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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14509-0.txt b/14509-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a87d68 --- /dev/null +++ b/14509-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7015 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14509 *** + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +_OCTOBER, 1885_. + +ON A TEXAS SHEEP-RANCH. + +I. + +There are words which have careers as well as men, or, perhaps it may be +more happily said, as well as women. Mere words breathed on by Fancy, +and sent forth not so much to serve man's ordinary colloquial uses, +apparently, as to fascinate his mind, have their _débuts_. their season, +their vogue, and finally a period in which it is really too bad if they +have not the consolation of reflecting upon their conquests; for +conquests they certainly have. The great captivators--the Cleopatras of +the vocabulary--one easily recognizes; but besides these there is a host +of small flirts and every-day coquettes, whom one hardly suspects till +they have a little carried him away. Almost every one remembers how in +this light company he first came across the little word _ranch_. It had +in its youth distinctly the _cachet_ of the verbal flying squadron, the +"nameless something," the oenanthic whiff which flies to the head. There +are signs that its best days as a word are now over, and in +contemplating it at present one has a vision of a _passée_ brunette, in +the costume of Fifine at the Fair, solacing herself with thoughts of +early triumphs. "Would a farm have served?" she murmurs. "Would a +plantation, an orange-grove, have satisfied the desperate young man? No, +no; he must have his ranch! There was no charm could soothe his +melancholy, and wring for him the public bosom, save mine." + +I made this reflection during a period of incarceration in a +sleeping-car,--a form of confinement which, like any other, throws the +prisoner considerably on his fancy; and a vision somewhat like the above +smoothed for a moment the pillow of an "upper berth," and pleased better +than the negro porter. Half a dozen of those days of too many paper +novels, of too much tobacco, of too little else, followed each other +with the sameness of so many raw oysters. Then there came a chill night +of wide moonlit vacuity passed on the prairie by the side of the driver +of a "jumper,"--a driver who slumbered, happy man!--and at peep of dawn +I found myself standing, stiff and shivering, in a certain little Texas +town. A much-soiled, white little street, a bit of greenish-yellow, +treeless plain soft in the morning mist, a rosy fringe at the edge of +the sky,--it was of these things, together with a disagreeable sense of +imponderability of body from the cold and sleepless ride, that I was +vaguely aware as the jumper--rigorous vehicle!--disappeared round a +corner. Frontier towns are not lovely, and the death-like peace which +seemed properly to accompany the chalky pallor of the buildings was +somewhat uncanny; but it proved to be only what sleep can do for a +village with railroad influences one hundred miles away. We entered +boldly the adobe before which we had been dropped, and found a genial +landlord in an impromptu costume justified by the hour, an inn-album of +quite cosmopolitan range of inscriptions, and a breakfast for which a +week of traveller's fare had amply fortified the spirit. + +The village was the chief, indeed, wellnigh the only, town of a great +west-by-north county, in which Rhode Island would be lost and +Massachusetts find elbow-room. It was an irregular little bunch of +buildings gathered along an arterial street which, after a run of three +hundred yards or so, broke to pieces and scattered its dispersed +shanties about a high, barren plain. It stood on the steep bank of a +little river, and over against it, on a naked hill, was Uncle Sam's +military village,--a fort by courtesy,--where, when not sleeping, black +soldiers and white strolled about in the warm sun. When the little +street was fairly awake, it presented a very lively appearance and had +the air of doing a great deal of business. The wan houses emitted their +occupants, and numerous pink-faced riders, in leathers and broad hats, +poured in from all sides, and, tying their heavily-accoutred ponies, +disappeared into the shops with a sort of bow-legged waddle, like +sailors ashore. Off his horse, the cow-boy is frankly awkward. Purchases +made, they departed with a rush, filling the glare with dust. Officers +from the post, with cork helmets and white trousers, came across the +river and stood in the broad shadows of adobe door-ways, gaping, and +switching their legs with bamboo canes. "It's magnificent," one seemed +to hear them mutter, "but it isn't war!" Groups of Mexicans stood about, +or, selecting a white wall, leaned against it, as they are apt to do at +home, for the better relief of their swarthy faces and brilliant scarfs; +and slowly moving down the street, stopping occasionally to speak to the +various clusters of men, there went the beneficent if somewhat untidy +figure of the Catholic father, in whose company we had breakfasted, a +fat, jolly, anecdotal inheritor of the mantle of some founder of the +Missions. The sun took absolute and merciless possession of the street. +You put your hand in your pocket for the smoked glass through which you +observed the last eclipse. Everything seemed bleached,--the white +buildings, the yellow road, the eyebrows of the cow-boys. + +We did the drive of twenty miles to the ranch in a canvas-topped buggy, +drawn by a pair of devil-may-care little nags, who took us across dry +_arroyos_ and the rocky beds of running streams in a style that promised +to make sticks of the vehicle. It held good, however, and rattled out a +sort of derisive snicker at every fresh attempt to shiver it. The +country through which we passed afforded views of superb breadth and a +most interesting and delightful quality. No landscape has in the exact +sense such charm as one in which Nature manifests herself in a large and +simple way: one feels with a thrill that she is about to tell the +secret. The earth lay almost in its nakedness beneath the inane dome of +the sky. But over the large simplicity of form one was soon aware of an +exquisite play of hues. The easy undulations, as they ran off to the +unattainable horizon, were so many waves of delicate and varying color. +There were great sweeps of ochre, of gray, of fresh, light green, +pointed with black dots of live-oak, and traversed by tortuous lines of +indigo where the pecan treed creeks pursued their foiled courses, and +troops of little hills grouped themselves about,--pink, pinkish, purple, +purpling blue, white, as they faded from view like the evanescent +cherubs in the corner of an old master. The hills, however, were little +only because the stretch was so vast; it was really a broad plafond upon +which they had solemnly entered to dance a minuet with the playful +shadows of the clouds. The sky possessed everything. There was so much +of it that existence seemed to have become in a sense a celestial--or at +least an aerial--affair: the world was your balloon. + +After the third creek-crossing the road ran straight as an avenue +through a broad, level reach, and we flew along gayly. The little +mesquite-trees, prim, dainty, and delicate, stood about in seeming +order, civilizing the landscape and giving it the air of an orchard; the +prairie-dog villages were thrown into a tumult of excitement by our +passage; a chaparral-cock slipped out of a bush, stared an instant, +pulled the string that lifts his tail and top-knot, and settled down for +a race directly under the horses' feet. We passed the point of a hill, +gained a slight rise, and the ranch was in sight. It must be confessed +that it was not in appearance all that the name might imply,--not the +sort of place for which one starts after having provided one's self with +a navy revolver and a low estimate of the value of human life. It was, +in fact, a very pretty and domestic scene, a little village of half a +dozen buildings and a net-work of white limestone and brush corrals. +Shortly I was supping in a neat little cottage, and endeavoring in the +usual way to be agreeable to some one in muslin. In this modern world we +change our skies, truly, but not--not our bric-à -brac. On the walls of +the pretty dining-room one beheld with rising feeling one's old friends +the Japanese fan and the discarded plate still clinging with the +touching persistence of the ivy to the oak. To be sure, there was a tall +half-breed Indian moving about with the silent agility of the warpath, +but he wore a white apron, and his hideous intention was to fill one's +wineglass. If the longitude had led me to meditate right buffalo's hump, +"washed down" with something coarse and potent enough to justify the +phrase, it was clear that I was painfully behind the stroke of the +clock. Life, good lady, takes an undignified pleasure in arranging these +petty shocks to the expectations, which we soon learn to dismiss with a +smile. The cold mutton and _ordinaire_ were excellent, and we had some +coffee and a cigarette on the piazza. The sun was setting far away +behind a hill on the other side of the creek. A soft sound came down the +valley from a remote flock of sheep. A little breeze sprang up and ran +tremulously about, shaking the tufted grass and the slim boughs of the +mesquites, and putting some question with a wistfully hopeful swish. +Plainly, one could be very much at home here. The visionary brunette had +evidently ranged herself, was living down the reputation of early vivid +experiences and successfully cultivating the domestic virtues. + + + + +II. + + +Six or eight years earlier, four young men had left New York on a +Galveston steamer, their departure being attended by such an assemblage +of young women that on the second day out their companions of the voyage +confided the supposition that it had been a "bridal party." That little +Spanish-American word ravaging our coasts and carrying off the pride of +the youth has to answer for many such bridal parties, whose tours have +been followed with pins and colored pencils and eyes more eager than +those of mothers-in-law. In a month or so the young men had pitched a +wall-tent within a day's ride of the Rio Grande, and were seriously +occupied in sacrificing each other's feelings on the altar of +experimental cookery, in herding sheep with the assistance of paper +novels, and in writing exceedingly long letters to the North. This +wall-tent was the larva of the ranch. But the arid southern country +proved inconvenient, and collecting their effects in a prairie-schooner +and driving their flocks before them, they effected a masterly change of +base, which brought them two hundred miles to the northward and set them +down in a delightful pasture-land, watered by three pretty creeks, near +one of which they erected an adobe hut. This solitary house on a broad +flat, an object of amazement to wandering hordes of cattle, was the +ranch during a most interesting period, and its thatched roof and +somewhat fetid walls became for the occupants overgrown with fine +clusters of association. Within a few miles of its site the present +village took shape. + +The country was a frankly monotonous conformation of alternating hills +and valleys,--"divides" and "draws,"--with wide flats near the creeks. +Gulches, more or less deep, down the valley-lines of the draws, and +traversing the flats to the creeks,--the so-called _arroyos_,--were a +common physical feature. In the wet season they were running streams, +but for most of the year they were dry, with here and there a waterhole, +flowers and chaparral growing in them, and, at intervals, pecans. The +pecan-trees grew thickly along the borders of the creeks, while the +mesquites cloaked with gossamer wide portions of the flats; and here and +there in the valleys and on the sides of the hills the sombre, +self-enwrapped live-oaks stood about, like philosophers musing amid the +general lightness. Spanish-dagger, bear-grass, and persimmon-bushes +freckled the sides of the rocky divides with dark spots, and mistletoe +hung its fine green globes like unillumined lanterns in the branches of +the mesquites. Over the plains and slopes a sparse turf of various +grasses, differing in color and changing with the season, gave the airy +landscape its brilliant and versatile complexion. A dozen varieties of +cactus, portulaccas, geraniums, petunias, verbenas, scattered over the +prairie, morning-glories and sunflowers in the arroyos and along the +creeks, and many a flower nameless to the general, abounded. So, it +should be added, did in their season plover, snipe, ducks, and geese. + +The business of the ranch was the antediluvian occupation of rearing and +shearing sheep, and to that end the village included a shearing-shed and +a large wool-house. Besides these there were three cottages and several +other buildings, among which one called the "ranch-house" was the focus +of the activity of the place, and, being also a survival from a +comparatively early day, was a somewhat characteristic affair. It was a +box-house, painted red, with a broad porch thatched with bear-grass, and +a saddle-shed butting up against it. The interior, barring a little +store at one end, was a single large room, bedroom, sitting-room, +office, furnished with home-made tables with blankets for cloths, +knocked-up chairs with cowhide seats and coyote-skin backs, deers' +antlers draped with "slickers" (Texan for the 'longshoreman's yellow +water-proof) and wide-brimmed "ten-dollar" hats, and at one end two +tiers of bunks, with leather cases for six-shooters nailed to their +sides. This room served for the abode of the storekeeper, for the +transaction of business, and for the accommodation of the perennial +casual guest. It was rude, but, especially of evenings about the lamp, +it had a marked air of pipe-and-tobacco comfort. + +The little store was patronized by the cow-boy, so much abused with +sensational or picturesque intentions, and by the small farmers with +irrigation patches in the vicinity. It was likewise the resort of +Encarnacion and Tomas, and others their brethren, from the Mexican +village a few miles up the creek, or from isolated abiding-places round +about. Here they would come, and, rolling cigarettes of the brown paper +they affect and the eleemosynary tobacco open on the counter, to which +all were welcome (such were the amenities of shopping on the ranch), +they would lounge about, ever smiling and chattering in soft voices, +finally to say '_uenos dias_ with two bits' worth of bacon, or +corn-meal, or pink candy for the _chiquitas_. Here, too, would come +Tomasa, and, with even more than usual feminine zeal in matters of +dress, at once try on the ready-made calico gown she purchased, while +the store-keeper smoked his pipe and stroked his beard. + +Excepting the cow-boys, the people composing the clientage of the store +were for the most part resident in one of two farm-settlements located +on the creek, about ten miles apart, one exclusively Mexican, the other +almost entirely "white." Besides these, the families of many of the +Mexican hands lived close by. These last were constantly assisting +conversation at the cottages with such incidents as the following: + +The cook--a tall, gaunt negro of a mediaevally "intense" nature--came +in with an excited manner, followed by Madame Alguin, very much +troubled, wringing her hands, and dissolved in tears. + +"Panchot's little boy," said the cook, "is killed." + +We were naturally aghast. Little Panchot had been _colero_ at the recent +shearing. + +"Is he dead?" we queried hoarsely. + +"He was dead," replied the cook, with seriousness: "he is not dead now." + +With this light and delicate touch the cook swept the gamut of our +emotions from awe at little Panchot's sudden taking off to pleasure at +his speedy resurrection. We repaired at once to Madame Alguin's +residence to view the subject of this miracle: lest the miracle should +not be so complete as one might wish, we carried with us a little +hartshorn and Pond's extract. Madame Alguin's villa was a fine +wide-spreading live-oak, with a tent as a sort of annex, about two +minutes from the ranch. On our arrival we found four Mexican women, +seven children, one man, three dogs, four goats, and several roosters, +gathered round the form of little Panchot stretched beneath the +live-oak. A fire smouldered a little way off, and a cradle hung from the +branch of the fatherly tree. Little Panchot had a nasty cut about an +inch long through his cheek. He had been herding his goats on the bank +of the creek when he was knocked over by a stone from the other side. He +swooned,--then he was dead; he came to,--and, _presto_, he was alive +again. He was soon running about with his wonted friskiness, and making +himself useful in chasing wild tennis-balls. This little boy's mother +was, poor woman, very much of a sloven, but he had a string of little +sisters who were as nice as could be. They went about in white cotton +gowns--amazingly clean, considering that they lived under a tree--tied +at the waist with red scarfs; their black hair was smoothly gathered at +the backs of their pretty heads, and they had a demure and quaintly +maternal air; they looked at you with a tranquil, moon-like gaze, which +seemed to say that their ideas, which were on the way, had tarried for +the moment in some boon southern country. + + + + +III. + + +In riding about the range it was very pleasant to find, as one +constantly did, by the side of some "motte" (Texan for a considerable +cluster of scrub growth), or beneath the shade of a great live-oak, or +on the barren face of a divide, the little canvas A-tents of the +herders, nestled cosily to circular pens for the sheep, and generally +surrounded by brush to prevent the intrusion of inquisitive cattle. +Within the tent a sheepskin or so, stretched on the ground or on a +lattice of branches, for his bed, and without, a padlocked chest, with a +coffee mill screwed to the top, in which he keeps his rations, a skillet +and a few other utensils hanging from the branches of a neighboring +tree, a whitened buffalo's skull for a _metate_, a smouldering +fire,--this little spot, with its surrounding fence shutting out the +solitude, is the herder's palace, schloss, villa, town-and +country-house. "_Seguro_," says Juan, as he lights a brown cigarette and +quenches the yellow fuse in an empty cartridge-shell, "man wants but +little here below." They were a genial and hospitable set, the herders, +and if one arrived about mid-day they would regale him with scraps of +jerked beef, a cake of unleavened bread cooked in the skillet, and +coffee which, considering what it was made of, was a very inspiring +drink. In particular I recall the _pastor_ Patricio, a very pretty +fellow, with curly black hair and black eyes, a fine nose with a +patrician lift to the nostrils, a little black moustache bristling like +a cat's on a smiling lip, a red handkerchief about his neck: he was very +voluble of soft words, and made the waste blossom with his distinguished +manner. A dozen of these camps were to be discovered about the range, +and the brush fences and unused corrals of many more, which had been +used and would be used again as the sheep were moved from +grazing-ground to grazing-ground and portions of the range temporarily +exhausted. + +From his camp the herder goes forth at daybreak with his flock of +fourteen hundred ewes and lambs or two thousand wethers, grazing slowly +toward the creek or neighboring water-hole where at noon he lies up in +the shade; and to it he slowly returns in the cool of the afternoon, the +flock moving in loose order among the mesquites, taking a nip here, a +nip there, but ever hanging together and dependent, the most gregarious +of animals. In their unity of action, in their interdependence and +solidarity, the timid sheep are capable of a momentary suggestion of +awe. About weaning-time a couple of large flocks got temporarily +together, and one could see driven by the herder a compact mass of four +thousand advancing over the prairie with a quick step, "a unit in +aggregate, a simple in composite," their impassible countenances gazing +fixedly forward, resembling, it seemed to me, a brigade going into +action. For most of the year it is thought by no means advisable to fold +the sheep in the corral at night, so they sleep at large near it. +Especially on moonlight nights they are apt to be uneasy and to move +from their bed-ground short distances, when the herder quits his tent, +and, rolling a cigarette, follows his fanciful flock about the blanched +and wistful prairie till they subside; then, throwing his cloak over his +shoulder with the swing of an hidalgo, he falls asleep beside them. + +The herder's incidents are the fortnightly arrival of his rations and +the weekly or possibly more frequent visit of the superintendent to +count and examine his flock and inquire after the general condition of +things. The Mexican herder invariably denies all knowledge of English +and compels one to meet him on his own ground, which, it is needless to +say, is a far cry from Castile; and in encounters between Juan and the +superintendent the fine feathers of syntax are apt to fly in a way I +shall not attempt to reproduce. + +"Good-afternoon, Juan," says the superintendent. + +"Good-afternoon, señor." + +"How's the flock, Juan?" + +"Oh, pretty well, señor." + +"No better than pretty?" + +"No, señor." + +"How's that?" + +And then Juan goes on to explain that the recent unusually wet weather +has made many lame, etc., etc., to which the superintendent listens with +a grave countenance. Perhaps some unfortunate ewe has been bitten by a +"cat," or in some way received a wound in which the fly has deposited +its malignant egg: they lay her on her side and doctor her in company. +Finally, the superintendent gives the herder some tobacco, some +cigarette-papers, and a couple of yards of yellow fuse, and, mounting +his horse, nods farewell, and Juan touches his hat, smiles, and says, +"_Adios_." + +In the ordinary course of events this is his weekly allowance of human +intercourse. It was the common opinion that none but Juan and his +brethren could stand this sort of thing; but what there is in the +Mexican character that adapts him to it only becomes a mystery on +acquaintance therewith. His most obvious and, one inclines to think, his +highest and most estimable quality is his sociability. He has a sense of +the agreeableness of life, with a very considerable feeling for manners. +This feeling makes it a pleasure for him to meet you; it causes him to +put _himself_ into the most commonplace conversation, the simplest +greeting, and make it, in his small way, a matter of art. It makes it a +pleasure for him to call upon a friend beneath the shade of some +live-oak or in a dugout or _jacal_, carrying some white sugar for his +wife or some candy for his little ones. Our instinctive disposition to +infer deplorable lacunae in the region of morals from the possession of +a talent for manners is in the case of the poor Mexican too thoroughly +justified. For him there is no such region; it is an undiscovered +country. He is the lightest of light-weights. When his heart is warmest +he is tossing a silver dollar in the air and thinking; of _monte_. +Cimental herded industriously during the winter, and became the proud +possessor of a horse and saddle, a Winchester, and a big ivory-handled +pistol. In May, shearing going on, he drove his flock to the +shearing-shed, and spent the night at the ranch. In the morning he came +into the store laughing. What about? Oh, he had had a little _monte_ +over-night, and horse, saddle, rifle, revolver, all were gone. He had +been shorn of half a year's growth. But there was still a large deposit +at his bank,--the bank of Momus. + +The herder has, of course, his "consolatory interstices and sprinklings +of freedom;" he undoubtedly mitigates his solitary life by frequent +derelictions, nightly visits to the farm--settlements (or the _jacal_) +which a few possess, and where he keeps, possibly, a wife and family. +But, on the whole, his life, and not unfrequently his death, is lonely, +Just before shearing-time Juan Lucio and his flock were lost. The flock +was found, but not Juan. It was impossible to say what had become of +him: he had a reputation for steadiness, and it seemed unlikely that he +had taken French leave. When shearing was in full swing, a couple of +freighters came for a load of wood. After some talk, they drove off to +camp, a little way up the creek, proposing to return in the morning. +About sunset they were seen slowly approaching the shearing-shed, It +seemed that in watering their horses they had seen a man in the creek. +The small freighter imparted this information in a low voice, with some +hesitation and a deprecatory half-smile. The young and large freighter +stood aloof, with a half-smile too, but he had evidently found the +sensation disagreeably strong. This, it seemed certain, must be the lost +Juan Lucio. The next day, which was Sunday, the ranchmen and a county +officer proceeded toward the scene of the discovery. The shearers heard +of the affair, and paused in the arrangement of a horse-race. They went +in a body to the store and purchased candles, and then the motley +cavalry coursed over the prairie after the rest. They lifted Juan Lucio +from the river and bore him to a live-oak tree, where the coroner and +his jurymen debated his situation. They inclined to think that he had +come to his death by drowning. Then the Mexicans dug a grave for him, +and stood a moment round it with their candles lighted; each lifted a +handful of earth and tossed it in. Finally, they covered the +prairie-grave with brush to protect it from the coyotes, and rode slowly +home in twos and threes. About a month after, a young Mexican rode into +the ranch: he had ridden from San Anton, two hundred miles away, to put +a board cross above his father's grave, marked for him by the +store-keeper, "Juan Lucio, May, 1884." + +The herders on the ranch were all Mexicans, and throughout the county it +was generally so. An old Scotchman who paused one moment to smoke a pipe +beneath the porch was a solitary instance to the contrary. He was a most +markedly benevolent-looking old man, and had about him that copious halo +of hair with which benevolence seems to delight to surround itself. He +had also about him the halo of American humor, having just been up to +answer a charge of murder, in another county, of which he was +extravagantly innocent. He carried a crook, as seemed fitting, and had +with him two sheep-dogs, one of which the kindly man assured us he had +frequently cured of a recurrent disease by cutting off pieces of its +tail. This sacrificial part having been pretty well used up, the beast's +situation in view of another attack was very ticklish. And it had, in +fact, the air of occupying the anxious-seat. The Mexican, it may be +added, uses neither dog nor crook. He may have a cur or _pillone_ to +share his solitude, but its function is purely social: for catching +sheep there is his lariat. He is measurably faithful and trustworthy, a +careful observer of his flock, and quick to appreciate their troubles. +Of course he loses sheep semi-occasionally, causing those long +sheep-hunting rides among the hills which the ranchman curses and the +visitor enjoys; and occasionally in winter on cold nights he is +overpowered by the temptation to visit a friend, the whole flock gets +astray, and, fearing consequences, Juan, not stopping to fold his tent +like the Arab, silently steals away. + + + + +IV. + + +The busiest periods of the sheepman's year are the lambing- and +shearing-seasons. The first begins early in March, when the little +mesquite-trees are of a feathery greenness and the brown gramma and +mesquite grass are beginning to freshen, and lasts about six weeks. It +is an exacting time for the conscientious proprietor. He says good-by to +his cottage, and goes off to camp with a small army of Mexicans, who, +proof against the toils of the day, make night crazy with singing, +dancing, and uncontrollable hilarity. He is as much concerned about the +weather as a sailor or one in conversation's straits. His terror is the +long, cold storm which covers the grass with a hopeless coating of ice. +The weakened ewe cannot graze, and the norther comes down with a bitter +sweep to devastate the starved flock. + +The camp is pitched within easy reach of the bed-grounds of two +ewe-flocks, each of twelve hundred, who absorb all the attention of the +superintendent and his numerous aids. Each flock goes out on the range +at daybreak under the charge of two herders. The ewes that have dropped +lambs over-night are retained in the corral with their offspring for +about six hours, or till afternoon, when the lamb should be in +possession of sufficient strength to move about; then the ewes go forth +slowly to graze, followed by their _chiquitas_. The unnatural mothers +who deny their children are caught, with a lariat by a Mexican, with a +crook by a Yankee, and confined in separate little pens alone with their +lambs. If necessary to compel them to acknowledge their maternal +responsibilities, they are kept in solitary confinement two days, +without food. If still obdurate at the end of these two days, mother +and child, marked with red chalk or tagged alike with bright cloth, are +turned out, the herder in charge of the solitaries "roping" the ewe for +the convenience of the lamb whenever the latter indicates a desire for +nourishment. + +The flock grazing out on the range will have gone by noon perhaps a mile +from the bed-ground. Here a little corral is made, and the lambs born in +the vicinity, with their mothers, are penned here over-night, one of the +two herders sleeping with them. In the afternoon the remaining herder +takes the flock grazing back to the bed-ground. The next day, with many +more to follow, repeats the routine of this and its incidents. The lambs +and good mothers of a period of twenty-four hours are bunched together +and placed a little remote from the bed-ground, with a little pen and a +herder to themselves: they constitute a so-called "baby-flock." After +five days the lambs lose their tails and have their ears punched and +marked; on the sixth day they are still farther removed from their +native spot, placed in charge of a strange herder, and become the +nucleus of a so-called "lamb-flock," which, fed from many sources, grows +till it includes six hundred ewes, with their lambs, when it is a full +flock, and is in its turn removed and the formation of a new lamb-flock +begun. During the six days' novitiate of a baby-flock five other such +flocks have been formed: so that, somewhat remotely round about the main +pen at the bed-ground of each flock, there are six baby-flocks, with +their pens and herders and several little prison-pens for unnatural +mothers, with other little pens in which mothers bereft by death of +their proper children are confined with the extra twin lambs of prolific +ewes, clad in the lost ones' skins, in the sure hope that they will +adopt them. The ruse may be said never to fail. The solitary-confinement +pens are in the charge of still another herder, a much perplexed and +irritated man, on whose part considerable swearing--Mexican for small +ills, English for serious occasions--is to be excused. A superintendent +of two lambing ewe-flocks, it will thus be seen, has to oversee eighteen +herders or so, with their charges, besides the growing lamb-flock, all +more or less distant from each other. He is a busy man. His +head-quarters, like those of General Pope, may be said to be in the +saddle. His note-book is in constant use. It contains a record of each +day's births and deaths, of the twins (which are tagged or marked alike +for easy identification) and the still-born, that each bereft mother may +be provided with a foster-child, and the daily count of the +daily-changing flocks. + +The first lamb born starts the refrain, to be taken up as the season +waxes by thousands of others scattered over the range, and swollen into +a roaring, shrieking chorus, as though an enormous public school had +just turned its urchins into the play-ground. A listener standing in the +hall of the Stock Exchange gets some faint idea of it when there has +been a serious break in Lake Shore, say, or when C.C.C.&I. has "gone +off" a considerable number of points. Out of these thousands of voices, +not to be differentiated by the human ear, the ewe knows the note of her +little one with very remarkable certainty, and the lamb the answering +cry of its dam. With this sound ringing in his ears, and daily becoming +more and more insufferable from monotony and increase, the sheep-man +rides out in the morning among his Mexicans, and returns to camp at +night aweary, with haply a couple of little ones abandoned by their +mothers in his arms, to be brought up on that _pis-aller_ of +infancy,--and, alas! occasionally of age,--the bottle. + + + + +V. + + +When the prickly pear had made a golden garden of the prairie and the +heart of _Cereus phoeniceus_ was warm with the intention of lighting its +gorgeous crimson torch on the divides; when the arroyo, but lately a +pretty streamlet, had told wellnigh all its beads to the sun-god, and +had but here and there in its parched length an isolated pool; when the +flock at noon no longer flushed the last teal from the creek, because +that lingering bird had finally winged its way toward Manitoba or some +other favorite retreat northerly,--at this time the constant wind, +gentle but never-failing, and almost always from the south, was +overweighted with a roar of multitudinous bleating and befouled with +dust; for shearing was going on at the ranch. It is a very picturesque +occupation, but it soils the most delightful season of the year, the +fresh month of May, with a fortnight of dusty toil, anticipating the +sun, and not halting promptly on his setting. + +The shearing-shed lay somewhat apart from the other ranch buildings, +with a system of pens at its back, with chutes and swinging wickets for +"cutting out" lambs from their mothers destined for the shears, and +other incidental purposes. The shed was a roof of bearded +mesquite-grass, stayed by boughs and supported on live-oak or pecan +posts, the outside or bounding rows of which were sheathed up with +boards four feet or so, the remainder space up to the roof being open +for draught. On these boards Baleriano Torres, Secundino Ramon, and +others their companions of the shears, who had worked and played beneath +this shade in springs past, had written their names in large characters +of stencil-ink. One could see in the county roofs made of fresh boughs, +through which the sunlight sifted, flecking the swarthy faces and arms +of the shearers and the mantles of the sheep with a very picturesque +effect; but it is probably best to resist the temptation to treat the +shearing-shed as an artistic composition. The ground-plan of the shed +was one hundred feet or so long by twenty-five wide. The floor was of +trampled earth, and on it were placed shearing-tables, s s s, and +burring-and tying-tables, B B. The shearing-tables were about fifteen +inches high, the burring-tables high enough for a man to stand up to. It +is the custom in many parts of the country to shear on the floor. In Mr. +Hardy's picturesque novel, "Far from the Madding Crowd," the shearers +shear in a cathedral-like barn, on a shining black-oak floor,--probably +for purposes of contrast. Round the ranch, however, shearers preferred +very generally the low wooden tables. The space back of the +shearing-tables was occupied, when shearing was going on, by a "bunch" +of sheep admitted through the movable panels from a pen containing the +unshorn: after shearing, they departed through the panels into another +pen, and eventually over the prairie to their pleasant grazing-grounds, +angular and grotesque in appearance, but happy, their troubles past, +their year's chief purpose served. + +[Illustration: Movable Panels. CORRALS.] + +The shearers this year were a band of forty or so Mexicans from Uvalde +and other border towns, jollily travelling two hundred miles up the +country in charge of a _capitan_ and _grande capitan_ responsible +fellows, who had contracted with the ranchmen of the neighborhood to do +their shearing. Early in May we heard of them on the creeks, and made +preparation for them, the shed and corrals being put to rights in every +detail, the supply of bacon and _frijoles_ augmented at the store, and +all hands, including the stranger within the gates, set to hemming +wool-sacks with coarse twine and sailors' needles. One evening, but +shrewdly in time for supper, a couple of Mexicans on horses, thridding +their way through the mesquites, came into the ranch, quickly followed +by others, one or two on _burros_, more on ponies, most on the skeleton +of a prairieschooner drawn by four horses,--and the shearers had +arrived. They were a dark, black-eyed, hilarious set, some forty odd in +all, rather ragged as a crew, but with extremes of full and neat attire +or insufficient tatters according as the goddess Fortune or the Mexican +demi-goddess Monte had smiled or frowned; but all were equally jolly, +and almost all fiercely armed, the greatest tatterdemalion and +sans-culotte of all with a handsome Winchester, in a case, slung over +brown shoulders that would have been better for a whole shirt. The hat, +though cheap, was, even among the ragged, frequently elaborate, and +served excellently to carry off a protruding toe or knee, or to +reconcile the association in one person of an ancient boot with a still +more ancient shoe. Many of these fellows were undoubtedly trustworthy, +other some as undoubtedly, if they had had consciences, would have had +homicides on them; but all were light-hearted. Life is one thing to the +man who lets the breath out of his companion with a knife, and, leaving +his body in the brush, straightway goes about his idleness laughing, and +quite another to him who cannot get over the hideous fact that he has +tied his cravat awry. + +On the morning of the first day we turned out at four o'clock, and, +while we were getting a dew-bite of crackers and a sip of coffee, _el +capitan_ circulated among the recumbent figures that had dotted the +prairie over-night: with a shake and a pull of the big hat by way of +toilet, they proceeded in twos and threes toward the shearing-shed, +their shears in their hands and all their personal property in weapons +dangling about them. The burrers, too, Mexicans hired in the +neighborhood, put in an appearance and ranged themselves behind their +tables, A flock had been penned at the shed over-night, and, while a +fraction of it was being driven through the movable panels into the +space behind the shearing--table, the shearers were ranged along it by +the captain: they hung up their rifles and revolvers to the posts, some +their hats and jackets, and fell to chattering, lighting their +cigarettes, and sharpening their shears. When the supply of sheep was in +and the panels closed, the captain gave the shrill cry, "_Vaminos__" and +all hands rushed in among the frightened animals and dragged out their +chosen victims by the leg. They showed great shrewdness in selecting the +small, the light-woolled, the easy-to-be-shorn. "The loud clapping of +the shears" at once filled the shed, and it was not five minutes before +a light fleece was tossed upon the burring-table, and a grinning fellow +came running up to the ranchman seated in a chair thereon, the better to +supervise affairs, and called out, "Check-e!" amid _vivas_ for the first +sheep shorn. He received a tin token, which he thrust into his pocket, +and plunged over the low platform after another sheep. Calls of +"_Cole_!" "_Colero_" "_Cole, muchacho, echale_" began to ring out, and, +with an answering call of "_Onde?_" ("Where?"), two little, laughing +Mexican boys, with tumbled, curly black wigs, and cheeks like bronzed +peaches, darted about with boxes of powdered charcoal, and clapped a +pinch of it on the cut made by careless shears. The burrers threw out +the fleeces smooth upon the table, and, one on either side, patted them +over with their hands to discover the cockle-burrs entangled in the +wool; these removed, they folded and rolled the fleeces up with care and +handed them to a man who, with the aid of a small, square box, tied them +tightly with two strings, and tossed them out of the shed, where they +were received by the ranchman who was grading the wool and supervising +the packing. + +The packing was done in two frames, seven feet high, in which an iron +ring held the sacks open. To a man on one of these frames the fleeces in +their compact little bundles were tossed up, and he trod them down, +packing them in the sack. Then the sack was let down, sewed up, rolled +to the scales and weighed, marked with the ranch-mark, the weight, the +grade, and was ready for the freighters and a market. About ten +thousand pounds of wool were sheared, burred, packed, marked, and +perhaps shipped, in a day. + +Inside and out, seventy men were at work about the shed: the fleeces +rapidly piled up on the burring-tables; tied and tossed out, they grew +into little mountains, and around the scales for a wide space the packed +sacks cumbered the ground. The ranchmen moved about to see that coal was +used where needed, and that it was not needed too frequently, that +fleeces were not broken, and were thoroughly burred and nicely tied; and +the Mexicans, ceaselessly chattering, singing, laughing, calling jokes +to each other, crying, "Viva Rito!" "Viva Encarnacion!" ran for their +checks, dashed in for their sheep, and kept the shears clashing, while +the perplexed ewe, with an uproar perhaps more distinctly justifiable, +called to the lamb she had left in the pen, and the lamb answered cry +for cry. All this went on in a strong south wind heavy with dust and the +acrid sheep smell. It was the liveliest possible spectacle of organized +confusion, and the accompanying noise was calculated to split the ears +of the groundlings. As the number unshorn of the installment of sheep in +the pen dwindled toward zero, little groups of unoccupied shearers +gathered round the posts near the low tables, lit fresh cigarettes, +whipped out cards, and started a little game of _monte_ for the checks +they had in their pockets, continuing till the captain's _revenons à nos +moutons_ once more started their shears. The sun crept up in the sky, a +fitting cessation occurred, and, a ranchman having given the signal, a +tide set in for the cook-house and breakfast. + +In Mr. Hardy's story, just mentioned, his hero performs rather a feat in +shearing three and a half pounds of washed wool in twenty-three and +one-half minutes, A Mexican would have to take a reef in his big hat if +he could not do better than that. His tin check is worth four and a half +cents to him, and a fair hand ought to have at least fifty in his pocket +at sunset, in return for as many seven-pound unwashed fleeces,--always +provided he has not sacrificed them to _monte_ during the day. A +first-rate man will have seventy, and, if called upon to show what he is +made of, will shear a heavy-woolled wether in six minutes. At evening +each shearer turns in his checks, and receives in return a signed paper +with his name and their number. + +The interior of the shed when shearing is at its height commends itself +very forcibly to the attention of the artist. The heaps of fleeces, +mellow masses of gray, yellow, and white, the throng of anxious sheep, +watching with painful interest their companions struggling in the +swarthy arms of the stalwart, bare-chested shearers, saddles, broad +sombreros, whips, and weapons grouped in so many pendent escutcheons of +the great Mexican vagabond family, the flitting _coleritos_, the scarfed +shearers themselves, all are so many veritable "bits." But it is not +only that the details are good: they compose admirably about the long +aisle, with here and there a dagger of sharp light thrust into the +shade, and without, the luminous clouds of dust. The shearer puts one +foot on the low table, the neck of the sheep resting over his knee, and +its fleece rolling off like a robe; his broad chest is thrown out, his +head back, his nostrils vent smoke like an angry god's, and his glancing +white teeth, disclosed in a broad smile, tightly grip a cigarette. He is +chattering, laughing, smoking: incidentally he is shearing. + +The presence of the shearers at the ranch causes a flutter in +surrounding Mexican society. They are known to be keen hands, _viveurs_, +jolly good fellows withal, and, moreover, men who can wrestle with +wethers ten hours a day (no light task on the muscles) and yet have +spirit to dance and play all night. So, at evening, the _jacals_--the +little farms and settlements on the creek--are likely to send forth a +contingent bound for the cook-house and a night of it. A harp and an +accordion are found, and to the sharply-marked music produced by this +combination an impromptu _baile_ forms itself. The swarthy sombreros +clutch each other, and hop about, their spurs gleaming and jangling, +their pistols sticking out behind like incipient tails; and soon the +_baile_ overflows the kitchen, and the glowing cigarette-tips circle +like fire-flies to the music in the dark night-air without. In a corner, +against the salt-house, by the light of a fire, a group is gathered +round a blanket spread on the ground, with little piles of silver before +them, over the always-absorbing _monte_; and other groups are very +harmlessly singing. By midnight the music dies away and the dancing +ceases, but the sombreros bend over the _monte_ blanket and the silver +clinks on it till morning. + +About two weeks with days and nights of this character sufficed, with +slight interruptions occasioned by bad weather, to get one hundred +thousand pounds of wool off the backs of the sheep. On Sunday the +shearers would not work: the day was sacred--to pleasure. The store was +thronged with purchasers, the cook-house became the temple of _monte_, +the road a race-track. The ranch had the air of a _fête_. The races were +short rushes with horses started with a jab of the spur or thwack of the +_cuerta_, to see who first should cross a line scratched in the dust, at +either end of which a throng kneeled and craned forward and held out +silver dollars and called bets. + +At length the last sheep was shorn, the last sack marked, the pools on +that interesting figure, the total clip of the year, decided, and the +shearers in motley tableau assembled in the ranch-house, before the +table, to have their paper slips redeemed. They did not understand +checks on San Antonio banks; they "didn't want paper;" they had a rather +praiseworthy doubt of green-backs; they wanted the solid _dinero_,--the +"Buzzard," the "Trade," or the radiant Mexican _peso_. Toward midnight +it ceased to be a laughing-matter, paying off, and one was glad to turn +in even in an atmosphere heavy with cigarette-smoke and not +over-fragrant. Next morning the shearers leisurely saddled up and +disappeared through the brush, the Grande Capitan and Capitan lifting +their hats with grace and dignity and calling, "_Adios_!" They left a +rather relaxed ranch, with a marked tendency toward hammocks and long +siestas, varied with a little mild lawn-tennis at evening in an old +corral, which, by the way, with its surrounding fence to stop the balls, +made in many respects an admirable court. + + + + +VI. + + +Toward the end of August the pluvial god, assisted by the physical +characteristics of the region, provided us with a genuine sensation. +Hitherto we had had mere weather; this was a pronounced case of +meteorology: until then I had taken no special satisfaction in the word. +It had been raining frequently during the month, in quite unusual +volume; the arroyos were pretty brooks, the sides of the divides wept, +and there were wide, soft places on the prairies; the flocks went very +lame from the excessive dampness, and riding was a splashing and +spattering business; but the oldest inhabitant dropped no hint +suggestive of the veritable meteorological _coup_ which was quietly +preparing. + +We retired one night in our usual unsuspecting frame of mind, and awoke +next morning to hear above the dull reverberation of the rain the +booming of a torrent. The arroyo near the ranch was no longer an arroyo, +but a stream fifty feet wide; and on the hither side of the pecan-trees +of the creek could be seen a silver line: the water had already +surpassed the banks. Before noon there was neither creek nor arroyo, but +a river a mile wide rushing down the valley: we knew where the trees had +been, by the swirling waves. A flood is like those serpents which +fascinate before they strike. The monotonous rain failing _ohne Hast, +ohne Rast_, the dead immutable murk of the sky, the rush of gray wave +after wave, induced a state of dull lethargic wonder: the feet--the foot +more, would it accomplish that? Already the floor of the ranch-house was +under water. But there was soon a sufficient dashing about of riders in +long yellow oil-skin coats, and all was done that the situation seemed +to demand or admit of. The culminating moment of the day came toward two +in the afternoon, when we stood on the roof of the ranch-house, with our +eyes glued to a sulphur-colored patch a mile up the valley. It was a +flock of sheep congregated on an unsubmerged knoll in the middle of the +torrent. There was a sudden movement in the mass, the sulphur patch +vanished, and there was borne to us distinctly a long, plaintive cry: +the flock had been swept away. In a few minutes, however, we caught +sight of many of them swimming admirably, and, much to our astonishment, +they found a desperate footing opposite the ranch across the swift sweep +of the arroyo. A dozen Mexicans were equal to the emergency. They +stripped, threw themselves in, stemmed the current, and, with amazing +pluck and fortitude, worked about amid the submerged cactus and +chaparral, which must have wounded them savagely, holding the sheep +together. Finally, after desperate urging, a wether was induced to +breast the rush of the arroyo and landed safely high and dry on the +hither bank, when, thanks to their disposition to follow a leader, all +plunged in, and, after a vigorous push, found their perils at an end. +But the count showed some six hundred missing. + +It ceased raining toward four o'clock, and the sun set in great +splendor. The next day the water had quite subsided, and I went, +unsuccessfully, after plover over the bed of yesterday's river, but the +beauty of the creek had been destroyed for the season. And farther down, +where the flood had come at midnight, it had swept away many lives. + +In November, when the broom on the sides of the hills was a fine +pink-brown, and when the wet places which the flood had left abounded in +jack-snipe and afforded the neatest shooting in the world, I turned my +back upon the ranch, where I had been very prodigal of the best of +riches,--"the loose change of time." I did so with a warm feeling of +regret,--a feeling somewhat tempered by the thought that I should soon +be in a region of homes, constant greetings, and the morning newspapers. +But after a few weeks of the morning newspapers it has been borne in +upon me that a great deal is to be said for the place which does not +know them. + +E.C. REYNOLDS. + + + + +THE LADY LAWYER'S FIRST CLIENT. + +TWO PARTS. + +I. + +Mrs. Tarbell sat in her office, pretending to read a law-journal, but +really looking at her name on the office door; and she was not without +justification, perhaps, seeing that it had taken her six years to get it +there. Furthermore, though it was six weeks since it had been lettered +upon the glass panel, she had as yet found nothing to do but look at it. +She was at last a lawyer; she had triumphed over prejudice and ridicule; +and a young lawyer has three privileges,--he may write Esquire after his +name, he is exempt from jury duty, and he can wait for clients. Mrs. +Tarbell had always been exempt from jury duty, and her brother told her +that, historically speaking, she ought to be called _equestrienne_, if +she was to have any title: so it seemed that it was only left to her to +wait for clients and contemplate her sign. The sign read,-- + +Ellen G. Tarbell, +Alex. H. Juddson, +Attorneys-at-Law. +Commissioner for Colorado. + +Mrs. Tarbell had been a Miss Juddson before her marriage with ---- Tarbell, +Esq. (of Hinson & Tarbell, mourning goods), and Mr. Alexander H. +Juddson was her brother. When Mr. Tarbell died, his widow told her +family and friends that she was going to read law. + +Mrs. Tarbell had always been a woman of progressive notions, but this +was going too far. Her family and some of her friends were short-sighted +enough to attempt to argue the general question,--namely, ought women to +have Rights? When Mrs. Tarbell proved to them that they were both unfair +and illogical, they then said that, though they had no objection to +other women making lawyers of themselves, they did not see the necessity +in her case. + +Mrs. Tarbell replied that she must get a living; and it was quite true +that the late Tarbell had failed a few months before his death, leaving +his widow rather poorly off; for he had not put his property in her name +before making an assignment. And Mrs. Tarbell went on to say that, as +she could not be a nurse, and would not be a governess or keep a +boarding-house, she would read law. It was reported at the time that Mr. +Juddson said he hoped his sister would go and read law, if anywhere, in +Colorado, for which State it was he, of course, who was the +commissioner; but, whether this report were true or not, Mrs. Tarbell +stayed at home and pursued her studies under his direction. + +After going through all sorts of examinations, at which she flung +herself determinedly, and which she kept on passing with the greatest +credit, after meeting with innumerable disappointments and delays, after +being politely told by one judge after another that she was a woman, and +therefore could not be a man,--hence, _a fortiori_, she could not be a +lawyer,--after six years, I say, Mrs. Tarbell succeeded. Her name went +on the list of attorneys. The court-clerk gave her a certificate, and +received two dollars and sixty cents. The newspapers chronicled the +circumstance. Her friends were triumphant. Judge Measy, who admitted her +to the bar, was compared to Lord Mansfield and to Mr. Lincoln. + +But marriage is not the only lofty undertaking attended by petty +miseries. Mrs. Tarbell could bear her great misfortunes with courage and +resolution: as she had great hopes, so she expected great disasters. Not +Lars Porsenna of Clusium himself was more clapped on the back, and +huzzahed after, and backed up by the augurs, nor more frequently told +that he was the beloved of heaven, than Mrs. Tarbell had been by her +soothsayers and partisans. At first this was all very well, but +afterward it grew tiresome. If Mrs. Tarbell, emerging from widowhood and +placing herself in the van of feminine progress, was really a pioneer in +a heaven sent mission (as perhaps she was), there was no need to repeat +the phrase so often. When two or three years had gone by, and it began +to be apparent that Mrs. Tarbell had a long and up-hill struggle before +her, she became very impatient of enthusiasm. She had never liked it, +even when the female welkin (if there be such a thing) had first rung +with applause for her, and now it was painfully uncomfortable. Mrs. +Lucretia Pegley (authoress of "Woman's Wrongs," "The Weaker Sex?" "Eve +_v._ Adam," etc., etc., editor of "Woman's Sphere," and chief +contributor to the "Coming Era;" her friends called her a Boadicea, and +denied that she had withdrawn from the study of medicine because she had +fainted at her first operation),--Mrs. Pegley observed her friend's +shortness of temper, and took her to task about it. "Ellen Tarbell," she +said, "you surprise me very much. Do you wish to give the impression +that your motives are purely personal and--forgive me, but the word is +necessary--selfish? that you have no interest in the movement in which +you are a pioneer? that your heart is not with the cause which after so +many years of weary waiting looks to you for advancement? Mr. Botts is a +most worthy and indefatigable man; perhaps a trifle too much addicted to +repetition for the sake of rhetorical effect,--a thing, I admit, very +trying; but it is of the highest importance (I say this between +ourselves, of course, and you may imagine that I would not give +publicity to such a statement),--it is of the _highest_ importance that +the feelings of our--hem--masculine colleagues should not be--" + +"Yes, yes," interrupted Mrs. Tarbell hastily, "I appreciate that fully, +I assure you. But yesterday evening I was rather tired, and I--" + +"Tired!" said Mrs. Pegley, in the voice of acute anguish which caused +her to be known as a woman of the most extraordinary intensity of +convictions. "It is a wonder we are not all in our _graves_," she added, +in tones whose sombre depth was brightened by a little colloquial +levity, for she felt that she had been too severe with Mrs. Tarbell. +"Still," she continued, "after Mr. Bott's _very_ flattering remarks you +might have spoken with a little more--er--_earnestness_ and--er--_vigor_ +yourself, you know. And for such an audience as we had last night, three +minutes is really--" + +After this, Mrs. Tarbell resolved that her next effort at public +speaking should be made before an American jury, or not at all. Indeed, +she went so far as to think it a great mistake to suppose that woman's +cause could not be advanced without calling meetings and haranguing them +till eleven o'clock at night. Very likely her ideals were still of the +highest order, and certainly she still hoped that when women were +allowed to practise law the law would be so changed that you would +hardly recognize it; but she wanted to carry on her part of the work +occultly and quietly. She had got over a good many of her own illusions, +and she was taking a more practical view of life. She smiled when she +thought of the prophecies which had been made about her, and she no +longer read the paragraphs about herself in the newspapers. She kept her +brother's dockets and drew his papers. Alexander frowned a good deal, +and said it wasn't necessary, but she insisted that she must pay him in +some way for her education. She put his desk in order and gave him new +papers every other day, which practices he never could get her to +forego. In short, she settled down into a routine of study, office-work, +and regularly recurring attempts to _get in_. And when she finally did +get in, she had become a cynic. Everybody remembers, of course, how at +the end of his last term Judge Oldwigg announced his intention to retire +into private life and decline a reelection, and how the managers of the +party in power chose Judge Measy as their candidate for the vacant +place. The prospective judge was waited on privately by a deputation of +Mrs. Tarbell's friends, headed by Mrs. Pegley, and asked to define his +position on the Tarbell question. The deputation did not contain many +voters, and no bargain which Mr. Measy, as he then was, could have made +with it would have increased his majority very largely: as he was pretty +sure of a majority, he must be cleared of all suspicion of making a +bargain. But he did deliver to Mrs. Pegley an oracular answer, which was +in course of time interpreted in Mrs. Tarbell's favor. She came up +before him; Mr. Juddson made the motion which he had so often made +before, and made it, I regret to say, in rather hurried tones, when, to +everybody's surprise, Judge Measy produced a manuscript and read it out, +and proved that a lawyer was a person who practiced law, and that +therefore, as a woman was a person, she could be a lawyer, interspersing +his remarks with graceful historical allusions and several profound +reflections upon the design of Nature in creating the female sex. Then, +acting as man, not judge, he descended to the side-bar, beckoned to Mrs. +Tarbell, grasped her by the hand, and made her a speech. "Madam," said +the courtly judge, "Mrs. Tarbell, I congratulate you,"--which was one +for himself as well,--"and let me add that it gives me the sincerest +satisfaction to be able to testify in this manner to the veneration +which I have always entertained for woman; and I am quite sure that in +no long space of time you will have proved to us that the law cannot say +it has nothing to gain from her refining influence. For I remember my +_own_ mother, Mrs. Tarbell," said Judge Measy. The bar listened in awed +admiration. Mrs. Tarbell bit her lips, bowed, and thanked his honor as +best she could. The idea of suggesting that she was anybody's mother, or +that even if she had a family that was any reason for permitting her to +be a barrister! But from the other side of the court-room was heard an +expressive rustling, and audible whispers of satisfaction were wafted +across the lawyers on their chairs. Mrs. Pegley and her train were +sitting by, radiant, triumphant, majestic. The dignity of motherhood was +vindicated. + +And now that Juddson and Tarbell were moving to their new offices, who +should also at the very same time become a tenant of the Land and Water +Insurance Company but the Honorable Franklin Blood Pope? The Land and +Water Company's new building was in a very desirable locality, and +several lawyers deserted their old nooks and corners to occupy its +spacious and well-calcimined apartments. Juddson and Tarbell took the +rooms on the back of the third floor, Mr. Pope those on the front ditto: +they were very near neighbors. In former days Mrs. Tarbell had often +complained to her husband of Mr. Pope's success. It was an argument that +men had not as much common sense as they pretended to have, she said, or +else they would see through Franklin B----'s absurd pretensions. "Even I +can perceive that the man is a humbug," she continued. "In fact, any +woman could. Why is he successful, then? Why has he an enormous +practice? Why has he been sent to Congress? If it is because he has a +majestic appearance and can talk a great deal, women certainly can +fulfill these conditions, and that by your own account of them." + +To which Mr. Tarbell would answer, "Exactly, my love, by all means; and +so is your friend Mrs. Pegley a great talker, and a fine-looking woman." + +"Then give her all the rights you give to Mr. Pope," cried Mrs. Tarbell. + +"She shall have 'em, and welcome," said Tarbell; but he did not tell his +wife that he had voted for Mr. Pope on the opposition ticket, and had +even consulted him on matters of business,--once going so far as to +suggest to him that a certain proposed alteration in the tariff would +seriously affect the mourning-goods industry,--from which it may be +gathered that it was not from any lack of prudence that Mr. Tarbell died +a bankrupt and left his widow to become a lady-lawyer. + +Mr. Pope himself it was who betrayed Mr. Tarbell's confidence and opened +Mrs. Tarbell's eyes. "Your husband was my very good friend, my dear +madam," said the Honorable Franklin, "and I was proud to call him my +client. Yes, I had the honor of advising him in several matters and of +carrying through some rather delicate negotiations for him. A man of the +strictest integrity, ever genial and urbane, of sound judgment and +independent views, endowed with strong common sense and quick +perceptions. You see, I had the highest opinion of Mr. Tarbell, and have +often wished to tell his widow--alas that I should have to call her +so!--how certain I am that she will succeed in the career she has +chosen, and how deeply I grieve that her husband could not have lived to +find in her a better adviser than I ever could have been to him." + +Messrs.--I mean Mrs. and Mr.--Tarbell and Juddson were just moving into +their new offices when Mr. Pope uttered these kind wishes. He met Mrs. +Tarbell on the door-step: he was standing there, indeed, when she came +in. He was always standing on the door-step: he carried on most of his +business, especially with the politicians, in public. "I beg that you +will use my library on all occasions," he continued, raising his voice +a little. "If I may say so myself, it is rather comprehensive; in fact, +I am very proud of it. And any assistance which I can give you in any +way, my dear madam, will, I need hardly say, be given most heartily." + +Use his library, indeed! Mrs. Tarbell would have been as likely to go to +the Vatican and ask Pope Leo for the loan of a few works _contra +hæreticos_. Why had she and her brother ever come to the Land and Water +Company's building? The idea of meeting the Honorable Pope every day, of +every day beholding his portly figure, statesman-like features, and lion +mane, and acknowledging his bland bows and salutations, was +inexpressibly odious. And, what was worse, Mr. Pope continued to +flourish like a green bay-tree, or like the proprietors of a patent +medicine or a blackguard newspaper, or any other comparison you please. +Feet tramped along the hall, hands knocked at his door, lips innumerable +whispered into his ears, and Mrs. Tarbell sat and looked at her sign, +wondering what had become of all the women who were to have employed +her. She had not said, "Walk in, madam," to one of them; and Mr. +Juddson's clients all regarded her as if she were a curiosity. + +Mrs. Tarbell looked, in fact, like the president of a Dorcas society or +a visitor of a church hospital. She had pleasing features, dark hair, +slightly touched with gray, as became a lawyer of thirty-five, and +dignified manners. She dressed very plainly in a black dress with just +one row of broad trimming down the front, and, though she felt that it +was an abuse of authority, she drew her hair straight back from her +forehead. This question of her hair had given her some little anxiety, +and it had cost her some time to decide what kind of hat or bonnet she +should wear. Alexander said she might use her riding-hat for the sake of +economy, but she had decided on a tweed walking-hat, which could be +taken off very quickly in the court-room. For, whatever she might do in +church, it was now impossible for her to remain covered before the bench +of judges. + +Mrs. Tarbell's desk was in the middle of the back room,--she could just +see the outer door obliquely through that of her partition,--and Mr. +Juddson's was in a similar position in the front room. This was not a +very good arrangement. Mrs. Tarbell could not very well be put in the +front room with the office-boy, and yet the proximity of the office-boy +was not agreeable to Mr. Juddson either. Then, too, most of the books +were in the back room, and so was the sofa: altogether it looked as if +Mrs. Tarbell were the senior. Mr. Juddson was thinking seriously of +having another partition built, and that would at any rate save him from +being asked "if Mr. Juddson were in," for, as every one knows, there is +a vast difference between being asked "if Mr. Juddson be in," and "is +this Mr. Juddson?" But Mr. Juddson had the picture of Chief-Justice +Marshall and the map of the battle-field of Gettysburg, so he was not so +badly off; and Mrs. Tarbell was very comfortable. + +She was just musing over her future, and saying to herself, "When I die, +I _know_ that they will call a bar-meeting, and that Mr. Pope will make +a eulogy on my character," when the door opened, and Mr. Juddson came +in. Mrs. Tarbell returned to business-life immediately. + +"Did you find Mullany?" she said. + +Mr. Juddson, a tall, black-whiskered man of about fifty, rubbed his +hands for a moment over the fire, and then answered shortly that he +_had_ found Mullany. + +"What did he say?" + +"Oh,--what I expected," said Mr. Juddson, turning over the papers on his +table. He disliked unnecessary questions. Mrs. Tarbell had no interest +in Mullany, and the most she ought to do was to ask about him in an +off-hand way in the street-car on the way home. Mr. Juddson discovered +the paper for which he was searching, and turned toward the door. + +"Are you going out?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +The door was already half open. + +"Reference before Murray. Back at one," was all Mr. Juddson deigned to +say. + +"Alexander!" cried Mrs. Tarbell,--when the office-boy was in, she called +her brother Mr. Juddson,--"Alexander!" + +"_Well_?" said Mr. Juddson. He was late as it was. + +"You will make the office very cold if you leave the door--but never +mind. Don't let me keep you. I only wanted to tell you that I should +like to talk to you about something some time to-d--" The rest of the +sentence was lost upon Mr. Juddson, who had already shut the door behind +him, and Mrs. Tarbell felt aggrieved. + +So much aggrieved, in fact, that she found it impossible to return to +the law-journal. + +"I suppose I need a sedative," she said to herself. "If I were a man, I +would put my feet up on the table and light a cigar, or--no! I would +never practise that vilest form of the vice." (What she meant by this +last phrase I cannot imagine, unless she referred to something which Mr. +Juddson had been driven to do because he could not very well smoke while +his sister was in the office.) "What," continued Mrs. Tarbell, "what can +there be to recommend the position?" She looked at the desk. + +"Is it an easy position?" she said. She looked down at her feet. + +"Is it even a graceful position?" She swung herself to and fro on her +revolving-chair. + +She looked about her. The office was empty; the office-boy had gone on a +very long errand. "I will try it," she said, with determination. + +She removed all the books and papers on the right side of the table to +the left side. Then she tilted back her chair, elevated her left foot +cautiously, put it down, and elevated her right, placed it determinedly +on the table, crossed the other foot over it, leaned forward with some +difficulty to arrange her skirts, leaned back again. + +"My book seems to lie very easily in my lap," she said to herself. "And +the leaves turn over quite willingly." + +One page, two pages, three pages. "After all," said she,--"after all--if +one were quite alone--and had been sitting for a long time in another +attitude--" + +Tap-tap! came a timid knock at the door. + +"Come in!" cried Mrs. Tarbell, resuming her former position in a great +hurry, and dropping the law-journal. + +Tap-tap! + +"Come in!" said Mrs. Tarbell, picking up the law-journal. "_Come in_!" +she said. + +And the door opened slowly. + +"Well?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Is Mrs. Tarbell in?" said the party of the knocks. + +"I am Mrs. Tarbell. Come in, please. What can I do for you?" + +"I wanted to see you, ma'am." + +"Take a chair. Well?" + +"I suppose it's April weather," said the new-comer; "but the rain is +right chilly, so it is; like it was a November rain, somehow. Will I put +my umbreller right down here? The spring is dreadful late, and the +farmers is all complainin', they tell me." + +Mrs. Tarbell shuddered. + +The new-comer was tall and gaunt and thin; her shoulders sloped, she +stooped, her chin was up in the air, and she peered through spectacles. +Her hat was rusty, her india-rubber gossamer was rusty, the crape on her +dress was so very rusty that it seemed to be made of iron-filings. Her +cheeks were the color of unburned coffee-grains or of underdone +gingerbread; her nose was long; her eyes, were small and bleary; her +protruding lips wrinkled up as she spoke, and displayed her poor yellow +old tusks; her scant hair was dirty gray, her forehead was bald, her +neck was scraggy: she was particularly and pathetically ugly. Her dress +bagged about over her long waist and spidery arms. No wonder Mrs. +Tarbell shuddered. + +"If I ain't disturbing you, Mrs. Tarbell," the visitor continued, "and +if you _could_ just spare the time to listen to me for a minnit, I +wanted just to ask you for a little advice. My name is Stiles, +ma'am,--Mrs. Annette Gorsley Stiles. Gorsley was my given name before I +was married--But I feel as if I was taking up your time, Mrs. Tarbell." + +"Not at all," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily. + +"Well, ma'am, my husband he's dead, been dead this six years now, and +left me with four to feed, and--well, I don't know just how to begin, +rightly. You see, it's this way. Celandine, my eldest,--that was _his_ +name for her; he had a right pretty knack at names, and was always for +names that ran easy,--Celandine she's eighteen now, 'n' she wants to be +doing something for herself. It drives me real hard to pay for all four +of them out of a sewing-machine and the little I make selling candies +over a counter,--five cents' worth of chocolate drops and penny's-worths +of yellow taffy; never more than fifty cents a day, living where we do, +in Pulaski Street,--and Celandine she's bound to help me some way. The +next oldest to Celandine is on'y ten; and if I was to starve I wouldn't +have him to sell papers or black boots, and his father a foreman; and +the' ain't no call for office-boys nowadays, 'r else it's because +Augustus is so small for his age--" + +"We have an office-boy," murmured Mrs. Tarbell. + +"I know, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles. "Leastways, I guessed as much. I was +thinking of asking you about Celandine." Mrs. Tarbell stirred uneasily, +and Mrs. Stiles hurried on: "Celandine and me we were talking things +over the other day,--we've been reading about you in the newspapers, +Mrs. Tarbell, nigh on to four years now; Celandine has always been a +comprehending child, precocious, as they say, and quick-witted, and +she's been watching your career, ma'am, just as clost as you could +yourself. And the day you was admitted she come home,--a friend of hers +gave her the afternoon paper,--and she says, 'Mother,' she says, 'Mrs. +Tarbell is admitted!'--just like it was a personal friend of yours, Mrs. +Tarbell; and reely, ma'am, I suppose I oughtn't to say it, but there's +been a good many women all over this country felt themselves personal +friends of yours, ma'am, knowing how much there was meant by your +success and feeling how near the question come to themselves; and if +good wishes brings good luck, that's what you have to thank for +succeeding. But Celandine she's an ambitious girl, Mrs, Tarbell, and the +long and the short of it is just this, that she's set her heart on being +a lawyer, and she's either too shy or too proud, mebbe, to come here +with me to speak to you, ma'am: so I just put on my bunnit the first day +I could, rain or shine, and rain it's turned out to be, to say a word to +you about her and just ask you what you _thought_." + +"A lawyer?" gasped Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Yes, ma'am; a lady lawyer." + +Mrs. Tarbell had never a word to say. In spite of having triumphed over +all the arguments, both those epicene and those particularly masculine, +which had been used against herself, she had not now the strength of +mind to use them in her turn. In spite of being a lawyer, she had a +conscience. She had looked forward to taking students, but they were all +to have been Portias, every woman Jane of them; and before her own +learning was fairly dry (which I think an eminently proper adjective to +describe legal learning) there appeared to her an obviously +crack-brained old party in an india-rubber cloak, who kept a candy-store +and wanted her daughter to become a lawyer. No wonder Mrs. Tarbell was +embarrassed. Was she to say to the crack-brained one, "Madam, pay me one +hundred dollars per annum and I will take your daughter as a student"? +On the other hand, how in the name of that Orloff, that Pitt, that +Kohinoor diamond among precious virtues, consistency, was she to go so +far as even to hint to Mrs. Stiles that any woman couldn't be a lawyer? +As Mrs. Tarbell hesitated, she began to fear she was lost. + +"Celandine is a real bright girl," said Mrs. Stiles, who had now +regained her breath. Was this the woman who had knocked so timidly at +the door? "Celandine is a _real_ bright girl; her mind is thorough, +logical, and comprehensive,--that's what Professor Jamieson said, up to +the High School. Them was his very words. Celandine is to graduate this +year: she's in the class with girls two and three years older than +herself, Mrs. Tarbell. It was a terrible strain on me to keep her at +school, ma'am, and again and _again_ I've thought I couldn't stand it, +what with her being in the shop only in the afternoon, and the washing, +and trying to keep her clothes always nice; though she's been as good as +_gold_,--making _all_ her dresses her_self_, and wearing a calico till +you'd have thought the stitches would have dropped right _out_ of it. +And she's ambitious, as I say. She don't seem to be able to face the +idea of going into a store; and, oh, dear me! they're terrible places, +those big stores, for girls. They're as bad as the factories; and +_often_ and _often_ when I see those poor creatures that stand behind +counters all day coming home at night and thinking so much about the way +their hair's done, and then consider what slaves they are, and what +they're exposed to, and how many wicked people are on the watch to work +them to death for no pay at all, and bully them, and to lead them all +wrong, if they can, why, it just makes me think how _sensible_ the good +Lord is, that he's able to take care of them so well and look after them +as much as he does. Professor Jamieson has been as kind as could _be_ +about Celandine, and said he'd try to get a place for her as teacher; +but you can't do that, you know, Mrs. Tarbell, not onless you've got +friends in politics; and I haven't, not one. And a governess ain't often +asked for; and you need influence for that, too. And Celandine, though +she would take copying or typewriting, or be a telegraph operator, her +own idea is to be a lawyer. And I just thought, Mrs. Tarbell, that I'd +come to you and ask your advice; for I knew you'd sympathize." + +"I--I don't know," gasped Mrs. Tarbell. The shock was almost as great as +if she had thought Mrs. Stiles was a client. And what was she to do? +Mrs. Stiles was not asking her to accept Miss Celandine as a student: +she was asking her whether Miss Celandine ought to study at all. Mrs. +Tarbell would have given anything to have a few platitudes at her +tongue's end, but her conscience rendered her helpless. "Well, you see, +Mrs. Stiles," she said at length, "we are trying a--hem--an experiment, +you know." + +"An experiment!" cried Mrs. Stiles, astounded. "Law bless us, you're +admitted to be a lawyer, ain't you? And if one lady can be a lawyer--" + +"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily; "but that is not the question. I +mean that it is not yet certain that women are going to succeed at the +bar." Absolutely, though she was no fool, she had never made the +concession before,--not even to herself. + +"But you are a lawyer," repeated Mrs. Stiles. + +"It doesn't follow that I shall make money at the law," said Mrs. +Tarbell impatiently, but with a sense of her own justice. + +Mrs. Stiles was staggered. "Not make any money?" she faltered. + +"My good woman," said Mrs. Tarbell, "let me tell you that I have not yet +had a single client, that I have not yet made a single dollar!" And, +really, this was rather magnanimous. "The fact is, Mrs. Stiles," she +continued, "it is impossible to say how long it will be before women +inspire public confidence in their ability to do what has always been +supposed to be man's work." + +"Law!" said Mrs. Stiles. + +"And your daughter had better wait till that is settled in our favor +before she commits herself." + +In Mrs. Stiles's cheeks a queer tinge appeared upon the gingerbread hue +before spoken of,--a faint reddish tinge, a sprinkling of powdered +cinnamon and sugar, as it were. "But, Mrs. Tarbell," she cried, "I +thought--why, I thought the courts arranged all that." + +"You don't mean to tell me it was your belief that the members of the +bar are paid by the court?" said Mrs. Tarbell, aghast. + +"Why, no, not exactly," stammered Mrs. Stiles. "But, then, I thought +they--sort of--distributed things, you know. Don't they? I heerd of a +young gentleman who was appointed to be lawyer for a man who cut his +wife's throat with a pair of scissors, and the gentleman had never seen +him before, not once." + +"Did you suppose," said Mrs. Tarbell,--the affair was arranging itself +very easily, after all,--"did you suppose that the judges undertake to +see that the business of the courts is equally distributed among the +lawyers?" + +"I--I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure." + +"My good, woman," said Mrs, Tarbell, with great seriousness, "a lawyer +is just as much dependent upon custom as you are. There are many +confectioners who do a large business, there are some who fail. So it is +with lawyers. And many lawyers have to wait ten or twelve years before +they become known at all. So you see in what a critical situation your +daughter runs the risk of placing herself, and how seriously you ought +to reflect before you allow her to take such a risk." + +She looked anxiously toward the door. At that moment it opened, and the +office-boy entered. She rose instantly, and Mrs. Stiles had to follow +her example. Mrs. Tarbell represented to herself that the rain would not +hurt her, and that Mrs. Stiles must be got rid of, and, feeling that +this could now be accomplished, smiled at Mrs. Stiles in a friendly and +reassuring manner. + +"Who was the gentleman who was ten years before he got any work to do?" +said Mrs. Stiles, standing up very crooked and looking very bewildered. + +"Oh," said Mrs. Tarbell glibly, "that has happened to a great many +lawyers. Let me see: I can't at this moment +recall--Chief-Justice--no--Lord--Lord--Eldon," she mumbled hastily, +"and Lord-Kilgobbin, and Chief-Justice Coleridge, all had to wait a--a +longer or a shorter time. In fact, it is very often a matter of chance +that a lawyer obtains any business at all." She walked past Mrs. Stiles, +and took up her umbrella. Mrs. Stiles followed her with an irresolute +glance. Mrs. Tarbell put on her ulster. + +"Celandine will be dreadful disappointed," said Mrs. Stiles, in a +mournful tone. "And, dear me, Mrs. Tarbell, I never said a word to you +about what she's like; and me so proud of her, too." + +In spite of her success, Mrs. Tarbell was by no means satisfied with +herself, and the pathetic note in Mrs. Stiles's voice proved too much +for her. "Mrs. Stiles," she said, turning round quickly, "perhaps I have +been putting one side of the matter too strongly before you. If you will +bring your daughter here some morning, we can discuss the subject +together for a little while, and I can advise her definitely as to what +course I think she had better pursue." + +The expression of Mrs. Stiles's face changed a little; she seemed to be +surprised and gratified; but it was evident that the overthrow of her +delusions in regard to the remunerative character of the legal +profession had saddened and disturbed her. "It's right kind of you to +take so much trouble, Mrs. Tarbell," she said, buttoning up her +gossamer. "I feel as grateful to you as _can_ be; but I don't think I'll +tell Celandine all you've said, because--" + +"Perhaps it would be wiser," said Mrs. Tarbell impatiently. + +"And then, in a week or so--" + +"Precisely; a week or so." Mrs. Tarbell found that _precisely_ was a +very short and lawyer-like word, so she repeated it. + +"Well, then--" said Mrs. Stiles. + +"Some time during the morning," said Mrs. Tarbell; and she turned to the +office-boy, with whom she began to converse in an undertone. Mrs. Stiles +came walking across the floor, slow and lugubrious. She bade Mrs. +Tarbell good-day. Mrs. Tarbell bowed her out as quickly as possible, +and then waited for a couple of minutes to give her time to get out of +the way. + +But on going down-stairs Mrs. Tarbell found her standing in the +door-way, holding her umbrella half open and peering out into the rain, +Mrs. Stiles explained that she was waiting for a car. + +"They run every two or three minutes," said Mrs. Tarbell sweetly. +"_Good_-day." + +"Here's one now," said Mrs. Stiles. "Mrs. Tarbell, I just wanted to +say--mebbe you might think I wasn't appreciative of your kindness, and +that all I cared about was--" + +"Not at all," said Mrs. Tarbell. "Not at all, I assure you. I +understand, perfectly. You will miss your--" + +"That's so, that's so," said Mrs. Stiles. "Driver! driver!" And she ran +down the steps, flourishing her umbrella wildly. + +Mrs. Tarbell put up her own umbrella, and looked down the street. The +rain splashed up from the pavement, the tree-boxes were wet and dismal, +the little rivers in the gutters raced along, shaking their tawny manes, +the umbrellas of the passing pedestrians were sleek and dripping, like +the coats of the seals in the Zoological Garden. Now that she was rid of +Mrs. Stiles, was it absolutely necessary for her to go out? She +hesitated a moment. + +Suddenly she heard a cry from the street. Two or three men in front of +her stopped quickly, and then ran toward the prostrate figure of +somebody who had fallen from the car which had halted a few steps +farther on. The car-horses were plunging and swinging from one side of +the car to the other; the conductor had alighted and was hurrying back +toward the victim of the accident; the passengers were pushing out on +the back platform. Mrs. Stiles had slipped or been thrown down on the +muddy car-track. Mrs. Tarbell recognized her long black figure as it was +lifted up. A sad sight the poor woman was, her india-rubber cloak +spotted and streaked with mud and muddy water, her head hanging back +from her shoulders, her face the color of a miller's coat exactly,--a +dirty, grayish white,--and her arms shaking about with the motion of her +bearers. She had fainted; her bearers were looking about in the hope of +seeing an apothecary's shop, or some other such occasional hospital, +when Mrs. Tarbell accosted them. + +Mrs. Tarbell stood in the established attitude of a woman in front of a +rainy-day gutter, holding her skirts with one hand and leaning forward +at such an angle that the drippings from the mid-rib of her umbrella +fell in equal streams upon the small of her back and a point precisely +thirteen inches from the tips of her galoshes. + +"Bring her in here," cried Mrs, Tarbell, shaking her umbrella. "Bring +her in here." And she waved the umbrella in an elliptical curve about +her head. + +"Where?" said the foremost of those addressed, an active-looking man +with a red moustache, a wet fur cap, and an umbrella under his arm. + +"Here," said Mrs. Tarbell, thrusting her umbrella at the Land and Water +Company's building. To make her directions more accurate, she went to +the steps and nodded at the hall-way. + +"The lady is my--has just been having a consultation with me," said Mrs. +Tarbell to the man in the red moustache, "and--" + +"Which way?" said he. + +"Right up-stairs: the first door at the head of the stairs, on the third +floor. I think you had better take her up in the elevator, because--" + +"Cert'nly, cert'nly," he said, interrupting Mrs. Tarbell, who had +intended to be as brief and business-like as possible. + +Mrs. Tarbell followed the procession into the elevator, and when they +arrived on the third floor, John, the office-boy, had already opened the +door, scenting an excitement afar off with curious nostril, as it were; +and Mrs. Stiles was duly carried in and laid on the sofa. "John, get +some water instantly," cried Mrs. Tarbell. And at the same moment a +red-cheeked young man bustled into the room and said that he was a +doctor. + +He pushed everybody out of the way, darted to the sofa, took off his +hat. "Heard there was an accident, and if my services--unless there is +another practitioner--thank you, sir, you are doing the very best thing +possible; and now let us see whether there is a fracture," he said. + +The promptitude and directness with which this young gentleman went to +work commanded the attention and admiration of all the spectators. He +asked for water, he called for salts of ammonia, he ran his hands +lightly over Mrs. Stiles's prostrate form, all in an instant; then he +asked how the accident had happened. + +"She tried to get on while the car was going," growled the conductor, +who had accompanied the party up-stairs. + +"I'll _bet_ she didn't," observed the party with the red moustache. + +"Ankle, probably," murmured the doctor to himself. "Possibly a rib +also." And in a minute or two he was able to declare that the injury had +been done to the lady's ankle, the lady herself having assisted him to +this conclusion by coming to her senses, groaning, and putting her hand +down to the suffering joint. + +The conductor frowned. "What is the lady's name and address, please, +ma'am?" he asked of Mrs. Tarbell. "I have to make a report of the +accident." + +"_You_'ll find it out soon enough," said a thin man with a fresh +complexion, very silvery hair, and spectacles. "The company will not +have to wait long for the information." He looked about with a cheerful +smile, and the conductor glared at him contemptuously. "_She_ never +tried to get on while you were going," continued the thin man. "It was +your driver; that's what it was." + +"The lady's name is Stiles, conductor," said Mrs. Tarbell,--"Stiles; and +she lives--dear me!--on Pulaski Street. Can I do anything for you, +doctor?" + +"You might send your boy for a carriage," said the doctor, who was +engaged in removing Mrs. Stiles's shoe. "Nothing else, thank you, unless +you happen to have some lead-water about you." He gave a professional +smile, and Mrs. Stiles groaned dismally. + +Mrs. Tarbell despatched John for the carriage, and then, turning, and +blushing in a way that was rather out of keeping with her tone of voice, +she said, "Now, I should be obliged if you gentlemen who saw the +accident would furnish me with your names and addresses." + +On hearing this the crowd began to diminish rapidly; but the man with +the red moustache set a good example by giving his name loudly and +promptly as "Oscar B. Mecutchen, tobacconist, d'reckly opposite the City +Hall." So three or four other men allowed Mrs. Tarbell to set them down +as observers of the disaster. The gentleman in spectacles was named +Stethson, another man, a tall, fat-cheeked countryman, Vickers, and a +dried up little party, in a Grand-Army-of-the-Republic suit, +Parthenheimer. Mrs. Tarbell had the names down pat, and scrutinized each +prospective witness carefully, as if warning him that it would be no use +for him to give a fictitious name in the hope of evading his duties, as +she would now be able to pick him out of a regiment. + +"I am very much obliged to you," she said, in a stately manner. "Now, +you all agree that the accident was the result of the negligence of the +driver of the car?" + +"Why, yes, certainly," they all agreed at once. + +"Leastways--" said Mecutchen. + +"That is--" said Parthenheimer. + +"How was it, anyway?" asked Stethson. + +"Thought you saw it," cried the others, turning on him instantly. + +"So I did," said Stethson; "but I thought I'd like to hear what you +gentlemen's impression was." + +"Well," said Mecutchen and Vickers, the tall man, together, tipping back +their hats with a simultaneous and precisely similar movement on the +part of each,--nothing is more indicative of the careful independence of +the average American than the way in which he always keeps his head +covered in the presence of his lawyer,--"Well," said Vickers and +Mecutchen. + +Mr. Mecutchen bowed to Mr. Vickers, and Mr. Vickers bowed to Mr. +Mecutchen, with a sort of grotesque self-effacement. Mr. Vickers waved +his hand, and Mr. Mecutchen proceeded. + +"Why," said he, "the lady stopped the car in the middle of the +block,--just like a woman,--got on the platform, car started with a +jerk, and she fell off." + +Vickers and Parthenheimer nodded assent, but Stethson said that _his_ +view of it was that the car started off again while she was trying to +get on. + +"That makes it stronger," said Mecutchen. + +"Well, of course," said Stethson, settling his spectacles farther back +on his nose; and Vickers murmured that you couldn't have it too strong, +as he knew from the point of view (as he said) of cows. "It's wonderful +what you can get for cows," he added pensively. + +"Ag'in' a railroad company," said the grizzled old Parthenheimer, "the +stronger the better, because some cases, no matter how aggerawated they +are, you only git a specific sum and no damages. But a railroad case, +which is a damage case right through, the worse they are the more you +git. I had a little niece to be killed by a freight-train, and they took +off that pore little girl's head, and her right arm, and her left leg, +all three, like it was done by a mowing-machine,--so clean cut, you +know. Well, sir, they got a werdick for six thousand dollars, my brother +and his wife did; and their lawyer stood to it that the mangling brought +in three thousand; and I think he was right about it, too." + +"Six thousand!" said Vickers, with immense appreciation. + +"The court set it aside for being excessive," said Parthenheimer," and +aft'werds they compromised for less. But there it was. And the way it +was done was odd, too. Right arm and left leg." + +"Ah," said Vickers, "living right on a railroad, the way I do, you see +some queerer accidents than that. Now, I remember--" + +But Mrs. Tarbell found this conversation growing quite too ghastly to be +listened to with composure, so she turned abruptly toward the sofa. The +doctor was now bathing and examining Mrs. Stiles's ankle, and Mrs. +Stiles looked not merely the picture but the dramatic materialization of +misery. + +"How do you feel now, Mrs. Stiles? How do you think she is, doctor?" +These two questions were put in Mrs. Tarbell's sweetest tones. + +Mrs. Stiles lay for a moment without answering, but the doctor replied +that he was afraid it was a nasty business. "There is a dislocation, and +there may be nothing more, except a sprain," he said. "But it will be +impossible to tell until the swelling is reduced; and if there is a +fracture of the fibula, why, such a complication is apt to be serious." + +Mrs. Stiles groaned feebly, and then looked up at Mrs. Tarbell with +gratitude. "I never thought to be so much trouble to you," she murmured. + +"Do not think of that for a moment," said Mrs. Tarbell. "If I only had +my cologne-bottle," she said, half aloud, in an apologetic voice. This +was one of the luxuries she had refused herself in her professional +toilet; more than this, she did not allow herself to carry a +smelling-bottle, though Mr. Juddson had told her it could be used with +great effect to disconcert an opposing counsel. + +"I am afraid you are suffering very much," she went on. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles sadly. "If I hadn't only been such a fool +as to try to get on that there car while it was a-going." + +Mrs. Tarbell started. The doctor rose and laughed. + +"You don't mean that," said he. + +"Mean what, doctor?" + +"That you tried to get on while the car was going. All these gentlemen +here say the car started while you were trying to get on, which is a +very different thing, you know." The doctor had evidently kept his ears +open while attending to the sufferer. Mrs. Tarbell, rather red in the +face, kept silent, not knowing exactly what she ought to do. + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Stiles feebly. "I don't s'pose I remember +much." + +"Of course you don't," said the doctor cheerfully. "Bless you, you'll +sue the company and have a famous verdict; I wouldn't take ten thousand +dollars for your chances if I had them. You observe," he went on +confidentially to Mrs. Tarbell, "I am doing my best for the community of +interests which, ought to exist among the learned professions. I raise +this poor woman's spirits by suggesting to her dreams of enormous +damages, and at the same time I promote litigation, to the great +advantage of her lawyer. I think that is the true scientific spirit." + +"I--I--" began Mrs. Tarbell, in some confusion. + +"Beg pardon?" said the doctor. "Well, I must be off. I've done all I can +for the poor woman. She ought to send for her own doctor as soon as she +gets home. I suppose--will you--?" He looked at Mrs. Tarbell doubtfully, +as if wondering whether he ought to take it for granted that she was in +charge of the case. + +"I will tell her," said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"I could tell her myself," said the doctor. "To be sure. Well, if I +could only inform her lawyer what I've done for him, he might induce my +fair patient to employ me permanently." He smiled at his joke, shook his +head waggishly, and turned to look for his hat. + +As Mrs. Tarbell looked after him in some perplexity, John, the +office-boy, came back to report that the carriage was engaged and at the +door; and Mrs. Stiles was presently carried down-stairs again, it being +quite impossible for her even to limp. + +But before she was lifted up she turned her head and beckoned to Mrs. +Tarbell. + +"Could I," she said,--"could I have a case against the railway company?" + +"Ye-es,--I suppose so," Mrs. Tarbell answered. + +"Did they say it was the fault of the conductor that I fell off that +car?" + +"Of the driver,--yes." + +"Well, then, ma'am, would you advise me to bring a case against them?" + +"You had better decide for yourself," said Mrs. Tarbell faintly. But +then, remembering that it was her duty to advise, she added, "Yes, I +think you ought to sue." + +"Then you'll take the case, Mrs. Tarbell, won't you, please?" said Mrs. +Stiles, closing her eyes again, as if satisfied of the future. + +Mrs. Tarbell! There was a general movement of surprise as the lady +lawyer's name was pronounced, and the doctor was so much taken aback +that heh burst out laughing. + +"I'm sure I beg your pardon, Mrs. Tarbell," he cried. "I had no idea in +the world--" + +"Ah," said Stethson, "I looked at the sign on the door coming in. I knew +it was the lady lawyer. My, if my wife could see you, Mrs. Tarbell!" + +"And I never knew who I was talking to!" grumbled Mecutchen disgustedly. + +A quarter of an hour later, when Mr. Juddson returned to his office, +Mrs. Tarbell was engaged in drawing up a paper which ran as follows: + + +ANNETTE GORSLEY STILES } _Court of Common_ +vs. } _Pleas._ +THE BLANK AND DASH } _May Term, 1883._ +AVENUES PASSENGER } _No_. ---- +RAILWAY CO. } + +_To the Prothonotary of the said Court_: + +Issue summons in case returnable the first +Monday in May, 1883. + +TARBELL, +pro plff. + + +It was a _precipe_ for a writ. + +"Alexander!" said Mrs. Tarbell, in an expressive voice, regardless of +the office-boy. + +"Yes?" said Mr. Juddson. The referee had refused to admit some of his +testimony. + +"Alexander, I have a client," said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Do you tell me so?" replied Mr. Juddson absently, as he redisarranged +the papers upon his table. "I hope--Bless me, where _is_ that--? Mrs. +Tarbell, have you seen anything of an envelope?--John, what became of +the papers in Muggins and Bylow? I gave them to you." + +Mrs. Tarbell, deeply mortified, resumed her occupation, and completed +the _precipe_ by writing the words, "Tarbell, pro plff." + +Mr. Juddson's papers were found for him, under his nose, and he was +beginning to say that he was going out to lunch, when the enormity of +his conduct made itself apparent to him. + +"By George!" he said, stopping short, "you told me you had a client at +last, eh, Mrs. Tarbell?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Tarbell coldly. + +"Why,--bless my soul! It's your first client, is it not? And what kind +of a case has your ewe-lamb brought you? Come, tell me about it. I did +not properly appreciate the communication." And he went over to Mrs. +Tarbell's desk, upon which he sat himself down in a position which Mrs. +Tarbell had formerly considered very undignified; but now she could not +help feeling that it was really a legal attitude. + +She looked up with a smile, and then, though with a little shame, +displayed the _precipe_. + +"Well, that's good," said Mr. Juddson. "Accident case, I suppose. What +is it? Death, and damages for the widow?--for I see there are no +children,--or was the plaintiff herself the victim of the accident? Your +sex has finally decided to stand by you, it seems." + +"I shan't send out the writ just yet," said Mrs. Tarbell, blushing. "I +was--wanted to see how the _precipe_ would look. I must see the +plaintiff again, I think, before I advise her definitely to sue." + +"Hasn't she a case?" + +"Yes--but--" + +"What nonsense!" cried Juddson. "Come, my dear, don't be a goose, and +don't lose a return-day. Otherwise, I shall buy you a sewing-machine." + +"Aren't you pleased, Alexander?" said Mrs. Tarbell, with a little +effusion. + +"My dear, I'm delighted. I hope that in five years' time you will be +supporting me and my family. Your sister-in-law will be speechless with +jealousy. I congratulate you. Hum--The Blank and Dash Avenues Company? +Well, you won't have to send John very far with your copies of the +pleadings. Pope was appointed attorney for the company last week, in +place of old Slyther, who resigned, you know." + +"Pope?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Yes,--the Honorable Franklin." + +"Goodness!" said Mrs. Tarbell, in a tone of inexpressible disgust. + +"By jingo; you are not fond of him, are you? Hem! Well, as a general +rule, I should advise you to put personal feelings entirely out of the +question; but, as this is your first case, perhaps it would be just as +well for you to have me with you, and let me--hum--well, let me take the +jury." + +"Alexander! do you think I am _afraid_ of Mr. Pope?" + +"N-no; but Pope is a blackguard, and very shady, and, it might be +unpleasant for you; and I'd do that, if I were you." + +Mrs. Tarbell's spirits rose. "I will do nothing of the sort, Alexander," +she said; "though it is very kind of you to suggest it; and I will--I +will bet you,"--determinedly,--" I will bet you a copy of the new +edition of Baxter's Digest that I beat him." + +THOMAS WHARTON. + + + + +A CARCANET. + +I give thee, love, a carcanet +With all the rainbow splendor set, +Of diamonds that drink the sun. +Of emeralds that feed upon +His light as doth the evergreen, +A memory of spring between +This frost of whiter pearls than snow, +And warmth of violets below +A wreath of opalescent mist, +Where blooms the tender amethyst. +Here, too, the captives of the mine-- +The sapphire and the ruby--shine, +Rekindling each a hidden spark, +Unquenched by buried ages dark, +Nor dimmed beneath the jewelled skies, +Save by the sunlight of thine eyes. + +JOHN B. TABB. + + + + + +IN A SALT-MINE. + + +There were five of us. The little New-Yorker, plump, blonde, and pretty, +I call Cecilia: that is not her name, but if she suggested any saint it +was the patron saint of music. Her soul was full of it, and it ran off +the ends of her fingers in the most enchanting manner. Elise, half +French, as you would see at a glance, was from the Golden Gate,--as +dainty and pretty a bit of femininity as ever wore French gowns with the +inimitable American air. Elise could smile her way straight through the +world. All barriers gave way before her dimples, and with her on board +ship we never feared icebergs at sea, feeling confident they would melt +away before her glance. Thirdly, there was myself, and then I come to +the masculine two-fifths of our party. First, the curate. He was young +in years and in his knowledge of the great world. His parish had sent +him to the Continent with us to regain his somewhat broken health. He +sometimes spoke of himself as a shepherd, and he liked to talk of the +Church as his bride: he always blushed when he looked straight at Elise. +Cecilia liked him because his clerical coat gave tone to the party, and +his dignity was sufficient for us all, thus saving us the trouble of +assuming any. Lastly, there was Samayana, which was not his name either, +from Bombay,--a real, live East-Indian nabob. In his own country he +travelled with three tents, a dozen servants, as many horses, and always +carried his laundress with him. Yet he never seemed lonely with +us,--which we thought very agreeable in him. Crawford had just created +Mr. Isaacs, and we fancied there was a resemblance,--barring the +wives,--and he told us such graphic stories of life in India that we +were not always sure in just which quarter of the globe we were touring. +Both Samayana and the curate were picturesque--for men. Two beings more +opposed never came together, yet they liked each other thoroughly. +Samayana was greatly admired in European society for his color, his gift +as a _raconteur_, and the curious rings he wore. He was very dusky, and +Cecilia, being very blonde, valued him as a most effective foil and +adjunct. We were seeing Germany in the most leisurely fashion, courting +the unexpected and letting things happen to us. + +On the day of which I write we spent the early morning on the Königsee, +in Bavaria, the loveliest sheet of water in Germany, vying in grandeur +with any Swiss or Italian lake. Its color is that of the pheasant's +breast, and the green mountain-sides, almost perpendicular in places, +rise till their peaks are in the clouds and their snows are perpetual. +Stalwart, bronzed peasant girls, in the short skirts of the Bavarian +costume, rowed us about. A few years ago, in answer to a petition, King +Louis I. promised them that never in his reign should steam supplant +them. They laughed happily and looked proudly at their muscle when we +hinted at their being tired. + +We landed at different points and strolled into wooded valleys, visited +artificial hermitages, stopped for a bite at a restaurant connected with +a royal hunting-château, and listened lazily to Elise's telling of the +legends of the region, accompanied by the music of some little waterfall +coming from the snow above and gleefully leaping into the lake. We +crossed the rocky, wild pasture-land lying between the Königsee and the +Obersee, that tiny lake that faithfully gives back as a mirror all the +crags, peaks, and snowy heights which hide it away there as if it were +indeed the precious opal you may fancy it to be when viewed from above. + +We drifted back to the little inn, where we were approached by a +respectful _Kutscher_, who asked if we would not like to go down into a +salt-mine. Whatever we did, it was with one accord, and the answer came +in chorus, "_Ja, gewiss!_" Elise glanced down at her dainty toilet, a +look instantly interpreted by the _Kutscher_, who explained that +costumes for the descent were furnished, that the exploration was not +fatiguing, and that the carriages were ready. + +It was all done in an "_Augenblick_," the bill was paid, the _Trinkgeld_ +was scattered, and we were rattling away through as beautiful a region +as you will find, even in Switzerland. The snow-peaks were dazzlingly +white in the sunshine; in the ravines and defiles the darkness lingers +from night to night; singing, leaping Alpine streams came like molten +silver from the glaciers over the rocky ledges and through the hanging +forests, and a swift river ran through this happy, fertile valley of +peace and plenty in which our roadway wound. The peasants looked content +and well-to-do, and were picturesquely clothed. We stopped an old man +and bargained for the quaint, antique silver buttons on his coat, and +paid him twice its weight in silver money for the big silver buckle at +his belt. We were stopped at the frontier, and accommodatingly rose +while the custom-officers politely looked under the carriage-seats. The +wine we had just drunk was not taxable, while that we were about to +drink was: so we presented our remaining bottles to the officers to save +them the trouble of making change. Up to that time we had turned our +horses to the right: once over the Austrian line, custom demanded we +should turn to the left, a change to which the _Kutscher_ readily +accommodated himself. One is kept geographically informed in that region +by this difference in manners on the high-road in Austria and Bavaria. + +We argued a little about the fittingness of women working in the fields. +Cecilia thought it preferable to washing dishes, and one of us, who +believes herself not born to sew, maintained that to rake hay was more +agreeable than sitting at sewing-machines or making shirts at twenty +cents apiece after the manner of New-York workwomen. But once +indignation and excitement took possession of us all as we caught sight +of a bare-footed, slight young girl toiling up a ladder and carrying +mortar along a scaffold to men laying bricks on the second story of a +new building. The girl had a complexion like a rose-leaf, her uncovered +hair gleamed like gold in the sunshine, her head was exquisitely set on +her shoulders. The curate sighed deeply, Samayana uttered a strong word +in Hindoostanee, and there was a feminine cry of "Shameful!" when the +girl, putting down her load, folded her white arms, whose sinew and +muscle an athlete might have envied, and, with teeth and smile as +faultless as our Elise's, threw us down a "_Gruss Gott_!" If there ever +beamed content and happiness from human face we saw it in that of this +peasant beauty, who had no conception of our commiseration. We gave her +back a "God greet thee!" "All the same," said Cecilia indignantly, +"women should _not_ carry mortar." We had noticed that Cecilia's +indignation on account of the workingwoman of Germany was extreme if the +woman was pretty. + +We came at last to the mouth of the mine, from which issued a narrow +railway for the transportation of the salt-ore, and above, zigzag on the +mountain-side, ran the conduit carrying the salt, still in liquid form, +to the boiling-house. A waterfall four hundred feet high furnished power +for the great pump. About the entrance to the mine clustered a number of +buildings. Many carriages were already there, for it was the height of +the tourists' season, and this was the show-mine of the Salzkammergut. +Some military officers were standing about, a dozen or more natives +lounged on the piazzas, and nearly every carriage contained one or more +occupants, evidently waiting for travelling-companions then in the mine. +There was the fat woman who couldn't think of such an exploration, the +nervous woman who hated dark places and never went underground, a few +invalids and some chattering girls and young men who had previously been +through the mine and had come over from Salzburg for the drive, and some +very fine youths and young women who wouldn't be seen in a miner's +costume. There were a score or more of these travellers, and as many +more coachmen, and miners off duty, hanging about. A building on the +opposite side of the road was indicated to us ladies as the place in +which we were to change our costumes. Now, here was a pleasant gauntlet +to run in male attire! However, a hundred strangers were not to deter +us, and, _possibly_, this costume might be becoming. There were worse +figures in the world than ours, and who knew but this miners' dress +might show our forms to an advantage at which they had never been seen +before? Encouraged by the thought, we gave our treasures into safe +keeping and permitted the attendant to disrobe us. She spoke a dialect +which had little meaning to us, and we carried on our conversation by +signs. + +She hung our habiliments on pegs, giving Elise's a little womanly caress +for their prettiness. She brought in exchange a costume which made us +helpless from laughter, until we were painfully sobered by the thought +of the spectators outside. A pair of white duck trousers that might have +been made of pasteboard, so stiff were they and so defined the crease +ironed at their sides, came first. Our measures were not taken. The +attendant accommodatingly turned them up about ten inches at the bottom, +the edge then coming to our ankles, which somehow looked very +insignificant and as if protruding from paper shoe-boxes that had been +sat upon. These nether garments extended beyond us at either side to +such a distance that that roundness of form which we had fancied this +costume might display was not in the least perceptible. A black alpaca +jacket reaching to our knees came next. These, too, had been warranted +to fit the biggest woman who might visit the Salzkammergut, and one +would easily have taken in all three of us. Elise, always ingenious, +found hers so long on the shoulder that she fitted her elbow into the +armsize. We pinned them up here and pinned them in there, and tucked +our hair into little black caps, and fastened the broad leather belt +about our waists, stuck a lantern in at the side, and announced +ourselves in readiness. The dressing-maid, however, was not done with +us. She brought three very heavy leathern aprons, attached to strong +waist-bands. The leather was three-quarters of an inch thick; and I need +not add that these square aprons did not take graceful folds. Elise, +after regarding the curious article a moment, decided it would be no +addition to her toilet, and politely declined it. Cecilia's _nez +retroussé_ went yet higher up in the air. Feeling that the maid knew +better than I, I meekly put one on as I had been taught from my babyhood +to wear an apron, when a sudden twitch brought it around _behind_. She +quickly adjusted the others in the same fashion. We dared not look at +each other, and each assumed a manner as if attired in the court costume +of the country; but I venture to say that more grotesque, ridiculous +creatures never went out into the daylight, Cecilia, going first, wisely +did not attempt to go through the door full front, and we sidled after +her to avoid collision between our stiff sail-like trousers and the +door-jambs. + +We tried to believe that clothes do not make the woman,--they do much +toward it,--and with an air of great dignity went into the face of that +miscellaneous company, to be greeted with a terrific and tremendous +shout of laughter. A panic seized us, and I found myself standing stock +still in the middle of the road, as if stage-struck, the others running +like the wind. It was for a moment only, and I followed, the laughter +sounding more and more demoniacal to my ears. I was impelled as never +before in my life. Was some one striking me from behind? It was that +diabolical leathern apron giving me a blow at every step, its violence +increasing with my ever-accelerated speed. How grateful the shelter of +that cave-like aperture in the mountain, where stood the gentlemen +similarly attired, the curate so absurd that we forgot all about his +other "cloth" and laughed immoderately in his face. Samayana was still +picturesque. Cecilia was in a rage. "I'll never cross that road again +before those horrid people, if I stay here a thousand years!" she +exclaimed, with flashing eyes; and Elise breathlessly gasped, +"Oh-that-awful-apron! It-beat-me-as-I-ran,-like-a-whip. +I-felt-like-a-donkey-pursued-by-the-donkey-boy!" + +The guide lighted our lanterns, and, with a last hysterical laugh, we +followed him into the earth, through long, narrow, humid passage-ways, +the temperature not unpleasant, other passage-ways branching off and +suggesting the labyrinth which we knew extended for a great distance in +every direction. We finally came to a lighted chamber, the entrance to +the shaft. The flickering lights showed us the end of a great, smooth, +wooden beam, which, at an angle of forty-five degrees, seemed to be +going down into darkness, ending nowhere, as far as we could see. We had +not been prepared in our minds for this descent or the manner in which +it was to be made. The miner placed himself astride the great beam, +keeping his position by holding on to a rope. He put Elise behind him, +and, drawing her arms around his waist, clasped her hands in front of +him. The curate was then requested to mount the wooden horse and embrace +Elise firmly. He hesitated but a moment, and in another I found myself +behind him, hanging for dear life on to the English shepherd, to be in +turn encircled by Samayana, and last of all came Cecilia, doing her best +to get her plump little arms around the Indian. The darkness below was a +trifle appalling. We were cautioned not to unclasp our hands, lest we +should lose them, and naturally we clung the closer to each other. + +There was just a moment of suspense and suppressed excitement, when, +with a sharp cry, the miner loosened his hold, and by the impulse of our +own weight we shot, with a velocity not to be described, two hundred and +forty-feet into the earth. The miner acting as a brake brought us up +gently enough, so that we felt scarcely anything of a shock. Cecilia, to +be sure, left her breath about two-thirds of the way up, and suffered +some inconvenience till she accumulated more, and the curate forgot to +loosen his hold on Elise for an unpardonable length of time, while he +gathered his wits, and I could feel that he was blushing when he came to +his senses. It was in adjusting our attire that we discovered the +necessity and value of our leathern aprons. Had we been plunged into a +pool of water we should have sizzled. They were hot from the friction. +They speedily became our dearest of friends and possessions, for we had +three more of these shafts to slide down, and we grew faint at the bare +thought of losing them. Cecilia, after our second slide, suggested, in a +language the gentlemen did not understand, that she would like her turn +at being embraced, since she always lost her breath at the start and was +afraid. This remark met with no response, as neither Elise nor I wanted +to run the risk of being lost off behind, and felt a selfish sense of +security that made the shooting of the shafts delightful and somewhat +similar to the coasting and sliding down balusters of our childhood. + +We traversed many long galleries on different levels. Through some of +these ran the aqueduct which brought the fresh water in, and another +which conveyed the salt water out, twenty miles away. We were in the +bosom of a mountain of salt rock, which is constantly forming, and is +therefore a never-ending source of wealth. For centuries this mine has +been worked. The salt rock is quarried and carried out in the form of +rock-salt. Another method of obtaining salt is by conveying water into +the large, excavated chambers, drawing it off and boiling down when it +becomes impregnated. This water attracts and dissolves the saline +matter, but, as water cannot so affect the slaty portion of the rock, it +leaves it often in most fantastic shapes, sometimes as pillars or +depending, curtain-like sheets. These chambers kept full of water are +constantly changing their level on the withdrawal of the liquid. After +three or four weeks two feet of the roof will be found to have been +dissolved and two feet of _débris_ found upon the floor. Curiously +enough, this _débris_ in time acquires the property of the salt rock. +There are chambers above chambers, some of them five hundred yards in +circumference, and miles of galleries. One of these chambers, which was +illuminated, showed floor, walls, and ceiling of pure rock-salt, very +lovely in color, though not so brilliant as in the mine of Wieliczka, +which is likened to four subterranean cities, one below the other, hewn +from rose-colored rock. Samayana secured of our guide red, yellow, blue, +and purple specimens. + +The miners are obliged to divest themselves of all clothing when at +their dangerous work, as any garment will so absorb the salt as to +become hard and brittle, tearing the skin painfully. They must be +relieved every few hours, and, though short-lived, they work for a +pittance an American laborer would scorn. + +Descending a flight of steps after shooting the third shaft, we came +upon a scene which filled us with wonder. There, far down in the earth, +lay a tiny tranquil lake of inky blackness, its borders outlined with +blazing torches. At the extreme end were the entwined letters "F.J." +(Franz Joseph), gleaming in candle-lights, and over our heads the +miners' greeting, _"Glück auf!"_ traced in fire. On the pink salt-rock +roof--the miners call it _der Himmel_--rested the fearful weight of the +superincumbent mountain. It was an awful thought, and the curate did not +hesitate an instant in seizing Elise's outstretched hand, as if she were +seeking, and he glad to give, a bit of comfort in this +strangely-impressive place. We entered a little boat waiting to take us +across the Salz Sea to the opposite shore. There was not a sound, save +the dipping of the oar. We tasted the black water. The Dead Sea cannot +be salter. We were hushed and oppressed, as if each felt the weight of +the great mountain-mass over us. + +The miners were not at work on that day, but like gnomes they were +silently coming and going in the shadows, never omitting the "_Glück +auf!_" as they met and parted. There were long, weary stairs to climb. +Finally we came to a little car running on a narrow inclined track. In +this we went rapidly through galleries and dry chambers, and finally +were propelled into the daylight with an unexpected velocity. We had +become quite accustomed to our attire, but declined the proposition of +the photographer, who wished to turn his camera upon us for the benefit +of friends in America, and we gained the dressing-room with much more +composure than we had felt when leaving it. + +It is believed that these mines were worked in the first century; and +many a grave has been opened in excavating which gave up bones and +copper ornaments once belonging to Celtic salt-miners of the third and +fourth centuries. Towers erected in the thirteenth century are still +strongholds. The whole region, too, is full of salt-springs. The lofty +mountains and rich valleys, the sequestered lakes and blue-gray rivers +with their waterfalls, and the old castles, quaint costumes, and +legends, make it a tempting country for such ease-loving travellers as +were we five, and for the intrepid Alpine climber it offers almost as +much as any part of Switzerland. + +That night we drove into Mozart's birthplace just as the Salzburg chimes +were playing an evening hymn of his composing. The curate and Elise +seemed to have found something down in the salt-mine of which they did +not choose to talk, and, as we bade each other good-night, Cecilia said, +"I'm glad I did it, but _I_ wouldn't go down there again: would _you_?" +and Sarnayana and I thought we wouldn't; but the others looked as if +ready to repeat the excursion the following day. + +P.S.--Elise and the curate are to be married, and the parish is to have +a shepherdess. Cecilia, Samayana, and I have no doubt of its being a +love-match. She never could marry him after seeing him in a salt-mine +costume if she didn't love him. MARGERY DEANE. + + + + +ANTHONY CALVERT BROWN. + + +First, as my grandfather used to tell, there were the woods and the +Oneida Indians and the Mohawks; then the forest was cleared away, and +there was the broad, fertile, grassy, and entrancingly-beautiful Mohawk +valley; then came villages and cities and my own unimportant existence, +and at about the same time appeared the Oneida Institute. This +institution of learning is my first point. The Oneida Institute, located +in the village of Whitesboro, four miles from Utica, in the State of New +York, consisted visibly of three elongated erections of painted, +white-pine clapboards, with shingle roofs. Each structure was three +stories high and was dotted with lines of little windows. There was a +surrounding farm and gardens, in which the students labored, that might +attract attention at certain hours of the day, when the laborers were at +work in them; but the buildings were the noticeable feature. Seated in +the deep green of the vast meadows on the west bank of the willow-shaded +Mohawk, these staring white edifices were very conspicuous. The middle +one was turned crosswise, as if to keep the other two, which were +parallel, as far apart as possible. This middle one was also crowned +with a fancy cupola, whereby the general appearance of the group was +just saved to a casual stranger from the certainty of its being the +penitentiary or almshouse of the county. + +The glory of this institution was not in its architecture or lands, but +in that part which could not be seen by the bodily eyes. For, +spiritually speaking, Oneida Institute was an immense battering-ram, +behind which Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, and Rev. Beriah Green +were constantly at work, pounding away to destroy the walls which +slavery had built up to protect itself. + +Mr. Green was president of the institute, and was the soul and heart and +voice of its faculty. His power to mould young men was phenomenal. It +was a common saying that he turned out graduates who were the perfect +image of Beriah Green, except the wart. The wart was a large one, which, +being situated in the centre of Mr. Green's forehead, seemed to be a +part of his method to those who were magnetized by his personality or +persuaded by his eloquence. + +About 1845, when I began to be an observing boy, it was understood +throughout Oneida County that Beriah Green was an intellectual giant, +and that he would sell his life, if need be, to befriend the colored +man. Oneida Institute was a refuge for the oppressed, quite as much as a +place where the students were magnetized and taught to weed onions. +Fifteen years before John Brown paused in his march to the gallows to +kiss a negro baby I saw Beriah Green walk hand in hand along the +sidewalk with a black man and fondle the hand he held conspicuously. +Among his intimates were Ward and Garnet, both very black, as well as +very talented and very eloquent. + +When "the friends of the cause" met in convention, I sometimes heard of +it, and managed, boy-like, to steal in. When I did so, I used to sit and +shudder on a back seat in the little hall. The anti-slavery +denunciations poured out upon the churches, and backed up and pushed +home by the logic of Green and the eloquence of Smith, were well +calculated to make an orthodox boy tremble. For these people brought the +churches and the nation before their bar and condemned them, and some +whom I have not named cursed them with a bitterness and effectiveness +that I cannot recall to this day without a shiver. The dramatic effect, +as it then seemed to me, has never been equalled in my experience. + +That these extreme ideas did not prosper financially is not to be +wondered at. The farm was soon given up, then the buildings and gardens +passed into other hands, and the institution became a denominational +school, known as the Whitestown Baptist Seminary. But the ideas which +had been implanted there would not consent to depart with this change in +the name and the methods of the institution. The fact that Beriah Green, +after leaving the school, continued to reside at Whitesboro and gathered +a church there rendered it the more difficult to eradicate the doctrines +which he had implanted. The idea of friendship for the black man was +particularly tenacious, and perhaps annoying to the new and controlling +denominational interest. It clung to the very soil, like "pusley" in a +garden. It had gained a strong hold throughout the county. The managers +of the institution could not openly oppose it. They were compelled to +endure it. And so it continued to be true that if a bright colored boy +anywhere in the State desired the advantages of a superior education he +would direct his steps to Whitestown Seminary. + +It was during these seminary days that I became a student at the +institution; and it was here that I met the hero of my story, Anthony +Calvert Brown. He was as vigorous and manly a youth of seventeen as I +have ever seen. We two were regarded as special friends. He had been +among us nearly two months, and had become a general favorite, before it +was discovered that he had a tinge of African blood. The revelation of +this fact was made to us on the play-ground. A fellow student, who had +come with Anthony to the school, made the disclosure. The two were +comrades, and had often told us of their adventures together in the +great North woods, or Adirondack forests, on the western border of +which, in a remote settlement, they had their homes. Their friendship +did not prevent them from falling into a dispute, and it did not prevent +Anthony's comrade, who was in fact a bully, from descending to +personalities. He hinted in very expressive terms that the son of a +colored woman must not be too positive. The meanness of such an +insinuation, made at such a time and in such a way, did not diminish its +sting. Perhaps it increased it. We saw Anthony, who had stood a moment +before cool and defiant, turn away cowed and subdued, his handsome face +painfully suffused. His behavior was a confession. + +I am sorry to say that after this incident Anthony did not hold the same +position in our esteem that he had previously enjoyed. Some half-dozen +of us who cherished the old Institute feeling were inclined to make a +hero of him, but by degrees the sentiment of the new management +prevailed, and it was understood that Anthony was to be classed with +those who must meekly endure an irreparable misfortune. But Anthony did +not seem to yield to this view. He was very proud, and braced himself +firmly against it. He withdrew more and more from his schoolmates and +devoted his time to books. In the matter of scholarship he gained the +highest place, and held it to the close of our two-years' course. In the +mean time, his peculiarities were often made the subject of remark among +us. His growing reserve and dignity, his reputation as a scholar, and +his reticence and isolation were frequently discussed. And there was the +mystery of his color. It was a disputed question among us whether the +African taint could be detected in his appearance. Ray, the comrade who +had revealed it, claimed that it was plainly perceptible, while +Yerrinton, the oldest student among us, declared that there was not a +trace of it to be seen. He argued that Anthony was several shades +lighter than Daniel Webster, and he asserted enthusiastically that he +had various traits in common with that great statesman. But, then, +Yerrinton was a disciple of Beriah Green, and his opinion was not +regarded as unbiassed. For myself, I could never detect any appearance +of African blood in Anthony, although my knowledge of its existence +influenced my feelings toward him. To me he seemed to carry himself +with a noble bearing,--under a shadow, it is true, yet as if he were a +king among us. I remember thinking that his broad forehead, +slightly-Roman nose, mobile lips, and full features wore a singularly +mournful and benevolent expression, like the faces sometimes seen in +Egyptian sculpture. + +I did not discuss the matter of his peculiarities with Anthony freely +until after our school-days at the seminary were ended and he had left +Whitestown. His first letter to me was a partial revelation of his +thoughts upon the subject of his own character and feelings. He had gone +to Philadelphia to teach in a large school, while I remained with my +relatives in Whitesboro. He wrote me that he was troubled in regard to +certain matters of which he had never spoken to any one, not even to me, +and he thought it would be a good thing for him to present them for +consideration, if I was willing to give him the benefit of my counsel. +In reply I urged that he should confide in me fully, assuring him of my +desire to assist him to the utmost of my ability. + +The communication which I received in response to my invitation was to +some extent a surprise. The letter was a very long one, and very vivid +and expressive. He began it by alluding to the incident upon the +play-ground, which had occurred nearly two years before. He said that +his life had been guarded, up to about that time, from feeling the +effects of the misfortunes which attach to the colored race. Living in a +remote settlement and a very pleasant home, where all were free and +equal and social distinctions almost unknown, he had scarcely thought of +the fact that his mother was an octoroon. He had heard her talk a great +deal about those distinguished French gentlemen who had in the early +part of this century acquired lands in the vicinity of his home, and he +had somehow a feeling that she had been remotely connected with them, +and that his own lineage was honorable. He alluded specifically to Le +Ray de Chaumont and Joseph Bonaparte. These two men, and others their +countrymen, who had resided or sojourned upon the edge of the great +wilderness near his birthplace, had been his ideals from childhood. He +had often visited Lake Bonaparte, and had frequently seen the home +formerly occupied by Le Ray. While he had understood that he himself was +only plain Anthony C. Brown, the son of Thomas Brown (a white man who +had died some two months before his son's birth), he had yet an +impression that his mother was in some vague way connected with the +great personages whom he mentioned. How it was that Thomas Brown had +come to marry his mother, or what the details of her early life had +been, he did not know, being, in fact, ignorant of his family history. +He conceded that it might be only his own imagination that had led him +to suppose that he was in some indefinite way to be credited with the +greatness of those wealthy landed proprietors who had endeavored to +establish manorial estates or seigniories in the wilderness. He had come +to understand that this unexplainable impression of superiority and +connection with the great, which had always been with him in childhood +and early youth, was due to his mother's influence and teaching. There +was about it nothing direct and specific, and yet it had been instilled +into his mind, in indirect ways, until it was an integral part of his +existence. His mother had a farm and cattle and money. She was in better +circumstances than her neighbors. This had added to his feeling of +superiority and independence. The accident of a slight tinge of color +had hardly risen even to the dignity of a joke in the freedom of the +settlement and the forest. Looking back, he believed that his mother had +guarded his youthful mind against receiving any unfavorable impression +upon the subject. In his remote, free, wilderness home he had heard but +little of African slavery, and had regarded it as a far-off phantom, +like heathendom or witchcraft. + +Such had been the state of mind of Anthony Brown. The light had, +however, been gradually let in upon him in the course of an excursion +which he and his comrade Ray had made the year previous to their +appearance at Whitestown Seminary. In that excursion they had visited +Chicago, Cleveland, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, New +York, and Albany. They had strayed into a court-room in the City Hall at +Albany, where many people were listening to the argument of counsel who +were discussing the provisions of the will of a wealthy lady, deceased. +A colored man was mixed up in the matter in some way,--probably as +executor and legatee. Anthony heard with breathless interest the legal +disabilities of colored people set forth, and their inferior social +position commented upon. He learned that the ancestral color descended +to the children of a colored mother, although they might appear to be +white. These statements had impressed him deeply. They furnished to his +mind an explanation of the various evidences of the degradation of the +colored people he had seen upon his journey. Talking of these matters, +he had found that Ray was much better informed than himself upon the +entire subject. Ray, in fact, frankly explained that a colored man had +no chance in this country. This was in 1859. Anthony suggested in his +letter to me that he had probably been kept from acquiring this +knowledge earlier in life by his mother's anxious care and the kindness +of friends and neighbors. He explained that he did not mean to be +understood as intimating that he had not some general knowledge of the +facts previously, but it was this experience which had made him feel +that slavery was a reality and that all colored people belonged to a +despised race. After his return home he had carefully refrained from +imparting to his mother any hint of his newly-acquired impressions in +reference to the social and legal standing of the colored race. In the +enjoyment of home comforts, and in the freedom of the wild woods and +waters, the shadow which had threatened in his thoughts to descend upon +him passed away. He remembered it only as a dream which might not +trouble him again, and which he would not cherish. Still, there was a +lurking uneasiness and anxiety, born of the inexorable facts, which +favorable circumstances and youthful vivacity could not wholly overcome. + +In this state of mind Anthony, in accordance with the wish of his +mother, came to Whitestown Seminary. His description of his first +impressions there was very glowing. He wrote,-- + +"I cannot hope, my dear friend, to give you any adequate idea of what I +then experienced. For the first time in my life I found kindred spirits. +Your companionship in particular threw a light upon my pathway that made +the days all bright and gave me such joy as I had never before known. +And there was Ralph, so kind and true, and Henry Rose, so honest and +faithful! I cannot tell you how my heart embraced them. It is a simple +truth, telling less than I felt, when I say that I could scarcely sleep +for thinking of my newfound treasures. You need to remember what it is +to dwell in a rough country, isolated and remote from towns, to +appreciate my experience. To me, coming to Whitestown was a translation +to Paradise. It seems extravagant, yet it is true, that I met there +those who were dearer than my life and for whom I would have died. The +first warm friendships of youth are the purest and whitest flowers that +bloom in the soul. If these are blighted, it is forever. Such flowers in +any one life can never grow again. + +"And this brings me to that sad day when on the play-ground Ray struck +at me, and through me at my dear, loving mother. As he spoke those cruel +words the world grew dark about me, the dread fear which I had subdued +revived with tenfold power, and upon my heart came the pangs of an +indescribable anguish. Oh, the chill, the death-like chill, that froze +the current of my affections as I saw the faces of those I loved +averted! + +"I went to my room and tried to reflect, but I could not. The shock was +too great. During the week that followed I was most of the time in my +silent room. I may well call it silent, for the footsteps to which I had +been accustomed came no more, and the comrades in whose friendship I had +such delight no longer sought my company. That dreadful week was the +turning-point in my life. As it drew toward its close I realized to some +extent what I had been through, as one does who is recovering from a +severe illness. I knew that day and night I had wept and moaned and +could see no hope, no ray of light, and that I had at times forgotten my +religion and blasphemed. It is true, my dear friend, that I mocked my +God. Do not judge me hastily in this. I was without discipline or +experience, and I saw that for all sorrow except mine there was a +remedy. Even for sin there is repentance and redemption, and the pains +of hell itself may be avoided. But for my trouble there could be no +relief. The thought that I was accursed from the day of my birth, that +no effort, no sacrifice, no act of heroism, on my part could ever redeem +me, haunted my soul, and I knew that it must haunt me from that time +onward and forever. + +"I need hardly tell you, with your insight and knowledge, that these +inward struggles led toward a not unusual conclusion. I allude to the +determination to which multitudes of souls have been driven in all ages, +to escape the tortures of disgrace. I turned away from humanity and +sought that fearful desert of individual loneliness and isolation which +is now more sad and real to me than any outward object can be. To live +in the voiceless solitude and tread the barren sands unfriended is too +much for a strong man with all the aids that philosophy can give him. +But when we see one in the first flush of youth, wholly innocent, yet +turning his footsteps to the great desert to get away from the scorn of +lovers and friends, and when we realize that this which he dreads must +continue to the last hour of his life, there is to my mind a ghastliness +about it as if it were seen in the light of the pit which is bottomless. +I have not recovered, and can never recover, from that experience. You +will infer, however, that I did not remain in just the condition of mind +which I have endeavored to describe. He whom I had blasphemed came to +me, and I was penitent. The teachings of good Father Michael at our +home, the doctrines of our Church, and the examples of the blessed +saints, were my salvation. Then I felt that I would dwell alone with +God. And there was something grand about that, and very noble. The +purest joy of life is possible in such an experience. Yet it is not +enough, especially in youth. But I think I should have continued in that +frame of mind had it not been for you and Ralph. How you two came to me +and besought my friendship I need not remind you. Neither need I say how +my pride yielded; and if there was anything to forgive I forgave it, and +felt the light of friendship, which had been withdrawn from my inner +world, come back with a joy that has increased as it has continued. + +"Coming to this city of 'brotherly love,' I begin my life anew, and at +the very threshold a painful question meets me. No faces are averted, no +one suspects my social standing. A thrill of kindness is in every voice. +What can I do? Must I advertise myself as smitten with a plague? I dare +not tell you of the favors that society bestows upon me. It is but +little more than a month since I came to Philadelphia, and during that +short period I have in some strange way become popular. My sincere +effort politely to avoid society seems only to have resulted in +precipitating a shower of invitations upon me. Evidently the fact that I +am tinged with African blood is wholly unsuspected. You understand, I +think, how I gained this place as teacher in the school. It was through +the interposition of Father Michael and certain powerful Protestant +friends of his who are unknown to me. It was not my own doing, and I do +not feel that I am to blame. But I will frankly tell you that it seems +to me cowardly to go forward under false colors. One thing I am +resolved upon,--I will never be ashamed of my dear mother. Where I go +she shall go, and she shall come here if she is inclined to do so. As +you have never seen her, I may say that she is regarded as dark for an +octoroon, and with her presence no explanation will be necessary. But +ought I to wait for that? She may not choose to come. How can I best be +an honest man? It seems silly, and it would be ridiculous, to give out +generally here as a matter for the public that I am the son of a negro +woman. Yet I think it must come to that in some way. What shall I do?" + +This letter caused me to think of Anthony and his trouble much more +seriously than before. It was clear to me why he was popular. I had +never met any young man who was by nature more sympathetic and +attractive. The reserve and sadness which had recently come upon him +were not to his disadvantage socially. They rather tended to gain +attention and win the kindness of strangers. The question which his +position presented, and about which he desired my counsel, troubled me. +But, fortunately, after thinking of it almost constantly for two days, I +gave him advice which I still think correct under the circumstances. I +argued that he was not under any obligation to advertise himself to the +public as a colored man. The public did not expect or require this of +any one. But I urged that if he made any special friends among those who +entertained him socially and with whom he was intimate, he should +frankly make known to them the facts in regard to his family. I thought +this would be expected, and I was convinced that such a presentation of +his position, made without affectation, would win for him respect even +from those who might cease to court his society. I further urged that he +ought not, as a teacher, to isolate himself or shun those relations with +families which would place upon him the obligation to make known his +parentage. + +Anthony sent a brief note in reply to my letter, thanking me heartily +for what he termed my convincing statement, and expressing his +determination to act in accordance with it. + +Nearly two months passed, and then my friend communicated the further +fact that he had gone so far, in several instances, and with several +families, as to carry out the suggestions I had made. He thought it was +too soon to assert what the ultimate result would be, but stated the +immediate effects so far as he could see them. When he first made the +announcement in regard to his color, many had disbelieved it. When his +persistent and repeated declarations upon various occasions had +convinced his friends that it was not a jest, but a reality, they had +been variously affected by it. He thought some were politely leaving +him, while others seemed desirous of continuing his acquaintance. + +Ten days later I was not a little surprised to receive a letter +conveying the information that Anthony's mother had arrived in +Philadelphia in response to his invitation. He stated, in his letter to +me giving this news, that he had now carried out his entire plan and was +satisfied. His mother had visited his school, and he had introduced her +to his various friends in the city. It seemed to me a mistake thus +unnecessarily to run the risk of offending social preferences or +prejudices; but I did not feel at liberty to comment upon the matter at +the time. + +In addition to the information conveyed, the letter contained an +invitation which delighted me. Anthony wrote that he and his mother were +about returning home. The long vacation would begin in a few days, and +they wished that I should go with them for a visit. Few things could +have afforded me greater satisfaction than this. The wild +forest-country, of which my school-mate had told me much, I regarded as +peculiarly a region of romance and adventure. + +It was a beautiful morning early in July when we three, with a team and +a driver, left the Mohawk valley and climbed the Deerfield hills, making +our way northward. On the evening of the first day we readied the hills +of Steuben and gained a first glimpse of that broad, beautiful +forest-level, known as the Black River country, which stretches away +toward the distant St. Lawrence. The next day we descended to this +level, and, following the narrow road through forests, and clearings, +and little settlements, and villages, arrived just at nightfall at the +home of my friends. It was a small, unpainted, wooden house, standing +near the road. Back of it were barns and sheds, and I saw cattle and +sheep grazing. The zigzag rail fence common to the region surrounded the +cleared lots in sight, and in front of the house, across the road, were +the wild woods. A wood-thrush, or veery, was pouring out his thrilling, +liquid notes as we arrived. A white woman and a large, black, shaggy dog +came out of the house to welcome us; and a few minutes later I had the +best room, up-stairs over the front door, assigned to me, and was a +guest in the domicile of my friend Anthony. + +The location was a delightful one, about three miles west of the little +village of Champion, near which was a small lake, where we spent many +morning hours. From a height not far away we had glimpses, in clear +weather, of the mountains, seen in airy outline toward the eastward. + +My friend had the horses and wagons of the farm at his command, and we +took many long rides to visit places of interest. On several occasions +we saw the decaying chateau of Le Ray, which was but little more than an +hour's ride to the northward of Anthony's home; and on one occasion we +went a day's journey and saw the stony little village of Antwerp, and +visited that beautiful sheet of water on the margin of the wilderness, +known as Lake Bonaparte. Joseph Bonaparte frequently visited this lake, +and he owned lands in its vicinity, and made some improvements upon them +in 1828. + +Anthony's mother was a tall, spare woman, with a wrinkled face and +large, straight features. She seemed to me a curious mixture of European +features with a dark skin. She used French phrases in a peculiar way, +and was full of the history of Le Ray and Bonaparte and various members +of the company that had undertaken to make of this section, in years +gone by, a rich and fertile country like the Mohawk valley. It appeared +that the name which the company had given to this region was Castorland, +which she interpreted to mean the land of the beaver. She had, among +other curiosities, some coins or tokens which had been stamped in Paris +on behalf of the company, and on which the word "Castorland," +accompanied by suitable devices, was plainly seen. The one that +interested me most seemed to have as its device the representation of a +small dog trying to climb a tree. I was informed, however, that the +animal was a beaver, and that he was cutting down the tree with his +teeth. + +After talking freely with the mother, Antoinette Brown, I did not wonder +that Anthony had learned to honor the gentlemen who had come from France +to this region in early days as among the greatest men in the world. I +did not find myself able to discredit her realistic and vivid +description of the visits of Joseph Bonaparte to his wilderness domain +in a six-horse chariot, followed by numerous retainers. Neither did I +find myself able to disbelieve in the accuracy of her picturesque +description of Joseph Bonaparte's Venetian gondola floating upon the +waters of Northern New York, or her account of his dinner-service of +"golden plate" spread out by the road-side on one memorable occasion +when he paused in his kingly ride and dined in a picturesque place near +the highway. She told in a convincing manner many traditions relating to +the enterprise which was to have made of the Black-River country a rich +farming region not inferior to the Mohawk Flats. The fact that nature +had not seconded this undertaking had not diminished Mrs. Brown's +impressions of its magnitude and importance. The great tracts which had +been purchased and the great men who had purchased them were vividly +impressed upon her imagination. In reference to her personal history, +except for a few allusions to life in New York City, she was reticent. + +I remained nearly two months at the home of my friend, and became +familiar with the places of interest surrounding it. The little lake was +a memorable spot, for there Anthony first told me the full story of his +experiences in Philadelphia. He did not conceal the fact that an +attachment was growing up between himself and the daughter of his best +friend there, Mr. Zebina Allen. The way to make his permanent home in +the Quaker City seemed to be opening before him. That I should go with +him for a few days to Philadelphia when he returned, to "see how the +land lay," as he expressed it in backwoods phrase, was one of his +favorite ideas. He made so much of this point that I finally consented +to accompany him. + +It was a rainy day early in September when we stepped off the cars and +went to Anthony's boarding-place in the good old city that held the one +he loved and his fortunes. I was introduced to various friends of his, +and during the first twenty-four hours of my sojourn I was delighted +with all matters that came under my observation. I was especially +pleased with Mr. Allen and his daughter Caroline. But within two days I +saw, or fancied that I saw, a curious scrutiny and reserve in the faces +of some of those with whom we conversed. + +I think Anthony was more surprised than I was when he received a note +from one of the trustees intimating that important changes were likely +to be made in reference to the educational methods to be employed in the +school, and that, in view of these changes, it was barely possible that +some new arrangements in regard to teachers might be desired by the +patrons of the institution. The trustee professed to have written this +information in order that "Mr. Brown" might not be taken wholly by +surprise in case any step affecting his position should be found +advisable. + +The circumlocution and indefiniteness of this letter led me to infer +that there was something behind it which the writer had not stated. It +soon appeared that my friend agreed with me in this inference. I could +not but smile at the coolness with which he quoted the common phrase to +the effect that there was an African in the fence. + +"I fear it is the old story over again," he said; "but I am glad I have +done my duty to myself and to my dear mother, whatever the consequences +may be." + +After some discussion, it was agreed that I should call at Mr. Allen's +office (he was a lawyer) and endeavor to obtain from him a statement of +all he might know of the new arrangement announced in the letter which +had been received. I lost no time in entering upon my mission. But I was +compelled to make several applications at the office before it was +possible for Mr. Allen to give me a hearing. A late hour of the +business-day was, however, finally assigned to me, and just as the gas +was lighted I found myself by appointment in a private room used for +consultation, sitting face to face with Mr. Allen. I briefly stated my +errand, and presented the trustee's letter to him as a more complete +explanation of my verbal statement. + +"Yes, I see," said Mr. Allen thoughtfully, after reading the letter and +returning it to me. And he tilted back his chair, clasped his hands +behind his head, and gazed for some minutes reflectively at the ceiling. +I sat quietly and studied his face and the objects in the room. He was a +large man, squarely built, with straight, strongly-marked features, blue +eyes, and sandy hair. In the midst of his books and papers he seemed to +me a sterner man than I had previously thought him. "Yes, I see," he +repeated, at the close of his period of reflection. And then he removed +his hands from his head and placed them on his knees, and brought his +chair squarely to the floor, and, leaning forward toward me, looked +keenly in my face, and said, "Did I understand that you were one of +those people,--that is, similar to Mr. Brown?" + +"How, sir?" said I in bewilderment. "How do you mean?" + +A moment later the purport of the question, which I had in a strange way +seemed to feel as it was coming, dawned fully upon me, or I should +rather say struck me, so sharp and sudden was the shock I experienced. +If there was anything in which I was secure and of which I had reason to +be proud, it was my Puritan and English ancestry. As the blood flew to +my youthful face in instinctive protest and indignation, my appearance +must have been a sufficient answer to my interrogator; for I remember +that he, at once springing to his feet, offered me his hand, making +profuse apologies and begging a thousand pardons. + +I somewhat stammeringly explained that it was of no consequence, and +proceeded to name the families in my ancestral line, adding the remark +that these families, both those on my father's side and those on my +mother's side, were pretty well known, and that they were the genuine +English and Puritan stock. + +"They are indeed, sir," said Mr. Allen, "and I congratulate you. I know +the value of a good lineage, and I feel safe in talking freely with a +gentleman of your standing in regard to this disagreeable business." + +At about this stage in the proceedings I felt an obscure twinge. My +conscience was uneasy; for I found myself taking sides with Mr. Allen in +favor of family pride and against "those people," as he had termed +persons of doubtful color. I had instinctively defended myself against +the suggestion that I might possibly be one of them. If this skilful +lawyer had intended, as possibly he did, to disarm me wholly at the +outset, so that I could make no attack upon the position which he +intended to assume, he could not have done it more effectually. + +"The truth is," said Mr. Allen cheerfully, "we regard Mr. Brown as about +the best and most intelligent young man that has ever taught in our +school. He is manly, and conscientious to a fault. Aside from his +family, the only trouble I find with him is that he is not politic. It +was very honorable in him to state to us his parentage as he did. If he +had been willing to stop there, possibly we might have managed it,--at +least so far as the school was concerned. But it was not necessary and +it was not wise to bring that colored woman here. It may have been +remarkably filial and brave, and all that, but it was not judicious. I +think you will agree with me that it was not judicious." + +I hesitatingly admitted that it probably was not. + +"I felt sure that you would take a sensible view of the matter," said +Mr, Allen. "I am truly sorry that Mr. Brown could not have been more +discreet. If he has imagined that he could push that woman into our +society, he is mistaken. And now, while I think of it, there is a +message which I should be glad to send to Mr. Brown, if you will be so +kind as to convey it." + +I expressed my willingness to carry the message. + +"It has probably come to your knowledge that my daughter Caroline has +won the admiration of Mr. Brown." + +I replied that Anthony had mentioned it. + +"The truth is," resumed Mr. Allen, "we entertained the highest opinion +of the young man, and he has visited frequently at our house. I am +willing to admit to you that the feeling I spoke of has been mutual. +With your appreciation of the claims of propriety, the impossibility of +a union will of course be apparent to you." + +"Then you regard it as impossible?" I asked. + +"Yes," he replied. "Do you not so regard it? Think for a moment what it +involves. Some friends of ours in a Western city, as my wife was saying +yesterday, have had a trouble of this kind a generation or two back, and +the children of the present family are in a condition of chronic worry +upon the subject. They are wealthy, and are regarded and treated in +society as white people; but the two young ladies use some kind of +whitening on their faces habitually. The circumstances of the case are +pretty generally known, and you can understand how unpleasant such a +matter must be to the entire family. It is claimed that a tinge of color +sometimes passes over a generation and appears more markedly in the +next. I do not know how that may be, but the idea of the risk is enough +to give one chills. There is a story that the Western family of which I +spoke has a colored grandson concealed somewhere. Of course I do not +know whether it is true or not; but it serves as an illustration. + +"My message to Mr. Brown is, that, under all the circumstances, we think +he should discontinue his visits at our house. I presume he will see +that he should take that course. I shall always be glad to meet him +anywhere except at my home. In regard to a business engagement, if he +will allow me to say a word, I would suggest that he should teach our +colored school. They are looking for a teacher just now, as it happens, +and he would be very popular in that capacity." + +I could not but admit that Mr. Allen's suggestions were characterized by +practical wisdom, but I hinted that the course proposed seemed hardly +just to Anthony. + +"As to that," said Mr. Allen, "it is true that our laws and customs are +unjust and cruel in their treatment of a subjugated race. But it is not +wrong to avoid marriage with any other race than our own. As to the part +that is unjust, you and I cannot remedy that. So far as we are +individually concerned, we may deal justly with the down-trodden, and I +hope we do so; but the great wrong will still remain." + +I left the office of Mr. Allen, feeling that he was in the right. I went +directly to Anthony, and, with a heavy heart, reported to him the +particulars of the interview. It was a painful shock, but he bore it +with greater calmness and fortitude than I had expected. When I had +concluded the recital, he remarked sadly that he found it impossible to +say that Mr. Allen was wrong, hard as the truth seemed. He felt that +marriage was out of the question, and said that he would not have +indulged the thought of it if he had reflected upon the matter +carefully. He was not fully decided what course he would pursue. It was +too painful a subject and involved too great a change to admit of a +hasty decision; and he desired my best thoughts and counsel, which I +gave him. + +After two days I returned to Whitesboro, leaving Anthony in +Philadelphia, still pondering the course he would pursue. Three weeks +later I received a letter from him, in which he announced that he had +taken the colored school. + +Four months passed away. Then I received from my friend a long +communication, setting forth rather formally his experience in his new +position and unfolding to me new views which he had gained by reflection +and contact with the world. He also presented the plan of life which he +had decided upon, if I approved. I was greatly surprised at the entire +revolution in his ideas which had been effected by his observation and +his courageous mental struggles. + +"My own thoughts," he wrote, "have been completely changed by reading +and reflection. There are three aspects of this subject which I wish to +make clear to you. There is first the view that every colored man has +some sort of strange, mysterious curse resting upon him by a law of his +nature. The idea is that, although the black man in any given instance +may be superior, spiritually, intellectually, and physically, to his +white neighbor, yet he cannot equal him because of this mysterious +curse. This view, sad as it is (advocated by the white race), has +settled down upon the minds of millions of colored people. It has +crushed out of them all self-reliance and independence. It fastens +tenaciously upon the quiet, sensitive spirit, destroying its hope and +self-respect and enterprise. I need not tell you how near I have come to +being shipwrecked by its influence. But it is founded upon a lie. It is +a lie backed up by the assertion, practically, of nations and of +millions of intelligent persons acting in their individual capacity. It +is, however, none the less a base, malignant falsehood, robbing the +spirit that is cowed and crushed by it of the sweetest possessions of +life. A similar falsehood has established castes in India, and still +another has subjugated woman in many lands, making her a soulless being +and the slave of man. + +"If any black man has greater wisdom, strength, and goodness than the +majority of white men, he is higher in the scale of manhood than they. +The real question involved is a comparison of individuals, and not of +races. + +"You will remember how Homer, in the Iliad, praises the blameless +Ethiopians, beloved of the gods and dwelling in a wide land that +stretches from the rising to the setting of the sun. The ancient +historians praise them also. Words of commendation of this great +historic people are found in the ancient classics. So far as I can +discover, the prejudice against color is of modern origin. + +"I believe that at no very distant day the slaves will be liberated, and +that the Almighty will be the avenger of their wrongs. + +"I turn now to consider the second aspect of this subject. When a +colored man is wise enough and courageous enough to embrace the views +which I have presented, he may still be compelled, as a part of his lot +in life, to submit to the assumption that he is inferior. It is hard to +live in this way in the shadow of a great lie, but it is better than to +have the iron enter more deeply into the soul, so as to compel _belief_ +of the lie, as is the case with millions of human beings. When the +spirit is enfranchised I can understand that one may lead a very noble +life in cheerfully submitting to the inevitable misfortune. There are a +few colored men who thus recognize the truth, and yet bow to the great +sorrow, which they cannot escape, with noble and manly fortitude. I +confess that I have entertained thoughts of attempting such a life. I +think I could do so if I could see that any great good would be +accomplished by it. But my experience here has taught me that any such +sacrifice is not required of me. I find that it is not to the advantage +of the colored people to be taught at present. They tell me that as they +grow in knowledge their degradation becomes more apparent to them, and +their sufferings greater. They leave the school with the impression that +for them ignorance rather than knowledge is the road to happiness. I +cannot deny the truth of their reasoning. If they could be raised above +the sense of degradation from which they suffer, it would be different. +But, apparently, this cannot be done. It is at least impossible in the +few years which can be given to their instruction in the schools now +provided for their education. The prevailing sentiment among them is +against education and in favor of a thoughtless and easy life. They do +not wish to face those fires through which the awakened spirit, crushed +by hopeless oppression, must necessarily pass. Only yesterday a young +man described to me, with thrilling pathos, the anguish of spirit with +which he had felt the fetters tightening upon him as his knowledge +increased. + +"I do not feel called upon, therefore, to devote my life to teaching. If +there was hope left in the case, perhaps I might do so. I would labor on +willingly if there were light ahead. But, with millions in slavery and +others as tightly bound down by prejudice as if they were slaves, I see +no encouragement. I think it the wiser course to wait, trusting that +Providence will open a way for a change to come. And this brings me to +the third aspect of this matter, and the last phase of it which I desire +to consider. It seems to me to be my duty and privilege to withdraw from +the unequal contest. The stupendous lie which crushes the mass of the +colored race has not imposed itself upon me, although I have had a +terrible struggle with it that nearly cost me my reason. I am not so +situated as to be compelled to live among those whose very presence +would be a constant shadow, a burden to me and a reproach to my +existence. Fortunately, I am not compelled to accept the great +misfortune and bow to the assumptions of a ruling race. I can retire to +the fastnesses of my native hills and forests, where petty distinctions +fade away in the majestic presence of nature. I am already beginning to +anticipate the change, and instinctively asserting that independence +which I feel. Indeed, I have given offence in several instances. I have +no trouble with solid business-men like Mr. Allen. They have the good +sense and fairness to recognize the fact that a man is a man wherever +you find him. But some people of the fanciful sort, with less brains +than I have, do me the honor to be angry because I do not submit to any +assumptions of superiority on their part. I might be so situated that it +would be wisdom to submit, to bend to a lie, to lead the life of a +martyr, as some noble men of my acquaintance do under such +circumstances. But, fortunately, I can afford to be independent, and I +shall do so and take the risk of bodily violence. + +"You have now my plan of life and my reasons for it. I shall adhere to +it under all ordinary circumstances. Nevertheless, if Providence calls +me to some work where great good can be done, I will sacrifice my +independence and take up the load of misfortune which prejudice imposes, +if that is required, and try to bear meekly the burden and do my duty in +the battle of life. But I hope this may not be required of me. Around my +home, as you know, are many immigrants, foreign-born, who do not inherit +or feel the prejudice against color. My family is already one of the +wealthiest and most influential in our little community. With such +property as I have and can readily gain, and with such school-teaching +and political teaching as I can do, it is a settled thing that our +standing will be at the head of society and business, so far as we have +any such distinctions among us. To refer to the matter of color in a +business light, I may remind you that its trace is very faint in our +family line. Already it has entirely disappeared in my own person. With +wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and +when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be +speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of +the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show +you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will +approve of the course which I have marked out, and give me some credit +for courage in meeting and conquering the grisly terror, the base lie, +which sought to blast my life." + +It would be difficult to express too strongly my admiration for my +friend as I read the letter from which I have quoted. It seemed to me +wonderful that he had been able to so disentangle himself from +difficulties. The cool intrepidity with which he had fought his way +through those mental troubles which had seemed at one time about to +overwhelm him was to me the most astonishing part of the performance. I +wrote to him in terms of the highest commendation, frankly expressing my +astonishment at the vigor, truth, and force apparent in his actions and +his reasoning. He was satisfied with my letter, and proceeded to close +up his affairs in a deliberate and decorous manner before returning home +and carrying his plan into execution. It was his idea that I should +spend some months each year with him, and he had made other friends who +would be invited to visit him. + +But the plan which Anthony had formed was never executed. Matters were +as I have described, when the war of the Rebellion broke out. Here was +that call to public duty which he had alluded to as a possible +interference which might change the course of his life. He felt from the +first that the contest was a fight for the black man, and he was anxious +to engage in it. In a hasty letter to me he recognized the fact that the +spirit of John Brown, whom he greatly admired, was still busy in the +affairs of the nation, although his body was sleeping in the grave at +North Elba. + +Anthony Brown enlisted in a white regiment, there being no trace of +color about him and no objection being made. He claimed to have a +presentiment that he would fall in battle at an early day. Whether it +was a presentiment or a mere fancy, it was his fate. He now rests with +the indistinguishable dead + +Where the buzzard, flying, +Pauses at Malvern Hill. + +When I learned of his death, a duty fell upon me. He had written in one +of his letters that if he did not return from the war he would like to +have me tell his mother the true history of his life. He had concealed +from her his struggles in reference to color. She knew nothing of his +trials at Whitesboro or at Philadelphia. No words had ever passed +between them upon the subject. He thought it better, if he lived, that +she should never know, but if he died he wished that his history should +be fully made known to her. + +I made the journey on horseback over the ground I have already +described. It was a delightful autumn day when I passed through the +village of Champion and went on to Mrs. Brown's home. She was expecting +me, as I had written in advance announcing my intended visit. I could +see that she was greatly pleased to receive me. I had been at the house +two days before I ventured to introduce, in a formal manner, the subject +of my mission. Talking of old times, and leading gradually up to the +subject, I frankly stated that Anthony had charged me to tell her the +story of his personal history, and I exhibited his letter to her. It was +after dinner, as we were sitting in the front room reading and talking. +Mrs. Brown immediately became excited and anxious to hear. As I +disclosed the sorrow of Anthony's life and related the particulars of +his career, the effect upon her was not at all what I had expected. She +became more and more excited and distressed. At last she called sharply +to her servant-girl, Melissa, and told her to go and bring Father +Michael, and to bid him come immediately. While Melissa was gone, Mrs. +Brown, with a great deal of agitation in her manner, proceeded to +question me in regard to the incidents of Anthony's career in +Philadelphia, and frequently broke out with the exclamation, "Why could +we not have known?" + +Soon Father Michael came, and the woman assailed him at once in a harsh +and accusing manner, speaking in the French language with great +volubility. He replied to her in the same tongue. There was only here +and there a word that I could understand. It was plain, however, that +there was a contest between them, and that it related to my deceased +friend. + +By degrees the matter was so far made plain that I understood that +Anthony was not the son of Mrs. Brown, but was of the purest white blood +and connected with people of rank. Beyond this I was not permitted to +know his history. When I asked questions, Father Michael replied that it +was better "not to break through the wall of the past." He said it was +too late now to aid Anthony, but added that the trouble might have been +averted if it had been known at the time. + +A day later I took my departure. As I travelled back to Whitesboro I +reflected upon the strange events that had shaped Anthony's career. When +I turned on the Steuben hills and looked once more upon Castorland, it +seemed to me a region of mystery; and the useless tears fell from my +eyes as I remembered how one of its secrets had darkened the life of the +dearest friend of my youth. + +I subsequently learned that Miss Allen, of Philadelphia, suffered +indirectly from the effects of Anthony's misfortune. She was not able to +forget the man she had chosen. + +I have never learned the facts in regard to the early history and real +parentage of Anthony Calvert Brown. + +P. DEMING. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SHORT-STORY. + + +When artists fall to talking about their art, it is the critic's place +to listen to see if he may not pick up a little knowledge. Of late, +certain of the novelists of Great Britain and the United States have +been discussing the principles and the practice of the art of writing +stories. Mr. Howells declared his warm appreciation of Mr. Henry James's +novels; Mr. R.L. Stevenson made public a delightful plea for Romance; +Mr. Walter Besant lectured gracefully on the Art of Fiction; and Mr. +Henry James modestly presented his views by way of supplement and +criticism. The discussion took a wide range. With more or less fullness +it covered the proper aim and intent of the novelist, his material and +his methods, his success, his rewards, social and pecuniary, and the +morality of his work and of his art. But, with all its extension, the +discussion did not include one important branch of the art of fiction: +it did not consider at all the minor art of the Short-story. Although +neither Mr. Howells nor Mr. James, Mr. Besant nor Mr, Stevenson, +specifically limited his remarks to those longer, and, in the +picture-dealer's sense of the word, more "important," tales known as +Novels, and although, of course, their general criticisms of the +abstract principles of the art of fiction applied quite as well to the +Short-story as to the Novel, yet all their concrete examples were +full-length Novels, and the Short-story, as such, received no +recognition at all. Yet the compatriots of Poe and of Hawthorne cannot +afford to ignore the Short-story as a form of fiction; and it has seemed +to the present writer that there is now an excellent opportunity to +venture a few remarks, slight and incomplete as they must needs be, on +the philosophy of the Short-story. + +The difference between a Novel and a Novelette is one of length only: a +Novelette is a brief Novel. But the difference between a Novel and a +Short story is a difference of kind, A true Short-story is something +other and something more than a mere story which is short. A true +Short-story differs from the Novel chiefly in its essential unity of +impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word a +Short-story has unity as a Novel cannot have it. Often, it may be noted +by the way, the Short-story fulfills the three false unities of the +French classic drama: it shows one action in one place on one day. A +Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single +emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation. +Poe's paradox that a poem cannot greatly exceed a hundred lines in +length under penalty of ceasing to be one poem and breaking into a +string of poems, may serve to suggest the precise difference between the +Short-story and the Novel, The Short-story is the single effect, +complete and self-contained, while the Novel is of necessity broken into +a series of episodes. Thus the Short-story has, what the Novel cannot +have, the effect of "totality," as Poe called it, the unity of +impression. The Short-story is not only not a chapter out of a Novel, or +an incident or an episode extracted from a longer tale, but at its best +it impresses the reader with the belief that it would be spoiled if it +were made larger or if it were incorporated into a more elaborate work. +The difference in spirit and in form between the Lyric and the Epic is +scarcely greater than the difference between the Short-story and the +Novel; and "The Raven" and "How we brought the good news from Ghent to +Aix" are not more unlike "The Lady of the Lake" and "Paradise Lost," in +form and in spirit, than "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Man without +a Country"--two typical Short-stories--are unlike "Vanity Fair" and "The +Heart of Midlothian,"--two typical Novels. + +Another great difference between the Short-story and the Novel lies in +the fact that the Novel, nowadays at least, must be a love-tale, while +the Short-story need not deal with love at all. Although "Vanity Fair" +was a Novel without a hero, nearly every other Novel has a hero and a +heroine, and the novelist, however unwillingly, must concern himself in +their love-affairs. But the writer of Short-stories is under no bonds of +this sort. Of course he may tell a tale of love if he choose, and if +love enters into his tale naturally and to its enriching, but he need +not bother with love at all unless he please. Some of the best of +Short-stories are love-stories too,--Mr. Aldrich's "Margery Daw," for +instance, Mr. Stimpson's "Mrs. Knollys," Mr. Bunner's "Love in Old +Clothes;" but more of them are not love-stories at all. If we were to +pick out the ten best Short-stories, I think we should find that fewer +than half of them made any mention at all of love. In "The Snow Image" +and in "The Ambitious Guest," in "The Gold-Bug" and in "The Fall of the +House of Usher," in "My Double and how he Undid me," in +"Devil-Puzzlers," in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," in "Jean-ah +Poquelin," in "A Bundle of Letters," there is little or no mention of +the love of man for woman, which is the chief topic of conversation in a +Novel. While the Novel cannot get on without love, the Short-story can. +Since love is almost the only thing which will give interest to a long +story, the writer of Novels has to get love into his tales as best he +may, even when the subject rebels and when he himself is too old to take +any interest in the mating of John and Joan. But the Short-story, being +brief, does not need a love-interest to hold its parts together, and the +writer of Short-stories has thus a greater freedom: he may do as he +pleases; from him a love-tale is not expected. + +But other things are required of a writer of Short-stories which are not +required of a writer of Novels. The novelist may take his time: he has +abundant room to turn about. The writer of Short-stories must be +concise, and compression, a vigorous compression, is essential. For +him, more than for any one else, the half is more than the whole. Again, +the novelist may be commonplace, he may bend his best energies to the +photographic reproduction of the actual; if he show us a cross-section +of real life we are content; but the writer of Short-stories must have +originality and ingenuity. If to compression, originality, and ingenuity +he add also a touch of fantasy, so much the better. It may be said that +no one has ever succeeded as a writer of Short-stories who had not +ingenuity, originality, and compression, and that most of those who have +succeeded in this line had also the touch of fantasy. But there are not +a few successful novelists lacking not only in fantasy and compression, +but also in ingenuity and originality; they had other qualities, no +doubt, but these they had not. If an example must be given, the name of +Anthony Trollope will occur to all. Fantasy was a thing he abhorred, +compression he knew not, and originality and ingenuity can be conceded +to him only by a strong stretch of the ordinary meaning of the words. +Other qualities he had in plenty, but not these. And, not having them, +he was not a writer of Short-stories. Judging from his essay on +Hawthorne, one may even go so far as to say that Trollope did not know a +good Short-story when he saw it. + +I have written Short-story with a capital S and a hyphen because I +wished to emphasize the distinction between the Short-story and the +story which is merely short. The Short-story is a high and difficult +department of fiction. The story which is short can be written by +anybody who can write at all; and it may be good, bad, or indifferent, +but at its best it is wholly unlike the Short-story. In "An Editor's +Tales" Trollope has given us excellent specimens of the story which is +short; and the stories which make up this book are amusing enough and +clever enough, but they are wanting in the individuality and in the +completeness of the genuine Short-story. Like the brief tales to be +seen in the English monthly magazines and in the Sunday editions of +American newspapers into which they are copied, they are, for the most +part, either merely amplified anecdotes or else incidents which might +have been used in a Novel just as well as not. Now, the genuine +Short-story abhors the idea of the Novel. It can be conceived neither as +part of a Novel nor as elaborated and expanded so as to form a Novel. A +good Short-story is no more the synopsis of a Novel than it is an +episode from a Novel. A slight Novel, or a Novel cut down, is a +Novelette: it is not a Short-story. Mr. Howells's "Their Wedding +Journey" and Miss Howard's "One Summer" are Novelettes, although an +American editor, who had offered a prize for a list of the ten best +Short-stories, allowed them to be included. Mr. Anstey's "Vice Versa," +Mr. Besant's "Case of Mr. Lucraft," and Mr. Hugh Conway's "Called Back" +are Short-stories in conception, although they are without the +compression which the Short-story requires. In the acute and learned +essay on _vers de société_ which Mr. Frederick Locker prefixed to his +admirable "Lyra Elegantiarum," he declared that the two characteristics +of the best _vers de société_ were brevity and brilliancy, and that "The +Rape of the Lock" would be the type and model of the best _vers de +société_--if it were not just a little too long. So it is with "The Case +of Mr. Lucraft," with "Vice Versa," with "Called Back:" they are just a +little too long. + +It is to be noted as a curious coincidence that there is no exact word +in English to designate either _vers de société_ or the Short-story, and +yet in no language are there better _vers de société_ or Short-stories +than in English. It may be remarked also that there is a certain +likeness between _vers de société_ and Short-stories: for one thing, +both seem easy and are hard to write. And the typical qualifications of +each may apply with almost equal force to the other: _vers de société_ +should reveal compression, ingenuity, and originality, and Short-stories +should have brevity and brilliancy. In no class of writing are neatness +of construction and polish of execution more needed than in the writing +of _vers de société_ and of Short-stories. The writer of Short-stories +must have the sense of form, which Mr. Lathrop has called "the highest +and last attribute of a creative writer." The construction must be +logical, adequate, harmonious. Here is the weak spot in Mr. Bishop's +"One of the Thirty Pieces," the fundamental idea of which has +extraordinary strength perhaps not fully developed in the story. But +others of Mr. Bishop's stories--"The Battle of Bunkerloo," for +instance--are admirable in all ways, conception and execution having an +even excellence. Again, Mr. Hugh Conway's "Daughter of the Stars" is a +Short-story which fails from sheer deficiency of style: here is one of +the very finest Short-story ideas ever given to mortal man, but the +handling is at best barely sufficient. To do justice to the conception +would task the execution of a poet. We can merely wonder what the tale +would have been had it occurred to Hawthorne, to Poe, or to Théophile +Gautier. An idea logically developed by one possessing the sense of form +and the gift of style is what we look for in the Short-story. + +But, although the sense of form and the gift of style are essential to +the writing of a good Short-story, they are secondary to the idea, to +the conception, to the subject. Those who hold, with a certain American +novelist, that it is no matter what you have to say, but only how you +say it, need not attempt the Short-story; for the Short-story, far more +than the Novel even, demands a subject. The Short-story is nothing if +there is no story to tell. The Novel, so Mr. James told us not long ago, +"is, in its broadest definition, a personal impression of life." The +most powerful force in French fiction to-day is M. Emile Zola, chiefly +known in America and England, I fear me greatly, by the dirt which masks +and degrades the real beauty and firm strength not seldom concealed in +his novels; and M. Emile Zola declares that the novelist of the future +will not concern himself with the artistic evolution of a plot: he will +take _une histoire quelconque_, any kind of a story, and make it serve +his purpose,--which is to give elaborate pictures of life in all its +most minute details. The acceptance of these theories is a negation of +the Short-story. Important as are form and style, the substance of the +Short-story is of more importance yet. What you have to tell is of +greater interest than how you tell it. I once heard a clever American +novelist pour sarcastic praise upon another American novelist,--for +novelists, even American novelists, do not always dwell together in +unity. The subject of the eulogy is the chief of those who have come to +be known as the International Novelists, and he was praised because he +had invented and made possible a fifth plot. Hitherto, declared the +eulogist, only four terminations of a novel have been known to the most +enthusiastic and untiring student of fiction. First, they are married; +or, second, she marries some one else; or, thirdly, he marries some one +else; or, fourthly, and lastly, she dies. Now, continued the panegyrist, +a fifth termination has been shown to be practicable: they are not +married, she does not die, he does not die, and nothing happens at all. +As a Short-story need not be a love-story, it is of no consequence at +all whether they marry or die; but a Short-story in which nothing +happens at all is an absolute impossibility. + +Perhaps the difference between a Short-story and a Sketch can best be +indicated by saying that, while a Sketch may be still-life, in a +Short-story something always happens. A Sketch may be an outline of +character, or even a picture of a mood of mind, but in a Short-story +there must be something done, there must be an action. Yet the +distinction, like that between the Novel and the Romance, is no longer +of vital importance. In the preface to "The House of the Seven Gables," +Hawthorne sets forth the difference between the Novel and the Romance, +and claims for himself the privileges of the romancer. Mr. Henry James +fails to see this difference. The fact is, that the Short-story and the +Sketch, the Novel and the Romance, melt and merge one into the other, +and no man may mete the boundaries of each, though their extremes lie +far apart. With the more complete understanding of the principle of +development and evolution in literary art, as in physical nature, we see +the futility of a strict and rigid classification into precisely defined +genera and species. All that it is needful for us to remark now is that +the Short-story has limitless possibilities: it may be as realistic as +the most prosaic novel, or as fantastic as the most ethereal romance. + +As a touch of fantasy, however slight, is a most welcome ingredient in a +Short-story, and as the American takes more thought of things unseen +than the Englishman, we may have here an incomplete explanation of the +superiority of the American Short-story over the English. "John Bull has +suffered the idea of the Invisible to be very much fattened out of him," +says Mr. Lowell: "Jonathan is conscious still that he lives in the World +of the Unseen as well as of the Seen." It is not enough to catch a ghost +white-handed and to hale him into the full glare of the electric light. +A brutal misuse of the supernatural is perhaps the very lowest +degradation of the art of fiction. But "to mingle the marvellous rather +as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor than as any actual portion +of the substance," to quote from the preface to "The House of the Seven +Gables," this is, or should be, the aim of the writer of Short-stories +whenever his feet leave the firm ground of fact as he strays in the +unsubstantial realms of fantasy. In no one's writings is this better +exemplified than in Hawthorne's; not even in Poe's. There is a propriety +in Hawthorne's fantasy to which Poe could not attain. Hawthorne's +effects are moral where Poe's are merely physical. To Poe the situation +and its logical development and the effects to be got out of it are all +he thinks of. In Hawthorne the situation, however strange and weird, is +only the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual struggle. +Ethical consequences are always worrying Hawthorne's soul; but Poe did +not know that there were any ethics. + +There are literary evolutionists who, in their whim of seeing in every +original writer a copy of some predecessor, have declared that Hawthorne +is derived from Tieck, and Poe from Hoffmann, just as Dickens modelled +himself on Smollett and Thackeray followed in the footsteps of Fielding. +In all four cases the pupil surpassed the master,--if haply Tieck and +Hoffmann can be considered as even remotely the masters of Hawthorne and +Poe. When Coleridge was told that Klopstock was the German Milton, he +assented with the dry addendum, "A very German Milton." So is Hoffmann a +very German Poe, and Tieck a very German Hawthorne. Of a truth, both Poe +and Hawthorne are as American as any one can be. If the adjective +American has any meaning at all, it qualifies Poe and Hawthorne. They +were American to the core. They both revealed the curious sympathy with +Oriental moods of thought which is often an American characteristic, +Poe, with his cold logic and his mathematical analysis, and Hawthorne, +with his introspective conscience and his love of the subtile and the +invisible, are representative of phases of American character not to be +mistaken by any one who has given thought to the influence of +nationality. + +As to which of the two was the greater, discussion is idle, but that +Hawthorne was the finer genius few would deny. Poe, as cunning an +artificer of goldsmith's work and as adroit in its vending as was ever +M. Josse, declared that "Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, +creation, imagination, originality,--a trait which in the literature of +fiction is positively worth all the rest." But the moral basis of +Hawthorne's work, which had flowered in the crevices and crannies of +New-England Puritanism, Poe did not concern himself with. In Poe's hands +the story of "The Ambitious Guest" might have thrilled us with a more +powerful horror, but it would have lacked the ethical beauty which +Hawthorne gave it and which makes it significant beyond a mere feat of +verbal legerdemain. And the subtile simplicity of "The Great Stone Face" +is as far from Poe as the pathetic irony of "The Ambitious Guest." In +all his most daring fantasies Hawthorne is natural, and, though he may +project his vision far beyond the boundaries of fact, nowhere does he +violate the laws of nature. He had at all times a wholesome simplicity, +and he never showed any trace of the morbid taint which characterizes +nearly all Poe's work. Hawthorne, one may venture to say, had the broad +sanity of genius, while we should understand any one who might declare +that Poe had mental disease raised to the _n'th_. + +Although it may be doubted whether the fiery and tumultuous rush of a +volcano, which may be taken to typify Poe, is as powerful or as +impressive in the end as the calm and inevitable progression of a +glacier, to which, for the purposes of this comparison only, we may +liken Hawthorne, yet the effect and influence of Poe's work are +indisputable. One might hazard the assertion that in all Latin countries +he is the best known of American authors. Certainly no American writer +has been as widely accepted in France. Nothing better of its kind has +ever been done than "The Pit and the Pendulum," or than "The Fall of the +House of Usher," which Mr. Stoddard has compared recently with +Browning's "Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower came" for its power of +suggesting intellectual desolation. Nothing better of its kind has ever +been done than "The Gold-Bug," or than "The Purloined Letter," or than +"The Murders in the Rue Morgue." This last, indeed, is a story of +marvellous skill: it was the first of its kind, and to this day it +remains a model, not only unsurpassed, but unapproachable. It was the +first of detective-stories, and it has had thousands of imitations and +no rival. The originality, the ingenuity, the verisimilitude of this +tale and of its fellows are beyond all praise. Poe had a faculty which +one may call imaginative ratiocination to a decree beyond all other +writers of fiction. He did not at all times keep up to the high level, +in one style, of "The Fall of the House of Usher," and in another, of +"The Murders in the Hue Morgue;" and it was not to be expected that he +should, Only too often did he sink to the grade of the ordinary "Tale +from 'Blackwood,'" which he himself satirized in his usual savage vein +of humor. Yet even in his flimsiest and most tawdry tales we see the +truth of Mr. Lowell's assertion that Poe had "two of the prime qualities +of genius,--a faculty of vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful +fecundity of imagination." Mr. Lowell said also that Poe combined "in a +very remarkable manner two faculties which are seldom found united,--a +power of influencing the mind of the reader by the impalpable shadows of +mystery, and a minuteness of detail which does not leave a pin or a +button unnoticed. Both are, in truth, the natural results of the +predominating quality of his mind, to which we have before +alluded,--analysis." In Poe's hands, however, the enumeration of pins +and buttons, the exact imitation of the prosaic facts of humdrum life in +this workaday world, is not an end, but a means only, whereby he +constructs and intensifies the shadow of mystery which broods over the +things thus realistically portrayed. + +With the recollection that it is more than half a century since +Hawthorne and Poe wrote their best Short-stories, it is not a little +comic to see now and again in American newspapers a rash assertion that +"American literature has hitherto been deficient in good Short-stories," +or the reckless declaration that "the art of writing Short-stories has +not hitherto been cultivated in the United States." Nothing could be +more inexact than these statements. Almost as soon as America began to +have any literature at all it had good Short-stories. It is quite within +ten, or at the most twenty, years that the American novel has come to +the front and forced the acknowledgment of its equality with the English +novel and the French novel; but for fifty years the American +Short-story has had a supremacy which any competent critic could not but +acknowledge. Indeed, the present excellence of the American novel is due +in great measure to the Short-story; for nearly every one of the +American novelists whose works are now read by the whole +English-speaking race began as a writer of Short-stories. Although as a +form of fiction the Short-story is not inferior to the Novel, and +although it is not easier, all things considered, yet its brevity makes +its composition simpler for the 'prentice hand. Though the Short-stories +of the beginner may not be good, yet in the writing of Short-stories he +shall learn how to tell a story, he shall discover by experience the +elements of the art of fiction more readily and, above all, more quickly +than if he had begun on a long and exhausting novel. The physical strain +of writing a full-sized novel is far greater than the reader can well +imagine. To this strain the beginner in fiction may gradually accustom +himself by the composition of Short stories. + +Here, if the digression may be pardoned, occasion serves to say that if +our writers of plays had the same chance that our writers of novels +have, we might now have a school of American dramatists of which we +should be as proud as of our school of American novelists. In dramatic +composition, the equivalent of the Short-story is the one-act play, be +it drama or comedy or comedietta or farce. As the novelists have learned +their trade by the writing of Short-stories, so the dramatists might +learn their trade, far more difficult as it is and more complicated, by +the writing of one-act plays. But, while the magazines of the United +States are hungry for good Short-stories, and sift carefully all that +are sent to them, in the hope of happening on a treasure, the theatres +of the United States are closed to one-act plays, and the dramatist is +denied the opportunity of making a humble and tentative beginning. The +conditions of the theatre are such that there is little hope of a change +for the better in this respect,--more's the pity. The manager has a +tradition that a "broken bill," a programme containing more than one +play, is a confession of weakness, and he prefers, so far as possible, +to keep his weakness concealed. + +When we read the roll of American novelists, we see that nearly all of +them began as writers of Short-stories. Some of them, Mr. Bret Harte, +for instance, and Mr. Edward Everett Hale, never got any farther, or, at +least, if they wrote novels, their novels did not receive the full +artistic appreciation and popular approval bestowed on their +Short-stories. Even Mr. Cable's "Grandissimes" has not made his readers +forget his "Jean-ah Poquelin," nor has Mr. Aldrich's "Queen of Sheba," +charming as she was, driven from our memory his "Margery Daw," as +delightful and as captivating as that other non-existent heroine, Mr. +Austin Dobson's "Dorothy." Mrs. Burnett put forth one volume of +Short-stories and Miss Woolson two before they attempted the more +sustained flight of the full-fledged Novel. The same may be said of Miss +Jewett, of Mr. Craddock, and of Mr. Boyesen. Mr. Bishop and Mr. Lathrop +and Mr. Julian Hawthorne wrote Short-stories before they wrote novels. +Mr. Henry James has never gathered into a book from the back-numbers of +magazines the half of his earlier efforts. + +In these references to the American magazine I believe I have suggested +the real reason of the superiority of the American Short-stories over +the English. It is not only that the eye of patriotism may detect more +fantasy, more humor, a finer feeling for art, in these younger United +States, but there is a more emphatic and material reason for the +American proficiency. There is in the United States a demand for +Short-stories which does not exist in Great Britain, or at any rate not +in the same degree. The Short-story is of very great importance to the +American magazine. But in the British magazine the serial Novel is the +one thing of consequence, and all else is termed "padding." In England +the writer of three-volume Novels is the best paid of literary +laborers. So in England whoever has the gift of story-telling is +strongly tempted not to essay the difficult art of writing +Short-stories, for which he will receive only an inadequate reward; and +he is as strongly tempted to write a long story which may serve first as +a serial and afterward as a three-volume Novel. The result of this +temptation is seen in the fact that there is not a single English +novelist whose reputation has been materially assisted by the +Short-stories he has written. More than once in the United States a +single Short-story has made a man known, but in Great Britain such an +event is wellnigh impossible. The disastrous effect on narrative art of +the desire to distend every subject to the three-volume limit has been +dwelt on unceasingly by English critics. + +The three-volume system is peculiar to Great Britain: it does not obtain +either in France or the United States. As a consequence, the French and +American writer of fiction is left free to treat his subject at the +length it demands,--no more and no less. It is pleasant to note that +there are signs of the beginning of the break-up of the system even in +England; and the protests of the chief English critics against it are +loud and frequent. It is responsible in great measure for the invention +and perfection of the British machine for making English Novels, of +which Mr. Warner told us in his entertaining essay on fiction. We all +know the work of this machine, and we all recognize the trade-mark it +imprints in the corner. But Mr. Warner failed to tell us, what +nevertheless is a fact, that this British machine can be geared down so +as to turn out the English short story. Now, the English short story, as +the machine makes it and as we see it in most English magazines, is only +a little English Novel, or an incident or episode from an English Novel. +It is thus the exact artistic opposite of the American Short-story, of +which, as we have seen, the chief characteristics are originality, +ingenuity, compression, and, not infrequently, a touch of fantasy. It +is not, of course, that the good and genuine Short-story is not written +in England now and then,--for if I were to make any such assertion some +of the best work of Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, of Mr. Walter Besant, +and of Mr. Anstey would rise up to contradict me: it is merely that it +is an accidental growth, and not a staple of production. As a rule, in +England the artist in fiction does not care to hide his light under a +bushel, and he puts his best work where it will be seen of all +men,--that is to say, _not_ in a Short-story. So it happens that the +most of the brief tales in the English magazines are not true +Short-stories at all, and that they belong to a lower form of the art of +fiction, in the department with the amplified anecdote. It is the +three-volume Novel which has killed the Short-story in England. + +Certain of the remarks in the present paper the writer put forth first +anonymously some months ago in the columns of an English weekly review. +To his intense surprise, they were controverted in a leading American +weekly review. The critic began by assuming that the writer had said +that Americans preferred Short-stories to Novels. What had really been +said was that there was a steady demand for Short-stories in American +magazines, whereas in England the demand was rather for serial Novels. +"In the first place," said the critic, "Americans do not prefer +Short-stories, as is shown by the enormous number of British Novels +circulated among us; and in the second place, tales of the quiet, +domestic kind, which form the staple of periodicals like 'All the Year +Round' and 'Chambers's Journal,' have here thousands of readers where +native productions, however clever and original, have only hundreds, +since the former are reprinted by the country papers and in the Sunday +editions of city papers as rapidly and as regularly as they are produced +at home." Now, the answer to this is simply that these English Novels +and English stories are reprinted widely in the United States, not +because the American people prefer them to anything else, but because, +owing to the absence of international copyright, they cost nothing. That +the American people prefer to read American stories when they can get +them is shown by the enormous circulation of the periodicals which make +a specialty of American fiction. + +I find I have left myself little space to speak of the Short-story as it +exists in other literatures than those of Great Britain and the United +States, The conditions which have killed the Short-story in England do +not obtain elsewhere; and elsewhere there are not a few good writers of +Short-stories. Tourgéneff, Björnsen, Sacher-Masoch, Freytag, Lindau, are +the names which one recalls at once and without effort as masters in the +art and mystery of the Short-story. Tourgéneff's Short-stories, in +particular, it would be difficult to commend too warmly. But it is in +France that the Short-story flourishes most abundantly. In France the +conditions are not unlike those in the United States; and, although +there are few French magazines, there are many Parisian newspapers of a +wide hospitality to literature. The demand for the Short-story has +called forth an abundant supply. Among the writers of the last +generation who excelled in the _conte_--which is almost the exact French +equivalent for Short-story, as _nouvelle_ may be taken to indicate the +story which is merely short, the episode, the incident, the amplified +anecdote--were Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier, and Prosper Mérimée. +The best work of Mérimée has never been surpassed. As compression was +with him almost a mania, as, indeed, it was with his friend Tourgéneff, +he seemed born on purpose to write Short-stories. Tourgéneff carried his +desire for conciseness so far that he seems always to be experimenting +to see how much of his story he may leave out. One of the foremost among +the living writers of _contes_ is M. Edmond About, whose exquisite humor +is known to all readers of "The Man with the Broken Ear,"--a Short-story +in conception, though unduly extended in execution. Few of the charming +_contes_ of M. Alphonse Daudet, or of the earlier Short-stories of M. +Emile Zola, have been translated into English; and the poetic tales of +M. François Coppée are likewise neglected in this country. "The Abbé +Constantin" of M. Ludovic Halévy has been read by many, but the Gallic +satire of his more Parisian Short-stories has been neglected, perhaps +wisely, in spite of their broad humor and their sharp wit. In the +_contes_ of M. Guy de Maupassant there is a manly vigor, pushed at times +to excess; and in the very singular collection of stories which M. Jean +Richepin has called the "Morts Bizarres" we find a modern continuation +of the Poe tradition, always more potent in France than elsewhere. I +have given this list of French writers of Short-stories merely as +evidence that the art flourishes in France as well as in the United +States, and not at all with the view of recommending the fair readers of +this essaylet to send at once for the works of these French writers, +which are not always--indeed, one may say not often--in exact accordance +with the conventionalities of Anglo-Saxon propriety. The Short-story +should not be void or without form, but its form may be whatever the +author please. He has an absolute liberty of choice. It may be a +personal narrative, like Poe's "Descent into the Maelstrom" or Hale's +"My Double, and How he Undid me;" it may be impersonal, like Mr. F.B. +Perkins's "Devil-Puzzlers" or Colonel De Forest's "Brigade Commander;" +it may be a conundrum, like Mr. Stockton's insoluble query, "The Lady or +the Tiger?" it may be "A Bundle of Letters," like Mr. James's story, or +"A Letter and a Paragraph," like Mr. Bunner's; it may be a medley of +letters and telegrams and narrative, like Mr. Aldrich's "Margery Daw;" +it may be cast in any one of these forms, or in a combination of all of +them, or in a wholly new form, if haply such may yet be found by +diligent search. Whatever its form, it should have symmetry of design. +If it have also wit or humor, pathos or poetry, and especially a +distinct and unmistakable flavor of originality, so much the better. But +the chief requisites are compression, originality, ingenuity, and now +and again a touch of fantasy. Sometimes we may detect in a writer of +Short-stories a tendency toward the over-elaboration of ingenuity, +toward the exhibition of ingenuity for its own sake, as in a Chinese +puzzle. But mere cleverness is incompatible with greatness, and to +commend a writer as "very clever" is not to give him high praise. From +this fault of super-subtilty women are free for the most part. They are +more likely than men to rely on broad human emotion, and their tendency +in error is toward the morbid analysis of a high-strung moral situation. + +BRANDER MATTHEWS. + + * * * * * + + + + +GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. + + +The extraordinary honors paid to General Grant in England created a +profound impression all over Europe. No other American, and, indeed, few +Europeans, had ever received such honors abroad; and what made the case +still more impressive and exceptional was the fact that this great +distinction was paid to no potentate or prince of the blood, but to a +simple private citizen, holding no rank or official position. + +As soon as it was known that General Grant intended to travel on the +Continent, he was invited to visit Frankfort-on-the-Main. The invitation +was extended by the American residents of that city, and was accepted. +A joint meeting of Americans and Frankfort burghers was then held, and a +committee was appointed, half Germans and half Americans, to make +arrangements for the proposed reception and entertainment of General +Grant and his party. Mr. Henry Seligman, an American banker of +Frankfort, and the writer of this, were appointed by this committee to +intercept the distinguished tourist on his journey up the Rhine and +conduct him to the city. + +It was on a charming summer morning that we quitted Frankfort on this +mission. General Grant was at Bingen, where he had arrived the evening +before from Cologne. He was accompanied by Mrs. Grant, his son Jesse +Grant, and General Adam Badeau, then Consul-General at London. Their +arrival at Bingen had been so unostentatious that their presence in the +town was scarcely known outside of the hotel in which they had taken +rooms. Their departure was alike unnoticed. + +Our train drew up at Bingen just as a special _Schnellzug_ with the +Emperor of Germany on board swept by. Proceeding at once to the hotel, +we learned that General Grant had already left for Rüdesheim, but had +possibly not yet crossed the river. We hastened to the landing, and +there found him and his party seated under some linden-trees, waiting +for the ferry. I had a package of letters for the general which had come +to my care, and which, after mutual introductions, I delivered to him at +once. Tearing open and throwing away the envelopes, General Grant +hastily inspected the letters and passed them to General Badeau. By this +time the Rüdesheim steamer had arrived, and we all went on board. In a +moment more the boat pushed off and turned its course up the stately +river. The rippling waters sparkled in the sunshine, and all the +vine-clad hills were dressed in summer beauty. On the right, dropping +behind us, was Bingen, famous in legend and in song, and on the left, in +the foreground, appeared the curious spires and roofs of Rüdesheim. The +scene was an ideal tableau, such as Byron describes, of the + + Wide and winding Rhine, + Whose breast of waters broadly swells +Between the banks which bear the vine, + And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, +And fields which promise corn and wine, + And scattered cities crowning these, +Whose far white walls along them shine. + +From Rüdesheim to Wiesbaden the railway follows the Rhine as far as +Castel, at the mouth of the Main, opposite Mayence. A short distance +above Rüdesheim the Taunus bluffs sweep back from the river, and the +garden of the Rhine valley opens out right and left. This is the heart +of the wine-growing region, and within it lie many of the most +celebrated vineyards in the world. The valley is dotted with villages +whose names are famous in the Rhine-wine nomenclature, and upon a bold +promontory, commanding all, the queen of the German vintage rules from +the Johannisberg Schloss. + +While our train bowled along, and we were discussing these various +objects of interest, General Badeau discovered by accident among the +letters which General Grant had given him one which had not been opened. + +"The address is in the handwriting of General Sherman," said Badeau. + +"Yes," said General Grant, glancing at the superscription, "that is from +Sherman. Read it." + +Accordingly, General Badeau read the letter aloud, and the whole company +was deeply impressed with the cordiality of its friendly expressions. In +heartiest terms the letter felicitated General Grant upon the splendid +receptions which had been given him, and the merited appreciation +awarded him in the Old World. The letter was that of an admiring and +devoted friend rather than that of a military colleague. + +"General Sherman seems to have a strong personal regard for you, +general," remarked one of the party. + +"Yes," responded General Grant, "there has always been the best of +feeling between Sherman and myself, although attempts have not been +wanting to make it appear otherwise." + +"I have noticed such attempts," replied the person addressed, "but for +my part I have never needed any proof that they were wholly uncalled-for +and impertinent. + +"Possibly you have never heard, general," continued the speaker, "how +heartily General Sherman rejoiced over your conquest and capture of +Lee's army. He was particularly gratified that he had not been obliged +to make any movement that would have given a pretext for saying that +your success was due in part to him. To those about him he exclaimed, in +his energetic way,-- + +"'I knew Grant would do it, for I knew the man. And I'm glad that he +accomplished it without my help. Nobody can say now that I have divided +with him the credit of this success. He has deserved it all, he has +gained it all, and I'm glad that he will have it all.'" + +About noon the party arrived at Wiesbaden, where nobody seemed to expect +them except the people at the hotel where General Grant's courier had +engaged rooms. After dinner Mr. Seligman desired to tender a drive to +the general and Mrs. Grant, but they had disappeared. After a short +search, they were found sitting together alone in one of the arboreal +retreats of the Kurgarten. The general remarked that it was his custom +when he visited a city to explore it on foot, and that in this way he +had already made himself tolerably familiar, he thought, with the +general plan and situation of Wiesbaden. Mr. Seligman's invitation was +readily accepted, however, and half an hour later the party set out, in +a carriage, for the Russian Chapel. + +Wiesbaden is one of the most ancient watering-places on the Continent. +It was a Roman military station, and upon the Heidenberg--a neighboring +eminence--are seen the traces of a Roman fortress. The remains of Roman +baths and a temple have also been found there, and its waters are +mentioned by Pliny. At a later period the Carlovingian monarchs +established at Wiesbaden an imperial residence. The city lies under the +southern slope of the Taunus Mountains, the rocky recesses of which +conceal the mysteries of its thermal springs. The hilly country for +miles around abounds in charming pleasure-grounds, drives, and +promenades. The gilded palaces which were formerly used as fashionable +gambling-houses are now devoted to the social and musical recreation of +visitors who come to take the waters. + +The drive to the Russian Chapel ascends the Taunus Mountain by a winding +road, amidst stately, well-kept forests of beech and chestnut. The +chapel, whose gilded domes can be seen from afar, stands upon one of the +most salient mountain-spurs, and overlooks the country as far as Mayence +and the Odenwald. It was erected by the Duke of Nassau as a memorial to +his deceased first wife, who was a beautiful young Russian princess. +Upon her tomb, which adorns the interior, her life-size effigy reclines, +in pure white marble. + +General Grant lingered for some time at this place, and from the +promontory on which the chapel stands gazed with deep interest over the +far-reaching historic scenes of the Rhine valley. + +Next morning the general and his party arrived at Frankfort, where they +were met by the reception-committee. Accompanied by this committee, the +party visited the ancient Römer, within whose venerable walls for many +centuries the German emperors were chosen; then the quaint and venerated +mansion in which Goethe was born; then the old cathedral, wherein a +score or more of German potentates were crowned; and then, in +succession, the poet Boerne's birthplace, the Judengasse, the original +home of the Rothschilds, the Ariadneum (named from Dännecker's marble +group of Ariadne and the lioness), the Art Museum, the Goethe and +Schiller monuments, and the beautiful sylvan resort for popular +recreation, known as "The Wald." General Grant visited also, by +invitation, some of the great wine-cellars of Frankfort, and was +conducted through the immense crypts of Henninger's brewery, which is +one of the largest establishments of the kind on the Continent. As he +was about to leave Henninger's, he was requested to write his name in +the visitors' register. The record was divided into spaces entitled, +respectively, "name," "residence," and "occupation." General Grant +promptly put down his name and place of residence, but when he came to +the "occupation" column he hesitated. "What shall I write here?" he +inquired: "loafer?" + +This remark was made in jest, and yet not without a certain sadness of +tone and manner. Undoubtedly, General Grant felt keenly the irksomeness +of having nothing particular to do. After the immense strain which had +been put upon him for twelve successive years, it was not easy for him +to reconcile himself, in the prime of his manhood and the full maturity +of his powers, to being a mere spectator of the affairs of men. Activity +had become a second nature to him, and idleness was simply intolerable. +With much leisure on his hands, he first sought rest and recreation, and +then occupation. However unfortunately his business undertakings +resulted, they were, after all, but the outcome of a natural and +laudable desire to be usefully employed. + +The banquet given to General Grant by the citizens and resident +Americans of Frankfort was a superb affair. It took place in the +Palmengarten, which is, above any other object, the pride of the +charming old "City of the Main." When the Duke of Nassau, an active +sympathizer with the beaten party in the Austro-Prussian war, lost his +dominions and quitted his château at Biebrich, the Frankforters availed +themselves of the opportunity to buy the famous collection of plants in +his winter-garden, comprising about thirty thousand rare and costly +specimens. The joint-stock company by which this purchase was made +received from the city a donation of twenty acres of land, and added +thereto, from its own funds, ten acres more. + +The company also obtained, partly by donation, five large palm-trees, +and from these the Palmengarten takes its name. For the conservation of +the botanical collection a mammoth structure was erected of glass and +iron, and for the entertainment of visitors a commodious and elegant +music- and dining-hall was added. The grounds were adorned with +fountains, lakes, parterres, and promenades, and were equipped with +every facility for family and popular recreation, not overlooking, by +any means, the amusement of the children. In all Europe there is not a +lovelier spot than this. To keep it in order, educated gardeners are +employed, regularly salaried; and in the arrangement of the plants such +combinations of color and form are produced as an artist might envy. +Twice daily a concert is given by a large, well-trained orchestra in the +music-hall, or, when the weather is propitious, in a pavilion in the +garden. The concert-hall looks through a glass partition directly into +the great conservatory, which, thus viewed, presents a scene of tropical +enchantment. The palm-trees occupy conspicuous positions amidst +skilfully-grouped dracænas, ferns, azaleas, rhododendrons, passifloras, +and a myriad of other curious vegetable productions of the equatorial +world. The ground is carpeted with light-green moss, smooth and soft as +velvet, and, as an appropriate centre-piece to the whole, is seen the +silvery flash of a falling cataract. + +The banquet was held in the music-hall, where General Grant was given a +seat immediately fronting the scene just described. The conservatory and +hall were brilliantly illuminated, the tables were resplendent with +silver and floral decorations, and upon the walls of the banquet-chamber +the emblems of the great Republic and the great Empire were suggestively +displayed side by side. Ladies were admitted to the galleries, but +gentlemen only were seated at the tables, and among the guests were many +of the most prominent bankers and merchants of Germany, including +capitalists who had been the first in Europe to invest in the war-loans +offered by our government. + +The dinner lasted three hours. Between the courses various toasts were +drunk, a venerable burgher of Frankfort proposing the health of General +Grant, to which the general responded in a brief, sensible, and somewhat +humorous speech, which was exceedingly well received. Nothing could have +been more appropriate, modest, and fitting. + +Outside the building the scene was scarcely less animated or interesting +than within. By the aid of colored lights and other pyrotechnic +contrivances the garden was made brilliant and gay as an Arabian Nights +dream. The air was perfumed with the aroma of flowers and moistened by +the delirious play of fountains. Thousands of people, elegantly dressed, +were seated on the out-door terraces, enjoying the fireworks and music, +and in the promenades other thousands were moving, producing a +kaleidoscopic combination of motion and color. For some time after the +banquet General Grant sat upon the veranda of the music-hall, conversing +with friends and observing this novel scene. His presence excited no +rude curiosity or boisterous enthusiasm, but was none the less honored +by more subdued and decorous demonstrations of respect. + +The next day General Grant drove to Homburg, fifteen miles, and thence +four miles farther to Saalburg, the site of an ancient Roman +fortification on the Taunus Mountains. It was one of a series of +defensive stations covering the frontier of the Roman empire and +extending from the Rhine to the Danube. The exhumations at this +fortified camp, first attempted within a recent period, have disclosed +the most completely preserved Roman castramentation yet found in +Germany. The castellum is a rectangle, four hundred and sixty-five by +seven hundred and four feet, and is surrounded by two deep ditches and +by high parapets. Within this enclosure the prætorium, or residence of +the commandant, one hundred and thirty-two by one hundred and +fifty-three feet, has been distinctly traced by its stone foundations. +Stones marked with Roman characters yet remain in their places, +designating the camps of the different legions. This fort is mentioned +by Tacitus, and was one of the principal bulwarks of the Roman conquest +in Germany against the tribes which hovered along its northern frontier. + +The excavations were still in progress at the time of General Grant's +visit, and on that very occasion some interesting relics were unearthed. +Mrs. Grant was presented with a ring and some pieces of ancient pottery +which were removed in her presence from the places where they had lain +embedded in the earth for the last eighteen hundred years. + +Near the fort was discovered, a few years ago, the cemetery where the +ashes of the deceased Romans of the garrison were interred. Some of the +graves which had never before been disturbed were opened in General +Grant's presence, in order that he might see with his own eyes what they +contained and in what manner their contents were deposited. From each +grave a small urn was taken, containing the ashes of one cremated human +body, and upon the mouth of the urn was found, in each instance, a Roman +obolus, which had been deposited there to pay the ferriage of the soul +of the departed over the Stygian river. General Grant was presented with +some of these coins as mementos of his visit. + +Upon his return to Homburg the ensuing evening, the general was +banqueted by a party of Americans, and a splendid illumination of the +Kurgarten was given in his honor. The next day he returned to Frankfort, +and the next departed by rail for Heidelberg and Switzerland. + +ALFRED E. LEE. + + * * * * * + + + + +TURTLING ON THE OUTER REEF. + + +"What's that astern, Sandy?" The old darky, who had been gently soothed +into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow, +raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and +sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, "On deck der! man yo' wedder fo' +an' main, lee clew garnets an' buntlines, topsail halyards an' +down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in +a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have +been heard a mile away. + +The occasion of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, +when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high +and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing +with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us +along mysteriously crept away, as if awed by the strange apparition. The +laughing gulls that had hovered above the water rose high in air, +uttering piercing cries while standing out in vivid silvery brightness +against the wall of night. The sea assumed a bright metallic tint and +rose and fell in uneasy measure, while the booming of the breakers on +the distant reef, and the swash of the waves as our craft rolled to and +fro, were painfully distinct. + +"Cotch suthin'!" shouted Sandy, taking a round turn about the tiller +with the slack end of the dingy's painter. Delicate furrows for a moment +cut their way here and there over the glassy surface, and then with a +roar the black squall was upon us, keeling our craft almost upon her +beam-ends. The water seemed torn from its bed, flung by some unseen +power high into the air, and borne hissing and roaring away. It cut and +lashed our faces as we crouched flat upon the deck, clinging where we +could. The sea rose as if by magic, and, with the wind astern, was +driving us upon the reef which we had been encircling in search of a +harbor. After ten minutes of the wild race with the squall, which now +was as quickly lighting up, we heard the roar of the breakers near at +hand. + +"Put her up in de win', or we'se gone, sho'!" shrieked young Rastus, who +had crawled aft. + +"Gone where?" cried Sandy, his grim visage, dripping with water, now +visible braced against the tiller. + +Rastus's white eyeballs, standing out in terror, rolled ominously up and +then down in answer, leaving a doubt to be inferred. + +"How old is yo', son?" asked the old man fiercely, bracing hard as the +craft yawed heavily. + +"I ain't gwine to git any older, dat's sho'," replied the boy. + +"W'y, yo' poor coon," retorted Sandy. "ef yu'se ole as Jehos'phat, I'se +wu'ked disher reef fo' yu'se bo'n." + +So quickly had the squall passed that its power was now well over, and +the lighting up showed us to be only a few hundred yards from the mass +of breakers pounding upon the outer reef. + +"Yo' 'spec' to jump dat reef?" asked Rastus, fairly shaking with fear. + +"Start dat jib," thundered the old man. "Give her de bonnet an' de +ma'nsail up to dat fastest patch." + +The boys jumped to the halyards, and the boat sprang forward with +renewed speed, careening over until she was half under, and slightly +hauling on the wind. + +"Ef I kin keep her offen de reef twill hit lightens up, we'se all +right," whispered Sandy; and suddenly, looking after the retreating +cloud, out of which in the gloom now appeared the tops of the +mangrove-trees, he shouted exultantly, "Give her de jib," and, with a +lunge at the tiller, the vessel fell away and dashed onward at the wall +of rock and foam. + +"For de Lawd's sake, yo' ain't gwine to jump dat reef, is yo'?" cried +Rastus, in an agony of terror. + +But it was too late to question the old man's intentions: we were +already in the back swash of the breakers. "Cotch suthin!" he shouted +again, as our craft on the crest of a mighty roller shot onward to +seeming destruction. + +On either side the bare coral rock was visible, as the waves gathered +for another onward rush; yet we did not strike. A second roller raised +us high in air, and, hurled forward with the speed of the wind, we were +buried in the seething foam; but the next moment our craft shook off the +sea, and we glided away on the smooth waters of the inner reef. A few +minutes later the sun was out again, and one of the strangest phases of +life on the reef had come and gone. + +"I 'spec' dat was a narrer 'scape," said old Sandy, "but I tuk de only +chance. We was boun' to strike somewhere, an' de squall jes' got off in +time for me to take bearin's of disher five-foot channel; an', it's a +fac', I'se been fru a heap o' times, but dat was de wustest, sho' +'nuff." + +From Sandy's orders given at the approach of the squall, the reader +might possibly infer that the sable mariner was commander of a +ninety-gun frigate, while in point of fact he was only skipper of a very +disreputable fishing-smack. But he had been nearly all his life a "boy" +on a government vessel, and now, having retired, from either habit or +fancy he still kept up the man-of-war discipline, and when under more +than ordinary excitement roared out a flood of orders that savored of +both navy and merchant marine, uttering them with all the enjoyment of a +ranking officer on his own quarter-deck. They were, however, well +understood by Sandy's sons, who constituted the port and starboard +watches of the smack, and who were in constant awe of the old +man-of-war's-man, who did not hesitate to enforce his orders with any +missile that came handy. + +"Dis ship's on a war-footin', dat's sho'," he said, after one of these +characteristic scenes, and then, in a stage whisper, "so's de crew. +Dey's bofe cou'tin' de same gal in Key Wes'." + +The Bull Pup, for such was her name, kept up her war-footing as long as +we knew her, and the dignity invested in her hulk, which had a strong +predisposition toward bilge, was, to say the least, extraordinary. Never +was better craft for the purpose; and during a long cruise among the +small keys that form the extreme end of the Florida peninsula, she +always showed a dogged determination, as indicated by her name, to +surmount all difficulties. + +We had sailed down during the night from Marquesas across the Rebecca +shoals, and when caught by the squall were off Bush Key, one of the most +easterly of the group, which enjoys the distinction of possessing Dry +Tortugas,--why "dry" we know not. Our extraordinary entrance, almost +instantaneous, from rough to comparatively smooth water can only be +explained by a casual reference to the great reef. The group of +keys--Loggerhead, Bird, Long, Middle, East, North, Bush, Sand, and +Garden--are all within seven miles of each other, Garden, Bird, Bush, +and Long being in close proximity,--within swimming-distance, if the +swimmer be not nervous in regard to sharks. From these central keys a +great sandy shoal spreads away on all sides, cut up, however, by several +deep channels admitting vessels of the largest draught. To the east and +south the reef is two miles wide and rarely over four feet deep, covered +at intervals with great fields of branch corals, while here and there +clusters of enormous heads of astrea, porites, etc., have collected. The +edge of the reef is formed of dead coral rock, often beaten up by the +waves into a continuous wall several miles in extent, and a few steps +beyond this the water deepens quickly, until at the length of a vessel +from it no bottom is visible. + +The one opening in this barrier on the side of our approach, so +formidable in a gale, is the passage through which the skill of Sandy +had safely brought us, being, as its name explains, five feet deep and +not many more in width, and used only at odd times by the few pilots and +fishermen of the reef who know the secret of its approach. But how old +Sandy found it when completely covered by the waves, with only the tops +of certain trees to steer by, is one of the mysteries. + +Our object in visiting this desolate part of the country was to capture +turtles. Here is the ground of the green and loggerhead turtles, and, +according to Sandy, the hawksbill, from which the shell of commerce is +taken, is also occasionally found. + +The squall was now a fast-disappearing pillar in the west. The +anchor-chain ran merrily out, and we rounded to in the narrow harbor of +Garden Key. The boys manned the pump, while Sandy and the writer pulled +for the shore, and the dingy soon crunched into the white, sandy beach +of the coral island which during the war was the Botany Bay of America. +Surely Dry Tortugas has been maligned: instead of dry we find it very +wet, a key of sand thirteen acres in extent, hardly one foot above the +tide, and entirely occupied by probably the largest brick fort in the +world. + +Fort Jefferson was commenced long before the war, and is now a monument +of the ineffectual military methods of thirty years ago. The work is a +six-sided, two-tiered fort of majestic proportions, its faces pierced +with over five hundred guns. How many millions of dollars have been +expended in its erection it would be difficult to conjecture. The +question why so important a work was built here is often asked, and we +have heard the answer given that it was encouraged by the Key West +slave-owners, through their representatives, to give employment to their +slaves, who were engaged as laborers by the government. Garden Key, +however, is the key of the gulf, and, as a prospective coaling-station +in case of war, it was undoubtedly a spot to be held at all odds, and at +the outbreak of the war it formed a convenient spot for the confinement +of certain prisoners, as many as three thousand being kept there at one +time. Now the great fort figures as a picture of desolation and is +slowly falling to decay, deserted save by the memories of the great +conflict, a lighthouse-keeper, and a guard. + +Once within the great enclosure, the reason for its having been called +Garden Key becomes apparent. The neighboring islands are covered with +prickly pear, mangroves, and bay-cedars, while here clumps of cocoanuts +rear their graceful forms, their long rustling leaves, which convey to +the distant listener the cooling impression of falling rain, reaching +high over the top of the fort. On the west side grows a small grove of +bananas, while against the cottage walls luxuriant vines climb in wild +confusion. What was once the parade-ground is covered by a thick growth +of wiry grass, in which gopher- and crab-holes lay traps for the unwary. +In fact, far from being the forbidding spot it has been painted, Dry +Tortugas seemed to us a veritable garden in the path of the great Gulf +Stream. + +On the afternoon of our arrival the Bull Pup was got under way and +headed through a circuitous channel to East Key, off which we came to +anchor about dusk. Blankets and other articles indispensable for a night +on the beach were carried ashore, and camp formed on the edge of the +bay-cedars. East Key comprises about thirty acres of sand, thickly +covered with a low growth of bay-cedar, in which the rude nests of the +noddy are found, while here and there in the undergrowth are great +patches of cactus or prickly pear, affording lurking-places for +innumerable purple-backed crabs of ferocious mien. + +"Turklin'," said old Sandy, as we lay stretched on the sand, waiting for +the moon, "is right in de line o' hard wu'k, an' I 'spec's yo' chillun +is a-hankerin' after yo' mudder." + +The two children, both hard on thirty, indignantly denied that they had +anything but an extreme fondness for labor. + +"Wu'k!" said old Sandy, appealing to us and reaching for a piece of +driftwood to fling at his progeny in case of necessity; "w'y, de coons +of disher generation don' know de meanin' of de word, da's a fac'. How +is it dat yo' don' see no mo' bandy chillun roun' now? Kase dey mammies +don' hev to wu'k. Dey ain't got no call to put de chilluns down. W'y, +chile, I pick cotton 'fore I leave de bre's', da's a fac'. De niggers is +gittin' too sumpchus fo' dar place. Dey try to make outen dey got sense +like white folks. Yo' Rastus, yo'se deacon in de Key Wes' Fustest +Bethel, ain't yo'?" + +"'Deed I is," replied that person. + +"An' Piffney too, I reckon," continued Sandy. + +"Yas, sah," answered Piffney. + +"Wal," said the old man, turning to us again, "dere it is. Chuck full o' +'ligion, but w'en dey git in de tight hole like de five-foot dey ain't +got no faith. Old-time l'arnin' say 'tain't no use buckin' 'genst de +debble less yo' full o' faith. All de old-time coons knows dey's coons, +but dese yere free-born darkies got to be white or nuthin'. Yander," +nodding his head toward Key West, "a couple of dese yere black Conchs +drap in on me an' de ole woman, an' say, 'Uncle Sandy, we'se 'lected yo' +hon'ry member of de Anex Debatin' Soci'ty of de Young Men's Chrisshun +'Sociashun of de Fustest Bethel.' I reached fo' a chunk of scantlin', +and de ole woman stood by fo' to turn loose de coon, w'en dey hollered +out dey wasn't no 'spenses, no fees, no nuthin', only ten bits fo' +hevin' yo' name 'graved in de soci'ty's books. So I 'lowed I'd jine; an' +d'rectly dey sent me an inwite fo' de fustest meetin', an', fo' de Lawd, +mar's, w'at yo' s'pose hit was? Hit read kinder like disher," he +continued, with a groan: "'Reswolved, which is de butt end of a goat? +Fo' de affermation (de on side), Rastus Pinckey; fo' de neggertive (de +off side), Piffney Pinckey.' Yas, sah, I done pay ten bits fo' to hear +my chillun 'scuss w'at's done been settled in disher fam'ly 'fore dey's +bo'n and sence! All comes o' apin' white folks," said the old man, +threatening the debaters with the scantling. "Dey's boun' to git up a +'batin'-soci'ty an' talk all de evening w'en dere was Paublo Johnson +standin' up all de evenin' from stiffness he cotched from ole man +Geiger's goat, an', hit's a fac', he stan' an' 'scuss de question, +tryin' to make outen how de goat kicked him, all kase he's on de _on_ +side. But dat's de coon of it." + +"Whish!" whispered Rastus, who, with Piffney, had been trying to look +supernaturally solemn during this tirade. + +"Shoo!" repeated Sandy, leaning forward. + +The moon had just cleared the mangrove-tops, and illuminated the silvery +sands, casting reflections upon the water, where there was now a perfect +calm. Far away was heard the lonely cry of a laughing gull. The gentle +break of the waves upon the sands gave out a soft, musical sound, and, +as we held our breath, a sharp hiss was heard, seemingly but a few feet +away. + +"Turkle," hoarsely whispered Sandy; on which announcement we all +flattened upon the sand. So bright was the moon that every object was +distinctly visible for several hundred feet. A moment later the strange +hiss was repeated, and then a small, black object was seen glistening in +the moonlight a few feet from shore. Again came the penetrating hiss, +and the animal moved several feet farther in, as if cautiously looking +around. The moonbeams scintillated for a moment on its shell, as it +hesitated on the edge, and then the turtle commenced a clumsy scramble +up the beach, lifting itself along in a laborious manner. In ten minutes +it had reached the loose sand above tide-water, and kept its course +toward us until within thirty feet, when it began to excavate its nest. +The operation seemed to be performed mostly with the hind feet, and was +accomplished in a remarkably short time, considering the implements +used. + +All the party were breathing hard, and, as Sandy afterward remarked, +"The only reason de turkle didn't go was it t'ought we'se porpuses." + +The turtle was allowed to deposit its eggs, and when that operation was +supposed to be about over a concerted rush was made. As we rose from +the sand, the animal whirled clumsily around and made for the sea. It +was an enormous loggerhead, and, with its huge head and powerful +flippers, presented a decidedly aggressive appearance. The two boys were +first on the field, and, without waiting for the scantling which old +Sandy had grasped, seized the creature on the side, between the +flippers, and lifted it. But they had barely raised it from the sand +when the great fore flipper, being clear, struck the unfortunate Piffney +a sounding blow, knocking him against Rastus, who lost his hold, and +both went down in confusion. The turtle scrambled ahead, throwing sand +like a whirlwind. She seemed to have the faculty of lifting nearly a +quart and hurling it with unerring force, and old Sandy's mouth was soon +filled with it. Three of us again seized the animal and lifted, while +the old darky inserted the scantling as a lever. + +"Now, den, clap on yere!" he cried, dodging the sand and flippers. + +We lifted, and the monster was fairly on its side, when an ominous creak +was heard; the plank broke, and before a new hold could be taken the +turtle was but ten feet from the water. Active measures were evidently +necessary, and Sandy, taking the board, ran in front of the animal and +struck wildly at its head, yelling to us to lift. But the sand was soft, +and every lift was attended by a terrific beating to the man who stood +near the fore flipper. In vain we struck, lifted, and hauled: the turtle +was gaining slowly. Finally, in his war-dance about the animal's head, +Sandy stumbled, grasped wildly in the air, and went down backward into +the water with a sounding crash, the turtle fairly crawling over his +legs, and, despite the boys, who hung on to its hind flippers, it slid +into the water and disappeared behind a miniature tidal wave, leaving +the Pinckey family--father and sons--in a state of complete +demoralization. + +"I 'low dat turkle's bo'n free," gasped Sandy, picking himself up and +shaking the water from his clothes. + +"He ain't gwine to give up dat calapee yet, da's a fac'." + +The boys having repaired damages and unloaded the sand received during +the _mêlée_, and the moon being now well up, the tramp around the key +was commenced. The approved method is to walk along as near the water as +possible, and on finding a recent track to follow it up on the run, and +thus head off the turtle. For a mile or more we strolled along the +sands, the boys humming in low tones some old plantation melody, and +Sandy occasionally venting his wrath at some real or imaginary fault in +the young and rising generation. In the midst of one of these tirades, +the boys, who had kept ahead, suddenly darted up toward the bushes. We +were soon after them, following up a broad track distinctly marked on +the white, sandy beach, and came upon a fine green turtle, which +immediately started for the water, making rapid headway. The honor of +turning her was reserved for the writer, who, grasping the shell beneath +the flippers, essayed the task. Her struggles, the flying flippers, and +the giving sand verified Sandy's statement that "turklin' was wu'k," +and, after several ineffectual attempts, we were forced to cry for help. +The animal was soon upon her back, and proved to be one of the largest +size. "Old an' tuff," said Sandy; "but," he added, "hit'll be all the +same up No'th." + +The boys now proceeeded to cut slits in the flippers and lash them +together with rope-yarn, the animal being thus placed _hors de combat_. +The march was again taken up, and soon another track was found, but the +eggs had been laid and the game was gone. An attempt to find this nest +showed the cunning displayed by these clumsy creatures. Naturally, the +nest would be looked for at the end of the incoming track, but at this +spot the writer searched fruitlessly, while Sandy looked on in grim +satisfaction at his own superior knowledge. Finally he pointed out the +nest forty feet away, and the boys soon produced the soft, crispy eggs +as proof of his wisdom. + +"Ole turtle jes' as cunnin' as coon," said Sandy, as he nipped one of +the eggs and transferred its contents to his capacious mouth. And, +indeed, so it seemed. Instead of laying directly on reaching the soft +sand, the turtle had crawled down the beach and made several holes, +finally forming her real nest, smoothing it over so that it could never +be distinguished from the rest, and again crawling down the beach before +turning toward the water: thus the nest may be looked for anywhere +between the up and down tracks. + +Having piled the eggs in a convenient place for transportation in the +morning, the march was renewed, and before dawn four turtles were +turned, with little or no discomfort, all being green and much lighter +than the cumbersome loggerhead that first escaped us. + +In the morning the turtles were one by one placed in the dingy and taken +aboard the smack, when we set sail for Garden Key, arriving in the snug +harbor a few hours later. It is a curious fact that the long strip of +sand to the westward, called Loggerhead Key, is mostly frequented by the +turtle of that name, the green turtle rarely going ashore there, +preferring East, Sand, and Middle Keys. + +The eggs of the turtle are perfectly oval, with the exception of one or +two depressions that may occur at any part. They are hatched probably +not by the direct heat of the sun, but by the general temperature of the +sand. The instinct of the young is remarkable. We have placed young +loggerheads barely a day old in a closed room facing away from the +water, and they invariably turned in that direction. During their young +life they fall a prey to many predaceous fishes, such as sharks, also to +the larger gulls, and only a small percentage of the original brood +attains its majority. + +Besides turning turtles, which is of course confined strictly to a +certain season, the fishermen of the reef resort to another method, +called pegging. The instrument of capture is a three-sided peg, often +made by cutting off the end of a file. This is attached to a long line +and fitted into a copper cap on the end of a long pole, the whole +constituting an unbarbed spear. Thus armed, the turtler sculls over the +reef, striking the turtle either as it lies asleep on the bottom or as +it rises to breathe. The peg is hurled long distances with great skill +and accuracy: as soon as it strikes, the pole comes out, and the victim +is managed by the line, often towing the dingy for a considerable +distance. The peg holds by suction; and, as it only enters the hard +shell, and that only half an inch, the animal is not in the least +injured for transportation to the North. + +Key West is the head quarters of the Florida turtling-trade, and on the +north shore of the island, where a shoal reef stretches away, a number +of crawls have been from time immemorial used, being merely fences or +enclosures in which the animals are penned until the time for shipment. +By far the greater number find their way to New York, being packed and +crowded, often brutally, in the common fish-cars at the Fulton Market +dock in such numbers that many are unable to rise, and consequently +drown. The greatest injustice, however, to the long-suffering turtle +comes when the miserable animal is propped up before some restaurant +door, bearing upon its broad carapace the grim assertion, "To be served +this day." + +The green or loggerhead turtles are rarely seen north of Cape Florida. +The outer reef is their home, their range extending far to the south. +Old turtles, like fishes, often have strange companions. They are +covered with barnacles of various kinds; several remoras form their +body-guard, clinging here and there as if part and parcel of their huge +consort. Often small fish allied to the mackerel accompany them, as does +also the pilot-fish of the shark. One large loggerhead pegged by the +writer had its four flippers bitten off by the latter fishes so close to +the shell that it could barely move along, and would undoubtedly soon +have succumbed, although it is a common thing to find both green and +loggerhead turtles minus parts of their locomotive organs. + +The great leather turtle (_Sphurgis coriacea_), the largest of the +tribe, is rarely seen, being seemingly a denizen of the high seas, and +more commonly observed in colder waters; though Gosse is authority for +the statement that they form their nests on the island of Jamaica. The +following account is from the Jamaica "Morning Journal" of April 13, +1846: "The anxiety of the fishermen in this little village was aroused +on the 30th of last month by the track of a huge sea-monster, called a +trunk-turtle, which came on the sea-beach for the purpose of laying her +eggs. A search was made, when a hole in the sand was discovered, about +four feet deep and as wide as the mouth of a half-barrel, whence five or +six dozen white eggs were taken out; the eggs were of different sizes, +the largest the size of a duck's egg. On the morning of the 10th of this +month, at half-past five o'clock, she was discovered by Mr. Crow, on the +beach, near the spot where she first came up; he gave the alarm, when +all the neighbors assembled and got her turned on her back. She took +twelve men to haul her about two hundred yards. I went and measured her, +and found her dimensions as follows: from head to tail, six feet six +inches; from the outer part of her fore fin to the other end" (to the +tip of the other?), "nine feet two inches; the circumference round her +back and chest, seven feet nine inches; circumference of her neck, three +feet three inches; the widest part of her fore fins, eighteen inches; +her hind fins, two feet four inches in length. Her back is formed like a +round top of a trunk, with small white bumps in straight lines, +resembling the nails on a trunk; her color is variegated like the +rainbow" (probably the living skin displayed opaline reflections); +"there is no shell on her back, but a thick skin, like pump-leather." + +Some years since, a gigantic specimen came ashore at Lynn beach, where +for a long time it formed an object of the greatest curiosity. It was +over eight feet in length, and weighed nearly twenty-two hundred pounds. +Instead of definite scales, as in other turtles, it had a shell +composed of six plates, which formed longitudinal ridges extending from +the head to the tail; the eye-openings were up and down, instead of +lengthwise; the bill was hooked; and so many remarkable characteristics +did it possess that many believed it to be a strange nondescript, and +not a turtle. + +It would not be surprising to find that such a creature was descended +from a remarkable ancestry; and, following it up, we are led far into +the early history of the later geological times, when all life seems to +have attained its maximum growth; in fact, it was an era of giants. The +map-maker of to-day would be astonished if confronted with the +coast-line of that early time. The coast-country from Nova Scotia to +Yucatan was all under water, and what are now our plains and prairies +was a vast sea, that commenced where Texas now is and extended far to +the northwest. Even now the old coast-line can be traced. We follow it +along from Arkansas to near Fort Riley, on the Kansas River, then, +extending eastward, it traverses Minnesota, extending into the British +possessions to the head of Lake Superior, while its western shores are +lost under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Such was this great +Cretaceous sea, in whose waters, with hundreds of other strange +creatures, lived the ancestor of our leather tortoise. The ancient sea, +however, disappeared; the land rose and surrounded it; the great forms +died and became buried in the sediment, and finally the water all +evaporated, leaving the bottom high and dry,--an ancient grave-yard, +that can be visited on horseback or by the cars. + +What is now known as the State of Kansas is one of the most favored +spots, and here, embedded in the earth, have been found the remains of +these huge forms. The bones were first seen projecting from a bluff, +and, gradually worked out, proved to be those of a gigantic turtle that +must have measured across its back from flipper to flipper fifteen feet, +while its entire length must have been twenty feet or more. The name of +this giant is the _Protostega gigas_, a fitting forefather for the great +leather turtle of to-day. In some parts of the West the hardened shells +of other and smaller turtles are scattered about in great confusion. +Nearly all have been turned to stone, and, thus preserved, form a +monument of this past time. + +A number of years ago some natives in Southern India were engaged in +making an excavation under the superintendence of an English officer, +when they discovered the remains of one of the largest fossil turtles +ever found. They had penetrated the soil for several feet, when their +implements struck against a hard substance which was at first supposed +to be solid rock, but a bar sank through it, showing it to be either +bone or wood. The earth being carefully removed, the remains of a +mound-shaped, adobe structure gradually appeared. The natives thought it +a house; but the Englishman saw that they had come upon the remains of +some gigantic creature of a past age. Every precaution was taken, and +finally the shell was fully exposed. The restoration shows it as +dome-shaped, nearly fourteen feet long, thirty-three feet in horizontal +circumference, and twenty feet in girth in a vertical direction. Its +length when alive must have been nearly thirty feet, and its feet were +as large as those of a rhinoceros. The capacity of the shell of this +ancient boatman was such that six or seven persons could have found +protection within it. Its name is _Colossochelys atlas_, a land-tortoise +of the Miocene time of geology. Its nearest representatives of to-day +are, if not so large, equally marvellous in their general appearance. +They are found in the Galapagos and Mascarene Islands, and some of them +are seven feet in length, with high domed and plated shells, presenting +the appearance of miniature houses moving along. A single shell would +form a perfect covering for a child. There are five distinct species +found here, each inhabiting a different island. Chatham Island, the home +of some, seems completely honeycombed with black truncated volcano +cones that spring up everywhere, while masses of lava cover the ground, +having been blown into weird and fantastic shapes when soft. + +In among the cones low underbrush and cacti grow, and feeding upon these +are found the great tortoises, which at the approach of danger draw in +their heads with a loud hiss or move slowly and clumsily away. Their +strength is enormous. A small one, three feet long, carried the writer +along a hard floor with perfect ease, and one of the largest would +probably not be inconvenienced by a weight of five hundred pounds. They +attain a great age, often living, it is said, a hundred years or more. + +While we have been digressing, the turtles have been dumped into the +great moat that surrounds the fort, and, stretched upon the deck, the +sable crew are fast asleep. The writer has been watching a large +three-master moving along two or three miles beyond Loggerhead Key. Our +attention is distracted for some time, and, upon looking again, we find +that she has not moved, and impart the fact to Sandy, who looks steadily +through his long spy-glass, evidently made up of several others; then, +gazing intently over the top, he brings all hands to their feet by the +cry of "Wrack!" For Sandy is a licensed "wracker." + +The man-of-war orders now uttered find no place in any known code, and +in a moment the Bull Pup becomes a scene of unwonted excitement. The +jib, mainsail, and gaff topsail are hauled up to their very tautest; +finally, the cable is slipped, and then old Sandy for the first time +looks around. The boys fail to suppress a loud guffaw, and forthwith +dodge the flying tiller. The old man in the excitement had forgotten an +important factor in the navigation of sailing-craft,--namely, wind. It +was a dead calm, and had been all day, and there, almost within reach, +was a fortune,--hard and fast on the outer reef. + +C.F. HOLDER. + + * * * * * + + + + +ROUGHING IT IN PALESTINE. + + +Mohammed can do less than Mammon to-day for the infidel's ease and +comfort in Palestine. The unholy little yellow god works his modern +miracles even in the Holy Land. You have but to speak the word, and show +your purse or letter of credit, in Beirut or Jaffa, and, as suddenly as +if you had rubbed Aladdin's lamp, a retinue will be at your door to do +your bidding. First a dragoman, with great baggy trousers of silk, a +little gold-embroidered jacket over a colored vest, a girdle whose most +ample folds form an arsenal of no mean proportions, and over the swarthy +face, reposing among the black, glossy curls of a well-poised head, the +red Turkish fez; or, if Ali has an ambition to be thought possessed of +much piety of the orthodox Islamic type, the fez gives way to a turban, +white, or green if he be a pilgrim from Mecca. Behind this important +personage, as much a feature of the East as the Sphinx or the Pyramids, +stand at a respectful distance, making profound salutations, a +cook,--probably a Greek or Italian,--three muleteers, and a donkey-boy. +Behind them still are two horses,--alas! not blooded Arabs madly +champing their bits,--one for yourself and the other for Ali. Three +mules bear patiently on their backs, always more or less raw, the canvas +and poles of the two tents. In the rear is a small donkey, covered all +over with culinary utensils, nibbling fat cactus-leaves with undisguised +satisfaction. For a daily expenditure scarcely greater than is necessary +to keep soul and body together at a fashionable New York hotel on the +American plan, you become the commander of this company, within certain +limits around which there are lines as definite and as impassable as if +drawn by an Irish servant of some years' experience in the United +States. You must not travel more than thirty miles a day; you must not +change the route agreed upon, unless roads become impassable; and there +are other, minor regulations, to which you are expected to submit, and, +if you do, your progress through the land, if not triumphant, will be at +least comfortable. You will find every day at noon, spread under some +wide-armed tree, a cold lunch that even a somewhat difficult taste would +consider fairly appetizing; and at nightfall you dismount before the +door of your tent and sit down to a dinner of many courses, which to a +stomach jounced for ten hours over a saddle seems a very fair dinner +indeed. Your breakfast is what a Frenchman would call a _déjeûner à la +fourchette_; and as you put down your napkin, your tent is folded almost +as quickly and as silently, and you mount your horse, standing ready for +another thirty miles. Yet, if you have just come from Egypt and three +months on a dahabeah, you will not hesitate to call this luxurious mode +of passing from Dan to Beersheba "roughing it in Palestine." + +But it was my good fortune, after journeying from Beirut to Jerusalem +with dragoman and muleteers and tents, like a prince, to go up through +the country like a private citizen. I fell in with a young man in the +Holy City, bora of American parents at Sidon, who had been educated in +America and was now on his way back to his birthplace to spend his life +in the sacred fields as a missionary. He was thoroughly equipped for +roughing it, with a splendid physique and perfect health, imperturbable +spirits, and a rare command of classic and vernacular Arabic. He wanted +to go to Beirut with as few _impedimenta_ as possible, and, after some +talk, we merged our two parties into one. Our preparations for the +journey were of the simplest sort. We agreed to dispense with dragomans +and cooks and tents and trust to the land for food and shelter. We +engaged three good horses and a muleteer. We strapped our baggage on +the muleteer's horse, drew lots for the choice of the other two, and +turned our faces northward. + +It was long before daybreak, one Monday morning, when we stole quietly +out of the Jaffa gate and took the road for Nablous. We were leaving +behind us the most sacred spot on earth to Jew, Catholic, Greek, and +Protestant; but from the road that stretches out before the Jaffa gate +all the holy places of Jerusalem are invisible. The round dome over the +Sepulchre was hidden behind the city's wall and the intervening houses. +The Dome of the Rock, as the beautiful mosque of Omar is called, the +most striking and brilliant object of the whole city from the Damascus +gate, is beneath the hill of Golgotha. Only the Valley of Hinnom, and +the Hill of Evil Counsel, and the slopes leading to Bethlehem, caught +our parting gaze. But an American Protestant turns his back upon the +Holy City with a very different feeling from that of the old Crusaders. +He cannot see the Turkish Mohammedan soldiers guarding the tomb of +Christ without a choking sensation in the throat, but he believes that +life has nobler battles for him than fighting the unbeliever for the +empty sepulchre of his Lord. The surroundings of all the sacred places +are so inharmonious that, while he can never regret his pilgrimage, he +can scarcely regret that it is over. We rose in our saddles, and, +turning, took our last look at the Holy City with very mingled emotions, +and then settled down to the hard day's work before us. + +We were on the great pilgrim-route, which twenty centuries ago was +annually crowded with pilgrims from the north hastening to Jerusalem for +the Passover feast. The Child of Nazareth, when, at the age of twelve, +he went for the first time to the Temple, must have pressed this road +with his sacred feet, must have looked with deep, inquiring eyes upon +these fields and hills. There was enough in the early hour and the +associations of the scenes through which we were passing to keep us for +a long time silent. My horse stumbled and brought us both back from +Dreamland. A look ahead showed us--for the sun was now above the +hills--that the worst piece of road in Palestine was just before us. It +is wholly unartificial: for years no human hand has touched it, except +as mine did when, on dismounting and undertaking to pick my way over the +rocks, I found myself on all-fours. In fact, this Oriental boulevard is +made up for some distance entirely of boulders, round and sharp, +triangular and square, which the spring freshets of the last five or six +decades were regretfully obliged to leave behind. After a short halt for +lunch, about two o'clock, the muleteer assured us, on starting again, we +had still five hours of steady pushing before us, and said something in +the same breath about robbers. Men of his class all through the East are +notorious cowards; but we had been told in Jerusalem that such dangers +were not altogether imaginary, and, almost as our guide spoke, we heard +shrieks, and for a moment we all thought the nefarious crew were at +their work just ahead. The muleteer dropped mysteriously to the rear, +and we rode on over a slight ascent, and there we saw a tall Samaritan +exerting himself in a way most unlike the good one of the parable. He +appeared to be a man of importance,--probably a sheik. His horse, tied +to a little tree, was a very handsome one, and gayly decked out with red +leather and ribbons. He had hold of the hind legs of a poor little goat, +and was intent on pulling the creature away from a smaller man, much +more poorly dressed, whose hands had a death-like grip of the horns. I +was for setting lance in rest and charging to the rescue; but my more +cautious friend put one or two questions to the sheik, who told, in a +somewhat jerky style,--perhaps the result of the strugglings of the goat +and the man at the other end of him,--as straightforward a story as was +possible under the circumstances. He was the proprietor of the hut the +owner of the goat lived in. He had come to collect his lawful rent, and +he knew the money was ready, but he couldn't get it, and so had seized +the only movable object of any value. The poor wretch, who still had +the goat by the horns, denied the story, but in such a way that we +feared he would only injure his conscience by other prevarications if we +encouraged him. So we rode on; and in less than half an hour the sheik +swept proudly by us, with no goat slung over his shoulders, but as he +passed he shot out a single word, that told, like Caesar's _vici_, the +whole story of his victory. + +The muleteer of Palestine will start on a journey at almost any hour of +the morning, but he has a superstitious dread of the darkness that falls +after sunset, and our Hassan was now too frightened to make any answer +to our questions except a short, tremulous half threat, half entreaty to +hurry. We were riding along the valley between Gerizim and Ebal. We had +left Joseph's tomb, and Jacob's well, where our Lord, wearied with his +journey, as we were with ours, sat and rested as he talked with a woman +who had come from the town toward which we were hurrying. The two +mountains, their sides covered with fig-trees and olives, loomed up +dimly out of the twilight on either side. We thought of the day when the +hosts of Israel were encamped here and the antiphonal choirs chanted +blessings from Gerizim and curses from Ebal in the ears of the vastest +congregation ever gathered on earth. There was no sound now of blessing +or cursing. The very stillness was oppressive. Hassan almost ceased to +breathe, and it was not till our horses' hoofs rang on the rough +pavement of Nablous--the ancient Shechem--that he relaxed his muscles +and gave a long sigh of relief. + +We rode at once to the Latin convent, where we felt sure of a cordial +reception and a comfortable bed. There was no light anywhere in the +gloomy building; but Hassan knocked at the great door, confidently at +first, and then angrily. At last came an Arab youth about nineteen, who +stuck one eye in the crack of the door, and asked our business. + +"Yes," he said, "you stay here all night, but go away early in the +morning." + +This was definite, if not hospitable; but we went in, and asked to see +the monks. + +"None here," said the Arab, with a chuckle: "all gone to Tiberias." We +ordered dinner, and, after half an hour, the Arab brought a saucer +holding two boiled eggs, put it on a chair, and said, "There's your +dinner." We were indignant, but it did no good: this boy was the head of +the house for the time, and neither promises nor threats were of any +avail to add anything, besides a little salt and pepper, to the dinner +he had prepared. We went to bed very hungry, but very tired, and in the +morning, before breakfast, hunted out the house of an English +missionary, who took pity on us and gave us to eat. But it is an unusual +thing for any one to leave Nablous without having an experience of some +sort more or less disagreeable to fasten the name of the place in his +recollection. When the brilliant author of "Eothen" sojourned for a day +or two in this "hot furnace of Mohammedanism," as he calls it, the whole +Greek population chose him as an involuntary deliverer of a young +Christian maiden who had been perverted by rich gifts to the faith of +Islam, or at least to a belief that a rich Mohammedan was to be +preferred as a husband to a poor Christian. They stare upon you now, as +they did then, as you walk through the streets and bazaars, "with fixed, +glassy look, which seemed to say, God is God, but how marvellous and +inscrutable are his ways, that thus he permits the white-faced dog of a +Christian to hunt through the paths of the faithful!" + +We went, of course, to the little Samaritan synagogue, to see the famous +copy of the Pentateuch, whose age no man knoweth. We rode up the steep +slopes of Gerizim to the ruins of the temple where the woman of Samaria +said her fathers had always worshipped, and then, in a pouring rain, we +started for Jenin. Hassan sunk his head down in a huge Oriental cloak, +undoubtedly manufactured in Birmingham or Manchester, and his horse, +left to himself, lost his way, for a Palestine road may at any time, +like a Western trail, turn into a squirrel's track and run up a tree. +When we found ourselves again we were all wet and not in the best of +humor, but in sight of the old city of Samaria on her high hills. + +The magnificent capital of Ahab and Jezebel, we saw at a glance, is now +only a ruined, dirty village, where a European could not hope for +shelter for a night. The hills sank into a heavy plain that seemed +interminable. The short twilight faded into untempered darkness. Hassan +was again in the rear. He would have fled incontinently at the first +sign of danger. Our only consolation was that his horse was tired and he +couldn't get very far away from us under any circumstances. I had a +letter to a Christian at Jenin that was thought to be good for supper +and lodging. We filed through the muddy streets to the door of the +Christian's house, sent in the letter by Hassan, and a man came out, +saluted us, told us to follow and he would take us to "a most +comfortable place." When we stopped, it was before the door of a little +mud hut. An old woman opened it, but, before letting us in, fixed the +price we were to pay. We entered a room that did service for the entire +wants of our hostess. It was very small, but it could not have been made +larger without knocking out the sidewalls of her house. The floor was of +dry mud, and there was nothing to sit upon except our saddles. We supped +from the bread and meat our good missionary friend had given us, and, +rolling ourselves in our blankets, we slept; but not long. The mud +beneath us was not that dull, inanimate, clog-like thing we trample +thoughtlessly under our feet along our country roads: it was that sort +of matter in which Tyndale thought he could discern "the form and +potency of life." They were both there, and in the still darkness they +made themselves felt. My friend, for some mysterious reason, was left +untouched, but the regiments that should have quartered on him joined +those that were banqueting on my too unsolid flesh. My sufferings were +but slightly mitigated by the remembrance that probably the progenitors +of these fierce feeders on human blood may have dined as sumptuously on +prophets and apostles, and that, intense as my anguish was, the chances +were against any fatal termination. I rose often and went to the door, +hoping for the morning, but it came not. Each time on returning to my +couch I found the number of my tormentors had been augmented: so I kept +still, like an Indian at the stake, and only refrained for my friend's +sake from singing a triumphant song as I found myself growing used to +the pain and at last able to sleep a troubled sort of sleep, such as +Damiens may have had on the rack. When I showed my arms in the morning +to Hassan, he lifted his eyes to heaven and muttered a prayer to Allah, +of which I thought I could divine the meaning. + +Our ride that day was across the great plain of Esdraelon. We were +charitable enough to believe that travellers who have raved over the +exquisite beauty of this valley, who tell of "the green meadow-land +flaming with masses of red anemones," of "myriads of nodding daisies," +and of "sheets of burning azure in the sun," did actually look upon all +these splendors in the early spring; but it was January now, and we +seemed to be pushing our way through a sea of dull, dead brown. The +ground was soft with the winter rains, and our horses' feet sank to the +fetlocks and gathered huge balls of the thick adhesive earth, deposited +every hundred yards or so to give place to others. We rode through the +dirty little village of Nain, where once a widow's son, carried out to +burial, heard the only voice that reaches the dead and rose from his +bier; but all solemn and tender thoughts were frightened away by the +crowd of maimed and blind and ragged and hungry men, women, and children +that came pouring out of the huts, crying, begging, demanding +_backsheesh_. "This," one of our American consuls said, "is the language +of Canaan now;" and it is one of the least melodious of earth. We +lunched on the dry grass in the sun in full sight of Tabor, on the +remnants of what the good missionary at Nablous had given us, and, +tightening our saddle-girths, we began the ascent of the mountain. We +clambered up the rude bridle-path, covered with loose stones, and +knocked timidly, with the remembrance of our Nablous experiences, at the +door of a large and very sightly monastery. Almost immediately a monk of +kindly face and soft black Italian eyes gave us a cordial greeting, and +the unexpectedness of it nearly enticed us into throwing our arms around +his neck and leaving an Oriental salutation upon his cheek. He led us +into a large, clean refectory, and then into two clean rooms. I might +use other epithets, but none other means so much in the East. After a +very satisfying supper, the good monk--he was so good to us, we tried to +think he was as clean within as the rooms of his monastery--took us out +to the pinnacle of the mountain and enjoyed our enthusiasm over the +magnificent view that was spread out before us. Almost the whole of +Palestine was within sight beneath us. We looked southward, across the +plain we had struggled over so laboriously, to the mountains behind +Jerusalem. We could see the depression where the Dead Sea lay in its +bowl, encircled by the hills of Moab. To the west we were looking upon +Carmel, at whose base the blue waves of the Mediterranean sigh, and +moan, and thunder. To the east, across the Jordan, from which the mists +of evening were already rising, we could distinguish the wild, deep +ravines of the land of the Bedawin; and in the north, grandest of all, +stood Hermon, his great white head touched with the crimson of the +setting sun, just plunging, like an old Moabite deity, into the +mountains of Lebanon beyond. By almost common consent it is agreed among +the Biblical scholars of our day that not here on Tabor where we stood, +but northward, there on one of the peaks of Hermon, was the place where +our Lord was transfigured; but the Christian imagination, like the +Christian consciousness, is not always submissive to fact, and we shall +continue, with the larger part of the Christian world, to think of Tabor +as the Mount of Transfiguration, while we speak of Hermon as the true +site. + +We had an easy ride the next morning to Nazareth, and a kindly reception +from the monks. The hospitality at all these convents is untrammelled by +pecuniary conditions; but all travellers who have purses and hearts and +consciences do, in fact, on their departure, present the Superior with a +sum about equal to the charges for the same length of time at an Eastern +hotel. I mention this in the interests of historic truth, and not with +any desire to throw a garish light of self-interest upon the cordiality +of these Latin "religious." We were in the heart of the little city +where He whom millions of human beings call their Saviour and God lived +for more than twenty years. Somewhere among these houses that fill the +valley and cling to the hill-side was Joseph's home. Not a house, of +course, is here now that was here then; all the sacred places they show +you--the Virgin's home, the place of the Annunciation, the workshop of +Joseph--must be unauthentic; but these hills are what they were. They +shut out the great world He had come to redeem, but not the heavens +above Him or the sinfulness and needs of the segment of humanity around +Him. When we rode toward Tiberias in the early morning there were a +dozen or more of the girls of Nazareth going out to Mary's spring, as +the fountain at the entrance of the town is called; but their garments +were ragged and uncleanly and their swarthy faces heavily tattooed, and, +while we were ready to accept the season of the year as an excuse for +any deficiency in the attractiveness of the landscape, we could not +admit it in extenuation of the uncomeliness of the maidens of Palestine. +Their beauty we believe to be almost entirely a fiction of the tourist's +imagination. + +On our way to the Sea of Galilee we passed through Cana, where they show +you still some of the water-pots in which "the conscious water blushed" +when it saw its Lord, and crossed the plain of Hattin, on one of whose +round, horn-like acclivities the Sermon on the Mount is said to have +been given. Here the Crusaders made their last stand against the +victorious army of Saladin; and when at nightfall their bugles sounded +the retreat, the Holy Land was given over to the unbeliever for +centuries:--who is prophet enough to say for how many? As we first saw +the lake that afternoon, with the sunlight on it, and the low Moabite +hills rising lonely and sad against the blue sky, and Hermon, cold and +regal, far away to the north, and yet standing out so prominently as to +be the most striking feature in the scene, we felt that Gennesaret had +been ruthlessly robbed of her rights by certain well-known critics who, +professing to be her best friends, have denied her all claim to beauty +except by association. Tiberias ranks with Jerusalem and Hebron and +Safed as one of the four holy cities of the Jews, but its houses are +filthy huts and its streets muddy lanes. Here we saw the Jew, +down-trodden, oppressed, wretched, but still proud, the unhappiest +creature, this Tiberian descendant of David, in all the Holy Land, with +his long yellow cloak, his hair hanging upon his shoulders in corkscrew +curls, and an expression on his wan, sallow face that would force tears +from your eyes if you did not know that his life is ordinarily as +contemptible as his condition is pitiable. We spent an hour or more in +one of the two boats that to-day make up the entire fishing-fleet of +Galilee, and then found hospitable shelter under the roof of the Latin +monastery, the last that was to open its doors to us in Palestine; and +when we rode away on Monday morning we made a vow in our hearts never to +speak ill of that part of the Romish Church which presides over the +convents of the Holy Land. As our muleteer confessed he was as ignorant +as any dog of a European Christian of the route we wished to take from +Tiberias to Banias and Deir Mimas, the monks advised us, to save time, +and perhaps our purses, perhaps our lives, by taking a Turkish soldier +as a combined guide and guard. We sent to the proper official, and two +savage-looking fellows came to the monastery. They swore by the beard of +Mohammed that our lives would be worth less than that of a Tiberian flea +if we went alone, or even with one soldier; they talked our few +remaining powers of resistance to death, and we took them at their own +price, less one-half, which was conceded to be very liberal on our part. +We felt we had a new lease of life, and spent the rest of the afternoon +in sweet unconcern and content; but late that evening word was sent that +one of the brave soldiers, in consideration of the great risk involved +in the enterprise, had concluded to raise his price, and of course his +companion, deeply as he regretted it, felt compelled to follow his +example. We at once sent back word that our poverty would not permit us +to accede to their most modest request, and threw ourselves on the +Superior of the convent to extricate us from our dilemma. A guard had +now become a necessity, for the poor muleteer was so badly frightened by +all the terrible things he had heard, that if we had promised him his +weight in gold to be delivered at Beirut he would not have stirred a +step unprotected. A request was sent to the commandant of the city, and +he was pleased to present us with a Kurdish cavalryman, who was to be +our slave for the next four days, if on our part we would agree to pay +him well and do as he said. We were now humble. We promised, and the +Kurd came riding to the gates of the convent the next morning at the +hour fixed for our departure. He was immensely long and lean. He looked +hungry all over. Even his musket, longer by some inches than himself, +had the appearance of existing on a very low diet of powder and ball. An +awful doubt of its efficacy crept into my heart, but we gave him the +matutinal greetings of the country, and our cavalcade followed at his +heels. + +We rode along the lake at a fairly rapid walk to the little mud village +of Magdala, the home, it is supposed, of Mary Magdalene. We stopped to +breathe our horses at Khan Minyeh, the site, some scholars assert, of +the once beautiful city of Capernaum, and then rode along a rocky road +to Tel Hun, at the end of the lake, chosen by the best judgment of the +day as the actual spot where the city, exalted by her pride to heaven, +rested lightly on the earth. We picked our way in and out among fluted +marble columns, the very ruins, some insist, of the synagogue which the +good centurion built for the city he loved. Here, then, may have been +the home of our Lord during those earliest days of his public ministry, +the happiest days of his earthly life, before baffled hate had begun to +weave its net around him. + +Our course now lay due north, away from the lake, across trackless +fields covered with round basaltic stones. The Kurd's horse was a better +one than ours, and it was all we could do to keep him in sight. The sun +was hot. What would it have been on those hills in midsummer? We threw +off our heavy coats, that had been more than comfortable in the early +morning along the lake, and pushed doggedly on. To our left, higher even +than the hill we climbed, was holy Safed, to which it is thought our +Lord may have pointed when he spoke of a city set upon a hill, that +cannot be hid; and straight before us, the object of our hopes and +efforts, was snow-clad Hermon, as beautiful, we thought, as an Alp. We +crossed the mountain at last, and, as our horses waded through a deep +brook on the other side, the Kurd bent slightly in his saddle, and, +reaching down, brought up great handfuls of water to stay his thirst, +without stopping for an instant. There was a sly twinkle of pleasure in +his eye when the muleteer told him we had admired his skill. + +Late in the afternoon we came to the marshy lakes, "the waters of +Merom," where Joshua smote the kings of the north, who made a final +stand here with their united armies, "like the sands of the sea in +number." We should have been glad to find one of their royal palaces in +tolerable repair, for we were tired and wanted to stop for the night, +but there were no ruined regal mansions in sight, not even a mud hut +such as had given us shelter and hunting at Jenin. The sun had gone +down, and our horses shivered in the night air. The prospect was gloomy, +and grew no brighter as we went on. At last we saw some long black tents +across the plain sheltered by the hills; and, while we were wondering +what the chances might be of escaping robbery by the Bedawin at this +late hour of the night, the Kurd turned his horse out of the bridle-path +and headed for the largest tent. The probabilities seemed now about +equal that the Kurd was in league with these wild, wandering tribes, and +that they would pluck us, and torture us, and bury us without the aid of +undertaker or parson, or, on the other hand, that they might welcome us +to the few comforts within their command. The sheik was standing, with a +half-dozen of his leading men, at the door of his tent, and, as we +dismounted, he came forward with much grace and dignity and embraced my +friend, kissing him on each cheek. He only waved his hand to me, as a +younger and less important personage, and led us into his tent. Cushions +were thrown down for us on the bare earth, and we were told to be +seated. A little fire was burning just in front of the tent, and around +that the privileged persons of the tribe squatted, only the chief and +some of his great warriors being under the tent with ourselves. They +were as curious as civilized people to know where we were going, and +why; and they concealed with difficulty their surprise and suspicion +when they were told that our only object was to see the country. No +Oriental, much less a Bedawin, ranks that among possible reasons for +passing from one place to another. After more conversation than we +thought necessary before supper, a dish of rice was brought in, and with +it two wooden spoons; but how these came to be in a sheik's tent we +thought it wise not to ask. They looked on while we ate, refusing all +our entreaties to join with us; but when we had finished, they thrust +their hands into the bowl, and, with a deft movement, made round balls +as large as a lemon, and shot these with great skill into their mouths. +While they ate, my friend asked if he might read them a story. They +consented eagerly; and, taking out his Arabic Testament, he read them +the parable of the Prodigal Son. A more appreciative company never +listened to it. At each crisis of the narrative the sheik looked around +and said, "_Fayib ketir_,"--"Very good,"--and then, as if devoutly +making the responses, they all said, "_Fayib ketir_" I thought I saw one +of them brush away a tear as the story was finished: perhaps he was a +father with a prodigal son, or something in his heart may have told him +that he was a prodigal himself. + +They all rose at a signal, and left us to our slumbers. We were to share +the tent with the sheik; and when we had laid ourselves down on the +cushions and covered ourselves with our overcoats, the sheik came +anxiously to my friend and asked "if we would not be very cold with +nothing over our heads." The Oriental lets his feet take care of +themselves if only his head is warm. The flap of the tent was not +lowered, and we could look from where we were lying on the Eastern hills +and the stars above them. It was long before I could sleep in such +surroundings. We were unprotected in the tent of a Bedawin sheik on the +waters of Merom, and all the past faded away: for the moment I did not +believe that there were such cities as New York and London and +Paris,--they were buried deep under the streets of Jerusalem and +Tiberias and Safed. I was no longer an American, but the son of this +sheik, destined to be the ruler of all the tribes that dwell in black +tents of hair-cloth. My friend lying at my side groaned in his sleep, +and the baseless fabric of my dream crumbled. I was myself again, and +felt a sharp blow from my own familiar conscience when I found myself +smiling with vengeful satisfaction at certain movements of my sleeping +friend that made it apparent he was being visited by certain inhabitants +of the night that find their way to Bedawin tents as well as peasants' +huts. He had been almost untouched when I suffered so at Jenin; and I +found my confidence increased in the law of compensation as I watched +his struggles, wholly unscathed myself. + +Our next day's work was the longest and hardest we had yet had. We were +to crowd two days into one. We were well on our way before it was fairly +light. We crossed the Jordan on a little stone bridge, and rode straight +over the plain to Banias, the Caesarea Philippi of apostolic times. We +left our horses in the little village near which the Jordan comes +pouring out of a rocky opening in the hills, and, with an Arab boy, +hurried at our best pace up the mountain to the magnificent ruins of a +mediaeval castle, the finest of its class in the Holy Land. Our Kurd and +muleteer were waiting for us as we came down the hill like veritable +mountain-goats, and the latter pointed triumphantly to something wrapped +in an Arab newspaper under his arm. As soon as we were out of sight of +the village he stopped and displayed his prize: it was a chicken, cooked +in some unknown but most savory way. It was long since we had eaten +anything of the sort, and, leaping to the ground, with the help of a +clasp-knife bought in Nablous, the only eating-utensil our party could +boast, we bisected our dinner, and, sitting under a gray old gnarled +olive, ate it with such expressions of satisfaction as would not be +honest, even if allowable, at the grandest civilized banquets. + +We sprang again into our saddles, crossed again the plain and the bridge +over the Jordan, and pushed over the hills toward Deir Mimas. Our horses +were used up even more completely than ourselves; and when the Kurd lost +the way, and took us a long and unnecessary _détour_, we felt it so +keenly that we said nothing. It was long after nightfall when we +dismounted at the door of a native Christian preacher's house at Deir +Mimas. But the struggles of the day were not ended. The Kurd stalked in, +and, saying that here his duties ended, demanded a sum at least a third +greater than that agreed upon. We fought him with everything but +weapons, and, when we separated, the Kurd's pockets were heavier and his +heart lighter than was consistent with the eternal fitness of things. We +had only to follow a well-made road the next day to Sidon; and there, as +we sat at a table spread with a clean, white cloth, on which were +plates, and knives and forks, and cups and saucers, and spoons, we +concluded that our roughing it in Palestine had at least convinced us +that civilized man makes himself want many convenient if not wholly +necessary things. + +CHARLES WOOD. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE EYE OF A NEEDLE. + + +"I don't know which way to turn to get the fall tailorin' done, now +Mirandy Daggett's been and had money left to her," said, in an aggrieved +tone, the buxom mistress of the Wei by poor-farm, as she briskly hung +festoons of pumpkins, garners of the yellowest of the summer sunshine, +along the beams of the great wood-shed chamber. "The widow Pingree, from +over Sharon way, she's so wasteful, I declare it makes my blood run cold +to see her cuttin' and slashin' into good cloth; and Emerline Johnson +she's so scantin', the menfolks all looks like scarecrows, with their +legs and arms a-stickin' out. _Mirandy's_ got faculty." + +"Seems if 'twa'n't no more'n yesterday that I was carryin' victuals to +keep that child from starvin', and now she's an heiress, and here I be. +Well, the Lord's ways ain't ourn." + +A little old woman, twisted all awry by a paralytic shock, who was +feebly assisting the poor-mistress, uttered these reflections in a +high-keyed, quavering voice. She was called old lady Peaseley, and a +halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the +poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister +of Welby. + +"I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed +minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked +and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard. If things was as +they used to be, I should jest sing out to her to come right up here; +but, bein' she's such an heiress, I s'pose I'd better go down and open +the front door." + +But before the brisk poor-mistress could reach the front door her +visitor had entered, the kitchen. + +"I've been kind of low-spirited, and, thinks I, if there is a place +where I could get chippered up it's down to the poor-house, where it's +always so lively and sociable; and if Mis' Bemis ain't a-goin' to send +for me I'll jest go over and find out the reason why." + +The speaker, who had seated herself in a rocking-chair, took off her +rough straw hat and fanned herself with it energetically, rocking +meanwhile. She was about midway in the thirties, plain and almost coarse +of feature, but with a suggestion of tenderness about her large mouth +that softened her whole face. She had, too, a vigor and freshness which +were attractive like the bloom of youth. + +"I was jest sayin' to old lady Peaseley that I didn't know how I was +a-goin' to get along without you; but I wouldn't 'a' thought of askin' +you to come, bein' you're so rich now." + +"Be I a-goin' to lay by and twiddle my thumbs and listen to folks +advisin' of me jest because I ain't obliged to work? I'm all beat out +now doin' nothin'. Since I've bought the old place--gran'ther's farm, +you know--I don't seem to be much better off. I can't go to farmin' it +this fall; and what can a lone woman do on a farm anyhow?" + +"Farmin' is kind of poor business for a woman; but I do hope, Mirandy, +you ain't a-goin' to marry that poor, pigeon-breasted, peddlin' cretur +that's hangin' round here." + +Miranda flushed to the roots of her thick black hair. + +"It looks better to see a man round on a farm, if he can't do anything +but set on the choppin'-block and whistle," she said, intently surveying +her hat-crown. + +"If you want to get married, Mirandy, it seems if you ought to have a +stiddy, likely man." + +"I don't want to get married. I ain't never thought of such a thing +since--well, you know all about it, Mis' Bemis, so I may as well say +right out--since Ephrum took up with M'lissy Whitin'." + +"Ephrum Spencer was a mean scamp to serve you so," said Mrs. Bemis +hotly. + +"Now, Mis' Bemus, don't you say anything against Ephrum. You and me has +always been friends, but I can't stand that, anyhow. Ephrum would have +kept his promise to me fair and square, but I saw plain enough that he +had given his heart to her. She was red-and-white-complected, and her +hair curled natural, and she'd never done anything but keep school, and +her hands was jest as soft and white, and a man's feelin's ain't like a +woman's, anyhow: if Ephrum had been hump-backed, or all scarred up +so's't he'd scare folks, like old Mr. Prouty, it wouldn't 'a' made any +difference to me, so long as he was Ephrum. The Lord made men different, +and I s'pose it's all right; but sometimes it seems kind of hard." The +large, firm mouth quivered like a child's. + +"She was a reg'lar little spitfire, Melissy Whitin' was: there wa'n't +nothin' _to_ her but temper. I'll warrant Ephrum Spencer has got his +come-uppance before this time," said the poor-mistress, with +satisfaction. "Well, I think it's real providential that you don't want +to get married, Mirandy, for as like as not you'd get somebody that +would spend all your money. I told'em I didn't believe you was goin' to +take up with that poor stick of a book-agent." + +"Oh, Mis' Bemis, I s'pose I be goin' to have him!" said Miranda +dejectedly. "He thinks he's consumpted, and I thought I could doctor him +up, and 'twould be a use for the money. And he was a minister once, +though it was some queer kind of a denomination that I never heard of, +and that seemed kind of edifyin'; and his arm was cut off away off in +Philadelphy ten years ago, and yet he can feel it a-twingein'. And he's +kind of slim and retirin', and not so unhandy to have round as some men +would be. And, anyhow, I've give him my promise." + +"Mirandy, I didn't think you was so foolish as that,--and him an +imposertor as like as not." + +"Everything that I've tried to do since Uncle Phineas left me that money +folks have called me foolish or crazy, and I always was reckoned +sensible before, if I was homely. Abijah's folks warn me against lettin' +John's folks have it, and John's folks against Abijah's, and they say +that banks burst up and railroad stocks are risky, and I'll end by bein' +on the town. I never heard anything about my bein' in danger of comin' +on to the town before. I put my savin's in an old stockin' between my +beds, and wa'n't beholden to anybody for advice nor anything. I tell +you, Mis' Bemis, there ain't a mite of comfort in riches to them that's +got nobody but themselves to do for. Now, I've been wantin' a good black +silk for a long spell, and I've been layin' by a little here and a +little there, and 'lottin' on gettin' it before long, and I've enjoyed +thinkin' about it jest as much as if I had it; and now that comfort is +all took away. I can go and buy one right out, and I don't want it. And +only see what trouble I've got into about marryin'. I can't eat my +victuals, and I don't enjoy my meet'n' privileges, and I don't even care +much about knowin' what's goin' on. The Bible says rich folks have got +to go through the eye of a needle before they can get into the kingdom +of heaven, and it seems jest as if that was what I was a-doin'." + +"I don't think that's jest the way it reads, Mirandy; but if it's a +consolin' idee to you--" + +"I hain't any too much consolation, and that's a fact. But it does seem +real good to be here; and if you'll jest send one of the boys after my +things I'll stay. I locked up and left my bag on the back door-step." + +The poor-mistress confided to old lady Peaseley that "there wasn't as +much satisfaction in havin' Mirandy as if she hadn't got proputty, even +if she didn't seem to feel it none: she couldn't help feelin' as if the +minister 'n' his wife had come to tea;" and she opened the best room, +with all its glories of hair-cloth furniture, preserved funeral wreaths, +and shell Bunker Hill Monument, and had the spare chamber swept and +garnished. The poor-house was certainly a good place in which to get +"chippered up." There were few happier households in the county; there +was not one where jollity reigned as it did there. + +From Captain Hezekiah Butterfield, generally known as Cap'n 'Kiah, an +octogenarian who was regarded as an oracle, down to Tready Morgan, a +half-witted orphan, the inmates of the poor-house had an enjoyment of +living astonishing to behold. It had been hinted at town-meeting that +the keeper of the poor-farm was a "leetle mite too generous and +easy-going," especially as he insisted upon furnishing the paupers with +"store" tea and coffee, whereas his predecessor, Hiram Judkins, had made +them drink bayberry tea, a refreshment which old Mrs. Gerald, a pauper +whose wits were wandering, and who was familiarly known as "Marm Bony," +because she cherished a conviction that she was the empress Josephine, +declared was "no more consolin' than meadow hay." + +Seth Bemis and his wife made the farm pay: so the town voted to wink at +the store-tea. And they suited the paupers,--which was even more +difficult than to suit the town officers. + +Miranda's arrival had created quite an excitement among the inmates of +the poor-house. They had all heard that she had fallen heir to almost +ten thousand dollars, and there was curiosity to see how she would +comport herself under this great accession of fortune. + +Miranda stoutly resisted the charms of the best room, and sat down with +the paupers in the great kitchen after supper. For the spare chamber she +showed some weakness, for the little back chamber which she usually +occupied during her visits to the poor-farm was next to Oly Cowden's +room, and Oly had a way of rapping on her wall in the dead of the night +for somebody to bring her a roasted onion to avert a peculiarly bad +dream to which she was subject; and the next room on the other side was +occupied by Jo Briscoe, who had a habit of playing on his violin at most +unseemly hours, and, as poor Jo had come through a terrible shipwreck, +in which he had lost, by freezing, both his feet and several of his +fingers, which latter loss made it wonderful that he could play at all, +nobody had the heart to interfere with the consolation which "Fisher's +Hornpipe" and "The Girl I left behind me" afforded him at three o'clock +in the morning,--nobody, that is, except "Marm Bony," whose room was on +the other side of the corridor, and who took Jo's performances as a +serenade, and gently insinuated to him that, as Napoleon was still +living, she might be compromised by such tributes to her charms. +Although she was anxious not to accept any privileges on account of her +wealth, Miranda thought she would occupy the spare chamber. + +The paupers were all disposed to keep holiday in Miranda's honor. Old +Cap'n 'Kiah had donned a collar so high that it sawed agonizingly upon +his ears, little Dr. Pingree, a peddler of roots and herbs, who was +occasionally obliged to seek winter quarters at the poor-house, wore a +black satin vest brocaded with huge blue roses, which had appeared at +his wedding forty years before, and "Marm Bony" had adorned herself with +a skimpy green satin skirt and three peacock-feathers standing upright +in her little knob of back hair. And Jo Briscoe was tuning his violin, +evidently in preparation for an unusual effort. + +A vague idea that Miranda had arrived at great honor had penetrated poor +"Marm Bony's" bewildered brain, and a fancy suddenly seized her that +Miranda was the unscrupulous Marie Louise who had supplanted her as +Napoleon's wife, and she hobbled out of the room in great agitation and +wrath, her peacock-feathers waving wildly in the air. She returned in a +few minutes, however, and whispered to Miranda that, "as Napoleon wa'n't +jest what he'd ought to be anyway, mebbe they'd better make up." To +which proposition Miranda assented gravely, holding the wrinkled, +trembling old hand tenderly in hers. + +Cap'n 'Kiah felt it incumbent upon him to lead the conversation, being +modestly conscious of his social gifts. + +He had been a ship-owner, and very well-to-do, until in his old age he +was robbed of all his property by a younger brother whom he had brought +up and cared for as a son. But the old man had brought to this low level +of society to which he had sunk a cheerful philosophy and a grim humor +for which many a successful man might well have given all his +possessions. + +"Rich and poor, there's a sight of human nater about us all, though +there ain't no use denyin' that some has more than others," remarked +Cap'n 'Kiah sententiously. "And whether riches or poverty brings it out +the strongest it's hard tellin'." + +"I've always thought I might never have found out that I had medicle +tarlunt if I'd been rich," said Dr. Pingree meditatively. The little man +had "taken up doctorin' out of his own head," as he expressed it, after +finding that shoemaking and tin-peddling did not satisfy his ambition, +and was the inventor and sole proprietor of an infallible medicine, +known as the "Universal Pain-Exterminator." The jokers dubbed it +"Health-Exterminator," but almost all Welby took it,--they must take +something in the spring,--and the little doctor, who had a soul far +above thoughts of sordid gain, never expected to be paid for it, which +made it very popular. It couldn't kill one, being made of simplest roots +and herbs; and if one should be cured, how very pleasant it would be to +think that it was without cost! + +"Sure enough, doctor, mebbe you never would," said the captain. "And I +suppose the innercent satisfaction you've got a-makin' them medicines is +as great as you could 'a' got out of riches, and without the worry and +care of riches, too." + +"Not to mention the good done to my fellow-creturs," said the little +doctor. + +"Jest as you say, the good done to your fellow-creturs not bein' worth +mentionin'" said Cap'n 'Kiah, with a grave simplicity that disarmed +suspicion. "There ain't no denyin' that poverty is strength'nin' to the +faculties." + +"Don't give me nothin' more strength'nin than riches in mine," said +Uncle Peter Henchman, who boasted great wisdom and experience, based +mysteriously on the possession of a wooden leg. "I've been in this world +up'ards of seventy years, forty-five of it a-walkin' on a wooden leg, +and I hain't never seen that poverty was anything but a curse." + +"You've got a terrible mistaken p'int of view, Peter, well-meanin' as +you be," said Cap'n 'Kiah, "There's nothin' in nater, and, I was a-goin' +to say, in grace, but what you clap your eyes fust onto the contr'y +side, and then you're sure there ain't nothin' _but_ a contr'y side." + +"I wish I could see something besides the contr'y side of riches; but I +hain't yet," said Miranda, with a heavy sigh. + +Little Dr. Pingree cast a sidelong look at her, and then adjusted his +cravat and considered the effect of the blue roses on his vest. Was a +vision flitting before his eyes of the wagon drawn by gayly-caparisoned +steeds and bearing in gilt letters on a red ground the legend, "Dr. +Pingree's Pain-Exterminator, Humanity's Friend,"--of his own face, +beautified by art, adorning fences and walls above this proud +inscription, "The Renowned Inventor of the Universal Pain-Exterminator"? +This fame, the dream of a lifetime, might now be purchased by money. And +he had always admired Miranda. + +Miranda caught his glance, and, with the suspicion which wealth had +already engendered, divined his thought. Was there going to be another +aspirant for her hand? + +"The wind's a-blowin up; and what a roarin' the sea does make!" she said +hurriedly, to cover her embarrassment. "The only thing I don't like +about this house is its bein' so near the sea. It's rainin' hard; and +I'm glad of it," she added, in an undertone, to Mrs. Bemis,--"for _he_ +won't be so likely to get round here to-night. Courtin' is real tryin'." + +"The ocean is a dretful disconserlate-soundin' cretur," remarked Uncle +Peter lugubriously; "and when you think of the drownded folks she's got +a-rollin' round in her, 'tain't no wonder." + +"The ocean's a useful work o' nater, and she's fetched and carried and +aimed a livin' for a good many more'n she's swallered up," said Cap'n +'Kiah. + +"I expect this world ain't a vale of tears, nohow," said Uncle Peter in +an aggrieved tone. "There is folks that knows more'n the hymn-book." + +"Well, it is, and then ag'in it ain't, jest accordin' to the way you +look at it. There's a sight more the matter with folks's p'int o' view +than there is with the Lord A'mighty's world.--Now, Jo, if you've got +that cretur o' yourn into ship-shape,--it always doos seem to me jest +like a human cretur that's got the right p'int o' view, that fiddle +doos,--jest give it to us lively." + +Jo tuned up, with modest satisfaction, and two or three couples stood up +to dance. Little Dr. Pingree was about to solicit Miranda's hand for the +dance, when there came a knock at the door. + +Miranda stuck her knitting-needle through her back-hair in an agitated +and expectant manner. But it was not the lank figure of the +book-peddler, her betrothed, that darkened the door. It was a forlorn +woman, dripping with rain, with two small boys clinging to her skirts. + +"I suppose poor folks have a right to come in here out of the rain," she +said, advancing to the fire and seating herself with a sullen and +dejected aspect. + +Little Dr. Pingree, who felt the arrival to be very inopportune, +nevertheless gallantly hastened to replenish the fire. + +The poor-mistress hospitably offered to remove the visitor's wet +wrappings, but she shook her head. + +"I want to find the relatives of Ephrum Spencer," she said. + +"You'll have to go a good ways," said Cap'n 'Kiah. + +"The graveyard is chock full of 'em," said Uncle Peter. + +"They've kind of died out," explained Cap'n 'Kiah. "They seemed to be +the kind that dies out easy and nateral." + +"His uncle Hiram isn't dead, is he?" asked the woman, with the strain of +anxiety in her voice. + +"He died about a year ago." + +"What's become of his money?" asked the stranger sharply. + +"Well, there wa'n't so much as folks thought," said Cap'n 'Kiah. "He +frittered away a good deal on new-fangled merchines and such things that +wa'n't of any account,--had a reg'lar mania for 'em for a year or so +before he died; and then he give some money to his housekeeper and the +man that worked for him, and what was left he give to the town for a new +town-hall; but, along of quarrellin' about where 'twas to set and what +'twas to be built of, and gittin' legal advice to settle the p'ints, I +declare if 'tain't 'most squandered! But, la! if there wa'n't such +quarrellin' amongst folks, what would become of the lawyers? They'd all +be here, a-settin' us by the ears, I expect." + +"And there isn't a cent for his own nephew's starving children?" said +the woman bitterly. + +"Ephrum's? Oh, la, no! The old man never set by Ephrum, you know: them +two was always contr'y-minded. You don't say, now, that you're Ephrum's +wife?" Cap'n 'Kiah surveyed her with frank curiosity. + +"I'm Ephrum's widow." + +"You don't say so, now! Well, there's wuss ockerpations than bein' a +widow," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah consolingly. + +Miranda had drawn the younger boy to her side. She was chafing his numb +hands and smoothing the damp locks from his forehead. + +"Why, how cold your hands have grown!" the child cried. "They're colder +than mine. And how funny and white you look!" + +Miranda had felt, from the moment when she first saw the forlorn little +group, that Ephraim was dead, and yet the sure knowledge came as a +shock. But this child was looking at her with Ephraim's eyes: they +warmed her heart. + +"_She_ knew me, if none of the rest of you did," said the widow, +indicating Miranda by a nod of her head. "And I knew her, too, just as +soon as I set eyes on her.--Well, you needn't hold any grudge against +me, Miranda Daggett. I calculate you got the best of the bargain. Ephrum +hadn't any faculty to get along. I've struggled and slaved till I'm all +worn out; and now I haven't a roof to cover me nor my children, nor a +mouthful to eat." + +Miranda sprang up, her arms around both the boys. + +"_I have!_ I have plenty for you all. And I've been a-wonderin' why it +should have come to me, that didn't need it; but now I know. You come +right home with me.--Mis' Bemis, you'll let Tready harness up?" + +There were some objections made on account of the rain, but Miranda +overruled them all. + +She drew Mrs. Bemis aside and confided to her that she didn't want +Ephrum's boys to stay even one night in the poor-house, because "it +might stick to 'em afterwards." And she shouldn't really feel that they +were going to belong to her until she had them in her own house. + +So, through the driving rain, in the open wagon which was the most +luxurious equipage that the poor-farm boasted, Miranda was driven home +with her _protégés_; while Mrs. Bemis gave way to renewed anxiety about +the fall tailorin' and Dr. Pingree heaved a sigh over his vanished +dreams,--a very gentle one, he was so used to seeing dreams vanish; and +there was consolation in having such an event to talk over. + +Miranda's home was a rambling old house, and it seemed deserted and +ghostly when they entered it; but Miranda kindled a fire In the kitchen +stove and another in the great fireplace in the sitting-room, and the +boys, warmed and fed and comforted, grew hilarious, and the ghosts were +all dispersed, and it seemed to Miranda for the first time like home. + +When she had seen all three cosily tucked into their beds, she went +downstairs to rake over the fire and see that all was safe for the +night. She found herself too full of a happy excitement to seek her own +slumbers. Ephraim was dead; but he had faded out of her life long +before; he had been nothing but a memory, and she had that still. He +even seemed nearer to her, being in the Far Country, than he had done +before. And his children were under her roof; hers to feed and clothe +and care for in the happy days that were coming; hers to educate. What +joy to have the means to do it with! what greater joy to work and save +and manage that there should be enough! + +Miranda looked into the leaping flame of her fire and saw brightest +pictures of the future,--until suddenly she turned her head away and +covered her face with her hands, groaning bitterly: it was only a +blackened limb that, standing tall and straight in the flame, took upon +itself a grotesque resemblance to a one-armed man. And Miranda +remembered her affianced the book-agent. "Oh, land I how could I 'a' +forgot! I've give him my promise." + +To Miranda's Puritan mind a promise was to be kept, with tears and blood +if need were. + +"Oh, what a foolish woman I've been! If I had only waited till I found +out what the Lord _did_ mean by sendin' that money to me! _He_ wouldn't +stand the boys, anyhow: he's nigh and graspin': I've found that out. And +I don't suppose I could buy him off with anything short of the whole +property. I did think he cared a little something about me, and mebbe he +does. I don't want to be too hard on him, but he was terrible put out +because I wouldn't give him but three hundred dollars to pay down for +that land that he's buy in' at such a bargain. I s'pose I should, only I +couldn't help thinkin' he might wait till we was married before he begun +to think about investin' my money. No, he won't let me off from marryin' +him unless I give him all my money. Yesterday I had thoughts of doin' +that; but now there's the boys." + +The queer black stick had fallen, and was crumbling away, but it had +crushed the last flickering flame. Miranda's fire, like her hopes, had +turned to ashes. + +She walked the floor restlessly, seeking vainly for a pathway out of her +troubles, until she was exhausted. Then she slept a troubled sleep until +daylight. + +It was a little comfort to get breakfast for Ephrum's wife and boys, +although she was so heavy-hearted. + +She went across the field to Eben Curtis's to get a bit of fresh fish: +Eben had been fishing the day before. + +Eben, who was a friendly young man, looked at her pityingly as he put +the' fish into her basket. As she was turning away in unwonted silence, +he was moved to say, "I wouldn't take it so hard if I was you, Miss +Daggett. You're well rid of such a scamp. And maybe they'll catch him +and get the money back. La, now! you don't say you hain't heard?" he +exclaimed at sight of Miranda's astonished face. "They most generally +_do_ get the news up to the poor-house." Eben lifted his hat and ran his +fingers through his hair with a mingling of sympathy and pleasure in +being the first to impart important news. "He's _cleared out_, the +book-agent has,--got all the money he could of folks without giving 'em +any books; and folks say he got some of you. He's been in jail for +playing the same trick before; and folks think he'll be caught this +time." + +"Oh, it's a mistake! He'll come back," said Miranda dejectedly, after a +moment's thought. + +"Well, he isn't very likely to, because"--here Eben turned his head +aside in embarrassment--"because he's got a wife and family over to +Olneyville." + +Radiant delight overspread Miranda's countenance. + +"I hope they'll just let him go," she said. "He's welcome to what money +he's got of mine,--more'n welcome." And homeward she went with a light +step. + +"Women are queer," mused Eben, as he returned to his fish-cleaning. +"She's lost her beau and her money, and she's tickled to death." + +"I declare, you look just as fresh and young and happy as you did +fifteen years ago!" said the widow, with a touch of envy, as they sat +down at the cheerful breakfast-table. + +Miranda touched Mrs. Bemis's arm as she came out of the meeting-house +the next Sunday, Ephraim's boys, preternaturally smooth of hair and +shining of face, beside her. + +"If it ain't perfane to say it. Mis' Bemis, I feel as if I'd got through +the eye of that needle clear into the kingdom of heaven." + +The poor-mistress commented upon the saying in the midst of her numerous +family that night: "She's got that selfish, tempery woman saddled onto +her for life, and she'll work her fingers to the bone for them boys, +that ain't anything to her, and won't be apt to amount to much,--for +there never was one of them Spencers that did,--and she calls that the +kingdom of heaven!" + +"It's jest as I always told you," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah placidly. "It's +all owin' to the p'int of view." + +SOPHIE SWETT. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE SECOND RANK. + +A ZOOLOGICAL STUDY. + + +It is a suggestive sign of our naturalistic times that so many +first-class towns in Europe and America contemplate the establishment of +Zoological Gardens. In the United States alone five cities have +successfully executed that project. Travelling menageries have taken the +place of the mediæval pageants. Natural histories begin to supersede the +ghost-stories of our fathers. The scientific literature of four +different nations has monographs on almost every known species of beasts +and birds. + +With such data of information it seems rather strange that the problem +of precedence in the scale of animal intelligence should still be a +mooted question. The primacy of the animal kingdom remains, of course, +undisputed; but the dog, the elephant, the horse, the beaver,--nay, the +parrot, the bee, and the ant,--have found learned and uncompromising +advocates of their claims to the honors of the second rank. + +Russel Wallace and Dr. Brehm have agitated the question, but failed to +settle it,--even to their own satisfaction. The reason, I believe, is +that the exponents of the different theories have failed to agree on a +definite standard of comparison. The mathematical principle implied in +the construction of a honey-comb, we are told, can challenge comparison +with the ripest results of human science. The acumen of a well-trained +elk-hound, a philosophical sportsman assures us, comes nearer to human +reason than any other manifestation of animal sagacity. +Elephant-trainers, too, adduce instances that almost pass the line of +distinction between intuitive prudence and the results of reflection. +Yet if those distinctions suffice to define the difference between +reason and the primitive instincts, they should reduce the scope of the +question in so far as to make it clear that, instead of measuring the +degree of the development of special faculties of the animal mind, we +should _ascertain the direction_ of those faculties. Instinct tends to +promote the interests of the species, and is limited to the more or less +skilful, but monotonous, performance of a special task. Within that +limited sphere its competence is perfect. Reason may be often at fault, +but its capacity enlarges with practice, and the scope of its +application is unlimited. It may be exerted in the interest of the +species, of the tribe, of the family; it may devote itself to the +service of an abstract principle or subserve the purposes of individual +caprice. It differs from instinct as a piano differs from a +barrel-organ. The pianist has to master his art by years of toil, but +can apply it to all possible variations or extravaganzas of music. The +organ-grinder can delight his audience as much by his first as by his +last performance, but his _répertoire_ is limited. Reason is indefinite, +free, and versatile. Instinct is exact, but circumscribed. + +Tested by that standard, the difference between the intelligence of the +higher _quadrumana_--the anthropoid apes, the baboons, and several +species of the macaques--and that of their dumb fellow-creatures is so +pronounced that it amounts to a difference of kind as well as of degree. +_Borné_, literally limited, but used in French as a synonyme of +short-witted, is the term that best characterizes the actions of all +other animals, as compared with the graceless but amazingly versatile +and well-planned pranks of our nearest relatives. The standard of +_usefulness_ would, indeed, degrade the perpetrators of these pranks +below the rank of the dullest donkey; but as a criterion of intelligence +the application of that test should rather be reversed. + +Watch a colony of house-building insects, their faithful co-operation, +their steady, exact adaptation of right means to a fixed purpose, and +compare their activity with that of a troop of ball-playing boys. Does +not the gratuitous ingenuity of the young bipeds indicate a far higher +degree of intelligence? Does it argue against the quality of that +intelligence that any novel phenomenon--a funnel-shaped cloud, the +appearance of a swarm of bats or unknown birds--would divert the +ball-players from their immediate purpose? Monkeys alone share this gift +of gratuitous curiosity. A strange object, a piece of red cloth +fluttering in the grass, may excite the interest of a watch-dog or of an +antelope. They may approach to investigate, but for subjective purposes. +They fear the presence of an enemy. A monkey's inquisitiveness can +dispense with such motives. In my collection of four-handed pets I have +a young Rhesus monkey (_Macacus Rhesus_), by no means the most +intelligent member of the community, but gifted with an amount of +meddlesome pluck which often makes it necessary to circumscribe the +freedom of his movements. One day last spring, when he joined an +assembly of his fellow-boarders on a sunny porch, the shortness of his +tether did not prevent him from picking a quarrel with a big raccoon. +After a few sham manoauvres the old North American suddenly lost his +temper and charged his tormentor with an energy of action that led to an +unexpected result,--for in springing back the Rhesus snapped his wire +chain, and in the next moment went flying down the lane toward the open +woods. But just before he reached the gate he suddenly stopped. On a +post of the picket-fence the neighbors' boys had deposited a kite, and +the Rhesus paused. The phenomenon of the dangling kite-tail, with its +polychromatic ribbons, eclipsed the memory of his wrongs and his +mutinous projects: he snatched the tail, and with the gravity of a +coroner proceeded to examine the dismembered appendage. If he had +mistaken the apparatus for a trap, the result of the dissection must +have reassured him; but he continued the inquest till one of his +pursuers headed him off and drove him back to his favorite hiding-place +under the porch, which he reached in safety, though in the interest of +science he had encumbered himself with a large section of kite-paper. + +On my last visit to New York I bought a female Chacma baboon that had +attracted my attention by the grotesque demonstrativeness of her +motions, and took her on board of a Norfolk steamer, where she at once +became an object of general enthusiasm. The next morning Sally was +taking her breakfast on deck, when she suddenly dropped her apple-pie +and jumped upon the railing. Through the foam of the churned brine her +keen eye had espied a shoal of porpoises, and, clinging to the railing +with her hind hands, she continued to gesticulate and chatter as long as +our gambolling fellow-travellers remained in sight. + +Menagerie monkeys, too, are sure to interrupt their occupations at the +sight of a new-comer,--a clear indication that monkeys, like men, +possess a surplus of intelligence above the exigencies of their +individual needs. Yet these exigencies are by no means inconsiderable. +Unlike the grazing deer and the deer-eating panther, the frugivorous +monkeys of the tropics are the direct competitors of the intolerant lord +of creation. The Chinese macaques, the Moor monkey, the West-African +baboons, have to eke out a living by pillage. The Gibraltar monkey has +hardly any other resources. Nor has nature been very generous in the +physical equipment of the species. Most monkeys lack the sharp teeth +that enable the tiger to defy the avenger of his misdeeds. Without +exception they all lack the keen scent that helps the deer to elude its +pursuers. But their mental faculties more than compensate for such +bodily deficiencies. In the Abyssinian highlands the mornings are often +cold enough to cover the grass with hoar-frost, yet the frost-dreading +baboons choose that very time to raid the corn-fields of the natives. +They omit no precaution, and it is almost impossible to circumvent the +vigilance of their sentries. Prudence, derived from +_providence_,--i.e., prevision, the gift of fore-seeing things,--is in +many respects almost a synonyme of reason. Physically that gift is +typified in the telescopic eyes which monkeys share with a few species +of birds, but with hardly any of their mammalian relatives, except man +in a state of nature. Mentally it manifests itself in a marvellous +faculty for anticipating danger. Last summer Sally, the above-mentioned +baboon, contrived to break loose, and took refuge on the top of the +roof. I do not believe that she intended to desert, but she was bent on +a romp, and had made up her mind not to be captured by force. A chain of +eight or nine feet dangled from her girdle, and she persistently avoided +approaching the lower tier of shingles, to keep that chain from hanging +down over the edge, but was equally careful not to venture too near the +extremities of the roof-ridge, for there was a skylight at each gable. +She kept around the middle of the roof; and we concluded to loosen a few +shingles in that neighborhood and grab her chain through the aperture, +while a confederate was to divert her attention by a continuous volley +of small pebbles. But somehow Sally managed to distinguish the +hammer-strokes from the noise of the bombardment, and at once made up +her mind that the roof had become untenable. The only question was how +to get down; for by that time the house was surrounded by a cordon of +sentries. As a preliminary measure she then retreated to the top of the +chimney, and one of our strategists proposed to dislodge her by loading +the fireplace with a mixture of pine-leaves and turpentine. But better +counsel prevailed, and we contented ourselves with firing a blank +cartridge through the flue. Sally at once jumped off, but regained her +vantage-ground on the roof-ridge, and we had to knock out a dozen +shingles before one of our fourteen or fifteen hunters at last managed +to lay hold of her chain. + +The naturalist Lenz describes the uncontrollable grief of a Siamang +gibbon who had been taken on board of a homebound English packet, where +his owner tempted him with all sorts of tidbits, in the vain hope of +calming his sorrow. The gibbon kept his eye on the receding outline of +his native mountains, and every now and then made a desperate attempt to +break his fetters; but when the coast-line began to blend with the +horizon the captive's behavior underwent a marked change. He ceased to +tug at his chain, and, chattering with protruded lips, after the +deprecatory manner of his species, began to fondle his owner's hand, and +tried to smooth the wrinkles of his coat, with the unmistakable +intention of reciprocating his friendly overtures. As soon as his native +coast had faded out of view he had evidently recognized the hopelessness +of an attempt at escape. He realized the fact that he had to accept the +situation, and, becoming alarmed at the possible consequences of his +refractory violence, he concluded that it was the safest plan to +conciliate the good will of his jailer. From analogous observations I +can credit the account in all its details, and I believe that the +conduct of the captive four-hander can be traced to a mental process as +utterly beyond the brain-scope of a horse, a dog, or an elephant as a +problem in spherical trigonometry. + +The inarticulate language of our Darwinian relatives has one +considerable advantage over the articulate speech of a trained parrot: +it has a definite meaning. Mumbling with protruded lips is an appeal for +pity and affection; a coughing grunt denotes indignation; surprise is +expressed by a very peculiar, _sotto voce_ guttural; _crescendo_ the +same sound is a danger-signal which the little Capuchin-monkey of the +American tropics understands as well as the African chimpanzee. My +Chacma baboon defies an adversary by contracting her eyebrows and +slapping the floor with her hands. The vocabulary of a talking bird is +no doubt more extensive, but it is used entirely at random. A +first-class parrot can repeat seventy different phrases; but an English +philosopher offered a hundred pounds sterling to any "mind-reader" who +should succeed in guessing the seven figures in the number of a +hundred-pound bank-note, and It would be as safe to offer the same sum +to any bird that could furnish evidence of attaching a definite meaning +to any seven of his seventy sentences. On close investigation, the +stories of conversational parrots prove as apocryphal as Katy-King +legends and planchette miracles. + +Causality--i.e., the gift of tracing a recondite connection of cause and +effect--is another faculty which many varieties of monkeys possess in a +decidedly ultra-instinctive degree. I remember the surprise of a +picnic-party who had borrowed my young Rhesus and on their return tied +him up on the porch of a garden-house. During the trip the little scamp +had behaved with the decorum of a well-bred youth, but, finding himself +unobserved, he at once made a vicious attempt to tear his rope with his +teeth. Whenever his boon companions approached the porch he would resume +his attitude of innocence, but as soon as they turned away, which they +often did on purpose to try him, he promptly recommenced his work of +destruction. Their giggling, however, excited his suspicions, and, +seeing them peep around the corner, he suddenly became a model of +virtuous inactivity. One of the picnickers then entered the garden-house +by a rear door, to watch the little hypocrite through a crack in the +board wall, while his companions ostensibly walked away and out of +sight. As soon as everything was quiet. Master Rhesus went to work +again, but at the same time kept his eye on the corner till he was +interrupted by a tap on the wall and a mysterious voice from within, +"Stop that, Tommy!" Tommy started, peeped around the corner, and looked +puzzled. He was sure there was nobody in sight. How could an invisible +spy have witnessed his transgression? He then scrutinized the wall more +closely, discovered the crack, and dropped the rope with a curious grin, +as he squinted through the tell-tale aperture. He had traced the effect +to its cause. + +Unlike dogs, raccoons, or squirrels, chained monkeys rarely entangle +themselves: they at once notice the shortening of their tether, and +never rest till they have discovered the clue of the phenomenon. A dog +in the same predicament has to content himself with tugging at his chain +or gnawing his rope; and the reason is that the wisdom of the wisest dog +is limited to business qualifications. He is a hunter, and nature has +endowed him with the requisite faculties, just as she has endowed the +constructive spider and the bee. Bees and dogs share the faculty of +direction, enabling them to find their way home, a talent implying a +very miracle of infallible and yet unconscious intuition, and in the +strictest sense a one-sided business qualification. The goose, the +sturgeon, and the almost brainless tortoise possess the same gift in a +transcendent degree; the oriole builds her first nest as skilfully as +the last; the young bee constructs her hexagons with an ease and a +uniform success that leave no possible doubt that the exercise of her +talent is generically different from a function of reason. Instincts may +be far-reaching enough to defy the rivalry of human science, but they +resemble loophole-guns, that can be fired only in a single direction. +The intuition that guides the turkey-hen to her nest does not enable her +to find her way out of a half-open log trap. The instinct by which a dog +retraces his trail across broad rivers and through woods does not enable +him to retrace the coils of a tangled rope. A monkey's talents, like our +own, are less infallible, but more versatile, and at the possessor's +discretion can be applied and perverted to all possible purposes. Hence +also that peculiar interest which the pranks of our mischievous +relatives excite even in spectators not apt to appreciate the comic +features of the spectacle. In the monkey-house of the Philadelphia Zoo I +have seen saturnine burghers stand motionless for hours together, and +contemplative children rapt in reveries that had little to do with the +hope of witnessing a beast-fight. They seemed to feel the spell of a +secret veiled in grotesque symbols, but disclosing occasional +revelations of its significance, like glimpses into the fore-world of +the human race. + +In the fairy-tales of the old Hindoo scriptures monkeys figure as +counsellors of nonplussed heroes, and in the crisis of the Titan war the +Devas themselves condescend to seek the advice of the monkey Honuman, +who contrives to outwit the prince of the night-spirits. In the +international fable of "Reynard the Fox," a she-monkey on the eve of the +trial by battle suggests the stratagem that turns the scales against the +superior strength of the wolf Isegrim. The _mens æqua in arduis_ is, +indeed, a simian characteristic. Monkeys never have their wits more +completely about them than in the moment of a sudden danger, and a +higher development of the same faculty distinguishes the Caucasian from +all rival races, even from the sharp-witted Semites. After the conquest +of Algiers the French tried to conciliate the native element by +educating a number of young Arabs and giving them a chance to compete +with the cadets of St.-Cyr. They made excellent routine-officers, but +even their patron, General Clausel, admitted that they "could not be +trusted in a panic." + +Dr. Langenbeck mentions a family of Silesian peasants who seemed to have +an hereditary predisposition to the abnormity known as microcephalism, +or small-headedness. They were not absolute idiots, but remarkably +slow-spoken and all extremely _averse to active occupations_. An active +disposition is generally a pretty safe gauge of mental capacity. +Intellectual vigor leads to action. To a person of mental resources +inactivity is more irksome than the hardest work, and sluggishness is +justly used as a synonyme of imbecility. Exertion under the pressure of +want is, however, not incompatible with an inert disposition, and +spontaneous activity, the love of busy-ness for its own sake, can be +ascribed only to men and monkeys; monkeys, at least, are the only +animals in whom repletion and old age cannot dampen that passion. After +a full meal an elephant will stand for hours in a sort of piggish +torpor; a gorged bird seeks the tree-shade; an overfed dog and nearly +every old dog becomes a picture of laziness. Monkeys rest only during +sleep. Old age does not affect their nimbleness; they can be fattened, +for I have seen baboons as sleek as seals, but, like Gibbon, Henry +Buckle, and Marshal Vendôme, they prove that the energy of a strong will +can bear up under such burdens. Madame de Staël, too, managed to combine +a progressive _embonpoint_ with the undiminished brilliancy of her +genius, though it is certain that adipose tissue does not feed the flame +of every mind. Charles Dickens in his "American Notes" expresses the +opinion that no vigor of mental constitution could be proof against the +influence of solitary confinement; but the narrow monkey-cages of our +zoological prisons show that the minds of the little captives can stand +the test of even that ordeal. They play with their shadows, if the +nakedness of their four walls does not afford any other pastime. + +Docility, on the other hand, is a rather ambiguous test of intelligence. +The willingness and the ability to learn may supplement their mutual +deficiencies, but differ as radically as patience and genius. Dogs +master the tasks of their education by their earnest endeavor to please +their master; Jacko excels them in spite of his waywardness. Some boys +win college-prizes by memorizing their lessons in conformity with the +wishes of a dreaded or beloved preceptor, others by dint of natural +aptitude and a love of knowledge based on spontaneous inquisitiveness; +and every circus-trainer knows that teachers who understand to avail +themselves of that gift can teach a monkey tricks which can neither be +coaxed nor kicked into the skull of the most docile dog. Besides, the +domestic dog is a considerably modified variety of the family to which +he belongs, and in order to appreciate the difference between the +_natural_ intelligence of the canines and the quadrumana we should +compare the docility of the monkey with that of the wolf or the jackal. +In the submissiveness of the dog the hereditary influence of several +thousand generations has developed a sort of artificial instinct that +qualifies him for the exigencies of his servitude; but submissiveness +_per se_, however valuable for plastic purposes, is certainly not a +characteristic concomitant of superior intelligence. In the soul of the +Hindoo, the Chinese, and the Eastern Slav, the long-inculcated duty of +subordination has become almost a second nature, while the most +intelligent tribes of the ancient Greeks were famous--or, from a Chinese +point of view, perhaps infamous--for a strong tendency in the opposite +direction. + +Patience is not a prominent gift of our four-handed relatives, but +compensating nature has endowed them with the genius of self-help and +its adjuvant talents,--observation, causality, imitativeness, +covetousness, and self-asserting pluck. They also possess a fair share +of such faculties as inquisitiveness, vigilance, and perseverance, all +rudiments, indeed, but the rudiments of supremacy. + +FELIX L. OSWALD. + + * * * * * + + + + +ELUSIVE + +Just out of reach she lightly swings, +My Psyche with the rainbowed wings, +A floating flower, by winds impelled, +The honeyed spray has caught and held. +Now circling low, with grace divine, +She sips the tulip's chaliced wine. +Why should I seek to bring her nigh +And find--a simple butterfly? + +O isles in ocean's azure set, +Like sculptured dome and minaret +Your purpled cliffs and headlands rise +Against the far-off, misty skies. +Yet, thither borne by helpful breeze, +As lifts the veil from circling seas, +Well know I your enchanted land +Would prove but rugged rock and sand. + +O friend whose words of wisdom rare +Inspire my soul to do and dare, +Across the distance wide and drear +I will not reach to bring you near. +Why cast ideal grace away +To find you only common clay? +The best of life and thought and speech +Is that which lies--just out of reach. + +SARAH D. HOBART. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PARISIAN COUTURIER. + + +The _couturier_--the bearded dressmaker, the masculine artist in silk +and satin--is an essentially modern and Parisian phenomenon. It is true +that the elegant and capricious Madame de Pompadour owed most of her +toilets and elegant accoutrements to the genius of Supplis, the famous +_tailleur pour dames_ or ladies' tailor, of the epoch. But Supplis was +an exception, and he never assumed the name of _couturier_, the +masculine form of _couturière_, "dress-maker." That appellation was +reserved for the great artists of the Second Empire, Worth, Aurelly, +Pingat, and their rivals, who utterly revolutionized feminine costume +and endeavored to direct it in the paths of art, good taste, and +comfort. Enthusiasts of grace and beauty, these artists set themselves +the task of preventing the inconstant goddess of fashion from continuing +to wander off into ugliness, deformity, and absurdity. In their devotion +to art, beauty, and luxury, they determined never to forget fitness and +comfort, and since their initiative has regulated the vagaries of +fashion we must admit that our women have never been the victims of such +inconvenient, ugly, and absurd inventions as crinoline, leg-o'-mutton +sleeves, the _coiffure à la frégate_, and the various other +monstrosities of the Republic, the Directory, and the Restoration, +which, thanks to the traditional supremacy of France in matters of +fashion, made their way, more or less modified, all over the world. The +modern artists in dress consider justly that what is most important in a +dress is the woman who wears it, and that their object should be to set +her off to the best advantage, and not to make her remarked,--in short, +to make a toilet which will be to the wearer what the frame is to the +portrait. The _rôle_ which the _couturier_ plays, not only in Parisian +life but in the life of the whole civilized world, is so important and +so curious that I have thought it might interest the reader to see the +great artist at home, surrounded by his customers and his assistants, +and to catch a brief glimpse of the nature and peculiarities of the +creature. My description of the type will be in general, of course, but +founded on exact observation of individuals. + +The high-priests of Parisian fashion have their shrines up-stairs. Where +the highest perfection is aimed at, shops are nowhere. The _grand +couturier_ makes no outside show. You will find him occupying two or +three floors in one of those plain, flat-fronted Restoration houses +which line the Rue de la Paix, the Rue Taitbout, the Rue Louis-le-Grand, +or the Faubourg St.-Honoré. Passing through a square _porte-cochère_ as +broad as it is high, you find on the right or left hand a glass door +opening on a staircase covered with a thick red carpet. On the landings +are divans, and sometimes a palm of a dracæna. Through an open door on +the ground-floor you see the packing-room, where marvels of silk and +lace are being enveloped in mountains of tissue-paper to be sent to the +four quarters of the globe; on the first floor, or _entresol_, are +workrooms full of girls seated at long tables and sewing under the +directing eye of a severe-looking matron; on the second floor are +generally situated the show- and reception-rooms. The first saloon is +sombre: the ceiling appears, in the daytime, blackened by gas; the walls +are wainscoted in imitation ebony with gold fillets, and large panels +above the chair-rail are filled with verdure tapestries of the most +dismal green, chosen expressly to throw into relief the freshness and +gayety of the dresses; on the chimney-piece, and reflected in the glass, +is a clock surmounted by a monumental statue of Diana in nickeled +imitation bronze and flanked by two immense candelabra; along the walls +are two or three large wardrobes with looking-glass doors; in the +middle of the room is a table for displaying materials, with a few +chairs, and in one corner a desk, where is seated M. Cyprien or M. +Alexandre, the bookkeeper. In this room the customers are received by a +tall and very elegant young lady, invariably dressed in black satin in +winter and black silk in summer. Through this soft-spoken person, who +bears the title _of première vendeuse_, or first saleswoman, the +customers are put into communication either with the great artist +himself or simply with one of the _premières_, or heads of departments, +if their orders are not of sufficient importance to justify an +interruption of the great man in his innumerable and absorbing +occupations. Opening out of this first saloon are a number of smaller +saloons, all equally sombre, colorless, and shabby-looking, especially +by daylight. There are extra show-rooms and trying-on-rooms, besides +which there is a special room for trying on riding-habits, and another +for the chief of the corsage department, to say nothing of little rooms +draped with blue, brown, or red for special purposes. Over these dingy +carpets and among these old tapestries and sombre furniture glide +noiselessly from room to room young women on whose sloping shoulders and +lissome figures the "creations" of Messieurs les Couturiers show to the +best advantage. These are the _demoiselles-mannequins_, or +_essayeuses_,--mute but breathing models, who seem to have lost all +human animation in their occupation of mere clothes-wearers, automata +with weary faces, whose sole business is to carry on their backs from +morning until night luminous vesture. The ordinary pay of the +_demoiselle-mannequin_ in the grand establishments is from sixty to +eighty dollars a month, with half board; but some of them who have +exceptionally elegant figures and perfect bearing are paid fancy prices, +reaching as much in rare cases as two thousand dollars a year. + +Imagine the appearance of these saloons between two and five o'clock in +the afternoon during the season, filled as they are with chattering and +finely-dressed ladies,--Parisiennes, Russians with their lazy accent, +English and Americans talking in their own tongue, princesses of the +Almanach de Gotha and princesses of the footlights, and even of the +_demi-monde_, all united in adoration of the idol of fashion. A confused +murmur of musical voices rises in an atmosphere impregnated with the +perfumes of ylang-ylang, heliotrope, peau d'Espagne, jonquil, iris, +poudre de riz, and odor di femina. The heads of the different +departments are seen passing to and fro with fragments of a dress or a +corsage in their arms, and amid the buzzing assembly the models move +incessantly, like animated statues, silent and majestic. From time to +time the voice of the great artist is heard giving brief and imperious +orders, or scolding plaintively because a ruche has been substituted for +a flounce on the dress of Madame X----, or a light fur for a dark fur on +the mantle of the Baronne de V----,--"a pale blonde! The whole thing +will have to be made over again. What can I do if I am not seconded?" he +asks irritably. "Truly, _mesdemoiselles, c'est à se donner au diable_!" +With these words flung at a little group of employees, the great man +appears. He is a short man, dressed in light-gray trousers, a blue coat +with a broad velvet collar and silk lappels in which are stuck a few +pins for use in sudden inspirations, a flowered waistcoat, and a heavy +watch-chain. His head is bald and surrounded by a fringe of dust-colored +gray hair, frizzled so finely that it looks like swans'-down. His +whiskers and moustache have the same fine and woolly appearance. His +blue eyes look worn and faded; his face has flushed red patches on a +pale anaemic ground; his expression is one of subdued suffering, due to +the continual neuralgia by which he is tormented, thanks to the strong +perfumes which his elegant customers force him to inhale all day long. +Epinglard, for so we will call him for convenience' sake, rarely dines +during the busy season: he is the martyr of his profession. He has a +house exquisitely decorated and arranged, but he lives alone, his daily +commerce with women having disinclined him to risk the lottery of +marriage. Nevertheless, he is much effeminized; and his employees will +assure you that he wears cambric nightcaps bordered with lace, and a +lace _jabot_ on his night-shirts. His life is entirely devoted to his +art, and he conscientiously goes on Tuesdays to the Comédie Française, +on Fridays to the Opera, and on Saturdays to the Italians or the Circus, +because those are the nights selected by rank and fashion, and therefore +excellent occasions for observing the work of his rivals. For the same +reason Epinglard will be seen on fashionable days at the races, and at +first performances at the fashionable theatres, but always alone. In +confidence, Epinglard will tell you that he adores solitude and loves +his art with undivided and disinterested passion. "It gives me +pleasure," he will say, "to see a woman well dressed, whoever may have +dressed her. For my own part, I do not care to get myself talked about. +I mind my own business and I make my own creations, but I am perfectly +ready to admire the creations of others. It is not the mere creation +that I find difficult: it is to get my creations executed." + +Epinglard talks slowly, precisely, and in a sing-song and hypocritical +voice, while his fingers, laden with heavy rings, caress voluptuously +some piece of surah or silk. He is in serious consultation with one of +the leaders of fashion, the Baronne de P----. Suddenly changing his +tone, he calls out to a model who is passing, "You there, mademoiselle, +put on this skirt to show to madame," And, turning the model round, he +shows the skirt in all its aspects, passing his fingers amorously over +the _batiste_ and seeming to give it life and beauty by his mere touch. +"And you, Mademoiselle Ernestine, come here, too," calling to another +model; who is walking about gloomily with a mantle on her shoulders: +"put on Madame A----'s mantle." Then, changing back to his hypocritical +tone, Epinglard continues his sing-song monologue to the Baronne de +P----, and tells her that Madame A---- is a "great English lady who has +deserted her husband and is now living in Paris. She spends about +sixteen thousand dollars a year on her toilets. It is a good deal, yes. +But, imagine, last month I made a mantle for the Countess Z---- which +cost five thousand dollars. Look at that line" (caressing the mantle on +the model's shoulders) "and the slope of the hips. It is perfect. And +the embroidery and the trimming, all made on the material of the mantle +itself by my own embroiderers." + +This afternoon Epinglard is in a theorizing mood, and, after having sent +for Bamboula, as he calls her familiarly, a dark-skinned model, he +drapes her in a pale-yellow tulle dress, and proceeds to lament that so +few Frenchwomen will wear yellow, owing to a silly popular prejudice. +"Ah, madame la baronne," he continues, "you cannot conceive what lovely +combinations of rose and yellow I have made. Why not? There are roses +with yellow pistils. Why should not we do in stuffs what nature does in +flowers? For us _couturiers_, as for the painter and the sculptor, the +great source of inspiration is nature. There are many of my colleagues +who fill their portfolios with the engravings of Eisen, Debucourt, +Moreau, and the masters of the eighteenth century. But this is not +sufficient: we must go back to nature. I pass my summer in the country, +and in the rich combinations of floral color I find the gamut of tones +for my toilets. But I am allowing myself to theorize too much. If madame +la baronne will be good enough to come to-morrow, I will compose +something for her in the mean time. This afternoon I am scarcely in the +humor for a creation of such importance." And, with a grave salute, +Epinglard passes into a saloon where two ladies are waiting impatiently, +particularly the younger of the two, who has come, under the wing of her +fashionable relative, to be introduced to the _grand couturier_. + +"_Bonjour_, Monsieur Epinglard," begins the elder. "I have come to ask +you to create a masterpiece. It will not be the first time, will it? My +niece is going to her first ball next month, and I wish her to have a +dress on which your signature will be visible." + +Epinglard falls into a meditative pose, his elbow in one hand, his chin +in the other, and looks long at the young girl, scrutinizing not only +the line and modelling of the body, but the expression of the face, the +eyes, the shade and nature of the hair, reading her temperament with the +lucidity of a phrenologist aided by the divination of a plastic artist +who has had great experience of feminine humanity. The examination lasts +many minutes, and finally, as if under the inspiring influence of the +god of taste, Epinglard, in broken phrases, composes the dress: +"Toilette entirely of tulle ... corsage plaited diagonally ... around +the _décolletage_ four ruches ... the skirt relieved with drapery of +white satin falling behind like a peplum ... on the shoulder--the left +shoulder--a bouquet of myosotis or violets ... that is how I see +mademoiselle dressed." And Epinglard salutes gravely, while an +assistant, who has noted down the prophetic utterances of the master, +conducts the subject to a room in the centre of which is an articulated +model of a feminine torso, with movable breasts, flattened rag arms +hanging at the sides, and a combination of straps and springs to adjust +the _taille_ or waist,--a most sinister and grotesque object, all +crumpled and shrivelled up and covered with shiny, glazed calico. This +is the studio of one of the most important of the secondary artists in +dress-making, the _corsagère_. The chief of this department takes the +subject in hand, and, with the aid of pieces of coarse canvas, such as +the tailors use to line coats, she takes a complete mould of the body, +cutting and pinning and smoothing with her hand until the mould is +perfect. This is the first step toward the execution of the master's +plan. At the next _séance_ of trying-on, the subject passes +simultaneously through the hands of several heads of departments,--the +_corsagère_, the _jupière_, who drapes the skirts and arranges the +train, and the second _jupière_, who mounts and constructs the skirt. +The corsage is brought all sewn and whaleboned, but only basted below +the arms and at the shoulder, and as soon as it is in place--"_crac! +crac!_"--the _corsagère_, with angry fingers, breaks the threads, and +then calmly and patiently rejoins the seams and pins them together so +that the joinings may lie perfectly flat and even. On her knees, turning +patiently round and round, the _jupière_ drapes the skirt on a lining of +silk, seeking to perfect the roundness, sparing no pains, and displaying +in all she does the artist's _amour-propre_, the desire to achieve a +masterpiece in the detail which the masculine designer has allotted to +her care. These women who lend their light-fingered collaboration to the +imagination of the bearded dress-maker are really admirable in their +sentiment of their work, in their artist's ambition, which thinks not +merely of the week's salary, but of the perfection of the masterpiece. +They seem to find intense personal satisfaction in producing a beautiful +toilet, in fashioning a delicate thing which almost has the qualities of +a work of art; and when the subject is naturally well formed,--_tout +faite_, as they say,--and not artificially made up with what is called +the _taille de couturière_, their painstaking knows no bounds. + +During these long _séances_, which last for hours together and occupy so +large a place in the day of a woman of fashion, the common love of +toilet makes, for the moment at least, the _grande dame_ or the +aristocrat the equal of the modest employee, and, while the _jupière_ is +turning round and round madame la baronne, there often takes place a +lively interchange of gossip and a review of the plastic qualities of +the friends and rivals in beauty of madame la baronne who are also +customers of the house. The _grand couturier_ himself is a +treasure-house of queer stories and scandals, and naturally his +employees take after their master. The _couturier_, you see, is not a +tradesman: he is an artist, and he renders a woman far greater service +than the artist-painter, who finds her already dressed and only has to +copy her, whereas the _couturier_ dresses a woman not once, but twenty +times a year, and each time that he invents a becoming toilet he makes a +new creation not only of the toilet, but of the woman. There has, in +fact, been a great change made in modern times in matters of dress. Our +modern women are no longer content with merely seasonable dresses, +appropriate in form and material for spring, summer, autumn, or winter; +they are no longer satisfied to have four interviews a year with the +dress-maker. On the contrary, every event in social life--a wedding, a +ball, a visit to a country-house, the annual excursions to sea-side and +mountain--gives occasion for special dresses, or rather costumes, for in +modern toilets the element of pure costume plays a considerable _rôle_ +especially in those destined for wear in the country. The modern woman +of fashion needs endless morning, afternoon, and evening dresses, +tea-gowns, breakfast-dresses, of endless varieties of form, stuff, and +color. Hence she is constantly in communication with the _couturier_, +who has every opportunity of examining her morally and physically, +confessing her, listening often to strange confidences. Not unfrequently +he combines with his artistic career that of a banker. Naturally, ladies +who run up yearly bills of twenty thousand dollars for gowns and mantles +are often in a corner for want of a few thousands, and the Parisienne in +such circumstances often thinks it equally natural to have recourse to +the strange creature who dresses her and who thus comes to occupy a very +curious position on the confines of society. + +The final trying-on of the dresses of madame la baronne is a grand day, +and often a few friends, both ladies and gentlemen, are invited to +assist at the ceremony; for the Parisiennes recognize in some of their +masculine friends, and particularly in painters, certain talents for +appreciating dress. Why not? Were not these men the great innovators in +modern dressing? and are not men still the great artists in costume? +Madame la baronne prepares herself in one of the little saloons. First +of all come the skirts and the young ladies who preside over the +fabrication of the _dessous_, or underclothing, for it is an axiom in +modern French dress-making that half the success of the toilet depends +on the underclothing, or, as the French put it in their neat way, "_Le +dessous est pour la moitié dans la réussite du dessus_." Then follows +the tying of the skirt of the dress, which is suspended on hooks round +the bottom of the corset, the buttoning of the corsage, the preliminary +tapping and caressing necessary to make the folds of the skirt sit well, +and then madame la baronne makes her appearance triumphantly before her +friends assembled in the adjoining saloon. The great artist himself +deigns to contemplate the finished work. Standing off at some distance, +so as to take in the general effect, as if he were examining a picture, +he gazes upon the dress with impassible eyes, and then, after a +Napoleonic silence, during which all present hold their breath, the +great man expresses his satisfaction, perhaps even falls on his knees in +mute admiration of his masterpiece, or in the twinkling of an eye gives +a pinch to a frill or a twist to a plait which transforms and perfects +the whole, such is the magic power of those marvellous fingers when they +touch the delicate tissues of silk or lace or velvet. Then, while the +master is sating his eyes, all the staff of the house defiles through +the saloon,--the chief saleswoman, the cutter-out, the _chef des jupes_, +the _chef des corsages_, the _chef des garnisseuses_, the _première +brodeuse_, and half a dozen other _premièeres_, who open the door and +ask, with caressing intonations of voice and pretty smiles, "_Vent-on me +permettre de voir un pen_?" + +What other mysteries are there to be revealed in the house of the +_couturier_? We have glanced at the packing-rooms, the working-rooms +with their battalions of girls and women toiling away with their needles +by daylight and gas-light. We caught a glimpse of the reception-saloons +and the trying-on-rooms, all strewn with fragments of +dresses,--_disjecta membra_,--mountains of silk, and peopled with +automatic human _mannequins, essayeuses_, who, as the moralists will +tell you, are all "_vicieuses qui ne manquent de rien_," and who are +destined sooner or later to reinforce the _demi-monde_. We have seen the +process of creating and fitting a dress, the ceremony of trying-on, and +the _rôle_ of the creating artist in all this. Now, to make our +indiscretion complete, we have only to peep into the _salon des +amazones_, a room draped in green velvet and decorated with whips, +stirrups, and side-saddles. The table in the middle is piled up with +heaps of dark-colored cloth and hats with green, brown, and blue veils. +At one end is a life-size wooden horse, and presiding over this room is +a blonde effeminate young man, whose business it is to offer his clasped +hands as a mounting-stone to help the ladies to jump on to the back of +the wooden steed, while the tailor arranges the folds of their +riding-habits. + +Besides Pingat, the most artistic of the Parisian dress-makers, besides +Worth, who has a specialty of court-dresses for exportation and showy +dresses for American actresses, and whose style is pompous and official, +besides Felix, the dresser of slender women, the favorite artist of the +aristocracy of birth and talent,--all three so well known that the +mention of their names here cannot be regarded as an +advertisement,--there are a dozen other bearded dress-makers in Paris +whose talent is worthy of admiration, and whose caprices might amuse us +if we had time to dwell upon them. There is, however, a _grande +couturière_ who surpasses all her masculine rivals in fatuity and +caprice, namely, Madame Rodrigues, the great theatrical dress-maker. +Madame Rodrigues always asks the journalists not to mention her by name. +"Put simply," she says, "the first dress-maker in Paris. Everybody will +know who is meant." This lady regards herself as the collaborator of +Sardou and Dumas and Augier. Dumas is her peculiar favorite. "We +understand each other," she says, "and he finds that my genius completes +his." + +Nothing can be more amusing than the scene in her vast saloons about +four o'clock in the afternoon. The _grande couturière_--Madame, as her +employees respectfully call her--issues from her private rooms and finds +herself in presence of a score of ladies, not merely actresses, but +society ladies, to whom she has given rendezvous for that day. + +"I am exceedingly sorry, mesdames," the great artist will exclaim, "but +I cannot attend to you to-day." + +"But, dear madame, you wrote to me--" + +"I must have my dress for to-morrow." + +"My ball takes place to-night--" + +"Mesdames, I repeat, it is impossible. If one of my assistants likes to +take you in hand, well and good. That is all I can do for you." + +Then, turning round, she perceives a stout lady who looks imploringly at +her, and declares brusquely, "Ah, madame, I have already told you that I +cannot undertake to dress you. You are not my style. I do not understand +plump women." + +"But, Madame Rodrigues--" + +"If one of my _premières_ cares to take you in hand, I have no +objection; but that is all I can do for you." + +The only thing that calms the great artist is the arrival of one of her +favorite actresses. + +"Ah, _bonjour_, Madame Judic: you will have your toilets on Friday--" + +"But the first performance is announced for Wednesday." + +"They must put it off, then, for I am not ready. We will try your dress +for the second act this afternoon." And the _grande couturière_ settles +herself in her arm-chair, calls for her footstool, her fan, her cup of +beef-tea, her smelling-salts, and so proceeds to preside over the +terrible and imposing ceremony of trying on the dress of a fashionable +actress. + +Doubtless the luxury of the Parisiennes is not so great now as it was +under the Empire; but the falling off in the home trade is partly +compensated by the increase in the foreign customers. In Paris alone +the dress-making trade represents the movement of fifty millions of +dollars a year and gives employment to some fifty thousand women; and +many of the elegant society women spend from twenty to thirty thousand +dollars a year on their costume and toilet. But it must not be believed +that the modern _couturier_ is the first who has known how to draw up +big bills, or that the modern _lingère_ is the first who has dared to +charge two hundred dollars for a chemise and half as much for a +pocket-handkerchief. Dress has always reigned supreme in France at +least. Louis XVI. has been guillotined, Napoleon I. exiled, Charles X. +dismissed, Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. replaced without their leave +by a new form of government. But dress has never been dethroned; and, +just as in our own days Dupin thundered in the Senate against the +desperate luxury of the Parisiennes of the Empire, so in the eighteenth +century old Sebastien Mercier lamented that the fear of the milliners' +bills prevented young men from marrying, and so left fifteen hundred +thousand girls without husbands! The great dress-makers of those days +were Madame Eloffe, the artist who dressed Marie Antoinette, and whose +account-books have recently been published; with notes and curious +colored plates, by the Comte de Reiset, and Madame Cafaxe, the +_modiste-couturière_ of the Fauburg St.-Honoré, celebrated for her +exorbitant charges. One has only to consult the curious historical +researches of the brothers De Goncourt in order to appreciate the luxury +and extravagance of the past century. Imagine that in the +wedding-trousseau of Mademoiselle Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau there +figured twelve blonde wigs, varying in shade from flax to gold! Madame +Tallien alone possessed thirty of these wigs, each of which was valued +at that time at one hundred dollars,--that is to say, some two hundred +dollars of modern money. None of our modern _élégantes_ would ever think +of buying six thousand dollars' worth of false hair. At the same epoch +the ladies who had fallen in love with Greek and Roman fashions had +abandoned the old-fashioned shoe in order to adopt the cothurnus; and +Coppe, the _chic_ shoemaker, or _corthurnier_, of Paris charged sixty +dollars a pair for his imitation antique sandals, with their straps. +Alas! Coppe's sandals were no more durable than the fleeting rose, and +whenever a fair dame came to show her torn cothurnus to the great Coppe +he replied sadly, "The evil is irremediable: madame has been walking!" + +THEODORE CHILD. + + * * * * * + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +A Future for Women. + + +From the last report of the Bureau of Education it appears that twice as +many girls as boys enter high schools in the United States, and that +three times as many complete the four years' course. "Nature," in +commenting upon this fact, attributes it to the great attractiveness of +commercial pursuits in this country, and the consequent eagerness of +boys to enter upon them at as early an age as possible. This is +doubtless the true reason, and the disproportion is more likely to +increase than to diminish, even though the actual number of boys who +rush into a money-making career as soon as they have mastered the +arithmetic necessary for it may be growing smaller. It is beginning, +moreover, to be an every-day matter for women to receive a college +education. There are already three well-filled colleges of high rank +exclusively their own, and the new Bryn Mawr bids fair to be a powerful +rival to Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley. Many of the colleges for men are +open to them; now, and the capitulation of those strongholds of +conservatism. Cambridge. New Haven, and Baltimore, is only a question of +time. Great colleges are ravenous for fresh endowments, and the offer of +a large sum of money may at any moment procure from them the full +admission of women. It is not impossible that before many years have +passed there will be as many women as men receiving a college education. +How is this army of educated women going to occupy itself? + +There is another aspect to the question. Not only is the mass of women +better fitted than ever before for worthy occupation, there has never +been a time nor a country in which their traditionary sphere has shrunk +to so small dimensions. Nowhere else are there so many women of such a +station that they are not obliged to toil and spin, nor to sleep all day +to make up for nights of dissipation. For all those who do not have to +concern themselves with the wherewithal of living, the art of living +easily has been brought to a state of great perfection. The general care +of the house and of the children is still the duty of the woman, but the +labor involved in acquitting herself of that duty is a very different +matter from what it was a generation ago. Then all her energies were +needed to bring up a family well. Brewing and baking and soap- and +candle-making were all carried on in the house, and there were a dozen +children to be kept neatly dressed with the aid of no needle but her +own. Now the purchase of the day's supplies is the only important demand +upon her time; well-trained servants, the descendants of the raw Irish +girl her mother struggled with, are capable of carrying on the cooking +and the scrubbing by themselves. Sewing it is hardly worth her while to +do in the house. Stitching her linen collars was once an important item +in her year's work; now it is safe to say that there is not a single +woman who does not buy her collars ready made. Making cotton cloth into +undergarments has become a manufacture in the unetymological sense of +the word. The Viscount de Campo-Grande, in addressing the Royal Academy +of Moral and Political Sciences at Madrid, two years ago, admitted that +sewing was no longer an economy, but urged women to practise it still +for the purpose of quieting their nerves. But the modern American woman +who has had a healthy bringing up, who has divided her girlhood between +vigorous study and active out-door exercise, who can row and skate and +play ball and tennis with her brothers, has no unquiet nerves. She does +not ask for sedatives, but for some high stimulus to call into play her +strong and well-trained faculties. Money-making, the natural sphere of +man, has become a more and more absorbing pursuit, while the usual +feminine occupations have become more than ever trivial and unimportant +at the very moment when the feminine mind has taken a new start in its +development. The woman who is fresh from reading Gauss and Pindar, and +who has taken sides in the discussion between the adherents of Roscher +and of Mill, cannot easily content herself with the petty economies that +result from doing her own cutting and fitting and dusting and +table-setting. Still less, if she has not married, is she satisfied to +look forward to the position of nursery governess to her sister-in-law's +children. Her education has fitted her for something better than to save +the wages of an upper servant. Again the question is forced upon her, +where can she find a fitting field for the exercise of her powers? + +To many people, who have all the means of existence they care for +without a struggle, it seems that the only thing that can give a +thorough interest and zest to life is to devote themselves to the +elevation of the degraded classes of society. They find such monotony in +their own comfortable ways of living, and the misery of the very poor +seems so appalling to them, that they cannot escape from the passionate +desire to spend themselves in their service. The problems connected with +the relief and the prevention of the wretchedness by which they are +surrounded have all the interest of a scientific experiment, and are +capable of calling out all the fervor of a religion. But for the few +people here and there who have now the passion of the reformer it is not +impossible that another generation may see many thousands. A second +christianization of the world may convert all the happy into the +consolers of the unhappy, instead of leading people to absorb themselves +in the question of their own salvation. No one can say how great a +change might be made in the fair face of the earth if the effort to +remove the causes of poverty and of disease should become the serious +occupation of half mankind. In the lower stages of existence the +extermination of evil has been the work of a slow and gradual process. +Millions of individuals have been sacrificed in order to produce the few +who were fitted to their surroundings. But at last a creature has been +produced of so much intelligence that he is able to undertake his own +further development. He can speculate upon the causes of his failures in +the search for happiness, and he can apply remedies. It is true that +those remedies have often been productive of more harm than good, it is +true that it would be hard to calculate the evil effects of the English +poor-laws, for instance, but all the experiments that have hitherto +worked badly are but so much material from which to draw a knowledge of +better methods. When the Wlllimantic Thread Company has found a way to +make its girls come singing from their work as they go to it, and to +make better thread at the same time, no one can say that great changes +may not be brought about when once scientific methods shall have been +discovered for the extermination of disease and crime. What more +interesting field for investigation, for theory, for active work, can +women find than that large kind of charity which is to supersede in the +future the indiscriminate alms-giving of the past? The unselfishness +that is demanded by the life of a reformer they have already in large +abundance. There is no limit to the devotion which many women show their +families, but such devotion has in these days become so unnecessary as +to be little more than a higher form of selfishness. Perhaps it only +needs a leader to turn this store of energy into wider channels and to +make it subservient to larger ends. Perhaps the labor and patience and +self-renunciation that are necessary to the regeneration of the world +are to come from women. Such an absolute disregard of self as they are +capable of, if it were once allowed to overflow the narrow limits of the +home, might in no long time turn a goodly portion of the world into a +garden of roses. There are still men who wish to appropriate to +themselves all the high qualities of their women, but they belong to a +race that is destined to rapid extinction, and to most rapid extinction +in this country. That American men are more thoroughly chivalrous than +English is a common belief. It was curiously confirmed by the English +clergyman who wrote to the "Nation," some years ago, to describe the +qualities which an English clergyman ought to have in order to be +successful in this country, and who said that he had found it necessary +not to let it be known that his wife warmed his slippers for him. The +theory that woman exists solely for the purpose of smoothing the +wrinkles from the brow of man is one that seldom finds expression now, +except in the Lenten sermons of men who are content to drop out of the +ranks of those who influence opinion. But the great freedom that the +modern woman has gained for herself, the thorough education that is for +the first time within her reach, the strong sympathies that are her +inheritance,--these are grounds of a responsibility that she cannot but +feel to be a heavy one. What better outlet can she find for her +activities than to carry forward that slow process of fitting together +the human race and its surroundings which it is no longer necessary to +leave to chance? + +CHRISTINE LADD-FRANKLIN. + + * * * * * + + + + +The Ice-Saints. + + +There are three days in the spring of the year called by the French _Les +Saints de Glace_. These days are the 12th, 13th, and 14th of May, and +the saints to whom they are dedicated are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancras, +and Saint Servais. They are very obscure saints, in honor of whom few +children have been named, and, were it not for the vast parish of Saint +Pancras which once comprised all the northwestern part of London, their +names as well as their history would be, to Protestants at least, +entirely unknown. They have, however, the evil reputation of commonly +bringing with them a nipping frost, and are abhorred in Burgundy as the +great enemies of the vine. + +Their advent this year was telegraphed to Paris by the New York +"Herald," whose weather reporter was probably quite ignorant of any +ecclesiastical traditions connected with the matter. On May 11 the +following despatch was received in Paris: "A great depression, having +its centre in the neighborhood of Lake Ontario, will be followed by a +cyclone of great extent, travelling in the direction of Halifax, It will +probably occasion great changes of temperature along the coasts of Great +Britain and France, beginning May 12 and continuing till May 14." Never +was prediction better fulfilled. The Ice-Saints sank the French +thermometer to 6° Centigrade, corresponding to 21° Fahrenheit, a +temperature more severe in those latitudes than the cold of an ordinary +Christmas. When the Ice-Saints had departed the weather grew mild again. + +M. Quetelet, the head of the Observatory at Brussels, has paid great +attention to the periodicity of weather-changes in Europe. The result of +his investigations is as follows: + +I. That there is always a "cold snap" between the 7th and 11th of +January, during which ordinarily occurs the coldest day of the year. + +II. That from January 22 to March 1 there is, as we say in our +vernacular, "a let-up" on the coldness of the temperature. In France +there is no ground-hog, or, if there is, he so generally sees no shadow +upon Candlemas (February 2) that the three weeks succeeding it are +called _L'Été de la Chandeleur_. + +III. In April cold may be expected from the 9th to the 22d, and the +Ice-Saints may prolong their influence to May 23, after which there is +no more possibility of frosts in France, though within my memory June +frosts have been twice known in Maryland and Virginia. The prolonged +frost in May is said to be produced by an understanding between the +Ice-Saints and what is called in France _La Lune Rousse_,--the Red Moon. + +IV. Though it needs no prophet to foretell hot weather from June 6 to +June 23. M, Quetelet's observations point to June 13 and June 22 as days +of exceptionally high temperature. + +V. Between July 4 and July 8 comes the hottest day of the summer, which +is not to be looked for in the dog-days, which are from July 21 to +August 20. + +VI. July 25 distinguishes itself by being cool, and August 25 tempers +ten days of heat which commonly begin on the 15th of August. + +VII. September 14 and September 30 are days when the thermometer may be +expected to make a sudden fall. + +VIII. Cold weather may be looked for from October 20 to October 29, and +from November 10 to November 19; but in the first ten days of November +comes what we call Indian summer, and the French _L'Été des +Morts_,--because it succeeds All-Souls' Day,--or _L'Été de Saint +Martin_. + +M. Quetelet adds no observations on December, it being presumably a cold +month everywhere. + +M. Fourmet, of Lyons, has also made meteorological observations of the +same nature in Southern France, and especially in the valley of the +Rhone. He says the lowest temperature in each month is as follows: +January 9 and 21. February 3, 12, and 20. March 5 and 21. April 19. May +12, 13, and 14. June 8, 20, and 27. July 12 and 25. August 2, 12, and +24. September 5, 15, and 30. October 22. November 5 and 17. December 3 +and 29. + +M. Charles Sainte-Claire Deville has also been engaged in careful +weather-calculations for many years, and has been in constant +correspondence on the subject with the Académie des Sciences. His theory +is based on the existence of the three Ice-Saints in May, and he +considers that a similar periodic influence may be traced in other +months of the year. He maintains that there are three days in every +month, with an interval of about ten days between them, in which we may +look for a fall of temperature, and that the weather gradually grows +warmer during the interval that separates them. His observations are +only in part corroborated by those of M. Quetelet and M. Fourmet. + +E.W.L. + + * * * * * + + + + +A Svenska Maid. + +Marie has been in the United States about four years, and still accents +her English with the Lapp-Finn modulations of Northern Sweden. She is +only eighteen years old now. She has fair hair and a serene fair face +somewhat like the Liberty face on our silver dollar. Her young shape is +strong and handsome, and she has white little teeth like a child's, and +the innocent nature of a child. + +Marie's father is a Swedish farmer. Many adventurers came to America +from her neighborhood, and, though but fourteen years old, she wanted to +come too; and a cousin's husband, already settled in Illinois, lent her +the passage-money. The last Sunday, according to custom, all her friends +brought offerings to church, and she was made to go through the +congregation holding her apron. They filled it with cake, a Bible, etc. +The young people walked with her parents and herself to the +steamer-landing, and kept from crying until she was aboard. + +When the steamer was under way an old woman came across her in the +steerage, and exclaimed, "Why, child, where are your father and mother?" + +To which Marie responded, with the gentle persistence peculiar to her, +"I leave them in Svadia. I go to America." + +Though all the steerage people were kind to her, she fell into bad hands +by way of her tender sympathies. There were a man and woman with a +family of small children, who were coming to America carrying an +unsavory record. The woman fell ill, and Marie nursed her, and she +fastened herself upon Marie with brutal tenacity. She took away a little +silk shawl the child had inherited and was bringing over as a chief bit +of finery. She had a delicate appetite for steerage fare, and ate up the +precious cheese Marie's mother had given for a parting gift. And she +took charge of Marie's bit of money, never returning it. + +"If she had but left me my cheese," says the Svenska maid, "I might have +had something to eat between New York and Illinois. I just had my ticket +in the cars, and, oh, it was more than two days, and I had such feelings +in my stomach! I was all alone and speak not a word of English, and +everybody around me eat, but I would not try to ask for somethings. A +German family by me have lots to eat, and when they left the cars I got +down under the seat and pick up orange-peel they throw down, and eat +that. I could not sleep in the night, I feel so bad. And when I get to +Illinois and to Willingham, the Swede people not meet me yet, and a +woman took me to her house to get my dinner, I never taste anything so +good in my life, but I eat with my hat on. The woman tried to take it +off, and I hold on with both hands. I thought she was going to take my +hat for pay, and I could not do without it." + +The little maid fell sick among her kin, and a great doctor's bill of a +year and a half accumulated upon her. The cousin's husband paid it and +added the debt to her passage-money. By the time she was able to work, +her pretty pale face had attracted an old man, and this persistent +suitor tormented her until she was wellnigh helpless in the hands of her +relatives. They set her debt before her, and reminded her of the +obligation she was under to marry a rich man. + +"But I said, 'I won't, I won't, I won't,'" says Marie. "That is all the +English I could talk, and I would say, 'I won't.' Then my cousin told me +I must leave; I could not stay in her house. And I felt dreadful bad. +The young folks come in with provisions to see me: they made a party +because I was going away. And I notice that all kept being called into +the next room but me. I was weak yet, and it made me feel as if they +wanted to slight me. But last of all they called me into the next room, +and there was twenty-five dollar they had made up to give me. And I +cried; I could not talk and thank them, but just cried hard as I could +cry. Then I took that money and paid part of my debt, and got a good +place to work." + +Marie is strong, willing, humble, and touchingly friendly in the +position of the Western "girl." She is ambitious to learn American ways. +She makes the most delicious pancakes that ever fluffed upon a griddle +or united with butter and maple syrup. She is religious, she is tender +with children, she is full of love for her native land. Her lovers are +not encouraged. + +"I go back to Sveden to visit it once more in five years. I go back +before I marry any man, now my debt is all paid." + +This Svenska maid is full of folk-stories. She tells the children how +St. John's eve is celebrated in Sweden. The young men and girls bring +boughs and construct arbors. They stay up all night, eating, playing, +and visiting from arbor to arbor. About midsummer, it is true, there is +very little night in Northern Sweden. + +"This was once in the papers," says Marie innocently. "They said it was +true. There was a girl going to take her first communion, and she got +into the churchyard before she missed her braid. Then she turned round +and started home after her braid, and met a man with a covered basket on +his arm. He asked her what she was going for, and she told him she was +going home for what she forgot, and the man said, 'Look in the basket, +and see if that is your switch.' She looked, and there was the hair +coiled up. Then he asked her if he might put it on her head, and the +girl said yes, and he put it on, and she went to church. + +"It came to the place where the minister gives her the bread, and her +braid slipped down on one shoulder; but when he gave her the wine it +jump like it going to strike the cup, for it was a snake the man put on +her, and it was fast to her head and never came off again." + +Marie's mother in youth worked for a Swedish farmer, and it was her duty +to get up about three o'clock in the morning and light a fire under the +boiler where the cows' feed was heated. This was in the barn. The cows +stood upon a floor over a large pit wherein were caught all the liquids +of the stable. The sleepy maid took a coal upon a chip, instead of +matches, and this primitive custom saved her from horribly drowning. For +as she opened the cows' stable one morning, and was taking a step +within, the chip flared up, and showed her three cows swimming below in +the pit. The floor had given way. + +"Sometimes there are excursions across the ocean," says Marie, speaking +of that star of a home visit which lures her into the future, "and you +can go and come back for twenty-five dollars. They do not have nice +things to eat in the steerage, but you can keep alive." M.H.C. + + * * * * * + + + + +The "Additional Hair" Supply. + +The late war between France and China had one effect which the public +did not expect,--it created a panic among the French dealers in human +hair. Before that war began it was not generally known that a vast +proportion of the false hair used in Europe and America was imported +from China into France and there prepared for the trade. But the +beginning of hostilities between the two countries made the fact +apparent by the sudden cutting off of the customary supply from the +Celestial Empire. A German paper mentions that in 1883 the hair thus +imported amounted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand seven hundred +and fifteen kilograms, for which the French dealers paid at the rate of +only ten or twelve francs per kilogram. As no other country can, or at +any rate will, supply human hair in such enormous quantities and at such +a low price, the effect on the market may easily be imagined. The +hair-merchants of Marseilles had been accustomed to furnish at least +twenty-five thousand _coiffures_ for women and several thousand wigs for +men every year; and even before the stoppage of direct communication +with China they had found it hard to get as much raw material as they +needed. When their principal drawing-point became inaccessible they were +reduced to despair, and perhaps presented the only case ever known in +which "tearing the hair" would seem to have been attended with some +practical benefit. However, the termination of the war revived their +hopes, and they are now making up for the lost time with a vigor and +determination which even threaten the male Celestial with the loss of +his sacred pig-tail. + +The European sources from which human hair is obtained are not numerous +or very prolific. Many peasant-women of Normandy and Bretagne sell their +beautiful brown, red, or golden locks, but these are of such fine +quality that they command very high prices. Norman or Breton girls +having braids eighty centimetres in length sell them for as much as a +thousand francs. Perfectly white hair from the same French provinces +brings a sum which seems almost fabulous. The French journal "Science +et Nature" declares that the price commonly paid for a braid of such +white hair weighing one kilogram is _twenty-five thousand francs_. + +The hair-merchants of France have never been very successful in drawing +supplies for their business from England, Germany, or any of the +countries in the northern part of Europe. Lately, however, they have +begun to have a good deal of success among the lower classes of the +Italians. Their imports from Italy are already comparatively large, and +they seem to be increasing every year. Such an easy way of getting money +as this opportunity affords must appear vastly attractive to the swarms +of professional beggars who infest every highway, church door, and +public square in Southern Italy, and whose enjoyment of the +indispensable _dolce far niente_ cannot be spoiled by merely submitting +to the operation of having their hair cut off. It is probable that they +furnish much more of the hair brought from Italy than do the +laboring-classes of the cities or the honest _contadini_ of the rural +districts. + +The idea of actually wearing hair which once belonged to some member of +"the unspeakable" _lazzaroni_ tribe cannot be considered a fascinating +one. At the same time it is at least not more unattractive than the +consciousness of having fallen heir to the capillary adornments of a +Cantonese tonka-boat girl. And in reality such a feeling, though natural +enough, would be based upon nothing but imagination. All the hair +purchased and used by the dealers in Paris, Marseilles, and other French +cities to which the Chinese and Italian hair is brought goes through a +number of preparatory processes, which cleanse and purify it thoroughly; +and when it is ready to be sold again it is probably in as +unobjectionable a state as hair can reach. As for the imagination, if we +were to allow it to govern us entirely in all such cases we should soon +find ourselves restricted to almost as few comforts and conveniences as +those unhappy historical characters whose constant fear of poison +reduced their whole diet to boiled eggs. Still, the feeling is one of +which it is very hard to rid ourselves; and in all probability the +ladies who derive the most unalloyed satisfaction from their +"additional" braids are those who have had them made from "combings" of +their own hair. J.A.C. + + * * * * * + + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + +"The Rise of Silas Lapham." By William D. Howells. Boston: Ticknor & Co. + + +In his later books Mr. Howells has shown that he is on the point of +discovering the secret of the best novelists. Unabashed by the +difficulties and dangers which beset the realistic writer, he has gone +to work to describe the simple machinery which puts in motion all human +actions and passions, and has given a subtile but sure analysis of +certain phases of modern life, and a vivid picture of at least two +actual, warm, palpitating, breathing men. His success in this respect is +the more striking because he began by offering us mere pasteboard heroes +of the most conventional type. The male characters in his early books +were, in fact, shuttle-cocks to be tossed hither and thither by the +mysterious contradictions, the incomprehensible inconsistencies, of his +heroines, whose scheme of existence was the indulgence of every whim, +and whose notion of logic was that one paradox must educe another still +more startling. Having finally made up his mind as to the insoluble +nature of the female problem, he seems inclined to discard mere +clevernesses and prettinesses and to advance into the broad arena of +real life, with its diversity of actors and its multiplicity of +interests. Both Bartley Hubbard in "A Modern Instance" and Silas Lapham +in the book before us strike us as admirable characterizations. If +Lapham is in certain respects a less original presentation than Bartley +Hubbard, he is at least a hero who draws more strongly upon the reader's +sympathies and takes surer hold of the popular heart. In fact, Silas, +with his big, hairy fist, his ease in his shirt-sleeves, his boastful +belief in himself, his conscience, his ambition, and his failure, makes, +if we include his sensible wife, the success of the novel before us. The +daughters are not, to our thinking, so well rendered; while the Coreys, +sterling silver as they ought to be, impress us instead as rather thin +electro-plates. The Boston Brahmins have entered a good deal into +literature of late, but so far without any brilliant results. According +to their chroniclers, they spend most of their time discussing in what +respects they are providentially differentiated from, their +fellow-beings. Sometimes they put too fine a point upon it and wholly +fail to make themselves felt. But then again their superior knowledge of +the world is patent to the most careless observer. For instance, when +Mrs. Corey pays a visit to Mrs. Lapham she apologizes for the lateness +of the hour, explaining that her coachman had never been in that part of +Boston before. This naturally casts an ineffaceable stigma upon the +respectable square where the Laphams have hitherto resided, and shows +that between the two ladies there is a great gulf fixed. Again, to point +sharply social distinctions, young Corey says to his father,-- + +"I don't believe Mrs, Lapham ever gave a dinner." + +"And with all that money!" sighed the father. + +"I don't believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that +when they don't drink tea and coffee with their dinner they drink +ice-water." + +"Horrible!" said Bromfield Corey. + +"It appears to me that this defines them." + +The Coreys have the liveliest sense of all these _nuances_ of deviation +from their standards, and strike us as rather amateurish, clever people +who want to make sure of nice points and get on in the world, rather +than as real flesh-and-blood aristocrats with the freedom and ease of +acknowledged social supremacy. + +While the Coreys try faithfully to compass the best that is known and +thought in the world, the Laphams go to the other extreme, and touch +depths of ignorance and vulgarity almost incredible for a family living +in Boston with eyes to see, ears to hear, and, above all, money to +spend. For a sort of superficial culture is a part of the modern +inheritance, and seems to belong to the universal air. Even Penelope +Lapham--the elder daughter, who is a girl of remarkable shrewdness and +gifted besides with a keen satirical sense which makes her the family +wit--is content to laugh at the family failings and provincialisms +without any definite idea of how they might be corrected. But the +Laphams are all the more interesting because they display no feeble and +tentative gentilities. Mrs. Lapham's acceptance of Mrs. Corey's +invitation to dinner, in which she signs herself "Yours truly, Mrs. S. +Lapham," initiates some delightful scenes in the comedy. The colonel's +resolution to go to the dinner in a frock-coat, white waistcoat, black +cravat, and ungloved hands, and his eventual panicky substitution of +correct evening dress regardless of cost, the anxieties of his wife and +daughter on the question of suitable raiment, the great affair itself, +when the colonel comes out in a new character,--all this part of the +book shows in a high degree Mr. Howells's bright vein of humor. + +But, putting aside the humor and comedy of "The Rise of Silas Lapham," +the book has other points of value, and, as a study of a business-man +whom success floats to the crest of the wave only to let him be +overwhelmed by disaster as the surge retreats, presents a striking +similitude to Balzac's "César Birotteau." In each case we find a +self-made man elated by a sense of his commercial greatness, confident +that the point he has already attained, instead of being the climax of +his career, is the stepping-stone to yet greater wealth, besides social +distinction. César Birotteau inaugurates what he believes to be his era +of magnificence with a ball, while Silas Lapham tempts fortune by +building a fine house on the back bay. Each hero projects his costly +schemes in opposition to the wishes of a more sensible and prudent wife, +and each, at the moment when fate seemed bent on crowning his ambition, +falls a prey to a series of cruel and, in a way, undeserved misfortunes, +and finds his well-earned commercial credit a mere house of cards which +totters to its fall. Each man, broken and bankrupt, displays in his +feebleness a moral strength he had not shown in his days of power: thus +the name, "the _rise_ of Silas Lapham," means his initiation into a +clearer and more exalted knowledge of his obligations to himself and to +his kind. The moral of César Birotteau's "_grandeur et decadence_" +strikes a still deeper key-note. Compared with Balzac, who is never +trivial, and who has the most unerring instinct for character and +motive, Mr. Howells wastes his force on non-essentials and is carried +away by frivolities and prettinesses when he ought to be grappling with +his work in fierce earnest. Balzac, whose unappeasable longing was to +see his books the breviary, so to speak, of the people, would have +laughed and cried with Silas, lived with him, loved with him, and come +to grief with him, and forced his readers to do likewise. Mr. Howells is +not so easily carried away by his creations, and is too apt to laugh at +them instead of with them. But his mature work shows, nevertheless, a +boldness and facility which ought to put the best results within its +compass; and we confidently look for better novels from his pen than he +has so far written, full of wit, humor, and cleverness, yet expanding +outside of these gracful limitations into the fullest nature and +freedom. + +/# +"A Canterbury Pilgrimage. Ridden, Written, +and Illustrated by Joseph and Elizabeth +Robins Pennell." New York: Charles Scribner's +Sons. +#/ + +It may be confessed that in certain respects bicycles and tricycles +answer admirably to the requirements of travellers in search of the +picturesque. They are swift or slow at need, may be halted without want +or waste, and have no vicious instincts to be combated by whip or spur. +But they are nevertheless hideous inventions, and it is impossible for +lookers-on to feel for wheelmen the cordial good will given so freely to +Mr. Stevenson on his donkey, for instance. The rider on wheels is an +object that exasperates the nerves of horses, dogs, and men. Mrs. +Pennell in this little book describes a collision on the old Kent Road +with the driver of a hansom cab, who sat watching their extrication +scowling. If he had his way, he said, he would burn all _them things."_ +And, little affiliation as most human beings have with cabmen, we yet +believe that he gave utterance to the sentiments of all non-wheelmen. +However, the modern world is likely to belong to bicycles and tricycles, +and this attractive brochure, signed with the names of one of our +cleverest draughtsmen and his wife, with their silhouettes on the cover, +is likely to set more wheels in motion than there were before it was +printed. The two evidently enjoyed their expedition, and the lady tells +the story easily and pleasantly; and if it is relieved by little +incident it is yet sustained by intelligent observation and +discriminating enthusiasm, while the illustrations are, like all Mr. +Pennell's work, clever in the extreme. The two left London on their +tricycle late in August, and had the finest weather in which to cross +historic Blackheath and look up the picturesque wharves in Gravesend. +Hop-pickers filled the roads and offered many a subject for the artist's +pencil. "We rode on with light hearts," recounts the fair wheelwoman. +"An eternity of wheeling through such perfect country and in such soft +sunshine would, we thought, be the true earthly paradise. We were at +peace with ourselves and with all mankind, and J---- even went so far as +to tell me I had never ridden so well," And thus on to the inn at +Sittingbourne, which has this quaint notice hung over the door: + +Call frequently, +Drink moderately, +Pay honourably, +Be good company, +Part friendly, +Go home quietly. + +Arrived at the close of the second day in Canterbury, the two "toke" +their inn at the sign of the "Falstaff," where hung "Honest Jack, in +buff doublet and red hose," in a wonderful piece of wrought-iron work. +Whether next day, after viewing the cathedral, the tricycles pursued +their journey, is not told. The pilgrimage ends, as it should, at the +shrine,--that is, where the shrine had been; for the verger, after +saying solemnly that they had come to the shrine of St. Thomas, solemnly +added, "'Enery the Heighth, when he was in Canterbury, took the bones, +which they was laid beneath, out on the green, and had them burned. With +them he took the 'oly shrine, which it and bones is here no longer." + + * * * * * + + + + +Fiction. + + +"The Lady with the Rubies." Translated from the German of E. Marlitt by +Mrs. A.L. Wister. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. + +"Barbara Heathcote's Trial." By Rosa Nouchette Carey. Philadelphia: J.B. +Lippincott Company. + +"The Bar Sinister. A Social Study." New York: Cassell & Co. + +"Pine-Cones." By Willis Boyd Allen. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. + +"An Old Maid's Paradise." By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Boston: Houghton, +Mifflin & Co. + +In spite of all the clever pleas urged by the lovers of realism for +realistic novels, it is easy enough to see that the mass of readers are +just as much in love as ever with a high romanticism, and Miss Marlitt's +stories still retain the strong hold they first took of the popular +heart. The success of fiction comes from the fact that it supplies a +want existing in most people's minds: lively incidents to awaken and +stimulate the fancy, a touch of mystery to give a thrill of pleasing +fear, sharply diversified characters impelled by strong motives which +insure a lively conflict of passions,--all these are what the average +novel-reader demands, and finds in Miss Marlitt's works. A great +rambling German house, with suites of disused apartments shut away from +sunshine and air and haunted by vanished forms and silent voices, while +its open rooms are tenanted by a nest of gentlefolks of all degrees of +relation,--some united by love, and others at swords'-points,--offers a +lively field for the romancer; and such is the scene in "The Lady with +the Rubies." "Belief in the Powers of Darkness will never die so long as +poor human hearts love, hope, and fear," is the moral, so to speak, of +the book; and the author has used with good effect this vein of +superstition which "makes the whole world kin." Little Margarete's +encounter with the family spectre, her flight from home, her lonely and +terrifying night, are touchingly described; and, in fact, the book is +full of pretty child-pictures, which enhance the pleasantness and charm +of the love-story. Few of Miss Marlitt's books possess more interest and +diversity than "The Lady with the Rubies;" and, as usual with Mrs. +Wister's work, it is well and gracefully translated. + +Given a family of girls well contrasted, utterly untrammelled, and each +in possession of a will and a way of her own, materials for a romance +are not hard to find; and in telling the story of the Heathcotes Miss +Carey seems to have jotted down a series of events exactly as they fell +out in actual life. There is plenty of sentiment, but its expression is +dealt out with a sparing hand; there are pretty sylvan scenes, and the +wood-paths, the warm homesteads, the meadows and fields, all enter into +the story and make a pleasant part of it. If "Barbara Heathcote's Trial" +has no leading motive as strong and as universally interesting as the +author's former book, "Not Like Other Girls," it is, to our thinking, +quite as pleasant and readable, and will no doubt enjoy its +predecessor's popularity. + +Romance has done much good work in the way of laying bare men's faults, +hypocrisies, and evil lusts, and if Mormonism is actually on the +increase among us there is good reason for a novel like "The Bar +Sinister," which tells us the story of certain converts to the peculiar +tenets of the saints and introduces us into the every-day life of Salt +Lake City. That our families and our institutions are in peril from this +monstrous and ridiculous evil it would not be easy for us to believe. +Yet it is impossible to read this book without a conviction that the +author could easily substantiate his facts by proofs, and that +intelligent men and women have been and are still being led away into +the heresy. The incidents of the story are, however, calculated to shock +and repel the reader, who rises from its perusal sick and indignant as +much from having been confronted with such personages and their doings +as from the fact that such people are in existence. The author has +without doubt enjoyed the advantage of a flesh-and-blood acquaintance +with leaders of the faith who talk unctuously of "Class No. 1, 2, 3, 4," +etc.; and, besides actual knowledge, there is strong feeling and earnest +principle behind the whole narrative. + +"Pine-Cones" is a pleasant story for young people, telling the +adventures of a party of boy and girl cousins making a visit among the +great pine woods of Maine. There is plenty of open air in the book, +bright talk, and earnest stories told round the fire. + +"An Old Maid's Paradise" is a bright little sketch of the adventures and +misadventures of a woman who builds a cottage on Cape Ann promontory for +five hundred dollars, and settles down to a joyful existence without any +need of aid or comfort from living man except as a purveyor and +burglar-alarm. Every one likes to know the price of things, and it is +pleasing to understand exactly what may be done with five hundred +dollars. "The cottage," as described by Miss Phelps, "contained five +rooms and a kitchen. The body of this imposing building stood twenty +feet square upon the ground. The kitchen measured nine feet by eight, +and there was a wood-shed three feet wide, in which Puella managed to +pile the wood and various domestic mysteries into which Corona felt no +desire to penetrate. There were a parlor, a dining-room, a guest-room, +and two rooms left for 'the family.' There were two closets, a coal-bin, +and a loft. The house stood on what, for want of a scientific term, +Corona called piers.... Corona's house had no plaster, no papering, no +carpets. Her parlor, which opened directly upon the water, was painted +gray; the walls were of the paler color in a gull's wing; the ceiling +had the tint of dulled pearls; the floor was rock-gray (a border of +black ran around this floor); the beams and rafters, left visible by the +absence of plastering, were touched with what is known to artists as +neutral tint," etc. A very pleasant little cottage in itself, the +description may be of practical utility to many who would like some +_pied-à -terre_ by mountain or shore, and who are not quite certain what +a moderate outlay can do. + + * * * * * + + + + +Books Received. + + +The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Household +Edition. With illustrations. Boston +and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. + +Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present. By +Maturin M. Ballou. Boston and New York: +Houghton, Mifflin & Co. + +City Ballads. By Will Carleton. Illustrated. +New York: Harper & Brothers. + +A Social Experiment. By A.E.P. Searing. +New York and London: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +Lawn-Tennis. By Lieutenant S.C.F. Peale, +B.S.C. Edited by Richard D. Sears. New +York: Charles Scribner's Sons. + +The America's Cup. By Captain Roland F. +Coffin. New York: Charles Scribner's +Sons. + +Our Sea-Coast Defences. By Eugene Griffin, +New York and London: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +Cholera. By Alfred Stillé, M.D., LL.D. Philadelphia: +Lea Brothers & Co. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14509 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56a4ae6 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14509 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14509) diff --git a/old/14509-8.txt b/old/14509-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..241ac19 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14509-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7404 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14509] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE, *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, William Bumgarner and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +_OCTOBER, 1885_. + +ON A TEXAS SHEEP-RANCH. + +I. + +There are words which have careers as well as men, or, perhaps it may be +more happily said, as well as women. Mere words breathed on by Fancy, +and sent forth not so much to serve man's ordinary colloquial uses, +apparently, as to fascinate his mind, have their _débuts_. their season, +their vogue, and finally a period in which it is really too bad if they +have not the consolation of reflecting upon their conquests; for +conquests they certainly have. The great captivators--the Cleopatras of +the vocabulary--one easily recognizes; but besides these there is a host +of small flirts and every-day coquettes, whom one hardly suspects till +they have a little carried him away. Almost every one remembers how in +this light company he first came across the little word _ranch_. It had +in its youth distinctly the _cachet_ of the verbal flying squadron, the +"nameless something," the oenanthic whiff which flies to the head. There +are signs that its best days as a word are now over, and in +contemplating it at present one has a vision of a _passée_ brunette, in +the costume of Fifine at the Fair, solacing herself with thoughts of +early triumphs. "Would a farm have served?" she murmurs. "Would a +plantation, an orange-grove, have satisfied the desperate young man? No, +no; he must have his ranch! There was no charm could soothe his +melancholy, and wring for him the public bosom, save mine." + +I made this reflection during a period of incarceration in a +sleeping-car,--a form of confinement which, like any other, throws the +prisoner considerably on his fancy; and a vision somewhat like the above +smoothed for a moment the pillow of an "upper berth," and pleased better +than the negro porter. Half a dozen of those days of too many paper +novels, of too much tobacco, of too little else, followed each other +with the sameness of so many raw oysters. Then there came a chill night +of wide moonlit vacuity passed on the prairie by the side of the driver +of a "jumper,"--a driver who slumbered, happy man!--and at peep of dawn +I found myself standing, stiff and shivering, in a certain little Texas +town. A much-soiled, white little street, a bit of greenish-yellow, +treeless plain soft in the morning mist, a rosy fringe at the edge of +the sky,--it was of these things, together with a disagreeable sense of +imponderability of body from the cold and sleepless ride, that I was +vaguely aware as the jumper--rigorous vehicle!--disappeared round a +corner. Frontier towns are not lovely, and the death-like peace which +seemed properly to accompany the chalky pallor of the buildings was +somewhat uncanny; but it proved to be only what sleep can do for a +village with railroad influences one hundred miles away. We entered +boldly the adobe before which we had been dropped, and found a genial +landlord in an impromptu costume justified by the hour, an inn-album of +quite cosmopolitan range of inscriptions, and a breakfast for which a +week of traveller's fare had amply fortified the spirit. + +The village was the chief, indeed, wellnigh the only, town of a great +west-by-north county, in which Rhode Island would be lost and +Massachusetts find elbow-room. It was an irregular little bunch of +buildings gathered along an arterial street which, after a run of three +hundred yards or so, broke to pieces and scattered its dispersed +shanties about a high, barren plain. It stood on the steep bank of a +little river, and over against it, on a naked hill, was Uncle Sam's +military village,--a fort by courtesy,--where, when not sleeping, black +soldiers and white strolled about in the warm sun. When the little +street was fairly awake, it presented a very lively appearance and had +the air of doing a great deal of business. The wan houses emitted their +occupants, and numerous pink-faced riders, in leathers and broad hats, +poured in from all sides, and, tying their heavily-accoutred ponies, +disappeared into the shops with a sort of bow-legged waddle, like +sailors ashore. Off his horse, the cow-boy is frankly awkward. Purchases +made, they departed with a rush, filling the glare with dust. Officers +from the post, with cork helmets and white trousers, came across the +river and stood in the broad shadows of adobe door-ways, gaping, and +switching their legs with bamboo canes. "It's magnificent," one seemed +to hear them mutter, "but it isn't war!" Groups of Mexicans stood about, +or, selecting a white wall, leaned against it, as they are apt to do at +home, for the better relief of their swarthy faces and brilliant scarfs; +and slowly moving down the street, stopping occasionally to speak to the +various clusters of men, there went the beneficent if somewhat untidy +figure of the Catholic father, in whose company we had breakfasted, a +fat, jolly, anecdotal inheritor of the mantle of some founder of the +Missions. The sun took absolute and merciless possession of the street. +You put your hand in your pocket for the smoked glass through which you +observed the last eclipse. Everything seemed bleached,--the white +buildings, the yellow road, the eyebrows of the cow-boys. + +We did the drive of twenty miles to the ranch in a canvas-topped buggy, +drawn by a pair of devil-may-care little nags, who took us across dry +_arroyos_ and the rocky beds of running streams in a style that promised +to make sticks of the vehicle. It held good, however, and rattled out a +sort of derisive snicker at every fresh attempt to shiver it. The +country through which we passed afforded views of superb breadth and a +most interesting and delightful quality. No landscape has in the exact +sense such charm as one in which Nature manifests herself in a large and +simple way: one feels with a thrill that she is about to tell the +secret. The earth lay almost in its nakedness beneath the inane dome of +the sky. But over the large simplicity of form one was soon aware of an +exquisite play of hues. The easy undulations, as they ran off to the +unattainable horizon, were so many waves of delicate and varying color. +There were great sweeps of ochre, of gray, of fresh, light green, +pointed with black dots of live-oak, and traversed by tortuous lines of +indigo where the pecan treed creeks pursued their foiled courses, and +troops of little hills grouped themselves about,--pink, pinkish, purple, +purpling blue, white, as they faded from view like the evanescent +cherubs in the corner of an old master. The hills, however, were little +only because the stretch was so vast; it was really a broad plafond upon +which they had solemnly entered to dance a minuet with the playful +shadows of the clouds. The sky possessed everything. There was so much +of it that existence seemed to have become in a sense a celestial--or at +least an aerial--affair: the world was your balloon. + +After the third creek-crossing the road ran straight as an avenue +through a broad, level reach, and we flew along gayly. The little +mesquite-trees, prim, dainty, and delicate, stood about in seeming +order, civilizing the landscape and giving it the air of an orchard; the +prairie-dog villages were thrown into a tumult of excitement by our +passage; a chaparral-cock slipped out of a bush, stared an instant, +pulled the string that lifts his tail and top-knot, and settled down for +a race directly under the horses' feet. We passed the point of a hill, +gained a slight rise, and the ranch was in sight. It must be confessed +that it was not in appearance all that the name might imply,--not the +sort of place for which one starts after having provided one's self with +a navy revolver and a low estimate of the value of human life. It was, +in fact, a very pretty and domestic scene, a little village of half a +dozen buildings and a net-work of white limestone and brush corrals. +Shortly I was supping in a neat little cottage, and endeavoring in the +usual way to be agreeable to some one in muslin. In this modern world we +change our skies, truly, but not--not our bric-à-brac. On the walls of +the pretty dining-room one beheld with rising feeling one's old friends +the Japanese fan and the discarded plate still clinging with the +touching persistence of the ivy to the oak. To be sure, there was a tall +half-breed Indian moving about with the silent agility of the warpath, +but he wore a white apron, and his hideous intention was to fill one's +wineglass. If the longitude had led me to meditate right buffalo's hump, +"washed down" with something coarse and potent enough to justify the +phrase, it was clear that I was painfully behind the stroke of the +clock. Life, good lady, takes an undignified pleasure in arranging these +petty shocks to the expectations, which we soon learn to dismiss with a +smile. The cold mutton and _ordinaire_ were excellent, and we had some +coffee and a cigarette on the piazza. The sun was setting far away +behind a hill on the other side of the creek. A soft sound came down the +valley from a remote flock of sheep. A little breeze sprang up and ran +tremulously about, shaking the tufted grass and the slim boughs of the +mesquites, and putting some question with a wistfully hopeful swish. +Plainly, one could be very much at home here. The visionary brunette had +evidently ranged herself, was living down the reputation of early vivid +experiences and successfully cultivating the domestic virtues. + + + + +II. + + +Six or eight years earlier, four young men had left New York on a +Galveston steamer, their departure being attended by such an assemblage +of young women that on the second day out their companions of the voyage +confided the supposition that it had been a "bridal party." That little +Spanish-American word ravaging our coasts and carrying off the pride of +the youth has to answer for many such bridal parties, whose tours have +been followed with pins and colored pencils and eyes more eager than +those of mothers-in-law. In a month or so the young men had pitched a +wall-tent within a day's ride of the Rio Grande, and were seriously +occupied in sacrificing each other's feelings on the altar of +experimental cookery, in herding sheep with the assistance of paper +novels, and in writing exceedingly long letters to the North. This +wall-tent was the larva of the ranch. But the arid southern country +proved inconvenient, and collecting their effects in a prairie-schooner +and driving their flocks before them, they effected a masterly change of +base, which brought them two hundred miles to the northward and set them +down in a delightful pasture-land, watered by three pretty creeks, near +one of which they erected an adobe hut. This solitary house on a broad +flat, an object of amazement to wandering hordes of cattle, was the +ranch during a most interesting period, and its thatched roof and +somewhat fetid walls became for the occupants overgrown with fine +clusters of association. Within a few miles of its site the present +village took shape. + +The country was a frankly monotonous conformation of alternating hills +and valleys,--"divides" and "draws,"--with wide flats near the creeks. +Gulches, more or less deep, down the valley-lines of the draws, and +traversing the flats to the creeks,--the so-called _arroyos_,--were a +common physical feature. In the wet season they were running streams, +but for most of the year they were dry, with here and there a waterhole, +flowers and chaparral growing in them, and, at intervals, pecans. The +pecan-trees grew thickly along the borders of the creeks, while the +mesquites cloaked with gossamer wide portions of the flats; and here and +there in the valleys and on the sides of the hills the sombre, +self-enwrapped live-oaks stood about, like philosophers musing amid the +general lightness. Spanish-dagger, bear-grass, and persimmon-bushes +freckled the sides of the rocky divides with dark spots, and mistletoe +hung its fine green globes like unillumined lanterns in the branches of +the mesquites. Over the plains and slopes a sparse turf of various +grasses, differing in color and changing with the season, gave the airy +landscape its brilliant and versatile complexion. A dozen varieties of +cactus, portulaccas, geraniums, petunias, verbenas, scattered over the +prairie, morning-glories and sunflowers in the arroyos and along the +creeks, and many a flower nameless to the general, abounded. So, it +should be added, did in their season plover, snipe, ducks, and geese. + +The business of the ranch was the antediluvian occupation of rearing and +shearing sheep, and to that end the village included a shearing-shed and +a large wool-house. Besides these there were three cottages and several +other buildings, among which one called the "ranch-house" was the focus +of the activity of the place, and, being also a survival from a +comparatively early day, was a somewhat characteristic affair. It was a +box-house, painted red, with a broad porch thatched with bear-grass, and +a saddle-shed butting up against it. The interior, barring a little +store at one end, was a single large room, bedroom, sitting-room, +office, furnished with home-made tables with blankets for cloths, +knocked-up chairs with cowhide seats and coyote-skin backs, deers' +antlers draped with "slickers" (Texan for the 'longshoreman's yellow +water-proof) and wide-brimmed "ten-dollar" hats, and at one end two +tiers of bunks, with leather cases for six-shooters nailed to their +sides. This room served for the abode of the storekeeper, for the +transaction of business, and for the accommodation of the perennial +casual guest. It was rude, but, especially of evenings about the lamp, +it had a marked air of pipe-and-tobacco comfort. + +The little store was patronized by the cow-boy, so much abused with +sensational or picturesque intentions, and by the small farmers with +irrigation patches in the vicinity. It was likewise the resort of +Encarnacion and Tomas, and others their brethren, from the Mexican +village a few miles up the creek, or from isolated abiding-places round +about. Here they would come, and, rolling cigarettes of the brown paper +they affect and the eleemosynary tobacco open on the counter, to which +all were welcome (such were the amenities of shopping on the ranch), +they would lounge about, ever smiling and chattering in soft voices, +finally to say '_uenos dias_ with two bits' worth of bacon, or +corn-meal, or pink candy for the _chiquitas_. Here, too, would come +Tomasa, and, with even more than usual feminine zeal in matters of +dress, at once try on the ready-made calico gown she purchased, while +the store-keeper smoked his pipe and stroked his beard. + +Excepting the cow-boys, the people composing the clientage of the store +were for the most part resident in one of two farm-settlements located +on the creek, about ten miles apart, one exclusively Mexican, the other +almost entirely "white." Besides these, the families of many of the +Mexican hands lived close by. These last were constantly assisting +conversation at the cottages with such incidents as the following: + +The cook--a tall, gaunt negro of a mediaevally "intense" nature--came +in with an excited manner, followed by Madame Alguin, very much +troubled, wringing her hands, and dissolved in tears. + +"Panchot's little boy," said the cook, "is killed." + +We were naturally aghast. Little Panchot had been _colero_ at the recent +shearing. + +"Is he dead?" we queried hoarsely. + +"He was dead," replied the cook, with seriousness: "he is not dead now." + +With this light and delicate touch the cook swept the gamut of our +emotions from awe at little Panchot's sudden taking off to pleasure at +his speedy resurrection. We repaired at once to Madame Alguin's +residence to view the subject of this miracle: lest the miracle should +not be so complete as one might wish, we carried with us a little +hartshorn and Pond's extract. Madame Alguin's villa was a fine +wide-spreading live-oak, with a tent as a sort of annex, about two +minutes from the ranch. On our arrival we found four Mexican women, +seven children, one man, three dogs, four goats, and several roosters, +gathered round the form of little Panchot stretched beneath the +live-oak. A fire smouldered a little way off, and a cradle hung from the +branch of the fatherly tree. Little Panchot had a nasty cut about an +inch long through his cheek. He had been herding his goats on the bank +of the creek when he was knocked over by a stone from the other side. He +swooned,--then he was dead; he came to,--and, _presto_, he was alive +again. He was soon running about with his wonted friskiness, and making +himself useful in chasing wild tennis-balls. This little boy's mother +was, poor woman, very much of a sloven, but he had a string of little +sisters who were as nice as could be. They went about in white cotton +gowns--amazingly clean, considering that they lived under a tree--tied +at the waist with red scarfs; their black hair was smoothly gathered at +the backs of their pretty heads, and they had a demure and quaintly +maternal air; they looked at you with a tranquil, moon-like gaze, which +seemed to say that their ideas, which were on the way, had tarried for +the moment in some boon southern country. + + + + +III. + + +In riding about the range it was very pleasant to find, as one +constantly did, by the side of some "motte" (Texan for a considerable +cluster of scrub growth), or beneath the shade of a great live-oak, or +on the barren face of a divide, the little canvas A-tents of the +herders, nestled cosily to circular pens for the sheep, and generally +surrounded by brush to prevent the intrusion of inquisitive cattle. +Within the tent a sheepskin or so, stretched on the ground or on a +lattice of branches, for his bed, and without, a padlocked chest, with a +coffee mill screwed to the top, in which he keeps his rations, a skillet +and a few other utensils hanging from the branches of a neighboring +tree, a whitened buffalo's skull for a _metate_, a smouldering +fire,--this little spot, with its surrounding fence shutting out the +solitude, is the herder's palace, schloss, villa, town-and +country-house. "_Seguro_," says Juan, as he lights a brown cigarette and +quenches the yellow fuse in an empty cartridge-shell, "man wants but +little here below." They were a genial and hospitable set, the herders, +and if one arrived about mid-day they would regale him with scraps of +jerked beef, a cake of unleavened bread cooked in the skillet, and +coffee which, considering what it was made of, was a very inspiring +drink. In particular I recall the _pastor_ Patricio, a very pretty +fellow, with curly black hair and black eyes, a fine nose with a +patrician lift to the nostrils, a little black moustache bristling like +a cat's on a smiling lip, a red handkerchief about his neck: he was very +voluble of soft words, and made the waste blossom with his distinguished +manner. A dozen of these camps were to be discovered about the range, +and the brush fences and unused corrals of many more, which had been +used and would be used again as the sheep were moved from +grazing-ground to grazing-ground and portions of the range temporarily +exhausted. + +From his camp the herder goes forth at daybreak with his flock of +fourteen hundred ewes and lambs or two thousand wethers, grazing slowly +toward the creek or neighboring water-hole where at noon he lies up in +the shade; and to it he slowly returns in the cool of the afternoon, the +flock moving in loose order among the mesquites, taking a nip here, a +nip there, but ever hanging together and dependent, the most gregarious +of animals. In their unity of action, in their interdependence and +solidarity, the timid sheep are capable of a momentary suggestion of +awe. About weaning-time a couple of large flocks got temporarily +together, and one could see driven by the herder a compact mass of four +thousand advancing over the prairie with a quick step, "a unit in +aggregate, a simple in composite," their impassible countenances gazing +fixedly forward, resembling, it seemed to me, a brigade going into +action. For most of the year it is thought by no means advisable to fold +the sheep in the corral at night, so they sleep at large near it. +Especially on moonlight nights they are apt to be uneasy and to move +from their bed-ground short distances, when the herder quits his tent, +and, rolling a cigarette, follows his fanciful flock about the blanched +and wistful prairie till they subside; then, throwing his cloak over his +shoulder with the swing of an hidalgo, he falls asleep beside them. + +The herder's incidents are the fortnightly arrival of his rations and +the weekly or possibly more frequent visit of the superintendent to +count and examine his flock and inquire after the general condition of +things. The Mexican herder invariably denies all knowledge of English +and compels one to meet him on his own ground, which, it is needless to +say, is a far cry from Castile; and in encounters between Juan and the +superintendent the fine feathers of syntax are apt to fly in a way I +shall not attempt to reproduce. + +"Good-afternoon, Juan," says the superintendent. + +"Good-afternoon, señor." + +"How's the flock, Juan?" + +"Oh, pretty well, señor." + +"No better than pretty?" + +"No, señor." + +"How's that?" + +And then Juan goes on to explain that the recent unusually wet weather +has made many lame, etc., etc., to which the superintendent listens with +a grave countenance. Perhaps some unfortunate ewe has been bitten by a +"cat," or in some way received a wound in which the fly has deposited +its malignant egg: they lay her on her side and doctor her in company. +Finally, the superintendent gives the herder some tobacco, some +cigarette-papers, and a couple of yards of yellow fuse, and, mounting +his horse, nods farewell, and Juan touches his hat, smiles, and says, +"_Adios_." + +In the ordinary course of events this is his weekly allowance of human +intercourse. It was the common opinion that none but Juan and his +brethren could stand this sort of thing; but what there is in the +Mexican character that adapts him to it only becomes a mystery on +acquaintance therewith. His most obvious and, one inclines to think, his +highest and most estimable quality is his sociability. He has a sense of +the agreeableness of life, with a very considerable feeling for manners. +This feeling makes it a pleasure for him to meet you; it causes him to +put _himself_ into the most commonplace conversation, the simplest +greeting, and make it, in his small way, a matter of art. It makes it a +pleasure for him to call upon a friend beneath the shade of some +live-oak or in a dugout or _jacal_, carrying some white sugar for his +wife or some candy for his little ones. Our instinctive disposition to +infer deplorable lacunae in the region of morals from the possession of +a talent for manners is in the case of the poor Mexican too thoroughly +justified. For him there is no such region; it is an undiscovered +country. He is the lightest of light-weights. When his heart is warmest +he is tossing a silver dollar in the air and thinking; of _monte_. +Cimental herded industriously during the winter, and became the proud +possessor of a horse and saddle, a Winchester, and a big ivory-handled +pistol. In May, shearing going on, he drove his flock to the +shearing-shed, and spent the night at the ranch. In the morning he came +into the store laughing. What about? Oh, he had had a little _monte_ +over-night, and horse, saddle, rifle, revolver, all were gone. He had +been shorn of half a year's growth. But there was still a large deposit +at his bank,--the bank of Momus. + +The herder has, of course, his "consolatory interstices and sprinklings +of freedom;" he undoubtedly mitigates his solitary life by frequent +derelictions, nightly visits to the farm--settlements (or the _jacal_) +which a few possess, and where he keeps, possibly, a wife and family. +But, on the whole, his life, and not unfrequently his death, is lonely, +Just before shearing-time Juan Lucio and his flock were lost. The flock +was found, but not Juan. It was impossible to say what had become of +him: he had a reputation for steadiness, and it seemed unlikely that he +had taken French leave. When shearing was in full swing, a couple of +freighters came for a load of wood. After some talk, they drove off to +camp, a little way up the creek, proposing to return in the morning. +About sunset they were seen slowly approaching the shearing-shed, It +seemed that in watering their horses they had seen a man in the creek. +The small freighter imparted this information in a low voice, with some +hesitation and a deprecatory half-smile. The young and large freighter +stood aloof, with a half-smile too, but he had evidently found the +sensation disagreeably strong. This, it seemed certain, must be the lost +Juan Lucio. The next day, which was Sunday, the ranchmen and a county +officer proceeded toward the scene of the discovery. The shearers heard +of the affair, and paused in the arrangement of a horse-race. They went +in a body to the store and purchased candles, and then the motley +cavalry coursed over the prairie after the rest. They lifted Juan Lucio +from the river and bore him to a live-oak tree, where the coroner and +his jurymen debated his situation. They inclined to think that he had +come to his death by drowning. Then the Mexicans dug a grave for him, +and stood a moment round it with their candles lighted; each lifted a +handful of earth and tossed it in. Finally, they covered the +prairie-grave with brush to protect it from the coyotes, and rode slowly +home in twos and threes. About a month after, a young Mexican rode into +the ranch: he had ridden from San Anton, two hundred miles away, to put +a board cross above his father's grave, marked for him by the +store-keeper, "Juan Lucio, May, 1884." + +The herders on the ranch were all Mexicans, and throughout the county it +was generally so. An old Scotchman who paused one moment to smoke a pipe +beneath the porch was a solitary instance to the contrary. He was a most +markedly benevolent-looking old man, and had about him that copious halo +of hair with which benevolence seems to delight to surround itself. He +had also about him the halo of American humor, having just been up to +answer a charge of murder, in another county, of which he was +extravagantly innocent. He carried a crook, as seemed fitting, and had +with him two sheep-dogs, one of which the kindly man assured us he had +frequently cured of a recurrent disease by cutting off pieces of its +tail. This sacrificial part having been pretty well used up, the beast's +situation in view of another attack was very ticklish. And it had, in +fact, the air of occupying the anxious-seat. The Mexican, it may be +added, uses neither dog nor crook. He may have a cur or _pillone_ to +share his solitude, but its function is purely social: for catching +sheep there is his lariat. He is measurably faithful and trustworthy, a +careful observer of his flock, and quick to appreciate their troubles. +Of course he loses sheep semi-occasionally, causing those long +sheep-hunting rides among the hills which the ranchman curses and the +visitor enjoys; and occasionally in winter on cold nights he is +overpowered by the temptation to visit a friend, the whole flock gets +astray, and, fearing consequences, Juan, not stopping to fold his tent +like the Arab, silently steals away. + + + + +IV. + + +The busiest periods of the sheepman's year are the lambing- and +shearing-seasons. The first begins early in March, when the little +mesquite-trees are of a feathery greenness and the brown gramma and +mesquite grass are beginning to freshen, and lasts about six weeks. It +is an exacting time for the conscientious proprietor. He says good-by to +his cottage, and goes off to camp with a small army of Mexicans, who, +proof against the toils of the day, make night crazy with singing, +dancing, and uncontrollable hilarity. He is as much concerned about the +weather as a sailor or one in conversation's straits. His terror is the +long, cold storm which covers the grass with a hopeless coating of ice. +The weakened ewe cannot graze, and the norther comes down with a bitter +sweep to devastate the starved flock. + +The camp is pitched within easy reach of the bed-grounds of two +ewe-flocks, each of twelve hundred, who absorb all the attention of the +superintendent and his numerous aids. Each flock goes out on the range +at daybreak under the charge of two herders. The ewes that have dropped +lambs over-night are retained in the corral with their offspring for +about six hours, or till afternoon, when the lamb should be in +possession of sufficient strength to move about; then the ewes go forth +slowly to graze, followed by their _chiquitas_. The unnatural mothers +who deny their children are caught, with a lariat by a Mexican, with a +crook by a Yankee, and confined in separate little pens alone with their +lambs. If necessary to compel them to acknowledge their maternal +responsibilities, they are kept in solitary confinement two days, +without food. If still obdurate at the end of these two days, mother +and child, marked with red chalk or tagged alike with bright cloth, are +turned out, the herder in charge of the solitaries "roping" the ewe for +the convenience of the lamb whenever the latter indicates a desire for +nourishment. + +The flock grazing out on the range will have gone by noon perhaps a mile +from the bed-ground. Here a little corral is made, and the lambs born in +the vicinity, with their mothers, are penned here over-night, one of the +two herders sleeping with them. In the afternoon the remaining herder +takes the flock grazing back to the bed-ground. The next day, with many +more to follow, repeats the routine of this and its incidents. The lambs +and good mothers of a period of twenty-four hours are bunched together +and placed a little remote from the bed-ground, with a little pen and a +herder to themselves: they constitute a so-called "baby-flock." After +five days the lambs lose their tails and have their ears punched and +marked; on the sixth day they are still farther removed from their +native spot, placed in charge of a strange herder, and become the +nucleus of a so-called "lamb-flock," which, fed from many sources, grows +till it includes six hundred ewes, with their lambs, when it is a full +flock, and is in its turn removed and the formation of a new lamb-flock +begun. During the six days' novitiate of a baby-flock five other such +flocks have been formed: so that, somewhat remotely round about the main +pen at the bed-ground of each flock, there are six baby-flocks, with +their pens and herders and several little prison-pens for unnatural +mothers, with other little pens in which mothers bereft by death of +their proper children are confined with the extra twin lambs of prolific +ewes, clad in the lost ones' skins, in the sure hope that they will +adopt them. The ruse may be said never to fail. The solitary-confinement +pens are in the charge of still another herder, a much perplexed and +irritated man, on whose part considerable swearing--Mexican for small +ills, English for serious occasions--is to be excused. A superintendent +of two lambing ewe-flocks, it will thus be seen, has to oversee eighteen +herders or so, with their charges, besides the growing lamb-flock, all +more or less distant from each other. He is a busy man. His +head-quarters, like those of General Pope, may be said to be in the +saddle. His note-book is in constant use. It contains a record of each +day's births and deaths, of the twins (which are tagged or marked alike +for easy identification) and the still-born, that each bereft mother may +be provided with a foster-child, and the daily count of the +daily-changing flocks. + +The first lamb born starts the refrain, to be taken up as the season +waxes by thousands of others scattered over the range, and swollen into +a roaring, shrieking chorus, as though an enormous public school had +just turned its urchins into the play-ground. A listener standing in the +hall of the Stock Exchange gets some faint idea of it when there has +been a serious break in Lake Shore, say, or when C.C.C.&I. has "gone +off" a considerable number of points. Out of these thousands of voices, +not to be differentiated by the human ear, the ewe knows the note of her +little one with very remarkable certainty, and the lamb the answering +cry of its dam. With this sound ringing in his ears, and daily becoming +more and more insufferable from monotony and increase, the sheep-man +rides out in the morning among his Mexicans, and returns to camp at +night aweary, with haply a couple of little ones abandoned by their +mothers in his arms, to be brought up on that _pis-aller_ of +infancy,--and, alas! occasionally of age,--the bottle. + + + + +V. + + +When the prickly pear had made a golden garden of the prairie and the +heart of _Cereus phoeniceus_ was warm with the intention of lighting its +gorgeous crimson torch on the divides; when the arroyo, but lately a +pretty streamlet, had told wellnigh all its beads to the sun-god, and +had but here and there in its parched length an isolated pool; when the +flock at noon no longer flushed the last teal from the creek, because +that lingering bird had finally winged its way toward Manitoba or some +other favorite retreat northerly,--at this time the constant wind, +gentle but never-failing, and almost always from the south, was +overweighted with a roar of multitudinous bleating and befouled with +dust; for shearing was going on at the ranch. It is a very picturesque +occupation, but it soils the most delightful season of the year, the +fresh month of May, with a fortnight of dusty toil, anticipating the +sun, and not halting promptly on his setting. + +The shearing-shed lay somewhat apart from the other ranch buildings, +with a system of pens at its back, with chutes and swinging wickets for +"cutting out" lambs from their mothers destined for the shears, and +other incidental purposes. The shed was a roof of bearded +mesquite-grass, stayed by boughs and supported on live-oak or pecan +posts, the outside or bounding rows of which were sheathed up with +boards four feet or so, the remainder space up to the roof being open +for draught. On these boards Baleriano Torres, Secundino Ramon, and +others their companions of the shears, who had worked and played beneath +this shade in springs past, had written their names in large characters +of stencil-ink. One could see in the county roofs made of fresh boughs, +through which the sunlight sifted, flecking the swarthy faces and arms +of the shearers and the mantles of the sheep with a very picturesque +effect; but it is probably best to resist the temptation to treat the +shearing-shed as an artistic composition. The ground-plan of the shed +was one hundred feet or so long by twenty-five wide. The floor was of +trampled earth, and on it were placed shearing-tables, s s s, and +burring-and tying-tables, B B. The shearing-tables were about fifteen +inches high, the burring-tables high enough for a man to stand up to. It +is the custom in many parts of the country to shear on the floor. In Mr. +Hardy's picturesque novel, "Far from the Madding Crowd," the shearers +shear in a cathedral-like barn, on a shining black-oak floor,--probably +for purposes of contrast. Round the ranch, however, shearers preferred +very generally the low wooden tables. The space back of the +shearing-tables was occupied, when shearing was going on, by a "bunch" +of sheep admitted through the movable panels from a pen containing the +unshorn: after shearing, they departed through the panels into another +pen, and eventually over the prairie to their pleasant grazing-grounds, +angular and grotesque in appearance, but happy, their troubles past, +their year's chief purpose served. + +[Illustration: Movable Panels. CORRALS.] + +The shearers this year were a band of forty or so Mexicans from Uvalde +and other border towns, jollily travelling two hundred miles up the +country in charge of a _capitan_ and _grande capitan_ responsible +fellows, who had contracted with the ranchmen of the neighborhood to do +their shearing. Early in May we heard of them on the creeks, and made +preparation for them, the shed and corrals being put to rights in every +detail, the supply of bacon and _frijoles_ augmented at the store, and +all hands, including the stranger within the gates, set to hemming +wool-sacks with coarse twine and sailors' needles. One evening, but +shrewdly in time for supper, a couple of Mexicans on horses, thridding +their way through the mesquites, came into the ranch, quickly followed +by others, one or two on _burros_, more on ponies, most on the skeleton +of a prairieschooner drawn by four horses,--and the shearers had +arrived. They were a dark, black-eyed, hilarious set, some forty odd in +all, rather ragged as a crew, but with extremes of full and neat attire +or insufficient tatters according as the goddess Fortune or the Mexican +demi-goddess Monte had smiled or frowned; but all were equally jolly, +and almost all fiercely armed, the greatest tatterdemalion and +sans-culotte of all with a handsome Winchester, in a case, slung over +brown shoulders that would have been better for a whole shirt. The hat, +though cheap, was, even among the ragged, frequently elaborate, and +served excellently to carry off a protruding toe or knee, or to +reconcile the association in one person of an ancient boot with a still +more ancient shoe. Many of these fellows were undoubtedly trustworthy, +other some as undoubtedly, if they had had consciences, would have had +homicides on them; but all were light-hearted. Life is one thing to the +man who lets the breath out of his companion with a knife, and, leaving +his body in the brush, straightway goes about his idleness laughing, and +quite another to him who cannot get over the hideous fact that he has +tied his cravat awry. + +On the morning of the first day we turned out at four o'clock, and, +while we were getting a dew-bite of crackers and a sip of coffee, _el +capitan_ circulated among the recumbent figures that had dotted the +prairie over-night: with a shake and a pull of the big hat by way of +toilet, they proceeded in twos and threes toward the shearing-shed, +their shears in their hands and all their personal property in weapons +dangling about them. The burrers, too, Mexicans hired in the +neighborhood, put in an appearance and ranged themselves behind their +tables, A flock had been penned at the shed over-night, and, while a +fraction of it was being driven through the movable panels into the +space behind the shearing--table, the shearers were ranged along it by +the captain: they hung up their rifles and revolvers to the posts, some +their hats and jackets, and fell to chattering, lighting their +cigarettes, and sharpening their shears. When the supply of sheep was in +and the panels closed, the captain gave the shrill cry, "_Vaminos__" and +all hands rushed in among the frightened animals and dragged out their +chosen victims by the leg. They showed great shrewdness in selecting the +small, the light-woolled, the easy-to-be-shorn. "The loud clapping of +the shears" at once filled the shed, and it was not five minutes before +a light fleece was tossed upon the burring-table, and a grinning fellow +came running up to the ranchman seated in a chair thereon, the better to +supervise affairs, and called out, "Check-e!" amid _vivas_ for the first +sheep shorn. He received a tin token, which he thrust into his pocket, +and plunged over the low platform after another sheep. Calls of +"_Cole_!" "_Colero_" "_Cole, muchacho, echale_" began to ring out, and, +with an answering call of "_Onde?_" ("Where?"), two little, laughing +Mexican boys, with tumbled, curly black wigs, and cheeks like bronzed +peaches, darted about with boxes of powdered charcoal, and clapped a +pinch of it on the cut made by careless shears. The burrers threw out +the fleeces smooth upon the table, and, one on either side, patted them +over with their hands to discover the cockle-burrs entangled in the +wool; these removed, they folded and rolled the fleeces up with care and +handed them to a man who, with the aid of a small, square box, tied them +tightly with two strings, and tossed them out of the shed, where they +were received by the ranchman who was grading the wool and supervising +the packing. + +The packing was done in two frames, seven feet high, in which an iron +ring held the sacks open. To a man on one of these frames the fleeces in +their compact little bundles were tossed up, and he trod them down, +packing them in the sack. Then the sack was let down, sewed up, rolled +to the scales and weighed, marked with the ranch-mark, the weight, the +grade, and was ready for the freighters and a market. About ten +thousand pounds of wool were sheared, burred, packed, marked, and +perhaps shipped, in a day. + +Inside and out, seventy men were at work about the shed: the fleeces +rapidly piled up on the burring-tables; tied and tossed out, they grew +into little mountains, and around the scales for a wide space the packed +sacks cumbered the ground. The ranchmen moved about to see that coal was +used where needed, and that it was not needed too frequently, that +fleeces were not broken, and were thoroughly burred and nicely tied; and +the Mexicans, ceaselessly chattering, singing, laughing, calling jokes +to each other, crying, "Viva Rito!" "Viva Encarnacion!" ran for their +checks, dashed in for their sheep, and kept the shears clashing, while +the perplexed ewe, with an uproar perhaps more distinctly justifiable, +called to the lamb she had left in the pen, and the lamb answered cry +for cry. All this went on in a strong south wind heavy with dust and the +acrid sheep smell. It was the liveliest possible spectacle of organized +confusion, and the accompanying noise was calculated to split the ears +of the groundlings. As the number unshorn of the installment of sheep in +the pen dwindled toward zero, little groups of unoccupied shearers +gathered round the posts near the low tables, lit fresh cigarettes, +whipped out cards, and started a little game of _monte_ for the checks +they had in their pockets, continuing till the captain's _revenons à nos +moutons_ once more started their shears. The sun crept up in the sky, a +fitting cessation occurred, and, a ranchman having given the signal, a +tide set in for the cook-house and breakfast. + +In Mr. Hardy's story, just mentioned, his hero performs rather a feat in +shearing three and a half pounds of washed wool in twenty-three and +one-half minutes, A Mexican would have to take a reef in his big hat if +he could not do better than that. His tin check is worth four and a half +cents to him, and a fair hand ought to have at least fifty in his pocket +at sunset, in return for as many seven-pound unwashed fleeces,--always +provided he has not sacrificed them to _monte_ during the day. A +first-rate man will have seventy, and, if called upon to show what he is +made of, will shear a heavy-woolled wether in six minutes. At evening +each shearer turns in his checks, and receives in return a signed paper +with his name and their number. + +The interior of the shed when shearing is at its height commends itself +very forcibly to the attention of the artist. The heaps of fleeces, +mellow masses of gray, yellow, and white, the throng of anxious sheep, +watching with painful interest their companions struggling in the +swarthy arms of the stalwart, bare-chested shearers, saddles, broad +sombreros, whips, and weapons grouped in so many pendent escutcheons of +the great Mexican vagabond family, the flitting _coleritos_, the scarfed +shearers themselves, all are so many veritable "bits." But it is not +only that the details are good: they compose admirably about the long +aisle, with here and there a dagger of sharp light thrust into the +shade, and without, the luminous clouds of dust. The shearer puts one +foot on the low table, the neck of the sheep resting over his knee, and +its fleece rolling off like a robe; his broad chest is thrown out, his +head back, his nostrils vent smoke like an angry god's, and his glancing +white teeth, disclosed in a broad smile, tightly grip a cigarette. He is +chattering, laughing, smoking: incidentally he is shearing. + +The presence of the shearers at the ranch causes a flutter in +surrounding Mexican society. They are known to be keen hands, _viveurs_, +jolly good fellows withal, and, moreover, men who can wrestle with +wethers ten hours a day (no light task on the muscles) and yet have +spirit to dance and play all night. So, at evening, the _jacals_--the +little farms and settlements on the creek--are likely to send forth a +contingent bound for the cook-house and a night of it. A harp and an +accordion are found, and to the sharply-marked music produced by this +combination an impromptu _baile_ forms itself. The swarthy sombreros +clutch each other, and hop about, their spurs gleaming and jangling, +their pistols sticking out behind like incipient tails; and soon the +_baile_ overflows the kitchen, and the glowing cigarette-tips circle +like fire-flies to the music in the dark night-air without. In a corner, +against the salt-house, by the light of a fire, a group is gathered +round a blanket spread on the ground, with little piles of silver before +them, over the always-absorbing _monte_; and other groups are very +harmlessly singing. By midnight the music dies away and the dancing +ceases, but the sombreros bend over the _monte_ blanket and the silver +clinks on it till morning. + +About two weeks with days and nights of this character sufficed, with +slight interruptions occasioned by bad weather, to get one hundred +thousand pounds of wool off the backs of the sheep. On Sunday the +shearers would not work: the day was sacred--to pleasure. The store was +thronged with purchasers, the cook-house became the temple of _monte_, +the road a race-track. The ranch had the air of a _fête_. The races were +short rushes with horses started with a jab of the spur or thwack of the +_cuerta_, to see who first should cross a line scratched in the dust, at +either end of which a throng kneeled and craned forward and held out +silver dollars and called bets. + +At length the last sheep was shorn, the last sack marked, the pools on +that interesting figure, the total clip of the year, decided, and the +shearers in motley tableau assembled in the ranch-house, before the +table, to have their paper slips redeemed. They did not understand +checks on San Antonio banks; they "didn't want paper;" they had a rather +praiseworthy doubt of green-backs; they wanted the solid _dinero_,--the +"Buzzard," the "Trade," or the radiant Mexican _peso_. Toward midnight +it ceased to be a laughing-matter, paying off, and one was glad to turn +in even in an atmosphere heavy with cigarette-smoke and not +over-fragrant. Next morning the shearers leisurely saddled up and +disappeared through the brush, the Grande Capitan and Capitan lifting +their hats with grace and dignity and calling, "_Adios_!" They left a +rather relaxed ranch, with a marked tendency toward hammocks and long +siestas, varied with a little mild lawn-tennis at evening in an old +corral, which, by the way, with its surrounding fence to stop the balls, +made in many respects an admirable court. + + + + +VI. + + +Toward the end of August the pluvial god, assisted by the physical +characteristics of the region, provided us with a genuine sensation. +Hitherto we had had mere weather; this was a pronounced case of +meteorology: until then I had taken no special satisfaction in the word. +It had been raining frequently during the month, in quite unusual +volume; the arroyos were pretty brooks, the sides of the divides wept, +and there were wide, soft places on the prairies; the flocks went very +lame from the excessive dampness, and riding was a splashing and +spattering business; but the oldest inhabitant dropped no hint +suggestive of the veritable meteorological _coup_ which was quietly +preparing. + +We retired one night in our usual unsuspecting frame of mind, and awoke +next morning to hear above the dull reverberation of the rain the +booming of a torrent. The arroyo near the ranch was no longer an arroyo, +but a stream fifty feet wide; and on the hither side of the pecan-trees +of the creek could be seen a silver line: the water had already +surpassed the banks. Before noon there was neither creek nor arroyo, but +a river a mile wide rushing down the valley: we knew where the trees had +been, by the swirling waves. A flood is like those serpents which +fascinate before they strike. The monotonous rain failing _ohne Hast, +ohne Rast_, the dead immutable murk of the sky, the rush of gray wave +after wave, induced a state of dull lethargic wonder: the feet--the foot +more, would it accomplish that? Already the floor of the ranch-house was +under water. But there was soon a sufficient dashing about of riders in +long yellow oil-skin coats, and all was done that the situation seemed +to demand or admit of. The culminating moment of the day came toward two +in the afternoon, when we stood on the roof of the ranch-house, with our +eyes glued to a sulphur-colored patch a mile up the valley. It was a +flock of sheep congregated on an unsubmerged knoll in the middle of the +torrent. There was a sudden movement in the mass, the sulphur patch +vanished, and there was borne to us distinctly a long, plaintive cry: +the flock had been swept away. In a few minutes, however, we caught +sight of many of them swimming admirably, and, much to our astonishment, +they found a desperate footing opposite the ranch across the swift sweep +of the arroyo. A dozen Mexicans were equal to the emergency. They +stripped, threw themselves in, stemmed the current, and, with amazing +pluck and fortitude, worked about amid the submerged cactus and +chaparral, which must have wounded them savagely, holding the sheep +together. Finally, after desperate urging, a wether was induced to +breast the rush of the arroyo and landed safely high and dry on the +hither bank, when, thanks to their disposition to follow a leader, all +plunged in, and, after a vigorous push, found their perils at an end. +But the count showed some six hundred missing. + +It ceased raining toward four o'clock, and the sun set in great +splendor. The next day the water had quite subsided, and I went, +unsuccessfully, after plover over the bed of yesterday's river, but the +beauty of the creek had been destroyed for the season. And farther down, +where the flood had come at midnight, it had swept away many lives. + +In November, when the broom on the sides of the hills was a fine +pink-brown, and when the wet places which the flood had left abounded in +jack-snipe and afforded the neatest shooting in the world, I turned my +back upon the ranch, where I had been very prodigal of the best of +riches,--"the loose change of time." I did so with a warm feeling of +regret,--a feeling somewhat tempered by the thought that I should soon +be in a region of homes, constant greetings, and the morning newspapers. +But after a few weeks of the morning newspapers it has been borne in +upon me that a great deal is to be said for the place which does not +know them. + +E.C. REYNOLDS. + + + + +THE LADY LAWYER'S FIRST CLIENT. + +TWO PARTS. + +I. + +Mrs. Tarbell sat in her office, pretending to read a law-journal, but +really looking at her name on the office door; and she was not without +justification, perhaps, seeing that it had taken her six years to get it +there. Furthermore, though it was six weeks since it had been lettered +upon the glass panel, she had as yet found nothing to do but look at it. +She was at last a lawyer; she had triumphed over prejudice and ridicule; +and a young lawyer has three privileges,--he may write Esquire after his +name, he is exempt from jury duty, and he can wait for clients. Mrs. +Tarbell had always been exempt from jury duty, and her brother told her +that, historically speaking, she ought to be called _equestrienne_, if +she was to have any title: so it seemed that it was only left to her to +wait for clients and contemplate her sign. The sign read,-- + +Ellen G. Tarbell, +Alex. H. Juddson, +Attorneys-at-Law. +Commissioner for Colorado. + +Mrs. Tarbell had been a Miss Juddson before her marriage with ---- Tarbell, +Esq. (of Hinson & Tarbell, mourning goods), and Mr. Alexander H. +Juddson was her brother. When Mr. Tarbell died, his widow told her +family and friends that she was going to read law. + +Mrs. Tarbell had always been a woman of progressive notions, but this +was going too far. Her family and some of her friends were short-sighted +enough to attempt to argue the general question,--namely, ought women to +have Rights? When Mrs. Tarbell proved to them that they were both unfair +and illogical, they then said that, though they had no objection to +other women making lawyers of themselves, they did not see the necessity +in her case. + +Mrs. Tarbell replied that she must get a living; and it was quite true +that the late Tarbell had failed a few months before his death, leaving +his widow rather poorly off; for he had not put his property in her name +before making an assignment. And Mrs. Tarbell went on to say that, as +she could not be a nurse, and would not be a governess or keep a +boarding-house, she would read law. It was reported at the time that Mr. +Juddson said he hoped his sister would go and read law, if anywhere, in +Colorado, for which State it was he, of course, who was the +commissioner; but, whether this report were true or not, Mrs. Tarbell +stayed at home and pursued her studies under his direction. + +After going through all sorts of examinations, at which she flung +herself determinedly, and which she kept on passing with the greatest +credit, after meeting with innumerable disappointments and delays, after +being politely told by one judge after another that she was a woman, and +therefore could not be a man,--hence, _a fortiori_, she could not be a +lawyer,--after six years, I say, Mrs. Tarbell succeeded. Her name went +on the list of attorneys. The court-clerk gave her a certificate, and +received two dollars and sixty cents. The newspapers chronicled the +circumstance. Her friends were triumphant. Judge Measy, who admitted her +to the bar, was compared to Lord Mansfield and to Mr. Lincoln. + +But marriage is not the only lofty undertaking attended by petty +miseries. Mrs. Tarbell could bear her great misfortunes with courage and +resolution: as she had great hopes, so she expected great disasters. Not +Lars Porsenna of Clusium himself was more clapped on the back, and +huzzahed after, and backed up by the augurs, nor more frequently told +that he was the beloved of heaven, than Mrs. Tarbell had been by her +soothsayers and partisans. At first this was all very well, but +afterward it grew tiresome. If Mrs. Tarbell, emerging from widowhood and +placing herself in the van of feminine progress, was really a pioneer in +a heaven sent mission (as perhaps she was), there was no need to repeat +the phrase so often. When two or three years had gone by, and it began +to be apparent that Mrs. Tarbell had a long and up-hill struggle before +her, she became very impatient of enthusiasm. She had never liked it, +even when the female welkin (if there be such a thing) had first rung +with applause for her, and now it was painfully uncomfortable. Mrs. +Lucretia Pegley (authoress of "Woman's Wrongs," "The Weaker Sex?" "Eve +_v._ Adam," etc., etc., editor of "Woman's Sphere," and chief +contributor to the "Coming Era;" her friends called her a Boadicea, and +denied that she had withdrawn from the study of medicine because she had +fainted at her first operation),--Mrs. Pegley observed her friend's +shortness of temper, and took her to task about it. "Ellen Tarbell," she +said, "you surprise me very much. Do you wish to give the impression +that your motives are purely personal and--forgive me, but the word is +necessary--selfish? that you have no interest in the movement in which +you are a pioneer? that your heart is not with the cause which after so +many years of weary waiting looks to you for advancement? Mr. Botts is a +most worthy and indefatigable man; perhaps a trifle too much addicted to +repetition for the sake of rhetorical effect,--a thing, I admit, very +trying; but it is of the highest importance (I say this between +ourselves, of course, and you may imagine that I would not give +publicity to such a statement),--it is of the _highest_ importance that +the feelings of our--hem--masculine colleagues should not be--" + +"Yes, yes," interrupted Mrs. Tarbell hastily, "I appreciate that fully, +I assure you. But yesterday evening I was rather tired, and I--" + +"Tired!" said Mrs. Pegley, in the voice of acute anguish which caused +her to be known as a woman of the most extraordinary intensity of +convictions. "It is a wonder we are not all in our _graves_," she added, +in tones whose sombre depth was brightened by a little colloquial +levity, for she felt that she had been too severe with Mrs. Tarbell. +"Still," she continued, "after Mr. Bott's _very_ flattering remarks you +might have spoken with a little more--er--_earnestness_ and--er--_vigor_ +yourself, you know. And for such an audience as we had last night, three +minutes is really--" + +After this, Mrs. Tarbell resolved that her next effort at public +speaking should be made before an American jury, or not at all. Indeed, +she went so far as to think it a great mistake to suppose that woman's +cause could not be advanced without calling meetings and haranguing them +till eleven o'clock at night. Very likely her ideals were still of the +highest order, and certainly she still hoped that when women were +allowed to practise law the law would be so changed that you would +hardly recognize it; but she wanted to carry on her part of the work +occultly and quietly. She had got over a good many of her own illusions, +and she was taking a more practical view of life. She smiled when she +thought of the prophecies which had been made about her, and she no +longer read the paragraphs about herself in the newspapers. She kept her +brother's dockets and drew his papers. Alexander frowned a good deal, +and said it wasn't necessary, but she insisted that she must pay him in +some way for her education. She put his desk in order and gave him new +papers every other day, which practices he never could get her to +forego. In short, she settled down into a routine of study, office-work, +and regularly recurring attempts to _get in_. And when she finally did +get in, she had become a cynic. Everybody remembers, of course, how at +the end of his last term Judge Oldwigg announced his intention to retire +into private life and decline a reelection, and how the managers of the +party in power chose Judge Measy as their candidate for the vacant +place. The prospective judge was waited on privately by a deputation of +Mrs. Tarbell's friends, headed by Mrs. Pegley, and asked to define his +position on the Tarbell question. The deputation did not contain many +voters, and no bargain which Mr. Measy, as he then was, could have made +with it would have increased his majority very largely: as he was pretty +sure of a majority, he must be cleared of all suspicion of making a +bargain. But he did deliver to Mrs. Pegley an oracular answer, which was +in course of time interpreted in Mrs. Tarbell's favor. She came up +before him; Mr. Juddson made the motion which he had so often made +before, and made it, I regret to say, in rather hurried tones, when, to +everybody's surprise, Judge Measy produced a manuscript and read it out, +and proved that a lawyer was a person who practiced law, and that +therefore, as a woman was a person, she could be a lawyer, interspersing +his remarks with graceful historical allusions and several profound +reflections upon the design of Nature in creating the female sex. Then, +acting as man, not judge, he descended to the side-bar, beckoned to Mrs. +Tarbell, grasped her by the hand, and made her a speech. "Madam," said +the courtly judge, "Mrs. Tarbell, I congratulate you,"--which was one +for himself as well,--"and let me add that it gives me the sincerest +satisfaction to be able to testify in this manner to the veneration +which I have always entertained for woman; and I am quite sure that in +no long space of time you will have proved to us that the law cannot say +it has nothing to gain from her refining influence. For I remember my +_own_ mother, Mrs. Tarbell," said Judge Measy. The bar listened in awed +admiration. Mrs. Tarbell bit her lips, bowed, and thanked his honor as +best she could. The idea of suggesting that she was anybody's mother, or +that even if she had a family that was any reason for permitting her to +be a barrister! But from the other side of the court-room was heard an +expressive rustling, and audible whispers of satisfaction were wafted +across the lawyers on their chairs. Mrs. Pegley and her train were +sitting by, radiant, triumphant, majestic. The dignity of motherhood was +vindicated. + +And now that Juddson and Tarbell were moving to their new offices, who +should also at the very same time become a tenant of the Land and Water +Insurance Company but the Honorable Franklin Blood Pope? The Land and +Water Company's new building was in a very desirable locality, and +several lawyers deserted their old nooks and corners to occupy its +spacious and well-calcimined apartments. Juddson and Tarbell took the +rooms on the back of the third floor, Mr. Pope those on the front ditto: +they were very near neighbors. In former days Mrs. Tarbell had often +complained to her husband of Mr. Pope's success. It was an argument that +men had not as much common sense as they pretended to have, she said, or +else they would see through Franklin B----'s absurd pretensions. "Even I +can perceive that the man is a humbug," she continued. "In fact, any +woman could. Why is he successful, then? Why has he an enormous +practice? Why has he been sent to Congress? If it is because he has a +majestic appearance and can talk a great deal, women certainly can +fulfill these conditions, and that by your own account of them." + +To which Mr. Tarbell would answer, "Exactly, my love, by all means; and +so is your friend Mrs. Pegley a great talker, and a fine-looking woman." + +"Then give her all the rights you give to Mr. Pope," cried Mrs. Tarbell. + +"She shall have 'em, and welcome," said Tarbell; but he did not tell his +wife that he had voted for Mr. Pope on the opposition ticket, and had +even consulted him on matters of business,--once going so far as to +suggest to him that a certain proposed alteration in the tariff would +seriously affect the mourning-goods industry,--from which it may be +gathered that it was not from any lack of prudence that Mr. Tarbell died +a bankrupt and left his widow to become a lady-lawyer. + +Mr. Pope himself it was who betrayed Mr. Tarbell's confidence and opened +Mrs. Tarbell's eyes. "Your husband was my very good friend, my dear +madam," said the Honorable Franklin, "and I was proud to call him my +client. Yes, I had the honor of advising him in several matters and of +carrying through some rather delicate negotiations for him. A man of the +strictest integrity, ever genial and urbane, of sound judgment and +independent views, endowed with strong common sense and quick +perceptions. You see, I had the highest opinion of Mr. Tarbell, and have +often wished to tell his widow--alas that I should have to call her +so!--how certain I am that she will succeed in the career she has +chosen, and how deeply I grieve that her husband could not have lived to +find in her a better adviser than I ever could have been to him." + +Messrs.--I mean Mrs. and Mr.--Tarbell and Juddson were just moving into +their new offices when Mr. Pope uttered these kind wishes. He met Mrs. +Tarbell on the door-step: he was standing there, indeed, when she came +in. He was always standing on the door-step: he carried on most of his +business, especially with the politicians, in public. "I beg that you +will use my library on all occasions," he continued, raising his voice +a little. "If I may say so myself, it is rather comprehensive; in fact, +I am very proud of it. And any assistance which I can give you in any +way, my dear madam, will, I need hardly say, be given most heartily." + +Use his library, indeed! Mrs. Tarbell would have been as likely to go to +the Vatican and ask Pope Leo for the loan of a few works _contra +hæreticos_. Why had she and her brother ever come to the Land and Water +Company's building? The idea of meeting the Honorable Pope every day, of +every day beholding his portly figure, statesman-like features, and lion +mane, and acknowledging his bland bows and salutations, was +inexpressibly odious. And, what was worse, Mr. Pope continued to +flourish like a green bay-tree, or like the proprietors of a patent +medicine or a blackguard newspaper, or any other comparison you please. +Feet tramped along the hall, hands knocked at his door, lips innumerable +whispered into his ears, and Mrs. Tarbell sat and looked at her sign, +wondering what had become of all the women who were to have employed +her. She had not said, "Walk in, madam," to one of them; and Mr. +Juddson's clients all regarded her as if she were a curiosity. + +Mrs. Tarbell looked, in fact, like the president of a Dorcas society or +a visitor of a church hospital. She had pleasing features, dark hair, +slightly touched with gray, as became a lawyer of thirty-five, and +dignified manners. She dressed very plainly in a black dress with just +one row of broad trimming down the front, and, though she felt that it +was an abuse of authority, she drew her hair straight back from her +forehead. This question of her hair had given her some little anxiety, +and it had cost her some time to decide what kind of hat or bonnet she +should wear. Alexander said she might use her riding-hat for the sake of +economy, but she had decided on a tweed walking-hat, which could be +taken off very quickly in the court-room. For, whatever she might do in +church, it was now impossible for her to remain covered before the bench +of judges. + +Mrs. Tarbell's desk was in the middle of the back room,--she could just +see the outer door obliquely through that of her partition,--and Mr. +Juddson's was in a similar position in the front room. This was not a +very good arrangement. Mrs. Tarbell could not very well be put in the +front room with the office-boy, and yet the proximity of the office-boy +was not agreeable to Mr. Juddson either. Then, too, most of the books +were in the back room, and so was the sofa: altogether it looked as if +Mrs. Tarbell were the senior. Mr. Juddson was thinking seriously of +having another partition built, and that would at any rate save him from +being asked "if Mr. Juddson were in," for, as every one knows, there is +a vast difference between being asked "if Mr. Juddson be in," and "is +this Mr. Juddson?" But Mr. Juddson had the picture of Chief-Justice +Marshall and the map of the battle-field of Gettysburg, so he was not so +badly off; and Mrs. Tarbell was very comfortable. + +She was just musing over her future, and saying to herself, "When I die, +I _know_ that they will call a bar-meeting, and that Mr. Pope will make +a eulogy on my character," when the door opened, and Mr. Juddson came +in. Mrs. Tarbell returned to business-life immediately. + +"Did you find Mullany?" she said. + +Mr. Juddson, a tall, black-whiskered man of about fifty, rubbed his +hands for a moment over the fire, and then answered shortly that he +_had_ found Mullany. + +"What did he say?" + +"Oh,--what I expected," said Mr. Juddson, turning over the papers on his +table. He disliked unnecessary questions. Mrs. Tarbell had no interest +in Mullany, and the most she ought to do was to ask about him in an +off-hand way in the street-car on the way home. Mr. Juddson discovered +the paper for which he was searching, and turned toward the door. + +"Are you going out?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +The door was already half open. + +"Reference before Murray. Back at one," was all Mr. Juddson deigned to +say. + +"Alexander!" cried Mrs. Tarbell,--when the office-boy was in, she called +her brother Mr. Juddson,--"Alexander!" + +"_Well_?" said Mr. Juddson. He was late as it was. + +"You will make the office very cold if you leave the door--but never +mind. Don't let me keep you. I only wanted to tell you that I should +like to talk to you about something some time to-d--" The rest of the +sentence was lost upon Mr. Juddson, who had already shut the door behind +him, and Mrs. Tarbell felt aggrieved. + +So much aggrieved, in fact, that she found it impossible to return to +the law-journal. + +"I suppose I need a sedative," she said to herself. "If I were a man, I +would put my feet up on the table and light a cigar, or--no! I would +never practise that vilest form of the vice." (What she meant by this +last phrase I cannot imagine, unless she referred to something which Mr. +Juddson had been driven to do because he could not very well smoke while +his sister was in the office.) "What," continued Mrs. Tarbell, "what can +there be to recommend the position?" She looked at the desk. + +"Is it an easy position?" she said. She looked down at her feet. + +"Is it even a graceful position?" She swung herself to and fro on her +revolving-chair. + +She looked about her. The office was empty; the office-boy had gone on a +very long errand. "I will try it," she said, with determination. + +She removed all the books and papers on the right side of the table to +the left side. Then she tilted back her chair, elevated her left foot +cautiously, put it down, and elevated her right, placed it determinedly +on the table, crossed the other foot over it, leaned forward with some +difficulty to arrange her skirts, leaned back again. + +"My book seems to lie very easily in my lap," she said to herself. "And +the leaves turn over quite willingly." + +One page, two pages, three pages. "After all," said she,--"after all--if +one were quite alone--and had been sitting for a long time in another +attitude--" + +Tap-tap! came a timid knock at the door. + +"Come in!" cried Mrs. Tarbell, resuming her former position in a great +hurry, and dropping the law-journal. + +Tap-tap! + +"Come in!" said Mrs. Tarbell, picking up the law-journal. "_Come in_!" +she said. + +And the door opened slowly. + +"Well?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Is Mrs. Tarbell in?" said the party of the knocks. + +"I am Mrs. Tarbell. Come in, please. What can I do for you?" + +"I wanted to see you, ma'am." + +"Take a chair. Well?" + +"I suppose it's April weather," said the new-comer; "but the rain is +right chilly, so it is; like it was a November rain, somehow. Will I put +my umbreller right down here? The spring is dreadful late, and the +farmers is all complainin', they tell me." + +Mrs. Tarbell shuddered. + +The new-comer was tall and gaunt and thin; her shoulders sloped, she +stooped, her chin was up in the air, and she peered through spectacles. +Her hat was rusty, her india-rubber gossamer was rusty, the crape on her +dress was so very rusty that it seemed to be made of iron-filings. Her +cheeks were the color of unburned coffee-grains or of underdone +gingerbread; her nose was long; her eyes, were small and bleary; her +protruding lips wrinkled up as she spoke, and displayed her poor yellow +old tusks; her scant hair was dirty gray, her forehead was bald, her +neck was scraggy: she was particularly and pathetically ugly. Her dress +bagged about over her long waist and spidery arms. No wonder Mrs. +Tarbell shuddered. + +"If I ain't disturbing you, Mrs. Tarbell," the visitor continued, "and +if you _could_ just spare the time to listen to me for a minnit, I +wanted just to ask you for a little advice. My name is Stiles, +ma'am,--Mrs. Annette Gorsley Stiles. Gorsley was my given name before I +was married--But I feel as if I was taking up your time, Mrs. Tarbell." + +"Not at all," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily. + +"Well, ma'am, my husband he's dead, been dead this six years now, and +left me with four to feed, and--well, I don't know just how to begin, +rightly. You see, it's this way. Celandine, my eldest,--that was _his_ +name for her; he had a right pretty knack at names, and was always for +names that ran easy,--Celandine she's eighteen now, 'n' she wants to be +doing something for herself. It drives me real hard to pay for all four +of them out of a sewing-machine and the little I make selling candies +over a counter,--five cents' worth of chocolate drops and penny's-worths +of yellow taffy; never more than fifty cents a day, living where we do, +in Pulaski Street,--and Celandine she's bound to help me some way. The +next oldest to Celandine is on'y ten; and if I was to starve I wouldn't +have him to sell papers or black boots, and his father a foreman; and +the' ain't no call for office-boys nowadays, 'r else it's because +Augustus is so small for his age--" + +"We have an office-boy," murmured Mrs. Tarbell. + +"I know, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles. "Leastways, I guessed as much. I was +thinking of asking you about Celandine." Mrs. Tarbell stirred uneasily, +and Mrs. Stiles hurried on: "Celandine and me we were talking things +over the other day,--we've been reading about you in the newspapers, +Mrs. Tarbell, nigh on to four years now; Celandine has always been a +comprehending child, precocious, as they say, and quick-witted, and +she's been watching your career, ma'am, just as clost as you could +yourself. And the day you was admitted she come home,--a friend of hers +gave her the afternoon paper,--and she says, 'Mother,' she says, 'Mrs. +Tarbell is admitted!'--just like it was a personal friend of yours, Mrs. +Tarbell; and reely, ma'am, I suppose I oughtn't to say it, but there's +been a good many women all over this country felt themselves personal +friends of yours, ma'am, knowing how much there was meant by your +success and feeling how near the question come to themselves; and if +good wishes brings good luck, that's what you have to thank for +succeeding. But Celandine she's an ambitious girl, Mrs, Tarbell, and the +long and the short of it is just this, that she's set her heart on being +a lawyer, and she's either too shy or too proud, mebbe, to come here +with me to speak to you, ma'am: so I just put on my bunnit the first day +I could, rain or shine, and rain it's turned out to be, to say a word to +you about her and just ask you what you _thought_." + +"A lawyer?" gasped Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Yes, ma'am; a lady lawyer." + +Mrs. Tarbell had never a word to say. In spite of having triumphed over +all the arguments, both those epicene and those particularly masculine, +which had been used against herself, she had not now the strength of +mind to use them in her turn. In spite of being a lawyer, she had a +conscience. She had looked forward to taking students, but they were all +to have been Portias, every woman Jane of them; and before her own +learning was fairly dry (which I think an eminently proper adjective to +describe legal learning) there appeared to her an obviously +crack-brained old party in an india-rubber cloak, who kept a candy-store +and wanted her daughter to become a lawyer. No wonder Mrs. Tarbell was +embarrassed. Was she to say to the crack-brained one, "Madam, pay me one +hundred dollars per annum and I will take your daughter as a student"? +On the other hand, how in the name of that Orloff, that Pitt, that +Kohinoor diamond among precious virtues, consistency, was she to go so +far as even to hint to Mrs. Stiles that any woman couldn't be a lawyer? +As Mrs. Tarbell hesitated, she began to fear she was lost. + +"Celandine is a real bright girl," said Mrs. Stiles, who had now +regained her breath. Was this the woman who had knocked so timidly at +the door? "Celandine is a _real_ bright girl; her mind is thorough, +logical, and comprehensive,--that's what Professor Jamieson said, up to +the High School. Them was his very words. Celandine is to graduate this +year: she's in the class with girls two and three years older than +herself, Mrs. Tarbell. It was a terrible strain on me to keep her at +school, ma'am, and again and _again_ I've thought I couldn't stand it, +what with her being in the shop only in the afternoon, and the washing, +and trying to keep her clothes always nice; though she's been as good as +_gold_,--making _all_ her dresses her_self_, and wearing a calico till +you'd have thought the stitches would have dropped right _out_ of it. +And she's ambitious, as I say. She don't seem to be able to face the +idea of going into a store; and, oh, dear me! they're terrible places, +those big stores, for girls. They're as bad as the factories; and +_often_ and _often_ when I see those poor creatures that stand behind +counters all day coming home at night and thinking so much about the way +their hair's done, and then consider what slaves they are, and what +they're exposed to, and how many wicked people are on the watch to work +them to death for no pay at all, and bully them, and to lead them all +wrong, if they can, why, it just makes me think how _sensible_ the good +Lord is, that he's able to take care of them so well and look after them +as much as he does. Professor Jamieson has been as kind as could _be_ +about Celandine, and said he'd try to get a place for her as teacher; +but you can't do that, you know, Mrs. Tarbell, not onless you've got +friends in politics; and I haven't, not one. And a governess ain't often +asked for; and you need influence for that, too. And Celandine, though +she would take copying or typewriting, or be a telegraph operator, her +own idea is to be a lawyer. And I just thought, Mrs. Tarbell, that I'd +come to you and ask your advice; for I knew you'd sympathize." + +"I--I don't know," gasped Mrs. Tarbell. The shock was almost as great as +if she had thought Mrs. Stiles was a client. And what was she to do? +Mrs. Stiles was not asking her to accept Miss Celandine as a student: +she was asking her whether Miss Celandine ought to study at all. Mrs. +Tarbell would have given anything to have a few platitudes at her +tongue's end, but her conscience rendered her helpless. "Well, you see, +Mrs. Stiles," she said at length, "we are trying a--hem--an experiment, +you know." + +"An experiment!" cried Mrs. Stiles, astounded. "Law bless us, you're +admitted to be a lawyer, ain't you? And if one lady can be a lawyer--" + +"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily; "but that is not the question. I +mean that it is not yet certain that women are going to succeed at the +bar." Absolutely, though she was no fool, she had never made the +concession before,--not even to herself. + +"But you are a lawyer," repeated Mrs. Stiles. + +"It doesn't follow that I shall make money at the law," said Mrs. +Tarbell impatiently, but with a sense of her own justice. + +Mrs. Stiles was staggered. "Not make any money?" she faltered. + +"My good woman," said Mrs. Tarbell, "let me tell you that I have not yet +had a single client, that I have not yet made a single dollar!" And, +really, this was rather magnanimous. "The fact is, Mrs. Stiles," she +continued, "it is impossible to say how long it will be before women +inspire public confidence in their ability to do what has always been +supposed to be man's work." + +"Law!" said Mrs. Stiles. + +"And your daughter had better wait till that is settled in our favor +before she commits herself." + +In Mrs. Stiles's cheeks a queer tinge appeared upon the gingerbread hue +before spoken of,--a faint reddish tinge, a sprinkling of powdered +cinnamon and sugar, as it were. "But, Mrs. Tarbell," she cried, "I +thought--why, I thought the courts arranged all that." + +"You don't mean to tell me it was your belief that the members of the +bar are paid by the court?" said Mrs. Tarbell, aghast. + +"Why, no, not exactly," stammered Mrs. Stiles. "But, then, I thought +they--sort of--distributed things, you know. Don't they? I heerd of a +young gentleman who was appointed to be lawyer for a man who cut his +wife's throat with a pair of scissors, and the gentleman had never seen +him before, not once." + +"Did you suppose," said Mrs. Tarbell,--the affair was arranging itself +very easily, after all,--"did you suppose that the judges undertake to +see that the business of the courts is equally distributed among the +lawyers?" + +"I--I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure." + +"My good, woman," said Mrs, Tarbell, with great seriousness, "a lawyer +is just as much dependent upon custom as you are. There are many +confectioners who do a large business, there are some who fail. So it is +with lawyers. And many lawyers have to wait ten or twelve years before +they become known at all. So you see in what a critical situation your +daughter runs the risk of placing herself, and how seriously you ought +to reflect before you allow her to take such a risk." + +She looked anxiously toward the door. At that moment it opened, and the +office-boy entered. She rose instantly, and Mrs. Stiles had to follow +her example. Mrs. Tarbell represented to herself that the rain would not +hurt her, and that Mrs. Stiles must be got rid of, and, feeling that +this could now be accomplished, smiled at Mrs. Stiles in a friendly and +reassuring manner. + +"Who was the gentleman who was ten years before he got any work to do?" +said Mrs. Stiles, standing up very crooked and looking very bewildered. + +"Oh," said Mrs. Tarbell glibly, "that has happened to a great many +lawyers. Let me see: I can't at this moment +recall--Chief-Justice--no--Lord--Lord--Eldon," she mumbled hastily, +"and Lord-Kilgobbin, and Chief-Justice Coleridge, all had to wait a--a +longer or a shorter time. In fact, it is very often a matter of chance +that a lawyer obtains any business at all." She walked past Mrs. Stiles, +and took up her umbrella. Mrs. Stiles followed her with an irresolute +glance. Mrs. Tarbell put on her ulster. + +"Celandine will be dreadful disappointed," said Mrs. Stiles, in a +mournful tone. "And, dear me, Mrs. Tarbell, I never said a word to you +about what she's like; and me so proud of her, too." + +In spite of her success, Mrs. Tarbell was by no means satisfied with +herself, and the pathetic note in Mrs. Stiles's voice proved too much +for her. "Mrs. Stiles," she said, turning round quickly, "perhaps I have +been putting one side of the matter too strongly before you. If you will +bring your daughter here some morning, we can discuss the subject +together for a little while, and I can advise her definitely as to what +course I think she had better pursue." + +The expression of Mrs. Stiles's face changed a little; she seemed to be +surprised and gratified; but it was evident that the overthrow of her +delusions in regard to the remunerative character of the legal +profession had saddened and disturbed her. "It's right kind of you to +take so much trouble, Mrs. Tarbell," she said, buttoning up her +gossamer. "I feel as grateful to you as _can_ be; but I don't think I'll +tell Celandine all you've said, because--" + +"Perhaps it would be wiser," said Mrs. Tarbell impatiently. + +"And then, in a week or so--" + +"Precisely; a week or so." Mrs. Tarbell found that _precisely_ was a +very short and lawyer-like word, so she repeated it. + +"Well, then--" said Mrs. Stiles. + +"Some time during the morning," said Mrs. Tarbell; and she turned to the +office-boy, with whom she began to converse in an undertone. Mrs. Stiles +came walking across the floor, slow and lugubrious. She bade Mrs. +Tarbell good-day. Mrs. Tarbell bowed her out as quickly as possible, +and then waited for a couple of minutes to give her time to get out of +the way. + +But on going down-stairs Mrs. Tarbell found her standing in the +door-way, holding her umbrella half open and peering out into the rain, +Mrs. Stiles explained that she was waiting for a car. + +"They run every two or three minutes," said Mrs. Tarbell sweetly. +"_Good_-day." + +"Here's one now," said Mrs. Stiles. "Mrs. Tarbell, I just wanted to +say--mebbe you might think I wasn't appreciative of your kindness, and +that all I cared about was--" + +"Not at all," said Mrs. Tarbell. "Not at all, I assure you. I +understand, perfectly. You will miss your--" + +"That's so, that's so," said Mrs. Stiles. "Driver! driver!" And she ran +down the steps, flourishing her umbrella wildly. + +Mrs. Tarbell put up her own umbrella, and looked down the street. The +rain splashed up from the pavement, the tree-boxes were wet and dismal, +the little rivers in the gutters raced along, shaking their tawny manes, +the umbrellas of the passing pedestrians were sleek and dripping, like +the coats of the seals in the Zoological Garden. Now that she was rid of +Mrs. Stiles, was it absolutely necessary for her to go out? She +hesitated a moment. + +Suddenly she heard a cry from the street. Two or three men in front of +her stopped quickly, and then ran toward the prostrate figure of +somebody who had fallen from the car which had halted a few steps +farther on. The car-horses were plunging and swinging from one side of +the car to the other; the conductor had alighted and was hurrying back +toward the victim of the accident; the passengers were pushing out on +the back platform. Mrs. Stiles had slipped or been thrown down on the +muddy car-track. Mrs. Tarbell recognized her long black figure as it was +lifted up. A sad sight the poor woman was, her india-rubber cloak +spotted and streaked with mud and muddy water, her head hanging back +from her shoulders, her face the color of a miller's coat exactly,--a +dirty, grayish white,--and her arms shaking about with the motion of her +bearers. She had fainted; her bearers were looking about in the hope of +seeing an apothecary's shop, or some other such occasional hospital, +when Mrs. Tarbell accosted them. + +Mrs. Tarbell stood in the established attitude of a woman in front of a +rainy-day gutter, holding her skirts with one hand and leaning forward +at such an angle that the drippings from the mid-rib of her umbrella +fell in equal streams upon the small of her back and a point precisely +thirteen inches from the tips of her galoshes. + +"Bring her in here," cried Mrs, Tarbell, shaking her umbrella. "Bring +her in here." And she waved the umbrella in an elliptical curve about +her head. + +"Where?" said the foremost of those addressed, an active-looking man +with a red moustache, a wet fur cap, and an umbrella under his arm. + +"Here," said Mrs. Tarbell, thrusting her umbrella at the Land and Water +Company's building. To make her directions more accurate, she went to +the steps and nodded at the hall-way. + +"The lady is my--has just been having a consultation with me," said Mrs. +Tarbell to the man in the red moustache, "and--" + +"Which way?" said he. + +"Right up-stairs: the first door at the head of the stairs, on the third +floor. I think you had better take her up in the elevator, because--" + +"Cert'nly, cert'nly," he said, interrupting Mrs. Tarbell, who had +intended to be as brief and business-like as possible. + +Mrs. Tarbell followed the procession into the elevator, and when they +arrived on the third floor, John, the office-boy, had already opened the +door, scenting an excitement afar off with curious nostril, as it were; +and Mrs. Stiles was duly carried in and laid on the sofa. "John, get +some water instantly," cried Mrs. Tarbell. And at the same moment a +red-cheeked young man bustled into the room and said that he was a +doctor. + +He pushed everybody out of the way, darted to the sofa, took off his +hat. "Heard there was an accident, and if my services--unless there is +another practitioner--thank you, sir, you are doing the very best thing +possible; and now let us see whether there is a fracture," he said. + +The promptitude and directness with which this young gentleman went to +work commanded the attention and admiration of all the spectators. He +asked for water, he called for salts of ammonia, he ran his hands +lightly over Mrs. Stiles's prostrate form, all in an instant; then he +asked how the accident had happened. + +"She tried to get on while the car was going," growled the conductor, +who had accompanied the party up-stairs. + +"I'll _bet_ she didn't," observed the party with the red moustache. + +"Ankle, probably," murmured the doctor to himself. "Possibly a rib +also." And in a minute or two he was able to declare that the injury had +been done to the lady's ankle, the lady herself having assisted him to +this conclusion by coming to her senses, groaning, and putting her hand +down to the suffering joint. + +The conductor frowned. "What is the lady's name and address, please, +ma'am?" he asked of Mrs. Tarbell. "I have to make a report of the +accident." + +"_You_'ll find it out soon enough," said a thin man with a fresh +complexion, very silvery hair, and spectacles. "The company will not +have to wait long for the information." He looked about with a cheerful +smile, and the conductor glared at him contemptuously. "_She_ never +tried to get on while you were going," continued the thin man. "It was +your driver; that's what it was." + +"The lady's name is Stiles, conductor," said Mrs. Tarbell,--"Stiles; and +she lives--dear me!--on Pulaski Street. Can I do anything for you, +doctor?" + +"You might send your boy for a carriage," said the doctor, who was +engaged in removing Mrs. Stiles's shoe. "Nothing else, thank you, unless +you happen to have some lead-water about you." He gave a professional +smile, and Mrs. Stiles groaned dismally. + +Mrs. Tarbell despatched John for the carriage, and then, turning, and +blushing in a way that was rather out of keeping with her tone of voice, +she said, "Now, I should be obliged if you gentlemen who saw the +accident would furnish me with your names and addresses." + +On hearing this the crowd began to diminish rapidly; but the man with +the red moustache set a good example by giving his name loudly and +promptly as "Oscar B. Mecutchen, tobacconist, d'reckly opposite the City +Hall." So three or four other men allowed Mrs. Tarbell to set them down +as observers of the disaster. The gentleman in spectacles was named +Stethson, another man, a tall, fat-cheeked countryman, Vickers, and a +dried up little party, in a Grand-Army-of-the-Republic suit, +Parthenheimer. Mrs. Tarbell had the names down pat, and scrutinized each +prospective witness carefully, as if warning him that it would be no use +for him to give a fictitious name in the hope of evading his duties, as +she would now be able to pick him out of a regiment. + +"I am very much obliged to you," she said, in a stately manner. "Now, +you all agree that the accident was the result of the negligence of the +driver of the car?" + +"Why, yes, certainly," they all agreed at once. + +"Leastways--" said Mecutchen. + +"That is--" said Parthenheimer. + +"How was it, anyway?" asked Stethson. + +"Thought you saw it," cried the others, turning on him instantly. + +"So I did," said Stethson; "but I thought I'd like to hear what you +gentlemen's impression was." + +"Well," said Mecutchen and Vickers, the tall man, together, tipping back +their hats with a simultaneous and precisely similar movement on the +part of each,--nothing is more indicative of the careful independence of +the average American than the way in which he always keeps his head +covered in the presence of his lawyer,--"Well," said Vickers and +Mecutchen. + +Mr. Mecutchen bowed to Mr. Vickers, and Mr. Vickers bowed to Mr. +Mecutchen, with a sort of grotesque self-effacement. Mr. Vickers waved +his hand, and Mr. Mecutchen proceeded. + +"Why," said he, "the lady stopped the car in the middle of the +block,--just like a woman,--got on the platform, car started with a +jerk, and she fell off." + +Vickers and Parthenheimer nodded assent, but Stethson said that _his_ +view of it was that the car started off again while she was trying to +get on. + +"That makes it stronger," said Mecutchen. + +"Well, of course," said Stethson, settling his spectacles farther back +on his nose; and Vickers murmured that you couldn't have it too strong, +as he knew from the point of view (as he said) of cows. "It's wonderful +what you can get for cows," he added pensively. + +"Ag'in' a railroad company," said the grizzled old Parthenheimer, "the +stronger the better, because some cases, no matter how aggerawated they +are, you only git a specific sum and no damages. But a railroad case, +which is a damage case right through, the worse they are the more you +git. I had a little niece to be killed by a freight-train, and they took +off that pore little girl's head, and her right arm, and her left leg, +all three, like it was done by a mowing-machine,--so clean cut, you +know. Well, sir, they got a werdick for six thousand dollars, my brother +and his wife did; and their lawyer stood to it that the mangling brought +in three thousand; and I think he was right about it, too." + +"Six thousand!" said Vickers, with immense appreciation. + +"The court set it aside for being excessive," said Parthenheimer," and +aft'werds they compromised for less. But there it was. And the way it +was done was odd, too. Right arm and left leg." + +"Ah," said Vickers, "living right on a railroad, the way I do, you see +some queerer accidents than that. Now, I remember--" + +But Mrs. Tarbell found this conversation growing quite too ghastly to be +listened to with composure, so she turned abruptly toward the sofa. The +doctor was now bathing and examining Mrs. Stiles's ankle, and Mrs. +Stiles looked not merely the picture but the dramatic materialization of +misery. + +"How do you feel now, Mrs. Stiles? How do you think she is, doctor?" +These two questions were put in Mrs. Tarbell's sweetest tones. + +Mrs. Stiles lay for a moment without answering, but the doctor replied +that he was afraid it was a nasty business. "There is a dislocation, and +there may be nothing more, except a sprain," he said. "But it will be +impossible to tell until the swelling is reduced; and if there is a +fracture of the fibula, why, such a complication is apt to be serious." + +Mrs. Stiles groaned feebly, and then looked up at Mrs. Tarbell with +gratitude. "I never thought to be so much trouble to you," she murmured. + +"Do not think of that for a moment," said Mrs. Tarbell. "If I only had +my cologne-bottle," she said, half aloud, in an apologetic voice. This +was one of the luxuries she had refused herself in her professional +toilet; more than this, she did not allow herself to carry a +smelling-bottle, though Mr. Juddson had told her it could be used with +great effect to disconcert an opposing counsel. + +"I am afraid you are suffering very much," she went on. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles sadly. "If I hadn't only been such a fool +as to try to get on that there car while it was a-going." + +Mrs. Tarbell started. The doctor rose and laughed. + +"You don't mean that," said he. + +"Mean what, doctor?" + +"That you tried to get on while the car was going. All these gentlemen +here say the car started while you were trying to get on, which is a +very different thing, you know." The doctor had evidently kept his ears +open while attending to the sufferer. Mrs. Tarbell, rather red in the +face, kept silent, not knowing exactly what she ought to do. + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Stiles feebly. "I don't s'pose I remember +much." + +"Of course you don't," said the doctor cheerfully. "Bless you, you'll +sue the company and have a famous verdict; I wouldn't take ten thousand +dollars for your chances if I had them. You observe," he went on +confidentially to Mrs. Tarbell, "I am doing my best for the community of +interests which, ought to exist among the learned professions. I raise +this poor woman's spirits by suggesting to her dreams of enormous +damages, and at the same time I promote litigation, to the great +advantage of her lawyer. I think that is the true scientific spirit." + +"I--I--" began Mrs. Tarbell, in some confusion. + +"Beg pardon?" said the doctor. "Well, I must be off. I've done all I can +for the poor woman. She ought to send for her own doctor as soon as she +gets home. I suppose--will you--?" He looked at Mrs. Tarbell doubtfully, +as if wondering whether he ought to take it for granted that she was in +charge of the case. + +"I will tell her," said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"I could tell her myself," said the doctor. "To be sure. Well, if I +could only inform her lawyer what I've done for him, he might induce my +fair patient to employ me permanently." He smiled at his joke, shook his +head waggishly, and turned to look for his hat. + +As Mrs. Tarbell looked after him in some perplexity, John, the +office-boy, came back to report that the carriage was engaged and at the +door; and Mrs. Stiles was presently carried down-stairs again, it being +quite impossible for her even to limp. + +But before she was lifted up she turned her head and beckoned to Mrs. +Tarbell. + +"Could I," she said,--"could I have a case against the railway company?" + +"Ye-es,--I suppose so," Mrs. Tarbell answered. + +"Did they say it was the fault of the conductor that I fell off that +car?" + +"Of the driver,--yes." + +"Well, then, ma'am, would you advise me to bring a case against them?" + +"You had better decide for yourself," said Mrs. Tarbell faintly. But +then, remembering that it was her duty to advise, she added, "Yes, I +think you ought to sue." + +"Then you'll take the case, Mrs. Tarbell, won't you, please?" said Mrs. +Stiles, closing her eyes again, as if satisfied of the future. + +Mrs. Tarbell! There was a general movement of surprise as the lady +lawyer's name was pronounced, and the doctor was so much taken aback +that heh burst out laughing. + +"I'm sure I beg your pardon, Mrs. Tarbell," he cried. "I had no idea in +the world--" + +"Ah," said Stethson, "I looked at the sign on the door coming in. I knew +it was the lady lawyer. My, if my wife could see you, Mrs. Tarbell!" + +"And I never knew who I was talking to!" grumbled Mecutchen disgustedly. + +A quarter of an hour later, when Mr. Juddson returned to his office, +Mrs. Tarbell was engaged in drawing up a paper which ran as follows: + + +ANNETTE GORSLEY STILES } _Court of Common_ +vs. } _Pleas._ +THE BLANK AND DASH } _May Term, 1883._ +AVENUES PASSENGER } _No_. ---- +RAILWAY CO. } + +_To the Prothonotary of the said Court_: + +Issue summons in case returnable the first +Monday in May, 1883. + +TARBELL, +pro plff. + + +It was a _precipe_ for a writ. + +"Alexander!" said Mrs. Tarbell, in an expressive voice, regardless of +the office-boy. + +"Yes?" said Mr. Juddson. The referee had refused to admit some of his +testimony. + +"Alexander, I have a client," said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Do you tell me so?" replied Mr. Juddson absently, as he redisarranged +the papers upon his table. "I hope--Bless me, where _is_ that--? Mrs. +Tarbell, have you seen anything of an envelope?--John, what became of +the papers in Muggins and Bylow? I gave them to you." + +Mrs. Tarbell, deeply mortified, resumed her occupation, and completed +the _precipe_ by writing the words, "Tarbell, pro plff." + +Mr. Juddson's papers were found for him, under his nose, and he was +beginning to say that he was going out to lunch, when the enormity of +his conduct made itself apparent to him. + +"By George!" he said, stopping short, "you told me you had a client at +last, eh, Mrs. Tarbell?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Tarbell coldly. + +"Why,--bless my soul! It's your first client, is it not? And what kind +of a case has your ewe-lamb brought you? Come, tell me about it. I did +not properly appreciate the communication." And he went over to Mrs. +Tarbell's desk, upon which he sat himself down in a position which Mrs. +Tarbell had formerly considered very undignified; but now she could not +help feeling that it was really a legal attitude. + +She looked up with a smile, and then, though with a little shame, +displayed the _precipe_. + +"Well, that's good," said Mr. Juddson. "Accident case, I suppose. What +is it? Death, and damages for the widow?--for I see there are no +children,--or was the plaintiff herself the victim of the accident? Your +sex has finally decided to stand by you, it seems." + +"I shan't send out the writ just yet," said Mrs. Tarbell, blushing. "I +was--wanted to see how the _precipe_ would look. I must see the +plaintiff again, I think, before I advise her definitely to sue." + +"Hasn't she a case?" + +"Yes--but--" + +"What nonsense!" cried Juddson. "Come, my dear, don't be a goose, and +don't lose a return-day. Otherwise, I shall buy you a sewing-machine." + +"Aren't you pleased, Alexander?" said Mrs. Tarbell, with a little +effusion. + +"My dear, I'm delighted. I hope that in five years' time you will be +supporting me and my family. Your sister-in-law will be speechless with +jealousy. I congratulate you. Hum--The Blank and Dash Avenues Company? +Well, you won't have to send John very far with your copies of the +pleadings. Pope was appointed attorney for the company last week, in +place of old Slyther, who resigned, you know." + +"Pope?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Yes,--the Honorable Franklin." + +"Goodness!" said Mrs. Tarbell, in a tone of inexpressible disgust. + +"By jingo; you are not fond of him, are you? Hem! Well, as a general +rule, I should advise you to put personal feelings entirely out of the +question; but, as this is your first case, perhaps it would be just as +well for you to have me with you, and let me--hum--well, let me take the +jury." + +"Alexander! do you think I am _afraid_ of Mr. Pope?" + +"N-no; but Pope is a blackguard, and very shady, and, it might be +unpleasant for you; and I'd do that, if I were you." + +Mrs. Tarbell's spirits rose. "I will do nothing of the sort, Alexander," +she said; "though it is very kind of you to suggest it; and I will--I +will bet you,"--determinedly,--" I will bet you a copy of the new +edition of Baxter's Digest that I beat him." + +THOMAS WHARTON. + + + + +A CARCANET. + +I give thee, love, a carcanet +With all the rainbow splendor set, +Of diamonds that drink the sun. +Of emeralds that feed upon +His light as doth the evergreen, +A memory of spring between +This frost of whiter pearls than snow, +And warmth of violets below +A wreath of opalescent mist, +Where blooms the tender amethyst. +Here, too, the captives of the mine-- +The sapphire and the ruby--shine, +Rekindling each a hidden spark, +Unquenched by buried ages dark, +Nor dimmed beneath the jewelled skies, +Save by the sunlight of thine eyes. + +JOHN B. TABB. + + + + + +IN A SALT-MINE. + + +There were five of us. The little New-Yorker, plump, blonde, and pretty, +I call Cecilia: that is not her name, but if she suggested any saint it +was the patron saint of music. Her soul was full of it, and it ran off +the ends of her fingers in the most enchanting manner. Elise, half +French, as you would see at a glance, was from the Golden Gate,--as +dainty and pretty a bit of femininity as ever wore French gowns with the +inimitable American air. Elise could smile her way straight through the +world. All barriers gave way before her dimples, and with her on board +ship we never feared icebergs at sea, feeling confident they would melt +away before her glance. Thirdly, there was myself, and then I come to +the masculine two-fifths of our party. First, the curate. He was young +in years and in his knowledge of the great world. His parish had sent +him to the Continent with us to regain his somewhat broken health. He +sometimes spoke of himself as a shepherd, and he liked to talk of the +Church as his bride: he always blushed when he looked straight at Elise. +Cecilia liked him because his clerical coat gave tone to the party, and +his dignity was sufficient for us all, thus saving us the trouble of +assuming any. Lastly, there was Samayana, which was not his name either, +from Bombay,--a real, live East-Indian nabob. In his own country he +travelled with three tents, a dozen servants, as many horses, and always +carried his laundress with him. Yet he never seemed lonely with +us,--which we thought very agreeable in him. Crawford had just created +Mr. Isaacs, and we fancied there was a resemblance,--barring the +wives,--and he told us such graphic stories of life in India that we +were not always sure in just which quarter of the globe we were touring. +Both Samayana and the curate were picturesque--for men. Two beings more +opposed never came together, yet they liked each other thoroughly. +Samayana was greatly admired in European society for his color, his gift +as a _raconteur_, and the curious rings he wore. He was very dusky, and +Cecilia, being very blonde, valued him as a most effective foil and +adjunct. We were seeing Germany in the most leisurely fashion, courting +the unexpected and letting things happen to us. + +On the day of which I write we spent the early morning on the Königsee, +in Bavaria, the loveliest sheet of water in Germany, vying in grandeur +with any Swiss or Italian lake. Its color is that of the pheasant's +breast, and the green mountain-sides, almost perpendicular in places, +rise till their peaks are in the clouds and their snows are perpetual. +Stalwart, bronzed peasant girls, in the short skirts of the Bavarian +costume, rowed us about. A few years ago, in answer to a petition, King +Louis I. promised them that never in his reign should steam supplant +them. They laughed happily and looked proudly at their muscle when we +hinted at their being tired. + +We landed at different points and strolled into wooded valleys, visited +artificial hermitages, stopped for a bite at a restaurant connected with +a royal hunting-château, and listened lazily to Elise's telling of the +legends of the region, accompanied by the music of some little waterfall +coming from the snow above and gleefully leaping into the lake. We +crossed the rocky, wild pasture-land lying between the Königsee and the +Obersee, that tiny lake that faithfully gives back as a mirror all the +crags, peaks, and snowy heights which hide it away there as if it were +indeed the precious opal you may fancy it to be when viewed from above. + +We drifted back to the little inn, where we were approached by a +respectful _Kutscher_, who asked if we would not like to go down into a +salt-mine. Whatever we did, it was with one accord, and the answer came +in chorus, "_Ja, gewiss!_" Elise glanced down at her dainty toilet, a +look instantly interpreted by the _Kutscher_, who explained that +costumes for the descent were furnished, that the exploration was not +fatiguing, and that the carriages were ready. + +It was all done in an "_Augenblick_," the bill was paid, the _Trinkgeld_ +was scattered, and we were rattling away through as beautiful a region +as you will find, even in Switzerland. The snow-peaks were dazzlingly +white in the sunshine; in the ravines and defiles the darkness lingers +from night to night; singing, leaping Alpine streams came like molten +silver from the glaciers over the rocky ledges and through the hanging +forests, and a swift river ran through this happy, fertile valley of +peace and plenty in which our roadway wound. The peasants looked content +and well-to-do, and were picturesquely clothed. We stopped an old man +and bargained for the quaint, antique silver buttons on his coat, and +paid him twice its weight in silver money for the big silver buckle at +his belt. We were stopped at the frontier, and accommodatingly rose +while the custom-officers politely looked under the carriage-seats. The +wine we had just drunk was not taxable, while that we were about to +drink was: so we presented our remaining bottles to the officers to save +them the trouble of making change. Up to that time we had turned our +horses to the right: once over the Austrian line, custom demanded we +should turn to the left, a change to which the _Kutscher_ readily +accommodated himself. One is kept geographically informed in that region +by this difference in manners on the high-road in Austria and Bavaria. + +We argued a little about the fittingness of women working in the fields. +Cecilia thought it preferable to washing dishes, and one of us, who +believes herself not born to sew, maintained that to rake hay was more +agreeable than sitting at sewing-machines or making shirts at twenty +cents apiece after the manner of New-York workwomen. But once +indignation and excitement took possession of us all as we caught sight +of a bare-footed, slight young girl toiling up a ladder and carrying +mortar along a scaffold to men laying bricks on the second story of a +new building. The girl had a complexion like a rose-leaf, her uncovered +hair gleamed like gold in the sunshine, her head was exquisitely set on +her shoulders. The curate sighed deeply, Samayana uttered a strong word +in Hindoostanee, and there was a feminine cry of "Shameful!" when the +girl, putting down her load, folded her white arms, whose sinew and +muscle an athlete might have envied, and, with teeth and smile as +faultless as our Elise's, threw us down a "_Gruss Gott_!" If there ever +beamed content and happiness from human face we saw it in that of this +peasant beauty, who had no conception of our commiseration. We gave her +back a "God greet thee!" "All the same," said Cecilia indignantly, +"women should _not_ carry mortar." We had noticed that Cecilia's +indignation on account of the workingwoman of Germany was extreme if the +woman was pretty. + +We came at last to the mouth of the mine, from which issued a narrow +railway for the transportation of the salt-ore, and above, zigzag on the +mountain-side, ran the conduit carrying the salt, still in liquid form, +to the boiling-house. A waterfall four hundred feet high furnished power +for the great pump. About the entrance to the mine clustered a number of +buildings. Many carriages were already there, for it was the height of +the tourists' season, and this was the show-mine of the Salzkammergut. +Some military officers were standing about, a dozen or more natives +lounged on the piazzas, and nearly every carriage contained one or more +occupants, evidently waiting for travelling-companions then in the mine. +There was the fat woman who couldn't think of such an exploration, the +nervous woman who hated dark places and never went underground, a few +invalids and some chattering girls and young men who had previously been +through the mine and had come over from Salzburg for the drive, and some +very fine youths and young women who wouldn't be seen in a miner's +costume. There were a score or more of these travellers, and as many +more coachmen, and miners off duty, hanging about. A building on the +opposite side of the road was indicated to us ladies as the place in +which we were to change our costumes. Now, here was a pleasant gauntlet +to run in male attire! However, a hundred strangers were not to deter +us, and, _possibly_, this costume might be becoming. There were worse +figures in the world than ours, and who knew but this miners' dress +might show our forms to an advantage at which they had never been seen +before? Encouraged by the thought, we gave our treasures into safe +keeping and permitted the attendant to disrobe us. She spoke a dialect +which had little meaning to us, and we carried on our conversation by +signs. + +She hung our habiliments on pegs, giving Elise's a little womanly caress +for their prettiness. She brought in exchange a costume which made us +helpless from laughter, until we were painfully sobered by the thought +of the spectators outside. A pair of white duck trousers that might have +been made of pasteboard, so stiff were they and so defined the crease +ironed at their sides, came first. Our measures were not taken. The +attendant accommodatingly turned them up about ten inches at the bottom, +the edge then coming to our ankles, which somehow looked very +insignificant and as if protruding from paper shoe-boxes that had been +sat upon. These nether garments extended beyond us at either side to +such a distance that that roundness of form which we had fancied this +costume might display was not in the least perceptible. A black alpaca +jacket reaching to our knees came next. These, too, had been warranted +to fit the biggest woman who might visit the Salzkammergut, and one +would easily have taken in all three of us. Elise, always ingenious, +found hers so long on the shoulder that she fitted her elbow into the +armsize. We pinned them up here and pinned them in there, and tucked +our hair into little black caps, and fastened the broad leather belt +about our waists, stuck a lantern in at the side, and announced +ourselves in readiness. The dressing-maid, however, was not done with +us. She brought three very heavy leathern aprons, attached to strong +waist-bands. The leather was three-quarters of an inch thick; and I need +not add that these square aprons did not take graceful folds. Elise, +after regarding the curious article a moment, decided it would be no +addition to her toilet, and politely declined it. Cecilia's _nez +retroussé_ went yet higher up in the air. Feeling that the maid knew +better than I, I meekly put one on as I had been taught from my babyhood +to wear an apron, when a sudden twitch brought it around _behind_. She +quickly adjusted the others in the same fashion. We dared not look at +each other, and each assumed a manner as if attired in the court costume +of the country; but I venture to say that more grotesque, ridiculous +creatures never went out into the daylight, Cecilia, going first, wisely +did not attempt to go through the door full front, and we sidled after +her to avoid collision between our stiff sail-like trousers and the +door-jambs. + +We tried to believe that clothes do not make the woman,--they do much +toward it,--and with an air of great dignity went into the face of that +miscellaneous company, to be greeted with a terrific and tremendous +shout of laughter. A panic seized us, and I found myself standing stock +still in the middle of the road, as if stage-struck, the others running +like the wind. It was for a moment only, and I followed, the laughter +sounding more and more demoniacal to my ears. I was impelled as never +before in my life. Was some one striking me from behind? It was that +diabolical leathern apron giving me a blow at every step, its violence +increasing with my ever-accelerated speed. How grateful the shelter of +that cave-like aperture in the mountain, where stood the gentlemen +similarly attired, the curate so absurd that we forgot all about his +other "cloth" and laughed immoderately in his face. Samayana was still +picturesque. Cecilia was in a rage. "I'll never cross that road again +before those horrid people, if I stay here a thousand years!" she +exclaimed, with flashing eyes; and Elise breathlessly gasped, +"Oh-that-awful-apron! It-beat-me-as-I-ran,-like-a-whip. +I-felt-like-a-donkey-pursued-by-the-donkey-boy!" + +The guide lighted our lanterns, and, with a last hysterical laugh, we +followed him into the earth, through long, narrow, humid passage-ways, +the temperature not unpleasant, other passage-ways branching off and +suggesting the labyrinth which we knew extended for a great distance in +every direction. We finally came to a lighted chamber, the entrance to +the shaft. The flickering lights showed us the end of a great, smooth, +wooden beam, which, at an angle of forty-five degrees, seemed to be +going down into darkness, ending nowhere, as far as we could see. We had +not been prepared in our minds for this descent or the manner in which +it was to be made. The miner placed himself astride the great beam, +keeping his position by holding on to a rope. He put Elise behind him, +and, drawing her arms around his waist, clasped her hands in front of +him. The curate was then requested to mount the wooden horse and embrace +Elise firmly. He hesitated but a moment, and in another I found myself +behind him, hanging for dear life on to the English shepherd, to be in +turn encircled by Samayana, and last of all came Cecilia, doing her best +to get her plump little arms around the Indian. The darkness below was a +trifle appalling. We were cautioned not to unclasp our hands, lest we +should lose them, and naturally we clung the closer to each other. + +There was just a moment of suspense and suppressed excitement, when, +with a sharp cry, the miner loosened his hold, and by the impulse of our +own weight we shot, with a velocity not to be described, two hundred and +forty-feet into the earth. The miner acting as a brake brought us up +gently enough, so that we felt scarcely anything of a shock. Cecilia, to +be sure, left her breath about two-thirds of the way up, and suffered +some inconvenience till she accumulated more, and the curate forgot to +loosen his hold on Elise for an unpardonable length of time, while he +gathered his wits, and I could feel that he was blushing when he came to +his senses. It was in adjusting our attire that we discovered the +necessity and value of our leathern aprons. Had we been plunged into a +pool of water we should have sizzled. They were hot from the friction. +They speedily became our dearest of friends and possessions, for we had +three more of these shafts to slide down, and we grew faint at the bare +thought of losing them. Cecilia, after our second slide, suggested, in a +language the gentlemen did not understand, that she would like her turn +at being embraced, since she always lost her breath at the start and was +afraid. This remark met with no response, as neither Elise nor I wanted +to run the risk of being lost off behind, and felt a selfish sense of +security that made the shooting of the shafts delightful and somewhat +similar to the coasting and sliding down balusters of our childhood. + +We traversed many long galleries on different levels. Through some of +these ran the aqueduct which brought the fresh water in, and another +which conveyed the salt water out, twenty miles away. We were in the +bosom of a mountain of salt rock, which is constantly forming, and is +therefore a never-ending source of wealth. For centuries this mine has +been worked. The salt rock is quarried and carried out in the form of +rock-salt. Another method of obtaining salt is by conveying water into +the large, excavated chambers, drawing it off and boiling down when it +becomes impregnated. This water attracts and dissolves the saline +matter, but, as water cannot so affect the slaty portion of the rock, it +leaves it often in most fantastic shapes, sometimes as pillars or +depending, curtain-like sheets. These chambers kept full of water are +constantly changing their level on the withdrawal of the liquid. After +three or four weeks two feet of the roof will be found to have been +dissolved and two feet of _débris_ found upon the floor. Curiously +enough, this _débris_ in time acquires the property of the salt rock. +There are chambers above chambers, some of them five hundred yards in +circumference, and miles of galleries. One of these chambers, which was +illuminated, showed floor, walls, and ceiling of pure rock-salt, very +lovely in color, though not so brilliant as in the mine of Wieliczka, +which is likened to four subterranean cities, one below the other, hewn +from rose-colored rock. Samayana secured of our guide red, yellow, blue, +and purple specimens. + +The miners are obliged to divest themselves of all clothing when at +their dangerous work, as any garment will so absorb the salt as to +become hard and brittle, tearing the skin painfully. They must be +relieved every few hours, and, though short-lived, they work for a +pittance an American laborer would scorn. + +Descending a flight of steps after shooting the third shaft, we came +upon a scene which filled us with wonder. There, far down in the earth, +lay a tiny tranquil lake of inky blackness, its borders outlined with +blazing torches. At the extreme end were the entwined letters "F.J." +(Franz Joseph), gleaming in candle-lights, and over our heads the +miners' greeting, _"Glück auf!"_ traced in fire. On the pink salt-rock +roof--the miners call it _der Himmel_--rested the fearful weight of the +superincumbent mountain. It was an awful thought, and the curate did not +hesitate an instant in seizing Elise's outstretched hand, as if she were +seeking, and he glad to give, a bit of comfort in this +strangely-impressive place. We entered a little boat waiting to take us +across the Salz Sea to the opposite shore. There was not a sound, save +the dipping of the oar. We tasted the black water. The Dead Sea cannot +be salter. We were hushed and oppressed, as if each felt the weight of +the great mountain-mass over us. + +The miners were not at work on that day, but like gnomes they were +silently coming and going in the shadows, never omitting the "_Glück +auf!_" as they met and parted. There were long, weary stairs to climb. +Finally we came to a little car running on a narrow inclined track. In +this we went rapidly through galleries and dry chambers, and finally +were propelled into the daylight with an unexpected velocity. We had +become quite accustomed to our attire, but declined the proposition of +the photographer, who wished to turn his camera upon us for the benefit +of friends in America, and we gained the dressing-room with much more +composure than we had felt when leaving it. + +It is believed that these mines were worked in the first century; and +many a grave has been opened in excavating which gave up bones and +copper ornaments once belonging to Celtic salt-miners of the third and +fourth centuries. Towers erected in the thirteenth century are still +strongholds. The whole region, too, is full of salt-springs. The lofty +mountains and rich valleys, the sequestered lakes and blue-gray rivers +with their waterfalls, and the old castles, quaint costumes, and +legends, make it a tempting country for such ease-loving travellers as +were we five, and for the intrepid Alpine climber it offers almost as +much as any part of Switzerland. + +That night we drove into Mozart's birthplace just as the Salzburg chimes +were playing an evening hymn of his composing. The curate and Elise +seemed to have found something down in the salt-mine of which they did +not choose to talk, and, as we bade each other good-night, Cecilia said, +"I'm glad I did it, but _I_ wouldn't go down there again: would _you_?" +and Sarnayana and I thought we wouldn't; but the others looked as if +ready to repeat the excursion the following day. + +P.S.--Elise and the curate are to be married, and the parish is to have +a shepherdess. Cecilia, Samayana, and I have no doubt of its being a +love-match. She never could marry him after seeing him in a salt-mine +costume if she didn't love him. MARGERY DEANE. + + + + +ANTHONY CALVERT BROWN. + + +First, as my grandfather used to tell, there were the woods and the +Oneida Indians and the Mohawks; then the forest was cleared away, and +there was the broad, fertile, grassy, and entrancingly-beautiful Mohawk +valley; then came villages and cities and my own unimportant existence, +and at about the same time appeared the Oneida Institute. This +institution of learning is my first point. The Oneida Institute, located +in the village of Whitesboro, four miles from Utica, in the State of New +York, consisted visibly of three elongated erections of painted, +white-pine clapboards, with shingle roofs. Each structure was three +stories high and was dotted with lines of little windows. There was a +surrounding farm and gardens, in which the students labored, that might +attract attention at certain hours of the day, when the laborers were at +work in them; but the buildings were the noticeable feature. Seated in +the deep green of the vast meadows on the west bank of the willow-shaded +Mohawk, these staring white edifices were very conspicuous. The middle +one was turned crosswise, as if to keep the other two, which were +parallel, as far apart as possible. This middle one was also crowned +with a fancy cupola, whereby the general appearance of the group was +just saved to a casual stranger from the certainty of its being the +penitentiary or almshouse of the county. + +The glory of this institution was not in its architecture or lands, but +in that part which could not be seen by the bodily eyes. For, +spiritually speaking, Oneida Institute was an immense battering-ram, +behind which Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, and Rev. Beriah Green +were constantly at work, pounding away to destroy the walls which +slavery had built up to protect itself. + +Mr. Green was president of the institute, and was the soul and heart and +voice of its faculty. His power to mould young men was phenomenal. It +was a common saying that he turned out graduates who were the perfect +image of Beriah Green, except the wart. The wart was a large one, which, +being situated in the centre of Mr. Green's forehead, seemed to be a +part of his method to those who were magnetized by his personality or +persuaded by his eloquence. + +About 1845, when I began to be an observing boy, it was understood +throughout Oneida County that Beriah Green was an intellectual giant, +and that he would sell his life, if need be, to befriend the colored +man. Oneida Institute was a refuge for the oppressed, quite as much as a +place where the students were magnetized and taught to weed onions. +Fifteen years before John Brown paused in his march to the gallows to +kiss a negro baby I saw Beriah Green walk hand in hand along the +sidewalk with a black man and fondle the hand he held conspicuously. +Among his intimates were Ward and Garnet, both very black, as well as +very talented and very eloquent. + +When "the friends of the cause" met in convention, I sometimes heard of +it, and managed, boy-like, to steal in. When I did so, I used to sit and +shudder on a back seat in the little hall. The anti-slavery +denunciations poured out upon the churches, and backed up and pushed +home by the logic of Green and the eloquence of Smith, were well +calculated to make an orthodox boy tremble. For these people brought the +churches and the nation before their bar and condemned them, and some +whom I have not named cursed them with a bitterness and effectiveness +that I cannot recall to this day without a shiver. The dramatic effect, +as it then seemed to me, has never been equalled in my experience. + +That these extreme ideas did not prosper financially is not to be +wondered at. The farm was soon given up, then the buildings and gardens +passed into other hands, and the institution became a denominational +school, known as the Whitestown Baptist Seminary. But the ideas which +had been implanted there would not consent to depart with this change in +the name and the methods of the institution. The fact that Beriah Green, +after leaving the school, continued to reside at Whitesboro and gathered +a church there rendered it the more difficult to eradicate the doctrines +which he had implanted. The idea of friendship for the black man was +particularly tenacious, and perhaps annoying to the new and controlling +denominational interest. It clung to the very soil, like "pusley" in a +garden. It had gained a strong hold throughout the county. The managers +of the institution could not openly oppose it. They were compelled to +endure it. And so it continued to be true that if a bright colored boy +anywhere in the State desired the advantages of a superior education he +would direct his steps to Whitestown Seminary. + +It was during these seminary days that I became a student at the +institution; and it was here that I met the hero of my story, Anthony +Calvert Brown. He was as vigorous and manly a youth of seventeen as I +have ever seen. We two were regarded as special friends. He had been +among us nearly two months, and had become a general favorite, before it +was discovered that he had a tinge of African blood. The revelation of +this fact was made to us on the play-ground. A fellow student, who had +come with Anthony to the school, made the disclosure. The two were +comrades, and had often told us of their adventures together in the +great North woods, or Adirondack forests, on the western border of +which, in a remote settlement, they had their homes. Their friendship +did not prevent them from falling into a dispute, and it did not prevent +Anthony's comrade, who was in fact a bully, from descending to +personalities. He hinted in very expressive terms that the son of a +colored woman must not be too positive. The meanness of such an +insinuation, made at such a time and in such a way, did not diminish its +sting. Perhaps it increased it. We saw Anthony, who had stood a moment +before cool and defiant, turn away cowed and subdued, his handsome face +painfully suffused. His behavior was a confession. + +I am sorry to say that after this incident Anthony did not hold the same +position in our esteem that he had previously enjoyed. Some half-dozen +of us who cherished the old Institute feeling were inclined to make a +hero of him, but by degrees the sentiment of the new management +prevailed, and it was understood that Anthony was to be classed with +those who must meekly endure an irreparable misfortune. But Anthony did +not seem to yield to this view. He was very proud, and braced himself +firmly against it. He withdrew more and more from his schoolmates and +devoted his time to books. In the matter of scholarship he gained the +highest place, and held it to the close of our two-years' course. In the +mean time, his peculiarities were often made the subject of remark among +us. His growing reserve and dignity, his reputation as a scholar, and +his reticence and isolation were frequently discussed. And there was the +mystery of his color. It was a disputed question among us whether the +African taint could be detected in his appearance. Ray, the comrade who +had revealed it, claimed that it was plainly perceptible, while +Yerrinton, the oldest student among us, declared that there was not a +trace of it to be seen. He argued that Anthony was several shades +lighter than Daniel Webster, and he asserted enthusiastically that he +had various traits in common with that great statesman. But, then, +Yerrinton was a disciple of Beriah Green, and his opinion was not +regarded as unbiassed. For myself, I could never detect any appearance +of African blood in Anthony, although my knowledge of its existence +influenced my feelings toward him. To me he seemed to carry himself +with a noble bearing,--under a shadow, it is true, yet as if he were a +king among us. I remember thinking that his broad forehead, +slightly-Roman nose, mobile lips, and full features wore a singularly +mournful and benevolent expression, like the faces sometimes seen in +Egyptian sculpture. + +I did not discuss the matter of his peculiarities with Anthony freely +until after our school-days at the seminary were ended and he had left +Whitestown. His first letter to me was a partial revelation of his +thoughts upon the subject of his own character and feelings. He had gone +to Philadelphia to teach in a large school, while I remained with my +relatives in Whitesboro. He wrote me that he was troubled in regard to +certain matters of which he had never spoken to any one, not even to me, +and he thought it would be a good thing for him to present them for +consideration, if I was willing to give him the benefit of my counsel. +In reply I urged that he should confide in me fully, assuring him of my +desire to assist him to the utmost of my ability. + +The communication which I received in response to my invitation was to +some extent a surprise. The letter was a very long one, and very vivid +and expressive. He began it by alluding to the incident upon the +play-ground, which had occurred nearly two years before. He said that +his life had been guarded, up to about that time, from feeling the +effects of the misfortunes which attach to the colored race. Living in a +remote settlement and a very pleasant home, where all were free and +equal and social distinctions almost unknown, he had scarcely thought of +the fact that his mother was an octoroon. He had heard her talk a great +deal about those distinguished French gentlemen who had in the early +part of this century acquired lands in the vicinity of his home, and he +had somehow a feeling that she had been remotely connected with them, +and that his own lineage was honorable. He alluded specifically to Le +Ray de Chaumont and Joseph Bonaparte. These two men, and others their +countrymen, who had resided or sojourned upon the edge of the great +wilderness near his birthplace, had been his ideals from childhood. He +had often visited Lake Bonaparte, and had frequently seen the home +formerly occupied by Le Ray. While he had understood that he himself was +only plain Anthony C. Brown, the son of Thomas Brown (a white man who +had died some two months before his son's birth), he had yet an +impression that his mother was in some vague way connected with the +great personages whom he mentioned. How it was that Thomas Brown had +come to marry his mother, or what the details of her early life had +been, he did not know, being, in fact, ignorant of his family history. +He conceded that it might be only his own imagination that had led him +to suppose that he was in some indefinite way to be credited with the +greatness of those wealthy landed proprietors who had endeavored to +establish manorial estates or seigniories in the wilderness. He had come +to understand that this unexplainable impression of superiority and +connection with the great, which had always been with him in childhood +and early youth, was due to his mother's influence and teaching. There +was about it nothing direct and specific, and yet it had been instilled +into his mind, in indirect ways, until it was an integral part of his +existence. His mother had a farm and cattle and money. She was in better +circumstances than her neighbors. This had added to his feeling of +superiority and independence. The accident of a slight tinge of color +had hardly risen even to the dignity of a joke in the freedom of the +settlement and the forest. Looking back, he believed that his mother had +guarded his youthful mind against receiving any unfavorable impression +upon the subject. In his remote, free, wilderness home he had heard but +little of African slavery, and had regarded it as a far-off phantom, +like heathendom or witchcraft. + +Such had been the state of mind of Anthony Brown. The light had, +however, been gradually let in upon him in the course of an excursion +which he and his comrade Ray had made the year previous to their +appearance at Whitestown Seminary. In that excursion they had visited +Chicago, Cleveland, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, New +York, and Albany. They had strayed into a court-room in the City Hall at +Albany, where many people were listening to the argument of counsel who +were discussing the provisions of the will of a wealthy lady, deceased. +A colored man was mixed up in the matter in some way,--probably as +executor and legatee. Anthony heard with breathless interest the legal +disabilities of colored people set forth, and their inferior social +position commented upon. He learned that the ancestral color descended +to the children of a colored mother, although they might appear to be +white. These statements had impressed him deeply. They furnished to his +mind an explanation of the various evidences of the degradation of the +colored people he had seen upon his journey. Talking of these matters, +he had found that Ray was much better informed than himself upon the +entire subject. Ray, in fact, frankly explained that a colored man had +no chance in this country. This was in 1859. Anthony suggested in his +letter to me that he had probably been kept from acquiring this +knowledge earlier in life by his mother's anxious care and the kindness +of friends and neighbors. He explained that he did not mean to be +understood as intimating that he had not some general knowledge of the +facts previously, but it was this experience which had made him feel +that slavery was a reality and that all colored people belonged to a +despised race. After his return home he had carefully refrained from +imparting to his mother any hint of his newly-acquired impressions in +reference to the social and legal standing of the colored race. In the +enjoyment of home comforts, and in the freedom of the wild woods and +waters, the shadow which had threatened in his thoughts to descend upon +him passed away. He remembered it only as a dream which might not +trouble him again, and which he would not cherish. Still, there was a +lurking uneasiness and anxiety, born of the inexorable facts, which +favorable circumstances and youthful vivacity could not wholly overcome. + +In this state of mind Anthony, in accordance with the wish of his +mother, came to Whitestown Seminary. His description of his first +impressions there was very glowing. He wrote,-- + +"I cannot hope, my dear friend, to give you any adequate idea of what I +then experienced. For the first time in my life I found kindred spirits. +Your companionship in particular threw a light upon my pathway that made +the days all bright and gave me such joy as I had never before known. +And there was Ralph, so kind and true, and Henry Rose, so honest and +faithful! I cannot tell you how my heart embraced them. It is a simple +truth, telling less than I felt, when I say that I could scarcely sleep +for thinking of my newfound treasures. You need to remember what it is +to dwell in a rough country, isolated and remote from towns, to +appreciate my experience. To me, coming to Whitestown was a translation +to Paradise. It seems extravagant, yet it is true, that I met there +those who were dearer than my life and for whom I would have died. The +first warm friendships of youth are the purest and whitest flowers that +bloom in the soul. If these are blighted, it is forever. Such flowers in +any one life can never grow again. + +"And this brings me to that sad day when on the play-ground Ray struck +at me, and through me at my dear, loving mother. As he spoke those cruel +words the world grew dark about me, the dread fear which I had subdued +revived with tenfold power, and upon my heart came the pangs of an +indescribable anguish. Oh, the chill, the death-like chill, that froze +the current of my affections as I saw the faces of those I loved +averted! + +"I went to my room and tried to reflect, but I could not. The shock was +too great. During the week that followed I was most of the time in my +silent room. I may well call it silent, for the footsteps to which I had +been accustomed came no more, and the comrades in whose friendship I had +such delight no longer sought my company. That dreadful week was the +turning-point in my life. As it drew toward its close I realized to some +extent what I had been through, as one does who is recovering from a +severe illness. I knew that day and night I had wept and moaned and +could see no hope, no ray of light, and that I had at times forgotten my +religion and blasphemed. It is true, my dear friend, that I mocked my +God. Do not judge me hastily in this. I was without discipline or +experience, and I saw that for all sorrow except mine there was a +remedy. Even for sin there is repentance and redemption, and the pains +of hell itself may be avoided. But for my trouble there could be no +relief. The thought that I was accursed from the day of my birth, that +no effort, no sacrifice, no act of heroism, on my part could ever redeem +me, haunted my soul, and I knew that it must haunt me from that time +onward and forever. + +"I need hardly tell you, with your insight and knowledge, that these +inward struggles led toward a not unusual conclusion. I allude to the +determination to which multitudes of souls have been driven in all ages, +to escape the tortures of disgrace. I turned away from humanity and +sought that fearful desert of individual loneliness and isolation which +is now more sad and real to me than any outward object can be. To live +in the voiceless solitude and tread the barren sands unfriended is too +much for a strong man with all the aids that philosophy can give him. +But when we see one in the first flush of youth, wholly innocent, yet +turning his footsteps to the great desert to get away from the scorn of +lovers and friends, and when we realize that this which he dreads must +continue to the last hour of his life, there is to my mind a ghastliness +about it as if it were seen in the light of the pit which is bottomless. +I have not recovered, and can never recover, from that experience. You +will infer, however, that I did not remain in just the condition of mind +which I have endeavored to describe. He whom I had blasphemed came to +me, and I was penitent. The teachings of good Father Michael at our +home, the doctrines of our Church, and the examples of the blessed +saints, were my salvation. Then I felt that I would dwell alone with +God. And there was something grand about that, and very noble. The +purest joy of life is possible in such an experience. Yet it is not +enough, especially in youth. But I think I should have continued in that +frame of mind had it not been for you and Ralph. How you two came to me +and besought my friendship I need not remind you. Neither need I say how +my pride yielded; and if there was anything to forgive I forgave it, and +felt the light of friendship, which had been withdrawn from my inner +world, come back with a joy that has increased as it has continued. + +"Coming to this city of 'brotherly love,' I begin my life anew, and at +the very threshold a painful question meets me. No faces are averted, no +one suspects my social standing. A thrill of kindness is in every voice. +What can I do? Must I advertise myself as smitten with a plague? I dare +not tell you of the favors that society bestows upon me. It is but +little more than a month since I came to Philadelphia, and during that +short period I have in some strange way become popular. My sincere +effort politely to avoid society seems only to have resulted in +precipitating a shower of invitations upon me. Evidently the fact that I +am tinged with African blood is wholly unsuspected. You understand, I +think, how I gained this place as teacher in the school. It was through +the interposition of Father Michael and certain powerful Protestant +friends of his who are unknown to me. It was not my own doing, and I do +not feel that I am to blame. But I will frankly tell you that it seems +to me cowardly to go forward under false colors. One thing I am +resolved upon,--I will never be ashamed of my dear mother. Where I go +she shall go, and she shall come here if she is inclined to do so. As +you have never seen her, I may say that she is regarded as dark for an +octoroon, and with her presence no explanation will be necessary. But +ought I to wait for that? She may not choose to come. How can I best be +an honest man? It seems silly, and it would be ridiculous, to give out +generally here as a matter for the public that I am the son of a negro +woman. Yet I think it must come to that in some way. What shall I do?" + +This letter caused me to think of Anthony and his trouble much more +seriously than before. It was clear to me why he was popular. I had +never met any young man who was by nature more sympathetic and +attractive. The reserve and sadness which had recently come upon him +were not to his disadvantage socially. They rather tended to gain +attention and win the kindness of strangers. The question which his +position presented, and about which he desired my counsel, troubled me. +But, fortunately, after thinking of it almost constantly for two days, I +gave him advice which I still think correct under the circumstances. I +argued that he was not under any obligation to advertise himself to the +public as a colored man. The public did not expect or require this of +any one. But I urged that if he made any special friends among those who +entertained him socially and with whom he was intimate, he should +frankly make known to them the facts in regard to his family. I thought +this would be expected, and I was convinced that such a presentation of +his position, made without affectation, would win for him respect even +from those who might cease to court his society. I further urged that he +ought not, as a teacher, to isolate himself or shun those relations with +families which would place upon him the obligation to make known his +parentage. + +Anthony sent a brief note in reply to my letter, thanking me heartily +for what he termed my convincing statement, and expressing his +determination to act in accordance with it. + +Nearly two months passed, and then my friend communicated the further +fact that he had gone so far, in several instances, and with several +families, as to carry out the suggestions I had made. He thought it was +too soon to assert what the ultimate result would be, but stated the +immediate effects so far as he could see them. When he first made the +announcement in regard to his color, many had disbelieved it. When his +persistent and repeated declarations upon various occasions had +convinced his friends that it was not a jest, but a reality, they had +been variously affected by it. He thought some were politely leaving +him, while others seemed desirous of continuing his acquaintance. + +Ten days later I was not a little surprised to receive a letter +conveying the information that Anthony's mother had arrived in +Philadelphia in response to his invitation. He stated, in his letter to +me giving this news, that he had now carried out his entire plan and was +satisfied. His mother had visited his school, and he had introduced her +to his various friends in the city. It seemed to me a mistake thus +unnecessarily to run the risk of offending social preferences or +prejudices; but I did not feel at liberty to comment upon the matter at +the time. + +In addition to the information conveyed, the letter contained an +invitation which delighted me. Anthony wrote that he and his mother were +about returning home. The long vacation would begin in a few days, and +they wished that I should go with them for a visit. Few things could +have afforded me greater satisfaction than this. The wild +forest-country, of which my school-mate had told me much, I regarded as +peculiarly a region of romance and adventure. + +It was a beautiful morning early in July when we three, with a team and +a driver, left the Mohawk valley and climbed the Deerfield hills, making +our way northward. On the evening of the first day we readied the hills +of Steuben and gained a first glimpse of that broad, beautiful +forest-level, known as the Black River country, which stretches away +toward the distant St. Lawrence. The next day we descended to this +level, and, following the narrow road through forests, and clearings, +and little settlements, and villages, arrived just at nightfall at the +home of my friends. It was a small, unpainted, wooden house, standing +near the road. Back of it were barns and sheds, and I saw cattle and +sheep grazing. The zigzag rail fence common to the region surrounded the +cleared lots in sight, and in front of the house, across the road, were +the wild woods. A wood-thrush, or veery, was pouring out his thrilling, +liquid notes as we arrived. A white woman and a large, black, shaggy dog +came out of the house to welcome us; and a few minutes later I had the +best room, up-stairs over the front door, assigned to me, and was a +guest in the domicile of my friend Anthony. + +The location was a delightful one, about three miles west of the little +village of Champion, near which was a small lake, where we spent many +morning hours. From a height not far away we had glimpses, in clear +weather, of the mountains, seen in airy outline toward the eastward. + +My friend had the horses and wagons of the farm at his command, and we +took many long rides to visit places of interest. On several occasions +we saw the decaying chateau of Le Ray, which was but little more than an +hour's ride to the northward of Anthony's home; and on one occasion we +went a day's journey and saw the stony little village of Antwerp, and +visited that beautiful sheet of water on the margin of the wilderness, +known as Lake Bonaparte. Joseph Bonaparte frequently visited this lake, +and he owned lands in its vicinity, and made some improvements upon them +in 1828. + +Anthony's mother was a tall, spare woman, with a wrinkled face and +large, straight features. She seemed to me a curious mixture of European +features with a dark skin. She used French phrases in a peculiar way, +and was full of the history of Le Ray and Bonaparte and various members +of the company that had undertaken to make of this section, in years +gone by, a rich and fertile country like the Mohawk valley. It appeared +that the name which the company had given to this region was Castorland, +which she interpreted to mean the land of the beaver. She had, among +other curiosities, some coins or tokens which had been stamped in Paris +on behalf of the company, and on which the word "Castorland," +accompanied by suitable devices, was plainly seen. The one that +interested me most seemed to have as its device the representation of a +small dog trying to climb a tree. I was informed, however, that the +animal was a beaver, and that he was cutting down the tree with his +teeth. + +After talking freely with the mother, Antoinette Brown, I did not wonder +that Anthony had learned to honor the gentlemen who had come from France +to this region in early days as among the greatest men in the world. I +did not find myself able to discredit her realistic and vivid +description of the visits of Joseph Bonaparte to his wilderness domain +in a six-horse chariot, followed by numerous retainers. Neither did I +find myself able to disbelieve in the accuracy of her picturesque +description of Joseph Bonaparte's Venetian gondola floating upon the +waters of Northern New York, or her account of his dinner-service of +"golden plate" spread out by the road-side on one memorable occasion +when he paused in his kingly ride and dined in a picturesque place near +the highway. She told in a convincing manner many traditions relating to +the enterprise which was to have made of the Black-River country a rich +farming region not inferior to the Mohawk Flats. The fact that nature +had not seconded this undertaking had not diminished Mrs. Brown's +impressions of its magnitude and importance. The great tracts which had +been purchased and the great men who had purchased them were vividly +impressed upon her imagination. In reference to her personal history, +except for a few allusions to life in New York City, she was reticent. + +I remained nearly two months at the home of my friend, and became +familiar with the places of interest surrounding it. The little lake was +a memorable spot, for there Anthony first told me the full story of his +experiences in Philadelphia. He did not conceal the fact that an +attachment was growing up between himself and the daughter of his best +friend there, Mr. Zebina Allen. The way to make his permanent home in +the Quaker City seemed to be opening before him. That I should go with +him for a few days to Philadelphia when he returned, to "see how the +land lay," as he expressed it in backwoods phrase, was one of his +favorite ideas. He made so much of this point that I finally consented +to accompany him. + +It was a rainy day early in September when we stepped off the cars and +went to Anthony's boarding-place in the good old city that held the one +he loved and his fortunes. I was introduced to various friends of his, +and during the first twenty-four hours of my sojourn I was delighted +with all matters that came under my observation. I was especially +pleased with Mr. Allen and his daughter Caroline. But within two days I +saw, or fancied that I saw, a curious scrutiny and reserve in the faces +of some of those with whom we conversed. + +I think Anthony was more surprised than I was when he received a note +from one of the trustees intimating that important changes were likely +to be made in reference to the educational methods to be employed in the +school, and that, in view of these changes, it was barely possible that +some new arrangements in regard to teachers might be desired by the +patrons of the institution. The trustee professed to have written this +information in order that "Mr. Brown" might not be taken wholly by +surprise in case any step affecting his position should be found +advisable. + +The circumlocution and indefiniteness of this letter led me to infer +that there was something behind it which the writer had not stated. It +soon appeared that my friend agreed with me in this inference. I could +not but smile at the coolness with which he quoted the common phrase to +the effect that there was an African in the fence. + +"I fear it is the old story over again," he said; "but I am glad I have +done my duty to myself and to my dear mother, whatever the consequences +may be." + +After some discussion, it was agreed that I should call at Mr. Allen's +office (he was a lawyer) and endeavor to obtain from him a statement of +all he might know of the new arrangement announced in the letter which +had been received. I lost no time in entering upon my mission. But I was +compelled to make several applications at the office before it was +possible for Mr. Allen to give me a hearing. A late hour of the +business-day was, however, finally assigned to me, and just as the gas +was lighted I found myself by appointment in a private room used for +consultation, sitting face to face with Mr. Allen. I briefly stated my +errand, and presented the trustee's letter to him as a more complete +explanation of my verbal statement. + +"Yes, I see," said Mr. Allen thoughtfully, after reading the letter and +returning it to me. And he tilted back his chair, clasped his hands +behind his head, and gazed for some minutes reflectively at the ceiling. +I sat quietly and studied his face and the objects in the room. He was a +large man, squarely built, with straight, strongly-marked features, blue +eyes, and sandy hair. In the midst of his books and papers he seemed to +me a sterner man than I had previously thought him. "Yes, I see," he +repeated, at the close of his period of reflection. And then he removed +his hands from his head and placed them on his knees, and brought his +chair squarely to the floor, and, leaning forward toward me, looked +keenly in my face, and said, "Did I understand that you were one of +those people,--that is, similar to Mr. Brown?" + +"How, sir?" said I in bewilderment. "How do you mean?" + +A moment later the purport of the question, which I had in a strange way +seemed to feel as it was coming, dawned fully upon me, or I should +rather say struck me, so sharp and sudden was the shock I experienced. +If there was anything in which I was secure and of which I had reason to +be proud, it was my Puritan and English ancestry. As the blood flew to +my youthful face in instinctive protest and indignation, my appearance +must have been a sufficient answer to my interrogator; for I remember +that he, at once springing to his feet, offered me his hand, making +profuse apologies and begging a thousand pardons. + +I somewhat stammeringly explained that it was of no consequence, and +proceeded to name the families in my ancestral line, adding the remark +that these families, both those on my father's side and those on my +mother's side, were pretty well known, and that they were the genuine +English and Puritan stock. + +"They are indeed, sir," said Mr. Allen, "and I congratulate you. I know +the value of a good lineage, and I feel safe in talking freely with a +gentleman of your standing in regard to this disagreeable business." + +At about this stage in the proceedings I felt an obscure twinge. My +conscience was uneasy; for I found myself taking sides with Mr. Allen in +favor of family pride and against "those people," as he had termed +persons of doubtful color. I had instinctively defended myself against +the suggestion that I might possibly be one of them. If this skilful +lawyer had intended, as possibly he did, to disarm me wholly at the +outset, so that I could make no attack upon the position which he +intended to assume, he could not have done it more effectually. + +"The truth is," said Mr. Allen cheerfully, "we regard Mr. Brown as about +the best and most intelligent young man that has ever taught in our +school. He is manly, and conscientious to a fault. Aside from his +family, the only trouble I find with him is that he is not politic. It +was very honorable in him to state to us his parentage as he did. If he +had been willing to stop there, possibly we might have managed it,--at +least so far as the school was concerned. But it was not necessary and +it was not wise to bring that colored woman here. It may have been +remarkably filial and brave, and all that, but it was not judicious. I +think you will agree with me that it was not judicious." + +I hesitatingly admitted that it probably was not. + +"I felt sure that you would take a sensible view of the matter," said +Mr, Allen. "I am truly sorry that Mr. Brown could not have been more +discreet. If he has imagined that he could push that woman into our +society, he is mistaken. And now, while I think of it, there is a +message which I should be glad to send to Mr. Brown, if you will be so +kind as to convey it." + +I expressed my willingness to carry the message. + +"It has probably come to your knowledge that my daughter Caroline has +won the admiration of Mr. Brown." + +I replied that Anthony had mentioned it. + +"The truth is," resumed Mr. Allen, "we entertained the highest opinion +of the young man, and he has visited frequently at our house. I am +willing to admit to you that the feeling I spoke of has been mutual. +With your appreciation of the claims of propriety, the impossibility of +a union will of course be apparent to you." + +"Then you regard it as impossible?" I asked. + +"Yes," he replied. "Do you not so regard it? Think for a moment what it +involves. Some friends of ours in a Western city, as my wife was saying +yesterday, have had a trouble of this kind a generation or two back, and +the children of the present family are in a condition of chronic worry +upon the subject. They are wealthy, and are regarded and treated in +society as white people; but the two young ladies use some kind of +whitening on their faces habitually. The circumstances of the case are +pretty generally known, and you can understand how unpleasant such a +matter must be to the entire family. It is claimed that a tinge of color +sometimes passes over a generation and appears more markedly in the +next. I do not know how that may be, but the idea of the risk is enough +to give one chills. There is a story that the Western family of which I +spoke has a colored grandson concealed somewhere. Of course I do not +know whether it is true or not; but it serves as an illustration. + +"My message to Mr. Brown is, that, under all the circumstances, we think +he should discontinue his visits at our house. I presume he will see +that he should take that course. I shall always be glad to meet him +anywhere except at my home. In regard to a business engagement, if he +will allow me to say a word, I would suggest that he should teach our +colored school. They are looking for a teacher just now, as it happens, +and he would be very popular in that capacity." + +I could not but admit that Mr. Allen's suggestions were characterized by +practical wisdom, but I hinted that the course proposed seemed hardly +just to Anthony. + +"As to that," said Mr. Allen, "it is true that our laws and customs are +unjust and cruel in their treatment of a subjugated race. But it is not +wrong to avoid marriage with any other race than our own. As to the part +that is unjust, you and I cannot remedy that. So far as we are +individually concerned, we may deal justly with the down-trodden, and I +hope we do so; but the great wrong will still remain." + +I left the office of Mr. Allen, feeling that he was in the right. I went +directly to Anthony, and, with a heavy heart, reported to him the +particulars of the interview. It was a painful shock, but he bore it +with greater calmness and fortitude than I had expected. When I had +concluded the recital, he remarked sadly that he found it impossible to +say that Mr. Allen was wrong, hard as the truth seemed. He felt that +marriage was out of the question, and said that he would not have +indulged the thought of it if he had reflected upon the matter +carefully. He was not fully decided what course he would pursue. It was +too painful a subject and involved too great a change to admit of a +hasty decision; and he desired my best thoughts and counsel, which I +gave him. + +After two days I returned to Whitesboro, leaving Anthony in +Philadelphia, still pondering the course he would pursue. Three weeks +later I received a letter from him, in which he announced that he had +taken the colored school. + +Four months passed away. Then I received from my friend a long +communication, setting forth rather formally his experience in his new +position and unfolding to me new views which he had gained by reflection +and contact with the world. He also presented the plan of life which he +had decided upon, if I approved. I was greatly surprised at the entire +revolution in his ideas which had been effected by his observation and +his courageous mental struggles. + +"My own thoughts," he wrote, "have been completely changed by reading +and reflection. There are three aspects of this subject which I wish to +make clear to you. There is first the view that every colored man has +some sort of strange, mysterious curse resting upon him by a law of his +nature. The idea is that, although the black man in any given instance +may be superior, spiritually, intellectually, and physically, to his +white neighbor, yet he cannot equal him because of this mysterious +curse. This view, sad as it is (advocated by the white race), has +settled down upon the minds of millions of colored people. It has +crushed out of them all self-reliance and independence. It fastens +tenaciously upon the quiet, sensitive spirit, destroying its hope and +self-respect and enterprise. I need not tell you how near I have come to +being shipwrecked by its influence. But it is founded upon a lie. It is +a lie backed up by the assertion, practically, of nations and of +millions of intelligent persons acting in their individual capacity. It +is, however, none the less a base, malignant falsehood, robbing the +spirit that is cowed and crushed by it of the sweetest possessions of +life. A similar falsehood has established castes in India, and still +another has subjugated woman in many lands, making her a soulless being +and the slave of man. + +"If any black man has greater wisdom, strength, and goodness than the +majority of white men, he is higher in the scale of manhood than they. +The real question involved is a comparison of individuals, and not of +races. + +"You will remember how Homer, in the Iliad, praises the blameless +Ethiopians, beloved of the gods and dwelling in a wide land that +stretches from the rising to the setting of the sun. The ancient +historians praise them also. Words of commendation of this great +historic people are found in the ancient classics. So far as I can +discover, the prejudice against color is of modern origin. + +"I believe that at no very distant day the slaves will be liberated, and +that the Almighty will be the avenger of their wrongs. + +"I turn now to consider the second aspect of this subject. When a +colored man is wise enough and courageous enough to embrace the views +which I have presented, he may still be compelled, as a part of his lot +in life, to submit to the assumption that he is inferior. It is hard to +live in this way in the shadow of a great lie, but it is better than to +have the iron enter more deeply into the soul, so as to compel _belief_ +of the lie, as is the case with millions of human beings. When the +spirit is enfranchised I can understand that one may lead a very noble +life in cheerfully submitting to the inevitable misfortune. There are a +few colored men who thus recognize the truth, and yet bow to the great +sorrow, which they cannot escape, with noble and manly fortitude. I +confess that I have entertained thoughts of attempting such a life. I +think I could do so if I could see that any great good would be +accomplished by it. But my experience here has taught me that any such +sacrifice is not required of me. I find that it is not to the advantage +of the colored people to be taught at present. They tell me that as they +grow in knowledge their degradation becomes more apparent to them, and +their sufferings greater. They leave the school with the impression that +for them ignorance rather than knowledge is the road to happiness. I +cannot deny the truth of their reasoning. If they could be raised above +the sense of degradation from which they suffer, it would be different. +But, apparently, this cannot be done. It is at least impossible in the +few years which can be given to their instruction in the schools now +provided for their education. The prevailing sentiment among them is +against education and in favor of a thoughtless and easy life. They do +not wish to face those fires through which the awakened spirit, crushed +by hopeless oppression, must necessarily pass. Only yesterday a young +man described to me, with thrilling pathos, the anguish of spirit with +which he had felt the fetters tightening upon him as his knowledge +increased. + +"I do not feel called upon, therefore, to devote my life to teaching. If +there was hope left in the case, perhaps I might do so. I would labor on +willingly if there were light ahead. But, with millions in slavery and +others as tightly bound down by prejudice as if they were slaves, I see +no encouragement. I think it the wiser course to wait, trusting that +Providence will open a way for a change to come. And this brings me to +the third aspect of this matter, and the last phase of it which I desire +to consider. It seems to me to be my duty and privilege to withdraw from +the unequal contest. The stupendous lie which crushes the mass of the +colored race has not imposed itself upon me, although I have had a +terrible struggle with it that nearly cost me my reason. I am not so +situated as to be compelled to live among those whose very presence +would be a constant shadow, a burden to me and a reproach to my +existence. Fortunately, I am not compelled to accept the great +misfortune and bow to the assumptions of a ruling race. I can retire to +the fastnesses of my native hills and forests, where petty distinctions +fade away in the majestic presence of nature. I am already beginning to +anticipate the change, and instinctively asserting that independence +which I feel. Indeed, I have given offence in several instances. I have +no trouble with solid business-men like Mr. Allen. They have the good +sense and fairness to recognize the fact that a man is a man wherever +you find him. But some people of the fanciful sort, with less brains +than I have, do me the honor to be angry because I do not submit to any +assumptions of superiority on their part. I might be so situated that it +would be wisdom to submit, to bend to a lie, to lead the life of a +martyr, as some noble men of my acquaintance do under such +circumstances. But, fortunately, I can afford to be independent, and I +shall do so and take the risk of bodily violence. + +"You have now my plan of life and my reasons for it. I shall adhere to +it under all ordinary circumstances. Nevertheless, if Providence calls +me to some work where great good can be done, I will sacrifice my +independence and take up the load of misfortune which prejudice imposes, +if that is required, and try to bear meekly the burden and do my duty in +the battle of life. But I hope this may not be required of me. Around my +home, as you know, are many immigrants, foreign-born, who do not inherit +or feel the prejudice against color. My family is already one of the +wealthiest and most influential in our little community. With such +property as I have and can readily gain, and with such school-teaching +and political teaching as I can do, it is a settled thing that our +standing will be at the head of society and business, so far as we have +any such distinctions among us. To refer to the matter of color in a +business light, I may remind you that its trace is very faint in our +family line. Already it has entirely disappeared in my own person. With +wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and +when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be +speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of +the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show +you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will +approve of the course which I have marked out, and give me some credit +for courage in meeting and conquering the grisly terror, the base lie, +which sought to blast my life." + +It would be difficult to express too strongly my admiration for my +friend as I read the letter from which I have quoted. It seemed to me +wonderful that he had been able to so disentangle himself from +difficulties. The cool intrepidity with which he had fought his way +through those mental troubles which had seemed at one time about to +overwhelm him was to me the most astonishing part of the performance. I +wrote to him in terms of the highest commendation, frankly expressing my +astonishment at the vigor, truth, and force apparent in his actions and +his reasoning. He was satisfied with my letter, and proceeded to close +up his affairs in a deliberate and decorous manner before returning home +and carrying his plan into execution. It was his idea that I should +spend some months each year with him, and he had made other friends who +would be invited to visit him. + +But the plan which Anthony had formed was never executed. Matters were +as I have described, when the war of the Rebellion broke out. Here was +that call to public duty which he had alluded to as a possible +interference which might change the course of his life. He felt from the +first that the contest was a fight for the black man, and he was anxious +to engage in it. In a hasty letter to me he recognized the fact that the +spirit of John Brown, whom he greatly admired, was still busy in the +affairs of the nation, although his body was sleeping in the grave at +North Elba. + +Anthony Brown enlisted in a white regiment, there being no trace of +color about him and no objection being made. He claimed to have a +presentiment that he would fall in battle at an early day. Whether it +was a presentiment or a mere fancy, it was his fate. He now rests with +the indistinguishable dead + +Where the buzzard, flying, +Pauses at Malvern Hill. + +When I learned of his death, a duty fell upon me. He had written in one +of his letters that if he did not return from the war he would like to +have me tell his mother the true history of his life. He had concealed +from her his struggles in reference to color. She knew nothing of his +trials at Whitesboro or at Philadelphia. No words had ever passed +between them upon the subject. He thought it better, if he lived, that +she should never know, but if he died he wished that his history should +be fully made known to her. + +I made the journey on horseback over the ground I have already +described. It was a delightful autumn day when I passed through the +village of Champion and went on to Mrs. Brown's home. She was expecting +me, as I had written in advance announcing my intended visit. I could +see that she was greatly pleased to receive me. I had been at the house +two days before I ventured to introduce, in a formal manner, the subject +of my mission. Talking of old times, and leading gradually up to the +subject, I frankly stated that Anthony had charged me to tell her the +story of his personal history, and I exhibited his letter to her. It was +after dinner, as we were sitting in the front room reading and talking. +Mrs. Brown immediately became excited and anxious to hear. As I +disclosed the sorrow of Anthony's life and related the particulars of +his career, the effect upon her was not at all what I had expected. She +became more and more excited and distressed. At last she called sharply +to her servant-girl, Melissa, and told her to go and bring Father +Michael, and to bid him come immediately. While Melissa was gone, Mrs. +Brown, with a great deal of agitation in her manner, proceeded to +question me in regard to the incidents of Anthony's career in +Philadelphia, and frequently broke out with the exclamation, "Why could +we not have known?" + +Soon Father Michael came, and the woman assailed him at once in a harsh +and accusing manner, speaking in the French language with great +volubility. He replied to her in the same tongue. There was only here +and there a word that I could understand. It was plain, however, that +there was a contest between them, and that it related to my deceased +friend. + +By degrees the matter was so far made plain that I understood that +Anthony was not the son of Mrs. Brown, but was of the purest white blood +and connected with people of rank. Beyond this I was not permitted to +know his history. When I asked questions, Father Michael replied that it +was better "not to break through the wall of the past." He said it was +too late now to aid Anthony, but added that the trouble might have been +averted if it had been known at the time. + +A day later I took my departure. As I travelled back to Whitesboro I +reflected upon the strange events that had shaped Anthony's career. When +I turned on the Steuben hills and looked once more upon Castorland, it +seemed to me a region of mystery; and the useless tears fell from my +eyes as I remembered how one of its secrets had darkened the life of the +dearest friend of my youth. + +I subsequently learned that Miss Allen, of Philadelphia, suffered +indirectly from the effects of Anthony's misfortune. She was not able to +forget the man she had chosen. + +I have never learned the facts in regard to the early history and real +parentage of Anthony Calvert Brown. + +P. DEMING. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SHORT-STORY. + + +When artists fall to talking about their art, it is the critic's place +to listen to see if he may not pick up a little knowledge. Of late, +certain of the novelists of Great Britain and the United States have +been discussing the principles and the practice of the art of writing +stories. Mr. Howells declared his warm appreciation of Mr. Henry James's +novels; Mr. R.L. Stevenson made public a delightful plea for Romance; +Mr. Walter Besant lectured gracefully on the Art of Fiction; and Mr. +Henry James modestly presented his views by way of supplement and +criticism. The discussion took a wide range. With more or less fullness +it covered the proper aim and intent of the novelist, his material and +his methods, his success, his rewards, social and pecuniary, and the +morality of his work and of his art. But, with all its extension, the +discussion did not include one important branch of the art of fiction: +it did not consider at all the minor art of the Short-story. Although +neither Mr. Howells nor Mr. James, Mr. Besant nor Mr, Stevenson, +specifically limited his remarks to those longer, and, in the +picture-dealer's sense of the word, more "important," tales known as +Novels, and although, of course, their general criticisms of the +abstract principles of the art of fiction applied quite as well to the +Short-story as to the Novel, yet all their concrete examples were +full-length Novels, and the Short-story, as such, received no +recognition at all. Yet the compatriots of Poe and of Hawthorne cannot +afford to ignore the Short-story as a form of fiction; and it has seemed +to the present writer that there is now an excellent opportunity to +venture a few remarks, slight and incomplete as they must needs be, on +the philosophy of the Short-story. + +The difference between a Novel and a Novelette is one of length only: a +Novelette is a brief Novel. But the difference between a Novel and a +Short story is a difference of kind, A true Short-story is something +other and something more than a mere story which is short. A true +Short-story differs from the Novel chiefly in its essential unity of +impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word a +Short-story has unity as a Novel cannot have it. Often, it may be noted +by the way, the Short-story fulfills the three false unities of the +French classic drama: it shows one action in one place on one day. A +Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single +emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation. +Poe's paradox that a poem cannot greatly exceed a hundred lines in +length under penalty of ceasing to be one poem and breaking into a +string of poems, may serve to suggest the precise difference between the +Short-story and the Novel, The Short-story is the single effect, +complete and self-contained, while the Novel is of necessity broken into +a series of episodes. Thus the Short-story has, what the Novel cannot +have, the effect of "totality," as Poe called it, the unity of +impression. The Short-story is not only not a chapter out of a Novel, or +an incident or an episode extracted from a longer tale, but at its best +it impresses the reader with the belief that it would be spoiled if it +were made larger or if it were incorporated into a more elaborate work. +The difference in spirit and in form between the Lyric and the Epic is +scarcely greater than the difference between the Short-story and the +Novel; and "The Raven" and "How we brought the good news from Ghent to +Aix" are not more unlike "The Lady of the Lake" and "Paradise Lost," in +form and in spirit, than "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Man without +a Country"--two typical Short-stories--are unlike "Vanity Fair" and "The +Heart of Midlothian,"--two typical Novels. + +Another great difference between the Short-story and the Novel lies in +the fact that the Novel, nowadays at least, must be a love-tale, while +the Short-story need not deal with love at all. Although "Vanity Fair" +was a Novel without a hero, nearly every other Novel has a hero and a +heroine, and the novelist, however unwillingly, must concern himself in +their love-affairs. But the writer of Short-stories is under no bonds of +this sort. Of course he may tell a tale of love if he choose, and if +love enters into his tale naturally and to its enriching, but he need +not bother with love at all unless he please. Some of the best of +Short-stories are love-stories too,--Mr. Aldrich's "Margery Daw," for +instance, Mr. Stimpson's "Mrs. Knollys," Mr. Bunner's "Love in Old +Clothes;" but more of them are not love-stories at all. If we were to +pick out the ten best Short-stories, I think we should find that fewer +than half of them made any mention at all of love. In "The Snow Image" +and in "The Ambitious Guest," in "The Gold-Bug" and in "The Fall of the +House of Usher," in "My Double and how he Undid me," in +"Devil-Puzzlers," in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," in "Jean-ah +Poquelin," in "A Bundle of Letters," there is little or no mention of +the love of man for woman, which is the chief topic of conversation in a +Novel. While the Novel cannot get on without love, the Short-story can. +Since love is almost the only thing which will give interest to a long +story, the writer of Novels has to get love into his tales as best he +may, even when the subject rebels and when he himself is too old to take +any interest in the mating of John and Joan. But the Short-story, being +brief, does not need a love-interest to hold its parts together, and the +writer of Short-stories has thus a greater freedom: he may do as he +pleases; from him a love-tale is not expected. + +But other things are required of a writer of Short-stories which are not +required of a writer of Novels. The novelist may take his time: he has +abundant room to turn about. The writer of Short-stories must be +concise, and compression, a vigorous compression, is essential. For +him, more than for any one else, the half is more than the whole. Again, +the novelist may be commonplace, he may bend his best energies to the +photographic reproduction of the actual; if he show us a cross-section +of real life we are content; but the writer of Short-stories must have +originality and ingenuity. If to compression, originality, and ingenuity +he add also a touch of fantasy, so much the better. It may be said that +no one has ever succeeded as a writer of Short-stories who had not +ingenuity, originality, and compression, and that most of those who have +succeeded in this line had also the touch of fantasy. But there are not +a few successful novelists lacking not only in fantasy and compression, +but also in ingenuity and originality; they had other qualities, no +doubt, but these they had not. If an example must be given, the name of +Anthony Trollope will occur to all. Fantasy was a thing he abhorred, +compression he knew not, and originality and ingenuity can be conceded +to him only by a strong stretch of the ordinary meaning of the words. +Other qualities he had in plenty, but not these. And, not having them, +he was not a writer of Short-stories. Judging from his essay on +Hawthorne, one may even go so far as to say that Trollope did not know a +good Short-story when he saw it. + +I have written Short-story with a capital S and a hyphen because I +wished to emphasize the distinction between the Short-story and the +story which is merely short. The Short-story is a high and difficult +department of fiction. The story which is short can be written by +anybody who can write at all; and it may be good, bad, or indifferent, +but at its best it is wholly unlike the Short-story. In "An Editor's +Tales" Trollope has given us excellent specimens of the story which is +short; and the stories which make up this book are amusing enough and +clever enough, but they are wanting in the individuality and in the +completeness of the genuine Short-story. Like the brief tales to be +seen in the English monthly magazines and in the Sunday editions of +American newspapers into which they are copied, they are, for the most +part, either merely amplified anecdotes or else incidents which might +have been used in a Novel just as well as not. Now, the genuine +Short-story abhors the idea of the Novel. It can be conceived neither as +part of a Novel nor as elaborated and expanded so as to form a Novel. A +good Short-story is no more the synopsis of a Novel than it is an +episode from a Novel. A slight Novel, or a Novel cut down, is a +Novelette: it is not a Short-story. Mr. Howells's "Their Wedding +Journey" and Miss Howard's "One Summer" are Novelettes, although an +American editor, who had offered a prize for a list of the ten best +Short-stories, allowed them to be included. Mr. Anstey's "Vice Versa," +Mr. Besant's "Case of Mr. Lucraft," and Mr. Hugh Conway's "Called Back" +are Short-stories in conception, although they are without the +compression which the Short-story requires. In the acute and learned +essay on _vers de société_ which Mr. Frederick Locker prefixed to his +admirable "Lyra Elegantiarum," he declared that the two characteristics +of the best _vers de société_ were brevity and brilliancy, and that "The +Rape of the Lock" would be the type and model of the best _vers de +société_--if it were not just a little too long. So it is with "The Case +of Mr. Lucraft," with "Vice Versa," with "Called Back:" they are just a +little too long. + +It is to be noted as a curious coincidence that there is no exact word +in English to designate either _vers de société_ or the Short-story, and +yet in no language are there better _vers de société_ or Short-stories +than in English. It may be remarked also that there is a certain +likeness between _vers de société_ and Short-stories: for one thing, +both seem easy and are hard to write. And the typical qualifications of +each may apply with almost equal force to the other: _vers de société_ +should reveal compression, ingenuity, and originality, and Short-stories +should have brevity and brilliancy. In no class of writing are neatness +of construction and polish of execution more needed than in the writing +of _vers de société_ and of Short-stories. The writer of Short-stories +must have the sense of form, which Mr. Lathrop has called "the highest +and last attribute of a creative writer." The construction must be +logical, adequate, harmonious. Here is the weak spot in Mr. Bishop's +"One of the Thirty Pieces," the fundamental idea of which has +extraordinary strength perhaps not fully developed in the story. But +others of Mr. Bishop's stories--"The Battle of Bunkerloo," for +instance--are admirable in all ways, conception and execution having an +even excellence. Again, Mr. Hugh Conway's "Daughter of the Stars" is a +Short-story which fails from sheer deficiency of style: here is one of +the very finest Short-story ideas ever given to mortal man, but the +handling is at best barely sufficient. To do justice to the conception +would task the execution of a poet. We can merely wonder what the tale +would have been had it occurred to Hawthorne, to Poe, or to Théophile +Gautier. An idea logically developed by one possessing the sense of form +and the gift of style is what we look for in the Short-story. + +But, although the sense of form and the gift of style are essential to +the writing of a good Short-story, they are secondary to the idea, to +the conception, to the subject. Those who hold, with a certain American +novelist, that it is no matter what you have to say, but only how you +say it, need not attempt the Short-story; for the Short-story, far more +than the Novel even, demands a subject. The Short-story is nothing if +there is no story to tell. The Novel, so Mr. James told us not long ago, +"is, in its broadest definition, a personal impression of life." The +most powerful force in French fiction to-day is M. Emile Zola, chiefly +known in America and England, I fear me greatly, by the dirt which masks +and degrades the real beauty and firm strength not seldom concealed in +his novels; and M. Emile Zola declares that the novelist of the future +will not concern himself with the artistic evolution of a plot: he will +take _une histoire quelconque_, any kind of a story, and make it serve +his purpose,--which is to give elaborate pictures of life in all its +most minute details. The acceptance of these theories is a negation of +the Short-story. Important as are form and style, the substance of the +Short-story is of more importance yet. What you have to tell is of +greater interest than how you tell it. I once heard a clever American +novelist pour sarcastic praise upon another American novelist,--for +novelists, even American novelists, do not always dwell together in +unity. The subject of the eulogy is the chief of those who have come to +be known as the International Novelists, and he was praised because he +had invented and made possible a fifth plot. Hitherto, declared the +eulogist, only four terminations of a novel have been known to the most +enthusiastic and untiring student of fiction. First, they are married; +or, second, she marries some one else; or, thirdly, he marries some one +else; or, fourthly, and lastly, she dies. Now, continued the panegyrist, +a fifth termination has been shown to be practicable: they are not +married, she does not die, he does not die, and nothing happens at all. +As a Short-story need not be a love-story, it is of no consequence at +all whether they marry or die; but a Short-story in which nothing +happens at all is an absolute impossibility. + +Perhaps the difference between a Short-story and a Sketch can best be +indicated by saying that, while a Sketch may be still-life, in a +Short-story something always happens. A Sketch may be an outline of +character, or even a picture of a mood of mind, but in a Short-story +there must be something done, there must be an action. Yet the +distinction, like that between the Novel and the Romance, is no longer +of vital importance. In the preface to "The House of the Seven Gables," +Hawthorne sets forth the difference between the Novel and the Romance, +and claims for himself the privileges of the romancer. Mr. Henry James +fails to see this difference. The fact is, that the Short-story and the +Sketch, the Novel and the Romance, melt and merge one into the other, +and no man may mete the boundaries of each, though their extremes lie +far apart. With the more complete understanding of the principle of +development and evolution in literary art, as in physical nature, we see +the futility of a strict and rigid classification into precisely defined +genera and species. All that it is needful for us to remark now is that +the Short-story has limitless possibilities: it may be as realistic as +the most prosaic novel, or as fantastic as the most ethereal romance. + +As a touch of fantasy, however slight, is a most welcome ingredient in a +Short-story, and as the American takes more thought of things unseen +than the Englishman, we may have here an incomplete explanation of the +superiority of the American Short-story over the English. "John Bull has +suffered the idea of the Invisible to be very much fattened out of him," +says Mr. Lowell: "Jonathan is conscious still that he lives in the World +of the Unseen as well as of the Seen." It is not enough to catch a ghost +white-handed and to hale him into the full glare of the electric light. +A brutal misuse of the supernatural is perhaps the very lowest +degradation of the art of fiction. But "to mingle the marvellous rather +as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor than as any actual portion +of the substance," to quote from the preface to "The House of the Seven +Gables," this is, or should be, the aim of the writer of Short-stories +whenever his feet leave the firm ground of fact as he strays in the +unsubstantial realms of fantasy. In no one's writings is this better +exemplified than in Hawthorne's; not even in Poe's. There is a propriety +in Hawthorne's fantasy to which Poe could not attain. Hawthorne's +effects are moral where Poe's are merely physical. To Poe the situation +and its logical development and the effects to be got out of it are all +he thinks of. In Hawthorne the situation, however strange and weird, is +only the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual struggle. +Ethical consequences are always worrying Hawthorne's soul; but Poe did +not know that there were any ethics. + +There are literary evolutionists who, in their whim of seeing in every +original writer a copy of some predecessor, have declared that Hawthorne +is derived from Tieck, and Poe from Hoffmann, just as Dickens modelled +himself on Smollett and Thackeray followed in the footsteps of Fielding. +In all four cases the pupil surpassed the master,--if haply Tieck and +Hoffmann can be considered as even remotely the masters of Hawthorne and +Poe. When Coleridge was told that Klopstock was the German Milton, he +assented with the dry addendum, "A very German Milton." So is Hoffmann a +very German Poe, and Tieck a very German Hawthorne. Of a truth, both Poe +and Hawthorne are as American as any one can be. If the adjective +American has any meaning at all, it qualifies Poe and Hawthorne. They +were American to the core. They both revealed the curious sympathy with +Oriental moods of thought which is often an American characteristic, +Poe, with his cold logic and his mathematical analysis, and Hawthorne, +with his introspective conscience and his love of the subtile and the +invisible, are representative of phases of American character not to be +mistaken by any one who has given thought to the influence of +nationality. + +As to which of the two was the greater, discussion is idle, but that +Hawthorne was the finer genius few would deny. Poe, as cunning an +artificer of goldsmith's work and as adroit in its vending as was ever +M. Josse, declared that "Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, +creation, imagination, originality,--a trait which in the literature of +fiction is positively worth all the rest." But the moral basis of +Hawthorne's work, which had flowered in the crevices and crannies of +New-England Puritanism, Poe did not concern himself with. In Poe's hands +the story of "The Ambitious Guest" might have thrilled us with a more +powerful horror, but it would have lacked the ethical beauty which +Hawthorne gave it and which makes it significant beyond a mere feat of +verbal legerdemain. And the subtile simplicity of "The Great Stone Face" +is as far from Poe as the pathetic irony of "The Ambitious Guest." In +all his most daring fantasies Hawthorne is natural, and, though he may +project his vision far beyond the boundaries of fact, nowhere does he +violate the laws of nature. He had at all times a wholesome simplicity, +and he never showed any trace of the morbid taint which characterizes +nearly all Poe's work. Hawthorne, one may venture to say, had the broad +sanity of genius, while we should understand any one who might declare +that Poe had mental disease raised to the _n'th_. + +Although it may be doubted whether the fiery and tumultuous rush of a +volcano, which may be taken to typify Poe, is as powerful or as +impressive in the end as the calm and inevitable progression of a +glacier, to which, for the purposes of this comparison only, we may +liken Hawthorne, yet the effect and influence of Poe's work are +indisputable. One might hazard the assertion that in all Latin countries +he is the best known of American authors. Certainly no American writer +has been as widely accepted in France. Nothing better of its kind has +ever been done than "The Pit and the Pendulum," or than "The Fall of the +House of Usher," which Mr. Stoddard has compared recently with +Browning's "Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower came" for its power of +suggesting intellectual desolation. Nothing better of its kind has ever +been done than "The Gold-Bug," or than "The Purloined Letter," or than +"The Murders in the Rue Morgue." This last, indeed, is a story of +marvellous skill: it was the first of its kind, and to this day it +remains a model, not only unsurpassed, but unapproachable. It was the +first of detective-stories, and it has had thousands of imitations and +no rival. The originality, the ingenuity, the verisimilitude of this +tale and of its fellows are beyond all praise. Poe had a faculty which +one may call imaginative ratiocination to a decree beyond all other +writers of fiction. He did not at all times keep up to the high level, +in one style, of "The Fall of the House of Usher," and in another, of +"The Murders in the Hue Morgue;" and it was not to be expected that he +should, Only too often did he sink to the grade of the ordinary "Tale +from 'Blackwood,'" which he himself satirized in his usual savage vein +of humor. Yet even in his flimsiest and most tawdry tales we see the +truth of Mr. Lowell's assertion that Poe had "two of the prime qualities +of genius,--a faculty of vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful +fecundity of imagination." Mr. Lowell said also that Poe combined "in a +very remarkable manner two faculties which are seldom found united,--a +power of influencing the mind of the reader by the impalpable shadows of +mystery, and a minuteness of detail which does not leave a pin or a +button unnoticed. Both are, in truth, the natural results of the +predominating quality of his mind, to which we have before +alluded,--analysis." In Poe's hands, however, the enumeration of pins +and buttons, the exact imitation of the prosaic facts of humdrum life in +this workaday world, is not an end, but a means only, whereby he +constructs and intensifies the shadow of mystery which broods over the +things thus realistically portrayed. + +With the recollection that it is more than half a century since +Hawthorne and Poe wrote their best Short-stories, it is not a little +comic to see now and again in American newspapers a rash assertion that +"American literature has hitherto been deficient in good Short-stories," +or the reckless declaration that "the art of writing Short-stories has +not hitherto been cultivated in the United States." Nothing could be +more inexact than these statements. Almost as soon as America began to +have any literature at all it had good Short-stories. It is quite within +ten, or at the most twenty, years that the American novel has come to +the front and forced the acknowledgment of its equality with the English +novel and the French novel; but for fifty years the American +Short-story has had a supremacy which any competent critic could not but +acknowledge. Indeed, the present excellence of the American novel is due +in great measure to the Short-story; for nearly every one of the +American novelists whose works are now read by the whole +English-speaking race began as a writer of Short-stories. Although as a +form of fiction the Short-story is not inferior to the Novel, and +although it is not easier, all things considered, yet its brevity makes +its composition simpler for the 'prentice hand. Though the Short-stories +of the beginner may not be good, yet in the writing of Short-stories he +shall learn how to tell a story, he shall discover by experience the +elements of the art of fiction more readily and, above all, more quickly +than if he had begun on a long and exhausting novel. The physical strain +of writing a full-sized novel is far greater than the reader can well +imagine. To this strain the beginner in fiction may gradually accustom +himself by the composition of Short stories. + +Here, if the digression may be pardoned, occasion serves to say that if +our writers of plays had the same chance that our writers of novels +have, we might now have a school of American dramatists of which we +should be as proud as of our school of American novelists. In dramatic +composition, the equivalent of the Short-story is the one-act play, be +it drama or comedy or comedietta or farce. As the novelists have learned +their trade by the writing of Short-stories, so the dramatists might +learn their trade, far more difficult as it is and more complicated, by +the writing of one-act plays. But, while the magazines of the United +States are hungry for good Short-stories, and sift carefully all that +are sent to them, in the hope of happening on a treasure, the theatres +of the United States are closed to one-act plays, and the dramatist is +denied the opportunity of making a humble and tentative beginning. The +conditions of the theatre are such that there is little hope of a change +for the better in this respect,--more's the pity. The manager has a +tradition that a "broken bill," a programme containing more than one +play, is a confession of weakness, and he prefers, so far as possible, +to keep his weakness concealed. + +When we read the roll of American novelists, we see that nearly all of +them began as writers of Short-stories. Some of them, Mr. Bret Harte, +for instance, and Mr. Edward Everett Hale, never got any farther, or, at +least, if they wrote novels, their novels did not receive the full +artistic appreciation and popular approval bestowed on their +Short-stories. Even Mr. Cable's "Grandissimes" has not made his readers +forget his "Jean-ah Poquelin," nor has Mr. Aldrich's "Queen of Sheba," +charming as she was, driven from our memory his "Margery Daw," as +delightful and as captivating as that other non-existent heroine, Mr. +Austin Dobson's "Dorothy." Mrs. Burnett put forth one volume of +Short-stories and Miss Woolson two before they attempted the more +sustained flight of the full-fledged Novel. The same may be said of Miss +Jewett, of Mr. Craddock, and of Mr. Boyesen. Mr. Bishop and Mr. Lathrop +and Mr. Julian Hawthorne wrote Short-stories before they wrote novels. +Mr. Henry James has never gathered into a book from the back-numbers of +magazines the half of his earlier efforts. + +In these references to the American magazine I believe I have suggested +the real reason of the superiority of the American Short-stories over +the English. It is not only that the eye of patriotism may detect more +fantasy, more humor, a finer feeling for art, in these younger United +States, but there is a more emphatic and material reason for the +American proficiency. There is in the United States a demand for +Short-stories which does not exist in Great Britain, or at any rate not +in the same degree. The Short-story is of very great importance to the +American magazine. But in the British magazine the serial Novel is the +one thing of consequence, and all else is termed "padding." In England +the writer of three-volume Novels is the best paid of literary +laborers. So in England whoever has the gift of story-telling is +strongly tempted not to essay the difficult art of writing +Short-stories, for which he will receive only an inadequate reward; and +he is as strongly tempted to write a long story which may serve first as +a serial and afterward as a three-volume Novel. The result of this +temptation is seen in the fact that there is not a single English +novelist whose reputation has been materially assisted by the +Short-stories he has written. More than once in the United States a +single Short-story has made a man known, but in Great Britain such an +event is wellnigh impossible. The disastrous effect on narrative art of +the desire to distend every subject to the three-volume limit has been +dwelt on unceasingly by English critics. + +The three-volume system is peculiar to Great Britain: it does not obtain +either in France or the United States. As a consequence, the French and +American writer of fiction is left free to treat his subject at the +length it demands,--no more and no less. It is pleasant to note that +there are signs of the beginning of the break-up of the system even in +England; and the protests of the chief English critics against it are +loud and frequent. It is responsible in great measure for the invention +and perfection of the British machine for making English Novels, of +which Mr. Warner told us in his entertaining essay on fiction. We all +know the work of this machine, and we all recognize the trade-mark it +imprints in the corner. But Mr. Warner failed to tell us, what +nevertheless is a fact, that this British machine can be geared down so +as to turn out the English short story. Now, the English short story, as +the machine makes it and as we see it in most English magazines, is only +a little English Novel, or an incident or episode from an English Novel. +It is thus the exact artistic opposite of the American Short-story, of +which, as we have seen, the chief characteristics are originality, +ingenuity, compression, and, not infrequently, a touch of fantasy. It +is not, of course, that the good and genuine Short-story is not written +in England now and then,--for if I were to make any such assertion some +of the best work of Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, of Mr. Walter Besant, +and of Mr. Anstey would rise up to contradict me: it is merely that it +is an accidental growth, and not a staple of production. As a rule, in +England the artist in fiction does not care to hide his light under a +bushel, and he puts his best work where it will be seen of all +men,--that is to say, _not_ in a Short-story. So it happens that the +most of the brief tales in the English magazines are not true +Short-stories at all, and that they belong to a lower form of the art of +fiction, in the department with the amplified anecdote. It is the +three-volume Novel which has killed the Short-story in England. + +Certain of the remarks in the present paper the writer put forth first +anonymously some months ago in the columns of an English weekly review. +To his intense surprise, they were controverted in a leading American +weekly review. The critic began by assuming that the writer had said +that Americans preferred Short-stories to Novels. What had really been +said was that there was a steady demand for Short-stories in American +magazines, whereas in England the demand was rather for serial Novels. +"In the first place," said the critic, "Americans do not prefer +Short-stories, as is shown by the enormous number of British Novels +circulated among us; and in the second place, tales of the quiet, +domestic kind, which form the staple of periodicals like 'All the Year +Round' and 'Chambers's Journal,' have here thousands of readers where +native productions, however clever and original, have only hundreds, +since the former are reprinted by the country papers and in the Sunday +editions of city papers as rapidly and as regularly as they are produced +at home." Now, the answer to this is simply that these English Novels +and English stories are reprinted widely in the United States, not +because the American people prefer them to anything else, but because, +owing to the absence of international copyright, they cost nothing. That +the American people prefer to read American stories when they can get +them is shown by the enormous circulation of the periodicals which make +a specialty of American fiction. + +I find I have left myself little space to speak of the Short-story as it +exists in other literatures than those of Great Britain and the United +States, The conditions which have killed the Short-story in England do +not obtain elsewhere; and elsewhere there are not a few good writers of +Short-stories. Tourgéneff, Björnsen, Sacher-Masoch, Freytag, Lindau, are +the names which one recalls at once and without effort as masters in the +art and mystery of the Short-story. Tourgéneff's Short-stories, in +particular, it would be difficult to commend too warmly. But it is in +France that the Short-story flourishes most abundantly. In France the +conditions are not unlike those in the United States; and, although +there are few French magazines, there are many Parisian newspapers of a +wide hospitality to literature. The demand for the Short-story has +called forth an abundant supply. Among the writers of the last +generation who excelled in the _conte_--which is almost the exact French +equivalent for Short-story, as _nouvelle_ may be taken to indicate the +story which is merely short, the episode, the incident, the amplified +anecdote--were Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier, and Prosper Mérimée. +The best work of Mérimée has never been surpassed. As compression was +with him almost a mania, as, indeed, it was with his friend Tourgéneff, +he seemed born on purpose to write Short-stories. Tourgéneff carried his +desire for conciseness so far that he seems always to be experimenting +to see how much of his story he may leave out. One of the foremost among +the living writers of _contes_ is M. Edmond About, whose exquisite humor +is known to all readers of "The Man with the Broken Ear,"--a Short-story +in conception, though unduly extended in execution. Few of the charming +_contes_ of M. Alphonse Daudet, or of the earlier Short-stories of M. +Emile Zola, have been translated into English; and the poetic tales of +M. François Coppée are likewise neglected in this country. "The Abbé +Constantin" of M. Ludovic Halévy has been read by many, but the Gallic +satire of his more Parisian Short-stories has been neglected, perhaps +wisely, in spite of their broad humor and their sharp wit. In the +_contes_ of M. Guy de Maupassant there is a manly vigor, pushed at times +to excess; and in the very singular collection of stories which M. Jean +Richepin has called the "Morts Bizarres" we find a modern continuation +of the Poe tradition, always more potent in France than elsewhere. I +have given this list of French writers of Short-stories merely as +evidence that the art flourishes in France as well as in the United +States, and not at all with the view of recommending the fair readers of +this essaylet to send at once for the works of these French writers, +which are not always--indeed, one may say not often--in exact accordance +with the conventionalities of Anglo-Saxon propriety. The Short-story +should not be void or without form, but its form may be whatever the +author please. He has an absolute liberty of choice. It may be a +personal narrative, like Poe's "Descent into the Maelstrom" or Hale's +"My Double, and How he Undid me;" it may be impersonal, like Mr. F.B. +Perkins's "Devil-Puzzlers" or Colonel De Forest's "Brigade Commander;" +it may be a conundrum, like Mr. Stockton's insoluble query, "The Lady or +the Tiger?" it may be "A Bundle of Letters," like Mr. James's story, or +"A Letter and a Paragraph," like Mr. Bunner's; it may be a medley of +letters and telegrams and narrative, like Mr. Aldrich's "Margery Daw;" +it may be cast in any one of these forms, or in a combination of all of +them, or in a wholly new form, if haply such may yet be found by +diligent search. Whatever its form, it should have symmetry of design. +If it have also wit or humor, pathos or poetry, and especially a +distinct and unmistakable flavor of originality, so much the better. But +the chief requisites are compression, originality, ingenuity, and now +and again a touch of fantasy. Sometimes we may detect in a writer of +Short-stories a tendency toward the over-elaboration of ingenuity, +toward the exhibition of ingenuity for its own sake, as in a Chinese +puzzle. But mere cleverness is incompatible with greatness, and to +commend a writer as "very clever" is not to give him high praise. From +this fault of super-subtilty women are free for the most part. They are +more likely than men to rely on broad human emotion, and their tendency +in error is toward the morbid analysis of a high-strung moral situation. + +BRANDER MATTHEWS. + + * * * * * + + + + +GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. + + +The extraordinary honors paid to General Grant in England created a +profound impression all over Europe. No other American, and, indeed, few +Europeans, had ever received such honors abroad; and what made the case +still more impressive and exceptional was the fact that this great +distinction was paid to no potentate or prince of the blood, but to a +simple private citizen, holding no rank or official position. + +As soon as it was known that General Grant intended to travel on the +Continent, he was invited to visit Frankfort-on-the-Main. The invitation +was extended by the American residents of that city, and was accepted. +A joint meeting of Americans and Frankfort burghers was then held, and a +committee was appointed, half Germans and half Americans, to make +arrangements for the proposed reception and entertainment of General +Grant and his party. Mr. Henry Seligman, an American banker of +Frankfort, and the writer of this, were appointed by this committee to +intercept the distinguished tourist on his journey up the Rhine and +conduct him to the city. + +It was on a charming summer morning that we quitted Frankfort on this +mission. General Grant was at Bingen, where he had arrived the evening +before from Cologne. He was accompanied by Mrs. Grant, his son Jesse +Grant, and General Adam Badeau, then Consul-General at London. Their +arrival at Bingen had been so unostentatious that their presence in the +town was scarcely known outside of the hotel in which they had taken +rooms. Their departure was alike unnoticed. + +Our train drew up at Bingen just as a special _Schnellzug_ with the +Emperor of Germany on board swept by. Proceeding at once to the hotel, +we learned that General Grant had already left for Rüdesheim, but had +possibly not yet crossed the river. We hastened to the landing, and +there found him and his party seated under some linden-trees, waiting +for the ferry. I had a package of letters for the general which had come +to my care, and which, after mutual introductions, I delivered to him at +once. Tearing open and throwing away the envelopes, General Grant +hastily inspected the letters and passed them to General Badeau. By this +time the Rüdesheim steamer had arrived, and we all went on board. In a +moment more the boat pushed off and turned its course up the stately +river. The rippling waters sparkled in the sunshine, and all the +vine-clad hills were dressed in summer beauty. On the right, dropping +behind us, was Bingen, famous in legend and in song, and on the left, in +the foreground, appeared the curious spires and roofs of Rüdesheim. The +scene was an ideal tableau, such as Byron describes, of the + + Wide and winding Rhine, + Whose breast of waters broadly swells +Between the banks which bear the vine, + And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, +And fields which promise corn and wine, + And scattered cities crowning these, +Whose far white walls along them shine. + +From Rüdesheim to Wiesbaden the railway follows the Rhine as far as +Castel, at the mouth of the Main, opposite Mayence. A short distance +above Rüdesheim the Taunus bluffs sweep back from the river, and the +garden of the Rhine valley opens out right and left. This is the heart +of the wine-growing region, and within it lie many of the most +celebrated vineyards in the world. The valley is dotted with villages +whose names are famous in the Rhine-wine nomenclature, and upon a bold +promontory, commanding all, the queen of the German vintage rules from +the Johannisberg Schloss. + +While our train bowled along, and we were discussing these various +objects of interest, General Badeau discovered by accident among the +letters which General Grant had given him one which had not been opened. + +"The address is in the handwriting of General Sherman," said Badeau. + +"Yes," said General Grant, glancing at the superscription, "that is from +Sherman. Read it." + +Accordingly, General Badeau read the letter aloud, and the whole company +was deeply impressed with the cordiality of its friendly expressions. In +heartiest terms the letter felicitated General Grant upon the splendid +receptions which had been given him, and the merited appreciation +awarded him in the Old World. The letter was that of an admiring and +devoted friend rather than that of a military colleague. + +"General Sherman seems to have a strong personal regard for you, +general," remarked one of the party. + +"Yes," responded General Grant, "there has always been the best of +feeling between Sherman and myself, although attempts have not been +wanting to make it appear otherwise." + +"I have noticed such attempts," replied the person addressed, "but for +my part I have never needed any proof that they were wholly uncalled-for +and impertinent. + +"Possibly you have never heard, general," continued the speaker, "how +heartily General Sherman rejoiced over your conquest and capture of +Lee's army. He was particularly gratified that he had not been obliged +to make any movement that would have given a pretext for saying that +your success was due in part to him. To those about him he exclaimed, in +his energetic way,-- + +"'I knew Grant would do it, for I knew the man. And I'm glad that he +accomplished it without my help. Nobody can say now that I have divided +with him the credit of this success. He has deserved it all, he has +gained it all, and I'm glad that he will have it all.'" + +About noon the party arrived at Wiesbaden, where nobody seemed to expect +them except the people at the hotel where General Grant's courier had +engaged rooms. After dinner Mr. Seligman desired to tender a drive to +the general and Mrs. Grant, but they had disappeared. After a short +search, they were found sitting together alone in one of the arboreal +retreats of the Kurgarten. The general remarked that it was his custom +when he visited a city to explore it on foot, and that in this way he +had already made himself tolerably familiar, he thought, with the +general plan and situation of Wiesbaden. Mr. Seligman's invitation was +readily accepted, however, and half an hour later the party set out, in +a carriage, for the Russian Chapel. + +Wiesbaden is one of the most ancient watering-places on the Continent. +It was a Roman military station, and upon the Heidenberg--a neighboring +eminence--are seen the traces of a Roman fortress. The remains of Roman +baths and a temple have also been found there, and its waters are +mentioned by Pliny. At a later period the Carlovingian monarchs +established at Wiesbaden an imperial residence. The city lies under the +southern slope of the Taunus Mountains, the rocky recesses of which +conceal the mysteries of its thermal springs. The hilly country for +miles around abounds in charming pleasure-grounds, drives, and +promenades. The gilded palaces which were formerly used as fashionable +gambling-houses are now devoted to the social and musical recreation of +visitors who come to take the waters. + +The drive to the Russian Chapel ascends the Taunus Mountain by a winding +road, amidst stately, well-kept forests of beech and chestnut. The +chapel, whose gilded domes can be seen from afar, stands upon one of the +most salient mountain-spurs, and overlooks the country as far as Mayence +and the Odenwald. It was erected by the Duke of Nassau as a memorial to +his deceased first wife, who was a beautiful young Russian princess. +Upon her tomb, which adorns the interior, her life-size effigy reclines, +in pure white marble. + +General Grant lingered for some time at this place, and from the +promontory on which the chapel stands gazed with deep interest over the +far-reaching historic scenes of the Rhine valley. + +Next morning the general and his party arrived at Frankfort, where they +were met by the reception-committee. Accompanied by this committee, the +party visited the ancient Römer, within whose venerable walls for many +centuries the German emperors were chosen; then the quaint and venerated +mansion in which Goethe was born; then the old cathedral, wherein a +score or more of German potentates were crowned; and then, in +succession, the poet Boerne's birthplace, the Judengasse, the original +home of the Rothschilds, the Ariadneum (named from Dännecker's marble +group of Ariadne and the lioness), the Art Museum, the Goethe and +Schiller monuments, and the beautiful sylvan resort for popular +recreation, known as "The Wald." General Grant visited also, by +invitation, some of the great wine-cellars of Frankfort, and was +conducted through the immense crypts of Henninger's brewery, which is +one of the largest establishments of the kind on the Continent. As he +was about to leave Henninger's, he was requested to write his name in +the visitors' register. The record was divided into spaces entitled, +respectively, "name," "residence," and "occupation." General Grant +promptly put down his name and place of residence, but when he came to +the "occupation" column he hesitated. "What shall I write here?" he +inquired: "loafer?" + +This remark was made in jest, and yet not without a certain sadness of +tone and manner. Undoubtedly, General Grant felt keenly the irksomeness +of having nothing particular to do. After the immense strain which had +been put upon him for twelve successive years, it was not easy for him +to reconcile himself, in the prime of his manhood and the full maturity +of his powers, to being a mere spectator of the affairs of men. Activity +had become a second nature to him, and idleness was simply intolerable. +With much leisure on his hands, he first sought rest and recreation, and +then occupation. However unfortunately his business undertakings +resulted, they were, after all, but the outcome of a natural and +laudable desire to be usefully employed. + +The banquet given to General Grant by the citizens and resident +Americans of Frankfort was a superb affair. It took place in the +Palmengarten, which is, above any other object, the pride of the +charming old "City of the Main." When the Duke of Nassau, an active +sympathizer with the beaten party in the Austro-Prussian war, lost his +dominions and quitted his château at Biebrich, the Frankforters availed +themselves of the opportunity to buy the famous collection of plants in +his winter-garden, comprising about thirty thousand rare and costly +specimens. The joint-stock company by which this purchase was made +received from the city a donation of twenty acres of land, and added +thereto, from its own funds, ten acres more. + +The company also obtained, partly by donation, five large palm-trees, +and from these the Palmengarten takes its name. For the conservation of +the botanical collection a mammoth structure was erected of glass and +iron, and for the entertainment of visitors a commodious and elegant +music- and dining-hall was added. The grounds were adorned with +fountains, lakes, parterres, and promenades, and were equipped with +every facility for family and popular recreation, not overlooking, by +any means, the amusement of the children. In all Europe there is not a +lovelier spot than this. To keep it in order, educated gardeners are +employed, regularly salaried; and in the arrangement of the plants such +combinations of color and form are produced as an artist might envy. +Twice daily a concert is given by a large, well-trained orchestra in the +music-hall, or, when the weather is propitious, in a pavilion in the +garden. The concert-hall looks through a glass partition directly into +the great conservatory, which, thus viewed, presents a scene of tropical +enchantment. The palm-trees occupy conspicuous positions amidst +skilfully-grouped dracænas, ferns, azaleas, rhododendrons, passifloras, +and a myriad of other curious vegetable productions of the equatorial +world. The ground is carpeted with light-green moss, smooth and soft as +velvet, and, as an appropriate centre-piece to the whole, is seen the +silvery flash of a falling cataract. + +The banquet was held in the music-hall, where General Grant was given a +seat immediately fronting the scene just described. The conservatory and +hall were brilliantly illuminated, the tables were resplendent with +silver and floral decorations, and upon the walls of the banquet-chamber +the emblems of the great Republic and the great Empire were suggestively +displayed side by side. Ladies were admitted to the galleries, but +gentlemen only were seated at the tables, and among the guests were many +of the most prominent bankers and merchants of Germany, including +capitalists who had been the first in Europe to invest in the war-loans +offered by our government. + +The dinner lasted three hours. Between the courses various toasts were +drunk, a venerable burgher of Frankfort proposing the health of General +Grant, to which the general responded in a brief, sensible, and somewhat +humorous speech, which was exceedingly well received. Nothing could have +been more appropriate, modest, and fitting. + +Outside the building the scene was scarcely less animated or interesting +than within. By the aid of colored lights and other pyrotechnic +contrivances the garden was made brilliant and gay as an Arabian Nights +dream. The air was perfumed with the aroma of flowers and moistened by +the delirious play of fountains. Thousands of people, elegantly dressed, +were seated on the out-door terraces, enjoying the fireworks and music, +and in the promenades other thousands were moving, producing a +kaleidoscopic combination of motion and color. For some time after the +banquet General Grant sat upon the veranda of the music-hall, conversing +with friends and observing this novel scene. His presence excited no +rude curiosity or boisterous enthusiasm, but was none the less honored +by more subdued and decorous demonstrations of respect. + +The next day General Grant drove to Homburg, fifteen miles, and thence +four miles farther to Saalburg, the site of an ancient Roman +fortification on the Taunus Mountains. It was one of a series of +defensive stations covering the frontier of the Roman empire and +extending from the Rhine to the Danube. The exhumations at this +fortified camp, first attempted within a recent period, have disclosed +the most completely preserved Roman castramentation yet found in +Germany. The castellum is a rectangle, four hundred and sixty-five by +seven hundred and four feet, and is surrounded by two deep ditches and +by high parapets. Within this enclosure the prætorium, or residence of +the commandant, one hundred and thirty-two by one hundred and +fifty-three feet, has been distinctly traced by its stone foundations. +Stones marked with Roman characters yet remain in their places, +designating the camps of the different legions. This fort is mentioned +by Tacitus, and was one of the principal bulwarks of the Roman conquest +in Germany against the tribes which hovered along its northern frontier. + +The excavations were still in progress at the time of General Grant's +visit, and on that very occasion some interesting relics were unearthed. +Mrs. Grant was presented with a ring and some pieces of ancient pottery +which were removed in her presence from the places where they had lain +embedded in the earth for the last eighteen hundred years. + +Near the fort was discovered, a few years ago, the cemetery where the +ashes of the deceased Romans of the garrison were interred. Some of the +graves which had never before been disturbed were opened in General +Grant's presence, in order that he might see with his own eyes what they +contained and in what manner their contents were deposited. From each +grave a small urn was taken, containing the ashes of one cremated human +body, and upon the mouth of the urn was found, in each instance, a Roman +obolus, which had been deposited there to pay the ferriage of the soul +of the departed over the Stygian river. General Grant was presented with +some of these coins as mementos of his visit. + +Upon his return to Homburg the ensuing evening, the general was +banqueted by a party of Americans, and a splendid illumination of the +Kurgarten was given in his honor. The next day he returned to Frankfort, +and the next departed by rail for Heidelberg and Switzerland. + +ALFRED E. LEE. + + * * * * * + + + + +TURTLING ON THE OUTER REEF. + + +"What's that astern, Sandy?" The old darky, who had been gently soothed +into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow, +raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and +sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, "On deck der! man yo' wedder fo' +an' main, lee clew garnets an' buntlines, topsail halyards an' +down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in +a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have +been heard a mile away. + +The occasion of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, +when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high +and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing +with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us +along mysteriously crept away, as if awed by the strange apparition. The +laughing gulls that had hovered above the water rose high in air, +uttering piercing cries while standing out in vivid silvery brightness +against the wall of night. The sea assumed a bright metallic tint and +rose and fell in uneasy measure, while the booming of the breakers on +the distant reef, and the swash of the waves as our craft rolled to and +fro, were painfully distinct. + +"Cotch suthin'!" shouted Sandy, taking a round turn about the tiller +with the slack end of the dingy's painter. Delicate furrows for a moment +cut their way here and there over the glassy surface, and then with a +roar the black squall was upon us, keeling our craft almost upon her +beam-ends. The water seemed torn from its bed, flung by some unseen +power high into the air, and borne hissing and roaring away. It cut and +lashed our faces as we crouched flat upon the deck, clinging where we +could. The sea rose as if by magic, and, with the wind astern, was +driving us upon the reef which we had been encircling in search of a +harbor. After ten minutes of the wild race with the squall, which now +was as quickly lighting up, we heard the roar of the breakers near at +hand. + +"Put her up in de win', or we'se gone, sho'!" shrieked young Rastus, who +had crawled aft. + +"Gone where?" cried Sandy, his grim visage, dripping with water, now +visible braced against the tiller. + +Rastus's white eyeballs, standing out in terror, rolled ominously up and +then down in answer, leaving a doubt to be inferred. + +"How old is yo', son?" asked the old man fiercely, bracing hard as the +craft yawed heavily. + +"I ain't gwine to git any older, dat's sho'," replied the boy. + +"W'y, yo' poor coon," retorted Sandy. "ef yu'se ole as Jehos'phat, I'se +wu'ked disher reef fo' yu'se bo'n." + +So quickly had the squall passed that its power was now well over, and +the lighting up showed us to be only a few hundred yards from the mass +of breakers pounding upon the outer reef. + +"Yo' 'spec' to jump dat reef?" asked Rastus, fairly shaking with fear. + +"Start dat jib," thundered the old man. "Give her de bonnet an' de +ma'nsail up to dat fastest patch." + +The boys jumped to the halyards, and the boat sprang forward with +renewed speed, careening over until she was half under, and slightly +hauling on the wind. + +"Ef I kin keep her offen de reef twill hit lightens up, we'se all +right," whispered Sandy; and suddenly, looking after the retreating +cloud, out of which in the gloom now appeared the tops of the +mangrove-trees, he shouted exultantly, "Give her de jib," and, with a +lunge at the tiller, the vessel fell away and dashed onward at the wall +of rock and foam. + +"For de Lawd's sake, yo' ain't gwine to jump dat reef, is yo'?" cried +Rastus, in an agony of terror. + +But it was too late to question the old man's intentions: we were +already in the back swash of the breakers. "Cotch suthin!" he shouted +again, as our craft on the crest of a mighty roller shot onward to +seeming destruction. + +On either side the bare coral rock was visible, as the waves gathered +for another onward rush; yet we did not strike. A second roller raised +us high in air, and, hurled forward with the speed of the wind, we were +buried in the seething foam; but the next moment our craft shook off the +sea, and we glided away on the smooth waters of the inner reef. A few +minutes later the sun was out again, and one of the strangest phases of +life on the reef had come and gone. + +"I 'spec' dat was a narrer 'scape," said old Sandy, "but I tuk de only +chance. We was boun' to strike somewhere, an' de squall jes' got off in +time for me to take bearin's of disher five-foot channel; an', it's a +fac', I'se been fru a heap o' times, but dat was de wustest, sho' +'nuff." + +From Sandy's orders given at the approach of the squall, the reader +might possibly infer that the sable mariner was commander of a +ninety-gun frigate, while in point of fact he was only skipper of a very +disreputable fishing-smack. But he had been nearly all his life a "boy" +on a government vessel, and now, having retired, from either habit or +fancy he still kept up the man-of-war discipline, and when under more +than ordinary excitement roared out a flood of orders that savored of +both navy and merchant marine, uttering them with all the enjoyment of a +ranking officer on his own quarter-deck. They were, however, well +understood by Sandy's sons, who constituted the port and starboard +watches of the smack, and who were in constant awe of the old +man-of-war's-man, who did not hesitate to enforce his orders with any +missile that came handy. + +"Dis ship's on a war-footin', dat's sho'," he said, after one of these +characteristic scenes, and then, in a stage whisper, "so's de crew. +Dey's bofe cou'tin' de same gal in Key Wes'." + +The Bull Pup, for such was her name, kept up her war-footing as long as +we knew her, and the dignity invested in her hulk, which had a strong +predisposition toward bilge, was, to say the least, extraordinary. Never +was better craft for the purpose; and during a long cruise among the +small keys that form the extreme end of the Florida peninsula, she +always showed a dogged determination, as indicated by her name, to +surmount all difficulties. + +We had sailed down during the night from Marquesas across the Rebecca +shoals, and when caught by the squall were off Bush Key, one of the most +easterly of the group, which enjoys the distinction of possessing Dry +Tortugas,--why "dry" we know not. Our extraordinary entrance, almost +instantaneous, from rough to comparatively smooth water can only be +explained by a casual reference to the great reef. The group of +keys--Loggerhead, Bird, Long, Middle, East, North, Bush, Sand, and +Garden--are all within seven miles of each other, Garden, Bird, Bush, +and Long being in close proximity,--within swimming-distance, if the +swimmer be not nervous in regard to sharks. From these central keys a +great sandy shoal spreads away on all sides, cut up, however, by several +deep channels admitting vessels of the largest draught. To the east and +south the reef is two miles wide and rarely over four feet deep, covered +at intervals with great fields of branch corals, while here and there +clusters of enormous heads of astrea, porites, etc., have collected. The +edge of the reef is formed of dead coral rock, often beaten up by the +waves into a continuous wall several miles in extent, and a few steps +beyond this the water deepens quickly, until at the length of a vessel +from it no bottom is visible. + +The one opening in this barrier on the side of our approach, so +formidable in a gale, is the passage through which the skill of Sandy +had safely brought us, being, as its name explains, five feet deep and +not many more in width, and used only at odd times by the few pilots and +fishermen of the reef who know the secret of its approach. But how old +Sandy found it when completely covered by the waves, with only the tops +of certain trees to steer by, is one of the mysteries. + +Our object in visiting this desolate part of the country was to capture +turtles. Here is the ground of the green and loggerhead turtles, and, +according to Sandy, the hawksbill, from which the shell of commerce is +taken, is also occasionally found. + +The squall was now a fast-disappearing pillar in the west. The +anchor-chain ran merrily out, and we rounded to in the narrow harbor of +Garden Key. The boys manned the pump, while Sandy and the writer pulled +for the shore, and the dingy soon crunched into the white, sandy beach +of the coral island which during the war was the Botany Bay of America. +Surely Dry Tortugas has been maligned: instead of dry we find it very +wet, a key of sand thirteen acres in extent, hardly one foot above the +tide, and entirely occupied by probably the largest brick fort in the +world. + +Fort Jefferson was commenced long before the war, and is now a monument +of the ineffectual military methods of thirty years ago. The work is a +six-sided, two-tiered fort of majestic proportions, its faces pierced +with over five hundred guns. How many millions of dollars have been +expended in its erection it would be difficult to conjecture. The +question why so important a work was built here is often asked, and we +have heard the answer given that it was encouraged by the Key West +slave-owners, through their representatives, to give employment to their +slaves, who were engaged as laborers by the government. Garden Key, +however, is the key of the gulf, and, as a prospective coaling-station +in case of war, it was undoubtedly a spot to be held at all odds, and at +the outbreak of the war it formed a convenient spot for the confinement +of certain prisoners, as many as three thousand being kept there at one +time. Now the great fort figures as a picture of desolation and is +slowly falling to decay, deserted save by the memories of the great +conflict, a lighthouse-keeper, and a guard. + +Once within the great enclosure, the reason for its having been called +Garden Key becomes apparent. The neighboring islands are covered with +prickly pear, mangroves, and bay-cedars, while here clumps of cocoanuts +rear their graceful forms, their long rustling leaves, which convey to +the distant listener the cooling impression of falling rain, reaching +high over the top of the fort. On the west side grows a small grove of +bananas, while against the cottage walls luxuriant vines climb in wild +confusion. What was once the parade-ground is covered by a thick growth +of wiry grass, in which gopher- and crab-holes lay traps for the unwary. +In fact, far from being the forbidding spot it has been painted, Dry +Tortugas seemed to us a veritable garden in the path of the great Gulf +Stream. + +On the afternoon of our arrival the Bull Pup was got under way and +headed through a circuitous channel to East Key, off which we came to +anchor about dusk. Blankets and other articles indispensable for a night +on the beach were carried ashore, and camp formed on the edge of the +bay-cedars. East Key comprises about thirty acres of sand, thickly +covered with a low growth of bay-cedar, in which the rude nests of the +noddy are found, while here and there in the undergrowth are great +patches of cactus or prickly pear, affording lurking-places for +innumerable purple-backed crabs of ferocious mien. + +"Turklin'," said old Sandy, as we lay stretched on the sand, waiting for +the moon, "is right in de line o' hard wu'k, an' I 'spec's yo' chillun +is a-hankerin' after yo' mudder." + +The two children, both hard on thirty, indignantly denied that they had +anything but an extreme fondness for labor. + +"Wu'k!" said old Sandy, appealing to us and reaching for a piece of +driftwood to fling at his progeny in case of necessity; "w'y, de coons +of disher generation don' know de meanin' of de word, da's a fac'. How +is it dat yo' don' see no mo' bandy chillun roun' now? Kase dey mammies +don' hev to wu'k. Dey ain't got no call to put de chilluns down. W'y, +chile, I pick cotton 'fore I leave de bre's', da's a fac'. De niggers is +gittin' too sumpchus fo' dar place. Dey try to make outen dey got sense +like white folks. Yo' Rastus, yo'se deacon in de Key Wes' Fustest +Bethel, ain't yo'?" + +"'Deed I is," replied that person. + +"An' Piffney too, I reckon," continued Sandy. + +"Yas, sah," answered Piffney. + +"Wal," said the old man, turning to us again, "dere it is. Chuck full o' +'ligion, but w'en dey git in de tight hole like de five-foot dey ain't +got no faith. Old-time l'arnin' say 'tain't no use buckin' 'genst de +debble less yo' full o' faith. All de old-time coons knows dey's coons, +but dese yere free-born darkies got to be white or nuthin'. Yander," +nodding his head toward Key West, "a couple of dese yere black Conchs +drap in on me an' de ole woman, an' say, 'Uncle Sandy, we'se 'lected yo' +hon'ry member of de Anex Debatin' Soci'ty of de Young Men's Chrisshun +'Sociashun of de Fustest Bethel.' I reached fo' a chunk of scantlin', +and de ole woman stood by fo' to turn loose de coon, w'en dey hollered +out dey wasn't no 'spenses, no fees, no nuthin', only ten bits fo' +hevin' yo' name 'graved in de soci'ty's books. So I 'lowed I'd jine; an' +d'rectly dey sent me an inwite fo' de fustest meetin', an', fo' de Lawd, +mar's, w'at yo' s'pose hit was? Hit read kinder like disher," he +continued, with a groan: "'Reswolved, which is de butt end of a goat? +Fo' de affermation (de on side), Rastus Pinckey; fo' de neggertive (de +off side), Piffney Pinckey.' Yas, sah, I done pay ten bits fo' to hear +my chillun 'scuss w'at's done been settled in disher fam'ly 'fore dey's +bo'n and sence! All comes o' apin' white folks," said the old man, +threatening the debaters with the scantling. "Dey's boun' to git up a +'batin'-soci'ty an' talk all de evening w'en dere was Paublo Johnson +standin' up all de evenin' from stiffness he cotched from ole man +Geiger's goat, an', hit's a fac', he stan' an' 'scuss de question, +tryin' to make outen how de goat kicked him, all kase he's on de _on_ +side. But dat's de coon of it." + +"Whish!" whispered Rastus, who, with Piffney, had been trying to look +supernaturally solemn during this tirade. + +"Shoo!" repeated Sandy, leaning forward. + +The moon had just cleared the mangrove-tops, and illuminated the silvery +sands, casting reflections upon the water, where there was now a perfect +calm. Far away was heard the lonely cry of a laughing gull. The gentle +break of the waves upon the sands gave out a soft, musical sound, and, +as we held our breath, a sharp hiss was heard, seemingly but a few feet +away. + +"Turkle," hoarsely whispered Sandy; on which announcement we all +flattened upon the sand. So bright was the moon that every object was +distinctly visible for several hundred feet. A moment later the strange +hiss was repeated, and then a small, black object was seen glistening in +the moonlight a few feet from shore. Again came the penetrating hiss, +and the animal moved several feet farther in, as if cautiously looking +around. The moonbeams scintillated for a moment on its shell, as it +hesitated on the edge, and then the turtle commenced a clumsy scramble +up the beach, lifting itself along in a laborious manner. In ten minutes +it had reached the loose sand above tide-water, and kept its course +toward us until within thirty feet, when it began to excavate its nest. +The operation seemed to be performed mostly with the hind feet, and was +accomplished in a remarkably short time, considering the implements +used. + +All the party were breathing hard, and, as Sandy afterward remarked, +"The only reason de turkle didn't go was it t'ought we'se porpuses." + +The turtle was allowed to deposit its eggs, and when that operation was +supposed to be about over a concerted rush was made. As we rose from +the sand, the animal whirled clumsily around and made for the sea. It +was an enormous loggerhead, and, with its huge head and powerful +flippers, presented a decidedly aggressive appearance. The two boys were +first on the field, and, without waiting for the scantling which old +Sandy had grasped, seized the creature on the side, between the +flippers, and lifted it. But they had barely raised it from the sand +when the great fore flipper, being clear, struck the unfortunate Piffney +a sounding blow, knocking him against Rastus, who lost his hold, and +both went down in confusion. The turtle scrambled ahead, throwing sand +like a whirlwind. She seemed to have the faculty of lifting nearly a +quart and hurling it with unerring force, and old Sandy's mouth was soon +filled with it. Three of us again seized the animal and lifted, while +the old darky inserted the scantling as a lever. + +"Now, den, clap on yere!" he cried, dodging the sand and flippers. + +We lifted, and the monster was fairly on its side, when an ominous creak +was heard; the plank broke, and before a new hold could be taken the +turtle was but ten feet from the water. Active measures were evidently +necessary, and Sandy, taking the board, ran in front of the animal and +struck wildly at its head, yelling to us to lift. But the sand was soft, +and every lift was attended by a terrific beating to the man who stood +near the fore flipper. In vain we struck, lifted, and hauled: the turtle +was gaining slowly. Finally, in his war-dance about the animal's head, +Sandy stumbled, grasped wildly in the air, and went down backward into +the water with a sounding crash, the turtle fairly crawling over his +legs, and, despite the boys, who hung on to its hind flippers, it slid +into the water and disappeared behind a miniature tidal wave, leaving +the Pinckey family--father and sons--in a state of complete +demoralization. + +"I 'low dat turkle's bo'n free," gasped Sandy, picking himself up and +shaking the water from his clothes. + +"He ain't gwine to give up dat calapee yet, da's a fac'." + +The boys having repaired damages and unloaded the sand received during +the _mêlée_, and the moon being now well up, the tramp around the key +was commenced. The approved method is to walk along as near the water as +possible, and on finding a recent track to follow it up on the run, and +thus head off the turtle. For a mile or more we strolled along the +sands, the boys humming in low tones some old plantation melody, and +Sandy occasionally venting his wrath at some real or imaginary fault in +the young and rising generation. In the midst of one of these tirades, +the boys, who had kept ahead, suddenly darted up toward the bushes. We +were soon after them, following up a broad track distinctly marked on +the white, sandy beach, and came upon a fine green turtle, which +immediately started for the water, making rapid headway. The honor of +turning her was reserved for the writer, who, grasping the shell beneath +the flippers, essayed the task. Her struggles, the flying flippers, and +the giving sand verified Sandy's statement that "turklin' was wu'k," +and, after several ineffectual attempts, we were forced to cry for help. +The animal was soon upon her back, and proved to be one of the largest +size. "Old an' tuff," said Sandy; "but," he added, "hit'll be all the +same up No'th." + +The boys now proceeeded to cut slits in the flippers and lash them +together with rope-yarn, the animal being thus placed _hors de combat_. +The march was again taken up, and soon another track was found, but the +eggs had been laid and the game was gone. An attempt to find this nest +showed the cunning displayed by these clumsy creatures. Naturally, the +nest would be looked for at the end of the incoming track, but at this +spot the writer searched fruitlessly, while Sandy looked on in grim +satisfaction at his own superior knowledge. Finally he pointed out the +nest forty feet away, and the boys soon produced the soft, crispy eggs +as proof of his wisdom. + +"Ole turtle jes' as cunnin' as coon," said Sandy, as he nipped one of +the eggs and transferred its contents to his capacious mouth. And, +indeed, so it seemed. Instead of laying directly on reaching the soft +sand, the turtle had crawled down the beach and made several holes, +finally forming her real nest, smoothing it over so that it could never +be distinguished from the rest, and again crawling down the beach before +turning toward the water: thus the nest may be looked for anywhere +between the up and down tracks. + +Having piled the eggs in a convenient place for transportation in the +morning, the march was renewed, and before dawn four turtles were +turned, with little or no discomfort, all being green and much lighter +than the cumbersome loggerhead that first escaped us. + +In the morning the turtles were one by one placed in the dingy and taken +aboard the smack, when we set sail for Garden Key, arriving in the snug +harbor a few hours later. It is a curious fact that the long strip of +sand to the westward, called Loggerhead Key, is mostly frequented by the +turtle of that name, the green turtle rarely going ashore there, +preferring East, Sand, and Middle Keys. + +The eggs of the turtle are perfectly oval, with the exception of one or +two depressions that may occur at any part. They are hatched probably +not by the direct heat of the sun, but by the general temperature of the +sand. The instinct of the young is remarkable. We have placed young +loggerheads barely a day old in a closed room facing away from the +water, and they invariably turned in that direction. During their young +life they fall a prey to many predaceous fishes, such as sharks, also to +the larger gulls, and only a small percentage of the original brood +attains its majority. + +Besides turning turtles, which is of course confined strictly to a +certain season, the fishermen of the reef resort to another method, +called pegging. The instrument of capture is a three-sided peg, often +made by cutting off the end of a file. This is attached to a long line +and fitted into a copper cap on the end of a long pole, the whole +constituting an unbarbed spear. Thus armed, the turtler sculls over the +reef, striking the turtle either as it lies asleep on the bottom or as +it rises to breathe. The peg is hurled long distances with great skill +and accuracy: as soon as it strikes, the pole comes out, and the victim +is managed by the line, often towing the dingy for a considerable +distance. The peg holds by suction; and, as it only enters the hard +shell, and that only half an inch, the animal is not in the least +injured for transportation to the North. + +Key West is the head quarters of the Florida turtling-trade, and on the +north shore of the island, where a shoal reef stretches away, a number +of crawls have been from time immemorial used, being merely fences or +enclosures in which the animals are penned until the time for shipment. +By far the greater number find their way to New York, being packed and +crowded, often brutally, in the common fish-cars at the Fulton Market +dock in such numbers that many are unable to rise, and consequently +drown. The greatest injustice, however, to the long-suffering turtle +comes when the miserable animal is propped up before some restaurant +door, bearing upon its broad carapace the grim assertion, "To be served +this day." + +The green or loggerhead turtles are rarely seen north of Cape Florida. +The outer reef is their home, their range extending far to the south. +Old turtles, like fishes, often have strange companions. They are +covered with barnacles of various kinds; several remoras form their +body-guard, clinging here and there as if part and parcel of their huge +consort. Often small fish allied to the mackerel accompany them, as does +also the pilot-fish of the shark. One large loggerhead pegged by the +writer had its four flippers bitten off by the latter fishes so close to +the shell that it could barely move along, and would undoubtedly soon +have succumbed, although it is a common thing to find both green and +loggerhead turtles minus parts of their locomotive organs. + +The great leather turtle (_Sphurgis coriacea_), the largest of the +tribe, is rarely seen, being seemingly a denizen of the high seas, and +more commonly observed in colder waters; though Gosse is authority for +the statement that they form their nests on the island of Jamaica. The +following account is from the Jamaica "Morning Journal" of April 13, +1846: "The anxiety of the fishermen in this little village was aroused +on the 30th of last month by the track of a huge sea-monster, called a +trunk-turtle, which came on the sea-beach for the purpose of laying her +eggs. A search was made, when a hole in the sand was discovered, about +four feet deep and as wide as the mouth of a half-barrel, whence five or +six dozen white eggs were taken out; the eggs were of different sizes, +the largest the size of a duck's egg. On the morning of the 10th of this +month, at half-past five o'clock, she was discovered by Mr. Crow, on the +beach, near the spot where she first came up; he gave the alarm, when +all the neighbors assembled and got her turned on her back. She took +twelve men to haul her about two hundred yards. I went and measured her, +and found her dimensions as follows: from head to tail, six feet six +inches; from the outer part of her fore fin to the other end" (to the +tip of the other?), "nine feet two inches; the circumference round her +back and chest, seven feet nine inches; circumference of her neck, three +feet three inches; the widest part of her fore fins, eighteen inches; +her hind fins, two feet four inches in length. Her back is formed like a +round top of a trunk, with small white bumps in straight lines, +resembling the nails on a trunk; her color is variegated like the +rainbow" (probably the living skin displayed opaline reflections); +"there is no shell on her back, but a thick skin, like pump-leather." + +Some years since, a gigantic specimen came ashore at Lynn beach, where +for a long time it formed an object of the greatest curiosity. It was +over eight feet in length, and weighed nearly twenty-two hundred pounds. +Instead of definite scales, as in other turtles, it had a shell +composed of six plates, which formed longitudinal ridges extending from +the head to the tail; the eye-openings were up and down, instead of +lengthwise; the bill was hooked; and so many remarkable characteristics +did it possess that many believed it to be a strange nondescript, and +not a turtle. + +It would not be surprising to find that such a creature was descended +from a remarkable ancestry; and, following it up, we are led far into +the early history of the later geological times, when all life seems to +have attained its maximum growth; in fact, it was an era of giants. The +map-maker of to-day would be astonished if confronted with the +coast-line of that early time. The coast-country from Nova Scotia to +Yucatan was all under water, and what are now our plains and prairies +was a vast sea, that commenced where Texas now is and extended far to +the northwest. Even now the old coast-line can be traced. We follow it +along from Arkansas to near Fort Riley, on the Kansas River, then, +extending eastward, it traverses Minnesota, extending into the British +possessions to the head of Lake Superior, while its western shores are +lost under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Such was this great +Cretaceous sea, in whose waters, with hundreds of other strange +creatures, lived the ancestor of our leather tortoise. The ancient sea, +however, disappeared; the land rose and surrounded it; the great forms +died and became buried in the sediment, and finally the water all +evaporated, leaving the bottom high and dry,--an ancient grave-yard, +that can be visited on horseback or by the cars. + +What is now known as the State of Kansas is one of the most favored +spots, and here, embedded in the earth, have been found the remains of +these huge forms. The bones were first seen projecting from a bluff, +and, gradually worked out, proved to be those of a gigantic turtle that +must have measured across its back from flipper to flipper fifteen feet, +while its entire length must have been twenty feet or more. The name of +this giant is the _Protostega gigas_, a fitting forefather for the great +leather turtle of to-day. In some parts of the West the hardened shells +of other and smaller turtles are scattered about in great confusion. +Nearly all have been turned to stone, and, thus preserved, form a +monument of this past time. + +A number of years ago some natives in Southern India were engaged in +making an excavation under the superintendence of an English officer, +when they discovered the remains of one of the largest fossil turtles +ever found. They had penetrated the soil for several feet, when their +implements struck against a hard substance which was at first supposed +to be solid rock, but a bar sank through it, showing it to be either +bone or wood. The earth being carefully removed, the remains of a +mound-shaped, adobe structure gradually appeared. The natives thought it +a house; but the Englishman saw that they had come upon the remains of +some gigantic creature of a past age. Every precaution was taken, and +finally the shell was fully exposed. The restoration shows it as +dome-shaped, nearly fourteen feet long, thirty-three feet in horizontal +circumference, and twenty feet in girth in a vertical direction. Its +length when alive must have been nearly thirty feet, and its feet were +as large as those of a rhinoceros. The capacity of the shell of this +ancient boatman was such that six or seven persons could have found +protection within it. Its name is _Colossochelys atlas_, a land-tortoise +of the Miocene time of geology. Its nearest representatives of to-day +are, if not so large, equally marvellous in their general appearance. +They are found in the Galapagos and Mascarene Islands, and some of them +are seven feet in length, with high domed and plated shells, presenting +the appearance of miniature houses moving along. A single shell would +form a perfect covering for a child. There are five distinct species +found here, each inhabiting a different island. Chatham Island, the home +of some, seems completely honeycombed with black truncated volcano +cones that spring up everywhere, while masses of lava cover the ground, +having been blown into weird and fantastic shapes when soft. + +In among the cones low underbrush and cacti grow, and feeding upon these +are found the great tortoises, which at the approach of danger draw in +their heads with a loud hiss or move slowly and clumsily away. Their +strength is enormous. A small one, three feet long, carried the writer +along a hard floor with perfect ease, and one of the largest would +probably not be inconvenienced by a weight of five hundred pounds. They +attain a great age, often living, it is said, a hundred years or more. + +While we have been digressing, the turtles have been dumped into the +great moat that surrounds the fort, and, stretched upon the deck, the +sable crew are fast asleep. The writer has been watching a large +three-master moving along two or three miles beyond Loggerhead Key. Our +attention is distracted for some time, and, upon looking again, we find +that she has not moved, and impart the fact to Sandy, who looks steadily +through his long spy-glass, evidently made up of several others; then, +gazing intently over the top, he brings all hands to their feet by the +cry of "Wrack!" For Sandy is a licensed "wracker." + +The man-of-war orders now uttered find no place in any known code, and +in a moment the Bull Pup becomes a scene of unwonted excitement. The +jib, mainsail, and gaff topsail are hauled up to their very tautest; +finally, the cable is slipped, and then old Sandy for the first time +looks around. The boys fail to suppress a loud guffaw, and forthwith +dodge the flying tiller. The old man in the excitement had forgotten an +important factor in the navigation of sailing-craft,--namely, wind. It +was a dead calm, and had been all day, and there, almost within reach, +was a fortune,--hard and fast on the outer reef. + +C.F. HOLDER. + + * * * * * + + + + +ROUGHING IT IN PALESTINE. + + +Mohammed can do less than Mammon to-day for the infidel's ease and +comfort in Palestine. The unholy little yellow god works his modern +miracles even in the Holy Land. You have but to speak the word, and show +your purse or letter of credit, in Beirut or Jaffa, and, as suddenly as +if you had rubbed Aladdin's lamp, a retinue will be at your door to do +your bidding. First a dragoman, with great baggy trousers of silk, a +little gold-embroidered jacket over a colored vest, a girdle whose most +ample folds form an arsenal of no mean proportions, and over the swarthy +face, reposing among the black, glossy curls of a well-poised head, the +red Turkish fez; or, if Ali has an ambition to be thought possessed of +much piety of the orthodox Islamic type, the fez gives way to a turban, +white, or green if he be a pilgrim from Mecca. Behind this important +personage, as much a feature of the East as the Sphinx or the Pyramids, +stand at a respectful distance, making profound salutations, a +cook,--probably a Greek or Italian,--three muleteers, and a donkey-boy. +Behind them still are two horses,--alas! not blooded Arabs madly +champing their bits,--one for yourself and the other for Ali. Three +mules bear patiently on their backs, always more or less raw, the canvas +and poles of the two tents. In the rear is a small donkey, covered all +over with culinary utensils, nibbling fat cactus-leaves with undisguised +satisfaction. For a daily expenditure scarcely greater than is necessary +to keep soul and body together at a fashionable New York hotel on the +American plan, you become the commander of this company, within certain +limits around which there are lines as definite and as impassable as if +drawn by an Irish servant of some years' experience in the United +States. You must not travel more than thirty miles a day; you must not +change the route agreed upon, unless roads become impassable; and there +are other, minor regulations, to which you are expected to submit, and, +if you do, your progress through the land, if not triumphant, will be at +least comfortable. You will find every day at noon, spread under some +wide-armed tree, a cold lunch that even a somewhat difficult taste would +consider fairly appetizing; and at nightfall you dismount before the +door of your tent and sit down to a dinner of many courses, which to a +stomach jounced for ten hours over a saddle seems a very fair dinner +indeed. Your breakfast is what a Frenchman would call a _déjeûner à la +fourchette_; and as you put down your napkin, your tent is folded almost +as quickly and as silently, and you mount your horse, standing ready for +another thirty miles. Yet, if you have just come from Egypt and three +months on a dahabeah, you will not hesitate to call this luxurious mode +of passing from Dan to Beersheba "roughing it in Palestine." + +But it was my good fortune, after journeying from Beirut to Jerusalem +with dragoman and muleteers and tents, like a prince, to go up through +the country like a private citizen. I fell in with a young man in the +Holy City, bora of American parents at Sidon, who had been educated in +America and was now on his way back to his birthplace to spend his life +in the sacred fields as a missionary. He was thoroughly equipped for +roughing it, with a splendid physique and perfect health, imperturbable +spirits, and a rare command of classic and vernacular Arabic. He wanted +to go to Beirut with as few _impedimenta_ as possible, and, after some +talk, we merged our two parties into one. Our preparations for the +journey were of the simplest sort. We agreed to dispense with dragomans +and cooks and tents and trust to the land for food and shelter. We +engaged three good horses and a muleteer. We strapped our baggage on +the muleteer's horse, drew lots for the choice of the other two, and +turned our faces northward. + +It was long before daybreak, one Monday morning, when we stole quietly +out of the Jaffa gate and took the road for Nablous. We were leaving +behind us the most sacred spot on earth to Jew, Catholic, Greek, and +Protestant; but from the road that stretches out before the Jaffa gate +all the holy places of Jerusalem are invisible. The round dome over the +Sepulchre was hidden behind the city's wall and the intervening houses. +The Dome of the Rock, as the beautiful mosque of Omar is called, the +most striking and brilliant object of the whole city from the Damascus +gate, is beneath the hill of Golgotha. Only the Valley of Hinnom, and +the Hill of Evil Counsel, and the slopes leading to Bethlehem, caught +our parting gaze. But an American Protestant turns his back upon the +Holy City with a very different feeling from that of the old Crusaders. +He cannot see the Turkish Mohammedan soldiers guarding the tomb of +Christ without a choking sensation in the throat, but he believes that +life has nobler battles for him than fighting the unbeliever for the +empty sepulchre of his Lord. The surroundings of all the sacred places +are so inharmonious that, while he can never regret his pilgrimage, he +can scarcely regret that it is over. We rose in our saddles, and, +turning, took our last look at the Holy City with very mingled emotions, +and then settled down to the hard day's work before us. + +We were on the great pilgrim-route, which twenty centuries ago was +annually crowded with pilgrims from the north hastening to Jerusalem for +the Passover feast. The Child of Nazareth, when, at the age of twelve, +he went for the first time to the Temple, must have pressed this road +with his sacred feet, must have looked with deep, inquiring eyes upon +these fields and hills. There was enough in the early hour and the +associations of the scenes through which we were passing to keep us for +a long time silent. My horse stumbled and brought us both back from +Dreamland. A look ahead showed us--for the sun was now above the +hills--that the worst piece of road in Palestine was just before us. It +is wholly unartificial: for years no human hand has touched it, except +as mine did when, on dismounting and undertaking to pick my way over the +rocks, I found myself on all-fours. In fact, this Oriental boulevard is +made up for some distance entirely of boulders, round and sharp, +triangular and square, which the spring freshets of the last five or six +decades were regretfully obliged to leave behind. After a short halt for +lunch, about two o'clock, the muleteer assured us, on starting again, we +had still five hours of steady pushing before us, and said something in +the same breath about robbers. Men of his class all through the East are +notorious cowards; but we had been told in Jerusalem that such dangers +were not altogether imaginary, and, almost as our guide spoke, we heard +shrieks, and for a moment we all thought the nefarious crew were at +their work just ahead. The muleteer dropped mysteriously to the rear, +and we rode on over a slight ascent, and there we saw a tall Samaritan +exerting himself in a way most unlike the good one of the parable. He +appeared to be a man of importance,--probably a sheik. His horse, tied +to a little tree, was a very handsome one, and gayly decked out with red +leather and ribbons. He had hold of the hind legs of a poor little goat, +and was intent on pulling the creature away from a smaller man, much +more poorly dressed, whose hands had a death-like grip of the horns. I +was for setting lance in rest and charging to the rescue; but my more +cautious friend put one or two questions to the sheik, who told, in a +somewhat jerky style,--perhaps the result of the strugglings of the goat +and the man at the other end of him,--as straightforward a story as was +possible under the circumstances. He was the proprietor of the hut the +owner of the goat lived in. He had come to collect his lawful rent, and +he knew the money was ready, but he couldn't get it, and so had seized +the only movable object of any value. The poor wretch, who still had +the goat by the horns, denied the story, but in such a way that we +feared he would only injure his conscience by other prevarications if we +encouraged him. So we rode on; and in less than half an hour the sheik +swept proudly by us, with no goat slung over his shoulders, but as he +passed he shot out a single word, that told, like Caesar's _vici_, the +whole story of his victory. + +The muleteer of Palestine will start on a journey at almost any hour of +the morning, but he has a superstitious dread of the darkness that falls +after sunset, and our Hassan was now too frightened to make any answer +to our questions except a short, tremulous half threat, half entreaty to +hurry. We were riding along the valley between Gerizim and Ebal. We had +left Joseph's tomb, and Jacob's well, where our Lord, wearied with his +journey, as we were with ours, sat and rested as he talked with a woman +who had come from the town toward which we were hurrying. The two +mountains, their sides covered with fig-trees and olives, loomed up +dimly out of the twilight on either side. We thought of the day when the +hosts of Israel were encamped here and the antiphonal choirs chanted +blessings from Gerizim and curses from Ebal in the ears of the vastest +congregation ever gathered on earth. There was no sound now of blessing +or cursing. The very stillness was oppressive. Hassan almost ceased to +breathe, and it was not till our horses' hoofs rang on the rough +pavement of Nablous--the ancient Shechem--that he relaxed his muscles +and gave a long sigh of relief. + +We rode at once to the Latin convent, where we felt sure of a cordial +reception and a comfortable bed. There was no light anywhere in the +gloomy building; but Hassan knocked at the great door, confidently at +first, and then angrily. At last came an Arab youth about nineteen, who +stuck one eye in the crack of the door, and asked our business. + +"Yes," he said, "you stay here all night, but go away early in the +morning." + +This was definite, if not hospitable; but we went in, and asked to see +the monks. + +"None here," said the Arab, with a chuckle: "all gone to Tiberias." We +ordered dinner, and, after half an hour, the Arab brought a saucer +holding two boiled eggs, put it on a chair, and said, "There's your +dinner." We were indignant, but it did no good: this boy was the head of +the house for the time, and neither promises nor threats were of any +avail to add anything, besides a little salt and pepper, to the dinner +he had prepared. We went to bed very hungry, but very tired, and in the +morning, before breakfast, hunted out the house of an English +missionary, who took pity on us and gave us to eat. But it is an unusual +thing for any one to leave Nablous without having an experience of some +sort more or less disagreeable to fasten the name of the place in his +recollection. When the brilliant author of "Eothen" sojourned for a day +or two in this "hot furnace of Mohammedanism," as he calls it, the whole +Greek population chose him as an involuntary deliverer of a young +Christian maiden who had been perverted by rich gifts to the faith of +Islam, or at least to a belief that a rich Mohammedan was to be +preferred as a husband to a poor Christian. They stare upon you now, as +they did then, as you walk through the streets and bazaars, "with fixed, +glassy look, which seemed to say, God is God, but how marvellous and +inscrutable are his ways, that thus he permits the white-faced dog of a +Christian to hunt through the paths of the faithful!" + +We went, of course, to the little Samaritan synagogue, to see the famous +copy of the Pentateuch, whose age no man knoweth. We rode up the steep +slopes of Gerizim to the ruins of the temple where the woman of Samaria +said her fathers had always worshipped, and then, in a pouring rain, we +started for Jenin. Hassan sunk his head down in a huge Oriental cloak, +undoubtedly manufactured in Birmingham or Manchester, and his horse, +left to himself, lost his way, for a Palestine road may at any time, +like a Western trail, turn into a squirrel's track and run up a tree. +When we found ourselves again we were all wet and not in the best of +humor, but in sight of the old city of Samaria on her high hills. + +The magnificent capital of Ahab and Jezebel, we saw at a glance, is now +only a ruined, dirty village, where a European could not hope for +shelter for a night. The hills sank into a heavy plain that seemed +interminable. The short twilight faded into untempered darkness. Hassan +was again in the rear. He would have fled incontinently at the first +sign of danger. Our only consolation was that his horse was tired and he +couldn't get very far away from us under any circumstances. I had a +letter to a Christian at Jenin that was thought to be good for supper +and lodging. We filed through the muddy streets to the door of the +Christian's house, sent in the letter by Hassan, and a man came out, +saluted us, told us to follow and he would take us to "a most +comfortable place." When we stopped, it was before the door of a little +mud hut. An old woman opened it, but, before letting us in, fixed the +price we were to pay. We entered a room that did service for the entire +wants of our hostess. It was very small, but it could not have been made +larger without knocking out the sidewalls of her house. The floor was of +dry mud, and there was nothing to sit upon except our saddles. We supped +from the bread and meat our good missionary friend had given us, and, +rolling ourselves in our blankets, we slept; but not long. The mud +beneath us was not that dull, inanimate, clog-like thing we trample +thoughtlessly under our feet along our country roads: it was that sort +of matter in which Tyndale thought he could discern "the form and +potency of life." They were both there, and in the still darkness they +made themselves felt. My friend, for some mysterious reason, was left +untouched, but the regiments that should have quartered on him joined +those that were banqueting on my too unsolid flesh. My sufferings were +but slightly mitigated by the remembrance that probably the progenitors +of these fierce feeders on human blood may have dined as sumptuously on +prophets and apostles, and that, intense as my anguish was, the chances +were against any fatal termination. I rose often and went to the door, +hoping for the morning, but it came not. Each time on returning to my +couch I found the number of my tormentors had been augmented: so I kept +still, like an Indian at the stake, and only refrained for my friend's +sake from singing a triumphant song as I found myself growing used to +the pain and at last able to sleep a troubled sort of sleep, such as +Damiens may have had on the rack. When I showed my arms in the morning +to Hassan, he lifted his eyes to heaven and muttered a prayer to Allah, +of which I thought I could divine the meaning. + +Our ride that day was across the great plain of Esdraelon. We were +charitable enough to believe that travellers who have raved over the +exquisite beauty of this valley, who tell of "the green meadow-land +flaming with masses of red anemones," of "myriads of nodding daisies," +and of "sheets of burning azure in the sun," did actually look upon all +these splendors in the early spring; but it was January now, and we +seemed to be pushing our way through a sea of dull, dead brown. The +ground was soft with the winter rains, and our horses' feet sank to the +fetlocks and gathered huge balls of the thick adhesive earth, deposited +every hundred yards or so to give place to others. We rode through the +dirty little village of Nain, where once a widow's son, carried out to +burial, heard the only voice that reaches the dead and rose from his +bier; but all solemn and tender thoughts were frightened away by the +crowd of maimed and blind and ragged and hungry men, women, and children +that came pouring out of the huts, crying, begging, demanding +_backsheesh_. "This," one of our American consuls said, "is the language +of Canaan now;" and it is one of the least melodious of earth. We +lunched on the dry grass in the sun in full sight of Tabor, on the +remnants of what the good missionary at Nablous had given us, and, +tightening our saddle-girths, we began the ascent of the mountain. We +clambered up the rude bridle-path, covered with loose stones, and +knocked timidly, with the remembrance of our Nablous experiences, at the +door of a large and very sightly monastery. Almost immediately a monk of +kindly face and soft black Italian eyes gave us a cordial greeting, and +the unexpectedness of it nearly enticed us into throwing our arms around +his neck and leaving an Oriental salutation upon his cheek. He led us +into a large, clean refectory, and then into two clean rooms. I might +use other epithets, but none other means so much in the East. After a +very satisfying supper, the good monk--he was so good to us, we tried to +think he was as clean within as the rooms of his monastery--took us out +to the pinnacle of the mountain and enjoyed our enthusiasm over the +magnificent view that was spread out before us. Almost the whole of +Palestine was within sight beneath us. We looked southward, across the +plain we had struggled over so laboriously, to the mountains behind +Jerusalem. We could see the depression where the Dead Sea lay in its +bowl, encircled by the hills of Moab. To the west we were looking upon +Carmel, at whose base the blue waves of the Mediterranean sigh, and +moan, and thunder. To the east, across the Jordan, from which the mists +of evening were already rising, we could distinguish the wild, deep +ravines of the land of the Bedawin; and in the north, grandest of all, +stood Hermon, his great white head touched with the crimson of the +setting sun, just plunging, like an old Moabite deity, into the +mountains of Lebanon beyond. By almost common consent it is agreed among +the Biblical scholars of our day that not here on Tabor where we stood, +but northward, there on one of the peaks of Hermon, was the place where +our Lord was transfigured; but the Christian imagination, like the +Christian consciousness, is not always submissive to fact, and we shall +continue, with the larger part of the Christian world, to think of Tabor +as the Mount of Transfiguration, while we speak of Hermon as the true +site. + +We had an easy ride the next morning to Nazareth, and a kindly reception +from the monks. The hospitality at all these convents is untrammelled by +pecuniary conditions; but all travellers who have purses and hearts and +consciences do, in fact, on their departure, present the Superior with a +sum about equal to the charges for the same length of time at an Eastern +hotel. I mention this in the interests of historic truth, and not with +any desire to throw a garish light of self-interest upon the cordiality +of these Latin "religious." We were in the heart of the little city +where He whom millions of human beings call their Saviour and God lived +for more than twenty years. Somewhere among these houses that fill the +valley and cling to the hill-side was Joseph's home. Not a house, of +course, is here now that was here then; all the sacred places they show +you--the Virgin's home, the place of the Annunciation, the workshop of +Joseph--must be unauthentic; but these hills are what they were. They +shut out the great world He had come to redeem, but not the heavens +above Him or the sinfulness and needs of the segment of humanity around +Him. When we rode toward Tiberias in the early morning there were a +dozen or more of the girls of Nazareth going out to Mary's spring, as +the fountain at the entrance of the town is called; but their garments +were ragged and uncleanly and their swarthy faces heavily tattooed, and, +while we were ready to accept the season of the year as an excuse for +any deficiency in the attractiveness of the landscape, we could not +admit it in extenuation of the uncomeliness of the maidens of Palestine. +Their beauty we believe to be almost entirely a fiction of the tourist's +imagination. + +On our way to the Sea of Galilee we passed through Cana, where they show +you still some of the water-pots in which "the conscious water blushed" +when it saw its Lord, and crossed the plain of Hattin, on one of whose +round, horn-like acclivities the Sermon on the Mount is said to have +been given. Here the Crusaders made their last stand against the +victorious army of Saladin; and when at nightfall their bugles sounded +the retreat, the Holy Land was given over to the unbeliever for +centuries:--who is prophet enough to say for how many? As we first saw +the lake that afternoon, with the sunlight on it, and the low Moabite +hills rising lonely and sad against the blue sky, and Hermon, cold and +regal, far away to the north, and yet standing out so prominently as to +be the most striking feature in the scene, we felt that Gennesaret had +been ruthlessly robbed of her rights by certain well-known critics who, +professing to be her best friends, have denied her all claim to beauty +except by association. Tiberias ranks with Jerusalem and Hebron and +Safed as one of the four holy cities of the Jews, but its houses are +filthy huts and its streets muddy lanes. Here we saw the Jew, +down-trodden, oppressed, wretched, but still proud, the unhappiest +creature, this Tiberian descendant of David, in all the Holy Land, with +his long yellow cloak, his hair hanging upon his shoulders in corkscrew +curls, and an expression on his wan, sallow face that would force tears +from your eyes if you did not know that his life is ordinarily as +contemptible as his condition is pitiable. We spent an hour or more in +one of the two boats that to-day make up the entire fishing-fleet of +Galilee, and then found hospitable shelter under the roof of the Latin +monastery, the last that was to open its doors to us in Palestine; and +when we rode away on Monday morning we made a vow in our hearts never to +speak ill of that part of the Romish Church which presides over the +convents of the Holy Land. As our muleteer confessed he was as ignorant +as any dog of a European Christian of the route we wished to take from +Tiberias to Banias and Deir Mimas, the monks advised us, to save time, +and perhaps our purses, perhaps our lives, by taking a Turkish soldier +as a combined guide and guard. We sent to the proper official, and two +savage-looking fellows came to the monastery. They swore by the beard of +Mohammed that our lives would be worth less than that of a Tiberian flea +if we went alone, or even with one soldier; they talked our few +remaining powers of resistance to death, and we took them at their own +price, less one-half, which was conceded to be very liberal on our part. +We felt we had a new lease of life, and spent the rest of the afternoon +in sweet unconcern and content; but late that evening word was sent that +one of the brave soldiers, in consideration of the great risk involved +in the enterprise, had concluded to raise his price, and of course his +companion, deeply as he regretted it, felt compelled to follow his +example. We at once sent back word that our poverty would not permit us +to accede to their most modest request, and threw ourselves on the +Superior of the convent to extricate us from our dilemma. A guard had +now become a necessity, for the poor muleteer was so badly frightened by +all the terrible things he had heard, that if we had promised him his +weight in gold to be delivered at Beirut he would not have stirred a +step unprotected. A request was sent to the commandant of the city, and +he was pleased to present us with a Kurdish cavalryman, who was to be +our slave for the next four days, if on our part we would agree to pay +him well and do as he said. We were now humble. We promised, and the +Kurd came riding to the gates of the convent the next morning at the +hour fixed for our departure. He was immensely long and lean. He looked +hungry all over. Even his musket, longer by some inches than himself, +had the appearance of existing on a very low diet of powder and ball. An +awful doubt of its efficacy crept into my heart, but we gave him the +matutinal greetings of the country, and our cavalcade followed at his +heels. + +We rode along the lake at a fairly rapid walk to the little mud village +of Magdala, the home, it is supposed, of Mary Magdalene. We stopped to +breathe our horses at Khan Minyeh, the site, some scholars assert, of +the once beautiful city of Capernaum, and then rode along a rocky road +to Tel Hun, at the end of the lake, chosen by the best judgment of the +day as the actual spot where the city, exalted by her pride to heaven, +rested lightly on the earth. We picked our way in and out among fluted +marble columns, the very ruins, some insist, of the synagogue which the +good centurion built for the city he loved. Here, then, may have been +the home of our Lord during those earliest days of his public ministry, +the happiest days of his earthly life, before baffled hate had begun to +weave its net around him. + +Our course now lay due north, away from the lake, across trackless +fields covered with round basaltic stones. The Kurd's horse was a better +one than ours, and it was all we could do to keep him in sight. The sun +was hot. What would it have been on those hills in midsummer? We threw +off our heavy coats, that had been more than comfortable in the early +morning along the lake, and pushed doggedly on. To our left, higher even +than the hill we climbed, was holy Safed, to which it is thought our +Lord may have pointed when he spoke of a city set upon a hill, that +cannot be hid; and straight before us, the object of our hopes and +efforts, was snow-clad Hermon, as beautiful, we thought, as an Alp. We +crossed the mountain at last, and, as our horses waded through a deep +brook on the other side, the Kurd bent slightly in his saddle, and, +reaching down, brought up great handfuls of water to stay his thirst, +without stopping for an instant. There was a sly twinkle of pleasure in +his eye when the muleteer told him we had admired his skill. + +Late in the afternoon we came to the marshy lakes, "the waters of +Merom," where Joshua smote the kings of the north, who made a final +stand here with their united armies, "like the sands of the sea in +number." We should have been glad to find one of their royal palaces in +tolerable repair, for we were tired and wanted to stop for the night, +but there were no ruined regal mansions in sight, not even a mud hut +such as had given us shelter and hunting at Jenin. The sun had gone +down, and our horses shivered in the night air. The prospect was gloomy, +and grew no brighter as we went on. At last we saw some long black tents +across the plain sheltered by the hills; and, while we were wondering +what the chances might be of escaping robbery by the Bedawin at this +late hour of the night, the Kurd turned his horse out of the bridle-path +and headed for the largest tent. The probabilities seemed now about +equal that the Kurd was in league with these wild, wandering tribes, and +that they would pluck us, and torture us, and bury us without the aid of +undertaker or parson, or, on the other hand, that they might welcome us +to the few comforts within their command. The sheik was standing, with a +half-dozen of his leading men, at the door of his tent, and, as we +dismounted, he came forward with much grace and dignity and embraced my +friend, kissing him on each cheek. He only waved his hand to me, as a +younger and less important personage, and led us into his tent. Cushions +were thrown down for us on the bare earth, and we were told to be +seated. A little fire was burning just in front of the tent, and around +that the privileged persons of the tribe squatted, only the chief and +some of his great warriors being under the tent with ourselves. They +were as curious as civilized people to know where we were going, and +why; and they concealed with difficulty their surprise and suspicion +when they were told that our only object was to see the country. No +Oriental, much less a Bedawin, ranks that among possible reasons for +passing from one place to another. After more conversation than we +thought necessary before supper, a dish of rice was brought in, and with +it two wooden spoons; but how these came to be in a sheik's tent we +thought it wise not to ask. They looked on while we ate, refusing all +our entreaties to join with us; but when we had finished, they thrust +their hands into the bowl, and, with a deft movement, made round balls +as large as a lemon, and shot these with great skill into their mouths. +While they ate, my friend asked if he might read them a story. They +consented eagerly; and, taking out his Arabic Testament, he read them +the parable of the Prodigal Son. A more appreciative company never +listened to it. At each crisis of the narrative the sheik looked around +and said, "_Fayib ketir_,"--"Very good,"--and then, as if devoutly +making the responses, they all said, "_Fayib ketir_" I thought I saw one +of them brush away a tear as the story was finished: perhaps he was a +father with a prodigal son, or something in his heart may have told him +that he was a prodigal himself. + +They all rose at a signal, and left us to our slumbers. We were to share +the tent with the sheik; and when we had laid ourselves down on the +cushions and covered ourselves with our overcoats, the sheik came +anxiously to my friend and asked "if we would not be very cold with +nothing over our heads." The Oriental lets his feet take care of +themselves if only his head is warm. The flap of the tent was not +lowered, and we could look from where we were lying on the Eastern hills +and the stars above them. It was long before I could sleep in such +surroundings. We were unprotected in the tent of a Bedawin sheik on the +waters of Merom, and all the past faded away: for the moment I did not +believe that there were such cities as New York and London and +Paris,--they were buried deep under the streets of Jerusalem and +Tiberias and Safed. I was no longer an American, but the son of this +sheik, destined to be the ruler of all the tribes that dwell in black +tents of hair-cloth. My friend lying at my side groaned in his sleep, +and the baseless fabric of my dream crumbled. I was myself again, and +felt a sharp blow from my own familiar conscience when I found myself +smiling with vengeful satisfaction at certain movements of my sleeping +friend that made it apparent he was being visited by certain inhabitants +of the night that find their way to Bedawin tents as well as peasants' +huts. He had been almost untouched when I suffered so at Jenin; and I +found my confidence increased in the law of compensation as I watched +his struggles, wholly unscathed myself. + +Our next day's work was the longest and hardest we had yet had. We were +to crowd two days into one. We were well on our way before it was fairly +light. We crossed the Jordan on a little stone bridge, and rode straight +over the plain to Banias, the Caesarea Philippi of apostolic times. We +left our horses in the little village near which the Jordan comes +pouring out of a rocky opening in the hills, and, with an Arab boy, +hurried at our best pace up the mountain to the magnificent ruins of a +mediaeval castle, the finest of its class in the Holy Land. Our Kurd and +muleteer were waiting for us as we came down the hill like veritable +mountain-goats, and the latter pointed triumphantly to something wrapped +in an Arab newspaper under his arm. As soon as we were out of sight of +the village he stopped and displayed his prize: it was a chicken, cooked +in some unknown but most savory way. It was long since we had eaten +anything of the sort, and, leaping to the ground, with the help of a +clasp-knife bought in Nablous, the only eating-utensil our party could +boast, we bisected our dinner, and, sitting under a gray old gnarled +olive, ate it with such expressions of satisfaction as would not be +honest, even if allowable, at the grandest civilized banquets. + +We sprang again into our saddles, crossed again the plain and the bridge +over the Jordan, and pushed over the hills toward Deir Mimas. Our horses +were used up even more completely than ourselves; and when the Kurd lost +the way, and took us a long and unnecessary _détour_, we felt it so +keenly that we said nothing. It was long after nightfall when we +dismounted at the door of a native Christian preacher's house at Deir +Mimas. But the struggles of the day were not ended. The Kurd stalked in, +and, saying that here his duties ended, demanded a sum at least a third +greater than that agreed upon. We fought him with everything but +weapons, and, when we separated, the Kurd's pockets were heavier and his +heart lighter than was consistent with the eternal fitness of things. We +had only to follow a well-made road the next day to Sidon; and there, as +we sat at a table spread with a clean, white cloth, on which were +plates, and knives and forks, and cups and saucers, and spoons, we +concluded that our roughing it in Palestine had at least convinced us +that civilized man makes himself want many convenient if not wholly +necessary things. + +CHARLES WOOD. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE EYE OF A NEEDLE. + + +"I don't know which way to turn to get the fall tailorin' done, now +Mirandy Daggett's been and had money left to her," said, in an aggrieved +tone, the buxom mistress of the Wei by poor-farm, as she briskly hung +festoons of pumpkins, garners of the yellowest of the summer sunshine, +along the beams of the great wood-shed chamber. "The widow Pingree, from +over Sharon way, she's so wasteful, I declare it makes my blood run cold +to see her cuttin' and slashin' into good cloth; and Emerline Johnson +she's so scantin', the menfolks all looks like scarecrows, with their +legs and arms a-stickin' out. _Mirandy's_ got faculty." + +"Seems if 'twa'n't no more'n yesterday that I was carryin' victuals to +keep that child from starvin', and now she's an heiress, and here I be. +Well, the Lord's ways ain't ourn." + +A little old woman, twisted all awry by a paralytic shock, who was +feebly assisting the poor-mistress, uttered these reflections in a +high-keyed, quavering voice. She was called old lady Peaseley, and a +halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the +poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister +of Welby. + +"I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed +minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked +and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard. If things was as +they used to be, I should jest sing out to her to come right up here; +but, bein' she's such an heiress, I s'pose I'd better go down and open +the front door." + +But before the brisk poor-mistress could reach the front door her +visitor had entered, the kitchen. + +"I've been kind of low-spirited, and, thinks I, if there is a place +where I could get chippered up it's down to the poor-house, where it's +always so lively and sociable; and if Mis' Bemis ain't a-goin' to send +for me I'll jest go over and find out the reason why." + +The speaker, who had seated herself in a rocking-chair, took off her +rough straw hat and fanned herself with it energetically, rocking +meanwhile. She was about midway in the thirties, plain and almost coarse +of feature, but with a suggestion of tenderness about her large mouth +that softened her whole face. She had, too, a vigor and freshness which +were attractive like the bloom of youth. + +"I was jest sayin' to old lady Peaseley that I didn't know how I was +a-goin' to get along without you; but I wouldn't 'a' thought of askin' +you to come, bein' you're so rich now." + +"Be I a-goin' to lay by and twiddle my thumbs and listen to folks +advisin' of me jest because I ain't obliged to work? I'm all beat out +now doin' nothin'. Since I've bought the old place--gran'ther's farm, +you know--I don't seem to be much better off. I can't go to farmin' it +this fall; and what can a lone woman do on a farm anyhow?" + +"Farmin' is kind of poor business for a woman; but I do hope, Mirandy, +you ain't a-goin' to marry that poor, pigeon-breasted, peddlin' cretur +that's hangin' round here." + +Miranda flushed to the roots of her thick black hair. + +"It looks better to see a man round on a farm, if he can't do anything +but set on the choppin'-block and whistle," she said, intently surveying +her hat-crown. + +"If you want to get married, Mirandy, it seems if you ought to have a +stiddy, likely man." + +"I don't want to get married. I ain't never thought of such a thing +since--well, you know all about it, Mis' Bemis, so I may as well say +right out--since Ephrum took up with M'lissy Whitin'." + +"Ephrum Spencer was a mean scamp to serve you so," said Mrs. Bemis +hotly. + +"Now, Mis' Bemus, don't you say anything against Ephrum. You and me has +always been friends, but I can't stand that, anyhow. Ephrum would have +kept his promise to me fair and square, but I saw plain enough that he +had given his heart to her. She was red-and-white-complected, and her +hair curled natural, and she'd never done anything but keep school, and +her hands was jest as soft and white, and a man's feelin's ain't like a +woman's, anyhow: if Ephrum had been hump-backed, or all scarred up +so's't he'd scare folks, like old Mr. Prouty, it wouldn't 'a' made any +difference to me, so long as he was Ephrum. The Lord made men different, +and I s'pose it's all right; but sometimes it seems kind of hard." The +large, firm mouth quivered like a child's. + +"She was a reg'lar little spitfire, Melissy Whitin' was: there wa'n't +nothin' _to_ her but temper. I'll warrant Ephrum Spencer has got his +come-uppance before this time," said the poor-mistress, with +satisfaction. "Well, I think it's real providential that you don't want +to get married, Mirandy, for as like as not you'd get somebody that +would spend all your money. I told'em I didn't believe you was goin' to +take up with that poor stick of a book-agent." + +"Oh, Mis' Bemis, I s'pose I be goin' to have him!" said Miranda +dejectedly. "He thinks he's consumpted, and I thought I could doctor him +up, and 'twould be a use for the money. And he was a minister once, +though it was some queer kind of a denomination that I never heard of, +and that seemed kind of edifyin'; and his arm was cut off away off in +Philadelphy ten years ago, and yet he can feel it a-twingein'. And he's +kind of slim and retirin', and not so unhandy to have round as some men +would be. And, anyhow, I've give him my promise." + +"Mirandy, I didn't think you was so foolish as that,--and him an +imposertor as like as not." + +"Everything that I've tried to do since Uncle Phineas left me that money +folks have called me foolish or crazy, and I always was reckoned +sensible before, if I was homely. Abijah's folks warn me against lettin' +John's folks have it, and John's folks against Abijah's, and they say +that banks burst up and railroad stocks are risky, and I'll end by bein' +on the town. I never heard anything about my bein' in danger of comin' +on to the town before. I put my savin's in an old stockin' between my +beds, and wa'n't beholden to anybody for advice nor anything. I tell +you, Mis' Bemis, there ain't a mite of comfort in riches to them that's +got nobody but themselves to do for. Now, I've been wantin' a good black +silk for a long spell, and I've been layin' by a little here and a +little there, and 'lottin' on gettin' it before long, and I've enjoyed +thinkin' about it jest as much as if I had it; and now that comfort is +all took away. I can go and buy one right out, and I don't want it. And +only see what trouble I've got into about marryin'. I can't eat my +victuals, and I don't enjoy my meet'n' privileges, and I don't even care +much about knowin' what's goin' on. The Bible says rich folks have got +to go through the eye of a needle before they can get into the kingdom +of heaven, and it seems jest as if that was what I was a-doin'." + +"I don't think that's jest the way it reads, Mirandy; but if it's a +consolin' idee to you--" + +"I hain't any too much consolation, and that's a fact. But it does seem +real good to be here; and if you'll jest send one of the boys after my +things I'll stay. I locked up and left my bag on the back door-step." + +The poor-mistress confided to old lady Peaseley that "there wasn't as +much satisfaction in havin' Mirandy as if she hadn't got proputty, even +if she didn't seem to feel it none: she couldn't help feelin' as if the +minister 'n' his wife had come to tea;" and she opened the best room, +with all its glories of hair-cloth furniture, preserved funeral wreaths, +and shell Bunker Hill Monument, and had the spare chamber swept and +garnished. The poor-house was certainly a good place in which to get +"chippered up." There were few happier households in the county; there +was not one where jollity reigned as it did there. + +From Captain Hezekiah Butterfield, generally known as Cap'n 'Kiah, an +octogenarian who was regarded as an oracle, down to Tready Morgan, a +half-witted orphan, the inmates of the poor-house had an enjoyment of +living astonishing to behold. It had been hinted at town-meeting that +the keeper of the poor-farm was a "leetle mite too generous and +easy-going," especially as he insisted upon furnishing the paupers with +"store" tea and coffee, whereas his predecessor, Hiram Judkins, had made +them drink bayberry tea, a refreshment which old Mrs. Gerald, a pauper +whose wits were wandering, and who was familiarly known as "Marm Bony," +because she cherished a conviction that she was the empress Josephine, +declared was "no more consolin' than meadow hay." + +Seth Bemis and his wife made the farm pay: so the town voted to wink at +the store-tea. And they suited the paupers,--which was even more +difficult than to suit the town officers. + +Miranda's arrival had created quite an excitement among the inmates of +the poor-house. They had all heard that she had fallen heir to almost +ten thousand dollars, and there was curiosity to see how she would +comport herself under this great accession of fortune. + +Miranda stoutly resisted the charms of the best room, and sat down with +the paupers in the great kitchen after supper. For the spare chamber she +showed some weakness, for the little back chamber which she usually +occupied during her visits to the poor-farm was next to Oly Cowden's +room, and Oly had a way of rapping on her wall in the dead of the night +for somebody to bring her a roasted onion to avert a peculiarly bad +dream to which she was subject; and the next room on the other side was +occupied by Jo Briscoe, who had a habit of playing on his violin at most +unseemly hours, and, as poor Jo had come through a terrible shipwreck, +in which he had lost, by freezing, both his feet and several of his +fingers, which latter loss made it wonderful that he could play at all, +nobody had the heart to interfere with the consolation which "Fisher's +Hornpipe" and "The Girl I left behind me" afforded him at three o'clock +in the morning,--nobody, that is, except "Marm Bony," whose room was on +the other side of the corridor, and who took Jo's performances as a +serenade, and gently insinuated to him that, as Napoleon was still +living, she might be compromised by such tributes to her charms. +Although she was anxious not to accept any privileges on account of her +wealth, Miranda thought she would occupy the spare chamber. + +The paupers were all disposed to keep holiday in Miranda's honor. Old +Cap'n 'Kiah had donned a collar so high that it sawed agonizingly upon +his ears, little Dr. Pingree, a peddler of roots and herbs, who was +occasionally obliged to seek winter quarters at the poor-house, wore a +black satin vest brocaded with huge blue roses, which had appeared at +his wedding forty years before, and "Marm Bony" had adorned herself with +a skimpy green satin skirt and three peacock-feathers standing upright +in her little knob of back hair. And Jo Briscoe was tuning his violin, +evidently in preparation for an unusual effort. + +A vague idea that Miranda had arrived at great honor had penetrated poor +"Marm Bony's" bewildered brain, and a fancy suddenly seized her that +Miranda was the unscrupulous Marie Louise who had supplanted her as +Napoleon's wife, and she hobbled out of the room in great agitation and +wrath, her peacock-feathers waving wildly in the air. She returned in a +few minutes, however, and whispered to Miranda that, "as Napoleon wa'n't +jest what he'd ought to be anyway, mebbe they'd better make up." To +which proposition Miranda assented gravely, holding the wrinkled, +trembling old hand tenderly in hers. + +Cap'n 'Kiah felt it incumbent upon him to lead the conversation, being +modestly conscious of his social gifts. + +He had been a ship-owner, and very well-to-do, until in his old age he +was robbed of all his property by a younger brother whom he had brought +up and cared for as a son. But the old man had brought to this low level +of society to which he had sunk a cheerful philosophy and a grim humor +for which many a successful man might well have given all his +possessions. + +"Rich and poor, there's a sight of human nater about us all, though +there ain't no use denyin' that some has more than others," remarked +Cap'n 'Kiah sententiously. "And whether riches or poverty brings it out +the strongest it's hard tellin'." + +"I've always thought I might never have found out that I had medicle +tarlunt if I'd been rich," said Dr. Pingree meditatively. The little man +had "taken up doctorin' out of his own head," as he expressed it, after +finding that shoemaking and tin-peddling did not satisfy his ambition, +and was the inventor and sole proprietor of an infallible medicine, +known as the "Universal Pain-Exterminator." The jokers dubbed it +"Health-Exterminator," but almost all Welby took it,--they must take +something in the spring,--and the little doctor, who had a soul far +above thoughts of sordid gain, never expected to be paid for it, which +made it very popular. It couldn't kill one, being made of simplest roots +and herbs; and if one should be cured, how very pleasant it would be to +think that it was without cost! + +"Sure enough, doctor, mebbe you never would," said the captain. "And I +suppose the innercent satisfaction you've got a-makin' them medicines is +as great as you could 'a' got out of riches, and without the worry and +care of riches, too." + +"Not to mention the good done to my fellow-creturs," said the little +doctor. + +"Jest as you say, the good done to your fellow-creturs not bein' worth +mentionin'" said Cap'n 'Kiah, with a grave simplicity that disarmed +suspicion. "There ain't no denyin' that poverty is strength'nin' to the +faculties." + +"Don't give me nothin' more strength'nin than riches in mine," said +Uncle Peter Henchman, who boasted great wisdom and experience, based +mysteriously on the possession of a wooden leg. "I've been in this world +up'ards of seventy years, forty-five of it a-walkin' on a wooden leg, +and I hain't never seen that poverty was anything but a curse." + +"You've got a terrible mistaken p'int of view, Peter, well-meanin' as +you be," said Cap'n 'Kiah, "There's nothin' in nater, and, I was a-goin' +to say, in grace, but what you clap your eyes fust onto the contr'y +side, and then you're sure there ain't nothin' _but_ a contr'y side." + +"I wish I could see something besides the contr'y side of riches; but I +hain't yet," said Miranda, with a heavy sigh. + +Little Dr. Pingree cast a sidelong look at her, and then adjusted his +cravat and considered the effect of the blue roses on his vest. Was a +vision flitting before his eyes of the wagon drawn by gayly-caparisoned +steeds and bearing in gilt letters on a red ground the legend, "Dr. +Pingree's Pain-Exterminator, Humanity's Friend,"--of his own face, +beautified by art, adorning fences and walls above this proud +inscription, "The Renowned Inventor of the Universal Pain-Exterminator"? +This fame, the dream of a lifetime, might now be purchased by money. And +he had always admired Miranda. + +Miranda caught his glance, and, with the suspicion which wealth had +already engendered, divined his thought. Was there going to be another +aspirant for her hand? + +"The wind's a-blowin up; and what a roarin' the sea does make!" she said +hurriedly, to cover her embarrassment. "The only thing I don't like +about this house is its bein' so near the sea. It's rainin' hard; and +I'm glad of it," she added, in an undertone, to Mrs. Bemis,--"for _he_ +won't be so likely to get round here to-night. Courtin' is real tryin'." + +"The ocean is a dretful disconserlate-soundin' cretur," remarked Uncle +Peter lugubriously; "and when you think of the drownded folks she's got +a-rollin' round in her, 'tain't no wonder." + +"The ocean's a useful work o' nater, and she's fetched and carried and +aimed a livin' for a good many more'n she's swallered up," said Cap'n +'Kiah. + +"I expect this world ain't a vale of tears, nohow," said Uncle Peter in +an aggrieved tone. "There is folks that knows more'n the hymn-book." + +"Well, it is, and then ag'in it ain't, jest accordin' to the way you +look at it. There's a sight more the matter with folks's p'int o' view +than there is with the Lord A'mighty's world.--Now, Jo, if you've got +that cretur o' yourn into ship-shape,--it always doos seem to me jest +like a human cretur that's got the right p'int o' view, that fiddle +doos,--jest give it to us lively." + +Jo tuned up, with modest satisfaction, and two or three couples stood up +to dance. Little Dr. Pingree was about to solicit Miranda's hand for the +dance, when there came a knock at the door. + +Miranda stuck her knitting-needle through her back-hair in an agitated +and expectant manner. But it was not the lank figure of the +book-peddler, her betrothed, that darkened the door. It was a forlorn +woman, dripping with rain, with two small boys clinging to her skirts. + +"I suppose poor folks have a right to come in here out of the rain," she +said, advancing to the fire and seating herself with a sullen and +dejected aspect. + +Little Dr. Pingree, who felt the arrival to be very inopportune, +nevertheless gallantly hastened to replenish the fire. + +The poor-mistress hospitably offered to remove the visitor's wet +wrappings, but she shook her head. + +"I want to find the relatives of Ephrum Spencer," she said. + +"You'll have to go a good ways," said Cap'n 'Kiah. + +"The graveyard is chock full of 'em," said Uncle Peter. + +"They've kind of died out," explained Cap'n 'Kiah. "They seemed to be +the kind that dies out easy and nateral." + +"His uncle Hiram isn't dead, is he?" asked the woman, with the strain of +anxiety in her voice. + +"He died about a year ago." + +"What's become of his money?" asked the stranger sharply. + +"Well, there wa'n't so much as folks thought," said Cap'n 'Kiah. "He +frittered away a good deal on new-fangled merchines and such things that +wa'n't of any account,--had a reg'lar mania for 'em for a year or so +before he died; and then he give some money to his housekeeper and the +man that worked for him, and what was left he give to the town for a new +town-hall; but, along of quarrellin' about where 'twas to set and what +'twas to be built of, and gittin' legal advice to settle the p'ints, I +declare if 'tain't 'most squandered! But, la! if there wa'n't such +quarrellin' amongst folks, what would become of the lawyers? They'd all +be here, a-settin' us by the ears, I expect." + +"And there isn't a cent for his own nephew's starving children?" said +the woman bitterly. + +"Ephrum's? Oh, la, no! The old man never set by Ephrum, you know: them +two was always contr'y-minded. You don't say, now, that you're Ephrum's +wife?" Cap'n 'Kiah surveyed her with frank curiosity. + +"I'm Ephrum's widow." + +"You don't say so, now! Well, there's wuss ockerpations than bein' a +widow," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah consolingly. + +Miranda had drawn the younger boy to her side. She was chafing his numb +hands and smoothing the damp locks from his forehead. + +"Why, how cold your hands have grown!" the child cried. "They're colder +than mine. And how funny and white you look!" + +Miranda had felt, from the moment when she first saw the forlorn little +group, that Ephraim was dead, and yet the sure knowledge came as a +shock. But this child was looking at her with Ephraim's eyes: they +warmed her heart. + +"_She_ knew me, if none of the rest of you did," said the widow, +indicating Miranda by a nod of her head. "And I knew her, too, just as +soon as I set eyes on her.--Well, you needn't hold any grudge against +me, Miranda Daggett. I calculate you got the best of the bargain. Ephrum +hadn't any faculty to get along. I've struggled and slaved till I'm all +worn out; and now I haven't a roof to cover me nor my children, nor a +mouthful to eat." + +Miranda sprang up, her arms around both the boys. + +"_I have!_ I have plenty for you all. And I've been a-wonderin' why it +should have come to me, that didn't need it; but now I know. You come +right home with me.--Mis' Bemis, you'll let Tready harness up?" + +There were some objections made on account of the rain, but Miranda +overruled them all. + +She drew Mrs. Bemis aside and confided to her that she didn't want +Ephrum's boys to stay even one night in the poor-house, because "it +might stick to 'em afterwards." And she shouldn't really feel that they +were going to belong to her until she had them in her own house. + +So, through the driving rain, in the open wagon which was the most +luxurious equipage that the poor-farm boasted, Miranda was driven home +with her _protégés_; while Mrs. Bemis gave way to renewed anxiety about +the fall tailorin' and Dr. Pingree heaved a sigh over his vanished +dreams,--a very gentle one, he was so used to seeing dreams vanish; and +there was consolation in having such an event to talk over. + +Miranda's home was a rambling old house, and it seemed deserted and +ghostly when they entered it; but Miranda kindled a fire In the kitchen +stove and another in the great fireplace in the sitting-room, and the +boys, warmed and fed and comforted, grew hilarious, and the ghosts were +all dispersed, and it seemed to Miranda for the first time like home. + +When she had seen all three cosily tucked into their beds, she went +downstairs to rake over the fire and see that all was safe for the +night. She found herself too full of a happy excitement to seek her own +slumbers. Ephraim was dead; but he had faded out of her life long +before; he had been nothing but a memory, and she had that still. He +even seemed nearer to her, being in the Far Country, than he had done +before. And his children were under her roof; hers to feed and clothe +and care for in the happy days that were coming; hers to educate. What +joy to have the means to do it with! what greater joy to work and save +and manage that there should be enough! + +Miranda looked into the leaping flame of her fire and saw brightest +pictures of the future,--until suddenly she turned her head away and +covered her face with her hands, groaning bitterly: it was only a +blackened limb that, standing tall and straight in the flame, took upon +itself a grotesque resemblance to a one-armed man. And Miranda +remembered her affianced the book-agent. "Oh, land I how could I 'a' +forgot! I've give him my promise." + +To Miranda's Puritan mind a promise was to be kept, with tears and blood +if need were. + +"Oh, what a foolish woman I've been! If I had only waited till I found +out what the Lord _did_ mean by sendin' that money to me! _He_ wouldn't +stand the boys, anyhow: he's nigh and graspin': I've found that out. And +I don't suppose I could buy him off with anything short of the whole +property. I did think he cared a little something about me, and mebbe he +does. I don't want to be too hard on him, but he was terrible put out +because I wouldn't give him but three hundred dollars to pay down for +that land that he's buy in' at such a bargain. I s'pose I should, only I +couldn't help thinkin' he might wait till we was married before he begun +to think about investin' my money. No, he won't let me off from marryin' +him unless I give him all my money. Yesterday I had thoughts of doin' +that; but now there's the boys." + +The queer black stick had fallen, and was crumbling away, but it had +crushed the last flickering flame. Miranda's fire, like her hopes, had +turned to ashes. + +She walked the floor restlessly, seeking vainly for a pathway out of her +troubles, until she was exhausted. Then she slept a troubled sleep until +daylight. + +It was a little comfort to get breakfast for Ephrum's wife and boys, +although she was so heavy-hearted. + +She went across the field to Eben Curtis's to get a bit of fresh fish: +Eben had been fishing the day before. + +Eben, who was a friendly young man, looked at her pityingly as he put +the' fish into her basket. As she was turning away in unwonted silence, +he was moved to say, "I wouldn't take it so hard if I was you, Miss +Daggett. You're well rid of such a scamp. And maybe they'll catch him +and get the money back. La, now! you don't say you hain't heard?" he +exclaimed at sight of Miranda's astonished face. "They most generally +_do_ get the news up to the poor-house." Eben lifted his hat and ran his +fingers through his hair with a mingling of sympathy and pleasure in +being the first to impart important news. "He's _cleared out_, the +book-agent has,--got all the money he could of folks without giving 'em +any books; and folks say he got some of you. He's been in jail for +playing the same trick before; and folks think he'll be caught this +time." + +"Oh, it's a mistake! He'll come back," said Miranda dejectedly, after a +moment's thought. + +"Well, he isn't very likely to, because"--here Eben turned his head +aside in embarrassment--"because he's got a wife and family over to +Olneyville." + +Radiant delight overspread Miranda's countenance. + +"I hope they'll just let him go," she said. "He's welcome to what money +he's got of mine,--more'n welcome." And homeward she went with a light +step. + +"Women are queer," mused Eben, as he returned to his fish-cleaning. +"She's lost her beau and her money, and she's tickled to death." + +"I declare, you look just as fresh and young and happy as you did +fifteen years ago!" said the widow, with a touch of envy, as they sat +down at the cheerful breakfast-table. + +Miranda touched Mrs. Bemis's arm as she came out of the meeting-house +the next Sunday, Ephraim's boys, preternaturally smooth of hair and +shining of face, beside her. + +"If it ain't perfane to say it. Mis' Bemis, I feel as if I'd got through +the eye of that needle clear into the kingdom of heaven." + +The poor-mistress commented upon the saying in the midst of her numerous +family that night: "She's got that selfish, tempery woman saddled onto +her for life, and she'll work her fingers to the bone for them boys, +that ain't anything to her, and won't be apt to amount to much,--for +there never was one of them Spencers that did,--and she calls that the +kingdom of heaven!" + +"It's jest as I always told you," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah placidly. "It's +all owin' to the p'int of view." + +SOPHIE SWETT. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE SECOND RANK. + +A ZOOLOGICAL STUDY. + + +It is a suggestive sign of our naturalistic times that so many +first-class towns in Europe and America contemplate the establishment of +Zoological Gardens. In the United States alone five cities have +successfully executed that project. Travelling menageries have taken the +place of the mediæval pageants. Natural histories begin to supersede the +ghost-stories of our fathers. The scientific literature of four +different nations has monographs on almost every known species of beasts +and birds. + +With such data of information it seems rather strange that the problem +of precedence in the scale of animal intelligence should still be a +mooted question. The primacy of the animal kingdom remains, of course, +undisputed; but the dog, the elephant, the horse, the beaver,--nay, the +parrot, the bee, and the ant,--have found learned and uncompromising +advocates of their claims to the honors of the second rank. + +Russel Wallace and Dr. Brehm have agitated the question, but failed to +settle it,--even to their own satisfaction. The reason, I believe, is +that the exponents of the different theories have failed to agree on a +definite standard of comparison. The mathematical principle implied in +the construction of a honey-comb, we are told, can challenge comparison +with the ripest results of human science. The acumen of a well-trained +elk-hound, a philosophical sportsman assures us, comes nearer to human +reason than any other manifestation of animal sagacity. +Elephant-trainers, too, adduce instances that almost pass the line of +distinction between intuitive prudence and the results of reflection. +Yet if those distinctions suffice to define the difference between +reason and the primitive instincts, they should reduce the scope of the +question in so far as to make it clear that, instead of measuring the +degree of the development of special faculties of the animal mind, we +should _ascertain the direction_ of those faculties. Instinct tends to +promote the interests of the species, and is limited to the more or less +skilful, but monotonous, performance of a special task. Within that +limited sphere its competence is perfect. Reason may be often at fault, +but its capacity enlarges with practice, and the scope of its +application is unlimited. It may be exerted in the interest of the +species, of the tribe, of the family; it may devote itself to the +service of an abstract principle or subserve the purposes of individual +caprice. It differs from instinct as a piano differs from a +barrel-organ. The pianist has to master his art by years of toil, but +can apply it to all possible variations or extravaganzas of music. The +organ-grinder can delight his audience as much by his first as by his +last performance, but his _répertoire_ is limited. Reason is indefinite, +free, and versatile. Instinct is exact, but circumscribed. + +Tested by that standard, the difference between the intelligence of the +higher _quadrumana_--the anthropoid apes, the baboons, and several +species of the macaques--and that of their dumb fellow-creatures is so +pronounced that it amounts to a difference of kind as well as of degree. +_Borné_, literally limited, but used in French as a synonyme of +short-witted, is the term that best characterizes the actions of all +other animals, as compared with the graceless but amazingly versatile +and well-planned pranks of our nearest relatives. The standard of +_usefulness_ would, indeed, degrade the perpetrators of these pranks +below the rank of the dullest donkey; but as a criterion of intelligence +the application of that test should rather be reversed. + +Watch a colony of house-building insects, their faithful co-operation, +their steady, exact adaptation of right means to a fixed purpose, and +compare their activity with that of a troop of ball-playing boys. Does +not the gratuitous ingenuity of the young bipeds indicate a far higher +degree of intelligence? Does it argue against the quality of that +intelligence that any novel phenomenon--a funnel-shaped cloud, the +appearance of a swarm of bats or unknown birds--would divert the +ball-players from their immediate purpose? Monkeys alone share this gift +of gratuitous curiosity. A strange object, a piece of red cloth +fluttering in the grass, may excite the interest of a watch-dog or of an +antelope. They may approach to investigate, but for subjective purposes. +They fear the presence of an enemy. A monkey's inquisitiveness can +dispense with such motives. In my collection of four-handed pets I have +a young Rhesus monkey (_Macacus Rhesus_), by no means the most +intelligent member of the community, but gifted with an amount of +meddlesome pluck which often makes it necessary to circumscribe the +freedom of his movements. One day last spring, when he joined an +assembly of his fellow-boarders on a sunny porch, the shortness of his +tether did not prevent him from picking a quarrel with a big raccoon. +After a few sham manoauvres the old North American suddenly lost his +temper and charged his tormentor with an energy of action that led to an +unexpected result,--for in springing back the Rhesus snapped his wire +chain, and in the next moment went flying down the lane toward the open +woods. But just before he reached the gate he suddenly stopped. On a +post of the picket-fence the neighbors' boys had deposited a kite, and +the Rhesus paused. The phenomenon of the dangling kite-tail, with its +polychromatic ribbons, eclipsed the memory of his wrongs and his +mutinous projects: he snatched the tail, and with the gravity of a +coroner proceeded to examine the dismembered appendage. If he had +mistaken the apparatus for a trap, the result of the dissection must +have reassured him; but he continued the inquest till one of his +pursuers headed him off and drove him back to his favorite hiding-place +under the porch, which he reached in safety, though in the interest of +science he had encumbered himself with a large section of kite-paper. + +On my last visit to New York I bought a female Chacma baboon that had +attracted my attention by the grotesque demonstrativeness of her +motions, and took her on board of a Norfolk steamer, where she at once +became an object of general enthusiasm. The next morning Sally was +taking her breakfast on deck, when she suddenly dropped her apple-pie +and jumped upon the railing. Through the foam of the churned brine her +keen eye had espied a shoal of porpoises, and, clinging to the railing +with her hind hands, she continued to gesticulate and chatter as long as +our gambolling fellow-travellers remained in sight. + +Menagerie monkeys, too, are sure to interrupt their occupations at the +sight of a new-comer,--a clear indication that monkeys, like men, +possess a surplus of intelligence above the exigencies of their +individual needs. Yet these exigencies are by no means inconsiderable. +Unlike the grazing deer and the deer-eating panther, the frugivorous +monkeys of the tropics are the direct competitors of the intolerant lord +of creation. The Chinese macaques, the Moor monkey, the West-African +baboons, have to eke out a living by pillage. The Gibraltar monkey has +hardly any other resources. Nor has nature been very generous in the +physical equipment of the species. Most monkeys lack the sharp teeth +that enable the tiger to defy the avenger of his misdeeds. Without +exception they all lack the keen scent that helps the deer to elude its +pursuers. But their mental faculties more than compensate for such +bodily deficiencies. In the Abyssinian highlands the mornings are often +cold enough to cover the grass with hoar-frost, yet the frost-dreading +baboons choose that very time to raid the corn-fields of the natives. +They omit no precaution, and it is almost impossible to circumvent the +vigilance of their sentries. Prudence, derived from +_providence_,--i.e., prevision, the gift of fore-seeing things,--is in +many respects almost a synonyme of reason. Physically that gift is +typified in the telescopic eyes which monkeys share with a few species +of birds, but with hardly any of their mammalian relatives, except man +in a state of nature. Mentally it manifests itself in a marvellous +faculty for anticipating danger. Last summer Sally, the above-mentioned +baboon, contrived to break loose, and took refuge on the top of the +roof. I do not believe that she intended to desert, but she was bent on +a romp, and had made up her mind not to be captured by force. A chain of +eight or nine feet dangled from her girdle, and she persistently avoided +approaching the lower tier of shingles, to keep that chain from hanging +down over the edge, but was equally careful not to venture too near the +extremities of the roof-ridge, for there was a skylight at each gable. +She kept around the middle of the roof; and we concluded to loosen a few +shingles in that neighborhood and grab her chain through the aperture, +while a confederate was to divert her attention by a continuous volley +of small pebbles. But somehow Sally managed to distinguish the +hammer-strokes from the noise of the bombardment, and at once made up +her mind that the roof had become untenable. The only question was how +to get down; for by that time the house was surrounded by a cordon of +sentries. As a preliminary measure she then retreated to the top of the +chimney, and one of our strategists proposed to dislodge her by loading +the fireplace with a mixture of pine-leaves and turpentine. But better +counsel prevailed, and we contented ourselves with firing a blank +cartridge through the flue. Sally at once jumped off, but regained her +vantage-ground on the roof-ridge, and we had to knock out a dozen +shingles before one of our fourteen or fifteen hunters at last managed +to lay hold of her chain. + +The naturalist Lenz describes the uncontrollable grief of a Siamang +gibbon who had been taken on board of a homebound English packet, where +his owner tempted him with all sorts of tidbits, in the vain hope of +calming his sorrow. The gibbon kept his eye on the receding outline of +his native mountains, and every now and then made a desperate attempt to +break his fetters; but when the coast-line began to blend with the +horizon the captive's behavior underwent a marked change. He ceased to +tug at his chain, and, chattering with protruded lips, after the +deprecatory manner of his species, began to fondle his owner's hand, and +tried to smooth the wrinkles of his coat, with the unmistakable +intention of reciprocating his friendly overtures. As soon as his native +coast had faded out of view he had evidently recognized the hopelessness +of an attempt at escape. He realized the fact that he had to accept the +situation, and, becoming alarmed at the possible consequences of his +refractory violence, he concluded that it was the safest plan to +conciliate the good will of his jailer. From analogous observations I +can credit the account in all its details, and I believe that the +conduct of the captive four-hander can be traced to a mental process as +utterly beyond the brain-scope of a horse, a dog, or an elephant as a +problem in spherical trigonometry. + +The inarticulate language of our Darwinian relatives has one +considerable advantage over the articulate speech of a trained parrot: +it has a definite meaning. Mumbling with protruded lips is an appeal for +pity and affection; a coughing grunt denotes indignation; surprise is +expressed by a very peculiar, _sotto voce_ guttural; _crescendo_ the +same sound is a danger-signal which the little Capuchin-monkey of the +American tropics understands as well as the African chimpanzee. My +Chacma baboon defies an adversary by contracting her eyebrows and +slapping the floor with her hands. The vocabulary of a talking bird is +no doubt more extensive, but it is used entirely at random. A +first-class parrot can repeat seventy different phrases; but an English +philosopher offered a hundred pounds sterling to any "mind-reader" who +should succeed in guessing the seven figures in the number of a +hundred-pound bank-note, and It would be as safe to offer the same sum +to any bird that could furnish evidence of attaching a definite meaning +to any seven of his seventy sentences. On close investigation, the +stories of conversational parrots prove as apocryphal as Katy-King +legends and planchette miracles. + +Causality--i.e., the gift of tracing a recondite connection of cause and +effect--is another faculty which many varieties of monkeys possess in a +decidedly ultra-instinctive degree. I remember the surprise of a +picnic-party who had borrowed my young Rhesus and on their return tied +him up on the porch of a garden-house. During the trip the little scamp +had behaved with the decorum of a well-bred youth, but, finding himself +unobserved, he at once made a vicious attempt to tear his rope with his +teeth. Whenever his boon companions approached the porch he would resume +his attitude of innocence, but as soon as they turned away, which they +often did on purpose to try him, he promptly recommenced his work of +destruction. Their giggling, however, excited his suspicions, and, +seeing them peep around the corner, he suddenly became a model of +virtuous inactivity. One of the picnickers then entered the garden-house +by a rear door, to watch the little hypocrite through a crack in the +board wall, while his companions ostensibly walked away and out of +sight. As soon as everything was quiet. Master Rhesus went to work +again, but at the same time kept his eye on the corner till he was +interrupted by a tap on the wall and a mysterious voice from within, +"Stop that, Tommy!" Tommy started, peeped around the corner, and looked +puzzled. He was sure there was nobody in sight. How could an invisible +spy have witnessed his transgression? He then scrutinized the wall more +closely, discovered the crack, and dropped the rope with a curious grin, +as he squinted through the tell-tale aperture. He had traced the effect +to its cause. + +Unlike dogs, raccoons, or squirrels, chained monkeys rarely entangle +themselves: they at once notice the shortening of their tether, and +never rest till they have discovered the clue of the phenomenon. A dog +in the same predicament has to content himself with tugging at his chain +or gnawing his rope; and the reason is that the wisdom of the wisest dog +is limited to business qualifications. He is a hunter, and nature has +endowed him with the requisite faculties, just as she has endowed the +constructive spider and the bee. Bees and dogs share the faculty of +direction, enabling them to find their way home, a talent implying a +very miracle of infallible and yet unconscious intuition, and in the +strictest sense a one-sided business qualification. The goose, the +sturgeon, and the almost brainless tortoise possess the same gift in a +transcendent degree; the oriole builds her first nest as skilfully as +the last; the young bee constructs her hexagons with an ease and a +uniform success that leave no possible doubt that the exercise of her +talent is generically different from a function of reason. Instincts may +be far-reaching enough to defy the rivalry of human science, but they +resemble loophole-guns, that can be fired only in a single direction. +The intuition that guides the turkey-hen to her nest does not enable her +to find her way out of a half-open log trap. The instinct by which a dog +retraces his trail across broad rivers and through woods does not enable +him to retrace the coils of a tangled rope. A monkey's talents, like our +own, are less infallible, but more versatile, and at the possessor's +discretion can be applied and perverted to all possible purposes. Hence +also that peculiar interest which the pranks of our mischievous +relatives excite even in spectators not apt to appreciate the comic +features of the spectacle. In the monkey-house of the Philadelphia Zoo I +have seen saturnine burghers stand motionless for hours together, and +contemplative children rapt in reveries that had little to do with the +hope of witnessing a beast-fight. They seemed to feel the spell of a +secret veiled in grotesque symbols, but disclosing occasional +revelations of its significance, like glimpses into the fore-world of +the human race. + +In the fairy-tales of the old Hindoo scriptures monkeys figure as +counsellors of nonplussed heroes, and in the crisis of the Titan war the +Devas themselves condescend to seek the advice of the monkey Honuman, +who contrives to outwit the prince of the night-spirits. In the +international fable of "Reynard the Fox," a she-monkey on the eve of the +trial by battle suggests the stratagem that turns the scales against the +superior strength of the wolf Isegrim. The _mens æqua in arduis_ is, +indeed, a simian characteristic. Monkeys never have their wits more +completely about them than in the moment of a sudden danger, and a +higher development of the same faculty distinguishes the Caucasian from +all rival races, even from the sharp-witted Semites. After the conquest +of Algiers the French tried to conciliate the native element by +educating a number of young Arabs and giving them a chance to compete +with the cadets of St.-Cyr. They made excellent routine-officers, but +even their patron, General Clausel, admitted that they "could not be +trusted in a panic." + +Dr. Langenbeck mentions a family of Silesian peasants who seemed to have +an hereditary predisposition to the abnormity known as microcephalism, +or small-headedness. They were not absolute idiots, but remarkably +slow-spoken and all extremely _averse to active occupations_. An active +disposition is generally a pretty safe gauge of mental capacity. +Intellectual vigor leads to action. To a person of mental resources +inactivity is more irksome than the hardest work, and sluggishness is +justly used as a synonyme of imbecility. Exertion under the pressure of +want is, however, not incompatible with an inert disposition, and +spontaneous activity, the love of busy-ness for its own sake, can be +ascribed only to men and monkeys; monkeys, at least, are the only +animals in whom repletion and old age cannot dampen that passion. After +a full meal an elephant will stand for hours in a sort of piggish +torpor; a gorged bird seeks the tree-shade; an overfed dog and nearly +every old dog becomes a picture of laziness. Monkeys rest only during +sleep. Old age does not affect their nimbleness; they can be fattened, +for I have seen baboons as sleek as seals, but, like Gibbon, Henry +Buckle, and Marshal Vendôme, they prove that the energy of a strong will +can bear up under such burdens. Madame de Staël, too, managed to combine +a progressive _embonpoint_ with the undiminished brilliancy of her +genius, though it is certain that adipose tissue does not feed the flame +of every mind. Charles Dickens in his "American Notes" expresses the +opinion that no vigor of mental constitution could be proof against the +influence of solitary confinement; but the narrow monkey-cages of our +zoological prisons show that the minds of the little captives can stand +the test of even that ordeal. They play with their shadows, if the +nakedness of their four walls does not afford any other pastime. + +Docility, on the other hand, is a rather ambiguous test of intelligence. +The willingness and the ability to learn may supplement their mutual +deficiencies, but differ as radically as patience and genius. Dogs +master the tasks of their education by their earnest endeavor to please +their master; Jacko excels them in spite of his waywardness. Some boys +win college-prizes by memorizing their lessons in conformity with the +wishes of a dreaded or beloved preceptor, others by dint of natural +aptitude and a love of knowledge based on spontaneous inquisitiveness; +and every circus-trainer knows that teachers who understand to avail +themselves of that gift can teach a monkey tricks which can neither be +coaxed nor kicked into the skull of the most docile dog. Besides, the +domestic dog is a considerably modified variety of the family to which +he belongs, and in order to appreciate the difference between the +_natural_ intelligence of the canines and the quadrumana we should +compare the docility of the monkey with that of the wolf or the jackal. +In the submissiveness of the dog the hereditary influence of several +thousand generations has developed a sort of artificial instinct that +qualifies him for the exigencies of his servitude; but submissiveness +_per se_, however valuable for plastic purposes, is certainly not a +characteristic concomitant of superior intelligence. In the soul of the +Hindoo, the Chinese, and the Eastern Slav, the long-inculcated duty of +subordination has become almost a second nature, while the most +intelligent tribes of the ancient Greeks were famous--or, from a Chinese +point of view, perhaps infamous--for a strong tendency in the opposite +direction. + +Patience is not a prominent gift of our four-handed relatives, but +compensating nature has endowed them with the genius of self-help and +its adjuvant talents,--observation, causality, imitativeness, +covetousness, and self-asserting pluck. They also possess a fair share +of such faculties as inquisitiveness, vigilance, and perseverance, all +rudiments, indeed, but the rudiments of supremacy. + +FELIX L. OSWALD. + + * * * * * + + + + +ELUSIVE + +Just out of reach she lightly swings, +My Psyche with the rainbowed wings, +A floating flower, by winds impelled, +The honeyed spray has caught and held. +Now circling low, with grace divine, +She sips the tulip's chaliced wine. +Why should I seek to bring her nigh +And find--a simple butterfly? + +O isles in ocean's azure set, +Like sculptured dome and minaret +Your purpled cliffs and headlands rise +Against the far-off, misty skies. +Yet, thither borne by helpful breeze, +As lifts the veil from circling seas, +Well know I your enchanted land +Would prove but rugged rock and sand. + +O friend whose words of wisdom rare +Inspire my soul to do and dare, +Across the distance wide and drear +I will not reach to bring you near. +Why cast ideal grace away +To find you only common clay? +The best of life and thought and speech +Is that which lies--just out of reach. + +SARAH D. HOBART. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PARISIAN COUTURIER. + + +The _couturier_--the bearded dressmaker, the masculine artist in silk +and satin--is an essentially modern and Parisian phenomenon. It is true +that the elegant and capricious Madame de Pompadour owed most of her +toilets and elegant accoutrements to the genius of Supplis, the famous +_tailleur pour dames_ or ladies' tailor, of the epoch. But Supplis was +an exception, and he never assumed the name of _couturier_, the +masculine form of _couturière_, "dress-maker." That appellation was +reserved for the great artists of the Second Empire, Worth, Aurelly, +Pingat, and their rivals, who utterly revolutionized feminine costume +and endeavored to direct it in the paths of art, good taste, and +comfort. Enthusiasts of grace and beauty, these artists set themselves +the task of preventing the inconstant goddess of fashion from continuing +to wander off into ugliness, deformity, and absurdity. In their devotion +to art, beauty, and luxury, they determined never to forget fitness and +comfort, and since their initiative has regulated the vagaries of +fashion we must admit that our women have never been the victims of such +inconvenient, ugly, and absurd inventions as crinoline, leg-o'-mutton +sleeves, the _coiffure à la frégate_, and the various other +monstrosities of the Republic, the Directory, and the Restoration, +which, thanks to the traditional supremacy of France in matters of +fashion, made their way, more or less modified, all over the world. The +modern artists in dress consider justly that what is most important in a +dress is the woman who wears it, and that their object should be to set +her off to the best advantage, and not to make her remarked,--in short, +to make a toilet which will be to the wearer what the frame is to the +portrait. The _rôle_ which the _couturier_ plays, not only in Parisian +life but in the life of the whole civilized world, is so important and +so curious that I have thought it might interest the reader to see the +great artist at home, surrounded by his customers and his assistants, +and to catch a brief glimpse of the nature and peculiarities of the +creature. My description of the type will be in general, of course, but +founded on exact observation of individuals. + +The high-priests of Parisian fashion have their shrines up-stairs. Where +the highest perfection is aimed at, shops are nowhere. The _grand +couturier_ makes no outside show. You will find him occupying two or +three floors in one of those plain, flat-fronted Restoration houses +which line the Rue de la Paix, the Rue Taitbout, the Rue Louis-le-Grand, +or the Faubourg St.-Honoré. Passing through a square _porte-cochère_ as +broad as it is high, you find on the right or left hand a glass door +opening on a staircase covered with a thick red carpet. On the landings +are divans, and sometimes a palm of a dracæna. Through an open door on +the ground-floor you see the packing-room, where marvels of silk and +lace are being enveloped in mountains of tissue-paper to be sent to the +four quarters of the globe; on the first floor, or _entresol_, are +workrooms full of girls seated at long tables and sewing under the +directing eye of a severe-looking matron; on the second floor are +generally situated the show- and reception-rooms. The first saloon is +sombre: the ceiling appears, in the daytime, blackened by gas; the walls +are wainscoted in imitation ebony with gold fillets, and large panels +above the chair-rail are filled with verdure tapestries of the most +dismal green, chosen expressly to throw into relief the freshness and +gayety of the dresses; on the chimney-piece, and reflected in the glass, +is a clock surmounted by a monumental statue of Diana in nickeled +imitation bronze and flanked by two immense candelabra; along the walls +are two or three large wardrobes with looking-glass doors; in the +middle of the room is a table for displaying materials, with a few +chairs, and in one corner a desk, where is seated M. Cyprien or M. +Alexandre, the bookkeeper. In this room the customers are received by a +tall and very elegant young lady, invariably dressed in black satin in +winter and black silk in summer. Through this soft-spoken person, who +bears the title _of première vendeuse_, or first saleswoman, the +customers are put into communication either with the great artist +himself or simply with one of the _premières_, or heads of departments, +if their orders are not of sufficient importance to justify an +interruption of the great man in his innumerable and absorbing +occupations. Opening out of this first saloon are a number of smaller +saloons, all equally sombre, colorless, and shabby-looking, especially +by daylight. There are extra show-rooms and trying-on-rooms, besides +which there is a special room for trying on riding-habits, and another +for the chief of the corsage department, to say nothing of little rooms +draped with blue, brown, or red for special purposes. Over these dingy +carpets and among these old tapestries and sombre furniture glide +noiselessly from room to room young women on whose sloping shoulders and +lissome figures the "creations" of Messieurs les Couturiers show to the +best advantage. These are the _demoiselles-mannequins_, or +_essayeuses_,--mute but breathing models, who seem to have lost all +human animation in their occupation of mere clothes-wearers, automata +with weary faces, whose sole business is to carry on their backs from +morning until night luminous vesture. The ordinary pay of the +_demoiselle-mannequin_ in the grand establishments is from sixty to +eighty dollars a month, with half board; but some of them who have +exceptionally elegant figures and perfect bearing are paid fancy prices, +reaching as much in rare cases as two thousand dollars a year. + +Imagine the appearance of these saloons between two and five o'clock in +the afternoon during the season, filled as they are with chattering and +finely-dressed ladies,--Parisiennes, Russians with their lazy accent, +English and Americans talking in their own tongue, princesses of the +Almanach de Gotha and princesses of the footlights, and even of the +_demi-monde_, all united in adoration of the idol of fashion. A confused +murmur of musical voices rises in an atmosphere impregnated with the +perfumes of ylang-ylang, heliotrope, peau d'Espagne, jonquil, iris, +poudre de riz, and odor di femina. The heads of the different +departments are seen passing to and fro with fragments of a dress or a +corsage in their arms, and amid the buzzing assembly the models move +incessantly, like animated statues, silent and majestic. From time to +time the voice of the great artist is heard giving brief and imperious +orders, or scolding plaintively because a ruche has been substituted for +a flounce on the dress of Madame X----, or a light fur for a dark fur on +the mantle of the Baronne de V----,--"a pale blonde! The whole thing +will have to be made over again. What can I do if I am not seconded?" he +asks irritably. "Truly, _mesdemoiselles, c'est à se donner au diable_!" +With these words flung at a little group of employees, the great man +appears. He is a short man, dressed in light-gray trousers, a blue coat +with a broad velvet collar and silk lappels in which are stuck a few +pins for use in sudden inspirations, a flowered waistcoat, and a heavy +watch-chain. His head is bald and surrounded by a fringe of dust-colored +gray hair, frizzled so finely that it looks like swans'-down. His +whiskers and moustache have the same fine and woolly appearance. His +blue eyes look worn and faded; his face has flushed red patches on a +pale anaemic ground; his expression is one of subdued suffering, due to +the continual neuralgia by which he is tormented, thanks to the strong +perfumes which his elegant customers force him to inhale all day long. +Epinglard, for so we will call him for convenience' sake, rarely dines +during the busy season: he is the martyr of his profession. He has a +house exquisitely decorated and arranged, but he lives alone, his daily +commerce with women having disinclined him to risk the lottery of +marriage. Nevertheless, he is much effeminized; and his employees will +assure you that he wears cambric nightcaps bordered with lace, and a +lace _jabot_ on his night-shirts. His life is entirely devoted to his +art, and he conscientiously goes on Tuesdays to the Comédie Française, +on Fridays to the Opera, and on Saturdays to the Italians or the Circus, +because those are the nights selected by rank and fashion, and therefore +excellent occasions for observing the work of his rivals. For the same +reason Epinglard will be seen on fashionable days at the races, and at +first performances at the fashionable theatres, but always alone. In +confidence, Epinglard will tell you that he adores solitude and loves +his art with undivided and disinterested passion. "It gives me +pleasure," he will say, "to see a woman well dressed, whoever may have +dressed her. For my own part, I do not care to get myself talked about. +I mind my own business and I make my own creations, but I am perfectly +ready to admire the creations of others. It is not the mere creation +that I find difficult: it is to get my creations executed." + +Epinglard talks slowly, precisely, and in a sing-song and hypocritical +voice, while his fingers, laden with heavy rings, caress voluptuously +some piece of surah or silk. He is in serious consultation with one of +the leaders of fashion, the Baronne de P----. Suddenly changing his +tone, he calls out to a model who is passing, "You there, mademoiselle, +put on this skirt to show to madame," And, turning the model round, he +shows the skirt in all its aspects, passing his fingers amorously over +the _batiste_ and seeming to give it life and beauty by his mere touch. +"And you, Mademoiselle Ernestine, come here, too," calling to another +model; who is walking about gloomily with a mantle on her shoulders: +"put on Madame A----'s mantle." Then, changing back to his hypocritical +tone, Epinglard continues his sing-song monologue to the Baronne de +P----, and tells her that Madame A---- is a "great English lady who has +deserted her husband and is now living in Paris. She spends about +sixteen thousand dollars a year on her toilets. It is a good deal, yes. +But, imagine, last month I made a mantle for the Countess Z---- which +cost five thousand dollars. Look at that line" (caressing the mantle on +the model's shoulders) "and the slope of the hips. It is perfect. And +the embroidery and the trimming, all made on the material of the mantle +itself by my own embroiderers." + +This afternoon Epinglard is in a theorizing mood, and, after having sent +for Bamboula, as he calls her familiarly, a dark-skinned model, he +drapes her in a pale-yellow tulle dress, and proceeds to lament that so +few Frenchwomen will wear yellow, owing to a silly popular prejudice. +"Ah, madame la baronne," he continues, "you cannot conceive what lovely +combinations of rose and yellow I have made. Why not? There are roses +with yellow pistils. Why should not we do in stuffs what nature does in +flowers? For us _couturiers_, as for the painter and the sculptor, the +great source of inspiration is nature. There are many of my colleagues +who fill their portfolios with the engravings of Eisen, Debucourt, +Moreau, and the masters of the eighteenth century. But this is not +sufficient: we must go back to nature. I pass my summer in the country, +and in the rich combinations of floral color I find the gamut of tones +for my toilets. But I am allowing myself to theorize too much. If madame +la baronne will be good enough to come to-morrow, I will compose +something for her in the mean time. This afternoon I am scarcely in the +humor for a creation of such importance." And, with a grave salute, +Epinglard passes into a saloon where two ladies are waiting impatiently, +particularly the younger of the two, who has come, under the wing of her +fashionable relative, to be introduced to the _grand couturier_. + +"_Bonjour_, Monsieur Epinglard," begins the elder. "I have come to ask +you to create a masterpiece. It will not be the first time, will it? My +niece is going to her first ball next month, and I wish her to have a +dress on which your signature will be visible." + +Epinglard falls into a meditative pose, his elbow in one hand, his chin +in the other, and looks long at the young girl, scrutinizing not only +the line and modelling of the body, but the expression of the face, the +eyes, the shade and nature of the hair, reading her temperament with the +lucidity of a phrenologist aided by the divination of a plastic artist +who has had great experience of feminine humanity. The examination lasts +many minutes, and finally, as if under the inspiring influence of the +god of taste, Epinglard, in broken phrases, composes the dress: +"Toilette entirely of tulle ... corsage plaited diagonally ... around +the _décolletage_ four ruches ... the skirt relieved with drapery of +white satin falling behind like a peplum ... on the shoulder--the left +shoulder--a bouquet of myosotis or violets ... that is how I see +mademoiselle dressed." And Epinglard salutes gravely, while an +assistant, who has noted down the prophetic utterances of the master, +conducts the subject to a room in the centre of which is an articulated +model of a feminine torso, with movable breasts, flattened rag arms +hanging at the sides, and a combination of straps and springs to adjust +the _taille_ or waist,--a most sinister and grotesque object, all +crumpled and shrivelled up and covered with shiny, glazed calico. This +is the studio of one of the most important of the secondary artists in +dress-making, the _corsagère_. The chief of this department takes the +subject in hand, and, with the aid of pieces of coarse canvas, such as +the tailors use to line coats, she takes a complete mould of the body, +cutting and pinning and smoothing with her hand until the mould is +perfect. This is the first step toward the execution of the master's +plan. At the next _séance_ of trying-on, the subject passes +simultaneously through the hands of several heads of departments,--the +_corsagère_, the _jupière_, who drapes the skirts and arranges the +train, and the second _jupière_, who mounts and constructs the skirt. +The corsage is brought all sewn and whaleboned, but only basted below +the arms and at the shoulder, and as soon as it is in place--"_crac! +crac!_"--the _corsagère_, with angry fingers, breaks the threads, and +then calmly and patiently rejoins the seams and pins them together so +that the joinings may lie perfectly flat and even. On her knees, turning +patiently round and round, the _jupière_ drapes the skirt on a lining of +silk, seeking to perfect the roundness, sparing no pains, and displaying +in all she does the artist's _amour-propre_, the desire to achieve a +masterpiece in the detail which the masculine designer has allotted to +her care. These women who lend their light-fingered collaboration to the +imagination of the bearded dress-maker are really admirable in their +sentiment of their work, in their artist's ambition, which thinks not +merely of the week's salary, but of the perfection of the masterpiece. +They seem to find intense personal satisfaction in producing a beautiful +toilet, in fashioning a delicate thing which almost has the qualities of +a work of art; and when the subject is naturally well formed,--_tout +faite_, as they say,--and not artificially made up with what is called +the _taille de couturière_, their painstaking knows no bounds. + +During these long _séances_, which last for hours together and occupy so +large a place in the day of a woman of fashion, the common love of +toilet makes, for the moment at least, the _grande dame_ or the +aristocrat the equal of the modest employee, and, while the _jupière_ is +turning round and round madame la baronne, there often takes place a +lively interchange of gossip and a review of the plastic qualities of +the friends and rivals in beauty of madame la baronne who are also +customers of the house. The _grand couturier_ himself is a +treasure-house of queer stories and scandals, and naturally his +employees take after their master. The _couturier_, you see, is not a +tradesman: he is an artist, and he renders a woman far greater service +than the artist-painter, who finds her already dressed and only has to +copy her, whereas the _couturier_ dresses a woman not once, but twenty +times a year, and each time that he invents a becoming toilet he makes a +new creation not only of the toilet, but of the woman. There has, in +fact, been a great change made in modern times in matters of dress. Our +modern women are no longer content with merely seasonable dresses, +appropriate in form and material for spring, summer, autumn, or winter; +they are no longer satisfied to have four interviews a year with the +dress-maker. On the contrary, every event in social life--a wedding, a +ball, a visit to a country-house, the annual excursions to sea-side and +mountain--gives occasion for special dresses, or rather costumes, for in +modern toilets the element of pure costume plays a considerable _rôle_ +especially in those destined for wear in the country. The modern woman +of fashion needs endless morning, afternoon, and evening dresses, +tea-gowns, breakfast-dresses, of endless varieties of form, stuff, and +color. Hence she is constantly in communication with the _couturier_, +who has every opportunity of examining her morally and physically, +confessing her, listening often to strange confidences. Not unfrequently +he combines with his artistic career that of a banker. Naturally, ladies +who run up yearly bills of twenty thousand dollars for gowns and mantles +are often in a corner for want of a few thousands, and the Parisienne in +such circumstances often thinks it equally natural to have recourse to +the strange creature who dresses her and who thus comes to occupy a very +curious position on the confines of society. + +The final trying-on of the dresses of madame la baronne is a grand day, +and often a few friends, both ladies and gentlemen, are invited to +assist at the ceremony; for the Parisiennes recognize in some of their +masculine friends, and particularly in painters, certain talents for +appreciating dress. Why not? Were not these men the great innovators in +modern dressing? and are not men still the great artists in costume? +Madame la baronne prepares herself in one of the little saloons. First +of all come the skirts and the young ladies who preside over the +fabrication of the _dessous_, or underclothing, for it is an axiom in +modern French dress-making that half the success of the toilet depends +on the underclothing, or, as the French put it in their neat way, "_Le +dessous est pour la moitié dans la réussite du dessus_." Then follows +the tying of the skirt of the dress, which is suspended on hooks round +the bottom of the corset, the buttoning of the corsage, the preliminary +tapping and caressing necessary to make the folds of the skirt sit well, +and then madame la baronne makes her appearance triumphantly before her +friends assembled in the adjoining saloon. The great artist himself +deigns to contemplate the finished work. Standing off at some distance, +so as to take in the general effect, as if he were examining a picture, +he gazes upon the dress with impassible eyes, and then, after a +Napoleonic silence, during which all present hold their breath, the +great man expresses his satisfaction, perhaps even falls on his knees in +mute admiration of his masterpiece, or in the twinkling of an eye gives +a pinch to a frill or a twist to a plait which transforms and perfects +the whole, such is the magic power of those marvellous fingers when they +touch the delicate tissues of silk or lace or velvet. Then, while the +master is sating his eyes, all the staff of the house defiles through +the saloon,--the chief saleswoman, the cutter-out, the _chef des jupes_, +the _chef des corsages_, the _chef des garnisseuses_, the _première +brodeuse_, and half a dozen other _premièeres_, who open the door and +ask, with caressing intonations of voice and pretty smiles, "_Vent-on me +permettre de voir un pen_?" + +What other mysteries are there to be revealed in the house of the +_couturier_? We have glanced at the packing-rooms, the working-rooms +with their battalions of girls and women toiling away with their needles +by daylight and gas-light. We caught a glimpse of the reception-saloons +and the trying-on-rooms, all strewn with fragments of +dresses,--_disjecta membra_,--mountains of silk, and peopled with +automatic human _mannequins, essayeuses_, who, as the moralists will +tell you, are all "_vicieuses qui ne manquent de rien_," and who are +destined sooner or later to reinforce the _demi-monde_. We have seen the +process of creating and fitting a dress, the ceremony of trying-on, and +the _rôle_ of the creating artist in all this. Now, to make our +indiscretion complete, we have only to peep into the _salon des +amazones_, a room draped in green velvet and decorated with whips, +stirrups, and side-saddles. The table in the middle is piled up with +heaps of dark-colored cloth and hats with green, brown, and blue veils. +At one end is a life-size wooden horse, and presiding over this room is +a blonde effeminate young man, whose business it is to offer his clasped +hands as a mounting-stone to help the ladies to jump on to the back of +the wooden steed, while the tailor arranges the folds of their +riding-habits. + +Besides Pingat, the most artistic of the Parisian dress-makers, besides +Worth, who has a specialty of court-dresses for exportation and showy +dresses for American actresses, and whose style is pompous and official, +besides Felix, the dresser of slender women, the favorite artist of the +aristocracy of birth and talent,--all three so well known that the +mention of their names here cannot be regarded as an +advertisement,--there are a dozen other bearded dress-makers in Paris +whose talent is worthy of admiration, and whose caprices might amuse us +if we had time to dwell upon them. There is, however, a _grande +couturière_ who surpasses all her masculine rivals in fatuity and +caprice, namely, Madame Rodrigues, the great theatrical dress-maker. +Madame Rodrigues always asks the journalists not to mention her by name. +"Put simply," she says, "the first dress-maker in Paris. Everybody will +know who is meant." This lady regards herself as the collaborator of +Sardou and Dumas and Augier. Dumas is her peculiar favorite. "We +understand each other," she says, "and he finds that my genius completes +his." + +Nothing can be more amusing than the scene in her vast saloons about +four o'clock in the afternoon. The _grande couturière_--Madame, as her +employees respectfully call her--issues from her private rooms and finds +herself in presence of a score of ladies, not merely actresses, but +society ladies, to whom she has given rendezvous for that day. + +"I am exceedingly sorry, mesdames," the great artist will exclaim, "but +I cannot attend to you to-day." + +"But, dear madame, you wrote to me--" + +"I must have my dress for to-morrow." + +"My ball takes place to-night--" + +"Mesdames, I repeat, it is impossible. If one of my assistants likes to +take you in hand, well and good. That is all I can do for you." + +Then, turning round, she perceives a stout lady who looks imploringly at +her, and declares brusquely, "Ah, madame, I have already told you that I +cannot undertake to dress you. You are not my style. I do not understand +plump women." + +"But, Madame Rodrigues--" + +"If one of my _premières_ cares to take you in hand, I have no +objection; but that is all I can do for you." + +The only thing that calms the great artist is the arrival of one of her +favorite actresses. + +"Ah, _bonjour_, Madame Judic: you will have your toilets on Friday--" + +"But the first performance is announced for Wednesday." + +"They must put it off, then, for I am not ready. We will try your dress +for the second act this afternoon." And the _grande couturière_ settles +herself in her arm-chair, calls for her footstool, her fan, her cup of +beef-tea, her smelling-salts, and so proceeds to preside over the +terrible and imposing ceremony of trying on the dress of a fashionable +actress. + +Doubtless the luxury of the Parisiennes is not so great now as it was +under the Empire; but the falling off in the home trade is partly +compensated by the increase in the foreign customers. In Paris alone +the dress-making trade represents the movement of fifty millions of +dollars a year and gives employment to some fifty thousand women; and +many of the elegant society women spend from twenty to thirty thousand +dollars a year on their costume and toilet. But it must not be believed +that the modern _couturier_ is the first who has known how to draw up +big bills, or that the modern _lingère_ is the first who has dared to +charge two hundred dollars for a chemise and half as much for a +pocket-handkerchief. Dress has always reigned supreme in France at +least. Louis XVI. has been guillotined, Napoleon I. exiled, Charles X. +dismissed, Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. replaced without their leave +by a new form of government. But dress has never been dethroned; and, +just as in our own days Dupin thundered in the Senate against the +desperate luxury of the Parisiennes of the Empire, so in the eighteenth +century old Sebastien Mercier lamented that the fear of the milliners' +bills prevented young men from marrying, and so left fifteen hundred +thousand girls without husbands! The great dress-makers of those days +were Madame Eloffe, the artist who dressed Marie Antoinette, and whose +account-books have recently been published; with notes and curious +colored plates, by the Comte de Reiset, and Madame Cafaxe, the +_modiste-couturière_ of the Fauburg St.-Honoré, celebrated for her +exorbitant charges. One has only to consult the curious historical +researches of the brothers De Goncourt in order to appreciate the luxury +and extravagance of the past century. Imagine that in the +wedding-trousseau of Mademoiselle Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau there +figured twelve blonde wigs, varying in shade from flax to gold! Madame +Tallien alone possessed thirty of these wigs, each of which was valued +at that time at one hundred dollars,--that is to say, some two hundred +dollars of modern money. None of our modern _élégantes_ would ever think +of buying six thousand dollars' worth of false hair. At the same epoch +the ladies who had fallen in love with Greek and Roman fashions had +abandoned the old-fashioned shoe in order to adopt the cothurnus; and +Coppe, the _chic_ shoemaker, or _corthurnier_, of Paris charged sixty +dollars a pair for his imitation antique sandals, with their straps. +Alas! Coppe's sandals were no more durable than the fleeting rose, and +whenever a fair dame came to show her torn cothurnus to the great Coppe +he replied sadly, "The evil is irremediable: madame has been walking!" + +THEODORE CHILD. + + * * * * * + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +A Future for Women. + + +From the last report of the Bureau of Education it appears that twice as +many girls as boys enter high schools in the United States, and that +three times as many complete the four years' course. "Nature," in +commenting upon this fact, attributes it to the great attractiveness of +commercial pursuits in this country, and the consequent eagerness of +boys to enter upon them at as early an age as possible. This is +doubtless the true reason, and the disproportion is more likely to +increase than to diminish, even though the actual number of boys who +rush into a money-making career as soon as they have mastered the +arithmetic necessary for it may be growing smaller. It is beginning, +moreover, to be an every-day matter for women to receive a college +education. There are already three well-filled colleges of high rank +exclusively their own, and the new Bryn Mawr bids fair to be a powerful +rival to Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley. Many of the colleges for men are +open to them; now, and the capitulation of those strongholds of +conservatism. Cambridge. New Haven, and Baltimore, is only a question of +time. Great colleges are ravenous for fresh endowments, and the offer of +a large sum of money may at any moment procure from them the full +admission of women. It is not impossible that before many years have +passed there will be as many women as men receiving a college education. +How is this army of educated women going to occupy itself? + +There is another aspect to the question. Not only is the mass of women +better fitted than ever before for worthy occupation, there has never +been a time nor a country in which their traditionary sphere has shrunk +to so small dimensions. Nowhere else are there so many women of such a +station that they are not obliged to toil and spin, nor to sleep all day +to make up for nights of dissipation. For all those who do not have to +concern themselves with the wherewithal of living, the art of living +easily has been brought to a state of great perfection. The general care +of the house and of the children is still the duty of the woman, but the +labor involved in acquitting herself of that duty is a very different +matter from what it was a generation ago. Then all her energies were +needed to bring up a family well. Brewing and baking and soap- and +candle-making were all carried on in the house, and there were a dozen +children to be kept neatly dressed with the aid of no needle but her +own. Now the purchase of the day's supplies is the only important demand +upon her time; well-trained servants, the descendants of the raw Irish +girl her mother struggled with, are capable of carrying on the cooking +and the scrubbing by themselves. Sewing it is hardly worth her while to +do in the house. Stitching her linen collars was once an important item +in her year's work; now it is safe to say that there is not a single +woman who does not buy her collars ready made. Making cotton cloth into +undergarments has become a manufacture in the unetymological sense of +the word. The Viscount de Campo-Grande, in addressing the Royal Academy +of Moral and Political Sciences at Madrid, two years ago, admitted that +sewing was no longer an economy, but urged women to practise it still +for the purpose of quieting their nerves. But the modern American woman +who has had a healthy bringing up, who has divided her girlhood between +vigorous study and active out-door exercise, who can row and skate and +play ball and tennis with her brothers, has no unquiet nerves. She does +not ask for sedatives, but for some high stimulus to call into play her +strong and well-trained faculties. Money-making, the natural sphere of +man, has become a more and more absorbing pursuit, while the usual +feminine occupations have become more than ever trivial and unimportant +at the very moment when the feminine mind has taken a new start in its +development. The woman who is fresh from reading Gauss and Pindar, and +who has taken sides in the discussion between the adherents of Roscher +and of Mill, cannot easily content herself with the petty economies that +result from doing her own cutting and fitting and dusting and +table-setting. Still less, if she has not married, is she satisfied to +look forward to the position of nursery governess to her sister-in-law's +children. Her education has fitted her for something better than to save +the wages of an upper servant. Again the question is forced upon her, +where can she find a fitting field for the exercise of her powers? + +To many people, who have all the means of existence they care for +without a struggle, it seems that the only thing that can give a +thorough interest and zest to life is to devote themselves to the +elevation of the degraded classes of society. They find such monotony in +their own comfortable ways of living, and the misery of the very poor +seems so appalling to them, that they cannot escape from the passionate +desire to spend themselves in their service. The problems connected with +the relief and the prevention of the wretchedness by which they are +surrounded have all the interest of a scientific experiment, and are +capable of calling out all the fervor of a religion. But for the few +people here and there who have now the passion of the reformer it is not +impossible that another generation may see many thousands. A second +christianization of the world may convert all the happy into the +consolers of the unhappy, instead of leading people to absorb themselves +in the question of their own salvation. No one can say how great a +change might be made in the fair face of the earth if the effort to +remove the causes of poverty and of disease should become the serious +occupation of half mankind. In the lower stages of existence the +extermination of evil has been the work of a slow and gradual process. +Millions of individuals have been sacrificed in order to produce the few +who were fitted to their surroundings. But at last a creature has been +produced of so much intelligence that he is able to undertake his own +further development. He can speculate upon the causes of his failures in +the search for happiness, and he can apply remedies. It is true that +those remedies have often been productive of more harm than good, it is +true that it would be hard to calculate the evil effects of the English +poor-laws, for instance, but all the experiments that have hitherto +worked badly are but so much material from which to draw a knowledge of +better methods. When the Wlllimantic Thread Company has found a way to +make its girls come singing from their work as they go to it, and to +make better thread at the same time, no one can say that great changes +may not be brought about when once scientific methods shall have been +discovered for the extermination of disease and crime. What more +interesting field for investigation, for theory, for active work, can +women find than that large kind of charity which is to supersede in the +future the indiscriminate alms-giving of the past? The unselfishness +that is demanded by the life of a reformer they have already in large +abundance. There is no limit to the devotion which many women show their +families, but such devotion has in these days become so unnecessary as +to be little more than a higher form of selfishness. Perhaps it only +needs a leader to turn this store of energy into wider channels and to +make it subservient to larger ends. Perhaps the labor and patience and +self-renunciation that are necessary to the regeneration of the world +are to come from women. Such an absolute disregard of self as they are +capable of, if it were once allowed to overflow the narrow limits of the +home, might in no long time turn a goodly portion of the world into a +garden of roses. There are still men who wish to appropriate to +themselves all the high qualities of their women, but they belong to a +race that is destined to rapid extinction, and to most rapid extinction +in this country. That American men are more thoroughly chivalrous than +English is a common belief. It was curiously confirmed by the English +clergyman who wrote to the "Nation," some years ago, to describe the +qualities which an English clergyman ought to have in order to be +successful in this country, and who said that he had found it necessary +not to let it be known that his wife warmed his slippers for him. The +theory that woman exists solely for the purpose of smoothing the +wrinkles from the brow of man is one that seldom finds expression now, +except in the Lenten sermons of men who are content to drop out of the +ranks of those who influence opinion. But the great freedom that the +modern woman has gained for herself, the thorough education that is for +the first time within her reach, the strong sympathies that are her +inheritance,--these are grounds of a responsibility that she cannot but +feel to be a heavy one. What better outlet can she find for her +activities than to carry forward that slow process of fitting together +the human race and its surroundings which it is no longer necessary to +leave to chance? + +CHRISTINE LADD-FRANKLIN. + + * * * * * + + + + +The Ice-Saints. + + +There are three days in the spring of the year called by the French _Les +Saints de Glace_. These days are the 12th, 13th, and 14th of May, and +the saints to whom they are dedicated are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancras, +and Saint Servais. They are very obscure saints, in honor of whom few +children have been named, and, were it not for the vast parish of Saint +Pancras which once comprised all the northwestern part of London, their +names as well as their history would be, to Protestants at least, +entirely unknown. They have, however, the evil reputation of commonly +bringing with them a nipping frost, and are abhorred in Burgundy as the +great enemies of the vine. + +Their advent this year was telegraphed to Paris by the New York +"Herald," whose weather reporter was probably quite ignorant of any +ecclesiastical traditions connected with the matter. On May 11 the +following despatch was received in Paris: "A great depression, having +its centre in the neighborhood of Lake Ontario, will be followed by a +cyclone of great extent, travelling in the direction of Halifax, It will +probably occasion great changes of temperature along the coasts of Great +Britain and France, beginning May 12 and continuing till May 14." Never +was prediction better fulfilled. The Ice-Saints sank the French +thermometer to 6° Centigrade, corresponding to 21° Fahrenheit, a +temperature more severe in those latitudes than the cold of an ordinary +Christmas. When the Ice-Saints had departed the weather grew mild again. + +M. Quetelet, the head of the Observatory at Brussels, has paid great +attention to the periodicity of weather-changes in Europe. The result of +his investigations is as follows: + +I. That there is always a "cold snap" between the 7th and 11th of +January, during which ordinarily occurs the coldest day of the year. + +II. That from January 22 to March 1 there is, as we say in our +vernacular, "a let-up" on the coldness of the temperature. In France +there is no ground-hog, or, if there is, he so generally sees no shadow +upon Candlemas (February 2) that the three weeks succeeding it are +called _L'Été de la Chandeleur_. + +III. In April cold may be expected from the 9th to the 22d, and the +Ice-Saints may prolong their influence to May 23, after which there is +no more possibility of frosts in France, though within my memory June +frosts have been twice known in Maryland and Virginia. The prolonged +frost in May is said to be produced by an understanding between the +Ice-Saints and what is called in France _La Lune Rousse_,--the Red Moon. + +IV. Though it needs no prophet to foretell hot weather from June 6 to +June 23. M, Quetelet's observations point to June 13 and June 22 as days +of exceptionally high temperature. + +V. Between July 4 and July 8 comes the hottest day of the summer, which +is not to be looked for in the dog-days, which are from July 21 to +August 20. + +VI. July 25 distinguishes itself by being cool, and August 25 tempers +ten days of heat which commonly begin on the 15th of August. + +VII. September 14 and September 30 are days when the thermometer may be +expected to make a sudden fall. + +VIII. Cold weather may be looked for from October 20 to October 29, and +from November 10 to November 19; but in the first ten days of November +comes what we call Indian summer, and the French _L'Été des +Morts_,--because it succeeds All-Souls' Day,--or _L'Été de Saint +Martin_. + +M. Quetelet adds no observations on December, it being presumably a cold +month everywhere. + +M. Fourmet, of Lyons, has also made meteorological observations of the +same nature in Southern France, and especially in the valley of the +Rhone. He says the lowest temperature in each month is as follows: +January 9 and 21. February 3, 12, and 20. March 5 and 21. April 19. May +12, 13, and 14. June 8, 20, and 27. July 12 and 25. August 2, 12, and +24. September 5, 15, and 30. October 22. November 5 and 17. December 3 +and 29. + +M. Charles Sainte-Claire Deville has also been engaged in careful +weather-calculations for many years, and has been in constant +correspondence on the subject with the Académie des Sciences. His theory +is based on the existence of the three Ice-Saints in May, and he +considers that a similar periodic influence may be traced in other +months of the year. He maintains that there are three days in every +month, with an interval of about ten days between them, in which we may +look for a fall of temperature, and that the weather gradually grows +warmer during the interval that separates them. His observations are +only in part corroborated by those of M. Quetelet and M. Fourmet. + +E.W.L. + + * * * * * + + + + +A Svenska Maid. + +Marie has been in the United States about four years, and still accents +her English with the Lapp-Finn modulations of Northern Sweden. She is +only eighteen years old now. She has fair hair and a serene fair face +somewhat like the Liberty face on our silver dollar. Her young shape is +strong and handsome, and she has white little teeth like a child's, and +the innocent nature of a child. + +Marie's father is a Swedish farmer. Many adventurers came to America +from her neighborhood, and, though but fourteen years old, she wanted to +come too; and a cousin's husband, already settled in Illinois, lent her +the passage-money. The last Sunday, according to custom, all her friends +brought offerings to church, and she was made to go through the +congregation holding her apron. They filled it with cake, a Bible, etc. +The young people walked with her parents and herself to the +steamer-landing, and kept from crying until she was aboard. + +When the steamer was under way an old woman came across her in the +steerage, and exclaimed, "Why, child, where are your father and mother?" + +To which Marie responded, with the gentle persistence peculiar to her, +"I leave them in Svadia. I go to America." + +Though all the steerage people were kind to her, she fell into bad hands +by way of her tender sympathies. There were a man and woman with a +family of small children, who were coming to America carrying an +unsavory record. The woman fell ill, and Marie nursed her, and she +fastened herself upon Marie with brutal tenacity. She took away a little +silk shawl the child had inherited and was bringing over as a chief bit +of finery. She had a delicate appetite for steerage fare, and ate up the +precious cheese Marie's mother had given for a parting gift. And she +took charge of Marie's bit of money, never returning it. + +"If she had but left me my cheese," says the Svenska maid, "I might have +had something to eat between New York and Illinois. I just had my ticket +in the cars, and, oh, it was more than two days, and I had such feelings +in my stomach! I was all alone and speak not a word of English, and +everybody around me eat, but I would not try to ask for somethings. A +German family by me have lots to eat, and when they left the cars I got +down under the seat and pick up orange-peel they throw down, and eat +that. I could not sleep in the night, I feel so bad. And when I get to +Illinois and to Willingham, the Swede people not meet me yet, and a +woman took me to her house to get my dinner, I never taste anything so +good in my life, but I eat with my hat on. The woman tried to take it +off, and I hold on with both hands. I thought she was going to take my +hat for pay, and I could not do without it." + +The little maid fell sick among her kin, and a great doctor's bill of a +year and a half accumulated upon her. The cousin's husband paid it and +added the debt to her passage-money. By the time she was able to work, +her pretty pale face had attracted an old man, and this persistent +suitor tormented her until she was wellnigh helpless in the hands of her +relatives. They set her debt before her, and reminded her of the +obligation she was under to marry a rich man. + +"But I said, 'I won't, I won't, I won't,'" says Marie. "That is all the +English I could talk, and I would say, 'I won't.' Then my cousin told me +I must leave; I could not stay in her house. And I felt dreadful bad. +The young folks come in with provisions to see me: they made a party +because I was going away. And I notice that all kept being called into +the next room but me. I was weak yet, and it made me feel as if they +wanted to slight me. But last of all they called me into the next room, +and there was twenty-five dollar they had made up to give me. And I +cried; I could not talk and thank them, but just cried hard as I could +cry. Then I took that money and paid part of my debt, and got a good +place to work." + +Marie is strong, willing, humble, and touchingly friendly in the +position of the Western "girl." She is ambitious to learn American ways. +She makes the most delicious pancakes that ever fluffed upon a griddle +or united with butter and maple syrup. She is religious, she is tender +with children, she is full of love for her native land. Her lovers are +not encouraged. + +"I go back to Sveden to visit it once more in five years. I go back +before I marry any man, now my debt is all paid." + +This Svenska maid is full of folk-stories. She tells the children how +St. John's eve is celebrated in Sweden. The young men and girls bring +boughs and construct arbors. They stay up all night, eating, playing, +and visiting from arbor to arbor. About midsummer, it is true, there is +very little night in Northern Sweden. + +"This was once in the papers," says Marie innocently. "They said it was +true. There was a girl going to take her first communion, and she got +into the churchyard before she missed her braid. Then she turned round +and started home after her braid, and met a man with a covered basket on +his arm. He asked her what she was going for, and she told him she was +going home for what she forgot, and the man said, 'Look in the basket, +and see if that is your switch.' She looked, and there was the hair +coiled up. Then he asked her if he might put it on her head, and the +girl said yes, and he put it on, and she went to church. + +"It came to the place where the minister gives her the bread, and her +braid slipped down on one shoulder; but when he gave her the wine it +jump like it going to strike the cup, for it was a snake the man put on +her, and it was fast to her head and never came off again." + +Marie's mother in youth worked for a Swedish farmer, and it was her duty +to get up about three o'clock in the morning and light a fire under the +boiler where the cows' feed was heated. This was in the barn. The cows +stood upon a floor over a large pit wherein were caught all the liquids +of the stable. The sleepy maid took a coal upon a chip, instead of +matches, and this primitive custom saved her from horribly drowning. For +as she opened the cows' stable one morning, and was taking a step +within, the chip flared up, and showed her three cows swimming below in +the pit. The floor had given way. + +"Sometimes there are excursions across the ocean," says Marie, speaking +of that star of a home visit which lures her into the future, "and you +can go and come back for twenty-five dollars. They do not have nice +things to eat in the steerage, but you can keep alive." M.H.C. + + * * * * * + + + + +The "Additional Hair" Supply. + +The late war between France and China had one effect which the public +did not expect,--it created a panic among the French dealers in human +hair. Before that war began it was not generally known that a vast +proportion of the false hair used in Europe and America was imported +from China into France and there prepared for the trade. But the +beginning of hostilities between the two countries made the fact +apparent by the sudden cutting off of the customary supply from the +Celestial Empire. A German paper mentions that in 1883 the hair thus +imported amounted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand seven hundred +and fifteen kilograms, for which the French dealers paid at the rate of +only ten or twelve francs per kilogram. As no other country can, or at +any rate will, supply human hair in such enormous quantities and at such +a low price, the effect on the market may easily be imagined. The +hair-merchants of Marseilles had been accustomed to furnish at least +twenty-five thousand _coiffures_ for women and several thousand wigs for +men every year; and even before the stoppage of direct communication +with China they had found it hard to get as much raw material as they +needed. When their principal drawing-point became inaccessible they were +reduced to despair, and perhaps presented the only case ever known in +which "tearing the hair" would seem to have been attended with some +practical benefit. However, the termination of the war revived their +hopes, and they are now making up for the lost time with a vigor and +determination which even threaten the male Celestial with the loss of +his sacred pig-tail. + +The European sources from which human hair is obtained are not numerous +or very prolific. Many peasant-women of Normandy and Bretagne sell their +beautiful brown, red, or golden locks, but these are of such fine +quality that they command very high prices. Norman or Breton girls +having braids eighty centimetres in length sell them for as much as a +thousand francs. Perfectly white hair from the same French provinces +brings a sum which seems almost fabulous. The French journal "Science +et Nature" declares that the price commonly paid for a braid of such +white hair weighing one kilogram is _twenty-five thousand francs_. + +The hair-merchants of France have never been very successful in drawing +supplies for their business from England, Germany, or any of the +countries in the northern part of Europe. Lately, however, they have +begun to have a good deal of success among the lower classes of the +Italians. Their imports from Italy are already comparatively large, and +they seem to be increasing every year. Such an easy way of getting money +as this opportunity affords must appear vastly attractive to the swarms +of professional beggars who infest every highway, church door, and +public square in Southern Italy, and whose enjoyment of the +indispensable _dolce far niente_ cannot be spoiled by merely submitting +to the operation of having their hair cut off. It is probable that they +furnish much more of the hair brought from Italy than do the +laboring-classes of the cities or the honest _contadini_ of the rural +districts. + +The idea of actually wearing hair which once belonged to some member of +"the unspeakable" _lazzaroni_ tribe cannot be considered a fascinating +one. At the same time it is at least not more unattractive than the +consciousness of having fallen heir to the capillary adornments of a +Cantonese tonka-boat girl. And in reality such a feeling, though natural +enough, would be based upon nothing but imagination. All the hair +purchased and used by the dealers in Paris, Marseilles, and other French +cities to which the Chinese and Italian hair is brought goes through a +number of preparatory processes, which cleanse and purify it thoroughly; +and when it is ready to be sold again it is probably in as +unobjectionable a state as hair can reach. As for the imagination, if we +were to allow it to govern us entirely in all such cases we should soon +find ourselves restricted to almost as few comforts and conveniences as +those unhappy historical characters whose constant fear of poison +reduced their whole diet to boiled eggs. Still, the feeling is one of +which it is very hard to rid ourselves; and in all probability the +ladies who derive the most unalloyed satisfaction from their +"additional" braids are those who have had them made from "combings" of +their own hair. J.A.C. + + * * * * * + + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + +"The Rise of Silas Lapham." By William D. Howells. Boston: Ticknor & Co. + + +In his later books Mr. Howells has shown that he is on the point of +discovering the secret of the best novelists. Unabashed by the +difficulties and dangers which beset the realistic writer, he has gone +to work to describe the simple machinery which puts in motion all human +actions and passions, and has given a subtile but sure analysis of +certain phases of modern life, and a vivid picture of at least two +actual, warm, palpitating, breathing men. His success in this respect is +the more striking because he began by offering us mere pasteboard heroes +of the most conventional type. The male characters in his early books +were, in fact, shuttle-cocks to be tossed hither and thither by the +mysterious contradictions, the incomprehensible inconsistencies, of his +heroines, whose scheme of existence was the indulgence of every whim, +and whose notion of logic was that one paradox must educe another still +more startling. Having finally made up his mind as to the insoluble +nature of the female problem, he seems inclined to discard mere +clevernesses and prettinesses and to advance into the broad arena of +real life, with its diversity of actors and its multiplicity of +interests. Both Bartley Hubbard in "A Modern Instance" and Silas Lapham +in the book before us strike us as admirable characterizations. If +Lapham is in certain respects a less original presentation than Bartley +Hubbard, he is at least a hero who draws more strongly upon the reader's +sympathies and takes surer hold of the popular heart. In fact, Silas, +with his big, hairy fist, his ease in his shirt-sleeves, his boastful +belief in himself, his conscience, his ambition, and his failure, makes, +if we include his sensible wife, the success of the novel before us. The +daughters are not, to our thinking, so well rendered; while the Coreys, +sterling silver as they ought to be, impress us instead as rather thin +electro-plates. The Boston Brahmins have entered a good deal into +literature of late, but so far without any brilliant results. According +to their chroniclers, they spend most of their time discussing in what +respects they are providentially differentiated from, their +fellow-beings. Sometimes they put too fine a point upon it and wholly +fail to make themselves felt. But then again their superior knowledge of +the world is patent to the most careless observer. For instance, when +Mrs. Corey pays a visit to Mrs. Lapham she apologizes for the lateness +of the hour, explaining that her coachman had never been in that part of +Boston before. This naturally casts an ineffaceable stigma upon the +respectable square where the Laphams have hitherto resided, and shows +that between the two ladies there is a great gulf fixed. Again, to point +sharply social distinctions, young Corey says to his father,-- + +"I don't believe Mrs, Lapham ever gave a dinner." + +"And with all that money!" sighed the father. + +"I don't believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that +when they don't drink tea and coffee with their dinner they drink +ice-water." + +"Horrible!" said Bromfield Corey. + +"It appears to me that this defines them." + +The Coreys have the liveliest sense of all these _nuances_ of deviation +from their standards, and strike us as rather amateurish, clever people +who want to make sure of nice points and get on in the world, rather +than as real flesh-and-blood aristocrats with the freedom and ease of +acknowledged social supremacy. + +While the Coreys try faithfully to compass the best that is known and +thought in the world, the Laphams go to the other extreme, and touch +depths of ignorance and vulgarity almost incredible for a family living +in Boston with eyes to see, ears to hear, and, above all, money to +spend. For a sort of superficial culture is a part of the modern +inheritance, and seems to belong to the universal air. Even Penelope +Lapham--the elder daughter, who is a girl of remarkable shrewdness and +gifted besides with a keen satirical sense which makes her the family +wit--is content to laugh at the family failings and provincialisms +without any definite idea of how they might be corrected. But the +Laphams are all the more interesting because they display no feeble and +tentative gentilities. Mrs. Lapham's acceptance of Mrs. Corey's +invitation to dinner, in which she signs herself "Yours truly, Mrs. S. +Lapham," initiates some delightful scenes in the comedy. The colonel's +resolution to go to the dinner in a frock-coat, white waistcoat, black +cravat, and ungloved hands, and his eventual panicky substitution of +correct evening dress regardless of cost, the anxieties of his wife and +daughter on the question of suitable raiment, the great affair itself, +when the colonel comes out in a new character,--all this part of the +book shows in a high degree Mr. Howells's bright vein of humor. + +But, putting aside the humor and comedy of "The Rise of Silas Lapham," +the book has other points of value, and, as a study of a business-man +whom success floats to the crest of the wave only to let him be +overwhelmed by disaster as the surge retreats, presents a striking +similitude to Balzac's "César Birotteau." In each case we find a +self-made man elated by a sense of his commercial greatness, confident +that the point he has already attained, instead of being the climax of +his career, is the stepping-stone to yet greater wealth, besides social +distinction. César Birotteau inaugurates what he believes to be his era +of magnificence with a ball, while Silas Lapham tempts fortune by +building a fine house on the back bay. Each hero projects his costly +schemes in opposition to the wishes of a more sensible and prudent wife, +and each, at the moment when fate seemed bent on crowning his ambition, +falls a prey to a series of cruel and, in a way, undeserved misfortunes, +and finds his well-earned commercial credit a mere house of cards which +totters to its fall. Each man, broken and bankrupt, displays in his +feebleness a moral strength he had not shown in his days of power: thus +the name, "the _rise_ of Silas Lapham," means his initiation into a +clearer and more exalted knowledge of his obligations to himself and to +his kind. The moral of César Birotteau's "_grandeur et decadence_" +strikes a still deeper key-note. Compared with Balzac, who is never +trivial, and who has the most unerring instinct for character and +motive, Mr. Howells wastes his force on non-essentials and is carried +away by frivolities and prettinesses when he ought to be grappling with +his work in fierce earnest. Balzac, whose unappeasable longing was to +see his books the breviary, so to speak, of the people, would have +laughed and cried with Silas, lived with him, loved with him, and come +to grief with him, and forced his readers to do likewise. Mr. Howells is +not so easily carried away by his creations, and is too apt to laugh at +them instead of with them. But his mature work shows, nevertheless, a +boldness and facility which ought to put the best results within its +compass; and we confidently look for better novels from his pen than he +has so far written, full of wit, humor, and cleverness, yet expanding +outside of these gracful limitations into the fullest nature and +freedom. + +/# +"A Canterbury Pilgrimage. Ridden, Written, +and Illustrated by Joseph and Elizabeth +Robins Pennell." New York: Charles Scribner's +Sons. +#/ + +It may be confessed that in certain respects bicycles and tricycles +answer admirably to the requirements of travellers in search of the +picturesque. They are swift or slow at need, may be halted without want +or waste, and have no vicious instincts to be combated by whip or spur. +But they are nevertheless hideous inventions, and it is impossible for +lookers-on to feel for wheelmen the cordial good will given so freely to +Mr. Stevenson on his donkey, for instance. The rider on wheels is an +object that exasperates the nerves of horses, dogs, and men. Mrs. +Pennell in this little book describes a collision on the old Kent Road +with the driver of a hansom cab, who sat watching their extrication +scowling. If he had his way, he said, he would burn all _them things."_ +And, little affiliation as most human beings have with cabmen, we yet +believe that he gave utterance to the sentiments of all non-wheelmen. +However, the modern world is likely to belong to bicycles and tricycles, +and this attractive brochure, signed with the names of one of our +cleverest draughtsmen and his wife, with their silhouettes on the cover, +is likely to set more wheels in motion than there were before it was +printed. The two evidently enjoyed their expedition, and the lady tells +the story easily and pleasantly; and if it is relieved by little +incident it is yet sustained by intelligent observation and +discriminating enthusiasm, while the illustrations are, like all Mr. +Pennell's work, clever in the extreme. The two left London on their +tricycle late in August, and had the finest weather in which to cross +historic Blackheath and look up the picturesque wharves in Gravesend. +Hop-pickers filled the roads and offered many a subject for the artist's +pencil. "We rode on with light hearts," recounts the fair wheelwoman. +"An eternity of wheeling through such perfect country and in such soft +sunshine would, we thought, be the true earthly paradise. We were at +peace with ourselves and with all mankind, and J---- even went so far as +to tell me I had never ridden so well," And thus on to the inn at +Sittingbourne, which has this quaint notice hung over the door: + +Call frequently, +Drink moderately, +Pay honourably, +Be good company, +Part friendly, +Go home quietly. + +Arrived at the close of the second day in Canterbury, the two "toke" +their inn at the sign of the "Falstaff," where hung "Honest Jack, in +buff doublet and red hose," in a wonderful piece of wrought-iron work. +Whether next day, after viewing the cathedral, the tricycles pursued +their journey, is not told. The pilgrimage ends, as it should, at the +shrine,--that is, where the shrine had been; for the verger, after +saying solemnly that they had come to the shrine of St. Thomas, solemnly +added, "'Enery the Heighth, when he was in Canterbury, took the bones, +which they was laid beneath, out on the green, and had them burned. With +them he took the 'oly shrine, which it and bones is here no longer." + + * * * * * + + + + +Fiction. + + +"The Lady with the Rubies." Translated from the German of E. Marlitt by +Mrs. A.L. Wister. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. + +"Barbara Heathcote's Trial." By Rosa Nouchette Carey. Philadelphia: J.B. +Lippincott Company. + +"The Bar Sinister. A Social Study." New York: Cassell & Co. + +"Pine-Cones." By Willis Boyd Allen. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. + +"An Old Maid's Paradise." By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Boston: Houghton, +Mifflin & Co. + +In spite of all the clever pleas urged by the lovers of realism for +realistic novels, it is easy enough to see that the mass of readers are +just as much in love as ever with a high romanticism, and Miss Marlitt's +stories still retain the strong hold they first took of the popular +heart. The success of fiction comes from the fact that it supplies a +want existing in most people's minds: lively incidents to awaken and +stimulate the fancy, a touch of mystery to give a thrill of pleasing +fear, sharply diversified characters impelled by strong motives which +insure a lively conflict of passions,--all these are what the average +novel-reader demands, and finds in Miss Marlitt's works. A great +rambling German house, with suites of disused apartments shut away from +sunshine and air and haunted by vanished forms and silent voices, while +its open rooms are tenanted by a nest of gentlefolks of all degrees of +relation,--some united by love, and others at swords'-points,--offers a +lively field for the romancer; and such is the scene in "The Lady with +the Rubies." "Belief in the Powers of Darkness will never die so long as +poor human hearts love, hope, and fear," is the moral, so to speak, of +the book; and the author has used with good effect this vein of +superstition which "makes the whole world kin." Little Margarete's +encounter with the family spectre, her flight from home, her lonely and +terrifying night, are touchingly described; and, in fact, the book is +full of pretty child-pictures, which enhance the pleasantness and charm +of the love-story. Few of Miss Marlitt's books possess more interest and +diversity than "The Lady with the Rubies;" and, as usual with Mrs. +Wister's work, it is well and gracefully translated. + +Given a family of girls well contrasted, utterly untrammelled, and each +in possession of a will and a way of her own, materials for a romance +are not hard to find; and in telling the story of the Heathcotes Miss +Carey seems to have jotted down a series of events exactly as they fell +out in actual life. There is plenty of sentiment, but its expression is +dealt out with a sparing hand; there are pretty sylvan scenes, and the +wood-paths, the warm homesteads, the meadows and fields, all enter into +the story and make a pleasant part of it. If "Barbara Heathcote's Trial" +has no leading motive as strong and as universally interesting as the +author's former book, "Not Like Other Girls," it is, to our thinking, +quite as pleasant and readable, and will no doubt enjoy its +predecessor's popularity. + +Romance has done much good work in the way of laying bare men's faults, +hypocrisies, and evil lusts, and if Mormonism is actually on the +increase among us there is good reason for a novel like "The Bar +Sinister," which tells us the story of certain converts to the peculiar +tenets of the saints and introduces us into the every-day life of Salt +Lake City. That our families and our institutions are in peril from this +monstrous and ridiculous evil it would not be easy for us to believe. +Yet it is impossible to read this book without a conviction that the +author could easily substantiate his facts by proofs, and that +intelligent men and women have been and are still being led away into +the heresy. The incidents of the story are, however, calculated to shock +and repel the reader, who rises from its perusal sick and indignant as +much from having been confronted with such personages and their doings +as from the fact that such people are in existence. The author has +without doubt enjoyed the advantage of a flesh-and-blood acquaintance +with leaders of the faith who talk unctuously of "Class No. 1, 2, 3, 4," +etc.; and, besides actual knowledge, there is strong feeling and earnest +principle behind the whole narrative. + +"Pine-Cones" is a pleasant story for young people, telling the +adventures of a party of boy and girl cousins making a visit among the +great pine woods of Maine. There is plenty of open air in the book, +bright talk, and earnest stories told round the fire. + +"An Old Maid's Paradise" is a bright little sketch of the adventures and +misadventures of a woman who builds a cottage on Cape Ann promontory for +five hundred dollars, and settles down to a joyful existence without any +need of aid or comfort from living man except as a purveyor and +burglar-alarm. Every one likes to know the price of things, and it is +pleasing to understand exactly what may be done with five hundred +dollars. "The cottage," as described by Miss Phelps, "contained five +rooms and a kitchen. The body of this imposing building stood twenty +feet square upon the ground. The kitchen measured nine feet by eight, +and there was a wood-shed three feet wide, in which Puella managed to +pile the wood and various domestic mysteries into which Corona felt no +desire to penetrate. There were a parlor, a dining-room, a guest-room, +and two rooms left for 'the family.' There were two closets, a coal-bin, +and a loft. The house stood on what, for want of a scientific term, +Corona called piers.... Corona's house had no plaster, no papering, no +carpets. Her parlor, which opened directly upon the water, was painted +gray; the walls were of the paler color in a gull's wing; the ceiling +had the tint of dulled pearls; the floor was rock-gray (a border of +black ran around this floor); the beams and rafters, left visible by the +absence of plastering, were touched with what is known to artists as +neutral tint," etc. A very pleasant little cottage in itself, the +description may be of practical utility to many who would like some +_pied-à-terre_ by mountain or shore, and who are not quite certain what +a moderate outlay can do. + + * * * * * + + + + +Books Received. + + +The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Household +Edition. With illustrations. Boston +and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. + +Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present. By +Maturin M. Ballou. Boston and New York: +Houghton, Mifflin & Co. + +City Ballads. By Will Carleton. Illustrated. +New York: Harper & Brothers. + +A Social Experiment. By A.E.P. Searing. +New York and London: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +Lawn-Tennis. By Lieutenant S.C.F. Peale, +B.S.C. Edited by Richard D. Sears. New +York: Charles Scribner's Sons. + +The America's Cup. By Captain Roland F. +Coffin. New York: Charles Scribner's +Sons. + +Our Sea-Coast Defences. By Eugene Griffin, +New York and London: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +Cholera. By Alfred Stillé, M.D., LL.D. Philadelphia: +Lea Brothers & Co. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE, *** + +***** This file should be named 14509-8.txt or 14509-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/0/14509/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, William Bumgarner and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/14509-8.zip b/old/14509-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c1624a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14509-8.zip diff --git a/old/14509.txt b/old/14509.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a7846e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14509.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7404 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14509] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE, *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, William Bumgarner and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +_OCTOBER, 1885_. + +ON A TEXAS SHEEP-RANCH. + +I. + +There are words which have careers as well as men, or, perhaps it may be +more happily said, as well as women. Mere words breathed on by Fancy, +and sent forth not so much to serve man's ordinary colloquial uses, +apparently, as to fascinate his mind, have their _debuts_. their season, +their vogue, and finally a period in which it is really too bad if they +have not the consolation of reflecting upon their conquests; for +conquests they certainly have. The great captivators--the Cleopatras of +the vocabulary--one easily recognizes; but besides these there is a host +of small flirts and every-day coquettes, whom one hardly suspects till +they have a little carried him away. Almost every one remembers how in +this light company he first came across the little word _ranch_. It had +in its youth distinctly the _cachet_ of the verbal flying squadron, the +"nameless something," the oenanthic whiff which flies to the head. There +are signs that its best days as a word are now over, and in +contemplating it at present one has a vision of a _passee_ brunette, in +the costume of Fifine at the Fair, solacing herself with thoughts of +early triumphs. "Would a farm have served?" she murmurs. "Would a +plantation, an orange-grove, have satisfied the desperate young man? No, +no; he must have his ranch! There was no charm could soothe his +melancholy, and wring for him the public bosom, save mine." + +I made this reflection during a period of incarceration in a +sleeping-car,--a form of confinement which, like any other, throws the +prisoner considerably on his fancy; and a vision somewhat like the above +smoothed for a moment the pillow of an "upper berth," and pleased better +than the negro porter. Half a dozen of those days of too many paper +novels, of too much tobacco, of too little else, followed each other +with the sameness of so many raw oysters. Then there came a chill night +of wide moonlit vacuity passed on the prairie by the side of the driver +of a "jumper,"--a driver who slumbered, happy man!--and at peep of dawn +I found myself standing, stiff and shivering, in a certain little Texas +town. A much-soiled, white little street, a bit of greenish-yellow, +treeless plain soft in the morning mist, a rosy fringe at the edge of +the sky,--it was of these things, together with a disagreeable sense of +imponderability of body from the cold and sleepless ride, that I was +vaguely aware as the jumper--rigorous vehicle!--disappeared round a +corner. Frontier towns are not lovely, and the death-like peace which +seemed properly to accompany the chalky pallor of the buildings was +somewhat uncanny; but it proved to be only what sleep can do for a +village with railroad influences one hundred miles away. We entered +boldly the adobe before which we had been dropped, and found a genial +landlord in an impromptu costume justified by the hour, an inn-album of +quite cosmopolitan range of inscriptions, and a breakfast for which a +week of traveller's fare had amply fortified the spirit. + +The village was the chief, indeed, wellnigh the only, town of a great +west-by-north county, in which Rhode Island would be lost and +Massachusetts find elbow-room. It was an irregular little bunch of +buildings gathered along an arterial street which, after a run of three +hundred yards or so, broke to pieces and scattered its dispersed +shanties about a high, barren plain. It stood on the steep bank of a +little river, and over against it, on a naked hill, was Uncle Sam's +military village,--a fort by courtesy,--where, when not sleeping, black +soldiers and white strolled about in the warm sun. When the little +street was fairly awake, it presented a very lively appearance and had +the air of doing a great deal of business. The wan houses emitted their +occupants, and numerous pink-faced riders, in leathers and broad hats, +poured in from all sides, and, tying their heavily-accoutred ponies, +disappeared into the shops with a sort of bow-legged waddle, like +sailors ashore. Off his horse, the cow-boy is frankly awkward. Purchases +made, they departed with a rush, filling the glare with dust. Officers +from the post, with cork helmets and white trousers, came across the +river and stood in the broad shadows of adobe door-ways, gaping, and +switching their legs with bamboo canes. "It's magnificent," one seemed +to hear them mutter, "but it isn't war!" Groups of Mexicans stood about, +or, selecting a white wall, leaned against it, as they are apt to do at +home, for the better relief of their swarthy faces and brilliant scarfs; +and slowly moving down the street, stopping occasionally to speak to the +various clusters of men, there went the beneficent if somewhat untidy +figure of the Catholic father, in whose company we had breakfasted, a +fat, jolly, anecdotal inheritor of the mantle of some founder of the +Missions. The sun took absolute and merciless possession of the street. +You put your hand in your pocket for the smoked glass through which you +observed the last eclipse. Everything seemed bleached,--the white +buildings, the yellow road, the eyebrows of the cow-boys. + +We did the drive of twenty miles to the ranch in a canvas-topped buggy, +drawn by a pair of devil-may-care little nags, who took us across dry +_arroyos_ and the rocky beds of running streams in a style that promised +to make sticks of the vehicle. It held good, however, and rattled out a +sort of derisive snicker at every fresh attempt to shiver it. The +country through which we passed afforded views of superb breadth and a +most interesting and delightful quality. No landscape has in the exact +sense such charm as one in which Nature manifests herself in a large and +simple way: one feels with a thrill that she is about to tell the +secret. The earth lay almost in its nakedness beneath the inane dome of +the sky. But over the large simplicity of form one was soon aware of an +exquisite play of hues. The easy undulations, as they ran off to the +unattainable horizon, were so many waves of delicate and varying color. +There were great sweeps of ochre, of gray, of fresh, light green, +pointed with black dots of live-oak, and traversed by tortuous lines of +indigo where the pecan treed creeks pursued their foiled courses, and +troops of little hills grouped themselves about,--pink, pinkish, purple, +purpling blue, white, as they faded from view like the evanescent +cherubs in the corner of an old master. The hills, however, were little +only because the stretch was so vast; it was really a broad plafond upon +which they had solemnly entered to dance a minuet with the playful +shadows of the clouds. The sky possessed everything. There was so much +of it that existence seemed to have become in a sense a celestial--or at +least an aerial--affair: the world was your balloon. + +After the third creek-crossing the road ran straight as an avenue +through a broad, level reach, and we flew along gayly. The little +mesquite-trees, prim, dainty, and delicate, stood about in seeming +order, civilizing the landscape and giving it the air of an orchard; the +prairie-dog villages were thrown into a tumult of excitement by our +passage; a chaparral-cock slipped out of a bush, stared an instant, +pulled the string that lifts his tail and top-knot, and settled down for +a race directly under the horses' feet. We passed the point of a hill, +gained a slight rise, and the ranch was in sight. It must be confessed +that it was not in appearance all that the name might imply,--not the +sort of place for which one starts after having provided one's self with +a navy revolver and a low estimate of the value of human life. It was, +in fact, a very pretty and domestic scene, a little village of half a +dozen buildings and a net-work of white limestone and brush corrals. +Shortly I was supping in a neat little cottage, and endeavoring in the +usual way to be agreeable to some one in muslin. In this modern world we +change our skies, truly, but not--not our bric-a-brac. On the walls of +the pretty dining-room one beheld with rising feeling one's old friends +the Japanese fan and the discarded plate still clinging with the +touching persistence of the ivy to the oak. To be sure, there was a tall +half-breed Indian moving about with the silent agility of the warpath, +but he wore a white apron, and his hideous intention was to fill one's +wineglass. If the longitude had led me to meditate right buffalo's hump, +"washed down" with something coarse and potent enough to justify the +phrase, it was clear that I was painfully behind the stroke of the +clock. Life, good lady, takes an undignified pleasure in arranging these +petty shocks to the expectations, which we soon learn to dismiss with a +smile. The cold mutton and _ordinaire_ were excellent, and we had some +coffee and a cigarette on the piazza. The sun was setting far away +behind a hill on the other side of the creek. A soft sound came down the +valley from a remote flock of sheep. A little breeze sprang up and ran +tremulously about, shaking the tufted grass and the slim boughs of the +mesquites, and putting some question with a wistfully hopeful swish. +Plainly, one could be very much at home here. The visionary brunette had +evidently ranged herself, was living down the reputation of early vivid +experiences and successfully cultivating the domestic virtues. + + + + +II. + + +Six or eight years earlier, four young men had left New York on a +Galveston steamer, their departure being attended by such an assemblage +of young women that on the second day out their companions of the voyage +confided the supposition that it had been a "bridal party." That little +Spanish-American word ravaging our coasts and carrying off the pride of +the youth has to answer for many such bridal parties, whose tours have +been followed with pins and colored pencils and eyes more eager than +those of mothers-in-law. In a month or so the young men had pitched a +wall-tent within a day's ride of the Rio Grande, and were seriously +occupied in sacrificing each other's feelings on the altar of +experimental cookery, in herding sheep with the assistance of paper +novels, and in writing exceedingly long letters to the North. This +wall-tent was the larva of the ranch. But the arid southern country +proved inconvenient, and collecting their effects in a prairie-schooner +and driving their flocks before them, they effected a masterly change of +base, which brought them two hundred miles to the northward and set them +down in a delightful pasture-land, watered by three pretty creeks, near +one of which they erected an adobe hut. This solitary house on a broad +flat, an object of amazement to wandering hordes of cattle, was the +ranch during a most interesting period, and its thatched roof and +somewhat fetid walls became for the occupants overgrown with fine +clusters of association. Within a few miles of its site the present +village took shape. + +The country was a frankly monotonous conformation of alternating hills +and valleys,--"divides" and "draws,"--with wide flats near the creeks. +Gulches, more or less deep, down the valley-lines of the draws, and +traversing the flats to the creeks,--the so-called _arroyos_,--were a +common physical feature. In the wet season they were running streams, +but for most of the year they were dry, with here and there a waterhole, +flowers and chaparral growing in them, and, at intervals, pecans. The +pecan-trees grew thickly along the borders of the creeks, while the +mesquites cloaked with gossamer wide portions of the flats; and here and +there in the valleys and on the sides of the hills the sombre, +self-enwrapped live-oaks stood about, like philosophers musing amid the +general lightness. Spanish-dagger, bear-grass, and persimmon-bushes +freckled the sides of the rocky divides with dark spots, and mistletoe +hung its fine green globes like unillumined lanterns in the branches of +the mesquites. Over the plains and slopes a sparse turf of various +grasses, differing in color and changing with the season, gave the airy +landscape its brilliant and versatile complexion. A dozen varieties of +cactus, portulaccas, geraniums, petunias, verbenas, scattered over the +prairie, morning-glories and sunflowers in the arroyos and along the +creeks, and many a flower nameless to the general, abounded. So, it +should be added, did in their season plover, snipe, ducks, and geese. + +The business of the ranch was the antediluvian occupation of rearing and +shearing sheep, and to that end the village included a shearing-shed and +a large wool-house. Besides these there were three cottages and several +other buildings, among which one called the "ranch-house" was the focus +of the activity of the place, and, being also a survival from a +comparatively early day, was a somewhat characteristic affair. It was a +box-house, painted red, with a broad porch thatched with bear-grass, and +a saddle-shed butting up against it. The interior, barring a little +store at one end, was a single large room, bedroom, sitting-room, +office, furnished with home-made tables with blankets for cloths, +knocked-up chairs with cowhide seats and coyote-skin backs, deers' +antlers draped with "slickers" (Texan for the 'longshoreman's yellow +water-proof) and wide-brimmed "ten-dollar" hats, and at one end two +tiers of bunks, with leather cases for six-shooters nailed to their +sides. This room served for the abode of the storekeeper, for the +transaction of business, and for the accommodation of the perennial +casual guest. It was rude, but, especially of evenings about the lamp, +it had a marked air of pipe-and-tobacco comfort. + +The little store was patronized by the cow-boy, so much abused with +sensational or picturesque intentions, and by the small farmers with +irrigation patches in the vicinity. It was likewise the resort of +Encarnacion and Tomas, and others their brethren, from the Mexican +village a few miles up the creek, or from isolated abiding-places round +about. Here they would come, and, rolling cigarettes of the brown paper +they affect and the eleemosynary tobacco open on the counter, to which +all were welcome (such were the amenities of shopping on the ranch), +they would lounge about, ever smiling and chattering in soft voices, +finally to say '_uenos dias_ with two bits' worth of bacon, or +corn-meal, or pink candy for the _chiquitas_. Here, too, would come +Tomasa, and, with even more than usual feminine zeal in matters of +dress, at once try on the ready-made calico gown she purchased, while +the store-keeper smoked his pipe and stroked his beard. + +Excepting the cow-boys, the people composing the clientage of the store +were for the most part resident in one of two farm-settlements located +on the creek, about ten miles apart, one exclusively Mexican, the other +almost entirely "white." Besides these, the families of many of the +Mexican hands lived close by. These last were constantly assisting +conversation at the cottages with such incidents as the following: + +The cook--a tall, gaunt negro of a mediaevally "intense" nature--came +in with an excited manner, followed by Madame Alguin, very much +troubled, wringing her hands, and dissolved in tears. + +"Panchot's little boy," said the cook, "is killed." + +We were naturally aghast. Little Panchot had been _colero_ at the recent +shearing. + +"Is he dead?" we queried hoarsely. + +"He was dead," replied the cook, with seriousness: "he is not dead now." + +With this light and delicate touch the cook swept the gamut of our +emotions from awe at little Panchot's sudden taking off to pleasure at +his speedy resurrection. We repaired at once to Madame Alguin's +residence to view the subject of this miracle: lest the miracle should +not be so complete as one might wish, we carried with us a little +hartshorn and Pond's extract. Madame Alguin's villa was a fine +wide-spreading live-oak, with a tent as a sort of annex, about two +minutes from the ranch. On our arrival we found four Mexican women, +seven children, one man, three dogs, four goats, and several roosters, +gathered round the form of little Panchot stretched beneath the +live-oak. A fire smouldered a little way off, and a cradle hung from the +branch of the fatherly tree. Little Panchot had a nasty cut about an +inch long through his cheek. He had been herding his goats on the bank +of the creek when he was knocked over by a stone from the other side. He +swooned,--then he was dead; he came to,--and, _presto_, he was alive +again. He was soon running about with his wonted friskiness, and making +himself useful in chasing wild tennis-balls. This little boy's mother +was, poor woman, very much of a sloven, but he had a string of little +sisters who were as nice as could be. They went about in white cotton +gowns--amazingly clean, considering that they lived under a tree--tied +at the waist with red scarfs; their black hair was smoothly gathered at +the backs of their pretty heads, and they had a demure and quaintly +maternal air; they looked at you with a tranquil, moon-like gaze, which +seemed to say that their ideas, which were on the way, had tarried for +the moment in some boon southern country. + + + + +III. + + +In riding about the range it was very pleasant to find, as one +constantly did, by the side of some "motte" (Texan for a considerable +cluster of scrub growth), or beneath the shade of a great live-oak, or +on the barren face of a divide, the little canvas A-tents of the +herders, nestled cosily to circular pens for the sheep, and generally +surrounded by brush to prevent the intrusion of inquisitive cattle. +Within the tent a sheepskin or so, stretched on the ground or on a +lattice of branches, for his bed, and without, a padlocked chest, with a +coffee mill screwed to the top, in which he keeps his rations, a skillet +and a few other utensils hanging from the branches of a neighboring +tree, a whitened buffalo's skull for a _metate_, a smouldering +fire,--this little spot, with its surrounding fence shutting out the +solitude, is the herder's palace, schloss, villa, town-and +country-house. "_Seguro_," says Juan, as he lights a brown cigarette and +quenches the yellow fuse in an empty cartridge-shell, "man wants but +little here below." They were a genial and hospitable set, the herders, +and if one arrived about mid-day they would regale him with scraps of +jerked beef, a cake of unleavened bread cooked in the skillet, and +coffee which, considering what it was made of, was a very inspiring +drink. In particular I recall the _pastor_ Patricio, a very pretty +fellow, with curly black hair and black eyes, a fine nose with a +patrician lift to the nostrils, a little black moustache bristling like +a cat's on a smiling lip, a red handkerchief about his neck: he was very +voluble of soft words, and made the waste blossom with his distinguished +manner. A dozen of these camps were to be discovered about the range, +and the brush fences and unused corrals of many more, which had been +used and would be used again as the sheep were moved from +grazing-ground to grazing-ground and portions of the range temporarily +exhausted. + +From his camp the herder goes forth at daybreak with his flock of +fourteen hundred ewes and lambs or two thousand wethers, grazing slowly +toward the creek or neighboring water-hole where at noon he lies up in +the shade; and to it he slowly returns in the cool of the afternoon, the +flock moving in loose order among the mesquites, taking a nip here, a +nip there, but ever hanging together and dependent, the most gregarious +of animals. In their unity of action, in their interdependence and +solidarity, the timid sheep are capable of a momentary suggestion of +awe. About weaning-time a couple of large flocks got temporarily +together, and one could see driven by the herder a compact mass of four +thousand advancing over the prairie with a quick step, "a unit in +aggregate, a simple in composite," their impassible countenances gazing +fixedly forward, resembling, it seemed to me, a brigade going into +action. For most of the year it is thought by no means advisable to fold +the sheep in the corral at night, so they sleep at large near it. +Especially on moonlight nights they are apt to be uneasy and to move +from their bed-ground short distances, when the herder quits his tent, +and, rolling a cigarette, follows his fanciful flock about the blanched +and wistful prairie till they subside; then, throwing his cloak over his +shoulder with the swing of an hidalgo, he falls asleep beside them. + +The herder's incidents are the fortnightly arrival of his rations and +the weekly or possibly more frequent visit of the superintendent to +count and examine his flock and inquire after the general condition of +things. The Mexican herder invariably denies all knowledge of English +and compels one to meet him on his own ground, which, it is needless to +say, is a far cry from Castile; and in encounters between Juan and the +superintendent the fine feathers of syntax are apt to fly in a way I +shall not attempt to reproduce. + +"Good-afternoon, Juan," says the superintendent. + +"Good-afternoon, senor." + +"How's the flock, Juan?" + +"Oh, pretty well, senor." + +"No better than pretty?" + +"No, senor." + +"How's that?" + +And then Juan goes on to explain that the recent unusually wet weather +has made many lame, etc., etc., to which the superintendent listens with +a grave countenance. Perhaps some unfortunate ewe has been bitten by a +"cat," or in some way received a wound in which the fly has deposited +its malignant egg: they lay her on her side and doctor her in company. +Finally, the superintendent gives the herder some tobacco, some +cigarette-papers, and a couple of yards of yellow fuse, and, mounting +his horse, nods farewell, and Juan touches his hat, smiles, and says, +"_Adios_." + +In the ordinary course of events this is his weekly allowance of human +intercourse. It was the common opinion that none but Juan and his +brethren could stand this sort of thing; but what there is in the +Mexican character that adapts him to it only becomes a mystery on +acquaintance therewith. His most obvious and, one inclines to think, his +highest and most estimable quality is his sociability. He has a sense of +the agreeableness of life, with a very considerable feeling for manners. +This feeling makes it a pleasure for him to meet you; it causes him to +put _himself_ into the most commonplace conversation, the simplest +greeting, and make it, in his small way, a matter of art. It makes it a +pleasure for him to call upon a friend beneath the shade of some +live-oak or in a dugout or _jacal_, carrying some white sugar for his +wife or some candy for his little ones. Our instinctive disposition to +infer deplorable lacunae in the region of morals from the possession of +a talent for manners is in the case of the poor Mexican too thoroughly +justified. For him there is no such region; it is an undiscovered +country. He is the lightest of light-weights. When his heart is warmest +he is tossing a silver dollar in the air and thinking; of _monte_. +Cimental herded industriously during the winter, and became the proud +possessor of a horse and saddle, a Winchester, and a big ivory-handled +pistol. In May, shearing going on, he drove his flock to the +shearing-shed, and spent the night at the ranch. In the morning he came +into the store laughing. What about? Oh, he had had a little _monte_ +over-night, and horse, saddle, rifle, revolver, all were gone. He had +been shorn of half a year's growth. But there was still a large deposit +at his bank,--the bank of Momus. + +The herder has, of course, his "consolatory interstices and sprinklings +of freedom;" he undoubtedly mitigates his solitary life by frequent +derelictions, nightly visits to the farm--settlements (or the _jacal_) +which a few possess, and where he keeps, possibly, a wife and family. +But, on the whole, his life, and not unfrequently his death, is lonely, +Just before shearing-time Juan Lucio and his flock were lost. The flock +was found, but not Juan. It was impossible to say what had become of +him: he had a reputation for steadiness, and it seemed unlikely that he +had taken French leave. When shearing was in full swing, a couple of +freighters came for a load of wood. After some talk, they drove off to +camp, a little way up the creek, proposing to return in the morning. +About sunset they were seen slowly approaching the shearing-shed, It +seemed that in watering their horses they had seen a man in the creek. +The small freighter imparted this information in a low voice, with some +hesitation and a deprecatory half-smile. The young and large freighter +stood aloof, with a half-smile too, but he had evidently found the +sensation disagreeably strong. This, it seemed certain, must be the lost +Juan Lucio. The next day, which was Sunday, the ranchmen and a county +officer proceeded toward the scene of the discovery. The shearers heard +of the affair, and paused in the arrangement of a horse-race. They went +in a body to the store and purchased candles, and then the motley +cavalry coursed over the prairie after the rest. They lifted Juan Lucio +from the river and bore him to a live-oak tree, where the coroner and +his jurymen debated his situation. They inclined to think that he had +come to his death by drowning. Then the Mexicans dug a grave for him, +and stood a moment round it with their candles lighted; each lifted a +handful of earth and tossed it in. Finally, they covered the +prairie-grave with brush to protect it from the coyotes, and rode slowly +home in twos and threes. About a month after, a young Mexican rode into +the ranch: he had ridden from San Anton, two hundred miles away, to put +a board cross above his father's grave, marked for him by the +store-keeper, "Juan Lucio, May, 1884." + +The herders on the ranch were all Mexicans, and throughout the county it +was generally so. An old Scotchman who paused one moment to smoke a pipe +beneath the porch was a solitary instance to the contrary. He was a most +markedly benevolent-looking old man, and had about him that copious halo +of hair with which benevolence seems to delight to surround itself. He +had also about him the halo of American humor, having just been up to +answer a charge of murder, in another county, of which he was +extravagantly innocent. He carried a crook, as seemed fitting, and had +with him two sheep-dogs, one of which the kindly man assured us he had +frequently cured of a recurrent disease by cutting off pieces of its +tail. This sacrificial part having been pretty well used up, the beast's +situation in view of another attack was very ticklish. And it had, in +fact, the air of occupying the anxious-seat. The Mexican, it may be +added, uses neither dog nor crook. He may have a cur or _pillone_ to +share his solitude, but its function is purely social: for catching +sheep there is his lariat. He is measurably faithful and trustworthy, a +careful observer of his flock, and quick to appreciate their troubles. +Of course he loses sheep semi-occasionally, causing those long +sheep-hunting rides among the hills which the ranchman curses and the +visitor enjoys; and occasionally in winter on cold nights he is +overpowered by the temptation to visit a friend, the whole flock gets +astray, and, fearing consequences, Juan, not stopping to fold his tent +like the Arab, silently steals away. + + + + +IV. + + +The busiest periods of the sheepman's year are the lambing- and +shearing-seasons. The first begins early in March, when the little +mesquite-trees are of a feathery greenness and the brown gramma and +mesquite grass are beginning to freshen, and lasts about six weeks. It +is an exacting time for the conscientious proprietor. He says good-by to +his cottage, and goes off to camp with a small army of Mexicans, who, +proof against the toils of the day, make night crazy with singing, +dancing, and uncontrollable hilarity. He is as much concerned about the +weather as a sailor or one in conversation's straits. His terror is the +long, cold storm which covers the grass with a hopeless coating of ice. +The weakened ewe cannot graze, and the norther comes down with a bitter +sweep to devastate the starved flock. + +The camp is pitched within easy reach of the bed-grounds of two +ewe-flocks, each of twelve hundred, who absorb all the attention of the +superintendent and his numerous aids. Each flock goes out on the range +at daybreak under the charge of two herders. The ewes that have dropped +lambs over-night are retained in the corral with their offspring for +about six hours, or till afternoon, when the lamb should be in +possession of sufficient strength to move about; then the ewes go forth +slowly to graze, followed by their _chiquitas_. The unnatural mothers +who deny their children are caught, with a lariat by a Mexican, with a +crook by a Yankee, and confined in separate little pens alone with their +lambs. If necessary to compel them to acknowledge their maternal +responsibilities, they are kept in solitary confinement two days, +without food. If still obdurate at the end of these two days, mother +and child, marked with red chalk or tagged alike with bright cloth, are +turned out, the herder in charge of the solitaries "roping" the ewe for +the convenience of the lamb whenever the latter indicates a desire for +nourishment. + +The flock grazing out on the range will have gone by noon perhaps a mile +from the bed-ground. Here a little corral is made, and the lambs born in +the vicinity, with their mothers, are penned here over-night, one of the +two herders sleeping with them. In the afternoon the remaining herder +takes the flock grazing back to the bed-ground. The next day, with many +more to follow, repeats the routine of this and its incidents. The lambs +and good mothers of a period of twenty-four hours are bunched together +and placed a little remote from the bed-ground, with a little pen and a +herder to themselves: they constitute a so-called "baby-flock." After +five days the lambs lose their tails and have their ears punched and +marked; on the sixth day they are still farther removed from their +native spot, placed in charge of a strange herder, and become the +nucleus of a so-called "lamb-flock," which, fed from many sources, grows +till it includes six hundred ewes, with their lambs, when it is a full +flock, and is in its turn removed and the formation of a new lamb-flock +begun. During the six days' novitiate of a baby-flock five other such +flocks have been formed: so that, somewhat remotely round about the main +pen at the bed-ground of each flock, there are six baby-flocks, with +their pens and herders and several little prison-pens for unnatural +mothers, with other little pens in which mothers bereft by death of +their proper children are confined with the extra twin lambs of prolific +ewes, clad in the lost ones' skins, in the sure hope that they will +adopt them. The ruse may be said never to fail. The solitary-confinement +pens are in the charge of still another herder, a much perplexed and +irritated man, on whose part considerable swearing--Mexican for small +ills, English for serious occasions--is to be excused. A superintendent +of two lambing ewe-flocks, it will thus be seen, has to oversee eighteen +herders or so, with their charges, besides the growing lamb-flock, all +more or less distant from each other. He is a busy man. His +head-quarters, like those of General Pope, may be said to be in the +saddle. His note-book is in constant use. It contains a record of each +day's births and deaths, of the twins (which are tagged or marked alike +for easy identification) and the still-born, that each bereft mother may +be provided with a foster-child, and the daily count of the +daily-changing flocks. + +The first lamb born starts the refrain, to be taken up as the season +waxes by thousands of others scattered over the range, and swollen into +a roaring, shrieking chorus, as though an enormous public school had +just turned its urchins into the play-ground. A listener standing in the +hall of the Stock Exchange gets some faint idea of it when there has +been a serious break in Lake Shore, say, or when C.C.C.&I. has "gone +off" a considerable number of points. Out of these thousands of voices, +not to be differentiated by the human ear, the ewe knows the note of her +little one with very remarkable certainty, and the lamb the answering +cry of its dam. With this sound ringing in his ears, and daily becoming +more and more insufferable from monotony and increase, the sheep-man +rides out in the morning among his Mexicans, and returns to camp at +night aweary, with haply a couple of little ones abandoned by their +mothers in his arms, to be brought up on that _pis-aller_ of +infancy,--and, alas! occasionally of age,--the bottle. + + + + +V. + + +When the prickly pear had made a golden garden of the prairie and the +heart of _Cereus phoeniceus_ was warm with the intention of lighting its +gorgeous crimson torch on the divides; when the arroyo, but lately a +pretty streamlet, had told wellnigh all its beads to the sun-god, and +had but here and there in its parched length an isolated pool; when the +flock at noon no longer flushed the last teal from the creek, because +that lingering bird had finally winged its way toward Manitoba or some +other favorite retreat northerly,--at this time the constant wind, +gentle but never-failing, and almost always from the south, was +overweighted with a roar of multitudinous bleating and befouled with +dust; for shearing was going on at the ranch. It is a very picturesque +occupation, but it soils the most delightful season of the year, the +fresh month of May, with a fortnight of dusty toil, anticipating the +sun, and not halting promptly on his setting. + +The shearing-shed lay somewhat apart from the other ranch buildings, +with a system of pens at its back, with chutes and swinging wickets for +"cutting out" lambs from their mothers destined for the shears, and +other incidental purposes. The shed was a roof of bearded +mesquite-grass, stayed by boughs and supported on live-oak or pecan +posts, the outside or bounding rows of which were sheathed up with +boards four feet or so, the remainder space up to the roof being open +for draught. On these boards Baleriano Torres, Secundino Ramon, and +others their companions of the shears, who had worked and played beneath +this shade in springs past, had written their names in large characters +of stencil-ink. One could see in the county roofs made of fresh boughs, +through which the sunlight sifted, flecking the swarthy faces and arms +of the shearers and the mantles of the sheep with a very picturesque +effect; but it is probably best to resist the temptation to treat the +shearing-shed as an artistic composition. The ground-plan of the shed +was one hundred feet or so long by twenty-five wide. The floor was of +trampled earth, and on it were placed shearing-tables, s s s, and +burring-and tying-tables, B B. The shearing-tables were about fifteen +inches high, the burring-tables high enough for a man to stand up to. It +is the custom in many parts of the country to shear on the floor. In Mr. +Hardy's picturesque novel, "Far from the Madding Crowd," the shearers +shear in a cathedral-like barn, on a shining black-oak floor,--probably +for purposes of contrast. Round the ranch, however, shearers preferred +very generally the low wooden tables. The space back of the +shearing-tables was occupied, when shearing was going on, by a "bunch" +of sheep admitted through the movable panels from a pen containing the +unshorn: after shearing, they departed through the panels into another +pen, and eventually over the prairie to their pleasant grazing-grounds, +angular and grotesque in appearance, but happy, their troubles past, +their year's chief purpose served. + +[Illustration: Movable Panels. CORRALS.] + +The shearers this year were a band of forty or so Mexicans from Uvalde +and other border towns, jollily travelling two hundred miles up the +country in charge of a _capitan_ and _grande capitan_ responsible +fellows, who had contracted with the ranchmen of the neighborhood to do +their shearing. Early in May we heard of them on the creeks, and made +preparation for them, the shed and corrals being put to rights in every +detail, the supply of bacon and _frijoles_ augmented at the store, and +all hands, including the stranger within the gates, set to hemming +wool-sacks with coarse twine and sailors' needles. One evening, but +shrewdly in time for supper, a couple of Mexicans on horses, thridding +their way through the mesquites, came into the ranch, quickly followed +by others, one or two on _burros_, more on ponies, most on the skeleton +of a prairieschooner drawn by four horses,--and the shearers had +arrived. They were a dark, black-eyed, hilarious set, some forty odd in +all, rather ragged as a crew, but with extremes of full and neat attire +or insufficient tatters according as the goddess Fortune or the Mexican +demi-goddess Monte had smiled or frowned; but all were equally jolly, +and almost all fiercely armed, the greatest tatterdemalion and +sans-culotte of all with a handsome Winchester, in a case, slung over +brown shoulders that would have been better for a whole shirt. The hat, +though cheap, was, even among the ragged, frequently elaborate, and +served excellently to carry off a protruding toe or knee, or to +reconcile the association in one person of an ancient boot with a still +more ancient shoe. Many of these fellows were undoubtedly trustworthy, +other some as undoubtedly, if they had had consciences, would have had +homicides on them; but all were light-hearted. Life is one thing to the +man who lets the breath out of his companion with a knife, and, leaving +his body in the brush, straightway goes about his idleness laughing, and +quite another to him who cannot get over the hideous fact that he has +tied his cravat awry. + +On the morning of the first day we turned out at four o'clock, and, +while we were getting a dew-bite of crackers and a sip of coffee, _el +capitan_ circulated among the recumbent figures that had dotted the +prairie over-night: with a shake and a pull of the big hat by way of +toilet, they proceeded in twos and threes toward the shearing-shed, +their shears in their hands and all their personal property in weapons +dangling about them. The burrers, too, Mexicans hired in the +neighborhood, put in an appearance and ranged themselves behind their +tables, A flock had been penned at the shed over-night, and, while a +fraction of it was being driven through the movable panels into the +space behind the shearing--table, the shearers were ranged along it by +the captain: they hung up their rifles and revolvers to the posts, some +their hats and jackets, and fell to chattering, lighting their +cigarettes, and sharpening their shears. When the supply of sheep was in +and the panels closed, the captain gave the shrill cry, "_Vaminos__" and +all hands rushed in among the frightened animals and dragged out their +chosen victims by the leg. They showed great shrewdness in selecting the +small, the light-woolled, the easy-to-be-shorn. "The loud clapping of +the shears" at once filled the shed, and it was not five minutes before +a light fleece was tossed upon the burring-table, and a grinning fellow +came running up to the ranchman seated in a chair thereon, the better to +supervise affairs, and called out, "Check-e!" amid _vivas_ for the first +sheep shorn. He received a tin token, which he thrust into his pocket, +and plunged over the low platform after another sheep. Calls of +"_Cole_!" "_Colero_" "_Cole, muchacho, echale_" began to ring out, and, +with an answering call of "_Onde?_" ("Where?"), two little, laughing +Mexican boys, with tumbled, curly black wigs, and cheeks like bronzed +peaches, darted about with boxes of powdered charcoal, and clapped a +pinch of it on the cut made by careless shears. The burrers threw out +the fleeces smooth upon the table, and, one on either side, patted them +over with their hands to discover the cockle-burrs entangled in the +wool; these removed, they folded and rolled the fleeces up with care and +handed them to a man who, with the aid of a small, square box, tied them +tightly with two strings, and tossed them out of the shed, where they +were received by the ranchman who was grading the wool and supervising +the packing. + +The packing was done in two frames, seven feet high, in which an iron +ring held the sacks open. To a man on one of these frames the fleeces in +their compact little bundles were tossed up, and he trod them down, +packing them in the sack. Then the sack was let down, sewed up, rolled +to the scales and weighed, marked with the ranch-mark, the weight, the +grade, and was ready for the freighters and a market. About ten +thousand pounds of wool were sheared, burred, packed, marked, and +perhaps shipped, in a day. + +Inside and out, seventy men were at work about the shed: the fleeces +rapidly piled up on the burring-tables; tied and tossed out, they grew +into little mountains, and around the scales for a wide space the packed +sacks cumbered the ground. The ranchmen moved about to see that coal was +used where needed, and that it was not needed too frequently, that +fleeces were not broken, and were thoroughly burred and nicely tied; and +the Mexicans, ceaselessly chattering, singing, laughing, calling jokes +to each other, crying, "Viva Rito!" "Viva Encarnacion!" ran for their +checks, dashed in for their sheep, and kept the shears clashing, while +the perplexed ewe, with an uproar perhaps more distinctly justifiable, +called to the lamb she had left in the pen, and the lamb answered cry +for cry. All this went on in a strong south wind heavy with dust and the +acrid sheep smell. It was the liveliest possible spectacle of organized +confusion, and the accompanying noise was calculated to split the ears +of the groundlings. As the number unshorn of the installment of sheep in +the pen dwindled toward zero, little groups of unoccupied shearers +gathered round the posts near the low tables, lit fresh cigarettes, +whipped out cards, and started a little game of _monte_ for the checks +they had in their pockets, continuing till the captain's _revenons a nos +moutons_ once more started their shears. The sun crept up in the sky, a +fitting cessation occurred, and, a ranchman having given the signal, a +tide set in for the cook-house and breakfast. + +In Mr. Hardy's story, just mentioned, his hero performs rather a feat in +shearing three and a half pounds of washed wool in twenty-three and +one-half minutes, A Mexican would have to take a reef in his big hat if +he could not do better than that. His tin check is worth four and a half +cents to him, and a fair hand ought to have at least fifty in his pocket +at sunset, in return for as many seven-pound unwashed fleeces,--always +provided he has not sacrificed them to _monte_ during the day. A +first-rate man will have seventy, and, if called upon to show what he is +made of, will shear a heavy-woolled wether in six minutes. At evening +each shearer turns in his checks, and receives in return a signed paper +with his name and their number. + +The interior of the shed when shearing is at its height commends itself +very forcibly to the attention of the artist. The heaps of fleeces, +mellow masses of gray, yellow, and white, the throng of anxious sheep, +watching with painful interest their companions struggling in the +swarthy arms of the stalwart, bare-chested shearers, saddles, broad +sombreros, whips, and weapons grouped in so many pendent escutcheons of +the great Mexican vagabond family, the flitting _coleritos_, the scarfed +shearers themselves, all are so many veritable "bits." But it is not +only that the details are good: they compose admirably about the long +aisle, with here and there a dagger of sharp light thrust into the +shade, and without, the luminous clouds of dust. The shearer puts one +foot on the low table, the neck of the sheep resting over his knee, and +its fleece rolling off like a robe; his broad chest is thrown out, his +head back, his nostrils vent smoke like an angry god's, and his glancing +white teeth, disclosed in a broad smile, tightly grip a cigarette. He is +chattering, laughing, smoking: incidentally he is shearing. + +The presence of the shearers at the ranch causes a flutter in +surrounding Mexican society. They are known to be keen hands, _viveurs_, +jolly good fellows withal, and, moreover, men who can wrestle with +wethers ten hours a day (no light task on the muscles) and yet have +spirit to dance and play all night. So, at evening, the _jacals_--the +little farms and settlements on the creek--are likely to send forth a +contingent bound for the cook-house and a night of it. A harp and an +accordion are found, and to the sharply-marked music produced by this +combination an impromptu _baile_ forms itself. The swarthy sombreros +clutch each other, and hop about, their spurs gleaming and jangling, +their pistols sticking out behind like incipient tails; and soon the +_baile_ overflows the kitchen, and the glowing cigarette-tips circle +like fire-flies to the music in the dark night-air without. In a corner, +against the salt-house, by the light of a fire, a group is gathered +round a blanket spread on the ground, with little piles of silver before +them, over the always-absorbing _monte_; and other groups are very +harmlessly singing. By midnight the music dies away and the dancing +ceases, but the sombreros bend over the _monte_ blanket and the silver +clinks on it till morning. + +About two weeks with days and nights of this character sufficed, with +slight interruptions occasioned by bad weather, to get one hundred +thousand pounds of wool off the backs of the sheep. On Sunday the +shearers would not work: the day was sacred--to pleasure. The store was +thronged with purchasers, the cook-house became the temple of _monte_, +the road a race-track. The ranch had the air of a _fete_. The races were +short rushes with horses started with a jab of the spur or thwack of the +_cuerta_, to see who first should cross a line scratched in the dust, at +either end of which a throng kneeled and craned forward and held out +silver dollars and called bets. + +At length the last sheep was shorn, the last sack marked, the pools on +that interesting figure, the total clip of the year, decided, and the +shearers in motley tableau assembled in the ranch-house, before the +table, to have their paper slips redeemed. They did not understand +checks on San Antonio banks; they "didn't want paper;" they had a rather +praiseworthy doubt of green-backs; they wanted the solid _dinero_,--the +"Buzzard," the "Trade," or the radiant Mexican _peso_. Toward midnight +it ceased to be a laughing-matter, paying off, and one was glad to turn +in even in an atmosphere heavy with cigarette-smoke and not +over-fragrant. Next morning the shearers leisurely saddled up and +disappeared through the brush, the Grande Capitan and Capitan lifting +their hats with grace and dignity and calling, "_Adios_!" They left a +rather relaxed ranch, with a marked tendency toward hammocks and long +siestas, varied with a little mild lawn-tennis at evening in an old +corral, which, by the way, with its surrounding fence to stop the balls, +made in many respects an admirable court. + + + + +VI. + + +Toward the end of August the pluvial god, assisted by the physical +characteristics of the region, provided us with a genuine sensation. +Hitherto we had had mere weather; this was a pronounced case of +meteorology: until then I had taken no special satisfaction in the word. +It had been raining frequently during the month, in quite unusual +volume; the arroyos were pretty brooks, the sides of the divides wept, +and there were wide, soft places on the prairies; the flocks went very +lame from the excessive dampness, and riding was a splashing and +spattering business; but the oldest inhabitant dropped no hint +suggestive of the veritable meteorological _coup_ which was quietly +preparing. + +We retired one night in our usual unsuspecting frame of mind, and awoke +next morning to hear above the dull reverberation of the rain the +booming of a torrent. The arroyo near the ranch was no longer an arroyo, +but a stream fifty feet wide; and on the hither side of the pecan-trees +of the creek could be seen a silver line: the water had already +surpassed the banks. Before noon there was neither creek nor arroyo, but +a river a mile wide rushing down the valley: we knew where the trees had +been, by the swirling waves. A flood is like those serpents which +fascinate before they strike. The monotonous rain failing _ohne Hast, +ohne Rast_, the dead immutable murk of the sky, the rush of gray wave +after wave, induced a state of dull lethargic wonder: the feet--the foot +more, would it accomplish that? Already the floor of the ranch-house was +under water. But there was soon a sufficient dashing about of riders in +long yellow oil-skin coats, and all was done that the situation seemed +to demand or admit of. The culminating moment of the day came toward two +in the afternoon, when we stood on the roof of the ranch-house, with our +eyes glued to a sulphur-colored patch a mile up the valley. It was a +flock of sheep congregated on an unsubmerged knoll in the middle of the +torrent. There was a sudden movement in the mass, the sulphur patch +vanished, and there was borne to us distinctly a long, plaintive cry: +the flock had been swept away. In a few minutes, however, we caught +sight of many of them swimming admirably, and, much to our astonishment, +they found a desperate footing opposite the ranch across the swift sweep +of the arroyo. A dozen Mexicans were equal to the emergency. They +stripped, threw themselves in, stemmed the current, and, with amazing +pluck and fortitude, worked about amid the submerged cactus and +chaparral, which must have wounded them savagely, holding the sheep +together. Finally, after desperate urging, a wether was induced to +breast the rush of the arroyo and landed safely high and dry on the +hither bank, when, thanks to their disposition to follow a leader, all +plunged in, and, after a vigorous push, found their perils at an end. +But the count showed some six hundred missing. + +It ceased raining toward four o'clock, and the sun set in great +splendor. The next day the water had quite subsided, and I went, +unsuccessfully, after plover over the bed of yesterday's river, but the +beauty of the creek had been destroyed for the season. And farther down, +where the flood had come at midnight, it had swept away many lives. + +In November, when the broom on the sides of the hills was a fine +pink-brown, and when the wet places which the flood had left abounded in +jack-snipe and afforded the neatest shooting in the world, I turned my +back upon the ranch, where I had been very prodigal of the best of +riches,--"the loose change of time." I did so with a warm feeling of +regret,--a feeling somewhat tempered by the thought that I should soon +be in a region of homes, constant greetings, and the morning newspapers. +But after a few weeks of the morning newspapers it has been borne in +upon me that a great deal is to be said for the place which does not +know them. + +E.C. REYNOLDS. + + + + +THE LADY LAWYER'S FIRST CLIENT. + +TWO PARTS. + +I. + +Mrs. Tarbell sat in her office, pretending to read a law-journal, but +really looking at her name on the office door; and she was not without +justification, perhaps, seeing that it had taken her six years to get it +there. Furthermore, though it was six weeks since it had been lettered +upon the glass panel, she had as yet found nothing to do but look at it. +She was at last a lawyer; she had triumphed over prejudice and ridicule; +and a young lawyer has three privileges,--he may write Esquire after his +name, he is exempt from jury duty, and he can wait for clients. Mrs. +Tarbell had always been exempt from jury duty, and her brother told her +that, historically speaking, she ought to be called _equestrienne_, if +she was to have any title: so it seemed that it was only left to her to +wait for clients and contemplate her sign. The sign read,-- + +Ellen G. Tarbell, +Alex. H. Juddson, +Attorneys-at-Law. +Commissioner for Colorado. + +Mrs. Tarbell had been a Miss Juddson before her marriage with ---- Tarbell, +Esq. (of Hinson & Tarbell, mourning goods), and Mr. Alexander H. +Juddson was her brother. When Mr. Tarbell died, his widow told her +family and friends that she was going to read law. + +Mrs. Tarbell had always been a woman of progressive notions, but this +was going too far. Her family and some of her friends were short-sighted +enough to attempt to argue the general question,--namely, ought women to +have Rights? When Mrs. Tarbell proved to them that they were both unfair +and illogical, they then said that, though they had no objection to +other women making lawyers of themselves, they did not see the necessity +in her case. + +Mrs. Tarbell replied that she must get a living; and it was quite true +that the late Tarbell had failed a few months before his death, leaving +his widow rather poorly off; for he had not put his property in her name +before making an assignment. And Mrs. Tarbell went on to say that, as +she could not be a nurse, and would not be a governess or keep a +boarding-house, she would read law. It was reported at the time that Mr. +Juddson said he hoped his sister would go and read law, if anywhere, in +Colorado, for which State it was he, of course, who was the +commissioner; but, whether this report were true or not, Mrs. Tarbell +stayed at home and pursued her studies under his direction. + +After going through all sorts of examinations, at which she flung +herself determinedly, and which she kept on passing with the greatest +credit, after meeting with innumerable disappointments and delays, after +being politely told by one judge after another that she was a woman, and +therefore could not be a man,--hence, _a fortiori_, she could not be a +lawyer,--after six years, I say, Mrs. Tarbell succeeded. Her name went +on the list of attorneys. The court-clerk gave her a certificate, and +received two dollars and sixty cents. The newspapers chronicled the +circumstance. Her friends were triumphant. Judge Measy, who admitted her +to the bar, was compared to Lord Mansfield and to Mr. Lincoln. + +But marriage is not the only lofty undertaking attended by petty +miseries. Mrs. Tarbell could bear her great misfortunes with courage and +resolution: as she had great hopes, so she expected great disasters. Not +Lars Porsenna of Clusium himself was more clapped on the back, and +huzzahed after, and backed up by the augurs, nor more frequently told +that he was the beloved of heaven, than Mrs. Tarbell had been by her +soothsayers and partisans. At first this was all very well, but +afterward it grew tiresome. If Mrs. Tarbell, emerging from widowhood and +placing herself in the van of feminine progress, was really a pioneer in +a heaven sent mission (as perhaps she was), there was no need to repeat +the phrase so often. When two or three years had gone by, and it began +to be apparent that Mrs. Tarbell had a long and up-hill struggle before +her, she became very impatient of enthusiasm. She had never liked it, +even when the female welkin (if there be such a thing) had first rung +with applause for her, and now it was painfully uncomfortable. Mrs. +Lucretia Pegley (authoress of "Woman's Wrongs," "The Weaker Sex?" "Eve +_v._ Adam," etc., etc., editor of "Woman's Sphere," and chief +contributor to the "Coming Era;" her friends called her a Boadicea, and +denied that she had withdrawn from the study of medicine because she had +fainted at her first operation),--Mrs. Pegley observed her friend's +shortness of temper, and took her to task about it. "Ellen Tarbell," she +said, "you surprise me very much. Do you wish to give the impression +that your motives are purely personal and--forgive me, but the word is +necessary--selfish? that you have no interest in the movement in which +you are a pioneer? that your heart is not with the cause which after so +many years of weary waiting looks to you for advancement? Mr. Botts is a +most worthy and indefatigable man; perhaps a trifle too much addicted to +repetition for the sake of rhetorical effect,--a thing, I admit, very +trying; but it is of the highest importance (I say this between +ourselves, of course, and you may imagine that I would not give +publicity to such a statement),--it is of the _highest_ importance that +the feelings of our--hem--masculine colleagues should not be--" + +"Yes, yes," interrupted Mrs. Tarbell hastily, "I appreciate that fully, +I assure you. But yesterday evening I was rather tired, and I--" + +"Tired!" said Mrs. Pegley, in the voice of acute anguish which caused +her to be known as a woman of the most extraordinary intensity of +convictions. "It is a wonder we are not all in our _graves_," she added, +in tones whose sombre depth was brightened by a little colloquial +levity, for she felt that she had been too severe with Mrs. Tarbell. +"Still," she continued, "after Mr. Bott's _very_ flattering remarks you +might have spoken with a little more--er--_earnestness_ and--er--_vigor_ +yourself, you know. And for such an audience as we had last night, three +minutes is really--" + +After this, Mrs. Tarbell resolved that her next effort at public +speaking should be made before an American jury, or not at all. Indeed, +she went so far as to think it a great mistake to suppose that woman's +cause could not be advanced without calling meetings and haranguing them +till eleven o'clock at night. Very likely her ideals were still of the +highest order, and certainly she still hoped that when women were +allowed to practise law the law would be so changed that you would +hardly recognize it; but she wanted to carry on her part of the work +occultly and quietly. She had got over a good many of her own illusions, +and she was taking a more practical view of life. She smiled when she +thought of the prophecies which had been made about her, and she no +longer read the paragraphs about herself in the newspapers. She kept her +brother's dockets and drew his papers. Alexander frowned a good deal, +and said it wasn't necessary, but she insisted that she must pay him in +some way for her education. She put his desk in order and gave him new +papers every other day, which practices he never could get her to +forego. In short, she settled down into a routine of study, office-work, +and regularly recurring attempts to _get in_. And when she finally did +get in, she had become a cynic. Everybody remembers, of course, how at +the end of his last term Judge Oldwigg announced his intention to retire +into private life and decline a reelection, and how the managers of the +party in power chose Judge Measy as their candidate for the vacant +place. The prospective judge was waited on privately by a deputation of +Mrs. Tarbell's friends, headed by Mrs. Pegley, and asked to define his +position on the Tarbell question. The deputation did not contain many +voters, and no bargain which Mr. Measy, as he then was, could have made +with it would have increased his majority very largely: as he was pretty +sure of a majority, he must be cleared of all suspicion of making a +bargain. But he did deliver to Mrs. Pegley an oracular answer, which was +in course of time interpreted in Mrs. Tarbell's favor. She came up +before him; Mr. Juddson made the motion which he had so often made +before, and made it, I regret to say, in rather hurried tones, when, to +everybody's surprise, Judge Measy produced a manuscript and read it out, +and proved that a lawyer was a person who practiced law, and that +therefore, as a woman was a person, she could be a lawyer, interspersing +his remarks with graceful historical allusions and several profound +reflections upon the design of Nature in creating the female sex. Then, +acting as man, not judge, he descended to the side-bar, beckoned to Mrs. +Tarbell, grasped her by the hand, and made her a speech. "Madam," said +the courtly judge, "Mrs. Tarbell, I congratulate you,"--which was one +for himself as well,--"and let me add that it gives me the sincerest +satisfaction to be able to testify in this manner to the veneration +which I have always entertained for woman; and I am quite sure that in +no long space of time you will have proved to us that the law cannot say +it has nothing to gain from her refining influence. For I remember my +_own_ mother, Mrs. Tarbell," said Judge Measy. The bar listened in awed +admiration. Mrs. Tarbell bit her lips, bowed, and thanked his honor as +best she could. The idea of suggesting that she was anybody's mother, or +that even if she had a family that was any reason for permitting her to +be a barrister! But from the other side of the court-room was heard an +expressive rustling, and audible whispers of satisfaction were wafted +across the lawyers on their chairs. Mrs. Pegley and her train were +sitting by, radiant, triumphant, majestic. The dignity of motherhood was +vindicated. + +And now that Juddson and Tarbell were moving to their new offices, who +should also at the very same time become a tenant of the Land and Water +Insurance Company but the Honorable Franklin Blood Pope? The Land and +Water Company's new building was in a very desirable locality, and +several lawyers deserted their old nooks and corners to occupy its +spacious and well-calcimined apartments. Juddson and Tarbell took the +rooms on the back of the third floor, Mr. Pope those on the front ditto: +they were very near neighbors. In former days Mrs. Tarbell had often +complained to her husband of Mr. Pope's success. It was an argument that +men had not as much common sense as they pretended to have, she said, or +else they would see through Franklin B----'s absurd pretensions. "Even I +can perceive that the man is a humbug," she continued. "In fact, any +woman could. Why is he successful, then? Why has he an enormous +practice? Why has he been sent to Congress? If it is because he has a +majestic appearance and can talk a great deal, women certainly can +fulfill these conditions, and that by your own account of them." + +To which Mr. Tarbell would answer, "Exactly, my love, by all means; and +so is your friend Mrs. Pegley a great talker, and a fine-looking woman." + +"Then give her all the rights you give to Mr. Pope," cried Mrs. Tarbell. + +"She shall have 'em, and welcome," said Tarbell; but he did not tell his +wife that he had voted for Mr. Pope on the opposition ticket, and had +even consulted him on matters of business,--once going so far as to +suggest to him that a certain proposed alteration in the tariff would +seriously affect the mourning-goods industry,--from which it may be +gathered that it was not from any lack of prudence that Mr. Tarbell died +a bankrupt and left his widow to become a lady-lawyer. + +Mr. Pope himself it was who betrayed Mr. Tarbell's confidence and opened +Mrs. Tarbell's eyes. "Your husband was my very good friend, my dear +madam," said the Honorable Franklin, "and I was proud to call him my +client. Yes, I had the honor of advising him in several matters and of +carrying through some rather delicate negotiations for him. A man of the +strictest integrity, ever genial and urbane, of sound judgment and +independent views, endowed with strong common sense and quick +perceptions. You see, I had the highest opinion of Mr. Tarbell, and have +often wished to tell his widow--alas that I should have to call her +so!--how certain I am that she will succeed in the career she has +chosen, and how deeply I grieve that her husband could not have lived to +find in her a better adviser than I ever could have been to him." + +Messrs.--I mean Mrs. and Mr.--Tarbell and Juddson were just moving into +their new offices when Mr. Pope uttered these kind wishes. He met Mrs. +Tarbell on the door-step: he was standing there, indeed, when she came +in. He was always standing on the door-step: he carried on most of his +business, especially with the politicians, in public. "I beg that you +will use my library on all occasions," he continued, raising his voice +a little. "If I may say so myself, it is rather comprehensive; in fact, +I am very proud of it. And any assistance which I can give you in any +way, my dear madam, will, I need hardly say, be given most heartily." + +Use his library, indeed! Mrs. Tarbell would have been as likely to go to +the Vatican and ask Pope Leo for the loan of a few works _contra +haereticos_. Why had she and her brother ever come to the Land and Water +Company's building? The idea of meeting the Honorable Pope every day, of +every day beholding his portly figure, statesman-like features, and lion +mane, and acknowledging his bland bows and salutations, was +inexpressibly odious. And, what was worse, Mr. Pope continued to +flourish like a green bay-tree, or like the proprietors of a patent +medicine or a blackguard newspaper, or any other comparison you please. +Feet tramped along the hall, hands knocked at his door, lips innumerable +whispered into his ears, and Mrs. Tarbell sat and looked at her sign, +wondering what had become of all the women who were to have employed +her. She had not said, "Walk in, madam," to one of them; and Mr. +Juddson's clients all regarded her as if she were a curiosity. + +Mrs. Tarbell looked, in fact, like the president of a Dorcas society or +a visitor of a church hospital. She had pleasing features, dark hair, +slightly touched with gray, as became a lawyer of thirty-five, and +dignified manners. She dressed very plainly in a black dress with just +one row of broad trimming down the front, and, though she felt that it +was an abuse of authority, she drew her hair straight back from her +forehead. This question of her hair had given her some little anxiety, +and it had cost her some time to decide what kind of hat or bonnet she +should wear. Alexander said she might use her riding-hat for the sake of +economy, but she had decided on a tweed walking-hat, which could be +taken off very quickly in the court-room. For, whatever she might do in +church, it was now impossible for her to remain covered before the bench +of judges. + +Mrs. Tarbell's desk was in the middle of the back room,--she could just +see the outer door obliquely through that of her partition,--and Mr. +Juddson's was in a similar position in the front room. This was not a +very good arrangement. Mrs. Tarbell could not very well be put in the +front room with the office-boy, and yet the proximity of the office-boy +was not agreeable to Mr. Juddson either. Then, too, most of the books +were in the back room, and so was the sofa: altogether it looked as if +Mrs. Tarbell were the senior. Mr. Juddson was thinking seriously of +having another partition built, and that would at any rate save him from +being asked "if Mr. Juddson were in," for, as every one knows, there is +a vast difference between being asked "if Mr. Juddson be in," and "is +this Mr. Juddson?" But Mr. Juddson had the picture of Chief-Justice +Marshall and the map of the battle-field of Gettysburg, so he was not so +badly off; and Mrs. Tarbell was very comfortable. + +She was just musing over her future, and saying to herself, "When I die, +I _know_ that they will call a bar-meeting, and that Mr. Pope will make +a eulogy on my character," when the door opened, and Mr. Juddson came +in. Mrs. Tarbell returned to business-life immediately. + +"Did you find Mullany?" she said. + +Mr. Juddson, a tall, black-whiskered man of about fifty, rubbed his +hands for a moment over the fire, and then answered shortly that he +_had_ found Mullany. + +"What did he say?" + +"Oh,--what I expected," said Mr. Juddson, turning over the papers on his +table. He disliked unnecessary questions. Mrs. Tarbell had no interest +in Mullany, and the most she ought to do was to ask about him in an +off-hand way in the street-car on the way home. Mr. Juddson discovered +the paper for which he was searching, and turned toward the door. + +"Are you going out?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +The door was already half open. + +"Reference before Murray. Back at one," was all Mr. Juddson deigned to +say. + +"Alexander!" cried Mrs. Tarbell,--when the office-boy was in, she called +her brother Mr. Juddson,--"Alexander!" + +"_Well_?" said Mr. Juddson. He was late as it was. + +"You will make the office very cold if you leave the door--but never +mind. Don't let me keep you. I only wanted to tell you that I should +like to talk to you about something some time to-d--" The rest of the +sentence was lost upon Mr. Juddson, who had already shut the door behind +him, and Mrs. Tarbell felt aggrieved. + +So much aggrieved, in fact, that she found it impossible to return to +the law-journal. + +"I suppose I need a sedative," she said to herself. "If I were a man, I +would put my feet up on the table and light a cigar, or--no! I would +never practise that vilest form of the vice." (What she meant by this +last phrase I cannot imagine, unless she referred to something which Mr. +Juddson had been driven to do because he could not very well smoke while +his sister was in the office.) "What," continued Mrs. Tarbell, "what can +there be to recommend the position?" She looked at the desk. + +"Is it an easy position?" she said. She looked down at her feet. + +"Is it even a graceful position?" She swung herself to and fro on her +revolving-chair. + +She looked about her. The office was empty; the office-boy had gone on a +very long errand. "I will try it," she said, with determination. + +She removed all the books and papers on the right side of the table to +the left side. Then she tilted back her chair, elevated her left foot +cautiously, put it down, and elevated her right, placed it determinedly +on the table, crossed the other foot over it, leaned forward with some +difficulty to arrange her skirts, leaned back again. + +"My book seems to lie very easily in my lap," she said to herself. "And +the leaves turn over quite willingly." + +One page, two pages, three pages. "After all," said she,--"after all--if +one were quite alone--and had been sitting for a long time in another +attitude--" + +Tap-tap! came a timid knock at the door. + +"Come in!" cried Mrs. Tarbell, resuming her former position in a great +hurry, and dropping the law-journal. + +Tap-tap! + +"Come in!" said Mrs. Tarbell, picking up the law-journal. "_Come in_!" +she said. + +And the door opened slowly. + +"Well?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Is Mrs. Tarbell in?" said the party of the knocks. + +"I am Mrs. Tarbell. Come in, please. What can I do for you?" + +"I wanted to see you, ma'am." + +"Take a chair. Well?" + +"I suppose it's April weather," said the new-comer; "but the rain is +right chilly, so it is; like it was a November rain, somehow. Will I put +my umbreller right down here? The spring is dreadful late, and the +farmers is all complainin', they tell me." + +Mrs. Tarbell shuddered. + +The new-comer was tall and gaunt and thin; her shoulders sloped, she +stooped, her chin was up in the air, and she peered through spectacles. +Her hat was rusty, her india-rubber gossamer was rusty, the crape on her +dress was so very rusty that it seemed to be made of iron-filings. Her +cheeks were the color of unburned coffee-grains or of underdone +gingerbread; her nose was long; her eyes, were small and bleary; her +protruding lips wrinkled up as she spoke, and displayed her poor yellow +old tusks; her scant hair was dirty gray, her forehead was bald, her +neck was scraggy: she was particularly and pathetically ugly. Her dress +bagged about over her long waist and spidery arms. No wonder Mrs. +Tarbell shuddered. + +"If I ain't disturbing you, Mrs. Tarbell," the visitor continued, "and +if you _could_ just spare the time to listen to me for a minnit, I +wanted just to ask you for a little advice. My name is Stiles, +ma'am,--Mrs. Annette Gorsley Stiles. Gorsley was my given name before I +was married--But I feel as if I was taking up your time, Mrs. Tarbell." + +"Not at all," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily. + +"Well, ma'am, my husband he's dead, been dead this six years now, and +left me with four to feed, and--well, I don't know just how to begin, +rightly. You see, it's this way. Celandine, my eldest,--that was _his_ +name for her; he had a right pretty knack at names, and was always for +names that ran easy,--Celandine she's eighteen now, 'n' she wants to be +doing something for herself. It drives me real hard to pay for all four +of them out of a sewing-machine and the little I make selling candies +over a counter,--five cents' worth of chocolate drops and penny's-worths +of yellow taffy; never more than fifty cents a day, living where we do, +in Pulaski Street,--and Celandine she's bound to help me some way. The +next oldest to Celandine is on'y ten; and if I was to starve I wouldn't +have him to sell papers or black boots, and his father a foreman; and +the' ain't no call for office-boys nowadays, 'r else it's because +Augustus is so small for his age--" + +"We have an office-boy," murmured Mrs. Tarbell. + +"I know, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles. "Leastways, I guessed as much. I was +thinking of asking you about Celandine." Mrs. Tarbell stirred uneasily, +and Mrs. Stiles hurried on: "Celandine and me we were talking things +over the other day,--we've been reading about you in the newspapers, +Mrs. Tarbell, nigh on to four years now; Celandine has always been a +comprehending child, precocious, as they say, and quick-witted, and +she's been watching your career, ma'am, just as clost as you could +yourself. And the day you was admitted she come home,--a friend of hers +gave her the afternoon paper,--and she says, 'Mother,' she says, 'Mrs. +Tarbell is admitted!'--just like it was a personal friend of yours, Mrs. +Tarbell; and reely, ma'am, I suppose I oughtn't to say it, but there's +been a good many women all over this country felt themselves personal +friends of yours, ma'am, knowing how much there was meant by your +success and feeling how near the question come to themselves; and if +good wishes brings good luck, that's what you have to thank for +succeeding. But Celandine she's an ambitious girl, Mrs, Tarbell, and the +long and the short of it is just this, that she's set her heart on being +a lawyer, and she's either too shy or too proud, mebbe, to come here +with me to speak to you, ma'am: so I just put on my bunnit the first day +I could, rain or shine, and rain it's turned out to be, to say a word to +you about her and just ask you what you _thought_." + +"A lawyer?" gasped Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Yes, ma'am; a lady lawyer." + +Mrs. Tarbell had never a word to say. In spite of having triumphed over +all the arguments, both those epicene and those particularly masculine, +which had been used against herself, she had not now the strength of +mind to use them in her turn. In spite of being a lawyer, she had a +conscience. She had looked forward to taking students, but they were all +to have been Portias, every woman Jane of them; and before her own +learning was fairly dry (which I think an eminently proper adjective to +describe legal learning) there appeared to her an obviously +crack-brained old party in an india-rubber cloak, who kept a candy-store +and wanted her daughter to become a lawyer. No wonder Mrs. Tarbell was +embarrassed. Was she to say to the crack-brained one, "Madam, pay me one +hundred dollars per annum and I will take your daughter as a student"? +On the other hand, how in the name of that Orloff, that Pitt, that +Kohinoor diamond among precious virtues, consistency, was she to go so +far as even to hint to Mrs. Stiles that any woman couldn't be a lawyer? +As Mrs. Tarbell hesitated, she began to fear she was lost. + +"Celandine is a real bright girl," said Mrs. Stiles, who had now +regained her breath. Was this the woman who had knocked so timidly at +the door? "Celandine is a _real_ bright girl; her mind is thorough, +logical, and comprehensive,--that's what Professor Jamieson said, up to +the High School. Them was his very words. Celandine is to graduate this +year: she's in the class with girls two and three years older than +herself, Mrs. Tarbell. It was a terrible strain on me to keep her at +school, ma'am, and again and _again_ I've thought I couldn't stand it, +what with her being in the shop only in the afternoon, and the washing, +and trying to keep her clothes always nice; though she's been as good as +_gold_,--making _all_ her dresses her_self_, and wearing a calico till +you'd have thought the stitches would have dropped right _out_ of it. +And she's ambitious, as I say. She don't seem to be able to face the +idea of going into a store; and, oh, dear me! they're terrible places, +those big stores, for girls. They're as bad as the factories; and +_often_ and _often_ when I see those poor creatures that stand behind +counters all day coming home at night and thinking so much about the way +their hair's done, and then consider what slaves they are, and what +they're exposed to, and how many wicked people are on the watch to work +them to death for no pay at all, and bully them, and to lead them all +wrong, if they can, why, it just makes me think how _sensible_ the good +Lord is, that he's able to take care of them so well and look after them +as much as he does. Professor Jamieson has been as kind as could _be_ +about Celandine, and said he'd try to get a place for her as teacher; +but you can't do that, you know, Mrs. Tarbell, not onless you've got +friends in politics; and I haven't, not one. And a governess ain't often +asked for; and you need influence for that, too. And Celandine, though +she would take copying or typewriting, or be a telegraph operator, her +own idea is to be a lawyer. And I just thought, Mrs. Tarbell, that I'd +come to you and ask your advice; for I knew you'd sympathize." + +"I--I don't know," gasped Mrs. Tarbell. The shock was almost as great as +if she had thought Mrs. Stiles was a client. And what was she to do? +Mrs. Stiles was not asking her to accept Miss Celandine as a student: +she was asking her whether Miss Celandine ought to study at all. Mrs. +Tarbell would have given anything to have a few platitudes at her +tongue's end, but her conscience rendered her helpless. "Well, you see, +Mrs. Stiles," she said at length, "we are trying a--hem--an experiment, +you know." + +"An experiment!" cried Mrs. Stiles, astounded. "Law bless us, you're +admitted to be a lawyer, ain't you? And if one lady can be a lawyer--" + +"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Tarbell hastily; "but that is not the question. I +mean that it is not yet certain that women are going to succeed at the +bar." Absolutely, though she was no fool, she had never made the +concession before,--not even to herself. + +"But you are a lawyer," repeated Mrs. Stiles. + +"It doesn't follow that I shall make money at the law," said Mrs. +Tarbell impatiently, but with a sense of her own justice. + +Mrs. Stiles was staggered. "Not make any money?" she faltered. + +"My good woman," said Mrs. Tarbell, "let me tell you that I have not yet +had a single client, that I have not yet made a single dollar!" And, +really, this was rather magnanimous. "The fact is, Mrs. Stiles," she +continued, "it is impossible to say how long it will be before women +inspire public confidence in their ability to do what has always been +supposed to be man's work." + +"Law!" said Mrs. Stiles. + +"And your daughter had better wait till that is settled in our favor +before she commits herself." + +In Mrs. Stiles's cheeks a queer tinge appeared upon the gingerbread hue +before spoken of,--a faint reddish tinge, a sprinkling of powdered +cinnamon and sugar, as it were. "But, Mrs. Tarbell," she cried, "I +thought--why, I thought the courts arranged all that." + +"You don't mean to tell me it was your belief that the members of the +bar are paid by the court?" said Mrs. Tarbell, aghast. + +"Why, no, not exactly," stammered Mrs. Stiles. "But, then, I thought +they--sort of--distributed things, you know. Don't they? I heerd of a +young gentleman who was appointed to be lawyer for a man who cut his +wife's throat with a pair of scissors, and the gentleman had never seen +him before, not once." + +"Did you suppose," said Mrs. Tarbell,--the affair was arranging itself +very easily, after all,--"did you suppose that the judges undertake to +see that the business of the courts is equally distributed among the +lawyers?" + +"I--I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure." + +"My good, woman," said Mrs, Tarbell, with great seriousness, "a lawyer +is just as much dependent upon custom as you are. There are many +confectioners who do a large business, there are some who fail. So it is +with lawyers. And many lawyers have to wait ten or twelve years before +they become known at all. So you see in what a critical situation your +daughter runs the risk of placing herself, and how seriously you ought +to reflect before you allow her to take such a risk." + +She looked anxiously toward the door. At that moment it opened, and the +office-boy entered. She rose instantly, and Mrs. Stiles had to follow +her example. Mrs. Tarbell represented to herself that the rain would not +hurt her, and that Mrs. Stiles must be got rid of, and, feeling that +this could now be accomplished, smiled at Mrs. Stiles in a friendly and +reassuring manner. + +"Who was the gentleman who was ten years before he got any work to do?" +said Mrs. Stiles, standing up very crooked and looking very bewildered. + +"Oh," said Mrs. Tarbell glibly, "that has happened to a great many +lawyers. Let me see: I can't at this moment +recall--Chief-Justice--no--Lord--Lord--Eldon," she mumbled hastily, +"and Lord-Kilgobbin, and Chief-Justice Coleridge, all had to wait a--a +longer or a shorter time. In fact, it is very often a matter of chance +that a lawyer obtains any business at all." She walked past Mrs. Stiles, +and took up her umbrella. Mrs. Stiles followed her with an irresolute +glance. Mrs. Tarbell put on her ulster. + +"Celandine will be dreadful disappointed," said Mrs. Stiles, in a +mournful tone. "And, dear me, Mrs. Tarbell, I never said a word to you +about what she's like; and me so proud of her, too." + +In spite of her success, Mrs. Tarbell was by no means satisfied with +herself, and the pathetic note in Mrs. Stiles's voice proved too much +for her. "Mrs. Stiles," she said, turning round quickly, "perhaps I have +been putting one side of the matter too strongly before you. If you will +bring your daughter here some morning, we can discuss the subject +together for a little while, and I can advise her definitely as to what +course I think she had better pursue." + +The expression of Mrs. Stiles's face changed a little; she seemed to be +surprised and gratified; but it was evident that the overthrow of her +delusions in regard to the remunerative character of the legal +profession had saddened and disturbed her. "It's right kind of you to +take so much trouble, Mrs. Tarbell," she said, buttoning up her +gossamer. "I feel as grateful to you as _can_ be; but I don't think I'll +tell Celandine all you've said, because--" + +"Perhaps it would be wiser," said Mrs. Tarbell impatiently. + +"And then, in a week or so--" + +"Precisely; a week or so." Mrs. Tarbell found that _precisely_ was a +very short and lawyer-like word, so she repeated it. + +"Well, then--" said Mrs. Stiles. + +"Some time during the morning," said Mrs. Tarbell; and she turned to the +office-boy, with whom she began to converse in an undertone. Mrs. Stiles +came walking across the floor, slow and lugubrious. She bade Mrs. +Tarbell good-day. Mrs. Tarbell bowed her out as quickly as possible, +and then waited for a couple of minutes to give her time to get out of +the way. + +But on going down-stairs Mrs. Tarbell found her standing in the +door-way, holding her umbrella half open and peering out into the rain, +Mrs. Stiles explained that she was waiting for a car. + +"They run every two or three minutes," said Mrs. Tarbell sweetly. +"_Good_-day." + +"Here's one now," said Mrs. Stiles. "Mrs. Tarbell, I just wanted to +say--mebbe you might think I wasn't appreciative of your kindness, and +that all I cared about was--" + +"Not at all," said Mrs. Tarbell. "Not at all, I assure you. I +understand, perfectly. You will miss your--" + +"That's so, that's so," said Mrs. Stiles. "Driver! driver!" And she ran +down the steps, flourishing her umbrella wildly. + +Mrs. Tarbell put up her own umbrella, and looked down the street. The +rain splashed up from the pavement, the tree-boxes were wet and dismal, +the little rivers in the gutters raced along, shaking their tawny manes, +the umbrellas of the passing pedestrians were sleek and dripping, like +the coats of the seals in the Zoological Garden. Now that she was rid of +Mrs. Stiles, was it absolutely necessary for her to go out? She +hesitated a moment. + +Suddenly she heard a cry from the street. Two or three men in front of +her stopped quickly, and then ran toward the prostrate figure of +somebody who had fallen from the car which had halted a few steps +farther on. The car-horses were plunging and swinging from one side of +the car to the other; the conductor had alighted and was hurrying back +toward the victim of the accident; the passengers were pushing out on +the back platform. Mrs. Stiles had slipped or been thrown down on the +muddy car-track. Mrs. Tarbell recognized her long black figure as it was +lifted up. A sad sight the poor woman was, her india-rubber cloak +spotted and streaked with mud and muddy water, her head hanging back +from her shoulders, her face the color of a miller's coat exactly,--a +dirty, grayish white,--and her arms shaking about with the motion of her +bearers. She had fainted; her bearers were looking about in the hope of +seeing an apothecary's shop, or some other such occasional hospital, +when Mrs. Tarbell accosted them. + +Mrs. Tarbell stood in the established attitude of a woman in front of a +rainy-day gutter, holding her skirts with one hand and leaning forward +at such an angle that the drippings from the mid-rib of her umbrella +fell in equal streams upon the small of her back and a point precisely +thirteen inches from the tips of her galoshes. + +"Bring her in here," cried Mrs, Tarbell, shaking her umbrella. "Bring +her in here." And she waved the umbrella in an elliptical curve about +her head. + +"Where?" said the foremost of those addressed, an active-looking man +with a red moustache, a wet fur cap, and an umbrella under his arm. + +"Here," said Mrs. Tarbell, thrusting her umbrella at the Land and Water +Company's building. To make her directions more accurate, she went to +the steps and nodded at the hall-way. + +"The lady is my--has just been having a consultation with me," said Mrs. +Tarbell to the man in the red moustache, "and--" + +"Which way?" said he. + +"Right up-stairs: the first door at the head of the stairs, on the third +floor. I think you had better take her up in the elevator, because--" + +"Cert'nly, cert'nly," he said, interrupting Mrs. Tarbell, who had +intended to be as brief and business-like as possible. + +Mrs. Tarbell followed the procession into the elevator, and when they +arrived on the third floor, John, the office-boy, had already opened the +door, scenting an excitement afar off with curious nostril, as it were; +and Mrs. Stiles was duly carried in and laid on the sofa. "John, get +some water instantly," cried Mrs. Tarbell. And at the same moment a +red-cheeked young man bustled into the room and said that he was a +doctor. + +He pushed everybody out of the way, darted to the sofa, took off his +hat. "Heard there was an accident, and if my services--unless there is +another practitioner--thank you, sir, you are doing the very best thing +possible; and now let us see whether there is a fracture," he said. + +The promptitude and directness with which this young gentleman went to +work commanded the attention and admiration of all the spectators. He +asked for water, he called for salts of ammonia, he ran his hands +lightly over Mrs. Stiles's prostrate form, all in an instant; then he +asked how the accident had happened. + +"She tried to get on while the car was going," growled the conductor, +who had accompanied the party up-stairs. + +"I'll _bet_ she didn't," observed the party with the red moustache. + +"Ankle, probably," murmured the doctor to himself. "Possibly a rib +also." And in a minute or two he was able to declare that the injury had +been done to the lady's ankle, the lady herself having assisted him to +this conclusion by coming to her senses, groaning, and putting her hand +down to the suffering joint. + +The conductor frowned. "What is the lady's name and address, please, +ma'am?" he asked of Mrs. Tarbell. "I have to make a report of the +accident." + +"_You_'ll find it out soon enough," said a thin man with a fresh +complexion, very silvery hair, and spectacles. "The company will not +have to wait long for the information." He looked about with a cheerful +smile, and the conductor glared at him contemptuously. "_She_ never +tried to get on while you were going," continued the thin man. "It was +your driver; that's what it was." + +"The lady's name is Stiles, conductor," said Mrs. Tarbell,--"Stiles; and +she lives--dear me!--on Pulaski Street. Can I do anything for you, +doctor?" + +"You might send your boy for a carriage," said the doctor, who was +engaged in removing Mrs. Stiles's shoe. "Nothing else, thank you, unless +you happen to have some lead-water about you." He gave a professional +smile, and Mrs. Stiles groaned dismally. + +Mrs. Tarbell despatched John for the carriage, and then, turning, and +blushing in a way that was rather out of keeping with her tone of voice, +she said, "Now, I should be obliged if you gentlemen who saw the +accident would furnish me with your names and addresses." + +On hearing this the crowd began to diminish rapidly; but the man with +the red moustache set a good example by giving his name loudly and +promptly as "Oscar B. Mecutchen, tobacconist, d'reckly opposite the City +Hall." So three or four other men allowed Mrs. Tarbell to set them down +as observers of the disaster. The gentleman in spectacles was named +Stethson, another man, a tall, fat-cheeked countryman, Vickers, and a +dried up little party, in a Grand-Army-of-the-Republic suit, +Parthenheimer. Mrs. Tarbell had the names down pat, and scrutinized each +prospective witness carefully, as if warning him that it would be no use +for him to give a fictitious name in the hope of evading his duties, as +she would now be able to pick him out of a regiment. + +"I am very much obliged to you," she said, in a stately manner. "Now, +you all agree that the accident was the result of the negligence of the +driver of the car?" + +"Why, yes, certainly," they all agreed at once. + +"Leastways--" said Mecutchen. + +"That is--" said Parthenheimer. + +"How was it, anyway?" asked Stethson. + +"Thought you saw it," cried the others, turning on him instantly. + +"So I did," said Stethson; "but I thought I'd like to hear what you +gentlemen's impression was." + +"Well," said Mecutchen and Vickers, the tall man, together, tipping back +their hats with a simultaneous and precisely similar movement on the +part of each,--nothing is more indicative of the careful independence of +the average American than the way in which he always keeps his head +covered in the presence of his lawyer,--"Well," said Vickers and +Mecutchen. + +Mr. Mecutchen bowed to Mr. Vickers, and Mr. Vickers bowed to Mr. +Mecutchen, with a sort of grotesque self-effacement. Mr. Vickers waved +his hand, and Mr. Mecutchen proceeded. + +"Why," said he, "the lady stopped the car in the middle of the +block,--just like a woman,--got on the platform, car started with a +jerk, and she fell off." + +Vickers and Parthenheimer nodded assent, but Stethson said that _his_ +view of it was that the car started off again while she was trying to +get on. + +"That makes it stronger," said Mecutchen. + +"Well, of course," said Stethson, settling his spectacles farther back +on his nose; and Vickers murmured that you couldn't have it too strong, +as he knew from the point of view (as he said) of cows. "It's wonderful +what you can get for cows," he added pensively. + +"Ag'in' a railroad company," said the grizzled old Parthenheimer, "the +stronger the better, because some cases, no matter how aggerawated they +are, you only git a specific sum and no damages. But a railroad case, +which is a damage case right through, the worse they are the more you +git. I had a little niece to be killed by a freight-train, and they took +off that pore little girl's head, and her right arm, and her left leg, +all three, like it was done by a mowing-machine,--so clean cut, you +know. Well, sir, they got a werdick for six thousand dollars, my brother +and his wife did; and their lawyer stood to it that the mangling brought +in three thousand; and I think he was right about it, too." + +"Six thousand!" said Vickers, with immense appreciation. + +"The court set it aside for being excessive," said Parthenheimer," and +aft'werds they compromised for less. But there it was. And the way it +was done was odd, too. Right arm and left leg." + +"Ah," said Vickers, "living right on a railroad, the way I do, you see +some queerer accidents than that. Now, I remember--" + +But Mrs. Tarbell found this conversation growing quite too ghastly to be +listened to with composure, so she turned abruptly toward the sofa. The +doctor was now bathing and examining Mrs. Stiles's ankle, and Mrs. +Stiles looked not merely the picture but the dramatic materialization of +misery. + +"How do you feel now, Mrs. Stiles? How do you think she is, doctor?" +These two questions were put in Mrs. Tarbell's sweetest tones. + +Mrs. Stiles lay for a moment without answering, but the doctor replied +that he was afraid it was a nasty business. "There is a dislocation, and +there may be nothing more, except a sprain," he said. "But it will be +impossible to tell until the swelling is reduced; and if there is a +fracture of the fibula, why, such a complication is apt to be serious." + +Mrs. Stiles groaned feebly, and then looked up at Mrs. Tarbell with +gratitude. "I never thought to be so much trouble to you," she murmured. + +"Do not think of that for a moment," said Mrs. Tarbell. "If I only had +my cologne-bottle," she said, half aloud, in an apologetic voice. This +was one of the luxuries she had refused herself in her professional +toilet; more than this, she did not allow herself to carry a +smelling-bottle, though Mr. Juddson had told her it could be used with +great effect to disconcert an opposing counsel. + +"I am afraid you are suffering very much," she went on. + +"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles sadly. "If I hadn't only been such a fool +as to try to get on that there car while it was a-going." + +Mrs. Tarbell started. The doctor rose and laughed. + +"You don't mean that," said he. + +"Mean what, doctor?" + +"That you tried to get on while the car was going. All these gentlemen +here say the car started while you were trying to get on, which is a +very different thing, you know." The doctor had evidently kept his ears +open while attending to the sufferer. Mrs. Tarbell, rather red in the +face, kept silent, not knowing exactly what she ought to do. + +"I don't know," said Mrs. Stiles feebly. "I don't s'pose I remember +much." + +"Of course you don't," said the doctor cheerfully. "Bless you, you'll +sue the company and have a famous verdict; I wouldn't take ten thousand +dollars for your chances if I had them. You observe," he went on +confidentially to Mrs. Tarbell, "I am doing my best for the community of +interests which, ought to exist among the learned professions. I raise +this poor woman's spirits by suggesting to her dreams of enormous +damages, and at the same time I promote litigation, to the great +advantage of her lawyer. I think that is the true scientific spirit." + +"I--I--" began Mrs. Tarbell, in some confusion. + +"Beg pardon?" said the doctor. "Well, I must be off. I've done all I can +for the poor woman. She ought to send for her own doctor as soon as she +gets home. I suppose--will you--?" He looked at Mrs. Tarbell doubtfully, +as if wondering whether he ought to take it for granted that she was in +charge of the case. + +"I will tell her," said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"I could tell her myself," said the doctor. "To be sure. Well, if I +could only inform her lawyer what I've done for him, he might induce my +fair patient to employ me permanently." He smiled at his joke, shook his +head waggishly, and turned to look for his hat. + +As Mrs. Tarbell looked after him in some perplexity, John, the +office-boy, came back to report that the carriage was engaged and at the +door; and Mrs. Stiles was presently carried down-stairs again, it being +quite impossible for her even to limp. + +But before she was lifted up she turned her head and beckoned to Mrs. +Tarbell. + +"Could I," she said,--"could I have a case against the railway company?" + +"Ye-es,--I suppose so," Mrs. Tarbell answered. + +"Did they say it was the fault of the conductor that I fell off that +car?" + +"Of the driver,--yes." + +"Well, then, ma'am, would you advise me to bring a case against them?" + +"You had better decide for yourself," said Mrs. Tarbell faintly. But +then, remembering that it was her duty to advise, she added, "Yes, I +think you ought to sue." + +"Then you'll take the case, Mrs. Tarbell, won't you, please?" said Mrs. +Stiles, closing her eyes again, as if satisfied of the future. + +Mrs. Tarbell! There was a general movement of surprise as the lady +lawyer's name was pronounced, and the doctor was so much taken aback +that heh burst out laughing. + +"I'm sure I beg your pardon, Mrs. Tarbell," he cried. "I had no idea in +the world--" + +"Ah," said Stethson, "I looked at the sign on the door coming in. I knew +it was the lady lawyer. My, if my wife could see you, Mrs. Tarbell!" + +"And I never knew who I was talking to!" grumbled Mecutchen disgustedly. + +A quarter of an hour later, when Mr. Juddson returned to his office, +Mrs. Tarbell was engaged in drawing up a paper which ran as follows: + + +ANNETTE GORSLEY STILES } _Court of Common_ +vs. } _Pleas._ +THE BLANK AND DASH } _May Term, 1883._ +AVENUES PASSENGER } _No_. ---- +RAILWAY CO. } + +_To the Prothonotary of the said Court_: + +Issue summons in case returnable the first +Monday in May, 1883. + +TARBELL, +pro plff. + + +It was a _precipe_ for a writ. + +"Alexander!" said Mrs. Tarbell, in an expressive voice, regardless of +the office-boy. + +"Yes?" said Mr. Juddson. The referee had refused to admit some of his +testimony. + +"Alexander, I have a client," said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Do you tell me so?" replied Mr. Juddson absently, as he redisarranged +the papers upon his table. "I hope--Bless me, where _is_ that--? Mrs. +Tarbell, have you seen anything of an envelope?--John, what became of +the papers in Muggins and Bylow? I gave them to you." + +Mrs. Tarbell, deeply mortified, resumed her occupation, and completed +the _precipe_ by writing the words, "Tarbell, pro plff." + +Mr. Juddson's papers were found for him, under his nose, and he was +beginning to say that he was going out to lunch, when the enormity of +his conduct made itself apparent to him. + +"By George!" he said, stopping short, "you told me you had a client at +last, eh, Mrs. Tarbell?" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Tarbell coldly. + +"Why,--bless my soul! It's your first client, is it not? And what kind +of a case has your ewe-lamb brought you? Come, tell me about it. I did +not properly appreciate the communication." And he went over to Mrs. +Tarbell's desk, upon which he sat himself down in a position which Mrs. +Tarbell had formerly considered very undignified; but now she could not +help feeling that it was really a legal attitude. + +She looked up with a smile, and then, though with a little shame, +displayed the _precipe_. + +"Well, that's good," said Mr. Juddson. "Accident case, I suppose. What +is it? Death, and damages for the widow?--for I see there are no +children,--or was the plaintiff herself the victim of the accident? Your +sex has finally decided to stand by you, it seems." + +"I shan't send out the writ just yet," said Mrs. Tarbell, blushing. "I +was--wanted to see how the _precipe_ would look. I must see the +plaintiff again, I think, before I advise her definitely to sue." + +"Hasn't she a case?" + +"Yes--but--" + +"What nonsense!" cried Juddson. "Come, my dear, don't be a goose, and +don't lose a return-day. Otherwise, I shall buy you a sewing-machine." + +"Aren't you pleased, Alexander?" said Mrs. Tarbell, with a little +effusion. + +"My dear, I'm delighted. I hope that in five years' time you will be +supporting me and my family. Your sister-in-law will be speechless with +jealousy. I congratulate you. Hum--The Blank and Dash Avenues Company? +Well, you won't have to send John very far with your copies of the +pleadings. Pope was appointed attorney for the company last week, in +place of old Slyther, who resigned, you know." + +"Pope?" said Mrs. Tarbell. + +"Yes,--the Honorable Franklin." + +"Goodness!" said Mrs. Tarbell, in a tone of inexpressible disgust. + +"By jingo; you are not fond of him, are you? Hem! Well, as a general +rule, I should advise you to put personal feelings entirely out of the +question; but, as this is your first case, perhaps it would be just as +well for you to have me with you, and let me--hum--well, let me take the +jury." + +"Alexander! do you think I am _afraid_ of Mr. Pope?" + +"N-no; but Pope is a blackguard, and very shady, and, it might be +unpleasant for you; and I'd do that, if I were you." + +Mrs. Tarbell's spirits rose. "I will do nothing of the sort, Alexander," +she said; "though it is very kind of you to suggest it; and I will--I +will bet you,"--determinedly,--" I will bet you a copy of the new +edition of Baxter's Digest that I beat him." + +THOMAS WHARTON. + + + + +A CARCANET. + +I give thee, love, a carcanet +With all the rainbow splendor set, +Of diamonds that drink the sun. +Of emeralds that feed upon +His light as doth the evergreen, +A memory of spring between +This frost of whiter pearls than snow, +And warmth of violets below +A wreath of opalescent mist, +Where blooms the tender amethyst. +Here, too, the captives of the mine-- +The sapphire and the ruby--shine, +Rekindling each a hidden spark, +Unquenched by buried ages dark, +Nor dimmed beneath the jewelled skies, +Save by the sunlight of thine eyes. + +JOHN B. TABB. + + + + + +IN A SALT-MINE. + + +There were five of us. The little New-Yorker, plump, blonde, and pretty, +I call Cecilia: that is not her name, but if she suggested any saint it +was the patron saint of music. Her soul was full of it, and it ran off +the ends of her fingers in the most enchanting manner. Elise, half +French, as you would see at a glance, was from the Golden Gate,--as +dainty and pretty a bit of femininity as ever wore French gowns with the +inimitable American air. Elise could smile her way straight through the +world. All barriers gave way before her dimples, and with her on board +ship we never feared icebergs at sea, feeling confident they would melt +away before her glance. Thirdly, there was myself, and then I come to +the masculine two-fifths of our party. First, the curate. He was young +in years and in his knowledge of the great world. His parish had sent +him to the Continent with us to regain his somewhat broken health. He +sometimes spoke of himself as a shepherd, and he liked to talk of the +Church as his bride: he always blushed when he looked straight at Elise. +Cecilia liked him because his clerical coat gave tone to the party, and +his dignity was sufficient for us all, thus saving us the trouble of +assuming any. Lastly, there was Samayana, which was not his name either, +from Bombay,--a real, live East-Indian nabob. In his own country he +travelled with three tents, a dozen servants, as many horses, and always +carried his laundress with him. Yet he never seemed lonely with +us,--which we thought very agreeable in him. Crawford had just created +Mr. Isaacs, and we fancied there was a resemblance,--barring the +wives,--and he told us such graphic stories of life in India that we +were not always sure in just which quarter of the globe we were touring. +Both Samayana and the curate were picturesque--for men. Two beings more +opposed never came together, yet they liked each other thoroughly. +Samayana was greatly admired in European society for his color, his gift +as a _raconteur_, and the curious rings he wore. He was very dusky, and +Cecilia, being very blonde, valued him as a most effective foil and +adjunct. We were seeing Germany in the most leisurely fashion, courting +the unexpected and letting things happen to us. + +On the day of which I write we spent the early morning on the Koenigsee, +in Bavaria, the loveliest sheet of water in Germany, vying in grandeur +with any Swiss or Italian lake. Its color is that of the pheasant's +breast, and the green mountain-sides, almost perpendicular in places, +rise till their peaks are in the clouds and their snows are perpetual. +Stalwart, bronzed peasant girls, in the short skirts of the Bavarian +costume, rowed us about. A few years ago, in answer to a petition, King +Louis I. promised them that never in his reign should steam supplant +them. They laughed happily and looked proudly at their muscle when we +hinted at their being tired. + +We landed at different points and strolled into wooded valleys, visited +artificial hermitages, stopped for a bite at a restaurant connected with +a royal hunting-chateau, and listened lazily to Elise's telling of the +legends of the region, accompanied by the music of some little waterfall +coming from the snow above and gleefully leaping into the lake. We +crossed the rocky, wild pasture-land lying between the Koenigsee and the +Obersee, that tiny lake that faithfully gives back as a mirror all the +crags, peaks, and snowy heights which hide it away there as if it were +indeed the precious opal you may fancy it to be when viewed from above. + +We drifted back to the little inn, where we were approached by a +respectful _Kutscher_, who asked if we would not like to go down into a +salt-mine. Whatever we did, it was with one accord, and the answer came +in chorus, "_Ja, gewiss!_" Elise glanced down at her dainty toilet, a +look instantly interpreted by the _Kutscher_, who explained that +costumes for the descent were furnished, that the exploration was not +fatiguing, and that the carriages were ready. + +It was all done in an "_Augenblick_," the bill was paid, the _Trinkgeld_ +was scattered, and we were rattling away through as beautiful a region +as you will find, even in Switzerland. The snow-peaks were dazzlingly +white in the sunshine; in the ravines and defiles the darkness lingers +from night to night; singing, leaping Alpine streams came like molten +silver from the glaciers over the rocky ledges and through the hanging +forests, and a swift river ran through this happy, fertile valley of +peace and plenty in which our roadway wound. The peasants looked content +and well-to-do, and were picturesquely clothed. We stopped an old man +and bargained for the quaint, antique silver buttons on his coat, and +paid him twice its weight in silver money for the big silver buckle at +his belt. We were stopped at the frontier, and accommodatingly rose +while the custom-officers politely looked under the carriage-seats. The +wine we had just drunk was not taxable, while that we were about to +drink was: so we presented our remaining bottles to the officers to save +them the trouble of making change. Up to that time we had turned our +horses to the right: once over the Austrian line, custom demanded we +should turn to the left, a change to which the _Kutscher_ readily +accommodated himself. One is kept geographically informed in that region +by this difference in manners on the high-road in Austria and Bavaria. + +We argued a little about the fittingness of women working in the fields. +Cecilia thought it preferable to washing dishes, and one of us, who +believes herself not born to sew, maintained that to rake hay was more +agreeable than sitting at sewing-machines or making shirts at twenty +cents apiece after the manner of New-York workwomen. But once +indignation and excitement took possession of us all as we caught sight +of a bare-footed, slight young girl toiling up a ladder and carrying +mortar along a scaffold to men laying bricks on the second story of a +new building. The girl had a complexion like a rose-leaf, her uncovered +hair gleamed like gold in the sunshine, her head was exquisitely set on +her shoulders. The curate sighed deeply, Samayana uttered a strong word +in Hindoostanee, and there was a feminine cry of "Shameful!" when the +girl, putting down her load, folded her white arms, whose sinew and +muscle an athlete might have envied, and, with teeth and smile as +faultless as our Elise's, threw us down a "_Gruss Gott_!" If there ever +beamed content and happiness from human face we saw it in that of this +peasant beauty, who had no conception of our commiseration. We gave her +back a "God greet thee!" "All the same," said Cecilia indignantly, +"women should _not_ carry mortar." We had noticed that Cecilia's +indignation on account of the workingwoman of Germany was extreme if the +woman was pretty. + +We came at last to the mouth of the mine, from which issued a narrow +railway for the transportation of the salt-ore, and above, zigzag on the +mountain-side, ran the conduit carrying the salt, still in liquid form, +to the boiling-house. A waterfall four hundred feet high furnished power +for the great pump. About the entrance to the mine clustered a number of +buildings. Many carriages were already there, for it was the height of +the tourists' season, and this was the show-mine of the Salzkammergut. +Some military officers were standing about, a dozen or more natives +lounged on the piazzas, and nearly every carriage contained one or more +occupants, evidently waiting for travelling-companions then in the mine. +There was the fat woman who couldn't think of such an exploration, the +nervous woman who hated dark places and never went underground, a few +invalids and some chattering girls and young men who had previously been +through the mine and had come over from Salzburg for the drive, and some +very fine youths and young women who wouldn't be seen in a miner's +costume. There were a score or more of these travellers, and as many +more coachmen, and miners off duty, hanging about. A building on the +opposite side of the road was indicated to us ladies as the place in +which we were to change our costumes. Now, here was a pleasant gauntlet +to run in male attire! However, a hundred strangers were not to deter +us, and, _possibly_, this costume might be becoming. There were worse +figures in the world than ours, and who knew but this miners' dress +might show our forms to an advantage at which they had never been seen +before? Encouraged by the thought, we gave our treasures into safe +keeping and permitted the attendant to disrobe us. She spoke a dialect +which had little meaning to us, and we carried on our conversation by +signs. + +She hung our habiliments on pegs, giving Elise's a little womanly caress +for their prettiness. She brought in exchange a costume which made us +helpless from laughter, until we were painfully sobered by the thought +of the spectators outside. A pair of white duck trousers that might have +been made of pasteboard, so stiff were they and so defined the crease +ironed at their sides, came first. Our measures were not taken. The +attendant accommodatingly turned them up about ten inches at the bottom, +the edge then coming to our ankles, which somehow looked very +insignificant and as if protruding from paper shoe-boxes that had been +sat upon. These nether garments extended beyond us at either side to +such a distance that that roundness of form which we had fancied this +costume might display was not in the least perceptible. A black alpaca +jacket reaching to our knees came next. These, too, had been warranted +to fit the biggest woman who might visit the Salzkammergut, and one +would easily have taken in all three of us. Elise, always ingenious, +found hers so long on the shoulder that she fitted her elbow into the +armsize. We pinned them up here and pinned them in there, and tucked +our hair into little black caps, and fastened the broad leather belt +about our waists, stuck a lantern in at the side, and announced +ourselves in readiness. The dressing-maid, however, was not done with +us. She brought three very heavy leathern aprons, attached to strong +waist-bands. The leather was three-quarters of an inch thick; and I need +not add that these square aprons did not take graceful folds. Elise, +after regarding the curious article a moment, decided it would be no +addition to her toilet, and politely declined it. Cecilia's _nez +retrousse_ went yet higher up in the air. Feeling that the maid knew +better than I, I meekly put one on as I had been taught from my babyhood +to wear an apron, when a sudden twitch brought it around _behind_. She +quickly adjusted the others in the same fashion. We dared not look at +each other, and each assumed a manner as if attired in the court costume +of the country; but I venture to say that more grotesque, ridiculous +creatures never went out into the daylight, Cecilia, going first, wisely +did not attempt to go through the door full front, and we sidled after +her to avoid collision between our stiff sail-like trousers and the +door-jambs. + +We tried to believe that clothes do not make the woman,--they do much +toward it,--and with an air of great dignity went into the face of that +miscellaneous company, to be greeted with a terrific and tremendous +shout of laughter. A panic seized us, and I found myself standing stock +still in the middle of the road, as if stage-struck, the others running +like the wind. It was for a moment only, and I followed, the laughter +sounding more and more demoniacal to my ears. I was impelled as never +before in my life. Was some one striking me from behind? It was that +diabolical leathern apron giving me a blow at every step, its violence +increasing with my ever-accelerated speed. How grateful the shelter of +that cave-like aperture in the mountain, where stood the gentlemen +similarly attired, the curate so absurd that we forgot all about his +other "cloth" and laughed immoderately in his face. Samayana was still +picturesque. Cecilia was in a rage. "I'll never cross that road again +before those horrid people, if I stay here a thousand years!" she +exclaimed, with flashing eyes; and Elise breathlessly gasped, +"Oh-that-awful-apron! It-beat-me-as-I-ran,-like-a-whip. +I-felt-like-a-donkey-pursued-by-the-donkey-boy!" + +The guide lighted our lanterns, and, with a last hysterical laugh, we +followed him into the earth, through long, narrow, humid passage-ways, +the temperature not unpleasant, other passage-ways branching off and +suggesting the labyrinth which we knew extended for a great distance in +every direction. We finally came to a lighted chamber, the entrance to +the shaft. The flickering lights showed us the end of a great, smooth, +wooden beam, which, at an angle of forty-five degrees, seemed to be +going down into darkness, ending nowhere, as far as we could see. We had +not been prepared in our minds for this descent or the manner in which +it was to be made. The miner placed himself astride the great beam, +keeping his position by holding on to a rope. He put Elise behind him, +and, drawing her arms around his waist, clasped her hands in front of +him. The curate was then requested to mount the wooden horse and embrace +Elise firmly. He hesitated but a moment, and in another I found myself +behind him, hanging for dear life on to the English shepherd, to be in +turn encircled by Samayana, and last of all came Cecilia, doing her best +to get her plump little arms around the Indian. The darkness below was a +trifle appalling. We were cautioned not to unclasp our hands, lest we +should lose them, and naturally we clung the closer to each other. + +There was just a moment of suspense and suppressed excitement, when, +with a sharp cry, the miner loosened his hold, and by the impulse of our +own weight we shot, with a velocity not to be described, two hundred and +forty-feet into the earth. The miner acting as a brake brought us up +gently enough, so that we felt scarcely anything of a shock. Cecilia, to +be sure, left her breath about two-thirds of the way up, and suffered +some inconvenience till she accumulated more, and the curate forgot to +loosen his hold on Elise for an unpardonable length of time, while he +gathered his wits, and I could feel that he was blushing when he came to +his senses. It was in adjusting our attire that we discovered the +necessity and value of our leathern aprons. Had we been plunged into a +pool of water we should have sizzled. They were hot from the friction. +They speedily became our dearest of friends and possessions, for we had +three more of these shafts to slide down, and we grew faint at the bare +thought of losing them. Cecilia, after our second slide, suggested, in a +language the gentlemen did not understand, that she would like her turn +at being embraced, since she always lost her breath at the start and was +afraid. This remark met with no response, as neither Elise nor I wanted +to run the risk of being lost off behind, and felt a selfish sense of +security that made the shooting of the shafts delightful and somewhat +similar to the coasting and sliding down balusters of our childhood. + +We traversed many long galleries on different levels. Through some of +these ran the aqueduct which brought the fresh water in, and another +which conveyed the salt water out, twenty miles away. We were in the +bosom of a mountain of salt rock, which is constantly forming, and is +therefore a never-ending source of wealth. For centuries this mine has +been worked. The salt rock is quarried and carried out in the form of +rock-salt. Another method of obtaining salt is by conveying water into +the large, excavated chambers, drawing it off and boiling down when it +becomes impregnated. This water attracts and dissolves the saline +matter, but, as water cannot so affect the slaty portion of the rock, it +leaves it often in most fantastic shapes, sometimes as pillars or +depending, curtain-like sheets. These chambers kept full of water are +constantly changing their level on the withdrawal of the liquid. After +three or four weeks two feet of the roof will be found to have been +dissolved and two feet of _debris_ found upon the floor. Curiously +enough, this _debris_ in time acquires the property of the salt rock. +There are chambers above chambers, some of them five hundred yards in +circumference, and miles of galleries. One of these chambers, which was +illuminated, showed floor, walls, and ceiling of pure rock-salt, very +lovely in color, though not so brilliant as in the mine of Wieliczka, +which is likened to four subterranean cities, one below the other, hewn +from rose-colored rock. Samayana secured of our guide red, yellow, blue, +and purple specimens. + +The miners are obliged to divest themselves of all clothing when at +their dangerous work, as any garment will so absorb the salt as to +become hard and brittle, tearing the skin painfully. They must be +relieved every few hours, and, though short-lived, they work for a +pittance an American laborer would scorn. + +Descending a flight of steps after shooting the third shaft, we came +upon a scene which filled us with wonder. There, far down in the earth, +lay a tiny tranquil lake of inky blackness, its borders outlined with +blazing torches. At the extreme end were the entwined letters "F.J." +(Franz Joseph), gleaming in candle-lights, and over our heads the +miners' greeting, _"Glueck auf!"_ traced in fire. On the pink salt-rock +roof--the miners call it _der Himmel_--rested the fearful weight of the +superincumbent mountain. It was an awful thought, and the curate did not +hesitate an instant in seizing Elise's outstretched hand, as if she were +seeking, and he glad to give, a bit of comfort in this +strangely-impressive place. We entered a little boat waiting to take us +across the Salz Sea to the opposite shore. There was not a sound, save +the dipping of the oar. We tasted the black water. The Dead Sea cannot +be salter. We were hushed and oppressed, as if each felt the weight of +the great mountain-mass over us. + +The miners were not at work on that day, but like gnomes they were +silently coming and going in the shadows, never omitting the "_Glueck +auf!_" as they met and parted. There were long, weary stairs to climb. +Finally we came to a little car running on a narrow inclined track. In +this we went rapidly through galleries and dry chambers, and finally +were propelled into the daylight with an unexpected velocity. We had +become quite accustomed to our attire, but declined the proposition of +the photographer, who wished to turn his camera upon us for the benefit +of friends in America, and we gained the dressing-room with much more +composure than we had felt when leaving it. + +It is believed that these mines were worked in the first century; and +many a grave has been opened in excavating which gave up bones and +copper ornaments once belonging to Celtic salt-miners of the third and +fourth centuries. Towers erected in the thirteenth century are still +strongholds. The whole region, too, is full of salt-springs. The lofty +mountains and rich valleys, the sequestered lakes and blue-gray rivers +with their waterfalls, and the old castles, quaint costumes, and +legends, make it a tempting country for such ease-loving travellers as +were we five, and for the intrepid Alpine climber it offers almost as +much as any part of Switzerland. + +That night we drove into Mozart's birthplace just as the Salzburg chimes +were playing an evening hymn of his composing. The curate and Elise +seemed to have found something down in the salt-mine of which they did +not choose to talk, and, as we bade each other good-night, Cecilia said, +"I'm glad I did it, but _I_ wouldn't go down there again: would _you_?" +and Sarnayana and I thought we wouldn't; but the others looked as if +ready to repeat the excursion the following day. + +P.S.--Elise and the curate are to be married, and the parish is to have +a shepherdess. Cecilia, Samayana, and I have no doubt of its being a +love-match. She never could marry him after seeing him in a salt-mine +costume if she didn't love him. MARGERY DEANE. + + + + +ANTHONY CALVERT BROWN. + + +First, as my grandfather used to tell, there were the woods and the +Oneida Indians and the Mohawks; then the forest was cleared away, and +there was the broad, fertile, grassy, and entrancingly-beautiful Mohawk +valley; then came villages and cities and my own unimportant existence, +and at about the same time appeared the Oneida Institute. This +institution of learning is my first point. The Oneida Institute, located +in the village of Whitesboro, four miles from Utica, in the State of New +York, consisted visibly of three elongated erections of painted, +white-pine clapboards, with shingle roofs. Each structure was three +stories high and was dotted with lines of little windows. There was a +surrounding farm and gardens, in which the students labored, that might +attract attention at certain hours of the day, when the laborers were at +work in them; but the buildings were the noticeable feature. Seated in +the deep green of the vast meadows on the west bank of the willow-shaded +Mohawk, these staring white edifices were very conspicuous. The middle +one was turned crosswise, as if to keep the other two, which were +parallel, as far apart as possible. This middle one was also crowned +with a fancy cupola, whereby the general appearance of the group was +just saved to a casual stranger from the certainty of its being the +penitentiary or almshouse of the county. + +The glory of this institution was not in its architecture or lands, but +in that part which could not be seen by the bodily eyes. For, +spiritually speaking, Oneida Institute was an immense battering-ram, +behind which Gerrit Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, and Rev. Beriah Green +were constantly at work, pounding away to destroy the walls which +slavery had built up to protect itself. + +Mr. Green was president of the institute, and was the soul and heart and +voice of its faculty. His power to mould young men was phenomenal. It +was a common saying that he turned out graduates who were the perfect +image of Beriah Green, except the wart. The wart was a large one, which, +being situated in the centre of Mr. Green's forehead, seemed to be a +part of his method to those who were magnetized by his personality or +persuaded by his eloquence. + +About 1845, when I began to be an observing boy, it was understood +throughout Oneida County that Beriah Green was an intellectual giant, +and that he would sell his life, if need be, to befriend the colored +man. Oneida Institute was a refuge for the oppressed, quite as much as a +place where the students were magnetized and taught to weed onions. +Fifteen years before John Brown paused in his march to the gallows to +kiss a negro baby I saw Beriah Green walk hand in hand along the +sidewalk with a black man and fondle the hand he held conspicuously. +Among his intimates were Ward and Garnet, both very black, as well as +very talented and very eloquent. + +When "the friends of the cause" met in convention, I sometimes heard of +it, and managed, boy-like, to steal in. When I did so, I used to sit and +shudder on a back seat in the little hall. The anti-slavery +denunciations poured out upon the churches, and backed up and pushed +home by the logic of Green and the eloquence of Smith, were well +calculated to make an orthodox boy tremble. For these people brought the +churches and the nation before their bar and condemned them, and some +whom I have not named cursed them with a bitterness and effectiveness +that I cannot recall to this day without a shiver. The dramatic effect, +as it then seemed to me, has never been equalled in my experience. + +That these extreme ideas did not prosper financially is not to be +wondered at. The farm was soon given up, then the buildings and gardens +passed into other hands, and the institution became a denominational +school, known as the Whitestown Baptist Seminary. But the ideas which +had been implanted there would not consent to depart with this change in +the name and the methods of the institution. The fact that Beriah Green, +after leaving the school, continued to reside at Whitesboro and gathered +a church there rendered it the more difficult to eradicate the doctrines +which he had implanted. The idea of friendship for the black man was +particularly tenacious, and perhaps annoying to the new and controlling +denominational interest. It clung to the very soil, like "pusley" in a +garden. It had gained a strong hold throughout the county. The managers +of the institution could not openly oppose it. They were compelled to +endure it. And so it continued to be true that if a bright colored boy +anywhere in the State desired the advantages of a superior education he +would direct his steps to Whitestown Seminary. + +It was during these seminary days that I became a student at the +institution; and it was here that I met the hero of my story, Anthony +Calvert Brown. He was as vigorous and manly a youth of seventeen as I +have ever seen. We two were regarded as special friends. He had been +among us nearly two months, and had become a general favorite, before it +was discovered that he had a tinge of African blood. The revelation of +this fact was made to us on the play-ground. A fellow student, who had +come with Anthony to the school, made the disclosure. The two were +comrades, and had often told us of their adventures together in the +great North woods, or Adirondack forests, on the western border of +which, in a remote settlement, they had their homes. Their friendship +did not prevent them from falling into a dispute, and it did not prevent +Anthony's comrade, who was in fact a bully, from descending to +personalities. He hinted in very expressive terms that the son of a +colored woman must not be too positive. The meanness of such an +insinuation, made at such a time and in such a way, did not diminish its +sting. Perhaps it increased it. We saw Anthony, who had stood a moment +before cool and defiant, turn away cowed and subdued, his handsome face +painfully suffused. His behavior was a confession. + +I am sorry to say that after this incident Anthony did not hold the same +position in our esteem that he had previously enjoyed. Some half-dozen +of us who cherished the old Institute feeling were inclined to make a +hero of him, but by degrees the sentiment of the new management +prevailed, and it was understood that Anthony was to be classed with +those who must meekly endure an irreparable misfortune. But Anthony did +not seem to yield to this view. He was very proud, and braced himself +firmly against it. He withdrew more and more from his schoolmates and +devoted his time to books. In the matter of scholarship he gained the +highest place, and held it to the close of our two-years' course. In the +mean time, his peculiarities were often made the subject of remark among +us. His growing reserve and dignity, his reputation as a scholar, and +his reticence and isolation were frequently discussed. And there was the +mystery of his color. It was a disputed question among us whether the +African taint could be detected in his appearance. Ray, the comrade who +had revealed it, claimed that it was plainly perceptible, while +Yerrinton, the oldest student among us, declared that there was not a +trace of it to be seen. He argued that Anthony was several shades +lighter than Daniel Webster, and he asserted enthusiastically that he +had various traits in common with that great statesman. But, then, +Yerrinton was a disciple of Beriah Green, and his opinion was not +regarded as unbiassed. For myself, I could never detect any appearance +of African blood in Anthony, although my knowledge of its existence +influenced my feelings toward him. To me he seemed to carry himself +with a noble bearing,--under a shadow, it is true, yet as if he were a +king among us. I remember thinking that his broad forehead, +slightly-Roman nose, mobile lips, and full features wore a singularly +mournful and benevolent expression, like the faces sometimes seen in +Egyptian sculpture. + +I did not discuss the matter of his peculiarities with Anthony freely +until after our school-days at the seminary were ended and he had left +Whitestown. His first letter to me was a partial revelation of his +thoughts upon the subject of his own character and feelings. He had gone +to Philadelphia to teach in a large school, while I remained with my +relatives in Whitesboro. He wrote me that he was troubled in regard to +certain matters of which he had never spoken to any one, not even to me, +and he thought it would be a good thing for him to present them for +consideration, if I was willing to give him the benefit of my counsel. +In reply I urged that he should confide in me fully, assuring him of my +desire to assist him to the utmost of my ability. + +The communication which I received in response to my invitation was to +some extent a surprise. The letter was a very long one, and very vivid +and expressive. He began it by alluding to the incident upon the +play-ground, which had occurred nearly two years before. He said that +his life had been guarded, up to about that time, from feeling the +effects of the misfortunes which attach to the colored race. Living in a +remote settlement and a very pleasant home, where all were free and +equal and social distinctions almost unknown, he had scarcely thought of +the fact that his mother was an octoroon. He had heard her talk a great +deal about those distinguished French gentlemen who had in the early +part of this century acquired lands in the vicinity of his home, and he +had somehow a feeling that she had been remotely connected with them, +and that his own lineage was honorable. He alluded specifically to Le +Ray de Chaumont and Joseph Bonaparte. These two men, and others their +countrymen, who had resided or sojourned upon the edge of the great +wilderness near his birthplace, had been his ideals from childhood. He +had often visited Lake Bonaparte, and had frequently seen the home +formerly occupied by Le Ray. While he had understood that he himself was +only plain Anthony C. Brown, the son of Thomas Brown (a white man who +had died some two months before his son's birth), he had yet an +impression that his mother was in some vague way connected with the +great personages whom he mentioned. How it was that Thomas Brown had +come to marry his mother, or what the details of her early life had +been, he did not know, being, in fact, ignorant of his family history. +He conceded that it might be only his own imagination that had led him +to suppose that he was in some indefinite way to be credited with the +greatness of those wealthy landed proprietors who had endeavored to +establish manorial estates or seigniories in the wilderness. He had come +to understand that this unexplainable impression of superiority and +connection with the great, which had always been with him in childhood +and early youth, was due to his mother's influence and teaching. There +was about it nothing direct and specific, and yet it had been instilled +into his mind, in indirect ways, until it was an integral part of his +existence. His mother had a farm and cattle and money. She was in better +circumstances than her neighbors. This had added to his feeling of +superiority and independence. The accident of a slight tinge of color +had hardly risen even to the dignity of a joke in the freedom of the +settlement and the forest. Looking back, he believed that his mother had +guarded his youthful mind against receiving any unfavorable impression +upon the subject. In his remote, free, wilderness home he had heard but +little of African slavery, and had regarded it as a far-off phantom, +like heathendom or witchcraft. + +Such had been the state of mind of Anthony Brown. The light had, +however, been gradually let in upon him in the course of an excursion +which he and his comrade Ray had made the year previous to their +appearance at Whitestown Seminary. In that excursion they had visited +Chicago, Cleveland, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, New +York, and Albany. They had strayed into a court-room in the City Hall at +Albany, where many people were listening to the argument of counsel who +were discussing the provisions of the will of a wealthy lady, deceased. +A colored man was mixed up in the matter in some way,--probably as +executor and legatee. Anthony heard with breathless interest the legal +disabilities of colored people set forth, and their inferior social +position commented upon. He learned that the ancestral color descended +to the children of a colored mother, although they might appear to be +white. These statements had impressed him deeply. They furnished to his +mind an explanation of the various evidences of the degradation of the +colored people he had seen upon his journey. Talking of these matters, +he had found that Ray was much better informed than himself upon the +entire subject. Ray, in fact, frankly explained that a colored man had +no chance in this country. This was in 1859. Anthony suggested in his +letter to me that he had probably been kept from acquiring this +knowledge earlier in life by his mother's anxious care and the kindness +of friends and neighbors. He explained that he did not mean to be +understood as intimating that he had not some general knowledge of the +facts previously, but it was this experience which had made him feel +that slavery was a reality and that all colored people belonged to a +despised race. After his return home he had carefully refrained from +imparting to his mother any hint of his newly-acquired impressions in +reference to the social and legal standing of the colored race. In the +enjoyment of home comforts, and in the freedom of the wild woods and +waters, the shadow which had threatened in his thoughts to descend upon +him passed away. He remembered it only as a dream which might not +trouble him again, and which he would not cherish. Still, there was a +lurking uneasiness and anxiety, born of the inexorable facts, which +favorable circumstances and youthful vivacity could not wholly overcome. + +In this state of mind Anthony, in accordance with the wish of his +mother, came to Whitestown Seminary. His description of his first +impressions there was very glowing. He wrote,-- + +"I cannot hope, my dear friend, to give you any adequate idea of what I +then experienced. For the first time in my life I found kindred spirits. +Your companionship in particular threw a light upon my pathway that made +the days all bright and gave me such joy as I had never before known. +And there was Ralph, so kind and true, and Henry Rose, so honest and +faithful! I cannot tell you how my heart embraced them. It is a simple +truth, telling less than I felt, when I say that I could scarcely sleep +for thinking of my newfound treasures. You need to remember what it is +to dwell in a rough country, isolated and remote from towns, to +appreciate my experience. To me, coming to Whitestown was a translation +to Paradise. It seems extravagant, yet it is true, that I met there +those who were dearer than my life and for whom I would have died. The +first warm friendships of youth are the purest and whitest flowers that +bloom in the soul. If these are blighted, it is forever. Such flowers in +any one life can never grow again. + +"And this brings me to that sad day when on the play-ground Ray struck +at me, and through me at my dear, loving mother. As he spoke those cruel +words the world grew dark about me, the dread fear which I had subdued +revived with tenfold power, and upon my heart came the pangs of an +indescribable anguish. Oh, the chill, the death-like chill, that froze +the current of my affections as I saw the faces of those I loved +averted! + +"I went to my room and tried to reflect, but I could not. The shock was +too great. During the week that followed I was most of the time in my +silent room. I may well call it silent, for the footsteps to which I had +been accustomed came no more, and the comrades in whose friendship I had +such delight no longer sought my company. That dreadful week was the +turning-point in my life. As it drew toward its close I realized to some +extent what I had been through, as one does who is recovering from a +severe illness. I knew that day and night I had wept and moaned and +could see no hope, no ray of light, and that I had at times forgotten my +religion and blasphemed. It is true, my dear friend, that I mocked my +God. Do not judge me hastily in this. I was without discipline or +experience, and I saw that for all sorrow except mine there was a +remedy. Even for sin there is repentance and redemption, and the pains +of hell itself may be avoided. But for my trouble there could be no +relief. The thought that I was accursed from the day of my birth, that +no effort, no sacrifice, no act of heroism, on my part could ever redeem +me, haunted my soul, and I knew that it must haunt me from that time +onward and forever. + +"I need hardly tell you, with your insight and knowledge, that these +inward struggles led toward a not unusual conclusion. I allude to the +determination to which multitudes of souls have been driven in all ages, +to escape the tortures of disgrace. I turned away from humanity and +sought that fearful desert of individual loneliness and isolation which +is now more sad and real to me than any outward object can be. To live +in the voiceless solitude and tread the barren sands unfriended is too +much for a strong man with all the aids that philosophy can give him. +But when we see one in the first flush of youth, wholly innocent, yet +turning his footsteps to the great desert to get away from the scorn of +lovers and friends, and when we realize that this which he dreads must +continue to the last hour of his life, there is to my mind a ghastliness +about it as if it were seen in the light of the pit which is bottomless. +I have not recovered, and can never recover, from that experience. You +will infer, however, that I did not remain in just the condition of mind +which I have endeavored to describe. He whom I had blasphemed came to +me, and I was penitent. The teachings of good Father Michael at our +home, the doctrines of our Church, and the examples of the blessed +saints, were my salvation. Then I felt that I would dwell alone with +God. And there was something grand about that, and very noble. The +purest joy of life is possible in such an experience. Yet it is not +enough, especially in youth. But I think I should have continued in that +frame of mind had it not been for you and Ralph. How you two came to me +and besought my friendship I need not remind you. Neither need I say how +my pride yielded; and if there was anything to forgive I forgave it, and +felt the light of friendship, which had been withdrawn from my inner +world, come back with a joy that has increased as it has continued. + +"Coming to this city of 'brotherly love,' I begin my life anew, and at +the very threshold a painful question meets me. No faces are averted, no +one suspects my social standing. A thrill of kindness is in every voice. +What can I do? Must I advertise myself as smitten with a plague? I dare +not tell you of the favors that society bestows upon me. It is but +little more than a month since I came to Philadelphia, and during that +short period I have in some strange way become popular. My sincere +effort politely to avoid society seems only to have resulted in +precipitating a shower of invitations upon me. Evidently the fact that I +am tinged with African blood is wholly unsuspected. You understand, I +think, how I gained this place as teacher in the school. It was through +the interposition of Father Michael and certain powerful Protestant +friends of his who are unknown to me. It was not my own doing, and I do +not feel that I am to blame. But I will frankly tell you that it seems +to me cowardly to go forward under false colors. One thing I am +resolved upon,--I will never be ashamed of my dear mother. Where I go +she shall go, and she shall come here if she is inclined to do so. As +you have never seen her, I may say that she is regarded as dark for an +octoroon, and with her presence no explanation will be necessary. But +ought I to wait for that? She may not choose to come. How can I best be +an honest man? It seems silly, and it would be ridiculous, to give out +generally here as a matter for the public that I am the son of a negro +woman. Yet I think it must come to that in some way. What shall I do?" + +This letter caused me to think of Anthony and his trouble much more +seriously than before. It was clear to me why he was popular. I had +never met any young man who was by nature more sympathetic and +attractive. The reserve and sadness which had recently come upon him +were not to his disadvantage socially. They rather tended to gain +attention and win the kindness of strangers. The question which his +position presented, and about which he desired my counsel, troubled me. +But, fortunately, after thinking of it almost constantly for two days, I +gave him advice which I still think correct under the circumstances. I +argued that he was not under any obligation to advertise himself to the +public as a colored man. The public did not expect or require this of +any one. But I urged that if he made any special friends among those who +entertained him socially and with whom he was intimate, he should +frankly make known to them the facts in regard to his family. I thought +this would be expected, and I was convinced that such a presentation of +his position, made without affectation, would win for him respect even +from those who might cease to court his society. I further urged that he +ought not, as a teacher, to isolate himself or shun those relations with +families which would place upon him the obligation to make known his +parentage. + +Anthony sent a brief note in reply to my letter, thanking me heartily +for what he termed my convincing statement, and expressing his +determination to act in accordance with it. + +Nearly two months passed, and then my friend communicated the further +fact that he had gone so far, in several instances, and with several +families, as to carry out the suggestions I had made. He thought it was +too soon to assert what the ultimate result would be, but stated the +immediate effects so far as he could see them. When he first made the +announcement in regard to his color, many had disbelieved it. When his +persistent and repeated declarations upon various occasions had +convinced his friends that it was not a jest, but a reality, they had +been variously affected by it. He thought some were politely leaving +him, while others seemed desirous of continuing his acquaintance. + +Ten days later I was not a little surprised to receive a letter +conveying the information that Anthony's mother had arrived in +Philadelphia in response to his invitation. He stated, in his letter to +me giving this news, that he had now carried out his entire plan and was +satisfied. His mother had visited his school, and he had introduced her +to his various friends in the city. It seemed to me a mistake thus +unnecessarily to run the risk of offending social preferences or +prejudices; but I did not feel at liberty to comment upon the matter at +the time. + +In addition to the information conveyed, the letter contained an +invitation which delighted me. Anthony wrote that he and his mother were +about returning home. The long vacation would begin in a few days, and +they wished that I should go with them for a visit. Few things could +have afforded me greater satisfaction than this. The wild +forest-country, of which my school-mate had told me much, I regarded as +peculiarly a region of romance and adventure. + +It was a beautiful morning early in July when we three, with a team and +a driver, left the Mohawk valley and climbed the Deerfield hills, making +our way northward. On the evening of the first day we readied the hills +of Steuben and gained a first glimpse of that broad, beautiful +forest-level, known as the Black River country, which stretches away +toward the distant St. Lawrence. The next day we descended to this +level, and, following the narrow road through forests, and clearings, +and little settlements, and villages, arrived just at nightfall at the +home of my friends. It was a small, unpainted, wooden house, standing +near the road. Back of it were barns and sheds, and I saw cattle and +sheep grazing. The zigzag rail fence common to the region surrounded the +cleared lots in sight, and in front of the house, across the road, were +the wild woods. A wood-thrush, or veery, was pouring out his thrilling, +liquid notes as we arrived. A white woman and a large, black, shaggy dog +came out of the house to welcome us; and a few minutes later I had the +best room, up-stairs over the front door, assigned to me, and was a +guest in the domicile of my friend Anthony. + +The location was a delightful one, about three miles west of the little +village of Champion, near which was a small lake, where we spent many +morning hours. From a height not far away we had glimpses, in clear +weather, of the mountains, seen in airy outline toward the eastward. + +My friend had the horses and wagons of the farm at his command, and we +took many long rides to visit places of interest. On several occasions +we saw the decaying chateau of Le Ray, which was but little more than an +hour's ride to the northward of Anthony's home; and on one occasion we +went a day's journey and saw the stony little village of Antwerp, and +visited that beautiful sheet of water on the margin of the wilderness, +known as Lake Bonaparte. Joseph Bonaparte frequently visited this lake, +and he owned lands in its vicinity, and made some improvements upon them +in 1828. + +Anthony's mother was a tall, spare woman, with a wrinkled face and +large, straight features. She seemed to me a curious mixture of European +features with a dark skin. She used French phrases in a peculiar way, +and was full of the history of Le Ray and Bonaparte and various members +of the company that had undertaken to make of this section, in years +gone by, a rich and fertile country like the Mohawk valley. It appeared +that the name which the company had given to this region was Castorland, +which she interpreted to mean the land of the beaver. She had, among +other curiosities, some coins or tokens which had been stamped in Paris +on behalf of the company, and on which the word "Castorland," +accompanied by suitable devices, was plainly seen. The one that +interested me most seemed to have as its device the representation of a +small dog trying to climb a tree. I was informed, however, that the +animal was a beaver, and that he was cutting down the tree with his +teeth. + +After talking freely with the mother, Antoinette Brown, I did not wonder +that Anthony had learned to honor the gentlemen who had come from France +to this region in early days as among the greatest men in the world. I +did not find myself able to discredit her realistic and vivid +description of the visits of Joseph Bonaparte to his wilderness domain +in a six-horse chariot, followed by numerous retainers. Neither did I +find myself able to disbelieve in the accuracy of her picturesque +description of Joseph Bonaparte's Venetian gondola floating upon the +waters of Northern New York, or her account of his dinner-service of +"golden plate" spread out by the road-side on one memorable occasion +when he paused in his kingly ride and dined in a picturesque place near +the highway. She told in a convincing manner many traditions relating to +the enterprise which was to have made of the Black-River country a rich +farming region not inferior to the Mohawk Flats. The fact that nature +had not seconded this undertaking had not diminished Mrs. Brown's +impressions of its magnitude and importance. The great tracts which had +been purchased and the great men who had purchased them were vividly +impressed upon her imagination. In reference to her personal history, +except for a few allusions to life in New York City, she was reticent. + +I remained nearly two months at the home of my friend, and became +familiar with the places of interest surrounding it. The little lake was +a memorable spot, for there Anthony first told me the full story of his +experiences in Philadelphia. He did not conceal the fact that an +attachment was growing up between himself and the daughter of his best +friend there, Mr. Zebina Allen. The way to make his permanent home in +the Quaker City seemed to be opening before him. That I should go with +him for a few days to Philadelphia when he returned, to "see how the +land lay," as he expressed it in backwoods phrase, was one of his +favorite ideas. He made so much of this point that I finally consented +to accompany him. + +It was a rainy day early in September when we stepped off the cars and +went to Anthony's boarding-place in the good old city that held the one +he loved and his fortunes. I was introduced to various friends of his, +and during the first twenty-four hours of my sojourn I was delighted +with all matters that came under my observation. I was especially +pleased with Mr. Allen and his daughter Caroline. But within two days I +saw, or fancied that I saw, a curious scrutiny and reserve in the faces +of some of those with whom we conversed. + +I think Anthony was more surprised than I was when he received a note +from one of the trustees intimating that important changes were likely +to be made in reference to the educational methods to be employed in the +school, and that, in view of these changes, it was barely possible that +some new arrangements in regard to teachers might be desired by the +patrons of the institution. The trustee professed to have written this +information in order that "Mr. Brown" might not be taken wholly by +surprise in case any step affecting his position should be found +advisable. + +The circumlocution and indefiniteness of this letter led me to infer +that there was something behind it which the writer had not stated. It +soon appeared that my friend agreed with me in this inference. I could +not but smile at the coolness with which he quoted the common phrase to +the effect that there was an African in the fence. + +"I fear it is the old story over again," he said; "but I am glad I have +done my duty to myself and to my dear mother, whatever the consequences +may be." + +After some discussion, it was agreed that I should call at Mr. Allen's +office (he was a lawyer) and endeavor to obtain from him a statement of +all he might know of the new arrangement announced in the letter which +had been received. I lost no time in entering upon my mission. But I was +compelled to make several applications at the office before it was +possible for Mr. Allen to give me a hearing. A late hour of the +business-day was, however, finally assigned to me, and just as the gas +was lighted I found myself by appointment in a private room used for +consultation, sitting face to face with Mr. Allen. I briefly stated my +errand, and presented the trustee's letter to him as a more complete +explanation of my verbal statement. + +"Yes, I see," said Mr. Allen thoughtfully, after reading the letter and +returning it to me. And he tilted back his chair, clasped his hands +behind his head, and gazed for some minutes reflectively at the ceiling. +I sat quietly and studied his face and the objects in the room. He was a +large man, squarely built, with straight, strongly-marked features, blue +eyes, and sandy hair. In the midst of his books and papers he seemed to +me a sterner man than I had previously thought him. "Yes, I see," he +repeated, at the close of his period of reflection. And then he removed +his hands from his head and placed them on his knees, and brought his +chair squarely to the floor, and, leaning forward toward me, looked +keenly in my face, and said, "Did I understand that you were one of +those people,--that is, similar to Mr. Brown?" + +"How, sir?" said I in bewilderment. "How do you mean?" + +A moment later the purport of the question, which I had in a strange way +seemed to feel as it was coming, dawned fully upon me, or I should +rather say struck me, so sharp and sudden was the shock I experienced. +If there was anything in which I was secure and of which I had reason to +be proud, it was my Puritan and English ancestry. As the blood flew to +my youthful face in instinctive protest and indignation, my appearance +must have been a sufficient answer to my interrogator; for I remember +that he, at once springing to his feet, offered me his hand, making +profuse apologies and begging a thousand pardons. + +I somewhat stammeringly explained that it was of no consequence, and +proceeded to name the families in my ancestral line, adding the remark +that these families, both those on my father's side and those on my +mother's side, were pretty well known, and that they were the genuine +English and Puritan stock. + +"They are indeed, sir," said Mr. Allen, "and I congratulate you. I know +the value of a good lineage, and I feel safe in talking freely with a +gentleman of your standing in regard to this disagreeable business." + +At about this stage in the proceedings I felt an obscure twinge. My +conscience was uneasy; for I found myself taking sides with Mr. Allen in +favor of family pride and against "those people," as he had termed +persons of doubtful color. I had instinctively defended myself against +the suggestion that I might possibly be one of them. If this skilful +lawyer had intended, as possibly he did, to disarm me wholly at the +outset, so that I could make no attack upon the position which he +intended to assume, he could not have done it more effectually. + +"The truth is," said Mr. Allen cheerfully, "we regard Mr. Brown as about +the best and most intelligent young man that has ever taught in our +school. He is manly, and conscientious to a fault. Aside from his +family, the only trouble I find with him is that he is not politic. It +was very honorable in him to state to us his parentage as he did. If he +had been willing to stop there, possibly we might have managed it,--at +least so far as the school was concerned. But it was not necessary and +it was not wise to bring that colored woman here. It may have been +remarkably filial and brave, and all that, but it was not judicious. I +think you will agree with me that it was not judicious." + +I hesitatingly admitted that it probably was not. + +"I felt sure that you would take a sensible view of the matter," said +Mr, Allen. "I am truly sorry that Mr. Brown could not have been more +discreet. If he has imagined that he could push that woman into our +society, he is mistaken. And now, while I think of it, there is a +message which I should be glad to send to Mr. Brown, if you will be so +kind as to convey it." + +I expressed my willingness to carry the message. + +"It has probably come to your knowledge that my daughter Caroline has +won the admiration of Mr. Brown." + +I replied that Anthony had mentioned it. + +"The truth is," resumed Mr. Allen, "we entertained the highest opinion +of the young man, and he has visited frequently at our house. I am +willing to admit to you that the feeling I spoke of has been mutual. +With your appreciation of the claims of propriety, the impossibility of +a union will of course be apparent to you." + +"Then you regard it as impossible?" I asked. + +"Yes," he replied. "Do you not so regard it? Think for a moment what it +involves. Some friends of ours in a Western city, as my wife was saying +yesterday, have had a trouble of this kind a generation or two back, and +the children of the present family are in a condition of chronic worry +upon the subject. They are wealthy, and are regarded and treated in +society as white people; but the two young ladies use some kind of +whitening on their faces habitually. The circumstances of the case are +pretty generally known, and you can understand how unpleasant such a +matter must be to the entire family. It is claimed that a tinge of color +sometimes passes over a generation and appears more markedly in the +next. I do not know how that may be, but the idea of the risk is enough +to give one chills. There is a story that the Western family of which I +spoke has a colored grandson concealed somewhere. Of course I do not +know whether it is true or not; but it serves as an illustration. + +"My message to Mr. Brown is, that, under all the circumstances, we think +he should discontinue his visits at our house. I presume he will see +that he should take that course. I shall always be glad to meet him +anywhere except at my home. In regard to a business engagement, if he +will allow me to say a word, I would suggest that he should teach our +colored school. They are looking for a teacher just now, as it happens, +and he would be very popular in that capacity." + +I could not but admit that Mr. Allen's suggestions were characterized by +practical wisdom, but I hinted that the course proposed seemed hardly +just to Anthony. + +"As to that," said Mr. Allen, "it is true that our laws and customs are +unjust and cruel in their treatment of a subjugated race. But it is not +wrong to avoid marriage with any other race than our own. As to the part +that is unjust, you and I cannot remedy that. So far as we are +individually concerned, we may deal justly with the down-trodden, and I +hope we do so; but the great wrong will still remain." + +I left the office of Mr. Allen, feeling that he was in the right. I went +directly to Anthony, and, with a heavy heart, reported to him the +particulars of the interview. It was a painful shock, but he bore it +with greater calmness and fortitude than I had expected. When I had +concluded the recital, he remarked sadly that he found it impossible to +say that Mr. Allen was wrong, hard as the truth seemed. He felt that +marriage was out of the question, and said that he would not have +indulged the thought of it if he had reflected upon the matter +carefully. He was not fully decided what course he would pursue. It was +too painful a subject and involved too great a change to admit of a +hasty decision; and he desired my best thoughts and counsel, which I +gave him. + +After two days I returned to Whitesboro, leaving Anthony in +Philadelphia, still pondering the course he would pursue. Three weeks +later I received a letter from him, in which he announced that he had +taken the colored school. + +Four months passed away. Then I received from my friend a long +communication, setting forth rather formally his experience in his new +position and unfolding to me new views which he had gained by reflection +and contact with the world. He also presented the plan of life which he +had decided upon, if I approved. I was greatly surprised at the entire +revolution in his ideas which had been effected by his observation and +his courageous mental struggles. + +"My own thoughts," he wrote, "have been completely changed by reading +and reflection. There are three aspects of this subject which I wish to +make clear to you. There is first the view that every colored man has +some sort of strange, mysterious curse resting upon him by a law of his +nature. The idea is that, although the black man in any given instance +may be superior, spiritually, intellectually, and physically, to his +white neighbor, yet he cannot equal him because of this mysterious +curse. This view, sad as it is (advocated by the white race), has +settled down upon the minds of millions of colored people. It has +crushed out of them all self-reliance and independence. It fastens +tenaciously upon the quiet, sensitive spirit, destroying its hope and +self-respect and enterprise. I need not tell you how near I have come to +being shipwrecked by its influence. But it is founded upon a lie. It is +a lie backed up by the assertion, practically, of nations and of +millions of intelligent persons acting in their individual capacity. It +is, however, none the less a base, malignant falsehood, robbing the +spirit that is cowed and crushed by it of the sweetest possessions of +life. A similar falsehood has established castes in India, and still +another has subjugated woman in many lands, making her a soulless being +and the slave of man. + +"If any black man has greater wisdom, strength, and goodness than the +majority of white men, he is higher in the scale of manhood than they. +The real question involved is a comparison of individuals, and not of +races. + +"You will remember how Homer, in the Iliad, praises the blameless +Ethiopians, beloved of the gods and dwelling in a wide land that +stretches from the rising to the setting of the sun. The ancient +historians praise them also. Words of commendation of this great +historic people are found in the ancient classics. So far as I can +discover, the prejudice against color is of modern origin. + +"I believe that at no very distant day the slaves will be liberated, and +that the Almighty will be the avenger of their wrongs. + +"I turn now to consider the second aspect of this subject. When a +colored man is wise enough and courageous enough to embrace the views +which I have presented, he may still be compelled, as a part of his lot +in life, to submit to the assumption that he is inferior. It is hard to +live in this way in the shadow of a great lie, but it is better than to +have the iron enter more deeply into the soul, so as to compel _belief_ +of the lie, as is the case with millions of human beings. When the +spirit is enfranchised I can understand that one may lead a very noble +life in cheerfully submitting to the inevitable misfortune. There are a +few colored men who thus recognize the truth, and yet bow to the great +sorrow, which they cannot escape, with noble and manly fortitude. I +confess that I have entertained thoughts of attempting such a life. I +think I could do so if I could see that any great good would be +accomplished by it. But my experience here has taught me that any such +sacrifice is not required of me. I find that it is not to the advantage +of the colored people to be taught at present. They tell me that as they +grow in knowledge their degradation becomes more apparent to them, and +their sufferings greater. They leave the school with the impression that +for them ignorance rather than knowledge is the road to happiness. I +cannot deny the truth of their reasoning. If they could be raised above +the sense of degradation from which they suffer, it would be different. +But, apparently, this cannot be done. It is at least impossible in the +few years which can be given to their instruction in the schools now +provided for their education. The prevailing sentiment among them is +against education and in favor of a thoughtless and easy life. They do +not wish to face those fires through which the awakened spirit, crushed +by hopeless oppression, must necessarily pass. Only yesterday a young +man described to me, with thrilling pathos, the anguish of spirit with +which he had felt the fetters tightening upon him as his knowledge +increased. + +"I do not feel called upon, therefore, to devote my life to teaching. If +there was hope left in the case, perhaps I might do so. I would labor on +willingly if there were light ahead. But, with millions in slavery and +others as tightly bound down by prejudice as if they were slaves, I see +no encouragement. I think it the wiser course to wait, trusting that +Providence will open a way for a change to come. And this brings me to +the third aspect of this matter, and the last phase of it which I desire +to consider. It seems to me to be my duty and privilege to withdraw from +the unequal contest. The stupendous lie which crushes the mass of the +colored race has not imposed itself upon me, although I have had a +terrible struggle with it that nearly cost me my reason. I am not so +situated as to be compelled to live among those whose very presence +would be a constant shadow, a burden to me and a reproach to my +existence. Fortunately, I am not compelled to accept the great +misfortune and bow to the assumptions of a ruling race. I can retire to +the fastnesses of my native hills and forests, where petty distinctions +fade away in the majestic presence of nature. I am already beginning to +anticipate the change, and instinctively asserting that independence +which I feel. Indeed, I have given offence in several instances. I have +no trouble with solid business-men like Mr. Allen. They have the good +sense and fairness to recognize the fact that a man is a man wherever +you find him. But some people of the fanciful sort, with less brains +than I have, do me the honor to be angry because I do not submit to any +assumptions of superiority on their part. I might be so situated that it +would be wisdom to submit, to bend to a lie, to lead the life of a +martyr, as some noble men of my acquaintance do under such +circumstances. But, fortunately, I can afford to be independent, and I +shall do so and take the risk of bodily violence. + +"You have now my plan of life and my reasons for it. I shall adhere to +it under all ordinary circumstances. Nevertheless, if Providence calls +me to some work where great good can be done, I will sacrifice my +independence and take up the load of misfortune which prejudice imposes, +if that is required, and try to bear meekly the burden and do my duty in +the battle of life. But I hope this may not be required of me. Around my +home, as you know, are many immigrants, foreign-born, who do not inherit +or feel the prejudice against color. My family is already one of the +wealthiest and most influential in our little community. With such +property as I have and can readily gain, and with such school-teaching +and political teaching as I can do, it is a settled thing that our +standing will be at the head of society and business, so far as we have +any such distinctions among us. To refer to the matter of color in a +business light, I may remind you that its trace is very faint in our +family line. Already it has entirely disappeared in my own person. With +wealth and position it will be to me at home as though it were not; and +when my dear mother passes away it will disappear entirely and be +speedily lost to memory. I do not mean by this to shirk the position of +the colored man, of which I have had a bitter taste. I only mean to show +you the brightness and hope of my situation. I trust that you will +approve of the course which I have marked out, and give me some credit +for courage in meeting and conquering the grisly terror, the base lie, +which sought to blast my life." + +It would be difficult to express too strongly my admiration for my +friend as I read the letter from which I have quoted. It seemed to me +wonderful that he had been able to so disentangle himself from +difficulties. The cool intrepidity with which he had fought his way +through those mental troubles which had seemed at one time about to +overwhelm him was to me the most astonishing part of the performance. I +wrote to him in terms of the highest commendation, frankly expressing my +astonishment at the vigor, truth, and force apparent in his actions and +his reasoning. He was satisfied with my letter, and proceeded to close +up his affairs in a deliberate and decorous manner before returning home +and carrying his plan into execution. It was his idea that I should +spend some months each year with him, and he had made other friends who +would be invited to visit him. + +But the plan which Anthony had formed was never executed. Matters were +as I have described, when the war of the Rebellion broke out. Here was +that call to public duty which he had alluded to as a possible +interference which might change the course of his life. He felt from the +first that the contest was a fight for the black man, and he was anxious +to engage in it. In a hasty letter to me he recognized the fact that the +spirit of John Brown, whom he greatly admired, was still busy in the +affairs of the nation, although his body was sleeping in the grave at +North Elba. + +Anthony Brown enlisted in a white regiment, there being no trace of +color about him and no objection being made. He claimed to have a +presentiment that he would fall in battle at an early day. Whether it +was a presentiment or a mere fancy, it was his fate. He now rests with +the indistinguishable dead + +Where the buzzard, flying, +Pauses at Malvern Hill. + +When I learned of his death, a duty fell upon me. He had written in one +of his letters that if he did not return from the war he would like to +have me tell his mother the true history of his life. He had concealed +from her his struggles in reference to color. She knew nothing of his +trials at Whitesboro or at Philadelphia. No words had ever passed +between them upon the subject. He thought it better, if he lived, that +she should never know, but if he died he wished that his history should +be fully made known to her. + +I made the journey on horseback over the ground I have already +described. It was a delightful autumn day when I passed through the +village of Champion and went on to Mrs. Brown's home. She was expecting +me, as I had written in advance announcing my intended visit. I could +see that she was greatly pleased to receive me. I had been at the house +two days before I ventured to introduce, in a formal manner, the subject +of my mission. Talking of old times, and leading gradually up to the +subject, I frankly stated that Anthony had charged me to tell her the +story of his personal history, and I exhibited his letter to her. It was +after dinner, as we were sitting in the front room reading and talking. +Mrs. Brown immediately became excited and anxious to hear. As I +disclosed the sorrow of Anthony's life and related the particulars of +his career, the effect upon her was not at all what I had expected. She +became more and more excited and distressed. At last she called sharply +to her servant-girl, Melissa, and told her to go and bring Father +Michael, and to bid him come immediately. While Melissa was gone, Mrs. +Brown, with a great deal of agitation in her manner, proceeded to +question me in regard to the incidents of Anthony's career in +Philadelphia, and frequently broke out with the exclamation, "Why could +we not have known?" + +Soon Father Michael came, and the woman assailed him at once in a harsh +and accusing manner, speaking in the French language with great +volubility. He replied to her in the same tongue. There was only here +and there a word that I could understand. It was plain, however, that +there was a contest between them, and that it related to my deceased +friend. + +By degrees the matter was so far made plain that I understood that +Anthony was not the son of Mrs. Brown, but was of the purest white blood +and connected with people of rank. Beyond this I was not permitted to +know his history. When I asked questions, Father Michael replied that it +was better "not to break through the wall of the past." He said it was +too late now to aid Anthony, but added that the trouble might have been +averted if it had been known at the time. + +A day later I took my departure. As I travelled back to Whitesboro I +reflected upon the strange events that had shaped Anthony's career. When +I turned on the Steuben hills and looked once more upon Castorland, it +seemed to me a region of mystery; and the useless tears fell from my +eyes as I remembered how one of its secrets had darkened the life of the +dearest friend of my youth. + +I subsequently learned that Miss Allen, of Philadelphia, suffered +indirectly from the effects of Anthony's misfortune. She was not able to +forget the man she had chosen. + +I have never learned the facts in regard to the early history and real +parentage of Anthony Calvert Brown. + +P. DEMING. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SHORT-STORY. + + +When artists fall to talking about their art, it is the critic's place +to listen to see if he may not pick up a little knowledge. Of late, +certain of the novelists of Great Britain and the United States have +been discussing the principles and the practice of the art of writing +stories. Mr. Howells declared his warm appreciation of Mr. Henry James's +novels; Mr. R.L. Stevenson made public a delightful plea for Romance; +Mr. Walter Besant lectured gracefully on the Art of Fiction; and Mr. +Henry James modestly presented his views by way of supplement and +criticism. The discussion took a wide range. With more or less fullness +it covered the proper aim and intent of the novelist, his material and +his methods, his success, his rewards, social and pecuniary, and the +morality of his work and of his art. But, with all its extension, the +discussion did not include one important branch of the art of fiction: +it did not consider at all the minor art of the Short-story. Although +neither Mr. Howells nor Mr. James, Mr. Besant nor Mr, Stevenson, +specifically limited his remarks to those longer, and, in the +picture-dealer's sense of the word, more "important," tales known as +Novels, and although, of course, their general criticisms of the +abstract principles of the art of fiction applied quite as well to the +Short-story as to the Novel, yet all their concrete examples were +full-length Novels, and the Short-story, as such, received no +recognition at all. Yet the compatriots of Poe and of Hawthorne cannot +afford to ignore the Short-story as a form of fiction; and it has seemed +to the present writer that there is now an excellent opportunity to +venture a few remarks, slight and incomplete as they must needs be, on +the philosophy of the Short-story. + +The difference between a Novel and a Novelette is one of length only: a +Novelette is a brief Novel. But the difference between a Novel and a +Short story is a difference of kind, A true Short-story is something +other and something more than a mere story which is short. A true +Short-story differs from the Novel chiefly in its essential unity of +impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word a +Short-story has unity as a Novel cannot have it. Often, it may be noted +by the way, the Short-story fulfills the three false unities of the +French classic drama: it shows one action in one place on one day. A +Short-story deals with a single character, a single event, a single +emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single situation. +Poe's paradox that a poem cannot greatly exceed a hundred lines in +length under penalty of ceasing to be one poem and breaking into a +string of poems, may serve to suggest the precise difference between the +Short-story and the Novel, The Short-story is the single effect, +complete and self-contained, while the Novel is of necessity broken into +a series of episodes. Thus the Short-story has, what the Novel cannot +have, the effect of "totality," as Poe called it, the unity of +impression. The Short-story is not only not a chapter out of a Novel, or +an incident or an episode extracted from a longer tale, but at its best +it impresses the reader with the belief that it would be spoiled if it +were made larger or if it were incorporated into a more elaborate work. +The difference in spirit and in form between the Lyric and the Epic is +scarcely greater than the difference between the Short-story and the +Novel; and "The Raven" and "How we brought the good news from Ghent to +Aix" are not more unlike "The Lady of the Lake" and "Paradise Lost," in +form and in spirit, than "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Man without +a Country"--two typical Short-stories--are unlike "Vanity Fair" and "The +Heart of Midlothian,"--two typical Novels. + +Another great difference between the Short-story and the Novel lies in +the fact that the Novel, nowadays at least, must be a love-tale, while +the Short-story need not deal with love at all. Although "Vanity Fair" +was a Novel without a hero, nearly every other Novel has a hero and a +heroine, and the novelist, however unwillingly, must concern himself in +their love-affairs. But the writer of Short-stories is under no bonds of +this sort. Of course he may tell a tale of love if he choose, and if +love enters into his tale naturally and to its enriching, but he need +not bother with love at all unless he please. Some of the best of +Short-stories are love-stories too,--Mr. Aldrich's "Margery Daw," for +instance, Mr. Stimpson's "Mrs. Knollys," Mr. Bunner's "Love in Old +Clothes;" but more of them are not love-stories at all. If we were to +pick out the ten best Short-stories, I think we should find that fewer +than half of them made any mention at all of love. In "The Snow Image" +and in "The Ambitious Guest," in "The Gold-Bug" and in "The Fall of the +House of Usher," in "My Double and how he Undid me," in +"Devil-Puzzlers," in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," in "Jean-ah +Poquelin," in "A Bundle of Letters," there is little or no mention of +the love of man for woman, which is the chief topic of conversation in a +Novel. While the Novel cannot get on without love, the Short-story can. +Since love is almost the only thing which will give interest to a long +story, the writer of Novels has to get love into his tales as best he +may, even when the subject rebels and when he himself is too old to take +any interest in the mating of John and Joan. But the Short-story, being +brief, does not need a love-interest to hold its parts together, and the +writer of Short-stories has thus a greater freedom: he may do as he +pleases; from him a love-tale is not expected. + +But other things are required of a writer of Short-stories which are not +required of a writer of Novels. The novelist may take his time: he has +abundant room to turn about. The writer of Short-stories must be +concise, and compression, a vigorous compression, is essential. For +him, more than for any one else, the half is more than the whole. Again, +the novelist may be commonplace, he may bend his best energies to the +photographic reproduction of the actual; if he show us a cross-section +of real life we are content; but the writer of Short-stories must have +originality and ingenuity. If to compression, originality, and ingenuity +he add also a touch of fantasy, so much the better. It may be said that +no one has ever succeeded as a writer of Short-stories who had not +ingenuity, originality, and compression, and that most of those who have +succeeded in this line had also the touch of fantasy. But there are not +a few successful novelists lacking not only in fantasy and compression, +but also in ingenuity and originality; they had other qualities, no +doubt, but these they had not. If an example must be given, the name of +Anthony Trollope will occur to all. Fantasy was a thing he abhorred, +compression he knew not, and originality and ingenuity can be conceded +to him only by a strong stretch of the ordinary meaning of the words. +Other qualities he had in plenty, but not these. And, not having them, +he was not a writer of Short-stories. Judging from his essay on +Hawthorne, one may even go so far as to say that Trollope did not know a +good Short-story when he saw it. + +I have written Short-story with a capital S and a hyphen because I +wished to emphasize the distinction between the Short-story and the +story which is merely short. The Short-story is a high and difficult +department of fiction. The story which is short can be written by +anybody who can write at all; and it may be good, bad, or indifferent, +but at its best it is wholly unlike the Short-story. In "An Editor's +Tales" Trollope has given us excellent specimens of the story which is +short; and the stories which make up this book are amusing enough and +clever enough, but they are wanting in the individuality and in the +completeness of the genuine Short-story. Like the brief tales to be +seen in the English monthly magazines and in the Sunday editions of +American newspapers into which they are copied, they are, for the most +part, either merely amplified anecdotes or else incidents which might +have been used in a Novel just as well as not. Now, the genuine +Short-story abhors the idea of the Novel. It can be conceived neither as +part of a Novel nor as elaborated and expanded so as to form a Novel. A +good Short-story is no more the synopsis of a Novel than it is an +episode from a Novel. A slight Novel, or a Novel cut down, is a +Novelette: it is not a Short-story. Mr. Howells's "Their Wedding +Journey" and Miss Howard's "One Summer" are Novelettes, although an +American editor, who had offered a prize for a list of the ten best +Short-stories, allowed them to be included. Mr. Anstey's "Vice Versa," +Mr. Besant's "Case of Mr. Lucraft," and Mr. Hugh Conway's "Called Back" +are Short-stories in conception, although they are without the +compression which the Short-story requires. In the acute and learned +essay on _vers de societe_ which Mr. Frederick Locker prefixed to his +admirable "Lyra Elegantiarum," he declared that the two characteristics +of the best _vers de societe_ were brevity and brilliancy, and that "The +Rape of the Lock" would be the type and model of the best _vers de +societe_--if it were not just a little too long. So it is with "The Case +of Mr. Lucraft," with "Vice Versa," with "Called Back:" they are just a +little too long. + +It is to be noted as a curious coincidence that there is no exact word +in English to designate either _vers de societe_ or the Short-story, and +yet in no language are there better _vers de societe_ or Short-stories +than in English. It may be remarked also that there is a certain +likeness between _vers de societe_ and Short-stories: for one thing, +both seem easy and are hard to write. And the typical qualifications of +each may apply with almost equal force to the other: _vers de societe_ +should reveal compression, ingenuity, and originality, and Short-stories +should have brevity and brilliancy. In no class of writing are neatness +of construction and polish of execution more needed than in the writing +of _vers de societe_ and of Short-stories. The writer of Short-stories +must have the sense of form, which Mr. Lathrop has called "the highest +and last attribute of a creative writer." The construction must be +logical, adequate, harmonious. Here is the weak spot in Mr. Bishop's +"One of the Thirty Pieces," the fundamental idea of which has +extraordinary strength perhaps not fully developed in the story. But +others of Mr. Bishop's stories--"The Battle of Bunkerloo," for +instance--are admirable in all ways, conception and execution having an +even excellence. Again, Mr. Hugh Conway's "Daughter of the Stars" is a +Short-story which fails from sheer deficiency of style: here is one of +the very finest Short-story ideas ever given to mortal man, but the +handling is at best barely sufficient. To do justice to the conception +would task the execution of a poet. We can merely wonder what the tale +would have been had it occurred to Hawthorne, to Poe, or to Theophile +Gautier. An idea logically developed by one possessing the sense of form +and the gift of style is what we look for in the Short-story. + +But, although the sense of form and the gift of style are essential to +the writing of a good Short-story, they are secondary to the idea, to +the conception, to the subject. Those who hold, with a certain American +novelist, that it is no matter what you have to say, but only how you +say it, need not attempt the Short-story; for the Short-story, far more +than the Novel even, demands a subject. The Short-story is nothing if +there is no story to tell. The Novel, so Mr. James told us not long ago, +"is, in its broadest definition, a personal impression of life." The +most powerful force in French fiction to-day is M. Emile Zola, chiefly +known in America and England, I fear me greatly, by the dirt which masks +and degrades the real beauty and firm strength not seldom concealed in +his novels; and M. Emile Zola declares that the novelist of the future +will not concern himself with the artistic evolution of a plot: he will +take _une histoire quelconque_, any kind of a story, and make it serve +his purpose,--which is to give elaborate pictures of life in all its +most minute details. The acceptance of these theories is a negation of +the Short-story. Important as are form and style, the substance of the +Short-story is of more importance yet. What you have to tell is of +greater interest than how you tell it. I once heard a clever American +novelist pour sarcastic praise upon another American novelist,--for +novelists, even American novelists, do not always dwell together in +unity. The subject of the eulogy is the chief of those who have come to +be known as the International Novelists, and he was praised because he +had invented and made possible a fifth plot. Hitherto, declared the +eulogist, only four terminations of a novel have been known to the most +enthusiastic and untiring student of fiction. First, they are married; +or, second, she marries some one else; or, thirdly, he marries some one +else; or, fourthly, and lastly, she dies. Now, continued the panegyrist, +a fifth termination has been shown to be practicable: they are not +married, she does not die, he does not die, and nothing happens at all. +As a Short-story need not be a love-story, it is of no consequence at +all whether they marry or die; but a Short-story in which nothing +happens at all is an absolute impossibility. + +Perhaps the difference between a Short-story and a Sketch can best be +indicated by saying that, while a Sketch may be still-life, in a +Short-story something always happens. A Sketch may be an outline of +character, or even a picture of a mood of mind, but in a Short-story +there must be something done, there must be an action. Yet the +distinction, like that between the Novel and the Romance, is no longer +of vital importance. In the preface to "The House of the Seven Gables," +Hawthorne sets forth the difference between the Novel and the Romance, +and claims for himself the privileges of the romancer. Mr. Henry James +fails to see this difference. The fact is, that the Short-story and the +Sketch, the Novel and the Romance, melt and merge one into the other, +and no man may mete the boundaries of each, though their extremes lie +far apart. With the more complete understanding of the principle of +development and evolution in literary art, as in physical nature, we see +the futility of a strict and rigid classification into precisely defined +genera and species. All that it is needful for us to remark now is that +the Short-story has limitless possibilities: it may be as realistic as +the most prosaic novel, or as fantastic as the most ethereal romance. + +As a touch of fantasy, however slight, is a most welcome ingredient in a +Short-story, and as the American takes more thought of things unseen +than the Englishman, we may have here an incomplete explanation of the +superiority of the American Short-story over the English. "John Bull has +suffered the idea of the Invisible to be very much fattened out of him," +says Mr. Lowell: "Jonathan is conscious still that he lives in the World +of the Unseen as well as of the Seen." It is not enough to catch a ghost +white-handed and to hale him into the full glare of the electric light. +A brutal misuse of the supernatural is perhaps the very lowest +degradation of the art of fiction. But "to mingle the marvellous rather +as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor than as any actual portion +of the substance," to quote from the preface to "The House of the Seven +Gables," this is, or should be, the aim of the writer of Short-stories +whenever his feet leave the firm ground of fact as he strays in the +unsubstantial realms of fantasy. In no one's writings is this better +exemplified than in Hawthorne's; not even in Poe's. There is a propriety +in Hawthorne's fantasy to which Poe could not attain. Hawthorne's +effects are moral where Poe's are merely physical. To Poe the situation +and its logical development and the effects to be got out of it are all +he thinks of. In Hawthorne the situation, however strange and weird, is +only the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual struggle. +Ethical consequences are always worrying Hawthorne's soul; but Poe did +not know that there were any ethics. + +There are literary evolutionists who, in their whim of seeing in every +original writer a copy of some predecessor, have declared that Hawthorne +is derived from Tieck, and Poe from Hoffmann, just as Dickens modelled +himself on Smollett and Thackeray followed in the footsteps of Fielding. +In all four cases the pupil surpassed the master,--if haply Tieck and +Hoffmann can be considered as even remotely the masters of Hawthorne and +Poe. When Coleridge was told that Klopstock was the German Milton, he +assented with the dry addendum, "A very German Milton." So is Hoffmann a +very German Poe, and Tieck a very German Hawthorne. Of a truth, both Poe +and Hawthorne are as American as any one can be. If the adjective +American has any meaning at all, it qualifies Poe and Hawthorne. They +were American to the core. They both revealed the curious sympathy with +Oriental moods of thought which is often an American characteristic, +Poe, with his cold logic and his mathematical analysis, and Hawthorne, +with his introspective conscience and his love of the subtile and the +invisible, are representative of phases of American character not to be +mistaken by any one who has given thought to the influence of +nationality. + +As to which of the two was the greater, discussion is idle, but that +Hawthorne was the finer genius few would deny. Poe, as cunning an +artificer of goldsmith's work and as adroit in its vending as was ever +M. Josse, declared that "Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, +creation, imagination, originality,--a trait which in the literature of +fiction is positively worth all the rest." But the moral basis of +Hawthorne's work, which had flowered in the crevices and crannies of +New-England Puritanism, Poe did not concern himself with. In Poe's hands +the story of "The Ambitious Guest" might have thrilled us with a more +powerful horror, but it would have lacked the ethical beauty which +Hawthorne gave it and which makes it significant beyond a mere feat of +verbal legerdemain. And the subtile simplicity of "The Great Stone Face" +is as far from Poe as the pathetic irony of "The Ambitious Guest." In +all his most daring fantasies Hawthorne is natural, and, though he may +project his vision far beyond the boundaries of fact, nowhere does he +violate the laws of nature. He had at all times a wholesome simplicity, +and he never showed any trace of the morbid taint which characterizes +nearly all Poe's work. Hawthorne, one may venture to say, had the broad +sanity of genius, while we should understand any one who might declare +that Poe had mental disease raised to the _n'th_. + +Although it may be doubted whether the fiery and tumultuous rush of a +volcano, which may be taken to typify Poe, is as powerful or as +impressive in the end as the calm and inevitable progression of a +glacier, to which, for the purposes of this comparison only, we may +liken Hawthorne, yet the effect and influence of Poe's work are +indisputable. One might hazard the assertion that in all Latin countries +he is the best known of American authors. Certainly no American writer +has been as widely accepted in France. Nothing better of its kind has +ever been done than "The Pit and the Pendulum," or than "The Fall of the +House of Usher," which Mr. Stoddard has compared recently with +Browning's "Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower came" for its power of +suggesting intellectual desolation. Nothing better of its kind has ever +been done than "The Gold-Bug," or than "The Purloined Letter," or than +"The Murders in the Rue Morgue." This last, indeed, is a story of +marvellous skill: it was the first of its kind, and to this day it +remains a model, not only unsurpassed, but unapproachable. It was the +first of detective-stories, and it has had thousands of imitations and +no rival. The originality, the ingenuity, the verisimilitude of this +tale and of its fellows are beyond all praise. Poe had a faculty which +one may call imaginative ratiocination to a decree beyond all other +writers of fiction. He did not at all times keep up to the high level, +in one style, of "The Fall of the House of Usher," and in another, of +"The Murders in the Hue Morgue;" and it was not to be expected that he +should, Only too often did he sink to the grade of the ordinary "Tale +from 'Blackwood,'" which he himself satirized in his usual savage vein +of humor. Yet even in his flimsiest and most tawdry tales we see the +truth of Mr. Lowell's assertion that Poe had "two of the prime qualities +of genius,--a faculty of vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful +fecundity of imagination." Mr. Lowell said also that Poe combined "in a +very remarkable manner two faculties which are seldom found united,--a +power of influencing the mind of the reader by the impalpable shadows of +mystery, and a minuteness of detail which does not leave a pin or a +button unnoticed. Both are, in truth, the natural results of the +predominating quality of his mind, to which we have before +alluded,--analysis." In Poe's hands, however, the enumeration of pins +and buttons, the exact imitation of the prosaic facts of humdrum life in +this workaday world, is not an end, but a means only, whereby he +constructs and intensifies the shadow of mystery which broods over the +things thus realistically portrayed. + +With the recollection that it is more than half a century since +Hawthorne and Poe wrote their best Short-stories, it is not a little +comic to see now and again in American newspapers a rash assertion that +"American literature has hitherto been deficient in good Short-stories," +or the reckless declaration that "the art of writing Short-stories has +not hitherto been cultivated in the United States." Nothing could be +more inexact than these statements. Almost as soon as America began to +have any literature at all it had good Short-stories. It is quite within +ten, or at the most twenty, years that the American novel has come to +the front and forced the acknowledgment of its equality with the English +novel and the French novel; but for fifty years the American +Short-story has had a supremacy which any competent critic could not but +acknowledge. Indeed, the present excellence of the American novel is due +in great measure to the Short-story; for nearly every one of the +American novelists whose works are now read by the whole +English-speaking race began as a writer of Short-stories. Although as a +form of fiction the Short-story is not inferior to the Novel, and +although it is not easier, all things considered, yet its brevity makes +its composition simpler for the 'prentice hand. Though the Short-stories +of the beginner may not be good, yet in the writing of Short-stories he +shall learn how to tell a story, he shall discover by experience the +elements of the art of fiction more readily and, above all, more quickly +than if he had begun on a long and exhausting novel. The physical strain +of writing a full-sized novel is far greater than the reader can well +imagine. To this strain the beginner in fiction may gradually accustom +himself by the composition of Short stories. + +Here, if the digression may be pardoned, occasion serves to say that if +our writers of plays had the same chance that our writers of novels +have, we might now have a school of American dramatists of which we +should be as proud as of our school of American novelists. In dramatic +composition, the equivalent of the Short-story is the one-act play, be +it drama or comedy or comedietta or farce. As the novelists have learned +their trade by the writing of Short-stories, so the dramatists might +learn their trade, far more difficult as it is and more complicated, by +the writing of one-act plays. But, while the magazines of the United +States are hungry for good Short-stories, and sift carefully all that +are sent to them, in the hope of happening on a treasure, the theatres +of the United States are closed to one-act plays, and the dramatist is +denied the opportunity of making a humble and tentative beginning. The +conditions of the theatre are such that there is little hope of a change +for the better in this respect,--more's the pity. The manager has a +tradition that a "broken bill," a programme containing more than one +play, is a confession of weakness, and he prefers, so far as possible, +to keep his weakness concealed. + +When we read the roll of American novelists, we see that nearly all of +them began as writers of Short-stories. Some of them, Mr. Bret Harte, +for instance, and Mr. Edward Everett Hale, never got any farther, or, at +least, if they wrote novels, their novels did not receive the full +artistic appreciation and popular approval bestowed on their +Short-stories. Even Mr. Cable's "Grandissimes" has not made his readers +forget his "Jean-ah Poquelin," nor has Mr. Aldrich's "Queen of Sheba," +charming as she was, driven from our memory his "Margery Daw," as +delightful and as captivating as that other non-existent heroine, Mr. +Austin Dobson's "Dorothy." Mrs. Burnett put forth one volume of +Short-stories and Miss Woolson two before they attempted the more +sustained flight of the full-fledged Novel. The same may be said of Miss +Jewett, of Mr. Craddock, and of Mr. Boyesen. Mr. Bishop and Mr. Lathrop +and Mr. Julian Hawthorne wrote Short-stories before they wrote novels. +Mr. Henry James has never gathered into a book from the back-numbers of +magazines the half of his earlier efforts. + +In these references to the American magazine I believe I have suggested +the real reason of the superiority of the American Short-stories over +the English. It is not only that the eye of patriotism may detect more +fantasy, more humor, a finer feeling for art, in these younger United +States, but there is a more emphatic and material reason for the +American proficiency. There is in the United States a demand for +Short-stories which does not exist in Great Britain, or at any rate not +in the same degree. The Short-story is of very great importance to the +American magazine. But in the British magazine the serial Novel is the +one thing of consequence, and all else is termed "padding." In England +the writer of three-volume Novels is the best paid of literary +laborers. So in England whoever has the gift of story-telling is +strongly tempted not to essay the difficult art of writing +Short-stories, for which he will receive only an inadequate reward; and +he is as strongly tempted to write a long story which may serve first as +a serial and afterward as a three-volume Novel. The result of this +temptation is seen in the fact that there is not a single English +novelist whose reputation has been materially assisted by the +Short-stories he has written. More than once in the United States a +single Short-story has made a man known, but in Great Britain such an +event is wellnigh impossible. The disastrous effect on narrative art of +the desire to distend every subject to the three-volume limit has been +dwelt on unceasingly by English critics. + +The three-volume system is peculiar to Great Britain: it does not obtain +either in France or the United States. As a consequence, the French and +American writer of fiction is left free to treat his subject at the +length it demands,--no more and no less. It is pleasant to note that +there are signs of the beginning of the break-up of the system even in +England; and the protests of the chief English critics against it are +loud and frequent. It is responsible in great measure for the invention +and perfection of the British machine for making English Novels, of +which Mr. Warner told us in his entertaining essay on fiction. We all +know the work of this machine, and we all recognize the trade-mark it +imprints in the corner. But Mr. Warner failed to tell us, what +nevertheless is a fact, that this British machine can be geared down so +as to turn out the English short story. Now, the English short story, as +the machine makes it and as we see it in most English magazines, is only +a little English Novel, or an incident or episode from an English Novel. +It is thus the exact artistic opposite of the American Short-story, of +which, as we have seen, the chief characteristics are originality, +ingenuity, compression, and, not infrequently, a touch of fantasy. It +is not, of course, that the good and genuine Short-story is not written +in England now and then,--for if I were to make any such assertion some +of the best work of Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, of Mr. Walter Besant, +and of Mr. Anstey would rise up to contradict me: it is merely that it +is an accidental growth, and not a staple of production. As a rule, in +England the artist in fiction does not care to hide his light under a +bushel, and he puts his best work where it will be seen of all +men,--that is to say, _not_ in a Short-story. So it happens that the +most of the brief tales in the English magazines are not true +Short-stories at all, and that they belong to a lower form of the art of +fiction, in the department with the amplified anecdote. It is the +three-volume Novel which has killed the Short-story in England. + +Certain of the remarks in the present paper the writer put forth first +anonymously some months ago in the columns of an English weekly review. +To his intense surprise, they were controverted in a leading American +weekly review. The critic began by assuming that the writer had said +that Americans preferred Short-stories to Novels. What had really been +said was that there was a steady demand for Short-stories in American +magazines, whereas in England the demand was rather for serial Novels. +"In the first place," said the critic, "Americans do not prefer +Short-stories, as is shown by the enormous number of British Novels +circulated among us; and in the second place, tales of the quiet, +domestic kind, which form the staple of periodicals like 'All the Year +Round' and 'Chambers's Journal,' have here thousands of readers where +native productions, however clever and original, have only hundreds, +since the former are reprinted by the country papers and in the Sunday +editions of city papers as rapidly and as regularly as they are produced +at home." Now, the answer to this is simply that these English Novels +and English stories are reprinted widely in the United States, not +because the American people prefer them to anything else, but because, +owing to the absence of international copyright, they cost nothing. That +the American people prefer to read American stories when they can get +them is shown by the enormous circulation of the periodicals which make +a specialty of American fiction. + +I find I have left myself little space to speak of the Short-story as it +exists in other literatures than those of Great Britain and the United +States, The conditions which have killed the Short-story in England do +not obtain elsewhere; and elsewhere there are not a few good writers of +Short-stories. Tourgeneff, Bjoernsen, Sacher-Masoch, Freytag, Lindau, are +the names which one recalls at once and without effort as masters in the +art and mystery of the Short-story. Tourgeneff's Short-stories, in +particular, it would be difficult to commend too warmly. But it is in +France that the Short-story flourishes most abundantly. In France the +conditions are not unlike those in the United States; and, although +there are few French magazines, there are many Parisian newspapers of a +wide hospitality to literature. The demand for the Short-story has +called forth an abundant supply. Among the writers of the last +generation who excelled in the _conte_--which is almost the exact French +equivalent for Short-story, as _nouvelle_ may be taken to indicate the +story which is merely short, the episode, the incident, the amplified +anecdote--were Alfred de Musset, Theophile Gautier, and Prosper Merimee. +The best work of Merimee has never been surpassed. As compression was +with him almost a mania, as, indeed, it was with his friend Tourgeneff, +he seemed born on purpose to write Short-stories. Tourgeneff carried his +desire for conciseness so far that he seems always to be experimenting +to see how much of his story he may leave out. One of the foremost among +the living writers of _contes_ is M. Edmond About, whose exquisite humor +is known to all readers of "The Man with the Broken Ear,"--a Short-story +in conception, though unduly extended in execution. Few of the charming +_contes_ of M. Alphonse Daudet, or of the earlier Short-stories of M. +Emile Zola, have been translated into English; and the poetic tales of +M. Francois Coppee are likewise neglected in this country. "The Abbe +Constantin" of M. Ludovic Halevy has been read by many, but the Gallic +satire of his more Parisian Short-stories has been neglected, perhaps +wisely, in spite of their broad humor and their sharp wit. In the +_contes_ of M. Guy de Maupassant there is a manly vigor, pushed at times +to excess; and in the very singular collection of stories which M. Jean +Richepin has called the "Morts Bizarres" we find a modern continuation +of the Poe tradition, always more potent in France than elsewhere. I +have given this list of French writers of Short-stories merely as +evidence that the art flourishes in France as well as in the United +States, and not at all with the view of recommending the fair readers of +this essaylet to send at once for the works of these French writers, +which are not always--indeed, one may say not often--in exact accordance +with the conventionalities of Anglo-Saxon propriety. The Short-story +should not be void or without form, but its form may be whatever the +author please. He has an absolute liberty of choice. It may be a +personal narrative, like Poe's "Descent into the Maelstrom" or Hale's +"My Double, and How he Undid me;" it may be impersonal, like Mr. F.B. +Perkins's "Devil-Puzzlers" or Colonel De Forest's "Brigade Commander;" +it may be a conundrum, like Mr. Stockton's insoluble query, "The Lady or +the Tiger?" it may be "A Bundle of Letters," like Mr. James's story, or +"A Letter and a Paragraph," like Mr. Bunner's; it may be a medley of +letters and telegrams and narrative, like Mr. Aldrich's "Margery Daw;" +it may be cast in any one of these forms, or in a combination of all of +them, or in a wholly new form, if haply such may yet be found by +diligent search. Whatever its form, it should have symmetry of design. +If it have also wit or humor, pathos or poetry, and especially a +distinct and unmistakable flavor of originality, so much the better. But +the chief requisites are compression, originality, ingenuity, and now +and again a touch of fantasy. Sometimes we may detect in a writer of +Short-stories a tendency toward the over-elaboration of ingenuity, +toward the exhibition of ingenuity for its own sake, as in a Chinese +puzzle. But mere cleverness is incompatible with greatness, and to +commend a writer as "very clever" is not to give him high praise. From +this fault of super-subtilty women are free for the most part. They are +more likely than men to rely on broad human emotion, and their tendency +in error is toward the morbid analysis of a high-strung moral situation. + +BRANDER MATTHEWS. + + * * * * * + + + + +GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. + + +The extraordinary honors paid to General Grant in England created a +profound impression all over Europe. No other American, and, indeed, few +Europeans, had ever received such honors abroad; and what made the case +still more impressive and exceptional was the fact that this great +distinction was paid to no potentate or prince of the blood, but to a +simple private citizen, holding no rank or official position. + +As soon as it was known that General Grant intended to travel on the +Continent, he was invited to visit Frankfort-on-the-Main. The invitation +was extended by the American residents of that city, and was accepted. +A joint meeting of Americans and Frankfort burghers was then held, and a +committee was appointed, half Germans and half Americans, to make +arrangements for the proposed reception and entertainment of General +Grant and his party. Mr. Henry Seligman, an American banker of +Frankfort, and the writer of this, were appointed by this committee to +intercept the distinguished tourist on his journey up the Rhine and +conduct him to the city. + +It was on a charming summer morning that we quitted Frankfort on this +mission. General Grant was at Bingen, where he had arrived the evening +before from Cologne. He was accompanied by Mrs. Grant, his son Jesse +Grant, and General Adam Badeau, then Consul-General at London. Their +arrival at Bingen had been so unostentatious that their presence in the +town was scarcely known outside of the hotel in which they had taken +rooms. Their departure was alike unnoticed. + +Our train drew up at Bingen just as a special _Schnellzug_ with the +Emperor of Germany on board swept by. Proceeding at once to the hotel, +we learned that General Grant had already left for Ruedesheim, but had +possibly not yet crossed the river. We hastened to the landing, and +there found him and his party seated under some linden-trees, waiting +for the ferry. I had a package of letters for the general which had come +to my care, and which, after mutual introductions, I delivered to him at +once. Tearing open and throwing away the envelopes, General Grant +hastily inspected the letters and passed them to General Badeau. By this +time the Ruedesheim steamer had arrived, and we all went on board. In a +moment more the boat pushed off and turned its course up the stately +river. The rippling waters sparkled in the sunshine, and all the +vine-clad hills were dressed in summer beauty. On the right, dropping +behind us, was Bingen, famous in legend and in song, and on the left, in +the foreground, appeared the curious spires and roofs of Ruedesheim. The +scene was an ideal tableau, such as Byron describes, of the + + Wide and winding Rhine, + Whose breast of waters broadly swells +Between the banks which bear the vine, + And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, +And fields which promise corn and wine, + And scattered cities crowning these, +Whose far white walls along them shine. + +From Ruedesheim to Wiesbaden the railway follows the Rhine as far as +Castel, at the mouth of the Main, opposite Mayence. A short distance +above Ruedesheim the Taunus bluffs sweep back from the river, and the +garden of the Rhine valley opens out right and left. This is the heart +of the wine-growing region, and within it lie many of the most +celebrated vineyards in the world. The valley is dotted with villages +whose names are famous in the Rhine-wine nomenclature, and upon a bold +promontory, commanding all, the queen of the German vintage rules from +the Johannisberg Schloss. + +While our train bowled along, and we were discussing these various +objects of interest, General Badeau discovered by accident among the +letters which General Grant had given him one which had not been opened. + +"The address is in the handwriting of General Sherman," said Badeau. + +"Yes," said General Grant, glancing at the superscription, "that is from +Sherman. Read it." + +Accordingly, General Badeau read the letter aloud, and the whole company +was deeply impressed with the cordiality of its friendly expressions. In +heartiest terms the letter felicitated General Grant upon the splendid +receptions which had been given him, and the merited appreciation +awarded him in the Old World. The letter was that of an admiring and +devoted friend rather than that of a military colleague. + +"General Sherman seems to have a strong personal regard for you, +general," remarked one of the party. + +"Yes," responded General Grant, "there has always been the best of +feeling between Sherman and myself, although attempts have not been +wanting to make it appear otherwise." + +"I have noticed such attempts," replied the person addressed, "but for +my part I have never needed any proof that they were wholly uncalled-for +and impertinent. + +"Possibly you have never heard, general," continued the speaker, "how +heartily General Sherman rejoiced over your conquest and capture of +Lee's army. He was particularly gratified that he had not been obliged +to make any movement that would have given a pretext for saying that +your success was due in part to him. To those about him he exclaimed, in +his energetic way,-- + +"'I knew Grant would do it, for I knew the man. And I'm glad that he +accomplished it without my help. Nobody can say now that I have divided +with him the credit of this success. He has deserved it all, he has +gained it all, and I'm glad that he will have it all.'" + +About noon the party arrived at Wiesbaden, where nobody seemed to expect +them except the people at the hotel where General Grant's courier had +engaged rooms. After dinner Mr. Seligman desired to tender a drive to +the general and Mrs. Grant, but they had disappeared. After a short +search, they were found sitting together alone in one of the arboreal +retreats of the Kurgarten. The general remarked that it was his custom +when he visited a city to explore it on foot, and that in this way he +had already made himself tolerably familiar, he thought, with the +general plan and situation of Wiesbaden. Mr. Seligman's invitation was +readily accepted, however, and half an hour later the party set out, in +a carriage, for the Russian Chapel. + +Wiesbaden is one of the most ancient watering-places on the Continent. +It was a Roman military station, and upon the Heidenberg--a neighboring +eminence--are seen the traces of a Roman fortress. The remains of Roman +baths and a temple have also been found there, and its waters are +mentioned by Pliny. At a later period the Carlovingian monarchs +established at Wiesbaden an imperial residence. The city lies under the +southern slope of the Taunus Mountains, the rocky recesses of which +conceal the mysteries of its thermal springs. The hilly country for +miles around abounds in charming pleasure-grounds, drives, and +promenades. The gilded palaces which were formerly used as fashionable +gambling-houses are now devoted to the social and musical recreation of +visitors who come to take the waters. + +The drive to the Russian Chapel ascends the Taunus Mountain by a winding +road, amidst stately, well-kept forests of beech and chestnut. The +chapel, whose gilded domes can be seen from afar, stands upon one of the +most salient mountain-spurs, and overlooks the country as far as Mayence +and the Odenwald. It was erected by the Duke of Nassau as a memorial to +his deceased first wife, who was a beautiful young Russian princess. +Upon her tomb, which adorns the interior, her life-size effigy reclines, +in pure white marble. + +General Grant lingered for some time at this place, and from the +promontory on which the chapel stands gazed with deep interest over the +far-reaching historic scenes of the Rhine valley. + +Next morning the general and his party arrived at Frankfort, where they +were met by the reception-committee. Accompanied by this committee, the +party visited the ancient Roemer, within whose venerable walls for many +centuries the German emperors were chosen; then the quaint and venerated +mansion in which Goethe was born; then the old cathedral, wherein a +score or more of German potentates were crowned; and then, in +succession, the poet Boerne's birthplace, the Judengasse, the original +home of the Rothschilds, the Ariadneum (named from Daennecker's marble +group of Ariadne and the lioness), the Art Museum, the Goethe and +Schiller monuments, and the beautiful sylvan resort for popular +recreation, known as "The Wald." General Grant visited also, by +invitation, some of the great wine-cellars of Frankfort, and was +conducted through the immense crypts of Henninger's brewery, which is +one of the largest establishments of the kind on the Continent. As he +was about to leave Henninger's, he was requested to write his name in +the visitors' register. The record was divided into spaces entitled, +respectively, "name," "residence," and "occupation." General Grant +promptly put down his name and place of residence, but when he came to +the "occupation" column he hesitated. "What shall I write here?" he +inquired: "loafer?" + +This remark was made in jest, and yet not without a certain sadness of +tone and manner. Undoubtedly, General Grant felt keenly the irksomeness +of having nothing particular to do. After the immense strain which had +been put upon him for twelve successive years, it was not easy for him +to reconcile himself, in the prime of his manhood and the full maturity +of his powers, to being a mere spectator of the affairs of men. Activity +had become a second nature to him, and idleness was simply intolerable. +With much leisure on his hands, he first sought rest and recreation, and +then occupation. However unfortunately his business undertakings +resulted, they were, after all, but the outcome of a natural and +laudable desire to be usefully employed. + +The banquet given to General Grant by the citizens and resident +Americans of Frankfort was a superb affair. It took place in the +Palmengarten, which is, above any other object, the pride of the +charming old "City of the Main." When the Duke of Nassau, an active +sympathizer with the beaten party in the Austro-Prussian war, lost his +dominions and quitted his chateau at Biebrich, the Frankforters availed +themselves of the opportunity to buy the famous collection of plants in +his winter-garden, comprising about thirty thousand rare and costly +specimens. The joint-stock company by which this purchase was made +received from the city a donation of twenty acres of land, and added +thereto, from its own funds, ten acres more. + +The company also obtained, partly by donation, five large palm-trees, +and from these the Palmengarten takes its name. For the conservation of +the botanical collection a mammoth structure was erected of glass and +iron, and for the entertainment of visitors a commodious and elegant +music- and dining-hall was added. The grounds were adorned with +fountains, lakes, parterres, and promenades, and were equipped with +every facility for family and popular recreation, not overlooking, by +any means, the amusement of the children. In all Europe there is not a +lovelier spot than this. To keep it in order, educated gardeners are +employed, regularly salaried; and in the arrangement of the plants such +combinations of color and form are produced as an artist might envy. +Twice daily a concert is given by a large, well-trained orchestra in the +music-hall, or, when the weather is propitious, in a pavilion in the +garden. The concert-hall looks through a glass partition directly into +the great conservatory, which, thus viewed, presents a scene of tropical +enchantment. The palm-trees occupy conspicuous positions amidst +skilfully-grouped dracaenas, ferns, azaleas, rhododendrons, passifloras, +and a myriad of other curious vegetable productions of the equatorial +world. The ground is carpeted with light-green moss, smooth and soft as +velvet, and, as an appropriate centre-piece to the whole, is seen the +silvery flash of a falling cataract. + +The banquet was held in the music-hall, where General Grant was given a +seat immediately fronting the scene just described. The conservatory and +hall were brilliantly illuminated, the tables were resplendent with +silver and floral decorations, and upon the walls of the banquet-chamber +the emblems of the great Republic and the great Empire were suggestively +displayed side by side. Ladies were admitted to the galleries, but +gentlemen only were seated at the tables, and among the guests were many +of the most prominent bankers and merchants of Germany, including +capitalists who had been the first in Europe to invest in the war-loans +offered by our government. + +The dinner lasted three hours. Between the courses various toasts were +drunk, a venerable burgher of Frankfort proposing the health of General +Grant, to which the general responded in a brief, sensible, and somewhat +humorous speech, which was exceedingly well received. Nothing could have +been more appropriate, modest, and fitting. + +Outside the building the scene was scarcely less animated or interesting +than within. By the aid of colored lights and other pyrotechnic +contrivances the garden was made brilliant and gay as an Arabian Nights +dream. The air was perfumed with the aroma of flowers and moistened by +the delirious play of fountains. Thousands of people, elegantly dressed, +were seated on the out-door terraces, enjoying the fireworks and music, +and in the promenades other thousands were moving, producing a +kaleidoscopic combination of motion and color. For some time after the +banquet General Grant sat upon the veranda of the music-hall, conversing +with friends and observing this novel scene. His presence excited no +rude curiosity or boisterous enthusiasm, but was none the less honored +by more subdued and decorous demonstrations of respect. + +The next day General Grant drove to Homburg, fifteen miles, and thence +four miles farther to Saalburg, the site of an ancient Roman +fortification on the Taunus Mountains. It was one of a series of +defensive stations covering the frontier of the Roman empire and +extending from the Rhine to the Danube. The exhumations at this +fortified camp, first attempted within a recent period, have disclosed +the most completely preserved Roman castramentation yet found in +Germany. The castellum is a rectangle, four hundred and sixty-five by +seven hundred and four feet, and is surrounded by two deep ditches and +by high parapets. Within this enclosure the praetorium, or residence of +the commandant, one hundred and thirty-two by one hundred and +fifty-three feet, has been distinctly traced by its stone foundations. +Stones marked with Roman characters yet remain in their places, +designating the camps of the different legions. This fort is mentioned +by Tacitus, and was one of the principal bulwarks of the Roman conquest +in Germany against the tribes which hovered along its northern frontier. + +The excavations were still in progress at the time of General Grant's +visit, and on that very occasion some interesting relics were unearthed. +Mrs. Grant was presented with a ring and some pieces of ancient pottery +which were removed in her presence from the places where they had lain +embedded in the earth for the last eighteen hundred years. + +Near the fort was discovered, a few years ago, the cemetery where the +ashes of the deceased Romans of the garrison were interred. Some of the +graves which had never before been disturbed were opened in General +Grant's presence, in order that he might see with his own eyes what they +contained and in what manner their contents were deposited. From each +grave a small urn was taken, containing the ashes of one cremated human +body, and upon the mouth of the urn was found, in each instance, a Roman +obolus, which had been deposited there to pay the ferriage of the soul +of the departed over the Stygian river. General Grant was presented with +some of these coins as mementos of his visit. + +Upon his return to Homburg the ensuing evening, the general was +banqueted by a party of Americans, and a splendid illumination of the +Kurgarten was given in his honor. The next day he returned to Frankfort, +and the next departed by rail for Heidelberg and Switzerland. + +ALFRED E. LEE. + + * * * * * + + + + +TURTLING ON THE OUTER REEF. + + +"What's that astern, Sandy?" The old darky, who had been gently soothed +into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow, +raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and +sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, "On deck der! man yo' wedder fo' +an' main, lee clew garnets an' buntlines, topsail halyards an' +down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in +a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have +been heard a mile away. + +The occasion of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, +when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high +and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing +with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us +along mysteriously crept away, as if awed by the strange apparition. The +laughing gulls that had hovered above the water rose high in air, +uttering piercing cries while standing out in vivid silvery brightness +against the wall of night. The sea assumed a bright metallic tint and +rose and fell in uneasy measure, while the booming of the breakers on +the distant reef, and the swash of the waves as our craft rolled to and +fro, were painfully distinct. + +"Cotch suthin'!" shouted Sandy, taking a round turn about the tiller +with the slack end of the dingy's painter. Delicate furrows for a moment +cut their way here and there over the glassy surface, and then with a +roar the black squall was upon us, keeling our craft almost upon her +beam-ends. The water seemed torn from its bed, flung by some unseen +power high into the air, and borne hissing and roaring away. It cut and +lashed our faces as we crouched flat upon the deck, clinging where we +could. The sea rose as if by magic, and, with the wind astern, was +driving us upon the reef which we had been encircling in search of a +harbor. After ten minutes of the wild race with the squall, which now +was as quickly lighting up, we heard the roar of the breakers near at +hand. + +"Put her up in de win', or we'se gone, sho'!" shrieked young Rastus, who +had crawled aft. + +"Gone where?" cried Sandy, his grim visage, dripping with water, now +visible braced against the tiller. + +Rastus's white eyeballs, standing out in terror, rolled ominously up and +then down in answer, leaving a doubt to be inferred. + +"How old is yo', son?" asked the old man fiercely, bracing hard as the +craft yawed heavily. + +"I ain't gwine to git any older, dat's sho'," replied the boy. + +"W'y, yo' poor coon," retorted Sandy. "ef yu'se ole as Jehos'phat, I'se +wu'ked disher reef fo' yu'se bo'n." + +So quickly had the squall passed that its power was now well over, and +the lighting up showed us to be only a few hundred yards from the mass +of breakers pounding upon the outer reef. + +"Yo' 'spec' to jump dat reef?" asked Rastus, fairly shaking with fear. + +"Start dat jib," thundered the old man. "Give her de bonnet an' de +ma'nsail up to dat fastest patch." + +The boys jumped to the halyards, and the boat sprang forward with +renewed speed, careening over until she was half under, and slightly +hauling on the wind. + +"Ef I kin keep her offen de reef twill hit lightens up, we'se all +right," whispered Sandy; and suddenly, looking after the retreating +cloud, out of which in the gloom now appeared the tops of the +mangrove-trees, he shouted exultantly, "Give her de jib," and, with a +lunge at the tiller, the vessel fell away and dashed onward at the wall +of rock and foam. + +"For de Lawd's sake, yo' ain't gwine to jump dat reef, is yo'?" cried +Rastus, in an agony of terror. + +But it was too late to question the old man's intentions: we were +already in the back swash of the breakers. "Cotch suthin!" he shouted +again, as our craft on the crest of a mighty roller shot onward to +seeming destruction. + +On either side the bare coral rock was visible, as the waves gathered +for another onward rush; yet we did not strike. A second roller raised +us high in air, and, hurled forward with the speed of the wind, we were +buried in the seething foam; but the next moment our craft shook off the +sea, and we glided away on the smooth waters of the inner reef. A few +minutes later the sun was out again, and one of the strangest phases of +life on the reef had come and gone. + +"I 'spec' dat was a narrer 'scape," said old Sandy, "but I tuk de only +chance. We was boun' to strike somewhere, an' de squall jes' got off in +time for me to take bearin's of disher five-foot channel; an', it's a +fac', I'se been fru a heap o' times, but dat was de wustest, sho' +'nuff." + +From Sandy's orders given at the approach of the squall, the reader +might possibly infer that the sable mariner was commander of a +ninety-gun frigate, while in point of fact he was only skipper of a very +disreputable fishing-smack. But he had been nearly all his life a "boy" +on a government vessel, and now, having retired, from either habit or +fancy he still kept up the man-of-war discipline, and when under more +than ordinary excitement roared out a flood of orders that savored of +both navy and merchant marine, uttering them with all the enjoyment of a +ranking officer on his own quarter-deck. They were, however, well +understood by Sandy's sons, who constituted the port and starboard +watches of the smack, and who were in constant awe of the old +man-of-war's-man, who did not hesitate to enforce his orders with any +missile that came handy. + +"Dis ship's on a war-footin', dat's sho'," he said, after one of these +characteristic scenes, and then, in a stage whisper, "so's de crew. +Dey's bofe cou'tin' de same gal in Key Wes'." + +The Bull Pup, for such was her name, kept up her war-footing as long as +we knew her, and the dignity invested in her hulk, which had a strong +predisposition toward bilge, was, to say the least, extraordinary. Never +was better craft for the purpose; and during a long cruise among the +small keys that form the extreme end of the Florida peninsula, she +always showed a dogged determination, as indicated by her name, to +surmount all difficulties. + +We had sailed down during the night from Marquesas across the Rebecca +shoals, and when caught by the squall were off Bush Key, one of the most +easterly of the group, which enjoys the distinction of possessing Dry +Tortugas,--why "dry" we know not. Our extraordinary entrance, almost +instantaneous, from rough to comparatively smooth water can only be +explained by a casual reference to the great reef. The group of +keys--Loggerhead, Bird, Long, Middle, East, North, Bush, Sand, and +Garden--are all within seven miles of each other, Garden, Bird, Bush, +and Long being in close proximity,--within swimming-distance, if the +swimmer be not nervous in regard to sharks. From these central keys a +great sandy shoal spreads away on all sides, cut up, however, by several +deep channels admitting vessels of the largest draught. To the east and +south the reef is two miles wide and rarely over four feet deep, covered +at intervals with great fields of branch corals, while here and there +clusters of enormous heads of astrea, porites, etc., have collected. The +edge of the reef is formed of dead coral rock, often beaten up by the +waves into a continuous wall several miles in extent, and a few steps +beyond this the water deepens quickly, until at the length of a vessel +from it no bottom is visible. + +The one opening in this barrier on the side of our approach, so +formidable in a gale, is the passage through which the skill of Sandy +had safely brought us, being, as its name explains, five feet deep and +not many more in width, and used only at odd times by the few pilots and +fishermen of the reef who know the secret of its approach. But how old +Sandy found it when completely covered by the waves, with only the tops +of certain trees to steer by, is one of the mysteries. + +Our object in visiting this desolate part of the country was to capture +turtles. Here is the ground of the green and loggerhead turtles, and, +according to Sandy, the hawksbill, from which the shell of commerce is +taken, is also occasionally found. + +The squall was now a fast-disappearing pillar in the west. The +anchor-chain ran merrily out, and we rounded to in the narrow harbor of +Garden Key. The boys manned the pump, while Sandy and the writer pulled +for the shore, and the dingy soon crunched into the white, sandy beach +of the coral island which during the war was the Botany Bay of America. +Surely Dry Tortugas has been maligned: instead of dry we find it very +wet, a key of sand thirteen acres in extent, hardly one foot above the +tide, and entirely occupied by probably the largest brick fort in the +world. + +Fort Jefferson was commenced long before the war, and is now a monument +of the ineffectual military methods of thirty years ago. The work is a +six-sided, two-tiered fort of majestic proportions, its faces pierced +with over five hundred guns. How many millions of dollars have been +expended in its erection it would be difficult to conjecture. The +question why so important a work was built here is often asked, and we +have heard the answer given that it was encouraged by the Key West +slave-owners, through their representatives, to give employment to their +slaves, who were engaged as laborers by the government. Garden Key, +however, is the key of the gulf, and, as a prospective coaling-station +in case of war, it was undoubtedly a spot to be held at all odds, and at +the outbreak of the war it formed a convenient spot for the confinement +of certain prisoners, as many as three thousand being kept there at one +time. Now the great fort figures as a picture of desolation and is +slowly falling to decay, deserted save by the memories of the great +conflict, a lighthouse-keeper, and a guard. + +Once within the great enclosure, the reason for its having been called +Garden Key becomes apparent. The neighboring islands are covered with +prickly pear, mangroves, and bay-cedars, while here clumps of cocoanuts +rear their graceful forms, their long rustling leaves, which convey to +the distant listener the cooling impression of falling rain, reaching +high over the top of the fort. On the west side grows a small grove of +bananas, while against the cottage walls luxuriant vines climb in wild +confusion. What was once the parade-ground is covered by a thick growth +of wiry grass, in which gopher- and crab-holes lay traps for the unwary. +In fact, far from being the forbidding spot it has been painted, Dry +Tortugas seemed to us a veritable garden in the path of the great Gulf +Stream. + +On the afternoon of our arrival the Bull Pup was got under way and +headed through a circuitous channel to East Key, off which we came to +anchor about dusk. Blankets and other articles indispensable for a night +on the beach were carried ashore, and camp formed on the edge of the +bay-cedars. East Key comprises about thirty acres of sand, thickly +covered with a low growth of bay-cedar, in which the rude nests of the +noddy are found, while here and there in the undergrowth are great +patches of cactus or prickly pear, affording lurking-places for +innumerable purple-backed crabs of ferocious mien. + +"Turklin'," said old Sandy, as we lay stretched on the sand, waiting for +the moon, "is right in de line o' hard wu'k, an' I 'spec's yo' chillun +is a-hankerin' after yo' mudder." + +The two children, both hard on thirty, indignantly denied that they had +anything but an extreme fondness for labor. + +"Wu'k!" said old Sandy, appealing to us and reaching for a piece of +driftwood to fling at his progeny in case of necessity; "w'y, de coons +of disher generation don' know de meanin' of de word, da's a fac'. How +is it dat yo' don' see no mo' bandy chillun roun' now? Kase dey mammies +don' hev to wu'k. Dey ain't got no call to put de chilluns down. W'y, +chile, I pick cotton 'fore I leave de bre's', da's a fac'. De niggers is +gittin' too sumpchus fo' dar place. Dey try to make outen dey got sense +like white folks. Yo' Rastus, yo'se deacon in de Key Wes' Fustest +Bethel, ain't yo'?" + +"'Deed I is," replied that person. + +"An' Piffney too, I reckon," continued Sandy. + +"Yas, sah," answered Piffney. + +"Wal," said the old man, turning to us again, "dere it is. Chuck full o' +'ligion, but w'en dey git in de tight hole like de five-foot dey ain't +got no faith. Old-time l'arnin' say 'tain't no use buckin' 'genst de +debble less yo' full o' faith. All de old-time coons knows dey's coons, +but dese yere free-born darkies got to be white or nuthin'. Yander," +nodding his head toward Key West, "a couple of dese yere black Conchs +drap in on me an' de ole woman, an' say, 'Uncle Sandy, we'se 'lected yo' +hon'ry member of de Anex Debatin' Soci'ty of de Young Men's Chrisshun +'Sociashun of de Fustest Bethel.' I reached fo' a chunk of scantlin', +and de ole woman stood by fo' to turn loose de coon, w'en dey hollered +out dey wasn't no 'spenses, no fees, no nuthin', only ten bits fo' +hevin' yo' name 'graved in de soci'ty's books. So I 'lowed I'd jine; an' +d'rectly dey sent me an inwite fo' de fustest meetin', an', fo' de Lawd, +mar's, w'at yo' s'pose hit was? Hit read kinder like disher," he +continued, with a groan: "'Reswolved, which is de butt end of a goat? +Fo' de affermation (de on side), Rastus Pinckey; fo' de neggertive (de +off side), Piffney Pinckey.' Yas, sah, I done pay ten bits fo' to hear +my chillun 'scuss w'at's done been settled in disher fam'ly 'fore dey's +bo'n and sence! All comes o' apin' white folks," said the old man, +threatening the debaters with the scantling. "Dey's boun' to git up a +'batin'-soci'ty an' talk all de evening w'en dere was Paublo Johnson +standin' up all de evenin' from stiffness he cotched from ole man +Geiger's goat, an', hit's a fac', he stan' an' 'scuss de question, +tryin' to make outen how de goat kicked him, all kase he's on de _on_ +side. But dat's de coon of it." + +"Whish!" whispered Rastus, who, with Piffney, had been trying to look +supernaturally solemn during this tirade. + +"Shoo!" repeated Sandy, leaning forward. + +The moon had just cleared the mangrove-tops, and illuminated the silvery +sands, casting reflections upon the water, where there was now a perfect +calm. Far away was heard the lonely cry of a laughing gull. The gentle +break of the waves upon the sands gave out a soft, musical sound, and, +as we held our breath, a sharp hiss was heard, seemingly but a few feet +away. + +"Turkle," hoarsely whispered Sandy; on which announcement we all +flattened upon the sand. So bright was the moon that every object was +distinctly visible for several hundred feet. A moment later the strange +hiss was repeated, and then a small, black object was seen glistening in +the moonlight a few feet from shore. Again came the penetrating hiss, +and the animal moved several feet farther in, as if cautiously looking +around. The moonbeams scintillated for a moment on its shell, as it +hesitated on the edge, and then the turtle commenced a clumsy scramble +up the beach, lifting itself along in a laborious manner. In ten minutes +it had reached the loose sand above tide-water, and kept its course +toward us until within thirty feet, when it began to excavate its nest. +The operation seemed to be performed mostly with the hind feet, and was +accomplished in a remarkably short time, considering the implements +used. + +All the party were breathing hard, and, as Sandy afterward remarked, +"The only reason de turkle didn't go was it t'ought we'se porpuses." + +The turtle was allowed to deposit its eggs, and when that operation was +supposed to be about over a concerted rush was made. As we rose from +the sand, the animal whirled clumsily around and made for the sea. It +was an enormous loggerhead, and, with its huge head and powerful +flippers, presented a decidedly aggressive appearance. The two boys were +first on the field, and, without waiting for the scantling which old +Sandy had grasped, seized the creature on the side, between the +flippers, and lifted it. But they had barely raised it from the sand +when the great fore flipper, being clear, struck the unfortunate Piffney +a sounding blow, knocking him against Rastus, who lost his hold, and +both went down in confusion. The turtle scrambled ahead, throwing sand +like a whirlwind. She seemed to have the faculty of lifting nearly a +quart and hurling it with unerring force, and old Sandy's mouth was soon +filled with it. Three of us again seized the animal and lifted, while +the old darky inserted the scantling as a lever. + +"Now, den, clap on yere!" he cried, dodging the sand and flippers. + +We lifted, and the monster was fairly on its side, when an ominous creak +was heard; the plank broke, and before a new hold could be taken the +turtle was but ten feet from the water. Active measures were evidently +necessary, and Sandy, taking the board, ran in front of the animal and +struck wildly at its head, yelling to us to lift. But the sand was soft, +and every lift was attended by a terrific beating to the man who stood +near the fore flipper. In vain we struck, lifted, and hauled: the turtle +was gaining slowly. Finally, in his war-dance about the animal's head, +Sandy stumbled, grasped wildly in the air, and went down backward into +the water with a sounding crash, the turtle fairly crawling over his +legs, and, despite the boys, who hung on to its hind flippers, it slid +into the water and disappeared behind a miniature tidal wave, leaving +the Pinckey family--father and sons--in a state of complete +demoralization. + +"I 'low dat turkle's bo'n free," gasped Sandy, picking himself up and +shaking the water from his clothes. + +"He ain't gwine to give up dat calapee yet, da's a fac'." + +The boys having repaired damages and unloaded the sand received during +the _melee_, and the moon being now well up, the tramp around the key +was commenced. The approved method is to walk along as near the water as +possible, and on finding a recent track to follow it up on the run, and +thus head off the turtle. For a mile or more we strolled along the +sands, the boys humming in low tones some old plantation melody, and +Sandy occasionally venting his wrath at some real or imaginary fault in +the young and rising generation. In the midst of one of these tirades, +the boys, who had kept ahead, suddenly darted up toward the bushes. We +were soon after them, following up a broad track distinctly marked on +the white, sandy beach, and came upon a fine green turtle, which +immediately started for the water, making rapid headway. The honor of +turning her was reserved for the writer, who, grasping the shell beneath +the flippers, essayed the task. Her struggles, the flying flippers, and +the giving sand verified Sandy's statement that "turklin' was wu'k," +and, after several ineffectual attempts, we were forced to cry for help. +The animal was soon upon her back, and proved to be one of the largest +size. "Old an' tuff," said Sandy; "but," he added, "hit'll be all the +same up No'th." + +The boys now proceeeded to cut slits in the flippers and lash them +together with rope-yarn, the animal being thus placed _hors de combat_. +The march was again taken up, and soon another track was found, but the +eggs had been laid and the game was gone. An attempt to find this nest +showed the cunning displayed by these clumsy creatures. Naturally, the +nest would be looked for at the end of the incoming track, but at this +spot the writer searched fruitlessly, while Sandy looked on in grim +satisfaction at his own superior knowledge. Finally he pointed out the +nest forty feet away, and the boys soon produced the soft, crispy eggs +as proof of his wisdom. + +"Ole turtle jes' as cunnin' as coon," said Sandy, as he nipped one of +the eggs and transferred its contents to his capacious mouth. And, +indeed, so it seemed. Instead of laying directly on reaching the soft +sand, the turtle had crawled down the beach and made several holes, +finally forming her real nest, smoothing it over so that it could never +be distinguished from the rest, and again crawling down the beach before +turning toward the water: thus the nest may be looked for anywhere +between the up and down tracks. + +Having piled the eggs in a convenient place for transportation in the +morning, the march was renewed, and before dawn four turtles were +turned, with little or no discomfort, all being green and much lighter +than the cumbersome loggerhead that first escaped us. + +In the morning the turtles were one by one placed in the dingy and taken +aboard the smack, when we set sail for Garden Key, arriving in the snug +harbor a few hours later. It is a curious fact that the long strip of +sand to the westward, called Loggerhead Key, is mostly frequented by the +turtle of that name, the green turtle rarely going ashore there, +preferring East, Sand, and Middle Keys. + +The eggs of the turtle are perfectly oval, with the exception of one or +two depressions that may occur at any part. They are hatched probably +not by the direct heat of the sun, but by the general temperature of the +sand. The instinct of the young is remarkable. We have placed young +loggerheads barely a day old in a closed room facing away from the +water, and they invariably turned in that direction. During their young +life they fall a prey to many predaceous fishes, such as sharks, also to +the larger gulls, and only a small percentage of the original brood +attains its majority. + +Besides turning turtles, which is of course confined strictly to a +certain season, the fishermen of the reef resort to another method, +called pegging. The instrument of capture is a three-sided peg, often +made by cutting off the end of a file. This is attached to a long line +and fitted into a copper cap on the end of a long pole, the whole +constituting an unbarbed spear. Thus armed, the turtler sculls over the +reef, striking the turtle either as it lies asleep on the bottom or as +it rises to breathe. The peg is hurled long distances with great skill +and accuracy: as soon as it strikes, the pole comes out, and the victim +is managed by the line, often towing the dingy for a considerable +distance. The peg holds by suction; and, as it only enters the hard +shell, and that only half an inch, the animal is not in the least +injured for transportation to the North. + +Key West is the head quarters of the Florida turtling-trade, and on the +north shore of the island, where a shoal reef stretches away, a number +of crawls have been from time immemorial used, being merely fences or +enclosures in which the animals are penned until the time for shipment. +By far the greater number find their way to New York, being packed and +crowded, often brutally, in the common fish-cars at the Fulton Market +dock in such numbers that many are unable to rise, and consequently +drown. The greatest injustice, however, to the long-suffering turtle +comes when the miserable animal is propped up before some restaurant +door, bearing upon its broad carapace the grim assertion, "To be served +this day." + +The green or loggerhead turtles are rarely seen north of Cape Florida. +The outer reef is their home, their range extending far to the south. +Old turtles, like fishes, often have strange companions. They are +covered with barnacles of various kinds; several remoras form their +body-guard, clinging here and there as if part and parcel of their huge +consort. Often small fish allied to the mackerel accompany them, as does +also the pilot-fish of the shark. One large loggerhead pegged by the +writer had its four flippers bitten off by the latter fishes so close to +the shell that it could barely move along, and would undoubtedly soon +have succumbed, although it is a common thing to find both green and +loggerhead turtles minus parts of their locomotive organs. + +The great leather turtle (_Sphurgis coriacea_), the largest of the +tribe, is rarely seen, being seemingly a denizen of the high seas, and +more commonly observed in colder waters; though Gosse is authority for +the statement that they form their nests on the island of Jamaica. The +following account is from the Jamaica "Morning Journal" of April 13, +1846: "The anxiety of the fishermen in this little village was aroused +on the 30th of last month by the track of a huge sea-monster, called a +trunk-turtle, which came on the sea-beach for the purpose of laying her +eggs. A search was made, when a hole in the sand was discovered, about +four feet deep and as wide as the mouth of a half-barrel, whence five or +six dozen white eggs were taken out; the eggs were of different sizes, +the largest the size of a duck's egg. On the morning of the 10th of this +month, at half-past five o'clock, she was discovered by Mr. Crow, on the +beach, near the spot where she first came up; he gave the alarm, when +all the neighbors assembled and got her turned on her back. She took +twelve men to haul her about two hundred yards. I went and measured her, +and found her dimensions as follows: from head to tail, six feet six +inches; from the outer part of her fore fin to the other end" (to the +tip of the other?), "nine feet two inches; the circumference round her +back and chest, seven feet nine inches; circumference of her neck, three +feet three inches; the widest part of her fore fins, eighteen inches; +her hind fins, two feet four inches in length. Her back is formed like a +round top of a trunk, with small white bumps in straight lines, +resembling the nails on a trunk; her color is variegated like the +rainbow" (probably the living skin displayed opaline reflections); +"there is no shell on her back, but a thick skin, like pump-leather." + +Some years since, a gigantic specimen came ashore at Lynn beach, where +for a long time it formed an object of the greatest curiosity. It was +over eight feet in length, and weighed nearly twenty-two hundred pounds. +Instead of definite scales, as in other turtles, it had a shell +composed of six plates, which formed longitudinal ridges extending from +the head to the tail; the eye-openings were up and down, instead of +lengthwise; the bill was hooked; and so many remarkable characteristics +did it possess that many believed it to be a strange nondescript, and +not a turtle. + +It would not be surprising to find that such a creature was descended +from a remarkable ancestry; and, following it up, we are led far into +the early history of the later geological times, when all life seems to +have attained its maximum growth; in fact, it was an era of giants. The +map-maker of to-day would be astonished if confronted with the +coast-line of that early time. The coast-country from Nova Scotia to +Yucatan was all under water, and what are now our plains and prairies +was a vast sea, that commenced where Texas now is and extended far to +the northwest. Even now the old coast-line can be traced. We follow it +along from Arkansas to near Fort Riley, on the Kansas River, then, +extending eastward, it traverses Minnesota, extending into the British +possessions to the head of Lake Superior, while its western shores are +lost under the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Such was this great +Cretaceous sea, in whose waters, with hundreds of other strange +creatures, lived the ancestor of our leather tortoise. The ancient sea, +however, disappeared; the land rose and surrounded it; the great forms +died and became buried in the sediment, and finally the water all +evaporated, leaving the bottom high and dry,--an ancient grave-yard, +that can be visited on horseback or by the cars. + +What is now known as the State of Kansas is one of the most favored +spots, and here, embedded in the earth, have been found the remains of +these huge forms. The bones were first seen projecting from a bluff, +and, gradually worked out, proved to be those of a gigantic turtle that +must have measured across its back from flipper to flipper fifteen feet, +while its entire length must have been twenty feet or more. The name of +this giant is the _Protostega gigas_, a fitting forefather for the great +leather turtle of to-day. In some parts of the West the hardened shells +of other and smaller turtles are scattered about in great confusion. +Nearly all have been turned to stone, and, thus preserved, form a +monument of this past time. + +A number of years ago some natives in Southern India were engaged in +making an excavation under the superintendence of an English officer, +when they discovered the remains of one of the largest fossil turtles +ever found. They had penetrated the soil for several feet, when their +implements struck against a hard substance which was at first supposed +to be solid rock, but a bar sank through it, showing it to be either +bone or wood. The earth being carefully removed, the remains of a +mound-shaped, adobe structure gradually appeared. The natives thought it +a house; but the Englishman saw that they had come upon the remains of +some gigantic creature of a past age. Every precaution was taken, and +finally the shell was fully exposed. The restoration shows it as +dome-shaped, nearly fourteen feet long, thirty-three feet in horizontal +circumference, and twenty feet in girth in a vertical direction. Its +length when alive must have been nearly thirty feet, and its feet were +as large as those of a rhinoceros. The capacity of the shell of this +ancient boatman was such that six or seven persons could have found +protection within it. Its name is _Colossochelys atlas_, a land-tortoise +of the Miocene time of geology. Its nearest representatives of to-day +are, if not so large, equally marvellous in their general appearance. +They are found in the Galapagos and Mascarene Islands, and some of them +are seven feet in length, with high domed and plated shells, presenting +the appearance of miniature houses moving along. A single shell would +form a perfect covering for a child. There are five distinct species +found here, each inhabiting a different island. Chatham Island, the home +of some, seems completely honeycombed with black truncated volcano +cones that spring up everywhere, while masses of lava cover the ground, +having been blown into weird and fantastic shapes when soft. + +In among the cones low underbrush and cacti grow, and feeding upon these +are found the great tortoises, which at the approach of danger draw in +their heads with a loud hiss or move slowly and clumsily away. Their +strength is enormous. A small one, three feet long, carried the writer +along a hard floor with perfect ease, and one of the largest would +probably not be inconvenienced by a weight of five hundred pounds. They +attain a great age, often living, it is said, a hundred years or more. + +While we have been digressing, the turtles have been dumped into the +great moat that surrounds the fort, and, stretched upon the deck, the +sable crew are fast asleep. The writer has been watching a large +three-master moving along two or three miles beyond Loggerhead Key. Our +attention is distracted for some time, and, upon looking again, we find +that she has not moved, and impart the fact to Sandy, who looks steadily +through his long spy-glass, evidently made up of several others; then, +gazing intently over the top, he brings all hands to their feet by the +cry of "Wrack!" For Sandy is a licensed "wracker." + +The man-of-war orders now uttered find no place in any known code, and +in a moment the Bull Pup becomes a scene of unwonted excitement. The +jib, mainsail, and gaff topsail are hauled up to their very tautest; +finally, the cable is slipped, and then old Sandy for the first time +looks around. The boys fail to suppress a loud guffaw, and forthwith +dodge the flying tiller. The old man in the excitement had forgotten an +important factor in the navigation of sailing-craft,--namely, wind. It +was a dead calm, and had been all day, and there, almost within reach, +was a fortune,--hard and fast on the outer reef. + +C.F. HOLDER. + + * * * * * + + + + +ROUGHING IT IN PALESTINE. + + +Mohammed can do less than Mammon to-day for the infidel's ease and +comfort in Palestine. The unholy little yellow god works his modern +miracles even in the Holy Land. You have but to speak the word, and show +your purse or letter of credit, in Beirut or Jaffa, and, as suddenly as +if you had rubbed Aladdin's lamp, a retinue will be at your door to do +your bidding. First a dragoman, with great baggy trousers of silk, a +little gold-embroidered jacket over a colored vest, a girdle whose most +ample folds form an arsenal of no mean proportions, and over the swarthy +face, reposing among the black, glossy curls of a well-poised head, the +red Turkish fez; or, if Ali has an ambition to be thought possessed of +much piety of the orthodox Islamic type, the fez gives way to a turban, +white, or green if he be a pilgrim from Mecca. Behind this important +personage, as much a feature of the East as the Sphinx or the Pyramids, +stand at a respectful distance, making profound salutations, a +cook,--probably a Greek or Italian,--three muleteers, and a donkey-boy. +Behind them still are two horses,--alas! not blooded Arabs madly +champing their bits,--one for yourself and the other for Ali. Three +mules bear patiently on their backs, always more or less raw, the canvas +and poles of the two tents. In the rear is a small donkey, covered all +over with culinary utensils, nibbling fat cactus-leaves with undisguised +satisfaction. For a daily expenditure scarcely greater than is necessary +to keep soul and body together at a fashionable New York hotel on the +American plan, you become the commander of this company, within certain +limits around which there are lines as definite and as impassable as if +drawn by an Irish servant of some years' experience in the United +States. You must not travel more than thirty miles a day; you must not +change the route agreed upon, unless roads become impassable; and there +are other, minor regulations, to which you are expected to submit, and, +if you do, your progress through the land, if not triumphant, will be at +least comfortable. You will find every day at noon, spread under some +wide-armed tree, a cold lunch that even a somewhat difficult taste would +consider fairly appetizing; and at nightfall you dismount before the +door of your tent and sit down to a dinner of many courses, which to a +stomach jounced for ten hours over a saddle seems a very fair dinner +indeed. Your breakfast is what a Frenchman would call a _dejeuner a la +fourchette_; and as you put down your napkin, your tent is folded almost +as quickly and as silently, and you mount your horse, standing ready for +another thirty miles. Yet, if you have just come from Egypt and three +months on a dahabeah, you will not hesitate to call this luxurious mode +of passing from Dan to Beersheba "roughing it in Palestine." + +But it was my good fortune, after journeying from Beirut to Jerusalem +with dragoman and muleteers and tents, like a prince, to go up through +the country like a private citizen. I fell in with a young man in the +Holy City, bora of American parents at Sidon, who had been educated in +America and was now on his way back to his birthplace to spend his life +in the sacred fields as a missionary. He was thoroughly equipped for +roughing it, with a splendid physique and perfect health, imperturbable +spirits, and a rare command of classic and vernacular Arabic. He wanted +to go to Beirut with as few _impedimenta_ as possible, and, after some +talk, we merged our two parties into one. Our preparations for the +journey were of the simplest sort. We agreed to dispense with dragomans +and cooks and tents and trust to the land for food and shelter. We +engaged three good horses and a muleteer. We strapped our baggage on +the muleteer's horse, drew lots for the choice of the other two, and +turned our faces northward. + +It was long before daybreak, one Monday morning, when we stole quietly +out of the Jaffa gate and took the road for Nablous. We were leaving +behind us the most sacred spot on earth to Jew, Catholic, Greek, and +Protestant; but from the road that stretches out before the Jaffa gate +all the holy places of Jerusalem are invisible. The round dome over the +Sepulchre was hidden behind the city's wall and the intervening houses. +The Dome of the Rock, as the beautiful mosque of Omar is called, the +most striking and brilliant object of the whole city from the Damascus +gate, is beneath the hill of Golgotha. Only the Valley of Hinnom, and +the Hill of Evil Counsel, and the slopes leading to Bethlehem, caught +our parting gaze. But an American Protestant turns his back upon the +Holy City with a very different feeling from that of the old Crusaders. +He cannot see the Turkish Mohammedan soldiers guarding the tomb of +Christ without a choking sensation in the throat, but he believes that +life has nobler battles for him than fighting the unbeliever for the +empty sepulchre of his Lord. The surroundings of all the sacred places +are so inharmonious that, while he can never regret his pilgrimage, he +can scarcely regret that it is over. We rose in our saddles, and, +turning, took our last look at the Holy City with very mingled emotions, +and then settled down to the hard day's work before us. + +We were on the great pilgrim-route, which twenty centuries ago was +annually crowded with pilgrims from the north hastening to Jerusalem for +the Passover feast. The Child of Nazareth, when, at the age of twelve, +he went for the first time to the Temple, must have pressed this road +with his sacred feet, must have looked with deep, inquiring eyes upon +these fields and hills. There was enough in the early hour and the +associations of the scenes through which we were passing to keep us for +a long time silent. My horse stumbled and brought us both back from +Dreamland. A look ahead showed us--for the sun was now above the +hills--that the worst piece of road in Palestine was just before us. It +is wholly unartificial: for years no human hand has touched it, except +as mine did when, on dismounting and undertaking to pick my way over the +rocks, I found myself on all-fours. In fact, this Oriental boulevard is +made up for some distance entirely of boulders, round and sharp, +triangular and square, which the spring freshets of the last five or six +decades were regretfully obliged to leave behind. After a short halt for +lunch, about two o'clock, the muleteer assured us, on starting again, we +had still five hours of steady pushing before us, and said something in +the same breath about robbers. Men of his class all through the East are +notorious cowards; but we had been told in Jerusalem that such dangers +were not altogether imaginary, and, almost as our guide spoke, we heard +shrieks, and for a moment we all thought the nefarious crew were at +their work just ahead. The muleteer dropped mysteriously to the rear, +and we rode on over a slight ascent, and there we saw a tall Samaritan +exerting himself in a way most unlike the good one of the parable. He +appeared to be a man of importance,--probably a sheik. His horse, tied +to a little tree, was a very handsome one, and gayly decked out with red +leather and ribbons. He had hold of the hind legs of a poor little goat, +and was intent on pulling the creature away from a smaller man, much +more poorly dressed, whose hands had a death-like grip of the horns. I +was for setting lance in rest and charging to the rescue; but my more +cautious friend put one or two questions to the sheik, who told, in a +somewhat jerky style,--perhaps the result of the strugglings of the goat +and the man at the other end of him,--as straightforward a story as was +possible under the circumstances. He was the proprietor of the hut the +owner of the goat lived in. He had come to collect his lawful rent, and +he knew the money was ready, but he couldn't get it, and so had seized +the only movable object of any value. The poor wretch, who still had +the goat by the horns, denied the story, but in such a way that we +feared he would only injure his conscience by other prevarications if we +encouraged him. So we rode on; and in less than half an hour the sheik +swept proudly by us, with no goat slung over his shoulders, but as he +passed he shot out a single word, that told, like Caesar's _vici_, the +whole story of his victory. + +The muleteer of Palestine will start on a journey at almost any hour of +the morning, but he has a superstitious dread of the darkness that falls +after sunset, and our Hassan was now too frightened to make any answer +to our questions except a short, tremulous half threat, half entreaty to +hurry. We were riding along the valley between Gerizim and Ebal. We had +left Joseph's tomb, and Jacob's well, where our Lord, wearied with his +journey, as we were with ours, sat and rested as he talked with a woman +who had come from the town toward which we were hurrying. The two +mountains, their sides covered with fig-trees and olives, loomed up +dimly out of the twilight on either side. We thought of the day when the +hosts of Israel were encamped here and the antiphonal choirs chanted +blessings from Gerizim and curses from Ebal in the ears of the vastest +congregation ever gathered on earth. There was no sound now of blessing +or cursing. The very stillness was oppressive. Hassan almost ceased to +breathe, and it was not till our horses' hoofs rang on the rough +pavement of Nablous--the ancient Shechem--that he relaxed his muscles +and gave a long sigh of relief. + +We rode at once to the Latin convent, where we felt sure of a cordial +reception and a comfortable bed. There was no light anywhere in the +gloomy building; but Hassan knocked at the great door, confidently at +first, and then angrily. At last came an Arab youth about nineteen, who +stuck one eye in the crack of the door, and asked our business. + +"Yes," he said, "you stay here all night, but go away early in the +morning." + +This was definite, if not hospitable; but we went in, and asked to see +the monks. + +"None here," said the Arab, with a chuckle: "all gone to Tiberias." We +ordered dinner, and, after half an hour, the Arab brought a saucer +holding two boiled eggs, put it on a chair, and said, "There's your +dinner." We were indignant, but it did no good: this boy was the head of +the house for the time, and neither promises nor threats were of any +avail to add anything, besides a little salt and pepper, to the dinner +he had prepared. We went to bed very hungry, but very tired, and in the +morning, before breakfast, hunted out the house of an English +missionary, who took pity on us and gave us to eat. But it is an unusual +thing for any one to leave Nablous without having an experience of some +sort more or less disagreeable to fasten the name of the place in his +recollection. When the brilliant author of "Eothen" sojourned for a day +or two in this "hot furnace of Mohammedanism," as he calls it, the whole +Greek population chose him as an involuntary deliverer of a young +Christian maiden who had been perverted by rich gifts to the faith of +Islam, or at least to a belief that a rich Mohammedan was to be +preferred as a husband to a poor Christian. They stare upon you now, as +they did then, as you walk through the streets and bazaars, "with fixed, +glassy look, which seemed to say, God is God, but how marvellous and +inscrutable are his ways, that thus he permits the white-faced dog of a +Christian to hunt through the paths of the faithful!" + +We went, of course, to the little Samaritan synagogue, to see the famous +copy of the Pentateuch, whose age no man knoweth. We rode up the steep +slopes of Gerizim to the ruins of the temple where the woman of Samaria +said her fathers had always worshipped, and then, in a pouring rain, we +started for Jenin. Hassan sunk his head down in a huge Oriental cloak, +undoubtedly manufactured in Birmingham or Manchester, and his horse, +left to himself, lost his way, for a Palestine road may at any time, +like a Western trail, turn into a squirrel's track and run up a tree. +When we found ourselves again we were all wet and not in the best of +humor, but in sight of the old city of Samaria on her high hills. + +The magnificent capital of Ahab and Jezebel, we saw at a glance, is now +only a ruined, dirty village, where a European could not hope for +shelter for a night. The hills sank into a heavy plain that seemed +interminable. The short twilight faded into untempered darkness. Hassan +was again in the rear. He would have fled incontinently at the first +sign of danger. Our only consolation was that his horse was tired and he +couldn't get very far away from us under any circumstances. I had a +letter to a Christian at Jenin that was thought to be good for supper +and lodging. We filed through the muddy streets to the door of the +Christian's house, sent in the letter by Hassan, and a man came out, +saluted us, told us to follow and he would take us to "a most +comfortable place." When we stopped, it was before the door of a little +mud hut. An old woman opened it, but, before letting us in, fixed the +price we were to pay. We entered a room that did service for the entire +wants of our hostess. It was very small, but it could not have been made +larger without knocking out the sidewalls of her house. The floor was of +dry mud, and there was nothing to sit upon except our saddles. We supped +from the bread and meat our good missionary friend had given us, and, +rolling ourselves in our blankets, we slept; but not long. The mud +beneath us was not that dull, inanimate, clog-like thing we trample +thoughtlessly under our feet along our country roads: it was that sort +of matter in which Tyndale thought he could discern "the form and +potency of life." They were both there, and in the still darkness they +made themselves felt. My friend, for some mysterious reason, was left +untouched, but the regiments that should have quartered on him joined +those that were banqueting on my too unsolid flesh. My sufferings were +but slightly mitigated by the remembrance that probably the progenitors +of these fierce feeders on human blood may have dined as sumptuously on +prophets and apostles, and that, intense as my anguish was, the chances +were against any fatal termination. I rose often and went to the door, +hoping for the morning, but it came not. Each time on returning to my +couch I found the number of my tormentors had been augmented: so I kept +still, like an Indian at the stake, and only refrained for my friend's +sake from singing a triumphant song as I found myself growing used to +the pain and at last able to sleep a troubled sort of sleep, such as +Damiens may have had on the rack. When I showed my arms in the morning +to Hassan, he lifted his eyes to heaven and muttered a prayer to Allah, +of which I thought I could divine the meaning. + +Our ride that day was across the great plain of Esdraelon. We were +charitable enough to believe that travellers who have raved over the +exquisite beauty of this valley, who tell of "the green meadow-land +flaming with masses of red anemones," of "myriads of nodding daisies," +and of "sheets of burning azure in the sun," did actually look upon all +these splendors in the early spring; but it was January now, and we +seemed to be pushing our way through a sea of dull, dead brown. The +ground was soft with the winter rains, and our horses' feet sank to the +fetlocks and gathered huge balls of the thick adhesive earth, deposited +every hundred yards or so to give place to others. We rode through the +dirty little village of Nain, where once a widow's son, carried out to +burial, heard the only voice that reaches the dead and rose from his +bier; but all solemn and tender thoughts were frightened away by the +crowd of maimed and blind and ragged and hungry men, women, and children +that came pouring out of the huts, crying, begging, demanding +_backsheesh_. "This," one of our American consuls said, "is the language +of Canaan now;" and it is one of the least melodious of earth. We +lunched on the dry grass in the sun in full sight of Tabor, on the +remnants of what the good missionary at Nablous had given us, and, +tightening our saddle-girths, we began the ascent of the mountain. We +clambered up the rude bridle-path, covered with loose stones, and +knocked timidly, with the remembrance of our Nablous experiences, at the +door of a large and very sightly monastery. Almost immediately a monk of +kindly face and soft black Italian eyes gave us a cordial greeting, and +the unexpectedness of it nearly enticed us into throwing our arms around +his neck and leaving an Oriental salutation upon his cheek. He led us +into a large, clean refectory, and then into two clean rooms. I might +use other epithets, but none other means so much in the East. After a +very satisfying supper, the good monk--he was so good to us, we tried to +think he was as clean within as the rooms of his monastery--took us out +to the pinnacle of the mountain and enjoyed our enthusiasm over the +magnificent view that was spread out before us. Almost the whole of +Palestine was within sight beneath us. We looked southward, across the +plain we had struggled over so laboriously, to the mountains behind +Jerusalem. We could see the depression where the Dead Sea lay in its +bowl, encircled by the hills of Moab. To the west we were looking upon +Carmel, at whose base the blue waves of the Mediterranean sigh, and +moan, and thunder. To the east, across the Jordan, from which the mists +of evening were already rising, we could distinguish the wild, deep +ravines of the land of the Bedawin; and in the north, grandest of all, +stood Hermon, his great white head touched with the crimson of the +setting sun, just plunging, like an old Moabite deity, into the +mountains of Lebanon beyond. By almost common consent it is agreed among +the Biblical scholars of our day that not here on Tabor where we stood, +but northward, there on one of the peaks of Hermon, was the place where +our Lord was transfigured; but the Christian imagination, like the +Christian consciousness, is not always submissive to fact, and we shall +continue, with the larger part of the Christian world, to think of Tabor +as the Mount of Transfiguration, while we speak of Hermon as the true +site. + +We had an easy ride the next morning to Nazareth, and a kindly reception +from the monks. The hospitality at all these convents is untrammelled by +pecuniary conditions; but all travellers who have purses and hearts and +consciences do, in fact, on their departure, present the Superior with a +sum about equal to the charges for the same length of time at an Eastern +hotel. I mention this in the interests of historic truth, and not with +any desire to throw a garish light of self-interest upon the cordiality +of these Latin "religious." We were in the heart of the little city +where He whom millions of human beings call their Saviour and God lived +for more than twenty years. Somewhere among these houses that fill the +valley and cling to the hill-side was Joseph's home. Not a house, of +course, is here now that was here then; all the sacred places they show +you--the Virgin's home, the place of the Annunciation, the workshop of +Joseph--must be unauthentic; but these hills are what they were. They +shut out the great world He had come to redeem, but not the heavens +above Him or the sinfulness and needs of the segment of humanity around +Him. When we rode toward Tiberias in the early morning there were a +dozen or more of the girls of Nazareth going out to Mary's spring, as +the fountain at the entrance of the town is called; but their garments +were ragged and uncleanly and their swarthy faces heavily tattooed, and, +while we were ready to accept the season of the year as an excuse for +any deficiency in the attractiveness of the landscape, we could not +admit it in extenuation of the uncomeliness of the maidens of Palestine. +Their beauty we believe to be almost entirely a fiction of the tourist's +imagination. + +On our way to the Sea of Galilee we passed through Cana, where they show +you still some of the water-pots in which "the conscious water blushed" +when it saw its Lord, and crossed the plain of Hattin, on one of whose +round, horn-like acclivities the Sermon on the Mount is said to have +been given. Here the Crusaders made their last stand against the +victorious army of Saladin; and when at nightfall their bugles sounded +the retreat, the Holy Land was given over to the unbeliever for +centuries:--who is prophet enough to say for how many? As we first saw +the lake that afternoon, with the sunlight on it, and the low Moabite +hills rising lonely and sad against the blue sky, and Hermon, cold and +regal, far away to the north, and yet standing out so prominently as to +be the most striking feature in the scene, we felt that Gennesaret had +been ruthlessly robbed of her rights by certain well-known critics who, +professing to be her best friends, have denied her all claim to beauty +except by association. Tiberias ranks with Jerusalem and Hebron and +Safed as one of the four holy cities of the Jews, but its houses are +filthy huts and its streets muddy lanes. Here we saw the Jew, +down-trodden, oppressed, wretched, but still proud, the unhappiest +creature, this Tiberian descendant of David, in all the Holy Land, with +his long yellow cloak, his hair hanging upon his shoulders in corkscrew +curls, and an expression on his wan, sallow face that would force tears +from your eyes if you did not know that his life is ordinarily as +contemptible as his condition is pitiable. We spent an hour or more in +one of the two boats that to-day make up the entire fishing-fleet of +Galilee, and then found hospitable shelter under the roof of the Latin +monastery, the last that was to open its doors to us in Palestine; and +when we rode away on Monday morning we made a vow in our hearts never to +speak ill of that part of the Romish Church which presides over the +convents of the Holy Land. As our muleteer confessed he was as ignorant +as any dog of a European Christian of the route we wished to take from +Tiberias to Banias and Deir Mimas, the monks advised us, to save time, +and perhaps our purses, perhaps our lives, by taking a Turkish soldier +as a combined guide and guard. We sent to the proper official, and two +savage-looking fellows came to the monastery. They swore by the beard of +Mohammed that our lives would be worth less than that of a Tiberian flea +if we went alone, or even with one soldier; they talked our few +remaining powers of resistance to death, and we took them at their own +price, less one-half, which was conceded to be very liberal on our part. +We felt we had a new lease of life, and spent the rest of the afternoon +in sweet unconcern and content; but late that evening word was sent that +one of the brave soldiers, in consideration of the great risk involved +in the enterprise, had concluded to raise his price, and of course his +companion, deeply as he regretted it, felt compelled to follow his +example. We at once sent back word that our poverty would not permit us +to accede to their most modest request, and threw ourselves on the +Superior of the convent to extricate us from our dilemma. A guard had +now become a necessity, for the poor muleteer was so badly frightened by +all the terrible things he had heard, that if we had promised him his +weight in gold to be delivered at Beirut he would not have stirred a +step unprotected. A request was sent to the commandant of the city, and +he was pleased to present us with a Kurdish cavalryman, who was to be +our slave for the next four days, if on our part we would agree to pay +him well and do as he said. We were now humble. We promised, and the +Kurd came riding to the gates of the convent the next morning at the +hour fixed for our departure. He was immensely long and lean. He looked +hungry all over. Even his musket, longer by some inches than himself, +had the appearance of existing on a very low diet of powder and ball. An +awful doubt of its efficacy crept into my heart, but we gave him the +matutinal greetings of the country, and our cavalcade followed at his +heels. + +We rode along the lake at a fairly rapid walk to the little mud village +of Magdala, the home, it is supposed, of Mary Magdalene. We stopped to +breathe our horses at Khan Minyeh, the site, some scholars assert, of +the once beautiful city of Capernaum, and then rode along a rocky road +to Tel Hun, at the end of the lake, chosen by the best judgment of the +day as the actual spot where the city, exalted by her pride to heaven, +rested lightly on the earth. We picked our way in and out among fluted +marble columns, the very ruins, some insist, of the synagogue which the +good centurion built for the city he loved. Here, then, may have been +the home of our Lord during those earliest days of his public ministry, +the happiest days of his earthly life, before baffled hate had begun to +weave its net around him. + +Our course now lay due north, away from the lake, across trackless +fields covered with round basaltic stones. The Kurd's horse was a better +one than ours, and it was all we could do to keep him in sight. The sun +was hot. What would it have been on those hills in midsummer? We threw +off our heavy coats, that had been more than comfortable in the early +morning along the lake, and pushed doggedly on. To our left, higher even +than the hill we climbed, was holy Safed, to which it is thought our +Lord may have pointed when he spoke of a city set upon a hill, that +cannot be hid; and straight before us, the object of our hopes and +efforts, was snow-clad Hermon, as beautiful, we thought, as an Alp. We +crossed the mountain at last, and, as our horses waded through a deep +brook on the other side, the Kurd bent slightly in his saddle, and, +reaching down, brought up great handfuls of water to stay his thirst, +without stopping for an instant. There was a sly twinkle of pleasure in +his eye when the muleteer told him we had admired his skill. + +Late in the afternoon we came to the marshy lakes, "the waters of +Merom," where Joshua smote the kings of the north, who made a final +stand here with their united armies, "like the sands of the sea in +number." We should have been glad to find one of their royal palaces in +tolerable repair, for we were tired and wanted to stop for the night, +but there were no ruined regal mansions in sight, not even a mud hut +such as had given us shelter and hunting at Jenin. The sun had gone +down, and our horses shivered in the night air. The prospect was gloomy, +and grew no brighter as we went on. At last we saw some long black tents +across the plain sheltered by the hills; and, while we were wondering +what the chances might be of escaping robbery by the Bedawin at this +late hour of the night, the Kurd turned his horse out of the bridle-path +and headed for the largest tent. The probabilities seemed now about +equal that the Kurd was in league with these wild, wandering tribes, and +that they would pluck us, and torture us, and bury us without the aid of +undertaker or parson, or, on the other hand, that they might welcome us +to the few comforts within their command. The sheik was standing, with a +half-dozen of his leading men, at the door of his tent, and, as we +dismounted, he came forward with much grace and dignity and embraced my +friend, kissing him on each cheek. He only waved his hand to me, as a +younger and less important personage, and led us into his tent. Cushions +were thrown down for us on the bare earth, and we were told to be +seated. A little fire was burning just in front of the tent, and around +that the privileged persons of the tribe squatted, only the chief and +some of his great warriors being under the tent with ourselves. They +were as curious as civilized people to know where we were going, and +why; and they concealed with difficulty their surprise and suspicion +when they were told that our only object was to see the country. No +Oriental, much less a Bedawin, ranks that among possible reasons for +passing from one place to another. After more conversation than we +thought necessary before supper, a dish of rice was brought in, and with +it two wooden spoons; but how these came to be in a sheik's tent we +thought it wise not to ask. They looked on while we ate, refusing all +our entreaties to join with us; but when we had finished, they thrust +their hands into the bowl, and, with a deft movement, made round balls +as large as a lemon, and shot these with great skill into their mouths. +While they ate, my friend asked if he might read them a story. They +consented eagerly; and, taking out his Arabic Testament, he read them +the parable of the Prodigal Son. A more appreciative company never +listened to it. At each crisis of the narrative the sheik looked around +and said, "_Fayib ketir_,"--"Very good,"--and then, as if devoutly +making the responses, they all said, "_Fayib ketir_" I thought I saw one +of them brush away a tear as the story was finished: perhaps he was a +father with a prodigal son, or something in his heart may have told him +that he was a prodigal himself. + +They all rose at a signal, and left us to our slumbers. We were to share +the tent with the sheik; and when we had laid ourselves down on the +cushions and covered ourselves with our overcoats, the sheik came +anxiously to my friend and asked "if we would not be very cold with +nothing over our heads." The Oriental lets his feet take care of +themselves if only his head is warm. The flap of the tent was not +lowered, and we could look from where we were lying on the Eastern hills +and the stars above them. It was long before I could sleep in such +surroundings. We were unprotected in the tent of a Bedawin sheik on the +waters of Merom, and all the past faded away: for the moment I did not +believe that there were such cities as New York and London and +Paris,--they were buried deep under the streets of Jerusalem and +Tiberias and Safed. I was no longer an American, but the son of this +sheik, destined to be the ruler of all the tribes that dwell in black +tents of hair-cloth. My friend lying at my side groaned in his sleep, +and the baseless fabric of my dream crumbled. I was myself again, and +felt a sharp blow from my own familiar conscience when I found myself +smiling with vengeful satisfaction at certain movements of my sleeping +friend that made it apparent he was being visited by certain inhabitants +of the night that find their way to Bedawin tents as well as peasants' +huts. He had been almost untouched when I suffered so at Jenin; and I +found my confidence increased in the law of compensation as I watched +his struggles, wholly unscathed myself. + +Our next day's work was the longest and hardest we had yet had. We were +to crowd two days into one. We were well on our way before it was fairly +light. We crossed the Jordan on a little stone bridge, and rode straight +over the plain to Banias, the Caesarea Philippi of apostolic times. We +left our horses in the little village near which the Jordan comes +pouring out of a rocky opening in the hills, and, with an Arab boy, +hurried at our best pace up the mountain to the magnificent ruins of a +mediaeval castle, the finest of its class in the Holy Land. Our Kurd and +muleteer were waiting for us as we came down the hill like veritable +mountain-goats, and the latter pointed triumphantly to something wrapped +in an Arab newspaper under his arm. As soon as we were out of sight of +the village he stopped and displayed his prize: it was a chicken, cooked +in some unknown but most savory way. It was long since we had eaten +anything of the sort, and, leaping to the ground, with the help of a +clasp-knife bought in Nablous, the only eating-utensil our party could +boast, we bisected our dinner, and, sitting under a gray old gnarled +olive, ate it with such expressions of satisfaction as would not be +honest, even if allowable, at the grandest civilized banquets. + +We sprang again into our saddles, crossed again the plain and the bridge +over the Jordan, and pushed over the hills toward Deir Mimas. Our horses +were used up even more completely than ourselves; and when the Kurd lost +the way, and took us a long and unnecessary _detour_, we felt it so +keenly that we said nothing. It was long after nightfall when we +dismounted at the door of a native Christian preacher's house at Deir +Mimas. But the struggles of the day were not ended. The Kurd stalked in, +and, saying that here his duties ended, demanded a sum at least a third +greater than that agreed upon. We fought him with everything but +weapons, and, when we separated, the Kurd's pockets were heavier and his +heart lighter than was consistent with the eternal fitness of things. We +had only to follow a well-made road the next day to Sidon; and there, as +we sat at a table spread with a clean, white cloth, on which were +plates, and knives and forks, and cups and saucers, and spoons, we +concluded that our roughing it in Palestine had at least convinced us +that civilized man makes himself want many convenient if not wholly +necessary things. + +CHARLES WOOD. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE EYE OF A NEEDLE. + + +"I don't know which way to turn to get the fall tailorin' done, now +Mirandy Daggett's been and had money left to her," said, in an aggrieved +tone, the buxom mistress of the Wei by poor-farm, as she briskly hung +festoons of pumpkins, garners of the yellowest of the summer sunshine, +along the beams of the great wood-shed chamber. "The widow Pingree, from +over Sharon way, she's so wasteful, I declare it makes my blood run cold +to see her cuttin' and slashin' into good cloth; and Emerline Johnson +she's so scantin', the menfolks all looks like scarecrows, with their +legs and arms a-stickin' out. _Mirandy's_ got faculty." + +"Seems if 'twa'n't no more'n yesterday that I was carryin' victuals to +keep that child from starvin', and now she's an heiress, and here I be. +Well, the Lord's ways ain't ourn." + +A little old woman, twisted all awry by a paralytic shock, who was +feebly assisting the poor-mistress, uttered these reflections in a +high-keyed, quavering voice. She was called old lady Peaseley, and a +halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the +poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister +of Welby. + +"I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed +minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked +and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard. If things was as +they used to be, I should jest sing out to her to come right up here; +but, bein' she's such an heiress, I s'pose I'd better go down and open +the front door." + +But before the brisk poor-mistress could reach the front door her +visitor had entered, the kitchen. + +"I've been kind of low-spirited, and, thinks I, if there is a place +where I could get chippered up it's down to the poor-house, where it's +always so lively and sociable; and if Mis' Bemis ain't a-goin' to send +for me I'll jest go over and find out the reason why." + +The speaker, who had seated herself in a rocking-chair, took off her +rough straw hat and fanned herself with it energetically, rocking +meanwhile. She was about midway in the thirties, plain and almost coarse +of feature, but with a suggestion of tenderness about her large mouth +that softened her whole face. She had, too, a vigor and freshness which +were attractive like the bloom of youth. + +"I was jest sayin' to old lady Peaseley that I didn't know how I was +a-goin' to get along without you; but I wouldn't 'a' thought of askin' +you to come, bein' you're so rich now." + +"Be I a-goin' to lay by and twiddle my thumbs and listen to folks +advisin' of me jest because I ain't obliged to work? I'm all beat out +now doin' nothin'. Since I've bought the old place--gran'ther's farm, +you know--I don't seem to be much better off. I can't go to farmin' it +this fall; and what can a lone woman do on a farm anyhow?" + +"Farmin' is kind of poor business for a woman; but I do hope, Mirandy, +you ain't a-goin' to marry that poor, pigeon-breasted, peddlin' cretur +that's hangin' round here." + +Miranda flushed to the roots of her thick black hair. + +"It looks better to see a man round on a farm, if he can't do anything +but set on the choppin'-block and whistle," she said, intently surveying +her hat-crown. + +"If you want to get married, Mirandy, it seems if you ought to have a +stiddy, likely man." + +"I don't want to get married. I ain't never thought of such a thing +since--well, you know all about it, Mis' Bemis, so I may as well say +right out--since Ephrum took up with M'lissy Whitin'." + +"Ephrum Spencer was a mean scamp to serve you so," said Mrs. Bemis +hotly. + +"Now, Mis' Bemus, don't you say anything against Ephrum. You and me has +always been friends, but I can't stand that, anyhow. Ephrum would have +kept his promise to me fair and square, but I saw plain enough that he +had given his heart to her. She was red-and-white-complected, and her +hair curled natural, and she'd never done anything but keep school, and +her hands was jest as soft and white, and a man's feelin's ain't like a +woman's, anyhow: if Ephrum had been hump-backed, or all scarred up +so's't he'd scare folks, like old Mr. Prouty, it wouldn't 'a' made any +difference to me, so long as he was Ephrum. The Lord made men different, +and I s'pose it's all right; but sometimes it seems kind of hard." The +large, firm mouth quivered like a child's. + +"She was a reg'lar little spitfire, Melissy Whitin' was: there wa'n't +nothin' _to_ her but temper. I'll warrant Ephrum Spencer has got his +come-uppance before this time," said the poor-mistress, with +satisfaction. "Well, I think it's real providential that you don't want +to get married, Mirandy, for as like as not you'd get somebody that +would spend all your money. I told'em I didn't believe you was goin' to +take up with that poor stick of a book-agent." + +"Oh, Mis' Bemis, I s'pose I be goin' to have him!" said Miranda +dejectedly. "He thinks he's consumpted, and I thought I could doctor him +up, and 'twould be a use for the money. And he was a minister once, +though it was some queer kind of a denomination that I never heard of, +and that seemed kind of edifyin'; and his arm was cut off away off in +Philadelphy ten years ago, and yet he can feel it a-twingein'. And he's +kind of slim and retirin', and not so unhandy to have round as some men +would be. And, anyhow, I've give him my promise." + +"Mirandy, I didn't think you was so foolish as that,--and him an +imposertor as like as not." + +"Everything that I've tried to do since Uncle Phineas left me that money +folks have called me foolish or crazy, and I always was reckoned +sensible before, if I was homely. Abijah's folks warn me against lettin' +John's folks have it, and John's folks against Abijah's, and they say +that banks burst up and railroad stocks are risky, and I'll end by bein' +on the town. I never heard anything about my bein' in danger of comin' +on to the town before. I put my savin's in an old stockin' between my +beds, and wa'n't beholden to anybody for advice nor anything. I tell +you, Mis' Bemis, there ain't a mite of comfort in riches to them that's +got nobody but themselves to do for. Now, I've been wantin' a good black +silk for a long spell, and I've been layin' by a little here and a +little there, and 'lottin' on gettin' it before long, and I've enjoyed +thinkin' about it jest as much as if I had it; and now that comfort is +all took away. I can go and buy one right out, and I don't want it. And +only see what trouble I've got into about marryin'. I can't eat my +victuals, and I don't enjoy my meet'n' privileges, and I don't even care +much about knowin' what's goin' on. The Bible says rich folks have got +to go through the eye of a needle before they can get into the kingdom +of heaven, and it seems jest as if that was what I was a-doin'." + +"I don't think that's jest the way it reads, Mirandy; but if it's a +consolin' idee to you--" + +"I hain't any too much consolation, and that's a fact. But it does seem +real good to be here; and if you'll jest send one of the boys after my +things I'll stay. I locked up and left my bag on the back door-step." + +The poor-mistress confided to old lady Peaseley that "there wasn't as +much satisfaction in havin' Mirandy as if she hadn't got proputty, even +if she didn't seem to feel it none: she couldn't help feelin' as if the +minister 'n' his wife had come to tea;" and she opened the best room, +with all its glories of hair-cloth furniture, preserved funeral wreaths, +and shell Bunker Hill Monument, and had the spare chamber swept and +garnished. The poor-house was certainly a good place in which to get +"chippered up." There were few happier households in the county; there +was not one where jollity reigned as it did there. + +From Captain Hezekiah Butterfield, generally known as Cap'n 'Kiah, an +octogenarian who was regarded as an oracle, down to Tready Morgan, a +half-witted orphan, the inmates of the poor-house had an enjoyment of +living astonishing to behold. It had been hinted at town-meeting that +the keeper of the poor-farm was a "leetle mite too generous and +easy-going," especially as he insisted upon furnishing the paupers with +"store" tea and coffee, whereas his predecessor, Hiram Judkins, had made +them drink bayberry tea, a refreshment which old Mrs. Gerald, a pauper +whose wits were wandering, and who was familiarly known as "Marm Bony," +because she cherished a conviction that she was the empress Josephine, +declared was "no more consolin' than meadow hay." + +Seth Bemis and his wife made the farm pay: so the town voted to wink at +the store-tea. And they suited the paupers,--which was even more +difficult than to suit the town officers. + +Miranda's arrival had created quite an excitement among the inmates of +the poor-house. They had all heard that she had fallen heir to almost +ten thousand dollars, and there was curiosity to see how she would +comport herself under this great accession of fortune. + +Miranda stoutly resisted the charms of the best room, and sat down with +the paupers in the great kitchen after supper. For the spare chamber she +showed some weakness, for the little back chamber which she usually +occupied during her visits to the poor-farm was next to Oly Cowden's +room, and Oly had a way of rapping on her wall in the dead of the night +for somebody to bring her a roasted onion to avert a peculiarly bad +dream to which she was subject; and the next room on the other side was +occupied by Jo Briscoe, who had a habit of playing on his violin at most +unseemly hours, and, as poor Jo had come through a terrible shipwreck, +in which he had lost, by freezing, both his feet and several of his +fingers, which latter loss made it wonderful that he could play at all, +nobody had the heart to interfere with the consolation which "Fisher's +Hornpipe" and "The Girl I left behind me" afforded him at three o'clock +in the morning,--nobody, that is, except "Marm Bony," whose room was on +the other side of the corridor, and who took Jo's performances as a +serenade, and gently insinuated to him that, as Napoleon was still +living, she might be compromised by such tributes to her charms. +Although she was anxious not to accept any privileges on account of her +wealth, Miranda thought she would occupy the spare chamber. + +The paupers were all disposed to keep holiday in Miranda's honor. Old +Cap'n 'Kiah had donned a collar so high that it sawed agonizingly upon +his ears, little Dr. Pingree, a peddler of roots and herbs, who was +occasionally obliged to seek winter quarters at the poor-house, wore a +black satin vest brocaded with huge blue roses, which had appeared at +his wedding forty years before, and "Marm Bony" had adorned herself with +a skimpy green satin skirt and three peacock-feathers standing upright +in her little knob of back hair. And Jo Briscoe was tuning his violin, +evidently in preparation for an unusual effort. + +A vague idea that Miranda had arrived at great honor had penetrated poor +"Marm Bony's" bewildered brain, and a fancy suddenly seized her that +Miranda was the unscrupulous Marie Louise who had supplanted her as +Napoleon's wife, and she hobbled out of the room in great agitation and +wrath, her peacock-feathers waving wildly in the air. She returned in a +few minutes, however, and whispered to Miranda that, "as Napoleon wa'n't +jest what he'd ought to be anyway, mebbe they'd better make up." To +which proposition Miranda assented gravely, holding the wrinkled, +trembling old hand tenderly in hers. + +Cap'n 'Kiah felt it incumbent upon him to lead the conversation, being +modestly conscious of his social gifts. + +He had been a ship-owner, and very well-to-do, until in his old age he +was robbed of all his property by a younger brother whom he had brought +up and cared for as a son. But the old man had brought to this low level +of society to which he had sunk a cheerful philosophy and a grim humor +for which many a successful man might well have given all his +possessions. + +"Rich and poor, there's a sight of human nater about us all, though +there ain't no use denyin' that some has more than others," remarked +Cap'n 'Kiah sententiously. "And whether riches or poverty brings it out +the strongest it's hard tellin'." + +"I've always thought I might never have found out that I had medicle +tarlunt if I'd been rich," said Dr. Pingree meditatively. The little man +had "taken up doctorin' out of his own head," as he expressed it, after +finding that shoemaking and tin-peddling did not satisfy his ambition, +and was the inventor and sole proprietor of an infallible medicine, +known as the "Universal Pain-Exterminator." The jokers dubbed it +"Health-Exterminator," but almost all Welby took it,--they must take +something in the spring,--and the little doctor, who had a soul far +above thoughts of sordid gain, never expected to be paid for it, which +made it very popular. It couldn't kill one, being made of simplest roots +and herbs; and if one should be cured, how very pleasant it would be to +think that it was without cost! + +"Sure enough, doctor, mebbe you never would," said the captain. "And I +suppose the innercent satisfaction you've got a-makin' them medicines is +as great as you could 'a' got out of riches, and without the worry and +care of riches, too." + +"Not to mention the good done to my fellow-creturs," said the little +doctor. + +"Jest as you say, the good done to your fellow-creturs not bein' worth +mentionin'" said Cap'n 'Kiah, with a grave simplicity that disarmed +suspicion. "There ain't no denyin' that poverty is strength'nin' to the +faculties." + +"Don't give me nothin' more strength'nin than riches in mine," said +Uncle Peter Henchman, who boasted great wisdom and experience, based +mysteriously on the possession of a wooden leg. "I've been in this world +up'ards of seventy years, forty-five of it a-walkin' on a wooden leg, +and I hain't never seen that poverty was anything but a curse." + +"You've got a terrible mistaken p'int of view, Peter, well-meanin' as +you be," said Cap'n 'Kiah, "There's nothin' in nater, and, I was a-goin' +to say, in grace, but what you clap your eyes fust onto the contr'y +side, and then you're sure there ain't nothin' _but_ a contr'y side." + +"I wish I could see something besides the contr'y side of riches; but I +hain't yet," said Miranda, with a heavy sigh. + +Little Dr. Pingree cast a sidelong look at her, and then adjusted his +cravat and considered the effect of the blue roses on his vest. Was a +vision flitting before his eyes of the wagon drawn by gayly-caparisoned +steeds and bearing in gilt letters on a red ground the legend, "Dr. +Pingree's Pain-Exterminator, Humanity's Friend,"--of his own face, +beautified by art, adorning fences and walls above this proud +inscription, "The Renowned Inventor of the Universal Pain-Exterminator"? +This fame, the dream of a lifetime, might now be purchased by money. And +he had always admired Miranda. + +Miranda caught his glance, and, with the suspicion which wealth had +already engendered, divined his thought. Was there going to be another +aspirant for her hand? + +"The wind's a-blowin up; and what a roarin' the sea does make!" she said +hurriedly, to cover her embarrassment. "The only thing I don't like +about this house is its bein' so near the sea. It's rainin' hard; and +I'm glad of it," she added, in an undertone, to Mrs. Bemis,--"for _he_ +won't be so likely to get round here to-night. Courtin' is real tryin'." + +"The ocean is a dretful disconserlate-soundin' cretur," remarked Uncle +Peter lugubriously; "and when you think of the drownded folks she's got +a-rollin' round in her, 'tain't no wonder." + +"The ocean's a useful work o' nater, and she's fetched and carried and +aimed a livin' for a good many more'n she's swallered up," said Cap'n +'Kiah. + +"I expect this world ain't a vale of tears, nohow," said Uncle Peter in +an aggrieved tone. "There is folks that knows more'n the hymn-book." + +"Well, it is, and then ag'in it ain't, jest accordin' to the way you +look at it. There's a sight more the matter with folks's p'int o' view +than there is with the Lord A'mighty's world.--Now, Jo, if you've got +that cretur o' yourn into ship-shape,--it always doos seem to me jest +like a human cretur that's got the right p'int o' view, that fiddle +doos,--jest give it to us lively." + +Jo tuned up, with modest satisfaction, and two or three couples stood up +to dance. Little Dr. Pingree was about to solicit Miranda's hand for the +dance, when there came a knock at the door. + +Miranda stuck her knitting-needle through her back-hair in an agitated +and expectant manner. But it was not the lank figure of the +book-peddler, her betrothed, that darkened the door. It was a forlorn +woman, dripping with rain, with two small boys clinging to her skirts. + +"I suppose poor folks have a right to come in here out of the rain," she +said, advancing to the fire and seating herself with a sullen and +dejected aspect. + +Little Dr. Pingree, who felt the arrival to be very inopportune, +nevertheless gallantly hastened to replenish the fire. + +The poor-mistress hospitably offered to remove the visitor's wet +wrappings, but she shook her head. + +"I want to find the relatives of Ephrum Spencer," she said. + +"You'll have to go a good ways," said Cap'n 'Kiah. + +"The graveyard is chock full of 'em," said Uncle Peter. + +"They've kind of died out," explained Cap'n 'Kiah. "They seemed to be +the kind that dies out easy and nateral." + +"His uncle Hiram isn't dead, is he?" asked the woman, with the strain of +anxiety in her voice. + +"He died about a year ago." + +"What's become of his money?" asked the stranger sharply. + +"Well, there wa'n't so much as folks thought," said Cap'n 'Kiah. "He +frittered away a good deal on new-fangled merchines and such things that +wa'n't of any account,--had a reg'lar mania for 'em for a year or so +before he died; and then he give some money to his housekeeper and the +man that worked for him, and what was left he give to the town for a new +town-hall; but, along of quarrellin' about where 'twas to set and what +'twas to be built of, and gittin' legal advice to settle the p'ints, I +declare if 'tain't 'most squandered! But, la! if there wa'n't such +quarrellin' amongst folks, what would become of the lawyers? They'd all +be here, a-settin' us by the ears, I expect." + +"And there isn't a cent for his own nephew's starving children?" said +the woman bitterly. + +"Ephrum's? Oh, la, no! The old man never set by Ephrum, you know: them +two was always contr'y-minded. You don't say, now, that you're Ephrum's +wife?" Cap'n 'Kiah surveyed her with frank curiosity. + +"I'm Ephrum's widow." + +"You don't say so, now! Well, there's wuss ockerpations than bein' a +widow," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah consolingly. + +Miranda had drawn the younger boy to her side. She was chafing his numb +hands and smoothing the damp locks from his forehead. + +"Why, how cold your hands have grown!" the child cried. "They're colder +than mine. And how funny and white you look!" + +Miranda had felt, from the moment when she first saw the forlorn little +group, that Ephraim was dead, and yet the sure knowledge came as a +shock. But this child was looking at her with Ephraim's eyes: they +warmed her heart. + +"_She_ knew me, if none of the rest of you did," said the widow, +indicating Miranda by a nod of her head. "And I knew her, too, just as +soon as I set eyes on her.--Well, you needn't hold any grudge against +me, Miranda Daggett. I calculate you got the best of the bargain. Ephrum +hadn't any faculty to get along. I've struggled and slaved till I'm all +worn out; and now I haven't a roof to cover me nor my children, nor a +mouthful to eat." + +Miranda sprang up, her arms around both the boys. + +"_I have!_ I have plenty for you all. And I've been a-wonderin' why it +should have come to me, that didn't need it; but now I know. You come +right home with me.--Mis' Bemis, you'll let Tready harness up?" + +There were some objections made on account of the rain, but Miranda +overruled them all. + +She drew Mrs. Bemis aside and confided to her that she didn't want +Ephrum's boys to stay even one night in the poor-house, because "it +might stick to 'em afterwards." And she shouldn't really feel that they +were going to belong to her until she had them in her own house. + +So, through the driving rain, in the open wagon which was the most +luxurious equipage that the poor-farm boasted, Miranda was driven home +with her _proteges_; while Mrs. Bemis gave way to renewed anxiety about +the fall tailorin' and Dr. Pingree heaved a sigh over his vanished +dreams,--a very gentle one, he was so used to seeing dreams vanish; and +there was consolation in having such an event to talk over. + +Miranda's home was a rambling old house, and it seemed deserted and +ghostly when they entered it; but Miranda kindled a fire In the kitchen +stove and another in the great fireplace in the sitting-room, and the +boys, warmed and fed and comforted, grew hilarious, and the ghosts were +all dispersed, and it seemed to Miranda for the first time like home. + +When she had seen all three cosily tucked into their beds, she went +downstairs to rake over the fire and see that all was safe for the +night. She found herself too full of a happy excitement to seek her own +slumbers. Ephraim was dead; but he had faded out of her life long +before; he had been nothing but a memory, and she had that still. He +even seemed nearer to her, being in the Far Country, than he had done +before. And his children were under her roof; hers to feed and clothe +and care for in the happy days that were coming; hers to educate. What +joy to have the means to do it with! what greater joy to work and save +and manage that there should be enough! + +Miranda looked into the leaping flame of her fire and saw brightest +pictures of the future,--until suddenly she turned her head away and +covered her face with her hands, groaning bitterly: it was only a +blackened limb that, standing tall and straight in the flame, took upon +itself a grotesque resemblance to a one-armed man. And Miranda +remembered her affianced the book-agent. "Oh, land I how could I 'a' +forgot! I've give him my promise." + +To Miranda's Puritan mind a promise was to be kept, with tears and blood +if need were. + +"Oh, what a foolish woman I've been! If I had only waited till I found +out what the Lord _did_ mean by sendin' that money to me! _He_ wouldn't +stand the boys, anyhow: he's nigh and graspin': I've found that out. And +I don't suppose I could buy him off with anything short of the whole +property. I did think he cared a little something about me, and mebbe he +does. I don't want to be too hard on him, but he was terrible put out +because I wouldn't give him but three hundred dollars to pay down for +that land that he's buy in' at such a bargain. I s'pose I should, only I +couldn't help thinkin' he might wait till we was married before he begun +to think about investin' my money. No, he won't let me off from marryin' +him unless I give him all my money. Yesterday I had thoughts of doin' +that; but now there's the boys." + +The queer black stick had fallen, and was crumbling away, but it had +crushed the last flickering flame. Miranda's fire, like her hopes, had +turned to ashes. + +She walked the floor restlessly, seeking vainly for a pathway out of her +troubles, until she was exhausted. Then she slept a troubled sleep until +daylight. + +It was a little comfort to get breakfast for Ephrum's wife and boys, +although she was so heavy-hearted. + +She went across the field to Eben Curtis's to get a bit of fresh fish: +Eben had been fishing the day before. + +Eben, who was a friendly young man, looked at her pityingly as he put +the' fish into her basket. As she was turning away in unwonted silence, +he was moved to say, "I wouldn't take it so hard if I was you, Miss +Daggett. You're well rid of such a scamp. And maybe they'll catch him +and get the money back. La, now! you don't say you hain't heard?" he +exclaimed at sight of Miranda's astonished face. "They most generally +_do_ get the news up to the poor-house." Eben lifted his hat and ran his +fingers through his hair with a mingling of sympathy and pleasure in +being the first to impart important news. "He's _cleared out_, the +book-agent has,--got all the money he could of folks without giving 'em +any books; and folks say he got some of you. He's been in jail for +playing the same trick before; and folks think he'll be caught this +time." + +"Oh, it's a mistake! He'll come back," said Miranda dejectedly, after a +moment's thought. + +"Well, he isn't very likely to, because"--here Eben turned his head +aside in embarrassment--"because he's got a wife and family over to +Olneyville." + +Radiant delight overspread Miranda's countenance. + +"I hope they'll just let him go," she said. "He's welcome to what money +he's got of mine,--more'n welcome." And homeward she went with a light +step. + +"Women are queer," mused Eben, as he returned to his fish-cleaning. +"She's lost her beau and her money, and she's tickled to death." + +"I declare, you look just as fresh and young and happy as you did +fifteen years ago!" said the widow, with a touch of envy, as they sat +down at the cheerful breakfast-table. + +Miranda touched Mrs. Bemis's arm as she came out of the meeting-house +the next Sunday, Ephraim's boys, preternaturally smooth of hair and +shining of face, beside her. + +"If it ain't perfane to say it. Mis' Bemis, I feel as if I'd got through +the eye of that needle clear into the kingdom of heaven." + +The poor-mistress commented upon the saying in the midst of her numerous +family that night: "She's got that selfish, tempery woman saddled onto +her for life, and she'll work her fingers to the bone for them boys, +that ain't anything to her, and won't be apt to amount to much,--for +there never was one of them Spencers that did,--and she calls that the +kingdom of heaven!" + +"It's jest as I always told you," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah placidly. "It's +all owin' to the p'int of view." + +SOPHIE SWETT. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE SECOND RANK. + +A ZOOLOGICAL STUDY. + + +It is a suggestive sign of our naturalistic times that so many +first-class towns in Europe and America contemplate the establishment of +Zoological Gardens. In the United States alone five cities have +successfully executed that project. Travelling menageries have taken the +place of the mediaeval pageants. Natural histories begin to supersede the +ghost-stories of our fathers. The scientific literature of four +different nations has monographs on almost every known species of beasts +and birds. + +With such data of information it seems rather strange that the problem +of precedence in the scale of animal intelligence should still be a +mooted question. The primacy of the animal kingdom remains, of course, +undisputed; but the dog, the elephant, the horse, the beaver,--nay, the +parrot, the bee, and the ant,--have found learned and uncompromising +advocates of their claims to the honors of the second rank. + +Russel Wallace and Dr. Brehm have agitated the question, but failed to +settle it,--even to their own satisfaction. The reason, I believe, is +that the exponents of the different theories have failed to agree on a +definite standard of comparison. The mathematical principle implied in +the construction of a honey-comb, we are told, can challenge comparison +with the ripest results of human science. The acumen of a well-trained +elk-hound, a philosophical sportsman assures us, comes nearer to human +reason than any other manifestation of animal sagacity. +Elephant-trainers, too, adduce instances that almost pass the line of +distinction between intuitive prudence and the results of reflection. +Yet if those distinctions suffice to define the difference between +reason and the primitive instincts, they should reduce the scope of the +question in so far as to make it clear that, instead of measuring the +degree of the development of special faculties of the animal mind, we +should _ascertain the direction_ of those faculties. Instinct tends to +promote the interests of the species, and is limited to the more or less +skilful, but monotonous, performance of a special task. Within that +limited sphere its competence is perfect. Reason may be often at fault, +but its capacity enlarges with practice, and the scope of its +application is unlimited. It may be exerted in the interest of the +species, of the tribe, of the family; it may devote itself to the +service of an abstract principle or subserve the purposes of individual +caprice. It differs from instinct as a piano differs from a +barrel-organ. The pianist has to master his art by years of toil, but +can apply it to all possible variations or extravaganzas of music. The +organ-grinder can delight his audience as much by his first as by his +last performance, but his _repertoire_ is limited. Reason is indefinite, +free, and versatile. Instinct is exact, but circumscribed. + +Tested by that standard, the difference between the intelligence of the +higher _quadrumana_--the anthropoid apes, the baboons, and several +species of the macaques--and that of their dumb fellow-creatures is so +pronounced that it amounts to a difference of kind as well as of degree. +_Borne_, literally limited, but used in French as a synonyme of +short-witted, is the term that best characterizes the actions of all +other animals, as compared with the graceless but amazingly versatile +and well-planned pranks of our nearest relatives. The standard of +_usefulness_ would, indeed, degrade the perpetrators of these pranks +below the rank of the dullest donkey; but as a criterion of intelligence +the application of that test should rather be reversed. + +Watch a colony of house-building insects, their faithful co-operation, +their steady, exact adaptation of right means to a fixed purpose, and +compare their activity with that of a troop of ball-playing boys. Does +not the gratuitous ingenuity of the young bipeds indicate a far higher +degree of intelligence? Does it argue against the quality of that +intelligence that any novel phenomenon--a funnel-shaped cloud, the +appearance of a swarm of bats or unknown birds--would divert the +ball-players from their immediate purpose? Monkeys alone share this gift +of gratuitous curiosity. A strange object, a piece of red cloth +fluttering in the grass, may excite the interest of a watch-dog or of an +antelope. They may approach to investigate, but for subjective purposes. +They fear the presence of an enemy. A monkey's inquisitiveness can +dispense with such motives. In my collection of four-handed pets I have +a young Rhesus monkey (_Macacus Rhesus_), by no means the most +intelligent member of the community, but gifted with an amount of +meddlesome pluck which often makes it necessary to circumscribe the +freedom of his movements. One day last spring, when he joined an +assembly of his fellow-boarders on a sunny porch, the shortness of his +tether did not prevent him from picking a quarrel with a big raccoon. +After a few sham manoauvres the old North American suddenly lost his +temper and charged his tormentor with an energy of action that led to an +unexpected result,--for in springing back the Rhesus snapped his wire +chain, and in the next moment went flying down the lane toward the open +woods. But just before he reached the gate he suddenly stopped. On a +post of the picket-fence the neighbors' boys had deposited a kite, and +the Rhesus paused. The phenomenon of the dangling kite-tail, with its +polychromatic ribbons, eclipsed the memory of his wrongs and his +mutinous projects: he snatched the tail, and with the gravity of a +coroner proceeded to examine the dismembered appendage. If he had +mistaken the apparatus for a trap, the result of the dissection must +have reassured him; but he continued the inquest till one of his +pursuers headed him off and drove him back to his favorite hiding-place +under the porch, which he reached in safety, though in the interest of +science he had encumbered himself with a large section of kite-paper. + +On my last visit to New York I bought a female Chacma baboon that had +attracted my attention by the grotesque demonstrativeness of her +motions, and took her on board of a Norfolk steamer, where she at once +became an object of general enthusiasm. The next morning Sally was +taking her breakfast on deck, when she suddenly dropped her apple-pie +and jumped upon the railing. Through the foam of the churned brine her +keen eye had espied a shoal of porpoises, and, clinging to the railing +with her hind hands, she continued to gesticulate and chatter as long as +our gambolling fellow-travellers remained in sight. + +Menagerie monkeys, too, are sure to interrupt their occupations at the +sight of a new-comer,--a clear indication that monkeys, like men, +possess a surplus of intelligence above the exigencies of their +individual needs. Yet these exigencies are by no means inconsiderable. +Unlike the grazing deer and the deer-eating panther, the frugivorous +monkeys of the tropics are the direct competitors of the intolerant lord +of creation. The Chinese macaques, the Moor monkey, the West-African +baboons, have to eke out a living by pillage. The Gibraltar monkey has +hardly any other resources. Nor has nature been very generous in the +physical equipment of the species. Most monkeys lack the sharp teeth +that enable the tiger to defy the avenger of his misdeeds. Without +exception they all lack the keen scent that helps the deer to elude its +pursuers. But their mental faculties more than compensate for such +bodily deficiencies. In the Abyssinian highlands the mornings are often +cold enough to cover the grass with hoar-frost, yet the frost-dreading +baboons choose that very time to raid the corn-fields of the natives. +They omit no precaution, and it is almost impossible to circumvent the +vigilance of their sentries. Prudence, derived from +_providence_,--i.e., prevision, the gift of fore-seeing things,--is in +many respects almost a synonyme of reason. Physically that gift is +typified in the telescopic eyes which monkeys share with a few species +of birds, but with hardly any of their mammalian relatives, except man +in a state of nature. Mentally it manifests itself in a marvellous +faculty for anticipating danger. Last summer Sally, the above-mentioned +baboon, contrived to break loose, and took refuge on the top of the +roof. I do not believe that she intended to desert, but she was bent on +a romp, and had made up her mind not to be captured by force. A chain of +eight or nine feet dangled from her girdle, and she persistently avoided +approaching the lower tier of shingles, to keep that chain from hanging +down over the edge, but was equally careful not to venture too near the +extremities of the roof-ridge, for there was a skylight at each gable. +She kept around the middle of the roof; and we concluded to loosen a few +shingles in that neighborhood and grab her chain through the aperture, +while a confederate was to divert her attention by a continuous volley +of small pebbles. But somehow Sally managed to distinguish the +hammer-strokes from the noise of the bombardment, and at once made up +her mind that the roof had become untenable. The only question was how +to get down; for by that time the house was surrounded by a cordon of +sentries. As a preliminary measure she then retreated to the top of the +chimney, and one of our strategists proposed to dislodge her by loading +the fireplace with a mixture of pine-leaves and turpentine. But better +counsel prevailed, and we contented ourselves with firing a blank +cartridge through the flue. Sally at once jumped off, but regained her +vantage-ground on the roof-ridge, and we had to knock out a dozen +shingles before one of our fourteen or fifteen hunters at last managed +to lay hold of her chain. + +The naturalist Lenz describes the uncontrollable grief of a Siamang +gibbon who had been taken on board of a homebound English packet, where +his owner tempted him with all sorts of tidbits, in the vain hope of +calming his sorrow. The gibbon kept his eye on the receding outline of +his native mountains, and every now and then made a desperate attempt to +break his fetters; but when the coast-line began to blend with the +horizon the captive's behavior underwent a marked change. He ceased to +tug at his chain, and, chattering with protruded lips, after the +deprecatory manner of his species, began to fondle his owner's hand, and +tried to smooth the wrinkles of his coat, with the unmistakable +intention of reciprocating his friendly overtures. As soon as his native +coast had faded out of view he had evidently recognized the hopelessness +of an attempt at escape. He realized the fact that he had to accept the +situation, and, becoming alarmed at the possible consequences of his +refractory violence, he concluded that it was the safest plan to +conciliate the good will of his jailer. From analogous observations I +can credit the account in all its details, and I believe that the +conduct of the captive four-hander can be traced to a mental process as +utterly beyond the brain-scope of a horse, a dog, or an elephant as a +problem in spherical trigonometry. + +The inarticulate language of our Darwinian relatives has one +considerable advantage over the articulate speech of a trained parrot: +it has a definite meaning. Mumbling with protruded lips is an appeal for +pity and affection; a coughing grunt denotes indignation; surprise is +expressed by a very peculiar, _sotto voce_ guttural; _crescendo_ the +same sound is a danger-signal which the little Capuchin-monkey of the +American tropics understands as well as the African chimpanzee. My +Chacma baboon defies an adversary by contracting her eyebrows and +slapping the floor with her hands. The vocabulary of a talking bird is +no doubt more extensive, but it is used entirely at random. A +first-class parrot can repeat seventy different phrases; but an English +philosopher offered a hundred pounds sterling to any "mind-reader" who +should succeed in guessing the seven figures in the number of a +hundred-pound bank-note, and It would be as safe to offer the same sum +to any bird that could furnish evidence of attaching a definite meaning +to any seven of his seventy sentences. On close investigation, the +stories of conversational parrots prove as apocryphal as Katy-King +legends and planchette miracles. + +Causality--i.e., the gift of tracing a recondite connection of cause and +effect--is another faculty which many varieties of monkeys possess in a +decidedly ultra-instinctive degree. I remember the surprise of a +picnic-party who had borrowed my young Rhesus and on their return tied +him up on the porch of a garden-house. During the trip the little scamp +had behaved with the decorum of a well-bred youth, but, finding himself +unobserved, he at once made a vicious attempt to tear his rope with his +teeth. Whenever his boon companions approached the porch he would resume +his attitude of innocence, but as soon as they turned away, which they +often did on purpose to try him, he promptly recommenced his work of +destruction. Their giggling, however, excited his suspicions, and, +seeing them peep around the corner, he suddenly became a model of +virtuous inactivity. One of the picnickers then entered the garden-house +by a rear door, to watch the little hypocrite through a crack in the +board wall, while his companions ostensibly walked away and out of +sight. As soon as everything was quiet. Master Rhesus went to work +again, but at the same time kept his eye on the corner till he was +interrupted by a tap on the wall and a mysterious voice from within, +"Stop that, Tommy!" Tommy started, peeped around the corner, and looked +puzzled. He was sure there was nobody in sight. How could an invisible +spy have witnessed his transgression? He then scrutinized the wall more +closely, discovered the crack, and dropped the rope with a curious grin, +as he squinted through the tell-tale aperture. He had traced the effect +to its cause. + +Unlike dogs, raccoons, or squirrels, chained monkeys rarely entangle +themselves: they at once notice the shortening of their tether, and +never rest till they have discovered the clue of the phenomenon. A dog +in the same predicament has to content himself with tugging at his chain +or gnawing his rope; and the reason is that the wisdom of the wisest dog +is limited to business qualifications. He is a hunter, and nature has +endowed him with the requisite faculties, just as she has endowed the +constructive spider and the bee. Bees and dogs share the faculty of +direction, enabling them to find their way home, a talent implying a +very miracle of infallible and yet unconscious intuition, and in the +strictest sense a one-sided business qualification. The goose, the +sturgeon, and the almost brainless tortoise possess the same gift in a +transcendent degree; the oriole builds her first nest as skilfully as +the last; the young bee constructs her hexagons with an ease and a +uniform success that leave no possible doubt that the exercise of her +talent is generically different from a function of reason. Instincts may +be far-reaching enough to defy the rivalry of human science, but they +resemble loophole-guns, that can be fired only in a single direction. +The intuition that guides the turkey-hen to her nest does not enable her +to find her way out of a half-open log trap. The instinct by which a dog +retraces his trail across broad rivers and through woods does not enable +him to retrace the coils of a tangled rope. A monkey's talents, like our +own, are less infallible, but more versatile, and at the possessor's +discretion can be applied and perverted to all possible purposes. Hence +also that peculiar interest which the pranks of our mischievous +relatives excite even in spectators not apt to appreciate the comic +features of the spectacle. In the monkey-house of the Philadelphia Zoo I +have seen saturnine burghers stand motionless for hours together, and +contemplative children rapt in reveries that had little to do with the +hope of witnessing a beast-fight. They seemed to feel the spell of a +secret veiled in grotesque symbols, but disclosing occasional +revelations of its significance, like glimpses into the fore-world of +the human race. + +In the fairy-tales of the old Hindoo scriptures monkeys figure as +counsellors of nonplussed heroes, and in the crisis of the Titan war the +Devas themselves condescend to seek the advice of the monkey Honuman, +who contrives to outwit the prince of the night-spirits. In the +international fable of "Reynard the Fox," a she-monkey on the eve of the +trial by battle suggests the stratagem that turns the scales against the +superior strength of the wolf Isegrim. The _mens aequa in arduis_ is, +indeed, a simian characteristic. Monkeys never have their wits more +completely about them than in the moment of a sudden danger, and a +higher development of the same faculty distinguishes the Caucasian from +all rival races, even from the sharp-witted Semites. After the conquest +of Algiers the French tried to conciliate the native element by +educating a number of young Arabs and giving them a chance to compete +with the cadets of St.-Cyr. They made excellent routine-officers, but +even their patron, General Clausel, admitted that they "could not be +trusted in a panic." + +Dr. Langenbeck mentions a family of Silesian peasants who seemed to have +an hereditary predisposition to the abnormity known as microcephalism, +or small-headedness. They were not absolute idiots, but remarkably +slow-spoken and all extremely _averse to active occupations_. An active +disposition is generally a pretty safe gauge of mental capacity. +Intellectual vigor leads to action. To a person of mental resources +inactivity is more irksome than the hardest work, and sluggishness is +justly used as a synonyme of imbecility. Exertion under the pressure of +want is, however, not incompatible with an inert disposition, and +spontaneous activity, the love of busy-ness for its own sake, can be +ascribed only to men and monkeys; monkeys, at least, are the only +animals in whom repletion and old age cannot dampen that passion. After +a full meal an elephant will stand for hours in a sort of piggish +torpor; a gorged bird seeks the tree-shade; an overfed dog and nearly +every old dog becomes a picture of laziness. Monkeys rest only during +sleep. Old age does not affect their nimbleness; they can be fattened, +for I have seen baboons as sleek as seals, but, like Gibbon, Henry +Buckle, and Marshal Vendome, they prove that the energy of a strong will +can bear up under such burdens. Madame de Stael, too, managed to combine +a progressive _embonpoint_ with the undiminished brilliancy of her +genius, though it is certain that adipose tissue does not feed the flame +of every mind. Charles Dickens in his "American Notes" expresses the +opinion that no vigor of mental constitution could be proof against the +influence of solitary confinement; but the narrow monkey-cages of our +zoological prisons show that the minds of the little captives can stand +the test of even that ordeal. They play with their shadows, if the +nakedness of their four walls does not afford any other pastime. + +Docility, on the other hand, is a rather ambiguous test of intelligence. +The willingness and the ability to learn may supplement their mutual +deficiencies, but differ as radically as patience and genius. Dogs +master the tasks of their education by their earnest endeavor to please +their master; Jacko excels them in spite of his waywardness. Some boys +win college-prizes by memorizing their lessons in conformity with the +wishes of a dreaded or beloved preceptor, others by dint of natural +aptitude and a love of knowledge based on spontaneous inquisitiveness; +and every circus-trainer knows that teachers who understand to avail +themselves of that gift can teach a monkey tricks which can neither be +coaxed nor kicked into the skull of the most docile dog. Besides, the +domestic dog is a considerably modified variety of the family to which +he belongs, and in order to appreciate the difference between the +_natural_ intelligence of the canines and the quadrumana we should +compare the docility of the monkey with that of the wolf or the jackal. +In the submissiveness of the dog the hereditary influence of several +thousand generations has developed a sort of artificial instinct that +qualifies him for the exigencies of his servitude; but submissiveness +_per se_, however valuable for plastic purposes, is certainly not a +characteristic concomitant of superior intelligence. In the soul of the +Hindoo, the Chinese, and the Eastern Slav, the long-inculcated duty of +subordination has become almost a second nature, while the most +intelligent tribes of the ancient Greeks were famous--or, from a Chinese +point of view, perhaps infamous--for a strong tendency in the opposite +direction. + +Patience is not a prominent gift of our four-handed relatives, but +compensating nature has endowed them with the genius of self-help and +its adjuvant talents,--observation, causality, imitativeness, +covetousness, and self-asserting pluck. They also possess a fair share +of such faculties as inquisitiveness, vigilance, and perseverance, all +rudiments, indeed, but the rudiments of supremacy. + +FELIX L. OSWALD. + + * * * * * + + + + +ELUSIVE + +Just out of reach she lightly swings, +My Psyche with the rainbowed wings, +A floating flower, by winds impelled, +The honeyed spray has caught and held. +Now circling low, with grace divine, +She sips the tulip's chaliced wine. +Why should I seek to bring her nigh +And find--a simple butterfly? + +O isles in ocean's azure set, +Like sculptured dome and minaret +Your purpled cliffs and headlands rise +Against the far-off, misty skies. +Yet, thither borne by helpful breeze, +As lifts the veil from circling seas, +Well know I your enchanted land +Would prove but rugged rock and sand. + +O friend whose words of wisdom rare +Inspire my soul to do and dare, +Across the distance wide and drear +I will not reach to bring you near. +Why cast ideal grace away +To find you only common clay? +The best of life and thought and speech +Is that which lies--just out of reach. + +SARAH D. HOBART. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE PARISIAN COUTURIER. + + +The _couturier_--the bearded dressmaker, the masculine artist in silk +and satin--is an essentially modern and Parisian phenomenon. It is true +that the elegant and capricious Madame de Pompadour owed most of her +toilets and elegant accoutrements to the genius of Supplis, the famous +_tailleur pour dames_ or ladies' tailor, of the epoch. But Supplis was +an exception, and he never assumed the name of _couturier_, the +masculine form of _couturiere_, "dress-maker." That appellation was +reserved for the great artists of the Second Empire, Worth, Aurelly, +Pingat, and their rivals, who utterly revolutionized feminine costume +and endeavored to direct it in the paths of art, good taste, and +comfort. Enthusiasts of grace and beauty, these artists set themselves +the task of preventing the inconstant goddess of fashion from continuing +to wander off into ugliness, deformity, and absurdity. In their devotion +to art, beauty, and luxury, they determined never to forget fitness and +comfort, and since their initiative has regulated the vagaries of +fashion we must admit that our women have never been the victims of such +inconvenient, ugly, and absurd inventions as crinoline, leg-o'-mutton +sleeves, the _coiffure a la fregate_, and the various other +monstrosities of the Republic, the Directory, and the Restoration, +which, thanks to the traditional supremacy of France in matters of +fashion, made their way, more or less modified, all over the world. The +modern artists in dress consider justly that what is most important in a +dress is the woman who wears it, and that their object should be to set +her off to the best advantage, and not to make her remarked,--in short, +to make a toilet which will be to the wearer what the frame is to the +portrait. The _role_ which the _couturier_ plays, not only in Parisian +life but in the life of the whole civilized world, is so important and +so curious that I have thought it might interest the reader to see the +great artist at home, surrounded by his customers and his assistants, +and to catch a brief glimpse of the nature and peculiarities of the +creature. My description of the type will be in general, of course, but +founded on exact observation of individuals. + +The high-priests of Parisian fashion have their shrines up-stairs. Where +the highest perfection is aimed at, shops are nowhere. The _grand +couturier_ makes no outside show. You will find him occupying two or +three floors in one of those plain, flat-fronted Restoration houses +which line the Rue de la Paix, the Rue Taitbout, the Rue Louis-le-Grand, +or the Faubourg St.-Honore. Passing through a square _porte-cochere_ as +broad as it is high, you find on the right or left hand a glass door +opening on a staircase covered with a thick red carpet. On the landings +are divans, and sometimes a palm of a dracaena. Through an open door on +the ground-floor you see the packing-room, where marvels of silk and +lace are being enveloped in mountains of tissue-paper to be sent to the +four quarters of the globe; on the first floor, or _entresol_, are +workrooms full of girls seated at long tables and sewing under the +directing eye of a severe-looking matron; on the second floor are +generally situated the show- and reception-rooms. The first saloon is +sombre: the ceiling appears, in the daytime, blackened by gas; the walls +are wainscoted in imitation ebony with gold fillets, and large panels +above the chair-rail are filled with verdure tapestries of the most +dismal green, chosen expressly to throw into relief the freshness and +gayety of the dresses; on the chimney-piece, and reflected in the glass, +is a clock surmounted by a monumental statue of Diana in nickeled +imitation bronze and flanked by two immense candelabra; along the walls +are two or three large wardrobes with looking-glass doors; in the +middle of the room is a table for displaying materials, with a few +chairs, and in one corner a desk, where is seated M. Cyprien or M. +Alexandre, the bookkeeper. In this room the customers are received by a +tall and very elegant young lady, invariably dressed in black satin in +winter and black silk in summer. Through this soft-spoken person, who +bears the title _of premiere vendeuse_, or first saleswoman, the +customers are put into communication either with the great artist +himself or simply with one of the _premieres_, or heads of departments, +if their orders are not of sufficient importance to justify an +interruption of the great man in his innumerable and absorbing +occupations. Opening out of this first saloon are a number of smaller +saloons, all equally sombre, colorless, and shabby-looking, especially +by daylight. There are extra show-rooms and trying-on-rooms, besides +which there is a special room for trying on riding-habits, and another +for the chief of the corsage department, to say nothing of little rooms +draped with blue, brown, or red for special purposes. Over these dingy +carpets and among these old tapestries and sombre furniture glide +noiselessly from room to room young women on whose sloping shoulders and +lissome figures the "creations" of Messieurs les Couturiers show to the +best advantage. These are the _demoiselles-mannequins_, or +_essayeuses_,--mute but breathing models, who seem to have lost all +human animation in their occupation of mere clothes-wearers, automata +with weary faces, whose sole business is to carry on their backs from +morning until night luminous vesture. The ordinary pay of the +_demoiselle-mannequin_ in the grand establishments is from sixty to +eighty dollars a month, with half board; but some of them who have +exceptionally elegant figures and perfect bearing are paid fancy prices, +reaching as much in rare cases as two thousand dollars a year. + +Imagine the appearance of these saloons between two and five o'clock in +the afternoon during the season, filled as they are with chattering and +finely-dressed ladies,--Parisiennes, Russians with their lazy accent, +English and Americans talking in their own tongue, princesses of the +Almanach de Gotha and princesses of the footlights, and even of the +_demi-monde_, all united in adoration of the idol of fashion. A confused +murmur of musical voices rises in an atmosphere impregnated with the +perfumes of ylang-ylang, heliotrope, peau d'Espagne, jonquil, iris, +poudre de riz, and odor di femina. The heads of the different +departments are seen passing to and fro with fragments of a dress or a +corsage in their arms, and amid the buzzing assembly the models move +incessantly, like animated statues, silent and majestic. From time to +time the voice of the great artist is heard giving brief and imperious +orders, or scolding plaintively because a ruche has been substituted for +a flounce on the dress of Madame X----, or a light fur for a dark fur on +the mantle of the Baronne de V----,--"a pale blonde! The whole thing +will have to be made over again. What can I do if I am not seconded?" he +asks irritably. "Truly, _mesdemoiselles, c'est a se donner au diable_!" +With these words flung at a little group of employees, the great man +appears. He is a short man, dressed in light-gray trousers, a blue coat +with a broad velvet collar and silk lappels in which are stuck a few +pins for use in sudden inspirations, a flowered waistcoat, and a heavy +watch-chain. His head is bald and surrounded by a fringe of dust-colored +gray hair, frizzled so finely that it looks like swans'-down. His +whiskers and moustache have the same fine and woolly appearance. His +blue eyes look worn and faded; his face has flushed red patches on a +pale anaemic ground; his expression is one of subdued suffering, due to +the continual neuralgia by which he is tormented, thanks to the strong +perfumes which his elegant customers force him to inhale all day long. +Epinglard, for so we will call him for convenience' sake, rarely dines +during the busy season: he is the martyr of his profession. He has a +house exquisitely decorated and arranged, but he lives alone, his daily +commerce with women having disinclined him to risk the lottery of +marriage. Nevertheless, he is much effeminized; and his employees will +assure you that he wears cambric nightcaps bordered with lace, and a +lace _jabot_ on his night-shirts. His life is entirely devoted to his +art, and he conscientiously goes on Tuesdays to the Comedie Francaise, +on Fridays to the Opera, and on Saturdays to the Italians or the Circus, +because those are the nights selected by rank and fashion, and therefore +excellent occasions for observing the work of his rivals. For the same +reason Epinglard will be seen on fashionable days at the races, and at +first performances at the fashionable theatres, but always alone. In +confidence, Epinglard will tell you that he adores solitude and loves +his art with undivided and disinterested passion. "It gives me +pleasure," he will say, "to see a woman well dressed, whoever may have +dressed her. For my own part, I do not care to get myself talked about. +I mind my own business and I make my own creations, but I am perfectly +ready to admire the creations of others. It is not the mere creation +that I find difficult: it is to get my creations executed." + +Epinglard talks slowly, precisely, and in a sing-song and hypocritical +voice, while his fingers, laden with heavy rings, caress voluptuously +some piece of surah or silk. He is in serious consultation with one of +the leaders of fashion, the Baronne de P----. Suddenly changing his +tone, he calls out to a model who is passing, "You there, mademoiselle, +put on this skirt to show to madame," And, turning the model round, he +shows the skirt in all its aspects, passing his fingers amorously over +the _batiste_ and seeming to give it life and beauty by his mere touch. +"And you, Mademoiselle Ernestine, come here, too," calling to another +model; who is walking about gloomily with a mantle on her shoulders: +"put on Madame A----'s mantle." Then, changing back to his hypocritical +tone, Epinglard continues his sing-song monologue to the Baronne de +P----, and tells her that Madame A---- is a "great English lady who has +deserted her husband and is now living in Paris. She spends about +sixteen thousand dollars a year on her toilets. It is a good deal, yes. +But, imagine, last month I made a mantle for the Countess Z---- which +cost five thousand dollars. Look at that line" (caressing the mantle on +the model's shoulders) "and the slope of the hips. It is perfect. And +the embroidery and the trimming, all made on the material of the mantle +itself by my own embroiderers." + +This afternoon Epinglard is in a theorizing mood, and, after having sent +for Bamboula, as he calls her familiarly, a dark-skinned model, he +drapes her in a pale-yellow tulle dress, and proceeds to lament that so +few Frenchwomen will wear yellow, owing to a silly popular prejudice. +"Ah, madame la baronne," he continues, "you cannot conceive what lovely +combinations of rose and yellow I have made. Why not? There are roses +with yellow pistils. Why should not we do in stuffs what nature does in +flowers? For us _couturiers_, as for the painter and the sculptor, the +great source of inspiration is nature. There are many of my colleagues +who fill their portfolios with the engravings of Eisen, Debucourt, +Moreau, and the masters of the eighteenth century. But this is not +sufficient: we must go back to nature. I pass my summer in the country, +and in the rich combinations of floral color I find the gamut of tones +for my toilets. But I am allowing myself to theorize too much. If madame +la baronne will be good enough to come to-morrow, I will compose +something for her in the mean time. This afternoon I am scarcely in the +humor for a creation of such importance." And, with a grave salute, +Epinglard passes into a saloon where two ladies are waiting impatiently, +particularly the younger of the two, who has come, under the wing of her +fashionable relative, to be introduced to the _grand couturier_. + +"_Bonjour_, Monsieur Epinglard," begins the elder. "I have come to ask +you to create a masterpiece. It will not be the first time, will it? My +niece is going to her first ball next month, and I wish her to have a +dress on which your signature will be visible." + +Epinglard falls into a meditative pose, his elbow in one hand, his chin +in the other, and looks long at the young girl, scrutinizing not only +the line and modelling of the body, but the expression of the face, the +eyes, the shade and nature of the hair, reading her temperament with the +lucidity of a phrenologist aided by the divination of a plastic artist +who has had great experience of feminine humanity. The examination lasts +many minutes, and finally, as if under the inspiring influence of the +god of taste, Epinglard, in broken phrases, composes the dress: +"Toilette entirely of tulle ... corsage plaited diagonally ... around +the _decolletage_ four ruches ... the skirt relieved with drapery of +white satin falling behind like a peplum ... on the shoulder--the left +shoulder--a bouquet of myosotis or violets ... that is how I see +mademoiselle dressed." And Epinglard salutes gravely, while an +assistant, who has noted down the prophetic utterances of the master, +conducts the subject to a room in the centre of which is an articulated +model of a feminine torso, with movable breasts, flattened rag arms +hanging at the sides, and a combination of straps and springs to adjust +the _taille_ or waist,--a most sinister and grotesque object, all +crumpled and shrivelled up and covered with shiny, glazed calico. This +is the studio of one of the most important of the secondary artists in +dress-making, the _corsagere_. The chief of this department takes the +subject in hand, and, with the aid of pieces of coarse canvas, such as +the tailors use to line coats, she takes a complete mould of the body, +cutting and pinning and smoothing with her hand until the mould is +perfect. This is the first step toward the execution of the master's +plan. At the next _seance_ of trying-on, the subject passes +simultaneously through the hands of several heads of departments,--the +_corsagere_, the _jupiere_, who drapes the skirts and arranges the +train, and the second _jupiere_, who mounts and constructs the skirt. +The corsage is brought all sewn and whaleboned, but only basted below +the arms and at the shoulder, and as soon as it is in place--"_crac! +crac!_"--the _corsagere_, with angry fingers, breaks the threads, and +then calmly and patiently rejoins the seams and pins them together so +that the joinings may lie perfectly flat and even. On her knees, turning +patiently round and round, the _jupiere_ drapes the skirt on a lining of +silk, seeking to perfect the roundness, sparing no pains, and displaying +in all she does the artist's _amour-propre_, the desire to achieve a +masterpiece in the detail which the masculine designer has allotted to +her care. These women who lend their light-fingered collaboration to the +imagination of the bearded dress-maker are really admirable in their +sentiment of their work, in their artist's ambition, which thinks not +merely of the week's salary, but of the perfection of the masterpiece. +They seem to find intense personal satisfaction in producing a beautiful +toilet, in fashioning a delicate thing which almost has the qualities of +a work of art; and when the subject is naturally well formed,--_tout +faite_, as they say,--and not artificially made up with what is called +the _taille de couturiere_, their painstaking knows no bounds. + +During these long _seances_, which last for hours together and occupy so +large a place in the day of a woman of fashion, the common love of +toilet makes, for the moment at least, the _grande dame_ or the +aristocrat the equal of the modest employee, and, while the _jupiere_ is +turning round and round madame la baronne, there often takes place a +lively interchange of gossip and a review of the plastic qualities of +the friends and rivals in beauty of madame la baronne who are also +customers of the house. The _grand couturier_ himself is a +treasure-house of queer stories and scandals, and naturally his +employees take after their master. The _couturier_, you see, is not a +tradesman: he is an artist, and he renders a woman far greater service +than the artist-painter, who finds her already dressed and only has to +copy her, whereas the _couturier_ dresses a woman not once, but twenty +times a year, and each time that he invents a becoming toilet he makes a +new creation not only of the toilet, but of the woman. There has, in +fact, been a great change made in modern times in matters of dress. Our +modern women are no longer content with merely seasonable dresses, +appropriate in form and material for spring, summer, autumn, or winter; +they are no longer satisfied to have four interviews a year with the +dress-maker. On the contrary, every event in social life--a wedding, a +ball, a visit to a country-house, the annual excursions to sea-side and +mountain--gives occasion for special dresses, or rather costumes, for in +modern toilets the element of pure costume plays a considerable _role_ +especially in those destined for wear in the country. The modern woman +of fashion needs endless morning, afternoon, and evening dresses, +tea-gowns, breakfast-dresses, of endless varieties of form, stuff, and +color. Hence she is constantly in communication with the _couturier_, +who has every opportunity of examining her morally and physically, +confessing her, listening often to strange confidences. Not unfrequently +he combines with his artistic career that of a banker. Naturally, ladies +who run up yearly bills of twenty thousand dollars for gowns and mantles +are often in a corner for want of a few thousands, and the Parisienne in +such circumstances often thinks it equally natural to have recourse to +the strange creature who dresses her and who thus comes to occupy a very +curious position on the confines of society. + +The final trying-on of the dresses of madame la baronne is a grand day, +and often a few friends, both ladies and gentlemen, are invited to +assist at the ceremony; for the Parisiennes recognize in some of their +masculine friends, and particularly in painters, certain talents for +appreciating dress. Why not? Were not these men the great innovators in +modern dressing? and are not men still the great artists in costume? +Madame la baronne prepares herself in one of the little saloons. First +of all come the skirts and the young ladies who preside over the +fabrication of the _dessous_, or underclothing, for it is an axiom in +modern French dress-making that half the success of the toilet depends +on the underclothing, or, as the French put it in their neat way, "_Le +dessous est pour la moitie dans la reussite du dessus_." Then follows +the tying of the skirt of the dress, which is suspended on hooks round +the bottom of the corset, the buttoning of the corsage, the preliminary +tapping and caressing necessary to make the folds of the skirt sit well, +and then madame la baronne makes her appearance triumphantly before her +friends assembled in the adjoining saloon. The great artist himself +deigns to contemplate the finished work. Standing off at some distance, +so as to take in the general effect, as if he were examining a picture, +he gazes upon the dress with impassible eyes, and then, after a +Napoleonic silence, during which all present hold their breath, the +great man expresses his satisfaction, perhaps even falls on his knees in +mute admiration of his masterpiece, or in the twinkling of an eye gives +a pinch to a frill or a twist to a plait which transforms and perfects +the whole, such is the magic power of those marvellous fingers when they +touch the delicate tissues of silk or lace or velvet. Then, while the +master is sating his eyes, all the staff of the house defiles through +the saloon,--the chief saleswoman, the cutter-out, the _chef des jupes_, +the _chef des corsages_, the _chef des garnisseuses_, the _premiere +brodeuse_, and half a dozen other _premieeres_, who open the door and +ask, with caressing intonations of voice and pretty smiles, "_Vent-on me +permettre de voir un pen_?" + +What other mysteries are there to be revealed in the house of the +_couturier_? We have glanced at the packing-rooms, the working-rooms +with their battalions of girls and women toiling away with their needles +by daylight and gas-light. We caught a glimpse of the reception-saloons +and the trying-on-rooms, all strewn with fragments of +dresses,--_disjecta membra_,--mountains of silk, and peopled with +automatic human _mannequins, essayeuses_, who, as the moralists will +tell you, are all "_vicieuses qui ne manquent de rien_," and who are +destined sooner or later to reinforce the _demi-monde_. We have seen the +process of creating and fitting a dress, the ceremony of trying-on, and +the _role_ of the creating artist in all this. Now, to make our +indiscretion complete, we have only to peep into the _salon des +amazones_, a room draped in green velvet and decorated with whips, +stirrups, and side-saddles. The table in the middle is piled up with +heaps of dark-colored cloth and hats with green, brown, and blue veils. +At one end is a life-size wooden horse, and presiding over this room is +a blonde effeminate young man, whose business it is to offer his clasped +hands as a mounting-stone to help the ladies to jump on to the back of +the wooden steed, while the tailor arranges the folds of their +riding-habits. + +Besides Pingat, the most artistic of the Parisian dress-makers, besides +Worth, who has a specialty of court-dresses for exportation and showy +dresses for American actresses, and whose style is pompous and official, +besides Felix, the dresser of slender women, the favorite artist of the +aristocracy of birth and talent,--all three so well known that the +mention of their names here cannot be regarded as an +advertisement,--there are a dozen other bearded dress-makers in Paris +whose talent is worthy of admiration, and whose caprices might amuse us +if we had time to dwell upon them. There is, however, a _grande +couturiere_ who surpasses all her masculine rivals in fatuity and +caprice, namely, Madame Rodrigues, the great theatrical dress-maker. +Madame Rodrigues always asks the journalists not to mention her by name. +"Put simply," she says, "the first dress-maker in Paris. Everybody will +know who is meant." This lady regards herself as the collaborator of +Sardou and Dumas and Augier. Dumas is her peculiar favorite. "We +understand each other," she says, "and he finds that my genius completes +his." + +Nothing can be more amusing than the scene in her vast saloons about +four o'clock in the afternoon. The _grande couturiere_--Madame, as her +employees respectfully call her--issues from her private rooms and finds +herself in presence of a score of ladies, not merely actresses, but +society ladies, to whom she has given rendezvous for that day. + +"I am exceedingly sorry, mesdames," the great artist will exclaim, "but +I cannot attend to you to-day." + +"But, dear madame, you wrote to me--" + +"I must have my dress for to-morrow." + +"My ball takes place to-night--" + +"Mesdames, I repeat, it is impossible. If one of my assistants likes to +take you in hand, well and good. That is all I can do for you." + +Then, turning round, she perceives a stout lady who looks imploringly at +her, and declares brusquely, "Ah, madame, I have already told you that I +cannot undertake to dress you. You are not my style. I do not understand +plump women." + +"But, Madame Rodrigues--" + +"If one of my _premieres_ cares to take you in hand, I have no +objection; but that is all I can do for you." + +The only thing that calms the great artist is the arrival of one of her +favorite actresses. + +"Ah, _bonjour_, Madame Judic: you will have your toilets on Friday--" + +"But the first performance is announced for Wednesday." + +"They must put it off, then, for I am not ready. We will try your dress +for the second act this afternoon." And the _grande couturiere_ settles +herself in her arm-chair, calls for her footstool, her fan, her cup of +beef-tea, her smelling-salts, and so proceeds to preside over the +terrible and imposing ceremony of trying on the dress of a fashionable +actress. + +Doubtless the luxury of the Parisiennes is not so great now as it was +under the Empire; but the falling off in the home trade is partly +compensated by the increase in the foreign customers. In Paris alone +the dress-making trade represents the movement of fifty millions of +dollars a year and gives employment to some fifty thousand women; and +many of the elegant society women spend from twenty to thirty thousand +dollars a year on their costume and toilet. But it must not be believed +that the modern _couturier_ is the first who has known how to draw up +big bills, or that the modern _lingere_ is the first who has dared to +charge two hundred dollars for a chemise and half as much for a +pocket-handkerchief. Dress has always reigned supreme in France at +least. Louis XVI. has been guillotined, Napoleon I. exiled, Charles X. +dismissed, Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. replaced without their leave +by a new form of government. But dress has never been dethroned; and, +just as in our own days Dupin thundered in the Senate against the +desperate luxury of the Parisiennes of the Empire, so in the eighteenth +century old Sebastien Mercier lamented that the fear of the milliners' +bills prevented young men from marrying, and so left fifteen hundred +thousand girls without husbands! The great dress-makers of those days +were Madame Eloffe, the artist who dressed Marie Antoinette, and whose +account-books have recently been published; with notes and curious +colored plates, by the Comte de Reiset, and Madame Cafaxe, the +_modiste-couturiere_ of the Fauburg St.-Honore, celebrated for her +exorbitant charges. One has only to consult the curious historical +researches of the brothers De Goncourt in order to appreciate the luxury +and extravagance of the past century. Imagine that in the +wedding-trousseau of Mademoiselle Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau there +figured twelve blonde wigs, varying in shade from flax to gold! Madame +Tallien alone possessed thirty of these wigs, each of which was valued +at that time at one hundred dollars,--that is to say, some two hundred +dollars of modern money. None of our modern _elegantes_ would ever think +of buying six thousand dollars' worth of false hair. At the same epoch +the ladies who had fallen in love with Greek and Roman fashions had +abandoned the old-fashioned shoe in order to adopt the cothurnus; and +Coppe, the _chic_ shoemaker, or _corthurnier_, of Paris charged sixty +dollars a pair for his imitation antique sandals, with their straps. +Alas! Coppe's sandals were no more durable than the fleeting rose, and +whenever a fair dame came to show her torn cothurnus to the great Coppe +he replied sadly, "The evil is irremediable: madame has been walking!" + +THEODORE CHILD. + + * * * * * + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +A Future for Women. + + +From the last report of the Bureau of Education it appears that twice as +many girls as boys enter high schools in the United States, and that +three times as many complete the four years' course. "Nature," in +commenting upon this fact, attributes it to the great attractiveness of +commercial pursuits in this country, and the consequent eagerness of +boys to enter upon them at as early an age as possible. This is +doubtless the true reason, and the disproportion is more likely to +increase than to diminish, even though the actual number of boys who +rush into a money-making career as soon as they have mastered the +arithmetic necessary for it may be growing smaller. It is beginning, +moreover, to be an every-day matter for women to receive a college +education. There are already three well-filled colleges of high rank +exclusively their own, and the new Bryn Mawr bids fair to be a powerful +rival to Vassar, Smith, and Wellesley. Many of the colleges for men are +open to them; now, and the capitulation of those strongholds of +conservatism. Cambridge. New Haven, and Baltimore, is only a question of +time. Great colleges are ravenous for fresh endowments, and the offer of +a large sum of money may at any moment procure from them the full +admission of women. It is not impossible that before many years have +passed there will be as many women as men receiving a college education. +How is this army of educated women going to occupy itself? + +There is another aspect to the question. Not only is the mass of women +better fitted than ever before for worthy occupation, there has never +been a time nor a country in which their traditionary sphere has shrunk +to so small dimensions. Nowhere else are there so many women of such a +station that they are not obliged to toil and spin, nor to sleep all day +to make up for nights of dissipation. For all those who do not have to +concern themselves with the wherewithal of living, the art of living +easily has been brought to a state of great perfection. The general care +of the house and of the children is still the duty of the woman, but the +labor involved in acquitting herself of that duty is a very different +matter from what it was a generation ago. Then all her energies were +needed to bring up a family well. Brewing and baking and soap- and +candle-making were all carried on in the house, and there were a dozen +children to be kept neatly dressed with the aid of no needle but her +own. Now the purchase of the day's supplies is the only important demand +upon her time; well-trained servants, the descendants of the raw Irish +girl her mother struggled with, are capable of carrying on the cooking +and the scrubbing by themselves. Sewing it is hardly worth her while to +do in the house. Stitching her linen collars was once an important item +in her year's work; now it is safe to say that there is not a single +woman who does not buy her collars ready made. Making cotton cloth into +undergarments has become a manufacture in the unetymological sense of +the word. The Viscount de Campo-Grande, in addressing the Royal Academy +of Moral and Political Sciences at Madrid, two years ago, admitted that +sewing was no longer an economy, but urged women to practise it still +for the purpose of quieting their nerves. But the modern American woman +who has had a healthy bringing up, who has divided her girlhood between +vigorous study and active out-door exercise, who can row and skate and +play ball and tennis with her brothers, has no unquiet nerves. She does +not ask for sedatives, but for some high stimulus to call into play her +strong and well-trained faculties. Money-making, the natural sphere of +man, has become a more and more absorbing pursuit, while the usual +feminine occupations have become more than ever trivial and unimportant +at the very moment when the feminine mind has taken a new start in its +development. The woman who is fresh from reading Gauss and Pindar, and +who has taken sides in the discussion between the adherents of Roscher +and of Mill, cannot easily content herself with the petty economies that +result from doing her own cutting and fitting and dusting and +table-setting. Still less, if she has not married, is she satisfied to +look forward to the position of nursery governess to her sister-in-law's +children. Her education has fitted her for something better than to save +the wages of an upper servant. Again the question is forced upon her, +where can she find a fitting field for the exercise of her powers? + +To many people, who have all the means of existence they care for +without a struggle, it seems that the only thing that can give a +thorough interest and zest to life is to devote themselves to the +elevation of the degraded classes of society. They find such monotony in +their own comfortable ways of living, and the misery of the very poor +seems so appalling to them, that they cannot escape from the passionate +desire to spend themselves in their service. The problems connected with +the relief and the prevention of the wretchedness by which they are +surrounded have all the interest of a scientific experiment, and are +capable of calling out all the fervor of a religion. But for the few +people here and there who have now the passion of the reformer it is not +impossible that another generation may see many thousands. A second +christianization of the world may convert all the happy into the +consolers of the unhappy, instead of leading people to absorb themselves +in the question of their own salvation. No one can say how great a +change might be made in the fair face of the earth if the effort to +remove the causes of poverty and of disease should become the serious +occupation of half mankind. In the lower stages of existence the +extermination of evil has been the work of a slow and gradual process. +Millions of individuals have been sacrificed in order to produce the few +who were fitted to their surroundings. But at last a creature has been +produced of so much intelligence that he is able to undertake his own +further development. He can speculate upon the causes of his failures in +the search for happiness, and he can apply remedies. It is true that +those remedies have often been productive of more harm than good, it is +true that it would be hard to calculate the evil effects of the English +poor-laws, for instance, but all the experiments that have hitherto +worked badly are but so much material from which to draw a knowledge of +better methods. When the Wlllimantic Thread Company has found a way to +make its girls come singing from their work as they go to it, and to +make better thread at the same time, no one can say that great changes +may not be brought about when once scientific methods shall have been +discovered for the extermination of disease and crime. What more +interesting field for investigation, for theory, for active work, can +women find than that large kind of charity which is to supersede in the +future the indiscriminate alms-giving of the past? The unselfishness +that is demanded by the life of a reformer they have already in large +abundance. There is no limit to the devotion which many women show their +families, but such devotion has in these days become so unnecessary as +to be little more than a higher form of selfishness. Perhaps it only +needs a leader to turn this store of energy into wider channels and to +make it subservient to larger ends. Perhaps the labor and patience and +self-renunciation that are necessary to the regeneration of the world +are to come from women. Such an absolute disregard of self as they are +capable of, if it were once allowed to overflow the narrow limits of the +home, might in no long time turn a goodly portion of the world into a +garden of roses. There are still men who wish to appropriate to +themselves all the high qualities of their women, but they belong to a +race that is destined to rapid extinction, and to most rapid extinction +in this country. That American men are more thoroughly chivalrous than +English is a common belief. It was curiously confirmed by the English +clergyman who wrote to the "Nation," some years ago, to describe the +qualities which an English clergyman ought to have in order to be +successful in this country, and who said that he had found it necessary +not to let it be known that his wife warmed his slippers for him. The +theory that woman exists solely for the purpose of smoothing the +wrinkles from the brow of man is one that seldom finds expression now, +except in the Lenten sermons of men who are content to drop out of the +ranks of those who influence opinion. But the great freedom that the +modern woman has gained for herself, the thorough education that is for +the first time within her reach, the strong sympathies that are her +inheritance,--these are grounds of a responsibility that she cannot but +feel to be a heavy one. What better outlet can she find for her +activities than to carry forward that slow process of fitting together +the human race and its surroundings which it is no longer necessary to +leave to chance? + +CHRISTINE LADD-FRANKLIN. + + * * * * * + + + + +The Ice-Saints. + + +There are three days in the spring of the year called by the French _Les +Saints de Glace_. These days are the 12th, 13th, and 14th of May, and +the saints to whom they are dedicated are Saint Mamert, Saint Pancras, +and Saint Servais. They are very obscure saints, in honor of whom few +children have been named, and, were it not for the vast parish of Saint +Pancras which once comprised all the northwestern part of London, their +names as well as their history would be, to Protestants at least, +entirely unknown. They have, however, the evil reputation of commonly +bringing with them a nipping frost, and are abhorred in Burgundy as the +great enemies of the vine. + +Their advent this year was telegraphed to Paris by the New York +"Herald," whose weather reporter was probably quite ignorant of any +ecclesiastical traditions connected with the matter. On May 11 the +following despatch was received in Paris: "A great depression, having +its centre in the neighborhood of Lake Ontario, will be followed by a +cyclone of great extent, travelling in the direction of Halifax, It will +probably occasion great changes of temperature along the coasts of Great +Britain and France, beginning May 12 and continuing till May 14." Never +was prediction better fulfilled. The Ice-Saints sank the French +thermometer to 6 deg. Centigrade, corresponding to 21 deg. Fahrenheit, a +temperature more severe in those latitudes than the cold of an ordinary +Christmas. When the Ice-Saints had departed the weather grew mild again. + +M. Quetelet, the head of the Observatory at Brussels, has paid great +attention to the periodicity of weather-changes in Europe. The result of +his investigations is as follows: + +I. That there is always a "cold snap" between the 7th and 11th of +January, during which ordinarily occurs the coldest day of the year. + +II. That from January 22 to March 1 there is, as we say in our +vernacular, "a let-up" on the coldness of the temperature. In France +there is no ground-hog, or, if there is, he so generally sees no shadow +upon Candlemas (February 2) that the three weeks succeeding it are +called _L'Ete de la Chandeleur_. + +III. In April cold may be expected from the 9th to the 22d, and the +Ice-Saints may prolong their influence to May 23, after which there is +no more possibility of frosts in France, though within my memory June +frosts have been twice known in Maryland and Virginia. The prolonged +frost in May is said to be produced by an understanding between the +Ice-Saints and what is called in France _La Lune Rousse_,--the Red Moon. + +IV. Though it needs no prophet to foretell hot weather from June 6 to +June 23. M, Quetelet's observations point to June 13 and June 22 as days +of exceptionally high temperature. + +V. Between July 4 and July 8 comes the hottest day of the summer, which +is not to be looked for in the dog-days, which are from July 21 to +August 20. + +VI. July 25 distinguishes itself by being cool, and August 25 tempers +ten days of heat which commonly begin on the 15th of August. + +VII. September 14 and September 30 are days when the thermometer may be +expected to make a sudden fall. + +VIII. Cold weather may be looked for from October 20 to October 29, and +from November 10 to November 19; but in the first ten days of November +comes what we call Indian summer, and the French _L'Ete des +Morts_,--because it succeeds All-Souls' Day,--or _L'Ete de Saint +Martin_. + +M. Quetelet adds no observations on December, it being presumably a cold +month everywhere. + +M. Fourmet, of Lyons, has also made meteorological observations of the +same nature in Southern France, and especially in the valley of the +Rhone. He says the lowest temperature in each month is as follows: +January 9 and 21. February 3, 12, and 20. March 5 and 21. April 19. May +12, 13, and 14. June 8, 20, and 27. July 12 and 25. August 2, 12, and +24. September 5, 15, and 30. October 22. November 5 and 17. December 3 +and 29. + +M. Charles Sainte-Claire Deville has also been engaged in careful +weather-calculations for many years, and has been in constant +correspondence on the subject with the Academie des Sciences. His theory +is based on the existence of the three Ice-Saints in May, and he +considers that a similar periodic influence may be traced in other +months of the year. He maintains that there are three days in every +month, with an interval of about ten days between them, in which we may +look for a fall of temperature, and that the weather gradually grows +warmer during the interval that separates them. His observations are +only in part corroborated by those of M. Quetelet and M. Fourmet. + +E.W.L. + + * * * * * + + + + +A Svenska Maid. + +Marie has been in the United States about four years, and still accents +her English with the Lapp-Finn modulations of Northern Sweden. She is +only eighteen years old now. She has fair hair and a serene fair face +somewhat like the Liberty face on our silver dollar. Her young shape is +strong and handsome, and she has white little teeth like a child's, and +the innocent nature of a child. + +Marie's father is a Swedish farmer. Many adventurers came to America +from her neighborhood, and, though but fourteen years old, she wanted to +come too; and a cousin's husband, already settled in Illinois, lent her +the passage-money. The last Sunday, according to custom, all her friends +brought offerings to church, and she was made to go through the +congregation holding her apron. They filled it with cake, a Bible, etc. +The young people walked with her parents and herself to the +steamer-landing, and kept from crying until she was aboard. + +When the steamer was under way an old woman came across her in the +steerage, and exclaimed, "Why, child, where are your father and mother?" + +To which Marie responded, with the gentle persistence peculiar to her, +"I leave them in Svadia. I go to America." + +Though all the steerage people were kind to her, she fell into bad hands +by way of her tender sympathies. There were a man and woman with a +family of small children, who were coming to America carrying an +unsavory record. The woman fell ill, and Marie nursed her, and she +fastened herself upon Marie with brutal tenacity. She took away a little +silk shawl the child had inherited and was bringing over as a chief bit +of finery. She had a delicate appetite for steerage fare, and ate up the +precious cheese Marie's mother had given for a parting gift. And she +took charge of Marie's bit of money, never returning it. + +"If she had but left me my cheese," says the Svenska maid, "I might have +had something to eat between New York and Illinois. I just had my ticket +in the cars, and, oh, it was more than two days, and I had such feelings +in my stomach! I was all alone and speak not a word of English, and +everybody around me eat, but I would not try to ask for somethings. A +German family by me have lots to eat, and when they left the cars I got +down under the seat and pick up orange-peel they throw down, and eat +that. I could not sleep in the night, I feel so bad. And when I get to +Illinois and to Willingham, the Swede people not meet me yet, and a +woman took me to her house to get my dinner, I never taste anything so +good in my life, but I eat with my hat on. The woman tried to take it +off, and I hold on with both hands. I thought she was going to take my +hat for pay, and I could not do without it." + +The little maid fell sick among her kin, and a great doctor's bill of a +year and a half accumulated upon her. The cousin's husband paid it and +added the debt to her passage-money. By the time she was able to work, +her pretty pale face had attracted an old man, and this persistent +suitor tormented her until she was wellnigh helpless in the hands of her +relatives. They set her debt before her, and reminded her of the +obligation she was under to marry a rich man. + +"But I said, 'I won't, I won't, I won't,'" says Marie. "That is all the +English I could talk, and I would say, 'I won't.' Then my cousin told me +I must leave; I could not stay in her house. And I felt dreadful bad. +The young folks come in with provisions to see me: they made a party +because I was going away. And I notice that all kept being called into +the next room but me. I was weak yet, and it made me feel as if they +wanted to slight me. But last of all they called me into the next room, +and there was twenty-five dollar they had made up to give me. And I +cried; I could not talk and thank them, but just cried hard as I could +cry. Then I took that money and paid part of my debt, and got a good +place to work." + +Marie is strong, willing, humble, and touchingly friendly in the +position of the Western "girl." She is ambitious to learn American ways. +She makes the most delicious pancakes that ever fluffed upon a griddle +or united with butter and maple syrup. She is religious, she is tender +with children, she is full of love for her native land. Her lovers are +not encouraged. + +"I go back to Sveden to visit it once more in five years. I go back +before I marry any man, now my debt is all paid." + +This Svenska maid is full of folk-stories. She tells the children how +St. John's eve is celebrated in Sweden. The young men and girls bring +boughs and construct arbors. They stay up all night, eating, playing, +and visiting from arbor to arbor. About midsummer, it is true, there is +very little night in Northern Sweden. + +"This was once in the papers," says Marie innocently. "They said it was +true. There was a girl going to take her first communion, and she got +into the churchyard before she missed her braid. Then she turned round +and started home after her braid, and met a man with a covered basket on +his arm. He asked her what she was going for, and she told him she was +going home for what she forgot, and the man said, 'Look in the basket, +and see if that is your switch.' She looked, and there was the hair +coiled up. Then he asked her if he might put it on her head, and the +girl said yes, and he put it on, and she went to church. + +"It came to the place where the minister gives her the bread, and her +braid slipped down on one shoulder; but when he gave her the wine it +jump like it going to strike the cup, for it was a snake the man put on +her, and it was fast to her head and never came off again." + +Marie's mother in youth worked for a Swedish farmer, and it was her duty +to get up about three o'clock in the morning and light a fire under the +boiler where the cows' feed was heated. This was in the barn. The cows +stood upon a floor over a large pit wherein were caught all the liquids +of the stable. The sleepy maid took a coal upon a chip, instead of +matches, and this primitive custom saved her from horribly drowning. For +as she opened the cows' stable one morning, and was taking a step +within, the chip flared up, and showed her three cows swimming below in +the pit. The floor had given way. + +"Sometimes there are excursions across the ocean," says Marie, speaking +of that star of a home visit which lures her into the future, "and you +can go and come back for twenty-five dollars. They do not have nice +things to eat in the steerage, but you can keep alive." M.H.C. + + * * * * * + + + + +The "Additional Hair" Supply. + +The late war between France and China had one effect which the public +did not expect,--it created a panic among the French dealers in human +hair. Before that war began it was not generally known that a vast +proportion of the false hair used in Europe and America was imported +from China into France and there prepared for the trade. But the +beginning of hostilities between the two countries made the fact +apparent by the sudden cutting off of the customary supply from the +Celestial Empire. A German paper mentions that in 1883 the hair thus +imported amounted to one hundred and twenty-four thousand seven hundred +and fifteen kilograms, for which the French dealers paid at the rate of +only ten or twelve francs per kilogram. As no other country can, or at +any rate will, supply human hair in such enormous quantities and at such +a low price, the effect on the market may easily be imagined. The +hair-merchants of Marseilles had been accustomed to furnish at least +twenty-five thousand _coiffures_ for women and several thousand wigs for +men every year; and even before the stoppage of direct communication +with China they had found it hard to get as much raw material as they +needed. When their principal drawing-point became inaccessible they were +reduced to despair, and perhaps presented the only case ever known in +which "tearing the hair" would seem to have been attended with some +practical benefit. However, the termination of the war revived their +hopes, and they are now making up for the lost time with a vigor and +determination which even threaten the male Celestial with the loss of +his sacred pig-tail. + +The European sources from which human hair is obtained are not numerous +or very prolific. Many peasant-women of Normandy and Bretagne sell their +beautiful brown, red, or golden locks, but these are of such fine +quality that they command very high prices. Norman or Breton girls +having braids eighty centimetres in length sell them for as much as a +thousand francs. Perfectly white hair from the same French provinces +brings a sum which seems almost fabulous. The French journal "Science +et Nature" declares that the price commonly paid for a braid of such +white hair weighing one kilogram is _twenty-five thousand francs_. + +The hair-merchants of France have never been very successful in drawing +supplies for their business from England, Germany, or any of the +countries in the northern part of Europe. Lately, however, they have +begun to have a good deal of success among the lower classes of the +Italians. Their imports from Italy are already comparatively large, and +they seem to be increasing every year. Such an easy way of getting money +as this opportunity affords must appear vastly attractive to the swarms +of professional beggars who infest every highway, church door, and +public square in Southern Italy, and whose enjoyment of the +indispensable _dolce far niente_ cannot be spoiled by merely submitting +to the operation of having their hair cut off. It is probable that they +furnish much more of the hair brought from Italy than do the +laboring-classes of the cities or the honest _contadini_ of the rural +districts. + +The idea of actually wearing hair which once belonged to some member of +"the unspeakable" _lazzaroni_ tribe cannot be considered a fascinating +one. At the same time it is at least not more unattractive than the +consciousness of having fallen heir to the capillary adornments of a +Cantonese tonka-boat girl. And in reality such a feeling, though natural +enough, would be based upon nothing but imagination. All the hair +purchased and used by the dealers in Paris, Marseilles, and other French +cities to which the Chinese and Italian hair is brought goes through a +number of preparatory processes, which cleanse and purify it thoroughly; +and when it is ready to be sold again it is probably in as +unobjectionable a state as hair can reach. As for the imagination, if we +were to allow it to govern us entirely in all such cases we should soon +find ourselves restricted to almost as few comforts and conveniences as +those unhappy historical characters whose constant fear of poison +reduced their whole diet to boiled eggs. Still, the feeling is one of +which it is very hard to rid ourselves; and in all probability the +ladies who derive the most unalloyed satisfaction from their +"additional" braids are those who have had them made from "combings" of +their own hair. J.A.C. + + * * * * * + + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + +"The Rise of Silas Lapham." By William D. Howells. Boston: Ticknor & Co. + + +In his later books Mr. Howells has shown that he is on the point of +discovering the secret of the best novelists. Unabashed by the +difficulties and dangers which beset the realistic writer, he has gone +to work to describe the simple machinery which puts in motion all human +actions and passions, and has given a subtile but sure analysis of +certain phases of modern life, and a vivid picture of at least two +actual, warm, palpitating, breathing men. His success in this respect is +the more striking because he began by offering us mere pasteboard heroes +of the most conventional type. The male characters in his early books +were, in fact, shuttle-cocks to be tossed hither and thither by the +mysterious contradictions, the incomprehensible inconsistencies, of his +heroines, whose scheme of existence was the indulgence of every whim, +and whose notion of logic was that one paradox must educe another still +more startling. Having finally made up his mind as to the insoluble +nature of the female problem, he seems inclined to discard mere +clevernesses and prettinesses and to advance into the broad arena of +real life, with its diversity of actors and its multiplicity of +interests. Both Bartley Hubbard in "A Modern Instance" and Silas Lapham +in the book before us strike us as admirable characterizations. If +Lapham is in certain respects a less original presentation than Bartley +Hubbard, he is at least a hero who draws more strongly upon the reader's +sympathies and takes surer hold of the popular heart. In fact, Silas, +with his big, hairy fist, his ease in his shirt-sleeves, his boastful +belief in himself, his conscience, his ambition, and his failure, makes, +if we include his sensible wife, the success of the novel before us. The +daughters are not, to our thinking, so well rendered; while the Coreys, +sterling silver as they ought to be, impress us instead as rather thin +electro-plates. The Boston Brahmins have entered a good deal into +literature of late, but so far without any brilliant results. According +to their chroniclers, they spend most of their time discussing in what +respects they are providentially differentiated from, their +fellow-beings. Sometimes they put too fine a point upon it and wholly +fail to make themselves felt. But then again their superior knowledge of +the world is patent to the most careless observer. For instance, when +Mrs. Corey pays a visit to Mrs. Lapham she apologizes for the lateness +of the hour, explaining that her coachman had never been in that part of +Boston before. This naturally casts an ineffaceable stigma upon the +respectable square where the Laphams have hitherto resided, and shows +that between the two ladies there is a great gulf fixed. Again, to point +sharply social distinctions, young Corey says to his father,-- + +"I don't believe Mrs, Lapham ever gave a dinner." + +"And with all that money!" sighed the father. + +"I don't believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that +when they don't drink tea and coffee with their dinner they drink +ice-water." + +"Horrible!" said Bromfield Corey. + +"It appears to me that this defines them." + +The Coreys have the liveliest sense of all these _nuances_ of deviation +from their standards, and strike us as rather amateurish, clever people +who want to make sure of nice points and get on in the world, rather +than as real flesh-and-blood aristocrats with the freedom and ease of +acknowledged social supremacy. + +While the Coreys try faithfully to compass the best that is known and +thought in the world, the Laphams go to the other extreme, and touch +depths of ignorance and vulgarity almost incredible for a family living +in Boston with eyes to see, ears to hear, and, above all, money to +spend. For a sort of superficial culture is a part of the modern +inheritance, and seems to belong to the universal air. Even Penelope +Lapham--the elder daughter, who is a girl of remarkable shrewdness and +gifted besides with a keen satirical sense which makes her the family +wit--is content to laugh at the family failings and provincialisms +without any definite idea of how they might be corrected. But the +Laphams are all the more interesting because they display no feeble and +tentative gentilities. Mrs. Lapham's acceptance of Mrs. Corey's +invitation to dinner, in which she signs herself "Yours truly, Mrs. S. +Lapham," initiates some delightful scenes in the comedy. The colonel's +resolution to go to the dinner in a frock-coat, white waistcoat, black +cravat, and ungloved hands, and his eventual panicky substitution of +correct evening dress regardless of cost, the anxieties of his wife and +daughter on the question of suitable raiment, the great affair itself, +when the colonel comes out in a new character,--all this part of the +book shows in a high degree Mr. Howells's bright vein of humor. + +But, putting aside the humor and comedy of "The Rise of Silas Lapham," +the book has other points of value, and, as a study of a business-man +whom success floats to the crest of the wave only to let him be +overwhelmed by disaster as the surge retreats, presents a striking +similitude to Balzac's "Cesar Birotteau." In each case we find a +self-made man elated by a sense of his commercial greatness, confident +that the point he has already attained, instead of being the climax of +his career, is the stepping-stone to yet greater wealth, besides social +distinction. Cesar Birotteau inaugurates what he believes to be his era +of magnificence with a ball, while Silas Lapham tempts fortune by +building a fine house on the back bay. Each hero projects his costly +schemes in opposition to the wishes of a more sensible and prudent wife, +and each, at the moment when fate seemed bent on crowning his ambition, +falls a prey to a series of cruel and, in a way, undeserved misfortunes, +and finds his well-earned commercial credit a mere house of cards which +totters to its fall. Each man, broken and bankrupt, displays in his +feebleness a moral strength he had not shown in his days of power: thus +the name, "the _rise_ of Silas Lapham," means his initiation into a +clearer and more exalted knowledge of his obligations to himself and to +his kind. The moral of Cesar Birotteau's "_grandeur et decadence_" +strikes a still deeper key-note. Compared with Balzac, who is never +trivial, and who has the most unerring instinct for character and +motive, Mr. Howells wastes his force on non-essentials and is carried +away by frivolities and prettinesses when he ought to be grappling with +his work in fierce earnest. Balzac, whose unappeasable longing was to +see his books the breviary, so to speak, of the people, would have +laughed and cried with Silas, lived with him, loved with him, and come +to grief with him, and forced his readers to do likewise. Mr. Howells is +not so easily carried away by his creations, and is too apt to laugh at +them instead of with them. But his mature work shows, nevertheless, a +boldness and facility which ought to put the best results within its +compass; and we confidently look for better novels from his pen than he +has so far written, full of wit, humor, and cleverness, yet expanding +outside of these gracful limitations into the fullest nature and +freedom. + +/# +"A Canterbury Pilgrimage. Ridden, Written, +and Illustrated by Joseph and Elizabeth +Robins Pennell." New York: Charles Scribner's +Sons. +#/ + +It may be confessed that in certain respects bicycles and tricycles +answer admirably to the requirements of travellers in search of the +picturesque. They are swift or slow at need, may be halted without want +or waste, and have no vicious instincts to be combated by whip or spur. +But they are nevertheless hideous inventions, and it is impossible for +lookers-on to feel for wheelmen the cordial good will given so freely to +Mr. Stevenson on his donkey, for instance. The rider on wheels is an +object that exasperates the nerves of horses, dogs, and men. Mrs. +Pennell in this little book describes a collision on the old Kent Road +with the driver of a hansom cab, who sat watching their extrication +scowling. If he had his way, he said, he would burn all _them things."_ +And, little affiliation as most human beings have with cabmen, we yet +believe that he gave utterance to the sentiments of all non-wheelmen. +However, the modern world is likely to belong to bicycles and tricycles, +and this attractive brochure, signed with the names of one of our +cleverest draughtsmen and his wife, with their silhouettes on the cover, +is likely to set more wheels in motion than there were before it was +printed. The two evidently enjoyed their expedition, and the lady tells +the story easily and pleasantly; and if it is relieved by little +incident it is yet sustained by intelligent observation and +discriminating enthusiasm, while the illustrations are, like all Mr. +Pennell's work, clever in the extreme. The two left London on their +tricycle late in August, and had the finest weather in which to cross +historic Blackheath and look up the picturesque wharves in Gravesend. +Hop-pickers filled the roads and offered many a subject for the artist's +pencil. "We rode on with light hearts," recounts the fair wheelwoman. +"An eternity of wheeling through such perfect country and in such soft +sunshine would, we thought, be the true earthly paradise. We were at +peace with ourselves and with all mankind, and J---- even went so far as +to tell me I had never ridden so well," And thus on to the inn at +Sittingbourne, which has this quaint notice hung over the door: + +Call frequently, +Drink moderately, +Pay honourably, +Be good company, +Part friendly, +Go home quietly. + +Arrived at the close of the second day in Canterbury, the two "toke" +their inn at the sign of the "Falstaff," where hung "Honest Jack, in +buff doublet and red hose," in a wonderful piece of wrought-iron work. +Whether next day, after viewing the cathedral, the tricycles pursued +their journey, is not told. The pilgrimage ends, as it should, at the +shrine,--that is, where the shrine had been; for the verger, after +saying solemnly that they had come to the shrine of St. Thomas, solemnly +added, "'Enery the Heighth, when he was in Canterbury, took the bones, +which they was laid beneath, out on the green, and had them burned. With +them he took the 'oly shrine, which it and bones is here no longer." + + * * * * * + + + + +Fiction. + + +"The Lady with the Rubies." Translated from the German of E. Marlitt by +Mrs. A.L. Wister. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company. + +"Barbara Heathcote's Trial." By Rosa Nouchette Carey. Philadelphia: J.B. +Lippincott Company. + +"The Bar Sinister. A Social Study." New York: Cassell & Co. + +"Pine-Cones." By Willis Boyd Allen. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co. + +"An Old Maid's Paradise." By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Boston: Houghton, +Mifflin & Co. + +In spite of all the clever pleas urged by the lovers of realism for +realistic novels, it is easy enough to see that the mass of readers are +just as much in love as ever with a high romanticism, and Miss Marlitt's +stories still retain the strong hold they first took of the popular +heart. The success of fiction comes from the fact that it supplies a +want existing in most people's minds: lively incidents to awaken and +stimulate the fancy, a touch of mystery to give a thrill of pleasing +fear, sharply diversified characters impelled by strong motives which +insure a lively conflict of passions,--all these are what the average +novel-reader demands, and finds in Miss Marlitt's works. A great +rambling German house, with suites of disused apartments shut away from +sunshine and air and haunted by vanished forms and silent voices, while +its open rooms are tenanted by a nest of gentlefolks of all degrees of +relation,--some united by love, and others at swords'-points,--offers a +lively field for the romancer; and such is the scene in "The Lady with +the Rubies." "Belief in the Powers of Darkness will never die so long as +poor human hearts love, hope, and fear," is the moral, so to speak, of +the book; and the author has used with good effect this vein of +superstition which "makes the whole world kin." Little Margarete's +encounter with the family spectre, her flight from home, her lonely and +terrifying night, are touchingly described; and, in fact, the book is +full of pretty child-pictures, which enhance the pleasantness and charm +of the love-story. Few of Miss Marlitt's books possess more interest and +diversity than "The Lady with the Rubies;" and, as usual with Mrs. +Wister's work, it is well and gracefully translated. + +Given a family of girls well contrasted, utterly untrammelled, and each +in possession of a will and a way of her own, materials for a romance +are not hard to find; and in telling the story of the Heathcotes Miss +Carey seems to have jotted down a series of events exactly as they fell +out in actual life. There is plenty of sentiment, but its expression is +dealt out with a sparing hand; there are pretty sylvan scenes, and the +wood-paths, the warm homesteads, the meadows and fields, all enter into +the story and make a pleasant part of it. If "Barbara Heathcote's Trial" +has no leading motive as strong and as universally interesting as the +author's former book, "Not Like Other Girls," it is, to our thinking, +quite as pleasant and readable, and will no doubt enjoy its +predecessor's popularity. + +Romance has done much good work in the way of laying bare men's faults, +hypocrisies, and evil lusts, and if Mormonism is actually on the +increase among us there is good reason for a novel like "The Bar +Sinister," which tells us the story of certain converts to the peculiar +tenets of the saints and introduces us into the every-day life of Salt +Lake City. That our families and our institutions are in peril from this +monstrous and ridiculous evil it would not be easy for us to believe. +Yet it is impossible to read this book without a conviction that the +author could easily substantiate his facts by proofs, and that +intelligent men and women have been and are still being led away into +the heresy. The incidents of the story are, however, calculated to shock +and repel the reader, who rises from its perusal sick and indignant as +much from having been confronted with such personages and their doings +as from the fact that such people are in existence. The author has +without doubt enjoyed the advantage of a flesh-and-blood acquaintance +with leaders of the faith who talk unctuously of "Class No. 1, 2, 3, 4," +etc.; and, besides actual knowledge, there is strong feeling and earnest +principle behind the whole narrative. + +"Pine-Cones" is a pleasant story for young people, telling the +adventures of a party of boy and girl cousins making a visit among the +great pine woods of Maine. There is plenty of open air in the book, +bright talk, and earnest stories told round the fire. + +"An Old Maid's Paradise" is a bright little sketch of the adventures and +misadventures of a woman who builds a cottage on Cape Ann promontory for +five hundred dollars, and settles down to a joyful existence without any +need of aid or comfort from living man except as a purveyor and +burglar-alarm. Every one likes to know the price of things, and it is +pleasing to understand exactly what may be done with five hundred +dollars. "The cottage," as described by Miss Phelps, "contained five +rooms and a kitchen. The body of this imposing building stood twenty +feet square upon the ground. The kitchen measured nine feet by eight, +and there was a wood-shed three feet wide, in which Puella managed to +pile the wood and various domestic mysteries into which Corona felt no +desire to penetrate. There were a parlor, a dining-room, a guest-room, +and two rooms left for 'the family.' There were two closets, a coal-bin, +and a loft. The house stood on what, for want of a scientific term, +Corona called piers.... Corona's house had no plaster, no papering, no +carpets. Her parlor, which opened directly upon the water, was painted +gray; the walls were of the paler color in a gull's wing; the ceiling +had the tint of dulled pearls; the floor was rock-gray (a border of +black ran around this floor); the beams and rafters, left visible by the +absence of plastering, were touched with what is known to artists as +neutral tint," etc. A very pleasant little cottage in itself, the +description may be of practical utility to many who would like some +_pied-a-terre_ by mountain or shore, and who are not quite certain what +a moderate outlay can do. + + * * * * * + + + + +Books Received. + + +The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Household +Edition. With illustrations. Boston +and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. + +Due South; or, Cuba Past and Present. By +Maturin M. Ballou. Boston and New York: +Houghton, Mifflin & Co. + +City Ballads. By Will Carleton. Illustrated. +New York: Harper & Brothers. + +A Social Experiment. By A.E.P. Searing. +New York and London: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +Lawn-Tennis. By Lieutenant S.C.F. Peale, +B.S.C. Edited by Richard D. Sears. New +York: Charles Scribner's Sons. + +The America's Cup. By Captain Roland F. +Coffin. New York: Charles Scribner's +Sons. + +Our Sea-Coast Defences. By Eugene Griffin, +New York and London: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +Cholera. By Alfred Stille, M.D., LL.D. Philadelphia: +Lea Brothers & Co. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE, *** + +***** This file should be named 14509.txt or 14509.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/0/14509/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, William Bumgarner and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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