howsoever the fancies might change. Aleck's
      fancies were not very capricious, and not frequent, but Sally's scattered
      a good deal. Aleck, in her dream life, went over to the Episcopal camp, on
      account of its large official titles; next she became High-church on
      account of the candles and shows; and next she naturally changed to Rome,
      where there were cardinals and more candles. But these excursions were a
      nothing to Sally's. His dream life was a glowing and continuous and
      persistent excitement, and he kept every part of it fresh and sparkling by
      frequent changes, the religious part along with the rest. He worked his
      religions hard, and changed them with his shirt.
    </p>
    <p>
      The liberal spendings of the Fosters upon their fancies began early in
      their prosperities, and grew in prodigality step by step with their
      advancing fortunes. In time they became truly enormous. Aleck built a
      university or two per Sunday; also a hospital or two; also a Rowton hotel
      or so; also a batch of churches; now and then a cathedral; and once, with
      untimely and ill-chosen playfulness, Sally said, &ldquo;It was a cold day when
      she didn't ship a cargo of missionaries to persuade unreflecting Chinamen
      to trade off twenty-four carat Confucianism for counterfeit Christianity.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This rude and unfeeling language hurt Aleck to the heart, and she went
      from the presence crying. That spectacle went to his own heart, and in his
      pain and shame he would have given worlds to have those unkind words back.
      She had uttered no syllable of reproach&mdash;and that cut him. Not one
      suggestion that he look at his own record&mdash;and she could have made,
      oh, so many, and such blistering ones! Her generous silence brought a
      swift revenge, for it turned his thoughts upon himself, it summoned before
      him a spectral procession, a moving vision of his life as he had been
      leading it these past few years of limitless prosperity, and as he sat
      there reviewing it his cheeks burned and his soul was steeped in
      humiliation. Look at her life&mdash;how fair it was, and tending ever
      upward; and look at his own&mdash;how frivolous, how charged with mean
      vanities, how selfish, how empty, how ignoble! And its trend&mdash;never
      upward, but downward, ever downward!
    </p>
    <p>
      He instituted comparisons between her record and his own. He had found
      fault with her&mdash;so he mused&mdash;<i>he</i>! And what could he say
      for himself? When she built her first church what was he doing? Gathering
      other blase multimillionaires into a Poker Club; defiling his own palace
      with it; losing hundreds of thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily
      vain of the admiring notoriety it made for him. When she was building her
      first university, what was he doing? Polluting himself with a gay and
      dissipated secret life in the company of other fast bloods,
      multimillionaires in money and paupers in character. When she was building
      her first foundling asylum, what was he doing? Alas! When she was
      projecting her noble Society for the Purifying of the Sex, what was he
      doing? Ah, what, indeed! When she and the W. C. T. U. and the Woman with
      the Hatchet, moving with resistless march, were sweeping the fatal bottle
      from the land, what was he doing? Getting drunk three times a day. When
      she, builder of a hundred cathedrals, was being gratefully welcomed and
      blest in papal Rome and decorated with the Golden Rose which she had so
      honorably earned, what was he doing? Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.
    </p>
    <p>
      He stopped. He could go no farther; he could not bear the rest. He rose
      up, with a great resolution upon his lips: this secret life should be
      revealed, and confessed; no longer would he live it clandestinely, he
      would go and tell her All.
    </p>
    <p>
      And that is what he did. He told her All; and wept upon her bosom; wept,
      and moaned, and begged for her forgiveness. It was a profound shock, and
      she staggered under the blow, but he was her own, the core of her heart,
      the blessing of her eyes, her all in all, she could deny him nothing, and
      she forgave him. She felt that he could never again be quite to her what
      he had been before; she knew that he could only repent, and not reform;
      yet all morally defaced and decayed as he was, was he not her own, her
      very own, the idol of her deathless worship? She said she was his serf,
      his slave, and she opened her yearning heart and took him in.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII
    </h2>
    <p>
      One Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing the summer
      seas in their dream yacht, and reclining in lazy luxury under the awning
      of the after-deck. There was silence, for each was busy with his own
      thoughts. These seasons of silence had insensibly been growing more and
      more frequent of late; the old nearness and cordiality were waning.
      Sally's terrible revelation had done its work; Aleck had tried hard to
      drive the memory of it out of her mind, but it would not go, and the shame
      and bitterness of it were poisoning her gracious dream life. She could see
      now (on Sundays) that her husband was becoming a bloated and repulsive
      Thing. She could not close her eyes to this, and in these days she no
      longer looked at him, Sundays, when she could help it.
    </p>
    <p>
      But she&mdash;was she herself without blemish? Alas, she knew she was not.
      She was keeping a secret from him, she was acting dishonorably toward him,
      and many a pang it was costing her. <i>She was breaking the compact, and
      concealing it from him</i>. Under strong temptation she had gone into
      business again; she had risked their whole fortune in a purchase of all
      the railway systems and coal and steel companies in the country on a
      margin, and she was now trembling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some
      chance word of hers he find it out. In her misery and remorse for this
      treachery she could not keep her heart from going out to him in pity; she
      was filled with compunctions to see him lying there, drunk and contented,
      and never suspecting. Never suspecting&mdash;trusting her with a perfect
      and pathetic trust, and she holding over him by a thread a possible
      calamity of so devastating a&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Say</i>&mdash;Aleck?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself. She was grateful
      to have that persecuting subject from her thoughts, and she answered, with
      much of the old-time tenderness in her tone:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, dear.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a mistake&mdash;that is, you
      are. I mean about the marriage business.&rdquo; He sat up, fat and froggy and
      benevolent, like a bronze Buddha, and grew earnest. &ldquo;Consider&mdash;it's
      more than five years. You've continued the same policy from the start:
      with every rise, always holding on for five points higher. Always when I
      think we are going to have some weddings, you see a bigger thing ahead,
      and I undergo another disappointment. <i>I</i> think you are too hard to
      please. Some day we'll get left. First, we turned down the dentist and the
      lawyer. That was all right&mdash;it was sound. Next, we turned down the
      banker's son and the pork-butcher's heir&mdash;right again, and sound.
      Next, we turned down the Congressman's son and the Governor's&mdash;right
      as a trivet, I confess it. Next the Senator's son and the son of the
      Vice-President of the United States&mdash;perfectly right, there's no
      permanency about those little distinctions. Then you went for the
      aristocracy; and I thought we had struck oil at last&mdash;yes. We would
      make a plunge at the Four Hundred, and pull in some ancient lineage,
      venerable, holy, ineffable, mellow with the antiquity of a hundred and
      fifty years, disinfected of the ancestral odors of salt-cod and pelts all
      of a century ago, and unsmirched by a day's work since, and then! why,
      then the marriages, of course. But no, along comes a pair of real
      aristocrats from Europe, and straightway you throw over the half-breeds.
      It was awfully discouraging, Aleck! Since then, what a procession! You
      turned down the baronets for a pair of barons; you turned down the barons
      for a pair of viscounts; the viscounts for a pair of earls; the earls for
      a pair of marquises; the marquises for a brace of dukes. <i>Now</i>,
      Aleck, cash in!&mdash;you've played the limit. You've got a job lot of
      four dukes under the hammer; of four nationalities; all sound in the wind
      and limb and pedigree, all bankrupt and in debt up to the ears. They come
      high, but we can afford it. Come, Aleck, don't delay any longer, don't
      keep up the suspense: take the whole lay-out, and leave the girls to
      choose!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck had been smiling blandly and contentedly all through this
      arraignment of her marriage policy, a pleasant light, as of triumph with
      perhaps a nice surprise peeping out through it, rose in her eyes, and she
      said, as calmly as she could:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sally, what would you say to&mdash;<i>royalty</i>?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Prodigious! Poor man, it knocked him silly, and he fell over the
      garboard-strake and barked his shin on the cat-heads. He was dizzy for a
      moment, then he gathered himself up and limped over and sat down by his
      wife and beamed his old-time admiration and affection upon her in floods,
      out of his bleary eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;By George!&rdquo; he said, fervently, &ldquo;Aleck, you <i>are </i>great&mdash;the
      greatest woman in the whole earth! I can't ever learn the whole size of
      you. I can't ever learn the immeasurable deeps of you. Here I've been
      considering myself qualified to criticize your game. <i>I!</i> Why, if I
      had stopped to think, I'd have known you had a lone hand up your sleeve.
      Now, dear heart, I'm all red-hot impatience&mdash;tell me about it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The flattered and happy woman put her lips to his ear and whispered a
      princely name. It made him catch his breath, it lit his face with
      exultation.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Land!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it's a stunning catch! He's got a gambling-hall, and a
      graveyard, and a bishop, and a cathedral&mdash;all his very own. And all
      gilt-edged five-hundred-per-cent. stock, every detail of it; the tidiest
      little property in Europe; and that graveyard&mdash;it's the selectest in
      the world: none but suicides admitted; <i>yes</i>, sir, and the free-list
      suspended, too, <i>all </i>the time. There isn't much land in the
      principality, but there's enough: eight hundred acres in the graveyard and
      forty-two outside. It's a <i>sovereignty</i>&mdash;that's the main thing;
      <i>land's</i> nothing. There's plenty land, Sahara's drugged with it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Aleck glowed; she was profoundly happy. She said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Think of it, Sally&mdash;it is a family that has never married outside
      the Royal and Imperial Houses of Europe: our grandchildren will sit upon
      thrones!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;True as you live, Aleck&mdash;and bear scepters, too; and handle them as
      naturally and nonchantly as I handle a yardstick. It's a grand catch,
      Aleck. He's corralled, is he? Can't get away? You didn't take him on a
      margin?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. Trust me for that. He's not a liability, he's an asset. So is the
      other one.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Who is it, Aleck?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;His Royal Highness
      Sigismund-Siegfried-Lauenfeld-Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst,
      Hereditary Grand Duke of Katzenyammer.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No! You can't mean it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's as true as I'm sitting here, I give you my word,&rdquo; she answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      His cup was full, and he hugged her to his heart with rapture, saying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How wonderful it all seems, and how beautiful! It's one of the oldest and
      noblest of the three hundred and sixty-four ancient German principalities,
      and one of the few that was allowed to retain its royal estate when
      Bismarck got done trimming them. I know that farm, I've been there. It's
      got a rope-walk and a candle-factory and an army. Standing army. Infantry
      and cavalry. Three soldier and a horse. Aleck, it's been a long wait, and
      full of heartbreak and hope deferred, but God knows I am happy now. Happy,
      and grateful to you, my own, who have done it all. When is it to be?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Next Sunday.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good. And we'll want to do these weddings up in the very regalest style
      that's going. It's properly due to the royal quality of the parties of the
      first part. Now as I understand it, there is only one kind of marriage
      that is sacred to royalty, exclusive to royalty: it's the morganatic.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do they call it that for, Sally?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know; but anyway it's royal, and royal only.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then we will insist upon it. More&mdash;I will compel it. It is
      morganatic marriage or none.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That settles it!&rdquo; said Sally, rubbing his hands with delight. &ldquo;And it
      will be the very first in America. Aleck, it will make Newport sick.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then they fell silent, and drifted away upon their dream wings to the far
      regions of the earth to invite all the crowned heads and their families
      and provide gratis transportation to them.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII
    </h2>
    <p>
      During three days the couple walked upon air, with their heads in the
      clouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw
      all things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped in dreams, often
      they did not hear when they were spoken to; they often did not understand
      when they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally sold
      molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when asked for
      candles, and Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to the soiled
      linen. Everybody was stunned and amazed, and went about muttering, &ldquo;What
      <i>can </i>be the matter with the Fosters?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Three days. Then came events! Things had taken a happy turn, and for
      forty-eight hours Aleck's imaginary corner had been booming. Up&mdash;up&mdash;still
      up! Cost point was passed. Still up&mdash;and up&mdash;and up! Five points
      above cost&mdash;then ten&mdash;fifteen&mdash;twenty! Twenty points cold
      profit on the vast venture, now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers were
      shouting frantically by imaginary long-distance, &ldquo;Sell! sell! for Heaven's
      sake <i>sell</i>!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said, &ldquo;Sell! sell&mdash;oh,
      don't make a blunder, now, you own the earth!&mdash;sell, sell!&rdquo; But she
      set her iron will and lashed it amidships, and said she would hold on for
      five points more if she died for it.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a fatal resolve. The very next day came the historic crash, the
      record crash, the devastating crash, when the bottom fell out of Wall
      Street, and the whole body of gilt-edged stocks dropped ninety-five points
      in five hours, and the multimillionaire was seen begging his bread in the
      Bowery. Aleck sternly held her grip and &ldquo;put up&rdquo; as long as she could, but
      at last there came a call which she was powerless to meet, and her
      imaginary brokers sold her out. Then, and not till then, the man in her
      was vanished, and the woman in her resumed sway. She put her arms about
      her husband's neck and wept, saying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear it. We are paupers!
      Paupers, and I am so miserable. The weddings will never come off; all that
      is past; we could not even buy the dentist, now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: &ldquo;I <i>begged </i>you to sell, but
      you&mdash;&rdquo; He did not say it; he had not the heart to add a hurt to that
      broken and repentant spirit. A nobler thought came to him and he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never invested a penny of
      my uncle's bequest, but only its unmaterialized future; what we have lost
      was only the incremented harvest from that future by your incomparable
      financial judgment and sagacity. Cheer up, banish these griefs; we still
      have the thirty thousand untouched; and with the experience which you have
      acquired, think what you will be able to do with it in a couple years! The
      marriages are not off, they are only postponed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      These were blessed words. Aleck saw how true they were, and their
      influence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and her great spirit
      rose to its full stature again. With flashing eye and grateful heart, and
      with hand uplifted in pledge and prophecy, she said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now and here I proclaim&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the editor and proprietor of
      the <i>Sagamore</i>. He had happened into Lakeside to pay a duty-call upon
      an obscure grandmother of his who was nearing the end of her pilgrimage,
      and with the idea of combining business with grief he had looked up the
      Fosters, who had been so absorbed in other things for the past four years
      that they neglected to pay up their subscription. Six dollars due. No
      visitor could have been more welcome. He would know all about Uncle
      Tilbury and what his chances might be getting to be, cemeterywards. They
      could, of course, ask no questions, for that would squelch the bequest,
      but they could nibble around on the edge of the subject and hope for
      results. The scheme did not work. The obtuse editor did not know he was
      being nibbled at; but at last, chance accomplished what art had failed in.
      In illustration of something under discussion which required the help of
      metaphor, the editor said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Land, it's as tough as Tilbury Foster!&mdash;as <i>we</i> say.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump. The editor noticed, and said,
      apologetically:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a saying; just a joke, you know&mdash;nothing
      in it. Relation of yours?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sally crowded his burning eagerness down, and answered with all the
      indifference he could assume:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I&mdash;well, not that I know of, but we've heard of him.&rdquo; The editor was
      thankful, and resumed his composure. Sally added: &ldquo;Is he&mdash;is he&mdash;well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is he <i>well</i>? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these five years!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Fosters were trembling with grief, though it felt like joy. Sally
      said, non-committally&mdash;and tentatively:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape&mdash;not even the rich are
      spared.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The editor laughed.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If you are including Tilbury,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;it don't apply. <i>He</i> hadn't
      a cent; the town had to bury him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Fosters sat petrified for two minutes; petrified and cold. Then,
      white-faced and weak-voiced, Sally asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it true? Do you <i>know </i>it to be true?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I should say! I was one of the executors. He hadn't anything to
      leave but a wheelbarrow, and he left that to me. It hadn't any wheel, and
      wasn't any good. Still, it was something, and so, to square up, I
      scribbled off a sort of a little obituarial send-off for him, but it got
      crowded out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Fosters were not listening&mdash;their cup was full, it could contain
      no more. They sat with bowed heads, dead to all things but the ache at
      their hearts.
    </p>
    <p>
      An hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless, silent, the
      visitor long ago gone, they unaware.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed at each other
      wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently began to twaddle to each other
      in a wandering and childish way. At intervals they lapsed into silences,
      leaving a sentence unfinished, seemingly either unaware of it or losing
      their way. Sometimes, when they woke out of these silences they had a dim
      and transient consciousness that something had happened to their minds;
      then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they would softly caress each
      other's hands in mutual compassion and support, as if they would say: &ldquo;I
      am near you, I will not forsake you, we will bear it together; somewhere
      there is release and forgetfulness, somewhere there is a grave and peace;
      be patient, it will not be long.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding, steeped in
      vague regrets and melancholy dreams, never speaking; then release came to
      both on the same day.
    </p>
    <p>
      Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind for a moment,
      and he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a snare. It did
      us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures; yet for its sake we
      threw away our sweet and simple and happy life&mdash;let others take
      warning by us.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill of death crept
      upward toward his heart, and consciousness was fading from his brain, he
      muttered:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge upon us, who had
      done him no harm. He had his desire: with base and cunning calculation he
      left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try to increase it, and ruin
      our life and break our hearts. Without added expense he could have left us
      far above desire of increase, far above the temptation to speculate, and a
      kinder soul would have done it; but in him was no generous spirit, no
      pity, no&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
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    <h2>
      A DOG'S TALE
    </h2>
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    <h2>
      CHAPTER I
    </h2>
    <p>
      My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a
      Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice
      distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing.
      My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other
      dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so much
      education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was only show: she
      got the words by listening in the dining-room and drawing-room when there
      was company, and by going with the children to Sunday-school and listening
      there; and whenever she heard a large word she said it over to herself
      many times, and so was able to keep it until there was a dogmatic
      gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off, and surprise and
      distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which rewarded her for all
      her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious,
      and when he got his breath again he would ask her what it meant. And she
      always told him. He was never expecting this but thought he would catch
      her; so when she told him, he was the one that looked ashamed, whereas he
      had thought it was going to be she. The others were always waiting for
      this, and glad of it and proud of her, for they knew what was going to
      happen, because they had had experience. When she told the meaning of a
      big word they were all so taken up with admiration that it never occurred
      to any dog to doubt if it was the right one; and that was natural,
      because, for one thing, she answered up so promptly that it seemed like a
      dictionary speaking, and for another thing, where could they find out
      whether it was right or not? for she was the only cultivated dog there
      was. By and by, when I was older, she brought home the word
      Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard all the week at
      different gatherings, making much unhappiness and despondency; and it was
      at this time that I noticed that during that week she was asked for the
      meaning at eight different assemblages, and flashed out a fresh definition
      every time, which showed me that she had more presence of mind than
      culture, though I said nothing, of course. She had one word which she
      always kept on hand, and ready, like a life-preserver, a kind of emergency
      word to strap on when she was likely to get washed overboard in a sudden
      way&mdash;that was the word Synonymous. When she happened to fetch out a
      long word which had had its day weeks before and its prepared meanings
      gone to her dump-pile, if there was a stranger there of course it knocked
      him groggy for a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that
      time she would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting
      anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the
      inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment&mdash;but only
      just a moment&mdash;then it would belly out taut and full, and she would
      say, as calm as a summer's day, &ldquo;It's synonymous with supererogation,&rdquo; or
      some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and
      skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave
      that stranger looking profane and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting
      the floor with their tails in unison and their faces transfigured with a
      holy joy.
    </p>
    <p>
      And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase, if
      it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, and explain
      it a new way every time&mdash;which she had to, for all she cared for was
      the phrase; she wasn't interested in what it meant, and knew those dogs
      hadn't wit enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She got so
      she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such confidence in the ignorance of
      those creatures. She even brought anecdotes that she had heard the family
      and the dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as a rule she got the nub
      of one chestnut hitched onto another chestnut, where, of course, it didn't
      fit and hadn't any point; and when she delivered the nub she fell over and
      rolled on the floor and laughed and barked in the most insane way, while I
      could see that she was wondering to herself why it didn't seem as funny as
      it did when she first heard it. But no harm was done; the others rolled
      and barked too, privately ashamed of themselves for not seeing the point,
      and never suspecting that the fault was not with them and there wasn't any
      to see.
    </p>
    <p>
      You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and frivolous
      character; still, she had virtues, and enough to make up, I think. She had
      a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored resentments for injuries
      done her, but put them easily out of her mind and forgot them; and she
      taught her children her kindly way, and from her we learned also to be
      brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away, but face the
      peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help him the best we could
      without stopping to think what the cost might be to us. And she taught us
      not by words only, but by example, and that is the best way and the surest
      and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the splendid things!
      she was just a soldier; and so modest about it&mdash;well, you couldn't
      help admiring her, and you couldn't help imitating her; not even a King
      Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her society. So, as
      you see, there was more to her than her education.
    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II
    </h2>
    <p>
      When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never saw
      her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but she
      comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into this world
      for a wise and good purpose, and must do our duties without repining, take
      our life as we might find it, live it for the best good of others, and
      never mind about the results; they were not our affair. She said men who
      did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward by and by in another
      world, and although we animals would not go there, to do well and right
      without reward would give to our brief lives a worthiness and dignity
      which in itself would be a reward. She had gathered these things from time
      to time when she had gone to the Sunday-school with the children, and had
      laid them up in her memory more carefully than she had done with those
      other words and phrases; and she had studied them deeply, for her good and
      ours. One may see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful head, for all
      there was so much lightness and vanity in it.
    </p>
    <p>
      So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through our
      tears; and the last thing she said&mdash;keeping it for the last to make
      me remember it the better, I think&mdash;was, &ldquo;In memory of me, when there
      is a time of danger to another do not think of yourself, think of your
      mother, and do as she would do.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Do you think I could forget that? No.
    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III
    </h2>
    <p>
      It was such a charming home!&mdash;my new one; a fine great house, with
      pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom
      anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding
      sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden&mdash;oh,
      greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as a
      member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not give
      me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my
      mother had given it me&mdash;Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a song;
      and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it;
      and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender little
      copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks; and the
      baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and never
      could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing out
      its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall and
      slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his
      movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with that
      kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle with
      frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know what
      the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get effects.
      She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog
      look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one was
      Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would skin
      the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a
      picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college president's dog
      said&mdash;no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite different,
      and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and
      strange machines; and every week other scientists came there and sat in
      the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made what they called
      experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around and
      listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in loving
      memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing what she was
      losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I
      was never able to make anything out of it at all.
    </p>
    <p>
      Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room and slept, she
      gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it was a
      caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well tousled
      and made happy; other times I watched by the crib there, when the baby was
      asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs; other
      times I romped and raced through the grounds and the garden with Sadie
      till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a tree
      while she read her book; other times I went visiting among the neighbor
      dogs&mdash;for there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one
      very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish setter
      by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, and belonged
      to the Scotch minister.
    </p>
    <p>
      The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and so,
      as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happier dog
      that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this for myself, for it is
      only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor my
      mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had come to
      me, as best I could.
    </p>
    <p>
      By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness was
      perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth and soft
      and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and such
      affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me so
      proud to see how the children and their mother adored it, and fondled it,
      and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it did. It did seem to me
      that life was just too lovely to&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery. That
      is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the crib, which
      was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. It was the kind of
      crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuff that you can see
      through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were alone. A spark from
      the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope of the tent. I suppose
      a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the baby awoke me, and there
      was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling! Before I could think, I
      sprang to the floor in my fright, and in a second was half-way to the
      door; but in the next half-second my mother's farewell was sounding in my
      ears, and I was back on the bed again., I reached my head through the
      flames and dragged the baby out by the waist-band, and tugged it along,
      and we fell to the floor together in a cloud of smoke; I snatched a new
      hold, and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the door
      and around the bend of the hall, and was still tugging away, all excited
      and happy and proud, when the master's voice shouted:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Begone you cursed beast!&rdquo; and I jumped to save myself; but he was
      furiously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with his cane,
      I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong blow fell
      upon my left foreleg, which made me shriek and fall, for the moment,
      helpless; the cane went up for another blow, but never descended, for the
      nurse's voice rang wildly out, &ldquo;The nursery's on fire!&rdquo; and the master
      rushed away in that direction, and my other bones were saved.
    </p>
    <p>
      The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might
      come back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end of the
      hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a garret
      where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say, and where
      people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I searched my way
      through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in the secretest place
      I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there, yet still I was; so
      afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though it would have been
      such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the pain, you know. But I
      could lick my leg, and that did some good.
    </p>
    <p>
      For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings, and
      rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some minutes,
      and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began to go down;
      and fears are worse than pains&mdash;oh, much worse. Then came a sound
      that froze me. They were calling me&mdash;calling me by name&mdash;hunting
      for me!
    </p>
    <p>
      It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it,
      and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It went
      all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all the rooms,
      in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then outside, and
      farther and farther away&mdash;then back, and all about the house again,
      and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did, hours and
      hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago been blotted out
      by black darkness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away, and
      I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke before the
      twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I could
      think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to creep down,
      all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and
      slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was inside
      filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start on my
      journey when night came; my journey to&mdash;well, anywhere where they
      would not know me and betray me to the master. I was feeling almost
      cheerful now; then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be without my
      puppy!
    </p>
    <p>
      That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must say where I
      was; stay, and wait, and take what might come&mdash;it was not my affair;
      that was what life is&mdash;my mother had said it. Then&mdash;well, then
      the calling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the
      master will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so
      bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog could not
      understand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.
    </p>
    <p>
      They called and called&mdash;days and nights, it seemed to me. So long
      that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was
      getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I
      did. Once I woke in an awful fright&mdash;it seemed to me that the calling
      was right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice, and
      she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor thing,
      and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard her say:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come back to us&mdash;oh, come back to us, and forgive&mdash;it is all so
      sad without our&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I broke in with <i>such </i>a grateful little yelp, and the next moment
      Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and
      shouting for the family to hear, &ldquo;She's found, she's found!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The days that followed&mdash;well, they were wonderful. The mother and
      Sadie and the servants&mdash;why, they just seemed to worship me. They
      couldn't seem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they
      couldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were out
      of season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to hear
      about my heroism&mdash;that was the name they called it by, and it means
      agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and
      explaining it in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except
      that it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a
      day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I
      risked my life to save the baby's, and both of us had burns to prove it,
      and then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about me,
      and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when
      the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed and
      changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way and
      that way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were going to
      cry.
    </p>
    <p>
      And this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends came, a whole
      twenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory, and
      discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them said it was
      wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could
      call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, &ldquo;It's far above
      instinct; it's <i>reason</i>, and many a man, privileged to be saved and
      go with you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less
      of it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish&rdquo;; and
      then he laughed, and said: &ldquo;Why, look at me&mdash;I'm a sarcasm! bless
      you, with all my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that
      the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the
      beast's intelligence&mdash;it's <i>reason</i>, I tell you!&mdash;the child
      would have perished!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They disputed and disputed, and <i>I</i> was the very center of subject of
      it all, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come
      to me; it would have made her proud.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain
      injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not
      agree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by; and
      next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the summer
      Sadie and I had planted seeds&mdash;I helped her dig the holes, you know&mdash;and
      after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there, and it was a
      wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I could talk&mdash;I
      would have told those people about it and shown then how much I knew, and
      been all alive with the subject; but I didn't care for the optics; it was
      dull, and when they came back to it again it bored me, and I went to
      sleep.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the
      sweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-by, and went
      away on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't any
      company for us, but we played together and had good times, and the
      servants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and counted
      the days and waited for the family.
    </p>
    <p>
      And one day those men came again, and said, now for the test, and they
      took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along, too,
      feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me,
      of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy
      shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering around,
      with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and shouted:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There, I've won&mdash;confess it! He's a blind as a bat!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And they all said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It's so&mdash;you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you
      a great debt from henceforth,&rdquo; and they crowded around him, and wrung his
      hand cordially and thankfully, and praised him.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little
      darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood, and
      it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in my heart it
      was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its mother's touch,
      though it could not see me. Then it dropped down, presently, and its
      little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still, and did not
      move any more.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman, and
      said, &ldquo;Bury it in the far corner of the garden,&rdquo; and then went on with the
      discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and grateful, for
      I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it was asleep. We went
      far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse
      and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great
      elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the
      puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome
      dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when
      they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good,
      being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use. When the
      footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and
      there were tears in his eyes, and he said: &ldquo;Poor little doggie, you saved
      <i>his </i>child!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0079.jpg" alt="0079 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0079.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up! This last week a
      fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible
      about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I
      cannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet me
      so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, &ldquo;Poor doggie&mdash;do
      give it up and come home; <i>don't</i> break our hearts!&rdquo; and all this
      terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened. And I am
      so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And within
      this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of
      sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could not understand,
      but they carried something cold to my heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the
      morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed,
      and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: 'The humble
      little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?
    </h2>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER I
    </h2>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You told a <i>lie</i>?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You confess it&mdash;you actually confess it&mdash;you told a lie!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II
    </h2>
    <p>
      The family consisted of four persons: Margaret Lester, widow, aged thirty
      six; Helen Lester, her daughter, aged sixteen; Mrs. Lester's maiden aunts,
      Hannah and Hester Gray, twins, aged sixty-seven. Waking and sleeping, the
      three women spent their days and nights in adoring the young girl; in
      watching the movements of her sweet spirit in the mirror of her face; in
      refreshing their souls with the vision of her bloom and beauty; in
      listening to the music of her voice; in gratefully recognizing how rich
      and fair for them was the world with this presence in it; in shuddering to
      think how desolate it would be with this light gone out of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      By nature&mdash;and inside&mdash;the aged aunts were utterly dear and
      lovable and good, but in the matter of morals and conduct their training
      had been so uncompromisingly strict that it had made them exteriorly
      austere, not to say stern. Their influence was effective in the house; so
      effective that the mother and the daughter conformed to its moral and
      religious requirements cheerfully, contentedly, happily, unquestionably.
      To do this was become second nature to them. And so in this peaceful
      heaven there were no clashings, no irritations, no fault-finding, no
      heart-burnings.
    </p>
    <p>
      In it a lie had no place. In it a lie was unthinkable. In it speech was
      restricted to absolute truth, iron-bound truth, implacable and
      uncompromising truth, let the resulting consequences be what they might.
      At last, one day, under stress of circumstances, the darling of the house
      sullied her lips with a lie&mdash;and confessed it, with tears and
      self-upbraidings. There are not any words that can paint the consternation
      of the aunts. It was as if the sky had crumpled up and collapsed and the
      earth had tumbled to ruin with a crash. They sat side by side, white and
      stern, gazing speechless upon the culprit, who was on her knees before
      them with her face buried first in one lap and then the other, moaning and
      sobbing, and appealing for sympathy and forgiveness and getting no
      response, humbly kissing the hand of the one, then of the other, only to
      see it withdrawn as suffering defilement by those soiled lips.
    </p>
    <p>
      Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hester said, in frozen amazement:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You told a <i>lie</i>?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Twice, at intervals, Aunt Hannah followed with the muttered and amazed
      ejaculation:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You confess it&mdash;you actually confess it&mdash;you told a lie!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard of, incredible;
      they could not understand it, they did not know how to take hold of it, it
      approximately paralyzed speech.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length it was decided that the erring child must be taken to her
      mother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had happened. Helen
      begged, besought, implored that she might be spared this further disgrace,
      and that her mother might be spared the grief and pain of it; but this
      could not be: duty required this sacrifice, duty takes precedence of all
      things, nothing can absolve one from a duty, with a duty no compromise is
      possible.
    </p>
    <p>
      Helen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her mother had had no
      hand in it&mdash;why must she be made to suffer for it?
    </p>
    <p>
      But the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the law that
      visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all right and reason
      reversible; and therefore it was but just that the innocent mother of a
      sinning child should suffer her rightful share of the grief and pain and
      shame which were the allotted wages of the sin.
    </p>
    <p>
      The three moved toward the sick-room.
    </p>
    <p>
      At this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was still a good
      distance away, however. He was a good doctor and a good man, and he had a
      good heart, but one had to know him a year to get over hating him, two
      years to learn to endure him, three to learn to like him, and four and
      five to learn to love him. It was a slow and trying education, but it
      paid. He was of great stature; he had a leonine head, a leonine face, a
      rough voice, and an eye which was sometimes a pirate's and sometimes a
      woman's, according to the mood. He knew nothing about etiquette, and cared
      nothing about it; in speech, manner, carriage, and conduct he was the
      reverse of conventional. He was frank, to the limit; he had opinions on
      all subjects; they were always on tap and ready for delivery, and he cared
      not a farthing whether his listener liked them or didn't. Whom he loved he
      loved, and manifested it; whom he didn't love he hated, and published it
      from the housetops. In his young days he had been a sailor, and the
      salt-airs of all the seas blew from him yet. He was a sturdy and loyal
      Christian, and believed he was the best one in the land, and the only one
      whose Christianity was perfectly sound, healthy, full-charged with common
      sense, and had no decayed places in it. People who had an ax to grind, or
      people who for any reason wanted to get on the soft side of him, called
      him The Christian&mdash;a phrase whose delicate flattery was music to his
      ears, and whose capital T was such an enchanting and vivid object to him
      that he could <i>see </i>it when it fell out of a person's mouth even in
      the dark. Many who were fond of him stood on their consciences with both
      feet and brazenly called him by that large title habitually, because it
      was a pleasure to them to do anything that would please him; and with
      eager and cordial malice his extensive and diligently cultivated crop of
      enemies gilded it, beflowered it, expanded it to &ldquo;The <i>only </i>Christian.&rdquo;
       Of these two titles, the latter had the wider currency; the enemy, being
      greatly in the majority, attended to that. Whatever the doctor believed,
      he believed with all his heart, and would fight for it whenever he got the
      chance; and if the intervals between chances grew to be irksomely wide, he
      would invent ways of shortening them himself. He was severely
      conscientious, according to his rather independent lights, and whatever he
      took to be a duty he performed, no matter whether the judgment of the
      professional moralists agreed with his own or not. At sea, in his young
      days, he had used profanity freely, but as soon as he was converted he
      made a rule, which he rigidly stuck to ever afterward, never to use it
      except on the rarest occasions, and then only when duty commanded. He had
      been a hard drinker at sea, but after his conversion he became a firm and
      outspoken teetotaler, in order to be an example to the young, and from
      that time forth he seldom drank; never, indeed, except when it seemed to
      him to be a duty&mdash;a condition which sometimes occurred a couple of
      times a year, but never as many as five times.
    </p>
    <p>
      Necessarily, such a man is impressionable, impulsive, emotional. This one
      was, and had no gift at hiding his feelings; or if he had it he took no
      trouble to exercise it. He carried his soul's prevailing weather in his
      face, and when he entered a room the parasols or the umbrellas went up&mdash;figuratively
      speaking&mdash;according to the indications. When the soft light was in
      his eye it meant approval, and delivered a benediction; when he came with
      a frown he lowered the temperature ten degrees. He was a well-beloved man
      in the house of his friends, but sometimes a dreaded one.
    </p>
    <p>
      He had a deep affection for the Lester household and its several members
      returned this feeling with interest. They mourned over his kind of
      Christianity, and he frankly scoffed at theirs; but both parties went on
      loving each other just the same.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was approaching the house&mdash;out of the distance; the aunts and the
      culprit were moving toward the sick-chamber.
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III
    </h2>
    <p>
      The three last named stood by the bed; the aunts austere, the transgressor
      softly sobbing. The mother turned her head on the pillow; her tired eyes
      flamed up instantly with sympathy and passionate mother-love when they
      fell upon her child, and she opened the refuge and shelter of her arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; said Aunt Hannah, and put out her hand and stayed the girl from
      leaping into them.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Helen,&rdquo; said the other aunt, impressively, &ldquo;tell your mother all. Purge
      your soul; leave nothing unconfessed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Standing stricken and forlorn before her judges, the young girl mourned
      her sorrowful tale through the end, then in a passion of appeal cried out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, mother, can't you forgive me? won't you forgive me?&mdash;I am so
      desolate!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Forgive you, my darling? Oh, come to my arms!&mdash;there, lay your head
      upon my breast, and be at peace. If you had told a thousand lies&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a sound&mdash;a warning&mdash;the clearing of a throat. The
      aunts glanced up, and withered in their clothes&mdash;there stood the
      doctor, his face a thunder-cloud. Mother and child knew nothing of his
      presence; they lay locked together, heart to heart, steeped in
      immeasurable content, dead to all things else. The physician stood many
      moments glaring and glooming upon the scene before him; studying it,
      analyzing it, searching out its genesis; then he put up his hand and
      beckoned to the aunts. They came trembling to him, and stood humbly before
      him and waited. He bent down and whispered:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Didn't I tell you this patient must be protected from all excitement?
      What the hell have you been doing? Clear out of the place!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They obeyed. Half an hour later he appeared in the parlor, serene, cheery,
      clothed in sunshine, conducting Helen, with his arm about her waist,
      petting her, and saying gentle and playful things to her; and she also was
      her sunny and happy self again.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, then;&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;good-by, dear. Go to your room, and keep away from
      your mother, and behave yourself. But wait&mdash;put out your tongue.
      There, that will do&mdash;you're as sound as a nut!&rdquo; He patted her cheek
      and added, &ldquo;Run along now; I want to talk to these aunts.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She went from the presence. His face clouded over again at once; and as he
      sat down he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You too have been doing a lot of damage&mdash;and maybe some good. Some
      good, yes&mdash;such as it is. That woman's disease is typhoid! You've
      brought it to a show-up, I think, with your insanities, and that's a
      service&mdash;such as it is. I hadn't been able to determine what it was
      before.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With one impulse the old ladies sprang to their feet, quaking with terror.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sit down! What are you proposing to do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do? We must fly to her. We&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You'll do nothing of the kind; you've done enough harm for one day. Do
      you want to squander all your capital of crimes and follies on a single
      deal? Sit down, I tell you. I have arranged for her to sleep; she needs
      it; if you disturb her without my orders, I'll brain you&mdash;if you've
      got the materials for it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They sat down, distressed and indignant, but obedient, under compulsion.
      He proceeded:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, then, I want this case explained. <i>They </i>wanted to explain it
      to me&mdash;as if there hadn't been emotion or excitement enough already.
      You knew my orders; how did you dare to go in there and get up that riot?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester looked appealing at Hannah; Hannah returned a beseeching look at
      Hester&mdash;neither wanted to dance to this unsympathetic orchestra. The
      doctor came to their help. He said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Begin, Hester.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Fingering at the fringes of her shawl, and with lowered eyes, Hester said,
      timidly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We should not have disobeyed for any ordinary cause, but this was vital.
      This was a duty. With a duty one has no choice; one must put all lighter
      considerations aside and perform it. We were obliged to arraign her before
      her mother. She had told a lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The doctor glowered upon the woman a moment, and seemed to be trying to
      work up in his mind an understanding of a wholly incomprehensible
      proposition; then he stormed out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She told a lie! <i>did </i>she? God bless my soul! I tell a million a
      day! And so does every doctor. And so does everybody&mdash;including you&mdash;for
      that matter. And <i>that </i>was the important thing that authorized you
      to venture to disobey my orders and imperil that woman's life! Look here,
      Hester Gray, this is pure lunacy; that girl <i>couldn't</i> tell a lie
      that was intended to injure a person. The thing is impossible&mdash;absolutely
      impossible. You know it yourselves&mdash;both of you; you know it
      perfectly well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hannah came to her sister's rescue:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hester didn't mean that it was that kind of a lie, and it wasn't. But it
      was a lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, upon my word, I never heard such nonsense! Haven't you got sense
      enough to discriminate between lies! Don't you know the difference between
      a lie that helps and a lie that hurts?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>All </i>lies are sinful,&rdquo; said Hannah, setting her lips together like
      a vise; &ldquo;all lies are forbidden.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The Only Christian fidgeted impatiently in his chair. He went to attack
      this proposition, but he did not quite know how or where to begin. Finally
      he made a venture:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hester, wouldn't you tell a lie to shield a person from an undeserved
      injury or shame?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not even a friend?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not even your dearest friend?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. I would not.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The doctor struggled in silence awhile with this situation; then he asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not even to save him from bitter pain and misery and grief?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No. Not even to save his life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Another pause. Then:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor his soul?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      There was a hush&mdash;a silence which endured a measurable interval&mdash;then
      Hester answered, in a low voice, but with decision:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nor his soul?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No one spoke for a while; then the doctor said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it with you the same, Hannah?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I ask you both&mdash;why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Because to tell such a lie, or any lie, is a sin, and could cost us the
      loss of our own souls&mdash;<i>would</i>, indeed, if we died without time
      to repent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Strange... strange... it is past belief.&rdquo; Then he asked, roughly: &ldquo;Is
      such a soul as that <i>worth </i>saving?&rdquo; He rose up, mumbling and
      grumbling, and started for the door, stumping vigorously along. At the
      threshold he turned and rasped out an admonition: &ldquo;Reform! Drop this mean
      and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls,
      and hunt up something to do that's got some dignity to it! <i>Risk </i>your
      souls! risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you
      care? Reform!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized, outraged, insulted,
      and brooded in bitterness and indignation over these blasphemies. They
      were hurt to the heart, poor old ladies, and said they could never forgive
      these injuries.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Reform!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They kept repeating that word resentfully. &ldquo;Reform&mdash;and learn to tell
      lies!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Time slipped along, and in due course a change came over their spirits.
      They had completed the human being's first duty&mdash;which is to think
      about himself until he has exhausted the subject, then he is in a
      condition to take up minor interests and think of other people. This
      changes the complexion of his spirits&mdash;generally wholesomely. The
      minds of the two old ladies reverted to their beloved niece and the
      fearful disease which had smitten her; instantly they forgot the hurts
      their self-love had received, and a passionate desire rose in their hearts
      to go to the help of the sufferer and comfort her with their love, and
      minister to her, and labor for her the best they could with their weak
      hands, and joyfully and affectionately wear out their poor old bodies in
      her dear service if only they might have the privilege.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And we shall have it!&rdquo; said Hester, with the tears running down her face.
      &ldquo;There are no nurses comparable to us, for there are no others that will
      stand their watch by that bed till they drop and die, and God knows we
      would do that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; said Hannah, smiling approval and endorsement through the mist of
      moisture that blurred her glasses. &ldquo;The doctor knows us, and knows we will
      not disobey again; and he will call no others. He will not dare!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dare?&rdquo; said Hester, with temper, and dashing the water from her eyes; &ldquo;he
      will dare anything&mdash;that Christian devil! But it will do no good for
      him to try it this time&mdash;but, laws! Hannah! after all's said and
      done, he is gifted and wise and good, and he would not think of such a
      thing.... It is surely time for one of us to go to that room. What is
      keeping him? Why doesn't he come and say so?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They caught the sound of his approaching step. He entered, sat down, and
      began to talk.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Margaret is a sick woman,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She is still sleeping, but she will
      wake presently; then one of you must go to her. She will be worse before
      she is better. Pretty soon a night-and-day watch must be set. How much of
      it can you two undertake?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All of it!&rdquo; burst from both ladies at once.
    </p>
    <p>
      The doctor's eyes flashed, and he said, with energy:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You <i>do</i> ring true, you brave old relics! And you <i>shall </i>do
      all of the nursing you can, for there's none to match you in that divine
      office in this town; but you can't do all of it, and it would be a crime
      to let you.&rdquo; It was grand praise, golden praise, coming from such a
      source, and it took nearly all the resentment out of the aged twin's
      hearts. &ldquo;Your Tilly and my old Nancy shall do the rest&mdash;good nurses
      both, white souls with black skins, watchful, loving, tender&mdash;just
      perfect nurses!&mdash;and competent liars from the cradle.... Look you!
      keep a little watch on Helen; she is sick, and is going to be sicker.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The ladies looked a little surprised, and not credulous; and Hester said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is that? It isn't an hour since you said she was as sound as a nut.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The doctor answered, tranquilly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was a lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The ladies turned upon him indignantly, and Hannah said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How can you make an odious confession like that, in so indifferent a
      tone, when you know how we feel about all forms of&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Hush! You are as ignorant as cats, both of you, and you don't know what
      you are talking about. You are like all the rest of the moral moles; you
      lie from morning till night, but because you don't do it with your mouths,
      but only with your lying eyes, your lying inflections, your deceptively
      misplaced emphasis, and your misleading gestures, you turn up your
      complacent noses and parade before God and the world as saintly and
      unsmirched Truth-Speakers, in whose cold-storage souls a lie would freeze
      to death if it got there! Why will you humbug yourselves with that foolish
      notion that no lie is a lie except a spoken one? What is the difference
      between lying with your eyes and lying with your mouth? There is none; and
      if you would reflect a moment you would see that it is so. There isn't a
      human being that doesn't tell a gross of lies every day of his life; and
      you&mdash;why, between you, you tell thirty thousand; yet you flare up
      here in a lurid hypocritical horror because I tell that child a benevolent
      and sinless lie to protect her from her imagination, which would get to
      work and warm up her blood to a fever in an hour, if I were disloyal
      enough to my duty to let it. Which I should probably do if I were
      interested in saving my soul by such disreputable means.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details. When you two were
      in the sick-room raising that riot, what would you have done if you had
      known I was coming?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You would have slipped out and carried Helen with you&mdash;wouldn't
      you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The ladies were silent.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What would be your object and intention?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, what?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To keep me from finding out your guilt; to beguile me to infer that
      Margaret's excitement proceeded from some cause not known to you. In a
      word, to tell me a lie&mdash;a silent lie. Moreover, a possibly harmful
      one.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The twins colored, but did not speak.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You not only tell myriads of silent lies, but you tell lies with your
      mouths&mdash;you two.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>That </i>is not so!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is so. But only harmless ones. You never dream of uttering a harmful
      one. Do you know that that is a concession&mdash;and a confession?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How do you mean?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is an unconscious concession that harmless lies are not criminal; it
      is a confession that you constantly <i>make </i>that discrimination. For
      instance, you declined old Mrs. Foster's invitation last week to meet
      those odious Higbies at supper&mdash;in a polite note in which you
      expressed regret and said you were very sorry you could not go. It was a
      lie. It was as unmitigated a lie as was ever uttered. Deny it, Hester&mdash;with
      another lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester replied with a toss of her head.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That will not do. Answer. Was it a lie, or wasn't it?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The color stole into the cheeks of both women, and with a struggle and an
      effort they got out their confession:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It was a lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good&mdash;the reform is beginning; there is hope for you yet; you will
      not tell a lie to save your dearest friend's soul, but you will spew out
      one without a scruple to save yourself the discomfort of telling an
      unpleasant truth.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He rose. Hester, speaking for both, said; coldly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We have lied; we perceive it; it will occur no more. To lie is a sin. We
      shall never tell another one of any kind whatsoever, even lies of courtesy
      or benevolence, to save any one a pang or a sorrow decreed for him by
      God.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Ah, how soon you will fall! In fact, you have fallen already; for what
      you have just uttered is a lie. Good-by. Reform! One of you go to the
      sick-room now.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV
    </h2>
    <p>
      Twelve days later.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mother and child were lingering in the grip of the hideous disease. Of
      hope for either there was little. The aged sisters looked white and worn,
      but they would not give up their posts. Their hearts were breaking, poor
      old things, but their grit was steadfast and indestructible. All the
      twelve days the mother had pined for the child, and the child for the
      mother, but both knew that the prayer of these longings could not be
      granted. When the mother was told&mdash;on the first day&mdash;that her
      disease was typhoid, she was frightened, and asked if there was danger
      that Helen could have contracted it the day before, when she was in the
      sick-chamber on that confession visit. Hester told her the doctor had
      poo-pooed the idea. It troubled Hester to say it, although it was true,
      for she had not believed the doctor; but when she saw the mother's joy in
      the news, the pain in her conscience lost something of its force&mdash;a
      result which made her ashamed of the constructive deception which she had
      practiced, though not ashamed enough to make her distinctly and definitely
      wish she had refrained from it. From that moment the sick woman understood
      that her daughter must remain away, and she said she would reconcile
      herself to the separation the best she could, for she would rather suffer
      death than have her child's health imperiled. That afternoon Helen had to
      take to her bed, ill. She grew worse during the night. In the morning her
      mother asked after her:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is she well?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester turned cold; she opened her lips, but the words refused to come.
      The mother lay languidly looking, musing, waiting; suddenly she turned
      white and gasped out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, my God! what is it? is she sick?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then the poor aunt's tortured heart rose in rebellion, and words came:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No&mdash;be comforted; she is well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The sick woman put all her happy heart in her gratitude:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Thank God for those dear words! Kiss me. How I worship you for saying
      them!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester told this incident to Hannah, who received it with a rebuking look,
      and said, coldly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sister, it was a lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester's lips trembled piteously; she choked down a sob, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, Hannah, it was a sin, but I could not help it. I could not endure the
      fright and the misery that were in her face.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No matter. It was a lie. God will hold you to account for it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I know it, I know it,&rdquo; cried Hester, wringing her hands, &ldquo;but even if
      it were now, I could not help it. I know I should do it again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Then take my place with Helen in the morning. I will make the report
      myself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester clung to her sister, begging and imploring.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Don't, Hannah, oh, don't&mdash;you will kill her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will at least speak the truth.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      In the morning she had a cruel report to bear to the mother, and she
      braced herself for the trial. When she returned from her mission, Hester
      was waiting, pale and trembling, in the hall. She whispered:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, how did she take it&mdash;that poor, desolate mother?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hannah's eyes were swimming in tears. She said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;God forgive me, I told her the child was well!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester gathered her to her heart, with a grateful &ldquo;God bless you, Hannah!&rdquo;
       and poured out her thankfulness in an inundation of worshiping praises.
    </p>
    <p>
      After that, the two knew the limit of their strength, and accepted their
      fate. They surrendered humbly, and abandoned themselves to the hard
      requirements of the situation. Daily they told the morning lie, and
      confessed their sin in prayer; not asking forgiveness, as not being worthy
      of it, but only wishing to make record that they realized their wickedness
      and were not desiring to hide it or excuse it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Daily, as the fair young idol of the house sank lower and lower, the
      sorrowful old aunts painted her glowing bloom and her fresh young beauty
      to the wan mother, and winced under the stabs her ecstasies of joy and
      gratitude gave them.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the first days, while the child had strength to hold a pencil, she
      wrote fond little love-notes to her mother, in which she concealed her
      illness; and these the mother read and reread through happy eyes wet with
      thankful tears, and kissed them over and over again, and treasured them as
      precious things under her pillow.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then came a day when the strength was gone from the hand, and the mind
      wandered, and the tongue babbled pathetic incoherences. This was a sore
      dilemma for the poor aunts. There were no love-notes for the mother. They
      did not know what to do. Hester began a carefully studied and plausible
      explanation, but lost the track of it and grew confused; suspicion began
      to show in the mother's face, then alarm. Hester saw it, recognized the
      imminence of the danger, and descended to the emergency, pulling herself
      resolutely together and plucking victory from the open jaws of defeat. In
      a placid and convincing voice she said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I thought it might distress you to know it, but Helen spent the night at
      the Sloanes'. There was a little party there, and, although she did not
      want to go, and you so sick, we persuaded her, she being young and needing
      the innocent pastimes of youth, and we believing you would approve. Be
      sure she will write the moment she comes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How good you are, and how dear and thoughtful for us both! Approve? Why,
      I thank you with all my heart. My poor little exile! Tell her I want her
      to have every pleasure she can&mdash;I would not rob her of one. Only let
      her keep her health, that is all I ask. Don't let that suffer; I could not
      bear it. How thankful I am that she escaped this infection&mdash;and what
      a narrow risk she ran, Aunt Hester! Think of that lovely face all dulled
      and burned with fever. I can't bear the thought of it. Keep her health.
      Keep her bloom! I can see her now, the dainty creature&mdash;with the big,
      blue, earnest eyes; and sweet, oh, so sweet and gentle and winning! Is she
      as beautiful as ever, dear Aunt Hester?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, more beautiful and bright and charming than ever she was before, if
      such a thing can be&rdquo;&mdash;and Hester turned away and fumbled with the
      medicine-bottles, to hide her shame and grief.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER V
    </h2>
    <p>
      After a little, both aunts were laboring upon a difficult and baffling
      work in Helen's chamber. Patiently and earnestly, with their stiff old
      fingers, they were trying to forge the required note. They made failure
      after failure, but they improved little by little all the time. The pity
      of it all, the pathetic humor of it, there was none to see; they
      themselves were unconscious of it. Often their tears fell upon the notes
      and spoiled them; sometimes a single misformed word made a note risky
      which could have been ventured but for that; but at last Hannah produced
      one whose script was a good enough imitation of Helen's to pass any but a
      suspicious eye, and bountifully enriched it with the petting phrases and
      loving nicknames that had been familiar on the child's lips from her
      nursery days. She carried it to the mother, who took it with avidity, and
      kissed it, and fondled it, reading its precious words over and over again,
      and dwelling with deep contentment upon its closing paragraph:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mousie darling, if I could only see you, and kiss your eyes, and feel
      your arms about me! I am so glad my practicing does not disturb you. Get
      well soon. Everybody is good to me, but I am so lonesome without you, dear
      mamma.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The poor child, I know just how she feels. She cannot be quite happy
      without me; and I&mdash;oh, I live in the light of her eyes! Tell her she
      must practice all she pleases; and, Aunt Hannah&mdash;tell her I can't
      hear the piano this far, nor her dear voice when she sings: God knows I
      wish I could. No one knows how sweet that voice is to me; and to think&mdash;some
      day it will be silent! What are you crying for?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Only because&mdash;because&mdash;it was just a memory. When I came away
      she was singing, 'Loch Lomond.' The pathos of it! It always moves me so
      when she sings that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And me, too. How heartbreakingly beautiful it is when some youthful
      sorrow is brooding in her breast and she sings it for the mystic healing
      it brings.... Aunt Hannah?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dear Margaret?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I am very ill. Sometimes it comes over me that I shall never hear that
      dear voice again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, don't&mdash;don't, Margaret! I can't bear it!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Margaret was moved and distressed, and said, gently:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There&mdash;there&mdash;let me put my arms around you. Don't cry. There&mdash;put
      your cheek to mine. Be comforted. I wish to live. I will live if I can.
      Ah, what could she do without me!... Does she often speak of me?&mdash;but
      I know she does.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, all the time&mdash;all the time!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My sweet child! She wrote the note the moment she came home?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;the first moment. She would not wait to take off her things.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I knew it. It is her dear, impulsive, affectionate way. I knew it without
      asking, but I wanted to hear you say it. The petted wife knows she is
      loved, but she makes her husband tell her so every day, just for the joy
      of hearing it.... She used the pen this time. That is better; the
      pencil-marks could rub out, and I should grieve for that. Did you suggest
      that she use the pen?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Y&mdash;no&mdash;she&mdash;it was her own idea.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The mother looked her pleasure, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was hoping you would say that. There was never such a dear and
      thoughtful child!... Aunt Hannah?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dear Margaret?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Go and tell her I think of her all the time, and worship her. Why&mdash;you
      are crying again. Don't be so worried about me, dear; I think there is
      nothing to fear, yet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The grieving messenger carried her message, and piously delivered it to
      unheeding ears. The girl babbled on unaware; looking up at her with
      wondering and startled eyes flaming with fever, eyes in which was no light
      of recognition:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Are you&mdash;no, you are not my mother. I want her&mdash;oh, I want her!
      She was here a minute ago&mdash;I did not see her go. Will she come? will
      she come quickly? will she come now?... There are so many houses ... and
      they oppress me so... and everything whirls and turns and whirls... oh, my
      head, my head!&rdquo;&mdash;and so she wandered on and on, in her pain, flitting
      from one torturing fancy to another, and tossing her arms about in a weary
      and ceaseless persecution of unrest.
    </p>
    <p>
      Poor old Hannah wetted the parched lips and softly stroked the hot brow,
      murmuring endearing and pitying words, and thanking the Father of all that
      the mother was happy and did not know.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI
    </h2>
    <p>
      Daily the child sank lower and steadily lower towards the grave, and daily
      the sorrowing old watchers carried gilded tidings of her radiant health
      and loveliness to the happy mother, whose pilgrimage was also now nearing
      its end. And daily they forged loving and cheery notes in the child's
      hand, and stood by with remorseful consciences and bleeding hearts, and
      wept to see the grateful mother devour them and adore them and treasure
      them away as things beyond price, because of their sweet source, and
      sacred because her child's hand had touched them.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last came that kindly friend who brings healing and peace to all. The
      lights were burning low. In the solemn hush which precedes the dawn vague
      figures flitted soundless along the dim hall and gathered silent and awed
      in Helen's chamber, and grouped themselves about her bed, for a warning
      had gone forth, and they knew. The dying girl lay with closed lids, and
      unconscious, the drapery upon her breast faintly rising and falling as her
      wasting life ebbed away. At intervals a sigh or a muffled sob broke upon
      the stillness. The same haunting thought was in all minds there: the pity
      of this death, the going out into the great darkness, and the mother not
      here to help and hearten and bless.
    </p>
    <p>
      Helen stirred; her hands began to grope wistfully about as if they sought
      something&mdash;she had been blind some hours. The end was come; all knew
      it. With a great sob Hester gathered her to her breast, crying, &ldquo;Oh, my
      child, my darling!&rdquo; A rapturous light broke in the dying girl's face, for
      it was mercifully vouchsafed her to mistake those sheltering arms for
      another's; and she went to her rest murmuring, &ldquo;Oh, mamma, I am so happy&mdash;I
      longed for you&mdash;now I can die.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Two hours later Hester made her report. The mother asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How is it with the child?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She is well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII
    </h2>
    <p>
      A sheaf of white crape and black was hung upon the door of the house, and
      there it swayed and rustled in the wind and whispered its tidings. At noon
      the preparation of the dead was finished, and in the coffin lay the fair
      young form, beautiful, and in the sweet face a great peace. Two mourners
      sat by it, grieving and worshipping&mdash;Hannah and the black woman
      Tilly. Hester came, and she was trembling, for a great trouble was upon
      her spirit. She said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She asks for a note.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hannah's face blanched. She had not thought of this; it had seemed that
      that pathetic service was ended. But she realized now that that could not
      be. For a little while the two women stood looking into each other's face,
      with vacant eyes; then Hannah said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is no way out of it&mdash;she must have it; she will suspect,
      else.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And she would find out.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes. It would break her heart.&rdquo; She looked at the dead face, and her eyes
      filled. &ldquo;I will write it,&rdquo; she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      Hester carried it. The closing line said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Darling Mousie, dear sweet mother, we shall soon be together again. Is
      not that good news? And it is true; they all say it is true.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The mother mourned, saying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Poor child, how will she bear it when she knows? I shall never see her
      again in life. It is hard, so hard. She does not suspect? You guard her
      from that?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She thinks you will soon be well.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How good you are, and careful, dear Aunt Hester! None goes near her who
      could carry the infection?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It would be a crime.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you <i>see </i>her?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;With a distance between&mdash;yes.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That is so good. Others one could not trust; but you two guardian angels&mdash;steel
      is not so true as you. Others would be unfaithful; and many would deceive,
      and lie.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Hester's eyes fell, and her poor old lips trembled.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Let me kiss you for her, Aunt Hester; and when I am gone, and the danger
      is past, place the kiss upon her dear lips some day, and say her mother
      sent it, and all her mother's broken heart is in it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Within the hour, Hester, raining tears upon the dead face, performed her
      pathetic mission.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII
    </h2>
    <p>
      Another day dawned, and grew, and spread its sunshine in the earth. Aunt
      Hannah brought comforting news to the failing mother, and a happy note,
      which said again, &ldquo;We have but a little time to wait, darling mother, then
      we shall be together.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The deep note of a bell came moaning down the wind.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Aunt Hannah, it is tolling. Some poor soul is at rest. As I shall be
      soon. You will not let her forget me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, God knows she never will!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do not you hear strange noises, Aunt Hannah? It sounds like the shuffling
      of many feet.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We hoped you would not hear it, dear. It is a little company gathering,
      for&mdash;for Helen's sake, poor little prisoner. There will be music&mdash;and
      she loves it so. We thought you would not mind.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mind? Oh no, no&mdash;oh, give her everything her dear heart can desire.
      How good you two are to her, and how good to me! God bless you both
      always!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      After a listening pause:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How lovely! It is her organ. Is she playing it herself, do you think?&rdquo;
       Faint and rich and inspiring the chords floating to her ears on the still
      air. &ldquo;Yes, it is her touch, dear heart, I recognize it. They are singing.
      Why&mdash;it is a hymn! and the sacredest of all, the most touching, the
      most consoling.... It seems to open the gates of paradise to me.... If I
      could die now....&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Faint and far the words rose out of the stillness:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Nearer, my God, to Thee,

     Nearer to Thee,

     E'en though it be a cross

     That raiseth me.
</pre>
    <p>
      With the closing of the hymn another soul passed to its rest, and they
      that had been one in life were not sundered in death. The sisters,
      mourning and rejoicing, said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How blessed it was that she never knew!&rdquo;
     </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IX
    </h2>
    <p>
      At midnight they sat together, grieving, and the angel of the Lord
      appeared in the midst transfigured with a radiance not of earth; and
      speaking, said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;For liars a place is appointed. There they burn in the fires of hell from
      everlasting unto everlasting. Repent!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The bereaved fell upon their knees before him and clasped their hands and
      bowed their gray heads, adoring. But their tongues clove to the roof of
      their mouths, and they were dumb.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Speak! that I may bear the message to the chancery of heaven and bring
      again the decree from which there is no appeal.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then they bowed their heads yet lower, and one said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Our sin is great, and we suffer shame; but only perfect and final
      repentance can make us whole; and we are poor creatures who have learned
      our human weakness, and we know that if we were in those hard straits
      again our hearts would fail again, and we should sin as before. The strong
      could prevail, and so be saved, but we are lost.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They lifted their heads in supplication. The angel was gone. While they
      marveled and wept he came again; and bending low, he whispered the decree.
    </p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      CHAPTER X
    </h2>
    <p>
      Was it Heaven? Or Hell?
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      A CURE FOR THE BLUES
    </h2>
    <p>
      By courtesy of Mr. Cable I came into possession of a singular book eight
      or ten years ago. It is likely that mine is now the only copy in
      existence. Its title-page, unabbreviated, reads as follows:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Enemy Conquered; or, Love Triumphant. By G. Ragsdale McClintock, (1)
      author of 'An Address,' etc., delivered at Sunflower Hill, South Carolina,
      and member of the Yale Law School. New Haven: published by T. H. Pease, 83
      Chapel Street, 1845.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No one can take up this book and lay it down again unread. Whoever reads
      one line of it is caught, is chained; he has become the contented slave of
      its fascinations; and he will read and read, devour and devour, and will
      not let it go out of his hand till it is finished to the last line, though
      the house be on fire over his head. And after a first reading he will not
      throw it aside, but will keep it by him, with his Shakespeare and his
      Homer, and will take it up many and many a time, when the world is dark
      and his spirits are low, and be straightway cheered and refreshed. Yet
      this work has been allowed to lie wholly neglected, unmentioned, and
      apparently unregretted, for nearly half a century.
    </p>
    <p>
      The reader must not imagine that he is to find in it wisdom, brilliancy,
      fertility of invention, ingenuity of construction, excellence of form,
      purity of style, perfection of imagery, truth to nature, clearness of
      statement, humanly possible situations, humanly possible people, fluent
      narrative, connected sequence of events&mdash;or philosophy, or logic, or
      sense. No; the rich, deep, beguiling charm of the book lies in the total
      and miraculous <i>absence </i>from it of all these qualities&mdash;a charm
      which is completed and perfected by the evident fact that the author,
      whose naive innocence easily and surely wins our regard, and almost our
      worship, does not know that they are absent, does not even suspect that
      they are absent. When read by the light of these helps to an understanding
      of the situation, the book is delicious&mdash;profoundly and satisfyingly
      delicious.
    </p>
    <p>
      I call it a book because the author calls it a book, I call it a work
      because he calls it a work; but, in truth, it is merely a duodecimo
      pamphlet of thirty-one pages. It was written for fame and money, as the
      author very frankly&mdash;yes, and very hopefully, too, poor fellow&mdash;says
      in his preface. The money never came&mdash;no penny of it ever came; and
      how long, how pathetically long, the fame has been deferred&mdash;forty-seven
      years! He was young then, it would have been so much to him then; but will
      he care for it now?
    </p>
    <p>
      As time is measured in America, McClintock's epoch is antiquity. In his
      long-vanished day the Southern author had a passion for &ldquo;eloquence&rdquo;; it
      was his pet, his darling. He would be eloquent, or perish. And he
      recognized only one kind of eloquence&mdash;the lurid, the tempestuous,
      the volcanic. He liked words&mdash;big words, fine words, grand words,
      rumbling, thundering, reverberating words; with sense attaching if it
      could be got in without marring the sound, but not otherwise. He loved to
      stand up before a dazed world, and pour forth flame and smoke and lava and
      pumice-stone into the skies, and work his subterranean thunders, and shake
      himself with earthquakes, and stench himself with sulphur fumes. If he
      consumed his own fields and vineyards, that was a pity, yes; but he would
      have his eruption at any cost. Mr. McClintock's eloquence&mdash;and he is
      always eloquent, his crater is always spouting&mdash;is of the pattern
      common to his day, but he departs from the custom of the time in one
      respect: his brethren allowed sense to intrude when it did not mar the
      sound, but he does not allow it to intrude at all. For example, consider
      this figure, which he used in the village &ldquo;Address&rdquo; referred to with such
      candid complacency in the title-page above quoted&mdash;&ldquo;like the topmost
      topaz of an ancient tower.&rdquo; Please read it again; contemplate it; measure
      it; walk around it; climb up it; try to get at an approximate realization
      of the size of it. Is the fellow to that to be found in literature,
      ancient or modern, foreign or domestic, living or dead, drunk or sober?
      One notices how fine and grand it sounds. We know that if it was loftily
      uttered, it got a noble burst of applause from the villagers; yet there
      isn't a ray of sense in it, or meaning to it.
    </p>
    <p>
      McClintock finished his education at Yale in 1843, and came to Hartford on
      a visit that same year. I have talked with men who at that time talked
      with him, and felt of him, and knew he was real. One needs to remember
      that fact and to keep fast hold of it; it is the only way to keep
      McClintock's book from undermining one's faith in McClintock's actuality.
    </p>
    <p>
      As to the book. The first four pages are devoted to an inflamed eulogy of
      Woman&mdash;simply Woman in general, or perhaps as an Institution&mdash;wherein,
      among other compliments to her details, he pays a unique one to her voice.
      He says it &ldquo;fills the breast with fond alarms, echoed by every rill.&rdquo; It
      sounds well enough, but it is not true. After the eulogy he takes up his
      real work and the novel begins. It begins in the woods, near the village
      of Sunflower Hill.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair
        Chattahoochee, to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to guide
        the hero whose bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy that
        would tarnish his name, and to win back the admiration of his long-tried
        friend.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      It seems a general remark, but it is not general; the hero mentioned is
      the to-be hero of the book; and in this abrupt fashion, and without name
      or description, he is shoveled into the tale. &ldquo;With aspirations to conquer
      the enemy that would tarnish his name&rdquo; is merely a phrase flung in for the
      sake of the sound&mdash;let it not mislead the reader. No one is trying to
      tarnish this person; no one has thought of it. The rest of the sentence is
      also merely a phrase; the man has no friend as yet, and of course has had
      no chance to try him, or win back his admiration, or disturb him in any
      other way.
    </p>
    <p>
      The hero climbs up over &ldquo;Sawney's Mountain,&rdquo; and down the other side,
      making for an old Indian &ldquo;castle&rdquo;&mdash;which becomes &ldquo;the red man's hut&rdquo;
       in the next sentence; and when he gets there at last, he &ldquo;surveys with
      wonder and astonishment&rdquo; the invisible structure, &ldquo;which time has buried
      in the dust, and thought to himself his happiness was not yet complete.&rdquo;
       One doesn't know why it wasn't, nor how near it came to being complete,
      nor what was still wanting to round it up and make it so. Maybe it was the
      Indian; but the book does not say. At this point we have an episode:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Beside the shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen or twenty,
        who seemed to be reading some favorite book, and who had a remarkably
        noble countenance&mdash;eyes which betrayed more than a common mind.
        This of course made the youth a welcome guest, and gained him friends in
        whatever condition of his life he might be placed. The traveler observed
        that he was a well-built figure which showed strength and grace in every
        movement. He accordingly addressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner,
        and inquired of him the way to the village. After he had received the
        desired information, and was about taking his leave, the youth said,
        &ldquo;Are you not Major Elfonzo, the great musician (2)&mdash;the champion of
        a noble cause&mdash;the modern Achilles, who gained so many victories in
        the Florida War?&rdquo; &ldquo;I bear that name,&rdquo; said the Major, &ldquo;and those titles,
        trusting at the same time that the ministers of grace will carry me
        triumphantly through all my laudable undertakings, and if,&rdquo; continued
        the Major, &ldquo;you, sir, are the patronizer of noble deeds, I should like
        to make you my confidant and learn your address.&rdquo; The youth looked
        somewhat amazed, bowed low, mused for a moment, and began: &ldquo;My name is
        Roswell. I have been recently admitted to the bar, and can only give a
        faint outline of my future success in that honorable profession; but I
        trust, sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from the lofty rocks upon
        the dwellings of man, and shall ever be ready to give you any assistance
        in my official capacity, and whatever this muscular arm of mine can do,
        whenever it shall be called from its buried <i>greatness</i>.&rdquo; The Major
        grasped him by the hand, and exclaimed: &ldquo;O! thou exalted spirit of
        inspiration&mdash;thou flame of burning prosperity, may the
        Heaven-directed blaze be the glare of thy soul, and battle down every
        rampart that seems to impede your progress!&rdquo;
       </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      There is a strange sort of originality about McClintock; he imitates other
      people's styles, but nobody can imitate his, not even an idiot. Other
      people can be windy, but McClintock blows a gale; other people can blubber
      sentiment, but McClintock spews it; other people can mishandle metaphors,
      but only McClintock knows how to make a business of it. McClintock is
      always McClintock, he is always consistent, his style is always his own
      style. He does not make the mistake of being relevant on one page and
      irrelevant on another; he is irrelevant on all of them. He does not make
      the mistake of being lucid in one place and obscure in another; he is
      obscure all the time. He does not make the mistake of slipping in a name
      here and there that is out of character with his work; he always uses
      names that exactly and fantastically fit his lunatics. In the matter of
      undeviating consistency he stands alone in authorship. It is this that
      makes his style unique, and entitles it to a name of its own&mdash;McClintockian.
      It is this that protects it from being mistaken for anybody else's.
      Uncredited quotations from other writers often leave a reader in doubt as
      to their authorship, but McClintock is safe from that accident; an
      uncredited quotation from him would always be recognizable. When a boy
      nineteen years old, who had just been admitted to the bar, says, &ldquo;I trust,
      sir, like the Eagle, I shall look down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings
      of man,&rdquo; we know who is speaking through that boy; we should recognize
      that note anywhere. There be myriads of instruments in this world's
      literary orchestra, and a multitudinous confusion of sounds that they
      make, wherein fiddles are drowned, and guitars smothered, and one sort of
      drum mistaken for another sort; but whensoever the brazen note of the
      McClintockian trombone breaks through that fog of music, that note is
      recognizable, and about it there can be no blur of doubt.
    </p>
    <p>
      The novel now arrives at the point where the Major goes home to see his
      father. When McClintock wrote this interview he probably believed it was
      pathetic.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        The road which led to the town presented many attractions Elfonzo had
        bid farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending his way
        to the dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds whistled through
        the woods, as the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the
        pent furnace roars. This brought him to remember while alone, that he
        quietly left behind the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly
        entered the world, with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he
        journeyed onward, he was mindful of the advice of his father, who had
        often looked sadly on the ground, when tears of cruelly deceived hope
        moistened his eyes. Elfonzo had been somewhat a dutiful son; yet fond of
        the amusements of life&mdash;had been in distant lands&mdash;had enjoyed
        the pleasure of the world, and had frequently returned to the scenes of
        his boyhood, almost destitute of many of the comforts of life. In this
        condition, he would frequently say to his father, &ldquo;Have I offended you,
        that you look upon me as a stranger, and frown upon me with stinging
        looks? Will you not favor me with the sound of your voice? If I have
        trampled upon your veneration, or have spread a humid veil of darkness
        around your expectations, send me back into the world, where no heart
        beats for me&mdash;where the foot of man had never yet trod; but give me
        at least one kind word&mdash;allow me to come into the presence
        sometimes of thy winter-worn locks.&rdquo; &ldquo;Forbid it, Heaven, that I should
        be angry with thee,&rdquo; answered the father, &ldquo;my son, and yet I send thee
        back to the children of the world&mdash;to the cold charity of the
        combat, and to a land of victory. I read another destiny in thy
        countenance&mdash;I learn thy inclinations from the flame that has
        already kindled in my soul a strange sensation. It will seek thee, my
        dear <i>Elfonzo</i>, it will find thee&mdash;thou canst not escape that
        lighted torch, which shall blot out from the remembrance of men a long
        train of prophecies which they have foretold against thee. I once
        thought not so. Once, I was blind; but now the path of life is plain
        before me, and my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return to thy worldly
        occupation&mdash;take again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds&mdash;struggle
        with the civilized world and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the
        enchanted ground&mdash;let the night-OWL send forth its screams from the
        stubborn oak&mdash;let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing
        together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place.
        Our most innocent as well as our most lawful <i>desires </i>must often
        be denied us, that we may learn to sacrifice them to a Higher will.&rdquo;
       </p>
      <p>
        Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately
        urged by the recollection of his father's family to keep moving.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      McClintock has a fine gift in the matter of surprises; but as a rule they
      are not pleasant ones, they jar upon the feelings. His closing sentence in
      the last quotation is of that sort. It brings one down out of the tinted
      clouds in too sudden and collapsed a fashion. It incenses one against the
      author for a moment. It makes the reader want to take him by his
      winter-worn locks, and trample on his veneration, and deliver him over to
      the cold charity of combat, and blot him out with his own lighted torch.
      But the feeling does not last. The master takes again in his hand that
      concord of sweet sounds of his, and one is reconciled, pacified.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        His steps became quicker and quicker&mdash;he hastened through the <i>piny</i>
        woods, dark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the
        little village of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry.
        His close attention to every important object&mdash;his modest questions
        about whatever was new to him&mdash;his reverence for wise old age, and
        his ardent desire to learn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into
        respectable notice.
      </p>
      <p>
        One mild winter day, as he walked along the streets toward the Academy,
        which stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth&mdash;some
        venerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous&mdash;all
        seemed inviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as well as
        for genius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He
        entered its classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The artfulness of this man! None knows so well as he how to pique the
      curiosity of the reader&mdash;and how to disappoint it. He raises the
      hope, here, that he is going to tell all about how one enters a classic
      wall in the usual mode of Southern manners; but does he? No; he smiles in
      his sleeve, and turns aside to other matters.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        The principal of the Institution begged him to be seated and listen to
        the recitations that were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request,
        and seemed to be much pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the
        young hearts regained their freedom, with the songs of the evening,
        laughing at the anticipated pleasures of a happy home, while others
        tittered at the actions of the past day, he addressed the teacher in a
        tone that indicated a resolution&mdash;with an undaunted mind. He said
        he had determined to become a student, if he could meet with his
        approbation. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I have spent much time in the world. I
        have traveled among the uncivilized inhabitants of America. I have met
        with friends, and combated with foes; but none of these gratify my
        ambition, or decide what is to be my destiny. I see the learned world
        have an influence with the voice of the people themselves. The
        despoilers of the remotest kingdoms of the earth refer their differences
        to this class of persons. This the illiterate and inexperienced little
        dream of; and now if you will receive me as I am, with these
        deficiencies&mdash;with all my misguided opinions, I will give you my
        honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those who
        have placed you in this honorable station.&rdquo; The instructor, who had met
        with many disappointments, knew how to feel for a stranger who had been
        thus turned upon the charities of an unfeeling community. He looked at
        him earnestly, and said: &ldquo;Be of good cheer&mdash;look forward, sir, to
        the high destination you may attain. Remember, the more elevated the
        mark at which you aim, the more sure, the more glorious, the more
        magnificent the prize.&rdquo; From wonder to wonder, his encouragement led the
        impatient listener. A strange nature bloomed before him&mdash;giant
        streams promised him success&mdash;gardens of hidden treasures opened to
        his view. All this, so vividly described, seemed to gain a new witchery
        from his glowing fancy.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      It seems to me that this situation is new in romance. I feel sure it has
      not been attempted before. Military celebrities have been disguised and
      set at lowly occupations for dramatic effect, but I think McClintock is
      the first to send one of them to school. Thus, in this book, you pass from
      wonder to wonder, through gardens of hidden treasure, where giant streams
      bloom before you, and behind you, and all around, and you feel as happy,
      and groggy, and satisfied with your quart of mixed metaphor aboard as you
      would if it had been mixed in a sample-room and delivered from a jug.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now we come upon some more McClintockian surprises&mdash;a sweetheart who
      is sprung upon us without any preparation, along with a name for her which
      is even a little more of a surprise than she herself is.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        In 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the English and
        Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity
        that he was like to become the first in his class, and made such
        unexpected progress, and was so studious, that he had almost forgotten
        the pictured saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and
        cypress had waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heaven upon
        the heads of those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of
        their souls under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had
        seen there. So one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he
        concluded he would pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he
        think of witnessing a shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt he
        wished it might be so. He continued sauntering by the roadside,
        meditating on the past. The nearer he approached the spot, the more
        anxious he became. At that moment a tall female figure flitted across
        his path, with a bunch of roses in her hand; her countenance showed
        uncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit; her ivory teeth already
        appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading&mdash;while her ringlets
        of hair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing was wanting
        to complete her beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her
        cheek; the charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her
        associates. In Ambulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul&mdash;one that never
        faded&mdash;one that never was conquered.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      Ambulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction. The full name is Ambulinia
      Valeer. Marriage will presently round it out and perfect it. Then it will
      be Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo. It takes the chromo.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Her heart yielded to no feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on whom she
        gazed with intense delight, and to whom she felt herself more closely
        bound, because he sought the hand of no other. Elfonzo was roused from
        his apparent reverie. His books no longer were his inseparable
        companions&mdash;his thoughts arrayed themselves to encourage him to the
        field of victory. He endeavored to speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but
        his speech appeared not in words. No, his effort was a stream of fire,
        that kindled his soul into a flame of admiration, and carried his senses
        away captive. Ambulinia had disappeared, to make him more mindful of his
        duty. As she walked speedily away through the piny woods, she calmly
        echoed: &ldquo;O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now look from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt
        now walk in a new path&mdash;perhaps thy way leads through darkness; but
        fear not, the stars foretell happiness.&rdquo;
       </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      To McClintock that jingling jumble of fine words meant something, no
      doubt, or seemed to mean something; but it is useless for us to try to
      divine what it was. Ambulinia comes&mdash;we don't know whence nor why;
      she mysteriously intimates&mdash;we don't know what; and then she goes
      echoing away&mdash;we don't know whither; and down comes the curtain.
      McClintock's art is subtle; McClintock's art is deep.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Not many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers she sat one
        evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of
        melody along the distant groves, the little birds perched on every side,
        as if to watch the movements of their new visitor. The bells were
        tolling, when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers,
        holding in his hand his favorite instrument of music&mdash;his eye
        continually searching for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him,
        as she played carelessly with the songsters that hopped from branch to
        branch. Nothing could be more striking than the difference between the
        two. Nature seemed to have given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and
        the stronger and more courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke from
        the eyes of Elfonzo&mdash;such a feeling as can only be expressed by
        those who are blessed as admirers, and by those who are able to return
        the same with sincerity of heart. He was a few years older than
        Ambulinia: she had turned a little into her seventeenth. He had almost
        grown up in the Cherokee country, with the same equal proportions as one
        of the natives. But little intimacy had existed between them until the
        year forty-one&mdash;because the youth felt that the character of such a
        lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any other feeling than that of
        quiet reverence. But as lovers will not always be insulted, at all times
        and under all circumstances, by the frowns and cold looks of crabbed old
        age, which should continually reflect dignity upon those around, and
        treat the unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a graceful mien, he
        continued to use diligence and perseverance. All this lighted a spark in
        his heart that changed his whole character, and like the unyielding
        Deity that follows the storm to check its rage in the forest, he
        resolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and return
        where he had before only worshiped.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      At last we begin to get the Major's measure. We are able to put this and
      that casual fact together, and build the man up before our eyes, and look
      at him. And after we have got him built, we find him worth the trouble. By
      the above comparison between his age and Ambulinia's, we guess the
      war-worn veteran to be twenty-two; and the other facts stand thus: he had
      grown up in the Cherokee country with the same equal proportions as one of
      the natives&mdash;how flowing and graceful the language, and yet how
      tantalizing as to meaning!&mdash;he had been turned adrift by his father,
      to whom he had been &ldquo;somewhat of a dutiful son&rdquo;; he wandered in distant
      lands; came back frequently &ldquo;to the scenes of his boyhood, almost
      destitute of many of the comforts of life,&rdquo; in order to get into the
      presence of his father's winter-worn locks, and spread a humid veil of
      darkness around his expectations; but he was always promptly sent back to
      the cold charity of the combat again; he learned to play the fiddle, and
      made a name for himself in that line; he had dwelt among the wild tribes;
      he had philosophized about the despoilers of the kingdoms of the earth,
      and found out&mdash;the cunning creature&mdash;that they refer their
      differences to the learned for settlement; he had achieved a vast fame as
      a military chieftain, the Achilles of the Florida campaigns, and then had
      got him a spelling-book and started to school; he had fallen in love with
      Ambulinia Valeer while she was teething, but had kept it to himself
      awhile, out of the reverential awe which he felt for the child; but now at
      last, like the unyielding Deity who follows the storm to check its rage in
      the forest, he resolves to shake off his embarrassment, and to return
      where before he had only worshiped. The Major, indeed, has made up his
      mind to rise up and shake his faculties together, and to see if<i> he</i>
      can't do that thing himself. This is not clear. But no matter about that:
      there stands the hero, compact and visible; and he is no mean structure,
      considering that his creator had never created anything before, and hadn't
      anything but rags and wind to build with this time. It seems to me that no
      one can contemplate this odd creature, this quaint and curious
      blatherskite, without admiring McClintock, or, at any rate, loving him and
      feeling grateful to him; for McClintock made him, he gave him to us;
      without McClintock we could not have had him, and would now be poor.
    </p>
    <p>
      But we must come to the feast again. Here is a courtship scene, down there
      in the romantic glades among the raccoons, alligators, and things, that
      has merit, peculiar literary merit. See how Achilles woos. Dwell upon the
      second sentence (particularly the close of it) and the beginning of the
      third. Never mind the new personage, Leos, who is intruded upon us
      unheralded and unexplained. That is McClintock's way; it is his habit; it
      is a part of his genius; he cannot help it; he never interrupts the rush
      of his narrative to make introductions.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        It could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he sought an
        interview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and assumed a more
        distant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope. After many
        efforts and struggles with his own person, with timid steps the Major
        approached the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in a
        field of battle. &ldquo;Lady Ambulinia,&rdquo; said he, trembling, &ldquo;I have long
        desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the
        consequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition.
        Can you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to express?
        Will not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter,
        release me from thy winding chains or cure me&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;Say no more,
        Elfonzo,&rdquo; answered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as
        if she intended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world;
        &ldquo;another lady in my place would have perhaps answered your question in
        bitter coldness. I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little
        for the vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as
        ashamed to be guilty of anything that would lead you to think 'all is
        not gold that glitters'; so be not rash in your resolution. It is better
        to repent now, than to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you
        would say. I know you have a costly gift for me&mdash;the noblest that
        man can make&mdash;<i>your heart!</i> You should not offer it to one so
        unworthy. Heaven, you know, has allowed my father's house to be made a
        house of solitude, a home of silent obedience, which my parents say is
        more to be admired than big names and high-sounding titles.
        Notwithstanding all this, let me speak the emotions of an honest heart&mdash;allow
        me to say in the fullness of my hopes that I anticipate better days. The
        bird may stretch its wings toward the sun, which it can never reach; and
        flowers of the field appear to ascend in the same direction, because
        they cannot do otherwise; but man confides his complaints to the saints
        in whom he believes; for in their abodes of light they know no more
        sorrow. From your confession and indicative looks, I must be that
        person; if so deceive not yourself.&rdquo;
       </p>
    </blockquote>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Elfonzo replied, &ldquo;Pardon me, my dear madam, for my frankness. I have
        loved you from my earliest days&mdash;everything grand and beautiful
        hath borne the image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand
        surrounded me, your <i>guardian angel</i> stood and beckoned me away
        from the deep abyss. In every trial, in every misfortune, I have met
        with your helping hand; yet I never dreamed or dared to cherish thy
        love, till a voice impaired with age encouraged the cause, and declared
        they who acquired thy favor should win a victory. I saw how Leos
        worshiped thee. I felt my own unworthiness. I began to <i>know jealously</i>,
        a strong guest&mdash;indeed, in my bosom,&mdash;yet I could see if I
        gained your admiration Leos was to be my rival. I was aware that he had
        the influence of your parents, and the wealth of a deceased relative,
        which is too often mistaken for permanent and regular tranquillity; yet
        I have determined by your permission to beg an interest in your prayers&mdash;to
        ask you to animate my drooping spirits by your smiles and your winning
        looks; for if you but speak I shall be conqueror, my enemies shall
        stagger like Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may tremble, and
        the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I am assured
        that it is only to arm me with divine weapons which will enable me to
        complete my long-tried intention.&rdquo;
       </p>
    </blockquote>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        &ldquo;Return to yourself, Elfonzo,&rdquo; said Ambulinia, pleasantly: &ldquo;a dream of
        vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the atmosphere,
        dwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that urges or
        hinders, nothing that brings discord into our present litigation. I
        entreat you to condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all.
        When Homer describes the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with
        giants and dragons, they represent under this image our struggles with
        the delusions of our passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to
        the skies; you have called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination
        an angel in human form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to
        be as you have supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share
        in your esteem as her highest treasure. Think not that I would allure
        you from the path in which your conscience leads you; for you know I
        respect the conscience of others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if
        I am worthy of thy love, let such conversation never again pass between
        us. Go, seek a nobler theme! we will seek it in the stream of time, as
        the sun set in the Tigris.&rdquo; As she spake these words she grasped the
        hand of Elfonzo, saying at the same time&mdash;&ldquo;Peace and prosperity
        attend you, my hero; be up and doing!&rdquo; Closing her remarks with this
        expression, she walked slowly away, leaving Elfonzo astonished and
        amazed. He ventured not to follow or detain her. Here he stood alone,
        gazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here he stood.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      Yes; there he stood. There seems to be no doubt about that. Nearly half of
      this delirious story has now been delivered to the reader. It seems a pity
      to reduce the other half to a cold synopsis. Pity! it is more than a pity,
      it is a crime; for to synopsize McClintock is to reduce a sky-flushing
      conflagration to dull embers, it is to reduce barbaric splendor to ragged
      poverty. McClintock never wrote a line that was not precious; he never
      wrote one that could be spared; he never framed one from which a word
      could be removed without damage. Every sentence that this master has
      produced may be likened to a perfect set of teeth, white, uniform,
      beautiful. If you pull one, the charm is gone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Still, it is now necessary to begin to pull, and to keep it up; for lack
      of space requires us to synopsize.
    </p>
    <p>
      We left Elfonzo standing there amazed. At what, we do not know. Not at the
      girl's speech. No; we ourselves should have been amazed at it, of course,
      for none of us has ever heard anything resembling it; but Elfonzo was used
      to speeches made up of noise and vacancy, and could listen to them with
      undaunted mind like the &ldquo;topmost topaz of an ancient tower&rdquo;; he was used
      to making them himself; he&mdash;but let it go, it cannot be guessed out;
      we shall never know what it was that astonished him. He stood there
      awhile; then he said, &ldquo;Alas! am I now Grief's disappointed son at last?&rdquo;
       He did not stop to examine his mind, and to try to find out what he
      probably meant by that, because, for one reason, &ldquo;a mixture of ambition
      and greatness of soul moved upon his young heart,&rdquo; and started him for the
      village. He resumed his bench in school, &ldquo;and reasonably progressed in his
      education.&rdquo; His heart was heavy, but he went into society, and sought
      surcease of sorrow in its light distractions. He made himself popular with
      his violin, &ldquo;which seemed to have a thousand chords&mdash;more symphonious
      than the Muses of Apollo, and more enchanting than the ghost of the
      Hills.&rdquo; This is obscure, but let it go.
    </p>
    <p>
      During this interval Leos did some unencouraged courting, but at last,
      &ldquo;choked by his undertaking,&rdquo; he desisted.
    </p>
    <p>
      Presently &ldquo;Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new-built
      village.&rdquo; He goes to the house of his beloved; she opens the door herself.
      To my surprise&mdash;for Ambulinia's heart had still seemed free at the
      time of their last interview&mdash;love beamed from the girl's eyes. One
      sees that Elfonzo was surprised, too; for when he caught that light, &ldquo;a
      halloo of smothered shouts ran through every vein.&rdquo; A neat figure&mdash;a
      very neat figure, indeed! Then he kissed her. &ldquo;The scene was
      overwhelming.&rdquo; They went into the parlor. The girl said it was safe, for
      her parents were abed, and would never know. Then we have this fine
      picture&mdash;flung upon the canvas with hardly an effort, as you will
      notice.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Advancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy neck, and
        from her head the ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her robe
        hung waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed before
        him.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      There is nothing of interest in the couple's interview. Now at this point
      the girl invites Elfonzo to a village show, where jealousy is the motive
      of the play, for she wants to teach him a wholesome lesson, if he is a
      jealous person. But this is a sham, and pretty shallow. McClintock merely
      wants a pretext to drag in a plagiarism of his upon a scene or two in
      &ldquo;Othello.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The lovers went to the play. Elfonzo was one of the fiddlers. He and
      Ambulinia must not be seen together, lest trouble follow with the girl's
      malignant father; we are made to understand that clearly. So the two sit
      together in the orchestra, in the midst of the musicians. This does not
      seem to be good art. In the first place, the girl would be in the way, for
      orchestras are always packed closely together, and there is no room to
      spare for people's girls; in the next place, one cannot conceal a girl in
      an orchestra without everybody taking notice of it. There can be no doubt,
      it seems to me, that this is bad art.
    </p>
    <p>
      Leos is present. Of course, one of the first things that catches his eye
      is the maddening spectacle of Ambulinia &ldquo;leaning upon Elfonzo's chair.&rdquo;
       This poor girl does not seem to understand even the rudiments of
      concealment. But she is &ldquo;in her seventeenth,&rdquo; as the author phrases it,
      and that is her justification.
    </p>
    <p>
      Leos meditates, constructs a plan&mdash;with personal violence as a basis,
      of course. It was their way down there. It is a good plain plan, without
      any imagination in it. He will go out and stand at the front door, and
      when these two come out he will &ldquo;arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the
      insolent Elfonzo,&rdquo; and thus make for himself a &ldquo;more prosperous field of
      immortality than ever was decreed by Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or
      artist imagined.&rdquo; But, dear me, while he is waiting there the couple climb
      out at the back window and scurry home! This is romantic enough, but there
      is a lack of dignity in the situation.
    </p>
    <p>
      At this point McClintock puts in the whole of his curious play&mdash;which
      we skip.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some correspondence follows now. The bitter father and the distressed
      lovers write the letters. Elopements are attempted. They are idiotically
      planned, and they fail. Then we have several pages of romantic powwow and
      confusion signifying nothing. Another elopement is planned; it is to take
      place on Sunday, when everybody is at church. But the &ldquo;hero&rdquo; cannot keep
      the secret; he tells everybody. Another author would have found another
      instrument when he decided to defeat this elopement; but that is not
      McClintock's way. He uses the person that is nearest at hand.
    </p>
    <p>
      The evasion failed, of course. Ambulinia, in her flight, takes refuge in a
      neighbor's house. Her father drags her home. The villagers gather,
      attracted by the racket.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on to see what was
        going to become of Ambulinia, while he, with downcast looks, kept at a
        distance, until he saw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting
        her, that was the sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary
        apartment, when she exclaimed, &ldquo;Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art
        thou, with all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief.
        Ride on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and
        roll on thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and
        confusion. Oh friends! if any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon
        the green hills, and come to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty of
        nothing but innocent love.&rdquo; Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, &ldquo;My
        God, can I stand this! arouse up, I beseech you, and put an end to this
        tyranny. Come, my brave boys,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;are you ready to go forth to
        your duty?&rdquo; They stood around him. &ldquo;Who,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will call us to
        arms? Where are my thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will
        meet the foe! Who will go forward with me in this ocean of grievous
        temptation? If there is one who desires to go, let him come and shake
        hands upon the altar of devotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes,
        a Hector in a cause like this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy.&rdquo;
         &ldquo;Mine be the deed,&rdquo; said a young lawyer, &ldquo;and mine alone; Venus alone
        shall quit her station before I will forsake one jot or tittle of my
        promise to you; what is death to me? what is all this warlike army, if
        it is not to win a victory? I love the sleep of the lover and the
        mighty; nor would I give it over till the blood of my enemies should
        wreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our fame should soar on
        the blood of the slumberer.&rdquo; Mr. Valeer stands at his door with the
        frown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous weapon ready to
        strike the first man who should enter his door. &ldquo;Who will arise and go
        forward through blood and carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia?&rdquo; said
        Elfonzo. &ldquo;All,&rdquo; exclaimed the multitude; and onward they went, with
        their implements of battle. Others, of a more timid nature, stood among
        the distant hills to see the result of the contest.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      It will hardly be believed that after all this thunder and lightning not a
      drop of rain fell; but such is the fact. Elfonzo and his gang stood up and
      black-guarded Mr. Valeer with vigor all night, getting their outlay back
      with interest; then in the early morning the army and its general retired
      from the field, leaving the victory with their solitary adversary and his
      crowbar. This is the first time this has happened in romantic literature.
      The invention is original. Everything in this book is original; there is
      nothing hackneyed about it anywhere. Always, in other romances, when you
      find the author leading up to a climax, you know what is going to happen.
      But in this book it is different; the thing which seems inevitable and
      unavoidable never happens; it is circumvented by the art of the author
      every time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Another elopement was attempted. It failed.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have now arrived at the end. But it is not exciting. McClintock thinks
      it is; but it isn't. One day Elfonzo sent Ambulinia another note&mdash;a
      note proposing elopement No. 16. This time the plan is admirable;
      admirable, sagacious, ingenious, imaginative, deep&mdash;oh, everything,
      and perfectly easy. One wonders why it was never thought of before. This
      is the scheme. Ambulinia is to leave the breakfast-table, ostensibly to
      &ldquo;attend to the placing of those flowers, which should have been done a
      week ago&rdquo;&mdash;artificial ones, of course; the others wouldn't keep so
      long&mdash;and then, instead of fixing the flowers, she is to walk out to
      the grove, and go off with Elfonzo. The invention of this plan
      overstrained the author that is plain, for he straightway shows failing
      powers. The details of the plan are not many or elaborate. The author
      shall state them himself&mdash;this good soul, whose intentions are always
      better than his English:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        &ldquo;You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you will find me
        with a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off where we
        shall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights.&rdquo;
       </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      Last scene of all, which the author, now much enfeebled, tries to smarten
      up and make acceptable to his spectacular heart by introducing some new
      properties&mdash;silver bow, golden harp, olive branch&mdash;things that
      can all come good in an elopement, no doubt, yet are not to be compared to
      an umbrella for real handiness and reliability in an excursion of that
      kind.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        And away she ran to the sacred grove, surrounded with glittering pearls,
        that indicated her coming. Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and his
        golden harp. They meet&mdash;Ambulinia's countenance brightens&mdash;Elfonzo
        leads up the winged steed. &ldquo;Mount,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;ye true-hearted, ye
        fearless soul&mdash;the day is ours.&rdquo; She sprang upon the back of the
        young thunderbolt, a brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one
        hand she grasps the reins, and with the other she holds an olive branch.
        &ldquo;Lend thy aid, ye strong winds,&rdquo; they exclaimed, &ldquo;ye moon, ye sun, and
        all ye fair host of heaven, witness the enemy conquered.&rdquo; &ldquo;Hold,&rdquo; said
        Elfonzo, &ldquo;thy dashing steed.&rdquo; &ldquo;Ride on,&rdquo; said Ambulinia, &ldquo;the voice of
        thunder is behind us.&rdquo; And onward they went, with such rapidity that
        they very soon arrived at Rural Retreat, where they dismounted, and were
        united with all the solemnities that usually attended such divine
        operations.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      There is but one Homer, there is but one Shakespeare, there is but one
      McClintock&mdash;and his immortal book is before you. Homer could not have
      written this book, Shakespeare could not have written it, I could not have
      done it myself. There is nothing just like it in the literature of any
      country or of any epoch. It stands alone; it is monumental. It adds G.
      Ragsdale McClintock's to the sum of the republic's imperishable names.
    </p>
    <p>
      1. The name here given is a substitute for the one actually attached to
      the pamphlet.
    </p>
    <p>
      2. Further on it will be seen that he is a country expert on the fiddle,
      and has a three-township fame.
    </p>
    <p>
      3. It is a crowbar.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE CURIOUS BOOK
    </h2>
    <h3>
      COMPLETE
    </h3>
    <p>
      (The foregoing review of the great work of G. Ragsdale McClintock is
      liberally illuminated with sample extracts, but these cannot appease the
      appetite. Only the complete book, unabridged, can do that. Therefore it is
      here printed.&mdash;M.T.)
    </p>
    <p>
      THE ENEMY CONQUERED; OR, LOVE TRIUMPHANT
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Sweet girl, thy smiles are full of charms,

     Thy voice is sweeter still,

     It fills the breast with fond alarms,

     Echoed by every rill.
</pre>
    <p>
      I begin this little work with an eulogy upon woman, who has ever been
      distinguished for her perseverance, her constancy, and her devoted
      attention to those upon whom she has been pleased to place her <i>affections</i>.
      Many have been the themes upon which writers and public speakers have
      dwelt with intense and increasing interest. Among these delightful themes
      stands that of woman, the balm to all our sighs and disappointments, and
      the most pre-eminent of all other topics. Here the poet and orator have
      stood and gazed with wonder and with admiration; they have dwelt upon her
      innocence, the ornament of all her virtues. First viewing her external
      charms, such as set forth in her form and benevolent countenance, and then
      passing to the deep hidden springs of loveliness and disinterested
      devotion. In every clime, and in every age, she has been the pride of her
      <i>nation</i>. Her watchfulness is untiring; she who guarded the sepulcher
      was the first to approach it, and the last to depart from its awful yet
      sublime scene. Even here, in this highly favored land, we look to her for
      the security of our institutions, and for our future greatness as a
      nation. But, strange as it may appear, woman's charms and virtues are but
      slightly appreciated by thousands. Those who should raise the standard of
      female worth, and paint her value with her virtues, in living colors, upon
      the banners that are fanned by the zephyrs of heaven, and hand them down
      to posterity as emblematical of a rich inheritance, do not properly
      estimate them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Man is not sensible, at all times, of the nature and the emotions which
      bear that name; he does not understand, he will not comprehend; his
      intelligence has not expanded to that degree of glory which drinks in the
      vast revolution of humanity, its end, its mighty destination, and the
      causes which operated, and are still operating, to produce a more elevated
      station, and the objects which energize and enliven its consummation. This
      he is a stranger to; he is not aware that woman is the recipient of
      celestial love, and that man is dependent upon her to perfect his
      character; that without her, philosophically and truly speaking, the
      brightest of his intelligence is but the coldness of a winter moon, whose
      beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not its own, but borrowed
      from the great dispenser of effulgent beauty. We have no disposition in
      the world to flatter the fair sex, we would raise them above those
      dastardly principles which only exist in little souls, contracted hearts,
      and a distracted brain. Often does she unfold herself in all her
      fascinating loveliness, presenting the most captivating charms; yet we
      find man frequently treats such purity of purpose with indifference. Why
      does he do it? Why does he baffle that which is inevitably the source of
      his better days? Is he so much of a stranger to those excellent qualities
      as not to appreciate woman, as not to have respect to her dignity? Since
      her art and beauty first captivated man, she has been his delight and his
      comfort; she has shared alike in his misfortunes and in his prosperity.
    </p>
    <p>
      Whenever the billows of adversity and the tumultuous waves of trouble beat
      high, her smiles subdue their fury. Should the tear of sorrow and the
      mournful sigh of grief interrupt the peace of his mind, her voice removes
      them all, and she bends from her circle to encourage him onward. When
      darkness would obscure his mind, and a thick cloud of gloom would bewilder
      its operations, her intelligent eye darts a ray of streaming light into
      his heart. Mighty and charming is that disinterested devotion which she is
      ever ready to exercise toward man, not waiting till the last moment of his
      danger, but seeks to relieve him in his early afflictions. It gushes forth
      from the expansive fullness of a tender and devoted heart, where the
      noblest, the purest, and the most elevated and refined feelings are
      matured and developed in those many kind offices which invariably make her
      character.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the room of sorrow and sickness, this unequaled characteristic may
      always been seen, in the performance of the most charitable acts; nothing
      that she can do to promote the happiness of him who she claims to be her
      protector will be omitted; all is invigorated by the animating sunbeams
      which awaken the heart to songs of gaiety. Leaving this point, to notice
      another prominent consideration, which is generally one of great moment
      and of vital importance. Invariably she is firm and steady in all her
      pursuits and aims. There is required a combination of forces and extreme
      opposition to drive her from her position; she takes her stand, not to be
      moved by the sound of Apollo's lyre or the curved bow of pleasure.
    </p>
    <p>
      Firm and true to what she undertakes, and that which she requires by her
      own aggrandizement, and regards as being within the strict rules of
      propriety, she will remain stable and unflinching to the last. A more
      genuine principle is not to be found in the most determined, resolute
      heart of man. For this she deserves to be held in the highest
      commendation, for this she deserves the purest of all other blessings, and
      for this she deserves the most laudable reward of all others. It is a
      noble characteristic and is worthy of imitation of any age. And when we
      look at it in one particular aspect, it is still magnified, and grows
      brighter and brighter the more we reflect upon its eternal duration. What
      will she not do, when her word as well as her affections and <i>love </i>are
      pledged to her lover? Everything that is dear to her on earth, all the
      hospitalities of kind and loving parents, all the sincerity and loveliness
      of sisters, and the benevolent devotion of brothers, who have surrounded
      her with every comfort; she will forsake them all, quit the harmony and
      sweet sound of the lute and the harp, and throw herself upon the
      affections of some devoted admirer, in whom she fondly hopes to find more
      than she has left behind, which is not often realized by many. Truth and
      virtue all combined! How deserving our admiration and love! Ah cruel would
      it be in man, after she has thus manifested such an unshaken confidence in
      him, and said by her determination to abandon all the endearments and
      blandishments of home, to act a villainous part, and prove a traitor in
      the revolution of his mission, and then turn Hector over the innocent
      victim whom he swore to protect, in the presence of Heaven, recorded by
      the pen of an angel.
    </p>
    <p>
      Striking as this trait may unfold itself in her character, and as
      pre-eminent as it may stand among the fair display of her other qualities,
      yet there is another, which struggles into existence, and adds an
      additional luster to what she already possesses. I mean that disposition
      in woman which enables her, in sorrow, in grief, and in distress, to bear
      all with enduring patience. This she has done, and can and will do, amid
      the din of war and clash of arms. Scenes and occurrences which, to every
      appearance, are calculated to rend the heart with the profoundest emotions
      of trouble, do not fetter that exalted principle imbued in her very
      nature. It is true, her tender and feeling heart may often be moved (as
      she is thus constituted), but she is not conquered, she has not given up
      to the harlequin of disappointments, her energies have not become clouded
      in the last movement of misfortune, but she is continually invigorated by
      the archetype of her affections. She may bury her face in her hands, and
      let the tear of anguish roll, she may promenade the delightful walks of
      some garden, decorated with all the flowers of nature, or she may steal
      out along some gently rippling stream, and there, as the silver waters
      uninterruptedly move forward, shed her silent tears; they mingle with the
      waves, and take a last farewell of their agitated home, to seek a peaceful
      dwelling among the rolling floods; yet there is a voice rushing from her
      breast, that proclaims <i>victory </i>along the whole line and battlement
      of her affections. That voice is the voice of patience and resignation;
      that voice is one that bears everything calmly and dispassionately, amid
      the most distressing scenes; when the fates are arrayed against her peace,
      and apparently plotting for her destruction, still she is resigned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Woman's affections are deep, consequently her troubles may be made to sink
      deep. Although you may not be able to mark the traces of her grief and the
      furrowings of her anguish upon her winning countenance, yet be assured
      they are nevertheless preying upon her inward person, sapping the very
      foundation of that heart which alone was made for the weal and not the woe
      of man. The deep recesses of the soul are fields for their operation. But
      they are not destined simply to take the regions of the heart for their
      dominion, they are not satisfied merely with interrupting her better
      feelings; but after a while you may see the blooming cheek beginning to
      droop and fade, her intelligent eye no longer sparkles with the starry
      light of heaven, her vibrating pulse long since changed its regular
      motion, and her palpitating bosom beats once more for the midday of her
      glory. Anxiety and care ultimately throw her into the arms of the haggard
      and grim monster death. But, oh, how patient, under every pining
      influence! Let us view the matter in bolder colors; see her when the
      dearest object of her affections recklessly seeks every bacchanalian
      pleasure, contents himself with the last rubbish of creation. With what
      solicitude she awaits his return! Sleep fails to perform its office&mdash;she
      weeps while the nocturnal shades of the night triumph in the stillness.
      Bending over some favorite book, whilst the author throws before her mind
      the most beautiful imagery, she startles at every sound. The midnight
      silence is broken by the solemn announcement of the return of another
      morning. He is still absent; she listens for that voice which has so often
      been greeted by the melodies of her own; but, alas! stern silence is all
      that she receives for her vigilance.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mark her unwearied watchfulness, as the night passes away. At last,
      brutalized by the accursed thing, he staggers along with rage, and,
      shivering with cold, he makes his appearance. Not a murmur is heard from
      her lips. On the contrary, she meets him with a smile&mdash;she caresses
      him with tender arms, with all the gentleness and softness of her sex.
      Here, then, is seen her disposition, beautifully arrayed. Woman, thou art
      more to be admired than the spicy gales of Arabia, and more sought for
      than the gold of Golconda. We believe that Woman should associate freely
      with man, and we believe that it is for the preservation of her rights.
      She should become acquainted with the metaphysical designs of those who
      condescended to sing the siren song of flattery. This, we think, should be
      according to the unwritten law of decorum, which is stamped upon every
      innocent heart. The precepts of prudery are often steeped in the guilt of
      contamination, which blasts the expectations of better moments. Truth, and
      beautiful dreams&mdash;loveliness, and delicacy of character, with
      cherished affections of the ideal woman&mdash;gentle hopes and
      aspirations, are enough to uphold her in the storms of darkness, without
      the transferred colorings of a stained sufferer. How often have we seen it
      in our public prints, that woman occupies a false station in the world!
      and some have gone so far as to say it was an unnatural one. So long has
      she been regarded a weak creature, by the rabble and illiterate&mdash;they
      have looked upon her as an insufficient actress on the great stage of
      human life&mdash;a mere puppet, to fill up the drama of human existence&mdash;a
      thoughtless, inactive being&mdash;that she has too often come to the same
      conclusion herself, and has sometimes forgotten her high destination, in
      the meridian of her glory. We have but little sympathy or patience for
      those who treat her as a mere Rosy Melindi&mdash;who are always fishing
      for pretty complements&mdash;who are satisfied by the gossamer of Romance,
      and who can be allured by the verbosity of high-flown words, rich in
      language, but poor and barren in sentiment. Beset, as she has been, by the
      intellectual vulgar, the selfish, the designing, the cunning, the hidden,
      and the artful&mdash;no wonder she has sometimes folded her wings in
      despair, and forgotten her <i>heavenly </i>mission in the delirium of
      imagination; no wonder she searches out some wild desert, to find a
      peaceful home. But this cannot always continue. A new era is moving gently
      onward, old things are rapidly passing away; old superstitions, old
      prejudices, and old notions are now bidding farewell to their old
      associates and companions, and giving way to one whose wings are plumed
      with the light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morning. There is a
      remnant of blessedness that clings to her in spite of all evil influence,
      there is enough of the Divine Master left to accomplish the noblest work
      ever achieved under the canopy of the vaulted skies; and that time is fast
      approaching, when the picture of the true woman will shine from its frame
      of glory, to captivate, to win back, to restore, and to call into being
      once more, <i>the object of her mission</i>.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Star of the brave! thy glory shed,
     O'er all the earth, thy army led&mdash;
     Bold meteor of immortal birth!
     Why come from Heaven to dwell on Earth?
</pre>
    <p>
      Mighty and glorious are the days of youth; happy the moments of the <i>lover</i>,
      mingled with smiles and tears of his devoted, and long to be remembered
      are the achievements which he gains with a palpitating heart and a
      trembling hand. A bright and lovely dawn, the harbinger of a fair and
      prosperous day, had arisen over the beautiful little village of Cumming,
      which is surrounded by the most romantic scenery in the Cherokee country.
      Brightening clouds seemed to rise from the mist of the fair Chattahoochee,
      to spread their beauty over the thick forest, to guide the hero whose
      bosom beats with aspirations to conquer the enemy that would tarnish his
      name, and to win back the admiration of his long-tried friend. He
      endeavored to make his way through Sawney's Mountain, where many meet to
      catch the gales that are continually blowing for the refreshment of the
      stranger and the traveler. Surrounded as he was by hills on every side,
      naked rocks dared the efforts of his energies. Soon the sky became
      overcast, the sun buried itself in the clouds, and the fair day gave place
      to gloomy twilight, which lay heavily on the Indian Plains. He remembered
      an old Indian Castle, that once stood at the foot of the mountain. He
      thought if he could make his way to this, he would rest contented for a
      short time. The mountain air breathed fragrance&mdash;a rosy tinge rested
      on the glassy waters that murmured at its base. His resolution soon
      brought him to the remains of the red man's hut: he surveyed with wonder
      and astonishment the decayed building, which time had buried in the dust,
      and thought to himself, his happiness was not yet complete. Beside the
      shore of the brook sat a young man, about eighteen or twenty, who seemed
      to be reading some favorite book, and who had a remarkably noble
      countenance&mdash;eyes which betrayed more than a common mind. This of
      course made the youth a welcome guest, and gained him friends in whatever
      condition of life he might be placed. The traveler observed that he was a
      well-built figure, which showed strength and grace in every movement. He
      accordingly addressed him in quite a gentlemanly manner, and inquired of
      him the way to the village. After he had received the desired information,
      and was about taking his leave, the youth said, &ldquo;Are you not Major
      Elfonzo, the great musician&mdash;the champion of a noble cause&mdash;the
      modern Achilles, who gained so many victories in the Florida War?&rdquo; &ldquo;I bear
      that name,&rdquo; said the Major, &ldquo;and those titles, trusting at the same time
      that the ministers of grace will carry me triumphantly through all my
      laudable undertakings, and if,&rdquo; continued the Major, &ldquo;you, sir, are the
      patronizer of noble deeds, I should like to make you my confidant and
      learn your address.&rdquo; The youth looked somewhat amazed, bowed low, mused
      for a moment, and began: &ldquo;My name is Roswell. I have been recently
      admitted to the bar, and can only give a faint outline of my future
      success in that honorable profession; but I trust, sir, like the Eagle, I
      shall look down from lofty rocks upon the dwellings of man, and shall ever
      be ready to give you any assistance in my official capacity, and whatever
      this muscular arm of mine can do, whenever it shall be called from its
      buried <i>greatness</i>.&rdquo; The Major grasped him by the hand, and
      exclaimed: &ldquo;O! thou exalted spirit of inspiration&mdash;thou flame of
      burning prosperity, may the Heaven-directed blaze be the glare of thy
      soul, and battle down every rampart that seems to impede your progress!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The road which led to the town presented many attractions. Elfonzo had bid
      farewell to the youth of deep feeling, and was now wending his way to the
      dreaming spot of his fondness. The south winds whistled through the woods,
      as the waters dashed against the banks, as rapid fire in the pent furnace
      roars. This brought him to remember while alone, that he quietly left
      behind the hospitality of a father's house, and gladly entered the world,
      with higher hopes than are often realized. But as he journeyed onward, he
      was mindful of the advice of his father, who had often looked sadly on the
      ground when tears of cruelly deceived hope moistened his eye. Elfonzo had
      been somewhat of a dutiful son; yet fond of the amusements of life&mdash;had
      been in distant lands&mdash;had enjoyed the pleasure of the world and had
      frequently returned to the scenes of his boyhood, almost destitute of many
      of the comforts of life. In this condition, he would frequently say to his
      father, &ldquo;Have I offended you, that you look upon me as a stranger, and
      frown upon me with stinging looks? Will you not favor me with the sound of
      your voice? If I have trampled upon your veneration, or have spread a
      humid veil of darkness around your expectations, send me back into the
      world where no heart beats for me&mdash;where the foot of man has never
      yet trod; but give me at least one kind word&mdash;allow me to come into
      the presence sometimes of thy winter-worn locks.&rdquo; &ldquo;Forbid it, Heaven, that
      I should be angry with thee,&rdquo; answered the father, &ldquo;my son, and yet I send
      thee back to the children of the world&mdash;to the cold charity of the
      combat, and to a land of victory. I read another destiny in thy
      countenance&mdash;I learn thy inclinations from the flame that has already
      kindled in my soul a strange sensation. It will seek thee, my dear <i>Elfonzo</i>,
      it will find thee&mdash;thou canst not escape that lighted torch, which
      shall blot out from the remembrance of men a long train of prophecies
      which they have foretold against thee. I once thought not so. Once, I was
      blind; but now the path of life is plain before me, and my sight is clear;
      yet Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation&mdash;take again in thy hand
      that chord of sweet sounds&mdash;struggle with the civilized world, and
      with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground&mdash;let the
      night-_owl_ send forth its screams from the stubborn oak&mdash;let the sea
      sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these,
      Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our
      most lawful <i>desires </i>must often be denied us, that we may learn to
      sacrifice them to a Higher will.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Remembering such admonitions with gratitude, Elfonzo was immediately urged
      by the recollection of his father's family to keep moving. His steps
      became quicker and quicker&mdash;he hastened through the <i>piny </i>woods,
      dark as the forest was, and with joy he very soon reached the little
      village of repose, in whose bosom rested the boldest chivalry. His close
      attention to every important object&mdash;his modest questions about
      whatever was new to him&mdash;his reverence for wise old age, and his
      ardent desire to learn many of the fine arts, soon brought him into
      respectable notice.
    </p>
    <p>
      One mild winter day as he walked along the streets toward the Academy,
      which stood upon a small eminence, surrounded by native growth&mdash;some
      venerable in its appearance, others young and prosperous&mdash;all seemed
      inviting, and seemed to be the very place for learning as well as for
      genius to spend its research beneath its spreading shades. He entered its
      classic walls in the usual mode of southern manners. The principal of the
      Institution begged him to be seated and listen to the recitations that
      were going on. He accordingly obeyed the request, and seemed to be much
      pleased. After the school was dismissed, and the young hearts regained
      their freedom, with the songs of the evening, laughing at the anticipated
      pleasures of a happy home, while others tittered at the actions of the
      past day, he addressed the teacher in a tone that indicated a resolution&mdash;with
      an undaunted mind. He said he had determined to become a student, if he
      could meet with his approbation. &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I have spent much time
      in the world. I have traveled among the uncivilized inhabitants of
      America. I have met with friends, and combated with foes; but none of
      these gratify my ambition, or decide what is to be my destiny. I see the
      learned would have an influence with the voice of the people themselves.
      The despoilers of the remotest kingdoms of the earth refer their
      differences to this class of persons. This the illiterate and
      inexperienced little dream of; and now if you will receive me as I am,
      with these deficiencies&mdash;with all my misguided opinions, I will give
      you my honor, sir, that I will never disgrace the Institution, or those
      who have placed you in this honorable station.&rdquo; The instructor, who had
      met with many disappointments, knew how to feel for a stranger who had
      been thus turned upon the charities of an unfeeling community. He looked
      at him earnestly, and said: &ldquo;Be of good cheer&mdash;look forward, sir, to
      the high destination you may attain. Remember, the more elevated the mark
      at which you aim, the more sure, the more glorious, the more magnificent
      the prize.&rdquo; From wonder to wonder, his encouragement led the impatient
      listener. A strange nature bloomed before him&mdash;giant streams promised
      him success&mdash;gardens of hidden treasures opened to his view. All
      this, so vividly described, seemed to gain a new witchery from his glowing
      fancy.
    </p>
    <p>
      In 1842 he entered the class, and made rapid progress in the English and
      Latin departments. Indeed, he continued advancing with such rapidity that
      he was like to become the first in his class, and made such unexpected
      progress, and was so studious, that he had almost forgotten the pictured
      saint of his affections. The fresh wreaths of the pine and cypress had
      waited anxiously to drop once more the dews of Heavens upon the heads of
      those who had so often poured forth the tender emotions of their souls
      under its boughs. He was aware of the pleasure that he had seen there. So
      one evening, as he was returning from his reading, he concluded he would
      pay a visit to this enchanting spot. Little did he think of witnessing a
      shadow of his former happiness, though no doubt he wished it might be so.
      He continued sauntering by the roadside, meditating on the past. The
      nearer he approached the spot, the more anxious he became. At the moment a
      tall female figure flitted across his path, with a bunch of roses in her
      hand; her countenance showed uncommon vivacity, with a resolute spirit;
      her ivory teeth already appeared as she smiled beautifully, promenading&mdash;while
      her ringlets of hair dangled unconsciously around her snowy neck. Nothing
      was wanting to complete her beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full
      bloom upon her cheek; the charms of sensibility and tenderness were always
      her associates.. In Ambulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul&mdash;one that
      never faded&mdash;one that never was conquered. Her heart yielded to no
      feeling but the love of Elfonzo, on whom she gazed with intense delight,
      and to whom she felt herself more closely bound, because he sought the
      hand of no other. Elfonzo was roused from his apparent reverie. His books
      no longer were his inseparable companions&mdash;his thoughts arrayed
      themselves to encourage him in the field of victory. He endeavored to
      speak to his supposed Ambulinia, but his speech appeared not in words. No,
      his effort was a stream of fire, that kindled his soul into a flame of
      admiration, and carried his senses away captive. Ambulinia had
      disappeared, to make him more mindful of his duty. As she walked speedily
      away through the piny woods she calmly echoed: &ldquo;O! Elfonzo, thou wilt now
      look from thy sunbeams. Thou shalt now walk in a new path&mdash;perhaps
      thy way leads through darkness; but fear not, the stars foretell
      happiness.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Not many days afterward, as surrounded by fragrant flowers she sat one
      evening at twilight, to enjoy the cool breeze that whispered notes of
      melody along the distant groves, the little birds perched on every side,
      as if to watch the movements of their new visitor. The bells were tolling
      when Elfonzo silently stole along by the wild wood flowers, holding in his
      hand his favorite instrument of music&mdash;his eye continually searching
      for Ambulinia, who hardly seemed to perceive him, as she played carelessly
      with the songsters that hopped from branch to branch. Nothing could be
      more striking than the difference between the two. Nature seemed to have
      given the more tender soul to Elfonzo, and the stronger and more
      courageous to Ambulinia. A deep feeling spoke from the eyes of Elfonzo&mdash;such
      a feeling as can only be expressed by those who are blessed as admirers,
      and by those who are able to return the same with sincerity of heart. He
      was a few years older than Ambulinia: she had turned a little into her
      seventeenth. He had almost grown up in the Cherokee country, with the same
      equal proportions as one of the natives. But little intimacy had existed
      between them until the year forty-one&mdash;because the youth felt that
      the character of such a lovely girl was too exalted to inspire any other
      feeling than that of quiet reverence. But as lovers will not always be
      insulted, at all times and under all circumstances, by the frowns and cold
      looks of crabbed old age, which should continually reflect dignity upon
      those around, and treat unfortunate as well as the fortunate with a
      graceful mien, he continued to use diligence and perseverance. All this
      lighted a spark in his heart that changed his whole character, and like
      the unyielding Deity that follows the storm to check its rage in the
      forest, he resolves for the first time to shake off his embarrassment and
      return where he had before only worshiped.
    </p>
    <p>
      It could not escape Ambulinia's penetrating eye that he sought an
      interview with her, which she as anxiously avoided, and assumed a more
      distant calmness than before, seemingly to destroy all hope. After many
      efforts and struggles with his own person, with timid steps the Major
      approached the damsel, with the same caution as he would have done in a
      field of battle. &ldquo;Lady Ambulinia,&rdquo; said he, trembling, &ldquo;I have long
      desired a moment like this. I dare not let it escape. I fear the
      consequences; yet I hope your indulgence will at least hear my petition.
      Can you not anticipate what I would say, and what I am about to express?
      Will not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter, release
      me from thy winding chains or cure me&mdash;&rdquo; &ldquo;Say no more, Elfonzo,&rdquo;
       answered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as if she
      intended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world; &ldquo;another lady in
      my place would have perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness. I
      know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the vanity of
      those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as shamed to be guilty
      of anything that would lead you to think 'all is not gold that glitters';
      so be not rash in your resolution. It is better to repent now than to do
      it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you would say. I know you have
      a costly gift for me&mdash;the noblest that man can make&mdash;<i>your
      heart!</i> you should not offer it to one so unworthy. Heaven, you know,
      has allowed my father's house to be made a house of solitude, a home of
      silent obedience, which my parents say is more to be admired than big
      names and high-sounding titles. Notwithstanding all this, let me speak the
      emotions of an honest heart; allow me to say in the fullness of my hopes
      that I anticipate better days. The bird may stretch its wings toward the
      sun, which it can never reach; and flowers of the field appear to ascend
      in the same direction, because they cannot do otherwise; but man confides
      his complaints to the saints in whom he believes; for in their abodes of
      light they know no more sorrow. From your confession and indicative looks,
      I must be that person; if so, deceive not yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Elfonzo replied, &ldquo;Pardon me, my dear madam, for my frankness. I have loved
      you from my earliest days; everything grand and beautiful hath borne the
      image of Ambulinia; while precipices on every hand surrounded me, your <i>guardian
      angel</i> stood and beckoned me away from the deep abyss. In every trial,
      in every misfortune, I have met with your helping hand; yet I never
      dreamed or dared to cherish thy love till a voice impaired with age
      encouraged the cause, and declared they who acquired thy favor should win
      a victory. I saw how Leos worshipped thee. I felt my own unworthiness. I
      began to <i>know jealousy</i>&mdash;a strong guest, indeed, in my bosom&mdash;yet
      I could see if I gained your admiration Leos was to be my rival. I was
      aware that he had the influence of your parents, and the wealth of a
      deceased relative, which is too often mistaken for permanent and regular
      tranquillity; yet I have determined by your permission to beg an interest
      in your prayers&mdash;to ask you to animate my drooping spirits by your
      smiles and your winning looks; for if you but speak I shall be conqueror,
      my enemies shall stagger like Olympus shakes. And though earth and sea may
      tremble, and the charioteer of the sun may forget his dashing steed, yet I
      am assured that it is only to arm me with divine weapons which will enable
      me to complete my long-tried intention.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Return to your self, Elfonzo,&rdquo; said Ambulinia, pleasantly; &ldquo;a dream of
      vision has disturbed your intellect; you are above the atmosphere,
      dwelling in the celestial regions; nothing is there that urges or hinders,
      nothing that brings discord into our present litigation. I entreat you to
      condescend a little, and be a man, and forget it all. When Homer describes
      the battle of the gods and noble men fighting with giants and dragons,
      they represent under this image our struggles with the delusions of our
      passions. You have exalted me, an unhappy girl, to the skies; you have
      called me a saint, and portrayed in your imagination an angel in human
      form. Let her remain such to you, let her continue to be as you have
      supposed, and be assured that she will consider a share in your esteem as
      her highest treasure. Think not that I would allure you from the path in
      which your conscience leads you; for you know I respect the conscience of
      others, as I would die for my own. Elfonzo, if I am worthy of thy love,
      let such conversation never again pass between us. Go, seek a nobler
      theme! we will seek it in the stream of time as the sun set in the
      Tigris.&rdquo; As she spake these words she grasped the hand of Elfonzo, saying
      at the same time, &ldquo;Peace and prosperity attend you, my hero: be up and
      doing!&rdquo; Closing her remarks with this expression, she walked slowly away,
      leaving Elfonzo astonished and amazed. He ventured not to follow or detain
      her. Here he stood alone, gazing at the stars; confounded as he was, here
      he stood. The rippling stream rolled on at his feet. Twilight had already
      begun to draw her sable mantle over the earth, and now and then the fiery
      smoke would ascend from the little town which lay spread out before him.
      The citizens seemed to be full of life and good-humor; but poor Elfonzo
      saw not a brilliant scene. No; his future life stood before him, stripped
      of the hopes that once adorned all his sanguine desires. &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; said he,
      &ldquo;am I now Grief's disappointed son at last.&rdquo; Ambulinia's image rose before
      his fancy. A mixture of ambition and greatness of soul moved upon his
      young heart, and encouraged him to bear all his crosses with the patience
      of a Job, notwithstanding he had to encounter with so many obstacles. He
      still endeavored to prosecute his studies, and reasonably progressed in
      his education. Still, he was not content; there was something yet to be
      done before his happiness was complete. He would visit his friends and
      acquaintances. They would invite him to social parties, insisting that he
      should partake of the amusements that were going on. This he enjoyed
      tolerably well. The ladies and gentlemen were generally well pleased with
      the Major; as he delighted all with his violin, which seemed to have a
      thousand chords&mdash;more symphonious than the Muses of Apollo and more
      enchanting than the ghost of the Hills. He passed some days in the
      country. During that time Leos had made many calls upon Ambulinia, who was
      generally received with a great deal of courtesy by the family. They
      thought him to be a young man worthy of attention, though he had but
      little in his soul to attract the attention or even win the affections of
      her whose graceful manners had almost made him a slave to every bewitching
      look that fell from her eyes. Leos made several attempts to tell her of
      his fair prospects&mdash;how much he loved her, and how much it would add
      to his bliss if he could but think she would be willing to share these
      blessings with him; but, choked by his undertaking, he made himself more
      like an inactive drone than he did like one who bowed at beauty's shrine.
    </p>
    <p>
      Elfonzo again wends his way to the stately walls and new-built village. He
      now determines to see the end of the prophesy which had been foretold to
      him. The clouds burst from his sight; he believes if he can but see his
      Ambulinia, he can open to her view the bloody altars that have been
      misrepresented to stigmatize his name. He knows that her breast is
      transfixed with the sword of reason, and ready at all times to detect the
      hidden villainy of her enemies. He resolves to see her in her own home,
      with the consoling theme: &ldquo;'I can but perish if I go.' Let the
      consequences be what they may,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;if I die, it shall be contending
      and struggling for my own rights.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Night had almost overtaken him when he arrived in town. Colonel Elder, a
      noble-hearted, high-minded, and independent man, met him at his door as
      usual, and seized him by the hand. &ldquo;Well, Elfonzo,&rdquo; said the Colonel, &ldquo;how
      does the world use you in your efforts?&rdquo; &ldquo;I have no objection to the
      world,&rdquo; said Elfonzo, &ldquo;but the people are rather singular in some of their
      opinions.&rdquo; &ldquo;Aye, well,&rdquo; said the Colonel, &ldquo;you must remember that creation
      is made up of many mysteries; just take things by the right handle; be
      always sure you know which is the smooth side before you attempt your
      polish; be reconciled to your fate, be it what it may; and never find
      fault with your condition, unless your complaining will benefit it.
      Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable in those who have
      judgment to govern it. I should never have been so successful in my
      hunting excursions had I waited till the deer, by some magic dream, had
      been drawn to the muzzle of the gun before I made an attempt to fire at
      the game that dared my boldness in the wild forest. The great mystery in
      hunting seems to be&mdash;a good marksman, a resolute mind, a fixed
      determination, and my word for it, you will never return home without
      sounding your horn with the breath of a new victory. And so with every
      other undertaking. Be confident that your ammunition is of the right kind&mdash;always
      pull your trigger with a steady hand, and so soon as you perceive a calm,
      touch her off, and the spoils are yours.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      This filled him with redoubled vigor, and he set out with a stronger
      anxiety than ever to the home of Ambulinia. A few short steps soon brought
      him to the door, half out of breath. He rapped gently. Ambulinia, who sat
      in the parlor alone, suspecting Elfonzo was near, ventured to the door,
      opened it, and beheld the hero, who stood in an humble attitude, bowed
      gracefully, and as they caught each other's looks the light of peace
      beamed from the eyes of Ambulinia. Elfonzo caught the expression; a halloo
      of smothered shouts ran through every vein, and for the first time he
      dared to impress a kiss upon her cheek. The scene was overwhelming; had
      the temptation been less animating, he would not have ventured to have
      acted so contrary to the desired wish of his Ambulinia; but who could have
      withstood the irrestistable temptation! What society condemns the practice
      but a cold, heartless, uncivilized people that know nothing of the warm
      attachments of refined society? Here the dead was raised to his
      long-cherished hopes, and the lost was found. Here all doubt and danger
      were buried in the vortex of oblivion; sectional differences no longer
      disunited their opinions; like the freed bird from the cage, sportive
      claps its rustling wings, wheels about to heaven in a joyful strain, and
      raises its notes to the upper sky. Ambulinia insisted upon Elfonzo to be
      seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary absence; assuring him
      the family had retired, consequently they would ever remain ignorant of
      his visit. Advancing toward him, she gave a bright display of her rosy
      neck, and from her head the ambrosial locks breathed divine fragrance; her
      robe hung waving to his view, while she stood like a goddess confessed
      before him.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It does seem to me, my dear sir,&rdquo; said Ambulinia, &ldquo;that you have been
      gone an age. Oh, the restless hours I have spent since I last saw you, in
      yon beautiful grove. There is where I trifled with your feelings for the
      express purpose of trying your attachment for me. I now find you are
      devoted; but ah! I trust you live not unguarded by the powers of Heaven.
      Though oft did I refuse to join my hand with thine, and as oft did I
      cruelly mock thy entreaties with borrowed shapes: yes, I feared to answer
      thee by terms, in words sincere and undissembled. O! could I pursue, and
      you have leisure to hear the annals of my woes, the evening star would
      shut Heaven's gates upon the impending day before my tale would be
      finished, and this night would find me soliciting your forgiveness.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dismiss thy fears and thy doubts,&rdquo; replied Elfonzo.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Look, O! look: that angelic look of thine&mdash;bathe not thy visage in
      tears; banish those floods that are gathering; let my confession and my
      presence bring thee some relief.&rdquo; &ldquo;Then, indeed, I will be cheerful,&rdquo; said
      Ambulinia, &ldquo;and I think if we will go to the exhibition this evening, we
      certainly will see something worthy of our attention. One of the most
      tragical scenes is to be acted that has ever been witnessed, and one that
      every jealous-hearted person should learn a lesson from. It cannot fail to
      have a good effect, as it will be performed by those who are young and
      vigorous, and learned as well as enticing. You are aware, Major Elfonzo,
      who are to appear on the stage, and what the characters are to represent.&rdquo;
       &ldquo;I am acquainted with the circumstances,&rdquo; replied Elfonzo, &ldquo;and as I am to
      be one of the musicians upon that interesting occasion, I should be much
      gratified if you would favor me with your company during the hours of the
      exercises.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What strange notions are in your mind?&rdquo; inquired Ambulinia. &ldquo;Now I know
      you have something in view, and I desire you to tell me why it is that you
      are so anxious that I should continue with you while the exercises are
      going on; though if you think I can add to your happiness and
      predilections, I have no particular objection to acquiesce in your
      request. Oh, I think I foresee, now, what you anticipate.&rdquo; &ldquo;And will you
      have the goodness to tell me what you think it will be?&rdquo; inquired Elfonzo.
      &ldquo;By all means,&rdquo; answered Ambulinia; &ldquo;a rival, sir, you would fancy in your
      own mind; but let me say for you, fear not! fear not! I will be one of the
      last persons to disgrace my sex by thus encouraging every one who may feel
      disposed to visit me, who may honor me with their graceful bows and their
      choicest compliments. It is true that young men too often mistake civil
      politeness for the finer emotions of the heart, which is tantamount to
      courtship; but, ah! how often are they deceived, when they come to test
      the weight of sunbeams with those on whose strength hangs the future
      happiness of an untried life.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The people were now rushing to the Academy with impatient anxiety; the
      band of music was closely followed by the students; then the parents and
      guardians; nothing interrupted the glow of spirits which ran through every
      bosom, tinged with the songs of a Virgil and the tide of a Homer. Elfonzo
      and Ambulinia soon repaired to the scene, and fortunately for them both
      the house was so crowded that they took their seats together in the music
      department, which was not in view of the auditory. This fortuitous
      circumstances added more the bliss of the Major than a thousand such
      exhibitions would have done. He forgot that he was man; music had lost its
      charms for him; whenever he attempted to carry his part, the string of the
      instrument would break, the bow became stubborn, and refused to obey the
      loud calls of the audience. Here, he said, was the paradise of his home,
      the long-sought-for opportunity; he felt as though he could send a million
      supplications to the throne of Heaven for such an exalted privilege. Poor
      Leos, who was somewhere in the crowd, looking as attentively as if he was
      searching for a needle in a haystack; here he stood, wondering to himself
      why Ambulinia was not there. &ldquo;Where can she be? Oh! if she was only here,
      how I could relish the scene! Elfonzo is certainly not in town; but what
      if he is? I have got the wealth, if I have not the dignity, and I am sure
      that the squire and his lady have always been particular friends of mine,
      and I think with this assurance I shall be able to get upon the blind side
      of the rest of the family and make the heaven-born Ambulinia the mistress
      of all I possess.&rdquo; Then, again, he would drop his head, as if attempting
      to solve the most difficult problem in Euclid. While he was thus
      conjecturing in his own mind, a very interesting part of the exhibition
      was going on, which called the attention of all present. The curtains of
      the stage waved continually by the repelled forces that were given to
      them, which caused Leos to behold Ambulinia leaning upon the chair of
      Elfonzo. Her lofty beauty, seen by the glimmering of the chandelier,
      filled his heart with rapture, he knew not how to contain himself; to go
      where they were would expose him to ridicule; to continue where he was,
      with such an object before him, without being allowed an explanation in
      that trying hour, would be to the great injury of his mental as well as of
      his physical powers; and, in the name of high heaven, what must he do?
      Finally, he resolved to contain himself as well as he conveniently could,
      until the scene was over, and then he would plant himself at the door, to
      arrest Ambulinia from the hands of the insolent Elfonzo, and thus make for
      himself a more prosperous field of immortality than ever was decreed by
      Omnipotence, or ever pencil drew or artist imagined. Accordingly he made
      himself sentinel, immediately after the performance of the evening&mdash;retained
      his position apparently in defiance of all the world; he waited, he gazed
      at every lady, his whole frame trembled; here he stood, until everything
      like human shape had disappeared from the institution, and he had done
      nothing; he had failed to accomplish that which he so eagerly sought for.
      Poor, unfortunate creature! he had not the eyes of an Argus, or he might
      have seen his Juno and Elfonzo, assisted by his friend Sigma, make their
      escape from the window, and, with the rapidity of a race-horse, hurry
      through the blast of the storm to the residence of her father, without
      being recognized. He did not tarry long, but assured Ambulinia the endless
      chain of their existence was more closely connected than ever, since he
      had seen the virtuous, innocent, imploring, and the constant Amelia
      murdered by the jealous-hearted Farcillo, the accursed of the land.
    </p>
    <p>
      The following is the tragical scene, which is only introduced to show the
      subject-matter that enabled Elfonzo to come to such a determinate
      resolution that nothing of the kind should ever dispossess him of his true
      character, should he be so fortunate as to succeed in his present
      undertaking.
    </p>
    <p>
      Amelia was the wife of Farcillo, and a virtuous woman; Gracia, a young
      lady, was her particular friend and confidant. Farcillo grew jealous of
      Amelia, murders her, finds out that he was deceived, <i>and stabs himself</i>.
      Amelia appears alone, talking to herself.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Hail, ye solitary ruins of antiquity, ye sacred tombs and silent walks!
      it is your aid I invoke; it is to you, my soul, wrapt in deep mediation,
      pours forth its prayer. Here I wander upon the stage of mortality, since
      the world hath turned against me. Those whom I believed to be my friends,
      alas! are now my enemies, planting thorns in all my paths, poisoning all
      my pleasures, and turning the past to pain. What a lingering catalogue of
      sighs and tears lies just before me, crowding my aching bosom with the
      fleeting dream of humanity, which must shortly terminate. And to what
      purpose will all this bustle of life, these agitations and emotions of the
      heart have conduced, if it leave behind it nothing of utility, if it leave
      no traces of improvement? Can it be that I am deceived in my conclusions?
      No, I see that I have nothing to hope for, but everything to fear, which
      tends to drive me from the walks of time.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Oh! in this dead night, if loud winds arise,

     To lash the surge and bluster in the skies,

     May the west its furious rage display,

     Toss me with storms in the watery way.
</pre>
    <p>
      (Enter Gracia.)
    </p>
    <p>
      G. Oh, Amelia, is it you, the object of grief, the daughter of opulence,
      of wisdom and philosophy, that thus complaineth? It cannot be you are the
      child of misfortune, speaking of the monuments of former ages, which were
      allotted not for the reflection of the distressed, but for the fearless
      and bold.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Not the child of poverty, Gracia, or the heir of glory and peace, but
      of fate. Remember, I have wealth more than wit can number; I have had
      power more than kings could emcompass; yet the world seems a desert; all
      nature appears an afflictive spectacle of warring passions. This blind
      fatality, that capriciously sports with the rules and lives of mortals,
      tells me that the mountains will never again send forth the water of their
      springs to my thirst. Oh, that I might be freed and set at liberty from
      wretchedness! But I fear, I fear this will never be.
    </p>
    <p>
      G. Why, Amelia, this untimely grief? What has caused the sorrows that
      bespeak better and happier days, to those lavish out such heaps of misery?
      You are aware that your instructive lessons embellish the mind with holy
      truths, by wedding its attention to none but great and noble affections.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. This, of course, is some consolation. I will ever love my own species
      with feelings of a fond recollection, and while I am studying to advance
      the universal philanthropy, and the spotless name of my own sex, I will
      try to build my own upon the pleasing belief that I have accelerated the
      advancement of one who whispers of departed confidence.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     And I, like some poor peasant fated to reside

     Remote from friends, in a forest wide.

     Oh, see what woman's woes and human wants require,

     Since that great day hath spread the seed of sinful fire.
</pre>
    <p>
      G. Look up, thou poor disconsolate; you speak of quitting earthly
      enjoyments. Unfold thy bosom to a friend, who would be willing to
      sacrifice every enjoyment for the restoration of the dignity and
      gentleness of mind which used to grace your walks, and which is so natural
      to yourself; not only that, but your paths were strewed with flowers of
      every hue and of every order.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     With verdant green the mountains glow,

     For thee, for thee, the lilies grow;

     Far stretched beneath the tented hills,

     A fairer flower the valley fills.
</pre>
    <p>
      A. Oh, would to Heaven I could give you a short narrative of my former
      prospects for happiness, since you have acknowledged to be an unchangeable
      confidant&mdash;the richest of all other blessings. Oh, ye names forever
      glorious, ye celebrated scenes, ye renowned spot of my hymeneal moments;
      how replete is your chart with sublime reflections! How many profound
      vows, decorated with immaculate deeds, are written upon the surface of
      that precious spot of earth where I yielded up my life of celibacy, bade
      youth with all its beauties a final adieu, took a last farewell of the
      laurels that had accompanied me up the hill of my juvenile career. It was
      then I began to descend toward the valley of disappointment and sorrow; it
      was then I cast my little bark upon a mysterious ocean of wedlock, with
      him who then smiled and caressed me, but, alas! now frowns with
      bitterness, and has grown jealous and cold toward me, because the ring he
      gave me is misplaced or lost. Oh, bear me, ye flowers of memory, softly
      through the eventful history of past times; and ye places that have
      witnessed the progression of man in the circle of so many societies, and,
      oh, aid my recollection, while I endeavor to trace the vicissitudes of a
      life devoted in endeavoring to comfort him that I claim as the object of
      my wishes.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Ah! ye mysterious men, of all the world, how few

     Act just to Heaven and to your promise true!

     But He who guides the stars with a watchful eye,

     The deeds of men lay open without disguise;

     Oh, this alone will avenge the wrongs I bear,

     For all the oppressed are His peculiar care.
</pre>
    <p>
      (F. makes a slight noise.)
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Who is there&mdash;Farcillo?
    </p>
    <p>
      G. Then I must gone. Heaven protect you. Oh, Amelia, farewell, be of good
      cheer.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     May you stand like Olympus' towers,

     Against earth and all jealous powers!

     May you, with loud shouts ascend on high

     Swift as an eagle in the upper sky.
</pre>
    <p>
      A. Why so cold and distant tonight, Farcillo? Come, let us each other
      greet, and forget all the past, and give security for the future.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Security! talk to me about giving security for the future&mdash;what an
      insulting requisition! Have you said your prayers tonight, Madam Amelia?
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Farcillo, we sometimes forget our duty, particularly when we expect to
      be caressed by others.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. If you bethink yourself of any crime, or of any fault, that is yet
      concealed from the courts of Heaven and the thrones of grace, I bid you
      ask and solicit forgiveness for it now.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Oh, be kind, Farcillo, don't treat me so. What do you mean by all this?
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Be kind, you say; you, madam, have forgot that kindness you owe to me,
      and bestowed it upon another; you shall suffer for your conduct when you
      make your peace with your God. I would not slay thy unprotected spirit. I
      call to Heaven to be my guard and my watch&mdash;I would not kill thy
      soul, in which all once seemed just, right, and perfect; but I must be
      brief, woman.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. What, talk you of killing? Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, what is the matter?
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Aye, I do, without doubt; mark what I say, Amelia.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Then, O God, O Heaven, and Angels, be propitious, and have mercy upon
      me.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Amen to that, madam, with all my heart, and with all my soul.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Farcillo, listen to me one moment; I hope you will not kill me.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Kill you, aye, that I will; attest it, ye fair host of light, record
      it, ye dark imps of hell!
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Oh, I fear you&mdash;you are fatal when darkness covers your brow; yet
      I know not why I should fear, since I never wronged you in all my life. I
      stand, sir, guiltless before you.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. You pretend to say you are guiltless! Think of thy sins, Amelia; think,
      oh, think, hidden woman.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Wherein have I not been true to you? That death is unkind, cruel, and
      unnatural, that kills for living.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Peace, and be still while I unfold to thee.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. I will, Farcillo, and while I am thus silent, tell me the cause of such
      cruel coldness in an hour like this.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. That <i>ring</i>, oh, that ring I so loved, and gave thee as the ring
      of my heart; the allegiance you took to be faithful, when it was
      presented; the kisses and smiles with which you honored it. You became
      tired of the donor, despised it as a plague, and finally gave it to Malos,
      the hidden, the vile traitor.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. No, upon my word and honor, I never did; I appeal to the Most High to
      bear me out in this matter. Send for Malos, and ask him.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Send for Malos, aye! Malos you wish to see; I thought so. I knew you
      could not keep his name concealed. Amelia, sweet Amelia, take heed, take
      heed of perjury; you are on the stage of death, to suffer for <i>your sins</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. What, not to die I hope, my Farcillo, my ever beloved.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Yes, madam, to die a traitor's death. Shortly your spirit shall take
      its exit; therefore confess freely thy sins, for to deny tends only to
      make me groan under the bitter cup thou hast made for me. Thou art to die
      with the name of traitor on thy brow!
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Then, O Lord, have mercy upon me; give me courage, give me grace and
      fortitude to stand this hour of trial.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Amen, I say, with all my heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. And, oh, Farcillo, will you have mercy, too? I never intentionally
      offended you in all my life, never <i>loved </i>Malos, never gave him
      cause to think so, as the high court of Justice will acquit me before its
      tribunal.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Oh, false, perjured woman, thou didst chill my blood, and makest me a
      demon like thyself. I saw the ring.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. He found it, then, or got it clandestinely; send for him, and let him
      confess the truth; let his confession be sifted.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. And you still wish to see him! I tell you, madam, he hath already
      confessed, and thou knowest the darkness of thy heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. What, my deceived Farcillo, that I gave him the ring, in which all my
      affections were concentrated? Oh, surely not.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Aye, he did. Ask thy conscience, and it will speak with a voice of
      thunder to thy soul.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. He will not say so, he dare not, he cannot.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. No, he will not say so now, because his mouth, I trust, is hushed in
      death, and his body stretched to the four winds of heaven, to be torn to
      pieces by carnivorous birds.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. What, he is dead, and gone to the world of spirits with that
      declaration in his mouth? Oh, unhappy man! Oh, insupportable hour!
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Yes, and had all his sighs and looks and tears been lives, my great
      revenge could have slain them all, without the least condemnation.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Alas! he is ushered into eternity without testing the matter for which
      I am abused and sentenced and condemned to die.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Cursed, infernal woman! Weepest thou for him to my face? He that hath
      robbed me of my peace, my energy, the whole love of my life? Could I call
      the fabled Hydra, I would have him live and perish, survive and die, until
      the sun itself would grow dim with age. I would make him have the thirst
      of a Tantalus, and roll the wheel of an Ixion, until the stars of heaven
      should quit their brilliant stations.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Oh, invincible God, save me! Oh, unsupportable moment! Oh, heavy hour!
      Banish me, Farcillo&mdash;send me where no eye can ever see me, where no
      sound shall ever great my ear; but, oh, slay me not, Farcillo; vent thy
      rage and thy spite upon this emaciated frame of mine, only spare my life.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Your petitions avail nothing, cruel Amelia.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Oh, Farcillo, perpetrate the dark deed tomorrow; let me live till then,
      for my past kindness to you, and it may be some kind angel will show to
      you that I am not only the object of innocence, but one who never loved
      another but your noble self.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Amelia, the decree has gone forth, it is to be done, and that quickly;
      thou art to die, madam.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. But half an hour allow me, to see my father and my only child, to tell
      her the treachery and vanity of this world.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. There is no alternative, there is no pause: my daughter shall not see
      its deceptive mother die; your father shall not know that his daughter
      fell disgraced, despised by all but her enchanting Malos.
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Oh, Farcillo, put up thy threatening dagger into its scabbard; let it
      rest and be still, just while I say one prayer for thee and for my child.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. It is too late, thy doom is fixed, thou hast not confessed to Heaven or
      to me, my child's protector&mdash;thou art to die. Ye powers of earth and
      heaven, protect and defend me in this alone. (<i>Stabs her while imploring
      for mercy.</i>)
    </p>
    <p>
      A. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo, a guiltless death I die.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Die! die! die!
    </p>
    <p>
      (Gracia enters running, falls on her knees weeping, and kisses Amelia.)
    </p>
    <p>
      G. Oh, Farcillo, Farcillo! oh, Farcillo!
    </p>
    <p>
      F. I am here, the genius of the age, and the avenger of my wrongs.
    </p>
    <p>
      G. Oh, lady, speak once more; sweet Amelia, oh, speak again. Gone, gone&mdash;yes,
      forever gone! Farcillo, oh, cold-hearted Farcillo, some evil fiend hath
      urged you to do this, Farcillo.
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Say not so again, or you shall receive the same fate. I did the
      glorious deed, madam&mdash;beware, then, how you talk.
    </p>
    <p>
      G. I fear not your implements of war; I will let you know you have not the
      power to do me harm. If you have a heart of triple brass, it shall be
      reached and melted, and thy blood shall chill thy veins and grow stiff in
      thy arteries. Here is the ring of the virtuous and innocent murdered
      Amelia; I obtained it from Malos, who yet lives, in hopes that he will
      survive the wound given him, and says he got it clandestinely&mdash;declares
      Amelia to be the princess of truth and virtue, invulnerable to anything
      like forgetting her first devotion to thee. The world has heard of your
      conduct and your jealousy, and with one universal voice declares her to be
      the best of all in piety; that she is the star of this great universe, and
      a more virtuous woman never lived since the wheels of time began. Oh, had
      you waited till tomorrow, or until I had returned, some kind window would
      have been opened to her relief. But, alas! she is gone&mdash;yes, forever
      gone, to try the realities of an unknown world!
    </p>
    <p>
      (Farcillo leaning over the body of Amelia.)
    </p>
    <p>
      F. Malos not dead, and here is my ring! Oh, Amelia! falsely murdered! Oh,
      bloody deed! Oh, wretch that I am! Oh, angels forgive me! Oh, God,
      withhold thy vengeance! Oh, Amelia! if Heaven would make a thousand worlds
      like this, set with diamonds, and all of one perfect chrysolite, I would
      not have done this for them all, I would not have frowned and cursed as I
      did. Oh, she was heavenly true, nursed in the very lap of bright angels!
      Cursed slave that I am! Jealousy, oh! thou infernal demon! Lost, lost to
      every sense of honor! Oh! Amelia&mdash;heaven-born Amelia&mdash;dead,
      dead! Oh! oh! oh!&mdash;then let me die with thee. Farewell! farewell! ye
      world that deceived me! (<i>Stabs himself</i>.)
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon after the excitement of this tragical scene was over, and the
      enlisted feeling for Amelia had grown more buoyant with Elfonzo and
      Ambulinia, he determined to visit his retired home, and make the necessary
      improvements to enjoy a better day; consequently he conveyed the following
      lines to Ambulinia:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Go tell the world that hope is glowing,

     Go bid the rocks their silence break,

     Go tell the stars that love is glowing,

     Then bid the hero his lover take.
</pre>
    <p>
      In the region where scarcely the foot of man hath ever trod, where the
      woodman hath not found his way, lies a blooming grove, seen only by the
      sun when he mounts his lofty throne, visited only by the light of the
      stars, to whom are entrusted the guardianship of earth, before the sun
      sinks to rest in his rosy bed. High cliffs of rocks surround the romantic
      place, and in the small cavity of the rocky wall grows the daffodil clear
      and pure; and as the wind blows along the enchanting little mountain which
      surrounds the lonely spot, it nourishes the flowers with the dew-drops of
      heaven. Here is the seat of Elfonzo; darkness claims but little victory
      over this dominion, and in vain does she spread out her gloomy wings. Here
      the waters flow perpetually, and the trees lash their tops together to bid
      the welcome visitor a happy muse. Elfonzo, during his short stay in the
      country, had fully persuaded himself that it was his duty to bring this
      solemn matter to an issue. A duty that he individually owed, as a
      gentleman, to the parents of Ambulinia, a duty in itself involving not
      only his own happiness and his own standing in society, but one that
      called aloud the act of the parties to make it perfect and complete. How
      he should communicate his intentions to get a favorable reply, he was at a
      loss to know; he knew not whether to address Esq. Valeer in prose or in
      poetry, in a jocular or an argumentative manner, or whether he should use
      moral suasion, legal injunction, or seizure and take by reprisal; if it
      was to do the latter, he would have no difficulty in deciding in his own
      mind, but his gentlemanly honor was at stake; so he concluded to address
      the following letter to the father and mother of Ambulinia, as his address
      in person he knew would only aggravate the old gentleman, and perhaps his
      lady.
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Cumming, Ga., January 22, 1844
      </p>
      <p>
        Mr. and Mrs. Valeer&mdash;
      </p>
      <p>
        Again I resume the pleasing task of addressing you, and once more beg an
        immediate answer to my many salutations. From every circumstance that
        has taken place, I feel in duty bound to comply with my obligations; to
        forfeit my word would be more than I dare do; to break my pledge, and my
        vows that have been witnessed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of
        an unseen Deity, would be disgraceful on my part, as well as ruinous to
        Ambulinia. I wish no longer to be kept in suspense about this matter. I
        wish to act gentlemanly in every particular. It is true, the promises I
        have made are unknown to any but Ambulinia, and I think it unnecessary
        to here enumerate them, as they who promise the most generally perform
        the least. Can you for a moment doubt my sincerity or my character? My
        only wish is, sir, that you may calmly and dispassionately look at the
        situation of the case, and if your better judgment should dictate
        otherwise, my obligations may induce me to pluck the flower that you so
        diametrically opposed. We have sworn by the saints&mdash;by the gods of
        battle, and by that faith whereby just men are made perfect&mdash;to be
        united. I hope, my dear sir, you will find it convenient as well as
        agreeable to give me a favorable answer, with the signature of Mrs.
        Valeer, as well as yourself.
      </p>
      <p>
        With very great esteem,
      </p>
      <p>
        your humble servant,
      </p>
      <p>
        J. I. Elfonzo.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The moon and stars had grown pale when Ambulinia had retired to rest. A
      crowd of unpleasant thoughts passed through her bosom. Solitude dwelt in
      her chamber&mdash;no sound from the neighboring world penetrated its
      stillness; it appeared a temple of silence, of repose, and of mystery. At
      that moment she heard a still voice calling her father. In an instant,
      like the flash of lightning, a thought ran through her mind that it must
      be the bearer of Elfonzo's communication. &ldquo;It is not a dream!&rdquo; she said,
      &ldquo;no, I cannot read dreams. Oh! I would to Heaven I was near that glowing
      eloquence&mdash;that poetical language&mdash;it charms the mind in an
      inexpressible manner, and warms the coldest heart.&rdquo; While consoling
      herself with this strain, her father rushed into her room almost frantic
      with rage, exclaiming: &ldquo;Oh, Ambulinia! Ambulinia!! undutiful, ungrateful
      daughter! What does this mean? Why does this letter bear such
      heart-rending intelligence? Will you quit a father's house with this
      debased wretch, without a place to lay his distracted head; going up and
      down the country, with every novel object that may chance to wander
      through this region. He is a pretty man to make love known to his
      superiors, and you, Ambulinia, have done but little credit to yourself by
      honoring his visits. Oh, wretchedness! can it be that my hopes of
      happiness are forever blasted! Will you not listen to a father's
      entreaties, and pay some regard to a mother's tears. I know, and I do pray
      that God will give me fortitude to bear with this sea of troubles, and
      rescue my daughter, my Ambulinia, as a brand from the eternal burning.&rdquo;
       &ldquo;Forgive me, father, oh! forgive thy child,&rdquo; replied Ambulinia. &ldquo;My heart
      is ready to break, when I see you in this grieved state of agitation. Oh!
      think not so meanly of me, as that I mourn for my own danger. Father, I am
      only woman. Mother, I am only the templement of thy youthful years, but
      will suffer courageously whatever punishment you think proper to inflict
      upon me, if you will but allow me to comply with my most sacred promises&mdash;if
      you will but give me my personal right and my personal liberty. Oh,
      father! if your generosity will but give me these, I ask nothing more.
      When Elfonzo offered me his heart, I gave him my hand, never to forsake
      him, and now may the mighty God banish me before I leave him in adversity.
      What a heart must I have to rejoice in prosperity with him whose offers I
      have accepted, and then, when poverty comes, haggard as it may be, for me
      to trifle with the oracles of Heaven, and change with every fluctuation
      that may interrupt our happiness&mdash;like the politician who runs the
      political gantlet for office one day, and the next day, because the
      horizon is darkened a little, he is seen running for his life, for fear he
      might perish in its ruins. Where is the philosophy, where is the
      consistency, where is the charity, in conduct like this? Be happy then, my
      beloved father, and forget me; let the sorrow of parting break down the
      wall of separation and make us equal in our feeling; let me now say how
      ardently I love you; let me kiss that age-worn cheek, and should my tears
      bedew thy face, I will wipe them away. Oh, I never can forget you; no,
      never, never!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Weep not,&rdquo; said the father, &ldquo;Ambulinia. I will forbid Elfonzo my house,
      and desire that you may keep retired a few days. I will let him know that
      my friendship for my family is not linked together by cankered chains; and
      if he ever enters upon my premises again, I will send him to his long
      home.&rdquo; &ldquo;Oh, father! let me entreat you to be calm upon this occasion, and
      though Elfonzo may be the sport of the clouds and winds, yet I feel
      assured that no fate will send him to the silent tomb until the God of the
      Universe calls him hence with a triumphant voice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Here the father turned away, exclaiming: &ldquo;I will answer his letter in a
      very few words, and you, madam, will have the goodness to stay at home
      with your mother; and remember, I am determined to protect you from the
      consuming fire that looks so fair to your view.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Cumming, January 22, 1844.
      </p>
      <p>
        Sir&mdash;In regard to your request, I am as I ever have been, utterly
        opposed to your marrying into my family; and if you have any regard for
        yourself, or any gentlemanly feeling, I hope you will mention it to me
        no more; but seek some other one who is not so far superior to you in
        standing.
      </p>
      <p>
        W. W. Valeer.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      When Elfonzo read the above letter, he became so much depressed in spirits
      that many of his friends thought it advisable to use other means to bring
      about the happy union. &ldquo;Strange,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;that the contents of this
      diminutive letter should cause me to have such depressed feelings; but
      there is a nobler theme than this. I know not why my <i>military title</i>
      is not as great as that of <i>Squire Valeer</i>. For my life I cannot see
      that my ancestors are inferior to those who are so bitterly opposed to my
      marriage with Ambulinia. I know I have seen huge mountains before me, yet,
      when I think that I know gentlemen will insult me upon this delicate
      matter, should I become angry at fools and babblers, who pride themselves
      in their impudence and ignorance? No. My equals! I know not where to find
      them. My inferiors! I think it beneath me; and my superiors! I think it
      presumption; therefore, if this youthful heart is protected by any of the
      divine rights, I never will betray my trust.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was aware that Ambulinia had a confidence that was, indeed, as firm and
      as resolute as she was beautiful and interesting. He hastened to the
      cottage of Louisa, who received him in her usual mode of pleasantness, and
      informed him that Ambulinia had just that moment left. &ldquo;Is it possible?&rdquo;
       said Elfonzo. &ldquo;Oh, murdered hours! Why did she not remain and be the
      guardian of my secrets? But hasten and tell me how she has stood this
      trying scene, and what are her future determinations.&rdquo; &ldquo;You know,&rdquo; said
      Louisa, &ldquo;Major Elfonzo, that you have Ambulinia's first love, which is of
      no small consequence. She came here about twilight, and shed many precious
      tears in consequence of her own fate with yours. We walked silently in yon
      little valley you see, where we spent a momentary repose. She seemed to be
      quite as determined as ever, and before we left that beautiful spot she
      offered up a prayer to Heaven for thee.&rdquo; &ldquo;I will see her then,&rdquo; replied
      Elfonzo, &ldquo;though legions of enemies may oppose. She is mine by
      foreordination&mdash;she is mine by prophesy&mdash;she is mine by her own
      free will, and I will rescue her from the hands of her oppressors. Will
      you not, Miss Louisa, assist me in my capture?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I will certainly, by the aid of Divine Providence,&rdquo; answered Louisa,
      &ldquo;endeavor to break those slavish chains that bind the richest of prizes;
      though allow me, Major, to entreat you to use no harsh means on this
      important occasion; take a decided stand, and write freely to Ambulinia
      upon this subject, and I will see that no intervening cause hinders its
      passage to her. God alone will save a mourning people. Now is the day and
      now is the hour to obey a command of such valuable worth.&rdquo; The Major felt
      himself grow stronger after this short interview with Louisa. He felt as
      if he could whip his weight in wildcats&mdash;he knew he was master of his
      own feelings, and could now write a letter that would bring this
      litigation to <i>an issue.</i>
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Cumming, January 24, 1844.
      </p>
      <p>
        Dear Ambulinia&mdash;
      </p>
      <p>
        We have now reached the most trying moment of our lives; we are pledged
        not to forsake our trust; we have waited for a favorable hour to come,
        thinking your friends would settle the matter agreeably among
        themselves, and finally be reconciled to our marriage; but as I have
        waited in vain, and looked in vain, I have determined in my own mind to
        make a proposition to you, though you may think it not in accord with
        your station, or compatible with your rank; yet, &ldquo;sub hoc signo vinces.&rdquo;
         You know I cannot resume my visits, in consequence of the utter
        hostility that your father has to me; therefore the consummation of our
        union will have to be sought for in a more sublime sphere, at the
        residence of a respectable friend of this village. You cannot have any
        scruples upon this mode of proceeding, if you will but remember it
        emanates from one who loves you better than his own life&mdash;who is
        more than anxious to bid you welcome to a new and happy home. Your
        warmest associates say come; the talented, the learned, the wise, and
        the experienced say come;&mdash;all these with their friends say, come.
        Viewing these, with many other inducements, I flatter myself that you
        will come to the embraces of your Elfonzo; for now is the time of your
        acceptance of the day of your liberation. You cannot be ignorant,
        Ambulinia, that thou art the desire of my heart; its thoughts are too
        noble, and too pure, to conceal themselves from you. I shall wait for
        your answer to this impatiently, expecting that you will set the time to
        make your departure, and to be in readiness at a moment's warning to
        share the joys of a more preferable life. This will be handed to you by
        Louisa, who will take a pleasure in communicating anything to you that
        may relieve your dejected spirits, and will assure you that I now stand
        ready, willing, and waiting to make good my vows.
      </p>
      <p>
        I am, dear Ambulinia, yours
      </p>
      <p>
        truly, and forever,
      </p>
      <p>
        J. I. Elfonzo.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      Louisa made it convenient to visit Mr. Valeer's, though they did not
      suspect her in the least the bearer of love epistles; consequently, she
      was invited in the room to console Ambulinia, where they were left alone.
      Ambulinia was seated by a small table&mdash;her head resting on her hand&mdash;her
      brilliant eyes were bathed in tears. Louisa handed her the letter of
      Elfonzo, when another spirit animated her features&mdash;the spirit of
      renewed confidence that never fails to strengthen the female character in
      an hour of grief and sorrow like this, and as she pronounced the last
      accent of his name, she exclaimed, &ldquo;And does he love me yet! I never will
      forget your generosity, Louisa. Oh, unhappy and yet blessed Louisa! may
      you never feel what I have felt&mdash;may you never know the pangs of
      love. Had I never loved, I never would have been unhappy; but I turn to
      Him who can save, and if His wisdom does not will my expected union, I
      know He will give me strength to bear my lot. Amuse yourself with this
      little book, and take it as an apology for my silence,&rdquo; said Ambulinia,
      &ldquo;while I attempt to answer this volume of consolation.&rdquo; &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; said
      Louisa, &ldquo;you are excusable upon this occasion; but I pray you, Ambulinia,
      to be expert upon this momentous subject, that there may be nothing
      mistrustful upon my part.&rdquo; &ldquo;I will,&rdquo; said Ambulinia, and immediately
      resumed her seat and addressed the following to Elfonzo:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Cumming, Ga., January 28, 1844.
      </p>
      <p>
        Devoted Elfonzo&mdash;
      </p>
      <p>
        I hail your letter as a welcome messenger of faith, and can now say
        truly and firmly that my feelings correspond with yours. Nothing shall
        be wanting on my part to make my obedience your fidelity. Courage and
        perseverance will accomplish success. Receive this as my oath, that
        while I grasp your hand in my own imagination, we stand united before a
        higher tribunal than any on earth. All the powers of my life, soul, and
        body, I devote to thee. Whatever dangers may threaten me, I fear not to
        encounter them. Perhaps I have determined upon my own destruction, by
        leaving the house of the best of parents; be it so; I flee to you; I
        share your destiny, faithful to the end. The day that I have concluded
        upon for this task is <i>sabbath </i>next, when the family with the
        citizens are generally at church. For Heaven's sake let not that day
        pass unimproved: trust not till tomorrow, it is the cheat of life&mdash;the
        future that never comes&mdash;the grave of many noble births&mdash;the
        cavern of ruined enterprise: which like the lightning's flash is born,
        and dies, and perishes, ere the voice of him who sees can cry, <i>behold!
        behold!!</i> You may trust to what I say, no power shall tempt me to
        betray confidence. Suffer me to add one word more.
      </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     I will soothe thee, in all thy grief,

     Beside the gloomy river;

     And though thy love may yet be brief;

     Mine is fixed forever.
</pre>
      <p>
        Receive the deepest emotions of my heart for thy constant love, and may
        the power of inspiration be thy guide, thy portion, and thy all. In
        great haste,
      </p>
      <p>
        Yours faithfully,
      </p>
      <p>
        Ambulinia.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I now take my leave of you, sweet girl,&rdquo; said Louisa, &ldquo;sincerely wishing
      you success on Sabbath next.&rdquo; When Ambulinia's letter was handed to
      Elfonzo, he perused it without doubting its contents. Louisa charged him
      to make but few confidants; but like most young men who happened to win
      the heart of a beautiful girl, he was so elated with the idea that he felt
      as a commanding general on parade, who had confidence in all, consequently
      gave orders to all. The appointed Sabbath, with a delicious breeze and
      cloudless sky, made its appearance. The people gathered in crowds to the
      church&mdash;the streets were filled with neighboring citizens, all
      marching to the house of worship. It is entirely useless for me to attempt
      to describe the feelings of Elfonzo and Ambulinia, who were silently
      watching the movements of the multitude, apparently counting them as then
      entered the house of God, looking for the last one to darken the door. The
      impatience and anxiety with which they waited, and the bliss they
      anticipated on the eventful day, is altogether indescribable. Those that
      have been so fortunate as to embark in such a noble enterprise know all
      its realities; and those who have not had this inestimable privilege will
      have to taste its sweets before they can tell to others its joys, its
      comforts, and its Heaven-born worth. Immediately after Ambulinia had
      assisted the family off to church, she took advantage of that opportunity
      to make good her promises. She left a home of enjoyment to be wedded to
      one whose love had been justifiable. A few short steps brought her to the
      presence of Louisa, who urged her to make good use of her time, and not to
      delay a moment, but to go with her to her brother's house, where Elfonzo
      would forever make her happy. With lively speed, and yet a graceful air,
      she entered the door and found herself protected by the champion of her
      confidence. The necessary arrangements were fast making to have the two
      lovers united&mdash;everything was in readiness except the parson; and as
      they are generally very sanctimonious on such occasions, the news got to
      the parents of Ambulinia before the everlasting knot was tied, and they
      both came running, with uplifted hands and injured feelings, to arrest
      their daughter from an unguarded and hasty resolution. Elfonzo desired to
      maintain his ground, but Ambulinia thought it best for him to leave, to
      prepare for a greater contest. He accordingly obeyed, as it would have
      been a vain endeavor for him to have battled against a man who was armed
      with deadly weapons; and besides, he could not resist the request of such
      a pure heart. Ambulinia concealed herself in the upper story of the house,
      fearing the rebuke of her father; the door was locked, and no chastisement
      was now expected. Esquire Valeer, whose pride was already touched,
      resolved to preserve the dignity of his family. He entered the house
      almost exhausted, looking wildly for Ambulinia. &ldquo;Amazed and astonished
      indeed I am,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;at a people who call themselves civilized, to
      allow such behavior as this. Ambulinia, Ambulinia!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;come to the
      calls of your first, your best, and your only friend. I appeal to you,
      sir,&rdquo; turning to the gentleman of the house, &ldquo;to know where Ambulinia has
      gone, or where is she?&rdquo; &ldquo;Do you mean to insult me, sir, in my own house?&rdquo;
       inquired the gentleman. &ldquo;I will burst,&rdquo; said Mr. V., &ldquo;asunder every door
      in your dwelling, in search of my daughter, if you do not speak quickly,
      and tell me where she is. I care nothing about that outcast rubbish of
      creation, that mean, low-lived Elfonzo, if I can but obtain Ambulinia. Are
      you not going to open this door?&rdquo; said he. &ldquo;By the Eternal that made
      Heaven and earth! I will go about the work instantly, if this is not
      done!&rdquo; The confused citizens gathered from all parts of the village, to
      know the cause of this commotion. Some rushed into the house; the door
      that was locked flew open, and there stood Ambulinia, weeping. &ldquo;Father, be
      still,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;and I will follow thee home.&rdquo; But the agitated man
      seized her, and bore her off through the gazing multitude. &ldquo;Father!&rdquo; she
      exclaimed, &ldquo;I humbly beg your pardon&mdash;I will be dutiful&mdash;I will
      obey thy commands. Let the sixteen years I have lived in obedience to thee
      be my future security.&rdquo; &ldquo;I don't like to be always giving credit, when the
      old score is not paid up, madam,&rdquo; said the father. The mother followed
      almost in a state of derangement, crying and imploring her to think
      beforehand, and ask advice from experienced persons, and they would tell
      her it was a rash undertaking. &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;Ambulinia, my daughter,
      did you know what I have suffered&mdash;did you know how many nights I
      have whiled away in agony, in pain, and in fear, you would pity the
      sorrows of a heartbroken mother.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, mother,&rdquo; replied Ambulinia, &ldquo;I know I have been disobedient; I am
      aware that what I have done might have been done much better; but oh! what
      shall I do with my honor? it is so dear to me; I am pledged to Elfonzo.
      His high moral worth is certainly worth some attention; moreover, my vows,
      I have no doubt, are recorded in the book of life, and must I give these
      all up? must my fair hopes be forever blasted? Forbid it, father; oh!
      forbid it, mother; forbid it, Heaven.&rdquo; &ldquo;I have seen so many beautiful
      skies overclouded,&rdquo; replied the mother, &ldquo;so many blossoms nipped by the
      frost, that I am afraid to trust you to the care of those fair days, which
      may be interrupted by thundering and tempestuous nights. You no doubt
      think as I did&mdash;life's devious ways were strewn with sweet-scented
      flowers, but ah! how long they have lingered around me and took their
      flight in the vivid hope that laughs at the drooping victims it has
      murdered.&rdquo; Elfonzo was moved at this sight. The people followed on to see
      what was going to become of Ambulinia, while he, with downcast looks, kept
      at a distance, until he saw them enter the abode of the father, thrusting
      her, that was the sigh of his soul, out of his presence into a solitary
      apartment, when she exclaimed, &ldquo;Elfonzo! Elfonzo! oh, Elfonzo! where art
      thou, with all thy heroes? haste, oh! haste, come thou to my relief. Ride
      on the wings of the wind! Turn thy force loose like a tempest, and roll on
      thy army like a whirlwind, over this mountain of trouble and confusion.
      Oh, friends! if any pity me, let your last efforts throng upon the green
      hills, and come to the relief of Ambulinia, who is guilty of nothing but
      innocent love.&rdquo; Elfonzo called out with a loud voice, &ldquo;My God, can I stand
      this! arise up, I beseech you, and put an end to this tyranny. Come, my
      brave boys,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;are you ready to go forth to your duty?&rdquo; They stood
      around him. &ldquo;Who,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;will call us to arms? Where are my
      thunderbolts of war? Speak ye, the first who will meet the foe! Who will
      go forward with me in this ocean of grievous temptation? If there is one
      who desires to go, let him come and shake hands upon the altar of
      devotion, and swear that he will be a hero; yes, a Hector in a cause like
      this, which calls aloud for a speedy remedy.&rdquo; &ldquo;Mine be the deed,&rdquo; said a
      young lawyer, &ldquo;and mine alone; Venus alone shall quit her station before I
      will forsake one jot or tittle of my promise to you; what is death to me?
      what is all this warlike army, if it is not to win a victory? I love the
      sleep of the lover and the mighty; nor would I give it over till the blood
      of my enemies should wreak with that of my own. But God forbid that our
      fame should soar on the blood of the slumberer.&rdquo; Mr. Valeer stands at his
      door with the frown of a demon upon his brow, with his dangerous weapon
      ready to strike the first man who should enter his door. &ldquo;Who will arise
      and go forward through blood and carnage to the rescue of my Ambulinia?&rdquo;
       said Elfonzo. &ldquo;All,&rdquo; exclaimed the multitude; and onward they went, with
      their implements of battle. Others, of a more timid nature, stood among
      the distant hills to see the result of the contest.
    </p>
    <p>
      Elfonzo took the lead of his band. Night arose in clouds; darkness
      concealed the heavens; but the blazing hopes that stimulated them gleamed
      in every bosom. All approached the anxious spot; they rushed to the front
      of the house and, with one exclamation, demanded Ambulinia. &ldquo;Away, begone,
      and disturb my peace no more,&rdquo; said Mr. Valeer. &ldquo;You are a set of base,
      insolent, and infernal rascals. Go, the northern star points your path
      through the dim twilight of the night; go, and vent your spite upon the
      lonely hills; pour forth your love, you poor, weak-minded wretch, upon
      your idleness and upon your guitar, and your fiddle; they are fit subjects
      for your admiration, for let me assure you, though this sword and iron
      lever are cankered, yet they frown in sleep, and let one of you dare to
      enter my house this night and you shall have the contents and the weight
      of these instruments.&rdquo; &ldquo;Never yet did base dishonor blur my name,&rdquo; said
      Elfonzo; &ldquo;mine is a cause of renown; here are my warriors; fear and
      tremble, for this night, though hell itself should oppose, I will endeavor
      to avenge her whom thou hast banished in solitude. The voice of Ambulinia
      shall be heard from that dark dungeon.&rdquo; At that moment Ambulinia appeared
      at the window above, and with a tremulous voice said, &ldquo;Live, Elfonzo! oh!
      live to raise my stone of moss! why should such language enter your heart?
      why should thy voice rend the air with such agitation? I bid thee live,
      once more remembering these tears of mine are shed alone for thee, in this
      dark and gloomy vault, and should I perish under this load of trouble,
      join the song of thrilling accents with the raven above my grave, and lay
      this tattered frame beside the banks of the Chattahoochee or the stream of
      Sawney's brook; sweet will be the song of death to your Ambulinia. My
      ghost shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise, and tell your high fame
      to the minds of that region, which is far more preferable than this lonely
      cell. My heart shall speak for thee till the latest hour; I know faint and
      broken are the sounds of sorrow, yet our souls, Elfonzo, shall hear the
      peaceful songs together. One bright name shall be ours on high, if we are
      not permitted to be united here; bear in mind that I still cherish my old
      sentiments, and the poet will mingle the names of Elfonzo and Ambulinia in
      the tide of other days.&rdquo; &ldquo;Fly, Elfonzo,&rdquo; said the voices of his united
      band, &ldquo;to the wounded heart of your beloved. All enemies shall fall
      beneath thy sword. Fly through the clefts, and the dim spark shall sleep
      in death.&rdquo; Elfonzo rushes forward and strikes his shield against the door,
      which was barricaded, to prevent any intercourse. His brave sons throng
      around him. The people pour along the streets, both male and female, to
      prevent or witness the melancholy scene.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To arms, to arms!&rdquo; cried Elfonzo; &ldquo;here is a victory to be won, a prize
      to be gained that is more to me that the whole world beside.&rdquo; &ldquo;It cannot
      be done tonight,&rdquo; said Mr. Valeer. &ldquo;I bear the clang of death; my strength
      and armor shall prevail. My Ambulinia shall rest in this hall until the
      break of another day, and if we fall, we fall together. If we die, we die
      clinging to our tattered rights, and our blood alone shall tell the
      mournful tale of a murdered daughter and a ruined father.&rdquo; Sure enough, he
      kept watch all night, and was successful in defending his house and
      family. The bright morning gleamed upon the hills, night vanished away,
      the Major and his associates felt somewhat ashamed that they had not been
      as fortunate as they expected to have been; however, they still leaned
      upon their arms in dispersed groups; some were walking the streets, others
      were talking in the Major's behalf. Many of the citizen suspended
      business, as the town presented nothing but consternation. A novelty that
      might end in the destruction of some worthy and respectable citizens. Mr.
      Valeer ventured in the streets, though not without being well armed. Some
      of his friends congratulated him on the decided stand he had taken, and
      hoped he would settle the matter amicably with Elfonzo, without any
      serious injury. &ldquo;Me,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;what, me, condescend to fellowship with
      a coward, and a low-lived, lazy, undermining villain? no, gentlemen, this
      cannot be; I had rather be borne off, like the bubble upon the dark blue
      ocean, with Ambulinia by my side, than to have him in the ascending or
      descending line of relationship. Gentlemen,&rdquo; continued he, &ldquo;if Elfonzo is
      so much of a distinguished character, and is so learned in the fine arts,
      why do you not patronize such men? why not introduce him into your
      families, as a gentleman of taste and of unequaled magnanimity? why are
      you so very anxious that he should become a relative of mine? Oh,
      gentlemen, I fear you yet are tainted with the curiosity of our first
      parents, who were beguiled by the poisonous kiss of an old ugly serpent,
      and who, for one <i>apple, damned</i> all mankind. I wish to divest
      myself, as far as possible, of that untutored custom. I have long since
      learned that the perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy, is
      to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambition to our
      capacities; we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.&rdquo; Ambulinia was
      sent off to prepare for a long and tedious journey. Her new acquaintances
      had been instructed by her father how to treat her, and in what manner,
      and to keep the anticipated visit entirely secret. Elfonzo was watching
      the movements of everybody; some friends had told him of the plot that was
      laid to carry off Ambulinia. At night, he rallied some two or three of his
      forces, and went silently along to the stately mansion; a faint and
      glimmering light showed through the windows; lightly he steps to the door;
      there were many voices rallying fresh in fancy's eye; he tapped the
      shutter; it was opened instantly, and he beheld once more, seated beside
      several ladies, the hope of all his toils; he rushed toward her, she rose
      from her seat, rejoicing; he made one mighty grasp, when Ambulinia
      exclaimed, &ldquo;Huzza for Major Elfonzo! I will defend myself and you, too,
      with this conquering instrument I hold in my hand; huzza, I say, I now
      invoke time's broad wing to shed around us some dewdrops of verdant
      spring.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But the hour had not come for this joyous reunion; her friends struggled
      with Elfonzo for some time, and finally succeeded in arresting her from
      his hands. He dared not injure them, because they were matrons whose
      courage needed no spur; she was snatched from the arms of Elfonzo, with so
      much eagerness, and yet with such expressive signification, that he calmly
      withdrew from this lovely enterprise, with an ardent hope that he should
      be lulled to repose by the zephyrs which whispered peace to his soul.
      Several long days and nights passed unmolested, all seemed to have
      grounded their arms of rebellion, and no callidity appeared to be going on
      with any of the parties. Other arrangements were made by Ambulinia; she
      feigned herself to be entirely the votary of a mother's care, and she, by
      her graceful smiles, that manhood might claim his stern dominion in some
      other region, where such boisterous love was not so prevalent. This gave
      the parents a confidence that yielded some hours of sober joy; they
      believed that Ambulinia would now cease to love Elfonzo, and that her
      stolen affections would now expire with her misguided opinions. They
      therefore declined the idea of sending her to a distant land. But oh! they
      dreamed not of the rapture that dazzled the fancy of Ambulinia, who would
      say, when alone, youth should not fly away on his rosy pinions, and leave
      her to grapple in the conflict with unknown admirers.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     No frowning age shall control

     The constant current of my soul,

     Nor a tear from pity's eye

     Shall check my sympathetic sigh.
</pre>
    <p>
      With this resolution fixed in her mind, one dark and dreary night, when
      the winds whistled and the tempest roared, she received intelligence that
      Elfonzo was then waiting, and every preparation was then ready, at the
      residence of Dr. Tully, and for her to make a quick escape while the
      family was reposing. Accordingly she gathered her books, went the wardrobe
      supplied with a variety of ornamental dressing, and ventured alone in the
      streets to make her way to Elfonzo, who was near at hand, impatiently
      looking and watching her arrival. &ldquo;What forms,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;are those
      rising before me? What is that dark spot on the clouds? I do wonder what
      frightful ghost that is, gleaming on the red tempest? Oh, be merciful and
      tell me what region you are from. Oh, tell me, ye strong spirits, or ye
      dark and fleeting clouds, that I yet have a friend.&rdquo; &ldquo;A friend,&rdquo; said a
      low, whispering voice. &ldquo;I am thy unchanging, thy aged, and thy
      disappointed mother. Why brandish in that hand of thine a javelin of
      pointed steel? Why suffer that lip I have kissed a thousand times to
      equivocate? My daughter, let these tears sink deep into thy soul, and no
      longer persist in that which may be your destruction and ruin. Come, my
      dear child, retract your steps, and bear me company to your welcome home.&rdquo;
       Without one retorting word, or frown from her brow, she yielded to the
      entreaties of her mother, and with all the mildness of her former
      character she went along with the silver lamp of age, to the home of
      candor and benevolence. Her father received her cold and formal politeness&mdash;&ldquo;Where
      has Ambulinia been, this blustering evening, Mrs. Valeer?&rdquo; inquired he.
      &ldquo;Oh, she and I have been taking a solitary walk,&rdquo; said the mother; &ldquo;all
      things, I presume, are now working for the best.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Elfonzo heard this news shortly after it happened. &ldquo;What,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;has
      heaven and earth turned against me? I have been disappointed times without
      number. Shall I despair?&mdash;must I give it over? Heaven's decrees will
      not fade; I will write again&mdash;I will try again; and if it traverses a
      gory field, I pray forgiveness at the altar of justice.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Desolate Hill, Cumming, Geo., 1844.
      </p>
      <p>
        Unconquered and Beloved Ambulinia&mdash; I have only time to say to you,
        not to despair; thy fame shall not perish; my visions are brightening
        before me. The whirlwind's rage is past, and we now shall subdue our
        enemies without doubt. On Monday morning, when your friends are at
        breakfast, they will not suspect your departure, or even mistrust me
        being in town, as it has been reported advantageously that I have left
        for the west. You walk carelessly toward the academy grove, where you
        will find me with a lightning steed, elegantly equipped to bear you off
        where we shall be joined in wedlock with the first connubial rights.
        Fail not to do this&mdash;think not of the tedious relations of our
        wrongs&mdash;be invincible. You alone occupy all my ambition, and I
        alone will make you my happy spouse, with the same unimpeached veracity.
        I remain, forever, your devoted friend and admirer, J. I. Elfonzo.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The appointed day ushered in undisturbed by any clouds; nothing disturbed
      Ambulinia's soft beauty. With serenity and loveliness she obeys the
      request of Elfonzo. The moment the family seated themselves at the table&mdash;&ldquo;Excuse
      my absence for a short time,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;while I attend to the placing of
      those flowers, which should have been done a week ago.&rdquo; And away she ran
      to the sacred grove, surrounded with glittering pearls, that indicated her
      coming. Elfonzo hails her with his silver bow and his golden harp. They
      meet&mdash;Ambulinia's countenance brightens&mdash;Elfonzo leads up his
      winged steed. &ldquo;Mount,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;ye true-hearted, ye fearless soul&mdash;the
      day is ours.&rdquo; She sprang upon the back of the young thunder bolt, a
      brilliant star sparkles upon her head, with one hand she grasps the reins,
      and with the other she holds an olive branch. &ldquo;Lend thy aid, ye strong
      winds,&rdquo; they exclaimed, &ldquo;ye moon, ye sun, and all ye fair host of heaven,
      witness the enemy conquered.&rdquo; &ldquo;Hold,&rdquo; said Elfonzo, &ldquo;thy dashing steed.&rdquo;
       &ldquo;Ride on,&rdquo; said Ambulinia, &ldquo;the voice of thunder is behind us.&rdquo; And onward
      they went, with such rapidity that they very soon arrived at Rural
      Retreat, where they dismounted, and were united with all the solemnities
      that usually attend such divine operations. They passed the day in
      thanksgiving and great rejoicing, and on that evening they visited their
      uncle, where many of their friends and acquaintances had gathered to
      congratulate them in the field of untainted bliss. The kind old gentleman
      met them in the yard: &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I wish I may die, Elfonzo, if you
      and Ambulinia haven't tied a knot with your tongue that you can't untie
      with your teeth. But come in, come in, never mind, all is right&mdash;the
      world still moves on, and no one has fallen in this great battle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Happy now is their lot! Unmoved by misfortune, they live among the fair
      beauties of the South. Heaven spreads their peace and fame upon the arch
      of the rainbow, and smiles propitiously at their triumph, <i>through the
      tears of the storm.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE
    </h2>
    <p>
      Thirty-five years ago I was out prospecting on the Stanislaus, tramping
      all day long with pick and pan and horn, and washing a hatful of dirt here
      and there, always expecting to make a rich strike, and never doing it. It
      was a lovely region, woodsy, balmy, delicious, and had once been populous,
      long years before, but now the people had vanished and the charming
      paradise was a solitude. They went away when the surface diggings gave
      out. In one place, where a busy little city with banks and newspapers and
      fire companies and a mayor and aldermen had been, was nothing but a wide
      expanse of emerald turf, with not even the faintest sign that human life
      had ever been present there. This was down toward Tuttletown. In the
      country neighborhood thereabouts, along the dusty roads, one found at
      intervals the prettiest little cottage homes, snug and cozy, and so
      cobwebbed with vines snowed thick with roses that the doors and windows
      were wholly hidden from sight&mdash;sign that these were deserted homes,
      forsaken years ago by defeated and disappointed families who could neither
      sell them nor give them away. Now and then, half an hour apart, one came
      across solitary log cabins of the earliest mining days, built by the first
      gold-miners, the predecessors of the cottage-builders. In some few cases
      these cabins were still occupied; and when this was so, you could depend
      upon it that the occupant was the very pioneer who had built the cabin;
      and you could depend on another thing, too&mdash;that he was there because
      he had once had his opportunity to go home to the States rich, and had not
      done it; had rather lost his wealth, and had then in his humiliation
      resolved to sever all communication with his home relatives and friends,
      and be to them thenceforth as one dead. Round about California in that day
      were scattered a host of these living dead men&mdash;pride-smitten poor
      fellows, grizzled and old at forty, whose secret thoughts were made all of
      regrets and longings&mdash;regrets for their wasted lives, and longings to
      be out of the struggle and done with it all.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a lonesome land! Not a sound in all those peaceful expanses of
      grass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no glimpse of man or beast;
      nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad to be alive. And so, at
      last, in the early part of the afternoon, when I caught sight of a human
      creature, I felt a most grateful uplift. This person was a man about
      forty-five years old, and he was standing at the gate of one of those cozy
      little rose-clad cottages of the sort already referred to. However, this
      one hadn't a deserted look; it had the look of being lived in and petted
      and cared for and looked after; and so had its front yard, which was a
      garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and flourishing. I was invited in, of
      course, and required to make myself at home&mdash;it was the custom of the
      country.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily and
      nightly familiarity with miners' cabins&mdash;with all which this implies
      of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups, bacon and beans and
      black coffee, and nothing of ornament but war pictures from the Eastern
      illustrated papers tacked to the log walls. That was all hard, cheerless,
      materialistic desolation, but here was a nest which had aspects to rest
      the tired eye and refresh that something in one's nature which, after long
      fasting, recognizes, when confronted by the belongings of art, howsoever
      cheap and modest they may be, that it has unconsciously been famishing and
      now has found nourishment. I could not have believed that a rag carpet
      could feast me so, and so content me; or that there could be such solace
      to the soul in wall-paper and framed lithographs, and bright-colored
      tidies and lamp-mats, and Windsor chairs, and varnished what-nots, with
      sea-shells and books and china vases on them, and the score of little
      unclassifiable tricks and touches that a woman's hand distributes about a
      home, which one sees without knowing he sees them, yet would miss in a
      moment if they were taken away. The delight that was in my heart showed in
      my face, and the man saw it and was pleased; saw it so plainly that he
      answered it as if it had been spoken.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All her work,&rdquo; he said, caressingly; &ldquo;she did it all herself&mdash;every
      bit,&rdquo; and he took the room in with a glance which was full of affectionate
      worship. One of those soft Japanese fabrics with which women drape with
      careful negligence the upper part of a picture-frame was out of
      adjustment. He noticed it, and rearranged it with cautious pains, stepping
      back several times to gauge the effect before he got it to suit him. Then
      he gave it a light finishing pat or two with his hand, and said: &ldquo;She
      always does that. You can't tell just what it lacks, but it does lack
      something until you've done that&mdash;you can see it yourself after it's
      done, but that is all you know; you can't find out the law of it. It's
      like the finishing pats a mother gives the child's hair after she's got it
      combed and brushed, I reckon. I've seen her fix all these things so much
      that I can do them all just her way, though I don't know the law of any of
      them. But she knows the law. She knows the why and the how both; but I
      don't know the why; I only know the how.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands; such a bedroom as
      I had not seen for years: white counterpane, white pillows, carpeted
      floor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-table, with mirror and
      pin-cushion and dainty toilet things; and in the corner a wash-stand, with
      real china-ware bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china dish, and on a
      rack more than a dozen towels&mdash;towels too clean and white for one out
      of practice to use without some vague sense of profanation. So my face
      spoke again, and he answered with gratified words:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All her work; she did it all herself&mdash;every bit. Nothing here that
      hasn't felt the touch of her hand. Now you would think&mdash;But I mustn't
      talk so much.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail to detail of
      the room's belongings, as one is apt to do when he is in a new place,
      where everything he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit; and I
      became conscious, in one of those unaccountable ways, you know, that there
      was something there somewhere that the man wanted me to discover for
      myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew he was trying to help me by
      furtive indications with his eye, so I tried hard to get on the right
      track, being eager to gratify him. I failed several times, as I could see
      out of the corner of my eye without being told; but at last I knew I must
      be looking straight at the thing&mdash;knew it from the pleasure issuing
      in invisible waves from him. He broke into a happy laugh, and rubbed his
      hands together, and cried out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That's it! You've found it. I knew you would. It's her picture.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther wall, and did
      find there what I had not yet noticed&mdash;a daguerreotype-case. It
      contained the sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful, as it seemed
      to me, that I had ever seen. The man drank the admiration from my face,
      and was fully satisfied.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Nineteen her last birthday,&rdquo; he said, as he put the picture back; &ldquo;and
      that was the day we were married. When you see her&mdash;ah, just wait
      till you see her!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where is she? When will she be in?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, she's away now. She's gone to see her people. They live forty or
      fifty miles from here. She's been gone two weeks today.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When do you expect her back?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;This is Wednesday. She'll be back Saturday, in the evening&mdash;about
      nine o'clock, likely.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt a sharp sense of disappointment.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm sorry, because I'll be gone then,&rdquo; I said, regretfully.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gone? No&mdash;why should you go? Don't go. She'll be disappointed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      She would be disappointed&mdash;that beautiful creature! If she had said
      the words herself they could hardly have blessed me more. I was feeling a
      deep, strong longing to see her&mdash;a longing so supplicating, so
      insistent, that it made me afraid. I said to myself: &ldquo;I will go straight
      away from this place, for my peace of mind's sake.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us&mdash;people who
      know things, and can talk&mdash;people like you. She delights in it; for
      she knows&mdash;oh, she knows nearly everything herself, and can talk, oh,
      like a bird&mdash;and the books she reads, why, you would be astonished.
      Don't go; it's only a little while, you know, and she'll be so
      disappointed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was so deep in my thinkings
      and strugglings. He left me, but I didn't know. Presently he was back,
      with the picture case in his hand, and he held it open before me and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There, now, tell her to her face you could have stayed to see her, and
      you wouldn't.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would stay and take
      the risk. That night we smoked the tranquil pipe, and talked till late
      about various things, but mainly about her; and certainly I had had no
      such pleasant and restful time for many a day. The Thursday followed and
      slipped comfortably away. Toward twilight a big miner from three miles
      away came&mdash;one of the grizzled, stranded pioneers&mdash;and gave us
      warm salutation, clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I only just dropped over to ask about the little madam, and when is she
      coming home. Any news from her?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, I should think I would, if you don't mind, Henry!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Henry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would skip some of the
      private phrases, if we were willing; then he went on and read the bulk of
      it&mdash;a loving, sedate, and altogether charming and gracious piece of
      handiwork, with a postscript full of affectionate regards and messages to
      Tom, and Joe, and Charley, and other close friends and neighbors.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oho, you're at it again! Take your hands away, and let me see your eyes.
      You always do that when I read a letter from her. I will write and tell
      her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh no, you mustn't, Henry. I'm getting old, you know, and any little
      disappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she'd be here herself, and
      now you've got only a letter.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody knew she
      wasn't coming till Saturday.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder what's the matter
      with me lately? Certainly I knew it. Ain't we all getting ready for her?
      Well, I must be going now. But I'll be on hand when she comes, old man!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from his cabin a
      mile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a little gaiety and a
      good time Saturday night, if Henry thought she wouldn't be too tired after
      her journey to be kept up.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, <i>you </i>know she'd sit up six
      weeks to please any one of you!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it read, and the
      loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow all up; but he said he
      was such an old wreck that <i>that </i>would happen to him if she only
      just mentioned his name. &ldquo;Lord, we miss her so!&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty often. Henry
      noticed it, and said, with a startled look:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't think she ought to be here soon, do you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and said it was a
      habit of mine when I was in a state of expenctancy. But he didn't seem
      quite satisfied; and from that time on he began to show uneasiness. Four
      times he walked me up the road to a point whence we could see a long
      distance; and there he would stand, shading his eyes with his hand, and
      looking. Several times he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I'm getting worried, I'm getting right down worried. I know she's not due
      till about nine o'clock, and yet something seems to be trying to warn me
      that something's happened. You don't think anything has happened, do you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his childishness; and
      at last, when he repeated that imploring question still another time, I
      lost my patience for the moment, and spoke pretty brutally to him. It
      seemed to shrivel him up and cow him; and he looked so wounded and so
      humble after that, that I detested myself for having done the cruel and
      unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when Charley, another veteran,
      arrived toward the edge of the evening, and nestled up to Henry to hear
      the letter read, and talked over the preparations for the welcome. Charley
      fetched out one hearty speech after another, and did his best to drive
      away his friend's bodings and apprehensions.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Anything <i>happened </i>to her? Henry, that's pure nonsense. There isn't
      anything going to happen to her; just make your mind easy as to that. What
      did the letter say? Said she was well, didn't it? And said she'd be here
      by nine o'clock, didn't it? Did you ever know her to fail of her word?
      Why, you know you never did. Well, then, don't you fret; she'll<i> be</i>
      here, and that's absolutely certain, and as sure as you are born. Come,
      now, let's get to decorating&mdash;not much time left.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Pretty soon Tom and Joe arrived, and then all hands set about adorning the
      house with flowers. Toward nine the three miners said that as they had
      brought their instruments they might as well tune up, for the boys and
      girls would soon be arriving now, and hungry for a good, old-fashioned
      break-down. A fiddle, a banjo, and a clarinet&mdash;these were the
      instruments. The trio took their places side by side, and began to play
      some rattling dance-music, and beat time with their big boots.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was getting very close to nine. Henry was standing in the door with his
      eyes directed up the road, his body swaying to the torture of his mental
      distress. He had been made to drink his wife's health and safety several
      times, and now Tom shouted:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All hands stand by! One more drink, and she's here!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Joe brought the glasses on a waiter, and served the party. I reached for
      one of the two remaining glasses, but Joe growled under his breath:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Drop that! Take the other.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Which I did. Henry was served last. He had hardly swallowed his drink when
      the clock began to strike. He listened till it finished, his face growing
      pale and paler; then he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Boys, I'm sick with fear. Help me&mdash;I want to lie down!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They helped him to the sofa. He began to nestle and drowse, but presently
      spoke like one talking in his sleep, and said: &ldquo;Did I hear horses' feet?
      Have they come?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      One of the veterans answered, close to his ear: &ldquo;It was Jimmy Parish come
      to say the party got delayed, but they're right up the road a piece, and
      coming along. Her horse is lame, but she'll be here in half an hour.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, I'm<i> so</i> thankful nothing has happened!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He was asleep almost before the words were out of his mouth. In a moment
      those handy men had his clothes off, and had tucked him into his bed in
      the chamber where I had washed my hands. They closed the door and came
      back. Then they seemed preparing to leave; but I said: &ldquo;Please don't go,
      gentlemen. She won't know me; I am a stranger.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      They glanced at each other. Then Joe said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She? Poor thing, she's been dead nineteen years!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Dead?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;That or worse. She went to see her folks half a year after she was
      married, and on her way back, on a Saturday evening, the Indians captured
      her within five miles of this place, and she's never been heard of since.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And he lost his mind in consequence?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never has been sane an hour since. But he only gets bad when that time of
      year comes round. Then we begin to drop in here, three days before she's
      due, to encourage him up, and ask if he's heard from her, and Saturday we
      all come and fix up the house with flowers, and get everything ready for a
      dance. We've done it every year for nineteen years. The first Saturday
      there was twenty-seven of us, without counting the girls; there's only
      three of us now, and the girls are gone. We drug him to sleep, or he would
      go wild; then he's all right for another year&mdash;thinks she's with him
      till the last three or four days come round; then he begins to look for
      her, and gets out his poor old letter, and we come and ask him to read it
      to us. Lord, she was a darling!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      A HELPLESS SITUATION
    </h2>
    <p>
      Once or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a pattern that
      never materially changes, in form and substance, yet I cannot get used to
      that letter&mdash;it always astonishes me. It affects me as the locomotive
      always affects me: I say to myself, &ldquo;I have seen you a thousand times, you
      always look the same way, yet you are always a wonder, and you are always
      impossible; to contrive you is clearly beyond human genius&mdash;you can't
      exist, you don't exist, yet here you are!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I have a letter of that kind by me, a very old one. I yearn to print it,
      and where is the harm? The writer of it is dead years ago, no doubt, and
      if I conceal her name and address&mdash;her this-world address&mdash;I am
      sure her shade will not mind. And with it I wish to print the answer which
      I wrote at the time but probably did not send. If it went&mdash;which is
      not likely&mdash;it went in the form of a copy, for I find the original
      still here, pigeonholed with the said letter. To that kind of letters we
      all write answers which we do not send, fearing to hurt where we have no
      desire to hurt; I have done it many a time, and this is doubtless a case
      of the sort.
    </p>
    <p>
      THE LETTER
    </p>
    <p>
      X&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, California, JUNE 3, 1879.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. S. L. Clemens, HARTFORD, CONN.:
    </p>
    <p>
      Dear Sir,&mdash;You will doubtless be surprised to know who has presumed
      to write and ask a favor of you. Let your memory go back to your days in
      the Humboldt mines&mdash;'62-'63. You will remember, you and Clagett and
      Oliver and the old blacksmith Tillou lived in a lean-to which was half-way
      up the gulch, and there were six log cabins in the camp&mdash;strung
      pretty well separated up the gulch from its mouth at the desert to where
      the last claim was, at the divide. The lean-to you lived in was the one
      with a canvas roof that the cow fell down through one night, as told about
      by you in <i>Roughing It</i>&mdash;my uncle Simmons remembers it very
      well. He lived in the principal cabin, half-way up the divide, along with
      Dixon and Parker and Smith. It had two rooms, one for kitchen and the
      other for bunks, and was the only one that had. You and your party were
      there on the great night, the time they had dried-apple-pie, Uncle Simmons
      often speaks of it. It seems curious that dried-apple-pie should have
      seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows how far Humboldt was
      out of the world and difficult to get to, and how slim the regular bill of
      fare was. Sixteen years ago&mdash;it is a long time. I was a little girl
      then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived in Washoe. But Uncle Simmons
      ran across you every now and then, all during those weeks that you and
      party were there working your claim which was like the rest. The camp
      played out long and long ago, there wasn't silver enough in it to make a
      button. You never saw my husband, but he was there after you left, <i>and
      lived in that very lean-to</i>, a bachelor then but married to me now. He
      often wishes there had been a photographer there in those days, he would
      have taken the lean-to. He got hurt in the old Hal Clayton claim that was
      abandoned like the others, putting in a blast and not climbing out quick
      enough, though he scrambled the best he could. It landed him clear down on
      the train and hit a Piute. For weeks they thought he would not get over it
      but he did, and is all right, now. Has been ever since. This is a long
      introduction but it is the only way I can make myself known. The favor I
      ask I feel assured your generous heart will grant: Give me some advice
      about a book I have written. I do not claim anything for it only it is
      mostly true and as interesting as most of the books of the times. I am
      unknown in the literary world and you know what that means unless one has
      some one of influence (like yourself) to help you by speaking a good word
      for you. I would like to place the book on royalty basis plan with any one
      you would suggest.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is a secret from my husband and family. I intend it as a surprise in
      case I get it published.
    </p>
    <p>
      Feeling you will take an interest in this and if possible write me a
      letter to some publisher, or, better still, if you could see them for me
      and then let me hear.
    </p>
    <p>
      I appeal to you to grant me this favor. With deepest gratitude I think you
      for your attention.
    </p>
    <p>
      One knows, without inquiring, that the twin of that embarrassing letter is
      forever and ever flying in this and that and the other direction across
      the continent in the mails, daily, nightly, hourly, unceasingly,
      unrestingly. It goes to every well-known merchant, and railway official,
      and manufacturer, and capitalist, and Mayor, and Congressman, and
      Governor, and editor, and publisher, and author, and broker, and banker&mdash;in
      a word, to every person who is supposed to have &ldquo;influence.&rdquo; It always
      follows the one pattern: &ldquo;You do not know me, <i>but you once knew a
      relative of mine,</i>&rdquo; etc., etc. We should all like to help the
      applicants, we should all be glad to do it, we should all like to return
      the sort of answer that is desired, but&mdash;Well, there is not a thing
      we can do that would be a help, for not in any instance does that latter
      ever come from anyone who <i>can </i>be helped. The struggler whom you <i>could
      </i>help does his own helping; it would not occur to him to apply to you,
      stranger. He has talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly
      and with energy and determination&mdash;all alone, preferring to be alone.
      That pathetic letter which comes to you from the incapable, the unhelpable&mdash;how
      do you who are familiar with it answer it? What do you find to say? You do
      not want to inflict a wound; you hunt ways to avoid that. What do you
      find? How do you get out of your hard place with a content conscience? Do
      you try to explain? The old reply of mine to such a letter shows that I
      tried that once. Was I satisfied with the result? Possibly; and possibly
      not; probably not; almost certainly not. I have long ago forgotten all
      about it. But, anyway, I append my effort:
    </p>
    <p>
      THE REPLY
    </p>
    <p>
      I know Mr. H., and I will go to him, dear madam, if upon reflection you
      find you still desire it. There will be a conversation. I know the form it
      will take. It will be like this:
    </p>
    <p>
      MR. H. How do her books strike you?
    </p>
    <p>
      MR. CLEMENS. I am not acquainted with them.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Who has been her publisher?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. I don't know.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. She <i>has </i>one, I suppose?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. I&mdash;I think not.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Ah. You think this is her first book?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Yes&mdash;I suppose so. I think so.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. What is it about? What is the character of it?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. I believe I do not know.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Have you seen it?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Well&mdash;no, I haven't.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Ah-h. How long have you known her?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. I don't know her.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Don't know her?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. No.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Ah-h. How did you come to be interested in her book, then?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Well, she&mdash;she wrote and asked me to find a publisher for her, and
      mentioned you.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Why should she apply to you instead of me?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. She wished me to use my influence.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Dear me, what has <i>influence </i>to do with such a matter?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Well, I think she thought you would be more likely to examine her book
      if you were influenced.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Why, what we are here <i>for </i>is to examine books&mdash;anybody's
      book that comes along. It's our <i>business</i>. Why should we turn away a
      book unexamined because it's a stranger's? It would be foolish. No
      publisher does it. On what ground did she request your influence, since
      you do not know her? She must have thought you knew her literature and
      could speak for it. Is that it?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. No; she knew I didn't.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Well, what then? She had a reason of <i>some </i>sort for believing you
      competent to recommend her literature, and also under obligations to do
      it?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Yes, I&mdash;I knew her uncle.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Knew her <i>uncle</i>?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Yes.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Upon my word! So, you knew her uncle; her uncle knows her literature;
      he endorses it to you; the chain is complete, nothing further needed; you
      are satisfied, and therefore&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      C.<i> No</i>, that isn't all, there are other ties. I know the cabin her
      uncle lived in, in the mines; I knew his partners, too; also I came near
      knowing her husband before she married him, and I <i>did </i>know the
      abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off and he went flying
      through the air and clear down to the trail and hit an Indian in the back
      with almost fatal consequences.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. To <i>him</i>, or to the Indian?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. She didn't say which it was.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. (<i>With a sigh</i>). It certainly beats the band! You don't know <i>her</i>,
      you don't know her literature, you don't know who got hurt when the blast
      went off, you don't know a single thing for us to build an estimate of her
      book upon, so far as I&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      C. I knew her uncle. You are forgetting her uncle.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Oh, what use is<i> he</i>? Did you know him long? How long was it?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Well, I don't know that I really knew him, but I must have met him,
      anyway. I think it was that way; you can't tell about these things, you
      know, except when they are recent.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Recent? When was all this?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Sixteen years ago.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. What a basis to judge a book upon! As first you said you knew him, and
      now you don't know whether you did or not.
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Oh yes, I know him; anyway, I think I thought I did; I'm perfectly
      certain of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. What makes you think you thought you knew him?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Why, she says I did, herself.
    </p>
    <p>
      H.<i> She</i> says so!
    </p>
    <p>
      C. Yes, she does, and I <i>did </i>know him, too, though I don't remember
      it now.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Come&mdash;how can you know it when you don't remember it.
    </p>
    <p>
      C. <i>I</i> don't know. That is, I don't know the process, but I<i> do</i>
      know lots of things that I don't remember, and remember lots of things
      that I don't know. It's so with every educated person.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. (<i>After a pause</i>). Is your time valuable?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. No&mdash;well, not very.
    </p>
    <p>
      H. Mine is.
    </p>
    <p>
      So I came away then, because he was looking tired. Overwork, I reckon; I
      never do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My mother was always
      afraid I would overwork myself, but I never did.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dear madam, you see how it would happen if I went there. He would ask me
      those questions, and I would try to answer them to suit him, and he would
      hunt me here and there and yonder and get me embarrassed more and more all
      the time, and at last he would look tired on account of overwork, and
      there it would end and nothing done. I wish I could be useful to you, but,
      you see, they do not care for uncles or any of those things; it doesn't
      move them, it doesn't have the least effect, they don't care for anything
      but the literature itself, and they as good as despise influence. But they
      do care for books, and are eager to get them and examine them, no matter
      whence they come, nor from whose pen. If you will send yours to a
      publisher&mdash;any publisher&mdash;he will certainly examine it, I can
      assure you of that.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION
    </h2>
    <p>
      Consider that a conversation by telephone&mdash;when you are simply
      sitting by and not taking any part in that conversation&mdash;is one of
      the solemnest curiosities of modern life. Yesterday I was writing a deep
      article on a sublime philosophical subject while such a conversation was
      going on in the room. I notice that one can always write best when
      somebody is talking through a telephone close by. Well, the thing began in
      this way. A member of our household came in and asked me to have our house
      put into communication with Mr. Bagley's downtown. I have observed, in
      many cities, that the sex always shrink from calling up the central office
      themselves. I don't know why, but they do. So I touched the bell, and this
      talk ensued:
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Central Office. (Gruffly.)</i> Hello!
    </p>
    <p>
      I. Is it the Central Office?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. O. Of course it is. What do you want?
    </p>
    <p>
      I. Will you switch me on to the Bagleys, please?
    </p>
    <p>
      C. O. All right. Just keep your ear to the telephone.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then I heard <i>k-look, k-look, k'look&mdash;klook-klook-klook-look-look!</i>
      then a horrible &ldquo;gritting&rdquo; of teeth, and finally a piping female voice:
      Y-e-s? (<i>Rising inflection.</i>) Did you wish to speak to me?
    </p>
    <p>
      Without answering, I handed the telephone to the applicant, and sat down.
      Then followed that queerest of all the queer things in this world&mdash;a
      conversation with only one end to it. You hear questions asked; you don't
      hear the answer. You hear invitations given; you hear no thanks in return.
      You have listening pauses of dead silence, followed by apparently
      irrelevant and unjustifiable exclamations of glad surprise or sorrow or
      dismay. You can't make head or tail of the talk, because you never hear
      anything that the person at the other end of the wire says. Well, I heard
      the following remarkable series of observations, all from the one tongue,
      and all shouted&mdash;for you can't ever persuade the sex to speak gently
      into a telephone:
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes? Why, how did <i>that </i>happen?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      What did you say?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh no, I don't think it was.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i> No</i>! Oh no, I didn't mean <i>that</i>. I meant, put it in while it
      is still boiling&mdash;or just before it <i>comes </i>to a boil.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>What</i>?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      I turned it over with a backstitch on the selvage edge.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, I like that way, too; but I think it's better to baste it on with
      Valenciennes or bombazine, or something of that sort. It gives it such an
      air&mdash;and attracts so much noise.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      It's forty-ninth Deuteronomy, sixty-forth to ninety-seventh inclusive. I
      think we ought all to read it often.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Perhaps so; I generally use a hair pin.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      What did you say? (_Aside_.) Children, do be quiet!
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Oh!</i> B <i>flat!</i> Dear me, I thought you said it was the cat!
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Since <i>when</i>?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Why, <i>I</i> never heard of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      You astound me! It seems utterly impossible!
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Who </i>did?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Good-ness gracious!
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, what<i> is</i> this world coming to? Was it right in <i>church</i>?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      And was her <i>mother </i>there?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Why, Mrs. Bagley, I should have died of humiliation! What did they<i> do</i>?
    </p>
    <p>
      Long pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      I can't be perfectly sure, because I haven't the notes by me; but I think
      it goes something like this: te-rolly-loll-loll, loll lolly-loll-loll, O
      tolly-loll-loll-<i>lee-ly-li</i>-i-do! And then <i>repeat</i>, you know.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, I think it<i> is</i> very sweet&mdash;and very solemn and impressive,
      if you get the andantino and the pianissimo right.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh, gum-drops, gum-drops! But I never allow them to eat striped candy. And
      of course they <i>can't</i>, till they get their teeth, anyway.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>What</i>?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh, not in the least&mdash;go right on. He's here writing&mdash;it doesn't
      bother <i>him</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Very well, I'll come if I can. (<i>Aside</i>.) Dear me, how it does tire a
      person's arm to hold this thing up so long! I wish she'd&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh no, not at all; I <i>like </i>to talk&mdash;but I'm afraid I'm keeping
      you from your affairs.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Visitors?
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      No, we never use butter on them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, that is a very good way; but all the cook-books say they are very
      unhealthy when they are out of season. And<i> he</i> doesn't like them,
      anyway&mdash;especially canned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh, I think that is too high for them; we have never paid over fifty cents
      a bunch.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Must </i>you go? Well, <i>good</i>-by.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, I think so. <i>good</i>-by.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Four o'clock, then&mdash;I'll be ready. <i>good</i>-by.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thank you ever so much. <i>good</i>-by.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Oh, not at all!&mdash;just as fresh&mdash;<i>which</i>? Oh, I'm glad to
      hear you say that. <i>Good</i>-by.
    </p>
    <p>
      (Hangs up the telephone and says, &ldquo;Oh, it <i>does </i>tire a person's arm
      so!&rdquo;)
    </p>
    <p>
      A man delivers a single brutal &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; and that is the end of it. Not
      so with the gentle sex&mdash;I say it in their praise; they cannot abide
      abruptness.
    </p>
    <p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      EDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE
    </h2>
    <p>
      These two were distantly related to each other&mdash;seventh cousins, or
      something of that sort. While still babies they became orphans, and were
      adopted by the Brants, a childless couple, who quickly grew very fond of
      them. The Brants were always saying: &ldquo;Be pure, honest, sober, industrious,
      and considerate of others, and success in life is assured.&rdquo; The children
      heard this repeated some thousands of times before they understood it;
      they could repeat it themselves long before they could say the Lord's
      Prayer; it was painted over the nursery door, and was about the first
      thing they learned to read. It was destined to be the unswerving rule of
      Edward Mills's life. Sometimes the Brants changed the wording a little,
      and said: &ldquo;Be pure, honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will
      never lack friends.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Baby Mills was a comfort to everybody about him. When he wanted candy and
      could not have it, he listened to reason, and contented himself without
      it. When Baby Benton wanted candy, he cried for it until he got it. Baby
      Mills took care of his toys; Baby Benton always destroyed his in a very
      brief time, and then made himself so insistently disagreeable that, in
      order to have peace in the house, little Edward was persuaded to yield up
      his play-things to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the children were a little older, Georgie became a heavy expense in
      one respect: he took no care of his clothes; consequently, he shone
      frequently in new ones, which was not the case with Eddie. The boys grew
      apace. Eddie was an increasing comfort, Georgie an increasing solicitude.
      It was always sufficient to say, in answer to Eddie's petitions, &ldquo;I would
      rather you would not do it&rdquo;&mdash;meaning swimming, skating, picnicking,
      berrying, circusing, and all sorts of things which boys delight in. But<i>
      no</i> answer was sufficient for Georgie; he had to be humored in his
      desires, or he would carry them with a high hand. Naturally, no boy got
      more swimming skating, berrying, and so forth than he; no body ever had a
      better time. The good Brants did not allow the boys to play out after nine
      in summer evenings; they were sent to bed at that hour; Eddie honorably
      remained, but Georgie usually slipped out of the window toward ten, and
      enjoyed himself until midnight. It seemed impossible to break Georgie of
      this bad habit, but the Brants managed it at last by hiring him, with
      apples and marbles, to stay in. The good Brants gave all their time and
      attention to vain endeavors to regulate Georgie; they said, with grateful
      tears in their eyes, that Eddie needed no efforts of theirs, he was so
      good, so considerate, and in all ways so perfect.
    </p>
    <p>
      By and by the boys were big enough to work, so they were apprenticed to a
      trade: Edward went voluntarily; George was coaxed and bribed. Edward
      worked hard and faithfully, and ceased to be an expense to the good
      Brants; they praised him, so did his master; but George ran away, and it
      cost Mr. Brant both money and trouble to hunt him up and get him back. By
      and by he ran away again&mdash;more money and more trouble. He ran away a
      third time&mdash;and stole a few things to carry with him. Trouble and
      expense for Mr. Brant once more; and, besides, it was with the greatest
      difficulty that he succeeded in persuading the master to let the youth go
      unprosecuted for the theft.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edward worked steadily along, and in time became a full partner in his
      master's business. George did not improve; he kept the loving hearts of
      his aged benefactors full of trouble, and their hands full of inventive
      activities to protect him from ruin. Edward, as a boy, had interested
      himself in Sunday-schools, debating societies, penny missionary affairs,
      anti-tobacco organizations, anti-profanity associations, and all such
      things; as a man, he was a quiet but steady and reliable helper in the
      church, the temperance societies, and in all movements looking to the
      aiding and uplifting of men. This excited no remark, attracted no
      attention&mdash;for it was his &ldquo;natural bent.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Finally, the old people died. The will testified their loving pride in
      Edward, and left their little property to George&mdash;because he &ldquo;needed
      it&rdquo;; whereas, &ldquo;owing to a bountiful Providence,&rdquo; such was not the case
      with Edward. The property was left to George conditionally: he must buy
      out Edward's partner with it; else it must go to a benevolent organization
      called the Prisoner's Friend Society. The old people left a letter, in
      which they begged their dear son Edward to take their place and watch over
      George, and help and shield him as they had done.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edward dutifully acquiesced, and George became his partner in the
      business. He was not a valuable partner: he had been meddling with drink
      before; he soon developed into a constant tippler now, and his flesh and
      eyes showed the fact unpleasantly. Edward had been courting a sweet and
      kindly spirited girl for some time. They loved each other dearly, and&mdash;But
      about this period George began to haunt her tearfully and imploringly, and
      at last she went crying to Edward, and said her high and holy duty was
      plain before her&mdash;she must not let her own selfish desires interfere
      with it: she must marry &ldquo;poor George&rdquo; and &ldquo;reform him.&rdquo; It would break her
      heart, she knew it would, and so on; but duty was duty. So she married
      George, and Edward's heart came very near breaking, as well as her own.
      However, Edward recovered, and married another girl&mdash;a very excellent
      one she was, too.
    </p>
    <p>
      Children came to both families. Mary did her honest best to reform her
      husband, but the contract was too large. George went on drinking, and by
      and by he fell to misusing her and the little ones sadly. A great many
      good people strove with George&mdash;they were always at it, in fact&mdash;but
      he calmly took such efforts as his due and their duty, and did not mend
      his ways. He added a vice, presently&mdash;that of secret gambling. He got
      deeply in debt; he borrowed money on the firm's credit, as quietly as he
      could, and carried this system so far and so successfully that one morning
      the sheriff took possession of the establishment, and the two cousins
      found themselves penniless.
    </p>
    <p>
      Times were hard, now, and they grew worse. Edward moved his family into a
      garret, and walked the streets day and night, seeking work. He begged for
      it, but it was really not to be had. He was astonished to see how soon his
      face became unwelcome; he was astonished and hurt to see how quickly the
      ancient interest which people had had in him faded out and disappeared.
      Still, he <i>must </i>get work; so he swallowed his chagrin, and toiled on
      in search of it. At last he got a job of carrying bricks up a ladder in a
      hod, and was a grateful man in consequence; but after that <i>nobody </i>knew
      him or cared anything about him. He was not able to keep up his dues in
      the various moral organizations to which he belonged, and had to endure
      the sharp pain of seeing himself brought under the disgrace of suspension.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the faster Edward died out of public knowledge and interest, the
      faster George rose in them. He was found lying, ragged and drunk, in the
      gutter one morning. A member of the Ladies' Temperance Refuge fished him
      out, took him in hand, got up a subscription for him, kept him sober a
      whole week, then got a situation for him. An account of it was published.
    </p>
    <p>
      General attention was thus drawn to the poor fellow, and a great many
      people came forward and helped him toward reform with their countenance
      and encouragement. He did not drink a drop for two months, and meantime
      was the pet of the good. Then he fell&mdash;in the gutter; and there was
      general sorrow and lamentation. But the noble sisterhood rescued him
      again. They cleaned him up, they fed him, they listened to the mournful
      music of his repentances, they got him his situation again. An account of
      this, also, was published, and the town was drowned in happy tears over
      the re-restoration of the poor beast and struggling victim of the fatal
      bowl. A grand temperance revival was got up, and after some rousing
      speeches had been made the chairman said, impressively: &ldquo;We are not about
      to call for signers; and I think there is a spectacle in store for you
      which not many in this house will be able to view with dry eyes.&rdquo; There
      was an eloquent pause, and then George Benton, escorted by a red-sashed
      detachment of the Ladies of the Refuge, stepped forward upon the platform
      and signed the pledge. The air was rent with applause, and everybody cried
      for joy. Everybody wrung the hand of the new convert when the meeting was
      over; his salary was enlarged next day; he was the talk of the town, and
      its hero. An account of it was published.
    </p>
    <p>
      George Benton fell, regularly, every three months, but was faithfully
      rescued and wrought with, every time, and good situations were found for
      him. Finally, he was taken around the country lecturing, as a reformed
      drunkard, and he had great houses and did an immense amount of good.
    </p>
    <p>
      He was so popular at home, and so trusted&mdash;during his sober intervals&mdash;that
      he was enabled to use the name of a principal citizen, and get a large sum
      of money at the bank. A mighty pressure was brought to bear to save him
      from the consequences of his forgery, and it was partially successful&mdash;he
      was &ldquo;sent up&rdquo; for only two years. When, at the end of a year, the tireless
      efforts of the benevolent were crowned with success, and he emerged from
      the penitentiary with a pardon in his pocket, the Prisoner's Friend
      Society met him at the door with a situation and a comfortable salary, and
      all the other benevolent people came forward and gave him advice,
      encouragement and help. Edward Mills had once applied to the Prisoner's
      Friend Society for a situation, when in dire need, but the question, &ldquo;Have
      you been a prisoner?&rdquo; made brief work of his case.
    </p>
    <p>
      While all these things were going on, Edward Mills had been quietly making
      head against adversity. He was still poor, but was in receipt of a steady
      and sufficient salary, as the respected and trusted cashier of a bank.
      George Benton never came near him, and was never heard to inquire about
      him. George got to indulging in long absences from the town; there were
      ill reports about him, but nothing definite.
    </p>
    <p>
      One winter's night some masked burglars forced their way into the bank,
      and found Edward Mills there alone. They commanded him to reveal the
      &ldquo;combination,&rdquo; so that they could get into the safe. He refused. They
      threatened his life. He said his employers trusted him, and he could not
      be traitor to that trust. He could die, if he must, but while he lived he
      would be faithful; he would not yield up the &ldquo;combination.&rdquo; The burglars
      killed him.
    </p>
    <p>
      The detectives hunted down the criminals; the chief one proved to be
      George Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the widow and orphans of the
      dead man, and all the newspapers in the land begged that all the banks in
      the land would testify their appreciation of the fidelity and heroism of
      the murdered cashier by coming forward with a generous contribution of
      money in aid of his family, now bereft of support. The result was a mass
      of solid cash amounting to upward of five hundred dollars&mdash;an average
      of nearly three-eights of a cent for each bank in the Union. The cashier's
      own bank testified its gratitude by endeavoring to show (but humiliatingly
      failed in it) that the peerless servant's accounts were not square, and
      that he himself had knocked his brains out with a bludgeon to escape
      detection and punishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      George Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody seemed to forget the
      widow and orphans in their solicitude for poor George. Everything that
      money and influence could do was done to save him, but it all failed; he
      was sentenced to death. Straightway the Governor was besieged with
      petitions for commutation or pardon; they were brought by tearful young
      girls; by sorrowful old maids; by deputations of pathetic widows; by
      shoals of impressive orphans. But no, the Governor&mdash;for once&mdash;would
      not yield.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew all around.
      From that time forth his cell was always full of girls and women and fresh
      flowers; all the day long there was prayer, and hymn-singing, and
      thanksgiving, and homilies, and tears, with never an interruption, except
      an occasional five-minute intermission for refreshments.
    </p>
    <p>
      This sort of thing continued up to the very gallows, and George Benton
      went proudly home, in the black cap, before a wailing audience of the
      sweetest and best that the region could produce. His grave had fresh
      flowers on it every day, for a while, and the head-stone bore these words,
      under a hand pointing aloft: &ldquo;He has fought the good fight.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The brave cashier's head-stone has this inscription: &ldquo;Be pure, honest,
      sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Nobody knows who gave the order to leave it that way, but it was so given.
    </p>
    <p>
      The cashier's family are in stringent circumstances, now, it is said; but
      no matter; a lot of appreciative people, who were not willing that an act
      so brave and true as his should go unrewarded, have collected forty-two
      thousand dollars&mdash;and built a Memorial Church with it.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      THE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE
    </h2>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter I
    </h2>
    <p>
      In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, choose wisely;
      oh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death. The youth said,
      eagerly:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;There is no need to consider&rdquo;; and he chose Pleasure.
    </p>
    <p>
      He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth
      delights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain
      and empty; and each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said: &ldquo;These
      years I have wasted. If I could but choose again, I would choose wisely.&rdquo;
     </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter II
    </h2>
    <p>
      The fairy appeared, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh, remember&mdash;time
      is flying, and only one of them is precious.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the tears that
      rose in the fairy's eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      After many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empty home. And he
      communed with himself, saying: &ldquo;One by one they have gone away and left
      me; and now she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after
      desolation has swept over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous
      trader, Love, has sold me I have paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of my
      heart of hearts I curse him.&rdquo;
     </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter III
    </h2>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Choose again.&rdquo; It was the fairy speaking.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The years have taught you wisdom&mdash;surely it must be so. Three gifts
      remain. Only one of them has any worth&mdash;remember it, and choose
      warily.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The man reflected long, then chose Fame; and the fairy, sighing, went her
      way.
    </p>
    <p>
      Years went by and she came again, and stood behind the man where he sat
      solitary in the fading day, thinking. And she knew his thought:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My name filled the world, and its praises were on every tongue, and it
      seemed well with me for a little while. How little a while it was! Then
      came envy; then detraction; then calumny; then hate; then persecution.
      Then derision, which is the beginning of the end. And last of all came
      pity, which is the funeral of fame. Oh, the bitterness and misery of
      renown! target for mud in its prime, for contempt and compassion in its
      decay.&rdquo;
     </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter IV
    </h2>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Chose yet again.&rdquo; It was the fairy's voice.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Two gifts remain. And do not despair. In the beginning there was but one
      that was precious, and it is still here.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wealth&mdash;which is power! How blind I was!&rdquo; said the man. &ldquo;Now, at
      last, life will be worth the living. I will spend, squander, dazzle. These
      mockers and despisers will crawl in the dirt before me, and I will feed my
      hungry heart with their envy. I will have all luxuries, all joys, all
      enchantments of the spirit, all contentments of the body that man holds
      dear. I will buy, buy, buy! deference, respect, esteem, worship&mdash;every
      pinchbeck grace of life the market of a trivial world can furnish forth. I
      have lost much time, and chosen badly heretofore, but let that pass; I was
      ignorant then, and could but take for best what seemed so.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Three short years went by, and a day came when the man sat shivering in a
      mean garret; and he was gaunt and wan and hollow-eyed, and clothed in
      rags; and he was gnawing a dry crust and mumbling:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Curse all the world's gifts, for mockeries and gilded lies! And
      miscalled, every one. They are not gifts, but merely lendings. Pleasure,
      Love, Fame, Riches: they are but temporary disguises for lasting realities&mdash;Pain,
      Grief, Shame, Poverty. The fairy said true; in all her store there was but
      one gift which was precious, only one that was not valueless. How poor and
      cheap and mean I know those others now to be, compared with that
      inestimable one, that dear and sweet and kindly one, that steeps in
      dreamless and enduring sleep the pains that persecute the body, and the
      shames and griefs that eat the mind and heart. Bring it! I am weary, I
      would rest.&rdquo;
     </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter V
    </h2>
    <p>
      The fairy came, bringing again four of the gifts, but Death was wanting.
      She said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I gave it to a mother's pet, a little child. It was ignorant, but trusted
      me, asking me to choose for it. You did not ask me to choose.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, miserable me! What is left for me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What not even you have deserved: the wanton insult of Old Age.&rdquo;
     </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES
    </h2>
    <p>
      From My Unpublished Autobiography
    </p>
    <p>
      Some days ago a correspondent sent in an old typewritten sheet, faded by
      age, containing the following letter over the signature of Mark Twain:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        &ldquo;Hartford, March 10, 1875.
      </p>
      <p>
        &ldquo;Please do not use my name in any way. Please do not even divulge that
        fact that I own a machine. I have entirely stopped using the typewriter,
        for the reason that I never could write a letter with it to anybody
        without receiving a request by return mail that I would not only
        describe the machine, but state what progress I had made in the use of
        it, etc., etc. I don't like to write letters, and so I don't want people
        to know I own this curiosity-breeding little joker.&rdquo;
       </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      A note was sent to Mr. Clemens asking him if the letter was genuine and
      whether he really had a typewriter as long ago as that. Mr. Clemens
      replied that his best answer is the following chapter from his unpublished
      autobiography:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        1904. VILLA QUARTO, FLORENCE, JANUARY.
      </p>
      <p>
        Dictating autobiography to a typewriter is a new experience for me, but
        it goes very well, and is going to save time and &ldquo;language&rdquo;&mdash;the
        kind of language that soothes vexation.
      </p>
      <p>
        I have dictated to a typewriter before&mdash;but not autobiography.
        Between that experience and the present one there lies a mighty gap&mdash;more
        than thirty years! It is a sort of lifetime. In that wide interval much
        has happened&mdash;to the type-machine as well as to the rest of us. At
        the beginning of that interval a type-machine was a curiosity. The
        person who owned one was a curiosity, too. But now it is the other way
        about: the person who <i>doesn't</i> own one is a curiosity. I saw a
        type-machine for the first time in&mdash;what year? I suppose it was
        1873&mdash;because Nasby was with me at the time, and it was in Boston.
        We must have been lecturing, or we could not have been in Boston, I take
        it. I quitted the platform that season.
      </p>
      <p>
        But never mind about that, it is no matter. Nasby and I saw the machine
        through a window, and went in to look at it. The salesman explained it
        to us, showed us samples of its work, and said it could do fifty-seven
        words a minute&mdash;a statement which we frankly confessed that we did
        not believe. So he put his type-girl to work, and we timed her by the
        watch. She actually did the fifty-seven in sixty seconds. We were partly
        convinced, but said it probably couldn't happen again. But it did. We
        timed the girl over and over again&mdash;with the same result always:
        she won out. She did her work on narrow slips of paper, and we pocketed
        them as fast as she turned them out, to show as curiosities. The price
        of the machine was one hundred and twenty-five dollars. I bought one,
        and we went away very much excited.
      </p>
      <p>
        At the hotel we got out our slips and were a little disappointed to find
        that they contained the same words. The girl had economized time and
        labor by using a formula which she knew by heart. However, we argued&mdash;safely
        enough&mdash;that the <i>first </i>type-girl must naturally take rank
        with the first billiard-player: neither of them could be expected to get
        out of the game any more than a third or a half of what was in it. If
        the machine survived&mdash;_if_ it survived&mdash;experts would come to
        the front, by and by, who would double the girl's output without a
        doubt. They would do one hundred words a minute&mdash;my talking speed
        on the platform. That score has long ago been beaten.
      </p>
      <p>
        At home I played with the toy, repeating and repeating and repeating
        &ldquo;The Boy stood on the Burning Deck,&rdquo; until I could turn that boy's
        adventure out at the rate of twelve words a minute; then I resumed the
        pen, for business, and only worked the machine to astonish inquiring
        visitors. They carried off many reams of the boy and his burning deck.
      </p>
      <p>
        By and by I hired a young woman, and did my first dictating (letters,
        merely), and my last until now. The machine did not do both capitals and
        lower case (as now), but only capitals. Gothic capitals they were, and
        sufficiently ugly. I remember the first letter I dictated, it was to
        Edward Bok, who was a boy then. I was not acquainted with him at that
        time. His present enterprising spirit is not new&mdash;he had it in that
        early day. He was accumulating autographs, and was not content with mere
        signatures, he wanted a whole autograph <i>letter</i>. I furnished it&mdash;in
        type-written capitals, <i>signature and all.</i> It was long; it was a
        sermon; it contained advice; also reproaches. I said writing was my <i>trade</i>,
        my bread-and-butter; I said it was not fair to ask a man to give away
        samples of his trade; would he ask the blacksmith for a horseshoe? would
        he ask the doctor for a corpse?
      </p>
      <p>
        Now I come to an important matter&mdash;as I regard it. In the year '74
        the young woman copied a considerable part of a book of mine <i>on the
        machine</i>. In a previous chapter of this Autobiography I have claimed
        that I was the first person in the world that ever had a telephone in
        the house for practical purposes; I will now claim&mdash;until
        dispossessed&mdash;that I was the first person in the world to <i>apply
        the type-machine to literature</i>. That book must have been <i>The
        Adventures Of Tom Sawyer.</i> I wrote the first half of it in '72, the
        rest of it in '74. My machinist type-copied a book for me in '74, so I
        concluded it was that one.
      </p>
      <p>
        That early machine was full of caprices, full of defects&mdash;devilish
        ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues.
        After a year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I
        thought I would give it to Howells. He was reluctant, for he was
        suspicious of novelties and unfriendly toward them, and he remains so to
        this day. But I persuaded him. He had great confidence in me, and I got
        him to believe things about the machine that I did not believe myself.
        He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have
        never recovered.
      </p>
      <p>
        He kept it six months, and then returned it to me. I gave it away twice
        after that, but it wouldn't stay; it came back. Then I gave it to our
        coachman, Patrick McAleer, who was very grateful, because he did not
        know the animal, and thought I was trying to make him wiser and better.
        As soon as he got wiser and better he traded it to a heretic for a
        side-saddle which he could not use, and there my knowledge of its
        history ends.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER
    </h2>
    <p>
      It is almost a fortnight now that I am domiciled in a medieval villa in
      the country, a mile or two from Florence. I cannot speak the language; I
      am too old now to learn how, also too busy when I am busy, and too
      indolent when I am not; wherefore some will imagine that I am having a
      dull time of it. But it is not so. The &ldquo;help&rdquo; are all natives; they talk
      Italian to me, I answer in English; I do not understand them, they do not
      understand me, consequently no harm is done, and everybody is satisfied.
    </p>
    <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
      <img src="images/8185.jpg" alt="8185 " width="100%" /><br /><a
      href="images/8185.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </div>
    <p>
      In order to be just and fair, I throw in an Italian word when I have one,
      and this has a good influence. I get the word out of the morning paper. I
      have to use it while it is fresh, for I find that Italian words do not
      keep in this climate. They fade toward night, and next morning they are
      gone. But it is no matter; I get a new one out of the paper before
      breakfast, and thrill the domestics with it while it lasts. I have no
      dictionary, and I do not want one; I can select words by the sound, or by
      orthographic aspect. Many of them have French or German or English look,
      and these are the ones I enslave for the day's service. That is, as a
      rule. Not always. If I find a learnable phrase that has an imposing look
      and warbles musically along I do not care to know the meaning of it; I pay
      it out to the first applicant, knowing that if I pronounce it carefully<i>
      he</i> will understand it, and that's enough.
    </p>
    <div class="figleft" style="width:20%;">
      <img src="images/9186.jpg" alt="9186 " width="100%" /><br /><a
      href="images/9186.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </div>
    <p>
      Yesterday's word was <i>avanti</i>. It sounds Shakespearian, and probably
      means Avaunt and quit my sight. Today I have a whole phrase: <i>sono
      dispiacentissimo</i>. I do not know what it means, but it seems to fit in
      everywhere and give satisfaction. Although as a rule my words and phrases
      are good for one day and train only, I have several that stay by me all
      the time, for some unknown reason, and these come very handy when I get
      into a long conversation and need things to fire up with in monotonous
      stretches. One of the best ones is <i>dov `e il gatto</i>. It nearly
      always produces a pleasant surprise, therefore I save it up for places
      where I want to express applause or admiration. The fourth word has a
      French sound, and I think the phrase means &ldquo;that takes the cake.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      During my first week in the deep and dreamy stillness of this woodsy and
      flowery place I was without news of the outside world, and was well
      content without it. It had been four weeks since I had seen a newspaper,
      and this lack seemed to give life a new charm and grace, and to saturate
      it with a feeling verging upon actual delight. Then came a change that was
      to be expected: the appetite for news began to rise again, after this
      invigorating rest. I had to feed it, but I was not willing to let it make
      me its helpless slave again; I determined to put it on a diet, and a
      strict and limited one. So I examined an Italian paper, with the idea of
      feeding it on that, and on that exclusively. On that exclusively, and
      without help of a dictionary. In this way I should surely be well
      protected against overloading and indigestion.
    </p>
    <p>
      A glance at the telegraphic page filled me with encouragement. There were
      no scare-heads. That was good&mdash;supremely good. But there were
      headings&mdash;one-liners and two-liners&mdash;and that was good too; for
      without these, one must do as one does with a German paper&mdash;pay out
      precious time in finding out what an article is about, only to discover,
      in many cases, that there is nothing in it of interest to you. The
      headline is a valuable thing.
    </p>
    <p>
      Necessarily we are all fond of murders, scandals, swindles, robberies,
      explosions, collisions, and all such things, when we know the people, and
      when they are neighbors and friends, but when they are strangers we do not
      get any great pleasure out of them, as a rule. Now the trouble with an
      American paper is that it has no discrimination; it rakes the whole earth
      for blood and garbage, and the result is that you are daily overfed and
      suffer a surfeit. By habit you stow this muck every day, but you come by
      and by to take no vital interest in it&mdash;indeed, you almost get tired
      of it. As a rule, forty-nine-fiftieths of it concerns strangers only&mdash;people
      away off yonder, a thousand miles, two thousand miles, ten thousand miles
      from where you are. Why, when you come to think of it, who cares what
      becomes of those people? I would not give the assassination of one
      personal friend for a whole massacre of those others. And, to my mind, one
      relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal is more interesting than a
      whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone rotten. Give me the home
      product every time.
    </p>
    <p>
      Very well. I saw at a glance that the Florentine paper would suit me: five
      out of six of its scandals and tragedies were local; they were adventures
      of one's very neighbors, one might almost say one's friends. In the matter
      of world news there was not too much, but just about enough. I subscribed.
      I have had no occasion to regret it. Every morning I get all the news I
      need for the day; sometimes from the headlines, sometimes from the text. I
      have never had to call for a dictionary yet. I read the paper with ease.
      Often I do not quite understand, often some of the details escape me, but
      no matter, I get the idea. I will cut out a passage or two, then you see
      how limpid the language is:
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0189.jpg" alt="0189 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0189.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      Il ritorno dei Beati d'Italia
    </p>
    <p>
      Elargizione del Re all' Ospedale italiano
    </p>
    <p>
      The first line means that the Italian sovereigns are coming back&mdash;they
      have been to England. The second line seems to mean that they enlarged the
      King at the Italian hospital. With a banquet, I suppose. An English
      banquet has that effect. Further:
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Il ritorno dei Sovrani</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      a Roma
    </p>
    <p>
      ROMA, 24, ore 22,50.&mdash;<i>I Sovrani e le Principessine Reali si
      attendono a Roma domani alle ore</i> 15,51.
    </p>
    <p>
      Return of the sovereigns to Rome, you see. Date of the telegram, Rome,
      November 24, ten minutes before twenty-three o'clock. The telegram seems
      to say, &ldquo;The Sovereigns and the Royal Children expect themselves at Rome
      tomorrow at fifty-one minutes after fifteen o'clock.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0190.jpg" alt="0190 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0190.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      I do not know about Italian time, but I judge it begins at midnight and
      runs through the twenty-four hours without breaking bulk. In the following
      ad, the theaters open at half-past twenty. If these are not matinees,
      20.30 must mean 8.30 P.M., by my reckoning.
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0191.jpg" alt="0191 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0191.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <h4>
      Spettacolli del di 25
    </h4>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        TEATRO DELLA PERGOLA&mdash;(Ore 20,30)&mdash;Opera. <i>Boheme</i>.
      </p>
      <p>
        TEATRO ALFIERI.&mdash;Compagnia drammatica Drago&mdash;(Ore 20,30)&mdash;<i>La
        Legge</i>.
      </p>
      <p>
        ALHAMBRA&mdash;(Ore 20,30)&mdash;Spettacolo variato.
      </p>
      <p>
        SALA EDISON&mdash;Grandioso spettacolo Cinematografico: <i>Quo-Vadis?</i>&mdash;Inaugurazione
        della Chiesa Russa &mdash; In coda al Direttissimo &mdash; Vedute di
        Firenze con gran movimeno &mdash; America: Transporto tronchi
        giganteschi &mdash; I ladri in casa del Diavolo &mdash; Scene comiche.
      </p>
      <p>
        CINEMATOGRAFO &mdash; Via Brunelleschi n. 4.&mdash;Programma
        straordinario, <i>Don Chisciotte </i>&mdash; Prezzi populari.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The whole of that is intelligible to me&mdash;and sane and rational, too&mdash;except
      the remark about the Inauguration of a Russian Cheese. That one oversizes
      my hand. Gimme me five cards.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is a four-page paper; and as it is set in long primer leaded and has
      a page of advertisements, there is no room for the crimes, disasters, and
      general sweepings of the outside world&mdash;thanks be! Today I find only
      a single importation of the off-color sort:
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0192.jpg" alt="0192 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0192.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <h3>
      Una Principessa
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        che fugge con un cocchiere
      </p>
      <p>
        PARIGI, 24.&mdash;Il MATIN ha da Berlino che la principessa
        Schovenbare-Waldenbure scomparve il 9 novembre. Sarebbe partita col suo
        cocchiere.
      </p>
      <p>
        La Principassa ha 27 anni.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      Twenty-seven years old, and scomparve&mdash;scampered&mdash;on the 9th
      November. You see by the added detail that she departed with her coachman.
      I hope Sarebbe has not made a mistake, but I am afraid the chances are
      that she has. <i>Sono dispiacentissimo</i>.
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0193.jpg" alt="0193 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0193.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      There are several fires: also a couple of accidents. This is one of them:
    </p>
    <h3>
      Grave Disgrazia Sul Ponte Vecchio
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Stammattina, circe le 7,30, mentre Giuseppe Sciatti, di anni 55, di
        Casellina e Torri, passava dal Ponte Vecchio, stando seduto sopra un
        barroccio carico di verdura, perse l' equilibrio e cadde al suolo,
        rimanendo con la gamba destra sotto una ruota del veicolo.
      </p>
      <p>
        Lo Sciatti fu subito raccolto da alcuni cittadini, che, per mezzo della
        pubblica vettura n. 365, lo transporto a San Giovanni di Dio.
      </p>
      <p>
        Ivi il medico di guardia gli riscontro la frattura della gamba destra e
        alcune lievi escoriazioni giudicandolo guaribile in 50 giorni salvo
        complicazioni.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0195.jpg" alt="0195 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0195.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      What it seems to say is this: &ldquo;Serious Disgrace on the Old Old Bridge.
      This morning about 7.30, Mr. Joseph Sciatti, aged 55, of Casellina and
      Torri, while standing up in a sitting posture on top of a carico barrow of
      vedure (foliage? hay? vegetables?), lost his equilibrium and fell on
      himself, arriving with his left leg under one of the wheels of the
      vehicle.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Said Sciatti was suddenly harvested (gathered in?) by several citizens,
      who by means of public cab No. 365 transported him to St. John of God.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Paragraph No. 3 is a little obscure, but I think it says that the medico
      set the broken left leg&mdash;right enough, since there was nothing the
      matter with the other one&mdash;and that several are encouraged to hope
      that fifty days well fetch him around in quite giudicandolo-guaribile way,
      if no complications intervene.
    </p>
    <p>
      I am sure I hope so myself.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is a great and peculiar charm about reading news-scraps in a
      language which you are not acquainted with&mdash;the charm that always
      goes with the mysterious and the uncertain. You can never be absolutely
      sure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you are
      chasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns and
      dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt. A dictionary would spoil it.
      Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a veil of dreamy and
      golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and practical
      certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable mystery an
      incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for that benefaction.
      Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious word? would you be
      properly grateful?
    </p>
    <p>
      After a couple of days' rest I now come back to my subject and seek a case
      in point. I find it without trouble, in the morning paper; a cablegram
      from Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris. All the words save one are
      guessable by a person ignorant of Italian:
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0196.jpg" alt="0196 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0196.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <h3>
      Revolverate in teatro
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        PARIGI, 27.&mdash;La PATRIE ha da Chicago:
      </p>
      <p>
        Il guardiano del teatro dell'opera di Walace (Indiana), avendo voluto
        espellare uno spettatore che continuava a fumare malgrado il diviety,
        questo spalleggiato dai suoi amici tir`o diversi colpi di rivoltella. Il
        guardiano ripose. Nacque una scarica generale. Grande panico tra gli
        spettatori. Nessun ferito.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <i>Translation.</i>&mdash;&ldquo;Revolveration in Theater. <i>Paris, 27th. La
      Patrie</i> has from Chicago: The cop of the theater of the opera of
      Wallace, Indiana, had willed to expel a spectator which continued to smoke
      in spite of the prohibition, who, spalleggiato by his friends, tire (<i>Fr.
      Tire, Anglice Pulled</i>) manifold revolver-shots; great panic among the
      spectators. Nobody hurt.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0197.jpg" alt="0197 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0197.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      It is bettable that that harmless cataclysm in the theater of the opera of
      Wallace, Indiana, excited not a person in Europe but me, and so came near
      to not being worth cabling to Florence by way of France. But it does
      excite me. It excites me because I cannot make out, for sure, what it was
      that moved the spectator to resist the officer. I was gliding along
      smoothly and without obstruction or accident, until I came to that word
      &ldquo;spalleggiato,&rdquo; then the bottom fell out. You notice what a rich gloom,
      what a somber and pervading mystery, that word sheds all over the whole
      Wallachian tragedy. That is the charm of the thing, that is the delight of
      it. This is where you begin, this is where you revel. You can guess and
      guess, and have all the fun you like; you need not be afraid there will be
      an end to it; none is possible, for no amount of guessing will ever
      furnish you a meaning for that word that you can be sure is the right one.
      All the other words give you hints, by their form, their sound, or their
      spelling&mdash;this one doesn't, this one throws out no hints, this one
      keeps its secret. If there is even the slightest slight shadow of a hint
      anywhere, it lies in the very meagerly suggestive fact that &ldquo;spalleggiato&rdquo;
       carries our word &ldquo;egg&rdquo; in its stomach. Well, make the most out of it, and
      then where are you at? You conjecture that the spectator which was smoking
      in spite of the prohibition and become reprohibited by the guardians, was
      &ldquo;egged on&rdquo; by his friends, and that was owing to that evil influence that
      he initiated the revolveration in theater that has galloped under the sea
      and come crashing through the European press without exciting anybody but
      me. But are you sure, are you dead sure, that that was the way of it? No.
      Then the uncertainty remains, the mystery abides, and with it the charm.
      Guess again.
    </p>
    <p>
      If I had a phrase-book of a really satisfactory sort I would study it, and
      not give all my free time to undictionarial readings, but there is no such
      work on the market. The existing phrase-books are inadequate. They are
      well enough as far as they go, but when you fall down and skin your leg
      they don't tell you what to say.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR
    </h2>
    <p>
      I found that a person of large intelligence could read this beautiful
      language with considerable facility without a dictionary, but I presently
      found that to such a person a grammar could be of use at times. It is
      because, if he does not know the <i>were's</i> and the <i>was's</i> and
      the <i>maybe's</i> and the <i>has-beens's</i> apart, confusions and
      uncertainties can arise. He can get the idea that a thing is going to
      happen next week when the truth is that it has already happened week
      before last. Even more previously, sometimes. Examination and inquiry
      showed me that the adjectives and such things were frank and fair-minded
      and straightforward, and did not shuffle; it was the Verb that mixed the
      hands, it was the Verb that lacked stability, it was the Verb that had no
      permanent opinion about anything, it was the Verb that was always dodging
      the issue and putting out the light and making all the trouble.
    </p>
    <p>
      Further examination, further inquiry, further reflection, confirmed this
      judgment, and established beyond peradventure the fact that the Verb was
      the storm-center. This discovery made plain the right and wise course to
      pursue in order to acquire certainty and exactness in understanding the
      statements which the newspaper was daily endeavoring to convey to me: I
      must catch a Verb and tame it. I must find out its ways, I must spot its
      eccentricities, I must penetrate its disguises, I must intelligently
      foresee and forecast at least the commoner of the dodges it was likely to
      try upon a stranger in given circumstances, I must get in on its main
      shifts and head them off, I must learn its game and play the limit.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had noticed, in other foreign languages, that verbs are bred in
      families, and that the members of each family have certain features or
      resemblances that are common to that family and distinguish it from the
      other families&mdash;the other kin, the cousins and what not. I had
      noticed that this family-mark is not usually the nose or the hair, so to
      speak, but the tail&mdash;the Termination&mdash;and that these tails are
      quite definitely differentiated; insomuch that an expert can tell a
      Pluperfect from a Subjunctive by its tail as easily and as certainly as a
      cowboy can tell a cow from a horse by the like process, the result of
      observation and culture. I should explain that I am speaking of legitimate
      verbs, those verbs which in the slang of the grammar are called Regular.
      There are others&mdash;I am not meaning to conceal this; others called
      Irregulars, born out of wedlock, of unknown and uninteresting parentage,
      and naturally destitute of family resemblances, as regards to all
      features, tails included. But of these pathetic outcasts I have nothing to
      say. I do not approve of them, I do not encourage them; I am prudishly
      delicate and sensitive, and I do not allow them to be used in my presence.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, as I have said, I decided to catch one of the others and break it
      into harness. One is enough. Once familiar with its assortment of tails,
      you are immune; after that, no regular verb can conceal its specialty from
      you and make you think it is working the past or the future or the
      conditional or the unconditional when it is engaged in some other line of
      business&mdash;its tail will give it away. I found out all these things by
      myself, without a teacher.
    </p>
    <p>
      I selected the verb <i>amare, to love.</i> Not for any personal reason,
      for I am indifferent about verbs; I care no more for one verb than for
      another, and have little or no respect for any of them; but in foreign
      languages you always begin with that one. Why, I don't know. It is merely
      habit, I suppose; the first teacher chose it, Adam was satisfied, and
      there hasn't been a successor since with originality enough to start a
      fresh one. For they <i>are </i>a pretty limited lot, you will admit that?
      Originality is not in their line; they can't think up anything new,
      anything to freshen up the old moss-grown dullness of the language lesson
      and put life and &ldquo;go&rdquo; into it, and charm and grace and picturesqueness.
    </p>
    <p>
      I knew I must look after those details myself; therefore I thought them
      out and wrote them down, and sent for the <i>facchino </i>and explained
      them to him, and said he must arrange a proper plant, and get together a
      good stock company among the <i>contadini</i>, and design the costumes,
      and distribute the parts; and drill the troupe, and be ready in three days
      to begin on this Verb in a shipshape and workman-like manner. I told him
      to put each grand division of it under a foreman, and each subdivision
      under a subordinate of the rank of sergeant or corporal or something like
      that, and to have a different uniform for each squad, so that I could tell
      a Pluperfect from a Compound Future without looking at the book; the whole
      battery to be under his own special and particular command, with the rank
      of Brigadier, and I to pay the freight.
    </p>
    <p>
      I then inquired into the character and possibilities of the selected verb,
      and was much disturbed to find that it was over my size, it being
      chambered for fifty-seven rounds&mdash;fifty-seven ways of saying I <i>love</i>
      without reloading; and yet none of them likely to convince a girl that was
      laying for a title, or a title that was laying for rocks.
    </p>
    <p>
      It seemed to me that with my inexperience it would be foolish to go into
      action with this mitrailleuse, so I ordered it to the rear and told the
      facchino to provide something a little more primitive to start with,
      something less elaborate, some gentle old-fashioned flint-lock,
      smooth-bore, double-barreled thing, calculated to cripple at two hundred
      yards and kill at forty&mdash;an arrangement suitable for a beginner who
      could be satisfied with moderate results on the offstart and did not wish
      to take the whole territory in the first campaign.
    </p>
    <p>
      But in vain. He was not able to mend the matter, all the verbs being of
      the same build, all Gatlings, all of the same caliber and delivery,
      fifty-seven to the volley, and fatal at a mile and a half. But he said the
      auxiliary verb <i>avere, to have</i>, was a tidy thing, and easy to handle
      in a seaway, and less likely to miss stays in going about than some of the
      others; so, upon his recommendation I chose that one, and told him to take
      it along and scrape its bottom and break out its spinnaker and get it
      ready for business.
    </p>
    <p>
      I will explain that a facchino is a general-utility domestic. Mine was a
      horse-doctor in his better days, and a very good one.
    </p>
    <p>
      At the end of three days the facchino-doctor-brigadier was ready. I was
      also ready, with a stenographer. We were in a room called the Rope-Walk.
      This is a formidably long room, as is indicated by its facetious name, and
      is a good place for reviews. At 9:30 the F.-D.-B. took his place near me
      and gave the word of command; the drums began to rumble and thunder, the
      head of the forces appeared at an upper door, and the &ldquo;march-past&rdquo; was on.
      Down they filed, a blaze of variegated color, each squad gaudy in a
      uniform of its own and bearing a banner inscribed with its verbal rank and
      quality: first the Present Tense in Mediterranean blue and old gold, then
      the Past Definite in scarlet and black, then the Imperfect in green and
      yellow, then the Indicative Future in the stars and stripes, then the Old
      Red Sandstone Subjunctive in purple and silver&mdash;and so on and so on,
      fifty-seven privates and twenty commissioned and non-commissioned
      officers; certainly one of the most fiery and dazzling and eloquent sights
      I have ever beheld. I could not keep back the tears. Presently:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Halt!&rdquo; commanded the Brigadier.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Front&mdash;face!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Right dress!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Stand at ease!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;One&mdash;two&mdash;three. In unison&mdash;<i>recite!</i>&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was fine. In one noble volume of sound of all the fifty-seven Haves in
      the Italian language burst forth in an exalting and splendid confusion.
      Then came commands:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;About&mdash;face! Eyes&mdash;front! Helm alee&mdash;hard aport! Forward&mdash;march!&rdquo;
       and the drums let go again.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the last Termination had disappeared, the commander said the
      instruction drill would now begin, and asked for suggestions. I said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;They say <i>I have, thou hast, he has</i>, and so on, but they don't say
      <i>what</i>. It will be better, and more definite, if they have something
      to have; just an object, you know, a something&mdash;anything will do;
      anything that will give the listener a sort of personal as well as
      grammatical interest in their joys and complaints, you see.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is a good point. Would a dog do?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I said I did not know, but we could try a dog and see. So he sent out an
      aide-de-camp to give the order to add the dog.
    </p>
    <p>
      The six privates of the Present Tense now filed in, in charge of Sergeant
      Avere (<i>to have</i>), and displaying their banner. They formed in line
      of battle, and recited, one at a time, thus:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Io ho un cane,</i> I have a dog.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Tu hai un cane</i>, thou hast a dog.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <i>&ldquo;Egli ha un cane, </i>he has a dog.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <i>&ldquo;Noi abbiamo un cane</i>, we have a dog.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Voi avete un cane</i>, you have a dog.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Eglino hanno un cane,</i> they have a dog.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      No comment followed. They returned to camp, and I reflected a while. The
      commander said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I fear you are disappointed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;they are too monotonous, too singsong, to dead-and-alive;
      they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural; it could never
      happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog is either blame'
      glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never saw a case. What the
      nation do you suppose is the matter with these people?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He thought maybe the trouble was with the dog. He said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;These are <i>contadini</i>, you know, and they have a prejudice against
      dogs&mdash;that is, against marimane. Marimana dogs stand guard over
      people's vines and olives, you know, and are very savage, and thereby a
      grief and an inconvenience to persons who want other people's things at
      night. In my judgment they have taken this dog for a marimana, and have
      soured on him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I saw that the dog was a mistake, and not functionable: we must try
      something else; something, if possible, that could evoke sentiment,
      interest, feeling.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is cat, in Italian?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gatto.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Is it a gentleman cat, or a lady?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Gentleman cat.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How are these people as regards that animal?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;We-ll, they&mdash;they&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You hesitate: that is enough. How are they about chickens?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He tilted his eyes toward heaven in mute ecstasy. I understood.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What is chicken, in Italian?&rdquo; I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pollo, <i>Podere.</i>&rdquo; (Podere is Italian for master. It is a title of
      courtesy, and conveys reverence and admiration.) &ldquo;Pollo is one chicken by
      itself; when there are enough present to constitute a plural, it is <i>polli.</i>&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very well, polli will do. Which squad is detailed for duty next?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Past Definite.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Send out and order it to the front&mdash;with chickens. And let them
      understand that we don't want any more of this cold indifference.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He gave the order to an aide, adding, with a haunting tenderness in his
      tone and a watering mouth in his aspect:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Convey to them the conception that these are unprotected chickens.&rdquo; He
      turned to me, saluting with his hand to his temple, and explained, &ldquo;It
      will inflame their interest in the poultry, sire.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A few minutes elapsed. Then the squad marched in and formed up, their
      faces glowing with enthusiasm, and the file-leader shouted:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Ebbi polli</i>, I had chickens!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Good!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Go on, the next.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Avest polli</i>, thou hadst chickens!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fine! Next!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Ebbe polli</i>, he had chickens!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Moltimoltissimo! Go on, the next!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Avemmo polli,</i> we had chickens!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Basta-basta aspettatto avanti&mdash;last man&mdash;<i>charge</i>!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Ebbero polli</i>, they had chickens!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then they formed in echelon, by columns of fours, refused the left, and
      retired in great style on the double-quick. I was enchanted, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now, doctor, that is something <i>like</i>! Chickens are the ticket,
      there is no doubt about it. What is the next squad?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Imperfect.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How does it go?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;<i>Io Aveva</i>, I had, <i>tu avevi</i>, thou hadst, <i>egli aveva</i>,
      he had, <i>noi av</i>&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Wait&mdash;we've just <i>had </i>the hads. What are you giving me?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But this is another breed.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What do we want of another breed? Isn't one breed enough? <i>Had</i> is
      <i>had</i>, and your tricking it out in a fresh way of spelling isn't
      going to make it any hadder than it was before; now you know that
      yourself.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But there is a distinction&mdash;they are not just the same Hads.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How do you make it out?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, you use that first Had when you are referring to something that
      happened at a named and sharp and perfectly definite moment; you use the
      other when the thing happened at a vaguely defined time and in a more
      prolonged and indefinitely continuous way.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why, doctor, it is pure nonsense; you know it yourself. Look here: If I
      have had a had, or have wanted to have had a had, or was in a position
      right then and there to have had a had that hadn't had any chance to go
      out hadding on account of this foolish discrimination which lets one Had
      go hadding in any kind of indefinite grammatical weather but restricts the
      other one to definite and datable meteoric convulsions, and keeps it
      pining around and watching the barometer all the time, and liable to get
      sick through confinement and lack of exercise, and all that sort of thing,
      why&mdash;why, the inhumanity of it is enough, let alone the wanton
      superfluity and uselessness of any such a loafing consumptive
      hospital-bird of a Had taking up room and cumbering the place for nothing.
      These finical refinements revolt me; it is not right, it is not honorable;
      it is constructive nepotism to keep in office a Had that is so delicate it
      can't come out when the wind's in the nor'west&mdash;I won't have this
      dude on the payroll. Cancel his exequator; and look here&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But you miss the point. It is like this. You see&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Never mind explaining, I don't care anything about it. Six Hads is enough
      for me; anybody that needs twelve, let him subscribe; I don't want any
      stock in a Had Trust. Knock out the Prolonged and Indefinitely Continuous;
      four-fifths of it is water, anyway.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But I beg you, podere! It is often quite indispensable in cases where&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Pipe the next squad to the assault!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But it was not to be; for at that moment the dull boom of the noon gun
      floated up out of far-off Florence, followed by the usual softened jangle
      of church-bells, Florentine and suburban, that bursts out in murmurous
      response; by labor-union law the <i>colazione</i> (1) must stop; stop
      promptly, stop instantly, stop definitely, like the chosen and best of the
      breed of Hads.
    </p>
    <p>
      1. Colazione is Italian for a collection, a meeting, a seance, a sitting.&mdash;M.T.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY
    </h2>
    <p>
      Two or three persons having at different times intimated that if I would
      write an autobiography they would read it when they got leisure, I yield
      at last to this frenzied public demand and herewith tender my history.
    </p>
    <p>
      Ours is a noble house, and stretches a long way back into antiquity. The
      earliest ancestor the Twains have any record of was a friend of the family
      by the name of Higgins. This was in the eleventh century, when our people
      were living in Aberdeen, county of Cork, England. Why it is that our long
      line has ever since borne the maternal name (except when one of them now
      and then took a playful refuge in an alias to avert foolishness), instead
      of Higgins, is a mystery which none of us has ever felt much desire to
      stir. It is a kind of vague, pretty romance, and we leave it alone. All
      the old families do that way.
    </p>
    <p>
      Arthour Twain was a man of considerable note&mdash;a solicitor on the
      highway in William Rufus's time. At about the age of thirty he went to one
      of those fine old English places of resort called Newgate, to see about
      something, and never returned again. While there he died suddenly.
    </p>
    <p>
      Augustus Twain seems to have made something of a stir about the year 1160.
      He was as full of fun as he could be, and used to take his old saber and
      sharpen it up, and get in a convenient place on a dark night, and stick it
      through people as they went by, to see them jump. He was a born humorist.
    </p>
    <div class="figleft" style="width:20%;">
      <img src="images/9212.jpg" alt="9212 " width="100%" /><br /><a
      href="images/9212.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </div>
    <p>
      But he got to going too far with it; and the first time he was found
      stripping one of these parties, the authorities removed one end of him,
      and put it up on a nice high place on Temple Bar, where it could
      contemplate the people and have a good time. He never liked any situation
      so much or stuck to it so long.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then for the next two hundred years the family tree shows a succession of
      soldiers&mdash;noble, high-spirited fellows, who always went into battle
      singing, right behind the army, and always went out a-whooping, right
      ahead of it.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is a scathing rebuke to old dead Froissart's poor witticism that our
      family tree never had but one limb to it, and that that one stuck out at
      right angles, and bore fruit winter and summer.
    </p>
    <p>
      Early in the fifteenth century we have Beau Twain, called &ldquo;the Scholar.&rdquo;
       He wrote a beautiful, beautiful hand. And he could imitate anybody's hand
      so closely that it was enough to make a person laugh his head off to see
      it. He had infinite sport with his talent. But by and by he took a
      contract to break stone for a road, and the roughness of the work spoiled
      his hand. Still, he enjoyed life all the time he was in the stone
      business, which, with inconsiderable intervals, was some forty-two years.
      In fact, he died in harness. During all those long years he gave such
      satisfaction that he never was through with one contract a week till the
      government gave him another. He was a perfect pet. And he was always a
      favorite with his fellow-artists, and was a conspicuous member of their
      benevolent secret society, called the Chain Gang. He always wore his hair
      short, had a preference for striped clothes, and died lamented by the
      government. He was a sore loss to his country. For he was so regular.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some years later we have the illustrious John Morgan Twain. He came over
      to this country with Columbus in 1492 as a passenger. He appears to have
      been of a crusty, uncomfortable disposition. He complained of the food all
      the way over, and was always threatening to go ashore unless there was a
      change. He wanted fresh shad. Hardly a day passed over his head that he
      did not go idling about the ship with his nose in the air, sneering about
      the commander, and saying he did not believe Columbus knew where he was
      going to or had ever been there before. The memorable cry of &ldquo;Land ho!&rdquo;
       thrilled every heart in the ship but his. He gazed awhile through a piece
      of smoked glass at the penciled line lying on the distant water, and then
      said: &ldquo;Land be hanged&mdash;it's a raft!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When this questionable passenger came on board the ship, he brought
      nothing with him but an old newspaper containing a handkerchief marked &ldquo;B.
      G.,&rdquo; one cotton sock marked &ldquo;L. W. C.,&rdquo; one woolen one marked &ldquo;D. F.,&rdquo; and
      a night-shirt marked &ldquo;O. M. R.&rdquo; And yet during the voyage he worried more
      about his &ldquo;trunk,&rdquo; and gave himself more airs about it, than all the rest
      of the passengers put together. If the ship was &ldquo;down by the head,&rdquo; and
      would not steer, he would go and move his &ldquo;trunk&rdquo; further aft, and then
      watch the effect. If the ship was &ldquo;by the stern,&rdquo; he would suggest to
      Columbus to detail some men to &ldquo;shift that baggage.&rdquo; In storms he had to
      be gagged, because his wailings about his &ldquo;trunk&rdquo; made it impossible for
      the men to hear the orders. The man does not appear to have been openly
      charged with any gravely unbecoming thing, but it is noted in the ship's
      log as a &ldquo;curious circumstance&rdquo; that albeit he brought his baggage on
      board the ship in a newspaper, he took it ashore in four trunks, a
      queensware crate, and a couple of champagne baskets. But when he came back
      insinuating, in an insolent, swaggering way, that some of this things were
      missing, and was going to search the other passengers' baggage, it was too
      much, and they threw him overboard. They watched long and wonderingly for
      him to come up, but not even a bubble rose on the quietly ebbing tide. But
      while every one was most absorbed in gazing over the side, and the
      interest was momentarily increasing, it was observed with consternation
      that the vessel was adrift and the anchor-cable hanging limp from the bow.
      Then in the ship's dimmed and ancient log we find this quaint note:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;In time it was discouvered yt ye troblesome passenger hadde gone downe
      and got ye anchor, and toke ye same and solde it to ye dam sauvages from
      ye interior, saying yt he hadde founde it, ye sonne of a ghun!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Yet this ancestor had good and noble instincts, and it is with pride that
      we call to mind the fact that he was the first white person who ever
      interested himself in the work of elevating and civilizing our Indians. He
      built a commodious jail and put up a gallows, and to his dying day he
      claimed with satisfaction that he had had a more restraining and elevating
      influence on the Indians than any other reformer that ever labored among
      them. At this point the chronicle becomes less frank and chatty, and
      closes abruptly by saying that the old voyager went to see his gallows
      perform on the first white man ever hanged in America, and while there
      received injuries which terminated in his death.
    </p>
    <p>
      The great-grandson of the &ldquo;Reformer&rdquo; flourished in sixteen hundred and
      something, and was known in our annals as &ldquo;the old Admiral,&rdquo; though in
      history he had other titles. He was long in command of fleets of swift
      vessels, well armed and manned, and did great service in hurrying up
      merchantmen. Vessels which he followed and kept his eagle eye on, always
      made good fair time across the ocean. But if a ship still loitered in
      spite of all he could do, his indignation would grow till he could contain
      himself no longer&mdash;and then he would take that ship home where he
      lived and keep it there carefully, expecting the owners to come for it,
      but they never did. And he would try to get the idleness and sloth out of
      the sailors of that ship by compelling them to take invigorating exercise
      and a bath. He called it &ldquo;walking a plank.&rdquo; All the pupils liked it. At
      any rate, they never found any fault with it after trying it. When the
      owners were late coming for their ships, the Admiral always burned them,
      so that the insurance money should not be lost. At last this fine old tar
      was cut down in the fullness of his years and honors. And to her dying
      day, his poor heart-broken widow believed that if he had been cut down
      fifteen minutes sooner he might have been resuscitated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Charles Henry Twain lived during the latter part of the seventeenth
      century, and was a zealous and distinguished missionary. He converted
      sixteen thousand South Sea islanders, and taught them that a dog-tooth
      necklace and a pair of spectacles was not enough clothing to come to
      divine service in. His poor flock loved him very, very dearly; and when
      his funeral was over, they got up in a body (and came out of the
      restaurant) with tears in their eyes, and saying, one to another, that he
      was a good tender missionary, and they wished they had some more of him.
    </p>
    <p>
      Pah-go-to-wah-wah-pukketekeewis (Mighty-Hunter-with-a-Hog-Eye-Twain)
      adorned the middle of the eighteenth century, and aided General Braddock
      with all his heart to resist the oppressor Washington. It was this
      ancestor who fired seventeen times at our Washington from behind a tree.
      So far the beautiful romantic narrative in the moral story-books is
      correct; but when that narrative goes on to say that at the seventeenth
      round the awe-stricken savage said solemnly that that man was being
      reserved by the Great Spirit for some mighty mission, and he dared not
      lift his sacrilegious rifle against him again, the narrative seriously
      impairs the integrity of history. What he did say was:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It ain't no (hic) no use. 'At man's so drunk he can't stan' still long
      enough for a man to hit him. I (hic) I can't 'ford to fool away any more
      am'nition on him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That was why he stopped at the seventeenth round, and it was a good,
      plain, matter-of-fact reason, too, and one that easily commends itself to
      us by the eloquent, persuasive flavor of probability there is about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I also enjoyed the story-book narrative, but I felt a marring misgiving
      that every Indian at Braddock's Defeat who fired at a soldier a couple of
      times (two easily grows to seventeen in a century), and missed him, jumped
      to the conclusion that the Great Spirit was reserving that soldier for
      some grand mission; and so I somehow feared that the only reason why
      Washington's case is remembered and the others forgotten is, that in his
      the prophecy came true, and in that of the others it didn't. There are not
      books enough on earth to contain the record of the prophecies Indians and
      other unauthorized parties have made; but one may carry in his overcoat
      pockets the record of all the prophecies that have been fulfilled.
    </p>
    <p>
      I will remark here, in passing, that certain ancestors of mine are so
      thoroughly well-known in history by their aliases, that I have not felt it
      to be worth while to dwell upon them, or even mention them in the order of
      their birth. Among these may be mentioned Richard Brinsley Twain, alias
      Guy Fawkes; John Wentworth Twain, alias Sixteen-String Jack; William
      Hogarth Twain, alias Jack Sheppard; Ananias Twain, alias Baron Munchausen;
      John George Twain, alias Captain Kydd; and then there are George Francis
      Twain, Tom Pepper, Nebuchadnezzar, and Baalam's Ass&mdash;they all belong
      to our family, but to a branch of it somewhat distinctly removed from the
      honorable direct line&mdash;in fact, a collateral branch, whose members
      chiefly differ from the ancient stock in that, in order to acquire the
      notoriety we have always yearned and hungered for, they have got into a
      low way of going to jail instead of getting hanged.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not well, when writing an autobiography, to follow your ancestry
      down too close to your own time&mdash;it is safest to speak only vaguely
      of your great-grandfather, and then skip from there to yourself, which I
      now do.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was born without teeth&mdash;and there Richard III. had the advantage of
      me; but I was born without a humpback, likewise, and there I had the
      advantage of him. My parents were neither very poor nor conspicuously
      honest.
    </p>
    <p>
      But now a thought occurs to me. My own history would really seem so tame
      contrasted with that of my ancestors, that it is simply wisdom to leave it
      unwritten until I am hanged. If some other biographies I have read had
      stopped with the ancestry until a like event occurred, it would have been
      a felicitous thing for the reading public. How does it strike you?
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      HOW TO TELL A STORY
    </h2>
    <h4>
      The Humorous Story an American Development.&mdash;Its Difference from
      Comic and Witty Stories
    </h4>
    <p>
      I do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only
      claim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily
      in the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind&mdash;the
      humorous. I will talk mainly about that one. The humorous story is
      American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The
      humorous story depends for its effect upon the <i>manner </i>of the
      telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the <i>matter</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      The humorous story may be spun out to great length, and may wander around
      as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere in particular; but the comic and
      witty stories must be brief and end with a point. The humorous story
      bubbles gently along, the others burst.
    </p>
    <p>
      The humorous story is strictly a work of art&mdash;high and delicate art&mdash;and
      only an artist can tell it; but no art is necessary in telling the comic
      and the witty story; anybody can do it. The art of telling a humorous
      story&mdash;understand, I mean by word of mouth, not print&mdash;was
      created in America, and has remained at home.
    </p>
    <p>
      The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal
      the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about
      it; but the teller of the comic story tells you beforehand that it is one
      of the funniest things he has ever heard, then tells it with eager
      delight, and is the first person to laugh when he gets through. And
      sometimes, if he has had good success, he is so glad and happy that he
      will repeat the &ldquo;nub&rdquo; of it and glance around from face to face,
      collecting applause, and then repeat it again. It is a pathetic thing to
      see.
    </p>
    <p>
      Very often, of course, the rambling and disjointed humorous story finishes
      with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it. Then the
      listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert attention
      from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and indifferent way,
      with the pretense that he does not know it is a nub.
    </p>
    <p>
      Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience
      presently caught the joke he would look up with innocent surprise, as if
      wondering what they had found to laugh at. Dan Setchell used it before
      him, Nye and Riley and others use it today.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the teller of the comic story does not slur the nub; he shouts it at
      you&mdash;every time. And when he prints it, in England, France, Germany,
      and Italy, he italicizes it, puts some whopping exclamation-points after
      it, and sometimes explains it in a parenthesis. All of which is very
      depressing, and makes one want to renounce joking and lead a better life.
    </p>
    <p>
      Let me set down an instance of the comic method, using an anecdote which
      has been popular all over the world for twelve or fifteen hundred years.
      The teller tells it in this way:
    </p>
    <h3>
      THE WOUNDED SOLDIER
    </h3>
    <p>
      In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot off
      appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear,
      informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained;
      whereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded
      to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were flying in all
      directions, and presently one of the latter took the wounded man's head
      off&mdash;without, however, his deliverer being aware of it. In no long
      time he was hailed by an officer, who said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Where are you going with that carcass?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;To the rear, sir&mdash;he's lost his leg!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;His leg, forsooth?&rdquo; responded the astonished officer; &ldquo;you mean his head,
      you booby.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood
      looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is true, sir, just as you have said.&rdquo; Then after a pause he added,
      &ldquo;But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous
      horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gasping
      and shriekings and suffocatings.
    </p>
    <p>
      It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;
      and isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story form
      it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever listened
      to&mdash;as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.
    </p>
    <p>
      He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just
      heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is trying
      to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets all mixed
      up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious details that
      don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them out
      conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless; making
      minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and explain how
      he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot to put in in
      their proper place and going back to put them in there; stopping his
      narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name of the soldier
      that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's name was not
      mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no real importance,
      anyway&mdash;better, of course, if one knew it, but not essential, after
      all&mdash;and so on, and so on, and so on.
    </p>
    <p>
      The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has to stop
      every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing outright; and
      does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with interior
      chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have laughed
      until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their faces.
    </p>
    <p>
      The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness of the old
      farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is a performance which is
      thoroughly charming and delicious. This is art&mdash;and fine and
      beautiful, and only a master can compass it; but a machine could tell the
      other story.
    </p>
    <p>
      To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and
      sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are
      absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.
      Another feature is the slurring of the point. A third is the dropping of a
      studied remark apparently without knowing it, as if one where thinking
      aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.
    </p>
    <p>
      Artemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a good deal. He would begin
      to tell with great animation something which he seemed to think was
      wonderful; then lose confidence, and after an apparently absent-minded
      pause add an incongruous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was the
      remark intended to explode the mine&mdash;and it did.
    </p>
    <p>
      For instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, &ldquo;I once knew a man in New
      Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head&rdquo;&mdash;here his animation would die
      out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say dreamily,
      and as if to himself, &ldquo;and yet that man could beat a drum better than any
      man I ever saw.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story, and a
      frequently recurring feature, too. It is a dainty thing, and delicate, and
      also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the right length&mdash;no
      more and no less&mdash;or it fails of its purpose and makes trouble. If
      the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and the audience
      have had time to divine that a surprise is intended&mdash;and then you
      can't surprise them, of course.
    </p>
    <p>
      On the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story that had a pause in
      front of the snapper on the end, and that pause was the most important
      thing in the whole story. If I got it the right length precisely, I could
      spring the finishing ejaculation with effect enough to make some
      impressible girl deliver a startled little yelp and jump out of her seat&mdash;and
      that was what I was after. This story was called &ldquo;The Golden Arm,&rdquo; and was
      told in this fashion. You can practice with it yourself&mdash;and mind you
      look out for the pause and get it right.
    </p>
    <h3>
      THE GOLDEN ARM
    </h3>
    <p>
      Once 'pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, en he live 'way out in de
      prairie all 'lone by hisself, 'cep'n he had a wife. En bimeby she died, en
      he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried her. Well, she
      had a golden arm&mdash;all solid gold, fum de shoulder down. He wuz
      pow'ful mean&mdash;pow'ful; en dat night he couldn't sleep, caze he want
      dat golden arm so bad.
    </p>
    <p>
      When it come midnight he couldn't stan' it no mo'; so he git up, he did,
      en tuck his lantern en shoved out thoo de storm en dug her up en got de
      golden arm; en he bent his head down 'gin de win', en plowed en plowed en
      plowed thoo de snow. Den all on a sudden he stop (make a considerable
      pause here, and look startled, and take a listening attitude) en say: &ldquo;My
      <i>lan'</i>, what's dat?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      En he listen&mdash;en listen&mdash;en de win' say (set your teeth together
      and imitate the wailing and wheezing singsong of the wind), &ldquo;Bzzz-z-zzz&rdquo;&mdash;en
      den, way back yonder whah de grave is, he hear a <i>voice</i>!&mdash;he
      hear a voice all mix' up in de win'&mdash;can't hardly tell 'em 'part&mdash;
      &ldquo;Bzzz&mdash;zzz&mdash;W-h-o&mdash;g-o-t&mdash;m-y&mdash;g-o-l-d-e-n <i>arm?</i>&rdquo;
       (You must begin to shiver violently now.)
    </p>
    <p>
      En he begin to shiver en shake, en say, &ldquo;Oh, my! <i>Oh</i>, my lan'!&rdquo; en
      de win' blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos'
      choke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep toward home mos' dead, he so
      sk'yerd&mdash;en pooty soon he hear de voice agin, en (pause) it 'us comin
      <i>after </i>him! &ldquo;Bzzz&mdash;zzz&mdash;zzz W-h-o&mdash;g-o-t&mdash;m-y&mdash;g-o-l-d-e-n&mdash;<i>arm</i>?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When he git to de pasture he hear it agin&mdash;closter now, en <i>a-comin'!</i>&mdash;a-comin'
      back dah in de dark en de storm&mdash;(repeat the wind and the voice).
      When he git to de house he rush upstairs en jump in de bed en kiver up,
      head and years, en lay da shiverin' en shakin'&mdash;en den way out dah he
      hear it <i>agin!</i>&mdash;en a-<i>comin'</i>! En bimeby he hear (pause&mdash;awed,
      listening attitude)&mdash;pat&mdash;pat&mdash;pat <i>Hit's a-comin'
      upstairs!</i> Den he hear de latch, en he <i>know </i>it's in de room!
    </p>
    <p>
      Den pooty soon he know it's a-<i>stannin' by de bed!</i> (Pause.) Den&mdash;he
      know it's a-<i>bendin' down over him</i>&mdash;en he cain't skasely git
      his breath! Den&mdash;den&mdash;he seem to feel someth'n' <i>c-o-l-d</i>,
      right down 'most agin his head! (Pause.)
    </p>
    <p>
      Den de voice say, <i>right at his year</i>&mdash;&ldquo;W-h-o&mdash;g-o-t&mdash;m-y
      g-o-l-d-e-n <i>arm?</i>&rdquo; (You must wail it out very plaintively and
      accusingly; then you stare steadily and impressively into the face of the
      farthest-gone auditor&mdash;a girl, preferably&mdash;and let that
      awe-inspiring pause begin to build itself in the deep hush. When it has
      reached exactly the right length, jump suddenly at that girl and yell, &ldquo;<i>You've</i>
      got it!&rdquo;)
    </p>
    <p>
      If you've got the <i>pause </i>right, she'll fetch a dear little yelp and
      spring right out of her shoes. But you <i>must </i>get the pause right;
      and you will find it the most troublesome and aggravating and uncertain
      thing you ever undertook.
    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      GENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT
    </h2>
    <h4>
      A Biographical Sketch
    </h4>
    <p>
      The stirring part of this celebrated colored man's life properly began
      with his death&mdash;that is to say, the notable features of his biography
      began with the first time he died. He had been little heard of up to that
      time, but since then we have never ceased to hear of him; we have never
      ceased to hear of him at stated, unfailing intervals. His was a most
      remarkable career, and I have thought that its history would make a
      valuable addition to our biographical literature. Therefore, I have
      carefully collated the materials for such a work, from authentic sources,
      and here present them to the public. I have rigidly excluded from these
      pages everything of a doubtful character, with the object in view of
      introducing my work into the schools for the instruction of the youth of
      my country.
    </p>
    <p>
      The name of the famous body-servant of General Washington was George.
      After serving his illustrious master faithfully for half a century, and
      enjoying throughout this long term his high regard and confidence, it
      became his sorrowful duty at last to lay that beloved master to rest in
      his peaceful grave by the Potomac. Ten years afterward&mdash;in 1809&mdash;full
      of years and honors, he died himself, mourned by all who knew him. The <i>Boston
      Gazette</i> of that date thus refers to the event:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        George, the favorite body-servant of the lamented Washington, died in
        Richmond, Va., last Tuesday, at the ripe age of 95 years. His intellect
        was unimpaired, and his memory tenacious, up to within a few minutes of
        his decease. He was present at the second installation of Washington as
        President, and also at his funeral, and distinctly remembered all the
        prominent incidents connected with those noted events.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      From this period we hear no more of the favorite body-servant of General
      Washington until May, 1825, at which time he died again. A Philadelphia
      paper thus speaks of the sad occurrence:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        At Macon, Ga., last week, a colored man named George, who was the
        favorite body-servant of General Washington, died at the advanced age of
        95 years. Up to within a few hours of his dissolution he was in full
        possession of all his faculties, and could distinctly recollect the
        second installation of Washington, his death and burial, the surrender
        of Cornwallis, the battle of Trenton, the griefs and hardships of Valley
        Forge, etc. Deceased was followed to the grave by the entire population
        of Macon.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      On the Fourth of July, 1830, and also of 1834 and 1836, the subject of
      this sketch was exhibited in great state upon the rostrum of the orator of
      the day, and in November of 1840 he died again. The St. Louis <i>Republican</i>
      of the 25th of that month spoke as follows:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        &ldquo;ANOTHER RELIC OF THE REVOLUTION GONE.&rdquo;
       </p>
      <p>
        &ldquo;George, once the favorite body-servant of General Washington, died
        yesterday at the house of Mr. John Leavenworth in this city, at the
        venerable age of 95 years. He was in the full possession of his
        faculties up to the hour of his death, and distinctly recollected the
        first and second installations and death of President Washington, the
        surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, the
        sufferings of the patriot army at Valley Forge, the proclamation of the
        Declaration of Independence, the speech of Patrick Henry in the Virginia
        House of Delegates, and many other old-time reminiscences of stirring
        interest. Few white men die lamented as was this aged negro. The funeral
        was very largely attended.&rdquo;
       </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      During the next ten or eleven years the subject of this sketch appeared at
      intervals at Fourth-of-July celebrations in various parts of the country,
      and was exhibited upon the rostrum with flattering success. But in the
      fall of 1855 he died again. The California papers thus speak of the event:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        ANOTHER OLD HERO GONE
      </p>
      <p>
        Died, at Dutch Flat, on the 7th of March, George (once the confidential
        body-servant of General Washington), at the great age of 95 years. His
        memory, which did not fail him till the last, was a wonderful storehouse
        of interesting reminiscences. He could distinctly recollect the first
        and second installations and death of President Washington, the
        surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and Monmouth, and Bunker
        Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, and
        Braddock's defeat. George was greatly respected in Dutch Flat, and it is
        estimated that there were 10,000 people present at his funeral.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The last time the subject of this sketch died was in June, 1864; and until
      we learn the contrary, it is just to presume that he died permanently this
      time. The Michigan papers thus refer to the sorrowful event:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        ANOTHER CHERISHED REMNANT OF THE REVOLUTION GONE
      </p>
      <p>
        George, a colored man, and once the favorite body-servant of George
        Washington, died in Detroit last week, at the patriarchal age of 95
        years. To the moment of his death his intellect was unclouded, and he
        could distinctly remember the first and second installations and death
        of Washington, the surrender of Cornwallis, the battles of Trenton and
        Monmouth, and Bunker Hill, the proclamation of the Declaration of
        Independence, Braddock's defeat, the throwing over of the tea in Boston
        harbor, and the landing of the Pilgrims. He died greatly respected, and
        was followed to the grave by a vast concourse of people.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The faithful old servant is gone! We shall never see him more until he
      turns up again. He has closed his long and splendid career of dissolution,
      for the present, and sleeps peacefully, as only they sleep who have earned
      their rest. He was in all respects a remarkable man. He held his age
      better than any celebrity that has figured in history; and the longer he
      lived the stronger and longer his memory grew. If he lives to die again,
      he will distinctly recollect the discovery of America.
    </p>
    <p>
      The above resume of his biography I believe to be substantially correct,
      although it is possible that he may have died once or twice in obscure
      places where the event failed of newspaper notoriety. One fault I find in
      all the notices of his death I have quoted, and this ought to be
      corrected. In them he uniformly and impartially died at the age of 95.
      This could not have been. He might have done that once, or maybe twice,
      but he could not have continued it indefinitely. Allowing that when he
      first died, he died at the age of 95, he was 151 years old when he died
      last, in 1864. But his age did not keep pace with his recollections. When
      he died the last time, he distinctly remembered the landing of the
      Pilgrims, which took place in 1620. He must have been about twenty years
      old when he witnessed that event, wherefore it is safe to assert that the
      body-servant of General Washington was in the neighborhood of two hundred
      and sixty or seventy years old when he departed this life finally.
    </p>
    <p>
      Having waited a proper length of time, to see if the subject of his sketch
      had gone from us reliably and irrevocably, I now publish his biography
      with confidence, and respectfully offer it to a mourning nation.
    </p>
    <p>
      P.S.&mdash;I see by the papers that this infamous old fraud has just died
      again, in Arkansas. This makes six times that he is known to have died,
      and always in a new place. The death of Washington's body-servant has
      ceased to be a novelty; it's charm is gone; the people are tired of it;
      let it cease. This well-meaning but misguided negro has now put six
      different communities to the expense of burying him in state, and has
      swindled tens of thousands of people into following him to the grave under
      the delusion that a select and peculiar distinction was being conferred
      upon them. Let him stay buried for good now; and let that newspaper suffer
      the severest censure that shall ever, in all the future time, publish to
      the world that General Washington's favorite colored body-servant has died
      again.
    </p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE &ldquo;TWO-YEAR-OLDS&rdquo;
     </h2>
    <p>
      All infants appear to have an impertinent and disagreeable fashion
      nowadays of saying &ldquo;smart&rdquo; things on most occasions that offer, and
      especially on occasions when they ought not to be saying anything at all.
      Judging by the average published specimens of smart sayings, the rising
      generation of children are little better than idiots. And the parents must
      surely be but little better than the children, for in most cases they are
      the publishers of the sunbursts of infantile imbecility which dazzle us
      from the pages of our periodicals. I may seem to speak with some heat, not
      to say a suspicion of personal spite; and I do admit that it nettles me to
      hear about so many gifted infants in these days, and remember that I
      seldom said anything smart when I was a child. I tried it once or twice,
      but it was not popular. The family were not expecting brilliant remarks
      from me, and so they snubbed me sometimes and spanked me the rest. But it
      makes my flesh creep and my blood run cold to think what might have
      happened to me if I had dared to utter some of the smart things of this
      generation's &ldquo;four-year-olds&rdquo; where my father could hear me. To have
      simply skinned me alive and considered his duty at an end would have
      seemed to him criminal leniency toward one so sinning. He was a stern,
      unsmiling man, and hated all forms of precocity. If I had said some of the
      things I have referred to, and said them in his hearing, he would have
      destroyed me. He would, indeed. He would, provided the opportunity
      remained with him. But it would not, for I would have had judgment enough
      to take some strychnine first and say my smart thing afterward. The fair
      record of my life has been tarnished by just one pun. My father overheard
      that, and he hunted me over four or five townships seeking to take my
      life. If I had been full-grown, of course he would have been right; but,
      child as I was, I could not know how wicked a thing I had done.
    </p>
    <p>
      I made one of those remarks ordinarily called &ldquo;smart things&rdquo; before that,
      but it was not a pun. Still, it came near causing a serious rupture
      between my father and myself. My father and mother, my uncle Ephraim and
      his wife, and one or two others were present, and the conversation turned
      on a name for me. I was lying there trying some India-rubber rings of
      various patterns, and endeavoring to make a selection, for I was tired of
      trying to cut my teeth on people's fingers, and wanted to get hold of
      something that would enable me to hurry the thing through and get
      something else. Did you ever notice what a nuisance it was cutting your
      teeth on your nurse's finger, or how back-breaking and tiresome it was
      trying to cut them on your big toe? And did you never get out of patience
      and wish your teeth were in Jerico long before you got them half cut? To
      me it seems as if these things happened yesterday. And they did, to some
      children. But I digress. I was lying there trying the India-rubber rings.
      I remember looking at the clock and noticing that in an hour and
      twenty-five minutes I would be two weeks old, and thinking how little I
      had done to merit the blessings that were so unsparingly lavished upon me.
      My father said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Abraham is a good name. My grandfather was named Abraham.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My mother said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Abraham is a good name. Very well. Let us have Abraham for one of his
      names.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Abraham suits the subscriber.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My father frowned, my mother looked pleased; my aunt said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What a little darling it is!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My father said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Isaac is a good name, and Jacob is a good name.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      My mother assented, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No names are better. Let us add Isaac and Jacob to his names.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;All right. Isaac and Jacob are good enough for yours truly. Pass me that
      rattle, if you please. I can't chew India-rubber rings all day.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Not a soul made a memorandum of these sayings of mine, for publication. I
      saw that, and did it myself, else they would have been utterly lost. So
      far from meeting with a generous encouragement like other children when
      developing intellectually, I was now furiously scowled upon by my father;
      my mother looked grieved and anxious, and even my aunt had about her an
      expression of seeming to think that maybe I had gone too far. I took a
      vicious bite out of an India-rubber ring, and covertly broke the rattle
      over the kitten's head, but said nothing. Presently my father said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Samuel is a very excellent name.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I saw that trouble was coming. Nothing could prevent it. I laid down my
      rattle; over the side of the cradle I dropped my uncle's silver watch, the
      clothes-brush, the toy dog, my tin soldier, the nutmeg-grater, and other
      matters which I was accustomed to examine, and meditate upon and make
      pleasant noises with, and bang and batter and break when I needed
      wholesome entertainment. Then I put on my little frock and my little
      bonnet, and took my pygmy shoes in one hand and my licorice in the other,
      and climbed out on the floor. I said to myself, Now, if the worse comes to
      worst, I am ready. Then I said aloud, in a firm voice:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Father, I cannot, cannot wear the name of Samuel.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My son!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Father, I mean it. I cannot.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Father, I have an invincible antipathy to that name.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My son, this is unreasonable. Many great and good men have been named
      Samuel.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Sir, I have yet to hear of the first instance.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What! There was Samuel the prophet. Was not he great and good?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not so very.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;My son! With His own voice the Lord called him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, sir, and had to call him a couple times before he could come!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And then I sallied forth, and that stern old man sallied forth after me.
      He overtook me at noon the following day, and when the interview was over
      I had acquired the name of Samuel, and a thrashing, and other useful
      information; and by means of this compromise my father's wrath was
      appeased and a misunderstanding bridged over which might have become a
      permanent rupture if I had chosen to be unreasonable. But just judging by
      this episode, what would my father have done to me if I had ever uttered
      in his hearing one of the flat, sickly things these &ldquo;two-years-olds&rdquo; say
      in print nowadays? In my opinion there would have been a case of
      infanticide in our family.
    </p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE
    </h2>
    <p>
      I take the following paragraph from an article in the Boston <i>Advertiser</i>:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <h3>
        AN ENGLISH CRITIC ON MARK TWAIN
      </h3>
      <p>
        Perhaps the most successful flights of humor of Mark Twain have been
        descriptions of the persons who did not appreciate his humor at all. We
        have become familiar with the Californians who were thrilled with terror
        by his burlesque of a newspaper reporter's way of telling a story, and
        we have heard of the Pennsylvania clergyman who sadly returned his <i>Innocents
        Abroad</i> to the book-agent with the remark that &ldquo;the man who could
        shed tears over the tomb of Adam must be an idiot.&rdquo; But Mark Twain may
        now add a much more glorious instance to his string of trophies. The <i>Saturday
        Review,</i> in its number of October 8th, reviews his book of travels,
        which has been republished in England, and reviews it seriously. We can
        imagine the delight of the humorist in reading this tribute to his
        power; and indeed it is so amusing in itself that he can hardly do
        better than reproduce the article in full in his next monthly Memoranda.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      (Publishing the above paragraph thus, gives me a sort of authority for
      reproducing the <i>Saturday Review's</i> article in full in these pages. I
      dearly wanted to do it, for I cannot write anything half so delicious
      myself. If I had a cast-iron dog that could read this English criticism
      and preserve his austerity, I would drive him off the door-step.)
    </p>
    <p>
      (From the London &ldquo;<i>Saturday Review</i>.&rdquo;)
    </p>
    <h3>
      REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS
    </h3>
    <p>
      <i>The Innocents Abroad</i>. A Book of Travels. By Mark Twain. London:
      Hotten, publisher. 1870.
    </p>
    <p>
      Lord Macaulay died too soon. We never felt this so deeply as when we
      finished the last chapter of the above-named extravagant work. Macaulay
      died too soon&mdash;for none but he could mete out complete and
      comprehensive justice to the insolence, the impertinence, the presumption,
      the mendacity, and, above all, the majestic ignorance of this author.
    </p>
    <p>
      To say that <i>The Innocents Abroad</i> is a curious book, would be to use
      the faintest language&mdash;would be to speak of the Matterhorn as a neat
      elevation or of Niagara as being &ldquo;nice&rdquo; or &ldquo;pretty.&rdquo; &ldquo;Curious&rdquo; is too tame
      a word wherewith to describe the imposing insanity of this work. There is
      no word that is large enough or long enough. Let us, therefore, photograph
      a passing glimpse of book and author, and trust the rest to the reader.
      Let the cultivated English student of human nature picture to himself this
      Mark Twain as a person capable of doing the following-described things&mdash;and
      not only doing them, but with incredible innocence <i>printing them</i>
      calmly and tranquilly in a book. For instance:
    </p>
    <p>
      He states that he entered a hair-dresser's in Paris to get shaved, and the
      first &ldquo;_rake_&rdquo; the barber gave him with his razor it <i>loosened his
      &ldquo;_hide_&rdquo;</i> and <i>lifted him out of the chair.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      This is unquestionably exaggerated. In Florence he was so annoyed by
      beggars that he pretends to have seized and eaten one in a frantic spirit
      of revenge. There is, of course, no truth in this. He gives at full length
      a theatrical program seventeen or eighteen hundred years old, which he
      professes to have found in the ruins of the Coliseum, among the dirt and
      mold and rubbish. It is a sufficient comment upon this statement to remark
      that even a cast-iron program would not have lasted so long under such
      circumstances. In Greece he plainly betrays both fright and flight upon
      one occasion, but with frozen effrontery puts the latter in this falsely
      tamed form: &ldquo;We <i>sidled </i>toward the Piraeus.&rdquo; &ldquo;Sidled,&rdquo; indeed! He
      does not hesitate to intimate that at Ephesus, when his mule strayed from
      the proper course, he got down, took him under his arm, carried him to the
      road again, pointed him right, remounted, and went to sleep contentedly
      till it was time to restore the beast to the path once more. He states
      that a growing youth among his ship's passengers was in the constant habit
      of appeasing his hunger with soap and oakum between meals. In Palestine he
      tells of ants that came eleven miles to spend the summer in the desert and
      brought their provisions with them; yet he shows by his description of the
      country that the feat was an impossibility. He mentions, as if it were the
      most commonplace of matters, that he cut a Moslem in two in broad daylight
      in Jerusalem, with Godfrey de Bouillon's sword, and would have shed more
      blood <i>if he had had a graveyard of his own.</i> These statements are
      unworthy a moment's attention. Mr. Twain or any other foreigner who did
      such a thing in Jerusalem would be mobbed, and would infallibly lose his
      life. But why go on? Why repeat more of his audacious and exasperating
      falsehoods? Let us close fittingly with this one: he affirms that &ldquo;in the
      mosque of St. Sophia at Constantinople I got my feet so stuck up with a
      complication of gums, slime, and general impurity, that I wore out more
      than two thousand pair of bootjacks getting my boots off that night, and
      even then some Christian hide peeled off with them.&rdquo; It is monstrous. Such
      statements are simply lies&mdash;there is no other name for them. Will the
      reader longer marvel at the brutal ignorance that pervades the American
      nation when we tell him that we are informed upon perfectly good authority
      that this extravagant compilation of falsehoods, this exhaustless mine of
      stupendous lies, this <i>Innocents Abroad</i>, has actually been adopted
      by the schools and colleges of several of the states as a text-book!
    </p>
    <p>
      But if his falsehoods are distressing, his innocence and his ignorance are
      enough to make one burn the book and despise the author. In one place he
      was so appalled at the sudden spectacle of a murdered man, unveiled by the
      moonlight, that he jumped out of the window, going through sash and all,
      and then remarks with the most childlike simplicity that he &ldquo;was not
      scared, but was considerably agitated.&rdquo; It puts us out of patience to note
      that the simpleton is densely unconscious that Lucrezia Borgia ever
      existed off the stage. He is vulgarly ignorant of all foreign languages,
      but is frank enough to criticize, the Italians' use of their own tongue.
      He says they spell the name of their great painter &ldquo;Vinci, but pronounce
      it Vinchy&rdquo;&mdash;and then adds with a naivete possible only to helpless
      ignorance, &ldquo;foreigners always spell better than they pronounce.&rdquo; In
      another place he commits the bald absurdity of putting the phrase &ldquo;tare an
      ouns&rdquo; into an Italian's mouth. In Rome he unhesitatingly believes the
      legend that St. Philip Neri's heart was so inflamed with divine love that
      it burst his ribs&mdash;believes it wholly because an author with a
      learned list of university degrees strung after his name endorses it&mdash;&ldquo;otherwise,&rdquo;
       says this gentle idiot, &ldquo;I should have felt a curiosity to know what
      Philip had for dinner.&rdquo; Our author makes a long, fatiguing journey to the
      Grotto del Cane on purpose to test its poisoning powers on a dog&mdash;got
      elaborately ready for the experiment, and then discovered that he had no
      dog. A wiser person would have kept such a thing discreetly to himself,
      but with this harmless creature everything comes out. He hurts his foot in
      a rut two thousand years old in exhumed Pompeii, and presently, when
      staring at one of the cinder-like corpses unearthed in the next square,
      conceives the idea that maybe it is the remains of the ancient Street
      Commissioner, and straightway his horror softens down to a sort of chirpy
      contentment with the condition of things. In Damascus he visits the well
      of Ananias, three thousand years old, and is as surprised and delighted as
      a child to find that the water is &ldquo;as pure and fresh as if the well had
      been dug yesterday.&rdquo; In the Holy Land he gags desperately at the hard
      Arabic and Hebrew Biblical names, and finally concludes to call them
      Baldwinsville, Williamsburgh, and so on, &ldquo;for convenience of spelling.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      We have thus spoken freely of this man's stupefying simplicity and
      innocence, but we cannot deal similarly with his colossal ignorance. We do
      not know where to begin. And if we knew where to begin, we certainly would
      not know where to leave off. We will give one specimen, and one only. He
      did not know, until he got to Rome, that Michael Angelo was dead! And
      then, instead of crawling away and hiding his shameful ignorance
      somewhere, he proceeds to express a pious, grateful sort of satisfaction
      that he is gone and out of his troubles!
    </p>
    <p>
      No, the reader may seek out the author's exhibition of his uncultivation
      for himself. The book is absolutely dangerous, considering the magnitude
      and variety of its misstatements, and the convincing confidence with which
      they are made. And yet it is a text-book in the schools of America.
    </p>
    <p>
      The poor blunderer mouses among the sublime creations of the Old Masters,
      trying to acquire the elegant proficiency in art-knowledge, which he has a
      groping sort of comprehension is a proper thing for a traveled man to be
      able to display. But what is the manner of his study? And what is the
      progress he achieves? To what extent does he familiarize himself with the
      great pictures of Italy, and what degree of appreciation does he arrive
      at? Read:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;When we see a monk going about with a lion and looking up into heaven, we
      know that that is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,
      looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word, we know that
      that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking
      tranquilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, and without other
      baggage, we know that that is St. Jerome. Because we know that he always
      went flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see other monks
      looking tranquilly up to heaven, but having no trade-mark, we always ask
      who those parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to learn.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He then enumerates the thousands and thousand of copies of these several
      pictures which he has seen, and adds with accustomed simplicity that he
      feels encouraged to believe that when he has seen &ldquo;Some More&rdquo; of each, and
      had a larger experience, he will eventually &ldquo;begin to take an absorbing
      interest in them&rdquo;&mdash;the vulgar boor.
    </p>
    <p>
      That we have shown this to be a remarkable book, we think no one will
      deny. That it is a pernicious book to place in the hands of the confiding
      and uniformed, we think we have also shown. That the book is a deliberate
      and wicked creation of a diseased mind, is apparent upon every page.
      Having placed our judgment thus upon record, let us close with what
      charity we can, by remarking that even in this volume there is some good
      to be found; for whenever the author talks of his own country and lets
      Europe alone, he never fails to make himself interesting, and not only
      interesting but instructive. No one can read without benefit his
      occasional chapters and paragraphs, about life in the gold and silver
      mines of California and Nevada; about the Indians of the plains and
      deserts of the West, and their cannibalism; about the raising of
      vegetables in kegs of gunpowder by the aid of two or three teaspoons of
      guano; about the moving of small arms from place to place at night in
      wheelbarrows to avoid taxes; and about a sort of cows and mules in the
      Humboldt mines, that climb down chimneys and disturb the people at night.
      These matters are not only new, but are well worth knowing. It is a pity
      the author did not put in more of the same kind. His book is well written
      and is exceedingly entertaining, and so it just barely escaped being quite
      valuable also.
    </p>
    <h4>
      (One month later)
    </h4>
    <p>
      Latterly I have received several letters, and see a number of newspaper
      paragraphs, all upon a certain subject, and all of about the same tenor. I
      here give honest specimens. One is from a New York paper, one is from a
      letter from an old friend, and one is from a letter from a New York
      publisher who is a stranger to me. I humbly endeavor to make these bits
      toothsome with the remark that the article they are praising (which
      appeared in the December <i>Galaxy</i>, and <i>pretended </i>to be a
      criticism from the London <i>Saturday Review</i> on my <i>Innocents Abroad</i>)
      <i>was written by myself, every line of it</i>:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        The <i>Herald </i>says the richest thing out is the &ldquo;serious critique&rdquo;
         in the London <i>Saturday Review</i>, on Mark Twain's <i>Innocents
        Abroad</i>. We thought before we read it that it must be &ldquo;serious,&rdquo; as
        everybody said so, and were even ready to shed a few tears; but since
        perusing it, we are bound to confess that next to Mark Twain's &ldquo;<i>Jumping
        Frog</i>&rdquo; it's the finest bit of humor and sarcasm that we've come
        across in many a day.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      (I do not get a compliment like that every day.)
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        I used to think that your writings were pretty good, but after reading
        the criticism in <i>The Galaxy</i> from the <i>London Review</i>, have
        discovered what an ass I must have been. If suggestions are in order,
        mine is, that you put that article in your next edition of the <i>Innocents</i>,
        as an extra chapter, if you are not afraid to put your own humor in
        competition with it. It is as rich a thing as I ever read.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      (Which is strong commendation from a book publisher.)
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        The London Reviewer, my friend, is not the stupid, &ldquo;serious&rdquo; creature he
        pretends to be, <i>I</i> think; but, on the contrary, has a keen
        appreciation and enjoyment of your book. As I read his article in <i>The
        Galaxy</i>, I could imagine him giving vent to many a hearty laugh. But
        he is writing for Catholics and Established Church people, and
        high-toned, antiquated, conservative gentility, whom it is a delight to
        him to help you shock, while he pretends to shake his head with owlish
        density. He is a magnificent humorist himself.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      (Now that is graceful and handsome. I take off my hat to my life-long
      friend and comrade, and with my feet together and my fingers spread over
      my heart, I say, in the language of Alabama, &ldquo;You do me proud.&rdquo;)
    </p>
    <p>
      I stand guilty of the authorship of the article, but I did not mean any
      harm. I saw by an item in the Boston <i>Advertiser</i> that a solemn,
      serious critique on the English edition of my book had appeared in the
      London <i>Saturday Review</i>, and the idea of <i>such </i>a literary
      breakfast by a stolid, ponderous British ogre of the quill was too much
      for a naturally weak virtue, and I went home and burlesqued it&mdash;reveled
      in it, I may say. I never saw a copy of the real <i>Saturday Review</i>
      criticism until after my burlesque was written and mailed to the printer.
      But when I did get hold of a copy, I found it to be vulgar, awkwardly
      written, ill-natured, and entirely serious and in earnest. The gentleman
      who wrote the newspaper paragraph above quoted had not been misled as to
      its character.
    </p>
    <p>
      If any man doubts my word now, I will kill him. No, I will not kill him; I
      will win his money. I will bet him twenty to one, and let any New York
      publisher hold the stakes, that the statements I have above made as to the
      authorship of the article in question are entirely true. Perhaps I may get
      wealthy at this, for I am willing to take all the bets that offer; and if
      a man wants larger odds, I will give him all he requires. But he ought to
      find out whether I am betting on what is termed &ldquo;a sure thing&rdquo; or not
      before he ventures his money, and he can do that by going to a public
      library and examining the London <i>Saturday Review</i> of October 8th,
      which contains the real critique.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bless me, some people thought that <i>I</i> was the &ldquo;sold&rdquo; person!
    </p>
    <p>
      P.S.&mdash;I cannot resist the temptation to toss in this most savory
      thing of all&mdash;this easy, graceful, philosophical disquisition, with
      his happy, chirping confidence. It is from the Cincinnati <i>Enquirer</i>:
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing is more uncertain than the value of a fine cigar. Nine smokers out
      of ten would prefer an ordinary domestic article, three for a quarter, to
      a fifty-cent Partaga, if kept in ignorance of the cost of the latter. The
      flavor of the Partaga is too delicate for palates that have been
      accustomed to Connecticut seed leaf. So it is with humor. The finer it is
      in quality, the more danger of its not being recognized at all. Even Mark
      Twain has been taken in by an English review of his <i>Innocents Abroad</i>.
      Mark Twain is by no means a coarse humorist, but the Englishman's humor is
      so much finer than his, that he mistakes it for solid earnest, and &ldquo;larfs
      most consumedly.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      A man who cannot learn stands in his own light. Hereafter, when I write an
      article which I know to be good, but which I may have reason to fear will
      not, in some quarters, be considered to amount to much, coming from an
      American, I will aver that an Englishman wrote it and that it is copied
      from a London journal. And then I will occupy a back seat and enjoy the
      cordial applause.
    </p>
    <h4>
      (Still later)
    </h4>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Mark Twain at last sees that the <i>Saturday Review's</i> criticism of
        his <i>Innocents Abroad</i> was not serious, and he is intensely
        mortified at the thought of having been so badly sold. He takes the only
        course left him, and in the last <i>Galaxy </i>claims that <i>he </i>wrote
        the criticism himself, and published it in <i>The Galaxy</i> to sell the
        public. This is ingenious, but unfortunately it is not true. If any of
        our readers will take the trouble to call at this office we sill show
        them the original article in the <i>Saturday Review</i> of October 8th,
        which, on comparison, will be found to be identical with the one
        published in <i>The Galaxy.</i> The best thing for Mark to do will be to
        admit that he was sold, and say no more about it.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The above is from the Cincinnati <i>Enquirer</i>, and is a falsehood. Come
      to the proof. If the <i>Enquirer </i>people, through any agent, will
      produce at <i>The Galaxy</i> office a London <i>Saturday Review</i> of
      October 8th, containing an article which, on comparison, will be found to
      be identical with the one published in <i>The Galaxy</i>, I will pay to
      that agent five hundred dollars cash. Moreover, if at any specified time I
      fail to produce at the same place a copy of the London <i>Saturday Review</i>
      of October 8th, containing a lengthy criticism upon the <i>Innocents
      Abroad</i>, entirely different, in every paragraph and sentence, from the
      one I published in <i>The Galaxy,</i> I will pay to the <i>Enquirer</i>
      agent another five hundred dollars cash. I offer Sheldon &amp; Co.,
      publishers, 500 Broadway, New York, as my &ldquo;backers.&rdquo; Any one in New York,
      authorized by the <i>Enquirer</i>, will receive prompt attention. It is an
      easy and profitable way for the <i>Enquirer </i>people to prove that they
      have not uttered a pitiful, deliberate falsehood in the above paragraphs.
      Will they swallow that falsehood ignominiously, or will they send an agent
      to <i> The Galaxy </i>office. I think the Cincinnati <i>Enquirer </i>must
      be edited by children.
    </p>
    <p>
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    <div style="height: 4em;">
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    </div>
    <blockquote>
      <h2>
        A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
      </h2>
      <h4>
        Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, OCTOBER 15, 1902.
      </h4>
      <p>
        The Hon. The Secretary Of The Treasury,<i>Washington, D. C.</i>:
      </p>
      <p>
        Sir,&mdash;Prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached
        an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in
        straitened circumstances, I desire to place with you the following
        order:
      </p>
      <p>
        Forty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for furnace,
        gold 7 per cents., 1864, preferred.
      </p>
      <p>
        Twelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable for cooking.
      </p>
      <p>
        Eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50 cent postal currency, vintage of 1866,
        eligible for kindlings.
      </p>
      <p>
        Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale at
        lowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to
      </p>
      <p>
        Your obliged servant,
      </p>
      <p>
        Mark Twain, Who will be very grateful, and will vote right.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
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    </div>
    <h2>
      AMENDED OBITUARIES
    </h2>
    <blockquote>
      <h3>
        TO THE EDITOR:
      </h3>
      <p>
        Sir,&mdash;I am approaching seventy; it is in sight; it is only three
        years away. Necessarily, I must go soon. It is but matter-of-course
        wisdom, then, that I should begin to set my worldly house in order now,
        so that it may be done calmly and with thoroughness, in place of waiting
        until the last day, when, as we have often seen, the attempt to set both
        houses in order at the same time has been marred by the necessity for
        haste and by the confusion and waste of time arising from the inability
        of the notary and the ecclesiastic to work together harmoniously, taking
        turn about and giving each other friendly assistance&mdash;not perhaps
        in fielding, which could hardly be expected, but at least in the minor
        offices of keeping game and umpiring; by consequence of which conflict
        of interests and absence of harmonious action a draw has frequently
        resulted where this ill-fortune could not have happened if the houses
        had been set in order one at a time and hurry avoided by beginning in
        season, and giving to each the amount of time fairly and justly proper
        to it.
      </p>
      <p>
        In setting my earthly house in order I find it of moment that I should
        attend in person to one or two matters which men in my position have
        long had the habit of leaving wholly to others, with consequences often
        most regrettable. I wish to speak of only one of these matters at this
        time: Obituaries. Of necessity, an Obituary is a thing which cannot be
        so judiciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In
        such a work it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, but the
        light which the obituarist shall throw upon them, the meaning which he
        shall dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw from them, and
        the judgments which he shall deliver upon them. The Verdicts, you
        understand: that is the danger-line.
      </p>
      <p>
        In considering this matter, in view of my approaching change, it has
        seemed to me wise to take such measures as may be feasible, to acquire,
        by courtesy of the press, access to my standing obituaries, with the
        privilege&mdash;if this is not asking too much&mdash;of editing, not
        their Facts, but their Verdicts. This, not for the present profit,
        further than as concerns my family, but as a favorable influence usable
        on the Other Side, where there are some who are not friendly to me.
      </p>
      <p>
        With this explanation of my motives, I will now ask you of your courtesy
        to make an appeal for me to the public press. It is my desire that such
        journals and periodicals as have obituaries of me lying in their
        pigeonholes, with a view to sudden use some day, will not wait longer,
        but will publish them now, and kindly send me a marked copy. My address
        is simply New York City&mdash;I have no other that is permanent and not
        transient.
      </p>
      <p>
        I will correct them&mdash;not the Facts, but the Verdicts&mdash;striking
        out such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the Other
        Side, and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character. I
        should, of course, expect to pay double rates for both the omissions and
        the substitutions; and I should also expect to pay quadruple rates for
        all obituaries which proved to be rightly and wisely worded in the
        originals, thus requiring no emendations at all.
      </p>
      <p>
        It is my desire to leave these Amended Obituaries neatly bound behind me
        as a perennial consolation and entertainment to my family, and as an
        heirloom which shall have a mournful but definite commercial value for
        my remote posterity.
      </p>
      <p>
        I beg, sir, that you will insert this Advertisement (1t-eow, agate,
        inside), and send the bill to
      </p>
      <p>
        Yours very respectfully.
      </p>
      <p>
        Mark Twain.
      </p>
      <p>
        P.S.&mdash;For the best Obituary&mdash;one suitable for me to read in
        public, and calculated to inspire regret&mdash;I desire to offer a
        Prize, consisting of a Portrait of me done entirely by myself in pen and
        ink without previous instructions. The ink warranted to be the kind used
        by the very best artists.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0245.jpg" alt="0245 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0245.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
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      <br /><br /><br /><br />
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    <h2>
      A MONUMENT TO ADAM
    </h2>
    <p>
      Some one has revealed to the <i>Tribune </i>that I once suggested to Rev.
      Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira, New York, that we get up a monument to Adam,
      and that Mr. Beecher favored the project. There is more to it than that.
      The matter started as a joke, but it came somewhat near to materializing.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is long ago&mdash;thirty years. Mr. Darwin's <i>Descent of Man</i> has
      been in print five or six years, and the storm of indignation raised by it
      was still raging in pulpits and periodicals. In tracing the genesis of the
      human race back to its sources, Mr. Darwin had left Adam out altogether.
      We had monkeys, and &ldquo;missing links,&rdquo; and plenty of other kinds of
      ancestors, but no Adam. Jesting with Mr. Beecher and other friends in
      Elmira, I said there seemed to be a likelihood that the world would
      discard Adam and accept the monkey, and that in the course of time Adam's
      very name would be forgotten in the earth; therefore this calamity ought
      to be averted; a monument would accomplish this, and Elmira ought not to
      waste this honorable opportunity to do Adam a favor and herself a credit.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then the unexpected happened. Two bankers came forward and took hold of
      the matter&mdash;not for fun, not for sentiment, but because they saw in
      the monument certain commercial advantages for the town. The project had
      seemed gently humorous before&mdash;it was more than that now, with this
      stern business gravity injected into it. The bankers discussed the
      monument with me. We met several times. They proposed an indestructible
      memorial, to cost twenty-five thousand dollars. The insane oddity of a
      monument set up in a village to preserve a name that would outlast the
      hills and the rocks without any such help, would advertise Elmira to the
      ends of the earth&mdash;and draw custom. It would be the only monument on
      the planet to Adam, and in the matter of interest and impressiveness could
      never have a rival until somebody should set up a monument to the Milky
      Way.
    </p>
    <p>
      People would come from every corner of the globe and stop off to look at
      it, no tour of the world would be complete that left out Adam's monument.
      Elmira would be a Mecca; there would be pilgrim ships at pilgrim rates,
      pilgrim specials on the continent's railways; libraries would be written
      about the monument, every tourist would kodak it, models of it would be
      for sale everywhere in the earth, its form would become as familiar as the
      figure of Napoleon.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of the bankers subscribed five thousand dollars, and I think the other
      one subscribed half as much, but I do not remember with certainty now
      whether that was the figure or not. We got designs made&mdash;some of them
      came from Paris.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the beginning&mdash;as a detail of the project when it was yet a joke&mdash;I
      had framed a humble and beseeching and perfervid petition to Congress
      begging the government to build the monument, as a testimony of the Great
      Republic's gratitude to the Father of the Human Race and as a token of her
      loyalty to him in this dark day of humiliation when his older children
      were doubting and deserting him. It seemed to me that this petition ought
      to be presented, now&mdash;it would be widely and feelingly abused and
      ridiculed and cursed, and would advertise our scheme and make our
      ground-floor stock go off briskly. So I sent it to General Joseph R.
      Hawley, who was then in the House, and he said he would present it. But he
      did not do it. I think he explained that when he came to read it he was
      afraid of it: it was too serious, to gushy, too sentimental&mdash;the
      House might take it for earnest.
    </p>
    <p>
      We ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could have managed it
      without any great difficulty, and Elmira would now be the most celebrated
      town in the universe.
    </p>
    <p>
      Very recently I began to build a book in which one of the minor characters
      touches incidentally upon a project for a monument to Adam, and now the <i>Tribune
      </i>has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest of thirty years ago.
      Apparently mental telegraphy is still in business. It is odd; but the
      freaks of mental telegraphy are usually odd.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN
    </h2>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        (The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from him,
        we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark Twain.&mdash;Editor.)
      </p>
      <h3>
        TO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:
      </h3>
      <p>
        Dear Sir and Kinsman,&mdash;Let us have done with this frivolous talk.
        The American Board accepts contributions from me every year: then why
        shouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller? In all the ages, three-fourths of the
        support of the great charities has been conscience-money, as my books
        will show: then what becomes of the sting when that term is applied to
        Mr. Rockefeller's gift? The American Board's trade is financed mainly
        from the graveyards. Bequests, you understand. Conscience-money.
        Confession of an old crime and deliberate perpetration of a new one; for
        deceased's contribution is a robbery of his heirs. Shall the Board
        decline bequests because they stand for one of these offenses every time
        and generally for both?
      </p>
      <p>
        Allow me to continue. The charge most persistently and resentfully and
        remorselessly dwelt upon is that Mr. Rockefeller's contribution is
        incurably tainted by perjury&mdash;perjury proved against him in the
        courts. <i>It makes us smile</i>&mdash;down in my place! Because there
        isn't a rich man in your vast city who doesn't perjure himself every
        year before the tax board. They are all caked with perjury, many layers
        thick. Iron-clad, so to speak. If there is one that isn't, I desire to
        acquire him for my museum, and will pay Dinosaur rates. Will you say it
        isn't infraction of the law, but only annual evasion of it? Comfort
        yourselves with that nice distinction if you like&mdash;<i>for the
        present</i>. But by and by, when you arrive, I will show you something
        interesting: a whole hell-full of evaders! Sometimes a frank law-breaker
        turns up elsewhere, but I get those others every time.
      </p>
      <p>
        To return to my muttons. I wish you to remember that my rich perjurers
        are contributing to the American Board with frequency: it is money
        filched from the sworn-off personal tax; therefore it is the wages of
        sin; therefore it is my money; therefore it is <i>I</i> that contribute
        it; and, finally, it is therefore as I have said: since the Board daily
        accepts contributions from me, why should it decline them from Mr.
        Rockefeller, who is as good as I am, let the courts say what they may?
      </p>
      <p>
        SATAN.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
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    <h2>
      INTRODUCTION TO &ldquo;THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN PORTUGUESE AND
      ENGLISH&rdquo;
     </h2>
    <h3>
      by Pedro Carolino
    </h3>
    <p>
      In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing which may
      be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that this
      celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language
      lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness, and its enchanting
      naivete, are as supreme and unapproachable, in their way, as are
      Shakespeare's sublimities. Whatsoever is perfect in its kind, in
      literature, is imperishable: nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody
      can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand
      alone: its immortality is secure.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is one of the smallest books in the world, but few big books have
      received such wide attention, and been so much pondered by the grave and
      learned, and so much discussed and written about by the thoughtful, the
      thoughtless, the wise, and the foolish. Long notices of it have appeared,
      from time to time, in the great English reviews, and in erudite and
      authoritative philological periodicals; and it has been laughed at, danced
      upon, and tossed in a blanket by nearly every newspaper and magazine in
      the English-speaking world. Every scribbler, almost, has had his little
      fling at it, at one time or another; I had mine fifteen years ago. The
      book gets out of print, every now and then, and one ceases to hear of it
      for a season; but presently the nations and near and far colonies of our
      tongue and lineage call for it once more, and once more it issues from
      some London or Continental or American press, and runs a new course around
      the globe, wafted on its way by the wind of a world's laughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      Many persons have believed that this book's miraculous stupidities were
      studied and disingenuous; but no one can read the volume carefully through
      and keep that opinion. It was written in serious good faith and deep
      earnestness, by an honest and upright idiot who believed he knew something
      of the English language, and could impart his knowledge to others. The
      amplest proof of this crops out somewhere or other upon each and every
      page. There are sentences in the book which could have been manufactured
      by a man in his right mind, and with an intelligent and deliberate
      purposes to seem innocently ignorant; but there are other sentences, and
      paragraphs, which no mere pretended ignorance could ever achieve&mdash;nor
      yet even the most genuine and comprehensive ignorance, when unbacked by
      inspiration.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not a fraud who speaks in the following paragraph of the author's
      Preface, but a good man, an honest man, a man whose conscience is at rest,
      a man who believes he has done a high and worthy work for his nation and
      his generation, and is well pleased with his performance:
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and
        for her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptation of
        the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate
        him particularly.
      </p>
      <p>
        One cannot open this book anywhere and not find richness. To prove that
        this is true, I will open it at random and copy the page I happen to
        stumble upon. Here is the result:
      </p>
      <p>
        DIALOGUE 16
      </p>
      <h3>
        FOR TO SEE THE TOWN
      </h3>
      <p>
        Anothony, go to accompany they gentilsmen, do they see the town.
      </p>
      <p>
        We won't to see all that is it remarquable here.
      </p>
      <p>
        Come with me, if you please. I shall not folget nothing what can to
        merit your attention. Here we are near to cathedral; will you come in
        there?
      </p>
      <p>
        We will first to see him in oudside, after we shall go in there for to
        look the interior.
      </p>
      <p>
        Admire this master piece gothic architecture's.
      </p>
      <p>
        The chasing of all they figures is astonishing' indeed.
      </p>
      <p>
        The cupola and the nave are not less curious to see.
      </p>
      <p>
        What is this palace how I see yonder?
      </p>
      <p>
        It is the town hall.
      </p>
      <p>
        And this tower here at this side?
      </p>
      <p>
        It is the Observatory.
      </p>
      <p>
        The bridge is very fine, it have ten arches, and is constructed of free
        stone.
      </p>
      <p>
        The streets are very layed out by line and too paved.
      </p>
      <p>
        What is the circuit of this town?
      </p>
      <p>
        Two leagues.
      </p>
      <p>
        There is it also hospitals here?
      </p>
      <p>
        It not fail them.
      </p>
      <p>
        What are then the edifices the worthest to have seen?
      </p>
      <p>
        It is the arsnehal, the spectacle's hall, the Cusiomhouse, and the
        Purse.
      </p>
      <p>
        We are going too see the others monuments such that the public
        pawnbroker's office, the plants garden's, the money office's, the
        library.
      </p>
      <p>
        That it shall be for another day; we are tired.
      </p>
      <h3>
        DIALOGUE 17
      </h3>
      <h3>
        TO INFORM ONE'SELF OF A PERSON
      </h3>
      <p>
        How is that gentilman who you did speak by and by?
      </p>
      <p>
        Is a German.
      </p>
      <p>
        I did think him Englishman.
      </p>
      <p>
        He is of the Saxony side.
      </p>
      <p>
        He speak the french very well.
      </p>
      <p>
        Tough he is German, he speak so much well italyan, french, spanish and
        english, that among the Italyans, they believe him Italyan, he speak the
        frenche as the Frenches himselves. The Spanishesmen believe him
        Spanishing, and the Englishes, Englishman. It is difficult to enjoy well
        so much several languages.
      </p>
      <p>
        The last remark contains a general truth; but it ceases to be a truth
        when one contracts it and applies it to an individual&mdash;provided
        that that individual is the author of this book, Senhor Pedro Carolino.
        I am sure I should not find it difficult &ldquo;to enjoy well so much several
        languages&rdquo;&mdash;or even a thousand of them&mdash;if he did the
        translating for me from the originals into his ostensible English.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
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    <h2>
      ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS
    </h2>
    <p>
      Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every
      trifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted to under
      peculiarly aggravated circumstances.
    </p>
    <p>
      If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of your
      more fortunate little playmates has a costly China one, you should treat
      her with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to
      make a forcible swap with her unless your conscience would justify you in
      it, and you know you are able to do it.
    </p>
    <p>
      You ought never to take your little brother's &ldquo;chewing-gum&rdquo; away from him
      by main force; it is better to rope him in with the promise of the first
      two dollars and a half you find floating down the river on a grindstone.
      In the artless simplicity natural to this time of life, he will regard it
      as a perfectly fair transaction. In all ages of the world this eminently
      plausible fiction has lured the obtuse infant to financial ruin and
      disaster.
    </p>
    <p>
      If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not
      correct him with mud&mdash;never, on any account, throw mud at him,
      because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for
      then you obtain desirable results. You secure his immediate attention to
      the lessons you are inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will
      have a tendency to move impurities from his person, and possibly the skin,
      in spots.
    </p>
    <p>
      If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you
      won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she
      bids you, and then afterward act quietly in the matter according to the
      dictates of your best judgment.
    </p>
    <p>
      You should ever bear in mind that it is to your kind parents that you are
      indebted for your food, and for the privilege of staying home from school
      when you let on that you are sick. Therefore you ought to respect their
      little prejudices, and humor their little whims, and put up with their
      little foibles until they get to crowding you too much.
    </p>
    <p>
      Good little girls always show marked deference for the aged. You ought
      never to &ldquo;sass&rdquo; old people unless they &ldquo;sass&rdquo; you first.
    </p>
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    <h2>
      POST-MORTEM POETRY (1)
    </h2>
    <p>
      In Philadelphia they have a custom which it would be pleasant to see
      adopted throughout the land. It is that of appending to published
      death-notices a little verse or two of comforting poetry. Any one who is
      in the habit of reading the daily Philadelphia <i>Ledger </i>must
      frequently be touched by these plaintive tributes to extinguished worth.
      In Philadelphia, the departure of a child is a circumstance which is not
      more surely followed by a burial than by the accustomed solacing poesy in
      the <i>Public Ledger</i>. In that city death loses half its terror because
      the knowledge of its presence comes thus disguised in the sweet drapery of
      verse. For instance, in a late <i>Ledger </i>I find the following (I
      change the surname):
    </p>
    <h4>
      DIED
    </h4>
    <p>
      Hawks.&mdash;On the 17th inst., Clara, the daughter of Ephraim and Laura
      Hawks, aged 21 months and 2 days.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     That merry shout no more I hear,
          No laughing child I see,
     No little arms are around my neck,
          No feet upon my knee;

     No kisses drop upon my cheek,
          These lips are sealed to me.
     Dear Lord, how could I give Clara up
          To any but to Thee?
</pre>
    <p>
      A child thus mourned could not die wholly discontented. From the <i>Ledger
      </i>of the same date I make the following extract, merely changing the
      surname, as before:
    </p>
    <p>
      Becket.&mdash;On Sunday morning, 19th inst., John P., infant son of George
      and Julia Becket, aged 1 year, 6 months, and 15 days.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     That merry shout no more I hear,
          No laughing child I see,
     No little arms are round my neck,
          No feet upon my knee;

     No kisses drop upon my cheek;
          These lips are sealed to me.
     Dear Lord, how could I give Johnnie up
          To any but to Thee?
</pre>
    <p>
      The similarity of the emotions as produced in the mourners in these two
      instances is remarkably evidenced by the singular similarity of thought
      which they experienced, and the surprising coincidence of language used by
      them to give it expression.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the same journal, of the same date, I find the following (surname
      suppressed, as before):
    </p>
    <p>
      Wagner.&mdash;On the 10th inst., Ferguson G., the son of William L. and
      Martha Theresa Wagner, aged 4 weeks and 1 day.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     That merry shout no more I hear,
          No laughing child I see,
     No little arms are round my neck,
          No feet upon my knee;

     No kisses drop upon my cheek,
          These lips are sealed to me.
     Dear Lord, how could I give Ferguson up
          To any but to Thee?
</pre>
    <p>
      It is strange what power the reiteration of an essentially poetical
      thought has upon one's feelings. When we take up the <i>Ledger </i>and
      read the poetry about little Clara, we feel an unaccountable depression of
      the spirits. When we drift further down the column and read the poetry
      about little Johnnie, the depression and spirits acquires an added
      emphasis, and we experience tangible suffering. When we saunter along down
      the column further still and read the poetry about little Ferguson, the
      word torture but vaguely suggests the anguish that rends us.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the <i>Ledger </i>(same copy referred to above) I find the following (I
      alter surname, as usual):
    </p>
    <p>
      Welch.&mdash;On the 5th inst., Mary C. Welch, wife of William B. Welch,
      and daughter of Catharine and George W. Markland, in the 29th year of her
      age.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     A mother dear, a mother kind,
          Has gone and left us all behind.
     Cease to weep, for tears are vain,
          Mother dear is out of pain.

     Farewell, husband, children dear,
          Serve thy God with filial fear,
     And meet me in the land above,
          Where all is peace, and joy, and love.
</pre>
    <p>
      What could be sweeter than that? No collection of salient facts (without
      reduction to tabular form) could be more succinctly stated than is done in
      the first stanza by the surviving relatives, and no more concise and
      comprehensive program of farewells, post-mortuary general orders, etc.,
      could be framed in any form than is done in verse by deceased in the last
      stanza. These things insensibly make us wiser and tenderer, and better.
      Another extract:
    </p>
    <p>
      Ball.&mdash;On the morning of the 15th inst., Mary E., daughter of John
      and Sarah F. Ball.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     'Tis sweet to rest in lively hope
          That when my change shall come
     Angels will hover round my bed,
          To waft my spirit home.
</pre>
    <p>
      The following is apparently the customary form for heads of families:
    </p>
    <p>
      Burns.&mdash;On the 20th inst., Michael Burns, aged 40 years.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Dearest father, thou hast left us,
          Here thy loss we deeply feel;
     But 'tis God that has bereft us,
          He can all our sorrows heal.

     Funeral at 2 o'clock sharp.
</pre>
    <p>
      There is something very simple and pleasant about the following, which, in
      Philadelphia, seems to be the usual form for consumptives of long
      standing. (It deplores four distinct cases in the single copy of the <i>Ledger
      </i>which lies on the Memoranda editorial table):
    </p>
    <p>
      Bromley.&mdash;On the 29th inst., of consumption, Philip Bromley, in the
      50th year of his age.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Affliction sore long time he bore,
          Physicians were in vain&mdash;
     Till God at last did hear him mourn,
          And eased him of his pain.

     That friend whom death from us has torn,
          We did not think so soon to part;
     An anxious care now sinks the thorn
          Still deeper in our bleeding heart.
</pre>
    <p>
      This beautiful creation loses nothing by repetition. On the contrary, the
      oftener one sees it in the <i>Ledger</i>, the more grand and awe-inspiring
      it seems.
    </p>
    <p>
      With one more extract I will close:
    </p>
    <p>
      Doble.&mdash;On the 4th inst., Samuel Pervil Worthington Doble, aged 4
      days.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Our little Sammy's gone,
          His tiny spirit's fled;
     Our little boy we loved so dear
          Lies sleeping with the dead.

     A tear within a father's eye,
          A mother's aching heart,
     Can only tell the agony
          How hard it is to part.
</pre>
    <p>
      Could anything be more plaintive than that, without requiring further
      concessions of grammar? Could anything be likely to do more toward
      reconciling deceased to circumstances, and making him willing to go?
      Perhaps not. The power of song can hardly be estimated. There is an
      element about some poetry which is able to make even physical suffering
      and death cheerful things to contemplate and consummations to be desired.
      This element is present in the mortuary poetry of Philadelphia, and in a
      noticeable degree of development.
    </p>
    <p>
      The custom I have been treating of is one that should be adopted in all
      the cities of the land.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is said that once a man of small consequence died, and the Rev. T. K.
      Beecher was asked to preach the funeral sermon&mdash;a man who abhors the
      lauding of people, either dead or alive, except in dignified and simple
      language, and then only for merits which they actually possessed or
      possess, not merits which they merely ought to have possessed. The friends
      of the deceased got up a stately funeral. They must have had misgivings
      that the corpse might not be praised strongly enough, for they prepared
      some manuscript headings and notes in which nothing was left unsaid on
      that subject that a fervid imagination and an unabridged dictionary could
      compile, and these they handed to the minister as he entered the pulpit.
      They were merely intended as suggestions, and so the friends were filled
      with consternation when the minister stood in the pulpit and proceeded to
      read off the curious odds and ends in ghastly detail and in a loud voice!
      And their consternation solidified to petrification when he paused at the
      end, contemplated the multitude reflectively, and then said, impressively:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The man would be a fool who tried to add anything to that. Let us pray!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      And with the same strict adhesion to truth it can be said that the man
      would be a fool who tried to add anything to the following transcendent
      obituary poem. There is something so innocent, so guileless, so
      complacent, so unearthly serene and self-satisfied about this peerless
      &ldquo;hog-wash,&rdquo; that the man must be made of stone who can read it without a
      dulcet ecstasy creeping along his backbone and quivering in his marrow.
      There is no need to say that this poem is genuine and in earnest, for its
      proofs are written all over its face. An ingenious scribbler might imitate
      it after a fashion, but Shakespeare himself could not counterfeit it. It
      is noticeable that the country editor who published it did not know that
      it was a treasure and the most perfect thing of its kind that the
      storehouses and museums of literature could show. He did not dare to say
      no to the dread poet&mdash;for such a poet must have been something of an
      apparition&mdash;but he just shoveled it into his paper anywhere that came
      handy, and felt ashamed, and put that disgusted &ldquo;Published by Request&rdquo;
       over it, and hoped that his subscribers would overlook it or not feel an
      impulse to read it:
    </p>
    <p>
      (Published by Request)
    </p>
    <h4>
      LINES
    </h4>
    <p>
      Composed on the death of Samuel and Catharine Belknap's children
    </p>
    <p>
      by M. A. Glaze
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Friends and neighbors all draw near,
     And listen to what I have to say;
     And never leave your children dear
     When they are small, and go away.

     But always think of that sad fate,
     That happened in year of '63;
     Four children with a house did burn,
     Think of their awful agony.

     Their mother she had gone away,
     And left them there alone to stay;
     The house took fire and down did burn;
     Before their mother did return.

     Their piteous cry the neighbors heard,
     And then the cry of fire was given;
     But, ah! before they could them reach,
     Their little spirits had flown to heaven.

     Their father he to war had gone,
     And on the battle-field was slain;
     But little did he think when he went away,
     But what on earth they would meet again.

     The neighbors often told his wife
     Not to leave his children there,
     Unless she got some one to stay,
     And of the little ones take care.

     The oldest he was years not six,
     And the youngest only eleven months old,
     But often she had left them there alone,
     As, by the neighbors, I have been told.

     How can she bear to see the place.
     Where she so oft has left them there,
     Without a single one to look to them,
     Or of the little ones to take good care.

     Oh, can she look upon the spot,
     Whereunder their little burnt bones lay,
     But what she thinks she hears them say,
     ''Twas God had pity, and took us on high.'

     And there may she kneel down and pray,
     And ask God her to forgive;
     And she may lead a different life
     While she on earth remains to live.

     Her husband and her children too,
     God has took from pain and woe.
     May she reform and mend her ways,
     That she may also to them go.

     And when it is God's holy will,
     O, may she be prepared
     To meet her God and friends in peace,
     And leave this world of care.
</pre>
    <p>
      1. Written in 1870.
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED
    </h2>
    <p>
      The man in the ticket-office said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Have an accident insurance ticket, also?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said, after studying the matter over a little. &ldquo;No, I believe not;
      I am going to be traveling by rail all day today. However, tomorrow I
      don't travel. Give me one for tomorrow.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The man looked puzzled. He said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;But it is for accident insurance, and if you are going to travel by rail&mdash;&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;If I am going to travel by rail I sha'n't need it. Lying at home in bed
      is the thing <i>I</i> am afraid of.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had been looking into this matter. Last year I traveled twenty thousand
      miles, almost entirely by rail; the year before, I traveled over
      twenty-five thousand miles, half by sea and half by rail; and the year
      before that I traveled in the neighborhood of ten thousand miles,
      exclusively by rail. I suppose if I put in all the little odd journeys
      here and there, I may say I have traveled sixty thousand miles during the
      three years I have mentioned. <i>And never an accident.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      For a good while I said to myself every morning: &ldquo;Now I have escaped thus
      far, and so the chances are just that much increased that I shall catch it
      this time. I will be shrewd, and buy an accident ticket.&rdquo; And to a dead
      moral certainty I drew a blank, and went to bed that night without a joint
      started or a bone splintered. I got tired of that sort of daily bother,
      and fell to buying accident tickets that were good for a month. I said to
      myself, &ldquo;A man <i>can't</i> buy thirty blanks in one bundle.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But I was mistaken. There was never a prize in the the lot. I could read
      of railway accidents every day&mdash;the newspaper atmosphere was foggy
      with them; but somehow they never came my way. I found I had spent a good
      deal of money in the accident business, and had nothing to show for it. My
      suspicions were aroused, and I began to hunt around for somebody that had
      won in this lottery. I found plenty of people who had invested, but not an
      individual that had ever had an accident or made a cent. I stopped buying
      accident tickets and went to ciphering. The result was astounding. <i>The
      peril lay not in traveling, but in staying at home.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      I hunted up statistics, and was amazed to find that after all the glaring
      newspaper headlines concerning railroad disasters, less than <i>three
      hundred</i> people had really lost their lives by those disasters in the
      preceding twelve months. The Erie road was set down as the most murderous
      in the list. It had killed forty-six&mdash;or twenty-six, I do not exactly
      remember which, but I know the number was double that of any other road.
      But the fact straightway suggested itself that the Erie was an immensely
      long road, and did more business than any other line in the country; so
      the double number of killed ceased to be matter for surprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      By further figuring, it appeared that between New York and Rochester the
      Erie ran eight passenger-trains each way every day&mdash;16 altogether;
      and carried a daily average of 6,000 persons. That is about a million in
      six months&mdash;the population of New York City. Well, the Erie kills
      from 13 to 23 persons of <i>its</i> million in six months; and in the same
      time 13,000 of New York's million die in their beds! My flesh crept, my
      hair stood on end. &ldquo;This is appalling!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;The danger isn't in
      traveling by rail, but in trusting to those deadly beds. I will never
      sleep in a bed again.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had figured on considerably less than one-half the length of the Erie
      road. It was plain that the entire road must transport at least eleven or
      twelve thousand people every day. There are many short roads running out
      of Boston that do fully half as much; a great many such roads. There are
      many roads scattered about the Union that do a prodigious passenger
      business. Therefore it was fair to presume that an average of 2,500
      passengers a day for each road in the country would be almost correct.
      There are 846 railway lines in our country, and 846 times 2,500 are
      2,115,000. So the railways of America move more than two millions of
      people every day; six hundred and fifty millions of people a year, without
      counting the Sundays. They do that, too&mdash;there is no question about
      it; though where they get the raw material is clear beyond the
      jurisdiction of my arithmetic; for I have hunted the census through and
      through, and I find that there are not that many people in the United
      States, by a matter of six hundred and ten millions at the very least.
      They must use some of the same people over again, likely.
    </p>
    <p>
      San Francisco is one-eighth as populous as New York; there are 60 deaths a
      week in the former and 500 a week in the latter&mdash;if they have luck.
      That is 3,120 deaths a year in San Francisco, and eight times as many in
      New York&mdash;say about 25,000 or 26,000. The health of the two places is
      the same. So we will let it stand as a fair presumption that this will
      hold good all over the country, and that consequently 25,000 out of every
      million of people we have must die every year. That amounts to
      one-fortieth of our total population. One million of us, then, die
      annually. Out of this million ten or twelve thousand are stabbed, shot,
      drowned, hanged, poisoned, or meet a similarly violent death in some other
      popular way, such as perishing by kerosene-lamp and hoop-skirt
      conflagrations, getting buried in coal-mines, falling off house-tops,
      breaking through church, or lecture-room floors, taking patent medicines,
      or committing suicide in other forms. The Erie railroad kills 23 to 46;
      the other 845 railroads kill an average of one-third of a man each; and
      the rest of that million, amounting in the aggregate to that appalling
      figure of 987,631 corpses, die naturally in their beds!
    </p>
    <p>
      You will excuse me from taking any more chances on those beds. The
      railroads are good enough for me.
    </p>
    <p>
      And my advice to all people is, Don't stay at home any more than you can
      help; but when you have <i>got </i>to stay at home a while, buy a package
      of those insurance tickets and sit up nights. You cannot be too cautious.
    </p>
    <p>
      (One can see now why I answered that ticket-agent in the manner recorded
      at the top of this sketch.)
    </p>
    <p>
      The moral of this composition is, that thoughtless people grumble more
      than is fair about railroad management in the United States. When we
      consider that every day and night of the year full fourteen thousand
      railway-trains of various kinds, freighted with life and armed with death,
      go thundering over the land, the marvel is, <i>not </i>that they kill
      three hundred human beings in a twelvemonth, but that they do not kill
      three hundred times three hundred!
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0053" id="link2H_4_0053">
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III
    </h2>
    <p>
      I never can look at those periodical portraits in <i>The Galaxy</i>
      magazine without feeling a wild, tempestuous ambition to be an artist. I
      have seen thousands and thousands of pictures in my time&mdash;acres of
      them here and leagues of them in the galleries of Europe&mdash;but never
      any that moved me as these portraits do.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is a portrait of Monsignore Capel in the November number, now <i>could</i>
      anything be sweeter than that? And there was Bismarck's, in the October
      number; who can look at that without being purer and stronger and nobler
      for it? And Thurlow and Weed's picture in the September number; I would
      not have died without seeing that, no, not for anything this world can
      give. But look back still further and recall my own likeness as printed in
      the August number; if I had been in my grave a thousand years when that
      appeared, I would have got up and visited the artist.
    </p>
    <p>
      I sleep with all these portraits under my pillow every night, so that I
      can go on studying them as soon as the day dawns in the morning. I know
      them all as thoroughly as if I had made them myself; I know every line and
      mark about them. Sometimes when company are present I shuffle the
      portraits all up together, and then pick them out one by one and call
      their names, without referring to the printing on the bottom. I seldom
      make a mistake&mdash;never, when I am calm.
    </p>
    <p>
      I have had the portraits framed for a long time, waiting till my aunt gets
      everything ready for hanging them up in the parlor. But first one thing
      and then another interferes, and so the thing is delayed. Once she said
      they would have more of the peculiar kind of light they needed in the
      attic. The old simpleton! it is as dark as a tomb up there. But she does
      not know anything about art, and so she has no reverence for it. When I
      showed her my &ldquo;Map of the Fortifications of Paris,&rdquo; she said it was
      rubbish.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, from nursing those portraits so long, I have come at last to have a
      perfect infatuation for art. I have a teacher now, and my enthusiasm
      continually and tumultuously grows, as I learn to use with more and more
      facility the pencil, brush, and graver. I am studying under De Mellville,
      the house and portrait painter. (His name was Smith when he lived in the
      West.) He does any kind of artist work a body wants, having a genius that
      is universal, like Michael Angelo. Resembles that great artist, in fact.
      The back of his head is like his, and he wears his hat-brim tilted down on
      his nose to expose it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I have been studying under De Mellville several months now. The first
      month I painted fences, and gave general satisfaction. The next month I
      white-washed a barn. The third, I was doing tin roofs; the forth, common
      signs; the fifth, statuary to stand before cigar shops. This present month
      is only the sixth, and I am already in portraits!
    </p>
    <p>
      The humble offering which accompanies these remarks (see figure)&mdash;the
      portrait of his Majesty William III., King of Prussia&mdash;is my fifth
      attempt in portraits, and my greatest success. It has received unbounded
      praise from all classes of the community, but that which gratifies me most
      is the frequent and cordial verdict that it resembles the <i>Galaxy</i>
      portraits. Those were my first love, my earliest admiration, the original
      source and incentive of my art-ambition. Whatever I am in Art today, I owe
      to these portraits. I ask no credit for myself&mdash;I deserve none. And I
      never take any, either. Many a stranger has come to my exhibition (for I
      have had my portrait of King William on exhibition at one dollar a
      ticket), and would have gone away blessing<i> me</i>, if I had let him,
      but I never did. I always stated where I got the idea.
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0279.jpg" alt="0279 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0279.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      King William wears large bushy side-whiskers, and some critics have
      thought that this portrait would be more complete if they were added. But
      it was not possible. There was not room for side-whiskers and epaulets
      both, and so I let the whiskers go, and put in the epaulets, for the sake
      of style. That thing on his hat is an eagle. The Prussian eagle&mdash;it
      is a national emblem. When I say hat I mean helmet; but it seems
      impossible to make a picture of a helmet that a body can have confidence
      in.
    </p>
    <p>
      I wish kind friends everywhere would aid me in my endeavor to attract a
      little attention to the <i>Galaxy </i>portraits. I feel persuaded it can
      be accomplished, if the course to be pursued be chosen with judgment. I
      write for that magazine all the time, and so do many abler men, and if I
      can get these portraits into universal favor, it is all I ask; the
      reading-matter will take care of itself.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h3>
      COMMENDATIONS OF THE PORTRAIT
    </h3>
    <p>
      There is nothing like it in the Vatican. &lt;<i>Pius IX.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      It has none of that vagueness, that dreamy spirituality about it, which
      many of the first critics of Arkansas have objected to in the Murillo
      school of Art. <i>Ruskin.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      The expression is very interesting. <i>J.W. Titian.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      (Keeps a macaroni store in Venice, at the old family stand.)
    </p>
    <p>
      It is the neatest thing in still life I have seen for years. <i>Rosa
      Bonheur.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      The smile may be almost called unique. <i>Bismarck.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      I never saw such character portrayed in a picture face before. <i>De
      Mellville.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      There is a benignant simplicity about the execution of this work which
      warms the heart toward it as much, full as much, as it fascinates the eye.
      <i>Landseer.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      One cannot see it without longing to contemplate the artist. <i>Frederick
      William.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      Send me the entire edition&mdash;together with the plate and the original
      portrait&mdash;and name your own price. And&mdash;would you like to come
      over and stay awhile with Napoleon at Wilhelmshohe? It shall not cost you
      a cent. <i>William III.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
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    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?
    </h2>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        Often a quite assified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by
        custom; it is then a permanency, its term of activity a geologic period.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      The day after the arrival of Prince Henry I met an English friend, and he
      rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged to the brim
      with joy&mdash;joy that was evidently a pleasant salve to an old sore
      place:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying that is
      irritatingly true, and until now seemed to offer no chance for a return
      jibe: 'An Englishman does dearly love a lord'; but after this I shall talk
      back, and say, 'How about the Americans?'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get. The
      man that first says it thinks he has made a discovery. The man he says it
      to, thinks the same. It departs on its travels, is received everywhere
      with admiring acceptance, and not only as a piece of rare and acute
      observation, but as being exhaustively true and profoundly wise; and so it
      presently takes its place in the world's list of recognized and
      established wisdoms, and after that no one thinks of examining it to see
      whether it is really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to mind
      instances of this in two well-established proverbs, whose dullness is not
      surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a lord: one of
      them records the American's Adoration of the Almighty Dollar, the other
      the American millionaire-girl's ambition to trade cash for a title, with a
      husband thrown in.
    </p>
    <p>
      It isn't merely the American that adores the Almighty Dollar, it is the
      human race. The human race has always adored the hatful of shells, or the
      bale of calico, or the half-bushel of brass rings, or the handful of steel
      fish-hooks, or the houseful of black wives, or the zareba full of cattle,
      or the two-score camels and asses, or the factory, or the farm, or the
      block of buildings, or the railroad bonds, or the bank stock, or the
      hoarded cash, or&mdash;anything that stands for wealth and consideration
      and independence, and can secure to the possessor that most precious of
      all things, another man's envy. It was a dull person that invented the
      idea that the American's devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than
      another's.
    </p>
    <p>
      Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea; it
      had been worn threadbare several hundred centuries before America was
      discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever; and, when
      a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy the husband
      without it. They must put up the &ldquo;dot,&rdquo; or there is no trade. The
      commercialization of brides is substantially universal, except in America.
      It exists with us, to some little extent, but in no degree approaching a
      custom.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The Englishman dearly loves a lord.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      What is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could be more
      correctly worded:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The human race dearly envies a lord.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      That is to say, it envies the lord's place. Why? On two accounts, I think:
      its Power and its Conspicuousness.
    </p>
    <p>
      Where Conspicuousness carries with it a Power which, by the light of our
      own observation and experience, we are able to measure and comprehend, I
      think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as passionate as is that of
      any other nation. No one can care less for a lord than the backwoodsman,
      who has had no personal contact with lords and has seldom heard them
      spoken of; but I will not allow that any Englishman has a profounder envy
      of a lord than has the average American who has lived long years in a
      European capital and fully learned how immense is the position the lord
      occupies.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of any ten thousand Americans who eagerly gather, at vast inconvenience,
      to get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple of hundred will be
      there out of an immense curiosity; they are burning up with desire to see
      a personage who is so much talked about. They envy him; but it is
      Conspicuousness they envy mainly, not the Power that is lodged in his
      royal quality and position, for they have but a vague and spectral
      knowledge and appreciation of that; through their environment and
      associations they have been accustomed to regard such things lightly, and
      as not being very real; consequently, they are not able to value them
      enough to consumingly envy them.
    </p>
    <p>
      But, whenever an American (or other human being) is in the presence, for
      the first time, of a combination of great Power and Conspicuousness which
      he thoroughly understands and appreciates, his eager curiosity and
      pleasure will be well-sodden with that other passion&mdash;envy&mdash;whether
      he suspects it or not. At any time, on any day, in any part of America,
      you can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger by calling his
      attention to any other passing stranger and saying:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Do you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr. Rockefeller.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Watch his eye. It is a combination of power and conspicuousness which the
      man understands.
    </p>
    <p>
      When we understand rank, we always like to rub against it. When a man is
      conspicuous, we always want to see him. Also, if he will pay us an
      attention we will manage to remember it. Also, we will mention it now and
      then, casually; sometimes to a friend, or if a friend is not handy, we
      will make out with a stranger.
    </p>
    <p>
      Well, then, what is rank, and what is conspicuousness? At once we think of
      kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities in soldierships,
      the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there. But that is a mistake. Rank
      holds its court and receives its homage on every round of the ladder, from
      the emperor down to the rat-catcher; and distinction, also, exists on
      every round of the ladder, and commands its due of deference and envy.
    </p>
    <p>
      To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege of all
      the human race, and it is freely and joyfully exercised in democracies as
      well as in monarchies&mdash;and even, to some extent, among those
      creatures whom we impertinently call the Lower Animals. For even they have
      some poor little vanities and foibles, though in this matter they are
      paupers as compared to us.
    </p>
    <p>
      A Chinese Emperor has the worship of his four hundred millions of
      subjects, but the rest of the world is indifferent to him. A Christian
      Emperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large part of the
      Christian world outside of his domains; but he is a matter of indifference
      to all China. A king, class A, has an extensive worship; a king, class B,
      has a less extensive worship; class C, class D, class E get a steadily
      diminishing share of worship; class L (Sultan of Zanzibar), class P
      (Sultan of Sulu), and class W (half-king of Samoa), get no worship at all
      outside their own little patch of sovereignty.
    </p>
    <p>
      Take the distinguished people along down. Each has his group of
      homage-payers. In the navy, there are many groups; they start with the
      Secretary and the Admiral, and go down to the quartermaster&mdash;and
      below; for there will be groups among the sailors, and each of these
      groups will have a tar who is distinguished for his battles, or his
      strength, or his daring, or his profanity, and is admired and envied by
      his group. The same with the army; the same with the literary and
      journalistic craft; the publishing craft; the cod-fishery craft; Standard
      Oil; U. S. Steel; the class A hotel&mdash;and the rest of the alphabet in
      that line; the class A prize-fighter&mdash;and the rest of the alphabet in
      his line&mdash;clear down to the lowest and obscurest six-boy gang of
      little gamins, with its one boy that can thrash the rest, and to whom he
      is king of Samoa, bottom of the royal race, but looked up to with a most
      ardent admiration and envy.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is something pathetic, and funny, and pretty, about this human
      race's fondness for contact with power and distinction, and for the
      reflected glory it gets out of it. The king, class A, is happy in the
      state banquet and the military show which the emperor provides for him,
      and he goes home and gathers the queen and the princelings around him in
      the privacy of the spare room, and tells them all about it, and says:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;His Imperial Majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most friendly
      way&mdash;just as friendly and familiar, oh, you can't imagine it!&mdash;and
      everybody <i>seeing </i>him do it; charming, perfectly charming!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The king, class G, is happy in the cold collation and the police parade
      provided for him by the king, class B, and goes home and tells the family
      all about it, and says:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;And His Majesty took me into his own private cabinet for a smoke and a
      chat, and there we sat just as sociable, and talking away and laughing and
      chatting, just the same as if we had been born in the same bunk; and all
      the servants in the anteroom could see us doing it! Oh, it was too lovely
      for anything!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The king, class Q, is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him by
      the king, class M, and goes home and tells the household about it, and is
      as grateful and joyful over it as were his predecessors in the gaudier
      attentions that had fallen to their larger lot.
    </p>
    <p>
      Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people&mdash;at
      the bottom we are all alike and all the same; all just alike on the
      inside, and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is
      which. We are unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine
      compliments paid us, and distinctions conferred upon us, in attentions
      shown. There is not one of us, from the emperor down, but is made like
      that. Do I mean attentions shown us by the guest? No, I mean simply
      flattering attentions, let them come whence they may. We despise no source
      that can pay us a pleasing attention&mdash;there is no source that is
      humble enough for that. You have heard a dear little girl say to a frowzy
      and disreputable dog: &ldquo;He came right to me and let me pat him on the head,
      and he wouldn't let the others touch him!&rdquo; and you have seen her eyes
      dance with pride in that high distinction. You have often seen that. If
      the child were a princess, would that random dog be able to confer the
      like glory upon her with his pretty compliment? Yes; and even in her
      mature life and seated upon a throne, she would still remember it, still
      recall it, still speak of it with frank satisfaction. That charming and
      lovable German princess and poet, Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania,
      remembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields &ldquo;talked to her&rdquo;
       when she was a girl, and she sets it down in her latest book; and that the
      squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued compliment of not
      being afraid of them; and &ldquo;once one of them, holding a nut between its
      sharp little teeth, ran right up against my father&rdquo;&mdash;it has the very
      note of &ldquo;He came right to me and let me pat him on the head&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;and
      when it saw itself reflected in his boot it was very much surprised, and
      stopped for a long time to contemplate itself in the polished leather&rdquo;&mdash;then
      it went its way. And the birds! she still remembers with pride that &ldquo;they
      came boldly into my room,&rdquo; when she had neglected her &ldquo;duty&rdquo; and put no
      food on the window-sill for them; she knew all the wild birds, and forgets
      the royal crown on her head to remember with pride that they knew her;
      also that the wasp and the bee were personal friends of hers, and never
      forgot that gracious relationship to her injury: &ldquo;never have I been stung
      by a wasp or a bee.&rdquo; And here is that proud note again that sings in that
      little child's elation in being singled out, among all the company of
      children, for the random dog's honor-conferring attentions. &ldquo;Even in the
      very worst summer for wasps, when, in lunching out of doors, our table was
      covered with them and every one else was stung, they never hurt me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      When a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are able to
      add distinction to so distinguished a place as a throne, remembers with
      grateful exultation, after thirty years, honors and distinctions conferred
      upon her by the humble, wild creatures of the forest, we are helped to
      realize that complimentary attentions, homage, distinctions, are of no
      caste, but are above all cast&mdash;that they are a nobility-conferring
      power apart.
    </p>
    <p>
      We all like these things. When the gate-guard at the railway-station
      passes me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets, I feel
      as the king, class A, felt when the emperor put the imperial hand on his
      shoulder, &ldquo;everybody seeing him do it&rdquo;; and as the child felt when the
      random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracized the others; and as
      the princess felt when the wasps spared her and stung the rest; and I felt
      just so, four years ago in Vienna (and remember it yet), when the helmeted
      police shut me off, with fifty others, from a street which the Emperor was
      to pass through, and the captain of the squad turned and saw the situation
      and said indignantly to that guard:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Can't you see it is the Herr Mark Twain? Let him through!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It was four years ago; but it will be four hundred before I forget the
      wind of self-complacency that rose in me, and strained my buttons when I
      marked the deference for me evoked in the faces of my fellow-rabble, and
      noted, mingled with it, a puzzled and resentful expression which said, as
      plainly as speech could have worded it: &ldquo;And who in the nation is the Herr
      Mark Twain <i>um gotteswillen?</i>&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      How many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I stood as close to him as I am to you; I could have put out my hand and
      touched him.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      We have all heard it many and many a time. It was a proud distinction to
      be able to say those words. It brought envy to the speaker, a kind of
      glory; and he basked in it and was happy through all his veins. And who
      was it he stood so close to? The answer would cover all the grades.
      Sometimes it was a king; sometimes it was a renowned highwayman; sometimes
      it was an unknown man killed in an extraordinary way and made suddenly
      famous by it; always it was a person who was for the moment the subject of
      public interest of a village.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I was there, and I saw it myself.&rdquo; That is a common and envy-compelling
      remark. It can refer to a battle; to a hanging; to a coronation; to the
      killing of Jumbo by the railway-train; to the arrival of Jenny Lind at the
      Battery; to the meeting of the President and Prince Henry; to the chase of
      a murderous maniac; to the disaster in the tunnel; to the explosion in the
      subway; to a remarkable dog-fight; to a village church struck by
      lightning. It will be said, more or less causally, by everybody in America
      who has seen Prince Henry do anything, or try to. The man who was absent
      and didn't see him to anything, will scoff. It is his privilege; and he
      can make capital out of it, too; he will seem, even to himself, to be
      different from other Americans, and better. As his opinion of his superior
      Americanism grows, and swells, and concentrates and coagulates, he will go
      further and try to belittle the distinction of those that saw the Prince
      do things, and will spoil their pleasure in it if he can. My life has been
      embittered by that kind of person. If you are able to tell of a special
      distinction that has fallen to your lot, it gravels them; they cannot bear
      it; and they try to make believe that the thing you took for a special
      distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way.
      Once I was received in private audience by an emperor. Last week I was
      telling a jealous person about it, and I could see him wince under it, see
      him bite, see him suffer. I revealed the whole episode to him with
      considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail. When I was through,
      he asked me what had impressed me most. I said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;His Majesty's delicacy. They told me to be sure and back out from the
      presence, and find the door-knob as best I could; it was not allowable to
      face around. Now the Emperor knew it would be a difficult ordeal for me,
      because of lack of practice; and so, when it was time to part, he turned,
      with exceeding delicacy, and pretended to fumble with things on his desk,
      so I could get out in my own way, without his seeing me.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It went home! It was vitriol! I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise in
      the man's face; he couldn't keep it down. I saw him try to fix up
      something in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction. I enjoyed
      that, for I judged that he had his work cut out for him. He struggled
      along inwardly for quite a while; then he said, with a manner of a person
      who has to say something and hasn't anything relevant to say:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You said he had a handful of special-brand cigars on the table?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes; <i>I</i> never saw anything to match them.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I had him again. He had to fumble around in his mind as much as another
      minute before he could play; then he said in as mean a way as I ever heard
      a person say anything:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;He could have been counting the cigars, you know.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I cannot endure a man like that. It is nothing to him how unkind he is, so
      long as he takes the bloom off. It is all he cares for.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;An Englishman (or other human being) does dearly love a lord,&rdquo; (or other
      conspicuous person.) It includes us all. We love to be noticed by the
      conspicuous person; we love to be associated with such, or with a
      conspicuous event, even in a seventh-rate fashion, even in the
      forty-seventh, if we cannot do better. This accounts for some of our
      curious tastes in mementos. It accounts for the large private trade in the
      Prince of Wales's hair, which chambermaids were able to drive in that
      article of commerce when the Prince made the tour of the world in the long
      ago&mdash;hair which probably did not always come from his brush, since
      enough of it was marketed to refurnish a bald comet; it accounts for the
      fact that the rope which lynches a negro in the presence of ten thousand
      Christian spectators is salable five minutes later at two dollars and
      inch; it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal personage does not
      venture to wear buttons on his coat in public.
    </p>
    <p>
      We do love a lord&mdash;and by that term I mean any person whose situation
      is higher than our own. The lord of the group, for instance: a group of
      peers, a group of millionaires, a group of hoodlums, a group of sailors, a
      group of newsboys, a group of saloon politicians, a group of college
      girls. No royal person has ever been the object of a more delirious
      loyalty and slavish adoration than is paid by the vast Tammany herd to its
      squalid idol of Wantage. There is not a bifurcated animal in that
      menagerie that would not be proud to appear in a newspaper picture in his
      company. At the same time, there are some in that organization who would
      scoff at the people who have been daily pictured in company with Prince
      Henry, and would say vigorously that <i>they </i>would not consent to be
      photographed with him&mdash;a statement which would not be true in any
      instance. There are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say to
      you that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group with the
      Prince, if invited; and some of these unthinking people would believe it
      when they said it; yet in no instance would it be true. We have a large
      population, but we have not a large enough one, by several millions, to
      furnish that man. He has not yet been begotten, and in fact he is not
      begettable.
    </p>
    <p>
      You may take any of the printed groups, and there isn't a person in the
      dim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid; if it is a crowd of
      ten thousand&mdash;ten thousand proud, untamed democrats, horny-handed
      sons of toil and of politics, and fliers of the eagle&mdash;there isn't
      one who is trying to keep out of range, there isn't one who isn't plainly
      meditating a purchase of the paper in the morning, with the intention of
      hunting himself out in the picture and of framing and keeping it if he
      shall find so much of his person in it as his starboard ear.
    </p>
    <p>
      We all love to get some of the drippings of Conspicuousness, and we will
      put up with a single, humble drip, if we can't get any more. We may
      pretend otherwise, in conversation; but we can't pretend it to ourselves
      privately&mdash;and we don't. We do confess in public that we are the
      noblest work of God, being moved to it by long habit, and teaching, and
      superstition; but deep down in the secret places of our souls we recognize
      that, if we <i>are </i>the noblest work, the less said about it the
      better.
    </p>
    <p>
      We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles&mdash;a
      fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they are
      genuine or pinchbeck. We forget that whatever a Southerner likes the rest
      of the human race likes, and that there is no law of predilection lodged
      in one people that is absent from another people. There is no variety in
      the human race. We are all children, all children of the one Adam, and we
      love toys. We can soon acquire that Southern disease if some one will give
      it a start. It already has a start, in fact. I have been personally
      acquainted with over eighty-four thousand persons who, at one time or
      another in their lives, have served for a year or two on the staffs of our
      multitudinous governors, and through that fatality have been generals
      temporarily, and colonels temporarily, and judge-advocates temporarily;
      but I have known only nine among them who could be hired to let the title
      go when it ceased to be legitimate. I know thousands and thousands of
      governors who ceased to be governors away back in the last century; but I
      am acquainted with only three who would answer your letter if you failed
      to call them &ldquo;Governor&rdquo; in it. I know acres and acres of men who have done
      time in a legislature in prehistoric days, but among them is not half an
      acre whose resentment you would not raise if you addressed them as &ldquo;Mr.&rdquo;
       instead of &ldquo;Hon.&rdquo; The first thing a legislature does is to convene in an
      impressive legislative attitude, and get itself photographed. Each member
      frames his copy and takes it to the woods and hangs it up in the most
      aggressively conspicuous place in his house; and if you visit the house
      and fail to inquire what that accumulation is, the conversation will be
      brought around to it by that aforetime legislator, and he will show you a
      figure in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated with
      the smut of his finger-marks, and say with a solemn joy, &ldquo;It's me!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Have you ever seen a country Congressman enter the hotel breakfast-room in
      Washington with his letters?&mdash;and sit at his table and let on to read
      them?&mdash;and wrinkle his brows and frown statesman-like?&mdash;keeping
      a furtive watch-out over his glasses all the while to see if he is being
      observed and admired?&mdash;those same old letters which he fetches in
      every morning? Have you seen it? Have you seen him show off? It is <i>the</i>
      sight of the national capital. Except one; a pathetic one. That is the
      ex-Congressman: the poor fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year
      taste of glory and of fictitious consequence; who has been superseded, and
      ought to take his heartbreak home and hide it, but cannot tear himself
      away from the scene of his lost little grandeur; and so he lingers, and
      still lingers, year after year, unconsidered, sometimes snubbed, ashamed
      of his fallen estate, and valiantly trying to look otherwise; dreary and
      depressed, but counterfeiting breeziness and gaiety, hailing with chummy
      familiarity, which is not always welcomed, the more-fortunates who are
      still in place and were once his mates. Have you seen him? He clings
      piteously to the one little shred that is left of his departed distinction&mdash;the
      &ldquo;privilege of the floor&rdquo;; and works it hard and gets what he can out of
      it. That is the saddest figure I know of.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, we do so love our little distinctions! And then we loftily scoff at a
      Prince for enjoying his larger ones; forgetting that if we only had his
      chance&mdash;ah! &ldquo;Senator&rdquo; is not a legitimate title. A Senator has no
      more right to be addressed by it than have you or I; but, in the several
      state capitals and in Washington, there are five thousand Senators who
      take very kindly to that fiction, and who purr gratefully when you call
      them by it&mdash;which you may do quite unrebuked. Then those same
      Senators smile at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of
      the South!
    </p>
    <p>
      Indeed, we do love our distinctions, get them how we may. And we work them
      for all they are worth. In prayer we call ourselves &ldquo;worms of the dust,&rdquo;
       but it is only on a sort of tacit understanding that the remark shall not
      be taken at par.<i> We</i>&mdash;worms of the dust! Oh, no, we are not
      that. Except in fact; and we do not deal much in fact when we are
      contemplating ourselves.
    </p>
    <p>
      As a race, we do certainly love a lord&mdash;let him be Croker, or a duke,
      or a prize-fighter, or whatever other personage shall chance to be the
      head of our group. Many years ago, I saw a greasy youth in overalls
      standing by the <i>Herald </i>office, with an expectant look in his face.
      Soon a large man passed out, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. That was
      what the boy was waiting for&mdash;the large man's notice. The pat made
      him proud and happy, and the exultation inside of him shone out through
      his eyes; and his mates were there to see the pat and envy it and wish
      they could have that glory. The boy belonged down cellar in the
      press-room, the large man was king of the upper floors, foreman of the
      composing-room. The light in the boy's face was worship, the foreman was
      his lord, head of his group. The pat was an accolade. It was as precious
      to the boy as it would have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and
      the accolade had been delivered by his sovereign with a sword. The
      quintessence of the honor was all there; there was no difference in
      values; in truth there was no difference present except an artificial one&mdash;clothes.
    </p>
    <p>
      All the human race loves a lord&mdash;that is, loves to look upon or be
      noticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness; and sometimes
      animals, born to better things and higher ideals, descend to man's level
      in this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes I have see a cat that was so
      vain of being the personal friend of an elephant that I was ashamed of
      her.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0055" id="link2H_4_0055">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY
    </h2>
    <p>
      MONDAY.&mdash;This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the
      way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like
      this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other
      animals.... Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain....
      <i>We?</i> Where did I get that word&mdash;the new creature uses it.
    </p>
    <p>
      TUESDAY.&mdash;Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing
      on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls&mdash;why,
      I am sure I do not know. Says it <i>looks </i>like Niagara Falls. That is
      not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to
      name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along,
      before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered&mdash;it
      <i>looks </i>like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the
      moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it &ldquo;looks like a dodo.&rdquo;
       It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it,
      and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.
    </p>
    <p>
      WEDNESDAY.&mdash;Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have
      it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it
      out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with
      the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals
      make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always
      talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but
      I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any
      new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these
      dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new
      sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear,
      first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds that
      are more or less distant from me.
    </p>
    <p>
      FRIDAY. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I
      had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty&mdash;<i>Garden
      Of Eden.</i> Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer
      publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and
      therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it <i>looks </i>like a
      park, and does not look like anything <i>but </i>a park. Consequently,
      without consulting me, it has been new-named <i>Niagara Falls Park</i>.
      This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a
      sign up:
    </p>
    <h3>
      KEEP OFF THE GRASS
    </h3>
    <p>
      My life is not as happy as it was.
    </p>
    <p>
      SATURDAY.&mdash;The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run
      short, most likely. &ldquo;We&rdquo; again&mdash;that is <i>its</i> word; mine, too,
      now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go
      out in the fog myself. This new creature does. It goes out in all
      weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to
      be so pleasant and quiet here.
    </p>
    <p>
      SUNDAY.&mdash;Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more
      trying. It was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I
      had already six of them per week before. This morning found the new
      creature trying to clod apples out of that forbidden tree.
    </p>
    <p>
      MONDAY.&mdash;The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I
      have no objections. Says it is to call it by, when I want it to come. I
      said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its
      respect; and indeed it is a large, good word and will bear repetition. It
      says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is
      all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by
      herself and not talk.
    </p>
    <p>
      TUESDAY.&mdash;She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and
      offensive signs:
    </p>
    <h5>
      This way to the Whirlpool
    </h5>
    <h5>
      This way to Goat Island
    </h5>
    <h5>
      Cave of the Winds this way
    </h5>
    <p>
      She says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there was any custom
      for it. Summer resort&mdash;another invention of hers&mdash;just words,
      without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask
      her, she has such a rage for explaining.
    </p>
    <p>
      FRIDAY.&mdash;She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls.
      What harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I have
      always done it&mdash;always liked the plunge, and coolness. I supposed it
      was what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and
      they must have been made for something. She says they were only made for
      scenery&mdash;like the rhinoceros and the mastodon.
    </p>
    <p>
      I went over the Falls in a barrel&mdash;not satisfactory to her. Went over
      in a tub&mdash;still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids
      in a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about
      my extravagance. I am too much hampered here. What I need is a change of
      scene.
    </p>
    <p>
      SATURDAY.&mdash;I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days, and
      built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as
      well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has
      tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and
      shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to
      return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers.
      She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to study out why
      the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as
      she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were
      intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be
      to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand, is
      called &ldquo;death&rdquo;; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the
      Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.
    </p>
    <p>
      SUNDAY.&mdash;Pulled through.
    </p>
    <p>
      MONDAY.&mdash;I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to
      rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea. ... She has
      been climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody was
      looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing
      any dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification moved her
      admiration&mdash;and envy, too, I thought. It is a good word.
    </p>
    <p>
      TUESDAY.&mdash;She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body.
      This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed any
      rib.... She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not
      agree with it; is afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to
      live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can with
      what is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the
      buzzard.
    </p>
    <p>
      SATURDAY.&mdash;She fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at
      herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said
      it was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which
      live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names on
      to things that don't need them and don't come when they are called by
      them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, she is such a numbskull,
      anyway; so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and
      put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed them now and then all
      day and I don't see that they are any happier there then they were before,
      only quieter. When night comes I shall throw them outdoors. I will not
      sleep with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among
      when a person hasn't anything on.
    </p>
    <p>
      SUNDAY.&mdash;Pulled through.
    </p>
    <p>
      TUESDAY.&mdash;She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are
      glad, for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them; and I
      am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.
    </p>
    <p>
      FRIDAY.&mdash;She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,
      and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education. I told
      her there would be another result, too&mdash;it would introduce death into
      the world. That was a mistake&mdash;it had been better to keep the remark
      to myself; it only gave her an idea&mdash;she could save the sick buzzard,
      and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her
      to keep away from the tree. She said she wouldn't. I foresee trouble. Will
      emigrate.
    </p>
    <p>
      WEDNESDAY.&mdash;I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night, and
      rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear of the
      Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but
      it was not to be. About an hour after sun-up, as I was riding through a
      flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing, slumbering, or
      playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they
      broke into a tempest of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was
      a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew
      what it meant&mdash;Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the
      world. ... The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when I ordered
      them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had stayed&mdash;which I
      didn't, but went away in much haste.... I found this place, outside the
      Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out.
      Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda&mdash;says it <i>looks
      </i>like that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for there are but meager
      pickings here, and she brought some of those apples. I was obliged to eat
      them, I was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I find that
      principles have no real force except when one is well fed.... She came
      curtained in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what she
      meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them down, she
      tittered and blushed. I had never seen a person titter and blush before,
      and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I would soon know how
      it was myself. This was correct. Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple
      half-eaten&mdash;certainly the best one I ever saw, considering the
      lateness of the season&mdash;and arrayed myself in the discarded boughs
      and branches, and then spoke to her with some severity and ordered her to
      go and get some more and not make a spectacle of herself. She did it, and
      after this we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and
      collected some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits
      proper for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but
      stylish, and that is the main point about clothes.... I find she is a good
      deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her,
      now that I have lost my property. Another thing, she says it is ordered
      that we work for our living hereafter. She will be useful. I will
      superintend.
    </p>
    <p>
      TEN DAYS LATER.&mdash;She accuses <i>me </i>of being the cause of our
      disaster! She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the Serpent
      assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I
      said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the
      Serpent informed her that &ldquo;chestnut&rdquo; was a figurative term meaning an aged
      and moldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass
      the weary time, and some of them could have been of that sort, though I
      had honestly supposed that they were new when I made them. She asked me if
      I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to admit
      that I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I was
      thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, &ldquo;How wonderful it is to
      see that vast body of water tumble down there!&rdquo; Then in an instant a
      bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly, saying, &ldquo;It would
      be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble<i> up</i> there!&rdquo;&mdash;and I
      was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke
      loose in war and death and I had to flee for my life. &ldquo;There,&rdquo; she said,
      with triumph, &ldquo;that is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and
      called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval with the creation.&rdquo;
       Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not witty; oh, that I had
      never had that radiant thought!
    </p>
    <p>
      NEXT YEAR.&mdash;We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up
      country trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a
      couple of miles from our dug-out&mdash;or it might have been four, she
      isn't certain which. It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation.
      That is what she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. The
      difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new
      kind of animal&mdash;a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to
      see, it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was
      opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it
      is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let me
      have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature seems
      to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about
      experiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of the other
      animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is disordered&mdash;everything
      shows it. Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when
      it complains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water comes
      out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the fish
      on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and betrays
      sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never seen her do like
      this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used to carry
      the young tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost our
      property, but it was only play; she never took on about them like this
      when their dinner disagreed with them.
    </p>
    <p>
      SUNDAY.&mdash;She doesn't work, Sundays, but lies around all tired out,
      and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to
      amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have
      not seen a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have
      come to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so.
      There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now
      they come handy.
    </p>
    <p>
      WEDNESDAY.&mdash;It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It
      makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied, and says &ldquo;goo-goo&rdquo; when
      it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it
      doesn't fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for
      it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a
      chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around, and
      mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other animal do
      that before. I said I believed it was an enigma; but she only admired the
      word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either an enigma or
      some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and see what its
      arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.
    </p>
    <p>
      THREE MONTHS LATER.&mdash;The perplexity augments instead of diminishing.
      I sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its
      four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four legged animals, in that
      its front legs are unusually short, consequently this causes the main part
      of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not
      attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of traveling shows
      that it is not of our breed. The short front legs and long hind ones
      indicate that it is a of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation
      of that species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never
      does. Still it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been
      catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified in securing
      the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence have
      called it <i>Kangaroorum Adamiensis</i>.... It must have been a young one
      when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five times as
      big, now, as it was then, and when discontented it is able to make from
      twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made at first. Coercion does
      not modify this, but has the contrary effect. For this reason I
      discontinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it
      things which she had previously told me she wouldn't give it. As already
      observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found
      it in the woods. It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it must
      be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find another
      one to add to my collection, and for this to play with; for surely then it
      would be quieter and we could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor
      any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the
      ground, it cannot help itself; therefore, how does it get about without
      leaving a track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch
      all small animals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap
      out of curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never
      drink it.
    </p>
    <p>
      THREE MONTHS LATER.&mdash;The Kangaroo still continues to grow, which is
      very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its
      growth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly
      like our hair except that it is much finer and softer, and instead of
      being black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and
      harassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could
      catch another one&mdash;but that is hopeless; it is a new variety, and the
      only sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought it
      in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for
      company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness to
      or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do
      not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it is
      among friends; but it was a mistake&mdash;it went into such fits at the
      sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one before. I
      pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can do to make
      it happy. If I could tame it&mdash;but that is out of the question; the
      more I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to the heart to see
      it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I wanted to let it go, but
      she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she
      may be right. It might be lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find
      another one, how could<i> it</i>?
    </p>
    <p>
      FIVE MONTHS LATER.&mdash;It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself
      by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and
      then falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no
      tail&mdash;as yet&mdash;and no fur, except upon its head. It still keeps
      on growing&mdash;that is a curious circumstance, for bears get their
      growth earlier than this. Bears are dangerous&mdash;since our catastrophe&mdash;and
      I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much
      longer without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she
      would let this one go, but it did no good&mdash;she is determined to run
      us into all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before
      she lost her mind.
    </p>
    <p>
      A FORTNIGHT LATER.&mdash;I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet: it
      has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it
      ever did before&mdash;and mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall
      go over, mornings, to breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets
      a mouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a
      bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous.
    </p>
    <p>
      FOUR MONTHS LATER.&mdash;I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up
      in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is
      because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned
      to paddle around all by itself on its hind legs, and says &ldquo;poppa&rdquo; and
      &ldquo;momma.&rdquo; It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to words may be
      purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even
      in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear
      can do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general absence of
      fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new
      kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting.
      Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the north
      and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another one
      somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company of its
      own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.
    </p>
    <p>
      THREE MONTHS LATER.&mdash;It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had
      no success. In the mean time, without stirring from the home estate, she
      has caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these
      woods a hundred years, I never would have run across that thing.
    </p>
    <p>
      NEXT DAY.&mdash;I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it
      is perfectly plain that they are of the same breed. I was going to stuff
      one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some
      reason or other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a
      mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get
      away. The old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a
      parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much,
      and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I shall be
      astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot; and yet I ought not
      to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could think
      of since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly as
      the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and
      the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls it Abel.
    </p>
    <p>
      TEN YEARS LATER.&mdash;They are <i>boys</i>; we found it out long ago. It
      was their coming in that small immature shape that puzzled us; we were not
      used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had
      stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I see
      that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live
      outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought
      she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall
      silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us
      near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the
      sweetness of her spirit!
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0056" id="link2H_4_0056">
       <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      EVE'S DIARY
    </h2>
    <p>
      Translated from the Original
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0300.jpg" alt="0300 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0300.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      SATURDAY.&mdash;I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday.
      That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a
      day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should
      remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I was
      not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any
      day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it. It will be best to
      start right and not let the record get confused, for some instinct tells
      me that these details are going to be important to the historian some day.
      For I feel like an experiment, I feel exactly like an experiment; it would
      be impossible for a person to feel more like an experiment than I do, and
      so I am coming to feel convinced that that is what I <i>am</i>&mdash;an
      experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of it? No, I think not; I think
      the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it, but I think the
      rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my position assured, or do I
      have to watch it and take care of it? The latter, perhaps. Some instinct
      tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy. (That is a good
      phrase, I think, for one so young.)
    </p>
    <p>
      Everything looks better today than it did yesterday. In the rush of
      finishing up yesterday, the mountains were left in a ragged condition, and
      some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that the
      aspects were quite distressing. Noble and beautiful works of art should
      not be subjected to haste; and this majestic new world is indeed a most
      noble and beautiful work. And certainly marvelously near to being perfect,
      notwithstanding the shortness of the time. There are too many stars in
      some places and not enough in others, but that can be remedied presently,
      no doubt. The moon got loose last night, and slid down and fell out of the
      scheme&mdash;a very great loss; it breaks my heart to think of it. There
      isn't another thing among the ornaments and decorations that is comparable
      to it for beauty and finish. It should have been fastened better. If we
      can only get it back again&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      But of course there is no telling where it went to. And besides, whoever
      gets it will hide it; I know it because I would do it myself. I believe I
      can be honest in all other matters, but I already begin to realize that
      the core and center of my nature is love of the beautiful, a passion for
      the beautiful, and that it would not be safe to trust me with a moon that
      belonged to another person and that person didn't know I had it. I could
      give up a moon that I found in the daytime, because I should be afraid
      some one was looking; but if I found it in the dark, I am sure I should
      find some kind of an excuse for not saying anything about it. For I do
      love moons, they are so pretty and so romantic. I wish we had five or six;
      I would never go to bed; I should never get tired lying on the moss-bank
      and looking up at them.
    </p>
    <p>
      Stars are good, too. I wish I could get some to put in my hair. But I
      suppose I never can. You would be surprised to find how far off they are,
      for they do not look it. When they first showed, last night, I tried to
      knock some down with a pole, but it didn't reach, which astonished me;
      then I tried clods till I was all tired out, but I never got one. It was
      because I am left-handed and cannot throw good. Even when I aimed at the
      one I wasn't after I couldn't hit the other one, though I did make some
      close shots, for I saw the black blot of the clod sail right into the
      midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times, just barely missing
      them, and if I could have held out a little longer maybe I could have got
      one.
    </p>
    <p>
      So I cried a little, which was natural, I suppose, for one of my age, and
      after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the extreme
      rim of the circle, where the stars were close to the ground and I could
      get them with my hands, which would be better, anyway, because I could
      gather them tenderly then, and not break them. But it was farther than I
      thought, and at last I had to give it up; I was so tired I couldn't drag
      my feet another step; and besides, they were sore and hurt me very much.
    </p>
    <p>
      I couldn't get back home; it was too far and turning cold; but I found
      some tigers and nestled in among them and was most adorably comfortable,
      and their breath was sweet and pleasant, because they live on
      strawberries. I had never seen a tiger before, but I knew them in a minute
      by the stripes. If I could have one of those skins, it would make a lovely
      gown.
    </p>
    <p>
      Today I am getting better ideas about distances. I was so eager to get
      hold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed for it, sometimes when
      it was too far off, and sometimes when it was but six inches away but
      seemed a foot&mdash;alas, with thorns between! I learned a lesson; also I
      made an axiom, all out of my own head&mdash;my very first one; <i>The
      scratched experiment shuns the thorn</i>. I think it is a very good one
      for one so young.
    </p>
    <p>
      I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a
      distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able to
      make out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked like
      one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel more
      curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a
      reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and
      looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it
      stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a
      reptile, though it may be architecture.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was afraid of it at first, and started to run every time it turned
      around, for I thought it was going to chase me; but by and by I found it
      was only trying to get away, so after that I was not timid any more, but
      tracked it along, several hours, about twenty yards behind, which made it
      nervous and unhappy. At last it was a good deal worried, and climbed a
      tree. I waited a good while, then gave it up and went home.
    </p>
    <p>
      Today the same thing over. I've got it up the tree again.
    </p>
    <p>
      SUNDAY.&mdash;It is up there yet. Resting, apparently. But that is a
      subterfuge: Sunday isn't the day of rest; Saturday is appointed for that.
      It looks to me like a creature that is more interested in resting than in
      anything else. It would tire me to rest so much. It tires me just to sit
      around and watch the tree. I do wonder what it is for; I never see it do
      anything.
    </p>
    <p>
      They returned the moon last night, and I was<i> so</i> happy! I think it
      is very honest of them. It slid down and fell off again, but I was not
      distressed; there is no need to worry when one has that kind of neighbors;
      they will fetch it back. I wish I could do something to show my
      appreciation. I would like to send them some stars, for we have more than
      we can use. I mean I, not we, for I can see that the reptile cares nothing
      for such things.
    </p>
    <p>
      It has low tastes, and is not kind. When I went there yesterday evening in
      the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch the little speckled
      fishes that play in the pool, and I had to clod it to make it go up the
      tree again and let them alone. I wonder if <i>that </i>is what it is for?
      Hasn't it any heart? Hasn't it any compassion for those little creature?
      Can it be that it was designed and manufactured for such ungentle work? It
      has the look of it. One of the clods took it back of the ear, and it used
      language. It gave me a thrill, for it was the first time I had ever heard
      speech, except my own. I did not understand the words, but they seemed
      expressive.
    </p>
    <p>
      When I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it, for I love to
      talk; I talk, all day, and in my sleep, too, and I am very interesting,
      but if I had another to talk to I could be twice as interesting, and would
      never stop, if desired.
    </p>
    <p>
      If this reptile is a man, it isn't an<i> it</i>, is it? That wouldn't be
      grammatical, would it? I think it would be <i>he</i>. I think so. In that
      case one would parse it thus: nominative, <i>he</i>; dative, <i>him</i>;
      possessive, <i>his'n.</i> Well, I will consider it a man and call it he
      until it turns out to be something else. This will be handier than having
      so many uncertainties.
    </p>
    <p>
      NEXT WEEK SUNDAY.&mdash;All the week I tagged around after him and tried
      to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but I
      didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used the
      sociable &ldquo;we&rdquo; a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to be
      included.
    </p>
    <p>
      WEDNESDAY.&mdash;We are getting along very well indeed, now, and getting
      better and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more, which
      is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him. That pleases
      me, and I study to be useful to him in every way I can, so as to increase
      his regard. During the last day or two I have taken all the work of naming
      things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has
      no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful. He can't think of a
      rational name to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his
      defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time
      to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this way I have saved him many
      embarrassments. I have no defect like this. The minute I set eyes on an
      animal I know what it is. I don't have to reflect a moment; the right name
      comes out instantly, just as if it were an inspiration, as no doubt it is,
      for I am sure it wasn't in me half a minute before. I seem to know just by
      the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is.
    </p>
    <p>
      When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat&mdash;I saw it in his
      eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it in a way that could
      hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleased
      surprise, and not as if I was dreaming of conveying information, and said,
      &ldquo;Well, I do declare, if there isn't the dodo!&rdquo; I explained&mdash;without
      seeming to be explaining&mdash;how I know it for a dodo, and although I
      thought maybe he was a little piqued that I knew the creature when he
      didn't, it was quite evident that he admired me. That was very agreeable,
      and I thought of it more than once with gratification before I slept. How
      little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it!
    </p>
    <p>
      THURSDAY.&mdash;my first sorrow. Yesterday he avoided me and seemed to
      wish I would not talk to him. I could not believe it, and thought there
      was some mistake, for I loved to be with him, and loved to hear him talk,
      and so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had not
      done anything? But at last it seemed true, so I went away and sat lonely
      in the place where I first saw him the morning that we were made and I did
      not know what he was and was indifferent about him; but now it was a
      mournful place, and every little thing spoke of him, and my heart was very
      sore. I did not know why very clearly, for it was a new feeling; I had not
      experienced it before, and it was all a mystery, and I could not make it
      out.
    </p>
    <p>
      But when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness, and went to the new
      shelter which he has built, to ask him what I had done that was wrong and
      how I could mend it and get back his kindness again; but he put me out in
      the rain, and it was my first sorrow.
    </p>
    <p>
      SUNDAY.&mdash;It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were
      heavy days; I do not think of them when I can help it.
    </p>
    <p>
      I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw
      straight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They are
      forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but so I come to harm through
      pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?
    </p>
    <p>
      MONDAY.&mdash;This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest
      him. But he did not care for it. It is strange. If he should tell me his
      name, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any
      other sound.
    </p>
    <p>
      He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is
      sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is such a pity that he
      should feel so, for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart that the
      values lie. I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is
      riches, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty.
    </p>
    <p>
      Although he talks so little, he has quite a considerable vocabulary. This
      morning he used a surprisingly good word. He evidently recognized,
      himself, that it was a good one, for he worked it in twice afterward,
      casually. It was not good casual art, still it showed that he possesses a
      certain quality of perception. Without a doubt that seed can be made to
      grow, if cultivated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Where did he get that word? I do not think I have ever used it.
    </p>
    <p>
      No, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment, but
      I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank with my
      feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger for companionship, some
      one to look at, some one to talk to. It is not enough&mdash;that lovely
      white body painted there in the pool&mdash;but it is something, and
      something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when I talk; it is sad
      when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, &ldquo;Do not be
      downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your friend.&rdquo; It<i> is</i>
      a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister.
    </p>
    <p>
      That first time that she forsook me! ah, I shall never forget that&mdash;never,
      never. My heart was lead in my body! I said, &ldquo;She was all I had, and now
      she is gone!&rdquo; In my despair I said, &ldquo;Break, my heart; I cannot bear my
      life any more!&rdquo; and hid my face in my hands, and there was no solace for
      me. And when I took them away, after a little, there she was again, white
      and shining and beautiful, and I sprang into her arms!
    </p>
    <p>
      That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was not
      like this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward. Sometimes she
      stayed away&mdash;maybe an hour, maybe almost the whole day, but I waited
      and did not doubt; I said, &ldquo;She is busy, or she is gone on a journey, but
      she will come.&rdquo; And it was so: she always did. At night she would not come
      if it was dark, for she was a timid little thing; but if there was a moon
      she would come. I am not afraid of the dark, but she is younger than I am;
      she was born after I was. Many and many are the visits I have paid her;
      she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is hard&mdash;and it is
      mainly that.
    </p>
    <p>
      TUESDAY.&mdash;All the morning I was at work improving the estate; and I
      purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and
      come. But he did not.
    </p>
    <p>
      At noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all about
      with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers, those
      beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and
      preserve it! I gathered them, and made them into wreaths and garlands and
      clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon&mdash;apples, of course;
      then I sat in the shade and wished and waited. But he did not come.
    </p>
    <p>
      But no matter. Nothing would have come of it, for he does not care for
      flowers. He called them rubbish, and cannot tell one from another, and
      thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he does
      not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky at eventide&mdash;is
      there anything he does care for, except building shacks to coop himself up
      in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons, and sampling the
      grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties
      are coming along?
    </p>
    <p>
      I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with
      another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got an
      awful fright. A thin, transparent bluish film rose out of the hole, and I
      dropped everything and ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I <i>was </i>so
      frightened! But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned against
      a rock and rested and panted, and let my limbs go on trembling until they
      got steady again; then I crept warily back, alert, watching, and ready to
      fly if there was occasion; and when I was come near, I parted the branches
      of a rose-bush and peeped through&mdash;wishing the man was about, I was
      looking so cunning and pretty&mdash;but the sprite was gone. I went there,
      and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I put my finger
      in, to feel it, and said <i>ouch</i>! and took it out again. It was a
      cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on one foot
      and then the other, and grunting, I presently eased my misery; then I was
      full of interest, and began to examine.
    </p>
    <p>
      I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it
      occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was <i>fire</i>!
      I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. So
      without hesitation I named it that&mdash;fire.
    </p>
    <p>
      I had created something that didn't exist before; I had added a new thing
      to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this, and was proud of
      my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him about it,
      thinking to raise myself in his esteem&mdash;but I reflected, and did not
      do it. No&mdash;he would not care for it. He would ask what it was good
      for, and what could I answer? for if it was not <i>good </i>for something,
      but only beautiful, merely beautiful&mdash; So I sighed, and did not go.
      For it wasn't good for anything; it could not build a shack, it could not
      improve melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was a
      foolishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting words. But
      to me it was not despicable; I said, &ldquo;Oh, you fire, I love you, you dainty
      pink creature, for you are <i>beautiful</i>&mdash;and that is enough!&rdquo; and
      was going to gather it to my breast. But refrained. Then I made another
      maxim out of my head, though it was so nearly like the first one that I
      was afraid it was only a plagiarism: &ldquo;<i>The burnt EXPERIMENT shuns the
      fire</i>.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I wrought again; and when I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied it
      into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home and keep it
      always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it sprayed up and spat
      out at me fiercely, and I dropped it and ran. When I looked back the blue
      spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away like a cloud, and
      instantly I thought of the name of it&mdash;SMOKE!&mdash;though, upon my
      word, I had never heard of smoke before.
    </p>
    <p>
      Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke, and I
      named them in an instant&mdash;FLAMES&mdash;and I was right, too, though
      these were the very first flames that had ever been in the world. They
      climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and
      increasing volume of tumbling smoke, and I had to clap my hands and laugh
      and dance in my rapture, it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so
      beautiful!
    </p>
    <p>
      He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for many
      minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he should ask
      such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course, and I did. I said
      it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know and he must ask; that
      was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him. After a pause he asked:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How did it come?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Another direct question, and it also had to have a direct answer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I made it.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge of the
      burned place and stood looking down, and said:
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What are these?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fire-coals.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it down
      again. Then he went away. <i>Nothing </i>interests him.
    </p>
    <p>
      But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate and
      pretty&mdash;I knew what they were at once. And the embers; I knew the
      embers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out, and was glad; for I am
      very young and my appetite is active. But I was disappointed; they were
      all burst open and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they
      were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful,
      I think.
    </p>
    <p>
      FRIDAY.&mdash;I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall, but
      only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve
      the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was not
      pleased, and turned away and left me. He was also displeased on another
      account: I tried once more to persuade him to stop going over the Falls.
      That was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion&mdash;quite
      new, and distinctly different from love, grief, and those others which I
      had already discovered&mdash;FEAR. And it is horrible!&mdash;I wish I had
      never discovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness, it
      makes me shiver and tremble and shudder. But I could not persuade him, for
      he has not discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <blockquote>
      <p>
        <a name="link2H_4_0057" id="link2H_4_0057">
         <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
      </p>
      <div style="height: 4em;">
        <br /><br /><br /><br />
      </div>
      <h2>
        EXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY
      </h2>
      <p>
        Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make
        allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to
        her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight
        when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it
        and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is
        color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky;
        the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden
        islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing
        through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the
        wastes of space&mdash;none of them is of any practical value, so far as
        I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for
        her, and she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep
        still a couple minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In
        that case I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I
        could, for I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely
        creature&mdash;lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful;
        and once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a
        boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes,
        watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was
        beautiful.
      </p>
      <p>
        MONDAY NOON.&mdash;If there is anything on the planet that she is not
        interested in it is not in my list. There are animals that I am
        indifferent to, but it is not so with her. She has no discrimination,
        she takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new
        one is welcome.
      </p>
      <p>
        When the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as
        an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of the
        lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to
        domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move
        out. She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a
        good pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long
        would be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the
        best intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the
        house and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it
        was absent-minded.
      </p>
      <p>
        Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn't give
        it up. She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to help
        milk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky. The sex wasn't right, and we
        hadn't any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the
        scenery. Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like
        a fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken;
        when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and
        would have hurt herself but for me.
      </p>
      <p>
        Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration;
        untested theories are not in her line, and she won't have them. It is
        the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the influence of
        it; if I were with her more I think I should take it up myself. Well,
        she had one theory remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we
        could tame it and make him friendly we could stand him in the river and
        use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty tame
        enough&mdash;at least as far as she was concerned&mdash;so she tried her
        theory, but it failed: every time she got him properly placed in the
        river and went ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her
        around like a pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.
      </p>
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <p>
      FRIDAY.&mdash;Tuesday&mdash;Wednesday&mdash;Thursday&mdash;and today: all
      without seeing him. It is a long time to be alone; still, it is better to
      be alone than unwelcome.
    </p>
    <p>
      I <i>had </i>to have company&mdash;I was made for it, I think&mdash;so I
      made friends with the animals. They are just charming, and they have the
      kindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they
      never let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag their
      tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or an
      excursion or anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect
      gentlemen. All these days we have had such good times, and it hasn't been
      lonesome for me, ever. Lonesome! No, I should say not. Why, there's always
      a swarm of them around&mdash;sometimes as much as four or five acres&mdash;you
      can't count them; and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out
      over the furry expanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color
      and frisking sheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes, that you
      might think it was a lake, only you know it isn't; and there's storms of
      sociable birds, and hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun strikes
      all that feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the colors you
      can think of, enough to put your eyes out.
    </p>
    <p>
      We have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;
      almost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler, and the only
      one. When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight&mdash;there's
      nothing like it anywhere. For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because
      it is soft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such
      pretty animals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant.
      He hoists me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself; when we are
      ready to camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.
    </p>
    <p>
      The birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no
      disputes about anything. They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it
      must be a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word they say; yet
      they often understand me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the
      elephant. It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I am,
      for I want to be the principal Experiment myself&mdash;and I intend to be,
      too.
    </p>
    <p>
      I have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at
      first. I was ignorant at first. At first it used to vex me because, with
      all my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the water was
      running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented and
      experimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in the
      dark. I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry, which
      it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night. It is
      best to prove things by actual experiment; then you <i>know</i>; whereas
      if you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get
      educated.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some things you <i>can't</i> find out; but you will never know you can't
      by guessing and supposing: no, you have to be patient and go on
      experimenting until you find out that you can't find out. And it is
      delightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting. If
      there wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull. Even trying to find
      out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and
      finding out, and I don't know but more so. The secret of the water was a
      treasure until I <i>got </i>it; then the excitement all went away, and I
      recognized a sense of loss.
    </p>
    <p>
      By experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and
      plenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you know
      that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing it, for
      there isn't any way to prove it&mdash;up to now. But I shall find a way&mdash;then
      <i>that </i>excitement will go. Such things make me sad; because by and by
      when I have found out everything there won't be any more excitements, and
      I do love excitements so! The other night I couldn't sleep for thinking
      about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      At first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it was
      to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank
      the Giver of it all for devising it. I think there are many things to
      learn yet&mdash;I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I
      think they will last weeks and weeks. I hope so. When you cast up a
      feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw up
      a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it and
      tried it, and it is always so. I wonder why it is? Of course it <i>doesn't</i>
      come down, but why should it <i>seem </i>to? I suppose it is an optical
      illusion. I mean, one of them is. I don't know which one. It may be the
      feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can only
      demonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a person take his
      choice.
    </p>
    <p>
      By watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen some
      of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt, they can
      all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same night. That
      sorrow will come&mdash;I know it. I mean to sit up every night and look at
      them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those sparkling
      fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken away I can by
      my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them
      sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.
    </p>
    <h3>
      After the Fall
    </h3>
    <p>
      When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful,
      surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I
      shall not see it any more.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Garden is lost, but I have found <i>him</i>, and am content. He loves
      me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate
      nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I ask myself
      why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care to know;
      so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and
      statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and animals. I think that
      this must be so. I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not
      love Adam on account of his singing&mdash;no, it is not that; the more he
      sings the more I do not get reconciled to it. Yet I ask him to sing,
      because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in. I am sure
      I can learn, because at first I could not stand it, but now I can. It
      sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get used to that kind of
      milk.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not on account of his brightness that I love him&mdash;no, it is not
      that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did not
      make it himself; he is as God made him, and that is sufficient. There was
      a wise purpose in it, <i>that </i>I know. In time it will develop, though
      I think it will not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he is well
      enough just as he is.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his delicacy
      that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard, but he is well enough
      just so, and is improving.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not on account of his industry that I love him&mdash;no, it is not
      that. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he conceals it from
      me. It is my only pain. Otherwise he is frank and open with me, now. I am
      sure he keeps nothing from me but this. It grieves me that he should have
      a secret from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking of it, but I
      will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my happiness, which is
      otherwise full to overflowing.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not on account of his education that I love him&mdash;no, it is not
      that. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things, but
      they are not so.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him&mdash;no, it is not
      that. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex, I
      think, and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have told on
      him, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too,
      and I do not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then why is it that I love him? <i>Merely because he is masculine</i>, I
      think.
    </p>
    <p>
      At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him
      without it. If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving him.
      I know it. It is a matter of sex, I think.
    </p>
    <p>
      He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and
      am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he were
      plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him; and I
      would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and watch by his
      bedside until I died.
    </p>
    <p>
      Yes, I think I love him merely because he is <i>mine </i>and is <i>masculine</i>.
      There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first said:
      that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and statistics. It
      just <i>comes</i>&mdash;none knows whence&mdash;and cannot explain itself.
      And doesn't need to.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has examined this
      matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I have
      not got it right.
    </p>
    <h3>
      Forty Years Later
    </h3>
    <p>
      It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life
      together&mdash;a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but
      shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of
      time; and it shall be called by my name.
    </p>
    <p>
      But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he
      is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me&mdash;life
      without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is also
      immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race
      continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated.
    </p>
    <h3>
      AT EVE'S GRAVE
    </h3>
    <p>
      ADAM: <b>Wheresoever she was, <i>there</i> was Eden.</b>
    </p>
    <div class="fig" style="width:50%;">
      <img src="images/0325.jpg" alt="0325 " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0325.jpg"><img src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 142 ***</div>
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